Once A Hero

by Michael A. Stackpole

  But it is the small pebble deep down in a boot that can hobble even the greatest of warriors. I smiled as my brother's old defense to criticism about his size came to mind. My success, if I was to have any, would come from the fact that I would be in Jammaq before even the Reithrese thought it possible, and even more so if they accepted the bait concerning my recall of the Steel Pack. If I had any luck at all, as a small pebble I would pass into their nation unseen and remain unsuspected until far too late for them to do anything about it.

  The now-familiar wave of dizziness passed over me as I entered the grove. I led the horses around so they strung out one behind another; then I drew Cleaveheart. As I had learned in traveling with Larissa, a torch was not needed to activate the magick, just a touch and the repetition of an Elven phrase: translatio mysterioso arcanum nunc. I started before the tree that would send me south, then circled the grove, touching all the other trees, save that one, with my sword.

  The torch used the first time I had traveled this way had given off sparks, which had cycloned around inside the grove to provide a wall through which I passed. Cleaveheart did not produce sparks per se, but rang loudly and clearly. The notes manifested themselves physically as spheres of differing colors, multiplying with each blow. The low notes, thick and blue, drifted toward the ground while the sharper, high notes darted about as if they were yellow and red hornets. All of them shivered the chains, binding me and the horses to the magick.

  As I rode around, the sound built as if ten, then a hundred and a thousand swords, pealed in discord and unison. On my third circuit I reined Blackstar around, then drove him straight at the tree I had neglected. As I dashed forward, the sound grew louder and louder until I could feel the notes tremble through me. The spheres melded together into a rainbow wall through which I burst at the point of near deafness, and on into the network I rode with the sound receding behind me.

  The network dragged on me, and I wondered if my plan was doomed to fail. I knew Takrakor was not a fool. Despite the Steel Pack's recall, he would realize that it was possible for me or a troop of Elves to head down to Jammaq on a rescue mission. While other Reithrese would be negotiating with the leadership in Cygestolia, giving him a gauge on how much of my suspicions the Elves believed, he had to assume I might try something. He could discount much Elven participation since the only Elf likely to instigate trouble in conjunction with me was his prisoner, but as the raid had already proved, Takrakor was nothing if not calculating.

  The network had three groves between Cygestolia and Reith. At three days of rest to one day of travel, that put any rescue attempt at a minimum of a week and a half. A longer time would be logical to expect, because the nearest grove lay nearly 120 miles from Jammaq. If he assumed we would take two weeks to get to Jammaq, he would not be considered overconservative in his thinking.

  This was the reason I had decided to push as hard as I could. What I intended to do had been described as possible by Lomthelgar, suicidal by Thralan, and necessary by all three of us. When I reached the next grove, I would get off Blackstar, tie him to the end of the string, and mount the next horse. I would repeat that process a second time at the grove after that, and wind up in Reith in less than a day. From there, if I could do it, I would ride into Jammaq, free Aarundel and Marta, and ride off with them. Our supply horses would double as mounts, which meant, if we abused the network and ourselves, we could reach the edge of the Elven Holdings before Takrakor would expect a rescue attempt being made.

  At least that was how I hoped it would go. The distance between Jammaq and the nearest grove did concern me, but before I worried about escape, I wanted to have the rescue completed. While I knew Takrakor was a cunning and ruthless adversary, I also knew he was not omnipotent, and I counted on that fact to guarantee our ability to flee.

  Riding alone into enemy territory, even along a magickal highway, is not generally considered a way to earn a retirement pension. In thinking about what I wanted to do, I realized that Takrakor was not as powerful as I first thought, and that Tashayul had been limited as well. Before he had obtained Cleaveheart, Tashayul had controlled an army, but not one large enough to let him secure his empire. Until he had the sword in hand, resources had been denied him. Once he had it, and had the prophecy reading in his favor, support in Reith had been more forthcoming, which was why he had been able to fulfill his destiny.

