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DargonZine Volume 18 Issue 04
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D D A A R R G O O N N N Z I N N N E || Volume 18
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D D AAAA RRR G GG O O N N N Z I N N N E || Number 4
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DargonZine Distributed: 5/13/05
Volume 18, Number 4 Circulation: 610
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Contents
Editorial Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
Liberated Hope 2 Ornoth D.A. Liscomb Yuli 26-30 1018
The Lost Opportunity 2 P. Atchley Yuli 25-29, 1018
========================================================================
DargonZine is the publication vehicle of The Dargon Project, Inc.,
a collaborative group of aspiring fantasy writers on the Internet.
We welcome new readers and writers interested in joining the project.
Please address all correspondence to <dargon@dargonzine.org> or visit
us on the World Wide Web at http://www.dargonzine.org/, or our FTP site
at ftp://users.primushost.com/members/d/a/dargon/. Issues and public
discussions are posted to the Usenet newsgroup rec.mag.dargon.
DargonZine 18-4, ISSN 1080-9910, (C) Copyright May, 2005 by
The Dargon Project, Inc. Editor: Ornoth D.A. Liscomb <ornoth@rcn.com>,
Assistant Editor: Liam Donahue <bdonahue@fuse.net>.
DargonZine is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-
NonCommercial License. This license allows you to make and distribute
unaltered copies of DargonZine, complete with the original attributions
of authorship, so long as it is not used for commercial purposes.
Reproduction of issues or any portions thereof for profit is forbidden.
To view a detailed copy of this license, please visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0 or send a letter to
Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford CA, 94305 USA.
========================================================================
Editorial
by Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
<ornoth@rcn.com>
It's pretty amazing that we're already up to the fourth issue in
our ongoing Black Idol story arc. After working two long years on these
stories, I was beginning to suspect we'd fallen into some Sisyphean
alternate reality, that we were doomed to revise these two dozen stories
for the remainder of our earthly days.
So it's a bit of a shock to realize that not only are these stories
actually done, printed, and behind us, but that with this issue we have
completed the first third of the story arc. That feeling of endless
labor is rapidly giving way to amazement that we've come so far, and an
understanding that it's time for us to start working on the direction
DargonZine will take after the Black Idol series is done.
Back in the Editorial for DargonZine 18-2, I introduced you to Rich
Durbin, whose timely intervention back in January 2004 saved much of the
Black Idol arc from foundering. A number of writers have made huge
contributions to the arc, and I'd like to tell you about another one
today.
P. Atchley has been with the project off and on for the past five
years, and has been one of our best and at times most prolific writers.
Her critiques have always been detailed and insightful, and she did the
project a great service by running our new writer mentoring program for
a while.
Back in 2003, Ms. Atchley was our local host for the Austin, Texas
Writers' Summit where the Black Idol story arc was begun. Although she
contributed ideas to the overall storyline, she opted not write an arc
story herself. In fact, due to other factors she took a break from the
project later that year.
After a six-month absence, she returned to the group during a time
when we were desperately struggling to get the Black Idol stories out.
She volunteered to assist Dave Fallon with his story, "The Lost
Opportunity", and successfully completed the second half of that
recalcitrant story. In addition, she teamed up with Rich Niro on an
excellent three-chapter arc story that will appear toward the end of
this year under the title "Out of the Rubble".
Although she had initially made no commitment to produce a Black
Idol story and was absent during its formative months, upon her return
Ms. Atchley made a huge contribution to the success of the arc, In fact,
she is now at least partially responsible for one-sixth of the arc's
anticipated volume. For that effort she deserves our expressed thanks
and admiration.
In addition to Ms. Atchley's conclusion to "The Lost Opportunity",
this issue also features the second half of my own "Liberated Hope".
Both those two-part stories were begun in our previous issue, DargonZine
18-3, and conclude here.
As I alluded to above, the arc will now begin to transition into
its second of three parts. Dargon veterans Rena Deutsch and Jon Evans
will pick up the story of the Black Idol in our next issue, which should
appear in your mailbox near the end of June.
Until then, I hope you enjoy this installment in the continuing
tale of the Black Idol.
========================================================================
Liberated Hope
Part 2
by Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
<ornoth@rcn.com>
Yuli 26-30 1018
Part 1 of this story was printed in DargonZine 18-3
Anarr looked down at the shards of milky white crystal in his hand.
Only moments before, they had been a single translucent spherical green
stone that was sensitive to the presence of magic. The gem acted like a
lodestone, and in the vicinity of the stone idol in the cave behind him,
it had resonated so strongly that it had actually given off a feeble
light of its own. Anarr, in more than a century of arcane study and
practice, had rarely seen a stone register such powerful magic.
The magus had travelled to Northern Hope, the primary settlement in
the newly-founded royal grant of Nulain, with the intent of locating the
cause of the region's remarkable ill luck, removing it, and then
returning it safely to Parris Dargon, the unscrupulous young upstart who
had contracted his services. Anarr had traced the curse to a cave near
the peak of an isolated mountain called the Mariencap, then to the
statue, but had yet to figure out what the idol was, or how to properly
ward it so that it could be safely moved and brought out of the
mountains and back to Dargon.
His first experiment had been with the lodestone. Its greenish glow
had indicated the presence of powerful magic. He'd decided that the next
step would be to use his magic to ward the lodestone from the effect of
the curse, because if he was successful, the stone would visibly prove
that the idol's malevolent power could be contained. It would also
confirm Anarr's ability to neutralize the curse.
The complex warding spell had gone well initially, but his casting
had been interrupted by a sudden wave of heat and nausea. When his
vertigo had passed, Anarr had discovered that the lodestone had cracked
and broken into a pile of milky white shards, rather than the smooth,
translucent green orb it had formerly been.
Now standing outside the cave's entrance, Anarr reflected on the
statue's power. For days, it had thwarted his every attempt at
spellcasting. Back in the village of Northern Hope, twenty leagues
distant, he'd tried to use a Daeltis hawk to scout out the area, but the
curse had confused the bird such that it flew directly into the wooden
paddle of the town mill's water wheel. It had also caused a sudden gust
of wind to blow a tree he was felling toward his pack animal, nearly
striking the beast. The previous evening, it had augmented a simple
foxfire he'd cast in the cave into a flash of light that had blinded him
for several menes.
"And now this," he muttered as he let the now-useless fragments of
the precious lodestone fall to the ground. The idol was much more
powerful than Anarr had thought, but the lodestone had been, after all,
only his first attempt to ward an object from the mysterious curse. It
might be a good idea to test something else. He could always use a small
mammal; they were plentiful and never missed, and were close enough to
human physiology to make them a good indicator of what might happen to a
man.
Still standing at the foot of the cliff outside the cave, Anarr let
his mind cast about for a nearby squirrel or chipmunk. Finding one near
at hand, he touched its mind just enough to prod it toward his position
at the cave's entrance. It wasn't until the beast slinked out of the
bushes that Anarr discovered that he'd summoned a brown rat from one of
the crevices in the rock wall. Still, it would suffice.
He put the rat into a sound sleep, then brought it into the cave,
where his lantern still burned. Forty paces from the vine-obscured
entrance there stood a large pedestal and the jet-black stone statue of
a man sitting cross-legged, a sword across his lap, screaming his pain
toward the heavens.
Anarr placed the rat on the uneven floor of the passage, scoring
the ground around it with a sharp stone, and began chanting and
gesturing. Anarr half expected the sudden rush of heat that had
accompanied his previous spell's collapse, but it never came. At the end
of half a bell, the casting was complete. Anarr released the animal from
its sleep, and it quickly scuttled down the nearest bolthole.
Anarr watched suspiciously. While he couldn't be entirely sure, it
appeared that the warding spell had been successfully cast. The next
step was much more ambitious. Rather than keeping the idol's magic out
of a very small area around a stone or an animal, ultimately Anarr would
have to focus on containing the curse within a very small area: the
statue itself. The principles were complementary, so the spell would be
similar, but would have to be an order of magnitude more powerful. Yet
the rat-casting had gone off well, so he decided to test himself against
the statue directly.
Again Anarr began tracing magical symbols on the floor and walls
around the dais. About himself he arranged six candles, each of which
contained the blood of a different animal mixed within its wax. Once
more he chanted long sequences of arcane syllables. Because he wanted
the warding to be absolutely secure, Anarr put all his skill and
puissance into the casting.
Outside the cave, the sun had passed its zenith when Anarr
completed the most demanding spell he'd performed in years. He had just
had time to catch his breath when he was lifted and blasted from his
feet by a sudden wave of intense heat and the accompanying sense of
vertigo. The blast snuffed out his lantern and blew it clear of the
cave, leaving him blind in the darkness. He could hear the impact of
large stones striking the ground outside. The warding hadn't held.
He crawled on his hands and knees back toward the light at the
cave's entrance. Once outside, he sat down on one of the stones that had
just fallen from the cliff behind him. The cliff formed one wall of the
shallow box canyon that contained the cave, a rushing mountain stream,
and what had once been a small settlement.
Frustrated, Anarr knew there was nothing else he could do at the
cave. He had no idea what to try next, and even if he did, he was
mentally and physically exhausted. However, he did have the handful of
books he had brought with him, which he'd left at his campsite in the
little settlement. He'd return thence and see if they held any clues
about the nature of the screaming warrior idol. And while he was there,
he would also look through the one surviving building: the ransacked
home where the night before he'd seen the remains of a presumed monk who
had died a few years earlier. Perhaps he would find a clue to point him
in the right direction.
The building stood just as it had when Anarr had first arrived at
the settlement a few bells before. A single standing hut, complete with
thatched roof, sat anachronistically amongst a number of ruins that
showed no sign of having been inhabited for a century or more. Yet
someone -- a monk of some sort, judging from the brief glimpse he'd
taken when he first arrived at the settlement -- had lived here until
about three years before.
Obviously, the first thing to do was to learn what he could from
the indelicate corpse that lay in the building's main room.
