Along it seemed the Wall’s entire span, within arched alcoves each separated by several columns, stood hundreds of large, grotesque statues of creatures the likes of which Ennalen had never seen. All were mounted on great blocks of chiseled, polished rock—demons from the nightmares of an artisan obviously gone mad.
The wind streaming through the crumbling stacks of carved stone moaned a doleful chorus as she walked. At times the shifting ambiance of the song gave the impression of coming from the statues, or emanating from the large cavern in the side of the mountain where the Wall ended.
Or rather, began.
Ennalen slipped her hands from the sleeves of her cloak, folded them over her chest, and cupped the fist-sized lump nestled above her breasts. The rushing air carried a knife-like chill from outside, but as before, it caused her no concern. Wearing her cantle beneath her clothes had proven ample defense against the harshness of early winter; it provided not warmth, but rather obliviousness to the cold.
She climbed the wide set of shallow stairs leading to the mouth of the cavern, then paused. The length of the Black Wall extended into apparent infinitude, slicing a straight, black line through the continent, then vanished in a single point on the horizon where just beyond lay the Udithian Sea. On her left hunched the bluish hills that marked the beginning of the Outer Kingdoms. On her right spread the Plains. And on the other side of those, Lyrria.
And the College.
Reflexively, Ennalen closed her eyes and braced for the rage that normally erupted when her thoughts drifted toward Thaucian and the Board. But the blaze did not flare, from which she drew tepid satisfaction.
Forever ago, the thing she wanted most in all the world had been to see the College of Magic and Conjuring Arts take its rightful place as the center of civilization. As a Magistrate, she once felt certain her abilities and efforts would rescue the institution from its long decay and accomplish that goal of dominance in the Lands.
Granted, she used unconventional means more often than not, but her core intention had remained constant. In the end, though, she realized for the future to truly take root, the ground of the present would have to be mercilessly harrowed. Appropriately, if indirectly, Thaucian himself had suggested the very means she would employ.
Through years of wielding their cantles, the Board of Elders substantially extended their lives, yet none seemed to have managed the magical fluency Ennalen had with her own stone. Uhniethi could only have produced the Devastation by having an incredibly large portion of the ancient gem under his control—the remainder of the Heart, as revealed by her final visit to the Main Library. Provided a small portion could extend a human life span by centuries, then a massive portion should reasonably extend one by millennia.
And that meant Uhniethi could still be alive.
If that were true, then why did Uhniethi never exact his vengeance on the College for the death of his beloved Anese, as all the stories claimed he had vowed? Applying the old investigator’s rule once more: Because he had been either unwilling or unable. Assuming the story’s veracity, then the former seemed least likely. One did not inflict that kind of ruin then simply have a change of mind. Something must have prevented—must be preventing—the ancient wizard from carrying out his threats. Hindering another’s free will demands an overwhelming external force, as any magician could attest. Given the context, the only thing of which Ennalen knew that qualified as such was the Heart of the Sisters.
Relying on the Heart’s power for so long a time may have proven debilitating and ultimately destructive to Uhniethi. If so, feasibly, he might be in need of assistance. As the legend stated, and as Denuis reminded her, the Apostate was supposed to be an apprentice, a mage of none magic. Canon, the only magic as far as the civilized world was concerned, could not be reconciled with the incredible might granted by the Heart. By submitting herself to Uhniethi as a pupil, she would with a single effort neatly fulfill that requirement of the prophecy and carry out both their wishes. If the ancient magician turned out to be alive and able, she would eagerly learn what she could. If she found him in the pitiable state she thought quite possible, then she would take from him what she wanted and bend his knowledge and powers to her will.
Either way, her return to the world would be more terrible than the Dragon Sisters themselves, and she would leave behind a mark too deep for even the tears of weeping gods to fill.
32
“A surprise?” Jharal rumbled as he flung his pack against the closed door of their tiny room. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, a surprise?”
“It’s not really that much of a surprise,” Peck said.
“Oh?” Jharal said with a hard glare. “And how’s that?”
Peck produced an apple and a small knife. “I think the house is going to fly away and carry us off with it,” he said as he cut into the fruit.
Jharal snorted. “Shut up, Peck.”
Peck shrugged and popped a wedge into his mouth.
With their gear stored, the group settled themselves. The space was modest but not uncomfortably so. Arwin sat near the far wall with his bedroll and pillows.
“What do you think of our new friend, Apprentice?” he asked.
Niel sat and wrapped his arms around his knees. He suspected Arwin had asked more out of politeness and for the sake of inclusion than actual concern. Peck forgoing his normal watch should have satisfied Arwin that they were safe.
“I think the professor is all he claims,” he replied. “I think we can trust him.”
“So what now?” Cally asked.
“Well,” Arwin said with a yawn, “I was going to follow Jharal’s advice and take a nap.”
Jharal gave an approving nod.
“No, fearless leader,” she retorted. “I don’t recall discussing what we intend to do when we get back to Lyrria.”
“Oh, yes, there is that.”
