The Path of Dreams (The Tome of Law Book 2)

by Matthew W. Harrill

  “It is hard to gauge how many orders may have been influenced by Raessa,” Jacob agreed.

  “It will be the coastal cities that will be the key to it all, my friend,” Brendan continued as they headed back towards the tower. “If money is the reason the mercenaries march, then you can bet your right hand that there are merchant princes behind it all. They control many of the coastal cities, with their bribes keeping the Dukes happy. They have no love at all for the Old Law, and less for wizards. The only guildsmen they care about are those that can make a profit, and there is very little of that in focussing. I just hope that the coastal guilds believe in the Gods as we do, and then we might prevail. Otherwise we are going to find ourselves surrounded with enemies and only this tower to find refuge in.”

  “Not a lot we can do from here though,” Jacob admitted, seemingly mourning for their inactivity.

  “Well we are going to have to change that, my friend. We are in a unique position here, with access to magics unparalleled by anything in the normal world. We will make use of it and we shall prevail.”

  “If we ever manage to get anything out of our hosts.” Jacob looked up at the tower they were about to enter. “They seem to be less than willing to share whatever it is they have learned during their tenure here. We have made all of the discoveries.”

  “I am beginning to think that there is a reason they are here and unable to do anything. I think we are on the verge of finding out why.” Brendan moved his hand in front of him and the huge door opened silently. “See? They do not even do that. They are watching for something my friend, and it has nothing to do with focussing.”

  The two wizards climbed the great stairs that led to the main chamber and entered. Inside, Endarius, Irmgard and Tani sat in awe, looking up at Obrett, who held in his arms a wisp of a girl clad in leather, a sword hanging half out of a scabbard.

  “I never did believe in the ways of magic,” Irmgard said reverently, “but I'm beginning to wonder why it is you can do such amazing things.”

  “It is because I believe,” Obrett replied, and put the girl down onto the ground. “The only way to save her was to power a focus through her, something that has never been done.”

  “Was one girl worth the personal risk?” Tani asked gently. “Obrett, you could have killed yourself.”

  “This girl is special. She represents something, an ideal for lack of a better term. She has given hope and direction to those that lacked it.”

  “Is she the one you seek?” Endarius had spoken to Obrett in the past of his thoughts on Raessa, and knew of the theory that there was somebody special they were all after.

  “No, she is something different, but equally special. She has cast off the life of a traveller, and become something more.”

  “A warrior?” Endarius challenged. “That is hardly noble.”

  “It is not her choice, and therefore she is innocent of any ill that has happened. What she has done though is lead a group of people into the heart of a bear pit to rescue her family. She has led people through the wilderness and kept them safe from the true enemy. Now she has nearly died protecting them and I will save her.”

  Brendan approached his friend, and found that the girl in his arms was bleeding onto the floor. As if to confirm the grisly state, Jacob spoke up. “If you are going to do something, do it quickly for the girl is almost one with my God. Her life force ebbs.”

  In response Obrett concentrated, drawing in his will and sending it snaking out in the form of pure magic. Instead of ranging afar, as so many of their spells had, the spell dove into the girl in Obrett's arms. The wizards beheld a miracle as the spell emerged in a different form, causing a breeze to manifest in the chamber. The breeze quickly became a gale, whipping pages and tomes around and forcing the three watching wizards and the three guardians to jump to it and save the paperwork. The gale howled around the edges of the chamber, reaching maelstrom proportions. Lightning flickered and the room went dark. Tables started to shift, along with their contents. Streaks of vapour raced around them and the wind began to howl as well as rush. At the centre of it all the warrior girl lifted from Obrett's arms and rose into the air, lifted by so much wind pressure. The body was inert as if defying the terrible forces about it, but it was rapidly healing as the focus that had been sent through it worked its own magic. The blood that dripped stopped and a hale colour returned to her face, or appeared to for as much as the wizards could actually see what was happening, they were sparing at least as much concentration avoiding flying objects. At the height of the storm in the tower, Obrett sent forth a different type of focus, and the girl disappeared. The winds dropped, and suddenly the only noise was that of paper sifting back through the air to land wherever gravity determined. The room was a complete shambles, but Obrett stood there, a strange smile on his face. “It worked,” he said before anybody had a chance to berate him for almost single-handedly destroying everything in the chamber. “The girl is back with her loved ones, and I can see that she is alive and well.”

  “I thought that you could not move people around,” Irmgard said, his face a thunderous reflection of the recent vortex.

  “She wasn't all there when I did it. She was not conscious, and so could not comprehend what was going on around her. Maybe that was the difference, but I tell you now we are almost there. We can nearly move a person with their own knowledge and wits intact.”

  “Well perhaps you had better come down from your little cloud and help us get this chamber back in order, so that we can use it once more.”

  “Do you not see? This is exactly the sort of thing that this room was designed for!” Obrett's face was animated with the truth as he now saw it.

