by Hugh Cook
The wizards and the warriors
( The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness - 1 )
Hugh Cook
The wizards and the warriors
Hugh Cook
CHAPTER ONE
Name: Phyphor. Birthplace: Galsh Ebrek. Occupation: wizard.
Status: Master wizard of the order of Arl, with powers over light and fire.
Description: very old gentleman with scarred beardless chin, bald pate, black skullcap, sheep's teeth, grey robes, iron-shod wooden staff, leather boots.
Residence: Sunside Chambers, Prime Tower, Castle of Controlling Power, near Drangsturm.
***
It was Phyphor's birthday.
He was 5736 years old.
He saw no cause to celebrate.
It was windy; it was raining; he was wet; his boots were leaking. The sheep's teeth set in his jaws by enchantment were aching. He was a long, long way from home. And he was advancing into danger.
'We should reach Estar today,' said Phyphor to his travelling companions. 'So be prepared!'
His two companions were his fat, slovenly apprentice Garash, and a youngster named Miphon who had less than a century to his credit. In Estar, the three of them hoped to find the renegade wizard they had been sent to kill.
They were not in pursuit of any ordinary renegade, such as the lord of the sea dragons, the notorious Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, wizard of Drum. No, they were after a far more dangerous quarry.
In defiance of the Confederation of Wizards, the maverick Heenmor had looted an artefact of power from the Dry Pit in the Forbidden Zone.
Phyphor's party had to seek out Heenmor, kill him, recover whatever he had stolen from the Dry Pit and present it to the Confederation in the Castle of Controlling Power.
Their chances of success and survival were, in Phyphor's estimation, about ten per cent.
***
Name: Miphon.
Birthplace: Driftwood Islands.
Occupation: wizard.
Status: Minor wizard of the order of Nin, with limited powers to hear and control the minds of wild things.
Description: slender man of youthful appearance with green eyes and a ready smile; dressed in woollen underclothes, waterproof leather outers, well-greased boots and a broad-brimmed feathered hat.
Residence: lives as a travelling healer with no fixed abode.
***
When Phyphor's little band encountered the evil wizard Heenmor, Miphon's only task would be to charm away the lethal copper-strike snake which always accompanied Heenmor.
Even so, he stood a good chance of getting killed.
After the catastrophic wars of antiquity known as the Days of Wrath, the Founders of the Confederation of Wizards had written this: 'Know that the Dry Pit contains power sufficient to destroy the world. As you value your lives and the world which supports those lives, preserve our absolute ban on the Dry Pit and the Forbidden Zone which surrounds it.'
Heenmor had defied that ban.
Heenmor had raided the Dry Pit.
Heenmor might be ready – even now – to destroy the world.
So how could they hope to defeat him?
Miphon did not worry about it at all, but wondered, instead, what new delights awaited him in Estar. Right now, he was enthralled by the rugged landscape they were travelling through. He made no mention of his pleasure to Phyphor and Garash, as both had grown dour and sour on their long journey north along the Salt Road.
Miphon wished the other two could share his joy in the wild and wonderful array of landscapes, vistas, cities, towns, villages, rocks, animals, seascapes, trees, foods, smells, songs and languages which they had encountered on their journey.
But the two wizards of Arl were immune to Miphon's enthusiasms. They were always at their worst when it was raining. And right now it was raining quite heavily.
So, as they went north along the Salt Road, with overbearing mountains on the right, and the grey tumult of the Central Ocean on the left, Miphon contented himself by singing songs of love and wonder to the donkey.
It is worth noting that Miphon, thanks to his sensible dress, was more or less waterproof, whereas both Phyphor and his apprentice Garash were soaking wet.
***
Name: Smeralda. Status: beast of burden.
Description: patient grey four-legged animal burdened with books, blankets, manuscripts, herbs, tent, quilts, cooking pots, fish hooks, fishing lines, mosquito nets etc. etc.
Musical taste: severely limited, despite Miphon's best efforts in this direction.
