Rides a Dread Legion Page 7

  “I will return to the palace at once.”

  “He is being transported to the palace, My Lord,” said the aide, a youth who bore a striking resemblance to one of his sons lost years before. If there was a stirring inside for an instant, the Regent Lord pushed it aside; too many sons had been lost to too many fathers, and fathers lost to sons. They all shared in the tragedy that was this war.

  With a dismissive wave of his hand, the Regent Lord shooed his aides to one side and alerted the portal guardian he was to return to the capital. The magician whose sole responsibility was to manage the portal nodded, and, with a simple spell, activated the portal. His job also was to destroy the gate should the demons breach the barrier, and give his life to keep them away from the capital a few days longer.

  The Regent Lord stepped through the portal and suddenly he was in the marshaling yard of his palace. Two companies of warriors stood ready to answer the call should reinforcements be required. The Regent Lord motioned to the Officer of the Yard and said, “How go the other struggles?”

  “Well, My Lord,” he answered. The old elf was still robust-looking, though the Regent Lord knew he had sustained enough injuries that his fighting ability was severely diminished; but his mind was still as keen as ever and he was among those most trusted by the Regent Lord to act in his absence. Jaron by name, he was given full responsibility to decide where reinforcements were sent and when. Men lived or died on his orders, and that trust had been hard won over years of service. “They fall back along all fronts, and for another day we hold.” Glancing around, he repeated, “Another day.”

  “We live another day,” echoed the Regent Lord.

  “Rumor has the Conjurer returning,” said Jaron in a low voice.

  “Best not to repeat that to anyone,” said the Regent Lord, walking away without further comment. He knew he would reach his chambers before the magic-users would and he wanted a few moments to compose himself in private, lest the news the magic-user carried was ill. He also knew he needed to be composed should the news he carried be good. Walking silently toward the large doors into the palace, the Regent Lord of the Clans of the Seven Stars cursed hope.

  The Regent Lord of the Clans of the Seven Stars sat quietly, waiting, trying to enjoy one moment of solitude in a day dominated by violence and noise. The enemy battered the Barrier Wall every minute of every day, yet here, in the heart of the capital, he could indulge in the illusion that his city was as it had been since he was a boy. Deep within, he knew he was weak to long for days past, gone beyond reclaim, but still, it calmed him and gave him hope that someday the People would find a haven as tranquil as this world once was.

  Around the room, large open windows admitted the elements. The Meeting of the Regent Lord would always be in the open, so that the People and the Spirits of Ancestors might witness it. Such was the law. The only adornments to the room were the battle standards of the Host of the Clans, each hanging from the ceiling, providing a constantly moving reminder of the People’s history as they stirred in the wind.

  The tall warrior rested on a simple wooden chair that had been his nation’s seat of power since myth was left behind and memory began.

  The people, his race, were dying and there was nothing he could do to save them as long as they remained here.

  Despite the heat of the day, his shoulders were covered in white fur, the mark of his rank, the pelt of a snow bear he had killed during his manhood rite high in the mountains of Madrona. He rested his hand upon the hilt of his father’s sword, Shadowbane, absently caressing it as he might his wife’s body.

  Below the mantle of fur he wore a light tunic and trousers of dark green cloth, simple but for the gold thread at the collar and cuffs; his feet clad in fine brown leather boots, still covered in dust from his morning walk inspecting the city’s defenses. The same dust covered his nearly white hair, and he wished for time to bathe, but he knew much needed to be accomplished before a relaxing bath was possible.

  He looked out the window at the blue sky and felt the warmth of the sun on his arms and face, felt the heat under his furry mantle, and he welcomed the sensation, trying to drive away a cold that gripped his very soul.

  Then a scout, his hair tied up in a hunter’s queue, entered. “He’s here, My Lord.”

  Seeing the herald, he knew what was about to be said. Waving away the courtier, Undalyn spoke. In a deep voice, he commanded, “Show yourself, Conjurer!”

