The Sword of the South - eARC (60 page)

No one did, and Wencit led them unhesitatingly, lighting fresh torches at need. Their flames torch fumed, trailing acrid smoke, and side passages opened at ragged intervals, but he never hesitated. Some of those passages gave on mineral-crusted galleries where the torchlight touched flowers of rock into glowing webs, but such flashes of beauty were rare.

Half a mile from its start, the passage opened into a huge cave. Water fretted and foamed through fissures in one wall, plunging fifteen feet into a rippling pool forever beyond reach of the sun. The rush and plunge of water generated the breeze which had blown into their face on the way in, and the sound of it filled the cavern with a ceaseless, eternal murmur. Stalactites and stalagmites flashed gleaming fangs at the torch, and the floor was coated in fine, liquid mud. Wencit held his torch high and grinned as Bahzell struggled through the narrow slit of an opening into the cave.

“Well, Mountain!” His voice echoed weirdly. “It seems size isn’t always an advantage.”

“Aye, and it’s after making my clothes cost more, too.” Bahzell dabbed at a deep scratch on one cheek. “So how much longer is it, this worm warren of yours?”

“The ‘worm warren’ is over. From here on the passages will be wider and higher. I warn you, though; don’t drink from any water we pass along the way. It’s tainted by the power of the thing we’ve come for.”

“You’re hunting something
that
evil?” Chernion asked, startled.

“Not evil, Border Warden—only powerful. The art is neither good nor evil in and of itself; it’s the use to which it’s put which makes it black or white. What we’ve come for was never a thing of the Dark, yet the power radiating from it could blow out your life like a thought.”

“I dislike dealing with wizardry that powerful,” she said softly.

“Sometimes we have no choice…Border Warden.”

She flashed him a daggered look and then fumbled for her water bottle. The act was contagious, and Kenhodan unstoppered his own. It tasted flat, but he preferred its stale taste to the poison of the fresh pool.

Wencit let them rest briefly before he led them across the cave. His companions followed, slipping occasionally on the skim of slickness underfoot, then stopped dead behind him and stared wonderingly at their further path, for this was no natural tunnel.

It was a tube, its round walls glass smooth, and the torchlight reflected from polished black stone like an ebon mirror. The tunnel bored sword-straight into the hill, and runes no one had used in over a thousand years crawled across its lintel. They were deep-cut and black in the torchlight.

“What does
that
say?” Chernion asked edgily, but Wencit didn’t answer. Another voice spoke instead, low and soft, almost dreamy against the cavern’s water-rustling sounds, and yet crystal clear.

“Wizard wrought by wizard taught,

This gate to death and birth.

The dark road runs through bloody earth

Where future’s past is locked.”

Chernion and Bahzell stared at Kenhodan in amazement, and only then did he realize who’d spoken. He blinked and shook his head, and the memory of what he’d said fled.

“How did you know that?” Chernion asked softly.

“I-I don’t know,” he said, his green eyes wondering. “But that’s what it says, even if I don’t have a clue what it means.”

“If it so happened you
did
have a clue, it’s worried about your sanity I’d be!” Bahzell said. “It’s little enough
I’ve
understood about this whole Tomanāk-forsaken trip! Wencit?”

“Kenhodan’s translation is correct,” the wizard said.

“And that’s all you’ll be saying about it, you vise-lipped old faker?”

“Yes.”

“Thought so.” Bahzell sounded morosely pleased by the response. “Well, I’ve no doubt at all, at all, as how all will become clear in time—assuming we’re after living so long—but anyone as might expect explanations from you has more faith in miracles than I! I trust you, but I’ve given over pumping you for information.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed how patient you’ve been for this entire journey, but I simply put it down to the slowing effect of old age.”

“Old age, is it?!” Bahzell laughed and slapped Wencit’s shoulders so hard he knocked the wizard several steps sideways. “I’d not be so quick to be throwing those two words around anywhere as Leeana might be hearing them!”

