Rath and Storm

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

  “The ship struggled up out of the Furnace through another maze of passages until at last it emerged over a dark, oily mass that swayed and bubbled.”

  “Was that the place you called the Death Pits?” Ilcaster shivered.

  “Yes. There Volrath’s servants brought those experiments of their master that had failed to meet his exacting requirements. The black ooze swayed and surged beneath the ship and then rose in a great wave, threatening to overwhelm Weatherlight. On the crest of the wave rode skeletons who leaped aboard the ship, grappling with the crew.”

  Ilcaster shook his head. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” he said solemnly. “It just seems like every creature they met was worse than the last.”

  “It seemed that way to the crew, I’m sure,” agreed the librarian. “In any event, they panicked, rushing this way and that, tumbling down the hatches belowdecks. Squee, the goblin cabin boy, however, climbed up one of the masts.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Ilcaster, “that’s the end of Squee.”

  “Don’t get ahead of me,” cautioned the old man.

  “Squee, as I say, climbed the mast. Gerrard, seeing the little goblin in danger, went after him. The skeletons swiped at the captain, but Squee, who clutched the Salvation Sphere, an artifact for which he’d developed a peculiar attachment, accidentally activated it. Its gentle glow suffused both Squee and Gerrard, and the skeleton attacking them hesitated and turned away. Evidently the Sphere could stop the skeletons. The other creatures gave way before Gerrard as he carried Squee, who carried the Sphere, and the ship moved quickly away from this dangerous place.”

  Ilcaster breathed a sigh of relief and settled once more at the librarian’s feet. From beyond the walls, came a new wave of rain and hail. It shrieked and groaned, as if the heavens themselves were being tortured. But neither the boy nor the man paid any heed to it.

  “With the Death Pits behind them, the crew brought Weatherlight to the Stronghold itself. For long minutes that seemed to stretch into hours, Hanna, standing at the wheel, searched for a sheltered spot on the lower part of the hulking menace in which to dock the ship. At last she drew up alongside a tiny balcony. Beyond it, a dark entryway gaped in shadow.

  “Just as the ship drew up to the balcony, a guard emerged from the door. His mouth opened to cry a warning, and instinctively he stepped back.”

  “What happened?” The boy was open-mouthed.

  “Mirri the cat warrior leapt from the ship’s side and smothered the guard in a sudden flash of claws and fur. The guard was dead before he knew what had struck him.”

  “I’d love to have seen Mirri,” the boy murmured. “Are there any pictures of her?”

  “One. Here.” The librarian opened a raggedly bound manuscript.

  The boy stared thoughtfully. “Somehow I thought she’d look fiercer, more warlike.”

  “Don’t underestimate her. From all accounts, she was a superb fighter. Gerrard make it very clear in his notes that Mirri was more than able to take care of herself.”

  The boy nodded. “So she killed the guard. What did they do next?”

  “Gerrard, Starke, and Crovax joined her on the balcony. Turning, Gerrard told Hanna that if anything happened, they’d rendevous at the Gardens.”

  “Gardens? You mean the Stronghold actually had Gardens?”

  “Yes, but far above the place where Weatherlight was docked. Starke gave hasty directions to Hanna on how to find them, and then the rescue party stole into the Stronghold.”

  Ilcaster shivered. “I’m glad I wasn’t there. I’d have been too scared to go with them.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that, my boy.” The librarian looked at him. “Heroes can come from the most unlikely material and in the most unlikely places.

  “No sooner had they entered the fortress than they encountered a beast, its limbs twisted and misshapen. Crovax pursued it, sword drawn, and the others followed the passage as it twisted and turned deeper and deeper into the Stronghold. After what must have seemed hours to them, Gerrard, Starke, and Mirri burst into an open space, just in time to see Crovax standing over the fallen body of the creature. He was hacking at it, slashing its body to pieces, though it was already dead. When Gerrard remonstrated him the noble replied, ‘The Legacy may be your destiny, Gerrard, but Selenia is mine.’ ”

  Ilcaster shook his head as if trying to clear it. “That’s an odd thing to say. What did he mean?”

  “You’ll see.

  “Gerrard and the others looked about the room in which they found themselves. It was a massive chamber ringed with seats around a central command table. On top of the table was a three-dimensional map that Gerrard, with his years of traveling, recognized immediately as Dominaria.”

