Vlad'War's Anvil

by Rex Hazelton

  "If you think the monster who tried to hurt our mother can take control of us," Travyn angrily spat out, "you're a fool."

  Not one to be intimidated, Bacchanor firmly replied, "You're a fool if you think he won't try."

  "He'll fail if he does!"

  "Not unless you have enough sense to fear his attempt. For the Dark Lord, who even now stands at the foot of the mountain and could be watching us pass overhead, does little in vain. Nor does he share his counsel with others. So, as we all agree... our eyes must remain open, even when we sleep."

  "But he didn't finish what he planned to do to us." Travyn's anger deepend by unexpectedly having to defend himself before a man he revered. "Our father, Grour Blood, and Alynd saved us before that happened."

  "Aye, that's true." Bacchanor glanced at the mountain the Nameless Evil was building with the souls of those he had taken captive, for that was how the massive black peak was being made. Fathomless numbers of souls, taken from those whose hearts were enslaved by darkness, were plastered together like chunks of clay used to make a sculpture. But this was no piece of art, it was a weapon fashioned to be used against the mountain its form mocked- the Mountain of Song. For the black replica was an army that was being amassed in a mountainous heap for the day the Nameless Evil planned to assault that wonderous place. And once conquered, the foul thing will take control of the Mountain of Song's power and become a Singer whose dour compositions would doom the Warl of the Living.

  "But let us remember, you have Andara's and Vlad'War's magic working in you to fight off the infection." Bacchanor was balancing the darkness with the light. "And let's not forget the magic of the Song of Breaking your mother wields." After gently squeezing Mar'Gul's hand and looking into her lovely scarred face, he concluded, "We have good reason to hope for the best."

  Then all became quiet as each was left to their own thoughts as the black land slipped by below and the vast verdant country drew near.

  Leaning forward, with her elbows resting on her knees and the palms of her hands propping up her head, Bala's lilting voice was heard to wryly say, "Simple times for simple folks."

  Catching the wit in her words, Bacchanor chuckled as he dispensed his own gross understatement. "It's as easy as child's play, right Bala?"

  "What would a cretchym know about child's play?" Bala's large, dark green eyes blinked as she shared her dry humor with the others.

  This made Bacchanor chuckle morre. But he didn't laugh, nor did any of the others, though the cretchym's wry wit was not lost on them.

  ****

  Grateful that the conversation had moved away from speculating about the things the Nameless Evil had done to him, Travyn, and their mother, when the beast captured Muriel in the Temple of the Oak Tree and had her and her sons spirits brought before him at the base of the black mountain, Kaylan joined the discussion that was now focused on the Stone Desert and the stranger the Oakenfel's had encountered near the black wasteland.

  "He called himself The Watcher," Kaylan explained.

  "He claimed that he came from the far side of the Stone Desert?" Mar’Gul quizzed her nephews.

  "And that the winds, passing over the Nyeg and the Ar, speak to him?" Bacchanor added.

  Taking Mar’Gul and Bacchanor's questions as his cue, Kaylan went on to tell the full tale of the blood drinking stranger that he and his brothers had battled in the Madara Desert. He was mindful to include every detail he could recall. From time-to-time, his brothers added their perspectives on the strange story.

  A shapeshifter himself, Bacchanor shared his take on the serpent form The Watcher assumed to travel about. "It was clever of the man to transform into one of the serpents that live in the Stone Desert. By doing this, not only did he gain the physical traits required to survive the deadly place, he somehow bypassed the ward that was placed on the desert to keep the lands and people who live on either side apart.

  "I say people now, because the presence of The Watcher himself tells us that others of his kind, no doubt, populate that place. Until this moment, there was no inkling of what lay on the other side of the Stone Desert; nor did any know why it was created; for the warding magic it's endowed with was affixed to it by intelligent means. But whether that intelligence was from the Warl we live in or from the land that lays on the other side of the Stone Desert, none that I know can say."

  Mar’Gul's emerald green's eyes looked like polished stones. "To hear that The Watcher wants to meet Ab'Don is as troubling as learning about his fondness for blood."

