Gemworld (30 page)

Of course. South side of the line. I sure hope you know what you’re doing
.

He waited for long moments after that, but she never responded.

“Aeden’s Garden,” Delana whispered with a mixture of awe and fear as she took in the enormous emerald vista that spread out before them. “Not so much ‘Lost’, eh?”

Reit could only nod silently. He’d thought that he was above superstition, above believing the tales concerning the Lost Garden, but now that they were here—looking down upon the fallen kingdom of Lord Aeden the Cursed, the very center of
Ysra tuk'sheol
—he wasn’t so sure. He’d never seen such an expanse of unbroken green, even deep within the Vale. It was so full of life, and yet, so dark, as if the full force of the Crafter’s wrath still held sway. The only feature marring the verdant spread was a narrow wedge of pure white, jutting like a sword point toward the sky far to the northeast and sparkling brilliantly in the early morning sunlight. “What do you suppose that is, Delana?”

“The Tower of Aeden?” she asked, following his gaze. “It’s anybody’s guess, really. I can only assume it’s a mountain, but...”

“But what?”

“Well…” she said, her voice trailing as she focused on the distant structure. “It’s almost as if… I don’t know… as if it has an aura. I can’t really see it from this distance. I just sense that it’s… there.” She squinted a moment longer, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we can holiday at the Tower once we overthrow the Highest,” she said playfully, dismissing her curiosity with such ease that it left Reit in awe. He spared the oddity one last glance, then ordered the wagons out of the Icebreaks and down into Aedenlee.

It took most of the morning to cross the Aedenlee Foothills. By the time they crossed the boundary from foothill to forest, it was just past noon with the sun directly overhead. Even so, it seemed as if the temperature dropped at least by twenty points of mercury. In his mind, Reit knew that it was just the deep forest shading them from the summer sun, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the fables just might be true. He looked around the procession and saw his observation reflected in the faces of his friends. All except for Keth, of course, who had been quite distant and detached since Reit had spoken to him the night before.

As he had many times since that conversation, he berated himself for a tyrant. How could he expect a man to give up on his friend? How dare he
order
a man to do such a thing? Oh, Keth had accepted the mandate readily enough, having just sworn fealty, but now the order didn’t sit well with Reit. For the hundredth time, he considered rescinding the mandate, but decided against it. Too much was at stake, and he needed Keth in the here and now. Maybe when the day was done...

The trail they followed wound through the forest, drawing them deeper and deeper into the fabled wood. Tales of ghosts, dragons, mages gone mad, all came unbidden to Reit’s mind as the trail narrowed to barely accommodate a single file procession. Soon, the wagons came to a clearing of sorts, barely wide enough to contain the entire compliment of Caravan. The sun filtered down weakly through the green canopy high above the clearing, giving the space an ethereal glow.

“This is it,” he called at the top of his voice. “Look alive, people. We only have a few hours at most before the granites are upon us.”

At his command, the wagons poured into the clearing, filling it from tree to tree, leaving barely enough room to walk between them. Tents were staked, fires were built, trail rations were set to stewing in the cookpots, and all was made ready. To the outside observer, it would seem that the nomadic village had set up a semi-permanent residence.

Reit looked around with careful satisfaction, and hoped that it would look that way to the granites.

***

Nestor emerged from his loamy bed just outside the forest wall, once more separated from the earth beneath him. “What have you found?”

“It’s them, Chief General,” the scout said, walking up to him along the trail that led into the trees. “They’ve set up camp in a small clearing not even a mile inside the forest boundary. They must think themselves safe in there.”

“Indeed,” Nestor muttered. He wielded, sending a general pulse of granite magics outward from him. Instantly, the entirety of his granite contingent sprouted up around him, awaiting his instructions.

“The rebel encampment is less than a mile down this path,” he said, addressing the troop. “Be wary. They know we’re chasing them, and will most likely be prepared for an attack, so take no thought of prisoners. If any do happen to survive long enough for the Highest to question, so much the better, but victory is our first priority.”