  “They would not see, my friend,” Brendan answered, “for they cannot see. They have no concept of magic whatsoever. That is why whoever it was put them here, because they had no knowledge at all. They have never focussed, and perhaps never will despite the magic that is all around them. They are ignorant of any of our ways, of perhaps anything except the Old Law. They are a people unlike us, and they would probably not recognise the world as it is now, a world full of merchants and mercenaries, a world ruled by gold.

  The three stood there dumbstruck. “How could you know what we are?” Tani asked, her voice quivering.

  “I know because my intuition tells me so,” he replied. “You are so far removed from the normal world that you can only be from a completely different people. You watch for an item or an event, and I would bet that you have been watching for a very long time. A very long time. If I was a betting man and sometimes I am, I would say that you are connected with whatever it is you are looking for in some way, and that what stops you from leaving here is your knowledge that it is out there calling to you. But you have been so long looking that you forgot how you got here in the first place. Help us learn, and we can help you in return. Give us your knowledge, and we will help you find this item, and you can do with it what you will.”

  Tears of gratitude ran down the faces of both Endaruis, and Tani. Even the normally stolid Irmgard was looking emotional. “We want to help you, but we don't even know where to begin.” She said, looking at the results of the paper blizzard. “We can't even get out of here, we have no knowledge of magic.”

  “Well then,” said Obrett as he balanced a sphere of pure white light on his palm, “we are going to have to see what we can do about that, aren't we?

  * * *

  The village was sombre despite the victory. They had watched the mercenaries filter quietly into the village, great bundles of stakes carried between them. Then the trap had been sprung. The tribal men and women had fired a hail of arrows into the group, and then the villagers and the rest had waded in with swords, axes, and various farming implements. Victory had been certain even against better-trained foes, but the cost had been immeasurable. As Mavra had raised her sword in the air, a mercenary that had been missed had jumped up behind her and run her through, gurgling with insane laughter as
he had done so. The man had been slaughtered on the spot, but it was not enough. Ramaji had fainted at the sight of her daughter unconscious and dying, and Jani could only stare and cry. Both parents were inconsolable. They sat there crying, not talking, not even acknowledging each other. Then the ultimate desecration had happened. When they had finally been persuaded to leave the body of their dying daughter to the ministrations of one of the village elders, somebody had taken the body of their dying daughter. The villagers tried to keep it from them, and it had only led to Ramaji fainting at the news and Jani settling down into an icy silence.

  It was just as the former Mistress of the caravan and her husband, not sure if they would be called upon to resume their duties, were trying to break through to them that a wind manifested itself. Jani and Ramaji paid it no heed, but the rest of the villagers had dived for cover. It was not just a wind but a tornado, a whirling vortex of immensely powerful winds. The vortex appeared over the barn where they had held Mavra's body, and ripped it asunder. Wood flew everywhere, and the whirlwind was so dark that nobody could see what was going on at its centre. On the plains of Ciaharr, this type of phenomenon was never seen, and so nobody had ever before witnessed it. One innocent child went as far as to walk right up to the edge of the vortex, where eddying winds ripped at anything within reach. Playing with the currents for a moment, the child was snatched to safety by her terrified father. The vortex eventually blew itself out, and after the wood had crashed in a rain of splinters to the ground, the villagers, tribes' people and travellers gradually emerged from various hiding places to view the ultimate desecration of their fallen heroine.

  The man who had owned the barn was the first to look at it. “It is not the cost of the barn, but rather that it was such a good, solid building,” he lamented to his wife, who just stared ahead at the dust cloud that was still settling around them.

  “Yes dear,” she replied, numb to all that had happened around her on this strangest of days and yet proud that her husband had never given in to the will of the merchants that passed through, preaching their ways of money.

  “Well would you look at that,” he observed, “there appears to still be something undisturbed amidst all of this.” The dust was clearing, and shapes began to resolve in the dusty air.

  “It's a shame that it is not the body of that poor girl who gave her life up for the likes of us.” She replied, not really seeing what was in front of her.

  “Look,” Her husband exclaimed, “Everybody, come look!” He called to the people that had witnessed the maelstrom. Upon hearing his voice, people began to drift over and see what he had managed to salvage.

  It was only then that his wife registered the scene with her own eyes. “Oh dear Gods above, how can it be so?” In front of them on the floor of the wrecked barn, as if nothing had ever happened to her, lay the body of Mavra. She was still, composed, and there was no sign of the blood that had stained every inch of her clothing. Her sword lay at her side, and there was a slight smile on the face of the still form. Strangest of all, and it was something that no person in that village would ever forget, was that the young lady in front of them was breathing.

  One look from Gren, himself badly injured with a broken arm and a gash down the other was enough to send him yelling for his companions. “Venla,” He cried out loud, “bring Jani here at once! There is something that he must witness!”

  Normally one to let grief take its course, Venla did not want to disturb the parents of the late mistress, but something in Gren's voice was enough to send her running. In moments she was leading a still-shocked Jani back to the scene of what had been a dastardly crime. The man was still shell-shocked by the events of the day. He had fought as fiercely as anyone, weeping with tears as he had been forced to kill mercenaries that had been trying to kill him. It would have stood against everything he had ever known as a traveller, but for the fact that he was saving his daughter. All for nothing it seemed. When Jani saw Mavra lying there amidst the rubble, he ran to her. “It is good seeing her back, and looking so calm.” He gently brushed the cheek of his eldest, and then pulled his hand away as if he had burned it.

