by Dave Dickie
Chapter Fourteen
A great wave of pain rippled through Stegar’s back. He tried to find his way back to the dark place where the pain was a remote, distant thing, but something in him was holding on tenaciously to the edges of perception. The gash in his head felt like a hole that the entire world was draining through, but fighting against the fall of endless night, images and faint sequences of dream-like memory were flashing into sight, leaping visions of disconnected moments like the last flames of a dying fire in the rain.
Ferren’s young face swam into view; an ever hopeful expression framed by his characteristically long auburn hair brought a new kind of pain to Stegar. The eyes captivated him. Eyes which at the same time were filled with both fear and trust. The face resolved into a scene. Young Stegar, only eight, had just come in from the fields where father had sent him to ask the tenants whether any animals were disturbing the crops or livestock. Ferren, three years the younger, had gotten himself trapped in the courtyard. Two much older boys advancing on him, furious and dripping from what was clearly a practical joke gone wrong. Each one older than Stegar, but that did not matter to him. Ferren, pleading with those eyes of his, “just one more time … please.”
A cough wracked Stegar’s body. The violence of it smashed the courtyard scene into a thousand pieces of light which swirled and reformed into a swath of stars painted across the night sky. Teen Stegar and Ferren were propped against trees on the cliff overlooks of the north coast as they made their last weeklong walking-of-the-bounds before Stegar left for the big city. The death of their father weighed heavily on them and had dominated the conversation for most of the night. It was the last days of a long, easy summer of childhood. A period of Stegar’s life he could never return to, mostly because he could not remember who he had been at the time that had let him trust in the world so much.
Stegar stamped the vision out with a vengeance. Better to bleed to death on the cold, wet floor of a cavern deep beneath the earth than to have to remember how things had been then. But from somewhere came the thought that he was no longer in the cave, which confused him. Then his anger flailed out like a wave of deep crimson which blurred and resolved into the red drapes on the wall at castle Hairn. Stegar was limping down the hall, a stream of blood trailing behind him, following his lord to a meeting with the Corsair Captain, who was in the process of negotiating an uneasy truce. Stegar felt as if he should be in the peak of health, but instead his vision fuzzed with every breath he took and he left smears of blood on the walls and door jambs whenever he touched something.
Lord Vic kept talking to him over his shoulder as if nothing unusual was happening. They passed an alcove between the burgundy drapes, and Ferren was standing there looking several years older, and with an odd look in his eyes. Stegar could not decide whether he had chosen not to notice it at first or whether he had suspected Ferren of turning to some of the wilder herbs of their homeland to bury his anxiousness. In either case, Stegar had not acted. In hindsight he knew the look was something more insidious, but at the time Vic had continued speaking over his shoulder, “...and you ended up such an asset to the Hold that I agreed to take your brother on as one of our apprentice scribes.” Vic smiled. “I know he had some help from certain quarters in passing the tests. Not to worry,” he laughed, “I do not hold it against you, and decided to satisfy my curiosity.” Stegar could have asked any number of questions, or embraced his brother, or noticed the oddness of his bearing, but instead he just smiled to himself, glad that they were reunited again, and continued on behind Lord Vic, ever faithful to the job.
A wave of dizziness came over him. The draped hallway spun away and the earth fell out from under him. There were no longer scenes, just random images spinning in and out of focus as the darkness grew stronger. The battle of southwall where corpses lay littered about him as he walked the fallen field. That had been his first real experience with mass killing. The smoke-filled dens of the warren in Underhill. He had gone there first for information, but had come back on occasion to drink in the thick oily smoke and let free. But wait, that was out of order, that did not happen until after he had left the Hold, or rather, been ejected in disgrace.
