R. Salvatore - The Ancient

Over to the right of the giants, where the crevice was much wider and much deeper, several glacial trolls hung by their ankles, suspended beneath crossbeams by thin ropes. Their arms were weighted, forcing them into a diver’s stretch, and their wrists had been expertly cut, their thin blood dripping down into the chasm and turning into a fine, coating mist in the windy gorge. Troll blood did not freeze, and the coating of it in the crevice would prevent the melted waters from mitigating the damage to the edge of the glacier. One troll, at least one, was dead and dried out now, Ancient Badden noted, but no worries, for the wretched little beasts were as thick as hares in summer Vanguard.

He scanned farther to the right, to the elaborate ice bridge he had magically constructed: it spanned the widest expanse of the chasm, with enough room on either side so that it would continue to allow crossing even when the rift had become as wide as intended. Ancient Badden couldn’t help but smile as his gaze moved farther to the right, to the mountain wall bordering the glacier on the east, for against that dark stone loomed Ancient Badden’s greatest work yet: his home, Devongel, a castle of crystalline ice, of elegant, winding spires and thick walls, of defensive and confusing mazes both practical and beautiful.

His smile disappeared when he looked back to the left, over by the working giants, and noted a smaller form, dressed in the telltale light green robes of a Samhaist, though surely nothing as elaborate as Ancient Badden’s gown, decorated as it was with claws and teeth from various carnivores, and with leafy designs woven with threads green and yellow so that it looked as if the Samhaist could walk into a strand of brush and simply disappear. About his waist, Ancient Badden wore a thick red sash, tied on his right hip, with its frayed ends nearly reaching the ground. Only one Samhaist, the Ancient himself, could wear this holiest of belts, and Ancient Badden put his hand on that knot now, as the ever-annoying Priest Dantanna approached, to remind himself of that honor.

Wearing a sour expression, Dantanna circled wide of the giants and hopped the crevice, which, ten feet out from the spike, was no more than a crack, and neared Ancient Badden with a determined stride.

He bowed repeatedly as he covered the last dozen strides to his master, though not as quickly or as deeply as Ancient Badden would have liked.

“You have heard of Chapel Pellinor,” Ancient Badden began.

“Burned and with its stones scattered,” Dantanna replied, cutting off his words as if it pained him to speak them.

“Another victory over the Abellican heretics. Does that not please you?”

“Many men and women who were not Abellicans were killed in the fighting.”

Ancient Badden shrugged as if it did not matter, which, of course, in the greater scheme of Samhain’s universe, it surely did not.

“Killed by goblins and trolls and the barbarian mercenaries,” Dantanna added.

Another shrug. “That is the way of things.”

“Because we choose it to be! Once we battled beside the Honce men of Vanguard against the very army we now turn loose upon them.”

“Once and not long ago, they knew their place,” said Ancient Badden. Dantanna winced and quieted, the implications hanging heavily in the air. War was general south of the Gulf of Corona, laird against laird, with Ethelbert of Entel battling for dominance against the great Delaval. In that struggle, the true emerging winner seemed to be neither of the lairds, but rather, the Abellican Church, for the monks with their magical gem-stones, powerful in both healing and destruction, had gained favor with every laird. Though possessed of magic of their own, the Samhaists could not match that Abellican availability of useful tricks.

“They look to the south,” Dantanna dared to say after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. “The men of Vanguard see the turning tide amongst their Honce brethren.”

“A tide turning away from us and from the Ancient Ones,” said Ancient Badden. “It is a temporary thing, you understand.”

Dantanna didn’t reply, except that his face showed little in the way of concession.

“The Abellican monks dazzle with their baubles,” Ancient Badden explained. “And provide comfort and even battle advantage. But they have little understanding of the proper preparations for the greater course. Death is inevitable-to lairds and to peasants. What answers might the foolish boys who follow the distorted memory of that idiot Abelle offer to mortally wounded warriors?”

“Fewer are mortally wounded because of their work.”

“Temporary relief! Everyone dies.”

Dantanna shook his head. “Then perhaps we have a role to play in complement with the monks,” he said, or started to, for his voice trailed off and his eyes widened with fear as Ancient Badden put on the most fearsome scowl he had ever seen, a mask of danger and death, and the great Samhaist seemed to grow, to rise up above Dantanna, mocking him in his impotence.

But the growth proved short-lived, and Ancient Badden settled back easily, wearing a grin-though one that seemed no less dangerous. “You would like that, would you not?” he asked.

Dantanna tilted his head a bit, as if he did not understand.

“If we were to find a place beside the Abellicans,” Ancient Badden clarified.

Dantanna began to shake his head, and his eyes darted about as if he was looking for a way to flee.

“How long did you think you could hide your allegiance to Dame Gwydre?” Ancient Badden bluntly asked.

“I know not of what you speak.”

“Do not play me for a fool,” Ancient Badden warned. “You counseled Gwydre extensively before her association with the Abellicans.”

“Ancient, the Abellicans have been in Vanguard Town for years-before I ever came to know Lady Gwydre. Indeed, they were beside Laird Gendron before his death, when Gwydre was but a girl.”

“With all their magical baubles, they still did not prevent his untimely death, did they?” Ancient Badden gave a little laugh. Dantanna winced, for it was widely rumored that the Samhaists had played a role in the “accident” that had taken the beloved Laird Gendron from the folk of Vanguard.

“And so Gwydre rose to power in Vanguard Town, a young, impressionable girl.”

“Never that,” Dantanna interrupted, and Ancient Badden’s scowl put him back on his heels.

“And when your master died, Gwydre’s ear was passed to you,” Ancient Badden went on. “Your duty was clearly relayed: to keep Gwydre from the Abellican encroachment. Your own assessment if you will, Dantanna. Did you succeed or fail?”

Dantanna began shaking his head. “It was more complicated…”

“Are you couching an admission of failure?”

“No, Ancient. Dame Gwydre has sought a balance from the beginning. She counts me among her trusted advisors as she counts-”

“The monks of Chapel Pellinor?”

“Yes, but…”

“One of them in particular,” Ancient Badden said.

Dantanna swallowed hard, unable to deny the truth of it. Dame Gwydre had fallen in love with an Abellican monk, and the Church of Abelle had done nothing to dissuade the union-obviously for cynical, political reasons. Chapel Pellinor stood on the outskirts of Vanguard Town, by far the most important town north of the Gulf of Corona; Dame Gwydre commanded the army of the entire Honce province north of the Gulf of Corona, the region known as Vanguard. As her relationship with her lover monk had grown, so had grown the power of the Abellicans in Vanguard Town and across the land. Dantanna had not been able to resist that movement, and had come to believe that playing an amenable role was the only way he and the Samhaists could retain any semblance of influence over the feisty and headstrong dame of Vanguard.