by James Duvall
Aside from looters, it does not appear that the anyone has made any substantial effort to reclaim the fort. In fact, signs point to the contrary. Neither sentry nor encampment is to be found and the road has been dug up to serve as a resting place for many of the dead. Monuments stretch nearly 200 yards from the outer wall along the road. It is without question that the attack was indeed a battalion of stone soldiers, but if the field is to offer any signs of their origin or purpose they are invisible to my eyes.
Fort Lockworth was not an important outpost, as far as any intelligence seemed to offer a daughter of Fendiss. Near the border of Arcamyn and Banida, it was a quiet enough place. Banida was a vast and beautiful place, heavily forested save where the mountains rose so high as to choke out even the most hardy of the trees. Barbarian tribes lived all across those lands, their kingdoms rose and fell in spans so short as to render its cartography a fool's passion.
Syrrus wondered if in their pride, Arcamyn and Fendiss alike had discounted Banida unfairly. If the barbarians had indeed mastered the arts of golemcraft they would be a formidable enemy for generations to come. It was not worth considering that an alliance could be forged with such a ruthless people, no better than the Ralians. The Ralians seemed more apt candidates, yet with such a power why attack lonely Lockworth?
Syrrus was still trying to puzzle it out when the stew boiled over and hissed against the fire. She poured herself a bowl and sat eating it while she thought. She added her theories about Banida and Ralia to the journal, and a third also, concerning the idea of a rogue mage making a bid for power and provinces of his own.
It was not unheard of, the story of Alturis the Wolfmage came to mind. Many versions of his story held that he built a great city in the mountains beneath the high moon. Its inhabitants were blessed with long lives and their children the gift of magic born to so few in the outside world. By virtue of his presence were these gifts bestowed and in the wake of his death the power was undone and madness came to his followers, who held moonlight in their eyes. Of course, that city had become lost.
“How does one lose a city?” Syrrus mused to herself.
There was a sound like a slow beating drum. Quiet at first, but it caught her attention quickly and she quickly dressed, dousing her fire with a quick blast of frost from her staff. Immediately the corridor fell into darkness. Syrrus waited a while, staff in hand, as the drumbeat grew ever closer. Satisfied that the golem was alone, Syrrus ventured forth into the rain, sadean paws finding their way nimbly across the uneven field. It was there from behind the shattered remains of the barracks that she first saw the golem. It was not a type she could recognize, a body of onyx but with bits of ruby stone glittering here and there with two hefty pauldrons of ruby affixed to its shoulders. She followed it at a distance, leaving all behind but her weapon. She would need every bit of haste she could muster if the creature realized it was being followed.
The golem led her over hills and unto the edge of a great dale where she dare not follow, for the cover of trees was lost and the slopes high and steep as to prevent her quick egress. She waited for a while, letting it get far head of her until she could risk a leap down the embankment. Racing along the plain with a panther's swiftness she closed the gap once more, the rain soaking her clothes and fur through and through. At last the golem reached its destination, naught but an hour's walk from Fort Lockworth. Here the ground opened up into a great fissure and the golem marched along it until it came to a place where the fissure had been widened and a ramp of stone and earth built that could support even the golem's monstrous weight.
Syrrus crept to the edge further down, peering into what she expected to be darkness but instead found glowed with firelight and radiated warmth.
“Gulderthag is here,” the golem announced in a slow, thick voice. Syrrus felt her hearts both skip a beat. It had spoken. For a moment she felt her ears must have deceived her, that the words had come from some other presence in the cavern, a banidan shaman or a ralian warlock.
Another golem came out to greet the first, this one taller and mightier, its eyes shining red with fire. “Kreen is here.”
“What word do you bring?” the second golem asked. His voice was sharper, booming with the presence of a nobleman.
Syrrus could not believe what she was hearing. Golems, speaking? Even beyond that they were planning, communicating with some distant master.
“No word has yet come, Kreen. We are to wait. Soon we will have our freedom, you and I.”
