by Ellyn, Court
The walk up the cliff to the palace was a balm to her anger. By the time she climbed the stairs to her suite, the anger was gone, but she felt raw and weary. Her desk and her correspondence waited for her, the most faithful of consorts. She noticed in passing that someone had been by to pick up the neglected puppy. Her boy’s favorite. He crawled along with that crunchy ear secured in his mouth. He’d be relieved to have it back.
She shut the door and tugged at the buttons constricting her throat. Her fingers paused. Something was different. The windows to the balcony were closed, but she smelled a garden. Green and wind and sunlight. She sniffed her hair, smelled only soap. Where was it coming from? Plenty of sunlight banished the shadows from the corners, but her skin tingled as if the sun had suddenly been snuffed. The feeling of a passing ghost. She shrank with the fear that the Shadow had finally released her father’s soul, but now he had no body to return to.
Sinking into her desk chair, she warily searched the room. Then she saw it. An empty space on the wall. Zellel’s staff was missing.
~~~~
63
Summoning the rágazeth had been simple. All Lothiar had to do was follow the directions laid out by multiple hands and wait for the Demon to answer his command. Finding a way to contact the ogres was far more difficult.
The sigil of the naenion resembled the silhouette of a toad, and, apparently, no one had ever used it to contact one of the creatures. If they had, they left no record of it.
For months, Lothiar labored, drawing on his long years for patience, while trying to find the proper medium with which to draw the sigil. Dragons required fire; fairies, light; and the rágazeth, blood. He vainly experimented with all these, as well as other, less savory substances. It wasn’t easy to think like his enemy, but his diligence paid off when he filled a basin with murky marsh water. According to the histories, the avedra woman, Uthaya, created the first army of naenion from the toads, salamanders, and slimy things that dwelt in the swamps of southern Mahkah. Dipping his finger into the water, thick with green algae and gray muck, Lothiar traced the sigil upon the air. After four repetitions, the air inside the cave sizzled, and a broad, tall doorway crackled open. Beyond, female ogres of a clan he didn’t recognize, skinned what may have been a mountain goat. Ah, the reek that wafted through the door! To the astonishment of the den mothers, Lothiar stepped from his cave to theirs and back again, chuckling. The naenion were less delighted. Rising with their skinning knives, the den mothers bellowed, sounding like angry cattle, and rushed the door. Lothiar dumped the basin, and the door slammed shut, just before they leapt through.
His narrow escape taught him that the safer course was to trace the sigil upon the surface of the water itself. This opened a window rather than a door, much like Aerdria’s scrying pool, only better. He not only saw the ogres, he could hear them, and they could hear him.
Unfortunately, the sigil chose at random any of the nearest dens, and it never took him back to the same den twice in a row. That was no way to establish communication. The waters proved reliable only when he spoke an ogre’s name, as Aerdria did when seeking someone in her pool, and he had only the name of Korax Elfbane, whose hostility had been made more than clear.
For months more, Lothiar exhausted himself to the point of illness, trying to seize control of the waters and direct them where he willed. Some days the waters cooperated, shifting the view over miles in seconds. Other days they fought him, the view inching along, even pushing backward from where he directed. The frustration threatened to drive him mad.
Then one evening while he nursed a bottle of stolen wine to kill a sickening headache, Maliel returned from the hunt with two marsh hares in his traps and said, “The night will be a dark one. Moons won’t rise till dawn. Ogres will be sniffing around. Better douse the lamp soon.”
Lothiar nearly choked on the wine. The moons! Of course. When the moons were together, above the horizon day or night, the view in the basin flew at his slightest nudge. The discovery gave him two weeks to rest.
~~~~
On the night Forath chased Thyrra over the eastern horizon, close on her heels, Lothiar tried again. Maliel lit the lantern and set it on the flat stone that served as their table. Lothiar tugged the hood of his cloak over his head and pulled the basin close, careful not to slosh the marsh water. The cave wall provided a blank, gray backdrop; he had no wish to reveal his location. Tracing the toad upon the water, he said, “Korax Elfbane.”
“You don’t mean to contact him again,” exclaimed Maliel.
