Merchant of Alyss

by Thomas Locke

  Gradually the hills took form up ahead. Their craggy peaks and razor edges were no higher than the hills that formed Lystra, yet these ran from horizon to horizon. When it became clear that Selim intended for them to scale the ridge that afternoon, Meda pointed to a well far ahead and asked, “Why not camp here and climb fresh?”

  “You are not the first to think this way,” Selim replied. “Remember my warning. Eat and drink only what we carry.”

  In past eons, the well might have been lovely, with a domed canopy supported by sculpted columns. A leather bucket lay by the well’s base, linked to new rope. Even so, none felt tempted to top up their supplies. For as they approached they saw the trail between the well and the slopes was littered with bodies. Bones of men and animals had been picked clean. They passed helmets and swords and shields and saddles and ragged remnants of clothing that flapped in the hot wind.

  Meda asked Selim, “You have come this way before?”

  “Once. To the valley beyond this first ridge and no farther.”

  “Do you know what awaits us after that?”

  “Four ridges in all, or so the legends claim. Then a day’s hard trek, then Alyss, then the sea. But none have seen this in eons, and legends have a way of being reshaped by time.”

  The hills were a brilliant red, the color of blood dried to a brittle finish. An ancient trail snaked up the steep rise, but it was blocked in places by slides. Hyam and the others took a newer course, one formed by the golems. Their massive limbs had pounded a broad path straight up the hill. At Selim’s direction they dismounted and led their horses. By the time they arrived at the top they were all breathing hard. Their horses balked at the steep descent, but once they were led over the edge the company had to leap aside, for there was no halting their tumble.

  Two of the reins snapped in their madcap descent. All but one of the animals arrived at the hill’s base before the company. Even so, none of the animals took a single step forward. Soon as his boots touched the valley floor, Hyam sensed the same doom-laden force as in the dread vale before Emporis’s front gates.

  A very subdued company replaced the broken reins and retied their mounts and mules. But as they were preparing for the next climb, Hyam declared, “We camp here.”

  A union of horrified gazes met his. Selim said, “This place is full of death.”

  “Even so,” Hyam said. “We go no farther today.”

  Selim clearly struggled with the need to argue against the only order Hyam had given since leaving Olom. The caravan master pointed to the next ascent. The hills were slightly lower than the ones they had just crossed, but just as steep. The golems had hammered the same straight-line trail up this slope, aimed directly for the unseen harbor city of Alyss. But this slope was punctuated by dozens of caves, all the same round shape as those the golems had carved into the hills of Olom. “That is where I found the scrolls.”

  Hyam had suspected as much. “Your family’s legacy.”

  “As I said, the Elves are great ones for keeping the past alive,” Selim agreed. “The scrolls’ location was part of my clan’s most ancient bequest. A dreaded treasure, full of warnings and death.”

  Hyam added, “Hidden away for a moment when the clan’s survival is threatened.”

  Selim nodded. “I knew I would make this trip the day Olom began to die, because their golems went to Alyss.”

  “Even when the young warriors who tracked the monsters failed to return to Olom,” Hyam said. “You had no choice. It was either search for the hidden treasure or watch your clan perish.”

  The high sun tightened the slant to Selim’s features and revealed a hint of color within his dark gaze, the legacy of forests lost to battle and treachery. “We arrived, and we searched, and we found the stash exactly where the clan’s lore said we would.”

  “Are there more amphorae?”

  “Hundreds.” Selim waved that aside as unimportant. “When we emerged from the cavern, the ridge was lined by ghostly warriors. They started down toward us, and we fled. They followed us as far as the well. When we looked back, there they stood. Guarding the way.” When Hyam did not respond, Selim stepped closer and hissed, “Do you not hear me, Emissary? We are in the realm of the undead. We must flee before they awaken once more.”

  Hyam shook his head. “You’ve missed the point.”

  Selim’s mouth opened, but more words did not emerge.

