In the year Guerrand had stood watch no intruder had entered Bastion's demiplane. He could scarcely credit the bubbling mercury, but he swallowed his disbelief and set about his duty as high defender. Guerrand drew a crystal lens from a cupboard beneath the tbe COei›usA pUgue
model table and peered at the bubbles. The sole purpose of the lens was to reveal glitches in the magical diorama. The bubbling mercury was clearly seen through the lens.
There could be no question now-someone or something was trespassing upon the demiplane's boundary. The intrusion could be caused by anything, from a real attack against Bastion to a wayward xorn that had lost its direction in the interstices between the planes.
Following the established but never-used routine for such an occurrence, Guerrand consulted a schematic of the planes that bordered Bastion's demiplane. In the ether that abutted the mercury moat, a powerful magical creature known as a ki-rin watched for intruders. The Council of Three had employed the ki-rin for this purpose because of the creature's lawful nature and ability to read the mind of any living thing through telepathy.
Guerrand unstoppered a beaker of clear alcohol and poured the liquid into a very shallow bowl carved into the lower right corner of the model table. The bitter smell of the volatile liquid filled the room. As the surface ripples died away, an image of the ki-rin appeared.
Vaguely horselike in appearance though bulkier, the ki-rin's forehead was adorned with a unicorn's horn. Luminous golden scales covered its torso, though its tail and mane were hair. The ki-rin had eyes the oddest shade of violet. Despite its disturbing appearance, the ki-rin radiated an aura of beneficence.
A human wanders the Ethereal, announced the ki-rin, its melodious voice echoing inside Guerrand's head.
"A human," Guerrand repeated. "What does this person look like?"
The Ethereal is vast, and even I cannot see everywhere at once. However, I have read the creature's mind. The ki-rin paused, head tilted. This human seeks Bastion and you,Guerrand DiThon.
Guerrand started. Who but Maladorigar and the Council of Three knew he was here? The gnome couldn't possibly have found his way to the outer edges of Bastion. Only a mage could have made that journey. Could Justarius have told Esme of his position?
My instructions are to slay intruders, said the ki-rin.
"Wait," Guerrand commanded. "Continue monitoring the person's movements," he told the ki-rin. "Prevent the intruder from penetrating the demiplane, but do nothing else without my direcdon."
Guerrand spun away from the diorama and searched the shelves that surrounded the sphere's door. They contained components for spells, as well as other magical devices that allowed passage through each of the uninhabitable protective spheres around Bastion. Guerrand sought the oil that would permit him to travel through mercury and observe the intruder at a safe distance.
He spotted the appropriate label on a cobalt-blue bottle. Pouring the oil into his palm, he spread it over his skin and clothing like lotion. He felt his consciousness separate from his physical body, like the yoke from the white of an egg. He could think and see as usual, but he felt weightless. Guerrand looked down at his arms and hands and saw both his body and its dark reflection. His physical self would remain in the scrying sphere, while his conscious shadow would explore the hsrhtless ring of mercurv.
Guerrand rested dark, flat palms upon the lefthand portion of the diorama's mercury border and intoned the magical words, "Illethessius umbra intentradolum."
Guerrand slipped like fog into a sea of warm, dark quicksilver. It enveloped him, rolled over his shadow form in thick, heavy waves. He was as buoyant as a bubble, though without its delicate nature. As shadow,
OK ro" t›usA plague
he saw in the darkness of the mercury as people see in light. He stretched his dark, shadow-flat arms and swam toward the distant grayness of the Ethereal Plane.
Guerrand was stopped at the farthest edge of the mercury moat by the defenses of the demiplane and could not see into the Ethereal.
Ki-rin, he called telepathically, bobbing in the sea of mercury.
Yes, high defender, the guardian creature responded.
Open a window to your plane so that 1 can see who seeks me.
As instructed, a curtain of gray slowly parted.
Standing in the mists of the Ethereal Plane was a red- robed mage Guerrand knew well. "Lyim Rhistadt," he hissed.
Lyim heard his old friend's voice, and he spun around to face the wall of black mercury. His snake arm hissed at the sudden movement. Lyim unconsciously cursed the vile creature.
