Dreamwielder

by Garrett Calcaterra

  “I know you’re tired, but could you maybe tell me what it is they’re teaching you?” Makarria asked.

  “Nothing I can do,” Taera said with a shake of her head.

  “Is Roanna getting cross with you? Maybe I can help.”

  “No!” Taera snapped. “You are to do nothing of the sort.”

  Makarria felt tears welling up in her eyes and stood quickly to hide it from Taera.

  “Makarria, no, I’m sorry,” Taera said with another sigh. “It’s just, I don’t want you to get hurt. If they find out…” She left the rest of her thought unsaid out of fear that Roanna or Kadar might somehow be able to overhear what she said.

  “But it’s so horrible in here,” Makarria said, unable to hold the tears back any longer. “At least you get to leave our room everyday. What am I supposed to do?”

  Taera stood and hugged Makarria. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. There’s nothing for it. I know we are meant to be here, but I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. My visions have left me. I’ve seen nothing since we arrived here. We are just going to have to bide our time and see what happens. Roanna and Kadar are unkind, but I don’t think they mean us harm. We just have to wait.”

  “Can’t you take me with you in the morning, at least?” Makarria pleaded. “I promise just to watch.”

  “Roanna won’t stand for it. I’m sorry, Makarria.”

  More tears came. Makarria felt foolish. Quit being a baby, she told herself. You’ve had your moonblood—you’re a grown woman now, but the tears would not stop.

  In the morning, Taera left again, and again Makarria was left to her own devices. She resolved to make use of her time by exercising to keep her agility and balance sharp. I might be back on that airship any day now, or Grampy might come to rescue me. She didn’t really believe either scenario would happen, but it gave some purpose to her day. She walked the perimeter framework of her bunk with her eyes closed; she spun herself in circles until she was dizzy and then hopped on one foot and tried staying upright; she tried to climb the walls, but found the stonework too smooth to provide adequate hand holds. All in all, it kept her busy for a few hours, and then she plopped to the ground bored and dejected. She considered practicing her letters as her grandfather had taught her, but there was nothing to write with. There was literally nothing for her to do.

  Just when she thought she could take it no more and would scream, the door to her chamber suddenly opened and in walked Siegbjorn. “Come with me,” he said gruffly.

  Makarria wanted to scream with joy, but his tone of voice silenced her. Am I in trouble? she wondered. She silently followed after him past the guard and into the main cavern. She had no idea where he was taking her, but she didn’t care, she decided. Anything was better than being trapped in her room. Siegbjorn’s heavy footfalls echoed in the cavern around them, and apart from the incessant dripping of water from the glacier, there was no other sound in the vast emptiness. He led her past the chamber where Taera was locked inside with Roanna, and past numerous other chambers—some with closed doors, some open—until they finally reached the opening to the meadow outside. They passed no one the entire way.

  A thin blanketing of snow covered the ground outside, and the sky was gray, but still Makarria had to shield her eyes against the brightness after being in the dim cavern for so long. She glanced back toward the cavern opening to make sure they were alone before she finally spoke.

  “Siegbjorn, where are we going?”

  “To check on the airship, of course. I cannot be expected to do an inspection without my first mate.”

  Makarria let out a squeal of excitement and jumped forward to embrace him around the waist. The big man stopped awkwardly, but smiled nonetheless, and patted her shoulder roughly.

  “Where have you been the last three days?” she demanded of him as they continued on into the meadow toward the airship.

  “Sleeping.”

  “For three days?”

  “I told you, I am like a bear. I would not have slept so long if I knew you were to be locked up, but I was tired and it did not occur to my mind that Roanna would leave you under lock and key.”

  Makarria cringed at hearing Roanna’s name. “Will she be angry that you’ve freed me? You won’t be in trouble, will you?”

  Siegbjorn snorted. “She has probably already forgotten you exist. And I do not mean to free you. I am merely putting you to work, and when night comes it is back to your chamber with you. Yes?”

