Wizard (The Key to Magic) (27 page)

He considered the unconscious Sgohlg, the wreck that would never be anything more than scrap, and the shrouded landscape.

"We will bivouac here, at least through tomorrow. If the far talking disk continues to fail, we will prepare a litter for Brother Sgohlg and march at our best pace toward Lhinstord."

Zsii nodded and stirred about in his satchel to produce two ration cakes. "I had these put away." He passed Whorlyr one.

"Any water? I'm sure that the onboard tanks ruptured in the crash."

"Sadly, no."

Whorlyr knew that the whole grain cake had a few ground nuts in it but was otherwise flavorless and dry. He stuffed it in a pocket. "I will eat later. Watch over Brother Sgohlg. I will sift through the wreckage."

He managed to dig a blanket for Sgohlg from beneath the aft end, but found nothing else of use.

When night of a sort, an orange-brown haze-filled twilight, fell, Zsii had still not reestablished contact, though once a fragment of sound screeched from the relic. The two of them took turns keeping watch, but nothing troubled them save for an inconsistent rain that started up around what Whorlyr thought was midnight. The rain forced them to move Sgohlg into the scant shelter of the ruined algar and left greasy trails where it ran down the wreck's timbers and plates.

The rain also washed the air clear and dawn was near normal, brightening into a cloudless day that revealed a landscape littered with the remains of algars and downed trees. Standing on the western side of the wreck and looking back toward the west, Whorlyr was able to count at least two score large pieces of wreckage, though no single wreck was even as substantial as his own. All grass, underbrush, trees, and crops had been burned. A similar devastation extended to the north and south for as much as a league along the floodplain of the river. No living thing, man or animal, moved within his sight.

His attempt to crush the Apostate and his upstart Empire with one blow had failed.

Or, perhaps, it had succeeded in an unexpected way. All of the interdicting Imperial land forces must also have been destroyed and it was entirely probable that the cornered Apostate and his illicit ancient weaponry, the failure of one of which seemed the likeliest cause of the devastation, had been eliminated. That meant that Mhajhkaei and the other rebellious cities of the old Principate were his for the taking.

If only he had another army of algars. Rebuilding the armored carriages for a new campaign would take many months.

"Brother Whorlyr!" Zsii called to him from inside the wreck. "I have made a connection with Mhevyr!"

As soon as Zsii had described the location of the wreck, a gateway of the Emerald Gate opened alongside and a full cloister of Salients deployed. Each bore a brace of bolt throwers in addition to their standard swords and armor.

The commander of the force, a Senior Assault Brother named Khimech, was known to Whorlyr. "Brother Khimech, have a team construct a litter and prepare to evacuate our wounded man, Brother Sgohlg."

"As you say, brother."

With a quick command, the officer set a Veteran Brother to the task, then told Whorlyr, "Director of Forces, I bring orders from the Archdeacon. You are to scout the last known location of the Apostate and attempt to determine whether he survived the conflagration."

"Are you prepared to march immediately?"

"We are, Director of Forces. Shall I send out scouts?"

"No, we will travel as a compact group and as swiftly as we can. If we sight the forces of the Apostate, we will withdraw at once. Leave two teams here to hold the exit point should we need to fall back through the Emerald Gate. You and the rest will accompany me. Brother Zsii, are you fit to march with us?"

The Archivist nodded. "Indeed, brother."

"Let's go."

Moving off to the west, Whorlyr, in the lead, set a grueling pace, trotting as much as the rough terrain and his impaired foot would allow. The impassable tangle of the charred and uprooted trees of a sprawling woodlot compelled them to turn to the south after only a third of a league, but the detour caused them to come upon the Imperial Highway. The mostly clear pavement allowed them to hasten their pace to a ground covering jog, but also increased the risk of ambush and he watched the road ahead carefully for any sign of the enemy.

After perhaps a sixth of a league they came upon the wreck of a nearly intact algar tumbled into the right hand drainage ditch. The vehicle was heavily damaged but not so much so that it was inconceivable that its crew might have survived.

