 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DargonZine | Volume 18, Number 4 |
narr looked down at the shards of milky white crystal in his hand.
Only moments before, they had been a single translucent spherical green
stone that was sensitive to the presence of magic. The gem acted like a
lodestone, and in the vicinity of the stone idol in the cave behind him,
it had resonated so strongly that it had actually given off a feeble
light of its own. Anarr, in more than a century of arcane study and
practice, had rarely seen a stone register such powerful magic.
The magus had travelled to Northern Hope, the primary settlement in
the newly-founded royal grant of Nulain, with the intent of locating the
cause of the region's remarkable ill luck, removing it, and then
returning it safely to Parris Dargon, the unscrupulous young upstart who
had contracted his services. Anarr had traced the curse to a cave near
the peak of an isolated mountain called the Mariencap, then to the
statue, but had yet to figure out what the idol was, or how to properly
ward it so that it could be safely moved and brought out of the
mountains and back to Dargon.
His first experiment had been with the lodestone. Its greenish glow
had indicated the presence of powerful magic. He'd decided that the next
step would be to use his magic to ward the lodestone from the effect of
the curse, because if he was successful, the stone would visibly prove
that the idol's malevolent power could be contained. It would also
confirm Anarr's ability to neutralize the curse.
The complex warding spell had gone well initially, but his casting
had been interrupted by a sudden wave of heat and nausea. When his
vertigo had passed, Anarr had discovered that the lodestone had cracked
and broken into a pile of milky white shards, rather than the smooth,
translucent green orb it had formerly been.
Now standing outside the cave's entrance, Anarr reflected on the
statue's power. For days, it had thwarted his every attempt at
spellcasting. Back in the village of Northern Hope, twenty leagues
distant, he'd tried to use a Daeltis hawk to scout out the area, but the
curse had confused the bird such that it flew directly into the wooden
paddle of the town mill's water wheel. It had also caused a sudden gust
of wind to blow a tree he was felling toward his pack animal, nearly
striking the beast. The previous evening, it had augmented a simple
foxfire he'd cast in the cave into a flash of light that had blinded him
for several menes.
"And now this," he muttered as he let the now-useless fragments of
the precious lodestone fall to the ground. The idol was much more
powerful than Anarr had thought, but the lodestone had been, after all,
only his first attempt to ward an object from the mysterious curse. It
might be a good idea to test something else. He could always use a small
mammal; they were plentiful and never missed, and were close enough to
human physiology to make them a good indicator of what might happen to a
man.
Still standing at the foot of the cliff outside the cave, Anarr let
his mind cast about for a nearby squirrel or chipmunk. Finding one near
at hand, he touched its mind just enough to prod it toward his position
at the cave's entrance. It wasn't until the beast slinked out of the
bushes that Anarr discovered that he'd summoned a brown rat from one of
the crevices in the rock wall. Still, it would suffice.
He put the rat into a sound sleep, then brought it into the cave,
where his lantern still burned. Forty paces from the vine-obscured
entrance there stood a large pedestal and the jet-black stone statue of
a man sitting cross-legged, a sword across his lap, screaming his pain
toward the heavens.
Anarr placed the rat on the uneven floor of the passage, scoring
the ground around it with a sharp stone, and began chanting and
gesturing. Anarr half expected the sudden rush of heat that had
accompanied his previous spell's collapse, but it never came. At the end
of half a bell, the casting was complete. Anarr released the animal from
its sleep, and it quickly scuttled down the nearest bolthole.
Anarr watched suspiciously. While he couldn't be entirely sure, it
appeared that the warding spell had been successfully cast. The next
step was much more ambitious. Rather than keeping the idol's magic out
of a very small area around a stone or an animal, ultimately Anarr would
have to focus on containing the curse within a very small area: the
statue itself. The principles were complementary, so the spell would be
similar, but would have to be an order of magnitude more powerful. Yet
the rat-casting had gone off well, so he decided to test himself against
the statue directly.
Again Anarr began tracing magical symbols on the floor and walls
around the dais. About himself he arranged six candles, each of which
contained the blood of a different animal mixed within its wax. Once
more he chanted long sequences of arcane syllables. Because he wanted
the warding to be absolutely secure, Anarr put all his skill and
puissance into the casting.
Outside the cave, the sun had passed its zenith when Anarr
completed the most demanding spell he'd performed in years. He had just
had time to catch his breath when he was lifted and blasted from his
feet by a sudden wave of intense heat and the accompanying sense of
vertigo. The blast snuffed out his lantern and blew it clear of the
cave, leaving him blind in the darkness. He could hear the impact of
large stones striking the ground outside. The warding hadn't held.
