Bronze carried me to Karvalen. It’s a heck of a commute, in medieval terms, but not so much on a magical fire-breathing golem horse. I’ve spent more time on a one-way commute in a car. How far it is in actual distance terms is something I keep meaning to measure. If only Bronze had an odometer…
I was most of the way there when I saw a small party camped out in the southwest corner of the canals. They had a couple of rather fancy pavilion tents and were parked squarely in front of the lake-bridge to the city proper. We swung to the right to cross the southern canal. I wanted to circle the mountain and check on the city’s security. The people already living in Karvalen had the pivot-gate shut, so the city was probably not in the process of being invaded. Probably.
I partly recognized the banner, though. It had my device in the upper left, an orange diagonal stripe, and a hollow, silver circle on a black field in the lower right.
Zirafel’s heraldic references did not include these symbols. It did, however, supply me with the knowledge that a noble house was claiming descent from mine. Interesting.
While circling the mountain, Bronze took a walk in the lake to cool off. When she got down to a level where fire-breathing was no longer a requirement, we finished our circuit and went toward the encampment from the north. As we approached the canal bridge over the western canal, I put a light spell over my head. I didn’t intend to sneak up on them; I just wanted to talk to them and find out what they wanted.
I also made sure I had a deflection spell going. I’m not a
complete
idiot.
They were quite willing to come out and talk. Six of them appeared from inside their tents. They were all somewhat short and swathed head to toe in blackened mail and many shades of grey. They didn’t walk out of their tents so much as they flowed out, like blots of ink in water.
Elves. Strangely enough, I’ve never met a nice elf. All of the ones around here seem to be cruel, nasty, vicious, evil bastards. Either there are no nice elves, or they just don’t want to have anything to do with me. I really hope there are nice ones, somewhere; I would hate to think that only the bad guys have that much grace and style.
Bronze stopped about twenty feet away. They flowed into a kneeling position, hands crossed over their faces, palms out. If I had any idea about the significance of the gesture, it was buried somewhere as-yet unsorted.
The moment I saw elves, I expected to see Bob. It irked me that he wasn’t among them.
I sighed to myself and fired up a translation spell; I wasn’t sure if I knew their language or not, nor if they knew any of the languages I spoke. I was about to find out, but I wanted to be prepared.
“Rise. Which one of you is in command?”
They lowered their hands. Five of them shifted to one knee while their leader stood. She was the tallest of the lot, about five-foot-four, and removed her ornate helm to hold it in the crook of her elbow. Her hair reminded me of molten silver as it cascaded down in loose waves.
“This servant is the commander of these,” she said, in a clear, musical voice. Everything about her was amazingly, even disgustingly, beautiful. She was definitely not a human being; she was something else entirely. I was attracted and repelled at the same time. She was probably at the bottom of the uncanny valley. She was human enough to be beautiful, inhuman enough to be disturbing.
I didn’t need the translation spell to understand her. Answering in elf-language wasn’t something I wanted to try; I didn’t feel competent to speak the sixty-vowels-together thing. I could understand it and that was good enough. I decided to leave the spell running, just for the occasional concept-connections it provided.
“Who are you?” I asked. She told me. I waited until she was done.
When Bob told me his real name, I thought it might have some cultural significance; I was right. The longer the name, the more the elf has done in its life. It’s kind of a synopsis of their deeds and serves as a reminder of who they used to be as well as who they are—presumably important in a race that stops aging when they reach adulthood. This one was very good at the harp, archery, swordplay, painting, raising poisonous snakes, flaying living victims without killing them, and was particularly expert at making enchanted leather from the skin thus obtained. There were other things, but the rest was a bit gruesome.
I could have coped quite well not knowing any of that.
“I don’t suppose you have a short, easy-to-use name when not being addressed formally?”
“Of course, Dread Lord. This one is known as Salishar.”
“Good. Why are you here?”
“Your servants have come to bear a message from the Dragonsword to its master.”
“Firebrand!” I exclaimed. “Where is it?”
