by Paul Kidd
“Hold still!”
A blast of healing magic crashed into the faerie’s wounds.She gasped and jerked as her body reacted to the sudden, shocking absence of pain. The Justicar held her cradled against his chest, wiped her hair back from her astonished little face, and then stuffed her beneath a warm layer of ashes that lay across the ground.
“Lie still!”
Ashes lay everywhere-hot, gray, and choking. Escalla blinked,but the Justicar had disappeared into the dark. A screaming shape came whipping through the trees, and the faerie could only watch in fright as a huge beast hovered above the isle. With a vile sound, the creature spat acid once again, landing the deadly stream square upon a little humanlike shape sculpted out of embers that lay beneath a tree. The acid sent up clouds of toxic steam as it burned the sculpture into sludge. Shrieking in triumph, the monster landed on the acid-spattered ash to tear into its target with its claws.
An instant later, the entire island lit up beneath a pure, brilliant light. The Justicar launched a light spell, blinding the abyssal bat. The monster screamed and lurched into a tree, flapping its wings in an attempt to shield its eyes. Smoke hissed from its skin as the light burned into it like fire. Riveted with horror, Escalla lifted up her head and stared at the thing that flapped and gibbered in hunger for her blood.
The monster stood like a giant dessicated cadaver, its black skin stretched over an inhuman frame of jointed bones. It spread huge batlike wings, fixed its gaze upon the faerie, and gave a roar of pure demonic rage.
Lying stunned beneath the ashes, Escalla stared at the thing and felt her courage slowly deflate.
“Oooh, poop!”
Half-blinded, the monster reared aside as a human figure erupted from the ash below. The eight-foot abyssal bat dwarfed even the Justicar. Trailing dust, the Justicar’s black sword smacked into the monster’sgut. The blade rang as it chopped into stony flesh, black steel flashing as the blade beat aside the fiend’s claws and smashed down into its shoulder joint.Screaming in pain, the monster staggered backward, simply shook off a blast of flames from Cinders’ snout, and lunged to wrap its huge bat wings about theJusticar. Escalla gave a scream of fright and lifted up her hand, a spell half-formed, but froze in indecision as she saw the human warrior trapped inside the monster’s arms.
The Justicar’s face stood out in the stark shadows cast byhis own illumination spell. Trapped in the monster’s arms, the man roared andsmacked his shaven head straight into the creature’s face. He hit it a secondtime and then a third, blood streaming down his face from cuts made by the creature’s breaking teeth. As the creature’s grip loosened, the Justicar rakedhis boot down the beast’s long shin.
It relaxed its hold, and the Justicar wrenched one arm free to rip his fingernails down into the monster’s shoulder wound. The man rippedand tore at the exposed end of a bone, and the fiend threw the man aside in agonized rage.
The monster staggered one half-pace back. Gripping his sword halfway down the blade like a quarterstaff, the Justicar rammed the weapon’spoint into the beasts’ throat and twisted at the blade as it came free.
The monster still lived. The creature fought free and lumbered bleeding and howling straight toward Escalla’s hiding place. The faeriescrabbled backward and felt her back jam against a tree as she blasted her very best web spell at the creature. The monster ripped its way out of the web and lunged straight for Escalla, its needlelike teeth gaping wide enough to fill her entire world.
The Justicar’s shout echoed through the night. Steppingbetween the faerie and her demonic attacker, he decapitated the monster with one savage swing. Its fangs snapped shut an inch from the faerie’s throat. Escallablinked as the severed head thudded down onto the ash, gaping at her with its wide-open jaws.
Acid leaked from the corpse to burn a hole into the ground. With a shudder, the monster finally stopped beating its wings. The faerie stood up very, very carefully. With mincing, delicate little steps she withdrew from the monster’s maw. She wobbled her way over toward the Justicar as the manwinced and sank down onto the ash.
The girl blew out a dazed breath. She saw the Justicar holding onto his own ribs and came to stand at his side.
