by J. L. Doty
“What’s wrong?” he asked, suddenly alarmed. “Is JohnEngine hurt? Or is it DaNoel?”
She shook her head as tears filled her eyes. “JohnEngine is unhurt. DaNoel lies sorely wounded by a Kullish saber. But he will heal, given time.”
“Then it’s Tulellcoe?”
She shook her head again. “Tulellcoe too is unhurt.”
“Then who?” he demanded.
“It’s Nicki,” Roland said. “We can find no sign of her. And Valso too is missing. We fear he’s carried her off for his revenge. It would be so like him to seek retribution from an innocent.”
Morgin was stunned. In all of the excitement he’d totally forgotten tiny NickoLot. “Have you checked the sanctum?” he asked.
Roland nodded sadly. “We found nothing but carnage. Incredible carnage. And the Tulalane’s body. Do you know something we don’t?”
“Perhaps,” Morgin said, reluctant to say more. “Come with me.”
He led them to the sanctum, and they followed without question. When they stepped into the antechamber it was Roland who seemed the most disturbed by the butchery they found there. AnnaRail merely looked hopefully at Morgin.
At the entrance to the sanctum itself he could see the Tulalane’s body sprawled within. He paused there, for he could sense the power waiting for him. As he stepped through the portal it rushed to him and he fought for control. It was like a child with no master, pleading to be taken up. It demanded that he accept it, that he exercise it, that he wield it like a sword.
AnnaRail and Roland stood by waiting silently. Morgin said nothing, but stepped past them to the overturned table near one wall. He carefully pulled it to one side, then bent down and passed a hand through the dark shadows that lurked there. When he could fully sense and comprehend the spell that lay before him, he commanded, “Shadows of magic, be gone.”
The shadows disappeared to reveal NickoLot, curled into a tight little ball, sleeping peacefully. Morgin gently picked her up, and with Roland and AnnaRail following, he carried her out of the sanctum, past the carnage in the antechamber and into the hallway beyond. There he stopped, handed her to Roland, and began seeking the spell under which she slept. It came so easily it surprised him, and under his touch, it just as easily vanished.
“Morgin?” NickoLot asked groggily, barely awake, reaching out for him, grasping his arm in a grip that was amazingly strong. “Are the Kulls gone? Did you Kill them? Are we both dead?”
“It’s all right, Nicki,” AnnaRail said. “You’re safe now.”
“Mother! Father!” she cried, for the first time realizing who held her. “Oh mother it was so horrible. There were Kulls everywhere, and they wouldn’t let me see you. And the Tulalane tore my dress, and Morgin killed him.”
AnnaRail spoke softly to NickoLot, comforting her, but her eyes searched Morgin’s face knowingly. To Morgin she said, “You can never give me a gift greater than that which you have given me this day. Though when this business is done, and this hate between Decouix and Elhiyne is finished, you must come back alive and healthy.”
“I’ll try, mother.”
“Please do nothing foolish.”
Morgin shrugged. “I’ll do what must be done.”
She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek, then lightly on the lips. “Fare you well, son. I must go and take care of Nicki.”
“And I must go too,” Morgin said. “Though where I’m going only the gods know.”
NickoLot was unhurt and able to walk, and she left with AnnaRail comforting her. Roland stayed and said, “Come. Let’s tell your grandmother that you are the one who killed the Tulalane.”
“No,” Morgin shouted. He turned and started walking to the stables with Roland following him closely. “She wouldn’t believe me anyway. She’d say I was lying, trying to escape her sentence of death.”
“But I’ll make her believe,” Roland pleaded.
“Not even you can make her believe when she refuses to listen.”
“We must try.”
“No. I’ll not give her the satisfaction of another public condemnation.”
“Fine,” Roland shouted. “Do as you wish. But don’t get yourself killed in some foolish attempt to regain pride and honor that were never lost.”
“I don’t intend to get myself killed,” Morgin said. At that moment he reached his horse. He grasped the saddle horn and mounted up in one smooth motion.
