“Because everyone has to believe in something,” Syenna shot back. “It’s at the heart of who we are, of why we do the things we do. And here you are, a warrior like none I have ever met before. And you have a gift for commanding others in battle better than anyone I have ever heard of in all the legends of the Midmaer. And yet you’d rather trudge along with the supply wagons than fulfill a greater destiny.”
“I’ve always been rather suspicious of destiny,” Aren said, folding his arms across his armored chest. “It always seems to serve other people’s politics and plans.”
“And yet you support the Obsidian conquests,” Syenna said, holding her hands open before her as if hoping to receive an answer. “You do their bidding and follow their orders in support of what they claim to be their destiny.”
“The Westreach Army under the glorious command of General Karpasic serves my purposes,” Aren replied, a stern firmness underlying his voice. “Not the other way around.”
“Your purposes? Do you even know what that purpose is?”
Aren tilted his head, considering the question as he squinted up at the dark and thundering sky.
“Why, to make possible these delightful conversations.” Aren beamed back at her. “And, of course, to avoid any unpleasant surprises that our mutual friend the general seems to plan for us along the way. So, if you happen to know how to find this legendary passage across impassable terrain, then I suggest the sooner we do so, the healthier it will be for all us.”
Syenna glared back at him with a look that might have chilled him had they been standing in any other place. Then, with a growling sound from deep within her throat, she stepped past him, back onto the ridgeline and down toward a ravine that led toward the valley floor.
“A blade of an Avatar,” he heard her mutter as she passed him. “An ancient relic of ultimate good … And it had to pick him as the chosen one?”
* * *
The northern section of the rift proved to be too volatile for any possibility of a crossing. Most of the valley floor was composed of molten lava flow surging, slipping, and occasionally exploding from the open source of the world. Syenna continued to lead them along the maze of ridges, and for three days, they wound their way southward along the edge of the inferno. The rift was widening—areas where the molten lava had cooled into solid, dark patches like islands in the midst of a fiery ocean. Syenna found a passable ravine that allowed them to descend toward the edge of the lava field. They made their way, skirting the base of the vertical mountains, red flows that had cooled into larger areas webbed by lava streams flowing through jagged fissures. Here and there, the lava had solidified over one of the streams, forming bridges between the black, hard ground. Steam and fumes rose from the crevasses between the dark patches.
Aren, weary from the interminable night beneath a perpetual storm, watched as Syenna quite suddenly dashed ahead, disappearing around the edge of a cliff face. Aren reached up, wiping the sweat that poured profusely from his brow away from his eyes. The heat radiating from even the cooled lava field was intense, draining him. Nevertheless, he drew in a deep breath and charged forward after her. He turned around the base of the cliff, panting in the heat, and nearly ran into her where she stood.
Aren followed the scout’s gaze, and his jaw dropped in wonder. It was not the flows of stone that had arrested Aren’s attention but, rather, what was jutting upward from their surface, towering above them.
The statue of a woman was over a hundred feet in height, though only the form above her hips remained exposed above the surrounding lava field. She had been built of carefully fitted stone with a craftsmanship beyond anything Aren had seen in his time. The stone carving had been fashioned so expertly that it gave the illusion that one could see through diaphanous fabric to her beautiful figure beyond. Her left hand rested casually against her hip, although a section of it was entirely missing just below the elbow. The right arm was only slightly damaged, shaped as though crossing her bare chest, her hand covering her left breast in a fashion both modest and alluring. The stone head, too, was intact, and she appeared to gaze impassively across a land that once had thrived but was now desolate. There, however, her humanity ended, for twin horns twisted backward from the hair near her forehead. Moreover, enormous dragonlike wings stood poised on her back, their broken, jagged edges reaching around her.
Before them, an enormous, square column had fallen, forming something of a ramp out of its ruins. Syenna stepped onto its slope, climbing upward. Aren followed her to its upper edge to get a better look.
