Rath and Storm

by Peter Archer (ed) (retail) (epub)

  “Well,” Hanna said, bemused. She cocked her head as Tahngarth shouted her name from the foredeck. “Benalia made an adult out of you despite yourself, I see.”

  “It was a bloody battle,” Gerrard said, grinning, “but one of us had to lose.”

  “The anchors beckon, Captain.” As she turned away, Hanna gestured to the necklace dangling from his throat and the object at the end of the chain. “What happened to the hourglass you used to wear?”

  Gerrard’s grin faded. He held up the blood-flecked gold earring, looking at Hanna through its circle. “I’m leaving it behind,” he said solemnly. “This is just about as valuable, I think.”

  The ship set sail for Tolaria.

  Here ends the Tale of Gerrard

  The master stretched and shook himself. Talking for a long time tired him more than he remembered. With almost a start he realized how old he was. And how much longer did he have left? A few years? A few months? Or perhaps less.

  At his feet Ilcaster sat, staring at the master with shining eyes. The boy did not seem tired at all, the librarian noted, and his face no longer seemed frightened and sorrowful. The shadows in the room were still thick, pregnant with menace and the storm raged outside, but within the little yellow circle of candlelight, all seemed safe.

  Perhaps this was the way to conquer fear, the old man reflected; to take refuge in stories of brave deeds from another age. Perhaps, he thought, that is why we still tell ourselves these stories, even if we no longer entirely believe them—because they are a reminder to us that memory goes on even longer after we are dead.

  “Did they have an easy time finding Tolaria?”

  Ilcaster’s question broke in abruptly upon the librarian’s thoughts. “Hardly that.” The master shook his head sadly. “Nothing about their voyage was easy, and throughout all their troubles, they remembered Sisay in the clutches of Volrath and could only imagine what tortures she might be suffering.

  “Their first stop, though, was not in Tolaria but in Llanowar.”

  “I remember Llanowar,” the boy said eagerly. “That’s where whats-her-name was from.” The master looked at him blankly. “You know—the cat person.”

  “Ah, yes, Mirri. She was not, in fact, from Llanowar, but Mirri had gone there after she and Gerrard parted. But now Weatherlight’s captain needed the help of and old friend.”

  “How did he persuade her to come with them?”

  “With difficulty. During the journey, Gerrard settled, somewhat uncomfortably, into Sisay’s cabin. He used the time to examine the journal of his former captain and shipmate, as well as the Thran Tome, which he received from Hanna. From these documents he realized for the first time the importance of Weatherlight. He also discovered a spell that could overcome the effects of the Touchstone, the device used to immobilize Karn, though the value of this was not immediately clear to him.

  “Gerrard wandered around the ship, renewing his acquaintance with its features. Making his way through the hold, he saw the pieces of the Legacy Sisay had collected in the time after he had left Weatherlight. Then, to his utter amazement, he came upon a silent, motionless figure standing upright, shining in the dim light. Karn.

  “Using the spell from the Thran Tome, Gerrard reactivated his old friend and guardian. Though Karn had stood motionless for years, his mind had frozen at the precise moment of his deactivation. He was in anguish at the thought of having been responsible for the death of an innocent. Brokenly he told Gerrard of his resolution to never again take a life.”

  “Just a minute,” interrupted the boy, skepticism in his tone. “Do you mean Karn would never take a life? Even if somebody was threatening to destroy him?”

  The librarian nodded.

  “What about if someone were threatening to kill Gerrard?”

  “A good question, boy. I’m glad you’re paying attention. In point of fact, it was the very question Gerrard himself asked. The golem thought long and hard, but in the end he replied that his decision was absolute: even Gerrard’s fate could not overcome his choice. He would never knowingly take a life—not merely a human life, but the life of any creature.”

  Ilcaster considered, chin in hand. “I think that was a mistake,” he said at last. “I mean, I don’t think he should have gone around killing people, but everybody has to defend themselves if they’re being attacked.”

