The Hickory Staff e-1

by Rob Scott

‘Really?’ Garec asked. ‘Who’s coming with us?’

  ‘Kantu,’ Gilmour said.

  The entire company looked bemused; the name was unknown to any of them. Garec raised his eyebrows in query.

  ‘Kantu is the only other surviving Larion Senator,’ Gilmour elucidated. ‘He’s in Praga.’

  ‘Only two survivors of that night at Sandcliff Palace?’ Mika asked, shocked. ‘How did you two live through it?’

  ‘Well, Kantu survived because he was on the opposite side of Eldarn at the time. My survival is another story.’

  The river babbled by their small clearing, a watery highway leading through the forest, ignorant of and indifferent to the problems faced by the company of freedom fighters.

  Steven was overwhelmed. The idea that the key to save the world from unimaginable evil was lying in a plain rosewood box on his desk was mind-blowing. He feared for Howard and Myrna, but all the same, he hoped against hope that the tapestry was still lying on the floor in their living room, so he, Mark and Gilmour could step through the Fold, retrieve Lessek’s Key and send Gilmour back with the rock in a matter of seconds.

  If the portal had been closed, they might get transported anywhere on Earth – to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or to the top of a Himalayan peak maybe. It might take days, or even weeks to reach Colorado from wherever they landed, weeks during which his new friends would have to keep their Eldani portal open. Their only hope would be to steal the portal from Welstar Palace and find a safe place to open it, somewhere they could defend their position until Gilmour returned with Lessek’s Key.

  Steven was suddenly overcome by a desire to get packed and moving on. Waiting around, guessing at outcomes was nearly unbearable, a stress he couldn’t take. He looked around nervously and felt Brynne lay a comforting hand on his back. She rubbed her fingers along his shoulder, hoping to calm him down. Turning towards her, he saw again why Mark found the young woman so attractive. Her skin glowed palely in the warm firelight: she was without artifice and quite beautiful. As he admired Brynne’s natural loveliness, Steven’s thoughts turned yet again to Hannah. Where was she? Had she called, or driven out to find him? He remembered the telephone ringing several times while he was struggling with the decision to follow Mark through the far portal. It must have been her. He cursed himself for not answering.

  Gilmour’s revelations, his willingness to disclose everything, had instilled confidence in Mika, the youngest of the partisans; he prompted Gilmour to continue his story.

  ‘Tell us about that night, then,’ he said with enthusiastic curiosity. ‘How did you survive when so many were killed?’

  ‘Mika, I have never been sure how I survived that night at Sandcliff and except for blind luck, I’m not convinced any other force in the Northern Forest lent a hand to save me. I will admit, though, there have been many times in the past nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons when I wished I had been among those who fell defending Lessek’s research and writings. For some reason, I was allowed to escape. I have never been certain why so many had to give their lives while I was permitted to go free. When I face Nerak, and I will one day face him, I might ask him that question.’

  Gilmour stood for a moment, stretched his tired back muscles then sat down again near the fire.

  ‘So you believe he let you escape?’ Versen asked.

  ‘I am convinced he let me escape,’ Gilmour responded. ‘He could have killed me very easily. All he had to do was come down a flight of stairs to the scroll library and I would have been at his mercy. He never did.’ He broke a wood chip from a log near his feet and tossed it into the fire. ‘I can only speculate. Maybe he let me go because he looked forward to the cat-and-mouse games we’ve been playing since I jumped from the window that night. If evil’s disciple read Nerak’s thoughts as it devoured his soul, it would have learned that Nerak, Kantu and I were equals, leaders among the Larion Senate. It would also have learned that Kantu was off in Praga, but that I was right there at Sandcliff. Perhaps it let me go because it anticipated an enjoyable time hunting us down and taking our souls.

  ‘The three of us were division leaders of the Larion Senate. Kantu coordinated our efforts in education and public health. I was in charge of research and scholarship and Nerak provided leadership for our ongoing work in magic and medicine. For many Twinmoons, he was one of my best friends; I respected his work both as a scholar and as a magician. But Lessek he was not. Nerak was more acutely aware of that shortcoming than he was of anything positive he and his team brought to Eldarn.’

