Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 25

Sickened by what had happened to Ian, Bannon no longer noticed any of the wonders of Ildakar. He spent the day alone, trying to figure out what he could do to help his friend.

His mind churned in a slow whirlpool of regrets and fond memories. He and Ian used to pluck wriggling green caterpillars from the cabbage plants and place them in a jar. They would feed them torn cabbage leaves until the worms shed their skin and hung in a chrysalis on the side of the jar before emerging as the common white butterflies that fluttered through the fields. Now Bannon’s lips curved in a wan smile as he thought of how he and Ian would chase the newborn butterflies down the rows of green cabbage plants.

Some days, he and Ian used to toss cabbage heads back and forth as makeshift balls. Bored boys could always find things to amuse them, such as going down to their special isolated cove to play in the tide pools.…

Then, like a pane of glass shattering, Bannon could only think of the despairing look on Ian’s face as Norukai slavers clubbed him and dragged him to the longboat while Bannon fled. He could not imagine the pain and suffering Ian had endured in the years since. The poor boy must have been beaten, abused. Bannon remembered seeing the patterns of scars all over his friend’s skin down in the training pits. How many cuts and bruises had he suffered? Broken bones, concussions, injuries that weren’t readily visible?

A subconscious groan came from deep in his throat. Bannon had begged forgiveness from his friend, but he knew he didn’t deserve it. That one second of hesitation, that one betrayal, had cost him so much in his heart.

And it had cost Ian everything.

But what circumstances had brought the young man here? What sort of winding obstacle course of events could have taken a Norukai captive from Chiriya Island to here in the fabled ancient city, where he fought in their combat arena? How? Sweet Sea Mother, how … and why?

I should have been there. I should never have left him. They captured me first.

Now, so long after the fact and feeling the sharp pain inside, Bannon wished the circumstances had been reversed, that he’d been the one captured after all, that Ian had gotten away to live with his loving family, his mother and father, his little sister Irene.

After Bannon ran back to the island village, sounding the alarm and wailing for help, it had been far too late. Ian’s family had been destroyed by the loss of their son, and Bannon’s father had cuffed him for being such a coward. Bannon endured the abuse, because that time he knew he deserved it.

Since his own life had already been filled with so much pain from his drunken father, maybe he should have made the sacrifice, let his friend escape instead. That way, Ian could have grown up in a happy home, married a beautiful island girl, maybe even occasionally raised a toast to his lost friend, Bannon.

But instead, Bannon had stayed behind and suffered more years of being beaten by his father, before trying to save those poor kittens from drowning … and in doing so, leaving his dear mother vulnerable to that abusive man. Bannon had failed on both fronts.

And he had failed Ian, too.…

On top of the plateau, the day was warm and the sun bright. Bannon wandered the streets, deep in thought and already perspiring, and when he finally made his way back to the grand villa, he found Amos, Jed, and Brock lounging about, distracted.

“Our friend Bannon looks glum,” Amos said, “and we don’t have anything to do. Let’s cheer him up.”

“How are we going to do that?” Jed asked.

Brock chuckled. “Take him back to the silk yaxen, even if he doesn’t want to partake.”

“He could watch me and Melody,” Amos said. “I promise I won’t make her sing this time.”

Flushing, Bannon shook his head. “I’m fine. I’ll just go back to my room.”

“No, you won’t,” Amos said. “Stick with us, and we’ll take care of you.”

Bannon steeled himself, forced an optimistic expression onto his face. “There is something you can do.…” He drew a breath, and nervously stroked his long reddish hair. “I have a favor to request.”

“A favor?” Amos asked. “Have you earned it?”

Bannon furrowed his brow. “I was always taught a favor is something you ask, not earn.”

“Maybe we’re taught differently in Ildakar,” Brock said.

He began, “Yesterday, I went down to the training pits near the combat arena.”

The three young men laughed. “Adessa might tumble with you, but that’s another thing you’d need to earn, Bannon. You’d have to demonstrate your prowess as a fighter before any of the morazeth take you seriously.”

“No, i-it’s not that,” he stammered, looking for words. “Sweet Sea Mother…” He shook his head. “I need you to help me free my friend Ian. The champion. You have money and connections. The arena masters would listen to you.”

“The champion?” Brock asked. “I doubt that.”

Amos appeared to consider the idea. “We might be able to do it. Just give us time. We’ll talk about it later.”

Bannon couldn’t tell if the other young man took the request seriously, or if it was a joke. Maybe they were stringing him along, but what other choice did he have? “Later? How much time? If you could just come with me to see him…”

“Tomorrow,” Amos said. “Too much to do today.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have anything to do.”

“Keeper’s crotch, we haven’t shown you the river and the bluffs, one of the most amazing parts of Ildakar. You deserve to see it, and there’s no better way than if we show you. We can tell you the history.”

Jed leaned against a marble column while Amos swung himself to his feet, stomping his boots on the fine white gravel. Brock straightened his spotted cape, threw back his shoulders, and rotated his arms, as if to limber up for a fight.

Amos said, “From the top of the cliffs, you can watch the boats and the cargo come up the river.” He cocked an eyebrow at Bannon. “From there, even you can feel like a lord.”

“Never wanted to be a lord,” Bannon said. “I’m just a cabbage farmer at heart, but an adventurer too. I wanted to see the world.” He patted the pommel of Sturdy. “And Ian was taken away—”

Amos and his companions clearly didn’t want to hear about it. The young men moved off with long bouncing strides, and Bannon followed them down from the top of the plateau and along a curving thoroughfare that took them around the uplift toward the river-facing side.

