At the appointed time the emperor arrived, accompanied by a large entourage of courtiers and warlords. A pavilion had been raised along the edge of the field, and the imperial party took their ease there while servants dispensed cider and sweetmeats.
Tol and Egrin rode over to pay their respects. They dismounted and surrendered their weapons to the bodyguards. Striding through knee-high grass, general and marshal made their way to the pavilion.
As they saluted the emperor, Tol was surprised to see Valaran had come. Gone was her usual court attire of flowing gown and starched headdress. She was dressed from neck to heels in dark green huntsman’s attire cunningly reworked for the female figure. A flat cap of velvet graced her head, with a single peacock feather raking back from the crown. The only imperial consort present, she stood at Ackal IV’s right hand, sipping cider from a porcelain cup.
Inclining his head to her, Tol said, “Highness. I am surprised to see you at something as coarse as a duel.”
Her green eyes blazed over the rim of her cup. “This is no ordinary combat, Lord Tolandruth,” she said. “Magic versus machinery-there’s a true contest!”
She was still the same Val, insatiably curious.
“Master Mandes has not shown himself,” said the emperor, shifting in his wide canvas chair. His face was flushed, his eyes rimmed with red. “Will he cry craven, do you think?”
Valdid, standing at Ackal IV’s left hand, did not think so. “He’s waiting to make an entrance, Your Majesty,” was the old chamberlain’s opinion.
So it proved. Only moments later, a peal of thunder rumbled across the sky, though no lightning had been seen. All looked up. Over the distant forest of city rooftops was a streak of cloud. White against the mixed gray of the unsettled sky, the wisp expanded and came boiling directly toward the Field of Corij.
“Here he comes,” muttered Valdid.
A thrill of concern raced through Tol. By rights this duel should be his-he had been gravely wronged by Mandes many times and should have dealt with him long ago. Did Elicarno realize what danger he was facing?
When eight legs appeared below the surging column of cloud, Tol wondered if any of them truly knew what Mandes was capable of. The legs churned as though galloping through the air. Strangely, the front pairs did not match the rear ones. The four legs in the front line were feathered in white and bore great talons. The rear four were covered in tawny fur.
Wings appeared, beating in unison, and two amazing beasts dropped from the clouds: griffins, harnessed to a white, egg-shaped coach.
The Ergothians gaped. Griffins were exceedingly rare, and this fine, fierce pair bore the markings of royal Silvanesti heritage. Only the Speaker of the Stars owned griffins with snow-white eagle plumage forward and golden lion hide behind.
The coach they drew had no wheels, only a pair of long skids on its underside. The fantastical conveyance swept overhead, turned, and came back, landing gently as an autumn leaf before the imperial pavilion.
Shaken by the spectacle, the guards were slow to muster on the plain between the aerial coach and their emperor. By the time they had, Mandes was emerging.
He looked as dazzling as his transport. Dressed entirely in cloth-of-gold, he wore a skullcap carved from a single piece of lapis lazuli. His gloves were of woven gold thread, and in his right hand he gripped a tall, black oaken staff, inlaid along its entire length with esoteric symbols in silver.
Walking through the flustered guards, Mandes spread his arms wide and halted before the emperor. He bowed his head.
“Your Majesty, your humble servant is here,” he said in a manner neither humble nor servile.
“There’s no mistake about that,” Ackal IV replied dryly.
Valaran exclaimed, “Where in the world did you find a pair of matched griffins?”
“In Silvanost, Highness-a gift from the Speaker of the Stars.”
“For services rendered?” Tol said bluntly.
“Just so, my lord,” was the sorcerer’s cool reply. “I performed a bit of rare art for the Speaker, and in gratitude he presented me with Lightning and Thunderbolt.”
Valaran began to ask about the care and feeding of griffins, but her father cut her off. Valdid urged the emperor to commence the contest.
A runner was dispatched to bring Elicarno. The engineer soon arrived, flanked by Egrin and Miya. Kiya limped behind the trio, a dour expression on her face.
