by Dragonlance
“What is it?” she asked, hurrying across the deck toward Hult. “Can you understand any of it?”
The Uigan nodded, his hand brushing the jade amulet he wore. “It’s difficult. The magic translates, but it doesn’t slow down the words.” He frowned, squeezing his eyes shut to listen. “Sails. A great many sails, rising out of the sea. Hundreds.”
“Sails?” said Nakhil, approaching from the bow. “That doesn’t make any sense. The only people who travel on the Cauldron are the minoi, and they use those to propel their boats.” He pointed back at the whirling paddlewheel. “Not sails.”
Hult shrugged, jerking a thumb at Yorgam. “That’s what he says.”
Shedara peered toward the horizon, shading her eyes against the Burning Sea’s glare. It was hard to see through the smoke and heat shimmer, but she made out a forest of masts, each bedecked with a taut sail. “It’s true,” she said. “It looks like a fleet of some sort. Sailing due west, straight as a spear.”
“But that’s not possible,” Nakhil protested. He licked a finger and held it up, scowling. “The wind’s all wrong. They’d have to tack back and forth to go west.”
“They would if they traveled on the same wind you’re feeling on your face right now,” Shedara said. “There’s magic at work. This is Maladar’s doing.”
“Full stop!” Nosk shouted from the helm. “Quell the furnace! Cut the steam! Move, now!”
Gnomes scrambled, following his orders. The Varya’s wheel slowed, then stopped. Nosk hauled on the wheel, slewing the fireship back and forth as it eased to a halt. They came to a stop with their port side facing the fleet.
“It’s more of his army, isn’t it?” Hult murmured, staring at the sails. They could all see them now, though the curve of Krynn still hid the boats’ hulls from view. “Those statues. He’s sending them to attack the League.”
“His war has begun,” Azar said, looking out across the sea. “The minotaurs will crumble before the Kheten Voi. One by one, their cities will fall. The survivors will surrender to their might. When it is done, the Voi will turn south and take Thenol. Then the valleys of Marak, and the Steamwall hobgoblins, and the forests of Armach-nesti. By the time they cross the Tiderun to conquer the Tamire, Maladar’s armies will be unstoppable.”
They all stared at him. His voice had changed, turning deep and cold. His face was different too—not the features, his expression. There was pride in the tilt of his head, a sneering curl to his lip, scorn in his eyes. Shedara nudged Hult, who had laid a hand on his talga. He glared at her, but she shook her head. A scowl darkened the Uigan’s face as he let go of the hilt.
“Maladar?” she asked. She kept her own hands in plain view, so he could see they were empty. “Is it you speaking?”
Azar leveled his gaze at her, and for the first time she saw what was inside him. She knew what he looked like. She had been in the Faceless Emperor’s company twice before. The cruelty, the arrogance, the edge of madness—it was all there, shining like dead stars through Azar’s eyes.
“You will fail,” the Faceless Emperor said through Azar’s mouth. “All of you will die before you see the inside of the Chaldar. All of you … except the boy. Him I will claim for my own. His body will be my new home, as was meant to be. I will give his father to the fire.”
All was silent, beyond the rumble of the Cauldron. Nobody moved. Then, so suddenly it made the others jump, Shedara began to laugh.
“You’re a fool, Maladar,” she said, smiling as Azar glowered at her. “You think you know the future, but you don’t. You never have. That’s why you died a thousand years ago. It’s why you’re split between two bodies now. And it’s why you’ll die again, on my sword, or Hult’s, or Nakhil’s. You act like you’re not afraid, but you are. You most certainly are.”
Azar’s face twisted into something hideous, rage distorting it so weirdly he barely looked like himself anymore. His eyes flashed with rage, but it was an impotent anger, full of fear. Shedara smiled even wider, and as she did, Azar’s eyes rolled back in his head and his face smoothed again. His legs gave out; he dropped to his knees. Nakhil and Hult moved in, catching him before he fell face-first onto the deck. They eased him down and laid him out. Hult bent over him, pressing his fingers against Azar’s throat.
