The Golden Shield of IBF

by Jerry Ahern; Sharon Ahern

  The little ship was moving, painfully slowly.

  Pain consumed Alan Garrison, but also drove him on. Bone was visible through his skin, blood oozing down his hand from the puncture. With his armpit over the oar shaft, for added leverage, Garrison kept at it.

  Lower.

  Thrust.

  Drag.

  Raise.

  Rotate.

  Then again, and again, and again.

  Garrison didn’t look back for what seemed to be several seconds, but time in Creath followed other rules, rules he did not understand. Perhaps Swan was somehow controlling it, using time itself to aid them.

  Lower. Thrust. Drag. Raise. Rotate. Again. Again.

  Alan Garrison looked back.

  The cyclonic wave was only a little closer.

  Lower. Thrust. Drag. Raise. Rotate. Faster! Again. Faster! Again...again...again...again—

  Garrison looked back once more. The cyclonic wave had gotten no closer.

  Lower. Thrust. Drag. Raise. Rotate. Faster! Again. Faster! Again...again...again—“Al'An!”

  No time to talk, he wanted to say, but there was no time to say even that.

  “Al’An. We are safe inside the summer palace’s aura. Evil magic cannot harm us here.”

  Garrison started to laugh. Someone had once told him that the first thing anybody usually did when they thought they were having a heart attack was to try to drive to the hospital. It was a way of going into denial. Hearing Swan’s voice telling him that they were safe was his mind lying to him because his body hurt so much. He wouldn’t take his eyes off the oar that he still moved to lower, thrust, drag, raise and rotate. He couldn’t take his eyes off the oar or he would stop rowing and they’d die.

  “Al’An, brave Al’An.”

  Alan Garrison thought he felt Swan’s hand touch his brow, then darkness swept over him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Swan blinked the sleep away from her eyes. The cyclonic wave straining uselessly against a magical barrier which it could not pass loomed over her, was omnipresent. Its roaring was and had been unceasing, but now she was only dimly aware of the cacophonous howl. The noise had not awakened her even once during the night, nor did it awaken Al’An, who slept beside her still.

  She looked aft along the littered deck of their all-but-ruined ship. Bodies would heal—she’d seen to that—and structures would be repaired, by means natural or otherwise. What mattered was that the Company of Mir had survived her mother’s evil magic one more time.

  Swan was frightened, but not by the cyclonic wave, which would eventually dissipate, nor by her mother’s power. This latter was dangerous beyond imagining; yet it was something she had long since ceased to fear. Fearing her mother’s magic would have been an exercise in futility. Eran’s evil was like a force of nature, always there, inevitable, waiting to strike. Rather, Swan respected its awesome capabilities and rationally chose to resist its tyranny.

  What filled an inexorably expanding segment of Swan’s consciousness with unreasoning dread was her own magical power.

  Her magic was becoming stronger, draining from her less quickly, replenishing itself more rapidly. Swan didn’t know why. Her wind summoning had amazed her, curiously terrified and intrigued her. She had enjoyed it for itself, beyond its being a necessity by means of which she might save all of their lives.

  Like an angry beast at the end of some unbreakable tether, the towering cyclonic wave continued to threaten, glared back defiantly under her gaze. Yet it was unable to trespass within the aura of the summer palace, because evil magic was its very substance.

  When she had first met Al’An, he might well have contended that there had to be some explanation other than magic for the wave, or for the creatures they’d battled on Arba’Il’Tac; after enduring all that had befallen them, she knew that he believed. Accepting the reality of that which was indisputably obvious was never a test of faith, of course, and magic was reality in Creath. Yet she was pleased that Al’An accepted this reality. In Al’An’s realm, although magic surely existed, evidently its presence was not readily apparent to the untrained observer.

  If, somehow, the cyclonic wave had been a naturally occurring anomaly, rather than the manifestation of evil magic, its strength would have rapidly depleted upon entering the aura, the phenomenon soon vanquished by the power of good magic. But the wave would have intercepted them just inside the aura, while there was yet strength enough remaining in it to destroy their little armada. The aura might have saved them from death, but Swan could not be certain.

