by Clark Bolton
“You are a dragon-mage,” Tass replied without turning.
“Yes, that’s why I promised to come here,” Ich-Mek said as he gave As-Cheen a roll of his eyes. “But I hope you don’t expect me to break ice or something like that.”
“No,” Tass replied. “The lamas will instruct you.”
“You keep saying that! Are they in the village?”
“In the morning.”
“It’s not morning.”
“Play with your spirit.”
Ich-Mek growled and shook his head at Tass’s back. This was Tass’s way of telling him he was being a foolish boy and shouldn’t bother his elders with foolish questions. Ich-Mek began fiddling with his ring to help calm himself down. What particularly bothered him was that Tass had said this in front of As-Cheen; he wasn’t sure what he would have done if she had giggled.
“We should go around,” As-Cheen suggested.
“No around!” Tass replied.
“Are you sure?” Ich-Mek asked in a condescending tone.
“Do not spirits and mages know their homes?” Tass snapped.
As-Cheen pouted, and Ich-Mek almost giggled now at Tass’s breaking point being reached. Bored now, Ich-Mek stood up and began scanning the skies while wondering from which direction any dragons would likely attack.
“Not a pleasant thought,” he mumbled to himself. “Any elfish lamas, do you think?” he asked As-Cheen.
She didn’t look amenable to his humor at the moment, so he began wandering off. Spring was in full bloom here, and so wild flowers and birds were abundant. It was much more alive than Key-Tar-Om, he thought, and a thousand times more than caves below the Cold-Mother. He just couldn’t imagine dragons or snow-masters in this place.
Ich-Mek was then interrupted in his reverie by Tass, who called out sharply, “Stay here!” before heading down the hill.
Below, they could see a man leading a donkey, and with him were several dogs. Immediately the dogs began barking at the approaching Tass, but they stopped suddenly at a command from their master. Ich-Mek watched the two distant figures converse for a while, then went back to strolling through the grass.
“You are not being a dragon-mage!” Tass shouted at him suddenly from beside As-Cheen.
“What?” he asked irritably, when he realized Tass had returned.
Tass glared at him. “There are tall men in the village. They ask questions about me.”
“How…is that possible?” Ich-Mek asked in astonishment. “They got here ahead of us?”
Tass shut his eyes and shook his head violently for a moment. “The provincial-road!” Tass shouted. “You should have let us take it!”
“We would have been eaten by a dragon!”
“You are a dragon-mage!” Tass stated angrily.
“Stop saying that!” Ich-Mek warned.
The two of them traded insults until As-Cheen shouted, “You are both weak!”
They looked at her angrily before she turned and pointed toward the gates of the village. Walking out now were several men. It was too far away for Ich-Mek to make out anything about them, but not, apparently, for As-Cheen.
“He is an elf,” she declared.
Ich-Mek took several steps down the hill toward Tass, and squinted to try and see which man she was referring to. He still couldn’t see any details to distinguish one from another.
“They are tall!” Tass remarked excitedly.
“Hide!” As-Cheen hissed as she squatted down.
Tass threw himself to the ground, as did Ich-Mek. They all then watched as the men continued on past them on the road below.
“They search for us,” Tass announced when the men turned south down an intersecting road.
“Do you think they know we are here?” Ich-Mek asked.
“No,” Tass replied confidently. “Soon they will know.”
__________________________
“It will be difficult for you,” As-Cheen told Ich-Mek when asked about the way ahead.
The two of them had talked Tass into letting them try to find a way around the village, and so approach the temple without being seen. Her statement made Ich-Mek conclude the way was going to be even more difficult than it was now. Already they were climbing without the aid of much of the equipment he and Tass had used in the past.
The temple was in a box-canyon, Tass had explained to them. High cliffs protected it from all sides but one, and these cliffs were protected by other cliffs on the outer side of the buttes. Beyond that were high mountains, and though they were no Cold-Daughters, Ich-Mek could see now that they weren’t far from their stature.
