The Hickory Staff

THE ESTRAD RIVER

The cove was a perfect campsite, a small clearing in a grove of evergreen trees, the riverbank almost semi-circular at that spot. Steven felt as though he were back along the Big Thompson in Colorado’s highlands. He was still getting used to the way night fell so quickly in Eldarn – he was glad he had given his watch to Garec, as knowing what time it was at home would only confuse his circadian rhythms further. He amused himself by calculating the maths: if a day here was twenty hours long, then the equivalent of one calendar year would have more than four hundred and thirty Eldarn days and seven full Twinmoons. Gilmour had said the massacre at Sandcliff Palace took place nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons ago. According to Steven’s figures, that would have been about the same time that William Higgins was depositing the far portal and Lessek’s Key in his brand-new safety deposit box at the fledgling Bank of Idaho Springs, late in the year 1870.

Steven’s thoughts turned again to the old man. He liked Gilmour, but he still found it difficult to believe the man was more than two hundred and sixty years old. If Gilmour had lived more than nineteen hundred Twinmoons, he would be the oldest man in the world – by a century and a half.

‘Oldest man in the world,’ he whispered to no one. ‘He’d be the oldest man on Earth, at least. I guess I can’t say whether he’s very old by Eldarni standards.’ He dismissed the thought as irrelevant right now, but he was a little distressed at the number of thoughts he had been forced to dismiss over the past three days. Nothing made sense anymore. He was afraid that if he endeavoured to deal with everything that had been frustrating, confusing, or terrifying since his arrival in Rona, he would have a complete emotional breakdown. No, if he wanted to keep his head level, he would have to ignore the numerous inexplicable aspects of the life and times of Eldarn.

He strode to the river’s edge and peered down at the water. Cupping his hands over his eyes, Steven narrowed his vision so all he could see was the river rushing by, in perfect perpetual rhythm, towards the ocean south of Estrad Village. He took deep, relaxing breaths and imagined himself standing on the banks of Clear Creek as it careened riotously through Idaho Springs. Feeling better, he knelt down and splashed icy water on his face and then rubbed two handfuls on the back of his neck. The cold felt good against his skin and once again he felt his hopes rise, an upswing on the emotional roller-coaster he had ridden since his fateful decision to breach his bank’s code of ethics and open William Higgins’ deposit box. If there was enough familiarity in Eldarn for him to have a few refreshing moments near a stream, perhaps it was all right to hope he and Mark might find their way home.

Mark joined him on the riverbank. Without speaking, he stripped to his underwear and strode boldly into the water. Steven smiled: that was Mark; finds himself in a foreign world filled with magic, war, demon creatures and no discernable way back home and instead of worrying, strips to boxers and enjoys an evening swim. Looking back over his shoulder, Steven could see the Ronans taking an interest in Mark’s antics as well.

Brynne looked at him questioningly, but all Steven could do was to shrug and shake his head.

‘Hey,’ Mark called, ‘c’mon in. It’s only cold for a second.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Steven replied, still smiling. ‘How can you just go swimming like that? Like you’re at a community pool in the suburbs?’

Mark shook the water from his face and answered, ‘Well, I figure either way we have to go into Welstar Palace, and from what everyone says, entering Welstar is just about the most dangerous and life-threatening decision we can make while we’re here in Eldarn.’ He started backstroking towards the centre of the river.

‘What does that have to do with swimming?’

Mark stopped again and trod water. ‘I’m swimming because I can,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It helps me to distance myself from this growing certainty that we’re never getting out of this place alive.’

Steven contemplated Mark’s words for a moment then quickly peeled off his own clothes and jumped into the icy water, shouting as the cold struck his skin with the force of a hard slap. He dived beneath the surface and saw the brown, pebbled river bottom was dotted here and there with larger smooth stones.

The mundane normality of the riverbed, like his first sight of the little cove, brought him a measure of comfort. He was glad Mark had talked him into this pre-dinner swim. He was right: they had to actively control whatever they could, because there were so many things about Eldarn that seemed to flail about wildly out of reach, things they had no control over whatsoever.

Breaking the surface, he gasped for breath, then grinned at his roommate as if to say thank you, but Mark was already moving towards the riverbank. ‘Where are you going?’ Steven called.

