Avenger botm-3

by Richard Baker

  Part of the riddle was fairly obvious to Geran; Rivan was the first lord of the Hulmaster line. He’d come to power in Hulburg almost four hundred years earlier, right around the time that Aesperus had ruled over his short-lived kingdom of Thentur. Unfortunately, he had little idea what Grigor had meant about an oath, or any idea of where Rivan’s crypt might lie. Much of old Hulburg had been destroyed by the sackings early in the fourteenth century, and further damaged by the catastrophic emergence of changeland in the form of the Arches or the Spires later in that century. There was an excellent chance that Rivan Hulmaster’s burial place simply didn’t exist anymore, which would seem to be an insuperable obstacle to keeping any oath there, unless it was a clue not intended to be taken literally.

  Geran prowled the warm hallways of Lasparhall, he rode over the snow-covered hills that surrounded the manor, he sparred with Kara and Hamil, he debated with Sarth a dozen magical theories about the powers of Rhovann’s construct army and ways the things might be defeated. He even spent a few hours with Sarth at the tower of the mage’s guild in Thentia, paying a handsome fee for the privilege of poring through musty old spellbooks and tomes of arcane lore in the hope of learning more about their foe’s defenses. He returned to Lasparhall little wiser for the effort; nothing he’d found about Aesperus in the guild’s stacks made any mention of an oath or hinted at anything more about Rivan Hulmaster than he’d already known. He lay awake for an hour or more that night, replaying again and again the last few things his uncle had said to him.

  The next morning, he found his steps leading him up to the suite Grigor had used. The rooms were still unoccupied; the chamberlain Dostin Hillnor had urged Geran to take the suite, as he was the head of the family now, but Geran hadn’t wanted to yet. He looked around at the room, made up neatly but still palpably empty, and frowned as he recalled that last desperate struggle against the Cyricist assassins and their summoned devils. He sighed and sat in an armchair by one of the windows.

  “Still stumped?” Hamil leaned in the doorway, looking over the room.

  Geran nodded. “It’s important, I can feel it. But I can’t make any more sense of what my uncle meant.”

  “It might have been nothing, Geran. He was mortally wounded when he spoke, wasn’t he?”

  “He was. But I think he was trying to tell me something about Aesperus. There’s an old bargain between the harmachs and the King in Copper, you know. That’s why the harmach’s law was so stringent about opening barrows or crypts in the Hulmaster domains. But I don’t know the details of the arrangement.”

  “If you want to speak to Aesperus, you could go out and break into a barrow or two,” Hamil pointed out. “Sooner or later he’d respond, wouldn’t he?”

  “Possibly,” Geran admitted. “But I’d rather not bring him to me by doing something that offends him. If my uncle knew something about the King in Copper that I don’t, I’d like to figure out what it was before I risk drawing his attention to me again.”

  “I don’t suppose I understand why it’s so important to deal with Aesperus,” Hamil replied. “You and Sarth know enough about Rhovann’s creations to take them into account. Assume they’re trouble and lay your plans around the idea of avoiding them or drawing them away from the crux of the fight. Wouldn’t that be sufficient?”

  “That assumes the helmed guardians are the only surprise that Rhovann’s prepared for us,” Geran said. “Rhovann’s magic is the single most formidable threat to our plans to retake Hulburg. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that any attack we launch without some counter to his defenses will fail.”

  “Sarth’s a very competent sorcerer,” Hamil pointed out. “Are you sure that he couldn’t defeat Rhovann in a spell duel?”

  Geran shook his head. “No, that’s not what I’m worried about. I think Sarth could very well defeat Rhovann in a straightforward contest. After all, I defeated Rhovann once in a duel. But he’s grown more powerful than he was a couple of years ago in Myth Drannor-or revealed more of the power he already wielded. Besides, his true strength doesn’t necessarily lie in simply flinging battle spells. His power lies in subtle enchantment and spells that might take him months to weave. He’s had half a year to prepare for an attack exactly like the one we’re launching in a few tendays. I think we have to do something he doesn’t expect.”