She backed away a step and gestured briefly with the crossed-hand-over-eyes thing again. Apparently, my display of strong emotion made her nervous. I looked closely at the rich complexity of her elf-spirit and saw a lot of anxiety. Well, how many nightlords has she ever met? We’re legends, after all.
“It lives in your city, Vathula, and works with your servants to slay those who would resist an empire.”
“That’s what I’ve heard,” I agreed. “Good, good. Is it happy?”
“This one believes so, Dread Lord.”
“Okay. So, what’s it got to say?”
“It bids me say that if you wish it so, it will be pleased to be reclaimed whenever you come for it.”
“Then why didn’t you just bring it?” I asked.
“It did not offer to be transported, lord, and this one would not dare attempt to bear it without leave.”
Good point. If Firebrand doesn’t want to be picked up, asbestos gloves won’t save you. It would take a full-coverage fire suit and fast reflexes to avoid being broiled.
On the other hand, Salishar’s anxiety level skyrocketed when she said it. Contemplating the idea of being incinerated might do that, but not to that degree. Her nervousness seemed odd and unusual.
“Where’s Bob?” I asked. “I would expect him to deliver this message, as well as a status report.”
“This servant regrets deeply that the chief of all your servants is engaged in battle beneath the mountains, Dread Lord. He begs the forgiveness of our Dread Lord and prays that you will come to his aid in the campaign against those who live beneath the mountains, but not beneath the banner.”
She was too stressed. There was nothing physical, not so much as a nervous glance, but her spirit was a chaotic kaleidoscope. I looked over the rest of them. On the outside, a sphinx would hate to play poker with them. Inside, they varied from agitated to nervous to borderline panic.
I thought about it for a minute, just looking them over and wondering. The more I looked at them without saying anything, the more nervous they became.
Bronze took a step forward, then another, then another. After a moment, she lowered her head and stretched her neck to sniff at Salishar’s face. Salishar stood absolutely still, as one might when being sniffed by a dangerous animal that seems more curious than angry. The rest took a single, gliding step back, giving Bronze room to obliterate Salishar if she chose.
Bronze finished her inspection, raised her head again, and snorted in disgust. That was enough for me.
“Go back to Vathula,” I told them. “Tell Bob I want him here on the third night, in the first hour after sunset.”
“Dread Lord,” Salishar said, “his duties are extensive and demand—”
“Does he have a duty beyond obeying me?” I interrupted. She was silent. “He’ll be here because I order it,” I told her, in my best I’m-the-dark-lord-around-here tone.
“Yes, Dread Lord,” she agreed. She and her retinue genuflected and started packing up.
I left them to it, went over the bridge, and around the mountain.
As I rode, I considered the wall around the base of the mountain. It was a great fortification, but it was a long ride around to the main gate. As far as holding off invaders was concerned, it was beautiful. For people coming and going from a city, it was awful.
I could add a gate on the circle of the outer wall at every halfway point between the four canals. A few small boats could act as ferries between the gates and the shore, making any morning commute from city to fields that much easier. Later, if we actually became a bustling metropolis, cargo could take the road over the bridge while people could come and go via the ferries… maybe I should add a road around the outside of the lake, as well? Yes, probably. Another thing to address when I’m communing with the mountain.
My people saw me coming and opened the gate as I approached. They were all awake and armed with whatever they could find, mostly farming implements, but several had hunting bows and there were even a few crossbows.
“Majesty?” asked Cormon, the straw boss of the farming crew. “Are they gone?”
“They’re leaving. I’ll check on them later, to make sure. You locked up when you saw them coming?”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“Good. From now on, I think we should stay inside the mountain. I know it’s a longer walk to get to the fields, but it’ll be more secure. What do you think?”
“We’ll walk,” he assured me, deeply sincere. “We’ll be happy to walk. We would be delighted to have a morning stroll through the city.”
“Let’s get everyone moved in.”
Once we relocated our quarters, I started spying. A shallow pan of mercury makes a pretty good mirror; I used it as the focus for a scrying spell.
The area just southwest of the main bridge was abandoned. I turned my viewpoint as though I was standing there, looking around in a full circle. No sign of them was to be seen, so I moved north, past the canal, and started looking for them along the path to Vathula. I still didn’t see them.
