<u>2</u>
So, taking Marget’s big-knuckled hand, Miche levitated away from Gottshan. By himself, he tended to spiral when rising. Much less so, with a friend in tow. As for Nameless, that pest was halfway out of his cloak-hood lair; forepaws clenched tight to the elf’s right shoulder, masked little face to the wind, whiskers and fur rippling like wheat.
Gottshan dropped away beneath them, trapped in its final docking well, transparent shell catching and splitting the setting sun’s rays. Dark Cloud had fallen back a little, Miche noticed. No other choice, probably, with that implacable wall of staticky light bearing down like an axe-blade.
Well, <u>that</u> he could do something about, thought the elf. Gathering up the region’s sparse manna, he put some eastward slant into his climb. From a distance, the wall was a flickering, endless expanse of white light. Seen closer to, there were images in it of people, objects and places long vanished and stored.
Marget’s hand tightened on Miche’s. She hated flying, preferring nice, solid ground for its bracing and strength. Their altitude wasn’t what troubled her, though.
“I do not recall being taken, Old One,” she called out (yelling over the wind, though he could sort through its howl for her voice, well enough). “I had turned to face those who issued a challenge for mating, and we fought through the rise of a thunderstorm. Then the weather changed, <u>you</u> broke in, and two unworthy ones died.”
Miche nodded, slowing their rise to a gentle drift. The wind dropped, making it easier to speak. Up here, those streamers of rust were much less, and the light of the sun not so filtered and smeared. He answered the orc, saying,
“Your return gives me hope that this world’s missing places and folk have been recorded somehow, Meg. That we can still find them all.”
They hung in midair by that crackling and hissing static-wall, watching its cascade of symbols and images. There was a very strong force here. Not magic, exactly. Something else.
“Technology,” supplied Lord Erron. He was partly visible, thanks to the wall, looking brown-haired, blue-eyed and grim. “It is a sort of counter-magic developed by mortals, when manna started to fade. Very strong, especially when combined with our people’s sorcery.”
Miche nodded again, pulling a cylindrical memory-drive out of its pocket.
“This, then, is more technology?” he asked the hovering elf-ghost.
“It is. From around my time, I would say… but packed with more information than I’ve ever noted on such a device.”
…And that was important. Miche <u>knew</u> it… just couldn’t parse why. Not very clearly. Marget had been staring upward at a sky divided cleanly in half, seeing shimmering static on one side, and a sea of junked wreckage and blossoming night on the other.
“How far up does it go, think you, Vrol?” she wondered aloud.
“We’ll find out,” he promised her, squeezing the orc’s right hand. (Her glass-wood-and-mithral left was clamped to the haft of her axe.)
Drifting cautiously nearer, Miche stared at that tempest of coded data. There was depth to it, as things swam up from behind or sank in once again. Some of its whirling sigils were familiar. Others, entirely new. He memorized those in all four dimensions. (One never knew what might come in handy, later.) After that, he held out the powerful memory-drive. Touched its bright metal end to the static- wall’s surface and…
<u>Yes</u>, the wall recoiled; driven instantly, violently backward the way it had come, over three-hundred miles. But that wasn’t all. This time, instead of just forming dark, spreading waves, flecks of crimson, scarlet and wine shot together from all over the light-wall, taking the shape of a giant red spiral. Before Miche could react, a bolt of dark energy lanced through him and then Marget. It could not haul them inside. Not while he clung to his memory-drive. Just altered… distorted… reversed them. As a terrible change came over him, the elf managed to throw a shield over Erron’s stored memory file, protecting Nameless, as well.
Crying out, Miche next wrenched himself free. Plummeted out of the sky, then, still holding Meg’s hand, trailing his tattered cloak like the tail of a comet. Succeeded in slowing their plunge, but just barely. He could not aim his descent; simply dropped to the ground in a stomach-lurch, cloth-and-hair-whipping, spiraling swoop.
