“It is up to you now,” Nicci said. “I have to go back to Ildakar. You must all unite as part of the D’Haran Empire. Fight for your lives and your freedom.”
Seeing the look in their eyes, she knew she had gotten through to them. They would do as she asked. Nicci felt confident as she left the harbor and made her way back into the hills, where she would find the ancient temple of the Sea Mother and the sliph well.
* * *
At twilight, the temple was silent and peaceful, abandoned. After the Norukai attack on the harbor, the people of Serrimundi were picking up the pieces and putting out the last fires. There were hundreds of wounded to be tended. Nicci could have used healing magic to help them, but Serrimundi had many doctors and gifted healers. She was no longer needed here.
If the Norukai were attacking Ildakar, she was certainly needed there.
“Sliph, I want to travel. Now.” Nicci was sore, weary, and worried for her friends. She stood at the edge of the well and waited.
The shrubs and vines rustled in the evening breezes, and she smelled the gentle scent of blooming nightshade, but she heard nothing from the bottomless well. “Sliph, come!” She pushed out with her gift, felt along the threads of magic, the throbbing power deep within the well.
Somewhere infinitely far away, the intractable quicksilver began to move, roiling up the passage. Nicci was impatient, concerned about what might be happening in Ildakar right now. She had left Nathan and the duma members searching for a way to fight General Utros. How could they possibly battle King Grieve as well as a full Norukai invasion at the same time?
She shouted into the well. “Sliph, I require your services. I need to travel!”
Finally, the quicksilver surged to the top, like metallic acid boiling in a cauldron. The sliph’s face looked angry. “I serve the cause. I do not serve you.”
Nicci retorted, “You were created to transport travelers, and I need to travel.” She had no time to cajole the sliph. Lucy, the sliph that Richard commanded in Stroyza, had also been moody and petulant, but in the end Lucy had done as she was told. Nicci put one foot on the edge of the well. “Carry me back to Ildakar.”
“How will that serve Sulachan?” the sliph demanded.
“Sulachan is gone,” Nicci snapped. “We fight a different battle now. The cause has changed.”
The sliph recoiled at the revelation, and Nicci reached out with her gift, using Subtractive as well as Additive Magic. The sliph required both, and now Nicci proved that she was strong, her new master. “Take me to Ildakar.”
The sliph looked devastated. Her face distorted as the quicksilver re-formed itself. “Sulachan…”
Nicci released more of her gift, hammering hard to assert her dominance over the sliph. “Take me to Ildakar. I command it.”
“Ildakar!” The sliph lunged forward like an attacking wave of molten silver. “Breathe!” she commanded, then engulfed Nicci and pulled her down into a bottomless cold pit.…
CHAPTER 87
As the river thawed again and great chunks of ice drifted apart, the numerous serpent ships broke free, caught in the current, their hulls cracked. Drifting in the slush-choked water were hundreds of dead Norukai men and women who had tumbled from the bluffs or been killed by the defenders of Ildakar.
Bound and bloody, his body bruised from the fall and his head still ringing from a cracked skull, Bannon couldn’t break free from the hideous raiders. Stunned, he couldn’t think straight, but he knew where he was.
The young man had fought with every ounce of energy, fully expecting to die, and when he had tumbled from the platform to crash among the bodies below, he had never expected to awaken. Though he could feel several cracked ribs and blood running down the side of his face, Bannon was worse than dead. He was a prisoner of the hated Norukai! His captors dragged him along with dozens of other Ildakaran prisoners toward the crowded serpent ships in the river. Some of the captives were unconscious, some sobbing, and only a few made halfhearted efforts to escape, which were severely beaten back.
Bannon couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. From the river, he looked up the bluff where he should have seen the towering city above.
Ildakar was gone. Gone!
The entire city had simply been erased, as if the top of the plateau had been shaved off, leaving the lower portion of the bluff intact but the upper levels sheared away.
