Wizardborn (25 page)

—
From
Accounts of the Sky Lords
by Sir Garion Gundell

By noon Baron Beckhurst had traveled far west beyond the Red Stag inn. He rode as if in a dream, neither awake nor asleep. Though he rode a mount, if he closed his eyes he could almost sense that he was flying. He knew what it would feel like to have wings, to feel the air yielding beneath the sweep of his pinions.

As a child it had been his favorite fantasy, one that kept him awake long into the night. Now, he felt as if his dreams were on the verge of becoming reality.

Everywhere, if he listened, he could hear the voice of the wind. It rustled the dry grasses in the field, and whispered among dying leaves. It spoke eloquently in the flapping of a crow's wing, or in a pennant snapping above an inn.

“One deed,” the voice whispered. “Kill Queen Sylvarresta, and you shall fly.”

At a crossroads two hundred miles south of Carris, he stopped in the shadows of some old silver birches that leaned precariously in the sandy soil by a river.

A flock of starlings zigzagged down the river in a cloud, and filled a dead tree so close by that Beckhurst thought almost that he could ride up and touch them. In one moment, the tree was naked and dead, and in the next moment the birds clothed every limb as if they were leaves. They kept up a raucous chorus, flitted up from the tree, circled and returned.

A single starling burst from the flock, flew up and settled on the point of Beckhurst's lance. It cocked its head to the side and gazed down at him. It blinked, its dark eyes looking wiser than an animal should.

“Bless my lance, Great sky Lord,” Beckhurst murmured.

Beckhurst let his horse dip its head for a drink of water. The starling winged away.

The dry leaves above him rustled like paper as they struck one another. A dazzling golden light played over the fields to the north.

Presently, two knights rode up from the south and joined him. A driving wind came with them, scattering leaves in their wake, raising dust beneath the hooves of their mounts, whipping their capes and the manes of their terrified horses.

Both were big men, like Beckhurst himself. Both bore shields and lances. Both had stormy gray eyes. None of them spoke when they met. They all just sat on their mounts, letting them drink, as if awaiting a signal. A gust circled them like an invisible beast, stopping to pace this way and that.

Suddenly, Beckhurst raised his nose. He tasted a delicate perfume, as if a fine lady had just passed by in a closed room.

“The queen can't be far now,” one knight said. “A couple of hours more.”

“Come the draught, come the storm,” Beckhurst whispered, as if in prayer.

A blast shuddered around them, stripping leaves from the birches and roaring like a wounded bear. The horses staggered back, eyes showing white and ears thrust forward in alarm.

As one, the knights spurred their chargers northward, following the scent.

   18   

Beware the traders of Indhopal. They will sell their own mothers quicker than they will sell you a good horse.

—Adage taught in the Room of Gold

Gaborn left Carris with a heavy heart. He could sense danger to tens of thousands of the people in the city. So he ordered his father's Wits to remain there with Paldane's Chamberlain, Lord Gallentine, to aid in evacuating the city, and asked them to bolster its defenses as best they could. He kept only one of the Wits at his side, the faithful old Jerimas.

After Gaborn left Carris, scouts fanned out, searching among the dead reavers. It was entirely possible that the Waymaker that Gaborn sought had met its fate during the night, along with so many other reavers. Finding it might not be hard, if it was dead. Few reavers had thirty-six philia on their heads. It was a rare trait—perhaps one in five hundred. Fewer still would be large males with large forepaws.

The scouts inspected the field but found no reavers at all that matched Averan's description.

A mile south of Carris, Gaborn halted his troops to investigate a strange circumstance. The reavers had dug some wide trenches here that wove about in a braided design. Water from Lake Donnestgree had flooded the muddy banks of the concourse, and the waterway extended inland in a broad bow for nearly a mile. The trenches themselves looked to be four feet deep—rather shallow by reaver standards.

The curious thing was the smell. The water gave off a horrible stink, like that he'd smelled at some geysers, and any fish that had swum into the concourse from the lake now floated belly-up in the reeking trench.

Iome took a perfumed handkerchief from her riding cloak, held it over her nose.

“What is this?” Gaborn asked as he gazed down into the water. “Is this a reaver's version of the jacks?”

“I think not,” Jerimas said. “It smells of sulfur.”

Gaborn was not surprised when the answer came from Averan. “It's not the jacks. It's their drinking water.”

Gaborn glanced at the child, who was mounted double with Binnesman, to see if she was joking.

“Reavers drink?” Jerimas asked. “Popular wisdom has held for centuries that reavers, like desert mice, do not need water, but take all their fluid from their prey.”

“Of course they drink.” Averan scrunched her eyebrows. “The fell mage was terribly thirsty when she died. Look in the water. You'll find big yellow stones. The reavers carried them here and threw them in, so that they would melt. There is no fresh water down where they come from, just water like this.”

