The Messenger it-1

by Douglas Niles

Coraltop went forward to the fish locker and came back with a long fillet. “There are five more left,” he reported.

  That was ration enough for barely another week, yet Kerrick was strangely unconcerned. Perhaps he was still dazed, giddy with the aftereffects of the ring. Perhaps they would find a school of fish and spend a day casting the net. Maybe something else would happen in this trackless ocean.

  He froze, squinting across the stormy wavetops, looking south, straining to make out something on the horizon.

  “What is it?” the kender asked, noting the intensity of his gaze. Coraltop scrambled onto the cabin and looked forward. “Say, I see it too. Is that what I think it is?”

  Kerrick could only nod, awed and thrilled and frightened at the same time. There was supposed to be no land here, nothing but dire weather and trackless ocean. Yet there was a definitely solid shape in the distance, a rugged horizon above the sea, outlined in snow and rock. Suddenly Kerrick felt a sense of destiny, as if Zivilyn sat upon his shoulder and, in his wisdom, guided tiller and sail. Still holding his south by southwest course, he stared in the distance and watched as the land mass grew in size.

  “Yes,” he said, finally answering the kender’s question. “That’s what you think it is-a mountain. Many mountains.”

  11

  Snow Sea and Prophesy

  The King’s Hall of Winterheim was a great chamber at the very summit of the city’s lofty mountain. Huge panels of enchanted ice gleamed high upon the arching walls and ceiling. During the summer these admitted the light of the sun, while in wintertime they emanated a light of their own, a magical spell cast upon them many generations before, at a time when the ogres boasted powerful mages and sorcerers among their ranks. Grimwar Bane had frequently wondered how long that enchantment was likely to last, for if it faded he knew that they would never find similar power among the ogres of contemporary Winterheim.

  He was wondering about that right now, in fact, as he and Princess Stariz joined the king and queen and several other nobles, for a late breakfast in the vast chamber hall. Of course, it was still dark as they came along the outer balcony leading toward the royal hall. The span of daylight was by now limited to a few hours around noon. Beneath them, Grimwar could sense the contained power of the Snow Sea, the great drifts and swells heaving restlessly. Through the enchanted panels the rim of the Ice Wall was barely visible, a band of blue-white extending until it vanished in the distance The smells of fish and bread surrounded them as they entered and took their seats at the long table. The king and queen and the other lords were already there, but the prince knew he and his wife’s tardiness would be excused. Everyone knew that Stariz went through an elaborate prayer ritual upon awakening, and none wanted to offer any offense to Gonnas the Strong.

  “We are going to inspect the mines later today,” announced King Grimtruth, a buttery fillet of salmon dangling from his lower lip. He slurped loudly, and the strip of fish, a good eight inches long, vanished into the royal maw. The king fixed a stern eye upon his son. “You must conclude your studies in the morning.”

  Grimtruth’s attention shifted to Baldruk Dinmaker, the only non-ogre at the table. The dwarf was seated on a tall stool, though he was still overshadowed by Princess Stariz, on one side, and the obese Lord Quendip on the other. “How fares the prince’s learning?” the king asked Baldruk. “Do you remember that he must recite the royal lineage at the Neuwinter Rites? I will not tolerate a disaster such as occurred four years ago!”

  Grimwar wanted to declare that yes, the dwarf certainly remembered that fact, as he had been drumming names and dates relentlessly into the prince’s head since their homecoming several weeks earlier. Instead the younger ogre merely turned his attention to his own pile of fillets and let the royal adviser answer for himself.

  “In truth, I believe he will be ready, Sire, but the task is not an easy one, for the prince’s mind has a way of wandering.” The dwarf, his beard bristling, glared at Grimwar.

  “You know how important that recitation is!” joined in Stariz, in the tone that never failed to creep up the prince’s spine. “You must show honor to our ancestors, to the kingdom-to the Willful One himself!”

  “Do not concern yourself, I will master the names!” Grimwar retorted, his growl rising nearly to the level of a roar. It was sufficiently forceful that most other ogres would have recoiled, but not his priestess-wife. She merely stared at him, as if evaluating the truth of his answer. Finally she snorted, returning to her breakfast.