Though Bannon’s thoughts were scrambled, he recalled the first time he, Nathan, and Nicci had approached Ildakar. They had seen only an empty plain, because the city was hidden beneath the shroud of eternity, a bubble that erased it from time. Had the wizards done the same thing again, whisking Ildakar away and leaving anyone outside to fend for themselves?
What about Nathan and Elsa and the raiding party out in the plain? What about the rest of the people of Ildakar? And where was Lila?
The defenders in the tunnels beneath the bluff had been abandoned, left behind to face the Norukai, who were even now ransacking the tunnels, dragging out prisoners and slaying any who resisted.
Ildakar was gone. Bannon was on his own.
As his captors shoved him across a wooden plank and onto the deck of a serpent ship, Bannon relived a horrifying nightmare from his childhood, when the scarred raiders had come to Chiriya Island, clubbed him and captured him in an isolated cove. Now, all these years later, Bannon was in the clutches of the same monsters again.
King Grieve and Chalk had also survived the fall, and that only increased Bannon’s despair. Now, as they stood among the surviving raiders, Grieve bellowed to his countless fighters, “Search every tunnel. Find what is up there. Climb the cliff and reach the top of the plain.”
The albino shaman laced his knobby fingers together. “Yes, the plain and the whole world! Out there is our destiny, my Grieve, King Grieve. They’ll all grieve!”
The Norukai king snorted. “I don’t know how much to believe you anymore, Chalk. Your visions are flawed.”
“No, my Grieve! I saw the battle. I saw cold, snow, and ice. Remember? Remember, my Grieve? Cold, ice, cold!” He gestured to the thawing river, the ice chunks sliding down the bluff wall. “Ildakar did not win, and you have what is left. It’s yours, my king, my Grieve. Ildakar is gone! I said so!”
“That is not what I expected.”
“Never what you expect,” the shaman said. “But I know it’s true in the end. Go to the plain, and you will see how to take over the whole world.”
Bannon struggled against his bonds. “You’ll fail.” His voice was a harsh croak. “The Old World will rally against you, and Lord Rahl has the entire D’Haran army to defeat you.”
Grieve smashed the side of Bannon’s head with his iron-plated knuckles. The young man collapsed, barely keeping a thread of consciousness. He fell backward onto the icy, blood-slick deck. He blinked, trying to look up and down the river, disoriented.
He could make out the Norukai ships and the countless raiders swarming into the tunnels, to climb up where the city had vanished. He saw the crumbling rocks, the river, and thick brush along the banks. At the edge of his vision, he thought he caught a glimpse of a slender woman wearing only black leather wrappings. Lila? Before he could focus, she darted into the shadows, hiding among the low trees.
Grieve said, “If we are going to take over the world, we will need many more captives, slaves, workers.” With his broad chin he gestured toward the boats as he shouted orders to the other Norukai. “For now, kill as few as you have to. We need to launch a hundred more raids to fill our ranks and take captives, though I expect we’ll have to kill quite a few just to make our message clear.”
Bannon struggled as they dragged him among the shuddering captives. Ignoring him for now, the Norukai king gestured toward the bluff. “Let us make our way up through the tunnels, Chalk. I want to see what awaits us on the plain.”
* * *
When she emerged after the timeless journey, Nicci spilled out of the well as if thrown in disgust. She crashed t
o the ground and rolled, gasping in air and trying to expel the intangible essence of the sliph. Something was wrong. She felt weakened and strange, and her ears rang.
Rather than finding herself in a dank, stone-walled enclosure in Ildakar, Nicci was in the open, late at night, sprawled on broken flagstones. Around her, she saw fallen stone pillars the size of massive oak trees. Great slabs of marble lay tilted at various angles, as if the ancient city had been shaken apart. On the far side of the plaza, a statue of a man as large as a dragon lay toppled, the colossus shattered into pieces.
