by Ulff Lehmann
He looked at his palm, and saw the drop of blood forming. It wasn’t much, yet he felt the soil beneath slavering, almost screaming for the red, life-giving liquid. The creature’s eagle-wolf head echoed the silent howl. Lilanthias, the name echoed through his mind, the image of his daughter’s last moments in this world, maimed beyond recognition, his hand wielding the blade that ended those few pain-filled moments.
Rage surged up in him. The drop of blood on his palm sang, and he felt a power unlike any he had ever wielded. This was not the same as the gathering of wizards who had built the bridge into the false realm beyond the Veil of Dreams. No, this was a snarling, growling, slavering beast ready to do his bidding, whether it was toppling a mountain or tearing apart the winged, horned perversion that now charged him. Its wings beat in an attempt to become airborne, the seven malformed feet pounded the greyish snow, while the eagle’s beak, filled with razor-sharp teeth, stretched to its limit in an unearthly howl. Closer and closer the monster came. And the hurt and pain inside Lloreanthoran surged and soared ever to new heights. The drop of blood pulsed, almost burning his skin.
The curse that spewed from his lips was the embodiment of his anger, his frustration at losing everything he had held dear. He flicked his wrist, hurling the pulsing drop of life at this perversion, which, at this moment, stood for everything he loathed and regretted.
As the pulsing, hammering bead of blood sped toward the monstrosity, he felt at once drained yet filled with power. The blood loss didn’t weaken him, yet it was enough for the nightmarish creature still hurtling for them.
It screeched, twisted for but an instant. It warped in on itself, its innards blossoming for the blink of an eye while the feathered fur was drawn inside. Then with a frightening absence of sound, the thing splattered about the cliffside only to vanish completely.
Lloreanthoran stared. Weeks ago, he would have thought such devastation impossible. Not even the oldest pebble ground to its size through millennia, from the tallest peak to its current state, could cause this kind of destruction. Behind him Dalgor stirred. How the human managed to chuckle was beyond him, but the cough that followed shortly afterwards was evidence enough that Dalgor’s humor was only temporary and the situation just as dire as it had been. He turned and regarded the hacking man.
“What was that?” he asked.
“That, elf, was you pissed off, I’d say.” The coughing was briefly interrupted by another gasping chuckle. “Pretty frightening, eh?”
He nodded, feeling slightly shamed by this man who had not even seen forty summers. He had wrought death before, certainly, but this feeling, the power he had summoned through his lifeblood was different. “Is it always this… strong?”
Dalgor shook his head. “No, the change wrought on the land amplifies it. Outside it’s still powerful, but not like this.” He coughed again. “Now, we need to get out of here. There’ll be more of them coming.” A scream reverberated from the mountains. “And soon. They really don’t like trespassers.” The trace of wry humor was unmistakable, and he wondered how Dalgor managed to summon this mirth.
“They?” Lloreanthoran asked.
“Did you think I came here just to enjoy the scenery?” the human scoffed. “I wanted my death to have meaning, but now staying alive is far more important. Don’t ask. Still, the way you wield this magic gives me an idea.”
Somehow, even with Dalgor as weak as he was, their roles had been reversed. The human, who would never grow as old and learned as he, had become the mentor, and he the student. He had forgotten what it felt like to be the learner, and now, in the shadow of this gods-forsaken mountain, he waited for a plan that would help them escape.
“Even with bloodmagic we can’t teleport,” Dalgor said.
“Then how shall we get out of here?” He saw the human’s smile, and suddenly understood what he had in mind. The land, hills, cliffs, everything changed to prevent their escape. If going atop the snowy rocks did not work, and teleportation was prevented as well, the only alternative was to go through the soil. Dalgor must have watched him, for his coughing chuckle began anew.
“I see you can answer the question yourself.”
Feeling less silly, he nodded. “Aye,” he said. “A tunnel leading due east. We burn our path through stone and earth.”
“Indeed. Think you can do it?”
