Once A Hero (44 page)

The now-familiar wave of dizziness passed over me as I entered the grove. I led the horses around so they strung out one behind another; then I drew Cleaveheart. As I had learned in traveling with Larissa, a torch was not needed to activate the magick, just a touch and the repetition of an Elven phrase: translatio mysterioso arcanum nunc. I started before the tree that would send me south, then circled the grove, touching all the other trees, save that one, with my sword.

The torch used the first time I had traveled this way had given off sparks, which had cycloned around inside the grove to provide a wall through which I passed. Cleaveheart did not produce sparks per se, but rang loudly and clearly. The notes manifested themselves physically as spheres of differing colors, multiplying with each blow. The low notes, thick and blue, drifted toward the ground while the sharper, high notes darted about as if they were yellow and red hornets. All of them shivered the chains, binding me and the horses to the magick.

As I rode around, the sound built as if ten, then a hundred and a thousand swords, pealed in discord and unison. On my third circuit I reined Blackstar around, then drove him straight at the tree I had neglected. As I dashed forward, the sound grew louder and louder until I could feel the notes tremble through me. The spheres melded together into a rainbow wall through which I burst at the point of near deafness, and on into the network I rode with the sound receding behind me.

The network dragged on me, and I wondered if my plan was doomed to fail. I knew Takrakor was not a fool. Despite the Steel Pack's recall, he would realize that it was possible for me or a troop of Elves to head down to Jammaq on a rescue mission. While other Reithrese would be negotiating with the leadership in Cygestolia, giving him a gauge on how much of my suspicions the Elves believed, he had to assume I might try something. He could discount much Elven participation since the only Elf likely to instigate trouble in conjunction with me was his prisoner, but as the raid had already proved, Takrakor was nothing if not calculating.

The network had three groves between Cygestolia and Reith. At three days of rest to one day of travel, that put any rescue attempt at a minimum of a week and a half. A longer time would be logical to expect, because the nearest grove lay nearly 120 miles from Jammaq. If he assumed we would take two weeks to get to Jammaq, he would not be considered overconservative in his thinking.

This was the reason I had decided to push as hard as I could. What I intended to do had been described as possible by Lomthelgar, suicidal by Thralan, and necessary by all three of us. When I reached the next grove, I would get off Blackstar, tie him to the end of the string, and mount the next horse. I would repeat that process a second time at the grove after that, and wind up in Reith in less than a day. From there, if I could do it, I would ride into Jammaq, free Aarundel and Marta, and ride off with them. Our supply horses would double as mounts, which meant, if we abused the network and ourselves, we could reach the edge of the Elven Holdings before Takrakor would expect a rescue attempt being made.

At least that was how I hoped it would go. The distance between Jammaq and the nearest grove did concern me, but before I worried about escape, I wanted to have the rescue completed. While I knew Takrakor was a cunning and ruthless adversary, I also knew he was not omnipotent, and I counted on that fact to guarantee our ability to flee.

Riding alone into enemy territory, even along a magickal highway, is not generally considered a way to earn a retirement pension. In thinking about what I wanted to do, I realized that Takrakor was not as powerful as I first thought, and that Tashayul had been limited as well. Before he had obtained Cleaveheart, Tashayul had controlled an army, but not one large enough to let him secure his empire. Until he had the sword in hand, resources had been denied him. Once he had it, and had the prophecy reading in his favor, support in Reith had been more forthcoming, which was why he had been able to fulfill his destiny.

Internal politics in Reith, as with Elven politics in Cygestolia, doubtlessly placed limits on what Takrakor could do. In taking Aarundel and Marta, the Reithrese sorcerer had made a bold bid for power that could just as easily doom him if it came to naught. If it won him Cleaveheart, he could find as much support for his imperial ambitions as had his brother. If his bid failed, the political powers in Reith could disown him and kill him or turn him over to the Elves for justice.

