The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper (60 page)

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Authors: Mel Odom

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“So you say,” Brandt replied. “I only know that no one has seen him in years.”

“I saw him only days ago.”

Brandt looked at him with keen interest. “Where?”

Wick took a moment to explain about the visions Craugh had tried to summon, and the fact that the elven warder didn't want to be found.

“His son was the one who bound the weapons at the Battle of Fell's Keep,” Brandt informed them. “Did you know that?”

Craugh tugged at his beard in sudden speculation. “No, I didn't.”

Wick shook his head.

“Evidently Qardak, the eldest, was something of a wizard,” Brandt said.

“Unusual,” Craugh said. “Elves go for a more natural magic, something that
comes from Nature and enhances Nature. With the magical creation of the vidrenium, it should have been anathema to elvenkind.”

“Deathwhisper was created for the elves,” Brandt reminded.

“True,” Craugh agreed, “but that is a spell that's friendly to the user. A binding spell like the one you're talking about should have been beyond his ability.”

“There are some elves who tinker in the more chaotic magicks,” Wick said. “Hallinbek's
Compendium of Mislaid Spells and Wardings
lists no fewer than fourteen elven practioners. Those are only fourteen that he knew of.”

“I've known them, too,” Craugh said. “They're usually not very successful at them. Elves have an innate sympathy with Nature. They hate to see anything violated. Even those who have gone rogue or outlaw are limited in their abilities to warp the essence of something. Shape-shifting. Tracking. Charming. Those are all areas where elven expertise is the order of the day.” He put his pipe in his mouth and snapped his fingers, lighting the bowl. “But at the level you're suggesting? That's very rare.”

“But not impossible.”

“I would bet against it. Every time.”

“Why did Qardak bind the weapons?” Wick asked.

“To strengthenâ” Brandt began.

“There would beâ” Craugh started at the same time.

Smiling, Brandt gestured to Craugh. “I bow to your area of expertise.”

“I can think of only one reason to do such a thing,” Craugh said. “To shore up whatever magical defensive wards he had in place around the defenders.” He puffed on the pipe thoughtfully. “While the weapons were bound, their special powers couldn't be called into play.”

“No one's ever mentioned this before,” Wick said.

“Kulik Broghan mentioned it,” Brandt said. “To me.”

“How does he know what we don't?”

Brandt wiggled his eyebrows. “It's all rather interesting, isn't it?”

“What does he plan to do with the weapons?” Craugh asked.

“He told me he was actively seeking Deathwhisper, that he knew the bow was somewhere in the Forest of Fangs and Shadows.”

“Sokadir has it,” Wick said.

“He didn't,” Brandt said, “tell me that.”

Craugh puffed on his pipe. “I trust you offered to buy Boneslicer and Seaspray from him?”

“I did. I offered more gold than I've ever seen. If he'd accepted, if we truly meant to pay his price, we'd have had to dig out the top of the Broken Forge Mountain and find Shengharck's treasure trove again.” Brandt sighedâmore, Wick thoughtâupon reflection of how much gold they'd lost when the volcano had exploded and filled the interior of the dragon's chamber. “But he refused. Although I swear I saw temptation in his eyes.”

“Did he mention Lord Kharrion's Wrath?” Craugh asked.

Wick held his quill still, pausing in the middle of drawing a profile view of
Sonne. He hadn't ever heard of Lord Kharrion's Wrath. In all the time he'd been searching for the three mystic weapons with Craugh, the wizard had never mentioned it.

“No,” Brandt answered. “Should he have?”

“It would be better,” Craugh said, “if he didn't. But I'm afraid that may be what this is all about.”

“What's Lord Kharrion's Wrath?” Wick asked.

Craugh sat forward on his chair. Everyone drew in close to hear him. “No one knows for certain,” the wizard answered. “Even midway through the Cataclysm, Lord Kharrion knew he was hard-pressed to seize victory from the jaws of defeat. In the beginning, his successes came easily and cheaply. He had thousands of goblinkin to call on, and he'd studied his targets.”

Wick changed pages and took notes, drawing small goblinkin in the margins.

“The Goblin Lord brought his forces up from the south,” Craugh went on. “He knew the goblinkin would be less than enthusiastic about venturing into the north to fight in the snow-covered mountains.”

“He was right about that,” Lago said. “They still tell stories about how the goblinkin cried tears of ice and ate their own frozen feet.”

Wick blinked at that. “If they ate their own feet, how did they march?”

Lago scowled. “I don't know. Mayhap they hurried about on their stumps afterward. It's just a story. But a good one.”

“The fact was, after Teldane's Bounty was destroyed and the coast shattered,” Craugh went on, “Lord Kharrion had a harder time earning each conquest. In the early years of the Cataclysm, the humans, elves, and dwarves didn't get along and seldom worked together on anything.”

