by Robert Ryan
Aranloth sat down cross-legged on the stone. He let his staff rest in his lap, and he held it with his left hand while his right sought Brand’s and took it in the warrior’s grip, wrist to wrist.
“Do not let go,” he said. “This helps me anchor into the world of the living.”
Brand gripped his hand firmly. He would not let go. But he held his Halathrin blade in his right, drawn free from the sheath and ready to use if the lòhren needed recalling.
For long moments nothing happened. Aranloth’s breathing was deep and long, but it grew ever slower, and he used his belly rather than his chest. His eyes were closed, the lids barely fluttering, and the clear skin on his face remained rosy with health. He showed no real signs of his age. But the grip of his hand lessened a little in intensity, and his head began to lean ever so slightly to one side.
Brand was startled when Aranloth sighed. It was like the last breath of a dying man, but the lòhren spoke to him a moment later.
“I am free,” he said. “Here it is dark, but I still see the camp before us. I float down to the enemy as a leaf on the airs, though no leaf is this light. All about are shadows, and the elugs flit through them, groping forms of malice, but afar, in their midst, is a deeper shadow that not even my spirit eyes can pierce.”
Brand felt his heart race and slowed his breathing to calm down. The lòhren’s hand was now cold to touch, and as the words came to him of the camp and the shadows they formed a vivid picture in his mind as though they were part of a waking dream. Aranloth had not warned of that, and he was troubled, for it seemed to him that this was not quite what the lòhren expected.
“I slip among them,” Aranloth continued. “The elugs do not see me, but I feel their hate, and their fear, and most of all I sense their uncertainty. That is why they do not attack this morning. They are leaderless for the moment. The elùgroths give no commands, and it seems that they were hurt last night when the Drùghoth were dispatched. They recover from their efforts.”
There was a pause. Aranloth did not speak, yet Brand had the impression of sweeping movement and dark shapes lurching beneath him like a stream of water where fish swam but all that was glimpsed was the flash of tails, fins and the momentary turn and glide of bodies.
“I come now to the tent,” Aranloth said.
Brand saw it. Vague – a thing of shadows deeper than all other shadows. It was guarded by power, warded with sorcery that he did not understand but still sensed.
“There is sorcery here,” Aranloth said. It was needless, for Brand already knew it. That made him all the more uneasy.
The feeling of flight ceased. The tent was before them. A great construction of canvas, held in place by ropes and ties and wooden stakes.
It grew cold. The sun was so dim that it was but a shadowy patch in the sky less gray than elsewhere. Of the grass, there was no sign of green. Nor could Brand feel air on his face. But he felt the cold, both in Aranloth’s handgrip and here near the elùgroths tent.
“I go slowly now,” Aranloth said.
The canvas came close. And then Brand was in it. He saw nothing for a moment but then once more on the other side dim images came to him.
There was but one room in the tent. It was bare of furniture and adornments. The ceiling was lost in shadows above. Yet at its center were deeper shadows, though he could distinguish nothing.
“They are here,” Aranloth said, and his thought was a drift of nothingness on a silent breeze. “I must be careful or they’ll sense me. Their wards are weak and ill crafted. My passing through did not give alarm, yet the closer I go the greater will be the risk.”
The darkness seemed to gather and rush closer for a moment, and then it eased. The shadows were deep, but there was some little light from iron incense holders that smoldered a sullen red. A strange scent was in the air, sharp and repugnant. And it was clouded still further by drifting smoke from the slow burning of whatever bark-like material was in the holders.
Yet Brand could still see. Cushions and rugs covered the floor, and in a circle were the thirteen elùgroths. Most reclined as though resting. Some sat cross-legged as did Aranloth back at the top of the tower. A few muttered dully in some language beyond Brand’s experience.
As though from a great distance Aranloth’s voice drifted to him.
“They rest,” he said. “And well they might, for the power they expended last night was great, and the destruction of the Drùghoth will have hurt them, for he who makes a thing must suffer some measure of harm when it is injured.”
Brand remembered the hisses of pain from last night, and he smiled grimly. It gave him satisfaction that these sorcerers did not escape the assassination attempt unscathed.
“It’s well for us that they’re weary,” Aranloth continued, “else they might more easily discover me.”
They drifted a little closer, and Brand saw the enemy close up. They were black cloaked and hooded. Their dark wych-wood staffs rested in, or near, their pallid hands. Their skin, where he could see it, was white and blue-veined, as of a man who never saw the light of day. Of their faces, he could not see anything.
One there was who sat still and unmoving. He muttered the loudest, and at him Aranloth fixed his attention.
“Khamdar,” he said. “A powerful elùgroth. Even for them he is a dark one. No evil is beyond him. Death and destruction trail in his wake, for he seeks admittance into the highest rank of their order. There is blood on his hands that all the oceans in the world would not wash away.”
Aranloth paused, perhaps lost in memories of battles and destruction from other times and places. So Brand guessed. But he knew this: the lòhren’s unease increased before he spoke again.
“Here we come to it at last. There is an object before them.”
Brand looked closely. He could see nothing at first, but then they eased a little closer. Before them all, but most closely to Khamdar, he saw something.