Squinting into the darkness of the quicksilver he said, "Rand, is that you? I've been sending message after magical message to you, but I was beginning to think I'd never draw your notice."
"You drew it," Guerrand said grimly. "You must have stepped briefly from the Ethereal into the mercury, because you set off the alarms in Bastion. What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you, of course," said Lyim, trying to sound jocular. "You might at least say hello, after my extraordinary efforts to find you."
When Guerrand said nothing, Lyim frowned. "Can't you make yourself visible? I feel foolish talking to a black sea."
Consisting now only of shadow, Guerrand could not rise above the mercury. So instead he formed the mercury to himself and pressed upward slightly against the surface, forming a slight, three-dimensional image of his face on the smooth, silvery stream.
"How did you determine the location of Bastion's plane?" Guerrand demanded. "It's a well-guarded secret."
"I had a piece of the exact red granite used for its walls and a visual memory of you to home in on. That spell brought me as far as this border, but I've been unable to get any closer."
"Bastion's defenses are far too powerful," said Guerrand proudly. "A ki-rin was moments from slaying you as it was." His mercury-delineated eyes squinted suspiciously. "Where did you find the granite?"
"Come on, Rand," Lyim said evasively, "you know I'm a resourceful guy"
"I also know you're not one to go through all this trouble just to chat with an old friend," Guerrand said evenly.
Despite his annoyed tone, Guerrand's silvery face showed conflicting emotions. Lyim believed he also saw a measure of warmth.
"You know me too well, Rand, so I'll not mince words, said Lyim. I need a favor that only you can grant me.I’ve learned through painstaking research that in order to restore my hand I must recreate the portal to the Lost Citadel Belize constructed on Stonecliff. Bastion is the one place left where that's possible — Lyim paused for effect. 'Bring me into Bastion, Rand and we can work together to restore my hand."
“I can’t do that " Guerrand responded softly, but without hetistation. "I can’t let anyone into Bastion." Don’t answer so quickly." said Lyim. "Just think…
"I'm sorry, Lyim," said Guerrand, "but there's nothing to think about. I took an oath to prevent anyone from entering Bastion."
"I don't ask this lightly," growled Lyim. "Believe me when 1 say that I've literally been to the ends of Krynn trying to get my hand back."
"And I don't refuse you lightly," said Guerrand. "No one would like to help you more. But you of all people understand what it is to be a mage, to pledge your life to magic and magic alone. I strengthened that pledge when I took the position of high defender. To violate that vow, here at the final stronghold before the Lost Citadel, would betray all magic and all mages-everything that I stand for. I can't do it, even for you, Lyim."
Lyim regarded the profile in the gray-black wall with an uncontrollable sneer. "You were my last remaining hope, Rand."
"Have you petitioned the Council for entrance?"
"Those three help no one but themselves," snapped Lyim. "Your master promised to find a cure for my hand." He held up his mutated right limb; the snake sputtered and hissed above his head. "You can see the result of his promise at the end of my arm. Justarius knew there was only one cure for my hand. If he had been willing to let me recreate the p
ortal to the Lost Citadel, he would have suggested it himself."
"Perhaps they'll make an exception to their rule, considering your heroism at Stonecliff," Guerrand suggested. "I'd be willing to petition them on your behalf."
Lyim could see the pity in Guerrand's silvery face, could hear it in his tone. It angered him more than Guerrand's refusal to let him into the stronghold. "A supreme sacrifice, I'm sure, from the man whose life and family I saved."
Lyim exploded in helpless, caustic laughter. "It occurs to me that once again I play the fool in this friendship. I thought you were the one person who wouldn't let me down, if only out of a guilty sense of debt." Lyim's hysterical laughter hiccuped to an angry sob. "Seems your ambition is greater than your guilt these days."
"This isn't about such transitory things," Guerrand said coldly. "My position has taught me that Bastion's purpose is far more important than one man's guilt- or another's hand. It's about the survival of magic, of life. I won't make a choice that puts that in jeopardy."
"Everything is a question of choice."
