by Dragon Lance
“A real image!”
“Like real magic,” Damon mused, stifling a grin. “Just because one sees it, that doesn’t mean it is there.”
“Gods!” Megistal jumped to his feet, stamped around in a circle, then sat again. “You are so stubborn! What is it you’re driving at?”
“You said you wanted to test magic on dwarves.” Damon shrugged, helping himself to a bit of Quist’s pigeon while the Cobar put another on to cook.
“Yes, I want to know why – and how – you managed to resist some very powerful spells,” Megistal repeated. “But why all these questions?”
“A fair exchange,” Damon said. “I’ll help you learn about dwarves, and you tell me about magic. You can begin by telling me, what, exactly, is magic?”
Megistal scratched his head. “That’s difficult,” he said. “Like trying to describe red to someone who has always been blind.”
“Try,” Damon demanded.
“Well … for instance, your barbarian friend there,” he said, indicating Quist.
“Barbarian?” Quist growled. “I am Cobar!”
“Cobar, then. But for example, it is possible that he could be not a human at all, but some other sort of creature. There is a reality for every possibility, and it is possible that in some other reality he is something else. Perhaps a wolf?”
“No. It isn’t.” Damon shook his head. “He isn’t a wolf. He’s a man.”
“Of course he is … in this reality. But there are many realities, you see. Magic is the bridge that links them. In another reality, this man might be a wolf.” Casually, the wizard waved a finger and muttered an incantation. Suddenly, where Quist Redfeather squatted, plucking a pigeon, it seemed there was something else instead. A large canine form shimmered around him, feral eyes fixed on the wizard.
“Now, you see?” Megistal said. “Now he is a wolf.”
“No, he isn’t,” Damon said.
Megistal pointed at the vision by the fire. “Don’t you see him? Look! That is no man. That is a wolf!”
“I see a man,” Damon maintained. “There is an image of a wolf surrounding him, but he isn’t it.”
“How can you see a man there?” Megistal shouted. “I don’t see a man!”
“You see what you want to see,” Damon said. “I see what is there.”
With a fierce growl, the wolf-figure bunched its haunches to leap at the mage, and Megistal hissed, “Kapach!” It was no wolf that hit the wizard, but an angry Cobar warrior. The two rolled away from the fire, spitting and thrashing, and Damon dived between them, separating them with strong, determined arms.
“That’s enough of that!” he growled.
The humans got to their feet, glaring at each other, and the dwarf stayed between them. “Enough!” he repeated. He pointed at the fire. “Both of you! Sit!”
Grudgingly, Quist Redfeather returned to his place, and Megistal followed. “You see?” he said. “He was a wolf.”
Damon turned to the Cobar. “Were you a wolf just then?”
“Yes,” Quist snapped. “And if he does that to me again, I’ll kill him.”
“Like I said” — Megistal spread his hands — “he actually was a wolf. That is magic.”
“He wasn’t a wolf,” the dwarf said stubbornly. “You and he both thought he was, but he wasn’t.”
“Gods!” Megistal snapped. “Then watch this, dwarf!” With an angry incantation, he folded his arms and rose a yard off the ground, then another yard, and another. When he was twenty feet above the fire he called, “Look at me, dwarf. Can you see me?”
“Very clearly,” Damon said.
“Where am I?”
Damon pointed at him. “Right up there.”
“Good! You see me where I am. Now how do you suppose I got up here?”
“Magic?”
“Exactly. Now we’re getting somewhere. You agree that I am up here in midair.”
“No, you’re not, really. You just think you are.”
Gently, Megistal lowered himself to the ground. “Stubbornness!” he muttered. “Sheer stubbornness.”
“Do you want to try another spell on me?” Damon asked.
“Do I have your permission?”
“As I promised.” The Hylar nodded. “But if it hurts too much I might have to kill you.”
“You will not!” Quist Redfeather growled. “When it comes to killing, the mage is mine.”
“Something mild, then,” Megistal agreed. “I’ll make you itch. That’s easy; I can do it with my eyes closed.”
“All right.” The dwarf stood, unslung his shield, and held it loosely beside him. “Make me itch with your eyes closed.”