I was betting my life on the idea that Takrakor had acted without sanction or knowledge of most or all politicians in Reith. I knew he had at least two dozen individuals with him when he staged the raid that took his captives, and I could not imagine him handling many more than twice that number if he wanted to keep the operation a secret. As Jammaq remained abandoned for most of the year, it made a logical hiding place for the captives, and I already knew Takrakor felt quite at home there. I also felt certain he would be there because he would want to force me to return the sword to the place from which I had obtained it.

What everything boiled down to was this: I would face fifty or so Reithrese, including at least one powerful sorcerer, in the city of the dead in my attempt to free my friend and his wife. If I succeeded or failed, the most likely result was that the Elves and Reithrese alike would insist my mission had never existed and that things I said about it, if I survived, were the ravings of a lunatic.

Such are the privileges of being a member of an Elder race.

The first transfer worked well. I had dismounted before the last packhorse came through. Though my limbs felt leaden, I untied Blackstar and attached him to the end of the string, then hauled myself into the saddle of the second horse. Not having carried more than a saddle on its first run, it had not worked incredibly hard, though it looked back walleyed at me when I gave it some spur. I applied sword to tree again, and within two minutes we were into the network.

The second leg dragged on more slowly than an old drunken veteran's war stories. My sense of urgency concerning the rescue had made it possible for me to switch mounts, but having to sit still for what felt like eons eroded my strength. My head kept bobbing down to my chest as I dropped off to sleep. The shock of my chin hitting my chest would bring me awake again, and I shook my head to clear it, but I continued to get more mush-minded with each passing second.

Seeing the third clearing all dark and swirling in the white-for-black world through which I rode alarmed me and burned away the fatigue enfolding me. Peering into the depths of the inkstorm, I saw no one and nothing, but I prepared for trouble nonetheless. Something was definitely not right.

As we came through a tree on the north side of the clearing and normal vision returned, I saw immediately what had happened. A whirling cyclone of reds, browns, blacks, and greys rioted about. For some reason I could not fathom in my tired state, the grove was active, and as nearly as I could determine, the outgoing tree was the one I had intended to use.

I reined back immediately and brought my horse in beside the next horse in the string. Without touching the ground, I switched mounts, then drove my new horse forward into the correct tree. In an eye blink we were off again as the warm, musty wall of earth-tone colors gave us passage.

As I used my belt to tie myself to my saddle, I wondered how the Elves had managed to hide a circus translatio terminal grove in Reith. I did not remember seeing very many trees on my first journey there. Most of those had been single, wind-scoured, and twisted trees defiantly clinging to rocks no self-respecting lichen would have called home. I tried to let my concern over this point alarm me enough to make me alert, but my body could not muster enough energy to allow me to panic.

Before we got there, I fell asleep.

As much as charging into enemy territory alone is stupid, arriving exhausted is even more so. Apparently, when I arrived at the appropriate point, I functioned well enough to unsaddle my horses, water them, and tear open a bag of grain for them before I wandered off to collapse. I say "apparently" because I have no conscious memory of doing that, but when I awoke, I saw that it had been done.

Upon waking I also saw how and why the Elves had been able to maintain a circus translatio terminal within Reith itself. I awoke in a subterranean cavern of considerable size with a huge gash cut in the ceiling. Bright, cold sunlight poured down through it and the raindrops dripping from the edges misted enough for a rainbow to fill part of the air above me. Below the gash, placed carefully to take full advantage of the sunlight, was a grove of miniature trees. I recognized all of them and for the barest of seconds wondered if I had not been transformed into a giant through my misadventure.

I realized quickly enough, of course, that the miniature trees were the product of woodwifery. They had been grown specially and probably maintained carefully to provide the link needed to give Elves access to the interior of Reith. The cavern itself, with a pool collecting downhill from the grove, provided water and the cover needed to conceal at least a hundred warriors and their mounts.

I checked the horses and found all of them in good health. Though I had no way of accurately judging the time, I estimated that I'd slept for at least twelve hours, maybe more, and decided I would wait until the sun went down before moving on toward Jammaq. In the meantime I put more food out for the horses and scouted out the tunnel that led to the outside. Confident I could lead horses through it in the dark, I returned to the cave and slept some more.