“He’s all right,” he said. “Just passed out.”
“What was that?” Nakhil asked. “Was that really … him? Maladar?”
Shedara nodded, chewing her lip as she stared at Azar. “A shadow of him, at least. And his words. But did you see his eyes, right before he went down?”
“Yes,” Hult said. “He was afraid.”
“Of what?” Nakhil asked.
“Us,” Shedara answered.
They all looked at one another while the minoi jostled and yammered and watched the sails of Maladar’s fleet pass by.
“Then that means we can defeat him,” Nakhil said.
Shedara nodded. “Yes, we can. I just wish I knew how.”
Chapter
32
THE CHALDAR, HITH’S CAULDRON
The city continued to rise, as did the hills around it. Black islands dotted the sea surrounding Aurim, jagged hunks of glass that glistened in the lava’s glow. The vineyards and groves that had once flourished upon their sides were gone, ashes, but no matter. Grapes and olive trees could grow again. They would grow again. Once Maladar’s new followers came, the lands around the City of Songs would flourish as never before.
And they would come. Maladar knew to be patient. When the streets of the Minotaur League ran red with the bull-men’s blood, and the Kheten Voi had conquered that land, the first folk of his new empire would begin traveling east. He had only to make ready for their coming. He had to raise the old realm from its grave.
So he stood atop the Chaldar, gazing down upon the empty husk of his city, hand outstretched as the power of the black moon poured through him. It streamed down to the Cauldron, questing beneath the magma for what remained from the Destruction. Little was left; the heat had consumed almost everything. So the magic turned inward, searching Maladar’s memories instead. It had rebuilt the city that way, drawing from the images that lingered in his mind, then raising Aurim in the shapes it saw there. The magic was doing the same with the surrounding countryside.
Maladar knew the empire would not be the same as it once was; memory was imperfect. But did perfection matter? Was the new Aurim any less real because he recalled some of its streets, some of its towers and arcades and courtyards differently from how they had actually been?
No one else alive remembered the real Aurim, except for the eldest of the elves and dragons. When his war was done, the elves would be no more, and the dragons didn’t care for the cities of men, save to ravage them from above. It certainly didn’t matter to them that Aurim had changed.
“But it matters to you,” said a voice from behind him—a soft, mocking voice. “It matters because it is unreal. It is a simulacrum, not the true thing. Your realm will be a mockery of itself.”
Maladar didn’t turn, didn’t take his focus off the magic. He continued to move his hand, drawing the hills up from the burning depths. He would not release the spell, even for a god.
“Not a mockery,” he said. “An ideal. What it should have been … what I might have made of it. Indeed, it will be better than it was.”
“Perhaps,” murmured Hith, just behind his right ear. “But it will be neither real nor whole. Just like you.”
Maladar hesitated, nearly losing control of the spell. The hills shuddered and began to sink, magma frothing around them. With a snarl, he gathered the threads of magic and forced them to bend to his will again. The hills stopped sinking but rose no further. He growled an incantation through gritted teeth then let the magic end. The hills stayed as they were. Lightning struck one, throwing glowing shards of obsidian down into the magma.
He turned to face Hith, trembling with anger. The god sneered back at him. The empty black cloak was gone, replace
d with something much more fearsome. Hith was an ugly, reptilian figure, his hairless skin covered with glittering red scales, his eyes yellow slits. He wore ornate black armor, banded and filigreed with images of screaming faces; on his head was a helm made of a silver dragon’s skull, its long, graceful horns sweeping high and back to make him seem much taller than he was. A crimson cloak, embroidered with images of demons torturing men in obscene ways, draped over his shoulders, and a long, wickedly curved sword was sheathed at his hip. That was Hith the tormentor, not the whisperer of deceits. That was how he looked at the height of his power, and even Maladar felt overcome by awe and the need to bow down and humiliate himself before the god. The temptation lasted only a moment, though.
“Is this why you’ve come?” Maladar demanded. “To taunt me? To lie?”
