The Wizard's Fate

Chapter 3

For a nation of warriors, a change of monarchs heralded a risky time. Ambitious power-seekers could spring from nowhere and lay claim to the throne, throwing the empire into another dynastic struggle. The Pakin clan had been quiet for years, its last pretender having been shortened by a head almost two decades earlier, but there were still Pakins about. Nor was Amaltar safe from his own family. His younger brother, Prince Nazramin, possessed considerable power and influence. Nazramin was the very ideal of the hard-riding, hard-living warlord of old Ergoth. Indeed, many Riders of the Great Horde preferred him to Amaltar, whom they saw as a pallid, palace-dwelling schemer. Sensing Nazramin’s popularity with some warlords, Amaltar had forbidden his brother to participate in the Tarsis campaign, lest he reap more glory at his elder brother’s expense.

At the moment Tol thought little about such things. He cared only that he was going to Daltigoth at last. After ten years away, he could at last get to the heart of deeply troubling matters. The renegade wizard Mandes, whom Tol had rescued from a band of wild bakali years before, had gone to the capital after Tol’s destruction of the monster XimXim and his defeat of the Tarsan general, Tylocost. Although sent by Tol to carry word of his victories, Mandes had usurped those triumphs. The defeat of Tylocost was credited to Lord Urakan, who had died in the battle. The death of XimXim Mandes claimed for himself.

That was but half the cup of Tol’s bitterness. More painful, and far less explicable, was the complete silence from his beloved Valaran. Ten years had given Tol much time to speculate. Val was only one of Amaltar’s several wives and had assured Tol the prince cared little for her, yet Tol wondered if Amaltar had discovered their relationship. Perhaps Valaran had been compelled to keep silent, had fallen ill, or had found someone else to love, someone not so long gone and so far away.

Tol had long consoled himself with a single thought: Valaran was in Daltigoth, and one day he would return to her. That day had finally come.

The Army of the North would remain at Tarsis under Lord Regobart’s command. Tol and a small escort would travel fast and light to the capital. He chose five to accompany him: Kiya, Miya, Frez, the healer Felryn, and Darpo. Darpo was recovered enough from his wound to ride but not enough to fight. However, he was one of Tol’s longest-serving retainers and Tol did not wish to leave him behind.

The Dom-shu hastily packed the contents of the tent. Conversing at the top of their lungs-their normal tone between themselves-they tossed everything from clothing to cutlery at each other, stowing all in the appropriate containers. In saddlebags went the few things they were taking along; the items they were leaving behind were packed into large, leather-bound chests. The chests would be carted home later.

Tol stood by the center pole of the tent, reluctant to budge from his safe spot. Kiya was flinging knives and spoons past him to her sister, who caught them with casual precision.

“So, husband! You had a rough time in town, eh?” said Miya as she dropped utensils into an open chest.

“It wasn’t all bad,” he replied.

“Spare us the sordid details.”

" ’Ware, sister!” Kiya called and tossed a hatchet. Tol flinched as the hand axe whirled through the air toward Miya’s face. Without a blink, Miya snatched the tumbling tool by its handle.

“Did the Tarsan woman make any demands?” asked Kiya, searching for her next projectile.

The question struck Tol as funny, and he laughed. Kiya reddened.

“No, she asked for nothing,” he said.

Both women stopped packing. “Nothing?” said Miya. “No deal, no bribe, no threats?”

Kiya looked positively disappointed. “What in Bran’s name did you talk about?”

“We didn’t talk much-a little about ourselves. She told me of her early life.”

Kiya stooped and picked up some loose clothing. “Clever,” she murmured. “Very clever. She invites an enemy into her home and bed but makes no demands on him.” Wadding the clothes together, she shoved them at Miya. “She didn’t make a conspirator of Tol, she made a friend.”

Even after all their years together, he was still surprised by Kiya’s acumen, and privately he agreed with her assessment. For all Hanira’s ruthlessness, he liked her. She was an amazing woman. He understood why men like Prince Helx made fools of themselves over her. Back in camp now among his own people, he found that Hanira’s allure had faded. The prospect of returning to Daltigoth-and Valaran-had done much to dim her seductive memory.

Felryn arrived, and Tol stepped outside to ask what news he brought.

