Age of Swords

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “Just up that road”—Gronbach pointed inland—“is the gate of Esbol Berg.”

  Persephone stared up the steadily inclining byway toward two monolithic shadows, still largely hidden in fog. Initially she thought they might be clouds. They did resemble a pair of massive thunderhead anvils, and only clouds could be that large. Yet these had straight vertical sides. Looking carefully, she spied how the road ran directly between the huge pillars to a tall but slender gate.

  “We aren’t going alone,” Persephone said, but she wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.

  “Of course not. Frost and Flood will guide you.”

  Frost snorted and tugged on his beard, and Persephone wondered if that meant something in Dherg.

  “I don’t see why both of us have to go,” Frost said.

  Flood smirked. “True, you weren’t any help last time.”

  “And you were?”

  “I fought bravely.”

  Flood’s eyes widened. “You shouldn’t drink so much so early. It rots your brain.”

  Frost ignored him and spoke to Persephone. “We’ll lead you to Balgargarath. After that, it will be up to you.” He paused and turned around to look at Rain, who stood behind him. “No one here has a right to ask you to—”

  “I’m going,” the dwarf said.

  “You don’t have—”

  “I’m going.”

  “The dreams again?” Flood asked.

  Rain nodded.

  “They’re only dreams,” Frost said, but Rain refused to budge.

  Frost looked at Flood and shrugged.

  “Rid us of Balgargarath,” Gronbach told them. “And you will end generations of fear, and restore our long-lost heritage. Neith was our first home. The ruling seat of our lost king. The Children of Drome carved a life out of this mountain, and our greatest desire is to return.”

  Gronbach stepped forward and took Persephone’s hand. He even allowed himself to look at Arion. “Do this for us, and you will have won more than the weapons you bargained for. You’ll be instrumental in returning the Belgriclungreians to their home, and that will strengthen the ties between our two peoples.” He turned his attention to the three. “Do this. Redeem yourselves in the eyes of your people, and all will be forgiven.” He then looked up into the clearing sky. “Help them, mighty Drome, cornerstone of the world, bedrock of our hearts. Guide these would-be saviors and bless their path.”

  With that, Gronbach turned his back, and Frost, Flood, and Rain led the way up the desolate road.

  “You were a mistake, you know,” Flood told Frost as they plodded up the hill. “Mother didn’t want you.”

  Frost shook his head. “We’re twins, you idiot.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Neith

  Looking back on it, I am glad I was young. The young have no real understanding of peril.

  —THE BOOK OF BRIN

  The city of Neith had to be seen, and even then, Persephone couldn’t believe her eyes. If at some future time she were asked what it was like seeing the twin towers of the Esbol Berg gate, she imagined she would say they were huge—no, bigger than huge—bigger than the biggest thing anyone could imagine and then triple that. Even then, the enormity wouldn’t be enough. Caric, the port city that was so large it seemed to be more a home for giants than for dwarfs, was, in comparison, a tiny, humble fishing village. Neith was a home for gods, and not the man-sized Fhrey sort. This was a home for the gargantuan ones, the sun, the moon, the North, South, and West winds—but not the East Wind. The East Wind just wasn’t large enough.

  The trip up the road to the gate took less than an hour, but uphill as it was, it felt longer. Not that Persephone was rushing, and no one else showed any signs of being in a hurry. For once, Arion walked at the front of the party. She moved no faster than before; everyone else just walked slower.

  “You’ve done amazingly well at learning our language,” Persephone told the Miralyith after she jogged to catch up so they could walk together. “It took me years before I was capable of holding a real conversation in Fhrey, and here you’ve managed Rhunic in little more than a month.”

  “Rhunic is not a…” She hesitated. “Not a difficult language. So much is similar. For example, lyn and land, and dahl and wall, and so many others are almost the same. Also helps that I spent more than a thousand years working with sounds.”

