Measure and the Truth

by Doug Niles

  But after a month of sampling the delights of Pond-Lily’s physical attributes, he was forced to realize her name was a pretty fair estimation of her intelligence and conversational abilities.

  In fact, he thought as he glowered into the dying coals of his campfire, there might be swamp flowers out there that had more personality, and more intelligence, than his current hut-mate. That was probably why he was still sitting and sulking, long after most of the village had gone to sleep, reluctant to seek the comfort of his own sleeping pallet.

  With a sigh, the hulking half-giant got to his feet, pushing himself off of his log with both hands. He couldn’t help but notice the bulge of his gut, and he flushed with embarrassment when he thought of the trim physique that had carried him through his great war campaigns.

  “Once I was master of half of Solamnia,” he declared aloud, as if amazed by the realization. “Now I am a master of the swamp and of a wench who is a pond-lily by any name.”

  “How would you like a return to the power you once held—or to reach even greater heights?”

  The question was whispered so softly that the half-giant whirled around, growling, ready to smite whoever had dared to sneak up on him and mock him. But no one could be seen.

  “Who speaks to me?” he growled, his tiny eyes glaring from their fat-enfolded sockets as he stared into the darkness. “Who is there?”

  A man—or at least, he thought it was man, based on size and shape—emerged from the darkness at the edge of the trees. The stranger was cloaked from head to toe in black, including a gauzy mask that utterly concealed his face. Most surprisingly of all, he approached the looming half-giant without any obvious display of fear.

  “How dare you!” spat Ankhar, starting to take a step toward the interloper, to smite him with, at the very least, a powerful blow from the back of his hand. Surprisingly, however, the half-giant’s booted feet remained frozen in place, as if he had stepped into soft mire that had suddenly congealed around him. He stared in amazement as the man approached casually and took a seat on a log very near to the one where Ankhar had been sitting.

  Abruptly, Ankhar’s feet came unstuck, and he stumbled, realizing that a magic spell must have gripped him for a moment. The man who had cast the spell had obviously released him from its thrall—so the interloper had to be regarded with suspicion, but also with a wary respect. The dark-cloaked man settled himself down and waited for a few moments until Ankhar, almost unconsciously, came back to the fire and sat down nearby his strange visitor. The half-giant’s anger had dissipated in the face of his visitor’s cool self-confidence, and he found himself more curious than angry.

  “Who are you?” he asked

  “Ask your mother—she will know me at once,” replied the man, his tone somehow courteous even though he had refused to answer the question. Somehow, his calm certainty only made Ankhar more uneasy.

  “My mother sleeps—the hour is late. Tell me yourself,” he insisted.

  Instead, the mysterious visitor said, “This is a nice village,” his masked face turning this way and that as he took in the crude huts, the wooden palisade, the muddy central square. Again, his tone was innocuous, even pleasant, but the half-giant felt himself bristling.

  “It is nice enough for my needs,” he declared guardedly.

  “But is it secure enough to hold your treasure? The vast wealth your armies took from Garnet and Thelgaard and other places of Solamnia? Don’t you worry that some army will come and batter down your palisade, make off with your cherished hoard?”

  Ankhar growled, a deep, menacing sound by any measure, though the black-clad visitor seemed hardly to notice. And in truth, there was little vitriol behind the chieftain’s noisy bluster. Again, his curiosity was stronger than his anger. The growl faded out as he shrugged.

  “My treasures were many, but they were taken by the knights after the Battle of the Foothills,” he said. “I do not miss them. They were useless trinkets, heavy to haul around, not good to eat.”

  “I see,” came the soft reply.

  “Besides, such baubles are more the concern of humans. What need have I of steel and jewels, of great castles and high stone walls? I am happy here, and I am the master of all this place!”

  “No doubt you are.”

  “I am!” Again Ankhar found the remark vaguely offensive, though it was offered pleasantly. It occurred to him—and he was not a terribly introspective fellow—that it was as though he were arguing with himself. “Warfare is hard and thankless work. And plunder, unless it is good to eat or useful like slaves, tools, or land … well, plunder is too much trouble. There is food in these forests, and a small amount of work will provide for all of my needs.”

