The Dark Citadel

by Michael Wallace

Daria pulled two brushes with hard wire bristles from the wall. “Averial grooms her own feathers, but she has a hard time with her haunches. Here, let me show you how it’s done.”

  She took his hand with the brush and rubbed it with the grain of the fur. Averial’s haunches were hot from the flight. It was exactly like rubbing down a horse, which Darik knew how to do. But he kept his mouth shut, enjoying the touch of Daria’s hand.

  “There, you’ve got it. Keep brushing while I get some food for these two before they start pecking at my legs.”

  She disappeared from the room. Darik kept rubbing, but it made him nervous to stand alone with the griffin and her fledglings. The younger animals eyed him hungrily, perhaps wondering if he was their lunch.

  Daria returned with the severed hind legs of a deer. Not, he noted, one of Hoffan’s sheep, although that might appear regularly in their diet, as well.

  “Do they eat mostly deer?”

  Daria said, “Deer, rabbits, wild goats, and sheep. Pretty much anything we can catch. Usually, the adults hunt on their own, but we ride to catch food for ourselves, as well. If you want, you can come hunting with me tomorrow.”

  “I’d like that,” Darik said, “but I doubt Whelan intends to stay that long. How much do they eat, anyway?”

  “Maybe three or four deer a fortnight. More if they’ve been flying a lot.”

  As they finished grooming Averial, Daria told him more about the griffins. There were wild griffins in the mountains far to the north, but this particular breed had lived among humans for hundreds of years.

  Daria’s father came from a long line of riders and was the leader of those few who still raised and trained griffins in the old way. Like her father, Daria loved her griffins and planned to stay here all of her life.

  “How many riders are there?” Darik asked.

  “Oh, lots of us,” she said. “Maybe a hundred and fifty. I see other people all the time. Once a month, at least.”

  Darik nodded. He’d seen a hundred times that many people in the Grand Bazaar at once, rivers of people that eddied and flowed and could drown you if you didn’t know how to move with the currents. No doubt Daria would be shocked to visit such a place.

  “As for griffins,” she continued, “when we have extra fledglings, we usually free them in the mountains. There are several hundred higher along the Spine, where they’ve made aeries. Not exactly wild, but not entirely tame, either. If you’re ever in the high mountains and see a griffin, be careful.”

  Whelan and Flockheart arrived about twenty minutes later. Brasson bled from one haunch and Daria and her father tended to his injuries. Whelan unstrapped the saddlebags from its back.

  “Give me a hand with this, Darik?” Whelan asked.

  Together they carried it down the stairs to the human rooms. “This is heavy,” Darik said as they staggered around the corner. “What’s in here?”

  “That steel book. Markal didn’t want to carry it over the mountains, but didn’t want to leave it for the dark wizard either, so he sent it with me. We can leave it here and he’ll come get it later.” He shrugged. “Or we can, if we return first.”

  Darik kept his emotions veiled, but inside he was pleased. Perhaps tonight he could get a longer look at it while Whelan and Flockheart talked. But then, there was Daria. He’d like to talk to her more before they left.

  “When are we leaving?” he asked Whelan.

  “Tomorrow morning, or maybe even tonight, but Markal warned Flockheart that a storm might be coming. The Sea Brothers have begun their battle.”

  Every fall and every spring, the North Sea Brother and the South Sea Brother warred to control the ocean. In fall, the colder, northern waters prevailed, and in the spring, the southern waters won the struggle. Rather than accepting the inevitable, the two brothers did battle for several weeks, sending storms west across the plains.

  Whelan said, “Flockheart doesn’t want to ride into a thunderstorm. Too dangerous. We might be grounded tomorrow, depending on the weather. We could make a go on foot, but in this terrain and with the Desolation between us...” He trailed off, gnawing at his thumb.

  “Worried about the khalifa?”

  “Very. But also relieved that she’s alive. But more than that, even, I’m ashamed at my cowardice.”

  “Cowardice?” The claim bewildered Darik. He’d seen the man battle at Montcrag with no thought to his personal safety.