  The master shrugged. “It was, nonetheless, his decision. And Gerrard was so overjoyed to see the golem that he did not, perhaps, fully understand what a profound change had come over his old protector. He greeted him joyfully and introduced him to the rest of the crew.

  “And all this time, while Gerrard renewed his friendship with the silver golem and his familiarity with the flying ship, Weatherlight steadily drew closer to Llanowar.”

  In the corridors of my birth—the labyrinths of Talruum—the priestesses burned shrine lamps for the gods and goddesses. Near the hearth of my family, before our doorway hung with beads of red, green, and blue, two lamps burned. One was for Kindeya, goddess of learning, and the other for Torahn, god of judgment. When I was still so young that I only dreamed of having horns, my mother spoke thus to me: “Tahn, every day you see the two lamps burning outside of our home. Turn your heart to Kindeya’s lamp, my son, to learning. And turn away from Torahn. Leave justice to the gods who see more than we do.”

  She sought to bend me from the nature of my clan, but I was born Three Beads. As was she. In the end, justice meant more to her, to me, to all our clan than the peace of Talruum. And so there was rebellion within the halls. War.

  That is not the story I wish to tell. I only mean to make it clear that the fires of judgment burned hot in me, and that was why I, of all the crew of Weatherlight, did not want to ask this Gerrard to return to our ship.

  I stood watching him as we sailed over the forest mists of Llanowar. It was hard to judge the age of humans, but I knew they got their beards later than minotaurs grew their horns, and Gerrard already had a beard the first time he joined our crew. He was not then a child, nor was he one now. I could grant him no excuse of youth. Indeed, he wielded a sword well, and had an accurate hand and eye with the throwing knives he wore. He had accomplishments born of practice, born of years.

  But he had not yet grown wise.

  “Blast these clouds,” he said, gripping the railing with his strange human hands. (And why did the hands of Hanna and Orim not seem strange to me? They were also human. But I liked them.) He squinted as if that would give him a clearer view of the land below. The low-hanging mists let us see only the ground that was directly beneath us. “There must be a place to land here somewhere.”

  “We waste time,” I said. I did not speak his language well, so I kept my utterances short and simple. Perhaps he thought me simple, too. “Sisay needs us.”

  “We need Mirri first. I thought I’d made that clear.”

  “She left us,” I said. “As you did.”

  He turned to look at me. “I’m back,” he said, as if that were proof enough to banish my doubts.

  “We don’t need her.”

  “One more time, Tahngarth,” he said as if he were explaining to a child, “Captain Sisay is captive in Rath. We don’t know how to get there. We can’t possibly find the place until the ship’s Thran crystal is encoded for it. I don’t have magic enough for that. Mirri was always better with magic than I—”

  “So is any mud wizard. So is any kitchen sorcerer.”

  His jaw tightened for a moment, then he laughed. “You touch a truth there,” he said. He patted the knives that were strapped across his chest. “I was ever the better master of a blade.”

  I pointed off the bow. “There,” I said. I turned and shouted across the deck, “Hanna! Fifteen degrees to starboard!” Behind the window glass of the bridge, she signaled that she had heard me. Weatherlight’s sails extend sideways from amidships, and they ripp
led as Hanna adjusted our course.

  Some have said that Weatherlight looks like a flying fish. I have never seen a flying fish. I would say instead that our ship is like a goblin’s throwing dart with white bat wings.

  “Ahead slow!” I called.

  “Tahngarth…”

  “What?” I glared at him.

  No doubt he was about to remind me that he was the master of Weatherlight now. But he held his tongue.

  The engine had been humming quietly. Now it dropped to a whisper. The mists began to break beneath us as we flew over the meadow.

  “Hanna, take us down!” he ordered.

  “Belay that!” I shouted. He gave me a sharp look, and I said, “Captain Sisay would circle first.” Indeed, Hanna was already steering a wide arc around the clearing. Far edges of the meadow were still obscured by mist, but there was a strange shadow near the trees. I pointed at it.

  “Is that a funeral mound?” Gerrard wondered as we approached. “A barrow?”

