by Angus Wells
“I think it’s time. I think we’ve lingered long enough, and likely word of these events finds its way to Nhur-jabal ere long—perhaps the Tyrant will send an army. I’d see Kesham-vaj secured against that.”
“And then,” Calandryll asked, “what becomes of us?”
Anomius’s smile dissolved into a thoughtful frown, parchment features creasing into a myriad wrinkles, the watery eyes hooding.
“I’ve thought on your story,” he said softly, “but I’ve yet to decide your fate. Sathoman would execute you now, did I not persuade him to delay a while.”
“There’s a thing I did not tell you.” Calandryll paused, thirst-furred tongue licking over dry lips, heart beating furiously. “Lord Varent is not the only one to seek the grimoire.”
“What?” Anger flashed in the warlock’s eyes. “You hold things back? Best tell me all, Calandryll den Karynth, lest I test your faulty memory on your comrade’s body.”
“There’s a mage—Azumandias, he’s called—who knows of the book. And of the map.” Calandryll swallowed, his throat ashy, his mind working furiously. “He has some inkling of Tezin-dar’s location, but heeds the stone—needs me!—to reach the grimoire.”
“A race? You say there’s a race for this fabulous book?”
“Yes.” Calandryll fought the discomfort of his bound wrists, the hunger that threatened to confuse his thoughts when most he heeded cunning, deciding that again truth—or a basis of truth, at least—offered him the most effective ploy in this deadly game. “On the road to Aldarin he sent demons against us. And when we sailed from Secca we were pursued by his agent. In Mherut’yi, I was attacked by one of the Brotherhood.”
“The Chaipaku take a hand in this?” Anomius demanded.
“It seems so,” Calandryll nodded, regretting the movement when his head spun and began to ache. “At least, I woke to find one in my room.”
“And lived?”
Anomius was doubtful. Calandryll began to nod again; thought better of it and said, “As you see—yes. Bracht intervened.”
“You defeated a Chaipaku?”
The wizard transferred his attention to the Kern, his gaze met with a cold, blue stare.
“Yes,” Bracht said, “I slew him. But he was only a boy.”
“Nonetheless impressive,” Anomius said. “The Chaipaku are not easy to defeat.”
“At least we are safe here,” said Calandryll. “Though Azumandias may find some other way to locate the grimoire.”
“With neither map nor stone to aid him?”
Suspicion danced in the small eyes: Calandryll cursed his slip; struggled to find a convincing answer.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “I know only what Lord Varent told me—that the map shows the way to Tezin-dar, and the stone the way to the book. I am no sorcerer—I know not what powers Azumandias wields.”
“But, like Varent, he seeks the grimoire?” Anomius demanded.
“Aye. And Lord Varent feared him. Feared he might succeed. Perhaps there are other ways; perhaps the stone simply offers the swiftest.”
“More food to nourish thought,” Anomius murmured. “I’ll ponder what you say.”
Without further delay he rose and left them alone.
“Does he take the bait?” Calandryll asked.
Bracht frowned. “He nibbles, I think. I cannot say; but you can do no more.”
THE day grew older. The cloud that had edged the horizon swept closer, white hammerheads lofting from the billows. A wind got up, bringing the smells of cookfires to worsen their hunger. Sathoman’s men busied themselves about the town, and late in the afternoon Anomius returned, a soldier with him. It seemed a favorable omen that the man brought food: cold meat and bread, a little cheese, a flask of water. He set his burdens down and stood back, hand on sword hilt as the wizard faced them.
‘I’ll loose your bonds,” Anomius said, “so that you may eat. The door spell remains—make no attempt to cross the threshold.”
He pointed at them, each in turn, and muttered something that loosed the cords from their wrists. Calandryll groaned as the freed blood flowed like fire through his fingers. Beside him Bracht flexed his hands, and worked at shoulders cramped by long confinement. Neither touched the food or water until some measure of mobility had returned, but then they drank long and deep, and consumed the food with a voracity that left no room for conversation until the last morsels were gone.
“I doubt,” Bracht said carefully, “that he would bother feeding men about to die.”
“And our gear remains.”
Calandryll gestured at the satchel, the swords, left carelessly in the angle of the shed’s broken wall.
