The Black wing (d-2)

by Mary Kirchoff

  Khisanth felt her patience run threadbare. "So what about my maynus?" she blurted.

  Unperturbed, the creature continued. "I am an elemental being native to this plane. Millennia ago, I and others of my kind were taken against our will to your world on the Prime Material plane by the race known as nyphids."

  Finally, something Khisanth could understand. "What do you know about the nyphids?"

  "Everything. The very first of that species were the off shy;spring of a lightning elemental like myself and another ele shy;mental being from the neighboring quasi-plane of radiance. Being of two worlds, they belonged neither here, nor in the radiant world, and thus became our servants. Eventually they rebelled against their servitude and escaped to find a new

  home for themselves. They settled on the Prime Material plane. But they didn't leave alone. With the aid of the magic we had taught them, they captured many elemental beings and took us along as the source of their magic. I was one such

  victim.

  "In your world, I was a slave, trapped inside my own form. Like a genie in a bottle, I could use my powers only to carry out another's orders. Unsuspecting of my true nature, you were also unaware of the many traditions and prohibitions regarding maynus use among the nyphids. Your carelessly worded request allowed me, after thousands of years, to finally return here, to my home.

  "Unintentional though it was, you released me from bondage. As repayment I will return you to the Prime Material plane. Prepare yourselves."

  Khisanth could hardly grasp all that the elemental creature had revealed about the nyphid's nature. What she did under shy;stand was that she'd lost her most valuable treasure. "If you truly are the maynus, your freedom has cost me a very valu shy;able and powerful artifact. We need to settle on a purchase price for your liberty."

  The maynus darkened. "On the contrary, I have offered you something of inestimable value-passage back to your home. Take the word of someone who knows the pain of exile. You cannot leave this place unaided." "Now, look here-"

  The elemental creature's attention became distracted to something outside their calm pocket. "There's Fraz, an old nemesis I haven't seen for an eon…." The elemental globe began to slip through the edge of the bubble. "We have a score to settle." With that, the creature disappeared.

  "Wait! Don't leave us here!" cried Pteros, starting to follow. "Let it go. If s not going to help us," muttered Khisanth. The old dragon whirled on her. "No thanks to you! We could have been home by now if your greed hadn't gotten in

  the way."

  "My greed?" Blood pounded at Khisanth's temples. "Whose was it that brought us here in the first place? Tvly, what a nice

  gem that is, Khisanth/ " she whined, mimicking Pteros. " 'If there's one thing I know if s magic' "

  Pteros looked more smug than chastised. "I believe I told you more than once that I'd rather you'd left me alone to pol shy;ish my gems." He looked around sadly at the empty settings in his diadem and necklace. "Now I have nothing."

  "So this is my fault?-Oh, never mind," Khisanth sighed at last. She was letting her temper and frustration control her. Khisanth closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, drawing in long, slow breaths to calm herself. When the blood slipped at last from her temples and freed her mind to think, she said, "We've got to figure a way out of here." She opened her eyes and looked at Pteros. The older dragon was just short of wringing his claws, his eyes wide with apprehension. Khi shy;santh ventured, "What about teleporting?"

  "Not powerful enough, I'm sure, to get us to a completely different plane of existence." Pteros scratched his wrinkled brow. "There is a gate spell, but I've never used it. I'm afraid I'm feeling a little too shaky to try it."

  Khisanth knew it was hopeless to try to talk him into it. "We got in here, so there's got to be a way out. Didn't the elemental say the quasi-plane of lightning adjoins the plane of air? We'll just find that border and keep going until we find one that bumps into the Prime Material plane."

  "I don't know___" hedged Pteros.

  "Have you got a better plan? We can't just sit in this bubble forever." She peered anxiously around.

  "I'd be willing to consider it," muttered Pteros, settling him shy;self as if for the long haul. "At least if s quiet in here, and we aren't likely to bump into Talon."

  Khisanth's brow furrowed. She contemplated the ever-pre shy;sent lightning beyond the bubble. "What troubles me is that we're likely to bump into something far worse."

