Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) (19 page)

“Why hide it at all?”

Connor hesitated, unwilling to tell Geddy the whole tale, or to reveal why this particular map was quite so special. “From what Lord Garnoc’s been told, several other maps by this mapmaker were so desirable that someone stole them.”

“Pinched them? From under the king’s nose?”

Connor chuckled. “I doubt the king was reading them when the maps were stolen. But yes, from the library, so the story goes. This fourth map must have been hidden better than the others, or maybe the thief didn’t realize there was a map he didn’t get.”

Taking a deep breath, Connor and Geddy set about their work. Connor looked at the high wooden bookshelves packed with scrolls and leather-bound manuscripts and felt panic rise.
Where in Charrot’s name do I look?

Connor began to walk around the room’s perimeter. The built-in bookshelves rose higher than his head, and above them, covering the walls of the room up to the ceiling, was a mural of the constellations sacred to each of the major gods of Donderath’s pantheon: Mighty Charrot; Torven, the trickster; Esthrane, mother of life; Yadin, the god of sea and ice; Dorcet, goddess of birth. The murals were beautifully painted, and inlaid with gems, decorative tile, and bits of gold and silver.

“You know, with the lines drawn between the stars and all, I can actually see why the fortune-tellers talk about the gods being in the stars,” Geddy said, and Connor looked over to see that the young man also was staring at the ornate mural. “Wish you could see the lines like that in the real sky. I never could make it out for myself. Figured the seers were pulling my leg.”

Connor had been slowly walking from image to image. He stopped in front of the image of Vessa, goddess of fire. In the artist’s imagination, Vessa had wild, red hair that flowed waist-length behind her. In her right hand she held a burning brand, the kind used to light every kitchen fire and cook stove. In her left hand, she held a lightning bolt. At her feet flowed lava from an exploding mountain, setting an entire forest aflame. Volatile, quick to curse and quick to bless, Vessa was a goddess of both life and death.

Connor cast a glance over his shoulder at the fireplace, assuring himself that it was unlit. “Warm in here, isn’t it?”

Geddy frowned. “Without the fire lit, I was actually thinking it was a mite cool.”

Connor moved away from the mural of Vessa, continuing his trek around the room. A chill ran down his back. He glanced at Geddy. “This is going to sound strange, but has it just gotten a lot colder in here in the last few minutes?”

Geddy looked at him skeptically. “Are you sure you’re not ill?
I’ve been within three paces from you this whole time, and I still think it’s a bit cool, but tolerably so.”

Connor shifted, and the pendant slid against his undershirt to touch bare skin. The disk was ice cold.

Connor crossed the room to stand once more at Vessa’s feet. Within a few breaths, he felt sweat rise on his temples, and noticed that the pendant had grown uncomfortably warm against his skin. He looked up at the mural of the goddess with new interest.

“Hot or cold is it?” he murmured to himself. “Let’s see just how warm I am.”

“Beggin’ your pardon?”

Connor eyed the shelves. “I’ve got a hunch that it’s over here. Give me a hand.”

Connor and Geddy started at the bottom shelf, examining every scroll and manuscript, yet the pendant gave no further clue. They found no maps at all, and as their search took them to higher and higher shelves, Connor’s nervousness grew that they might be discovered.

He craned his neck to look at the shelves high above his head. “Is there something we can stand on that won’t break to reach up there? I’m guessing there’s a way to get those books down.”

“Aye. There’s a ladder over there.” Geddy pointed to a small ladder. Unlike the workmen’s tools in the barns, this ladder was made of the same rich, polished wood as the shelves themselves.

With the ladder, Connor could reach not only the top shelf but see the mural up close. The artist had captured Vessa’s spirit as well as her sensuality. In awe, Connor stretched up a hand to touch the feet of the goddess.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Geddy said, but the appreciation in his tone wasn’t totally reverential.

Connor flinched as the pendant burned against his skin. The disk was as hot as if it had been in a fire. He snatched it from beneath his tunic, careful to hold it by its leather strap. It glowed with a faint green light. He pulled the strap over his head and held the disk closer to the mural; the green glow grew stronger.

“Hold up there, what’s that?” Geddy called up to him. “Where’d you get that?”