“For what good it does us.” Bracht buckled on his falchion. “Though perhaps it means something.”
“We can only wait,” Calandryll said, taking his own blade. “Wait and hope.”
They waited through a night filled with the alarms of battle, both usual and magical. They heard arrows sigh through the darkness, and the shouts of men, attacking and ambushed, the clash of steel on steel. Twice it seemed the sky over Kesham-vaj took fire, and twice a wind not of natural making roared, gusting against the flame. Three times great thunderclaps dinned across the plateau, and once they watched as spectral beasts fought in the sky, things composed of many parts joined in abnormal union, ripping at one another until only shimmering tatters remained, fading back into a night sweet with the scent of almonds, the talisman at Calandryll’s throat pulsing fiery. Red-eyed, they saw dawn overtake the darkness, and that misty pearl give way to sunshine that lanced through heavy banks of cloud.
Then Anomius came to them again. Dark shadows ringed his eyes and his sallow skin was blanched with an unhealthy pallor, but he appeared mightily pleased with himself.
“An impressive display, do you not agree?” he asked amiably, settling himself on a stool, uncaring of the blades they wore. “The Tyrant’s mage is close to exhaustion, and he’s reached the limits of his ability. I shall have a victory today and Sathoman ek’Hennem shall enter Kesham-vaj as conqueror. My little spy tells me that Mherut’yi has fallen, so once we’ve taken this place my lord will truly rule the Fayne. Whatever force the Tyrant may send against him, his position is strong. By Burash, am I not a giant among sorcerers?”
“Indeed, you are,” Calandryll agreed.
“And you wear your swords as if ready to depart,” Anomius chuckled. “Or to sell yourselves as dear you may.”
“Which is it to be?” Bracht demanded.
“Blunt,” said the wizard, “so blunt. The warriors of Cuan na’For have hear as little patience as Sathoman.”
“If I face death,” Bracht said evenly, “I’d know it.”
Anomius chuckled again, a whispering sound, its humor coldly threatening. He scratched an armpit, staring at them.
“With Kesham-vaj taken,” he murmured, “Sathoman can hold the Fayne without my help. For a while, at least. And did I hold this fabulous grimoire, I’d wield such power as must cause the Tyrant’s puppets to bow before me. Yes! And the Tyrant, too.”
He paused, studying them each in turn. Beyond him Sathoman’s men readied for an assault, checking armor, whetting blades. Calandryll returned his stare, aware that his heart beat nervously against his ribs, aware that his life—likely even the world’s survival—hung on the decision of this little man.
“I think,” Anomius said at last, “that perhaps I shall leave Sathoman to fend for himself for a while. I think that perhaps I shall journey with you to Tezin-dar.”
Calandryll heard his breath come out in a long sigh and realized for the first time that he had held it.
“Yes,” Anomius continued, “I do not think your Varent den Tarl worthy of this book. Nor this Azumandias. I shall have it! And you shall bring me to it. Do you make that bargain with me? In return, I offer you your lives.”
“We take it,” Calandryll said.
Anomius smiled and turned to Bracht.
“The men of Cuan
na’For hold their word sacred—do you give yours? That you will do all you can to bring me safe to this grimoire?”
Bracht stared at the warlock, and for a long, breath-held moment Calandryll thought he would refuse: that honor would deny him the chance to survive. But then he ducked his head.
“I shall do all I can to bring you to the grimoire.”
“Good,” smiled Anomius, “I scarce heed add that any treachery must unleash my anger. Or that my anger is a terrible thing.”
“We have seen what you can do,” Calandryll said.
“Then you know what I can do to you,” beamed the wizard. “Now I must leave you—there’s a town to be taken. You remain here for the while, but stand ready to flee on my word.”
They nodded and watched him go, making for Sathoman’s pavilion. Calandryll turned to Bracht, his gaze worried.
“You gave him your word, and as he said—you hold that high. You took Lord Varent’s commission on that, despite your doubts.”
Bracht nodded, smiling. “I promised to bring him to the grimoire,” he said. “Only that.”
“So?” Calandryll was confused. “Does that not bind you to his service?”
“The grimoire is a fiction,” Bracht answered. “In his arrogance he failed to question you on that—how can I bring him to a thing that does not exist? Besides, he offered no payment for my services.”
