Douglas Niles: Wizards' Conclave

Immediately the young woman was rewarded by beastly shrieks of shock and pain. In her mind she could see the three walrus-men pierced, shot through their backs before they had climbed to their feet. In various stages of dying, they thrashed about in the snow, red blood staining the white slush.

Coryn took off, running at full speed. There was no magic fueling her flight, but her grace and strength carried her like a mountain goat along the steeply sloping side wall of the gorge. Behind and above her, the other thanoi uttered barks of alarm and agitation, but the pursuit had been delayed for precious seconds by her preemptive attack. A heavy spear, tipped with a head of sharpened stone, careened off of a rock as she raced by, while another flew past her ear and landed with a splat in the slushy snow. Ducking, the young woman turned sharply downhill then darted onto the traverse again, the maneuver throwing off the aim of the next couple of spears.

Snatching a look up the slope, she almost screamed at the sight of a hulking walrus-man loping into view. His face was ugly, with wickedly curved tusks jutting forward from overhanging jowls, and small, red eyes shining from pockets of droopy fat. He barked and woofed shrilly.

The mere glimpse of that horrible visage propelled Coryn to even greater speed. Her foot skidded in the wet snow, and she almost stumbled, catching herself with a hand on an outcrop of rock. She pulled herself up onto the boulder and sprang across a span of snow to the next limestone surface, then sprinted along a stretch of flat, dry rock. Grunts and pants came from above and behind her, sounding terribly close, but she dared not glance back—even a moment’s distraction might send her tripping through a disastrous fall.

Behind her she heard a shriek of rage and the tumbling of a body through the snow ending in a loud splash. She knew that another of her pursuers had fallen, but that was little comfort as she raced along a precarious slope, snow sliding away beneath her moccasins with each step. She veered downward, following the curve of the gorge wall. Still she dared not look back—she could only run!

Too late, she saw the large wall of stone rising in her path, a twenty-foot barrier too steep for her to climb. The base of the precipice was a tangle of large, broken boulders, a tumble that dropped straight to the edge of the churning, surging stream. That Whitewater torrent was death, she knew—even her wild magic would not protect her from being crushed against the huge rocks that littered the stream.

She had no choice but to turn upward again, scrambling to climb the snowy slope. Coryn clawed with her fingers, pumped her legs, kicked each foot as hard as she could into the cold, wet surface. The barks of the walrus-men erupted anew, with an unmistakable element of triumph to their noise.

Something hit her hard in the side, a massive body bowling her over as one of the thanoi hurled himself upon her, diving down the snowy slope. She cried out as she felt a tusk jab her shoulder, then turned and punched the bestial face full upon its blunt nose. She smell the stink of old fish, felt the cold snow on her back as the walrus-man pressed her down heavily. He was powerful, too strong for her to push him away. Those nasty tusks pushed against her chest as he leaned down over her, and she gasped in pain, struggling to draw a breath. Her hands, taut fists, pushed at the tusks, but couldn’t budge them away. The leering creature pushed downward, driving the sharp tips harder against her skin.

Snow was all around, white and icy, so bright that she could barely see. Out of that whiteness, a surprising notion came into her mind, a picture of a word that she had read somewhere. She didn’t know what it meant, had never said it aloud before, but somehow—right then—she knew it was a perfect word. She had just enough air left to bark the sound, the word exploding from her mouth.

Coryn felt a momentary disorientation, an exhilarating sense of freedom, and then everything changed. She woke to find herself still lying on her back, still wet and cold, but the sun was gone… vaguely she realized that she was in a hut, with a crackling fire nearby. She all but sobbed in relief when she looked up to see Umma peering down curiously, rocking in her chair.

“Dear girl!” said the old woman. “What on Krynn are you doing lying on my floor?”

The sun was high in the sky, though the bright golden light of the fiery orb was obscured by a cloak of dust than hung like a veil in the air, casting a brown shroud over the brown landscape surrounding the brown city. It was good-sized, this city, marked by lofty minarets and sprawling palaces, by wide avenues of impressive homes as well as vast areas of teeming slums. A wall surrounded it, but the city had spilled beyond that wall, sprawling in tendrils of shanty-towns and tent cities across the parched flat ground that extended toward the horizon in all directions. In the far distance, ranges of mountains—brown mountains, of course—formed a jagged perimeter.

There was, however, a splash of unusual color in this city today, for this was the day of the Great Market. Once every moon, by decree of the caliph, the merchants came to the vast plaza in the center of the city, setting up their booths, their tents, their pushcarts. Throngs of people came from throughout the city. Others were drawn from the nomadic tribes of the desert, while traveling knights and adventurers also joined the vast congregation of humanity. All of them, merchants and buyers, with their multihued awnings and robes, the variety of people and their beasts, formed a confluence of vitality in the midst of this brown and dusty place.

The plaza was truly a vibrant place on market day. Pennants of bright silk flew above the richer booths, while even the poorest vendors managed to hoist some sort of attention-grabbing banner. Birds of brilliant plumage squawked from inside huge cages, while under short leashes, dozens of monkeys shrieked in mockery or indignation, a simian parody of the human throng all around them. Horses, some of them splendid and others shaggy nags, neighed and kicked in their corrals, while everywhere sheep bleated and goats brayed, adding their voices to the cacophony.

But mostly there were all types of people, thousands of them. They came to buy and to sell, sometimes to steal, to gawk and beg, eat and drink and talk and laugh, to do all of the things that drew the race of man together. They were bearded and robed for the most part, though some went about in bits of armor, leather tunics, or even the canvas leggings of sailors—though the nearest port was hundreds of miles away. All of them were eager with curiosity, and, judging from the noise, all of them were trying to talk at once.

One cloaked figure moved quietly through the crowd without drawing very much attention. The slight, bowed form of a person, wrapped within a nondescript robe, walked up and down the narrow aisles between the stalls, looking into the shadowy tents, peering down each narrow dead end, slipping knowledgeably among the sellers. The cloak the figure wore was a tan color and concealed the person’s exact form, except for the eyes. Even the hands remained tucked within that anonymous cloak.

Those eyes were lively, however, searching, narrowing with interest here, scowling in scorn a moment later—but always watching.

In the center of the plaza a small black dragon thrashed and hissed within the confines of an iron cage. The wyrm’s wings were flattened together above its back, held firmly in an unnatural position, because coils of wire were wrapped around its snarling, hateful muzzle. The cloaked figure’s eyes brightened slightly, betraying at least a modicum of interest, and the mysterious shopper pressed through the crowd to get a closer look.