Dark Warrior Rising

by Ed Greenwood

  The priestess facing him grew a sneer, but the Watcher threw up a hand to forestall comment, and hurried to add, “Despite the vital importance to us all of his matchless power, in our battles with the cities of Olone, they desired to eliminate him, straying from regard for all Nifl of the Ever-Ice to promoting their personal power—a sin all religious Nifl must constantly guard against. Though many will not see it this way, Klarandarr has done the Consecrated of the Ice—and all of us who dwell in cities where our true faith holds sway—a great service this day, by removing those who had begun to stray, striding onto the path of tyranny and away from that of holy service.”

  “We see it differently, Watcher.” Exalted Lady of the Ice Naerbrantha’s voice was even sharper and colder than her initial greeting had been.

  Luelldar inclined his head. “Respectfully, Holy One, let me observe: of course you do. Let me also remind you that I am a Watcher, and our office was established by wiser Revered Mothers, in time long gone, precisely to ‘see all,’ and to do so a step removed from holy office or ruling power—or unconstrained wizardry, for that matter—so as to perceive and understand unfolding events most clearly, forming opinions about them and their implications that are not bound by self-interest or creed or training.”

  He drew forth the blue-white shard of the Ever-Ice that he wore against his breast, and held it up, cupping his hand around it. At the sight of its glimmering murmurs arose among the underpriestesses, who had never seen such a holy thing anywhere but on—or frozen within—an altar.

  Naerbrantha was unimpressed. “Grand terms, to be sure, for what I deem ‘spying.’”

  “Priestess, you blaspheme,” Luelldar snapped, precisely matching the cold precision of her tones. “Before the Ever-Ice”—he grasped the shard, and raised it higher to show everyone that it did not sear him as he spoke on, so that his words were true—“we are not spies. We are guardians of all Ice-revering Niflghar.”

  “Yet Klarandarr is not. What was he doing, that he—as you claim—had learned the most private intent of our sisters of Coldheart to magically slay him, that he could know to strike at them first?”

  “He was learning all he could before acting, as all responsible spellrobes must do, so as to avoid unwittingly drifting into the ways of tyranny himself. Devout worshippers of the Ice seek to know the beliefs and intents of Holy Ones of the Ice, so as to act in accord with them—or to perceive corruption and straying, so that they be not led into ill deeds or thinking.”

  “And I suppose he spied upon me, also—and that you ‘watch’ over me constantly, too?”

  “I dare suppose nothing about Klarandarr or any spellrobe, but I believe he often employs scrying magics to learn all he can about the Dark around us. I can speak for my own watchings, Exalted Lady, and so can say that I have not watched over you save incidentally, on seven occasions that I can recall, when you were a participant—one among many—in rituals conducted by the Revered Mother or other Holy Ones. Those were my only watchings upon you.”

  “I find that difficult to believe.”

  “Do you doubt the Ever-Ice?” Luelldar asked softly, holding his shard up before her as if warding something evil away. “That’s a serious failing in a Holy One, Naerbrantha.”

  “Dabble not in holy opinions, Watcher! Presume to judge no priestess!” Exalted Lady Naerbrantha hissed, eyes glittering in real fury. “I ask you again: How many times have you watched over me, and when, and what did you see?”

  “You participating, alongside many fellow Exalted, in the Melting that Cleanses, the Ordeal, the Triumph of the Ice, the Doom of the Dead—and other holy rituals. As I have just sworn on the Ever-Ice, priestess!”

  “I—” The priestess waved her hands impatiently. “You did, but I can scarcely believe that if you watch so diligently as you claim, you have seen so little of me.”

  “Exalted Lady of the Ice Naerbrantha,” Luelldar said gravely, “please understand that I invite no quarrel with you, think no ill of you, and have no wish to offend or humiliate you. Yet you press me, before all, for an answer, so know that—forgive me—your station and deeds, until the loss of the Holy of Coldheart, did not place you highly enough to merit more attention. Or to put it more gently, you were not as dangerous as many Nifl whose activities demand diligent watching, so that we Watchers can properly anticipate change, and be ready to properly advise Ouvahlor. I fear that—”

  “Watcher Luelldar!” Aloun said urgently, pointing. “The whorl!”