Hith’s inhuman eyes glittered. “Lies are my trade, mortal. But what I tell you is truth. You deceive yourself, not I. Claim you are Maladar, just as you claim the city below is Aurim. Tell everyone, and they will believe you. None will be the wiser—except for you. In your heart, you will know it is false. You will always know.”
“Then what is true?” Maladar snapped. “Damn you to the Abyss! Who am I?”
The god stared at him, not answering. Hith’s lipless mouth opened, revealing rows of needlelike teeth. A soft, grinding noise came out. It took Maladar a moment to realize what he was hearing was laughter.
“You mock me!” Maladar said, trembling with rage. “You must answer me, though, or I will renounce you.”
The laughter stopped. “Do, and I will destroy you,” Hith said. As he spoke, all the warmth drained out of the air. Freezing winds swept over the Chaldar, and the tower’s white flames flickered and turned green. The tower shuddered and swayed. “Never forget I have more power than you.”
“Perhaps,” Maladar replied. “But you need me. You are a lesser god in the pantheon. If I do not bow to you, you will never elevate your place among your kin. Destroy me and you will never rise higher.”
Hith glared at him. The wind grew stronger, howling, flapping the god’s robes. Maladar felt the force, the wind pushing him off the tower, but he resisted and allowed himself to smile, savoring Hith’s frustration.
“I do not ask for much,” he said. “Only the truth. Tell me who I am, or I will forsake you, and no torment you inflict will ever win back my faith.”
Hith was a devious god, a cheat, a trickster. He could tell, at a glance, whether a mortal was lying. Maladar knew that, and felt the god’s icy thoughts probe his soul, searching for treachery. They found none: Maladar meant what he said. Hith drew back, angry but beaten. The wind ceased, and the broiling heat of the Cauldron flowed back. The Chaldar’s fires shifted back to blue and white.
“The truth, then,” said the god. “You will know what is real.”
He raised his hands; they were covered with the same scales as his face, with long, hooked talons on each fingertip. Silver light flared around them: a sending spell. The god made no other gestures, spoke no spidery words; the magic simply obeyed at his whim. The light flashed bright, bringing with it an eerie, squealing sound, like a knife blade drawn across crystal. Then everything disappeared.
“I will show you,” murmured the god’s voice in the darkness.
Forlo felt himself tumbling through darkness alongside Hith. As ever when in the god’s presence, his soul seemed to shrink, to curl in upon itself in agony. He had fought against Hith’s followers all his life, and Hith had not forgotten. The god’s rage was a powerful thing, battering him like a terrible storm. Despair washed over him, made him want nothing more than to die as ignobly as possible.
Then they were somewhere again, the sending spell reaching its end, spilling them out of the nothingness and back into … the sky, high above the Cauldron.
Maladar reacted, fingers dancing, an incantation springing to his lips on instinct. He was halfway through the spell, which would bear him aloft before he could plummet into the Burning Sea, when he realized he wasn’t falling. Hith’s power bore him up, making him float high above the magma.
“Be easy,” the god said. “I would not betray you like that. What would I have to gain by it?”
“You could have warned me,” Maladar said.
Hith laughed his grating laugh. “And give up the chance to savor your fear?”
That did little to please Maladar, either. “Where is this thing you were going to show me, then? This truth you promised?”
The god gestured, his clawed hand pointing down at the lava. “Look down.”
Maladar looked, and Forlo saw as well. They were a hundred miles north of the Chaldar, Aurim and the surrounding islands looming behind them. Far in the distance, fire engulfed the columns of Bilo: Maladar’s minions assailing Ilmach. Soon enough, they would destroy the place. There were vents in the stone where the gnomes’ engines expelled steam; the minions would enter that way, the one unprotected route into the citadel. Living things could not enter, for the steam would boil them alive. But the minions were made of fire, and the steam would not harm them. By the time the minoi realized the danger, it would be too late.
He glanced to the west and saw the boats of the Kheten Voi. The foremost ones were nearly to the Indanalis Sea, where the magma of the Cauldron flowed into the water, setting it to boiling. Beyond that bubbling brine lay the League. The Voi would sail down the Tiderun and come ashore near the ruins of Coldhope. It was only a few days away.