  "The Watcher is a Blood Mage," Horbyn explained in an off-handed way before he gathered himself to explain what he meant. "The Hag's love of dark magic has increased their understanding of the power inherent to blood. That's why the Hag sacrifice the lives of so many, to release the warm, red flow that will increase their mystical prowess. Some even drink the blood of wizard brethren they have slain in the duels that the Sorcerer sanctions. For such cannot happen without the Master's blessing being procured. This is done to absorb the power that their foe acrued.

  "As a result of this, for many have had their magical abilities increased through this practice to one degree or another, the Hag have theororized that one, whose magical skills were great enough, might be able to absorb their victim's memories as well as their power. This person, if they ever existed, would be called a Blood Mage.

  "Yet, a Blood Mage could get more than they bargained for by drinking another's life flow if their magic wasn’t strong enough to deal with the things they had exposed themselves too. They might absorb parts of their victim's personality along with their memories. In the end, the Blood Mage could be changed by the experience in ways they wouldn't want. The essence of their self could be altered so that they would morph into a different person, who was an amalgamation of all that they inculcated into their being, though the original self would remain in control."

  "You are what you eat," Bala said with deadpan perfection.

  "So," Ay'Roan said without acknowledging the cretchym's dark humor. "When The Watcher said that he knew more about us than we would like, he was speaking about our memories and personalities too?"

  "No doubt," Horbyn said as he pondered what this might mean. "The Watcher has done more than read your minds thoughts and intentions, he has caught sight of the things that make you who you are, though I can't help but think Vlad'War's Magic wouldn't allow him to clearly perceive this."

  "And he's on his way to see Ab'Don." Mar’Gul returned to her troubling topic. "Though we don't know why he desires to meet the Sorcerer, we know The Watcher now has bargaining chips he can use to get what he wants in that meeting."

  "I doubt The Watcher will readily help the Sorcerer. He must have plans of his own that don’t include making Ar Warl stronger," Bacchanor submitted. "There's a reason why the Stone Desert was created, and I'm sure that it wasn't put into place to keep Ab'Don from meeting prospective allies."

  "So," Horbyn concluded, "not only will we have to watch one another... we'll also have to keep an eye open for The Watcher."

  "If the wind speaks to The Watcher as he claims," Bacchanor held Horbyn in his unflinching gaze as he spoke, "maybe it's told him that the Nyeg is being inexorably drawn back to the Ar. If this is true, then it would be safe say, he's come here to witness the conflagration that is sure to break out when the warls meet. For a clash of magic the likes of which has not been recorded in the annals of history will take place. And as The Watcher's name implies, this isn't something he would want to miss seeing."

  Looking at the Warl of the Dead, Horbyn said, "I wonder..."

  With his eyes stedfastly set on the wizard, eyes that were now a mix of brown and yellow in color, Bacchanor asked, "You wonder what?"

  Surprised that he had spoken out loud, Horbyn went ahead and shared a thought he hadn’t planned on sharing with the others.

  With the way Bacchanor was looking at him, like he had already guessed what he was thinking, Horbyn placed his finger tips on the side of h
is forehead and said, "This clash of magic, as you call it, will also include a clash of warls- the Warl of the Dead and the Warl of the Living. For Ab'Don gains much of his power from the Nameless Evil who lurks about in the shadow that cover's the Warl of the Dead, and the one who made the Hammer of Power, that might well determine the outcome of the approaching war, stands on the grassy fields we see before us as the Oakenfel brothers have told me. Andara is there too, standing in the light that the Mountain of Song casts over the verdant plain that sweeps across the Warl of the Dead."

  Looking at the others as he reached the point to what he was saying, Horbyn continued on. "Wouldn't it be correct to assume that those who fathered the magic that will be used in the coming struggle will also be present in that very same magic: the Nameless Evil's in the power he has given to Ab'Don, and Andara and Vlad'War in the magic they have given to Jeaf Oakenfel, his wife, and their sons through the hammer and tears they possess."

  "Go on." Baccahnor's eyes blinked raptor-like as he listened. The brothers barely breathed. Bala's wings slowly rose above her head and stiffened. Mar’Gul's eyes narrowed until they looked like shards of green stone.