  Everyone looked where the junior Watcher was pointing, in time to see Klarandarr, standing tall, slender and dark in the whorl’s bright depths, atop a height with his cloak billowing, throw up his hands with lightnings crackling between them—and fall on his face, exhausted, lightnings still spiraling and coursing.

  Luelldar flung himself at the whorl, plunging both of his hands into it. Lightnings raced up his own arms and made the shard of Ice glow and sing, he grunted in pain and flung his head back, eyes closed and the flesh of his throat sharp-ridged and trembling … and the scene in the whorl changed.

  “Watcher Luelldar has bound our scrying to the spellrobe’s spell,” Aloun explained, with something approaching awe in his voice. “So we’ll see the target of the magic, wherever and whatever it is, and the effects of Klarandarr’s work on it.”

  The whorl, spinning strangely, was showing them a haughty Nifl whose beauty was breathtaking, and who hovered upright in midair in a large but dark stone chamber, her arms arched and raised, a glowing robe playing gently about her otherwise bared body. Her eyes were closed and her face raised, wearing a serene sneer. Her toes were well above a pulsing symbol set into black stone, and that symbol was—

  “Olone!” priestesses hissed, all over the chamber, raising the backs of their hands in shunning gestures.

  “Behold,” Luelldar gasped, straightening up out of the whorl with his skin mottled and pale, sweat drenching his face like a cavern waterfall, “Aumaeraunda, the Holiest of Olone of the city of Talonnorn. She is working magic on someone distant—and Klarandarr’s spell, likewise from afar, is directed at her.”

  “He’s working with a priestess of Olone?” Exalted Lady Naerbrantha snarled. “This is the craven Nifl you dare to defend to us? Why, firedeath is too merciful for you! And as for him, I—”

  The hovering figure’s eyes opened wide with alarm. Her beautiful mouth opened to shout something … and a bright and crawling something struck her from the left and swept over her like a hungry wave, a whiteness that devoured and gnawed, leaving only bones in its wake.

  Bones that hovered for a moment, toes still together and pointed and arms raised—and then slumped, melting into dust and nothingness even as they tumbled. Another Nifl-she came running into the whorl-scene from the right, waving her arms in alarm, sobbing disbelief on her face—and plunged into the whiteness, becoming bones in midstride and collapsing in turn.

  “Just as Klarandarr’s mighty magic allowed us to humble hated Talonnorn and leave its ruling Houses fighting among themselves to supplant shattered Evendoom,” Luelldar said in weary satisfaction, indicating the bright whiteness that now blotted out everything else in the whorl, “he has now destroyed that city’s Holiest of Olone—ensuring that the priestesses of the Twisted Goddess will devote their efforts to eliminating each other for a time. Time that I am certain Exalted Lady of the Ice Naerbrantha will use well, to rebuild and lead all Holy of the Ever-Ice to clear and everlasting supremacy!”

  It was Aloun who started the shouts of joy and the chant of “The Ice! The Ice!” It was the priestesses who joined in, with loud and excited enthusiasm. It was Naerbrantha who favored Luelldar with the first real and welcoming smile she’d given anyone in a very long time. And it was Luelldar who mirrored it, while thinking inwardly: Or use well to slaughter all possible rivals and establish a tyranny as futile as it is small-minded, that will drag Ouvahlor down to doom—unless Klarandarr gets to her first.

  “You … sent for me, Lord?” Maharla
asked softly, eyebrows raised, smiling that little smile of menace and warning.

  “Maharla,” Lord Evendoom barked, rising from his chair like a surging darkwings. “I mean, Eldest!”

  Maharla inclined her head graciously, and then looked pointedly around the room, reminding him that a throne-servant and a dozen warblades were present, and would be better dismissed.

  Lord Evendoom took the hint and swept his arms about curtly in impatient wavings toward the doors that left no doubt at all as to the rage riding him.

  “My warblades,” he told Maharla loudly, while they were still bowing and marching out past him, “tell me my son Ravandarr is nowhere to be found in Eventowers.”