It wasn't that Anarr was squeamish, heavens, no! It was just a
natural discomfort with death that caused him to hesitate. For ten of
his sixteen decades, he had lived his life for one purpose: to avoid
death. He'd known even as a headstrong teen that one good way to do that
was to avoid the places where death had been. One didn't stay healthy
and strong by associating with corpses, madmen, and the diseased!
Of course, that had been ages ago, and Anarr had learned many
better ways to keep death at a distance. He'd done well, living three
men's lifetimes before that awful day when he'd been forced to
grudgingly make his peace ...
Only to wake the next day to discover the awful trick that had been
done to him. Waking from his deathbed, Anarr had inexplicably found
himself restored to his youth and vigor. He still had no idea whether
his friend Dulas was right in believing that it had been due to the
intervention of his fictitious one god. Anarr himself had spent three of
Dulas' lifetimes studying spells and incantations to keep death at bay,
yet somehow he had been duped, restored to the body of his youth. Worse
yet, Anarr had woken to find one of those morbid Stevenic nooses hung
symbolically around his neck.
In the eight years since then, Anarr had redoubled his research
efforts, both to find the explanation for what had been done to him, as
well as to preserve his precious, newly-regained youth. That was
certainly worth clutching onto, yet he was now about to violate one of
the first rules he had ever learned about self-preservation. Therefore
it was with some trepidation that Anarr crossed the threshold and passed
into the company of the dead.
Anarr laid his cloak on the floor and very quickly rolled the body,
now little more than bones tangled in some rotting clothes, onto it. He
breathed shallowly, to shield himself from the noxious vapor of death.
Then he dragged the whole distasteful bundle outside, where he could
examine it in the open air, rather than the fetid atmosphere of the
dwelling.
There wasn't much to see, thankfully. The monk's robe was torn and
stained with black patches of old blood, indicating a violent death.
Anarr also noted from the pelvis and skull that the priest had been a
man, but there was nothing else worth noting about the body or its
possessions. He dumped the unwholesome passel in the garden behind the
building, and shuddered when he thought about reclaiming his cloak. He
left it and turned back to the hut.
Freed of the penumbra of death, the building took on more of an air
of mystery to Anarr. The common room was a shambles. An otherwise
sturdy-looking table lay cock-eyed and broken in one corner. Stools were
scattered around like driftwood after a flood. A nest of hornets had
taken up residence in the rafters above the one shuttered window.
In a pantry, dried herbs hung from the rafters and a well-used
mortar and pestle stood atop a barrel of beets. Another barrel was full
of potatoes that had sprouted and then died, leaving behind an eerie
tangle of white vines.
A straw bed that was now sodden and infested with bugs took up one
end of the narrow bedroom. At the opposite end of the room, where a
window faced west, were the remains of what could only be described as a
little shrine. A stone shelf was built into the wall below the window,
and strewn about the area were objects that, to Anarr's mind, signified
religious observance.
On the floor to one side of the shelf was a small blue and black
piece of clay pottery that had once held blood of some type, judging
from the burgundy-black stain next to it on the floor. Beside that was a
colorfully-patterned cloth that would have just covered the shelf's
smooth surface. On the floor closer to Anarr was a piece of wood that
had been carved into the shape of a warrior from ancient times. Its
figure and attire seemed reminiscent of the statue in the cave, yet this
rendition had been made with a smooth, blank surface where the warrior's
face would have been. And hidden underneath the shelf, back so far that
it normally would escape notice, was a book.
Pulling the book out, Anarr flipped to the first page and struggled
to make sense of the difficult script. Looking about a little furtively,
he brought the tome outside and set it atop a basalt block to examine it
in the daylight, using the former bit of wall as if it were a lectern.
An unadorned brown leather cover encompassed several stitched
vellum signatures: a simple codex that one could obtain in any proper
city. Script filled about a third of the pages in an ornate but spidery
hand. The letters were Beinisonian, but archaic. Still, Anarr had been
educated in the south, and could decipher the substance of the writing,
albeit with some time and effort due to the knowledge that had been
robbed from him when he had been restored to his youth. The book seemed
to contain rituals for the worship of the Beinison war-god Gow, and the
last few pages had been ripped from the tome.
A realization began to come together in Anarr's mind. The
Beinisonian script, the religious paraphernalia, the warrior carving:
this was a long-isolated settlement devoted to the worship of Gow! The
thought of Beinison, of course, reminded Anarr of his old friend Kebero,
who was one of the foremost authorities on the Beinison Empire.
Anarr loped over to the packs he'd unloaded from his donkey the
night before. Among his magical books and equipment he had brought a
copy of Kebero's "History of Beinison". He found the description of
Beinison's religion and read the all-too-brief passage. It told a myth
of how the god Amante had coveted Gow's mate Alana, goddess of the
night, and taken her by trickery and force. In the ensuing
confrontation, Gow had struck Amante in the face with his sword of
flame. Amante had been stripped of his position and fated to forever
wear a mask to hide his shame and disfigurement.
Kebero went on to describe Gow's typical appearance as a powerful
warrior with a flaming sword. Yet he also observed that the Beinison had
always strictly forbidden any depiction of Gow's facial features because
they believed Amante, in his vengeance, had laid a curse on Gow.
That explained the faceless carving he had discovered in the monk's
dwelling, but Anarr was confused. Although its similarity to the carved
icon was obvious, the statue in the cave still didn't make sense. Had he
perhaps stumbled upon an ancient image that actually portrayed Gow's
visage? To find such a totem here, in the back woods of Baranur, far
away from the Beinison Empire, was almost unbelievable. Helping his
employer solve Northern Hope's curse might be a minor matter, for Anarr
would become renowned as the person who finally gave a face to Gow! His
friend Kebero would be astonished!
But the question remained: was there a way to nullify the baleful
influence the statue exerted over everything in the vicinity?
Anarr set Kebero's book aside and returned to the monograph of
Beinison ceremonies he'd found in the ill-fated monk's dwelling.
As late afternoon approached, Anarr sat cross-legged before the
statue of Gow. Before him was the small blue and black dish that he'd
found in the settlement's last standing building, and a piece of the
blood-stained robe worn by its former occupant. Anarr had made all the
preparations to perform a warding ceremony except this one that he was
about to undertake.
Anarr had spent bells deciphering the monk's book, but it had
indeed linked Amante's curse with the idol and even mentioned the kinds
of misfortunes that had befallen the unlucky settlers in Northern Hope.
Better still, it had described a ceremony that could free the statue of
Amante's curse.
However, one of the components of the ceremony was the fresh blood
of a devout priest of Gow. There was no such priest within five hundred
leagues, but without it, the warding would presumably fail. The closest
Anarr had to fresh blood was his own, however he was anything but a
religious man. In his search to prolong his life, he'd studied all the
beliefs known to man, and none had offered him any demonstrable truths,
including the worship of the Beinison pantheon. If the magic required
the blood of the faithful, his own blood would certainly not suffice.
The only follower of Gow he could find was the long-dead monk who
had lived in this settlement. However, a thought had come to Anarr: if
his own blood could provide the vitality, and the dried blood from the
monk's robe could provide any necessary faithfulness, it might fulfill
the spell's requirement. He just needed to figure out how to infuse the
one with the traits of the other. Yet that required the use of magic,
and he knew very well that the idol's curse had interfered with his
ability to work magic for days.
Still, it was the only idea left to him, so he dipped the piece of
clothing with the long-dried blood stain into the water contained in the
pottery bowl. With enough kneading and wringing, he managed to squeeze
out a very thin brown solution that hopefully would provide the needed
qualities.
Next, he took the bowl and stood before the statue of the screaming
warrior. Running his thumb along the edge of one sharp ivory tooth,
Anarr cut his finger and added several drops of his own blood to the
mixture already in the bowl.
Returning to his former seat on the floor of the cave, he made
several passes with his hands over the bowl, each time putting a little
more strength into the spell that would imbue his blood with the
presumed faith that he lacked. Detecting no aberrations in the spell or
interference from the idol, he finished his preparations.
But would it work? Unfamiliar doubts loomed in Anarr's mind like a
mountain range at night, detectable against the darkened sky only by the
absence of stars.
He got to his feet and began what he hoped would be a plausible
recreation of the ancient ceremony that would temporarily free the image
of one foreign god from the curse of another. The appeal to Gow featured
a number of chants and arcane entreaties, but was otherwise very alien
to Anarr. Unlike his own magic, the ceremony was accompanied by a
lengthy series of specific footsteps and complicated gestures that
seemed to be half language and half dance. It had taken a long time to
decipher the instructions, and they were still not very clear to him.
During the first sequence of movements, he bore a single birch
switch, which he swung and moved in certain patterns, being careful to
avoid getting tangled up in his robe as he twirled this way and that. As
he did so, the setting sun began to cast a faint orange light into the
cave, sparkling off the keen edge of the idol's silver sword.
Next came the critical point: the blood. Anarr grabbed the blue and
black vessel and approached the idol. He once more traced the idol's
razorlike tooth with his thumb, but instead of letting the resulting
blood fall on the statue's tongue, as the book had specified, he deftly
substituted the magically-enhanced blood from the bowl.
He then stepped back, picked up the birch stick, and began the
final part of the ceremony: another long series of movements of hands,
feet, and wand.
As he did, the sun behind him continued its descent. Anarr could
tell that it was close to setting, because it had turned from light
orange to a deep red, but had become more direct, streaming through the
cave's entrance such that he could clearly make out his own shadow
against the back wall of the cave.
As he watched his shadow's movements, he also saw the shadow of the
statue slowly growing, and it almost looked as if it were moving.
Suspecting that the sun wasn't solely the cause, Anarr looked behind
him, toward the cave's opening, but was unable to see anything but the
bright red sun, setting in a rosy blur of heat haze.
Returning his gaze to the back wall, Anarr saw that the gestures of
the ceremony's dance caused his shadow to make what looked like very
realistic movements. Suddenly, he realized that his shadow was enacting
its own little play! Anarr's shadow was taunting the shadow of the idol
with a short blade: the birch wand the wizard bore. He watched,
transfixed, as the shadow of Gow slowly stood and raised his sword
against the harrying shadow cast by the mage. Anarr only had a moment to
grasp that the shadow-play was mimicking the confrontation between Gow
and his rival Amante, and that his shadow represented the masked god who
had been dealt a crippling blow by the warrior-god Gow.
