Lymon cleared his throat noisily. “For all the many uses of his stones, they had one flaw. After using them for some time, Tholar began to notice changes in the natural order of things.” He fixed his gaze on Drath. “Did you feel that earthquake we had the other day?” Drath nodded. “Those aren’t supposed to happen here. But it was those kinds of changes Tholar began to see, and when he found out what was causing them, he realized the horrible mistake he’d made.”
Lymon leaned forward again, his eyes intense. “His stones drew their power, every drop of it, from the most vast source of magical energy in existence: the natural barriers that separate the worlds and hold them together. And, he found that, in using that power, he was weakening and would eventually destroy them.” The five men on the opposite sides of the table gasped. “That’s right, in his attempt to serve mankind with more and more magic, he’d found the way to destroy everything.
“He was horrified. Perhaps the greatest gift the Great God ever gave to the world was the heart of goodness He gave to Tholar. The man had no evil in him, and that is what saved us all. He couldn’t destroy his stones, for he didn’t know what they would do then. Their connection to the barriers was too close to risk it. So he scattered them. He spent the rest of his life finding hiding places for them. Until now, no one knew where they were, and in all the searching that followed his death no one found them, thank the Great God. After he hid the last one, Tholar destroyed everything he’d ever written about their creation. Then he destroyed himself.
“He knew evil men would force him to reveal their hiding places if given the chance, so he cast himself off the top of the View. When he died, all knowledge of the stones died with him. The only reference we have to them is the warning he wrote in all his surviving texts. He told all future wizards to stay away from them. Most listened; others didn’t. But still no one found them.
“In time, the barriers grew strong again, the Balance was restored. The stories of Tholar and the strange things that occurred when he was alive became myths that were only partially believed, which was all to the good. In the face of the gravest danger to face our world, all seemed at last safe. Until now.”
Lymon paused to rise and fetch himself something to drink. He wove through the stacks of books and papers with practiced ease but had to search some time for his pitcher and a cup. At last finding both, he returned to the table and took a long drink before continuing. Vaun noticed the mage’s hand shook as he raised the tankard to his lips.
“How Elak—wind burn him—found them, I’ve no idea. He probably searched for decades before he found them all. How he’s using them, I don’t know, either. I just know he’s using them to drain the barriers. Neither is he using the energy. I don’t even know what happens to it. All he seems interested in doing is draining them dry. Again, I don’t know how.” He drank from his cup again, which to Vaun smelled like strong ale. “There’s probably something in that ice-cursed book of black magic he’s got. What the source of that text or its information is I don’t even want to guess at. But how he found them and how he’s using them isn’t important. How to stop him, is.”
Merdel stopped rubbing his temples. “But he can’t be stopped.” He’d been sitting quietly all during Lymon’s story, his eyes closed. Now despair covered his features as he turned his speckled black eyes on his companions. “The stones can’t be destroyed. If Tholar himself couldn’t do it, we certainly can’t. And even if we kill Elak, which will be even more difficult now, someone else will find them and use them again. If Tholar’s hiding places could be found, any we’d use would be found, too. And we’ve no idea how to reverse what he’s done already. We’re doomed.”
Lymon shook his head. “You’re wrong, Merdel. You always were a pessimist. There is a way to destroy the stones.” He paused to drink again, his hands shaking even more. He seemed to grow more and more apprehensive as his story continued, as if afraid of being hunted.
“What? How?” Merdel ignored his friend’s distress, concentrating instead on what Lymon would tell him.
Lymon swallowed. His expression was one of great hope overshadowed by tremendous fear. “Gwyndar’s Wand.”
“That stupid thing.” Merdel was aghast. “It has no power. It doesn’t do anything. Gwyndar was a fool.”
“He was not!” Lymon pounded the table with his fist, making the lamps rattle and the pitcher slosh a little of its contents onto the manuscripts underneath it. He acted as impatient as Merdel, and his body language bespoke a desperate need to tell his story. “Gwyndar was a genius. He was just single-minded.”
