“This one is impressive, on the basis that those emerging from the wastes will need more care than those entering,” he reasoned, as he sketched off the proposed area with a wand. “Therefore, this hostel will allow them water, food, rest, and respite, after their journey.” He stepped back and activated the hoxter pocket in his wand.
Suddenly, a tidy two-story building appeared at the edge of the waste. Not quite a proper tower – it was constructed of wood, not stone – it was still sturdily built. After ensuring that the thing was stable, he threw open the doors and provided a tour.
It was, indeed, impressive. It boasted a five hundred gallon cistern on the roof, as well as a small parapet that looked out over the wastes. The upper floor was wide enough to sleep twenty people, while the hall on the lower floor had a small iron stove and cupboards stacked with food and supplies. There were bandages and salves in abundance, and enough firewood for weeks in the woodshed attached to the kitchen.
I was amazed at the efficiency of the design. It was not a fortress, but it could keep the wild at bay. There was a small stable attached to the side, with enough hay to fortify our team and still leave plenty of surplus. Gareth bragged about the remote resupply capabilities, all controlled by hoxter pockets back in Vanador. We gleefully spent the night within, testing the utility and comfort of Gareth’s design and its amenities.
Most importantly, I installed a Waystone within it. There were no natural Waypoints within days of travel, I knew – I had quizzed the Alka Alon thoroughly on the subject. Should a High Mage be fleeing from the wastes, this would provide a means to transport away from the trailhead as quickly as possible. And reach it from Vanador instantly, now.
“Now, the real test of the power of the jevolar is how far within the wastes we can go before our ability to activate a hoxter is tested,” I pointed out. “And where I can place a final Waystone. That will shorten the journey by half, I hope,” I pointed out. “For the magi, at least.”
“And the Alon,” Lilastien added. “The journey is just as arduous for us. And our legs are shorter. A Waystone that diminishes the trek will lead to more of us coming here.”
“And thus lose the remote nature that makes it special,” I predicted.
“Things change,” the sorceress shrugged. “I have no doubt there will be a quaint little tavern here, someday, selling pilgrims’ medals and overpriced ale to the tourists. But you should start taking etheric density readings, from here on,” she proposed. “Probably a couple of times a day.”
“Gareth has been doing that for two days, now,” I chuckled. “He wants to establish exactly where the anti-magical effect lies.”
Just before nightfall, Nattia landed her bird from patrol and sought me out at once.
“I spotted a column several miles behind us,” she reported. “At least forty or fifty of them, moving on the same trail. All on foot, but they’re making good time,” she said, worriedly. “Gurvani. Maragorku, to be precise. But I don’t think they spotted me.”
“Their daytime vision is not the best,” I sighed. “That must be the expedition that . . . that I was warned about,” I said, realizing that Nattia was not privy to the fact that the gods were giving me secret intelligence. She did not need to know.
“An expedition?” she asked, surprised.
“Our enemy seeks to ambush me, in the wastes,” I explained. “As well as pursue their own dark plans for Anghysbel. No Nemovorti, I said, brightly. “They cannot abide the jevolar.”
“Just a company of maragorku,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It would have been nice to have known that.”
“There are likely some Enshadowed commanding them, as well, from what I’ve been informed. I figured that they were at least a week behind us,” I said, realizing that my figuring was wrong.
“They must be pushing themselves to make time,” she reasoned. “At the rate they are going, they will make this spot in a day and a half. Two days, if they tarry.”
“That doesn’t sound likely,” I said, frowning. “All right, we leave at dawn and hope to lose them in the wastes. Or prepare a trap to turn on them. Keep a careful eye on their location. But do not molest them from the skies yet,” I ordered. “I do not want to alert them that we know they are following.”
Nattia nodded and went to inform Ithalia. While neither bird was designed by nature or magic to fly at night, Ithalia’s, especially, could perform in the darkness with the aid of her songspells. She would protect us from attack, for a few hours, and determine the position of the foe.