Late in the day, the three wizards – with their donkey in tow – reached the southern border of Estar. There a flame trench stretched for a thousand paces from mountain cliffs to the sea, which steamed where the trench continued for another hundred paces underwater; waves surging up the trench toward the mountains boiled away to nothing before they travelled half the distance.
Phyphor had been here before.
In the days of the Long War, Phyphor and other wizards had defeated the Swarms, here on the southern border of Estar. They had defeated the Swarms, but only with the help of a storm that had raged in from the Central Ocean – a storm so fierce that the legends later made said it had shaken teeth from jawbones and set the mountains to creaking. Certainly it had scattered the Neversh, breaking their strength.
It had been so close.
Only the storm had saved them.
If the Swarms had broken through, they could have spread north to the continent of Tameran and west to the Ravlish Lands. As it was, the Swarms had been driven back to the Deep South, where the wizards had built the flame trench Drangsturm and the chain of castles where the Confederation kept watch, and was pledged to keep watch forever if need be.
Though he had been here before, Phyphor scarcely recognised the place. The trench had not been maintained since the Long War, though the rubble, rubbish and erosion of four thousand years had not sufficed to fill it. A rutted track plunged to a greasy wooden duckwalk laid across the steaming mud at the bottom, then climbed the steep slope on the other side.
Nearby was a small, ruinous fort which had once guarded the southern side of the trench. On the far side, scattered blocks of masonry showed where men had once built something which the years had since pulled down.
'We'll cross tomorrow morning,' said Phyphor, who saw no need to risk that breakneck slope in the failing light, where an old wizard might miss his footing in the gloom and end up waist-deep in ovenhot mud. 'Tonight we'll shelter in the fort.'
'A damp, ugly ruin if ever I saw one,' said Garash.
'Sleep in the rain if you don't like it,' said Phyphor.
Miphon said nothing. Trying to play peacemaker between these two was, he had discovered, singularly unrewarding. Phyphor, having trained Garash, was deeply disappointed with his pupil, who had turned out to be reckless, power-hungry and amoral; Garash, for his part, bitterly resented Phyphor's refusal to release him from his apprenticeship, despite his mastery of his art.
The wind, kicking up ripples in the puddles, found no gate to bar the way as it whirled into the fortress. Entering, Garash dared a Word of Location: 'Onamonagonamonth!'
He was richly rewarded.
From half a dozen different directions, bell-like notes rang out. As the deafening noise died away, Garash cried, in great excitement: 'There's magic here! There's power!'
'Of course, fool!' roared Phyphor. 'My fire-iron, my staff of power, that oddment slung around your neck. Quite apart from all that, there's the power sources for the flame trench.'
'Oh,' said Garash, crestfallen.
'Honestly,' said Phyphor, 'Sometimes you're so stupid I feel like kicki
ng you from here to breakfast.'
Garash did not take that criticism well.
'Let's explore,' said Phyphor.
There was little to the fort but a courtyard, a crumbling wall surrounding it, and one squat tower. Wooden stumps, the remains of floor beams, were embedded in the towerstones at three levels. A separate, steadily rising curve of stumps showed where the stairs had been. Saba Yavendar must have seen similar things in the years of chaos after the fall of the Empire of Wizards, for he had written:
Where wind may walk but men no longer, Stairs rise in easy stages to the vaults of air; Our lives have become to climb them.
From the tower, strong stone steps curved away downwards, into the unknown.
'I wonder what's down there,' said Garash.
'Would you care to investigate?' said Phyphor.
Garash wiped a drop of rainwater from the end of his nose.
'I'll leave that honour to you,' he said.
Cautiously, Phyphor started downwards, ready to blast any lurking monster with fire. He went quietly, but not silently. Rainwater dripped from his cloak and water squelched in his boots. Entering the darkness, he whispered a Word. His right hand began to glow with a cold light which glimmered on spider webs and damp stone.
He turned a corner: and found treasure.
A stack of firewood, lumped up in a cellar.
It was damp, true, and colonised by woolly grey mould, but it was richness all the same. Small bones marked the cellar as an animal's lair, but no fur and fangs contested possession.
