“By the way, General, you needn’t worry about the Valleyans and Seawardsmen now. I’ve killed the lot of them. You’ll find out when the dawn breaks, that they march for me now!”
Pael strode quickly back towards that end of the table, where he stopped and bent forward to meet Queen Willa’s eyes. She was standing rigid, clenching her fists over and again. The set of her jaw looked painfully tight, and her eyes were alight with fear and fury.
“They are already dead, witch!” Pael yelled at her. “Take the morning to gaze upon them. Loose a few arrows into the ranks and see for yourself. They will not fall. And when the morrow ends, they will set upon Xwarda. You’d be wise to flee, before I arrive to oversee the occupation!”
“We have the sword, and we will stop you!” Hyden stood and yelled at Pael’s back.
Targon put a restraining hand on his shoulder, but Hyden shrugged it off, as Pael turned, and almost ran back down the table at him.
Pael recognized the boy, and it startled him. It wasn’t the specific face he remembered though. It was the brother’s face, and he remembered it well enough to immediately recognize the relation.
“It was your brother’s life blood that opened the Seal and bound the demon for me, boy!” Pael was trembling with fury, and spittle flew from his mouth, as he spoke. “My daughter used him to collar the dragon, and then left him for me to sacrifice!”
Talon swooped down from somewhere above, and landed on Hyden’s shoulder. Hyden was terrified by the white-skinned abomination. He didn’t know what to do or say, or why he had said what he had. It was all he could do, to hold the defiant look on his face, as Pael took a knee, and leaned down to look him in the eyes. For a long moment, the demon-wizard just stared at him. Then, in a half pouty, childish voice Pael spoke.
“Little Fawlkra Mahn, you should’ve taken the ring from your fool brother when you had the chance. It was meant for you, and without it, you are nothing to me.” Pael’s voice grew hard and menacing. “And tell that idiot squire, if he survived the Choska, that I will chew him up, and spit out his pieces all across MY
FARGIN
KINGDOMS!”
The last few words were screamed in a demonic voice so deep, that it rattled the cups on the table.
Pael jerked upright, and whirled toward Queen Willa. His voice grated like a massive stone slab being dragged across a gravel road.
“On the dusk of morrow, if you are still here, you will all be slaughtered!”
Then, with a flourish of his robes, and a hissing pop, his apparition was gone.
Later, as the sun was setting, Targon showed Hyden the door to Pratchert’s Tower, and gave him a dire warning.
“You either pass Dahg Mahn’s trials, or you never return from beyond that door.”
“How many have passed?” Hyden asked, hoping to be able to speak to one who had done so.
“None,” Targon replied simply.
Hyden nodded his understanding. He wasn’t ready to enter yet, and he knew it. Ready or not, he would have to enter soon though. The demon-wizard wasn’t about to wait for him to prepare.
His problem wasn’t fear of the trial. He had faith that the White Goddess wouldn’t send him off to die in some ancient wizard’s trap. What troubled him, was what he would do with the crystal, if and when, he recovered it from the tower. It could take weeks to get it across the land to the marshes, where the Dragon Spire was located. By then, it would be too late. If it was small enough, then maybe Talon could carry it there. But even if it was small enough, how would Talon dissolve it into the carving of the Seal’s symbol?
He sighed, and tried to sort out all the questions forming in his mind. Then, he changed his train of thought altogether.
“Is there anything you can do for Mikahl?” Hyden asked, as he followed Targon away from Pratchert’s door.
Somehow, knowing Gerard’s fate had caused him to see that this was as much his war as it was Mikahl’s. His personal responsibility for his brother’s actions, and the burning feeling, a longing for vengeance that was growing inside him, seemed to give him strength and resolve. With or without Mikahl and Ironspike he would face the darkness ahead; but he would much rather face it with his friend by his side.
“There are possibilities, but none that would prepare him for the upcoming battle,” Targon answered honestly. “Queen Willa said he was –is a brave soul.”
“Aye,” Hyden agreed. “And he is vicious with a blade. Not just Ironspike, but any length of steel.”
After a moment, Hyden asked, “What was it that Pael called me? Fawlkra Mahn?”
“It means hawk man, like Dahg Mahn means dog man.”
