A Single Candle (Cerah of Quadar Book 3)

by S. J. Varengo

  “Probity, sir?”

  “Order, control, discipline.”

  “I know those words, sir. But not probity,” the young soldier said. He had not stopped quaking since Slurr had grabbed him.

  Now Slurr was unable to hold back his smile. He released the man’s shirt and said, “Well then today you’ve received both the good news that reinforcements are coming and a vocabulary lesson. Just start spreading the word that the size of our force here is about to triple.”

  “The men and women will be glad to hear that, sir.”

  “Yes, they will. Make sure any civilians you see get the news as well.”

  “At once, sir. And sir?”

  “What is it?”

  “Sorry for what I said when you grabbed me…about being big. I was scared.”

  “It’s okay,” Slurr chuckled. “I actually get that a lot.”

  Slurr went back to where the wizards were standing and told them what the warrior had told him.

  “We need to restore calm quickly,” said Parnasus. “This…” he said, sweeping his hand to indicate the pandemonium, “is exactly what Surok is hoping for.”

  But even as he finished speaking he could see that the news of reinforcements was weaving its way through the disorder. More and more soldiers were returning to their units and the civilians, both seeing this and hearing the news from the reorganizing platoons, stopped running wildly, and Slurr saw that they were coming together in a large crowd in the city square. He turned to Kern and asked, “Can you cast that spell on me that Cerah used to help me be heard by the entire army before we headed to the Frozen South?”

  Kern nodded, smiling. “Yes, boy. I can amplify your voice. I do know a little magic myself, you know. Cerah didn’t invent that spell. I taught it to her.”

  “Good,” said Slurr, for the moment oblivious to the minor insult he’d just perpetrated. He ran to the edge of the crowd, Kern following closely. When they arrived Slurr found a crate and stood upon it. “Okay,” he said to Kern, “let me have it.”

  The wizard first held his hands, palms together, in front of him. Then as he fanned them outward from one another, he said “Roar.”

  Slurr felt a tickle in his throat. When he spoke, his voice boomed. “Citizens of Trakkas! I am Slurr, of the Army of Quadar. By now I hope you have heard the news that a large force of our warriors is approaching from Senchen and should arrive by dawn. There was already a division guarding your city, which numbered four thousand warriors in strength. I brought the surviving guardians of Stygia with me from that place, two thousand strong. You are not undefended.

  “You have heard the Stygians appear to have allied with Surok. I am afraid that is the conclusion I have reached as well. A great magical wall has appeared around that city, in direct defiance of the armistice accord signed by the Stygians two hundred years ago, when their rebellion was put down. I will not insult your intelligence and say that I am not disturbed by this development. But we are able to face whatever comes our way, whether the Stygians alone, or in collusion with Surok’s monster army.

  “Seeking shelter would be a wise decision now. I would caution that it is probably safer to remain in Trakkas, where the army is converging to defend you, than it would be to flee the city at this point. Please know I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.”

  With that he stepped down from the crate, and made a cutting motion across his throat in Kern’s direction, indicating that his friend should cancel the spell. Kern brought his hands back together and said “Squeak.”

  Slurr laughed, then in his normal voice said, “’Squeak? Seriously?”

  “The wizards of old liked a joke as well,” Kern said. “If ‘roar’ makes you loud, then ‘squeak’ quiets you once again.”

  “I love it,” the general said. Then another thought entered his mind, and he went to where the defenders of Trakkas had come together with the reinforcements he’d led from Stygia. “Where is Captain Gavas?” he asked, looking for the commander of Trakkas’s warriors. A short, stocky man with jet-black hair stepped from among the assembly.

  “Here, General,” he said, his voice dripping with embarrassment. Luran Gavas was certain he was about to be dressed down for the madness that had greeted the general upon his arrival.

  But Slurr was concerned about something else. “Have any young boys been about asking after me?” he asked the captain.