Megistal closed his eyes, raised his hand, and muttered. Quickly, Damon raised his shield and turned it. Hidden within its curve was a fine Hylar mirror. The mage muttered his spell, pointing at the mirror, and Damon reversed the shield again, dropping it to his side where it had been.
“There.” Megistal opened his eyes. “Now, do you … Ooooh!” His eyes widened, and he began scratching himself in a frenzy. “What … What did you do?”
“I was just checking on something,” Damon said, smiling. “Interesting.”
Megistal was scratching so hard and so fast that it took him a moment to negate his spell. When it was gone, he sighed. The Cobar by the fire was choking with laughter.
“Well, let’s get on with it,” Damon said. “I have the volunteers I promised. You may try your spells on them, just so no one gets hurt without permission. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Megistal nodded, still wondering how the dwarf had managed to turn his spell against him.
As the moons climbed into the night sky, illuminating the Valley of the Thanes with a soft luster, Megistal studied dwarves, and Damon studied Megistal.
The volunteers were mostly young dwarves, rash and adventurous enough to willingly endure the mild punishments and general unpleasantness of being subjected to magic. Among them, though, unknown to Megistal, were two Thorbardin notables. Damon had seen no reason to confide in the wizard that one of his test subjects was Barek Stone, the captain general of forces of Thorbardin, and another was Gem Bluesleeve, warden of the watch.
Hours passed in the moonlit valley as Megistal tried spell after spell on dwarf after dwarf, while Quist Redfeather watched in fascination and Damon Omenborn made suggestions.
At Megistal’s utterance of the words, “Hippochus bes. Chapak!” Trip Sother, a long-armed Theiwar youth, was transformed – in the eyes of the two humans – into a gray horse. To the dwarves, it appeared as though the image of a horse had appeared, surrounding the Theiwar, but that Trip was still there. And when Trip turned and stepped away, the image faded. He was himself again.
“Fantastic!” Megistal muttered. “You, there! Tell me, were you a horse just then?”
Trip turned. “No, but I was inside one, and I didn’t like it.”
Clote Darkeye, a sturdy youth of dark Daergar descent, stepped forward and was levitated ten feet off the ground.
“Are you up in the air?” Megistal called.
“It seems like it,” Clote answered. “But I can’t be, so I’m probably not.”
Megistal’s pointing finger began to shake, and a sweat broke out on his brow. Despite the wizard’s best effort, the dwarf began to descend.
“Stay up there!” Megistal demanded.
“I’m not up here,” Clote called back, sinking lower and lower. “This isn’t real.”
“Can’t you hold him up?” Damon inquired.
“He’s getting very heavy,” Megistal puffed. “But that’s impossible. While under this spell, he shouldn’t weigh anything.”
Damon shrugged. “Clote Darkeye weighs a hundred and sixty pounds.”
Abruptly, the Daergar dropped the last three feet, landing nimbly.
Megistal panted, shaking his head. “I don’t understand,” he said, as though to himself. He whirled, pointed at another volunteer, and muttered. The selected dwarf suddenly
was covered with feathers. He resembled an unhappy owl.
“Look at him!” Megistal demanded. “What do you see?”
“He looks like he has feathers,” Damon said.
“Do you have feathers?” the wizard demanded of the dwarf.
“No,” that one assured him. “I’ve never had feathers. Right now I look like I do, but I don’t.”
“Gods!” Megistal snorted, shaking his head.
The dwarf who stepped forward then was older than most of the rest. He wore bright armor, and there were hints of silver in the dark beard below seamed cheeks and cold, wide-set eyes.
Before Megistal could begin a chant, the newcomer said, “Enough play, wizard. Kill me, if you can.”
Megistal’s brows raised, and he turned to Damon. “I gave you my word …” he started.
“It’s all right,” the Hylar said. “Do as he says. Kill him, if you can.”
“Are you sure?”
Damon looked up at the wizard, challenging him. “Are you?”
Megistal took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. He muttered a spell, and a large, hurtling stone appeared above the armed dwarf, crashing down on him. He barely got his shield up in time to deflect it, and the impact knocked him to his knees. But the stone bounced away. The dwarf stood.
“No man could have stopped that,” Megistal gasped. “That stone is the size of a water keg!”