Wencit grinned at him and made shooing notions with his free hand until the group fell back into formation. Then he stepped under the carven lintel and his torchlight licked ahead into the passage.

Chernion moved up beside Kenhodan as the passage tightened, and the torchlight flowed redly over her face, sparking off the badge on her beret. It fumed and guttered from the mirrored walls, throwing its light down the passage in a spill of blood and ebony that dazzled the eye. Kenhodan had room to sling his bow once more, but he strung it instead, for the reflected light glittered and bounced as much as fifty yards ahead and offered the possibility of shooting if they met something.
When
they met something, he corrected himself grimly.

Yet despite the wider tunnel, they actually moved more slowly. Wencit stopped every few yards to feel for trap spells or other sorcery, and Kenhodan watched him wonderingly. Clearly this passage had been carved by sorcery, and if Wulfra knew nothing about it, then someone besides the baroness must have made it. And, given the hidden highway through the Scarth Wood and the shield protecting the cave in which they’d rested, he had a pretty shrewd idea who that “someone” might have been, but how could even Wencit have guessed such elaborate preparations would someday be necessary?

The tunnel offered no answers. There were no turns or side openings, as if its creator had had no time for frills or decorations. Even the breeze of the outer passages had vanished, and the air was heavy with years, though there was no dust. Kenhodan smiled at that thought. It would take a hardy-soled speck of dust to venture into
this
passage!

He lost track of how far they’d come. The coiled tension, briefly relieved by the byplay between Wencit and Bahzell, flooded back and clamped him in a vise of expectancy that tightened inexorably until he longed for something to break its grip, and his mind wandered back to the inscription. It was baffling enough that he’d been able to read it, but what did it
mean?
It smacked of yet more hidden meanings, and the last thing he needed was mysterious messages he had no idea how to decipher.

His contemplations slithered to a halt as Wencit suddenly stopped before a blank wall. It sealed the passage with the same glossy blackness, reflecting the torch in a long spill of blood until they were surrounded on all sides by the glare. Light bounced off the end wall, the sidewalls, the roof and floor, eating their shadows, and Wencit turned to face them.

“This is where the danger truly begins,” he said simply. “The maze is beyond this wall, and I can’t open the way without using the art. When I do, Wulfra will know we’re here. The maze’s nature confuses scrying, but she’ll know roughly where we are, and she’ll throw everything she has at us. Are you ready?”

“That’s a stupid question for someone who’s supposed to be such a mighty wizard!” Chernion snapped. “How
could
we be ‘ready’? But we’re as close
to
it as we’re going to be, I suppose!

“Elrytha’s after speaking for all of us,” Bahzell rumbled. “But I’m hopeful as there’s no need to be going further with weapons sheathed?”

Wencit shook his head, and steel scraped as the hradani drew both sword and hook knife.

“What does this open into, Wencit?” Kenhodan asked as he handed his bow and quiver to Chernion and drew his own sword.

“A cross passage of equal width.”

“Which way should we go when we get through?”

“To the right.”

“All right. As soon as it’s open, Bahzell, you go left and I’ll go right. Wencit, you stay behind me from here, and Elrytha will cover you.”

Heads nodded, and Wencit hid a smile despite his tension as Kenhodan assumed complete command. Even the wizard must yield in the end, it seemed.

He pushed the thought aside and handed Chernion the torch. She took it gingerly, and her eyes widened as raised his hands to lay them against the stone and his fingers sank into the rock past the knuckles. His brow furrowed with concentration, and brilliant fire washed from his eyes to lick the wall and flare back down the passage. It threw his silver hair into sharp, gleaming relief, and Kenhodan raised his dagger hand to shield his vision against the fierce glare, staring slit-eyed as the light burned savagely.

