“He is her brother and she’s not seen him for fourteen years.”
“He’s crazed,” Vered said hotly. “She’s got the crown. She can see that.”
“He’s still her twin brother.” Santon cinched the saddle as tightly as he could, then kneed the horse so that it exhaled sharply. Two more notches on the strap showed the horse’s attempt to throw off saddle and mounted rider.
They led the horses outside. Pandasso and Lokenna stood in the inn’s doorway arguing. He started to shake her again, then glance guiltily toward Vered. Pandasso balled his fists and let them dangle futilely at his sides. His need to strike out showed on every corded muscle but he held his temper in check.
“We do not leave Fron. This is our home. It’s been good enough for you all these years.”
“My brother hides in Claymore Pass,” Lokenna said. “He needs my help.”
“You didn’t even know you had a brother until these two told you!” raged Pandasso.
“They did not lie.” Lokenna jerked around, fear growing on her face. “The rebels! They’re at the outskirts of Fron. Th-they’re burning every house to find me!”
Through the swirling snowstorm rose orange tongues of flame from homes, from barns, from small businesses. The angry shouts of Fron’s citizens carried on the wind.
Their death cries followed quickly. Sef gave no quarter as he slaughtered indiscriminately.
“We cannot fight him,” said Lokenna. “There are too many — and we cannot sneak past. He has posted sentries to prevent any escape to the Ty.”
“Back to Claymore Pass then,” grumbled Vered. “I’d thought we were well quit of the place.”
“Too many phantoms?” asked Santon, swinging into the saddle and flicking his wrist to bring his battle-axe to hand. He pinioned the reins with the edge of his glass shield and settled down. He did not ride and fight well — his useless left arm made anything more than a trot difficult, but he could manage if it kept them all alive.
“I don’t want to add to their ranks,” declared Vered.
Lokenna quickly mounted. The trio looked down at Bane Pandasso. Santon hoped that the man would stand his ground and refuse to join them. A battle cry from one of Sef’s rebels sent Pandasso scuttling for the horse.
“Let’s ride,” said Vered.
“Wait,” cautioned Lokenna. Her warning came simultaneously with Santon seeing two rebel soldiers emerge from the whiteness ahead of them. Sef had sent a squad to circle Fron to cut off even this risky escape.
“We can fight our way through, if there’s not too many of them.” Santon looked at the woman. Her face was pinched and drawn. Already the Demon Crown took its toll on her.
“There are only the pair,” she said. “But they will slow us until the main force overtakes us.”
Vered laughed and spurred his horse forward. The short glass sword gleamed from the light of burning buildings. His sudden charge took the two rebels by surprise. They killed peasants on foot and did not expect a cavalry attack. Vered ducked under one’s clumsy swing with a lance. He rode inside and stabbed with his short sword.
Santon heard the glass screeching along metal body armour. Vered had not injured the rebel but had unseated him. The soldier fell heavily, struggling to regain his feet.
Santon used his good hand to loop the reins around the saddle horn, then guided his own horse forward using his powerful knees. A quick jerk brought his axe to hand and his shield into defensive position. He attacked the other rebel.
The rebel’s lance danced off Santon’s shield. Using all the strength locked in his powerful shoulders, Santon swung his axe — and connected with the rebel’s torso. When the axe lodged in rib bone and flesh and did not come free, Santon found himself pulled from his saddle.
He landed on his back, the wind knocked from him.
“They come!” cried Lokenna. “Sef’s troops are upon us!”
Cold wind blew across Santon’s face and brought back life. He coughed and gasped and got to his knees. His fall had freed his axe but the leather thong around his wrist had cut deeply into his flesh. Blood flowed freely and made the axe handle slippery. Santon let the weapon dangle as he used the shield to lever himself to his feet.
“Did you lose this?” called Vered. The young adventurer tossed down the reins to Santon’s horse. “You must be more careful with your belongings. It’s hard stealing another in this wasteland!”
Santon heard a deep rumbling as a war cry rose in another’s throat. He turned in time to see the man Vered had felled lift a mace. The glass shield deflected the blow. Vered turned his horse about and put spurs viciously to the horse’s flanks, causing it to rear and paw the air.
