Shattered Hopes

by Ulff Lehmann

  A dozen yards to the east he saw a similar scene, and another dozen yards farther it was repeated again. Even the soldiers manning the barbican seemed unconcerned. Drangar squinted against the sun—it steadily wandered westward—and saw the Chanastardhians were not as busy as he had expected. Why hadn’t the bastards brought any siege engines? The southern siege castle was halfway done, but from what he could discern, construction had slowed down to merely digging trenches. From his vantage point the view was less than spectacular, but a stroll along the barbican would hardly improve matters. A mile, he guessed, maybe a little less. Sure, he saw individuals carrying timber or working with shovels—at least he imagined they were digging—but there was so little detail it was hardly worth the effort.

  “We showed ‘em,” one of the men-at-arms said as he stepped up to the battlement, leaning against the stonework.

  Drangar flicked a glance at the man but remained silent. The warrior looked older, more veteran than green recruit. Ash blond hair was cropped short, but even at this length the man had managed to look disheveled. “Showed them what?” he finally asked.

  “Blew their timber store straight up into the sky, mate.” The soldier grinned, displaying two long rows of broken off and discolored teeth.

  He scoffed. “Yeah, what did you do? Call down lightning?”

  “Nay, mate, nothin’ like that. Baron’s got his pet wizard flying over there and takin’ care of that lumberyard. Saw it with me own eyes.” The soldier smelled of leather, rust, and grease; there was no whiff of booze on him. Either Split-Tooth was lying, or Ealisaid was really working for Duasonh. If he were in Baron Duasonh’s boots, he would have used her as weapon as well. A very precise weapon.

  “Why don’t they attack?” Drangar asked.

  “With what, mate? Got no ‘throwers there. They thought they could walk in through the gate, just like they did in Harail, but we fucked ‘em right an’ proper.”

  “What happened at Harail?” Anything was better than to ponder his own predicament, even if Split-Tooth had the tactical astuteness of a donkey.

  “I heard it only, mate. Bastard traitors let ‘em in, just gave ‘em the whole city undefended. Wasn’t there meself, was up north with our gen’ral.”

  This general piqued his interest even more than the bloodless capture of the capital. “Who’s your general, mate?”

  “Gen’ral Kerral!” Split-Tooth declared proudly.

  Though he had expected the reply—after all why would there be more than one general mustering an army in the north?—Kerral’s presence here oddly enough gave him a sense of belonging. Mixed with it, though, came the sour taste of anger at a friend’s betrayal. Indeed, the siding with Mireynh years and years ago was nothing compared to the Sons of Traksor using him to kill Hesmera, but it upset him still. The Fiend cackled. No! Drangar took a deep breath and let it out slowly, picturing the swish of the whetstone.

  “Bloody brilliant, got us out of a whole bunch of tight spots. He cares for us, and he fights with us. Says an off’cer is a real bastard if he lets his troops do the dying while he’s snug in his tent. Says he ain’t that type of gen’ral. An’ he really knows the enemy.” Split-Tooth pointed at the camp.

  Drangar’s eyes followed the direction, and he saw a rather massive tent standing closest to the city. Whatever the Wizardess had done, the destruction had not reached this tent. The big top flew Chanastardh’s flag, at least he imagined it was the Dragon. At this distance, even with a huge battle flag, one could never be sure. What he was sure of, however, was the occupant of the tent. “Mireynh,” he hissed.

  “What, mate?”

  Not bothering with an answer, Drangar turned and hurried down the stairs. Only Mireynh was arrogant enough to erect his tent before the enemy. “Fool still thinks he’s invincible.” The bitter memory of a friend’s betrayal was nothing compared to the anger he still felt at Mireynh’s injustice.

  CHAPTER 33

  Sifting through the historical records was not as simple as Lloreanthoran had thought. The Grand Library’s archives felt like boxes stacked into one another. Behind every layer there was another, more detailed one, and it would have taken him years to sift through the general information regarding the wizard war and the subsequent Demon War.

