Edge of Destiny (guild wars)

by J. Robert King

  In the blackness, Sever Sootclaw crashed his foot on a stone. "Draw your sword. We need light."

  "And show them where we are?" snarled Rytlock.

  "We can't see. We've lost two already to their traps. How many more?"

  "It wasn't the darkness that killed them. It was their own stupidity, and the cleverness of these humans. Their leader knows this land. He knows how we fight."

  Sootclaw's brow rumpled. "You sound as if you admire him."

  "Yes, like the hound admires the fox," Rytlock said, his eyes flashing. "Fall in! After me! They went this way-south and west." He grinned in the darkness. "We'll catch them within the hour."

  "This way!" Logan hissed in the darkness as he ran along the rocky bank of a mountain stream. It was the only sure path through the forest. On all sides, moonlight showed thickets of pine that they couldn't navigate. Behind them flashed glints of horn or fang or steel.

  The charr were converging.

  Logan and his scouts pelted along the stream, fighting to keep their footing on water-smoothed stones. They were bunched tight, prey running from predators.

  The stream dropped away before him in a sudden waterfall.

  "Hold up! Hold up!" warned Logan.

  The other scouts halted behind him, stopping just on the brink.

  "How far down?" asked Wescott.

  Logan kicked a stone over the edge and counted to five before he heard it hit. "Too far."

  "What now?"

  Logan smiled grimly. "Now we wade the stream and find another way."

  "They're closing," Everlee noted.

  "Yes, they are," Logan replied. "We've killed two or three, but their leader is a wily one. We'll kill a few more before they corner us. Come on."

  He stepped into the frigid stream. Water rose to his knees and hips before it grew shallower. Sodden and shivering, Logan and his team rushed up the far bank and away into the darkness.

  But there was no stream to guide them now, and little moonlight. In minutes, they had blundered into a thicket. Swords came out to hack through. At last, they broke into a high glade and ran beneath the moon.

  Behind them, charr blades battered through the thicket.

  Logan and his team ran between two stands of pine and into a narrow valley striped with moon shadows. Blindly they rushed forward and into a steep stone wall.

  "Find a way out!" growled Logan.

  "There's no way out!" Wescott replied. "A box canyon."

  "Try climbing! Find anything to grab hold of," commanded Logan.

  The scouts fumbled in the darkness along the rock walls.

  Then a light dawned-a fiery light. The scouts turned to see a flaming sword sliding from a stone scabbard. The light sketched out a lionish face, grinning with fangs and eyes that smiled red. The charr stalked forward, towering over the man, and thrust his flaming sword high.

  Logan pulled his war hammer from his belt and stepped up. "Wedge formation behind me."

  The scouts lifted their weapons and positioned themselves.

  The charr with the burning sword spoke. "At last, the rats are cornered."

  Logan flashed a cockeyed smile. "We took out a few of you."

  "And now, we'll take out all of you," the charr growled. Around him, more charr warriors marched up, slinging their axe-rifles down and pointing them at the humans. Their leader shouted, "Fire!"

  The rifles roared, hurling out a barrage of smoke and lead.

  LITTLE PEOPLE, BIG PROJECTS

  Hel-looo? Hel-loooo?"

  The black dire wolf raised his head from the warm blanket and blinked at the workshop door-way.

  No one was there.

  "Hel-looo? Heeeel-looooooo?"

  Eir shifted on her bed, lifting a tangle of red hair to look toward the door. She didn't see anyone, either.

  The voice spoke again. "Nobody's home."

  Another voice answered, "Maybe they're sleeping in."

  "Sleeping in? Are you crazy? The greatest norn artist of her generation isn't sleeping in."

  "Well, she's probably working. Famous sculptor and all. She's probably off carving something."

  "She's not working. This is her workshop, isn't it?"

  "Yes, it is," said Eir Stegalkin, rolling out of bed and standing, "and her bedroom." She looked toward the door and blinked. "Oh, there you are."

