The Usurper

by James Alderdice

  Edna ignored him and said, “Someone made good coin off you then. Any map will only lead you into frostbite, bandits or worse. There isn’t any treasure nor any cloud palace neither to be had nowhere hereabouts. Take it from me, I have lived here my whole life and there wasn’t ever so much as a copper of Ognel’s treasure to be had.”

  “I don’t know, the map seems to be so precisely drawn,” said the girl, as she toyed with the end of her red sash once more.

  “Folk have been combing the mountains hereabouts since long before you were born and there ain’t no such castle,” said Edna.

  “I doubt that,” whispered the girl into her drink.

  “Stop it,” murmured Gathelaus over the lip of his tankard.

  Edna answered sincerely, “Don’t you think if there really were treasure around here, someone who has lived here their entire life would have found it already?”

  “Maybe the treasure isn’t gold,” suggested the girl coyly as she put her stein down.

  Edna chuckled in derision and snorted. “Don’t know who sold you on that idea, but I doubt any amount of mystic wisdom in the clouds is worth risking your young life for,” she said as she took a deep draught from her own tankard.

  The girl slyly retorted, “What about when you’re old and grey and see that time is running short?”

  “What?” asked Edna.

  “Ys’sara,” murmured Gathelaus.

  “I understand the mountain has magical guardians that cast a glamour over anyone being able to see the palace,” said the girl. “But if you could find that secret door, then…”

  Edna wiped a hand across her mouth where a spittle of foam had been left answering, “Old wives tales and I should know, I’m an old wife.”

  “You’re but a child,” murmured the girl under her breath.

  “We should be going soon,” urged Gathelaus.

  “What’d you say?” asked Edna.

  “Nothing,” said the girl sweetly.

  Edna’s face wrinkled more than should have been humanely possibly at Gathelaus, but she asked the girl, “Who are you, mi ’lady and why are you here? We’ve had no gentlefolk pass this way in years. Surely a noble woman like you can’t be here for treasure maps and tall tales.”

  The girl gave a mischievous grin and said, “I’m Ys’sara, one of the piss-poor hedge wizards who would have no luck charming the underclothes off a milk maid. Though I think I could manage a snuggle or two.”

  Edna frowned yet deeper snatching the girls half-finished tankard away. “Get out! I’ll have no truck with sorcerers nor deviants either!”

  Gathelaus stepped back with his own tankard to finish it before the old woman could reclaim it.

  “You ought let the hops steep better to flavor the malt,” said Ys’sara, as she went out the door.

  Edna threw the tankard against the wall beside the door and called upon a dozen deities for foul curses as Ys’sara laughed outside just beyond reach.

  Gathelaus glared at the Edna but swiftly finished his drink then followed Ys’sara out.

  “Last thing I need is more enemies in these parts,” rumbled Gathelaus.

  “She was rude.”

  “Uh-huh. You didn’t provoke her at all.”

  “Gathelaus, let this be. That was nothing we haven’t heard in a dozen towns already on the way here. They all resent the very idea of the treasure mountain being right in their very midst. They live in denial of the incredible opportunity. They are fools.”

  “They were raised to respect the dangerous unknown. To avoid the very appearance of evil.”

  “True, but.”

  “No buts, you want help and protection finding—”

  Ys’sara looked at him crossly. “You know what I want. You work for me. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  “And I’ll help you get it but keep to the plan. No use in making life harder than it has to be.” He motioned subtly toward the folk gathering at their doors and windows watching them on the street. “We’re strangers here and don’t need any unwanted attention that you seem to love attracting.”

  “You have handled any problems so far,” she said as he assisted her into the saddle.

  “I can’t block every arrow or thrown tankard,” he said. “Be careful who you antagonize.”

  She gave a haughty smile but answered, “So be it.”

  He mounted his horse and they galloped out of Vogar as Edna the innkeeper, stood in her doorway glowering at them and shaking a fist as they rode out of sight.

  ***

  The town was nestled in a valley surrounded by towering mountains. Rumors of treasure nearby had made roads scaling every direction possible among the snow-covered peaks. But Ys’sara was only interested in one.

  “Its almost hard to believe I am finally here,” she said. “I have waited for this for so long.”

  “We’re not there yet,” reminded Gathelaus “Besides how long could you have had that map?”

  She frowned at him. “You have no idea. Why are you so sour anyway?”

  Gathelaus didn’t answer.

  She took out her map and compared it to the vista before them. “It’s that one,” she declared, pointing at a frosty looking peak with a long-jagged ridgeline wreathed in clouds.

  “Are you sure? Most of these look the one like the other.”

  “I do have the map.”

  “Which you won’t even let me cross-examine.”

  Ys’sara sighed, “I am not paying you for your mapping skills. I am paying for your protection, your very life skills. Besides you wouldn’t be able to read it.”

  He grimaced at that.

  “It is written in the old Cthonik tongue of the first ones. The Fallen and the sons of the Rephai. Unless you have studied those letters? Hmmmm?”

  Gathelaus shook his head, saying, “I can read signs and landmarks. If it is really a map.”

