The Barrow (63 page)

He opened the ironbound door and stepped up into the halls of the lower gallery of the Watchtower. He wasn't entirely sure where he was going but the layout seemed relatively straight forward, and he tried to cut diagonally across the halls. He passed through a central chamber that was some sort of armory, with racks of gleaming, polished polearms and swords and axes, and large barrels filled with red-feathered arrows. On the other side, through a small gallery with banners and shields hung decoratively on the walls, he finally found the entrance to the tower's shrine. A small basin filled with water stood beside the door, and he gently washed his hands before stepping inside.

The room was quite plain, though it had very large stained glass windows in two of its walls. Like most shrines to the Divine King, its central feature was a small altar, a stand set up for offerings before a statue of Islik, the King of Earth and Heaven. The stand held dozens of candles, some of them long reduced to stumps, while others were still tall and lit, along with a scattering of small objects left as gifts to the god: small ceramic figurines, dried pieces of fruit, a gold ring, a woman's broach. Several open bottles of wine were set at the base of the offering stand. The statue depicted the god as a man of regal stature seated upon a throne made of dragons, with a sun circle behind His head. The god bore the divine symbols of His right to rule: an orb surmounted by a cross in one hand, a scepter in the other, and a crown upon His head. Those three objects, plus a throne, made up the regalia of His earthly vassals, the Seated Kings of the Sun Court, and only a king could by right bear all three objects and sit upon a throne. Arduin's father, as a baron, had borne a scepter when he sat upon his seat at Araswell; most barons chose the scepter as symbol, but some few amongst the barons and earls chose to bear an orb instead. The Watchtower Kings of the Wall and the coast were not really true kings, in that they were not Seated Kings of the Sun Court; they were petty kings and used the title out of ancient custom, but really they were little more than country barons at best in terms of power and prestige. But they did usually take a crown upon the throne, and were so allowed by the priests of the temples.

Two other offering stands were set up in this shrine, on opposite walls facing the central cult statue. One stand sat before a small statue of a god with the head of a bull and the body of a man: Illiki Helios, the Sun-Bull, father of Islik and the god of the Sun before Irré, the Black Goat, usurped His place. The other stand sat before three small statues of men with either helmets shaped like the heads of dragons, or what were meant to be actual dragon heads worn upon their heads; the figurines were either old or poorly made, and Arduin couldn't tell what was supposed to be on their heads. But he knew who they were supposed to represent: the Dragon Kings, the great heroes of the ancient world, descended of King Ceram, who was the first to learn the secret of how to kill a dragon and take its powers for yourself, and from whose ranks rose both Islik the Divine King and Dauban Hess, the conquering Emperor. And in this of all places their blessings would be sought, as it was the Dragon Kings who had led the last wars and hunts that ended the Worm Kings.

The next day would be the 1st of Ascensium, the month in which the temples of the Divine King celebrated His ascension from King of Illia and the Earth to become the King of Heaven, to retake the throne of the Sun from the usurper Irré. Normally it would find Arduin in the Great Temple of the Divine King, watching the High King and the priests of the city anoint the cult statues with sacred oils and libations of wine. He resolved to do the same tomorrow before they set out, his last offering before they stepped into godless lands.

A small offering plate was set next to a box of candles near the entrance to the shrine, and he fished out some coins from his purse and placed them in the plate before taking three candles from the box. He knelt and set one candle before the statue of Illiki Helios and used another candle to light it, and whispered a quick prayer. “
Illiki Helios, Divine Father of the Divine King, watch over my own father and brothers, give them the strength to last through the Dark Night, until the coming of the Dawn and your Divine Son.
”

He knelt and set the next candle before the statue of the Dragon Kings, and lit it. “
Dragon Kings! Hero-ancestors! Who kills the Dragon, becomes the Dragon! We march to war in the west and the Wastes, where the last of you fell to the hated Enemy. Give us some of your strength! Watch over us, and guide our swords!
”

Finally he knelt and set a candle at the central altar, and lit it. “
Islik, Divine King of Earth and Heaven, a vassal of your great vassal beseeches your aid. Set me as a King amongst Kings! Bring me Victory! Set my sister as a Queen amongst Queens! Save her from Darkness! Reveal our Enemies to us, and let them perish in the light of your divine strength!
”

And for some reason, the face that popped into his head as he uttered the last line of that prayer was the image of his brother Harvald.