  “Aye, Captain,” Makarria said smartly, and Siegbjorn grinned from beneath his big beard again.

  They found the airship still tethered where they had landed. Siegbjorn put Makarria to work checking all the lines on the gondola for frays while he examined the furnace and the controls at the helm. When they were done with that, Siegbjorn then had her climb the thickly braided ropes that attached the gondola to the main hull floating in the air above them. The main hull had an internal skeleton, but the shell itself was made of a thick, black, canvas-like material that squished beneath Makarria’s hands and feet. It supported her weight well enough but was not easy to traverse. She climbed to the very top to check the two vertical rudders, then to either side to check the horizontal rudders, while Siegbjorn exercised the rudder controls.

  When Siegbjorn was satisfied that all was in working order, he had her hoist up a giant canvas tarpaulin. It was easily larger than even the mainsail of Pyrthin’s Flame, and Makarria marveled at the time and effort that must have gone into making it. She had spent hours mending the sail of her grandfather’s skiff back home, and she couldn’t begin to imagine how long it must have taken to sew each section of the tarpaulin together. For that matter, the egg-shaped main hull must have been even more work, she realized. It must be nearly airtight to hold in all that hot air, she mused.

  “Makarria!” Siegbjorn shouted up at her. “What is the delay?”

  “Sorry,” she yelled down at him and scurried back across the length of the hull, dragging the tarpaulin behind her. Once she had the tarpaulin draped over the entirety of the hull, she lowered herself to the ground, and the two of them staked down each of the two dozen ties to keep the tarp from blowing away.

  “The tarpaulin will keep the snow and ice from stacking on the hull of the ship and freezing up our lines,” Siegbjorn told her. “As it is, winter is coming and it will be hard enough to unbury her from the snow if we must needs fly anywhere.”

  “What next, then?” Makarria asked, cold, but excited to do more.

  “Back into the caverns. I will show you where the peat is prepared for the furnace.”

  Siegbjorn led the way back inside, and they passed the same series of chambers, now on their left. The cavern narrowed beyond that and began rising in elevation as it followed the lower edge of the slab-like glacier. At points, the underground stream beneath the glacier came to the surface in a peacefully bubbling brook. The sound comforted Makarria but reminded her also how much she missed the sound of the surf and her home. She wondered what her parents were doing at that moment, but the thought pained her, so she quickly turned her mind to other thoughts, lest she start crying again.

  “Did Roanna make this cave?” she asked.

  Siegbjorn snorted. “This cavern has been here long before Roanna was ever born, long before men even walked the world, I think. The ice above us—it carved this cavern many ages ago. Indeed, it continues to carve it as the ages pass.”

  “But it didn’t carve out all those rooms,” Makarria pointed out.

  “No, my people, the Snjaer Firan as we once called ourselves, discovered this cavern many hundreds of years ago. Before even Norg, Sargoth, and the other sorcerers came to conquer this land. My ancestors wintered in the cavern, then in the spring and summer would venture out for months at a time into the valley outside where they would fish, hunt, and gather all that they needed for the coming winter. When the Five Sorcerers came, the Snjaer Firan in name fell under dominion of Norgland, but even Norg himself nev
er ventured so high into these mountains more than once or twice in his lifetime. We went on living much as we had in the years before, that is until Trumball came.”

  “I’ve heard that name before,” Makarria said, trying to remember what she knew of him. “My grampy must have told me a story about him, but I can’t remember much.”

  “He was the son of our chieftain and had strange powers, much like those of Roanna and Kadar I imagine, but to greater ability and better purpose. When he was still young, he left our cavern and explored far beyond the Five Kingdoms to the Old World, learning what he was able. He returned many years later a wise and powerful man and became the mightiest of our chieftains. In his travels he had learned well the workings of Tel Mathir, whom we call Svell Módir, and he taught our people much. They extended the cavern through the core of the mountain to make an entrance on the south face, so we were no longer cut off from the outside world, and they built the fair city you are about to witness. After that, the Dreamwielder War began, and of the Dark Queen and her son Guderian we do not speak. Let it be enough to say that when Trumball was murdered we destroyed the southern entrance of the cavern and again kept to our own ways. So things remained until Kadar came unbidden seven years ago.”

