Authors: R.A. Salvatore
P
agonel ran on, one step ahead of his pursuit—and well aware that the pursuit was growing with each passing corridor. He turned down one arched corridor, rushing right past a pair of surprised guards.
They yelled and took up the chase, but Pagonel surprised them again by stopping short and spinning about, leaping their leading spears and double-kicking, left and right, laying them both low.
Another guard came in right behind, swinging a huge curved sword. The mystic caught his wrist and pulled it aside, stepped in close, and hit him with three short but devastating chops to the chest. The man gasped repeatedly and started to fall, but Pagonel grabbed him by the tunic and pulled him back up, then threw him hard to the ground, right before a pair of charging soldiers. They didn’t trip, but the tumbling man held them up and stole their attention.
Long enough for the mystic to come in high and hard, above their swords, kicking and punching.
As they fell away, Pagonel didn’t move in, but turned and ran along the grand-arched corridor. A large group was close to him, he realized, and when he turned back to note them, he picked out a Chezhou-Lei warrior among their ranks. The mystic put his head down and ran on, knowing that he couldn’t turn and confront this group. A Chezhou-Lei was enough of a problem all by himself, but with several guards on his side, the fight would not fall the mystic’s way!
The hallway bent in a wide arc, and the mystic came to guess that he was circling a large room. The pursuit remained dogged, and close, and now others were coming out from side corridors off to Pagonel’s left as he continued to circle around to the right. He was running out of room, and he knew it. The only corridors down which he could turn were to the left, and those seemed full of enemies.
Pagonel stopped and turned to face the wall, putting his fingers against it, feeling the grains within the stone. Then he fell within himself, ignoring the shouts closing in behind, and more shouts coming from the left. The mystic found his Chi and lifted it high, and then ran along with it, spider-crawling up the wall. As he neared the top, with some oblivious guards running past beneath him, the mystic heard much arguing and talking from within the huge circular room.
Before he could even consider that, though, a cry from below told him that he had been spotted. He moved along more quickly, now thirty feet from the floor.
An arrow skipped past him.
“More bows!” came the shout from the Chezhou-Lei. “Shoot the pest from the wall.”
Pagonel glanced down, and considered dropping upon them, perhaps killing the Chezhou-Lei, at least, before they slaughtered him. But to what end? he realized. Was he going to kill for spite, or out of anger?
That was not the way of the Jhesta Tu. Truly there was nothing for Pagonel to gain by dropping on the Behrenese at that point, not for him and not for Merwan Ma, and not for the cause of Brynn Dharielle and To-gai.
“Your Chezru Chieftain is a fraud,” he yelled down. “He possesses an Abellican soul stone, and uses it!”
His answer came in the form of an arrow, driving deep into his calf and nearly dislodging him.
With a grunt, the mystic climbed higher, nearing the ceiling, and only then did he realize that the wall upon which he was perched was not solid, floor to ceiling, but had an alcove at the top. And in the rear of that ledge area, the mystic found a grate, overlooking a wide circular chamber, full of rows of seats, and full of arguing Yatols!
His respite there wouldn’t last long, he knew, for the alcove wasn’t deep, and all the archers had to do was step back across the hall to spot him.
Dismissing the unsettling thought out of hand, Pagonel gripped the bars of the grate and focused his life energy into his hands. His palms grew hot—hotter than
they had when he had used his healing techniques on Brynn and Merwan Ma.
He dove deeper into the energy, forcing it to his fingers, heating them even more. He didn’t contain the energy there, though—to do so would have melted his hands!—but rather, let it flow out of his digits and into the metal of the bars, heating them and softening them.
Ignoring the uncomfortable heat, Pagonel began to pull with all his strength.
An arrow soared into the alcove, deflecting off the ceiling to bounce hard against the mystic. But it didn’t disrupt Pagonel’s concentration. With the metal practically glowing under his mystical touch, the man pulled the two bars of the grate apart, bit by bit, until they were wide enough for him to slip through.
He squirmed onto the ledge in the huge audience hall, then moved to the lip, marking the gathering below him, figuring out at once that it was Yakim Douan himself who was addressing the Yatols from a dais across the way, in front of a long and sweeping, ascending stairway. The chairs were all before him, set in a semicircular pattern: a thousand chairs, though only those at the very front were occupied.
