Aeromancer

by Don Callander

  Douglas pulled a chessboard from his deep left sleeve, unfolded it, and laid it on the low wall between them. Marbleheart, who’d expected a morning of Familiar lessons, was relieved when his Master held out both fists, each enclosing a pawn, red and white.

  “Red!” The Otter inspected his choice with some satisfaction. “My favorite color!”

  “My move,” Douglas claimed.

  For considerably more than three hours he and his Familiar dueled over the ancient chess squares, first one and then the other gaining the advantage.

  “Check!” chortled the Otter gleefully, at last.

  Douglas moved a white knight two squares ahead and one to the left, protecting his king and threatening the red queen..

  “Arrrgh!” Marbleheart growled deep in his throat.

  He settled back on his haunches to ponder his next move.

  For some time Douglas had been listening to sounds coming to them through the very rimrock. A rumbling followed by a long shussss, then a groaning, sometimes a faint thump! thump! thumpety!

  Marbleheart lifted his ears to listen too.

  “Sounds like Servant’s moving furniture down there,” he said to his Master.

  “Something like that, I guess,” replied Douglas. “Your move, Otter. Or do you resign?’

  “Never!” cried the water animal, reaching for his single remaining rook. “This should give you pause!”

  “Not a smart move, Marblesnoot,” said a voice. “Set the white king in check with your queen,” advised a second, female voice.

  “Never risk your queen,” contradicted a third, unmistakably the voice of Augurian of Waterand.

  “Magisters!” cried Douglas, looking up from the board. “Welcome to ... whatever this place is called!”

  “I recognize it, although I’ve never been here before,” said Flarman Flowerstalk, settling easily on the low wall beside the younger Pyromancer. “The infamous ancient stronghold of the...?”

  “Sandrones,” supplied Litholt Stonebreaker. “A very ancient, lost, long-dead and unlamented race of Men. People of the Warrior Kings. Some call them Aboriginals, but that’s a subject of serious debate. What you see here is a small portion of the ruin of their great capital city, Sandrovia.”

  Marbleheart pushed the red queen forward to trap Douglas’s white king. “Check and checkmate!”

  “This Familiar’s getting too good for me,” said the younger Pyromancer, sighing and knocking his king on its side as a sign of surrender. “Hello, all! Who wants to play the Otter next?”

  “You could have escaped his trap, however,” Augurian considered, studying the board. “What’s Myrn doing up there on the roof?”

  “Trying some Aquamantic spellings and divination, I think And getting a sunburned nose, too!” said Douglas. “I’m relieved you’re here at last, Magisters! I have to admit I’m quite stumped as to what should be done.”

  “Put your board away, then, and let’s get to work,” Flarman advised. “Is that your new Dragon-friend I see, down there below? Old Splash,” he added to his best friend, the Aquamancer. “How about some nice, cool, clear water? It’s a long and arduous journey from Wizards’ High.”

  “My canteen is empty already, thanks to your borrowings,” snorted Augurian. “Come down, Journeyman! Greet your elders!”

  Myrn floated down from the top of the palace wall, gave all three older Wizards, the black cat, the white-and-gray bird, and Bronze Owl welcoming embraces, then handed her husband’s rotund Master a frosty glass of ice water.

  “From Waterand Island,” she assured him. “Best in World!”

  ‘Well, perhaps,” said Flarman, sipping the drink appreciatively. “No water excels that of the High’s Fairy Well, I claim.”

  Douglas went to the edge of the crater to recall the Dragon and his rider. When they arrived, they found Litholt Stonebreaker standing in the full midday sun of the courtyard, slowly turning about to examine the whole ruinous scene, eyes half-closed against the glare, humming to herself.

  “Fascinating place,” she told Myrn. “Even as ruins! I always wished I had known the Sandrones. Although I must admit their taste in architecture leaves something to be desired.”

  “I gather this city was here before the meteor impact, then?” Augurian called to her from the shade of the porch.

  “Yes. Oh, by a long, long time! Actually, the meteor that caused this impacted here not too long ago. I was here three hundred and forty-three years ago, when it was still white-hot and the crater was filled with molten glass and boiling metals!”

