Citadels of the Lost (21 page)

Now their escorts had once again deposited them in their “exclusive guest quarters” which, it turned out, were in the cellars beneath the Keep. There were individual cells with cots and straw in them that might have passed for a dungeon except that the town did not have enough iron to afford the fashioning of bars. Mala lay back on her cot while the Lyric leaned against one corner of the room, humming to herself until her interest had been piqued. Everyone else had gathered around the dwarf in the open space in the middle of the cellar.

“Thank you, Litaria,” Urulani said to the Lyric before turning to Drakis. “Do you know what the dwarf is talking about?”

“No,” Drakis sighed, rubbing the weariness from his face, “but I've learned mostly to let him keep talking and eventually it seems to make sense.”

“I am honored, indeed, that our good friend Drakis should allow me to continue without interruption for, I assure you,” the dwarf continued enthusiastically, “that everyone here will profit greatly by their attention.”

“Just when is he supposed to start making sense?” Ethis asked Drakis.

“I shall use small words and illustrations for those who are challenged in the lingual arts,” the dwarf frowned as he spoke. He knelt down on the packed dirt floor, pulling several stones out of the pocket of his vest and quickly setting them on the ground, arranging one large stone in the center and several smaller stones quickly around it. Gripping a small, sharp stone in his wide hand, Jugar pressed the edge of the stone into the dirt and drew lines from the outer stones toward the central stone.

“Think of these as elven Aether Wells,” Jugar instructed. “All of these Wells are driven into the world, spikes that pull at the soul of the world.”

“Soul of the world?” Drakis asked, scratching his head.

Jugar scowled. “Aer—the power of natural magic that binds creation and the world together.”

Drakis squinted and frowned.

“Think of it as wheat or grains or fruit,” Jugar said. “Things that feed you that come from the ground.”

Drakis nodded.

“These outside stones represent Aether Wells,” Jugar continued with exaggerated patience. “Think of these as a still for making ale.”

“A dwarven metaphor, if ever there was one,” Ethis observed.”

“These Wells draw the power of natural magic out of the world—like taking the grains or fruits and putting them into a still. It transforms the mash in the still into ale. The ale is a good deal more potent and has a more powerful effect on you than just chewing on the grains or the fruit as I am sure you have experienced so many times in your life that its effects are apparently permanent.”

“You've made your point,” Ethis said. “The Aether Wells transform the Aer drawn from the world into Aether, which is the basis of elven magic.”

“Yes, but here is where I have discovered something that I had not previously supposed,” Jugar said excitedly. He pointed down toward the outer stones, flicking his hand from each toward the middle. “The Aether Wells provided only a small part of their refined Aether power to the households of the frontier. Most of the Aether they produced was directed inward through the connections between their Wells to the center of the Empire—to Rhonas Chas. Think of it: the power of an entire continent being drawn inward to satisfy the magic center of the Imperial Throne. It is what has kept the Empire in control down these dark centuries—the ability to deal with problems on its frontier from the powerful center outward.”

“So what have you discovered that changes any of that?” Ethis demanded.

“We had always supposed that the elves had patterned their magic on the human system of Aether,” Jugar said shaking his head. “But I touched the stone of that Well today—a Well of the fallen human ancients—and discovered that it works backward to the elven system.”

“Backward?” Urulani exclaimed. “In what way?”

“That stone was designed
only
to emanate and deliver power, not to gather it,” Jugar said. “The lattice structure within the crystal was specifically arranged to prevent power from flowing back down the linked structure.”

“Drakis, he's not making sense again . . .”

“It means that where the elven Wells are designed to feed the magic
into
the center,” Jugar said with carefully pronounced words, “the human system was designed to feed the magic
outward
from the center—disseminating the power of the human magic to the outlying regions from a central source. That is why the portal could not be operated from our side when we arrived here. That is why magic has completely failed in this land—it may even be the reason why the human empire fell to the elves in the first place.”

“So,” Drakis said, gazing at the ground. “It's like a river, flowing out from the center.”