  On his third day in the archives he discovered the fifth vault. According to Chief Librarian Grannath there were six vaults of knowledge, each one requiring certain hierarchical status to enter. Knowledge was free, but one had to know how to handle the vast information stored beyond the sixth. The notes in those inner sanctums were more detailed the further one went.

  It took little convincing to gain entry. He was, after all, an elf; access should have been granted immediately. As Grannath explained, “One first needs to know how to work the index to get to the good stuff.” Also, magic was forbidden as the casting of spells altered reality, and those deeper levels of lore had to be preserved.

  The fifth level was a little more revealing, but still lacked the information he needed. One thing became apparent, however: the scrolls and books were edited less than those in the sixth vault, and already hinted at truths beyond those the uninitiated could review. Victors wrote history, but every embellished tale also had a rough draft, so to speak. The deeper one went, the more unbiased the writing became.

  On level three, still on his third day in the Grand Library, he encountered the first multi-hand-written document. It came from a place even he had never heard of, and since it apparently did nothing to influence local politics, it was deemed safe enough to be located in a vault with more access. The amount of material here was immense, even though the books were mostly written in one hand.

  He learned on his fourth day why this system of filtering the true events was so important. The second vault was breathtaking. Down here, occupying a room of gigantic proportions, were scrolls and books divided by continents, nations and cities. The scribes had even gone to the length of separating personal protocols of historically important and unimportant figures. It still was edited, but not to the degree that he had encountered before. If level six was general knowledge, level two was very intimate already. The last living soul he had seen on level four; very few people ventured down here.

  Today, he stood inside vault number one. How any sane person could ever sift through the material, Lloreanthoran would never know. He had to dig through boxed papers and parchments to get to the truth. Fortunately, humans weren’t an old people, and had only recently developed a system of historical recordkeeping. Some of his kind would still compare man to a swarm of locusts. From what he had gleaned over the past days, however, he knew there was nothing random about mankind. Yes, greed prompted them into action, not that different from what drove his people. At least humans tortured for a reason, not for public entertainment.

  He had been poring over the records of Gathran’s last days for a while now, but if someone was responsible for leaving behind the Stone of Blood, none of the notes revealed who it was. Unlike what he had read in the days before, there were no comments in the margins. This was pure, undiluted history, not written to appease. The Aerant C’lain’s power had still been manifest; there was no mention of the Tomes of Darkness. No one had unearthed that knowledge. With one exception: The Chief Librarian. Most likely Traghnalach had imparted that special knowledge to his highest priest, under order to keep it secret.

  The exodus was described in broad strokes, lists of names of those who had crossed beyond the Veil of Dreams, and then, to his astonishment, Gathran’s history continued. A note written in bold letters referred to the histories of Chanastardh and Danastaer. The former kingdom he had traveled before; the latter he was only familiar with through the various writings in the upper levels. The documents he found in these sections were, unlike others regarding different kingdoms, contained in one box, their histories linked by a bond of blood and mutual origins.

  At least the northern part of Danastaer had always belonged to Chanastardh; Dargh and Jana
gast, two middling baronies that had maintained their independence until the Phoenix Wizards had started their war of succession, comprised the rest of the small realm.

  “The idiots quarreled over who had the right to lead them,” the elf muttered as he leaned over a parchment describing the first conflict that had shattered three countries. “Should’ve drawn sticks,” he said, shaking his head. “Lottery would’ve done the trick.” The next document retold the Choosing of Lesganagh, some ritual where new defenders had been selected to guard the Hold, since elves and wizards had been on the brink of leaving the world.

  The Hold? He had never heard of such a place. There was no real index for this part of the library. Too vast was the amount of material stored here; on short notice it was impossible to locate any information.

