River Of Life (Book 3) (37 page)

"Wonder if the eclipse will help them or us," the
other wizard muttered.

THE rock speared its way into the sky, towering lonely above the
landscape, raised long ago from the depths of the earth by the great power of
the Humbas.  Everything around was still dead.  This place had begun to hold an
infamous position in the chaotic mind of the wizard.  It cast a black shadow on
the ground and in Erelon’s mind as the two men approached.  Other pillars stood
in a circle like silent sentries into a world beyond, which could only be
reached by those who commanded great knowledge in the magical arts.

One man, dressed in an off-white, light linen tunic, stepped
from his horse, slipping off with ease and lightness of body.  The one behind
stayed on his own mount while holding the reins to a pack horse that trailed
behind.  The giant rock was to their left.  They had approached from the
southwest, easing around the magnificent sculpture.  The round table of stone
still sat visible on the east side of King's Time.  The first man led his horse
to the one still mounted and handed him the reins.

“Easton,” came a rough voice from Erelon who stood on the
ground.

The earth had been baked so that it was almost stone, and only
what was left of the prairie grass kept the round table from bleeding into the
earth’s floor.

“Stay here and take good care of Draos.  I received him from
Chaucer.  He is old, but many good years are left to him,” Erelon finished.

Stepping to the pack horse, Erelon rummaged in a pack and took
from it a round bundle of black cloth.  Quickly, he again stood by Easton.  The old wizard knew this could well be the last he spoke with the young man.  For
a moment they stood silent, just enjoying the bond of brothers that they
shared.  It seemed a long time had passed since the battle at Mortaz, their
fights in the bar, or even when they had met at Sine.

“Be quick now,” Easton said jokingly, “I have a woman back in
Sine that I promised to go back for.”

A few more moments of silence passed, and he then added with
more seriousness, while still trying to lend some levity to the situation, “You
know, you could also always come.  I mean, you would probably be busy
reorganizing Mortaz and Suragenna, as well as political policy with the other
cities and races.  But we’re brothers, and you’re always welcome.  You’ll need
a vacation after this mission.”

“No,” came Erelon’s serious reply, “That is a job that I am
afraid will be left to others, those who will follow behind me, those of a
younger, a newer generation.”

Erelon sighed sadly and, shaking his head, added, “This new
generation you partly belong to.  But as the quest I sent you on, to the land
of the Humbas, has increased you beyond your years significantly, you also, in
a way, belong to mine, the one that with me, will die.”

“It will not be dead,” was Easton’s angered reproach, “Festor
will still be here.”

“He is not of my generation, but of the one before, a better one
than that which I come from,” Erelon replied solemnly again.

“That’s great,” Easton started, regaining his composure, “If you
leave it to the next generation to restart, then you can go with me to Sine.”

“Be careful of this life you lead,” Erelon warned, “The life of
the wizard, the true wizard, of those that have great power and responsibilities,
will often be a lonely path.  It will be a life of trails which only they
travel on.  Already you have changed and are not the same man who I first met
at Mortaz or the man who met me at Sine.  If the choice is still left to you,
you would be wise to choose the life that you want, the one you will not regret
living out as you age.”

As Erelon talked, a storm began to move in from the East.  The
clouds were black.  A bright, white streak ran out before the clouds.  The wind
picked up and began to kick around dust.  The clouds went screaming past,
rushing toward the Seaward Mountains.  The white line that was the wind
stirring up the clouds seemed to wave to Erelon.  But the clouds seemed to run
into an opposing force, one that stopped them dead.  So the sky was divided,
one half the pale blue through which the sun’s power screamed, the other
covered by clouds which promised a powerful storm filled with water to quench
the prairie’s thirst.

“As a wizard with great power, you often will find that you walk
a lonely road.  Your only friend may be your shadow, and when your shadow
abandons you, you know that you are in a bad condition, a dark place where
there is no one to help you out,” Erelon continued, “You will not be able to
live both the life of a great wizard and that of an average man.  These two
will always be in conflict.  You will have to choose, one or the other, or
always be in peril of losing one or the other as they will threaten and fight
each other.”