‘I’ve been sweating for three days in this heat. I’m going to wash my clothes.’ Mark stepped from the water and collected up his bundle, but just as he was about to throw everything in, he stopped short.

‘What’s the matter?’ Steven climbed up the bank to pick up his own pile of clothing; he tossed it into the shallows along the river’s edge.

‘I just remembered grabbing a book of matches at Owen’s the other night. I don’t want them to get wet. Who knows when we might need ’em.’ He poked through his pockets until he discovered the matchbook, folded up with several crumpled pieces of parchment.

‘Oh, this is the paper I found back at Riverend as well. I’m glad I checked. We might need that too.’ He dropped the matches and parchment on the ground before dropping his clothes into the river. The two men sat companionably in the knee-deep shallows, scrubbing their clothing clean, before clambering out to squeeze as much water as possible from each piece and hanging the lot from sundry tree branches around the camp.

When Garec called them for dinner, Mark, still wearing only his damp boxers, moved towards the fire-pit, chivvying up his friend. ‘C’mon Steven, there’s rabbit to be eaten over here.’

‘Grand,’ Steven answered sarcastically. ‘Let’s eat the Easter Bunny, shall we?’

‘Hey, don’t laugh. It smells pretty tasty.’ Mark dragged a fallen log to the edge of the fire and dropped down on it as if he were falling into a comfortable sofa.

‘You’re right. At this point I’m so hungry I could eat a fried dog,’ he said and sat next to Mark.

‘I’ll check with the chef: I do believe Eldani Fried Dog is on the menu for tomorrow.’ They both laughed, but Garec was disgusted that anyone would ever think of eating pets.

‘It’s really okay, it’s just a joke about one of our – er, eating establishments back home… you know, 20,000 flies can’t be wrong,’ Mark tried to explain. It wasn’t long before the incredulous group were giggling at the thought of breakfast cereal that could be used to spell words, beer that came in metal cans and whole cooked chickens served in colourful paper buckets.

After dinner, Mika cleaned their pots in the river and Versen gathered more firewood to see them through the night. Sallax sipped thoughtfully from a goblet of Garec’s family wine and Brynne unrolled her blankets on an area of smooth ground near the fire. Mark felt a tense knot in his stomach loosen when he saw how close to him Brynne had decided to sleep, but he couldn’t catch her eye.

He and Steven had borrowed some of Garec’s clothes while theirs dried in the warm night air. Gilmour poked at the fire with a branch, then abandoned his apparent fascination with the flames to fill his pipe from a leather pouch tucked inside his riding cloak. There was tension in the air, but no one seemed willing to break the mood by prompting Gilmour to elaborate on his startling morning revelation. Finally, Gilmour himself broke the wary mood as he poured himself a goblet of wine and invited everyone to join him around the fire.

‘Come my friends, we have much to discuss,’ he said, patting an empty log beside him.

Brynne sat next to Steven. Leaning over to him she whispered, ‘This is difficult for all of us. It must be especially maddening for you two.’

Steven ran his palms back and forth along the coarse homespun fabric of his borrowed leggings. ‘I’m just glad we met people we could trust. I really am sorry for the way we treated you at Riverend Palace.’

She reached over and took his hand. It was the same gesture Hannah had used when reaching for him over fajitas that afternoon in Denver. Steven smiled inwardly at the memory; that had been a good day.

‘That’s all right,’ Brynne said. ‘You believed it was your only way out at the time.’

‘At least then it felt like we had a way out.’ He tried not to allow his anxiety to show in the tone of his voice.

‘It will be all right, Steven, I’m confident things will work out in the end.’ She patted his hand again, comforting him with her touch.

Versen and Mika joined them around the fire; Sallax stood nearby, keeping watch for potential assailants approaching through the forest.

Gilmour looked at each of them in turn before beginning, ‘My friends, I want you to understand from the start that whatever you hear tonight, whatever you may learn, I am still Gilmour, still your friend and your compatriot. You may think I have withheld a great deal from you in the many Twinmoons we have known one another, but do not blame me for that. You are like my children to me, and the greatest joy I have felt in the last fifty Twinmoons has come from knowing each of you.’ He looked at Garec as if the young man held a special place in his heart, then turned to Mark and Steven. ‘And you two represent the culmination of more than nine hundred Twinmoons’ anticipation for someone who has-’ he grinned at Steven ‘-or at least has knowledge of Lessek’s Key.’