  “All your needs?” needled the masked visitor.

  “Yes—all of them!” barked Ankhar. He thought of Pond-Lily, waiting for him in the crude hut, reposing on the muddy straw pallet flat on the ever-damp ground, and he felt his conviction waver. “Why are you taunting me with these words?” he demanded.

  “I do not intend a taunt, my great friend. And you are my friend, whether you know it or not. You and I have done great work in the name of the same master, in the past.”

  “I have no master!” The half-giant’s voice rose with his temper.

  Only then did he notice the lone chip of color on the black-garbed man. An emerald winked from a pendant at his throat. It was a small piece of stone, too tiny to notice in the dark—except up close. For just a moment, Ankhar could have sworn the green stone flared with some kind of internal light. And with that realization, he recalled another green stone, the mighty arrowhead of emerald that once tipped his great battle spear, the talisman he had carried to war. When he had held that spear high, the power of Hiddukel, the Prince of Lies, had illuminated it with an iridescent strength that could light up a whole valley, driving back the shadows of night.

  Now that battle spear lay in the mud of his hut, somewhere near the back wall. The green spearhead had ceased to glow when the half-giant’s horde had been broken at the Battle of the Foothills. He had carried the weapon with him to Lemish out of habit, but whenever he looked at it nowadays the stone seemed to have gone cold, dark, lifeless.

  “My lord! Lord Ankhar! Oh, great master, come and see!”

  He bolted to his feet, startled by the urgent words coming from his hut. Pond-Lily was calling him, summoning him in a voice filled not with desire, but with wonder. He spun around and gaped in the direction of the hut, startled to see green light spilling from around its door-flap, and penetrating through the many gaps between the logs of the imperfectly constructed walls.

  He crossed to the place in a dozen strides and pulled back the flap to find the ogress sitting up on the pallet, gazing with a look of dumb disbelief at the source of the illumination.

  His spearhead, almost buried beneath the miscellaneous rubbish at the far wall, was glowing with a brilliance that hurt his eyes. He saw Pond-Lily reach out a tentative hand, as if to grasp the stone, and he cuffed her away with a savage slap.

  “Don’t touch!” he roared. “It’s mine!”

  Pouncing like a cat, he wrapped his hands around the haft of the spear. The stout stick was as big around as a man’s wrist and some eight feet long. He lifted it reverently, shaking the weapon to break it free of the wet leaves, old food scraps, and other debris. Then he carried it out of the hut and back to the fire, where the masked visitor still sat, watching him with that featureless face.

  But it was neither the half-giant nor the strange visitor who next spoke. Instead, there came a cackling laugh from the darkness, and a wrinkled old hobgoblin wench hobbled forth toward the embers of the fire. Laka, Ankhar’s stepmother, had apparently been awakened by the disturbance. The coals in the fire pit seemed to take on a new life as she approached, flaring into brightness, casting a red glow that reflected off of the hob-wench’s few remaining teeth, proving that she could still beam broadly.

  “My lord,” she said, surprising Ankhar by k
neeling before the masked visitor.

  “You know this man?” demanded the half-giant.

  “Yes,” Laka replied, climbing to her feet, taking Ankhar by the hand, and leading him to sit on a log beside the masked visitor. “He is the Nightmaster. The Prince of Lies has sent me a dream, saying the Nightmaster would be coming to see you, to tell you important things, and to charge you with a great task.”

  “Which is?”

  “Listen to him,” the hob-wench said impatiently. “You need to shut up for now and hear the words of the Nightmaster.”

  The half-giant was not used to being talked to thusly, but as always he bit his tongue, sat still, and did what his mother told him to do.

