Khagun-Mas
I walk but the plain beneath my feet does not move. The vast arena all around me is filled shoulder to shoulder and still more audience is shoving from the back in the hopes of getting a view. I find this bizarre since all I am doing is interminably walking. The stones beneath my feet are moving as I walk, but I remain in the same place, the wind at my back. I search the faces of the audience for some recognizable sign, but there are too many masks staring back at me—all of them unfamiliar and anxious.
I am running toward the painted scene at the back of the stage. A road is painted beneath me that continues up onto the backdrop of flat mountain peaks to a glittering light flashing between the mountains—the treasure that I seek. It draws no closer, however, no matter how quickly I run.
The snakes enter. They have been waiting quietly in the wings, impatient for their part. Now, as the lights on the stage dim for their cue, they slither onto the stage, their serpent motions a tandem dance as they circle around me.
The crowd boos as the snakes’ hooded heads widen, rising up in preparation to strike me with their long, bared fangs.
Then the winged woman rolls onto the stage encased in a ball, a mesh lattice of spun water that moves of its own accord. She tumbles uncontrollably within this globe, the snakes rearing back, distracted and confused. I think for a moment that the winged woman has come to destroy the snakes with the watery globe, but it careens wildly across the wide stage and veers suddenly toward me.
“No!” I gasp. “Watch where you’re—”
Too late! The woven liquid tumbles over me, engulfing me in its mesh, and suddenly I am tumbling within the globe. The dark-haired winged woman snatches desperately at me, gripping me tightly and binding me up in her embrace. Her face is filled with panic and desperation, her grip like iron. We both revolve inside the sphere, spinning madly about the stage. The snakes do not appreciate the deviation from the scripted scene and move quickly to strike at us both.
I glance frantically about the stage. Fish jump into the air from a hole in the floor of the stage. I throw my arms around the winged woman, tossing my entire weight in the direction of the opening. The water-latticed globe veers in its course, skittering. I shift my weight again and the globe swerves once more.
The hole in the stage is much larger now, a gaping orifice waiting to swallow us both. A gust of wind blows across the stage, causing the torches on either side to flicker. The globe swerves sharply in the wind, rolling along the rim of the widening hole in a moment of hesitation—then it falls, taking us both with it.
The crowd jumps to its feet, roaring their applause as we tumble into a darkness blacker than any night—the disapproving hiss of the frustrated snakes receding above us farther and farther by the moment.
BOOK OF CAELITH BRONZE CANTICLES, TOME IX, FOLIO I, LEAF 63
“Let us gather and begin anew the great quest!” Margrave called out through the morning stillness, his voice echoing off the walls of the ruins south of their encampment. He sounded bright and alive. “The dawn is breaking, and there’s ground to be taken underfoot! The Heroes of the Lost City strike out this day for the Dwarven Road . . . To seek their doom and their glory as they follow their humble Loremaster down mysterious paths!”
Lucian groaned, managing only with the most supreme effort to push himself up from his bedroll and slump aching into a sitting position. His eyes still resolutely closed, he could manage only to croak plaintively, “Caelith, please do shut him up.”
“Gladly,” Caelith said with a deep groan. The dawn seemed to come earlier than he expected. “However, the last thing I recall is that he is now our leader; the newest chosen one to take us to this Dwarven Road—whatever that may be—and to Calsandria beyond.”
“Well, it’s your own fault.” Lucian rolled onto his side, stubbornly keeping his eyes closed as he spoke. “Keeping us all up more than half the night arguing about this Dwarven Road business and playing ‘who’s going to be the leader’ until the darkest hours of the morning.”
“Look, it was really very simple—”
“Should have been simple, you mean.” Lucien propped his head up on his elbow, eyeing Caelith resentfully. “Jorgan no longer knows the actual way, thank you very much, but insists on leading anyway. Never mind that no one else in the company cares to follow him; they would just as soon send him packing, except that now he insists on staying with us just to prove how wrong we all are. Everyone else wanted to follow you . . . But, no; you won’t lead us and don’t bother with any reasons. Not that everyone here doesn’t already know the reasons—”
“Shut up, Lucien. Let it go.”
“I’m not the one holding on.” Lucien closed his eyes, laying his head back down on his bedroll.
“Hey, we came to a compromise.” Caelith shrugged.
