Gemworld

by Jeremy Bullard

  “No, thank you.”

  The clean-up actually went fairly well, all things considered. Once the weak section of the southern wall was brought the rest of the way down, they were able to tend to the survivors within. Finally whole, the rebel army licked their wounds as best they could. Those who were well enough set to the task of burying the dead.

  The bodies and weapons of the fallen, both friend and foe, were gathered together and placed in the center of the fort, to be burned in a funeral pyre that night. Those emeralds not tending the dead saw to the living, healing the most serious injuries first, then moving on to the more cosmetic ones. Thankfully, not a single soul was lost to untended wounds.

  With Reit gone, and his wife and brother unable to cope just then, Jaren stepped up as the interim leader of the Resistance. Everyone came to him with their questions, their concerns, and he did his best to attend to them. Still, it was plain to see that he wasn’t comfortable with such a position, so they only bothered him with the most pressing of matters.

  The clean-up lasted all day and well after sunset. The dragons graciously offered their assistance with the most mundane tasks, though for the most part they chose to remain apart from the humans. They feared that their presence would be more of a distraction than a help at this point, so they put off introductions and allowed the humans time to grieve in peace. “Time enough for answers later,” rumbled their leader, a massive red dragon named Aplos, when Jaren had asked where they’d come from, and why. “For your dead, the journey is over, while ours has barely begun. I would not dishonor their memory by us continuing on our way together without you first seeing them on theirs.” Jaren offered a sad smile, accepting the dragon’s respect and wisdom, though it forced the emerald to return to the task at hand.

  When the plain was finally cleared of corpses, Jaren called a midnight ceremony to eulogize the dead. All were in attendance, even those still receiving healing for their wounds. The dragons took up position around the rebel fortress, an honor guard for the dead. The emerald gave a rousing sermon, praising the Crafter for their victory, and lauding them all for their sacrifice. In eulogizing the dead, he included the fallen of Bastion, which surprised no one. The enemy hadn’t been evil. Misconceptions of the Highest had been bred into their people for countless generations. To their minds, attacking the rebel “infidels” had been the Crafter’s will. Jaren couldn’t disrespect them for that, however he might have pitied them.

  At Delana’s insistence, he said nothing specific in his eulogy about Reit, who lay in state in the command tent. Mourners had been filing past the tent all day, paying final respects to the man they all knew as el’Yatza, the Hand of the Crafter. Even now, not a few stragglers hovered near the tent. None missed Jaren’s omission, but none objected to it either. As Reit had been wont to say, he was just a man, no better than any other. He had counted it a privilege to use his nobility to serve his people, when others would rule. His followers knew this all too well, and did him the best honor they could by counting him among the honored dead of the Battle on the Plains of Ysre.

  Still, his body lay in state, rather than in the pyre along side his brethren in arms. Honor can only go so far before love overrules it.

  Jaren offered a final prayer to the Crafter, then nodded to Senosh. The fiery-eyed Mandiblean stepped forward, flanked by a troop of his finest rubies. As one, they raised their hands to the heavens, wielding their magic.

  Smoke billowed from the pyre as the dead ignited. It twisted and curled phantasmally as it rose, like the ghosts of the battle, floating off to their eternal rest. Higher and higher the flames leapt, till the bonfire was too bright to look at. The rubies released their magics and stepped back into formation, their services no longer needed. As one, the dragons craned their long necks and bellowed into the heavens, their terrifying, united cry shaking the very foundations of the fortress, announcing to those in the Afterlife the valorous men and women that would be joining their ranks.

  Ceremonies concluded, the assembly broke up. Some retired to their cots for some long overdue sleep. Others spent the night in the mess tent, turning it into a makeshift tavern as they lifted mug after mug to their fallen comrades, or in celebration of their hard earned victory. Still others, like Sal and Jaren, stood in silent support of one another around the funeral pyre, watching the flames light up the night sky.

  Two figures stood apart from the rest. One was dressed all in black, invisible in the night if not for the white tent behind him. The other wore a purple gown, faded and drab in the pyre’s light. They held a silent vigil at the flaps of the command tent, together and yet alone.