  Hoarst traveled through the ether of time and space, the wings of magic carrying him in a moment a distance that would have taken him three days to ride by horse. In that burst of teleportation, he passed over mountains, steep-walled valleys, across a vast plain and a mighty river, and deep into an unfamiliar range of mountains. Finally, the magic cast him down into the low swale the Nightmaster had described to him. The Thorn Knight arrived at the same time of day he had departed—that was, just before dusk—and since he had taken the precaution of making himself invisible before he teleported, he arrived unseen by any of the men around him as he materialized. Unnoticed, he took stock of his surroundings.

  The priest of Hiddukel had spoken the truth, he realized at once: there was a great military host gathered there, arrayed in a camp with admirable discipline, all approaches guarded by alert sentries. The valley was hidden by lofty mountains, surrounded by a natural palisade. A trio of dark lakes were connected like a necklace of black pearls by a frothing stream that flowed through the valley. Groves of fruit trees thrived there, and a quick glance around showed him hundreds of hectares were under cultivation.

  The mountains around the place were steep and forbidding, limiting access to a pair of passes, one to the north and the other to the south. When the wizard scrutinized those mountain-flanked saddles, he saw that access was guarded by cleverly camouflaged fortifications. The bastions looked very much like the natural mountainsides, but Hoarst picked out subtly concealed platforms for archers and numerous overlooks where rocks had been poised, needing only a trigger or a little leverage before they would tumble downward, crushing hapless interlopers in the passages below.

  His initial inspection completed, Hoarst looked for his intended destination, and found it in a great house overlooking the largest of the three lakes. Still invisible, he made his way down a smooth path toward the place. He passed a broad practice field, where hundreds of men in black tunics were being drilled by hoarse-voiced sergeants. Some worked on tightly disciplined pike formations, while others fired volleys of arrows at straw targets, or bashed at each other with swords that, while dull, seemed to be made of steel or iron. The wizard heard more than one bone get cracked in the few moments it took him to traverse the field.

  The great house was new, a gleaming stone structure with towers at the corners and battlements along the top of the walls. The windows were small and narrow, for defensive purposes. The defenses were well designed, Hoarst realized, taking in the fact that the roadway was the only feasible approach through the marshy ground. The treacherous ground surrounded the great structure on three of four sides.

  The Thorn Knight was pleased by everything he saw.

  The front gates to the place were closed, but through the iron bars he noted a courtyard, with the doors to the house only twenty paces away. No guard could be spotted, but he knew there would be one. A quick spell of flight, the enchantment cast with an inaudible whisper, lifted the invisible mage to the top of the wall, where he spotted a pair of men-at-arms, who wore black, scale-armor shirts and steel helmets. One was snoozing with his back against the wall, but the other watched the road with every indication of alertness.

  Of course, no level of alertness permitted a man to see that which could not be seen. Nor could a guard hear silence, and Hoarst made sure to move slowly so that not even any slight breeze would cause his invisible robe to rustle. He glided over the wall and swooped into the courtyard. At the last minute, he veered away from the front door, climbing through the air, banking around the corner of the house. He came to rest on the largest balcony of the house, a broad expanse of marbled surface that offered a splendid view of the nearby lake and the surrounding mountain peaks.

  That was where he would find the man he was seeking. Pleased to note that the doors to the balcony were open, he strode into a vaulted chamber, the centerpiece of a splendid suite of rooms.

  A man sat alone at a vast table, scribbling notes on a great sheet of parchment—a map. Hoarst silently came up from behind.

  “Captain Blackgaard,” the Thorn Knight said softly, allowing his spell of invisibility to fall away like a cloak shrugged off. “I was hoping I would find you here.”

  The seated man sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over and pulling a stiletto from his belt as he spun to face the intruder. Even startled, Blackgaard had the presence of mind to pull a blank sheet of scrip over the map, the Thorn Knight was amused to see, trying to conceal it from view. For a full breath, the knight’s knife hand trembled, the tip of the blade pushed up against the wizard’s heart.

  “Gray Hoarst?” the captain finally gasped, lowering the knife and clapping a hand to his chest in astonishment. “You might have gotten yourself killed—or killed me from the surprise!”

  Even so, the accusation was more surprised than angry. Hoarst chuckled. “If a mere shock is enough to slay you, good captain, then perhaps you are not the man that I need to see.”