  Gavas looked totally surprised by the question. “N-no, General. I’ve heard nothing about that happening.” He turned to his subordinates. “Have any of you encountered a boy asking for General Slurr?” he asked.

  A consensus of negative replies could be heard from among them.

  Slurr nodded. “Very well then. Now about the behavior of your troops…”

  At once Gavas’ body re-tensed, but Slurr said only, “Keep it together, men. Panic feeds Surok. I aim to starve him.”

  Turning to leave, Slurr heard the men and women behind him shout, “Hail!” He turned to see their right fists held aloft in salute. He returned it, then rejoined the wizards.

  “Now let’s hope the bulk of the army gets here in time. It won’t do any good for me to give encouraging speeches if I can’t back them up.”

  “They will arrive by dawn, as you said,” Kern reassured his young friend.

  Slurr looked at him and smiled. “You never lie to me, do you?”

  “Never intentionally, at least. Given what we know of Surok’s position and of the terrain between Senchen and here there is no reason to fear that our warriors will not be here precisely when you said they will."

  Parnasus nodded his head. “Kern has told me that the riders who accompanied the armada have sent scouts ahead of the main column so that nothing catches them unawares. I know we have not experienced much of late that will make this easy, but try to relax, Slurr. Under these circumstances, you are doing the very best that anyone could expect of you.”

  “Thank you, Elder,” Slurr replied. “I will try to remember to breathe, at least from time to time.”

  “A wise decision!” said Parnasus, laughing.

  “I also have a rider flying about ten miles to the west, to give us forewarning of anything approaching from Stygia,” Kern said.

  “I would think we’d be given some notice by Surok’s bloody thunderstorms,” Slurr said.

  “If he comes, of course that is true. The clouds circled and boiled over the city, but did not extend far from there. But now that the Stygians appear to have fallen once more under his sway, if indeed that influence ever ended, there is a chance that human forces might move alone against us, especially before the main force arrives. Even if they are led by monsters no clouds will accompany them.”

  Slurr slapped his forehead. “Of course. I didn’t think of that. I assumed Surok would move too,” he said, clearly critical of his oversight.

  “Neither did I! It was Yarren’s notion,” Kern confessed.

  Slurr turned to the young wizard. “Kudos to you, my dear friend. Now you see why I have chosen to keep you close to me.”

  “I thought it was because you liked my singing,” Yarren joked.

  “I’ve never heard you sing,” said Slurr.

  “And as such you don’t yet hate it!”

  The wizards and Slurr all shared a laugh, but their merriment was interrupted a moment later as Kern held his hand to his temple and closed his eyes. “The scout reports a large force approaches from the west. Humans, Silestra, and Silumans.”

  “No sight of Surok?” Slurr asked, already heading to alert his forces.

  “None,” shouted Kern as he too moved to where his flight leaders stood by their dragons.

  Parnasus running alongside his pupil said, “Recall the rider. Should Surok appear he is doomed.”

  “She,” corrected Kern. “I sent Russa. And I have already told her to return.”

  Yarren had known that his betrothed had been sent on the scouting mission, but his blood ran a little cold nonetheless. Kern
knew that she was an ideal outrider. Her eyes were keen, and she and Barbini, her blue match-mate, made a lithe and agile team, and should they need to evade danger they were most capable. None of this diminished the fear that he felt the moment she took flight and headed back in the direction of Stygia. But he had been training in the ways of wizard craft for many years now, and part of that was the development of discipline. So he had carried out his own duties as Russa discharged hers. Now he kept his eyes on the western sky and waited for her return.

  The troops, though much more organized than when Slurr and the others had arrived in Trakkas, still needed to shore up their lines, and quickly.

  Slurr ran to where Gavas, Idra, and Grath were standing together, talking among themselves. “Good, you’re all here,” said the general as he skidded to a stop. “The enemy is on the move. A rider has reported that Silestra and Silumans march along with humans from Stygia. They are indeed siding with Surok against their own kind.”