Gaborn had seldom considered what the conditions in the Underworld might be like, down so deep where the reavers lived. Few men had ever dared make that perilous journey. But he could see one of the yellow stones now. He made a mental note: I'll need to take fresh water.

“What more can you tell us?” Gaborn said. “What were the reavers going to do with that tower?”

He pointed out a huge section of tower, like a twisted narwhale's horn. But Averan only shook her head. “I think it's part of a building. I don't know everything.”

As they were thus occupied, Jureem rode up in company with a fellow countryman of obvious importance. He was an elderly man, with a back that looked to be permanently stooped from years of bowing to his master. His face was leathery and tough as camel hide, with the exception of the baggy folds beneath his eyes. His long hair was still black
with streaks of silver. He had his head cocked slightly, listening with his right ear.

He rode proudly on a gray force horse. Across the pommel of his saddle was a staff of sandalwood, carved in the shape of a cobra. As he neared, even at a distance of twenty feet, the kaifba smelled strongly of garlic and olive oil.

“Milord,” Jureem said as he drew close. “I present Kaifba Feykaald, High Chancellor to Raj Ahten, Lord of Indhopal.”

“At your service,” Feykaald said. He spoke with only a hint of accent. With his straggling teeth, the gnarly bones of his knuckles, and his intense gaze, he seemed to Gaborn to be a spidery thing, the very embodiment of evil. His pupils were dilated widely, and Gaborn could detect the bitter scent of opium poppies.

“You honor us,” Gaborn said. “What brings you to me?”

“Eh?” Feykaald asked, cocking his head. Gaborn repeated the question.

“I have come to beg your aid,” Feykaald said. He handed a gilded message case to Gaborn. “In the mountains this morning, Raj Ahten received this warning. Reavers have attacked the blood-metal mines in Kartish. By now they are well entrenched. An enormous reaver leads them—the very Lord of the Underworld.”

The news made Gaborn's heart hammer. Could it be possible? No man had ever seen the legendary Lord of the Underworld, and thus no one could say with certainty what she would look like. Would the Lord of the Underworld herself march against Kartish? He doubted it. He'd sought communion with the Earth, and felt drawn to the Place of Bones, and Averan had confirmed his suspicions that he would find the reaver lord there.

Gaborn studied Feykaald's movements. He spoke almost casually of the problem, as if it were a small matter. He was like a trader who sought to lure a buyer into a poor bargain. Gaborn immediately sensed a trap.

“I warned Raj Ahten of this myself. He did not believe me. Does he really dare hope that I would help him now?”

Feykaald's lower lip trembled, as if he'd held great hopes, and feared that Gaborn would dash them. “He… does not know that I have come to you. The situation is very grave. Raj Ahten rides to Kartish, but I suspect he will arrive too late. More than that, I fear that he will not be able to dislodge our enemy.”

“You speak of what
you
think. What does Raj Ahten think?”

Feykaald looked down. “He thinks … that the sun and moon revolve around him. He thinks that all men are less than dust beneath his feet. He imagines that he can defeat the reavers himself. But I know he is mistaken. He does not have your powers.”

“I can offer no support,” Gaborn said, “without your master's agreement.”

“Please,” Feykaald said. “I do not ask for Raj Ahten, or even for myself. I ask for my people.”

Gaborn countered, “I will not take an army into a realm where they are not invited, to fight beside a lord who will not assure me a truce. Raj Ahten has broken faith with me before. He would do so again.”

“There are children in Indhopal, O Great One,” Feykaald said. He spoke too loudly. He bowed his head and folded his hands before his eyes, in an attitude of supplication. “They are brown, but otherwise they are children like your children. They laugh like your children. They weep like your children. They hunger and bleed like your children. And like your children, they, too, dream that an Earth King will appear in their most desperate hour. If you will not show mercy to our men and women, at least you must show mercy to our children.”

Gaborn shook his head. He suspected that Feykaald stood against him despite his protestations. His Earth senses warned of danger should he go. Yet he also knew what he'd witnessed through Binnesman's Seer Stones two days past. He'd seen the reavers rising in Kartish. The situation there would be grimmer even than what he'd found in Carris.

Feykaald sought to lure him to Kartish for reasons of his own. Gaborn doubted that Feykaald could guess how deeply he wished to help.

But the Earth had bade him find the Place of Bones.

“I cannot send my army,” Gaborn said.

Feykaald glanced toward Jureem as if seeking his intercession. He begged, “Salaam,” peace, and bowed deeply.

By asking for peace, he suggested that Gaborn might take offense at his next words, and begged him to remain calm.

“Peace,” Gaborn answered.

“Hear me: one small favor I beg. It should not displease you.”

“What is it?”

“There are Invincibles in your camp, men who rode from Indhopal. Three or four hundred survive. I beg you: if you will not send your own men, at least send these.”

Gaborn considered, felt a sense of foreboding. The Earth warned him that if he did send these men, they would die. Whether death would come at the hands of the reavers or of Raj Ahten himself, Gaborn could not know. “No. I cannot allow it.”