The elderly Sage remained fixed in his position, studying the man before him carefully. “And your fathers before you,” he said, “were they, too, Friends of Aran?”
The Prince nodded, looking his grim questioner straight in the eye. “For a thousand years and more, my lord,” he whispered.
This reply caused a slight stir among the members of the Sklar. Muffled whispering rippled along the benches, and there was much shaking of heads and scratching of beards.
“Aran has few such Friends remaining,” countered the Sage coyly. “By what right do you make such a claim?”
A slight sneer, mocking and cold, crossed the Prince’s lips. “Has mighty Aran forgotten so swiftly?” he retorted. “What has become of the noble Elders of my father’s father’s time? Where are those among the Sklar who would recognize a Friend without the need to first make him their prisoner?”
This caused an even greater stir than before; the members of the Sklar were clearly incensed, some clenching their hands into fists and glaring at the brazen stranger with open anger.
It had been difficult for Mariana to follow these curious proceedings, but from this sudden reaction it was apparent that the Prince had insulted them one and all — insulted them purposely — and for what reason she could not imagine. Her companions were also aware of what had happened.
“By the Seven Hells,” growled the haj beneath his breath. “What’s the fellow up to? Infuriating these barbarians will only make matters worse for us. And from everything I’ve seen of this dismal land so far, none of them would lose very much sleep if their axes were sharpened on our throats.”
Mariana deftly hushed the haj with a jab of her elbow and meekly resumed her stance to listen. The Prince, meanwhile, made no gesture to apologize for his rashness; on the contrary, he now stood with his hands on his hips, a smile upon his face, and defiance in his eyes.
At that moment Mariana expected someone to call for the immediate executions of them all, but much to her surprise the band of rugged lords and Sages did nothing. They resumed their silence and their rigid expressions, clearly content to let the Sage do their speaking for them. They folded their arms and leaned forward, weather-burned faces bathed in silver light and blue shadows.
The Sage’s eyes again met the Prince’s and the two men glared at one another in some unspoken form of combat in which neither flinched for a single moment. Then the Sage lifted his hand and beckoned with a bony finger for the stranger to come closer to him.
The Prince did as commanded; his form glowed for a moment, then darkened, as a low, fast-moving cloud crossed the face of the moon.
“You have spoken boldly,” said the Sage, his voice impassive, showing no trace of anger or suspicion. “And rightly so — if you are indeed a Friend. But these are grim times for Aran, aye, for all the lands of the North. We can no longer afford the luxury of hospitality such as you ask of us. Aran stands upon the threshold of terrible peril; our fate is yet undetermined, be it good or ill. And alas we must be careful, trusting in no man until his worth has been proven. Can you understand this?”
The Prince lowered his gaze toward the stone floor and sighed. “I know the things you speak of, my lord,” he said in response, this time with humility in his voice. “Perhaps I have asked too much. If so, I beg the Sklar’s indulgence with me. For I am just a man — a man who has traveled many years and many roads to be here with you now, and my heart has been saddened to see what I have seen.” He lifted his head and scanned the rows of Elders slowly, noting the pride in every eye, the heroism etched into every face. And he shook his head sadly, truly sorry for his outburst. These brave men had lived under the terrible shadow every day of their lives, lived with the threat of Druid magic without cessation. Who was he, a prince of Speca or no, to come before them and berate them for their mistrust?
“I am no stranger to the Eternal Dark that threatens the world,” he added. “Nor to any of the dangers that Aran must contend with each morning of her existence. Yet …” and here he tilted his head and gazed up at the stars, “yet Aran knows the sun by day, as surely as she knows these very stars by night. In my own home there is neither. Only blackness.”
The old Sage shuffled his feet restlessly and cast a long troubled glance toward his guest. “You have come to us from Speca?” he asked.
The Prince shook his head. “No, lord. I return to Speca. I return to the land of my father and his father before him. I return home.”