“We keep going,” Tass announced as he stared climbing again.
The comment surprised Ich-Mek, who then gave As-Cheen a smile as he prepared to follow. It was getting to the point where they would need ropes and levitations spells, he could see. They had some rope at least, but none of the axes and metal-fasteners that Tass normally made use of. These they hadn’t anticipated needing.
“Okay, but we don’t we have much food,” Ich-Mek warned between grunts as he struggled up the rock outcropping.
“Morning we’re there…or dead,” Tass declared.
“Morning!” Ich-Mek whined. “That far?”
“You are the dragon-mage.”
Ich-Mek looked around for As-Cheen so he could show her how annoyed with Tass he was getting. She was out of sight again, which meant she was likely ahead of them. When he reached the top of the small outcropping he found her kneeling in front of a stone figure of some kind.
“Why is there a stone head up here, Tass?” he asked.
Tass had knelt beside As-Cheen by this point, so Ich-Mek decided to hold his questions for a while. The stone head was nearly as tall as he was, and was covered with lichens. Weathered and overgrown, it looked harmless to him – but then his ring started to feel uncomfortable. It had been doing that on and off for days now, which he attributed to the weather, which worked to dry his lips and eyes as well as his hands.
The head glowed after he cast a cantrip. He had done it on a whim, but now felt a bit guilty for doing it. Why he wasn’t sure, maybe because it involved the temple, he thought. The arcane-energies coming off of it were weak, but that meant little, he knew. Whoever had made it was a master, as else all its magic would have waned by now.
“What is the thing supposed to do?” he dared to ask Tass a second time.
“It keeps unwanted spirits away,” Tass replied solemnly. “Protects the temple.”
“It’s magic, you know?”
Tass turned to him and nodded his head slowly. “Yes.”
“No…I don’t mean it’s sacred…it is giving off real magic.”
Neither Tass nor As-Cheen seemed surprised, so Ich-Mek gave up trying to explain. He wanted now to stay and study it for a while but could see Tass was ready to move on. The sun was getting low on the horizon, so he didn’t object when the two started moving.
As-Cheen found another stone head, just like the first, after another hour of scrambling up and down rock outcroppings. This one glowed as well to Ich-Mek, and in the waning light he began to imagine he could see more glows along the butte whose top they had now nearly reached.
When they came to a vertical wall of stone, they had to make a decision: either levitate up now, and spend the night up there somewhere, or camp here. They hadn’t even caught sight of the temple yet, so Ich-Mek suggested they climb.
At the top they found another stone head, bigger than the others. The magic it radiated was stronger as well. No one wanted to camp near it, so they tried to walk on, but soon found themselves confronted by another vertical wall of stone; this one was at least twice as high as the last one.
“It’s subtle magic,” Ich-Mek warned them as he looked back toward the last stone head. “I can feel it even here.”
“It seeks to stop us,” As-Cheen proclaimed. “We must appease it somehow.”
“No…I mean, maybe…” Ich-Mek stammered, “…but
it is affecting us already, I’m sure.”
“How?” Tass demanded.
Ich-Mek stood silent awhile as he tried to figure out exactly what he was feeling. Looking at his ring he got the distinct impression it was shielding him somehow. Owesek-rings were known to do that to some extent – much like a protection spell, he suspected.
He sat down to think. Looking up at the cliff above him, he wondered why anyone would put stone heads down here; up high would be more effective, he thought. Then he watched Tass prepare his ropes for the next climb. He was doing it differently, he decided.
“You’re coiling it wrong!” he warned Tass, who normally was fastidious in his handling of equipment – so much so that he would become furious with Ich-Mek when he didn’t do it right.
Tass glanced at the rope in his hand and then looked confused. He recoiled it, but got it wrong a second time, then a third. With wide eyes, Tass turned to look at him.
