First Rider's Call

  “So, we’ve just taken to humoring him, you see, and we bring him his fodder there. Not that he’ll eat much. It’s like he’s on guard, waiting for his master to return.”

  That was enough. Remembering Crane guarding Ereal’s body, Karigan dashed from the chamber, tears sliding down her cheeks once again.

  Journal of Hadriax el Fex

  This morning I awoke from an uneasy sleep, soaked with sweat and my head pounding. I had had a terrible dream in which the whole of the world fell into decay—vast forests rotting tree by tree, and clear lakes turning black and turbid; the sky above brown and acrid. The sun, though, shone brightly on a single bush of raspberries. The berries were large and perfectly formed, unmarred by the decay so prevalent elsewhere. I started eating of the berries and they were so sweet. Red juice dribbled down my chin and stained my hands. I looked up and saw Alessandros watching me with an enormous grin on his face. He gestured for me to continue eating as if it gave him great pleasure to see it, but when I glanced down at my hands, I realized I held not berries, but a half-eaten human heart. I had not juice staining my hands, but blood . . .

  I still shudder as I think of this dream, even in the waning hours of the evening. The headache has stayed with me all day long, and I’ve not been able to hold down any of my meals.

  As I reflect on the dream, I see the truth in it. I have so much blood on my hands and this war seems never close to ending. Alessandros does not mind; he keeps thinking up new perverse ways to use his powers, and continues to develop abominations to use against the enemy.

  He still professes his love for me, and has made me his second, but this only makes me party to his evil acts. It taints me, even more so than the atrocities I’ve committed against the people of these lands.

  Yet, I still see in Alessandros the boy who adopted me, a low-born nobody living off garbage in the streets, to be his best friend, an affiliation that allowed me to live in luxury as a gentleman, attend the best schools, and enter the military at an officer’s rank. I never wanted for anything, and all Alessandros asked for in return was for my affection and support. I believe that’s all he still wants.

  As we grew up, we were inseparable, our lives irrevocably entwined. They still are, and so I am tainted. The boy who I used to play ball with, or go hunting with, has just shown me a harp made by a famous craftsman and presented to Varadgrim. It is a beautiful thing, the most beautiful such instrument I have ever seen or heard. Yet, it was not good enough for Varadgrim. So Alessandros “improved” it by stealing the voices of Eletians, and binding them to the strings. Now the harp is unearthly, filling the chamber with the voices of God’s angels.

  The Eletians who lost their voices are dying. For them, losing the ability to sing is like losing their spirit.

  I no longer know Alessandros. He is not the same man I once loved as my closest friend and confidant.

  TOWER OF THE HEAVENS

  Alton moved in dreams. Dreams of dark, tangled branches and burning, of vast empty spaces. Karigan came to him during his moments of deepest despair, ethereal in her ivory gown, whispering to him in loving words, only to melt away into something hideous and terrifying. He writhed in fever, sometimes awakening to nothingness, and total dark.

  During one such awareness, he felt around him with hands shaking from illness. He was on a stone floor, not the damp mossy earth of his dreams. It was cool and seemed to moderate his fever. He pressed his cheek to the stone, thinking he remembered something of a tower, of entering it. If it was so, he was safe. He was out of the forest and safe.

  This time when he slept, the nightmares did not return, but the dreams were still strange. They were of talking to stone, and of a beat that swelled up from the floor and pulsed through his body.

  Sometime later, awareness came again. He lay on his back, gazing up at the starlit heavens. He frowned in consternation, thinking he was supposed to be in a tower of stone. The floor was still beneath him, and he did not hear the usual sounds of night or feel a breeze, or the damp of dew. His fevered mind must have affected his senses.

  He groped about himself and found a column of stone to sit against. The new position made him dizzy and nauseous, and he gasped and retched. When the illness passed, he used the column to haul himself to his feet. Sharp pains shot through his hip and legs, but he managed to remain upright.

  The column, it turned out, was a waist-high pedestal. He groped the top of it, his hands gliding across a smooth stone embedded into its surface. Green lightning crackled within it, then softened to a steady glow, tinting Alton’s skin a pale green. It did little to illuminate his surroundings.

