by Robert Ryan
“What is this place?” Kareste whispered, and the gem-stars seemed to shimmer and tremble at the sound of her voice.
“Where the ancient priests met,” he answered. “So much Aranloth told me. But he said nothing of the wealth.”
Kareste looked around. “There a thirteen chairs,” she said. “That’s a number favored by elùgroths. The Lòhrenin is a council of twelve.”
She stepped closer to one of the chairs, but was careful not to touch it. He saw that they were of a strange design, both the seat and the backs being triangular in shape.
And he saw also what he had not noticed earlier: there was writing on the backs in the strange script of the Letharn.
“What does it say?” he asked.
Kareste peered for several moments, shifting her gaze from one seat to another.
“They’re names, I think. I see Ubrik and Fikril. I see Dilik and Barak-bar. I see…” here she paused for a long while as she studied the thirteenth. There was an expression on her high-cheeked face that Brand could not read.
“Here also I see the name of Harlak,” she said at last and turned to him, her eyes widened by awe. “That translates to ‘noble might’ from the tongue of the Letharn, even as Aranloth has the same meaning in the speech of the Halathrin.”
She said no more. And though Brand now understood the strange emotion that ran through her, he saw something else.
On another seat, even as the lòhren told him it would be, he saw the object of his quest. It rested on the third chair from the left, wrapped in tattered cloth, but the dark end of a shattered staff stuck out. He knew what it was.
Kareste looked also, and she studied the writing on that chair also.
“Here the name translates as ‘midnight star,’ which is what Shurilgar means.”
Brand reached out slowly. The cloth fell to dust at his touch, and beneath lay a black wych-wood staff. Well he knew it, for he had seen the other half.
He picked it up, feeling a strange thrill at its touch that was more than excitement.
But he had no time to reflect on what he sensed, for many things now happened at once.
He felt suddenly dizzy as though he were in two places at once, and a force of malice struck him as a blow. The thing was not as Aranloth’s staff, an artifact imbued with power: this talisman took it to a far higher level. Magic swirled and flowed and oozed from it with raw power. A great black stream shot up his arm, into his body, and up to his head. Aranloth’s diadem flared, and as swift as he had felt dizzy, now he was clear headed again.
A moment he had to choose, to accept the power and let it flow into him, to join with him. Or to reject it utterly.
And one other thing he knew. The black staff was broken, yet he felt its other half now with great clarity. It throbbed and pulsed far away to the north. He sensed even the elùgroths that touched it, that worked some great sorcery. And they sensed him. Their power was immense, and unified, yet something else lay behind it. Some force, far, far more remote, far greater than they, yet it sustained them. Away over countless leagues and beyond many plains and rivers and mountains a mind stirred: vast, imponderable, drenched in ancient enmity. It guided and uplifted the others.
Brand withdrew. He pulled his mind away from the staff, from all that it showed him. Black fire flared, then subsided. The staff was cold in his hand and dark again. The senses he had were lost.
He turned, and saw that Kareste was looking at him as though he were the strangest thing in the tombs. It was not for the first time. He was about to speak, but then he saw what was behind her.
“The harakgar!” he yelled.
She spun to look. Lòhrengai trailed from her fingers even as she moved. But she halted in shock, seeing what he saw.
In the column of water were the three figures. Like serpents they seemed, writhing and twisting among each other as the water poured over them. But they had faces, the same high-cheeked and beautiful faces that he had seen before.
The harakgar hissed, the noise blending with the sound of the water, and then the creatures slid out of the column. Their entwined coils looped over the flagging, wetting it as they undulated.
With a final sharp hiss they separated. Suddenly, the three of them reared, now part serpent and part woman. In their hands they held high the serrated knives, and they attacked.
22. Out of Dim Legend
There was no time for thought. Brand leaped to meet them, stepping between the creatures and Kareste who seemed transfixed. He held both staffs upraised in defense. And then he yelled the charm.
The serpents hissed. They slid and coiled and arched before him, tongues angrily flicking the air.
He chanted louder, and from behind him the girl also spoke. Having heard and learned the words, she added her voice to his.
What Aranloth would say to that, Brand did not know, yet the serpents reluctantly slid back into the column of water. There they twined among themselves as they rode and swam the current, plummeting out of sight.
He ceased chanting. So did Kareste. Yet they both knew the charm was losing its force, or else having touched some item bestowed in the tombs, the power of the harakgar was increased.
Kareste faced him. “Twice now you have saved me. That puts me in your debt, for once only have I saved you.”
“We need not speak of debt, you and I,” Brand answered. “They say that adversity bonds people together. But adversity or no, I like you anyway. But if you would repay me, one thing alone I ask.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell me the truth. Now, once and for all. And swiftly. There’s more going on you said when we first met than a battle for Cardoroth. I gave those words less heed than I should have, for just now I felt … something when I picked up the broken staff. And a name, maybe, I could put to it. One out of dim legend.”
She eyed him without speaking, but at length she sighed.
