Mystic Warrior

by Tracy Hickman

  “You always let me choose my colors,” the sprite replied with a frown.

  “After the throw?” Dwynwyn offered.

  The sprite’s glow increased with his smile. “Now that’s more like it! I’ll take four and three.”

  “And I’ll take all eleven.” Dwynwyn smiled. She pulled all eleven of the speckled gray stones from the case. “Are you ready?”

  “Just a moment,” Cavan said. The small pixie had managed to pull three of the black stones and four of the yellow stones from the case but was having difficulty holding them all at once. “It’s just that . . . very well, yes, I am ready.”

  Dwynwyn nodded. “Ready? . . . Now!”

  They both tossed the stones into the frame of the board. The tokens bounded about, careening off each other and bouncing inside the frame. In a few moments, each piece had settled to a place on the etched surface. Dwynwyn made a few minor adjustments to their placement, setting them more squarely on the board’s markings, then looked up quizzically at the pixie.

  Cavan smiled. “I believe I’ll take the gray!”

  Dwynwyn nodded. “A strong starting position, I’ll grant you. Perhaps the fates will be kind to you after all, Cavan.”

  “Perhaps,” the pixie said, his wings fluttering as he came to hover over the board, inspecting it. “But the fates always seem to be a mixed blessing with a humor all their own. They are just as quick to rob victory from a sure bet as they are to grant victory to a lost cause.”

  Dwynwyn sat back in her chair, considering Cavan’s words. “That is rather profound for a sprite. Have you been of the scholar caste all this time and not told me?”

  Cavan smiled as he moved a large piece down a carved line of the board. “Why, no, Seeker! I’m just of the third caste . . . but I’m open to a better offer.”

  The Seeker chuckled. “That’s well and good here, Cavan, but I wouldn’t go repeating that outside these rooms. I have enough trouble on my own without having to pull you out of it, too.”

  “What was it like?” Cavan asked, settling back onto his chair. “I mean before you came here.”

  Dwynwyn considered her own move on the board. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been so long ago, I don’t remember very well.”

  “Well, yes it has but . . . but you changed castes. What were you before?”

  “Cavan, I’m sure I’ve told you this before.”

  “Perhaps, but I’d like to hear it again.”

  “Very well. I was of the sixth caste, strictly second estate.” Dwynwyn spoke absently, moving two of her smaller stones in response. “My father was a shaper in the Griffith Wood just a short way east of Kien Yanish. Mother was in the trades, too. She was a linen weaver—at least that’s what I remember her doing. I don’t remember much about her, actually . . . except that she seemed very sad.”

  “So, what truth leads a girl of the sixth caste from the Griffith Wood to the second caste and Seeker for all Qestardis?” Cavan replied, frowning as he spoke at the results of his opponent’s move.

  “Strange fates, indeed.” Dwynwyn leaned back from the board, gazing out the crystal window once more and into the darkened world beyond. “My gift was obvious at an early age. It was hard on my parents since I obviously was not to inherit their gifts, but they had hopes for me of bettering my life as a Seeker. A Wanderer of the fourth caste, unsanctioned, really, took me on to work passage to Qestardis for the testing. I toured with her for a time. We were performing new combinations in Rivadis when Seeker Polonis first saw me. Do you remember Seeker Polonis?”

  “I do,” Cavan said, finally making his own moves on the board. “She was unpleasant and rude. I never liked her.”

  “That’s because you never knew her,” Dwynwyn replied. “She took me in for the testing, helped me find my inner sight, and taught me the more practical truths of the Fae courts. That is how I came to know Princess Aislynn and her family. Then Polonis was gone and Aislynn’s mother ascended the throne at about the same time. Fate does, indeed, deal a mixed blessing to—”

  She stopped, staring at the game board.

  Cavan looked up. “Seeker?”

  Dwynwyn spoke in hushed tones. “The pieces on the board, Cavan, there is something different about them.”

  The sprite looked carefully at the stones arrayed before him. “No, Seeker . . . they look the same to me.”

