EXILED Defenders of Ar

by Jack Lovejoy

  But Srana was already on the way down the corridor to her grandfather’s sickroom, leaving Nizzam to shrug resignedly again, and follow after her in a manner consonant with his dignity.

  The old wizard lay propped up with pillows, his bed strewn with old books, charts, and parchment manuscripts. His feverish eyes seemed too large for so gaunt a face, and there was a tremor in his bony old hands as he moved them restlessly from book to chart to manuscript, as if uncertain which he wanted to consult next.

  Srana sat on the bed and began to groom him. Then she checked his pulse and examined his eyes. “You haven’t rested as you promised, Grandfather,” she admonished him gently, “and you haven’t taken the elixir I brewed for you this morning.”

  “I didn’t want to sleep, today of all days.” His voice was weak and hoarse, and it was obviously an effort for him to speak. “I’m most vulnerable then ...” He fell silent as he noticed Nizzam standing in the doorway.

  “You know I’m ready to help you in any way I can, master,” he said. “Those who assail your dreams would find me no mean obstacle to their magic.”

  “Thank you, Nizzam,” the old man said wearily. “You have always been a diligent scholar. But now that my granddaughter has returned, I see no need to detain you any longer.”

  “Then I have your leave to, uh, inspect the festival preparations?” cried Nizzam. “I won’t be long, I promise.” He hurried from the room.

  “He’s up to something, of course,” said the old mrem.

  “Probably some conceit he’s persuaded himself is important, for no other reason than that he’s involved in it. Poor Nizzam! Not all his grinding away at his books has taught him yet how little he really knows.”

  “Please rest, Grandfather.” Srana continued to groom him.

  “You mustn’t overtire yourself.”

  “It’s too late to worry about that, dear. There’s no cure for old age. But whatever Nizzam is up to tonight, I’m glad he’s out of the house. If he hadn’t so deviously wanted to go himself, I would have had to devise some pretext to get rid of him. As you guessed, I didn’t take your elixir. The intrusive wills trying to probe my mind have now become relentless. They sense that I may soon be unable to resist them. Will young Branwe be able to help us?”

  “Yes, Grandfather. You know that dear Branwe can always be depended on to help us. I don’t know what we would have done without him,” she added softly, “He’ll come tomorrow afternoon—unless the trouble at the Blue Dragon detains him.”

  “Another brawl? Yes, I suppose that’s to be expected at festival time.” He looked curiously at her. “Or is it more than that? Your danger sense is keener than mine.”

  “There was something evil there. Exactly what, I don’t know.

  “Like your feelings when you first came to Kazerclawm to nurse me?

  She nodded. “It’s strange, Grandfather, but I’ve never lost that feeling.”

  “Let’s hope you never do, for there is indeed danger here.

  The evil beneath the mountain never sleeps. Nor dare we relax our vigilance until the Third Eye is discovered.” He wearily closed his eyes for a few moments, while his granddaughter watched him with concern. At last he recovered. “I have been going over my books and papers, as you see. The work must be completed soon, because I know I have only a few weeks to live, perhaps only a few days. No, no, my dear, this is no time to beguile a dying mrem, no matter how well meant. It’s a time for rendering accounts. That’s why I want all my remaining books and manuscripts hauled down from the loft.” He had to rest once more before continuing. “It’s also the time for you to learn why I was appointed Sentinel here in Kazerclawm.”

  “Does Nizzam know the reason?”

  He nodded. “As the nephew of a great wizard, he was thought to be the ideal apprentice, who would one day supersede me here. Alas, he has inherited his uncle’s dignity, without his uncle’s genius. I have tried to raise him in the best traditions of The Three, but he seems interested only in the trappings of wizardry, not its substance. He does indeed know about the evil beneath the mountain, but like too many, young wizards these days he does not realize that it is eternal.”

  “Rest for a moment, Grandfather.” She continued to groom his tufty gray fur with the soothing hands of a healer. “If you become too excited, or overtire yourself, you will be unable to tell me all I know you want to say.”