  “So!” cried Myrn. “I was right! The city is much older than the meteor.”

  “What you see is but a tiny fraction of what was once here. The meteor was called down by powerful Black Magic. By The Darkness itself, if I don’t miss my guess entirely,” Litholt Stonebreaker told them.

  “The Darkness!” exclaimed Douglas. “That never occurred to me at all, Litholt. I assumed the impact came much longer ago than that.”

  “The Darkness was once again beginning to force its will on Men, Dwarfs, and Fairies—every thinking, caring race in World,” Litholt went on. “The last of the proud Sandrones refused assistance from our First Alliance. They defied the Darkness ... and sealed their own fate. Complete destruction of their empire, and of their whole people!”

  “Extend your vision, m’boy!” Flarman urged Douglas. “When dealing with The Darkness, one must think in terms of millions of years or even more ... hundreds of millions!”

  “And The Dark Enemy has the patience to wait until Men and Near Immortals become unwary, and then attempt new depredation and conquest.” Litholt sighed, sounding rather discouraged. “Is no one going to offer us poor wayfarers some lunch? Flarman didn’t even allow us time for a decent breakfast!”

  “Immediately!” cried Myrn, electing herself hostess. “Give me a few moments and we’ll sit down in the coolest shade to a hearty luncheon ... and long conversation.”

  Douglas introduced Lesser Dragon to the assembled Wizards, their Familiars, and Bronze Owl. The Dragon, it turned out, was already acquainted with the two older male Wizards. They spent lunchtime chatting of long-ago events and exchanging news of old acquaintances.

  “I’m very pleased to be afield once again,” Bronze Owl confided to Myrn and Douglas. “We left Blue Teakettle in charge, of course. She can handle just about anything that might pop up.”

  “Her cooking certainly hasn’t suffered from added duties.” Myrn laughed. “These hot popovers are the very best I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Appropriate for sitting on volcanoes or nestling near meteoric desolations,” the bronze bird chuckled. “Where’s our strayed bit of Darkness, eh? Under the crater glass, I would guess.”

  “So we believe. He, or it, is down below, even now. Earlier he was rumbling and grumbling and moving things about deep under the crater floor,” Cribblon told him.

  “Well, it’s time we started doing something about him,” said Litholt. “Gentlemen, please, and Mistress Myrn!”

  They sat in a circle, some sipping a third or fourth glass of iced tea, others nibbling at the lime ice Blue Teakettle had sent along.

  “This is my sort of place, so shall I chair the meeting?” asked the Geomancer.

  “You have the chair and our ears,” Flarman agreed, and Douglas and Augurian nodded their approval.

  “First, we should review the whole matter for a moment,” Litholt began. “You are all aware of the great age of our Enemy?”

  “Eons and eons old,” guessed Marbleheart.

  “Even so!” agreed the Geomancer.

  “But the Sandrones, we decided,” Douglas put in, “ruled much of World before The Darkness arrived.”

  “When The Darkness last came to World, the Sandrone Empire was already old and weakening ... rulers of all except those who lived within or high above Earth or in the great Primordial Sea. Few now remember those elder days—not Wizards, nor even the long-lived Fairies or Elves. Dragons go back
that far—some of the Eldest Dragons, at least—and Sea dwellers such as Oval the Great Sea Tortoise.”

  “Oval!” exclaimed Douglas. “I knew she was old, but...”

  “Older than even the hills to the north of here,” said Litholt solemnly. “Water gave her and the other Sea dwellers safety from the conquerors.”

  “Ah, yes.” Augurian nodded his head. “Water is ever the great protector of life.”

  “When it became necessary to oppose the wicked Darkness invader, fire was the best tool,” insisted Flarman Flowerstalk. “In fact Fire Wizards—there were a number of them before our time, Douglas, as you learned at my knee—always took the lead in countering and driving back the Darkness. Not just in Old Kingdom, two hundred years ago, but at least three other times, ages before that.”

  “At Very Beginning,” Litholt resumed, “at Eodawn, there were very few Beings yet in World. We call them Prototypes, for want of a better name.”