With a single irresistible stroke, Gow's shadow-sword came down
against the sword borne by his tormentor, Amante. The birch wand in
Anarr's hand snapped in half, and the wizard was slammed to the ground
by an invisible blow to his face. Before he passed out, Anarr thought he
saw the shadow of Gow standing triumphantly behind the black idol, whose
former grimace of pain was turned directly toward him in a victorious
smile.
When Anarr woke, the last twilight of evening was fading from the
sky. The magus glared at the idol. The ceremony was complete, even if he
hadn't understood its nature or its violent climax until the very end.
After expending so much energy, he was drained and looking forward to a
well-deserved night of rest. However, there was one final task before
him: to see whether the curse had indeed been lifted. The easiest way to
do that would be to perform a little magic.
Feeling self-indulgent after such a challenging casting, Anarr let
his mind travel over the mountainside, searching for the one beast that
would best suit his purpose. Having eaten his fill and then some, a
black bear rolled happily in a tangle of blackberry vines, his thick
hide oblivious to their thorns. In the shadow of a mountain valley, a
doe and two fawns emerged and picked their way along the
driftwood-choked edge of a small lake. Then Anarr found a laska, the
great predatory cat of the high forest, sleeping with his legs splayed
over the sides of a tree limb.
Anarr slipped cautiously into the feline mind, careful not to
trigger any of the cat's twitchy reflexes. His host was already feeling
the stirrings of hunger, and it was a simple thing to amplify this into
an insistent desire to hunt. Anarr thrilled at the sensation of power
and grace as he felt the cat drop to the ground in a single silent,
fluid leap.
The cat knew the best spots for hunting much better than Anarr, so
there was no conflict when Anarr insinuated the thought of the lake into
the cat's mind. Anarr was carried off as the laska loped effortlessly
downhill alongside a noisy mountain stream.
The laska came upon the deer as they were drinking at the lakeside,
and spent tense menes approaching them: each step more silent than a
leaf fall, yet as taut and close to explosion as a crossbow. When the
moment came, the sleek cat dismissed the fawns and chased the bounding
doe, his powerful legs allowing him to close on his prey while still
following her erratic, swerving attempts to flee. Anarr was transfixed
as the cat demonstrated for him its amazing agility, power, and grace.
The outcome was a foregone conclusion, and came far too soon for the
wizard, leaving him breathless and exhilarated. More importantly, after
the divers problems with his magic over the past few days, this lengthy
spell's success satisfied Anarr that the warding had worked. The curse
of the idol was no longer able to wreak havoc on his magic, nor the
surrounding lands, including Northern Hope.
The next morning, Anarr woke well rested, and with the memory of
the chase still vividly replaying itself in his mind. The day's goal was
to return to the village of Northern Hope. He hadn't wanted anyone with
him while he'd sought and neutralized the town's curse, but now that he
had successfully warded the statue, he would go back to Northern Hope
and return with someone to guard the statue and an animal to bear it
thence. His own donkey was already heavily burdened with his books and
magical paraphernalia, and Anarr preferred to have others perform any
strenuous manual labor. After bringing the idol into town, they could
proceed to Kenna and then downriver to Dargon, where Anarr would deliver
the statue to his employer, Parris Dargon.
However, before he could set out for Northern Hope, Anarr wanted to
perform the much more modest ritual of reinforcing the warding he had
established the night before. The dead monk's notes had been quite
explicit that the initial warding would dissipate in a matter of days
without regular renewal, but the required rite was quite simple, really.
So Anarr found himself returning to the idol's cave once more,
bearing a handful of fustian leaves. The monk had once cultivated the
bushes, but a few of the plants had gone wild and survived. The leaves
wouldn't be so large as when the monks had cultivated them, but they
should suffice.
Next he would have to capture and kill a small animal. As luck
would have it, a rat scurried across the overgrown path just as he was
walking toward the cave, and Anarr quickly snared it in a magical grasp.
The animal stopped in its tracks and looked up at him, but when the
wizard approached, it bounced carelessly away from him, completely
disregarding the magical restraint. He repeated the spell, reinforcing
it with additional strength, but again the rodent simply bounced away
again as Anarr approached.
The wizard stood in the midst of the path and swore. Had the
statue's curse overcome his warding so quickly? If so, he was fortunate
to have discovered it before something more dangerous had happened.
According to what he had read, the warding should have been effective
for a measure of days, not merely a few bells. However, this brought his
plans into question.
"Ill-begotten rat!" In the middle of the oath, a sudden revelation
came to Anarr. Before he'd warded the statue, he'd first tried warding
another rat such as this. Sure enough, when Anarr probed, he discovered
that the rat indeed bore a masterful spell of protection. Anarr had
tried to capture the very rat that he himself had made immune to magic!
"Very well, little gnaw-face. Go live your brief life, free of the
interference of meddling magi." Anarr laughed and found himself a
tree rat that was more suitable for his needs.
Finally, Anarr approached the stone idol. The ritual to be
performed was quite straightforward. Anarr reached forward and touched
one of the statue's ivory fangs with his thumb. The knife-sharp edge cut
him cleanly, and a few drops of his blood fell onto the warrior's
midnight black tongue. As he withdrew his hand, Anarr watched as the
statue slowly moved. Where once the mouth had depicted a warrior's
scream, the jaws were now agape, revealing a small opening down the
statue's gullet. Despite having expected this, Anarr remained transfixed
for a moment before recalling his prepared package: the freshly killed
tree rat, wrapped in fustian leaves. He placed the packet into the
hollow space down the statue's throat and carefully withdrew his hand.
As he backed away, the stone portraying the idol's mouth slowly returned
to the half-open grimace of pain that it had borne before.
Two days later, Anarr supervised as his new bearer Edmond packed up
the idol. His trip back to Northern Hope had been made easier by the
fact that, with the curse neutralized, Anarr was free to use all his
magic to sidestep several obstacles and hasten his pack animal along.
Of course, Anarr's previous arrival in the tiny community of
Northern Hope had already created a major commotion. His self-confident
boast to Moritan, a bartender at the local tavern, that he was seeking
the source of the curse had spread throughout the village before the
next five bells had struck.
Thus, when he returned from his expedition to the Mariencap,
everyone in the village had looked to him for any indication of whether
his mission had been successful. Although none were bold enough to
approach him directly, it was obvious to him that both skeptic and
believer alike viewed his seeking a bearer as confirmation that he'd
found something. When Anarr had first arrived, Northern Hope had been a
community that accepted its curse as the misfortune of fate, and his
presence alone had restored their hope that the curse could be lifted;
little did they know that it was already done!
Because his presence was so carefully scrutinized by the locals,
he'd had no problem getting his primary need fulfilled: someone who
didn't mind getting paid to get out of Northern Hope for a while. Anarr
had chosen Edmond for his strength, since the statue was large, heavy,
and would be awkward to move. Edmond was even enough of a ruffian to
warrant the title of "guard", although to Anarr he was little more than
an unskilled bearer.
The first thing the magus had done when they had returned to the
abandoned mountaintop settlement had been to check the wards he had
placed on the statue. After a day and a half, there seemed to be no
problems, and he repeated the brief ritual that reinforced the wards.
Then he'd turned Edmond loose on the problem of moving the idol and
attaching it to the back of their pack mule. Anarr had watched the brute
struggle with the awkward stone figure, then drop it heavily to the
stone floor. Fortunately, the statue had been undamaged, and Anarr
yielded grudgingly to Edmond's pleas for magical assistance.
When the last vestiges of dusk failed, the idol had been moved to
the mouth of the cave and placed in a heavy sailcloth haversack. When
morning came, Anarr had Edmond load the bulky burden onto the burro's
back, and they departed.
Anarr once again sped the return to Northern Hope with some minor
magical assistance. Edmond didn't even notice that fallen trees never
blocked their way, nor that they found paths that skirted the usual
swamps, thorny berry patches, and steep ravines. If the burro was aware
of Anarr's easing its burden, it selfishly kept any expressions of
gratitude to itself.
By late afternoon, they passed the first hunters' and woodcutters'
cabins on the outskirts of Northern Hope. Soon the news of their return
-- and the big, mysterious package borne by their mule -- had spread. By
the time the animal plodded into the center of town, a large crowd had
gathered to see whatever was to be seen.
More than a score of people lined the street in front of Lord
Araesto's Cat, the country tavern where Anarr had hired a room. As he
led his procession toward the inn, three men advanced from the waiting
throng, intent on speaking with him.
"Greetings, milord Anarr, and welcome on your return to Northern
Hope!" nodded the leader, clearly unsure how to properly address someone
like Anarr; magi weren't well accounted for in the protocols of
small-town politics. "I am Kael Forester, the regent of these lands," he
continued. "I wonder if I and my fellow councilmen might share a word
with you?"
Anarr studied the men briefly. Forester was tall and angular, with
long, black hair that hung straight and flat. Beside him stood a stolid
bear of a man who probably was the village smith. A little apart stood a
wiry man whose narrowed eyes caused both his brows and his nose to
wrinkle. Knowing all too well that the town's leaders might feel
threatened by his presence, Anarr fabricated a disarming smile.
"Gentlemen, I am at your service."
Kael leaned forward, obviously wishing to get his message across
without alerting the entire town. "It would be best if we could speak
privately. We would like to discuss your ... ah, expedition before rumor
sets the town in an uproar."
Anarr nodded. What the regent meant was that he wanted to hear the
story before everyone else, so that he could in turn deliver it to the
town. That was fine with the magus, for there was no way Forester or
anyone else would be able to deny him credit for finding and
neutralizing the source of the curse. At the same time, Anarr wanted to
make it clear to these petty officials that he wasn't going to be
intimidated by them. After all, they weren't even nobility! They were
mere peasants, refugees from a land their king had lost in war and
written off. So he decided to let them cool their heels a while.
