by Ed Greenwood
A very young Taerune had been one of those who’d handled him on one such occasion, he was sure; on her first visit to the Rift, she’d looked at him with familiar recognition. That had been the first time she’d flogged him, so long and viciously that he’d almost fallen into the flames. As he’d groaned and writhed, she’d hissed to him that he now belonged to her, and such pain was nothing to what he’d taste whenever his service displeased her.
Wherefore he’d learned very quickly to please her, and—
But no. Enough. He was not going to delve into those memories again now. Rather, he was going to see once more every detail he could remember of House Evendoom and the city around it, and everything he’d heard of the Wild Dark between it and where he’d come from.
The village where he’d been born. The place he’d get back to, if he had to butcher every last cruelly sneering nightskin to do it.
Ashenuld, it was called. Ashenuld. Farms and forests and a wide, muddy wandering cart lane. The smell of green growing things, and the sun hot on his face, and buzzing flies, and … and mud, lashing rainstorms, and great green forests he’d run and hidden in, laughing with his friends, laughing with—with … no! The names were gone, all gone long ago, and now even the faces were fading! It was all fading! Thorar damn these nightskins for that!
His hammer came down so hard the blade under it shattered, hot shards ringing and clattering off the stone walls around him. One seared his arm, just by the elbow, but he cared little, shaking off its sizzling pain almost absently.
With the stink of his own cooked flesh strong around him, Orivon frowned and reached for the next raw forgebar.
One of the darmarch stumbled on the fourth flight of steps, and disaster nearly ensued. Whereupon the tall, languid Jalandral Evendoom elegantly uncrossed his arms, from where he’d been lounging against a pillar watching the slow upward progress of their precious burden, and remarked pleasantly to Taerune’s sweating, grimacing Nameless Nifl, “Drop it and die.”
“Dral!” Taerune snarled, whip stirring in her restless hand out of sheer habit. “They don’t need your needlings!”
“Ah, forgive me, sister dearest. I quite forgot that after you’re through needling your toys, they need no more needlings—ever.” In mournful tones, head bent as if in shame, he added, “I stand chastened, drowned in the dark abyss of utter remorse.”
Taerune snorted. “Jalandral, you’re impossible! Now get you gone—right out of this tower—until the door is up! You can drop by and wag your over-clever tongue just as you wish, then.”
“Sister, I always wag my over-clever tongue just as I wish. Did I not, this castle would never hear a single plain or direct word that wasn’t one of us giving slaves orders!” Jalandral Evendoom didn’t look as if he was going anywhere. He crossed to the wide stone stair rail and settled himself on it at ease, the picture of handsome indolence.
“Jalandral,” his sister said warningly, her voice far more glacial.
The heir of House Evendoom evidently took this to be a polite request to examine the backs of his long, sharp fingernails—and began to do just that, taking his time about it.
“Dral,” a another voice chided him, from another direction. Ravandarr Evendoom stood in a door that was rarely opened, looking apprehensive. “Father’s unpleased. Shoan Maulstryke has been making threats again.”
Jalandral rolled his eyes. “And this is news? It’s about all charming Shoan knows how to do, is it not?” With a sigh he unfolded himself from the stone rail and strolled to join his younger brother. “And tell me: Shoan’s father added some oh-so-subtle adornments, didn’t he? House Evendoom is to be destroyed six sneezes hence, that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” Ravandarr said heavily. “Ohzeld did say that sort of thing, and is continuing to do so. At length.”
“He’d make a good House crone,” Jalandral mused, “if he didn’t happen to be a rampant.” He arched an eyebrow. “Of course, we could amend that trifling oversight of Olone. Is your knife sharp, brother?”
Ashenuld.
Just how far away was it?
He’d been a child, and the raid had been at night … and to the Niflghar of Talonnorn, “the Blindingbright” was ever so far away. There was always fear and distaste in Nifl voices when they said that name.
But then, there was fear and distaste in many Nifl voices when they gave orders to him, too.
So, yes, some of the nightskins feared him. Good. They were wise to do so.
