The Ban of Irsisri_An Epic Fantasy

by Mark E Lacy

  A strange sigh behind him made him spin around. At the bottom of the steps, its clawed forefeet on the second step, was an enormous gray reptile. The lizard was three yards long from nose to tail. Its ribbon-like tongue snaked from its mouth, testing the air to pinpoint the human scent. Too large to mount the narrow steps to the platform, the beast hissed its displeasure.

  A drumming sound had been growing in volume for several minutes, and now, Enkinor knew it was not his heart. He looked past the lizard and into the crater, squinting against the growing darkness. A string of flickering lights was now inching its way up from within the crater.

  Torches?

  As he watched the procession making its way, step by step, to the rim of the crater, subconscious fears began to rise, fear of what might be carrying the torches, climbing out of underground lairs and warrens.

  Then his fears dissolved, for whatever, whoever they were, they began to shout and yell. The first people to reach the rim were pointing at him and running his way.

  Fool. You're silhouetted against the sunset.

  Enkinor pulled the lance from its holder and swung down from the platform. He ran for the edge of the jungle.

  With surprising speed, the lizard cut him off. He stabbed at the creature's eye, but the lizard lowered its head, and the point of the weapon slid harmlessly over its scales. As he pulled the lance back for another attack, rows of razor-sharp teeth snapped the lance in two. The Saerani feinted to draw the lizard away, then jumped in and grabbed the pointed half of the lance. He brought it in low under the animal's throat and pushed. With a roar of pain and rage, the lizard thrashed its massive tail and knocked Enkinor off his feet, his legs nearly broken by the blow.

  “Hurry,” someone yelled. “Someone's attacking the Guardian!”

  Others took up the cry, their voices getting closer.

  The lance was wedged deep in the lizard's gullet. Dark blood pulsed onto the ground. The creature continued thrashing in a vain effort to dislodge the lance.

  Enkinor had no time to waste. Angry people were headed his way. He waited till the right moment to rush in, grab the shaft of the lance, and twist the lizard onto its back. Straddling its chest, Enkinor drove the point in deeper with all his might. The beast screamed and clawed at him with its talons. The cry of the creature suddenly ceased as the lance severed its throat and spine.

  A shout. Enkinor glanced over his shoulder. A woman ran toward him, head shaved, a long dagger in her hand. With a desperate tug, Enkinor freed the lance from the lizard's carcass and swung it in a wide arc. The woman fell back, a long gash down her arm dripping red.

  Two more women with daggers ran up, moving to opposite sides of Enkinor. The one on his left wore a string of shells around her neck. “Desecrator,” she said.

  “You will pay for this,” said the other, a wiry girl.

  They began circling the Saerani, watching for an opening or an opportunity to force one.

  Enkinor had no intention of giving them a chance. Dozens of others were headed his way, men and women and even children. Still more continued climbing from the crater.

  The Saerani faked a slash at the girl on his right. As the shell-woman stepped in to attack, Enkinor ducked and her dagger passed harmlessly over his head. He jabbed the lance at her, stepped in, and drew the blade of the lance across her legs. She went down with a cry of pain as he advanced on the other one, slashing once again.

  A brave girl. She could turn and run, but she stands her ground.

  Enkinor sliced his way through her defense and swung at her knife-hand. She dropped her dagger with a hiss and fell back.

  Five more women surrounded him, daggers ready. Many others ran up with stones in hand. One of them stepped out and shouted, “Kill him!” and the crowd yelled in assent.

  A cool breeze washed over the crater. As the sun disappeared, Enkinor could see little by the light of the crowd’s torches. He could hear far more people than he could see. If they were all armed, fighting his way free could be suicidal.

  “No,” shouted a voice above all the rest. The people quieted as a large man stepped out, leaning on a tall staff. He wore a sleeveless white robe with intricate decorations. The sea breeze tossed his dark, silver-shot hair and beard. “Drop the lance,” he said, addressing Enkinor.

  The Saerani had little choice but to obey.

