Paul Kemp - The Hammer and the Blade

"Hate for this to be one of the last things we see," Nix said, wiping sweat from his brow. "Still have the tomb ahead of us. Of course, I don't plan on dying in it. You?"

"I do not."

They descended the hills and broke for a meal while Rakon and Baras consulted a yellowed map in the failing light. Rakon spoke animatedly, pointing northwest, toward a series of cliffs that overlooked the curving shoreline of the Bleak Sea. Sea birds wheeled in the air near the shore. Baras followed his lord's gesture, nodded.

As Baras returned to the rest of the group, Rakon studied the sky, his brow creased in tense worry.

"The tomb of Abn Thuset is in those cliffs," Baras said, pointing.

"Really?" Egil said sarcastically.

"Let us see the map," Nix said.

"Lord Norristru said-"

Nix and Egil walked through Baras toward Rakon. "I'd see that map, sorcerer."

"I'm sorry, my lord," Baras said, trailing them. "They're-"

"It's all right, Baras." Rakon gently unrolled the map and held it for Nix to see. "See for yourself."

Nix and Egil studied the yellowed parchment until their eyes glazed over. The map was ancient, faded almost beyond legibility. In typical Afirion fashion, the image of the terrain had been superimposed over a treatise written in tiny script. Nix recognized the script as Afirion pictoglyphs and some numerals, but he could read only snatches. He noted a repeated pictoglyph for "wizard-king," though the glyph looked somewhat different to him than others he'd seen previously. He focused on the terrain, compared it to what he saw around him and what he knew from experience.

He made out the ocean coastline to the south, but the shore of the body of water that should have been the Bleak Sea was too far north and much too small. There were symbols on the map he took for cities, two of which would have been in the Demon Wastes, one of them about where the sea of glass was located.

"This isn't accurate," Nix said. "Look here. The Bleak Sea is too small."

"It was much smaller then," Rakon said. "Before it… changed."

"Changed?" Egil said. "An entire sea? How old is this map?"

"Quite old," Rakon said, rolling it up carefully.

"How can you be sure the tomb's here, then?" Egil asked. "There's no scale on that map. We could be leagues away. The tomb could be underwater, if it's even the right tomb. I don't intend to abide this fakkin' spellworm forever, sorcerer."

"He does not need to explain himself to you," Baras said, and put his hand on Egil to steer him off. Egil shoved him away.

"Yes, he does," the priest said.

The eunuch rumbled from atop his mount.

Rakon stared into Egil's face. "I've cross-referenced this map with others in my possession, both current and ancient. Those, combined with the text on this map, describe the location of the tomb quite precisely."

"I'd like to see those other maps," Nix said.

"They were too delicate for such rough travel," Rakon said. "But be at ease. The tomb is in those cliffs. We press on a few hours more tonight, resting when we reach the shore of the Bleak Sea. Then you'll recover the horn for me and I'll release you."

"And you'll save your sisters," Nix said.

"Yes," Rakon agreed, licking his thin lips. "I'll save my sisters."

By the time they reached the shore of the Bleak Sea, Minnear had risen over the horizon, full but for the slimmest crescent. Tomorrow it would sit full in the night sky, reigning over the night, since Kulven was new and dark.

They camped in the lee of a scree-covered rise two or three bowshots from the beach. Rakon stared at the moon's cratered face as the guardsmen set up camp.

The air smelled of the sea and the wind carried the rush of the waves to their ears. That night the men sat around the fire mostly in silence. Nix and Egil, too, held their tongues, each alone with his thoughts about the tomb, what they expected to find there.

Nix drank sour beer until his vision blurred.

"You'll need to be clearheaded tomorrow," Egil cautioned him.

"That's why I'm doing it," Nix said.

Only after collecting a fine drunk did he try to fall asleep. Thankfully, the alcohol stupor held at bay any dreams of breathing doors and manacles and impending doom. He woke in the late morning with a hangover, but nevertheless felt better than he had in days. Egil was not in the camp.

"Egil?" he asked Jyme, who was sipping coffee from his tin cup.

Jyme pointed northwest, toward the steep cliffs that walled part of the Bleak Sea in its basin. Nix squinted, his head aching from too much beer. He thought he saw three small figures moving around at the top of the cliff.

"Baras and Rakon are with him," Jyme said.

Nix nodded and geared up. While he did so, he looked over to the tent in which Rusilla and Merelda lay. The eunuch stood before the flap.

"No more plaguing my dreams after tonight, witches," he said softly. "We get this horn and bid you farewell forever."

"You say something?" Jyme asked, his mouth full of bread.

Nix ignored him and jogged up the rise for the cliffs. Sea birds cawed behind him, wheeling in the air near the beach below. Working up a sweat helped him relieve the hangover. He found Rakon consulting the map, Baras standing beside him, and Egil at the cliff's edge, looking out over the sea. Nix stepped up beside his friend. From the high vantage granted by the cliff, Nix could see blue-black water for leagues.

"It should be here," Rakon called to them, his voice irritable and nervous. "It must be here."

"Nothing looks like an entrance to a tomb, though," Baras said.

"The sorcerer seems convinced the tomb is hereabouts," he said to Egil. "Perhaps they imagine there'll be a sign announcing its presence."

Egil smiled. "There is," he said, and nodded down at the surf.

Rocks jutted from the shallow water, all of them ruffed by foam. Sea birds perched on them. Bird shite and the ages stained them.

"The rocks?"

Egil nodded. "The rocks. Watch."

Nix soon saw it. The surf rolled, surging forward to smash the cliffs, then pulling back.

"There," Egil said, pointing as the surf receded.

Nix saw it. A carved stone face staring up at him. The water quickly covered it, only to reveal it again as the surf ebbed. Time and water had eroded the details, but Nix could make out sunken eyes, the nub of a nose, the outline of a mouth formed into an inscrutable smile, and, most importantly of all, the stylized serpent headdress of an Afirion wizard-king.

"Well, well," Nix said. He turned a circle, studied the terrain. He thought about Rakon's map, the fact that the Bleak Sea had once been much smaller. "Has to be the cliff face. This was probably a valley once. What say you?"

"I was thinking the same."

Nix nodded toward Rakon and Baras. "You show them yet?"

Egil shook his head and put his palm on his stomach, as if the spellworm had squirmed. "I haven't. Wanted to get your thoughts first."

"And you wanted Rakon to suffer."

"There was that," Egil said. He put his palm on his stomach. "Though withholding it seems to agitate the damned spellworm."

"Let's get on with it," Nix said. "The sooner we get this horn, the sooner we're free of the compulsion. I want some space between us and this sorcerer and his sisters."

"We could always kill him instead," Egil said, and groaned as the spellworm did its work.

"You really need to tame your thoughts," Nix said with a grin. He turned to Rakon and Baras. "Over here!"

"Did you find something?" Rakon called, his voice eager, hopeful. "What did you find? Speak, man."

Nix let him dangle until they reached him. When the surf receded, he showed them the Afirion face staring up at the sky. Rakon's intake of breath was sharp enough to cut meat.

"It's here," he said.