  “A thousand?” Persephone said, then cringed. She was so stunned by the admission that the words slipped out. “I mean you don’t look…you don’t act…”

  “Aren’t you sweet.” Arion smiled kindly. “I’m two thousand years and two hundred and twenty-five days to be exact.” She paused in thought. “No, twenty-four.”

  Two thousand years!

  “Is that old for a Fhrey?”

  “It certainly isn’t young,” she said with a smile. “Some of us live into their third millennium, but not many.”

  “You look so young.”

  “It’s the hair,” Arion said, looking up as if she could see what wasn’t there. “If I grew any, it would be white.”

  “Why don’t you grow some? Nyphron and the other Fhrey have hair.”

  “Tangles and knots interfere with both the actuation of power and the manipulation of the Art. Even our clothes…what we call asicas…only drape. There are no ties or…” She looked perplexed. “What is the word for ‘button’?” she asked in Fhrey.

  Persephone stared back at her. “What’s a button?”

  Arion opened her mouth to speak then closed it. “It’s a device for holding material closed, very useful for non-Miralyith.” She smiled.

  “Might want to introduce them to Roan,” Persephone said. “She recently invented the pocket, you know.”

  “What’s a pocket?”

  Persephone opened her mouth to explain then shook her head. “Never mind. She can show you.”

  They walked on in silence, the climb making it difficult to hold a conversation. Esbol Berg—the mighty towers and gate of Neith—loomed ever larger as they approached. The fog retreated, though the sun never fought clear, leaving the sky a muted gray. The great Esbol Berg wasn’t built; it was carved by nature from the face of a dizzying cliff that itself had been hewn from the steep side of the massive mountain, a façade of grandeur. Columns, piers, capitals, and plinths were sculpted into the face. The gate itself, while only twenty or thirty feet across, stood eight stories high. The pair of doors, each a vertical sliver, were impossibly tall. Persephone was pleased to see they were standing open. If not, all of them working together couldn’t have pulled those gigantic slabs back. Still, she was confused.

  “Why are the doors open?” she asked, looking back at the three dwarfs, who trailed along at the rear of the troop because of either their shorter legs or their better understanding of what lay ahead. She hoped for the former.

  All three looked at her oddly.

  “The gate.” She pointed. “If you fear this demon’s escape, why leave the doors open?”

  Understanding dawned on the Dherg, followed by looks of surprise.

  “Closing those doors would do nothing,” Flood said. “They are cloth before a charging aurochs.”

  Persephone looked at Arion, but the Fhrey walked merrily on as if without a care.

  “If such doors as these can’t hold it, what did you use to trap it?” she asked Flood.

  “No cage in Elan could contain that beast, except perhaps the one it came out of, which is now ripped open.”

  Frost said, “There isn’t a door we could build that would contain it.”

  “Then how did you keep it trapped for thousands of years?”

  “We didn’t,” Frost said. “We confused it.”

  “We got it lost,” Flood said.

  “Our ancestors spent generations upon generations digging tunnels through this mountain and down into the heart of the world,” Frost explained. “There’s more down there than up here, you know. Inside, we found oceans of water and seas
of molten rock, caverns of crystals, chambers of salt, and rivers of metal, marvels you can’t imagine, wonders of legend. There’s another world beneath us, and that’s where the legions led Balgargarath on a merry chase. It can sense movement, you see. The demon is like a spider in a web. It feels the quiver of stone, and travels to it. Heroes led Balgargarath deep into Elan while others placed knockers—clever devices powered by dripping water—that make a clack the same as a hammer. The knockers were spaced and timed so that just as Balgargarath got near one, another would catch his attention. Once caught in this system of clicks and clacks, Neith was declared off limits to ensure that no one disrupted Balgargarath’s eternal trek.”

  “What happened to the heroes?”

  “Why do you think we call them heroes?”

  The path grew steeper the closer they came. Behind them, the view expanded with the height and the dwindling mist that by then clung only to the edges of the sea. The port city of Caric was larger than she had realized, with streets running off and intersecting at various points that were hidden to her while she was there. The city formed a large half circle that cupped an inlet where ships lay along several long piers. Looking straight out, Persephone saw a thin line of land across the sea. Rhulyn, she thought. So far away, and yet just seeing it, reminding herself it was there, made her feel better.

