Michael A. Stackpole

by A Hero Born

  The Chaos Rider shook his head, keeping the left side of his face hidden in shadow. “I feel dead, but I am not—not by half. Let’s get you out of there.”

  Something struck me as wrong about him. “Your eye patch. Where is it?”

  He turned to face me. “I no longer need it.”

  His right eye, as always, was an arctic blue tinged with Chaosfire. His left, which had remained hidden beneath the eye patch for as long as I had known him, was a golden orb the like of which I had only seen in Bharasfiadi faces. “Your eye? What happened?” I slid from my prison and stood beside him. “How did you free me?”

  “There are a number of things for which 1 must apologize, Locke, and deceiving you is one of them.” He rested both his hands on my shoulders. “I didn’t want to, but 1 had no choice, for reasons that will become apparent. As for what happened to my eye, well, I was with your father on his last expedition to Chaos. 1 have carried this eye with me since that time.”

  “You were with my father? What happened to him?”

  “The story is too long for the telling now, Locke, and we have other things to do.” He pointed down toward the end of the hallway. “Let us get the staff and get out of here. Think of it as what your father would have done.”

  I shivered, unable to decide if I could trust him or not. A wave of anger surged through me, but in its wake I realized he didn’t have to come to Castel Payne, nor did he have to free me from my prison. The mission comes first, which he’s certainly kept in mind. Just as my father would.

  I picked up my sword and followed him toward Fialchar’s library. “Roarke, at least tell me how my father died.”

  “I can’t, Locke, because I don’t know.” 1 saw him shudder. “I never saw your father go down. All I remember is that we faced hundreds of Bharashadi, and I cast spell after spell after spell to defeat them. It was the last great crusade against Kothvir, and I cast spells until 1 was exhausted.”

  We marched into Lord Disaster’s sanctum. “At battle’s end I found myself pitted against a mortally wounded Kothvir. Your father had killed him, but the bharashadi didn’t know that yet. 1 shoved a dagger into him, and he tore my left eye out.” Roarke raised his left hand to touch the scars on his cheek. “Kothvir collapsed on top of me, and I was ready to die happily, knowing he was finally dead.”

  “But it amused me to deny you that surcease!” Ralchar stood between us and the crystal globe. His hands hung at his side, holding the Staff of Emeterio across the front of his thighs and parallel to the floor.

  Roarke stopped and regarded the bone-and-metal-faced sorcerer without fear. “Our host here found it funny to pluck for me Kothvir’s eye and stuff it into my head.”

  “It has been a long time, Zephaniah. 1 always wondered what had become of you since you never deigned to visit my realm again.”

  “I take great comfort in knowing you were concerned for me.” Roarke folded his arms across his chest. “Giving me Kothvir’s eye meant my brethren in the City of Sorcerers were not very happy about me wielding magick.”

  “It pains me to think you were inconvenienced.”

  “lust as it pained you to know my possessing Kothvir’s eye on the other side of the Ward Walls would mean your enemy would never trouble you again.”

  The ancient sorcerer nodded slowly. “1 did find that an interesting side benefit to my act of charity.”

  “1 know of another act of charity that should interest you, then.” Roarke glanced at me. “Locke has come for the Staff of Emeterio. Give it to him.”

  Lord Disaster slowly shook his head. “Even a sorcerer of your paltry skills could understand why I will not give this staff over to him. Mind you, I believe Cardew’s son had begun to state his request in a much more mannerly way than you. Have the years soured you so?”

  “I will not play games with you, Fialchar, because this charade is beneath the both of us. You know I know of the Bharashadi Necroleum. You should also know the Bharashadi are preparing to resurrect their dead.”

  Lord Disaster barked out his maggot laughter. “Vrasha has long sought after a way to fulfill the Bharashadi bargain with their dark god, Kinruquel. As he has not the ability to pierce the Ward Walls, and as those of my Black Churchers it amuses me to grant him are incompetent, he will forever remain frustrated.”

  “Perhaps, then, it would amuse you to learn that while you were dancing with the ladies of the Empire, this Vrasha stole the Fistfire Sceptre from beneath your feet!” Roarke mimicked Fialchar’s pronunciation perfectly. “While you threatened the Emperor and laughed to yourself here, he has brought the sceptre to Chaos.”