  “Think back to when you first arrived in Emporis with the amphorae. You claimed you were chased all the way across the yellow realm.”

  “I do not claim. It happened.”

  “And I accept this as truth. How did you know of your pursuers?”

  “I am a caravan master of Olom.” But the heat was gone from Selim’s reply, replaced now by open curiosity. “I know to read the signs of hunters.”

  Meda asked, “And the bird?”

  “It came to me in the valley near Olom that we call home.” Selim kept his gaze upon Hyam as he replied. “It warned of pursuers, and of their desire to find the small scroll.”

  Hyam said, “So you were tracked across open desert by . . .”

  “I sensed a dread force. More than that I cannot say, for I saw no one.”

  Meda said to Hyam, “You’re telling us the enemy is up ahead.”

  “That is not the issue. We’ve always assumed Alyss is their lair.” Hyam gave them a moment, but when the others stared back in blank confusion, he asked Selim, “Why didn’t the enemy stalk you as soon as you took the scrolls? Why didn’t they snare you here and take what they wanted before you escaped?”

  Selim’s gaze widened. “I . . .”

  “Because the enemy can’t see. These hills and valleys are drenched in magic. There are centuries of mage-force at work here.” Hyam pointed at the perfectly round tunnels gaping like scores of shadowed mouths overhead. “The Milantians came and they overran Alyss. Then they crossed the yellow realm and they defeated the Elves at Ethrin. Before that, I think they created the golems. Here. In this vale.”

  “They’re preparing another attack,” Shona said. “Against the human realm.”

  “Of course they are. And that’s not the point either.”

  Meda said, “So the witch who stole Joelle’s breath . . .”

  “Was a scout,” Selim suggested.

  Hyam looked from one face to the next and saw they were unable to glimpse beyond the obvious. This, he realized, was why Dyamid had come to him. So that he might lift his gaze and see.

  “We are stopping,” Hyam said, “because this is our last chance to prepare.”

  Selim waved at the empty ridgeline. “What of the warriors who guard this vale?”

  Hyam opened his shirt, gripped the silver chain, and pulled out the crystal pipe. “It is time to call upon allies of our own.”

  36

  Hyam blew the silent note, then waited, but not for long. Tendrils of mist rose from the baked desert and drifted like smoke from unseen fires. Dozens of them. Hundreds. They took form. And became the Ellismere army.

  When Selim started to back away, Meda assured him, “These are allies, as Hyam said.”

  The leader held to a shimmering translucence in their mage-torches. He approached Hyam and drew his sword and offered a spectral salute. Hyam touched his forehead in acknowledgment. He started to point at the next ridge when Shona cried, “I can hear them!”

  Hyam sighed with genuine relief. “Tell me.”

  “H-he says you were right to summon them.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Ahead lies danger from beyond time’s reach,” Shona related. “Beings from the realm of hopeless night guard the approach to Alyss. He says, ‘We will serve as guardians against what you cannot see.’”

  “Can he also stop these guardians of Alyss from raising the alarm?”

  The ghost responded with a warrior’s grim humor. Shona replied, “It will be his pleasure.”

  When the general turned away, Hyam called after him, “I asked befo
re, can I release you from your bonds?”

  “He thanks you for your question and the desire to assist them.” The phantom general saluted him a second time. Shona translated, “The Milantian threat that overran them at Ellismere has returned. They are content to serve those who defy the tide of evil. For now, it is enough.”

  The afternoon grew stifling. The valley where they camped was less than thirty paces wide. The steep hills to either side trapped the heat. The desert silence suited Shona’s mood. She watched as Hyam spent hours crouched upon a rock, pondering the unseen. She continued her lessons with Fareed, but in a halfhearted fashion. Every time she shut her eyes, she again saw herself cradling Hyam through that long and broken night. Here in the heat and the dust, knowing she had done the right thing mattered little. And ever since Olom, her dreams had been pierced by the distant laughter of witches.