"Milord Forester, I appreciate your discretion, and will place
myself at your disposal. However, I have spent the last five days
trudging back and forth through the forest and performing magics
sufficient to bind the very gods. I must see that my cargo is safely
secured, and then I am going to enjoy the best meal that this backwater
hovel can prepare. I hope that you and your councilmen will find it
convenient to seek me in my quarters here at, say, second bell of
evening?"
Squint-eyes looked put out, but Forester met Anarr's gaze and
nodded. "Indeed. Very well. Second bell."
As they retreated, Anarr swung back toward the tavern, only to
suddenly bump into another obstacle: some adolescent black-haired girl.
Anarr took a moment to register surprise upon seeing that she'd painted
her lips blue, and she took the opportunity to launch into a speech
she'd obviously expected to deliver under different conditions.
"Anarr. I need to talk to you. I need your help to lift a terrible
curse which has afflicted my family for gen--"
"Silence!" shouted Anarr, and her words were choked off, though her
mouth continued to move silently for a few moments while Anarr fumed.
Wherever he travelled, when people learned that he was a magus, nobles
and peasants alike would come out of the woodwork, asking him to cure
their petty ailments and problems. Save our crops! Heal my son! Bless my
sheep! Anarr knew that every person in the world harbored hidden demands
that would suddenly burst out in the presence of anyone with the least
suggestion of the supernatural about them.
"I am here because I choose to be here," he resumed. "I am not here
to cure your afflictions, or those of your family, or your god-forsaken
village! Nor am I bound by some silly creed to help every diseased or
misbegotten peasant who crawls up to me. I have far more important works
to do. Begone!"
With that, he rounded on his bearer. "Edmond! Bring the artifact up
to our room."
Edmond, flustered, stammered, "But ... but the room's on the second
storey! You hired me to guard the statue, not carry it everywhere you go
..."
Infuriated, Anarr spat back, "Then get one of your local buddies to
do it. Or hire someone; I already gave you two Rounds! I don't want that
thing out of your or my sight until we're safely in Dargon."
With that, he stormed into the inn, his fists clenching and
unclenching as he ascended the staircase with improbable strides that
spanned four risers at a time.
"Have you really done it?"
It was the question that thirty score souls in Northern Hope wanted
to put to Anarr. With the town's seven councilmen stacked in the small
bedroom he and Edmond had been given, it was almost time to finally give
them an answer.
"Done what, Regent Forester?"
"Lifted the curse on our town, you arroga-- uh, your grace,"
interrupted the squint-eyed councilman he'd seen earlier that day. The
regent had introduced the man as John Thomaso, the town weaver. Having
bathed and replaced his travelling clothes, a dapperly dressed Anarr
gifted Thomaso with a smile that the councilor might later swear
contained fangs.
"Yes, milords, I have." Anarr's gaze slowly traversed the candlelit
room where the town's leaders uncomfortably stood. "To put it in terms
you can understand, I went into the woods and discovered the source of
the problems that have plagued you. High on a mountain, more than a
day's journey from here, there is an abandoned settlement that for
centuries was devoted to the worship of a foreign god. Legend has it
that this god, Gow, was cursed by another powerful deity, and that curse
afflicted not only the graven image of Gow, but also all the lands
around it. It has been the source of your longstanding misfortune." The
evening breeze freshened and caused the shutters to creak, and a distant
rumble of thunder eerily punctuated his speech.
Seeing his audience appropriately rapt, he continued. "I came to
Northern Hope to find this artifact and take it away from here. I pitted
my own skill against the magic wrought by one of the most powerful gods
of Beinison, and I have put an end to your troubles."
"And how do we know that you've really done what you say? That the
curse is lifted?" jabbed the squint-eyed John Thomaso.
Anarr smiled and leaned forward from his seat on his bed and
clasped his hands, as if he were explaining something to a child. "You
don't need to believe me, Thomaso. It is done; your belief or disbelief
is of absolutely no concern to me."
"Then why did you come here? What do you hope to gain by convincing
us that you've done us some great favor?" The candlelit room was briefly
illuminated by the flash of distant lightning flaring through the cracks
in the shutters.
Anarr made a show of chuckling condescendingly. He had no intention
of revealing his employer's identity or purposes to these bucolics. "It
is you who are asking to be convinced, John Thomaso! I have no need to
convince you of anything. Neither you nor any of your people have
anything I could possibly want! Even the glory of lifting the curse is
something that will be determined by whether or not the town's fortunes
change hereafter. So I have asked nothing of you. Yet it is you who have
sought me out; have you not come here to ask something of me?"
Thomaso looked at his feet, at a loss. The regent stepped in.
"Anarr, we are just trying to understand what you have done, so that we
can stand before the people and give them the truth. Since your arrival,
your boast to rid the town of the curse has been the only thing anyone
has talked about. We simply want to know the truth."
Another, much closer lightning strike caused everyone to jump. In
the silence, Anarr stood and walked over to the loosely-wrapped object
on a side table, then whispered, "No, regent, you do not want your
people to know the truth, for the truth is more harrowing than your
imagination could devise."
With that, he whisked the blanket away to reveal the idol. The
councilmen gaped at the ancient, ink black stone, the wicked silver
blade, the baleful ruby eyes, and the knifelike ivory fangs. The silent,
agonized scream of a god, once frozen in stone, seemed loosened to
eldritch movement in the flickering candlelight, which was suddenly
shattered by the dazzling glare of another nearby stroke of lightning.
The accompanying thunder rolled and echoed off the surrounding hills
until it seemed the entire valley was filled with the growling hunger of
this long-forgotten god.
In the long silence before anyone spoke, the oncoming storm broke
on the town. Rain battered the roof of the inn and the wind drove
spatters of it through the gaps in the shutters.
Another councilman, named Carron, who had been silent up to now,
stepped in to state the obvious. "It's raining." Anarr winced at the
memory of his Daeltis hawk slamming into the water wheel of the man's
newly built gristmill. He also recalled that the town had been waiting
anxiously for the mill pond to fill up.
"Feh," grumbled Thomaso.
Yet Carron was visibly moved, and persisted. "John, you know as
well as I do that we haven't had rain in fortnights ... Nay, months! My
stream dried up a fortnight ago, and the mill pond hasn't filled more
than half. Everyone's been grumbling that it is the curse. Now it's
raining barrels full. Whatever you think, people are going to say that
Anarr has lifted the curse, and after seeing this thing," he gestured
toward the idol, "I for one am ready to admit that they may just have
the right of it!"
Anarr simply watched, for he'd made it clear that the villagers'
problems were, indeed, the villagers' problems, not his. Darvale, the
village smith, at least, had seen this, too. "Well, if that's the case,
I think an announcement -- and a celebration -- is in order!"
Forester, their leader, turned to Anarr, who provided an answer to
the unspoken question with a nod. Although his reputation would only be
proven with the passage of time, it wouldn't hurt to foster the town's
adoration a little bit.
As he looked out over the crowd of townsfolk the next day, Anarr
couldn't help but feel pleased with himself. Just days ago, their
spirits had been broken, laboring against a constant deluge of ill fate
that they couldn't explain. Today they celebrated their liberation with
newfound hope and rekindled aspirations, and every one of them knew that
he was to thank for it.
The town council had declared a general holiday to celebrate the
removal of the curse, and the bells of the meetinghouse and the town's
two chapels had first started up around the second bell after sunrise.
Roused early, Anarr had escaped the noise and attention by taking a long
solitary walk in the woods, but not before he had been cornered once
more by the woman he'd run into the night before, the blue-lipped girl
who had claimed her family was cursed.
The day before, Anarr had dismissed the woman with the barest
glance when she blurted her demands in his face, but later he'd realized
with a shock that he'd seen the harp-and-stars insignia of a bard on her
belt. A bard would be well travelled and educated in the mysteries of
the world. If this woman said her family was suffering under a curse,
she at least deserved a hearing. And it couldn't hurt to have a trained
bard enhancing his reputation with stories of the curses he had lifted!
So when she approached him in the street that morning, he'd given
her the opportunity to relate her story. She took up far too much of his
time in getting to the point, but that had given him the opportunity to
examine her in more detail. She had the vivaciousness of youth, her lips
painted the same shade as her blue eyes. Her black hair was comely, if a
little disheveled by the wind-driven rain. In the end, Anarr had warned
her that he had urgent business to attend to, and that he'd be leaving
for Kenna at midday, but that he would sit down with her to discuss the
matter again after the town's little ceremony was complete.
After that, he'd gotten away from the town and spent a couple bells
in pleasant solitary contemplation. It was good to have this time to
prepare himself for the inane crowds and attention that would follow.
He returned to Northern Hope around mid-morning. Although the rain
from the previous evening hadn't let up in the least, the majority of
the town's six hundred inhabitants were out enjoying the celebration.
Tents of all shapes and sizes had been hastily erected out of canvas,
wooden planks, burlap sacks, old woolen blankets, and any material that
had come to hand.
Many of the local craftspeople had set up small booths to sell
their wares, such as fabrics, quilts, and pottery. Anarr even saw one
man busily carving small wooden statues that bore a rough but
recognizable resemblance to the statue of Gow. No doubt his work had
been informed by one of the councilmen, and he was doing quite a brisk
trade.
There were also several booths giving out food. It being Yuli, the
seasonal dishes were strawberries and fresh peas in milk, but Anarr also
saw bread and mead being served. In deference to Ol, whose worship
decreed that pork be eaten on festival days, a pig had been slaughtered
and was roasting on a spit near the center of town.
Anarr had noticed people with fiddles, drums, recorders, and
dulcimers playing beneath a shelter, all being led by the bard, whose
name, he had learned, was Simona. Adolescents, children, and a few
oldsters danced in between the raindrops, while a pair of hounds capered
with them.
Then the town's bells had redoubled their commotion, and the
musicians had led everyone who wasn't already under the big tent toward
it.
Now Anarr surveyed the crowd from the base of a speaker's platform.
Far too big for the town's meetinghouse, people still spilled out the
edges of the tent and into the rain beyond. While the town leaders
probably made speeches every so often, the opportunity to see a real
wizard might only happen once in a lifetime, so even the housewives and
children had attended.
