The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within

by J. L. Doty

  “The outlaw wizard?”

  “Yes,” Morgin answered flatly. “The outlaw wizard. And if you stop me, then you’ll be siding with our enemies, and I know full well you’ll not enjoy facing my grandmother.” Morgin was hoping Katha didn’t know he was being hunted by his own family as well as the Pendas.

  Katha’s upper lip curled almost into a snarl. “But if I let you go then I’m siding with you, and the Pendas won’t be kind either.”

  “No,” Morgin said. “They won’t.” He thought quickly. “But then you could attempt to stop me, and I could knock you unconscious, and my grandmother would not blame you for the attempt, as long as you failed, and the Pendas would not blame you for the failure, as long as you made the attempt.”

  Katha considered him for a moment, then slowly lowered his sword and turned his back on Morgin. He waited there, standing patiently in the moonlight. He tensed when he heard Morgin draw his sword, perhaps wondering how traitorous Morgin might be. But Morgin didn’t let him wonder for long. He hit him in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword, though he softened the blow considerably. Katha needn’t be truly unconscious, just have an appropriate bump to back up his story.

  As Morgin led the three horses to the front of the caravan, one of the night guards stopped him. “What’s this?” the man asked. Luckily Morgin knew the man enough to be recognized.

  “Damned if I know,” Morgin growled in a whisper. “Katha kicks me out of me blanket and he’s mad as hell about something. Tells me to bring meself and three horses and meet him up front of the caravan. I’ve already stood me watch. I should be sleepin’.”

  “Got any idea what’s up?” the guard asked.

  “Na,” Morgin growled. “Katha didn’t say. But I’ll bet it’s somethin’ to do with them Pendas. I best be movin’ on quickly. Katha’s mad enough as it is without me bein’ late.”

  The guard nodded. “Move on,” he said, then he turned and went about his business.

  Morgin found France and Val waiting for him at the appointed place. They led their horses on foot and in silence, hoping to gain some distance before mounting up. But they’d only gone a few hundred paces when an outcry arose from the camp.

  “Well that’s it,” France snarled. “Let’s get the netherhell out of here.”

  ~~~

  They rode hard through the rest of the night, stopping only to walk the horses for brief periods. Sometime past dawn Val reined his horse to a stop atop a small rise and turned to look back down the road. The countryside about them had flattened out as they approached the port city of Aud, and from the low hillock Val had chosen they could see for a good distance. And there, not far behind them, they saw the Penda posse riding fast and hard in their wake.

  “I’ve been hearing rumors about trouble in Aud,” France said as they watched the Pendas for a moment. “I was thinkin’ we might skirt the city altogether. But we got no choice now. Aud’s our only hope for refuge.”

  Morgin asked, “What’ll stop them from following us into Aud?”

  “Oh they can follow us into Aud,” France said. “And they’ll be as welcome as we are. But if they try to impose the authority of the Lesser Council, or that of any clan, Aiergain will have their heads.”

  “How far?” Val asked.

  France looked up at the sun. “At this pace, if our horses hold up, dawn tomorrow.”

  By dawn of the next day all of their horses were exhausted, even the indomitable Mortiss. The animals struggled just to maintain a reasonable gallop, though the Pendas, who were now only minutes behind them, seemed to be in no better shape. Then, as the four of them rounded a sharp bend in the road, they found themselves facing a company of two twelves of armed and mounted warriors, with long, deadly lances leveled at them.

  Morgin and his companions reined their horses in sharply, came to a stop just beyond the points of the lances. Another two twelves of armed warriors coalesced out of the thin forest and took up positions behind them.

  Nothing happened for a long silent moment, though in the distance Morgin heard the thundering hooves of the Penda posse pounding down the road toward them. Then France slowly and carefully dismounted, making every effort to keep his hands well and clearly visible. He handed the reins of his horse to Morgin and he stepped forward to face the warriors in front of them.

  One of the warriors, a young man only a few years older than Morgin, and obviously the captain of these men, also dismounted, and stepped cautiously forward to face France. He frowned at France and squinted, as if trying to peer through a hazy fog. He stopped a few paces short of France, and France said, “It’s good to see you again, Pandorin. You’ve grown quite a bit since we last met.”

  The young man’s eyes opened wide, and in an instant he dropped to one knee before France, bowed his head. “My lord,” he said. “How may we serve you?”

  “Well first you can stand and face me, friend Pandorin.” The young man did so. “And then there’s a bunch of Pendas right behind us that mean us no good. You might see to it they don’t get into the city, but as a favor to me try not to kill any of them, eh.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Pandorin jumped to obey. He blocked the road with his four twelves of men, while Morgin and his companions waited behind them. A few moments later the Pendas rounded the same bend in the road and came face to face with Pandorin and his warriors. Pandorin’s four twelves outnumbered the Pendas, and too the soldiers from Aud were rested and fresh while the Pendas and their horses swayed with exhaustion.

  “What is this?” the Penda captain demanded. It saddened Morgin to see a few Elhiynes among the Pendas.

  “This is the border into Aud,” Pandorin said flatly. “And you’re not welcome here.”

  “Are you telling me Aud will protect the outlaw wizard, the renegade?”

  “That is for the Mistress of Aud to decide,” Pandorin answered. “I know only that these men are not outlaws in Aud, and it is up to the Queen of Thieves to decide their fate. Now turn back. As I have already said, you are not welcome here.”

  The Pendas did turn back, but with angry shouts. Val looked carefully at France, then at Morgin, and he said, “I should have known France would be a prince among thieves.”

  France turned on him angrily. “I ain’t no prince.”