  When the sun’s descent lengthened the shadows and turned the caverns into leering skulls, Hyam rose from his stone bench and waved for the others to gather. “Come the next dawn or the one after, we are going on the attack. If our spectral allies can keep word from reaching Alyss, we may be able to use the element of surprise.” Hyam turned to Fareed and Shona and said, “Now is the time to test your wands.”

  Fareed showed a rare delight. “Truly, sahib, I have dreamed of this.”

  “Did you learn how to recharge the Falmouth orb?”

  Fareed nodded. “I have read the scroll.”

  “Then walk the vales until you find a spot where the miniature orbs begin to glow. We have to hope there is an underground source of power. If not here, then in the valley behind us. Find it. Practice your magery. Concentrate on spells of attack. Especially those using fire. When they become depleted, recharge your wands.”

  Selim demanded, “And if the valleys do not mask their use of magic?”

  “Then all is lost,” Hyam replied calmly. “But the fact that the amphorae have remained hidden for so long offers a very strong assurance. Because I sensed the scrolls’ power from halfway across Falmouth.”

  Shona could see the change in Hyam. It was as though he had used the sweltering afternoon to endure his own metamorphosis. Gone was the hollow stare, the mourning, the pain. In its place was a fierce intensity. To her, Hyam had never been more alluring. The man was coming into his own.

  Hyam turned to the desert trader. “There is only one explanation for how you could claim there are more amphorae containing the spells. Because we can be fairly certain the Milantians have followed your tracks and searched the tunnel your forebear used to hide them away.”

  Selim did not respond.

  “It’s because the scrolls are not there, are they.”

  Selim remained silent.

  “Your clan split the treasure apart and buried it in many tunnels,” Hyam went on. “And then covered the openings. Didn’t they.”

  Shona realized, “You’re going to use a Milantian battle spell against them.”

  “The protective shield does not require either an orb or a mage,” Hyam said. “Which means the same could be true for a spell of war. I’m going to try. If Selim will take me to another trove.”

  The renegade Elf was already climbing the next ridge. “Are you coming or not?”

  37

  As they started up the slope, Selim shared his clan’s most secret legacy. His voice took on a gentle singsong cadence, the words stilted and old-fashioned. He described his forebear’s headlong dash for Alyss, crossing the yellow realm in just ten days, only to find the city in ruins and every other member of his household perished. The lone survivor went in search of vengeance but found none, for the Milantian horde had already headed east. Toward Ethrin, the badland clans, and the human realm beyond.

  But as Selim’s ancestor prepared to track his foes back across the desert, he came upon the Milantians’ underground library. And took the revenge he sought. By stealing their entire collection of scrolls.

  The library had been too vast to carry far. So he stuffed his new cargo into amphorae designed to transport perfumed oils, sealed them, and hid the scrolls in the red hills. He had filled tunnel after tunnel, then buried the entrances. And so the amphorae remained, lost to time and the race of mages. Their hiding places had been passed down to each new generation of outcast half-breeds. But with the declining fortunes of Olom, Selim’s own survival depended upon proving the legacy true. And awakening the Milantians’ wrath in the process.

  Fareed interrupted Selim’s telling with a shout. “Sahib!”

  “I see them,” Hyam replied. “Go on with your story.”

  But the caravan master had stopped cold. For up ahead the ridgeline held a host of translucent warriors. When Hyam kept walking, Selim called after him, “What if they are not our allies?”

  “Then our every step is futile,” Hyam replied impatiently. “Come on!”

  When Shona crested the rise, the warrior spoke, and she passed on, “Sire, I mean Hyam, their general says that the ghosts enslaved by your foes have been contained.”

  “For how long?”

  “He says again, they are contained.”

  “Please thank him for us.”

  “He understands you.”

  “Of course.” Hyam peered down into the next valley, even narrower than where they were camped. Another two ridgelines separated them from the empty yellow plain. He asked, “Can he place scouts on the route to Alyss and warn us of any approach?”