“That would depend on how Potchkins intends to get us there, right?” Jharal said, jutting a thumb toward Peck.
“True,” Arwin said, “but just the same, I think the best thing would be to count on you and Cally heading back to Lord Deralden while Peck, Niel, and I continue on to the Black Plains.”
Cally scoffed. “You want me and Jhar to ride off and leave the three of you to fend for yourselves? Try again.”
“Well,” Arwin smirked, “it occurred to me we might not be all that successful. I thought it best to get the word out on what’s going on.”
“And what makes you think Deralden will help?” she asked.
Arwin shrugged. “I figure if the College has been lying to the aristocracy all this time about what they’re up to, then someone is going to want to take the issue to the Assembly. I’ve known him quite awhile. Deralden wields a good amount of respect and has less love for the College than most. My guess is he’ll take advantage of having other lords beholden to him for exposing this.”
“And maybe that would make up for us coming back empty handed,” Jharal added.
“Maybe,” Arwin replied, “but if this Ennalen represents a rift within the ranks of the College, then when this comes to light it could also mean a split in the Assembly, since so many of the lords are pretty chummy with the College. Even if the three of us are able to stop our Magistrate friend, there will likely be some serious political consequences. Maybe even war. But if we can’t stop her, then…”
“Then there will be more important matters at hand,” Niel finished. “To say the least.”
The room fell silent.
“No,” Cally said. “We stay together. Things are bad enough without cutting our strength, and four swords are better than two. If Niel’s piece of the Heart can’t help us, it won’t make any difference what the Assembly knows or doesn’t.”
Jharal folded his arms. “She’s right.”
Arwin considered his comrades. “In for a copper, in for a gold, eh? All right, then. That’s how we’ll play it.”
“Good,” Cally replied. “So what do we
do once we get to the Plains? Aside from staying alive, I mean.”
Niel gave Arwin a questioning look. After failing to retain the sleep spell, he didn’t see how much use he would be. Knowing whether Ennalen felt happy or sad didn’t strike him as all that valuable a contribution.
“I guess we’ll have to sleep on that one,” Arwin said.
Jharal snorted. “Then I hope we sleep well.”
“Yeah,” Niel said. “Me, too.”
***
How dare you ask such a thing!
Niel only wanted to know why his teacher glowed so much differently than all the other magicians he’d seen, and it sent Biddleby into a rage. Except it wasn’t Biddleby. He no longer recognized the person standing in front of him. A brilliant whiteness filled the room, as painful in Niel’s eyes as it was on his skin.
Never, ever ask that again, boy! the person screamed as he shook Niel.
Never, ever…
***
The shaking roused him, but the huge lurch that followed sent a loud groan through the darkness, tumbled everyone into a pile against the door, and thus brought Niel fully awake. As the group untangled themselves from one another, off to one side a candle jumped to life in Peck’s hand.
“Someone had better tell me what that was,” Jharal said, “and I had better like the answer.”
“No trouble with the telling,” Peck replied. The light from the candle gave his features a fiendish cast. “The liking part might be a problem.”
“Peck?” Arwin said as he slowly stood.
Peck smiled. “Best you come see this for yourselves.”
Niel and the others exchanged glances.
“All right,” Arwin said. “Let’s do that.”
One by one they dug their own candles from their packs and followed Peck down the short hallway to Potchkins’s main room, which they found to be in even further disarray after being tossed about as well. Even more noticeable, a large trap door hung open in the ceiling, swinging back and forth as the room pitched first left, then right.
Just like a ship.
Peck leveled a self-satisfied leer at Jharal.
Jharal shook his head in disgust. “Godsbedamned. I should have been a shepherd like my uncle. This kind of thing never happens to shepherds.”
Niel swallowed hard. Unlike aboard the Alodis, his bracelet no longer aided his equilibrium. His guts felt every tilt and turn.
A rope ladder dangled from the trap door.
“Cally,” Arwin said, raising his voice over the steady breeze blowing in from above, “you and Jhar stay here while we go up and take a look.”
Cally nodded.
“Fine with me,” Jharal said.
Arwin handed aside his candle and went first, followed by Niel, with Peck last. As they approached the opening in the ceiling, the howl of the wind grew louder, and the cold more bitter. But the sight greeting them as they emerged from the darkness made Niel forget any and all discomfort.
Above them loomed the enormous form of what Niel could only think to call a balloon. He’d seen pictures of balloons in his lesson books—animal bladders and such used to capture resultant gases from experiments and that could float as though by magic.
No mere animal bladder, the monstrous but well-tethered form hovering overhead looked easily the size of a castle tower, though its slate color against the dark sky and its lumbering dance in the fierce winter winds made it impossible to judge size with any accuracy. Great butterfly-shaped wings swayed tautly up and down on either side of the cylindrical body. The ship seemed to bear not a single sail.
While Niel could accept the idea of substances being lighter than air, nothing in his experience had prepared him for what his senses now beheld. He gazed alternately straight up at the great balloon and then out to the streaming sea of blackness and clouds. He collapsed to the smooth, wooden deck as much from disbelief as from the disorienting motion of the vessel on which they all had become passengers.