The cleric of Mishas shook his head. “Little, I fear. Even after two days’ work, I cannot determine who could have sent those golems. There are four or five in Tarsis capable of it, but all are accounted for.”

Felryn had agreed with Tol’s reasoning that he, and not Hanira, must have been the golems’ intended victim. Perhaps a spy tipped them off to his whereabouts, but the creatures would have found Tol no matter where he was that night.

Horsemen galloped by, throwing up sand. Felryn bent to brush off his legs. “A powerful spellcaster was at work,” he said in a low voice. “To create and command three golems at once and break the ancient wards of the Golden House are feats worthy of a magical master. You must be careful, my lord. Whoever did this will try again.”

When he’d first found the Irda nullstone, Tol had shown the artifact to the healer, who dismissed it as a harmless trinket. Once he learned its true nature from the White Robe wizard Yoralyn, Tol had kept it a closely guarded secret. Yoralyn was dead now, and the only others who knew he possessed it, Yoralyn’s colleagues Oropash and Helbin, had vowed to keep his secret, fearful of the chaos that would erupt if the nullstone’s existence became known.

Whoever had tried to kill him in the Golden House had failed. However long it took, Tol vowed to Felryn, he would discover the one responsible and mete out justice for the deaths of his loyal men. It was very possible, he added with a grim smile, that Hanira was right, and his unknown enemy was a Tarsan rival of the guild leader, in which case he felt confident Hanira would do him the favor of finding and punishing the culprit first.

Miya put her head through the tent flaps. “We’re done. The bags are full. Sister has gone to fetch the horses.”

For years the Dom-shu women had resisted riding horseback. Their tribe were forest-dwellers in the vast woodland known as the Great Green, and regarded the use of horses as a weakness. Real men and women walked on their own two feet, the sisters always said. However, on the long campaign from Hylo to Tarsis-a distance of hundreds of leagues-Miya and Kiya had reluctantly learned to ride.

Frez and Darpo appeared, each leading two horses. Darpo was pale and stood slightly hunched, favoring his side, but he saluted his commander with fervor.

When the Dom-shu sisters returned on their own animals, Frez moved to boost his injured comrade into the saddle, but his commander intervened.

“It’s my honor,” Tol said. Darpo put his booted foot in Tol’s cupped hands, and Tol tossed him up into the saddle.

“What way do we take, my lord?” Darpo asked, in a voice shaky with pain.

Tol wanted to get to Daltigoth as quickly as possible. His fellow warlords were riding north to the Great Plains River, to circumvent the mountains and the dangerous, impenetrable Great Green. They would then turn west, entering the empire northwest of Tol’s hometown of Juramona in the province of the Eastern Hundred. That would require more than thirty days of travel. Tol had a different route in mind.

“We’ll cross the Harrow Sky Mountains,” he said, referring to the range on the west side of the Bay of Tarsis. “Then we’ll cross the hill country to the Gulf of Ergoth and take ship to the capital.”

There were raised eyebrows all around. Felryn said, “That’s rough territory, my lord.”

He was putting it mildly. The Harrow Sky hill country was a wild land, infested with bandits, petty independent warlords, and wild tribes. The coast was rife with fierce pirates. Several emperors had launched punitive expeditions to suppress the outlawry there, but none ever managed to conquer it.

“I am Prince Amaltar’s champion,” Tol said firmly. “My place is at his side, and as quickly as possible. We will cross the mountains.” Felryn didn’t like the plan, but he protested no more.

It was midmorning when Tol led his small party to Lord Regobart’s tent. The commander of the Army of the East was surrounded by scribes and clerks, all busily making copies of the proposed peace treaty with Tarsis. At Tol’s approach, Regobart left the murmur of voices and scratching of quills, and greeted his fellow general.

“If luck and the gods are with us, we’ll get to Daltigoth in twelve days,” Tol said, looking down from Shadow’s broad back.

The old warlord’s single gray eye widened. “Twelve days! Do you fly on Silvanesti griffons?”

Tol described his chosen route. Regobart’s reaction was much the same as Felryn’s.

“Prince Amaltar needs his Champion, but he needs him alive!” the old general said tartly.