  Idra’s eyes narrowed, burning with hatred. “Knowing that the monsters were feasting upon our fallen…probably right in their midst! And yet still they throw their lot in with them! I cannot wait to meet them in battle once more,” he said. Slurr was, for the moment, no longer worried about his captain’s mental state. Survivor’s remorse was the last emotion he was feeling now. Revenge appeared to have taken its place in the forefront of his consciousness.

  “Your opportunity is approaching at full speed. Ready your forces. I want meet them outside of the city. We march west at once!”

  Cerah found herself unable to see once more. When she was kicked into the shimmering portal the dim light of Between vanished, and she was plunged into a darkness that rivaled that of the Under Plane. Immediately she turned her sight Within as he clung to the fire of the Greater Spark. To her surprise, however, this changed nothing. Not even her own supernatural illumination revealed anything to her.

  She felt an oddly familiar sensation, which took her a moment to define. I’m flying, she realized at length. This feels just like when I’m on Tressida’s back! She reflexively reached down, expecting to feel a dragon’s body connected to her own, but there was nothing beneath her. For a moment that gave her a case of vertigo. She was used to moving fast through the air, but not by herself. Calming breaths, she commanded, and her body responded. She felt her pulse slow. Her mind cleared, sharpened.

  Think, Cerah. You know that when you left the Under Plane you arrived in Between instantly. You know too that you have passed out of Between. So, you are somewhere that is neither of those places. And you feel like you’re flying.

  She mulled these facts for several moments, but was unable to reach any definitive conclusion from her mental rumination. Then, as she thought of the silver-shimmering portal, it occurred to her that perhaps the Under Plane and Between were close to one another, in an ethereal, other-worldly way. When dwelling in the spectral realms, she’d already learned, distance was not the same as it was on the Green Lands of Quadar. There one knew that a day’s walk from Kamara brought you into the Praden forest, and by the end of the next day you would reach Palmantra. However in these celestial spheres one could walk until her sandals were worn to dust and never get anywhere. So to say the Under Plane and Between were close required a leap of understanding. Taking yet another such bound, she thought, Perhaps I’m still within the portal itself, headed from Between to wherever it leads. So, the question is, where am I going?

  That question was answered a few heartbeats later, as she came to an abrupt halt on hard ground. Hard, cold ground. Cerah began to shiver intensely. She lifted her head and looked around her. It took a moment for her eyes to focus, but when they did she knew at once where she’d landed. Icy rock walls surrounded her, and long jagged stalactites hung from a high stone ceiling. The ground was littered with bones. Directly in front of her metal bars stretched up from floor to ceiling. There could be no doubt.

  She was in Surok’s abandoned lair. She was again on the Green Lands of Quadar, although in a region that knew no green. She was once more upon the Frozen South.

  She wondered if Surok was aware that the portal into which he’d kicked her led her back to the plane on which she so longed to walk once more. He must have known, she thought. That portal hadn’t been there before we started fighting. He opened it himself! So why send me back after going through all the effort to snatching me away? Cerah thought back upon their short duel. Surok had attempted several tactics designed to kill her, and had failed each time. She realized that her ability to escape his jolting energy attacks, then later the explosive blast barrage, found their origin in her early development. Just as fighting off the durra on Mt. Arnon had been an abstract extension of her love of dance, so too had been her acrobatic tumbling to avoid Surok’s screaming death assaults. She had trained physically while on Melsa as well, supplementing her daily magic lessons. So, she was not completely surprised that she’d been successful in her evasions. But Surok obviously had been. He was not used to his lightning not hitting its mark. Added to that, she was fortunate enough to twice injure the demon.

  He was panicking! she realized suddenly. He was scared! He sent me back here out of fear for his miserable life.

  Cerah stood. She was shivering badly, her black crepe dress of Pilka’s design, according to Surok, was almost as bad at keeping out the cold as no clothing at all. But then something caught her eye. Outside the cage in which the portal had deposited her, folded neatly in a stack, was her armor. Pilka must have sent it here thinking it’s the last place I would ever be. Surok, you fool. You should talk to your mother more often!

