Steel and Stone

Chapter 10

Janusz took a deep breath to halt his tremors as he leaned away from his scrying bowl. Kitiara's face faded from the surface of the water.

She'd be safe for a time; he'd seen to that. The groping hands had returned to their owners in the Abyss. The wichtlin was now crawling harmlessly along the bottom of Ice Mountain Bay. It would have to search some time to find living souls to claim in those frigid depths.

The explosion of magic that allowed the mage to both scry and speak left his ears ringing and his hands trembling. For a moment, he feared he might faint. But it had been necessary. The mage had come within a heartbeat of losing Kitiara Uth Matar.

And Kitiara Uth-Matar was the only person who could tell him where the nine ice jewels were.

He had only two of the ice jewels, one of which the ettin carried, and he thanked Morgion for the luck that had prompted him to hold back two of the eleven purple gemstones in the encampment at the Meir's castle.

Janusz eyed the iridescent jewel that lay atop an alabaster pedestal on the table. The purple crystal, the size of a small egg, glowed as if it contained all the knowledge of Krynn burning within it. The doltish gnome who'd sold him the jewels had launched into a tiresome litany of the stones' history. The mage had ignored much of the creature's prattling, but one thing lingered in Janusz's memory-that the gnome believed the jewels had hailed ultimately from the Ice-reach. Staring into the amethyst-colored orb now, the mage didn't doubt that its glittering coldness had been formed in the snowy reaches. That was why he'd persuaded the Valdane to flee to the southernmost point of Ansalon. They'd come to the Icereach in search of more jewels. And under the spell of the ice jewel, the Valdane's dream had expanded, grown from a yen to overrun a neighboring fiefdom to a hunger to command the entire world.

Janusz forced himself to look away from the stone, but the movement seared his eyes. The jewel held his gaze like a spell. The mage had commanded dozens of ettin slaves to search ceaselessly for the spot that just might offer up more ice jewels-because, he told the Valdane, the jewels could hold the secret to the Valdane's ultimate power over all of Ansalon. In truth, Janusz hoped that the charismatic stones would do far more for the mage himself than for the Valdane-that, in short, they would show Janusz how to dispel the bloodlink that bound him to the ruler's will. But that would occur, if ever, only far in the future, after exhausting years of study, he knew.

The mage quaked inwardly at the risk he was taking in letting Res-Lacua carry one of the precious artifacts, but it was necessary if Janusz were to use the stones to teleport the ettin and Kitiara to the Icereach. That was one mystery of the stones that the mage, through months of study, had been able to discover. Handled correctly and cautiously, the stones allowed him to teleport objects, both living and nonliving, from the site of one jewel to the whereabouts of another.

When Kitiara arrived at the top of Fever Mountain in Darken Wood, the mage would use the ettin's ice jewel to bring them both to the ice warren. Then, he vowed, he would interrogate her himself and discover the hiding place of the other nine precious stones.

Janusz forced himself upright, rolled back the sleeves of his robe, and glanced at the entrance to his chamber. The mage sat atop a stool. Obviously made from the same magical ice from which the mage had fashioned the ice warren, the stool was festooned with a brocaded version of the canvas that protected the walls and floor. Off to the right, a curl of steam rose from a ceramic beaker set over a flame. Dozens of stoppered containers littered the worktable.

A window broke the monotony of the room's walls. The opening showed a panorama of the Ice-reach. Snow swirled around an outcropping of ice. Janusz glanced at the window and swore. He muttered an incantation, traced a figure in the air, and the scene in the window shifted to one showing a castle, flying black and purple pennants at every spire. Golden sunlight poured over the scene, and the mage's face looked wistful for a moment.

The walls of Janusz's Icereach quarters, of course, were of solid ice. But the door was equally solid oak, banded with iron, teleported by the ice jewel to this accursed frozen wasteland months ago.

"Not that time matters in this place," Janusz muttered. "Forsaken by the gods. A fraction of a year, a fraction of a lifetime. What's the difference?"

There were no seasons now, no shy blooming as of a spring maiden after winter's crone had eased her dying clutch upon the land. He smiled at his fanciful-ness. Habits died hard. He'd been a romantic soul long ago.

Once time had mattered. Once he'd felt himself bloom with the seasons, had felt his heart expand and thaw with the warming of the soil and the unfolding of new leaves. His romanticism may have been laughable, given the grayness of his hair and the wrinkles that creased his cheeks from nose to mouth. But he'd known true love-he'd known Dreena-and the world had seemed young and new.