“We’re being followed,” I announced at supper, that night. It was a bit of a feast, compared to our trail fare, conjured from hoxters for the purpose. “A company of great goblins, and as many as a half-dozen Enshadowed. They mean to catch us in the wastes,” I explained.
“That is . . . unfortunate,” Fondaras said, frowning. “The journey will be difficult enough without pursuit.”
“You did say that there were several paths through the wastes, Master Fondaras,” Tyndal recalled. “Perhaps we can obscure which we have taken?”
“At the very least,” the old man murmured. “Haste would be our better ally than deception,” he counseled.
“We may have to indulge in a bit of defense,” Ormar suggested. “I’m ready for a fight.”
“They will not attack until we are beyond Tyr Morannan,” I predicted. “They wish to take me when I do not have the power of the Magolith. So that they may steal it back to Korbal and free him from his torment.”
“Neither will they have access to their sorceries,” Fondaras observed. “They will have to take you by force.”
“That might prove difficult for them,” Tyndal said, with a snort. “They only sent one company of goblins. Even without magic, we are more than a match for them.”
“Perhaps,” Fondaras nodded. “But there are other factors at play. I would not linger in the wastes for one moment longer than we need. We leave in the morning as soon as the dew mists fade. And then we ride relentlessly until dusk.”
He had told us about those. Though this was the dry season, and it was unlikely to rain for weeks, the change in temperature and humidity still deposited a layer of water vapor over the ground at twilight. Depending on its amount, the dew could react with the compounds in the waste and release a deadly mist of gas into the air. Our masks should counter it, but until the sun burned away the last of it, the twilight mists were toxic.
Our biggest advantage was our mounts. Goblins, particularly the maragorku, could cover a lot of territory on foot. But that also burned energy. They would need food frequently, I knew, and water that was difficult to come by. As determined as they were, I felt confident that they would falter before they came upon us in the wastes. Horses might be a weakness, but they were also a tremendous strength. Even hauling wagons, they gave us the gift of speed. Their long legs propelled us across the acrid sands the next morning while the maragorku struggled through the night on foot.
Do not take that to mean that I dismissed the foe as inconsequential. Indeed, though I laughed and encouraged our teams to progress into the toxic desert as quickly as they could, in truth I feared meeting those goblins in such inhospitable terrain. We had magic, for the moment. But even that advantage paled with each step toward the jevolar. There was a point at which my great power would be meaningless. As meaningless as my title.
What use a spellmonger, even The Spellmonger, when no spells could be cast? Therefore, if I intended to counter the Enshadowed and their gurvani minions, it needed to happen before we arrived at Tyr Morannan.
That would have to wait for later. For now, the wastes, themselves, were our biggest enemy.
I don’t think I can sufficiently convey the desolation of the wastes in mere words. The term “desolation” doesn’t even adequately describe the hellscape we quickly entered as soon as the toxic mist dissipated. When we crossed the dunes that bordered them, the wastes unfurled themselves in all their savage glory.
; Indeed, every mile we crossed brought ever more dire landscapes to our attention. Not merely acres upon acres of dried, cracked plains, so dry they resembled a vast lot of well-shaped cobbles. There were wide pits of salty sands, poisonous to the touch and achingly barren of even the simplest life. There were ridges of rocks encrusted with untold centuries’ worth of deposits that seemed to grow like moss or lichens. Some boasted wild colors, stark red ochres that challenged your conception of scarlet, or pale yellows that seemed to mock death, itself, in the severity of their tone. After the miles and miles of verdant grasslands we’d traversed to get here, the brutality of the landscape in the alkali wastes was profound.
It had an effect on our dispositions almost at once. Moving through an environment that makes a mockery of your very life, a landscape that beckoned you with a quick death in the parched environment, gave you a sense of perspective. And urgency. Even if we weren’t being pursued by bloodthirsty goblins, getting the hell through the wastes was a subconscious priority for everyone, regardless of what else may happen. We were in a land that promised death. Every breath we took affirmed that in the acrid pall that we were forced to breathe.
I inquired about donning our protective masks when we stopped for food and water, just after noon on the first day in. Ormar demurred.