Hyden thought of Vaegon then. If he was to be remembered, which he doubted he would be, he would rather be remembered as Hyden Hawk. Fawlkra Mahn sounded more like a food dish, or maybe a wagon part. Thinking of the elf, and the fact that Vaegon was out doing something, instead of wandering around, blowing hot air, caused him to strengthen his resolve even further. He forced himself to focus his attention.[*
“Do you know of a magical crystal that Dahg Mahn possessed?” Hyden asked hopefully.
“I assume you mean the Night Shard.”
Targon stopped their procession through the bustling corridor they had entered.
“There’s a text that mentions it in the Royal Library. It came from deep within the earth, and was given to Pratchert by the dwarves for some great act of wizardry that he supposedly performed for them.”
He paused and put his finger to his chin.
“There is a tapestry depicting the ceremony in which it was presented. The Shard was one of his most prized possessions, they say.”
“Can you show me this tapestry?”
Hope was beginning to rise in Hyden’s heart. Once he knew how big the crystal was, he could start forming an actual plan. Surely, the depiction showed the artifact’s size in relation to a man.
As they traversed the mile or so of stairways and passages that led to the hall where the old tapestries were stored, Hyden explained what his goddess had told him to do with the crystal. At one point, Hyden looked around and realized that they were outside under the stars, crossing an open-air courtyard that was big enough to contain his whole village.
Targon’s pace had quickened as they spoke of the crystal’s size and weight. If it was too large for Talon to carry, there were other ways that it might be transported to where it needed to be. If Talon could carry a small marker to the exact location, then Targon would easily be able to send the crystal there. Dissolving it, Targon said, was another matter altogether.
He lectured Hyden on crystalline structure, which Hyden barely grasped. Learning that salt was a crystal that dissolved in water, and that ice was actually crystallized water that thawed with heat only served to confuse Hyden. Some crystals dissolve with corrosives, some it just took time. There was no way to know what would dissolve the Night Shard, without testing samples of it. To sample it, Hyden would have to beat the tests set by Pratchert hundreds of years ago; tests that had caused every one of the hundreds of aspiring mages and fools that had entered the tower, never to be seen again.
With a flick of his wrist, Targon lit the torches that were ensconced along the walls of the old musty room they were entering. The big, open storage chamber was full of statues, armaments, paintings, and other relics from the history of Xwarda. There was so much stuff, that they had to squeeze between dusty piles and teetering stacks to get through the room.
“One of my students is supposed to have inventoried all of this recently, but by the dust and clutter, I think I might have been shammed.”
Targon eased away from Hyden, and cast a spell, while calling out the name of the student. A moment later, a sheepish looking boy, caught in the awkward stage in between youth and manhood, appeared in a blurry apparition before the master wizard.
“But I did!” Hyden heard the youth blurt out defensively.
“How did you inventory all of this, without so much as stirring up the dust in here, Phenilous?” Targon asked the boy, dubiously.
“Your instructions were for me to catalog the contents of the room without disturbing anything….Sir.” The last was added as an afterthought.
“But how, Phen? How did you –? No, never mind how, it’s not important. Do you remember a tapestry showing the presentation of the Night Shard to Dahg Mahn?”
The boy thought for a moment, and then a smile crept across his face.
“Who’s going into Pratchert’s Tower?” His eyes found Hyden, and flared hopefully.
“Phen, tell me where the tapestry is, or you’ll be scrubbing pots in the kitchen for a month,” Targon ordered.
The boy’s smile vanished.
“It’s in the third rack, along the display wall, but won’t you at least tell me…”
Targon, with a dismissive wave of his hand, made the apparition of the boy vanish.
While Targon went over to the rack that was holding the tapestries, Hyden studied the one nearest the door. There were dwarves and elves fighting desperately against a cloud of dragons, that were ridden, by what Hyden could only assume, were humans. Hyden noticed that the dragons, as well as the riders, all wore collars.
“My daughter used him to collar the dragon and then left him for me to sacrifice!”
Pael’s cold words echoed in Hyden’s brain.
The vile demon-wizard had said it proudly, like a taunt or a brazen boast. Hyden, now angry again, and disgusted, walked away from the scene, trying to calm himself and keep his mind focused.
