[Ulthuan 01] - Defenders of Ulthuan

by Graham McNeill

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Saphery

  As the sun began to set, the mountains cast long shadows over Tor Yvresse and the city felt even more empty than it had during the day. When Caelir, Anurion and Kyrielle emerged from the tower of Eltharion, a sombre darkness, more palpable than the gloom that engulfed the city during the day, hung over its populace.

  Caelir looked up as the plaintive cry of Eltharion’s griffon echoed from the heights of the tower and he saw the master of the city circling high above.

  “He trusts no one, does he?” said Caelir as they mounted their horses and set off towards the western gate.

  “Few have given him cause to, Caelir,” said Anurion. “When Tor Yvresse was under attack, the other cities were too wrapped up in their own affairs to send aid. By the time most realised the seriousness of what the goblin shaman was attempting it was too late. Either Eltharion would stop them or Ulthuan would fall.”

  “He has allowed us to pass through the mountains,” said Kyrielle, urging her mount to catch up to Caelir. “That must count for something…”

  Behind her, the guards that had accompanied them from her father’s palace rode alongside Anurion, their relief at leaving Tor Yvresse clear even in the gloom.

  “Only to see us gone from his city,” said Caelir.

  “Did Eltharion give you any indication of who would lead us to Saphery?” said Anurion.

  “He told me his rangers would show us a secret way through the mountains.”

  Anurion nodded and said, “It is said that there are ways through the Annulii that even the wisest mages do not know, but I had never thought to travel them.”

  The sound of their horses’ hooves echoed in the empty streets of Tor Yvresse and it took them no time at all to reach the western wall of the city. It towered above them, its defences no less impressive on the side facing the Inner Kingdoms of Ulthuan than those facing the hostile world.

  Mighty towers and colossal bastions spread out to either side of them, but Caelir could see that such defences would be of little consequence if a great horde came at them, for there was a paltry strength of warriors manning the wall.

  Only now did the precarious nature of Tor Yvresse truly become apparent as he saw how few souls remained alive to defend their city. The Shifting Isles protected the eastern approaches to Ulthuan and it was clear that Eltharion relied on them to keep his city safe, for there were precious few warriors to do so.

  Finally understanding a measure of the warden’s hostility, Caelir looked up once more at the circling form of Eltharion and said, “I wish you well, my lord. Isha watch over you.”

  Even as the words left his mouth, a number of ghostly shapes detached from the shadows and swiftly surrounded their company. They wore conical, face-concealing helmets of burnished bronze and silver, with dark cloaks that rendered them nearly invisible in the darkening twilight.

  One of the warriors swept back his cloak to reveal the natural, rugged attire of a ranger, his physique tough and wolf-lean.

  “You are to follow us,” said the shadow-cloaked warrior.

  “Who are you?” said Anurion.

  “We are servants of the warden,” came the answer. “That is all you need know.”

  Without another word, the warrior turned and set off in the direction of the city gate, which swung open noiselessly as he approached.

  Caelir leaned over to whisper in Kyrielle’s ear. “Talkative types, these rangers.”

  Their leader turned to face him and said, “We speak when we have something of worth to say. Others could learn from us.”

  Both Caelir and Kyrielle started in surprise, having thought the ranger far beyond the limits of hearing. She smiled nervously and Caelir shrugged as he rode towards the ranger.

  Together with their mounted guard, they passed through the gate and followed the road down one of the nine hills of Tor Yvresse in a gentle curve towards the Annulii.

  “Is it wise to set off into the mountains in the dark?” said Kyrielle.

  The ranger nodded and Caelir could see that he found such discussions tiresome. “We will be your eyes and there are some paths that can only be taken in darkness.”

  Caelir already knew the skill of Eltharion’s rangers was second only to that of the Shadow Warriors of Nagarythe, having known they had observed their approach to Tor Yvresse without once revealing themselves. Even so, the idea of leading such a company into the mountains in darkness seemed an excessive display of hubris.

