City of Sorcerers (16 page)

Their suspense was broken at last, not by laughter or dreams but by a ruddy glow that appeared out of the night. The Hunnuli saw it first on the crest of a hill above the camp, and they neighed a warning to their riders. The people scrambled to their feet.

They stared, appalled, as the red glow brightened, its phosphorescent light burning with a sickening hue that swallowed the light of the stars. Swiftly the radiance took shape, and its outline became distinct against the black sky.

The form appeared to be a man wearing robes and a cowled hood that covered the head. The apparition carried no weapons or items of any kind that the travelers could see, and it made no obvious move to attack them. It merely loomed above the camp, tall and ethereal, and watched the people with a cold malice.

"Is that the thing Gabria saw?" Niela asked, her voice shaking.

"Yes," Savaron snarled.

Slowly the form raised its head and laughed in the same remorseless voice that had frightened the travelers the night before. The inhuman sound struck them all with dread.

Morad suddenly yelled an oath and flung his hand forward. A bright blue bolt of what Kelene recognized was the Trymian force shot from his palm and rocketed toward the figure on the hill. The apparition did not move when the bolt passed through its shape; it only laughed again with malicious pleasure. The form then turned and walked out of sight over the crest of the slope, leaving the hilltop empty and dark once more.

No one moved.

"What is that thing?" Kelene said hoarsely, voicing the question in all their minds.

"I don't know, but it seems to be resistant to magic," Sayyed replied. "That's not encouraging."

A mild understatement, Kelene thought. The travelers continued to peer into the darkness until their eyes ached.

"What are we going to do?" asked Niela, the nervousness shaking her voice.

Sayyed slowly sheathed his sword. "Try to sleep. Savaron was right. If we don't get some rest, we'll be too exhausted to reach Moy Tura and too tired to control our magic."

"Shouldn't we set up a protective shield?" Morad asked.

"I don't think so," Sayyed replied. "A shield takes too much strength and concentration, and we need the rest. The Hunnuli should be able to warn us in time if that form reappears." He turned to Afer, who was standing by his elbow. "Do you agree?"

The stallion swished his tail, a sign of his agitation.
Yes. Now that we know its
smell, we will be ready.

"Do you know what that thing is?" Sayyed asked him.

It is dead.
Afer's short reply was sent on a broad thought to all of the magic-wielders.

Sayyed's mouth dropped open. "It's what?"

It reeks of death.
Demira added with a snort.

"But it looks human," Niela protested. "If it was the soul of a man, the Harbingers would have taken him to the realm of the dead."

We know that. We do not understand it either. We only know that its smell is
death and that it is very dangerous.

"Can you still smell it?" Kelene asked.

Yes. But it is not near,
Afer told them.
Rest, and we will watch.

Reluctantly the clanspeople took his advice and crawled back into their blankets.

But they were no sooner asleep than the nightmares began. Dredged from each person's deepest fears, the dreams were vivid, terrifying visions of death, loss, and tragedy. This time Niela wasn't the only one who dreamed of a man in glowing red robes. Interspersed through all their nightmares walked a tall, gaunt figure who watched their terrors with the cold interest of a predator.

When the sun's gleam finally edged the eastern horizon, the seven travelers, groggy and heavy-headed from the remnants of their dreams, staggered from their beds.

Rubbing his temples, Savaron threw himself onto the riverbank and plunged his head into the cool water. "I feel lousy," he groaned, his face and hair dripping.

"I never want to go through another night like that again," Niela muttered fiercely to her blankets as she rolled them up.

Even the white cat looked disgruntled until Sayyed picked her up and cradled her in his arm. Almost desperately he rubbed her ears and ran his fingers through her fur.

He had slept for the first time in several nights and wished fervently he hadn't. All of his sleep had been riddled with dreams of Tam, until the emptiness in his soul left by her death had grown to a mind-numbing misery. He could never remember having dreams so shattering. He'd had so little rest, his fatigue dragged on him like chains until he could barely move or think.

