“Grumble-wombles?” Syenna asked.
“A mysterious malady that, I understand, is only suffered by Master Jester’s wife,” Aren answered with a nod, and then turned back to the teamster. “What do you need, Jester?”
“It’s that Murdoch! He’s driving that team of his too close behind me,” Jester fumed, his face turning a deeper red as he spoke. “Every time I look back, I see the face of his oxen nigh onto brushing my tailgate, and his stupid face big as a pie staring back at me. As though I could be in the way!”
“Well, Master Teamster, if you just didn’t turn around to look—”
“If a wolf or a bear, or dragon maybe, were to jump out in front of my team, and I’d have to stop all sudden like”—the teamster’s words were rolling now and had momentum—“then Murdoch’s oxen would come crashing into the back of my wagon and maybe jar those wheels right off!”
“I see your point but—”
“And it wouldn’t do them oxen any good either!”
Aren’s hand unconsciously touched the hilt of his sword.
Syenna gave a short laugh.
Aren drew in a deep breath, withdrew his hand from the sword’s hilt, and held it up in an attempt to stop the avalanche of Jester’s complaints. “Jester, you’re absolutely right. It’s shameful the disrespect he is showing you. I’m going to put an end to this right now.”
Aren wheeled his horse around and, with a short gallop, came face-to-face with the puzzled Murdoch, leaving Syenna with Jester.
“He’s a right man, that captain,” Jester said.
“As right as you can be in this army,” observed Syenna.
“Now there’s a man who could protect a woman.” Jester grinned a gap-toothed smile at the army scout. “Keep her sheltered from the troubles of the world and make sure she’s fed and warm.”
“Keep her?” Syenna’s eyes narrowed as she looked sideways at Jester. “You mean like a dog?”
“Well, a maiden needs protecting…”
“You do realize I regularly kill men bigger than you,” Syenna said, an icy edge to her tone.
“All I’m saying is, he’d be a right good c-catch for anyone,” the teamster stammered.
“Well, if you like, I can let him know you’re interested,” Syenna said as she raised both eyebrows.
The teamster’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
Behind them, Murdoch pulled his reins, and the oxen dragged his wagon out of line with the caravan, opening a large space behind Jester’s wagon. Aren trotted his horse forward and rejoined Syenna next to Jester. “I’ve taken care of it for you, Jester. He won’t be bothering you again for a while.”
“My thanks to you, Captain,” Jester said with a nod. “For all the good it will do you or any of us. Each turn of these wheels is taking us toward that dark horizon. It’s always takes me farther from home, but it never seems to get no closer.”
Aren gave a short bow and a quick salute to the teamster and then urged his horse away from the column. Syenna followed him on her own horse, riding side by side for a time in silence.
“So this is your new command,” Syenna said at last. “It doesn’t make much sense.”
“You’re supposed to be a scout for the Obsidian Army,” Aren observed, “and you appear to be leading us from the back of the advance. How much sense does anything make? Do you know where we are going?”
“For now we’re headed toward a trading post called Kiln,” Syenna said. “Follow the Shimano River that far and then intersect with the southern trade routes. From there, our orders are to cross the Midmaer Northwest to the Blackblade Mountains and report at Hilt.”
“Hilt.” Aren considered this news for a moment, gnawing at his lip. “That’s the gateway to the Paladis and the Western Lands. And what are we supposed to do when we reach Hilt?”
“The army is to be reinforced,” Syenna said as she looked about them to be certain they were not heard. “Warriors from Drachvald and, so I hear, new Fomorian creatures from Desolis.”
“Indeed?” Aren brightened at this bit of news. “So the Obsidians have come up with some new toys for us to hurt ourselves with. Well, if we’re getting reinforcements at Hilt, then that means the Obsidians plan to push into Paladis. It means we have just finished one campaign only to begin another.”
They came to the edge of the Shimano River. They paused there for a moment, allowing the horses to drink. Beyond the wide, slow-moving river, the Midmaer Plain rolled into the distance. There, at the horizon, stood the jagged teeth of the Blackblade Mountains beneath gathering, ominous clouds.
Aren sat back in his saddle and began whistling his tune once more.
“Do you think Jester was right?” Syenna asked quietly.
“Who?”
“Jester—the teamster—do you think he was right?” Syenna gazed at Aren with a furrowed brow. “Are we chasing a horizon we can never reach? Are we never getting closer but only farther from home?”
Aren gazed at her for a moment and then turned his eyes back toward the west. Once again, he began whistling his tune.
“So you have no glib and easy answers you can fire back at—”
The sudden rustle of wings and movement between them startled Syenna. Aren felt the claws scrabbling at his shoulders and eventually finding their perch.
“Hello, Monk,” Aren said to the homunculus clinging to his back. “I was wondering when you might find me.”
Syenna shuttered. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that thing.”
“You should be grateful to it.” Aren smiled as he reached back to rub the creature under his chin. “Unless I miss my guess, Monk here may have just helped us bring that horizon much closer than you think.”