The nicest thing I can say about the countryside in Reith is that it is as equally beautiful at night as it is in the day. More so, actually, because at night there is enough heat radiating from the broken, black rocks to fend off the nightchill, whereas in the day it would have baked me. Mile after depressing mile of pulverized landscape would grind down anyone's resolve to continue, but nighttime seriously limited my circle of vision, so I was spared the brutal tableau.

Reith did have a lot of caves. I had no trouble locating sufficient housing for myself and my mounts. In one I found bones and in another I found feathers, but aside from those things, I saw nothing even approximating a sign of life. Given my status in the country I thought that a good thing.

Reith is a nation made of mountains and more mountains, yet it is not like my homeland. The Roclaws are old mountains; while Reith is a land still in the grip of volcanic upheavals. At night I could see fire glowing in numerous mountain-tops. The hiss of steam or the bubbling plop of mud-flats filled the night with unsettling sounds. Sulphurous fog choked me and made my eyes water from time to time. It was such a foul place I had no difficulty seeing why the Reithrese would want to win an empire that would allow them to live elsewhere.

It took me three days to reach the outskirts of Jammaq. I left my supplies and three horses in a cave outside the city, then led Blackstar and two other horses with me into the city itself. I fastened a set of silver chains to each saddle so we could slip them on whenever we had a chance during our ride away, even though I expected us to have at least three days on the road before we reached the cavern—if we reached it. I stabled the horses in one of the sidestreet mansions and headed out on foot for the last part of my journey.

I armed myself with Cleaveheart and Wasp, the latter homed in the top of my right boot. I slung Aarundel's ax across my back, with the head at my left hip. I had chosen to wear studded leather armor for two reasons and did not regret the choice. After the grueling ride I relished the relative lightness of that armor. More important though, ring mail's incessant rustle, and the metallic ringing in my ears caused by a coif, would have made my stealthy advance through the city of the dead impossible.

Autumn brought to Jammaq even more of a chill than it had known on my last visit, but I did not mind. Back then, in my youthful bravado and stupidity, I had come to beard the Reithrese in their own den. I felt confident that all the prophecies about me—both those others told and the ones I wove myself into—would protect me. I could not have failed to carry Cleaveheart away, so confident was I in my immortality.

Now, well into the autumn of my life, I felt a kinship with the city of the dead and comfortable in its sepulchral chill. In each leering gargoyle I saw an enemy I'd ridden down or slain with the sword I now bore. Having killed so many people did not necessarily make me a citizen of Jammaq, but it did confer on me visitor's privileges, and I meant to abuse those very privileges before the sun came up. A few more Reithrese would come to rest in Jammaq, and the living would depart.

A cold breeze cut at my face right then, and I realized I found a subtle strain within a great truth. As I had explained to Larissa, the gods were perverse. What I realized as I stalked toward Takrakor was that Reithra was the most perverse of all. She knew I was in the city and easily could have warned those who waited for me, but by betraying them and allowing me to send them to her, she let me feed her. That amounted to an act of worship toward her, and the last thing I wanted to do was to be counted among her acolytes.

Having placed my trust in the perversity of a perverse goddess, I should not have been surprised to see what awaited me at the mausoleum from which I had liberated Cleaveheart. In the dozen and a half years since I last saw it, a portico had been added to the building. Broad, circular steps led up to a landing that allowed access to the rest of the building. Four pillars carved in the shape of intertwined Human and Elven zombies upheld a roof. The figures making up the pillars were paired Man and Elf, male and female and like-gendered, mocking Elven laws and decorum with their crudity.

The merlons on the roof itself made the edge appear to be a huge jawbone, and it had been set with massive diamond teeth, the value of which was incalculable. Standing tall over the incisors in that jaw, Takrakor gestured, and all around me torches flared to life on the surrounding buildings. "Welcome to Jammaq, Neal Elfward," he shouted as light poured into the small courtyard before the mausoleum. "You have arrived far sooner than I expected. My allies, whom I invited to witness your submission to me, will be disappointed."