  “So you seriously propose to call on that dreadful old King in Copper for help?” Hamil shuddered. “I was there when you met him, Geran. He isn’t a friendly sort. Why do you think he’d consent to help us instead of slaying you with some awful curse just for the temerity of asking?”

  “Because Sergen managed to strike a bargain with him.” Geran stood over the spot where Grigor had breathed his last, looking down at the cold flagstones. They’d been scrubbed clean, of course, but those last moments were starkly clear in his memory. The harmach had been lying on his back, his head near the corner of the trunk against the wall. He’d looked off past Geran, reaching out weakly with his hand … “Somehow he summoned Aesperus and convinced the lich to hear him out. He knew about the Infiernadex because Darsi Veruna told him that Sarth was looking for it, so Sergen knew that he had a chance to get his hands on something that Aesperus might value. And Aesperus honored his end of that bargain when the book finally fell into his hands.”

  “So how did Sergen summon Aesperus?”

  “I think that might have been what Uncle Grigor was trying to tell me at the end,” Geran answered. “I know he trusted Sergen implicitly before Sergen’s true colors became obvious, but still, I doubt that Grigor would have told Sergen what he knew. After all, he didn’t choose to tell Kara or me at any point in the last few months until he was within moments of death, even though he knew that Sergen had dealt with the King in Copper.”

  Hamil frowned in thought. “You think Sergen figured out something or stole something your uncle intended to keep secret until he passed it to the next harmach?”

  “Exactly. And if it was that important, I think Grigor would have brought it out of Griffonwatch when he fled, and kept it somewhere close by here in Lasparhall.” Geran’s eye rested on the trunk again. Could it be that simple? He took two steps over to the small chest, dragged it a little way out from the foot of the bed, and kneeled by it, but when he tried the latch, he found that it was locked. “Hmmm. Hamil, I don’t suppose you’d have a look at this for me?”

  The halfling sighed. “It’s a misuse of my talents to have me break into your uncle’s nightshirts,” he muttered. But he fished a small pick out of a pocket in his waistcoat, and kneeled in front of the old chest as Geran moved aside. A moment’s deft probing in the lock released the catch with an audible click. “I think we can safely assume your uncle didn’t fit his trunks with spring-loaded daggers or poisoned needles,” he remarked, but Geran noticed that he stood up and moved just a little to one side before he opened the lid-the hard lessons of a long past adventuring career remained with him, or so it seemed. Nothing but folded blankets greeted their eyes.

  Hamil gave Geran a pained look, but Geran began to empty the chest, setting the blankets aside. Near the bottom of the chest he found a muslin-wrapped book; he lifted it out and carefully unwrapped it. The thing was musty with age, its vellum pages stiff and yellowed, and it was bound in thick black leather. On the cover small Dethek runes of tarnished silver had been hammered into the leather. Geran brushed his fingertips over the old tome, and he raised an eyebrow at his halfling friend.

  “Fine. If you’d been truly clever, it wouldn’t have taken you two tendays to figure out that your uncle wanted you to look in there,” Hamil said. “I don’t read Dwarvish. What’s the cover say?”

  “It’s not Dwarvish. It’s old Damaran, which used the Dwarvish runes. It says ‘The Book of the Harmachs, Lords of Hulburg.’ It’s something of a family history.”

  “You’ve seen it before?”

  “Yes, on several occasions. It was one of my uncle’s prized possessions. When I was a lad he�
��d sometimes show me different parts of it.” He smiled a little at the old memories; he’d been very impressed as a small boy by the size and age of the tome, and the care with which his uncle handled it. He flipped it open, turning the pages gently. It was a disorganized collection of old letters, genealogies, records of proclamations and patents of nobility, illustrations and maps, essays on the family history … whatever the harmachs of old had seen fit to save or write down for those who would follow. He noticed that many pages toward the book’s end were written on new vellum in his uncle’s hand, including a fairly extensive index. “Books were his great love. He should have been a scholar,” he murmured.