  It did look like a mound of dirt, one shaped to look like a man lying on his face: rounded back of the head, the ridge of spine along a broad back, and the powerful curve of buttocks. Mist obscured the legs, but beyond that the heels jutted up.

  In what I thought was a trick of the mist, the shoulders seemed to swell, then settle.

  We were flying toward the head. Now I could see a green-clad rider approaching the mound.

  “Llanowar elf,” said Gerrard. “Mirri’s as good as found. Didn’t I tell you—”

  “Look,” I said, pointing at the mound. I thought it had moved again.

  “Hanna!” Gerrard called. “Take us down!”

  The whisper of the engine grew softer still. As we slowed, Hanna tipped the bow up to keep us aloft. We began to descend, still on a course toward elf and earth mound.

  The rider’s horse was skittish, shying sideways half a step for every step forward. The elf unslung a bow from his shoulder and set fire to an arrow tip. With a warrior’s ululation, he loosed the missile. Flame arced through the air and landed with a hiss in the crown of the muddy head.

  The rider turned his mount. For a moment, both horse and rider seemed frozen by the sight of Weatherlight descending. Then the mound shifted behind them. The horse’s nostrils flared, and it raced across our shadow toward the trees at the far end of the meadow.

  I heard a rush of indrawn air, and the bushes near the giant head stirred as in a wind.

  The head lifted itself up from the ground.

  White eyes stared from the earthen face. Below was a cavernous mouth, one shaped for a perpetual howl of hunger. Roots dangled from its lips.

  “Milk of the Mothers!” I cried in my own tongue.

  Great muddy arms moved, fingers clutching at the ground. With a sound like a mudslide, the creature shook its hill-sized shoulders. “It’s an aboroth!”

  “Hard about!” Gerrard shouted. “Full thrust! Hard about!”

  The engine hummed, then rose to a loud whine. The ship pitched to portside. I heard the goblin Squee yelp in surprise below decks. Gerrard lost his footing, snatched at the handrail, missed, and would have gone sliding across the deck. I grabbed him by the collar.

  The ship righted. Astern, the ground rumbled. The giant was on its feet. Weatherlight shook as her engine thrusted and we picked up speed.

  The aboroth took one tentative step, then a more confident one, and then another. On its fourth step, it began to run. Toward us.

  We were overtaking the rider, and Gerrard said, “We don’t need to be faster than the monster. We just need to be faster than the elf.” He looked at the aboroth. It had covered half the distance to the forest in a few strides. “In that race, my bet would be on the dirt, if I were a betting man.”

  “It’s not chasing the elf,” I told him. For the blank eyes were upon us, not the rider. Near the first trees, the monster passed the elf, almost stepping on him.

  The monstrous fingers reached for the sails of Weatherlight. The claws looked like the tips of lightning-shattered trees. They almost snagged us….

  Then stopped.

  War cries had erupted from the forest below. Elvish warriors, mounted and afoot, came streaming into the meadow. Something stirred among the trees, making the canopy ripple.

  “War machines,” I said. Even as we sped away, they grew before our eyes, these machines of tree trunks lashed together with vines. The vines rippled and twisted and tugged at the trunks. As muscle moves bone, thus did the vines haul the tree trunks and articulate them. It was like watching a scaffold that builds itself. The machines took the shape of headless, legless golems, and then the battle receded into the mist.

  The engines were still shrilling. Gerrard shouted, “Reduce thrust! Level off!” But Hanna could not have heard him above the whining engines. I signaled the orders to her. Weatherlight leveled, and the engines dropped to a hum, then a whisper.

  My hand still gripped his collar. He said, “Thanks for catching me, but you can let go now.”

  “When you order a maneuver, think of the ship. How it will move,” I said, releasing him.

  “In short,” he said, grinning, “hold on!”

  I did not return his smile.

  “What did you call that thing?”