“Oh, yes.” Lucien nodded, his face toward the lightening sky. “We picked the one man everyone was equally loath to follow: Margrave, master of the quest.”
Caelith sat up and looked about him. A morning fog had filled the valley earlier but was now quickly burning off. Through it, a figure approached him, his shadowy outline giving Caelith a start as it reminded him of the holes in the smoke from the previous night. This figure, however, soon resolved itself into someone familiar.
“Begging your pardon, sire,” Kenth called as he approached. “That Margrave seems to have roused the camp.”
“Well, he’s in charge—”
“I took the liberty of setting a watch last night,” Kenth continued quickly, his voice low but clear. “There’s something you need to see, sire.”
“Master Kenth, I—”
“I’ll just be waiting over here for you, sire,” the old warrior replied quickly, stepping away but not so far as to fall out of Caelith’s thoughts.
Caelith craned his neck painfully around, then turned to look at his old friend. Lucian had curled back up under his thick blanket.
“Time to face the light,” Caelith grumbled as he snatched up Lucian’s blanket, tossing it at the Enlund mystic’s head. Its impact startled Lucian, his eyes flashing open. “What was that old nursery song that your mother use to sing to us in the morning?”
“Oh no, Caelith!” Lucian groaned. “Please don’t—”
“Oh, I remember now,” Caelith said as he stretched. ‘Good morning, mother mystic, the dreaming stars away! Awake and do your goodly work beneath the sunny day!’”
Lucian groaned and then rolled his eyes. “My good fellow, you should understand that your singing is not contagious but is sickening.”
“A minor difference,” Caelith agreed, standing.
“To some of us it is a vital difference,” Lucian growled, falling back sideways once more onto his bedroll, his eyes tightly shut. “Honestly, Caelith, you find the City of the Gods and suddenly you’re showing distinct signs of being motivated. It just isn’t becoming; the whole thing has the smell of something entirely too close to ambition.”
“Then ambition it is,” Caelith said, drawing in a deep breath of the chill morning air, “or at the very least resolution. Come on! Get up!”
Caelith kicked at his friend’s feet. Lucian snarled with annoyance, but when Caelith refused to stop, the tall young mystic scrambled to his feet.
“I’m up! I’m up—as well you can see. Now will you please go off with your soldier friends and annoy someone else?” Lucian sputtered. “Honestly, old boy, Calsandria isn’t going anywhere. It’s waited for you this long, I suspect it can manage to wait until after a decent breakfast!”
“Destiny waits for no man,” Margrave replied, bouncing up to them. “I’ve found a bridge over the Torin about a half-mile down the road—”
“The what?” Lucian asked.
“The Torin—you know, the river,” Margrave said easily. “It was all on the map, these names of fable and lore. This is the River Torin that runs next to the road. We’ll have to cross another to the east before we can get around Lake Evathun and head south toward the Dwarven Road. In all it looks to be about forty miles and the end of it is all uphill.”
“Uh, sire?” Kenth asked, insistence in his voice.
“If you will excuse us, Master Margrave,” Caelith said quickly. Caelith stepped after Kenth with a nod for Lucian to follow. In moments they had left the bard behind them in the swirling mists, bereft of an audience. “Now what can possibly been seen in this fog, Master Kenth?”
The craggy-faced warrior quickly fell into step beside his commander. “Sire, I took the last watch last night—not that I could sleep anyway after hearing about those ghosts in the smoke—oh, up this way, sire.”
Caelith turned, picking his way through the broken stones up the side of a gentle slope. “Go on.”
“Well, sire, I stationed myself up here, hoping for a better view round about, if you know what I mean,” Kenth continued. “The ground fog was just welling up but I managed to stay above it. It’s thick but not very deep—if you catch my meaning, sire.”
“What an odd thing.” Caelith was puzzled. As he came to the top of the knoll, he emerged from the bank of fog. He seemed to be standing atop a sea of clouds that covered the ground around him in all directions for as far as he could see, broken only by the remaining stones of the city’s ruined towers. The morning sun had not yet crested the mountain range to the east, though its rays were already illuminating its brother peaks on the western boundary of the great valley. The sky was an achingly brilliant blue. He could even make out the distant peaks of the Hrurdan Mountains, their snowy caps shining in the morning sun.
Caelith blinked. “Did I see something moving up there?”
