The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

by C. L. Werner

  Heglan gaped in shock as a grisly blue fire suddenly rose from the centre of Drogor’s hand, gyrating and wriggling above his palm as though it were something alive.

  ‘You see, I’m that catalyst,’ Drogor stated. He started to move his burning hand towards the spilled explosive, then hesitated. ‘We don’t have any of your lift gas around, but don’t worry, the explosion will still be enough to demolish this workshop and remind your kinsman that they simply aren’t meant to fly.’

  Drogor’s eyes seemed to roll over, changing into the opaque lenses of some vulturine creature. ‘Don’t trouble yourself about my welfare,’ he told Heglan, his smile stretching until it burst his skin. ‘You see, I’ve been through this before.’

  Heglan’s world vanished in a flash of thunder and light as Drogor slammed his burning claw into the explosive powder.

  Chapter Seven

  The Sea Hold

  335th year of the reign of Caledor II

  The small flotilla of galleys cast anchor at the mouth of the bay. Far to the south, barely a hint on the horizon, the roofs of Sith Rionnasc reflected the noonday sun. Away to the north there was only the vastness of the Snow Sea, a great expanse that could swallow the six asur vessels without a trace.

  Liandra couldn’t quite conceal her distaste for the ritual she was witnessing any more than she could hide her loathing of the highborn who was sponsoring it. Lord Ilendril was one of that breed who had been expelled from Ulthuan by the first King Caledor, cast out for their callous, unabashed ambition. She had known some of the disgraced grey lords yet remained in the colonies of Elthin Arvan, but she’d imagined them to be remorseful, not still trying to advance the immoral philosophies that had sent them into exile.

  From the aftcastle of The Sword of Eataine, she had a good view of what was transpiring. Ilendril’s pet mage, a gaunt and pallid creature named Vithrein, sat at the middle of a cabalistic triangle. Two other mages, ones Liandra recognised as former vassals of Lord Caerwal, who had once been imprisoned by Prince Imladrik, stood at opposing sides of the triangle. With her own arcane senses, she could almost see the energies they were feeding into Vithrein, magnifying the aethyric harmonies flowing around the conjurer.

  ‘This won’t work,’ Liandra said, more to herself than those around her. The words drew their notice just the same. Lord Draikyll had assembled the greatest and most powerful nobles in Elthin Arvan to witness this ritual. The general was depending on this exhibition to bring them into line, to make them enthusiastic supporters of the campaign he’d mapped out. Liandra’s doubt made him anxious. She was, after all, a mage and more versed in the possibilities of magic than he was. The general glanced aside at Ilendril, just a hint of accusation in his eyes.

  Lord Ilendril took note of the displeasure of his patron. Calmly, he moved down the crowd of noble spectators until he was right beside Liandra. ‘Is it that you think it won’t work, or that you merely hope it won’t work?’ He shook his head. ‘Clinging to the old ways is no way to build an empire.’ Ilendril laughed and looked back at Draikyll. ‘Or win a war.’

  ‘It is wrong,’ Liandra said.

  Ilendril laughed. ‘No more wrong than putting a horse in harness or training a hawk for the hunt,’ he said. ‘Asuryan blessed the asur with minds and souls, the knowledge and ability to bring order from the confusion of nature. We are meant to control the world around us. It is our birthright. The only difference between what we are doing now and what a horse-breaker is doing in Tiranoc is a matter of perception. The prejudices that exist within our own minds.’ He smiled at her, laying his hand on her arm in a token of sympathy. ‘There is no immorality in power,’ he said.

  Liandra pulled away from his touch. ‘The druchii would agree with you,’ she hissed.

  Ilendril stepped away, fighting to subdue the outrage her insult had roused. For a moment, he stared at her, his gaze growing colder with each heartbeat. Only when Draikyll called to him did he turn away.

  ‘Begin your demonstration, Lord Ilendril,’ the general commanded.

  ‘At once,’ Ilendril said, bowing. He nodded to Vithrein on the deck below. The gaunt mage didn’t respond, but the low incantation he’d been murmuring suddenly grew louder and more vibrant. Caerwal’s mages likewise increased the tempo of their own chanting. The rigging hanging from the masts above snapped in a silent wind as unseen forces spiralled down towards the deck.