“Here,” Targon exclaimed after few moments.
As Hyden approached, he saw that Targon’s expression had grown doubtful, but when Hyden reached his side, the wizard’s lips curled into a grin. He crossed his arms across his chest, and gave Hyden a smug look, that showed he had confidence in whatever scheme he had come up with in his head.
When Hyden looked at the tapestry, he gasped in a breath so quickly, that he nearly swallowed his tongue. It showed a man, who looked remarkably like himself, holding a glittering, smoke colored crystal, which was roughly the size of a newborn child. Before him, the Dwarven King, or at least a dwarf of high nobility, bowed before the legendary wizard. Beyond them, a horde of dwarven soldiers bowed as well.
“This can be accomplished,” said Targon. “Now all you have to do is pass the trials of Dahg Mahn, so that I can dissolve a sample of the Night Shard.”
Still feeling the rage of Pael’s insulting words echoing in his head, Hyden said flatly, “Then it’s as good as done!”
“How many, and how long will it take?” Queen Willa asked General Spyra and his two advisers.
They were back in the council chamber. They had taken a break after Pael’s interruption, but had now resumed the war council in earnest.
A pair of Targon’s High Magi, one that specialized in defense and fortification, the other, whose area of expertise was magic as a weapon, had come and taken the Master Wizard’s place. The Queen had excused Targon and Hyden Hawk to “pursue other avenues,” as she had put it. The pixie, Starkle, and Andra, the dwarfess, had been excused as well, but King Jarrek was still present, as were Parooka, the Mayor of Xwarda City, and his man, Commander Strate, head of the City Guard.
“Maybe three thousand men between High Port, Old Port, and Jenkanta,” one of General Spyra’s subordinates answered timidly. “They are gathering in Jenkanta as we speak. There, they will await new orders. It will take two days at the most, if we send a bird,” he paused and glanced awkwardly at the High Magi. He knew a messenger bird wasn’t necessary, but didn’t even try to understand how else a message could be delivered. “…Immediately,” He finished.
“What of the people, Highness?” Mayor Parooka asked quickly, before anyone else might get the floor. “If we use the tunnel to bring in more troops from Jenkanta, then how will we evacuate the city?”
“And who will protect the citizens once they are in the hills?” Commander Strate added.
“Who said we would evacuate? I need those men!” General Spyra’s voice was sharp. His narrowed eyes darted from the Queen, to the Mayor, and back. He had risen from his seat as he had spoken, and was now leaning down with both fists on the tabletop. He was an intimidating sight, just as he intended to be.
“Sit,” Queen Willa commanded softly, but firmly, to the General.
Grudgingly, he complied.
“If what Pael says is true, that these soldiers of his won’t fall from normal battle wounds, then I don’t see how the extra men will help you, General.”
Willa took a long, sorrowful breath before continuing.
“I have a duty to the people. I have to protect them no matter what the cost. But I have a duty to stay and guard the Wardstone as well.”
She paused long enough that the General felt he could speak. He ran his hand back over his sweat slicked head, as if there were still hair there. His hand ended up squeezing at his fleshy chin.
“How do we fight such an enemy?” He looked at the two magi as if they were his corporals. “Tell me!” he ordered.
Master Amill, the Mage who studied defenses, looked at the Queen askance. He was showing the proper respect for his not so elevated station. She smiled at his manners, and nodded for him to respond. The look she gave the Mayor, and the General, showed that they might try to remember their etiquette as the Mage had.
“General Spyra,” Amill stood. “Can a man with one leg walk? Even a dead man would have a time of it. Can a man wield a weapon when his muscles and sinews are burnt and stiff? If his arm is no longer attached, can he strike at you? There’s only one way to completely incapacitate the necromatized, besides burning them to ash. That is to separate the head from its body. However, there are many ways to defend against them, or render them ineffective. The most obvious way, is to burn them, but that is an offensive stratagem. I’ll let my colleague tell you more.”
Master Amill indicated with his hand the other Mage. Master Sholt seemed surprised to be called upon so soon, but he stood, and cleared his voice. He took a sip of wine from the goblet on the table before him, and took a few seconds to gather his wits.