  “So, what’s next?” Sal asked Jaren, both of them eying their friends with deep sympathy. “We’ve won a major battle, with relatively minor losses. We’re a few hours march from a defenseless city, which just happens to be the most defensible point on the map, I might add. And we’ve got over three hundred Earthen Rank defectors, which brings our numbers to well over a thousand, probably closer to two, not to mention about a dozen dragons, who before tonight were little more than a myth. But we’re down one fearless leader, and one very unique granite. Did I miss anything?”

  Jaren chuckled ruefully. “No, that about sums it up. I dare say that our situation is rather ‘touch and go’ at this point.”

  “Whoa... right words and proper context? You’ve been brushing up on your Inga’Lish.”

  “It was a long trip downriver,” the emerald deadpanned.

  “I can imagine,” said Sal. But he knew the mage saw the concern beneath the jest, so he said what was really on his mind. “Are you okay? With Reit, I mean.”

  Jaren didn’t answer immediately. His lips pursed thoughtfully, and his glassy emerald eyes went distant as he gazed into the past. “When I was nine, I went with Father to Aitaxen. He had some minor land dispute that required King Titus’ attention, and he saw the opportunity to introduce me to life at court.

  “Needless to say, I was bored to tears. As it happened, there were these two boys there who were about my age—Reit and Retzu. They shared my enthusiasm for court life, so we sort of fell in together.

  “We passed the time as children do, mocking the courtiers, raiding the pantries, aggravating the twins’ older sister—who was the very essence of nobility, I tell you. But we quickly ran out of things to wreak havoc upon, so we went out into the market.

  “Things were going fairly well—Retzu was in the process of training me in the ways of the Master Thief—when one of the King’s Guard spied our lessons. Of course, he was having none of it. Guards tend to frown upon that sort of education. I don’t know why. It’s job security.

  “Anyway, he recognized the twins from previous encounters, so he led us by our ears—or Retzu’s ear, in any case—back to court where he announced our crimes to the King. In the presence of our fathers, to make matters worse!

  “Well, the king consulted with our fathers privately, and by the glances they shot us from their huddle, we expected to be drawn and quartered for certain! I was absolutely in tears, and knowing Retzu, he probably had a preplanned excuse on his tongue, ready to go. But it was Reit who stepped forward and addressed the king. In what I came to recognize as typical Reit fashion, he fearlessly took full responsibility for our actions, and begged the king to have mercy at least upon me, a first time offender.

  “The king, impressed with Reit’s display of valor, deferred to our fathers... who flatly rejected his plea. So the king sentenced us to stay the night in the royal dungeons—in our own cell, of course. The food was bad, and the smell was horrible, but the dungeon was better than the stocks, or the rack, or any of a thousand punishments that a boy of nine can dream up!

  “From then on, we were fast friends. Keep du’Nograh was less than a day’s ride from Darsen’s Way, so our families encouraged the friendship. Oh, at first, both fathers saw the arrangement in light of their own personal gain, to be sure. Mine saw it as an advancement of our family’s station, while C
ount du’Nograh saw it as an education in character and social interaction for his otherwise sheltered sons. But over the years, our families grew more intertwined, until one was barely distinguishable from the other. Lord Eram even paid for my formal training at the Academy, in full, within a week of my ascension.”

  Jaren paused for a moment. He had been smiling throughout the recollection, even amidst his tears, but the smile faded, and his lip trembled slightly. “So you see, Reit was my brother, as surely as any of my own siblings. I mourned his mother and father’s passing as I mourned my own—as we mourned mine. I shared the loss of Anika, and the joy of Reit’s wedding. Besides Retzu, I was the first one that Reit came to when he decided to rise up against the unjust rule of the Highest.”

  The emerald gave a shaky sigh and scrubbed his eyes with one hand. “Am I okay? No, not really. I’ve lost my best friend, and a very large part of who I am. But Delana has lost her soulmate, and Retzu his only remaining blood kin. I’ll mourn later. Right now, they need me.” Having said his piece, he fell silent. He’d said more than he had apparently intended, but there were only so many ways to answer a question like that.