One hoof caught the rebel and sent him crashing back to the ground.
“Are you coming, Santon? Fron is not my idea of a vacation spot.” Vered laughed as he fought to regain control of his horse.
Santon mounted and looked back to the inn. Sef’s men worked more diligently on setting fire to the buildings than they did in checking those who rushed into the storm to escape.
“My inn,” moaned Pandasso. “My life is in that inn!”
“Your life lies ahead,” said Santon. He did not look back to see if Pandasso followed. Ahead rode Vered and Lokenna, the Demon Crown glowing brightly and providing a beacon through the blowing snow.
CHAPTER VI
Kaga’kalb, the Wizard of Storms, stood on the highest tower in his sprawling Castle of the Winds. Before him stretched a rocky mesa that dropped abruptly to the Uvain Plateau. His keen eyes watched the progress of a thunderstorm as it worked its way across the lower elevations. He smiled slightly. Those storms were not of his birthing.
Above his head swirled leaden clouds. Those were his. A thin arm raised. Lightning danced from the wizard’s fingertips and lit up the tower with an eerie glow. As sudden as natural lightning, a bolt erupted from his hand and blasted asunder the dark clouds.
Rain fell. Kaga’kalb ignored it, secure and dry in a bubble of magic. His spells grew in potency. His lips moved constantly as newer and more complex magics powered the storm forming.
Thunder rolled off his mesa and down the mountain slopes until all the Uvain echoed. He clapped his hands. The storm brewing exploded in a fury unseen in a score of years. More and more lightning sizzled and popped and exploded, reaching into the dark clouds and building them into a towering thunderhead.
When it seemed that the storm cloud would leave the planet, it began to shift away from the Castle of the Winds. Kaga’kalb guided its progress. He smiled broadly when his storm met the naturally occurring one and devoured it. For a brief instant, he was more powerful than the forces of air and sky.
Kaga’kalb leaned forward, his hands numb with the cold and frost forming on his thinning hair. The intricate spells he had woven collapsed. He watched the normal progression of wind and cloud with awe, as he always did. No matter how good he became, nature bettered his best.
Kaga’kalb straightened, amused with his handiwork now. His arms lifted again and he began to fashion tiny storms that darted about the perimeter of his larger creation. Here and there he formed lightning of varying colours and intensity. The thunderclaps met in counterpoint. He began directing them, moving lightning flashes into eye-searing patterns, sending cloud formations of dark and light into artistic forms. Like a maestro conducting a group of master musicians at the spring fair, Kaga’kalb created a masterpiece of sight and sound and feel.
Desiring more, he began snowstorms in the Yorral Mountains. A toss of his head created a hurricane far out at sea. A small tornado rose and fell, bucking and twisting and lightly touching ground in the far south of Porotane.
Kaga’kalb laughed aloud now. The power flowing through him this day revitalized and gave him fresh purpose.
“They have not learned,” he said to himself. His vision was sharp but not good enough to focus halfway across the mountains to where the Demon Crown made its unsettling presence known to him. The ma
gical device caused a darkness that both drew and repelled him.
Kaga’kalb would have the crown, not for his own use — that was not possible — but to keep the petty tyrants from ruining the kingdom. While the pretender Duke Freow had ruled, Alarice had kept the Demon Crown in safety. Freow’s death and the search for the true heirs to the throne had upset the balance and disturbed Kaga’kalb’s lonely meditations.
Like a black chancre growing within, he felt the crown’s repeated misuse as Lorens tried to seize power. Kaga’kalb dared not allow such power to ruin Porotane. He cared nothing for the pretentious nobles or the petty peasants.
The land stretched out as a canvas to his cloudy paintbrush. The air filled with his watery artwork. Movements of storms both grand and small, those were his legacy, his duty, his pride. No wizard had formed the elements more cleverly or better.
Kaga’kalb would not allow fools to ruin land and sky, to render it unsuitable for his work through misuse of the Demon Crown. He had thought it gone forever when Lamost had died and he had convinced Patrin to kidnap the twins.
