The Keeper laid her long, bony hand atop the burn-scared forehead of the elf kneeling before her. “Then go with the blessings of the gods and the Will of the Emperor, Inquisitor Jukung.”
Jukung raised his face toward her, his effort at a grateful smile contorting his features into a grim mask.
Book 3: THE FORGOTTEN
CHAPTER 31
Fool’s Errand
The dwarf stood on an outcropping of rock, surveying his own mind as much as the landscape spread before him.
There were two obvious paths in the morning light. One lay northward into the broad, unknowable expanse of the Vestasian Savanna that ran to a flat and hazy horizon. The other path led eastward up into the foothill foundations that formed the western end of the Aerian Mountains. He could see the peaks in the distance now outlined in the slowly warming twilight of the dawn.
Northward with Drakis. . eastward with his heart.
In truth, back into the roots of the mountain had been his original-if somewhat desperate-plan. When the Last Throne had fallen, he was trapped with the Heart of Aer, both of them hidden in the midst of the Rhonas Army occupying the caverns surrounding them on all sides. It was only a matter of time before the entirely too predictable elves would come with their gleaners and discover him and his treasure. Then Drakis had come-a gift from the forge of the gods-and the confused human became the means of Jugar’s escape.
That his “escape” involved placing himself into slavery was, he chuckled to himself, the very foundation of its brilliance. House Timuran was obviously just another of uncounted self-important and equally insignificant Imperial Houses of the Third Estate aspiring to grandeur in the grandeur-ridden Rhonas Imperium. A more important House-or perhaps one closer to the actual power of the Empire-might have recognized the Heart of Aer for what it truly was, and then Jugar would have been a fool indeed. But a backwater House of the Western Provinces. . no, that was a place that would not recognize what they had until he had used its power against them, caused their hearts to be torn still beating from their chests, and freed himself and his prize.
That this human idiot heard the Song of the Northern Legends in his mind made it all the easier.
And it had all worked out so much better than he had planned. Jugar congratulated himself again on how well he had manipulated this Drakis fellow to the point where his distraction had allowed the dwarf to recover the Heart of Aer-and do all the damage that he had hoped to achieve. That Drakis and his companions had brought him north through the infernal elven folds had been a wonderful and happy accident that he had managed to steer toward Togrun Fel-his intended destination all along. The westward bend in their course across Hyperia had been necessitated by the Rhonas armies that remained encamped at the Southern Gates.
But then things began to go wrong. The Hecariat had been a close thing, and then, try as he might, he could not influence Drakis-who had grown unreasonably stubborn-to turn them back north toward the mountains. Somehow that madwoman Lyric had put that nonsense about Murialis in his head. Even then he might have managed to persuade Drakis to turn north toward the end of the mountains, but his back luck turned to worse. The Iblisi Inquisitor and his Quorum had shown up at the most inopportune moment and forced them all into the lands of the dreadful Murialis faery queen.
But the dice of the gods had not stopped rolling, and even that apparent disaster had turned to his advantage. Murialis had bought into the Drakis legend-no wonder faeries are so fond of tales-and had not only spared their lives but had managed to whisk them through her kingdom and deposit them all at its northernmost boundaries almost exactly at the spot where-in his wildest dwarven dreams-he had hoped to come.
“So, you’re leaving us?”
Jugar actually started at the voice behind him. He slipped the black, cold crystal stone back into his pocket. “Eh? Oh, Drakis!”
“My apologies,” Drakis said, his own gaze fixed on the mountains in the distant east. “Still, I’d be sorry to see you go.”
“Go?” The dwarf turned and smiled charmingly. “No, friend Drakis-I was but looking on the ancestral mountains of the lost dwarves. Just a fool lost in thought.”
“Not so lost, I think,” Drakis replied. “I’ve been doing some thinking of my own. Just before the last battle-before we met-Braun told me. .”
“Who?” Jugar asked.
