by Greg Curtis
Hendrick waited a good few seconds before following her in, and even before that he made sure to get a good look at what was inside the building from the far side of the street first. But there wasn't much to see. Blackened stone walls. Blackened stone floors and ceilings. In fact the whole place was black. Except for him. If she turned around she would see him.
And then it finally occurred to him to be smart, and he stepped into another world. He had forgotten that he could see a little way into other worlds and that from another world he would be able to peer into this one. He could follow her that way, and she would never be able to see him. It was just a shame that the world he chose was one that had a burning hot sun that baked a plain of mud that was harder than kiln fired pottery. It baked him too. Still he followed her as she walked slowly through the building, and then out the back door into a yard, thinking he was being clever.
Until she vanished!
That shocked him. He could see the entire walled yard, and she wasn't anywhere in it. There were some empty floating carriages up against the far wall, but she wasn't on any of them. Nor had she doubled back into the building. And there was nowhere else for her to hide. It was then that he realised the truth. She'd stepped into a portal. And no matter that he was practising his spells all the time and getting better, he still couldn't see through a portal in one world from another. There were limits, even for a world walker.
Fortunately he could see through a portal from either side of it, and so when he stepped back into Callanar and peered through the portal in the middle of the yard he immediately saw the world she had entered. It was a world of crumbling black lava, very much like the twilight world he visited to practice his spells, except that its sky was blue and the sun shone high above. In the distance he he could see Darnial Marn, walking away from him.
He followed her as far as he could from Callanar – a difficult task when he had buildings and people in the way and she was walking through an empty lava plain across a graded path. But he managed it, staying close all the way until her path started to rise too much and she started getting too far away. At that point he stepped into another world that better matched up to hers so he could continue giving chase.
How, he wondered, did she have access to a portal that led to a barren world? He was sure that he'd heard that all magic in Callanar was being conserved. Anyone who had any strength left in their crystals was being asked to use it only for what really mattered. And portals to bleak worlds full of black lava plains, didn't seem to be all that important to him.
Then she stepped aside to allow a floating carriage to pass by and he changed his mind as he saw what the carriage was carrying. Black stones!
“Shite!”
He cursed as he realised he'd found both the eggs and the reason the negotiations were going so badly. By the looks of things, the nobles had established a black stone mining operation on this world. What were the chances that there were a lot of stynes in this? Now that the crystals were almost used up, the black stones would be going up in value. But even if they didn't lose this world when Dibella was given her eggs back, three more ancient lairs full of stones, would probably cut their value in half.
And they didn't intend to give that up!
That was why the negotiations were going so badly. The people they were dealing with who were supposed to be representing the Empire were also the ones making their gold from the sale of the black stones. It didn't matter if the Empire suffered and millions of people died. Not to them. It didn't matter if it was a crime. Or if Dibella's eggs died. Or even if it led to another war. As long as they could keep earning more gold. What was it that his mother had always said? That greed was the only true language of the nobility.
The sight made him angry. But what was he supposed to do? He didn't know how large this operation was or how many people he might have to fight if he decided that that was what he had to do. He wasn't even certain that if he got the eggs back to Dibella that she would keep her side of the deal. Either to give them the black stones from the other ancient lairs, or to refrain from attacking them. Once she had them back she might just decide to teach them a permanent lesson. The only thing holding her back even now was that she had no idea where or even on which world her eggs were. But when she had them back?
Still, he at least could find out what he needed to know. Hendrick continued to follow Darnial Marn and eventually she led him into a cave. A large one with more of the floating carriages parked at the entrance. He knew then that he'd found his destination.
At the entrance to the cave Darnial stopped and lifted up her sleeve to pull off a bracelet she was wearing. A bracelet that had a crystal on it. Then she pulled out a loose rock from the cave wall that was cleverly concealed, put the bracelet in it and pushed the rock back in place. Why? He understood that she didn't want anyone to steal her bracelet, or more importantly the crystal. But why take it off at all? It didn't matter though. In a split second he grabbed the bracelet with his thoughts and pulled it through to the world he was in even as she walked off. He didn't see any reason why she should keep it after all.
As his quarry headed into the cave he stopped following her and instead hurried ahead into the heart of the cave itself. She had brought him to where he needed to be.
It wasn't long before he found the eggs. There were six of them, each twice as tall as a man, and were clustered together in the middle of a large natural cavern that was at least fifty feet high and a hundred feet across. The chamber was lit by glowing stones on the walls, and inside Hendrick could see miners chipping away.
But it was the floor that amazed him. It was a hundred foot wide circle of sparkling black rock, and was being chipped away at by workers with picks. Some of them were almost as far down as their heads into the cavern floor as they worked. That was a lot of black rock. A lot of magical potential.