“Except in Dream,” Wick said.

Craugh nodded. “Except in Dream. But Lord Kharrion's pursuit of them, his destruction of all their books and ways of life, bonded them in ways; they had never before had to rely on each other. If they were going to survive the goblinkin onslaught, they had to join forces. They did, and the tide of battle began to turn. But those days were dark and filled with loss.”

Wick remembered. The journals he'd read from that timeâtired and unkempt things barely held together with second-hand glue, thread, and ties for the most partâhad all carried a note of inevitable sorrow and pain.

“Lord Kharrion knew he needed more in his arsenal,” Craugh said. “In Silverleaves Glen, he used dark, arcane powers and perverted the elven princesses, turning them into fierce and vicious Embyrs that fought the Unity warriors till the end when Lord Kharrion's hold over them ended. On other battlefields, he raised dead goblinkin, twisting them and shaping them into Boneblights. Then there came the second uprising at Dream.”

“The first battle,” Cobner said soberly, “killed most of them who lived there and scattered the rest to the wind.”

Craugh nodded. “After Lord Kharrion moved on north, the Unity leaders decided to try establishing a beachhead at Dream and raising an army of the
survivors there. The effort was premature. They hadn't counted on the Goblin Lord's ability to raise the goblinkin dead and have them fight again as Boneblights. This time when Lord Kharrion took Dream, he shattered the city and tore it down to rubble.”

Wick still recalled the fountain he'd seen in Hanged Elf's Point that had let him know what the city overrun by goblinkin had been before it had been destroyed. He remembered how hopeless he'd felt standing there in a slaver's chains.

But that changed
, he reminded himself.
Just as this can change.

“No one knew why Lord Kharrion didn't raze the city the first time they passed through,” Craugh said. “Many suspected it was because he wanted more, faster victories to keep his goblinkin hungry and not surround them with the losses they'd suffered. Perhaps that was true, but he also may have had another reason.”

“The vidrenium,” Wick said, knowing immediately what the cause for the decision had been.

“We didn't know what he was doing there,” Craugh said, “but now that we've learned what we have, it stands to reason.”

“What are you talking about?” Brandt asked.

Craugh nodded to Wick, acknowledging the little Librarian's skills as better to summarize the story. Quickly, Wick sketched out the events as they'd been able to put them together.

“Lord Kharrion went there to retrieve the weapons?” Sonne asked when Wick had finished.

“That's what it looks like,” Wick said.

“You said Lord Kharrion was there in disguise,” Hamual said. He'd traded places with one of the dwarves to come in and eat.

“He was, as best as we can reconstruct the events that happened then.”

“What if he wasn't after the weapons?” Hamual asked.

“What do you mean?” Craugh said.

Hamual shrugged. “Just that when we steal a unique and well-known piece of jewelry, one or more with original settings, we have to break them apart to resell them. Otherwise they'll be recognized.”

Brandt leaned forward and put his chin on his forefingers, resting his elbows on the table. “Ah, Hamual, you are starting to think like a true thief.”

Hamual blushed and smiled. “What if Lord Kharrion wasn't after the weapons? Remember, they weren't made until later by Master Oskarr.”

“Then what else would he be after?” Lago asked.

“The vidrenium,” Wick said, seizing on the idea at once. “In its purest form. He intended to make a weapon from it himself.”

“Or else he already had,” Craugh said, “and wanted only the magic bound into the metal to fuel his latest creation.”

“Lord Kharrion's Wrath,” Wick said, looking at the wizard. “Do you have any idea what it is?”

“No,” Craugh answered.

“Then someone, somewhere, must,” Brandt said. “Otherwise there would not be so much interest in collecting these three weapons.” He leaned back in his chair. “All we have to do to stop them is to steal the weapons.” He grinned. “And that's one of the things we're best at.”

The Magic Sword

Y
ou are a master thief. You're traveling with master thieves. You won't get caught. You are the wind. No one will know you're there until you're gone. You're as quiet as a tear sliding down a cat's whisker and
â

“What's wrong, little warrior?” Cobner whispered behind Wick.

The sound of the dwarf's voice nearly caused Wick to jump out of his skin. He started and hit his head on the top of the drainpipe he, Cobner, and Sonne crawled through.

“Nothing,” Wick said, rubbing the top of his head. “I was just waiting till my eyes adjusted to the darkness.”

“Well? Are they adjusted?” Sonne asked with a trace of irritation.

Except for the stars I'm presently seeing
, Wick thought. “Yes.”

“Then get a move on. We don't have all night.”

“Stay off the little warrior,” Cobner said. “He knows what he's doing. He's a seasoned veteran.”

“Your voice carries in the tunnel, you know,” Brandt whispered from the opening they'd entered on the other side of the Chop River.