From behind high patchy clouds, the moon shone down to illuminate the ruins of a vast city where grand towers had crumbled into rubble and majestic archways were overgrown with vines and moss. The jagged silhouettes of nearby mountain peaks hovered behind the haunted, silent buildings. Other than the stars, the only lights she saw were tiny fireflies swirling about like intermittent meteors.
She saw no campfires, no lamps in windows of the dwellings, no sign of life whatsoever in the extensive ruins. She turned back to the sliph, who hovered in the round enclosure. “Where am I? This isn’t Ildakar.” She felt suddenly dizzy, nauseated. “What have you done to me?”
Like an angry spirit, the sliph loomed out of her well. Her quicksilver form shifted and melted, as if she had trouble maintaining her shape. “Ildakar no longer exists. I cannot take you there. I tried, but I … ricocheted. The city is gone.”
“What do you mean it’s gone?” Nicci stepped back toward the well. “We came from there. I need to travel. Take me to Ildakar.”
“I refuse. Ildakar is gone.” Her expression roiled with anger. “And I am not your slave. If Sulachan is dead, then the cause is lost. I have no purpose. You have deceived me, and I will not help you.”
Nicci realized how lost she was. She could be stranded, and this creature was her only connection, her only way of getting back. “No, sliph! If you can’t take me to Ildakar, then return me to Serrimundi.” She looked around at the abandoned metropolis. “Do not leave me here.”
“You will never travel in me again.” The sliph’s voice held a dangerous finality. “I must recover.”
Nicci rushed to the edge of the well, but it was too late. The sliph vanished, plunging back down into the bottomless well with a rushing, fading sound.
Nicci stood silent, all alone in the empty wreck of an ancient city, completely cut off from her friends and everything she knew.
* * *
Utros’s returning scouts rode back at a fast gallop from the empty site of Ildakar, where the bluffs dropped off to the river. The first man had an unexpectedly alarmed expression on his face. “General! Warriors are climbing up from the Killraven and emerging onto the plain. Thousands of them!”
“They are armed and furious,” said a second man, his skin warm and flushed. “Uglier than any humans I have ever seen.”
First Commander Enoch stepped forward. “Another army? Where did they come from? Do they mean to fight us?”
Utros stared toward the river, where he saw the unruly lines of figures moving toward them. Even though his army was shocked and damaged after the inferno, they clearly outnumbered any possible enemy force. And yet the other warriors kept coming over the top of the cliff. Utros gritted his teeth and nodded to Enoch. “First Commander, go meet them with a party of armed soldiers. Find out who they are. I will want to speak with their leader.”
With a brisk nod, the hardened veteran gathered fifty men and rode off to the raiders coming up from the river.
Utros ignored the unfamiliar pangs of hunger in his stomach. He remembered when he had tried to eat the roasted yaxen shortly after awakening, and he had vomited up the meat. Now, his stomach wanted food. All of his soldiers would feel the same way.
Before long, the first commander returned leading ten hideous warriors with scarred faces. One man, larger and more powerful than the rest of them, had bony spikes implanted in his shoulders and iron plates on his knuckles. He was accompanied by a pale man whose skin was covered with a forest of scars.
“We are the Norukai, and I am King Grieve,” said the large man, striding forward to face Utros. “What have you done to Ildakar?”
Utros gestured to his surviving soldiers that spilled across the plain, restless in their makeshift camp. “We laid siege to the city. My army has been waiting here for fifteen centuries to bring it down.”
Grieve interrupted with a loud laugh. “The statue army! Yes, my spies told me about the stone warriors. But you are awake now.”
The general didn’t flinch, showed no weakness. “We have been fighting to break down the city walls, but Ildakar just vanished before our eyes. I do not know what happened.”
Grieve grumbled. “Yes, the city has done that before. Maybe Ildakar will return, maybe it won’t. But I have all my Norukai navy, and my warriors need to fight.” He leaned closer. “Maybe we should attack your army.”
“Only if you wish to die,” Utros said. “Do you not see the numbers of my troops? What would be the point? Do you think war is nothing more than a sport?”