  “Are there any spells in there? Rituals? Other things that might explain why your uncle thought it was so important?” Hamil asked.

  “I’ll tell you if I find any,” Geran replied. He closed the book with care, and carried it to the door. “Excuse me, Hamil-I think I’ve got some reading to do.”

  He retreated to the house’s library, threw a couple of logs on the fire, and settled down in one of the armchairs by the fireplace to carefully peruse the Book of the Harmachs. One of his old tutors had taught him long before that the best way to read a book was to start with the first page, proceeding through introductions and prefaces with the same care he’d spend in the body of the book, and Geran had never abandoned the habit; he was a very deliberate reader. He spent the rest of the afternoon engaged in his task, losing himself in the stories of people dead for centuries, the glimpses of a Hulburg in the days when it had been a great city several times the size of the realm Grigor had ruled over, the records of old tragedies and lost wars that had reduced the harmachs’ domain to a desolate ruin in the decades before the Spellplague and its gradual resettlement. Dinnertime came and went, and Geran absently ate a little bread and sliced roast that the mistress of the kitchens had sent to him.

  An hour before midnight, he found what he was looking for in a chapter added by his great-grandfather, Angar Hulmaster. A hundred years earlier, Angar had been forced to open the crypt of the old Hulmasters by tomb robbers, and he’d visited the crypt of Rivan, learning the truth of the family’s origins. Not long after that he’d encountered Aesperus the lich, the first Hulmaster to do so in centuries. Geran read his great-grandfather’s account in amazement, then immediately reread it to make sure he’d understood it correctly. When he finished, he set the book down and went to stand by the fireplace, gazing into the flames as he grappled with what he’d learned.

  The Hulmasters were the only living kin of Aesperus, the King in Copper. And the lich permitted Hulburg to exist only because Angar had promised to keep the places of the dead in the Highfells unspoiled.

  In the margins of a drawing next to Angar’s account-a drawing of Rivan’s sarcophagus-an invocation was scrawled in a shaky hand. “An oath that must be kept in Rivan’s crypt,” Geran murmured. He took a blank piece of parchment and carefully copied down the words of the invocation, deliberately avoiding speaking them aloud. When he finished, he tucked it into his pocket, closed the Book of the Harmachs, and protected it with a minor warding spell before returning it to its wrappings and locking it in one of the library cabinets.

  Two hours before sunset on the following day, he took a mount from the Lasparhall stables and rode up into the Highfells. Kara, Hamil, and Sarth accompanied him. The afternoon was clear, windy, and cold, and a rippled overcast of steel gray like the serried scales of a dragon roofed the moorland. Bright sunbreaks lingered in the west, where the sun was slowly sinking toward the horizon.

  “I have misgivings about this, Geran,” Sarth said as they left the wide fields of Lasparhall below them. “It is a reckless thing you intend!”

  “Aesperus offered me counsel once before,” the swordmage answered. He drew his hood over his head, shivering against the cold. “He might not care much about the living, but I think he’s absorbed in his own legacy. That’s why the troubles of our family interest him; the only thing that he fears is that he might be forgotten. He’ll come if we call him.”

  “That is exactly what concerns me,” the tiefling replied. He frowned deeply, but he fell silent as they continued to ride deeper into the Highfells.

  Geran had grown up riding, hunting, and sometimes skirmishing in these wild lands, and he knew them well. Much like Hulburg, Thentia lay under the verge of the wild and desolate moorland of Thar, a hundred miles or more of wiry moorgrass, ribs of wet stone, gorse-filled hollows, and meandering streams winding through hidden channels that were often ten or fifteen feet below the plain, posing a considerable hazard to an unwary rider. Wind-blown mists often rolled in without warning to hide landmarks and confuse travelers; in wintertime, heavy snow only lingered in low places or along the lee side of hills and ridges, since the ever-present winds usually scoured the level ground clear. Yet, despite all that, Geran had always found the moorlands beautiful in their wild desolation. The vast distances and stone-crowned hills could be spectacular on a clear day, beckoning to his native wanderlust with the promise of lands few people had ever seen.