His initial inclination was to pass the wreck by, but he stopped when he realized that the Salients, though they would say nothing, would think the lesser of him for it. One of their many uncodified traditions was that they would not abandon any of their own.

"Brother Khimech, send two of the brethren into the algar to discover whether any of the crew might lay injured inside."

The officer showed no reaction, but several of the Salients made the sign of the Tripartite and Whorlyr knew that he had chosen correctly.

When only bodies were found within, Whorlyr proclaimed, "The Work!"

"The Duty!" replied the Salients in hushed voices.

"The Restoration!"

Half an hour after leaving the wreck, they arrived at a point no more than a hundred paces off the river and within sight of the still standing bridge. With the Salients spreading out and going to ground, Whorlyr, Zsii, and Khimech crawled forward to the remains of a Shrike that had plowed into a small rise. The ruptured earth and blackened metal formed a bulwark high enough to allow the trio to stand with cover as they observed the bridge. Strangely, the structure had suffered little if any damage while all around it had been burned to ash.

At this distance, it was impossible to determine if any of the small objects on the bridge lane were living people.

"We will have to get closer," Whorlyr told the other two.

"Try this, brother." Khimech took a boxy device from a pouch and passed it over. "This is the first production copy of a Holy Relic that gives a man the eyes of a hawk."

Whorlyr brought the device to his eyes but saw only a blur.

"The raised knob corrects the focus. Just tap it with a finger." the Salient indicated.

Whorlyr did so, and by quick stages his view steadied until it seemed as if he were standing on the approach ramp.

"Something is moving on the bridge," he told the other two.

THIRTY-THREE

The sorcerer woke with the complex dream still fresh in his mind.

Buried under a span of old quilts and threadbare blankets with just enough of his face exposed to breathe, his body was warm and snug, but his joints ached and his eyeballs hurt as they did nearly every morning because of his bad eyesight. During the night, the fire in the hearth that he had improvised from stacked stone had burned down to an ash-covered pile of coals and he knew that the floor of the drafty chamber would be painfully cold.

"You have to get up," Waleck said. "It won't get any warmer in here until you build up the fire."

"I had a dream last night," the sorcerer said, ignoring the prompt. "My dreams have resumed in full measure."

"It was just a dream," Waleck challenged. "Some abstract rehash of everyday experience aggravated by an undigested bit of that pork gristle that you had yesterday."

"No, I saw the future."

"Whose future?"

"That is one secret that I can still keep from you."

"It was clouded and uncertain like the other prophecies."

"No, this one had perfect clarity."

Waleck grunted. "You still have to get up and walk across the cold floor."

The sorcerer did get up, but ignored the lukewarm hearth and the empty wood rack beside it as he threw on his clothes to combat the instant full body shiver brought on by the chill. As soon as he had pulled on his thin boots, he moved toward the irregular hole in the floor on the left side of the chamber.

"Where are you going?" Waleck demanded. "You should have breakfast first."

"I can get by without another bowl of unsavory gruel," the sorcerer contended. "I know where one is and I am going to go get it."

"The dream revealed it?"

"Yes. The dream revealed many things." The sorcerer went to the hanging rope that would let him down to the next floor in place of the long collapsed stair and began to shinny down it.

"It will be like the other two. It will not function."

"This one will. I have foreseen it. It was part of my dream." The sorcerer began to work his way down the broken treads of the remains of the spiraling stair. He felt the structure of the spire sway slightly as the roar of the wind outside picked up. "The foundations are going to give way in four days and the entire thing is going to come down."

"Then you will have to find some other uninhabitable part of the ruin to live in."

"No, I will not. This is the last day that I am going to spend here."

"You cannot continue with your plan. Mar is out of your reach."

"In that, you are entirely wrong."

"How so?"

The sorcerer shook his head and changed the subject lest Waleck find a way to steal the foreknowledge that the dream had provided. "I have remembered my name. I am nhBreen."

"You have been many people."

"But I was Knight-Commander nhBreen first and that is who I am now."