Grieve shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Ava and Ruva came close, their eyes bright, and he knew they were ready to attack with magic. The twins stared curiously at the scarred albino shaman.
The two men were both massive, and if Utros had still been hardened from the lingering effects of the stone spell, he could have crushed the king. But now he was flesh and blood again, with all the inherent weaknesses of a mere human. As he faced the Norukai king, Utros was both offended and fascinated by the scarification, the slashed mouth, the implanted bone spines, the tattoos on his skin. Even more hideous was the shaman whose skin was covered with bite marks.
“Destiny,” said the albino. “Destiny, my Grieve, King Grieve! There will be war, a big war.” He jabbed a finger at Utros. “But not with him.”
The Norukai leader’s expression showed a reckless challenge, but Utros remained calm. They had both attacked Ildakar, but from different sides.
“We have the same enemy,” Utros said. “I assume you had your reasons to attack the city.”
Grieve said, “To conquer it.”
Utros saw thousands more Norukai ascending from the river below, and his scouts had reported numerous warships on the water. “Ildakar is no longer there. Are you going to make yourself my enemy? You and all your fighters?” He kept his voice calm and gestured to the countless ranks across the scorched and damaged field. “My army can easily defeat yours. It makes no sense for you to fight us.”
“The Norukai always fight,” Grieve said. “We raid, we pillage, we conquer.”
“Admirable goals,” Utros said, “so long as you choose the right target. And the right ally.”
The shaman came close, curious to look at the twin sorceresses. He sniffed and shifted his gaze back and forth from Ava to Ruva. “Magic,” he said. “Powerful magic! But they don’t see what I see, my Grieve. I see a huge army! I see Norukai ships. I see Utros and his soldiers.” He grinned. “I see a powerful force to sweep across the whole land.”
General Utros was curious. “I once served Emperor Kurgan. Now I serve my own goals. I have no emperor.”
“I am king,” Grieve said. “King of the Norukai.”
“You may be king of the Norukai, but I am general of my troops. The Old World is vast. How can you help me conquer it?”
Offended, Grieve puffed himself up as if ready to attack Utros. Ava and Ruva coiled, prepared to unleash their magic. With a single bolt of lightning, they could turn King Grieve into a smear of ash.
But the albino shaman jumped between them, frantically waving his hands. “This is what I saw, my Grieve, King Grieve! Allies. You and General Utros, a giant army! A great war.”
“I have hundreds of ships,” Grieve boasted. “Many down on the river, others raiding the coast, and more being built among our islands. It is a navy unlike any that history has ever seen.”
“They’ll all grieve!” the shaman cried.
Utros pondered how many soldiers he had just lost, and his new determination after forsaking his loyalty to Emperor Kurgan. He said in a calculating voice, “I have my army, but to overwhelm the entire land, a navy would be useful as well, and many more fighters. If your Norukai can fight.”
Grieve spat on the ground, as if the answer were disgustingly obvious. The king described his great war fleet and his countless raiders, ruthless Norukai men and women, and powerful serpent ships. He told of the numerous Norukai islands filled with warriors who had not yet set off in battle, but were restless and eager to launch their own attacks. A war, a full war, to conquer the entire Old World.
Utros decided that, given time, he could wipe out these Norukai, if necessary, but for now he did not need another war for his displaced troops. Perhaps these warriors would be useful.
“Together, our armies can conquer the world,” Grieve said. “If we fight together.”
“They’ll all grieve!” the shaman repeated.
Ava and Ruva leaned closer, whispering in eerie unison, “With a whole continent to conquer, beloved Utros, surely there is enough to carve out two empires.”
He considered, then spoke to the Norukai leader. “With your ships and your raiders, and all my soldiers, we could overwhelm the land. King Grieve and General Utros.”
The Norukai king opened his exaggerated mouth and clacked his teeth together. “I agree.”
Smiling with satisfaction, Utros reached out to clasp Grieve’s massive hand.
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