“That's right, lad!” Jugar smiled.

“And something in the center has stopped the river from flowing?” Urulani continued the thought.

“Exactly so!” Jugar said, tossing the stone from his hand to the ground in triumph. “If we were to find the source of this magic—open the gates that are preventing its flow—then who knows what wonders it might perform? The one thing I am sure of is that it would make their system of portals functional again; it could very well get us home. I tell you, when I looked up and saw that goddess looking over that Well, I thanked her out of sheer joy . . .”

“Goddess?” Mala said, suddenly rising from her cot. “What goddess?”

“Why, lass, I was so ecstatic at my discovery that I didn't stop to ask her name . . .”

“What did she look like?” Mala demanded, coming quickly over to where the dwarf knelt. “Did she speak to you?”

“No, lass,” Jugar looked up questioningly into the intent gaze of the auburn-haired woman. “She was but a statue there at the edge of the courtyard. It's of no consequence . . . the point is that we need to find this place, this center of magic. I could do it, too, if I had back the Heart of Aer from that Ishander thief!”

Drakis glanced at Ethis, but the chimerian's face was as blank as ever as he spoke.

“You are right,” Ethis said. “We should speak with this Far-runner about what he knows about, where this ‘center of magic' might be found, the ruins downstream, and about your stone. Drakis, do you think you could arrange that with the Clan-mother?”

“Audelai El?” Drakis smiled. “Woven in the middle of all her polite speech were questions about whether we were warriors for another clanhold of humans sent to open the gates for their attack, disguised dragon-men, or mercenaries hired by the dragons to spy on her personally. She likes to keep her enemies very close. I think if I proposed
anything
that would get us out of her ‘great city,' she would gladly help us fill our packs and shed a gracious tear while pushing our boats away from her shore with a firm kick of her sandaled feet.”

Jugar stood to face Drakis. “Find me that stone, get us a guide to the center of their magic, and I might just be able to get us all home.”

Drakis looked at Mala. “Then let's go home.”

“W
HAT IN THE NAME of the gods was the point of that?” Drakis huffed as he stepped out of the audience hall of Ambeth Keep. Ethis was at his heels as they both followed Ishander out through the gate of the Keep's stockade wall and down the wide and uneven stone stairs. The locals called the open plaza before them Ambeth Commons, and in the escaped warrior's view, it was the first thing these people had named correctly. The Keep sat on a promontory overlooking a bend in the river and the Commons was a large open space behind it. The town's well was located in its center with some of the larger merchant or tradesmen establishments surrounding it. Not that there was much in the way of either merchandise or trade. Several roads led away from the plaza into the uneven angles of crowded huts and shacks that made up the architecture of the town.

“You mean our audience with the Clan-mother?” Ethis said as he followed Drakis down the stairs. “We got permission to speak with this Far-runner, didn't we?”

“The Clan-mother is wise!” Ishander said back over his shoulder with defiance as he strode across the Commons in front of Drakis and the chimerian toward Tyra Road. “She honors you by permitting this audience with the greatest of Far-runners!”

“Permission, yes . . . but just the two of us?” Drakis answered the chimerian as he picked up his pace to keep up with the young man leading them through the crowded streets of the town. “You deliberately made sure the others were left out. Urulani looked as though she were going to take you apart with her bare hands, and the dwarf . . .”

“Did you really want the dwarf along?” Ethis said, his usually blank features shifting to express astonishment.

“Well, I'm sure
you
don't!” Drakis said as they moved quickly down the gentle slope of the road toward the Elucia crossing. The street was crowded but the humans packing the roadway about them hastily moved aside at the sight of the four-armed creature with a barely discernible face. “Why didn't you just give him his Stone instead of making him fret over it?”

“Because it pleases me not to do so,” Ethis responded with an honesty that Drakis had not expected. “He's far more manageable without it and besides, he doesn't trust me.”

“Indeed?” Drakis rolled his eyes. “I wonder why not?”

