Guardians of the Lost (3 page)

Gustav fell silent again, waiting, listening.

Nothing moved, but everything watched him.

He drew his sword, named
Bittersweet Memory
, from its sheath. The rats gibbered angrily, the tree roots coiled, ready to lash out. The darkness deepened, so that even the light cast by his magical armor was dimmed.

Gustav made no threatening move. Kneeling on the ground, he placed his hands on the sword's blade beneath the hilt and held it up, an offering.

“Guardians of the Sovereign Stone, look into my heart and see the truth. I have searched for the stone the greater part of my life. Grant it to me. I vow that I will guard it with my life. I will bring it safely to my people, whose need for its blessed power has never been more urgent.”

An unseen hand drew back the dark curtain. In front of Gustav was the well-preserved body of a bahk, lying on a brightly colored blanket, looking very much as it might have looked had it been buried only a day before, not a hundred years ago. The bahk was enormous, one of the largest Gustav had ever seen. The bahk must have measured twenty-five feet from his two huge feet to his horned head. The pecwae had taken good care of their protector, evidently; seen to it that he was well-fed. The bahk's protruding snout and gaping mouth of razor-sharp teeth were frozen in an expression that made the hulking creature appear inoffensive, far different
from others of its kind. Most bahk have faces seamed with cruelty and hatred. This bahk smiled, as if he had died with the knowledge of a job well done.

Hulking, shambling, huge beasts, bahk were newcomers to Loerem, having arrived—most scholars believed—when the magical Portals shattered, opening into other lands, maybe even into other worlds. Fearsome looking beasts with hunched shoulders, their spines protected by a bony carapace, bahks are fierce predators and, so most people believed, cruel and vicious with no love for anything except magic and slaughter.

Yet here was one named Guardian, who had lived for years among the gentle pecwae and died honored and loved.

Gustav felt a momentary sense of shame for all of the bahk's brethren he had killed without remorse. Like most of the other races of the world, he had assumed that the bahk were monsters without a soul. Here was proof to the contrary.

Stones of all kinds had been piled around the body. Turquoise glinted blue in the silver light, amber shone with a golden hue, mica sparkled, quartz gleamed. None of these stones was the Sovereign Stone, the sacred treasure Gustav sought, nor did he expect to find it among them. He rested his sword on the floor of the tomb and rose to his feet. Moving slowly, hands folded in respect, he approached the body. The rats crept after him. He could hear their clawed feet scrape on the floor. The mosquitoes whirred near. The tree roots quivered.

A box made of silver lay on the breast of the bahk. The box was of pecwae work, measured the length of his hand, and was as wide as his hand with all the fingers fully spread. The box was covered with the images of birds and animals, flowers and vines, all etched into the silver. Each animal had turquoise stones for the eyes. Inlaid stones made up the petals of the flowers: red jasper, purple fluorite, lapis lazuli, while the lid of the box was adorned with the largest turquoise Gustav had ever seen. Veins of silver wove through it like cobweb. The box itself was a creation of beauty and wonder. The lid was hinged, held in place by a silver latch that could be opened with the flick of a finger. The latch was well-worn.
Apparently the bahk had opened his treasure box many times to admire his possession.

Gustav started to reach out his hand to touch the box. Of a sudden, he hesitated.

“This box is the final guardian,” he realized.

The magic of the box was powerful. He could feel it vibrate. The box would kill any common thief who might have escaped the tomb's other guardians.

A thief such as himself. A thief such as he had been.

Gustav had renounced that life years ago. He had lived every day since in remorse for his past sins. He had done what he could to atone for them. But what if none of that counted?

The magic of the box was deadly. The magic would not hesitate to kill anyone it considered to be unworthy of claiming the blessed artifact.

His hand trembled above the silver box and, suddenly, he smiled.

“So, Gustav,” he said, having from long years of traveling alone come into the habit of talking to himself, “you have spent forty years of your life searching for this and now you fear to touch it. How Adela would laugh, if she were here to see this. I must remember to tell her. If I survive…”

His hand closed over the silver box.

A tingle like chill water coursed through his body. That was all. Nothing more.

Slowly, respectfully, he lifted the bahk's huge head and carefully removed the ornate silver chain to which the box was attached from around the bahk's enormous neck. Holding the box, he studied the latch, taking care not to break it. His fingers shook so that he was forced to make several tries, then at last the latch gave way. He opened the box and looked inside, stared in awe and in rapture, deep and profound.

The Sovereign Stone was a triangular jewel with four sides, forming a wedge. Smooth, hard, cold as ice to the touch, without flaw, the crystal caught the light and fractured it, split it into a rainbow of color that dazzled the eye. According to the records left behind by King Tamaros of blessed memory, each piece of the stone
looked exactly like the others and when all four pieces came together, they formed a pyramid.