  “It is about time, Orla,” a voice said out of the darkness.

  Startled, Alton steadied himself against the pedestal, fear darting to the ends of his nerves.

  “Did you take all this time to plot your next move, or have you been cheating again?” The voice, impossible to pinpoint, reverberated around him in what felt like a vast chamber.

  Alton peered into the dark, trying to discern this new threat.

  “Why are we sitting in the dark, Orla?”

  “Hello?” Alton ventured.

  A long moment passed before the voice, rather peeved, spoke again. “You’re not Orla.”

  “Um, no. I’m Alton.”

  Miraculously, and with startling intensity, golden sunshine showered down on him, and he blinked rapidly to allow his eyes to adjust. He discovered he stood on a plain of rolling hills and grasses.

  “What?”

  Had he been transported to someplace else, or was this more of his feverish dreaming? Beneath his feet were blocks of stone patterned into concentric circles that looped outward before vanishing into the grasses. To either side of him were stone arches that led nowhere, but rather framed the horizon. Fluted columns encircled the area, supporting nothing on their scrolled capitals but the sky.

  Nearby, an old man with long, drooping white whiskers, sipping at a cup of tea, sat at a table regarding Alton with some curiosity. At his elbow was a game of Intrigue draped in cobwebs.

  Alton took in his surroundings, the feathery clouds stretched across the sky, and the sun warming his face. The silvery-green grasses of the plain rustled and bent in the light wind.

  “Where am I?”

  “Haethen Toundrel, boy, where else?”

  A familiar name among much that was unfamiliar. “Tower of the Heavens . . .”

  “Indeed.”

  It was unlike any tower Alton had ever been in. “I—I don’t understand . . .”

  The old man made an impatient noise. “What better way to view the heavens, boy, than from a wide open plain?”

  “Then I’m not in the tower?”

  “This is Tower of the Heavens.”

  The old man said no more as if this were explanation enough. Alton supposed logic existed in his words somewhere—the odd sort of disconnected logic one found only in dreams.

  “And you,” Alton said to the old man, “who are you? Some kind of ghost?”

  The old man snorted in derision. “I am no such thing. I am Merdigen, great mage and guardian. Er, a magical projection of Merdigen, anyway. Far more sophisticated and useful than a mere specter.”

  “You’re not . . . real?”

  Merdigen sputtered on his tea. “Not real? I am a real projection of the great mage Merdigen.”

  “Oh.” Alton’s vision dimmed and he swayed, hanging onto the pedestal before him so he wouldn’t fall over.

  “You awakened me when you touched the tempes stone,” Merdigen said.

  “Tempes stone?”

  “Beneath your hands, boy.”

  The green stone atop the pedestal was polished into a sparkling oval. “The tourmaline?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. I am a guardian. I assist the wallkeepers in assessing the wall’s condition when summoned. Are you not a wallkeeper, boy?”

  “No. Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. And a Green Rider.”

  Meridgen’s eyes br
ightened with interest and he eagerly leaned forward. “How goes the war?”

  “War . . . ?” Alton was having trouble making sense of it all.

  “Yes. Has old Smidhe beat back the Mirwells yet? Last Orla heard was that the Riders had thrown in their lot with Hillander.”

  “Clan Wars.” Alton shook his muzzy head. “Two hundred years ago.”

  “What?” Merdigen hopped to his feet, spry for an old man, or a projection of an old man. “Two hundred years have gone by and no one has checked with me since? What madness is this?”

  If Alton had been able to, he would have explained how the wallkeepers were drawn into the war one by one until none remained, and how the wall, seemingly indestructible, was left to stand on its own, its corps of keepers never to return. Before he could say a word, however, he collapsed.

  Alton rolled his head and groaned.

  “The wall is in a terrible state, boy. What are you going to do about it?”

  Alton blinked open his eyes to find Merdigen standing over him. “Water . . .” he whispered.