“Yes, so long as we stay faithful a little while longer,” the one called Kreen agreed. “Come, in your absence I have built a foundry. With it, metal will yield to stone.”
Syrrus scrambled back from the fissure, concealing herself in a dark part of the forest with rain water rolling down her back. The golems both came up out of the earth and marched ever further north into Arcamyn.
Chapter 24
The Speaking Stones
Nobri, Arcamyn
And to each He created He also blessed. To men He gave logic, that they might unlock the mysteries of the world and create after their creator's fashion. To panthers He gave magic, that they might thrive in the harsh of the world and carry their Father's love to every corner. To the dragons he gave wings, that they might claim dominion of the sky. Each He loved, and Each He blessed, and He gave to them a warning that only a fool shall hide his talents from his brother. For those He gave much, He expected much to be done.
The First Book of Penathor, The Word of Light
The portal to Arcamyn stood briefly open for the sake of Joshua Woods. His time had run out. The lone traveler stopped briefly at the precipice and looked back. With a single step he crossed worlds. As before he felt a wave of cold wash over him, but there was no white dragon watching this time. Only darkness, and then cold, wet air on his face. He opened his eyes and let the breath out, now in the world that had already cost him his life once before.
Though he did not commonly seek time as the dragon, Joshua found himself making an exception. Shedding his human facade he stretched his wings out, wide as they would go, flapping them lightly without fear of upsetting the bookshelf or sending a box of cereal tumbling off the counter. Liberated from the aegis of secrecy and fear of discovery, he frolicked across the manor's lawn like a hatchling, flapping his wings and pawing at the air.
“You there! You!” Sil'krath called from the balcony. He had been summoned by the considerable noise even the smallest of dragons made when romping about. “What are you doing?”
Joshua looked up with a sheepish grin that quickly faded when he recognized the majordomo. Fear flit through his mind only briefly, the result of weeks of reminding himself he could not be seen this way by anyone. In the past month it was only Tarus and the Ketch's that had seen the dragon. Even that had felt like a betrayal of Amanda's trust, but with iron dragons appearing on his door nearly every night, his secret seemed a secret to almost no one. Passing up embarrassment and fear brought him right back around to anger.
“I don't see how it is any of your business,” he said with narrowed eyes.
Joshua had nearly forgotten the striking dissimilarity between the dragon's voice and his own. Deep and regal, the words he had intended as a warning that he wanted to be left alone came out with a chilling tone that promised violence.
“Everything that goes on in Storm Hallow is my business,” Sil'krath barked and stamped his foot, resilient in a way Joshua would not have predicted of someone so aged when faced by such a creature as he had become.
Joshua snorted cold air from his nostrils and slunk toward the west side of the house, meaning to head into town. Sil'krath scowled at him as he trudged by.
“Honestly, dragons popping in and out like the place were a train station,” he moaned to an unsympathetic ear. “Do I look like a station master? Maybe we should lay tracks.”
The rest of the drakorian's tirade faded into the backdrop as Joshua rounded the corner. He heard the door slam and for a
moment worried that it might be because the grouchy majordomo was planning to meet him at the front door. He could so easily picture Sil'krath scurrying through the immaculately kept halls, empty of their master, just so he could emerge at the front door and berate the lone night seeker until he was far out of sight, shouting after him like a scolding wife sending her drunken husband back to market to fetch something he'd forgot, perhaps having promised many times not to.
Nobri was vaguely circular in shape, divided into a series of concentric rings. The outermost ring was a series of large estate houses. Most of the outlying land would be controlled by one of the adjacent manors. Joshua penetrated into the middle ring from the east where Storm Hallow was nestled snugly between two equally magnificent homes that Joshua estimated had to contain people more friendly than Sil'krath if only because it seemed impossible that anyone might be more cross or stodgy. Joshua struggled to reconcile the amiable young mage with the abjectly discourteous servant he had apparently willingly employed. The only reasonable conclusion seemed to be that Sil'krath had some manner of positive traits that were not readily visible to the symbol of his master's destruction.