He regarded the human. There was no mockery in his eyes, only concern. For what, he couldn’t tell, but felt certain that it had something to do with what Dalgor had discovered in the depths of the Kumeens. Resisting the temptation to boldly declare he was capable, Lloreanthoran didn’t answer. Instead, he pondered the task ahead. The Swordpriest wouldn’t say how long he had gone without food, and though elves needed less nourishment, he knew that sooner rather than later they both would starve. Whatever decision he made, it had to be soon.
A straight line, a tunnel that could resist the changes the terrain wrought on itself to prevent their escape. It had to be similar to the passageway his people had used a century ago, a magical pipe, ignorant of the world around it. Alone, with only the magic he had known and used all his life, this would have been impossible. Now, with this new dangerous power at his command, he felt confident he could force reality to change according to his desire.
Dalgor shivered in his cloak. He hardly noticed the huddled form, absentmindedly blasted another two attacking beasts into oblivion, and then, finally, felt ready to create the tunnel. By now, Dalgor was so weak that he had to strap the human to his back, but the load was so light he moved with ease. Or maybe it was the cold, and his body welcomed the extra insulation provided by this other layer of flesh.
He didn’t know how much blood it would take to create and maintain the magical pipe. Still, he reckoned it required more than the lone drop a prick of his dagger yielded. With Dalgor secure on his back, Lloreanthoran turned east, the dagger in his right hand. With reluctant strokes, he cut first one then a second line across his left palm. The cold had already dulled most sensation; he hardly felt the wounds. Blood welled up instantly, and as his stiff fingers barely obeyed, he cupped his hand, thus preventing even a single drop from falling to the ground. He summoned the magic; it was so strong that for a moment he feared it would rip his hand apart. The chant he and the other mages had used when creating the bridge rose from frost-torn lips. He whispered and hummed as best he could, yet the power merely wafted and pulsed. He was about to lose hope, the blood in his cupped hand congealing faster with every breath, when he heard Dalgor growl into his ear.
“Punch through it!”
The voice snapped him out of his daze; his reluctance had almost ruined their escape. From behind he heard the thudding of a many-hoofed creature. Now or never, he thought grimly, and punched, sent his mind’s eye forward. Pulsing, snarling, flashing, the magical energies surged through the frozen soil, obliterating everything in their path. Aware of the approaching threat, he diverted a sliver of magic to tear through the monstrosity. Then, with the tunnel glowing in front, a steady, straight line unperturbed of the earth and stone that roiled about it, he hurried in.
They had barely passed the threshold, when from behind the mountains began to rumble. “Gods; hurry!” Dalgor urged, and trusting him, he sprinted forward. The roaring of stones behind grew louder. He almost felt pebbles striking the space where his feet had been just moments earlier. The mountain was trying to bury them! And still he ran.
Up ahead he saw how his spell faltered. A glance at his palm showed the clot. More blood, he thought, fumbling for his dagger. Blade in hand, he didn’t pay attention to the cut, he just put the edge into his cupped hand and gave a quick jab. One brief glance to confirm the now freely flowing liquid did not spill onto the ground—he felt earth and stone closing in on them from all sides—then focused on the passage. The pipe drilled forward once more, and Lloreanthoran followed. Was there light at the end? He couldn’t be sure, couldn’t tell if it was his magic or real daylight.
“Clo
se the passage behind us!” Dalgor hissed.
He grunted, angry with himself for being so stupid. His anger surged into the un-clotted liquid in his cupped hand, lashed out behind him, and sealed the pipe. An idea blossomed in his panicked mind. Up! Out of the foothills, into the air, away from the mass of treacherous soil! Ahead of him, he saw the magical tunnel change. The pipe curved up ever so slightly.
Running, he had to keep running.
Again, the blood clotted in his hand, and again he had to slash the dagger across his palm to bring the red liquid forth. The tunnel wavered briefly, then steadied again as he summoned the magic and forced it into shape. He wondered, how far they had come. For a while now the human had lain limply against his back, silent. Lloreanthoran wanted to ask Dalgor how to alter magic once cast but was reluctant to wake him, if he were still alive. If the Son of Traksor wasn’t… He dared not consider the thought.
