by Thomas Locke
“You describe the badlands as arid and holding poor soil,” Hyam said, avoiding the need to answer directly. “I am asking if forests approach the caravan city.”
Fuca scowled in concentration. “Scrub pines, aye, they grow along the south ridge here. But you won’t find cover for a surprise attack.”
“The city rests on a fortified hill,” Bayard agreed.
“Plus it is said that before every attack, the crimson one sweeps the land, searching and scouring the hearts of my clansmen with terror.”
Hyam insisted, “How close do these pines come to the city’s southern gates?”
The two soldiers exchanged looks, clearly worried over placing their trust in one so inexperienced in the ways of war. “A thousand paces. Less. But—”
“Wait, please, and you will understand.” He turned to Edlyn. “All right. Let’s give this a try.”
“Step away from the table, everyone,” the Mistress said.
“Do you understand what he is going on about?” Bayard demanded.
“Not entirely, sire. And neither do you. Now stand well back.”
Hyam closed his eyes. The orbs—his and the hidden globe of Falmouth—had been set upon a shelf carved from the rock wall and covered with a velvet cloth. He heard Trace and Joelle and Edlyn step over so that they could rest their hands upon the orbs. He heard Edlyn call to her mages in the adjoining room, commanding them to begin their own work. Hyam did not seek to join them, however. He wanted to remain detached. His focus moved through his own orb and aimed downward. Farther and farther he extended his reach, flowing out and along the river of fire.
Hyam rushed with the tide, moving so fast he could not tell how long he was there or how far he went. Only that his course mirrored the map. Finally he announced, “I am there.”
“He is where?” Bayard asked peevishly.
“Emporis. Hush, now. We must concentrate. Trace, Joelle?”
“We are ready, Mistress.”
“Hyam, do you sense the foe?”
“I can’t . . . Yes, there is an orb. But he is not . . . I think he is sleeping. Or disconnected in some other way.”
Edlyn sighed with genuine relief. “It is as we have found in our own searches. The crimson one seems to rest at every dawn.”
Hyam could feel his heart beating. He felt his feet standing in Elven boots upon ancient flagstones. He felt his hands leaning upon the map stretched across the central table, which was little more than a giant slab of black rock supported by two other slabs. He could hear Bayard muttering to Fuca, who growled an impatient reply. He sensed Joelle and Trace joined to one orb, standing guard over Falmouth Port. Edlyn and her mages were connected through the other, all of them reaching out, following his senses, hovering at the Emporis outskirts. He knew all this, but from a vast distance. For his entire being was swamped with one sensation above all else.
“There is a juncture of rivers beneath the city,” Hyam declared.
“What is he going on about?” Bayard demanded.
The Mistress of the hidden orb showed a rare impatience. “You will hush and you will be still. You are witnessing a feat that has not been seen in a thousand years. You are watching a man do what was considered the dominion of the ancients. Now if you must breathe, do so in total silence!”
In the shocked stillness that followed, Edlyn asked, “How many rivers join there, Hyam?”
“Four.”
“Can you follow them?”
“I think . . . Yes.”
“Do you want me to map them?”
He hesitated, then said, “No, you need to stay on guard.”
“Can you remember them all?”
“I don’t need to,” he realized. And with a slender finger of his attention, he began to trace the lines on the map. Corresponding to the rivers he followed far underground.
The clansman saw the lines appear on the map and muttered, “What manner of sorcery is this?”
Edlyn hissed for silence. But their chatter did not stop, nor did it matter. Hyam found the murmuring to be of no consequence. He raced down one line of power after another, charting their course as he did so.
Then it happened.
The alarm was unmistakable. The rage slammed into his distant awareness, a wash that threatened to strip him from his body. “The enemy has discovered me!”
Even before the words were fully formed, the attack began. A wave of crimson-flecked fury assaulted the castle. The rocks upon which Falmouth stood groaned and shook. The chamber vibrated from the echo of an inhuman roar.