  Garm quirked his eyebrows and stood also, seeing at last two little people standing in the doorway. They came up only to the belt of a norn, and they were gray, with giant ears swept back from their childlike faces. One was male, dressed in a greatcoat over a buttoned-up vest and brown trousers. He wore two large gauntlets with gems hovering over the backs of them. The other figure was female, decked in bluish body armor that looked jury-rigged, as if she changed its dimensions constantly. Despite their strange voices, they looked intently serious.

  "Oh, there you are," said the slightly taller creature. "Eir Stegalkin, I presume. I'm Master Snaff of Rata Sum, asura genius. I've been told you're the best."

  "Told by whom?" Eir asked. Asura. Of course they would be asura. Short, smart, and irritating.

  Snaff smiled, bowing. "I cannot reveal my sources." The younger asura shot him an annoyed look, as if he often revealed his sources. Unperturbed, Snaff continued, "This is my associate, Zojja, genius-in-training."

  She also bowed, but her scowl only deepened.

  "We've come for a commission," Snaff said.

  "I'm not accepting commissions," Eir replied.

  The little man wandered into the workshop, glancing sidelong at the statues that towered all around. "Really? What are all these, then?"

  "I mean, I'm no longer accepting commissions."

  Garm trotted up behind the male asura, who reached only his shoulders. The wolf snuffled the creature's greatcoat, which smelled of swamp water and fern spores.

  Snaff seemed none too concerned with having a big black wolf hounding his steps. "Well, that's a shame, an artist of your caliber no longer taking commissions. There are only three possible reasons: One, that you are retired, which clearly you cannot be, given your age and the bits of stone and wood all over your floor; two, that you've somehow gone haywire, which your hair does seem to indicate-"

  "I just got up!"

  "Or three, that you have found your subjects of late unworthy of your genius, which judging from this rogues' gallery of puffed-up posers, I would guess to be the reason."

  "You have guessed well, little master." Eir stepped into a pair of trousers and drew them on beneath her nightshirt. "I am tired of watching fools go to their deaths."

  Snaff smiled, spreading his hands. "We're not fools."

  "But she just said she liked fools," said the apprentice.

  "I didn't."

  Zojja dragged a finger through a pile of shavings on the floor. "You said you are tired of watching fools go to their deaths. If you hated them, you would never tire of this. Ergo, you must like them."

  "You may have something there," Eir conceded.

  "Well, then I suppose," Snaff replied, looking askance at his apprentice, "I would be wise to say that we are fools. Except that fools aren't wise, in which case my apprentice's inquisitiveness has once again landed us in a conundrum."

  "Once again," Zojja said almost pridefully.

  A grin was fighting its way onto Eir's face. "Hypothetically speaking-"

  "I love hypotheses!" Snaff broke in.

  "-if I were taking commissions, whose image would you want?"

  Snaff's grin grew from Eir's own. "My assistant's, of course."

  Eir looked at the petulant young asura and asked, "Why?"

  Snaff shrugged. "She's got a good head on her shoulders. And that's all I want. A head and shoulders."

  "Well," Eir said, "that's a pretty small statue. I'm a pretty-big-statue maker. Maybe you'll want to find a smaller sculptor."

  "Except that her head needs to be five times taller," Snaff said.

  Zojja shot him a look of annoyance.

>   "I suppose that is a commission worthy of my talents, but it'll cost you. Twenty silver."

  "A bargain," said Snaff, reaching beneath his greatcoat to grasp a bag on his belt. "This will be a bust in stone, of course."

  "In wood, of course," Eir clarified. "It'd be twenty gold for stone."

  "Ah," said Snaff, reaching to the other side of his belt. "Then gold it will be. Twenty, did you say?" He opened the bag, a pile of coins shimmering within the burlap.

  Eir's eyes widened as she peered at the bag.

  She snagged her leather apron, mallet, and chisel belt and led the way outside into the courtyard. The others followed. She guided them along her stock of boles and boulders. "This one is granite, which is very hard. This one is marble-too expensive in this case. Here we have columnar basalt. This is limestone…"

  "Basalt!" exclaimed Snaff. "That's volcanic rock, yes?"

  "Yes," said Eir, standing beside a large gray chunk. "And this one is particularly dense."

  "Perfect for depicting my student!"

  Zojja hit him.

  Eir cocked an eyebrow at Zojja. "You should show more respect for your master."