  Wrapped in two blankets and a borrowed greatcape, Swan and Al’An had huddled the night together against the stump of their ship’s broken mast. Carefully, lest she awaken Al’An, Swan sat up, stood up.

  Before taking her own rest, Swan had seen to the wounds of the Company of Mir, resisting the impulse of her woman’s heart to first take away the pain of Al’An’s broken wrist. There had been others more seriously injured, more needful of her magic. The energy necessary for her to magically transport herself to each of the other four ships in turn had drained her, almost more than she could bear. Unnatural magic was always the most fatiguing. Accelerating the healing of wounds, on the other hand, required virtually no magical energy at all.

  A night’s sleep at anchor within the summer palace’s aura recharged her, however. Swan felt the magical energy coursing through her, strong and nearly full.

  She never dreamed in the way that mortals dreamed. Her sleep was a perfect rest, especially within the aura. And, between exhaustion and having Al’An beside her, the sleep she’d taken could not have been deeper. Nor could any rest have better prepared her for what lay ahead: the attempt once again to cross Woroc’Il’Lod, then march on Barad’Il’Koth.

  Swan was still attired in tatters, the greatcape clutched close about her for the dual purposes of modesty and warmth. She approached the portside rail. The two ships anchored some distance off the bow had raised no distress flags. As agreed upon, they would do so should any of the injured require additional magical attention.

  The company of her little ship, save for a single warrior on watch at the stern, slept against the rails, in the oarsmen’s wells, wherever they could. She had spellcast over all aboard the five ships that their sleep should be peaceful and long. As silently as she could, lest she unnecessarily rouse any of the exhausted, Swan approached the starboard rail, ascertaining that no flags summoning her had been raised aboard either of the other two ships anchored nearby.

  There was much to do and little time in which to do it.

  Although the wave still taunted them, lurked in wait for them, it would eventually disappear. Sustaining the cyclonic wave required an enormous expenditure of magical energy. Even if the Handmaidens had assisted their Queen Sorceress in its creation, had formed their great circle six by six, only the Queen Sorceress herself could be maintaining the cyclonic wave for this long a time. In any case, when the cyclonic wave finally vanished, her mother’s magical energy would be dangerously low, urgently require renewal.

  Swan, too, had used precious energy, but not as much as she would have used had she attempted to dispel the cyclonic wave rather than outdistance it. And within the summer palace’s aura, magical energy returned extremely quickly, even under normal circumstances. Her mother, Eran, did not have that advantage.

  By the time that the cyclonic wave vanished, what Al’An called “Swan’s Armada” would have to be fully ready to set sail for Edge Land, and at best speed.

  If she was the Company of Mir’s leader, the Virgin Enchantress, Daughter Royal, Princess of Creath, she’d have to see to it that she looked her part. Glancing toward the stern rail and reassuring herself that the warrior on watch was not looking her way, Swan shrugged out of the borrowed greatcape. She was nearly naked beneath it, her dress torn in places no maiden’s dress should ever be torn.

  Swan raised her hands, fingers level with the crown of her head, then envisioned the style of hair and raiment she
desired. Drawing her fingers down slowly along her body, her hair arranged itself, her tatters vanished, replaced by attire nearly identical to what she had worn before the storm. Her new dress was deep maroon, rather than the dark green color which coordinated with the shawl made for her by Bin’Ah’s wife; the shawl had blown overboard and was lost.

  Again, Swan raised her fingers to the crown of her head, then drew them downward, and a black, fur-ruffed hooded greatcape spell-woven to protect her against the cold emerged. Swirling its skirt close about her, Swan tossed back its hood.

  Theirs was the most severely battered of the five ships, and logically so. From this ship, she had controlled the wind and this ship had felt the greatest rush of its power. And this had been the rearmost of the five because it had been ahead of the other four prior to having to come about. Although the other vessels had sustained damage, it was minor. Hence, her own vessel—Al’An called it the Armada’s “flagship”—would require the most rebuilding. There was little that Swan could do about repairing the ship immediately, however. Even by magical means, there would be a great deal of noise.