Quickly everything dilated to black and then opened onto a new scene. Ferren, standing with a dagger in hand, blood dripping. Lord Vic sprawled out on the floor. This time the pain was in the back of his leg. Ferren had applied a nerve block from behind. The talon-sharp claws of the tool had been coated with a paralytic that had sent him to his knees before he could react. His legs were useless and his right arm could barely move. Truth be told, he would not have known how to react even without the poison. He had never expected attack from his brother, it was inconceivable. The poison had not stopped him from calling out, yet Ferren did not seem to care. He had plunged the knife into Vic five times, and then when his victim crumbled to the floor he had just stood there, still. Suddenly an expression of shock and then fear spread across Ferren’s face where no expression had been a moment before. His eyes travelled across the scene of carnage and came to rest on Stegar’s face, a mixture of terror and faint hope in them.
The door crashed open as the first of the castle guard rushed in. He was armed with a crossbow and, when he let fly, the bolt pierced fully through Ferren’s upper chest. Fear transitioned to shock and then confusion as the expression on his face became younger and more innocent, finally glazing over to an unseeing state. Stegar tried to yell, tried to reach out, struggled in incomprehension, but it all made no difference.
Defeat consumed him and the darkness fell. There is nothing so precious that it can be protected. There is nothing earned that cannot be taken away. What was the use of even trying? But on the plus side, with all of the pain he had experienced in life, he guessed he would not feel all that bad when he woke up. No more than usual.
Except when he did wake up, he felt terrible. It was difficult to force his eyes open, and then more difficult to get them to focus on the fuzzy face hanging over him. “Ferren?” he said.”Ferren?” Eventually, it resolved itself into Hantlin’s concerned visage.
“Stegar?” said the priest.
“Yes, Uncle Wolf.” It felt odd using the regular moniker for a Kydaos priest, because Hantlin didn’t look the part, particularly since he was still wearing Padan’s wide brimmed hat and carrying his staff.
The concern lightened but didn’t go away. “You were seriously injured,” said Hantlin. “I used the last of my spells, but your injuries are beyond my ability to truly heal. I can help nature along, but that is all. I was worried about the head injury.” Stegar reached up, which caused a sharp pain in his chest, which set him to coughing, which made it worse. After he got that under control, he felt his head, and touching it was painful enough to make him gasp.
He gave up trying to determine the extent of his injuries and looked around. He was on a grassy knoll. Someone had rolled up something made of cloth for a pillow. It must have been someone's cape or clothing, since they had not brought anything with them when they escaped into the cave. A great city and a greater bay lay before him, ships nestled in the harbor. There was something subtly wrong with them, but it took a few moments to put his finger on it. The ships were not Kethem, not Pranan, not Stangri, all of which he’s seen in the docks at Bythe before. And they seemed disproportionately large, like they were meant for giants. He turned his attention to the city. It gleamed in the sun, sandstone brown, plaster white, hints of color that were too far away to make out clearly.
“Where are we?” asked Stegar.
““Vrargron Mard Chazun,” replied Hantlin. He saw the lack of comprehension in Stegar’s eyes. “The fabled city of the great trolls, what they called the Birthplace of Transcendance, somewhere in Kom.”
“Trolls?” said Stegar, and tried to push himself to his feet.
“An empty city,” said Hantlin, pushing him back down. “Nothing to worry about. The others are scouting just inside the gate. I stayed behind with you and the elf.�
� Stegar glanced over and saw Beldaer, whose eyes were closed. Stegar could see the faint rise and fall of the elf’s chest. He was breathing, at least. He looked back to Hantlin and raised an eyebrow. Hantlin explained, “He is better. Better than you, I would say, but he does not wake. Daesal said this is normal for elves, it promotes healing for them.”
Stegar stopped struggling to get up. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the sun was much lower in the sky and Daesal was leaning over him. “I am fine,” he said before she could ask, although that was not the truth. He realized there was something covering him now, a blanket, or what had been a blanket and now was a set of tatters barely holding together. “You found things in the city?” he asked.
Daesal nodded. “Yes. We did not go far in. We did not want to leave you three by yourselves for too long. But far enough to see the city is empty, but not dead.”
“I didn’t know cities lived,” said Stegar.
