by J. S. Morin
Jinzan could say little enough in open Council, but as he heard bits here and there, they clicked into place like the tumblers in a lock. It was most certainly Kyrus Hinterdale who had transferred into Zorren. Denrik’s conversations with Tanner and Stalyart over the past few days had given him enough background to know that the airship captain was Juliana Archon, the same slip of a sorceress that Brannis Solaran had thrown himself atop to save in the mines of Raynesdark. That Faolen was telling the truth about his connections through Tellurak was obvious; between him and Kyrus, they had devised the escape plan, sending the airship once he was able to free himself from his cell. When Juliana Archon was pulled from her ship, she must have turned to Brannis in Tellurak—her counterpart had to be with him. Kyrus came almost immediately thereafter, by Narsicann’s timeline.
Much of the information was merely interesting. He had no way to get to either Brannis or Soria Coinblade, but felt better for understanding how he had been bested. It was simpler than his own escape from Rellis Island had been, but it was better than having a mystery on his hands. The best news of all, though, was that Kyrus had arranged for Tanner to be his ambassador. In Kyrus’s hands, Anzik might become a commodity, but he could make a deal. Had it been Rashan Solaran, he knew it would merely be a matter of how much torment the demon would inflict on him before realizing that the boy’s peril could not get him to betray Megrenn.
“Jinzan?” Kaynnyn asked.
Jinzan blinked a few times, realizing that he had been staring out the window as he pondered. “My apologies. My mind turns over the possibilities.” It sounded like a poor excuse to his own ears, but he had his supporters.
“Just remember that sort of concentration when you fight Rashan Solaran,” Narsicann said. “You are the only one who can stop him. I am sorry your son was taken, but better that you have the Staff of Gehlen. With that, there is hope that anything can be salvaged from this.”
“Yes.”
“Jinzan,” Kaynnyn said to him, “we have troops ready to take Illard’s Glen. It is a small force, and could well use a practiced hand at sacking the city.” The old general smiled at him, her teeth as white as her close-cropped hair. Jinzan was supposed to be above such trivial feelings, but he felt his spirits buoyed by her support. She had inspired Megrenn armies in the Freedom War, and he finally felt what it was like to be the one needing morale. He found himself nodding without realizing he was doing so.
“Very well,” he said. “I shall go there and lend what aid they need. The defenses were a shambles last I saw them; it should not take overmuch force to see the city toppled again. I will return afterward with no delay. We have seen that Zorren is vulnerable. I should be here to defend it as much as is feasible.”
“I will see about contacting the Ghelkans for more of the speaking helms. A dedicated pair of them could leave you with one while its mate remains here with the Council,” Narsicann suggested. The others voiced their consent, and by common accord, they considered the meeting adjourned. Councilor Feron Dar-Jak stayed behind to conduct another meeting with the Interior Ministry as the rest made their way to the exit.
As the two men passed through the doorway side by side, Varduk took Jinzan aside briefly.
“We will get Anzik back. Do not think that with all else that goes on, that he has been overlooked. There are just … so many things that demand attention. Anzik … well, he never did demand much attention, did he?”
* * * * * * * *
Jinzan’s head was filled with more maps than he ever would have believed possible when he was a boy. He knew the reefs of every major port in Tellurak, tradeways on land and sea. He knew the terrain of Koriah and its nations: the goblin and ogre homelands, Megrenn, Ghelk, and Kadrin. He had committed maps of Safschan, Narrack, Gar-Danel, Painu, and what little was known of Elok to memory. Despite few maps ever being made of the place, Jinzan even suspected he knew the layout of the secretive kingdom of Azzat, given that it was Acardia in Tellurak.
All his knowledge was put to the test when rivers and mountains faded from view, and he saw nothing but aether as he transferred himself to the large cluster of humanoid Sources gathered outside Illard’s Glen.