  ~~~

  Pandorin sent one of his armsmen ahead as a messenger to tell the Queen of Thieves “Lord France has returned.” Then he left one of his lieutenants in charge and decided to personally escort them into the city. But there was something amiss in Aud, for while Morgin had never been there before, even he sensed the unnatural pall that hung over the city, as if its inhabitants were in mourning.

  “What’s wrong here?” France demanded of Pandorin as they dismounted their horses in the palace yard at the center of the city. “I’d heard rumors of trouble, but I hadn’t thought it would be this bad. What is it, man?”

  Pandorin’s eyes pinched with pain as he spoke, and lines of strain crossed his face. “Aiergain is dying. It is some illness of the mind that’s slowly eating away her sanity. We’re all powerless to help her. The whole city is just watching, and grieving, as every day she deteriorates even further. It hurts us all to watch her suffer so.”

  Pandorin looked carefully at Morgin and Val. “I take it one of you is the outlaw wizard?”

  Morgin said flatly. “I am.”

  Pandorin looked him over for a second, then shrugged and turned to France. “Her Majesty wants to see you right away, and you are to bring your friends.”

  Pandorin led them into the depths of the palace, a grand place, with high vaulted ceilings. There were large windows everywhere that let in the sun and brightened the halls immeasurably, and Morgin remembered that somewhere he’d heard it was called the Palace of Lights. But as they approached a particular hall he heard a woman shouting, and when they brushed past uneasy servants and entered the hall the shouts grew louder, then stopped.

  “France,” the woman’
s voice cried joyfully, and Morgin got his first glimpse of Aiergain as the crowd surrounding her parted. He guessed her to be in her early thirties, still young and beautiful, and there was an air of confidence about her, though her face was marked with strain and fear. “My dear friend France,” she cried as she strode across the room to greet the swordsman, her arms extended, a happy smile on her face.

  France tried to bow and drop to one knee, but she lifted him and hugged him, and Morgin saw tears in her eyes as she rested her chin on the swordsman’s shoulder. She looked past France at Morgin, and she looked through him as if he weren’t there, a very noble snubbing. Then she looked at Val, her eyes darkened and her smile turned to a look of anger. She stepped away from France and pointed at Val. “Is this your companion?” she demanded angrily.

  France looked at her uncertainly and nodded. “Yes. They’re friends of mine.”

  She turned on France viciously. “You too?” she asked, shaking with fear. Morgin caught a momentary glimpse of uncontrolled magic as it swirled upward from behind her ear. “Even you betray me? You bring magicians into my midst, sorcerers, practitioners of evil. I thought I could trust you. At least you!”

