“Gold,” said Karamana.
“And silver,” said Silver with a smile.
“Of course,” said M’rystal, his composure slightly ruffled.
“And for now,” snapped Raven, “we wish no more than a bath, a feast and bed. Each of us that is a man shall be given a woman of his choice, and each of us that is a woman shall be given whatever is her choice. For me that is quiet for a night and a day. I am weary of battle, and wearier of you.”
She walked past the Altan and into the palace, her cloak flowing about her, her long legs steady and firm as she trod the polished marble.
Silver shrugged and looked at the Altan as if to say, “Women will be women.” And then he walked after Raven, running a little to catch her up and link his arm with hers. “You’re not as angry as you sound, are you?”
Raven laughed. “Not at all. But I did enjoy that.”
Later, they were called to M’rystal’s presence, and found the Altan immersed in a great pool of pink-tinged water. It was his way of paying them back for their abruptness earlier. Raven stooped and ran her fingers through the liquid and found it warm and tingling to the touch. M’rystal watched her through dark eyes, an expression of grief and worry painted thickly about his features. Silver and Karmana seemed impressed by the gold-decked room, with its marble pillars and translucent flooring. Everywhere was hard and smooth to the touch, but unexpectedly warm. A gentle breeze blew drapes, patterned with the signs of the Altanate’s gods, into the room, but Raven could feel no draught.
M’rystal floated in one corner of the hexagonal pool, his arms outstretched along the edge, his head being gently massaged by a named Xandronian female, a slave who, by her wrist tattoo, was held in high favour by the Altan. The uglier black tattoo on her thigh made Raven’s skin crawl, and she touched her own marking almost without thought. M’rystal saw the motion, but did no more than let his eyes flicker along Raven’s body, admiring her in the new clothes she had been given.
All her people were dressed in shining leather armour, and new, well-woven cloth leggings and shirts. Spellbinder along had retained his black armour, but Moonshadow was girded well with a cuirass of Xand leather, wristlets of bronze-trimmed horse-hide and thick fur boots that were turned down below the knee. Perhaps he already sensed the extreme cold of the place to which their destiny led them. Cold had never bothered Raven. The coldness in her heart and mind were all the chill she would ever allow herself to suffer.
They grouped around the Altan and stared down at him. Karmana giggled perhaps at the man’s whiteness and the thinness of his body; no bones protruded as some desertworn mongrel, but there was scant flesh on the most powerful man in the eastern kingdoms.
Silver whispered to Raven, “Was his excitement and pleasure at greeting us the mask to cover his grief, or is this grief a mask, covering his pleasure at having his kingdom back?”
Raven shrugged. “No woman, not even Krya, was greater than his kingdom. But I imagine he feels desperation now that he is secure again. He wants her back very badly and will pay our price.”
M’rystal became aware of the whispering behind him and splashed, dismissing the woman who tended him.
“You talk of my grief, I imagine,” he said. “I tell you, Raven, my grief is unbearable. To think of my lovely Krya in the clutches of some monster of magic and evil, it makes my body waste and my mind freeze.
Raven sat down on the marble edging of the pool. Spellbinder squated on the other side with Silver flanking him. Karmana and the others crowded behind the Altan, pinning him in his corner. Raven waved her hand through the pool, splashed M’rystal’s chest with the fragrant and tingling liquid. M’rystal smiled uncertainly as he looked about him at the mercenaries. They were all smiling too, staring at him.
“You want something,” he said. Treachery fled through his face, like a fleeting desert wind. He had glanced to the door, and Raven, turning, saw that heavily armed guards stood there, spread out in a wide fan, ready to run to M’rystal’s protection at the slightest whimper from their emperor.
Raven laughed. “We have defeated two great tribal leagues,” she said. “We have gained a man his kingdom. I, Raven, have destroyed that same man’s Night Warrior with more ease then I spit in contempt. You think a handful of guards will worry us?”
“Yes,” said M’rystal cannily. “For I know your friend Argor who has now headed west in search of other employ. I know what he would have told you. Confidence, and bluffing, are great weapons; but they cannot block the passage of an iron blade.” He grinned. “But there is no threat to you, to any of you. I need your help to rescue Krya. I shall pay well.”