  So she set about the ship doing little things: water-logged charts were restored, food and drinking water supplies were replenished, the processes of rust and corrosion attacking the metalwork of swords and spears were reversed, and such tasks were seen to.

  While she was searching her memory for a spell which could produce wood to be used for deck planking, Erg’Ran came to stand beside her. He seemed at once physically rested, but on edge. “You realize that your magic grows more powerful each time that you must rise to meet the dangers your mother thrusts upon us.”

  “I have been thinking about that, yes. Do you know why, Erg’Ran?”

  “All that I can say, Enchantress, is that I had anticipated it, with great expectation and great dread.”

  “You fear that I will become more and more like my mother as my magic becomes stronger and stronger.”

  “Yes, Enchantress. We need your magic if we are to win against her. Yet I cannot help but ask myself at what cost to you, to Creath’s future, do we attempt to win? Do you understand?”

  “I understand that you love me very much, and always have been concerned for my welfare, ever since you brought me to the summer palace for the very first time.”

  Erg’Ran set his weathered face, cleared his throat, then laughed. “How else should an uncle treat his niece, but with kindness and care to her well-being, Enchantress?”

  They stood in the bow pulpit, and Swan sank against the rail. “You are—” So many things were suddenly confused, so many things clear as well, things which she had never understood. “That is why my mother hates you so? More than organizing the last of the K’Ur’Mir to resist her. More than getting them to use their magical energy to create the aura surrounding the summer palace. And even more than whisking me away from her before I reached womanhood! You are her brother, Erg’Ran?”

  “Yes, Enchantress. I am her brother.”

  Swan threw her arms about her old friend’s neck, pressed her cheek against his chest. “I love you, dear uncle!”

  Erg’Ran laughed. “I never doubted that, Enchantress.”

  Swan pushed back from his chest, kissed him quickly and lightly on the lips. “To you, I should not be the Enchantress!”

  “To me, dear one, you will always be the Enchantress,” Erg’Ran confessed.

  “How... what—How did—?”

  Erg’Ran smiled down at her benignly. “And why did I choose this very moment to tell you? Is that another question for which you wish an answer, Enchantress?”

  “Yes, Erg’Ran—uncle.” She noticed his searching the pockets of his robe for flint and steel. Swan did not want him to be distracted, so she lit his pipe for him. Something dawned on her which she had never before considered. She asked, “Why is it that you will use magic not at all to aid yourself? You could light your own pipe with magic any time that you wished.”

  “That’s part of the answer to the questions you’ve already asked of me, Enchantress.” He puffed busily on his pipe for a short time, then looked at her across its bowl, smoke curling from his lips and nostrils, dragonlike. “I was a young man,” Erg’Ran began, “son of the Queen Sorceress, brother to the Daughter Royal. Your grandfather, our father and my mother’s husband, was the most respected man in all of Creath, for his mind and for his sword. Only man that I’ve ever seen as good as, perhaps better with a blade than our Gar’Ath.

  “Creath was a happy place, then, Enchantress, and, like most young men, I was very full of myself. In those days, there was nothing really to do. Periodically, the Gle’Ur’Gya, who would raid coastal shipping whenever given the opportunity, would find themselves with a young chieftain who had conquest in his blood. And he’d come inland with his band. I longed for such times, so that I could have adventure, test my skill with a sword, feel the blood in my veins. My father and my mother preached to me that while it was every man’s duty to be proficient at arms, it was also everyone’s duty—female or male—to study the ancient prophecies, to learn all that could be learned of history. Even as a male, I was encouraged to study the use of magic. Some K’Ur’Mir men, in those days, Enchantress, could give a K’Ur’Mir female a good challenge in magic.”

  “I’d heard of such things,” Swan told him.

