by Martin Frowd
Glaraz seemed to examine his handiwork, as Zarynn watched, nodding in evident satisfaction before seating himself at the midpoint of the circle of bones and opening one of the pouches attached to his belt.
“Sit, young one,” he invited Zarynn. “Time to eat now, and then to rest – to sleep. We have far yet to go, upon our journey, before we take to the sky.”
Zarynn slowly sat, seeing no other option. His thoughts were still in utter turmoil even as he accepted some sort of flatbread and cold meat, and another flask, from the necromancer’s belt pouch. The necromancer did not seem to intend immediate harm to him, let alone to see him dead as the Druid and Chief Zovyth and all the other men of his own clan had done after they had brutally cut down his parents outside their own yurt. In fact, the stranger had claimed that he would teach Zarynn to master his powers!
The mere existence of such powers filled Zarynn with dread, as he realised that Glaraz was right. If he never learned to master the strange power, he might end up living the rest of his life in fear that it could manifest at any time and wreak all kinds of havoc. Glaraz called it a Gift, but to Zarynn it felt much more like a Druidic curse. Besides, Zarynn had already told himself, he could never return to any clan of the People of the Bear now, nor any other Tribe of the People. And Glaraz had even suggested that others of the People, perhaps even folk of another clan of the People of the Bear, would also be upon his ship!
Motion distracted him from his thoughts. Something was moving, further down the slope of the hill. In the fading sunlight, it looked at first like a man, but an old man, hunched over, bent almost double. Then, as it came closer, it was clear that it was no man, for all that it stood on two legs. Its skin was too pale to be any man living, almost the ivory hue of mammoth horn. Its head was crowned in pale, stringy tendrils of hair. It moved with a peculiar gait, bounding, springing, then scuttling like an ant before springing again. In this manner, it covered ground swiftly.
Zarynn let out an involuntary gasp and shrank back against Glaraz as the creature crested the hilltop and stared at him through the narrow gaps in the ring of bones. Its face was a grinning skull, like a man long dead, and its unblinking eyes were unnaturally large and yellow. It snuffled, as if sniffing the air, though it had no nose to speak of. Lipless jaws opened to reveal sharp teeth that glinted in the last rays of the sun, and it seemed to leer at him.
“There is nothing to fear, young one,” Glaraz said calmly behind him. The necromancer placed a gloved hand on his shoulder, as if to comfort him, though it was scant distraction from the hideous sight before him. “I spoke of ghouls, the restless dead? This is one such. Hmm. Normally they travel in packs. Others will be nearby. But it cannot pass my wards, young Zarynn.”
The living dead creature – the ghoul – distended its jaws further, as if to swallow Zarynn whole. He shuddered at the sight. The ghoul, perhaps sensing fearful prey, edged closer.
Purple light flared from the ring of bones, washing over the living dead thing before him. The ghoul flinched, recoiling from the magic. Its yellow eyes gleamed as it backed away. Then it turned and loped back down the slope. In moments, it had disappeared into the distance. The light faded again.
Zarynn relaxed. His muscles unclenched as the vile creature departed, and he edged away from Glaraz again. The necromancer let him recover his composure, before nudging him again and drawing his attention to the food and drink before him.
“Eat now, young one. Drink. You should regain your strength before we sleep. You see now that my wards will protect us, yes? Do not be afraid.”
Zarynn munched the dry flatbread and the tough, unfamiliar meat, thoughtfully, as the necromancer consumed his own repast. The flask turned out to contain water, as cold and pure as any from the finest spring in the ranges of his old clan, and he gladly gulped it to wash down the meal.
Within minutes, he was fast asleep.
◆◆◆
Glaraz Vordakan, master necromancer of the Black Skull School, watched as his newest charge finished the flask of water and promptly slumped into sleep, his head falling across the master necromancer’s lap. The water in which Glaraz had earlier dissolved the fine, tasteless and odourless powder of dried blackroot.
