Frostborn: The Iron Tower

by Jonathan Moeller

Calliande had dispelled the dark magic and healed her. Morigna would have simply killed her.

  That did not trouble Morigna in the slightest. Ridmark was a strong man and a bold warrior, but he was entirely too merciful. Perhaps guilt over his wife’s death. It sometimes clouded his judgment, caused him to make reckless and impractical decisions.

  Morigna had promised to help him, to repay her debt to him, and she would.

  And if it proved necessary to kill Mara, Morigna would do so without hesitation or guilt.

  Chapter 7 - A Jade Bracelet

  It was past midnight by the time they found an adequate campsite.

  Caius and Kharlacht led the way, their keener senses allowing them to navigate the forest. Both Calliande and Morigna conjured lights, their pale glow throwing back some of the gloom. Ridmark disliked the necessity, since it would draw their pursuers, but they needed the light.

  If any of Paul’s men discovered them, they would have to fight.

  But they came to the northwestern edge of the hills and sheltered in a small valley. It was a defensible location, and would be hard to spot at night. If Paul’s men-at-arms found them, they could choose between standing and fighting or falling back. Though Ridmark hoped it would not come to that.

  They secured the horses, and Morigna summoned a sphere of pale blue light around her hand, just enough to let them see. Just as well that none of the thirteen moons were in the sky. The lack of light was annoying, but made it easier to hide. Then they gathered in a circle around Mara and Jager, the faint light throwing harsh shadows.

  “This seems like a trial,” said Jager.

  Ridmark shook his head. “I am neither a Dux nor a Comes nor even a knight, not any longer. I simply want to know the truth.”

  Mara touched Jager’s arm. “If they wanted me dead, my love, the Magistria would not have healed me.”

  “If they had wanted you dead,” said Jager, glancing at Ridmark, “they would have had to go through me.”

  Mara’s smile was sad. “Could you have stopped them? Truly?”

  Jager sighed. “No.”

  “I do not want to kill anyone,” said Ridmark. “My purpose, as I have told you, is to retrieve the soulstone from the Iron Tower before Shadowbearer takes it. I told Jager I would help to rescue you from the Iron Tower, and in exchange, he would help to retrieve the soulstone. Though I suppose there is no longer any need for that.”

  “He stole it in the first place,” said Mara, “so we shall help you recover it.” Jager opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded. “If I can.”

  “Then tell me,” said Ridmark. “Who are you?”

  Mara raised a pale eyebrow. “You mean what am I?”

  Ridmark did not answer.

  Mara looked at the sky for a moment. “What do you know of the Prince of Nightmane Forest?”

  “Only what I learned from my tutors as a child,” said Ridmark. “Nightmane Forest lies east of here, between Coldinium and the Northerland. A dark elven noble called the Traveler rules over it, and he is a wizard of considerable power. He was a vassal of the urdmordar, and marched with them against the High King. After the Swordbearers and the Magistri overthrew the urdmordar, the Traveler fled to Nightmane Forest and has not left it since. He commands several tribes of mutated orcs that worship him as a god. The High King would have destroyed his realm, but his wards are too strong. And in truth, he is not much of a threat. He only has a few thousand orcs. Sometimes he raids the realm to claim slaves, but the last time was…thirty years ago, I think, in the Year of Our Lord 1448. The lords of the realm gathered to defeat him. My father told me of it.” Ridmark had not thought about that in years. He tried to avoid thinking of his father and his brothers. Leogrance Arban did not approve of what his youngest son had become.

  “You tell it true, sir,” said Mara. “Legend does not overstate the cruelty of the dark elves. The Traveler takes slaves for labor, or as victims for his cruelty. He also takes female slaves to slake his lusts, for he has not seen a dark elven woman in a very long time. My mother was one such slave. I believe she was the daughter of a freeholder of the Northerland.”

  “What does the Traveler do,” said Ridmark, though he suspected he knew the answer, “with his half-breed children?”

  “Some he kills,” said Mara, “in magical rituals to increase his own power. Others he transforms into his creatures. The weakest he makes into urshanes. The strongest he transforms into urdhracosi or even urvuuls. I suspect that what was he intended for me.”