  “I’m sure you will do very well,” Queen Thraid said encouragingly.

  The king harrumphed skeptically, but before the conversation could continue Lord Quendip ordered the slaves to bring another platter of fillets. “Perhaps you should bring some for the others, too,” he noted without irony, smacking his thick lips.

  For a time they ate in silence. Grimwar brooded upon the tedious tasks of the coming day while the others, apparently, were lost in appreciation of the sweet fish harvested in such plenitude this season. Once Thraid flashed the prince a sweet look, and he brightened a little, but then he saw Baldruk Dinmaker, his pale, cold eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Grimwar quickly returned his attention to his plate.

  “The days grow very short,” the king announced, finally pushing himself back from the great table. “But I see the dawn has broken. Come with me, and behold the majesty of the Snow Sea.”

  The others stopped eating, though Quendip slid a few oily fillets into the pouch of his leather vest, as the party rose. With the king leading and the prince following closely, they headed for the golden doors, which were whisked open by slaves. Immediately the icy wind swept in, as the ogres and the dwarf marched outside.

  From the lip of the massive precipice, standing in a parapet, they saw immediately that the Snow Sea had risen to a high, probably unprecedented level. Vapors rose and swirled from a surface of drifts, huge swells that shifted and tossed hypnotically. In the graying light the vast swath of snow roiled angrily. Here and there the mists spun into whirlwinds, and against the barrier of the Ice Wall, a quarter mile below, the snow smashed and crested like powerful, icy breakers against a rugged coast.

  Grimwar felt awe at the spectacle, and imagined the day when his father would wield the Axe of Gonnas and part the Ice Wall at the Neuwinter Rites. The great basin of snow was many thousands of feet deep. Over the sunlit months the snows swept steadily from the polar distance, massing and heaving and swelling behind the dam of the Ice Wall, waiting for the release provided each year by the ogre king’s rite. Legend claimed that should the ritual go awry, the pressure would increase until Winterheim, Black Ice Bay, and everything around was swept away by epic explosion and avalanche. It was the duty of the Suderhold King, most recently those monarchs of the Bane Dynasty, to ensure that never happened.

  This ritual was always followed by the sacrifice of a slave, the pouring of blood onto the glacial face. The Axe of Gonnas struck the wall and released the storm that drove the ogres back into their citadel, wrapping a blanket of ice and darkness over all Icereach.

  “We will leave for the mines at noon, to use such daylight as we can,” King Grimtruth announced as he abruptly took his leave. These words were largely for his son. “Be sure you are ready on time.”

  Before the prince could reply, two slaves had slammed the great golden doors behind the departing king.

  “The standard of the Death Hawk flew over all Ansalon at the height of the Foundation Age,” Grimwar recited, stalking around the tutorial chamber as he tried to remember the elusive facts of his history lesson.

  “What were the major capitals?” snapped the dwarf, who was seated in a soft chair, leaning back with his eyes closed. Snik was in his hand, and Baldruk absentmindedly cleaned his fingernails with the lethal magical dagger.

  “There was Kern in the east … Narakid to the north.…” The prince paused, forcing his mind to work. “Far west was Dalitgar, with Parlathin in the northwest.”

  “The south!
You can’t forget the south!”

  “I was just getting to that,” snorted Grimwar, who had, in fact, forgotten all about the south. “That was Bloden Khalkist, heart of the empire and birthplace of the Death Hawk line.”

  “How came the ogres to Icereach?” pressed the dwarf.

  “It was King Barkon who set sail after the Heresy of Igraine,” Grimwar continued, once more feeling on firm ground. “He acted upon a prophecy given to him by Gonnas himself, who saw Igraine’s folly.”

  “What was that folly?”

  “He showed kindness to humans, even releasing some of his slaves. Those humans would breed in freedom, and Barkon saw that their spawn would be the ruin of our race.”

  “Go on.”