Pagonel studied the room for a moment, but knew he didn’t have much time, for below, the Chezhou-Lei was yelling for the guards to enter the audience hall and protect the Chezru Chieftain.
Pagonel rolled to the lip and leaped off, dropping the thirty feet to the floor and landing easily in a shock-absorbing roll. All heads turned his way, and a group of guards, standing behind the dais that held Yakim Douan, rushed to the front of their beloved Chezru Chieftain, forming a line before him.
“Jhesta Tu!” one of the nearby Yatols yelled, and all of the others began to shrink away from Pagonel, whispering excitedly.
“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” Yakim Douan yelled. “Who are you to violate this sacred place?”
“I am Pagonel of the Walk of Clouds, Chezru Chieftain Douan,” the mystic answered with a bow. “I am he who knows the truth of Yakim Douan! I am he who knows the truth of Transcendence!”
No one in the place missed the wide-eyed look of surprise and horror that came over Yakim Douan at that moment, but before anyone could begin to question it, the great doors of the audience chamber burst open and a group of soldiers charged into the chamber, bearing down immediately on Pagonel.
“I have seen you at use with your soul stone, Yakim Douan!” the mystic cried.
“He is a fool and a liar!” yelled the Chezru Chieftain. “Kill him at once!”
Pagonel dodged a thrown spear, then another, then fell into a roll to move to the side of a trio of warriors charging in at him. He came up and kicked back the other way, tripping one up, but had to fall back farther and couldn’t finish the move as the other two bore in. The mystic ran behind the chairs and leaped atop the back of one, then ran along, chair back to chair back, so balanced that none even began to tip.
He ducked instinctively; an arrow cut the air above him. He ducked again, and
then again, altering his run as the guards began to herd him, always seeming to be between him and the Chezru Chieftain. He knew that it couldn’t last for long, and knew that he couldn’t get anywhere near the man, so he stopped suddenly, still standing atop one chair-back, and yelled out, “You have spirit-walked, Yakim Douan. That is how you found the Dragon of To-gai! Each night you go out and seek her—and you cannot go out without a gem—”
He stopped suddenly as an arrow bored into his side. Then he got hit again, in the hip. He tried to leap away, tried to hold his focus, but he got hit again, the missile creasing his shoulder, and then he was falling, smashing through a bunch of chairs.
“Finish him!” he heard Yakim Douan yell, and it seemed to him suddenly as if the Chezru Chieftain was far, far away.
B
lood ran from a dozen wounds and one of her eyes was closed from where a mace had slipped off her powrie shield and clipped her, but Brynn showed no signs of slowing as she ran along the wall, rousing her allies with cries for a free To-gai, and with her magnificent swordplay, with enemy after enemy falling to her flaming blade. So great was her reputation growing as she moved along the wall that the Behrenese shrank back from her wherever she appeared, with some even going back over the wall, outside of the city. That only made her furious charge even more effective, of course.
Down along the avenues, Agradeleous moved from gate to gate and wall to wall, bolstering the defenses with blasts of killing flame. At one point, the eastern wall was breached, with hundreds of Behrenese warriors swarming in, many heading to throw wide the gates so that their cavalry could overrun the courtyard.
Agradeleous alone stopped that attack, wading through lines of soldiers, taking and accepting punishing hits with the single-minded purpose of destroying those who meant to open the gates.
The gate held, and those Behrenese who had come over the wall were soon cut off, as Brynn solidified the defenses on the parapets and the dragon turned upon them along the streets.
All that day, the Behrenese came on and were pushed back, and when it ended, thousands more lay dead. But so did scores of To-gai-ru, and as the ring about Dharyan settled once more, Brynn was again hard-pressed to consider the event any kind of a victory.
Even worse, that same night, another garrison arrived from Jacintha, five thousand more warriors to replace the fallen.
Brynn could not look to the west for similar help, she knew.
T
he mystic lay on the floor, knowing that each passing second brought his enemies in closer. He reached into his life force, finding that line of power between his forehead and crotch, the center of his energy, his Chi. Then he blanked away the many pains, put them outside of his consciousness.
