by GJ Kelly
And then the lightning was gone, and when Gawain had blinked back the after-images that stained his vision all manner of bright and jagged colours, so too was the Graken, and the nameless dark wizard who had made it. Nothing remained of them but ash upon the seared and shattered track, and a plume of smoke which was even now being whipped through the trees and away towards the west from whence it had come.
Allazar let out a huge sigh, breathing heavily, leaning on his staff for support.
“Dwarfspit.” Gawain managed.
“Did he hit it?” Elayeen asked quietly, all trace of the eldengaze gone.
oOo
18. Changes
At the horses, Gawain helped Elayeen into the saddle, and held her left hand tenderly, his own resting on her thigh. “We’ll have the whitesleeves look again at your poor fingers, miheth. He’ll probably be as unhappy as I at the punishment they’ve taken today.”
Elayeen nodded, and glanced north along the road. “The way is clear again, G’wain. We should move from here as quickly as we can. Healer Turlock can attend to my hand when we stop for the night. The people from Goria will look to us for leadership in the midst of this terror and we can’t make them wait in fear for so small a thing.”
“As you wish. Though what new horror lies between us and Jarn is anyone’s guess. Allazar, are you well?”
“Yes, Longsword, a little tired, in an odd sort of way. I am very far from used to unleashing such power as we just witnessed on the road. It is as frightening as it is astonishing.”
“Agreed.” Gawain mumbled, mounting Gwyn. “Come, let’s rejoin the head and the body, and move the column on.”
“You go ahead, Longsword. I will attend to the fallen of Callodon.”
“Oh… yes. What shall I tell the captain?”
“Simply that I am attending to his fallen men. Don’t approach, though, until I am done. I must gather my strength and my wits for the rite.”
“Very well,” Gawain acknowledged, guiding Gwyn who gently nudged Elayeen’s horse on to the road, facing Tyrane and his men. Then Gawain paused, and looked down at the wizard. He did look tired, drained, as though from a long day’s labour. “Thank you, Allazar.”
Allazar’s eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise, and he smiled up at the younger man, and then bowed his head a little in a genuinely gracious acceptance of his king’s gratitude.
Gawain guided Gwyn and in turn Elayeen’s horse through the grisly remains of the slain scouts, back to Tyrane. He told the captain of Allazar’s intentions, and then with Elayeen joined the line across the road, facing the fallen and the wizard standing in the middle of their remains. The destruction wrought upon men and horses by the dark wizard was too extensive, and it would be too distressing for all concerned to perform a recovery and burial.
The guardsmen ported their crossbows, still watchful, but Captain Tyrane drew his shortsword and held it across his chest, his head bowed in salute. Gawain drew the longsword, and held it point down and to the right, and lowered his head, honouring the scouts whose names he did not know.
In the midst of their remains, Allazar planted the staff firmly on the ground, and began the chant all wizards of the D’ith learned long before leaving the Hallencloister. Elayeen saw a glow beginning to spread around the wizard’s feet, and understanding what was taking place, placed her right hand over her heart, closed her eyes and bowed her head.
The glow about the wizard’s feet spread slowly, like a ripple on a pond of molasses, moving outward, slowly and silently, reducing to smokeless ash the remains of the fallen men and their horses. In the blustery easterly winds, in no time at all, the road was clear, and the ceremony done. Allazar bowed briefly to conclude the rite, and then mounted, waiting patiently while the head advanced to join him, Tyrane signalling the body and the tail to move on.
The column thus reformed, it was a sombre and watchful group of Gorians and Callodonians who followed behind the three of Raheen, though in truth such glances that were made in their direction were mostly for the slender elfin riding proudly in the saddle, her silver hair streaming in the strengthening gusts.
By sunset they had put twenty miles between them and the shattered expanse of track that had marked the end of the Graken and its rider, and made a makeshift camp at one of the many passing-places that dotted the length of the Jarn road. The three of Raheen and the head of the guard took the western half of the passing-place, while the Gorian party and the wagons took the eastern side. Tyrane had the sergeant deploy pickets, and ordered frequent changes of shift. The skies were darkening quickly, clouds scudding across the stars, and there was a dampness in the air, a harbinger of rain to come.
Food was distributed, cloaks drawn tight, horses tended, but no fires lit. The Gorians seemed to take it in their stride, and Gawain found himself marvelling at their stoicism, until he remembered that they would have endured much worse on their long travels east with an unseen Grimmand in their midst.
It was only once the camp was settled, if camp it could be called, and Turlock had strapped Elayeen’s broken fingers once again, that Tyrane approached the three of Raheen, and huddled in his cloak against the wind, squatted before them where they sat upon their saddles on the gravel.
“My lady, my lords, I must speak with you.”
“Of course, Tyrane,” Gawain said softly. “I had expected you would as soon as your immediate duties permitted.”
“It’s of duty I must speak, my lord. I am a Captain of Callodon, and Brock is my king. I cannot in all conscience withhold the events of this day from my superiors and his Court. I must report this, and I fear I must send that report ahead by fast rider, even though it means one less sword at your disposal.”
