by Thomas Locke
Gingerly he descended the icy stairs and pounded upon the door at the tower’s base. “Officer of the watch!” Though he shouted, the wind snatched the words away. He could hear nothing, so he pushed open the door and entered the tower’s lower chamber. “Begging your pardon, my lady.”
Captain Meda had been knighted by the earl following the Battle of Emporis. She had a well-earned reputation as a fierce brawler with a fiery temper. She sprawled on the cot, her weapons heaped upon the watch-table. All but the long knife in her hand. “What is it?”
“Thought I saw something, ma’am.”
“Either you saw or you didn’t. That’s your duty. Not to think. Try again.”
“A lone stranger. He stood at the point where the Emporis road meets the smithy’s stables. Watched us for a good long time.”
Meda swung her feet to the floor. “Is he there now?”
“No, my lady. He turned away.” He fidgeted, fearing a good old lashing for what sounded feeble now, here in the warmth and safety of the officer’s ready room.
But Meda seemed to find nothing wrong in his report. “No one else noticed?”
“I was the lone guard by the west tower. The gate is sealed, and the storm . . .” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was nothing, Captain.”
“Your name. Corporal Alembord, is it not? Recently arrived from . . .”
“Havering. Yes, ma’am. With the last ship.”
“Just in time for winter.” She offered a tight smile, meant to reassure. “Now tell me why you felt this deserved my attention.”
“Something about the man made me clench up tight as a fist. And . . .”
“Go on, Corporal. Speak your mind.”
“The cloak he wore wasn’t touched by the wind. He stood facing straight into the storm, but the cowl that covered his head—” Alembord halted as the captain leapt from the bed. The snarl on her face caused him to take an involuntary step backward, ramming into the door.
“What was the cloak’s color?”
“Couldn’t say, Captain. Not in this storm. The torches lining the road were all doused. All I could see was his silhouette.”
She reached for the scabbard and belted it to her waist. “Where did he go?”
“Down the side lane.” This time, when the snarl reappeared, he knew he was right to have come. “Toward the emissary’s home.”
“Twenty men, Corporal. Armed and in the forecourt. Three minutes.” She flung open the door. “Who is the wizard on duty?”
“Wizard? Ma’am, we’re ordered to have nothing to do with that lot down in the palace cellars—”
His words were cut off by a blast that dwarfed the storm and shook the palace. Alembord and the captain were both flung onto the flagstones.
Meda scrambled to her feet and leapt through the door. “Alarm! Sound the alarm!”
Alembord forced his limbs to obey his addled brain. He struggled into the palace forecourt and used his sword’s pommel to pound the brass gong. Another blast ripped the darkness, illuminating the troops who scrambled and slithered across the icy stones. Alembord managed to hold to his feet, though he quailed at the sight of sleet turned to flying rubies by the illumination. He rang the alarm and wondered at the sight of lightning that seemed red as the dawn he feared would never come.
The road leading to the forest was empty, which was hardly a surprise, for it meandered past frozen corrals and empty stables and unoccupied hovels. When the crimson mage of Emporis had been defeated a year and a half earlier, the wild border clans had returned to their valley fiefdoms, but only after swearing fealty to Bayard, Earl of Oberon and Lord of Falmouth Port. Some claimed Bayard was also the rightful king of all the realm. But they did so softly, even here in the heart of Oberon’s land, for throughout the rest of the human realm, such words carried a death sentence.
The traveler stopped a second time where the emissary’s grove met the lane. This would hardly be cause for notice, were it not for the hour and the storm. All the city’s dwellers paused here from time to time. Many made it a destination when courting or simply filling an idle hour. Legends were recounted here, about green-skinned people that emerged from the forest and secretly planted the trees. About battles that ravaged the land with forces not seen for over a thousand years. About the man who dwelled in the unseen house within the supernatural glade. None denied the fact that magic had been applied, even though the obscure sciences were officially forbidden throughout the realm. But here, in this place, the power of enchantment rose in silent defiance to all such human laws.
Between the emissary’s grove and the western forest stretched a vast expanse of stumps and knee-high new growth. Over the previous decade, the woodland had been cut back three hundred paces by the refugees. Clansmen who had managed to escape the crimson rider’s wrath had cut the forest to make corral fences and crude huts. The emissary’s grove had been planted just seventeen months earlier, the same season when the badland refugees returned to their vales and sought to rebuild their lives. Yet the glade that began where the traveler stood was already tall as the city gates, with trunks thick as a warrior’s girth. Some who stopped here claimed they could actually hear the trees grow. On this night, however, the only sounds were the shrieking wind, a distant shutter pounding against an empty window, and ice cracking on tree limbs as they danced.
A narrow lane of white stones weaved through the emissary’s grove. The stones were another marvel, as none had ever seen the like before. Some claimed they were a gift from the Ashanta, a telepathic race few had ever seen. The Ashanta were said to fashion their fabled cities from these very same stones, which led to much conjecture over what it meant, being laid as a path through a glade all knew to be enchanted. The softly glowing lane curved twice as it passed through the trees, so that the emissary’s home and its surrounding gardens remained unseen.
