Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 46

Though the siege of Ildakar would continue for some time, Utros could think only about his beloved Majel, who was separated from him by time and death itself. He also needed guidance from his emperor, for whom he had sworn to conquer the known world. Did his orders even still exist?

The two sorceresses had given him a new chance, and they were ready.

Utros clung with childlike hope to the possibility that he might speak with both Kurgan and Majel again. His loyalty and passion were at odds as much as two warring armies, but in his rational mind, he compartmentalized those conflicting desires before they could drive him insane.

After the damage from Ildakar’s unexpected attack had been mitigated, he commanded Ava and Ruva to begin. The twins admired the barrels filled with the blood of innocent children from Stravera. They caressed the staves, pressed down on the intact lids, sensed the red liquid inside and the power it represented.

“We have enough, beloved Utros,” Ruva said.

Ava added, “But we need the other raw materials to forge the lens, ash and sand to make the glass.”

“You shall have everything.” Utros summoned First Commander Enoch. Manpower was the one thing he did not lack.

In the initial part of the siege, his soldiers had dug great trenches, diverted and dammed the wide streams that rolled across the open plain to feed the aqueducts of Ildakar, although the city could still draw water from the river below. Now, what he needed was not water, but sand from the stream banks. His men brought wagonload after wagonload of sand, while the sorceresses cleared a working area near the headquarters structure.

They collected iron taken from Stravera, as well as rusted scraps of armor and thick old chains recovered from the ancient battlefield. Ava and Ruva used their magic to heat and shape the metal, forging an enormous basin seven feet across, which they lined with insulating clay, thus creating a huge glassmaking crucible. They filled the crucible with clean sand from the streambeds, while another contingent of soldiers filled a cart with bitter-smelling ash from the burned grasses, as well as coals from the countless campfires.

Once the ash was mixed with the sand, Ava and Ruva joined hands and used their gift to create a constant flow of heat until the material softened, flowed, and melted. The women took turns stirring their molten mixture for hours.

Utros watched impatiently, smelling the acrid tang, studying the silver-white pool of hot glass. “I can sense the power there,” he said.

Ava flashed him a thin smile. The paint covering her cheeks and shoulders had begun to flake with the sweat of her effort. “This is merely glass. We haven’t yet made it special.”

For half a day, the glass mixture heated, became smoother, purer, until it was ready. Ruva glanced at the barrels filled with innocent blood and responded with a broad smile.

Utros watched but offered no advice, asked no questions. His sorceresses knew what they were doing. Soldiers carried the stained barrels to the crucible, where heat waves shimmered in the air. Their half-petrified skin was able to withstand the searing temperature.

The sisters went to the barrels, caressed the lids. “We’ll need it all, just to be sure.” When they cracked open the barrels, Utros smelled the change in the air, a sour and portentous coppery tang.

Ava and Ruva watched with delight as burly soldiers lifted the barrels to the edge of the crucible with its roiling molten glass. The sorceresses muttered spells, called upon their gift, shifted the material structure of the mixture. At a signal, the soldiers tilted the kegs and poured the dark red liquid into the lake of glass. The screech of evaporating burned blood sounded like the wails of countless slain children. The red stain swirled in the molten slurry as Ava and Ruva used their gift to churn it like a thick stew of dark magic.

When it was done, both women let out a long sigh of relief. “The mixture is complete,” Ruva said. “The glass and blood can now become the lens. The innocent spirits have left their mark, and when the lens is finished, the invisible traces of their former lives will let you see through the veil.”

In the back of his mind Utros heard a hint of Majel’s voice, her laughter, whispered endearments she spoke to him after they had enjoyed each other. “How soon will it be ready?”

“Several steps remain,” Ava said. “We still have to pour and set the glass.”

In the dirt outside the command structure, they had fashioned a shallow crater six feet across. Releasing a trickle of power through the palms of their hands, they had fused the dirt and clay into a hard impenetrable mold. Now, the sisters broke open the drain in the giant crucible and guided the viscous blood-tinted fluid out, letting it pour into the hardened crater until it became a pool of solidifying glass.

Utros stood beside the two sorceresses, admiring the molten glass. The substance shimmered as it wrestled with its heat and its new shape.

“Even with our magic, it will take a day to cool, beloved Utros. Then we can perfect its surface, raise up the lens, and activate the final spell.”

Utros sighed and pushed back his anticipation. “I’ve waited fifteen centuries already, but one more day will seem like an eternity.”

The sorceresses stroked the general’s arms, pressing their cold, hard flesh against his. “We will help you through it,” Ruva said.

“Soon,” Ava whispered. “Soon, you will see through the veil.”

The next sunset, the clouds over the mountains grew crimson, as if the blood of children had been added to the sky, too. Utros watched, restless, his heart torn. He was ready to face the spirit of his emperor, ready to see his beloved Majel again.

A normal lens of such size would have taken weeks to cool gradually, insulated and controlled so as to leave no flaws in the glass, but Ava and Ruva guided the process themselves, using their gift to stroke the internal crystalline structure, to calm it as it hardened and stabilized. When they declared the blank lens ready, they knelt over the solidified pond of glass and used their hands to smooth and shape the outer surface. They fashioned the precise curve they had seen in their minds when they designed it.