This was dangerous! The ancient wizard in his head suddenly began screaming that this place was a nexus of power and a potential powder keg. No one could afford to cast a spell here. The workers therefore couldn’t be mages. They could not have afforded to wear crystals around their necks if those crystals had any magic remaining. And they could not use magic to mine the stone. Hence the crude pick axes. And why Darnial had taken off her bracelet.
That gave him an advantage he realised. And an idea.
Hendrick quickly headed back to the portal, and from there back to the burnt out building in Callanar, just in time to see the carriage Darnial Marn had passed on her way to the cavern being covered with a heavy burlap sheet by the driver. It wouldn't do Hendrick guessed, for the people wandering the ruined city to see what the driver was carrying. After all, they might expect him or some mage to actually use them to start helping them!
Hendrick stayed in the blackened building until the man was finished securing his load. And then he watched as the driver pushed open a section of the wall that he hadn't realised was a gate, and drove through.
Once he was gone Hendrick closed the portal. It was easy enough to do. The portal wasn't natural and it wasn't cast, so it couldn't maintain itself. Instead it was artificial and maintained by a black stone buried in the ground. A stone that he quickly retrieved with his magic and then sent to the bottom of an ocean on another world.
From then on it was just a matter of waiting, so Hendrick decided to make himself comfortable. He headed upstairs in the building until he found a room overlooking the enclosed yard, grabbed a wrought iron chair that had mostly survived the fire, and waited to see what happened. It would have been better if the chair had had a cushion left, but that had turned to ash in the battle. Still. it was more comfortable than standing and he had an unobstructed view of the yard and wouldn't be seen.
Hendrick didn't have to wait long. Twenty minutes later he watched as the next wagon loaded down with black stones arrived on the other side of the now missing portal, ready to come to Callanar. Soon the driver got out and began searching for something. But really Hendrick t
hought, what was he looking for? He should surely be able to see for himself that the portal wasn't there anymore.
The man, kept hunting for the missing portal for some time, walking all around where it had been. Eventually he seemed to accept that it had gone, and so got back in his carriage and headed back up to the mine. An hour after that he was back, this time with a floating carriage loaded down with people as well as stones. People who swiftly began doing exactly the same thing he had. Couldn't they see that the portal wasn't there?
Darnial Marn wasn't with them Hendrick noticed. And though he was too far away to see her, he would have wagered a lot of stynes that she was back at the cave entrance, desperately hunting for her bracelet. The thought brought a smile to his face. As did the knowledge that she would never find it no matter how hard she looked. He wasn't even sure himself which world he'd left it on.
She turned up about an hour later, just as the sun was setting on their world, and immediately started haranguing the others about something. Probably her missing bracelet. Meanwhile it was becoming obvious to Hendrick that they were stuck on the lava covered world. From the worried looks on their faces it was equally obvious to them.
A couple of hours later they had set up a camp at the place where the portal had been. It seemed that they were waiting for someone to come and rescue them. It was at that point that he decided it was his time to act. Because while they were sitting there, waiting for rescue they weren't in the cavern. He also didn't want to wait around for someone to show up on this side with the magic to create a new portal. He didn't know what other magic they might have and if it came to a battle, he had no way of knowing who would win. As always in such matters, victory normally went to whoever struck first.
Hendrick made his way back across the worlds until he found a place on one of them that precisely matched the cavern. Then he started pulling things over from it to this world. It was the only safe way to do it. He couldn't risk casting a spell in the cavern.
First he dragged one of the floating carriages across. He didn't know how they worked, but he guessed that since they floated they would be easy enough to push if he had to. And despite it being larger than anything he'd dragged across the worlds before, he managed it easily enough. All the practice he'd had casting these past few months was making him stronger.
After that he grabbed some mud. Lots of it. Thick, heavy, wet mud to line the tray of the carriage. He didn't know how strong those eggs were, but he didn't want to break any of them. Then, when he thought there was a thick enough layer, he pulled the first of the eggs across. He could only do them one at a time because they were so large and because he needed to lay them down gently on their sides in the mud to make sure they didn't fall off the wagon.
Even one at a time and using his spell of warp to hold their weight as he let them settle, it wasn't easy. They were simply so large and heavy. But he got the first one in and laid it down on its side without any problems. It was as he pulled the second one across that he suddenly heard a man yell. A heartbeat later he felt a stabbing pain in his back.
Shocked and hurting he somehow managed to hurl himself off the side of the carriage, and cast haste on himself even before he hit the ground. It was a spell he was learning to cast almost by instinct. It let him land on his feet and spin to see who'd attacked him. And then dodge as he realised something nasty was streaking at him. An eagle made of glistening steel.
