by David Weber
They left the chamber under a heavy portcullis of forged steel. Lowered, its spikes would seat two feet into the floor, and he couldn’t even guess how far it extended into the roof. Beyond, the passage walls were pierced by more slits, then it narrowed abruptly, forcing them to go in single file for perhaps twenty yards. There was ample headroom for both coursers, yet there was so little width that Bahzell and Wencit’s stirrups barely cleared the walls. Then the passage widened again—this time into a chamber wide enough for fifteen horsemen abreast—for the last seventy-five yards as it finally approached the outer world.
Kenhodan smiled in approval. The pinched-in walls narrowed the frontage of any attack into something a few defenders could hold almost indefinitely, while the wider section gave space for two or three hundred horsemen to assemble for a sortie. Whoever had designed this bolthole had exhibited exactly the sort of paranoia a good fortress architect required.
More guards challenged them just inside the tunnel mouth. Then the officer in charge led them to a blank stone wall and barked an order. Every lantern was shuttered as he reached for a chain hanging from the roof, and great weights grumbled in the blackness as the “wall” pivoted effortlessly up on cool breeze and starlight.
Bahzell led the way through the wide opening, and the breeze strengthened, plucking at Kenhodan’s hair fitfully as they passed out onto a flat stretch of stone. He turned to look over his shoulder and watched the massive gate vanish once more into the face of the cliff, until only rough rock gleamed dully in the starlight.
He glanced around himself. They were in a natural cleft (at least it appeared natural) with rough walls forty feet high. The cleft bore all the signs of a drainage channel for snowmelt, floored with stone and thin, sparse herringbone eddies of sand, and he chuckled in admiration. Whether the ravine truly served as a streambed or not, its natural stone paving would show little sign of passing feet to betray the entrance.
Bahzell and Walsharno moved cautiously to the end of the cleft under a sky flecked with stars. Looking past him, Kenhodan could make out the terrain, albeit dimly: rolling hills that fell away before them, smoothing gradually into a nearly level plain covered with grass, gray-green and black in the night. The ravine extended into a stone culvert under the high road perhaps a quarter league away, and he smiled again as he noted the unusually gentle slope of the culvert’s stone-faced sides.
“Well, Wencit,” Bahzell’s deeper rumble came through the night, “here we are: the Duchy of Kolvania, and naught but thirty leagues from the capital of Angthyr.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Brigands and Shadows of the Past
“I’ve no desire to go to the city of Angthyr, Mountain,” Wencit said. “We’d never evade all of Wulfra’s spies in the capital.”
“Desire or no, it’s not a matter of choice. I’m thinking as it’s a bridge you’ll need, unless you’re minded to be swimming the Bellwater, and if memory’s after serving me, there’s never a bridge nearer than the Bridge of Angthyr.”
“True.” Wencit’s teeth flashed in a sudden smile. “But perhaps we could use a swim.”
“Oh no, you don’t!” Bahzell’s ears flattened. “Swimming in a little river like the Snowborn’s after being one thing, but the Bellwater’s a league across in the spring if it’s an inch!”
“So it is. But I will not cross at the Bridge of Angthyr.” Wencit touched Bahzell’s arm lightly. “Don’t worry! I’ll think of something nearer the river. But for now—” he sniffed the night searchingly “—our way lies due south, so we’ll avoid the road from here, if you please.”
“And the dog brothers?” Bahzell asked. Chernion stiffened slightly, but no one seemed to notice.
“Are no problem for now,” Wencit said. “Even if they know we’ve left the Keep, they don’t know where we are right now. Let’s move as quickly as we can in hopes of keeping it that way.”
“Good enough,” Bahzell rumbled, “but if it’s no objection you have, I’ll be watching for ’em ahead as well as behind.”
“Which,” Wencit chuckled, “is how you’ve lived to a ripe old age, despite the company you keep.”
