World Gate: A Kethem Novel

by Dave Dickie

  Daesal felt the air around her writhing with foreign magicks. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hantlin protectively bend over the still-prone elf. “Stegar!” Daesal yelled over Gyeong’s roars, “The amulet – you see it’s alight! We have to get it off of him - whatever magic it has, it’s building up and Gyeong is tied to it!” Stegar looked as Daesal, looked at the enraptured Gyeong, and didn’t hesitate. He threw himself onto the huge Stangri’s torso, trying to wrap his arms around Gyeong’s tree trunk arms. To Daesal’s surprise, Nhi Nyjha also joined by the fray by throwing himself feet first into the back of Gyeong’s knees. Gyeong toppled forward into the deeper water with another roar, his arms flailing against Stegar’s attempts to hold him. Gyeong and Stegar thrashed in sprays and waves of water, bellowing and shouting as Nhi Nyjha waded in. Seeing no other way to calm the Stangri if the others could not subdue him, Daesal readied herself to throw binding magic at Gyeong when she got a clear shot.

  At that moment, Grimalkin leapt from the dry floor onto Gyeong’s back, suddenly exposed in his rolling fight with Stegar. In a fluid motion, Grimalkin yanked Gyeong’s head up by the hair with one hand and tore the amulet over the enraged Stangri’s head with the other. The moment the amulet was off, Gyeong stopped moving. The sputtering Stegar loosed his grip on the Stangri and Grimalkin slipped off Gyeong to stand in the knee-deep water next to him. Nhi Nyjha nimbly leapt back to dry land.

  “Wha-, what was that?” Gyeong mumbled, confused, his eyes roving around until they saw the amulet dangling from Grimalkin’s hand. Gyeong pulled himself from the water and away from the amulet. “That,” he pointed to the now-darkened amulet, “it is possessed of fell magic!”

  “What did you see?” asked Daesal.

  “Words of the ancients,” Gyeong replied, “words I could not read in letters I did not recognize, and… it gave me strange feelings, of power beyond that of normal men. It felt like madness.”

  Daesal looked thoughtfully at the amulet. “Strange letters. Troll letters? The trolls today have no written language, but in my studies I found references to High Troll, the language of the great trolls, before they vanished. Perhaps there was a written version of it that the great trolls chose not to share.”

  “Perhaps,” Stegar said cautiously. Grimalkin was silent; he still held the amulet, his nimble fingers running over its fine engravings and center gem.

  “Perhaps?” Nhi Nyjha responded, some strong emotion running through his words. “The only way to know is to put it on again.”

  Stegar bristled at the Ibisi’s suggestion. “I don’t think –“

  “Wait,” Daesal interjected, “wait. Before we do anything else, you must know of the effect this place is hav-“

  “Wait, nothing,” Nhi Nyjha held up a hand, his tone now different, sharp. “Did you hear that?”

  The others looked confused but Daesal had, indeed, heard it. And felt it. Slight tremors in the ground accompanied by a rushing sound, the tremors enough to start the water flooding half the room shimmering with small waves.

  The water in a spot near the far wall was more than shimmering; it was frothing, writhing as if something large was just below the surface. Stegar, recalling the half-seen monster in the cave lake, brought his buckler to the fore and extended his sword. “Back!” he cried, moving between the disturbed water and the rest of the group. “Back!” he yelled again as the water’s churn became more frantic. The others had indeed take a few steps back, but then Gyeong raised his sword and laughed and started to step forward. Without warning, a huge jet of water suddenly exploded out of the churn, hitting Stegar square on his buckler with such force he flew backwards through the air, hitting the chair with tremendous force. Blood flew from his head and his side and he went spinning into the shallow water. When he landed, face down in the water, he did not rise. Grim rushed to his side and pulled his head up enough to allow him to breath, but he could not lift Stegar’s body and the armor encasing it.

  Gyeong rushed forward with a cry, swinging his sword into the solid stream of water, cutting at it with no obvious effect. “It’s not alive!” yelled Grim, ‘It’s just water! Come help me with Stegar!”