He wished he could remember more of Ashenuld. Some of what he’d known had faded the moment they cast the darksight spell on him, that let him see down here in Talonnorn, so that the faint spell-glows seemed like soft but bright lights, and he wasn’t lost and blindly helpless whenever he turned away from glows and flaring fires. Sometimes they punished slaves by reversing the darksight casting, to bring down utter blindness. It never took such “Blinded Ones” long to start screaming.
Which led him once more to a certainty he’d settled on long ago, and returned to many, many times since: He’d only have one chance to escape.
One.
So make it work, Orivon Firefist.
He plunged a finished blade into the hissing, bubbling oil of its last tempering, thinking hard. He’d gone over all he knew of House Evendoom a thousand, thousand times, but he went through it all one more time.
As he had so many, many times before.
Jaw set, Orivon cast the finished blade down on the cooling slab and strode to take up the next, the ever-present leaping heat of the Rift hot on his face.
His longing to be free of this place and back home burned within him just as the Forgerift burned—and just as strongly.
Yet the long years of whips—he’d long since lost track of time in this place, but by the scratches he’d made from time to time along the back edge of the cooling slab, it had to be about fifteen years—had taught him patience. He’d probably only get one chance to escape, and failure would mean death. Right now they fed him, gave him work to do, and his skills meant the only abuse he got was the whips. So he did the only sane thing he could do: He schemed.
He plotted, considered all he’d seen, and plotted some more, alone and silent amid the clang and clatter of the Rift as he hammered and slaked and hammered some more. Among the firefists, he kept to himself because he could do nothing else: as Taerune’s favorite and the most skilled Rift slave, he was kept apart from the others by stone sidewalls unless he was needed elsewhere, and taken there in chains by the surly, much-scarred gorkul overseer the firefists called “Grunt Tusks.”
The gray-skinned overseer was lurching past right now, peering narrowly at Orivon’s work and trailing his usual sour stink. A rather disapproving grunt rolled out from under his broken brown tusks—but then, the gorkul never said anything else. He went on along the edge of the Rift without stopping, and little wonder: His worries were farther along, among the younger firefists. Orivon Taerune’s-Pet never made any trouble.
Ashenuld … he’d often wondered just what he was wondering now: how he’d find his way there, once free of Talonnorn and out into what the Nifl called “the Wild Dark.” Monsters roamed there, horrible things that made sneering Nifl shudder when remembering them … and then there were the Ravagers. Did the Nifl have maps of the surrounding Dark? Such things would be treasures, well-hidden or guarded or both, surely …
There were other Niflghar cities out in the Dark: Orivon had overheard the names Uryrryr and Imbrae and Ouvahlor, though their names were all he knew of them. The Nifl of Talonnorn hated the Nifl of other cities. All other cities.
Now that he thought about it, the Nifl hated many things. Hatred seemed their daily drink, their slakethirst.
Orivon reached up his jug of slakethirst and drank deep, frowning. At the thought that always made him frown: He had to get out of Talonnorn first. And Talonnorn was home to the Hunt.
He had to find a way to survive the Hunt.
Batlike blackhide wings flapped l
oudly as squalling darkwings landed, dark talons skittering on stone and long necks undulating in anger at being chokingly reined in. There would be later patrols, but the fullmustered Hunt of Talonnorn had hunted—and, as always, had failed to miss its quarry.
Laughing together as loudly and freely as those who are drunk on bloodlust and excitement are wont to laugh, the warblades of the Hunt tossed reins and writhing, over-long whipswords to the waiting Evendoom hostlers, and stalked off the High Ledge, their spell-armor pulsing sapphire, emerald, ruby, and amethyst as they went.
Servants were waiting to take their bloody battle trophies and wash the gore from their war-harness with ewers of scented water. As always, the warblades strode on, not deigning to notice them, forcing them to hop and scurry to keep pace with the triumphant warriors as they worked.