Edlyn shrieked, “Strike!”
She and her mages sent wave after wave of force directed at the gates of Emporis. North and south portals were struck simultaneously. Trace began shouting words at Joelle that Hyam did not need to hear, joining their strength into a unified barrier intended to keep the crimson mage at bay. The two diversions worked, for their foe’s attention was drawn away from Hyam’s quest.
Mistress Edlyn called, “It is time, Hyam!”
“One moment.” His own work was not done. His quest was not complete. He needed—
“He is after me!” Joelle’s cry was wrenching.
“Hyam, retreat!”
“I’m not—”
Trace showed panic for the very first time. “Now, lad. Now!”
He flew back, the distance covered in a single long intake of breath. “I’m back.”
The stone chamber shuddered and vibrated. Lines of heated ferocity stabbed the perimeter. Lightning blasted overhead. The rocks of Falmouth groaned in distress.
Then nothing.
“Bayard, sire, go check for damages and comfort your citizens,” Edlyn said shakily.
“What just happened?” the earl asked weakly.
“In time, sire. In time. Go. Your people need you.”
The two warriors departed, chastened and dazed. Edlyn asked the others, “Everyone is safe?”
When they confirmed, she left the room, only to return and announce, “No injuries among my wizards, save for a few shaken egos.”
Hyam stepped to the map, where he was joined by the other three. The chart was now laced with orange lines that formed a diamond pattern across the entire expanse.
But there was no triumph to the achievement. For the lone location where the four broad rivers joined together lay directly beneath their enemy’s lair.
The next best alternative within reach was three rivers. Two of which were less than half the width of those flowing beneath Emporis. This juncture lay beneath the ridge holding the pines.
“We do not know if he can tap into that power,” Trace said, leaning in beside him.
“If he did, why would he need to sap the life force of vanquished armies?” Edlyn agreed, squinting worriedly at the chart.
Hyam stretched his exhausted frame. “You are willing to risk the battle’s outcome on such a chance as that?”
Trace tugged on his beard. “What alternative do we have?”
None was probably the only answer. Hyam started for the door.
“Where are you off to, lad?”
“Rest first,” he replied. “Then food.”
“The earl will want your report,” Edlyn said.
“Soon,” he said. “First there is one more task we need to do.”
45
Hyam rested for an hour, long enough to regain both strength and clarity. But the sense of vulnerability that always resulted from his mage-work remained, and Trace noticed. They met in the palace’s vast kitchen, where a cook fed them fresh-baked bread and platters of cheese and fruit.
Trace observed him with a fretful eye. “You are wounded.”
“I am fine.”
“You are not fine. You’re drawn as thin as parchment by your forays.” He turned to where Edlyn sipped tea from a heavy ceramic mug. “Hyam uses no known spells.”
“How could he do otherwise,” Edlyn replied, “since no one has attempted what he has just achieved.”
“He uses no known spells,
” Trace repeated. “You must know the risk this carries.”
“We have no choice,” Hyam replied.
Still Trace persisted, “Spells are built with two aims in mind. First, they harness the orb’s force and channel it in a particular direction. Second, they protect the mage from being overwhelmed by this very same power.”
“It’s not the orb that has power,” Hyam replied, “but the earth.”
“This power,” Trace stubbornly continued, “has the potential of frying the mage from the inside out. I have seen this happen. Once. I never—”
“Stop,” Joelle said. “Just stop.”
Hyam pushed his plate aside. He had any number of responses. How there were no useful spells because the Long Hall mages kept themselves locked away from the world’s needs. How his every deed represented a move into uncharted territory. But he could see how distressed Joelle was, so he simply replied, “So far, the only risk I’ve run is wearing myself out.”
“Which for all we know is the first warning sign—”
“Trace. Enough.” This time it was Edlyn who spoke.
“But—”
“Your affection for the young man is touching. But it blinds you to the simple fact that we have no choice. Now hush. You are upsetting Joelle, and your words change nothing.”