“You will pay for what we have done already,” said Spellbinder. “And you will hate the payment.”
M’rystal shrugged and slipped in the water, but found his balance again and continued to float leisurely. “You have your new clothes; and weapons. I think, of finest Tirwand steel, forged and reforged seven times, patterned and stronger than rock. But you are right. There must be currency. Gold, silver, or perhaps jewelry is to your taste?”
Karmana beamed, her eyes alight with green. Several of the others seemed inspired by the thought of such treasures. Raven shook her head solemnly.
“We travel by horse,” she said. “How can we carry gold? Some gold, yes. But from you, M’rystal, we desire a promise.”
Suspiciously, M’rystal cocked an eyebrow. “A promise?”
“You will promise never again to go to war against Lorn and Conil Nachta. You will promise to become peaceloving, and rule your vast kingdom without inciting the men to a fury of conquest. Promise this and we are paid for our services. Promise this and Krya shall be returned to you. Fail to promise it and you can find Krya alone.”
M’rystal was whitefaced with confusion and desperation. “I cannot…I cannot promise not to war against any country…”
In his excitement, and his bewilderment, he slipped, struggling to retain his balance in the pool. Jirrem leaned forward and quite inconspicuously pushed the Altan below the surface, holding him there as he spoke to him, in a tone of voice that would suggest nothing was wrong. Karmana and Raven leaned close to each other, blocking the guards’ view of their master. M’rystal kicked and splashed, and then Jirrem let him up. Water streamed from the Altan’s face, and he gasped for breath, looking at Raven and then at Spellbinder, unsure whether to scream or agree.
“My apologies,” said Jirrem. “I overbalanced.”
M’rystal stared across the pool, to where his toes broke the pink surface. He looked miserable. “I could never find Krya alone. Belthis could frustrate any attempt to use magic to locate him…any magic but yours, Spellbinder. So I need you, and acknowledge this. I need Krya, and cannot hide that fact from you.” He looked at Raven. “I agree then, I pledge my kingdom to peace until such a time as a war-lord makes war on my kingdom. At that time I shall consider the pledge broken. I can’t say fairer than that.”
“You can,” said Raven irritably, but then she sighed. “But we shall not ask you to.” She knew that M’rystal, for his many faults, was a man of his word. He would keep that pledge.
So now they went in pursuit of Belthis, and as they rode from Kahrsaam’s northern gate, at dawn, Raven felt her whole body tense with the thought of the confrontation that would surely come. It would be many days until they finally stood at the foothills of the Frozen Peaks, and it might take many days more to find Belthis. But neither Moonshadow nor Spellbinder seemed unduly bothered by the magnitude of the task ahead. They feared, like Raven, only the confrontation itself.
They followed a well-worn trail, winding northwards through high gorges and across rolling grass downs. Communities and towns were scattered everywhere, and they passed a hundred caravans heading slowly towards the big cities to trade. Within a short time they had arrived on the shores of Lake Thaal.
Here they rested and refreshed themselves. The lake waters were bitterly cold, and seemed dark, as if they concealed a cav
ernous depth. Raven would not swim there, but Karmana stripped with glee and swam strongly in the shallows. Silver joined her, and for a while their laughter was a pleasing change to the sombre silence that seemed to be dogging the band.
Raven was glad that the two northern warriors were slowly hiding their differences. This is how it should have been.
A fishing and weaving town lay sprawled along this part of the lake edge, and Spellbinder sought out the elders and the watchers of the place, those who would notice people and strangers passing through.
He learned that a man, sounding remarkably like Belthis, had fled through the place a few days earlier. He had ridden with a second man, a giant man, dressed in black and red armour, with a tangled beard as long as his chest, and lank, greasy hair that had flowed from beneath a gleaming and featureless helmet. The man had been a Weaponmaster, a peculiarly faithful Weaponmaster, for he obeyed the other man’s orders without question.
Raven was in no doubt as to who this was. Moonshadow listened impassively, but he gave no hint as to which was the man he sought for himself.
