by Thomas Locke
Perhaps his rage granted him the same heightened senses as the witches’ brew. Or perhaps the orb’s hold had grown on him after a night of resting under its protection. Hyam had no idea, nor did he want to take time for such ruminations. What he could say, however, was that when he entered the meadows surrounding the Long Hall, he found himself anchored to one particular spot.
He slipped from his horse and stood listening. Not to the rising wind, not to the rustling grass, not to the birdsong from the trees behind him. But rather to what flowed beneath his feet.
Deep down, buried far in the earth, ran another huge river. The currents were as broad and strong as in the desert vale. Here he stood upon the emerald edge of the knob that held the Long Hall. The hill’s height made no difference, like the crest or trough of a wave observed from the seabed. The power was far, far below where he stood. As immense as it was unmistakable.
Coursing out from this was a tiny trickle, scarcely more than a breath of force. And it was upon this minor stream that the Long Hall rested.
Hyam laughed out loud. He yelled at the hated stone walls, “You chose the wrong spot!”
He dropped the saddle to the ground and removed the bit from Matu’s mouth. He tethered the horse to a young tree, then fed both animals. He was in no hurry. The wind heightened as the sun reached its zenith, amplifying the heat he carried.
He left his sword and bow on the ground beside his beasts and placed the sack holding the orb directly above the power’s center. He approached the Long Hall with empty hands.
He pounded the door with his fist. When there was no response, he took out his knife and hammered with his hilt. He struck hard enough to dent the ancient oak. And took great pleasure from the act.
The door swung inward, drawn by the type of mage Hyam had despised most. Narrow in face, disapproving in manner. Mean and tight, his only pleasure in tormenting the helpless. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I wish to have a word with your Master Trace.”
The mage stared aghast at the damage Hyam’s knife had done. “This will not go unpunished!”
Hyam closed the distance between them and roared in the man’s face, “Trace! Now!”
The mage jerked back in genuine disgust. “You carry the stench of expulsion! You are forbidden to enter these hallowed grounds!”
Then a voice rose from behind the mage, merry as the Doorkeeper was grim. “The one you seek is here!”
The wizard known as Trace was a sprightly greybeard who moved with the energy of someone a third his age. He almost danced across the green expanse to the inevitable bench that sat looking out over the world. “What a delight to greet a man who dares to pull the Doorkeeper’s beard!”
“Your watchman is clean shaven,” Hyam pointed out.
“And more’s the pity! If he had a beard, you’d have plucked it!” The mage cackled. “I would pay good gold florins to see his expression right now.”
“All you need to do is turn around.”
“Oh, I dare not. Because if I did, he would know I laugh at him. Then that sourpuss would make my life pure misery!”
Hyam felt no such qualms over glancing back. “He is examining his door and looking like he is eating unripe lemons.”
The historian’s merry laugh raced about the fields. “Wonderful! I am in your debt! Do you know, he actually questions my right to walk out here and enjoy the view!”
“Acolytes were forbidden to pass beyond the door.”
“Yes, I know a bit of your former plight, and how you never knew the purposes behind the discipline and the lessons. Only the agony.” He bowed in a courtly manner. “I apologize on behalf of all my brethren and sisters.”
Hyam found himself resisting a strong desire to like this man. “If you really meant it, you would change the regime by which those poor children are kept.”
“If only I could!” The sweep of his arm took in the stern stone walls and the roofs rising within. “But who am I, a lone Master at the edge of the realm, to take on the might and tradition of a hundred Long Halls?”
Hyam settled upon the bench. Their perch looked out over a green vale and a small river. Far into the distance stretched more meadows and flocks of woolly sheep. The Long Hall’s myth of idyllic calm was complete. “I was sent here by the Mistress of the Three Valleys Long Hall.”
“Yes, she said you might appear. What can I do for you?”
Hyam had not expected to like this wizard, or any mage, for that matter. He had planned to come and ask his questions, then deliver his ultimatum for them to release Joelle, and then prepare for the battle that would ensue. He had no idea how he might breach these magically strengthened walls. Only that he would rescue Joelle or die in the attempt.
Hyam studied the mage’s cheerful visage and asked, “What can you tell me of the Elves’ demise?”
“What an astonishing man you are!” Trace clapped his hands in pure delight. “And here I thought I was the only person on earth who gave a fig over such long-dead matters. Might I be so bold as to ask your name?”
“Hyam.”
“Well, Hyam, the answer is quite simple. The Ashanta entered the battle too late. They were too slow to act! Those remarkable folk love nothing more than deliberation. Well, they love secrecy most of all. But within those great, silent halls of theirs, they gather in what are known as Assemblies. But you know this, of course. Your former Mistress claimed you are fluent in their tongue and have read all the scrolls your Long Hall possesses. And that particular Long Hall contains the finest collection of Ashanta documents anywhere!” He sighed with longing. “What I would give for a chance to delve into those scrolls. But my own Long Hall refuses me the right to travel! Can you imagine such a travesty?”