  She started sobbing openly, turned her back on France, raised her chin and shouted hysterically at the ceiling, “Guards! Seize them.”

  She spun back toward them. Morgin saw power buried behind her eyes and he sensed it with his soul. She pointed a finger at France. “You betray me like all the rest. Seize him,” she screamed maniacally. “Bind him. Kill him. Now.”

  Pandorin stood like a man who’d just received a horrible blow to the stomach, his mouth open, his eyes pinched, tears streaming down his face. “But Your Majesty! It’s Lord France! He’s always—”

  “Seize them, I tell you,” she screamed, “or I’ll have your head too.”

  The guards moved slowly, for their hearts were not in the task. They seized France and Val. Aiergain screamed orders about executing the two men, and for the moment Morgin was ignored, so he grabbed Pandorin’s arm and pulled him behind a few onlookers. Morgin asked one question. “Has the queen ever shown signs of magic before?”

  Pandorin frowned, looked at him stupidly. “Of course not. She’s no witch.”

  “Oh yes she is, my friend,” Morgin said. “And she doesn’t know it, and that’s what’s killing her.”

  Morgin was perhaps the only person in the room who could truly understand growing up without magic, then having it thrust upon you unprepared, unbidden, uncontrolled. He shook Pandorin, “Listen to me. I’m going to try to save your queen’s life, and that of my friends. But you’ll have to back me, even if it means defying her. Just remember it’s for her own good.”

  Pandorin looked at Morgin carefully. “You can save her?”

  “Maybe,” Morgin hissed. “Maybe not. But I’m willing to try. Will you back me?”

  “Of course,” Pandorin said. “Any man here would die for her.”

  “Well you may have to,” Morgin said. “Now just follow my lead.”

  Aiergain was still screaming. France and Val were on their knees before her, their hands bound behind their backs, their heads forced down to the floor by unhappy guards. “Bring me a sword,” Aiergain screamed. “I want to see their heads roll now.”

  In the instant of silence that followed Morgin shouted, “Hold.” His shout had the desired effect. Aiergain froze into an angry stillness and the crowd in front of Morgin parted to get out of her way. She looked at Morgin for one instant, then growled at the guards, “There’s another one of them. Seize him too.”

  “No,” Pandorin shouted, and his behavior stunned even Aiergain.

  “You’re all turning against me,” she said. “Even my most trusted men. You’re probably all wizards and witches.”

  “No,” Morgin said, and he pointed a finger at her. “It is you who are the witch, and you don’t know it, and you don’t know how to deal with it, and that’s why you’re sick.”

  “I’m not sick.” She looked at the guards. “Kill him. Now.”

  “If you do that,” Morgin said calmly, “then you’ll lose the one thing you want more dearly than anything else in this world.”

  “I want for nothing.”

  “Ah, but you do, and like your magic you don’t know what you want, nor even that you want it.”

  “Well then,” she growled. “If you’re so smart, tell me what I want so dearly.”

  Morgin closed his eyes, remembered when his magic had first come upon him fully, and how, untrained for it, he had been tormented for days and nights on end. There had been just one thing he had wanted, and he’d felt that if he got that one thing, then he would have the strength to handle all the rest. He spoke softly, and carefully. “You want a descent night’s sleep.”

  Aiergain gasped, stepped back as if she’d been slapped.

  “You want rest, release from the strain and pressure that’s forever pulling at your soul. And I can tell you how to get it.”

  She looked at him angrily but said nothing, waiting for him to speak further.

  “Do what I say,” he said softly. “Speak the words I want you to speak, think the thoughts I want you to think, do that for just one minute, and I’ll give you the first descent night’s sleep you’ve had in months.”

  Aiergain shook for a moment, and a dark cloud of hatred passed behind her eyes, but then she calmed. “Very well. I will do what you want, for just one minute.” She extended her hand out toward him with her palm open, then slowly closed her fingers as if crushing his heart in her fist. “But if you’re lying, if you’re deceiving me, you will die the slowest and most painful death I can devise.”