  A faint glow permeated the night, the aura of raw magic sweeping through the mountains, and the further they travelled along the road, the stronger the taste of it became.

  Their journey took them along twisting paths, which, though they led upwards, seemed to bring the mountains no closer. Though darkness had fallen on the world, a mist of magical energy lingered on the trees and ground like a light dusting of snow and Caelir could feel the power that resided in every fragment of Ulthuan as though it sprang from the very rocks themselves.

  Tor Yvresse receded behind them, the lights of its shuttered mansions and towers a lonely, isolated beacon of light in the darkness behind them.

  “How much further must we ride?” said Anurion. “Lord Eltharion claimed you would show us a way through the mountains.”

  “And so we shall,” said the nameless ranger. “Be patient.”

  At last the rangers led them into a narrow defile between two jutting fangs of rock that wound downwards into a dark hollow in which stood a tall, glistening stone at the confluence of three gurgling streams. Spiral patterns and ancient, faded runes had been carved into the rock and Caelir could see the faint image of a carved gateway against a far cliff.

  Anurion and Kyrielle gasped as they followed the rangers down into the hollow and even Caelir could sense the reservoir of magic that collected in this place.

  “A watchstone…” said Anurion.

  Caelir had heard of the watchstones from Kyrielle, powerful menhirs that crossed Ulthuan from shore to shore and directed the energy of the vortex contained within the Annulii ever inward towards the Isle of the Dead on lines of magical energy.

  Many of the island’s mages built their homes atop these lines and great barrows of the dead were erected on auspicious points where these lines intersected. The souls of the dead were thus eternally bound to Ulthuan that they might guard the land they loved and escape the terrible prospect of being devoured by the gods of Chaos.

  In other kingdoms such watchstones were a common sight, crossing the landscape in a web of mystical design, but in Yvresse their location was a closely guarded secret. After the catastrophe of the Goblin King’s invasion, geomancers from Saphery had divined where else the toppled stones might still be positioned to perform the task for which they had been raised and secreted them in the hidden places where none but those who knew the secret paths could discover them.

  The rangers led them to the base of the hollow, waiting until everyone had reached the bottom before kneeling at the watchstone and singing a strange, lilting melody. The words were unknown to Caelir, the mystical cadences felt in the soul as much as heard. Each word slipped though the darkness and the landscape around responded, the trees sighing and the rocks stirring themselves from their slumbers to hear such beauty.

  Caelir watched the rangers with a mixture of awe and fear as he felt the world around him… change, as though the landscape around them shifted beneath their horses’ feet in response to the song.

  Looking into the night sky, he could see the stars spread out before him, their luminance rippling in the sky through the magical haze washing from the mountains.

  He returned his attention to the rangers and their strange, singsong chant as a glittering mist gathered at the lip of the hollow and rolled down the slope towards them.

  “Anurion?” he said. “What’s happening?”

  “Be silent,” said the archmage. “Do not disturb them. They are calling on the power of the watchstone and it would be peril
ous to interrupt.”

  The mist now filled the hollow and Caelir felt its cold touch as it rose around them. The horses whinnied in fear as strange shapes appeared in the mist, revenants of long dead elves and fragmentary images of times and places as yet unknown to the living.

  The mist gathered about them, coiling around them like a living thing, questing around their bodies and cocooning them in a moist, clammy embrace.

  Caelir lost sight of his companions, his sight closed off by the thick mist. Icy fear slid through his veins and he twisted in the saddle as he suddenly felt very alone, the isolation more terrifying than the ominous shapes that drifted just beyond sight.

  “Kyrielle? Anurion?”

  The faint outline of something dark moved through the mist and Caelir reached for his sword as it approached, determined that no spirit of the mist would take him.

  The breath rushed from him as the figure resolved from the mist and he saw that it was one of Eltharion’s rangers, his eyes dark and glittering with magic.