  Gilmour sighed, then continued reflectively, ‘It snowed hard that night and I remember watching from the window in my chambers as it coated the palace grounds in a thin white blanket. I loved Sandcliff Palace. It wasn’t lavish; far from it, but the Larion Senate was a true community of scholars, and everyone kept an open mind about new ideas and research. The palace was always alive with questions and discourse, true dialogue instead of debate. We Larion Senators honestly believed we were improving life in Eldarn by bringing knowledge, medicine and advanced technologies to the people of the five lands.’

  He looked over at Stephen and Mark, who were listening intently. ‘We were impressed with the advances your world showed in weaponry and warfare: gunpowder, the cannon and flintlock rifle were tempting prizes. But our culture strictly forbade it. We would never have brought such instruments back to Eldarn. Not even Nerak would have betrayed that belief.’

  ‘What about after he was taken by the minion?’ Mark asked, ‘why not go back and gather up weapons, bombs, viruses? Our world is filled with weapons.’

  ‘Nerak would not have brought such implements into Eldarn because the Larion Senate would have punished him, limited his access to the far portals and worse, the spell table.’ Gilmour looked towards the river; they could hear the gentle rushing over the crackle and hiss of the fire. ‘When he was taken, Nerak was controlled by an evil so powerful that I am certain he was convinced such weapons would pale in comparison to the strength of his own magic.’

  ‘Would they?’ Steven asked.

  ‘From what I saw that day at Gettysburg, those weapons would have little impact on Nerak.’ He went on with the tale. ‘Sandcliff wasn’t much of a palace, certainly not like Riverend, although the passages were charmed, so they were tricky to navigate if one didn’t know the spells. It was just a simple stone-walled keep, the only adornment the colourful Pragan carpets and tapestries we used to keep out the cold; it was our culture that made Sandcliff such a wonderful place to live and work. Our mantras were risk-taking, creativity, service and scholarship, and as I said, Eldarn was a better world for our efforts.

  ‘When Nerak destroyed all that, he opened the door for an era of worldwide mistrust, hatred, selfishness and discord.’ He stopped again, this time looking at the Ronans. ‘I am truly sorry you have all had to grow up in such a culture.

  ‘As daylight faded on the evening of the slaughter, I knew Nerak would be in Lessek’s chamber working to master the spells contained within the great stone table. He was driven to succeed from the start, and more passionate about his work than anyone in the Larion Senate. In the days preceding his fall, he had sequestered himself in Lessek’s research chamber, poring over our founder’s writings and experimenting with spells he had called from deep within the table’s recesses. Nerak was coordinator of magic and medicine, so it was normal for him to keep the stone key in his possession. Although I shared my concern for his safety, there was little I could do to get him to turn it over to me. There were rumours that he was planning to dismantle the senate structure, to banish us all, once he finally mastered the magic that would give him enough power, but there was no proof.’

  ‘When the attack came, I was in my chambers, working. The first thing I heard were great booming sounds coming from several floors below mine. I thought that one of my colleagues was experimenting with a spell to control the weather. Many Larions came from the south, and few appreciated snow. Winters in Gorsk are long and h
ard; by mid-season every Larion was working on a spell to bring an early spring. Those spells were always terribly noisy.’ Steven and Garec exchanged a confused look.

  Gilmour continued, ‘When Heskar, one of the young scribes, burst into my room unannounced, I knew something had gone terribly wrong. He spoke so fast – the only words I remember were “massacre of apprentices and servants on a lower floor of the palace”. My first thought was that Sandcliff had been attacked by pirates or raiders, or maybe even an army from another nation. I would never have guessed just one man could be so great a threat. I raced downstairs to the narrow balcony above the room that served as both audience and dining chamber. I was running along the balcony to get to a stairway at the far corner of the room when I saw Nerak. Even at that distance I could see he had been taken over by something mighty, some vast destructive force.’