  He started to protest, but realized the wisdom of her advice. There was indeed no cure for old age, but without her ministrations he was certain he would have died months ago. Had she, rather than Nizzam, been appointed his successor, he could have died in peace. It had seemed a pity to him at first that one so naturally gifted in magic should become merely a Dancer. But he had been assured by her friend and teacher, no less than the legendary Sruss herself, that her natural gifts there were no less extraordinary.

  “You’re right as always, my dear,” he said. “You’ve been patient with the whims of an old mrem, and I appreciate the sacrifices you’ve made to nurse me. Be patient with me a while longer, for there are things you must know before it is too late.” He studied her young face, awed by its beauty. “I’ve taught you as much magic as I could in so short a time. I regret only that I didn’t begin sooner. Now learn, as you have never learned before. Though I violate the stern mandate of The Three in divulging this information, the peril justifies me. The evil brooding beneath the mountain has not waned as we hoped, but grown ever stronger and more menacing. Nor dare we act to destroy it, until we ourselves are stronger. Exactly how much our united powers would be remultiplied by the Third Eye ... Yes, yes, my dear, I know I’m becoming excited again.” Once more he rested until he was calm.

  Hours passed, and Srana never left his side. With rests and pauses to nurse his waning vitality, even a brief nap, he managed at last to relate a tale more dreadful than even the worst foreboding of her acute danger sense.

  Exactly how or when the Eastern Lords first took Khal into their service was unknown. Nor was it known where the reptilian sorcerer learned to wield an evil magic surpassing the powers of The Three. Such was his cunning that he devised a means by which the entire order of wizards might be overthrown. The Eastern Lords supported him, for they well understood that The Three were a resolute obstacle to all their schemes of conquest—even if the mrem themselves did not. The primordial homeland of the Old Race had perished in a natural cataclysm, eons before the beginning of mrem history, but not the source of its evil magic.

  The Khavala was a stone of flawless beauty, and yet it was not a gem like any other known in this world; for it did not in fact belong to this world. It was imperishable, for it did not really exist—at least not in this dimension. The very elements from which it crystalized were alien; yet they induced powerful reactions among the familiar elements whenever the catalyst of magic was present. Where there was no magic, there was no reaction. But a mere sliver of the Khavala could have turned the shabbiest bush wizard into a mighty sorcerer.

  No ship of the Eastern Lords could have passed safely through the mrem fleets that plied the Southern Sea, or its pirate islands; certainly not with a reptilian sorcerer aboard. But Khal’s agents discovered a mrem noble—bitter, impoverished, and spoiling for revenge—whose lands and titles had been wrongfully confiscated by a rapacious warlord. He was commissioned to lead a crew of bandits, declawed criminals, and highland renegades to the Shadow Islands, the remnants of the lost continent. A magic sword was forged for him to combat its demon guardians.

  Only for a single night, when a rare conjunction of the three moons focused over a single point in the Shadow Islands, did the evil dimension conjoin this world. Then alone was the Khavala accessible. But greed, mutiny, and faulty navigation—it seems that Khal himself knew of the Shadow Islands only through vague legends—so delayed the expedition that it nearly arrived too late. Reptile demons assailed the crewmrem, and many
were dragged into the evil dimension for torment.

  The Shadow Warrior, as the mrem noble came to be known, was sorely beset. In desperation, in the midst of frenzied combat with the guardians of the Khavala, he tried to hack the stone from its setting. There was magic in his sword, though not enough to withstand the forces of the evil dimension, and it shattered in his hand. But so did a whole corner of the Khavala, and he managed to escape with the fragments; only one of which was of considerable size—the fragment that has come to be known as the Third Eye.

  Returning to the port of Namakhazar, far to the south, the Shadow Warrior had premonitions of treachery, and sent the largest fragment alone to the waiting Khal. The premonitions turned out to be true. Once Khal had what he thought was the Khavala, he rewarded the surviving crewmrem by having them executed. The Shadow Warrior escaped, appalled at the evil he had unwittingly loosed upon his own kind.

