by Clark Bolton
The mood was celebratory to all, it seemed, except for Ich-Mek, who watched As-Cheen gaze through a window of the inn for what seemed to him to be too long a time. When she finally stepped back, he took his turn to look in. Inside the inn he could see a distinct section marked off for distinguished visitors, like the three Pus-Don he could now see.
He began to count off the enchantments he could see from the detection cantrips he had cast. The spears Ont and his men held glowed even in the sunlight. The figure sitting by himself also had something magical: the lines of arcane-energy that gently flowed from it looked very familiar to him somehow.
“Are you sure that’s Nom-Whet?” he whispered to As-Cheen as he stepped back from the window.
She shook her head as she held her hands to her ears. “I can’t hear,” she complained.
He also began to hear a buzzing sound, and wondered now where it was coming from. His stomach was starting to bother him too, so he gestured for them to head down an alley to get away from the crowd. He hardly made it ten steps before he doubled over in pain.
“Ooohhh!” he moaned as his head pounded.
He could see As-Cheen talking to him, but couldn’t hear what she was saying. A moment later, she began coughing violently, and that was when he noticed the figure down the alley. The person was familiar, he was sure, but he just couldn’t think straight at the moment.
Ich-Mek was then pushed aside by As-Cheen, and at first he thought she was fearful of the figure at the end of the alley, but she was facing the wrong way for that. Instead, he could see she was halfway kneeling, and talking to someone behind him. He tried to crawl on his hands and knees, but found himself retching violently.
“Aaahhhh…As-Cheen…what’s happening…agghhhhh!” he stammered as he tried to come to his feet.
In a dizzy fog he saw the three Pus-Don with spears ready, and a very aggressive Nom-Whet trying to grab ahold of a stumbling As-Cheen. Then he became suddenly very cold as lines of arcane-energy crisscrossed his face. He fell to his side as a net of freezing cold force bundled him up like a trapped animal.
As he was dragged away down the alley, he saw Nom-Whet holding his spell-book, and yelling something at him, but the pounding sounds in his head prevented him from hearing anything. The last he saw before being hauled around a corner was Nom-Whet pulling a weakened As-Cheen in the opposite direction.
Try as he may, he couldn’t see who was dragging him, but as his hearing slowly began to return he began to hear the thud of crossbows being fired. Moments later, Tass came to kneel beside him as the nausea that had overwhelmed him began to fade.
“Step back,” he said weakly to Tass before trying to part the icy-net with his ring and failing.
Eventually Tass and other villagers were able to hack the net apart and free him. Staggering to his feet to ask if they had found As-Cheen, he then saw her walking toward him. The front of her shirt was covered in blood, he noticed, as she handed him a blood-spattered spell-book.
He hardly cared at all about the gore when he realized As-Cheen was soaked with someone else’s blood.
“They promised you safe passage if you return with them,” Tass told Ich-Mek after they had made their way back to the house they had been in before.
Ich-Mek gladly accepted tea when it was offered to him, but then turned away any offers of food. Shaking his head, Ich-Mek asked, “How badly is Nom-Whet hurt?”
“He leaves a long trail of blood,” Tass replied. “I have sent men to follow.”
“Be concerned for your own health, Fu-Si,” Neeq advised. “District soldiers have been summoned, and more arrive every few hours. They will eventually start searching for you, I fear.”
“Did Ont say anything else, Tass?”
“Only that you will be returned to Key-Tar-Om…dead, if need be.”
“He recognized you?”
“Yes, but fortunately I was not alone, and luckily he had not taken you far.”
“Did you see his face?” Ich-Mek asked hesitantly.
“It was the snow-master,” she assured him.
“Shu-Whet,” Ich-Mek muttered.
“They were not together,” As-Cheen said to him. “I think Shu-Whet seeks only you.”
“I agree,” replied Neeq. “The spell-book was an offering intended for you, Fu-Si. A trade for the Cold-Mother’s Daughter.”
“The Mother must have taken it from Shu-Whet,” he surmised aloud.