He waved his pipe around. ‘This is the most excited I have been in half my life. I – we – may finally have an opportunity to defeat Nerak, to close the Fold for ever and to ensure the clouds of hatred, mistrust, violence and oppression that have been destroying Eldarn for six generations will at last be lifted.

‘It’s not going to be easy, though. Nerak is the most powerful being in this world, and his mission is to gather enough information to safely release his master. With evil’s origin free from its prison inside the Fold, nothing will ever be as it was. No one will survive except perhaps as slaves – and I for one would far rather die in the initial explosion of power and hatred than live to serve such a master.’

Steven interrupted him. ‘How can all evil be in one place?’ he asked.

‘It can’t. As I tried to explain earlier, small pieces, the tiniest spores, have broken free from the essence and slipped into our world over thousands of generations. The evil around us is a reality, it is one of the things we learn shortly after birth. There are terrifying and destructive things, hideous, black and frightening things in the world we all avoid, but they are always there.

‘The evil we seek to defeat came to Eldarn through the Fold when Nerak attempted to control the magic of Lessek’s spell table. Much of it scattered, in myriad directions: angry words, frightening thoughts and violent tendencies. But the minion Nerak freed was larger and more powerful than those tiny spores that have slipped across the Fold throughout time. The spores that make up this minion, perhaps driven by an edict from within the Fold, stayed together rather than scattering: a focused power that claimed Nerak, devoured his soul and gained what knowledge he had of Eldarn. It consumed the members of Eldarn’s royal family, hid Lessek’s Key and the more powerful portal in your bank, Steven, and then returned across the Fold to begin its reign of terror.’

He tossed a small log on the fire then added, ‘It kills for the sheer joy of feeling the fear in its victims’ hearts. It knows no reason. It will destroy all that is good and decent around it while it takes as long as necessary to study the magic of Lessek’s legacy, the Larion spell table.’

‘Wait one moment, Gilmour,’ Mark stopped him. ‘How did it get back from Idaho Springs if the far portal was closed and locked in Steven’s bank? I thought the portal had to be open for it to travel across the Fold.’

‘An excellent question,’ the old man answered. ‘For thousands of Twinmoons, the Larion Senate used far portals to conduct research and exploration in your world, and yes, we ensured both portals were always open. It was the only way we knew we could return home. The portal in your living room will pinpoint a position as long as it remains open. The portal in Malagon’s palace will find your world, but unless both portals are open, it will not pinpoint a destination.’

The implications were not lost on Steven. ‘So that means we might end up anywhere on Earth when we go back?’

‘Only if someone has gone into our house and closed the portal,’ Mark clarified. ‘If no one closes it, we’ll both get dropped right back in the living room, right?’

‘Oh, Jesus!’ Steven exclaimed. ‘With us gone, I’m sure someone will go in there – my parents maybe, or Howard.’ Steven’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Or even Hannah,’ he said, his voice stricken.

‘It’s a risk you cannot avoid,’ Gilmour interjected, ‘but I haven’t answered your question, Mark. Yes, Nerak can cross the Fold with only one portal open, but he is at the mercy of the weaker portal, just like the two of you will be. If he enters the portal in Malagon’s palace, he will be dropped anywhere in your world. Back when he hid Lessek’s Key, he simply entered your world, assessed the area where he arrived and decided on your bank as a reasonable temporary hiding place.’

‘So he didn’t choose Colorado?’ Brynne asked.

‘No. He landed there, most likely devoured several souls and used their knowledge to determine the safest hiding place for Lessek’s Key.’ Gilmour looked around for the wineskin and filled his goblet. ‘Coming back, he used what magic he had gleaned from previous trips across the Fold to find the open portal here in Eldarn.’

Steven summed up, as much for himself as anyone else, ‘So, if the portal in our house stays open, we can get back home, but Nerak can also get right into the room where Lessek’s Key lies unprotected. If the portal in our house is closed, Nerak can still get back to our world, but he will have to make a trip to Idaho Springs and then search for the key when he finds it missing from the bank.’