As the old wizard talked, his mind seemed to travel off, and
soon he was mumbling about wishing he still pounded iron in the forge with a
large hammer.

After a few moments where Erelon’s mind wandered into the past
and future, the old wizard reached into his leather bag and pulled out his
memoirs, “Here is my journal.  You know what to do.  If you find the time, go
to Ahzmad.  Let him know what happened on the Humban trail so that he can add
it to the history of the Humbas.”

Easton did not say a word.  It still concerned him deeply that
Erelon talked about death, about not surviving the fight.  Easton wanted to see
the old wizard go into the fight with a positive attitude, but had failed.  Easton had thought about forcing the journal back into the arms of his mentor, telling
Erelon that he would come back and finish the memoirs himself.  But Easton knew fighting the old wizard was futile.

“Perfect!” Erelon exclaimed. “A double eclipse, the sign of
hope, of victory.”

Easton looked up; both moons were going to cross paths before
the sun.  The sun’s light would outline the moons in a glorious explosion of
power, but where the moons rested in the sky, they would only be a black hole
casting a shadow on the ground.  It was the perfect eclipse.  Many races had
different legends surrounding the event.

Without another word, Erelon stepped on the stone table.  The
tips of the two swords drifted below his linen cloak, the color of his mentor,
his adoptive grandfather.  Over his arm, Erelon also carried the cloak that
carried the insignia of the Staff of Saris.  Erelon’s boots thudded with every
step, ringing out across the prairie.  He strode to the center, and kneeling,
he set down the black bundle and began to unwrap it with his right hand. 
Instinctively, his left hand held back the cloak so that he could quickly get
at his blade.

A rock of great value was unveiled.  It was a geode.  The rough
broken outer shield protected a clear quartz crystal which contained emeralds,
rubies, and amethysts, which glittered within their clear shell.  Veins of gold
and silver ran a course like an underwater stream through their crystalline
home.  Great rifts sometimes ran to the very core of the stone, allowing the
pure colors of the imprisoned gems to show from deep within.

The old wizard slipped the cloth from under the rock and started
walking toward the edge of the stone table.  He stepped just beyond it,
crushing a few blades of dried grass that turned to powder.  He balled up the
black blanket and cast it out into the prairie.  Turning back, Erelon held his
hand out.  Green liquid fire spurted forward to settle on the stone, sinking
into the great cracks until the whole rock seemed to glow green.  First red and
then purple burst from the rock, spraying the area with color.  There was a
thud, and a wave of energy rushed away from the Stone of Combining.  The edges
of the rocks that had made the rock table were suddenly lined by fiery gold,
and the table was covered in the maps of the stars that charted distance and
time.

The carved designs that had at one time decorated the stone surfaces
of the pillars, those that had long been worn away by the elements, now showed
clearly as silver curved and swirled across the stones’ surfaces.  The designs
showed as water once again released into a river whose access had been long
denied.  The elements might have destroyed the carvings, but the magic still
resided in the rock pillars.  Geometric designs in silver decorated the surface
of each stone.

From the Humbas' crystal Stone of Combining, the gold and silver
poured, as the magic released power that would unite time.  The wizard stepped
into the perimeter of the stone table.  The place glowed in magnificent color
that would have made many a greedy man jealous.  It looked like the sun had
started to shine through a giant stained glass orb but only here in the origin
of King's Time.

The shadows that belonged to the pillars and giant rock began to
slowly turn as if in a few seconds the sun had crossed the span of the entire
sky.  Faster the shadows began to whirl until they were a solid round shadow.

The wind slammed into the body of the wizard, jerking him
around, coming mostly from behind and shoving him closer to the center of the
table like a giant hand were ushering him deeper into the magical relic.  It
howled and screeched, seemingly trying to tear him from the ground on which he
stood.  The world around him became dark.  A swirl of dark greens and blues
amid a mass of black was his only optical perceptions.  He watched his life
start to slowly roll out in front of him.  He saw Chaucer working in the forge
as the hammer rose and fell, banging against metal and sending up a cloud of
sparks.  The gnomes teaching him to read, Jerry's little wand tapping against
the table, Kastor reprimanding him for being rude and throwing food across the
room.  The Gremlin, Quin, his first pet, his only pet next to Draos.  Then
there was Draos prancing around the front lawn, the reins no more than braided
rope in Chaucer's hands.  This horse had become more of a friend, a companion,
than a pet.

