“We were,” said Calliande. “The sword of the Dragon Knight summoned us.”
The high elves shared a glance.
“The sword is powerful,” said Lanethran, “but it is not a high elf of Cathair Solas, and only those invited by the high elves of the city may pass our gate.”
“We must enter the city,” said Calliande, a hint of frustration entering her voice. That was unlike her. Either the journey had worn on her, or her fear for him was worse than he had thought. “The sword of the Dragon Knight has summoned us, and we must speak to Ardrhythain at once.”
Lanethran started to speak again, but Ridmark spoke first.
“Captain Lanethran,” said Ridmark. “You know who I am?”
“As I said,” said Lanethran, still calm as ever. “You rescued Rhyannis from the shadows of Urd Morlemoch.”
“On that day,” said Ridmark, “Ardrhythain gave me this cloak to aid me in my task.” He tapped the gray cloak that hung from his shoulders. “Years later I returned to Urd Morlemoch to learn the secret of the Frostborn, and when we escaped he gave me this staff.” He rapped the end of the staff against the ground. “But when I rescued Rhyannis, the archmage Ardrhythain granted me a boon.”
Calliande opened her mouth, closed it, and remained silent.
Lanethran frowned for the first time and removed his helm. Beneath the helmet, he had thick black hair, stark against his pale face and his golden eyes. Without the winged helmet, Ridmark was struck by how tired the bladeweaver looked. Come to think of it, all four bladeweavers looked tired, even sorrowful, like men who had seen many friends die over the years. If Cathair Solas housed the last of the high elves, every high elf within its walls would have seen countless friends and brothers and sisters and children die.
Once again, Ridmark wondered why Tarrabus Carhaine had wanted physical immortality so badly. A man’s life might be filled with sorrows and pain, but they would not last more than seventy or eighty years at the most, and then death would take him to the side of the Dominus Christus. To live for millennia with sorrow piling upon sorrow seemed like an intolerable burden.
“Yes,” said Lanethran. “The boon is known to us. It was foretold long ago in the ages of prophecy, before the last of our Seers had been killed in the wars against the dark elves. Then do you call upon the boon, Ridmark Arban? Do you ask to receive your boon from Ardrhythain?”
Ridmark hesitated. There was iron weight in the bladeweaver’s tone, and he felt the ancient weight of their gazes upon him.
“I do,” said Ridmark.
“Then the hour of doom has come upon us at last,” said another bladeweaver. “Either the long war shall come to an end, or shadow shall devour us all.”
“All things are in the hands of God,” said Lanethran. He gestured with one hand, pale fire dancing around his fingers as he cast a spell. “I have sent word. The archmage will send an emissary to take you into Cathair Solas. Once he does, you will be able to discuss your boon with him.”
Lanethran lapsed into silence. Neither he nor the other high elves seemed inclined to speak, and Ridmark did not press them. Truth be told, it appeared that his request had thrown the high elves into a morose, contemplative mood. Was his arrival an omen for the high elves? It seemed unlikely, but stranger things had happened since the omen of blue fire had filled the sky.
They waited in silence, and about ten minutes later the sound of hoofbeats rang against the causeway. A rider appeared, leading two other horses, and reined up behind Lanethran and his men. The rider was another bladeweaver, wearing the same golden armor, and she reached up and removed her winged helmet.
Ridmark found himself looking at the ageless face of Rhyannis.
She had not changed at all since he had seen her last at Urd Morlemoch a year and a half past. Her features were too angular and sharp to be human, her large eyes like shimmering golden coins. She was beautiful, but it was a terrible, alien beauty, like the beauty of the stars or a frozen stream in winter. A man could look upon the stars and admire their beauty, but he could not desire them.
“My lady Rhyannis,” said Ridmark.
“Lord Ridmark, Keeper Calliande,” said Rhyannis, her voice more melodious than any human tone. “It pleases me to see you again, but I fear what your return means.”
“Why is that?” said Ridmark.
