Child Of Storms (Volume 1) (59 page)

             
The elf ignored him, stepping into the tower. The chamber within was plain, with bare walls and a narrow staircase rising upwards along the side of the curved wall. Much of the floor was taken up by a polished bronze disk five feet across. The others entered the chamber behind him, their eyes dazzled by the intricate carvings in the shining metal. Jorn crouched down next to it and ran his fingers along its gleaming surface, smiling. He recognized the basic patterns at once.

             
“It’s a map of all Pallinore,” he said. “Do you see it? Here is the Great Sea and the coastline of Brithborea. There is Linlund and this is Vandoria.”

             
“Yes, but what are those stars scattered about?” Willock wondered.

             
“Each one represents a tower,” Ronias explained. “Over here is the one in your homeland, Linlunder. And this star here, that is where we now stand.”

             
“This is no ruin, is it?” Flatfoot said, looking around. “It’s kept as clean as the hall in my own house. Not a speck of dust anywhere.”

             
“It is…well, there is no easy way to explain it to persons such as yourselves,” Ronias said, sighing “Dozens of these towers are to be found throughout Pallinore, as you can see from this map before us. They form a system which wizards use to travel the vastest distances with instantaneous ease. All a wizard need do is ascend any of the towers and, if he knows the correct power words, he can use each tower to transport himself at once to any of the others instantaneously.”

             
“Grang’s teeth!” Jorn smirked. “That’s impossible.”

             
“Oh, but it is not.” Ronias shook his head. “One moment the wizard is standing atop the tower here, and the next moment he is hundreds of miles away as he arrives at his new destination. There are always two power words: the first activates the tower, the second selects the tower of the wizard’s choice to which he wishes to go. In a heartbeat, a wizard is at once transported to the chosen tower even if it be a thousand miles away. Once, two thousand years ago, there were scores of such towers scattered about the realms and wizards traversed the globe with ease. Now, barely more than a dozen remain.”

             
“That explains the comings and goings of wizards in these moors which I have heard tale of,” Willock said.

             
“Merely wizards using the tower for transport, including the lightning from a clear sky,” Ronias said. “Nothing nearly so nefarious as the men of Glammonfore Keep think. But it keeps the curious away.”

             
“Astounding!” the gnome said. “Consider the commercial opportunities. What would someone headed for Linlund pay to be instantly brought there? Think of it!”

             
“It is not that simple,” Ronias said. “These are places of powerful magic indeed, and their owners would not appreciate the likes of you using them for profit. It is precisely because of greedy little gnomes such as yourself that these towers are kept secret.”

             
“Their owners?” Jorn said.

             
“Ach. It’s best not to inquire into the ways of wizards, laddie,” Ironhelm said.

             
Ronias laughed loudly.

             
“Don’t act as though you do not know, dwarf!” he said. “You speak very little, and yet you say enough. You have traveled from one end of Pallinore to the other, and you know your way around Linlund every bit as well as you know your way around Llangellan. Do you expect me to believe you’ve never seen one of these towers before, and that you’ve never asked Braemorgan about them? You know all about them, including who owns them. Tell me, why are you so anxious to keep their secret?”

             
“Ach. And why are you so anxious to reveal it?” Ironhelm said. “The business of wizards is -”

             
“Best left to wizards,” Ronias said. “I know. What do the secrets of the Conclave mean to me? Why should I strive to keep the truth hidden?”

             
“Now you both speak in riddles,” Jorn said. “Conclave?”

             
“The Conclave of High Wizards,” Ronias said.

             
“I have heard men whisper of them,” Ailric said. “I thought it was just a legend.”

             
“I, too, thought they were but myth,” Willock said. “Am I wrong?”

             
“Of course you are,” Ronias said. “They promote the notion that they do not exist. But they are very real, woodsman. Ask Braemorgan or, better yet, ask the dwarf.”

             
“The Conclave of Wizards,” Jorn repeated. “I read once that they were active in Old Luthania, before the coming of Kaas. The old chronicles are full of their doings. But I’d no idea they were still around. It was said that Kaas killed them all.”

             
“They went into hiding when Kaas came, and have remained there ever since,” Ronias said. “Even after the defeat of Kaas by Mender, they did not emerge from the shadows. But, make no mistake, they exist still and exercise considerable influence upon...events.”

             
“To what purpose?” Jorn said.

             
“They guard against the forces of Kaas, laddie,” Ironhelm said, glaring at the elf. “Braemorgan is a member, aye, and so are a set number of very few other wizards. I don’t know where they meet, or how often. But I do know tha’ they’re on our side. Aye, tis true.”

             
“So why the secrecy?” Jorn said.

             
“If Braemorgan wanted you to know all this, he’d have told you. Aye, I’ll say again tha’ the ways of wizards are best left to wizards.”

             
“Grang’s ass!” Jorn said.

             
Ironhelm said nothing. 

             
“Well, this is all fascinating!” Flatfoot said. “That such a thing still exists! But there remains the question which started this whole conversation. Who is this ‘watcher’ you spoke of?”

             
“The Conclave usually assigns a wizard to keep guard over each tower,” Ronias said. “Or at least the ones that are still in common use. The watcher maintains the tower, and keeps an eye out for intruders such as ourselves. They always live nearby, usually within site of the tower, even in such a place as this.”