  The island shook with a loud rumbling, throwing many to the ground. A handful of people closest to the crater fell screaming over the edge as several pieces of the crater rim collapsed with a roar into the darkness. No one save the robed man seemed to notice their deaths. Moments later, the rumbling subsided, sulfurous fumes filling the air.

  “Syrei, he must die,” said someone. “Even now the Goddess shows her anger. He has desecrated the Shrine. He used the SeaLance to kill the Guardian. He has injured three of our people. What more reason do we need? Let him pay for his sacrilege.”

  Their bearded priest stood leaning on his staff, waiting for the shouts to subside. He measured his words before speaking.

  “To kill this man in this sacred place would only add to the desecration.”

  “But he deserves to die!”

  “Indeed,” replied the priest. “And he will, a painful and protracted death. But not here. We will take him down to the village when we finish the ceremony.” Syrei turned to one of the women. “Open the chamber and take him below.” The priest faced his people. “He must not stand where She may see him and consume us all in her rage. Begin the preparations while I question this man.”

  Syrei stood with Enkinor in a stone vault beneath the ceremonial platform. The black walls of the chamber seemed to absorb the light of the sconced torches. One of the women, bald except for a long ponytail, held the SeaLance at ready. She stood with the broken shaft of the lance under her arm, eyes flitting from Enkinor to the chamber door and back again.

  The priest, on the other hand, betrayed a burning curiosity. “You are not one of us. Who are you, and how did you get here?”

  The Gauntletbearer looked at his feet and sighed. “My name is Enkinor of the Saerani. I wish I could tell you how I came to be here. The truth is I don't know.” He looked up at the priest. “What is this place?”

  Syrei crossed his arms. “You are on the island of Tari Nar. We come here every year to honor the Goddess. We stand on the summit of the island, what we call the Head. Our stories say Tari Nar burst from the Sea before our people even came to live here, many generations ago. The peak of the Head was once higher, but it collapsed and opened up great waters from beneath the earth. These waters spill over the edge and down the outer mountain to the Sea, where we live along the shore.” The priest spread his arms, palms up. “Satisfied? Now, answer my question.”

  “I told you, I have no idea how I came to be here. One moment, I was in a castle. The next moment, I was waking up by the water's edge.”

  The priest nodded. “As I suspected. Sorcery.”

  “I am an unfortunate victim.”

  “Victim?” said Syrei. “Did your efforts turn on you then?”

  “I don't practice sorcery. If I could only face the sorcerer responsible for my fate, I would make his soul demon-fodder.”

  The priest was already shaking his head. “You have violated this Shrine, stranger. Unless the Goddess is appeased, we will all surely die.”

  At that moment, the island shook with more violence than before, throwing Syrei against a wall and Enkinor's guard off her feet. For several seconds the island throbbed with restrained power. They could hear screams, and shouting, and the warning hiss of escaping gases. The guard got back to her feet, inching a little closer to the door.

  Syrei regained his balance. He seemed not to notice the shouting. “I must agree with my people. The circumstances demand your death.”

  If he expects me to plead for mercy, he'll have a very long wait.

  Freedom through death? thought Enkinor. Is there a better way? I grow weary of this curse.

  So
mething exploded close by, followed by weeping and cries of fear. The guard gripped the door handle, torn between duty and flight. Syrei ignored it all, caught up by his interest in the Saerani.

  “You must tell me more.”

  “Why?” said Enkinor.

  “I alone will determine how quickly you die. Explain this sorcery to me, and I will show you mercy.”

  Enkinor looked away. “The only thing I know is I'm under a powerful spell from which I want to be free.”

  “What does this spell do to you?”

  Enkinor waited before speaking. Best to draw this out. But what then?

  “It's hard to explain. I don't pretend to understand it.”

  “Then try to describe it.”

  Enkinor stared into the shadows, shaking his head. “It started with an intense nightmare. I watched my body decompose before my very eyes. When I woke, I was back in the real world, a world where things looked normal and made sense. But when I fell asleep shortly after, it was only to wake to, not a dream, but another nightmare. I was chased by hellhounds till their master could capture me and try to kill me.

