The Ancient

  “It is called acclimating,” Cormack explained.

  “It’s called stupid.”

  “You said you want to get off the island and the lake.”

  “Get off and stay off! But not to sleep against the ice.”

  “We might have to,” said Cormack. “Winter hasn’t come in yet, but it’s drawing near, and even this time of year can bring freezing winds and deep snows to the higher passes.”

  “Then we won’t go to the higher passes,” Mcwigik argued.

  Cormack exhaled and tried to relax. He knew that part of the dwarf’s agitation was due to the dramatic adventure they might soon be undertaking. He and these four powries, along with Milkeila, he prayed, and perhaps some of her friends, were bound to leave Mithranidoon. This was not the best time to undertake such a journey, but the thought of spending another several months on the lake surrounded by nothing but powries was more than Cormack’s sensibilities could handle. It hadn’t taken him long to decipher that Mcwigik and his fellows felt the same way, either. They all wanted out—now.

  “Shouldn’t yer lady friend be with us?” Mcwigik asked.

  “Shouldn’t you take me to her so that I can find out?” came the sarcastic reply.

  “In good time—when others’ eyes ain’t on ye so much.”

  “The more we get to the cold, the better. It will thicken your blood.”

  “Yeah, acclimating,” said Bikelbrin. Behind him Pergwick chuckled.

  “Stupid,” muttered Mcwigik under his breath, but he let it go at that. For all his complaining, everyone there knew well that he wanted to get away from Mithranidoon as much or more than anyone else.

  In fact, Mcwigik picked up his rowing pace as soon as the conversation ended, nudging Bikelbrin to match him.

  Instinct replaced conscious thought as Bransen plummeted from the ledge. Arms flailing, body twisting, the man’s sensibilities were too consumed by sudden terror to consider his Stork limitations. The Book of Jhest resonated in his thoughts, and he reflexively twisted to get his arms nearer the sheer ice wall.

  Then those arms worked desperately, frantically, catching, grabbing, pulling, scraping—never enough to jolt him or send him tumbling, for that would have been a fatal mistake, but enough to continually jerk against the fall. It took him a couple of heartbeats to align his sight properly below and put his arms in synch, reacting to the edges and bumps as he registered them. But once he found that balance and timing he began to literally pick his path below him and devise the best strategies.

  He manipulated by the angle of his grabs and slaps and the constant twists of his waist, and his handwork became more intrusive and stronger. He spotted one bigger ledge just below, and reacted fast enough to hook his fingers a dozen feet above it—not to break his fall as much as to give him the leverage to turn vertical. His feet hit the ledge hard; his legs bent to absorb the blow, and he did not resist as he fell right over backward, having somewhat slowed his descent.

  Then his hands went back to work, and he kicked his feet against every possible jag as well, working furiously to counter the force of his fall. Some two dozen feet from the ground, though, the glacial wall sloped in and away, and the already plummeting Bransen could only free-fall that last expanse. He knew that he was going too fast to attempt to roll out of it as he hit, so he flattened himself out horizontally and spread his arms and his legs.

  He slammed into the muddy ground, and the bright sky winked out.

  Ha! Looks like yer eyes seen right,” Mcwigik said when the group of four dwarves and Cormack came around an ice and boulder jag at the base of the glacier to see a man lying flat out on his back, driven more than halfway into the muddy ground.

  “I’m guessing that hurt,” Ruggirs said, and all four of the powries chuckled. Cormack, though, saw nothing funny in the tragic fall, and rushed to the man, though in looking up at the towering glacial cliff face, he knew that this one was certainly dead.

  The man’s strange black clothing made him even more curious, and when Cormack got beside him, the lightweight nature of the smooth fabric had him scratching his head, as it was totally unfamiliar to him.

  Cormack nearly leaped out of his shoes when the man stirred.

  “Yach, but he’s a tough one,” remarked Mcwigik, coming up behind Cormack.

  After the shock wore off Cormack immediately went back to the man, bringing his ear close to the fallen one’s mouth to see if he could detect any sounds of breath.