Stjepan leaned into the doorway of the chamber he and Erim were going to share.

“Come on,” he said. “While there's still a bit of light out.”

She stopped unpacking some fresh clothes and slipped her brace of sword and daggers back on before stepping out of the chamber and following him. He led her through a dark ironbound wood door, around a corner into a stone staircase that they took up into the Watchtower. Only a few twists, and then they stepped through a small antechamber and out a small wooden door onto a paved stone terrace.

Gilgwyr and Godewyn and Leigh were already there, but they barely registered on Erim. The terrace had a crenellated parapet around it, and over that wall she could see in the light of dusk the broad western vista that spread out before the Watchtower on its rocky summit. To the south ran the Wall of Fortias; the terrace they were on appeared to be directly above its topmost portion where it finally ended in the Watchtower of Mizer, and a variety of stone battlements were stepped below them to provide a series of gates and firing platforms along the wall walk as it approached the tower. Hard-bitten men-at-arms manned each gate. The Wall itself disappeared off into the distance, and she could see a series of small tower platforms in the Wall as it stretched off toward the next great Watchtower, the keep at Derc Cynan, fifteen miles to the south. She could already see watch fires springing up at several of the platforms to mark where patrols were settling in for the night. To the north and northwest rose the rough and desolate hills of the Bale Mole, sienna and burnt red in the setting sun, and into which they were intending to march. And to the west . . .

To the west and southwest stretched out before her the vast Wastes of Lost Uthedmael, a bleak and desolate land of ash and dust that filled the horizon as far as her eye could see under a sky of orange and red and purple.

She blinked once, then twice, trying to take it all in. Great churning clouds of ash filled the horizon—though she could still make out the sun setting like a great burning ball of fire in the western haze—and dust and flecks of ash wafted up onto the terrace to swirl around her head like snowflakes in a storm. The rolling hills before them flattened out to the southwest into more even ground. The earth looked as though the color had been bleached out of it by wind and acid, leaving it gray and lifeless. She could see twisted, petrified trees sticking up in clumps from dead earth on nearby hilltops, or fallen to the ground as though ripped from their moorings. The wind that swept up out of the Wastes and buffeted the terrace was hot, as though bearing heat all the way from the Sea of Sands, but the heat didn't reach her bones; instead it was the fierce, unrelenting grip of
cold
that settled over her insides. And the wind howled and moaned like it was a living thing, and she instantly thought of the voice of the Devil, calling out to poor Ravera in the guise of her lover.

She didn't think she could see anything moving, other than clouds of ash. She didn't think she could see anything alive at all.

“By the gods,” she whispered.

“Not exactly,” said Gilgwyr. “By the Sun Court.” He leaned almost casually against a crenellation of the wall with Leigh, the two of them looking out over the Wastes.

“Indeed. The great curse of the Sun Court of Illia, called down to punish the Mael lords that took sides with the last Worm King,” said Leigh quietly. “Over a hundred and fifty miles of what was once Uthed Dania—once green lands, once home to a hundred thousand Maelites and Danians, once ancient site of the great cities of Liadaine, Na Caila, Sanas Sill, and Av Lúin—blasted into dead ash. A burning sickness falls on those that enter it unprotected, and pox and death come calling quickly after. Nothing can live there for long that is not itself filled with poison: snakes, and giant scorpions, and spiders, and wyverns. It is a land of ghosts and ghouls.”