  Whelan nodded his head. “I’m only delaying my return to Eriscoba by returning to Balsalom. Perhaps I am afraid of death, being killed by Knights Temperate whose loyalties run deeper for my brother than for myself. But more than that, I’m afraid of my brother’s scorn. His hatred.”

  “But the Khalifa needs you,” Darik protested. For Whelan, going to the Free Kingdoms may very well mean facing his past, but it would mean running from the larger problem—how to defend Balsalom from Cragyn’s armies.

  “She does,” Whelan admitted. “And so we return.” He laughed. “We fly back to danger and yet I feel an overwhelming sense of relief that I don’t have to face my brother yet.”

  “That is,” Darik said, “we fly back if the weather holds.” Darik changed the subject. “Whelan, will you teach me how to use the sword?” He looked down to the ground in shame. “I wanted to do more at Montcrag.”

  “Montcrag meant everything to that bandit friend of mine. To surrender it to the dark wizard is a sore blow indeed. We all wish we could have done more.”

  Yes, Darik thought, but the difference is, everyone else did do something useful. Even Sofiana killed a man. Darik nearly succeeded in killing himself when he blundered into battle with Hoffan’s sword.

  “Yes,” Whelan said, seeing the frustration on Darik’s face. “I’ll teach you the sword. But you’ll have to be patient. It takes time, like any other discipline.”

  #

  They ate venison stew for dinner. It tasted delicious, nicely seasoned with peppercorn, and thickened with wild carrots and some other thick, bready root. But from the way Daria took her time, Darik suspected the griffin riders ate this particular meal far too often.

  “Do you get many visitors?” he asked Flockheart.

  Flockheart cocked his head in a bird-like gesture. “A few wizards now and then. Markal every few years, Narud more often. Narud spends a lot of time in the mountains with the animals. Sometimes shows up as an animal himself.”

  “Chantmer the Tall came last spring,” Daria said. She wrinkled her nose. “He didn’t care for the griffins much. Just asked a bunch of questions about the Cloud Kingdoms.”

  “You’ve been to the cloud castles?” Darik asked, eagerly.

  “Nobody’s been there for generations,” Flockheart answered, blowing on a spoonful of soup to cool it. “If you approach, they drive you away. If you reach their lands by stealth, they kill you.”

  They finished the meal in silence. After dinner, Whelan took him outside. It was dark, encircled by so many trees around the aerie, and chill. An owl hooted somewhere on the hillside, and a brook bubbled some distance away. It was unnervingly quiet compared to the city. And gone was the all pervasive sound of crickets. He’d been too busy running the last few days or trying to catch up on lost sleep to notice, but it struck him now.

  Whelan groped through the darkness until he found two thick sticks. He trimmed them with a hatchet from the aerie. Daria and Flockheart preferred it cooler than Darik thought comfortable; the fire light flickering through the subsequently open door provided a little bit of light to see by if they stood close to the doorway.

  Whelan tossed one of the sticks to Darik. “That man you fought at Montcrag? You did far too much parrying and thrusting. You’ve played around with a rapier, haven’t you?

  “My father thought I should be able to defend myself,” Darik said. “My tutor taught me the rapier and the twin daggers.”

  “That’s for duels between men with more money than common sense. In battle, you need a different weapon. Most effective weapons k
ill by brute force, not by fancy, precision attacks. Chop or bash, it’s all the same.” He hefted the club over his shoulder casually, then swung it toward Darik’s head without warning.

  Darik jerked away from the attack, but not fast enough. Whelan pulled back on his blow at the last minute, but still gave him a thump on the head. Darik grimaced and dropped his stick, clutching at his head. “Ow. What did you do that for?” Yet, even as he complained, the pain receded. Whelan hadn’t hit him hard.

  “We were about to start, but you were standing too close,” Whelan said with a slight smile. “Frankly, I prefer a sword of about this length to a battle axe or mace because it gives me more reach. I’ve already got long arms, so it doubles my effectiveness. My point is, remember how long your opponent’s reach is, including his weapon. Just two more quick lessons and then we can spar.”

