by Eve Forward
The knight swung down from the saddle and gave them a nod. Then he turned to his horse, and tenderly picked up its huge hooves one by one, making sure the animal had not been injured in the combat.
The party was in something of a quandary. People in plate armor were generally champions of good and justice.
Nothing was more irritating to the hardworking evildoer than a knight in shining armor. But this fellow looked to be cut from a different cloth.
Sam staggered up to the knight, who stood to face him.
Sam was looking his most evil: gasping, and frothing just a bit, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. He spoke in a harsh rasp.
“I’m an assassin, and behind me are a Druid, a thief, and a black sorceress.” Sam heard a faint scrambling noise to his rear. “We’re nasty. If you don’t like it, you can either get back on your horse and ride out of here, or you can try to fight us, and we’ll snuff you.”
The knight raised his helmeted head to peer over Sam’s shoulder. Fates, the fellow was huge. His black plumes stirred in the air a good bit more than a foot and a half over Sam’s head. Risking a sideways glance, Sam saw that the only one of his companions who had remained “behind” him was Kaylana, leaning against a rock and looking heavenward in disgruntlement. The knight looked at Sam, looked out the way the dragon had gone, and extended a gauntleted hand. Sam froze.
With mailed fingers the knight touched a tattered fold of Sam’s black cloak, then slapped the palm of his hand lightly into the face of his black shield. Then he patted Sam’s shoulder.
Sam straightened up and wiped the blood from his mouth. “Oh, all right then,” he said, in his normal voice, wondering why he understood. The knight swung up into his saddle. Sam turned and walked back to where his companions had been. “It’s all right! He’s one of us.”
Valeriana and Arcie stepped out of concealment, regarding the knight curiously. Arcie hopped up on a boulder to speak on a level with the newcomer.
“Ho there, stranger! T’were some pretty fancy jousting there,” he spoke, grinning wide. This fellow didn’t seem to have much worth stealing, unfortunately; no gems on the sword or armor, a dagger there, yes, but not a particularly fine one. No pouches. The horse would fetch quite a bit, but Arcie didn’t think it would be worth the trouble of stealing. The knight inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment of the compliment, but said nothing. This intrigued Arcie. “You’re a quiet fellow. You don’t talk?”
The helmet turned slowly from side to side.
“Guess you can’t tell us your handle then, aye, silent knight? What are we to call you?”
The mailed shoulders moved in a gesture of noncommittance.
“You don’t care? Aye well then, I’ll think of something ...”
Arcie inspected the knight. “Take off your helmet so’s we can see what as you look like, then.”
The helmet moved again in negative. “No? Why nay? Oh, I forgot, you really can’t explain ... Put the visor up?”
Again a negative. Arcie frowned in frustrated curiosity.
Kaylana, who had been listening, called up to the „ Barigan.
“Leave the knight alone, Arcie. He has just saved our skins. It is not civil to go prying into his personal habits in return.”
“But, Kaylana,” argued Arcie, and then gave up. He gave the knight a parting glance. “You are a fellow in there, aren’t you?”
A nod. Arcie looked relieved. “Thank the fates. There’s getting to be far too many pushy women around here.” He hopped down from the rock and scampered over to where the others were gathered in conference.
The knight followed on his horse. The others looked up as the mounted knight approached. Valeriana spoke, addressing him.
“You have been following us, have you not?” A nod.
“You know what we seek?” A nod. “You wish to help us?” Another nod.
“Agreeable chap,” commented Sam. Kaylana elbowed him in the ribs.
“Well, that saves a lot of tedious explanation on our part,” said Valeriana. “What about on yours?”
“He canna speak,” piped up Arcie. The knight confirmed this with a nod. “He won’t take off his helmet, neither.”
“And yet,” mused Valeriana, “I pride myself on knowing things. I cannot see his thoughts, nor can I see what manner of man-or monster-it is that dwells within that armor.”
Kaylana added, “He speaks not. Thus I cannot say if his words are true.”
“But his armor shows he is of darkness and had he wished us dead, he would have left us to the dragon. He is obviously a skilled warrior. We may well have need of such. I think we should allow him to accompany us.”
“Sounds all right,” consented Sam.
“Well enough,” from Arcie.
“Very well,” allowed Kaylana. The knight bowed from his waist graciously. The horse whickered, and Nightshade gave a rasping croak.
“Unless anyone has any objections, we may as well camp here. I do not think the dragon will return,” said Kaylana, kicking thoughtfully at the pebbles.
“Are you sure?” asked Sam, looking up at the sky uncertainly.
“Fairly so,” replied Kaylana. “I think it was just napping here. See, there are no bones, no fewmets, no old claw-marks. Its lair must be elsewhere.”
“Oh. That means no horde of dragon gold, then?” asked a disappointed Barigan voice. Valeriana scoffed.
“Small fool. If the dragon’s hoard were here, we wouldn’t have driven it off with such relative ease.”