Yalen and Arlum, teaching him about the culture, language and
magic of the elves.  Then later Bahsal would become his brother among the
dwarves, and Vagult a little brother.  A tear ran down Erelon's dried cheek as
he thought about Vagult for the first time in many years.  Easton had ran into
Erelon at the bar, had become his friend as they had explored Mortaz.  Tix had
set him on the right path to ending the problem.  Auri had come along to help
as well, a stranger kneeling next to a rancid puddle of water.  Then Ahzmad, Fresmir,
Tanton, and even the mud troll, Bunkir.

The girl of Kintex, his first experience with his heart feeling
like a girl had torn it from his body.  The only time he would allow himself to
become that mentally attached to a woman, to feel that crushed.  From there he
watched his fight with the boys, the first time he had purposely, almost
enjoyably, destroyed the body of a human.  And then the trolls destroying
everything within their path, man, creature, or plant.  The dragon's heat came
again to him as it had destroyed the body of his friend Vagult, and the
disaster at Mortaz where his mind had disappeared and he had allowed Messoth to
shoulder the consequences for his mistakes as a leader.

The faces of those who he considered his friends, those who he had
killed, the hideous snake and the infested waters in which it lived.  The
wizard's Jaffrey and Regis who had haunted his every step through Mortaz, and
finally the smirking, irritating face of Mellacobe who had led to his
downfall.  His second fight at Mortaz and his flight.  Finally this rock that
seemed to focus all the events of this age appeared before him.

Finally the voice of Tix came back to him, laughing, "You
are the only one.  You are the only one.  You are the only one."  Tix's
laughing voice told him over and over again.  Slowly the face of Tix changed to
that of a Humban.  Erelon could not remember ever having seen this Humban
during his life, but somehow he felt that this was not the first time the
Humban had visited him.

In such a way his life flashed before his eyes, and it was
depressing, almost as if the stone tried to pile the world’s problems, all that
had gone wrong in his life, into one moment, trying to break the wizard.  It
was as if the stone was testing the wizard to see if he was mentally powerful
enough to handle the power he was about to utilize.  Erelon saw the worst of
his life surmounting the little good that there had been.  Such was the curse
of using this rock.

Slowly the energy that beat upon his body slowed and calmed until
it became only a gentle breeze blowing back his hair and light cloak.  Erelon’s
vision cleared.  The old wizard stood within what some would call a rift in
time.

From outside the stone table, Easton felt the wind slam into the
world.  He had been watching as Erelon stumbled toward the center of the table
as if his body were there without his mind.  The older wizard's silhouette
became blurry.  The clouds rose up and tried to attack the open sky from all
directions.  From where they collided above King’s Time, a huge funnel
appeared.  It slowly descended, clear sky and dark clouds swirling round and
round, coming straight down toward the stone table.  At the base, it bubbled
out, encompassing the entire table and covering over Erelon.  The twelve stones
and the huge spike of rock were the outer limits, containing the bubble.

The funnel that flowed from the sky to the ground seemed to bob
around between the pillars, but it never passed beyond them.  Lightning flashed
through the funnel and into the bubble, growing in power with every passing
second, making spider webs of electric color across the orb.  Faces and figures
appeared in the walls, mocking Easton who had stayed outside, allowing his
friend to face the enemy alone.

IT was already mid morning before Bahsal and the giants finally
reassembled the towers.  The centaurs were rushing around their camp, pulling
their tents down, and slipping wide swords into sheaths.

"Might as well leave those up," Fresmir growled,
"Have not taken the wall yet."

"We will be on the next tier by evening," the Mayor
growled back, defiance in his eyes.