  And then Daesal realized it was exactly that, water under pressure flowing into the room, and the water level was rising. “The magic we drained by bringing up the map… it must have been used for things other than just lighting,” said Daesal. “Something that held back the water. It must have been slowly failing, letting part of the room flood. Draining the last of the mana… I don’t think this is going to stop,” she said, waving at the water. Spread out over the area of the room, it wasn’t rising quickly, but it was steady.

  “There’s no other way out,” said Grim, “if we lose the teleportal, we’re trapped here.”

  Daesal was standing alone in determined thought, weighing their options. She touched one of the gems embedded in the rim of the teleportal. "These gems act like switches to choose the destination. I've managed to turn one of them on, and I think that it might still function, but not with water on it." She looked over the teleportal. The lip was only an inch above the water now. "Quickly! We might only have one chance at this. We all need get on the disk at the same time. We'll need to squeeze, but it should be able to teleport everything within its borders. Try not to move much. That doesn't always turn out well. Everyone understand?" There were nods. “Then… go!”

  Gyeong threw Stegar over his shoulder like a sack of grain and jumped on the pad. Nhi and Hantlin each hooked one of the elf’s arms over their heads and between them dragged him onto the disk. Daesal and Grim were the last to crowd onto the platform. Daesal focused. There was a small spark of light from the crystal on her staff. Then the party simply blinked out of existence, with a quiet "pop!"

  To those on the platform, their two sensations were their ears popping slightly and their eyes being assaulted by light. Most covered their eyes with their hands, but withdrew them as quickly as they dared. It wasn't actually terribly bright, being a cloudy evening; it was just a stark difference from the dimness of the cave. There was a roof over their heads, but it was the roof of a pavilion, not a building, the teleport disk providing open views of the surrounding countryside behind them and a bay in front of them. The bay was on a sea or a large lake, because the water stretched all the way to the horizon. And at the end of a curve in the bay to the left, perhaps a mile away, was a city.

  Interlude, Kethem, current date

  Jedia winced as he rotated one arm, then the other. The physicker had knitted the bones back together with spells, but even the best physiker couldn’t do it perfectly, and the tendons, muscles and other bones around his shoulder blades were busy trying to figure out new relationships with the not-quite-the-same-shape scapula. It was a painful process.

  Almost as painful as Delia’s betrayal.

  Padan was looking like a man that had taken a few too many punches to the head in a fight, struggling to absorb the concept that a temple novice had attacked the High Priest while still recovering from everything that had happened in the Tawhiem outback. “How?” Padan said. “How did she get past the first screening? How could she be praying to our god in our temple… and it all be a lie?” He’d barely know Delia, but he knew the process used to weed out those with potential to be members of the order from those looking for fast coin or a way to escape the holder’s tax. The vetting process wasn’t foolproof, but it should have been sufficient for something so blatant.

  Jedia sighed and lowered his arms. “She is clearly not human. Who knows what she … or it… is capable of? And this women, Corel, from your group of adventurers, the one that walked off with the elvish crystal ball. She could just be a thief that took an opportunity to steal from the order, but it seems too coincidental.” Jedia shook his head. “Strange days, my friend, strange days.”

  “Strange indeed,” said Padan with a sigh, thinking about the dragon that had almost killed him in Tawhiem. “I have to go back, you know.”

  Jedia
frowned. “To Tawhiem? That opportunity has passed us by, I’m afraid. Whoever set the bait for that trap is not going to keep it wiggling when the fish has escaped.”

  Padan shook his head. “No, to recover the party, to get them home.”

  Jedia nodded slowly. “Hmmmm. A party you were leading to what was almost certainly their deaths.”

  Padan winced. “Yes. I know it seems odd, and the contract does not require it. But leading them to their deaths…it’s different when I was going with them. Leaving them there, without me, that … it just doesn’t feel right,” he finished weakly.

  Jedia chuckled. “I can see that, for you, it doesn’t. And that is fine. I have to think of the order first and foremost. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to send you on what was most likely a suicide mission in the first place. But, between us… I am not sure if my willingness to send someone to their deaths, and your willingness to lead someone to their deaths, makes us bad people. It is not who I thought I would be when I started down this path many years ago. And, truth be told, I think that the distinction between sending and leading makes you the better man.” He sat back. “Take what you need. I will authorize anything up to, say, a hundred thousand rimii. If you need more than that, come back and we can talk about it.”