The musicians stopped, as did the town's bells. Anarr watched the
town's regent, Kael Forester, as he asked where certain people were.
Turning to Darvale, the town's smith and one of the councilmen, who
stood next to him, Anarr asked what they were waiting for.
"Kael is waiting so that even the bell-ringers can see you." After
a few moments, Anarr saw three youths come running down the main street.
Anarr wouldn't have been surprised if even the town's rats had come out
to see him!
Forester raised his hand for quiet, and got it from everyone except
a few infants and animals. Anarr thought he made an odd-looking ruler,
with his thin, angular features and limp black hair, but he spoke well
and with authority.
"Today is the biggest gathering that Northern Hope has seen since
we settled here three years ago." A few tentative cheers broke out, but
the majority of the audience listened quietly as the regent continued.
"And that's as it should be, because today is indeed the most important
day since the town's founding. Today we celebrate the end of the curse!"
This time the entire audience joined in the cheering, which seemed
loud enough to echo back from the surrounding hillsides.
"As you know, today is a general holiday. In honor of our
liberation, and in honor of all of you who persisted in staying here
despite setbacks and accidents, I and the council have agreed to declare
this an annual holiday of celebration and thanks." More sporadic
applause was punctuated by many nods.
"By now you have all heard rumor of the young man who came to
Northern Hope very quietly just six days ago. I hope we can make his
departure a little less quiet. Now is the time to thank him for finding
and removing the curse that has blighted our town. I give you our
deliverer: the great mage Anarr!"
On cue, the magus stepped up onto the platform and, with his arms
solemnly folded across his chest, let his gaze penetrate each person it
fell on. Half the crowd seemed to be trying to make as much noise as
possible, to show their thanks, while the other half were staring at the
unique and powerful man who stood before them, as if trying to etch the
memory in stone.
Anarr inclined his head to acknowledge their thanks and then
stepped down from the stage before the applause had begun to slacken.
When it eventually did, Forester continued.
"Anarr, as the governor of this land, I can tell you that you have
saved this settlement. Your coming here will never be forgotten, and you
will always be more than welcome to return as an honorary citizen and
hero of Nulain."
Anarr nodded his acknowledgement to the regent, and then began
making his way out of the tent as Forester began to wrap up his speech.
"And I invite you all to see the first proof of Anarr's work, in
Carron's Stream, which is flowing once more after drying up a fortnight
ago. We believe the new mill pond will be full by tomorrow afternoon,
when Carron's new gristmill will begin operation ..."
As he walked briskly back to Lord Araesto's Cat, Anarr was joined
by Simona, the young bard. At the inn, he'd relieve Edmond of guard duty
and let him enjoy a little of the feasting and dancing before midday.
Then they would load the statue of Gow onto the mule and begin the final
portion of the job Parris Dargon had hired him to perform: bearing the
idol through the mountain passes to Kenna, and then on to Dargon itself.
========================================================================
The Lost Opportunity
Part 2
by P. Atchley
<deepartha@yahoo.com>
Yuli 25-29, 1018
Part 1 of this story was printed in DargonZine 18-3
Dourg stalked the mage in the forests near Northern Hope, a small
village between the duchies of Narragan, Dargon, and Asbridge. The path
was fairly narrow and he had given the mage on the donkey a head start.
The summer day looked to be hot, although under the woodland canopy, the
promise was as yet unfulfilled. It was humid though. The chittering of
the birds and tree rats was loud enough to cover his footsteps, so Dourg
allowed his thoughts to wander.
Originally from Pyridain, Dourg had fled to Northern Hope with
refugees from the Beinison War. Unfortunately for him, bad luck had
dogged him in his new home, although the truth was that misfortune had
beset everyone in town. Untimely illnesses and strange accidents were
common, such as winter fever in the summer, heat sickness in the winter,
the cobbler falling into the river, and the miller's barn falling down
not once, but twice. One time there had even been an attack by strange
beasts that no one recognized. Over the years, the citizenry had been
forced to believe that they were laboring under a curse. It impacted
every aspect of their lives and it could not be escaped, until now, when
a mage named Anarr had come to remove it.
Ahead, the sound of gurgling water gave Dourg pause; he brought his
wandering attention back, stopped behind a tree and took a careful peek
at the mage. Anarr and his donkey were at one of the smaller streams,
and as Dourg watched, the mage forded it without much difficulty. Dourg
waited until his target had passed beyond sight before following.
He continued thinking about the events that had conspired to bring
him here, following the mage. When he had come from Pyridain, he had
brought part of his inheritance with him and had tried to start a
trading business. But his venture had failed, and his money had
dwindled, until, finally, he had accepted the insistent invitation of
Ailo to join a group of bandits who ambushed travellers. Of course, the
curse's effects had been inevitable, and the ambush had gone terribly
wrong, leaving Dourg running away from the wagons, helter-skelter. In
his mad dash, he had found a statue of a demon in a cave on the western
face of a mountain, the Mariencap. Unable to move the idol, he had
decided to return with help but then had forgotten where it was: yet
another result of the curse. It wasn't until Anarr had come to the
village and bespelled Dourg that he had remembered the statue's
location. He had then realized that the idol was the curse's physical
embodiment.
He glanced around, trying to see if this was the path he had taken
on his earlier trek, and recognized the area. They were climbing now,
and the terrain had gradually become rocky. Every now and then the path
crossed little valleys that forced Dourg to hang behind until the mage
on his donkey had gone beyond sight. It was windy, although they were
not yet high enough for it to get cold.
Dourg knew that a small valley was coming up and found a convenient
rock to wait behind. He watched the mage ride down into the small vale
and up the other side. For some reason, there were not many trees here;
the path went down and then up, completely open to the sky. The ride
took awhile, forcing Dourg to wait for Anarr to move well ahead and
vanish up the winding path before entering the valley.
His thoughts went back to his goal: the statue. It was of a figure
seated cross-legged, with rubies for eyes and a silver sword across its
lap. Dourg, son of a successful trader, had known it would fetch a high
price the moment he had seen it two fortnights past. He had hoped to
take it to sell it and start his trading business again, which was why
he was now following the mage.
Dourg smiled as he thought about the reason for his decision to
restart his business. Myla, the girl he had been seeing, had just told
him that he was going to be a father. The thought both pleased him and
scared him at the same time. The idea of having a little boy call him
'Father' was exciting. On the other hand, he knew that his current
behavior of drinking and drifting probably needed fixing, for he would
have to marry Myla.
He planned to get the idol and contact his father's agent in Kenna.
The smile vanished from his face as he thought of his father, a stern
disciplinarian. He remembered the real reason for his departure from
Pyridain, and his mind swelled with bitterness. The loss of his cousin,
his best friend, still had the power to sting.
"Hey Dourg, what'cha doin'?"
Dourg looked up from the quarterstaff he was oiling. He was sitting
in the open courtyard of his father's house, a small, rectangular area
outside the main building. On all sides, the roof extended out for a few
feet over the courtyard, leaving the center open to the sky. It was a
dull, overcast day, and the exposed area was dismal and gloomy. The dark
clouds above promised rain, and soon.
"Uzhain! Look at this." Dourg extended the staff, and his cousin,
Uzhain, ran a gentle hand over it.
"Looks good. I prefer beechwood, meself," Uzhain said, sitting down
beside him and extending his long legs as he leaned back against the
wall. With closely shorn wheat-colored hair and brown eyes, he resembled
his cousin enough for the two of them to be mistaken for brothers,
especially since Dourg's father had brought Uzhain to live with them
after he had been orphaned.
"What're you doing here?" Dourg asked. "I thought you were going to
go to the marketplace today."
Before Uzhain could reply, there was a loud clatter at the far end
of the courtyard, and a man entered. He was tall and broad-shouldered
and carried a quarterstaff. "Dourg!"
"Gage," Dourg muttered under his breath, a thrill of excitement and
fear running through him. "He's here already." A thought suddenly came
to him. He turned to the young man sitting nearby. "Is that why you
came?" Even though he had shared the details of the impending meeting
with Uzhain, Dourg didn't want to hear yet another attempt to dissuade
him from the fight, but he suspected he would be treated to one anyway.
Sure enough, Uzhain sat up, his brows contracting. "Listen Dourg,
don't do this. Don't fight him. You know you did wrong --"
"Wrong? You're my cousin, not my father. Now is not the time for
this. If you're here as my friend and my family, then support
me!"
Despite expecting a lecture, Dourg couldn't digest the fact that his
cousin and best friend, Uzhain, wasn't wholeheartedly on his side.
There was a thud and Dourg looked up, recognizing the sound of a
quarterstaff hitting the ground. Gage waited, holding his staff, an
ominous picture. His weapon was of standard length, a bit taller than he
was.
Uzhain put a restraining hand on Dourg's arm and said, "I *am* your
friend, and that's why I'm saying this. You know you did badly by Gage.
He might work for your father, but that doesn't mean you can roll his
wife and expect him to not care when he walked in on the two of you.
Listen to me. I've already spoken to Gage and come to an understanding
with him, and I can make this whole problem disappear if you will only
say to him that you were wrong to take advantage of his wife."
"Take advantage?" Dourg's initial annoyance with his cousin
blossomed into white rage as he repeated the two words with incredulity.
"Uzhain, his wife will roll anything in breeches, and pro'ly skirts too,
if I know anything of her. I did not take advantage, and if Gage thinks
he can get away with fighting with his master's son, his future master,
then I will teach him better."
"Dourg, please. If you think he's like the other teachers who
taught you to spar, you're wrong. He won't give --"
Dourg raised his hand. "Stop right there. What are you telling me?
That I'm not good enough to fight him? That he's better than me?"
Uzhain sighed, bowing his head for a moment. "Fine. Promise me one
thing. If -- and I mean if -- if he wins, you will say you're sorry."
"Not now, not here, not ever." Dourg moved away and then turned
back to look at his cousin. The expression on Uzhain's face, a mixture
of regret, affection, and fear, made Dourg reach out to the other man's
shoulder. "Don't worry, Uzhain. He'll never be better than me."