“Aye, sire,” Kenth replied. “I did too, so I thought I might prevail on the dream for a little assistance.” The old warrior began to hum to himself an odd tune that seemed to carry two or three notes at once. He closed his eyes, and raising his hand, moved it in a circular motion in front of him. In moments, a clear oval formed following the arc of his fingers, the air compressing. In moments, the mountains in the distance appeared larger and much closer.
Lucian gasped in delight. “Really, old boy, you must teach me that one!”
Kenth smiled. “I’ve been trying to teach Master Caelith for some time, but he’s yet to get the knack of it.”
Caelith gave no reaction, but his eyes darted here and there at the magnified image before them. “I don’t see—by the gods! No!”
Before the gently wavering image of Hrurdan Peak appeared distinctly a form with massive leathery wings, a serrated spine, and a long spiked tail. Its neck was craned downward, its great head lolling from side to side as it searched the ground below it.
“A dragon on the wing,” Caelith said darkly. “And on the hunt. Could you make out which one?”
Kenth nodded. “Yes, but keep watching, sire.”
Emerging from between two intervening peaks, two more of the enormous monsters hove into view, the downbeat of their wings causing the snow beneath them to flurry up behind them.
“Three?” Lucian breathed. “How can that be?”
“Three, aye, Master Lucian.” Kenth nodded. “And they are all of them on the hunt and unmistakably together. I’m not sure of the third, sire, but those other two are Satinka and Ormakh. I can’t tell if they have their Dragon-Talkers with them.”
“But they are at war,” Lucian said, perplexed.
“Aye, but apparently not today.” Kenth collapsed the mystical viewer with a small pop back into the air from which he formed it. “Today they are hunting.”
“Hunting what?” Lucian asked.
“Us.” Caelith said, his arms crossed over his chest. “We’ve got to get to some cover before this fog burns off. Out here on this plain, it will be only a matter of time before they find us.”
“Maybe they’re looking for someone else?” Lucian asked.
“Have you seen anyone else?” Caelith countered. “I didn’t think so. Margrave says he’d like us to get moving. I suspect that is a pretty good idea. Master Kenth, gather the—”
Caelith stopped. There no longer was a company.
“Sire?” Kenth asked into the sudden silence.
Caelith shuddered. “Gather everyone together. If those dragons are looking for us, they’ll naturally come toward these ruins. We’ve got to move as far from here as possible while this fog holds.”
They turned and quietly slipped back down the hill and into the mists once more, only to meet Eryn coming up toward them from below. “What is it? Margrave says that we’re to leave right away.”
“Well, he’s in charge,” Caelith responded, his eyes cast down to the ground as he moved past her toward the shadowy form of the torusk down the road. He could barely discern the thin form of Anji coaxing the beast to kneel in the deep grass to the side of the road.
Lucian’s voice was accusing. “You really are enjoying this, aren’t you, leaving us in the hands of that idiot?”
“You heard him last night,” Caelith said, clearing his throat. “Margrave knows the way; we follow him.”
“Caelith, be reasonable,” Eryn said.
“My dear Eryn,” Lucian sniffed. “Reasonable was never one of his strong points. Say, are you quite all right?”
The shadows of the night still seemed to haunt the long, drawn lines in Eryn’s somber face. “He’s right. Let’s just pack up and get out of here. The sooner, the farther, the better.”
The fog held in the chill dawn. It blanketed them as they crossed the first river, the Torin, at a wide stone bridge just inside the ruins, then moved eastward down the remains of an old road that skirted the limits of Segathlas along its northern side. The road straightened to the east, passing into large tracts of abandoned and overgrown fields. The morning sun then broke in their faces as they made their way, swiftly burning away the protective shroud and exposing them to the harsh, clear sky. It was not entirely clear, however, for it was marred to the north by dark flecks whose scales occasionally flashed in the light of day. The dragons were now soaring over the Nharuthenia plains, many miles away yet still much closer than Caelith would have thought possible in so short a time. By noon, Margrave found the River Naraganth, its wide, slow waters cutting across the overgrown fields. The bridge here had fallen, and though the humans might have crossed on the massive stones that protruded from the deep waters, the torusk certainly could not. A fording further upstream was found and, though delayed by an hour, they had passed the last major obstacle and were moving quickly southward around the shores of Lake Evathun.