  That news clearly shocked Fialchar. “This is impossible! I would have known.”

  “Unless his possession of the sceptre shields him from magicks you focus through the staff.”

  Lord Disaster’s eyes grew distant, and I sensed an involved discussion of magick looming on the horizon. I turned away from them and looked at the chessboard again. “Which side were you playing?”

  The tall lich stared down at me with contempt. “You have to ask? Chaos, of course, and in my realm we move first.”

  “Oh.” I reached out and pushed the Empress forward two spaces. “Checkmate.”

  “What have you done?!” Lord Disaster stalked across the floor at me, leaving the staff hovering in the air near the crystal ball. He grasped a pillar in each hand and gripped them so hard that the stone began to crumble. I saw flames shoot from his eyes in golden puffs as he looked down at the board. “Do you know what you have done?”

  I nodded. “I won.”

  He looked at me, eyes still blazing, then snorted. “Cardew’s son? Will you be as much of an impediment to me as he was?” He raised himself to his full height and folded his hands into the opposite sleeves of his robe. The staff floated to him. “I have no fond memories of your father.”

  “And I doubt he had any of you.” I rested my hands on my hips. “I have come for the Staff of Emeterio because I will oppose the Bharasfiadi. I will destroy their Necroleum, and I will stop Vrasha Packkiiler from invading the Empire. Give the staff to me.”

  The vehemence and commanding tone in my voice surprised me, and seemed to shock Lord Disaster. I braced against being sent back to my prison. His necrotic eyes narrowed, and the flesh around them screamed as it tightened. One clawed hand started from a sleeve toward my throat, but he restrained himself, and his expression eased.

  “So brash, so young. So foolish.” His hands emerged slowly from his robe in a gesture of openness. “It is my free choice and desire to lend you this staff. You may, in return, rid me of the nuisance Vrasha has become.”

  1 reached out, and the Staff of Emeterio came to me. Its cool ebon shaft warmed to my touch and felt as I might imagine Marija’s flesh would beneath a caress. I started to think of her as 1 had on the night of the ball, but that memory carried with it enough anger and disgust that it shocked me out of remembering. I looked up and caught Fialchar staring at me.

  “Yes, Lachlan, this staff is full of dangers.” With an effort he smiled almost beneficently. “It really is not safe in your hands. It could corrupt you.”

  “Whereas you are beyond corruption?”

  “No, my dear child, i am corruption.”

  Roarke grabbed my arm and tugged me toward the exit. “Then we shall not detain you, oh Duke of Decay. When we are finished with your toy, we will leave it where you may find it again.” He squeezed my arm. “Say good-bye to our host, Locke.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “So formal and final, Zephaniah. That is as you might wish it to be, but no, I think not.” Fialchar stood there and watched us back out of the Great Hall. “Let us say ‘Farewell, until we meet again,’ for we shall meet again. Know it. Fear it.”

  25

  R

  oarke all but hauled me bodily from Castel Payne. Once outside my mind began to clear, but before that I felt as if I had been there many times before. It felt akin to having seen some place in a
dream, then seeing it again when awake. My confusion concerned me until I realized I had easily been a full day without sleep.

  “Roarke, how did you find me?”

  The Chaos Rider shrugged. “After I got out of the mansion’s south wing, 1 saw signs of the Emerald Horse’s passing. As I could not find you among the dead, and I knew we needed to get the staff from Fialchar, I decided to check Castel Payne. When I found the Emerald Horse here, I assumed you were here as well. As it turns out, Fialchar gave you the accommodations he had given me during my visit.”

  I walked through the courtyard to the Emerald Horse. “You have been here before?”

  “After Fialchar gave me Kothvir’s eye, he decided to keep me to see what the results of his experiment would be. 1 would be there still, 1 suspect, but Jhesti freed me soon after I had been captured.”

  1 frowned. “Jhesti? He’s just a legend.” As I patted the Emerald Horse on the neck he went from being a statue to a mobile creature again.

  “Just a legend, eh?” Roarke laughed lightly. “The Emerald Horse is just a legend.”