‘That is correct,’ Gilmour told him, ‘and to be honest with you, I must hope someone closes the portal in your house. If Nerak travels to your world and doesn’t find the key in your bank, I’m not certain he will deduce that it lies waiting in your home.’

‘What will he do if he doesn’t find the key where he hid it back in 1870?’ Mark feared the worst and Gilmour confirmed his suspicions.

‘He will take any available souls, glean what information he can from them and hopefully track down Lessek’s Key from their knowledge of you two.’ Somehow Gilmour’s pipe became lit and he blew a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke above the fire.

Steven looked at Mark, his eyes filled with terror. ‘Howard and Myrna.’

‘Oh God, you’re right.’ Mark was frightened as well. ‘But hopefully, they won’t have thought anything of a random rock sitting out in our house; maybe that will throw Nerak off our trail.’

‘Listen to what you’re saying,’ Steven implored. ‘Even to get to that point means Howard and Myrna will be dead.’

Mark didn’t respond immediately, but instead set his jaw with grim determination, an uncertain warrior preparing for an unavoidable battle. ‘Then we’ll just have to get there first.’

‘That is our best option,’ Gilmour agreed. ‘If we can get back through the far portal in Welstar Palace before Nerak, we will have control of both portals and Lessek’s Key.’

‘That’s it, then,’ Garec spoke up. ‘That’s how we’ll do it.’

Sallax was not as encouraged. ‘That means we have to get to Malakasia, survive long enough to enter the lion’s den, succeed in breaching Malagon’s- Nerak’s most powerful defences, find and steal the far portal, open it for long enough to get the three of you through, wait around for Gilmour to get back with the stone key and then close off our end for ever. Forgive me, my friends, but that plan does not fill me with confidence.’ Looking directly at Gilmour, Sallax asked, ‘Can you tell me how you expect us to survive such an assault?’

Garec watched Gilmour; for the second time since they had left Estrad his usually ebullient friend looked old and tired. He stared across the fire at the Ronan Resistance leader. ‘I’m not certain we will live through it. But I wouldn’t even consider this plan were it anything less than essential to the survival of our world… both our worlds.’ Then, surprising everyone, he added, ‘And, as luck would have it, we won’t be going in alone.’

‘Really?’ Garec asked. ‘Who’s coming with us?’

‘Kantu,’ Gilmour said.

The entire company looked bemused; the name was unknown to any of them. Garec raised his eyebrows in query.

‘Kantu is the only other surviving Larion Senator,’ Gilmour elucidated. ‘He’s in Praga.’

‘Only two survivors of that night at Sandcliff Palace?’ Mika asked, shocked. ‘How did you two live through it?’

‘Well, Kantu survived because he was on the opposite side of Eldarn at the time. My survival is another story.’

The river babbled by their small clearing, a watery highway leading through the forest, ignorant of and indifferent to the problems faced by the company of freedom fighters.

Steven was overwhelmed. The idea that the key to save the world from unimaginable evil was lying in a plain rosewood box on his desk was mind-blowing. He feared for Howard and Myrna, but all the same, he hoped against hope that the tapestry was still lying on the floor in their living room, so he, Mark and Gilmour could step through the Fold, retrieve Lessek’s Key and send Gilmour back with the rock in a matter of seconds.

If the portal had been closed, they might get transported anywhere on Earth – to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or to the top of a Himalayan peak maybe. It might take days, or even weeks to reach Colorado from wherever they landed, weeks during which his new friends would have to keep their Eldani portal open. Their only hope would be to steal the portal from Welstar Palace and find a safe place to open it, somewhere they could defend their position until Gilmour returned with Lessek’s Key.

Steven was suddenly overcome by a desire to get packed and moving on. Waiting around, guessing at outcomes was nearly unbearable, a stress he couldn’t take. He looked around nervously and felt Brynne lay a comforting hand on his back. She rubbed her fingers along his shoulder, hoping to calm him down. Turning towards her, he saw again why Mark found the young woman so attractive. Her skin glowed palely in the warm firelight: she was without artifice and quite beautiful. As he admired Brynne’s natural loveliness, Steven’s thoughts turned yet again to Hannah. Where was she? Had she called, or driven out to find him? He remembered the telephone ringing several times while he was struggling with the decision to follow Mark through the far portal. It must have been her. He cursed himself for not answering.