  “Dominaria? Really?” the boy asked. “But why was Volrath interested in Dominaria? Did he have some plan to…?” The lad’s voice faded slowly as the implication of what he was about to blurt hit home.

  The old man looked at him soberly and then continued. “Gerrard, of course, didn’t know anything about it, but from the map he realized something of what Volrath was intending. He manipulated the figures of it, including a tiny model of Predator. He saw a dark blanket spread across Benalia in the wake of Greven’s ship. And in that moment he wondered if he and the Legacy were all that stood between Dominaria and an eternal darkness.”

  The librarian walked to the window and looked out at the storm, then resumed his tale.

  “Gerrard and the others left the map room and climbed through the maze of passages winding through the Stronghold. Higher and higher they ascended, until Weatherlight must have been far below them. Still they remained undetected, and still they searched for their companions. And then, at last, they found them.”

  Karn stood in a dark, hot cell. His massive arms hung dejectedly at his sides. His silver bulk was statue-still. Voluntary deactivation. It was his last refuge when the chaos around him or within him grew overwhelming. In such times of trouble, he would not act, but simply stand and wait.

  The chaos around him now was terrible. Weatherlight had been crippled by Predator, Gerrard had fallen overboard during the fighting, Karn had accidentally slain a mogg goblin before surrendering, and Tahngarth had boarded Greven il-Vec’s ship to save Karn, only to become a fellow prisoner within the Stronghold. He was even now shackled to the wall of an adjacent cell. The sound of his struggles stabbed beneath Karn’s stout cell door.

  And Tahngarth would die. There would be torture, of course—Phyrexians thrived on torture—and after that, death. Flesh and blood captives did not last long among the Phyrexians. They were either executed or transformed—filled with metal studs, trussed up with spinal implants, warped into monstrosities. Phyrexians believed in the perfection of flesh through pain, turning muscle into metal, and when they were finished with Tahngarth, he would be dead or so changed he would wish he were dead.

  But the chaos within Karn was even worse. He knew he was responsible for his friend’s plight. Guilt. Shame. Regret. Rage. Hatred. Though outwardly Karn was motionless, inwardly, he boiled. Despair. Desperation. Bloodlust. Emotions churned chaotically through him, fighting to emerge. Every threat Tahngarth shouted at their captors, every sound of minotaur limbs thrashing against implacable shackles, fanned the firestorm in Karn.

  But none of it boiled forth. Despite the tempest raging in him, Karn stood, inward chaos masked by outward calm. It was his final refuge. No matter how terrible the tempest within or without, he could always stand and wait.

  Meanwhile, shackled in flowstone, Tahngarth still fought. That was the real difference between Karn and Tahngarth. Both were massive, powerful, physical creatures, unswervingly loyal to their masters, ravaged by inner storms of emotion. Karn’s rage ended in paralysis, and Tahngarth’s in—

  “I’ll kill you, Greven il-Vec!” seethed the minotaur between gasps of exertion. “I’ll break l
oose and hunt you down and kill—” The threat ended in another roar of fury.

  Karn’s massive jaw ground slowly, and his fists clenched. Guilt. Shame. Regret. The chaos of emotion threatened to topple him. Twice before, violent passion had unbalanced him, and death had resulted. Now, honor and moral resolution bound him, held him firm—stronger shackles than any other. And he stood. It was his last refuge.

  To stand.

  * * *

  —

  He had been standing that way the night it all began, the night he had slain an innocent. It had been dark then, too, but it was a verdant darkness, a darkness filled with the sibilance of insects and growing things.

  Karn did not breathe, but he wished he could. He wished to feel the vibrant heat of the foothills sliding into him, the warm balm of life. Instead, he stood, still and listening, among fat green stalks of bamboo that grew near the water hole. A gentle breeze stirred fronds and leaves. Vines buzzed with rows of cicadas. Beyond the lush greenery of the oasis, the desert brooded: arid, implacable, and deadly. But here was water, and life.

