by Markus Heitz
Balyndis threw herself on the tallest, stateliest warrior and hugged him tight.
“Ah, my intrepid daughter,” he greeted her, laughing heartily. He laid his hands on her face. “I hear you fought the hordes at the Blacksaddle! Thanks be to Vraccas that you’re safe.”
Although he and Balyndis were thrilled to see each other, their reunion was dignified and restrained. Tungdil had been half expecting them to jump up and down with elation, but dwarves didn’t go in for the effusiveness common among humankind. Besides, there was no need for it; the affection between father and daughter was evident in their smiling faces and shining eyes.
“How are the others?” asked Balyndis. Her expression darkened. “I heard the comet…”
“Missed us entirely!” said her father. “Vraccas was merciful and diverted the falling debris away from our halls. Boulders landed either side of us, and a few of our chambers were damaged by the quake, but everyone’s safe. We’re looking forward to hearing about your adventures—but first there’s some more good news.”
“More good news? And I was so worried about you!” exclaimed Balyndis, making her way through the ranks of the Steel Fingers and greeting each in turn. At last she signaled for Tungdil to join her. “Father, this is Tungdil Goldhand. He led the expedition to forge Keenfire and kill the dark magus.” She squeezed his arm. “He’s a good friend and, with your consent, we’d like to be melded.”
Tungdil held out his hand to the warrior and met his steely gaze. “My name is Tungdil Goldhand—of what clan, I cannot say, but I’m a child of the Smith and a—”
“You’re of Lorimbur’s line,” said the warrior, cutting him short. He ignored Tungdil’s outstretched hand. “Bulingar Steelfinger of the clan of the Steel Fingers, child of the Smith and warrior of Borengar,” he introduced himself. “No daughter of mine will ever be melded to a dwarf whose founding father swore eternal vengeance on the other folks. I know you fought valiantly at the Blacksaddle, but you’re a thirdling, and that’s all there is to it as far as I’m concerned.”
Tungdil would rather have been beaten over the head with a cudgel, stabbed through the heart, or pushed into a chasm than suffer the harshness of Bulingar’s words. His vision of a shared future with Balyndis shattered into a thousand jagged shards, leaving him with a gut-wrenching feeling of emptiness.
“Believe me, I’ve never wanted to kill another dwarf,” he said, hoping to change the firstling’s mind. “All my life, I’ve longed to—”
“All your life?” interrupted Balyndis’s father. “A dwarf of sixty cycles is practically a child! How would you know if you wanted to kill us? You were found by a magus and brought up by men. It stands to reason that you didn’t hate us in Ionandar, but after a few cycles in a dwarven kingdom, your true disposition will come to the fore. What if the golden warrior is made of gilded tin?”
Balyndis’s eyes flashed angrily. “Don’t his actions count for anything?” she protested, struggling to control her temper. “A dwarf intent on destroying our kinsfolk wouldn’t risk everything to save the dwarven kingdoms. It doesn’t make—”
“Silence!” thundered Bulingar. “There’s nothing to discuss! You won’t be getting melded to Tungdil because we’ve found someone else.”
Balyndis took a step back. Her cheeks, which seconds ago had been filled with color, turned a sickly white. “Someone else?” she stammered, turning to Tungdil and begging him silently to forgive her for what would surely follow.
“Cheer up, child,” said a skirted personage whom Tungdil guessed was Balyndis’s aunt. “We know you were upset about not getting melded, so we found you a worthy suitor. Most dwarves aren’t good enough for our Balyndis, but we found one in the end.”
She clapped her hands and a figure stepped out of a side passage. The warrior was everything that a dwarven hero should be: tall, powerfully built, with a thick black beard, and finely crafted armor.
Tungdil, gazing at the mail shirt in wonder, decided that he was looking at Borengar’s second-best smith. No, he prayed, hoping that the warrior would decide to walk away. He clenched his fists.
