by kubasik
The man had removed the ice maces from his neck, and rode back to the east side of village, toward the brunt of the attack. Again I shifted my thoughts to the etheric plane, and again I used my skill to change the nature of the world. I drew my hand back behind my shoulder, and as I did so a spear of ice formed, gripped-in my palm. I flung it forward, and it cut through the air, leaving a trail of ice flakes in the air as it shot forward.
The spear drove deep into the man's back, then snapped, leaving a portion of the shaft buried in his body. He was alive, but disoriented. I ran up and dragged him off the horse, then mounted the beast myself, rushing off toward Tellar's home, desperate to protect the two of you. It took less then a minute to get there. The swordmaster who had brought us news of the raiders fought four of them outside Tellar's door. The raiders, a mix of humans and elves, cut at her savagely with their blades. She fended off their attacks, but could not make a successful strike.
Seeing me approach, she smiled in relief. I dropped the horse's reins, cupped my hands together and produced a flame, which I tossed to her sword. Her opponents pulled back, startled. In that half-beat she struck two solid blows with the enchanted sword, sending two of the raiders to the ground, bleeding heavily.
Then I heard you calling for me, Samael. I looked up toward a window on the second floor of Tellar's- and saw you both looking down at me. Flames leaped behind you and smoke poured out the window.
In that moment I forgot all but my concern for you. A mistake. A fireball thrown by a raiding wizard splashed into my right side, blinding me with its fiery light and numbing me with incredible heat as it ripped into my skin.
I screamed—the sound of a thousand birds screeching filling my ears. By that time I had fallen from the horse. The left side of my body, from my face down to my waist, felt horribly cold even as a burning sensation cut through my flesh. My left arm shook violently.
I looked up at you in the window, saw your startled, horrified faces. Tears formed in my eyes. I didn't want you boys to see me like that. I felt shame mixed with fear. My fingers dug into the soft ground and I tried to raise myself with my right arm. Pain cut through me as I moved my body. But still I tried to rise.
Then a pair of tanned leather boots stepped up in front of me, filling my vision. I suddenly felt like a child confronted by an angry adult. One of the boots pulled back to kick me in the face. I rolled to my right, but not fast enough. The boot swung forward.
My vision flashed to black, and for a moment I couldn't remember what was happening.
Then I felt the ground slam into my face. I tried to get up again, focusing on a spell—a fireball, I think. I tried to bring my thoughts to the astral plane, but it was no use. I could not think properly.
The booted foot came for me again, and I tried to catch it with my right hand.
There was not a chance. It slammed into my face once more.
I rolled onto my back. A huge man stared down at met his features angry and dark, though he smiled with dirty teeth. I turned my head and saw the swordmaster adept surrounded by enemies, her melee illuminated by fluid red torchlight. One of her opponents suddenly drove a sword point through her abdomen. She gasped, her face freezing in pain, then another sword slashed down into her shoulder.
Something, another movement, caught my attention to the left of me. Just as I was shifting my gaze, I saw the boot rising high over my head. After that, oblivion.
7
I awoke in pain. Darkness ate at my vision. The floor beneath me seemed to be made of stone, though I could not be sure. The burns on my body confused my sense of touch.
Memories of movement—riding in a cart, and even walking, came to me, but I couldn't remember any images.
My voice cracking and barely audible, I spoke. "Hello?"
No reply came back. But as I listened carefully, I heard t he sound of breathing, a few whispered words, soft crying, and a gurgling laugh no louder than water running slowly over a rock.
Gingerly I touched my right hand to the left side of my body. The burns had hardened—
like thick scars. Someone had taken the trouble of healing me with magic. I tried for a moment to get up, but the pain bit too deeply into my flesh. A wave of dizziness passed over me. I put my head down against the stone floor and fell back asleep.
When the door opened, the room flooded with dim red torchlight. The noise of the door opening startled me awake. The flames, though not bright, hurt my eyes and my vision blurred. I saw figures in the doorway. Around me people of many races—dwarfs, elves, humans, orks, trolls, and others—stood up and made their way toward the door. Someone by the door shouted at us, but in a language I didn't recognize. I tried to get up, but could not.
A whip cracked beside me, and I cringed in surprise. Again came words I couldn't understand. Shadows moved about the room. Suddenly someone grabbed me and pulled me up. The rough jostling cracked some of my scarred flesh, and fresh pain coursed through me. At that moment, all I could think of was, "What did I do? What have I done?"
I was standing now, being pushed forward by someone, forcing me to walk weakly toward the door. To my right I saw an old man on the ground, crying. The man with the whip snapped it against the downed man again and again. Drops of blood rained against my face as the whip snapped back. The sight drove me into a fury, albeit a quiet one. I could barely walk, let alone rescue the old man. I thought for a moment that I had to do something— rush the slave master, shout at him to stop. But I could find no energy to do anything. The sight only inspired me to move faster out the door, wanting to avoid the same fate.