  A few pages later, the retelling of the Demon War began. One Danachamain had set out, accompanied by a few Chosen of Lesganagh, for Honas Graigh to plunder the city. The only thing the humans found was the Aerant C’lain, and they managed to contact those who were exiled, the first guardians of the Hold. Again, the reference to this mysterious Hold. What was the Hold? Why did it have to be guarded? The old guardians enticed Danachamain and some of his followers and in a ritual of bloody sacrifice the boundaries between this world and the world of the first guardians were pierced. A dozen or so angry beings escaped their prison, and, with the aid of Danachamain and two Chosen who thought an alliance with the first guardians was in the best interest of everybody, set out to reclaim what had once been theirs.

  What had once been theirs? Cold dread seeped into his mind. The First Ones, the slavers, the blood wizards, those his ancestors had fought. Lloreanthoran recalled his encounter with the Lightbringer, how he had wetted himself while kneeling to her. Her anger at his willing submission, how he had debased himself before her eyes. The first guardians and the First Ones were the same, and the humans had opened a gateway to let them reenter the world! Those beings, the ones who had enslaved and murdered his race, were the demons of old, and after so many millennia, they were trying to reclaim what they had lost. Maybe Julathaen had mentioned some of what he now realized. After five days among thousands of books and scrolls, reading more pages than he had in years, he barely recalled the conversation with Chief Librarian Grannath.

  He put the page down, leaned back and closed his eyes. It was not enough to take the Aerant C’lain’s contents back. Danachamain had returned; he had seen the human’s resurrection in Honas Graigh, shuddered at the memory of chanting voices and swirling ashes. His eyes fluttered open. There were also the corrupted Chosen of Lesganagh to consider! Again, he began leafing through the records of the Demon War. A few pages later, one name practically leapt into his mind: Turuuk. Grannath had mentioned this demon, and the name rattled Lloreanthoran to the core. He didn’t know why it worried him so; there was no mention of who this demon was, aside from being the leader. Several pages dealt with the human prince Tral Kassor’s struggle against Turuuk, how the demon had sacrificed entire villages to work magic that… here the scribe seemed at first confused, then worried, and finally the last scribbling on the page said, “I know not what he has done! The Kumeen Mountains are gone from our sight! Not just a part, but the entirety of the range has disappeared! None of us can see what goes on there, neither through prayer nor through spiritform. Turuuk has blinded us all, even the gods!”

  Stunned, he put the parchment down. No magic could make an entire mountain range vanish. The demon had sacrificed hundreds, maybe thousands, to work his spell. It wasn’t just disgust at Turuuk’s action that made him despair, but the concept of standing alone against a threat that none of them had realized.

  He lunged for the next batch of papers, those describing Tral Kassor’s final battle with Turuuk. Part of it had, again, happened on the slopes of the Kumeens, so the protocol was chopped into fragments. Some were entire paragraphs, others so short they barely deserved to be called sentences.

  The documents said not how Tral Kassor had won, but it had happened in a valley near one of the Tallon’s tributaries, according to the surviving followers of Prince Kassor who had witnessed the demon’s demise. Of course, he could have read the reports with more diligence, but there were hundreds of pages just dealing with Turuuk, some only the lists of those sacrificed, others dealing with insignificant—the idea that any of this could be considered unimportant sickened him—slaughters where the demon had merely butchered people to cast some minor spell.

  “Wait!” he exclaimed, leafing through a bunch of pages until he found the right one. It had only been part of a sentence, but the documents were here because these events had happened, and every sentence was important, even if the compiling scribes dismissed it. Was it possible the mysterious hermit who had helped Tral Kassor was the Lightbringer?

  He read aloud, “I saw Prince Tral meet a hooded stranger on the road. She greeted him and said, ‘There are things you need to know, milord.’ ‘I am no lord; my titles are gone. Speak, I have a demon to catch.’ ‘I can help you, but what I have to teach is not for prying eyes.’ She turned to look at me directly. Briefly I saw a feline face, and then they were both gone. I can’t explain what blocked Traghnalach’s sight.”

