“Yeah, or maybe he’s still in there looking,” Emerius added. That earned him a glare from the assassin. “What? He could be. That would be better than him having already gotten it and leaving.”
Ix nodded, reluctantly agreeing with him.
“There is but one way to find out,” Rindu said.
They beached their canoes, dragged them up onto the soil, and picked up their weapons. With a shrug, Sam headed toward the hole in the side of the rock, and the others followed.
As they passed through the opening, Rindu spoke up. “Sam, I am sensing that strange kind of energy again. It feels like the energy that Ayim Rasaad used, the awkum. I fear that it confirms Chetra Dal was in fact here. I believe now that it may have been he who taught the use of it to Ayim Rasaad.”
“Well, we beat her, so we can beat him, too,” Sam said.
Rindu’s face became sour for a moment, as if he had heard something distasteful.
They were only twenty feet into the tunnel when they saw the first body. It was a man, a soldier. He was lying face down, a jagged hole in his back. He was obviously dead.
Emerius knelt next to the corpse and inspected the wound. “It looks like something big was rammed through him, something the size of a tree branch. It had to have been sharp, though, to go through him completely like that. Either that or it was shoved with such force that it didn’t need to be sharp.”
“Is it Dal’s soldier?” Ix asked.
“I’m sure it is,” Sam said. “All the clues point to him having been here.” He felt like the sun had suddenly gone out. His despondence seemed like it would swallow him whole.
They continued, finding other bodies, some with holes in them like the first and others that had been torn apart.
“What could have done this?” Sam asked no one in particular.
“It was whatever guardian was present to protect the artifact,” Rindu said. “We saw similar things at the first artifact in Gromarisa. That protector was a rock creature. Perhaps this one is similar.”
“Maybe it killed Dal and we can get the artifact ourselves,” Emerius suggested. Maybe they killed each other.”
“Perhaps,” the Zouy said.
The caverns seemed to go on for miles, but the side passages were smaller. The party stayed to the main, larger passageway, and soon they stepped into a wide chamber. There were bodies strewn about, more than they had seen at one time up to this point. Some soldiers were torn completely apart and others had only one wound, but all were dead.
Strangely, the entire room was wet, as if it had been flooded. Water dripped from the clothes of the corpses, the floor, and parts of the walls. In some of the little depressions, there were standing puddles of water. Sam wasn’t sure what it signified, but he noted the mystery in his mind.
The cavern was roughly round, about a hundred feet in diameter, with a ceiling that was too high to be seen. There were not many marks from chisels or picks, but instead looked like the entire thing had been scooped out with a giant spoon, leaving relatively smooth walls and a floor only slightly rougher. In the center was a stone pedestal like they’d seen before, looking as if it had grown up from the floor and was part of it. On top of the pedestal was a perfect impression of a large tuning fork. Nothing rested in the depression.
“Damn!” Emerius spat.
“Dal got the last artifact,” Sam said despondently, his legs going weak and buckling. He slid to the floor. “That means he has all three. He has won.”
“Do not be so quick to admit defeat, Sam,” Rindu said. “As it is said in your world, ‘It is not over until the overweight woman warbles.’”
Sam didn’t have the energy to correct him.
Chapter 26
Chetra Dal sat heavily in his cushioned seat. That was the one thing about aging that bothered him the most: the constant aches. He could handle not being as spry any longer, not having the strength or endurance he used to have, but the aching, that was the worst. He sighed as he slumped in the chair, but then straightened as he looked toward the other two in the room. He didn’t want to show weakness around these two.
“I have obtained the last of the artifacts,” he said. “I now have all three.”
“Then we have won,” Tingai said, smug in his opinion.
“Not yet.”
The look on Tingai’s face slipped off, replaced with one of confusion. “You have all three artifacts, the goal we have been striving for all this time. What else is there to do?”
Chetra Dal sighed. “These items are not simple tools, to be picked up and used by anyone. They utilize a power that no one has mastered in thousands of years. I have come closest, but even I cannot simply gather them together and use them with expert skill. I must commune with them, learn them and how to use them as one. And they must learn me as well.”
“Learn you?” Vahi said. “You speak as if they’re alive.”
“In a sense,” Dal said, “they are. They are alive with power, and for one to use that power, there must be a connection. That connection is not created quickly. It will take two or three weeks of work to commune fully with the items. I will start immediately.”
The other two silently nodded.
Tingai bit his lower lip as if wondering if it was safe to comment further. He finally decided to do so. “What are we to do while you commune?”
“Continue your preparations for the attack on Whitehall. The army should reach the fortress soon, but your work in creating your perfect soldiers is not complete yet. Continue with that. When I am ready, I will use the bell and teleport us all to our final confrontation. To the seat of the new government. To Whitehall.”
Tingai nodded again. “I’ll get to it, then.” He left the room, casting a wondering glance at the bhor as he did so, almost as if he regretted leaving the assassin to speak alone with Dal.
“And what of me?” Vahi asked.
“You will remain here, close,” Chetra Dal said. “When we go to the final battle, I want you near me. There may be tasks suited to your skills. In the meantime, do as you like. If your people mourn, then do so in your way, over the loss of your brethren.”
