Blakstar pointed with his free hand. “Custom dictates that a second banner should be raised on each tower,” he said slowly, “when a member of another order visits, for your order.”
“How would they know I’m here?” Thal asked.
“You stayed in the hut with me,” Blakstar replied, “whenever anyone stays there, a signal sounds in the city, indicating who is staying in the hut and will enter the city; preparations follow. All the kortexem, their wives, all the students, come down to the gate to greet the returning kortexi along with whoever comes with him.” He twisted his lance, making the leather creak. “Also, there should be a third banner that indicates my successful return from the Mountain.”
Thal suddenly felt cold. “I think,” he began, “we would be wise to turn our mounts around and ride away: this place suddenly looks and feels like a crypt.”
A fanfare of trumpets blared suddenly, and two new banners were raised on each tower above the gate: one pair, one of these on each tower, bearing the symbol of Thal’s order, exact copies of the iron symbol hanging around the white maghi’s neck, and the second pair, again, one on each tower, a symbol of a flat-topped, rectangular mountain.
Blakstar shook his reins and started forward, sitting straighter in his saddle; Thal was caught off-guard and had to kick his heels into his mare to catch up.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Thal whispered to his companion after he caught up.
“Sit up straight,” Blakstar hissed out of the side of his mouth, “we are now committed.”
Thal grumbled but imitated his companion’s stiff posture; he made sure his rod was visible and loose; he prepared his mind to scan the crowd, even as he prepared mental and teka defenses.
As they climbed the last slope before the gates, the trumpets blared a second time and a contingent of kortexem in full armor, marched out of the gates, spread out in front of it, turned and lowered their lances to bar passage. The trumpets fell silent.
A voice boomed from somewhere inside the tunnel of the gate: “Who desires to enter Karble?”
Blakstar halted his mount and raised his visor and locked it open; Thal pulled up beside him, lowering his hood. “It is I,” he replied, “Sir Blakstar eli kerdu ghebi” he said without stumbling over the words, but a hissing of whispers went through those inside the gate, “newly returned from the Mountain.”
“Who comes with you?” the voice demanded.
Blakstar nodded to Thal, indicating that he should answer.
“It is I,” he said, clearing his throat, “Thalamar, son of Kalamar, white maghi of Melbarth.” He looked at Blakstar, who nodded.
“Be welcome,” the voice boomed, “Sir Blakstar, Thalamar, son of Kalamar, and find rest within these walls.”
The kortexem barring the gate withdrew their lances, turned and stepped back a pace, then held up their right hands, palm out.
The two young wethem shook their reins; their horses walked slowly through the tunnel, hooves echoing sharply; the contingent of kortexem followed them in. The gate ground shut behind them, plunging them into momentary darkness, forcing them to stop; they were surrounded by a hollow silence, broken after several slow moments by a loud creaking that made them flinch. The inner gates slowly opened, returning the pink light of dawn that had just reached the walls of the city. Thal’s mind scanned those lining the tunnel, sensing only curiosity concerning them, particularly the name and banner. They passed through the inner gates and entered a wide courtyard lined with many people: kortexem dressed in full armor, ladies clad in colorful dresses waving silk handkerchiefs, and many young wethem wearing brown tunics and hose with white surcoats. Beyond these people there were others that must have been craftsman, tradesman, and merchants who worked and traded in Karble. At the center of this large courtyard half-a-dozen mounted kortexem bearing lances with banners waited; a single kortexi rode from behind Blakstar and Thal and to their right, turning his mount and halting in front of the six who waited. Behind the two companions, the six kortexem in the gate tunnel marched out and mounted their steeds, held by young wethem in brown and white just inside the gate. Blakstar and Thal halted, and while they waited, Thal let his mind scan the people in the courtyard; he noticed more curiosity, but now he also detected hostile thoughts, and his eyes fell on persons among the kortexem, the craftsman, and the young wethem in brown and white, students, he realized. The inner gate clanged shut, sealing them in, and again, Thal felt cold. His mind brushed across their escort, and he stopped on the kortexi leading it. There was something odd about him, but before he could probe deeper, he felt that familiar brush on his own mind and pulled back his probing mental fingers, erecting a mental shield around himself and his companion.