“I should never have trusted Patrin. The man always was a clumsy oaf. Never could weave a spell properly, even his dream specialties,” Kaga’kalb dropped his arms and let the storms run their course. This day’s work was not a masterpiece, but it served to soothe him. A more tranquil mind allowed him to work better. Tomorrow.
Or perhaps this night. His most interesting storms were created in the night, with silver moonlight and lightning vying for attention, with cloud patterns turning the world a dull grey and pitch-black, with raindrops giving a silvery sheen to the artificial and a pleasing smell to the natural.
Kaga’kalb pulled down the sleeves of his robe and wiped the frost from his hair. His fingers tingled. He put cupped hands to his mouth and breathed hard to warm them. He was getting old, but he was not yet ready to die. The true master-work of his life had yet to be created.
“Can’t create with the crown disturbing me.” He turned and stared at a blank stone wall. Even through the dampening stone he saw the black pit of the Demon Crown. Not for the first time he cursed Kalob and all the demons for the disorder they had brought to this world. Then he cursed Waellkin for so foolishly accepting the crown as reparation.
“What kind of leader was he, anyway?” Kaga’kalb shook his head as he remembered Waellkin. The man had been vain and ambitious. Too ambitious for his own good or the good of Porotane. The lure of the Demon Crown had been too great.
Kaga’kalb shuddered and not from the cold. Lorens had again been stripped of the crown, he saw. But the two points of darkness, one intense and the other weak but growing, told of the disaster preparing to befall Porotane.
“The young fool could not control the crown — it controlled him and now the gateway to hell is open.” Kaga’kalb sniffed and continued down the winding stone staircase until he came to a comfortably furnished room. He dropped heavily into a chair in the centre of the room and looked around the circular space.
Subtle finger movements activated quiescent spells. Tiny clouds formed along the northeast portion of the wall. They billowed and roiled and turned from puffy white to ominous black. A miniature flash of lightning erupted from the storm he had brought into being.
Kaga’kalb smiled. “Ionia, Ionia, you magnificent slut. You always amaze me. You make a petty alliance with Dalziel Sef and then seek to betray it.” The lightning flash closed the distance between the Castle of the Winds and Ionia’s fiefdom. Through the magical cloud window Kaga’kalb watched as the noble parlayed with Dews Gaemock’s emissary. Before this meeting concluded, Dalziel Sef would be neutralized and Ionia promised full control of Claymore Pass.
Kaga’kalb turned in his chair. The storm cloud spraying rain and snow pellets against the wall moved to follow the direction of his gaze. The Yorral Mountains stretched upward, harsh and rocky-sharp. The wizard studied this scene carefully. Blackness and blackness. The Demon Crown and Lorens. He studied the deeper speck of jet.
“Those two freebooters have found the other twin,” he said in amazement. “That can be the only explanation for such power. Damn! Damn Alarice!
Damn them all! They will ruin a perfectly good kingdom. I’m too old to find a new spot to work my magic. Why should I move my lovely Castle of the Winds simply because they destroyed Porotane through ignorance and greed? Pah!”
The scrying spell controlling his cloud window began to weaken — the action of the Demon Crown. Kaga’kalb renewed the spell and changed the view to another portion of the mountains. Gaemock’s troops met and defeated Dalziel Sef’s at the River Ty. Of Sef’s troops, the wizard saw nothing until he found the village of Fron. Sef had retreated back to the Lesser Ty and floated toward Castle Porotane.
“He goes to stir up more trouble. He senses the weakness within the castle walls. Sef is a cunning whoreson, that I’ll give him.” Kaga’kalb shifted to the castle itself.
The petty posturings and assassinations within had long since ceased to interest him. Only the majesty of storm-building and the symphony of the elements crashing together held his attention long. He cared little if Theoll or Anneshoria triumphed. As long as the Demon Crown rested on a royal brow, neither would sit on the throne.
Kaga’kalb turned back in his chair, strengthening his scrying spell and once more looking to the northeast and fair Ionia. The woman had concluded her treaty with Gaemock’s ambassador and had moved on to more amorous conquests. The ambassador was willing.
The Wizard of Storms settled down to watch. He enjoyed storm building more than Ionia’s antics — but barely. The fiefdom’s ruler had proven inventive and diverting in the past. This time was no exception.