The other paid no attention to Tungdil’s silent pleading. Solemnly, he turned to Balyndis. “My name is Glaïmbar Sharpax of the clan of the Iron Beaters, a child of your folk.” He pointed to his armor. “I’m a smith as well as a warrior, and this,” he held out his hand and offered Balyndis a beautiful gold ring inlaid with gleaming vraccasium, “I made for you. It’s an honor to be considered worthy of a Steel Finger; I won’t let your clansfolk down.”
Tungdil didn’t know whether to shriek or weep. His instinct and reason were pulling in different directions, the one telling him to challenge the rival, the other warning that fighting Glaïmbar would upset Balyndis and prove her father right. He didn’t want to be classed as a dwarf hater, after all. While his mind continued to chafe against his fate, his heart was weeping and his soul was lamenting his loss.
She won’t turn him down; she can’t. Defying the wishes of the clan was as heretical as breaking Vraccas’s laws. In dwarven society, clan was second only to family. Deep down, Tungdil knew this, but he refused to give up hope.
If the situation had been reversed, he would have rejected the unwelcome suitor and turned his back on the clan.
It was different for Balyndis. She had grown up in a dwarven kingdom, surrounded by family, clan, and folk. These were the dwarves who had fed, protected, and trained her in warfare and metalwork for thirty-five cycles—and she was expected to defer to their desires. If Balyndis neglected her duty and followed her heart, her family would disown her, and she would be a dwarf without clansfolk, a pebble banished from the flanks of the mountain, lonely and forlorn.
Balyndis turned to face him. Tears trickled down her cheeks, collecting on her chin and merging into a single, diamond-like droplet. “My heart belongs to you,” she mouthed before turning to Glaïmbar and accepting his gift with trembling hands. With that it was settled: Balyndis and Glaïmbar would forge the iron band.
“It’s time you were melded,” her father told her, visibly relieved. “The future of the Steel Fingers is safe in your hands. You’re young and strong, and you’ll have plenty of children. And you, Glaïmbar Sharpax of the clan of the Iron Beaters, you’re a fine addition to our clan. Our elders will be delighted to hear my daughter’s decision.” He stood between them and laid a hand on their backs, propelling them down the corridor away from Tungdil. “Come, let’s eat together and make plans for the biggest celebration in history. The bride is a heroine, after all.”
The Steel Fingers lined up on both sides of the corridor to let the trio pass. Balyndis turned around to look at Tungdil, but one of her clansfolk stepped between them, his helmet blocking their view. The others joined the back of the procession, and Balyndis was lost among the crowd. A moment later, the Steel Fingers rounded a corner, their jangling mail and stomping boots fading away.
Tungdil stared after them, feet welded to the ground. He tried calling himself to order, but his thoughts were spinning in all directions, hopelessly out of control.
Incapable of formulating a single clear idea, he took the only course of action left to him and wandered aimlessly through the passageways of the firstling kingdom, blind to the beautiful friezes and inscriptions on the walls. Mind in a fever, he crossed suspension bridges and wandered through grottos, stumbling from hall to hall, not knowing or caring where he was or whom he encountered on the way; all he could see was Balyndis’s face. After a while he lost all sense of time.
At last, he came to rest in a dimly lit cavern and pressed his sweat-drenched forehead to the floor. Droplets splashed from the ceiling, calling the name of his beloved as they dropped to the ground. In the distance, a pickax was hammering against the rock, and the noise joined the chorus of droplets. Every sound that came to his ears seemed to echo with her name.
No, he whimpered, closing his eyes and curling into a ball. Leave me alone.
But the noises persisted
until tiredness overcame him, numbing his tormented mind. Before he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, he had a vision of Bulingar and Glaïmbar looming over him, and hatred and anger took hold of his heart.
Porista,
Former Realm of Lios Nudin,
Girdlegard,
Spring, 6235th Solar Cycle
Surely he can’t have destroyed all Girdlegard’s famuli? thought Andôkai as she made her way through the sunlit arcades of the palace in Porista. Sighing, she remembered how Nôd’onn had rooted out his rivals’ apprentices, killing them with his magic or putting them to the sword.
In place of her customary leather armor she wore a close-fitting dress of crimson cloth. The skirt was slit at the sides and the low neck emphasized her figure, lending her a femininity absent from her angular face.