  “When I woke from that, I woke to reality, but this time to a reality which had grown more fantastic. To save a village girl, I had to battle a white ape. I woke again to another terrifying dream. In a haunted fortress, a faceless monster took on the forms of my dead friends and my long-dead mother before I killed it. When I woke yet again, I found myself here, on this island.

  “I can no longer tell which experience is a dream and which is not. The 'dreams' are too vivid and real, and reality has become too strange. Each period is longer in duration. Each time, I find myself in a different place, far away. And I know of no way to be free of this spell.”

  Another blast rocked the island. All three of them were thrown off their feet as dust and dirt filled the air. An eruption could not be long in coming.

  “Syrei, we must go,” said the woman. “Now! The stranger must be killed, or we will all die.”

  The priest put a hand out to the chamber wall and rose to his feet, looking around. It was as if he was just beginning to realize how quickly danger was overtaking his people. He said to the guard, “Bring him out.”

  And then, the volcano of Tari Nar erupted. For many years, unseen forces far within the earth had gathered their strength and held it as it swelled, power and heat steadily growing until the molten rock and lava could no longer be contained. With a deafening blast, the volcano shot ash and steam thousands of feet into the air.

  Tari Nar began to die.

  Chapter 30

  At sunrise, I will sleep, Visylon had told himself. But the sun never appeared. Instead, it remained behind thick clouds and the sky only lightened. Then, it began to rain, a relentless pelting that kept up throughout the day. When at last Visylon came to a small village, he was soaked and shivering. The cloud cover was bringing on an early twilight. Only the lamps in the village provided something for him to focus on.

  Something is wrong. The feeling had been growing stronger during the day. I feel sick.

  Visylon dismounted at an inn and asked for a room. They had none, said the innkeeper. He directed the Saerani down the street. Visylon muttered his thanks and declined a meal, for the smell of food and ale was threatening to make his stomach heave. Outside, he found himself too weak to remount. He took Cabellara by the reins and trudged off into the rainy darkness, plodding through the mud.

  Visylon stumbled through the village, saved from becoming lost only by the fact that there was but a single road, saved from being trampled or challenged only by the fact that the road was empty. The cold and the rain were keeping everyone inside by their hearths. Occasionally, a curious face, silhouetted by lamplight, would watch from a window until the stranger was out of sight. The little houses stood with dead little gardens and let unusual little things pass on by. It didn't pay to hinder unusual things.

  The Saerani warrior paused, trying to remember what the innkeeper had told him to look for.

  He found the building on the other edge of town. It was small, like a house, marked by sputtering torches at the bottom of the front steps. Too tired to even mount the steps, Visylon tied Cabellara to a nearby tree and sat down. The feeling of illness seemed to grow by the minute. He rolled backward, oblivious to rain hitting his upturned face. Through his delirium, a horde of intense images streamed through his mind, freed by his weary subconscious.

  A wyvern and a bear locked in combat.

  “I said, are you all right? Can I help you?”

  Visylon's only reply was a moan. The man who had spoken called another for help. They struggled till they each had one arm of the Saerani warrior around their necks and carried him, feet dragging, up the steps to the entrance. As they started to cross the threshold, the entranceway flashed with sparkling light and crackling energies. The three men were knocked backward, sprawling.

  “Hyphos!” one of them called, getting up.

  Moments later, a man in white robes, dark hair streaked with gray, appeared and descended the steps. Kneeling beside the unconscious Saerani, he probed with gentle hands and felt for injuries. Finding none, he pressed the palms of his hands against Visylon's temples.

  “It's all right. He's not dangerous, but he's dying from the taint of a very recent experience.” He looked up to the building and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Lower the shields.”

  Once more, they brought the Saerani across the threshold, this time without mishap.

  “Raise them,” ordered Hyphos once they were inside.

  A small group of white-robed people, all middle-aged or elderly, gathered around the prone form and looked to their leader.

  “Bring me a knife,” said Hyphos.