  “Not in the sense you would use, no. It is a magical working imbued with some few landmarks that only a trained sorceress would understand. I learned such things in the Citadel of Shadows, long ago.”

  Gathelaus wasn’t sure he wanted to ever be near such a place as where Ys’sara seemed to have been taught. Their condescending attitudes would be too much for his pride to endure. He only managed with her thus far because she had paid him very good coin when he was also very desperate.

  She put away the map and led them to the left fork in the road, and soon after a hairpin turn a right-hand fork until he could determine which mountain they were ascending. The steep ravines and canyons would have proved difficult for anyone to get their bearings right unless her map was speaking a true route. But the path was well worn, and he could see the imprints that others had travelled this way not terribly long before, perhaps in the last day or two. There were not tracks coming back down the mountain.

  “Whoever has used this path already has not come back down yet,” he said. “There could be as many as five or six men up there.”

  “I’m well aware and they will be of no consequence to me,” she said haughtily.

  “And if they found your treasure first?”

  “Impossible. They don’t know the way to open the doors.”

  “If they had a sorcerer?”

  She turned in the saddle to give him the side-eye as if he were an idiot. “You worry about your end of the bargain and let me worry about mine.” The wind took the sash in her hair and held it out like a queenly banner.

  “I am warning you that there are other treasure hunters up here and they won’t likely be friendly. I am as good as any man with a blade, but I can’t counteract a sorcerer.”

  “I can,” she sighed.

  “And I can’t protect you from a flying arrow.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do your best,” she lamented with a huff.

  Gathelaus was fuming now. He could not understand this girl, who spoke down to him and everyone else at every turn. If he had not already accepted her gold and given his word to serve her i
n this endeavor he would have turned around and ridden away, treasure or no. He wasn’t even sure if she would declare that whatever this treasure was, of which he was still unclear, would be shared with him. Perhaps that was why she had already paid him so handsomely? She had no intention of sharing even a portion of this legendary wealth. Then he wondered about some of her hints and teases. What if it wasn’t even physical treasure as she had said to the innkeeper? What if it was some fantastical wizards’ knowledge? Useless as far as he was concerned. He had no interest in communing with spirts or ruling elementary forces.

  “You’re pouting,” she said suddenly.

  “What?”

  Ys’sara said, “It’s all right. I read your planetary signs before I offered you the job.”

  “My signs? I had no signs in Danelaw.”

  She laughed. “The Mazeroth, the universal signs and houses you were born under. You are an eagle born under the star of Rahab and the moon is your ruling house, and as such you make a very loyal person. You are a warrior but creative and intelligent, but on the negative, your kind always tends to pout when they don’t get their way. Don’t get me wrong. The best friends and servants to have are always eagles of the moon.”

  Gathelaus was only semi-familiar with the astrological Mazeroth she spoke of, so he couldn’t argue any of the points as much as he wished to. He strove to not appear to be pouting after that point, however.

  They followed the road as it wound up the mountain. There were few enough trees along the way, but the crags and ravines were many. Several times paths would fork off from theirs but Ys’sara never had any doubts about which way was hers.

  Gathelaus understood the previous riders seemed to be sharing their same destination. On occasion he saw signs that the riders had gone down one of the other forks that veered away but always their tracks showed that they returned to the same road. Ys’sara’s road.

  At last by late afternoon they reached a high place where a section of that granite peaks stood abreast of the greater mountain while the road continued up into thick woods and the solid ridgeline above. Gathelaus noted that the tracks of multiple riders still went on. He scanned the forest above, searching for smoke from a campfire or any other sign denoting their potential position, but finding nothing he focused on Ys’sara instead.

  “I think this is it,” said Ys’sara, as much to herself as Gathelaus.

  “You’re not sure?”

  She gave him a condescending look again. “I’ve never been here, but this must be it.”

  The pinnacle of rock was tall and crenellated, and while to anyone’s imagination it might have resembled a castle or at least a tower in scope, it was surely natural and not made by anything but the formation of the mountain itself. It held a commanding view of the valley below and even the distant peaks in all directions. Gathelaus now believed it was the tallest mountain in the region though he had not been able to tell when they were down in the valley.

  “I will need a bonfire. And enough wood to last all night perhaps,” she said.

  Gathelaus dismounted and tied his reins to a fallen log. At least it appeared that there would be no trouble in fetching enough firewood. There were fallen trees all over that section of the mountain.

  “Do me the honor of going beyond my sight for at least a few minutes,” she said, as kindly as she ever had.

  Gathelaus nodded and said, “I’ll get firewood from beyond those trees. I’ll be able to still hear your call if you need me.”

  “I won’t yet,” she said coyly.

  He stalked off into trees. He cast a wary glance behind and saw that she was watching him intently. Despite all her flirtatious talk earlier that day there was nothing between them. By Votan he did not understand the woman.

  She looked younger than himself and yet she spoke as if she had already traversed the breadth of the entire world. She had an answer for everything and opinions on even more. During their travels there had been little for him to do beyond halting some attempted horse thieves and he suspected they would have run off even if he hadn’t drawn his sword.