“Not without a population, normally,” answered Daesal. “But this one has little helpers. Little magicked contraptions that clean and weed and polish. Many have stopped over time, but many are still working. They did not bother us, did not even notice us, but it was a bit… disconcerting.” Stegar shook his head, which caused him to wince with pain. “Try not to move too much,” said Daesal, concern in her voice. “Rest. The city seems empty of threats. We will try to find a safe spot inside tomorrow. For now, try to heal.”
Stegar was going to argue with her, but a sudden wave of fatigue hit. He closed his eyes. He thought he heard Daesal talking to Ferren, but that felt wrong somehow. Then that faded as well. When he forced his eyes open again, he knew a long time had passed. The air had a morning chill to it even though the sun was well over the horizon.
When his mind was fractured and it was difficult to tell the difference between feverish delusion, haunting memories of the past, and the chaos around him, Stegar often resorted to a methodical inventory of his physical ailments. Concentrating on the practical was a form of meditation for him. His hand wandered up to feel the crust of blood that was reforming on the spot on his scalp that Hantlin had so carefully cleaned. One large lump on the back if his head, one or two broken ribs, and a gashing wound that pierced part of his lower bowel but did not release the kind of dark bile that heralded death within twenty-four hours. Hantlin had repaired some of the damage, and as a result this did not seem an insurmountable set of injuries.
Hantlin was nearby and brought him a cup of water. Stegar drank greedily. “We are getting ready to move,” said Hantlin. “We can make a litter for you if you are not up to it.”
Stegar took stock, then reached out with an arm. “Help me up,” he said, and Hantlin helped pull him to his feet. He took one step, two, then almost fell over. Hantlin steadied him. He took a few more steps, more steady. “I can walk. See to the elf. I will ask Gyeong to help me if I need it.”
They broke camp, what little of a camp they had, at least, and headed for the city, a good ten-minute walk from the teleportal pad if everyone had been uninjured, a half hour in their current state. The hot fingers of the sun caressed him, starting to bake the knots out of his muscles. As he hobbled along, he felt the strong support of Gyeong’s capable frame aiding him when he grew dizzy. There was a undercurrent of excitement going through the group in reaction to the strange city before them. Hantlin and Grim carried the elf on a makeshift stretcher. Stegar could not help but feel disquieted by this place. It was strange and empty, as if all the inhabitants had simultaneously decided to take a week at the seashore but would be back at any moment. The others seemed excited by the wealth that they could find in this open source of spoils. Stegar limped along, content to spend the moment recovering.
As they grew closer, training from his days as a warden gave him a grudging admiration for the place. It was a walled city, the outer walls a good twenty feet high. He could see the tops were round and smooth, difficult to attach a grapple to even if skillfully thrown. There were holes four feet down from the top, spaced regularly every four or five feet, a way to push ladders and other climbing devices away from the wall without exposing the defenders to missiles or magical attacks. The entrances were all wide, square and high to support the portcullis on the outside, a ten foot gap, and a more normal door on the inside, if you could call a door eighteen feet high normal. He felt sure that the space between them would have a ceiling with holes for flaming oil, spreading fiery death over those who made it past the portcullis. He wondered who the trolls feared enough to expend the effort to build such a tactical marvel.
Today, the portcullis and doors stood open. They looked like they had been that way for a long time. But instead of inviting, it felt more like walking into a trap, and Stegar half-expected the portcullis to fall closed behind them.
Nyjha stopped a short distance from the opening. Stegar could see the short Ibisi struggling with something.
“Nyjha,” said Daesal softly, “we have been through this. There is no darkness here.” Stegar didn’t know what she meant, but the Ibisi scout spat once to the side and started moving again. Stegar was going to ask about the exchange while they passed through into the city, but just then a small six-legged thing that looked like a cross between a metal spider and a shovel moved across their path. He would have jumped if he had been in better shape. But it continued along at a slow, steady pace without appearing to notice them. Occasionally, the flat, shovel-like head would tip down to rip up a weed, then tip up. The weed disappeared inside the thing. He glanced at Daesal. “The little helpers,” she said.