  Persephone and Arion paused on the porch until they were all gathered. She felt the ground shake. Dust and dirt, pebbles and chipped rocks fell like hail. They all jumped under the lintel.

  “What was that?” Moya asked.

  “Balgargarath,” Rain said.

  “He knows we’re here? Is he coming after us?” She reached for her sword.

  Rain knelt down and placed an ear to the stone at their feet.

  “What’s he—” Persephone started, but Frost held up a hand to stop her.

  After a minute or two, the quiet little man with the giant pickax stood up and shook his head. “He doesn’t know about us. Just working his way up. After we pushed him off the knocker trail, he’s been destroying them. Only a couple left, I think. So we don’t have much time.”

  “Don’t suppose you could do anything from here?” Frost looked at Suri and Arion hopefully.

  They shook their heads, and Arion added, “Nothing useful.”

  Frost sighed. “Then in we go. Oh, and walk lightly.”

  —

  Suri prepared for the war she would wage with herself. The door to Neith was open, and it didn’t look easy to close. That was good. As long as I can get out, I’m fine. Suri expected it to be dark inside; caves usually were. This one was bigger and fancier than any she’d seen, so she figured it would be darker, too, though even she wasn’t certain how that was possible. After all, dark was dark. Either way, Suri wasn’t overly fond of caves. She wasn’t happy with any place that had walls. Caves were less disturbing than buildings as they lacked doors. Doors were the real culprits—doors that sealed.

  They passed through the entrance, which led immediately to a massive wall—quite the disappointment since she was expecting something grander. This cave wasn’t even as big as Grin’s. There was, however, a pretty picture painted on the stone: people standing in a line leading to a building and a mountain. Lots of colors and Suri liked that. She and Minna paused to stare at the picture. She almost missed seeing that Frost went left while Flood veered right, both of them disappearing through small openings. Suri wasn’t the only one confused. Most followed Frost, and on the other side, it was discovered that the wall could be gotten around by going either way. Rounding it, Suri discovered how wrong she had been about everything: the size of the cave, it being dark, but most important its grandeur.

  The interior of the mountain was a vast chamber lit with sunlight that streamed from shafts cut through stone. The beams struck polished surfaces and pools of water, bouncing to other mirrored planes that reflected the light again until the whole of the immense chamber was illuminated as if by magic.

  “Impressive,” Arion muttered in Fhrey as she stood beside Suri. “I didn’t know they could build such things.”

  The room seemed to have no end. The grand hall just kept going in a series of colonnades and shafts of light entering from either side. Great sculptures of giant rams reared to butt one another over the main aisle, which was paved in gleaming silver and inlaid with gold. Every inch of wall space, and even the underside of the high, arched ceiling, had been carved with decorative designs—mostly variations on squares and circles. Great stone pillars, like the grown-up parents of the babies in the Crescent Forest rols, towered overhead, taller and straighter than any tree. To both the left and right, thin sheets of water spilled down walls to create a shimmering curtain that fell into one of the many illuminated pools.

  Suri had to admit, as far as caves went, this one wasn’t bad. The vast space and natural light gave her a sense of walking in a thickly canopied forest rather than being underground. The fear that usually accompanied caves wasn’t in this one.

  As the group spread out, moving among the statues and fountains, they wandered more than walked the long length of the grand hall. Before too long, Suri spotted doors and openings on either side and stairs leading up to balconies and additional doors. Flood and Rain had taken the lead and now headed straight to what Suri realized was their destination—a huge downward stair and an upward one as well. From the lack of elegance and unimpressive size, there was no doubt that the rising steps were irrelevant when compared with the downward ones. The city of Neith lay below.

  They passed between the statues of two huge dwarfs holding up the ceiling on either side of the downward steps and began their descent.