There had been no woman with them, but that was hardly surprising. Poor Krya, thought Raven. Trapped and freezing in the mountains for all this time. She had her doubts that the delicate flower of a woman could survive that treatment; she felt a cold pang of unease, for her memories of Krya were fond.
Having secured his hostage in his mountain stronghold, Belthis had come to take command of his new kingdom. He had, by the sound of it, enjoyed no more than two or three days in the palace before he had found himself watching the departing armies of Lorn and the Conil Nachta. He had not hesitated, but had fled immediately, and had—almost certainly—escaped the Altanate even before M’rystal had ridden triumphant back to Kahrsaam.
Raven pressed on, then, to Irkar, a port at the edge of the Altanate, guarding the Irkard river, and the gateway into the Lost Mountains.
Irkar sprawled at the top of sheer cliffs, a dark and dirty city, swarming with troops, and bustling with traders from all over the lands around Worldheart. Animals and children raced and played in rough cobbled streets; high watch towers, wooden built and ugly, rose form the walls as if the vantage from the cliffs was even so insufficient. A strangely uneasy place, especially since its occupation by uncompromising warriors of the south, Irkar greeted Raven and her followers with silence, and suspicious glances.
The buildings, squat and low-roofed, seemed closed to them, permanently, and they rode through the narrow streets, and past the teeming market places, not stopping until they came to the steep roadway down the cliffs to the quayside, hundreds of feet below.
Their horses complained and stumbled as they walked carefully towards the shimmering seas below them, and finally they came to the harbour and found the ship that was theirs for the taking. Lifebane’s wolf ship, Wavecutter, sailed here by men of the Altanate at Raven’s instruction.
It was like greeting an old friend as they stormed across the rails and looked around them at the function and uncomfortable facilities. Raven went straight to the prow and ran her hands across the snorting animal muzzle of the figure carved there.
“Aye,” she said, “that’s exactly how I feel.”
Spellbinder and Silver asked among the men who worked on the quayside if they had seen any sign of Belthis, but to their puzzlement none could say that they had seen the warlock and his unmistakable companion.
“He must have ridden overland,” said the Sorcerer as he guided the wolf boat out to Irkar and northwards along a coastline they had already watched once this past month.
“He can make good time probably,” said Raven. “But then he knows where he is going.”
“Aye,” said Spellbinder, staring up at the cliffs as they drifted past. The wind took the great sail and billowed it, rocking the ship and pushing it forward with a sudden surge. “Between the Irkard and the Ice River is a land I know not well at all, deep valleys and mountain-fringed rifts. It would take a brave man to ride through them. They hide a thousand mysteries, talked of only by adventurers, of the same ilk as those who claim to have explored Quwhon.”
Raven nodded. The land between the rivers was less mysterious than Quwhon, but she knew well that expeditionary forces from the Altanate had occasionally gone into those gorges and never returned. The reason was probably no more than hostile tribes, used to their terrain and able to take advantage of it, but the land intrigued her. If Belthis had ridden through it he was either a fool, or was well familiar with what lay across the vast distances between the rivers.
Rough seas upset Raven and Silver and kept them below decks, green in the face and miserable. Moonshadow stayed below decks as well, his eyes almost vacant as they stared at the wall opposite him. At times he would remove the green gem and let the hideous spider crawl across his hand and up his arm. His playing with it upset Raven who found the animal made her nervous. But when she asked Moonshadow to conceal the creature he apparently heard nothing. Only when he was called to eat or relieve himself over the side of the ship did he surface from his shielded contemplation of the Crugoan; only then could Raven talk to him and expect a response.
A cry from the watch slings, high above the deck, brought them all running to the prow of the wolf ship; it was bitterly cold, somewhere around the middle of the day, though dense clouds obscured the sun. The seas were high, ice-flecked with the remains of the great ice boulders that floated out of the river itself.
