But the wizard’s face grew serious. “A projection! You’ve received a projection, perhaps from a wizard, but something within me says… Lista!” he shouted, calling another wizard to join them.
“What is it, Kelsum,” the tall wizard asked as he ran over. “Is this urchin causing trouble?”
Ban blanched in fear as the blonde wizard pointed his staff in his direction.
“No, no, not at all,” Kelsum said, waving his hands to allay the other’s concern. “I believe he’s received a message from the Chosen One.”
“When? How? She is missing!” the younger wizard said.
“I know. But he was told to seek out general Slurr.”
Slurr. Why did that name strike a chord within him? Ban couldn’t remember ever hearing it before, but it tickled some deep place in his mind.
The younger wizard stared hard at him. Ban hated the way his eyes seemed to bore into his flesh. “He could be a spy. Or worse, an assassin.”
“I don’t think Surok has begun to indenture ten-year-olds into his service,” the balding wizard countered, not knowing that in Stygia the demon had done just that.
“I’m twelve,” Ban said, ruffling his emotional feathers for a second before remembering he was scared.
“Pardon. Twelve. Nonetheless you don’t have the look of an assassin. And, Lista, even if he were, I don’t suppose the General would have much trouble dispatching him.”
“Dispatching? Like k-kill?” Ban stammered.
The tall wizard ignored the boy’s question. “Did this female voice tell you where to find the General?” the one called Lista asked.
“Only that he was somewhere on this continent,” Ban answered. “Can you help me find him?”
The two wizards looked at one another. They said nothing, but Ban sensed they were communicating all the same. After a moment Kelsum said, “The General is in Trakkas. You know, Lista, this lad looks a bit like General Slurr.”
Lista laughed. “Yes! If the general was a dwarf!”
Kelsum chuckled and said, “Be nice.” Then to the boy he said, “I believe that if you’ve indeed heard from Cerah, then you must make your way to Trakkas at once.” He paused for a minute, seeming to debate with himself. “I will take you there. Pronus can make the distance in no more than six hours.”
“You want me to ride? On him?” Ban asked, more frightened now than ever.
The dragon let out another low rumble, and Ban literally shivered.
“Of course! Otherwise you’re looking at an overland journey of nearly a week, assuming you have conveyance. Do you?”
Ban shook his head as he considered the two alternatives. Had the disembodied message not seemed so dire, had it not nagged at his spirit since the moment it entered his mind, he would not have thought twice and begun walking. But speed seemed to be the better option.
“Alright. I will go with you. He doesn’t bite, does he?”
Kelsum and Lista both burst out laughing. “He bites all the time!” Kelsum said, “but never anyone on the side of the Light.” He bent slightly toward the boy. “You are on the side of the Light, aren’t you?”
“One hundred percent,” Ban said, hoping a life of crime hadn’t disqualified him from that status.
“Well then, Pronus, scrunch down a bit!” The red dragon lowered his body, and without warning Kelsum lifted Ban and put him on the red’s wide back. He then climbed on himself, sitting behind the boy. He gave the dragon a barely perceptible nudge with his knees, and a moment later Ban was looking down on the encampment from far above. “You might want to hold to his crest until you get more comfortable,” Kelsum said.
Despite his reluctance to grab hold of the fearsome dragon, Ban gripped the crest for dear life. What have I gotten myself into? he thought.
8
An Auspicious Meeting
As twilight settled upon Trakkas, Slurr sat around a small fire, joined there by his wizard counselors. Parnasus had just finished telling Slurr about Tressida’s departure, after they had filled him in on the details of the battle, now thirteen hours hence.
“I cannot think of any reason the queen would have left us, other than to go to Cerah,” the First Elder said.
“Has anyone heard from her directly?” Slurr asked. He was trying hard not to get his hopes too high. It had taken everything within him to proceed without his beloved wife after she had vanished before his horrified eyes. Did he dare hope that she might soon be beside him again?