“Because it means that the hour of decision and fate is upon the remnant of the high elves,” said Rhyannis, “just as Ardrhythain saw in the shadows of your future before you set out from Castra Marcaine. And because whatever happens next, you will face great pain and greater peril.”
“From the sword of the Dragon Knight?” said Ridmark.
“From the dangers that the sword will reveal within you,” said Rhyannis.
Ridmark wondered what that meant. It did not sound reassuring.
“Please, come with me,” said Rhyannis. “The archmage has not yet returned, but he should arrive before nightfall. Quarters have been prepared for you, and you can refresh yourselves until the archmage arrives.”
She beckoned to the horses. Ridmark took one, and Calliande claimed the other.
The three of them rode along the causeway, the towers of Cathair Solas rising ever higher over them.
###
The interior of Cathair Solas was even more bewildering than the exterior.
It was just as well that Rhyannis was there to guide them, Calliande thought. Had she tried to navigate the clockwork stone maze of Cathair Solas herself, she would have been hopelessly lost within five minutes. As it was, Rhyannis led them unerringly through the city’s gate, up a series of ramps, and down a long, narrow stone bridge as the towers kept turning around them.
All the while, Calliande tried not to gape. The sights of Cathair Solas alone were splendid. The moving towers dominated the scene, but she also saw lush gardens filled with vibrant flowers, despite the ring of mist that blocked most of the sunlight. There were statues of stunning beauty, images of high elven men and women in armor or robes, some of them holding swords, other staffs.
But all that was nothing compared to the magic that blazed before her Sight like letters of fire.
Cathair Solas might have been a feat of stupendous engineering, but the magical prowess that had gone into the city’s creation defied Calliande’s ability to understand. Compared to the spells that shone within the city, the powers of the Keeper were the crude skills of a child. Mighty warding spells layered the city, protecting it from physical and magical assault. Spells of elemental fire and earth powered the revolution of the smaller towers around the central tower, the spells making colossal rings of stone and gears of high elven steel slide around each other as smoothly as melted butter. Each one of the towers had been attuned to a different one of the thirteen moons, the power of the spells upon it waxing and waning as the moons spun in their course around the world.
The city was the last relic of the mighty civilization that had once ruled this entire world long before Malahan Pendragon had ever come to Tarlion, perhaps long before the first man and woman had been called into existence on Old Earth. This was an old, old world, and the entirety of human history seemed but a droplet of water in the abyss of time that Cathair Solas had seen.
Rhyannis to Ridmark to his rooms, and then Calliande to hers. The apartment that Rhyannis led her to was in one of the outer towers, overlooking the lake, and it was palatial. The high windows overlooked the calm blue waters, and there were comfortable chairs and a bed. There was also an enormous bathtub filled with steaming water, and despite her dread and the urgency of their mission, a ripple of pleasure went through Calliande at the sight of it.
Three high elven women in gowns of white and green took her clothes, and Calliande lowered herself into the hot water with a sigh. A ripple of guilt went through her, mingling with her dread of what lay ahead. While she bathed herself in comfort, the High King and his army marched to war against the Frostborn. Antenora and Third had to be worried horribly abo
ut what had become of Calliande and Ridmark. Calliande ought to have been with them, lending her powers to the defense of the realm against the Frostborn.
Instead, she was here, in a pleasant hot bath.
At the moment, there was nothing she could do for her friends. The only way to help them was to retrieve the sword of the Dragon Knight and bring its power to bear against the Frostborn. And the only way to do that was to help Ridmark to claim the sword without its magic destroying him from the inside out.
Calliande tried to relax as she washed her hair and her limbs. The high elven women returned with towels and her clothes, and Calliande thanked them. As she got dressed, she realized that the high elves had brought her a different set of clothes – boots and trousers and a leather jerkin, the sort of clothes she usually wore while traveling, and she donned them with gratitude. Slogging through the forests of the island while wearing a long skirt had been difficult. How had the high elves known? Of course – she had been wearing similar clothing the first time she had come here two hundred and twenty years ago. To her that seemed like an unfathomably long time.