Despite his brash behavior, he liked Dalgor. There was a fierce determination about the man, a mind so focused on his goal that nothing seemed able to stop him. The pipe had arched away from the land, but with the shimmering walls surrounding them he was unable to tell where exactly they were. He smiled wryly, feeling foolish. He was no learner, had used magic centuries before any of the humans alive had had their grandparents soil the world. Why did he need Dalgor’s advice? If he couldn’t figure out how to alter the magic, it probably wasn’t worth considering anyway.
There was still some blood left on his throbbing palm. Soon he would have to cut again, but now, with the power that remained, he shifted part of his focus away from maintaining the tunnel, used a fraction of the energy pulsing in his hand to alter the spot he was standing on. He stopped, mind lost in concentration. What had Dalgor said? One forced the magic to do one’s bidding, and force it he did.
The floor, if it could be called that, wavered, thinned until it glimmered opaquely. He willed it to become translucent, glasslike. The milky yellow surface swirled, eddied, until it lost all color, and finally he was able to peer through onto the ground below. It seemed not so distant, and, doubting his eyes, he told the magic to display things as they truly were. Trees, looking like tufts of grass, dotted the land. How far up were they? There! That speck, not more than a flea in size, was a deer. Or was it one of the abominations that had hunted them these past days? Nothing normal was alive in the Kumeen foothills. The smear closed in on some shrub, just another spot of dirt really, and was joined by another, smaller flea. None of them displayed the sort of instinctive violence he had observed with the bloodbeast. It had to be a deer.
“Down,” he whispered. The pipe obeyed.
Too late he remembered he had used the last drop of blood to get a clear view of what lay beneath him. Now, with the tunnel losing all coherence, the slight angle he had wanted to achieve turned into a yawning abyss. The pull of the ground demanded its long due toll, and they plunged. Lloreanthoran struggled with his knife’s hilt; his cloak tangled his arms, his sight blurred by the biting, rushing wind. He had to prick his skin, draw more blood to slow their fall.
His hand closed on the weapon, when the weight on his back shifted. The roar of air rushing past them had woken the human. Dalgor snarled, spat curses; he felt the Son’s arms wriggle in their bonds. Then he heard his companion’s ragged breathing in his ear.
“The gods know I have nothing more to give,” the human wheezed. “Forget the blade, elf. Bite your lip, your tongue, I don’t care what, draw blood now and use it or we won’t draw anything else ever again!”
He was about to hammer his teeth into his tongue, when he realized they were free of the blood-drinking lands of the Kumeen Mountains. Here, magic worked the way he was used to, the kind of magic he had utilized for centuries. It was difficult to switch from one way of casting spells to the other; and, as the ground filled his horizon, he briefly wondered if biting his tongue wasn’t really easier. He felt the draw of this most ancient source of power, could imagine, albeit briefly, how the slavers of old must have felt. The blood beckoned still, the call of magic so wild and ferocious.
Then he thought of the creatures this same magic had warped into being, and the glory of it all dissipated like the distance that lay between them and the ground. No! He would not use this magic unless he had to, and now, maybe an eye blink away from the ground, he summoned forth the possibility of a storm cushioning their fall.
It wasn’t the same surge of power, it couldn’t have been, but it was so very familiar, and comforting, like an old, well-worn pair of shoes. They touched ground roughly. Dalgor, still panicking, struggled to free himself of the bonds, while Lloreanthoran stumbled, banged his knees on the frozen earth, slid a few feet and finally came to a stop with his face mashed against a boulder.
It was, as he had guessed, a place outside the Kumeen’s influence, and thankfully winter’s sadness wasn’t the only thing in the air anymore.
CHAPTER 29
Sixth of Cold, 1475 K.C.