“And I’m minded to ripen a mite further, despite my taste in friends,” Bahzell retorted. He rose in the stirrups to scan the starlit land. “Well, it’s not a soul I see stirring out yonder just now, so I’m thinking we’d best be going.”
They moved away at an easy trot. The night breeze petted and teased them with quick, laughing fingers and the air was cool, but early summer had come south of the East Walls. It was drier and warmer here, and Kenhodan smelled flowers. The breezy night was quiet, the springy grass absorbed the sound of the horses’ and coursers’ hooves, and if they weren’t as silent as the wind—saddle leather still creaked and harness or mail still jingled softly—they made very little more noise.
The hills faded astonishingly quickly into flat, gentle swells that undulated almost imperceptibly. They rode through a world of grass whose bearded heads swept belly-high on the horses, and the soft hiss of wind pushed gray and black waves across a tasseled sea. Scattered clumps of trees stirred on the wind, and Kenhodan slowly noticed a peculiar odor under the smell of flowers—a not unpleasant acridness that tickled the nose.
The strange smell grew stronger, and he sniffed more loudly. Wencit glanced at him, and he saw the wizard’s eyes glow in the dark.
“What’s that smell, Wencit?” he asked quietly.
“Smell?” The glowing eyes narrowed for a moment, then widened once more. “Oh. That’s just dragon spoor, Kenhodan.”
“Dragon spoor?!” Kenhodan pulled up so suddenly Chernion’s mare almost collided with Glamhandro. “You mean there are more dragons out here?!”
“Not now,” Wencit soothed, urging him back into motion. “But there were once—dragons of every conceivable size, shape, and inclination settled this whole area. They were immigrants, too.” Kenhodan made a noise of disbelief, and Wencit chuckled. “Surely you didn’t think only the Races of Man escaped the Fall? Dragons, you may recall, have wings.”
“So what happened to them?” Kenhodan demanded.
“The Dragon Wars,” Wencit said, and his voice was lower, almost sad. “The last great war between dragonkind and the Races of Man. Left to themselves, the dragons generally left the refugees alone. Why not? Most of them are much smarter than the black dragons, and very few of them are actually ‘evil’ in our sense of the word. But eventually people spilled into the area, and the inevitable happened.”
He sighed.
“The worms had been here for over a century by then, and they regarded the land as theirs. And, to be fair, the force of law was probably on their side. There was an ancient treaty between the dragons and Ottovar the Great, Kenhodan. Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of dragons had died in the original Wizard Wars of Kontovar because the wizard lords contending before Ottovar and Gwynytha forged the Strictures had used sorcery to enslave them exactly as Wulfra did when she sent the black dragon after us. Ottovar promised he and his allies would never do that. In return, the dragons agreed to aid them against their enemies if the Ottovarans would protect them against the Dark Lords’ spells of compulsion. Ottovar agreed, and in recognition of their assistance he guaranteed them possession of the Island of Chersoth and of the Province of Raynkaltha. Chersoth wasn’t far from the Isle of Rūm, and for several thousand years the Council of Ottovar and the Council of Dragons regularly exchanged representatives.”
He paused, as if to see if Kenhodan was following him, and the red-haired man nodded for him to continue, fascinated by his description of the Races of Man’s relationship with the dragons. It was very unlike anything he’d thought he knew about the subject.
“The dragons honored the terms of the treaty, and so did the House of Ottovar. For a time, at least.” The wizard’s tone darkened and he looked away, gazing out over the grasslands. “Eventually, that changed. When Herrik Ottarfro joined the Carnadosans and turned against his father and his b
rother, he broke the Council of Ottovar’s ability to protect the dragons and the Dark Lords were able to enslave them once more. We shielded Chersoth to the end, but Raynkaltha was beyond our reach, and the gods only know how many dragons died exactly as that black dragon died in South Wall Pass, hurling themselves against their enslavers’ enemies.”
Wencit’s voice fell, softer and lower, hard to hear against the endless sigh of the wind.