“I understand,” Gawain acknowledged, and he did. Lacking imagination he may have been, but Tyrane was a good officer, chosen well by Brock, and trusted. “And I have no objections to your duty, Captain. On the contrary, it does you and your crown honour.”
“If I may borrow your wizard, my lord, with his permission as well as yours? There are certain things I don’t know and would like clarification for my report?”
“Of course, I am at your service Captain. Longsword?”
“Yes Allazar, please give Captain Tyrane any assistance he needs. I fear Callodon may need to know more about the Graken and their dark riders in times to come. Though the wind’s in the east, I fear there’s a storm brewing in the west as well as the north now.”
The wizard pushed himself to his feet with his staff, and with one hand clutching the stick and the other as tenaciously gripping yet another sandwich, this time stuffed with salt pork, moved a discreet distance from Gawain and Elayeen, and assisted the captain with the reports for Callodon.
“How is your hand now?” Gawain asked, nestled close to her.
“The fingers are sore, and he bound them tighter. Though I did ask Healer Turlock to allow me some movement at the knuckles, it might make handling my bow easier.”
“I hope you don’t have to.”
She turned to look towards him, her hair whipping across her face. “I think I may have no choice. Morloch did not sound best pleased at having the plans of ages ruined in the blink of an eye.”
“True. But while his fury was real so too was his obvious weakness. The vision I saw was a pale shadow of the strength I first witnessed on the plains of Juria. I don’t doubt he intends to wreak his vengeance upon our lands, Elayeen, but a Morloch sealed behind the Teeth in a dying land bereft of most of his power is much to be preferred to one standing with an army of mindless minions on the shores of the farak gorin.”
“Agreed. I think. Though if he has an army of mindless minions assembling on the west bank of the Eramak river, I do not think it will make much difference to the outcome.”
“Simayen Jaxon would have known if there were such an army, surely? And I got the impression that Salaman Goth did not welcome being ordered to Raheen by Morloch. I have a feeling that Morloch’s plans did not progre
ss as smoothly as he would have hoped in the Empire, either. And I think that as before, Morloch’s speech is mostly bluster, born of rage and despair.”
“Mostly?”
“I hope so. I would dearly like to know how our friend Rak is faring at the Council of Kings. A pity your father was unable to persuade them all to a more southerly location, we could get there quicker, or least have word from them sooner.”
“Yes.”
“Have you finished your sandwich already?”
“Yes.”
“Want me to get you another?”
“No, I am full, thank you.”
“Then here,” Gawain opened his cloak and folded her into it. “It’s chilly tonight, and it’ll rain.”
“Autumn is coming. The tops of the trees are not as bright as I think they should be. Winter is coming too, though slowly.”
“Yes. Though it will be warmer than the last one, I think.” And Gawain kissed the top of her head, remembering how he’d carried her from Elvendere to Threlland wrapped in his cloak. “Not so much snow anyway.”
He felt her nodding against his chest, and shifted his weight a little, holding her closer. “Did you see the blast Allazar let loose upon that Graken?”
“No, miheth, you stood before me, shielding me from it. You shine brightly, I couldn’t see past you.”
“I thought I burned? Now I only shine?”
“I still haven’t absolved you from earlier.”
“Oh.”
“Why? What was wrong with the blast Allazar loosed? It destroyed the darkness did it not? Like the lightning he made at the foot of the Pass, against the Grimmand?”
“No,” Gawain said softly above the rising wind. “No miheth, it was far more powerful than that. His white fire ripped a great gash in the road, as though hard-baked clay and stone were parchment, and destroyed the Graken and the dark wizard utterly. And he, grinning like a maniac gone berserk in battle while he did it. It was frightening, Elayeen, really quite frightening.”
“Oh,” she said simply, turning her face up to him, “Not chilling, then?”
“Stop it,” he said, and kissed her nose, and then her lips. “I mean it when I say it was frightening. In fact, if the Grimmand were merely scary, and the Graken rider with his black fireballs merely frightening, then the power Allazar unleashed today was blood-numbingly terrifying.”
“Good,” she said, and she was serious. “Then your decision to make him Keeper of the Staff of Raheen was a good one. It is long past time we had a wizard of power on our side.”
“As long as he stays on our side.” Gawain mumbled.
“You know,” Elayeen sighed, shifting a little more sideways under the fold of his cloak, “I had just considered absolving you, and then you go and say something like that. There are times, miheth, when you can be unimaginably insensitive, to me and to Allazar.”
“He’s over there,” Gawain protested, “He can’t hear me for the wind.”
“But I can hear you, G’wain. First you do him great honour, and call him one of the three of Raheen, and after a battle thanked him as a king should thank his wizard under the circumstances. And then you insult him.”
“Old habits die hard.”
“Your remark just now was not made in jest. Even without our throth I know enough to understand when you and he are prodding at each other in good humour. Was it not the circles in the hall of your fathers which chose him, and gifted him with the new power you fear?”
Gawain sighed. “It was.”
“Well then.”