The stranger stood there for a time, long enough for anyone else to freeze solid. Yet he seemed as untouched by the tempest as the emissary’s glade. The tall trees blocking the stranger from the home moved less than the traveler’s cloak. Were it possible, it might have seemed that the trees watched him intently. Waiting to see what he might do next.
The traveler started forward.
Instantly the trees bowed inward, lacing their branches together.
The traveler backed away. The trees now blocked the lane within a shield of bare winter limbs, woven tight as a wicker wall.
The traveler snarled a curse and opened his cloak. Attached to his belt in the same manner that another might carry a sword was a wand carved with a multitude of symbols and topped by a glass orb the size of a thumbnail.
The wizard raised the wand above his head, aimed the tiny orb at the glade, and droned a few words, enough to light the orb and the woven limbs with a crimson fire.
The branches trembled as the force sought to wrench them apart. But the trees revealed their own power as they resisted the command and the blast and the shaking of the earth. Instead, when the tremors and the fierce red lightning ended, the remaining trees drew together more tightly still.
The wizard roared a spell with such fury his words emerged in a writhing spew of fire. The verbal onslaught joined with the orb, which burned now with a blinding ruby light. Such power could not be contained, and crackled and hissed through the air before blasting into the grove. The earth shook more violently still with the second spell’s power.
The first line of trees was demolished. The sleet was tainted by the bitter taste of magical ash. Not even the stumps remained. The nearest empty hovels were also flattened by the backlash.
But beyond this new wasteland rose more trees, and beyond them more still. Thirty paces deep the grove stretched, every tree now a living guardian. Intent upon sacrificing life for duty.
Again the wizard raged his volcanic spell. Again the lightning blasted. Another line of trees was reduced to flames that hissed and vanished.
The wizard started to unleash another detonation. Then he real
ized that the glade was now on the move.
Trees to his left and right ripped their roots free of the frozen earth. They moved with the sullen grace of ancients. The earth shivered from the impact of their gnarled limbs striking the frozen ground. They encircled the spot where the traveler stood, closing off his escape.
Then they started in. Now they were the ones on attack.
The wizard lifted his wand high over his head. He shouted words not heard in a thousand years. The tempest plucked at him, stripping the cloak from his body, and then the flesh from his bones.
The wizard and his wand were reduced to crimson flecks. The sentinel trees swatted at the swirling mist, but they might as well have sought to halt the sleet.
In an instant the wizard was gone.
The sentinel trees remained as they were for a time. But when shouts arose from where the forest lane joined the highway, they clumped and they marched and they rejoined the glade.
When the first grey glimmer of daylight forced its way through the tempest, the human soldiers and palace courtiers who gathered by the emissary’s white-stone lane could find no sign of anything amiss. Even the ash was gone.
2
Two days later, there was nothing to show for the ferocities that had struck at Falmouth’s boundary save the demolished huts, and that damage could have been done by the storm. Hyam and his wife walked beneath a benevolent sky. The light was still strengthening, and the morning was already springtime warm. The trees dripped a noisy pattern as the couple left the glade and turned toward the port.
As they arrived at the main route leading to the city gates, they joined an impatient throng. Farmers and merchants alike jostled and cried and shoved, as was always the case on market days. Joelle greeted the woman who supplied them with farm-fresh cheese as she and her daughters shooed a flock of squawking geese. The prime spots around the city’s main squares would be taken within the hour.
Ahead of them, the city rose like the onyx crown of some forbidden warrior race. Falmouth was fashioned from the black rocks upon which it stood. Where some might find the unbroken dark stone forbidding, Hyam thought it held a timeless grace. Beyond the outer walls stretched the narrow lanes that were home to some fifty thousand souls. At the city’s heart stood the inner keep, rimmed by broad plazas and fountains, where stood the homes of courtiers and the richest merchants. Beyond that was the ancient second wall, high and so narrow at its crest that guards had to sidle past one another. Since the battle vanquishing the crimson mage of Emporis, the guards remained on constant vigilance.
The palace itself sprouted eleven towers. Since the Battle of Emporis, they were crowned by the banners of those first badland clans who had come to the aid of the Oberons. All of these clan names were officially banned by the king who now possessed the throne in Port Royal. But what the king felt about the earl’s defiance no one knew, for the ruler had not been seen since the crimson foe’s defeat. Today the standards hung limp and easy in the windless dawn, as though promising a calm to all who dared call Falmouth home.
The palace’s central structure was domed, the only such edifice Hyam had ever known. Beneath the dome resided the banquet hall, whose ceilings bore paintings over a thousand years old. The pictures remained vivid because the city’s mages kept them so. They recalled dark times and heroic deeds and the joining of races so that the realm might survive to fight another day.
Hyam’s wife saluted the guards on duty by the moat bridge. Joelle was not one of them, but she trained with sword and knife as often as her magical duties permitted. She liked the company of soldiers, particularly the women who had flocked to the earl’s banner. The king in Port Royal had forbidden all female soldiers from serving within the realm’s borders. The Earl of Oberon openly defied this ban, sending word throughout the kingdom that all troops who sought to serve beneath the ancient banners were welcome, men and women alike. Joelle was happiest on the days she could slip away from the stone-lined caverns where the magicians practiced their arts, and join the earl’s company in the brash and noisy training ground. They knew her abilities and her role in the Battle of Emporis. They made her welcome. This brought her untold joy. Before her arrival in Falmouth, Joelle had never belonged anywhere.
