by Eve Forward
Said, For it must be t’run to back, On this evil-fated day, And Tamarne marched into the storm, To where, he would not say, Hows then they found him, Blinded in the flood, Gone from his eyes was the shining Of Cror’s divinest blood.
“Robin,” he asked, stopping the centaur as he was about to blast through the chorus, “what’s that ballad about?”
“Why, it’s Tamarne’s Gift,’ didn’t you know? I’d thought everyone would know that, it’s a very popular one, especially down in the Commots, why ...” stammered Robin, trying to keep his mind off the close passage around them.
“Surely it don’t matter, Sam?” complained Arcie, concerned lest the break in the centaur’s concentration would send Robin fainting again.
“Tell me, what is it about?” Sam pressed. “I’m afraid I’ve never been an extended visitor to the Commots ...”
“Well, um, of course, you know, the Hero Tamarne was half-god, you know, son of Cror, god of thunder?”
Robin whickered, his ears flicking.
“I’d heard that, but wasn’t sure it was true ...”
“Oh yes, Tamarne could call the lightning from the skies and he was promised immortality and he could fight like the great god himself,” recounted Robin. “And yet at the darkest point in the War he bargained with the gods that if they would save his companions from death at the hands of the Dark Lord, he would give up his right to the immortal blood. And so the gods took his powers and saved his friends, and that’s why Tamarne is dead now instead of ruling on forever, as Mizzamir does.”
“Mizzamir isn’t half-god, is he?” Sam asked, concerned.
Robin shook his head, nervously twanging the strings on his harp.
“No, but he is an Elf... they live forever, most people say” Robin burst back into another ballad, “The Hawk Lord.”
Unless somebody kills them, Sam thought. But he was also thinking of Robin’s ballad. The centaur, like most minstrels, had almost certainly learned most of his repertoire from listening to others’ songs, and memorizing the words.. He’d probably seen very few of them ever written down, and a slur here, a foreign accent there... T’run to back... T’krungtabak?
At last they had come into a valley and before them loomed a mountain too proud and huge to be part of any common range. Immense and haughty, it was a range all to itself. Clouds wisped about its peak in the twilight, and plateaus and crags grouped in the distance all around it, as though paying homage. Near the peak, a faint jag could be seen in the profile: the two-hundred-yard overhang outside the ancient Dragon’s cave. This was Putak-Azum.
Riddled like a termite mound with the halls and passages of Dwarves and men, now long abandoned because of the unspeakable horrors that had happened there in the long dark years before the Victory.
Now, the secretive Dwarves and their half-kin, the Northermen, lived and worked in the other mountains of Bin, and Putak-Azum was left to nothing more than the occasional pillage by brave adventurers, who were quickly disappointed; too many others before them had had the same idea. Still, some would occasionally enter and never return; there was always talk of clearing it out fully once and for all, but nothing was ever done.
It was after midnight when they finally reached the base of the mountains, but the night was no darker than it had been when they started. A bit of searching about and they discovered the entrance, a rough cave near ground level, with a pile of rubble outside it. Arcie looked at it in disgust.
“Fah! Be this it? The way in? The only way in? Where be the fancy doorway, the mystic runes, the secret passwords, the locks and traps and fearsome guardians?” He scooped up a pebble and hurled it into the cave. It bounced in and echoed hollowly. “’Tis seems as any old mouse-crack in a wall! What sort of fearsome ancient ruin call ye this?”
“As I understand it,” spoke up Robin, glad to be out on the ground in the open, and impressed with the sight of this most legendary of mountains, “when the Heroes went in after the Necklace, the forces of evil sealed the other exits behind them, thinking to leave them to be eaten by the dragon Kazikuckia ... but the Heroes, after destroying the dragon, came back to this place and the wizard Mizzamir blasted their way out with his magic.”
“Looks like they were in a hurry,” mused Sam, looking at the rubble. Blackmail nodded.
“Oh yes ... they were retreating from the dragon’s death throes as well as the armies of reptile-men,” Robin elaborated. “Racing against time to win the War with the forces of darkness.”