That said, he turned to the forest, and wielded... nothing!

***

“It’s working,” Japheth said, unsure of himself at first, then growing more confident. “It’s working!”

“Excellent,” Delana said, her violet eyes flashing with as much bloodlust as exertion as they looked down at the confused invaders below. She was expending a good deal of mana to help hold the nullifying field stable, as were the other amethysts that floated high above the granite detachment with her. As one, the amethysts descended to a point halfway up the foothills and ceased their levitation, concentrating their full will into the nullifying field.

***

“
Now!
” Reit shouted as he watched his wife and her amethysts descend. All around him, the sounds of battle raged as mundane warriors engaged the granite contingent, confused and hobbled by the loss of their magic.

Reit pulled a sparking arrow from his quiver, nocked his bow, and released, all in one fluid motion. As he suspected, the electricity imbued into the arrowhead flickered and died as it entered the nullifying field, but the arrow was no less deadly as it struck one of the lead granites through the neck.

His ragtag armies flooded into the granite contingent, and the clash of swords rang out a deafening counterpoint to the twang of Reit’s archers. One by one the granites fell, absolutely powerless within the field and caught utterly unawares by the mundane attack. Slowly they recouped, but by then, Reit’s armies had already cut their numbers by half.

***

“
To arms, to arms!
” Nestor called, ripping his own sword from its sheath, barely in time to repel the attack of the rebel rush. He’d heard of the amethyst ability to nullify magic, but in all his time serving the Highest, he’d never seen the tactic employed. The wielding nullified
all
external forms of magic in the area, and not just for the ambushed. Many military leaders considered that too much of a liability, cutting of the magic of an enemy at the cost of his own magical force. Apparently, du’Nograh hadn’t studied his military histories. Apparently, du’Nograh was the better for it.

He raised his sword above his head, ready to bring it down on the neck of one of the rebels, when he felt a steel point at his neck. “I can’t let you do that, Nestor.”

He froze in place, his granite eyes went wide. Jaeda. How could he have been so blind! He should have known not to trust her, to care for her, and be damned the fact that she was Rank. Her brother was sworn to du’Nograh’s rebellion, and blood is thick, even for a granite. He should have known that she would not betray her own blood.

For the first time in almost a hundred years, he felt the faint stirrings of panic in his soul, and he quashed them viciously. Powerless he may be, but he would not meet his death with cowardice. Screwing up his courage, he dropped his sword and turned to face his captor, hands still in the air, sneering in pure hatred. That sneer faltered only slightly as he saw the sadness in Jaeda’s eyes, the quiver in her lips as she held the sword with dead stillness at his neck.

The din of battle slowly died as Nestor’s men fell all around him, until finally he heard nothing but the cheering of the rebels. Still, he held only Jaeda in his eyes, her face a grim mixture of sorrow and steel. When he finally spoke, he was surprised at how broken his own voice sounded in his ears. “I trusted you.”

Jaeda’s lip quivered all the more at his words, but her sword tip never wavered in the slightest.

Suddenly, her eyes cut over his shoulder, and her grimace transformed, lighting her face in Nestor’s vision as much as his granite eyes would allow. “Gaelen!” she said.

“Sister,” acknowledged a tall, bulky man with amethyst eyes. He brushed past Nestor with barely a thought and caught his sister up in his arms. Jaeda both laughed and cried as her younger brother twirled her around in circles.

With the threat of cold steel no longer pressed into the flesh of his neck, Nestor cast his eyes right and left, looking for any means of escape. He barely had time to take his first step when he again felt the nip of razor-sharp steel at his neck. “Probably not your best move, mate,” came a confident purr from behind him.

***

Jaeda stood at the door of the prison wagon—the same one where newcomers to Caravan passed the night in contemplation before the questioning, so she understood—waiting patiently as Marissa fitted the prisoner with an amethyst-adorned shackle.