Falling to his knees, Gustav prayed fervently to the gods.

“Thank you for granting me this. I will be faithful to my vow. My life, my soul be forfeit if I fail.” His voice was choked with emotion. Tears stood in his eyes.

He spent long moments savoring the euphoria of his triumph, enraptured by the fulfillment of his life's quest. He could not take his eyes from the Sovereign Stone. Never had he seen anything so remarkable, so radiant, so wondrous. Truly, he could believe that it was a gift of the gods. He imagined the face of King Tamaros smiling down on him, granting him his blessing.

At length, Gustav sighed deeply and, with a final prayer, he replaced the Sovereign Stone back inside its silver box and closed the lid. He thrust the box inside the breastplate of his armor. He found he could not leave, however. He was drawn once more to look upon the bahk, the strange and unlikely guardian of the Sovereign Stone.

How had the bahk come by the stone? That was a mystery of the gods, a mystery never likely to be solved. The Sovereign Stone had been kept secret and safe all these years. Perhaps it was Gustav's imagination, but he thought the corpse of the bahk looked bereft, forlorn without its box. The spirit of the bahk lingered here still, and although he did not begrudge Gustav's claim to the Sovereign Stone, the bahk missed its treasure, as a child misses a loved toy.

Gustav reached his hand to his breast, clasped there a jewel he wore on a chain of gold. The jewel was a sapphire, the color of his wife's eyes. The jewel was a love-token, the first she had ever given him. Thinking to wear it always, he had left instructions in his will that he was to be buried with it. Gustav gave the chain a swift, sharp tug.

The chain broke, came off in his hand. Gustav brought the jewel to his lips, kissed it, then slowly and reverently, he laid it to rest upon the breast of the bahk.

“Forgive me for taking what you most valued, Guardian. In return, I leave behind that which I most value. I wish for your sake it
was magic,” he added softly. “But the only magic this jewel contains is her love for me and mine for her. Farewell, Guardian. May your spirit find rest after your long and faithful watch.”

The jewel sparkled in the light of his armor. Perhaps, again, it was his imagination, but Gustav fancied that the bahk smiled.

R
eturning to the place in the tunnel where he had left the dark-lantern and his knapsack, Gustav took time to rest. He was well aware of the limitations age had placed upon his body and he knew better than to try to pretend he was thirty again.

Seating himself comfortably on the floor, he opened the knapsack and began to remove the contents. When the knapsack was empty, he placed the silver box with its precious treasure—a treasure that was the heart and soul of a race—inside.

Gustav had specially commissioned the knapsack long years ago precisely for this occasion. The magus at the Temple in New Vinnengael had done her work well. She had listened with polite gravity while Gustav explained why he needed such a special carry-all. He had paid for such politeness, he reckoned. The magical knapsack had cost him his life savings, as well as his modest town house in the city. He'd even been forced to sell his horse to raise the money. All for a dream.

No wonder people thought him mad.

What they could not know, of course, was that the house meant nothing to him without her in it. Or rather, she was too much in it.
She was everywhere in the house. He could not sit in his chair of an evening but what he would raise his eyes and see her spirit sitting opposite him. She poured his wine. She laughed at his small witticisms. She pricked the bubble of his pomposity. She sang to him and played the harp. When he asked the servants if they enjoyed her music, they stared at him in alarm and fled the premises.

Gustav spoke the single word that was required to activate the magic. The magus had told him to select a word he would be certain never to forget.

“Adela,” he said softly.

The silver box containing the Sovereign Stone vanished. The knapsack appeared to be empty. Gustav felt a momentary qualm of fear. The magus had warned him—or so he vaguely remembered—that the magic was so effective at concealing the object placed inside the knapsack that even though he knew how the magic worked, he would be tempted to doubt.

“Adela,” he said again and found himself looking down at the silver box with its marvelous jeweled-eyed animals.

Gustav opened the box, looked inside, just to reassure himself. The Sovereign Stone lay within, its sharp edges glinting in the lantern light. Gustav recalled the tale that when the Sovereign Stone had been handed to Prince Helmos by his younger brother, Prince Dagnarus, one of the edges had cut Helmos, drawn blood. The story had it that when the blood of the martyred prince fell on the stone floor, the stones cried out a warning against Dagnarus, a warning that had gone unheeded.

Gustav shut the box. He spoke his wife's name again and the silver box disappeared. Hefting the knapsack experimentally, he was interested to note that it even felt empty. He tried to recall the magus's explanation about “layering folds in the earth's aura” and “pockets in time,” but, truth to tell, he had found her rather boring and pedantic. He didn't understand magic, didn't want to understand it. That's why he was paying her for it. He wanted to know only that it worked. And so it did.