  “I am a guardian, not a water bearer! Besides, I cannot carry anything material. It would slip right through my fingers. Only illusion.” A large sea turtle suddenly appeared in his hands, looking every bit like the real thing, even propelling its flippers through the air. Then with a poof, it was gone.

  Alton rubbed his eyes. He was having delusions again—serious delusions. “I need water.”

  “Very well then. Follow me.”

  The guardian strode away from him, his robes stirred by the breeze that flowed across the grasslands. He paused expectantly between a pair of columns.

  “This way,” Merdigen said.

  Alton crawled painstakingly after him, across stone. Curiously, the stone was dusty, as though unexposed to the open sky. His fingers felt broken bits of clay pipes, a button or two, and even a large belt buckle, all fragments, he supposed, of the lives of the wallkeepers who had once served in this most unusual tower.

  He followed Merdigen between the two columns and his world altered yet again—the light dampened and was no longer sunshine, but a glowing orb that floated overhead. Stone walls surrounded him, the grasslands banished. Banished to where?

  He gazed over his shoulder. The columns encircled the middle of a chamber and supported the ceiling above. The two arches remained across the chamber from one another and were embedded in walls, leading not to the horizon, but into darkness only.

  Merdigen’s table, with its unfinished game of Intrigue on top, stood snug against one wall. In the very center of the chamber sat the tempes stone on its pedestal, and above it floated a glowing cloud of green and blue that captured all the essence of the grasslands and sky.

  Alton rubbed sweat out of his eyes, uncertain of what was real and what was not, and thinking how extremely ill he must be to have fallen prey to such dreams.

  Merdigen stood beside a stone basin in the wall, his hands clasped behind his back. Alton crawled to him and rested his face against the cool floor. After his brief respite, he hauled himself to his feet, using the basin to support himself. At his touch, water spouted from the mouth of a copper fish and filled the basin.

  He glanced in wonder at Merdigen. “This is real?”

  “Try it.”

  Alton dipped his hands into the streaming water. It was clear, cold, and wet, and very real, unless his fever had sent him into total delusion. The water did not smell foul, so he let it fill his cupped hands and he drank of it. He kept drinking till his thirst was slaked, splashing his face and chest in the process. He paused, leaning against the basin, water dripping from his chin. It cooled his fever and cleared his mind.

  “Magic?” he asked Merdigen.

  “An elemental conjuring, performed by Winthorpe. He did it in each tower for the convenience of the keepers.”

  “Thank the gods,” Alton said. He rummaged through a nearby cabinet and found some crockery, including a cup. He filled it from the basin, and slid to the floor, his back against the wall.

  Merdigen conjured himself a stool, and a teacup and saucer. Perched atop his stool, he looked down at Alton and asked, “Who won?”

  “Won what?”

  “The war, boy, the war! I have been waiting in suspense for you to regain your senses so I could find out.”

  “Oh. Smidhe Hillander became king.”

  Merdigen let out a whoop, spilling illusory tea on his robes. “Orla said he’d make a fine king, and that the D’Yers would join forces with him.”

  “We did.”

  “And he was a good king, this Smidhe?”

  Alton shrugged. “Guess so. His reign was considered bloody, but he had to bring the renegade clans to heel in order to unify the country.”

  Merdigen’s teacup clinked onto its saucer. “And this was two hundred years ago . . .”

  Alton nodded.

  “Dear, dear. Do the Hillanders still rule?”

  “Yes. Since Smidhe’s time, Sacoridia has had peace. King Zachary now sits in the high throne in Sacor City.”

  “King Zachary,” Merdigen said, as if testing the name for himself. “Such a shame that Agates Sealender fellow never named an heir, starting the war in the first place.” He tsked, tsked, and sipped at his tea.

  Alton reflected it was surely odd to be discussing history with a magical projection—whatever precisely that was. An illusion? “How long have you been here, Merdigen?”

  “Since they built the Haethen Toundrel. Since the closure of the Long War.”