Reluctantly, Wick went forward, trailing his fingers along the side of the drainage tunnel. Brandt and his thieves had found the drain tunnel early on and explored it as much as they dared. Of course, it didn't lead where they wanted it to, but it got them closer to their ultimate goal. If everything worked right, it brought them close enough.

Kulik Broghan's fortress had been built long before the
wizard had taken up residence. During that time, the fortress had been added to and remodeled on a number of occasions. It would have been too much to hope that the tunnel would have led directly into the treasure room where the wizard kept the captured weapons. However, Brandt had used his time as “Baron Lorthord” well.

Claiming to want to repay Kulik Broghan for his hospitality, and to seal a bargain they'd both agreed on to exchange lesser items, Brandt had given the wizard a mobile of a miniature elven city made up of glistening trees overlooking a large lake that was actually a mirror. The mobile was magical in nature, and Brandt had shown the wizard howâwith a phraseâthe mobile would come to life, progressing through the seasons in a matter of moments. Tiny, multicolored leaves would fall from the trees into the lake, rise again as snowflakes and become buds and leaves to repeat the whole season. Over and over.

Since it was magical in nature, and the spells had been laid closely together, only a truly trained wizard could see the additional spell that had been hidden that allowed someone to access the mirror through another made with the same spell.

“Here,” Cobner said. “Just ahead there.”

Wick spotted the mark on the wall. Most people would never have seen it, but he'd been told what to look for. He stopped by the mark.

Quickly, Cobner took his leather pack off and unpacked the mirror inside. He laid it on the uneven ground.

“We already tried to get in this way,” Cobner said. “Even sent Sonne, but she wouldn't fit neither. She's too big.”

“Too tall,” Sonne muttered. “I was too tall.”

In truth, Wick knew that the young woman was larger proportioned than he was.

“Craugh could probably explain to you why it's so,” Cobner said, “but the farther the two mirrors are from each other, the smaller the opening between them.”

“Kowt's
Magical Theories of Transportation Reduction and Mass Shifting
,” Wick said automatically. Reading about magic wasn't one of his favorite pastimes, but he'd gotten familiar with some of the things written. “Magic isn't without limitations, and when you confine a spell to a thing that's not inherently magical, those limitations increase exponentially.”

Cobner just looked at him. “I'll take your word for it, little warrior. If it was me, I'd try a magic potion that would allow me to walk through the walls.”

“Even if you could get through the walls with a discorporal potion,” Wick pointed out, “you'd still cross Kulik Broghan's magical wards and set off alarms. With the mirrors, you can cross that space and it's like you were never there.”

“I'll take your word for it. You know more about it than I do. Shuck your gear and step lively. There are still some patrols around the wall now and again.”

Trembling a little, Wick dropped his gear and stood only in shirt and breeches.

“Here.” Sonne held out a knife.

“I hope I don't need it,” Wick said.

She smiled at him. “Me too. But you never know.”

Nodding, he took the knife, then walked over and put a foot on the mirror. He closed his eyes, knowing he was about to get sucked into the treasure room like a boiled egg into a bottle with a fire at the bottom.

“Uh, Wick?”

Oh no! They know me! It was a trap!
Then he opened one eye and saw Cobner and Sonne facing him. “Am I back already?” Maybe this wasn't so bad.

“The Word,” Cobner said. “You've got to say the Word.”

“Right.” Wick took a deep breath and said the Word. Instantly the mirror's surface took on a rippled look, like a pond blown by the wind. He dipped a toe in and found it was cold, but not uncomfortably so. “Hey, this isn't tooâ”

The spell yanked him into the mirror with a loud
SPLOOSH!

Instinctively, Wick held his breath as he was pulled under what felt like liquid. Cold blackness pressed in against him. For a moment he felt like he was coming apart. Then just as quickly he felt compressed and knew he was coming up to the moment of no return. His breath exploded from him as the spell sucked him through the opening.

No!
he thought.
I'm too big! I'm not going to make it!
He felt as though a mule were sitting on his chest, as if a pair of mules were sitting on his chest. He screamed, and he felt the last of the air leave his lungs in a rush. This was where Sonne had said she'd been caught, and she had thought she was going to drown before the spell gave up and tossed her back out.

He flew through the air in a rush, landing in a pile on the hard stone floor. He coughed and sucked in a breath. “I'm sorry,” he said when he had his breath back. “I'm too big. I didn't fit, either.” He looked up for Cobner and Sonneâ

âand discovered he wasn't in the drainage tunnel anymore. Soft lamps glowed in the corners of the room, throwing golden light over the chests of gold and gems sitting on the floor.

The sight took Wick's breath away. Stunned, he sat up.
I made it! I'm in Kulik Broghan's treasure room!