Hyam found an odd comfort in the tension that enveloped the others. They spoke as they did because they cared for him. He was part of a group who held power, and yet did so with the compassionate ease of those who were not defined by it. If anything, they treated it as a source of responsibility. A reason to reach beyond themselves and care for others.
“I fear I may be Milantian,” he confessed. “At least partly.”
His words drew them all around. Hyam related the conversation with the Mistress of the Three Valleys Long Hall, his ability with the Milantian tongue, and how not even the Ashanta Seer could determine his heritage.
To his surprise, none seemed particularly disturbed by his admission. Edlyn was the first to speak. “It would explain much.”
“Such as how his abilities do not fit any known type of mage,” Trace agreed.
“You’re forgetting that Milantians have been under a death decree for ten centuries,” Hyam pointed out.
“I forget nothing,” Edlyn replied.
“They are safe from no one,” Hyam went on. “They are the scattered people. If any survive at all.”
“You’re as bad as the old man,” Edlyn scoffed. “The pair of you, fretting over what you can’t control.”
“As if we didn’t have enough to worry about,” Joelle agreed.
“The lad has a point. No mage or scholar can speak more than a few words,” Trace insisted. “I spoke with the Three Valleys Mistress about this very point. Her Long Hall possessed a library full of Milantian scrolls, all of which Hyam gobbled up in a single winter. No one could find any record of a child gifted in the forbidden tongue. So they hid you the only way possible.”
“By forbidding me to speak it again,” Hyam recalled. “And forcing me to learn Elven.”
“None of this changes a thing,” Edlyn said.
“I want to know who I am,” Hyam insisted.
“Of course you do. And I want roses to bloom in mid-winter.” Edlyn smiled at him. “My dear, you have the right to define yourself and your destiny. You have gifts, you have talents, and you have this day to hone both. If you succeed, you just might aid us in saving the realm. In such times as this, who could ask for more?”
They left the castle keep at the strike of noon. The war council was delayed at Hyam’s request. The earl and the clan leader accompanied him, as did Trace and Joelle and Edlyn and Adler and Meda and twenty men-at-arms and half a dozen wizards. Hyam had not insisted upon their coming. Any venture beyond the castle keep carried grave risks. The crimson rider knew where they were, and he knew what they intended. But this final task had to be done. Hyam had to do it. He thought it would be good for the others to accompany him, but it was a hunch, and he loathed the idea of risking other people’s lives on a guess. So he had confessed his uncertainty and made his request. And they had come.
They took the main road through the village that had grown beyond the city walls. Merchants who had once led caravans clustered here, building corrals for their animals and hiring displaced clansmen to guard the wares piled under canvas tarps. The animals were unlike any Hyam had ever seen, placid desert beasts who watched their passage with limpid gazes. Clans that had spent generations in blood feuds now formed makeshift communities that extended over what formerly had been pastures. Inns built around a trio of hot springs sprouted new wings of tents and thatch. As they passed, many of the commoners knelt in the muck. Soldiers saluted with raised spears. A trio of crossbowmen demanded to know when they were going to take down the crimson monster. Bayard responded to one and all by raising a mailed fist. Fuca gave no sign he saw or heard anything.
The forest had been cut back by the newcomers’ growing need for shelter and firewood. They passed through a broad swath of stumps before Hyam signaled for them to halt. “We go on by foot. Just the eight of us.”
“Sire,” the chief man-at-arms protested.
“Do as he says,” Bayard commanded. “Hyam, how long will we be?”
“I have no idea. Only that we must hurry.”
“Wait for us,” Bayard ordered, and slipped from his horse.
Mistress Edlyn ordered her senior wizard, “Spread out. Bind to the orb. Stay alert.”
The mage disliked his orders as much as the sergeant. “And you, Mistress?”
“We are counting on you to keep us safe.”