“My mourning for my race is done. We are not a sentimental people. I will take the time to train and rest and prepare for the opportunity to repay those who put an end to the bhorgabir. I will return in three weeks.”
“Very well,” Chetra Dal said. He shifted his attention to the bag on the floor in front of him. The three artifacts were in there. He would rest for a short time to prepare himself, and then he would begin communing with the objects.
It was several minutes before he realized that Vahi had not left. The bhor stood stone-still and silent, as if waiting for something.
“What is it, Vahi?”
The bhor’s over-large eyes locked onto Dal’s. “What happened at the site of the last artifact? You left with four hundred soldiers, but less than a hundred returned with you. Half that.”
“Ah, yes,” the awkum master said. “It was not wholly unexpected, but there were surprises. Yes, there were definitely surprises. I suppose I can tell the tale. Sit, have some tea, and I will tell you.”
It had been a long, arduous journey. Chetra Dal was not as young as he used to be, and his old bones complained constantly at the rigors of their travel. The terrain was wild and rugged, too much so for him to ride in a cart or wagon. He had to ride his manu bird, something that did not agree with his aged body, which was sore the entire time.
The awkum master had to hand it to this Sam. The idea of traveling during the day and then teleporting back to his home each day to sleep in a bed was a good one, one Chetra Dal stole with unabashed enthusiasm. If it hadn’t been for soaking in a bath each night and sleeping in his own bed, he was not sure he would have been able to make the trip. He would learn their finishing location each day, as his spies had told him Sam did, and then he could use the bell to teleport there the next morning to start their travel fresh.
It took a month to
get to the final artifact, Bruqil the tuning fork. He was occupied with his own travels and so did not receive word on how the forces he had sent out had fared in stopping his adversaries. There were groups that had set traps along their route and groups that monitored the traps to check for their activation. There were some wandering units seeking the enemies out in conventional fashion, trying to find them and kill them militarily. And there were the bhorgabir. They were the best chance to eliminate the opposition to Chetra Dal’s plans.
He communicated with Vahi using pigeons, as the travel exhausted him each day and he did not want to waste his precious energy teleporting more than once. Instead, he focused on getting closer and closer to the artifact he sought. The other issues would work themselves out in time. Bruqil was the most important thing at this point.
When Dal and his party finally made it to the shore of the nameless lake he had been searching for, he let out a sigh of relief. He had arrived before Rindu and his allies. All he had to do was to retrieve the artifact and then teleport back to Mwantgeray.
The lake was still frozen over. It was spring, in the month of Tid-Hud, but so far north the thawing had not started yet. It was just as well. Traveling over the ice would be easier than using boats to get to his destination.
He could sense the strange energy of the artifact somewhere to the northeast. It was not the rohw, nor was it the awkum precisely, but another type of energy, perhaps a melding of the two. He recognized it from his dealings with the other two artifacts, but it was still awkward and strange to him. Still, he could follow it right to where Bruqil was resting.
It was midday by the time they arrived at the lake. Chetra Dal considered going back to his fortress and starting off the next morning, but then decided he would push on until he was at the very gate of the artifact’s resting place before stopping for the day. He had no doubt that it would be better to start actually searching the hiding place of the artifact in the morning, with a full night’s rest behind him and a full day of light ahead of him. He wasn’t sure what safeguards had been left to protect Bruqil, but he would not underestimate them.
Dal and his forces had marched over the lake much like they had been marching over solid ground. Near sunset, they arrived at the location where the awkum master sensed the artifact within. It was a large stone hill, maybe large enough to be called a mountain, right at the edge of the water.
He wondered why those who hid the artifact would choose this location. The other two artifacts had been placed where there were recognizable landmarks. Gromarisa was unique, as was Iboghan, but this area, Nawrpul? It made no sense. He did not even understand why the area was so named. Nawrpul in Ancient Kasmali meant “fire fog.” There were too many things he did not know. Chetra Dal did not like it when he did not know something.
The mountain had most likely changed during the years the artifact was interred there. Scree piles had accumulated, leaning up against the sharply pitched sides of the gray, unforgiving rock. Somewhere underneath all the rubble and soil was the doorway he sought. It would be quite an undertaking to get through it all. He sighed. He would not be entering the Bruqil’s hiding place the next day. It would take at least an entire day to excavate all the obstructions to get to the doorway itself. Another delay. Would it be enough to allow his adversaries to catch up with him?
He realized as the question formed in his mind that he expected Rindu and the others to survive all that he had arrayed against them, expected them to survive and to carry on with their quest of foiling his attempt at gaining the last of the artifacts. That was an interesting thought. Not for the first time, Chetra Dal regretted not taking the chance to finish them off while he was in Iboghan, unknown and unseen by them. But there was no use in second-guessing the past. He could only carry on.