“Just a point of reference,” Lothiar said. The mighty ogre with the metal shards in his braid materialized in the basin. Deep inside a cavern dimly lit by flickering torches, he grabbed one of the den mothers, mated briefly and brutally, then tossed her aside.
Maliel grunted. “Charming.”
“Shh.” Lothiar directed the window from the cavern before Korax learned that two sweetmeats spied on him.
“Where will you take it?”
“Into the Drakhans. Last time, I thought I saw promise in a na’in with exceptionally big fists.”
“Promise, how?”
“He didn’t laugh at my proposal.” The view in the basin hurtled across marsh, rocky hills, and human settlements. The snow-laden peaks of the Drakhans soon reared up in the water. “Now, where was that cave?” He searched the flanks of several mountains. Maliel turned away, grimacing as if seasick. At last, Lothiar recognized a cascade of boulders filling a valley. Yes, an Abyss-like pit gaped between a pair of boulders as large as a castle’s keep.
“Slower,” Lothiar whispered, and the window hovered outside the cave entrance before easing into the dark. The tunnels honeycombed. Nitre and water oozed from rock that was worn smooth by generations of ogres. Bones and rotting hides carpeted the floor. Lothiar thanked the Mother-Father that the window barred out the stink. Ogrelings with ears too large for their heads ducked away from elders. Elders honed spears and stitched jerkins from wolf skins and battled one another with tusks and stones.
In a large room chiseled from the guts of the mountain, Lothiar found the ogre he sought. Those oversized hands, studded with two-inch-long claws, used a flint knife to carve a tree root into a club. On the floor beside him lay a dwarf in blood-smeared armor. He looked small and feeble next to the ogre. Rousing, the dwarf struggled to gain his feet. A good time to test the club. The ogre bashed the dwarf in the head, and a puddle of blood spread around clawed feet.
“This creature?” asked Maliel, nose rumpled in disgust.
“Wait and see.” Lothiar might be gravely mistaken in this ogre’s potential, but he had to start somewhere.
The ogre’s sharp ears heard the whispering of strange voices. He peered into the shadows with those small red eyes and spotted the pale face hovering in the dark. “You!” he bellowed, raising the club.
“Greetings.”
Lothiar’s cordiality took the ogre by surprise. Slowly, he lowered the club. “Why ‘Lari ghost come here and speak of armies?” His primitive brain wasn’t the only thing that hampered his speech, but his tusks and thick tongue as well.
“Ghost? Ah. No, I’m alive and well, na’in. So is my plan to raise an army. You have considered my words?”
The ogre grunted and eased toward the window. With one of those big hands, he poked at the hovering vision. The water in the basin quivered. “Where you, ‘Lari?”
“Faraway. In hiding from my enemies. Let that be enough.”
The ogre backed away, nodding sagely. “Dis naeni remember ‘Lari’s words. They are fool’s words. No ‘Lari fight with naeni. ‘Lari kill naeni.”
“No longer. Do you know the true evil behind the rancor that lies between Elari and na’in? Humans. Humans and avedrin.”
“Human not hunt naeni,” the ogre reasoned.
“Long ago, humans hunted Elarion. So we had to hide and fight ogres for food and places to live. The avedrin could see our hiding places and killed your kind and mine. With humans a
nd avedrin gone, Elarion would be free. Naenion would be free. But we need a great army to win us our freedom.”
“ ‘Laris all tricks! Fox-tongues, all!”
“And naenion are lackwit slugs who eat their own dead,” Lothiar countered.
The ogre roared, reared that club, but did not strike. His tiny eyes blinked vacantly as he turned over the meaning behind Lothiar’s words. A slow grin stretched across scarred tusks. “ ‘Lari words are stone?”
Stone? Odd way to express honesty. Enduring, he meant, perhaps. “They are.”
Considering, the na’in sat for a long while in silence beside the dwarf’s corpse, his sloped brow furrowed. Like most of his kind, his brain worked slowly, heavily, like his limbs, but eventually, he came to a conclusion. “ ‘Lari’s words still foolish, but dis naeni talks wid clan. Come back, three days. Seek Paggon Ironfist. You go now.”
Awestruck, Lothiar sat back and dumped the basin.
“You’re pleased, I take it?” said Maliel.
“Even if this contact comes to nothing, we are moving in the right direction.”