The startled troops nearly attacked him before he identified himself and took command. He allowed the major in charge of the smallish force of seven hundred to retain his functional command over his men’s deployment, but Jinzan was the one who would order the attack. He had plans to make before he did so.
Surveying the city from a hill not so far from where he had camped with G’thk’s goblins a season or so earlier, he found it to be rather better repaired than he expected. The walls looked good as new; the only sign of work having been done was the different color of the new stonework. On a hunch, Jinzan looked at the wall in the aether. He had seen it briefly as he arrived from his transference spell, but he had been concentrating on finding his troops, not on the city. The wall shone with aether. How many sorcerers does Kadrin have that they can rebuild that whole wall, complete with wards, in so short a time?
The assault force had not brought any cannons. They had traveled lightly, thinking to find the city still crippled from the goblin attack Jinzan had taken part in. Instead they found a city more formidable, perhaps, than the one that Jinzan and his goblin allies had sacked last autumn.
“No matter the wall. It slows us; it will not stop us,” Jinzan called out for all his troops to hear. Whatever reservations he might have about what the improved fortifications boded, he could afford nothing but utter confidence in front of the common soldiers.
“Haru bedaessi leoki kwatuan gelora.” With a supreme effort of aether, Jinzan tore loose a chunk of rock from the hillside the size of a small inn. His Source burned with the effort, but he hurled the boulder. The Megrenn swordsmen who watched in awe as the rock had slowly lifted airborne now cheered wildly as it smashed into the wall of Illard’s Glen.
In the charge that followed, Jinzan hung back, neither out of reluctance nor fear, but simple age. The men all about him were young and fit. Jinzan conserved his breath for spellcasting, keeping up a swift walk, and not worrying about pacing his men.
Archers from the walls fired down at them. It seemed that their numbers were not great, but Kadrin had re-garrisoned the city at least. Shaken by the knowledge that incredible magic was at work—and not on their side in this battle—the defenders seemed demoralized. There were no catapults raining gravel, horseshoes, or the like down on them, nor were their spells being cast back at them from the city.
As the Megrenn swordsmen neared the breach in the wall, Kadrin spearmen rushed to fill the gap. There were also a few … creatures.
Jinzan had not seen their like before. Human in general shape, but thicker and stockier, perhaps twice as wide at the shoulder. He saw no armor on the creatures unless it covered them so completely as to resemble greyish-brown skin. Unlike their human counterparts, these few standing amid their defensive lines carried hammers. The stone folk—the daruu. Kadrin must have bargained with them to have rebuilt their walls so fast. These may just be stoneworkers, not warriors.
Jinzan’s cautious optimism about the occupation of the stone folk mixed in with Illard’s Glen’s defenders was short lived. As soon as the two forces engaged, he saw that these were not simple laborers. While the Megrenn swordsmen batted aside spear-tips to press their Kadrin foes, the hammer-wielding daruu batted whole soldiers aside. Jinzan knew he needed to lend his aid at the wall. He quickened his pace, and ran through in his mind the spells he knew that he could use with his own men in close combat with his targets.
“Fetru oglo daxgak sevdu wenlu,” Jinzan mumbled, having decided on one that he could aim finely enough for his purposes. Lightning forked from the Staff of Gehlen as Jinzan managed to use it to conduct much of the needed aether, sparing his Source the full force of channeling that much power.
The first daruu hit by the bolt was felled instantly, smoke rising from his flesh. As the lightning continued onward,
raking across the line of defenders, human and daruu alike, it became clear that the stone folk lived up to the stories of their hardiness. Though every human struck by Jinzan’s spell was slain, only the first of the daruu, hit by the very strongest of the blast, was fatally wounded. The others looked the worse for it but fought on. Fortunately the advantage of numbers gained by the loss of the Kadrin spearmen allowed Jinzan’s swordmen to overwhelm the remaining daruu.
The defense was paltry beyond what had hastened to the stricken wall’s defenses. Reinforcements from other parts of the city continued to arrive, but in no numbers to hope to drive back the Megrenn force.