  Morgin had them clear the hall, though Aiergain instructed her guards to burst in the instant they heard her shout. Morgin then sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the large hall and instructed her to sit likewise opposite him. Reluctantly and distrustfully she did so.

  “Now,” Morgin said. “Give me your hands.” He extended his and she unhappily took them.

  “Close your eyes and try to empty your mind.” Morgin thought of AnnaRail, and how she’d done exactly the same thing with him. He tried to remember every word she’d said, every action she’d made, and he tried to imitate her. “Now repeat after me.”

  He dug deep within his soul to find the word, a word completely incomprehensible to him, a word that only took on meaning when his magic came upon him, and so a word he would never again understand. He searched his memory hard, and he did find the word, and he spoke it, and then it left him as if it had never been uttered.

  Aiergain repeated the word, but on her lips it rang a bell of meaning and pleasure, not merely die upon the air.

  Morgin struggled to find the next word, brought it forth, spoke it, listened to Aiergain repeat it. If Aiergain responded as he had, then she’d be well into the spell before she realized what was happening to her. One by one he brought forth the words of the spell and asked Aiergain to speak them, and from a distance he saw the spell building about her. Then at the right moment he had her speak the final phrase.

  She collapsed, would have fallen backward had he not been holding her hands. He lowered her gently to the floor, then stood and lifted her in his arms. He pounded on the doors of the hall with his foot. The guards opened them instantly and their eyes filled with fear.

  “She’s just sleeping,” Morgin said. “Lead me to her apartments.”

  Her ladies wanted Morgin to leave her so they could dress her properly for bed, but Morgin wouldn’t let them touch her. He laid her on top of the bed, still dressed in her gowns. He called for a blanket, placed it over her, tucked it tightly about her.

  Her eyes opened into slits, and he saw she was still caught within the spell. “Thank you,” she said.

  He smiled at her, but as he did so something within her eyes changed and he saw a darkness from deep within her soul come boiling forth. A sudden pain stabbed at his soul. He was lifted off his feet, slammed against a w
all high up near the ceiling with his feet dangling well off the floor, and powerless to defend himself against her magic, he lost consciousness.

  ~~~

  Aiergain ran in a panic stricken rush through a horrifying forest of death and decay. She heard the howl of a pack of large beasts she was certain were hunting her, and they were catching her, and soon they would devour her. Her skirts were heavy with mud, and tangled about her ankles they hindered her constantly.

  She caught a glimpse of motion far to one side, retained an image of something large and hairy. She saw another, then another, and now they no longer tried to hide themselves, but rushed at her, all fangs and muscle and bone.

  And then they suddenly stopped and froze in their tracks. Large, hairy, man-like beasts, they raised their muzzles in the air and sniffed, and at what they sensed one of them let out a yelp, a frightened, terrified yip. They hesitated for a moment, then barking out their fear they turned away from her and ran, leaving her behind just when she was theirs for the taking.

  There was a rustle in the dank undergrowth. She looked fearfully toward it, wondering what horrible thing could have frightened away an entire pack of such monsters. But what stepped out of the brush was a small, decrepit child, dressed in torn rags, with terrible, oozing sores on its face. And it dragged an old sheathed sword behind it, a sword too big for it to lift, and almost too big for it to drag, but it managed nevertheless.

  It looked at Aiergain and croaked, “Close your eyes and we’ll leave this place.”

  “Where will we go?” she asked.

  “A place you’ll like it much better than this. We’re going to go see Erithnae and the Unnamed King. You’ll like them. I do.”

  ~~~

  Morddon returned to Kathbeyanne on a stretcher. He had a broken arm and several broken ribs, a serious concussion and a number of bad cuts and bruises. He was part of a train of carts and wagons carrying wounded back to the city, and they were still a few days out of Kathbeyanne when a messenger arrived with joyful news. SheelThane, the griffin queen, had escaped from captivity in the netherworld. After twelve hundred years the House of the Thane was again whole, and the entire city was rejoicing, though the man had no information on how she’d escaped, and in fact rumor had it she refused to speak of the matter entirely.