“Very well. I’ll tell you what I know, and more maybe of what I guess. We have little time. The harakgar will allow us small respite, yet while we rest, without trying to take the staff away, they will endure our presence the better, I think. And rest we must, for when we go they’ll not hold back their power. Rather, I think it will increase the closer we get to the outside world.”
They sat down on the mosaicked flagging before the ancient chairs. Strange they would have looked, in that ancient and domed room, where once great councils and ceremonies were held. But to them, in their tiredness, a seat was a seat and they dared not sit on the chairs.
“I know what it was that you felt in the staff,” Kareste said. “Or rather through it. Others, though deeper steeped in lore and power, have felt the same thing. You should not feel it. But the broken staff, and Aranloth’s staff, and the diadem open your mind to these forces. Still, you sense more than you should. And with each passing day the more do I think that Aranloth chose you well. Though you’re a warrior, the staff of a lòhren is not so ill-suited to you as I thought at first.”
He grew agitated, and she held up a hand. “Now, I’ll answer you. Yes, there’s more going on. The history of these lands is enough to tell you that ever we are at war with the south; the elugs, the Azan and other creatures besides that dwell there. They have attacked and harried the north since before the founding of Cardoroth and the other Camar cities. They are our enemies, for they would overrun this land. But cast your mind back to a time of legend before even ancient history. Of that, what can you say?”
“Little,” he answered. “Only what every child learns in stories. That the exodus of the Halathrin brought them to our lands in pursuit of a great evil. And greater evil followed. A Shadowed Lord rose – master of the elùgroths. And war raged over the lands. Yet that great lord was thrown down at the last, though his designs and plans and minions live after him in the elùgroths.”
“Thus the legends tell us,” she said. “And they speak truly…”
“And yet?”
“And yet for long ages the lòhrens
and the Halathrin dreaded that while this power was defeated, it was not wholly destroyed. One day, they feared, he would rise again, and gathering darkness about him start once more to complete what he had not finished in ages past.”
“Elùdrath,” he whispered. The shadows of the cavern flitted, and he felt that even the dead in the tombs all around listened to his hoarse voice.
“Yes. And you have sensed him now as others have before you, though they be greater in power.”
“Very well, then,” he said briskly. “All the more reason to destroy this thing. Maybe so shall Cardoroth survive, though clearly other battles will come.”
He made to stand, but she raised her hand again.
“Wait,” she said. “There’s one thing more.”
“What?”
“This only. Before the elùgroths came to Cardoroth with war, they escaped from Halathar, the forest realm of the Halathrin. Much evil they did there, but the greatest was this – somewhere in the hills of Lòrenta they loosed a great sorcery. Contrived of the half of Shurilgar’s staff that they possess, they created beasts as you have seen at Lake Alithorin. But even as those hounds were made of men, these others were bound to Alithoras by Halathrin forms. Immortals of great power. They roam now in the hills, twisted by sorcery, driven by the evil that possesses them to prowl and kill and slay. And lòhrengai avails little against them, for the blood of the immortals is stronger, more enduring, surer than that of men or elug. This is an evil in itself that cannot be borne, and yet also it threatens the lòhrens. And therefore all Alithoras.”
Brand brooded on the news that she gave and wondered why she had not mentioned it before. He did not like it. The dark sorcery sickened him, yet he saw no way to help, no matter how much he wanted to.
“What can I do about that?” he asked. His answer was curter than he meant, for being powerless annoyed him.
“You? You can do nothing. But me … that is a different question. I have the skill to undo the sorcery and free the immortals thus caught from torment. So I think, at least.”
“Then you should not be helping me. Help them instead.”
“Ahh…” she sighed. “There it is. In helping you, I am helping them. For ultimately, there is only one way to undo the sorcery. Perhaps I alone of all the lòhrens could achieve it. But I cannot do it with lòhrengai. The dark spell can only be undone with the same power that brought it into being. To free them, I need Shurilgar’s staff.”
She looked away. There was a long silence, profound within the tombs. Only the streaming column of water made any noise.
Brand stood, and she looked up at him from where she sat. There was much that he could read in her face, and much that was still hidden.
“We’ll speak of this later,” he said.
“Will you give me the staff?” she insisted.
“Truly, I don’t know. For to do so would betray Aranloth’s hope in me, and the king’s. And perhaps allow an entire people to be murdered. Yet would they not want this other sorcery, this abomination, undone? I cannot say. And I won’t decide here in the dark. When I feel the light on my face and breathe fresh air once more, and when the listening ears of the long-dead are not about me, then will I speak of it again.”
“So be it,” Kareste said.
Without another word they left the great chamber. But even as they took the first steps he felt the growing pressure of the harakgar on his mind. He realized that now they were roused. The charm had worked before, but whether it would hold off their waxing fury he did not know.
He spoke the words that Aranloth had given him at nearly every step, but still the pressure grew until the dead air of the tombs seemed to spark with malicious life.
They made it back to the bridge before the harakgar attacked, despite his constant voicing of the charm. But this time they dropped from the air above.