  Darik picked up his club and looked back inside to see Daria watching him. He felt self-conscious. “Is there any chance we can move a bit further out, away from the door?”

  “The light is better—” Whelan started, then saw Daria, who looked away when both of them were watching her. “Ah, of course. You don’t have room to maneuver here against the walls, do you?”

  Once they stood out of earshot, Whelan whistled. “Last time I saw her she was no older than Sofiana is now.” He nudged Darik and grinned. “Now she’s the sort of girl who can give you a single look and make your knees wobble.”

  Darik groaned. “After my feeble attempts at Montcrag I’m going to look like an idiot, wobbly knees or no.”

  “Daria won’t care whether you can sword fight or not. She’ll care more whether you’re kind to her griffins.”

  He took a slow swing, which Darik parried easily. Darik swung his own blow, but Whelan danced away and counterattacked, this time harder. Darik ducked to one side.

  “I know you hear it all the time,” Whelan said, pressing his advantage, “but it’s true. Act like yourself and you’ll do better with the women.”

  “Listen to yourself,” Darik said, feeling more comfortable with Whelan than he had since they both worked in Graiyan’s kitchen. “You must be quite a lover to give your advice so freely.”

  Whelan laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “Have you ever loved, Darik?”

  “Never.” Darik thought about the stablemaster’s daughter Lassa and how she’d tried to seduce him in the hay loft. He’d never loved the girl, but felt only disgust after she’d spurned him when the guildmaster marched Darik and the others naked to the slave blocks.

  Whelan said, “Truth is, I’ve always been terrible in love. I’ve only ever loved two women, and it’s ended poorly both times.”

  They sparred for a few minutes, Whelan occasionally giving him a bit of advice. Darik already knew about Whelan’s love for Queen Serena, and wanted to ask about the second woman, but remembered the painful conversation as they left the Desolation and waited for Whelan to speak first.

  He thought the matter dropped, but at last Whelan sighed and said, “The first love was Serena, of course. I was only seventeen.”

  Darik did some figuring. “Seventeen? That means you’re only thirty?”

  Whelan nodded, apparently lost in thought. He swung his stick again, knocking through Darik’s guard and clubbing him on the shoulder.

  “Hey!”

  “Oh, sorry about that.” He paused. “Yes, I’m only thirty. I’ve seen enough to turn me into an old man before my years, I’m afraid. As for Daria, I’ve met her several times with her father. She is shy. She has known few people and doesn’t understand the way the world works. Don’t be the one to teach her, please.”

  They battled for a few more minutes, Whelan getting the best of him whenever he wished. Whelan said nothing more, and Darik found himself wondering about the man’s second love. He had a good guess at her identity. Darik had seen the way Whelan worried about the khalifa. That was nothing special. Half the men in Balsalom loved Kallia, but it was a hopeless love, even for Whelan. Ah, but the man had already loved one queen. What was one more hopeless love?

  #

  Darik hadn’t thought himself capable of anything but crawling into bed and sleeping until morning, but he woke midway through the night, unable to sleep. He wasn’t thinking about yesterday’s battle, or Daria, or even his sister in Balsalom. No, the thought that crept into his mind was that the steel book sat downstairs where someone could come into the aerie and steal it. Never mind the foolishness of that thought—Darik fully recognized it as such—but he could think of nothing else.

  Very well, he thought. I’ll go downstairs and bring it up here where it’s safer. Then I can sleep.

  It sounded like a good argument, but didn’t quite explain why he walked so silently down the hallway. He didn’t want to disturb the others. Yes, that was it.

  The fire had dwindled to embers, lapping at a log that might burn for another hour before the hearth grew cold. Darik pulled the steel tome from the saddle bag, wrapped himself in the blanket taken from his room, and sat close to the fire. He opened the book.

  To his surprise, the picture of the cloud cities wasn’t the first thing inside. Instead, there was a picture of a tower, tall and gray against the sky. Like the other picture, it had been hammered into the metal and painted. And like the other page, the lettering was written on the back.