He wondered where the magus was now. Probably dead. Most everyone he had known from those days was dead.

The important task accomplished, Gustav considered whether or not he should divest himself of the blessed armor of a Dominion Lord. The tree roots were now ordinary, dirt-sucking tree roots. The rat army had departed, leaving behind only a few stragglers, who were in mortal terror of the lantern light. Outside the tomb waited the person who had been watching him so patiently and secretly, the person who had wanted him to enter the tomb. Gustav decided to remove his armor. His plan was to lure out the watcher, to talk to him, understand his game. A single clap of his gauntlets and the magical armor vanished.

Gustav repacked the knapsack, so that it looked the same as any other traveler's knapsack, adding to it a few bits of pecwae jewelry that had been placed with the corpse. He regretted having to take them, but he needed something to show the unseen watcher. Resting, Gustav drank water and began to consider what he would do next. The first part of his quest was accomplished. Now he must embark upon the second part—the safe delivery of the Sovereign Stone to the Council of Dominion Lords in New Vinnengael, a city that was over two thousand miles from his current location. For the first time in two hundred years, the four parts of the Sovereign Stone would be joined together again and, or so it was believed and fervently hoped, this joining would bring peace to warring nations.

“At that point, my life's work will be over,” Gustav said to himself. “And I can join you, Adela.”

He had meant to join her earlier. Driven mad by grief for her loss, he had lifted the cup of poison to his lips and was about to drink when her hand had dashed it to the floor. The cup had been knocked from him with such force that he had later found it some ten feet away from where he had been sitting. It was then he had known that he had yet to fulfill his purpose in life. It was then that he had resolved to start his quest in search of the Sovereign Stone.

Adela's faith in her knight had been fulfilled.

He hoped and trusted that the second part of his quest would be much easier than the first. His journey would take months, but he should arrive before the start of winter. He foresaw no delays, no obstacles, except the one that was waiting for him outside the tomb.
He did not anticipate trouble. No one knew he was carrying the Sovereign Stone, not even the watcher out there waiting for him.

Gustav emptied the water-skin and rose, wearily, to his feet. The tension, the battle with the forces of Earth magic, and his own pent-up excitement had taken their toll. He was tired past reckoning and he had yet to deal with the unseen someone. Fortunately, he could always summon the magical armor, or, if he were ambushed, the armor would act of its own accord to defend him.

Emerging from the tunnel, Gustav blinked in the bright sunlight. He halted at the entryway, astonished to realize that it was still daylight. He would have been less surprised to step outside into the middle of a snow bank, for it seemed to him he had spent months, not hours, inside that tomb.

He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword and listened, using his ears while his eyes were growing accustomed to the bright light. He thought he heard a rustling sound, as if someone hiding in tall grass had made a movement, but, if so, all movement ceased, for he did not hear the sound again. When he could see, he looked closely at the tall grass and peered into the shadows of the trees. Nothing was out there, yet he felt the eyes on him, more intensely than ever.

Gustav was starting to become annoyed.

“Stop skulking about and show yourself!” he shouted irritably. “I know you are out there! Tell me why it is you have been watching me thus long and patiently. Tell me why it is you hoped that I would enter that tomb.”

No takers.

Gustav held up the knapsack. “If you are curious, I will show you what I found in there. Nothing of immense value, if that's what you're expecting. Pecwae baubles. Nothing more. Your time and mine have been wasted seemingly. Come, join me, and we will share a skin of wine together and laugh over what fools we were to think we might find treasure in a pecwae burial mound.”

The grass whispered, but that was the wind. Tree branches creaked, but that, too, was the wind. There came no other sound.

“The Void take you, then,” Gustav yelled and, hoisting his knapsack on his shoulder, he set off for his campsite.

Gustav faced a dilemma. He could either ride off with his treasure now, tired as he was, and risk being attacked on the road by the unseen watcher, or he could have a meal, rest and maybe even get some sleep. If he had brought along a companion, they could have split the watch, but he had not, and he did not regret it. His motto had long been: “He travels fastest who travels alone.” Gustav liked few people well enough to endure their company for months on the road and those he did like were too busy with their own pursuits to set off on an old man's quest.

He concluded he had better be fed and rested, rather than try to run away from danger when he was so tired he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Always fight on ground of your own choosing, if that is possible—an axiom of his former commander and mentor. If the unseen watcher was planning an attack by night, hoping to catch Gustav witless and befuddled, he would be in for a surprise.

Trudging back to camp, Gustav kept close watch, but he saw nothing, nor did he really expect to. By now, he knew the watcher well enough to have a healthy respect for his woodcraft skills. Just as well he had no companion. Anyone with him would have decided by this point that the old man was barmy. No sign or sound or sniff of anyone out there and here was Gustav preparing to be attacked during the night.