“We are surrounded by enemies,” Thal whispered to Blakstar, “including a mentalic.”
Blakstar barely moved his head in response, as the leader of their escort had turned to face them.
“We will lead you forward,” he said, the same voice as they had first heard.
“We are in your hands,” Blakstar replied ritually, inclining his head.
Blakstar pulled off his helm and hooked it over the pommel of his saddle, then shook his reins and followed the escort out of the courtyard and into the heart of the city. The main road was lined with people, both at the street level and in the windows above. Blakstar smiled and waved stiffly as they rode forward; Thal simply smiled, carefully scanning those they were passing while prepared to draw back his light probes at an instant, and because his mental fingers were so light, he learned almost nothing. He desperately wanted to probe the leader of their escort but did not dare; he knew their escort leader was not a mentalic himself, but whoever had altered his mind had set up a net to catch any probing. He wished Klaybear or Klare were still with them, so that one could probe while the other held off the mentalic who had tampered with their escort. Their mounts’ hooves clattered loudly as they trotted down the wide stone street.
“Is it improper to talk?” Thal asked out of the side of his mouth.
“No,” Blakstar replied, still smiling and waving to everyone. “The procession is usually more relaxed than this; sometimes it takes until noon to travel the distance that we will cover in minutes.” He turned toward someone he obviously knew, waving and smiling with less formality. “Are you finding anything out?” he asked a moment later.
“Not much,” Thal replied, “beyond curiosity and hostility; the kortexi leading our escort, however, has been tampered with, but I do not dare probe further.”
“Because of the other mentalic?” Blakstar asked.
Thal nodded. “There is a mental net around his mind that signals whoever put it in place whenever any other mentalic probes the mind of our escort. By the way, do you know him?”
“Who?” Blakstar asked.
“Our escort,” Thal said.
“Yes, he is Sir Fregren,” Blakstar replied, “second-in-command to the Wesento, my master.”
“What do you know of him?” Thal asked.
“Not much, really,” Blakstar admitted. “He rose to his current position recently and quite quickly.”
Thal turned to look at his companion, who was still waving and smiling. “Tell me about it.”
“Last summer tidings came that he had been taken and killed, which caused a stir as he had been well-liked. A little over a month ago he showed up, with prisoners who were shortly executed for their crimes, along with several kortexem that he uncovered as part of a plot against the Wesento. He then became second-in-command.”
“Let me guess,” Thal put in, “the former second was one of those executed?”
Blakstar nodded once, waving to someone else he knew.
“I’m surprised he’s not the Wesento,” he muttered to himself.
“My master is too strong and well-loved by all here,” Blakstar noted.
“Shigmar, Blakstar,” Thal said, “remember Shigmar.”
Blakstar nodded. “Taking prisoners is not unhear
d of,” he added, “bringing them back to Karble is.”
They passed into a larger, park-like area before another wall and set of gates that led into the main courtyard of the citadel, the home of the kortexi order. Thal looked to his right and saw another mounted group riding through the park on a road that intersected the main road. He made a slight sound with his mouth that caught Blakstar’s attention, drawing his eyes to the mounted group. Blakstar nodded to his left, and Thal saw a second group riding from that direction.
“What’s this?” Thal asked.
Blakstar’s brow wrinkled. “There is a ritual challenge to combat issued at the entrance to the school, but . . . ,” he left the sentence unfinished.
Thal looked at him and then looked at the two groups of mounted kortexem approaching. “This looks to be more than a ritual challenge,” he finished.
The two groups met in front of Blakstar’s escort, turning to block the road into the citadel; their escort, Fregren, holding up one hand, halted them.
“Why are you here,” Fregren asked, “blocking our way in?”