Drangar woke with a stiff neck. In fact, most of his body felt like he had slept on uneven ground. He sat up, groaning. For a moment he knew not where he was, and then, with someone else hissing curses behind him, it all came back. Dunthiochagh, his house, the nightmare, Gwen watching him through the night. He remembered her illuminated face. She must have brought a lantern, and he began groping about in the dark. Once or twice he touched her, where he dared not ponder, but her pained groans stopped. His head had been on her lap, and she had sat behind him. Had she slept that way also?
He found the lamp, its metal cool to the touch. No light there, he thought glumly. Trying to spark the flame back to life here in the attic was an arsonist’s dream come true, so he dismissed the idea of rekindling the flame. Would they have to wait on Jass to leave this place? Gwen now complained noisily about her own stupidity, and he was glad the dark hid his smile. This woman could swear with the best of the worst, he thought, once again glad she had come last night.
The creaking of hinges, and a slight beam of light lancing into the attic interrupted his musings. “Are you two decent?” Jasseira asked.
“What the fuck do you think we did?” Gwen growled. “Ouch! Bloody baskets! What do you keep in here anyway? Cursed thing poked me in the back all night!” Drangar now saw the awkward position she must have slept in. Sometime during the night, she must have shifted a pair of wicker baskets off their perch, and instead of waking she had slept amidst a jumble of old pans and pots. He snorted.
Gwen’s glare was the exact opposite of the benign face he had grown to… like. “What’s so godsdamned funny, huh?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but Gwen snarled on, “Don’t laugh, if it hadn’t been for you thrashing and screaming and me coming here to see if I could help, I wouldn’t be in this position! Now get me out of here!” He did as she asked, and when their noses touched, she said, “You owe me a massage, Ralgon!” Now it was Jess’s turn to snort. “What?” Gwen turned on her, wincing. “Damn!”
“Nothing,” Jass said. He saw she was struggling to hide her laughter. “Get out of there, I’ll clear this later.”
They scrambled down the ladder, Gwen wincing and complaining with every single step. Judging from the mess she had bedded herself on, it must have been a very painful night, and he felt bad that she had found it necessary to come and look after him. “I’m sorry,” he said as he touched ground once more.
“What for?” Gwen asked, her face a twisted mask of agony. “Not your fault you have bad dreams.” Grimacing, she tiptoed and, to his utter surprise, kissed his cheek. “Better? Good. Now I hope for your sake and mine you know how to get all those kinks out of my body.”
He must have stood there, dumbfounded, for a while, because suddenly both women laughed, although Gwen’s mirth was cut short by another pained groan. He smiled awkwardly.
“You can use my bed for the massage,” Jass said. “I’ll heat water and stuff.” Then she headed down the stairs to the kitchen, adding, “Only for massages, understood
?”
“Of course,” he said loud and firmly.
Gwen winced as she tried to lift her right arm above her head. “As if I could do anything else,” she said, grimacing.
Never before, or so Drangar thought, had he touched a woman’s skin so gently, tenderly, and at this first instant when his hands glided across Gwen’s bare back, he felt content, at peace. Was there also a trace of lust? He didn’t think so, and as he traced her spine, fingers applying only the minutest of pressure, he marveled at the paleness of her skin. She lay still, arms above her head, her tunic on the floor. He stared at her, smiling.
“Don’t ogle, massage, oaf,” she teased, her nose crinkled as she turned her head to look at him.
“I’m sorry,” he stuttered. Why did he feel so calm around her? With Hesmera it had always been passionate, a fierce lustful struggle. He couldn’t remember if he had ever massaged her back. Thankfully he had been to bathing houses before, and knew what he was supposed to do, although it took time to discover the cramped muscles, force them to relax.
Gwen never complained as he tried to guess his way along, and once he had felt his way about and developed a rhythm with his hands, she half moaned half sighed in pleasure. That she had stayed still surprised him. On the road, in the cave, they had always been surrounded by others whose presence had kept them physically apart, and had she not come to him he doubted he would have ever approached, much less talked to her. Some muscle, hardened by her less than comfortable choice of bed, refused to budge when he slid his palms across. Drangar hesitated, afraid he might hurt her. She looked so fragile. Even after hearing how she had killed her countrymen, he thought her tender.