  “King Barkon’s slaves built him a hundred galleys, and he loaded his wives, and his army, and many slaves and craftsmen, wizards and priests, and set sail from the southern shore of Ansalon. Following the guidance of the Willful One, he came to these shores, to the land called Icereach.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Fifty-five centuries,” the prince said with certainty. “King Barkon departed Ansalon twenty-eight centuries before the elves founded their ancient kingdom.”

  “What is that elven kingdom called?”

  Gonnas curse him-why did the dwarf always have to ask the questions that Grimwar wasn’t prepared to answer? He had been studying ogre history, not the lore of the accursed elves! “I can name my own ancestors,” he growled, “going back five thousand years!”

  “That is not the question-name the realm of the elves!”

  “Silver … silver … east … silver something,” he started lamely, then roared. “I don’t know that one!”

  “Well, you should know it!” snapped the dwarf, sitting up and confronting the prince with those pale eyes opened wide, a pale and watery stare. “Your father, the king, wants you to know it! It’s ‘Silvanesti’!” he added contemptuously.

  “I was going to say that,” growled the prince, who felt that he should get credit for at least being close. “Why in the name of all the gods should I be concerned with a place that lies across the sea, a place no ogre of my kingdom has seen for thousands of years?”

  He knew he had made a mistake. This kind of challenge Baldruk Dinmaker couldn’t help but answer. Though Grimwar had heard it all before, he slumped into a chair, resigned to the lecture he knew was coming.

  “You must always be vigilant against the elves,” began the dwarf, “because it is the elves who have been the bane of ogrekind throughout the rest of the world. Those great capitals you mentioned, most of them are gone now, sacked by elven armies and inhabited by human rabble and worse.”

  “Yes. I remember your lessons. Neraka is a land of men, and the great ogre port of Parlathin has become the place humans call Palanthas. Daltigar, too, is now in human hands, while Bloten and Kern are small, backward kingdoms, mere shadows of the empire that had once united all the world. But those places that have fallen are now claimed by humans, not elves, so why do you insist that elves are still our greatest enemy?”

  “Because humans are like cold clay: They can be shaped by artisans of many kinds. Here in Icereach we are shaping them to serve us. Can you imagine what Winterheim would be like, without your human slaves to do all the work?”

  In truth, Grimwar couldn’t imagine that. Everything from farming to smithing to mining and building was done by the men and women enslaved within the ogre kingdom. If those humans were gone, the kingdom-or at least the life that Grimwar had been born to know-would cease to exist.

  “That simply means that we have vanquished the humans here-we have been strong enough to prevail.”

  “Because the humans of Icereach are few, and they are barbarians. They know nothing of the elven civilizations that have spread to other corners of the world. You must understand this: In the First Dragon War, the army that broke the ogre power on the central plains consisted of ninety-nine humans for every one elf. Yet it was an elven army, an elven king-Silvanos himself-who won that victory, in a battle that sealed the fate of the ogre realms on Ansalon.”

  “But not here.” Grimwar was anxious to prove that he had been paying attention.

  “No, because there are no elves here!”

  “I know that!” Grimwar shuddered inwardly, remembering the prophecy of his wife, the message from Gonnas the Strong. “Did we not search every village, interrogate every prisoner, on the summer’s campaign? The humans know nothing of elves, and as you said yourself, men are fit only to be our slaves.”

  “That is not what I said. You would do well to pay closer attention,” the dwarf said in disgust. He glanced at the window. The short period of full daylight had arrived, and Baldruk shrugged. “That is all we have time for, today-we don’t want to keep your father waiting.”

  “These are fine bears,” Grimtruth Bane said proudly. “The best I have bred.”

  The prince, riding beside his father in the large, open cart, could only agree. Four massive ice bears lumbered in harness, pulling the royal sled along the vast curve of Fenriz Glacier. The bears’ motley white pelts matched the dirty ice of the path, and the animals lumbered along at an easy trot. Golden muzzles caged each fierce maw, but their long claws were bare, necessary to hold the smooth, hard path.

  Baldruk Dinmaker and Queen Thraid were seated facing the two bull ogres. Above their bench was the driver, a loyal ogre of advanced age known as Kod Bearmaster. The iron skids grated over the snow as the big bears loped along with comfortable speed.