As he ruminated, the sun sank deeper in the sky, dipping below the mountains in the west, the mountains he had passed to come to this place. A mist had begun to form, perhaps a condition of the last of the sun’s rays making the snow and ice turn to vapor and the cooling temperatures causing it to condense. He watched the orb as it disappeared inch by inch, his gaze locked on the reds and oranges it cast up into the sky in front of it. Just before it ended its journey for the day, a flash of red traveled across the sky, ricocheted off the snow-covered peaks nearby, and bounced through the valley in which the lake lay. It illuminated the rapidly growing mist, lighting it up as if it was ablaze.
He heard some of the soldiers gasp, others emit exclamations. It looked like the surface of the lake itself carried flames. It lasted for a handful of seconds, and then it was gone as the shadow of the mountains engulfed them. Fire fog indeed. That was one mystery solved, in any case.
Chetra Dal quickly learned the area he was in so he could use Azgo to return the next day, and then gathered his forces and returned to Mwantgeray.
It took the better part of two days to clear the scree from before the doorway. It was a difficult task, made no less so by the nature of the rubble. The ramp of the obstructions had built up over centuries from parts of the mountain flaking off in the constant heating and cooling cycle of the seasons. As new rock fell, it slid down on top of the older material and then in turn was covered with even newer pebbles and soil. As they cleared away the bottom of the pile, material from above continued to slide down. It was tedious, hard labor.
The awkum master was able to help the effort, to a certain extent. He could use powerful blasts of his energy to clear away some of the more stubborn parts of the pile, but he was not able to transport it away from the area. He would occasionally phase parts of the rubble out so the soldiers could move the lighter material more easily, but it still took manual labor from his soldiers. By shovels, buckets, and by hand—for the larger rocks—they cleared the area, inch by painstaking inch.
When he thought about it, Chetra Dal realized how truly extraordinary it was that they only took two days. Of course, he used all the soldiers he had been traveling with and all the rest still in his fortress to do so. They worked day and night, him teleporting in new workers to relieve those already exhausted by the work. He would have to think of a suitable reward for their hard work.
Midmorning on the third day, he stood in front of the solid stone of the mountain, a thirty-foot wide path cleared up to where he sensed the door to Bruqil’s hiding place. He looked toward the west, half expecting to see his enemies rushing toward where he stood, but there was nothing but the flat surface of the frozen lake, punctuated by snow drifts that had accumulated there.
He looked at his commander, all the troops in ranks behind him. The man stiffened to attention. Chetra Dal nodded to him and the man saluted, fist to chest. They were ready.
The awkum master stepped up to the wall, waving his hands to find the exact location of the door. He could feel it, as if it was calling him. He stopped, hands mere inches from the cold rock. This was it. The final artifact would be his, and then he could continue with his plan for Gythe, his plan to transform the entire world to what it should be.
He closed his eyes and concentrated his energy on the doorway ahead. It took a moment to find the correct frequency, the proper vibration that was the key to unlocking the portal. When he did, he projected a precise pulse of energy toward the stone wall, and a section of it disappeared, revealing a dark tunnel that seemed to go to the heart of Gythe itself.
He did not even have time to turn toward his commander before the first of the creatures hurtled out of the opening at him.
Chapter 27
Master Chetra Dal first started training in combat at the tender age of five years old. Throughout his life, he had continued training, both in physical combat and in the use of energy, first the rohw and then the awkum. Thus when he sensed movement through the doorway he just opened, he was able to evade as well as buffet the creature with his energy, causing it to slide past him instead of harming him.
The commander of his forces was not so lucky.
The man was standing twent
y feet away from Dal, but he may have just as well been standing right next to him. With a flash of blue-white in the morning light, whatever it was that came from inside the mountain closed the distance and thrust one of its appendages into the commander. As it went through him, he gave a grunt and slumped. The thing had pulled its limb back to allow the head of Dal’s forces to drop to the ground. But it was already moving onto its next target.
Chetra Dal was finally able to lock his gaze on the creature as it moved through the ranks of men, killing them indiscriminately. It was roughly man-shaped, with two legs and two arms, even something that could have been a head. It seemed to be made entirely of ice. As it moved—more quickly than any man the awkum master had ever seen—it made a crunching, slushing sound.
The soldiers, well-trained, had regained their composure after the initial surprise and had drawn their weapons. It didn’t seem to matter. The ice creature waded through them, jabbing its arms through their bodies, impaling them and instantly ending their lives. When one of the fighters tried to strike it with a weapon, it would either slither around the blow or it would simply absorb it. The weapon would sink into whichever part of the body was struck, as if melting through it, and then emerge from the other side, leaving the creature unharmed. It was clear Dal had to take a hand.
He leapt toward the creature, as if to do battle with it hand-to-hand. It was a feint, of course. He had stopped fighting physically decades ago. He trained and maintained his fitness, but he was eighty-seven years old, after all, and didn’t desire or need to engage in such rudimentary combat. Instead, he used his presence as a distraction.
The ice monster, sensing that this was the greater foe, turned to engage Dal. It clashed its arms together, throwing off ice and snow, and charged.
Chetra Dal calmly raised his hand, projected a strong burst of awkum, and blew the creature apart. Its pieces sprayed the soldiers close by, but no one complained. Four men had died in little more than a few heartbeats. A hush came upon the ranks, whereas they had been shouting rallying cries just seconds before.
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 121