Eryn ran ahead with Caelith—who had been given long and overly involved instructions by Margrave—but she kept a profound and ashen-faced silence as they moved ahead. Margrave, now in the role of heroic leader, rode on the long-suffering torusk, spending his breath on a cascade of words, which by now Kenth and the remaining raiders had learned to ignore in all their particulars. Anji, if it were possible, was more silent than ever, trudging along at the front of the torusk, her eyes fixed in a stare at the road. It seemed as though she cared nothing for their path farther than a few steps ahead of her.
Lucian, walking beside the torusk, observed it all with a jaded eye. Every step was taking him farther from home, and he wondered just what the point of it would be after all was said and done. Searching for the City of the Gods was a fine romantic notion, to be sure, and one that was politically charged; it had become the mythology of the clans over the last few years and no other idea had so struck the fancy of the mystics as a whole. It was all nonsense, he knew, but very powerful nonsense in terms of the politics of the Circle of Six.
So he walked beside the torusk, nodding occasionally and saying a meaningless “Yes, I see” toward Margrave so that he would not have to engage the bard in any real conversation. Lucian had a lot to think about.
Eryn was right, he decided; it didn’t really matter so much if they found Calsandria so long as everyone believed they had found it. Dreams are powerful and Lucien knew how to turn power to his advantage. Caelith should have understood that, too, but now he seemed bent on actually finding this place. That was all well and good for the son of Galen, but where there is change there is profit; all one had to do was figure out how to leverage it.
Lucian glanced around behind him. Past the torusk, well behind them, he could make out Jorgan walking along beside the dwarf. What a Pir Inquisitas has in common with a dwarf, he could not fathom. He suspected it was actually the kindness of the dwarf that brought the two of them to walk together. Jorgan was probably back there licking his wounds now that Margrave—of all people—was running things. The dwarf probably just felt sorry for the bastard.
Lucian chuckled to himself. Bastard? He wondered which of Galen’s two sons was the real bastard. Jorgan, if he understood it correctly, was conceived in wedlock sanctioned by the Pir, yet their marriage was dissolved when it was discovered Galen was of the Elect. The Pir maintained that such marriages were dissolved, so that would make Jorgan the bastard. But the subsequent union between Galen and Dhalia—which resulted in Caelith’s birth—was not recognized by any kingdom or clergy known in the Five Kingdoms. So, if their marriage was illegal, didn’t that make Caelith the bastard?
Lucian considered that for a moment. The way each of them had acted over the last few weeks made up his mind for him; they were both a couple of bastards. So, where did that leave him regarding this quest that was taking him farther from his clan?
Lucian shook his head in frustration. There just had to be a way to make finding the gods pay off.
Jorgan held his pace in check—a difficult thing for him. Discipline had always been a trial for the young Inquisitas, though his calling had required discipline above all. He had come to accept this frustration as part of the price of his existence and his penance before the dragon-gods. He knew his family’s guilt and shame—the blasphemy of a father who dared defy the dragon-gods with arcane powers stolen from the church’s rightful and righteous inheritance from the ancient Rhamasian Empire. He knew that only he fully understood and felt the culpability of his father and the shame with which it stained his own soul. So he carried the blame on his own shoulders, wrapping his life in its pain and humiliation and wearing the shame openly. It was a wound he kept picking at and reopening himself—forever bleeding. In his mind it was just, for how else could he atone for his own father’s sins and free himself forever of his past? Indeed, he had come on this distasteful quest with just such hopes of freedom in mind.
His unquestioned and unquestioning faith would see him triumph.
Jorgan looked up at the mountains towering over them to the south. He could see where the deserted road on which they walked crisscrossed the face of the mountain, each twist a little higher until it turned into the cleft of a deep canyon. It would leave them exposed to danger until they got to the top. That was his road, he realized, and his life. His path was never straight or easy but always carried him a little higher than before.
Yet now as he and the dwarf lagged purposefully farther behind the itching ears of the rest of the expedition, he was impatient for some answers.
“Master dwarf,” he said at last, as they walked along the ancient and broken roadway, “where are we going?”
“To Calsandria er we go,” chuckled the dwarf. “Jorgan er listening not to old Cephas.”
“But that was not what you presented to the Inquis Requi,” Jorgan said, looking away. “It was never the plan.”