  He snatched up an armful of firewood and considering that they would need wood for all night he made several piles that he could pick up and bring back later.

  He picked up what he thought was a very old piece of grey pine that had the bark stripped from it. It was not wood. It was a bone. The dried-out femur of a man. There were the tell-tale scrape marks of teeth upon it, but they were not from animal. They were squared and regular like those of men but larger.

  He dropped it in disgust.

  But what man could do such? They were massive. A cannibal? A giant? His only consolation was that it looked very old. The mountain smelled like a mountain, he did not detect even the hint of any charnel remains and wondered then if perhaps an ill-tempered mountain giant had traversed this range in ages past and found one of the treasure seekers a welcome meal.

  He went back toward the edge of the forest to where he could see Ys’sara.

  He couldn’t even see her yet and she called out, “I am not ready yet, stay where you are.”

  He bit his lip and went and sat on a stump to pout. Then grew angry at himself and went and gathered more wood.

  ***

  When Gathelaus returned from gathering wood, Ys’sara already had a small fire going. She had changed out of her travel clothes and now wore a long white tunic that nearly reached the ground in the front and back but was open on both sides exposing her bare legs and arms. She had a strange headdress on the resembled nothing so much as golden wings, as if a bird of prey was planted flatly upon her head covering her ears, though he could still see the tail end of the red sash she used to hold her hair back. Large blue stones of lapis lazuli were held in a golden mesh about her neck and shoulders. It was a cumbersome looking arrangement. She held boughs of some green leafy bush and was wafting them over the fire and smoke as she sang or chanted softly.

  Spying him now, she said, “Don’t act like you have never seen a summoning ritual before.”

  “I haven’t, at least nothing like this,” he said, now noticing that she had drawn a wide circle about the fire by some ten feet on each side. Curious points along the circle were marked by short white obelisks almost a foot high.

  “I wondered what was so heavy in your saddle bags,” he said.

  “Put the wood inside the circle. We can’t be going outside of it after sunset.”

  “And the horses?” he asked.

  “They will be fine. Dumb creatures can endure what the human mind cannot.”

  Gathelaus glanced at the mountain. The sun was only a short distance above. “I’ll get some more wood then,” he said.

  Ys’sara ignored him and continued her dance and slight chanting about the fire as she waved the green boughs through the smoke.

  Gathelaus had carried a large stack of firewood to the circle by the time the sun was cresting the top of the mountain.

  “I think that will be more than enough,” said Ys’sara, as she momentarily halted her dance and chant.

  “I had better give the horses some water,” he said.

  “You must remain in the circle now that the darkness is close,” she intoned, before continuing her dance.

  Warm orange and fiery red across the western sky denoted the coming night. A few stars had already revealed themselves in the east.

  Gathelaus sat upon a log he had previously moved into the circle, careful not to break Ys’sara’s carefully drawn line.

  She continued her dance and wafting the branch through the smoke.

  Gathelaus thought the amount of firewood he had brought to be a great waste considering that Ys’sara kept the blaze so small. As the night fell and chill winds flew over the mountain in taunting gusts, there was no danger of being too heated with a roaring bonfire within the confined circle. Ys’sara kept the fire just to the point of continual coals and smoke. Gathelaus chided himself for letting the chill get to him as he wrapped his wool cloak a
bout himself. He wondered how the girl with bare legs and arms was able to withstand the cruel winds.

  It was strange and he decided it was probably just a trick of the light, but Ys’sara looked older, as if she were perhaps at least his own age now and not the young girl of perhaps seventeen summers when they had first met. Deciding that was just the smoke and night illusions, he dozed lightly upon the log.

  Hours into the night, when Gathelaus was perpetually dozing, Ys’sara renewed herself, chanting a soft song of the ages and waving the now wilted branch through the smoke. Her bare feet made a firm impacted ring in the soft mountain ground.

  He awoke once with her staring at him intently with those eyes that seemed so much older than her body. That body too though looked like a woman of maybe thirty. Was he dreaming the change?

  She was still dancing and chanting and as she saw him awake, she continued her precession about the fire.

  Her movements were neither lascivious nor enticing, though he did admit to himself that he enjoyed seeing her legs.

  As she passed by him and realized he must have been staring she swiped at him with the branch, saying, “Keep you mind on your duties. Watch the darkness.”

  “Duties?” He angrily brushed away the stinging from the swatting and glanced out toward the horses. He was initially night blind thanks to the fire and her pale form, but soon he could discern movement in the dark.

  A shadow that he thought was his own at first, moved its arm when Gathelaus had done no such thing.

  Shapes danced outside the circle. They were forever amorphous and indistinct but tangible as more than just tricks of the night. Some were like human figures as if they were inky vessels cast in similitude of man, others might have been fantastical creatures, but all were no more visible than shadows in the moonlight.

  He stood suddenly and drew his sword when she placed a hand on him.

  “Hold,” she said. “You need do nothing. I just wished for you to witness their presence.”

  “What are they?”

  “They are gods in darkness, doomed to remember their transgressive past and the last sacrifice. They cannot harm you, if you remain within the circle of power.”

  “And in the light?’