Captain Meda lolled by the outer moat, a position she had maintained for most of her duty hours since the assault on the glade. Her shield and battle sword leaned against the bridge support. Few women felt comfortable wielding a full-sized blade. But Meda was as seasoned as she was tough, one of the first officers hired by Hyam and a veteran of many battles. She studied the passing crowds with a gaze seamed by years of sun and harsh climes and greeted the couple with, “Where is Dama?”
“Guarding the house,” Hyam said.
“You should let her accompany you,” Meda said, her eyes never still. “I’ve never known a better beast for sniffing out danger.”
Hyam indicated a trio of lowing calves being forced through the gates. “A wolfhound has no place in Falmouth on market days.”
Meda asked, “Any sign of your attacker’s return?”
“None.” Hyam did not say what he thought, which was, his first alert of the assault had been Meda pounding on their front door.
Joelle replied, “The Elves confirmed there was an attack.”
Hyam stared at his wife. “When was this?”
“At dusk yesterday, late in the night, and again before today’s dawn. They said some of their sentinel trees had been lost.”
“Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“How often have you avoided any mention I make of the Elves or their requests for us to join them? They have waited seventeen months, and still you will not agree to a feast day. I am as tired of making excuses for why you will not meet them as they are of asking.”
Meda demanded, “What did the forest folk do this time?”
“Three times they sang to the trees that bordered the lane. They searched the ground for sign.” Joelle touched the sword’s hilt rising above her right shoulder. “They urged me to carry the Milantian blade.”
“I should be told of such events,” Hyam groused.
Joelle rolled her eyes, and Meda asked her, “Will I see you on the training grounds today?”
“If Master Trace gives me time to breathe.” She tugged on Hyam’s hand. “I’m already late.”
They did not speak again until they arrived at the inner keep’s main portal. Hyam knew Joelle was readying herself for an argument, so he merely asked, “Tonight at dusk?”
“I may be late, and you may not walk back alone.”
“We’ve been through this already.”
“But you did not agree.” When he tried to turn away, she called, “Hyam!”
“Yes. All right. I’ll wait for you.”
“And you must let me tell the Elves you will come.”
“Soon.”
“Today!”
He hugged her, their love a flame that sustained him. Then he turned and walked away. When she called after him, he sketched a wave and kept going. He had no secrets from Joelle. But there was nothing to be gained from explaining again why he avoided the Elves. To be feted by the forest folk meant Hyam would drown in sorrow and remorse yet again. The hours would be made endless by how everyone else sang and danced and celebrated. Hyam suspected the Elves knew this, and honored him by not either pressing or taking offense.
Hyam could not claim the Battle of Emporis had cost him everything. Not when he shared a fine home with the loveliest woman he had ever known. Not when he lived surrounded by friends and was saluted by every warrior in the earl’s fief. But some nights he was engulfed by pain so bitter and intense he half wished he had never known magic at all.
The battle had seared away his arcane talents and shattered his orb of power. The losses left him bereft in a manner that none could see and only a handful even comprehend. He lived half a life and struggled daily to convince himself that he could still know joy. Even if his wounds left him cripple
d.
Hyam rounded the stanchion that anchored the high palace wall and exchanged salutes with a city patrol. To the citizens of Falmouth, he was the reason they lived and walked in safety. He was the victor of Emporis. He now served as adviser to the earl, though he seldom attended the council meetings and never spoke when he did. He was the subject of minstrel tunes, his triumph carried in secret songs that were played throughout the realm. Hyam never discussed how much he yearned for what he had lost, how much he ached. But Joelle knew he seldom slept well. She sensed his yearning for powers and days he would never know again. And she thanked him in her own silent way for how he struggled to look beyond his loss and be happy with all that was still his to claim.
It came to Hyam like a scent carried on a war-torn wind. But there was not the hint of a breeze within the city walls. Nor did he actually smell anything. But he knew it nonetheless, the electric potency of a spell not yet cast, the latent power he had last known when handling an orb the size of an infant’s skull. But the crystal globe had been smashed in Emporis, when it struck the enemy’s own orb and obliterated the citadel. Hyam had never thought he would taste that sweet pulsing thrill again. He had held the Falmouth orb and been worked over by healing mages countless times. All to no avail. He had almost forgotten how tantalizing the flavor really was.
He ran, stalking the scent like a ravenous wolf.
The crowds thinned as he rounded the keep’s eastern side. The squares were smaller here, but also more elegant. Scattered about these neighborhoods were parks ringed with fruit trees and spacious manors. To his astonishment, the magical lure drew him to the house where he had been working for over a year.
Fronting a tree-lined park was a square house, smaller than some, with the Oberon crest adorning the front portal. Despite the dark stone façade and the sense that this home was as old as the city itself, the place held a warmth and peace that had always appealed to Hyam. Even now, when his belly quivered with a hunger he feared would never again be his to claim.