He crawled on his hands and knees back toward the light at the
cave's entrance. Once outside, he sat down on one of the stones that had
just fallen from the cliff behind him. The cliff formed one wall of the
shallow box canyon that contained the cave, a rushing mountain stream,
and what had once been a small settlement.
Frustrated, Anarr knew there was nothing else he could do at the
cave. He had no idea what to try next, and even if he did, he was
mentally and physically exhausted. However, he did have the handful of
books he had brought with him, which he'd left at his campsite in the
little settlement. He'd return thence and see if they held any clues
about the nature of the screaming warrior idol. And while he was there,
he would also look through the one surviving building: the ransacked
home where the night before he'd seen the remains of a presumed monk who
had died a few years earlier. Perhaps he would find a clue to point him
in the right direction.
The building stood just as it had when Anarr had first arrived at
the settlement a few bells before. A single standing hut, complete with
thatched roof, sat anachronistically amongst a number of ruins that
showed no sign of having been inhabited for a century or more. Yet
someone -- a monk of some sort, judging from the brief glimpse he'd
taken when he first arrived at the settlement -- had lived here until
about three years before.
Obviously, the first thing to do was to learn what he could from
the indelicate corpse that lay in the building's main room.
It wasn't that Anarr was squeamish, heavens, no! It was just a
natural discomfort with death that caused him to hesitate. For ten of
his sixteen decades, he had lived his life for one purpose: to avoid
death. He'd known even as a headstrong teen that one good way to do that
was to avoid the places where death had been. One didn't stay healthy
and strong by associating with corpses, madmen, and the diseased!
Of course, that had been ages ago, and Anarr had learned many
better ways to keep death at a distance. He'd done well, living three
men's lifetimes before that awful day when he'd been forced to
grudgingly make his peace ...
Only to wake the next day to discover the awful trick that had been
done to him. Waking from his deathbed, Anarr had inexplicably found
himself restored to his youth and vigor. He still had no idea whether
his friend Dulas was right in believing that it had been due to the
intervention of his fictitious one god. Anarr himself had spent three of
Dulas' lifetimes studying spells and incantations to keep death at bay,
yet somehow he had been duped, restored to the body of his youth. Worse
yet, Anarr had woken to find one of those morbid Stevenic nooses hung
symbolically around his neck.
In the eight years since then, Anarr had redoubled his research
efforts, both to find the explanation for what had been done to him, as
well as to preserve his precious, newly-regained youth. That was
certainly worth clutching onto, yet he was now about to violate one of
the first rules he had ever learned about self-preservation. Therefore
it was with some trepidation that Anarr crossed the threshold and passed
into the company of the dead.
Anarr laid his cloak on the floor and very quickly rolled the body,
now little more than bones tangled in some rotting clothes, onto it. He
breathed shallowly, to shield himself from the noxious vapor of death.
Then he dragged the whole distasteful bundle outside, where he could
examine it in the open air, rather than the fetid atmosphere of the
dwelling.
There wasn't much to see, thankfully. The monk's robe was torn and
stained with black patches of old blood, indicating a violent death.
Anarr also noted from the pelvis and skull that the priest had been a
man, but there was nothing else worth noting about the body or its
possessions. He dumped the unwholesome passel in the garden behind the
building, and shuddered when he thought about reclaiming his cloak. He
left it and turned back to the hut.
Freed of the penumbra of death, the building took on more of an air
of mystery to Anarr. The common room was a shambles. An otherwise
sturdy-looking table lay cock-eyed and broken in one corner. Stools were
scattered around like driftwood after a flood. A nest of hornets had
taken up residence in the rafters above the one shuttered window.
In a pantry, dried herbs hung from the rafters and a well-used
mortar and pestle stood atop a barrel of beets. Another barrel was full
of potatoes that had sprouted and then died, leaving behind an eerie
tangle of white vines.
A straw bed that was now sodden and infested with bugs took up one
end of the narrow bedroom. At the opposite end of the room, where a
window faced west, were the remains of what could only be described as a
little shrine. A stone shelf was built into the wall below the window,
and strewn about the area were objects that, to Anarr's mind, signified
religious observance.
On the floor to one side of the shelf was a small blue and black
piece of clay pottery that had once held blood of some type, judging
from the burgundy-black stain next to it on the floor. Beside that was a
colorfully-patterned cloth that would have just covered the shelf's
smooth surface. On the floor closer to Anarr was a piece of wood that
had been carved into the shape of a warrior from ancient times. Its
figure and attire seemed reminiscent of the statue in the cave, yet this
rendition had been made with a smooth, blank surface where the warrior's
face would have been. And hidden underneath the shelf, back so far that
it normally would escape notice, was a book.
Pulling the book out, Anarr flipped to the first page and struggled
to make sense of the difficult script. Looking about a little furtively,
he brought the tome outside and set it atop a basalt block to examine it
in the daylight, using the former bit of wall as if it were a lectern.