CHAPTER VII
“We’re lost,” moaned Vered. “We’ll never find our way in this storm. And worst of all, my clothes are ruined!”
“Quit complaining,” called Santon, homing in on his friend’s voice. The thick curtain of falling snow deadened sound and made vision beyond a few paces impossible. He urged his straining steed forward and bumped into Vered. Side by side they rode so that they could speak. A long, thin length of twine fastened to Vered’s saddle extended tracelessly into the storm and connected with Lokenna’s saddle horn.
“I know, I know,” said Vered. “She can see where we are going. That does me little good — and my horse even less.”
“Look on the bright side of this,” said Santon. “There’s no one to see how scruffy you look.”
Vered snorted and sent silvered plumes leaping from his nostrils. The cruel wind caught the twin jets and mingled them with snow and polar air, as if saying that the same would happen to the warm body generating such steam.
“Some bright side. At the moment, I would settle for a warm side.” Vered shifted in the saddle and rubbed his rear. “Especially a warm backside.”
The twine went limp and dragged the ground. They stopped beside Lokenna and her mount. Another string went off to the right and connected to Bane Pandasso’s saddle. The fleeting thought passed through Santon’s mind that a careless swing of his axe would doom Pandasso to a frigid death.
“We cannot return to Fron,” she said without preamble. “Although Dalziel Sef has personally left, he stationed a score of men to wait for me — for the crown.” Lokenna self-consciously touched the glowing band of metal around her head. “I listened in to a meeting he had with his lieutenants. They hope to capture the crown and barter it away to the Wizard of Storms for the throne.”
“What does he want with it? Even a spell-thrower of such power cannot wear the crown. Even Alarice couldn’t.” At the mention of the Glass Warrior, Santon fell silent, lost in thought. The white shroud wrapping him in its cold embrace reminded him of the white-haired woman and her cold undead existence as a phantom.
“What lies ahead?” asked Vered. “I do not want to ride forever in this storm. They will find us standing like ice statues come spring thaw if we do not stop soon and go to shelter.”
“We
are trapped between two forces,” Lokenna said. “I have been watching, listening.” Her eyes rolled up in a vain attempt to see the crown on her head. She touched the Demon Crown to reassure herself that it still sat firmly on her brow. “Dews Gaemock had forged a secret alliance with Ionia, one countering Sef’s with the woman.”
“I have never met this Ionia,” said Vered, “but she must be a double-dealing witch.”
“Then she’s the only double-dealing witch you’ve not met,” said Santon, coming out of his self-pity.
“Neither met nor bedded,” Vered finished. He huddled forward, his entire body shaking with the cold. “A touch of warmth would be nice. Even one such as Ionia who would likely drive a knife between my ribs when it suited her.”
“Her troops patrol Claymore Pass,” said Lokenna, ignoring the men. “Gaemock’s troops protect the ways to the River Ty.”
“And you said she controlled the tunnel leading through to the Upper Ty,” said Vered. “How can we escape the rebels?”
“I must see my brother,” said Lokenna. “He can get us out.”
“Lorens?” scoffed Santon. “He was a petty wizard at best. Only with the Demon Crown did he have any power.”
“He is united with his troops again. Almost twenty soldiers ride behind his banner.”
Santon and Vered both cursed. Santon said, “It is death to join ranks with him, Lokenna. He will kill you for the crown. He is demented. The crown has twisted him permanently.”
“I see how he is,” she said in a distant voice. Santon knew that she looked far beyond the range of human vision. What the Demon Crown revealed to her in this new foray he did not know. “If he is not shown the crown, he will not try to kill me.”
“She might be right. Nothing but the crown matters to her brother,” said Vered.
“There is no reason to let him know that she has ever worn the crown, either,” added Santon. “You can hide a ways back while we parlay, then you can follow close as we get to the river.”
“Yes, that is a good plan,” Lokenna said without any inflection in her voice. Without another word she began riding. Santon and Vered watched her disappear into the whiteness as Pandasso rode up.
A Symphony of Storms (Demon Crown Book 3) Page 4
