The crowd, which moments before had been filling the city square with shouting, had gone completely silent.
In the silence, Makarria heard heavy footsteps approaching. She pulled herself to her feet and blinked the tears back from her eyes, as a giant of a man strode forward bearing a sword that was taller than Makarria. The very sight of him made Makarria’s skin prickle with fear. It’s him, she realized.
“Welcome to my fair city, Dreamwielder,” Emperor Guderian said, coming to a halt before Makarria. “You’ve arrived right on time and saved your parents further public humiliation. They’ll be happy, I’m sure, to return to the safety of the dungeon.” The Emperor smiled thinly and winked at her. “I trust that you will be a polite guest during your time here. You and your sorceress friend, both. If either of you try any sort of magic again, you will be killed on the spot and I’ll have your parents disemboweled then stoned to death to suffer for your crimes. Are we understood?”
Makarria could only stare at him in stunned silence.
34
The Dawn of a New Age
Caile rubbed the weariness from his eyes and looked over the Pyrthinian troops digging ground fortifications in the fields at the western edge of Lepig. “Can you do it or not?” he asked the guild master of the carpenters who walked at his side.
“I cannot get a tank that size fifty feet up in the air,” the stout, mustachioed man replied, shaking his head. “Thirty feet is the best I can do, and even then I can’t promise the tower I build will hold the weight once that tank is filled.”
Caile pictured the contraption he had conceived the night before. He wasn’t certain that thirty feet would provide the pressure he was after, but it would have to do. “Do it,” he told the carpenter. “You have two days, and it better hold. I have every barrel of naphtha from here to Makady on its way. That tank holds near five thousand gallons and I want it full.”
“Two days?” the carpenter balked.
“Work day and night,” Caile told him. “Get whatever men you need, and promise them whatever pay you must. If we succeed, I’ll gladly pay it. If we fail, well, it won’t matter much anyway—”
The color drained from the carpenter’s face, and his mouth clamped shut. All he could do was nod that he would do it. Caile sent him on his way and turned back to the city to see to the coppersmiths who were making the long, tapered pipe and nozzle he would need. He had taken his idea from the miners in the mountains north of Sol Valaróz who used creeks and streams to create water cannons to strip down the sides of hills and unearth silver. Caile’s contraption wasn’t meant to hose down the hillside though. It was meant to douse the Emperor’s war machines in naphtha once they got stuck in the trenches the Pyrthinian soldiers were digging at the edge of the city. I just hope that the same principles apply to naphtha as well as water, and that thirty feet is high enough, Caile fretted.
“Your Highness,” a soldier called out to him, disrupting his thoughts.
Caile stopped in the middle of the road to see that it was one of the men assigned to protect Taera. “Yes, soldier, what is it?”
“Your sister has sent me to tell you that she has left.”
“What do you mean left? Left where?”
“She did not say, Your Highness. She said to tell you that she had a vision and that she would be back with help if she could. She took off on her horse to the south.”
“Damn it all, man,” Caile swore. “You’re supposed to be with her at all times. Go get her and bring her back!”
The soldier coughed uncomfortably. “She said that you would say that, Your Highness. She said to remind you that she is the heir to the throne, not you, and that she’s in charge.”
Caile glared at the man but said nothing. By Pyrthin tradition and law, she was right. Still, Caile was angry she had gone off without at least consulting him first. Damn that girl, he swore to himself. She better hurry, whatever she’s doing. We have three days at best before we’re under siege.
Emperor Thedric Guderian sat hunched forward in his throne, wearing his black leather jack and trousers with plate armor at the forearms and shins. Held before him in both hands was his massive claymore, its point resting on the floor between his feet. At his side stood King Lorimer of Golier, a wiry, gaunt looking man with stringy blond hair. And filling the throne room were an assortment of dignitaries, Sargothian aristocrats, and thirty soldiers from the Imperial Guard who stood at the ready around the perimeter of the room with long pole-axes in hand and short swords at their waists.