  “Earth, Air, Fire, and Water,” Cribblon named them.

  “And a few even older,” the Geomancer added. “And the oldest of all were Darkness ... and Light!”

  “So, that’s why we’re called the Fellowship of Light!” cried Myrn.

  “And our various allies—Men, Elves, and Faeries, all our friends—were called the Forces of Light. We together were at least partially successful in Last Battle in Old Kingdom, driving Darkness into the Polar Night, where it hid itself and its allies deep under World’s frozen mantle. It has hidden there, ever since, awaiting its next chance.”

  “Then ... they’ll come back again, will they?” Marbleheart blurted in a disturbed tone.

  “Maybe. Maybe not! Certainly, if the Forces of Light remain vigilant—alert and constantly on guard—then, no! Witness the Fellowship of these nearer times and the participation of most other races of Mortals and Near Immortals, other Beings ... but primarily Men, Fairies, and Dwarfs.”

  “Unity, then,” said Douglas.

  “Yes,” Flarman nodded, rubbing his bald head, which already showed pink signs of sunburn. “In Unity there is Strength.”

  “And one might also mention the pleasures and satisfactions of Unity,” said Augurian.

  “We drove The Darkness off because we finally accepted the theme Unity Despite Diversity. The Darkness, on the other hand, preached Unity Without Diversity. No Diversity allowed, ever!’’ Flarman said.

  Myrn bobbed her dark head thoughtfully, saying, “But how does this help us in our present crisis?”

  “I see how it does,” said her husband. “This bit of evil purpose, this Servant of Darkness, has become separated from the greater Darkness. He represents a dangerous Disunity!”

  Flarman nodded. “When this Servant fled Last Battle, for whatever reason, he became what old Valley farmers call a maverick. He became, willingly or not, a Diversity, apart and on his own.”

  “He’d be striving to rejoin his kind, I would think,” suggested the Sea Otter.

  “No, for his kind, as you put it, will never accept his return to the pack. The Darkness would never trust it not to rove, stray off again. In fact, The Darkness will assuredly destroy it, given the chance!” Augurian told them. “The Servant has few options.”

  “Yes.” Litholt nodded. “It can try to establish itself as a separate, lesser Entity. Then it might petition The Darkness for reunion later. Or... he can try to hide forever.”

  “Unfortunately for this Servant, The Darkness will never forget nor forgive,” Flarman said, standing and looking out over the crater, where the air shimmered in the intense afternoon heat.

  “So...,” Douglas thought out loud, “this Darkness Servant must be destroyed, or driven back to The Darkness, which would be the same thing, for it...”

  “He will never willingly go back,” Augurian interrupted.

  “... or,” continued the younger Pyromancer, “it might be banished to where it can hide forever.”

  “Well, forever is a very, very long time,” Flarman muttered, turning back to the group on the porch. “But even a few hundred or a few thousand years would be welcome respite. This maverick Servant would endeavor to sneak behind our backs while we were guarding ourselves from The Darkness. He’d cause all sorts of dire disruptions and dangerous distractions... as he was planning obviously, in the present case, by capturing Frigeon ... or Serenit, rather.”

  The group sat in silence for some minutes, considering the implications of the problem.

  “There is, however, a place this maverick could hide for a long, long time,” said the Journeyman Aeromancer at last.

  “Deep Sea?” asked Bronze Owl. “The fiery center of World?”

  “No, Bronze Owl,” replied Cribblon. “We must send him off World entirely.”

  “And foist him on some other poor planet?” Douglas said, not happy with the idea at all.

  “No, no,” cried Litholt. “Cribblon has it! We must send the Servant home. To Outer Darkness.”

  “Outer Darkness, it is!” cried Marbleheart, then added, “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s the vast emptiness between and beyond all worlds,” Litholt explained. “It’s all but endless void, and deep enough that a bit of Darkness, cut off from his own kind, could hide forever.”

  “A terrible fate!” gasped Myrn, feeling sorrow at the thought of any Being wandering lost in such a place.

  “Better that fate for it... better than bitter defeat from us ... better than sure and complete destruction from his own fell Master!” declared Augurian.