“You, ah, you do little spells, but you do good ones.” Shetouched a hand against her side where the acid had burned away a sheet of skin. Her flesh was now pure, seamless, and as perfect as ever. “Thank you. And the,uh, the warm ashes idea… pretty good.”
The man cursed and thumped a spell into his own flesh, hissing the invocation in annoyance.
The Justicar’s light spell lit up the island in a pure whitebrilliance. Covered in warm ashes from head to foot, Cinders, the Justicar, and Escalla looked like ghosts. The girl began to dust herself off, casting a frightened glance upward as something dark passed across the image of Luna, the larger of the two moons now riding the sky.
As light rippled reflections from the water, a distant hunting cry echoed through night. It was answered by an even fainter call from somewhere across the marsh.
Appalled, Escalla froze and stared up at the sky. “What are those things?”
“Varrangoins, abyssal bats, a type of demon-very dangerous.They’re hunting you.”
“Me?” The faerie blinked in horror. “Just me?”
“Just you…” Stark and dangerous, the Justicar simplylooked at the faerie. “Stick close to me if you want to live.”
The faerie nodded blank agreement. Ruefully inspecting the ashes clinging to Cinders’ wet fur, the man gave a growl. “Hey, Cinders, areyou all right?”
All right.
“Good. We’re going now.”
The Justicar tightened his cuirass and snatched his helmet. He whirled, swept up Escalla, and lumbered straight toward the water at a dead run. Escalla saw what was coming and frantically tried to fight free.
“Oh, oh, now look! Guys, it’s really cold, and the water andI really don’t agree with each other vereeeeeee-”
The Justicar plunged beneath the water just as a black shape cut across the sky. Escalla snatched half a breath, almost drowning as the big man plunged her down into the dark, chill waters. Claws struck at the water, then an acid blast stormed down into the mire, but the Justicar had already darted aside, swimming slowly and powerfully like a leviathan from an ancient world.
Long suffocating seconds passed. Still underwater, the Justicar and Escalla sheltered beneath a submerged branch, shadows showing through the water as more bat-winged shapes passed mere inches overhead.
Terrified of drowning, Escalla thrashed in a mad dance of fear. Her lungs screamed for air, and she desperately lunged toward the surface. She was caught from below and hauled back down. The faerie thrashed, desperate for breath, then suddenly bulged her eyes as she felt the human covering her mouth with his own. She tried to spit the man away-only to have herself crushedtightly in place. She took a breath straight from the man’s mouth as a sinisterblack shape skimmed over the waters just above.
An instant later, the light spell stuttered and went out, plunging the whole marshland into darkness. Escalla and the Justicar hung beneath the water for a long moment more, then rose up through submerged branches and took swift stock of the upper world.
Hunting cries echoed in the night as the creatures searched the far side of the island. The bats found the slaughtered body lying on the island and lifted up a scream of rage. As the remaining monsters flew madly off into the swamp, thirsting for revenge, the Justicar slipped underwater once again and swam quietly away.
Surfacing, he cruised through the thigh-deep water, planting the faerie atop his neck where she could cling to Cinders’ fur. Escalla spatand blustered, scrubbing her tongue as she fearfully hissed into the human’sear.
“You kissed me!”
“You’re alive.” The Justicar’s growl implied that this couldeasily be changed. “Shut up.”
“You frotting-well kissed me!” Escalla tried to abrade thetaste buds off her own tongue. “I’ve kissed a damned human! T
hat’s the mostdisgusting thing I’ve ever done!”
“Unlikely.”
The faerie bridled, was about to launch into a stream of curses, and then shrank against the human’s broad back as something dark flappedpast a line of distant trees. The girl looked about in dawning fear.
“You’ve seen these things before?”
“I’ve seen them. I’ve watched them over Iuz.” The Justicarcrawled through the water without even raising a ripple. “They’re hunters. Theylike to kill.”
“A-are those things really hunting j-just for me?”
“Just for you, and they take quite a bit of summoning.”