  Shona replied, “He says his watchers are already on duty.”

  “Excellent.” He returned the general’s salute. When the spectral force turned back into mist and vanished, Hyam searched the sky in all directions. “What has happened to our bird?”

  Selim replied, “Perhaps your quarrel before we entered Lystra offended him.”

  “So much he would disobey commands from the one he calls his master? I doubt that very much.” Hyam waved it aside. “Nothing has changed. Where is the next cache?”

  “Follow the trail north by northwest a hundred and seventeen paces, each step the width of a man’s shoulders,” Selim recited. “At the third turning, continue straight ahead ten paces. Where the slope becomes a cliff without handholds—”

  “We must ignore that one,” Hyam said. He pointed down and to their left, where the hint of an ancient trail was halted by a pair of rock slides that had refashioned the entire slope. “Where is the one after that?”

  “Two dozen paces to the north of the trail’s base, search the opposite slope for the hint of an ancient spring,” Selim recited.

  “I see it!” Meda cried.

  “There has been no water in this place for centuries,” Shona said.

  “Meda is correct,” Hyam said, already heading down. “See, there is a lone patch of grass with darker soil. There must still be some moisture below the surface.”

  But Shona did not join them in the downward rush. For the leader of the unreal force reappeared and bade her remain. His words carried a dread music, like the low moan of wind through a crypt’s portal.

  The general said, “Another hunts you.”

  “An enemy?”

  “Only if you allow him to become one.” He pointed down to where Alembord walked with the others. “Him.”

  Shona said slowly, “If I allow.”

  “Correct.”

  Shona nodded. “Thank you for this warning.”

  But the general was not done. “Your choice in the night’s dark hour is commended.”

  “You observed me there in Olom?”

  “Not I. The forces who command us. And they approve.”

  The unhealed wound caused her to weep once more. “But I love him.”

  “In life’s harshest moments, the only correct action is often the impossible one. Such as not to give in to the freezing cold and the knifelike wind and the exhaustion from standing watch on watch. You understand?”

  “I . . . Yes.”

  “This is what it means to rule. When you are granted authority over
others, you are also handed . . .”

  She spoke the word aloud. “Responsibility.”

  “There is no harmony in this moment. There is no easy path. The clutch of lives you hold will shout a multitude of conflicting needs, and your own heart will be the loudest voice of all. And yet if you search beyond the cries and the pleas, you will find the right choice. Waiting. In the impossible silence lies the only proper course.” The soldier with no name saluted her with his ghostly blade. “Highness.”

  Hyam watched with the others as Selim searched for the hidden cave. Shona joined them as the desert merchant marched and muttered and counted his paces. Her exchange with the general had deeply impacted the young woman. But whatever they had discussed would have to wait. Hyam turned back as Selim counted off the final paces, pointed to the cliff face, and declared, “It is here.”

  There was nothing to see except more of the blood-red stone. No hint of an opening showed where Selim indicated.

  Hyam turned to Meda and said, “See if the Milantian sword pierces stone like it does metal.”

  Meda stepped across the rubble, drew the milky-white blade, and stabbed the rock. The rapier sliced easily. She carved a wide swath two paces long, then drew it up to head height, across, and down. She sheathed the blade and they all pressed in hard. The wall fell in a clattering cloud of rubble and dust.

  Hyam stepped away from the swirling debris and said, “Before I enter, there’s something you need to know.” He recounted his dream and his contact with the last king of Ethrin.

  The normally silent Alembord was the first to speak. “So what does this mean?”

  “I carry Milantian blood,” Hyam said. “It was suspected by the mages who raised me, but they only told me as I came into my powers.” He pointed into the dark cave. “The spell I seek is not the end. It is only the next step.”

  Meda unstopped her canteen, drank deep, then poured more on her kerchief and washed the grime from her face. “Tell me you have a plan.”

  “The faintest glimmer of one,” Hyam said.