“I know it seems bad, Minalan,” he explained, as he checked his samples on his cart. “It stinks worse than the Stenchworks, and every time you breathe it’s like you’re standing next to a forge. But it’s not bad enough, yet. Believe me, you don’t want to put those masks on until you absolutely have to,” he argued. “Especially the horses. They’re going to hate wearing them, and they will slow down. If you want speed, then let’s make the most of it while we can. I won’t hesitate to call for it when we have to. But, in the meantime, I suggest we put up with the discomfort and press on. The longer we go without them, the better.”
I had to defer to his judgement. He was, after all, an expert in alchemy. That was an odd field, compared to most of the disciplines of my craft. It belied most thaumaturgy, in most ways, and depended mostly upon the dictates of the physical world. Of all of the realms of magic, alchemy clung the most to the physical, and eschewed the emotional. But I could not deny its efficacy. Alchemy could work, theoretically, in places where true magic could not. That was one of the reasons I’d approved Ormar’s inclusion in our expedition.
“My chest hurts,” Alya complained, that evening, when we finally made camp. Taking advantage of magic to ease our passage, we had pressed on until well after dark before we pitched camp at the base of a sudden and sharply inclined hill. “I feel like I’ve been breathing in the bottom of a privy, all day!”
“We all have, Love,” I soothed. “There is nothing that can be done for it. I am assured that the fumes are not potent enough to affect our health yet,” I related. “It’s just unpleasant and uncomfortable. But also blessedly temporary. In a week, we shall be through this desolation and come to fairer lands.”
“Everything I eat tastes like I’m chewing copper pennies,” she added, sullenly.
“It will get worse, before it gets better,” I counseled. “But it will pass as quickly as we do, through the wastes.”
She fixed me with a long, contemplative stare. “I just thought I’d tell you,” she said, finally, when the silence became uncomfortable. “This is . . .”
“I know,” I interrupted. “We must endure. This is the price of knowledge, until we get to Anghysbel. I hope it is not too much to bear.”
That first night camping truly within the wastes was awful.
Our Kasari guides directed us to a small, barren hillock just off the trail which they used as a campsite when they crossed the wastes. It was defensible, if inhospitable. It was also, they explained, above the worst of the mists that would arise with the dew. We lit a miserable fire with firewood from a hoxter, and let it burn out as soon as our simple dinner was warmed. Summoning better fare than bean stew, bread, and mutton was within our capability, but it was decided that conjured delicacies would be a mockery in so stark an environment.
We spoke little, during the meal and after. The heat and the appalling dryness had tempered our spirits. The liveliest conversation occurred as Ormar boasted about the fascinating alchemical deposits that was the greatest wealth of the wastes.
“The salts, the pockets of acidic sediment, the calcifications . . . this place is an alchemist’s dream,” he sighed, as he finished his beans. “There are compounds occurring naturally here that we can produce at the Stenchworks only with great effort. I’ll be sending a prospecting party, after I return,” he promised.
“Ormar is correct,” agreed Forseti. The smooth casing of his little chariot was covered in dust, but the machine did not seem to suffer any ill effects like the rest of us. “The chemical composition of this region is remarkable, even for Callidore. I have been taking regular readings on the samples he has gathered. Many are beyond the limits of this unit’s capabilities to measure and identify.”
“You are welcome to them, and all the dust you can eat, too,” complained Gareth. “It’s in my very teeth, now. I can feel it with every bite I take. It’s even in my ears!”
“Pray the winds stay tame,” chuckled one of the Kasari. “A dust storm in the wastes is a terror.”
“I was caught in one on my second transit of this place,” recalled Fondaras, thoughtfully. “It blew up suddenly, without warning. It lasted hours,” he said, his eyes gazing into the darkness at the memory. “Thank the gods it was merely a windstorm, and not a poisonous rain. But we had to huddle under our mantles all night long and then suffer through the dew mists. We lost two, to that storm,” he said, shaking his head. “The fumes were not the worst, though. That wind blew dust into your skin until it was shredded raw.”