They advised him and As-Cheen to leave by morning, and not to say where they intended to travel. There seemed no reason for them to stay, but he found it hard to simply walk away from Shrindala.
“You now know the purpose of the spears?” Neeq asked knowingly. “They seemed not to affect Shu-Whet, which I find curious.”
Ich-Mek didn’t want to think about the spears. They had rendered him, a dragon-mage, helpless in seconds, and that was something he still couldn’t believe. As-Cheen had also suffered from their presence, though to a lesser extent. Since no one else was affected, he concluded it had something to do with her being trained as a snow-master. The fact Shu-Whet wasn’t incapacitated was important, he felt.
Chapter 28
Ich-Mek stood not far from the great door to the inner sanctum. He had left As-Cheen in a simple tent at the far end of the canyon, away from the tents of the many pilgrims allowed to camp near the temple. Near him, several dozen monks sat on mats, chanting softly. They were placed such that if the great door were to swing shut for some reason, they would first have to be swept aside.
An endless parade of other monks continued to pass in and out of the inner sanctum. Those going in were laden with urns, and those coming out were unburdened and stepped lightly, as if renewed by what they had seen within.
“I wish to visit the mage-room one final time, Neeq,” he said to the monk who had graciously agreed to accompany him here. “I can ask Puc if you prefer.”
“It is an honor, Fu-Si,” Neeq replied. “I know what burden you would have lifted, and would see it done.”
He nodded his head in understanding. Neeq had been his confessor of sorts over the past few days, and so he wasn’t surprised the monk suspected why he wanted to climb the stairs again to the mage-room. Ich-Mek would have ask As-Cheen to come instead, but knew both she and the cats would have objected.
As they walked through the massive doorway, Ich-Mek glanced at the small chamber to their left where he had almost fished out a scroll. “Accounts of who is interred here?” he asked Neeq.
“Yes, Fu-Si,” Neeq replied. “I doubt you would have been content had Carguar allowed you to read the scrolls.”
They climbed the stairs slowly as they talked, ever wary of cats. When they came to the landing inscribed with Ustclostefey’s name, they stopped to gaze in wonder at the monolith.
“Why do you know nothing about it?” Ich-Mek asked in consternation.
“It is in the realm of dragon-mages, Fu-Si,” Neeq explained. “Below us is the realm of the sacred. Only here in all of Ibu-Jek do the two meet. Do not ask me why this is.”
Ich-Mek chuckled at the expression on Neeq’s face: it was half amusement and half caution. When they reached the set of steps at the mage-room, he parted the ward’s energy, and let Neeq lead the way up.
The maps were still scattered in the way As-Cheen had left them – with one missing, he knew. As he came up to the scrying bowl, he thought again of trying to pry it free so he could take it with him. Impossible, he thought – not to mention inappropriate, he reminded himself.
He was willing to take ink though. Using a spoon he had brought with him, he labored for a few minutes to fill a bottle from the built-in inkwell next to the scrying bowl.
When he was done, he looked to Neeq as he said, “Tell me if you think I shouldn’t look for my mother.”
Neeq smiled reassuringly at him, saying, “I think in the end you will rest better, no matter what you see.”
Ich-Mek nodded his head and then took a deep breath. “Where is
my mother?” he whispered into the bowl.
The image of some forgotten yard was reflected back at him. He shook his head in confusion, and then tried to make the image move. It shifted a little, but then came back to the same weedy patch of ground next to a wall. The mud-bricks of the wall, decorated in a design he didn’t recall seeing before, looked appealing somehow.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered.
Neeq stepped up beside him to gaze into the bowl. “A temple wall, Fu-Si,” he said as he laid his hand on Ich-Mek’s shoulder. “What you see is a spirit-wall. A common practice in your home province is to cremate the bodies of the dead, and to mix the ash with mortar.”
Ich-Mek began to sob softly, then decided he had no time for that now. Wiping away the tears, he whispered into the bowl, “Where is my father?”