To the high elves, it was likely no different than a long afternoon.
“Lord Ridmark awaits you beyond, Keeper of Andomhaim,” said one of the high elven women. Calliande thanked the woman and followed her into the next room. It was a large dining room, dominated by a long table of polished wood, high windows overlooking the lake and the rocky cliff wall of the caldera. Plates of food had been laid out on the table, and Ridmark sat by them, eating and drinking. He had bathed and shaved, and she thought he looked starkly handsome outlined by the lake, his black-hair close-cropped, his eyes bluer than the lake itself.
He rose to his feet. “I should have waited for you.”
Calliande laughed. “No.” She kissed him on the cheek and then sat down, and he followed suit. “Neither one of us has had a proper meal for days. It would have been cruel to make you wait.” Despite her fear, she was ravenous, and the high elves set a fine table.
For a while, they ate in silence.
“The sword of the Dragon Knight,” said Ridmark. He had not eaten all that much, Calliande had noticed. As if he had wanted to keep his wits clear for a battle. “Where will the high elves have stored it?”
“I don’t know,” said Calliande. “The last time I was here, Ardrhythain took us to the Hall of the Seers in the main tower. It was full of relics and artifacts from the history of the high elves. The sword was lying on a stone table. One by one the knights tried to take it…and it killed them one by one.”
Ridmark nodded. He looked as he did before a battle, Calliande noticed, grim and focused and intense. That was good. Perhaps if he was ready to fight whatever the sword would try to do to him, he might be able to overcome it.
“Do you know what kind of challenge the sword posed to the knights?” said Ridmark. “Did it trap them within a dream, like the Warden tried to do to us?”
“I don’t know,” said Calliande again, trying not to let her fear and frustration show. “Ardrhythain said only that the sword would test them, and that they had to submit the test willingly. Each knight held the sword, and then fire burst from it, flowed through their veins, and burned out their hearts. Some of them held it for longer, others for less time. Kalomarus held it the longest of all, and in the end, he mastered it, though he refused to speak of what he had seen.”
“Did the sword speak to him in his dreams?” said Ridmark.
“If it did, he never spoke of it to me,” said Calliande. “When I asked him about it, he either said the matter was too painful to discuss, or that it should only be discussed with someone who had undergone the ordeal because no one else would ever understand.” She gave an irritated shake of her head. “He was stubborn like that. And he had a rough side to his tongue like you wouldn’t believe, and sometimes he drank so much he made Camorak look like a man under a vow to abstain from spirits. Yet he was one of the bravest men and the best fighters I ever knew.” She sighed. “He and Marius the Watcher and all the others…God and the saints, Ridmark. So many people have died to bring me here.”
“That’s not strictly accurate,” said Ridmark. He broke off another piece of bread. “It’s been nearly two and a half centuries. You didn’t get your friends killed. They would have all died of old age a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” said Calliande. “They are still dead.”
“True,” said Ridmark. “But at least their deaths are not on your conscience.”
“No,” said Calliande. “I should have pressed Kalomarus harder for an answer, Ridmark. Or at least I should have secured the sword of the Dragon Knight in a place where it would have been easier to find.”
“You had your reasons,” said Ridmark.
“I did,” said Calliande. “The sword was too dangerous, too powerful. There wasn’t anywhere safe in Andomhaim to store it. It was the same reason I hid my staff in Dragonfall. I couldn’t have left it in Andomhaim. Shadowbearer would have found the sword and the staff, and even if he couldn’t use them, he would have made sure that they couldn’t be used against him.”
“And they were used against him,” said Ridmark. “Tymandain Shadowbearer is dead.”
“Little good it did us,” said Calliande.
“Tymandain Shadowbearer is dead, the Enlightened of Incariel have been destroyed, and we are fighting the Frostborn,” said Ridmark. “We haven’t defeated the Frostborn, yes, but neither is their victory assured. All of that happened because of your foresight and sacrifice. You cannot blame yourself because things did not turn out perfectly.”