Posts were erected with giant wheels and gears on top.  A rope
was tied to a section of tower.  Men hitched the rope to horses, or giants
would grab and lift it quickly, the gears clicking madly as it swung up off the
ground.  Dwarves at the top of the tower would reach out, grabbing the section
and pulling it into place.  Spring loaded clamps would twist, and the dwarves
would hammer a pin to hold it all together.  Swiftly, easily, it all went into
place.

Hendle was staring at the next wall.

He watched as the dwarve was everywhere at once.  Bahsal
supervised the giants as they assembled the siege towers and then corrected
where some men were incorrectly setting up ballistae.  Hendle smiled as the
dwarve ran the battle as if it were his own.  The dwarve was determined to win
Mortaz back for Erelon.

“Will they toy with us again today or actually attack?” the
wizard asked.

“I don’t know,” Bahsal admitted. “But we’ll find out soon
enough.”

"Where do you want my men?" Auri grumbled."

"They ready to die?" Hendle asked with melancholy.

"Here or down south in our own country, we fall to the same
enemy," Auri boasted.

"Then I want you to help us spearhead up the center.  I
have the elves and their horsemen on one flank and the horsemen of Samos on the other.  The center will be more congested and more dangerous, especially for
your men on horse," Hendle ordered.

"Yes, but it will be helpful to have fast horsemen in the
center of the field," Auri proudly stated.

Again, the army of the wizards lined up.  The jingle of their
armor and weapons sounded more like a roar as the army took a first step in
unison.  They stared at the second wall waiting for the signal to march.  The
drums began to rumble, and the army moved in beat.  The entire force marched
right up under the walls with no opposition.  The enemy did not show any
resistance.  The dust churned underfoot, and the ground lightly vibrated.

Bunkir took several of his clan and went to the ramshackle
gates, and with giant hammers and the trunks of trees, they attacked them.  The
wooden and metal gates would thud and give, a slight crack showing between,
only to settle back to where they had been before, strong hinges pulling them
back into place.  But with each assault by a troll, the doors seemed to move
more; the hinges did not swing back to where they had rested.  The fibers began
to give as they popped, the metal began to pull away from the wood.  The trolls
began to beat in rhythm, each taking a turn with a swing, not giving the gate a
chance to settle.  Under pressure from the trolls, the gates quickly burst, and
in flowed the army, several trolls in front but Bahsal quickly behind, leading
his part of the army.

The siege towers came up to the walls, their bridges dropped,
and hundreds poured from the towers.  Ladders were pushed up, and even more
soldiers came over them.

Bahsal pushed through the tunnel the moment the trolls turned
the gates into pieces.  The wide forms of the trolls blocked most of the
light.  The dwarve kept expecting to hear the sound of metal clashing ahead of
him, but there was no sound beyond the heavy breathing of the trolls before
him.

He emerged from the tunnel unexpectedly so that the light
temporarily blinded him.  He blinked a few times until he could see again.  The
trolls stood before him, looking around confused.  Bahsal's army of dwarves
followed their leader out of the tunnel, milling below the legs of the mud
trolls who were their allies.  They all stopped to look out across an empty
battlefield, a long lonely plain.  In the far distance, the next wall glared at
them bleached white by the angry sun.

Bahsal slowed and stopped.  There was nobody to fight.  The
plain before them was empty.  Erelon’s entire army stopped and went silent.

Hendle came running out of one of the towers.  He had been
inside as the giants had pushed it up against the wall.  He grabbed a pin that
allowed the bridge to drop, and he rushed across, jumping over the wall.  His
feet landed, kicking up dust.  He ran forward a few steps with a slight limp,
favoring his bum leg.  He slowed and stopped as more poured out of the tower
behind him.  He looked both ways.  Dwarves and trolls poured from the tunnel,
more towers dumping soldiers along the walls.  Giants were slowing climbing ladders. 
The army stretched out along the wall.  The drums quit after Hendle’s hand came
up, signaling the cease to all activities.