One of them rode forward. “Who is this upstart?” he asked, gesticulating with his lance. “Who does he think he is, coming here, bearing the devices and symbols of the first and greatest of our order? What gives him, who is unproven, the right to such insolence?” He finished and hurled his lance to the ground between them.
Fregren turned in his saddle to Blakstar. “What say you, Sir Blakstar?”
Blakstar rode forward; all eyes followed him and silence surrounded them. “Because, Sir,” he said, “they are the armor and devices of Sir Karble.” The silence was broken by an irritated rumble of voices; Blakstar took the special flask from his belt and held it up. “This is the Vessel of Life,” he said, and the kortexem gasped in disbelief, “and this,” he replaced the flask and drew his sword with a steely hiss and a flash of golden flames, “is the sword of Karble, will-giver, all of which were given to me by the Keeper himself on the Mountain of Vision.”
Thal noticed that, although the sun had risen, all around them the light had dimmed while Blakstar and the sword seemed to be surrounded by golden light. Nearly all the kortexem around them were awestruck, except for Fregren, the speaker of the challenge, and several close to him.
“How do we know that is really what you claim?” the challenger asked.
“Are you a fool?” one of the others said. “Look at him? Have your eyes gone blind?”
“I am neither blind, nor fool,” he replied. “I want proof. Let us examine this so-called sword of Karble.”
There were nods of agreement. “I’d just like to hold it once, although I already believe him,” said the kortexi who had spoken second.
Thal laughed out loud at this, which broke the spell and caused them all to look at him. “A group of soldiers took the sword from him just last week,” Thal noted, “granted, it was sheathed when they took it from him, but when their captain decided to unsheathe what he believed to be his new blade, every soldier in the entire barracks was consumed by fire. We found them later on, or I should say, we found their skeletons, twisted and contorted, as if they all died in great pain.” He smiled at their stunned looks. “Anyone still want to examine Sir Blakstar’s sword?” he asked.
Mounts jostled one another as most of their riders tried to back away; the challenger clapped his hands. “Nice story, but I still want proof.”
Thal shrugged. “Fine, I hope you’ve made funeral arrangements.” He turned to Blakstar. “Take your sword out there,” he pointed, “where the two roads meet, and stick it point down between the stones: that will give any who desires it, the opportunity to see for himself, especially the words inscribed into the hilt guard. That should be sufficient proof for our doubters.”
Blakstar threw Thal a questioning look; Thal smiled widely in return. Blakstar dismounted and moved to the spot indicated but came to a sudden halt. He looked back at Thal, face surprised; Thal smiled in return.
“Something wrong?” the challenger asked.
Blakstar did not reply; instead, he reversed his sword and slid the point into the road. The millennia of dirt compacted in the opening melted away, and will-giver slid easily into it, but the sword stopped suddenly. Blakstar grasped the hilt guard with both hands and pushed down; the sword went in another three inches, and Thal heard a subterranean clunk that shook all present to their very cores, sounding like boulders struck together. Golden light flashed from the sword up and down the roads in all four directions followed by a wave of force emanating from the sword; the ground buckled and heaved once, nearly casting all of them from their feet. The horses stamped and whinnied restlessly; Thal had to whisper to his mare to keep her from bolting. He slipped off her back as the rumble of the ground moved away from them, and they heard the surprised shouts in the distance. The sound of grinding stone surrounded them; the grass on either side of all four roads bulged. The kortexem all reached for and drew their swords.
“What have you done to us!” the challenger shouted.
“Hold!” Thal shouted. “This teka does not threaten you: Look!”
The grassy bulges split, and huge, white-marble shapes began to emerge, round on top, and they soon realized that they were heads, followed by shoulders, arms and chests, torsos, hips, legs, feet, and the pedestals. Each statue was over twenty feet high with three statues on either side of the road between the gate and the crossroads, and two on either side before the crossroads. At the crossroads, four curved columns of black marble grew together to form a four-sided arch over the crossroads, and when these four met, there was another flash of white light, followed by a shower of sparks. At the apex of this arch was another, smaller statue of the same black marble that was very difficult to see even in bright sunlight.