Wind burst back from the wall in a heated storm that whipped hair and clothing. Wencit leaned into the wall, and the brilliance engulfed him, gusting and glaring and all the more frightening for the utter silence of the violence mirrored in the glossy black walls about them. They were trapped at the heart of a seething cocoon of reflected fire, and their skins prickled as the power crackled.

Silver streaks burned up out of the stone, radiating in a jagged web from the incandescence of Wencit’s hands. They veined the stone with white fire, like a web of lightning, and a hissing roar arose at last as steam and the sharp smell of molten rock billowed all about them. The silver lines flared, and Wencit’s voice was a shout.

“
Toren ahm laurick! Enlop ef Toren!
”

Kenhodan cringed at the violence of the wizard’s cry, but its thunder was swallowed without trace in a sudden tortured scream of stone. The silver lines pulsed once, twice, three times—each beat more brilliant than the last—and the wall shattered, spitting out stone shards in a cloud of steam and dust.

Kenhodan bent his head instinctively, gasping as bits of rock pelted his bowed back and mailed shoulders. More of it flew past him and clattered down the tunnel behind him, but he vast bulk of it blew outward, away from the wizard, and Kenhodan straightened, blinking as the brilliance faded to purple and red afterimages. Then he leapt through the dust, coughing harshly, and landed in a crouch, facing up the passage they must follow. Boots clattered on stone as Bahzell charged through to face the other direction.

“Nothing.” The hradani’s voice was low and his sword gleamed in the torchlight. Chernion passed the torch back to Wencit, nocked an arrow, and followed Bahzell. She couldn’t draw Kenhodan’s bow as far as he could, but she could bend it far enough to be deadly.

“They’ll be along shortly,” Wencit said softly.

“My thanks for the encouragement,” Bahzell rumbled.

“Think nothing of it. They may come from either direction, too.”

“Lovely. Well, Kenhodan?”

“We may as well meet them coming as going. Let’s move.” He started down the corridor at a rapid trot, his companions following close behind him. “How far is it, Wencit?”

“Allowing for the need to follow the maze, perhaps a league.”

“Phrobus!” Bahzell muttered. “Would it happen as there are any good inns along the way?”

“Use your breath for running, Bloody Hand,” Chernion advised grimly.

“Sound advice,” Wencit agreed. “But be ready to stop if I shout. I smell the stink of spells ahead.”

“Better and better!” Bahzell chuckled.

Kenhodan glanced back and smiled despite his tension. The faint blue nimbus he’d seen around the hradani in the battle against the black dragon surrounded him now, yet that wasn’t what made him smile. No, Bahzell not only matched their pace but did it trotting backwards without ever once looking over his shoulder at the rest of his companions. His eyes never wavered from the rear, and his sword made little swinging motions, impatient for something to cleave.

All in all, Kenhodan was more than content to leave the rearguard to him.

“There’s a three-way split up ahead,” Wencit warned. “Bear left.”

“Left,” Kenhodan muttered in response and went scurrying ahead, alert for attackers and wondering where they were. Well, there was plenty of time for Wulfra’s guards to turn up if they had three miles to go, he thought sourly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Swords in the Maze

Wencit’s spell exploded in Wulfra’s brain. The arcane concussion of the disintegrating wall literally blew her out of her chair, and she crawled to her crystal on hands and knees, gabbling out the activating phrase.

It took her five minutes to find the shattered stone in the maze wall, and she cursed vilely as she spied the unsuspected tunnel through which her defenses had been breached. She was cut off from her guardsmen in the castle; only the summoned creatures on her side of the tunnel could be used, and even her trap spells lay at the maze’s known entry! She’d never expected an invasion into the heart of the tunnels, but she shook off the disbelieving shock which threatened to paralyze her and crouched over her glowing stone, sweating palms glued to it, and sent out orders to marshal her scattered servants for battle.

* * *

Thousands of leagues away, a cat-eyed wizard lurched to his feet in the heart of Kontovar, jarred to the marrow by the same arcane shockwave, for this was no wand spell. Wencit had triggered a massive blast of wild magic…one which had lain hidden for over a millennium, and its echoes shook every wizard of both continents.