The warblades knew the young Nifl-shes who adored them would be waiting, and they strutted in their glowing magnificence, masters of the moment and eager to taste eagerly offered flesh. Crones might snap cold orders at them later, but now younger, far more magnificent shes surrendered all to them hungrily, submitting to their every demand.
“Ha-ha!” one of the eldest of the young Hunt warblades roared, “let us sport with our beauties once more! By the Burning Talon, bring me wine! And not just any quaff, but icefire—and mind it’s smoking in the flagon!”
“At once, Rolaurel!” cried a tall, long-maned she whose breasts were both pert and—aside from a sprinkling of glued-on gems—bared to him.
The warrior spread his arms and roared his exulting laughter to the unseen roof of the great cavern overhead—and by the time he lowered his head again, she was back before him, holding out an empty flagon and a huge decanter with icefire sparkling up into its very neck.
With a roar of pleasure Rolaurel backhanded the metal flagon out of her grasp, sending it clanging away across the Ledge. Snatching the decanter from her, he emptied it in one long swig that made the watching shes gasp in awe.
On the wings of another bellow of laughter he whirled around and flung the great decanter to its shattering destruction against the nearest wall, sending a roar after it: “So shall we serve all foes of Talonnorn!”
Luelldar was contemptuously amused. “The last time I saw such empty strutting revelry, I was up in the Blindingbright, watching humans around a campfire. Just before we burst forth and began our slaughter.”
Aloun nodded, tight-lipped in unsmiling disgust. “Their boasting and preening is unworthy of Niflghar. I doubt even their eldest crones are so swaggering in their overconfidence.”
Luelldar turned away from the watch-whorl. “Well, let them drink and rut—and so be far from the saddles of their darkwings when we strike. It won’t be long now.”
“As the fools of Talonnorn laze and strut, all unsuspecting,” Aloun murmured, slowly growing a smile that was less than nice, “they’ll never know their doom until their city is shattered forever around their ears.”
Luelldar was now casting swift spells on small clear crystal spheres that sat in individual carved cradles on the desk beside him. As he finished each spell and touched each orb with a finger, it floated up into the air, spinning gently, to float at the level of his mouth. They moved as he moved, awake and ready to carry his commands, observations, and warnings to distant warblades of Ouvahlor as he watched the fighting unfold.
He waved at Aloun to relinquish his seat and go across the chamber, to sit at a distant desk.
The younger Ouvahlan rose reluctantly, frowning. “Already?”
“The moment a single speaking-sphere is active, I am at risk from Talonar magics. You can hardly replace me if I fall, if you’re sitting right beside me and fried by whatever blasts me. This is not a game, Aloun.”
“Yes, but Talonnorn sleeps! They won’t know what—”
“War is … war. Nothing unfolds as intended. Nothing. Remember that, if you learn nothing else from what we are about to unleash. More than that: Not all the crones of Talonnorn are petty fools or blinded by Olone or gone oriad. There’s a reason they alone, when age ravages them, are allowed to hide their wrinkled and withered ugliness behind masks—‘holy masks of the Goddess’—and continue to lord it over their city, rather than being cast forth into the Dark to feed the prowling beasts and entertain the Ravagers.”
“But you said Klarandarr’s spells are stronger than anything they can cast!”
“I did, and meant it. Yet he’s but one, and risen not so long. Think, Aloun. Why did you think Ouvahlor has prepared so long for this if the Nifl of Olone are as decadent, oblivious, and overconfident as all that? We have Klarandarr—and Talonnorn has had thousands of crones, daughter after mother, time and again, and each one of them casting spells, to await the time when Talonnorn is threatened.”
“Unholy … melting … Ever-Ice,” Aloun whispered, hoarsely and slowly, his jet-black skin slowly going pale.
“Now you’re beginning to understand. At last. Hurts, doesn’t it?”
5
All Our Ancestors Undefended
It is for this reason that ineffectiveness in battle profanes Olone, despite the ugliness and imperfection of such strife: that to leave all our ancestors undefended, by the loss of so many they have handed down memories to, is to weaken the shared understanding of beauty that is Olone. In the knowing of Olone, Olone gains grace and holy power—that Her reach extend to more Niflghar, so that they know salvation, and Olone knows greater dominion. Praise be to Olone!