  Sal lay his hand on Jaren’s shoulder supportively. The emerald humbly nodded his appreciation. “Try and get some rest,” Sal suggested. “Tomorrow’s gonna be another long day.”

  “What about you?” Jaren asked as Sal started away from the tent city that had been erected to accommodate the rebel camp.

  “I don’t know. I want to check something out. Something about Keth’s death...”

  “Doesn’t hold water?” Jaren finished playfully, scrubbing away the last of his tears.

  “See? I knew you’d been practicing.”

  “Don’t stay out too late. I know a certain artisan who’s been dying to show you her latest tricks.”

  Sal let that one slide without comment, and turned away, headed for the hole in the southern wall.

  As much traffic as the area had seen that day, the scene of Keth and Reit’s death had remained eerily untouched. He could still see where Reit had collapsed, dead before he hit the ground. Even in the dark, the outline of a body was clearly visible in the blood-matted grass. Especially to his diamond eye, which saw each blade of grass with crystal clarity.

  But that wasn’t what he was here for. Holding up a torch that he almost didn’t need—That pyre must really be lighting up the night!—he hunkered down before the heap that marked Keth’s grave.

  Ash dusted the ground for yards in every direction, evidence of a cloud settling. The main heap sat at the center of the cloud. An explosion, maybe? Did Keth take the granites with him in some magical blaze of glory? No, that didn’t seem to fit. As powerful as such as spell would have to have been to destroy all four granites at once, Reit and the headless fifth granite would have been consumed as well, or at least the dusty blindfold that lay atop the pile.

  Okay. What else, then?

  The heap stood about a foot tall in the center. Sal scooped up a handful of ash and brought it up close, examining it. He looked at it from every angle, smelled it, even ground it in his hand. It seemed like ordinary ash, but it had the slight gritty feel of granite magic. Whatever else happened here, Keth and his captors had been disintegrated. Then how—?

  The sound of a tumbling rock outside the wall caught Sal’s attention. He snapped his head around, instinctively taking hold of Amethyst and employing its visual spectrum. The night beyond the breach came alive with violet-hazed skeletons of all shapes and sizes. Nocturnal birds, mice, foxes, toads, all scurrying about in the dark, but nothing the size of a man nearby. Nothing glowed with the aura of magic... well, no recent magic, anyway. Every aura he saw was a shadow of that morning’s battle, growing more faint with each passing moment.

  He heard the sound again. This time he saw the rock fall. The pebble bounced lightly down a nearby pile of rubble, dislodged by a fair sized raccoon, scavenging for anything that the rebels might have missed in their clean-up. Sal snorted, amazed at how jumpy he was, even this long after the battle. Still grinning, he returned his attention to the heap—and froze.

  Magical auras floated in his amethyst sight, the ghosts of the assault. They twisted and flailed in his sight, bleeding into one another in a confusing, jumbled mess.

  He saw the wide circle of Delana’s lode field, and in its center were five granite auras, distinct and separate—mainly—in the heap; one aura in the center, and four arms, fading as they radiated outward, with each ending in a set of footprints. It was obvious to Sal what it looked like, but the implications were ridiculous. The four remaining granites had surrounded Keth, each taking hold of an extremity. Somehow, Keth had summoned the strength to fight back their magic and wield some of his own. His counter attack disintegrated the granites, and somehow caused him to implode. The resulting vacuum pulled in everything around it, air and ash rushing together to meet in the center of a sonic boom.

  A sonic boom?!? Sal laughed out loud at the absurdity of the notion. He’d been awake way too long and he was starting to get loopy. How in the world could Keth implode? That kind of thing went against the laws of physics, even against what little he knew about the magic of this world. His laughter trailed off as the words from another lifetime came to him.

  When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Sherlock Holmes.

