Iron war, p.12
Iron War, page 12
part #4 of The Jack of Magic Series
He didn’t move. Raising one eyebrow, he looked around at the rest of the dwarves, making sure they were close enough to defend him.
“It looks safe. Just don’t breathe in,” Portia said, still coughing.
Cautiously, Archmage Vermeil stepped to the portal and gingerly pushed his head through the opening. After a few seconds, he pulled it out again, fear and amazement battling on his face. “What have you done? That splinter went to the sand world for as long as we have records.”
“Have the elves ever looked into this splinter? Have they touched it?” asked Portia.
He shook his head. “The elves have only been in this land once, long ago during their civil war when we were shutting off the splinters to their world. The only splinter they have closed in the Dwarven lands was the one they, then the humans, and finally Dragonoids came through. The one you closed yesterday. All our records say that is so. We did not want them touching any others once we realized the elves changing them resulted in linking them to other splinters. These tiny ones,” he motioned to the others within the cavern, “we were able to control by encasing in stone. Besides, we were at war at the time, and many of our kind wanted the elves dead. It was a feat of our great General Murat to smuggle those elves into our lands to close the splinter against others of their own kind.”
Iva stared back and forth at both of them and then stuck her own face into the splinter and pulled it out again. “That is not the Dragonoid’s world.”
Portia shook her head. It wasn’t the hot stony world she had been on when she had been stuck in the Dragonoid world. It was not their home. Or at least not that home.
“It looked more like the Dragonoid world before,” said Portia, frustration pulling her shoulders tight.
“That’s great. Just great.” Iva kicked the dirt in the cavern and paced rapidly. “But all is not lost. Don’t you see, you can move the splinters. If you can move the splinters, you can find the Dragonoid world again.”
Portia’s eyes met Archmage Vermeil’s. “True,” she said slowly.
“Maybe you just need to hear that weird tune thing that sounds just like the noise from the Dragonoid splinter and reproduce it to steer the splinter. I wish I could hear it.” Iva slapped one fist into the palm of the other hand. “This is all coming down to you.”
“I could steer an existing splinter to their world. Or, better yet, open a new splinter to the Dragonoid world in a more convenient place for our armies than deep in the bowels of the Dwarven Kingdom,” said Portia.
Archmage Vermeil nodded.
“I don’t understand how your magic is vibration-based if you can’t hear them,” Portia said. They had been in the cavern for what seemed half a day. A third of the dwarf soldiers were sitting down with their backs against the wall, resting, while the others stood guard in case anything came out of the splinters the mages were creating. Archmage Vermeil had explained the spell he used to open a splinter, starting with one the dwarves had devised after the elf incursion—a less powerful spell, but also one less likely to form more than one splinter at a time.
Archmage Vermeil had pulled a series of small double-tined forks from a bag he carried with him, all slightly different sized and giving off different pitches. All of them hurt Portia’s ears excruciatingly. He demonstrated the splinter creation spells, which relied on the tines to get the vibrations he used for the spells. Portia wondered if it was a similar technique to the vibrations the elves used in their singing. It was puzzling how the dwarves would come to use such a magic if they could not hear the tones themselves.
Portia grabbed the smallest of the forks and banged it on the wall, forcing herself to not cringe as the horrible noise reached her ears. On impulse she sang a brief ditty that merged with the sound of the tines, changing it ever so slightly and making it less painful to her ears. She then completed the splinter spell and opened a small splinter in front of her. Looking inside it, she saw a world teeming with small furry creatures in a blue field. She pulled her head back quickly before any of them spotted her.
Singing the healing song, she closed it up again.
Archmage Vermeil watched.
Portia turned to him. “Are you sure you don’t want to try closing a splinter again?”
As easy as it now came to Portia, Archmage Vermeil had not been able to do any better in his attempts at doing a healing spell and closing a splinter than he had done in his initial attempt with the rope. He was utterly unable to do that type of magic.
“No. Not now. I am sure that, in time, we’ll find a way with tools of some sort,” he motioned to the forks scattered on the floor of the cavern, “to make the sounds needed instead of your singing, but that will not happen today. At least we now know it’s possible. We’ll figure out more when we have the time.”
“If you want more time then you had better stop Dragonoids from pouring into all of our kingdoms,” said Iva. She lay dramatically on the ground, holding her stomach. She had asked several times if they could leave to go eat and had finally given up when they no longer responded by even telling her “no.”
“I’m sure if I heard the sound of the Dragonoids’ splinter again and memorized it somehow, I could open another to their world. That way we could go back any time,” Portia said. She wasn’t entirely sure it was true, but it seemed reasonable and gave them hope.
Archmage Vermeil sighed. There was no other splinter to the Dragonoid lands within the Dwarven kingdom of Morgani.
“Let’s go back,” said Archmage Vermeil as he bent to pick up the forks and place them back in his bag, keeping out only the one needed to remove the stone from the doorway. “You’ve kept your word to our queen, as have I. We need to report back.”
A thought nagged at the edge of Portia’s consciousness. “You said the elves only touched one splinter in the Dwarven lands. Was there more than one here to the human world?”