  “He is alive,” Cormack announced.

  “Not for long,” Mcwigik chortled. “Better for him that the fall had snuffed out his lights for good.”

  “Aye, that had to hurt,” Ruggirs said again.

  Cormack continued to inspect the man, to try to determine the extent of his injuries. In truth, he was thinking that the most merciful thing he could do would be to smother this one and end his pain, but the more he looked, the more his estimate of injuries lessened. He pulled off his powrie cap and set it over the man’s head.

  “It’s to take more than that,” Mcwigik grumbled, but Cormack ignored him and kept moving the fallen man, one leg or one arm, or rolling him up to a near-sitting position. Through it all, the injured man made not a sound.

  “I don’t think he fell all the way,” Cormack announced.

  “Yach, but he buried himself half into the mud!” Mcwigik argued.

  “He could live,” Cormack replied. “His wounds are not as bad as we expected.”

  “Ye’re not for knowing any such thing.”

  “Nor are you for knowing that I’m wrong,” Cormack shot back. “This man can live. If I had a gemstone … We have to get him to Yossunfier. Help me now, without delay.” The powries all looked at Cormack incredulously, and none made a move.

  “We cannot just let him die!” Cormack yelled at them, and all four burst into laughter.

  Cormack took a deep breath to calm himself. Screaming at the powries now would likely just get him stranded here or worse and would do nothing to help this poor fellow. “Please,” he said quietly. “There is a chance I can save him. We humans don’t just bury hearts and pop out of the ground again.”

  “Ye’d be smart to watch yer words,” Pergwick warned, but Cormack waved him away.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “But it is important to me to try to save him.”

  “Ye know him?” Mcwigik asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then what do ye care?”

  “I just do,” the increasingly impatient Cormack retorted. “Please, just get me to Yossunfier that I can at least try to save him.”

  “Yach, but ye’re just wanting to take yer girl along with us—again,” Mcwigik argued.

  “She already is coming with us by our agreement.”

  “Then ye’re wanting her with us sooner, and we already telled ye …”

  “She will be of great help to us,” Cormack admitted.

  “All of her people will. Save this man and help ourselves, I say.”

  “We get near to Yossunfier, and we’re to see the sky full o’ barbarian barbs,” Mcwigik grumbled. “Ye think it’s an easy thing, but ye’re a blind fool. Them barbarians see us coming, and we’ll all be dead before we step on their beach. Now, are ye thinking that’d be a good thing for your flat friend there?”

  Cormack took another deep and steadying breath, and looked all around, feeling as if the answer was right there before him, waiting to be unveiled.

  He smiled. “There may be another way.”

  You wonder why I have allowed you to live this long,” Ancient Badden said to Brother Jond after having the monk beaten and dragged to him in the ice castle.

  Brother Jond looked up at him blankly, trying to appear as impassive as possible. He was terrified, of course, but he didn’t want to give the wretched Samhaist the pleasure of seeing him squirm.

  Ancient Badden stared at him for many heartbeats and nodded his chin as if prompting the man to respond, which Brother Jond would n
ot do.

  Badden’s visage melted into a profound scowl. “You would think that an Abellican monk would be my first victim, of course, since your Church has been the scourge of the land these last seven decades.” In fighting off the urge to respond, Brother Jond couldn’t suppress a slight smile, and that only made Badden scowl all the more.

  The Ancient broke into a sudden giggle, cackled through a quick chant, and waggled his necklace at the monk. The floor beneath Brother Jond’s feet turned from ice to water suddenly, plunging him in.

  But not deeply, for Ancient Badden cut the spell short and reversed it, freezing the floor around Brother Jond’s legs, up to mid-thigh. The contraction of the ice squeezed him so hard that he could feel the blood rushing up from his legs. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach and light-headed at the same time. His eyes bulged as if the rush of blood would simply launch them from their sockets. He tried to remain silent, but a soft groan escaped his lips. The ice tightened some more.