  What is impossible in this world? He had to admit that he didn’t know. Healing mangled eyes was impossible until he came here. And what about the diamond that had taken its place? Wasn’t there only supposed to be six Tiles, six soulgems? The fact than something imploded was obvious. And no matter how badly he wanted to, Sal just couldn’t just chalk this one up to impossibility.

  He looked into the mound of ash, his amethyst vision stripping away the inches, layer by dusty layer, to see if there was anything he might have missed. He could see the signature of Keth’s aura, plain as day, but it was indistinct. The entire mound radiated with it, as well as the residue from his magic, but his personal aura seemed... filtered. As he moved deeper, he realized that rather than glowing from within the mound, the aura actually seemed to glow from beneath it. It was glowing so brightly that it was showing up through the heap. There had to have been a lot of mana expended to leave an aura like that.

  Now that Sal knew what to look for, he could see a very faint trail in the earth, almost completely hidden by the lead content of the soil. The trail led out from the mound a few yards, then broke the surface again, hinting at a possible escape. Had Keth gotten away? And if so, why hadn’t he rejoined the others? Then Sal noticed something else that was even more puzzling. The trail didn’t fade a bit from one point to another. Either point could have been the beginning or the end. It looked almost as if the move had been... instantaneous?

  Again, the physics of the situation got the better of Sal. Moving that fast could have caused a sonic boom, but he doubted it. When Keth melted, he became one with his environment, including the air around him, most likely. Besides, if either point could be the beginning, than it was just as likely that Keth could melted into the midst of the granites, rather than escaping from them. Thus he could have still died in a magical implosion. But then again...

  Sal’s temples pounded with unanswerable questions. He scrunched his eyes shut, trying vainly to block out the throbbing. Whatever else, both Keth and Reit were casualties of war. The only question was, was Keth dead and gone, or was he just gone?

  He sighed wearily, knowing he’d get no further tonight. There was going to be a meeting of the Council in the morning, so maybe he could talk to the Heads of Order then, possibly find some answers that only a master mage would have. Groaning, he stood, knees and back popping as he rose. He decided he should take his own advice. Tomorrow was going to be a big day, and as Jaren said, Marissa was anxious to spend time with him. Well, can’t disappoint a pretty girl, can we?

  He nodded respects to the heap, the last place Keth was seen alive, and h
e sent his thoughts outward and his prayers up. If Keth was alive somewhere, he wished the young granite well.

  Looking to the granite aura outlining the place where Reit’s body had lay, Sal bowed low, with knees, fists, and forehead touching the blood-caked ground. It was a salute for a fallen gold-hilted shol’tuk, but he felt Reit had earned it. Finally rising once more, he turned back toward the tent city, bound for a night of dreamless, exhausted sleep.

  He wouldn’t realize until late the next day that the granite silhouette of Reit’s body had looked as fresh as a spell just cast, for all that it was hours old.

  ***

  Athnae watched the odd young mage as he walked back toward the center of the camp, his singular amethyst eye once more winking to brilliant diamond. He’s not that interesting, Aplos teased from behind her. Smiling—the expression would look more a snarl than a grin to human eyes—she craned her sapphire neck to take in her mate.

  Oh, I quite disagree. Aside for the fact that he’s the answer to prophecy, he is the most unique mage to ever ascend. Think of it! He’ll be able to touch all the soulgems simultaneously, once he learns how! Can you think of anything more interesting than that?

  Yes, yes, I know, dear heart. And he’ll defeat the Highest, and bring order to our lands, and bring the pure word of the Crafter and all that...

  I wouldn’t mock, Athnae cautioned.

  Aplos harrumphed, plumes of phosphor-ladened smoke drifting from his nostrils. I’m not mocking. I’m simply pointing out that our young savior there still faces many a challenge, and I just find it hard to place my faith in him at so early a stage.

  But the Master said...

  I know what he said, Woman! Aplos growled in frustration, then backing off slightly. I agree with everything he says, and I have followed him faithfully since before you were hatched. But the Prism has never met the Highest. All others who have dared have met with failure. The Silent Blade. The court of King Titus. All of them. Regardless of the faith the Master places in the Prism, he has much to prove.