Jaeda shivered at the thought of the silver neckband touching Nestor’s skin. The amethysts on the neckband glowed dimly with restrained magics, waiting for Marissa to set the final clasp and activate the cantrip.

Artisans like Marissa had been making shackles since the time of
Ysra tuk'sheol
They were very simple devices, really, using only a single activation rune—the magical equivalent of “no”, apparently—to do the same thing that the amethyst mages had that afternoon, only on an individual level. The mages of old originally employed the shackle as a safety measure, to void their own magic while they sorted out why the once-singular mana stream had divided into six, and how those six could be safely wielded.

The Lynchers, of course, had other plans for the shackles. They saw in them the potential for
true
restraint and, in less than a generation, redesigned them accordingly.

Jaeda's breath caught as Marissa set the final lock. Now, only Marissa knew the secret to removing Nestor’s shackle without killing him. Crafter forbid she should ever die before passing that secret on, as even a master artisan stood a good chance of tripping the safeguards on a shackle crafted by another’s hands.

Even knowing the necessity in applying it to Nestor, it turned Jaeda’s stomach to watch the violet aura spread over her former commander’s body and settle into his skin. Her stomach lurched again when Nestor’s gaze fell upon her, completely devoid of emotion.

Marissa backed slowly out of the wagon, nodding at Reit, who stood at the far side of the door across from Jaeda.

“I want to voice my objections yet again,” Reit started, but let the matter drop. Jaeda knew that he trusted her. She’d already proven her loyalty and worth to him in today’s ambush. And she had Gaelen to vouch for her longstanding commitment to the Cause. True, she would still face the questioning at the hands of the council of Caravan—those mundanes backed by the Heads of Order and Guild and elected from among the villagers to provide council to Reit—but that was just so much formality.

“I’ll be fine,
el
’
Yatza
,” she said confidently, more so than she actually felt. “Besides, I’m sure you’ll have a guard posted outside.”

The young rebel leader snickered a bit. “I wouldn’t be a good servant if I neglected the safety of those in my charge, now would I? Gaelen actually wanted to do it himself, but I couldn’t allow it. Conflict of interest, you understand.”

“Of course. Thank you, my lord.”

Reit bristled a bit at the honorific, but said nothing. With a jerk of his head, he dismissed the amethyst guards that surrounded the wagon, leaving only one of Retzu’s
shol
’
tuk
adherents to guard the door.
Brass hilt
, Jaeda noted, remembering her lessons regarding the assassin culture. The young man regarded her with no more emotion than Nestor did. Less, in fact, though it meant little coming from him.

She believed the brass hilt was a skill level equivalent to a Major Lieutenant, though the young man would likely scoff at her applying military rank to one such as himself. Likely, he saw her and all other Rank as anathema, as “unhilted”, bearing swords but sharing none of the strictures that
shol
’
tuk
associates with them. Whoever the assassin was, and however skilled with a sword, his hilt proclaimed him more than a match for practically anyone who would free the Chief General of the Granite Guard.
Death reflects our inner being, like the brass plate reflects the sunlight,
she silently recited, though the mantra held no more power for her than it would for any other unhilted.

She paused a moment longer to steel herself, though it did little to calm her heart against what she was about to face. She grit her teeth, breathed deeply, and mounted the steps to the doorway.

Nestor sat perfectly still in his high backed chair, refusing to acknowledge her approach. He simply pushed the chair back on its rear legs, resting his head and neck on the back wall of the wagon and seeming to go to sleep.

Jaeda let her breath out in a sigh. “I didn’t expect even that much from you, so why should I be disappointed?” When her former commander didn’t answer, she took a seat on the bed to the side of the doorway. “Reit says that the shackle is temporary, until he decides what to do with you. As he has men in place within the Earthen Rank, there is really no need to try to wrest information out of you.”