An unadorned brown leather cover encompassed several stitched
vellum signatures: a simple codex that one could obtain in any proper
city. Script filled about a third of the pages in an ornate but spidery
hand. The letters were Beinisonian, but archaic. Still, Anarr had been
educated in the south, and could decipher the substance of the writing,
albeit with some time and effort due to the knowledge that had been
robbed from him when he had been restored to his youth. The book seemed
to contain rituals for the worship of the Beinison war-god Gow, and the
last few pages had been ripped from the tome.
A realization began to come together in Anarr's mind. The
Beinisonian script, the religious paraphernalia, the warrior carving:
this was a long-isolated settlement devoted to the worship of Gow! The
thought of Beinison, of course, reminded Anarr of his old friend Kebero,
who was one of the foremost authorities on the Beinison Empire.
Anarr loped over to the packs he'd unloaded from his donkey the
night before. Among his magical books and equipment he had brought a
copy of Kebero's "History of Beinison". He found the description of
Beinison's religion and read the all-too-brief passage. It told a myth
of how the god Amante had coveted Gow's mate Alana, goddess of the
night, and taken her by trickery and force. In the ensuing
confrontation, Gow had struck Amante in the face with his sword of
flame. Amante had been stripped of his position and fated to forever
wear a mask to hide his shame and disfigurement.
Kebero went on to describe Gow's typical appearance as a powerful
warrior with a flaming sword. Yet he also observed that the Beinison had
always strictly forbidden any depiction of Gow's facial features because
they believed Amante, in his vengeance, had laid a curse on Gow.
That explained the faceless carving he had discovered in the monk's
dwelling, but Anarr was confused. Although its similarity to the carved
icon was obvious, the statue in the cave still didn't make sense. Had he
perhaps stumbled upon an ancient image that actually portrayed Gow's
visage? To find such a totem here, in the back woods of Baranur, far
away from the Beinison Empire, was almost unbelievable. Helping his
employer solve Northern Hope's curse might be a minor matter, for Anarr
would become renowned as the person who finally gave a face to Gow! His
friend Kebero would be astonished!
But the question remained: was there a way to nullify the baleful
influence the statue exerted over everything in the vicinity?
Anarr set Kebero's book aside and returned to the monograph of
Beinison ceremonies he'd found in the ill-fated monk's dwelling.
As late afternoon approached, Anarr sat cross-legged before the
statue of Gow. Before him was the small blue and black dish that he'd
found in the settlement's last standing building, and a piece of the
blood-stained robe worn by its former occupant. Anarr had made all the
preparations to perform a warding ceremony except this one that he was
about to undertake.
Anarr had spent bells deciphering the monk's book, but it had
indeed linked Amante's curse with the idol and even mentioned the kinds
of misfortunes that had befallen the unlucky settlers in Northern Hope.
Better still, it had described a ceremony that could free the statue of
Amante's curse.
However, one of the components of the ceremony was the fresh blood
of a devout priest of Gow. There was no such priest within five hundred
leagues, but without it, the warding would presumably fail. The closest
Anarr had to fresh blood was his own, however he was anything but a
religious man. In his search to prolong his life, he'd studied all the
beliefs known to man, and none had offered him any demonstrable truths,
including the worship of the Beinison pantheon. If the magic required
the blood of the faithful, his own blood would certainly not suffice.
The only follower of Gow he could find was the long-dead monk who
had lived in this settlement. However, a thought had come to Anarr: if
his own blood could provide the vitality, and the dried blood from the
monk's robe could provide any necessary faithfulness, it might fulfill
the spell's requirement. He just needed to figure out how to infuse the
one with the traits of the other. Yet that required the use of magic,
and he knew very well that the idol's curse had interfered with his
ability to work magic for days.
Still, it was the only idea left to him, so he dipped the piece of
clothing with the long-dried blood stain into the water contained in the
pottery bowl. With enough kneading and wringing, he managed to squeeze
out a very thin brown solution that hopefully would provide the needed
qualities.
Next, he took the bowl and stood before the statue of the screaming
warrior. Running his thumb along the edge of one sharp ivory tooth,
Anarr cut his finger and added several drops of his own blood to the
mixture already in the bowl.
Returning to his former seat on the floor of the cave, he made
several passes with his hands over the bowl, each time putting a little
more strength into the spell that would imbue his blood with the
presumed faith that he lacked. Detecting no aberrations in the spell or
interference from the idol, he finished his preparations.
But would it work? Unfamiliar doubts loomed in Anarr's mind like a
mountain range at night, detectable against the darkened sky only by the
absence of stars.