Glaraz breathed a sigh of relief. If he had measured the dose accurately, the boy should be quiescent – and, hopefully, his Gift as suppressed as possible without causing him lasting harm – through the night, and sufficiently docile most of the way to the coast, perhaps even all the way. The strength of the death circle would surely be enough to stop any roaming beast in its tracks, and the magic would not only slay the creature that blundered into it but also alert him, as the spell’s caster.
Two-legged foes were another matter. Perhaps it had been a mistake to humiliate a Druid and then leave him alive. After all, certain Druids were believed to have one of the farspeaking Gifts, even as some of Glaraz’s own comrades had; it was entirely possible that other Druids might be alerted by now. Even if the Druid whom he had encountered at the execution ground was no longer a danger – surely no man who had been imprisoned within the ring of the bones of the earth there could catch up with Glaraz now, the necromancer had such a lead – there was still the chance that other Druids might be lying in wait, setting an ambush ahead.
Nonetheless, his wards would either slay or at least seriously harm anyone who approached the bones of the earth, even were that one a Druid or another wielder of Power, and in either case would wake him from his sleep at once. He might as well sleep, recover his strength for the journey still ahead. With a last mental shrug and a swift survey both visual and mystical of the spot he had chosen as the camp, he closed his eyes and slept.
◆◆◆
Zarynn opened his eyes slowly. The sky overhead was an unnatural pale green hue, punctuated with silent flashes of darker green lightning. He rubbed his eyes, expecting the eerie skyscape to vanish and be replaced by the normal pitch dark of night in the Hills of Dusk, but on returning his hands to their former position, he saw no change in the impossible sight above.
Turning his head, Zarynn looked around him. There was no sign of Glaraz nor the ring of jagged bones that he had called out of the rocky ground. For that matter, Zarynn realised, there was no sign of the hill either! The ground he lay on was rocky, but its colour was an unnaturally bright orange.
Sitting up, Zarynn closed his eyes again, hoping, willing that the sight would vanish and normality return, yet it was not to be. When he opened his eyes once more, the impossible persisted.
Getting to his feet, Zarynn looked around again, trying to find the slightest landmark in this place, but he met with no success. He could now see that he stood on a plain, a featureless wasteland that stretched beyond the limit of his sight.
Fledgling. Zarynn.
A deep voice, inhumanly so, echoed throughout the sky. Turning in a circle, Zarynn attempted to pinpoint its source.
“Who are you?” he shouted at the sky, clenching his fists tightly. “Show yourself!”
The sky convulsed with fury in response, seeming to layer and fracture. Dark green lightning bolts stabbed the ground all around him, while the sky seemed to churn with rage. Thunder boomed, deafeningly loud, from above.
That would be…unwise. You are…unready to see me. But I was… intrigued by you.
The unseen voice’s pauses suggested that it was choosing its words carefully. In his confused and agitated state, Zarynn felt it was toying with him.
“By me?” Zarynn turned in another slow circle, still trying without success to catch sight of the source of the voice that echoed all around him. The lightning bolts stabbed from sky to stone again, pulsing in time with Zarynn’s own voice.
Your Gift is a beacon fire in the darkness, fledgling. It attracts attention, from those who have Sight to see. Sight of what you are, and of what you will become.
“What I will become?” Zarynn shouted, anger growing inside him. “Who are you? Where am I? What will I become?”
> Thunder crashed again, punctuating every word Zarynn uttered, while the dark green lightnings continued to flash across the sky, as if the entire skyscape were responding to Zarynn’s agitation.
I am old, fledgling. Older than your kind can conceive of. I have seen much. In you I see more. The future. The world set afire. It…is…good. The voice held a bitter relish.
“Where am I?” Zarynn repeated, gradually reining in his anger as he realised it would avail him nothing.
Where else? Inside, young Zarynn. Inside your own mind.
“My…mind?” Zarynn was bewildered by the notion. Was this a dream, or was it real? Was the speaker even real?
The best place to…converse…freely, young one. Away from ears that would hear, and eyes that would see, and the Gifts of others.
“Others…Glaraz?”
