The Ring of Winter (33 page)

The pteradon itself was not so well served by its hide. The blast sent a fragment of the pavement through its skull. It took four warriors to drag the thing’s limp corpse from atop Artus, even with him straining against its bulk from below.

“Was anybody hurt?” the explorer puffed as he climbed out from under one ragged wing. He looked around. A few injured warriors were being helped away, but they were still walking.

A young boy stared at the explorer in awe. “Nobody was hurt too bad,” he said. “You bounced enough times for everyone to run.”

Artus rubbed his shoulder. The scuffle hadn’t done much good for the arrow wound he’d gotten at the Batiri camp. “Have you seen Ras T’fima?”

“I can take you right to him,” the boy shouted happily. Lifting a small, round shield of studded leather over his head, he hurried away. Every few steps he looked back, to be sure the explorer was still with him.

They found T’fima near the edge of the maze of buildings and alleys that made up the Residential Quarter. The boy took one look at the mage, nodded to Artus, and ran back toward the temple. T’fima was as volatile as ever, shouting instructions at anyone who got close and gesturing broadly with his fat-fingered hands. Bits of gravel clung to his tightly curled hair, and dirt covered his tobe.

A small army of old people, wounded warriors, and very young children flooded past T’fima on their way to their homes. It would be safer for them there, since the goblins would surely get lost in the twisting, turning streets. In case any Batiri got past the contingent guarding the district, a handful of warriors were passing out clubs and daggers to the people who could wield them. Artus had no doubt the goblins would be in for quite a surprise if they ventured into the narrow lanes.

T’fima himself had a globe of blue light caught between his hands. He lifted it gently over his head, as if it were wrought of some fragile crystal, then let it go. The globe floated there until the sorcerer pointed toward a group of one-eyed goblins massing for an attack. With a high, shrill whistle, the light flew toward the Batiri. It struck them, but didn’t explode or burst into flames, as Artus had expected. The globe splashed over the first dozen goblins like soft summer rain. After the shock wore off, the stunned cannibals laughed and raised their spears.

In a show of contempt, T’fima turned his back on the Batiri and went about directing the defense of the Residential Quarter. Artus drew his dagger and moved to intercept the goblin pack before it could take advantage of the sorcerer’s bravado.

Yet as soon as the Batiri took a step forward, blue light began to leak from their empty eye sockets. Their leader tried to shout an order, but only magical radiance poured out over his black tongue. He seemed to choke on it, dropping his spear to clutch helplessly at his throat. The others never got the chance to shout. Before they could open their mouths, they burst like overfull wineskins, their corpses disappearing in a flash of blue before the first drop of blood hit the ground.

Artus grimaced at the gory sight, but could not fault the sorcerer for effectiveness. The goblins the globe had missed retreated, leaving the Mezroans to continue their work.

“Give her a dagger!” T’fima was shouting as the explorer got close. He pointed at an old woman. “She couldn’t lift a club, let alone hurt someone with it. At least with a blade she might get lucky and blind someone!”

“Ras T’fima,” Artus said, placing a firm hand on the sorcerer’s shoulder.

Slowly the ras turned. “We have things to do here,” he rumbled. “Either give us a hand or get out of the way.”

“I want the Ring of Winter,” the explorer said, towering his voice just a little.

“And I told you before I don’t know anything about it!”

People had begun to turn toward the mage and the stranger. Artus glanced at the upturned faces. Fear held a tight grip over many of these people. It wouldn’t do to challenge their protector openly. “I know you aren’t a bara,” Artus whispered to T’fima, leaning closer. “The master of the dead told me. You’ve been using gem magic to keep yourself alive—just like your cat—and you used the ring to cause the blizzard that saved Kwalu.”

T’fima’s eyes got as large as full moons. Muttering, he slipped a hand into the pocket of his tobe. Artus was faster, though. The explorer grabbed the last of the diamond slivers and said the command word. A bolt of lightning appeared in his hand, illuminating the area with cold white light

“I’m not your enemy,” the explorer hissed.

T’fima shook his head. “How can I be sure of that?”

Turning away from the sorcerer, Artus heaved the lightning at the distant goblin line. The bolt sizzled just off the ground. A few of the more observant Batiri in its path scattered before it struck. Two dozen charred corpses was all that remained of those that didn’t.