The main doors opened, and Makarria was escorted in through the main doors alongside Talitha. Makarria tried to take it all in, but she was still in shock from what had happened the night before. She and Talitha had spent the night alone in a solitary jail cell beneath Lightbringer’s Keep, watched over by twenty soldiers and warned not speak to each other. They slept only fitfully on the stone floor, and when morning had arrived, they were given nothing to eat or drink. They were merely escorted out of their cell and led in a long, slow procession through the keep to the throne room where they now stood. They were travel-stained and weary, exhausted and terrified, and worst of all, they had no idea what the Emperor was going to do them.
For all the potential danger they posed to him, neither of them had been bound or shackled, Makarria realized, and that gave her some semblance of hope. He’s not afraid of us. Maybe he’s not as evil as everyone says. Perhaps he’s willing to listen to me. She did not know what she meant to do if the Emperor didn’t listen to her—for that was her only plan now, to try and reason with him.
“Bow before the Emperor!” a herald yelled when Makarria and Talitha reached the dais before the throne.
Around them, everyone in the chamber bowed. Makarria and Talitha followed suit, prompted by the spears at their backs. Emperor Guderian’s dark eyes followed Makarria’s every movement.
When everyone finally stood again, Guderian spoke. “Welcome, Makarria; daughter of Galen and Prisca Spero; grandchild of Parmenios Pallma, last prince of Valaróz; dreamwielder. The good people of Sargoth would like to know if you have come here today to kill me?” The corners of his lips curled up into a sneer as he asked this last question and Makarria could see well that he was putting on a show for the people there in the throne room.
“I only came here to ask that you end the war, please,” Makarria replied shakily. “Let the people of Pyrthinia live in peace. Do that and free my parents, and we will go far away. I promise. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t even know you—I don’t want to kill you.”
The Emperor snorted and looked from Makarria to his subjects filling the throne room. “You see,” he announced to them, “this is what remains of magic in our new world: a little girl begging to spare the lives of traitors.” Snickers filled the room, and Guderian stood up from his throne as he spoke on. “The mightiest seer of the Old World foretold that a dreamwielder would slay me. Well here she is, my people, and she says, please, I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Again, laughs of derision filled the room. Guderian stepped from the dais, claymore in hand, and stopped to stand towering over Talitha. “And you, woman, you are Roanna, the mighty sorceress who meant to renew the sorcerers’ guilds.”
Talitha kept her eyes downcast, but shook her head. “No, you are mistaken. Roanna is dead—slain in the caverns of Issborg. Along with her, Kadar, sorcerer of the Old World who longed for your throne, has been sent into oblivion. For that you have Makarria to thank.”
If Guderian was surprised by Talitha’s revelations, he showed no sign. He grabbed her by the jaw and yanked her head up to face him. “Who are you then, woman? Your face looks familiar to me.”
“My name is Talitha. I am a turnip farmer. Perhaps you have seen me in the marketplace.”
A few of the audience members snickered, and Guderian’s eyebrows quivered in anger. He released his grip from Talitha’s jaw, then struck her with the back of his hand. The force of the blow knocked Talitha to her k
nees, and Makarria stepped back involuntarily.
“Talitha who?” Guderian demanded. “You have the look of northmen in you. What is your full name?”
Talitha shot a glance toward Makarria then wiped the blood from her mouth. “My name is Talitha, that is all. I am daughter of Trumball, chieftain of the Snjaer Firan. And I’ve sworn to protect this girl. I’ve sworn to protect all who would live a life free of your tyranny.” The words still hanging on her lips, she suddenly lunged toward the Emperor, fire sprouting from her fingers.
The crowd gasped and shrunk back, but the flames made it no more than an inch from Talitha’s fingers before petering out like a spent candle flame and Talitha collapsed to her hands and knees with a groan, as if she had been kicked in the stomach. Makarria realized too late what Talitha had intended to do. I was supposed to act when she distracted him! She tried to close her eyes and think of something to dream, but the Emperor’s sudden shout wrecked her concentration.
