Katharine Kerr - The Silver Mage

‘Well, after what nearly happened to Neb –’

‘Indeed. At least some good did come of it, since you did take the lesson to heart.’

‘I have. I promise. But it’s a bit more than just my wanting to help with the working when it comes. I feel like I have to do this for some reason I don’t understand. I mean, I know Jill wanted to spare him this wyrd, but it seems like there’s more to it than that.’

‘Indeed?’ Grallezar paused to study her face for a moment. ‘That be a good theme for your meditations, then. See what symbols rise around your thoughts, and we shall discuss them.’

‘Well and good. I’ll do that.’ She paused, glancing to one side, where she’d seen a flash of movement. Her grey gnome had appeared. He sat down cross-legged, imitating her, and began picking his nose. When she shook a finger at him, he vanished. Grallezar rolled her eyes at his antics, but she was smiling.

‘Now it be time to stop thinking of dragons and the like,’ Grallezar said. ‘Let me hear you recite the true names of the spirit lords of each sphere.’

With a sigh, Branna began the lesson. Thinking about the silver wyrm held a great deal more interest than all the memorization that dweomer entails, but she knew that the one was the key to the other.

Dallandra, however, cut that particular lesson short. Branna heard her calling Grallezar’s name in a voice brimming with excitement. With a sigh Grallezar got up and stuck her head out.

‘I don’t mean to interrupt,’ Dallandra was saying, ‘but –’

‘Do come in,’ Grallezar said. ‘Being as you’ve interrupted already.’

When Dallandra ducked under the tent flap and came in, she was smiling, her eyes gleaming with delight.

‘And what be all this?’ Grallezar said.

‘I’ve just had a talk with Laz,’ Dallandra said. ‘He’s told me about the true nature of Haen Marn, so my apologies –’

‘The interruption, it be as naught.’ Grallezar pointed at a cushion. ‘Sit you down and tell.’

‘I shall do exactly that.’ Dallandra flung her arms into the air and danced a few steps. ‘It bears on the dragon book, too. Neither of them really exist.’

‘Hah!’ Grallezar said. ‘So we did wonder.’ She glanced at Branna and laughed. ‘You do look dumbfounded utterly.’

‘I am,’ Branna said. ‘Or do you mean, they don’t exist on the physical plane like ordinary matter?’

‘Just that.’ Dallandra sat down on a cushion. ‘You learn fast.’

After he spent some futile days searching for Berwynna’s lost mule and the book it carried, Rori took a round-about route back to the royal alar. On his previous scouting trips, he’d seen parties of Horsekin raiders on the move. Somewhere they had to have a central force, most likely one that was travelling toward the new fort he’d seen a-building. The logical starting point for this central army lay near Taenbalapan and Braemel. Braemel, Bravelmelim as it was known in the old days, lay more west than north. He passed over fields and pastures tucked into the mountain valleys and terraces, green with crops, that climbed the lower hills like steps. Now and then he saw flocks of sheep as well as cows grazing in the mountain meadows. That first night he picked off a cow, in fact, for his dinner and found her fat and tasty.

In the morning he reached Braemel, a prosperous-looking place lying in a broad valley, a semi-circle of houses set along straight streets, with the river along one edge of the town and good stone walls surrounding it on the other three sides. A straggle of huts stood outside the west gate, but when he flew low enough, he could see that they were guard stations and barracks. His shadow, vast in the morning sun, swept across the road like an omen. Shouting, soldiers ran out to watch him as he spiralled higher, well out of arrow range, and flew on.

Tanbalapalim, to give it its ancient name, lay spread across three hills. A river cut through the town, entering and leaving through breaches in the outer walls. In the old days, two graceful bridges made of stone overlaid with different colours of marble had arched over the smooth-flowing water like twin rainbows. Although stubby stone piers still jutted from the river banks, the bands of marble had been scavenged for other projects. The Gel da’Thae had built new bridges of wood reinforced here and there with plain stone.

When Rori flew over the town, he saw only one wooden bridge still whole and the other, burned down to the water line. Fire had swept through the eastern sectors, leaving nothing standing but the occasional blackened stone wall. Ashes covered the ground in sweeps of grey. Had there been riots, he wondered, when the Gel da’Thae realized that their new Horsekin neighbours had taken control of their city? The western half still stood, but as he circled far above it, he saw only a few people moving in the streets.

Not far south of Tanbalapalim, Rori found what he’d been looking for. An army marched down the road beside the river, several thousand men by his rough estimate, more than half of them riders, the rest spearmen. Behind them trailed a long supply train, and small boats glided beside them on the slow-flowing river. He circled them several times to study, then headed for the mountains to the west. At a mountain pass above Braemel lay another ancient site. On the off-chance that the Horsekin had decided to occupy it as well, Rori flew there, only to find it deserted.

As he drifted on the wind high above it, Rori saw why the ancestors of the Westfolk had named it Garanbeltangim, the ‘Reaching Mountain’. Ancient layers and slabs of rock make up the Western Mountains, all twisted and folded, heaved out of the earth by some colossal cataclysm, perhaps, then washed bare by millennia of rain and snow. The old tales of giants may be true, that in their final war they threw huge rocks and slabs at one another and in the process built the peaks of the far west. Be that as it may, the highest peak of all is Garangvah, to give it its modern name. Like hands three huge slabs of sea-stone reach up to the sky and form a semi-circle around the high terraces that once held Ranadar’s fortress.

The Hordes from the north never conquered Garangvah, though they did take over the lower slopes and the farms that had previously supported Ranadar and his men. For an entire year the fortress held out, living on its stores, until the last grain of wheat, the last fleck of cheese rind, and the last mouse and rat had been eaten. Just when starvation threatened the defeat that the Horsekin couldn’t deliver, the Horde broke the siege and fled. Their look-outs had spotted a relieving force headed their way.

While the rescuers did bring food, they also brought the worst news of all, that Rinbaladelan had fallen, and the Vale of Roses lay destroyed, covered in ashes and cinders. Ranadar was king of precisely nothing worth ruling. Revenge alone remained to him. For its sake, he left the Reaching Mountain, and he never returned. The limestone slabs continued to cast their shadows over the palaces and walls, the storehouses and the towers, the outbuildings and alleyways. The roofs fell in with time and the snows. Mosses, the sparse mountain grass, and a scattering of twisted, stunted trees pried apart the fine paving stones of the courtyards.

By the time that Rori flew over Garangvah, the palaces and outbuildings had worn down to mere stubs of walls and heaps of rubble. The wind had blown soil over them, and grass had sprouted. A few small trees stood upon them. Doubtless their roots would soon destroy whatever fragments of splendour still lay hidden.

The stone outer walls, however, stood strong. Although they’d been built without mortar, the masons had shaped and fitted each stone to those below and beside it so carefully, so tightly, that the walls had survived for a thousand years and more. Rori circled overhead, looking for Horsekin, but saw no sign of occupation except for some ancient nests, probably built by eagles, in the towers. A few foxes darted across the ruined courtyard to their burrows in the palace mound to hide from the silver apparition in their sky.