Calliande blinked at him, and then she laughed.
“What?” said Ridmark.
“I once heard that husbands and wives have the same conversations over and over for all their lives,” said Calliande. “Is this going to be one of the conversations we repeat endlessly? The one where we try to persuade the other not to blame themselves for things beyond our control?”
“Perhaps,” said Ridmark. “I look forward to finding out.”
“You do?” said Calliande. Sometimes it seemed like he could look right through her with a glance, to see through the serene mask of the Keeper to realized how frightened she was beneath it.
“I do,” said Ridmark.
“I don’t know what’s come over me,” said Calliande. “I never used to talk about myself this much.”
“No,” said Ridmark. “Likely because you had no one to talk to about your heart.”
“I didn’t,” admitted Calliande. “Not before you.”
A deep wave of affection went through her, and she wanted to get up and have him take her in his arms. She loved him as much as she had ever loved anyone, and she wished more than anything that they could leave all their responsibilities behind and go live together quietly.
But she could not, and neither could Ridmark.
And if he was killed because she had brought him here, because her bad decisions had brought them to this point…
No, she couldn’t think about that. If she thought about it too much, she might fall apart, and the Keeper of Andomhaim had to remain calm.
She started to say something, and the door swung open.
Rhyannis returned, still in her golden armor, though her winged helmet was tucked under her left arm. The curved soulblades hung in their sheaths at her belt, the soulstones worked into the tang of the blades occasionally giving off flashes of white light visible through the mouth of the scabbard.
“Lady Rhyannis,” said Ridmark.
“Keeper of Andomhaim, Lord Ridmark,” said Rhyannis. She gazed at him for a moment. “I remember when you ventured into the Warden’s power to rescue me from my own folly.”
“Perhaps I was the greater fool,” said Ridmark. “I escaped him once, and then returned of my own will.”
“Perhaps,” said Rhyannis with a ghost of a smile. “But I was struck by your boldness then. I hope that boldness is with you sti
ll. For if you truly seek to claim the sword of the Dragon Knight, then you will need all your strength and all your valor.”
A cold chill settled into Calliande’s chest. “Ardrhythain has returned?”
“He has,” said Rhyannis. “He awaits you in the Hall of the Seers, and he has asked me to bring you to him at once. This way, please.”
Chapter 9: Old Battlefields
Prince Cadwall Gwyrdragon set a hard pace, driving his men and his horses north along the Moradel road, and Gavin followed them.
Before leaving Aranaeus, he had never been that good with horses. He had known how to ride, of course, since he had grown up helping the villagers to farm and it was impossible to work on a farm and not acquire some knowledge of horses. Nevertheless, when he had set out with Ridmark and Calliande and the others on the quest of Urd Morlemoch, he had not been a very good rider.
A year with the army in the campaign of Caerdracon had changed that, and now Gavin rode with ease, Truthseeker hanging ready at his side in case the Frostborn or their creatures intended mischief. He also had no trouble holding the reins of Third’s horse while she scouted ahead. After they had arrived at Tarlion, Prince Cadwall had been unsettled by Third’s abilities, but the Prince was too canny of a commander to waste an advantage. Now he was quite comfortable sending Third to scout for enemies.
“You know,” said Gavin, once Third reappeared and climbed back into the saddle, “once this is all over, Arandar should give you a title.”
“A title?” said Third, nonplussed. Gavin did not often see her taken off-guard.
“In reward for your services to the crown of Andomhaim,” said Brother Caius. When Arandar asked Third and Antenora to go with Prince Cadwall, Gavin had volunteered to go with them. He would have preferred to have been guarding the Keeper, but if Third’s logic was right, Calliande was in Cathair Solas, and she was probably safer than anyone in the High King’s host. So, Gavin would keep Antenora safe, and Kharlacht and Caius and Camorak had volunteered to go along as well.
Frostborn: The Dragon Knight (Frostborn #14) Page 11