More giants came up through the gates and took stations along
the army’s front lines, their huge shields helping to protect the army from a
surprise attack.  Hendle’s eyes closed.  Slowly he could hear the enemy’s
drums, their beat pulsing through the earth, their horns not yet heard by
Erelon’s army, causing the ground to vibrate.  The footsteps of the enemy
echoed in Hendle’s mind.  The entire army of the wraiths had been loosed.

“Ballistae!  Here, now!” Hendle bellowed, pointing to the front
of the army.

Bahsal looked toward the wizard who led them.  He had stomped
down toward the wizard but stopped the moment Hendle took action.

“They are coming and in their full force,” Hendle explained
quickly.

“Alright,” Bahsal growled, “It’s about time.”  The dwarve walked
back to his part of the army and let out a roar of battle.  Soon the dwarves
echoed Bahsal and then slowly the rest of the army picked it up.  Most did not
know what they chanted but cried out in unison.

“Archers!” Hendle bellowed, “Ready!”

Hundreds of arrows were fitted into strings.  The gears to the
ballistae were cranked back, building up pressure, ready to send giant arrow
bolts into the enemy lines.  The day was clear and hot, the sun pounding on the
soldiers buried beneath their armor, flashing off the metal and glaring into
the eyes of the men, burning into their skulls.  Yet as the main part of the
wraiths' army came, darkness seemed to cover them as if the sun refused to
shine, leaving them in shadow.  It was a huge mass of bodies that poured over
the wall.  Not only goblins, trolls, and ogres, but also the skeletal warriors
and the monstrosities formed by the magic of the wraiths.

The ballistae were released along with a barrage of arrows and
huge spears from both the trolls and giants.  Other giants and trolls used
large strips of leather as sling shots.  They set huge stones in the center of
the leather and spun them hard and fast above their heads, releasing them after
reaching maximum velocity.  The stones bounced into the enemy lines,
pulverizing bodies, scattering the enemy, throwing the bodies into the air. 
The mass of the enemy army was so congested, so thick, that it seemed as if
each arrow, each spear, found a target, but it did little to slow the enemy’s
flow.  The hole made
in
the wall of the enem
ies' army by the dead soldiers pulverized by
the stones, was quickly over run and filled by more of the wraiths' minions.

The dead were trampled below the rush.  The barrage of arrows
was released again, the missiles flying high into the air before dropping.  The
air ruffled their feathers as they dropped into the horde.  By the time the
ballistae were reloaded, the enemy was on top of the front line of the wizard’s
army.  A dwarve released his ballistae into the knee of an ogre, no more space
between the two than an arm's reach.  The large arrow shattered the ogre's
knee.  Instantly, the dwarve drove his axe through the skull of the falling
ogre.

The dwarves had already taken up their axes, becoming an
impenetrable wall, mowing their enemies before them.  The swinging of the axes
blurred into one long wall, a long line of shining, gleaming metal.  They were
sharp, and did not lodge, but cut through flesh, bone, and metal.  The dwarves
pushed forward, driving the goblins back.  Bahsal looked into a wall of bodies,
arms, legs, heads, torsos, blood.  It was all before him, a massive wall blocking
his way, moving, bleeding, sweating.  It smelled like soured fruit and decaying
flesh; it tasted salty; and Bahsal's desire for the fighting was quickly fleeing.

The wizards led by Hendle, along with several powerful elves,
began singling out the magical monsters.  Erelon’s ice staff, wielded by
Hendle, furiously paralyzed many.  Hendle thrust the staff forward as a wolfman
leapt over the wall of goblins.  It turned to ice from its nose down to its
feet.  Quickly ice crystals formed along each hair, each cell crystallizing. 
It fell, turning into pieces.  Hendle spun the staff above his head, another
stream of ice flew, tearing a hole through a large spider-like creature, and
then he slammed the bottom into the ground, a wall of ice bursting from the
ground, blocking in an ogre from helping a small group of goblins being impaled
by long lances of men.