For orbits she had been focusing her energies on finding apprentices to school in the art of magic. Nôd’onn can’t have killed them all. Her legs, clad in soft suede boots, strode purposefully over the beautiful mosaic floor. The last of the sun’s rays filtered through the vaulted glass roof, illuminating the passageway and causing the white marble columns to shine like beacons.
She reached the base of the second-highest tower and descended the steps to the vaults, where the flow of energy was strongest. Located at the heart of Girdlegard, the former realm of Lios Nudin was the source of the force fields, a wellspring of magic energy supplying the other enchanted realms.
Andôkai sat on the floor of the carpeted room. She turned her focus inward and felt for the invisible force, sensing at once how the energy had been changed. Nôd’onn, drawing on knowledge given to him by the Perished Land, had contaminated the force fields, making them dangerous for other wizards to use.
Andôkai was an exception. Her chosen deity was Samusin, god of equilibrium, champion of darkness and light. She was a conduit for good—but also for forces commonly described as evil, which was why she could channel the tainted energy without succumbing to the poison. A practitioner of white magic would not be so lucky.
Senses keyed, she checked for signs that the force fields were recovering, but even with Nôd’onn dead and the Perished Land defeated, the magic energy flowing from Porista was under the magus’s spell.
She rose to her feet. How long will it take the force fields to cleanse themselves of Nôd’onn’s evil? A hundred cycles or even a thousand? If they ever recover at all…
She ascended the stairs, left the palace through the main doors and came to a halt on the steps leading down to the courtyard.
The sun was resting on the horizon, creating a shimmering tableau of color, cloud, and light. The warmth of the sunset reached as far as Porista, steeping the palace in its reddish glow and transforming the sable turrets to vibrant amber. Andôkai felt the breeze and smelled the aroma of freshly turned soil. Birds were soaring and dipping in pursuit of buzzing insects. It looked the picture of harmony and order.
Andôkai was reminded of past occasions when she and the other magi had lingered on the palace steps, waiting for the sun to set and knowing that it would rise again in a blaze of light to announce the new dawn.
While she had little doubt that the sun would continue to put on its twice-daily spectacle, she was beginning to wonder whether she would be the last maga in Girdlegard to admire the fiery orb.
For two thousand cycles the council of the magi had met in Porista, but Nôd’onn had turned his palace into a slaughterhouse, sending four of Girdlegard’s magi to their deaths, killing their famuli, and destroying the magic girdle. Andôkai had barely escaped with her life.
Now, with Nôd’onn defeated, she had returned to the palace, the only building untouched by the inferno that had raged through Porista.
Andôkai had little affection for the city where her colleagues had met their deaths, but she had elected to live there for one simple reason: It was the best place to instruct apprentices in the magic arts.
She surveyed the ruined houses and rubble beyond the palace walls. Little remained of the eight thousand dwellings that had once stood proudly on Lios Nudin’s plains. Faced with an army of revenants, Prince Mallen had razed the city to the ground.
On hearing of Nôd’onn’s death, the first brave souls had returned to the city, and more had followed, reassured by the sight of Andôkai’s pennants flying from the flagpoles. Porista had a new mistress, who through no desire of her own, had come to preside over six enchanted realms.
Looking up, she gazed at the ever-darkening sky, watching her pennants rippling on the breeze. Samusin, god of equilibrium, master of winds, I need apprentices. Send me famuli, old or young, with the ability to learn. If the danger is as great as Nôd’onn foretold, I won’t be strong enough to combat it on my own.
She heard a loud knock on the gates to the forecourt. Runes lit up throughout the palace, the signal for a servant to rush out and determine whether to admit the waiting person or persons.
But the palace staff had been discharged.
For want of a doorman to answer the knock, Andôkai uttered an incantation, and the gates swung open to reveal a tall slender woman and a young man.
The pair stepped into the forecourt and headed toward the steps. Dressed in black leather armor, the woman was carrying a weapons belt with two outlandish weapons that Andôkai recognized as unique to their bearer. Porista, like most ruined cities, was plagued by looters and thieves, and this particular woman preferred to be armed. She walked briskly and fearlessly, while her companion hurried after her, scanning the forecourt anxiously and hugging his pack to his chest.
