Bastion of Darkness

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Ah, yes!” Ardaz roared suddenly. “Caribbean Sea! I do remember, I do daresay!”

  “We don’t know you, boss,” one of the tribesmen said.

  “And no Beely Shank,” another said.

  “Billy Shank,” DelGiudice corrected. “A friend of mine, with skin the same color as yours—almost the same, but not quite as dark.”

  “Hey, you don’t be talkin’ trash, boss,” yet another said and he moved close and poked at Del, and of course, his finger sank right into, right through, the specter. Trembling suddenly, the man backed away, eyes wide.

  “Voodoo,” Del and his two companions heard someone say, and the respect shown them grew immensely in the next moment.

  “Mamagoo not gonna like dat,” the first tribesman said.

  “Mamagoo?” Ardaz and Del and Belexus asked together.

  “Mamagoo de priestess,” the man said. “She ain’t gonna like that you know the voodoo. It will make it harder for her to kill you, you see. She ain’t gonna like no zombies walkin’ about her mountain.”

  “Kill us?” Ardaz echoed. “Whatever for?”

  “For waking de big worm,” the tribesman said. “You tink we want him out of his hole?”

  “Dey tink we be stupid, then,” another said.

  “Dey be stupid,” a third added. “For dey be dead before we be dead!”

  “I’m already dead,” Del remarked, and that brought a unified “Ooo” from the throng, and indeed it now was a throng, more than sixty strong, all short and woolly haired, with dark skin, dark brown mostly, but some who seemed perfectly black in color.

  “Well, the dragon’s gone back to its hole, if that is of any comfort,” Ardaz said, but again he ended with an “Ow!” as another stabbing pain got him in the rump.

  “Oh, yeah. Mamagoo, she like that one,” one of the tribesmen laughed.

  “She’ll be playing wit dat one before she kills him,” another said.

  “Maybe bring him back in zombie to play some more, eh?” yet another laughed, and all joined in.

  “Who are you?” Ardaz demanded, and he hopped and turned, looking suspiciously for anyone who might be trying to stick him with something small and painfully sharp.

  “We be de Architect Tribe, boss,” the first man said. “Don’t you hear so good?”

  “Your name, good sir,” the wizard insisted.

  “Okin Balokey,” the man said.

  “Unbelievable,” Del whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. “Do you realize what this means?” he asked the wizard. “The ancestors of these people must have come to Ynis Aielle right after the holocaust, and they have evolved a bastardized culture …”

  “Hey, boss!” several yelled at once.

  “Don’t you be calling names,” Okin Balokey said. “And I don’t care that you be dead!”

  “No names,” Del said apologetically. “All I meant is that the culture you have evolved is so intriguing.” He looked to Ardaz, who was growing truly agitated, truly excited. The wizard had spent many years trying to prove that others had come to Ynis Aielle, that there had been—perhaps still were—other cultures and other races in the wide world. And now his proof had walked right up to him—and had apparently stuck him in the butt … repeatedly!

  “They speak with Caribbean dialect,” Del went on, “and have the dark skin, of course …”

  “There he goes again,” one remarked.

  “He cares too much about de skin,” another said.

  “And yet, look at them!” Del cried. “They cannot average much over five feet.”

  “Now he sayin’ we too short!” one exasperated tribesman cried.

  Okin Balokey put a disgusted gaze over Del, hands on hips and shaking his head slowly.

  “Not too short!” the ghost protested. “But you are, and you must admit, shorter than average.”

  “We below average,” one man said with mock sadness.

  “No!” Del said. “But I suspect that your ancestors were far taller, probably averaging close to six feet.”

  “You tink we like bumping our heads on de ceilings of our tunnels, boss?” Okin Balokey asked.

  “Exactly my point!” the ghost cried.

  “Oh, simply marvelous!” Ardaz yelled, catching on and seeing the beauty of it all. “This is too precious, too grand!”

  “Who be dat one?” The unfamiliar voice, a woman’s voice, came from behind the gathering. All eyes turned to see a large, older woman dressed in bright colors ambling about the stone, a pair of small dolls in hand, one of which looked remarkably like Ardaz, complete with white hair and blue robes, the other bearing some resemblance to Del, at least in the fact that it was dressed in white. In her other arm, to Ardaz’ complete relief, she held a familiar black cat, curled comfortably in the crook of her elbow as if nothing in all the world could possibly be wrong.

