Shadow of the Flame - Chris Pierson

by Dragonlance

  “That was him,” he murmured. “He … came through when Azar lost consciousness.”

  “I hate to keep asking the same question,” Nakhil said. “But how?”

  Shedara shrugged. “I may be a mage, but I don’t have a lot of experience with long-dead emperors possessing men who let their own sons stab them on sacrificial altars. We didn’t get much of that in Armach.”

  “Jijin’s seven steeds,” Hult swore. “Essana may have been right about Forlo after all.”

  Shedara looked down. Hult could almost see the pain and regret on her face: she’d been so sure their friend was dead.

  “Does it make any difference?” Nakhil asked. “Even if the father’s still alive, it’s not as if we can afford to spare Maladar.”

  “True,” Shedara said. She steepled her fingers, then sighed. “But it does change things. It’ll be harder for us to kill him if we know there’s a possibility that Forlo’s still in there.”

  “Maybe it will be harder for him to kill us as well,” Hult said.

  Shedara’s masked face turned toward him, her eyes hard. “Don’t count on it.”

  For a time, the only sound was the screaming of the runners on the glass. Hult shook his head.

  “There must be some way to use this knowledge,” Nakhil insisted. “Some way to turn it to our favor.”

  “Let us know if you think of it,” Shedara replied, folding her arms.

  The centaur looked as though he wanted to say something else, but at that moment the mood aboard the boat shifted abruptly. The sailors said nothing, but Hult could sense it nonetheless. There was a greater urgency to their movements, to the gestures with which they communicated. They were hauling on ropes, swinging the boom.

  “We’re tacking,” he said.

  Shedara pointed ahead. “Look over there.”

  Ahead, the mountains were different: blockier, squatter, with many flat planes. As they got closer, Hult saw that the stone there was strange: rather than glass or crags, the mountains were made of reddish gray rock that rose out of the ground in straight pillars, tall and broad and weirdly similar to one another, stretching on and on toward the horizon.

  “The Columns of Bilo,” said Nakhil. “Here the Cauldron cooled quickly, when it swallowed Aurim’s great inland lakes. The minoi dwell there now, and ply the currents of the Burning Sea.”

  “That must be the serai,” Shedara added, nodding toward something at the columns’ base.

  There was a notch in the fence the pillars made, maybe a quarter of a mile across and surrounded on three sides by stone. There, in that hollow, stood five other glass ships—three Xogatai, a Churqa, and a much larger vessel Hult didn’t know the name of—and a gathering of tents and low stone huts. It was the closest thing the sailors had to a village; they made their homes aboard their boats, but came together to trade at outposts like that, all around the Shining Lands. There, they had commerce with the gnomes of Bilo, trading artifacts they found beneath the glass for food and metal, wood and cloth. Masked guards stood at ballistae atop the lower columns, keeping watch over the way into the camp; the glass tips of their quarrels flashed golden in the afternoon light.

  “I hope there are gnomes there,” Nakhil said. “If we have to travel to one of their cities alone, it will be much—Azar?”

  Hult turned, surprised. Azar stood at the top of the ladder, staring south beyond the mountains. His eyes were shut, his lips moving without sound.

  “What’s he doing up?” Hult whispered to Shedara.

  Shedara’s head turned toward the tchakkir, who hadn’t noticed yet. “I think he’s still asleep,” she said.

  “What?” Nakhil asked. “How can he—?”

  Before he could finish, Azar’s arms rose, straining as if he were lifting some heavy weight. “ARISE!” he thundered, his voice deep and cold and not his own. The shout was so loud, it felt like a slap against Hult’s ears. “ARISE, MY EMPIRE! ARISE, TOWER OF FLAME!”

  All was silent. The sailors stared at him, shocked. The tchakkir whirled about, as confused as the rest of them. Hult swallowed, a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew the voice; he’d heard it before, at Akh-tazi. It was Maladar, speaking through Azar’s lips.

  “ARISE!”

  Hult started toward Azar, reaching for his sword, but Shedara grabbed his wrist, stopping him. “No,” she said. “It’s only an echo. He’s not casting the spell. That’s happening in there.” She nodded toward the columns, at the Cauldron beyond.