“I have not,” Parnasus said. “I’m basing my conjecture solely on Tressida’s behavior.
“Nor have I…” said Kern, but then he stopped in mid-sentence. As Slurr watched both he and Parnasus held a hand to their temples. A moment later, a beaming Kern continued. “That answer has changed,” he said. “Cerah has just reached out to me.”
“To me as well,” said Parnasus. “You tell him, Kern.”
“Please!” cried Slurr. “Tell me!”
“She is alive, and Tressida is indeed going to recover her,” he said, but then he hesitated.
“What is it? Where is she?”
“Somehow she has ended up upon Mount Opatta once more.”
“On the Frozen South?” the young man asked, fear filling his desperate voice.
“Yes,” Parnasus said, interrupting his student. “But she reports that she is well, and that she is roughly two thirds of the way down the great slope. She should be in the foothills by this time tomorrow.”
“How long will it take Tress to reach her?” questioned Slurr.
“A normal dragon flight from Trakkas to the Frozen South should take about five days,” said Kern.
“Which means Tressida will be there in less than three,” said Slurr. “I have felt her fly. She screams through the sky effortlessly. To rescue Cerah she will fly harder and faster than ever in her life!”
At that moment, Kern’s hand flew to his head once more.
“What is it? Has Cerah said more,” Slurr asked, recognizing the meaning of the gesture.
“No. It is odd,” the maroon-robed wizard replied, lowering his hand to stroke his long beard. “It is Kelsum. He comes from Harundy bearing a passenger. A boy, he says, who has told him that a woman’s voice came into his head and told him he must seek out the General of the Army.”
Slurr sat bolt upright. “Then it was Cerah,” he said.
“No, Kelsum,” Kern began, thinking the lad had misunderstood, but Slurr waved him off.
“No. I thought I heard Cerah’s voice a few days ago, telling me a boy would be looking for me, and that I was to help him find his purpose. At first I thought it might have been because I was missing her so badly. I thought it was my imagination. But then I saw his face in my mind. So, she is indeed bringing this boy and me together. I wonder what this could mean.”
All the wizards looked at one another, but said nothing for quite some time. At length Yarren said, “Brother, we have enough on our hands without a boy in our ranks. We do not have the resources to babysit.”
Slurr could have been offended by his friend’s tone, but he was too elated at the news that Cerah was communicating with them again. He laughed and said, “Indeed. War is no place for children, although the Stygians have already involved their own. But do you think Cerah would send him to me for the purpose of my holding his hand? I feel that she must know, or has been told, that the lad has a part to play in our unfolding situation. I will receive him, and we will see what transpires.”
“Of course, Cerah would not do something like this idly. But who would tell her such a thing?” the handsome young wizard asked.
Parnasus spoke up and said, “Cerah has spoken with the great wizards of antiquity in the Hall of Whispers. While there she also had the joy of hearing her own mother’s voice. Her command of the Greater Spark released us all from the always-precarious relationship with the Sarquahn. We now go within by reaching our spark out to hers. And she has more than once heard directly the voice of Ma’uzzi. There are mul
tiple sources which might have told her to send this boy to us.”
“Well whatever the origin of her inspiration, Kelsum and Pronus are no more than fifteen minutes out.”
“Then we should make ready for their arrival. I do not know how far this boy has traveled to get here, but I would venture a guess he’ll be hungry when he lands,” said Yarren.
Slurr was glad to hear Yarren speak this way after his initial misgivings. He secretly thought the idea of sending this boy to find him was more than a little unsound himself. But he trusted Cerah. There must be a reason, he thought, though on my word it will not be to use him as the Stygians have chosen to use their young.
A short time later Pronus’s approach was heralded by the trumpeting of the resting dragons. Kelsum set him down beside Szalmi, Dardaan and Valosa. As the bald wizard slid off his dragon’s back Parnasus greeted him warmly. “Well met, old friend!”
“Well met, First Elder,” Kelsum said, then spotting Slurr he continued, “General, this young man would like to say hello.”