Roland grabbed his sleeve and pleaded, “Don’t go, son. Please. I beg you.”
Morgin started to shout again, but realized how unfair it was to speak so to Roland. He spoke more kindly. “But she’s left me no choice.”
“Please,” Roland begged. “You know my intuition, and I sense that death awaits you out there.”
“Then so be it,” Morgin said flatly. “If that must be, then that must be. I love you, father.”
“And I you, son. Fare you well.”
Morgin didn’t look back as he rode out of the stables. He trotted the horse across the castle yard, tried not to cringe under the derisive stares of the clansmen on the parapets above. From somewhere JohnEngine cried out, “Morgin. Wait.”
Morgin halted the horse as JohnEngine ran up to him breathlessly. “Don’t leave without me. I’ll ride with you.”
“Are you sure you want to ride with a coward?”
JohnEngine sneered at him. “Don’t insult me. You know I don’t believe that.”
Morgin looked at the sun. It seemed hours since he’d awakened in the ditch, but it was still just after sunrise. Morgin reached out to his brother, shook JohnEngine’s hand. “I have to ride alone in this.”
JohnEngine seemed to understand that. “But where will you go?”
Morgin shrugged. “I don’t know.”
JohnEngine hesitated, trying to think of something to say, but Morgin realized there was nothing more that could be said. “Fare you well,” he said to JohnEngine, then spurred his mount through the gates and away from Elhiyne.
JohnEngine called after him, “Fare you well, brother.”
Not far from the castle gates the road forked east and west. He could go west to Anistigh, then on to the port city of Aud and the sea. He’d never been to the sea before, and Aud was a city where he would apparently be free of clan law. There was nothing for him to the east, only the Worshipers, and Yestmark, and war. He hesitated for a moment, then turned east and rode toward the oncoming enemy.
~~~
Valso watched the sun rise with smug satisfaction. He’d easily outwitted the stupid Elhiyne armsmen, had put a good deal of distance between him and them, and could now travel with a bit less haste. Briefly he considered stealing a horse, but that might put them back on his trail so he rejected that idea as an unnecessary convenience. He was in good physical condition, and not untrained in the lore of the land. It would not harm him to travel on foot for a day or two. And he felt extremely good, for everything had gone well, if not exactly as planned.
He decided to stop and rest through the morning. It had been a long night evading the fool Elhiynes, and some sleep would do him good. He scouted about and discovered an old, abandoned mill by a large stream. One wall had partially collapsed, but after a careful search he found a room completely intact. It would provide good shelter, and he could relax in relative comfort there.
He cut some leafy branches from nearby trees to soften his bed, arranged them carefully on the stone floor, then lay down to sleep. Yes, he thought. The previous night had indeed gone well. His only regret was that he’d failed to kill the Elhiyne whoreson.
He dozed off quickly, but in his dreams he moved toward a goal and sought a certain presence that he knew awaited him. It was a presence he had known for all his adult life. It was that other that was the source of much of his power. It was the existence that fed him, the magic that nourished him.
They met, he and that other, and tears of joy came to him, for in no other presence could he feel such awe, such magnificent wonder, such p
ower. He was Valso. He knew power as no other mortal could. He had stood before the greatest wizards and witches of the clans both Greater and Lesser, and they were as nothing compared to him. And yet, standing now in the presence of that other, he was as nothing compared to it.
“It is begun,” he said respectfully. “The pieces of the game have been placed upon the board and set into motion. All has gone as you desired.”
He sensed pleasure in the vastness of that other, and too, he sensed a question.
“No,” he answered. “It was only a minor difficulty. Merely an unanticipated incident that turned into a momentary setback. It was all caused by a rather insignificant mortal, a young man with considerable power of his own, but still nothing compared to that which you have granted me. He blundered into the midst of things, and I had to change my tactics for a short while. But in the end your desires were fulfilled. Your enemies believe themselves to be momentarily victorious, and they foolishly look to my stupid father as their primary source of danger. All has essentially gone as planned. I have served you well, my lord.”