  “How did you escape?” said Ridmark.

  “My mother,” said Mara. “She realized what would happen, outwitted the Traveler’s orcs, and slipped into the wilderness with me. She died when I was very young…no more than five or six years old, I think, though I don’t know for sure. I survived because of my abilities. I could make the shadows obey me, use them to hide.”

  “Like a dvargir,” said Caius.

  She smiled. “They can merely turn invisible. I can make myself disappear entirely, or fill a room with darkness. Mother also taught me what plants were edible, and I learned more. I wandered across the Northerland and Khaluusk, stealing from farmers and eating what berries and fruits I found. Eventually I made my way to the city of Cintarra, and became a thief.” She smiled at the memory. “Cintarra was much more pleasant than the hills of the Northerland or the Shaluuskan Forest. Easy for one ragged orphan girl to disappear in the crowds…but then I started to lose control of my power.”

  “The dark elven blood,” said Calliande, her voice quiet. “It eventually overwhelms the human side of you.”

  “How did you escape that fate?” said Ridmark.

  “The Matriarch of the Red Family,” said Mara. “She is a dark elven noblewoman, did you know that?”

  “I’ve encountered the Red Family a few times,” said Ridmark.

  “Really?” said Mara, blinking. “And you’re still alive?”

  Kharlacht barked his harsh laugh. “It was a close business.”

  “The Matriarch has hidden herself in Cintarra since the defeat of the urdmordar and the first days of the Two Orders,” said Mara, “and she built the Family around her. She teaches them to worship Mhor, the orcish blood god of death, not out of piety but as a useful tool for controlling her servants. And when she sees a promising child, she recruits that child into the Family.”

  “Such as you,” said Ridmark.

  “Such as me,” said Mara. “She taught me to control the shadows within me. The masters of the Red Family taught me stealth and killing and disguises, all the tools a Sister of the Family needed. And the Matriarch gave me an enchanted bracelet. So long as I wore it, I could control the shadows…and I would not transform into an urdhracos or an urvuul or God knows what else.”

  “Yet you left the Red Family,” said Ridmark. Jager had already told them the story, but Ridmark wondered if Mara would say the same thing.

  She smiled. “I was sent to kill Jager, who had annoyed some powerful people. Instead of killing him, he charmed me. The Matriarch frowns upon betrayal, so we had to flee the city.”

  “You took the Matriarch’s soulcatcher when you escaped,” said Ridmark.

  “Jager considered it was a fitting farewell,” said Mara. “I thought it was foolish, and I told him never to use it.” She gave him a fond smile. “But it was audacious. He was always audacious.”

  Gavin grunted. “We noticed.”

  “And I wanted to leave the Red Family anyway,” said Mara. “I hated it. I hated the Matriarch. She helped me control the shadows…but only because she wanted a skilled assassin to use as she pleased. And I hated the killing, hated that I was so good at it. I prayed to God every day to forgive me, to help me get away from them. And then he sent me Jager.”

  Caius smiled. “The Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.”

  Morigna’s expression was sour. “And what prompted you to pray to the Dominus Christus?”

  “Because the Traveler worshipped Inc
ariel,” said Mara, “and I saw what that wrought. And the Brothers and Sisters of the Red Family worshipped Mhor, a cruel and merciless god. The Matriarch has no mercy in her.”

  “That bracelet you mentioned,” said Ridmark. “You don’t have it now.” Jager touched her bare left wrist. “What happened to it?”

  “I left it behind in the Iron Tower,” said Mara. “I…didn’t have a choice.”

  Ridmark nodded. “It has to do with how you escaped, isn’t it?”

  “How did you know that?” said Mara.

  “Logic,” said Ridmark. “That bracelet is more important to you than life.” Mara offered a slow nod. “So you would only leave it behind if you had no other choice. How did you escape?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mara. “It…I was chained in my cell, in the old dark elven vaults below the castra.”

  “Would not your powers let you escape?” said Caius.

  “I can make myself unseen, not immaterial,” said Mara. “Which is a pity. I can think of several instances when becoming immaterial would have been useful. But I was chained and shackled, which made disappearing useless. I had given up hope of escape…and then I heard the voice in the shadows.”

