The Emperor's Mage

by Clark Bolton

  “We have to go!” Ich-Mek exclaimed as he held out a burning hand to her, then thought better of it. “Can you walk?” he then asked.

  As-Cheen wobbled a little after climbing to her feet on her own, then nodded her head with a dazed look in her eyes.

  He then led them at a run back to the white corridors. Planning to stop only long enough to gather the few things they would need, Ich-Mek then found himself kneeling beside Tass’s body.

  “You were my friend,” he whispered.

  “We must not stay!” As-Cheen said in a panic. “You will be made like him!”

  Ich-Mek took one more moment at his friend’s side before picking up the blanket he had bundled things in. “You freed yourself,” he then said to her. “Can you do this for Tass?”

  She shook her head. “I do not know.”

  “But maybe?” Ich-Mek pleaded to know.

  It was clear to him that she indeed didn’t know, so with little hope he handed her the bundle. He knelt beside Tass again then began dragging his frozen body toward the door, which brought protests from her again.

  “You can’t take him! He is too heavy.”

  “Not in a moment he won’t be,” he told her, before casting a levitation spell on the frozen body.

  It took some doing but they got Tass’s body through the hole in the wall, and then Ich-Mek floated it down the corridor. As-Cheen accepted his actions after a minute, and so led them to the crevice they had gone down before. Again it was difficult to get the body down, but Ich-Mek was determined.

  As fast as they could, they made their way through the ruins of the lower halls.

  Chapter 19

  “I hurt him badly, didn’t I?” Ich-Mek ask her as they worked to lay Tass’s body out on a blanket they had laid down.

  “I didn’t see,” she replied softly as she lay down next to Tass, and then wrapped her arms around his frozen body.

  They had come as far as the ruined library before As-Cheen insisted they stop. She feared to take Tass any further, she told him. Beyond this point the caves warmed, and that would harm the body.

  Ich-Mek sat back and watched as she closed her eyes, as if just resting. He then began to wrestle with conflicting emotions concerning Shu-Whet. The elf had been responsible for Tass’s death, though he told himself there was still hope. Shu-Whet was now horribly disfigured, he was sure, and he found that upsetting.

  Shu-Whet’s guards had been disrespectful to Tass’s body, he reminded himself, which made him feel a little better about what he had done to the elf’s face. He had asked As-Cheen why they had done that, just minutes ago. She didn’t know, she said, but then suggested they were not being disrespectful. Tass’s spirit would not have to wander alone if he lay near others, she had explained.

  “Please be careful,” he whispered toward her, but suspected she didn’t hear.

  Whatever it was she was attempting to do to revive Tass, it looked likely to take some time. And so he rose and went back out into the larger cave to keep watch. In the light of the many glow spells he had cast, he could see scraps of rice-paper that still lay about the cavern.

  As he sat down, he kept thinking about the long timber they had found spanning the crevasse they had crossed before. Using it as a bridge, he had had no reason to levitate himself across again. He was thankful for that, as he had had his hands full levitating Tass’s body at the time. But now he feared whatever, or whomever, had put the bridge in place.

  “Stinks,” he muttered to himself after a time.

  Looking over to As-Cheen, he feared for a moment that the smell was coming from Tass’s body, but then thought it unlikely. He had always heard that the stench of death didn’t come on the first day. Forcing himself to think of something else, he then wondered if he would hear the elves coming, or if all of them were as stealthy as As-Cheen.

  Thoughts of elves sneaking up on him caused him to think hard about what spells to have ready. He had found a protection spell here in this cavern, and had memorized it before his audience with the Mother, but wasn’t sure what it did. Feeling very much alone, he cast the spell.

  “Maybe it keeps out smells,” he muttered to himself, then took a sniff to confirm this. No, he decided; it was stronger than before.

  He sat up quickly when he was startled by a shadow that went across where he had cast one of his glow cantrips. He couldn’t see anything, but was sure it had happened. Looking over to As-Cheen, who was maybe ten steps away, he decided he should be a lot closer to her.