Ich-Mek stood and walked over to try to do it himself. He had to concentrate, and move slowly, to do it, but was able to.
“Don’t climb anywhere!” he said to As-Cheen. “Not even if it looks easy.”
She nodded her head silently with eyes as wide as Tass’s. Ich-Mek then sat down again to ponder how to counteract this subtle magic.
“I’m going back to take another look at that head,” he announced.
Upon reaching it, he sat down in front of it and began casting all the detection-related cantrips he knew. By the time he was done the large head glowed fiercely, and arcane-energy seemed to pour from its eyes and mouth. The stuff washed over him like fog now.
He began to play with rune-sets, drawing them on the small rocks around him. Eventually he got the glowing fog to avoid these rocks. When satisfied he had found the best combinations of runes possible under these conditions, he stood and walked back to the cliff.
It was nearly dark now, but he knew such conditions didn’t bother As-Cheen. Tass looked like he was eager to move on as well.
“Hold out your hands,” he told them.
The runes glowed to him as he wrote on the backs and palms of their hands, then did the same to himself. He used the ink he had to then write on their packs, and on their boots. As-Cheen had removed her trousers, since leaving sight of the village, and he was now tempted to write on her legs. She might kick him though, he thought, so talked himself out of it.
“Coil your rope, Tass,” Ich-Mek then said tentatively.
Tass found that he could, and so they agreed to climb the cliff in the fading light.
Chapter 23 – Yi-La
“No, Yi-La, you shall not go!” Master Gang told her angrily.
She stood in silence before him, too mentally exhausted to argue further. Yi-La had waited a day to allow her master to fully recover from his trance – and because she feared hearing this response. Now she had only two days left before a reply was due to the Imperial-Chancellor’s summons.
It was odd, she mused, to be only a few minutes away from the Imperial-Chancellor’s palace, yet it took days to arrange meetings. Not long enough though, she told herself. With a deep bow, she excused herself from his study, closed the door behind her, and began walking aimlessly between Chey buildings.
“I used to like gardens,” she said aloud to herself as she walked through one. Now, since being awash in them, she found them filled with too much intrigue for her liking. Her experiences in the court of Her Esteemed Ladyship had been thrilling – until Master Sey-Laht had showed up. She hadn’t heard from Lady Me-Ta since those six days of pampering, and suspected Pesnu-Jok wasn’t allowing it.
Sitting down on a stone bench to think, she pondered why her master would take the risk of infuriating Tu-Dak-Po so. She was not privy to something, she was sure. Rings, it had to be rings, she told herself before deciding she could not postpone informing Pesnu-Jok of the decision any longer.
Standing at the end of the great hall in the main Chey building, Yi-La waited for Narween to arrive. When she did, Yi-La sent her to summon the Chancellor, feeling such substantial news deserved to be delivered here. It made her feel melancholy, but not in a tearful way. Still she suspected that somehow lives were at stake, perhaps her own.
When Pesnu-Jok arrived, he was alone and had a very serious demeanor about him. “You called, Fu-Sa?” he asked as he walked deliberately around her until she was forced to face the far entrance.
“I am not to go, Lord Chancellor,” she said as her heart leaped to her throat.
Pesnu-Jok gave her a sympathetic bow before asking, “Has our master said why this must be so?”
“Nooo…” she whined suddenly as tears started flowing, “…and it doesn’t make any sense! I won’t say anything…I won’t!”
“Hmm,” he grunted skeptically. “No matter…you won’t be given the chance.”
She quickly wiped her eyes and did her best to get control of herself before asking, with concern, “What will the Imperial-Chancellor do?”
Images of a dragon landing on this very Chey had haunted her dreams last night. Master Gang was there to confront the dracomon, but to no avail. Old and feeble, her master had been cast aside like a doll, leaving her as the next target.
“I can’t say,” he replied as he strolled over to a writing table, where, apparently, he had stashed a letter of some sort. Holding out the letter toward her, he added, “I shall ask him when we speak.”
