The Five Elements (6 page)

Knowing Nora would not see her bruised cheek as an excuse from her duties, Shanna started heading home. She crossed the quietness of the yard until she came to a lesser used postern gate where she had to ask the single guard stationed there to raise it. He did so only after some grumbling. Out on Lantern Street, the nighttime activity of the avenue's finer pubs and eating establishments was just getting started. While Shanna didn't run in such circles (and probably never would, she told herself), there was always someone lurking about in which to engage in idle chatter or a game of chance before a night watchman ran them off. On any other night Shanna would not have hesitated. But this night, she just wanted to go home.

It was a long ten blocks. With the night growing colder with each step, she was relieved when she passed beneath the familiar open arch leading into her plaza. Furthing's, it was called, and while it wasn't large, it did have its own well and benches for sitting. Shuttered windows rose up all around: multi-storied apartments where all manner of people lived. But not Shanna. Her home was below, in Furthing’s Deep. The deep—it was only one of many—was part of Norwynne's underkeep, where dwarves had once dwelt. It had been a long time since any dwarf had called the Underkeep home though, and those who remained—men, mostly—saw no reason not to make use of the space. 'Underkeepers', they were called. The name had never really bothered Shanna. She'd been one as long as she'd been in Norwynne, so it was something she'd grown used to as she had bounced from one Underkeep orphanage to another. The past year, she'd found some stability, and now shared a hearth-home with eight other girls.

Furthing was one of only a few plazas that had a working dwarven elevator. But at the moment it wasn't running, so she went instead to the stairs that led down, down, down into the dark. She lit a torch to guide her and was just about to take the first step when she was beset by a wave of dizziness. The spell nearly clocked her. For a moment she thought she might fall down the stairs. But she caught herself against the wall, staying like that until it finally passed. When it did, the dizziness was gone completely, as if it had never happened. Shanna took a long breath and blinked her eyes. The blow the man had given her must have hurt more than she thought. Resigned to crawl into bed the moment she got home, she held her torch before her and descended into the Underkeep with careful steps.

* * *

Somewhere safe for Aaron, it turned out, was at the very top of Ellingrel.

Already worn down from a long day, Aaron had not found the idea of climbing to the Tower's roof appealing at all. His best protests, however, fell on deaf ears as Master Rion ushered him to the top without remorse, allowing neither time for rest nor opportunity for Aaron to ask any of the questions swirling through his head. By the time they'd reached the halfway point, he was too tired to speak anyway.

As soon as they gained the roof Master Rion went straight to the edge where battlements similar to those of Graggly's Tower encircled the top. He settled in quickly, the fullness of his attention on the ocean-side of the city or on something beyond. Moving more slowly, Aaron took a moment to regain his breath and gather his strength before he fought the whipping wind to join the sorcerer. Ellingrel stood roughly at the center of Norwynne, but closer to the landward side. Still, its great height afforded the observer an uninhibited view over the lord's keep, the surrounding city, and, beyond the assortment of buildings poking up in irregular patterns, the great outer wall, Regrok, which legend said had never been breached. By day, the view was spectacular. Now, it was an ebony screen punched through by the faint light of street lanterns and a chaotic pattern of lit windows. Beyond Regrok was the Barrens. The great, empty ocean, Norwynne folk called it. Now, true to its name, it was inky blackness, for a blanket of clouds obscured even the light of the moon.

Aaron saw activity on Regrok's wall walk: Master Elsanar, small compared to the wall's massiveness, standing amidst members of his coterie. Keep soldiers were there too, in greater numbers than usual if the number of torches reflecting from armor was any indication. At one end of the walk, a cluster of them parted as a single figure emerged from a corner guard tower. Aaron saw hands jump to brows in salute as the man—who could be none other than the Lord of Norwynne, Lord Vuller—passed. He stopped only when he stood face-to-face with Master Elsanar.

"What do you suppose they're saying?" Aaron asked above the howl of the wind.

His eyes never leaving the dark of the horizon, Master Rion's answer came quick and short. "I don't know."

Aaron thought Master Rion did know, if not the conversation's exact words then at least the general content, but Aaron did not press the point. Instead, he asked, "What are we doing up here?"

