Sentinelspire (17 page)

T
alieth found Sauk where she thought she would—on the mountainside, sitting cross-legged before a small fire. He often came up here when he wanted to be alone. The large outcropping of bare rock was around the north face of Sentinelspire, well out of sight of the Fortress in its secluded canyon. The broken cone of the mountain rose behind, and before them spread the Endless Wastes. Hundreds of miles of steppe.

The wind off the mountain whipped her heavy cloak in front of her and tossed her hair in front of her face. She was glad for the cloak. Early spring as it was, the wind at this height still held a chill, and her cheeks were soon raw and flushed.

The chill did not seem to bother Sauk. The half-orc sat naked except for a loincloth. His long hair was unbound, and the breeze tossed it over his shoulders. The stiff wind made the fire’s meager flames struggle for life, but Sauk was close enough to the fire that his broad back kept off the worst of the breeze. As she came around to stand before him, she saw that the druid’s relic, the Three Hearts, lay discarded on the dusty stone beside him. A huge knife lay upon his lap, and blood tinged its edge. The old scar that ran from his hairline down his forehead and left cheek oozed fresh blood. Some of it had dripped and dried on his chest. She knew he was aware of her, had been so for some time, but his gaze never shifted off the horizon.

“Where is Taaki?” she asked.

“And a good morning to you, too,” said Sauk, still not looking at her.

“How is she?”

“Her eye is gone. How do you think she is?”

“I am sorry, Sauk. We will find a healer for her. I swear it. Once this business is done, Taaki will have both her eyes again.”

Sauk sat in silence, still not looking at her. She let him brood. When he had brought his band and their sole captive back to the Fortress two nights ago, she had never seen him in such a mood. He had beaten one of her personal guards and would have likely killed the man had she not stopped him. All because the man had looked at him in a way Sauk didn’t like.

“Why are you here, Talieth?” said Sauk.

“Our captive is being dealt with.”

“You came all this way to tell me something I already know?”

Talieth’s jaw clenched. She hugged her cloak about her and followed Sauk’s gaze out to the horizon. On a clear day, one could see the Firepeaks some two hundred miles to the north. But today they were nothing more than a smudge of dark haze on the horizon. The remains of the storm, most likely. Or perhaps the Firepeaks were oozing steam again.

“I need to hear the words from your mouth,” she said at last.

“Kheil is dead,” said Sauk, and the flatness of his tone, the utter lack of any emotion, shocked her.

“You said that once before.” She looked at Sauk, all the weight of her station bearing down upon him. But it didn’t seem to bother him.

“My brother died in the Yuirwood nine years ago,” said Sauk. “Your vision dared me to hope otherwise. I now know that hope was false. Kheil is dead.”

She pointed at the naked blade on his lap. “Then why this? Why cut your
luzal unba?”

Talieth knew of this particular tradition of Sauk’s orc clan. She’d been there nine years ago when he’d cut it the first time. When a warrior lost a family member, he cut a scar over his
face in remembrance, from the crown of his head to his cheek. The wound bled profusely, even running into the eye like tears, symbolizing both death and grief. Ever afterward, the mourner would gaze through the scar of his grief.

“The first cut was for my brother’s death,” said Sauk. “This one is to remind me.”

“My scrying does not lie,” said Talieth. “I saw Kheil. Older and changed, but it was him.”

“You saw the body, the face. The spirit we knew and loved is gone. Nine years gone. The one you saw calls himself Berun now. He killed two of my blades and tried to kill me. That was not my brother.”

“And this … Berun. You saw him die. You are certain?”

A look of annoyance passed over Sauk’s face, but he still did not lift his gaze from the horizon. “I saw the earth rise and take form. A great earth spirit swallowed Berun before going back into the ground. Unless the bastard found a way to breathe mud, he’s dead.”

“So you said nine years ago.”

Sauk looked up then, only his eyes moving, but she saw every muscle in his body tense. “Tell me, Talieth. Are you calling me a liar or a fool?”

“Neither,” said Talieth, holding his gaze. “I am telling you that Kheil—”

“Berun.”

“Kheil
escaped death once before. You said the earth rose to swallow him. A strange thing. A rogue earth spirit? Perhaps. They dwell in the Shalhoond. And far worse things haunt the Khopet-Dag. But I wonder …”

“What?” said Sauk. His eyes narrowed. The fury he held in check, and Talieth could see curiosity burning in his eyes.

“I have heard it said that druids can accomplish such things,” said Talieth. “You wouldn’t know of any meddlesome druids about, would you, Sauk? Any who might have reason to keep … 
Berun
alive?”

Sauk blinked and dropped his gaze. In his present mood, that was an expression of true shock. “You’re saying—”

“I’m saying it would be foolish to underestimate our opponent. This is not a game we can afford to lose.”

“If … 
if
he survived, why can’t you scry him? Use your … whatever you do, to find him?”

Talieth looked to the horizon. “Don’t think I haven’t tried. If he is out there, his presence is hidden from me.”

“Perhaps because he is dead?”

“Or perhaps because whatever—or whomever—came to his aid is able to hide him from me.”

Sauk thought a moment, then said, “This is possible?”

“Possible?” said Talieth. “Yes. Likely? No. But many damned unlikely things have happened of late, have they not?”

Sauk nodded and sighed. “I will be ready.”

“Speaking of which, have you been able to glean anything?” She gestured toward the Three Hearts.

“Nothing,” said Sauk. “I serve the Beastlord. My communion is the hunt. This relic”—Sauk shuddered, and a hint of sneer passed over his face—“it sings of growing things and deep secrets. I do not like it. I will continue to pry at it if you wish, but I don’t hold much hope.”