"nhBreen died and was buried long ago."

nhBreen ignored this. "I was Commander of the Bastion and responsible for the defense of the City. I was a master sorcerer of the eighth rank and much admired and respected. I was proud and I was strong and I was brave."

"And then you betrayed your City by allowing it to be incinerated by its enemies."

"The City could not be saved. I preserved what I could."

"You disobeyed orders and violated your duty."

"I did what had to be done."

"And for that you suffered a ghoulish existence for five millennia and are now insane."

"It was a fit punishment for my crimes and sanity is not necessarily a desirable condition. I would not change what I did even if I could. Every person alive today that has any magical talent at all is a descendant of those that I saved."

"Mar is not."

"But his children with Telriy will be and they would not be who they are destined to be without the magically talented lineage that I preserved. Be quiet for a few minutes. This part of the descent is treacherous and I need to focus. I do not want to fall as I did last week."

Waleck complied without comment or his customary complaint, and the silence caused nhBreen to wonder at what devious plot the old man worked.

At the bottom of the spire, nhBreen stopped to retrieve his shovel, then exited through a more or less intact archway onto the shattered platform that circled the spire. Here he stopped again to rub the aches that the climb down had generated in both knees. For once, the sky had cleared and no rain fell. Compared to the other days that he had spent here, today would be a more or less pleasant one.

"You could have used the port bracelet," Waleck complained.

"Its flux reserve is nearly exhausted. There remains only enough for the trips that I must make."

"Mar is gone. Your plans are come to nothing."

"Wrong on both counts."

nhBreen made his way across the jumbled courtyard, following the weaving path that he had cleared through the mounds of lichen covered stone.

"He has returned?"

"Yes."

"You cannot know that. You smashed the skry tablet."

"I do not need the tablet any longer. My dreams will guide me."

nhBreen reached the pile that had been the acropolis' main gate, turned right and went to a gap in a length of standing head-high wall, passed through, and moved down a slope covered in brambles and browned grass.

"The wind is picking up," Waleck said. "You should have put on more clothes."

"I am curious," nhBreen said. "How is it that someone so thoroughly averse to physical discomfort could have crossed back and forth across the world for thousands of years as you have done?"

"As we have done."

nhBreen shrugged. "Stop whining."

When he came to a nearly buried access road, he turned left and walked briskly until he came to a much weathered pylon, advanced back up the slope for a count of forty-seven steps, and then started to dig.

"There is a grave a full manheight down," he informed the old man. "He was a warrior of the Ssteri and a direct descendant of Sari, an officer in the Covert Command of the Republic. By odd chance, she survived the destruction of the city of Theram with her equipment intact and lived to give birth to ten sons. With the weapon and her sons, she took control of these lands hereabout and founded a dynasty that lasted a thousand years. Though the ammunition ran out before her death, the legend of the weapon's power gave her warrior descendants heart, which was often all that was necessary to achieve victory in their primitive combats."

"It has been under the soil for a few thousand years?" Waleck asked. "This is a waste of effort. With no magic to preserve it, it will have decayed to nothing. You would be better off cutting wood for the fire."

"It was sealed in a lead jar. The Ssteri considered it a powerful totem."

"Even if it is intact, you have already stated that there will be no ammunition with it."

"Indeed I did, but I also know the location of thirteen full clips. We will have to use the bracelet to get to the spot, but that trip is included in my calculations. The cache is in the wreck of a Republican flyer on the side of a high mountain on the Northwestern Shore. It crashed six months before the end of the world and was not recovered."

"If it is exposed on the side of a mountain, it will have also decayed."

"The wreck is enclosed in a block of ice many armlengths thick. It will take me half a day to chip it out."

"Your dream was unusually detailed."

"It was more specific and unclouded than any that I have ever had."

Waleck fell silent again as nhBreen settled into a steady rhythm of pressing the shovel blade into the rocky but dry earth, prying it free, and leveraging the long handle to catapult it out of his hole. It took him a good two hours to dig down to the bones of the Ssteri warrior, whose name his dream had not seen fit to reveal, and retrieve the lead jar that nestled between his scattered ribs.