"Master Elsanar felt this place would offer you the most protection. The Tower is a sorcerer's tower. It is protected. You know that." Again, the master sorcerer's eyes never left the horizon, though Aaron was quite sure there was nothing there to see.

"Why do
I
need protecting? I mean, what about everyone else?"

Over ten thousand people called Norwynne home, not to mention another five hundred or so who worked the surrounding farmlands. The Market Day Festival was nigh, also. That added at least another two thousand. What about them?

Master Rion's gaze left the distant horizon long enough to fix Aaron with a hard stare. "If there were time to tell you all, I would. Come morning, Elsanar will explain everything." He looked away and said nothing more.

Resigned to gathering whatever information he could on his own, Aaron returned his gaze to Regrok. More torches had been lit and now Lord Vuller, who still consulted with Master Elsanar, finally broke away, returning the way he had come. One-by-one, soldiers followed him. Not just one or two or even ten, but every one of them until the full length of the wall walk was abandoned but for Master Elsanar and his fellow sorcerers. Aaron counted fifteen, save Master Rion. The sorcerers spread out in a line, each taking a position twenty paces from the other. Every one of them faced the ocean.

Aaron heard shouts coming from the streets below as word spread about the nocturnal activity occurring along the wall-walk. Light from torches and lanterns appeared in windows while avenues and courtyards soon filled with folk milling about looking for answers. Soldiers, perhaps the same ones who'd abandoned Regrok to the wizards, took up positions along byways and at lit street corners. Whether their task was to quell or placate, Aaron could not be sure. Either way, Aaron envied them. At least they'd been given something to do.

A ruckus started on the landward fringes of the city. Herd animals brought inside the city walls for the night bleated and baaed with intensity. Soon horses, cows, and now the howling of dogs joined the litany. Master Rion gave the ruckus a sharp glance before returning his attention to the wall.

Then there was a crack, a noise so loud Aaron winced from the sound of it. It was followed by a shuddering as the earth trembled beneath the city. It rolled across Norwynne as if a wave, then faded and was gone.

"Stand fast, Aaron!"

Master Rion braced himself with one hand on his staff and the other on the stone of Ellingrel. Without question, Aaron grabbed hold of the Tower’s battlements in like fashion, though without a staff the best he could do was place both hands on the stone.

Then, it started.

From deep down below, the earth rumbled, letting loose such movement that right away Aaron felt the Tower sway beneath his feet. Though it was only that at first, it quickly grew worse. The masses below, gone silent at the first hint of the earth's awakening, exploded now into a dissonance of fear and confusion. Another eruption drowned them out as the Tower quivered and then jolted so that his hands loosed themselves from the battlements. Vibrations ran up his legs and into his stomach and chest until he shook as much from fright as from the Tower's movement. He yelled a desperate cry at Master Rion, but the words were lost in the earth’s deafening roar as another convulsion rocked the Tower. Only Master Rion's outstretched hand kept him steady. Another jolt, this one accompanied by the crash of rock and timber coming from multiple sources below, tossed Aaron against the battlements where he tried again to take hold of the stone with both hands. He looked out over Norwynne, seeing some of the same city lights he'd viewed moments ago now swaying, as if someone were signaling with them. One such grouping ran vertical and represented a line of windowed apartments. Back and forth they swayed, until suddenly, one-by-one, from top to bottom, the lights winked out. Seconds later, Aaron heard the accompanying crash. He shook his head in slow motion, refusing to believe what he'd seen. But though it was dark, he couldn’t deny what had just happened. He blinked his eyes, unable to speak, almost unable to breath. Then it happened again. A tower half Ellingrel's height rocked in impossible fashion. Get out! Get out! Aaron yelled in his mind. Too late. Unable to withstand the sheering forces, the tower disintegrated into a cloud of rubble and dust that choked out the screams of those trapped within. The shock of it reverberated through Aaron, and he sank to the floor. He covered his ears, hoping to somehow mute out the continued sound of grinding rock and splintering timber. He heard and felt more structures crumble and fall. More people died. Though some had to have escaped to the streets, he knew there was no safety there. He'd seen the great chunks of falling debris.

Elsanar!

The master sorcerer would stop this. Aaron stood. He was relieved to find Regrok still intact. The members of the coterie were still there, too. But none of them were doing anything. They all still faced the ocean.