He sensed pleasure in that other again. And then, his heart pounding rapidly in anticipation, he sensed that a reward was due. It came slowly at first, and then it came in a flood. That other brushed him with just the merest touch of the infinitely exquisite hatred that Valso so longed to caress, the wondrously malignant evil that would someday be his eternal reward, the power, the cruelty, the enmity that was that other, his master of masters, his lord, his king, his god. And Valso carried that touch joyously with him to his dreams.
Chapter 16: The Magic of Dreams
Morgin rode hard all that day. He followed the road out of the valley that led northeast to Kallun’s gorge, and he never paused, never rested, but drove himself to the limit of his endurance, trying to achieve a state of exhaustion that would wash away the anger and frustration of Olivia’s public condemnation. His ride became a race. The news of his alleged cowardice was spreading somewhere ahead of him, travelling swiftly from ear to ear. He knew he could not rest until he caught up with it, and passed it, for until then he would see nothing but disgust in the eyes of every clansman he met. It was not until mid-afternoon that he realized he chased a phantom that could never be caught, and in the process, like a damn fool, he was riding his horse to death.
He halted then, stopped at a small mountain brook to water and rest the animal. He must be more careful, walk it for a while, alternate between walking and riding as a good horseman should on a long trail. But to his surprise he found the horse rather calm, and seemingly indifferent to the grueling pace he’d set for it. It was a coal-black horse, with no distinguishing marks on its coat. He looked into its eyes—they were even blacker than its coat, if that was possible—and they stared back at him as if boring deeply into his soul. Morgin cringed under that gaze, as if there was an intelligence behind those eyes greater than that of any horse. He had the feeling he could set any pace for this horse, ride it for any length of time, and when he was done, it would still be ready to ride further.
He shook himself, looked away from the horse and the feeling passed. He was imagining things. It was just a horse, like any other horse in the Elhiyne stables. Perhaps not as gentle as poor SarahGirl, but still just a horse.
He looked at it again, and again it looked back, and again that odd feeling came over him. A name suddenly came to mind: Mortiss, the DeathWalker.
He shook himself again. He was letting his imagination get the best of him with foolish waking dreams of some strange horse with an odd name. “Just a horse,” he mumbled as he mounted up and rode on.
He was high in the Worshipers now on the trail to Kallun’s gorge. The sun was getting lower on the horizon as darkness approached. Snow blanketed the landscape on either side of the trail. The air held a chill that cut through Morgin’s tunic, and he was forced to bundle his cloak tightly about him. He wondered if the damn horse felt the cold as he did.
It snorted suddenly, as if to say, Of course not, you fool.
He’d never been this high in the pass before. He’d spent many a day in the Worshipers hunting and fishing with his brothers and cousins, but that had always been in the forests that carpeted the lower slopes. Never before had he been allowed to go higher, to ride above the tree line and attain the summit of the pass. Olivia had never trusted him sufficiently to allow him to cross the mountains. It was a sore point between them, for while his brothers and cousins had all made the trip at least once, Morgin had never been beyond the fields and valleys west of the mountains, and for years he’d had to be content with stories of the vast forests to the east, and the Plains of Quam, and beyond that the Great Munjarro Waste.
He knew he’d probably not see them this time either. He rode now to war, though he had no idea what he would do when he got there. It was unfair, unjust, even more so since the traitorous slut Rhianne would probably go unpunished. But even if no one else knew of her treachery, he did, and he vowed now that if he ever returned she would pay with her life for going to Valso’s bed.
“Halt,” someone cried from the brush at the edge of the trail. Morgin pulled his horse to a stop and waited, careful to keep his hand away from the hilt of his sword. Directly in front of him a single man stepped into the trail. He held a sword in one hand and stood confidently blocking the trail. Morgin recognized him, though not by name; he was a sergeant-of-men that Morgin had seen about the castle occasionally.