He got to his feet and began what he hoped would be a plausible
recreation of the ancient ceremony that would temporarily free the image
of one foreign god from the curse of another. The appeal to Gow featured
a number of chants and arcane entreaties, but was otherwise very alien
to Anarr. Unlike his own magic, the ceremony was accompanied by a
lengthy series of specific footsteps and complicated gestures that
seemed to be half language and half dance. It had taken a long time to
decipher the instructions, and they were still not very clear to him.
During the first sequence of movements, he bore a single birch
switch, which he swung and moved in certain patterns, being careful to
avoid getting tangled up in his robe as he twirled this way and that. As
he did so, the setting sun began to cast a faint orange light into the
cave, sparkling off the keen edge of the idol's silver sword.
Next came the critical point: the blood. Anarr grabbed the blue and
black vessel and approached the idol. He once more traced the idol's
razorlike tooth with his thumb, but instead of letting the resulting
blood fall on the statue's tongue, as the book had specified, he deftly
substituted the magically-enhanced blood from the bowl.
He then stepped back, picked up the birch stick, and began the
final part of the ceremony: another long series of movements of hands,
feet, and wand.
As he did, the sun behind him continued its descent. Anarr could
tell that it was close to setting, because it had turned from light
orange to a deep red, but had become more direct, streaming through the
cave's entrance such that he could clearly make out his own shadow
against the back wall of the cave.
As he watched his shadow's movements, he also saw the shadow of the
statue slowly growing, and it almost looked as if it were moving.
Suspecting that the sun wasn't solely the cause, Anarr looked behind
him, toward the cave's opening, but was unable to see anything but the
bright red sun, setting in a rosy blur of heat haze.
Returning his gaze to the back wall, Anarr saw that the gestures of
the ceremony's dance caused his shadow to make what looked like very
realistic movements. Suddenly, he realized that his shadow was enacting
its own little play! Anarr's shadow was taunting the shadow of the idol
with a short blade: the birch wand the wizard bore. He watched,
transfixed, as the shadow of Gow slowly stood and raised his sword
against the harrying shadow cast by the mage. Anarr only had a moment to
grasp that the shadow-play was mimicking the confrontation between Gow
and his rival Amante, and that his shadow represented the masked god who
had been dealt a crippling blow by the warrior-god Gow.
With a single irresistible stroke, Gow's shadow-sword came down
against the sword borne by his tormentor, Amante. The birch wand in
Anarr's hand snapped in half, and the wizard was slammed to the ground
by an invisible blow to his face. Before he passed out, Anarr thought he
saw the shadow of Gow standing triumphantly behind the black idol, whose
former grimace of pain was turned directly toward him in a victorious
smile.
When Anarr woke, the last twilight of evening was fading from the
sky. The magus glared at the idol. The ceremony was complete, even if he
hadn't understood its nature or its violent climax until the very end.
After expending so much energy, he was drained and looking forward to a
well-deserved night of rest. However, there was one final task before
him: to see whether the curse had indeed been lifted. The easiest way to
do that would be to perform a little magic.
Feeling self-indulgent after such a challenging casting, Anarr let
his mind travel over the mountainside, searching for the one beast that
would best suit his purpose. Having eaten his fill and then some, a
black bear rolled happily in a tangle of blackberry vines, his thick
hide oblivious to their thorns. In the shadow of a mountain valley, a
doe and two fawns emerged and picked their way along the
driftwood-choked edge of a small lake. Then Anarr found a laska, the
great predatory cat of the high forest, sleeping with his legs splayed
over the sides of a tree limb.
Anarr slipped cautiously into the feline mind, careful not to
trigger any of the cat's twitchy reflexes. His host was already feeling
the stirrings of hunger, and it was a simple thing to amplify this into
an insistent desire to hunt. Anarr thrilled at the sensation of power
and grace as he felt the cat drop to the ground in a single silent,
fluid leap.
The cat knew the best spots for hunting much better than Anarr, so
there was no conflict when Anarr insinuated the thought of the lake into
the cat's mind. Anarr was carried off as the laska loped effortlessly
downhill alongside a noisy mountain stream.
The laska came upon the deer as they were drinking at the lakeside,
and spent tense menes approaching them: each step more silent than a
leaf fall, yet as taut and close to explosion as a crossbow. When the
moment came, the sleek cat dismissed the fawns and chased the bounding
doe, his powerful legs allowing him to close on his prey while still
following her erratic, swerving attempts to flee. Anarr was transfixed
as the cat demonstrated for him its amazing agility, power, and grace.
The outcome was a foregone conclusion, and came far too soon for the
wizard, leaving him breathless and exhilarated. More importantly, after
the divers problems with his magic over the past few days, this lengthy
spell's success satisfied Anarr that the warding had worked. The curse
of the idol was no longer able to wreak havoc on his magic, nor the
surrounding lands, including Northern Hope.