  Overhead, Sidar Kondo’s arboreal village glowed, bamboo windowsills warmed with oil lamps. Here and there, human voices sung lullabies or spoke quiet assurances to fretful children. Hushed laughter circled amid cycles of stories and platters of food. Bare feet padded quietly along bamboo walkways. Guards peered out into the lush night that surrounded Karn, watchful and contented.

  Karn was a village guardian, too, though unlike the others, he remained on the oasis floor…and remained discontented. While sounds and smells of life breezed over and around him, a gale of emotions moved through him. Strange, wild, ever-changing, this storm of passions was as troubling as it was wonderful. One moment, his spirit would exult in the majestic symphony of tree frogs and songbirds all around, and the next, he would tremble with the thought that a snake might somehow slither past him and climb the bamboo stalks to the loft above, where Gerrard slept.

  Karn thought then of the boy, sixteen years old, brown-haired, keen-eyed. His skin was as light and fragile as porcelain, unable to bear very long the direct sunlight that had so handsomely burnished the other villagers. The orphan Gerrard was out of place in other ways, too: a year younger than his stepbrother, Vuel; a bit too young to navigate the lofted courts of his stepfather; cut off from Sidar Kondo’s succession; instrumental in Vuel’s estrangement from the sidar; heir to a much-coveted magical treasure that Vuel had even now pillaged Gerrard was caught squarely between the peaceful grandeur of his stepfather’s lands and the violent revolution his stepbrother was fomenting. The effect of Vuel’s betrayal of the tribe had been to make Gerrard seem younger than he was, as if he sought to bury the memory of his once blood brother by reverting to the simpler days of childhood. Karn told himself that this stage couldn’t last, but it had already lasted longer than he expected.

  At every turn, danger awaited the boy, and that fact stirred a storm of worry in Karn. He felt a sudden stab of guilt that he was too heavy to ascend to the bamboo platform where Gerrard slept, beneath the green canopy of the frond roof and the spangled black vault of night. Guilt gave place next to pride, for Gerrard was among the smartest and strongest boys his age in the village, treated by the sidar as his own son. Next came regret as Karn thought again of the sidar’s true son, Vuel, embittered and rebellious, declared foe of Kondo and Gerrard, alike. Then anger about the stolen pieces of Gerrard’s Legacy. Into the midst of these emotions came sorrow. It took some moment before Karn recognized the source of this feeling—a soft sobbing sound from the sleeping platform above.

  Craning backward, Karn looked up at the magically suspended loft and called out quietly, his voice rumbling in the verdant air, “Gerrard, what troubles you?”

  A head appeared at the edge of the platform. Though shadowed and sleepy, the boy’s eyes seemed to glow silver in the night. “Nothing,” he said sullenly. His sleepy voice made him seem younger, almost a child. “I’ll go back to sleep.”

  Karn stared, watching impassively until the face disappeared. “Goodnight, Gerrard.”

  The boy’s voice came over the pallet’s edge, “Nothing you would care about.”

  Karn gave a slow nod. “All right, then. Sleep well, Ger—”

  “I mean,” interrupted the boy, “you don’t even care that already Vuel stole my Touchstone and some of the other stuff that’s supposed to be mine. We were blood brothers, but he wasn’t to touch those things unless I say so and you don’t even care about that—”

  Something lay behind the boy’s words, something Karn did not quite understand, something from that dark land of emotion where Karn was only a fearful sojourner. “Your stepfather has sent warriors to bring back those pieces of your Legacy. I believe the warriors will succeed. I don’t understand what you mean by saying I don’t care.”

  Gerrard’s head reappeared, and he was still talking, “They’re part of you, after all, the pieces of my Legacy. You’d think maybe you’d miss them just a little bit since they’re part of you like my lungs and liver are part of me, but I don’t hear any complaining from you about it, let alone anything like if you cared what was happening.”

  The lung-liver comparison boggled Karn. “I do not respire air or metabolize lipids—”

  “You didn’t even notice when we were by the lake and the other boys were making fun of me and saying that my brother was off in Albiuto selling my Legacy to buy an army. One of them even said his brother had signed up, said he got a new lizard-skin vest and a knife. That was part of my Legacy, what that boy got—my Legacy and parts of your body is what he got, like it wasn’t lizard skin but your own skin—or my own skin, since you don’t even have skin. Doesn’t that make you mad?”

