Master of Whitestorm (20 page)

He had no wish to ask after the magic which kept his seat stable on a footing of soggy lichen and shale; neither did he incline toward filling his belly with bread and cream concocted of wizardry. “Tell me, you’re expecting guests,” he said with a sour glance at the empty places which surrounded the table.

Orame lifted his knife, speared a morsel of ham, and chewed carefully. “I am expecting company. But not the invited sort.”

The meat smelled delightful. Haldeth swallowed once, twice, and berated himself for a fool. The idea of eating struck him as absurd. Even if he could bring himself to trust in victuals summoned by spells, concern for Korendir took precedence. His frustration found expression through sarcasm. “By the spread, I’d guess you expected your mother-in-law, and maybe her aunts in the bargain.”

“I’m not married,” said Orame succinctly. “Most White Circle enchanters aren’t, and for good reason.” He sipped his ale, and the tiniest spark of amusement flashed in his eyes. “Appearances can deceive.”

Haldeth studied the chairs more carefully. He had moved his own when he sat down, surely; and yet the spacing of the remaining three, along with Orame’s, described a perfectly symmetrical pentagram. Insight dawned belatedly. “A ward figure? This?”

Orame made no reply. Instead he dropped his eating knife and shoved with shattering speed to his feet. The silver landed with a clang on the ham platter, overlaid by the wizard’s shout. At once his chairs fashioned of spells unravelled into snapping bars of light. Thrown down without ceremony onto stony soil, Haldeth had no chance to cry protest. The breath left his lungs with a painful whoosh, and for a moment his eyes saw darkness.

Orame started chanting again, from an indeterminate point nearby. The air split with a ripping sound, and Haldeth blinked. He still seemed enveloped in shadow; but emerging from the deeps of the murk was a form that rippled and flowed to a shape of impossible contours. Dimensional laws could neither encompass the thing, nor define it; but decidedly it lived, and attempted to enter Aerith with Neth knew what destructive bent in mind.

Haldeth knew fear. A clawed foot raked through the dark and crashed into the ham platter. The blow sent both meat and Orame’s knife flying. The silver blade clipped a talon, which promptly burst into ill-smelling smoke. The monster attached to the nether end screeched. It rocked forward in pain and set weight upon the ash table; claws furrowed ruinously into baroque scrolls and rowan wood inlay.

Orame shouted again, unmistakably triumphant.

And the creature, with its bristles, hooks, and barbed, odiferous scales, turned a blinding and incandescent red. Haldeth covered his eyes, then wished he had extra hands to stop his ears as a yowl broke from the monster’s throat, piercing enough to deafen the fish on the sea bottom.

Then Orame framed a word in bitten consonants that miraculously restored silence.

Haldeth dared a cautious look. A burnt smell lingered upon the air; the ham and knife lay tumbled on the ground, while various platters and an ale jug drifted incongruously at table height. Of the ash and rowan wood furnishing little remained but a charred and steaming tangle of sticks.

“Neth’s mercy,” muttered Haldeth.

Orame paused in the act of straightening disheveled robes. “Hardly that.”

Haldeth remained blank until he focused and fully realized that absolutely nothing supported the ale jug, the cherry bowl, or the cheeses and cream.

The smith’s stupefied exclamation prompted Orame to explain. “Every spell not derived from earth magic draws power from the alter-reality of Alhaerie. The separation of the void between opposites becomes weakened through such use, which is why wizards take exhaustive precautions. But a gate which allows passage from one reality to another does more: it actually mingles the separateness of Aerith and its counterpoint universe. Traces remain on both sides, if the breach is not promptly sealed. Sometimes creatures try to break through before the barrier has fully knitted. We are not in a wizard’s tower where defenses are permanently laid down to compensate. Therefore I expected trouble, and prepared for it.”

Unremittingly practical, Orame plucked up a goblet, caught the floating ale jug, and poured out a healthy draught. This he handed to the smith.

His earlier reservation forgotten, Haldeth drained the glass and licked the last drop from the rim; the label unquestionably had not lied, and the damp which soaked through his breeches and cloak no longer chilled with such viciousness. “Why the table and chairs?” He asked when he could be certain his voice would hold steady.

Orame raised his brows, as if the reason was obvious. “Beings from Alhaerie don’t like silver, ash, or rowan.”