Elicarno had washed and donned clean clothes that morning, but his work assembling the ballista had left him grease-stained once more. The tousled engineer looked the very antithesis of Mandes’s gilded splendor.
When everyone was arrayed before him, Ackal IV charged the combatants.
“You are here to try your purposes against one another-Mandes’s magic against Elicarno’s machinery. As you are both valued vassals of the empire, I will tolerate no harm directed by either of you against the other. This is a contest of power, not a duel to the death. Is that clear?”
Each man assured the emperor of his understanding. Ackal gestured to Valdid.
The chamberlain directed everyone’s attention to two sturdy posts being raised on the field by gangs of soldiers. Each post was a freshly cut elm tree trunk, four steps tall and two handspans thick.
“Those are your targets,” Valdid declared loudly. “The first man to destroy his will be the winner. The deed must he accomplished from a distance-the greater the distance, the greater the merit earned.”
He paused dramatically, then cried, “Commence!”
Elicarno sprinted to his waiting men. “Jacks and levers! Move the beast around and bear on the target!”
His apprentices jammed long levers under the frame of the catapult and began heaving it around. The engine could swing on a pivot in any direction, but the lay of the land prevented Elicarno from using his loading device effectively unless he turned the machine.
While the engineers grunted and shouted, Mandes walked quietly away from the imperial pavilion, golden robe rippling out behind him. Softly, he intoned the words of a spell. A dark cloud began to form over his head.
The engineers had the catapult in position. Elicarno called for a quadrant and plumb line, to make sure the frame of the device was level and true. When he was satisfied, he chose a straight, sturdy dart from a pile of similar missiles and laid it in the launching tray. An assistant banged on the thick end of a wedge jammed under the ballista’s arm. With each blow, the plumb line swung more and more to the perpendicular.
“There!” Elicarno set the trigger mechanism. “Draw the weapon!”
Eighteen strong young men hauled back on the loading levers. With a loud clack, the hooks dropped over the bowstring, and the device began to ratchet back.
Meanwhile, Mandes stood alone in the trampled grass. The sorcerer’s hands were over his head, gloved fingers flexing ever so slightly. The steady drone of his voice carried to the pavilion. The black cloud that had formed over his head was now hovering above his target, growing larger and larger.
“Steady!” Elicarno shouted. His men quickly cleared away from the ballista, now poised and cocked. The power captive in the skeins could take off a man’s head if he got in the way of the bowstring.
The trigger line was a simple length of cord, surprisingly light to trip so large a device. Elicarno wrapped the line around his hand. After a heartbeat’s pause, he pulled the trigger.
Cords shrieked, timbers thrashed, and the bowstring sprang forward. Everyone in the pavilion felt the shock of the machine through the soles of their feet. The dart, two paces of turned hardwood with a solid bronze head, whistled through the air. It sailed over the target post.
“Down, three taps!”
Elicarno’s man pushed the elevation wedge out with three distinct blows of the mallet. The ballista was reloaded, a second missile thrown. This one landed half a step in front of the post, burying itself in the rain-softened soil up to its fletching.
“Up, one!”
A column o
f light, brighter than a sun, lanced down from the cloud Mandes had conjured. It struck the target post and exploded. The resulting thunderclap rocked the entire assembly, collapsing half the emperor’s pavilion and setting the tethered horses rearing and neighing in terror. Tol felt a glare of heat on the left side of his face. His skin crawled, and the muscles beneath surged of their own accord. Blinded, he flailed one hand and felt Kiya’s strong arm.
The flash faded and vision returned. A veil of smoke drifted across the Field of Corij. Mandes’s target was now only a charred, smoldering stump.
Looking a trifle singed, the sorcerer presented himself to the emperor. Valdid and assorted palace lackeys were struggling to erect the collapsed portion of tent, while Valaran brushed ash and bits of blasted turf from the emperor’s shoulders.