  “And they took it upon themselves to tell you this why, exactly?” the priestess asked silkily, strolling past unconcernedly to seat herself gracefully in Erlingar’s own chair. After all, he was going to storm and pace, so she might as well seat herself in comfort … dominant comfort …

  “Took it upon themselves, nothing! I set them to searching, crone, after I sent for him and his servants reported him gone from his rooms! Leaving blades and clothes strewn about as if he’d been arming to go off to war! You can use the wards to tell you if he’s here, somewhere, in hiding—bedding a she, say! You can even tell me if he’s out in the Araed, drinking or wenching or up to something!”

  “I can indeed,” Maharla murmured, discovering that she really enjoyed this. Erlingar’s raging was … exciting.

  “Well? Do it!”

  His shout rang back from the ceiling, and rolled around the room.

  Maharla basked in it for as long as she dared. Then as Lord Evendoom loomed up over her, his face almost white and his eyes dark and terrible, she said gently, “There’s no need. I know where he is, and what he’s doing.”

  “And you told me not?”

  “Erlingar, how can your Secondblood ever grow to be the Evendoom we both want him to be if he does nothing without permission or reporting in beforehand—like the lowest of your Nameless servants?”

  She stood up, thrusting her face and bosom almost into him, to startle the Lord of her House out of the roaring reply that was about to burst out of him, and added brightly, “Besides, this time he is doing nothing he can be faulted for! He’s following and obeying a holy vision sent by Olone herself!”

  “Olone doesn’t slime-slithering know who Ravandarr Evendoom is!” Lord Evendoom snarled. “Have you any better lies to hand me, Eldest?”

  “Well, perhaps the vision was sent by the Holy Ones of Olone here in Talonnorn, rather than by the busy Goddess herself,” Maharla said smoothly, “but it was sent. I received it myself, and took the opportunity to advise young Ravan when I saw him. He saw his duty immediately, Erlingar. You should be proud of him; he’s growing into a son any Nifl lord should take true pride in. Without hesitation he rushed to obey, arming himself and setting out into the Dark.”

  “WHAAAT?!”

  Maharla sighed theatrically, and smoothly slid around behind his throne, to put it between them. “I warned him you’d not be pleased, that your first concern—after House Evendoom itself—was for your heirs, as it must always be. Yet the visions were clear about the vital urgency of his duty, and he—”

  “He went alone?”

  “Yes, as I—”

  “And am I to know, as Lord of this House, what this vision was? And just what he’s out there doing, or seeking to do, or thinks he’ll achieve?”

  “Slaying his Nameless sister; the vision showed him walking alone in the Outcaverns, drawn sword in hand, a-hunting her.”

  Evendoom plucked up his heavy desk and hurled it aside as if it weighed nothing, to get at the throne—and at her, behind it.

  “Jalandral’s out there already!” he roared. “Stupid she, you’ve thrown away the future of our House! They’ll both be lost, all so you can see the little scourge-tongue who dared to stand up to you die for it!”

  Maharla pretended fear she did not feel, shrinking back and putting a hand over her mouth so he’d not see her lip curling in contempt. “I sent no visions!” she wailed. “Hand your fury to the Goddess—or her holy priestesses! I merely stressed that scorning a divine vision would plunge his life into misfortune and a swift ending, and our House with him! Take your quarrel to them—and perhaps their magic can snatch Ravandarr back to us, if you can convince them!”

  “Oh, I’ll convince them, all right,” Lord Evendoom snarled, voice dire and eyes like two fire coals. He snapped out the word that brought his spellblade down off the wall, unsheathed and glowing, into his hand. It had to fly after Erlingar Evendoom to get there, as he strode across the room to the door, flung it open with a violence Maharla could feel, and stormed out.

  The Eldest of Evendoom calmly sat back down in the throne again, propping her crossed ankles on one of its broad arms. Passing her hand over the glow-plate that would summon servants from the wine cellars, she let her face—at long last—acquire a triumphant smirk.

  If the priestesses or their guards didn’t slay him out of hand, his rude raging would give her all the pretext she could ever need to do anything she wanted to Erlingar Evendoom. Over and over, calling on Olone to drag him back to life so she could torment him anew, for the next thousand-thousand Turnings. Or so.