The Justicar rose dripping from the water to check the skies for sign of pursuit, then swam through a few mere handspans’ depth of water,never once leaving a trail.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who wants you to shut up.”
The abyssal monsters quartered and searched the waterlogged isles, spreading a chill of evil across the entire marsh, but the Justicar’sskills apparently had thrown them off the trail. Climbing up between Cinders’tall damp ears, Escalla clung to her two companions in fright. She swallowed, following the sounds of the demons hissing through the dark.
“Powerful wizard, huh?”
The Justicar gave a grim, measured nod. “Yup.”
“A-and kinda p-persistent too, would you say?”
“Yup.”
Wet and bedraggled, the faerie cleared her throat and struck a thoughtful little pose. “All right, I can see that… that in the cause ofjustice, you need my help. And, ah, as a really, really reformed and deeply good kind of person, I will be really pleased to offer you my aid.” The girl shrank flat as a bloodthirsty scream echoed out over the woods.“Um, they can even see me when I go invisible, can’t they?”
“Yup.”
“That’s… that’s good. That is a challenge. We canhandle that. You and me and dog breath here, all together.” The faerietook a stronger grip upon her two new bodyguards. “All of us together.”
“Oh, really?”
“Look, it’s… it’s my pleasure!” Another hunting screamechoed in the dark. Escalla felt quite sick. Whoever wanted her dead was clearly pretty dedicated to the job, and the Justicar was the only protection she had. “You need a guide, and… and a mentor! Someone to help you on yourquest! So I guess we’ll just stick really close together from now on. Really,really close.” The girl scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. “SoI’ll help you find this guy you’re looking for, but we have to have just alittle understanding first, all right? We need a protocol of professional courtesy.”
The Justicar cocked an eye upward in annoyance as he swam. “Such as?”
“No one touches the faerie! Right?” Vaguely aware thather bare bottom was exposed to the night, Escalla tugged her acid-burned tunic into place. “Do we have an agreement on that?”
“Whatever.” The Justicar rose onto all fours to crawl over ahidden mound of drowned grass, then slithered back into the water. “Let me knownext time you just want to drown.”
Escalla kept watch on the sky and patted the Justicar upon his head.
“Oh, and later on, you and I are going to work on polishingsome of those social skills.”
“Shut up and let me swim.”
In a vast, dark chamber, a thin figure worked late by thelight of: magic spells drifting down from above. In a place utterly filled with books, maps, charts, and scrolls, he labored with a curt, unforgiving energy. Equation followed equation running simultaneously down slates and parchment scrolls. A tiny, crumpled booklet written on sheets of flexible metal sat before the figure as he worked. Translating the code of the tiny journal through memory, the figure worked in dedicated silence.
Trigol’s library had yielded great treasure. It was a placethat obsessively stored relics-even those it could not begin to understand. Hereamidst the shelves, pieces of the great dream had been found. Patient years of study had slowly brought reward.
His work had built itself slowly. Here, beneath the soaring scroll shelves, a vision of greatness slowly rose….
It was a magic from before the time of the great sorcerers such as Tensor, Bigby, and Otiluke, a lore millennia old and intermingled with dark skills gleaned from a dozen other worlds and other planes-the brainchild ofa single man.
This great work finally had a student to bring it to fruition, a successor worthy of the great secret buried for untold centuries here amongst the shabby scrolls.
The moment of ultimate greatness was still an elusive dream, but at last the plans and requirements were laid. The chambers of the ancient master had been discovered once again. Only a few simple tools were needed, and the last phase finally could begin.
The scholar finished the last line of the final equation upon the chart. In cold satisfaction, he laid his hands flat upon the table, staring into empty space as he held his majestic vision in his mind.
His two assistants stood waiting in the shadows. One man inclined his head toward his master and came softly forward into the light. His master turned a thin, bald head, the long strands of red hair at his shoulders catching the light of candle flames.
“The pixie?”