The next morning, Anarr woke well rested, and with the memory of
the chase still vividly replaying itself in his mind. The day's goal was
to return to the village of Northern Hope. He hadn't wanted anyone with
him while he'd sought and neutralized the town's curse, but now that he
had successfully warded the statue, he would go back to Northern Hope
and return with someone to guard the statue and an animal to bear it
thence. His own donkey was already heavily burdened with his books and
magical paraphernalia, and Anarr preferred to have others perform any
strenuous manual labor. After bringing the idol into town, they could
proceed to Kenna and then downriver to Dargon, where Anarr would deliver
the statue to his employer, Parris Dargon.
However, before he could set out for Northern Hope, Anarr wanted to
perform the much more modest ritual of reinforcing the warding he had
established the night before. The dead monk's notes had been quite
explicit that the initial warding would dissipate in a matter of days
without regular renewal, but the required rite was quite simple, really.
So Anarr found himself returning to the idol's cave once more,
bearing a handful of fustian leaves. The monk had once cultivated the
bushes, but a few of the plants had gone wild and survived. The leaves
wouldn't be so large as when the monks had cultivated them, but they
should suffice.
Next he would have to capture and kill a small animal. As luck
would have it, a rat scurried across the overgrown path just as he was
walking toward the cave, and Anarr quickly snared it in a magical grasp.
The animal stopped in its tracks and looked up at him, but when the
wizard approached, it bounced carelessly away from him, completely
disregarding the magical restraint. He repeated the spell, reinforcing
it with additional strength, but again the rodent simply bounced away
again as Anarr approached.
The wizard stood in the midst of the path and swore. Had the
statue's curse overcome his warding so quickly? If so, he was fortunate
to have discovered it before something more dangerous had happened.
According to what he had read, the warding should have been effective
for a measure of days, not merely a few bells. However, this brought his
plans into question.
"Ill-begotten rat!" In the middle of the oath, a sudden revelation
came to Anarr. Before he'd warded the statue, he'd first tried warding
another rat such as this. Sure enough, when Anarr probed, he discovered
that the rat indeed bore a masterful spell of protection. Anarr had
tried to capture the very rat that he himself had made immune to magic!
"Very well, little gnaw-face. Go live your brief life, free of the
interference of meddling magi." Anarr laughed and found himself a
tree rat that was more suitable for his needs.
Finally, Anarr approached the stone idol. The ritual to be
performed was quite straightforward. Anarr reached forward and touched
one of the statue's ivory fangs with his thumb. The knife-sharp edge cut
him cleanly, and a few drops of his blood fell onto the warrior's
midnight black tongue. As he withdrew his hand, Anarr watched as the
statue slowly moved. Where once the mouth had depicted a warrior's
scream, the jaws were now agape, revealing a small opening down the
statue's gullet. Despite having expected this, Anarr remained transfixed
for a moment before recalling his prepared package: the freshly killed
tree rat, wrapped in fustian leaves. He placed the packet into the
hollow space down the statue's throat and carefully withdrew his hand.
As he backed away, the stone portraying the idol's mouth slowly returned
to the half-open grimace of pain that it had borne before.
Two days later, Anarr supervised as his new bearer Edmond packed up
the idol. His trip back to Northern Hope had been made easier by the
fact that, with the curse neutralized, Anarr was free to use all his
magic to sidestep several obstacles and hasten his pack animal along.
Of course, Anarr's previous arrival in the tiny community of
Northern Hope had already created a major commotion. His self-confident
boast to Moritan, a bartender at the local tavern, that he was seeking
the source of the curse had spread throughout the village before the
next five bells had struck.
Thus, when he returned from his expedition to the Mariencap,
everyone in the village had looked to him for any indication of whether
his mission had been successful. Although none were bold enough to
approach him directly, it was obvious to him that both skeptic and
believer alike viewed his seeking a bearer as confirmation that he'd
found something. When Anarr had first arrived, Northern Hope had been a
community that accepted its curse as the misfortune of fate, and his
presence alone had restored their hope that the curse could be lifted;
little did they know that it was already done!
Because his presence was so carefully scrutinized by the locals,
he'd had no problem getting his primary need fulfilled: someone who
didn't mind getting paid to get out of Northern Hope for a while. Anarr
had chosen Edmond for his strength, since the statue was large, heavy,
and would be awkward to move. Edmond was even enough of a ruffian to
warrant the title of "guard", although to Anarr he was little more than
an unskilled bearer.
The first thing the magus had done when they had returned to the
abandoned mountaintop settlement had been to check the wards he had
placed on the statue. After a day and a half, there seemed to be no
problems, and he repeated the brief ritual that reinforced the wards.