Frowning, I raised my viewpoint altitude, looking down over a larger and larger area. Eventually, I did find them, but not on the northern path. They were just entering the mountains, following the road on the north side of the west canal. I zoomed in to look more closely, as though I were only a few hundred feet above them. They all seemed to be there.
When they reached the head of the canal—that is, a large pool under a wide, rocky, foamy waterfall; this was the source of the western canal’s water—they simply rode around the wide, flat perimeter of the pool and under the overhang, through the curtain of water.
Huh. Well. The Eastrange has so many communities underground, the mountains are practically hipster. I shouldn’t be surprised they have tunnels everywhere.
My viewpoint swooped down and went through the spray of water. Yes, it was a tunnel. It looked artificial and somewhat rough-hewn, but it was tall enough for a horse and rider, as wide as the waterfall—maybe thirty feet, maybe a little less. Bronze would easily fit if she kept her head low. It ran for several yards with a slight upward slope, then crested and started down and to the right. The floor was mostly solid rock, but a thin layer of dirt held imprints of hooves. It didn’t look as though this particular tunnel saw a lot of traffic.
I dismissed my spell and sat back to think. What made them so nervous about Firebrand? Well, more nervous than they should be—it’s an awfully scary sword, I grant you. Or were they nervous about me? I admit, Linnaeus seems to have laid it on a bit thick, and I did put on a good performance the last time I was in Eastgate, if I do say so myself. That could have grown into a terrible legend, I suppose. Or were they worried about delivering messages from Firebrand and Bob, instead of those two coming to greet me in person? Did they think I would kill the messengers for the “discourtesy” of Bob not showing up to personally greet me? Just how terrible a “Dread Lord” am I supposed to be?
I don’t know. I just don’t know.
I filed it away under “Unexplained” and got to work. Tonight, I planned to spend some time talking to the mountain about the possibility of new roads. Discussion about a training room for knights might also happen. After that, maybe some rooftop gardens… and maybe a water source higher up the mountain, flowing down one side? Or all four sides? Some water gardens would be nice—swimming pools, perhaps, and maybe some park areas lower down? Places for water wheels would be nice, too, for grinding grain, pounding pulp for paper, hammering steel… A medieval industrial revolution might be possible, but it all hinged on what we could do with a living mountain.
I’m going to go talk to the mountain. This might take all night.
Interlude
“So, that didn’t work,” Tyrecan observed, waving a hand to close the scrying mirror.
“Shut up.”
“Rakal, he’s not going to simply come visit, not even if his sword invites him. He knows someone is trying to kill him. Parrin’s an idiot if he thinks we can lure him here.”
“Parrin didn’t order it. I did.”
Tyrecan sat down in an ornate chair, staring at Rakal. He crossed his legs and laced his fingers together, white eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Maybe you should explain.”
Rakal paced back and forth in front of the crackling fireplace.
“Look, Parrin says he can get that monster to come to him, right? If he does, what then? We were promised the secret to immortality, but how many people have tried to use his blood for that? Fifty? A hundred? How many arcane battles have been fought over it—not just in Arondael, but with bitches from Kamshasa, or even the mentalists from the East? Just locally, not counting arcanists from other traditions, how many magicians have fought with each other over the last few drops of it?”
“I don’t know,” Tyrecan admitted.
“How many have died over it?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“A lot. The conclave of Arondael issued an edict over it.”
“I heard something about that, but I didn’t pay much attention.”
“Exactly. My point is that so many magicians have died just fighting over the resources to do research—how does Parrin know he can find the answer? He’s not even a magician! Come to that, how do we know that if he gets the monster to come to him, Parrin can really capture it?”
“He has powers I don’t understand,” Tyrecan pointed out, “but you already know I have my doubts.”
“I’ve seen things like it,” Rakal said, darkly. “It makes me suspicious. The more I find out about Parrin, the less I trust him. He reminds me too much of sorcerers I’ve known.”
“I don’t trust him too much, either. But I’m also over three hundred years old. What happens to me—or to you; you’re even older—if we don’t find something better?”