“Braun,” Drakis answered with some annoyance. “Our Proxi. . you don’t know him. Anyway, he pointed out that there were no young nor old among the dwarven dead.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, indeed,” Drakis continued. “So, I think they must have gone somewhere, Jugar. There must be dwarves somewhere-and a great many of them, I wouldn’t doubt.”
“This-Braun-friend of yours seems uncommonly clever,” Jugar sniffed.
“My point is that you should go and find them,” Drakis said, nodding toward the mountains. “You’ve done enough for us.”
“Nonsense!” Jugar laughed. “We’ve only just started down our road!”
“My road, not yours,” Drakis said. “Why have you even come with us this far? I half expected you to leave us at Togrun Fel. .”
He nearly had, Jugar thought to himself.
But now he wavered.
Jugar gazed at the distant outline of the Aerian Range to the east and sighed with great satisfaction. He pulled the Heart of Aer from his pocket, fingering its cold facets as he tumbled it over and over with the fingers of his hand. There beneath the mountain, he thought, his people waited. There, deep in the dark roots and secret places farther below than elves or men ever suspected, his fellow dwarves waited for the return of the Heart of Aer and through it the healing of their race.
But healing was not what Jugar had in mind.
Vengeance, retribution, justice, pain-that is what filled his thoughts and schemes, along with the growing conviction in his soul that Drakis could be the means by which he could achieve all his dark and cold desires. Could Drakis be the real thing? If he was, then Drakis could be the means of spilling enough elven blood to satisfy even Jugar’s thirst for revenge.
All he needed was for Jugar the Fool to guide his steps a little longer-and a little farther north.
“Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a road you’ve never walked before and see where it leads, Drakis,” Jugar said through a gap-toothed smile. “I’d like to walk yours a bit longer and see where it takes me.”
“Drakis?”
The human warrior and the dwarf returned from the ridge to the small encampment. Ethis tended a cheery fire that was somehow almost entirely devoid of smoke. Jugar moved quickly to the flames, warming his hands. Drakis would have joined him, but the Lyric rushed up to him before he could take another step.
The pale face of the Lyric was staring at him. “Drakis, it is long past time you returned. There is a journey before us, and you are our guide.”
Drakis took the Lyric’s offered hand. “Thank you. . and you are?”
The Lyric flashed a bright, roguish smile. Her emerging hair was almost white in its lightness, a fuzzy nimbus framing her pinched face. “You are still confused from the journey. You will remember me as Felicia of the Mists.”
“Yes,” Drakis nodded, trying to remember just who the Lyric last thought herself to be. “The. . uh. . Princess of the Isles.”
“Princess of the Erebusian Isles,” the Lyric corrected with a light laugh. “Fear not, good Drakis; we raiders of the Nordesian Coast are far more forgiving than our frightening legends make us out to be. When we reach the coast, our cousins who sail the Bay of Thetis will show you such hospitality that you will never again forget my true name!”
“I shall look forward to it,” Drakis said, but his words seemed to fade toward the end as his eyes tried without success to take in the vista that lay just beyond the Lyric.
The morning sun cast long shadows across a low, jagged terrain that gave way quickly to a seemingly infinite plain of grassland marred only occasionally by
a grouping of solitary trees or the flash of water through the shimmering waves of the warming air. To his right, distant purple peaks rose above the line of dense trees that ran from the east behind him and continued to form a great arch that vanished into a hazy and indistinct horizon to the west. The sky itself seemed larger to him stretched over such a vastness so flat that he felt he might almost fall off of it.
Ethis looked up, his face now the typical blankness that characterized most of the chimerian race. “Good morrow, Drakis.”
Drakis ignored the chimerian. “Jugar, since you’re determined to be here with us. . perhaps you could tell us just where are we?”
“We are precisely where you asked that we should be,” the dwarf said brightly. “We are beyond the northern border of the cursed Hyperian Woodland and now stand on the verge of Vestasia itself! We have traveled just short of eighty leagues and seemingly overnight.”