  No sooner had she spoken the words than the clouds above the Burning Sea changed, suddenly contracting toward its heart, leaving long streaks behind. Something was happening beneath them, hidden by the mountains: an orange glow lit the fume, growing brighter every moment. Scarlet lightning roared from cloud to cloud, moving inward as well. The ground shook, and the Xogat rose briefly onto one runner, then slammed down again. Hult stumbled and nearly fell; so did Nakhil.

  The sky exploded.

  Fire blasted upward from the Cauldron’s heart: a huge pillar of it, rising high and blooming outward like some terrible blossom. The clouds tore apart, spitting lightning in all directions. Great globs of magma streaked away, smashing into the mountains, melting their peaks as they burst open. The sailors cried out in alarm, the first sound Hult had heard most of them make. The plains of glass creaked and cracked, heaving as the Burning Sea erupted.

  A massive chasm opened to their right and swallowed the other Xogat as if it had never been there. Working frantically, the sailors steered away from the fissure, ducking as shards of glass the size of spearheads rained down. One of them wasn’t so lucky and fell lifeless with a glittering splinter through his neck. The boat skidded sideways as the ground lifted, the runners making a horrible grinding sound.

  Then they were past the worst of it, streaking on toward the serai. The columns still stood, tall and strong. And beyond them …

  Beyond …

  “Blood of the ancestors,” Hult swore. Beside him, Shedara and Nakhil uttered oaths of their own.

  The eruption had subsided—mostly. But something remained: a slender finger of blue and white flame, rising miles above the sea until it vanished into the black pall. Maladar’s command had not gone unheard. The Chaldar had risen anew.

  Chapter

  25

  BILO-SERAI, THE SHINING LANDS

  The camp was on edge as the Glass Sailors brought their ships in to moor alongside the others. The crew of the Xogat dropped three heavy, spiked anchors that drove deep into the glass, then pulled the ropes taut, fixing the boat in place as others brought down the sails. Shedara and Nakhil led the way down the gangplank into the serai, looking around for some sign of the gnomes of Bilo. There were people everywhere, most of them other sailors, masked and robed, staring south like strange, silent totems. The rope of white fire still soared behind the columns, pouring flames into the sky. The sailors clapped their hands at it, trying to ward off its evil.

  They’re going to need something more powerful than applause, Shedara thought.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Hult still stood aboard, holding up Azar. Azar had passed out again after the Chaldar appeared, and he was just coming around. There would be questions later—many, many questions—but for the moment, they left him alone.

  “He is the key to all this,” Nakhil said. “However this plays out, Azar will be at the center of it. He must be protected at all costs.”

  “No kidding,” Shedara replied. “Of course, it also seems incredibly stupid to be bringing the rest of Maladar’s soul straight to him, doesn’t it? But kurvakh as-shamba thenak min charkath, as they say in the League.”

  Nakhil frowned at her, not understanding.

  “You must risk losing the world to gain it.”

  “Ah,” the centaur said. “Yes, that sounds like something minotaurs might believe. Do you see any minoi?”

  Shedara shook her head. There had to be two hundred sailors in the grotto, but no one small enough to be
a gnome. “I saw some tents near the back of the serai that looked the right size.”

  “That makes sense,” Nakhil replied. “The minoi would stay close to the columns.”

  Shedara pushed her way through the crowds. Another image flashed through her head, looking at the sailors all gaping at the Chaldar: a field of nightflowers, all turned to face the silver moon. Any urge to laugh at the notion died, however, as her gaze followed theirs to the tower of fire. Her heart sank anew. Its appearance could only mean that Maladar’s strength was growing. How much longer would it be before the vision Essana had atop Akh-tazi came true, and the ruins of Aurim began to rise from the Cauldron’s depths? Could they ever hope to stop Maladar? Wasn’t he too powerful already?

  Nakhil nudged her. “Are you all right?”

  She blinked, turning away from the Chaldar. “Huh?”

  “I’ve been talking to you, but you were somewhere else,” Nakhil said. He glanced at the flaming tower. “There?”