They crashed hard onto something that crumbled to rust-flakes beneath them, falling through several floors after that, raising a storm of corrosion and booming-loud echoes. Hit a surface that didn’t collapse right away, but he was too wracked with fiery pain to get up. Tried to curl himself tight, instead, jerking and writhing on rusted machinery, as everything changed all at once.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Far off in time, but nearby in space, Karellon was decked for a great celebration. Bunting and banners, golden kites and magical orbs filled the streets and the skies overhead. Powerful music jangled and blared, as three things happened at once.
Firstly, Magister Serrio’s fair showed up in Karellon. Delighted citizens swarmed from their beds to gape and point upward, watching a spiral of colorful wagons descend. That shimmering caravan circled their walls a full three times, then glided on down to the crystal plaza at Five Points.
It was an instant holiday, as showers of fey-gold and tickets sprayed from gargoyle-mouths on each wagon. Karellors clapped along with Magister Serrio’s jaunty theme song. The music rose to a trilling crescendo, then blent in with Karellon’s proud imperial fanfare (which never went silent, this close to the emperor’s ride). Meanwhile, the comforting scents of spice-bark, mulled wine, fried food and roasting grains filled the air.
Children leaned out of their bedroom windows, shrieking and laughing. Dogs barked, flame-lizards hissed, and crowds gathered to watch the caravan settle. Each wagon struck the ground with a different funny or musical sound, then began to unfold, proving much larger inside than out.
Secondly: Over in Low Town, a blizzard of discount tickets whirled through the narrow streets and back alleys, delivering themselves (and providing some cover for two skulking crewmen just trying to purchase supplies). Back on the Falcon, Captain Hallan Gelfrin, Laurol, Conn and all three paladins received their own discount coupons. The glittering cards were folded up into bird-shapes, at first. Each one fluttered down to its addressee, twirling at face height then flattening out to reveal a ticket printed on copper and cream-colored paper.
“Low, low price,” read the captain, frowning a little. “I’m not certain how I feel about my name and location being so obvious… but it <u>is</u> Serrio,” he mused, still kid enough to feel some excitement and hope.
Hal stood on deck with Laurol, Serrit Conn, Nadia, Vorbol and Villem, there at the seediest, most verminous dock in all Karellon. It was hardly past fourth watch, with dawn still two candle-marks off. With music surging and colorful wagons now streaking the sky like a flock of luminous birds.
“Maybe Magister Serrio would know what to do with Destroyer?” suggested Villem (Brother Arnulf, when busy at paladin chores). “He’s a mighty sorcerer, and even a fated sword can’t come as a shock to someone who’s been alive since the founding… can it?”Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
No one scoffed at his faith. Magister Serrio had always just been. Always would be, too; old as the sun’s patient cycle, bringing enchantment and wonder wherever he went. Captain Gelfrin held up a hand for silence, seeming to listen to something inside of himself. Then,
“Not-Jonn says that we’ve picked up some spies,” murmured young Hal, looking around at creaking scows and a rickety pile-up of docks. “Falcon… um, Speedy, that is… just informed me. I think that bringing our trouble to Magister Serrio is a good idea, and this seems like the best cover we’re going to get, but we’d better separate, and somebody has to remain with the ship.”
Nadia (Sister Constant) nodded agreement, smiling a bit at the captain.
“Turn your back on so much as an overturned bucket in this place, and it’ll be stripped to the rivets and handle before you can shout, Goat-napping thieves.”
“I never say that,” rumbled the orc (Brother Humble). “I say Ghash krast min sharv!” (An oath which scorched the air, crisping the ends of everyone’s hair and their fair tickets.)
“Less cursing in front of a superior officer,” snapped the red-haired young captain (though he memorized every last word of that blistering oath.) “Anyhow, this is the plan. Vorbol, you and Mister Conn will remain here with Speedy. I’ll take the north alley with Nadia, heading for…” he glanced at his smoldering ticket again, this time finding a helpful map printed there. “…Five Points. Villem, you’ll go with Laurol by way of Wizard’s Row… and keep a low profile until you’re safe at the fair. If anyone asks, you’re a couple of mercenaries trying out for the city guard. We’ll meet up inside, at the admission booth.”