The air was as still as ever it becomes upon the windy scapes of Aran. Each member of the all-powerful Sklar stared with disbelief as the Prince hung his head low to hide the soft tears falling down his face.
For a long while there was total silence; the Sage leaned heavily on his walking stick, his eyes tightly shut. At last he straightened himself again, and with a deep sigh, he said, “The time has come, Friend, for you to tell us who you are.”
The Prince stood motionless only for a brief moment, then he placed his hand inside his tunic and took out the dagger. Jaws gaped, eyes stared in wonder. The Prince’s hand trembled slightly as he held the blade out for all to see, and the august Sages gasped as Blue Fire began to dance before their eyes; slowly at first, as always, but then more intensely, searing flame crackling out in every direction in the pulsing hues of deepening blue that colored every inch of the mountain’s surface, every nook and every cranny, every recess and every crevice, creeping up and down along the sheer walls, bounding over the ridges and the distant trunks of dark Northern trees, reaching far beyond the huge amphitheater and up into the sky, right across the face of the moon and above and beyond the stars themselves. It was a sight that men of Aran had not dared to dream they would ever behold — a magnificent sight, as frightening as it was compelling, as mystifying as it was awesome. Speechlessly they watched, tongues lolling in their mouths, eyes fixed to the dazzling display, as it bounded to and fro, catching their vision and transfixing them. It was overpowering, shattering, terrible yet beautiful. The knowledge of its power dazzled their minds and fogged their vision. Blue Fire. Yes, the men of Aran knew its name. Blue Fire! The golden scimitar of the throne of Speca, the power and the glory of the land that once Aran loved as a brother.
Blue Fire!
Cold fire. Burning fire. Vengeful fire.
And here it was, before them tonight — not a magician’s trick, for such majesty could never be recreated; nor was it the passing illusion of Druid magic, that malevolent force that kept Aran at bay and powerless to stand against it.
Never could this be duplicated — though for countless years the black-souled Druids had tried. Oh, how they had tried. They had blended every alloy known to man to recreate it; forged each element time and again in futile effort to possess it. Even as alchemists seek to blend gold from dross, so had the conquerors of Speca sought to regain the lost power of the glittering scimitar.
Blue Fire!
Never had Aran dreamed that it might come again.
In due course the mysterious dagger began to lose its glow; gradually the face of the mountain and the sky returned to normal, silver stars glimmering brightly above as before. The men of Aran, the Sklar, stood dumbfounded, panting to catch lost breath and beginning to gaze at one another in wonder and amazement.
The Prince’s shoulders sagged, heavy with the weight of his burden. At length he managed to look once again to the row of Sages and the wizened leader who stood in stunned silence.
The aged lord drew a deep breath and nodded his head. “You are indeed your father’s son,” he rasped, clearing his throat. Then he turned from the Prince and peered at his companions, slowly lifting his arms toward the sky. “A Friend has indeed come,” he proclaimed for one and all to hear, and, glancing back to the stranger, he added, “Aran indeed welcomes you, and the return of the Blade of the Throne.”
Again the Prince bowed before them, this time with a small smile of satisfaction apparent on his face.
“Speak, Friend,” called the Sage. “T
ell us why you have come to us, and how we may be of aid to you.”
Mariana was certain there was a twinkle in the Prince’s eyes as shook off his exhaustion and with a look of determination replied, “I, and my companions, have traveled half a world and more to reach the Sklar and the allies of Aran. We have faced peril and danger time and time again in our quest to reach Speca’s shores. Now,” here he sighed, “we must face perhaps the greatest danger of all — the regaining of my throne.”
Gasps rippled across the cold stone benches in the hollow of the mountain. The old Sage, wisest of the wise, looked at the yellow-haired Prince aghast. “No man — no mortal man — can enter the Eternal Darkness and live,” he stated flatly. “You journey to your deaths.” He glanced briefly at Mariana and Ramagar, then looked sternly at the Prince. “You have all come on a fool’s errand.”