“I’ve hunted for the ring for a decade,” Artus said, forcing calm into his voice. “I’ve wanted to turn its power to good. Now there’s another reason for me to have it—to save Mezro, to rescue Lord Rayburton and Sanda and the others from the goblins.”

The sorcerer took his empty hand from his pocket and waved away three warriors who were obviously coming over to see what the argument was about. “And who’ll be there to rescue the city from you once you get the ring?” T’fima growled. “Rayburton couldn’t control it. That’s why he brought it here—he froze an entire village solid in Cormyr. Killed hundreds of people. That’s why he gave it to me to hide, so he’d never be tempted to use it again.”

Artus closed his eyes. The disaster Lord Rayburton had told him about—he had caused it! “Ancient history,” he heard himself say. “Besides, I’m not Rayburton.”

“I froze the jungle for miles around, made it snow for three days instead of the hour I had intended.” T’fima grabbed the front of Artus’s tunic. “Don’t you see? I could control weather once—that was Ubtao’s gift to me—and yet even I couldn’t bend the ring to a good cause!”

Artus pushed T’fima away. “The reason you used the ring was so Osaw and the others wouldn’t discover you weren’t a bara any longer,” he said. “If Kwalu was killed, they’d hold the ceremony to install a new paladin to replace him. Ubtao would have chosen two new barae, not one, and then they would have known.”

T’fima’s fury had returned, and his round form quivered in anger as he rumbled, “If they know I’m not a bara, then the Tabaxi outside the wall will have no voice in the councils. The wall will stay up forever, and they’ll be robbed of their heritage!”

A grating sound, like metal shivering into a thousand fragments, rang out over the city, and Artus spun around to see Skuld break through another of the bars on his magical cage. The guardian spirit rolled his eyes and snarled like a straight-jacketed lunatic.

“There’ll be nothing left of Mezro once he gets free,” Artus said. He pointed to Skuld, who was sawing away at another bar with a glowing fragment from the one he had just broken. “And if the Ring of Winter is here, the man who controls that monstrosity will have it.”

Ras T’fima bowed his head. “After I used it to cause the blizzard, I went to the temple and tossed it into the barado. No one goes in that room unless they’re electing a new bara, so I thought it would be safe…”

When T’fima looked up, Artus was already gone.

“Keep the children away from the arrows!” the sorcerer snarled at a wounded warrior who was distributing weapons. After the woman hustled the two toddlers away from the arrows, T’fima glanced toward the temple. A wave of sadness swept over him, since there were just six active barae, the only way for Artus to escape the barado once he’d entered would be to pass Ubtao’s test. If he succeeded, he would be the new bara of Mezro—and have the Ring of Winter. If he failed, Ubtao would kill him.

At the moment, Ras T’fima wasn’t certain which would be worse for the city.

Sixteen

Artus stood in the Hall of Champions, poised before the archway that led everywhere in the temple. The boom of magical explosions and crash of sorcerous lightning rocked the place. Now and then swirls of hot air rushed through the hall as someone opened the door to the plaza. These newcomers scrambled past Artus and disappeared through the arch to some distant room, seeking medicine or weapons or a hiding place from the advancing goblin army. The explorer paid no attention to them. He stared into the absolute darkness bracketed by the arch, preparing himself to meet a god.

The Mezroan history written by King Osaw and translated by Lord Rayburton had been very clear about that: to enter the barado was to come face to face with Ubtao. It was forbidden for anyone to trespass in the sacred room—other than to take the test to become a bara. Of course Artus had no intention of devoting himself to this strange god or his city. He wondered, then, what Ubtao would do to him. Anything he wanted, the explorer decided at last. Ubtao was, after all, a god.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem the fire-and-brimstone sort, or a raving lunatic like Cyric or Loviatar. “Maybe I’ll get a few prayers to repeat, or a good deed to do,” Artus murmured hopefully, remembering his days in the temple school in Suzail. Then he stepped through the archway.