Gilmour’s revelations, his willingness to disclose everything, had instilled confidence in Mika, the youngest of the partisans; he prompted Gilmour to continue his story.

‘Tell us about that night, then,’ he said with enthusiastic curiosity. ‘How did you survive when so many were killed?’

‘Mika, I have never been sure how I survived that night at Sandcliff and except for blind luck, I’m not convinced any other force in the Northern Forest lent a hand to save me. I will admit, though, there have been many times in the past nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons when I wished I had been among those who fell defending Lessek’s research and writings. For some reason, I was allowed to escape. I have never been certain why so many had to give their lives while I was permitted to go free. When I face Nerak, and I will one day face him, I might ask him that question.’

Gilmour stood for a moment, stretched his tired back muscles then sat down again near the fire.

‘So you believe he let you escape?’ Versen asked.

‘I am convinced he let me escape,’ Gilmour responded. ‘He could have killed me very easily. All he had to do was come down a flight of stairs to the scroll library and I would have been at his mercy. He never did.’ He broke a wood chip from a log near his feet and tossed it into the fire. ‘I can only speculate. Maybe he let me go because he looked forward to the cat-and-mouse games we’ve been playing since I jumped from the window that night. If evil’s disciple read Nerak’s thoughts as it devoured his soul, it would have learned that Nerak, Kantu and I were equals, leaders among the Larion Senate. It would also have learned that Kantu was off in Praga, but that I was right there at Sandcliff. Perhaps it let me go because it anticipated an enjoyable time hunting us down and taking our souls.

‘The three of us were division leaders of the Larion Senate. Kantu coordinated our efforts in education and public health. I was in charge of research and scholarship and Nerak provided leadership for our ongoing work in magic and medicine. For many Twinmoons, he was one of my best friends; I respected his work both as a scholar and as a magician. But Lessek he was not. Nerak was more acutely aware of that shortcoming than he was of anything positive he and his team brought to Eldarn.’

Gilmour sighed, then continued reflectively, ‘It snowed hard that night and I remember watching from the window in my chambers as it coated the palace grounds in a thin white blanket. I loved Sandcliff Palace. It wasn’t lavish; far from it, but the Larion Senate was a true community of scholars, and everyone kept an open mind about new ideas and research. The palace was always alive with questions and discourse, true dialogue instead of debate. We Larion Senators honestly believed we were improving life in Eldarn by bringing knowledge, medicine and advanced technologies to the people of the five lands.’

He looked over at Stephen and Mark, who were listening intently. ‘We were impressed with the advances your world showed in weaponry and warfare: gunpowder, the cannon and flintlock rifle were tempting prizes. But our culture strictly forbade it. We would never have brought such instruments back to Eldarn. Not even Nerak would have betrayed that belief.’

‘What about after he was taken by the minion?’ Mark asked, ‘why not go back and gather up weapons, bombs, viruses? Our world is filled with weapons.’

‘Nerak would not have brought such implements into Eldarn because the Larion Senate would have punished him, limited his access to the far portals and worse, the spell table.’ Gilmour looked towards the river; they could hear the gentle rushing over the crackle and hiss of the fire. ‘When he was taken, Nerak was controlled by an evil so powerful that I am certain he was convinced such weapons would pale in comparison to the strength of his own magic.’

‘Would they?’ Steven asked.

‘From what I saw that day at Gettysburg, those weapons would have little impact on Nerak.’ He went on with the tale. ‘Sandcliff wasn’t much of a palace, certainly not like Riverend, although the passages were charmed, so they were tricky to navigate if one didn’t know the spells. It was just a simple stone-walled keep, the only adornment the colourful Pragan carpets and tapestries we used to keep out the cold; it was our culture that made Sandcliff such a wonderful place to live and work. Our mantras were risk-taking, creativity, service and scholarship, and as I said, Eldarn was a better world for our efforts.