  “What is it, Jani?” Venla asked, confused by his reaction.

  “Her face, it is warm.” Jani looked up at them. “What sort of devilry is this? First my daughter takes up the sword, something which no traveller let alone a girl has ever done. Then when we battle she gets killed, and in the middle of our grief she is stolen from us only to be returned and bewitched. I do not want my daughter's warm corpse! I want all of this to have never happened. I want my daughter back!”

  “And you have her,” said a weak voice from behind him.

  Jani's eyes widened, and the villagers gasped. He turned back around to see his daughter looking up at him, and struggling to rise. “Oh my Mavra!” Jani swept her up in an embrace that left both of them weeping, tears streaming down their faces. More than one of the villagers joined in seeing the raw emotion on the face of the traveller. “I thought you had gone for good. I have no idea what happened.”

  “I do.” Mavra did not disengage herself from her father's arms, but instead gave herself a little room to breathe. “I was taken from here to a place that was inhabited by beings of supreme power and skill. There I was healed and sent back with a message: 'Be strong, the darkest days are not yet upon us'.”

  “Healed by who?” Her father asked.

  “Mavra! Oh my sweet daughter how can this be?” Ramaji, very much out of her stupor hurtled through the press of people and hugged her daughter tight. Tears flowed freely once again as everybody celebrated, and it was some time before the standing question could be answered.

  Finally pushing her mother to arm's length so that she had some space, Mavra answered. “Who else could it have been? The beautiful light, the magic that healed me. It could only have been the Gods that have touched me.”

  “Truly?” Asked one of the villagers, a farmer named Ralf. “You were truly touched by the Gods?”

  “What other reason could there possibly be?” Mavra replied. “Who else could have done this?”

  “The wizards, who are our allies,” answered Handel. “They are responsible for this, as I have just been told.”

  “Told by whom?” Demanded Ramaji, who was willing to counter the word of any who spoke against her daughter, only recently returned. Passion ruled reason and she was far from reasonable. It was understandable though, and Handel took no umbrage from her tone.

  “By the wizard that healed you.”

  “And how is it that he cannot speak to the rest of us?”

  “It is difficult to speak, and easier to observe,” said a voice out of thin air, “but perhaps the time has come for me to reveal a little of what is happening to you all.”

  The villagers looked around, seeking the source of the voice. “Please, be still,” it said. “My name is Obrett Pedern and I am a wizard. I am in a place you cannot reach but where near miracles can be performed. You have to trust that I am watching over you all, as there is a great deal at stake. Please listen as this is taxing. The mercenaries you defeated are as nothing. The army that will rise would dwarf this like a tree to a blade of grass. They will be armed not only with warriors, but possibly wizards of their own.”

  “What are we going to do against magic?” Cried out one woman.

  “We also have wizards lending aid to our cause.” Obrett replied. “They are hastening towards the plains even as we speak. There is always hope my friends. Look towards Mavra D'Voss, for she is a special hope. She was worth risking attention. Follow her example, and serve the Old Law in the way it needs you best at the moment. Defend your homeland until aid arrives. Seek out the villages that have yet been spared, and defend them too. A darkness arises even as I speak, and too soon it will hang over us like a stifling blanket. This is where the fight to defend what is good and right begins. Always remember that. Individual villages and farmsteads are alone no more. You are a rare breed, that of a free pe
ople. Tyranny will hunt you like a wolf and you must elude it. My friends and I will do what we can, but until then look to the tribe for aid. They know of our wishes. I bid you farewell. I am watching over you.” The last sentence faded out as an entire village of stunned people stood amidst the wreckage of the barn.

  “Well, you heard the man,” said Ralf, “this is not over yet. I suggest that we go get ourselves some swords.”

  “Perhaps not,” Handel intervened, “for a lot of the success was from the long-reaching weapons that you made from your farming tools. The mercenaries could not get near you long enough to do any damage.”

  “That will not always be the case my friend.” Jaden looked at the motley crew of would-be warriors. “These mercenaries are driven by a force that we cannot underestimate. The moment that we do, we will lose.” He looked around at the gathered villagers. “Have any of you ever fired an arrow from a bow?”

  Initially nobody replied, but then a couple of men stepped forward. “We hunted a couple of times,” said one, and received gasps of shock and outrage for his candidness. “What? It was only a couple of times, and these men need to know the truth.”

  “That is right,” Handel agreed. “The time for secrecy and dishonesty is long past. If we are to survive we need to know of every skill you have, legal or not, moral or not. In order to preserve the Old Law, we might have to go as far against its tenets as any apparent follower has ever done, but in the end we shall prevail.

  “Will we, truly?” Asked one slight doubter.

  “Truly, we will, “Handel stood tall and smiled, something he had never done before, “For ours is a noble cause, and we have powers beyond that of the enemy. We have hope, and we have faith. We have a reason to stand against anything, and we have magic on our side to back us up.”