  She looked at the bars of her huge cage. When she and the army had arrived here several months before in hopes of destroying Surok before he could leave his lair, the same prison that was now holding her had been filled with dying slaves, left behind when the wicked army had mobilized. Now it held only her, and far too many human bones.

  When they had rescued the survivors, Cerah had herself shattered the lock which held the door closed using the “Undo” spell. Today she saw that Surok had altered the keep. He had removed the door altogether and had replaced it with a continuous wall of bars. Cerah scoffed at his attempt to keep her trapped forever. He doesn’t understand the power that the Greater Spark allows me. That is good. With a casual wave of her hand the bars shattered and she stepped out. She moved quickly to where her molute armor lay and ripping the black dress from her body she slid into it. Immediately she felt warmer. And stronger. Zayan’s creation had been made with a skill only possessed by the Riddue people, but Cerah knew that in her months of wearing it, the armor had absorbed more than a little magic and as she made her way out of Surok’s abandoned lair and into the long tunnel that led to freedom, she felt herself regaining vitality with each step.

  Although the sky above the marching army was filled with dragons and their riders, Tressida was not among them. Slurr had opted to go on foot with his forces. The golden dragon had stayed behind, along with the riderless dragons. Parnasus and Dardaan were with them as well. Slurr had decided that they would hold the riderless in reserve, and call them only if Surok appeared in the sky atop his behemoth. Kern would project to Parnasus, whereupon he and proud Dardaan would lead them into the fray. Tressida planned to fly with them as well, should their services be required.

  She moved among the riderless as she often did, taking time to show affection to each dragon she came near. The riderless dragons were all veterans of the Stygian war who had lost their match-mates in that long-ago conflict. The loss of a rider was devastating to a dragon.

  When matched while still hatchlings with a young wizard, the bond that is formed is meant to last for many hundreds of years, as the lifespan of both wizards and dragons can extend for centuries. To have that bond broken leaves a dragon in a state of perpetual mourning. So many wizards died in the conflict that there were hundreds of orphaned dragons by the time the war ended. The wizards of Melsa, knowing that a day would come whe
n these dragons might need to again serve the people of Quadar, had phased them all down to their immature state, an attribute that a fully-grown dragon could call upon at will, and had scattered them strategically across the ten continents, explaining that they were a newly discovered species called the trilizard. Trilizards, they explained to the humans to whom they’d introduced them, were loving and faithful house pets, and had a protective instinct which made them useful watch-animals.

  When Cerah had been identified as the Chosen One, and the wizards of Melsa had again gone among humans to warn them of the coming threat, they used the trilizards in each location to which they travelled to help convince the peace-drunk humans that the danger was real. Seeing their house pets phase into giant dragons was very persuasive. After the dragons succeeded in serving that function, the returned with the riders to the isle of Melsa, to the land of their hatching-grounds.

  Cerah and Tressida had spent months with them, first learning from and about them, then training them to be effective in combat without a wizard to guide them. It had proved difficult initially, and more than once Cerah had feared the orphans would not be able to learn the tactics and maneuvers they needed to know in order to fight Surok’s horde.

  But Tressida had never doubted them for a moment. Tress was in fact a very young dragon. She had been a one-year-old hatchling when she’d matched with Cerah. So, she had much to learn herself as she and the Chosen One grew closer and more in sync with one another each day. But dragons also are hatched with long species-memory. They come into the world already knowing much about Melsa, Quadar, and most of all, themselves.

  It was Tressida who had noticed, during the early phases of the training of the riderless, that the different colors of the dragons’ scales provided at hint at certain proclivities unique to each. Green dragons, she observed, tended to defend others as they flew. Blue dragons were especially good at long flight and reconnaissance. Red dragons were naturally more aggressive and training them to attack was very easy. And black dragons could do all of these things, though with less instinctive skill. But they naturally excelled at leading and coordinating the others. Eventually every flight, no matter its composition, had a black dragon at its head.