  The magic-user strode into the throne room, his white robes free of stain, his staff aglow with power. He bowed and said, “I am here, my lord.”

  “Show me,” commanded the Regent Lord.

  Raising his staff, the magic-user slowly moved it through the air, and as he did a scene appeared, images forming as if painted on an invisible wall, but they were moving and alive, and when the shimmering ceased, it was as if the Regent Lord viewed a scene through a magic window. But while the window in this chamber overlooked the sun-baked table lands of Andcardia, this magic window showed a completely different landscape.

  The Regent Lord scanned the scene before him. It appeared they stood on a hill ridge—late afternoon, from the angle of the sun behind them. Across a vast valley he could see more peaks. Everywhere he looked he saw abundance. The trees were old, heavy growth, and from this one vantage point he could see two large meadows in the distance below. White clouds floated above, pregnant with rain, and the wind carried exotic scents mixed in with those familiar to him: balsam, pine, fir, and cedar. The sounds were of the forest rich with game and in the trees birds sang without concern. “This seems a hospitable land,” observed the Regent Lord. Fixing his gaze on the magic-user, he asked, “Is it Home?”

  Knowing that his life—and his brother’s life—probably hung on his answer, Laromendis, Supreme Conjurer of the Circle of Light, hesitated, then said, “I must speak with the Loremasters, m’lord.” As the Regent Lord’s expression darkened, he hastily added, “I’m being cautious, but yes, it is Home.”

  The Regent Lord’s expression betrayed a tiny flicker of relief. If this was the ancestral homeland then there was still hope. “Tell me of it, the ancient home.”

  “It is a fair world, my lord, though not without problems.” He moved the staff and the scene disappeared.

  “Problems,” repeated the leader of the Clans of the Seven Stars. “Is there a day in a life without problems, on any world?”

  The Conjurer said nothing at the rhetoric.

  “Name them,” said the Regent Lord as another figure came through the rift, his hand on his sword. He was a warrior nearly equal to the Regent Lord in stature, and he seemed on the verge of speaking until he saw the Regent Lord raise a gauntlet-garbed hand indicating he wanted silence.

  “This world is rich in game, crops, and metals. But it is home to others.”

  “Others?”

  “Dwarves,” he almost spat.

  “Dwarves,” said Undalyn. “Is there a world we have found without those grubbers-in-the-mud?”

  “I fear not,” said the Conjurer. He had located several worlds without dwarves in the last ten years, but they were not habitable; this was not the time to engage in petty debate over the fine points. Since the discovery of the translocation magic and the search for the homeland, all hopes for the survival of the People had turned to locating the mythical Home, which the Conjurer had felt was futile. Finding a world to which they could flee, any homeland, new or ancient, that was the key for a race now reduced to a relative handful by thirty years of battle with the Demon Legion.

  His discovery of the Home was a happy accident, nothing more, or at least that’s how he saw it; his vanity nearly equaled the Regent Lord’s and to admit someone without a hint of knowledge in the arts might be right would be unthinkable. Laromendis, Master of the Arts of the Unseen, would settle for the Regent Lord being lucky.

  And lucky for himself and his brother, too, he quickly amended.

  “Humans. They thrive there like flies on dung. Their
cities are ant hives, with thousands in residence.”

  “Our people? Do they abide?”

  “Yes. But they have…fallen.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the Regent Lord.

  As if needing to emphasize a point, Laromendis moved to stand before the northernmost window, providing a vista of the city outside. Tarendamar, Starhome, capital of the Clans of the Seven Stars, and for generations a monument to the majesty that was the People. The Regent Lord came to stand beside the red-haired magician and looked down. Still untouched by the brutal war to the north, the city remained much as it had when Undalyn had been a boy. The Hall of the Regent’s Meeting was a short walk from the Regent’s demesne, a palace by any other name, and this very hall, ancient and honored, had been among Undalyn’s earliest memories, as his father had ensured the next Regent Lord would understand the responsibilities of his heritage.