They passed a grocer toiling uphill with a cart filled with limes, lemons, and bunches of dark grapes. Carpenters carried their tools over their shoulders as they walked to work sites, because Ildakar was always being cleaned, maintained, and built higher. One gifted noblewoman, her long gown made of rose-colored silk, strolled along while a slave walked a plump orange tabby cat on a leash.

They passed fountains, where common workers and slaves drew water, washed themselves, and carried jugs back to their homes. Narrow tiled channels drew the water through all parts of the city, and aqueducts ran beneath the streets.

When Amos led them to the precipitous drop-off to the Killraven River, Bannon’s stomach grew fluttery as he looked down. The bluff was sheer, the sandstone gnarled and pockmarked. Some agile and daring climber might be able to scale that dangerous cliff, but any slip would mean certain death.

Amos stood beside him, gesturing to the sheer drop-off. “See what the wizards of Ildakar can do? This was a city right on the edge of the river, on the bank. The Killraven carved out this great valley, with a plain extending in all directions, but access from the river made us much too tempting a target, much too weak.”

“We were never weak,” Jed said.

Amos frowned at him for the interruption. “The vulnerability was enough to attract invaders like maggots to a corpse.” He swept his hands out to either side. “So our wizards pulled on the land, uprooted this side of the plain, and lifted it up to create this high, defensible bluff. The wizards intentionally left a single protected port down below, where riverboats could dock. Large vessels also come in from the distant bay far downstream, where the Killraven drains into the sea.”

Far below, Bannon saw a complex network of docks and piers that jutted out from the sandstone at the level of the river. There were small boats, fishermen, mud trollers, shell harvesters, reed gatherers.

“How do they get anything into the city from way down there?” Bannon asked. He looked at two flat barges loaded with barrels from other villages upriver.

“Look closer,” Amos said.

Bannon leaned over and saw a line of notches in the bluff face that zigzagged dizzyingly up one level, then the next. He remembered climbing the canyon walls to reach the great library buildings in Cliffwall, but this looked far more treacherous. “How could anyone do that carrying loads of cargo?”

“We don’t want to make it easy to get from the river up to the city. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” Amos’s voice was sharp. “Watch how the slaves do their work.”

Near one of the wooden docks, a fisherman had loaded baskets of fresh catch on a wooden platform connected to ropes that extended up to cantilever arms, pulleys, and counterweights. Another trader had brought in cut stone from a quarry on the other side of the river. When they loaded their goods on the platform, workers at the midlevels of the bluffs turned large interconnected wheels to tighten the ropes and ratchet the platforms up.

“People must ascend the stairs,” said Amos, “but the merchandise can be lifted very conveniently.”

“Convenient, so long as we have enough slaves,” Jed said. Bannon wondered why they couldn’t just do it with their powerful magic.

Far below, the river flowed against the unlikely cliffside, curling green and white. “The ancient wizards even changed the current, brought the Killraven closer, then spread it out down there to the south, making the land beyond the bluffs a large impassable swamp, which discouraged overland travel. The marshes are a labyrinth of twisted trees and mud pits.” Amos’s lips quirked in a hungry smile. “And our fleshmancers twisted some of the native creatures to create horrific monsters, serpents, and lizard dragons that now infest the swamps. No one can get through from that direction.”

“But General Utros came from over the mountains and across the plain,” Bannon said. “They would have battered down your walls, torn open your gates, and conquered your city.”

Jed and Brock looked at each other, their expressions troubled. Amos just sniffed. “That’s why we had to turn them all to stone. Utros failed, Emperor Kurgan’s reign collapsed … and Ildakar is still here, as powerful as ever.”

At the edge of the cliff several streets away, an ornamental tower stood high and thin, with observation windows around the top. Bannon saw two figures inside the tower, looking toward the river and waving, shouting. The lookouts switched the banners flying from the top of the tower, removing one that showed the city’s sun-and-lightning-bolt symbol and replacing it with a blue triangular cloth that flapped in the wind. As other Ildakarans noticed the change and heard the shouts, they picked up the call.

“What is it?” Bannon said. “Have they seen something?”

Amos, Jed, and Brock all peered downstream. “Look! The boats are coming at a good pace.”

Bannon spotted two large, low boats straining against the current. Each had one square midnight-blue sail stretched tight. His blood ran cold.

“They must have used a lot of blood to summon a breeze like that,” Amos said, his voice critical. “Must be in a hurry to dock.”

“They’ve seen Ildakar, so they know the shroud is down,” Jed said. “They want to conduct their business before it’s too late.”

The two ships moved rapidly closer. Even though they pushed against the current, they seemed to be guided by a determined magic. Bannon’s stomach curdled. He saw the wide beam and the low lapped hulls; he knew that each prow would bear a monstrous carved serpent.

“Those are Norukai ships,” he whispered. “Are they coming to attack Ildakar?” He hoped he would watch them be destroyed by whatever magical storm the wizards would rain down upon them. He squeezed his sweaty hand around his sword’s hilt. He would fight them himself if need be.

Amos chuckled. “Of course not, you fool! The Norukai are our best trading partners. I wager those two ships are bringing another hundred, maybe two hundred captives.”

“We could use some fresh blood,” Brock said. “The slave market will be busy tomorrow.”

“Slaves?” Bannon asked. “They’re raiders! The Norukai capture innocent people in villages.” Like Ian.

“They bring slaves, which we buy,” Amos said, giving him a strange look. “We have to replenish our ranks. A lot of slaves run away thanks to Mirrormask, and who knows how much blood magic will be required to raise the shroud again?”

Thinking of the torment his friend must have endured, all those scars, all that pain, Bannon saw a black haze of anger form at the edges of his vision. He was deaf to the excitement as the people of Ildakar went to greet the raider ships that docked against the bluffs below the city.