It was long and dark. It rested on a thick black cloth, as though it was an object of reverence. There were marks on it, strange signs that either glowed and pulsed with a faint light of their own or else reflected dimly the smoldering embers in the incense holders.
“I am closer now,” Aranloth said. “It is precious to them. It rests on velvet and is woven with marks of sorcery. It is … it is a wych-wood staff such as elùgroths use. Flexible as a whip, yet still strong enough to contain and conduct great power.”
There was a longer pause, and Brand felt tension sing in the air as Aranloth’s gaze swept over the elùgroths.
“Yet the thirteen each keep their staffs beside them.”
There was another pause, and Aranloth drew closer still to the staff that lay on the black cloth.
“The staff is not whole. I see splinters and a shattered end. It is broken near the middle. The splinters are dagger-like and malice drips from them, cruel and potent, like venom from a poisoned blade.”
The room seemed to grow colder. Or else a breeze touched their bodies far away atop the tower. Brand could not tell.
“I must get closer,” Aranloth said. “This is a thing of power, and it fills me with dread. Arcane forces roil within it, trapped for many long years. They are become one with the wood, perhaps were infused into it for a purpose, designed to be one with it. It is far more than a staff … it is a repository of elùgai, the sorcery of an elùgroth. It fills it even as a carafe is filled with red wine. It is strange sorcery … one that perhaps I have felt before. I hope that is not so … but I must touch it to be sure.”
In the shadows Brand saw Aranloth’s hand glimmer palely. It reached out, wavering and silvery, barely there and yet visible to him.
The hand stretched forth, and then paused a moment before it finally rested against the dark wood.
Aranloth cried out in sudden pain. He tried to withdraw, but his hand seemed stuck. Some power within the staff gripped him.
The elùgroths stirred. Some that were lying came to their feet. Khamdar remained seate
d, but his eyes flicked open, dark slits of evil. His muttering grew suddenly clear in a chant of great force.
“The sword!” yelled Aranloth. “The sword! I’m trapped and cannot return!”
Brand felt the hilt of the blade in his hand. He grew suddenly dizzy, swaying between two places at once, for the scene in the dark tent was before his eyes, but so also was the bright light at the top of the tower and the seated lòhren.
He fumbled, bringing his sword to bear, and he ran the edge hard along Aranloth’s arm where he took his own in the warrior’s grip.
The Halathrin-forged steel drew blood. It ran, bright red, dripping onto the stone floor. Or was it the dark cloth beneath the broken staff? Brand could not be sure.
Aranloth groaned. His hand gripped tightly. His strength was much more than that of any old man, and Brand felt pain in his arm. But the lòhren did not return to his body, and the grip of his hand lessened. Nor did he speak again.
Brand concentrated on the dark scene in the tent once more, and the light of the sun vanished. Khamdar’s chanting was grown shrill, as though he fought some battle against another power. More elùgroths joined him, assuming their positions in the circle, hands on their staffs.
“Aranloth!” Brand yelled. But there was no answer. He sensed the lòhren’s presence, but he was caught amid some struggle for life and death, and Brand knew he was losing. The elùgroths held his spirit in the tent by the power they possessed and by the force of the broken staff. He would die here unless something happened.
Brand looked around. The dark tent swam. The chill in the air grew, and frost formed on the stems of the metal incense holders. He felt sorcery, strong and dark, sure of purpose and growing. Suddenly, Brand saw the woven threads of it through the room, like a spider’s web, drawing tighter, growing thicker, and he knew that if he did not do something soon then not only would Aranloth be caught in this trap, but he himself would also be held by it, and they would both die.
4. The Long Hidden
Brand hesitated.
He should return to his body while he still could. But it was not in his nature to leave Aranloth behind, and he knew if he did that he would regret it. And things would go ill for the city and the king, as if they had not done so enough.
He gripped hard the hilt of his Halathrin blade and made his choice: fate favored the bold-hearted! With a wild yell and a mighty swing he brought the sword crashing against Khamdar’s head.
The elùgroth recoiled, sprawling away, and then he rose towering to his feet, the tallest man Brand had ever seen. His head swung from side to side, his smoldering eyes, lit red like the embers in the incense holders, roved the tent seeking his assailant. On his head there was no wound, yet pain showed on his face. And surprise.
Brand had not expected to hurt him, had not even been sure that the elùgroth would feel anything, and yet he had achieved his aim. Khamdar ceased to chant. The others seemed confused by his strange movements, and their own voices faltered.
It was the chance that Aranloth needed, for a moment it was the staff alone that held him, and with a surge of effort he broke free of its power. There was a rush of air and light. And then, as if from a great distance, the voice of Khamdar followed. You are dead, Aranloth. The city will fall about you and whoever it is that just helped you. I will know them if we meet. He shall not escape me either!
Light flashed around Brand and dazzled his eyes, bringing tears to them. Yet he could see, and he knew he was on the top of the tower again. The morning was about them, and the enemy left behind below.
He turned his gaze to Aranloth. The lòhren struggled to his feet, using his staff to help him, and Brand rose also.
They looked at each other, and the lòhren shook his head as if to clear it.
