“They didn’t learn much, then,” snorted Taren. “I didn’t learn much, myself.”
“Yet here you are, at the edge of the world,” Pritikin sneered. “Wizards in a realm without magic. Seeking great powers to fight against us. If we were so lightly defeated, my lords, you would be safely at home. But you are here. One may draw many conclusions from that fact.”
“And one may draw many conclusions about the desperation of Korbal and Karakush by your presence,” Tyndal agreed. “Really, we could walk into the Dark Vale right now with a couple of warmagi and a tired band of disabled veterans. Your weakness is palpable.”
“Our strength is not in the Dark Vale,” countered Pritikin. “If you seek it there, you will be surprised. No, my friend, there is a retrenchment going on amongst the Nemovorti, in Korbal’s absence. Your victories forced a reconsideration of where we keep our power and how it is hidden. When – if! — Korbal awakens from his slumber, he will find a very different world. Not all among his court feel confident in his eventual victory, no matter what his supporters say. There are those who wish to strike out a different path.”
“Any path that works against us is doomed,” I promised. “I am no less committed to your destruction. As are the Alka Alon Council.”
“You threaten me with jesters?” snorted Pritikin. “I fear them not. They are weak. Ineffective. They are not committed,” he declared.
“They don’t need to be,” I agreed. “I am. That is sufficient. You will not prevail.”
“I applaud your commitment, though it is foolish, Spellmonger,” Pritikin said, sympathetically. “But my mission was a success. We will withdraw now with the support of the Kurja. That may change things in ways you don’t like,” he warned.
“And what of the vault?” taunted Tyndal. “Would you abandon it?”
“That is not my task,” the gurvan shrugged. “Nor my worry. That belongs to Harinlon, a most disagreeable Enshadowed warrior. I am not concerned with the past, but the future. My new master has great plans,” he promised.
“They will do him no better than Gaja-Katar’s and Shakathet’s did for their efforts,” countered Taren.
“Our truce and our parley are at an end, then,” nodded Pritikin. “I bid you gentlemen farewell . . . but we will meet again, I’d wager. Indeed, once you return to your lands, you may come to value my counsel, I think. You will not find things as orderly as you left them,” he predicted.
“Our truce is discharged, then,” I agreed. “You may leave here in peace and depart without malice . . . for now. If we meet again, I promise a far more vigorous response.”
“I expect no less from the illustrious Spellmonger,” he said, with a bow. “I pledge the same from my forces. I thank you for your civility, at least. By now my gurvani have escaped beyond your reach – the reason for the truce. Now, farewell,” he said, turning to go. “And have a pleasant journey home,” he added, sarcastically.
“I hate that little shit,” growled Tyndal. “If he had not proposed a truce, I would have . . .”
“The truce served our mutual purpose, then,” I decided. “Hopefully, enough time has passed for Ormar to extract the striekema. What concerns me is what he said about his alliance with the Kurja. How could they possibly assist him when they cannot leave the valley?”
“I was more concerned with his forebodings of home,” Taren admitted, as we watched them walk away. “What could he have meant by that?”
“We’ve only been gone for a couple of weeks,” I reminded him. “What could possibly have happened in that time?”
That’s one of those idle comments that, in retrospect, convinces a man of the divine nature of irony.
Chapter Thirty-Three
A Pack of Worries
We completed an important element of our quest in the Leshwood. But I cannot help but detect a note of melancholy in Minalan’s voice, now. I thought it was the somber nature of our journey, but I’m starting to suspect it is something deeper. It concerns me.
from the Expedition Book of Anghysbel,
Recorded by Taren the Thaumaturge
“Look at that,” Ormar cooed, as he surveyed the bubbling pool of acid in Stonetrunk’s excavated trunk. “It’s eaten the pulp clean away, like a good little acid. It’s completely separated from the tissue. Just the . . . whatever it is, is left.”
“It’s glass, technically,” Lilastien said, as she studied the rod at the core of the dead Lesh. “Super-heated and subjected to strong electromagnetic forces, but it’s technically just glass.”
