Lords of the shadows, p.10
Lords of the Shadows, page 10
part #4 of Raven Series
All but one of the vaults slid back. The one that remained was filled with grey jewels, several of which were alive with light.
Spellbinder scooped them out and stared at them, and then at Raven. “Well done!” he said quietly, delightedly. “To ask the question we roll the white, the white carries the question to whatever magic force controls this Tower. Well done indeed.”
And he rolled the first, then the second, then the third of the grey jewels, and they learned much about the use of mabion weapons, and the Kings and warlords who had carried them through the ages.
It was the fourth that gave a hint of what they wished to know. The deep voice droned as it had droned for hours, but now the words made Raven’s ears prick up, her eyes share the same excitement as Spellbinder’s.
At the end of the 59th Epoch the ice had retreated and the great sea was now full again to its ancient shores. With the end of the Great Cold came the return to ancient combat, for the question of the Prastigeum, the Overlordship of the Five Lands, was as yet unresolved. The Five Lords of the Uthganaar therefore met upon the plain of Grag among the tombs of the Old Lords, each with his armies behind him. At this time the Five Lords were Thegwar of the Grey, Grahuoun the Moon Lord, Urtfian of the Swift, Wichtdivven Lord of the Fires and Niigarch, Yearlord of the Veil. Combat was joined between the Lords, each with his blade of star-forged mabion, and a choice of one other weapon, taken during the war against the Sorcerers of the Gesthnoc. As each Lord died so his blade was drained and returned to the second son, who led the army back to their lands. The final victor was Wichtdivven, Lord of the Fires, who drained his own sword and assumed absolute control of the Prastigeum. The five forges were destroyed and for four years there was peace. Then Niigurla, son of Niigarch, and new Lord of the Veil, broke the Covenant of Denial and re-forged a sword of mabion. He was destroyed, and his family also save for the eldest son of each branch who led the people of the Veil in disgrace through the Lands of the Vanquished in the west and beyond the Wall of Thoughts.
The jewel had run its course and it plopped out of sight, a second later reappearing by some simple process of magic.
Spellbinder rolled a question jewel, and spoke loudly: “What became of the Uthganaar?”
The jewel that was now indicated spoke thus: Towards the middle of the Seventh Cycle of the Rune Fire, the Lords of the Uthganaar again found themselves attacked by the Sorcerers of the Gesthnoc. Since the Covenant of Denial, two epochs previous, there was no access to the mabion forges, and so the Lords led their armies with just the strength of the metal in their blades, and this was insufficient. They were destroyed and scattered by the armies of Sareksenis, Warmaster of the Sorcerers, who was himself killed in civil war immediately following the destruction of the Uthganaar. The period that followed was known as the Age of Zero, and nothing is known of it. It is believed that after a period of primitivism, the strength of the Uthganaar, never lost from the scattered tribes, reasserted itself in the guise of the god Uthaan, of whom the sons of Uthaan are followers.
“Who is ari Jen Q’Ithrig?” asked Spellbinder, but there was no response from the Tower.
“Who erected the Wall of Thoughts?”
The Wall is timeless, eternal, everlasting, never starting. It has always been, and will always be, and passageway may only be found with a magic long dead, long denied. There is nothing more that is known about the Wall of Thoughts.
The grey-brown jewel abruptly stopped its circular motion and rolled down the hole.
“Where is the nearest forge?”
The forges are dead, destroyed. They may not be found or used. The destruction of them was carried out by the Covenant of Denial. The Sacred Weapons were scattered and hidden so that their abuse might no longer tempt the Lords of the Uthganaar into war. Each forge was destroyed by the son of the vanquished Lord, and the victor of the combat on the plain of Grag in the fifty-ninth epoch. Wichtdivven, Lord of the Fires, became the sole guardian of the secrets of the mabion forges. In his line all further information will be found.
Spellbinder rolled his eyes despairingly. “Useless!” he said.
Then Raven reached for a question jewel; her heart was pounding as she rolled it about the bowl, and though she knew she was wrong to do so, she cried out the questions that had been burning in her: “What is Kharwhan? Who is Raven? Who is Spellbinder?”