  Snaff rubbed the spot she had hit and smiled tightly. "Most asura assistants get browbeaten by their masters. With Zojja, it's the other way around."

  "Why do you put up with it?" Eir asked.

  Zojja glared. "I'm not sure if that's your business, giantkin."

  Eir stared back. "Your master might put up with your abuse, but I will not."

  "Now, now," said Snaff, chuckling lightly. "It's quite flattering to have you two fight over me."

  Both women gaped at him in amazement.

  "I think I understand," said Eir to Zojja.

  Snaff just beamed. "Well, good then. All things are mended. Let's get started. Zojja, why don't you stand over there in the light?… Yes. Excellent. And, of course, Eir, you know where to stand. And I'll step out of the way so that neither of you can hit me."

  Eir stepped up before the block of basalt, drew a large chisel from her belt, set it to the stone, and lifted the mallet above her head. "Wolf, guide my hands." She brought the mallet down, shearing off a chunk of stone.

  Basalt was a tricky medium, formed of cooled lava. The question was how it cooled-quickly beneath the ocean or slowly on land. Land was better. This particular stone had come from the throat of a long-dead volcano. It had cooled slowly, and it was amorphous, without striations. As Eir worked into the block, she sensed it had no hidden faults or fissures that could split her work. It was solid.

  As was her model. This annoying little creature had a solid will. She held her nose up and remained still, seeming to sense the importance of this moment.

  Eir worked the stone to bring forth Zojja's features. That lemon-shaped head, those great eyes, her button nose, her small, determined mouth, her perky chin… but hardest of all were those ears-shaped like a rabbit's, but swept back from her forehead so they seemed almost like small wings.

  "How's it coming?" asked the apprentice.

  Eir wished she hadn't moved. Her previous expression had been perfect-focused and slightly proud, willful and determined. Now the lines had shifted to dubious and frustrated. "Well," Eir replied, "could you try to get the old look back?"

  "What old look?"

  "The look that you are smarter than everyone else and that they will be shocked when they realize it." Suddenly, the look was back, and Eir shifted to a smaller chisel to capture it.

  Nearby, Snaff idly sized up a floor-to-ceiling drake in alabaster. "It's good to be immortalized, my dear. Most apprentices don't make it, you know." He turned toward Eir. "Maybe you didn't realize that, but they're always handling caustic substances, building precarious mechanisms… Unless they're clever, they just don't make it."

  "And Zojja, here, is clever?" Eir asked as she finished the little snarl beneath Zojja's right nostril.

  "She's here," Snaff pointed out.

  Eir stepped back from her sculpture. "Yes. I suppose she is. In both ways. The likeness is complete. Come see."

  The two asura walked toward the sculpture with the numb air of people who cannot believe what they see. Though the statue was five times the actual height of Zojja, it was dead-on. Eir had captured not only the young asura's expression but also her personality.

  Zojja's look of wonder slowly soured. "Why did you have to make me look so big?"

  "It's five times actual height," Eir replied.

  "Four times would have been enough," Zojja snapped. "It's fine. Fine."

  "It's perfect," said Snaff. "Thank you very much! It was certainly worth the coin." He turned to his apprentice and said, "All right, now. Let's take this back with us."

  Zojja scooted to the opposite side of the stone bust. She and her master set their fingers beneath the carving. "One, two, three!"

  The two asura struggled, trying to lift the five-hundred-pound block, but not moving it an inch.

  Eir stood above them, arms folded.

  Snaff looked up at her and tittered nervously. "I wish I had more coin to pay you to carry this."

  Eir smiled. "You have more coin. You were about to pay me in silver before I asked for gold."

  Snaff blushed around a tight-lipped smile. "Oh, all right-"

  "Never mind," interrupted Eir, stepping between the two asura and wrapping her arms around the huge statue and hoisting it off the ground. "Where do you want it?"

  Snaff crooked a finger in her direction and said, "Follow me."

  Garm looked up wonderingly at his alpha. She had never followed anyone. If ever she followed anyone, it would be a creature taller and more powerful and more clever than she, not some tiny thing. But Eir did follow him. Massive bust in hand, Eir followed, as did Zojja. Garm joined in, if only to see what this asura was up to.