  Shedara nodded, and the centaur gave her a look that told her he understood everything that was in her mind. He’d probably had the same thoughts, especially since Roshambur died. The pain of the dwarf’s death was still in his eyes, an open wound.

  “What were you saying?” she asked.

  “Gnomes.” He pointed. “There.”

  She looked, and there they were. A group of tents clustered like mushrooms in the stony nook where the two sheltering arms that surrounded the serai met. They were brightly dyed, though beneath the dark clouds that spilled north out of the Cauldron, all colors were muted. Some were green, others gold, but most were sky blue. Standing near them, also staring up at the Chaldar, was a cluster of small, cloaked figures, maybe three feet high, with long brown noses and bushy white beards sticking out of their hoods. They gabbled among themselves, waving their hands at the same time; the minoi communicated with gestures as much as with words, maybe more.

  Shedara smiled, offering a quick thought of thanks to Solis, or Astar, or Reorx … whoever had made sure the gnomes would be there. It was up to her and Nakhil to win their favor … and their help.

  The minoi were one of the oddest peoples in all of Taladas—born tinkerers, with minds bent toward making new things, undreamt of by man and elf and minotaur. Many of the greatest feats of engineering in the world, from the simple windmill to the fire-throwing siege engines of the Imperial League, had originally sprung from the gnomes. Others they kept to themselves, either because no one wanted them or because the minoi didn’t trust anyone else with them. Their underground cities, dug deep beneath the Bilo Columns, were said to be places of wonder, with machinery everywhere, doing every task one could imagine. Their strange devices were what allowed them to survive where others could not, right on the edge of Hith’s Cauldron.

  They had even built metal boats that could ply the lava seas. Shedara wasn’t sure how that was possible, but every account of the gnomes agreed that they sailed upon the Cauldron, harvesting the strange minerals they found on its islands and warring with the pitiless creatures who lurked among the flames.

  There the minoi were, staring at the Chaldar, bewildered. They alone had seen the flaming tower when it first rose four hundred years ago, in the days following the First Destruction. They had watched it fall after the Second; some said they had played a role in its collapse. At the moment they stood stunned, aghast to see that it had returned.

  “Greetings,” said Nakhil, bowing as he and Shedara drew near.

  The gnomes gave no answer, nor did they turn to glance at the centaur. Raising his eyebrows, Nakhil went on.

  “We are travelers in dire need. We seek the help of your august people.”

  Again the minoi didn’t respond. They just gaped at the tower.

  “Hey!” Shedara yelled.

  The minoi jumped, glancing at her. She saw their eyes—alarmingly intelligent, the sparkling blue of glacial lakes—look her and Nakhil up and down. Heavy brows furrowed. Gnarled, brown hands tugged on beards.

  One of the gnomes came forward. He was smaller than the others, the top of his head barely rising to Shedara’s waist, his beard dangling down to his knees, where he’d tied it in a knot so it didn’t trip him. He leaned on a staff of black iron, tipped with an amethyst pyramid inside which glints of light flickered. When he gazed up at her, his eyes glittered, so pale they were almost white. His face was a maze of wrinkles. He was clearly their elder, and the oldest gnome Shedara had ever seen.

  He licked his lips. “Well met, travelers. I am Malkistarandimnordishtankiro,” he said, “first emissary of the Great Colony of Ilmachrutandabrunthabram.”

  The gnomes were a straightforward people, and their language was the same way. They only had a few hundred root words; everything else, including their names, was made by linking inordinately long series of those words together. The name the old gnome had given was probably less than a percent of his true name. It was said the names of the minoi could fill entire books.

  “Well met, Malkis,” she said. “I am Shedara of Armach, and this is Nakhil of the Rainward Isles. We have crossed the Shining Lands in search of your people. We wish to join you on your return to Ilmach, so we may speak with your ruler.”

  “Mmmm,” the gnome said, only slightly annoyed that she had shortened his name so barbarically. He tugged his beard, then his eyes narrowed. He looked from one to the other. “Yes, yes, of course. All are welcome in Ilmachrutandabrunthabram. We will be leaving on the morrow. You may come with us. All know that Armach and the Rainwards are friends to the minoi … even if the elves shun our inventions. But one question, first.”