  “Of course,” admitted the Journeyman Water Adept after a long moment of painful thought. “I can see that.”

  “Now!” cried Flarman Flowerstalk, sitting down again. “How to begin?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Deep Within Deep

  Cribblon stood on the sharp verge of the crater rim, pointing down and out to where he and the Dragon had explored that morning.

  “There are a number of possible entrances—cold fumaroles, actually—among that group of chimneylike spires. We were about to look at them more closely when you called us, Douglas.”

  “I don’t see them,” complained Flarman, squinting into the afternoon glare.

  “When the sun moves down the western sky a bit more they’ll show up better,” the Journeyman Aeromancer replied. “I’m not positive, Flarman, but I think we detected the acrid scent of the Servant in that area. He may have dropped down one of those holes.”

  “It’ll take further dangerous exploring, I think,” Douglas considered. “Who’ll go?”

  “I’ll lead the way,” Cribblon said, firmly.

  “We’d better have at least one Pyromancer in the search party,” Flarman said at once. “And you, Litholt. You should be right at home under the surface.”

  “I’ll go,” agreed Litholt.

  “And who else?” asked Myrn. “I...”

  “You and Augurian can best serve by staying here and watching. There may well be other escape holes to the surface. If he gets away unseen, it’d take us centuries to find him,” Douglas told his wife.

  “Cribblon, then, and Lesser, and Black Flame and me,” Flarman counted them off on his fingers. “And Litholt, as I said. Douglas, you’re in charge up here. You two young people and Marbleheart and the Aquamancer must watch while we work.”

  “I’ll go below with you,” announced Bronze Owl. “I’ve the very best night vision and don’t depend on breathing air. There may be foul gases and noxious fumes under the glass.”

  “Agreed,” nodded Flarman. “No problems with that load, then, Sir Dragon?”

  “None! Let’s up and away while some light remains,” cried Lesser.

  “Watch for my signal,” called Flarman, helping Litholt to a seat on the Dragon’s broad back behind his leathery wings. “Keep in touch, Douglas!”

  “I’ll wait for your call,” Douglas agreed.

  “We’re off then,” cried Lesser with a snort of yellow smoke and green fire.

  He planed his grea
t wings, plunged headlong from the rim-rock, and dove into the vast impact crater, heading straight for the tall chimneys that marked Cribblon’s vents.

  Douglas removed his cloak and spread it on the ground at the edge of the crater. A few words and a simple magic gesture, and the cloak rose over their heads and stretched flat to give them a wide, welcome shade.

  “We’ll retire to the palace roof,” decided Augurian, waving for Myrn to follow. “To watch the outside of the crater. There are some useful spells I know....”

  A few minutes after they’d left, glancing to the west, Douglas saw a line of dark thunderclouds forming, far away, over distant Sea.

  “ ‘In case of fire,’ I suspect.” Marbleheart laughed aloud. “Well, why not? I could use some of that rain right now!”

  The two companions settled down to watch—to listen, rather, for the scouting party was by then out of sight.

  An hour passed before the Dragon returned to the rim and settled beside their shelter.

  “Pleasant day,” he remarked, folding his enormous wings down over his back. “I’ll help you watch. Rather too lonely down there.”

  “They went into one of the fumaroles, I take it?” asked Douglas.

  “One showed signs—smells, rather—of the Servant passing down. Too small for me to follow, so I decided to come back up here.”

  Lesser shortly fell asleep in the full sun. Marbleheart sprawled on his tummy, legs splayed wide, three-quarters asleep himself, at Douglas’s side.

  “Pot of strong coffee would be useful,” Douglas decided.

  He plucked a coffeepot from the empty air and drank a steaming cup before he awoke the Otter to offer him a cup.

  “Keep alert!” the Pyromancer reproved.

  Another hour passed slowly. Myrn came across the shimmering square from the palace roof and sat down beside her husband in the shade of his cloak.

  “Nothing moves on the outer plains. Nothing at all! Augurian can watch there and take care of the storm clouds, too,” she announced. “Not much else we can do, until they find the Dark Servant and get him to move.”