He slumbers, unaware. His wards are…respectable, for one of your limited kind. It is easier, for now, to speak in dream, from afar, than to come to you and your custodian in the waking world.
“But – “
Your custodian stirs. I depart.
◆◆◆
The necromancer woke abruptly, his trained senses reacting to something in the night, some faint presence in the distance. The purple shimmer of his magic still shrouded the circle of jagged bones that surrounded the hilltop. Within the protection of his wards, he saw the boy Zarynn slept still, although fitfully, tossing and turning, as if caught in a dream. Glaraz frowned. The dose of blackroot he had given the boy should have kept him in a deep, peaceful sleep until after sunrise.
Scanning the night sky, the necromancer saw that one of the moons had risen while he slumbered, and now hung full in the sky. The small moon, the silver one sacred to the Huntsman, the moon called Tiraq in the tongue of his far homeland, or Verias to those learned folk who were familiar with the Arcane speech; he had no idea what the barbarous people of these plains or the Druids who ruled them called it, and no desire to learn. Already he yearned to be home, far from this land filled with primitives and wild monsters. Although no devotee of any God, Glaraz muttered a quick thanks to Shuchath, Lord of Death, and Andath, Keeper of Secrets, Whisperer in the Night, that his mission among the primitives was ended for another year. All that remained was to make his way home.
Yellow eyes gleamed in the night, staring at him out of the darkness. Two, no three, no four, no many pairs of eyes gazed at him unblinkingly. The silver moonlight glinted off pale skin, almost ivory-hued, and long sharp claws. The ghouls sat on their haunches for a moment, staring in at him. They ventured closer, ambling up the slope toward the hilltop. Then, just as with the lone ghoul earlier, the ward imbued into his bone circle repelled them. Glaraz marked how the yellow eyes widened, how the ghouls’ jaws flexed to show long jagged fangs, as they felt the magic of his protective circle. He watched as they turned and loped away, disappearing into the night.
His mystical senses felt something, far off, at the very edge of his range. A presence of some kind, for certain, but where? Who? At this distance the contact was faint, too faint to truly gauge its strength, but it was not a magical signature that he had ever felt before. It did not exude the characteristic aura of a Druid, nor did he even sense active hostility from it.
Glaraz shook his head, irritably gazing up at the moon. A winged shadow seemed to flit across it, and in the blink of an eye was gone. The necromancer shrugged and settled down to sleep again.
◆◆◆
Far above the sleeping boy and the puzzled necromancer, vast black wings clove the night, carrying the ancient watcher through the sky, making for the mountains far to the south. A slow stately flight across the face of the small silver moon, and the winged watcher was gone.
THREE: THE CONCLAVE
While the boy and the necromancer slumbered, nearly a thousand miles to their northeast the light of the small silver moon shone upon the waters of a vast lake, black and still as the grave. Upon the northern lakeshore stood an ancient foreboding fortress of ebonstone, iron and dark steel, crowned by a forest of imposing towers with steel spires that stabbed into the night sky like jagged spears. The moon picked out the forms of dark-robed sentries standing watch upon the crenelated ramparts, and patrolling guardians circling their perimeter. Despite the lateness of the hour, light flickered from an upper window of the central tower, where a gathering was taking place.
Within the council chamber, ten men, and two who were not men at all, stood behind high-backed chairs of ebony. Each gripped a long staff of iron-shod ebony, carved with intricate runes that sparked and glinted with power of their own. Six faced six across a long table carved of the same black wood. Only the rustle of their silk robes – deep brown for the six along one side, pitch black for those who faced them – showed their impatience as they waited for the meeting to commence. Their hoods were cast back, and they regarded one another with proud, cruel visages marked by the tattoos of their calling: long claw marks down both cheeks for the wearers of the brown; two thirteen-pointed stars on the forehead, one above each eye, for those who wore the black.
Candles in heavy iron chandeliers overhead enabled those who stood waiting to see one another clearly. The light glinted off ten shaven heads, one scaled crest and one head covered in thick fur. The light picked out the twelve silken banners that hung on the walls but left the corners of the room in shadow.