  “Oh, Des!” the happy wizard cried, rushing forward. The cat merely yawned and buried her face within her paws.

  “Mamagoo?” Belexus asked Okin Balokey, who nodded.

  “I be stickin’ dat one fordy-tree time,” Mamagoo complained in her accent, by far the thickest so far, and waving her doll-holding hand Del’s way. “And he not be even jumpin’! And my new kitty friend, she be adding a stick or two.”

  “To both?” Ardaz, taking Des from the woman, asked.

  “To yours, mostly,” Mamagoo explained. “Beastly loyal.”

  “He be a ghost, Mamagoo,” Okin Balokey explained, indicating Del.

  “Aah!” the large woman sighed in relief. “Priddy ghost he be, too. So very priddy.” She replaced the doll in a deep pocket and produced some herbs instead, and began waving them about in the air and singing softly.

  Almost immediately Del felt a tug in his thoughts, a mental prodding that it took some effort for him to resist.

  “Ardaz,” he warned as the wizard came back over to stand beside him.

  “Weaving magic,” Ardaz reasoned with great surprise. “I do daresay.”

  Belexus tossed aside the man he was holding and advanced a step toward Mamagoo, and when a host of men jumped in front of him, the determined and deadly ranger drew out his new, brilliant sword.

  That set the gathering back on its heels, brought a tumult of gasps, and exclamations of “aah.”

  “Where you be gettin’ dat?” a suddenly very agitated Mamagoo demanded.

  The ranger looked to his friends, then all three turned and eyed the dragon’s mountain. “It is what we came for,” Belexus explained. “All that we came for. We’re wanting no trouble from yerselves, but know that we’ll not be slowed.”

  “He talk funny,” one of the tribesmen remarked.

  “Trouble, boss?” Okin Balokey said incredulously, waving for his companions, who were all tittering about Belexus’ strange accent, to be quiet. “You got de sword. De sword!”

  “You know it?” Ardaz asked.

  “We made it,” Okin Balokey replied.

  “Ye canno’ have it back,” Belexus said at once, surprising his friends with his impatience and lack of tact.

  “Oh, we don’t be wantin’ it back,” Okin Balokey replied happily, apparently taking no offense. “We just be glad that de worm got it no more!”

  Rousing cheers went up all about the companions, then, and the three exchanged confused, relieved glances. Ardaz and Del let their gazes linger together, the pair sharing thoughts of how very strange this group truly was, and both wanting to spend more than a little time with Okin Balokey and Mamagoo.

  “I knew it! I knew it!” Ardaz cried repeatedly, pacing across the little warm and comfortable chamber the Architects had prepared for them, far underground—though all three suspected that they had only brushed the highest level of a huge tunnel system. “We could not have been alone, no, no. Makes no sense, after all! The world was a bigger place before e-Belvin Fehte, yes, much bigger, with millions of people.”

  “Billions,” Del corrected, and he gave a curious look after he made the remark,
for it, like so many, had come to him from far, far away, from a place he didn’t consciously access.

  “I knew there were others,” Ardaz rambled on. “But I was looking for them in the wrong places—in the east, where the land is more hospitable. And here they were all the time, not so far away at all! I knew other boats made the shores of Ynis Aielle when the new world was young, and oh, the people survived.”

  “Without the help of the Colonnae,” Del remarked.

  Ardaz wagged his head, but in truth, he wasn’t so certain of that. “They have magic,” he reasoned, rubbing his still-sore rump. “Thus the Colonnae must have visited them, or at least have visited Mamagoo or her predecessors. But still, to have survived in the great Crystals! So close to us, and yet, unknown to us!”

  “But you not be unknown to us, man,” Mamagoo’s voice came as she walked into the chamber. “We been watchin’ you dese years. You and dem skinny folk with dem pointy ears.”

  “Then why not come and speak with us?” the wizard asked.

  “We tried dat once,” Mamagoo said with a visible shudder. “When dem gargoyles come to de mountains. Ooh, but dey whack at us, I tell you boss!”