And directly beneath him …
Beneath him was a gnomish fireship, a tiny vessel with a spinning paddlewheel that threw up plumes of lava as it cut across the Burning Sea. Maladar frowned at the ship. It was moving south, headed directly for the Chaldar, as fast as the machine that drove it could make the wheel turn.
“Gnomes?” he asked. “They know the truth?”
Hith’s head shook. “No. You misunderstand, Maladar, as always. Look closer.”
Forlo would have screamed, if he had a voice. One moment, they were suspended three hundred yards above the sea; then there was a rush of hot wind and a lurch in his belly as they plunged straight down. In a heartbeat they were barely a foot above the lava’s surface.
He saw them, then, on the deck of the fireship: four tall figures among the scrambling minoi. The centaur he didn’t recognize, but there was the Uigan and the elf. He felt a stab of pain in his soul: Shedara and Hult had survived Suluk after all. They’d given chase. They were coming for him.
To save him … to kill him—he didn’t know which.
But it was the fourth figure, the one standing closest to the ship’s prow, who made his insides twist. It was disorienting to look upon him, for he was almost Forlo’s own image. He had no beard, true, and his eyes weren’t the same color—and, of course, at the moment Forlo didn’t look like himself, he looked like a living corpse—but otherwise they were identical.
His son. Yet he was already Forlo’s own age, maybe even a bit older.
And Forlo didn’t even know his name.
Maladar was even more unnerved. He stared at the boy, stunned, amazed.
“That is who you are,” said Hith. “That boy, now grown, soon to be an old man. You are yourself, Maladar, but you are also him.”
Forlo was confused. What did the god mean?
“Of course …” Maladar whispered, then stopped. Anger boiled within him. “That’s why I cannot raise Aurim properly. Why my memories are flawed. He has part of them … and part of my soul.”
“Indeed,” Hith replied. “You are broken, my servant. Split in twain. And you will not triumph, you will not be Maladar, until you are one again.”
Forlo felt as if the world were collapsing beneath him. Terror gnawed at him. What are you doing? he wanted to shout at his friends. Don’t bring my son here! You’re giving him what he needs! You’ll doom us all!
Maladar tensed, as though he had heard and understood Forlo’s thoughts. And perhaps he had. Forlo couldn’t know for sure.
“Let m
e take him now,” Maladar said. He reached out his good hand toward Forlo’s son. “Let me end this.”
“No,” Hith replied. “What he has cannot be taken by force. He must give himself of his own free will. He must come to you.”
Tell me his name, Forlo pleaded. I just want to know his name.…
Maladar’s hand fell. The ship moved on, leaving them behind, magma spewing in its wake.
“Very well,” Maladar said. “He will come. But not his friends. They will die before they reach the Chaldar.”
Hith shrugged. “Do what you will with them. I do not care about their fate.”
The god raised his hands, and he and Maladar vanished again, returning to the void between the spaces of the world, rushing back to the fiery tower. Oh, gods, Forlo prayed as they traveled through the nothingness. Jolith, Sargas, Mislaxa … someone must caution them to turn back. Someone must keep this from happening.
He got no answer from the other gods, though—only Hith’s mocking laughter, echoing in the dark.
Chapter
33
RISEN AURIM, HITH’S CAULDRON
I don’t like this,” Shedara said.
The Varya slid past another obsidian island, one of a long chain jutting like spears and clenched fists out of the molten rock. The fireship’s reflection rippled on the rock’s glassy surface. Hult caught a glimpse of himself, standing at the rail with sword in hand. He barely recognized his own image: the strange leather armor, the thick black hair hanging to his shoulders, the new scars on his face. And he had a stooped, haggard look, a pallor that made his skin look gray. He wondered how long it had been since he’d last seen the sun … or the moons and stars … or a tree.
He couldn’t think when.
“It’s too easy,” Shedara grumbled. “We’re getting close, and still no kurshakur. I know he sent most of them to Ilmach, but … well, there should be guards. Patrols. Something.”
