Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

“What I wouldn’t give for the warmth of that swamp,” Oarly said. He was too drunk to stutter or shiver, and was speaking quite loudly.

Phen patted him on the shoulder. He urged Talon, who was the exact same marbly shade of white, from his shoulder to his wrist. He went over to watch Hyden work on Dostin’s ear. Borg had promised a warm and dry place to study in Afdeon, but the giant hinted that they wouldn’t want to sit around reading books after they got a few days’ rest. The giant wouldn’t elaborate, even when Phen questioned him about it. Borg had far less patience for being questioned than Princess Telgra did.

“Where is it we are going after we leave the Leif Repline, and what’s this place Borg calls the Wedjak?” Phen asked Hyden as he took a seat next to Telgra.

“I’m not sure what it is,” Hyden answered as he worked intently on Dostin’s mangled ear. “But…” He held his tongue out the side of his mouth and did something that made Dostin wiggle and whine. “…it’s called the Tokamak-Verge. The Wedjak is the old word for ‘wild place’.” Hyden scratched his head and looked at Phen for a moment. “My father, in his youthful roamings, once traded with a group of men from the Wedjak. He said they were brown-skinned with strange hair colored blue, red, and green. They were savage, yet willing to negotiate for furs and meat. They all agreed to gather again the next year in the same place, but the strange people never returned.”

“What did they have to trade for your furs and meat?” Telgra asked.

“Wardstone,” Hyden answered.

“Maybe Xwarda isn’t the only place where there is Wardstone,” Phen stated. “What does this Tokamak-Verge do?”

“You’re done, Dostin,” Hyden said with a wrinkle-faced look at his work. It wasn’t pretty, but the rot was cut away, and there was still a little shape left to the mangled nub of ear that remained.

“It looks like a half-dried leaf is stuck to his head,” Phen said.

“It does not,” Telgra said with a sharp look. She then urged Dostin to sit on the other side of her. “It looks just fine, Dostin. Don’t listen to him.”

“You’ll see it when we get to Afdeon,” Phen said. “They’ll have a reflecting glass, or at least a still bowl of water to see it in.”

Dostin didn’t seem to care how it looked. He appeared completely content to be warm and sitting close to his friend, Telgra.

Hyden was glad that he didn’t have to answer Phen’s question about the Tokamak-Verge. In the old language, the words meant power-boundary. According to the goddess, who as of late had become Hyden’s confidant, the legendary artifact could channel a magical power source to create a binding or boundary. All Hyden knew was that, with enough power input, the seal of the barrier between the world of men and the world of demons could be made unbreachable. Some of the boundaries that separated the high heavens from the planes of demigods, and even some of the planes of hell, had supposedly been separated by the thing. Whether it was a sword like Ironspike, or a jewel like the dragon tear, Hyden had no clue. He only knew that he could now sense its presence far to the north of them. With it, he hoped to use Ironspike’s power to seal away the thing his brother had become for good. It was the only way, the goddess had explained. It was the only chance he had to protect human kind without having to kill Gerard.

After destroying the old Abbadon, Gerard had assumed the powers of darkness. Hyden had no choice but to either kill his brother, or make certain he was imprisoned in the Nethers for good. Since he’d put Illdach’s ring on his finger, the power of light had filled him. He was certain that if the balance of dark and light was tipped one way or the other, the forces would right themselves, trying to find the center quickly and harshly. Hyden figured that he and Gerard could coexist in their separate worlds, or that they would eventually be forced to kill each other. He figured that if he killed Gerard, his own demise would swiftly follow. The sole and true purpose of this expedition beyond the Leif Repline was rooted in finding a way for him and the warlord his brother had become to live on, instead of tearing apart the very fabric of existence trying to kill each other.

He knew it was selfish to try to keep himself and the Warlord of Hell alive. Keeping the balance, though, was a must.

The goddess, a wise and knowing being of the greater heavens, had been encouraging his current course of action, so he felt for now that he was doing what was right.

At least Phen, Talon, and Princess Telgra would be healed on this journey. That alone made the risks worth taking.

The next morning, Borg led them through a light flurry of fat snowflakes on a course that wound around Loudin’s valley. Two of the great wolves had sped off to inform King Aldar of their approach. The trails Borg followed were easily traveled by a giant, but many obstacles forced the humans, and mainly Oarly, to have to climb over what was in the way. The horses seemed to cause the biggest delay; even with Oof and Huffa herding them, they still managed to find dead-end pockets in the rocky valleys. One horse, carrying a trunk of books Phen had brought along, slipped on a loose patch of ice while edging the canyon. He slid over, rolled and thrashed for a heartbeat, then plummeted a few hundred feet only to slam with an audible thump into a huge slab of granite. Telgra screamed in horror when she looked over the edge. Dostin retched, and Oarly almost went over the edge after it trying to look down and see the mess. Luckily, it wasn’t the horse carrying Vaegon’s bow. From that moment on, Hyden slung the familiar quiver over his shoulder, strung Vaegon’s gift to him, and carried it at the ready.

The weather grew worse and the terrain more treacherous the deeper into the mountains they went. Blinding wind carrying sharp, abrasive granules of ice burned and stung their flesh. After a bitter week of it, it began to seem like the journey would never end.

Up in the higher passes, breathing became next to impossible. Snow drifts that were deeper than Borg was tall filled the crags and cracks. It was hard going, and cold beyond imagining at times, but finally they topped a ridge so high that they were above the the clouds. A sea of pillowy soft whiteness spread out across a great mountain-tipped bowl. In the center of this godly creation, rising up out of the clouds like some heavenly island, was a silvery gray castle of immense proportion.

“I give you Afdeon.”

“B- B- B- By D- Doon,” Oarly said in awe when his eyes took it all in.

“Doon had nothing to do with this marvel,” boasted Borg. “Dwarves aren’t the only ones who can work steel and stone.”

No one would have tried to argue, even if they could have found words, for the majesty of what was before them was truly indescribable.

The sweltering heat that hung over the marshes was taking its toll on Bzorch and the other breed giants. They had large, bulky bodies and, though they didn’t quite have fur like an animal, they did have thick tufts of hair. Bzorch’s determination overpowered the fact that his body was made for colder climates. To him, it was merely an irritation, but to some of the others, the constant humidity and the stinging, biting insects were debilitating. Bzorch suffered the uncomfortable days without complaint, and with snarls and angry looks he kept his small group of breed from complaining, as well. At the moment, though, the sweaty discomfort wasn’t even on their minds.

The excitement of the chase had them alert and on edge. They’d worked for two full days, skirting low-lying land masses, and negotiating channels and shallow expanses of water that were hidden under a blanket of waist-high grass. Tangly patches of drooping trees rose up out of the ground that had managed to stay above the water line. The further they went, the more dense and abundant these islands became. By the time the curvy fang-shaped spire was visible in the distance, the world around the deep channels the boats were traversing had become a full and formidable jungle.