Mandes bowed, straightened, then declaimed, “My target is gone, Your Majesty. I have won!”
Ackal IV held up a hand. “Master Elicarno, can you continue?”
“Yes, Your Majesty!” the engineer shouted, even as he rubbed the dazzle from his eyes.
With the ballista ready, Elicarno loosed another shot. The great arrow struck the center of the post, burying half its length through the elm trunk.
“Rapid, commence!”
The catapult’s arms threshed, hurling a second dart into the target. With a concerted shout, the loaders cocked the weapon again, and another missile was launched. More followed. In short order, Elicarno had deluged his target with forty darts. At times as many as a dozen missiles were in the air at the same time.
The whack of the catapult and the thrum of flying projectiles made a horrible menacing noise.
When Elicarno finally called a halt, no part of his target remained visible. The bronze heads of forty missiles had reduced the wooden post to a scattering of splinters.
Ackal IV rose from his seat, and Valaran braced him. Together, they inspected the targets, starting with Elicarno’s. Valdid, the imperial bodyguards, Tol, Egrin, and the Dom-shu sisters trailed behind.
When the emperor came to Mandes’s charred target, the sorcerer was standing proudly beside it. Ackal IV extended a pale, spotted hand to touch the still-smoking wood.
The silence lengthened, and the tension built. At last the emperor shattered the calm with two words.
“Elicarno wins.”
The engineer’s apprentices let out a wild shout of victory, and the courtiers began to talk excitedly about what they’d seen. Above the din a plaintive cry soared.
“Why, Majesty?”
Mandes hurried after Ackal IV, who was returning to the shade of the pavilion.
“Sire, I struck first, and I destroyed my target before this-this-person managed his first hit!”
The emperor halted and regarded him with unsympathetic eyes. “Your target is not destroyed. Some of it remains. Strike again. Call down the lightning and remove the last vestige of your target.”
Nonplussed, Mandes stammered, “As…as Your Majesty commands. We should remove to a safe distance, then I shall resume my invocation-”
Ackal IV looked beyond him to where Elicarno stood with his apprentices. “Master Engineer, destroy the wizard’s target! Immediately!”
Without hesitation, Elicarno commanded his helpers to swing the ballista around. They aimed down the loading tray and let fly a fresh dart. Ten more followed, pulverizing the stump while Mandes was still gathering himself to begin his lightning spell.
The emperor and his party were only five paces from the target. The loud whir and thump of missiles drove Mandes, Valdid, and assorted courtiers and servants to the ground in terror. Ackal IV remained steadfastly on his feet, with Valaran holding his hand.
A few paces further away, Tol also kept his feet. He was proud of Valaran for standing in the face of Elicarno’s missiles, but prouder still of his imperial patron. Prince Amaltar had never been the bravest of men, but he had apparently reached a limit with Mandes.
Echoes of the bombardment finally died away. Those on the ground picked themselves up.
Ackal IV said, “My forces must be ever ready to strike and must strike hard. No enemy will wait for his foe to make ready, and no battle is ended until the enemy has been completely destroyed. Do you see? Magic is a powerful art, Mandes, but on the battlefield, it must give way to machines-and the men who command them.”
Elicarno’s apprentices shouted and clapped each other on the back. Several seized their master and hoisted him onto their shoulders. The whole group paraded around the ballista, chanting, “Elicarno! Elicarno!”
The sorcerer stood up, his gloves and the front of his golden robe smeared with mud. His defeat, and the emperor’s implacable logic, left him speechless.
“Go from my sight,” Ackal said. “You are no longer our councilor.”
As Mandes stood frozen in shock, Tol whirled and hurried to the pavilion. Justice had been delayed far too long. Mandes no longer enjoyed the protection of his imperial patron. Tol would retrieve his saber and kill the evil sorcerer at last.
“Don’t!” said a breathless voice behind him.
He turned, fury gathering on his face. Valaran was running toward him, moving easily in her huntsman’s togs.