  “He’s not one of you, is he?” Makarria asked. “I mean, he’s not Snjaer Firan.”

  “He is certainly not. Nor is Roanna, though she is at least of the Five Kingdoms.”

  “Where is Kadar from then? And what’s wrong with his teeth?”

  “Of his teeth I cannot say, but he travels here from Khail Sanctu in the Old World.”

  “You don’t like either of them, do you?” Makarria ventured.

  “Whether I like them or not is unimportant and best left unspoken. You have asked enough questions for now. Be content to know that Roanna and Kadar prefer to stay in the chambers of old, near the valley entrance, and let us abide in our city so long as we provide for them and do their bidding.”

  They had been continually climbing upward, and Siegbjorn stopped now at the crest of the incline where the cavern opened into a vast chamber that took Makarria’s breath away: the glacier itself comprised the western wall to their right and stretched upward hundreds of feet to disappear again into the dark ceiling; running alongside the ice wall was a narrow lake, spanning the entire length of the chamber, nearly a half-mile long; and on the upward sloping rock bed above the lake was a city. Many of the buildings were freestanding, made of quarried granite blocks into rectangular one- and two-story structures, but the vast majority of the city was literally carved into the granite wall that comprised the eastern edge of the chamber, and hundreds of stairwells and windows in the rock face glowed cheerfully with lamplight.

  “Welcome to Issborg,” Siegbjorn said and led the speechless Makarria forward.

  19

  The Shrouded Path

  Caile had slept fitfully throughout what remained of the night and well into the morning hours as the steam-powered turnip cart carried him along the eastern road away from Col Sargoth. The mysterious sorceress driving the cart did not slow or stop until the sun had nearly reached its apex, at which point she steered the cart off the main road down a muddy tract leading to an abandoned farm. There she parked the cart in a dilapidated barn, roused Caile, and ushered him into a single-axle wagon. Caile rubbed the weariness from his eyes as she hitched a sway-backed plow horse to the cart, and then they were off onto the main road heading east again. Caile started to speak on several occasions, but the cart clacked loudly on the rutted road, and if the woman heard his half mumbled questions, she ignored them.

  When the sun set over the horizon at their backs, the woman steered the cart from the road into a copse of trees and finally called a halt. After so many hours of not speaking, Caile found himself nearly mute, unsure where to start or what to ask the woman who had rescued him. The fact that he had abandoned his men in Lightbringer’s Keep weighed heavily on his heart, and he realized with consternation that he had forgotten his mace back in the turnip cart earlier that afternoon. Again, he was armed only with his boot knife. He knew the sorceress had rescued him twice now and seemingly had good intentions, but that didn’t mean Caile should trust her. Roanna and her men were pleasant enough, too, until they got the information they wanted from me.

  Caile helped the woman unbridle the horse and make camp, and neither of them said a word. Not until after she had a fire going and they were both nibbling on crumbly flat bread beside it did he finally speak.

  “Why did we abandon your steam cart?” he asked between bites. “It’s faster than your crippled horse, I imagine.”

  The woman answered without looking up from the fire. “Because the Emperor’s men will be looking for a steam cart full of turnips when the guards tell him they let it pass freely through the eastern gate. Besides we were nearly out of fuel. The steam cart is fast, but it has a limited range.”

  “How far are we from Col Sargoth?”

  “Nearly a hundred and fifty miles since last night.”

  Caile raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Not even the Emperor’s fastest horsemen could catch us at that pace.”

  “No,” the woman agreed, “but Wulfram could.”

  Caile digested her words silently. “Who are you?” he asked finally.

  “My name is Talitha. I am a sorceress.”

  “But you’re not part of the guild?”

  “No. I am in league only with myself and hopefully with you now.”

  “You know who I am then, I take it?”