Calandryll stared at the Kern, who faced him with solemn mien. Then they both began to laugh.
THROUGHOUT the morning they watched as Sathoman’s men commenced the construction of several massive bonfires. Toiling squads hauled fresh-cut timber in carts and on makeshift sleds from all over the plateau, building the huge pyres facing the barricades, just beyond arrow range. The defenders, apparently sensing some pending occult attack, made one sally, but that was driven back by the archers still posted about Kesham-vaj, while the remainder of the brigand army concentrated on fetching wood and stacking it in accordance with the warlock’s instructions. By early afternoon, when it seemed there could not be a tree left on the highland, Anomius called a halt and the rebels stood down. Food and water were brought to the prisoners, but although Anomius came to release the door spell, he said nothing, merely smiling and tapping his excessive nose in a conspiratorial manner. They ate by the door, fascinated by the preparations for the assault.
It began in late afternoon.
Anomius, protected by a squad of shield-bearing warriors and bowmen, went to each bonfire in turn, mouthing unheard words and moving his hands in complex gestures that set the air about him to shimmering. Calandryll saw that the red stone glowed fiercer as the wizard performed his rituals. Sathoman stood beneath the shadowing canopy of his pavilion, his huge hand clenching and unclenching on his sword’s hilt, his eyes fixed on the tiny sorcerer, a look of savage anticipation on his bearded face. Anomius completed his rites and nodded to a soldier, who bellowed orders that sent a man running to each pyre, torch in hand. The stacked timber ignited, flame climbing hungrily over the wood, the air shining and shimmering as the heat grew, blue smoke climbing wind-tossed toward the cloudy sky. Anomius walked to where Sathoman stood and they spoke a moment, then the giant nodded and settled a dragon-crested morion on his head, beckoning his lieutenants to follow as he strode to where the main body of his force stood ready. Anomius waited until he had taken his place at the head of the phalanx, then raised his arms, wide spread, palms outward. The stone pulsed stronger: Calandryll tugged it from his shirt as it burned against his chest. The scent of almonds hung cloying in his nostrils. Then flame burst from Anomius’s palms, twin balls of fire hanging in the air, his hands transformed to living torches. He brought his arms down, shouting a single word, and incandescent tongues licked out, streaking toward the bonfires, whose roaring changed in timbre, becoming less the crackling and booming of flame-consumed wood than the throaty growling of some living creatures. Each one burned higher, burned fiercer, great sheets of fire lofting, writhing as if possessed of some sensate energy. And from those conflagrations stepped beings of pure flame, manlike and beast-shaped simultaneously, malformed, malign things that emanated rage and evil as they stood, towering, burning heads turning on columnar necks as if seeking victims to satisfy their dreadful appetites.
Anomius spoke again, and though his words were lost beneath the booming of the fires it seemed the flame beasts heard him, for each one turned in the direction of Kesham-vaj and began to move ponderously toward the town. Where they trod the ground burned, the trampled grass scorching, the earth itself left black and smoking in their wake. The scent of almonds grew sickeningly sweet; the stone blazed, itself like fire now. Calandryll watched dumbstruck as arrows rained from the defenses, useless, burning even before they touched the fiery apparitions. For each entry into Kesham-vaj there was one flame beast, and they marched implacably toward the barricades, high as houses, looming above those few defenders brave—or desperate—enough to remain.
Those who did perished as the occult creatures reached down, fiery paws indiscriminate as they tore at the barriers, wood and flesh alike burning on their touch. Between the houses the barricades were demolished in a moment, timber blackening and collapsing into ash that swirled within the flaming forms of the creatures, striping them with black and streaks of gray. Metal melted where they were, spears and sword blades running like ice in flame, sizzling in molten droplets to the charred ground, the wielders—those not themselves consumed—running in terror.
A clarion rang and Calandryll saw Sathoman raise his great sword aloft, bellowing a war cry as he began to run straight for the closest fire beast.
For one wild instant Calandryll thought the brigand lord would himself charge to his death, but as he approached the creature it turned and stalked ahead, driving the defenders before it, and, still screaming his war shout, Sathoman led his men into Kesham-vaj.
