by Troy Denning
Tavis turned away from the palace and started down the back of the rugged tor, occasionally stumbling over a crag as he struggled with the length of his new stride. That morning, he had awakened refreshed and famished and not quite the size of a hill giant, as he had discovered when he reached for his rucksack with a hand as large as a buckler. Only after devouring all of his food, and much of Galgadayle’s as well, had he paused to inspect his new body. He had found legs as thick as spruce trunks and arms as big as putlogs, and a chest so large a cooper could have bent cask hoops across it. Though the scout stood a full head taller than any firbolg he had ever seen, Galgadayle had not been particularly surprised. The ability to change sizes was primarily a matter of spirit, the seer had explained, and anyone who intended to battle a titan certainly had an ample supply of that.
At the bottom of the tor, Tavis found the verbeeg warriors lingering a safe distance away, their hungry eyes fixed, as always, on Sky Cleaver’s obsidian head. After witnessing Orisino’s fate, they had grown temporarily more cautious. Their attitude would change the instant they had a chance to steal the weapon, of course, but their current wariness had allowed the One Wielder a few hours of rest. He now felt stronger and more clearheaded than he had since Wynn Castle.
Tavis stepped over to Basil and Galgadayle, who were huddled together at the center of the tor. Over their shoulders, he could see a labyrinthine diagram of glowing green strokes that the runecaster had traced on the mountainside. The scout had seen enough runes to realize this was not one. Rather, the lines seemed to be a chart of the mount’s fracture zones and stress points. He waited in silence while his friends discussed internal forces and cleavage planes, then Basil selected another runebrush from his cloak and traced a single red line down the spine of the mount.
When he finished, the runecaster stepped back and gestured at the red line. “That’s where you should strike, Tavis,” he said. “Did the rift open? I didn’t hear anything.”
“It opened, but not like we expected,” Tavis answered. “When Othea’s shadow fell over it, the vale just appeared.”
“Appeared?” Galgadayle echoed.
Tavis nodded. “Like the shadow is the Twilight Vale.”
“Oh, dear!” gasped Basil. “We can’t destroy Othea Tor without destroying her shadow!”
“And destroying her shadow would close the vale?” surmised Galgadayle.
Basil shook his head. “Worse. If Othea’s shadow is the vale, then, by definition, eliminating the shadow wouldn’t close the valley—it would eliminate it.”
“And what happens to those inside?” Tavis asked.
The runecaster set his ice-crusted jaw in determination. “I don’t know, but we’ve already lost Avner,” he said. “I won’t take chances with Brianna.”
“Even if you’re right, destroying the shadow shouldn’t hurt her, or the child,” Galgadayle said. “It would be like opening the drapes in dark room. The sun will illuminate what’s inside.”
“Assuming they still have an independent existence, of course—but there’s only one way to be certain.” Basil pointed at the axe in Tavis’s hands. “Perhaps you’d better use Sky Cleaver.”
The One Wielder nodded. “I think I will.”
Tavis stooped down to gently push his companions aside, then raised Sky Cleaver over his head. The mighty hand axe was still too large for him to wield one-handed, but he was now large enough to swing it with both arms.
“That’s not what I meant!” Basil slipped between Tavis and the mount. “Cleave our quandary, not the tor!”
“Isn’t cleaving a prime power, whether it’s substance or circumstance?” Tavis asked.
Basil had explained that the axe possessed two kinds of magical power. The most potent was the ability to cleave anything, be it a material object like a mountain, or a circumstance like ignorance. The weapon’s lesser ability was the capacity to defend the wielder from most kinds of harm.
Unfortunately, Sky Cleaver’s magic carried a heavy price. After hearing the high scout describe Snad’s ancient and translucent body, Basil and Galgadayle had deduced that the weapon’s magic was too powerful for mortals. Cleaving burned away the bonds that connected the One Wielder to the physical world, until they finally grew too weak to bind his spirit to his bones. Defending was more insidious. The axe invoked this magic on its own, filling the bearer’s body with powerful energies that aged him far beyond his years. Accordingly, the three companions had decided Tavis would use the axe’s powers as little as possible, and even then only when the damage to the titan would balance the harm to the One Wielder.