The armored dwarf looked at his shield, studied its surface, and turned to whisper to a golden-bearded dwarf beside him. The gold-beard stepped forward. He tossed aside his shield and removed his body armor. “Try me,” he demanded, glaring at the wizard. “Kill me, if you can.”
“Kill him,” Damon Omenborn said. “Kill him with a spell, if you can.”
Megistal took a deep breath, focusing his powers, putting all of his will into the spell. This time it was not a stone, but a heavy bolt, as though from a siege engine. The three-inch-wide shaft with its four-edged metal point appeared out of nothing, hurtled toward the dwarf, and impaled him. He fell, gasping.
“There!” Megistal snapped. “Magic!”
For a moment, the impaled dwarf lay inert. Then he twitched, groaned, and sat up, struggling to pull the shaft from his body. The shaft became transparent as he tugged at it. It paled, shrank, and diminished, then was gone. The dwarf stood, pale and trembling, but very much alive.
“Are you all right, Gem?” Damon called.
“That hurt like all blazes,” Gem Bluesleeve assured the Hylar. “You were right about that, Damon. But I’m all right. There was really nothing there.”
Megistal gawked, at first one dwarf and then another. Quist Redfeather was staring at the recently impaled dwarf in absolute disbelief.
“If I had believed that was a real bolt, I’d be dead now,” Gem Bluesleeve told Barek Stone quietly.
“And if I had believed that stone was the size it looked, I’d have been crushed,” the captain general agreed. “But the stone wasn’t real. It shook me, though.”
Damon Omenborn faced the wizard, a deep curiosity in his narrowed eyes. Somehow, it had seemed to the dwarf that, at least the last two times, the wizard had held back. The spells had been potent spells and were delivered with force, but Damon had a feeling that something beyond spells had been withheld – something against which the dwarves might have had no defense. “Have you played enough games for now?” Damon asked. “Have you learned what you wanted to learn?”
“I have learned that it isn’t just you who can resist spells,” Megistal said. “It seems to be dwarves in general. And I have confirmed that the method of resistance is plain, stubborn refusal to believe. You don’t like magic, so you just … just don’t allow for it in your concept of the universe. But I still don’t know how you do it. There must be some natural defense in your race. Magic is an absolute and is as certain as alternate realities.”
“There aren’t any alternate realities,” Damon said flatly.
“Gods,” Megistal muttered. “You’re about as open to suggestion as a chunk of basalt. Very well, I suppose I have learned as much as I can. Now, what do you want from me?”
“Oh, we already have what we want,” Damon told him. “Except for one thing. In magic, is the power in the person or in the spell itself?”
“I won’t tell you that,” Megistal said suspiciously. “I have probably revealed too much already.”
“I guess I must find out for myself, then.” Damon shrugged. Pointing at Megistal, he said, “Hippochus bes. Chapak!”
The wizard’s mouth dropped open … and closed as a horse’s mouth. Where Megistal had been, now there stood a red horse, shaking its head in confusion.
“The power is in the spell,” Damon mused. “I thought so.” To the horse, within which he still saw the mage, he said, “You’re not really a horse, you know. You’ve never been a horse and never will be.” He turned to Quist Redfeather. “I promised you a horse. Do you want this one?”
“How long will he remain a horse?” the Cobar asked, wide-eyed with wonder.
“I haven’t any idea,” Damon admitted. “Until the spell is reversed, I suppose. Or until he realizes that magic is no more than a bad habit. When he comes to that conclusion, he won’t be a horse anymore. But then, he won’t be a wizard anymore, either.”
Quist walked around the red horse, looking it over. It was a fine, big horse, as sturdy and well formed as any he had seen. “I’ll take this one,” he said, turning, and found that he and the horse were alone. Somewhere, a gate closed with a heavy, metallic sound. The dwarves were gone. He ran toward where he had heard the sound and found only a stack of bales and water kegs. He looked around at the wide, deep little valley with its sheer vertical walls and muttered every curse of Cobar custom and a few from other tribes.
The dwarf had kept his word about a horse. Quist had a horse, if it didn’t turn back into a wizard. But he was a prisoner here, in this valley, with no way out.