“Well your style is certainly flamboyant.” Haldeth hitched himself clear of a rock, caught a punitive prick from a thorn, and winced.

“Not at all.” Orame grinned, plainly entertained by his companion’s discomfort. Obligingly he poured more ale. “I knew something had followed us, and wished to flush it without giving reason for suspicion. Alhaerie’s inhabitants can be quite ruthless. Sometimes the best defense is surprise.”

“That strategy can cut both ways, enchanter.” Haldeth downed his second helping of ale and fussily pushed to his feet.

Impervious to bitterness, and fastidious to the least detail, the enchanter collected the food platters. From the occasional flash and backwash of heat, Haldeth presumed Orame worked new spells, but he had lost any interest in watching. His head ached already from too much magic, and his concern for Korendir intensified with each passing minute.

“You’re not burdening us with more ham and bread, I hope.”

“Hardly that.” Orame’s tone stung with reproof. “You’ve a companion, I think, being harried by wereleopards?” And he extended to Haldeth a bundled length of new rope.

The smith accepted the coils with a flush of embarrassment. Worry left him mannerless; brisk Orame may have been with regard to his fearsome craft, but he had helped a mortal without stinting. Haldeth struggled to swallow his pride and apologize.

Orame forestalled him. “Time is short, master smith. If your friend is to be saved, we must leave at once.”

The wizard strode downslope, toward an outcrop that speared like a sentinel through a hillock mantled with gorse. As if privy to Haldeth’s thoughts, he added, “Your contrition is misplaced. I came for my own motives.”

Such sudden and stinging arrogance permitted no space for reply; Haldeth did not try, but breathlessly hastened to follow. Daylight was beginning to fail. The wizard’s charcoal-colored robes melted almost invisibly into cloudy twilight and a sky that unkindly threatened drizzle. The wind had acquired a chillier edge as it rattled through tough stands of gorse; but cheerless weather perhaps might help deter wereleopards. Haldeth strove to wrest comfort from that hope as the last gleam dimmed above the peaks, and darkness closed over terrain that was treacherous with roots and loose rock.

Orame pressed on without misstep. Haldeth kept pace, cursing as his ankles turned, and his elbows skinned into jutting edges of shale. He thought wistfully of lanterns, and almost slammed into Orame as the wizard suddenly stopped.

“Your pardon!” exclaimed the enchanter. “My kind see well in the dark.” He made a pass with his hand and a cold light flared above his palm.

The illumination burned with an energy that stabbed the eyes; the ground underfoot became rendered in patches of fiery brilliance and shadows deep as pits. As the wizard started forward once more, Haldeth found
himself stepping over objects not worth the bother, and tripping on things that seemed to spring out of glare and snag his ankles like malice given life.

His curses grew more heated.

Orame paid no mind, but paused finally before an aperture that yawned between the rocks. “Here.”

Blinking to see through the dazzle, Haldeth said, “Where?”

Abruptly the smith wished his question unspoken. A yowl to freeze the blood erupted from the earth below his feet. A slither of leather on stone tangled with a din of reverberations, and finally made aware that his light was unsuited for clarity, Orame dimmed the brightness by half.

Granted an untrammeled view, Haldeth discovered he stood on the lip of a drop overlooking a shaft that led to a subterranean cave. There was movement within, something that may have been a bronze spill of hair.

“Korendir!” shouted Haldeth. He unlimbered the rope and frantically shook out coils.

A hand glimmered deep in the darkness, and mage-wrought light suddenly caught on an uplifted, bearded face. “Haldeth?” The voice was hoarse with stress, and also a tentative, incredulous hope. “Neth, you crazed smith, is that you?”

A second yowl obscured the smith’s call of encouragement, identifiably the hunting cry of the wereleopard; already fey killers closed to corner their prey. All too aware of his peril, Korendir heaved himself bodily up the shaft. He was hampered by injured knuckles and a sliding fall of loose rock. Haldeth whipped the end of the rope into a loop and fumbled with knots, furious with himself; why had he had not thought to prepare himself for trouble sooner? Orame’s unbroken competence had put him off guard, and now he rued the lapse. The time required to secure the safety rope cost dearly.

“You have only seconds to effect your rescue,” Orame said dispassionately from a point not far behind.

“Try offering help instead of pointing out the obvious.” Haldeth jerked tight his last knot and cast the line.