“Keep up!” Ishander shouted at them although they were practically walking on his heels as it was.

“Besides,” Ethis continued. “He already suspected I stole it once. How will it look if it appears in my hands?”

The street—Drakis still had trouble thinking of the uneven dirt path in those terms—meandered along the side of the gentle slope between the sawtooth placements of the structures on either side. Though every hut, hovel, or shop seemed to aspire to square corners, angles, and straight lines, none of them appeared to have had any success in the matter. Drakis believed he could count on the fingers of both his hands the number that managed to hold themselves together well enough to support a second floor. Each was fitted around, over, or between the crumbling ruins of their glorious and long vanished past—a legacy which appeared now to be more of an inconvenience to them than a loss.

“I don't know why you are so concerned about this,” Ethis continued. “Because the dwarf was looking for the stone, he discovered the Aether Well and a possible means of getting out of this strange land. All in all, my
not
giving him his stone seems to have helped us far more than if I had just politely handed it over to him. Besides, I managed to get Audelai El to agree to call off her less-than-charming escorts as well by putting us under the charge of this most able warrior Ishander. I would have thought that alone would have been worth the price of letting the dwarf pull at his own beard for a while.”

“I could have used his advice,” Drakis huffed.

“What needs to be decided now does not benefit from protracted argument,” the chimerian replied, a puzzled edge to his voice. “I thought you of all people would appreciate a few less voices in your head.”

They followed Ishander as he turned right up Abratias Way, the widest of the streets in Ambeth that ran from the flat riverbank where the boats docked up the gentle slope toward the stockade wall. At the head of the rising street, he could see the Old Gate, as the locals called it, to the north that led into the more extensive part of the ruins. Ambeth had once been much larger than the present extent of the stockade walls. This morning the gates were open as the Hunt-runners passed through them as they did each morning, singing their song as they marched out of the town. They were followed by the Grass-walkers whose job it was to gather fruits and vegetables from the jungle as well as from several large farming plots outside the village. Each group sang their own song, but the melodies each interwove with those of the other group. It was a rather beautiful sound, Drakis thought, with the Hunt-runners and the Grass-walkers naturally taking up different parts in harmony as they moved into the ruins and the jungle beyond. Old men and women as well as young children cheered and waved as the parade of workers moved past them.

It all would have been a rather heartening scene if Drakis had not known that there was a good chance that a number of those singing as they marched resolutely through the gate would not be returning by nightfall. The Hunt-runners suffered perhaps the worst as the prey they stalked was as often stalking them. The Grass-walkers were not without their own dangers as the carnivorous beasts ranging beyond the stockade walls often lurked around the more fruitful regions on their own hunts. The once civilized lands of the human empire had grown decidedly uncivil.

As the Old Gate drew closed before them, hiding the deep ruins beyond, Ishander turned to their left where Jurusta Street crossed Abratias Way. Jurusta was barely a path here, snaking its way between homes. The street quickly dissolved into a labyrinth of huts and shacks so tightly jammed together that it was almost impossible to tell where one ended and the next began.

“This great Far-runner lives here?” Drakis asked in dubious tones.

Ishander, jaw set, turned so abruptly that Drakis nearly ran into the young man. “He is the greatest of the Far-runners! He has seen the farthest towers of the lost kingdoms and walked the streets of the gods! You will be respectful of him—for that is the law of the clan!”

“We accept the law of the clan,” Drakis said with a slight bow and opening his hands wide before him. The truth was he was suspicious of the “law of the clan” to which they were expected to so dutifully be obedient. No one ever bothered to explain nor, indeed, seemed to know just what this law of the clan was until Drakis or one of the other “outsiders”—as they were called—broke one of their unspoken commandments. Drakis suspected that their captors made up the details of the law of the clan as they went along depending upon whatever the Clan-mother decreed from moment to moment. If anything, to Drakis, it seemed that the foundational principle underlying every application of rules was “if it can embarrass the outsiders or cheat them out of something—that is the law of the clan.”