“That was close,” he said. “Closer and more risky than I guessed. They knew I might try such a thing, and that did not worry me, but I was not prepared for the staff. It is a thing of greater power than I expected, and that misjudgment nearly undid me.”
Brand used an old cloth to wipe the drops of Aranloth’s blood from his blade and then sheathed the sword.
“All is well as ends well,” he said. “At least it’s so in this case. We came back, and you must have learned what you needed to know about their new powers. It seemed to me that you recognized the staff.”
Aranloth raised an eyebrow. “We’ll get to that in a moment. Don’t you know what happened in there?”
“It was all a bit vague,” Brand answered with a frown. “But you were caught, both by the staff and the elùgroths working some sorcery.”
“And then?”
“And then I struck Khamdar with my sword. It didn’t seem to hurt him much, but it surprised him and gave you a chance to escape when his concentration faltered.”
Aranloth stared at him. “And nothing about that struck you as strange?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. It was all strange.”
Aranloth let out a long sigh. “I said when we began that I would describe things to you. But there was no need for that, was there? You were with me, as you should not have been. For someone who mistrusts magic you have a strange affinity for it.”
Brand shrugged. “I do mistrust magic, and I want nothing to do with it. But I was there with you, and I saw what needed to be done, and I did it. Is there really anything strange about that?”
Aranloth looked like he would argue, but all he said was “Perhaps not.” Then he leaned on his staff and looked out over the battlement.
“So,” Brand said. “Tell me more of the staff. Where’s it from, and what can you do about the power they take from it?”
The lòhren’s gaze did not stray from the field below, but his eyes seemed to look back in time rather than at the enemy camp.
“It’s a thing of power, that much you already know. But it has a history – one that is dark, both by the deeds done and by the long years that have piled uncounted since that time. The land of Alithoras has seen kingdoms rise from nothing and fall back into oblivion since last I saw it, and he that wielded it.”
The lòhren paused and turned his keen-eyed glance upon Brand. There was anger in his eyes, but it was only the most obvious of the many emotions that swirled there, visible now as they rarely were, for the lòhren was mostly impassive. Something must have disturbed him greatly.
“The staff,” he continued, “belonged to Shurilgar the Sorcerer. Shurilgar the Betrayer of Nations. Shurilgar, that once was a lòhren. It is a name not unknown to you, nor to any who dwell in Alithoras, though he lived in a past so long ago that most else is forgotten about it.”
Brand knew the name. He knew it well, better than many. Shurilgar was one of the great ones, mighty among lòhren’s … and among elùgroths. He knew him, and he feared him, though the sorcerer was dead.
The legends said that he was slain by Aranloth in a great battle. The lòhren did not talk of such things. If it was true, Brand did not know. It was hard to believe that the man who stood before him now, talking and breathing, was the same legendary Aranloth from those far distant times. And yet that was what was thought in Cardoroth, though some claimed the name of Aranloth was used by generations of lòhrens as a kind of hereditary title. Brand was not inclined to believe them. But none of this, intriguing as it was, helped solve Cardoroth’s present problems.
“If they have this thing of power, why haven’t they used it before?”
“They did not have it before. Of that we can be certain. If they had, they would have used it. Elùgroths are always quick to exploit such things, eager to unleash sorcery, quick to dismiss the consequences, and slow to exercise caution. But every consequence is one day discerned, every secret one day discovered. In this case, the long hidden is found again. The long sought for is now in their possession. And they have sought this thing, since before Cardoroth was founded. Before the Camar tribes came east and founded their realms, some of which still stand.”
The lòhren turned to him once m
ore. As always, he veiled the power that was in him, but Brand sensed it near the surface now, like the sun covered by the last trailing edges of a cloud, ready to blaze.
“It was I that defeated Shurilgar, as you have guessed. It was I that broke his power and slew him, though he was as a brother to me in a time more distant than that deed now is to you. And in doing so, I broke his staff. One half the immortal Halathrin took to their realm, for they were with me and suffered more than most from his betrayal and malice. There long ages they held it secure. The other half I kept myself.”
“Why wasn’t it destroyed?” Brand asked.
“Alas! I wish that it was. Such was my counsel, but it went unheeded, though you will see why. For the wood came from a sacred grove of elms in the forest realm of the Halathrin. Not only that, it grew on a mound, the burial place of their great king who led them hither to Alithoras on their exodus. It was from that place that Shurilgar stole the timber for his staff. For the Halathrin do not entomb their dead in stone, even their great ones. Yet this much they knew of their own lore, and needed not my telling: the staff was possessed of an evil power, yet they deemed that its power must lie dormant without an elùgroth to wield it. There, in their forest realm, they kept their half, and they kept it in token of the living tree and the rest of the grove that Shurilgar had razed by fire and sorcery. They would not destroy the staff, for it was all that was left of something sacred to them, even though it was now tainted. I did not agree with them then, still less do I do so now, and yet I understand why they took that path.”
Aranloth had grown sad in the telling of this tale. Brand guessed that he understood better than most why people clung to the last remnant of something, or someone, that was loved after they were gone. In his long life he must have suffered many such losses.