‘When Nerak destroyed all that, he opened the door for an era of worldwide mistrust, hatred, selfishness and discord.’ He stopped again, this time looking at the Ronans. ‘I am truly sorry you have all had to grow up in such a culture.

‘As daylight faded on the evening of the slaughter, I knew Nerak would be in Lessek’s chamber working to master the spells contained within the great stone table. He was driven to succeed from the start, and more passionate about his work than anyone in the Larion Senate. In the days preceding his fall, he had sequestered himself in Lessek’s research chamber, poring over our founder’s writings and experimenting with spells he had called from deep within the table’s recesses. Nerak was coordinator of magic and medicine, so it was normal for him to keep the stone key in his possession. Although I shared my concern for his safety, there was little I could do to get him to turn it over to me. There were rumours that he was planning to dismantle the senate structure, to banish us all, once he finally mastered the magic that would give him enough power, but there was no proof.’

‘When the attack came, I was in my chambers, working. The first thing I heard were great booming sounds coming from several floors below mine. I thought that one of my colleagues was experimenting with a spell to control the weather. Many Larions came from the south, and few appreciated snow. Winters in Gorsk are long and hard; by mid-season every Larion was working on a spell to bring an early spring. Those spells were always terribly noisy.’ Steven and Garec exchanged a confused look.

Gilmour continued, ‘When Heskar, one of the young scribes, burst into my room unannounced, I knew something had gone terribly wrong. He spoke so fast – the only words I remember were “massacre of apprentices and servants on a lower floor of the palace”. My first thought was that Sandcliff had been attacked by pirates or raiders, or maybe even an army from another nation. I would never have guessed just one man could be so great a threat. I raced downstairs to the narrow balcony above the room that served as both audience and dining chamber. I was running along the balcony to get to a stairway at the far corner of the room when I saw Nerak. Even at that distance I could see he had been taken over by something mighty, some vast destructive force.’

He shuddered. ‘Although he was still visible, his body was beginning to disintegrate – his flesh looked translucent in the torchlight. At the time I wasn’t sure what was happening, but now I know the force that overpowered him along a seam in the Fold had no use for his physical being. It needed only his knowledge – and his soul. It would use others as physical hosts, but Nerak’s body was allowed to break apart, to fall away in pieces until only a shadow remained. By the end of the evening, Nerak had taken possession of several Larion Senators, each through a small wound he opened in their wrist or on the back of their hand. With each, evil’s minion learned more about Eldarn’s people and our weaknesses.

‘I saw Nerak holding two Larion Senators by the throat, a woman from Falkan named Callena and a young Pragan man, Janel. Their names are engraved on my memory. They were screaming in abject terror, and both of them were looking at me as if I were their only hope for survival. I stopped then and implored him to set them free. He looked at me from across the balcony, then, without flinching, he snapped their necks. Just a quick turn of his wrists. I heard the bones break. He didn’t take his eyes off me as he tossed their bodies over the ledge to the stone floor below.’

Brynne shifted uneasily on the log next to Steven, and Mika absent-mindedly scratched at the back of his wrists. ‘Go on,’ he said quietly.

‘I doubled back and raced upstairs towards the stone tower. All the passageways in the castle were closed by spells to keep intruders from breaking in and stealing potentially devastating magic. As I ran, I shouted the spells out in front of me to clear the way of any enchanted obstacles. At the top of the spiral staircase leading to the tower’s uppermost room, I found the door open, the spell already cast. I burst into Lessek’s chamber, horribly afraid I would find only the corpses of Nerak’s research team. Instead they were all there, poring over Lessek’s table, desperately trying to find an antidote to Nerak’s possession. Lessek’s chamber wasn’t used by anyone. The black granite table stood alone in the centre. The room was normally lit by torchlight, but that night the only illumination was the rainbow of colours that flashed and faded inside the spell table. I could see Lessek’s Key in its place – at least Nerak hadn’t taken it with him when he went downstairs to begin killing off Larion Senators.

‘Three members of my own team soon arrived and I ordered them to stand fast at the top of the stairs, ready to hurl every destructive magic they had down upon Nerak if he tried to reach Lessek’s chamber. I will never forget their grim faces, the look of fear and determination as the door closed slowly on them. I cast a quick spell to reseal the chamber.