Rope snaked downward into the shaft. A coil caught on an outcrop, and the smith was forced to waste precious seconds flipping and shaking the line in an effort to free the snag. He cursed and sweated and banged the heel of his hand on sharpened shale. The rope slipped clear, and the loop knotted into the end flicked straight and dangled, an arm-span above Korendir’s head.

The starved yowl of a wereleopard echoed up the shaft, close enough to harrow a man’s courage. The cry was joined by others, bloodthirsty and eager, the celebration of a pack on the hunt.

“It’s after dark.” Orame observed with nerveless steadiness. “The creatures will be in man-form, and well capable of climbing.”

Haldeth did not bother to reply. “Korendir!” he shouted, desperate to be heard over the snarls of closing predators. “Look up, man!”

Korendir clawed for a higher hand-hold, but did not tip his head. The rope spun slowly, unnoticed. Haldeth repeated himself and flapped the line to attract attention. The loop swung and tapped the rocks on either side of the shaft. Pebbles bounced down like sparks in the wizard-light.

Still Korendir did not respond.

“Rouse him,” cried the smith to the enchanter. “We’re too close to lose him now!”

Orame declined answer. Haldeth glanced furiously aside and spotted the wizard perched unconcerned on a boulder. The smith drew breath to utter something heated, but a sudden, sharp tug on the rope killed his epithet unspoken.

At long last Korendir had caught the line.

Haldeth swung hastily back. He stared down the shaft to find new blood glistening on the wrist that grasped the rope, and by that came to realize: his friend was hardpressed by an attack from the caverns beneath.

“Hang on!” screamed the smith.

He heaved on the line without waiting for Korendir to hook the loop over his shoulders. As his friend kicked off from the rocks, fangs gleamed where his feet had been. Sharp over the echoes of the pack’s cries, Haldeth heard the clear clash of jaws.

A shiver swept his skin. Fear lent him strength as, hand over hand for the second time in life, he raised his friend toward safety. His palms sweated against a line already damp. The rope itself did not help. Spell-woven cordage was slick, and the plies slipped at the slightest provocation. Haldeth tightened his grip.

The rope jerked suddenly.

Hard won footage burned through Haldeth’s palms; he gritted his teeth, cried aloud from the sting of abraded skin. “Hold still, man, for love of life.”

But in the shaft below, his safety precariously secured by a fist wet with gore, Korendir fought frantically for survival. More agile than a man, the wereleopards scratched and scrabbled holds in near vertical stone. They snapped at his suspended ankles, and droplets of venom flew like jewels against the dark. Korendir shoved a jutting ledge with his toe and set the rope spinning to thwart the jaws that clashed at his heels. He swung his sword with his sound hand and managed to harry a beast off its niche. It plunged into darkness with howl that set its companions into frenzy. The one in the lead launched upward. Talon-like hands swiped air and caught Korendir in the calf. Claws sank deep into flesh.

Haldeth’s yell tangled with Korendir’s scream of agony.

Jerked to the brink of disaster by doubled weight on the rope, the smith braced mightily and held, though his hands quivered and his palms felt flayed by fire.

Korendir kicked out, smashed the wereleopard in the face with his unencumbered boot before it could sink teeth and poison him. It spat through broken fangs. Korendir kicked again, and the creature ripped free and fell twisting into darkness.

Haldeth’s burden immediately lightened. He hauled, straining, gasping, his vision swimming with the effort. Coils piled at his feet. An eternity seemed to pass, all wrought of crippling pain and overtaxed muscles. Then a bloodied hand emerged from the hole. Fingers groped and caught at the rock by the smith’s braced ankles. An equally crimsoned sword blade followed.

“Drop that cursed weapon,” Haldeth gasped. Korendir was beyond hearing, long past rational thought.

He continued to react on reflex. Poised by one arm on the lip of the shaft, he twisted round to battle the enemies who yet clambered upward to kill.

As the drag of the rope slacked off, the smith dropped his hold. He bent at once, dodged Korendir’s reflexive sword swing, and seized a wrist that felt thin as a stick. Haldeth jerked his companion bodily upward, and out into rain-dark night. Wereleopards swarmed up the shaft after their prey, eyes glinting green by wizard-light.

“Toss the rope into the shaft,” said Orame succinctly.