Down long corridors lined with smooth marble stones, up perfectly carved stairs with bright silver hand rails. We walked a long time—or so it seemed in my weak state— and I wondered where I was. It might have been the ruins of a shelter from the Scourge, but such places were seldom so well preserved.
We reached a large door leading outside. Bloated gray clouds churned overhead. Thick drops of rain fell. Our escorts herded us into the courtyard of a castle. The castle, of course! Memories came back to me. Were we flying? Maybe not. The clouds didn't seem any closer.
Rain ran down my ruined skin like horribly cold needles. I remember worrying over where the two of you might be—but only for a moment. The constant pain stole my attention, and tears rolled down my cheeks, mixing with the raindrops.
Dozens and dozens of thin, weak people of all races stood in groups all around the courtyard. I realized that my chamber had been only one of many holding prisoners. The features of the people were strange to me: some had skin darker than I had ever seen before, others had thinner noses, or higher cheek bones, or countless other small, unfamiliar traits. It seemed that my fellow prisoners must have come from many, many different places.
Standing around the prisoners were soldiers in scarlet armor, a mixture of elves, humans, orks, and trolls. In contrast to the prisoners, they carried themselves with strength and confidence. Their faces were expressionless, but their eyes betrayed energy and alertness.
You know that I am speaking of the Therans, for you have seen them from a young age.
But I must tell you how I felt seeing them at that moment, seeing them for the first time.
Never have I beheld people so beautiful. Each seemed a perfect example of his race, each unique, but each an ideal. I had seen the graceful beauty of the elves, of course. Even the corrupted elves of Blood Wood are stunning in their own disturbing way. But the Therans washed me of preconceptions about how people can look. Their poise, lean builds—even though the orks and trolls were large, they were all muscle and bone. Purity. That was it.
Purity. And in a world that was still trying to scrub; the remains of the Scourge from the land, such people seemed as if they could only have been created out of my imagination.
They looked like ideals that I might have dreamed for the day when the world was once again clean.
As my gaze passed among the soldiers, fascinated by their features,
wonder alleviating my pain for a moment, I saw a familiar face.
Your father.
He stood in a group on the other side of the courtyard. Ragged rips carved their way through his clown costume, and red welts lined his flesh He stared down, and never had I seen him so lacking in energy, not since the time before he regained his voice years and years earlier.
It was then that I realized how strangely powerful these people were, powerful enough to contain J'role the thief and to break the spirit of J'role the clown.
But these thoughts broke off sharply when the ground suddenly shifted first to the right and then to the left. Then it seemed to jerk up violently and my knees buckled. I collapsed and realized in a panic that we had left the ground.
8
I knelt on the white marble flagstones of the courtyard, the rain pouring down on me.
Above, dark clouds churned in a circle. The castle not only floated, but rotated. As it turned, a huge white stone platform set on thick, incredibly tall pillars came into view.
Hidden behind me only a moment before, it now dominated the castle, dwarfing it. We floated up toward the platform. My captors were masters of magic.
The platform stretched t bed some eight hundred by twelve hundred yards. Six buildings, each several stories high, stood on it. The design of the buildings—the curved lines, the repeating motifs of mirrored angles and circles, the sweeping balconies and awnings—
actually made my spirits rise. Perfect white marble, sanded soft like flesh, folded on itself, hiding gentle recesses and seeming to promise that the building would come to life at any moment. I immediately recognized elements of the architecture from Parlainth, the hidden city J'role and I had discovered years earlier. No doubt now lingered about whether or not these were Therans who had captured me, for Parlainth had formerly been the Theran capital of Barsaive. But how could the Therans build such lovely buildings and yet be so dreadful?
Several of the buildings looked like barracks, for they sat low to the ground with less ornate designs.
Three of the buildings, five stories each, with large windows and railed balconies looking out over the platform's courtyard, probably held the quarters of the Theran officials. The last building rose taller than the rest, and atop its highest floor floated a ceiling—but neither walls nor pillars held the building's roof in place. A woman dressed in blue robes looked down on the rising castle. Then she turned and walked out of sight.
Docked around the mining platform floated airships, bobbing as if docked in the blue-green waters of a bay. Thick ropes kept the airships in place, and walkways made of rope and wooden slats spanned the distance from the platform to the airships. Each ship was about a hundred feet long, with a thick, long hull, made of stone. On each deck was a center castle and an aft castle, made of the same gray stone as the hull. Two masts, also made of stone, rose from the deck, each supporting wide yardarms. All the sails of the ships lay folded along the yard arms. Theran sailors were everywhere, the rain pouring down on them, guiding slaves loaded with metal barrels on and off the ships.
I looked toward J'role, who was staring at the platform with an odd expression. I was to find out later that he had, in fact, helped build it. It was at once a point of pride and despair that he had used his hands to create such a magnificent structure. I longed to call to him or draw his attention in some other way, but, certain of a beating if I did anything but wait passively with the other slaves, I did nothing.