  The ranger reached up to take the reins of his horse and Caelir silently allowed the warrior to lead his horse, sensing that to speak now would be unutterably dangerous.

  As the ranger led his horse towards the cliff, the foggy silence remained unbroken, even the sound of hooves on rock muffled by the smothering blanket of mist. Caelir saw the sheer cliff of white rock ahead of him, but where before it had been naught but the image of a gateway, now it yawned open, black and terrible.

  Sinister moans and a breath of hot, vibrant air blew from it, rich with potent energies, and Caelir felt nothing but terror at the idea of venturing through such a dread portal.

  “Where does that lead?” he said, every word an effort.

  “Into the river of magic,” said the ranger.

  Beyond the gateway was darkness, but not darkness empty of wonders, rather one filled with magic and miracles. No sooner had the ranger led Caelir through than his senses were assaulted by a great, terrible weight of things, monstrously powerful things, lurking just at the edge of perception.

  He could see nothing, but the power lurking in this place supplied the fuel and his imagination the tools to render all manner of terrors and dreamscapes before him. The darkness retreated in the face of such freshly realised potential: vast expanses of dark mountains ruled over by glistening towers of red meat, marching swords and spears atop great riding beasts, powerful armies destroying one another in a verdant field of blue flowers and a thousand other such visions, each more vivid and bizarre than the last.

  Of his companions he saw no sign, the steps of his horse mechanical and automatic as it walked through this nightmare realm of infinite potential. Its ears were pressed flat against its skull in fear, but whether it saw the same things as he or fashioned its own skewed reality, he could not say.

  His course took him along the edge of a great river, filled not with water, but the roiling bodies of the dead. A million corpses, bloated and stinking flowed past him, their faces at once familiar and unknown to him. Caelir recoiled as the stench of the dead assailed him, the sight of so many dead sickening and unbearable.

  The river vanished as the power of the magic around him dredged the depths of his mind for yet more things to make real. A cold wind that penetrated his flesh and chilled his very bones blew through him and a cavalcade of tortures paraded before him, though these were no bloody dismemberments, but sensual pleasures designed to break the spirit from within: degradations and humiliations heaped upon one another until the soul could take no more.

  Caelir closed his eyes and begged the visions conjured into his mind by the power of the magic coursing through the mountains to withdraw, but such magic was raw and elemental, devoid of conscience and mercy and the visions neither relented nor retreated.

  How long he remained beneath the mountains, a moment or an eternity, he could not say. In this place of magic, there was no time, no dimensions and no sense of a place in the world. Faces appeared, elves of both sexes; places, tall cities of white towers and a hateful dark city of great iron towers that echoed to the dreadful sounds of screams and the hammering of industry.

  Fires burned in this city and something in this last vision possessed some kernel of truth the others did not, and Caelir focused his attention on the rampant flames and screeches of some great, unseen monster. He saw specks of white amid the darkness and his heart leapt to see Reavers mounted on bright Ellyrian steeds spreading destruction throughout the dark city, casting down what the evil masters of the city had built.

  Was this a memory or a fantasy culled from unremembered boyhood dreams?

  He fought to hold onto this last image, his attention fixed on two riders, one atop a gleaming black steed, the other atop a grey. They were achingly familiar, but before he could do more than register their presence, he felt the power of the visions fade and he had a powerful sensation of having emerged from the rushing waters of the most powerful river imaginable.

  Caelir took a great, gulping breath as strands of raw magic slid from his mind and the darkness of the mountains reasserted itself. Reality settled upon him in the click of trace and harness, the gasps of his companions and the clatter of their horses’ hooves on rock.

  “No, show me…” he said, twisting in the saddle to look behind him, though on an instinctual level he knew that such a term was meaningless in this conduit of magic beneath the mountains.

  “Show you what?” said Anurion, riding behind him and looking exhilarated to have touched such primal energies and lived to tell the tale.