The boy was small, Slurr thought, and very dirty. His clothes were extremely poor, and were ripped in more than one location. But when he looked at his face he could not deny its similarity to his own. Even the boy’s hair was blonde like his, and insanely wild, also like his. Putting it off to coincidence, Slurr bowed deeply to the young passenger.
“Greetings, young man. I’m Slurr.” He extended his hand as Kelsum helped him off Pronus.
The boy, used to dealing with people of all stations and gifted with a silver tongue that could slip easily into telling a lie, found himself speechless. The general towered over him. But he too immediately saw that like the image that had appeared in his mind when he heard the woman’s words, his face was like looking into a mirror. He reached up and took the offered hand, finally managing to say, “I’m Ban.”
“Ban! That’s an excellent name! A strong name. Come sit with us by the fire. Are you hungry?”
Ban realized that he was. After being sick that morning he forced himself to think of anything but food during the long flight from Harundy. But now he felt the emptiness in the depths of his stomach and said, “Yes, sir. I am.”
“Then have some of this,” said Parnasus. He handed the boy a plate of steaming meat and vegetables.
Slurr said, “Ban, this is Parnasus, First Elder of the wizards of Melsa.”
“Honored,” Ban said, taking a bite of the meat. The flavor was like an explosion of delight in his mouth. They eat better in a war-camp than I have ever in my life! he thought.
Slurr continued his introductions. “This dashing fellow is Yarren. He has become one of my dearest friends and closest companions. If you were a Silestran, you would not want to see him approach.”
“Hello, Ban,” said Yarren. “The general exaggerates. There is only one the Silestra truly fear, and that is his wife.”
“Your wife?” Ban asked around a mouthful of succulent greens.
“Slurr is married to the Chosen One. We believe it is her voice you heard,” said Kern.
“This rascal is Kern Yarrensleeve. He is my oldest and truest friend. It is he who set all of this in motion.”
“Nonsense,” said Kern. “This war was set in motion from the foundation of Quadar’s formation.”
“Technically, yes,” laughed Slurr, “But it was you that recognized Cerah’s mark. It was you who led us to Melsa.”
“Guilty,” Kern said, smiling.
The boy decided at once that he liked the First-Elder and the maroon-robed wizard, although he was unsure about this Yarren fellow.
Ban filed away all the introductions as he continued to clear his plate. Slurr handed him a wooden cup. “What’s this?” he asked warily.
“It’s water. Drink it, it’s very cold. One of the perks of being surrounded by magicians. Cold water on a warm summer night.”
“Water! Good!” said Ban, grateful that it was not ale. The water quenched his thirst with one swallow. He’d never tasted its equal.
For several minutes no one spoke, allowing the boy to finish his meal. Finally, Kelsum said to Parnasus, “So you believe, as I do, that it was the Chosen One he heard.”
“That just makes the most sense to me. I cannot imagine why any other wizard would tell a boy to find his way to the front lines of the war. I cannot readily explain Cerah doing so either, but there is much about the Chosen One that cannot be explained.”
“Ban, do you have any idea why you’re here, aside from being told to by a voice inside your head?” Slurr asked.
The boy thought for a moment, then said, “I wish I did. This all seems too much like madness to me. I left my mother behind in Tarteel to fend for herself and stowed away on a cargo ship to Harundy.”
“What were you doing when you heard the voice,” asked Parnasus. “Perhaps that will give us a clue.”
Ban’s face turned as red as the scales of the dragon who had brought him to Trakkas. “I was…hiding.”
“Hiding? Why were you hiding?” asked Slurr.
Ban felt that the time for lies had passed. “I’d stolen a dirka and the guard was looking for me.”
There was complete silence around the fire for far longer than Ban would have liked. Then all four wizards and Slurr burst into raucous laughter.
“A sneak thief! Cerah has sent us a little criminal,” Parnasus said, almost choking so intense was his merriment.