"Pah!" he muttered, and pushed the useless past from his mind. "My heart is as frozen as the Icereach."

The walls, floor, and ceiling, were solid slabs of ice, slicked to a mirrorlike smoothness. Much of the icy surface was covered with thin canvas to protect the warren's occupants from sticking to the ice in the same way that warm flesh adheres to frigid metal on an especially cold day.

"An especially cold day," he repeated now. Janusz laughed soundlessly. "There are no days here that don't fit that description."

There was no fuel for a real fire, nor was there a fireplace. A fireplace of ice? No, and magical blazes drained too much of his strength. It took nearly all his power these days to keep track of Kitiara and Res-Lacua, a continent to the north. Even now, he'd had to expend still more energy to give Res-Lacua the power to speak in Common rather than in the orcish gibberish the ettins used. The beast might need to speak to Kitiara in order to lure her to Fever Mountain.

Janusz swore an oath to Morgion and crashed a fist against the frozen tabletop, sending the water slopping over the edge of the scrying bowl and cascading down the front of his robe.

He cursed again and dabbed at the black wool with a linen cloth. Once he'd aspired to the white robes of good magic. But now there were only snow and ice and evil in Janusz's life. Even now, within the ice warren, winds insinuated themselves through chink and crack to swirl around his wool-enshrouded ankles. The castle should have been warmer. After all, he'd supervised the building, overseen the crews of thick-backed and thicker-headed ettins. They'd performed the labor that his magic couldn't manage.

Janusz's robe, double-woven of the rarest wool, served him ill as a barrier against the needle-sharp winds of this cursed land. Everything in the room was bluish, bathed in the light that gleamed from Janusz's magical ice. There was no need for lanterns; the walls themselves lit the castle. But the mage longed for a warm lamp with orange-yellow flame. He longed for Kern.

These days he had only his memories to keep him warm. The banality of that thought, as well as its futility, brought a grim smile to his lips, for he did have something else to warm him-his hunger for revenge. He'd had plenty of time to devise ingenious methods of torturing Kitiara.

Suddenly the oak door shuddered beneath a great blow and crashed open. "Janusz!"

The mage leaped up. His mortar and pestle tipped, rolled, and dropped with a clatter, spilling half-ground herbs over the table and floor. His shock quickly passed. The Valdane often thundered into a room like a god of war. Janusz tried to pull together a semblance of dignity before the tall man who came to a halt before him. "By the god Morgion, Valdane," the mage said laconically, "what demon keeps you warm?"

The leader still dressed as he had in the warmest months back in Kern-black hose, white gathered shirt of watered silk, sleeveless purple doublet with gold braid, purple cape, black steel-tipped boots with steel rivets in the soles. The fashionable outfit, Janusz knew, had played well with the ladies back in Kern. Today, however, the Valdane's eyes were bloodshot against the carrot-orange of his lashes, brows, and hair. His complexion was nearly bloodless; the sun-enhanced freckles that had given him such a ludicrously boyish cast in Kern had faded in the long nights of the Icereach. His eyes, while still blue in the brightest light of what passed for spring here, now tended more toward gray.

"Hatred keeps me warm, mage," the Valdane replied. "That, and my plans for my future."

The Valdane, who never seemed to be cold, also seemed never to sleep. Often late at night, as Janusz pored over his spellbooks and replenished his spell components, he heard the leader's metal-soled tread in the ice-girded hallway outside the mage's quarters.

The mage uprighted the mortar, swept spilled powder into his hand, and returned it to the bowl. "You sought me for a reason, Valdane? Or merely to chat?" he asked mildly.

A flutter of the man's eyelashes suggested the ruler wasn't fooled by Janusz's nonchalance. "When will you bring Kitiara here?" he demanded.

The mage sighed. "I've told you that. As soon as the ettin can lure her to the top of the mountain."

"You can see her by scrying. Use your accursed jewel to bring her here now."

"She must be near the other ice jewel for the teleportation to work," said the mage. "Even then it is dangerous. How often must I explain this?"

"And if the ettin fails?"

"He won't."

"Kitiara has the morals of an alley cat. You say she's picked up another lover? What if this new lover and the old one together are able to slay the ettin?"

Janusz didn't lower his gaze. "I have faith in the ettin."

"I believe you are losing control, mage."

