Dennis McKiernan: City of Jade

Aravan’s hand strayed to the blue stone on the leather thong about his neck. “My amulet runs chill, yet I deem it does so because of so many Rupt within the Black Fortress.”

“Might I see this stone?” asked Delynn, the Sorcerer of the nine.

Aravan pulled the thong up over his head and handed it to her. A small blue pebble depended thereon, the thong running through a hole piercing the center. “It grows cold when peril is nigh,” said Aravan.

Delynn peered at it a long moment and then said, “‹Wild-magic›,” and she handed it back to Aravan.

“ ’Twas given to me by a Fox Rider named Tarquin, when I rescued him and his mate from a fire.”

“That explains it then,” said Delynn.

“Explains what?” asked Bair.

“Why it is ‹wild-magic›,” said the Sorceress. “It comes from the Hidden Ones, and that is the ‹magic› they have, a form we do not understand.”

“Oh,” said Bair, sounding somewhat disappointed, for he had known this all along, but, it seemed, he had been expecting a deeper insight from the Mage.

One of the Dylvana, bearing a spear, came back down from the crown of the knoll. “ ’Tis all quiet in yon fortress, Aravan, but for the wall patrols. Vail remains on watch above.”

“Well and good, Melor,” said Aravan, and he turned to Aylis. “Chier.”

Aylis gave him a quick kiss; then she sat on the chill barren ground, and the remainder of the nine took places, sitting in a shallow arc about her, Delynn midmost along the curve.

Aylis looked at Delynn and nodded and then closed her eyes, and the Sorceress in turn looked about the arc and one by one called out the names of the others, and Mage after Mage in sequence murmured a word-“ Coniunge ”-and then remained silent thereafter.

“What are they doing?” asked Melor.

Aravan looked at Bair, the only one among those watching who could ‹see› the effect. Bair said, “‹Fire› flows to the Sorceress from each on the arc, and she in turn channels it to Aylis at the focus, each in the curve giving up a bit of life essence to power the ‹seeing› spell.”

Melor nodded, for he knew that castings required the use of ‹fire›, a form of life force, the loss of which caused the caster to age, unless the ‹fire› of others was employed. Most Mages spent their own life force, except when several agreed to combine, each to deliver some of his own ‹fire› to power a particular spell; in which event a Sorcerer was needed to handle the conjoinment. On the other hand, some Mages, without any prior agreement, wrenched away life force from their victims to drive their own spells; those who practiced such evil were named “Black” Mages.

“And what is it she does?” asked Melor.

“She is sending her essential self-her spirit, her soul, the very core of her being-into the Black Fortress to assess the number and kind of foe,” replied Bair.

“I would think that quite dangerous,” said Melor.

Bair nodded, but did not otherwise reply.

Finally Melor said, “I will go back up and keep watch with Vail.”

As the Dylvana turned and quietly made his way up the slope, Bair stood at Aravan’s side and stared at the arc of Mages, Aylis cupped within. And as a nimbus of jade-hued ‹fire› flowed to the Sorcerer and from her to the Seer, he wondered at what Aylis saw.

Disembodied, Aylis flew up and over the knoll and across the space toward the Black Fortress. Above the outer wall she soared, Spawn below standing at stations, a small rout marching widdershins along the banquette, the Rucks in the band jostling one another and cursing. Over the killing field she swept and to the main wall of the bastion. There more Spawn stood ward, and another small jostling rout marched along the battlements. Aylis espied a closed door at one of the turrets, but this would be no bar to her spirit, and she swooped through it and into the chamber beyond.

There, she slid behind a shadow-not in the wall aft of the darkness, nor in the shadow pressing against the stone, but between the darkness itself and the wall-for there ‹sight› could not penetrate. If any of Magekind was in the fortress, then none could see her. Yet Aylis herself could not see ought beyond the black unless she pressed her face forward to peek out from the umbra.

Down she spiralled, now and then pausing to peer from in back of the shadow to see and count the numbers and kinds of foe. Floor after floor she descended, passing by arrow slits and by Rucks casting bones, some shouting in glee while others cursed at the outcome of the throw.

Within the corridors and aft of the darkness lying against the walls, Aylis sped a complete circuit of the fortress at each level, checking, counting, safe for the most part from any who could ‹see›. Down through the strata she went-five, six, seven levels, and more-surely by then she was underground. Corridors branched off, and along these she flew, keeping behind the clinging dark, but momentarily stopping at intervals to peer out. At these pauses she noted barracks with sleeping Spawn, a mess hall with Hloks and Rucks gorging down gobbets of a dark and stringy meat swimming in an ocherous liquid of some sort; and in another place-a huge chamber-six monstrous male Trolls seemed to be wrestling, though when Aylis looked closer, it wasn’t wrestling they did at all. Disgusted, she flew farther within, and popped up and out into the central courtyard, and making a circuit she found a stable of Helsteeds; and in quarters above the mews she discovered an unmoving band of Ghuls, each one sitting with its back to a wall and staring straight ahead with unblinking dead eyes, a cruel barbed spear at hand. Like the corpse-folk they were called, each one seemed to be utterly without life, but Aylis knew it was not so. With but barely a glimpse, quickly she fled the place of the Ghuls, for if they were indeed undead, whether or no she hid aft of shadows, they would catch sight of her, for unlike the living, the dead could not only see through darkness but behind it as well.

As Aylis passed back into the open courtyard, a dreadful howling sounded, and she followed it to its source to find a kennel of Vulgs worrying at the corpse of a large animal so mangled Aylis could not identify what it might have been, though it somewhat resembled a Troll.

Back across the quadrangle she sped, and as she flew in the darkness over the cobblestones, she sensed an arcane power below. At last! ’Tis a sign of Magekind! Those who I came to find and count. Into the ground she slipped, and she eased down into a chamber, an arena, and recalling the tales that both Bair and Aravan had told, she recognized it as the mating field of Spawn. But it was totally empty at this time, no wild, unfettered coupling taking place; perhaps the females were not in heat. Yet the dark force she felt did not emanate from this hall, and down she went into the structure below.

She descended into a chamber filled with mutilated corpses: some rotting, some fresh, some flayed, some missing limbs or heads, while others were gutted or had further atrocities performed upon them, as if some dreadful experiments were taking place. At one end of the room a curtained archway stood, and from the chamber beyond, a dreadful chanting sounded.

Aylis approached the opening, and she peered within a candlelit room to see ‹dark fire› flowing. She slid behind a shadow and into the vile sanctum. And she peeked out from in back of the blackness to see what might be taking place.

It was a ceremony, a rite, a ritual, for there assembled in a circle was a group of eleven, no, twelve Mages, one of whom-a Magus with long black hair down to his hips-called out arcane words. The other twelve were arrayed about a large geometric figure scribed on the floor-somewhat like a spiked wheel-and six of the Mages stood at each tine, and six more stood in the gaps between. At the hub of the wheel lay the corpse of a Hlok, and ‹dark fire› flowed down and into the dead body, ‹fire› wrested from a score of screaming Rucks shackled to the walls.