The ground beneath Jinzan’s feet began to rumble. He could sense the aether without having to switch his vision over to see it. His head snapped to one side, then the other, searching for any sign of Kadrin sorcerers. Instead, huddled behind a chunk of the boulder he had hurled to sunder the city wall, was another of the daruu. This one was unarmed, and was on his hands and knees, head bowed. Jinzan did not have to be able to hear the spell-words to know that it was likely the aethersmith who had carved the wall’s new wards.
Before he had a chance to applaud himself for the deduction, Jinzan found that claws of rock were rising from the earth all about him. Jinzan rushed to draw aether to counter the threat as the tips of the claws grew taller than his head. They reached up and over him, began curling around and down to interlock, and crush the life from him with a stony embrace. Jinzan had not the time to form a proper spell; he kept his mind as calm as he could, and sent a blast of aether all about himself.
Rock rained down across the vicinity of the breached wall as the stone claws exploded. Kadrin and Megrenn alike dodged the debris or were injured by it—the rock did not care. The one who commanded the rock looked up from his spell, pale eyes glaring with a hatred that transcended language. Jinzan saw that a yellowish gem was embedded in the daruu's forehead. It had to mean something, but Jinzan knew next to nothing of the stone folk’s culture. With neither word nor gesture, the daruu aethersmith sank into the ground as if it were quicksand.
I cannot let him escape me. The risk of suffering ambush attacks from beneath the ground worried Jinzan, for he knew not the limits of the stoneman’s power. To head off any such worries, he repeated the spell from the hilltop, tearing loose a small section of Illard’s Glen from the rest. Presumably, Jinzan thought, it held the stoneman as well.
Jinzan raised the chunk of earth as high as he might have been able to throw a small rock, then brought it back down … hard. He drove the section of ground into … more ground, as hard as he could. He waited a few moments, ignoring the rout that was going on all about him as he focused on making certain that his foe was no longer a threat. When those moments passed without incident, he sifted through the shattered rock until he found the daruu's body, telekinetically lifting it free, and laying it out on the street.
He looked from the daruu to the Staff of Gehlen in his hands. Whomever he had just killed was likely well respected among the stone folk. Though he knew little of their ways, their reverence of stonework was their hallmark. Unless the stone folk were fools, they would know that Megrenn had been responsible for the death of their workers—and their aethersmith.
Allies … Kadrin has never before taken allies. It is likely that these were just hirelings, paid blood-price for a quick repair of the city wall. Now, though … whether Kadrin gained an ally, we have likely made an enemy today.
Jinzan returned leadership of the invasion force to its former commander. Drawing once more on the vast power of the staff, he transferred himself back to Zorren.
* * * * * * * *
Jinzan’s journey back was much easier. He had returned home via that same spell several times, and had begun to learn the look of Zorren in the aether. His sphere popped back into existence in a little-used courtyard off to the seaward side of the Council building. The double-doors leading inside were left open, unguarded. Jinzan clutched the Staff of Gehlen tightly in his hands, put on his guard by the unusual desertion of even so insignificant a post as a back garden.
Jinzan peeked through the open door before proceeding inside. He saw nothing unusual, except that he saw very little at all. There ought to have been people about. The hour was not yet so late, and there was no event in the city that would draw the functionaries from their posts—or the guards for that matter.
Jinzan looked about and found nothing. Looking into the aether, he saw folk gathered outside the front entrance of the building but nothing in sight within. He wandered the foyer, looking for signs of what might have driven everyone out of doors. He was nearly ready to go out, and ask among the crowd, when he noticed the first body.
Crumpled on the first landing of the stairway up to the first mezzanine level, one of the guards had been torn in half. Jinzan had just come from a sight far more horrific. Bodies were strewn about Illard’s Glen like a child’s dolls after a tantrum. The single dead guard knotted Jinzan’s stomach.