Beyond the towering statue, throughout the lava field, stood the shattered walls of a lost city. The carvings on the face of the ruins were obscured by drifting smoke, and the walls were broken and jumbled. Here and there, dark doorways beckoned them like open graves. Aren could make out at least one additional statue through the smoke much farther down the lava field, whose silhouette was similar to the one looming above him. Square columns had also fallen in various places, some of which spanned the fissures beneath them.
“Alabastia,” Syenna said breathlessly. “The City of the Sky.”
“You know this place?” Aren asked in wonder.
“Rumors … stories … It was a great place before the Fall, a city of the plains.” Syenna pointed upward toward the statue. “You see the horns on her head and leathery wings at the back? Those were said to be symbols of flight beyond the circles of the world. It was the hope of the priests here that they might find a way to leave the world and follow the Avatars to their home among the stars. This was a blasphemy for which the heavens exacted their terrible justice. The bards usually tell of this place as a civilization of decadence and selfish conceit. Some said that the world swallowed it up at the Fall; others that the moon broke in the sky so that it might crush it out of its sight.”
“And what do you say, Syenna?” Aren spoke in almost reverent tones.
“I look upon this great woman, and I want to weep.” There was a catch in Syenna’s voice. “There is no one left to remember her name. All the might and the glory of the past has taught us nothing. The Avatars are gone, their Virtues with them, and we are left with the broken relics of their hopes and dreams.”
“Dreams are for the living, Syenna,” Aren said. “The dead are gone, and their dreams are gone with them.”
Syenna turned toward him, a look of fierce determination in her eyes. “Unless their dreams live in us.”
The sound of metal rang behind him. Aren turned at once toward the sound and immediately reached for his sword.
“It’s the escort!” Aren yelled in warning. He glanced around quickly at the maze of the surrounding lava flows, then suddenly grabbed Syenna’s wrist and pulled her toward the edge of the column. “This way!”
He leaped from the far end of the column, Syenna with no choice but to follow. They landed on the hardened lava rock, its surface stinging his hand as he touched it. Aren cried out as he stood up, pulling at Syenna as he ran toward steaming ground, weaving between the lava flows.
“Where are we going?” Syenna screamed as she dashed with him.
Aren let go of his sword hilt and pointed with his free hand. “There! That narrow doorway. If we can make it there, we can make a stand. We can take them on one at a time as they come through the door, and even the odds.…”
Aren’s tunic was soaked with sweat. He was having trouble breathing in the heat as he ran. Behind them, Aren could hear shouts of the warriors as they charged after them. The narrow doorway seemed impossibly far away.
Aren let go of Syenna’s wrist, leaping over a narrow lava crevice and into the pitch darkness of the ancient doorway. He slid to a stop just within. Syenna slipped past almost at once as Aren turned to face their pursuers.
Aren could see the warriors moving toward the doorway across the lava field.
He reached down for the hilt of the sword, drawing it in a single motion from its scabbard.
Something within Aren changed. He wonde
red in that moment if perhaps the feverish heat were getting to him. Yet, as he looked to the doorway, he could see clearly the warriors as they approached not just as they appeared but as they were. He had traveled for days with these men and barely knew their names yet now, sword in his hand, he understood them.
The first among them was a large, broad-shouldered warrior by the name of Arnel Courts. He was a quiet man despite his size, who often kept to himself. Aren suddenly realized that this was because of the pain Arnel carried from being torn from his family, and a deep longing for home. His strength and skill of the blade was his curse, for the general had taken notice of him and would single him out for tasks that were not to his liking. He had nothing against Aren and was heartsick at the idea of killing him. But he feared the general, he feared for his family, and he was only looking for a way home.