Joshua kept to his Alter while in town. He tried very hard to convince himself that dragons were common enough that he would not have to worry about being seen; people were used to seeing them around. That was true, for most dragons, but a night seeker was a rare enough variety that people would likely talk about seeing one regularly striding into town to buy provisions. No, it was best that no one ever figure him out here, either. If they ever saw the night seeker drowsing in the woods around Storm Hallow, they would never find cause to connect his appearance to his alter.
Even disguised as human, Nobri's people still gave Joshua long, hard looks as he strode past. He became acutely aware that they somehow sensed there was something wrong with him. He found they all gave him a wide berth on the street and avoided his gaze. Were they able to detect the dragon beneath? It had never happened before, but Syrrus assured him there were those that could do it. No, that was rare. This was something else. He was a stranger here, and they sensed the threat he posed. Once again he felt the chasm between himself and what he had once been. The distance between them was great and precious few souls stood on his side of the gulf.
Nobri was by no means a small town, and Joshua felt certain he should be able to disappear on its bustling streets, hiding among businessmen and apprentices too busy with their work to worry about the likes of yet another newcomer to the popular markets. Eventually he determined that they all thought him a pickpocket. It was the middle of the day and he was on a casual stroll through town with no seeming responsibility and too nice of clothes for a drunkard.
People at the mill were more approachable, waving good-naturedly as he walked past with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He stopped at the public board set up out in front of the mill and read the posted bills. A few slips advertised a need of temporary labor. Joshua pocketed two of the more promising offerings that would only require an afternoon of him and put a few coins in his pocket. He noticed a few more looks of concerns when he mumbled one of the notes beneath his breath, revealing to the passersby that he was able to read. He rose a few notches in their view, though it only made him dangerous in other ways.
The mill marked Joshua's arrival at Nobri's middle ring. Here the houses became much smaller and were usually jammed so tightly together that no light leaked through the little gaps between the gray stone walls. Roofs were generally missing tiles here and there, and thin streams of smoke came out of the stacks.
A few tradesmen had set up their shops in the middle ring to be closer to their clientele. Blacksmiths pounded out horseshoes and nails. One corner advertised a surgeon who could also cut your hair and trim your beard. More businesses cropped up the closer Joshua came to the center ring.
A wooden sign declared “Barret's Baked Goods” in bright red paint. A loaf of bread was drawn just below it. Inside, the air was thick with the warm smell of fresh loaves. The proprietor was an elderly man, perhaps pushing his 60s, but it was hard for Joshua to tell. A life of labor would age a man faster, but the gray-haired baker still looked strong and stood up straight.
Unlike the oppressive dank of Whistler's Ford, Nobri's shops were cleanly, with well-swept floors and windows free of cobwebs and grime. Even the old shopkeeper seemed brighter, a smile lighting his wrinkled face.
“Good morning!”
“Good morning,” Joshua answered cheerfully, pleased to find that at least one of Nobri's residents was more welcoming than Marreth Stormwood's ill-tempered majordomo. Of course, it occurred to him that this might simply be because of the shelves of fresh bread and the coins jangling in his pocket.
Nobri lay in the cradle of Arcamyn's wealth, a cozy little town that people sometimes stopped in on their way east to Camden. Here, money and mead flowed easily and half-drunk men conducted business until the later hours of the night.
“Is it raining yet?” the gray-haired man asked.
“Not yet,” Joshua answered, but the clouds outside said 'maybe soon.' It was cool and the sky was overcast and gray. When the breeze picked up there was the slightest hint of a wet chill, portents of the afternoon shower soon to begin.
The old man smiled at him. “Well I'll still have a few customers then. Is there something I can get you?”