  “A voice?” said Ridmark.

  “It unlocked the chains and told me to go,” said Mara.

  “What was it?” said Ridmark. “The voice.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mara, “but it called itself the Artificer.”

  The title meant nothing to Ridmark.

  But Calliande’s blue eyes widened, and she swayed a bit.

  “Calliande?” said Ridmark, catching her elbow. “What is it?” She shook her head, blinked, and shook her head again. “You remember something, don’t you?”

  “That name,” whispered Calliande, “I’ve…I’ve heard it before, I’m sure of it.” She closed her eyes. “Let me think.”

  “Magistria?” said Mara. “You…do not recall?”

  “She can’t remember anything that happened earlier than fifty-six days ago,” said Jager. Mara raised a pale eyebrow. “It’s a long story. If we live through this I’ll explain.”

  “I remember,” said Calliande. “I must have heard the tale before I went into the long sleep.”

  Morigna opened her mouth, no doubt to make a biting observation, but Mara spoke first.

  “Then, please, tell us,” said Mara.

  “It is ancient history,” said Calliande. “Thousands of years before Malahan Pendragon and the survivors of Arthur Pendragon’s realm ever came to this world. I think the Magistri only ever learned fragments of the tale.” She looked at Ridmark. “The Artificer was a dark elven wizard, an apprentice of the Warden of Urd Morlemoch.”

  That sent a chill down Ridmark’s spine. He had gone to Urd Morlemoch nine years ago to fulfill a task for the high elven archmage Ardrhythain and had barely escaped with his life. But the Warden had warned him that the Frostborn would return soon after the omen of blue fire, and Agrimnalazur had claimed it would be within a year and a month of the omen. Ever since then, Ridmark had looked for answers. Now that the omen of blue fire had come, he was going back to Urd Morlemoch to wring the truth about the Frostborn from the Warden.

  Or die in the process.

  That the Artificer had been an apprentice of the Warden seemed like a disturbing coincidence.

  “What happened to this Artificer?” said Ridmark.

  “No one knows for sure,” said Calliande. “As I said, it was thousands of years before Malahan Pendragon raised the first stone of Tarlion, and the dark elves are not eager to share their history with us. Evidently the Artificer had a quarrel with the Warden, and fled to his citadel at a place called…Urd Mazekathar, that was it.”

  “The Artificer said the Iron Tower used to be Urd Mazekathar,” said Mara.

  “And the Warden destroyed him there,” said Calliande.

  “How?” said Ridmark. “The Warden is trapped within Urd Morlemoch, and Urd Morlemoch is hundreds of miles to the northwest. Not even the Warden’s magic would be powerful enough to reach here.”

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande. “The Magistri believed the Warden taught a spell of great power to the Artificer, but deliberately withheld certain necessary aspects in anticipation of the Artificer’s treachery. So when the Artificer escaped the Warden, he thought himself safe and cast the spell of power…”

  “And destroyed himself,” said Ridmark, remembering the Warden’s mad, mocking laughter. “That sounds like the sort of stratagem he would use.”

  “The Matriarch was terrified of the Warden,” said Mara. “Even if he is imprisoned within Urd Morlemoch. That was the one way to escape the Red Family, though no one ever knew it. If one of our targets went into the Torn Hills, within the Warden’s sphere of influence, the Matriarch let the target go.”

  “Though if the Family’s targets come within reach of the Warden,” said Ridmark, “then they likely have larger problems.”

  “Truly,” said Mara.

  “So this voice calling itself the Artificer let you out of your chains,” said Ridmark. “What happened then?”

  “The Artificer told me to go to the base of the tower of iron itself,” said Mara. “A hidden door opened, and I climbed some stairs.”

  Ridmark frowned. “I thought the tower was a solid mass of iron.”

  “Evidently not,” said Morigna.

  “There was a stair that led to the courtyard,” said Mara. “Tendrils of shadow came out of the wall and…started to sink into my flesh. I felt them draining away the warmth, draining away my…life, I suppose. When I tried to leave, I couldn’t. The bracelet held me in place. It wouldn’t pass the doorway. I took it off and stepped through the door. I thought I could pull it after me, but the door vanished before I could get it back. By then Sir Paul’s men realized I had escaped, and I had to flee.” She shrugged. “You know what happened next.”