The others nodded, so Hal turned next to the female paladin. Rubbed at the back of his neck for a moment, then lit up with a sudden idea.
“I’ll be a sightseer, here in town for the first time with my… um… <u>wife</u>, Nadia.”
Thankfully, Sister Constant didn’t just laugh at him.
“I’ve come up in the world,” she joked, accepting the elf’s bent arm (along with a cleansing and clothes-changing spell). “From goatherd to wandering sister to Captain’s Wife… when all that the astrologers wrote was ‘Beware: foul temper’!”
“I’m not a captain, here,” Hallan reminded her, keeping his voice low. “I’m a… traveling wool merchant. That’s it. Might as well stick to what both of us know.”
They left soon afterward. First Villem and Laurol, then the captain and Nadia, slipping over Falcon’s starboard rail, onto a set of conjured and bobbing wood steps. Their departure was covered by Magister Serrio’s stunning arrival… and by Vorbol and Conn, who created a violent commotion onboard the docked airship. Pretending to quarrel, the pair drew eyes and bets with their cursing and knives.
In that way, the Sword escaped into Karellon, mostly unnoticed. Calling out to the ones who might wield it for Order or Chaos. Whichever was first and most worthy.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Thirdly: A hundred miles distant, up in the mountainside lair, Emperor Ildarion leaned on a marble column, watching his dragon grow steadily weaker. Vernax was dying again, having reached the fraught age of one-hundred-seven years old. The great reptile was magically bound to return to the egg at one-hundred-and-seven, to prevent it from ever achieving full power and sentience.
It glowed faintly, now, semi-transparent and pulsing. Ildarion had faced the dragon’s rebirth five times already. He thought he could manage a sixth, though the battle grew harder, more grueling, each time.
He did not dare to rest or leave his mount’s lair, lest Vernax shift back to an egg and then hatch with no one around to control a raging reborn young dragon. It was just past midwinter. Chaos was still at high-tide, and Vernax could not be allowed to rampage unchecked. Thirsty, hungry and (most of all) tired, Ildarion stayed at his post; keeping watch as his mount made ready to die.
Wearily, the emperor straightened away from his ornate marble prop and then started to walk around Vernax. Coins, gems and junk shifted and clinked underfoot as Ildarion made his slow circuit. The dragon twitched an eyelid. White smoke curled up from one nostril. It rumbled softly, but that was all the response that Ildarion got. Vernax was far too close to death and rebirth to awaken for its rider… its master. Its friend.
Ildarion touched Vernax from time to time as he circled the dragon’s rock-and-bone bed. Patted a taloned foreleg… a folded wing… the long tail that was wrapped so tightly around it. Came back at last to the dragon’s vast, wedge-shaped head.
But something was wrong.
The exhausted emperor turned a full circle, looking closely around at the lair. Treasure was piled up in heaps with worthless junk and old kills. Stacked to half the height of the marble columns in most places, deeper than that in others, reaching all the way to the cavern mouth and its broad granite sun ledge, spilling right over the cliff. No trouble there, not even from cursed, stolen objects. Ildarion shook his head, causing tension to flare in his cramped neck muscles.
It was still dark outside, as dawn was over two candle-marks off. But his trouble came not from the heavens. Not from the city below, nor from the wagons now circling out of the sky. Not even from Vernax, twitching in dreams of conquest and flight.
Its source was within him, somehow; springing out of the most carefully shielded and heavily guarded mind in all Karandun. It came from himself. Just a whisper of summons… but Ildarion heard, and he couldn’t ignore it. Something had dared call the emperor. He shook his aching head once again. Ran a long-fingered hand through his brown hair (worn loose to ease that near-constant ache). Wary of spell-craft that might be twisted by Chaos here at the heart of midwinter, Ildarion snapped,
“Korvin!”