  “As-Cheen! Can you hear me?” he whispered as he began crawling that way. “Uuff!” he grunted when something fell on him.

  He was sure part of the ceiling had fallen, until he was suddenly forcefully pulled over. When he saw the killer eyes of the thing that had ahold of him, he screamed and tried to escape. Again, it was if something had fallen on him, and he was now being pulled backwards.

  PUUUFFFTT!

  He cast the quick energy spell at the shadow looming over him. It was the same spell he had cast at Shu-Whet, but this time he was sure it missed its target. However, the creature attacking him was startled enough to release him. He could see now that all parts of himself glowed, and that the creature was some kind of huge bear-like thing.

  He cast his flaming-hands spell before the creature could lunge at him again. It backed way off but didn’t run. He did his best to back up slowly to reach As-Cheen, who continued to obliviously hug Tass’s body.

  It was a standoff, he realized. And it was a yeti, he was almost sure of that. Tass had said they stank, and that they were tall. He hadn’t thought the little man had known what he was talking about. Now he knew better.

  When the glow around him died, he realized what had happened. The protection spell had kicked in, and that must be why he wasn’t hurt. Now the spell was exhausted. With hands still burning, he realized he would be unable to cast another spell.

  “As-Cheen, wake up!” he pleaded. “You need to wake up!”

  Minutes passed and still he could see the eyes of the thing watching him. The spell on his hands was going to end soon, he was sure. He was ready though, he told himself. The energy-bolt would kill it quickly, he promised himself.

  A groan from behind him made him turn to see what was happening with As-Cheen. To his shock and delight it was Tass that was moving. Quickly, Ich-Mek turned his attention back to the yeti, but now couldn’t see its eye-shine.

  “Why the flames?” As-Cheen asked weakly.

  “Because there is yeti out there!” he yelled, before seeing she didn’t look well.

  Tass hardly moved at all, but was clearly breathing now. As-Cheen then came to her knees, and helped him watch for the yeti.

  “They fear me,” As-Cheen announced softly as she worked to cover Tass with blankets.

  “What?” he hissed loudly. “That thing out there?”

  “Yes. I think you should put out the flames.”

  “No!” he said breathlessly as he shook his head at her.

  She shook her head back at him. “You are weak.”

  __________________________

  They dared to give Tass only a few hours of sleep before forcing him to eat a little of the mushrooms they had brought with them. He hardly talked, and couldn’t stand without help, but they were able to start moving again.

  Ich-Mek cast a levitation spell on Tass, and this helped, so with an arm around Tass’s waist, and Tass’s arm over his shoulder, they walked. As-Cheen immediately discovered where the yeti was lurking, and to Ich-Mek’s surprise she didn’t avoid the thing. Rather she began forcing it with a series of feints to move in the direction she wanted.

  “It knows the way out,” she insisted when Ich-Mek asked what she was doing.

  Ich-Mek looked around at the countless shadows his glow cantrips were casting, and then nodded his head in understanding. He was sure they could walk right past a hundred exits and not notice one of them. It then became a marathon task for both him and Tass to follow her, and the
yeti.

  As the caverns warmed he began to feel more optimistic about finding a way out, but wasn’t sure why. Signs of life followed on what he assumed was their second or third day since fleeing the Mother. Bats were found, and spider-like things that the yeti seemed to be eating. Ich-Mek became concerned he was going to have to start doing the same.

  “I feel cool wind,” As-Cheen announced at one point.

  Much to Ich-Mek’s concern, she then chased the yeti off and led the way herself. When bright sunlight greeted them it was with a cold breath. Ich-Mek had all but forgotten the glacial lifeless peaks of the Cold-Daughters, but now was forced to look at them again.

  “I thought we’d be further away,” he said sadly.

  “We will move faster on the snow,” As-Cheen assured him with a smile.

  He could tell she was eager to leave the caves, but he wondered now if they should let Tass rest longer. “Another day, and he might be able to walk better,” Ich-Mek suggested to her.