He squinted at Tol’s small entourage, knowing without asking that this was all the escort the younger general intended to take. With a shake of his gray head, he said good-humoredly, “Well, at least you have the Dom-shu with you. They’re as good as a regiment of horsemen.”

Kiya’s expression didn’t change, but Miya preened slightly under the old warrior’s praise.

Tol handed over the muster rolls of the Army of the North, and passed his baton, symbol of his command, to Regobart.

“Many warlords are leaving. Do you think the Tarsans will make trouble once we’re gone?” he asked.

Regobart waved the question away. “No! When they heard the emperor had died, they became even more docile!” He winked. “They fear that without a supreme lord in command, our troops will run wild and sack the city. The Tarsans are treading very lightly indeed!”

Tol clasped hands with Regobart and turned Shadow away. He and his people rode through the busy camp, passing out of the stockade via the north gate.

The splendid spires of Tarsis were visible over the city’s white walls, but Tol could not make out the Golden House. He faced forward again and saw the others had moved on ahead. Only Felryn lingered behind with him.

“When one door closes,” the healer said, “somewhere another opens.”

They skirted the north end of the bay, reaching the Torrent River by sunset. Too wide to be spanned by a bridge and too rough for most small boats, the river usually was traversed by means of an anchored ferry. However, the ferry station was abandoned and several outbuildings had been burned, probably by marauding imperial cavalry.

They decided to operate the ferry themselves. There were two large barges tethered to the shore by heavy cables. One craft lay awash, a casualty of war. The other seemed intact. Thick skeins of woven rope stretched from the east bank to the western side, a quarter league distant. They would cast off on the remaining barge and pull themselves along by means of the ropes.

Dismounting, they led their horses onto the flat-bottomed craft. Frez and Miya untied the mooring lines. The swift current immediately tugged the ferry away from shore. The sudden lurch frightened the horses, who chivvied and pranced until Felryn and Darpo calmed them. Only Shadow remained placid, merely twitching his long tail several times. Tol had once praised his mount’s composure in the face of danger; Kiya had retorted it wasn’t composure but stupidity: the big gray horse was, she opined, dumber than a tree root.

“Everyone but Darpo take told of the rope,” Tol ordered.

The wounded soldier protested his special treatment, but Tol ordered him to mind the horses as well as his aches and pains. The rest of them began to pull.

Bit by bit, the ferry crept away from shore. The sun was setting behind the mountains, from here only a far-off smear of purple on the horizon. As they hauled on the rope, Darpo sang an old seafaring song. In his youth he’d sailed the trade route between Hylo and the lands of the northern coast. The scar he bore was a memento of that former life, earned when a line had snapped and lashed his face.

The sea chantey lent rhythm to their task. As they pulled more in unison, the barge’s pace increased.

By the time they reached the western shore, twilight had come. Buildings on the far shore were intact, but silent and dark. All who were able had fled the advancing Ergothians for the safety of walled Tarsis.

The barge was tied off, the horses led ashore. Tol rode up to the ferrymaster’s house. The door was ajar. He called for a torch.

The interior of the ferry station was a shambles; it had been ransacked in a search for valuables. Miya, Felryn, and Tol kicked through the debris in search of maps.

Tol found what he sought in set of pigeonholes on the inside wall. Handing the torch to Miya, he pulled several documents from their holes, scanning and discarding them one by one. At last, he spread one curling parchment wide. It was a Tar-san map of the Harrow Sky region. The dangerous land west of the mountains was only vaguely rendered, but the passes leading to it through the high mountains were clearly shown. Directions to those passes were what Tol needed.

A sharp call from Kiya, still outside, sent the searchers hurrying out of the wrecked house. The others, still mounted, were all pointing toward the river.

Hovering high in the air over the lapping waves was a shimmering light. Perhaps a handspan wide, it quivered like living flame, but had a most unnatural color-a frosty blue.

Felryn couldn’t identify the sight, but Miya suggested it was only a will-o’-the-wisp.

Her sister sneered. “So high in the air? Over flowing water?” Kiya said. “Don’tbe daft!”

The blue light neither advanced nor retreated. As he stared at it, Tol had the odd feeling he-all of them-were being watched in return. He mentioned this to Felryn, who shrugged.