  He knew this precinct well, as he had played in every alleyway and garden, swam in every pool and brook, climbed the holy trees to the outrage of the priestesses, and had come to love this city as if it were a living being; it was a living being; it was the heart of the Clans of the Seven Stars.

  Built of elven magic and sweat, this city was the crown jewel of the elven people. The seven great trees formed a massive ring around the heart of the city, one mystic tree for each of the sacred stars in the heavens. Even in the harsh light of Andcardia’s sun, the deep shadows within the bowers glimmered with fey light.

  It was from those seven trees—the “Seven Stars,” as they had been called from the start—that all the power of the Taredhel was drawn; each tree had been grown from a sapling carried from Home to this world, the first refuge of the Taredhel, the “people of the stars,” as they called themselves.

  They had fled from their birth world, ages before, and found refuge on this inhospitable world. Dry, with small oceans and lakes, scorching hot save for the middle of a short winter, the world had grudgingly yielded to the magic of the original Spellweavers, and those original seven magic trees, the “stars” carried from Home, had been the anchor to this world that had allowed them to survive. The survival of those trees had been paid for by the very blood of the Taredhel, and if the Clans of the Seven Stars had a world in which their soul resided more than in Andcardia, it could only be Home.

  When the trees began to flourish, so did the Taredhel, the trees providing them with magic they called Home Magic. They had taken that Home Magic and at first used it to bludgeon this Andcardia into submission, then they had refined it, blending it with the natural harmonies, until a magic native to both the Taredhel and this planet emerged, and over the following centuries, it had changed both the world and the elves.

  Now lush forests hugged the mountainsides, still halted in the lowlands by blistering hot table lands and vast deserts. Yet even they were slowly retreating as the Water Gatherers found ways to use the translocation magic to bring water from other worlds. In his lifetime, Undalyn had seen the sea level gradually rise and lakes expand. Where his grandfather once had hunted the great scaly lizards of the Rocky Flats, now an orchard of redfruit trees sheltered the melon vines, and streams ran through the heart of the flats all the way to the sea.

  Undalyn was impatient for Laromendis to continue, but he still had the patience of an elf. He knew the Conjurer was trying to make a point. Finally the magic-user spoke. “They have nothing like this.”

  The Regent Lord inclined his head and said, “No cities?”

  “Only the darkest among our kind, the lore speaks of them as the Forgotten.”

  The Regent Lord glanced around, seeing that only one servant waited near the door and he was out of earshot. What the Conjurer spoke of was approaching heresy. Lowering his voice, he said, “Those…”

  “They are called Moredhel on the home world.”

  “The dark people.” The Regent Lord nodded. “They have a city?”

  “A rumor.” Laromendis moved away from the window as he gathered his thoughts. “In the north, in slavish imitation of the Masters, a city fashioned as a twin of the city of lore. Called Armengar by the humans, it was destroyed, according to the tales. Our people’s name for it I did not discover, but I’ve heard the tale enough times to judge some truth to it.

  “I spent most of my time with the humans, for it is easier to gull them. The humans thrive, so many of them. In some ways they are like us, but they are inferior, like the other short-lived races. And like the others, they breed like mice. They are everywhere. So I disguised myself as one and lived among them for months. What they know of our people borders on myth and legend, or, at the very best, rumor.

  “I traveled from where I appeared across one of their larger nations, learning the language as I traveled—fortunately, there are many nations and languages, so someone who spoke oddly barely brought notice.

  “We know so little of these creatures, these humans…I found it fascinating.”

  The Regent Lord looked at the magic-user with a narrowing gaze. While the ancient Spellweavers were venerated and honored for their work in transforming this harsh world, those like Laromendis and his brother Gulamendis were viewed with caution approaching fear. The so-called dark arts, anything the conjurers and demon masters found “fascinating” was likely to be viewed with suspicion. “Why?”

