Villains by Necessity (52 page)

The spell of Seeking was in four parts. Valerie bound the first quickly, and rather incautiously; it was the ward around the caster's mind and body that shielded from mind or magic while the spell was in progress. She bound her mind with a loose mental tripwire, more energyconserving than the full wards, and began the second part of the spell.

This magic was to free her consciousness from her body, similar to what Kaylana had done in reaching out to call the stampede. A difficult task, as living beings were usually very concerned with keeping the body and soul together, and much patient meditation had to be done before the spirit could detach. Valerie was out of practice; it took her over half an hour just to relax enough for her mind to begin to slide free, loose and numb in the astral wind. She had long since lost track of where she was or her surroundings, but she could now feel an openness about her, similar to the way Sam felt when the shadows parted for him. The dark bowl of water filled her vision, engulfed it in its swirling shadows. She was ready.

The third part of the spell was second in importance.

This was where the location of the sought object would be determined. Valerie concentrated on the Druid, trying to remember everything she could; it was difficult, she'd never paid much attention to the backwoods female, since she was obviously fairly harmless for all her Druidic power. Red hair, yes, green eyes, taller than herself, the dun robes, the imperious voice.

Confused images swirled, her vision wavered wildly across the edges of reality. She began to get angry, then calmed herself. Anger was dangerous at this stage. She must remain calm, retain her concentration. Perhaps she should try a different tack. Instead of seeking the Druid's physical body, Valerie now sought the distinctive pattern of her aura. The only aura in the world with the strange, gyroscopic spinning of a soul struggling for utter balance.

The villains in the real world of crickets and a soft wind watched from a safe distance. It seemed to Arcie, the roost intent watcher, that the water in the bowl was moving and shifting and changing, although the sorceress's fingers were still.

The response was instant. A whirling green-brown light was easily resolved into the shape of the Druid. She leaned against a rough stone wall, chained perhaps, very still. Her staff was nowhere to be seen. The image flickered with a faint red-gold light that seemed to shift and flux. Now, to pull out, to back up the distance to see the location...

But her astral vision suddenly began to be crowded. As she focused, the picture was interwoven with thousands of indistinct forms, swirling and screaming an endless ancient agony; not ghosts, but the psychic impression of great pain and death so strong that it was burned into the rocks. The confusion sent her reeling back and she faltered, her imperfect concentration shaking-twists and warps of tunnels and stairs and more and more shades of ancient life and death, dwarves and humans and above all the shrill, screaming death-cry of an evil dragon.

Valerie managed to gather in the reins of her sanity and consciousness. She was drifting in the darkness, instinct having pulled her away from the vision. What now, she wondered. She felt confused, and faltered, beginning to lose herself...

A distant pain startled her awake, and she looked. A ghostly raven hovered before her, flapping indistinct wings. It flew a short distance, then returned, drawing her forward.

With Nightshade's help she slowly returned to her senses and was able to begin the most important part of the spell-the ending that would bring her spirit back to her body. If it were not for Nightshade's soul-link, she might have been lost forever... She slowly pulled herself together, locked her spirit back in her body as she felt Nightshade return to his, and opened her eyes.

"I know where she is," she stated flatly. Her body ached from being still so long, and the wind ruffled her short hair as she poured the flat, dead water out.

"Where? Where? Where!?" demanded Sam, running over.

"You aren't going to like this," said Valerie, standing.

"It doesn't matter! Where?" The others were watching him, Arcie with leering amusement, Robin with his usual confusion, and Blackmail as calm as ever. Sam managed to control himself and look cool and dignified again.

"She is in Putak-Azum," reported Valerie.

There was dead silence. Then Sam spoke up.

"You're right. I don't like it."

"Putak-Azum?" asked Robin. "Where the Heroes searched for and found the fabled Necklace of Calaina?

Putak-Azum, the lair of the dark dragon Kazikuckia and her hordes of evil reptile-men?"

"The same, centaur ... except the Necklace is long gone, Kazikuckia was slain, as you may recall, by the Heroes, and all the reptile-men were defeated with the aid of the Dwarven folk of the mountains. The place is little more than a dusty wreck by now, I should imagine," Valerie said, looking thoughtful.