CHAPTER
6
Desolis
The homunculus known as Monk flapped its wings with determination as it rose higher and higher above the Midmaer Plain. It had left the arm of Aren, its master, from the edge of the Midras ruins two days before and had been making its way eastward beneath daylight and starshine ever since. The homunculus was not a rapid flyer or, for that matter, a very good one, as its wings had been shaped by magic rather than by nature and were barely sufficient to support the miniature, humanlike body suspended beneath them. The barbed tail provided insufficient directional control even in the slightest crosswind. But for all that, the homunculus could unquestionably lay claim to two solid Virtues. Its wings, poor as they were, would never tire, and it was single-mindedly relentless in performing its assigned task. The homunculus would die before it would fail.
Monk flew eastward from the still burning ruins toward the Shadowed Hills that led to the western slopes of the Spectral Peaks. It might not have been the most direct route to Monk’s objective, but within Monk’s altered and engineered mind, the homunculus knew that the rarefied air at the crests of those mountains would not support its flight or permit its aerial passage. Had Monk been capable of it, it might have felt frustration of the knowledge, but instead its red eyes caught the bright ribbon the River Pashal shining far beneath it in the rays of the morning sun, and the creature wheeled on its wings northward to follow it. Before the sun had set on the same day, Monk had reached the confluence of the Pashal and Shimano Rivers. Just to the northwest of the confluence, the homunculus could see the burned-out ruins of a small town, its stockade walls shattered and charred. The ruins were cold; the fires had long since gone out, and no smoke rose from among the dead. The homunculus did not care; curiosity was not part of its current mission. Its only concern, if the term could properly be applied to the creature, was the building storm clouds to the northwest that were moving with uncharitable swiftness toward it. Monk turned eastward climbing higher as best it could with its eyes on a dark line on the fading horizon, known to its masters as the Sentinel Forest—the boundary between the plains of Midmaer and the Grunvald Prairie.
Monk pushed on through the sky, the storm gaining upon the creature with every beat of its wings.<
br />
The tempest overtook the creature in the night. Monk’s eyes were more efficient in the darkness—reading variations in heat was far easier for the homunculus than the visible spectrum of light—but the turmoil of the conflicting wind gusts, the torrential downpours of cold rain, and the almost constant veins of lightning crackling through the cloudy blackness made it impossible for him to proceed. The homunculus descended, but even in the caution that it took, the storm still managed to hurl the creature through the upper branches of the hardwood trees and slam it with painful force against the trunk of an oak tree. The homunculus clambered for some purchase with its clawed hands and feet across the wet bark, and managed to arrest its fall within a few feet. There, with the ground an unseen distance beneath it, Monk clung to the tree as the storm raged around it in the darkness. The homunculus rocked itself slightly through the night, trying to comfort itself as it was caught between its unquenchable need to fulfill its master’s command and the storm that made its progress toward that objective impossible to fulfill.
The rain was still falling at midmorning when the homunculus took to the skies once more. It had crashed the night before on the western edge of the Sentinel Forest. Who had given the forest that name or why was of no concern to the creature. All it knew was that the storm was moving off toward the south so that it might exhaust itself against the Spectral Peaks. That meant that the skies would be clearing above the forest and gratefully permit the homunculus to continue.
The leathery winged messenger flew high above the treetops of the Sentinels through the rest of the day. By the time the sun was once again setting to the west, Monk was leaving the eastern edge of the forest behind him. The great, billowing clouds piled up around the small monster as it flew eastward, but through the occasional breaks, Monk caught glimpses of the Eylo River to the east. This filled Monk with a sense of anticipation. It was familiar territory and, if it could be said that the conjured being had a home, it was nearing that place with every beat of its wings.
Once again, the sun fell below the horizon behind its flight. Monk flew through towering salmon-colored clouds beneath the twilight sky, but the beauty of it was lost on the creature. The glorious colors soon faded, and the more familiar darkness surrounded it. Monk welcomed the starlight shining down through the clouds, for it helped it to navigate. This part of the journey was at once more difficult and yet more familiar to the creature. There were few landmarks that broke up the monotony of the prairie below, but Monk knew where its flight led and with the help of the stars, could find its way.
Late that night Monk flew over the very source of the magic that had given it form: a great rent in the otherwise featureless plain where a piece of the sky had fallen and seeded the essence of magic into the ground. The homunculus did not even notice its passing. The creature simply crossed over it in the night, its thoughts and its being intent on the sunrise that was to come, and on delivering the message to the one man who could release the creature from the ecstatic agony of its mission.
It would take the creature another full day to find him.
* * *
“Personal message to Obsidian Evard Dirae. General Karpasic relieved me of combat command and is living up to our worst expectations.”
Evard Dirae leaned back in his chair, his elbows on the armrests on either side. He pressed the index fingers of both hands against his lips as he listened carefully and considered the homunculus that perched on the stand before him. This was not an unusual event; the creature had returned to Evard from Aren with reasonable regularity every week or two since Evard had given him the creature at the beginning of the current campaign. Aren had even joked about the gift, saying it was just like Evard to give a gift that would constantly return to the giver.