“I thought all senior mages were required to spend a year in the outer world.”
The mage looked genuinely shocked. “Where on earth did you hear that?”
“I can’t say.”
“Such information is counted as one of our most closely guarded secrets.” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Tell me. I beg you. It will go no further.”
“No.”
“A mage at your Long Hall dared share our mysteries?”
“They did not.”
“What if I refuse to answer your question unless you speak?”
“Then our conversation is over.”
He poked Hyam’s ribs with a bony finger. “You really are a wretched boy. No wonder they kicked you out.”
Hyam stifled a smile. “The Elves.”
“Those violet-eyed Ashanta sat within their white walls and . . . Do you know where they get that remarkable stone from? No? Neither do I! But I came across a scroll once, oh my, it was back when I was no older than you are now. How old did you say you were? Never mind. The scroll claimed they brought all that stone from a secret mine far, far in the north. And do you know how they accomplished this marvel?”
“By the strength of their combined mental powers,” Hyam replied.
The mage’s curiosity was a burning ember now. “You read the same scroll?”
“No. But I know a little about the Ashanta. Enough to suppose they could accomplish anything they set their collective mind to.”
“True enough!” He sighed delightedly. “What astonishing conversations you and I might have. Can you stay awhile?”
“Not a chance.”
“No, I thought not. Where was I?”
“The Ashanta were too late.”
“Oh, they probably never intended to do anything at all. That is what some of our own generals and mages of the time suspected. But after the Elves were decimated, the Ashanta realized that once the humans were defeated and enslaved, the Milantians would come after them next. So the Ashanta approached the first King Oberon and offered their help.” He shuddered from his sandals to his long grey beard. “I hate to think what would have befallen humankind if they had not!”
Hyam pondered that a long moment, surprised by
the temptation to share his own secret. Instead, he changed the subject and asked, “What can you tell me of the realm’s new ruler?”
“King Ravi?” The mage frowned. “Very little, and none of it good. What does this have to do with the Elves?”
“You know of the edict expelling the Ashanta from the realm?”
“A testimony to the idiocy of our new dunderheaded king. The old king, the last of the Oberon line, was hardly better. He ran up a king’s ransom in debts. Which was the purpose behind the edict, of course. Force the Ashanta to write off the crippling arrears.” He clapped his hands delightedly. “A king’s ransom. Clever, what?”
“What if the edict wasn’t about the debt at all?”
“I don’t understand.”
Hyam stared into the distance, then decided, “I need to tell you something to be passed on to the other Long Halls.” He swiftly recounted the army’s arrival, the battle, and the crimson rider. By the time he finished, the mage’s good humor had utterly vanished.
“What you tell me is a calamity!”
“Which is why you needed to know.”
“A crimson orb traveled with the king’s own brother? Worse than calamity! This has been forbidden for a thousand years! It has ensured our peace!” He rose and started back. “I must alert the others.”
“Wait! We are not done!”
“Eh?” The mage forced himself to focus on Hyam. “What is it that has you so riled, lad? Have I said something to offend you?”
“Not you. Your kind.”
“My kind?” As distressed as he was, the mage still found the strength to offer a wry smile. “You speak as though we were a breed apart.”
“You hold a woman prisoner.”
Nothing he had said that day caused the mage more consternation. “What . . . How do you know?”
Hyam’s rage surged up. “Is it not enough that the Long Halls imprison their acolytes? Now you take slaves?”
“I . . . That is, we—”
“Release the woman.”
“The Ashanta have vowed to kill her if she leaves.”
“Hand her into my protection. I will keep her safe.”
“You? Against the Ashanta? I think not, lad.”
“Release her!”
“Even if I wanted to, the other elders will not agree.”
“They will have no choice,” Hyam snarled.
“Lad, I beg you, don’t do anything rash!”
Hyam started back across the meadow. “This conversation is over.”
28
Hyam did not move toward where the Doorkeeper still moaned over his damaged portal. Instead, he strode back to where the horse calmly cropped grass and Dama sprawled, panting softly. Back to where the power surged deep in the earth. A power he needed to tap in order to survive. A power that seemed to have been waiting for his return. For as soon as he gripped the canvas satchel, the energy rose to link with his orb and then fill him, a heaving invisible fount, granting him a sense of magnificent ire.
The old mage glanced in his direction and raised a hesitant arm in farewell. Then Trace gathered his robe and started back toward the Long Hall.
Hyam yelled, “Stay where you are!”
The power of his voice was amplified to where it froze not just the mage but the Doorkeeper as well. Hyam’s awareness extended outward with his voice, and he saw how wizards throughout the Long Hall paused in their magery and their studies. Called to alert by the strength behind his words. Hyam had no idea what he was about to do. Only that he needed to act, and now.
He felt the mages gather their force in response to the threat beyond their portal. He cast a desperate plea in the only direction from which help might come. He gripped the satchel more tightly and actually said the words aloud. “Help me!”