Spellbinder reached for the jewel, his face flushed with anger, but the white sphere eluded him, sank into the innards of the bizarre oracle.
“Have you no more sense than to abuse a place such as this with forbidden questions?” he cried, and then stood back as a biting wind blew about the chamber, knocking them before it. The narrow entrance closed with a ringing finality and when Silver hammered against it he staggered back, brushing frost from his hands.
The lights in the cave dimmed, went out, and Raven murmured an oath as she was plunged into an absolute and impenetrable darkness.
Seven
O life
Hold me tight!
Let me see the red dawn before I die!
Fanngrioc Death-Cry, attributed to the Battle of the Three Hills
The moment that the narrow gap of the Tower’s entrance closed, Tu’ilza ran back from the cold obsidian walls to get a better view. She found herself kicking through dry bones to find a better vantage point, and it was an expression of horror she wore as she turned again and saw that her eyes had not deceived her.
The way that Raven had entered the Tower was now closed, blocked, seemingly by a seal as smooth as the Tower itself.
“By the night eyes of Treanas!” she cursed, invoking a plague God. “What has caused this?”
She ran up to one of the Earth-Ones nearby. The man was as shocked as she, staring up to the clouds at the suddenly non-existent entrance.
“The Tower has denied us,” he cried aloud, and turned empty, frightened eyes upon Tu’ilza. “I was a child when I came here. For all my life I have sought the answer to my question, and the Tower has denied me that answer. It has all been in vain.” His eyes were yellowed and staring, and Tu’ilza sensed the sudden madness in him and pushed away to run to another priest.
By his robes he was form the southern City States, perhaps Sara or Lyand, but the girl knew nothing of the cities beyond her own shores; only the emblems that told he was from the south.
“Has this happened before?” she asked him, frantic. He regarded her stonily, looked her up and down with disdain, as if offended that a woman should address him so abruptly. But he shook his head. “I have never seen this occur. I think those who were foolish enough to ride the wind into the cave have suffered the fate of all who abuse the Tower,” and he inclined his head so that Tu’ilza unconsciously glanced at the skeletons around them.
“Oh Raven, Raven…” cried the girl sadly, and stared up into the skies again.
So soon to die; so quickly their quest ended.
She felt tears sting her eyes and tried to imagine what horrible fate had overtaken them within the Tower. If the door stayed closed, they must soon suffocate, if they were still alive.
“There must be some way to get them out,” she said to herself, but she could not imagine how. With no way in, and no visible way out, there was nothing she could do.
She walked stiffly back to the tent and stared at the four horses for a moment. People milled about her, taking no notice of her sadness. She could hear ritual singing somewhere round the Tower, and the screeching laughter of children, playing with wooden swords and light-weighted shields.
She filled the food bags for the horses, but before she could attach them to the patient beasts she heard someone call to her. Turning, she saw a grisled and disheveled man, beckoning to her urgently.
“Are you the girl who rides with the golden-haired warrior?” the man asked.
“Raven…yes!”
“She is here,” said the man. “But hurt, badly hurt. Quickly!”
She ran behind him, down the rocky slopes, jumping the sheer-cut steps whenever possible, easing herself down those that were too high for such incautious travel. The man ran ahead of her, his lank hair flowing behind him, the smell of his leather and woolen rags almost overpowering.
Out of sight of the sprawling tent city, she came to a shallow cave, running hard behind the man. “In here,” he said.
She ran past him…found herself facing a solid wall of rock; this was not a cave, merely an overhang.
She turned angrily, suddenly frightened, and as she turned she felt his hand on her shift, ripping the garment from her.
She staggered back, instantly tensed, reaching for her sword which she drew and held towards her attackers. Four men there were, each as dirty and unkempt as the man who had tricked he; they grinned now, holding swords towards her, pulling their own ragged clothes from their bodies so they approached naked and aroused; Tu’ilza noticed how their eyes were flickering between her steadily-held blade and the boyish, but nonetheless feminine features of her body. All she had left upon her were boots and her leather belt, which was cold against her warm skin. They would probably not even bother to cut it off her before they raped her.
“Make it easy, sparrow, and we can deliver you to Trogan without cuts. As long as you are alive he doesn’t care what condition you’re in.”