"Well, if it's got another dragon now, a pinky-gold one for example, I'm all for visiting it," replied Sam, balancing one of his daggers on his fingertip. Blackmail nodded in agreement.. "Where do we get in?"

"There is only one entrance, besides the dragon's way," explained Valerie. "The doorway lies in the wall below the Giant's Crag, according to legend."

"Only one way in, hmm?" said Sam, thoughtfully sheathing his dagger. "I don't like the sound of that.

What's the dragon's way?"

"A cave in the side of one of the pinnacles, above a thousand-foot vertical climb with an overhang of polished granite two hundred yards long," replied the sorceress.

Sam tried to look cool and pensive.

"Well," he said at last, "I could make it, but I imagine the rest of you might have a hard time. All right, the front door it is then."

"Hear, thank you so very much kindly," replied Arcie, with more than a trace of sarcasm. They gathered themselves together and began the long march to the crossing.

"Besides," said Robin, picking his way carefully so as not to trip his hooves on anything in the dimness, "how can it be a trap? No one knows we're here." I've told a lie, he thought to himself, with a touch of pride. Maybe he was cut out for this spy business. Now all that would remain would be theft, to steal a Segment...

The journey took several days. What was a brief flight for a dragon was a long walk for humans and a centaur. The channel between Ein and Sei'cks was quite narrow, and they boarded a ferry at the small city that flourished at this vital nexus. The flat countryside vanished abruptly as they turned inland into Ein; after but a few miles of farmland the great jagged Svergald Mountains reared up from the landscape, their peaks black and foreboding in the twilight in which the villains traveled.

Sam was reminded of the myths surrounding the creation of the Six Lands: from all the other continents on the world, the gods had taken huge chunks and lumped them together and tossed them into the sea in a rough ring. The Six Lands were the most magical of all the world and were woven through with some sense of cosmic importance; if anything vital happened, it would happen somewhere in the Six Lands. One last Test, less than a month until the end, for good or evil. Sam smiled wryly at the idea. Good and Evil! He no longer knew what to think about the words anymore.

To the south, across a wide sea, was the lazy, foolish land of Dous, his birthplace and where this had all started. He found himself missing his tiny, cramped room in the abandoned Guild, the cool wine served in the Frothing Otter, the twisty rolls that the vendors would sell on Jasper's Feast, to honor the patron Hero who had been of a slightly sneaky nature himself... probably why Arcie and I managed to last that long there, he thought.

And Kimi, too, had still retained her mind. Sam looked at the remains of his tunic, cut in the same style as the one Jasper had worn all through the War ... almost as ragged too. What would the Wilderkin Hero do, he wondered, were he alive today? What if he had survived after the War, and become Lord Mayor as they had wanted him too? Would his descendants chase us with horns and hounds?

A lot of organization is needed to move an army around, especially when the terrain is as inhospitable as most of Ein. Tasmene did not have Fenwick's luxury of a stable of mages to help his troop movements. But with stout Northerman guides and much patience, they slowly made their way to the eastern borders of Ein. The only true wizard in Tasmene's employ was his brother, a bluerobe named Tesubar who had accompanied his brother on many adventures, and been changed in the process.

Some of his experiences had begun to darken him, but Mizzamir's intercession at the request of Tasmene had left Tesubar with nothing worse than a slight irritability and a tendency, when under stress, to speak with a harsh rasp to his voice.

Tesubar was accompanying his brother now, and using his mental magic to scout the way ahead. It was while drifting in this ethereal state some days ago that his mind brushed against the edges of another, so dark and evil he withdrew, unseen, and had watched in magical silence as the other hand searched, searched for something ... And then, days later, he sent his own mind out to search for that one again, and found a surprise.

Too haughty to divulge his reasons to his brother and the stupid grunt fighters of the army, Tesubar steered them in the right direction for his purposes, and then, one night as they camped on a high plateau, the mage scornfully separated himself and his brother from the bawdy campfire singing of the ranks. He drew Tasmene aside to the edge of the plateau, where the setting sun cast stark shadows into the valley below.

"What is it, Tesubar?" asked Tasmene, as they came away. "Having another one of your insights?"