After a thoughtful silence, Basil said, “Cleaving is a prime power, but it would be wise to use it now. If Brianna and Kaedlaw are eliminated with Othea’s shadow—”
“They won’t be.” Tavis motioned for the runecaster to step aside. “You said yourself they’d be all right if they still exist apart from Twilight.”
Basil refused to move. “I hesitate to bring this up, but I have made one or two mistakes in my life.”
“Not this time,” Tavis said. “If daylight didn’t destroy Lanaxis, then he exists apart from twilight. Why would Brianna and Kaedlaw be any different?”
“Besides, it’s safer to trust our own judgment than to rely on Sky Cleaver’s power,” Galgadayle pointed out. They had already discussed how fast the axe’s magic destroyed its wielders and decided they could not even guess. “For all we know, Tavis could turn as transparent as Snad when he cleaves the answer you want, and vanish entirely when he cleaves the mountain. Then where would Brianna be?”
Basil reluctantly nodded. “It would be better for her to disappear with Othea’s shadow.” He stepped away from the tor and flourished a hand at the red line he had traced down the spine. “Swing away, my friend.”
Tavis brought Sky Cleaver down, whispering, as Basil had taught him, the ancient word for cleave. A stinging fire erupted in the bones of his hands and rushed through his arms to spread into the rest of his body. The axe struck with a sharp crackle, slicing clear through the rock to the icy plain below. A loud, sonorous sigh rose from the other side of the mount, and a gust of wind went rustling across the plain toward the distant glacier. A crack appeared at the base of the tor, then ran up the spine to the summit.
Nothing else happened, save that Tavis stumbled away from the mount, his breath hissing through his clenched teeth. He pulled up his cloak sleeve. His skin was sparkling like a fresh powder snow and had turned as white and lustrous as polished silver, but it still seemed fairly opaque. From the looks of his flesh, he guessed that he would be able to use the cleaving power five or six more times before turning into a ghost. The high scout stepped forward, raising Sky Cleaver to strike again.
There was no need. The spine of the tor suddenly turned to talus and cascaded down toward Tavis. As the scout turned to flee, an eerie chill rose from Sky Cleaver’s heft and engulfed his body. A boulder came bouncing at his head, then inexplicably rose and sailed past without striking him. The rest of the landslide scattered around his flanks and arced over his head. Tavis looked at his arm again and found the flesh hanging more loosely than he remembered, and etched with lines that had not been there before.
A low, rumbling groan rose from deep within the tor. The two halves of the mount slumped away from each other, and the rockslide came to an abrupt halt as the boulders fell into the cleft instead of tumbling down the slope. The rent continued to open, and Tavis gasped at what he saw emerging from the murky abyss beyond: the palace whose roof he had glimpsed earlier.
Clouds of purple gloom were rising off the walls like a ground fog in the dawn sun, and Tavis could see that the monumental structure was larger than all of Castle Hartwick. The entrance portico alone was as spacious as the inner bailey, while each of the colonnaded side wings could have held the entire keep beneath its roof.
“Bleak Palace,” whispered Basil, coming up behind the high scout. “He must have rebuilt it for Brianna.”
&nb
sp; * * * * *
They come at dawn. Of course.
How the sunlight scratches my eyes! like scouring hot sand after thirty centuries of cool, purple-shadowed snow. My skin, it does burn beneath the fiery light; in my joints there flares such a sweltering ache I swear my marrow will boil. Thus does Lanaxis the Chosen, Maker of Emperors, greet golden dawn: racked with fever, so weak and anguished that he would lie upon the stone floor next to mighty Kaedlaw and roar his pain.
But I cannot set such an example. My young charge is just beginning to understand why I bring him here where he groans, to lie alone upon the throne hall’s cold floor Emperors must not cry. That is the first lesson, and if$$ wail my grief, how will he learn?
Through the antechamber echoes the tick tick of the Emperor Mother’s feet, then her tiny figure scurries out from among the column pediments. What a trifling thing she is. If my palace had vermin, even they would dwar$$ her.