  Geran thought he sensed a whisper of peril in the biting wind, a hint of supernatural malice gathering as night drew near. He said nothing, but Hamil narrowed his eyes and shifted in the saddle. “Do you feel it?” he said aloud. “Something’s stirring in the wind.”

  Kara nodded. She knew the Highfells even better than Geran, having spent most of her life crisscrossing the wilds as a scout and hunter. “Sometimes the spirits of the dead roam abroad in the wild places after the sun sets. I think this will be one of those nights,” she said. She looked at Geran, a crease of worry marking her brow. “Will that help or hinder you in what you intend to do?”

  “Help, I think. I don’t know how far King Aesperus’s domain extends toward Thentia, but I’ve got a feeling that if the dead are restless here, he’ll hear us.”

  “We are well within the borders of Aesperus’s old domain, so he can certainly answer if he is willing,” Sarth said. “However, I still advise against proceeding. Drawing Aesperus’s attention may very well be the last thing any of us do. And even if he deigns to treat with you, Geran, he may not see any reason to aid you-or may offer you assistance that fails you at the crucial moment.”

  “He aided Sergen,” Geran replied. “And he kept his bargain. But I’ll agree that we must be very careful in what we promise him.” The dying sun finally broke through the clouds in the west, throwing long orange rays across the moorland; their shadows stretched out long and dark before them. Ahead, Geran spied a row of small, regular hummocks marching across a gentle hillside-a line of old barrows, completely covered in moorgrass. He turned his horse toward the ancient grave mounds. One didn’t have to ride far in the Highfells to find an old grave, but he was gratified to find that this small group was more or less where he remembered it from his days of exploring the country around Lasparhall as a young lad. “There, I think those will do,” he said.

  Distances could be deceiving on the open moor, and the barrows were the better part of a mile off. By the time they reached the old graves, only the last limb of the sun remained above the horizon, and the wind was growing viciously cold. They picketed the horses a hundred yards away in a small jumble of boulders, and as the day slowly faded Sarth picked out a spot near the middle barrow and fashioned a ring of fist-sized stones around it, muttering wards and protections over each one as he put it in place. Before he emplaced the last stone, he motioned for the others to step within. When Geran did so, he felt the palpable menace of the evening drawing back, as if it had been pushed away by some great unseen hand.

  “Are you finished?” he asked Sarth.

  “Only if you are certain that no argument of mine can dissuade you,” the tiefling answered unhappily.

  Geran nodded. “I’d better do most of the talking. He knows me,” he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the piece of parchment and read aloud:

  Dark the night and cold the stone,

  Sile
nt grave and barren throne,

  Empty halls, a crown of mold,

  Deathless dreams the king of old.

  Long the dark and brief the light,

  An hour’s play, and then the night,

  Beauty fails and all grows cold,

  Still awaits the king of old.

  For a long time, nothing happened. Hamil glanced at him and said silently, Perhaps you didn’t do it right?

  A circle of mist abruptly appeared on the ground a short distance in front of Geran, bubbling upward as if fed by some dark spring. He took a step back as icy dread congealed in his heart. The mist rose higher, taking on a hunched, humanlike shape, and began to darken and thicken. In five heartbeats it was mist no longer, but instead a figure of nightmare-a skeletal corpse clad in the tatters of kingly robes. Evil green flames flickered in its empty sockets, and it clasped a great iron staff in its bony fingers. Its bones were sheathed in strips of hammered copper, each incised with tiny arcane runes. It regarded the four of them for a moment with its horrible lipless grin; Geran could barely stand to look at the thing, and he kept his eyes fixed on its breastbone rather than gazing full into its emerald gaze.

  “As you have called, so I have come,” the lich said in a dry, crackling voice. “What is it that you wish of me?”

  “We desire your counsel,” Geran answered. “The enemies of House Hulmaster have seized Hulburg, King Aesperus.”