  He thumbed through the other pages, but didn’t see the cloud cities. Had someone come and removed the first page? No, because he remembered that the second page had been a picture of a dragon with its wings spread and fire bellowing from its maw. Had someone reshuffled the pages, then? Markal, perhaps?

  He looked at the first page again. He thought at first that the tower was the Citadel, but no, the city over which it towered stood at the edge of the sea. The city must be Veyre then, although he’d heard of nothing so tall that it stood that much higher than any other tower or minaret in the city. The top of the tower was uncompleted with a windlass on top to lift stones.

  Darik turned the page to see if he could read the script as he’d done before. At first he saw nothing, just a tangle of strange letters. And then words came to his mind.

  “You are looking, my young apprentice, upon the seat of the dark lord’s power. Built and destroyed twice, the Dark Citadel points to the sky in a vain attempt to reach the clouds. When the dark lord has the power to reach the cloud cities, the Sky Brother will—”

  All at once the letters swam on the page, breaking the elegant old script and reforming into blocky letters in the common tongue. For a moment, the two scripts struggled, one taking over and the other one writing itself over the top. At last, the newer letters won, writing a single sentence on top of the page. They didn’t speak to his mind anymore, but he could read them clearly.

  “Who are you?” the first line asked.

  “Who are you?” Darik read aloud, wondering what it meant.

  The letters reformed themselves. “Yes, boy, I’m talking to you. Who are you?”

  Startled, Darik didn’t speak, but immediately thought his name. The letters swam again.

  “Darik, Darik. This means nothing to me. Do you live in the khalifates?”

  Well, he had lived in Balsalom, but of course he didn’t live there anymore, as a matter of fact, he doubted—

  Whatever hand wrote on the steel sheet was impatient. “Are you alone?”

  Darik grew alarmed. The older script demanded his attention, had called him from bed even, but this new language could read his mind. Before he could think, Whelan and Markal flashed into his mind. Outside, an owl hooted, startling him.

  “Yes, of course,” the letters wrote out. “You travel with that old fool of a wizard and his friend. So he found the book, did he? In the Tombs of the Kings? I’d have never guessed that one of the old tomes lingered in this part of the world, unfound for so many years. Does Markal know that you read his book?”

  And now Darik knew what hand wrote the letters, or thought he did. Terrified, he tried t
o slam the book shut, but his hands froze on the binding. The owl hooted again, this time closer, a chilling sound. He struggled for a moment, but he couldn’t close the book or tear himself away. In horror, he looked back at the page.

  He heard a chuckle in his mind. The letters wrote themselves out, this time changing from blood-red to a darker red, just a shade brighter than black. “Yes, of course he would never let you look at it. And here is why, boy. You will bring me the book, and we will read it together atop the Dark Citadel.”

  An image appeared in Darik’s mind. He saw the Dark Citadel rising from the midst of Veyre. It cast a shadow over the entire land, and would soon reach the very heavens. Magic, palpable and inexorable in its desire, stretched from the tower, bringing all of Mithyl under its sway. Who could resist it?

  Yes, Darik thought. I will give it to him. Give it away, get rid of the book for good. He looked over his shoulder. He could bring it to the master at Montcrag, be halfway there before the others realized he was gone. He picked up the book and made his way for the door. It was cold outside, but the master would warm him.

  He paused at the door, struggling to remember something. The book pulled at his mind even when shut, and soon he found himself turning the handle. He stepped outside and pulled the door shut, then walked through the dark, his feet instinctively knowing the way.

  The owl called again, a loud hoot to his left. And then, a massive black shape swooped down from the sky. It struck him hard on the shoulder and knocked him to the ground. Alarmed, he looked up to see the shape diving again. At first he thought it was a griffin, but when it swooped past a second time, he could see its eyes and round face. A giant owl, with horns of feathers. Darik dropped the book and put his hands up to protect his face.

  The instant his hands left the book, he knew what had happened to him. Markal had told him not to open the book, but he’d opened it anyway. He’d opened it and drawn Cragyn, who’d nearly forced him over the mountains all night until he put himself in the dark wizard’s power. The wind bit deep, but sweat stood out on his forehead and he felt flushed with fever.