  “We were still more appalled,” concluded the old wizard, “for we better understood the nature of that evil. The Shadow Warrior atoned for his misjudgment by coming directly to The Three with all the remaining fragments of the Khavala. There were seven in all, though not even combined were these powerful enough to overmaster Khal.”

  “But I don’t understand, Grandfather. I’ve always heard that The Three were invincible, that such were their powers that the mightiest were immortal.”

  The old wizard smiled indulgently. “A fable, my dear. An old, old fable. Long ago, a small, select group of magicians covered their operations by creating a myth that there were three all-powerful wizards in the city of Ar who never died. They pretended that this gave them secret and invincible powers. One look at me should dispel any notions about immortality,” he sighed.

  “Yet The Three are an obstacle to the Eastern Lords,” she encouraged him. “You’ve said so yourself. And there’s more than just a small, select group now, and not just at Ar.”

  “Yes, we’ve recruited over the years, hoping that quantity might somehow overcome a decline in quality. Many today call themselves members of The Three, who in past generations would hardly have been more than bush wizards—and the recruiting still continues all over the land. Not that mere numbers did us much good against Khal, even with all our magic remultiplied by the seven fragments of the Khavala in our possession. His magic was too powerful, his fragment so large he could actually afford to waste some of it, having it cut and polished into a jewel he called the Third Eye.”

  “Because of some flaw in the stone that gleamed like an eye?” Srana guessed. She realized now that her grandfather was determined to finish his narration tonight. All she could do was nurse his strength, and try to keep him from exhausting himself dangerously.

  “The Khavala is flawless, and like no other stone in existence. It is of a ruby color, but with a weird phosphorescence, like the fury of malice. Like Khal’s own eyes. He wore it in a uraeus on his forehead, and it remultiplied his powers a hundredfold. He was invincible.”

  “And yet you overcame him?”

  “He overcame himself, before he could turn all his evil magic against us.” He looked up at her with feverish eyes. “Never forget that Khal is alien to us in every respect. His intelligence may reach ours in magnitude, but is utterly different in kind. It is really just bestial cunning evolved to a high degree of effectiveness. Instead of concentrating his new powers to achieve his ends, or those of the Eastern Lords, he indulged himself like a spoiled child in orgies of vengeance. Only thus were we able to take him unawares.”

  “But not the Third Eye?” .

  He studied her lovely young face with a look of profound regret. “Oh, why couldn’t you have been named to succeed me here as the Sentinel?” he groaned. “Then truly might I have died at peace.”

  “What became of the Shadow Warrior?” She tried to calm him by changing the subject.

  “Dead, along with his entire family. Whether Khal had agents abroad, or the Eastern Lords, we knew no more than we knew the location of the Third Eye. He hid it just before being subdued, and in such a way that the hiding place could never be forced from him, because he himself did not know it. His agents acted for him, just as they wreaked his vengeance upon the Shadow Warrior.”

  “Then that was what the two wizards who visited you last summer meant,” she said thoughtfully. “I overheard them both mention a search, and both seemed to despair of ever succeeding. Are they still searching for the Third Eye?”

  “For over a generation now. The two you mention are only those who have visited me while you were here. All of The Three have at one time or another wandered the land in search of the Third Eye. The great Mithmid has devoted himself to it like a religious quest. In away, I suppose, it’s just that. For until the Third Eye is found, the very existence of our race is in jeopardy. Nor can we expect help from the people. If they did not believe in their original peril, how could we expect them to believe that the peril still hangs over them? And you know their attitude toward magicians. The fools! They think reptile demons are only the stuff of bad dreams.

  Speaking softly, grooming him with the hands of a healer, it took Srana several minutes to calm his growing excitement.