  16

  Swords, Spells, and Scheming

  For I have yet to find mightier means of swiftly causing many deaths than swords, spells, and scheming.

  —The Words of Dounlar

  There was a momentary shriek of fear, a moment of sobbing despair that drove him to his knees in sick pain, as the Dark seemed to fade into dimness and die away all around him—and then the steely presence of Aumaeraunda, Holiest of Olone, was gone from Jalandral’s mind.

  Utterly gone, vanished as if it had never been, leaving him back in this cavern in the Wild Dark, blinded by tears. Frantically blinking them away, Jalandral Evendoom hefted his spellblade in his hand and looked for the Firstblood of Maulstryke.

  His hated rival was also on his knees, a bare three strides away on the lip of stone—and looking for him.

  Without a word they sprang up and raced at each other, spellblades singing to life.

  The first magics pouring forth from each blade met in a savage shower of sparks between the snarling, fiercely grinning heirs, and flung them apart even before their darting swords could meet.

  Whirling helplessly away across hard stone, Jalandral momentarily glimpsed his sister and the slave staring up at him from the larger cavern below—before he called on his spellblade’s ability to fly, and snatched himself away from what would have been a bone-shattering meeting with the cavern wall.

  As he soared off the lip into the larger cavern, he saw Shoan Maulstryke doing the same thing, a golden plume of magical radiance to his own ruby-red flaming.

  Jalandral took hold of his hilt in both hands to strengthen his grip, and brought his spellblade up and back, as if to rest it on his shoulder—whipping his aerial flight back on itself in a turn so tight it nearly snatched his arms from their sockets. Teeth clenched, he fought his blade around in a second tight turn—to bring himself swooping up at Shoan from behind and below.

  The Firstblood of Maulstryke had lost sight of him, and was slowing to look around—so he’d time for only a frantic parry as Jalandral came racing right at him.

  Jalandral called another spell out of his blade, to spit lightning at his foe, triggering it just before their impact. Which meant his power of flight ended and he plunged under Shoan’s parry, grazing a Maulstryke boot with his shoulder and sending his foe cartwheeling helplessly across the cavern, wreathed in lightnings that struck and struck, causing Shoan more pain than real injury—but ravaging his wards down to feeble flickerings.

  Grinning ruthlessly, Jalandral awakened his spellblade’s flight again, snatching himself away from a crash into the cavern floor not far from his sister—who’d flung up the one arm she had left to hold back her human slave from running to hack at a handy
passing Firstblood—and went after Shoan again, letting his sword tow him along so he hurtled across the large cavern point-first, like a gigantic hurlbow arrow.

  Shoan was standing on a large rock bathed in surging spell-glows, calling magic out of his spellblade to heal himself and mend his wards. He cast a swift glance at his onrushing foe but set his jaw and kept at it, waiting until the last instant to spring aside and—

  Get struck by a swerving Jalandral anyway, in a long slash that made his wards flare blinding-bright and then go down entirely, overtaxed as he was flung back hard against rocks at the same time as Jalandral’s spellblade was slicing deep into Maulstryke magic.

  The backlash left Shoan hissing a curse and watching Jalandral fight his racing blade around in another tight turn, coming back for the kill.

  Shoan bent to his boots, plucked forth a dagger, and threw it, murmuring a word that made it flare into a baleful drifting crimson glow that Jalandral had to swerve to avoid—and found himself followed by.

  Then the Maulstryke heir leaped into the air and made his blade fly again, to get himself away from the Firstblood of Evendoom. The power of flight was one of the fastest-awakened spellblade magics, and Shoan found himself racing back across the cavern about a sword length ahead of Jalandral.

  Who drew a dagger from his sleeve and awakened its power of flight, to hurl himself along even faster. He climbed, to get above and behind the Maulstryke heir, swerving from side to side as Shoan twisted his head around, trying to see just where Jalandral was.

  Jalandral obliged him with a mocking grin and a roll in the air, slipping to one side as he came out of it. He only had to distract Shoan for a moment or two longer …

  Shoan Maulstryke snatched a glance back at where he was heading, saw the jagged edge of the stone lip where he’d stood with Jalandral under the Holiest’s control rushing up to meet him, and swerved desperately.