  The sun was a pale orb, low even at noon, and soon it would vanish behind the shoulder of the great mountain. All around loomed the huge peaks of the Icereach Range, the loftiest mountains in the world-at least, according to the teachings of Baldruk Dinmaker, who had traveled far and wide. Those summits ran along both sides of the glacier, jagged teeth extending toward the far frozen south.

  The glacier was a river of ice that made a splendid highway leading from the fortress mountain toward the ridges where the kingdom’s richest gold deposits had long been mined. The broad surface extended northward for nearly a hundred miles, until it spilled into the gray waters of the Courrain Ocean. As they entered the shadow of Winterheim, Grimwar felt the chill penetrate his clothes and his flesh, seeping into his very bones, but he huddled even deeper under his bearskin and knew better than to make any complaint.

  “We will now look at the mines in the valley,” the king said, addressing the driver.

  Kod Bearmaster held sturdy reins and a whip but coaxed the bears along with a series of barking commands. Now he guided them onto a steep sheet of ice that spilled down the valley between two great summits to merge onto the main glacier. All four of the bruins strained in the harness, taloned paws gripping the smooth surface firmly as they hauled their royal cargo.

  In a surprisingly short time they had reached the pass between those summits, the best vantage in all Icereach for seeing into the world beyond. In places they could glimpse the surface of the Snow Sea, saw the dark waves of blizzard heaving and tossing. Again Grimwar involuntarily shivered to glimpse that power, the unrestrained might, waiting for the release that could only be provided by the king of Suderhold.

  “Where did you get such an unusual pelt?” asked Queen Thraid, who was riding with Baldruk Dinmaker on the front seat.

  “Yes, who ever heard of a black bear?” wondered the king.

  “I found it in a human’s hut, in the last village we sacked,” the prince explained. “All during the summer we had heard of this particular talisman. It was supposed to be the symbol of the high chief of the Arktos.” Grimwar chuckled grimly. “He’s dead now, and I have his sacred cloak.”

  “It is good you killed him,” the king said. “I do not like to have these humans thinking of themselves as chieftains. Far better when they only have a mind for slavery.” The monarch beamed, baring his impressive tusks, as the bear cart glided around a bend in the glacier. “Look. See what they can accomplish as
slaves.”

  The prince saw the long, scarred face of mountainside, pocked by the holes of hundreds of tunnel mouths, great heaps of yellow-brown tailings strewn in fans at the foot of the vast cliff. The workers were using the few hours of daylight to make last, frantic progress before the Sturmfrost marked the end of the mining season.

  The Highlund Valley was a great bowl in the mountains. Lofty, snowcapped peaks rose above the rim, but the heat of the miners’ activity had melted any trace of snow within the vale itself. A dozen low, sooty smelters were at work, black smoke belching from the chimneys, huge piles of coal rising like small mountains beside each of the buildings.

  The mines were linked by a grid of ledges and catwalks, some of the scaffoldings rising hundreds of feet in the air to provide access to the higher tunnels. The stink of smoke and bitter fumes was thick and a dark haze obscured the view. Hammers and picks clattered in a regular cadence, and as the bears slowed their pace and the cart skidded to a stop Grimwar could hear men shouting, ogre overseers cursing, and mining carts rumbling along the numbers of tracks that linked mines, holding piles, and smelters.

  The king’s driver steered them to a stop before a sturdy building of gray granite sculpted into a miniature fortress. Two ogres stood guard at the massive iron door, but they quickly pulled the great portal open as the king, queen, prince and dwarf climbed down from the cart.

  “Welcome, Sire,” said one, making a low bow. “The goldmaster has set out the ingots for your inspection.”

  “And transport is arranged?”

  “Yes, Sire. They will be carted to the royal treasury in three days, when we close up the mines and retire to Winterheim for the season.”

  “Very well,” declared Grimtruth, who beamed in fine humor as he swaggered through the entry and into the chilly depths of the great vault. With a clap of his hands-three quick slaps, a pause, and then a fourth-he brought the magical lights into being. Like those in the upper face of Winterheim’s King’s Hall, these panels now shone like windows filtering full sunlight.