Arwin and Peck helped him back to his feet, and Arwin pointed toward the far end of the ship. “Look there!” he shouted over the rush of wind.
Niel ducked his head around a bit of rigging and saw the distinct, round form of Professor Potchkins manning a large steering wheel mounted atop a platform.
The professor smiled and waved enthusiastically.
Using the maze of ropes for support, the three of them made their way arm-over-arm to the bridge.
“Well?” Potchkins asked loudly as he gestured to the ship in general. “What do you think?”
“Personally,” Arwin answered with genuine irritation, “I think I would have preferred an actual warning than a riddle, Professor.”
The tahlerig’s smile dissolved. “My apologies to you all,” he said, “but in truth, we could not risk you balking at the notion of flying home.”
Arwin considered the answer with a stern expression, then looked up to examine the immense balloon. “How soon will we reach Lyrria?”
“If the wind holds,” the professor replied, “we should reach the coast by late tomorrow afternoon. Maybe early evening.”
The three looked at one another again in amazement.
“Less than a day?” Arwin asked.
Potchkins nodded.
“Then no wonder the magicians kicked you out of the University,” Arwin said. “I can’t imagine them wanting to compete with anything so extraordinary as this.”
The professor’s proud grin returned and pleated his round face. “Might I suggest you return below? You should rest as much as possible while you have the opportunity.”
“Good advice, Captain,” Arwin agreed.
As they headed back for the hatch, Niel again took in the improbable sight of the balloon against the menacing sky beyond.
“I wonder how long it took him to build all this,” he said.
“I wonder how he made it up that ladder,” Peck replied.
33
Ennalen welcomed the violet glow.
Not since her school days had she cast a spell for conjuring light, and for all her diligence in preparing to leave Fraal, she foolishly forgot torches. Still, she could have found her way even without the benefit of the soft luminescence coming from somewhere at the end of the cramped tunnel. From the moment she crossed the cavern’s threshold she felt compelled to follow wherever the winding passage led, like a kite being reeled home.
She concentrated her full measure on seeking out any other person nearby, but saw only the brightness before her that threatened to blind even the senses acquired through her cantle.
As she walked she ran her fingers across the faces of the stone statues—perfectly scaled versions of their giant cousins outside, that peeked out from the numerous carved niches lining the walls at eye-level. In one respect, the figures grew in hideousness the farther she went. At the same time, the constantly shifting shadows across their features did lend a certain allure.
The long, twisting tunnel ended with a short flight of stairs that led down to an open archway, on the other side of which she knew waited the source of the glow.
Ennalen descended slowly, listening for any break in the silence. Hearing nothing other than the sound of her own heartbeat, she passed beneath the archway—
—and into a room more startling than anything she had ever seen.
The mountain in its entirety had been hollowed to create a world unto itself. From high above, farther than she could actually see, poured a narrow column of silvery light that pierced the enveloping sea of pale violet like a rapier, illuminating a distant object at the center of the great cavern’s floor.
The Heart. It had to be.
Carved into the floor looped thousands of concentric circles of minute text in a language she did not recognize. At the center of the circles fell the brilliant shaft of light.
Bizarre murals had been shaped into the dark rock of the wall closest to her—knights and dragons, maidens and demons, people and creatures both familiar and foreign, all intert
wined and seeming to grapple with one another for a place at the surface.
In the distance, the gentle breath of a waterfall, explaining the cool, sweet dampness.
Ennalen stepped onto the smooth stone floor, unconcerned about triggering a magical defense like the warding glyph at the New Tower. A distinct energy thrummed throughout the enormous cavern, but its disposition tended toward melancholy, not malevolence. Walking the expanse of the mountain’s interior reminded her of crossing the Black Plains themselves. She knew each step carried her closer to the object within the brilliant beam of light, but the tremendous distance made it seem as though she stood in place.
Because of the intensity of the light ahead, she had to creep up until she was just few paces away before she could—
Disappointment crushed down.
A single length of charred timber half-again her height stood embedded into the floor where the inscription stopped—not in countless concentric circles as she had thought, but in a single spiral beginning at the base of the wooden post and reaching to the faraway edges of the room. Atop the post hung a pair of soot- blackened shackles.
Ennalen stepped back from the column of light and studied her surroundings.
A monument worthy of the greatest gods had been constructed to honor not a lost patron deity, but the adulterous wife of a lesser noble. Ennalen made no judgments herself, but she knew most would find it laughable for such homage to be paid to a woman whom history had branded as little better than a common whore.
The shrine impressed her, but the effort required to build something of its magnitude struck her as a tremendous waste. Had that been what occupied Uhniethi’s time and prevented him from—?
Who are you?
Ennalen turned her head, unable to determine the source of the feeble voice, or after several moments, even whether she’d really heard it at all.
Why are you here?
She moved around the burned timber and saw another shape on the far side of the cavern, an outline barely darker than the mountain wall.
A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) Page 25
