First Rider's Call (65 page)

The forest trembled.

How could his father have done this to him? In anger, Alessandros had indiscriminately killed slaves and prisoners, and flattened villages. He had declared himself Emperor of Mornhavonia, and pledged to return to Arcosia to wrest power from his father. Once he conquered the barbarians here.

Hadriax had pleaded with him to reconsider. Perhaps some ill had befallen the empire, he said. Surely there was some explanation.

Alessandros had not been able to believe something so disastrous could happen to the empire that it would cause his father to cease contact with him. Arcosia was vast, strong. So he had continued his campaigns here in the New Lands.

As years passed, Hadriax had grown aloof and spent more time on the field of battle. Their few meetings turned into arguments, and Hadriax expressed his revulsion for Alessandros’ work with the Eletians.

“The experiments are necessary,” Alessandros had said, “for understanding the species and the nature of etherea.”

Hadriax had walked away with a disgusted expression on his face, and Alessandros killed a few Eletian prisoners to spite him.

What had happened to Hadriax? Why had he become so withdrawn? Alessandros had missed him during his absences, but filled his time in his workroom, creating a device to enhance his powers a hundredfold, and allow him to end the war once and for all.

The Black Star.
It was his greatest work, a thing of entrancing beauty, a star of five points fashioned from obsidian. The points were as sharp as swordtips, but as a weapon, its true power lay in its ability to augment etherea, specifically, his ability to work the art, the way glass can intensify the rays of the sun. Eventually even that great power could be augmented . . . with a few sacrifices.

Amid his triumph of the Black Star, at a moment when Hadriax should have been most proud of him, he had learned instead of Hadriax’s plan to meet secretly with Liliedhe Ambriodhe.

Blackveil Forest quaked so fiercely that branches fell from trees and creatures scuttled into their dens to hide.

Even more powerful than the abandonment by his father had been Hadriax’s betrayal.

Black clouds roiled above treetops, a breeze whipped into a frenzy shredding leaves off branches.

Hadriax’s betrayal had provided the League with intelligence that strengthened them. They had waylaid Alessandros’ army in final battle across the Wanda Plains. He had watched as the League forced its way through his legions, somehow neutralizing his Great Mages.

He had watched them beat back his lieutenants—Lichant, Terrandon, and Varadgrim. Mirdhwell had been slain by his own son.

Alessandros had let his powers build within the Black Star. He had planned to sweep the battlefield clean, even if it meant decimating his own legions. For once and for all, he had planned to use his powers in a way a god should.

After all, was he not God himself, with the power of life and death in his hands?

But again, victory had been stolen from him. Somehow, that demon bitch, Ambriodhe, had gotten King Santanara of Eletia near him unawares. Santanara had wrested the Black Star from him, and turned it against him—not using the art, but by using it as a common weapon.

Down, down, down had come the falling star, a thing of entrancing beauty, Alessandros’ finest achievement. Down it came, a sharp point, and stabbed into his chest.

Sharp pain, then darkness and slumber.

The forest stilled, lay calm and silent. From stillness came an explosion.

 

A tidal wave of rage funneled through the breach, knocking out the repaired section and sending more cracks through the wall. Trees shattered into splinters, killing several soldiers within the encampment.

The rage, like an extraordinary storm wind unleashed, raced through the Sacoridian forest, and all vegetation touched by it withered and decayed.

Elsewhere, an entire village vanished and the Broken-branch River reversed its flow. Vessels of all tonnages, from the smallest fishing skiffs to heavy merchant ships, foundered at sea.

In Sacor City, people going about their business along the Winding Way turned to stone.

In the castle, it began to snow.

THE MEMORY OF STONE

Disembodied, Alton felt no pain or illness, no hunger or thirst. He had no need of sustenance here.

His soul and consciousness soaked through the pores of granite. At first he panicked that he was trapped, as inert as stone, caught in gray nothingness unable to move or float free. He had turned to stone, unmovable and dead. The sensation was akin to being buried alive, knowing there was no escape, even as the earth is being shoveled over one’s coffin.

Then Karigan’s soothing voice came to him, reminding him to relax and open his mind so he could go deeper, of how to enter another level of existence within stone. He did as she bid, and as he calmed, he found himself adrift among shining crystalline structures. Complex and perfect, they were the stuff of stars, like the homes of the gods in the heavens.

As he flowed and oozed through the stone, he grew aware of its memory. Each block knew of molten magma and ice sheets. Of the first touch of the dawning sun chasing away the chill of night. The granite remembered the cool shade of the forest and the crash of the raging sea. It remembered the painful bite of ice freezing and thawing, creating cracks and joints.

The stone recalled creatures scuttling atop it, and being quarried by man. It had many inconsequential stories to tell of its enormous lifetime, stories of weathering and the cold of interminable winters. The memories elicited no emotions, they were simply there like the words in a book, but engraved within the stone.

The stories resonated through Alton, but he had to shake himself loose, feeling a million years could pass without his knowing it. He had work to do here.

He plunged into a yet another level of awareness within the wall, and this time he found energies inconsistent with the inert character of stone. There were other souls here with him.