—The Book of Olone
So will the slaves rise up when we strike, and make our victory easier?” Aloun was struggling to regain confidence with an eagerness Luelldar could almost smell.
Ouvahlor might need Aloun’s confidence in time soon to come, wherefore the older Ouvahlan hid his sigh and replied calmly, “Some may, perhaps, though the daring to lash out has been flogged right out of many—even most. Yet I very much doubt such risings will make our conquest any the easier. Rage-driven slaves will see all Nifl as foes, and hamper our warblades more than anything else.”
“With all the magic they command, and the Forgerift and all, why do they need so many slaves? Surely a minimum to guard them against blemishing tasks would be easier to feed and house—why, there must be more than a score of slaves for every Talonar Nifl!”
“There are. Yet consider: the work of that feeding and housing is done by slaves. Slaves of some races they cook and eat, as delicacies, and so must be replenished. And then there is status.”
“Slaves have social standing?”
Luelldar did sigh, this time. Was Ouvahlor so weak that such a one as this was only one dying mind away from overseeing its swords?
The dying mind would, of course, be his. Well, perhaps it was best that Aloun was too dull-witted and craven, for all his tantrums, to have ambition enough to kill a bitter old Nifl hight Luelldar.
Yet to serve Ouvahlor, it was his task to forge the blade that might one day slay him.
Aloun of Ouvahlor, shrewd and swift to see consequences and wise about the world. Hah.
His snort was loud and emphatic, but he kept the words, “Ever-Ice, scourge us all!” unsaid. Ouvahlor did not need the young fool’s anger just now.
“Slaves do not have social standing,” he said patiently, “in and of themselves.” Luelldar lifted his hand to point at a speaking-sphere, and slowly turned in his seat, arm outstretched, to point at each in turn, feeling the linkage, feeling its readiness. “Yet they do enhance the rankings of families in Talonnorn—except for the Evendooms, of course. Their standing is due to their size and long dominance and what that dominance is rooted in: control of the Forgerift. They could have no slaves at all, and yet be the first House in that city.”
Satisfied as to the state of the spheres, he turned to lock gazes with Aloun. He hoped the youngling might just pay attention enough, if he made these oh-so-obvious matters sound grave and important enough, to remember them.
“Consider now all Nifl cities of Olone, and dismiss l
ocal rifts, past history, and this or oriad or stone-witted dupe among Niflghar. Well, then: The prestige of Nifl families is linked to the size of their pureblood ranks; the beauty—that is, physical perfection, the very long limbs and sleek curves you were so admiring earlier, when you gazed upon Taerune Evendoom—of those purebloods; the efficacy of their magic; and the wealth (in gems and metals) their slaves bring them. So, now: More slaves can do more work, and so reap more—and so, having more slaves creates greater status.”
Aloun nodded. “So whenever I see a House with the most slaves—”
“No. Even if magic and rifts were distributed evenly from House to House, across all of Niflheim, a mere body count will never tell you anything. All powerful Nifl Houses share at least this one habit: They keep some slaves hidden away, in various distant caverns and castle dungeons, for experimentations and in endeavors they’d rather rival Houses not know about.”
The younger Watcher of Ouvahlor frowned. “So how will we know, after Talonnorn lies awash in blood and our warblades stand triumphant, that we’ve got them all?”
“We won’t get them all.”
“What? But I thought—”
“That we were here to ‘see all,’ and direct the warblades of Ouvahlor to every last Talonar throat?”
There was a brief silence, in which Aloun blinked at the older Watcher several times, ere mumbling, “Well … yes.”
Luelldar passed a hand over his own brow. Ever-Ice give me the cold strength!
“You are mistaken,” he said wearily. “So listen, now, and heed. I do not want you plunging that boot knife you think I’m unaware of into my back when battle is raging high, bellowing that I’m some sort of traitor to Ouvahlor!”
Aloun paled again, and his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t know what.