Janusz felt blood rush to his face. "My powers are considerable, Valdane, but they, like all magical powers, have their limits." He spat out each word. "Spells weaken me physically, as with all mages. And also as with all mages, I lose a spell from my mind when I use it, and I must study it again. That takes me late into each night." He gestured toward a shelf of parchment-leaved books with deep blue leather covers. "You ordered that I transport hundreds of ettins and minotaurs to the Icereach-which, of course, required me also to create living quarters for them. I must maintain and enlarge this warren, provide what little heat I can spare to keep it warm, and do my best to control the ettins, minotaurs, and thanoi."

"The walrus men," the ruler said, "are native to the Icereach. The thanoi sleep out in the open, so you didn't have to provide them shelter."

"It's little relief. I must scry the ettin and Kitiara, expending vast bursts of energy to communicate with Res-Lacua over the vast distances. You're taxing the limits of my powers already, Valdane, and there's not a mage on Krynn who could serve you better."

"Certainly none with better motivation," the Valdane murmured.

Unheeding, Janusz went on. "l must produce or teleport the food and supplies we need. I must scry for you, oversee the mercenaries and slaves, and do countless other tasks. I must do all this on but three hours of sleep each night."

The Valdane leaned against a brocade-covered stool, twin to the one the mage occupied. He waited until the mage's outburst had burned itself out. "Yet think of the prize that awaits, Janusz. The man who has the ice jewels and knows their secret can rule Krynn. Think of the armies that could be teleported around Ansalon! The tactical advantage!" He licked his lips with a red tongue, and Janusz averted his eyes in revulsion.

"Think of the power," the Valdane said, smiling. He studied the mage. Then he reached to his belt and withdrew an ornate dagger. Pointedly ignoring Janusz, he tested the point by using it to stroke the thin skin over the pulse at his wrist. It was like pricking the vein of a dead man. The wound remained clean and bloodless, then, in an eyeblink, closed smoothly, leaving no scar. "Should we test the bloodlink further, mage?" Valdane teased. "Or are you loyal to me?"

"Don't!" The cry was wrenched from the mage.

The Valdane laughed and slipped the weapon back into its sheath. He was still chortling as he reached the doorway. Once there, he commented without turning to face Janusz, "Remember your family, mage. Your brothers and sisters would have been grown by now, wouldn't they?"

Remember his family? As if he could ever forget. The door slammed behind the red-haired man. As if he could forget.

As a child, Janusz had had the easy good looks of many children. He'd shown magical ability early, but his family had been as poor as the rest of the farm workers in the fiefdom north of the city of Kernen. The only relief in their pressing poverty came each midwinter, when the peasants gathered at the castle of the Valdane's father to seek their yearly boon-a special gift, determined by the Valdane himself.

Janusz's parents, burdened with too many children and seeking to provide training for at least one of their offspring, had brought him to the Valdane's castle in his tenth year. Bowing low, they'd asked that Valdane to take the boy into court and see to his training in magic. The boy would repay him amply in service and fealty, they were sure.

Janusz saw that midwinter festival now as clearly as though it were yesterday. He recalled the worried blue eyes of the then-Valdane and the sharper, more eager look of the boy, Janusz's age, who sat on a small throne next to his father and mimicked his sovereign's every move.

The Valdane drew Janusz and his parents out of earshot of the rest of the court. Yes, the Valdane told the couple, he would agree to their plan, but with one codicil-that the lad agree to a blood bond, sealed with magic, with the Valdane's own young son.

The Valdane then took the young Janusz aside. "I know of you," the old Valdane had said, his lined face close to Janusz's young one. He smelled of sickness;

his hands were desiccated claws. "I have heard of your early promise in magic. My aides tell me you will have great power when you are grown." He coughed, reached for the lad, and leaned heavily on the boy's shoulder. "It speaks well of your parents to want the court to have the advantage of your considerable gifts."

Janusz had looked at the marble floor, not knowing what to say. He knew why he and his parents, Sabrina and Godan, were here. They were expecting another child; the hut in the valley was already bursting with children. The man and woman needed strong offspring, children who could work from first light to the last in the fields. This slender, easily fatigued boy had brought them but little income for performing sleight-of-hand tricks at fairs.

"Lad?" the Valdane whispered. Young Janusz had looked up into the man's eyes, marked at the edges with wrinkles of pain. Then the youngster glanced at his parents. His mother clutched her patched robe before her, her pregnancy showing.

"I will do it," he said resolutely.

"A blood bond is not an easy life," the older man cautioned. "You will be trained in magic, true, but you will have to use that magic as my son commands."

The warning brought the boy up short. "What if he orders something I believe is wrong?"