Then he'd turned Edmond loose on the problem of moving the idol and
attaching it to the back of their pack mule. Anarr had watched the brute
struggle with the awkward stone figure, then drop it heavily to the
stone floor. Fortunately, the statue had been undamaged, and Anarr
yielded grudgingly to Edmond's pleas for magical assistance.
When the last vestiges of dusk failed, the idol had been moved to
the mouth of the cave and placed in a heavy sailcloth haversack. When
morning came, Anarr had Edmond load the bulky burden onto the burro's
back, and they departed.
Anarr once again sped the return to Northern Hope with some minor
magical assistance. Edmond didn't even notice that fallen trees never
blocked their way, nor that they found paths that skirted the usual
swamps, thorny berry patches, and steep ravines. If the burro was aware
of Anarr's easing its burden, it selfishly kept any expressions of
gratitude to itself.
By late afternoon, they passed the first hunters' and woodcutters'
cabins on the outskirts of Northern Hope. Soon the news of their return
-- and the big, mysterious package borne by their mule -- had spread. By
the time the animal plodded into the center of town, a large crowd had
gathered to see whatever was to be seen.
More than a score of people lined the street in front of
Lord Araesto's Cat, the country tavern where Anarr had hired a room. As he
led his procession toward the inn, three men advanced from the waiting
throng, intent on speaking with him.
"Greetings, milord Anarr, and welcome on your return to
Northern Hope!" nodded the leader, clearly unsure how to properly address someone
like Anarr; magi weren't well accounted for in the protocols of
small-town politics. "I am Kael Forester, the regent of these lands," he
continued. "I wonder if I and my fellow councilmen might share a word
with you?"
Anarr studied the men briefly. Forester was tall and angular, with
long, black hair that hung straight and flat. Beside him stood a stolid
bear of a man who probably was the village smith. A little apart stood a
wiry man whose narrowed eyes caused both his brows and his nose to
wrinkle. Knowing all too well that the town's leaders might feel
threatened by his presence, Anarr fabricated a disarming smile.
"Gentlemen, I am at your service."
Kael leaned forward, obviously wishing to get his message across
without alerting the entire town. "It would be best if we could speak
privately. We would like to discuss your ... ah, expedition before rumor
sets the town in an uproar."
Anarr nodded. What the regent meant was that he wanted to hear the
story before everyone else, so that he could in turn deliver it to the
town. That was fine with the magus, for there was no way Forester or
anyone else would be able to deny him credit for finding and
neutralizing the source of the curse. At the same time, Anarr wanted to
make it clear to these petty officials that he wasn't going to be
intimidated by them. After all, they weren't even nobility! They were
mere peasants, refugees from a land their king had lost in war and
written off. So he decided to let them cool their heels a while.
"Milord Forester, I appreciate your discretion, and will place
myself at your disposal. However, I have spent the last five days
trudging back and forth through the forest and performing magics
sufficient to bind the very gods. I must see that my cargo is safely
secured, and then I am going to enjoy the best meal that this backwater
hovel can prepare. I hope that you and your councilmen will find it
convenient to seek me in my quarters here at, say, second bell of
evening?"
Squint-eyes looked put out, but Forester met Anarr's gaze and
nodded. "Indeed. Very well. Second bell."
As they retreated, Anarr swung back toward the tavern, only to
suddenly bump into another obstacle: some adolescent black-haired girl.
Anarr took a moment to register surprise upon seeing that she'd painted
her lips blue, and she took the opportunity to launch into a speech
she'd obviously expected to deliver under different conditions.
"Anarr. I need to talk to you. I need your help to lift a terrible
curse which has afflicted my family for gen--"
"Silence!" shouted Anarr, and her words were choked off, though her
mouth continued to move silently for a few moments while Anarr fumed.
Wherever he travelled, when people learned that he was a magus, nobles
and peasants alike would come out of the woodwork, asking him to cure
their petty ailments and problems. Save our crops! Heal my son! Bless my
sheep! Anarr knew that every person in the world harbored hidden demands
that would suddenly burst out in the presence of anyone with the least
suggestion of the supernatural about them.
"I am here because I choose to be here," he resumed. "I am not here
to cure your afflictions, or those of your family, or your god-forsaken
village! Nor am I bound by some silly creed to help every diseased or
misbegotten peasant who crawls up to me. I have far more important works
to do. Begone!"
With that, he rounded on his bearer. "Edmond! Bring the artifact up
to our room."
Edmond, flustered, stammered, "But ... but the room's on the second
storey! You hired me to guard the statue, not carry it everywhere you go
..."
Infuriated, Anarr spat back, "Then get one of your local buddies to
do it. Or hire someone; I already gave you two Rounds! I don't want that
thing out of your or my sight until we're safely in Dargon."
With that, he stormed into the inn, his fists clenching and
unclenching as he ascended the staircase with improbable strides that
spanned four risers at a time.