The man who had led her here now lunged at her, hoping to deflect her sword with his and overwhelm her. He found his own blade smashed back into his face, drawing blood. Angrily he lunged forward again.
Tu’ilza side-stepped him ad leapt towards the other three, who backed off for a moment, uncertainly. They watched her, and watched their leader, perhaps wondering why he stood so still, perhaps also seeing the thin line of blood on the edge of the girl’s sword.
She attacked, swinging wide, and for a few seconds her attackers defended themselves, growing accustomed to the fact that the man who had been their leader now sprawled upon the ground, his hands buried in the mass of entrails that were still slipping from him.
“I am a warrior of the Jhargan!” shrieked Tu’ilza. “By the Black Spear of Mabriv, the Screech Crow of the Dead, I shall take your hands and empty your skulls!”
She flung herself at the three of them, her blade ringing loud as they frantically parried her attack. For a few seconds more she edged them back, her voice a shrill cry of anger and war, her lithe figure dancing in the cold.
Then she found herself in the centre of them, and though she swung about, both hands on her sword, they were too strong for her.
Her sword was gone in an instant, flung across the ground, and when she leapt for it she felt herself tripped. By the hair, hands and legs she as dragged struggling into the overhang.
One of them struck her hard upon the chin with the hilt of his sword. She felt her senses dazed, her limbs go weak, and then there was just the feel of their fingers upon her flesh, and their teeth in her skin, the agonising grip upon her arms, holding them unmoving above her head while she was violated once, then twice…
There was the sound of a horse. Through the agony and confusion of her distress she heard a man laughing, then felt the grip upon her arms released. She twisted about onto her stomach, reached down to try and ease the agony in her belly. Through a haze of tears and pain she stared up at a dark rider, seated arrogantly upon his giant white steed.
It was the face of a corpse that looked down upon her, a golden metal face, reflecting light so that she felt herself blinded as by the glare of the sun.
Someone, gentler than her attackers, drew her to her feet and flung a cloak about her. She gathered the folds of the warm material gladly, and stepped towards the horse, every movement of her legs hurting the place of her abuse.
Suddenly a dagger was flying towards her, handle first. She didn’t think, but reached through the cloak and plucked it from the air.
“Kill them, if you wish,” said the Ghost Lord, his voice deep and unpleasantly inhuman. Tu’ilza felt her mind harden and then clear, and in an instant she had buried the blade in the startled man who stood near her, the first who had taken her.
He gagged blood and collapsed to the ground, clutching his throat. The other two fled, screaming their anger at the Ghost Lord, reminding him, futilely, that he had not forbade them to do anything to her. She stepped from the cloak, no longer ashamed by the trickle of blood on her thighs. She raised the dagger to kill at least one more.
But a voice begged her to stay her hand, and turning, wiping the sweat and tears from her eyes, and brushing stray hairs aside, she saw the miserable shape of Bristym of the irt Loiscim, slumped in the saddle of his horse, held near to the dark shape of Cracth Trogan.
Bristym was beaten and bloody, a defeated man with the great red stains of war upon his jerkin and leggings. “I have betrayed you,” he said quietly. “They found me when I returned to the place of the massacre, and I led them safely through the mountains so they could find this place.”
“Silence him,” said Trogan abruptly, and Bristym was dragged from the saddle. His guards drew their swords ready to slit him open, but Tu’ilza saw that desperate look in his eyes, the pleading gaze to her to honour him and not let him die like a dog.
Without thinking, Tu’ilza threw the dagger. The blade pierced his head and he was smiling as he fell backwards. Half dead with shame, he died with pride.
Trogan dismounted and walked towards her, swinging his long black cloak to keep it out of the dirt. He stood far taller than Tu’ilza and his appearance filled the girl with foreboding; everything about him was unusual, from the jagged plates of armour that covered his torso and legs, to the intricate red and gold designs on the leather of his jerkin and leggings. Behind the mask of the corpse she could sense his eyes watching her, half with amusement, half with interest. “Where is the Sorcerer with whom you ride?”
Tu’ilza said, “Dead.”