  “Blooded on the first thrust.” I hauled myself up on the Emerald Horse’s back. “So he helped you back to the Empire?”

  “All the way to the capital, me and Cruach both. I did not fare much better going through the wall last time than I did this time.”

  “What did happen to you?”

  The magicker shook his head. “1 am not certain, but I know Kothvir’s eye, because of the bargain the Bharashadi made with their god, is still linked to him. Kothvir is dead, but alive and here, in Chaos, 1 know what he knew, and 1 can see what he has seen. Aside from feeling like a white-hot poker had been driven into my eye as I crossed over, I think 1 went unconscious to give my mind time to sort out everything. You know how it is said you should walk a mile in another man’s boots before you judge him? Well, with this eye I’m walking around in two pairs of boots at the same time, and that is not easy to handle.”

  I nodded. “I think I understand.” I looked toward the horizon and saw the sun slowly setting. “It is later than I thought.”

  “Time is slightly accelerated here on Castel Payne.” Roarke squinted at the sun. “If we leave now we might be able to reach the mansion before the second wave of Bharashadi warriors hits it.”

  I squeezed the Emerald Horse’s ribs. “Go back to the mansion. Go. Fly!”

  The horse did nothing.

  Roarke, rising up into the air on a semitransparent red disc he’d created with a spell, laughed at me. “Some horses don’t take their masters seriously.”

  I dug my heels into the Emerald Horse’s ribs. “Go! Fly, damn you!”

  The Emerald Horse leaped into the air and galloped along until he placed himself just slightly ahead of Roarke. During my captivity Castel Payne had moved a considerable distance from First Stop Mansion. Urging the Emerald Horse on, I knew we were not going to make it to the mansion before night had fallen.

  I glanced over at Roarke and saw a blue glow covering his face like a featureless face mask. “What is that?”

  “A spell. Through it I can see better. The Bfiarasfiadi are massing. The southern wing of the mansion is gone, but the doors leading to the interior are holding. It looks like the Bfiarasfiadi are trying to build a battering ram out of timbers taken from the north tower.”

  “Any sign of our people?”

  “No, but 1 would guess the Bfiarasfiadi have doubled their number from last night.”

  I shivered, and it wasn’t because of the chill in the night air. “How can we stop them?”

  Roarke drifted closer. “Let me have that wonderwand Fialchar gave you. I’ll have the Necroleum filled to overflowing in no time.”

  I started to hand it to him, then hesitated. I had known Roarke for only a relatively short time. While it was true he had never let me down in all that time, he had lied to me. Fialchar had warned me about how powerful the staff could be. Could it corrupt Roarke? Did he lust after its power? Would he give it back so 1 could use it to destroy the Necroleum?

  The blue glow evaporated from Roarke’s face. “I understand your confusion and hesitation, Locke, lust remember this: your father brought me along with him on what he knew would be the most dangerous mission he would ever undertake.”

  “And now my father is dead.”

  “Right, so let us make sure that doesn’t happen to your cousin and the others.”

  I recalled the decision I’d made about him in Castel Payne and nodded. I held the staff out to him. “I trust you, Roarke. That’s not because my father trusted you, but because I do.”

  “You’ll not regret it.”

  Roarke’s hands closed around the staff, and he stiffened for a moment. Then a grin grew into a smile on his face. The disc became more gold than red, then shifted to a green color. That color bled up into the smoky quartz at the top of the staff. “This is better than warm blankets on a cold night.” He glanced down at the ground and started down in a slow spiral. “Can you whistle?”

  “Whistle?” I puckered my lips and blew out a few notes. “Sure. Why?”

  “Whistle me up some dancing music.” Roarke jerked his head back toward Castel Payne. “Lord Ugly is bound to be watching, and I want him to see how a dance among your enemies should properly be arranged.”

  Roarke’s flying disc descended to the ground in the center of the outer courtyard. Bright sparks ignited the half dozen Bharasfiadi upon whom he had landed, scattering them in a flaming panic. Roarke brought the Staff of Emeterio’s heel down to touch the grounded disc. The disc shrank, intensifying the green tint in the quartz. It appeared as if the staff had sucked up the disc like a mosquito feeding on blood.