Heart beating rapidly, he pushed himself to his feet and looked around. He'd arrived only a few feet from the elven mobile that had magically transported him into the room. The mobile was a thing of beauty, elegant and fragile looking. It sat next to an elven helm cut into the features of a snarling wolf on a stone head.

Wick couldn't believe he was alone. He had half expected to find Kulik Broghan there. Or a small army of armed guards. Either one of those wouldn't have been too big a surprise. Luck wasn't something that came easily to him.

The treasure room was small but contained fortunes. Besides the gold coins and ingots and gems, there were a number of weapons. Swords, spears, bows, knives, and axes all occupied weapons racks.

Get moving!
Wick told himself.
They'll be worried about you!
On his way over, though, he couldn't help stuffing the bag Cobner had given him, advising him to do as much “shopping” as he could while he hunted the weapons. Before he reached the weapons racks, the bag was filled to overflowing with gold coins and gems,
surely a small fortune that would pay whatever Brandt was charging for helping them recover the two weapons.

Tying the bag back to his belt, he approached the weapons racks, spotting Boneslicer immediately. Grasping the battle-axe, he eased it free of the rack.

At that moment, the jewel-encrusted broadsword next to the battle-axe opened its eye. The eye was elongated like a cat's but it looked vaguely reptilian. It blinked and focused on him.

Wick stood hypnotized. He'd read about animated weapons before, but he'd never seen one. Cautiously, slowly as he could, he leaned to the left.

The eye followed him.

Thinking maybe that was just a trick of the light, Wick took two steps to the right.

Effortlessly, the eye followed him again, looking right at him.

Metallic lips formed on the blade. “Greetings.”

Greetings?
Wick thought rapidly, trying to come up with a ploy. All he came up with was, “Greetings.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes you are.”

“No I'm not.” Wick suddenly felt like he was trapped in one of those endless conversations he had with Grandmagister Frollo. Of course, when he got back there was going to be a new wrinkle in those conversations.
Second Level Librarian, you're the reason I was a toad!

“You took that axe.”

Wick looked down at Boneslicer as if he were surprised to see it. “This axe?”

“Yes. That axe.” The voice sounded petulant as a child.

“Oh.
This
axe. I thought you meant the other axe.”

“Which axe?”

“The one I'm not supposed to shine.”

“You're going to shine that axe?” the magic sword asked.

“Yes. I'm the new treasure polisher.” Wick pulled out the tail of his shirt and started scrubbing on the battle-axe's haft. “Kulik Broghan told me I had to shine this axe.”

“You're a treasure polisher?”

“Yes.”

“We've never had a treasure polisher before.”

“Well,” Wick said with a hint of the conspirator in his voice, “if you ask me, that shows. Nobody should let their treasure get this dusty.” He shined Boneslicer some more, spitting on it and polishing again, humming a happy tune as he did so. He also took a step backward.

The sword frowned, the eye half closing and the metallic lips pursing in frustration. “Why does that axe get all the special attention?”

“Does it get special attention?”

“You know it does.”

“No,” Wick said. “This is my first night.”

“I didn't think I'd seen you before.” The sword looked in the direction of the big door. “In fact, I don't remember hearing the door open.”

“You must have been asleep.”

“Maybe. It gets boring in here. When my master had me, we were always fighting dragons, rescuing princesses, and cutting the ribbons at market dedications.”

“Really?”

“I'm a very famous sword. Maybe you've heard of me.”

“Maybe I have. What's your name?”

“Frostfire.”

“Really?” Wick asked, excited and interested in spite of the fact that he was meeting a magic sword for the very first time while in the treasure room of a wizard who had already hired people to try to kill him. “I
have
heard of you!”

“See?” the sword said smugly. “I told you.”

“You slew the giant Konnard! And the banshee hordes of Bluesdale!”

“That was me.” The sword seemed somehow to stand a little straighter in the weapons rack. “So I'm telling you that if anyone deserves polishing around here, it's me.”

Then Wick remembered something very distressing. It was true that Frostfire had been the human hero Murral's sword, but when it had disappeared, it had been subjected to a spell by an evil wizard that had altered its nature. No longer content with aiding its hero, Frostfire had turned on him and given his position away again and again until the ice trolls had finally killed him.

“You're right,” Wick said, suddenly feeling in danger again. “You do need polishing. Let me put this axe away.”

“I'll be right here.”

Trying not to panic, Wick walked over to the elven mirror, said the magic Word again, and dumped the axe in. Boneslicer slid through like it was sinking into a small rippling sea.

“Hey,” Frostfire said.

“Yes?” Wick replied.

“Did you just shove that axe into that mirror?” The eye bulged on the sword as if trying to peer over the other weapons.

“No,” Wick said, trying to keep his voice from trembling. “I laid it down over here by the wall.”

“I can't see it.”

“Do you want to see it?”