  If his mind were less fuzzy, if he had felt well, Alton might have marveled at Merdigen’s words, and at Merdigen himself. He’d have asked endless questions about the past, and about the building of the wall. As it was, he had a hard enough time keeping his eyes open.

  He surveyed his legs, to take in the extent of the poison within him. The thorn scratches were still an angry red, swollen, and weeping pus.

  “I don’t suppose there’s a way to make this water hot,” he said.

  Merdigen gestured at a kitchen hearth nearby. “A wood fire should do it.”

  Alton frowned. There was no wood to burn, unless he broke the furniture. He did not think he had the strength.

  “Making the water hot would have required transformative power, and Winthorpe was no good at it, y’see. He was only good at elemental. Though,” he added on reflection, “he could’ve started a roaring fire.”

  Alton let Merdigen rattle on, and set to bathing his wounds best as he could with cold water. His body shivered with more chills, and when he was done, exhaustion took hold and he slept where he sat.

  He dreamed of Karigan coming to him, singing to him a song he remembered. Yes, he must remember it. She sat in a sunlit glade, her legs tucked beneath the skirt of her dress. White flowers were woven into her hair.

  Remember, dearest, she told him.

  Alton would do anything for her. “I’ll remember,” he promised.

  He came to with a groan. Sleeping in a sitting position had produced an ache in his back, adding to his misery.

  Merdigen remained perched on his stool, paging through some old tome. Alton wondered if such activity actually engaged the magical projection in some way, or if Merdigen did it to simulate life and bring an added sense of comfort to the keepers. For an illusion, if that’s what a magical projection was, Merdigen certainly retained a good amount of personality, memory, and intelligence.

  “Well?” Merdigen asked, noting Alton’s wakefulness. His book popped out of existence.

  “Well, what?”

  “There is a breach in the wall. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Fix it.”

  “Very good.” Merdigen applauded. “When you are finished, we can pick up the game where Orla left off.”

  When Alton didn’t move, Merdigen shifted impatiently on his stool. “Well?”

  “I don’t know quite where to begin,” Alton said.

  “Look here, boy, it is not my job to provide instr
uction. What are your clan elders thinking by sending me a novice, eh?”

  “They didn’t send me. Not exactly, anyway.”

  Merdigen sat back in surprise. “And what precisely does that mean?”

  It was taking quite a bit of energy to converse with the cantankerous Merdigen, energy Alton could not spare.

  “I am a D’Yer,” he said, “and I came to fix the wall. Will you help me or not?”

  Merdigen squinted and tapped a finger on his knee. “Hmm. Two hundred years since last there was a keeper. There ought to be a good explanation for that.”

  There isn’t, Alton thought, but he did not comment aloud for fear of sending the chatty magical projection off on another tangent.

  “So, after two hundred years everyone has forgotten how to join with the wall. Am I correct?”

  “Yes,” Alton said.

  Merdigen puffed out his mustaches. “Very well, follow me.” He hopped off his stool—which promptly disappeared—and headed for the center of the chamber where the tempes stone sparkled on its pedestal, dark night and stars now clouding above it.

  Alton followed as best he could, lightheaded and with pain stabbing his legs with each step. He stepped between the columns and into night, the columns and arches delicate and bone-white against the black, the grasslands empty and infinite around him. The change was so abrupt, so drastic, he found himself off kilter and fought to restore balance before he fell over.

  “First let me show you the schema,” Merdigen said. He fluttered his hands in mid-air, and silvery dots glittered into being right before Alton’s eyes. The dots flew apart, slicing through the air, leaving behind spidery lines etched into the night. The lines changed direction and angle, creating depth and dimension, continuously growing and branching until they formed a floating, shining image of the wall, much like an architect’s rendering. The length of it spanned the area encircled by the columns.

  Merdigen pointed to a tower located near the center of the wall. “We are here,” he said. “This is Haethen Toundrel.” He then pointed to his right along the wall, where swirling runes blinked in alarm. A chunk of wall was missing there. “The guardians have been screaming for a very long time, but no one has heeded their call.” Merdigen tsked, tsked, again. “This is where the wall has been breached, to our west.”