“Has evaded us, my lord.” The assistant inclined his head,his voice habitually held in the whisper of his trade. “Our ally will requiregreat payment for the services of his beasts. Shall I request their aid for another day?”
Arising from his desk, the master slowly folded his hands into his sleeves. One side of his face shone bright beneath the lights while the other side gleamed darker than a slice of night.
“Dismiss the demons. We need no more debts to our ally.”
“And the pixie, my lord?”
“If she is fleeing in fright, she is hardly a danger.” Themaster carefully stored his reference books away, indexing them with an unconscious, habitual skill. “The northern settlements are already as good asgone. We are secure to begin our work at last.”
A second assistant waited with his fingertips steepled. The man drifted forward, his voice scarcely louder than the slow drifting of the dust across the library shelves.
“The third weapon has been found, my lord. Blackrazor is nowin the city.”
The master closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath of ecstasy.
His first assistant raised an eyebrow and turned toward his comrade in mild surprise. “All three weapons are here?”
“All three.”
Still standing with his eyes closed, the master let the glory of it run like fire through his mind.
“All three weapons, and the great maze prepared at last.” Thelong, slow spell of an ancient sorcerer was coming to its triumph. “We shallbegin the final phase.”
Turning, the master swept open his hands and uttered the syllables of a spell. A glowing portal flashed open in the air behind him, filling the entire library with an eerie golden light.
“It has begun at last All will be as it was. We shallrecreate the triumph of the Great One, but this time, we shall exceed even the Great One’s dreams.”
The figure closed its copy of the wizard Keraptis’ journals.Its equations had been so tantalizingly close to completion yet so tragically flawed. It had taken a successor to realize the dream, to find the courage to reach out and grasp true greatness.
The master turned, and in the light of the magic portal, his face shimmered with painted shadows, one half black and one half white. He sent his acolytes through the portal, took one last glimpse at his workplace, then simply stepped through into the light.
The portal flashed and closed, leaving the library in utter darkness. Trigol dreamed onward in its restless sleep while from the north, a cold wind began to blow….
5
The lowlands of the County of Urnst yielded a rather mixedscenery. Ruined homes and castles bleached their timbers like the bones of beached whales. Here and there, tiny villages ploughed fields of winter cabbages amidst ruined forts and walls. Sheep flecked th
e hills with little white shapes while militia drilled clumsily between the village lanes.
The walls of Trigol City-big walls, freshly heightened with alayer of newer, cleaner stone-could now be seen from the road. Thefortifications spread squat and broad as a defense against the inevitable earthquakes.
Trudging steadily amidst it all, the Justicar gave a growl of irritation. The source of his annoyance rode upon his shoulders, leaning her elbows atop his stubbled skull.
The road had been lonely, and Escalla needed entertainment. One way or another, she would squeeze a reaction out of the accursed man. As a chosen travel companion, the Justicar had a lot to learn about the art of conversation, and Escalla considered herself to be the world’s best teacher.
Sticking happily with her newfound bodyguard, Escalla wagged her dainty wings, her fingers interlaced beneath her chin as she turned a puzzle slyly over in her mind.
“Borran?”
No answer came, and so the girl tried again.
“Britt? Breggan?”
Silence reigned. The Justicar refused to answer.
“Kevin? Kenneth? Filbert?” The girl touched the corner of herlips slyly with her tongue. “Or Hubert? You look a little like a Hubert….”
The Justicar growled. Reclining across his shoulders, Escalla played with her hair.
“Humphrey!”
“No!” The Justicar kept his head down and marched. “Shut up!”
“Isabod? Hey, is it Isabod?”
Trying to ignore her, the Justicar ate up the miles with his long stride. The faerie could feel him seething in ill temper. Riding happily on the man’s back, Cinders grinned his unchanging feral smile and listened to thefun.
Tilting her head, the pixie wrinkled her nose prettily in thought.
“How about Wilbert?” The girl felt a little twinkle ofsuccess. “Yeah, I’m willing to bet you were a Wilbert.”