  Liandra could see the aethyric emanations being drawn down into the three mages. She watched as the two standing outside the triangle fed their power into Vithrein. He in turn transferred the energies into the object that rested along the third face of the triangle. It was a long, curved piece of bone, yellowed with age. A tooth, drawn up from the depths by the net of a Sith Rionnasc fisherman. The focus now of this ritual Ilendril had conceived.

  For many minutes, the three mages fed energy into the tooth. Then, with a keening wail, Vithrein ended his conjuration. The other two mages staggered back, slumping against the masts as they tried to regain their balance. Vithrein seemed no less drained than his helpers, but he managed to beckon his master down from the aftcastle before sagging to his knees in an exhausted heap.

  Ilendril seemed discomfited by the condition of his conjurers, but he had regained his composure by the time he descended to the deck and lifted the tooth from the silver stand that supported it. Turning back to the assembled nobles, he held the tooth out to them. His gaze lingered on Draikyll and he bowed again to the general.

  ‘What you witness now is no trick,’ he declared. ‘Those of you who know me also know I have no facility with the arcane arts.’ Ilendril nodded to Liandra. ‘My lady will relate the difficulty of what you will witness. It is hard enough to stir a dragon with which an asur is already familiar and in sympathetic harmony. How much greater the difficulties to evoke a creature from the depths with which there is no such harmony?’

  Ilendril smiled and raised the tooth to his lips. ‘You shall see,’ he declared. Moving so that he faced the sea, the elf lord began to blow into the hollowed tooth, sounding it as though it were a flute or horn.

  Or whistle.

  The Sword of Eataine was one of six galleys in the fleet Lord Draikyll had brought from Tor Alessi to the waters off Sith Rionnasc. Magnificent vessels, lean and sharp, lethal as arrows and nearly as swift, they were the masterworks of Eataine’s shipyards. When Draikyll had brought this fleet with him to Elthin Arvan, the colonists had been awed by the tremendous power that would now protect them. Now they would be awed by a far more tremendous power.

  Many minutes passed while Ilendril blew a low, dolorous note upon the hollow tooth. The spectators on the aftcastle shifted uncomfortably, some of them whispering to each other about the sorry spectacle of seeing Ilendril publicly humiliated. Liandra felt hope stir inside that it would be a failure.

  Then the whispers fell silent and dread returned to Liandra’s heart. There was turmoil on the formerly quiet sea. Something immense was rising from beneath, propelling itself just below the surface. Lookouts on the other galleys shouted in alarm; one of the ships listed dangerously to port as the thing from below passed just under its hull. Overhead, the noisy croaks of seabirds became a bedlam of squawks and shrieks.

  On The Sword of Eataine, all had fallen quiet. Only the voice of a sailor praying to Mathlann intruded upon the silence. The very air had grown pregnant with suspense. The nobles of Elthin Arvan hardly dared to breathe as they stared out across the waves.

  Whatever had been swimming towards the galley appeared to have subsided, for there was no trace of its movements now. Yet Ilendril still sounded that fearful note from the hollowed tooth. It was an audible reminder to his audience that this peaceful moment was but the quiet before the storm.

  The storm broke in an explosion of foam and spray. The Sword of Eataine rolled violently as a gigantic body burst up from the depths right beside the ship. An oily, dank repti
lian reek washed across the decks, stifling in its intensity. Liandra and the other nobles were forced to crane their necks back to gaze upon the ophidian head that topped the scaly tower now rising beside the ship.

  A merwyrm, one of such size and vastness it might have been the spawn of the famed Amanar. The mighty serpent was hoary with age, encrustations of coral clinging to its spines and caking its horns. The sea birds dived down upon its back, squawking happily as they plucked crustaceans and parasites from its scales.

  Ilendril lowered the tooth. Boldly, he walked to the rail of the galley, drawing so near the enormous serpent that he could have stretched out his hand and touched its scaly neck. The elf lord leaned back, fastening his gaze upon the mer­wyrm’s reptilian eyes.