  “No,” she replied emphatically. “They will come for your ring.”

  “What about you?” he asked with concern. “Won’t they come to bring you back?”

  “I will not go back,” she stated, before climbing through the narrow entranceway of the cave and out onto the side of the Cold-Mother.

  “We must gather,” Tass said unexpectedly, then turned to motion him back into the cavern.

  “There are no mushrooms here, Tass,” Ich-Mek assured him as he watched Tass move slowly back the way they had come.

  Following Tass, he was led to a series of low chambers that forced him to crawl a little to keep up with his friend. Tass ignored his questions, and then eventually stopped and asked for a blanket. Thinking Tass was going to lay here and rest, he complied. Instead of sleep, Tass had bats in mind. Forming a bag with the blanket, Tass then began pointing to bunches of bats hanging on the ceiling.

  There were hundreds in a group, and they hardly moved in the chilly air of the cave. With disgust, Ich-Mek began plucking them like fruit, and then dropping them into the bag. Less than an hour later they had as much as they could carry.

  “She’s not going to like it,” Ich-Mek grumbled as they moved their way back to the cave entrance.

  The descent down the ravine As-Cheen took them on was close to perilous. She could run across drifts and scramble over barren rock faces like a snow-leopard; they could not, however. This limitation of theirs made her frustrated at times, and the words “you-are-weak” echoed often about them.

  “How much longer to reach the Valley of Steam?” Ich-Mek asked her when she finally allowed them to camp.

  “Four days,” she replied as she squatted next to him with a disgusted look on her face. “Ten for bat-eaters.”

  He ignored the look as he extracted several frozen bats from the bag and then handed them to Tass. They had no firewood, and she assured them they wouldn’t find any. No candles, even, so reluctantly Ich-Mek cast his flaming-hands spell and proceeded to roast them on a bare rock. His stomach began to complain immediately.

  “Good,” Tass remarked as he ate hungrily.

  Ich-Mek found them surprisingly tasteful, but their small size left many tiny bones to deal with. In the end he just crunched those with his teeth, and swallowed them down with the rest of the flying rat.

  “We have ten days of food?” he asked Tass, who was looking much better already.

  “If the spirit does not eat,” Tass replied.

  Ich-Mek shook his head in consternation. “She saved your life…and she is squatting right here!”

  “Thank you,” Tass said after pausing from his meal for a moment.

  “I’m not going to eat animals,” As-Cheen replied.

  “What are you going to eat?” Ich-Mek asked.

  “Snow,” she said grumpily.

  “This snow doesn’t seem right,” Ich-Mek commented as they descended further down, ravine after ravine.

  “The Mother is angry,” As-Cheen replied.

  Ich-Mek stopped in his tracks and gave Tass a worried look. “Is that why we can’t see anything?”

  “Yes,” she said as she kept walking.

  “White-out,” Tass commented.

  Looking up toward the sky, Ich-Mek could hardly make out the edges of the ravine, and none of the peaks above them. Sight was limited now to maybe two-hundred steps.

  “She is trying to get us lost…or make us fall over a cliff,” Ich-Mek said with concern.

  “It will not work,” As-Cheen called from some distance away.

  She motioned for them to keep following, and Ich-Mek couldn’t help but notice how dream-like this scene was: a beautiful spirit was coaxing him to walk into a fog with her, a magical one at that.

  “Tell me we won’t get lost, As-Cheen!” he pleaded as he walked to her.

  “You are a dragon-mage,” Tass called out from behind him.

  “Someone’s feeling better,” Ich-Mek remarked to himself without looking back. He found his confidence in As-Cheen waning as they passed what he suspected were other ways to go. She never wavered though, despite the fact the snow was beginning to pile up; this she could walk on with ease, while he and Tass had to plow through it.

  “I’m going to try levitation spells,” Ich-Mek announced after becoming tired of the deep snow.

  “The Mother will sense this?” Tass asked.

  Ich-Mek thought for a moment, then smiled tightly. “I am a dragon-mage…I don’t think it matters.”