"Have you really done it?"
It was the question that thirty score souls in Northern Hope wanted
to put to Anarr. With the town's seven councilmen stacked in the small
bedroom he and Edmond had been given, it was almost time to finally give
them an answer.
"Done what, Regent Forester?"
"Lifted the curse on our town, you arroga-- uh, your grace,"
interrupted the squint-eyed councilman he'd seen earlier that day. The
regent had introduced the man as John Thomaso, the town weaver. Having
bathed and replaced his travelling clothes, a dapperly dressed Anarr
gifted Thomaso with a smile that the councilor might later swear
contained fangs.
"Yes, milords, I have." Anarr's gaze slowly traversed the candlelit
room where the town's leaders uncomfortably stood. "To put it in terms
you can understand, I went into the woods and discovered the source of
the problems that have plagued you. High on a mountain, more than a
day's journey from here, there is an abandoned settlement that for
centuries was devoted to the worship of a foreign god. Legend has it
that this god, Gow, was cursed by another powerful deity, and that curse
afflicted not only the graven image of Gow, but also all the lands
around it. It has been the source of your longstanding misfortune." The
evening breeze freshened and caused the shutters to creak, and a distant
rumble of thunder eerily punctuated his speech.
Seeing his audience appropriately rapt, he continued. "I came to
Northern Hope to find this artifact and take it away from here. I pitted
my own skill against the magic wrought by one of the most powerful gods
of Beinison, and I have put an end to your troubles."
"And how do we know that you've really done what you say? That the
curse is lifted?" jabbed the squint-eyed John Thomaso.
Anarr smiled and leaned forward from his seat on his bed and
clasped his hands, as if he were explaining something to a child. "You
don't need to believe me, Thomaso. It is done; your belief or disbelief
is of absolutely no concern to me."
"Then why did you come here? What do you hope to gain by convincing
us that you've done us some great favor?" The candlelit room was briefly
illuminated by the flash of distant lightning flaring through the cracks
in the shutters.
Anarr made a show of chuckling condescendingly. He had no intention
of revealing his employer's identity or purposes to these bucolics. "It
is you who are asking to be convinced, John Thomaso! I have no need to
convince you of anything. Neither you nor any of your people have
anything I could possibly want! Even the glory of lifting the curse is
something that will be determined by whether or not the town's fortunes
change hereafter. So I have asked nothing of you. Yet it is you who have
sought me out; have you not come here to ask something of me?"
Thomaso looked at his feet, at a loss. The regent stepped in.
"Anarr, we are just trying to understand what you have done, so that we
can stand before the people and give them the truth. Since your arrival,
your boast to rid the town of the curse has been the only thing anyone
has talked about. We simply want to know the truth."
Another, much closer lightning strike caused everyone to jump. In
the silence, Anarr stood and walked over to the loosely-wrapped object
on a side table, then whispered, "No, regent, you do not want your
people to know the truth, for the truth is more harrowing than your
imagination could devise."
With that, he whisked the blanket away to reveal the idol. The
councilmen gaped at the ancient, ink black stone, the wicked silver
blade, the baleful ruby eyes, and the knifelike ivory fangs. The silent,
agonized scream of a god, once frozen in stone, seemed loosened to
eldritch movement in the flickering candlelight, which was suddenly
shattered by the dazzling glare of another nearby stroke of lightning.
The accompanying thunder rolled and echoed off the surrounding hills
until it seemed the entire valley was filled with the growling hunger of
this long-forgotten god.
In the long silence before anyone spoke, the oncoming storm broke
on the town. Rain battered the roof of the inn and the wind drove
spatters of it through the gaps in the shutters.
Another councilman, named Carron, who had been silent up to now,
stepped in to state the obvious. "It's raining." Anarr winced at the
memory of his Daeltis hawk slamming into the water wheel of the man's
newly built gristmill. He also recalled that the town had been waiting
anxiously for the mill pond to fill up.
"Feh," grumbled Thomaso.
Yet Carron was visibly moved, and persisted. "John, you know as
well as I do that we haven't had rain in fortnights ... Nay, months! My
stream dried up a fortnight ago, and the mill pond hasn't filled more
than half. Everyone's been grumbling that it is the curse. Now it's
raining barrels full. Whatever you think, people are going to say that
Anarr has lifted the curse, and after seeing this thing," he gestured
toward the idol, "I for one am ready to admit that they may just have
the right of it!"
Anarr simply watched, for he'd made it clear that the villagers'
problems were, indeed, the villagers' problems, not his. Darvale, the
village smith, at least, had seen this, too. "Well, if that's the case,
I think an announcement -- and a celebration -- is in order!"