  They stood in silence for a moment.

  “Could the Artificer still be in the Iron Tower?” said Gavin at last.

  “Magistri and Swordbearers visit the Tower on a regular basis,” said Ridmark. “Not recently, I expect, unless they are allied with the Enlightened of Incariel. But the Tower has been here since the defeat of the Frostborn. Surely the Artificer’s presence would have been detected.”

  “Could his spirit have been bound to the ruins?” said Caius. “Just as the Warden is bound to Urd Morlemoch?”

  “I’ve never heard of magic that can do such a thing,” said Morigna.

  “Nor have I,” said Calliande. “But the dark elves were the unrivalled masters of dark sorcery, at least until the urdmordar came. Who knows what powers they had?”

  “More immediately,” said Kharlacht. “Why would the Artificer let Mara out of her cell?”

  “I wish I knew,” said Mara. “And I want to know why he took my bracelet.”

  “One suspects,” said Morigna, “that the Warden’s spell imprisoned the Artificer within that tower of iron. Perhaps the Artificer saw a chance to wreak vengeance, and hoped to transform Mara and gain a powerful minion.” She shrugged. “If I was the Artificer, that is the plan I would employ.”

  Jager gave her a flat look.

  “Then what shall we do now?” said Caius.

  “First, we sleep,” said Ridmark. “I will take first watch, but we must have some rest before we proceed. Then we shall do what we came here to do. We will enter the Iron Tower, steal away the soulstone…and retrieve Mara’s bracelet while we are at it.”

  Mara blinked. “You would aid me?”

  “I gave my word,” said Ridmark.

  Mara looked away. “Thank you. Though…you take a terrible risk. The shadows are consuming me. I do not think I can control them much longer.”

  “I can help with that, if you’ll allow it,” said Calliande. “I could maintain the spell I put on you, one that will summon the white fire if you start to transform.”

  Jager frowned. “Won’t that hurt her?”


  “It shall,” said Mara, “but the pain will help me regain control. Thank you, Magistria.”

  “Cast the spell, and then get some rest,” said Ridmark. “I suspect tomorrow will be a busy day.”

  Calliande hesitated. She often hesitated when she spoke to him now. “You are sure you can take first watch?”

  “He is not a child to require coddling,” said Morigna.

  “I know that,” said Calliande. She was always calm, but there was an increasing amount of asperity in her voice when talking to, or about, Morigna.

  “Your concern is kind,” said Ridmark, “but I will be fine. I shall take the first watch after you cast the spell on Mara.”

  And he needed to think. The Iron Tower was well-fortified and well-garrisoned, and Paul would be on his guard now. And even if Paul was a negligent fool, Ridmark suspected that Tzoragar, Dzark of Great House Klzathur of the city of Khaldurmar, would not be nearly so lax.

  There was a way. There had to be a way.

  He just had to find it before time ran out.

  Chapter 8 - The Artificer

  Calliande wrapped her cloak about her and lay down, trying to get comfortable. That turned out to be a wasted effort, so she settled for not lying upon any roots. The day had been long and exhausting, as had the last several days, and sleep ought to have come at once.

  But it did not.

  She had too many things upon her mind.

  The lost soulstone, for one. Shadowbearer had planned to kill her and bind her power within it, but with Ridmark’s help she had escaped and taken the soulstone with her. Shadowbearer needed that soulstone, required it to bring back the Frostborn, though Calliande did not yet know why.

  And now the soulstone was secured within the Iron Tower, guarded by Shadowbearer’s servants.

  Her eyes wandered across the camp to where Jager and Mara sat together, speaking in low voices. She did not begrudge them the noise. They had been separated for almost a month, and both had endured trials. And there were trials to come, Calliande was sure. Especially if Mara lost control of herself and transformed. If she did, Calliande would have no choice but to kill her. Jager would likely blame himself. Calliande had seen what that kind of grief had done to Ridmark.