She felt compelled to walk over to him and accept the letter. “You’re not going yourself, Lord Chancellor?”
He gave her a moment to read the short letter before saying with emphasis, “I assure you, Fu-Sa, any courier we send will not…return!”
She winced at the thought as she took in the prewritten reply with her name on it. The letter conveyed little information, but the poetic script was long and filled with titles and apologies. Yi-La couldn’t think how to write such an elegant refusal.
“You shouldn’t go,” she began to plead. “His Lordship doesn’t like you!”
Why she was feeling so much concern for him was confusing to her, but in fact she really didn’t want harm to come to the man. Thinking maybe a eunuch could be talked into delivery, she then realized that wouldn’t work. It had to be a Seechen – and a senior one at that – else it would be considered a great slight to the office of the Imperial-Chancellor.
“Maybe I could deliver it,” she suggested with a hint of despair in her voice.
He turned away to look up at the ceiling to let her know she was being a silly girl. “Your seal, Fu-Sa. If you can.”
She swallowed hard before setting the letter down on the small table, so she could touch her ring to it. Master Gang had taught her to perform the Owesek seal, which she did now. It was unforgeable, she had been told, and within it was the name of the ring that had been used.
She watched in silence as he carefully wrapped the letter in ribbon, and then placed it in the pocket of his robes. “You will be ok?” she asked softly.
He replied, without emotion, “No, Fu-Sa,” and then began walking down the hall. But after several steps he paused and turned to consider her intently for several moments. “If you are truly feeling magnanimous, then there is something you can do for me.”
Feeling very guilty now, she said, “Anything!” And she meant it.
He crept back slowly toward her, causing her to nearly step back in apprehension. “You desire to teach,” he said as a statement, rather than a question.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Then do so,” he declared. He then turned toward a small doorway and called out loudly, “Narween, your presence is required.”
There was only a short moment before Narween emerged from the doorway and walked quickly to the Chancellor before bowing. Yi-La found herself confused now as the Chancellor seemed to be implying she do something he had expressly forbidden, as had her master.
Pesnu-Jok reached down to the kneeling Narween, and unceremoniously ripped her veil off, and then pulled her black hoo
d down, forcing the girl’s head back painfully. “She is yours fully now,” he declared as he turned back toward Yi-La. “Teach her!”
“How?” Yi-La gasped in consternation. “Master Gang has forbidden it!”
“Our master forbids you to teach Seechen. Narween is no longer that!”
Yi-La looked from him to her distressed friend as she tried to determine how she could possibly get away with this scheme of his. “What about the Scarm?” she asked.
Pesnu-Jok gave her a sly smile before saying, “It is a time-honored tradition to avoid them in any way possible. The dracomon does it, as does your Regent.”
She furrowed her brow as she tried to think of how this could be done, and could think of nothing. The letter that mentioned Bose’s disappearance had said Scarm had been seen on Key-Tar-Om’s border, but that knowledge didn’t seem to apply here. Then it came to her.
“The Forbidden-Gardens,” she whispered.
“Yes…and…no,” Pesnu-Jok told her softly as he leaned into her face. “You must take her to the library…” Then he held up his hand to stop her confused objection. “Not the one any Seechen can walk into. Go to the one below it, under the seal.”
She had peeked into the Chey building that was the library several times, and had found it largely unremarkable. Compared to Master Gang’s personal library, and the library Master Sey-Laht was said to have, it appeared to be mundane.
“Why?” she asked, to buy her more time to think.
“The two brothers there will help you,” he assured her. “They have a similar calling to that of the Imperial-Chancellor.” He then stood tall before asking in a slow stern voice, “You will be forever beholden to me…and my legacy?”
Yi-La nodded her head, and with a glance got Narween to do the same. “Yes, Lord Chancellor.”
He then nodded with a glance at her ring. “Swear it…” he whispered, “…on the ring!”