Mystic Warrior

by Tracy Hickman

  There he was. Tall and lanky, his hair was disheveled and his face was red. He still wore that ridiculous rose-colored doublet. They had managed to get him back into the wicker cage and had even posted a series of monks in shifts to watch him. No one had figured out how he could have escaped from the cage—yet another mystery in a man who held far too many for Tragget’s peace of mind.

  Peace of mind, he thought. Maybe that’s what I seek.

  He watched intently as the young man’s cage was pushed sideways onto the next boat. He did not take his eyes off it, afraid that it might vanish somehow with the morning mist. Other cages were dragged onto the deck as well, but Tragget took no notice of them. His eye was fixed on the man. He watched until the little fishing boat made its way out to the larger, anchored ship. He watched until all the cages had been hoisted up onto the deck. He watched longer still without seeing anything but the haunting face of the nightmare man made real.

  He saw in his mind a moth carrying a flame.

  He saw the ship swallowing him in its distorted maw.

  He closed his eyes. He had seen enough.

  “Gendrik,” Tragget called out with a heavy voice, “I believe I would like to go aboard now.”

  13

  Dark Waters

  Galen lay miserably in the narrow bunk that was too short for him, held fast to the bunk rail, and closed his eyes. He had never traveled on the water before. In all his life next to the sea, he had never ventured out on any of the boats that daily set sail from his fishing town. His travels had always been limited to what distances his feet traversed from time to time. Galen was a creature of the land with no desire to sample any other means of transport.

  Now, deep within the hold of the massive ship, he was surrounded by a world completely alien to him. The motion of the ship through the long swells of the sea beyond was disorienting. The sounds all around him were strange and ominous. More than that, however, was the closed, stifling darkness of the hold where he lay clinging to his bunk. Closing his eyes seemed to help for a time—but only for a time.

  He was not alone in his discomfort. The ranks of narrow wooden bunks, which filled the long deck up to its low ceiling, were often crammed with two or three people each. Galen’s fragile stomach, however, had convinced others who might have tried to push their way into his bunk to stay well clear of him.

  Sick as he was, he still had enough presence of mind to count himself among the lucky ones. Those who could not find a bunk were forced to stand bent over under the uncomfortably low ceiling, there not being sufficient room vertically to stand or horizontally to sit. The poor ventilation made everyone else’s discomfort a shared experience. Many were vomiting loudly, the acidic smell rolling through the hold and inspiring others to follow in due course.

  Galen opened his eyes. Keeping them shut for too long made him feel distinctly as though the entire ship was about to turn over in the water and retch them into the sea in disgust.

  He craned his head around and pressed his face up toward the ventilation grate above the bent crowd next to his bunk, as close to the free air as he could get. He could see several grates beyond, passing through successive decks. With each swing of the boat, he caught a glimpse of the deepening clouds overhead. It would rain soon. He would be soaked where he lay, but better to be wet than to give up what precious air drifted down occasionally through the grate.

  Someone fell back against the bunk, jostling it badly. Galen growled angrily into the face of the offending man, who just shrugged and nodded behind him. Only then did he notice the yelling and wailing. A madman was lashing out at the crowd around him, screaming for them to get out of his way though there was no space for them to give him.

  “Back away, you sons of darkness! Back!”

  The packed crowd surged once more away from his blows. The force rippled through the mass of people, shoving them hard against the surrounding bunks, bulkheads, and hull. Galen’s head bounced painfully against the overhead.

  “Demons! Demons! Get back from me or I shall use your own powers against you!”

  Galen could see only flashes of the man’s face through the crowd. He was bald except for a ring of disheveled white hair circling from ear to ear. His nose was large and hooked on the end. Heavy brows extended over his feverishly bright blue eyes.

  The packed crowd around him swayed back and forth, trying to get out of the bald man’s way. Some in the crowd shouted at him. Some laughed hysterically.

  Only one person made a move to stop him, however. Galen could not quite make out who it was from his bunk, but their hands kept reaching for the crazed man, trying to calm and comfort him. They were long hands, with delicate, smudged fingers.