Trogan offered her a contemptuous laugh, shook his head almost imperceptibly. “I think not.” His breath hissed like a snake as he thought hard for a moment, the blank face watching the motionless girl. He turned from her then, and addressed a youthful warrior who, by his dress, was of the Ginnim. “Find a healer and attend to her hurts. Then bring her. She is a useful captive, even if she tells us nothing.”
Tu’ilza shivered inside her cloak and watched as Trogan turned fom her to the two men still on horseback. As the Ginnim led her back towards the overhang she heard the Ghost Lord say, “They are in the Tower. We must assume they now know where to find the Guardians of the Forge. Ride to Lord Q’Ithrig without delay…”
Eight
Lay trust in the speed of a strong horse,
In the honour of an upright man
In the flight of an arrow kissed by earth
In the word of a friend.
from The Epic of Brin Irgawn, an early champion of the Ogonors
In seemed she sank through some invisible spongy mass. Raven tensed her body, reached out her hands to grip onto anything she could, but there was nothing around her that was solid. All she could hear was the sound of breath; in this blackness she heard Silver say, “There is light below,” and looking down she saw grew light, diffuse, as if she peered at some shining creature below a depth of water.
Spellbinder said, “Your knack for triggering things is uncanny, Raven. I sense we are in deep trouble.”
The sensation of sinking stopped. In the sparse light from below, Raven could see Spellbinder’s taut features. The warlock was staring all around the darkness, seeking some way to find out where they had come, and what they had caused.
And then that same deep, almost humanless voice, spoke to them, and Raven turned to see where it came from, but the voice was always behind her.
“You who asked of Kharwhan, know that you have asked a Forbidden Question.”
“Then I ask it again,” cried Raven, defiantly. “What is Kharwhan, who lives there, and what does it truly seek to achieve?”
Spellbinder’s groan was loud, but Raven was beyond caring.
The voice of the Tower said, “You ask these things in full knowledge that the answers lie not in the world, but in your soul. You ask in defiance, and yet you know that no answer may be given you. That you ask is unimportant, for it is your presence here that concerns us. There is one who travels with you, the mage, who is not as he appears, and now we see it clearly that you are no casual questioners, no empty-headed warriors come for trophy.”
Spellbinder said, “We seek to understand two who are known as Ghost Lords, who have come from far to the west. We seek also the Mabion forge that they have used to produce a sword that defies even magic. To fight them we must have such a sword ourselves, and that, for the moment, is our quest.”
The Tower answered, “The speaking spheres are a fragmentary knowledge of all that the Tower has known, they are merely a storehouse, a place of knowledge as empty, as useless as the rituals of a dead race. The forge you speak of lies close to the Wall of the Rim, which is also known as the Wall of Minds and the Wall of Thoughts. In a valley in the mountains that look upon us now, in that direction westwards, there is an island in a marsh guarded by ancient forces, where you will find a guide to the forge, an ancient princess of the People of the Fires; she and her prince are caught in crystal. It is she who can guide you in the forging of such a sword, or who will destroy you if she sees that you will abuse such a weapon. Watch for the setting of the sun across a three-pointed peak. Follow arrow-straight, the valley and the island are there.”
As the voice ceased, Spellbinder spoke aloud. “What then, of these Ghost Lords who are come through the Wall of Minds? There is one who calls himself ari-Jen Q’Ithrig, and he has found how to forge such a Mabion blade. Is he a sun of the Uthganaar, come back to claim his lands?”
“These things,” said the Tower, “are unknown to us. We are just a place of information, an eternal temple to the persistence of memory. We who speak to you are among the last of the spirits of this place to survive. Though we shall be here long after you are scattered on the wind, the time of the Tower is limited, and running down. There is this that you should know, however: that the tribes of the Uthganaar appointed Ghost Lords during battle, creatures that were half human and half beasts of the southern lands, noble creatures that had proved themselves as worthy as men during the years of peace before the betrayal of the Covenant. Among those banished beyond the Wall, the families and tribes of the Lord of the Veil, Niigurla, there were many such half-human creatures, following their Ghost Lords into oblivion. And it is possible that they have survived through the ages, and remembered the old ways and the old places. A final word of warning: the sword, forged of mabion in the special way, this sword is not what it seems. Beware, you who choose to wield it.”