  Chapter 12

  Sir Tate Sekforde squeezed the shears. Snip! The last straggle of his pale mustache drifted to the rush-covered floor. Still peering closely into the polished brass plaque, the Knight of the Crown smoothed his whiskers against his upper lip. His mustache had grown back thicker, even a shade darker, in the year since the fire that had singed it from his face. He frowned at his yellow-tinged image in the plaque as three fingers traced the faint scars on his left cheek, white against his tanned skin. Tate hoped the nose of the woman who had forever marked him thus looked as bad. If she was even still alive…

  It was Misham, the fifth day of the week, the one he had chosen for his holy day. It meant that as a candidate for the Order of the Sword, Tate could not do battle, earn profit, or speak harshly to anyone this day. He must also spend at least

  three hours in silent meditation and prayer to Kiri-Jolith, the patron god of the Order of the Sword. Lore said Kiri-Jolith was twin brother to Habbakuk, who was the patron of Tate's current Order of the Crown. When, as Tate hoped, he became a Knight of the Sword, the meditation to his new patron would grant him clerical spells. Until then, Tate secretly felt that it served primarily to slow down progress on his task of rebuilding Lamesh Castle. Four hundred fifty miles away in his tower in Solamnia, the High Clerist of the knights, who would decide whether Tate was fit to wear the sign of the sword, might never see him violate the rule, but the god Kiri-Jolith would know. And so every seven days, Tate complied.

  As ranking knight of Lamesh Castle, Tate stood alone, the last to rise in the modest barracks he shared with his men. Not one to stand on formality, he nevertheless donned the off-duty attire of a man of his social standing-green- and yellow-checked tunic, green hose, and soft-soled, rawhide shoes. Last, he draped a black silk baldric, made by his lady mother, from right shoulder to left hip to carry the sword he never went without, holy day or not.

  Thoughts of his family threatened to sour Tate's already somber mood, so he strode from the barracks and into the inner courtyard. The knight headed for the bake house located farther to the west along the north wall. Though the day was supposed to be spent in fasting, Tate believed that even the god Kiri-Jolith could not expect him to pray with any fervor on an empty stomach.

  Abel, the baker Tate had brought with him from Solamnia, was a stout man who looked like he enjoyed his own pastries too well. He was doing his part to support the rebuilding of the castle into a Solamnic outpost. His ovens ran day and night, making a variety of baked goods that fed the workmen inside the castle, but were also sold to the people who were resettling the village beyond the castle walls.

  The knight stepped into the man's domain just as Abel was using a long wooden paddle to retrieve a dark, round loaf from the stone oven. "What'll it be this morning, Sir Tate?" the baker asked, his chubby face flushed from the heat

  of the oven. "I've got a nice, big loaf of rye here."

  "No thanks, Abel. Just a sticky bun, if you please." Tate winked conspiratorially. "I'm supposed to be fasting today, you know."

  The baker retrieved a bun from a bowl on the table and handed it to Tate. "So it's Misham, again, eh?" Shaking his head, he poured water from a pitcher onto a mound of coarse-ground flour in a wooden bowl and began to stir so vigorously the meal spewed onto the table. "You work me so hard out here in the boondocks, I can scarcely keep track of the days."

  Tate smiled, knowing the crusty baker would have it no other way. "And well I appreciate your sacrifice, Abel. Are you getting the flour as qu
ickly as you need it?"

  Abel snorted. "Barely. That fool in the granary-what's his name, Dol? short for Dolt, no doubt-he's as slow as molasses in the month of Newkolt."

  "Now, Abel, he's doing the best he can. Especially when you consider he knew nothing about milling grain before we recruited him to operate the grindstone."

  "Still doesn't, if you ask me." The baker let a handful of flour sift through his fingers. "Look at how coarse this is. Chunks as big as your head-"

  Tate clapped the baker on the back to curb the man's favorite tirade. "I'll speak to him about it tomorrow, Abel," the knight promised. "Thanks for the bun," he added as he stepped back into the coolness of the courtyard, chuckling.

  The knight chided himself; he should have known better than to ask the persnickety Abel such a question. In truth, Tate didn't mind dealing with complaints. He spent many a day resolving conflicts between the craftsmen who were working to repair and rebuild the ruined castle. The majority of the debates were sparked when a local craftsman ques shy;tioned the opinion of one of the skilled artisans he'd brought from the more civilized region of Solamnia. He needed all of his diplomatic skills to solve those conflicts without obvious bias, which could cost him the craftsman. Tate needed every available hand to prepare the castle for the coming winter.