Again, an image of the wall was reflected. “They died close together, I think,” Neeq said as he let Ich-Mek cry softly for a while. “It is the same section of wall.”
“I should look for my sister,” he told the monk as he gathered himself. He then whispered, “Show me my sister” into the bowl.
The scene that appeared showed a young girl working with others to prepare a meal. Ich-Mek searched the faces of those around the girl to try and recognize who they might be. He recognized no one, and this made him feel sadder even then the death of his parents. Ich-Mek had guessed his parents had been dead for some time, so was not surprised to confirm it. But not knowing the faces of his relatives, particularly his sister, was hard to take.
“I don’t know them,” Ich-Mek admitted as he stepped back from the bowl.
Neeq tried to console him by saying, “You were only seven, Fu-Si, when you left.”
Ich-Mek nodded his head sadly as he realized the monk was right. He had been only seven, and now over eight years had passed – more than half his life.
Ich-Mek sat for a long time against the wall of the mage-room as a patient Neeq sat cross-legged next to him. Neeq was now methodically going through maps and seemed in no hurry to get Ich-Mek to leave.
“I need to find a master...” Ich-Mek suddenly announced after hours of sorrowful silence. “Across the sea,” he explained.
Ich-Mek massaged his ring as he said this. He’d been having dreams lately wherein he would approach the Emperor’s palace and beg the dragon-mages there to accept him. Always he was turned away, and always the mysterious voice of Venfs would tell him to search on. Then he would dream of a foreign land where people wore strange clothes, and had eyes that made them appear like owls to him. There was a master there somewhere, he was almost sure of it.
“The ring tells you this?” Neeq asked as he continued to peruse maps.
“Yes…like it wants me to take it somewhere.” Ich-Mek then got up and walked over to the map-table. “Here somewhere,” he announced after unfolding some of the maps to find one similar to the one As-Cheen had taken.
“Not far from your spirit-girl’s ice, Fu-Si,” Neeq remarked. “How confident are you in this?”
“Not very,” he admitted as he walked back to the scrying bowl.
Staring into the bowl, he began to think of what his master would look like. This resulted in a change in the reflection from his face, to that of a small tower. It looked as foreign as the people he had dreamed of.
“You think this ring will guide you there?” Neeq asked.
“Yes I do. I read this in the library at Key-Tar-Om.”
“I can imagine no one to partake of this journey with you, Fu-Si. Ships are forbidden by the Emperor to sail far from our shores.”
Ich-Mek shook his head sadly. “Why does the Emperor do this? What is he protecting us from?”
“The dragon-cloud,” Neeq replied. “It protects Ibu-Jek from all foreign invaders, but this is the cost. You will not be able to pass under it without drawing the attention of the dragons within.”
Ich-Mek turned toward the monk to see the truth of what Neeq had said. It wasn’t the first time Neeq had mentioned this problem of his, and of As-Cheen. Neeq obviously believed it fully, he could see, which left him staring blindly back into the bowl.
“Who can pass under it?” Ich-Mek asked, and to his astonishment an image appeared in the bowl.
It was of fishermen, and then an image of a caravan moving across high mountains. He realized how powerful the scrying bowl truly was at that moment.
“All those are allowed by the Emperor,” Neeq replied. “What the dragons ignore has been long debated in many orders and noble palaces.”
Ich-Mek nodded his head as he absently listened, then whispered into the bowl, “Where is Nom-Whet?”
As-Cheen had been concerned she had killed the elf, an act that Ich-Mek tried to convince her wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She had found his attempts at reassurance unacceptable. Looking into the new reflection, he could see he was going to have to give her bad news.
“Where is Shu-Whet?” he asked next.
An image of a high butte was presented, and on it was sitting Shu-Whet. He appeared to be looking at a distant village, which Ich-Mek assumed was Shrindala. Then the snow-master suddenly appeared to look right at him, and so Ich-Mek quickly stepped back from the bowl.
“He is aware of you?” Neeq asked with a hint of concern on his face.