  Suri lingered at the top of the stairs, looking back the way they’d come. Wind blew across the opening that let the light in and made a mournful sound. A sharp flapping noise disturbed the wind’s wailing song, and she looked up to see a shadow near the ceiling. A bird had entered one of the shafts, its nest on top of a cornice. Splatters of white and a few discarded feathers littered the floor below it. She walked over, bent down, and picked up some of the brown-striped plumes tipped in white. Hawks! She ran a thumb along the comb. Suri had known many hawks, good friends all. Feathers were always lucky. She slipped them into a pouch at her waist.

  Frost, who walked at the rear of the party, paused with her. “After so many centuries, all manner of intruders have taken residence in here.”

  Suri glanced at Minna, and the wolf clearly joined her in wondering if Frost referred merely to birds. Suri didn’t think so; neither did Minna.

  Then they began the long descent.

  They went down, and down, and down some more, passing more levels of stone opulence. By the seventh or perhaps eighth flight, the sunlight had been replaced by a new illumination. Gems mounted in the walls gave off the familiar green light, but on occasion, a blue one appeared. Minna liked them better, but Suri had no preference.

  After what seemed like hours, she’d lost count of how many flights they had dropped—not that she’d really tried to count. Suri wasn’t the counting sort. Roan was. Roan likely knew how many steps they’d taken. Roan likely knew how many steps they’d taken since they left Dahl Rhen.

  Just as Suri’s stomach started rumbling, the dwarfs called a halt.

  “Stopping here for the night,” Frost said. This was the first anyone had spoken since Suri and he had discussed the hawk. Aside from Arion’s comment to herself, no one had said a word since entering. Even when Frost made his announcement, he did so quietly, as if they were thieves inside a carefully guarded home.

  They set down their burdens and clustered on the stone floor beneath the green light of a gem mounted in the wall. Two great urns stood to either side of them, and centered beneath the gem was a chiseled picture consisting of three panels. The first one showed a dwarf hammering on an anvil. The middle panel depicted the same dwarf holding up a ball of light. The last etching showed him throwing it.

  Brin was so fascinated with
the picture that she stood staring, still laden with gear. She stayed there long after everyone else had settled in.

  “There’s no wood,” Persephone said, looking around. “No way to warm our food.”

  Frost pulled five black stones out of his pack and stacked them on the ground. “These will burn.”

  Flood drew out another pair of stones and while Frost added bits of cloth and lint to the pile, Flood began clacking his stones together, creating sparks.

  The sounds echoed, and Flood paused, looking guilty. They all looked out into the darkness, waiting for something awful to happen. Nothing did.

  “Maybe you should let Suri do it,” Arion said.

  “Do what?” Flood asked.

  Arion didn’t answer; she simply looked at the mystic.

  Suri had started fires ever since she was a young girl, and never thought anything about doing so. Requesting the fire spirit to burn wood was no more unusual than when Tura asked her to fetch water from the creek, but she knew better now. Producing fire had nothing to do with the fire spirit. Suri had unknowingly been flicking a chord, tapping the hidden power around her. Sitting deep underground, she found little warmth to draw from. The stones were cold, and the sun too far away. She sensed potential in the black rocks the dwarfs had brought, but it wasn’t enough. The only source she found came from people around her.

  Arion nodded. “It won’t hurt. You just need a little.”

  Suri, who had made a million fires and once set a bear aflame, hesitated. Even though Arion said no one would get hurt, Suri was scared. After all, the Miralyith also hadn’t expected Suri to kill Rapnagar. She looked at the faces surrounding her and realized, perhaps for the first time, that she cared for these people. The friendships had crept up on her, become important without her realizing. The idea of taking too much heat, of accidentally killing them—even the dwarfs whom she liked the least—made her shudder. And what if she killed Arion? Suri hated to admit it, but the Fhrey had slipped into that part of her heart left vacant by Tura. The two were alike in so many ways, despite being completely dissimilar in others.