For a moment Artus thought he’d been transported to the wrong room. He’d expected a magnificent hall filled with music and light, with a tremendous throne at one end and dinosaur guards all along the walls—they were called Ubtao’s Children, after all. The god would come down to the throne as a ball of light. He—she? it?—would then speak in a voice like a thousand trumpets blaring in harmony, demanding the reasons for Artus’s boldness. The place would be thrillingly opulent, demanding instant respect and awe.

Instead, he found himself in a dimly lit room, eloquent of neglect. A small, sourceless circle of light drove the gloom away from the center of the room, but darkness cloaked the walls and ceiling. The air was stale and oppressively humid. Artus stepped into the light. Not daring to offend the deity, he waited expectantly for something to happen.

A small girl emerged from the darkness, a gentle smile on her lips. Her face was round and cherubic, her tobe a shinning shade of blue, like the other children of Mezro, she had her hair cropped close, with intricate patterns cut into it. Who would become a guardian of my city?

The words weren’t spoken aloud, but sounded inside Artus’s head. “I am here to retrieve something left in the barado, great Ubtao,” the explorer said. He dropped to one knee and bowed. “The Ring of Winter. It was hidden here by Ras T’fima.”

This place is only for my barae. I have time only for those who would be champions of my city.

The words held no anger, but when Artus looked up, the little girl was gone. A Mezroan warrior now stood before him. The young man had proud defiance in his eyes. He held his war club in a firm grip, and his voice rumbled in Artus’s head like a thunderstorm.

“I am fighting for Mezro,” Artus offered quietly.

But you will not become a bara. The warrior melted into the form of a matronly old woman with jet-black skin and hands worn from years of hard work. She turned away and walked slowly back to the darkness at the edges of the room. You must come with me now, she said in a sad, tired voice, keeping her stooped back to the explorer.

“Come with you?”

Yes, came the calm, steady voice of a middle-aged man. He had the face of a teacher, full of self-assurance and a slight look of knowing arrogance. His tobe was unkempt, his beard in need of trimming. There is no reason to give you the test if you aren’t interested in becoming a bara. My law says you must be taken up to my home in the sky, since you failed to satisfy my challenge.

Artus was on his feet now. “If those are my only choices, I will take your test,” he said firmly.

Ubtao paused and ran a hand through his beard. So be it.

The small circle of light expanded, blinding Artus for a moment. When he could see again, he looked out across an endless field of glossy black stone. A star-filled sky, silver tears on a vast canvas of velvet, stretched overhead. Gently the starlight rained down upon the field. Artus felt the radiance wash over him like cool rain. The nagging pain in his shoulder vanished, as did the ache of the myriad other small wounds he’d gained on the expedition.

The silver light swept across the stone. Wherever it touched, it left a complex pattern of lines and angles and curves. Artus saw shapes emerge from the jumble—a book, the partly unraveled scroll that symbolized Oghma, the crest of the Scribes’ Guild of Cormyr, Pontifax’s badge of honor from the crusade. These glowed a little more brightly than the rest of the maze, but their fight was like a candle to the sun compared to two other shapes Artus could discern before him.

A simple circle dominated the center of the pattern, within it the harp and moon symbol of the Harpers—at least, an incomplete version of the Harpers’ symbol.

The world is a labyrinth, and the true followers of Ubtao know the pattern that represents their life. When they die, they must recreate that maze, spell out their past for me. This time there was no avatar to give a face to the voice inside Artus’s head. To be a paladin of Ubtao, a bara of Mezro, you must know more. You must complete the maze long before you die, look ahead to the pattern that will be your life in the years and decades to come.

The explorer felt his heart sink. No wonder there were so few barae chosen; who could look out over his past and divine his future so accurately? Sanda, obviously. And Rayburton. And all the other barae.

Setting his jaw in grim determination, Artus kneeled and ran a finger along a smooth curve. Thankfully there were some recognizable patterns in the riot of silver, some unfinished symbols he could easily complete. Best to start there, at the obvious. Maybe the rest would fall into place after that.

When he took his finger away from the floor, it was coated in Stardust. The line he had been touching remained unchanged, but the radiance clung stubbornly to him. He curled the finger into his palm and made his way to the pattern’s center.

“The first thing to do is draw a line across the Harpers’ symbol,” Artus whispered. “There’s certainly no need to finish it.” His voice sounded hollow and small on the silent plain.