When the process was complete, thirty of the general’s strongest soldiers attached ropes, used cloth-wrapped bars, and levered the hardened glass out of the crater mold, pulling it upright while the sorceresses formed a frame to hold the lens like a mirror, six feet high. The women went to opposite sides of the glass blank and worked with their hands, scrubbing, shaping, smoothing, making the lens transparent.

Utros was fascinated by every detail, but his thoughts were preoccupied with what he would say. As part of his long-standing orders from Iron Fang, he had continued the siege on Ildakar, and he had no doubt the city would fall eventually, but his mission for his emperor extended beyond Ildakar. He had promised to conquer the entire world, and he wouldn’t need all his thousands of warriors to maintain the siege here. He had already sent many armies out on important expeditions.

From his main palace in Orogang, Emperor Kurgan had wanted to rule the Old World. It was a fractured continent for the taking, and Utros had taken it. He had been shocked, but not surprised, when the emissary Nathan Rahl explained that the empire had swiftly fallen apart after Kurgan’s death. The conquered territories required firm military control, but Utros did not dream of administering an entire continent. His orders were to conquer, not rule.

While his awakened army continued the siege, he made plans to recapture the lands that had once fallen under his military fist. Some of his dispatched armies would make their way to the coast, some would travel south, others would head into the hills and mountains to the north, or along the Killraven River. They would head as far as they could march, seizing territory in the near-forgotten name of Emperor Kurgan.

As soon as he spoke to his emperor’s spirit, he would report great progress, even after fifteen centuries. If Kurgan could issue orders through the lens and continue to rule from the underworld, his empire could endure for eternity, and Utros could feel great satisfaction for having done his duty more thoroughly than any man in history.

But he felt a chill in his heart. Majel’s spirit was also there beyond the veil. Nathan and Nicci had told him that Iron Fang was aware of his wife’s betrayal with his own general. Did revenge survive fifteen centuries in the underworld? For a spirit, did time pass at all?

Utros stood before the blood-tinted lens. He was a brave and determined man, as history had shown countless times, but this might be his most unnerving encounter.

“Activate it now!” he demanded of Ava and Ruva. “I must see them.”

“We need to stay so we can use our gift and make the connection through the veil,” said Ruva, glancing at the uneasy spectators. “But these others…”

Ava looked at the nearby soldiers, who were troubled and frightened by the blood-tinted lens. “Yes, Utros. Perhaps privacy is best.”

He turned to First Commander Enoch. “Send all troops away, clear the area. I will have a private conversation with my emperor.”

“Understood, General.” Enoch barked orders, drove off the soldiers, and then retreated as well, while Utros stepped up to the looming glass disk. He could show no fear or hesitation, not to his emperor, not to his soldiers. At least now, no one could overhear his words.

As the sunset sank into deep twilight, the sorceresses went to opposite sides of the lens. The glass gleamed like a moonstone, translucent, showing only shadows in its interior. Whispering to each other now that they stood alone with the lens, Ava and Ruva reached up to touch the round rim. They sketched designs with their fingertips, dipping into the softened crystal and drawing spell-forms that glowed with orange heat. The designs continued to shimmer as the twins made successive marks, indicating anchor points around the rim.

Ava reached upward and clockwise, while Ruva drew downward and in the opposite direction. They completed ten runes, and each woman finished her last mark at the same time. The runes continued to blaze as the sorceresses stepped back.

Warmth and energy rippled through the glass, making the lens transparent, and then intensely clear, to show images not of the opposite side, but magnified through the veil, swirled with hints of a greenish mist.

Utros stepped even closer until his face was only inches from the curved surface. He peered into the blood-soaked glass and saw shapes there, spirits, shadows, the echoes of countless people, millions of slain, millions who had died of old age, countless men and women who had lived since the dawn of time. The Keeper had so many in his possession, so many.…

Utros longed to find the ones he needed. Moisture formed in his eyes, but he didn’t want to admit they were tears. “Majel,” he called, glad that no one else could hear him. “Where are you? I didn’t leave you. I still want you. We need to speak.” He would find Majel first, and afterward he could make his formal report to Iron Fang. His heart demanded satisfaction before his mind did. “Majel, where are you?”

The spirits seemed to hear him through the lens. Shapes were distant and infinite, but they responded and found the one he sought.

Ava and Ruva stood back, barely breathing, but Utros could pay attention only to the curved glass in front of him. As a figure came forward, he recognized the way she moved. He knew her instantly, because he had given her his heart.

“Majel…” He remembered her beauty, her shining eyes, the softness of her skin.

As she approached the lens, the greenish mists cleared. “Utros, is it you?” He knew the voice.

But when her image sharpened, Utros could only stare, feeling his heart break.

Majel’s face had been stripped away. Moving the raw red muscles of her jaw and her exposed, smashed teeth, she said, “I am here, my love.”