“The Inquisition, their problems er is; Cephas and Jorgan have problems of our own. The City of the Gods the home of the Dragonkings er is. Find that and your Vasska-god triumph over all else. Jorgan worries far too much—even for an Inquis Requi,” the dwarf added quickly.
“You lied to us, dwarf,” Jorgan said, fixing his gaze on the wild-haired creature whose feet shook the ground slightly as he quickly walked. “Your Calsandria turned out to be the wrong city.”
“Forgive Cephas; I knew all along,” the dwarf admitted. “But that necessary to save the mystics if a deal not forged between us.”
“You are still looking after your friends,” Jorgan said, shaking his head.
“As Inquisitas Jorgan does also, I think.” Cephas nodded. “You not wanting just to be right; you want everyone else to know you right, too. Soon your proof all shall see er is. Galen’s clans gather like rain into a river. Slowly they flow south into the Naraganth Basin. You need not fear; the Dragonkings will have their due.”
“So you have actually been to this City of the Gods?”
“Knelt at its altar as er is,” the dwarf said proudly. “Show your brother, Caelith, truth as er is.”
“He is no brother of mine,” Jorgan snapped.
The dwarf chuckled once more. “More than blood binds brothers—and binds us all. Say you Calsandria was the fountain of the ancient gods. It was the only power the Dragonkings feared in the days of Rhamas. It is the power that your own father used to nearly topple Pir rule after four hundred years of order.”
Jorgan looked up. The torusk had already traversed several of the courses and was high above them as they approached the first turn in what had suddenly become a very crooked road climbing up the mountainside.
“The power of the gods,” the dwarf whispered for Jorgan’s ears alone. “And in whose hands would it be better put to use than your own?”
Caelith was confused, frustrated, and awestruck at the same time. It was an odd combination of feelings that, coupled perhaps with their increasing altitude, left him feeling slightly disoriented.
“What is it, Caelith,” Eryn asked, her own breath labored with the climb. “What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing,” he said a little too quickly. “Really—it’s nothing.”
“I’ve known you too long for that.” Eryn shook her head. “Tell me.”
Caelith shook his head. “I never could keep a secret from you.”
“Which, as I recall, was one of the reasons you left,” she replied. “So since you’re going to tell me eventually, can’t we get right to the point?”
Caelith stopped, looking back down the canyon. She was right, of course. The fact that she could easily peer into the secrets he held was both a comfort and a dread. It had hastened his departure from her. But this was no place to begin an explanation that needed time and courage. He wondered if there would ever be such a place. The shadows were already lengthening across the long plains of the Nharuthenia. The surface of Lake Evathun shimmered in the late afternoon light far below, and the ruins of Segathlas were visible against the far shore. The dragons soared above the ruins in the distance. Occasionally, jets of flame would rain down from their throats, the sound of their impact rolling up the canyon many heartbeats after the flash of their flame. They were looking for them, hoping to dislodge them from the maze of blasted and fallen stonework. Caelith shook to think what it would be like under their terrible and constant barrage, and fortunately they had left the city. But soon enough one of them would find their tracks and there would be little time for them to find cover. They had to get up higher and off the road. Which reminded him . . .
“It’s this damn road,” Caelith said, pushing forward. “I just don’t get it.”
“What’s to get?” Eryn shrugged. “Who understands dwarves or why they do anything anyway?”
“Yes, but they always make sense in the end,” Caelith said, gesturing at the way before them. “I mean, look at it.”
“It’s a mess,” Eryn replied. “Why shouldn’t it be after four hundred years?”
Caelith shook his head. “It’s damaged, sure, but really look at it; it’s thirty feet wide. All the way from the bottom and up to here it’s thirty feet wide even when it would have made sense to narrow it by just a foot or so.”
“Maybe the dwarves like thirty feet.” Eryn sighed. “Or maybe they only brought the thirty-foot measuring stick that day. Keep moving!”
“Then there’s the low wall on either side,” he said. “Whole sections of it are missing now, but it obviously ran the entire length of the road even when there was no obvious need for a wall. Then there are these pits on both sides of the road . . .”
“I don’t see what’s confusing,” Eryn said, taking a deep breath. “The path between them is wide enough for two torusks—let alone you and me.”
“Exactly, but look at this one.” Caelith picked up his pace and dashed a few yards up the road.