A quick gesture woke his stone, and he peered into it, perceiving Wulfra as she hunched over her own crystal. Another sweep showed the broken wall, and like Wulfra, he cursed at sight of the secret entrance, and then cursed more savagely still as the implications seared him.

The tunnels themselves had been carved by wand wizardry; every test the cat-eyed wizard had applied had proved that, yet Wencit had used a spell which could have been left only by the maze’s maker…and it had been wild magic. No sorcerer would have used wild magic for such a task even if he could, have. It was like cracking an egg with a battleaxe! Yet one huge advantage for a
wild wizard
was that not only could only a wild wizard trigger such a spell, but few wand wizards would ever notice it, however diligently they searched. That made it the perfect application for a working which must lay hidden for decades—or longer—yet be instantly ready to the hand of anyone who knew where it waited. Yet it could be used only
by
a wild wizard…and there’d been only one of them since the Fall of Kontovar. That meant
Wencit
had built the maze—not Chelthys of Garoth—and also that he’d placed the sword there
himself!

The cat-eyed wizard fought to track his foe through the confusing echoes of wild magic filling the maze. It verged on the impossible, but he didn’t head the Council of Carnadosa for nothing. Even from thousands upon thousands of miles away, he found him, and Wencit’s presence blazed in his crystal like a torch as the old man readied his art for battle.

“The Trident!” the cat-eyed wizard grated to Wulfra. “It’s the Trident!”

The sorceress nodded, her white face intent as she ordered her forces into position, and he backed quickly out of her crystal. He must not distract her…and he needed time to calm his own gibbering thoughts.

If it Wencit had built the maze, why had he hidden the sword to begin with? Even in its broken state it could have done so much to aid the unity of the Norfressan refugees in the early days of Norfressa’s settlement. He could have set wards about its broken magic—wards which would have prevented the century after century of degradation which had snarled that magic so hopelessly not even Wencit would dare touch it directly in its present state—and handed it to Duke Kormak as yet another proof of Kormak’s legitimacy as heir to Emperor Toren’s authority in Norfressa. Instead, he’d hidden it in a hole in the ground, locked away but growing steadily more deadly, ever more impossible for
anyone
ever to control or contain once more. And if he’d hidden it, why wait thirteen centuries to reclaim it? For that matter, why reclaim it at all, when it was
useless
to him?

Worse yet, it was suddenly and blindingly obvious that he’d
known
he was being watched by the Council all along. Oh, it was still unlikely he’d been actively aware of the Carnadosans’ spying, but he’d clearly realized they were watching him far more of the time than they’d ever suspected he’d known. Why else had he demonstrated such amazement, focused so strongly on “examining” the sword and its surroundings, when he “accidentally discovered” it? He’d known it was there all along; his “discovery” and astonishment could only have been feigned for the spies he knew were watching him from afar!

The cat-eyed wizard’s fist slammed his gramerhain. Had he misjudged? With all the advantages on his side, had he blundered on such a colossal scale? It seemed likely, he thought grimly, and something which might have been fear in a lesser man whispered coldly in the marrow of his bones as he remembered all the other times black wizards had underestimated the subtlety of Wencit of Rūm. Many of those who’d thought they were cleverer than Wencit had paid a painful price for their error. Now he’d added himself to the list, and there was no saying how serious
his
mistake might prove.

* * *

Kenhodan sped through the triple intersection. The hilt of his sword was hard and reassuring in his hand, and his eyes probed for enemies.

“Watch for the second opening on your right!” Wencit called from behind him.

“Second right,” Kenhodan panted back. His eyes never stopped their sweeping search. Surely
something
had to be waiting for them?