  Internal politics in Reith, as with Elven politics in Cygestolia, doubtlessly placed limits on what Takrakor could do. In taking Aarundel and Marta, the Reithrese sorcerer had made a bold bid for power that could just as easily doom him if it came to naught. If it won him Cleaveheart, he could find as much support for his imperial ambitions as had his brother. If his bid failed, the political powers in Reith could disown him and kill him or turn him over to the Elves for justice.

  I was betting my life on the idea that Takrakor had acted without sanction or knowledge of most or all politicians in Reith. I knew he had at least two dozen individuals with him when he staged the raid that took his captives, and I could not imagine him handling many more than twice that number if he wanted to keep the operation a secret. As Jammaq remained abandoned for most of the year, it made a logical hiding place for the captives, and I already knew Takrakor felt quite at home there. I also felt certain he would be there because he would want to force me to return the sword to the place from which I had obtained it.

  What everything boiled down to was this: I would face fifty or so Reithrese, including at least one powerful sorcerer, in the city of the dead in my attempt to free my friend and his wife. If I succeeded or failed, the most likely result was that the Elves and Reithrese alike would insist my mission had never existed and that things I said about it, if I survived, were the ravings of a lunatic.

  Such are the privileges of being a member of an Elder race.

  The first transfer worked well. I had dismounted before the last packhorse came through. Though my limbs felt leaden, I untied Blackstar and attached him to the end of the string, then hauled myself into the saddle of the second horse. Not having carried more than a saddle on its first run, it had not worked incredibly hard, though it looked back walleyed at me when I gave it some spur. I applied sword to tree again, and within two minutes we were into the network.

  The second leg dragged on more slowly than an old drunken veteran's war stories. My sense of urgency concerning the rescue had made it possible for me to switch mounts, but having to sit still for what felt like eons eroded my strength. My head kept bobbing down to my chest as I dropped off to sleep. The shock of my chin hitting my chest would bring me awake again, and I shook my head to clear it, but I continued to get more mush-minded with each passing second.

  Seeing the third clearing all dark and swirling in the white-for-black world through which I rode alarmed me and burned away the fatigue enfolding me. Peering into the depths of the inkstorm, I saw no one and nothing, but I prepared for trouble nonetheless. Something was definitely not right.

  As we came through a tree on the north side of the clearing and normal vision returned, I saw immediately what had happened. A whirling cyclone of reds, browns, blacks, and greys rioted about. For some reason I could not fathom in my tired state, the grove was active, and as nearly as I could determine, the outgoing tree was the one I had intended to use.

  I reined back immediately and brought my horse in beside the next horse in the string. Without touching the ground, I switched mounts, then drove my new horse forward into the correct tree. In an eye blink we were off again as the warm, musty wall of earth-tone colors gave us passage.

  As I used my belt to tie myself to my saddle, I wondered how the Elves had managed to hide a circus translatio terminal grove in Reith. I did not remember seeing very many trees on my first journey there. Most of those had been single, wind-scoured, and twisted trees defiantly clinging to rocks no self-respecting lichen would have called home. I tried to let my concern over this point alarm me enough to make me alert, but my b
ody could not muster enough energy to allow me to panic.

  Before we got there, I fell asleep.

  As much as charging into enemy territory alone is stupid, arriving exhausted is even more so. Apparently, when I arrived at the appropriate point, I functioned well enough to unsaddle my horses, water them, and tear open a bag of grain for them before I wandered off to collapse. I say "apparently" because I have no conscious memory of doing that, but when I awoke, I saw that it had been done.

  Upon waking I also saw how and why the Elves had been able to maintain a circus translatio terminal within Reith itself. I awoke in a subterranean cavern of considerable size with a huge gash cut in the ceiling. Bright, cold sunlight poured down through it and the raindrops dripping from the edges misted enough for a rainbow to fill part of the air above me. Below the gash, placed carefully to take full advantage of the sunlight, was a grove of miniature trees. I recognized all of them and for the barest of seconds wondered if I had not been transformed into a giant through my misadventure.