  “But, of course, the woman would always prevail, because magic is natural to the female. At any event, Enchantress, my father was most noted for his studies of the dark times before the coming of Mir. Much against my desires, I was persuaded by my parents to accompany my father on an expedition to what was suspected of being the site of one of the ancient cities. I consoled myself with the thought that such a trek might bring me a little of the excitement which I craved.

  “And that, Enchantress, is how it all began, with that fateful expedition.”

  “How what began, Erg’Ran?” Swan inquired earnestly.

  “Your mother’s turning to the blackest of magic and the near-total destruction of the K’Ur’Mir.” His pipe was going out and she not only relit it, but restuffed it magically. “Oh! Thank you, Enchantress.” Erg’Ran leaned heavily against the pulpit rail, staring toward the summer palace, which was far too many lancethrows away to be seen, except with the second-sight. He turned away from the unblemished surface of the sea and toward the cyclonic wave. “It was during that expedition that your mother first began to learn the arts which led to that! And,” Erg’Ran tapped at his wooden peg, “this and all of the dark times which followed and will follow until she is destroyed utterly.”

  “Sit, uncle. Please?”

  Swan dropped down to the second from the top step leading to the bow pulpit, gathering her skirts close around her legs. Erg’Ran—Swan knew that he would not want her to help, because of his pride—managed to seat himself on the top step. Swan gazed up at him, watching the smoke rising from his pipe, only to be swept away in the morning breeze. “Eran had already asked our father if she could come along. He was pleased that she wished to do so, worrying more gravely and more frequently than he would admit that she was obsessed with her study of magic. And, because both of her children were going, our mother decided to come, too. Of course,” Erg’Ran chuckled, “mother and father were wildly in love, despite how long they’d been married as much taken with each other as young lovers sharing a first kiss.”

  That was a wonderful thought, a wonderful image that Swan wished that she had in her memories, her grandparents in each other’s arms, deeply in love.

  “So, Enchantress, we all set out with a retinue of assistants and a squad of palace guard, from the summer palace. Your grandparents, by the way, loved it there. Even before the aura was lain in place by the dying K’Ur’Mir, it had been a wondrous place to behold.”

  “Is that why you chose it, Erg’Ran? Is that why the summer palace was picked out of all of Creath?”

  “Selfish of me, I know, Enchantress.”

  “No. It was sweet,” Swan tol
d him honestly. “It was very sweet. So tell me what happened next.”

  “Well, we set out, as I said, and we traveled overland for a great many lancethrows, eventually reaching Edge Land. My father, you see, always interviewed travelers who’d come from distant parts of Creath, always assembled every fact that he could concerning his studies. He’d come to the conclusion that one of the oldest cities on Creath, dating almost from the mists of time, was located there. Also that there had been a great civilization which had arisen there, only to be destroyed by some natural cataclysm. Over the years, he’d collected relics perhaps attributable to it.

  “It was one of these relics, in fact, which had secretly ignited my sister’s passion to accompany him in the search. She had her own agenda, Eran did, to which none of us was privy.”

  “There was something in that old city which would enhance her magical abilities?”

  “Exactly, Enchantress.” Erg’Ran drew heavily on his pipe, exhaled as he went on, saying, “Our mother, your grandmother, second-sighted for us, projecting it through birds and other creatures in an attempt to locate what still-standing ruins or even blemishes on the ground there might remain.

  “Edge Land was a harsh place, even in those gentler days, and the journey took its toll on us all. After some rather harrowing experiences—sandstorms, ice storms, an attack by witches—”

  Swan interrupted. “Witches!” Incredulous, she repeated the word. “Witches? In those days.”

  “It was a happy world, but never perfect. There was a tribe of witches, warriors also, which had been rumored to have survived since before the coming of Mir.” Erg’Ran s face looked suddenly odd, as if he were somehow embarrassed. “They were a female only society,” he said. “At any event, at last your grandmother’s second-sight—”

  “Tell me about this tribe of witches, first.”

  “You wouldn’t really want to hear about them, Enchantress.”

  “Must I command that you tell me, Erg’Ran?” Swan felt awkward even saying it. “Please,” she added after an eye blink’s pause.