  Now Ancient Badden towered over him. “Ah, but I would so love to tear your limbs from your torso.” He brought the side of Bransen’s sword against Jond’s cheek with a stinging slap, then turned the blade as he flashed it past, just enough to draw a deep cut across the monk’s face. “Or to open your belly, side to side, and slowly draw out your entrails. Have you ever seen the face of a man so tortured? It is the most exquisite mask of agony.”

  “And you declare yourself a man of God!” Brother Jond blurted before he could reconsider his reaction.

  “Ah, so he speaks,” Ancient Badden laughed at him. “I had thought you a mute, which would be an improvement for any Abellican, of course. I am not a man of your childish and benign creation, fool. I am a man of the Ancient Ones, of the truths of life and death. You are too cowardly to face those truths, so you cannot begin to comprehend the way of the Samhaist! I almost pity you and all the others born after Abelle, who were raised in the echoes of his lies and false hopes.”

  Brother Jond narrowed his eyes, but his threat was so impotent as to be laughable, which of course, Ancient Badden did.

  “I said “almost,’” Ancient Badden reminded. He waggled his necklace, and the ice gripped on Jond’s legs even more tightly.

  “I keep you alive because you may be of use to me,” the Samhaist offered. “As my armies press—”

  “Your hordes of monsters, you mean.”

  Badden shrugged as if that hardly mattered. “They serve a greater purpose.”

  “They are—”

  Brother Jond stopped suddenly as Ancient Badden kicked him squarely in the face. His head snapped back and forward, and a couple of teeth flew from his mouth along with a gush of blood and spittle.

  “If you interrupt me again I will hurt you more profoundly than you have ever experienced, more so than anything you could ever have imagined,” Ancient Badden warned.

  Dazed, temples throbbing, legs aching, Brother Jond could not even bring a defiant stare to his face.

  “As my armies press into Vanguard and drive Dame Gwydre to Pireth Vanguard, she will seek parlay,” Ancient Badden explained. “As her principal consort is one of your feeble Abellican associates, your presence among my prisoners will grant me a greater ante.” The Samhaist bent low and stared into Brother Jond’s face, and when Jond tried to turn away, Badden punched him hard, grabbed him by the chin, and forced him to lock stares.

  “Does that please you? To know that you will help facilitate the downfall of your religion in the region of Vanguard? Nor will it end there, I promise. When the war in the southland is ended, so too will be the tricks of your kin that so enrapture the dueling lairds. The reality of the conflict will weigh heavily upon the grieving people, and we will be there. For the Samhaists know Death, while the Abellicans deny it. The Samhaists understand the inevitability, while the Abellicans offer false promises. That will be your downfall.”

  Brother Jond’s face became a mask of apathy.

  “What is your name?” Ancient Badden asked. No answer.

  “It is a simple question, one carrying great importance,” said Badden. “For if you do not answer, I will bring in one of the prisoners and torture him to death before your eyes. It will be an hour of screams that will echo in your mind for the rest of your days, short though they will be.”

  Brother Jond glared at him as he started to motion to the troll attendants. “Brother Jond Dumolnay,” he said.

  “Dumolnay? A Vanguard name, or of the Mantis Arm, perhaps.”

  Brother Jond didn’t answer.

  “Mantis Arm,” Ancient Badden decided. “If you had been raised in Vanguard you would better know the Samhaist way and would never have fallen for the lies of the fool Abelle.”

  “Blessed Abelle!” Brother Jond corrected, spitting blood with every syllable. “The Truth and the Hope of the world! Who mocks the Samhaist death cult and your use of terror to control the people you claim to serve!”

  “Claim to serve?” Ancient Badden said, and laughed loudly.

  “Then you do not even pretend!”

  “We show them the truth, and they may do of that truth what they choose,” the Samhaist growled back. “We bring order and justice to rabble who would eat each other if they were not instructed not to!”

  Brother Jond couldn’t suppress a grin, glad, despite the beating, that he had irked the Samhaist enough to garner such a rise of emotion. “Justice?” he said with a sarcastic laugh.

  Ancient Badden went silent suddenly and stood up straight, staring down at the ice-trapped monk.