By the time he arrived back in camp, darkness had fallen. Gustav tossed the knapsack carelessly into his tent. Having checked his snares on the way back, he cut up and roasted a fine, plump rabbit over his campfire. He made much of his horse, to appease the animal for having been without company all day, made certain the horse was fed and had plenty of water. This done, he doused the fire. Leaving his horse flicking at flies with its tail, Gustav entered his tent.

Once inside, Gustav removed two small silver bells from his bed roll. Keeping the clappers muffled, Gustav hung the bells on the tent supports, near the top.

“An old thieves' trick, appropriate for an old thief,” Gustav said to himself with a smile. A touch, no matter how gentle, on the fabric
of the tent would set the bells to ringing. He had carelessly left his cooking pots in front of the tent flap for the same purpose, hoped that he himself didn't forget they were there and tumble over them when he had to make one of his trips to the bushes.

Figuring that he had done all he could to make certain the watcher didn't catch him unaware, Gustav wrapped himself in his blanket and, using the knapsack as a pillow, lay down on the ground. He kept his sword and a pile of dwarven sulfur sticks close to his hand.

Gustav was not one to fret and worry or to lie awake, staring into the darkness, listening for the snap of a twig. Sleep was as essential to the warrior as sword or shield or armor. Gustav had trained himself to sleep and sleep well at will. He had gained fame by once sleeping through an ork siege. His comrades later told tales of catapult-flung boulders smashing into the walls and flaming jelly turning men into living torches. Gustav, who had been awake three nights running battling orks, had finally had a chance to sleep and he meant to use it. His comrades had been considerably startled when Gustav rose up the next morning and walked out among them. He had slept so soundly they had assumed he was dead and had been—so they claimed—on the verge of tossing his body onto the funeral pyre.

Worn out from the day's exertions, he slept soundly, counting on his horse and the traps he'd laid to warn him in time to confront any intruder.

It was not the clanging of pots that woke him, or the ringing of the small silver bells. It was a dream.

Gustav could not catch his breath. He fought to draw air into his lungs and he was losing the battle. He was dying, suffocating. It was the knowledge that he was dying that jolted him out of sleep. He woke with a gasp, his heart racing. The dream was very real, left him half-convinced that someone was inside his tent, trying to smother him. He looked around, but concentrated more on listening.

The night was dark. Clouds covered the moon and stars. He could see very little inside his tent. The bells had not rung. The pots had not been disturbed. Yet something was there.

His horse sensed it. The animal snorted uneasily, hooves raked the ground. Gustav lay back on his bedroll. The feeling of being smothered had not left him. He found it difficult to breathe, as if he had a weight on his chest.

The air was tainted, smelled foul. Gustav recognized the stench immediately. He'd once happened on a battlefield three days after a battle. The corpses of the unburied dead lay bloated and rotting in the hot sun. The most hardened veterans in the Vinnengaelean army heaved up their guts at the horrible smell.

The silver bells shivered. Their chiming was flat, discordant. He heard the sounds of stealthy footfalls drawing near. His horse shrieked suddenly, a scream of terror such as he'd never heard from the well-trained beast, and there came a crashing sound, the thudding of hooves. His horse, trained for battle, who had not flinched when facing the points of a hundred spears, had broken free of its tether and fled through the brush.

Gustav could empathize with his horse. He himself had faced a hundred spears and he had not experienced the fear he felt come over him now. He was in the presence of evil. Diabolical evil. Ancient evil, from beyond the creation of the world. Attuned to magic of all kinds, he recognized the foul magic of the Void.

The magus out there was no cantrip parsing hedge-wizard. He was a sorcerer wielding a power such as Gustav had never before encountered. A power he was not certain he could contend.

The footsteps came nearer. The stench of Void grew worse, turning Gustav's stomach. Breathing the foul air was like trying to breathe oil-covered water.

A hand touched his tent. The bells chimed again, but Gustav could not hear them for the pounding of blood in his ears. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His mouth dried, his palms were wet. He had two choices. He could rise up, clad in his magical armor, and accost the sorcerer outside his tent or he could lie here and wait for the sorcerer to come to him.

Gustav grimly decided to play possum. He wanted to see this Void magus who had spent so much time and patience following him. He wanted to know the reason why. Closing his eyes and
keeping them closed required an extraordinary effort of will. He tried, as best he could, to calm his jagged breathing.

He heard a ripping sound—the intruder slashing open the back of the tent. The silver bells jangled wildly. Gustav thought that it would be only logical for him to wake now and he snorted and grunted and half-sat up, rubbing his eyes with one hand, his left hand.