The archmage walked slowly towards the mass of rock filling the way they had entered the cavern.
When he did not respond to her question, Portia ran to block his path. “Is there? Is there another splinter in here that goes to a world of humans?”
His eyes flickered to the left before meeting hers briefly.
He nodded.
Chapter 8
Portia sucked in her breath. Another land of humans. She looked around the cavern at the small piles of rocks scattered here and there encasing other splinters.
“It’s in here, isn’t it?” she asked, breathlessly.
“That’s what the records say,” Archmage Vermeil admitted. At Portia’s triumphant expression, he stepped forward into her space, blocking her view of the cavern. “But that was ages ago. Who knows what is there now.”
“Can you open it?”
He didn’t answer.
“Can you open it? You know how to, don’t you, without changing where the splinter goes to? Show me. Show me!” she demanded.
Iva looked up from her spot at the ground at Portia’s yelling.
“That may be a poor idea,” Commander Kerat said, joining their conversation.
“Why?” she asked. The dwarf commander looked down, uncomfortable.
Passages of the book Portia had read of the invasion came back to her—the bloodthirstiness of the author and their apparent glee in the death and destruction they had wrought. There was fear in the dwarf soldier’s faces, much as they tried to hide it with the stoic expression of warriors.
“As you said, that was ages ago. Perhaps things are different now,” Portia said quietly.
The archmage snorted. “Perhaps they are worse.”
Portia crossed her arms. “We can form an alliance, humans and dwarves, just as the humans have formed one with the elves. We’ll go back and help rescue your people and our own, and you will help us fight against these invaders and keep them out. We have to work together. But I want to know where our people came from. My people. Is that too much to ask?”
No one budged.
It was time to try a different tact.
“Are you afraid your warriors here will not be able to defend this kingdom against a few random humans we find if we open a splinter? Is that the issue?” At their wounded expressions, Portia almost felt bad—almost. “Why would humans even want an alliance with those so cowardly and weak?”
Archmage Vermeil shot her a hurt look. The soldiers bristled at Portia’s words.
“We are not afraid,” said Commander Kerat quietly.
Portia crossed her arms, scowling at the soldiers, refusing to back down. Most looked away.
“They do act afraid,” Iva said quietly in Portia’s ear, still loud enough for the others to hear. Portia forced herself to not move away from Iva’s surprise proximity. She didn’t want to give anyone the idea that she could be moved. Instead, she crossed her arms, and she and Iva stared at the archmage. The dwarves around them looked away.
Finally, Archmage Vermeil threw up his hands. “I will unblock the smallest splinter to that land for you to look. But you will not change the splinter in any way. You will not close it nor touch it with the elf magic—nor any other magic. Is that agreed?”
Portia nodded, afraid that if she spoke, he would change his mind again.
“Say it out loud,” the archmage said, his tone adamant.
“I agree to those terms. I will not touch the splinter with magic,” Portia said.
Accepting her words with a nod, Archmage Vermeil walked to a mound in the far end of the cavern. He struck a tine to the nearby rock wall and said the spell to clear the rock away from the small splinter. The dwarf warriors ran to surround the mound as the rock shimmered away. Not a single one sat against the wall at leisure. Their sleepy looks had been replaced with scowls and tense bodies.
Portia followed him, holding her hands over her ears to keep out the noise from the fork the archmage used. When he finished, she lowered her arms, noticing the way they trembled. She shook them out so no one else would notice and then stepped forward to see the splinter. It was long and low, much closer to the ground than any of the other ones had been. Sitting down, she scooted forward to look inside. She pressed her face forward into the land where humans had come from.
A fragrant breeze pulled her hair, throwing one lock of it in front of her eyes. Birds chirped. A yellow sun shone down on a land of cultivated fields stretching into the distance and ending in a sharp falloff overlooking a huge sea. Buildings clustered along the cliff’s edge. She gasped. It was beautiful.
After a few moments of searching the land, the faintest of noises tickled in her ear, growing more and more insistent. It was so quiet that it reminded her of small insects buzzing by her ears, but a shake of her head did not dislodge anything. Slowly, the sound resolved into the strands of faint, discordant music. Pushing her head further into the splinter did not help her hear the music better, rather it only faded away. She only heard the sounds just at the splinter’s edge.
Keeping her head close to the opening, Portia listened carefully. There was a pattern to the sounds. After a few moments, the rise and fall of notes repeated itself, as if the splinter was singing a song to itself. She was so deeply lost in concentration trying to memorize the sounds that she jumped up several inches when a hand touched her elbow outside the splinter. Pulling herself back into the room, her eyes met Iva’s, who was staring at her in concern.
“What do you see?” asked Iva. “Do you see people?”
“No people, but buildings and land. It looks wonderful,” Portia replied.
Iva took in Portia’s words, blinking, then edged past Portia and placed her own head into the splinter to look.
“Enough!” Archmage Vermeil roared. “This was risk enough. We must go. There is a war going on.”
Portia twisted her lips in distaste at his words but did not argue with him. Of all people, she was well aware there was a war going on.