“Trumball’s heir indeed!” he bellowed, and he kicked Talitha in the side, sending her sprawling across the floor. “Think you can use sorcery against me? Fool woman!” And he kicked her again.
Blind fury welled up inside Makarria, and she leapt forward with a savage scream. She had never hit anyone before, but she wanted to hurt the Emperor now, more than she had ever wanted anything before. She swung her arm in a wide arc, fist clenched.
Guderian merely turned and watched as her fist struck him harmlessly on the hip.
Makarria cried out and staggered back, her fingers throbbing. She closed her eyes and pictured the Emperor in her mind. Make him dead, she told herself. Make him dead! She pictured his face and how she wanted it to be crushed…
Suddenly Makarria’s eyes were open, and she was staring at the Emperor crouching before her. “Let’s not be having any dreams, little one,” he whispered. “I warned you once already, and I’m not ready to kill you yet. You haven’t suffered nearly enough.”
Makarria felt all the anger and strength drain from her.
Guderian winked then stood and turned to the crowd again. “This is the fruition of what magic has brought to the world, my people. To your left is the daughter of Trumball, the mightiest sorcerer since Sargoth Lightbringer himself. Talitha, she says her name is, and she is a turnip farmer. To your right is the last of the Pallma line, a dreamwielder, and she says she would very much like not to hurt anyone, even if they be traitors, thank you very much, and yet she strikes out at me like an insolent whore.” The crowd broke into mirthful laughter at his words, but he stamped the tip of his claymore into the stone floor to silence them.
“This is why I say magic is dead,” he said in a dreadful tone. “This is the dawn of a new age, my people. The age of intellect and human achievement. No longer are we dependent on those who are born with magic. No longer are we slaves to the whims of nature. The world is ours. As we speak, the combined forces of Sargoth and Golier march on Pyrthinia. Already, King Casstian has been slain. Soon, his heirs will be dead with him, and the last safe harbor for sorcerers will be destroyed. Parmenios Pallma, defender of the old ways will be killed and his claim to Valaróz along with it. We will not be slaves to the sorcerers’ guilds of old. We will not be subjected to the horrors of the Dreamwielder War again! This is our world—the world of men!”
The crowd broke out into applause, but Guderian waved their claps away and turned to Makarria and Talitha.
“Daughter of Trumball, you are now my slave,” he declared, addressing Talitha. He dragged her up to her knees, tore the cloak from her shoulders with one hand, then grasped the collar of her tunic. As she knelt there, cradling her bleeding face in her hands, he slid the length of his claymore up the back of her tunic and slit it open. He then grabbed her by the hair and yanked her up, naked but for her britches. “Bring chains to bind her hands and feet and a scold’s bridle to curb her tongue,” Guderian yelled. “Trumball’s daughter shall be my pet from this time thenceforth. Let her faun and prostrate herself beside my throne, naked for all to see, as a reminder of the pitiful past we have left behind. And if she ever raises her hand against me, or attempts to use the sorcery in her blood again, I will strike her head from her shoulders. This is magic for you, my people.”
He pushed Talitha away, and two soldiers rushed forward to grab her and bind her hands behind her back.
“And you, Dreamwielder,” Guderian went on, “for now, you will live as a monument of man’s dominion over magic, a monument of my power over prophecy. You may spend your last days with your parents, as you wish, but know that the day Pyrthinia is defeated, all of you will die.” Guderian turned to the audience now. “This is my gift to you, my people. On the day Pyrthinia is defeated, this dreamwielder and her kin—the last of the Pallma line—will be executed, and with her I will put to rest Wulfram, last of the sorcerers of old. So will pass the age of our ancestors. So will dawn the age of the Sargothian Empire. On that day, let the Old World and the entirety of civilization across the earth quake, for we will not be stopped.”
35
Rise of the Young
Taera reigned her horse in as she reached the center of the small town of Tritea. It was little more than a village really, but Taera recognized it from her vision. She dismounted and led her horse to the only inn in town, a nameless boarding house made of wood—squat and sturdy. Inside, only a few elderly townspeople sat eating in the common room. The innkeeper sat too, wiping clean his wooden mugs and goblets. The lot of them looked up and gawked at Taera in her outlandish furs.