“I shall call the stag and horses back,” announced Kaylana. “It may take a while for them to arrive, however ... I hope they have not fled out of range.” She began gesturing in midair with her staff, eyes narrowed in concentration, as her magic searched for the auras of their mounts among the many animals in the area.
The knight tethered his horse to an outcropping of stone and began untacking it as the animal cropped the sprigs of wildflowers growing out of the wall. After a moment, a bag of oats was unslung from the saddlebags and placed before it. Kaylana quickly tended the Barigan’s sprained ankle and the others’ cuts and bruises. Arcie and Sam then set out to scavenge for deadwood to build a fire, and something to cook on that fire.
They wandered up the canyon. Twigs were scarce, and it was not long until their search took them out of earshot of the others.
“I don’t feel proper about yon knight, Sam,” mused Arcie, picking up a small branch.
“I’d rather have him on my side than not, that’s for sure,” replied the assassin, debating whether a bird’s nest high up the wall was worth the climb.
“But see you well, we dinna even know what he looks like! He could be a horrible skellyton ...”
“Not very likely,” responded Sam. He decided to climb. The twigs would be useful, if nothing else. “Not in this world, if what the two ladies say is true.”
“Or a monster or just all hollow inside! One o’ these days,” plotted the Barigan, tugging at a small branch wedged into a crack, “I’m going to knock his helmet off, accidentally of course.”
“Good luck,” scoffed Sam’s voice from somewhere above him. The Barigan looked up at the assassin crawling along the rock face about twenty feet from the ground.
“What do you mean?” he inquired.
Sam grabbed the bird’s nest; it was empty, a couple years old at least. He took it anyway and began climbing back down. “I got a good look at him when I went and talked to him,” he said shortly. He jumped lightly to the ground, and looked away as he stuffed the nest into their wood-gathering sack. “His helmet’s one of those that has hinges, so it opens up in the back in two halves so that you can put it on and it doesn’t fall off if you turn upside down in a joust.”
“So?” asked Arcie, looking up curiously at the assassin.
“His is welded shut.”
They filled the sack and made their way back to the group in silence. A fire was lit, and Kaylana began making something that look
ed like porridge.
“There is not much,” she apologized. “The horses with the provisions have not yet returned.”
“No game about, either,” Sam apologized. “The dragon’s smell must have scared everything off.”
They sat in the shade as the sun moved overhead, feeling weary from their day and night march and life-ordeath battle. All were sleepy, but once again no one wanted to be the first to slumber. Valeriana looked around them in mild amusement.
“We will be journeying through terrible dangers, where the survival of all will hinge upon the strength of all. And yet we cannot stand sleep in the same company. We will have to forget our differences and plan our goals. What are our goals?”
“Kill Mizzamir the wizard and put the world back the way it was,” came from Sam. Their silent, armored companion turned his blank visor to look at Sam, but made no other comment.
“Restore the balance.” Kaylana watched them from green eyes.
“Get rich!” Everyone looked at Arcie, and he hastily added, “Aye, and of course put the world back the way it was, as Sam said.”
The knight nodded, seconding Arcie’s last statement.
Valeriana’s beautiful face turned stern and sad within the shadows of her cloak.
“And mine is to wreak vengeance upon those who destroyed my people. Unable to do that, however, I must settle instead for preventing their rule from becoming absolute, preventing them from winning the final battle. Nothing would upset them more now than seeing the world ‘put back the way it was,’ as you so quaintly put it. There, then, we are of a common cause. We will strive together.”
A moment of silence, then Arcie asked the question that was on everybody’s mind.
“Yet can we trust each other?”
They looked around at themselves, tired, sleepy in the morning sun: an indiscriminate thief who would cheerfully abandon even his close friend at any sign of danger; a cold, merciless assassin with the reflexes of a panther and the strength of will and body to kill at the slightest need; a Druid who had implied that she would abandon them and fight against them if the tide ever turned their way; a black sorceress whose race dined upon theirs and who, if she ever regained her amulet, would likely visit great and terrible punishment and pain upon them; and a strange, dark, silent figure in plate mail about whom they knew nothing more than his superb skill as a warrior and the fact that he had not eaten any porridge at dinner.
Sam gave a matter-of-fact shrug. “Who else is there?”
Sam took the first watch that day, and the rest slept. They would have far to go tomorrow, and a strange and dangerous task to perform. The knight sat with his back to the wall, unmoving. Sam assumed he was asleep, at any rate, though the dark steel breastplate showed no signs of a rise and fall. Sam settled down in the dusty gravel, splotched with drying mud, and watched, and thought about gods, the Mad Godling in particular.