* * *

It had seemed so reasonable to set her trap spells on the single maze entrance she knew about, but now she was caught in her own web, for Wencit was between her and the outer world and no spell barrier lay between them. She could depend only on her creatures, and more than half of
them
were behind him now! That knowledge was an icy dagger of panic at her core, but she fought it down and her lips drew back in a snarl equally compounded of fear and defiance. So Wencit knew a few secrets she didn’t? Very well! He hadn’t reached the sword yet, and by Carnadosa’s ebon eyes, he never would!

* * *

“There! The second right!” Wencit shouted.

“I see it.” Kenhodan replied. “But what’s that?”

His sword pointed to a shadow lurching towards him.

“A troll,” Wencit said. Then his voice flattened. “I beg your pardon—
three
trolls.”

“That’s what I thought,” Kenhodan said, and hurtled down the tunnel towards the hideous creatures.

* * *

Trolls had only two instincts: to feed and to reproduce. Their great strength, sorcerous vitality, and sharp talons were well suited to both purposes—nine feet tall and armored in scales, they were such as few creatures might choose to encounter, especially underground and at close quarters—yet they were not among the more brilliant servants of the Dark. These three served Wulfra, and they trembled in anticipation, fired by her rage and the sight of food, but they never paused to reflect that no other meal had ever run
towards
them. They only spread their arms eagerly to embrace the oncoming bounty as Kenhodan dashed straight at them.

Something within him recognized them as ancient enemies, and he snarled as he plunged into the foremost monster like an avalanche. Words hammered his throat and broke free in a battle cry he could neither remember nor recognize.

“
Shekarū, Herrik
!” he screamed, and his sword hissed.

Steel struck the troll’s right elbow, shearing hide like paper, and the joint burst with an echoing crack. The hideous forearm thudded gruesomely to the floor, and the wounded horror bellowed and clawed with its other arm.

Kenhodan ducked under the six-inch talons and darted inside to slam his sword into the monster’s left shoulder. The blow drove the troll to its knees and Kenhodan’s blade swept in to sever half the corded neck. Blood spurted in a stinking fan, but the unnatural monster refused to die. Instead, it surged back up, groping for its prey with both mangled arms and Kenhodan stepped back. His sword struck again, shearing through a double-jointed knee, and the troll staggered with another bellow of anguish. It fell, and as it did, Kenhodan hewed through the rest of its neck with a two-handed blow.

The creature went down and stayed down as even its vitality passed its limits, and Kenhodan recovered. He turned into the second monster as a hornet snarled by his ear and Chernion’s arrow buried itself to the feathers in the third troll’s throat. That creature paused to paw at the galling shaft, but Kenhodan barely noticed. He left the floor in a bound, sword extended before him, to slam two feet out of the back of his second opponent’s neck. The creature’s howl of rage and pain became a bubbling moan as the keen blade severed windpipe and spine alike. The nine-foot killing machine toppled with a dying slash, and Kenhodan dodged easily, turning on his heel to spin behind the last troll even as Chernion put a second arrow into its lungs. The monster screamed, clawing at the fletching, and Kenhodan’s sword smashed its spine.

The last troll crumpled, and Kenhodan stood in steaming blood, panting and feeling the ancient fury slink back into the caverns of his mind. His wet blade saluted the assassin, and he bowed to Wencit with a fierce grin.

“This way, I believe you said?” he panted.

“To be sure,” Wencit replied, and Kenhodan plunged ahead down the tunnel once more at a run.

The entire fight had taken less than a minute.

* * *

Wulfra pounded her crystal with both fists. What sort of allies had Wencit
found?!
She’d expected
Bahzell
to be a threat, dreaded the thought of confronting a champion of Tomanāk as well as Wencit, yet the hradani hadn’t even struck a blow!

She mastered her rage and jerked the crystal back to life. The trolls had been only one line of defense, and there were only a handful of routes through the maze; whichever he chose, Wencit had to pass through the Eye of the Needle. When he did, she would be ready.

* * *

Kenhodan pressed his back to the stone and wiped sweat from his eyes. The torchlight filled him with a sense of unreality, flashing from every mirrored surface to encase him in a ruby womb of fire while he panted.

