“Oh, really?”
“Look, it’s… it’s my pleasure!” Another hunting screamechoed in the dark. Escalla felt quite sick. Whoever wanted her dead was clearly pretty dedicated to the job, and the Justicar was the only protection she had. “You need a guide, and… and a mentor! Someone to help you on yourquest! So I guess we’ll just stick really close together from now on. Really,really close.” The girl scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. “SoI’ll help you find this guy you’re looking for, but we have to have just alittle understanding first, all right? We need a protocol of professional courtesy.”
The Justicar cocked an eye upward in annoyance as he swam. “Such as?”
“No one touches the faerie! Right?” Vaguely aware thather bare bottom was exposed to the night, Escalla tugged her acid-burned tunic into place. “Do we have an agreement on that?”
“Whatever.” The Justicar rose onto all fours to crawl over ahidden mound of drowned grass, then slithered back into the water. “Let me knownext time you just want to drown.”
Escalla kept watch on the sky and patted the Justicar upon his head.
“Oh, and later on, you and I are going to work on polishingsome of those social skills.”
“Shut up and let me swim.”
In a vast, dark chamber, a thin figure worked late by thelight of: magic spells drifting down from above. In a place utterly filled with books, maps, charts, and scrolls, he labored with a curt, unforgiving energy. Equation followed equation running simultaneously down slates and parchment scrolls. A tiny, crumpled booklet written on sheets of flexible metal sat before the figure as he worked. Translating the code of the tiny journal through memory, the figure worked in dedicated silence.
Trigol’s library had yielded great treasure. It was a placethat obsessively stored relics-even those it could not begin to understand. Hereamidst the shelves, pieces of the great dream had been found. Patient years of study had slowly brought reward.
His work had built itself slowly. Here, beneath the soaring scroll shelves, a vision of greatness slowly rose….
It was a magic from before the time of the great sorcerers such as Tensor, Bigby, and Otiluke, a lore millennia old and intermingled with dark skills gleaned from a dozen other worlds and other planes-the brainchild ofa single man.
This great work finally had a student to bring it to fruition, a successor worthy of the great secret buried for untold centuries here amongst the shabby scrolls.
The moment of ultimate greatness was still an elusive dream, but at last the plans and requirements were laid. The chambers of the ancient master had been discovered once again. Only a few simple tools were needed, and the last phase finally could begin.
The scholar finished the last line of the final equation upon the chart. In cold satisfaction, he laid his hands flat upon the table, staring into empty space as he held his majestic vision in his mind.
His two assistants stood waiting in the shadows. One man inclined his head toward his master and came softly forward into the light. His master turned a thin, bald head, the long strands of red hair at his shoulders catching the light of candle flames.
“The pixie?”
“Has evaded us, my lord.” The assistant inclined his head,his voice habitually held in the whisper of his trade. “Our ally will requiregreat payment for the services of his beasts. Shall I request their aid for another day?”
Arising from his desk, the master slowly folded his hands into his sleeves. One side of his face shone bright beneath the lights while the other side gleamed darker than a slice of night.
“Dismiss the demons. We need no more debts to our ally.”
“And the pixie, my lord?”
“If she is fleeing in fright, she is hardly a danger.” Themaster carefully stored his reference books away, indexing them with an unconscious, habitual skill. “The northern settlements are already as good asgone. We are secure to begin our work at last.”
A second assistant waited with his fingertips steepled. The man drifted forward, his voice scarcely louder than the slow drifting of the dust across the library shelves.
“The third weapon has been found, my lord. Blackrazor is nowin the city.”
The master closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath of ecstasy.
His first assistant raised an eyebrow and turned toward his comrade in mild surprise. “All three weapons are here?”
“All three.”
Still standing with his eyes closed, the master let the glory of it run like fire through his mind.
“All three weapons, and the great maze prepared at last.” Thelong, slow spell of an ancient sorcerer was coming to its triumph. “We shallbegin the final phase.”
Turning, the master swept open his hands and uttered the syllables of a spell. A glowing portal flashed open in the air behind him, filling the entire library with an eerie golden light.
“It has begun at last All will be as it was. We shallrecreate the triumph of the Great One, but this time, we shall exceed even the Great One’s dreams.”
The figure closed its copy of the wizard Keraptis’ journals.Its equations had been so tantalizingly close to completion yet so tragically flawed. It had taken a successor to realize the dream, to find the courage to reach out and grasp true greatness.
The master turned, and in the light of the magic portal, his face shimmered with painted shadows, one half black and one half white. He sent his acolytes through the portal, took one last glimpse at his workplace, then simply stepped through into the light.
The portal flashed and closed, leaving the library in utter darkness. Trigol dreamed onward in its restless sleep while from the north, a cold wind began to blow….
5
The lowlands of the County of Urnst yielded a rather mixedscenery. Ruined homes and castles bleached their timbers like the bones of beached whales. Here and there, tiny villages ploughed fields of winter cabbages amidst ruined forts and walls. Sheep flecked the hills with little white shapes while militia drilled clumsily between the village lanes.
The walls of Trigol City-big walls, freshly heightened with alayer of newer, cleaner stone-could now be seen from the road. Thefortifications spread squat and broad as a defense against the inevitable earthquakes.
Trudging steadily amidst it all, the Justicar gave a growl of irritation. The source of his annoyance rode upon his shoulders, leaning her elbows atop his stubbled skull.
The road had been lonely, and Escalla needed entertainment. One way or another, she would squeeze a reaction out of the accursed man. As a chosen travel companion, the Justicar had a lot to learn about the art of conversation, and Escalla considered herself to be the world’s best teacher.
Sticking happily with her newfound bodyguard, Escalla wagged her dainty wings, her fingers interlaced beneath her chin as she turned a puzzle slyly over in her mind.
“Borran?”
No answer came, and so the girl tried again.
“Britt? Breggan?”
Silence reigned. The Justicar refused to answer.
“Kevin? Kenneth? Filbert?” The girl touched the corner of herlips slyly with her tongue. “Or Hubert? You look a little like a Hubert….”
The Justicar growled. Reclining across his shoulders, Escalla played with her hair.
“Humphrey!”
“No!” The Justicar kept his head down and marched. “Shut up!”
“Isabod? Hey, is it Isabod?”
Trying to ignore her, the Justicar ate up the miles with his long stride. The faerie could feel him seething in ill temper. Riding happily on the man’s back, Cinders grinned his unchanging feral smile and listened to thefun.