“Let’s hope not,” Taren said, shaking his head. “If it can’t detect a full range of arcane energies, all of this effort will be for naught.”
“It will work,” I promised. After all, I considered to myself, the Grandfather Tree’s pronouncement would not make sense if it didn’t. “It will be worth it.” I tried to sound confident about that.
But I was looking at a two-and-a-half foot long rod of orange-brown milky glass, bubbling under the giant maggot’s vomit. There were minor bumps and protrusions studding it, like the bumps on a cucumber, and it tapered at either end. I was worried that it had fractured – and then wondered whether that would affect its sensitivity at all. I was completely out of my depth, here. And I was acknowledged as one of the master enchanters in the kingdom.
“What did the gurvani want?” Fondaras asked, quietly, as Ormar began to cut at the side of the exposure, to drain the pooled acid away.
“Just to stall us, so we wouldn’t follow them out of the vale,” Tyndal reported. “Pritikin was their herald. He’s an old enemy of mine. A gurvani with impeccable diction. If it wasn’t for the truce, I would have slit his throat . . .” he said, darkly.
“By fulfilling their mission, we advanced ours,” I reasoned. “As soon as we harvest this thing, we can get back to Unger Station, and then head home. This completes our quest,” I said, knowing that I wasn’t quite speaking the truth.
I’d come to Anghysbel, after all, to resolve a number of matters. Finding this substance had been among them, but it was not my only goal. I was feeling disappointed about our failure at the vault. Our other discoveries seemed to taunt me, in comparison.
That might have been unfair, but after hearing from the Grandfather Tree, the striekema seemed a consolation prize. I had seen wonders here no other man had witnessed, marvels that few sages even suspected existed outside of myth and legend. Ishi’s tits, I had spoken to a dragon and lived to tell the tale. I’d taken up the arms of the Ancients, survived without magic, and found that which was long lost. I should be patting myself on the back and picking out the melody to my epic saga.
But I was feeling let down, even though I was staring at one of the main fulfillments to my quest. The world was still going to end in a mere three thousand years. Humanity’s brief tenure on Callidore would be gone and forgotten. All my hopes for our future were tainted, now. And the new moon was but days away.
“How do you think you will use it, Minalan?” Taren asked, curiously.
“I’ll get the thaumaturges and the enchanters to work on it and establish its sensitivities when we get back to Vanador. If it can detect divine magic, we should be in good shape,” I decided.
“And then we can de-construct the snowstone spell and determine just what arcane energies are required and in what proportions,” Taren said, optimistically. He didn’t mention the very real possibility of screwing that up in a dozen different ways. Thaumaturgical research is a spotty thing, at best. We were working at the edge of the unknown in the art, with materials no one had used to such effect, before. The likelihood we would be successful, even with the striekema, was still slim.
“Watch out!” Ormar warned, as he hacked away the last wedge in the side of the trunk with his hatchet, allowing the excess sulfuric acid to drain out on the rocky ground. “We need to neutralize the rest of it before we touch it. Acid burns are no joke.” He donned heavy leather gloves from his pack to emphasize the point. Ormar
carefully freed the long rod of glass from the scorched tissue around it and triumphantly brought it into the air.
“It’s surprisingly strong and rigid,” he reported, as he held it up to the fading light. “More than I’d suspected.”
“Wrap it up respectfully, if you please,” Rolof directed. “Stonetrunk was very well regarded. This is essentially his brain, frozen in the last terrified moment of his life. Treat it with reverence,” he counseled.
“Are you joking?” Ormar asked. “This is the triumph of my career, so far. I’ve never heard of anyone doing this before. I’m going to treat this like my child,” he promised, as he splashed some water over the length of the rod from his water bottle. He wiped it off with the impromptu truce flag, before sprinkling some fine white powder over it. “There, it should be safe to handle, now.”