  A woman’s hands.

  “Drag me down into the pit, will you?” the man screamed, his voice raspy with overuse. “I won’t go with you, I tell you! I won’t go!”

  Suddenly the old man lashed out, knocking the woman senseless as she fell back.

  The crowd pulled violently away from the dangerous berserk lunatic, the sudden press spilling everyone from Galen’s bunk down among the crowd. Galen fought his way to his feet and was at once crushed against a bunk support behind him. Someone has to stop him, he thought as the air was pressed painfully out of his lungs, before this fool kills us all.

  He quickly pushed himself through the intervening captives. Quite all of a sudden, he found himself in a small clearing amid the mass of people. The balding man, his breath ragged, was standing directly in front of him.

  Having reached the man so quickly, Galen suddenly realized he did not know what to do.

  The maniac turned his face upward toward Galen, his bright eyes trying to burn through the smithy’s soul.

  Galen held up his hands, palms open.

  The madman blinked.

  “Please, no one wants to hurt you,” Galen said more calmly than he felt. “I’ll help you . . . Just . . . be calm and it will be all right.”

  Tears welled up in the lunatic’s eyes. “Master?”

  Galen glanced around. No, he realized, the man was indeed talking to him. “Sorry . . . I . . .”

  The features of the bald man softened as he suddenly reached forward, clasping Galen’s hand in his own bony grasp. “You’ve come for me? You’ve come to my aid at last?”

  “Sir? Please, I don’t . . .”

  The man collapsed in front of Galen, racked with sobs. He clung to Galen with his head bowed, his hot tears running down over their clasped hands.

  Galen found himself moved by the man’s obvious pain. He knelt down, reaching out with his free hand, trying to help the man back to his feet. But the man only sobbed the louder, wailing either in pain or in joy Galen could not tell.

  Another hand reached out. The long, smudged fingers Galen recognized, but the deep voice was new to him.

  “Maddoc,” she said quietly. “Maddoc, I am here.”

  Maddoc looked up. There was a rapture on his face, a sublime peace that struck Galen as idiotic. “Rhea? Is that you, my beloved?”

  “It is,” Rhea responded. Galen turned toward the voice. She was a short woman with a broad, pleasant face. Her light hair was cut short—an unusual style for women anywhere in the Dragonback. Her wide-spaced eyes gazed intently down on Maddoc, warily studying every move the man made. “I am here.”

  “Rhea!” Maddoc’s eyes filled once more with tears. “He is here, Rhea! He is come! I have found him at last!”

  The woman glanced at Galen for a moment. “Yes, my dearest. You have found him. Now that you have found him, you must get some rest.”

  Carefully, Rhea peeled the madman’s fingers from their viselike grip on Galen’s hand.

  “Yes,” Maddoc replied. “Yes, I would like some rest.”

  “Rest from the troubles of this world?” Rhea asked.

  “Yes.” Maddoc smiled foolishly. “Rest from the troubles of this world.”

  Rhea turned toward Galen. “Sir, please help me. He must lie down somewhere
soon. If we can find him a place to rest, he won’t trouble anyone again tonight.”

  Galen looked around. His stomach was lurching and he longed once more to crawl back into his bunk and hold tightly to the cool wood, but he could not see anywhere to lay the tired old man. “He can have my . . . my bunk, if he . . . that is, if he wants . . .”

  There was someone else already in his bunk. A stocky, overweight man with thinning hair was just settling between the rough side rails.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Galen offered.

  The man in his bunk gave no response.

  “Pardon me, sir,” Galen said louder, assuming that the man must not have heard him properly.

  The man did not stir.

  Galen, annoyed, tapped him forcefully on the shoulder. “Please move, sir! You are in my bunk.”

  The man turned his round, flabby face toward Galen, his quivering cheeks already flush with indignation. “Do you know who you are talking to? Go away before you find yourself in serious trouble!”

  Galen glowered. “You are in my bunk—please get out!”

  “I am the guildmaster of Shardandelve!” the man screamed, his face purple with rage. “This is my bunk now—mine by right!”