“Some of the oldest and strongest of the Dragon Lords fought on Toren Swordarm’s side, but few of them survived. The Carnadosans were as good at crafting spells to enslave as we were at crafting spells to protect, and they had the advantage of the initiative. We could only respond to each new spell as it was deployed against us, and in the end, any but the very strongest dragons fell prey to their enemies’ control. And too many of the ones who didn’t were torn apart by their own enslaved fellows.”
He fell entirely silent for a long, brooding moment, then shook himself.
“Some of the worms argued that Herrik Ottarfro’s actions meant the House of Ottovar itself had broken the treaty. Since the treaty had failed, they held that they were no longer bound by it, either, and they fled to Norfressa on their own, landing wherever they chose. Toren, however, recognized that his house had failed them in the end, whatever his or his father’s intentions, and he urged all of the survivors to escape to Norfressa. There was room for all, he said, and he promised them his house would recognize their right to the land upon which they settled.
“But the Battle of Lost Hope ended Toren’s ability to control what happened in Norfressa. Worse, not all of the refugees from Kontovar landed in the colonies he and his father had established around Man Home. By the end, as the situation in Kontovar crumbled into ruin, people fled whenever and however they could and landed wherever their ships touched Norfressa’s soil. So while Duke Kormak fully intended to honor Toren’s promise to the dragons, scores of enclaves and colonies sprang up far beyond the reach of his own authority. That’s how the Spearmen came to found their own empire in the south, among other things.
“And that meant the dragons who’d fled to Norfressa found themselves facing very much the same situation the hradani did. The refugees and their children forgot—or simply didn’t care—that so many of the Dragon Lords had died fighting under the Gryphon Banner, but they remembered the dragons who’d been compelled to attack their cities and towns and farms, to devour their stock and murder their children. They saw no reason to allow any dragon to claim territory in Norfressa as his own…and every reason to exterminate the ‘servants of Carnadosa.’”
Wencit looked back at Kenhodan, witchfire eyes gleaming.
“On the whole, obviously, my sympathies were with the dragons when land-hungry would-be nobles invaded the ranges they’d claimed, but that made no difference. You’ve proved yourself that a single archer—with great skill, courage, and luck—can fell a dragon. Black dragons are less powerful and more stupid than most, and few archers have your skill, but the armies arrayed against them had hundreds—thousands—of bowmen. Many settlers died, but there were far more of them and humans produce far more offspring, far more rapidly, then any dragon. The plains burned at the height of the war. You could see the smoke for fifty leagues, and the clouds bled fire at night. Dragon venom fell so thick you can still smell it in places, but in the end, the dragons would have been exterminated.
“Would have been?”
“I said dragons are intelligent, and the most belligerent of them—and those least willing to accept terms—died or fled to the extreme east. Those who remained were tired of fighting and willing to negotiate for peace.”
“On what sort of terms?” Kenhodan asked, fascinated by the entire concept.
“It was simple enough. The Scarthū Hills lies southeast of here, and the dragons were granted undisputed possession of the northern and central hills in return for a pledge to leave the colonists in peace.”
“And that actually worked?”
“As well as most treaties,” Wencit said dryly. “Neither the House of Ottovar nor the Council of Ottovar were available to enforce it, of course, and some people always feel their actions are limited only by what they can get away with. But the dragons deal with anyone who violates their territory, and no one misses them much. Then again, the treaty only calls for the dragons to leave the Races of Man in peace, not to stay in the hills forever. They can come and go as they please, as long as they harm no one. In fact, the dragons insisted that wards be set around the hills to guarantee that they behave outside them.”
“They insisted?”
“Certainly. The wiser breeds know their stupider brethren might violate the treaty and that a violation by any dragon might lead to renewed war against all of them. So the wards bar the passage of any dragon bent on evil or a violation of the treaty—not always the same thing, of course—though a wizard can force them through. As Wulfra did,” he added grimly.
“These wards,” Kenhodan said. “Did you set them?”
“I modestly accept the credit.”