"Petition the Council," Guerrand urged more strongly.
But Lyim scarcely heard him. Once again, he realized that he was the only one he could rely on.
"I'll help you any other way I can, Lyim."
Lyim vaguely heard Guerrand's voice through the fog of his bitterness. "There is no other way," he responded, low and threatening.
"Then I'm truly sorry." Guerrand's rubbery profile disappeared from the surface of the mercury wall.
"Not as sorry as you will be." In a vessel-bursting fury, Lyim dispatched himself from the Ethereal Plane with a magical wave of his left arm. Guerrand DiThon might be safely back in the confines of his precious Bastion, but Lyim Rhistadt was far from through with him.
Chapter Six
Bram DiThon picked his way carefully between the potholes and ice patches on the road to Thonvil, wishing the soles of his boots were not four years thin. The usual freeze-and-thaw cycle was in full swing, dawn ice turning to afternoon mud. Sometimes Bram wondered if spring would ever truly come to Ergoth's moors. The dark-haired young nobleman drew his winter cloak, heavy as a sack of coins, closer as he headed for old Nahamkin's cottage for some promised seeds.
Bram had been hoping the eighteenth day of Misha- mont, his twenty-first birthday, would find him with new boots. He was not terribly surprised when they didn't appear. His mother Rietta was too busy struggling to maintain the image of the lady of the manor. His father-well, Cormac was someone Bram didn't like to think about. Besides, not receiving a present from his family was a small price to pay for the freedom of neglect.
In fact, Cormac's neglect of all of his responsibilities had given Bram's life purpose. It was his ambition-his obsession, even-to restore Castle Thonvil to the productivity and prosperity of his grandfather's time. Due to lack of coin, Bram's mother had been forced to abandon her aspiration for him to become a Knight of Solam- nia, so he had been free, at sixteen, to inconspicuously assume the day-to-day duties of a castle's steward.
Unsurprisingly, Cormac's overtaxed tenants had long ago fled. It had taken Bram almost five years of working alone from dawn to dusk to resuscitate Castle DiThon's demesne and get the family's personal lands producing food again. That had been no small feat, considering he hadn't horse or ox to plow with.
Bram had not yet had time to attend to the castle;tself, which looked run-down enough to be abandoned. Besides, crumbling stone walls just weren't as interesting to him as the perennials that would be popping up soon: Lady s mantle, foxglove. He'd already seen hope- rul lavender poking through the last crusts of snow. Bram supplied many of the villagers with dried herbs, Ьчт the winter had been a bad one for minor influenzas, and Se was running low on the more common medici- aa-s. Fortunately, the end of the season of sickness coin- ntini "T*h the beginning of the herb season.
Bran’s eyes were on the small village ahead when he caught movement in the grass to his right. Startled, he looked out then let out a slow sigh. A snake. He'd seen at least two handfuls of them alreadу in the gardens. Their exodus from the cold earth seemed to have came earlier this year. He watched the long, black pillar with the golden diamond pattern on its head moving swiftly through the still-brown roadside grasses. What’s your hurry?" Bram thought. The snake fell the stock-still briefly, then sprang on an unsuspecting mole and gobbled it down in one gulp. The nobleman's shiver had nothing to do with the cold.
Bram hastened toward the village, which boasted no gates or other symbols to mark its entrance. It was too small, too unassuming, too poor. No neighboring lord in his right mind would care to storm Thonvil now. These days the village was no more than an unimpressive collection of dilapidated houses and small shops grouped together out of apathy and convenience. Anyone of youth or ambition had run off to the capital city of Gwynned in the last five years, when the economy had turned sour alongside the lord's fortunes.
The exodus had included members of Cormac's own family. Most recent to leave was Bram's sister Honora, who had married beneath her station to the seneschal of a small estate in Coastlund. The family had neither seen nor heard from her since, which was no burden for Bram, who found he had just enough tolerance for haughtiness to deal with their mother.
The first to leave, of course, had been Uncle Rand. Bram frequently pondered the shadowy memory of the man. Cormac had forbidden anyone to even speak Guerrand's name in Castle DiThon for more than a half decade. Was he still alive? Not even Kirah knew, or at least his aunt wouldn't say.