  Before entering the temple to Kiri-Jolith for his three hours of prayer, Tate climbed the steps of the northeast tower and paced the walkway on the walls. The day was unusually warm for late autumn, the sky as blue as a sapphire. He wanted to enjoy a few moments of the last good weather they would have before winter turned the landscape bleak.

  How far we have come in eight-odd months, he thought, surveying with pride the scene in the courtyard below. When Tate's party of thirty or more had arrived to reestablish the abandoned stronghold south of Kern for the forces of Good, the castle had been in ruins, looted and laid to waste by cen shy;turies of roving monsters and mercenaries.

  Tate had stumbled upon the architect's original renderings of the castle, stuffed behind a loose stone in a wall of the great room. He was using the faded and torn plans to restore as much of Lamesh as possible to its original condition, though he was forced to use more wood and less stone, due to availability. The entire western cliff face had been in advanced decay and needed immediate shoring. The only significant alteration to the design was the conversion of a portion of the original lord knighf s personal apartments into a temple to Kiri-Jolith.

  Within the castle walls, work was moving according to schedule. Tate's master architect, a man named Raymond of Winterholm, who had accompanied Tate from Solamnia, was an excellent planner. Normally, temporary structures would have been erected to house workers and key personnel while construction occurred. In laying out the castle, Winterholm wisely positioned the main wooden buildings near the walls that needed the least work, so they were permanent struc shy;tures from the beginning. Most of the key workmen currently lived inside the castle. Once it was finished, they would either return to Solamnia or build houses of their own in the adjoining village. Ultimately, only those folk crucial to the castle's defense would live within.

  Turning, Tate looked down upon the town, which was quickly growing beyond the walls on the eastern side of Lamesh Castle. Crumbling sections of the old town wall cast a wide circle, suggesting that Lamesh had been a sizable vil shy;lage in its heyday before the Cataclysm. People were return shy;ing to the village more quickly than even Tate had expected. The simple presence of the knights in this wild territory promised order and authority. Since ogres and other crea shy;tures inhabited the mountains in greater numbers these days, many people chose to relocate within the protective shadow of the castle.

  As the village awakened that morning, boys carted water with buckets on yokes, girls hunted eggs in corners where range hens had laid them, mothers issued orders to all. The support beams of new houses were a common sight these days. The first tavern had already sprung up to meet the needs of the many craftsmen who'd come from all corners to find work. Behind old, rebuilt homes, women gathered honey and tended herb gardens, drying their produce for winter use. Goats bleated; roosters crowed; dogs barked; cows lowed to be milked. The plaintive wail of bagpipes floated up from unseen lips. Tate felt something akin to a father's pride for this village.

  Beyond the ruined walls of the town, a man led a horse and plow through a field where corn had just been har shy;vested. More than half of the crops were already in, filling the granary and storehouses. Hayricks and corn shocks dotted the rolling landscape. Sheep grazed on a nearby hillside, their dirty white coats grown out since spring shearing. Lina the weaver had already turned it to fabric, enough so that they wouldn't have to buy more during the cold months. Tate's plan for a self-sufficient community was becoming a reality even more quickly than he'd hoped. Still, there was much to be done before the first snowfall.

  The Knight of the Crown dreaded the approaching winter, and not only from the standpoint of preparations; Sir Tate Sekforde hated the cold. It seemed to bury itself in his bones on the first frigid day and stay until buds returned to the trees. Winter would undoubtedly seem even colder without the centuries-old conveniences of the family castle back in Solamnia. Tate could just see his stuffy younger brother Rupport, feet propped on a hassock before a roaring fire in the family's private apartments, thick tapestries covering the cold stone walls of Castle DeHodge.

  You have no business envying Rupport, Tate scolded him shy;self. You gave up your claim as eldest son of your own accord. Truly, envy was not what Tate felt for the brother who'd been so ashamed of their father's common heritage that he'd taken their mother's maiden surname, DeHodge. Sir Rupport DeHodge. Even his name sounded pompous.