A choir of voices sang in harmony, and he knew these voices, for they had haunted his dreams. Their tones vibrated through his being, through the wall. They were songs of strength and weathering, of peace and restfulness.

Underlying the choir, however, was crackling, the destruction of the wall. The voices held uncertainty, the rhythm of their song irregular.

The wall shuddered suddenly, like a house battered by a gale. The voices cried out and screamed as the wall strained against a surge of power. Alton was almost thrust out of the wall, but he wrapped his consciousness around a crystalline structure and held fast.

He knew his task was more urgent than ever. He must bring order to the rhythm of the wall. He must sing the song Karigan taught him.

WESTRION’S WINGS

Disheartened and weary, Karigan mounted the steps back into the main entrance of the castle. She wondered if Captain Mapstone would get better. She needed her now more than ever.

How was she ever going to convince the king to let her ride to the wall? The captain wasn’t going to be of any help . . . Maybe, just maybe, she would have to disobey the king and go anyway. Her heart pounded hard at the thought.

Inside the castle, the atmosphere had calmed considerably. Soldiers and servants were carrying away pieces of armor bit by bit, a helm under one arm and a leg thrown over a shoulder. The corridors looked strange and empty without the old sentinels standing watch along the walls.

“Rider!”

Karigan turned to find a runner of the Green Foot trotting toward her.

“Yes?”

“Down in the new Rider wing,” the girl gasped, trying to catch her breath, “Rider Bowen has been hurt.”

Karigan dashed off without a second thought, fretting over what could have happened. Had he been hurt by the armor? Maybe he had pulled his back moving furniture.

She departed the populated corridors of the main castle for the one that led into the Rider wing. She should have asked the runner to go fetch Tegan, but then again it was probably Tegan who had summoned her.

The Rider wing was quiet, eerily so, and she had the feeling of ghostly presences around her, murmuring into her ears. Unseen fingers plucked at her sleeve, and wall lamps flickered.

“Garth?” she called. Her voice rang hollow through the corridor. She received no answer.

She shuddered and broke into a clammy sweat as a shadow rustled by her. This didn’t feel right, and she was about to head back to the main castle to get help, when she heard a very human groan.

Casting all caution aside, she ran to the one chamber with a lamp lit within. It was the room they had chosen for Mara, since it was the largest. They had cleaned out two hundred years of filth, making it cleaner than it probably had ever been in its entire existence. Garth was saving the best pieces of furniture for it, and had even used his own currency to purchase a fine carpet. All of this in hopes their positive thoughts and actions would help Mara heal. They dared not consider the alternative.

Karigan entered the chamber and gasped. Garth lay sprawled on the floor, a nasty bump rising on his temple.

“Garth!” She rushed to his side, placing her hand on his arm. “Garth?”

His eyes fluttered open and he groaned again. “Behind . . .” he whispered.

“What?” Karigan shook his arm, but he had fallen unconscious.

There were footsteps behind her, and before she could turn, a coarse sack smelling of potatoes was thrown over her head. All of Arms Master Drent’s training came into play—she screamed and tussled like a wild thing, kicking, clawing, and elbowing her assailants. They elicited grunts and curses, and she managed to prevent the sack from being drawn over her shoulders.

In the one moment when all their hands were off her, she whipped the sack from her head.

There were three of them: a soldier, a woman whose nose was bleeding, and a big man who must be a blacksmith, for the soot engraved into the lines of his face. The blacksmith and woman looked vaguely familiar, but just now she didn’t have the time to think about it. She stood in a defensive crouch and balled her fists.

“Look,” said the soldier, who wore sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve, “we don’t wish to harm you. If you’d just come along quietly—”

Just like they didn’t wish to harm Garth? “Come along
where?
”

“Lord Varadgrim came looking for you.” The sergeant had an easy grin despite the incredible words. “Seems you are wanted in Blackveil.”

Karigan was so stunned, she nearly failed to duck in time when the woman swung a club at her head. She grabbed a broom leaning against the wall and used it to deflect other blows. The woman had no training as a fighter, and Karigan had little trouble dancing around her. A good jab with the broom handle into the woman’s gut made her drop the club and retch.

The blacksmith and sergeant were another matter. They were both armed with swords and eyed her confidently.

They waited for her to make the next move, so she did. She broke the broom handle over the blacksmith’s head. His eyes lost focus, and he wobbled unsteadily.

“I heard you were training with Drent,” the sergeant murmured.

Karigan was pretty sure they didn’t intend to kill her, so it perhaps made her more bold. She jabbed at the sergeant with her piece of splintered broom handle, but he easily pushed it aside, and knocked her arm backward with the flat of his blade.

The blow reawakened Karigan’s old elbow injury and sent pain ringing all the way to the roots of her teeth. Her broom handle clattered to the floor.

“I also heard,” the sergeant said, “about your arm injury.”

Karigan rubbed her elbow. “Who are you, and why are you doing this?”

“My name is Westly Uxton, and despite this uniform I wear, I am loyal to the Second Empire. Did you not know the empire will arise again? No? Well this time it shall persevere over the people of these lands.”