  Caelir shook his head, the significance of the vision already fading from his mind as though a smothering blanket had been pulled over it. “I don’t know. I thought I saw something familiar, but it’s gone now. I don’t remember it.”

  He turned away from the archmage and saw that the ranger still led his horse, his guide either oblivious or inured to the nightmares they had just faced that they no longer affected him.

  Their company travelled along a narrow passageway cleft in the mountainside, a warm, yellow glow coming from somewhere up ahead that blew away the last of the cobwebs that entangled Caelir’s thoughts after the journey through the darkness.

  The rock of the narrow passageway glistened with what he at first took to be moisture, but, when he reached out to touch it, turned out to be a dewy residue of magic. Glimmering beads of light clung to his fingers and he smiled as he realised they must be close to Saphery, the horrors unleashed with his mind only moments before now quite forgotten.

  Caelir emerged into the bright sunshine, shielding his eyes as the ranger led him out onto a wide shelf of rock that jutted from the cliff of the mountains. The air smelled sweet and columns of green trees grew tall around him, stark against the summer skies above.

  Kyrielle sat on her horse at the edge of the plateau, her cheeks flushed with the pleasure of seeing her homeland once more. Her father’s mounted guards milled around and their faces were bright and open with anticipation, such was the power of this homecoming.

  A boulder-lined path curled down the mountains, leading to a fertile land of golden fields and blue, coiling rivers. Caelir looked over his shoulder and saw the ramparts of the Annulii Mountains towering above him, their shimmering peaks wreathed in a haze of magic.

  “We have crossed the mountains already?” he said, amazed that they should have covered such distance in the blink of an eye. Their journey had begun in darkness, but he judged it to be early morning here, though it felt as if only moments had passed since they had left the hollow of the watchstone.

  “You have,” said the ranger who had first spoken to them in Tor Yvresse.

  “How?” said Caelir. “A journey like that should have taken us several days at least.”

  “Lord Eltharion wished you to reach Saphery sooner,” said the ranger, raising his arm and pointing to Caelir’s left. “And the White Tower awaits.”

  Caelir followed the ranger’s pointing finger and his eyes widened as he
saw the Tower of Hoeth spearing half a mile into the sky, a sharp white needle of stone thrusting upwards and surrounded by light. Though the sun had yet to reach its zenith, the brilliance of the tower outshone its radiance.

  “I hope for your sake you truly are a seeker of knowledge,” said the ranger, reaching up to place a hand on Caelir’s arm and looking over to the tower. Though his helmet concealed much of the ranger’s face, Caelir saw that his expression of concern was sincere.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The White Tower is unforgiving with those who knowingly approach with deceit in their hearts or who seek power for its own sake.”

  “I appreciate the warning, but I spoke the truth to Lord Eltharion.”

  The ranger nodded and released his arm. “I wish you good fortune, Caelir of Ellyrion.”

  “Come on!” cried Kyrielle. “Let’s go. It won’t take long to get to the tower now.”

  “Yes, come on, boy,” said Anurion, the wings of his pegasus spreading wide in anticipation of taking to the air. “No slacking off now that we’re almost there.”

  Caelir smiled, amused at the galvanising energy that filled the natives of Saphery now that they had returned to their homeland. Would returning to Ellyrion produce a similar rush of infectious enthusiasm in his own heart?

  He hoped so.

  Caelir watched Kyrielle gallop down the road and Anurion take to the air, the guards following after the archmage’s daughter.

  He turned to thank the ranger for bringing them here so swiftly, but his words died when he saw they had vanished and the cleft in the rock from which they had emerged had disappeared.

  A cold wind blew from the high peaks and Caelir pulled his cloak tighter as he felt a breath of ancient magic, more powerful than anything left in the world, sweep over him like the breath of a terrible, slumbering monster kept imprisoned by the forgotten glamours of a distant age.

  Caelir turned from the now sinister mountain, very aware that he was alone in this strange land, and set off down the path after Kyrielle and her warrior escort.