“It’s supposed to go with the map,” Connor replied. “Made by the same person.”

“You never told me it was magic. I didn’t agree to go looking for a magic map.”

Ignoring Geddy, Connor climbed to the very top rung of the ladder to get a better look at the mural. He lifted the disk like a lantern, moving it across the figure of Vessa. When he moved it to the left, the glow dimmed, but as he moved it to the right, the glow intensified until he held it over the burning brand in her right hand. The pendant now glowed brightly. Connor leaned forward to see better. The brand looked to be an inlay of wood.

Holding the pendant aloft with his left hand, Connor began to gently probe the length of the brand with the fingers of his right hand, mindful of his precarious position on the ladder. He felt a small rise, like a knot in the wood, and heard a quiet click. The brand slid out from the wall, revealing a slim wooden box. The pendant’s glow was now nearly blinding, and Connor carefully withdrew the box from the mural and climbed carefully down the ladder.

“You found it!” Geddy crowded close to him, eager for a look. “What’s so special about it, anyway?”

“Let’s have a glance at it and see for ourselves,” Connor replied.

“We need to get out of here,” Geddy reminded him.

“I’ve got no desire to take the wrong map back to my master. If it’s not the right map, I can put it back and we can keep looking. I don’t think we’ll have another chance to get back in here.”

Connor swiveled the box’s top out of the way and gently tapped the box against his hand. Inside was a large piece of parchment, very old, and from what Connor could see, it was indeed a map.

Gingerly, Connor withdrew the map and spread it as flat as he dared on one of the library tables. Geddy stood on tiptoe behind him, straining to see. The parchment was yellowed, and Connor feared it might begin to crack at his touch. To his relief, it did not. The pendant continued to glow, though not as brightly as before. Connor looked more closely at the map, bending over it, and the pendant began to swing over the map. Just as he reached a hand to stop the pendant’s motion, it froze in midair of its own accord.

“I saw one of the fortune-tellers down at the pub use a crystal like that,” Geddy said. “Is that disk something like her crystal?”

“Apparently so.”

Connor studied the map. The pendant hung directly over a series of symbols, runes he had never seen before. He bent closer to take a better look, and realized that the pendant was tugging at him. He lifted it from around his neck. When it lay flat on the map, the tugging stopped for a moment. His fingertips kept a light contact with the pendant, and the disk suddenly began to slide across the surface of the map, drawing his hand with it.

“By Torven’s horns! I saw that. Did you move the disk—or did it move you?”

Connor did not answer. He wasn’t entirely sure, and he saw
no need in stoking Geddy’s interest in what had already been a most unusual errand. The pendant came to rest so that some of the odd cuts in the obsidian surface aligned with the symbols on the map.

“Do you know what those markings mean?” Geddy had edged around Connor, totally forgetting his prior hesitation, and now leaned down from the opposite side of the table so far that his nose nearly touched the parchment.

“I have no idea,” Connor replied, mystified.

“Look at the marks on that disk. The way they line up with the squiggles on the map. Do you think that it’s some kind of code?”

“I think that’s exactly what it is.”

Geddy looked up at him, his pale eyes shining. “You think it’ll help us win the war?”

“I don’t know, Geddy. I hope so. I think that’s why Lord Garnoc wants to show this to the king.”

A strange, high-pitched whistling noise made both men jump. Geddy rushed to the window. Connor looped the pendant’s strap around his neck and hurriedly rolled the map and replaced it in its case. Light flashed outside the window as the whistling noise sounded again, louder and closer this time.

“What’s going on?” he called quietly to Geddy.

“Damned if I know, but you’d better see this.”

Connor joined Geddy at the window. The rippled glass glimmered with reflected light, but gave him no reliable view. A strange greenish light coruscated across the glass, and outside, Connor could hear shouts. He stuffed the map case into his tunic.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here. Maybe we can see better from the bell tower.”

Geddy grabbed his lantern, carefully snuffing out the candles
he had lit and making sure everything had been returned to its original condition so as to leave no trace of their entry.

When the door closed behind them, Connor and Geddy sprinted down the hall as quietly as possible. They reached the stairwell without being intercepted, and took the stairs two at a time until they reached the bell tower at the top. From here, they could see out over the city and down to the coast.

