Джеймс Лаудер - The Ring of Winter

Artus stood in silence for a moment, then called a dagger of ice into existence and set to work on Byrt’s cage. From time to time as the explorer worked, a goblin charged out of the city. They were as uninterested in confronting Artus as he was in battling them. He felt tempted to stop the wretches from rushing into Ras Nsi’s killing embrace, but the feeling was fleeting. The Batiri had earned that doom by attacking Mezro, and it wasn’t his place to save the goblins from themselves.

“Let’s get back,” Artus said as the sturdy cage finally gave in to his dagger. “There’ll be a lot to do. Sanda and the others will need our help.” He smiled when he thought of telling the beautiful bara about the ring’s ability to grant immortality to its wearer.

Slowly Lugg shook his head. “I still can’t believe we won.”

Taking a last bite of the store of food from his prison, Byrt said, “I don’t know how you can continue to be so utterly cynical, Lugg. As I was mentioning before Queen M’bobo’s untimely arrival and even more untimely departure, I never doubted Artus and you would rescue me and save the city.” He grinned victoriously. “And, as usual, I was absolutely correct!”

Lugg looked up at Artus. “I ’ate it when ’e gets like this. We won’t ’ear the end of it for days. Isn’t there something you can do? You’ve got that ring now, right?”

The little gray wombat was chattering away in his inane voice about how everyone would be much better off if they’d stop worrying about things and listen to him. Artus glanced at the frost-flecked gold ring on his right hand, then at Byrt’s vacant blue eyes.

“Sorry, Lugg,” Artus sighed, “but I guess there’s a limit to what even the Ring of Winter can do.”

Almost half of Mezro was destroyed by the Batiri raid. The crops for an entire year had burned to the ground. The Scholars’ Quarter lay in ruins, though somehow the Great Library remained intact. Cracks snaked across the building’s rose marble façade and a few of the columns gracing its portico had been broken, but the vast storehouse of knowledge, the books and papers of four thousand years of Mezroan history, had been miraculously spared.

The dead were interred in the Temple of Ubtao, in a vast mausoleum that held the remains of every man, woman, and child ever to live in the blessed city. The room was lined with statues and plaques commemorating the dead, some incredibly ornate, others powerfully simple. The ceremonies to honor the fallen defenders lasted weeks, and even the vital work of rebuilding the city was put aside to give homage to the slain.

The goblin corpses inside Mezro’s walls never rose to join Ras Nsi’s army. The renegade bara showed that much respect for King Osaw’s ancient pronouncement, though every corpse left outside the city vanished within hours. No one had any doubts where they had gone. Osaw decided that to add more bodies to Nsi’s corps would be foolish, so the remaining Batiri dead were either burned or given over to Mainu. The strange bara distributed the bodies amongst her minions, who had held the Olung River so well that not a single goblin managed to cross it. The piranha and lobster-men devoured the corpses greedily, leaving nothing for the zombie lord’s army.

With the barae’s help, the task of cleaning the city was made easier. Sanda directed various dinosaurs in the movement of large stones. Kwalu used his locusts to destroy any buildings ruled unsafe by the council. Even without his bara powers, T’fima proved invaluable. He healed even the most life-threatening wounds with his gem magic.

For his part, Artus used the Ring of Winter in a hundred ways to aid in the restoration of Mezro. He created braces of ice to steady walls and roofs until they could be repaired, coated the ground with slick sheets so great burdens could be moved more efficiently, and many other more mundane things. Byrt and Lugg stayed at the explorer’s side constantly, at least until he managed to convince the wombats they could help the city more by entertaining the children wounded in the conflict.

Finally, after weeks of back-breaking labor, the citizens of Mezro rested. At highsun they gathered in the plaza around the Temple of Ubtao, ready to give thanks to their leaders and their god. The mood was understandably somber. Food was becoming scarce and many friends and loved ones were painfully absent.

The stout-hearted Mezroans found ample reason to celebrate anyway. Their city was safe, the goblin horde turned back to the jungle, and a new bara had been elected. Ras T’fima had admitted to his deceptions shortly after the fight, and Ubtao had chosen a young girl to replace him. The girl had left the barado with the awesome power to control plants, and her work with the devastated fields had already begun to pay off.

Near the door to the temple, Lord Rayburton and Ras T’fima shared a mug of t’ej and looked out over the throng. The amber, fermented honey was almost too sweet for Rayburton, and he wrinkled his nose after each sip.

“What I don’t understand,” the old explorer said, “is why Artus can control the ring when it turned against us.”

Ras T’fima shrugged. “Maybe we turned against it. I think it has an agenda of its own, that it was created for some purpose.”

“Such as?” Rayburton poured the rest of his t’ej onto the cobbles and leaned closer, cradling his splinted fingers.

“To do good,” Artus said. He stood behind Rayburton, Sanda and the wombats beside him. A new beard covered his jaw, making his brown eyes seem even darker. Except for the green tunic Theron had left for him, his clothes were ragged and worn from his weeks in Chult. “I can sense it. The ring was created to be a force for good.”

Rayburton fell silent. Artus now knew the full story of how the old explorer had discovered the Ring of Winter in the wilderness near Shadowdale. For a time Rayburton had controlled the artifact. Then, when a Cormyrian nobleman refused to let him conduct a dig on his property, Rayburton tried to use the ring to frighten the noble and his serfs away. Instead of driving them off the land, he buried the entire village and the noble’s estate in ice, killing everyone for miles around. Frightened and ashamed of the murders, he came to Chult, hoping to hide the Ring of Winter so it could never be used again.

“That must be the reason!” Ras T’fima shouted, his chubby face flushed from too much t’ej. “I have to admit, I was trying to defend my secret with the ring. I wanted to save Kwalu, of course, but that wasn’t—” He drew his lips into a tight line and lowered his booming voice. “Has Kwalu forgiven me yet, Sanda?”

She smiled warmly. “He would forgive you anything, just so long as you keep fighting for Mezro.”

Raising his mug, Ras T’fima nodded. “Now that they’ve agreed to lower the wall, they’ll never get rid of me. By the way, Artus, thanks again for your help in the council.”

“It’s only right,” Artus said. “The Tabaxi cut off from the city are at the mercy of the Batiri and the zombies—and the other dark things in the jungle. They should be able to turn here for protection.”

Lugg stamped his foot impatiently. “Are we ready to go or not?” he grumbled. His ears were ragged from children tugging on them, his whiskers bent and twisted. Not that he didn’t like the tykes, but they were tougher on him than the Batiri.

Sanda hugged her father. “He’s right. We should go.” Her green eyes filling with tears, she held Lord Rayburton close. “We’ve already said our good-byes to King Osaw and Negus Kwalu.”

“Look, Sanda—” the old explorer began.

“You don’t have to say it again,” she noted. “I’ll be careful of the thugs and murderers and lunatics in Suzail.”