“A rainstorm is worse,” agreed the Kasari – Captain Irimel, his name was. He was as hardy a ranger as I’d ever met, save perhaps for Arborn. An expressionless face, most times, armed with a stoic nature, broken only by occasional flashes of humor. “My first transit we got three minutes of rain. We lost two horses and a scout, from that.”
“Well, aren’t you an optimistic company?” Lilastien chided. “We’re only one day into this wretched place and you’re already thinking about new ways to kill us off.”
“Our masks should protect us even from a rainstorm,” Ormar insisted. “The horses won’t like them, but they endure them around the Sulphur pits. And they’ll help keep the dust off you. Small price to pay for the chance to collect reagents in such abundance.”
“Only an alchemist would see this place as worthy of pilgrimage,” Gareth said, shaking his head sadly. “Now for bed, where I can enjoy a nice, distracting nightmare.”
Despite our fancy enchanted tents, the fumes made sleep difficult and uncomfortable. Indeed, the dust that blew across our encampment was as fine as powder, but as sharp as glass when it penetrated the crevices of our clothing. A chorus of coughing kept up all night long, as the dust and fumes choked our breath and made our lungs ache. The strange noises from the depths of the wastes did nothing to add to our rest, that evening. Odd clicks, cries and wild calls echoed across the flats. Our sentries peered nervously into the darkness, and our wards were as secure as a battlefield’s.
Alya clung tightly to me in our conjured pavilion that night after supper and a treatment from the Handmaiden. Neither physical comfort nor therapeutic enchantment kept her from moaning into my neck all night. I barely slept myself. She tried desperately not to complain, the next morning, after the dew mist cleared. But I could tell she was miserable and getting worse. This wasn’t the romantic jaunt she’d envisioned, but she did not want to give me a reason to second-guess including her in the expedition.
Instead, she endured. And she glowered, a bit. Perhaps some silent brooding. But she did not complain. That’s hard to do when you have to hold your breath just to take a piss, lest the fumes from the liquid overcome you. I sure as hell wanted to com
plain.
The second day, the constant stench had faded as our noses became used to it. The dust was no better, but no worse, as it collected in the corners of our eyes, our beards and hair, and any other place it could. Our coughing persisted, but Ormar counseled no recourse to the masks unless we felt compelled to, yet. Apparently, the special charcoal within the filters was of limited use, and while he had brought along plenty in his cart, he did not want to waste it without great cause.
That was fortunate, for on the second day the heat of the wastes drove away all thought of vapors and dust. It was summer, after all, and with no shade to speak of and no breeze to blunt the edge of the sun, the heat became oppressive by mid-morning.
Lilastien insisted everyone drink as much water as possible, and ensured the horses drank as well, if we wanted to keep making good time. The water tasted like chalk and gave only a bit of relief, as did some creative magic to shade us from the cloudless sky, but mostly we endured it and pressed on. That didn’t make the horses very happy, of course, but the only way out of this hellish landscape was forward.
The giant falcons, too, were having difficulty. Though they largely escaped the worst of the heat, Nattia and Ithalia were resting them frequently. The dryness and fumes increased their thirst and weakened them. They shook their giant heads frequently in irritation to contend with the dust in their feathers. They were no happier than the horses. Or the people. The wastes sapped the vitality out of you with every step you took, until you felt like a dried up old sausage baking in the sun.
But we did make good time. Indeed, it wasn’t until late in the afternoon on the second day that my wards at the base camp were triggered. Our goblin pursuers had reached the edge of the wastes. We had covered many more miles than they could. I was dearly hoping we could outrun them once we came to Tyr Morannan and magic would fail.
It was also that second afternoon that Ormar finally agreed that everyone should don their masks, for as long as they could stand them. We came to a dried-out riverbed that was apparently damp enough for some stick-like plants and some lichens to grow. I allowed Ormar only twenty minutes or so to dig samples from its bottom, where he assured me a collection of sediments had been deposited and transformed. He was almost gleeful at the little bottles of sand and dust he collected.
Footwizard Page 10