  “Gargoyles?” Del asked.

  “Big ugly ones,” Mamagoo explained, and she twisted her face in a manner to make it appear all too familiar to the three.

  “Talons,” Belexus reasoned grimly.

  “Dat’s why we made de sword, and udder swords,” Mamagoo explained. “But dat one, ooh, she be de best o’ de bunch!” She eyed the weapon as she spoke, moving right next to Belexus. “You know her name?” she asked solemnly.

  The ranger shrugged and shook his head.

  “Her name be Pouilla Camby,” Mamagoo said.

  “A strange name for a sword,” Ardaz remarked.

  “Pouilla be killed by de gargoyles,” Mamagoo explained. “Of course, dis all before I be born, before my mama’s mama’s mama be born.” She finished with a wink at the wizard.

  “Of course,” Ardaz agreed, and he wasn’t sure what the private joke might be. It struck him then that Mamagoo might not be leveling with the others. Perhaps she, like Ardaz and his sister, like Istaahl and Thalasi, had indeed been touched, been blessed with long years, by the Colonnae, and had been alive all those decades, centuries even. More questions, the wizard thought, growing truly impatient. He would have to return here when the messy business with Thalasi was finished. Oh yes he would!

  “So we make de sword and call her Pouilla,” Mamagoo continued, “and she go and do de bad tings to dem gargoyles!”

  Belexus looked from the old woman to the beautiful sword.

  “You not likin’ de name?” Mamagoo asked, seeing his less-than-bright expression.

  Again, Belexus only shrugged.

  “Den you just call her by any name dat you be pickin’,” Mamagoo offered, patting the huge man’s rump.

  “Cajun,” Del said suddenly, drawing stares from all three.

  “Cajun,” he repeated, smirking and looking at Ardaz.

  “Oh, ho!” the wizard burst out suddenly. “Cajun. Oh jolly, how very jolly!”

  Mamagoo and Belexus looked at each other, the large woman running her index finger in a circle about her ear.

  “Cajun because it’s sharp!” the wizard roared. “Like the food; I remember the food!”

  “I will find a name,” Belexus said dryly, reverently, to Mamagoo. He offered a glare to Del and Ardaz as he finished. “An appropriate name.”

  “Dat you do,” the woman replied. Then, looking sidelong at the other two and shaking her large head—but smiling as she did—she left the chamber.

  Much later that night, Ardaz stirred from a restless sleep. He left his companions snoring contentedly and slipped out of the chamber—to find the “guards” both snoozing comfortably—and picked his way down the dry and smooth tunnel. Voices soon drew him to a side room, and peeking in through the partly opened door, he found Mamagoo, Okin Balokey, and a third person, a younger woman he did not know, sitting in chairs about a blazing hearth, their backs to him.

  “I tink dey mean to be fightin’ gargoyles,” Okin Balokey said.

  “Dey good boys,” Mamagoo added, and Ardaz realized then that this third woman—a beautiful, slender creature with skin as dark as night and huge eyes—was someone of great importance. He also realized that while the accents remained, the tone of their voices had changed, had become more serious. Ardaz nodded as he considered the tactic. The Architects had seemed almost simple with their speech pattern to the wizard and his friends, jolly and innocent. But there was another side to them, grim and serious and far from simple. There had to be such a side, he understood, for them to have so thrived in such a dangerous environment. Like the elves of Lochsilinilume—to an outsider, at first glance, they would seem joyful to the point of frivolousness. But anger Arien Silverleaf and his kin and one would find as deadly an enemy as existed in all Aielle!

  “We should be letting him keep Pouilla Camby,” Mamagoo went on.

  Okin Balokey started to protest, but the young woman cut him off with a wave of her hand, looking to Mamagoo to elaborate.

  “Dey be fighting gargoyles, and dat be a good ting,” the old woman reasoned. “Dey waked the dragon, but put de ting back in its hole, and dat be a good ting.”

  “Unless de ting come back out,” Okin Balokey said grimly.

  “His wing be pretty broken, man,” Mamagoo said. “And if he come out, he not be finding us.”

  “He be finding dem three that got his treasure!” Okin Balokey reasoned, catching on to her plan.

  “And dat put it all back where it be,” Mamagoo agreed.