With no other recourse, they ignored the strange light and rode on. Tol wanted to make the foothills before they camped for the night.

They did so, though not without misgivings. Each time one of them turned to check, the light was still there, following and flickering in the air just behind them.

Before midnight Tol called a halt. They’d left behind the sandy coast and entered a thinly spread pine forest. The ground was rising, and more stone had appeared in the soil. Frez found a small stream, and there they made camp.

Felryn sat cross-legged on the stony ground and closed his eyes. Gripping the engraved silver disk he wore around his neck-the sign of his patron deity Mishas-he tried to identify the silent blue light. Then he tried to banish it. After a time, with sweat trickling down his face, he opened his eyes.

“Powerful,” he muttered. “It is of a different order, far beyond my abilities. It’s a strange manifestation, but I don’t sense any threat from it. It just watches.”

“That’s threat enough for me!” Kiya said.

She braced her bow and pulled an arrow from her quiver. As she nocked it, Felryn placed two fingers on the shaft. His lips moved in silent incantation, then he gestured for her to proceed.

Kiya drew the bowstring to her ear. The dark and the amorphous nature of her target made distance hard to gauge, but she squinted over the broadhead and let fly. The bowstring hummed, and the arrow whistled away. To everyone’s surprise, the glow suddenly vanished. They waited, breath held, but it did not reappear.

Miya clouted her sister on the shoulder. “Well done!”

“Good shot,” put in Darpo, and Tol added his own commendation.

Kiya lowered her bow. “I don’t think I even got near it,” she said, frowning. “The shot was way low.”

Felryn agreed with Kiya’s assessment. “I don’t believe the arrow or even my feeble dispersal spell is responsible. I think whoever sent it recalled it. We’ve halted for the night; there’s no reason to shadow us if we’re not going anywhere.”

His words gave them little pleasure. There was scant conversation the rest of the night, and they took turns standing watch, with Tol taking the first shift.

Clouds obscured most of the stars. As his companions settled down to rest, Tol leaned on his spearshaft and studied the sky.

The college of wizards in Daltigoth kept the sky clear over the imperial palace at all times. When he’d first arrived, Tol had thought this an act of silly luxury, a perquisite of the emperor always to have bright sunshine by day and glittering stars by night. Later, he’d realized the strategic value of clear weather. No lofty spies could float over the palace grounds unseen, if the sky was always free of clouds.

Twelve days to Daltigoth, he reminded himself. Twelve days till he could right the wrong done to him a decade ago. Twelve days until he saw Valaran again.

After ten years, a wait of twelve days should not be difficult, but suddenly it seemed interminable.

“I’ll never be a mountaineer!” Miya swore.

Leading his horse along a narrow ledge, his back pressed against the mountain, a drop of a thousand paces before him, Tol agreed wholeheartedly. Wind gusted in his face, whipping his cloak. His companions were strung out behind him, all likewise hugging the rock wall. Darpo, though not fully healed, made the traverse with no more difficulty than the rest of them.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Miya’s voice was shriller than usual; she was not fond of heights. Tol assured her it was. She’d already asked that same question twice.

The path was clearly marked on the Tarsan map he’d taken from the ferrymaster’s house, but the simple lines on the chart had not prepared them for the narrowness of the ledge or the height of the drop. Wiser than their riders, the horses had balked at crossing the ridge, even the usually stolid Shadow, so they were blinkered. Miya let it be known she’d rather be hooded, too. Adding to everyone’s distress were the still-higher peaks they could spot ahead.

Although the season was late summer, the air was thin and cold. The Harrow Sky was the highest range of mountains known to the Ergothians. Snow still lay thickly on the highest slopes.

The trail had been hacked out over the centuries by traders seeking to avoid the dangerous coastal route. Perilous though the mountains were, they offered at least a chance of survival. The trade monopoly enforced by the Tarsan navy offered none at all.

The wind picked up, howling down the pass. Shadow snorted and jerked at his reins. Eyes tearing against the wind’s icy bite, Tol tightened his grip on the halter, and doggedly ordered them to press ahead.