They entered the forest. Ten paces, twenty. Bayard moved up alongside Hyam. “Will you not tell us now why we are here?”
“Soon.”
“Why not now?”
“Because you will not believe me.”
Fuca snorted, but softly, for he remained bemused by the morning’s events. “This forest is tame. We would not even find game this close to the city.”
Hyam turned to where Adler and Meda checked their perimeter. “Anything?”
“We are alone, sire.”
He asked Joelle, “Is Bryna with us?”
“As you requested, she has come.”
Bayard demanded, “Who?”
“All right. Stand back.” Hyam stepped forward alone. Facing into just another thicket. He lifted the chain from around his neck, took hold of the crystal whistle, fitted it to his lips, and blew.
There was no sound. No motion. Not even a breath of wind.
Hyam blew a second time. A third.
Then a green warrior stepped from the thicket and said, “Once is enough, Emissary. And it was expected that you would come alone.”
They walked the long lane of interlinked trees in awed silence. Six Elven archers walked before them, six behind. Hyam thought his company took the news rather well, that a race thought dead and buried for ten centuries still thrived.
King Darwain and his elders awaited them in front of the great stone watchers. The massive gates leading to the Elven realm were shut and guarded by a company of archers and another of men-at-arms.
Darwain greeted them in the human tongue, which until that moment Hyam did not even know he spoke. “Our safety depends upon secrets we have guarded for a thousand years.”
Hyam bowed his apology and said, “The crimson rider prepares for an assault upon the realm.”
The elders trembled like saplings attacked by a sudden wind. Darwain replied, “I understand your concerns. But my reservations still stand.”
“I have a plan,” Hyam said. “But it will only work if we unite.”
The Elven king started to protest once more, but his queen said, “Hear what he has to say, my husband.”
He nodded slowly. “Speak, then.”
“This is Darwain, King of the Elves. Your Majesty, may I introduce Bayard, Earl of Falmouth.”
“Your exploits are known to us.” Darwai
n lifted a gloved and bejeweled hand. “I salute the leader of the Oberons and the realm’s rightful king.”
Bayard was so stunned he probably did not realize he wept. “You speak words I never thought I would hear, Your Majesty.”
“May they soon be uttered by the entire realm. Who are your companions?”
“Fuca is leader of the badland clans and one of the fiercest fighters I have ever known.” When the battle-hardened chief seemed too dumbstruck to respond, Bayard went on, “Mistress Edlyn is keeper of the hidden orb of Falmouth, and in her own sweet way she matches Fuca for ferocity.”
“Shame on you, my lord,” she said, then curtseyed deep. “My childhood dreams have been fulfilled this hour, Highness.”
“We have long suspected the orb’s presence, and until this day would have counted it as a crime against our future.” The king glanced at his queen, who nodded gravely. “Now I suppose we must take whatever strength we can, wherever it might be found.”
Hyam took that as the best sign he could have hoped for. “Majesty, may I introduce my companions and the leaders of my own small force, Adler and Meda.”
“I thought these false rulers had refused the right of women to bear arms.”
Both soldiers dropped to one knee, and Meda said, “They have, Majesty. It is a mystery we have yet to understand.”
“The reason is simple enough.” It was the queen who responded. “Women fighters are more sensitive to both observing and using magic. The crimson one seeks to cripple the humans before the battle is waged.”
“Master Trace is former leader of the Havering Long Hall,” Hyam said. “And the Lady Joelle is my trusted companion and link to the Ashanta.” He took a long breath, then added, “Majesty, they are with us now.”
“What? Here?”
“In the person of one unseen companion, my oldest friend among the Ashanta. Bryna is her name.”
“She wishes to address you, Majesty,” Joelle said solemnly.
The king pondered the earth at his feet for a time. Then, “The Ashanta may speak.”
“Bryna asks if she might be joined by the leader of all Ashanta.”
When the king did not reply, his queen said for him, “Permission granted.”