As Dourg stepped forward, it seemed to him that the clouds above
them darkened. Was it an omen? He was not superstitious, so he dismissed
the thought. The only relevant impact of the forbidding clouds was the
lack of light. If it got too dark, would they be able to fight?
Gage moved forward as well until they met in the center of the
courtyard, about the length of a staff apart. He bowed briefly, but
Dourg attacked without waiting for the courtesy to be completed. Gage
raised his pole horizontally to block even before he raised his head,
and the dance began. The only sounds in the courtyard were the
clack-clack of the quarterstaffs, and the breathing of the two opponents
that was still even, at this early stage of their fight.
The initial back-and-forth was, for both of them, a test of the
other's skill level. Dourg attacked side to side, staff parallel to the
ground, hitting with each end in turn while moving forward. Gage
defended, stepping back, preferring to deflect each blow on the center
of his staff. Then he jumped backwards an extra step before striking at
Dourg's head with the lower end of his weapon. Now it was Dourg's turn
to defend. He didn't know what Gage learned from the initial sparring,
but Dourg recognized Gage's tendency toward head and knee attacks.
Stowing away the information, Dourg turned the tables again.
He attempted a strike at Gage's skull, but the latter blocked it
before aiming for Dourg's knees. Turning his staff perpendicular, Dourg
managed to deflect the blow. Bringing his weapon up, he went on the
attack, moving it from right to left and back, hitting at Gage's midriff
with each end, and quickening the pace. Gage matched the tempo and
blocked every blow with a force that hurt Dourg to block. Then he saw an
opening to use his knowledge of his opponent's tactics. He feinted a
right side body blow and immediately aimed the other end of the staff at
head level. Contact! A bright red spot blossommed on Gage's temple.
His recovery was so fast that Dourg couldn't even jump back. Gage's
pole caught Dourg on his side. His ribs ached, and he knew that at least
one was broken. His breath was coming in harsh gasps, and he knew he was
very close to being spent. Now Gage feinted toward Dourg's left, and he
fell for the ruse, turning his staff to deflect. Gage used the
opportunity to knock at knee level again. Desperate, Dourg attempted
something he'd never gotten the knack of: jumping to avoid the knee
strike. It was only half successful; one leg cleared the staff but the
other did not, and he tripped. Gage followed up with a powerful thwack
on the back, and down Dourg fell, face to the ground, his opponent's
quarterstaff pinning him. He breathed the dust, heaving with exertion.
"Say you were wrong," Gage said, his breathing harsh and loud. "Say
it."
"No." At once, Dourg heard a clattering as a staff fell to the
ground, then felt a knife against the side of his neck; the skin broke,
and he felt the blood. Fear rushed through his mind as he realized that
Gage would kill him just for an apology.
"Say it now!" The voice was hoarse, but firm, and the breathing had
evened out just a bit.
For Dourg, the choice was easy. They was just words, after all. He
didn't have to believe what he said, and if it meant that Gage would not
kill him, then apologizing was a small price. "I'm sorry. I took
advantage!"
The pressure eased and there was a clink as something hit the
ground; Dourg rolled over and saw the knife on the ground near Gage, who
was swabbing the blood on his wounded temple with a piece of cloth.
Dourg moved to pick up the knife; he was the master's son and he
would not suffer an insolent servant to live. But Gage was quicker and
reached the knife first. He moved forward, death in his eyes and hand.
Dourg stepped backwards in an attempt to avoid the blow, and then,
suddenly, Uzhain was between them. Dourg couldn't see what happened
next, but Uzhain screamed, and Dourg's stomach clenched in fear.
"No!" His cousin's voice ebbed away into a whisper.
Dourg gasped as he tried to understand what had happened. He'd
assumed that his cousin was far away from the fight, watching from the
edges of the courtyard, but Uzhain had stepped in to stop the killing
blow -- without success. The knife which would have killed Dourg was now
in Uzhain's body.
"No, no," Dourg whispered, as he lowered Uzhain gently to the
ground. Dourg's mind was a chaotic mess. All he could think of was that
his cousin was not supposed to get hurt. Why had he stepped between the
combatants?
"What have you done?" It was a new voice. Dimly, Dourg realized
that his father had arrived.
It took Dourg a couple of tries before the words would emerge from
his throat. "Uzhain, what did you do?" Dourg was surprised to feel
dampness in his eyes. As his thoughts regained the coherence that had
momentarily deserted him, he realized that he could guess why Uzhain had
done it: to save him.
"Gage, get a healer at once!" That was his father, who then knelt
and put a hand on Uzhain's forehead, pushing away the lock of hair on
his temple.
Uzhain whispered, "It was an accident. I only meant to stop him but
..."
Dourg felt a wetness on his face and knew that it was blood as well
as tears. Was he crying? Then he looked up and realized that the clouds
wept too: a few drops began to fall from the ever-darkening sky. "By
Illiena, you shouldn't have done it!"
"Uzhain!" His father's voice was choked.
"I only meant to stop him," Uzhain repeated. "Dourg, don't do
anything stupid ..." His voice trailed away as his eyes stared up
sightlessly.
His father gasped, stood up, and moved away. Dourg stared down at
the body in his arms, unable to even look at his father, his concern
solely for the person lying motionless in his lap. He longed to say,
"Wake up, Uzhain." He would even be willing to hear one of his cousin's
endless lectures about fair play, if he would only wake up again.
The sky continued to spot the courtyard with big droplets, and in
the background, Dourg could hear his father and Gage. They were talking
about justice and death, but if Gage could want vengeance for something
so meaningless as a roll, then what about justice for this? Clarity had
deserted him the moment Uzhain had died, and Dourg couldn't make any
sense of what his father and Gage were saying to each other. He couldn't
seem to concentrate long enough to hear complete sentences.
"-- can't send him away!"
"Your knife ... won't report you ..."
"... bargain with your son's life."
"No, not my son's life ... your life ... It would be unjust to
punish anyone for an accident. We will talk more, Gage, but for now,
please take care of Uzhain's body. It's starting to rain.
"Dourg, come." His father's stern voice roused him.
Dourg still stared at the body in his arms, its clothes and his own
showing little spots of dampness. "Where? Gage ... Father, he has to be
punished."
"No, Gage is not at fault here. If not for your endless game of
skirt chasing, Uzhain would be alive today. It was an accident caused
entirely because of your behavior."
He looked up at his father, a tall man. His receding, gray hair and
the sharp bones with the sunken cheeks made him look old and
emotionless. Even his gray eyes held no affection for Dourg. He couldn't
dredge up his usual anger at his father's attitude, for Dourg's brain
chanted endlessly: dead, dead, dead! Uzhain's open eyes mocked his
cousin, and Dourg couldn't tear his gaze away. "Gage killed him," he
said simply. "I didn't."
"It's not important, do you hear me?" His father snapped. "I came
to tell both of you that you need to leave, and now this! No matter. You
will leave."
"Leave? What do you mean?" At last, Dourg looked up, and lightning
illuminated the courtyard in an eerie glitter, followed by thunder. Big,
pearlescent drops fell with stunning force on his upturned face.
"Come with me." His father placed an ungentle hand on Dourg's arm.
Dourg laid Uzhain's body on the ground reverently as the grasp on his
arm tightened. As he rose, it began to rain in earnest, and Gage hurried
to pick up Uzhain's body and move it to one of the sides where the
extended roof would provide some cover from the elements.
Pulling at his damp clothing in some discomfort, Dourg entered the
house. Inside the study, a small room on the far side, his father opened
a chest with six drawers with locks, a very handsome piece of furniture
that he was inordinately proud of, since he had commissioned it to store
his gems and valuables. When Dourg remembered that Uzhain had designed
it, the thought burned him.
His father spoke, his back to his son. "Dourg, you must leave."
"But Father, I don't want to go. You can't make me go. It was an
accident," Dourg almost wailed. His mind was reluctant to let go of the
image of Uzhain lying dead in his arms. The rhythmic beat of the rain
enveloped him in anguish, as if even nature provided a death hymn for
Uzhain.
"I know. I saw it."
"Then why? Why are you making me go? And you want me to go right
now? Where will I go? What about Uzhain's funeral?" Dourg's voice broke
on the last word.
His father turned to face him, and now there was some expression on
his face, a strange combination of grief and resignation. "Dourg, you
know the war is going badly. Your mother ... Well, I need you to leave
Pyridain."
"Mother? What about her? And what do you mean, the war is going
badly?" Dourg couldn't understand why his father was talking about his
long deceased mother, while Uzhain lay dead outside in the courtyard,
where the driving rain would have reached even into the sheltered area.
"Several of our friends are already dead or severely wounded, and I
am expected to join the fight with you and Uzhain. Well, that isn't
going to happen. When your mother died when you were five, I promised
her that I would keep you safe, and I'll pay even Eilli-Syk's price for
that.
"I've heard that a group fleeing the war is leaving Pyridain
tonight. You're going with them."
"Father --"
"This is not a discussion," his father said harshly. "You are my
blood, even if Uzhain was worth twice you, and so you will do as I say.
At least one person of my family shall outlive this Kesra-damned war!
That is final, do you hear me?"
Dourg heard, but he couldn't seem to muster the energy to argue
with his father. Uzhain's death had stolen his words, which seemed to
circle in his mind like a swarm of bees that he could never hope to
catch. The storm above reached a crescendo, just like the argument
between father and son, the sound from the sky reaching its zenith while
Dourg's emotions reached their nadir.
The rest of the conversation became a monologue on his father's
part, a barrage of instructions that Dourg wasn't sure he would
remember. Much to his surprise, his father had apparently been prepared
for the eventuality of sending his son and foster-son away. He had
turned much of his wealth into a few gems that would be easy to
transport. He provided Dourg with the name and address of his business
contact in Kenna, and told him where to go to join the other refugees
fleeing Pyridain.
Thinking about those days still made Dourg's stomach clench with a
myriad of feelings: guilt at his cousin's death; hatred that his father
had seemed more upset at Uzhain's death than his son's departure; sorrow
that he had never gotten a chance to grieve over Uzhain's body; and a
dull ache for the life that he had lost. Even after settling in Northern
Hope, those emotions had never been far from Dourg's heart, the
disappointments and other disasters a constant reminder of everything
his father had made him give up. Ale had become his prop, his solace,
his Uzhain.