Joshua paused a moment, considering the loaves in baskets hanging from the walls. He wasn't particularly hungry, it was the smell more than anything that had drawn him inside. On the other hand he had two days to kill and felt it best to keep a low profile. In his mind that meant not making a half-dozen trips into town in the span of a single weekend. No, that was likely to get him labeled a vagrant, which while true, was a label to avoid. It was the sort of label the local soldiers would call to mind anything went awry.
“A two copper loaf,” he said at last, selecting a loaf that seemed could last the weekend.
“Anything else I can get you? My wife makes a delicious strawberry jam,” he tempted.
“That does sound good,” Joshua said after a moment of consideration.
The shopkeeper took his coins and set to work on the loaf, wrapping it in parchment paper and tying a little bit of string around it to hold it all together. He pushed it across the counter to Joshua and smiled at him again.
“New in town?”
“I've been through before,” Joshua said, seeing no sense in lying about that part, at least. It had occurred to him some days before that a good cover story would be important, and the closer to the truth the better. “I travel a lot. Stop by every month or so.”
“Name's Joshua Woods,” he said, sticking his hand out.
“Harold Moresby,” Mr. Moresby said, and shook it. His grip was surprisingly strong for his age. “Where are you from, Mr. Woods?”
“Whistler's Ford.” That was the closest town when he was 'born', as it were. Though the few residents that knew about him weren't talking or wouldn't remember him. His was a family tree with few branches and roots in a culture he had never known.
Mr. Moresby whistled and rubbed his throat as he looked up into the rafters. “Whistler's Ford... that's further out than I think I've gone in my whole life. They do a lot of farming in the area?”
“Mining, mostly.”
Mr. Moresby seemed to consider this, bobbing his head back and forth and finally coming up with no more than a shrug.
“Thanks for the bread.”
“Come back any time,” Mr. Moresby said amiably. The bell over the door jangled as Joshua went out.
Back on the street the darkening sky showed promise of the coming rain. Joshua patted his bag of coins and listened to the jingle jangle of the copper and silver disks tumbling against each other. The little leather sack was nearly full now, but the supply would not last forever. These had come from the Watch, traded to them by Arcamynians in exchange for a few months rent and a crash course in Earth basics.
The center rin
g of businesses encircled the town square and a semi-permanent open air market. In the stalls traders and merchants had come from all over the kingdom and some even neighboring Calderr to peddle wares from miracles of modern machinery to the latest medicines from the hospitals of Camden. Joshua started into the throng of canvas roofs and flimsy construction to search out a quick means of augmenting his meager spending money. A few drops of rain quieted the trading masses and then came the deluge, sending patrons into the diners and taverns for food and drink before everyone else thought of it. Within a few minutes the market was stripped to bare fixtures and drooping canopies. Joshua was alone with a middle-aged man and his son, busy trying to repair a broken wagon wheel so that they too could leave.
Joshua took his cue and started back toward the outer ring. Sil'krath seemed unlikely to take him in, but the majordomo was unlikely to be able to forcibly dislodge a night seeker from the back lawn. As the dragon he did not mind the rain at all. Sil'krath was similarly scaled, but those nice clothes he wore seemed unlikely to be as resilient.
“Let him come and scream at me in the rain,” Joshua muttered to himself.
Joshua had just reached vineyards growing downhill from Storm Hallow when he spotted a sadean girl out in the pouring rain coming toward him. Syrrus recognized him first and started toward him in a lope to meet him. She was soaking wet, with beads of water collecting on little bunches of her long auburn hair. Her silvery fur and vibrant blue clothes were similarly soaked through and her paws were wet and muddy. She made no effort to avoid the little puddles in the road that Joshua had been carefully picking through for the past twenty minutes, attempting to avoid a weekend of wet socks.
“Joshua!” she called, hurrying down the hill to him. For a moment the rain-soaked boy stood paralyzed, a baser instinct telling him that he was about to be pounced and driven into the mud, but Syrrus came to a quick halt a few feet shy of him. He hadn't believed his own eyes at first, thinking this must be some other sadean panther until she stood just a few feet away and then hugged him in the tight embrace of long-lost friends reunited at last.