  She nodded at him and narrowed her eyes. “I’m quite aware of who you are and the foolishness you’ve been up to, Prince Caile Delios.”

  Caile felt his face heat with embarrassment, but he bit back the rash words on his tongue. “How is it that you know so much? How were you able to find me?”

  “I’m merely observant, Prince. There is much to see when you know what to look for.”

  “Well, I appreciate what you’ve done for me,” Caile said, annoyed by her cryptic words, “but I must leave you and head south.”

  “You can make that decision when we reach Arnsfeld, unless you mean to forge your way through the thick of Forrest Weorcan.”

  “We are on the eastern high road, then?” he asked.

  “Yes. Your path is decided for you for the time being, I’m afraid. Behind you is Col Sargoth, to the north is the Sargothian River, and to the south the Forrest Weorcan. The only way to go is forward.”

  Caile said nothing, and so their conversation ended for the evening. He was impatient to get back to Kal Pyrthin and help his father, but he knew Talitha was right. There was nothing to do but keep heading east for now. In the morning, they broke camp hastily and were on the road before the sun crested before them. Caile insisted on taking the reigns at intervals throughout the day to give Talitha a rest, but they said little and their actions were short and purposeful—they steered the cart ever eastward, stopped for water and food breaks only when the horse needed it, and made camp for the night when the sky darkened, nothing more. For four days straight they did this, and then on the evening of the fifth day out from Col Sargoth the road drew within sight of the Sargothian River and they reached the farms bordering Arnsfeld.

  “There is an inn I know of on the far side of the city,” Talitha said. “We will stop there for the night, and you can decide then which way you will go in the morning.”

  Caile nodded silently and they continued on. Arnsfeld was unremarkable after having been in Col Sargoth, and Caile paid little attention to the layout of the city and the people inhabiting it. It was not unlike the cities in Valaróz or Pyrthinia, except that even the largest buildings were predominantly made of wood rather than stone. The roads were laid out in the same grid-like pattern, and the people moved about with the same busyness as people in any city. There were no steam-powered carts, no smelting factories, no tar paved streets, and no gas lit street lamps. In fact the city was rather small, and they passed through it unimpeded a
nd soon found themselves at the The Lonely Pine, the inn Talitha had spoken of.

  The stablehands at The Lonely Pine promptly took their horse and cart, and after a few brief words with the innkeeper, Talitha acquired a private room and a warm supper to be brought up for the two of them. Before retiring to the room, however, she insisted that Caile visit the bathhouse at the back of the inn.

  “You reek of turnips and feces,” she remarked.

  “Hardly surprising considering I’ve crawled through the sewers and been buried in turnips,” Caile said with a shrug, but he did not protest. In fact, the thought of a bath sounded almost better than a meal and strong ale did to him at that moment.

  The bathhouse was hardly elegant—the water in the wooden tub was lukewarm and far from clean—but Caile emerged feeling like a new man. The innkeeper’s wife took his feculent clothes to wash, promising to deliver them to his room dry and clean in the morning, and in the meantime she gave him a spare set of baggy britches and a ridiculously large tunic to wear for the night. The tunic hung nearly to his knees and looked like a dress on him. “Some fat man forgot ‘em behind several months back,” the woman said. “Not pretty, but they’ll keep you from having to run around bare-skinned.”

  When Caile was finished in the bathhouse and finally retired to their room, he found Talitha waiting and their food already delivered. They ate the barley and lamb porridge ravenously, and when the two of them were done, Talitha for the first time looked Caile in the eye and regarded him from where they sat facing each other across the small end table between their two beds.

  “Well, Prince Caile, you are not the pampered boy I expected you to be,” she said. “You work hard and do not complain.”

  Caile shrugged and pulled the loose tunic tighter around his shoulders. “I don’t see what I have to complain about. My men I left behind to die in Col Sargoth, and my father waits execution. They are the ones who have reason to complain.”

  Talitha smiled, though with little joy. “You mean to make for Kal Pyrthin then and save your father? Or try at least?”