“What, retreating?” asked Arcie in surprise. “Yet I thought them so powerful as never needed to retreat.”
“Oh no,” Valerie shook her head. “They only became really powerful after the Victory. Mizzamir especially.”
Sam nodded in silent thought, then said, “Well, not doing us any good loitering on the doorstep. Come, we can make a start before it’s time to rest again. Arcie?”
“Eh?”
“You go first.”
“Why?” Arcie was suspicious. Sam grinned at him.
“It’s traditional, you sneakthief! You go in front and open the locks and stuff for us, check for traps, all those thiefy things, and we follow behind and fire spells and arrows over your head at anything that attacks us. You know, like in all the adventuring stories.”
“Och, aye, ‘tis so ...” conceded Arcie grumpily. He remembered his father saying something about that, although with the occasional grouchy complaint about being used as a sort of miner’s canary. Still, it did make sense. He drew his morning star and settled his hat on his head.
“Right, then, I’ll be needing a light...” he said, starting for the entrance.
“Must we?” complained Valerie.
Arcie sighed. “I cannot work locks and traps without a bit of illumination, lady... and you know how yon centaur behaves in the darken underbelow.
“I wonder, can you look through darkness, silent knight?” Arcie asked Blackmail. The dark figure gave a sort of shrug. Arcie chuckled. “Och, aye ... real fighters don’t need light, eh? But myself does. And should anything find us, I’ll want Sam able to aim best as he can, so’s I will not finish with a dagger in my neck.”
Valerie sighed in exasperation. “All right, have it your way... My Darkportal magic is no use for illumination, of course, but we may be able to find some branches around to make torches.”
They glanced about, but no branches were forthcoming.
Sam looked thoughtful a moment, and pulled something out of one of his tunic pockets.
“Would this help?” he wondered aloud, holding up a thin silver wand with a small round ball set in the end. It glowed faintly.
Valerie raised an eyebrow. “Let me see that!” The assassin handed it to her.
“It was glowing brightly when I picked it up,” he explained, “but it faded after awhile.”
“And where did you get that stick?” demanded Arcie curiously. Sam looked embarrassed.
“On the white mage’s ship, when I was, urn, getting a bit shadowy ... it was in a sconce, like a torch ...”
“You stole it, laddie?’” cried the Barigan. “For shame! That’s my department! I rob ‘em blind and you kills ‘em dead, remember?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well go back now and return it, could I?” retorted Sam.
Meanwhile Valerie had been inspecting the wand. “Yes, actually, assassin, this will do nicely. A wand of focusing magical energy and transforming it into light ... how vile. Still, I suppose it will work. I shall activate it, thus ...” She held it away from her face and said, “Flat lux.” The ball on the end suddenly flashed with bright white light, then dimmed to a glow like that of a fine lantern. With an air of disgust, she handed it to the centaur. “You carry this, then. And bring up the rear.”
Even as they vanished into the darkness, eyes watched them. Lord Tasmene, waiting and watching in silence with his brother, saw the sudden light flare along the empty hillside. Fenwick’s plan had been to trap the villains on the Plains and b
ox them in so that they would be forced to surrender, or, failing that, to apprehend them somewhere in east Ein. But no one but Tesubar had expected the speed and determination with which the villains had headed for Putak-Azum.
Tasmene had agreed that Fenwick’s plan was certainly a good plan, bound to meet with success had it not been for this unforeseen happening ... but he wasn’t too sure of the style of the thing anyway. He hadn’t had his kingdom and men very long and, much of the time, found them more trouble than they were worth. If evil was there to be dealt with, he would so have preferred to make it an actual adventure, such as the foray he and his boyhood friend Fenwick had killed their first goblins on. And later, with his little circle of good friends, adventurers, they had raided ancient crypts and suchlike in great fun.
They had even explored the tangled vaults of Putak-Azum ... or part of it, anyway. There wasn’t much to kill in there anymore, just a few animals like giant slugs and centipedes, but it had been fun. He was sitting here now, with his group of companions not far off. His old adventuring friends had come with him and his army on this journey, and their company was much more pleasant than a lot of strange men and Northermen bowing at him and calling him
“Lord.” He’d often longed to go hunting for griffins with his old friends, just like old times, but the duties of command ... and yet, if that light passing into the mountainside was any clue, there might be a much more enjoyable task coming up.