Geddy glanced upward, and gasped. “Look there!”

A curtain of light splashed across the sky like a glowing ribbon, shimmering with a green cast. It billowed and rippled like a flag caught in the wind.

“Is it just my eyes or is that—whatever it is—getting closer?” Connor asked, catching his breath.

The light had grown greener, and it filled more of the sky. At first, it cut a swath across the night, framed on every side by darkness. But as Connor watched, the coruscating light blotted out the stars and swallowed up the sky’s darkness. His heart began to pound, and he felt cold sweat on his back as the hair on his neck stood up.

“I see it too. Let’s get out of here.” Geddy’s face was ashen with fear.

Below the tower, Connor heard voices. He glanced down. A crowd was gathering, though it was not yet dawn. He could hear cries of wonder and alarm amid a babble of conversation. The light in the sky grew brighter and its color became a vivid light green, like the tender leaves of spring. In the distance, Connor saw streaks of gold as shooting stars cut across the strange ribbon of light.

In the distance, bells began to ring. Connor listened, waiting for the bells to stop after a few rings at the hour of the day, but they kept on clanging as if pulled by a demented ringer. The ringing grew nearer, louder. Connor startled at a creaking noise
behind him. He turned and saw the large bells swaying slowly. Afraid he would be trapped in the tower with the ringing bells, he moved to shout to the ringer, only to realize that the bells’ ropes hung slack.

“Connor, please, let’s go. I don’t want to be deafened!” Geddy eyed the slowly moving bells with alarm.

Connor frowned. “I don’t understand. The bells aren’t ringing the hour. But they’re not ringing in the alarm pattern. I can’t figure out why—”

Connor’s voice drifted off as a streak of light crossed the sky. He ran to the edge of the platform and Geddy crowded beside him. The entire sky now glowed with pulsating green light. With a sick feeling, Connor realized that what he had mistaken for falling stars were balls of fire, raining down from the luminous curtain. The fireballs landed explosively, throwing up a hail of dirt and debris where they hit outside the castle walls, instantly igniting everything around them. The sound of the explosions boomed like thunder, echoing from stone walls. Below, in the courtyard, the crowd screamed, fleeing. Behind him, the clapper of the largest bell fell, reverberating with a basso ring that made Connor’s bones vibrate.

“It’s raining stars,” Geddy said, his voice tight. “Gods save us, the stars are falling.” Fiery balls of light streamed toward the ground. The air was filled with the screams of those fleeing the onslaught with nowhere to hide. Trapped in the tower, Connor and Geddy watched in horror as behind them, the lesser bells slowly clanged to life independent of a master’s hand.

The night sky, clear and star-filled only a short while before, now shone with an unnatural green glow. A haze of smoke drifted above the rooftops, and plumes of fire and smoke lit the night as the bombardment continued. As Connor watched, a new horror emerged.

The green ribbon of light was descending.

Geddy didn’t bolt, but a whimper escaped from his clenched jaws. Connor felt his heart race, uncertain of what to do.

The tower bells picked up their tempo, their loose ropes dancing crazily. Beyond the tower, a cacophony of bells played a mad counterpoint to the screams and explosions. Connor covered his ears against the deafening noise.

We could die up here if the tower falls, but we’re no safer on the ground
, he thought.

“Do you think the mages can keep those fireballs from destroying the castle?” Geddy shouted, leaning over so that his lips nearly brushed Connor’s ear.

“Let’s hope they’re not sound sleepers.” Connor paused. “Maybe they’re already on the job. Look—nothing’s hit inside the courtyard walls yet.”

The ribbon of light made a rapid descent, blurring as it moved. Connor was torn between the urge to clap his hands against his ears to block out the deafening clang of the bells, and the instinctive need to brace himself against the ribbon’s impact with the ground.

Geddy’s lips were moving, and Connor recognized the words as a prayer to Charrot for deliverance.

“How far outside the castle do you figure the ribbon and the fire are hitting?” Connor shouted, focusing on details to banish his fear.

“Don’t rightly know. Seems to go all the way to the horizon.”

Cries of panic in the courtyard below mingled with curses and desperate prayers. The ground shook and the tower swayed, forcing Connor to steady himself against the windowsill or be knocked to the ground below.