  “And if we got de sword, and old Salazar find out, den we be losing many tunnels, I tink,” the younger woman said, to which Okin Balokey could only nod his agreement.

  “Dey be good boys,” Mamagoo said again. “And dat one wit de sword be stronger than any man I be seein’! Metinks dem gargoyles not to be a happy group when Belexus comes calling with Pouilla Camby!”

  All three laughed at that.

  “You be tinkin’ de same, old wizard man?” the younger woman said suddenly, obviously aiming her question at Ardaz.

  With a huff and many throat clearings, Ardaz bumbled into the room. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, no, no,” he stammered. “Just walking along and heard you talking.”

  “And you be liking what you be hearing?” Mamagoo asked.

  “Yes, yes!” Ardaz beamed. “And you’re right, you know, all of you. None better at chopping gargoyles—we call them talons—than Belexus Backavar, no, no. He’s killed a few, he has, ha, ha, a few hundred!”

  “He be a good boy,” Mamagoo said.

  “He needs that sword now,” Ardaz tried to explain. “Our enemy, the one who leads the gargoyles, has brought forth a most evil beast, a wraith, you know.”

  “Dead ting?” Mamagoo asked. Then, when Ardaz nodded, she shivered. “Ooo.”

  “And that sword, that most beautiful sword, is the only weapon that might hurt it,” the wizard explained. “My sister—she’s a witch, you know—”

  “I’m not liking my sister much eider, boss,” Okin Balokey said.

  That stopped Ardaz short, until he took a moment to think about it. “Oh, no,” he explained. “Not that kind of a witch. A real one, of course. A real one, yes, yes. She found out about the sword, with magic, of course—witch magic, that—and, well, we came to find it.”

  “And you did,” the younger woman said.

  “Ah, but my manners be missing!” Mamagoo exclaimed suddenly. “Old Ardaz, dis be Calaireesa, chief of de Architect Tribe.”

  The wizard bowed low in respect. His expression was one of curiosity as he came out of the bow, though. “Yes, well, I have been meaning to ask, and now seems a good time: Why are you called that? Not a usual name, after all: the Architect Tribe.”

  “De book say so,” Calaireesa answered.

  “Book?”

  “De Architect Book,” the wo
man explained.

  “Oh, de book, she save our lives,” Mamagoo added.

  “She showed us how to make de tunnels and de rooms, boss,” Okin Balokey explained. “We all be children when first we came here.”

  “Not ‘we,’ ” Calaireesa explained. “But de ancestors. Dey be children, and dey be cold, but de book, she showed dem how to make de tunnels.”

  Now it began to dawn on Ardaz, yet another marvelous aspect of this unusual culture. With the exception of himself, Brielle, Istaahl, and Thalasi, all of the Calvan survivors of the holocaust had also been mere children. Perhaps the forefathers of the Architects had found a book, or many books, about architecture, a resource that taught them better how to survive in this new world. Might that have prompted them to consider the books as a sort of bible? “Oh how perfectly grand,” he beamed aloud, but quieted immediately out of respect.

  “I would dearly love to see this book,” he said a moment later.

  “Sure, man,” Mamagoo said, not even bothering to ask Calaireesa for permission.

  Ardaz was truly delighted, and impressed. What a wonderful, open society these people had created. Trusting and generous, and always with a smile ready. He would come back here, he vowed silently again. Yes he would, when the situation allowed!

  All three then escorted the wizard to a very small, very well hidden chamber, and therein, he found the remains of a dozen texts about architecture, the most prominent one a nearly complete volume titled simply The Architect. He found all three Architects quite willing to indulge his endless stream of questions, their answers usually only inciting another hundred questions in the wizard’s always-active mind.

  Later on, Mamagoo escorted Ardaz back to his chamber. He wanted to ask her many questions, as well, about her magic and about any meetings she might have had with Calae, or with any of the angelic Colonnae.

  “Met him once,” she answered before he could even really phrase the question clearly, “though I be just a girl den.”

  “When first your people came to Ynis Aielle?” the wizard asked suspiciously, believing now, beyond any doubt, that Mamagoo had indeed been among those initial settlers, and that Calae had blessed her with the gift of long years.