  He shuddered. ‘Although he was still visible, his body was beginning to disintegrate – his flesh looked translucent in the torchlight. At the time I wasn’t sure what was happening, but now I know the force that overpowered him along a seam in the Fold had no use for his physical being. It needed only his knowledge – and his soul. It would use others as physical hosts, but Nerak’s body was allowed to break apart, to fall away in pieces until only a shadow remained. By the end of the evening, Nerak had taken possession of several Larion Senators, each through a small wound he opened in their wrist or on the back of their hand. With each, evil’s minion learned more about Eldarn’s people and our weaknesses.

  ‘I saw Nerak holding two Larion Senators by the throat, a woman from Falkan named Callena and a young Pragan man, Janel. Their names are engraved on my memory. They were screaming in abject terror, and both of them were looking at me as if I were their only hope for survival. I stopped then and implored him to set them free. He looked at me from across the balcony, then, without flinching, he snapped their necks. Just a quick turn of his wrists. I heard the bones break. He didn’t take his eyes off me as he tossed their bodies over the ledge to the stone floor below.’

  Brynne shifted uneasily on the log next to Steven, and Mika absent-mindedly scratched at the back of his wrists. ‘Go on,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I doubled back and raced upstairs towards the stone tower. All the passageways in the castle were closed by spells to keep intruders from breaking in and stealing potentially devastating magic. As I ran, I shouted the spells out in front of me to clear the way of any enchanted obstacles. At the top of the spiral staircase leading to the tower’s uppermost room, I found the door open, the spell already cast. I burst into Lessek’s chamber, horribly afraid I would find only the corpses of Nerak’s research team. Instead they were all there, poring over Lessek’s table, desperately trying to find an antidote to Nerak’s possession. Lessek’s chamber wasn’t used by anyone. The black granite table stood alone in the centre. The room was normally lit by torchlight, but that night the only illumination was the rainbow of colours that flashed and faded inside the spell table. I could see Lessek’s Key in its place – at least Nerak hadn’t taken it with him when he went downstairs to begin killing off Larion Senators.

  ‘Three members of my own team soon arrived and I ordered them to stand fast at the top of the stairs, ready to hurl every destructive magic they had down upon Nerak if he tried to reach Lessek’s chamber. I will never forget their grim faces, the look of fear and determination as the door closed slowly on them. I cast a quick spell to reseal the chamber.

  ‘I was their leader. I should have stood with them on the stairs and fought to the end against Nerak. Instead, I shut them out in the hall, protected only by their pitiful powers and what courage they could draw from one another. They were researchers, teachers, not magicians. I should have known they would be no match for the coming evil.’

  ‘Why did you not stand and fight with them?’ Sallax broke the silence, staring hard at Gilmour.

  ‘I feared the worst,’ Gilmour responded in flat tones. ‘I knew Nerak’s team could not interrupt their work to defend the spell table, or even to fetch any necessary scrolls from the library adjacent to the room. They were used to working with the spell table; I was not: but I could fetch spell scrolls, and I would be their last line of defence against the force I knew was coming for us. I called to Nerak’s assistant, Pikan Tettarak, a skilled sorcerer herself, that I was available to run back and forth between the spell chamber and the scroll library. She nodded to say she understood and immediately turned back to the wall of blue and red energy that fought to escape the table into the room; instead it found her there, channelling its power into a single defensive spell of enormous strength. Harnessing the magic of the table had been a lifelong undertaking for Lessek; it was an ongoing research endeavour for Nerak.

  ‘Pikan looked as if she was being overwhelmed by the power of the table; if she had not been able to call upon the strength of Nerak’s other team members, I am certain she would have been pulled into the bottomless morass of knowledge and magic within.

  ‘For what felt like an aven I stood there, helpless. Pikan and her colleagues worked without pause to discover magic that would protect us from Nerak while freeing his soul from whatever entity held it prisoner. Then the crashing began at the chamber door. It started as spell noise in the stairwell, and I hoped that my team members were holding firm. Soon the sounds changed; I could tell these incantations were focused entirely on the outer doorway. I wondered why, if my team were already dead, Nerak didn’t simply call out the spell that opened the chamber. I can only guess that in a dying breath, one of my brave martyrs changed the spell and committed suicide, dying before Nerak could take possession of his or her soul and learn the necessary magic.’ Gilmour stopped. Steven could see he was trembling as he refilled his goblet and took a long swallow.