  “Too many reasons to list, m’lord. But first-most is their magic. It is varied to the point of being beyond calculating. So many approaches to seizing the power of the world and bending it to their will, it staggers the mind.

  “There are those who use arts so very much like our own I wondered at first had elves been their first teachers, but there are others…called Greater Path magicians, who have no subtlety, no…grace, in their craft, yet who possess vast power. It is difficult to explain to one not given to magic.”

  The Regent Lord nodded. By nature elves were at one with the natural magic of their race, but circumstances had forced the People to adapt, to change their ways. Among the Taredhel were those like the two brothers, who hungered after power like a starving man after a meal. And like the Regent Lord, there were those who gave up any understanding of the arts so they might best bend their will to serving the People.

  “Tell me of the humans later,” said the leader of the Clans of the Seven Stars. “Tell me more of our people. You say The…Forgotten exist?”

  “So it would seem,” said the magic-user. “Humans know little of our kind, but there were enough rumors, as well as a few facts, that I could piece together some understanding of how our brethren fare on the Home.

  “Humans call the Forgotten ‘The Brotherhood of the Dark Path.’”

  The Regent Lord nodded. “An apt name if the secret lore is true…” He hesitated, realizing he had inadvertently uttered a blasphemy.

  The magic-user chose to ignore the remark. “There have been many debates among the Farseeing if the secret lore is literally true or metaphor.” With that observation, he signaled the Regent Lord he understood the comment and would make no issue of it. Given the current situation among the People, any hint of blasphemy brought swift and harsh responses; it was why his brother currently languished in a dark cell. Then again, Laromendis’s younger brother always did have a tendency to speak first and think second. A bad trait in one who submersed himself in demon lore at a time when demons were threatening to obliterate the People.

  “What did you learn of the Forgotten?”

  “Little; to the humans the Brotherhood is almost a myth, though I did encounter a traveler from the city of Yabon, far to the north of a realm known as ‘the Kingdom,’ and he did swear that he had once seen those…unspeakable beings.

  “Our people war among themselves, the Forgotten against those more like us,” said the Conjurer with a hint of mixed emotion, anger and disgust. “I walked the land, posing as a human traveler, listening to tales, gossip in taverns, buying drinks for sailors, speaking with priests and anyone who might know ancient lore. In one place did I find an abbey of s
ome god, but their wards were too strong for my guise to endure, so I could not enter. But I did encounter one of their members on the road and did confine him and question him. He was a monk and his mind was disciplined but eventually yielded most of what I learned of their ancient lore, which I now share with you.”

  “Did you kill him after?”

  “Of course,” said the Conjurer. “He was merely a human, after all.”

  “No dishonor,” agreed the Regent Lord. Killing a prisoner would be dishonorable if it were a warrior of the People or an equal race.

  “The Forgotten war against those most like us, who abide in a grove they name Elvandar.”

  At the utterance of that word, the Regent Lord’s eyes grew shiny with emotion. He said the name softly, “Elvandar.” It simply meant “Home of the People,” but it echoed with a deeper meaning.

  In ages past, the People served a dread race, the Valheru, and endured slavery and degradation. Then came a great upheaval, a war in which the very fabric of time and space was rent and chaos reigned.

  The ancestors of the Taredhel were among the mightiest of the servants of the Valheru, called, in their own tongue, Eldar. They were the Spellweavers, the masters of the groves, the keepers of the land, and the librarians of their masters’ power. Many of those who had served with their masters on other worlds had perished, though some rumors abided that a few had escaped and sought refuge. It was that faint hope that there were others like them out among the stars that had driven a band of Eldar to escape through one of the tears in space and time.

  To Andcardia they had come, a band of no more than two thousand magic-users, hunters, and their families. It was a harsh land, but eventually they made it their own. As centuries passed, they grew to prosper, and now they dominated this world, numbering in millions.