  Padan eyes widened a bit. That was a lot of money. “That should be more than enough. I am going to redirect the Sea Baron back to Pranan. They have a teleport lock on board I can use to port in once they get it to land.” The Sea Baron was the ship that had taken Padan and his crew to Pranan in the first place. It had moved on to other things once they had made shore fall.

  Jedia’s eyebrows went up. “Teleport locks are for short jumps, inner city, maybe between cities if they are not too far apart … it’s risky to jump that far, even using an aspect of Hasamelis to stabilize it. Better to use the teleport pad in Nol, then go overland.”

  Padan shook his head. “That will take at least a week, perhaps two, and if people are injured, time is of the essence. I will have to chance it. I will still have to do the two-day trip overland, but travelling alone, I can cut that in half,” continued Padan.

  But Jedia shook his head. "You’re not going alone, not this time. This time, we go together."

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It’s beautiful,” Daesal whispered, staring at the soaring, earth-hewn towers that connected sapphire waters below to white clouds above. The unbidden and frantic energy of the escape that had pushed her into sudden and decisive action with Grim, the electric current of their transport that led to this alien place -- she felt all of it thrumming through her, pushing her forward. She took a step toward the massive gates that sat a half mile or so in front of them as her eyes drank in all she saw.

  Buildings of the same stone as the towers rose up a steep mountainside to meet the base of the gleaming towers halfway. The buildings large and small, the geometric towers, all looked as if they had been carved from the earth’s surface starting downward, hacking into the unforgiving mountain stone, or inward from the surface of what was once a vast cliff face. At the highest peak of the towers, visible from every part of the lower city and for leagues around, stood a majestic temple of grace and intricacy that far surpassed in size even the great Temple of Hasamelis. It ruled over an inland sea that stretched from where a handful of nearby wooden ships gently pulled on their anchor lines, around the shoreline, and across to where the eye could no longer see. It thrilled her--the city, the towers, the Temple – for it was a great Temple housing great knowledge, Daesal knew it, felt it, as if she were born with the knowledge. Daesal wanted to explore every last mote and iota of the vast complex. The Temple itself cried out to her most of all.

  “Vrrrrraaggggggrraagggh….” A rasped choking broke behind her. Daesal whirled around. “Vrrrrraaggggggrraagggroaaggh….”

  It was the elf. The party looked at him, startled, as he struggled from Hantlin’s arms and tried to stand, as entranced by the cliff city as Daesal had been. Hantlin dropped Padan’s staff and grabbed him with both hands, trying to support the elf who towered over the shorter, bald priest. Gyeong, still gently cradling an unconscious Stegar, eyed the elf curiously but did not appear alarmed. Daesal saw Grim move himself between the elf and Nhi Nyjha and place a restraining hand on the Ibisi’s chest. Daesal rushed forward to help Hantlin steady the enfeebled elf as he fought to stand. “You have been injured, Friend Elf, you must still rest.” Nhi turned away in disgust as she caught the elf under one arm while Hantlin supported the other. The elf shook them away, forcing himself to his feet. He stepped toward the city, an etiolated hand reaching out, but stumbled and fell with a bone-jarring thud. His thin chest heaved. “Calm!” Daesal said, reaching him, crouching, stroking, looking into his blazing, silvered white eyes. “Calm. You cannot walk un-“

  The elf gripped her arm with a sudden strength she would not have believed him to possess. He pulled her close, certain knowledge in his eyes. With perfect clarity he intoned in fierce, guttural syllables, “Vrargron. Mard. Chazun.” He held onto Daesal a moment longer, white eyes locked to blue, willing her to understand. Then he fainted dead away.

  Daesal rocked back on her heels, stunned. She looked up, her mind reeling. Gyeong, Nhi, Grim, Hantlin, they all looked back at her in disbelief. Gyeong shifted Stegar even more protectively in his strong arms.