             
“The hour grows late,” Ailric said. “The watcher is nowhere to be found. Do we make camp?”

             
“It would keep us out of the weather,” Willock said.

             
“Then we camp,” Jorn said.

_____

Jorn stood atop the spire, Ronias besides him.

Jorn could see miles in all directions. The Barrier Mountains and the Teeth of Kaas loomed to the west, the Glammonfore Gap somewhere to the east. North lay the black expanses of the Nor Marshes. 

He stepped nearer to the edge, leaning over and peering down. A hundred feet below, he could see Willock gathering pieces of wood for a fire from a nearby cluster of low-growing brush. Ironhelm and Ailric seemed to be helping him. Flatfoot, meanwhile, was leaning over a goose Ronias had killed that afternoon, carving it up for roasting.

              “Why do they even need towers?” Jorn asked. “Why go to all the trouble of building all of this? Wouldn’t a small hut serve the same purpose? Or no structure at all?”

             
“A complete answer to all your questions would be far too complicated for you to grasp,” Ronias said, sighing. “Let me simplify it into terms you might understand. In order to leap across the great distances in the blink if an eye, a wizard must access the plane of pure magic entangling everything in our own plane of existence. This magical energy only connects to our world, however, in certain places. It is at these connections that the towers need to be built. Sometimes, these connections are in the middle of a vast swamp. Other times they are found in the middle of a barren desert far from any settlement. Many a time, they occur in the middle of the ocean where no tower can be built.”

“Were it up to the builders, the towers would be in convenient places like Moonstar or Barter’s Crossing. But the conduits openings are random. The gnome, he’d like to use these towers for profit. What he doesn’t yet grasp is that most of the towers are in completely useless places. Look at it, so far inside the wilderness. What a waste.”

              “You haven’t answered my question. Why towers? Why build so high above the ground?” Jorn said.

             
Ronias sighed again. 

“Do your questions never cease? It has to do with the nature of the connection to the higher plane. Wizards draw energy from the sky all around them, from the very air we breathe. Solid ground tends to disperse and thus weaken this
energy, so structures reaching far above the ground are necessary to function best. It would take one such as yourself decades of study to begin to grasp why this is so, if you ever could.”

             
“You know, Ronias, you make it hard for a man to like you.”

             
“What of it?”

             
“You don’t have the power words to these towers, do you?”

             
“The power words are known to only a very select few.”

             
“Does Braemorgan know them?” Jorn said.

             
“Of course he does,” Ronias said. “Why do you think he is as well known in Llangellan as he is in Linlund? The distance from Barter’s Crossing to your homeland is not weeks to him, but days. He will not reveal the power words, though.”

             
“There are few who would share such knowledge,” Jorn said, still standing at the edge of the precipice.

             
“That does not mean we need accept it,” the elf said, starting back down the stairs. He paused, looking back at Jorn.  “Mind the edge. It is a long way to the bottom.”

_____

             
The fog rolled in again during the night, blanketing the moors in a dense coat of white mist which still covered everything at dawn. They ate a breakfast of left-over goose and some last bits of cheese in silence. The moors were a quiet place, especially at that hour.

             
From somewhere out in the fog came a distant thumping noise. Jorn almost leapt out of his skin as it reached his ears. He drew his sword and stood, staring out into the fog.

             
“Did you hear that?” he said.

             
“Hear wha’?” Ironhelm said.

             
“It’s a horse,” Ailric added, drawing his sword.

             
“Do we hide?” Flatfoot asked.

             
“Why bother?” Ronias said. “He already knows we are here. Besides, we’re in no danger.”

Whoever it was drew closer cloaked in the early-morning fog. A shadowy form finally emerged upon horseback. Willock aimed his bow at the figure’s chest.

Slowly, the rider continued his slow approach. The horse, they saw, was a wobbly old nag some years past her prime. Sitting atop the aged animal was an odd looking figure also well past his prime.

             
The man was past seventy at least. Stark white hair still grew upon his head in a few isolated patches, long and unkempt. His face was wrinkled and weathered, a few ragged whiskers on his chin. He was of average height, with a smallish build and a filthy old wool cloak wrapped tightly around him. He rode slowly out of the fog on the old horse, finally stopping when he was right upon them. 

             
“Do you mean to rob me?” he said, his voice surprisingly strong. “I am a wizard, mind you, and if you seek trouble with me you’ll come to regret it.”

             
“Ach. We’re no robbers!” Ironhelm said.

             
“Then you’ve no need to brandish that axe at me, dwarf.” The stranger glared at Willock. “Would you mind lowering your bow, please? State you business. Who are you? What do you want? These lands and this tower are my responsibility.”

             
Willock slowly lowered his bow, but kept an arrow notched.

             
“I be Durm Ironhelm,” the dwarf said. “We’re scouting these lands for the king of Llangellan and have happened upon a bit of bad luck. Aye, we found this tower and took shelter in it last night.”

             
“Yes, I know. I saw your fire from my place over yonder beyond that patch of trees,” the old man said. “A bit of bad luck, you say? It looks to me like you’ve marched through hell itself. Have you no horses?”

             
“Lost in the Nor Marshes,” Ironhelm said.

             
“The marshes!” the old man exclaimed. “What in bloody hell were you doing in there? Are you daft?”