‘I was their leader. I should have stood with them on the stairs and fought to the end against Nerak. Instead, I shut them out in the hall, protected only by their pitiful powers and what courage they could draw from one another. They were researchers, teachers, not magicians. I should have known they would be no match for the coming evil.’

‘Why did you not stand and fight with them?’ Sallax broke the silence, staring hard at Gilmour.

‘I feared the worst,’ Gilmour responded in flat tones. ‘I knew Nerak’s team could not interrupt their work to defend the spell table, or even to fetch any necessary scrolls from the library adjacent to the room. They were used to working with the spell table; I was not: but I could fetch spell scrolls, and I would be their last line of defence against the force I knew was coming for us. I called to Nerak’s assistant, Pikan Tettarak, a skilled sorcerer herself, that I was available to run back and forth between the spell chamber and the scroll library. She nodded to say she understood and immediately turned back to the wall of blue and red energy that fought to escape the table into the room; instead it found her there, channelling its power into a single defensive spell of enormous strength. Harnessing the magic of the table had been a lifelong undertaking for Lessek; it was an ongoing research endeavour for Nerak.

‘Pikan looked as if she was being overwhelmed by the power of the table; if she had not been able to call upon the strength of Nerak’s other team members, I am certain she would have been pulled into the bottomless morass of knowledge and magic within.

‘For what felt like an aven I stood there, helpless. Pikan and her colleagues worked without pause to discover magic that would protect us from Nerak while freeing his soul from whatever entity held it prisoner. Then the crashing began at the chamber door. It started as spell noise in the stairwell, and I hoped that my team members were holding firm. Soon the sounds changed; I could tell these incantations were focused entirely on the outer doorway. I wondered why, if my team were already dead, Nerak didn’t simply call out the spell that opened the chamber. I can only guess that in a dying breath, one of my brave martyrs changed the spell and committed suicide, dying before Nerak could take possession of his or her soul and learn the necessary magic.’ Gilmour stopped. Steven could see he was trembling as he refilled his goblet and took a long swallow.

‘Are you okay to go on?’ Steven asked quietly.

‘Oh yes,’ Gilmour said, visibly pulling himself together. ‘I know it happened so long ago, but for me, it will always feel like yesterday. It’s not a story I have told very often. Maybe it’s time that changed.

‘I knew the passageway would soon fall to the demon’s power, so I tried to get Pikan’s attention, hoping to warn her that Nerak was about to breach our last defence. There was a broadsword leaning against the wall – I don’t know whose it was, but I picked it up and prepared to battle whatever burst into the room. I knew magic, of course I did, but nothing nearly as powerful as that hammering away at the chamber door. It shook the stone masonry of the tower itself and for a few moments I feared the palace would collapse and we would all tumble to our deaths.

‘Everything seemed to move in slow motion. I realised I was about to die. I was not a brave man. I hoped to perhaps strike out with one fierce blow before my resolve disintegrated and I stood in mute horror awaiting death. No great wellspring of anger or defiance arose from inside my being and I knew the gods were giving me a few extra moments to contemplate how inadequately I had behaved when the end finally came.

‘Then, as if from a distance, a lifetime away, I heard my name. I turned to find Pikan calling to me with great enthusiasm. She was such a beautiful woman… she actually seemed to smile as I hurried across the room to her side. “I need the third Windscroll,” she shouted above the din of so much magic moving in and around the room. “It’s in the library near the top shelf behind Lessek’s desk.” Taking the broadsword, I ran as quickly as I could down the short flight of stairs separating the spell chamber from the scroll library. Lessek’s desk stood near the far wall, and shelves upon shelves of parchment scrolls lined every inch of the chamber. Racing to the shelf behind Lessek’s desk, I searched for the Windscrolls, powerful ancient spells compiled by Kantu and Nerak on their frequent journeys to Larion Isle, off the coast of Malakasia.

‘But I never found them.

‘Blue- and red-flecked energy preceded the blast down the stairs into the library and scrolls were blown from their shelves as a shockwave tore through the chamber and knocked me unconscious.