“I’m here to see the refugees,” Taera said to the innkeeper.
“I… I don’t know what you speak of,” the man stammered.
Taera didn’t have the patience for games. She strode through the common room and pushed her way through the door past the innkeeper into the private dining room she knew would be there. It was just as she had pictured it in her vision. The people sitting there eating though, were not as she had hoped they would be. They were a pitiful lot, all seven of them. Like frightened children, they looked up at her from where they sat hunched over a long bench eating from bowls like a pack of feral animals. They were a mixture of males and females, young and old, but they were all emaciated and wild looking, filthy beyond description. Some of them were dressed more scantily than Taera herself, others wore clothes that were worn to shreds.
The innkeeper barged in behind Taera and clutched at her sleeve apologetically. “I meant no harm. They’re homeless vagabonds. All I did was feed them. I swear. They were hungry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Taera told him. “You did what was right.” She turned her attention to the seven sitting at the bench. “All of you have come here because you have heard that Pyrthinia is at war with Sargoth. You have lived many years in hiding, I know. You have been afraid. You have been hunted. Well no more. I am Taera, Queen of Pyrthinia, and I say that you are outlaws no longer. I am like you, a sorcerer, and I ask for your help now. If you would have a Pyrthinia where you can walk freely and do as you will, I beg you, join me. Help me defeat the Emperor.”
Makarria relaxed her arms and let the shackles binding her wrists above her head support her weight. Across the circular chamber from her, on metal racks the same as hers, her parents were shackled against the wall. Her father hung in a trance, his face a mutilated pulp and his left shoulder grossly displaced. Her mother was conscious, but only with great effort, and she breathed in long deliberate breaths.
The sight of it all made Makarria begin crying again. She wanted nothing more than to use her power to make the chains and wounds go away—to make her parents free and happy again—but she knew she couldn’t dare use her powers. When she had been escorted up the tower stairs two days before, the guards had warned her to not use her magic. “The scent-hound’s tower is no more than a hundred feet away,” the captain of the guards had said. “Be still and your remaining days will be painless. Try to use your ill magic and the houndkeeper will sound the alarm, and the Empe
ror himself will come to kill your parents first, then you.” Makarria had said nothing in reply. She felt helpless then, as she did now. The realization that her friends were likely suffering as badly as her parents only made matters worse. Poor Talitha, she thought, the memory of Talitha naked and battered flashing through her mind. Of Siegbjorn, Taera, and Caile, Makarria knew little, but she knew they were at war—she had seen the soldiers marching from Col Sargoth and she knew what those soldiers meant to do. And then there was Parmo. A sense of dread and emptiness filled Makarria when she thought of him. She couldn’t help but feel that something horrible had happened.
“Makarria?”
Startled, Makarria looked up to see her mother awake, head held up weakly.
“You’re crying.”
“I’m sorry,” Makarria said, sniffling back her tears and sobs.
“Don’t apologize. It’s perfectly alright to cry, darling.”
“No, I’m sorry for all this. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you and Father, that I couldn’t save anyone.”
“Oh, Makarria,” Prisca lamented. “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who should be sorry. And your fool grandfather. Why did he ever take you away from me, where I could keep you safe? I hope he’s still alive somewhere so I can get my hands on him.” She said this with a wan smile, but the effort drained what little strength she had and her head slumped forward again as she barely held onto consciousness.
Despair filled Makarria again at the mention of her grandfather, but she smiled for her mother and tried to convince herself that Parmo was fine. “Grampy’s wonderful,” Makarria said, and she proceeded to tell her mother everything. She told her how she had made Parmo young again, how they had fled on the skiff—and how sorry they both were for leaving without saying goodbye—and then about the storm at sea and how they were rescued by Taera, their kidnapping by Roanna and their time in caverns of Issborg, and lastly, the news of Parmo’s return and the rebellion against Sargoth.
Dreamwielder Page 27