  Nakhil leaned forward. “You need only ask.”

  Malkis nodded and tugged his beard again. Then he raised his arm, his finger jabbing southward, toward the Chaldar.

  “Did you do that?”

  The centaur reared back, snorting a guffaw. Shedara fought to keep herself under control, but couldn’t manage it, and began to laugh as well. She was tired and punchy. When the mirth subsided, Malkis looked more than a little bothered.

  “No,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “We didn’t. But we know who did.”

  The elder gnome studied her, curiosity eclipsing his irritation at having been the butt of a joke. “Oh?” he asked. “Do you now? Well, then, you’d best come tell us your tale.”

  The sailors and gnomes stayed awake all that night, watching the skies south of the serai. The Chaldar continued to blaze there, a brilliant ribbon in the black, throwing off tongues of fire that billowed and burst like the seed pods of some ghastly marsh grass. The tower made no sound at all, which only made it more eerie: there was only the distant mutter of thunder from the storm clouds that swirled around it, flashing red in the gloom.

  Shedara found Hult staring at the tower atop a jutting outcrop of glass, sitting with his talga unsheathed across his folded legs. He started when she crept up beside him, but did not raise the sword. Instead, he gazed out at the Chaldar again, his brow furrowed.

  “He’s in there,” he said. “Forlo.”

  Shedara sighed. “Yes.”

  Hult sucked on his teeth, then his mouth hardened. “I spared his life, back at the Run. I didn’t know why at the time; something just told me to. And now look where we are.”

  “If you hadn’t,” she replied, “we never would have stopped Maladar at Akh-tazi. We probably wouldn’t have come close, without his help. It would be Azar out there now, Maladar would be whole, and no one would even know yet. Things would have been a lot worse.”

  “I know,” Hult said. “I have thought of that. Perhaps it’s why I let him live. Maybe I sensed he was important. Maybe Jijin was speaking to me, and I didn’t recognize his voice.”

  “Or maybe you had a whim, and it was lucky.”

  He shrugged. His eyes drifted down to his sword, and he ran his hand down its curved length. “I will not let him live again, Shedara. If the chance comes, I will kill him.”

  Shedara shivered. All the warmth
seemed to have seeped out of the air. There it was, out in the open: the thing they’d both been afraid to speak. She let it hang there, in the stillness, the Chaldar’s distant light flickering in her eyes.

  “I will too,” she whispered. “But I don’t think the chance will come. Not for me.”

  He glanced at her, a dark line appearing between his brows. He looked much older than his years. There was gray in his hair, just a light frosting at the temples; lines of care and worry had begun to etch his face.

  “What do you mean, not for you?” he asked.

  Her eyes darted away, afraid of the pain that flashed in his. She blinked a few times, blowing out a long, slow breath between her lips. “Just a feeling,” she said, and though she tried to stop it, her voice cracked. “Hult, I don’t think I’m going to come back from this.”

  She was in his arms then, or he was in hers—a bit of both. They clung to each other as if clutching at the last piece of flotsam after a wreck. Shedara’s stomach clenched, and she had to fight back a sob. She wouldn’t lose control, not there. Not …

  He kissed her, and she started to cry. His mouth was soon salty with her tears.

  “It may be nothing,” he whispered when their lips unlocked. “You could be wrong.”

  She nodded. “I want to be. More than anything. But … gods, I’ve never admitted this to anyone.…”

  “You’re afraid.”

  Shedara drew back. “It’s that obvious?”

  “To me, yes,” Hult said. “You have good reason, Shedara.”

  “I thought the Uigan knew no fear. So the legends say.”

  He raised her hand, took hold of her chin, made her meet his gaze. “The legends are wrong.”

  And she saw it, lurking far at the back of his eyes. Terror shone there, like a flaw in a glittering sapphire.

  “Only madmen are brave all the time,” Hult said.

  She stared into his eyes, caught, transfixed. It wasn’t like with Eldako. The merkitsa had been a kindred spirit, a partner. She wanted to protect Hult, to keep him safe from harm, to make sure he didn’t have to look like that ever again. And, even stranger, she wanted him to protect her too.