  I told him of aboroths, how some years they grow up out of the soil near Llanowar villages. When they awaken, they live but a short while, but in that time, they wreak havoc. It is the custom of the elves to assemble for battle near the ripening aboroths, to provoke them as they wake and lead them away from the villages. If the aboroths can be occupied with battle long enough, they shrink and die. When I was done, Gerrard said, “Where did you learn this?”

  I chose my words carefully, like choosing a blade. “From the elf Rofellos,” I said. Then slowly I added, “He told me such things as friend is wont to tell friend.”

  Gerrard gave me a long look. “Rofellos was my friend, too.”

  “Is that why you made a mockery of his death?”

  Anger burned in his eyes. “Rofellos was my friend ere he was yours! You understand nothing!” His hand touched the haft of his sword.

  “Have a care where your hand strays,” I told him. And even though I knew his accomplishments as a man of arms, I insulted him by turning my back—and came face to face with Orim. A fringe of brown hair peeked from beneath the headdress she always wore with its blue agal. Her eyes, like her hair, were brown and somehow soft.

  I do not know how it is that anyone, minotaur or human, can frown with anger and yet show gentleness in her eyes. But that was her expression. There was always, in her dress and in her manner, a softness to Orim, though she was a Samite woman born of the hard deserts.

  “A word with you,” she said in the minotaur tongue. For one whose mouth was not shaped for the language, her accent was excellent. Most minotaur-speaking humans—and they are rare—know only the Hurloon dialect. Orim knew the inflections of Talruum. She spoke well enough to make me long for home.

  “Then follow me,” I said. I stomped back to the bridge and took the controls from Hanna. As much as Orim was outwardly soft, Hanna’s manner and dress were trim and efficient. She tied her hair behind her like a warrior. In fact, she could handle a sword, but she was an archaeologist and our navigator. I told her, “Go help him who has not the eyes for it find another meadow.”

  Hanna looked out at Gerrard, who was at the railing again, peering into the grayness. “He is unaccustomed to seeing the world from the air,” she said.

  “He is unaccustomed to many things,” I said, “loyalty among them.”

  Hanna went to the hatchway. She said, “We need him.”

  When she was gone, Orim said, “With your iciness to Gerrard, you freeze Hanna, too. You know of her feelings for him.”

  “No,” I said, “I do not. She may have felt something for him once, befor
e he left us. But I do not know what she feels for him now. She must have her doubts.”

  “You have more than doubts, Tahngarth. I heard how you attacked him with the memory of Rofellos. Gerrard left us because the death of his friend had wounded him.”

  “Did the death of Rofellos not mark me as well? More than that. Rofellos sacrificed himself for the sake of this ship and crew. To abandon Weatherlight, as Gerrard did, was to abandon the memory of Rofellos, to rob his death of meaning.”

  “Do you think Gerrard a coward?”

  “I could forgive a coward. He is something more dangerous to us. He is unreliable. And his first command is that we should come to Llanowar to recover his friend, Mirri. Why? We might find conjurers of her equal for hire in a hundred ports. And she is every bit as unreliable as Gerrard.”

  “Tahngarth, Gerrard is heir to the Legacy. He is, by rights, master of this ship and its contents, even more than Captain Sisay is.”

  “How can such as he have so much importance?” I bellowed. “How? Sisay is bold! I would follow her into the Corridors of Pain where Torahn gores the wicked ones! But Gerrard…The man has not the will to face reality! He resists what must be!”

  Orim smiled. “Tahngarth, even as I would begin to speak to you, you say the very thing that must be said. Now there is nothing left for me to say.”

  “I do not take your meaning.”

  “Think upon your words, my friend. In them is wisdom: He resists what must be.”

  She was much given to riddles. She left me with those words hanging in the air.

  * * *

  —

  When we landed, the ship’s support spines dug black furrows in the meadow grass. With the engine shut off, Weatherlight listed on the soft ground.

  Gerrard assembled us on the canted deck. “Hanna, Tahngarth, and I will locate Mirri. We’re here without an invitation, and the elves may not exactly welcome us. Orim, you stand watch on the bridge. If elves approach, I don’t care how friendly they look. I want this ship back in the air.”