There, where the shoreline indented to mark the flow of the Ice River, they could see the ruined city that had once guarded the water-way. It gleamed bright, ice and steel reflecting the daylight so that, for a while at least, the great metropolis seemed alive and beautiful, an ice jewel at the edge of the hostile sea. It looked across the raging waters of the ocean to the cliffs of the great peninsular that probed south from the edge of the Frozen Peaks, and separated the known ocean from the more hostile seas of Quwhon.
They truly were at the edge of the map, and Raven shivered as she thought of what lay further north, beyond the natural barriers, beyond the comprehension of mortals like she and her friends.
As the wolf ship ploughed closer to the city so the semblance of life vanished. Great struts and spires of steel rose from crowded buildings that hugged, like limpets, the broad bases of the high structures; over everything there lay a sheen of ice, bright, broken in places and sharp and crystalline. The ice was everywhere; it hung in great spears from overhangs, and grew like some strange life form from ground up and through the jagged and broken metal frameworks of buildings that had long since fragmented and twisted from their original shapes.
On one of the highest of the ice-shrouded towers, watching them steadily through unblinking, yellow eyes, squatted a familiar black shape, its wings furled, its talons rooted in the frozen stuff beneath it. Frozen mist rose from its parted beak as it cried a welcome, a raucous and ringing sound that split the still and bitter air.
Fifteen
“A vision, like a weapon, is merely a tool; and like a sword it must be sharp and precise if it is to be of any use.”
The Books of Kharwhan
Slipping and skidding on the icy roadways, Raven led her band towards the building where the great bird sat.
Moonshadow was almost unapproachable in his excitement. He was convinced that the Crugoan hid there, and that the bird was showing them the way. Raven was more cautious. She knew the way the mysterious bird worked—it never made things as easy as presenting them on a golden—or ice—platter. Bu the bird was showing them something, of that she was sure. And Spellbinder agreed.
A comical sight , the ten of them edged their way up the sloping streets, and steep steps, clinging to any unevenness they could find, any outjutting of ice or iron. Raven kept her sword ready, and so did Moonshadow. Silver had flushed steel with his exertions, and the light shone from him almost blindingly.
Occasionally there would be a cry of anger, and then pain, and one of the mercenaries would be se
en vanishing fast down the hill, limbs spread-eagled, body spinning. At the bottom of the hill they would stand, brush ice from their cloaks and clothing, and begin the agonising climb again.
Raven was the first to reach level ground, and the base of the great tower atop which the bird still sat, unblinking.
As she looked up, squinting against the sudden brightness, so the bird screamed and opened its wings, flapping loudly and excitedly for a moment before taking off into the freezing air and circling high and wide about the ruined city.
“Don’t go far, my friend,” said Raven quietly, then helped Spellbinder as the magician slipped on the last leg of the climb. Silver hauled himself to level ground, and they all arrived, one by one, to group about the sheet of thin ice that had grown across the triangular doorway into the tower.
Swords drawn, eyes alive for movement, Silver and Jirrem approached the ice barrier and smashed it with their weapons. The ice fell with a strangely musical sound. A blast of warm air flooded out from the interior of the tower, and cautiously Raven led the way inside.
They were in a vast chamber, wide and long, and high, it seemed, as the tower itself. A sinister darkness covered most of the place, but Raven’s eyes were drawn to the great band of colour that stretched across the interior, from side to side; a rainbow! It glowed with a light of its own, yet cast no light about the room in which they stood. It was just there, shimmering, sparkling, beckoning to them.
Raven remembered the words of the Oracle of Uthaan: “North, where a rainbow holds the key.”
She walked forward until the great ribbon of many colours stretched across her head, spanning the chamber.
“Where is the key?” cried Raven loudly, puzzled and unsure what she should do.
“I know of no key,” said a strange voice from the darkness. “But I am the Rainbow Dreamer, and I am haunted by a nightmare vision.”
Raven started with surprise, drew back until she heard Silver’s breathing beside her. From the darkness beyond the rainbow, emerging into the faint light flooding in through the entrance way, came a stooped and aged figure; an old man, his hair grey and long, his robes tattered and bound about him with rough strips of hide. His hands were frail as they reached towards Raven, and after a while she lifted her gaze from his body and looked into his eyes.
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