As they continued into the city, the details were not lost on him, but they were not foremost in his mind. His training and a sense of unease at the empty streets and spaces had him looking for enemies. The doorways were large, at least twelve feet in height, and many taller than that. The streets were wide, and lined with art that was both alien and skillful at the same time. Broad faces stared down at him from the cornices of buildings. Chiseled in stone of red and black they were not all smiling, and some of them made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. Small, empty squares every block sported statues some twenty feet tall, with what could have been men in fine armor if they did not uniformly sport six fingered hands.
The city was methodical to a fault. The paving stones of the streets were better fit than any he had seen in his lifetime. On the southwest corner of every block there was a well, which somehow functioned even after all these years. On the other corners were devices whose function Stegar could not fathom.
There were some areas of the city that were showing wear. Two buildings looked like roofs had caved in based on the broken glass and debris that surrounded the windows. It seemed some things were outside the capabilities of the little helpers. There were also trees that had been decorative at one point. Many had died, and the ones that had not had grown much too large for the depressions in which they had been planted. Daesal pointed to one that had fractured the stone around it, jagged pieces pointing at crazy angles. “That trunk must be close to ten feet thick. How long do you think it’s been growing here, unattended?”
Stegar thought for a moment and shrugged. “How long has it been here? Several centuries. How long unattended, I would not know.”
Daesal nodded. “Four plus centuries, I suspect. This city was abandoned after the fall, when the great trolls disappeared.”
Stegar shrugged again. “It is a reasonable assumption, but there is no way to be sure.”
Grimalkin had been doing a cursory examination of buildings as the passed, and now he called out, “Hey, I think this was an inn. We can set up here as a base of operations. It will give us a place to let the wounded recover while we explore in more depth.” Stegar appreciated that, being himself one of the wounded.
The tavern had everything they needed. The hearth was large and functional. There were tables and chairs and cups and plates. The kitchen had some unfamiliar devices and a pantry so well built, deep beneath the floor, that
Stegar half expected it to contain food that was still edible instead of the debris and damp mold he found. The second floor was strong and the stairs were still intact. Even the bedclothes were still in place, brittle so that they tended to fall apart when you slept on them, but the bed frames were strong and even the bed slats were thick enough to hold Stegar’s weight after all these years. They were sized for people much larger than a human, and Stegar felt like a small child settling into an adult’s bed.
It was not even a conscious thought, but somehow he found himself searching high and low to see if there was any alcohol left in the place. Every single cork was brittle and every bottle dry. Grim watched Stegar’s search amusedly. “If we had just come a few hundred years earlier,” he said, “some of those bottles would probably would have been at the height of their maturity and worth a fortune.“
The others in the group checked in on him and the elf, but most of them were fascinated with the city. Stegar watched them each go off in pursuit of what mattered to them most. They were a diverse group. What could possibly be holding them together at this moment? He had no idea. At first there was a job and an employer, but those were both gone now. Then there had been the simple expediency of being trapped in a cave, but even that had been solved. Now the only thing left that was keeping them working as a unit was force of habit, and the fact that they did not have any idea where they were. He wondered how long their cooperation would last.
Chapter Fifteen
Two days had passed. They had explored the lower level of the city without finding much of anything. The basic infrastructure was mostly sound, the little helpers kept things tidy, but anything valuable or portable was either gone or locked away. Finally Daesal voiced what the were all thinking: the key to understanding the layout of the city had to be the temple at the top of the mountain it had been built into.
Stegar, Nyjha and Daesal made the journey to the top the morning of the third day. Stegar was moving more easily, but it was still slow going, and it took them a couple of hours to make the climb. Now they stood in front of giant doors, twenty feet wide and almost as tall, made out of a dark material. Daesal could not tell if it was stone, wood, or some magicked substance that she was unfamiliar with.