Brand spun and thrust Aranloth’s staff at the nearest one. Shew flew on black wings, graceful as a swan, and her long hair trailed behind her in the wind of her descent.
Silver flame burst from the staff, and the shock of the impact drove him to his knees. The harakgar twisted to the side, for a moment looking less graceful, and then she rose above the bridge again.
Next to him a spray of lòhren-fire struck the other two. They screeched and hissed, fluttering higher to join their companion.
Brand and Kareste began to move across the bridge. They made it to the other side, and though Brand repeated the charm, this time the harakgar did not go away. They hovered in the high shadows, and the deep lights in the chasm far below spun wildly.
The two of them ran. As best they could they watched behind them. The harakgar followed, gliding down and then running swiftly on long legs, their wings gone but their shadowy hair still trailing behind them.
The clamor of the chase was loud. Surely no such noise had been heard here in the dark amid the dead in all the endless years of their rest. Brand had a sudden and stabbing fear – the dead would begin to wake. He tried to put the thought from his mind, but the pounding of his boots seemed to drive the fear through his body, and the echo of the chase ran ahead of them all, stirring other strange noises to life.
Behind, the harakgar screeched and leaped. He lifted Aranloth’s staff, fighting off all three. No fire burst from it this time. The creatures bashed it from his grip before he was ready. The weight of them knocked him down, and even as his head struck the ground he heard the clatter of the falling staff somewhere away to his right.
He tried to raise Shurilgar’s broken staff, but the harakgar were upon him. They weighed on him like stone statues come to life, and the strength of them was beyond any man. They pinned him, their hot breath beat upon him like wild beasts, and their long hair billowed and rolled in choking masses over his face.
But half blinded as he was, he saw the serrated knives rise as one. He made a last effort to throw the creatures off, but one hand caught him by the throat and squeezed like the death-grip that it was.
Then suddenly he was blinded by light. A great roar filled his ears. The harakgar screeched. He saw lòhrengai take their arms, melting flesh from bone.
The screams filled his ears and suddenly the weight was off him. He gasped for breath, struggled to grab Aranloth’s staff and used it to prop himself up.
Kareste stood between him and the three harakgar. She screamed in her own turn, but it was in fury rather than pain. Back the harakgar ran, disappearing into the tunnel behind them, swallowed by the dark.
The two of them looked at each other. He felt the slow drip of blood along his arms, but he did not think he was badly hurt. His neck ached, and he realized that even without the knives the harakgar were close to killing him. A moment longer and they would have broken his neck.
Kareste had fared better, yet she had used so much of her power that she now seemed exhausted. They moved ahead, neither having the strength to run or even speak.
On they went, near-dead things themselves, ignoring the alcoves and the bodies and the treasures that lay to either side. Fresh air and light were the treasures they sought.
And ahead, tantalizingly close, was the dim outline of the cave entrance. But something shuffled toward them, silhouetted by the pale light of the outside world.
Brand and Kareste went forward to meet this new challenge, but their strength had not recovered. They needed rest, but that they would not have unless they broke out of the tombs.
The figures ahead drew near. There were three, but they were not the harakgar; at least, if they were, they had taken yet another form. For what approached now were warriors. Tall they stood, proud and stern. White tunics gleamed and their silver-helmed faces shone with a pale light. Golden hair spilled over their shoulders. Their eyes were keen, and in their hands they held bright swords.
He recognized the design of both helm and sword. He wore something similar on his own head, and carried something alike at his side.
On came the warriors, now stalking toward them with a
grace that no man could match.
“Halathrin!” Kareste whispered fiercely.
“Yes and no,” he replied. “Remember the skeletons we saw as we came in? These are they – Halathrin, but long dead. The harakgar have raised them, put upon them the guise they wore in life.”
Kareste looked at him, and he saw the fear in her eyes. But he had no words. That same fear was in his own, and she saw it.
Close as they were to escape, this last battle seemed too much. How could they kill the already dead?
There was no more time to think. The lead warrior drove at him with a gleaming blade. Brand stepped aside, deflecting it with Aranloth’s staff, but the warrior was quicker than any he had fought before. Straightaway the white-clad attacker turned and thrust his blade again.
Brand retreated. Beside him, Kareste did likewise. Fire lashed out from her fingers. It lit the tunnel with a sizzle of light and heat, but when it subsided the warriors were still there, advancing upon them, driving them deeper into the tombs.
“The staff!” Kareste called. “Give me Shurilgar’s staff!”
He stepped back another pace, caught in fear and uncertainty. Dare he give it to her? Did he trust her? Would it be destroyed, or would Cardoroth fall instead?”
“The staff!” she screamed again.
Brand hardened his resolve. Cardoroth must not fall. He stopped his backward movement. The Halathrin looked at him, eyes as keen as swords, but their real blades flickered with a pale light as though a fire burned within them.
He took a firm grip on Aranloth’s staff. Thrice he struck it down upon the stone. The Halathrin did not move. The tombs waited until the slow echoes died away. And then Brand shouted in a clear voice.