  “Magic Woman,” he began, “that name, is it-“ Gyeong stopped, his awe and fear alike shared by the group. They all had heard of the name said by the elf. Heard it in dimly recalled stories of legend whispered around warm fires on cold wintery nights, but always with a warding sign, heard it in the bard’s rare song sung only when the ale was long gone and harder liquor had flowed to so many and so long that none would remember the departed bard’s name in the morning. Daesal, however, knew more. Knew from her meagre decipherings of the moldering ancient texts and tomes long forgotten in the library of the Hold. Knew the name and what it meant. “Vrargron Mard Chazun,” she said carefully, staring at the others. “Yes. The Birthplace of Transcendence. It’s real,” she said. “The fabled city of the great trolls. It’s real, and we’re here.”

  “And if the, if the,” Grim stuttered over the words and took a deep breath. “If the Birthplace of Transcendence is real, it must mean,” he stopped, looking at her.

  “Yes,” Daesal nodded. "Great trolls are real, too.” Grim nodded in return, as if satisfied with a conclusion he himself had drawn. “I told you they were not legends.”

  “Were real,” Nhi Nyjha suddenly said. During the elf’s collapse and the following conversation, he had been examining the city and sea. The others now looked where he pointed. “This city is abandoned – look there. No guards at the gate, no life, no movement, that building there, and there, and there, they are crumbling. And the ships,” he swung to face the sea, “they are rotting at anchor. Who knows how long they’ve been there?”

  The others looked at where Nhi pointed. He was right. An unearthly miasma of silence flowed from the city. Daesal didn’t understand how she had missed it before. No birds chirped, no animals scurried, no leaves rustled. Even the lapping of the clear sea seemed muted and far away. Yet a flicker of the mesmerizing attraction she had felt when she first saw the city stirred. “But why?’ she voiced their common thought. “Why is it empty? Why would they leave such a magnificent place? And what’s in there now?” They again stared at one another, uncertain. The great Birthplace of Transcendence might be real, but it was dead, clearly now a place only for ghosts.

  Hantlin, forgotten behind them, coughed politely. They all turned at the unexpected interruption. Hantlin bowed, as was his custom to atone for the interruption, clearly embarrassed to have all eyes upon him yet determined to proceed. “If it is truly abandoned, that may be a good thing for us.” His voice trembled slightly but he continued. “We need shelter,” here he glanced at Stegar, still bleeding from his head wound, and the unconscious elf. “An ancient city empty of trolls, great or otherwise, may be exact
ly where to find that, even if it is dangerous,” he trailed off. Hantlin blinked, peering at them owlishly.

  “We do!” Gyeong suddenly roared, too loudly, but it was the break in tension the group needed. They roused and moved into action. The city was clearly abandoned, and they just as clearly needed any resources they could find. Trolls or other things might lurk inside, but it was not lost on them that if they were at a city built by trolls, it also meant that they had been transported to Kom, the land of the trolls who had been, until recently, at bloody war with humans. Yet, they judged it infinitely more foolish to stay outside the city’s gates where threats lay without the promise of shelter than to proceed into the city and find what they could to help. They quickly agreed to venture inside the gates just far enough to find a defensible building where the wounded could heal while the others searched the city for clothing, food, and medicine.

  Grim stood next to Daesal and nodded toward the city. “It may be our best option, but it is not a good one. One dead, two injured, the leader of the expedition gone, in the middle of troll territory, fresh from a war that went their way, no supplies, no idea where we are or how to get back. Could it be worse?”

  Daesal shrugged. “We could be caught in a cave with no exits and no food.”

  Grim chuckled. “There is that. Still, I’m a betting man, and I don’t mind taking a risk, but this… the odds seem stacked very much against us.”

  Daesal nodded. “True, but… Vrargron Mard Chazun is the stuff of legends. And here it sits, like a pearl from an oyster.” She turned back to look at the city and took a deep breath.

  “And that works out well for everyone but the oyster,” said Grim.

  Daesal looked back at Grim and raised an eyebrow. “And, in this case, we are the shellfish?”

  Grim nodded. “Which is funny, because I really don’t like seafood.”