The second was a thief from out of the Grunvald who had often plied his trade as a highwayman along eastern trade routes. He looked to most people as cocky and self-assured since he had come into service of the Obsidians. But his attitude sprang from the coals and anger that had burned within him since his father had abandoned their family when he was barely old enough to grow a beard. And so he would fight and brawl for whoever would pay him, trying to satisfy a thirst that could never be quenched and a raging fire that would never go out.
Aren staggered slightly, resetting his stance.
The third of the warriors had been beaten as a child.
The fourth had gone to war to win the heart of his sweetheart.
The fifth would hide himself from the others each night to weep for the lives he had taken.
Aren glanced at his sword hand.
It was shaking.
“Syenna!” Aren called out. “Stay behind me. If any of them get past me you’ll have to…”
The blow to the back of his head threw him forward, sprawling Aren face first onto the stone threshold at the base of the doorway. His mind was reeling, spinning in confusion and pain. He tried to push himself up, his hands pressing against the blistering heat of the stone beneath him. He managed only to roll onto his back, his right hand still clenching the hilt of the sword. His vision was blurred, but despite the pain he could understand the voices.
“What now, Syenna?”
“Wrap the sword in the oilcloth, but be careful not to touch it.” The voice was Syenna’s and seemed to come from a great distance. “It’s the prize that will take us home, boys. Home with honor.”
“And what about the captain?”
“He comes with us.” Syenna’s voice was getting farther away as Aren lost his fight for consciousness. “Shackle him and make sure the bindings are tight. Someone, after all, will have to carry the sword.”
PART II
THE FALLS
CHAPTER
10
Hilt
Evard Dirae, Craftmaster of the Cabal of the Obsidians, rode his horse through the last and grandest of the gates of the fortress at Hilt. The challenge that the guards tried to voice at his approach died on their lips, each falling silent at the passage of a sorcerer.
Evard kept his cold, pale-green eyes forward as he passed into the upper courts of Hilt. He did not need to look back down over the multiple concourses that formed the fortress. He had taken them all in with mounting anger as he rode up the various switchbacks, passing through each gate with increasing disdain. Now, as he passed through the final gate, he felt entirely too familiar with the grand structure and, so far as he was concerned, the true reasons for its existence were all too evident.
What had once been a small mountain bowl nestled above a steep, stony canyon, was now an unfortunately crowded construction site. A grand tower keep, far more impressive than practical, was nearly complete toward the front of the bowl just behind the still incomplete defensive curtain wall. The five cascades from the surrounding peaks contributed to the deep glacier lake at the back of the bowl. This, in turn, emptied into the swiftly moving river that plunged through a gap in the curtain wall and down its restricting channel over the concourses below. In every other reasonably dry spot, buildings of various size and design were evident in every conceivable state of incompleteness. Some were cleared ground only, whose foundations had barely been laid out. Others had their walls partially completed with stone pillars standing free, either in their intended place or on their side. A very few others appeared to be nearly complete, only lacking in a few finishing details such as a roof or doorway. The shod hooves of Evard’s horse rattled against the newly laid cobblestone paths that wound between the structures.
Such a pointless waste, Evard thought. A monumental conceit that served no real purpose.
Evard tugged at the reins of his horse, riding the creature across an ornately carved bridge to the other side of the mountain river. There he could see the one structure that he knew to be complete, due in no small credit to the help of the mountain itself. Carved directly out of the face of the cliff, it had the appearance of a stone building with six columns in the front. Between the columns on either side, the likeness of two thirty-foot-tall warriors had been carved from the stone in relief. The armor depicted in the carvings was obviously modeled after the Obsidian design, with the ornate filigree in the breastplates and the menacing spikes at the forearms and shoulders. Each of the depicted warriors held a sword in front of them, its tip touching the ground and their hands folded over the pommel. Evard noted that each was depicted without a helmet, and he suspected that the faces were intentionally carved in the likeness of the four generals of the Obsidian Army.
The sorcerer considered the third of the likenesses. He had ridden for nearly a week in order that he might meet with the much smaller and equally dull version of the carving.