He tried to reckon how far they’d come, but haste, fear, and the wavering light made it impossible to be certain. He thought it might be as much as a mile, and so far they’d met only the trolls, but it was only a matter of time before something worse turned up. He scrubbed his face and shook his head, tossing a fine spatter of sweat against the wall. Then he nodded to Wencit and Chernion and dashed on down the passage.

* * *

The cat-eyed wizard gnawed his lip and wondered if this was catastrophe or mere disaster. What did Wencit know about the sword that
he
didn’t? No one could possibly
use
it, even if it hadn’t been broken beyond repair. Yet it was glaringly evident Wencit had hidden it for precisely this moment—and made
damned
sure the Council of Carnadosa would be positive
he
wasn’t the one who’d done it—so he thought he
could
use sit somehow. But how?
How?!

His fingers drummed nervously on his thigh as he fought the temptation to intervene. It was almost overwhelming, but yielding to it could all too easily prove fatal. Unless he killed Wencit with his first blow, he would almost certainly be killed himself, and killing such as Wencit required preparation. He must be able to deliver the deathblow precisely on target with every ounce of power the Council could generate, and he could neither locate Wencit precisely with his wild magic echoing in the maze nor assemble the Council and browbeat it into risking everything on a single, desperation throw of the dice. Besides, if the old man had misdirected the Council—and the cat-eyed wizard himself—so completely in other things, it was entirely possible he’d hidden some other accursed working in the tunnels. Some working powerful enough to ward against a direct attack from Kontovar which lay concealed as the tunnel-opening spell had lain concealed, waiting only for him to wake it and turn it against anyone foolish enough to attack him from outside the maze itself. All the records suggested there
were
such workings, although no one in Kontovar could have created one—and hidden it beyond detection—these days. But as Wencit had just demonstrated, a wild wizard could accomplish things beyond the reach of any wand wizard, be that wizard ever so powerful and well trained.

No. Direct attack was out of the question—impossible. All that remained was the spell in the sword chamber, and as he contemplated the totality of his miscalculation he suspected the trap spell—like everything else Wencit had faced so far—would not be nearly enough.

* * *

“Stop!” Wencit’s shout halted them, and he stepped politely past a panting Chernion and raised his torch to peer ahead down the passage.

“W-What?” Kenhodan puffed.

“There’s a dangerous spot up ahead,” the wizard said softly.

“What a shame, when the rest of the trip’s been after being so pleasant and all!”

“Hush, Mountain!” Wencit continued to study the tunnel. “There are four ways through the maze from here, but all of them use this next bit. See the arch on the left?” Kenhodan nodded. “The passage narrows for perhaps fifty paces beyond that. It’s called ‘The Eye of the Needle,’ and if I were Wulfra, something extra nasty would be waiting just beyond it.”

“Any idea what?” Kenhodan asked, panting less heavily as he caught his breath.

“Her sorcery’s too thick for a good reading, but I’m certain something’s waiting.”

“I’ve got no sorcery at all, Wizard,” Chernion gasped, her breathing still harder and faster than Kenhodan’s, “but I don’t need any warnings from you to figure
that
much out!”

“True, Border Warden, but then we all have our own talents, don’t we?” Wencit tossed her a tight grin. “Just take care, Kenhodan.”

“I will.” Kenhodan pushed himself off the wall and dried his palms. “Watch my back, Elrytha.”

Chernion nodded sharply and exchanged bow for sword as Kenhodan glanced once along the tunnel before he ducked under the arch.

It was indeed far narrower. His body cut off the torchlight, and he moved cautiously, his left hand trailing along the wall while the tip of his blade preceded him. He was just as happy Bahzell was guarding their rear, no matter how comforting it might have been to have the hradani at his side. His friend could never have found fighting room in such cramped quarters, he thought as he counted paces along the narrow stone channel.