This is hardly the best condition for the leader of an important journey, he thought to himself, wondering if there was more to his state of mind than grief and weariness. It was true he had never lost someone so important to him as his wife, but he'd always considered himself to be a strong, self-controlled man who could face his god-given fate with some semblance of fortitude. At the moment he felt like a man standing on the crumbling edge of despair.

Strangely, the one thing holding him together was this small cat his wife had loved so well. The cat's warmth drove back the chill creeping into his heart, her purr soothed him, and her ties to Tam seemed to comfort his desperate loneliness. Without her, he wondered if he would have been able to continue.

It isn't like me to be so weak, Sayyed pondered. Perhaps there were other things affecting him---such as the red wraith. Sayyed believed the apparition was somehow affecting everyone's dreams, and if that was the reason for the nightmares, then the question was why? What was this being that followed them, and why was it here? He had no answers to that yet, only hope that it would leave them alone so they could continue their journey in peace. Unfortunately, he doubted his hopes would be answered.

The cat meowed, breaking into his thoughts.
I'm hungry.

He gently set her down and forced himself to move. It took all of his willpower to feed the cat, choke down some food himself, and repack his gear. He was so involved in his struggle to function that he did not remember his morning prayers or notice the way Afer stayed close to him. Neither did he see the worried looks that passed between his companions. When they mounted and left their camp, Rafnir rode by his father's side.

The sun slowly climbed high into the cloudless sky. The heat rose, too, and the Hunnuli were forced to slow down and Stop often for small drinks of water. They continued to canter north along the Isin River until shortly before noon, when the river abruptly veered west into the Himachal Mountains and the Defile of Tor Wrath.

Out of respect, and a little curiosity, the party paused on the point of a hill and looked upstream to the bluffs at the mouth of the defile.

High on a ridge of rock that thrust from the southern cliffs sat the ancient fortress of Ab-Chakan. Built before the time of Valorian when the Tarn Empire ruled the Ramtharin plains, Ab-Chakan was a huge fortification of black towers and massive walls. Although it had been abandoned for five hundred years, most of its well-built structures were still intact.

Twenty-four years ago, the Khulinin, Dangari, Jehanan, and Bahedin clans had taken refuge within those stone walls from the advancing army of the sorcerer, Lord Medb. Little had changed in that valley since then. The old fortress still remained empty, full of shadows and ruin, inhabited only by birds and lizards. At its feet in the broad valley meadow were the two burial mounds, one for the dead of the clans that fell in the battle for Ab-Chakan and one for Athlone's father, Lord Savaric.

Wordlessly Kelene looked down on the grave of her grandfather, who had died by a murderer's hand at the moment of his victory, and she wondered what he had been like. She knew the tales her father and mother told of a man with her dark looks who loved hawks, his family, and his freedom; of a man who had taken in the sole survivor of a massacred clan and was the only chief who had defied Lord Medb face-to-face.

But who was the man behind the tales? What had he been like as a real person?

Had his blood carried the talent to wield magic? She wondered what he would have done about it if he had known. Her eyes fell lower to the glittering Watcher on her tunic, and she remembered that its companion, the Fallen Star, had been Savaric's. He had not been loath to use that magic power to his advantage! Her fingers strayed to the stone's smooth surface with the thought that if Savaric had known he had the ability to wield magic, he probably would not have let it go to waste.

"Sorh grant him peace," she whispered when the party turned away. As soon as they were moving again, Kelene pulled the brooch off her tunic and cupped it in her hands. It had been too long since she had made use of the stone's spell to check on her mother.

She stared into the gem's center and soon an image appeared. The scenes were brighter this time since they were happening in the daylight. She saw the face of the healer from Clan Ferganan, who was talking to her mother. His voice and Gabria's came clearly through the stone, aided by the power of the Watcher's spell.

Kelene listened for quite a while before she returned the brooch to its place. She dropped her hands in her lap and stared stonily into the hazy afternoon.

"Are they well?" Savaron asked, riding up beside her.

His voice startled her from her reverie, and she jerked her head around to stare at him. He pointed to her brooch, repeating his question.