“Yes. He is watching the village.”
Ich-Mek thought about the ramifications of that, and then found himself staring at the list of names left beside the bowl by previous mages. No one had been able to explain the purpose of the list.
“Show me who outside the palace can explain this list…and the monolith,” Ich-Mek dared ask of the scrying bowl.
An image of the same tower he had seen when asking about a master came into the bowl. Then that faded and was replaced with a man who looked very Ibu-Jek to him. The man stood among trunks and wooden boxes piled with scrolls and other texts. He neither looked like a mage or a monk.
“Where is this?” Ich-Mek asked himself aloud.
He was startled into ducking when the quill flew from its holder toward the maps table. There it hovered, as if waiting for him.
“A new power,” Neeq declared as he stood, unmoving, near the table. “Perhaps if you dictated?”
Ich-Mek thought for a moment as his heart raced. “The man in the bowl…where is he?”
The quill made a quick dip to the map, leaving behind a single character before returning to the ink-holder. Neeq leaned out over the map to read what had been written.
“It is an ancient symbol for the word ‘man’,” Neeq told him with an impressed look on his face. “The location is in the southern province; the city of Uan. I hadn’t thought you would be interested in going there.”
“How hard is it to get to?” Ich-Mek asked as he came to the table.
“You must go back the way you came, and travel down the Poss River,” Neeq replied. “Else you need traverse a quarter of Ibu-Jek to reach this city.”
Ich-Mek thought suddenly of coconuts and sugar-cane, which Tass had said normally came from the southern province. He wasn’t sure As-Cheen would appreciate the hot weather he knew was common there.
He then took a minute to try and locate Bose but saw nothing but darkness. Suspecting the protections incorporated into Key-Tar-Om prevented scrying, he gave up after several more tries. He had better luck with Rish, who appeared happy enough, from what he could gather from watching him in the bowl for several minutes.
Ich-Mek felt better by the time they walked from the temple. It was like being liberated somehow, he thought. He had always known, he told himself – or at least suspected over the past couple of years – that his parents were gone.
“Why didn’t the school tell me?” he had asked Neeq, though he knew the answer.
“They wanted attentive students, Fu-Si. A dragon-mage, and they got one.”
Ich-Mek had scoffed at the answer, then asked, “Monks aren’t forced to leave their parents, are they?”
Neeq bowed low for a
moment. “Some orders require this, sadly. But if you’re asking if such was my fate, the answer is no. I’m an orphan.”
“Then you don’t know where you came from?”
“I know the district, nothing more,” Neeq admitted. “I once thought to find my grandparents, but I’m afraid I never had the use of a scrying bowl.”
“I could have looked for you!”
“You could have looked for your own.”
Ich-Mek shook his head as he looked to the ground. “I want to believe someone’s left besides by sister, I guess.”
“There are always uncles, cousins, even half-siblings, if your father was the wandering type,” Neeq said with a slight grin.
“I’m sure there are…” he replied, then quickly added, “…uncles and cousins, I mean. I just wish I had not lost the gold I got from the Regent. Now I have nothing to give.”
“You’ll need money to travel with as well, Fu-Si,” Neeq said as he turned Ich-Mek toward a brightly colored tent, which was one of the closest to the great door. “Let me ask for a donation.”
Ich-Mek then watched as Neeq left him and walked to the tent. Under the open part of the tent he could see a kind of litter, which reminded him of the litter his brief master had lain on in the selection chamber. Whoever was on this one appeared to be wealthy, by the look of the tent and the people near it.
Neeq soon came walking back, and then dropped a substantial purse into Ich-Mek’s hand. “Not all alms go to the temple,” Neeq told him with a sly smile.
“It’s all silver!” Ich-Mek exclaimed happily as he looked into the small pouch. “How could they afford so much?”
“I’m afraid, Fu-Si, ‘afford’ is a term we monks aren’t familiar with.”
__________________________
“Remind you of somewhere else?” Ich-Mek asked when he heard As-Cheen humming to herself.