  Galen stared at him for a moment, only then realizing that the madness in this ship took many forms. He turned to Rhea, who was struggling to support the swaying Maddoc. “Any suggestions?”

  “Toss him overboard,” Rhea replied with a chill smile, “if you think it will help. I’ve got to lay Maddoc down before he has another episode.”

  Galen quickly sized up the guildmaster of Shardandelve, shrugged, and then grabbed him by his tunic.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re—?”

  “Sorry,” Galen said. “I’m afraid that you’re in the wrong bunk.”

  The blacksmith pulled the heavy man clear of the bunk’s frame in a single motion.

  “My lady.” Galen sighed. “Will this do?”

  Rhea nodded as she helped Maddoc slowly toward the narrow bed.

  The rain cascaded down through the ten-foot-square overhead cargo grating well into the night, but Galen did not mind. The light cascade felt like it washed his soul as he sat under the grate. Most of the people on board considered him to be insane anyway, so his behavior was easily dismissed by the others in the hold. They believed themselves to have enough sense left to stay as dry as possible.

  Galen, on the other hand, cherished the space it afforded him and the air that it brought into his lungs. He preferred being wet to choking and suffocating.

  Rhea sat on the edge of the bunk next to Maddoc. The wild man rested now with a peaceful look on his face, his breath slow and easy. For a long while, however, Rhea’s sad eyes were not watching her sleeping charge, but the rain-soaked Galen sitting with his back propped against a wooden brace.

  She spoke to him so quietly that she had to repeat herself.

  “Who are you?”

  Galen turned toward her, his hair wet and matted. He chuckled. “That is a good question, lady.”

  “Rhea,” she responded.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Rhea . . . just call me Rhea,” she said quietly, “and my husband’s name here is Maddoc.”

  Galen turned his face up toward the falling drops.

  The woman would not give up on conversation. “So, who are you?”

  “You can call me Galen, Rhea.”

  The woman thought about that for a moment. “Galen, is it? It doesn’t seem like much of a name.”

  Galen smiled wearily into the dripping water. “Sorry . . . maybe I’m not that much of a man.”

  Rhea frowned, then moved carefully closer to Galen as she spoke. “Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that sincerely. Maddoc is, as you can see, quite ill. He believes everyone he meets to be a dream—all phantom demons who are trying to keep him from some blessed other world.”

  “Sounds nice.” Galen spoke with complete lack of interest.

  “Yes, it does,” Rhea agreed, kneeling as close to Galen now as she could without being directly beneath the drizzle. “This other world of his sounds very nice, indeed.” She paused for a moment, then whispered, “Have you been there?”

  Galen turned to look at her as though she, too, were as mad as Maddoc. Then he shook his head and turned away. There was a slightly patronizing tone in his voice when he answered, “No, Rhea, I’ve never been to Maddoc’s ‘other world’—”

  “That’s really odd,” Rhea cut him off, “because he has seen you there.”

  Galen turned. “What?”

  Rhea smiled as much to herself as to Galen. “Why, yes, didn’t you know? Maddoc told me that he saw you.”

  “Well, I don’t recall ever having seen him in this world, let alone any other, so could you please just leave me—”

  “So who is this dark woman with the wings that you meet so often at the falls?”

  Galen glared at the woman.

  “Ah, so Maddoc has seen you before!”

  Galen looked away. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Oh, of course you don’t,” Rhea said in thinly veiled sarcasm. “But you see, if you were the rose-colored man who spoke with the winged woman, then we might well be able to help each other.”

  “Rhea . . . Lady, look—all I want is to get back home.”

  “And I want to help you find your home,” Rhea said with sudden determination. “Look, there is more to this so-called madness than is seen in Vasska’s eye, if you know what I mean. It’s true that some of the people who are here truly are insane, but most of the people who are of the Election all exhibit extraordinary symptoms with common themes and delusions.”

  Galen raised his head. “What the drak are you talking about?”

  “Think about it,” Rhea continued. “It is like a plague of some sort but without a discernible cause. None of the symptoms are life-threatening or even directly harmful to anyone else. Some of these people may have even demonstrated extraordinary abilities—yet they are included in the Election and are crated off into the dark heart of Hrunard and never heard from again.”