"Yes, for now," Kelene responded, but her voice was stricken. "It's getting worse, Savaron. Mother is still in the council grove helping the healers. But there must have been hundreds of sick people there. The healers were frantic! Gehlyn died yesterday."

She threw her hands out in a helpless gesture. "Now Lord Koshyn is sick, and Wer-tain Rejanir. And they've lost four more magic-wielders."

Savaron winced. "Did their Hunnuli leave like Tam's?"

"I think some did. Mother could hardly bear to talk about them to the healer she was with." Kelene paused, drew a hard breath, and went on. "That's not the worst of it. Lymira is sick, too."

"Since when?"

Kelene looked into the distance. "Last night."

"Gods," he said miserably. "Even if we find something in Moy Tura we couldn't make it back in time to save her."

Kelene's reply was a whisper of sadness. "I know."

Neither of them spoke again after that, yet they rode side by side for the rest of the afternoon, drawing comfort from each other's company.

The Hunnuli continued to canter north along the skirts of the pine-clad foothills where small streams tumbled out of the mountains and high bluffs formed a barrier wall into the rugged interior. At dusk a stiff wind swept from the northwest, and storm clouds began to build on the horizon.

By then the travelers were drawing near to the northern end of the Himachal range. They were not far from Geldring Treld or the notorious Citadel of Krath, but by unspoken consent the clanspeople avoided both places and made a rough camp in a copse of tall pine. Geldring Treld was too far out of their way, and even another night of wraiths and nightmares was preferable to walking into the stronghold of the cult of the goddess Krath. Too many people had tried it and never walked out.

While the Hunnuli cropped the thick grass, Sayyed took his prayer rug to make his evening oblation, and the others had a quick meal. Afterward, while Kelene watched; Savaron, Rafnir, and Tomian gathered several spare blankets and stretched the fabric out on the ground. Each man laid his fingers on a blanket, drew in the magic around him, and initiated a spell taken from the
Book of Matrah.
The spell was simple: it enlarged the blankets, waterproofed them, and finally transformed them into three small traveling tents. Kelene had to admit the spells were neatly done and the results were very welcome.

Nevertheless, the confident use of sorcery only served to depress Kelene further.

She shook her head. There was so much power in the world around them----stones, trees, earth, grass, water, everything carried vestiges of the mighty forces that had created the mortal world. That remnant of ancient power was known to humans as magic, and for those few, rare magic-wielders who could shape the power to their will, it was a limitless source of energy.

But endless power had its drawbacks, too. Magic was dangerous for those who did not have the strength or the determination to master it. If a magic-wielder did not know exactly what he or she was doing or lost control of a spell, the unleashed power could destroy anything in its path. Using magic also rook its toll on the wielder, draining both mental and physical strength. Those who used the magic used it carefully and learned quickly how far they could go before exhaustion endangered their spells.

That was what frustrated Kelene. There was all the power of the gods at their fingertips---power to heal their families and save their clans---yet human magic-wielders were too weak and unskilled to use magic to its full potential. They could not snap their fingers and wish away the plague or speak a word and transport themselves instantly to Moy Tura. They could only work within their own knowledge, abilities, and mortal frailty.

Kelene kicked a clump of grass in disgust and limped from the pines to a broad swath of grass where the tired Hunnuli were grazing and resting. Irritably she pulled her golden cloak tighter across her shoulders, leaned against a tree trunk, and watched the black horses in the twilight.

Demira was there, too, looking small and slender against the bigger, more powerful bodies of the full-grown Hunnuli. She was shorter than most two-year-olds, probably because she was the last foal of an aging mare, but her shape was well proportioned, graceful, and no less strong than others her age. And she was so fast. . .

.

"You're far away," someone said close by. "What are you thinking about?"

Kelene cocked her head and saw Rafnir standing beside her, his arms crossed and his face curious. She thought with a flash of surprise that he seemed somewhat different. His usual cocky casualness was nowhere to be seen. Instead he seemed vulnerable. His smile was hesitant, his eyes were genuinely friendly.