Then, just as sudden as it had started, it stopped. The tremors, the swaying, the grinding of stone on stone all lessened until, gradually, they were no more. Minutes passed. But for the wails of folk below and the wind whipping over Ellingrel's battlements, there was no sound. Aaron looked at Master Rion. "Is it…?"

"It isn't over," the sorcerer said.

Aaron followed the master sorcerer's gaze through the haze of dust risen above the city to Regrok. There, finally, Master Elsanar held his staff up to the dark, clouded sky. To either side of him, all along the wall walk, the other members of the coterie did the same. One by one, each of their staves flared with such brilliance that soon their very persons were obscured. The power of each joined with the next until a line of cerulean energy surged across the wall walk. Its greatest point of concentration was Master Elsanar, who now swung his staff in a great circle before him. The motion left in its wake a sheet of power that moved unilaterally in all directions. Up, down, across, it buttressed the might of Regrok in one direction while extending its height in the other.

"The waves," Master Rion said, "they've stopped."

Aaron listened. It was true. The normally persistent sound was noticeably absent. Even at lowest tide, that never happened. Aaron was just trying to work out an explanation when he saw the tidal wave.

Seen through the azure film of Elsanar's wizardry, it was frothing liquid set ablaze, a wave so massive that, even at its current distance, it dwarfed Regrok and the hundred foot cliff it sat upon. He reminded himself that Regrok had never been breached, that the keep had never fallen and that Elsanar, greatest of wizards, was here. Such reassurances fell by degrees as the wave loomed closer and closer until, finally, it crashed into the wizard wall. It hit like a battering ram, jolting the azure barrier and causing the flare of brilliance surrounding each of the wizards to intensify. Knowing the danger of such exertion, Aaron winced as if in pain himself when three of the lesser sorcerers convulsed, then shriveled to blackened husks. Immediately, as the brilliance of those three dissipated, the wizard wall's strength diminished. Still, the barrier was enough that only a dousing of seawater broke through. Aaron let out an audible sigh of relief as the water fell away in sheets across the wall's length.

It was over.

"Aaron, stay here."

Aaron’s gaze went slowly to Master Rion.

"You'll be safe here," he said. "Do you understand?"

Aaron felt the blood drain from his face. A shiver ran through him.

"Do you understand me, Aaron?"

Aaron managed to bob his chin.

"Stay here! Ellingrel is the only place of safety now."

Aaron watched as Master Rion leapt between merlons much as Shanna had done earlier.

"Where are you going?" Aaron managed to ask.

"Elsanar needs me."

Without another word, the master sorcerer stepped from Ellingrel's roof. He did not fall, but instead drifted through the lingering haze down to Regrok's wall walk. He'd barely taken the place of one of the fallen wizards when another tidal wave hove into view. Master Rion had only seconds to add his strength to that of the others, seconds that were not enough as the second wave slammed into Regrok and its wizardly reinforcement. This time, like glass, the wizard wall shattered, and Regrok, which had never been breached, shuddered, cracked, and broke. The wizards—Elsanar and Rion amongst them—disappeared beneath the wave's frothing mass.

Aaron suddenly couldn't move, couldn't breathe. The shortness of breath was infectious. His legs lost feeling. His knees gave way. He remained standing only because he leaned heavily against the Tower's battlements, watching as the water exploded through Norwynne's streets, absorbing people and debris and finishing off structures made unstable by the earthquake. Aaron watched until so much water filled the streets that there was no longer anything to see. Then he backed away, not stopping until he came up against the Tower itself.

Its presence kept him standing. In that moment, it became his strength. Aaron clung to it, not moving, not thinking. He was safe. If he just stayed here, as Master Rion had advised, nothing could harm him. For an hour, as the shock of it all drained from him, that was what he did. But the longer he stayed put, the more he considered his predicament. He was safe, but what about everyone else? If it was over—even if it wasn't—folk needed help. Aaron slid along the wall, his outstretched hand probing for the door. Shanna, too. She might have been lying in the hospital when it started. Or, possibly, in her hearth-home. Aaron imagined the seawater flowing into the Underkeep, flooding the halls, trapping her.