“That’s why I haven’t quit this alliance.”
“The alliance you’re trying to double-cross?”
“I thought that if we could get the monster to come here, we might manage to capture it ourselves. I’ve got hundreds of corpses with demons inhabiting them; we might be able to capture it.”
“Ah. That’s why you had Keria order the elves to lie like that. You wanted it to take bait in Vathula, rather than in Byrne!”
“Exactly.”
“Are you
insane?
” Tyrecan demanded, hands slamming down on the arms of the chair. “Have you not seen the ruins of the Hand compound in Telen?”
“He had lots of time to prepare a spell,” Rakal said. “I could have done something similar myself, given a week or two of preparation.”
“No doubt. But could you have then invaded the place? And opened a gate? And fought the embodied Devourer? And then fought the hordes that poured in through the hole in the firmament?”
“No,” Rakal grudged. “Not all at once.”
“Neither could I. Not even the two of us together. Not even the three of us, when Hagus was alive,
and
with your demon-corpses,
and
with all the armies of Vathula,
and
with your Keria-corpse thrown in. Luring that monster here is the stupidest idea you have ever had, and you’ve had your share!”
Tyrecan and Rakal glared at each other for several seconds. Dark crackles, like black sparks, flickered through Rakal’s hair. Bluish light glinted in Tyrecan’s eyes.
Finally, Rakal broke the silence.
“All right,” he said, quietly. “All right, I had that coming. Maybe I’m overestimating our powers. I still say we can’t trust Parrin.”
“Well, of
course
we can’t!” Tyrecan agreed, sitting back. “We’re just running out of options. So, tell me when you plan to go off and do something like this. Neither of us trusts Parrin; are we going to trust each other?”
“I suppose,” Rakal said, sighing. “I think we have to. It’s not like immortality is something only one of us can get.”
“I agree. Which brings us back to the question of what do we do now? Hope it shows up and kills the army? Parrin said he wanted the Vathulan forces quashed.”
“You heard it,” Rakal said. “It wants Bob to come to it and report.”
“We can’t let that happen, can we?”
“I’ll say not. There’s no telling what that elf knows or has guessed. He could shoot down everything we’re trying to accomplish here. We can’t even let it talk to the Dragonsword.”
“Can we stop the monster? If it takes it into its head to simply make contact with either of them…”
“Already dealt with. I am highly proficient with barriers and wards. In my line of work, I have to be.”
“I imagine. But I haven’t noticed any.”
“I didn’t want the wards interfering with your work. They’ll activate as soon as someone triggers them. Or some
thing
, in this case.”
“And if the monster just breaks your wards? It has a magician of its own, you know. Plus, it has powers nobody’s seen since the War of Night.”
“If then,” Rakal muttered.
“If then,” Tyrecan agreed. “Well?”
“We evacuate to Byrne through that one-shot gate spell we set up in the dungeons. And I’m sure you have a backup plan for escaping. I do.”
“Lerondal’s Cloud Ship,” Tyrecan said. “The spell is moored to a tower. All right. So, it didn’t take you up on your offered bait. What now?”
“We’ll just have to carry on with Parrin’s plan. Keria’s got the army; I’ve got Keria. We send a lot of troops after the thing that lives in Karvalen.”
“I hope Parrin knows what he’s doing. What’s the monster going to do against an army? Especially with those special sling bullets?” Tyrecan paused in thought. “Does Parrin know about those? Or the horse-killers? Or the Lifting Rope?”
“I don’t know what Parrin knows. He didn’t ask about how they were armed, armored, or equipped. He just said to throw them at the monster’s mountain,” Rakal admitted. “It may just be a trick to get the monster killed. Parrin seems to hate it so much! That’s another reason I wanted to try and lure it here.”
“But it’s not coming,” Tyrecan pointed out. “We can either go along with Parrin’s plan, or we can quit now and start looking elsewhere for a cure for old age.”
“And Parrin’s plan still might net us the blood of a nightlord,” Rakal finished. “Yes. I know. I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I. So, we send the army?”
“They’re already on their way.”