Merdel scoffed but said nothing.
Seeing the confusion on the faces of Merdel’s companions, Lymon clarified, calming a little. “Gwyndar lived a couple hundred years ago. His one goal for living was to find a way to destroy Tholar’s Stones, for he’d had a vision they’d be found. That’s all he tried to do. Just before he died, he created a wand. This wand serves no apparent purpose.” He glared accusingly at Merdel, daring the bearded mage to speak, but Merdel only shook his head, muttering that perhaps Lymon had finally lost his mind. “The only thing it does, the reason it was created, is to destroy the Stones of Tholar.”
Merdel sat up in his chair. “You don’t know that.” His accented voice was harsh with accusation.
“Fire and boiling water, Merdel, let me finish!” Lymon’s own accent thickened and his voice deepened, if that were possible, as his anger, born of frustration and fear, grew. “It can destroy them.”
Turning to the others again, the old mage continued in a much calmer tone. Apparently, talking to them was less stressful. “Gwyndar of course never tested it against any of the stones, but he knew it could do it. His writings on the wand were lost shortly after his death, and I only just recently found them in a farmhouse not too far from here. The man who had the writings had bought them at a fair to decorate his bookshelf. He couldn’t read a word. He only agreed to give it to me after I traded a book twice as thick for it. It was a text on the lost art of Tapisian snail farming.” Lymon snorted derisively.
He emptied his tankard and refilled it before continuing. “Gwyndar’s book details how he tested the wand against the power of the barriers. His test fulfilled his lifelong search. The wand acts in such a way that the stones can be safely destroyed, their captured energy releasing in a controlled burst back into the magic of the barriers. It can do it.” He gazed deep into the eyes of each person in the room. “It’s the only way.”
Merdel sighed. He didn’t agree with Lymon, but if his old friend said it was so, he was probably right. Lymon had that annoying quality about him. “That’s only if Elak is using the stones to trap the energy. If he’s using them to dissolve it, there’s nothing to release back into the barriers.”
Lymon shrugged. “Perhaps. But I don’t think that matters. I still say the wand can restore the energy that is lost to the barriers. No matter what Elak—fire incinerate him—has done with it.”
“Even if you’re right,” Merdel said, not yet convinced, “we can’t get to the wand.”
“Why not?” Vaun asked.
The wizard hesitated and glanced at Thorne. “It’s in Mahal.”
Thorne grunted a rather unsavory remark, and Drath shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Rush and Dart eyed each other, conversing quietly in elvish. Their voices didn’t sound happy. Vaun sat uncomprehending, not knowing why mention of the city would create such reactions.
Lymon noticed Vaun’s curiosity. “Mahal is a dangerous place, as Merdel and Thorne can easily tell you. To be brief, it’s a hotbed of intrigue and murder, and no one is safe within its walls. No Mahalian can be trusted, and all of them are deceptive scum.” Merdel expressed indignation at Lymon’s observation. “With one possible exception, that is.”
Pained resignation revealed itself on his mage’s bearded face. “He’s right, though. My countrymen are rather untrustworthy.” He turned to look at his fellow magician. “Are you sure about this, Lymon? No one has
ever found any power in that wand.”
Lymon didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at Vaun. “You’re the one from the other world, aren’t you?” He waited until the Swordsman nodded. “I thought so. You have that kind of look about you, when one knows to be looking. Yet you seem somehow attached to this world, as if linked to it.” No one said a word, and Vaun endured another long bout of the old wizard’s scrutiny, his black eyes glittering and seeming to Vaun to penetrate to where his deepest secrets were kept.
Shaking his head as if coming out of deep thought as he took a long drink, Lymon muttered what sounded like “fire-burned Ramener” before turning to Merdel. “It doesn’t hold any power. It draws it out. And it only draws it out of the stones. That is its sole purpose. And I’m as sure of it as I am of anything. You must get that wand, Merdel. I know you don’t want to return to Mahal, but if you want to stop Elak, you must…have…that…wand. Nothing else will help you.”