“Why, by Cror’s Hammer! You’re right, Tesubar! By Donin, we must stop them!”
He hastened back to his campsite, and prepared a letter to Sir Fenwick. The mage Tesubar watched him in wry amusement.
“What is it now, Tasmene?” asked the dark-haired wizard after a moment of watching the lord struggle with the spellings once or twice. “Are we going to go down after them, or do you plan to stay up here writing ballads all night?”
“No, no! We shall ask Fenwick to send a company of his men to wait at the entrance, whilst we, the White Tigers, venture once more into that dungeon’s dark depths, to flush those villains out of there like a cluster of rabbits.”
“Is that wise?” the mage asked, adjusting his blue and gold robes. “These people have already thwarted Fenwick...”
“Ah, but you forget, he attacked them out in the open. We are adventurers, my friend, and ruined fortresses are our territory. What’s more, we’ve tromped those tunnels before, and will know our way about from the maps Dusty drew last time... it will be easy. We may slay them without difficulty in the tunnels anyway.”
“I’m not so sure,” replied Tesubar, walking back into the circle of the campfire. The Einian army lay in slumber about them, snoring like a herd of cattle. The wizard paused, looking into the embers of the fire. Tasmene’s adventurer companions: Thurbin, Sir Reginald, Dusty, and Danathala lounged in slumber in a separate circle, except for the two barbarians Icecliff and Waterwind, who were rolled up in a tangle of buffalo skins.
Tesubar averted his eyes. “It sounds unpleasantly like walking into a bear’s cave.”
“Oh, Tesubar, don’t be so ominous ...” the warrior king’s blue eyes blinked pleadingly at him. “It’s an adventure, just like old times, my brother. We haven’t had an adventure in years ... It’ll be fun.”
Tesubar smiled, in spite of his concern, at the big man’s childlike hope. “Very well, Tasmene. Do you wish me to send that letter for you?”
“Yes, please,” answered Lord Tasmene, and he rolled the scrap of parchment carefully and handed it to the mage. Tesubar passed his hand over it, murmuring words of magic, finishing with a command of
“To Sir Fenwick of the Verdant Company!” The scroll vanished in a twinkle of gold smoke.
“Och, what a muddle.”
“Well, I didn’t expect the Heroes would leave it all nice and tidy. Any traps, short one?”
“None as I’m seeing. Be there any dangers, o ladderlegs?”
“You’re still in front of me, so I guess not.”
The voices of the two criminals echoed down the hall, bouncing and refracting off the rough walls. The tunnel of rough-blasted brown stone soon emerged into a fairly sizable room, empty save for broken piles of old wood and rubble. Three passages led away, two winding off into the darkness, and one climbing a flight of stairs.
Arcie looked at them thoughtfully, then turned around to address the rest of the party.
“Well, what way?”
Valerie looked about. “I’ve never been here before ... but if it’s the dragon’s lair we’re after, then I would assume ‘up’ would be a good start.”
“As makes sense,” nodded the Barigan. “Well enough ... No crowding from the back, please,” he added and jogged lightly up the stone steps. They followed, Sam keeping up with the Barigan just at the edge of the circle of illumination the magical wand provided. The other three hung back slightly so as not to disturb the two men’s stealthy investigations.
“Be like old times, eh, laddie?” asked Arcie, adding, “Don’t step upon yon tile there.”
The assassin skirted the tile and waited while the Barigan quickly drove a small spike into a crack of the floor, blocking some unseen mechanism. “Yes ... it’s funny, though, I’ve never had to go up against a dragon knowingly before. But I’m not scared now.”
“Ah, the wonders of luuuuv,” leered Arcie, making Sam blush. Arcie chortled, and then added, “I’ll not be looking forward to meeting yon great wyrm again, natch, yet if it has treasures to steal... och, it may be worth it.”