The ice slammed into the bodies of the opposing soldiers,
throwing them backward.  He thrust the staff forward, and the ice blasted into
the goblins, a huge flying wall flinging crushed bodies.  His other hand held a
short sword that quickly darted into the belly of a goblin who had escaped. 
Then he swung the staff in a wide arc, spraying darts of ice that shredded the
line of goblins before him, tearing small holes into everyone.

The ballistae were released straight into the enemy, tearing
through many before finally choosing one to embed into.  The bodies of the dead
enemies crashed into the siege weapons, clogging gears and hampering the
movement of the strings.  The giants wielded their huge swords and spears
together, mowing down hundreds.  They slammed their shields into the enemy,
sending them flying backward, clearing space.  Easily the giants tore into the
trolls and other larger monsters.

The fight was a bloody, entangled mess.  Two armies clashing. 
Slowly Erelon’s pushed that of the wraiths backward.  The cavalry charged the
flanks, driving in and out of the enemy lines.  One of the quicker enemy
creatures charged after the horsemen.  It leapt on the hind quarters of a horse
and grabbed at the rider, catching the man by the throat and tearing at the
rider’s veins with curved claws.  The beast brought the rider to the ground. 
As it looked up, a dozen spears were thrust into its body.

Goblins surrounded Bunkir.  They climbed over his body.  Just as
quickly, the mud troll grabbed at them, pulling them off like ticks and
smashing them into the earth or beating their bodies together.  Just as Bunkir
slammed one goblin into the ground, the troll’s fist smashed into the face of
another, obliterating the bones.

Slowly, the goblins began to drag the troll down.  Bunkir’s body
gave as each blade cut deeper and more blood was released.

“Bunkir!” a voice roared, and over the crowd of goblins that
encircled the troll leapt Fresmir.

Though exceptional with his short sword, it was Fresmir’s fangs
that the enemy had learned to fear.  Together they fought, driving the goblins
back, forcing the enemy to flee.  One moment the Brect was forcing his blade
into an enemy, the next he was on one, his fangs ripping at its throat.  A
goblin crashed down on Fresmir.  The Brect threw it down and grabbed the
goblin's own sword and shoved it back through the creature.  He turned and
rolled out of the way as Bunkir brought a goblin smashing into the ground. 
Several dwarves surrounded the two, pushing the others back.  The dwarves' axes
formed a wall so that Bunkir and Fresmir could stand and breathe.

Trabin wielded the amber swords once offered to Erelon.  The
young mage moved in and out of his allies, trying to avoid enemy swords as his
experience and talent with the weapons was not great.  But the longer he
fought, the more enemies he faced, the more courage Trabin gained.

The blood of the enemy ran down the length of the blades and
seemed to be absorbed by the amber fossils.  The closer Trabin came to the
Keep, the more the amber fossils became gelatinous.  Soon, even the small
creatures within the fossils began to move, animated by the magic of the
wraiths, their power over the ages bringing the little creatures that had once
been dead back to life.

There was a hiss from above, like bottled steam being slowly
released.  The air grew extremely hot and turned red.  Flames burst around the
wizard’s army.  Hendle turned and swallowed hard as if he had choked on a
stone.  The strong beat of air caused by the giant wings of a dragon slammed
into the wizard.

Bunkir yelled at two others of his clan, “Ungert! Keylon!” and
then motioned toward the dragon with his head.

Both mud trolls charged the flying lizard.  Keylon had a ridge
running down the center of his forehead.  One ear was missing and the other had
several golden rings through the top.  He had six fingers on each hand but only
four toes on one foot while six on the other.  He jumped and grabbed at the
dragon's feet, the sudden extra weight dragging the winged wizard down.  As the
great lizard spewed fire, its aim was thrown off.  It shot the fire close above
the heads of ducking warriors instead of through their ranks.

Ungert, a troll with a one nostril nose and a large bright white
scar down the entirety of his chest, flew off one of the towers, landing square
on the dragon’s back.  A little tuft of hair on the back of his head bobbing
with the impact.  Immediately, the mud trolls attacked.  Ungert tried to grab
onto the wings, to hold them, to break them, but the muscles were like stone. 
Keylon bit into the legs, but the scales were too hard and only chipped his
teeth.