  It did. Anger set Karn’s jaw on edge and made his joints stiff. Still, what use would such feelings serve? “Gerrard, you are sixteen years old, on the verge of manhood, so this complaining ill-beseems you. The warriors have gone to get your Legacy back—”

  “In fact, the boy even said that his brother said that Vuel said that you’d be too scared to do anything about it. Vuel said you wouldn’t even care, and even if you did care you wouldn’t do anything about it because you wouldn’t want to scratch your polish, that you were no more dangerous than a silver spoon that I was born with, and I’m starting to think maybe he was right. I mean, wasn’t he right, after all?”

  Wasn’t he right after all? The words grated like a saw blade through Karn. His insides began to boil, and his vision narrowed to red tunnels. What good would such feelings of anger serve? None here, beneath a well-guarded arboreal village, but in Albiuto? In Albiuto, rage could do some real good.

  Gerrard sighed gustily. “I should have known you wouldn’t go. Serves me right for thinking you were more than a guardian, for thinking you were actually my friend.”

  That last comment hurt worst of all. Karn lowered his gaze from the sleeping platform and peered out through the dense black night. His metallic head ratcheted slowly about until his direction-sense homed in upon the exact position of Albiuto. It was higher in the mountains, some eight leagues distant. A shallow river, now dry until the desert rains came, a deep chasm, and the higher foothills lay between Karn and the town, which itself floated upon the surface of a shallow black mountain lake. But these obstacles were nothing. Karn’s anger could sear away rivers and melt mountains. If he strode out steadily, he would reach the town a few hours before daylight. The red rage growing in him at last blossomed in the first step he took toward Albiuto.

  A furtive shuffling sound announced Gerrard’s surprise. “You’re going? You’re doing something about my Legacy?”

  “I’m going,” Karn said simply.

  The boy’s voice was excited now. “Don’t worry about me. I’m safe here. Father has five guards working tonight.”

  Karn had, truth be told, quite forgotten his pledge to forever guard Gerrard, and that fact alone gave hi
m a moment’s hesitation. Never before had he abandoned his charge. Emotion was a strong thing, indeed, if it could blind him so fully to his duty. Still, the pause was only momentary; Karn had already given himself over to fury, and it was intoxicating. Besides, there were five other guards. The boy would be fine when the silver golem saw him again.

  Karn’s long strides carried him quickly from the village. The glowing windows retreated behind him in the trees until they seemed only distant fireflies. Beyond, the desert was darker, denser. Once the golem passed the boundaries of the oasis, the sounds of night animals faded, and he could hear nothing but the moan of the desert wind and the faint hissing of the sands. None of this mattered to Karn. His eyes could see in utter darkness, his silver skin was proof against rocks and snake bites, and he heard nothing but the loud buzz of anger in his head. He thought of Gerrard—fragile, besieged Gerrard—and the anger grew.

  “He treats me as a friend,” Karn muttered darkly to himself, “but what kind of friend am I?” Stoic, unimaginative, unimpassioned, slow, immense, and now uncaring. Perhaps this one night, this one decision, would change all of that, would prove something at least to Gerrard, and perhaps even to Karn as well. “I must earn his trust.”

  The forest fell away quickly to his relentless steps. The riverbed was cool and stony after the heat of the sands. It crunched beneath his feet. The chasm beyond took one mighty leap to cross. Then, slowly, patiently, he rose higher into the mountains, where Vuel, his mercenary army, and pieces of Gerrard’s Legacy awaited.

  In time, ancient, rock-bound Lake Albiuto appeared ahead. At its center, arrayed in a glowing circle, was the town itself. Held atop the water by means of magic and pontoon alike, the town was anchored to shore by day, and to the center of the lake by night. Around the lake stretched a thin strip of greenery, leaves swaying gently in the wind. On one side of the city, numerous gangplanks of bamboo and reed were drawn up, and on the other, jutting docks were full of boats. Between the two were a collection of tall, improbable buildings, jumbled together on the vast floating quay. Leaning on each other, connected by a series of wood bridges and rope walkways, the houses and shops of Albiuto were tall, ornamented with bay windows, turrets, arches, and towers, all in wood and bamboo, thatch and reed. That night, the town glowed with festival fires, its walkways crowded with revelers in warriors’ armor.