  I realized quickly enough, of course, that the miniature trees were the product of woodwifery. They had been grown specially and probably maintained carefully to provide the link needed to give Elves access to the interior of Reith. The cavern itself, with a pool collecting downhill from the grove, provided water and the cover needed to conceal at least a hundred warriors and their mounts.

  I checked the horses and found all of them in good health. Though I had no way of accurately judging the time, I estimated that I'd slept for at least twelve hours, maybe more, and decided I would wait until the sun went down before moving on toward Jammaq. In the meantime I put more food out for the horses and scouted out the tunnel that led to the outside. Confident I could lead horses through it in the dark, I returned to the cave and slept some more.

  The nicest thing I can say about the countryside in Reith is that it is as equally beautiful at night as it is in the day. More so, actually, because at night there is enough heat radiating from the broken, black rocks to fend off the nightchill, whereas in the day it would have baked me. Mile after depressing mile of pulverized landscape would grind down anyone's resolve to continue, but nighttime seriously limited my circle of vision, so I was spared the brutal tableau.

  Reith did have a lot of caves. I had no trouble locating sufficient housing for myself and my mounts. In one I found bones and in another I found feathers, but aside from those things, I saw nothing even approximating a sign of life. Given my status in the country I thought that a good thing.

  Reith is a nation made of mountains and more mountains, yet it is not like my homeland. The Roclaws are old mountains; while Reith is a land still in the grip of volcanic upheavals. At night I could see fire glowing in numerous mountain-tops. The hiss of steam or the bubbling plop of mud-flats filled the night with unsettling sounds. Sulphurous fog choked me and made my eyes water from time to time. It was such a foul place I had no difficulty seeing why the Reithrese would want to win an empire that would allow them to live elsewhere.

  It took me three days to reach the outskirts of Jammaq. I left my supplies and three horses in a cave outside the city, then led Blackstar and two other horses with me into the city itself. I fastened a set of silver chains to each saddle so we could slip them on whenever we had a chance during our ride away, even though I expected us to have at least three days on the road before we reached the cavern—if we reached it. I stabled the horses in one of the sidestreet mansions and headed out on foot for the last part of my journey.

  I armed myself with Cleaveheart and Wasp, the latter homed in the top of my right boot. I slung Aarundel's ax across my back, with the head at my left hip. I had chosen to wear studded leather armor for two reasons and did not regret the choice. After the grueling ride I relished the relative lightness of that armor. More important though, ring mail's incessant rustle, and the metallic ringing in my ears caused by a coif, would have made my stealthy advance through the city of the dead impossible.

  Autumn brought to Jammaq even more of a chill than it had known on my last visit, but I did not mind. Back then, in my youthful bravado and stupidity, I had come to beard the Reithrese in their own den. I felt confident that all the prophecies about me—both those others told and the ones I wove myself into—would protect me. I could not have failed to carry Cleaveheart away, so confident was I in my immortality.

  Now, well into the autumn of my life, I felt a kinship with the city of the dead and comfortable in its sepulchral chill. In each leering gargoyle I saw an enemy I'd ridden down or slain with the sword I now bore. Having killed so many people did not necessarily make me a citizen of Jammaq, but it did confer on me visitor's privileges, and I meant to abuse those very privileges before the sun came up. A few more Reithrese would come to rest in Jammaq, and the living would depart.

  A cold breeze cut at my face right then, and I realized I found a subtle strain within a great truth. As I had explained to Larissa, the gods were perverse. What I realized as I stalked toward Takrakor was that Reithra was the most perverse of all. She knew I was in the city and easily could have warned those who waited for me, but by betraying them and allowing me to send them to her, she let me feed her. That amounted to an act of worship toward her, and the last thing I wanted to do was to be counted among her acolytes.

  Having placed my trust in the perversity of a perverse goddess, I should not have been surprised to see what awaited me at the mausoleum from which I had liberated Cleaveheart. In the dozen and a half years since I last saw it, a portico had been added to the building. Broad, circular steps led up to a landing that allowed access to the rest of the building. Four pillars carved in the shape of intertwined Human and Elven zombies upheld a roof. The figures making up the pillars were paired Man and Elf, male and female and like-gendered, mocking Elven laws and decorum with their crudity.