  “Figure of speech,” Blackgaard said gruffly, sheathing his knife. With a quick glance at the concealed map, he shrugged and crossed to a cupboard and opened the door. “Can I offer you a drink, old friend?” He was already removing a crystal decanter containing a dark brown liquid, so Hoarst replied in the affirmative and took a chair at the large table, a respectful distance away from where Blackgaard had been working.

  The captain handed the drink to his visitor and they clinked glasses.

  “I’m happy to see you escaped the foothills alive,” Hoarst allowed, taking a sip of what proved to be a splendid whiskey.

  Blackgaard chuckled grimly. “No thanks to our mutual boss. Last I saw, he was heading for the southern horizon. I rode away with four hundred men, with the Solamnics too worn out to chase us.”

  “It seems you have collected considerably more than four hundred men, in the meantime.”

  The captain, a former Dark Knight who had progressed naturally into the role of mercenary, nodded. “I have five thousand here, and an equal number can be mustered in a few days.”

  “This is an interesting choice of location,” the wizard noted. “The north Vingaard Range? You’re situated rather close to the Solamnics, aren’t you?”

  “It’s close, true, but perfectly safe,” Blackgaard replied. “This valley was part of the landscape that Khellendros devastated back in the day. All the people were killed or driven out, and it’s been pretty well written off since then. No travelers pass this way. As you saw, we’ve managed to make a tidy little fortress here for our purposes.”

  “Ah, yes. But I wonder, are you and your men feeling suited for life as farmers and herdsmen? Or do you miss the beat of the martial drum? Are you still warriors, in your hearts?”

  “That always depends,” the captain replied cautiously, “on choosing the right fight, the right war.”

  “The right war? Or the right prize?”

  “Same difference.”

  “Then you might be willing to wage war again, for the biggest prize of all?” Hoarst watched the other man carefully, already sensing the answer. He knew because he had glimpsed the map that Blackgaard had been studying before the mercenary had time to cover it.

  “You mean, do I think of reconquering Palanthas?” asked the military man. He looked toward the concealed map, winked, and nodded. “I think
we have much to talk about,” he added.

  “Est Sudanus oth Nikkas.”

  My power is my Truth. Ankhar savored the irony of his personal credo. He had allowed himself to idle and cower for too long, had nearly forgotten the lesson that his mother—and his mother’s unforgiving god—had taught him so many years ago.

  “Est Sudanus oth Nikkas,” he repeated, well satisfied. It was a phrase that had been taught to him by one of his old lieutenants, a former Dark Knight-turned-mercenary named Captain Blackgaard.

  “What do you mean by that phrase you keep muttering?” Pond-Lily asked cautiously. She had just served the half-giant his morning porridge and stood to the side as he slurped noisily from the great bowl. Ankhar had been acting strange for the past few days, and strange for him was really strange, the ogress thought.

  “It means, ‘My power is my Truth,’ ” came the reply.

  “Oh.”

  “I am intended for great things,” the half-giant expounded. “I was once a great lord—”

  “You still are a great lord!” she blurted with wide-eyed sincerity.

  He patted her cheek so gently that, though he knocked her down, he didn’t really hurt her very much. “Don’t interrupt.” As she picked herself up and sat meekly beside him again, he gathered his racing thoughts.

  “I am a chosen one of the gods,” he said, trying to recall the eloquent words that Laka had beaten into his head with her skull-capped totem staff over the past few days. “And it is a waste for me to live here, in the Lemish Forest. I am to be master of a great city!”

  “A city! What city?”

  He scratched his head, for the details were a little sketchy, in spite of his mother’s yammering. “A city of the knights,” he remembered. He growled, unconsciously. “I hate the knights,” he added.

  So it was that, just a few days after the auspicious visit of the Nightmaster, Ankhar, the chosen one, marched out of his safe village. He was accompanied by some henchmen from his previous campaigns—Bloodgutter the ogre, and Rib Chewer the goblin, among them. His goal was to assemble another horde and launch another war and conquer a certain city of the knights.