  Chapter 31

  Fur. Where?

  Tickling his nose, caressing his chin.

  Cold. Where?

  Across his lips, dry and parched, the tip of his nose, his ears. He pulled his hands from the warmth and into the cold, rubbed his eyes and sat up.

  It was dark, but Enkinor could make out four other forms lying, as he was, under fur blankets. He could barely see some piles of gear and a sloping ceiling above.

  A tent? Why am I in a tent?

  Only a moment later, he realized. The Dreamtunnel had snatched him away and dropped him in another place.

  Enkinor watched his breath fogging. He was far from the now-destroyed tropical island of Tari Nar.

  What explaining will I have to do this time?

  The others began to rise. One of them moved to the tent flap and cracked it enough to let some light in. He retied it in its new position and looked around.

  “So, you've come at last,” said a soft, high-pitched voice.

  As his eyes adjusted to the light, Enkinor could see now that it was a woman, not a man. Long blonde hair the color of fresh snow fell to her breasts.

  Enkinor was at a loss for words. Rising to a crouch, he simply nodded and said, “Yes, I'm here.”

  The others tossed their blankets aside and crowded around Enkinor and their leader. Enkinor would have liked to stand, but the tent was too low.

  “We're glad you've come,” said the woman. “I am FeraCryst, daughter of the chief of the Waryndi.”

  She extended her hand to Enkinor, who took it in his own hand. The Saerani bowed his head and pressed the woman's fingers to his forehead. Instantly, three daggers were at his throat.

  “Let him be, Waryndi. I'm sure it's the custom of his people.”

  The men sheathed their blades but left their scowls bared.

  “Who are you?” asked Cryst.

  “Enkinor of the Saerani. I meant no dishonor. The gesture is a Saerani sign of respect.”

  “My tribesmen are hasty, but they have my safety in mind. They are brothers.” Motioning to each in turn, she said, “This is Harroc, Plith, and Raminas.”

  The Waryndi men glared. Enkinor knew he would not be given respect. He would have to earn it. Harroc, with his chiseled featu
res and sturdy frame, looked to be the oldest. Plith had the same sandy colored hair as Harroc, but he was both the smallest and youngest. Raminas was closer to Harroc in age and appearance. A dark beard and mustache concealed the harsh angles of his face.

  The small one named Plith spoke. “So, you entered our tent during the night, and no one heard you. Why didn't you wake us?”

  Enkinor said the first thing that came to mind. “I saw no need.”

  “No need?” said the one named Raminas. “You have strange ways, Saerani. You just slip in, thinking you'll surprise everyone the next morning? If we'd heard you, you might have found a blade in your chest before you had a chance to explain. How did you find us in the dark with no moon and our tracks covered by fresh snow?”

  “Watch your manners, Waryndi,” warned Cryst. “This man will help us prevent great evil.”

  “I don't care what we were told,” said Plith. “He has some explaining to do.”

  “That he does not,” snapped Cryst. “I will ask the questions here. Is that understood?”

  Bowed heads signaled their acquiescence. Only Harroc did not seem suspicious.

  “Now,” she continued, “if we get started, we should reach the glacier late this afternoon or early in the evening.”

  As they gathered their belongings, Enkinor not only noted the Gauntlets with relief but was pleased to discover he was once more united with his sword and pack.

  While they prepared to leave, the Saerani absorbed all the details he could take in and mimicked their techniques as closely as possible. They were all dressed in tunics and trousers of the same coarse, close-weave cloth, even Enkinor. Narrow rope tied up the trousers and pulled in the tunic at the waist. Their feet went into soft, fleece-lined boots with the pant legs tucked in deep. They tied leather water flasks around their necks and tucked them under their shirts to keep the water from freezing. Then, they donned long, fur-lined leather cloaks with hoods. Thick mittens went over their hands. Enkinor made sure the Gauntlets were handy but inconspicuous. Their cloaks were belted, and their dagger sheaths were fastened to the belts, elkhorn hilts protruding for easy access.