By late afternoon, they were through the gorge known as H’rar’s Graveyard and on a wide, flat plateau. They’d encountered no other travelers, which was as Tol had expected; the usual flow of trade through the mountains had been choked off by the war between Tarsis and Ergoth.

On boulders, though, they found messages left by previous travelers. “Spit with the wind,” “Make your water downhill,” and other such sage advice was scratched into the rocks. Spotting one he couldn’t read, Tol asked Felryn, the most educated member of the party, if he could translate.

“That’s Dwarvish,” the healer said. “I haven’t read the dwarf tongue in a long time.” He frowned thoughtfully and followed the lines of script with his finger. “ ‘The Hammer of Reorx opens and closes all doors.’ I think that’s right.”

“Who’s Reorx?” asked Kiya.

“A godling, Corij’s squire, though the dwarves and gnomes revere him as the highest deity of all,” Darpo said.

“So a pithy proverb known only to dwarves,” Miya said dismissively, face red from the ever-present cold wind. “Let’s move on. I’m frozen!”

At the far end of the plateau, the passage into the high pass was flanked by two huge, irregularly shaped columns. From a distance, they seemed to be natural rock formations, but as the party drew closer, they were revealed to be statues, ancient, weathered figures of colossal size. They stood erect, with one foot forward and their arms tight against their side. The southern statue was headless (its head lay broken on the ground). The northern colossus was intact, but its features were so worn as to be unrecognizable.

The group halted, awestruck by the size and obvious age of the monuments. Practical Miya finally broke the spell. “What sort of fools would go to all the trouble to raise such things in this forsaken place?” she said.

“The Irda.”

Felryn looked at Tol, surprised. “You know their ancient history, my lord?”

“Only a little.” He had learned a few things from the well-read Valaran. “Ruins of the Irda are found only in remote places. All other traces of their reign have been plundered away.”

There was no way to know who the great colossi were meant to represent. Gods, kings, or heroes-after such a span of time, it was impossible to say.

The icy wind abruptly died. Darpo, glancing back the way they’d come, called their attention to an odd sight.

Spilling up from the lower pass behind them onto the plateau was a thick white fog. In spite of the stillness of the air, the vapor was slowly spreading across the open ground as though pushed by unseen hands. In moments, as they watched, it bulked up several paces high, then began to twist and writhe. The breeze picked up again, but it had changed direction. It now rushed toward the fog, as though the vapor drew it in.

As they stood transfixed by the peculiar sight, Felryn’s face suddenly took on an expression of alarm.

“We must go!” he cried, seizing his horse’s bridle. “Now, my lord! Run!”

None questioned the healer but immediately sprinted for the gap between the ancient monuments, dragging their horses after them.

What had been a rushing wind quickly became a blasting gale. The white fog had spun itself into a tornado and churned toward them, scoring a ragged line in the stone of the plateau. They were bombarded by flying grit. The wind rose to a deafening roar.

Frez, last in line, was lifted off his feet. Only the weight of his horse and his grip on its reins kept him from being sucked into the thundering white column; Kiya saw him and shouted for help; the big woman was fighting for all she was worth to maintain a grip on her own terrified beast.

Tol hurled himself onto Shadow’s back and rode to his man. So great was Shadow’s fear of the tornado, Tol was forced to dig his spurs into his sleek hide.

When he reached Frez, Tol grabbed him around the waist. Frez let go his reins, and his horse, screaming in panic, galloped straight into the white cyclone. To their horror, the spinning wall of wind and vapor shredded the animal to bits, like a ripe apple thrown against a grinding wheel.

Tol hauled Shadow around as Frez slid onto the saddle behind him. This time no spurs were needed; the gray horse galloped headlong away from the tornado and back toward the rest of the group.

The others had taken shelter behind the headless colossus. As he thundered toward them, Tol shouted for them to get moving.

The passage beyond the statues was exceedingly narrow, no wider than the girth of a single horse. Trying to make haste, yet hampered by the tightness of the passage, Miya went first, leading her mount. Kiya followed, then Darpo. Tol and Frez dismounted, and Tol pushed his comrade ahead of him into the passage.

The tornado had almost reached the statues, yet for some reason Felryn had lingered behind. The healer was hunched by the mountain wall, standing over a square block of stone carved out of the plateau itself.