“I am now in charge of supply caravans.”
Evard stood up in nervous agitation. Pacing in the small chamber that had been assigned to him would be out of the question given the limited space. When it had first been shown to him, he had thought it charmingly compelling. The scarred walls and the partial frescoes had a sense of history and connection to a time that was now lost. The ancient civilization that had once lived here in opulent splendor was arrested in all its glory when the sky fell, not terribly far from here, and punctured the crust of the world. The floor of the once verdant plain had buckled and heaved before its fury. The unnamed city had been buried and swallowed up by the ground, leaving only a number of domes of earth and stone to mark its grave. Centuries later the Obsidians had been drawn to the shard that had fallen from the sky, but it was in the discovery of the lost city under the mounds and its connection to the power of the shard that determined where Desolis, the home of the Obsidians, would be established.
Since that time, a number of the slaves of the Obsidians had been pressed into carefully recovering the ancient glory of Desolis room by buried room and street by buried street. The reality was that living in these rooms was generally cold, dark, uncomfortable, and a bit depressing. However, it was considered a sign of status among the Obsidians to be given quarters among the old ruins within one of the mounds, a connection to the glories of the past that the Obsidians had hoped to reclaim as their own future. Where your rooms were located in Desolis was a strong indicator of where you stood regarding your position in the cabal. At the moment, Evard reflected, his position was improving.
Evard brought his mind back to focus on the problem at hand. The honor of sleeping in rooms where people had died horribly centuries before was not nearly as important at this moment as the problem and opportunity that his old friend had just laid at his feet.
“This army would benefit from your guidance in person.”
“Yes, I am sure it would.” Evard smiled. “But I’m going to need something more than just your demotion to justify what I have in mind, my old friend.”
The homunculus stopped talking.
Evard shrugged and frowned. He had just opened his mouth to begin dictating a return message when the homunculus abruptly began speaking again.
“Recovered an ancient blade from the ruins here—possibly Avatar in origin. Come soon.”
Evard took in a breath. “Repeat that last.”
“Come soon.”
Evard shook his head. “No. Before that.”
“Recovered an ancient blade from the ruins here—possibly Avatar in origin.”
A knowing grin slowly formed on Evard’s face. He turned and threw open the dull and dusty black trunk that sat at the foot of his bed. The contents had all been very neatly and carefully placed, allowing him in a moment to put his hands on the black cloth of his dress robes. They unfolded as he lifted them up. It was an elegant robe, carefully embroidered with metal thread designed specifically to bring to mind to any sorcerer the exacting nature of their craft. They were most often used, Evard reflected, when one presented themselves before the lords of the Obsidian Council.
Or at funerals.
“And sometimes both,” Evard said aloud to himself as he straightened the robe settling on his shoulders. “I wonder which one this will be?”
He was about to step out of his room when he suddenly stopped and turned toward the creature waiting expectantly on the perch. He reached forward impetuously and rubbed the homunculus’s forehead between his tapered ears. “Thank you, Monk, but I think you need a rest.”
Evard glanced at the embroidered symbols on the sleeve of his robe to confirm the patterns of the spell. He reached within himself, connected with the magic within the homunculus, and unbound it.
Monk’s form suddenly lost cohesion. The creature dissolved at once into a settling cloud of dust.
“I’ll call you when I need you,” Evard said as the dust drifted toward the floor.
The sorcerer stepped out of his small quarters and into what had once been a paved street. The ancient street had a stone sky: a mixture of dirt and cold lava flow held in place by rough-hewn timbers set as reinforcing beams. This particular mound had been one of th
e first excavated, and while the section that survived the ancient upheaval amounted in this case to only a handful of streets in what had been a residential district, it remained the most prestigious of residences to the Obsidians. There were few occupants of the section and the street before his room was deserted.
He could hear great winches turning in the distance and headed in the direction of the sound. A few turns of the road and he could see the light of the outside world streaming into the tunnel that the old avenue had become.
The sorcerer stepped past the pair of guards flanking the entrance to the mound known as Old Market, squinting into the morning sun. There were a number of these small, low mounds that looked like ocean swells formed out of the prairie earth. Each had been given a name largely associated with some feature that had been discovered during the excavations beneath them—Temple, Canal, Millstone, Old Market, or Tombs—but all these were dwarfed by what the previous inhabitants of the region had called the Epitaph. It was a mountain plateau of stone that had been thrust up from the ground at the time of the ancient Shard Fall and had carried a great deal of the surface skyward in the process. It was largely comprised of sandstone infused with the ruins filled with ash and marbled with cold volcanic flow. It was the latter, however, that gave the site special significance to the Obsidians, for the lava tubes that had formed carried the power of the Shard Fall directly into the caverns beneath the Epitaph.
To Evard, however, it was one thing more. It was also home.
“Master Evard!”
The Sword of Midras Page 6