  "You see." Horbyn wasn't certain how he had taken the lead in the conversation, but since he had, he felt obligated to share as much of his ruminations as he dared to share without revealing the thing dearest to his heart. "I believe that the coming war could rend the barrier that separates the Warl of the Living from the Warl of the Dead, opening the way for both places to bleed into one another.

  "To what degree this will happen, or how it will look when it does, I couldn't say. But I do think it will occur. The Battle of the Temple of the Oak Tree, as the Nyeg Warlers call it, is a foreshadowing of what is to come."

  Bacchanor placed his thumb under his chin, while resting his pointer finger above his upper lip. He's on to something, he thought, though I can't say what it is for certain.

  While he considered Horbyn's notion that the Warl's of the Living and the Dead were going to collide, as sure as the Nyeg and the Ar were, in some unfathomable way, Bacchanor tilted his head to look at Mar’Gul out of the corner of his eye. Seeing the troubled look on her face, he wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was, that she had been given the mantle of Mar’Gul in a place where the dead ruled, the haunted city of Cara Lorn, home of the Lorn Fast Wraiths. Was this by design? Was it in keeping with Horbyn's ruminations?

  Not only had the woman people, once called Pearl, been transformed into Mar’Gul in a city where Ab'Don had taken Andara as his prisoner, the wraiths that the Sorcerer had charged with keeping watch over his captive played a crucial role in effecting her change.

  One in particular did the most to make certain the alteration was made complete, Drak, though the outcome he desired to affect was denied thim.

  A wizard who was Andara's contemporary when he was alive, in death Drak had become the Lord of the Lorn Fast Wraiths. As such, it was his job to heap the same fires on Pearl as those he had on thrown on Andara, fires whose substance was comprised of scenes filled with the horrific things Ab'Don and his followers did to the peoples and realms they subjugated. By making her experience Andara's torment, caused by seeing countless atrocities without being able to do anything about them, a thing that made Andara waste away until there was so little of him left that he died, the wraith lord had unintentionally prepared Pearl to receive the wizard’s unparalleled magic.

  But this wasn't why Drak did what he did. He would never help his nemesis prepare the instrument that he planned to pass his power on to. Drak wanted to hurt the one who was a candidate to be the next Mar'Gul, to keep her from reaching this goal, to kill her if he could, and to injure Andara in the process.

  His ruthlessly wicked inclinations made certain he would do what he did even though it ultimately played into Andara's hands. Still, Pearl surviving his merciless onslaught was not a given. To this day, she bore the scars left by the wraith's magic-imbued claws when mental torment turned into physical mutitlation, a mutilation that reached feverish intensity as Pearl neared the end of her journey to becoming Mar’Gul.

  Bacchanor had never had a problem with the idea that Pearl needed to experience things that would place the Gift of Empathy inside her heart. A healer himself, he knew that this was necessary if she was to become the person that Andara's magic could continue to live through sinc ethe capacity to identify with the dour plight that fickle fate apportioned to others was the same capacity needed to hold the full measure of Andara's inimitable power.

  Still, the thought that wraiths were unwittingly used to empart the Gift of Empathy had always bothered him. It was like he had a stone in his boot that was small enough to live with for a time, but large enough to make him want to, sooner or later, pull his boot off and get rid of the annoying thing.

  Well... the boot was off now and Bacchanor was taking a good look at the thing that had been bothering him. Horbyn's words had seen to this.

  Did Andara agree to meet with Ab'Don in the haunted city of Cara Lorn for more reasons than to make an ill-fated attempt at talking the Sorcerer out of staying on the wicked course he had set for himself? Did he understand things about the war with Ab'Don that others didn't? Was he aware of the tryst the Sorcerer had with the Nameless Evil? Did he think that this unholy meeting had compromised the barrier that kept the Warl of the Living and the Warl of the Dead apart? Was his death less a tragedy than a calculated act meant to heal the breach that the Sorcerer's tryst had caused? And was Mar’Gul a part of that calculation, a living person whose powers came to her when she endured the ravages of the dead? And because of that, had she become a creature who had one foot planted in the Warl of the Living while the other one was planted in the Warl of the Dead?