He heard the soldiers, two at least, standing over him, bending to finish him.
With a sudden burst of sheer power, the mystic swung over and sprang up, soaring into the air between his attackers, seeing three and not two.
He kicked out ahead, then left and right, landed lightly and sprang up again, lifting into the air before the one man who still stood there and the second, who was staggering but not down.
A kick left and right again had them both down, and Pagonel landed in perfect balance on the back of the nearest upright chair and began his run anew.
Another arrow clipped him, but he held his course stubbornly, working his way around the now-sheltered crowd of amazed Yatols.
“You must hear my words!” Pagonel shouted. “For your own sake and not my own! The Chezru Chieftain possesses a soul stone, an Abellican hematite! He lies of his course and of Transcendence, which is no more than—”
He stopped suddenly as a Chezhou-Lei warrior popped up before him and smashed him hard in the gut with the end of a thick staff.
“Transcendence is possession of an infant,” the mystic cried, falling away as he got smashed again, and then again as he lay helpless on the ground.
He felt hands grabbing him by the arms a few moments later, but could offer no more resistance as they stood him upright. He tried to talk again, and his efforts got him slugged hard in the stomach, and then across the face.
“Behold!” he heard the Chezru Chieftain yell. “We have before us the killer of Chezhou-Lei Dahmed Blie!”
“What of his words, God-Voice?” came a cry that sounded somewhat accusatory.
“The heathens have no other answer to the visions of Yatol!” Douan shouted immediately. “They seek to destroy us from the inside, since their feeble attempts to destroy us otherwise have miserably failed! And now this one is dead, and they have lost their ties to the Jhesta Tu. Yet another blow to the army of the pitiful Dragon of To-gai!”
Pagonel had no strength to argue as the cheers went up about Yakim Douan, so he fell within himself, trying again to gather his life energy, trying merely to keep some bit of consciousness.
He did hear the Chezhou-Lei warrior ask Yakim Douan if the prisoner should be hung publicly, or burned, and was not surprised when the Chezru Chieftain told his warrior to finish Pagonel then and there.
And the mystic couldn’t begin to stop the blow. He tried to open his eyes, wanting to look into the eyes of the man who would end his life.
“Wait!” came a cry from somewhere in the back. “Hold your weapons and your judgment!”
Pagonel did open his eyes then, to see Merwan Ma rushing down the long stairway behind Yakim Douan, a magnificently decorated chalice in his hand.
Y
akim Douan worked very hard to keep his expression stoic as he watched the
traitorous Shepherd rush down the stairs, bearing the damning chalice. It took him a moment to steady himself, to try to play through this potential disaster—and in that moment, Merwan Ma was not silent.
“He hides the stone—he has hidden the stone for centuries!” He reached into the bloody chalice and pulled forth the gemstone, then tossed the ceremonial cup aside. “In here!”
Gasps arose all around him, but Yakim Douan held his calm and motioned to the side, to a bank of archers.
“It is all a lie!” Merwan Ma cried. “Transcendence is a trick and no miracle.” He ended with the air blasted from his lungs, as arrow after arrow bored into him.
He was sitting then, though he knew not how, and knew not why, whispering, “A lie,” over and over again.
And then Yakim Douan was there before him, reaching down.
“God-Voice,” the confused and dying man gasped.
Douan pulled the hematite from him and walked away.
“How clever!” the Chezru Chieftain shouted. “Look at the conspiracy that our enemies have created about us! Give them credit, my friends.”
“Was that not Merwan Ma, your former attendant?” asked one of the visiting Yatols.
“It was,” answered Mado Wadon, who had served beside Merwan Ma for so many years.
“Obviously fallen traitor to us for the cause of our enemies,” said Douan.
“But he was murdered, in Dharyan!” cried another.
Yakim Douan held his smile and held his calm. This one wasn’t going to be easy to wriggle out of, he realized, but he knew that delay was on his side. Soon enough, reports of the fall of the Dragon of To-gai would flood in, and his people would be more receptive to whatever explanation he offered.
“It is a puzzling riddle,” he said. “But one that we will unravel, I assure you.”