Tol bellowed at him to follow them, but Felryn turned and shouted back, “This is the hammer! The Hammer of Reorx! Remember the inscription? We must strike the hammer!” Felryn gestured wildly at the loose rocks by Tol’s feet. “Strike the stone!”

Tol didn’t fathom him in the least, but in the face of imminent death, he chose to trust his old friend. Bending, he picked up a stone the size of a loaf of bread.

A surprised cry brought Tol’s head around. The advancing tornado had pulled Felryn off balance. The healer’s feet flew out from under him, and he was drawn backward. His large, strong hands scrabbled vainly for purchase against the side of the mountain.

“Strike the hammer!” he shrieked, before vanishing into the gap between the statues.

Every muscle straining, Tol raised the stone over his head and dashed it onto the carved block. A loud, metallic clang resounded.

The wind yanked him this way and that, and Tol lost his grip on the heavy stone. His hobnailed boots skittered over the ground as he was pulled toward the cyclone. Like Felryn before him, he flailed his arms wildly, seeking a handhold.

Just as he’d given up hope, Tol beheld an amazing sight: the colossi were beginning to move! Pivoting on their bases, the giant statues slowly turned inward to face each other. A tremendous grinding noise, audible even above the thunder of the tornado, reverberated through the canyon.

The giants plowed ahead, closing the distance between themselves. The gap between them had been six or seven paces; soon, it was barely two. Felryn had wisely interpreted the meaning behind the Dwarvish inscription. Striking the carved block-”Reorx’s hammer"-opened and closed the passage. The time-worn Irda statues were not mere monuments: they were an ensorcelled gate.

Danger wasn’t done with Tol yet. The roaring column pressed against the colossi, seeking to squeeze between them, and Tol was held against the statues by its force. Up close (too close!) he could see the white surface of the tornado was made up of tiny, glittering shards. Ice, mostly, with some fragments of loose stone. Where the spinning crystals touched the statues, the surface of the stone was polished away.

The bases of the colossi finally touched, choking off the passage and the wind completely. Tol dropped to the ground. His head pounded from the sudden silence, and his body ached as though he’d fought a battle.

“Husband?”

Kiya crouched by him. Miya was staring in awe at the statues. She asked about Felryn. Tol did not answer. Felryn had saved them all but doomed himself.

Tol’s face was red and raw from the flying dust. Memory of Felryn’s terrible death brought a stinging to his eyes that had nothing to do with dust. Kiya helped him to his feet.

“Felryn-” he began to explain, then had to swallow hard to continue. “Felryn solved the dwarves’ riddle. Striking that stone”-he pointed at the Hammer of Reorx-“causes the statues to move, to open or close the pass.”

Touching the massive stone figures, they discovered the statues were intensely cold. The tornado could still be heard shrieking on the other side.

“It’s trying to grind its way right through the stone!” Kiya said.

Tol had to force himself to take up Shadow’s reins and move on. The suddenness of the healer’s demise had stunned them all, but there was nothing to be gained by remaining.

Frez took Felryn’s horse, a gentle old nag called Stumbler. Single file, they made their way through the narrow canyon. In subdued voices, they discussed the strange events. None of them, not even the widely traveled Darpo, had ever heard of a phenomenon like the ice cyclone, not even in the high, wild mountains.

Tol rode wrapped in silence. He, for one, did not believe the tornado was a freak of nature. The sky had remained clear and blue as lakewater even as the cyclone raged. It had come seemingly from nowhere and made straight for them, as though seeking to devour Tol and his people. The storm had been raised by magic-potent magic-Tol was certain. Twice now someone had tried to kill him with sorcery, and twice he had escaped, though not without cost. Two of his soldiers had died in Tarsis and now Felryn.

Tol jerked the reins, halting Shadow. The others stopped behind him. The setting sun was half hidden by the mountain peaks ahead. Staring straight into the crimson fire, Tol drew his jeweled dagger and held it high. Bloody sunlight flashed off the dagger’s gold-filigreed blade and silver-wrapped brass hilt. In the pommel, the hen’s egg ruby glowed as though afire.

“My lord, what is it?” Frez called.

“Just saying good-bye.”

Still holding his dagger aloft, Tol silently saluted the gallant healer.