Brianna crosses the floor at a dead run and snatches the child into her arms. She knows better. I have forbidden her to hold him when he is crying, but the sun has made her rebellious. The light strengthens her as much as it weakens me, and she delights too much in that.
“Put the emperor down. He has not stopped crying.”
Brianna raises her face toward the golden rays streaming through the cupola and clutches Kaedlaw closer to her breast. “I have been praying to Hiatea,” she says, as though that should exempt her from my commands. “$$ will take my son to see the dawn.”
“After he stops crying.”
I flick my hand in her direction. The Emperor Mother falls to the floor and drops her son on the cold stones for she is bound to my will by the power of the oath she swore. She promised not to escape, and disobedience is nothing if not fleeing. The child howls, and Brianna stretches a hand toward him. She does not touch him she cannot reach him until he is silent.
I rise from my throne and walk toward the exit. “I will go and see to the fools who have caused this dawn.”
The antechamber is more comfortable than my throne$$ hall, for there are no windows here, and only the dimmes$$ light filters in from outside. But as I pass down the great colonnade, the glow grows steadily brighter. A headache throbs behind my eyes, and my legs tremble with weakness. By the time I reach the foyer, the glare is so brilliant that it seems as though I am walking into the flaming forge of Surtr himself.
I step onto the portico where in ancient times my brothers and I would stand to greet the dawn, long before men and their ilk ruled Toril. Now, I hardly dare to peek at the light upon the stones, and only from the shade of a pillar larger than I. My palace stands upon a jetty of sunlit rock, its sides flanked by a chevron of abyssal shadow that points toward the sundered figure of Othea’s stone body. It almost seems she is giving birth still; the two halves of her craggy figure have fallen wide apart, creating a broad cleft that is filled with the crowning orb of the blinding yellow sun.
Silhouetted against the shimmering disk stands a figure the size of a hill giant. Something is familiar about his shape, but it is the axe that keeps me staring into the searing dawn. The obsidian head swallows light as dragons swallow gold, and even half-blinded, I see every figure carved into the ivory handle: Stronmaus smashing moons with his mighty hammer, Hiatea thrusting her flaming spear into the heart of the fifty-headed hydra, Iallanis joining the hands of Memnor and Karontor in brotherly love.
Sky Cleaver!
It cannot be. No mortal can wield my father’s hand axe; its magic would destroy me. Yet, I would know the weapon anywhere; it is impossible to mistake Sky Cleaver. What are you doing to me?
“As you wish. But don’t expect me to condone your treachery.…”
“… slice you open and feed your entrails to my swine, and there’s nothing you can do …”
“… last time! No more, my husband. Away, away with you forever.…”
Do you wish me to fail?
No matter. Even you cannot stop mighty Lanaxis, for I have allies of my own. I turn and point to the drumlins where my poisoned brothers have lain these three thousand years.
“Arise, my brothers!” I call. “Arise, cowards! You who in life would not defy faithless Othea, arise now and serve the Mother Queen again, in her death and yours!”
First one, then two, and a moment later many low groans echo across the barren plain. The drumlins crack like eggs as the bejeweled fingers of my dead brothers push up through the snow. Their hands are not skeletal, but emaciated and black, as flesh becomes when it has been frozen for three thousand years. One after another, their heads pop from their snowy cocoons and look toward me. Tufts of ropy hair protrude from beneath their dirt-crusted crowns. Their faces are as withered and dark as their hands, with yellow teeth showing through their ripped lips and puckered eyes that hang from the sockets like shriveled apples.
I point at Othea’s cleaved body. “Take vengeance for the sundering of our mother,” I command. “Go and punish the one who has defiled her legacy!”
My brothers rise and obey. They are no match for Sky Cleaver, of course, but I suspect neither is the bearer. And even if he is, the delay works to my advantage. The day is not long in the north country, and twilight shall return soon enough.
* * * * *
One by one, the dead giants climbed from their scattered drumlins and stumbled toward the sundered tor, their golden crowns and bejeweled rings too rimed with dirt to sparkle in the morning sun. There were more than a dozen of the kings, one for each true giant race that had ever walked Toril. When the world was young, they had been immortal monarchs, born of gods and destined to rule their progeny as long as Ostoria endured. Now they were mindless zombies, called back from a restless sleep by the same brother who had poisoned them.