The bearded wizard sighed heavily. “Okay, if you say it can do it, then it can. I don’t like the idea, and I know Thorne doesn’t, but we have to stop in Mahal now.” His eyes clouded as he remembered events in his past. Unpleasant events.
“One thing more.” Lymon held up a finger, both for emphasis and as a warning. “Elak—water curse him—has acquired help.”
“From whom?” Drath sounded like he didn’t know what to believe, with all the strange talk passing between Merdel and Lymon.
“Not who…what. He’s…”
“Listen.” Merdel raised a hand for silence. All obediently quieted, though Lymon did it with obvious reluctance. He seemed intent on finishing his tale.
Vaun waited a tense minute, then said, “To what? I don’t hear anything.”
The others nodded agreement.
“That’s just it. Something’s missing.”
“What?” Vaun asked.
Everyone else shook their heads, all unable to answer the question.
Thorne sat up suddenly. “The rain. It’s stopped.” He sounded both surprised and fearful.
Vaun nodded. “Good. Now we can travel faster.”
The dwarf eyed the youth seriously. “That’s no the point, Swordsman. The rain is no supposed to stop for another three or four weeks.”
“What?” Vaun was shocked, realizing now what the change in the weather might mean.
“You’re a Swordsman?” Lymon asked Vaun. The youth nodded. “That’s why I couldn’t read you. The prophecy must be true after all. Maybe there’s still hope.”
Vaun opened his mouth to ask what he meant and to protest this latest attempt to read him but was stopped by his companions rushing to open the door. He looked back at Lymon as they reached the door, but the old wizard stared fixedly at a spot in front of him, lost in thought. Turning, Vaun halted as if frozen by a cold blast of air from the open door.
It had indeed stopped raining, and the clouds had even begun to break up. The village folk had also left their homes and stared wonderingly at the sky, trying to figure out who’d taken the rain away.
“Could Elak’s magic be doing this?” Vaun anticipated the answer.
Merdel nodded briskly. “It could only be that. Nothing else could cause this great a change in the weather. The earthquake was one thing, but this is much worse. Tholar tells of something like this happening when he was using the stones. Ice and wind, Elak must be farther along than I thought. We must hurry now before it’s too late.”
“Merdel!” Lymon called from the interior of the house. He had only just come out of his thoughts, and he waited nervously for the party to return to their conversation. “Merdel! You must heed me. I have something else to tell you. Something even more important than the stones and the wand.”
When the six had reentered the house and sat down, the old wizard continued. “Elak—fire curse him—has done something that’s perhaps even worse than using the stones. The aid he has summoned is quite possibly a bigger force to be feared. He’s…”
Those were the last words of Lymon the sorcerer. He gagged suddenly as if choked. His eyes widened in horror as he clutched his throat, trying desperately to breathe.
Merdel and his companions froze in confusion, not knowing what to do.
Lymon convulsed as he tried to get air into his starving lungs. After a few more terrible seconds of gasping and coughing, his head shot back violently and his arms dropped limply to his sides. His choking had stopped.
Merdel leaned hesitantly forward, Lymon’s collapse having served to release him from his paralysis. He touched the old wizard’s chest tentatively and called his name. Lymon didn’t move. Merdel turned in wonderment to his companions, but they were just as lost as he.
Suddenly, all of the lanterns in the room went out, and the fire blazed high. Thorne leapt from his position on the hearth, swearing loudly, and the others backed away from its heat. Lymon’s head lifted and straightened, and he looked around at them. His eyes glowed red.
“So,” a voice said from the wizard’s mouth, dripping malice. Lymon’s rolling accent was gone, and the voice was deeper. “You are the fools who dare oppose me.” The wizard’s features, formerly benevolent, contorted into a menacing sneer. He looked at each of the party members and laughed contemptuously, a sound soaked with evil. The room seemed suddenly colder.