Then the afternoon was loud with the clamor of battle, the ek’Hennem forces converging on the town in a savage human wave on the heels of the fire beasts. Calandryll saw Anomius raise his hands again and the flickering shapes of the monsters he had created flashed and were gone, leaving the field to mortal combat, the heady almond scent clearing, leaving only the wood-smoke smell of the fires. The wizard sagged, shoulders slumping beneath his shabby robe, his chest heaving. A man brought him a stool ana he collapsed onto the chair, head hanging, threatening to dislodge his headdress. He remained thus, seemingly exhausted by his conjurations, until a squad of Sathoman’s men herded a robed figure from the town. Then he straightened, sitting upright on the stool as the man was brought before him.
This, Calandryll guessed, was the sorcerer sent by the Tyrant to defend Kesham-vaj. He was a more impressive sight than Anomius, taller and narrow-featured, standing defiantly straight although obviously no less fatigued by his work than the smaller man. His hands were bound and a knotted leather thong gagged his tongue. Unbound grey hair hung about his face, falling to the shoulders of a silvery robe streaked with soot and charred about the hem. As if conscious of the difference in their heights, Anomius remained seated, studying the enemy wizard with head cocked to one side. Then he gestured, murmuring something to the soldiers, and they stood back, forming a loose half circle about the bound man. Anomius gestured again and the wizard was abruptly wreathed in flame, a single choking cry erupting from his lips. In no more time than it had taken Anomius to mouth the spell, the flame was gone, the rival sorcerer with it. A handful of ashes fluttered in the air, caught by the wind and blown away. Anomius spoke again and the soldiers spun as if pleased to quit the wizard’s presence, trotting back to the fight.
It went on until dusk, the clash of steel on steel gradually dimming, the shouting fading until silence hung over the plateau. Then the clarion sounded again and a great shout went up.
“I think,” Bracht said, “that Sathoman is now Lord of the Fayne in more than name.”
“And has the time to think of us,” Calandryll returned. “Anomius had best act swiftly
, unless he’s changed his mind.”
Bracht ducked his head in silent agreement, his hawkish features thoughtful. “If he’s not,” he said, “tonight would be the time to go—while Sathoman basks in his triumph. And if we do, we’d best lay some plan for the future.”
Calandryll’s eyes framed a question.
“Anomius is our only hope of escaping this,” Bracht’s gesture encompassed the shed and the town together, “and likely a wizard can ease our passage through Kandahar. But when we reach Kharasul? Are we to take ship with him? Do we take him as companion to Tezin-dar?”
“Dera, no!” Calandryll shook his head vigorously. “Should Anomius learn of the Arcanum he’ll seize it for himself—and that, I think, must be akin to handing the book to Azumandias.”
“Then we must escape him,” Bracht said.
“If we can,” Calandryll agreed.
“Even sorcerers must sleep.” Bracht tapped his sword hilt, a cold smile on his lips. “And surely even sorcerers can be slain.”
Calandryll stared at the Kern, aware that they discussed what seemed no better than cold-blooded murder. It seemed a long road from Secca to this, the changes in his life perhaps more costly than he wished to pay. But the Arcanum was the prize—the salvation of the world itself the stake in this game—and he nodded reluctant agreement.
“If we must.”
THE sounds of revelry came from Kesham-vaj as the ek’Hennem army celebrated its victory, and for the moment at least it seemed the prisoners were forgotten. The moon, full now, rose to shine fitfully through the gathered cloud and a light rain fell, damping the dying fires. Whatever spell Anomius had cast on the cowshed did nothing to hold out the drizzle and Calandryll and Bracht crouched, miserable and wary, beneath the scant shelter of the broken roof. Food was brought them by a dirty, grinning soldier, Anomius lifting his spell just long enough for the man to thrust the meal inside. Calandryll thought the wizard would speak with them, but he merely glanced at them as before and turned away. In the moonlight, his face was drawn, his eyes like reddened ditch water ringed with purple shadow, giving no sign of his intentions. They ate listening to the drunken shouting of the victors, wondering if the wizard intended to renege on his promise. Of Sathoman ek’Hennem there was no sign, and that at least was favorable: they composed themselves to sleep with blades at their sides, their gear set close by in optimistic readiness.