The Prince shook his head. “No, my lord. Not a fool’s errand. I have come to regain what is rightly mine; to free my people and my land, to find a way to rid the world of Druid power for once and for all.”
“Noble thoughts,” came a deep voice from the back, and a tall muscular man, a fearsome fighter by his looks, stood from his place and glared down the sloping amphitheater at the Prince. “Many men would rid the North of this scourge, even give their own lives gladly. But we of Aran live beneath the shadow of the Darkness, and we alone know what awesome perils must be faced. How can you and your handful of friends possibly hope to succeed when even Aran’s fleet cannot?”
“Have you an army of magicians to send against the Druids?” came another deriding voice. “Or a thousand long ships indestructible against the Night-Watchers who prowl the black waters?"
“I know not of these ‘Night-Watchers,’” admitted the Prince.
The fierce lord looked at him with unmasked scorn. “Know you of the Dragon Ships whose armor cannot be pierced even by swords of steel? Or the Black Mists that descend on all ships that dare to pass below the clouds? Know you of the hideous tortures of their Dwarf-king and the wizard who rules in his stead?”
The Prince shook his head, forced to admit that he had heard of none of it.
“Then you must be told. No ship, no man, has ever returned from the Eternal Dark. Aran knows, for once we tried. But no longer. Your throne can never be recovered. Sail your ship back to the land you came from. Speca has met her doom, now Aran must wait for her own. Nothing can save either one.”
Startled, the Prince stared inquisitively at the Sage. The old man sighed and bent his head. “‘Tis true, I fear,” he said in a low voice. “Slowly the Darkness spreads, encroaches upon us like a silent, evil bird in flight. Year by year the sky turns blacker before our eyes. I am old and will not live to see the day that it reaches our shores. So for myself I do not weep. But for the young of Aran, for the children and their children after them, I grieve every moment of my existence. Druid magic is upon us, upon all the lands of the North. And one by one we must succumb, until there is nothing left, nothing at all.”
Ramagar listened incredulously. “If this is true,” he called, stepping forward from his place and drawing closer to the Sage, “then why don’t you fight? Why don’t you gather your ships and meet this enemy head-on?”
The Sage smiled thinly, sadly amused by the young foreigner’s belief that no power is too great to match.
“You are the companion of a Friend,” he told the thief with understanding, “and therefore Aran shall consider you a Friend as well. But you speak of matters which you know so little of. Neither you nor your companions have seen what we have seen.” He shook his head slowly. “Ten thousand ships of Aran would be useless. Don’t you see? Druid magic comes not from the strength of their armies, nor even their grisly apparitions which prowl like beasts upon the black waters. No, we would face all this and more. But first the key to their power must be broken. Until then, we can do nothing.”
“But what is the key to this terrible Druid power?” questioned the thief. “Is it the spells themselves that these wizards cast?”
The Sage could not hide his sneer. “Aran does not hide from the conjuring of magicians,” he answered contemptuously. “What we fear is the hopelessness that the Druid coming has brought.” He drew a long breath of the chilled air and tightened his hold on his walking stick. “What we fear,” he repeated, “is that which has taken men’s very souls and condemned them forever, crushed them of will, stolen from them all that a man cherishes and left only despair in its place. What civilization would not cringe at the knowledge that to live is to be sapped of strength, rendered helpless, forlorn, and devoid of belief. Alas,” he sighed, “under such conditions we can only accept …”
“Accept?” chimed Ramagar. “Accept what?”
“Our fate,” replied the Sage sadly.
The thief of Kalimar was clearly confused by the strange and fatalistic soliloquy he had just heard. “Exactly what is this evil you speak of that so misshapes men? Above all else, what magic weighs so heavily that you fear it worse than death?”
There was a pause, and Mariana shuddered; she alone among her companions had understood the Sage’s words; she alone had realized the terrible threat looming against Aran and the North.
“It is the night,” she whispered, the words almost too painful to speak aloud.
The Sage looked up suddenly and cast his glance toward the young girl before him. With widened eyes he studied her briefly and then beckoned for her to come closer.