  “Reptile demons,” he continued at last. “We know that Khal was learning to summon them forth from the evil dimension, by remultiplying his powers through the Third Eye, perhaps even learning to pass into that very dimension, and become more powerful still for working harm against us. Striking when he least expected us to, while he indulged himself in the most bestial forms of vengeance, we were just strong enough to overcome him, but not to annihilate him utterly. Only if we ourselves had gained possession of the Third Eye could we have done that, but he was too cunning for us.

  “Then what became of him?”

  “He lies entombed beneath the Kazerclaw, no doubt brooding on new orgies of vengeance. All the power of The Three, remultiplied by all our fragments of the Khavala, were needed just to enclose him in a vault of enchantment. The Kazerclaw was chosen because its only scalable approach is through this garrison city. The Sacred Gate is still well guarded, but who can say for how much longer. Tristwyn seems to outdo himself in folly with each passing month. Had it not been for the old king and, well, those who advised him, the Sacred Gate might never have been guarded at all. No stranger has passed through it in my time here, I can assure you.” After several moments, he added in a whisper: “But my time is almost over now.”

  “Can’t Sruss help you? It was she who advised the old king, her son, in the first place, wasn’t it? We still communicate with each other, so I could tell her—”

  “No, no, my dear. A great Council of The Three has already been summoned, although I’m afraid it will be Nizzam who attends in my place. Besides, Sruss has enemies at court, who seek any opportunity to destroy her.”

  “Do you mean Rhenowla, the queen mother? I can’t imagine anyone else who could be Sruss’s enemy. You loved Sruss once, didn’t you, Grandfather?”

  His eyes misted over, as if gazing back upon a world that was gone. “A hopeless and distant love—I was never such a young fool as to think it could ever be anything more. Many in my generation felt that way. And you say she is still beautiful?”

  Srana nodded, but noticed that tears were beginning to well up in the old mrem’s eyes, and changed the subject.

  “Will Nizzam take your fragment of the Khavala to the Council of Wizards, assuming you can’t attend yourself, or will you keep it?”

  “He must have it when I’m gone, I suppose,” the old wizard said reluctantly. “Whether he will be allowed to keep it, to become one of the Seven, a full council must decide. But I must not give it up yet a while, for I could no longer survive without it. The lingering illness which has sapped my vitality has also diminished my powers of magic. The intrusive wills that now probe my mind relentlessly would be irresistible had I nothing with which to multiply such powers as remain to me. Yo
u’ve never seen my fragment of the Khavala, have you, dear?”

  She shook her head, more and more concerned about the feverish exhaustion in his eyes. Somehow she must get him to rest. But she rose from the sickbed in order to fetch the mysterious fragment for him, at his direction.

  “No, no, I have it with me always. I suspect Nizzam has poked and rummaged into every corner of the house, looking for it. But it’s been right here all the time.” He drew his familiar lavaliere from beneath his bed gown. Its pendant was a gold seal engraved with a circle of runes; there was a secret catch, and he opened it.

  Srana again sat beside him, and peered curiously down at what looked like no more than a sliver of broken glass—except that it shone with a ruby phosphorescence. It was astounding that so tiny an object could confer such vast power. Still more astounding, even terrifying, was the thought of how much more power resided in the Third Eye—or in the Khavala itself.

  “Did the Shadow Warrior ever reveal its exact size?” she asked. “Or shape?”

  “He described it as being like the living head of some creature from a monstrous race. Given the circumstances under which he saw it, though, even that vague description is suspect. After all, he was fighting for his life, assailed on all sides by the guardians of an evil dimension. I’m sure that not even Khal himself really knows its exact nature.”

  “Only that it granted immense power,” she added thoughtfully. “The power to work great evil.”

  “To Khal, yes. But only because he was already a sorcerer of great power. The stone multiplies force; it does not create it. If one is not powerful in magic to begin with, there is nothing to multiply. Nothing but a shiny sliver of rock.”

  They gazed down in silence at the tiny fragment of the Khavala, glowing mysteriously with a strange otherworldly light.