At the head of the long table, a thirteenth chair stood unattended. More ornately carved than the other twelve, its arm rests and high arched back were inlaid with rubies, which glinted with light reflected from the candles overhead. Behind the thirteenth chair an ancient tapestry adorned the wall, depicting terrible and mighty demonic forms in flight above the fortress in which it now hung.
At the opposite end of the room, set well back from the foot of the table, an imposing throne stood against the far wall. Unlike the ebony chairs, the throne was fashioned of blackened iron. Twisted spires of iron rose from its back as if to match the towers of the fortress, and many iron skulls were embossed into its back and arms in an endless silent scream. More rubies glinted in their eye sockets and those of the snarling demon faces crowning each arm. Fashioned to seat a being thrice the height of a man and several times as broad, the empty throne dominated the chamber, its screaming skulls and snarling demon faces seeming to gaze malevolently at the robed throng who stood behind the table, awaiting the thirteenth of their number.
The vast double doors that were the sole means of entry to or exit from the chamber, nearly twenty feet high and banded in precious iron, opened with a grinding noise that ended in a loud clang as they closed again behind the new arrival, the last one expected for this gathering. As one, twelve heads turned as those who waited within regarded the arrival of their thirteenth. Their leader.
Doffing his own hood as he strode into the chamber, bare feet slapping on the stone floor, heavy silken robes swishing, the new arrival made directly for the empty throne and bowed low from the waist. His staff made a clang as he genuflected, and again as he rose, for unlike the iron-shod ebony staves gripped by his compatriots, their leader’s staff was a single long bar of iron, inscribed with glowing and sparking runes along its entire length and topped with a carved representation of a horned and fanged demon, its jaws open in an eternal snarl.
Straightening, the newcomer paced the length of the chamber, toward the head of the table. The candlelight glinted off his shaven head and the heavy iron medallion of office, forged in the shape of a star with thirteen points and suspended from a thick chain of the same metal, which hung around his neck. Alone of those present, his robes were layers of black and brown, and he bore both the claw tattoos upon his cheeks and the star tattoos above his eyes.
At last the new arrival reached the head of the table and seated himself in his ornate chair, leaning his iron staff against it, even as the silver moon reached its peak in the sky. The moonlight revealed another moon, tiny and black as a demon’s heart, but visible only to those who had the powe
r and wisdom to discern it. Another moon that eclipsed the core of the larger moon behind it, giving the larger one the semblance of a silvery eye peering down on the fortress below, with the smaller black moon as the eye’s dark pupil. A ray of moonlight struck the council chamber’s single window, casting a pool of argent radiance upon the table and all in the room, timed precisely as tradition demanded.
“Be seated,” their leader’s harsh voice grated, and the twelve who had stood waiting in silence upon his arrival, as tradition demanded, took their seats as one, leaned their staves against the table, and awaited his next utterance.
“The hour is come, and the Conclave is gathered, beneath the all-seeing gaze of the Great God, eternal King of the Darkness, as ever it was and ever it shall be,” he intoned, the ritual words familiar to all around the table from years of repetition. “Thrice thirteen nights have passed from full Huntmoon to full Huntmoon, since last the Conclave did gather before the Empty Throne, here where the Veil Between Realms is weakest. Twelve Archdruids for the Twelve Tribes of the People, and a Grand Druid for the Order.” His uncompromising gaze encompassed his twelve robed and seated compatriots. “Twelve Archdruids and one Grand Druid, making the sacred thirteen, for the thirteen dark Gods in Hell, Whose victory shall come at last, Whose dominion we shall deliver, Whose Prince and Champion shall sit once more upon the Throne that awaits Him, eternally to rule this world and all worlds.”
His gaze passed across each of the Archdruids in turn.
“We give praise to Dread Kelnaaros, King of Gods, Ruler of Darkness,” the Grand Druid proclaimed.
“Praise Him, praise Him,” his twelve companions uttered the ritual reply in chorus under his stern gaze.