  They paraded out of the courtyard and into the lane. "Hey, everybody," called Snaff into the shops, "look at the new sculpture. Isn't it a masterpiece?"

  "Where do you want it?" Eir repeated as she struggled to carry the bust.

  "Just up here, my lady," Snaff said.

  They passed into a plaza filled with market tents and tables loaded with fruits, scarves, iron implements, and goods of every other type. In the center of this trading den stood an ancient gate of gray stone, carved with strange runes. Just now, the arched gate flickered and, in that flicker, gave a vision of another marketplace in a port city.

  "Not going to Lion's Arch today," Snaff said to the gate attendant, another asura. Slipping him a coin, Snaff said, "Rata Sum, if you please."

  The attendant crouched beside an array of powerstones, and a stone in his hand sent sparks leaping into the other crystals. The flickering scene in the arch changed to a rocky desert, a mountain lake, a golden meadow. At last, it showed a brief glimpse of what looked like three massive pyramids.

  "Thanks," Snaff said, straightening up and stepping through the portal.

  Eir shrugged and followed, carrying her huge load. Garm came at her heels.

  Passing through the portal was like plunging into a hot bath. The cold air was ripped away from their skins, replaced by stinging, sticky heat. Instead of wintry skies, there was a blazing sun. Instead of permafrost, there were cut stones and giant leaves. The group stood on a platform that jutted from the side of a huge pyramid.

  Eir staggered to a stop and looked around. "Whoa."

  They stood in what seemed to be a plaza between three gigantic pyramids, except that, instead of a plaza, a chasm descended to unseeable depths. Above that chasm, giant stonework cubes seemed suspended on thin air. The lines of massive architecture were softened by palm trees planted in huge rectangular pots and pyramidal lanterns floating over the stone balustrades.

  "Floating?" Eir gulped.

  Snaff smiled. "Nice, eh?"

  "How?"

  Zojja piped up, "Even a genius-in-training knows that. It's all held aloft by powerstone fields arrayed using the dodecaic equation of the Eternal Alchemy."

&n
bsp; "Dough-decay-what?"

  "The twelvefold equation. It's the most obvious expression of universal balance in base twelve."

  "Base twelve?"

  Zojja turned to Snaff and muttered, "She must still count on her fingers."

  He nodded discreetly. "It's the temptation of having ten."

  Eir hadn't understood a word. But she did understand that this was a magical place, with purplish plasma flaring up from columns here and there, and lightning sparking along arched bridges, and powerstones glowing everywhere.

  "Isn't that bust getting heavy?" Snaff asked.

  "Yes… If we could just get to the spot."

  "Of course! Of course!" Snaff strode out in front, his three-toed feet scampering along at a pace that was just a lumbering stroll for Eir. He led the group down a series of stairs, ever deeper into the city. Massive walls of stone rose all around them. "I live in the old city-down below."

  "Of course you do."

  As they walked along one pyramid, an asura krewe swarmed the slanted side, hauling a huge dandelion puff up the incline. One asura shouted, "Nice statue, Master Snaff! A little idol worship, is it?"

  Snaff laughed easily. "I appreciate my apprentice. I don't idolize her. Good luck with your test flight! Just let us pass before you launch."

  Eir murmured, "Test flight?"

  "Test crash, more likely. Master Klab's been working for two years on that puffball-made of milkweed dander and butterfly scales and a whole lot of hastily cobbled spells. Won't fly, I assure you. But the fellow knows how to glad-hand. He never lacks for a krewe or investors."

  "On three!" came a shout from above. "One… two…"

  "Let's run," Snaff advised, and he and Zojja did, which still amounted to only a fast walk for Eir and Garm.

  "Three!"

  A loud series of pops sounded on the stone slope, sending a blast wave of air across the dandelion puffball. Hundreds of silken sacks inflated, and the thing lifted off the stone slope. The puffball broke free, rising into the air like a floating balloon. At its center, Master Klab hooted excitedly in his harness.

  "Heigh-ho, Master Snaff! Running from true genius, are we? Whenever there's something clever going on, you're always heading in the opposite direction!"