A shadow fell over Andôkai.
“It’s all right, Djern,” she told her bodyguard, keeping her eyes on the couple. “They’re quite harmless.” She flashed him a wry smile. “Although quite frankly, I wouldn’t mind if they were Nôd’onn’s chief famuli.” She looked up at the towering warrior, eying the demonic metal visor that always masked his face. “Even hostile apprentices would be better than none at all.”
Djern stayed where he was, diagonally behind her. He seemed to be watching the approaching couple, but the eyeholes in his visor gave nothing away. His helmet appeared to be empty, but he was capable of fixing his enemies with terrible rays of violet light.
His stillness was also deceptive. Clad from head to toe in armor, he looked heavy and inert, but at the sight of an enemy, or if his mistress was in danger, he moved with incredible agility, running, jumping, and fighting as if he were made of shimmering silk. Few could say what lay beneath his armor—and it was better that way.
The woman and her frightened companion ascended the steps. Andôkai realized that she had been mistaken. “Narmora, who’s this?” she demanded, forgetting to welcome her guest. “I mistook him for Furgas.”
The half älf smiled. Like Djern, she was careful to hide her striking features from strangers, and her pointed ears were covered by a crimson headscarf. The daughter of an älf and a human, she had thrown in her lot with the men, elves, and dwarves, but älfar were feared and hated throughout Girdlegard, and she knew better than to expect any mercy from a baying mob. The headscarf was vital for her safety.
“Maga, I found him roaming the city. He wanted to see you, but he was too afraid to knock.”
The man lifted his eyes and saw Djern, who stood three paces tall. His gaze traveled fearfully over the metal breastplate that mimicked the curve of bulging muscle. He took in the tionium gorget, the terrifying visor, and the ring of metal spikes encircling his helmet like a crown. “What in the name of Palandiell…” Stepping back, he almost tumbled down the staircase, but the nimble Narmora grabbed him by the elbow. “Djern won’t hurt you,” she assured him.
The man did his best to compose himself. “Wenslas is my name. I served Turgur the Fair-Faced,” he said timorously.
Andôkai’s heart sank. The only famulus in Girdlegard, and he was trained by a preening dandy. “There’s no need to be afraid,” she told him. “Which tier did you reach before your magus died?�
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“I didn’t,” he said softly. “I wasn’t actually a famulus. My name was on the list for the academy, and I was waiting to take the exam. I heard the Estimable Maga was looking for students, so I came to Porista.”
“That’s when I found him,” chimed in Narmora. “He saw the ruined city, and his courage failed him, so I escorted him myself. Did I do well?”
Andôkai looked the man up and down. “I need to know how strong you are, Wenslas. You’ll do the exam right away.” Privately she doubted that the nervous young man had the mental fortitude to handle complicated formulae and strength-sapping rituals. He knows nothing about magic. It will take cycles to turn him into a tolerable apprentice. Turgur had put him on a waiting list, which meant only one thing: Wenslas was a last resort.
Turning sharply, she went into the palace. “I’ll need your help, Narmora—if you can spare a little time.”
“Furgas was busy when I left him—he won’t mind if I stay for a while.” She gave Wenslas a little shove; he sidestepped quickly around the armor-plated giant and set off after Andôkai.
The little party made its way through the deserted palace. Wenslas’s boots echoed through the empty marble passageways, setting him further on edge. None of the stories he had heard about the tempestuous maga had prepared him for meeting the real-life Andôkai and her disquieting companions. He was about to announce that he had decided not to go through with the exam when they passed through a doorway and came to a halt in the conference chamber.
The hall, once famous for its domed roof of gleaming copper, was in ruins. It was here that Nôd’onn had revealed himself as a traitor and an enemy of Girdlegard, and his battle with the council had destroyed the ancient room. Large chunks were missing from the ceiling, some of the pillars had been smashed to pieces, and ash, blown into the chamber from the burned-out city, had mingled with rainwater, forming a thick black sludge on the marble floor.