A sudden noise from ahead broke Dourg's reverie. The mage and
animal crossed a gorge by means of a makeshift bridge made by tree
trunks that lay strategically across. Once they disappeared, Dourg
traversed the makeshift bridge and followed, again stealthily. The
mountain path was narrow and steep and Dourg had to watch his step
carefully. Several times, one side of the path fell down in a steep
incline, providing a beautiful view of the valley below.
As the long summer day drew to a close, Anarr arrived at the
deserted hermit's settlement that Dourg remembered from his previous
trek. After a quick look around, the mage proceeded to lay out his
blankets on the ground. Glancing up at the sky, Dourg knew that it would
become dark before he could get to the nearby cavern to retrieve the
statue, so he decided that he would follow Anarr's example.
Unfortunately, while the mage had come prepared to spend the night out
of doors, Dourg had not. He had no blankets, and since they had climbed
the slopes of the Mariencap during their trek, it promised to be an
uncomfortable night. Still, it was worth it for the statue that he hoped
to acquire, and the potential benefits from its sale.
The next morning, Dourg woke up stiff from the cold and the
position he had slept in. Fear of the mage had forced him to rest on the
hard ground away from the hermit's settlement and the night had been one
of extreme discomfort. He rose slowly and stretched, raising his face to
the sky. It was barely dawn, but Dourg wanted to grab the statue before
the mage. Still, he had to attend to his needs first. So he went to the
small stream beyond the settlement and made his ablutions first. Then he
followed the path that led to the cave set in the west face of the
mountain, where he knew the statue was.
Just as he reached the opening, a flash of light came from within,
along with a clattering sound. His heartbeat pounding like a caged
bird's wings, Dourg heard footsteps approaching. He looked around but
there was little cover. Making an instant decision, he moved to the far
side of the rock face and knelt down beside a gorse bush, making himself
as small as he could, and remained unmoving, praying that the mage would
not stay to explore. Whatever gods were out there seemed to have heard
his prayer, for Anarr hurried out of the cave with nary a glance to
spare for anything save the path. He kept knuckling his eyes and
disappeared from sight immediately as he took a brisk pace on the path
leading back to the settlement.
Dourg waited silently for a mene before he rose and entered the
cave, but it was almost too dark to see. Still, he remembered where the
statue was, so he pressed on, but when he reached it, he could not make
out anything save its outline. The idol was on a pedestal, bringing its
face up to Dourg's eye level. It was a seated figure, with a silver
sword in its lap that glinted in the darkness. He bent slightly to pick
it up.
"Ah--ow. Ow!" His hands burned, and the idol repelled him with a
physical force. Dourg flew backwards and hit the cavern wall with a
thud. "Ow!" His head and the cavern wall met with gusto and Dourg found
himself sitting a little distance away from the pedestal, feeling a
painful tingle in his hand with a warm dampness that spoke of bleeding,
and an ache on his head where he had bumped it. The Kesra-damned statue
had pushed him away! It was the farking curse, he decided. Nothing
worked because of it.
Anger bubbled through him as the pain in his hand intensified, so
he dragged himself up and moved toward the sunlight. Once outside, he
examined his hand, and found a jagged tear all the way across his palm.
Biting down his annoyance and frustration, Dourg pressed on the wound to
stop the bleeding, but his action only served to increase it. He needed
a bandage, and he had nothing that he could use except for his tunic.
Unfortunately, this high in the mountains, it was far too chilly to go
without his tunic, which was ratty enough to begin with.
The dull ache in his skull reminded him that he had hit the cavern
wall, so he gingerly touched the back of his head and discovered a small
lump about the size of a cherry. Sighing with vexation, he began to make
his way down the path which overlooked the valley on one side and hugged
the hillside on the other. As he was halfway toward the settlement, he
heard footsteps and realized that Anarr was probably coming back.
Desperately, Dourg looked around for some form of concealment. Once
again, cover was sparse; the side of the path that overlooked the valley
was covered with rocks of various sizes, and the other side was the
mountain face. He peered around one of the rocks and saw a tiny ledge,
barely a handspan wide, open to the valley below. The footsteps
approached! There was no time, and he slipped behind the stone onto the
ledge.
Anarr passed by, and Dourg waited in silence. He wanted the mage
well away before he returned to the path. After what seemed like a long
time but was probably no more than a mene, he decided it would be safe
to move. He put his hand on the rock for balance as he took a step.
Unfortunately, it was his wounded hand. The pain and the slickness of
the coagulating blood caused him to lose his balance and he fell,
dislodging the small rocks and pebbles on the ledge with a sickening
clatter. It felt like a long drop. He couldn't see, because his eyes
watered and he closed them. He couldn't breathe because all the air
inside him was expelled through his stomach, his throat. The wind
buffetted him and whistled in his ears and then there was one single,
sharp instant of pain.
Dourg's awakening was a gradual awareness of something wrong. His
head hurt in a familiar manner, as the smiths in his skull pounded away
with their hammers, and Dourg assumed he had overindulged with ale as
usual. But there was a dull pain in his hand as well, and he felt very
cold. Wasn't it summer? And surely Myla was there to keep him warm. An
involuntary smile crossed his face at the thought of her before fading
as the number of hammer-wielding smiths in his head doubled.
It was time to open his eyes, he decided. A cup of something hot
would do him very nicely indeed. He opened his eyes and saw the faint
light that filigreed the clouds. He stared up at the still-visible
stars, as his scrambled thoughts grew clearer. He wasn't at home: this
was his first realization. He was out in the mountains somewhere. Then
he remembered the cavern, the statue, and his fall. No wonder his head
hurt. He touched the back of his skull, and there was the small lump
from when he had fallen against the cavern wall. It seemed bigger now,
more the size of a plum. There wasn't much he could do about it, so he
decided to forget it for the nonce.
His second thought was that it was getting on toward morning. The
cooler, predawn air had the glowing anticipation of another fine
summer's day. He glanced down at his hand, but although the bleeding had
stopped, the cut seemed to glare angrily at him. He wondered how long he
had been unconscious. He must have slept overnight, he decided. He
glanced around and saw that he was sitting on a promontory about midway
up the northwestern face of the mountain. There was no way above to get
back to the path he had fallen from. Down, he spied a dusty trail a
short distance away, but getting there was questionable. Of course, it
would be easy for a mountain goat, but he wasn't one. He smiled at the
little joke and decided that it would be best to wait a while. He didn't
feel ready for the exertion of getting down to the path, not to mention
the fact that it was still a bit dark.
Amazingly enough, he fell asleep, and by the time he woke up, the
sun was well into the sky. He judged that it was about midmorning, and
decided to make his way to the path. Very carefully, he lowered himself
on the side of the rock, but there was hardly any purchase. He fell a
short distance, and it was enough to steal the breath from him in a
gasp, although he was unhurt. Now the path was but a mene's walk away.
Dourg's stomach rumbled, and he realized that he was hungry,
ravenous, in fact. He had actually brought some food with him, but it
was in a tree near the mountain stream by the hermit's settlement. He
decided to forage near the path and finally found a small berry bush
covered with ripe fruits that were a deep purple. The smell was so
enticing and he was so famished that he fell upon the bush, popping the
berries into his mouth as fast as he could pluck them. After he felt
sated, he picked a few more for later, tucked them into his pockets, and
started down the path.
This time, Dourg awoke with a start. Looking around, he saw Myla
standing near the fireplace, dropping something into a pot. The
wonderful smell of fresh-baked bread and thyme permeated the small room,
and his stomach growled. Maybe Myla heard it, for she turned and smiled
when she saw him awake.
"Oh, Dourg, how are you feeling?" She came to sit by him on the
bed.
"What happened? I was up there on the mountain ..." He couldn't
remember anything after that.
She frowned. "You went up to find the statue, didn't you?"
After his discovery of the statue, he had expounded on his plans
for it at length. Myla had tried her best to dissuade him and redirect
his thoughts to some useful pursuit in the town.
"Girl, tell me how I came to be here," he said, the old annoyance
creeping in. At times, he felt like he loved Myla, especially when he
thought of the child she carried, but other times, she irritated him so
much that he snapped.
"You came home yesterday morning so early that it was still dark
outside, and you banged on the door and then fainted," she said
disapprovingly. "I got Zakhmi to look at you, and she wasn't happy to be
called away from her other patients. She said that not only did you hit
your head on something and cut your hand, but you also ate overripe star
berries. I found one in your pocket. Where did you get them, and why did
you eat them?"
Dourg grimaced. "I ate them because I was hungry. What're star
berries anyway?"
"Oh, Zakhmi says sometimes people make wort from them, and the
berries are so strong that they make people fall asleep." Myla rose from
the bed and went to the fireplace to stir the pot. "As if it weren't
enough to drink here, you have to go and find berries to get drunk on."
He ignored her acid comment. "Are you telling me that I was asleep
for a whole day?"
"Yes." She didn't elaborate and he watched as Myla picked up a bowl
and ladled some stew into it. She set it on the small table and tore a
piece of bread.
He asked, "Where did you get the bread?"
Myla smiled at him. "The baker had some fresh this morning. Dourg,
isn't it wonderful? The mage removed the curse. Even the air smells
different."
"Yes, it does." He realized that it was true, that the dry smell of
dust had been replaced with a cool breeze that carried in the perfume of
the wildflowers that had managed to flourish even in the cursed land.
Then thoughts of the reason behind his trip to the mountain crowded his
mind. "I have to get the statue," Dourg muttered as he rose and made his
way to the table.
Myla ignored his words and continued blithely, "Now that the curse
is removed, we can be safe here. We should get married. Zakhmi knows I'm
with child, and soon Dora will know too."
Dora was Myla's aunt, and the town gossip. She would also be very
angry if she thought Dourg had taken advantage of Myla, and she would
probably get the town elders to put him in the stocks. While he wanted
to marry Myla, he certainly didn't want to be forced into it by a woman
who was so wedded to propriety that she frowned upon a little bit of
tickle and giggle. Meanwhile, Myla continued to speak, and Dourg tried
to focus on what she was saying.