He glanced down and then around, almost embarrassed at his outburst. For a moment, he looked like a child. Then Portia remembered his father was trapped in the Dragonoid world, along with his king, if either were alive at all. Thinking of Elyas, the closest person she’d ever had to a father, in such a situation would be excruciating. The sooner they got back, the sooner they could get to another splinter and see if they could rescue the others… If they could rescue his father and his king.
More so, they had to stop more invaders from pouring into the land.
And if she learned the unique music of the Dragonoid world from that open splinter, they could open another to it at a time of their choosing and use the new splinter to retrieve their people.
None of those things would happen while they were here in this cavern. They needed to move.
The dwarf soldiers pulled a protesting Iva from the splinter. Archmage Vermeil sealed it beneath a pile of stones. Minutes later, they were outside the cavern, its entrance once again hidden behind a stone wall, and making their way back to the Dwarven palace.
For a while, they marched on in silence, the only sounds the crackling of burning pitch from the torches and the thumps of feet filling the narrow walls of the cavern passageways.
“Why did your father go into the other lands?” asked Portia. The archmage steadfastly did not look at her, stepping forward in the dim passageway.
Portia frowned. “I apologize… The archmage before you and the king. Why would they enter such dangerous lands when they could have just closed the splinter again?”
He flexed his jaw.
No one else in the group was speaking. Portia sensed more than saw all of them listening to her questions. Even Iva, still dramatically clutching her stomach, hung back a bit to hear if he would answer.
Portia inhaled to try for a third time when he cleared his throat to speak.
“At first,” he said, “we had no idea how aggressive they were. When the splinter first opened up, we were entranced by the bright land full of sun and warmth, something in short supply down here. The council was fighting over who would get to enter the new and exotic lands first, who would represent the kingdom. All of us wanted to see it, even if it was hot and dry. Perhaps especially because it was hot and dry.
“I think the council members thought it would be possible to negotiate a treaty, or at least set up some form of trade. They pressured the king relentlessly until he agreed to an initial foray into the foreign lands. But when that first party did not return—not the soldiers, nor any word of anyone else—a larger, better-armed party was sent in.”
The archmage walked on. Portia waited patiently, hoping there was more. He shook his head but did not share his thoughts.
“What happened to the second party?” she finally prompted.
“We still don’t know. The king and my father were part of the third group. By the time they entered, skirmishing had already broken out around the splinter. The Dragonoid people had set up tents that hid the vast numbers of soldiers. Those soldiers had poured out when our party entered. Our king made the decision to run deeper into their lands rather than retreat. The last command we received from their party was carried by an injured messenger who had run through the battle lines to reach us. It was a short note from the king and only said to “block the splinter until he returned.” We had lost sight of them, and then it quickly became too dangerous to even look inside the splinter. They were shooting weapons into our lands through it. We had no idea how to both block it yet also know when the king had returned. That is why it was not closed when you burst through. We were too afraid the king would return to find his exit blocked.”
As I had blocked it, Portia thought, kicking a stone in the path. Her face burned red. She had not intended to cause such harm.
Archmage Vermeil continued, not noticing her discomfort. “Days after they disappeared, those huge weapons of war began shooting into our side of the splinter. We had fortified it against their arrows and pikes without sealing it completely, but nothing prepared us for what came after. One large chunk of metal came in with such force that it went through two caves adjacent to the cavern, pushing through the stone walls in an instant. Those were weapons we’d never seen before. Weapons powered by a strange black powder and fire.
“We had seen smaller versions of those weapons before.”
Portia stared at him curiously.
He nodded, abashed. “It was those weapons, as much as the people who had gone in before, that they went in to retrieve,” he said, admitting the greed behind the incursion.
Portia had seen the black explosive powder before. The Dragonoids, or more likely humans working for the Dragonoids, had used it to destroy the sea walls protecting Rodaine, the capital city of Lusatiana. They had done so by running long tunnels out beneath the sea, out to the seawall, and underneath the massive structure. Once dug, they filled the long caverns with black powder and finally ignited the lot, creating a massive explosion that cracked and destroyed the stone defenses, bring them crashing down into the sea. Without the sea wall, the city fell within hours to the Dragonoid navy that had been circling beyond it.
Touching the back of her hand, Portia remembered the burning heat and brilliant flash of light that had erupted from a dusting of the substance on her skin getting too close to a candle. The tunnels had been packed waist-deep with it.
The black powder also powered huge cylindrical weapons that spat out balls of metal that smashed everything in their path. The Dragonoids brought those weapons onto their ships, shooting them from their prows, as well as offloading them onto their claimed land. It was those weapons that were marching towards Haulstatt even now.
Or they had been when Portia was stranded on the Dragonoid world.
Portia shivered. Those weapons were so powerful that the most powerful human mages working in concert were barely enough to defend against one such of them. It was as if they were throwing blades of grass in front of a charging bull.
If the dwarves learned how to make the black powder, or source it from somewhere, it would be a formidable advantage over all the other kingdoms, both human and elf. No one understood the secrets of it. No one else had it. King Morgani must have thought it was a risk well worth taking.