“I do not mean to contradict you, Magister. But I've seen Daradj wolves and hyenas and jackals from the Red Wastes and the Sea of Sands in Uthedmael,” said Stjepan from behind her.

“As have I,” said Godewyn. He was leaning against the wall by the door through which they'd exited onto the terrace. “And great mountain lions from the Bora Éduins, the mountains on the other sides of the Wastes.”

“Passing through, perhaps, but they won't stay,” said Leigh. “Even those rough beasts will eventually fall prey to the curse. Have you ever read
De Secretis Wormis
. . . the
Book of Secrets of the Worm
, supposedly written by the sorcerer-architect Pallan?”

“No, Magister,” said Stjepan. “I'm afraid that book is forbidden.”

“The small minds of the University at work again,” sighed Leigh. “Hurias of Truse referenced it in his book,
On the Last Worm
, and I was able to dig up a copy. Literally. It is Pallan's journal of Fortias' fight against Githwaine, and of the planning and construction of the Wall, and secret expeditions into the transformed lands of Uthedmael to search for Githwaine's last resting place. He wrote that he saw the secret text of the Sun Court's curse, and that they cursed ‘every living thing, down to the last blade of grass and the lowest insect.' Poisonous creatures, being creatures of Hell, are only spared from the curse by the magics of their patrons Geteema Hamat, Irré the Black Goat, and Malkheb.”

Godewyn, Gilgwyr, and Stjepan all spit to the side. “Bad names to be so bold with this close to the Wastes, old man,” said Godewyn.

Leigh made a
woooo
sound, shaking his hands in the air as though they were the branches of an insane tree caught in the wind, before his voice broke and dissolved into a mix of cackles and coughs.

“We're . . . not actually going into the Wastes, though, right?” asked Erim, frowning as she watched the Magister double over in a fit of spasms. “We're not actually going into
that.”

“No, with any luck the map will only lead us through the hills of the Bale Mole,” said Stjepan, indicating the heights to the north. “But the curse from Uthedmael sometimes drifts up into the hills as if carried by the wind, and seizes upon the unwary and unprotected, so we will have to be careful.”

Erim took a step back from the wall. “Are we safe here?” she asked, feeling the wind of the Wastes on her face.

“Yes, we should be,” said Leigh, finally recovered. He pounded appreciatively on the nearest merlon, and breathed in the ashen and sickly air blowing from the west as though he was standing on Baker Street as the morning's wares were being freshly unveiled. “The Wall of Fortias was built and bound with magic, the stones mortared with a mixture that included powdered
angelica
leaves, and runes of protection are inscribed upon it. It is the greatest feat of engineering and magic performed in recent memory, planned by the hero-magician Pallan at the behest of Fortias the Brave: a wall that keeps at bay both our enemies from the west and the curse that was loosed upon Lost Uthedmael by the Sun Court! So long as the bronze gates in the Wall are sealed at each of the gateway Watchtowers, the curse is contained.”

“Great job it's done,” said Gilgwyr drily. “Indeed, we've just rolled through fifty miles of barren land that would seem to indicate otherwise.”

“It's only failed once in eight hundred years,” Leigh protested.

Erim looked about her doubtfully. “Once is all it takes, yeah?” she said.

“From a single mistake, a foolish woman's error!” Leigh scoffed. “And besides, the curse didn't have the chance to take root after Ravera's Mistake in quite the same way. Things still grow there; the earth's not totally dead. Same up in the hills. If her father King Lewyr Whitehair had not sealed the gates and restored the Wall, it'd be even worse!”

“I'm not sure it's just the one time, Magister; it's not like the Wall hasn't been breached,” Stjepan pointed out. “The Maelite warlock Madog led his warriors over the Wall on more than one occasion, and reached as far as Ogsden and Mossmor before Marshal Cotwin Orenge defeated him at the Battle of Schallis. And that's less than a hundred years ago. And the brigands of the
Cyr Faira Mal
once rode its entire length to raid the city of Warwark, slaughtering Watchtower knights as they went.”