The Valdane smiled. "It's been a long time since anyone questioned a Valdane about the morality of any decision. It's refreshing to hear someone consider it." He looked back toward the group clustered around the large empty throne and the small one that was occupied by his son, Janusz's age. The youngster, hair gleaming orange in the torchlight, was gesturing imperiously, giving orders to the Valdane's top aides, who hesitated, obviously hoping the ruler would return and countermand the dictums.

"Janusz," the Valdane had asked urgently, "are you a good person? And do you intend to become a good man, to eschew all forms of evil?"

"I hope to wear the white robes of good, sir."

The Valdane's forehead furrowed. "But are you strong of will?" He gripped Janusz's arms above the elbows and squeezed painfully. Beads of sweat appeared on the leader's upper lip.

"My mother says I am egregiously stubborn, sir," Janusz replied.

At that, he found himself looking deep into the ruler's eyes. The Valdane had smiled again faintly. "Mothers are wont to say that to boys of your age, lad," he whispered. "My own wife, also." The ruler's smile died. Then he pierced Janusz with a stare. His hands were hot with fever.

"I wouldn't do this if I had any choice," he said to the boy. "Blood bonds haven't been chanced here for many generations. But… I will try to provide for you. You are sure about your decision? You make it freely, without pressure from your family? You must provide a steadying influence on my only son. He is prone to be selfish. I'm afraid I've been a poor father to him, especially these last months."

Janusz had let his gaze wander over the sumptuous hall, stifling with the heat from three fireplaces. The remains of a great repast were still on the table. The picked-over roasts, pocked with congealed fat, made him salivate with hunger. He hadn't had meat or milk in over a month. Then he caught his parents' anxious gaze. His mother was sagging against his father's arm.

"I'll do it, sir," Janusz said. "You can count on me."

The Valdane, his reluctance obvious, summoned his wizard and his son for the secret, illegal ceremony.

Not long after, the Valdane and his wife died suddenly. It hadn't taken long to discover the true tenor of the new Valdane's young soul. Janusz gave up hope of wearing the white robes someday.

A few years after that, as mage and the new Valdane were entering manhood, Janusz had added a hefty dose of poison to the Valdane's ale and watched carefully as his blood twin quaffed the drink. But it had been Janusz, not the Valdane, who had grabbed at his throat and collapsed to the floor, writhing on the flagstones.

The young Valdane watched from his chair at the dining table. "Someone see to my mage, please," he announced dispassionately. "He appears to have drunk something that disagrees with him."

Then he leaned toward Janusz, his eyes chips of flint, and whispered, "Or maybe I did, eh, Janusz?" At that time, Janusz had known the bloodlink had cursed him forever. The mage would suffer what the Valdane deserved. Gasping, Janusz ordered the antidote to the poison, but he came close to death. Thus had begun Janusz's deterioration, even as the Valdane continued to boast the health of a young man.

"I cannot kill him," the mage had whispered in agony that night, "for I will die instead." And the Valdane would be left to torment, unchecked, all who opposed him.

Janusz's family died only two weeks after his failed attempt on the Valdane's life.

The fire that killed Janusz's family had been an accident, according to the Kernish reeve who investigated the tragedy. Janusz's parents hadn't cleaned the flue in ages; the deposits from years of wood fires had ignited, showering sparks on the tinder-dry roof. Or so the reeve, who owed his job and life to the Valdane, had informed Janusz.

Janusz hadn't seen the point in pressing the man for further explanation. He didn't ask the reeve how the door of the hut had come to be barricaded the night the family died. The neighbors who had rushed to his family's aid told him they couldn't pry the entrance open. They could only cover their ears as the trapped family screamed from within, engulfed by the inferno.

The message wasn't lost on the mage. Over the next decades, Janusz wore himself ragged protecting his leader-and thus himself. Three times the Valdane's enemies had attempted to kill the ruler, twice by poison and once by knife. Each time it was the mage who had cried out and collapsed. Each time the Valdane had emerged unscathed, able to slay the attacker. Stories were whispered throughout Kern that the Valdane was immortal, that the rumor of a bloodlink was true. The peasants watched the mage, and hate burned in their worn faces, but none dared attack a spell-caster of Janusz's repute. The Valdane was remorseless in his pursuit of those who opposed him. One by one his enemies died of strange illnesses or simply disappeared in the night. Eventually no one was left in the region who would stand against him-until the Valdane turned his eyes toward the lands of the Meir.