Mariana let go of the haj’s strong hand and softly stepped toward the speaker’s place where both the Prince and Ramagar stood silently. Silver beams of moonlight caressing her dark, flowing hair, she lifted her chin and gazed evenly at the Sage.
“Repeat your thoughts, child,” he told her gently, and Mariana swallowed as she nodded.
“The blackness, my lord,” she said meekly. “It can only be the Eternal Dark itself that causes Speca to lie in her dormant and enslaved state. A malevolent cloak across the sky enshrouding one land and slowly descending upon Aran …”
The wise man continued to study her; he noted her youth, her beauty, her dark eyes and golden skin so very different from that of the women of the North.
“You have spoken wisely and correctly, child,” he said at last. “It is only the Darkness that we fear, for we know the madness it can bring. It creeps inside a man’s soul like a fog, cold and damp, severe and relentless. It brings a world without stars, a world without moonlight, a world without the warmth of the sun. And it is this knowledge above all else that we cannot defeat. Only the blackness defeated Speca so long ago; Aran, try though she may, cannot hope to best it. And now it spreads insidiously eastward to subjugate us. This then is the true strength of Druid power. This and only this. Without the Eternal Night against us Aran would surely fight, even as the slaves of Speca themselves would lift off their yokes and rise to rid themselves of their conquerors.”
Ramagar looked away painfully as the Sage ended his words. The thief quickly recalled his own brief encounter with the Eternal Dark, that fleeting glimpse he had had from the Vulture’s deck when the ship had first approached Aran. The fearful blackness had spread across the entire western horizon, and even at his safe distance the mere sight of it had sent chills up and down Ramagar’s spine. He had seen the sun itself, a blazing ball of crimson in the evening sky, descend into nothingness before his startled eyes as it dipped lower and lower, unable to penetrate the dim pall lowly settling beneath the clouds. So frightening had this first view been that he had been forced to look away and try to block the thought of it from his mind. No wonder it drove men to madness!
“But surely there must be some way to dispel the Dark,” protested Mariana.
The old Sage smiled a thin kind smile at her, one that was most warm and generous considering the poor circumstances of the discussion. “Ah, so many times we have tried to find such a way,” he lamented bitterly. “And each time we have failed completely. The best of Aran’s efforts have been futile; the ter
ror we face cannot be dispelled, nor even pushed back from our shores. We know what we can expect, and that is no less than the worst.” He glanced back to the Prince and the two men locked stares. “Aran is doomed,” he continued, “although outside of the Sklar our peoples do not yet know it. Each day brings the Eternal Dark that much closer; already our fighting ships have sighted the grim vessels of the Night-Watchers sailing closer to our harbors. I fear that the North is lost forever, and nothing can be done to alter this distressing destiny.”
For a long while there was no further talk, as all reflected on what had been said. The wind began to pick up again, making eerie noises as it gusted down over the quiet amphitheater, whipping and whistling between the cracks and crevices along the mountain’s jagged ridges.
It was Mariana’s voice that finally broke the silence. “Then our true enemy is but the Darkness,” she observed. “And if that much could be conquered then we might stand a chance …”
The Sage laughed a short hollow laugh, the bitterness of his mirth apparent to all. “Yes, child. As simple a matter as that. For then we would know that Druid magic has been defeated.” He hung his shoulders dejectedly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “But such a welcome happening can never be. No man, no woman, on the face of the world possesses such a power.”
“Perhaps you are wrong,” said the Prince with an air of mystery. “Perhaps a way can yet be found to dispel the Darkness, to scatter the -blackness across a thousand winds and render it harmless.”
Steely eyes tightened and glowered questioningly at the Friend of Aran, son of kings long since vanquished from their home. “Do you truly believe what you say?” said the Sage. “After all you have been told here tonight? After all you have learned? The greatest minds of Speca herself could not regain the sky, nor even the bold fighting ships of Aran.”
The Thief of Kalimar; Captain Sinbad; Cinnabar Page 27