A murmuring broke out among the kortexem as they looked at the statues revealed. The three on the left were recognizable as, starting with the closest to the gate, Karble himself, Shigmar, and Melbarth; the three on the right caused the murmuring, and it was only when Thal noticed that many eyes were looking from the statues to both of them that he finally looked at the statue on the right, opposite that of Karble: it was an unmistakable likeness of Blakstar holding will-giver with both hands, the sword point down in front of him, exactly as the stunned kortexi now stood at the center of the crossroad. Thal moved past his unmoving companion to make sure his eyes were not playing tricks on him. He, too, came to a dead stop when he reached the first pair of statues: on the left, Melbarth, and on the right, he looked up into his own face; in his right hand he held an ornately carved rod. His glance shot back and forth between the rod held by Melbarth’s statue and the one held by his own statue; his face lit suddenly, and he grinned, moving next to the statue of Melbarth on the side holding the rod.
“Thal, what are you doing?” Blakstar asked hesitantly; his hands slipped from his sword and he moved closer to the white maghi. “Do you see who . . . ?” but he could not finish.
“I had noticed,” Thal replied, stopping underneath Melbarth’s right hand holding the rod. “I think we are about to answer a question that has troubled us for some time,” he went on, then took out his own rod and held it out. “Pleudkweklo,” he commanded. Pointing up with his rod, he rose slowly in the air until he was level with the top of the rod. The light on his face went out as his eyes and his fingers traced the marble top of the rod, searching for the symbols that should name it. He lowered his rod so quickly that he nearly fell to the ground. “Neki,” he barked as he jumped off the disc and ran toward his own statue.
“What . . . ?” Blakstar tried to ask as he moved closer to Thal.
Thal ignored him, cast the orthek again, and levitated up to the rod held in his statue’s hand. His fingers and eyes searched and found the symbols he sought, and his face brightened. He looked up, smiling.
“It’s . . . ,” he began, but then he shouted instead: “No!”
His shout broke the stasis holding the kortexem, but not before the
challenger had touched the sword. Gold light flashed from will-giver and engulfed him, lifting him into the air and tearing his hand from the hilt. He floated to the top of the arch, surrounded by golden light, eyes wide with fright, face contorted with pain, mouth open as if he would scream, but no sound issued from him. For a few seconds that dragged on endlessly, he was held there, his body wracked by violent quaking, then the golden light surrounding him was drawn into his body and his eyes became bright, golden flames; his mouth worked, and his voice screamed: “Chosen! Chosen of the One! They have come! They are the Chosen! Beware! Beware!” He would have continued to scream the same words, but the black marble statue standing on the apex of the arch above him knelt and leaned over; the statue’s right arm shot forward, hurling a black marble dagger into the eye of the challenger; his body fell, landing at the base of one of the stone arches, but the sound was that of stone striking stone rather than a body of flesh striking stone.
Thal and Blakstar both moved forward to see what had happened; the challenger had become a gray stone statue slumped at the base of the arch with a black marble dagger stuck in one eye. Thal looked up and saw the black marble statue still squatting on the apex of the arch, grinning down at them, and he recognized who the statue represented. He exchanged a knowing glance with Blakstar, then looked at the other four statues and saw perfect likenesses of Delgart and Rokwolf on the left, and Marilee and Klare on the right, with Delgart and Marilee wearing ornate, five-pointed crowns. Thal knew without looking whose statue stood between theirs, facing the statue of Shigmar and bearing breath-giver.
Thal turned and looked at the kortexem. “Anyone else want to try the sword?” he asked. “There are still three more places to be filled with doubters, and I’m sure the awemi statue above us has plenty of daggers to turn anyone else to stone who wishes to challenge Sir Blakstar’s credentials.”
The Redemption, Volume 1 Page 83