  Roarke said something and hammered the staff’s butt against the paving stones. At once a tangle of glowing green tendrils shot out of the top, draining the crystal of color. Each tendril struck a different Bharashadi warrior in the forehead. Roarke hit the staff against the ground again, forcing all the Bharasfiadi to slowly stand and turn to face him.

  In time with the song 1 whistled, Roarke started the Bharasfiadi dancing around. As the Emerald Horse flew closer to the earth, I heard Roarke begin to sing.

  Golden eyes aglow Spirits cold and black as night, Please take out your swords For now you’re going to fight’.

  At his command the Bharashadi bared their weapons. Cruel blades, hooked and barbed, somehow looked yet more sinister in the green light. The enchanted Bharashadi moved in a grand circle centered on Roarke. Many of them glared at him, furious at being trapped by his power, but impotent to do anything about it.

  He sang on.

  Find yourself a friend, Think not on your plight.

  Slash and stab so bright blood flows, To this slaying song tonight.

  The Emerald Horse set hoof to solid earth outside the killing circle. One by one, as Bharashadi warriors chopped each other down, the green lines winked away. The others, as victor moved at victor, wove together in a complex braid that slowly unraveled itself. Purple blood ran in torrents in the courtyard, raising a lavender fog that hid most of the hacked and cloven bodies.

  Finally, only one Bharashadi remained. Roarke looked at him, then twisted the staff so that the line of power snapped free of his brow. The Chademons head whipped around as if he had been punched. He shook his head to clear it, then looked at the carnage surrounding him.

  Screaming in rage, he raised his bloody sword and charged at Roarke. The magicker held his right hand out, palm forward, fingers splayed, as if signaling the Bharashadi to stop his charge. Red power surrounded Roarke’s hand, then the sorcerer clenched his hand down into a fist. The Bharashadi crumpled and fell, clutching at his chest. He died with violet blood bubbling up between his lips.

  Roarke, picking his way between the bodies, held the staff out to me. “Very effective as a tool, but I do not want the burden of responsibility for what it allows me to do.”

  I accepted it back from him and slid from the Emerald Horse’s back.
The staff again warmed to my touch, but I ignored its message. “Let us see to our companions.”

  We ran through the mansion corridor to the interior courtyard. I would have continued running up to the doors leading into the mountain, but Roarke held me back. Before I could ask why, he gestured, and I saw a nebulous blue glow in the area before the doors. “What is that?”

  “A triggerfield. It’s like a leechspell, but bigger, and you don’t have to do anything to make it work. It will suck enough energy out of whatever blunders into it to trigger some sort of spell. 1 doubt Taci had anything pleasant in mind.” He pointed at the doors with his right index finger. 1 saw a blue nimbus surround his finger as he started moving his hand through the air.

  From right to left on the door, blue flames ran in lines following the arcane symbols Roarke drew in the air. It took me a minute to figure out he was mirror-writing, which told me the burning letters had to extend all the way through the doors. His message, “All is well, Locke and 1 have entertained your guests,” spelled itself out in letters a foot tall. By the time the last word had been written, the first had begun to fade, leaving no burn marks to show it had ever been there.

  “An intriguing trick, Roarke, but they do not know you as a sorcerer. How will they identify the T in your message?”

  “Taci will know, if she does not, Nagrendra will.”

  I shook my head. “Nagrendra’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “The Bfiarasfiadi sorcerers you slew first killed him. They crushed the tower.”

  “What about Xoayya?”

  My shoulders slumped. “Gone, too. They never stood a chance.”

  “Yes, but from the carnage I saw, they sold their lives dearly. They went the way Riders are meant to die.” He smiled weakly, then looked at the doors. “The triggerfield is gone. They are coming out.”

  I heard the sound of a bar being shifted behind the doors, then they cracked open. Streaking through them first came Cruach, who barked once happily, and headed straight for us. Roarke dropped to one knee to welcome the dog, but Cruach leaped over him at me. Unprepared for such an enthusiastic greeting, I fell over backwards and got a bar dexter splashed across my face with a big, wet tongue.