  Brother Jond took a deep breath to steady his nerves, guessing that he had gone too far here. But it was too late for any retraction, he understood, too late to bring the Samhaist back to a level of calm. So he followed his heart and put his fears behind him.

  “I will see your demise, Ancient Badden,” he declared. “I will see the victory of Blessed Abelle in Vanguard and throughout Honce!”

  “Indeed,” the Ancient replied calmly—too calmly. His arm swept across, slashing Bransen’s sword, drawing a line in Brother Jond’s face and taking both his eyes and the bridge of his nose in the process.

  The monk howled and screamed, thrashing in agony.

  “I doubt you will “see’ anything,” Ancient Badden said to him, and walked away.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Well Found in a Dark Place

  Milkeila wasn’t consciously thinking of anything as she walked on the beach one dark and breezy night. Resignation filled her thoughts and filled her heart, so much so that she had abandoned her hopes of what might have been, in full knowledge that her reality simply could never approach those hopes and dreams.

  She didn’t know how many days had passed since she had last seen her beloved Cormack. Too many, though, for her to ever expect to see him again. Either he had been found out as a traitor and imprisoned or put to death, or he had buried himself in guilt over his stark actions and had abandoned his wayward course—a course that included Milkeila.

  For several days, the woman had tried to concoct some mental scenario in which she could lead her people to go and rescue Cormack; she had allowed herself to fantasize about again besieging Chapel Isle and forcing the monks to relinquish their unfaithful brother.

  That could never happen, of course, and she didn’t even know if such was Cormack’s condition. So, for the sake of her own survival, Milkeila had let it all go, had exhaled and exorcised Cormack from her heart and mind.

  And always, Toniquay was there, looking over her shoulder, reading her emotions and reminding her, ever reminding her, of her responsibilities to the traditions. She was shaman, and among the Alpinadoran tribes that was no small thing.

  She walked the beach this night, the wind blowing aside the mists enough to afford her a wonderful view of the starry canopy above, the water gently lapping the rocks and the black volcanic sand of Yossunfier’s beach, and she was at peace. Until she saw a single light in the southeast.

  Milkeila’s heart skipped a beat. She tho
ught it must be Chapel Isle—perhaps a lantern at the top of their evergrowing tower. But no, she realized, it could not be. The light was not far enough away.

  A boat, perhaps, she silently cautioned, and she stood perfectly still and tried to not allow the movement of the small waves to distort her perception. After many heart-wrenching moments, she realized that the light was not moving. It was on the sandbar.

  Milkeila had to consciously breathe and steady herself. She started for the boats immediately, but her swift stride slowed as it occurred to her that the light could be a trap. Perhaps Cormack had been discovered as a traitor and had been tortured into revealing all! Perhaps a group of monks had lit her and Cormack’s private signal beacon to lure her to the sandbar and capture her.

  Those thoughts continued to swirl in Milkeila’s head even after she had appropriated one of the smallest Yossunfier boats and had started quietly paddling out from the shore.

  Her heart raced as she came to confirm that the light was indeed coming from the sandbar, or near to it, but she was a bit concerned that Cormack would burn such a light for so long on so clear a night. Certainly it could be seen from Red Cap or Chapel Isle, and after so many minutes, perhaps even some of Milkeila’s own people would decide to go and investigate. Of course, all of this was based on the presumption that it was indeed Cormack.

  Milkeila gave one long and powerful pull with her paddle, then put it up and bent low in the small boat so that her silhouette wouldn’t stand out against the horizon as she glided toward the sandbar. Peering through the thin mist, she saw a form, and the way the tall man paced left no doubt in her that it was indeed her beloved Cormack. She started to sit up, even to call out, but she bit back the call as she noted another form on the sandbar, short and thick. A powrie.

  Milkeila sat up and speared her paddle into the water to create drag and slow the boat. She was still drifting, the current and her momentum bringing her very slowly toward the sandbar. She didn’t know what to do! She wanted to see Cormack—more than anything in the world, Milkeila wanted to be certain that her lover was all right, wanted to feel his strong arms about her again.