“Perhaps he’s come to steal Surok’s dragon-thing!” added Kern.
Slurr saw the boy’s lip quiver. “Stop teasing him,” he said. “We’ve hurt his feelings. Ban, it does not matter to me what you’ve had to do to survive. It may take us a while to figure out why you’re here, but I trust that we will. Cerah has been away from us for well over a week, and we are all a bit untethered in her absence. This much is clear: the enemy is ensconced in Stygia, a city far too close to us for my comfort. He has already sent out one raiding unit, which we were able to turn back. But we know he will attack again. Therefore, we must do our best to defend Trakkas, and indeed all the Green Lands, until Cerah’s return, which we have recently learned is eminent. For the time being I want you to stay safe. There are people in Trakkas who will shelter you when the next attack comes. Until then I would be very happy if you’d stay with me. If the Chosen One has seen fit to bring us together, it seems right that we get to know one another.”
Ban, no longer stung by the laughter of his new acquaintances, said, “I am as clueless as all of us. I don’t usually go around listening to disembodied voices. But this was a call I felt I had to answer. So, thank you. For the food and for the offer of your friendship. Let’s hope things begin to make sense soon.”
Kern was impressed by the young boy’s apparent intelligence, which did not jibe with his outward appearance. It all seemed strangely familiar to him. But his reflection was interrupted by Slurr who said, “Excellent. Then we shall be friends!”
“Yes,” said Parnasus happily. “Friends. These are days in which one should gather all the friends he can.”
Cerah had finally arrived at the base of the high-reaching mountain. Her third day of descent had been, aside from a couple more minor missteps, unmarred by trouble. Now on her fourth day of freezing temperatures and crippling wind, she was trudging through the foothills. Her eventual goal was the coastline of the frozen continent, where her armada had anchored when she’d begun her attempt to destroy the beast in his lair. She knew that Tressida would come that way, and she wanted to make things as easy for her match-mate as was possible.
During her final day of scrambling down the mountainside she and Tress had spoken almost constantly. Although distant connection was a proficiency all wizards shared in the form of projection, her ability to speak to Tressida was different. It required no mental preparation. It did not tax her spark the way projection did. Sending her thoughts to a distant target was an example of spellcraft. Talking to Tress was… just talking, as effortless if she’d been face to face with the gol
den dragon.
But as they’d spoken Cerah could tell that for Tressida it was not without effort. Their link was as strong as ever, but the queen was not. She was pushing far too hard, and Cerah feared she might injure herself. She had marveled often at the strength of Tressida’s heart. In all her life, she’d only encountered one that was its match, and that stout organ belonged to her husband.
Now she feared that the strain of racing across the ocean to reach her might prove too much, even for the mighty Tress. Their last communication had ended with Cerah once more begging the dragon to consider her own well-being. As she’d moved through the hills Tressida had not spoken to her, and Cerah had not called to her, thinking that perhaps if she left her alone for a while she might relent in her breakneck pursuit. Maybe she’d find an island and rest there for a while.
All the same the silence worried her. She fought with herself, trying to balance her decision to let Tress fly unimpeded by conversation with her desperate desire to hear her voice to know she was still alright.
As she made her way between two hills she saw that the terrain ahead was beginning to flatten. She’d made it this far without encountering any additional snow beasts, and she knew that they did not like the exposure of the flat ice. In fact, as she made her way through the pass she could see only one hill of any significance in the distance. She used it as her guidepost, trekking toward it for several hours.
She maintained a diligent awareness of her surroundings as she trudged on. There was still the possibility of one of the great white beasts sneak-attacking her. When most successful, the monsters laid in wait until their victim walked just past them, striking from close behind. However, much to her relief, none had made themselves known.
So intent was she on not being surprised that she’d gotten quite close to the lone hill without realizing it. As she turned her attention its way again she thought she saw something glint on its low summit. That’s odd, she thought, there’s no sunlight here to make anything sparkle. And what in this place even would?
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