The notion that the spindly little blonde was his aunt always made Bram laugh. She was two years younger than he. But then, the branches of his family tree were as tangled as the limbs of a hagberry bush and just as susceptible to wind damage. And what a wind had blown through the DiThon family seven years before, when Guerrand had defied Cormac and left to pursue the study of magic.
Bram came to the long, half-timbered building whose ground floor housed the baker's shop on the right half and the only remaining carpenter in Thonvil on the left side. A narrow flight of wooden steps hugged the area between the baker's front door and the right wall, and led to the room let by his Aunt Kirah.
She had been the second member of the DiThon family to leave for Gwynned. Bolted, in fact, when Rietta had tried to marry her off to a toothless old man thirty years her senior. To everyone's surprise, Kirah had slouched back into town but seven months later, a different person, and not the better for it. While it was true she had already changed from the carefree, outspoken scamp she'd been before Rand's leaving, this was different. Worse somehow. She was skittish and withdrawn, like a reclusive old woman, though barely possessed of nineteen years. Something awful must have happened to her, but she refused to talk about it.
Bram had no notion of how Kirah paid for the room she let from the baker, or why she'd returned to a village she'd always professed to hate. She had explained to him once that it was not the village but the castle she hated. Rietta would never have welcomed her back at the castle anyway.
Nevertheless, Bram stopped by to see her whenever he came to the village. He took the stairs two at a time and knocked on his aunt's door. When no answer came, he pushed the door back gingerly, calling, "Kirah?"' It’s me. Bram.'
He stepped full into the spartan room and saw that rope bed was made feather tick fluffed into place, but he was alone. Some objects on the wooden table under the small street-side window caught his eye. A quill and ink pot were next to a note with his name neatly lettered on the front. He picked up the parchment and caught his bottom lip between his teeth; Behind the note was a pair of boots quite obviously too big for he diminutive aunt.
Bram,
The boots, of course, are for you. Don't insult my resourcefulness by protesting the expense. Besides, we can't have the local lord's son walking about like a beggar, can we? What will people say? But then, you know how concerned I've always been about that sort of thing…
Sorry to have missed you, bu
t I felt the need for a walk and the peace it provides. Have a most merry day, dear nephew.
— K-
Bram shook his head, touched and sad at the same time at the thought of her solitary walk. The village rumor mill had it that Kirah went daily, no matter the weather, to a cove along the coast to wait for a lover who would never return. Frankly, Bram suspected his aunt had never had a lover, could not see when or where she'd had the opportunity, except, perhaps, during the time she'd spent in Gwynned. So what if she sat looking out to sea, seeking solitude?
Bram slipped on the new boots, and his eyes sank shut languorously. The fit was perfect, the soles double- thick. He no longer dreaded treading on the half-frozen dirt road.
Bram spied the quill. Taking it up, he dipped it in the ink pot and scratched a brief, Thank you, — В- at the bottom of Kirah's own note. He rolled his old, soft boots into a floppy log, tucking them under his arm as he pulled Kirah's door shut behind him. Bram checked the position of the sun in the grayish sky. Nahamkin would be wondering where he was.
A freckle-faced young woman was leaving the bakery with a coarse loaf of bread stuffed in her flour-sack apron when Bram bounded back down the stairs. Blushing, she bobbed the courtesy due the lord's son and hastened down the street, past Roxtin the carpenter's shop. Bram found himself reflecting that, although he was very friendly, he had few friends. Perhaps it wasn't possible for the villagers to be more than distantly polite with anyone named DiThon, he decided.
Bram had one true friend, a funny old man, Nahamkin. A farmer all his life, the man rose before the sun and set before it as well. Too old to make a living at farming anymore, Nahamkin was a cotter now, a tenant of a village cottage that held just enough land for him to sustain himself on the small plantings. His sons struggled on with the larger potato, barley malt, and maize fields that surrounded the village as part of the DiThon estate. Nahamkin puttered with the flowers and vegetables that had not been profitable enough for him to bother with as a farmer.
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