“You cannot stop me.” The voice deepened with threat. “Your lives are pitiful to me. Your power insignificant. Nothing you can do will stop me. Cease your steps now, or your deaths will be horrible beyond all things. Your quest is useless. Your lives mean nothing.”
The voice sounded now like many voices speaking at once, each one more malevolent than the others.
* * *
Then Lymon’s head turned, and those red eyes glared at Vaun. “And you! You are nothing.” The voices sounded like those that taunted him during his many bouts of self-loathing. “Your world will perish, just as surely as this one. Give up your quest. You cannot hinder me. Your will is like water, and it has washed away what little confidence you have. Crawl into your hole of self-pity and forget this foolish adventure. You cannot stop that which is inevitable. No amount of skill is enough, no matter what any prophecy says. You are useless, Swordsman.”
The voice, or voices, spat the words contemptuously, making Vaun’s title, one he had only begun to find comfortable when used by his friends, vile and insignificant. He flinched at the words, feeling suddenly that they were true. All his talks with Drath seemed as nothing in the face of the evil confronting him.
* * *
At the same time Vaun heard those words, a different set of voices spoke to Thorne. They were deep, resonant voices that echoed hollowly, sounding like they came from inside a cave. “All your strength will not serve to defeat my power. Your knowledge is worthless to you. All your efforts will not save you or your friends. Stop now, or you shall never see your beloved mountains again. Run away, dwarf, and cower in the fear that taints your soul.”
The way it named him, Thorne was almost ashamed to be called a dwarf. He was insulted beyond measure but couldn’t muster the courage to strike out at his abuser. It was as if what the voices said was true.
* * *
To Rush and Dart, those red eyes glared and those voices spoke only to them. They were high-pitched and childish, demonstrating by their tone what they thought of the cousins. “What have we here? Two thieves looking for something to steal? Your abilities will not work against me. I can see you whenever I choose. I can hear your thoughts from a thousand leagues. I can taste the terror in your hearts. I am that which you fear most. Failure incarnate. Find yourselves a place to hide, elves, or I shall surely catch you. Your Great God cannot save you.”
Both Rush and Dart shook with fright and the desire to sprint away, but they were rooted to the floor. Dart vaguely sensed wetness on his legs but was too terrified to be ashamed by it. Never had either of them regretted being what they were until now.
* * *
To Merdel, the eyes searched him,
measuring his power, before the voices spoke. “What possible threat could your power be to one such as I?” The voices had a mocking accent, a sickening parody of Merdel’s speech. They turned the word power into a curse rather than a gift. “Old age eats at your bones and makes you weak. You can do nothing to prevent what will happen. You can do nothing to halt my coming. You can do nothing to save your world from my absolute victory. Your Great God is as impotent as you are. You…can…do…nothing, wizard.”
Merdel’s title dribbled off the tongues of the voices, making the mage feel insignificant and powerless. Even though he knew that was just what he was supposed to feel, he couldn’t convince himself otherwise. It seemed to make sense, to fit what he most feared about himself.
* * *
Drath merely stood and listened to what the voices told him and couldn’t help but believe them. “So, princeling, you dare challenge me!” In horror, Drath realized every voice he heard sounded like his father’s. “You cannot begin to imagine the battles I have fought. You cannot conceive of the victories I have won. And you think you can defeat me. You think ordinary steel can harm me! You dare abandon your home in the hope to save your world. What kind of leader are you? You can only save your pitiful band if you flee. If you want to be their leader, you should quit this foolish quest, for it will only gain you sorrow and death. I know you, and I know the terror that coats your heart. I know what it is you fear, and you will face it if you come against me. Run, Prince Drath, while you still have the wretched life you value so much.”
The Bonding (The Song and the Rhythm) Page 28