“Here I am, Sire,” replied his heir, appearing from seemingly nowhere. His only acknowledged son was no warrior, scorning armor and weapons for sorcery, potions and books… But he was loyal. Subtle and strong in his own quiet fashion.
“Deign to reveal your will, Majesty,” said the scholarly Prince Ascendant, bowing before Ildarion. Reedy and ink-stained, Korvin was as brown-haired and green-eyed as most of the Valinors. As… somebody else had once been.
“A tincture of easement, Korvin, if you have any about you, and then order a check on the palace warding spells. There has been a chaotic intrusion. I would have you send guards and mages to hunt the thing down to its source and then finish it. I must not be distracted now!”
Korvin bowed again, making a very slight rustle of musty robes and stashed papers.
“Another intrusion,” murmured the Prince Ascendant. “First the palace gardens are breached through a river, and now the lair. Very strange. What form has the sending taken, if I may ask, Your Majesty?”
Korvin was always quite proper and formal. He had not addressed Ildarion as “father” since that long-ago awful day in the court of Imperial Justice. No matter. Ildarion required an heir, not a traitorous friend or a hunting and gaming companion. Not ever again. Driving memory off, he said,
“It is a summoning call, as though someone or thing would conjure me up like a demon. I am very much warded, and yet still I feel it, boy. I command you to send forth your agents. Find and eliminate the call’s origin… and fetch me that tincture. My head feels ready to burst.”
“Aye, Sire,” murmured the scholarly prince, producing a mithral flask from one of his over-stuffed pockets. “Three drops to the tongue, Your Majesty. No more, lest you fall into a long, healing sleep,” advised Korvin, wafting the flask to Ildarion. Then, clearing his throat, the prince ventured,
“If I may, Sire… about that earlier intrusion…”
“You have permission to speak,” said his majesty (as well as he could while applying three opaline drops of relief to his tongue).
Korvin took a deep breath. Scrubbed the palms of both hands on his own wrinkled and inky grey robe. Then,
“Sire, the unnamed one is known to have fathered a child, and it appears that one of…”
Ildarion straightened, pivoting to glare at the only son he had left.
“That one is never again to be spoken of in my presence, Korvin, nor its crime to be mentioned,” hissed the emperor, as Vernax shifted behind him, cracking an eyelid and rumbling.
Korvin bowed even deeper, hands clasped together inside his wide sleeves.
“Of course, Your Majesty. My humble and abject apologies. I regret having misspoken, and it shall not happen again.”
No matter the cost to the empire. No matter at all that his exiled brother’s great-grandchild had turned up in Karellon, protected by fate and moved by the gods. Burying truth, Korvin said,
“I shall triple the wards, Sire, then bring down the source of this call. It shall be found and destroyed, my oath on it.”
He’d learned early and well, had Prince Korvin. He’d seen the price of rebellion. Had cried all that night and then rose up full-grown, purged of tears and emotion. There was no point in loving those he could not protect… but he could keep certain things to himself. Nalderick’s foolish love for the Arvendahl girl… Genevera’s willful escape and ill-advised marriage… this descendant of Xxxxxxx, his exiled brother.
You see, Korvin alone remembered his sibling’s name. Had woven it into spells, wards and cantrips all over the palace and city. The name was broken to syllables, true, but there it was at the empire’s root. Allowing his older brother… or the exiled prince’s descendants… unbarred access to Karellon. Should he ever come back, no gate would stay closed, and no weapon would harm him. That was what Korvin had done.
The result was this “Valerian”, who’d proven surprisingly tough under questioning. Through whom (blood calling to blood) perhaps he might yet find Xxxxxxx. The older prince was not dead, Korvin knew. He’d have felt it, despite the decree of their father.
He did not stoop to prayer. Had no truck at all with the gods, who’d hadn’t listened that night and wouldn’t be asked again. Instead, Korvin planned, and he wove. Now, with pieces all over the game board, and a pattern just starting to form, the Prince Ascendant bowed low. Took obsequious leave of the emperor, then set off to track down a whispering voice.