  “They seem to me as though the board itself were all the land of Sine’shai,” Dwynwyn said, her eyes narrowing. “The pieces are as people on that land, each poised to find one another.”

  “They are only stones, Seeker,” the pixie asserted.

  “This one”—Dwynwyn pointed to a large gray stone with a low caste symbol—“this one is the wingless man I met atop the falls! He journeys across the waters toward his fate. These others”—she pointed to the other side of the board—“they pursue him to his benefit. But these stones drive the creature toward . . .”

  “Toward what, Dwynwyn?” Cavan spoke in awe, his eyes wide. “I don’t see anything!”

  Dwynwyn’s finger drifted across the board toward its near left corner. It stopped, pointing toward three red stones, one large with a low caste symbol on its upturned face, and two smaller showing much higher caste designs.

  “Toward these,” she breathed. “They are driving him toward these.”

  Dwynwyn abruptly stood up, snatching the stones from the board.

  “Perhaps I have been looking for my answer with the wrong eyes,” the Seeker said, excitedly looking at the game pieces in her hands. “Perhaps the truth I seek is found not in our world’s truth.”

  “Perhaps, Dwynwyn”—Cavan raised his eyebrows gleefully as he looked at the upset board—“this means that I’ve finally won a game after all.”

  Dwynwyn whispered to the large gray stone in her right hand: “What truth do you hold, man with no gift? And what danger are you running toward?”

  She gazed long at the red stones in her left hand. One was warm, one was cold, and one of them seemed very familiar to her.

  12

  Tragget

  I am a sinner.

  My soul is harrowed with guilt. I plead for the purifying grace of the dragon’s eye. I cry blood-tears at the anguish and torment that awaits me, for I have strayed from the light and my mind wanders in dark and awful places, hidden from the sight of the dragon.

  It is not the eye of Vasska that is upon me now. My soul lies under the gaze of an enormous giantess. It is the winged woman! It is her beautiful, terrible eye that looks upon me now as she examines me in silence.

  Her beauty is temptation incarnate. The dark, smooth skin torments me with thoughts and desires that are outside my vows. She beckons me away from my faith, from my teachings, from all that is holy and good. She draws me toward her darkness. Her voice is a song of longing more painful in its beauty than my words can give utterance. My prayers beg that I never hear that voice again. My heart cries that I would forfeit my life to hear it only once more.

  Vasska protect me! Vasska come to my aid! Dragon of strength and spirit of creation incarnate, do not leave me here alone in my torment!

  I stand in the palm of the winged demon-woman’s hand. She stands taller than mountains, her glorious head among the clouds of the sky. From her hand, I look down on the face of the world far below. The coasts of the Dragonback and the Chebon Sea stretch toward the sunset, and the lands of my home—of Hrunard—are barely visible through the obscuring haze of distance. It appears to me as though I stand above a map. Yet it is not a map, for I look down on it as though from the tops of the clouds.

  Is this how the dragon-gods view the world in their flight? Is this the vision that Vasska carries with him? If so, is this not also a forbidden sight and do I not also blaspheme even as my eyes drink in the wonder of it?

  I sojourn in blasphemy. I travel the paths of the damned. Were I not in sin, would I not be mad?

  Vasska strengthen me!

  I turn in the hand of the woman. There
is Vasska! Has he come to me for my deliverance? Has he interceded through my prayers?

  There, too, is Mother Edana arrayed in her ceremonial robes. I call out to them, begging them for help, but they do not hear! I confess and beg for absolution, but they do not respond to my cries! I try to run toward them, to make them listen and understand, but the dark, winged demon that holds me has other plans.

  Her hand turns slowly over.

  I tumble into the air, screaming, and clawing at the rushing wind. I fall through the clouds toward the waters of the Hadran Strait, frantically looking about. Mother Edana tumbles unconcernedly through the air. Even Vasska falls, his wings inert, immobile. The winds of the winged she-demon’s breath catch them as they fall. Edana and Vasska tumble in the gale, tossed and buffeted by winds toward the far shores of Hramra. In moments I lose sight of them in the clouds as they fly farther and farther from me.