A tremor shook the mountain. Nothing more than a slight vibration at their feet, but it was enough to set stones rattling down the mountain and bring a shower of dirt and grit down upon them.

Talieth wiped the dust from her eyes and picked up the relic. “We have no time for you to fumble your way through the relic’s secrets.”

“Where are you taking it?” Sauk called after her.

“To someone else,” she said, and strode away.

O
n the balcony outside his room, Lewan stood dumbstruck. Never had he seen such utter beauty. He’d been on mountainsides many times. More than he could remember. He’d lived in forests entire seasons during his sixteen years. The largest city he’d ever visited was Almorel by the Lake of Mists. It was probably a small city as many in the world would count such things. Perhaps even rustic compared to the grand cities of the West or in distant Shou. But to Lewan, who spent most of his days in the wild, it was a city nonetheless. Mountains, forests, and cities … these things were not new to him. But never had he seen all three come together in such splendor.

His balcony was one of several jutting out from the upper floors of a tower, and it offered a view of the entire fortress. The fortress itself had no walls, for the canyon in which it had been built—or in some places apparently carved—served as a natural and seemingly impregnable wall. Although Lewan had no training in the ways of war, even he could see that the only hope of taking this fortress would be through stealth or the air—and no realm in the Endless Wastes commanded an army capable of such an air assault.

The tower in which he’d been housed was one of several in the fortress—and far from the tallest. The tallest—a massive structure in the center of the fortress—was at least six hundred
feet high, perhaps more, and its upper stories looked out over the upper rims of the canyon. From the top of that tower, one surely could have seen beyond the canyon and well into the steppe for hundreds of miles.

All the buildings were of a style strange to Lewan’s eyes—one he’d never seen before, all odd angles and interlocking designs of stone, many of which had a decidedly purple tinge. The great tower in the center was strangest of all, for it seemed that great pillars of stone had been twisted braidlike around the entire shaft. They disappeared into the upper stories, and the top of the tower itself seemed a garden or small park, open to the winds on every side. And around the entire tower—indeed around most of the buildings in the fortress—grew vines, trees, flowers, and vegetation of every sort. Some of the flowers ringing the great tower seemed big as shields.

Strangest and most wondrous of all were the statues. Pillars—mostly stone, but there were at least two forged of some silvery metal—rose above many of the buildings, and atop them were great statues. Some were in the form of beautiful men and women. One woman, sculpted entirely from black stone, stood poised on one foot, her long hair and robes seeming to flow out behind her, and one hand held aloft a metal rod at least twenty feet long. Other statues were of creatures that ranged from the beautifully strange—a griffon, a winged deer, a feathered serpent—to the grotesque—a batwinged gargoyle with the horns of a ram, a wolf with three heads, a bearded old man with antlers, and a hugely muscular man with the head of a camel.

Green grew over everything—climbing buildings, winding through the streets, ringing towers. In places it was hard to see the stone. Blossoms were everywhere as spring took hold. Their sweet smell mingled with the crisp scent of the high mountain air and the loamy aroma of the greenery.

A large waterfall fell over the western canyon wall to feed a great pool, out of which flowed dozens of waterways that
wound throughout the fortress. Lewan counted no less than eight fountains within the fortress, and he thought he could even see the sparkle of water on the roof of the great tower. How could water flow up so high? People lounged by some of the fountains—men in robes or loose-fitting garb, women in colors to rival the flowers and blossoms.

And over all this—buildings, towers, statues on pedestals, the great dome near the western canyon wall—flew birds of every color. Black ravens, white doves, and songbirds ranging from deepest blue to brightest yellow and every shade between. Lewan, who had lived most of his life in the wild and could name every bird of the Amber Steppes and Shalhoond in at least two languages, had never seen at least a dozen of these birds.

Lewan had never really considered the meaning of the word paradise. But standing there in the late morning air, clean and dressed in the loose-fitting linen clothes Ulaan had brought him, he knew that he could not imagine anything more fitting than the scene before him. This was paradise.

But then his master’s voice rose up in his memory.
Sentinelspire … you don’t know that place. It’s … hard to see clearly there. Sentinelspire is a realm built on blood. Murder. I don’t want you anywhere near that place
.

How could his master have been so wrong?

Lewan winced at the thought. The bright mood that had grown in him darkened. He could still remember a great shambling mound of earth and mud rising, almost in the shape of a man, and burying his master. Had it been real? Or part of a dream brought on by the poison in his veins?

Ulaan had been unable to tell him, only said that all would be made clear in time and that he should not leave his room.

He heard the door to his room open, then footsteps. He walked back through the double doors of his balcony and through the filmy curtains fluttering in the morning breeze.

Ulaan had returned, bearing a large platter of food and
drink. Behind her, coming into the room, was the most striking woman Lewan had ever seen. She stood a bit taller than Lewan, and she walked with the bearing of a queen. Her black hair hung in dozens of braids well past her waist, and tiny rings of gold and jewels sparkled among them. A circlet of fine chain ringed her head, and tiny rubies dangled from finer chains on her forehead. Her dress, fitted tightly from wrist to neck and down her torso, flowed out in a loose skirt beneath her waist. Tiny red jewels were sewn into the seams, complementing the silky fabric that flowed between deepest red and the warm yellow of a dusty-sky sunset. Her skin was darker than Lewan’s, but where his was weathered from years of sun, wind, and rain, hers was flawless and smooth. Her dark eyes looked out beneath sharp eyebrows, arched in what was something between amusement and offense. With dawning horror, Lewan realized he’d been staring. No, not staring. Gawking.