'Treasure,' muttered Phyphor, kicking the firewood.
He said a Word, and the glow from his hand died away. Standing there, breathing darkness, he longed to be back in the Castle of Controlling Power, which commanded the western end of the league-wide flame trench – the Great Dyke, some called it, while others named it Drangsturm – which reached from the Central Ocean to the Inner Waters in the east, so dividing the continent of Argan in two.
'Hey, it's wet up here,' shouted Garash. 'Can we come down? Can you hear me? Is it safe?'
'Come on down,' said Phyphor.
Garash joined him, but Miphon stayed outside to hobble the donkey. By now, it was so dark that he was almost working by touch; the mountains were dissolving into mist. His job done, he took the heavy saddlebags down to the cellar and heaped some wood together for a fire. Phyphor threw a fire-iron onto the wood and muttered a few words. The wood steamed as winter damp dried out, then kicked into flame.
'I could have used my tinder box,' said Miphon.
Phyphor made no answer, not wanting to confess how badly the rigours of this latest march had chilled him. He was too old for this kind of expedition: that was the truth of it.
The fire made them feel better; as Saba Yavendar said:
Fire is always friendliest in a world of foes, Poor man's dancer, widow's warmer, child's enchanter;
Always, even in the winter chill, as summer warm Toward my autumn bones, my widower's rest.
While Garash grumbled about the smoke from the fire, Miphon cooked. They ate. Then they sat apart, mumbling through the Meditations of Power which allowed them to gather the strength they needed for sorcery, and the Meditations of Balance which prevented that strength from spontaneously destroying them.
Then they fell asleep, to dream their separate dreams.
Phyphor had nightmares about the Swarms. He dreamt of twisted shapes against the sky, twisted screams in the noon-day sun in the days when the Neversh flew. He dreamt of the Stalkers and the lowly scuttling keflos, of the double-hulled Engulfers, the green centipedes, the Wings, the tunnellers, the blue ants, and all the others – the fearless myrmidons of the Skull of the Deep South.
Miphon pillowed his head on a stone, ignoring, as he settled to his dreams, its distant grinding curses; the stone still remembered the pain when men, for their building, had split it to its present size.
Once asleep, Miphon dreamt the dream of the stone. (Lamentations: "Lemarl! Lemarl!') Dreamt the dream of the stone, lay in the dreamtime which is neither Lemarl nor Amarl, lay in the dream-time which is the nothing time, chaos in which the mind can be creator. 'Lemarl,' said the stone. Not weeping, not wishing it could weep: whatever it remembered, it had forgotten both tears and laughter.
Miphon woke once to hear Garash in a corner, grunting, straining. Why can't he go outside? Because it's raining, that's why. Again he woke, finding water dripping from the cellar rocks onto his face. He shifted to a place dry but less comfortable. He renewed his stone dreams.
Garash, for his part, dreamt of food.
CHAPTER TWO
Name: Garash. Occupation: wizard.
Status: apprentice to Phyphor, though his training is completed.
Description: stout grey-robed individual with bulging eyes, small scruffy beard and smallpox-scarred face of indeterminate age.
Career: reputedly served the Silver Emperor of Dalar ken Halvar for two centuries before fleeing Parengar-enga after participating in an unsuccessful coup. Began but did not complete apprenticeships with both a wizard of the order of Varkarlor and a wizard of the order of Ebber before taking service with Phyphor.
***
'Wake up!'
Garash, kicked awake from a banquet, opened his eyes to darkness.
'By the seventh hell!' he growled, his eyes full of sand, his mouth full of stones, 'What is it?'
His dreamtime banquet had disintegrated, but he could still remember the tantalising smell of roast pork. Or was it long pig? One was as good as the other, in his experience.
'Up!' said Phyphor. 'Up!'
'Alright, alright,' said Garash. 'I'm on my feet. What now?' 'Come on, Miphon.'
'No need to use your boot like that,' said Miphon, searching for his feathered hat. 'I'm ready.'
