by Paul Collins
‘We’re not going to make it!’ yelled Zimak, staring back.
‘What’s to stop them going above the canyons, over the rock wall?’ Daretor asked.
‘The air is too thin. The dragons cannot fly that high,’ Osric replied.
The dragons were coming into firing range. Suddenly, flames mushroomed towards them. ‘Fire!’ yelled Daretor.
Osric gave the dragon a command and it twisted aside, narrowly avoiding the swelling tongue of flame that would have incinerated them.
The three dragons now arranged themselves in a tight formation. ‘They will fire at once.’ said Osric. ‘We have only one chance. Grab on tightly.’
They had acquired a great deal of height in the race towards the canyon entrance, but it was still a good three miles away. Osric put the dragon into a steep dive, gaining speed. It half-folded its wings and almost fell towards the canyon opening, its adolescent body more streamlined than those behind it. It picked up speed and actually widened the distance between them and their pursuers.
‘They don’t dare put on too much speed,’ Osric said. ‘Because they are heavier they would not be able to pull up in time.’
The dragons spat flames again but it was clear they had lost the initiative. With a final frightening whoosh, the adolescent dragon speared into the canyon almost at ground level and came close to crashing. It quickly gained height again and sped on over the canyon maze.
Zimak expelled a deep sigh of relief. ‘White Quell! We actually made it.’
Chapter 3
ASSASSINS
Jelindel fumbled her way up out of a dark and confusing nightmare. A hissing sound filled her ears and she was numbingly cold. As her eyes opened she became aware that she was suspended by her arms. Her shoulders ached with a throbbing agony, threatening to push her back into that pit of unconsciousness from which she had emerged.
She moaned and tried to focus her eyes. It was dawn and the sun was just rising.
‘So you’re awake,’ said a harsh and strained voice above her.
Another voice, also from above, joined in. ‘Hope you’re enjoying the journey. We thought you might like to travel first class.’
The second voice was lighter than the first, as though sharing in a joke. Though any joke right now, Jelindel instinctively knew, must be at her expense.
As her eyesight cleared, she realised why she was so cold, and what the hissing noise was.
She was flying several leagues above the ground, and hanging by her arms, which were lashed to the ankles of two levitating deadmoon warriors.
The wind whistled past as they flew at awesome speed. Gazing at the land far below, she thought she would throw up. She clenched her eyes shut and took several deep breaths, feeling the bile rise in the back of her throat. After a time, she opened her eyes a slit and peered down, trying to accustom herself by degrees to such great height. It wasn’t easy but she eventually calmed her tumultuous stomach.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded, hoarsely.
Her captors exchanged a quick glance.
‘You will know soon enough. And do not try your blinding spell on us or we will all be doomed.’
Below she could see a large fast-moving river that looked familiar. It was the Marisa River and, judging by the sun, they were heading north-west.
‘You’re taking me to D’loom in Skelt.’
‘There is a price on your head, is there not?’ one of the warriors asked.
Jelindel snorted. ‘A deadmoon warrior bringing a hostage back for a mere thousand argents? I think not. Another hand directs you, and I believe it belongs to the merchant-mage Fa’red.’
‘We care not for your empty speculations,’ said the gruffer of the two. ‘The reward on your head is three hundred gold oriels, although not even that sum would turn us from our cause.’
After that brief exchange they would not answer any further questions.
For a while, despite the pain and the insidious cold, Jelindel dozed. Once, because of some other aerial denizen that even the deadmoon warriors seemed to fear, or at least respect, they dropped to a mere dozen feet above the ground, hopping hedge-rows and haystacks and zooming above streams at unbelievable speed. She found this more frightening than the dizzying heights; the sense of speed more terrifying, as the ground rushed past in a blur that made her gasp for breath and clench her jaws till they ached almost as badly as her shoulders.
The storm burst minutes after they entered the air space above D’loom. Jelindel barely glimpsed the lights of the languishing port city before they were engulfed in wet grey clouds. The air filled with the blinding slash of lightning followed by massive detonations as thunder shook the earth and sky.
