Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 41

Across the trackless wilderness, far from Ildakar, the wizard Renn felt lost and impatient. As day after hopeless day went by, he began to falter in his confidence. He used the focus of his gift to calm himself and fight back his despair. Captain Trevor led the way with his contingent of twelve city guards, but Renn was not convinced they knew where they were going either.

They had set off from the city with great fanfare, bearing purple banners that displayed the sun-and-lightning-bolt symbol. Ever since the shroud had first dissipated nearly two decades ago, opening the ancient city to the outside for the first time in fifteen hundred years, Ildakarans had encountered occasional travelers and curiosity seekers. The infrequent visitors came from the towns in the hills and down the river, and the city even engaged in trade with the Norukai in their serpent ships.

But few from Ildakar had ventured far from the city. They lived in their utopia, convinced of their sheltered perfection. Dozens of slaves had run away when the shroud first went down, but few of them knew how to live in the wild. Some of their bodies had been found out on the plains, gaunt and starving, dead from snake bites or exposure. Others made it away, no doubt thanks to the meddling of Mirrormask, but the official story in the city was that no escaped slave had survived. No one bothered to go look for them.

The wizards’ duma simply had no curiosity about the outside. Ildakar had been bottled up for fifteen centuries, and it was self-sufficient. The people had no need for the outside world. In fact, most of them—Renn included—had no interest in what lay out there. They wouldn’t admit it, but even the greatest wizards feared what the world might have to offer. Hundreds of thousands of Emperor Kurgan’s petrified soldiers were a testament to that.

But now, Renn had been sent out into the grim wilderness with Captain Trevor and his escort to find a lost and possibly fictitious archive of precious lore. Cliffwall.

“A fool’s errand,” the portly wizard muttered to himself. Renn had his own disagreements with the council members, though not to the extent of Lani’s bitter feud, centuries ago. He had seen the punishment imposed upon that rebellious sorceress, whose statue stood as a grim reminder in the ruling chamber. No, that would not happen to him.

Renn had never really wanted to be a member of the duma. He did not covet power, although he did enjoy finer things: the best furniture, the greatest carvings, the most elaborate villa, the largest gardens, the most docile and efficient slaves, the best chefs, the most stylish clothes.

Now he swatted at a biting fly attracted to his glistening sweat. How he missed his home.

Glancing over his shoulder, he looked longingly at the ridgeline behind him. He could no longer even see the city of Ildakar. Too far away … infinitely far away. He wasn’t sure he would ever get back there. This entire quest might just be an excuse for the wizard commander and the sovrena to rid themselves of Renn before they raised the shroud again. If so, he would never be able to get back inside.

Was that what they really wanted to do?

He trudged forward, thrashing grasses out of his way. One of the guards used a short sword to hack at the spiny thistles that grew on the hillsides.

“Cliffwall must be just beyond that rise,” said Trevor. His voice was rough and ragged, but he put energy in it as if to convince himself. Trevor longed to be back in Ildakar as much as Renn did, but they had their orders. “They said Kol Adair was over a few ridges, and we have been traveling for a long time.”

“It has been five days,” Renn said as he swatted at another biting fly. “I’ve kept track.”

Crossing the plain, they had walked through line after line of the macabre statue soldiers turned to stone by Maxim’s grand spell. Renn remembered that day, fifteen centuries ago. He had been a young man when it happened … and, oh, the blood that had been spilled to work the magic. Thousands executed to pull together a tapestry of magic powerful enough to freeze those enemies in time. He remembered the wizards building the original shroud, a bubble that sealed Ildakar away from time and from history. Costing almost as much blood, that great spell had twisted reality so that the passage of days and weeks in the vicinity might be entirely different from how time was perceived far away, or within the city itself.

Renn shuddered. Such questions made him feel lost, and he just wanted to go home. The mountains around him were rugged and fearsome, and his courage quailed. He knew in his heart that they still had a long, long way to go.

The expedition toiled over the ridge and down into an intervening valley. On the sixth day, they found a crumbling old road that had dwindled to a weed-strewn path. They followed it, winding up to an even more imposing mountain range, and as they came around an outcropping, they stopped to stare at three heads impaled on tall poles. Norukai heads, with a placard below and a warning written in Ildakaran script: Free the slaves of Ildakar. This is the fate of those who sell human flesh.

Renn’s heart fluttered. Trevor and his guards muttered to one another. “Mirrormask and his rebels have come even this far.” The guard captain turned gray, and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth as if he had just swallowed bile. “They slaughtered my friend Kerry, mutilated him, cut out his eyes. But this…” Trevor shook his head. “I can’t believe they placed a warning so far away.”

“The Norukai are ambitious,” said Renn, trying to come up with an explanation. “Perhaps there is a threat from this direction. The slavers intend to come overland as well as up the river.”

“The Norukai aren’t that dangerous,” Trevor said, then added in a quieter voice, “Are they? Is their empire so large?”

Renn gathered his courage because he knew he had to make a good show for these lesser guards. As wizard, he was the leader of this expedition. “I do not know, and it does not matter. If we gain the lore of Cliffwall and bring it back to Ildakar, then we can all rest under the shroud and not worry about petty outside threats.” His throat was dry, and he swallowed hard. Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Take down those heads. We don’t wish the rebels to have any victory, even a small one like this.”

Trevor and two other guards knocked down the poles, jarring the heads loose and disrupting the preservation spell that kept them intact. The rotting flesh turned black and green, then oozed off of the skulls, exposing teeth. Jellied eyes ran in streams into the ground. Clumps of hair slid off, and the stench wafted up.

Renn sneered at the sight, intending to seem brave. “I never liked the Norukai either, and I am not overly sad that a few of them lost their heads.” He looked up at Trevor. “I would rather Mirrormask’s thugs killed more of them instead of innocent citizens … like Kerry. It makes the world a more beautiful place.” He snickered at his own joke, then gestured forward. “Up into the mountains! Let us find Cliffwall without further ado, so we can get home.”

“Agreed,” Trevor said, and the guards cheered. “It must be just beyond that next ridge, over the mountains ahead. It cannot be far. We’ve covered so much distance already.”

The guards muttered, convincing themselves because their captain was so sure. And because Captain Trevor was so sure, Renn let himself be convinced. They pushed onward, and as night fell, they bedded down in camp.

It would only be a few more days, Renn assured himself as he tried to fall asleep on the cold, hard ground. Only a few more days.

The next morning they continued into the wild and rugged mountains, still trying to find Kol Adair.