  The levitation spell lightened him and Tass enough to walk on the snow, much like As-Cheen. Still, they didn’t have her knack for slippery surfaces, and so struggled to keep up the pace. He couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder every minute or so, to see if something more than snow followed them.

  When As-Cheen suddenly motioned for them to stop, they both did. She then stood listening in the oppressive silence of the ravine. Not so much as the whistling wind did Ich-Mek hear.

  “Run!” she snapped as she turned and raced by them.

  As best they could, they moved to follow, and soon she was pulling both of them along by the hand. They struggled to move as fast as they could for several minutes, until the cause of her alarm became apparent in the form of a thunderous avalanche.

  The misty snow thrown up around them left them completely blind for a time. When it cleared a little, they could see the part of the ravine they had been in was now under a literal mountain of snow.

  “You are a spirit!” Tass exclaimed in astonishment. “You heard the snow before it moved.”

  “Did the Mother do this?” Ich-Mek called out breathlessly.

  As-Cheen was slow to respond, but finally said, “No, she hardly thinks of us.”

  “That might be all it takes,” Ich-Mek replied fearfully. “We would have been killed!”

  “Just an avalanche,” As-Cheen replied as she started for the newly formed mountain.

  Ich-Mek watched her hop across the irregular snow drifts that blocked their way. “She is a spirit,” he muttered before signaling Tass to follow him after her.

  __________________________

  “How far down can this go?” He had asked Tass this several times today.

  They had camped many times now, and still the white-out persisted. Furthermore, the ravines seemed never-ending in their descent, and became deeper and deeper. Ich-Mek realized they would likely be unable to see the sun, even if they were under clear skies.

  “Soon the snow will be gone,” Tass remarked.

  Ich-Mek could feel the warming also. “We are still in the mountains, aren’t we?”

  “Yes…but deep.”

  They caught sight of birds, then rabbit-like creatures, which Ich-Mek suggested to Tass they hunt. One energy-bolt would do it, he assured Tass. The man adamantly refused to participate, and would only gesture toward As-Cheen now whenever Ich-Mek returned to the subject.

  When grass began to peek through the snow, they became excited for a moment. As-Cheen even picked som
e of it for him, and playfully stuck it in her black and white hair.Green grass appeared next, and with it a warmth that made Tass shed his coat and mittens. Everyone was in a much better mood, despite the looming ice-fog about them.

  “Steam,” As-Cheen called back from far ahead of them. She then bounded on along the tiny creek they were following. It had been a delight for Ich-Mek to bathe his face in the cold waters of the stream, but now he saw something even more inviting: As-Cheen had shed all of her clothes and was now wading slowly into a steaming pool.

  Tass grabbed his arm. “She is a spirit,” he warned.

  Ich-Mek looked at him in confusion, for he saw nothing alarming. “Yes, a naked spirit,” he replied as he shook Tass’s grip off.

  As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her as he approached the pool. She noticed this almost immediately and came to laugh at him.

  “Why do you men fear girls?” she asked as she stood to openly display herself.

  “We don’t!” he told her loudly. “But a man should only see his wife.”

  “Whhhyyyy?” she whined playfully.

  “Because,” he replied with a blush, and a determined look away.

  Eventually she agreed to turn her back so he could undress and bathe himself. The whole time, Tass kept his distance, after first finding himself a place to soak his feet.

  The bath would have been more pleasant without the fog of snow, Ich-Mek was sure. But still it was beyond acceptable, and they found it hard to force themselves to leave the hot water.

  “Your people come here?” Ich-Mek asked as he snuck a peek at her as they both dressed.

  “No, there are more hot springs. You will see!”

  He closed his eyes for a moment to seal away the naked image of her. “Yes, I will see,” he promised himself in a whisper.

  The transition to a snowless landscape was almost instant. Rounding a corner, they found themselves among small trees and other green plants. The ravine was very narrow here, else Ich-Mek was sure they would have found themselves in a forest.