Tavis did not fear so much as pity them the indignity of this second betrayal. Despite their shriveled flesh and the grotesque disfigurements wrought by so many centuries of lying frozen beneath the plain’s barren soil, Tavis recognized many of them from ancient stone giant tales.
The tallest, wrapped in a cloak of the whitest linen, would be Nicias, dynast of the cloud giants. Behind him was red-bearded Masud, khan of the fire giants, his dark armor glimmering through even the thick layers of dirt and ice crusting the steel. Next were Vilmos, paramount of the storm giants; Ottar, jarl of the frost giants; Ruk, chief of the hill giants; Obadai, sage of the stone giants; and several others, among them the progenitors of some races that had not been seen in the Ice Spires since before Hartsvale was a kingdom. In their black and withered hands, all the monarchs clutched ancient weapons of splendor and power.
“Hiatea watch over us!” Galgadayle was standing with Tavis and Basil between Othea’s sundered halves, looking over the verbeegs toward the drumlins south of the tor. “We’re doomed!”
“Yes, we are,” agreed Basil. He was looking in the opposite direction, toward Bleak Palace’s looming mass. “By the time we finish with those cadavers, twilight will be upon us.”
Tavis said nothing. He knew better than to think he could defeat all of the dead giant kings, even with Sky Cleaver in his hand. The weapon’s defenses would age him to dust long before he could strike half of them down. Still, the titan had been appallingly haughty to call his own victims to his defense, and there was always a way to use an enemy’s arrogance against him.
A cry of fear went up from the verbeegs. Tavis glanced back. The giant kings had stopped well short of the tor, and now they were raising their weapons over their heads.
“Grab hold of me!” Tavis hefted Sky Cleaver. He had no idea whether the axe would protect his friends, but he hoped that if they were close enough to him, the attacks would also be deflected around them. “Don’t let go.”
Nicias whirled his pearly morningstar over his head, spraying a cloud of boiling white vapor toward the sundered tor. In the same instant, Vilmos brought his sword down on the plain, Ruk smashed his ebony club into his own palm, Masud pointed his flaming spear at Tavis’s chest, and a dozen di
fferent kinds of cataclysm struck the tor. The air turned as foul and thick as arsenic; sheets of lightning swept across the plain to crackle and dance off Othea’s battered stones; great rifts opened in the ground, and earthquakes pummeled the mount; fire gusted through the cleft like wind, reducing everything it touched to ashes and smoke.
Through it all, Tavis stood motionless, watching in gape-mouthed awe as Toril herself groaned and wailed in complaint. A savage, biting cold rose from Sky Cleaver’s handle and hovered about his body. He felt his skin wrinkling and folding over his flesh, his shoulders stooping beneath the weight of years not yet gone, his bones aching with rheumatism he had not earned. Yet no lightning touched him, no fire scoured him, no poison seeped into his breath; with the world itself ending around him, he did not fall.
At last, the cataclysms ceased, and all that lay between the giant kings and Tavis had vanished. The icy plain had become a torn and churned wasteland, with no sign of the verbeegs or anything else that had cowered there. Except for the stones beneath his feet, Othea Tor herself had crumbled to dust and blown away. Even her abyssal shadow had vanished, save for a single purple shaft at the base of the boulder upon which he stood. And there, lying at Tavis’s feet and clinging to his legs like frightened children, were Basil and Galgadayle. The eyes of both ’kin were white with shock, their expressions as void as the ground around them, their mouths gasping for air.
Seeing that their foe still stood, the giant kings lowered their weapons and started across the wasteland. Where their magic had failed, their strength would not.
“Your brother has made fools of you!” Tavis called. He gently freed his legs and turned to face Bleak Palace, which still stood proud and tall behind Ottar, the frost giant, and Obadai, the stone giant. “He murdered your mother, he poisoned you, and now he has summoned you from your rest to serve his foul purpose.”