'Hurry then. Up the stairs.' 'What is it?' said Garash. 'Tell us!' 'Outside! Now!'
Miphon groped for his boots, could not find them. Went barefoot. Floor wet, rain dripping through stones, pools in concavities, stairs wet. Garash stumbled, cursed, slipped, swore.
'Hurry up,' said Phyphor.
Up the curve of the stairs – faint phosphorescent gleam from Phyphor's cloak – up the stairs and Out into the courtyard. Garash lubbered along last, panting. Rain fell steadilv. Waves crashed against the shore.
'Look!'
On a hillside two leagues north, a stand of trees was blazing. Other conflagrations glowered in the distance.
'What are they?' said Garash. 'War beacons?'
The sky answered him with a bellow of rage and pain.
'Dragon,' said Phyphor.
'It sounds as if it's gone mad,' said Garash.
'Perhaps it has,' said Phyphor.
Now they understood his urgency. Their donkey, Smeralda, was out there somewhere in the darkness. If the dragon happened to chance upon her, it would know there were people here.
'How far's the donkey gone?' said Phyphor.
He did not know what he asked. It was one thing to listen for Smeralda's thoughts, and quite another to decide distance and direction. Miphon was equal to the task: but only just.
'South,' said Miphon. 'Two hundred paces, maybe less.'
'Get it!' said Phyphor. 'Hurry! Then we'll take shelter.'
'Why kick me up here for this?' grumbled Garash. Phyphor said nothing, but watched as Miphon splashed away into the night. 'Phyphor!' said Garash.
Phyphor looked up. Overhead, a red spark reeled 20 through the sky, like a bit of burning straw spinning in the wind.
'Hold!' shouted Phyphor. 'It's overhead! Back to the cellar!'
The three wizards stumbled down the stairs and stood together in the darkness, wet and panting.
'Call the donkey to you,' said Phyphor.
'I'll try,' said Miphon. 'But it takes time. It's hard work. I can't guarantee success.'
'Try.'
Miphon blocked out the sounds of falling rain, surf-echo, dripping and trickling water. His mind listened for Smeralda's min
d. And heard, instead, the dragon's mind – a senseless chant of pain, rage, hate, fierce as the warrior who wrenches a spear from his side and turns it on the enemy.
Then all heard the rush of wings pitched to a scream as the dragon plunged down, down toward the fortress, down with such reckless rage that Miphon thought it would hit the earth. It wrenched out of its dive, blasting the fort with fire as it skimmed past fast as falling. The cellar entrance flamed orange-red.
'It saw nothing,' said Garash, shaken. 'It looked, but it saw nothing. There was nothing for it to see.'
'Hush,' said Phyphor.
'It can't hear us!'
'Hush! Let Miphon listen.'
Miphon listened. The dragon was… gaining height… gaining height… disappointed… circling… circling… rage spent, rage gathering…
'It doesn't know we're here,' said Miphon.
'Of course not,' said Garash. 'There was nothing. Nothing for it to see.'
'What does the dragon do now?' said Phyphor.
'I think -1 hope it'll go and blast something else,' said Miphon.
Then heard: recognition! The dragon saw something! Then they all heard the scream as wings plummeted down, one tortured protest from Smeralda, then the wings of the dragon seeking height again, seeking height with a batblack labouring which overpowered the sound of the surf, conjuring visions of a huge leather bellows wheezing out volumes of air.
The dragon was triumphant because now… now it knew! 'It knows there are people here,' said Miphon flatly. 'A donkey means people. It'll quarter the area till it finds us, if it takes all night. If we stay here it'll sniff us out. then fry us alive.'
'Flame can't reach us here,' said Garash.
'Flame can't but heat can,' said Phyphor. 'Outside!'
They hastened up the stairs to rejoin the rain. They scanned the dark sky. High above, a fire-spark circled slowly. Underfoot, the courtyard stones were still faintly warm from dragon fire. The monster circled, once and again, and then: 'It sees us,' said Miphon.