Eryn shook her head in disbelief and followed him up the hill to one of the “barrel pits,” as Caelith called them—long rounded trenches cut into the surface of the road in matched pairs.
“Look,” Caelith said, gesturing along the length of road beneath them. “These are situated horizontally across the road every five feet on either side of the path. Most of the pits are just open gouges in the road but this one”—he pointed with his open hand—“has these rusted metallic fittings holding the ends of an old, weathered log. It’s a turning drum.”
He looked back down the canyon. “Try to imagine the entire length of road fitted with these massive drums. Not only that, but the mechanism on the end appeared to permit the roller to turn only one way, as though allowing something to roll higher up the road but preventing it from falling back. What was so important that they had to roll it up this road—and only one way?”
“I don’t know,” Eryn said uncomfortably. “Are you sure this is the right road?”
“That’s what Margrave says and you and I both saw it on the map. But one other thing,” Caelith said quickly as he turned to face up the canyon and pointed to a sheer cliff face rising up above a ridge. “That waterfall up there.”
“Another mystery?”
“It’s an absolute torrent,” Caelith said, shaking his head. “An entire river thundering down that cliff every second.”
“So?”
“So do you see a river in this canyon?” Caelith asked in puzzlement. “That old riverbed below us is as dry as dust. Where is the water?”
“Caelith,” Eryn replied wearily, “I don’t know, but you’re going to find out soon enough. Those falls have got to end around the other side of the ridge. Let’s just get there and decide what to do next, because, and I want to be very honest with you, so far this Dwarven Road has not been any improvement over any other road we’ve taken. I can’t see how it can possibly help us cover the almost three hundred miles to Calsandria any faster than we’re moving now. So let’s just get up there, find where the water is, and hopefully discover someplace to hide before the dragons find us.”
Caelith noticed that the rumbling from the distant city had stopped. He looked back across the plains far below.
The specks in the distance that were the dragons wheeled through the sky and then seemed to stop in midair, bobbing only slightly from time to time. Caelith knew what that meant, for he had seen it before: the dragons were flying directly toward them. They would be searching the ground as they did, but it was obvious they had found their trail.
He glanced back down the mountain. Jorgan and Cephas had finally managed to catch up with the rest of the group, Anji silently guiding the torusk in the rear. They were still about a half-hour below them on the road at their pace but, Caelith shook his head, it was not as though they could choose another way nor could he get them to move any faster.
“They’re coming, Eryn,” Caelith said urgently. “Come on; we’ve got to find somewhere we can all hide.”
The towering peaks around them were like stone daggers thrust up out of the ground, but the road stubbornly maintained its uniform structure. Caelith and Eryn followed its path, quickly rounding a turn around the jutting ridgeline and—
Caelith froze on the road. Eryn look up and stopped, slack-jawed next to him.
The road descended into a wide mountain bowl, filled with the roaring of not just one but three waterfalls dropping precipitously down from separate peaks rimming the bowl. These gathered into three wide rivers that emptied into a single, tempestuous, stone-lined lake. The road, too, ran straight down the gentle slope and directly into the churning surface. On either side of the lake were the ruins of buildings, large and glorious.
Magnificent as the ruins were, however, it was the beautifully crafted cliff face that arrested their attention. Towering columns carved into the stone reached fully fifty feet overhead, capped by an intricately engraved arch. The people and dwarves represented in the frieze between the columns remained clear as if it had been carved that same day, lustrous in the evening light with the faces of long-dead men, women, and dwarves, whose names were now lost but whose likeness lived on in the aching clarity of stone. All of these surrounded an arched gullet plunging into the heart of the mountain that was twenty feet tall and fifty feet across. The combined waters in the frothing pool surged into this gaping maw, slipping with ever increasing speed into the deep darkness beyond.
Next to the road, on the shores of the lake, Caelith saw three barges. Two were hopelessly ruined but a third appeared to be intact—its splintered platform lashed across twin hulls whose resin still glinted under the dust of centuries. It was a large, beautiful craft and, Caelith realized, just under thirty feet wide.
Caelith threw back his head and howled with laughter into the growing twilight.
“Caelith?” Eryn asked.
“A fast road indeed!” Caelith hooted. “Eryn, don’t you see? The Dwarven Road is a river!”