The castle gate came level with the platform. Guards on the gate towers signaled to guards below, and the drawbridge was lowered. The red-armored soldiers began to herd us across the platform, keeping us in tight groups. For a brief moment I wondered why a rebellion had not already taken place. The slaves outnumbered the captors; the soldiers and guards seemed only half-aware of our presence. Yet when I secretly stole glances at the other slaves, their faces only echoed a desperate emptiness. They all seemed to me like children, lost and without their parents, numbed from too many weeks struggling to stay alive. Children do not know how to rebel. They have no idea that they can rebel.
Somehow captivity had broken these adults back down to a time of childhood, before they were responsible for their own lives and so could risk their lives for what they wanted.
I looked down and realized that my wizard robes had been removed, replaced by the same kind of coarse black cloth worn by the other prisoners. Casting a spell would be dangerous, for Horrors on the astral plane might be drawn to me. Could I take the risk?
Physically weak as I was, I decided it best not to.
The rain stopped, and I missed its hum in my ears. As we crossed the drawbridge, I glanced over the side and saw that the ground was hundreds of feet below. A broad plain surrounded the platform, the deep grass turning emerald green as the clouds broke and the bright noon sun came forth. In the distance I made out the city of Vivane, with its blue-green spires and glinting gold of its massive walls. So I was in Barsaive after all. I had worried that the Therans might have transported us to a strange land.
All the slaves filed onto the platform. Sunlight spark led off the rain-damp white marble, and the delicately sculpted buildings reflected the light pure and white.
The soldiers moved us to edges of the courtyard formed by the half-dozen buildings sitting on the platform. The man who had entered the dark room to get my group of slaves, the one with the whip, made the rounds. I saw now he was a small man, thin, with very red hair and a sneering face. He cracked his whip at everyone as he passed.
Sometimes he struck someone, other times the whip simply struck the air in between people. The rule, however, seemed to be that if you flinched he would definitely lash you with the whip. Everyone tried to remain as still as possible as the madman walked the edge of the open square formed by the slaves and soldiers.
The slaves focused their eyes toward the castle gate. A dozen soldiers in scarlet armor emerged in a three by four formation. Behind them, flanked by four soldiers in disturbingly black armor that seemed to suck sunlight from the air, strode a tall, horribly pale man. Something in the way he walked instantly made me think of a fat, giant worm, but to this day I cannot tell you why. He was old, but showed no signs of decrepitude. A ring of short silver hair circled his balding head from temple to temple. He walked with an absolute confidence, as if the universe itself had whispered to him one night. "And, by the way, all that I have created—it is for you." So it was that I first perceived Overgovernor Povelis.
And behind him walked the two of you.
I sucked in my breath, confused, surprised, and overjoyed. You lived!
You looked extraordinary. The Overgovernor had dressed you both in pure white togas.
On your faces, artists had drawn intricate patterns of spirals and curling lines, using silver flakes that glittered in the sunlight. The patterns on your faces was identical, serving to accentuate the similarities between you. Your hair had also been cut short and identically.
The effect of all the cosmetics was so dramatic that even I, separated from you by more than eighty feet, could not tell you apart. You held between you a purple pillow upon which rested a white scepter.
I shouted your names and tried to push my way through the other prisoners to get to you.
The red-bearded slave master immediately appeared before me and snapped his whip at me again and again. I struggled to get through the whip's blows, but they drove me back and I fell to the ground, cowering. "My children...," I mumbled, but I could do no more. I could not move for the pain.
From the courtyard I heard my two boys crying for me. I looked up, through the legs of the slave master, and saw two Theran guards rush up and carry you toward the castle. I called out your names again, and again I was whipped. I began to black out, and fell flat to the ground.
I could no longer hear your cries when the guards roughly hauled me up to my feet. The slave master stood in front of me, shouting words I could not understand. The meaning, though was clear. "Beha
ve!"
From the tall building at the head of the courtyard came Chancellor Tularch, the woman in robes who I'd seen earlier. She emerged from massive doors carved with a map. Lines radiated from an island in a sea, and I assumed the island was Thera. The woman, an elf with bronze skin and silver hair, walked down a stairway from the map door.
The guards escorting Povelis widened their formation, and the soldiers in black increased the distance between them, making a large square that could contain both Tularch and Povelis. The Chancellor and the Overgovernor faced each other. I saw a smile pass between them. Oddly, the smile did not contain vile secrets or a smug lust, as one might expect from such masters of miserable slaves. Instead, their exchange seemed to me one of true affection and pride; specifically, a teacher, Povelis, gazing upon his student, Tularch
The pale Overgovernor held a thick white scepter of stone that seemed almost an extension of himself. He raised it high, spreading his arms wide, as if about to laugh with unbridled joy . Instead he shouted to the blue sky above, "And here, now, we have returned!" He spoke the dwarven tongue of Throal, though with a strange accent. A few guards posted around the platform, the castle walls, and the stone airships shouted out a translation that I did not understand. Some standing among the slaves repeated the Overgovernor's words in several different languages, apparently for our benefit. "Let the people of this province know that they are once again part of Thera, and receive the many blessings that rain down for all the people of the Theran Empire!" A cry went up from the soldiers and guards around the platform.