The man peered carefully at Morgin’s face, and after a moment his features relaxed and he said, “You’re Lord Morgin, are you not?”
Morgin answered with a flat “Yes.”
The man turned to the side of the trail and shouted, “It’s all right. He’s Elhiyne. I recognize him.” There came some rustling in the brush, then all was still again. The man stepped to one side of the trail and said, “You may pass.”
Morgin hesitated. “You have the advantage of me.”
The man bowed at the waist. “Forgive me, your lordship. I’m Abileen. May I ask if you bring word from Elhiyne?”
Morgin shook his head. “I bring no word. How much farther to the gorge?”
“Around the next bend in the trail, my lord. Do you intend to cross?”
Morgin nodded.
Abileen frowned. He looked back down the trail and asked, “Where are your men, my lord?”
Morgin shrugged. “I’m alone. And I would prefer that you keep my identity to yourself.”
“Certainly, my lord.”
“Thank you,” Morgin said, then spurred his horse up the trail.
It was near sunset when, a few minutes later, he caught his first sight of Kallun’s gorge, a deep slash in the earth cut directly across the trail. It was no more than a hundred paces wide, but its depth was far beyond measure. It was said to have been created during the last of the Great Clan Wars by the god Kallun. According to legend he had created it as a defensive barrier against the Benesh’ere. Morgin wondered at such a legend, for if he was truly a god he had no need of a defense against mortals. He could merely have willed that the Benesh’ere no longer exist, and the war would have been done. Most legends had such holes in their credibility.
The gorge, though, was impressive. Its walls were sheer, unmarked rock, as if sliced into the earth by a giant sword. Morgin wondered if anyone had ever tried to scale those walls, but it was merely a thought, for he would not be the one to volunteer for such a task.
The gorge cut directly across the pass at its summit. The trail that Morgin followed led straight to a massive stone bridge that was the only means of crossing the gorge. But the bridge itself was barely wide enough for a single man or horse, and while the once rounded surface had been flattened by stone masons for surer footing, and rails had been added as protection against a chance misstep, the bridge still remained a fearful passage.
The bridge was considerably lower than the lip of the gorge. Morgin was forced to dismount and lead his horse down a steep and treacherous incline to reach
the bridge. Out on the bridge itself he was infinitely grateful for the handrails on either side, for while the footing was sure, the path was narrow, and his imagination painted a vivid picture of what it would mean to fall.
On the other side he led Mortiss up another incline and paused at the lip, looking back on the bridge. With the handrails removed, a dozen archers could defend that bridge against an army, an army that would be forced to run down one incline, across the bridge, and up another incline; all on foot and in single file. Now he understood why Illalla would not try to cross the Worshipers at Kallun’s gorge, even though it was much closer to Elhiyne than Sa’umbra.
“Good even’, traveler.”
Morgin started, spun, found a grizzled old retainer facing him. The man seemed to have stepped out of nowhere. “Yer headed the wrong direction,” the old fellow said.
“Is there a place where I can rest?” Morgin asked. “And feed my horse?”
“Aye.” The old man jerked his head to one side. “This way.” He stepped off the trail into a dark shadow between two large boulders.
Morgin followed. In the gathering gloom of sunset he could see little in the shadows, but the sound of the old man’s footsteps guided him nicely. They emerged into a large level space, sheltered on all sides by rock walls and boulders. Masons had cut a shelf into the rock for seating, and three men huddled against the cold there, savoring the warmth of a fire. Four more lay on the ground, rolled in their blankets and sleeping near another fire.
“I’ll take care of your horse,” the old man whispered. “Why don’t you sit by the fire and warm yourself.”
Morgin did just that, taking a spot by the three seated men. They acknowledged him with a nod, but said nothing out of courtesy for the men sleeping nearby.
The fire felt good. It was warm and bright, and it took much of the chill out of his bones. He found he could lean back against the rock wall and still feel its warmth. His muscles relaxed. The tension came out of his shoulders and he closed his eyes to rest for just a moment.