  Am I then damned? Has even Vasska turned his eye from me? Is the power of this demon-woman greater than that of the gods of our world?

  Despair clutches at my heart. I do not resist my fate. I fall knowing that I am lost. Why has my faith failed me in my hour of its need? Why has my faith failed me in this terrible place?

  Wherein did I sin?

  The black waters of the sea rush up toward me. I can now discern the ships of the Vasska fleet, carrying home the harvest of condemned souls from the far reaches of the empire. I fall toward the ships, their tall masts point as daggers toward me in the sky. These deadly toys below me grow larger by the moment.

  As I watch, the ship below me groans and contorts. Its railings shift, and the planks of its deck warp horribly. The masts curl back on themselves. The ship is horribly deformed into the face of a man—of that man!

  The man that walks in my dreams . . . and now haunts me by day as well. Was I asleep when I saw him by the waterfall? Now again he appears as a contorted ship tossed on rough seas. The ocean waves break against his face, running off at the corners of his eyes like great saltwater tears. The eyes gaze up blankly toward me, the wooden face filled with torment. Its mouth groans open, a black void beyond it. It gapes toward me in a silent scream. My own scream cannot fill the void.

  I fall into the maw of the man’s wooden face and an eternity of blackness . . .

  THE CONFESSIONS BRONZE CANTICLES, TOME VI, FOLIO 3, LEAVES 14-16

  Tragget awoke with a start, shivering in the darkness of his ornate litter. The torusk beneath him, to which the compartment was mounted, continued to sway gently. The pillows and cushions of the enclosure held him in a comforting embrace but did not alleviate his panic and dread.

  The Inquisitor pulled the curtains aside. The salty tang of the shore assailed his senses on the predawn mists. They had journeyed all through the night, rushing to beat the dawn. The darkness was already thinning, however, and they were not yet at their next stop. Tragget leaned out slightly, hoarsely whispering to the handler who sat on the neck of the torusk just forward of the litter. “Gendrik! How long before we can embark?”

  Gendrik turned slightly in his saddle. He was a practiced handler, his long, crooked guide pole held with a steady touch against the torusk’s right tusk even as he spoke. “We are making good time, Lord Inquisitor. We shall have our charges on board before the sun breaks.” Gendrik turned to face forward. It was not the first time this night that Tragget had asked him this question. “You should rest, my lord. I will wake you when we approach the port. Get some sleep.”

  Tragget drew back into the litter. Sleep, he thought. I would avoid it if I could. He rubbed his hands across his face, and then pressed them against either side of his forehead. Perhaps, he thought wildly, if I pushed hard enough, these tortured visions would leave me. I could force them out of my mind and be pure and holy once again. I could stop living this nightmare and make everything right, the way it used to be.

  But the face still haunted him. He had seen that same face weeks ago, dreaming his wicked dreams in his own quarters deep within the Temple at Vasskhold. It was the vivid images of those dreams that had driven him across the sea to the Dragonback in the first place—visions that led him with unnerving accuracy to a forgotten, unimportant little speck of a town. He remembered wondering at the time just what the face symbolized in his dream. He was sure it was some sort of metaphor or analogy for some other problem that he would find there and solve. That, at least, is what he told himself on each step of the fated journey.

  Then, horribly, he had found that the face was not some figment of his fevered dreams but flesh and bone in the waking world. Now he flitted about the image of that face like a moth about a fire, knowing it would destroy him but unable to leave his fascination with it all the same.

  There was only one thought that offered him hope. If he understood these horrible episodes, he reasoned, then he would no longer fear them. Children hide from monsters in the darkness. Shine the light, however, and the shadows vanish, the darkness flees, and the monsters are discovered to exist only in dreams. His monsters did live in his dreams—and if he could shine the light of understanding on those, perhaps he could banish them and his sins as well.

  It all had something to do with that shadow-man of his nightmares now, somehow, made flesh. So the flame comes with the moth, Tragget thought. This time, the moth will study the flame from safety, and when it is properly understood . . .

  . . . Then the flame will be extinguished.