“Too bad we didn’t find this Big Fist character first. I’d be sporting a few less scars.”
“Ironfist, Maliel. And all our scars will be worth it, in the end.”
~~~~
“What have you done?” The woman’s voice drifted from the standing stones. Lothiar recognized it; his belly jumped into his throat so great was his pleasure. Though he ran from one stone to the next, he couldn’t find her. To dream of her now … to remember the cadence, the music of her voice after all these centuries … ah, could a dream be so clear? There she was, standing in the center of the circle, measuring the angle of the stars over the horizon with a silver astrolabe. The words ‘disaster’ and ‘betrayal’ were etched into the side. She put it away and smiled at him. Her black hair was a river in the night, stirred by a wind he couldn’t feel himself. She pointed toward his feet. There, her harp lay in pieces. “It can’t be repaired,” she said. “Not now. You’ve done me a great wrong, love.”
“I had to, Amanthia,” he said.
“I know.” She raised a hand to touch his face, but she was too far away. The hill of stones reared up on a misted horizon. No, he couldn’t see it at all anymore. He stood before the mouth of a cave. Goddess, the stink of dead things! There was a sword inside. He knew it, though he couldn’t see it. A great weapon with which he would cut out the disease crippling his people. To find it, to claim it, he had to go inside. The darkness devoured him, and he woke gasping for breath. “I have to!” he croaked, but she was not here. Her disappointment in him was hard to shake. “You have no right,” he muttered to the dark. Amanthia had given up, fled to the Mother-Father. Coward. Lothiar would not flee, nor surrender.
Beyond the cave mouth, early spring rain cloaked the dawn. Icy chill. He was so sick of being cold. Grabbing a fire-hardened stick, he stoked the fire in the pit. Little wood left to add to the embers. Against the far wall, Maliel had burrowed deep inside his blankets. A sorry state for a captain and his soldier. The weather would warm soon. Yes, change lurked on the horizon. All he had to do was chase it down.
~~~~
Three nights later, he filled the basin again, traced the toad-shaped sigil, and whispered, “Paggon Ironfist.” The window opened upon the same cavern. Only now, dozens of naenion shambled about in the unsteady torchlight. An ogreling spotted Lothiar’s face, drifting among the shadows. His eyes widened like two red moons in his gray face. Jabbing a claw toward the window, he screeched, “Paggon! Dread Paggon!”
Ironfist lumbered into the lurid light, shoved the youngster out of his way, and demanded, “Who you, ‘Lari, dat you put dis clan into raucous?”
“Mmm,” muttered Maliel, leaning close, “that sounds less than promising, Captain.” Lothiar elbowed him, and he shut his mouth.
“Of course. You deserve an answer, Ironfist. This Elari is Lothiar. The Exiled. Once esteemed leader of my people.”
“Why dis Lot’iar exile?”
Other ogres crowded close, peering in fear and restrained rage at the intruder, but Paggon waved his arms and they retreated.
“Because my people did not approve of my ideas. They sent me away. They are afraid, and they fail to see that the time approaches for us to break free. But you are no fool, as they are, Ironfist. Am I right?”
Paggon conferred with his denmates. Each ogre’s guttural grunts and snarls overpowered the others.
“It’s no good, Captain. They’re just fighting about it. They’ll kill each other off before we can accomplish anything with them.”
Lothiar was convinced that his lieutenant spoke soundly. Paggon slapped and pummeled his neighbors and when the assembly was quiet, he said, “Dis clan say ‘We fight tall man, but we fight short man first—baerdwin.”
“Dwarves?” Lothiar sputtered. He’d never considered the dwarves. His people rarely had contact with them except during hastily conducted trade. The baerdwinion seemed to loathe trees as much as they loathed cities and the sea. But to the naenion who lived in the mountains, dwarves must be a daily concern. What happened when a pick-axe chipped too far and a dwarven mine and ogre lair met? Lothiar imagined bloody, subterranean battle, after which the victors claimed tunnels that once belonged to their enemy.
The ogre took advantage of Lothiar’s thoughtful silence. “Baerdwin hunt us like ‘Lari. Dey want all iron for dey weapon, all gold, all silver, all shiny stone. Storm Mount Clan hunt baerdwin back, but more baerdwin dan naeni. Dis why we kill short man first, den tall man.”