“Don’t,” she repeated.
“I’ll have his head!”
“Fool! Disgraced or no, he is not to be trifled with!”
He said nothing else, just turned away with a savage scowl and resumed his race to the tent. Long-legged Valaran passed him and planted herself squarely in his way.
“Stand aside, Val!”
She took a long stride forward, placing them nose to nose, and looked him squarely in the eye. “I love you, Tol,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I will not watch you die.”
He was so thunderstruck he forgot his thirst for vengeance. Surrounded as they were by servants, court functionaries, soldiers, and friends, her confession meant all the more to him, for the courage it had taken to make it.
Mandes had recovered from the shock of losing his royal patron and was hurrying to his griffin coach. Ackal had turned his back on the fleeing sorcerer, a last gesture of dismissal.
“Arrest him,” he told his guards then walked away, back toward the pavilion.
The guards tried to obey, but Mandes flung two silver vials on the ground in front of them. There was a silent flash, and every man fell to his knees, blinded. Mandes reached the door of his coach.
“Hear my prophecy, Emperor of Ergoth!” he shouted. “What you have will be divided among those closest to you! You will perish in poverty and shame!”
“You insult the throne of Ergoth!” Valdid said, “Tolan-druth, seize him!
Tol had been working his way up behind the sorcerer, taking advantage of his distraction. However, the chamberlain’s cry alerted Mandes, and Tol abandoned stealth to rush the sorcerer.
Elicarno and his apprentices stormed in as well. Mandes flung up his hands, and a blast of wind drove them back. Two of the brawny young men crashed into Tol, knocking him flat.
While his foes were thus hampered, Mandes ducked inside the coach and slammed the door. The griffins reared on leonine legs and uttered strange cries, sounding neither feline nor avian. They galloped away, wings working hard. In only a few bounds, they were airborne.
Elicarno tried to elevate the ballista to send a dart at Mandes, but the machine could not follow such a swiftly moving target. Meanwhile, Tol was hurrying to the emperor and Valaran, worried Mandes might try to avenge himself on his former protector.
His fear proved well founded. In the coach’s wake a whirlwind arose, flinging men and horses aside like dead leaves. The imperial pavilion was yanked from its moorings and took wing, soaring into the sky like a great bird. Tent stakes and lines swept over Ackal IV and Valaran. Tol pushed the emperor out of harm’s way, then grabbed Valaran and pulled her to him, turning his broad back to the flailing lines. Tent poles whacked him between the shoulders. Falling, he twisted to keep Valaran out of the mud. They landed hard
, and her weight drove the breath from his chest.
“Let me go,” Valaran hissed, struggling in his arms. “People will see!”
By the time Kiya and Egrin had pulled them to their feet, Mandes was rapidly receding into the northern sky. His impromptu tornado had swept the sky clean of clouds, and sunlight flooded the muddy field.
“Thank you for saving my consort, Tolandruth,” Ackal IV said, coming up to them. Valaran returned to her husband, surreptitiously lending him her strength.
Mandes was gone, but no one standing in the Field of Corij doubted that the danger he represented was still very real.
Chapter 15
Mission of Menace
There was no time to celebrate Mandes’s exile. Word had begun to circulate through the city that Enkian Tumult and his army were coming. With the usual entourage, the Warden of the Seascapes would have been in Daltigoth far sooner, but maneuvering five hordes (and associated camp followers and hangers-on) through the provinces northwest of the city was a laborious undertaking. The terrain was cut by numerous small streams, larger rivers, and irrigation canals.
The city garrison mustered, preparing itself for an attack. Couriers were dispatched with orders for Enkian to halt his army and proceed to Daltigoth with the proper small escort. The messengers never returned.
Tol found his former lord’s behavior puzzling. Lord Enkian was no hothead, bursting with fiery ambition. While Marshal of the Eastern Hundred, he’d seemed a cold man, a schemer and a plotter perhaps, but not the sort to mount a direct challenge to the succession.
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