Dan Parkinson - The Gates of Thorbardin

"Why did she wake me?" the thing asked, its voice a dry, husky whisper in her ear. "Does she need me to deal with ogres?"

"You didn't have to kill it," Kolanda said. "It might have proven useful."

"She criticizes me," the thing whispered. "What does she want?"

"I need you to tell me where my quarry is," she said.

"Ah? Needs me, does she? Hee-hee!" The ancient, wizened voice was a whispered cackle. "Needs Caliban, she does. Very well, Caliban is awake.

But she knows the price."

With a shudder of revulsion, Kolanda dropped to her knees and held the wrinkled thing before her face. Lowering her head the woman said, "Caliban lives forever. Caliban's power goes beyond death. Caliban will never die again. Caliban offered me his help…" Her voice trailed off in a choking whisper.

"Hee-hee!" the dark thing rasped. "She has to say it all."

"Caliban offered me his help," she continued, "and I accepted. I sealed the bargain with the blood of my own brother, and thus Caliban owns my soul."

In her ear, the wispy voice chortled and cackled. 'Very good. She always remembers… as she must. What does she ask of me now?"

"I cannot see my prey, Caliban," Kolanda said. "See them for me, and tell me where they are."

"She wants to know where people are," the voice breathed. "Kiss me,

Kolanda." With a shudder, she brought the thing to her lips and kissed it, then held it against her forehead and looked again toward Sky's End. She could see them — the dwarf and his companions — across the miles but as if they were only a few feet away. Caliban's magic magnified the scene, and she counted them there. A pair of dwarves, one male and one female; a rangy, bearded man dressed as a ranger or forester; a horse carrying packs; a kender. There was something odd about the kender, almost as though someone else walked beside him, but there was no one else there to see. They were coming down a steep trail, toward the gorge that faced the plains. A stone bridge arched across, just ahead of them.

"They are near the lost gate," she whispered. "But they aren't all there. Where is the wizard?" Kolanda raised her eyes and saw him. High on the side of Sky's End, he stood alone, a cloaked wizard of the red robes.

The heart of Caliban became hot against her skin.

"Glenshadow!" the husky voice rasped. There was a sizzling sound, a ringing in the air, a massing of powers to be unleashed. The figure on the mountain raised his staff and vanished.

Puzzled, Kolanda Darkmoor withdrew the wrinkled black thing from her brow and gazed at it. "What is it?" she asked. "Why were you so… ah.

Aha, I think I see. He was one of them, wasn't he! One of those who killed you?"

The husky voice no longer chortled. Now its whisper breathed of deadly hatred. "She must hold me aloft now. I will find him again. I will kill him."

Quickly, Kolanda lowered Caliban. She dropped the thing back beneath her breastplate and smiled, a cruel smile on a face that should have been beautiful. "I owe you no favors, sorcerer," she said. "Our accounts are square. Go back to sleep."

Caliban stirred for a moment between her breasts, and then became still.

She shuddered in revulsion as she always did. Years before, Kolanda had made her pact, a pact between herself and the withered heart of an old renegade wizard, hunted down by wizards of the various orders. Caliban was a black-robe who had set himself beyond the bounds and had paid the price.

But Caliban was also a mage who even in death had somehow torn out his own heart with his two hands, and willed his spirit into it.

This was Caliban, and this was the pact between them. As long as she lived, she would keep and use the thing that owned her.

The slaves had been brought forward to set up the Commander's pavilion.

They were mostly hill dwarves, with a few other creatures among them — a few miserable Aghar, an elf shackled and mutilated almost beyond recognition, a few humans. Kolanda Darkmoor watched the work, wrinkling her nose. So pitifully few, they were. But there would be more. One day she would have all the slaves she wanted, to use as she wished. It was a thing she had learned from Caliban, or maybe had always known. People are of value only if they are owned.

She glanced at the slaves again. Among them, the lone elf was clinging to the rails of a forage cart, staring at her. Both legs made useless by cut tendons, still he clung to stay upright and looked at her with eyes that held no expression at all. Drivers goaded him, marked him with whips, and he ignored them. I should kill him, she thought. But this was the one who had ambushed her scouting party — had cost her half her escort — and she wanted him to live and suffer for that. Among the wounds the elf carried were recent ones. His face had been battered, and one of his ears was gone. Bitten off, by the look of it. Kolanda looked around for Thog, one of her hobgoblins, and summoned him. "The elf has been beaten again."

She pointed at the slave accusingly. "I want him alive."

"Tried to 'scape," Thog growled. "Han's an' knees, an' he brained one of th' drivers wi' a rock."

"All right," she said. "Just see that he isn't killed. I'm not ready to release him yet." When the hobgoblin was gone, Kolanda once again drew the withered wizard-heart from her breast and said, "Caliban."

Instantly he was awake.

"You can tell me where that wizard is now," she ordered. "But after that we do things my way. And no more ritual grovel, do you understand? Don't forget, I'm all that keeps you alive."

"She is arrogant," the thing whispered. "But for now, I agree. For now."

She held the old heart against her forehead and looked into the distance.

Later, when the slaves had erected her pavilion, Kolanda Darkmoor called for Thog again. "Have them take it down and pack it away," she said. "And get your troops together. We're moving out."

The stone bridge across the gorge, at its narrowest point near the foot of Sky's End, was old. Not truly ancient, in the sense that Gargath's monolith and such constructs as Pax Tharkas and the ruins of Zhaman were ancient, but it was old. Obviously, it had been built since the Cataclysm, because prior to that there was no gorge between the mountain peaks and the Plains of Dergoth.

Andobviously,it was of dwarven construction. A high-arched bridge, it was built entirely of stone — huge blocks of cut and shaped granite rising a hundred feet or more in its center as it spanned three hundred yards of abyss. Its floor was a precise nine feet in width. That was the same width as the cable-cart tunnels in Thorbardin.

As he approached the structure, Wingover studied it intently. "I hope you know what you're doing," he told Chane. "Once we cross the gorge, we're going away from Thorbardin, not toward it. And there are some very unfriendly goblins over there somewhere."

"At least I know where to look for Pathfinder," the dwarf noted. -It s just at the edge of the plains, on a hillside. Probably not more than three miles from here."

"When you have it, it will lead you back toward Thorbardin," Wingover noted. "The bridge will be between us and the city, then. I can't think of a better place for those goblins to trap us."

"What's why I'm going on alone, after we cross the bridge," Chane said.

"The rest of you can wait at the other abutment, to make sure we can come back."

"I'll do no such thing, Chane Feldstone," Jilian snapped. "If you go out there, then I'm going too."

"I don't have much choice about it," Chestal Thicketsway pointed out.

"I'm with you, Chane. At least until I do something about Zap."

"I'll leave Spellbinder here," the dwarf said. "Wingover can hold it for me. That way you can stay here, too, Chess. 1 don't know, you might be handy to have around if Chane has to hold the bridge. I've seen you use that hoopak."