I am the guardian of Megrenn, Jinzan thought as he approached the stairs, placing first one foot then another upon them as he crept upward. So long as I wield this staff, whatever may threaten Zorren will ultimately fall to me. I cannot go out and show them that I am as fearful as they are.
As he ascended the levels of the headquarters of Megrenn’s High Council, Jinzan found more bodies. He began to imagine that a stripe-cat had gone berserk, so savage was the carnage. Men were not merely killed but lay in pieces, scattered down stairways and corridors. As he got higher, he began to hear something as well. As first, he thought he imagined it, but as he advanced, it became clear that it was singing. When he got to the landing halfway up to the top level where the Council chamber was, he paused to listen to a somewhat off-key tenor sing an old Megrenn folk song:
“Rains fall, marking the springtime,
Flowers bloom, colors so bright,
Fireflies herald the nighttime,
Dance in the meadows tonight.”
Jinzan knew the words, listening to a few more familiar verses before gathering his nerve to finish his ascent. The stairs seemed farther apart than Jinzan remembered them, his feet heavier; he forced them to move.
The doors to the Council chamber were a shambles. One lay near the top of the landing, forcing Jinzan to step over it. The other hung askew, dangling by a single, battered hinge. The floor was slick with blood, and littered with the bodies of men. Jinzan recognized a few as members of the Interior Ministry.
Jinzan’s breath caught in his throat as he saw into the Council chambers. It was a slaughterhouse, appearing as if everyone who had been meeting with Councilor Feron and the Interior Ministry had been butchered, along with a large contingent from the city guard and a number of regular infantry. Jinzan could only imagine the scene that had befallen in his absence.
As for Feron Dar-Jak, the interior minister was impaled through the chest, staked to the Council table by a wickedly serrated sword, which had cracked the heavy stone table. Seated right next to the dead Councilor, slouched across the arms of Jinzan’s own chair at the Council table, and indolently popping grapes into his mouth from the Council’s refreshments, was Rashan Solaran.
“About time you got here. I only know a few Megrenn songs. I was going to have to start breaking in to Acardian sea chanties if you had dallied much longer on those stairs,” Rashan called out casually, choosing to speak in Kadrin now that he was done singing.
“You think yourself clever, demon?” Jinzan snapped, anger helping him find a voice that had thickened, and clogged his throat just a moment before.
“Not as clever as I thought myself before your cannons sank my airship when I arrived. I would not have expected them to aim so well at an airborne target,” Rashan replied.
“We learn quickly. One airship over the city was enough for us. Two was brash and foolish, and now you will pay for that.”
“Oh, there was another one here?” Rashan mused aloud. “Hmm, I suppose I must know which o
ne that was. Hah! I shall certainly hear of it when I return without mine, then.”
The demon seemed amused and completely at ease. Jinzan could barely convince his reluctant legs to move, but he forced himself to advance. Jinzan knew well the lessons of history. His forebears had parleyed with Rashan Solaran to their own destruction. He was not about to concede the initiative.
“Kanethio mandraxae.” Jinzan thrust the Staff of Gehlen in Rashan’s direction, aiming a blast of aether his way. The blast tore through the corpse of Councilor Feron and slammed into a shielding spell that protected the demon.
“Not a talker, I see,” replied the nonplussed demon. Twisting about in the chair, Rashan Solaran got his feet beneath him, and hopped up onto the Council table, yanking Heavens Cry free of the table, further cracking it.
“Eket jimagu denpek wanapi.” Jinzan called forth bolts of flame, but again his attack struck an impenetrable defense.
Rashan examined his sword, giving it a flick of the wrist to clean it of Feron’s blood. He began stalking toward Jinzan with a hungry look in his eyes.
“Once I have that staff away from you, this little war will be at an end,” Rashan promised.
Jinzan heard the lie, though, clear as if Rashan had said it aloud. It would merely turn into a one-sided slaughter once there was no one left to oppose the demon.