  ‘Dance for me,’ Ilendril commanded. For an instant, the serpentine head tilted downwards, a bifurcated tongue licking out from between the jaws. It seemed the merwyrm would devour this impertinent little insect who had the temerity to shout at it.

  Then, incredibly, the gigantic body began to sway from side to side, writhing with an unnatural, sinuous grace. Ilendril laughed and flung up the hand holding the hollowed-out tooth. He revelled in the awestruck expressions of his fellow nobles, but most of all, he seemed to savour the look of horror that gripped Liandra.

  A merwyrm, conjured up not by some harmony between summoner and summoned, but by use of an enslaving enchantment. Liandra wondered if the others could be so blind that they failed to understand the implications of what Ilendril had done.

  Were they all so fixated upon the war with the dwarfs that they couldn’t see beyond that?

  Nugdrinn Hammerfoot stamped across the deck of Grungni’s Fire. Around the steamship, a flotilla of dwarf vessels ploughed through the waves, churning the dark waters of the Black Gulf with their great paddle wheels. No simple merchant ships these, but ironclad warships festooned with catapults and ballistae, cadres of warriors waiting below decks to board the enemy. It was the most fearsome command Nugdri had been entrusted with since his captaincy of Nadri’s Retribution.

  War had come to Barak Varr. The Black Gulf just beyond the gates of the sea hold had long been considered a dawi lake, but now that once inviolate expanse was being contested. Up the Black Gulf had come a fleet of elgi ships such as Nugdri hadn’t believed could exist. They seemed as limitless as the silver of Karak Azul. When the spotters stationed in the towers far down the neck of the gulf had made their reports, no one had believed them. It was incredible, impossible, that the elgi could muster such strength.

  Now that he saw the proof of those reports before his own eyes, Nugdri felt something he hadn’t felt since the great conflagration over Kazad Mingol. He felt fear.

  The elf sailors seemed to be without any fear at all. Boldly they sailed past the forts along the shore, braving the rocks and bolts set upon them by each citadel’s artillery. Without hesitation they danced across the great chains that stretched just beneath the surface of the channel, their barbed links designed to rip the belly out of any ship that sailed above them when they were raised. Every defence the dwarfs threw at the vanguard of the fleet seemed useless. Sometimes an elf ship would suddenly flounder, appearing to fade away as it sank into the darkling waters. More often, however, they sailed onwards without any sign of damage.

  Behind the scouting ships, a second tide of elven galleys ravaged the citadels, setting them alight with fiery arrows, pots of alchemical incendiaries and bolts of arcane flame. The sunken chains were severed by elgi magic as the bulk of the fleet pressed onwards, their captains taking far fewer chances with their hulls than those in the vanguard.

  ‘Full speed,’ Nugdri growled into the speaking horn set in a brass-faced cabinet on the captain’s deck. By some trick of engineering his voice would be propelled down into the engine room below. The stokers would feed still more coal into the hungry belly of his ship and set the great paddle wheel accelerating.

  For all the good it would do. Nugdri hated to admit it, but as slight and fragile as the elgi galleys looked compared to the robust dawi ironclads, the enemy had the advantage in speed and agility. One good shot from a catapult would cripple a galley; a solid cast from the grudge throwers on the bigger warships would snap an elgi vessel in two. The problem was closing with the enemy, getting near enough to bring him to battle. The dwarf ships could withstand tremendous violence before taking any real damage. The elves had adopted a different tactic: instead of shrugging off an attack, they preferred to avoid it entirely.

  Like jackals nipping at a wounded bull, the elgi made the most of their speed and agility. Always keeping out of reach, the galleys would sail near enough that their archers could loose a volley at the dwarfs. The arrows never struck true, always landing in the sea beside their target, but somehow that was even more infuriating than having them hit. It was unabashed mockery, a scornful insult to the dawi and their martial pride. It was a display of arrogance and disdain that had many a dwarf pulling his beard and muttering curses that would set his ancestors covering their ears.

  Goaded beyond endurance, Nugdri’s flotilla pursued the elusive galleys. The fragile look of their enemy and their own faith in the strength of their ironclads, made the vindictive dwarf captains cast aside caution. One after another they broke formation to pursue the elves, trying to force them landwards and box them in against the coast.