  South of the Begoth Rill, the plain sloped in rolling undulations down to the north shore of the Chebon Sea. The South Shore Road wound its way across these gentle hills. It continued on toward the large port of Hadran Head and more interesting destinations farther along on the western coast. The road had been packed and hardened over the years by the travelers, merchants, and their assorted beasts that regularly passed down its familiar path, beating a wide furrow into the ground.

  Gendrik knew that road well, but he knew other roads, too. In the gray predawn, he wrapped the crooked end of his long pole around one of the tusks of the torusk and pushed it. The torusk obliged by turning its head and lumbering off the highway down a barely discernible trail. The other torusks of the caravan followed suit, their great clawed feet churning up dust in the darkness. They moved in this dim cloud through the darkness, down to the sea.

  At the back of a long finger cove nestled a forgotten and unimportant backwater known as Stoneport. The fishing was poor here and the waters were generally exposed too directly to the sea to be much of a safe harbor.

  Disadvantage, however, can be turned to profit, given the right circumstances. Because local business was poor, the town residents were appreciative of whatever money came their way. They were grateful enough for the largesse of the church to keep their mouths conveniently shut.

  Moreover, the bay may have been exposed, but it was also deep—deep enough for great Pir ships to anchor unnoticed by anyone who might care.

  Tragget watched the town as they approached. The shacks and hovels had all dutifully shuttered their windows and closed their doors. No one cared to know what was passing by their meager homes. No doubt they told themselves it would be a grievous sin for good members of the Pir Drakonis to question the questioners of the church. Besides, the great rust-colored ships with their folded wing sails would be gone soon enough and the town would be all the richer for its turning a righteous blind eye.

  The muddy road wound down to a large clearing east of the fishing docks. Tragget saw the fishing boats of the village already waiting at the shore, each manned by crew from the Pir ship. Tragget smiled. He had heard about the efficiency of the Pir Elar, the secret operatives of the Kardis order, but rarely got to the outlying areas to see it function firsthand. The villagers apparently did not mind having their boats assist the Elar in their work—most likely for an added fee. In turn, so far as the church was concerned, the fishermen more or less were maintaining boats the Elar only occasionally needed for their own purposes. It was a wonderful arrangement, benefiting eve
ryone . . .

  Except the Elect, of course. Tragget’s smile waned at the thought. Yes, except for the Elect.

  The monks of his own order alighted from their litters at the end of the column. They had kept a watchful eye on their charges throughout the night. For the last hour or so, the prisoners had gotten quiet, lulled by the motion of the torusks and drained of hope. Now, with the change of rhythm, they were slowly becoming active again. The monks of the Inquisition would need to watch them more closely now.

  “Would Your Lordship wish to board now?” Gendrik asked from his perch.

  Tragget remained in his litter, peering furtively out from between its curtains at the activity in the caravan. “No, Gendrik, thank you.”

  “But, my lord, the jollyboat is alongside the pier and awaits your pleasure.”

  “No, Gendrik!” Tragget’s voice carried more impatience than he intended. He brought it under control at once. “No, thank you. I’ll board in good time.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  One by one, the torusks were led down into the water at the shore. The individual cages of the Elect were in this manner brought next to the gunnels of the shallow-draft fishing boats. Each was then grappled and pulled roughly onto the deck, its occupants tumbled one on top of the other. They cried out, rousing the others in their cages to start shouting and screaming as well.

  There were no concerned ears to hear them.

  Tragget watched from the security of his litter as each of the cages was pulled aboard. Soon one of the ships’ deck was crammed with cages. The Aboth-Marei pilot stood in the pilot’s cage on the ship’s prow and called out into the waters below. The placid surface of the water roiled suddenly with movement as an enormous merdrak serpent—a dragon of the deep—butted against the ship’s bow from beneath and swung it out into the harbor. In a few minutes its place was taken by another waiting ship and the process was repeated.

  Where was the man? Tragget thought nervously. Where was that face? Was he dreaming yesterday or was it real? No, it had to be real. He had seen him twice and . . .