  This was a first. Maybe the only time an impartial scribe, a recorder of events, had written about his position. He went back to the report of the disappearance of the Kumeen Mountains. No, the scribes—it had been several of them—had merely stated the peaks had vanished, with none referring to their positions. Again, he held the remark of the Lightbringer in his hands. The scribe had written they were gone, not the environment, just the participants in the conversation. Whatever the Lightbringer had done, it had only concerned her and Tral Kassor.

  With a weary sigh, he put the parchments back into order, replaced them in their container, got up and headed for the far stairs. He had spent far too much time researching and too little time acting. If Tral Kassor’s followers, these Sons of Traksor, knew what had passed between their leader and the Lightbringer, it was best to hear it from them.

  CHAPTER 34

  Twenty-seventh of Chill, 1475 K.C.

  “When did you become so devious?” Kildanor wondered aloud. The Baron sure seemed harder, stronger. Not that his friend had ever been weak, but now, faced with annihilation, the man had been hammered into Dwarf-steel.

  “Isn’t this what is expected of a leader?” Cumaill Duasonh replied. Was there a note of amusement in his voice? “We need the ore and the enemy away from our gates. Ondalan is in ruins, and the Chanastardhians are still trying to cross the Dunth there. Why not allow Úistan Cahill to get his ore back? Better in our hands than in theirs.”

  “Provided the scheme works.”

  “How does your training go?” Duasonh asked, evading the topic. “If Ralgon truly is such a danger you need to stop this demon within him.”

  It was time for a more direct approach. “Will the diversion succeed?”

  “If Kerral’s right about Mireynh’s hatred, he will act.”

  “Are you a prophet now?”

  “Before you went to ask Jathain about his plans that allowed us to set the trap when the Chanastardhians arrived, you would have grasped every chance to find and kill your brothers, remember?”

  He did, but only vaguely. There were only pleasant memories of his siblings left.

  “Mireynh bears a grudge, has nurtured it over years, he will react to Ralgon’s presence in Ondalan.”

  “And why are you so certain they haven’t looted the warehouses already?” The entire plan was nonsense. Cahill might be able to enter the ruined mining village, but the ore had to be transferred onto wagons while under enemy attacks, and then the entire caravan had to be brought across a ledge that barely held two horses abreast. “It can’t be done, mate, you know it as well as I do.”

  “It’s his property, and given how he was treated in the past…”

  “By your cousin, not you!” Kildanor interrupted. “The quarrel Cahill had w
ith the watch and taxation, and almost losing Ondalan had nothing to do with you!”

  “Oh, don’t give me that bullshit, mate,” Duasonh retorted angrily. “I trusted Jathain, and thus allowed him to drive a wedge between me and Úistan. You’ve met him; he is of old blood, honorable to the hilt. Jathain was in charge because I put him there, so that makes his treachery my responsibility.”

  “And now you want to make up for that by sending Cahill to his death?” He couldn’t believe what Cumaill was telling him.

  “He will try it with my consent or without, so why not support him, and gain some advantage as well?”

  “The gold.”

  “A mere formality, he would have donated most of it anyway, but this way we have control over Drangar Ralgon.”

  “And if he fails, Mireynh will have a high ranking noble to hold for ransom!” the Chosen countered. “Or worse, I cannot keep Ralgon’s Fiend at bay and we have a village that is a graveyard for all of us.”

  Cumaill scoffed. “Úistan knows how to fight. Do you really think he will surrender? As for our friend Ralgon, I am confident in your abilities. So how goes the training?”

  Duasonh had a point, Sir Úistan would not go down without a fight, but was that enough? Now that they’d had a chance to speak to the nobleman in depth, he was convinced Cahill was a very welcome addition to the war-council and the defense of the city. “And if he dies we’ve lost a good ally,” he stated.

  “Your training,” the Baron said impatiently. “Stop arguing a decision that was mine to make. You advise, I decide.” Then, with a sly smile, he added, “Is this not what you have always wanted me to be? Now speak!”

  There was no denying Cumaill’s authority. “It’s tough, Ealisaid is barely any help and so I’m stuck learning from the girl. Can you imagine how hard it is to follow a mind jumping about being drawn whichever way?”