The idea came to him with such immediacy it seemed as though it had been waiting for him to make ready.
He drew upon the coursing power, sucking more and more into his being, like he was expanding a giant’s lung, taking an impossibly huge breath of energy. His awareness expanded and crystallized to where he could trace his way through the Long Hall, down the forbidden ways, into the secret reaches that had been barred to him as a despised acolyte.
As he moved, he raised the alarm. He actually heard with his sharpened ears the cries of real panic rising from inside. He knew they were searching for their wands and drawing on their secret spells.
With a flick of his mental hands, he stripped away the spells encasing the most private chamber of all. The very heart of the Long Hall. The cavernous room that held their orb.
He reached across the distance and gripped the globe.
The one in his canvas sack reached with him. The two orbs began vibrating in a harmony that resonated in his bones, humming in timbre to the power that flowed back and forth between the globes.
He sensed a senior mage reach down and grip the orb, calling upon the power. Hyam flicked him away. The wizard crashed against the cavern’s wall. Now the screams were turning wild, rising like shrieks of a storm wind. Calling out spell after spell. Binding the orb, the Long Hall, the meadow, and him.
Hyam reached out with both hands and saw with a vision beyond mere sight how tendrils of power extended from his fingers, streaming across the meadow. The Doorkeeper sensed the assault and leapt inside, slamming the portal shut.
Hyam flicked his hand and blasted away the Long Hall portal and the spells wrapped about the stone frame. The door and rocks were shattered into dust and splinters.
The watchtower bell rang with a frenzy to match the wizards inside. Lightning ripped across the meadow, a furious attack upon where he stood. And yet it was no more effective than the summer breeze. Hyam did not even need to deflect the barrage. He simply fed upon the power and reached farther still.
He stripped away the wizards’ half-formed spells. He felt only scorn for the mages and their complacent ways, the crusty conservatism, the smug sense that they had generations at their disposal. They had lost their edge. If they had ever had one at all.
He wrenched the Long Hall orb from its stanchion and drew it back toward him. He detonated every wall he met. Firing a continuous line of holes through whatever barrier that separated him from the wizards’ globe.
As it approached the outer portal, Hyam strode across the meadow, coming to meet it.
The globe arrived at the destroyed portal and passed through. The ball carried a dazzling luminescence, the color of an emerald dawn, green and gold and mesmerizing. If Hyam only had time, he would have willingly lost himself in its depths.
Instead, he brought the orb to a halt directly over his head. He stopped before the smashed portal, looked at the terrified Doorkeeper sprawled on the interior cobblestones, and said, “Invite me to enter.”
The mage waved a frantic hand in a feeble attempt to bind the orb and draw it back. In reply, Hyam wrenched the man from the ground, flung him across the courtyard, and slammed him against the rear wall. This time his voice was powerful enough to shatter doors and windows both. “Invite me inside!”
Master Trace spoke from behind him. “Please, honored sir. Enter. You are most welcome.”
Hyam stepped over the demolished entry. He did not run. He was invading. He conquered. The Elven words he had spoken to the fallen knight returned in a blaze of fury to his mind. I am vengeance. I am the protector of my people. I am wrath unleashed.
Anyone so foolish as to come within reach, or even suggest a movement of defiance, was met with dreadful force. Hyam pinned them to the walls as he passed, binding them to the stone. He veered slightly from the most direct route to his destination in order to pass down the hall lined with the acolytes’ cells. The windowless cages drew from him the strongest wrath of all. He blasted out the doors. He wreaked havoc on the exterior walls blocking them from the meadow and freedom. At the hall’s far end he turned and shouted, “If you want, leave! You are prisoners no longer!”
He turned back to the wall before him and
tore it apart.
He stepped over the rubble in time to see the kitchen staff and the acolytes assigned to scrub the pots and knead the bread flee in a shrieking mob. Only one person remained. She rose from her knees, the wire brush she had used to scrub the flagstones dripping unnoticed in her hand.
Joelle greeted him as one who had managed to hold on to her pride and strength both. She was, Hyam knew, stronger than he would ever become. No amount of magery or earthbound force could compare with her ability to greet him with the calmly stated words, “You came.”
Hyam looked into the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. A broad circle of purest violet rimmed pale grey irises. Their gemstone beauty matched the woman, for she was lovely indeed. “Joelle, it is time for us to depart.”
She dropped her brush. “Will you give me new weapons?”
“I will.”
“Knives and sword and shield?”
“That and perhaps even more.”
“More?”
“Maybe I can give you a reason to fight.”
She stepped toward him. “I am ready.”
29
Hyam led her to where his packs lay upon the grass, then walked back to where the old wizard waited by the demolished front portal.
Trace demanded, “Was it absolutely necessary for you to make enemies of every wizard throughout the realm?”
“All Long Halls have been my foe since I was ten years old. And they knew it.” Hyam surveyed his havoc with bone-deep satisfaction. “Only up to now, they didn’t care.”