“Minalan?” Ameras called from where she was still stationed, in the dead canopy. “Those gurvani are leaving the area. There are at least nine more of them. And they’re carrying bags of something,” she said, concerned. “Large bags!”
Taren and I looked at each other.
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” he said. “I wonder what they took?”
“I’d chase them down and ask them, but we’ve more important things to do,” I pointed out. “Besides, I promised them I wouldn’t interfere with them until they left.”
“Perhaps not your wisest decision,” he pointed out.
“I’ll add it to the list,” I snorted. “Just ask Fondaras. He thinks I’m a mediocre wizard. I’m starting to believe him.”
“It got us what we came for,” shrugged Tyndal. “We can hunt goblins later. I’ll let Ithalia know,” he said, as he pulled his radio from his belt. “Maybe she and Nattia can pick them off from the air.”
We saw two more giant maggots across the stony vale as we withdrew, but they were too far away to be of menace. We made it to the thorny barricade just as one of them started paying attention to us.
Bomoadua was waiting for us, standing exactly where she’d been when we left. The Leshi can stand completely still for days at a time, Rolof informed us, as we climbed the narrow trail up to the barricade.
“It is done,” Rolof reported to the Lesh, somberly. “We had to slay a Kurja to do it, but it is done.”
“It is? And so quickly, too. That bodes well for the future,” she said, her eyestalks coming down to regard us. “The Court of the Fathers will wish to see it and pay their proper respects,” she added.
“We know,” Lilastien agreed, taking the wrapped bundle from Ormar. He seemed reluctant to part with it. “That is what we agreed.”
“I really didn’t think you would be able to do it without our help,” Bomoadua said, as she began to shuffle back through the scrub.
“We animals can be quite resourceful,” Ameras answered. “I was impressed by the way the humani worked together, too. Minalan is a good leader.”
“I have good people,” I dismissed.
Once again, the others were left at the moot meadow while Lilastien and I followed our hostess up to the Court. The three Father Trees lowered their eyestalks and speaking gourds and expressed surprise at our early return. After greetings, I unwrapped the bundle and revealed what was left of noble Stonetrunk.
“He was a good lad,” Deeproot recalled, one of his limbs taking the rod reverently from me and holding it aloft in the dying light of the day. “Always cheerful. Always dedicated. He would have joined us here in a few decades, I think.”
“I recall his first fight against the Kurja,” Wideleaf reflected. “That’s when he got his name. Fearless,” he praised. “So sad to see him end up this way.”
“He had a noble spirit,” Strongbranch agreed. “Always a kind word or an encouraging gesture. Never heard him get creaky. Not once. And never a bit of sass since he was a sapling. I do hope this helps you, Minalan,” he added, taking the rod from Deeproot and returning it to me. “His death was tragic. He would be gratified, I think, to be able to be helpful after his passing, even in some small way.”
“I will do my best to see this put to good use, for all of Callidore,” I promised, as I began to wrap the golden-brown rod of glass back up.
“You do realize what your success means,” Deeproot asked me.
“We do,” Lilastien nodded. “That’s a lot of expectation on us.”
“We agree,” Wideleaf said, surprisingly. “But then we did not expect you to succeed at this task. And defeat the infestation that assailed you.”
“How did you know about that?” I asked, surprised.
“The Court of Fathers sees all, in the Leshwood,” Bomoadua answered. “They were watching your trial from afar, through the sentinels. We all were. You were very brave,” she complimented.
“And then you spoke with the other Alon,” Strongbranch informed us. “We were curious of what matters you spoke.”
“It was a truce between enemies,” Lilastien explained. “They are our foes, who work for the Abomination and Korbal the Necromancer. They were seeking counsel with the pestilence. They desire an alliance with the vassals of the Formless.”
“That . . . that is not good news,” grumbled Deeproot. “Not at all. We are adequate for containing the pestilence. But if they had assistance escaping this vale, that would be trouble.”
“We will do what we can,” I promised. “But you have other concerns. Fathers, my ancestors built a facility to watch the volcano and the rest of the vale, should it threaten to erupt again.”