"No more insight than intelligence, brother," said Tesubar softly, drawing his blue robes close about him.

"Prince Fenwick is a fine woodsman, but he is a fool to think he can track a Nathauan like a rabbit. If we had continued as he would have us, we should have passed by our target, and been left sitting with the Verdant Company in the middle of empty plains."

"Thunderbolts! I'd thought we were heading in a rather odd direction!" exclaimed Tasmene, rubbing his brow. "We are near Putak-Azum, aren't we? Why ever in the name of Cror did you bring us this way?"

"Because, brother," sighed Tesubar, "our quarry even now prepares to enter into the vaults of Putak-Azum. It is my opinion that, odd as it may seem, they wish to rescue the Druid captured by Prince Fenwick's foolish pink dragon."

Much long travel had brought them deep into the stony heart of Ein. Valerie had saved them much time by locating and navigating old abandoned Dwarven mining trails and the occasional brief tunnel through a cliffside. Robin was a constant liability, either shivering in terror of the heights of mountain trails, or cringing and gasping in claustrophobic tunnels. Fortunately, neither of these proved to last long, and the occasional sharp word from one of the villains would terrify the minstrel into continuing.

He kept up a running string of melodies on his harp.

For a long time after, the sound of a harp would bring back memories to Arcie of the torchlight flickering on stone walls, and the centaur's shadow playing and jiggering to the echoing notes, all combined with the terrified reek of horse sweat.

Robin was slowly working his way through his entire repertoire of songs, ballads, jigs, reels, canticles, lays, poems, and poseys, about one quarter of which were the older songs. These were played rather haltingly; he seldom bothered to practice them, and forgot most of the words. The other three-quarters, which he could sing clearly and well despite his shaky voice, were various odes of the Heroes, or songs of the War or the Victory.

It was during one of these latter ballads that a certain phrase caught Sam's attention. Robin sang,

Said, For it must be t'run to back, On this evil-fated day, And Tamarne marched into the storm, To where, he would not say, Hows then they found him, Blinded in the flood, Gone from his eyes was the shining Of Cror's divinest blood.

"Robin," he asked, stopping the centaur as he was about to blast through the chorus, "what's that ballad about?"

"Why, it's Tamarne's Gift,' didn't you know? I'd thought everyone would know that, it's a very popular one, especially down in the Commots, why ..." stammered Robin, trying to keep his mind off the close passage around them.

"Surely it don't matter, Sam?" complained Arcie, concerned lest the break in the centaur's concentration would send Robin fainting again.

"Tell me, what is it about?" Sam pressed. "I'm afraid I've never been an extended visitor to the Commots ..."

"Well, um, of course, you know, the Hero Tamarne was half-god, you know, son of Cror, god of thunder?"

Robin whickered, his ears flicking.

"I'd heard that, but wasn't sure it was true ..."

"Oh yes, Tamarne could call the lightning from the skies and he was promised immortality and he could fight like the great god himself," recounted Robin. "And yet at the darkest point in the War he bargained with the gods that if they would save his companions from death at the hands of the Dark Lord, he would give up his right to the immortal blood. And so the gods took his powers and saved his friends, and that's why Tamarne is dead now instead of ruling on forever, as Mizzamir does."

"Mizzamir isn't half-god, is he?" Sam asked, concerned.

Robin shook his head, nervously twanging the strings on his harp.

"No, but he is an Elf... they live forever, most people say" Robin burst back into another ballad, "The Hawk Lord."

Unless somebody kills them, Sam thought. But he was also thinking of Robin's ballad. The centaur, like most minstrels, had almost certainly learned most of his repertoire from listening to others' songs, and memorizing the words.. He'd probably seen very few of them ever written down, and a slur here, a foreign accent there... T'run to back... T'krungtabak?

At last they had come into a valley and before them loomed a mountain too proud and huge to be part of any common range. Immense and haughty, it was a range all to itself. Clouds wisped about its peak in the twilight, and plateaus and crags grouped in the distance all around it, as though paying homage. Near the peak, a faint jag could be seen in the profile: the two-hundred-yard overhang outside the ancient Dragon's cave. This was Putak-Azum.