  Horbyn nodded his head without saying why he was doing it. I'm right, he thought, as he looked down at the Warl of the Dead where the Nameless Evil dwelt and where the spirits of good men and women waited to meet him in battle when he began his assault on the Mountain of Song. His entire life and been dedicated to learning how to raise the dead back to life. Flying through the sky that covered the Warl of Dead with a canopy of cobalt blue color- something he never dared to dream he would do, but something that was in keeping with his quest- only confirmed his belief that he would oe day draw his mother's spirit out of the realm where the departed went to at the time of their deaths and reunite it with her body that he had used all of his magical abilities to preserve.

  Hidden in a place that only he knew about, somewhere in the Ice Desert, the decaying process that Monah's body normally would have undergone had been arrested by Horbyn's expertise in working magic. Now that he was looking down on the place where he knew her spirit was waiting for its inevitable return to the Warl of the Living, Horbyn was beside himself with excitement. Accompanied by those who had actually been to the Warl of the Dead, and returned to the Warl of the Living to tell about it, heightened his excitement. For both Bacchanor and Mar’Gul had entered that place in the flesh when they accompanied Jeaf Oakenfel as he went to wrestle his wife's spirit out of the Evil One's grasp. And when he did that, for the Hammer Bearer had succeeded in rescuing Muriel with the help of Alynd the Elf Man, and Grour Blood, Muriel's winged-guardian, Jeaf also freed Travyn and Kaylan's spirits that were inside their mother's womb at the time.

  And here they all were... with him and in this place. Now all he had to do was get his hands on the iron branch Ab'Don plunged into Muriel Oakenfel's heart when she was his prisoner back in the Temple of the Oak Tree, the device he used to keep her body alive while her spirit was escorted to the unfortunate meeting with the Nameless Evil, the same apparatus that ensured her spirit could return to her corporal form. With this in hand, nothing could stop him from reuniting his mother's spirit with the body that awaited her return.

  Chapter 19: Lan'Fon

  Before the Flying experience ended, the sphereical transport reached the place where the shadows engulfing half of the Warl of the Dead met the light eminati
ng from the unbelievably massive Mountain of Song. Here, the Warl of the Dead was rent apart by a deep chasm that zig-zagged across the landscape. A river of molten lava flowed in its depths. The Mountain of Song's magic was responsible for creating the cut. Filled with wards, the chasm kept the wicked flood that wanted to spill over the entirety of the Realm of the Deceased dammed up.

  A spike-shaped protrusion, reaching from the shadows drapping one side of the chasm and out into the void, had become the topic of conversation. This was the structure the Evil One was building in his attempt to cross the chasm. Black as the mountain that rose up behind it, the same material was being used to construct both- the souls of men and woman that had capitulated to evil's influence. Placed together like pieces in a macabre puzzle, the spirits, blackened by the lies the Thieves told them when they reached Fork in the Road, were contorted into bizarre shapes that fit into the bridge's overall design. This gave the structure an organic appearance that was in keeping with the materials being used to erect it.

  Broad at a base that clung to the cliff face like a mud dobber's nest, the bridge tappered to a narrow tip as it reached out into the chasm's gapping maw like a boney finger pointing the way it wanted to go. Here, magic was being painstakenly employed to unravel the wards the Mountain of Song had placed in Gulf Fix. An all too slow process, the wards were nevertheless being broken down, and in time they would be removed. This is what Bacchanor and Mar’Gul were discussing with more than a little concern. For they had stood on the grassy plains and talked with those who were preparing to stem the flood that would rush across the bridge once it was completed.

  "The Nameless Evil wants Ab'Don to win the war that will soon break out between the Nyeg and the Ar, so that the Sorcerer can continue to supply him with the souls he needs to see that his plans succeed." Bacchanor told this to the Oakenfels and the wizard the brothers had met in Mishal Parm. Unlike the four men he teamed up with in Mishal Parm, Horbyn was surprisingly ignorant about the things that were transpiring in the afterlife, an understandable condition since he didn’t have the likes of Grour Blood, Alynd the Elf-Man, or the brothers’ father to complete his education on the matter.