Chiamh pricked up his ears. The Powers again? Surely this could be no coincidence?
“In their arrogance,” Basileus continued, “the Wizards created the Staff of Earth. The temerity of those puny creatures—to tamper with the High Magic in our element/”
The building shuddered with the Moldan’s wrath, and Chiamh trembled. “What did you do?” he asked.
“What could we do? In vain we sent Dwelven emissaries to protest—the Wizards told us to mind our own concerns. Then—” A shiver passed through the stone of the fastness. “Then came the blackest day of our history. The Wizards were experimenting with the Staff, and Ghabal, the mightiest among us, discovered a way to tap its power. He used it to escape from the constraints of his stony flesh. As a giant he appeared, a human form, but the size of a mountain!.”
Basileus sighed. “The power of the Staff proved too much for him. He became crazed and violent . . . He wanted, he said, to put a barrier between the Moldai and the Wizards. In those days the north and south was a single land-mass, with no sea between—until Ghabal broke the bones of the earth, creating a rift between the two lands where once a fair and fertile kingdom lay.” The voice of the Moldan was hushed with regret. “Thousands of lives were lost as the seas rushed in, and I believe that Ghabal felt every death pang. They punished him, of course. Combining their powers, the Wizards wrenched the Staff of Earth back to their own control, and used it to master him. And they possessed the perfect prison. They had made a great artificial hill of stone in their city, and built their citadel atop, and there they imprisoned Ghabal’s tortured spirit, sealing it into lifeless stone. Then they came here, and destroyed his body beyond hope of returning.”
“Steelclaw!” Chiamh gasped, thinking of the Haunted Mountain that lay beyond the Wyndveil. No Xandim would set foot there—legend said that anyone who spent a night on Steelclaw would return insane, if they returned at all. The mountain itself was enough to discourage the bravest or most foolhardy soul—Chiamh had always known that some unthinkable disaster had befallen it. The rock had been riven and twisted, tortured and melted, almost down to its roots, leaving three jagged stumps to claw the sky. The very sight of it made the Windeye think of pain.
“Steelclaw indeed,” Basileus answered. “The remains of Ghabal, once the tallest and fairest of us all! Had the Wizards let the matter rest there . . . But in their wrath, they punished us all. They took the Dwelven—our eyes and ears in the land and the only ones, save themselves, who could hear us—beyond the sea whence they could not return. The Wizards sent them underground and laid a spell on them, that if they emerged into the light, they would perish. Without them we have languished in isolation, trapped in a waking dream. But now, we may dare to hope again—for the world is changing!. Not long ago, my mind began to awaken and reach out again—to find you, though you were not the reason. The Staff of Earth is abroad once more! I feel it coming closer!” The Moldan’s tone betrayed his excitement. “Those Wizards are up to something, or I’m a pebble! Little Windeye, know you aught of this?”
Chiamh frowned. “Perhaps,” he said. “Last night I had a Vision, and now Outlanders have appeared in our lands ...”
Quickly, he told Basileus what had been happening.
“Indeed,” the Moldan agreed, when he had finished. “These matters cannot be unconnected. And you believe your leaders will execute these strangers?”
“For certain—that is our law.”
“In that case, we must act swiftly to save them . . .”
“Could you help me get them out?” Chiamh asked eagerly. “Could you open a passage out of the dungeon, maybe?”
“Alas,” Basileus sighed, “it would take far too long to create such a passage—and it would be of no avail. The prisoners have been taken elsewhere ...”
“What?” Chiamh shrieked. “But their execution is not until tomorrow!”
“You have lost track of the hours, little Windeye! You were long within my body finding the dungeons, and longer coming back. And when you returned you slept before we spoke. By your lights, it is already tomorrow! To save the captives, you must move swiftly—if it is not already too late!”
6
Steelclaw
In contrast to the close and narrow gloom that shrouded Chiamh’s Valley of the Dead, the plateau of the Wyndveil was a place of air and light. Toward its southern end, the land broke up into a series of crags and canyons, rising to the sheer white walls of the Wyndveil and its brethren. At its northern brink the land dropped, sweeping down across dark, pine-clad slopes to the verdant plains, and finally, to the bright expanse of the sea. It was a windswept perch between peak and plain, belonging neither to earth nor sky—an open temple, designed by the Goddess for the contemplation of Her world, The Xandim used it as their Place of Challenge and a court of justice. Only here, in this airy Hall of the Goddess, the stunning panorama of Her creation, could matters of life and death be decided by the tribe.
Now, in the chill dark close of a winter’s night, the snow-scoured plateau was a place of awe and mystery. In the narrows of the meadow, beside the sinister stones that guarded the gate of the Deathvale, a figure stood braced against the storm. He was a stern-faced man of middle years: bald, save for a silvering of cropped hair at the back of his head. His gaze was proud and uncompromising, like a keen-eyed hawk. He held his years well; his belly was flat, his body as muscular as it had been in his youth, when he first won the leadership by Right of Challenge. Phalihas was his name, and he was Chief and Herdlord of the Xandim.
The Herdlord stood by the hallowed stones, awaiting the prisoners, showing no movement save where the snarling wind worried at his heavy cloak. At a respectful distance stood the curious folk who had come to watch the trial of the Outlanders. Awed into stillness by the numinous ambience of this sacred site, they huddled together, whispering softly, in reassuring groups around bonfires whose streaming flames were pressed flat to the ground by the gale. Phalihas saw the restless dark shadows of their flapping cloaks, like the wings of carrion birds, and the occasional vivid spark of brightness where fitful firelight caught a rough-hammered tore or an armband, or the polished beads of stone or bone that they threaded into their braids.
To one side, in an uneasy, muttering knot, stood the Elders; men and women old in wisdom, though not necessarily in years. Though any of them might advise Phalihas, the final verdict would be his alone. They were present by law and tradition, but this time, their contribution would not be needed. The matter before him was straightforward: strangers were not permitted in the Xandim lands, and the penalty for trespass was death. It was as simple as that. Phalihas sighed, and pulled his cloak more tightly round his shoulders in a futile effort to block out the icy wind. It was his own fault, he told himself, that he was out here freezing, instead of being warm and asleep in his bed back at the Fastness. The Elders had objected to this trial as a waste of time, and only his insistence on adhering to the law had dragged everyone out here. Though he held to his conviction that traditions must be upheld for the good of the tribe, Phalihas had not realized that this trial would stir acute and painful memories of the last time he had stood here in judgment.