“But what stops a dragon from changing his mind after passing them? If your wards work on the basis of what a dragon thinks he’s going to do when he pass them, how does that prevent…well, accidents, I suppose? I mean, even if he genuinely has no intention of doing anything the treaty would forbid, circumstances can change, so why can’t his intentions change in response?”
“Dragons’ brains don’t work that way, Kenhodan. They live outside time, peculiar as that sounds. They experience all time—past, present, and future—at once. They know what they’ll do before they cross the wards.”
“A dragon sees the future? Even the moment of his own death?”
“Certainly. They see the moments of all their deaths?”
“‘All’?” Kenhodan repeated suspiciously.
“Of course. Time’s neither fixed nor immutable. It’s an infinitely variable series of patterns, of events which might potentially have any number of outcomes, and a dragon sees all his possible futures. But the one which actually comes to pass for him depends on a host of factors, many of which are beyond his control. And as events alter the present, so his possible futures change. The pattern’s constantly shifting. I doubt any non-dragon could stand that sort of vision without going hopelessly insane.”
“It does sound…confusing.”
“Oh, it is. But time’s even more complex than dragons see, actually.”
“Really? How?”
“You might find it interesting to get Bahzell’s perspective on that sometime,” Wencit said dryly. “The…multiplicity of possible futures is at the very heart of the war between the Light and the Dark. But at least champions of Tomanāk only move one direction in time, from the past to whatever future actually occurs. So do dragons, for that matter, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Not for mortals, anyway; the gods have a…different relationship with time, one which precludes them from meddling with it, although they perceive it much as a dragon would, albeit on a far larger scale. Some magi can see the future, too, but the precognition talent’s very different from dragons or deities. Some wizards, on the other hand, can actually travel through time. Fortunately, it’s an extremely rare ability. The best estimate I’ve ever seen is that perhaps one in ten thousand have it, and those who do seldom experiment with it. There are…drawbacks, you see. No one can travel forward beyond the frame of his own experience, so travel into the past is the only really practical ‘direction.’ But traveling into the past is far less useful than glimpsing the future, and it’s very, very risky, because all time is mutable.
Kenhodan looked at him sharply. “You mean—?”
“Precisely,” Wencit said softly. “It’s hard to even imagine why any theoretically sane wizard would do anything of the sort. A wizard who travels back may alter past events, may actually destroy the future from which he came. It’s an interesting theoretical point—if you like, once we get back to Belhadan I can reclaim a few boo
ks from my library and let you read the debate between wizards about exactly how it would all have worked out if someone had been stupid enough to try it. There was never any agreement on that point, you understand, which is one reason only a lunatic would have attempted it. The question that arose was whether or not his changing the past would create a situation in which he’d never existed, meaning he couldn’t come back to change it, thus not destroying him. But if he wasn’t destroyed, then wouldn’t he travel back anyway? Could his actions establish a sort of…loop in time which would effectively trap not just him but everyone else in the same dead-end? Or would he have established a pre-existing identity before the time change, thus leaving him untouched, thus letting him destroy everything—and every person—he’d left in the future?”
Kenhodan considered that for a long moment and shivered.
“Has anyone ever been crazy enough to actually try it?”
“The longest shift I’ve ever seen recorded was about five days,” Wencit said, “and the wizard who made it did nothing but observe from his own study using his gramerhain. The fact that there’s no record of a longer jump may mean it’s never been tried, or that the attempt simply wasn’t recorded, or that all of the theories about what would happen were wrong…or, of course, that the wizard did destroy himself and any future in which he might have left notes about his intentions.”
“I see.” Kenhodan shuddered and forced himself to smile. “That’s not the stuff of insanity, Wencit—that’s the stuff of nightmares! Now I’ll lie awake waiting for some time-hopping wizard to wipe us all out.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much,” Wencit said. “The chances are better that you’ll drown in the desert in the middle of a summer heat wave. I said it was a rare talent, and most of the handful of wizards who ever had it couldn’t imagine anything compelling enough to take the risk.”