  ‘Are you okay to go on?’ Steven asked quietly.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Gilmour said, visibly pulling himself together. ‘I know it happened so long ago, but for me, it will always feel like yesterday. It’s not a story I have told very often. Maybe it’s time that changed.

  ‘I knew the passageway would soon fall to the demon’s power, so I tried to get Pikan’s attention, hoping to warn her that Nerak was about to breach our last defence. There was a broadsword leaning against the wall – I don’t know whose it was, but I picked it up and prepared to battle whatever burst into the room. I knew magic, of course I did, but nothing nearly as powerful as that hammering away at the chamber door. It shook the stone masonry of the tower itself and for a few moments I feared the palace would collapse and we would all tumble to our deaths.

  ‘Everything seemed to move in slow motion. I realised I was about to die. I was not a brave man. I hoped to perhaps strike out with one fierce blow before my resolve disintegrated and I stood in mute horror awaiting death. No great wellspring of anger or defiance arose from inside my being and I knew the gods were giving me a few extra moments to contemplate how inadequately I had behaved when the end finally came.

  ‘Then, as if from a distance, a lifetime away, I heard my name. I turned to find Pikan calling to me with great enthusiasm. She was such a beautiful woman… she actually seemed to smile as I hurried across the room to her side. “I need the third Windscroll,” she shouted above the din of so much magic moving in and around the room. “It’s in the library near the top shelf behind Lessek’s desk.” Taking the broadsword, I ran as quickly as I could down the short flight of stairs separating the spell chamber from the scroll library. Lessek’s desk stood near the far wall, and shelves upon shelves of parchment scrolls lined every inch of the chamber. Racing to the shelf behind Lessek’s desk, I searched for the Windscrolls, powerful ancient spells compiled by Kantu and Nerak on their frequent journeys to Larion Isle, off the coast of Malakasia.

  ‘But I never found them.

  ‘Blue- and red-flecked energy preceded the blast down the stairs into the library and scrolls were blown from their shelves as a shockwave tore through the chamber and knocked me unconscious.
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br />   ‘When I woke, blood had run into my eyes and for several terrifying moments I could see the world only in shades of red. The only light came from our two moons, shining through the falling snow. I looked out of the window and watched as red snowflakes blanketed Gorsk. I wondered if anyone was left alive in all Eldarn. The silence was dreadful; I called out several times just to hear my voice in the darkness.

  ‘When I felt steady enough, I made my way through the remains of the library, climbing over fallen shelves and through a sea of scattered parchment scrolls to the spell chamber beyond.

  ‘Everyone was dead, their bodies broken. They lay strewn about the room as if deposited there by a Twinmoon hurricane. Only Pikan’s body was missing. One of my team members lay on the stone floor near the door: a big young man named Harren Bonn, the son of a Falkan farmer. He had been claimed by Nerak just before the spell that sealed the door was broken. Seeing his limbs twisted at impossible angles, I tried to move him back against the wall, to leave him sitting in a more dignified position, but when I touched him, he was like jelly. I am not certain there was a bone left intact in his entire body.

  ‘I was weeping helplessly now, and I left him there, shaded red in my bloodied vision. It will not matter if I live another thousand Twinmoons; Harren Bonn will always remain blood-red in my memory.’ Gilmour’s voice shook.

  Garec moved to sit beside his mentor and friend. He put a comforting arm around the old man.

  Gilmour smiled thanks at him. ‘As I came down through the tower, I saw carnage everywhere. I had never really thought about that word before: it was just a word. Made flesh, it’s simply indescribable, and I hope and pray you never have to experience it for yourselves. There were bodies of Larion Senators at every turn, many apparently unharmed – except for an open wound on their wrists. I tried to comfort myself by saying over and over again, “They must be sleeping.” Those who had put up a fight were torn to pieces. I spent an aven sorting through limbs, fingers and ears: I wanted every Larion to rest for eternity intact. The stone floor was coated in blood. Several times I found little more than a few pieces of a body – someone I had known that morning, a scholar or an educator: a colleague, a person, a friend.