Within seconds, Jelindel was drenched, the cold intensifying until her teeth chattered uncontrollably. Great fists of air slammed into the deadmoon warriors, buffeting them back and forth, so that Jelindel swung like a pendulum. Her captors struggled to maintain their spell.
‘You’ll fly straight into a tower if you don’t land!’ she shouted through the wind and rain.
‘We are deadmoon warriors. We fear nothing,’ the gruff one answered in his rasping alto.
Jelindel craned her neck to stare at him. ‘That’s all very well, but I was looking forward to being tortured beside a nice warm fire, not smashed to pieces against some uncivil turret.’
Lightning jagged across their path, blinding them for a moment. Before they could recover they were being dragged into the vortex left in the lightning’s wake as air rushed to fill the vacuum.
A vast thunderclap sounded. They were torn in opposite directions, contorted and tumbled. One of the lashings came loose and Jelindel was hanging by one arm. She was still tied to the deadmoon warrior, and her weight pulled him down. He cried out to his companion who was desperately battling the buffeting air currents to get back to the rapidly descending pair.
Then Jelindel was falling, her arm wrenched free of the remaining lashing. She fell and fell, through storm and wind and hail. And maybe she screamed, but her tiny voice could not be heard against the storm’s mighty fury.
Still she fell, and it was like a dream where time stretched out forever. But one wakes from dreams, she mused, and still she fell.
Then something slammed into her, expelling the breath from her body, and knocking her senseless.
Voices rose and fell as waves of consciousness broke upon Jelindel. She became aware of lights and movement and the smell of cooking. Most of all she was aware of being warm.
‘She’s coming round,’ a flat almost metallic voice said.
A dryer voice, more full of dark undercurrents, answered, ‘I see that, Kantor. Stimulate her.’
A blunt stick shoved against her ribs. She heard a loud click and a strange energy smashed through her. She screamed, her back arching, mouth gaping. The smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils. The evil energy departed almost as quickly as it came, leaving her gasping, but very much awake.
Even before Jelindel focused, she knew who stood before her. The Preceptor. Her family had been murdered by lindraks in the service of the King of Skelt and, possibly, at the behest of this man.
‘Good evening, Countess,’ said the Preceptor.
Jelindel gazed at him, trying to regain her composure. By anyone’s estimation, she had jumped from the frying pan and into the fire.
‘Preceptor, you do me an unwanted honour,’ she said, thickly. Her throat was still constricted with remnants of the dark energy. ‘I renounced my title when I joined the Temple of Verity.’
‘Of course you did. But since the Temple shall soon be no more than an irritating memory, your renunciation might be considered annulled.’
The Preceptor stared at her. He had a severe, angular face with thick dark brows that hunched together when he glared. Though he had become a King of Kings, and though his ambition knew no limit, he dressed simply in warrior’s garb. He appeared like a general who had but recently returned from the campaign trail
to deal with unpleasant matters of state, and who hungered to return to the field. The only garment that belied the militaristic bearing was a scholar’s cloak. Jelindel knew that the man was a deadly but learned adversary.
Standing next to the Preceptor and holding the blunt stick was a dwarf of a race Jelindel had never seen. She presumed this was Kantor. His throat appeared to have been ripped out and a metallic plate melded with the living skin. A row of lights and dials on the plate flickered whenever someone in the room spoke.
Jelindel stared levelly at the two. ‘The Temple of Verity has stood for many centuries. I doubt that you or all your black arts will bring it to an end.’
The Preceptor laughed. ‘We shall see,’ he said, lightly. His manner changed abruptly. He leaned forward, searching her face. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘where might I find the mailshirt?’
The dragonlink mailshirt, an off-world artifact of immense and toxic power, had been hunted down and destroyed by Jelindel and her two companions. With the help of the honour-obsessed Daretor and the street-savvy Zimak, she had journeyed across the continent to find the missing dragonlinks and restore them to the mailshirt. With the final restoration, however, she discovered the diabolical nature of the mailshirt and managed to render it harmless, placing it where it could never be found.