  The merlons on the roof itself made the edge appear to be a huge jawbone, and it had been set with massive diamond teeth, the value of which was incalculable. Standing tall over the incisors in that jaw, Takrakor gestured, and all around me torches flared to life on the surrounding buildings. "Welcome to Jammaq, Neal Elfward," he shouted as light poured into the small courtyard before the mausoleum. "You have arrived far sooner than I expected. My allies, whom I invited to witness your submission to me, will be disappointed."

  "I'd beg your pardon, Takrakor, but had I known you had a ceremony planned in my honor, I would have been more considerate."

  "Considerate, yes, I believe that is how I often characterize you." The Reithrese sorcerer bared his diamond teeth in a soundless snarl. He regained control of himself and shook his head. "You possess something I mean to have."

  I raised Cleaveheart into a guard. "Come here, I'll give it to you."

  "Droll, Neal, and pathetic." Takrakor reached down out of my sight and dragged Marta to her feet by her hair. She did not cry out, nor did she move to defend herself, in the wavering light that poured through the teeth I could not see her clearly, but the gauzy garment she wore revealed a lot or flesh that appeared almost as pale and mushroom-hued as that of the sorcerer who held her. "You recognize Marta, of course."

  I said nothing.

  The sorcerer shifted his grip to the back of her neck, then brought her face down to his. He kissed her savagely. Her jaw shifted down as he forced his tongue into her mouth, yet she did not push him away or struggle. I wondered at why she did not fight him or do something, and then, when a pitiful, animalistic wail filled the courtyard, I thought finally she had returned to her senses.

  Then I realized the sound came not from her but from the black door in the mausoleum. A tall, slender figure marched and stumbled through it and across the portico to the head of the stairs. He stood tall and quivering, while twenty feet above him Takrakor abused his wife. I saw Aarundel tense and try to move from where his feet had been rooted to the stone, but his efforts went unrewarded.

  "Run, Neal. It is lost."

  Aarundel's harsh plea bar
ely made it past his clenched teeth, but it brought a sharp laugh from the Reithrese sorcerer. He released Marta, and she remained standing behind him, his spittle running down her chin. Takrakor licked his lips, then smiled diamonds at me. "He wants you to run because I have given him a choice. To save his wife, he must slay you and give me your sword. To save Marta, you must slay him and leave me Khiephnaft."

  I shook my head. "No bargain. I want both of them, alive, and away from here."

  The Reithrese laughed loudly, but I could tell he forced it. "Do you think that if you rescue them, the Elves will be kindly disposed toward you?" He reached back and caressed Marta's breasts. "Do you think they will consent to let you touch a sylvanesti the way I have? Is this what you hope?"

  "What I hope is that you've cleared up your affairs, because it looks as though I'll be killing you to take my friends back home."

  "You jump ahead of yourself, Neal. If you do not kill Aarundel, or he does not kill you, I will slay Lady Marta here." He extended his left hand, and a dagger slid from his sleeve into his grasp. "It will be quicker than she deserves, but it will happen."

  "Is this what you hope?" I mocked him.

  "It is what I know and what I will cause to happen, even if I die." His face darkened and his voice took on a cutting edge. "I have already sent a message to certain of my brethren in Reith telling them I have Khiephnaft. They are coming here, now. Even if you were to kill me, there is no way you would be able to get your friends out of Reith. It is over, Neal Roclawzi."

  "Strikes me those were the words I used in talking about your brother dying in the Roclaws."

  Takrakor snarled and flicked his right hand in my direction. As if a puppet on invisible strings, Aarundel leaped from the portico and charged at me. He wore Reithrese ring mail, though his head remained bare. The barbed Reithrese scimitar in his right hand whistled as he swung it back and forth through the air. Hatred burned in Aarundel's eyes, but his brows slanted back toward the sides of his face as if he sought forgiveness for what the sorcerer was forcing him to do.