  It was Tate's opinion that knights like Rupport had caused the decline of the order. Rupport had inherited his super shy;cilious nature from their mother, whose noble family's his shy;tory with the knighthood could be traced all the way back to Vinas Solamnus. Thirty years ago, the DeHodge family's for shy;tunes had declined beyond their ability to deny it. The Cata shy;clysm had caused less physical damage to their castle near the High Clerist's Tower than the social aftershocks to their finances. An only child, Cilia DeHodge had reluctantly agreed to an arranged marriage to a wealthy merchant from downriver at Jansburg, for whom she felt nothing but contempt.

  Gedeon Sekforde was a kindly, street-smart man who loved his wife despite her many faults, not the least of which was the disdain for him she never bothered to hide. In exchange for restoring her family's lands with his merchant money, Cilia bore him two sons. While Cilia DeHodge Sek shy;forde pushed her sons toward the knighthood, Gedeon Sek shy;forde gave them the freedom to choose whatever occupation they wished. Though both embraced the knighthood, their reasons were very, very different. Rupport read his own intolerance and bigotry into the writings of the Measure and espoused them as his knightly goals.

  Tate read the voluminous set of laws that defined the term honor and saw obedience to the spirit of the laws as the chief goal of the knighthood. It was Gedeon Sekforde who encour shy;aged Tate to read between the lines of the Measure when his elder son would question the accuracy of the younger7 s inter shy;pretations. When Gedeon died, Cilia and Rupport's

  unfeeling snobbishness, not an uncommon trait among mem shy;bers of the knighthood, became unbearable to Tate. To escape the prevailing attitudes in Solamnia and in hopes that the frontier would allow for freethinking, Tate formally renounced his claim to the family estates and signed on with Stippling's expedition.

  Not a month out of Solamnia, however, the venerable Knight of the Rose's party had been ambushed by ogres and mercenaries in a pass through the northern Khalkists. Tate alone had survived. Burned, his leg injured, he had stumbled and crawled his way to the village of Styx. Giving himself just one day to rest, he bought a horse and headed straight shy;away for the High Clerist's Tower back in Solamnia to report the deaths. And to apply for entry into the next level of knighthood, the Order of the Sword. H
e knew just what quest he would be assigned: to complete Stippling's mission of establishing a Solamnic outpost at Lamesh.

  On the return trip, the Knight of the Crown had had a lot of time to think. The clerical spells that only Knights of the Sword received through prayer would certainly be useful, especially if ever Tate were in a situation like the ambush again. What was more, his reasons for joining Stippling's troop had not changed; he had no wish to settle in Solamnia. The High Clerist and the Knightly Council had not been keen at first to agree to such a monumental quest by so young a knight. A number of particularly arrogant knights, mentors of Rupport's no doubt, had even questioned Tate's bravery, since he'd had the audacity to survive. Tate had wondered more than once if the staid old Council of Knights hadn't ulti shy;mately agreed to his request simply to brush him off, pre shy;suming that he would fail. In a land so remote that it didn't even bear a regional name, news of a Crown Knight's defeat would not tarnish the knighthood in Solamnia. . . . Tate shook away the aggravating reflection. Unkind thoughts were not allowed on holy days either.

  He remembered his sticky bun. Tate's mouth was open wide around the sugared tidbit when Sir Wolter Heding's voice boomed behind him.

  "Ah, ah, ahhh!" the old knight scolded in singsong. "You weren't about to eat that, were you, lad?"

  "I was thinking about it, yes."

  Sir Wolter came to stand before him. He was a large man by anyone's standards, slightly corpulent, with a hooked nose and a strong jaw that was usually covered with stubble. "A candidate for Sword Knight eating on his holy day? Tsk, tsk, lad."

  "Thaf s 'Sir Lad/ to you." Tate's mouth was scowling, but his brown eyes were smiling as he handed over the sticky bun. To Tate's annoyance, his sponsor in the knighthood popped the bun into his own mouth.

  "Ha! That'll be the day!" chortled Sir Wolter over the bun. "You may be lord knight of the castle because of your quest, but I still outrank you by-"