‘The mailshirt is destroyed. I destroyed it,’ Jelindel said.
The Preceptor tensed. ‘For your sake, you had better be lying,’ he said. ‘Fetch the truthseer,’ he ordered Kantor. ‘This spawn of a fool will tell us nothing willingly.’
‘Let me stimulate her again, my lord,’ Kantor said. His harsh voice sounded like the vocal chords had been replaced by a machine.
The Preceptor waved his hand, dismissing the idea. ‘I am in too much of a hurry, and I do not trust her to speak the truth even under torture.’
Kantor bowed and departed. The Preceptor poured himself a drink and crossed to the roaring fire. He stood before it, backlit and ominous.
‘How did you like my enhanced deadmoon warriors?’
‘You mean Fa’red’s enhanced deadmoon warriors, don’t you?’
The Preceptor went still, eyeing her over the rim of a goblet. ‘You would do well not to irk me, Countess. I can make your passing a thing of perpetual pain, such that peasants a thousand years from now will shudder to recount.’ He paused, sipping his wine.
Outwardly urbane, as if he were entertaining a dinner guest, the Preceptor smiled. Jelindel shuddered. Thus does a shark smile moments before it tears its victim apart, she thought.
‘Where is your Adept 12 tonight?’ Jelindel asked. ‘Surely he would want to be here for such an important interrogation.’
‘Away on business. A pity. As you say, he would not wish to miss this.’
‘Especially after the destruction of his deadmoon warriors.’
The Preceptor almost spilt his wine. ‘What’s that you say?’
Jelindel stared at him. The two levitating warriors had not told the Preceptor what had transpired at the Temple the previous night. Obviously, they owed their allegiance to Fa’red rather than the Preceptor. A thought, Jelindel could clearly see, that was beginning to form in the Preceptor’s mind as well.
He slammed his wine glass down, snapping the stem, and roared for his attendants. A small knot came bursting through the door like a scrum of kutark ball players.
The Preceptor’s eyes picked out a tall skinny man whose clothing and accoutrement indicated he was a counsellor of some rank. ‘What is the report on the Temple attack?’ he demanded in a sibilant voice. It left the listener in no doubt that one false word or gesture would cause the Preceptor to lash out.
The counsellor cleared his throat nervously. His voice was a soft squeak: ‘Report? Of course, your lordship. The report was … I mean, is … in other words, the report reports that …’
His voice trailed off. A smaller man, stocky of carriage, spoke up. ‘Your deadmoon warriors were … perhaps inadequate for the task set them, my lord. We believe the witch was responsible. Many fell to their deaths. A handful returned.’ He bowed low and was silent.
‘A handful?’ the Preceptor shouted. ‘Are you insane? These were deadmoon assassins. None can stand against them. None but lindraks, and them I had slaughtered to the last of their order. A handful!’
He dismissed the cowering men with a wave of his hand and turned to Jelindel, his dark eyes simmering. He drew an iron from the fire. Its end, shaped like a pike’s blade, glowed white-hot. He advanced towards her.
‘Iron for the witch,’ he said, as though not in his own mind. ‘And fire for the flesh. The truthseer can wait. I will have the answer I seek from you or I will sear the skin from your bones.’
Jelindel fought to clear her mind of the panic that almost consumed it. She uttered a binding word and the blue sparks lashed themselves about the Preceptor’s legs. He fell with a cry and the glowing poker clattered across the floor. It came to rest against the wall, beneath ornate curtains. The Preceptor uttered an oath and Jelindel added an extra small binding word that fastened his lips. He could not cry out for help, although he thrashed across the slate floor.
In moments, the curtains were ablaze. The fire spread quickly to the ancient timber rafters that formed the groined ceiling. Smoke began to fill the chamber.