Lothiar clenched his teeth. Fighting dwarves was not in the plan. Still, leverage was leverage, and fighting dwarves might be a good way to train his troops for the real war. “Very well.”
“Captain!” whispered Maliel. “Do you mean to give them everything they want?”
“Only if it’s useful to us. Be silent.” Of Paggon, he asked, “What about the other clans?”
“Odder clans?” Paggon snorted.
“Have you spoken with them?”
“Storm Mount need no odder clans!”
“Is that so? Wouldn’t it be better for your clan to fight the short man alongside other clans? If you do not face the dwarvish picks alone?”
“Storm Mount hate Sky Rock, sometimes fight dem wid Dragon Claw. Doh sometimes Storm Mount fight Dragon Claw, too.”
“What of the lowland clans?”
Paggon’s muzzle wrinkled up, and he spat. “Storm Mount crush flatland clans!”
Hmm, raising his army was going to be more difficult than Lothiar hoped. Time for flattery. “Ironfist, I must admire you. You’re a creature of ambition, but proud, too. Has Storm Mount been able to defeat short man on its own?”
“No …” The ogre grew still as Lothiar’s reasoning began to click into place.
“If the clans stand together, they will be invincible. Now, I know you understand that.”
“Invisible?” Paggon asked, puzzled.
Maliel groaned.
“Undefeated,” Lothiar clarified.
Paggon grunted, thinking hard.
“A na’in such as you, Ironfist, must have the courage it will take to approach these other clans and the wisdom to help me convince them to join us. Do you think the others hate the dwarves any less than you do?”
“No.”
“Then your task should not be difficult. I’ll help you, of course, through the window. And once the clans are united, your enemies will fall, and so will mine.”
Paggon turned from the window, consulted his denmates in another round of shouts and snarls. At last, he bellowed, “Ragok! Ughan!” Two ogrelings, one with fists almost as big as Paggon’s, lumbered into view. “We go now, make one army,” he told Lothiar, then hurried from the cavern. As quick as that? Once an ogre’s mind was settled, it seemed, it acted like a stone rolling downhill. There was no stopping it. Lothiar spurred the window after them, up through the tunnels and out into the valley of boulders.
&nb
sp; He was so pleased with his powers of persuasion that he decided to begin seeking an ally among the marsh clans. The day was young, after all. At a nudge, the window sped west over the mountains and across the moors stained with old snow. Flocks of sheep blurred past, muddy tilled fields, walled cities, the stone circle of Slaenhyll, a black streak thundering between barren hills…. Lothiar pulled the window to a stop with such an effort that pain exploded behind his eyes. Yes, there! A black horse and blue-robed rider racing away south.
“Look, Maliel!”
“The avedra,” he said, leaning over the water.
“Outside the Wood and the fairy wards. Where do you suppose he’s going in such a hurry?”
“To the war.”
“Aye, to that twin brother of his. The Sons of Ilswythe in the same place. Bring me your sword.”
Maliel crossed the cave in two steps, and returned with his scabbard. “I hope you don’t mean to pursue an avedra armed only with that.”
“I can’t afford to waste time and strength chasing that boy. Dig inside the saddlebags.”
“For?”
“My baernavë shackles.”
“Why?”
Lothiar exhaled, impatient. “In case it’s hungry.”
Maliel fished out the shackles in a frenzy. Lothiar pricked his palm. He didn’t need the Tome for this one. He knew the sigil well.
~~~~
64
Damp wind off the sea swirled the ashes within the confines of Éndaran’s Burning Yard. The stone walls grew so warm from the flames that the mourners had to climb the narrow steps up to the parapets and watch the pyre burn from there. A waste of time. Nathryk crossed his arms and tamped his toes irritably. Couldn’t a body burn without people having to stand around and sob into kerchiefs? He had better things to do. Captain Bartran had promised to take him fox hunting this morning; his best bitch had had puppies last fall and they needed training. But cousin Raudry had to go and die in the night. He’d been sent home from Stonebrydge a couple weeks earlier with fever and a cough. The physicians said it was pneumonia. Pneumonia! Not even a proper wound.