Intuition grew within him, and he ran back to the fireside where he had left his pack. He searched inside it. His credentials from the High Overlord and the missive to Daltigoth were gone. The dwarves had found them, then. They knew about his mission. And they had made him prisoner.
He turned over in his mind the odd thing Damon Omenborn had said to him: “If you help us with our problems, maybe we can help you with yours.”
But what could they know of his problems? Of his family held hostage in Xak Tsaroth to ensure his return, of the cruelty of the High Overlord …
Something nudged him from behind. The horse stood there, pressing its nose against his shoulder, wanting to be rubbed. He gazed at it thoughtfully. “Well,” he said, “I, for one, believe in your magic even if I hate you for it. I saw you turn into a horse, and I don’t care what that dwarf says, you are a real horse.” Casually, he ran a strong hand along the animal’s muzzle and rubbed a stiff ear. “That’s all you are now,” he said. “Just a horse.”
*
Inside Thorbardin, Damon Omenborn, Barek Stone, and Gem Bluesleeve compared notes as they hurried toward the Grand Hall where the regent and the chieftains were waiting.
“We have learned that magic can hurt us,” Gem Bluesleeve admitted. “It has great power.”
“But its power is not absolute,” Barek said. “I wonder if the wizards really understand magic themselves.”
“They may not,” Damon suggested. “I think that is why they want to build towers of sorcery. They have magic, but their skills are poor. They want to refine them.”
“We have also learned that they – the other wizards – will come for their stone. They’ll do everything they can to get it back.”
“From what I’ve seen of wizards, they aren’t very good at anything but magic.”
“When the attack comes, it won’t be by wizards alone,” Barek told Damon. “Neidar rangers reported today that several large companies of human raiders have crossed into Kal-Thax. We don’t know how they got past the border guards unchallenge
d, but I suspect the wizards had something to do with it. The Neidar say they are converging on a place southwest of here, where the wizards may be assembled.”
“Well, we’ve learned something important that may help,” Damon noted. “We learned that magic is in the words of the spells. It doesn’t take a magician to work a spell, if the spell is known.”
“You worked one,” Barek admitted. “I couldn’t believe you’d do that, but you did.”
“I hope I never need to again.” Damon wrinkled his nose. “It almost made me sick. What I’d like right now is a long hot bath.”
Chapter 15
FORTRESS THORBARDIN
There could be no further doubt, based on the Neidar reports, that Kal-Thax had been invaded and Thorbardin would be attacked. The fog-beast had not been seen since the day it murdered Mace Hammerstand and a hundred members of the Roving Guard on Sky’s End, and there were some who said that it had gone away. But the greater threat, the wizards who had released it, remained, and they were determined to get back the thing the dwarves had taken from them – the Stone of Threes upon which the Tower of High Sorcery of Kal-Thax must be built.
For nine decades, the bonded thanes of Thorbardin had labored to create the mightiest of fortresses, deep in the heart of a mountain under Cloudseeker Peak. And now the fortress would be tested, with the fate of the entire race of dwarves at stake. If Thorbardin should fall, all of Kal-Thax would fall.
Under command of the regent, Willen Ironmaul, Thorbardin made ready for siege. Stores and supplies were laid in, defenders drilled in every cavern and corridor, and the great smelters surrounding the Shaft of Reorx roared with activity as Daergar iron and Theiwar fire-stone went into the making of steel to be fashioned into weapons. The metal-smithies were already geared to weaponry, having only recently completed a huge order of armaments for some buyer in the human realm of Ergoth – arms which, rumor said, were for a man named Darr Bolden. But now the forges went on double duty as every guardsman, soldier, and reservist in Thorbardin – and every civilian capable of bearing arms – was called to service.
Drums sang through the mountains, and patrols of Neidar scoured the nearby countryside escorting whole communities of unaffiliated Einar dwarves to the safety of the great fortress. By the thousands they came, pouring in through the great portals of Southgate and Northgate, past the gateways where Southgate’s plug sat ready to close and where Northgate’s identical plug was being hurriedly installed upon its ram. Whole villages came up from the valleys and the fields, driving their herds and carrying their belongings, to disappear into the vast subterranean maze that was Thorbardin.