  Nugdri tried to signal his captains back into line, but they were too intent on venting their injured pride against the vexing elves to listen. Soon, he found that he only had five ships following his own. The rest were scattered across the Black Gulf.

  Some of the slight galleys continued to plague and torment them, but Nugdri refused to rise to their bait. They were trying to draw him off. He had to discover why. The second wave of elgi warships was still too distant for the ironclads to close with them. Why then were these scouts so intent on holding him back?

  The answer came in a display at once both incredible and fantastic. If he’d blinked, Nugdri would have missed the sudden manifestation. As his ironclad thundered onwards, a tall elgi galleon abruptly appeared on his portside, only a few rods away. He could make out the sea-serpent heraldry of the crew, the elaborate detail of its mermaid figurehead, the snap of its triangular sails as they rippled above the decks. Asur archers were already standing on that deck, their captain’s arm raised as he prepared to give the command to loose.

  Nugdri roared into the speaking horn, ordering the paddle wheel set into reverse, trying to save his ship from the coming assault. Even as he gave the command, another elgi ship manifested from the nothingness. Elven sorcery, a cloak of magic, had concealed the elgi ships, hiding them from sight until the dwarfs were right upon them.

  A terrible suspicion struck him as Nugdri glanced over his shoulder. He could still see the scattered ships of his flotilla, but there was no trace of their prey. The captains had been chasing illusions crewed by phantoms, nothing more than mirages conjured by elgi mages. No wonder the galleys had been so bold about exposing the dawi defences! The few that had seemed to be destroyed were nothing more than a further trick to keep the dwarfs from guessing the deception.

  Nugdri’s crew scrambled to repel boarders while his artillerists and crossbows made ready to return the elgi attack. Their captain stomped his hammerfoot into the socket beside the ship’s wheel. Nothing but death would tear him from his post now. If need be, he would go down with his command.

  Dawi warriors clashed with elgi swordsmen as the asur swarmed across the railing. The dwarfs had the advantage of brawn and determination, but the elves fought with a grisly grace, seeming to ignore the pitching deck beneath their feet. Where a dwarf axeman missed his strike because of the rolling deck, an elf blade flashed clean and true.

  The swordsmen kept to the centre of the ship, for reasons that swiftly became obvious. Elf archers poised in the rigging of their own ships took careful aim and loosed a vicious volley down
upon the dwarfs as they moved to surround the invaders. The attack wasn’t particularly lethal, mainly resulting in scratched armour and shallow wounds. It was the response that proved deadly. Waiting for the volley, the swordsmen lunged at the dwarfs before they could recover from the abrupt attack. The thrusting blades opened throats and skewered hearts in a brief, murderous melee. In only a few heartbeats, a dozen dwarfs lay bleeding across the deck.

  From the forecastles of the elgi ships, bolt throwers launched their spears into Grungni’s Fire, the enchanted missiles punching through the ironclad hull. Trying to steer his ship to avoid the volley from one, Nugdri found himself in the sights of the other. Shouts from below decks attested to the effectualness of the elgi aim. The steamship was taking on water, though the all-important engine room had yet to be menaced.

  Jinking away from the second elf ship, Nugdri felt his heart turn to lead. A third elgi galleon materialised from the nothingness and a volley of flaming arrows slammed down into the deck, setting the planks and clapboards on fire.

  Nugdri realised this would be his last battle. He only hoped the elf illusions had been exposed soon enough to benefit the stronghold and allow King Brynnoth to mount a real defence against real enemies.

  Of the chances for his own flotilla, Nugdri had no illusions.

  From the great rock Durazon, King Brynnoth could look out over the lands surrounding the sea hold. What he saw with his one eye was enough to break a dozen hearts. The Black Gulf had gone from a dawi to an elgi lake. Most of the surrounding citadels had been captured or razed by the invaders; the few that still remained in dawi hands were cut off, the passages connecting them to Barak Varr collapsed by elgi magic. The garrisons were holding out thus far, but the king wondered how long the elves would allow that situation to continue. The defenders of the citadels could resist the elgi themselves and even their magic, but the enemy had other resources to draw upon.