“The Unger Station,” agreed Wideleaf. “We know of it. It’s just on the other side of this ridge,” he said, gesturing with a branch.
“Exactly. Well, we have gained access to it. It has given us warning that in eighteen months a massive cloud of superheated gas will erupt somewhere nearby. I am seeking to evacuate my people from this place until it passes, but you should take what precautions you can.”
“Really?” asked Wideleaf, surprised. “I thought the soil has been a little rumbly, of late. You’re certain about this?”
“Certain enough to disrupt the lives of twenty thousand of my subjects – if you include the Kasari, the Kilnusk, and the Lakeshire Tal. Every one of them will be killed if they don’t leave. It will take a few years for their lands to be inhabitable again.”
“Well, that is disturbing news,” agreed Strongbranch. “We will fare well enough – the Court has survived such events, before. But the seedlings and the saplings will be lost. And a great many others,” he said, sadly.
“I . . . I am happy to offer you temporary refuge in my lands, to the south,” I proposed. “The Magelaw is wide and empty. We have forests aplenty, there. One that moves around a bit won’t be out of place.”
“Really?” Wideleaf asked. “That is very generous of you, Minalan. Very generous indeed. We will consider your offer, as we discuss this news. Thank you. And thank you for keeping your word about Stonetrunk. A surprise, but it supports what the Grandfather Tree told us.”
“I’m just trying to help as many folk as possible,” I sighed, hefting the bundle with the rod over my shoulder, next to the rifle. “This is a wondrous place. I hate to think about all of your people . . . dried out, unexpectedly.”
“Yes, there is much to consider. We will deliberate and make our decisions about what to do after consultation. Good luck, animals,” Deeproot called. “It sounds as if you’re going to need it.”
“I was hoping that they were going to offer us a drink for the road, before we left,” Lilastien told me, as we walked back to the meadow with Bomoadua. “I haven’t had a dirty martini in six hundred years.” She paused a moment. “So, are we going to talk about—”
“No,” I interrupted, insistently.
“But don’t you think—” she continued, after a pause.
“No,” I repeated. “I really don’t want to think about it. I hate prophecy.”
“It’s not exactly prophecy,” she argued. “It was just suggestive—”
&nbs
p; “You’re quibbling,” I said, a little irritated at her persistence.
“The Grandfather Tree does not prophesize,” Bomoadua said, as we approached the rest of our party in the moot meadow. “It sees many futures. As Lilastien said, it was merely a suggestion of what might come to pass.”
“I don’t see much difference between that and prophecy,” I argued.
“You know, it’s not just about you,” Lilastien reminded me. “I’m involved as well.”
“I remember,” I said, getting even more irritated. “I didn’t come on this quest to discover my fate. I came on this quest to . . . to . . .”
“You came here seeking knowledge,” Lilastien replied. “As Fondaras says, knowledge has a price.”
“The price of this gem of wisdom is unsettling,” I said, dismissively. “I really don’t want to talk about it right now. I don’t even want to think about it. Particularly around the others. I’m hoping something was lost in translation and that it’s all a horrible mistake.”
“The Leshi speak excellent Narasi,” she pointed out. “They have for centuries, and Old High Perwyneese before that. And Alka Alon before that. Nothing was lost in translation.”
“Then I’m going to ignore it, and proceed as if I didn’t know about it,” I said, a little sullenly. “I can appreciate the notion of sacrifice, but it doesn’t usually involve me, personally.”
“You say that while you’re carrying the heart of a Lesh who sacrificed himself for a man he didn’t even know,” Lilastien pointed out. “We’re speaking of the entire world.”
“The irony hasn’t escaped me,” I agreed, evenly. “I’m just ignoring it. Us pig-headed humani are good about that sort of thing.”
“Pathologically so,” Lilastien agreed, as we finally came to our friends. “Are we ready to go?” she asked them, as they rose.
Footwizard Page 50