Jelindel coughed, her eyes watering. A lesser timber crashed down from the ceiling, spilling coals across the floor. A rug began to smoulder. As an Adept 9, Jelindel had few major abilities. But one that most novice Adepts practised with ease was telekinesis, moving small objects. Even market charm vendors could manage as much. She uttered a summoning spell. A small glowing coal flew across the room and lodged in one of the leather thongs that bound her left hand. It was uncomfortably close to her skin and she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out.
Meanwhile, the Preceptor struggled with the binding spells. Unable to best them, he had managed to squirm his way to the main door. It was an ungainly and humiliating mode of locomotion. His eyes were wild with fear and hatred, like those of a horse that has seen a snake and would like nothing better than to grind it out of existence.
Just then the doors burst open. Kantor rushed in, followed by a grey-haired truthseer. Kantor went immediately to the Preceptor’s aid but the Preceptor shook his head. Unable to speak, he pointed at Jelindel, then at the truthseer.
His meaning was clear. Kantor dragged the truthseer through the smoke and heat towards Jelindel. They stopped in the middle of the room. The beams above Jelindel were blazing fiercely and would not hold much longer.
‘Establish a link!’ shouted the dwarf.
The truthseer, trembling and coughing, put out his arms towards Jelindel. His eyes went milky white and he seemed to go into a trance.
Kantor faced Jelindel. ‘Where is the mailshirt, Countess? Where is the mailshirt?’
Jelindel tried to think of anything but the shirt. The coal had nearly burned through the thong. Once her left hand was free she had only to untie her right and she could escape. She bit down on her lip. It was no good. The scalpel of the truthseer’s thought-search sliced into her mind, scouring for the truth. She tried to fight it but she was no match for the ancient’s power.
Then several things happened at once. The ceiling began to collapse just as the leather thong gave way. At the same moment, the truthseer found what he was looking for, or at least part of it, and gasped in triumph. Jelindel swung around behind the scaffold she’d been bound to as the ceiling came down like a volcanic landslide.
Kantor dragged the old man back, but not quickly enough. A flaming rafter swung down and swept the pair from their feet. Green blood spurted from Kantor’s ruptured chest. The truthseer screeched and pushed himself back from under the cinder-hot rafter.
As the truthseer’s life drained away, so did his power over Jelindel. As though barely making the surface from a deep dive, Jelindel gasped for air and gagged on the smoke. She registered Kantor’s green blood, and in that moment of
recognition, her binding words left the Preceptor and returned to her. The scaffold had protected her from the collapsed ceiling. Now she freed her right hand and made for one of the scullioned windows. She kicked out the glass and climbed outside. Pressing her back against the wall, she scuttled sideways along the stone ledge and clambered up a terracotta pipe to the roof. In no time at all she was some distance away.
The Preceptor leaned over the dying truthseer. He cradled the dying man’s head as though it were fine china. Nearby, Kantor’s neck brace continued to register words, but no more would come from him.
‘Tell me what you found, old man,’ whispered the Preceptor, ‘and I will ennoble your family for all time.’
The truthseer coughed blood and ash. The Preceptor wiped it away with his own sleeve. ‘Where is the mailshirt?’ he asked, gently.
‘It is …’ The truthseer gasped for air. ‘It is – as she said … It is gone, destroyed. I know not where. Could not get that …’
The Preceptor’s jaw tightened. All his plans, everything he had worked for, lost forever.
As if reading his thoughts, the truthseer suddenly clutched the Preceptor’s tunic in a tight grip. ‘There’s something else … in her close future,’ he wheezed. ‘A device … just as powerful … five gems … The witch needs … transference … will soon seek the gems. Find them before her, my lord, and you will rule not only this world, but myriad worlds.’
The truthseer coughed once and died in the Preceptor’s arms. For a long time the Preceptor did not move, but sat like stone, hardly aware that he still cradled the old man.
Warriors and attendants ran madly back and forth trying to quench the roaring flames.
Finally, the Preceptor’s lips moved. A senior counsellor had to lean forward to hear the words: ‘… find that witch …’
Chapter 4
THE DARK EMPRESS SAILS