Even hasted as he was the bird was moving when everything else was almost frozen. But a dimensional arrow made sure that when it hit the ground it wouldn't be getting up again. It might seem to be made of glistening steel, but the arrow still cut a hole straight through it. He did the same to the man who'd summoned it, putting an arrow through his shoulder. He could have put it through his heart instead, but it was enough. The Mythagan was old, and casting by means of a crystal around his neck. Once Hendrick took the crystal from him, he knew the man wouldn't bother him ever again.
The second man might though. Hendrick watched as the giant appeared in a portal on the other side of him. He was younger and fitter and the crystal around his neck was glowing with magic. But luckily he was still very slow. Slow enough that Hendrick could long step right around him and remove his necklace with another spell before summoning one of the picks from the mine and planting it deep in his back. Granted it probably wasn't a lethal blow, as he could only reach up to the giant's kidneys even with the pick, but it would have to hurt. Just as he was hurting himself.
Another spell expelled the knife from his back and sent it to a world where it would never be found, followed by the necklaces. Immediately he felt better for their departure. Safer anyway. But he was still angry with himself for not having seen them in the mine. How in all the hells had he missed a giant?! He was also worried as he felt the blood flowing down his back. If the knife and been a little better aimed and he hadn't been wearing a heavy cloak, he could have been killed. As it was he would have to see a healer soon.
But not before he'd finished what he intended to do.
Hendrick ignored the pain and the blood, as he pulled across the rest of the eggs one by one and laid them down in the mud. He even ignored the two who'd come to kill him. They were moving so slowly, that he could afford to. But by the time he had the sixth egg down he could see them yelling angrily at him. The giant had started running at him, bloody pick axe in hand. It looked odd through the view of haste spell.
Let them yell he decided. They could spend the rest of their lives doing it. He had no idea what sort of world this was or where it was. Hendrick gave the floating carriage a push to get it rolling and tried not to cry out as the pain hit, and decided he didn't care. The two of them could rot here. It seemed a suitable punishment.
The carriage proved it could float a long way on a push. Far further than he would have expected. Soon he was sitting on the back of it, watching his enemies grow smaller as the distance between them increased. And while he kept one eye on the giant, he kept another on Callanar, working out just how close he was to the Great Hall where the negotiations were taking place. It was time to end this war.
Hendrick had to jump off the carriage a few times and give it several more pushes to keep it going in the right direction, and jump worlds a few times as well to get them down to the right level so that that they didn't have a big fall when transporting to Callanar, but ultimately they were close enough that he knew it was time and he jumped across.
Everything changed the moment he arrived. For a start there were people everywhere on both sides of the concourse leading up to the Great Hall, and though the haste spell meant that they almost appeared frozen as they floated serenely past them, Hendrick could imagine the shock they experienced when the carriage loaded down with giant dragon eggs simply appeared in front of them.
Of course in sooth they weren't really floating serenely past them. That was only what it seemed like to him as he was hasted. In actuality they were probably streaking by them faster than a musket ball. Moving so fast that the water from the fountains and ponds that made up the centre aisle of the concourse was probably being sprayed everywhere. And so as they crossed the half league or so of tree lined concourse, he had to get out of the carriage several times and slow them down. And each time he found himself crying out as the wound on his back opened up a little more.
Still, by the end they were actually just floating slowly as they arrived
Eventually he arrived at the negotiations taking place in front of the Great Hall. Normally they would have taken place inside the Great Hall but as that had been reduced to a pile of rubble, leaving only the front façade, that wasn’t possible.
But they had gone to some effort to make the negotiations seem grand. The columns that formed the front of the Great Hall had been festooned with streamers. Plants in huge pots had been placed all around, many of them with large blooms to add colour. People had even dragged in marble statues to adorn the area.
The Senate – or at least th
irty members of it – were seated in three rows of high backed lacquered chairs facing the tables. And all of them, despite being in a ruined city with the wreckage of their own Great Hall behind them, were dressed in their finest garb and trying to look completely dignified. To him they looked as though they were mist breathers who simply didn't understand what was happening in the world.
In front of them were the tables. Two massive wooden affairs that looked as though they had come from banquet halls. On the Empire's side, a dozen representatives sat in all their finery, most of them looking bored as they listened to the speakers. That was wrong, he thought. They were sitting in the midst of a ruined city, deciding the fate of their fellow people. They should have at least been attentive.
Right at the end of their table was a figure he would never have expected to see again. An older woman with green markings running down one side of her face, and eyes filled with anger. Marda! How in all the hells could she be there? Though at least he understood that she was on the wrong side of the tables. She was working for the Empire.