“That far?” Drakis asked. “How is that possible?”
The dwarf looked up from the campfire and smiled. “My good Drakis, it is a miracle-nothing short of a miracle of the gods-that we have been brought here. Carried by the demons of Queen Murialis for reasons of her own and deposited as you yourself requested here across the northern boundaries of her most terrible and feared kingdom! I had hoped to skirt the western slopes of the Aerian Range and avoid any danger that her minions might present, and yet here we are and a week’s journey the richer for it! And fortunate-fortunate indeed-for all our possessions remain with us with not a piece of lint nor thread subtracted from the lot as one might expect from the faery folk! A week’s worth of travel in a single day-thanks to the capricious whim of the Faery Queen.”
“Hardly capricious,” Ethis added, his eyes fixed on Drakis. “Drakis negotiated our passage for us. It seems Murialis is a reasonable monarch after all.”
The human warrior eyed Ethis critically for a moment but decided not to let the comment escalate into an argument. Drakis had done nothing that brought them through the strange woods of Murialis except to let the Faery Queen believe that he might be this mythical fulfillment of some ancient prophecy that everyone seemed to know about except him. Ethis had been the one who had saved them, bringing them into the faery realm and insuring that they weren’t summarily killed. If Ethis had his reasons for letting the rest of the group think that Drakis had been the big hero, then an argument over who had actually saved them would have been foolish.
They were in enough trouble without fighting among themselves over anything; so Drakis turned his mind to other things.
Vestasia, Drakis thought. It felt different from the Hyperian Plain that they had crossed with such trepidation just the week before; though it had been deserted, Drakis felt it was a land where civilization had once flourished and could return again to tame the broad plain and cultivate its expanse. The overwhelming impression that the warrior had of the grass-and-rock choked flatlands before him was that it was entirely wild, forbidding and savage. It was a badlands with its own natural law that defied anyone from the outside who wished to impose any rule other than that of unstoppable, deadly nature.
“Beautiful, is it not?”
Drakis turned toward the deep voice. “You think it beautiful?”
Belag seemed to stand taller than ever. His great, flat snout was raised as though sniffing the wind for the scent of prey. RuuKag stood behind him but presented a completely different demeanor; his shoulders were hunched forward, lowering his head with the curve of his back as he looked over the plain.
“Yes, beautiful,” Belag said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth and baring his fangs as he spoke. “This place is known among my race as the ‘Land of the Shamed.’ It is the place where cowards come to die in exile from their clans. It is supposed to be a cursed place. .”
“It is a cursed place,” RuuKag said abruptly.
“Cursed? How is it cursed?”
“It does not matter. You are with us, Drakis,” Belag continued. “It is sung of in the prophecy that where you walk, the cursed lands shall be made whole beneath your feet.”
“You seem terribly pleased at the prospect of crossing this cursed place,” Ethis observed.
“I find the open land calls me,” Belag said drawing in a deep breath. “It brings into my mind the great plains of Chaenandria where my father and his father’s fathers hunted our prey and fought our battles down through all our songs of glory. RuuKag and I can run in the open. .”
“I have no desire to run,” RuuKag grumbled.
“Then I shall feel the wind pass through the hairs that are springing from my mane and the sun beat upon my back. The open sky shall be my temple and all the wild beasts shall flee from me in fear. I shall pit my speed and strength against them and bring them down in righteous sacrifice in your name. I shall hunt for you, Drakis, and for all of us. I shall taste the warm blood of my prey in my mouth once more as the star-gods intended from the beginning.”
Drakis turned to Ethis. “What about you. . I can assume you’ve been here before.”
“Here, yes,” Ethis said then nodded toward the great plain to the north. “But there? No. That is a land that cannot be tamed, a land too wild and harsh even for the determined and cunning elves of Rhonas. The Empire has extended its influence farther to the north and east, but into this place they rarely bother to venture except on occasional slaving expeditions on the southern shores of the Bay of Thetis. .”