“Well then nothing. Morloch was once as white as snow in the halls of the great wizards of old, and it was his treachery that meant the circles needed to be made in the first place. You didn’t see the look on Allazar’s face, Elayeen, I did.”
“And the look on his face, G’wain, was it chilling? Did it raise the hairs on the back of your neck and send a shiver down your spine?”
“Stop, Elayeen, please. Don’t make more of this than there is. I have always had a deep distrust of wizards and you know it, and with good reason, which you also well know. It’s not my intention to insult Allazar, I know he is a friend, and I know you hold him thus as well. I’m merely saying that he’s become far more than he was, and it’s that which worries me.”
“And I, do I worry you? Now that I am changed?”
Gawain drew in a deep breath, and then paused, thinking desperately.
“I see that I do.”
“No. No, Elayeen. My worry is for you, not of you. You have no idea of the terror I felt when I saw you laying deathly still on the floor of the great hall. You have no idea of the unutterable joy I felt when you stirred in my arms and woke up. Nor of the agony I felt when you said you couldn’t see.”
“Yet the sight of me today made you shudder. I am, perhaps, like Allazar, become far more than I was.”
“I admit it, your eldengaze is very unsettling. You don’t know what it’s like, to see and hear you like that, and I can’t explain it. Allazar felt it on the track today, I am sure, and I think it’s still growing within you. You don’t seem to be you, miheth, when it’s upon you like that. Just like Allazar did not seem to be Allazar when he summoned a great… I don’t know, a great lightning tree which destroyed our enemies in an instant.”
“I am me,” she insisted, as the rain began to fall. “I am who I always was. Only the way I see the world has changed. And how I feel it, without our throth to guide me. It’s as though the circles took away the eyes of my heart, too.”
“I know,” Gawain said fervently. “I know. And it’s my fault. I did this. It was my hand which placed the sword in the circle and did all this. Perhaps that is what I am truly afraid of. Perhaps I am afraid that Morloch was right, and all that’s to come is my fault too.”
Elayeen made no reply, and Gawain suddenly seemed tired. He drew the cloak tighter around them, leaned back against the heap of gravel at his back, and closed his eyes, the rain stinging his cheeks and reminding him of the dark blasts launched against them on the road that morning. He remembered twisting around, grabbing Elayeen and hunching before her when the spheres of black fire had burst upon the track. Remembered the spiteful debris spattering hot and stinging on his legs and peppering his back.
And remembered Allazar, holding the Dymendin staff vertically before him, a shimmering in the air like a clear glass shield before him, protecting his face against the debris while his vengeful smile widened into a grin and he advanced upon the dark enemy. The shield he had raised with the knowledge given him by the wizards of elder times had protected only himself.
oOo
19. In the Neighbourhood
Dawn the next day was miserable. Rain and the wind which had whipped it through the trees had lashed them in the night, and few managed an untroubled sleep. Those that did were mostly Gorians, and, it seemed, Allazar, whose aspect appeared somehow brighter and more serene than anyone’s had a right to be while their meagre supplies were being doled out for a frugal breakfast.
The sun rose unseen behind a thick blanket of grubby-looking cloud, and Gawain met it with his customary remembrance, one he’d let lapse of late. But this morning he added the unknown Callodon scouts to his traditional daily respects while Elayeen spoke quietly with the wizard. She had said little to him beyond a brief and courteous greeting punctuated with a somewhat formal and even briefer kiss before unwrapping herself from his cloaked embrace and walking off into the trees and shrubs to the area set aside for ladies’ modesty.
After his remembrance, Gawain ate damp frak and eyed the camp. Tyrane and his sergeant were moving through the men, seeking a volunteer from the guard to ride hard and fast to the castletown away to the northeast on the plains beyond the woods. Thus far, none of the men seemed particularly anxious to leave, and while the sergeant smiled a secret smile at each shake of the head the Captain received from his men, Tyrane looked both proud and annoyed. His men had seen the remains of their comrades on the road yesterd
ay, seen the three of Raheen stand against the darkness and prevail, and none wanted to weaken the caravan’s escort by acting as a simple messenger.
Finally, his search for volunteers fruitless, Tyrane held a brief conversation with the sergeant before an unlucky guardsman, small of build and stature, was selected and ordered to undertake the mission. To him Tyrane handed a large leather wallet containing reports of recent events. No sooner than the guardsman now despatch-rider had received a few sympathetic slaps on the back from his comrades, he mounted and rode off east through the trees, away from the Jarn road and the caravan.
Breakfast over, the column re-formed once more, and set off at a brisk pace. Elayeen rode close to Allazar, the two of them conversing quietly, and to add to Gawain’s general discomfort, they spoke in Elvish, a language Gawain knew very little of in spite of his wife’s efforts at teaching him.
At around mid-day the column paused to distribute food for lunch, and to permit the Gorians to change places in the wagons. Elayeen was deep in conversation with Allazar, and even though none of the Callodonians except perhaps for Tyrane could understand the Elvish tongue, they too gave the pair a noticeable space. Tyrane was an officer educated in the Court of Callodon, and it was entirely possible that the Elvish language was familiar to him.