“There’s no way in the world we’re going to be able to kill it,” Sam said as they walked on down the hall. Arcie nodded, poking meditatively at a crack in one wall. “I mean, the best we can hope for is to get Kaylana out and get away.”
“Well, perhaps we can do that, and we can be robbing it skint at the same time,” answered the thief. “I know I’m game to try.”
The hallway curved..Now and again they passed doorways with the shattered remains of doors in them. Arcie and Sam peered into the rooms as they passed.
“Och, living quarters, living quarters, prolly a guardroom, empty, empty, empty,” the Barigan noted as he walked along. “Seems to me as quite a few people as were here before us. The place are all looted and trashed.”
“I imagine so,” replied Sam. “Through this part, at any rate.”
“How much are there, do ye reckon?” Arcie wondered.
He paused a moment, and turned to peer back at where Valerie walked behind the protection of the armored knight. “Ho, Valerie! How big is the place, anyway?”
“The ruins of Putak-Azum are far older than most men know, Barigan ... it is believed by some that they may extend throughout the entire mountain and down below into others,” was the cool response. Arcie whistled softly.
“That’s pretty fair vast! We’ll not be going through all of that, then,” he decided, setting off again.
After they’d gotten used to it, it was actually not a bad place. Arcie was delighted to be following in his father’s footsteps, as it were. Sam was glad to have surfaces all around him, and when his ears had at last adjusted to the echoes, he took comfort in the feel of the shapes all around him, tunnels and corridors to lurk in should enemies approach, even (he suppressed a slight shudder) shadows to hide in. Blackmail seemed to be quite assured, marching along the stone floor with a gentle chiming of platemail, looking about him through his dark viewslit. Valerie, born and raised in the twilight underground, enjoyed the comforting feel of thousands of tons of rock protecting her from the vicious sunlight.
Robin was the only one truly ill at ease; he was sweating and trying to keep his hooves from prancing. His eyes rolled, his ears shot back and forth widely, and his tail swished. Valerie could not ignore his obvious distress and turned around to face him. The others, finding the progress of their illumination had stopped, halted and turned around to see what was the matter.
“What is the matter with you, centaur?” she snapped.
Robin
scuffed his hooves nervously.
“It’s stuffy, the walls ... it feels like they’re pressing in on me ... I can’t breathe ...” he quavered, panting.
Valerie rolled her large purple eyes in exasperation.
“Wonderful. He’s going cave-crazy again.”
“Play your harp, minstrel!” barked Arcie. But Robin was unnerved by the strange air of ancient menace that hung in the very stone of the ruins.
“It’s crushing me!” whinnied the minstrel, eyes darting about at the walls. “I’ve got to get out...”
“Stop it ...” began Valerie, but she saw her words were not reaching the centaur. She grabbed him by the belt. He froze in fear.
“Look, Robin of Avensdale. You aren’t going anywhere. I’ll expend a bit of my awesome magic to protect you from the crushing of the walls, all right?”
“You can do that?” asked Robin. Valerie nodded.
“It will not be easy, but I shall. Wait for just a moment.”
She turned loose his belt and rummaged in her pouches. At last she came up with a silver chain and lay it down on her palm in a spiral pattern. Then she took out a tiny glass flask, and very carefully let fall a single clear drop onto the chain. The air was filled with a sweet-sour smell. Then she waved her other hand in mystic passes over the chain, reciting words of power: “Remedius fabulum eguus placebo!” There was a sudden flash of dark purple, and the chain shimmered a minute in the radiance.
Then Valerie solemnly shook the chain out into her other hand and offered it to Robin.
“Wear that around your neck, centaur, and even if you walk the darkest, closest tunnels, you shall be safe.”
“Gosh!” gasped Robin, swiftly pulling the thin chain over his head, pausing to disentangle it when it hung up on his ears. “Thanks!”
Valerie turned back around, and after a moment the party started on again, Robin now striding along confidently.
Blackmail turned to look at her, his mailed shoulders shaking slightly in what they could now recognize as laughter. Valerie smiled at the knight’s silent amusement.