‘When I woke, blood had run into my eyes and for several terrifying moments I could see the world only in shades of red. The only light came from our two moons, shining through the falling snow. I looked out of the window and watched as red snowflakes blanketed Gorsk. I wondered if anyone was left alive in all Eldarn. The silence was dreadful; I called out several times just to hear my voice in the darkness.

‘When I felt steady enough, I made my way through the remains of the library, climbing over fallen shelves and through a sea of scattered parchment scrolls to the spell chamber beyond.

‘Everyone was dead, their bodies broken. They lay strewn about the room as if deposited there by a Twinmoon hurricane. Only Pikan’s body was missing. One of my team members lay on the stone floor near the door: a big young man named Harren Bonn, the son of a Falkan farmer. He had been claimed by Nerak just before the spell that sealed the door was broken. Seeing his limbs twisted at impossible angles, I tried to move him back against the wall, to leave him sitting in a more dignified position, but when I touched him, he was like jelly. I am not certain there was a bone left intact in his entire body.

‘I was weeping helplessly now, and I left him there, shaded red in my bloodied vision. It will not matter if I live another thousand Twinmoons; Harren Bonn will always remain blood-red in my memory.’ Gilmour’s voice shook.

Garec moved to sit beside his mentor and friend. He put a comforting arm around the old man.

Gilmour smiled thanks at him. ‘As I came down through the tower, I saw carnage everywhere. I had never really thought about that word before: it was just a word. Made flesh, it’s simply indescribable, and I hope and pray you never have to experience it for yourselves. There were bodies of Larion Senators at every turn, many apparently unharmed – except for an open wound on their wrists. I tried to comfort myself by saying over and over again, “They must be sleeping.” Those who had put up a fight were torn to pieces. I spent an aven sorting through limbs, fingers and ears: I wanted every Larion to rest for eternity intact. The stone floor was coated in blood. Several times I found little more than a few pieces of a body – someone I had known that morning, a scholar or an educator: a colleague, a person, a friend.

‘When I reached the balcony above the grand hall, I finally saw Pikan. She was resting her elbows on the ledge, gazing down into the darkness below. She had been hideously injured from the blast; through the half-light I could see part of her face had been torn away, leaving strands of her lovely flaxen hair falling over an open wound that stretched from her ear down to her chin. Her robes had been torn off in the explosion; all she wore now was a pair of short breeches: little enough to stave off the season’s chill.

‘When she turned to face me, I knew my suspicions had been well-founded. “Well, hello, Fantus,” Pikan’s body called to me in Nerak’s voice. “Do you care to join us in here?” She reached up and began fondling her breasts, squeezing and pressing them together as a man might in the throes of passion. “It’s cosy with just us two, but we’ll make room for you.” The voice was Pikan’s now, but I knew she was gone. Nerak must have taken her an instant before she died in the tower. Now he held her by a thread, dangling her a breath away from eternal rest.

‘I wiped the blood from my eyes as Pikan made her way slowly towards me. My grip tightened on the broadsword. For a moment I thought I might stand and fight.’ Gilmour stared through the firelight into the darkness above the Estrad River for a moment. ‘But I didn’t. Fear overcame me and I fled like a child. I dropped the sword at Pikan’s feet and ran the length of the balcony at a full sprint. As I came to the far end of the room, I screamed a spell to open the windows and when they flew out on their hinges, I dived out into the night without a moment’s hesitation. The last thing I heard before I struck the ground was Nerak, laughing like a demon through Pikan’s broken body.

‘I shattered my shoulder and ankle in the fall, but that was just flesh and bone. My spirit took longer to recover. I have never lifted a weapon again, but I have spent the past nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons studying magic, just like Nerak.

‘He must have taken Lessek’s Key and the far portal that very night. He made his way south to Rona, killed Prince Markon and a number of other members of King Remond’s royal family. Then I’m guessing he travelled to Colorado, where he hid the only weapon that can destroy him in your bank, Steven.

‘I have waited half my life for Lessek’s Key. Now it is within our grasp, and I will use it to destroy the force that murdered my friends and brought death and terror to Eldarn.’ Gilmour took up his pipe after his long narration and smiled at his friends before moving off to his bedroll near the river. No one else said a word. There was too much to take in.