Drakis was having trouble hearing what Ethis was saying. He had to remind himself that he could not trust the chimerian, a creature that a small part of his mind still told him was a trusted colleague and brother in arms but only, he reminded himself, because the Devotions had made him believe it. Drakis had no memory of Ethis before the battle for the Ninth Throne, and his actions since the fall of their Devotions-his alarming transformations in the faery kingdom and his use of them to trick Drakis into revealing so much of himself-had left the human hurt and suspicious.
Beyond his distrust, the song was running through his mind, and it distracted him once more. It was never far from his thoughts and was growing stronger with every step they took toward the north. In some ways, this was a comfort to him; before it had been a weak annoyance, like an itch that one could not quite reach. With its increasing prominence he was better able to tune it out and even ignore it from time to time. But occasionally it dislodged memories that rushed to the surface of his thoughts and broke upon his consciousness.
“Well that’s not what Mom says,” Polis answered back, sweat pouring from his forehead. “It’s north-in Vestasia maybe-beyond a sea of water and even a sea of sand. That’s where we’re going, Drak. . you and me together. No one will ever make us work again. You wait and see.”
Drakis forced his attention back to Ethis as he spoke.
“. . no real knowledge of the nomadic tribes that manage to make their home here,” Ethis concluded. “I took a very long road to avoid crossing that dangerous wasteland-no one enters the savanna of Vestasia lightly.”
“All the more reason we should,” Drakis answered. “What better place to hide than a place no one wishes to enter?”
Ethis raised both his hairless brows in surprise.
“It’s north-in Vestasia,” Drakis said with a thin smile. “You wait and see.”
They walked for five days across the plain without feeling they were making any progress. Ethis insisted that they pick a point in the distance in the morning that appeared to be north and then keep their track fixed on that destination. This almost always amounted to finding a distant grouping of trees that could be spied across the seemingly endless grasses.
The terrain was far from entirely flat; undulations and occasional rock outcroppings gave some variety to what otherwise would have been a near tabletop flatness to the land. The grasses were yellowing and the ground beneath them parched. Their footfalls raised great clouds of gray dust that drifted upward, which greatly concerned Ethis as their movements could undoubtedly be seen
for many leagues in any direction.
Mornings were the time that Drakis liked best, for each of them worked in harmony toward their common good. Belag, who had disappeared the previous night, would return exhausted in the morning-but always with a fresh kill. RuuKag would quarter the creature and properly butcher its meat so that it could be cooked. Jugar would busy himself finding or making a properly clear space while Ethis constructed a fire pit. Mala and Drakis would cook the meat for them, while the Lyric always seemed to appear with wild roots or berries though none of them could determine just how or where she came by them. Then, their meal concluded and the remaining cooked meats packed for use later in the day, everyone would see to cleaning up the camp before setting off.
Belag would remain behind and sleep in the early part of the day, but he would always join them by afternoon, his deep-throated voice singing through the grasses as he approached.
By midday of the sixth day of their trek northward, they came upon a wide, meandering river that wound its twisted way across the plain. Wildebeest, antelope, and ibex appeared from time to time at the river’s edge to drink. . each one a sight that astonished the humans and even, Drakis noted with amusement, the chimerian. Jugar at each opportunity managed to spin a tapestry of knowledge about these beasts based entirely on stories he had heard or, Drakis was convinced, that the dwarf made up on the spot.
They followed the river for four additional days, but by the morning of the tenth day it was obvious that the river’s course was leading more toward the west. When Belag reported that there were watering holes to be found on their northern course, Drakis determined to abandon the river, and once more they set off across the plain.
It was on the evening of the thirteenth day that they saw the great dust trail crossing the plains to the north. For three days they followed the long cloud of dust that seemed to precede them. By the end of the seventeenth day on the savanna, Drakis could see that the clouds of dust they had been following ended at a brown knob too distant for them to make out any detail.
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