In days of legend, gods would often walk the earth and meddle in the affairs of men. Now, in these days of Light, the evil gods were all vanished, and, as if bored by the lack of conflict, the good gods remained in their lofty high dimensions, unseen by mortals and unknown except for the words and powers of their respective priests- who used their divine magic to benefit the people and interpret the will of the gods. The last great miracle had occurred in the days following the Victory. The Darkgate had been locked by means of a great artifact created by the powers of the Six Heroes and the gods. This treasure, the Spectrum Key, had been shattered into six Segments, and the Segments hidden and guarded, as no power known could destroy them, and to leave the Key whole was to risk the opening of the Darkgate should the Key ever fall into the wrong hands. The wards placed on these Segments were such that, should the need ever arise, a true hero could pass the Test set up in magical fields around each Segment, and thus retrieve it. The Tests were designed by the Six Heroes, and then the gods of Light themselves hid the Tests and the Segments with them, concealing them from the eyes of foolish mortals and even from the Heroes themselves.
Now, not long before all this, according to the priests, there was, or rather, had been, a demigod, the offspring of a deity and a lesser immortal being. This offspring, not yet a demigod, was Bhazo, the son of Rhinka, the goddess of wisdom, and Cwellyn, the patron saint of the bards, symbolizing knowledge. Cwellyn, being only a lesser power, actually went to fight at the side of the last few true bards in the battle against the Light, in alliance with the Druids. He tried to win his former lover Rhinka to his side, but she was enraged by his impudence for the attempt and struck him dead with a large meteorite.
With his father’s death, Bhazo came into the picture, claiming that, now that there was a celestial vacancy, he should be promoted to godhood. He claimed that, as his father had been a divinity of knowledge and his mother of wisdom, he now be granted the powers of a deity of knowledge and be privy to all the wisdom and secrets of the gods, even those that the gods kept from each other.
But the gods could see into his semi-divine heart and saw there the flickering of greed. Bhazo knew that knowledge is power and knew also that with all the knowledge in existence he could become the most powerful of gods. The gods were angry, but instead of smiting him into dust, they visited an even more terrible punishment upon him: they gave him what he desired.
Bhazo was only a semi-divine being; his mind could not hold all the knowledge of all the omnipotent beings. He went utterly mad, his mind constantly aflood with that which no one mind was meant to know. He was banished to the heavy surface of the material world, to wander forever in mad semi-immortality. Insane, he sought relief from the torment that plagued him, and went to end his life. He fashioned a cord of dragon’s breath and built a gallows above the burning light of a chasm that led to the fires at the center of the world. But as he stepped from the platform, feeling the noose jerk tight about his neck, he saw his action through the eyes of the gods and knew that he had only doomed himself still further.
For the gods suddenly appeared, binding his spirit back into his flesh even as it struggled to leave, and made him fully immortal, that he might not slip out of his punishment.
And thus Bhazo was left to shriek and gibber the unfathomable knowledge of all creation to an echoing chasm, the dragonfire noose ever-burning around his neck.
And Valeriana wanted the band of renegades to go and talk to him, for no other being on the world would know the location of the six Segments of the Key.
The morning sun shone into the window of the Silver Tower of the Castle of Diamond Magic in Natodik.
Rainbow color spilled about the walls from the stainedglass border, depicting the glorious triumphs of the Victory.
Mizzamir, resplendent in his silver-white robes, sat at his carved goldenwood desk, reading from an ancient leather-bound tome, the very picture of sophisticated wizardry. Birds alighted on the windowsill and sang a good-morning chorus to him, their eyes glazed with the happiness of it all. He smiled at them with his hazel-green eyes.
A light tap sounded at the door. Mizzamir closed the book, and looked toward the door. “Enter, Sir Fenwick,” he said kindly.
The door opened, and the handsome young hero entered, bowing his respects to the great wizard. He was garbed as usual in his fine chain mail, over his shirt and pants of forest green, the color of the nobility of Trois, with the fringed vest and gloves that were the fashion in that country. From his shining leather boots to his peaked hat with its pheasant feather, he was an impressive sight. “Arch-Mage Mizzamir, I have located an agent, such as you requested.”
“Oh, good! Very good ...” said Mizzamir, but then noticed something seemed to be troubling the man. He raised his finely arched silver eyebrows in question. “Fenwick? Something troubles you this fine day?”
“Sir ...” the human paused a moment, unsure, then continued strongly. “Are you certain ‘tis better to do nothing but follow these villains? Would it not be simpler and safer if I were to lead the Verdant Company in pursuit of them? We co
uld track them with ease, and catch up with them in a matter of days, even faster with your help. Then, we could subdue them, or slay those beyond saving...”
“No one is beyond saving, young Fenwick,” admonished Mizzamir gently.
“Subdue them then. I do not like to leave such people running loose, especially to gather together. It is like leaving a viper in one’s garden.”
Mizzamir shook his head in amusement at the impetuosity of youth.
“Dear Fenwick, I’ll not have you or your men risk their lives nor waste their time riding after a troupe of ruffians who will very likely end up killing each other soon anyway. Nothing they do can hurt us.”
The mage rose from his chair, and went to stand in the window, looking out at the sun burning its way through a few scattered pink clouds. His voice continued, deep and majestic.
“The Gate is sealed forever, guarded by the Labyrinth I helped build. Our forces hold peace secure. The world is purged of evil as Light assumes its rightful benevolent rule! They can do nothing! The Light shall rule forever!”