"-- know he will help you. And when our baby is born, we can be so
happy."
"Yes, we will be happy when the baby is born if only we had money,"
Dourg's voice was bitter.
Myla's smile disappeared. "We will have money; of course we will.
All you have to do is work. Don't you remember, back when we first came
here, you wanted to work with Darvale? Dourg, don't get angry."
The teary note in Myla's voice made him feel bad. Dourg sighed as
he stared down into his half-full bowl. "Myla, I want more for my son,
more than just two meals a day. I want him to learn the things I learned
growing up, and for that I need money. I want him to have the finest
sword I can buy, and I want to buy silks for you. I want to hire the
best teachers for my son." He looked up at her, staring earnestly into
her eyes. Then he rose and went to kneel by her, putting both hands
around her waist. "My father and I didn't see eye to eye on many things,
but he made sure I was taught skills, Myla. I want the same thing for my
son. Don't you understand, sweet?"
She smiled at him and leaned forward to place a soft kiss on his
lips. "Of course I do, but what things are you talking about? He can
learn whatever he needs from everyone here in Nulain. If he wants to be
a baker he can, or if he wants to be a smith, he can. Why, we even have
a chandler if that's what he wants to become." Myla's voice was full of
awe as if making candles was a highly prized skill. Then she added in a
caustic tone, "Besides, you don't know if it's going to be a boy."
Dourg clenched his teeth and rose in a fluid movement. "By Illiena,
woman, don't you understand what I mean? It doesn't matter if it's a boy
or a girl. All I want is for my child to learn his numbers, learn to
read, and learn to fence. I want him to learn to fight with a
quarterstaff, and I want him to understand the qualities of wine, and
the difference between quartz and rubies. I want him to learn the finer
things in life, and all you can talk about is chandlery. Arom-Nok's
dungeons, Myla, don't you know anything?"
Myla was weeping by the time he finished his diatribe. He knew he
had hurt her, but he couldn't help it; the anger that crept up from
inside him, as if from an endless well, made him lose all control.
"Are you so much better than me because I cannot read?" she cried.
"You can read. You can do your numbers. What good has it done you? You
are here, in Nulain, in this once-cursed place, same as I. What makes
you think you are better than me?" Her voice began to throb with anger.
"Once-cursed, aye, that's true, but I will still get my money,"
Dourg snapped. "I will go and retrieve that statue. And I will --"
"Ha!" Myla laughed.
"Why are you laughing? Do you think --?"
"Yes, I laugh," she interrupted him again. "I laugh because you
think you can touch that accursed statue and make money from it. Well,
don't deceive yourself no more, because that mage is taking it away. He
fetched it down from the mountain today, and he leaves tomorrow, taking
the accursed thing with him."
"What?" Dourg roared. "No! It's my statue. I need it. I will get
it. It's mine!"
"Stop it! Stop it! It's cursed. Let it go, Dourg," Myla wailed.
He bent, lifted the table and shoved, yelling aloud, "Mine!"
Myla screamed as the pot of stew, the two half-finished bowls, and
the bread scattered on the far side of the room. The shrill sound of her
voice penetrated Dourg's mind at last.
"Stop screaming. Now!" He approached her purposefully, and when she
did not stop, he slapped her, once. The hysterical sound ceased, and
Myla stared at him, her hazel eyes wide open, with tears streaking down
her dusty cheeks, slight chest heaving.
Without another word, Dourg left the cottage. By the time he
reached the tavern, his ire had subsided to a simmering frustration. The
wellspring of anger within him had seemingly stopped for the moment.
"Hey Dourg!" The bartender, Moritan, greeted him as he entered the
tavern and seated himself before the counter.
Dourg didn't respond, and, momentarily, a mug of ale was placed on
the counter before him. He picked it up morosely and said before taking
a sip, "Thanks, Moritan." The ale soothed him a little, but it also made
him think about the events of the past two days. His failure to get the
statue, his fall, and the loss of two days because of the Kesra-damned
star berries were enough to make him lose all hope of profiting from the
idol. His thoughts wandered as the bells passed and his mug was
replenished until at last Moritan's words broke into his reverie.
"Ah, there you are Myla. I was looking for you." Moritan smiled in
the direction of the doorway.
A niggling sense of shame rose within Dourg, strangling the impulse
to turn around and look at her. He didn't want to see if his hand had
marked her cheek. For a moment, the enormity of his act seemed to stop
his very breath in his chest as he heard in his mind's ears his father's
voice saying, "Never raise a hand against someone weaker than you."
Dourg expelled his breath forcefully, realizing that as the sun set
outside, the tavern had begun filling up. He had sat at the bar all
afternoon, he realized. The air of jubilation in the tavern made him
crabby. He didn't want to celebrate; he wanted to continue doing what
he'd done all afternoon: brood over his failure to secure the statue.
Then, as he took another sip of the ale, a tiny voice inside his mind
that sounded very much like his father's said, "And what have you done,
that you might celebrate?"
He banged the empty mug down on the counter, but the crash was
unsatisfying, drowned out by the rising noise in the tavern. Outside, it
was raining quite heavily, the patter of drops on the roof a strange
counterpoint to the singing. Dourg listened to the chorus of voices,
peppered by the stamping of feet in time to the beat.
"Rain, rain, come today,
Come to help us grow
For 'taters and corn we sow.
Rain, rain come today,
Come to help us grow."
The refrain went on and Dourg sighed. It was a song sung mostly by
farmers' children, and his father with his ideas of making a lawyer out
of Dourg had discouraged such pursuits.
Various conversations continued around him as Dourg moped. He took
a sip from the refilled mug. He needed to get to the statue. A small
voice inside wondered why that seemed so important, but the thought of
the idol made the banked resentment within begin to boil, overpowering
the sound of that tiny voice. He turned his attention without, seeking
to ignore it.
"Aye, Edmond helped bring the cursed thing for the mage," a voice
said.
"We will be well rid of it," said another.
Someone entered the pub and there was a chorus of welcome. "John
Thomaso, welcome you be. Moritan, some brown ale for John. Tell us what
happened." That was one of the council members.
Several others joined in, urging him to speak.
"It's safe upstairs in the magus' room," Thomaso said.
There was an immediate cacophony of anxious voices.
"The bad luck --"
"In the building!"
"The statue is safe," Thomaso said. "It's bad luck, that's true,
but Anarr has warded it. Thank Cydrian the lord will be leaving with it
tomorrow."
The conversation flowed, and Dourg finished his ale. As he replaced
the mug on the counter, an idea, blinding in its splendidness took hold
of his mind. His hand shook as the plan unfolded by itself. He would go
now, when everyone was otherwise occupied, and get the statue. By
Illiena, he would do it at once, and he would be free.
Dourg slipped away silently, and, in the celebrations, no one
noticed him leave. He climbed the steps to the second storey where he
knew the mage had a room. The corridor was silent and dark, every now
and then illuminated by a violent flash of lightning that seemed to
almost jump inside the building through the small window.
Two of the doors were ajar in the manner of empty rooms but the
last door was tightly shut. Dourg knew that this was Anarr's room. He
crept forward and tried the latch. It unfastened! He crouched as the
door slid open. Inside, Edmond slept. He slept! Dourg's heart quickened
as he thought how easy this would be. The statue sat beyond the guard,
staring upwards with anger flowing from ruby eyes that seemed
unbelievably wide to Dourg. Its ugly teeth were filed to pointed spikes,
making its face look monstrous. The silver sword in its lap gleamed
dangerously in the moonlight, while the larger, unadorned one next to
Edmond had none of the former's beauty.
The sound of the rain on the roof increased to a deep thrum, and it
inexorably reminded Dourg of the last time it had rained this heavily.
Dourg paused mid-step, his mind overpowered by memories. Slowly he put
his foot down, the drumbeat recalling the death hymn sung in his home
town in Pyridain. The boiling within receded and he could think again,
feel again.
And he felt fear. He looked from the sword to the sleeping Edmond.
Dourg knew that Edmond would wake as soon as the statue was moved. The
moment Dourg thought of the idol, his glance moved back to the furious
face. The answer was simple: kill Edmond. Still looking at the statue,
Dourg leaned forward to pick up the sword.
When he looked at what he was doing, he shuddered. He was going to
kill a man. A sleeping man. An innocent, unarmed man, just like Uzhain.
Above, the tempo of the sky's tears was rhythmic, and memories held
Dourg in their thrall. Gage had killed Uzhain by accident, but Dourg was
about to kill on purpose. His father's voice filled his mind. "Never
raise a hand to someone weaker. Discipline is the symbol of chivalry."
The voice grew and grew, changing from his father's to Uzhain's.
"Honor is the path to Illiena's heaven. Fairness pleases the gods."
The face of the statue blurred and became Uzhain's, and the voices
fell silent as the storm above reached a crescendo. His heart lifted as
Dourg realized that he could no longer sense the boiling anger inside.
He could hardly believe that he had considered killing, and that, an
unarmed, sleeping man. Shame coursed through him, filling him with a
bittersweet pain. His exile was deserved, and even a lifelong penance
would be insufficient, for Uzhain's life would never be again. Dourg had
not wielded the knife, but his cousin was dead, nonetheless.
"Uzhain, I'm sorry," he whispered aloud, retreating without looking
at the statue. He had stopped himself from killing, and he felt a
fragile peace within. The anger was gone, washed away in the rain that
continued to pound the roof of the inn, reminding him of how he had held
Uzhain's body under a weeping sky a few years past. Dourg embraced his
grief for the first time since then, and it cleansed him. The anguish he
remembered was gone, and the sorrow tinged with bearable regret.
He thought of Myla and his soon to be born child. The decision to
change, to fulfill his promise to her and his duty to his unborn
offspring was easy, and the will to make it grew from the bittersweet
memories of his past. He wouldn't lose this opportunity to redeem
himself. "I'll do better," he vowed as he exited, and the rain drummed
against the roof in agreement.
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