  Galen snorted. “So you’re saying the Election is some sort of illness?”

  “No, that’s not it at all.” Rhea shook her head. “We’ve been studying this for a long time. We felt sure that the people in the dream represented real individuals. You’re the first one we’ve met that confirmed that this experience is one shared with others. There must be a common reason behind— Have I said something funny?”

  Galen sighed through his smile. “No, not really . . . I’m just listening to the observations of a madwoman.”

  “I am not one of you,” Rhea snapped.

  “Not one—of us?” Galen sneered.

  “No, not . . . That’s not what I meant!”

  Galen turned toward the woman, his dripping face moving uncomfortably close to hers. “Then just what do you mean, Rhea? What could you possibly say to me that would bring me one step closer to going home, Rhea?”

  The woman did not budge an inch. “That if we work together we might have a chance of understanding why the Election takes place at all. If we understand that . . . we can use that knowledge to free ourselves—you, Maddoc, and me.”

  Galen’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

  “I . . . I don’t know yet . . .”

  Galen sat back against the post in disgust.

  “. . . But it has to be better than dying separately!” Rhea continued. “There is something amazing happening here . . . to nearly all of these people, to Maddoc and to you. If we could only figure out—”

  “Hold a moment.” Galen held up his hand. “Maddoc and me? What about you?”

  Rhea stopped for a moment, her jaw working, but the words did not seem to want to come out.

  “You . . . you didn’t see me by the falls, did you?”

  Rhea looked away as she spoke. “I was with Maddoc . . . I’ve been with him since . . .”

  Galen turn
ed his gaze steadily on her now. “Yes, but you weren’t with him by the falls. You didn’t see the winged woman, did you?”

  Rhea locked her eyes with his gaze and answered him directly. “No, I did not.”

  “You’ve never been there, have you?”

  “No,” she said stubbornly. “I have not.”

  “Because you are not insane, are you?” Galen intoned.

  “No,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “By the Claw, lady!” Galen could not decide whether to be horrified or giddy at the thought. “You faked your own Election? Are you out of your—”

  “Out of my mind?” Rhea countered. “Wouldn’t being out of my mind qualify me for the Election?”

  Galen laughed, trying to think through the twisted logic of her statement. “Why?”

  “Love.” She shrugged the word as though it were as much a burden as a blessing. As Rhea spoke, she turned her gaze back toward the man still asleep on the hard bunk. Her voice filled with a quiet warmth that reminded Galen too much of his own loss. “Maddoc is my . . . well, used to be my husband. We’ve been trying to avoid the Election for years, but these last few months Maddoc’s condition has worsened. He was caught in this Election and my heart had no choice but to follow him. You can understand that, can’t you? Even if we were no longer married in the eyes of— Are you all right?”

  Galen’s eyes filled with tears, barely noticeable among the rivulets of rain still cascading down from the grate above. “So much had happened, so quickly that I . . . that I had forgotten,” he said with choked words. “The Elect of Vasska have no ties to the world of the flesh. They are freed from all mortal bonds. All contracts and marriages are dissolved in the eyes of the Pir Drakonis.”

  “Yes, Galen,” Rhea said, all the while still holding her husband’s hand. “To the world, we are all dead.”

  14

  Bayfast

  The storm swept down from the northwest, a Teeth-weeper, as the local shipmasters termed them. They were not uncommon in the latter months of the year, an old and blustery friend that visited itself down from the northern climes of the Shandisic Ocean. It whined through the stays of the trade ships searching for safe passage through the Dragon Teeth Isles. It ruffled the waves of the Northreach Sea into frothy caps. It then vented its fury through the Hadran Strait before finally spreading itself thin on the Chebon Sea. The Teeth-weepers were always the harbingers of the chill part of the fall season. In time, as the seasons ripened, the winds would shift and the Teeth-weepers would be replaced by the White Gales of winter. But for now, the gentler winds of Vasska’s realm held sway.