Evard slowed the horse and then dismounted as they reached a small grassy patch just before the doors. The sorcerer immediately caught the reluctant eye of the nearest of the two guards standing watch on either side of the door.
“You,” Evard said, pointing at the guard.
He was resplendent in Obsidian armor, its black surface polished like a mirror, its red and silver markings shining even in the nearly perpetual shadow of the mountain. Despite evincing an outward calm, the guard’s eyes were blinking furiously, and his voice broke slightly in his reply.
“Yes, sire?”
“Your assistance is required,” Evard said in quick, flat tones. “You will take my horse. You will walk her. You will keep walking her until I come and tell you to stop.”
“Yes, sire … But, sire—”
“My suggestion is that you take her to that lake at the back of the canyon where, it seems, it is the only place large enough to do the job properly.”
“Yes, sire … I understand, sire.…” The guard stammered. “It’s just that—”
“I see.” Evard nodded, his eyes looking not so much at the guard as through him. Evard was tall—just slightly over six feet—which allowed him to look down slightly at the guard as he stepped uncomfortably close to him, his deep voice mumbling quietly as he spoke. “What is your name?”
The guard swallowed hard. “Garvin, sire!”
“You are, no doubt, the most diligent guard in the service of the Obsidian Cause and a devoted warrior who, assuredly, would never, ever abandon his post. As I understand it, your duty is to prevent unexpected people such as myself from disturbing the peace of your commanders ensconced beyond the doorway. However, as you see, I am a sorcerer of the cabal who has come on Obsidian business with your general. I don’t suppose you would care to know exactly what my business is with the general, would you?”
The guard shook his head in such violent denial that Evard thought his helmet might come loose.
“You are quite right; you most certainly do not want to know my business. You may be thinking that abandoning your post would almost certainly incur the wrath of your general. On the other hand, not taking care of my horse and trying to prevent me from seeing the general will most certainly in
cur my wrath. And so now I am standing here wondering just which wrath a guard named Garvin would prefer?”
Evard knew he was taking a luxurious amount of time with this young guard, but watching him squirm was the only pleasure the trip had afforded him thus far.
Besides, it was good practice for what was about to come.
“S-sire,” the guard stammered quietly. “I believe I was ordered to walk this horse over by that small lake. With your permission, I’d very much like to do that right now. And oh, sire?”
“Yes, my wise friend Garvin?”
“Would that order also include my brother?” Garvin gestured to the second guard standing with the petrified stillness equaled only by the stone statues to the left of him. “It’s an awfully important horse, sire. I’m sure you would insist that it would take us both to walk her properly.”
Evard gave a thin smile of amusement. “You are quite correct, Friend Garvin. I now recall being quite clear that the order explicitly included your brother.”
The two guards quickly moved away with the horse. Evard smiled to himself as he bounded up the few short steps to the open doorway and stepped inside.
The dimly lit interiors made it difficult to see, but Evard did not mind. He had been in many darker places than this. His eyes quickly adjusted to the torchlight of the long hallway that lay before him. A series of columns supported the arched ceiling twenty feet overhead. Between each of the columns, the walls held framed carvings depicting various battles and conquests of the Obsidian Army. The floor itself was polished marble, finished to a fine shine that reflected the light of the torches mounted on each of the columns and lit the way toward the warm bronze doors at the end of the hall.
Evard knew that it was all a facade. Torches were a terrible source of light, burning only for about twenty minutes at a time before having to be replaced. No doubt, some hapless warrior was being punished with the never-ending task of replacing and lighting these torches. The hallway itself was a fraud: beautiful stonework that hid the rough original cavern walls just beyond. Before he had left the cabal in Desolis, he had gone to the archives to familiarize himself with Hilt before he departed. He, therefore, knew the history of its construction and, by inference, its true purposes. He drew his shoulders back and strode down the hall, pausing a moment at the doors.
The Sword of Midras Page 9