Forester, their leader, turned to Anarr, who provided an answer to
the unspoken question with a nod. Although his reputation would only be
proven with the passage of time, it wouldn't hurt to foster the town's
adoration a little bit.
As he looked out over the crowd of townsfolk the next day, Anarr
couldn't help but feel pleased with himself. Just days ago, their
spirits had been broken, laboring against a constant deluge of ill fate
that they couldn't explain. Today they celebrated their liberation with
newfound hope and rekindled aspirations, and every one of them knew that
he was to thank for it.
The town council had declared a general holiday to celebrate the
removal of the curse, and the bells of the meetinghouse and the town's
two chapels had first started up around the second bell after sunrise.
Roused early, Anarr had escaped the noise and attention by taking a long
solitary walk in the woods, but not before he had been cornered once
more by the woman he'd run into the night before, the blue-lipped girl
who had claimed her family was cursed.
The day before, Anarr had dismissed the woman with the barest
glance when she blurted her demands in his face, but later he'd realized
with a shock that he'd seen the harp-and-stars insignia of a bard on her
belt. A bard would be well travelled and educated in the mysteries of
the world. If this woman said her family was suffering under a curse,
she at least deserved a hearing. And it couldn't hurt to have a trained
bard enhancing his reputation with stories of the curses he had lifted!
So when she approached him in the street that morning, he'd given
her the opportunity to relate her story. She took up far too much of his
time in getting to the point, but that had given him the opportunity to
examine her in more detail. She had the vivaciousness of youth, her lips
painted the same shade as her blue eyes. Her black hair was comely, if a
little disheveled by the wind-driven rain. In the end, Anarr had warned
her that he had urgent business to attend to, and that he'd be leaving
for Kenna at midday, but that he would sit down with her to discuss the
matter again after the town's little ceremony was complete.
After that, he'd gotten away from the town and spent a couple bells
in pleasant solitary contemplation. It was good to have this time to
prepare himself for the inane crowds and attention that would follow.
He returned to Northern Hope around mid-morning. Although the rain
from the previous evening hadn't let up in the least, the majority of
the town's six hundred inhabitants were out enjoying the celebration.
Tents of all shapes and sizes had been hastily erected out of canvas,
wooden planks, burlap sacks, old woolen blankets, and any material that
had come to hand.
Many of the local craftspeople had set up small booths to sell
their wares, such as fabrics, quilts, and pottery. Anarr even saw one
man busily carving small wooden statues that bore a rough but
recognizable resemblance to the statue of Gow. No doubt his work had
been informed by one of the councilmen, and he was doing quite a brisk
trade.
There were also several booths giving out food. It being Yuli, the
seasonal dishes were strawberries and fresh peas in milk, but Anarr also
saw bread and mead being served. In deference to Ol, whose worship
decreed that pork be eaten on festival days, a pig had been slaughtered
and was roasting on a spit near the center of town.
Anarr had noticed people with fiddles, drums, recorders, and
dulcimers playing beneath a shelter, all being led by the bard, whose
name, he had learned, was Simona. Adolescents, children, and a few
oldsters danced in between the raindrops, while a pair of hounds capered
with them.
Then the town's bells had redoubled their commotion, and the
musicians had led everyone who wasn't already under the big tent toward
it.
Now Anarr surveyed the crowd from the base of a speaker's platform.
Far too big for the town's meetinghouse, people still spilled out the
edges of the tent and into the rain beyond. While the town leaders
probably made speeches every so often, the opportunity to see a real
wizard might only happen once in a lifetime, so even the housewives and
children had attended.
The musicians stopped, as did the town's bells. Anarr watched the
town's regent, Kael Forester, as he asked where certain people were.
Turning to Darvale, the town's smith and one of the councilmen, who
stood next to him, Anarr asked what they were waiting for.
"Kael is waiting so that even the bell-ringers can see you." After
a few moments, Anarr saw three youths come running down the main street.
Anarr wouldn't have been surprised if even the town's rats had come out
to see him!
Forester raised his hand for quiet, and got it from everyone except
a few infants and animals. Anarr thought he made an odd-looking ruler,
with his thin, angular features and limp black hair, but he spoke well
and with authority.
"Today is the biggest gathering that Northern Hope has seen since
we settled here three years ago." A few tentative cheers broke out, but
the majority of the audience listened quietly as the regent continued.
"And that's as it should be, because today is indeed the most important
day since the town's founding. Today we celebrate the end of the curse!"
This time the entire audience joined in the cheering, which seemed
loud enough to echo back from the surrounding hillsides.
"As you know, today is a general holiday. In honor of our
liberation, and in honor of all of you who persisted in staying here
despite setbacks and accidents, I and the council have agreed to declare
this an annual holiday of celebration and thanks." More sporadic
applause was punctuated by many nods.
"By now you have all heard rumor of the young man who came to
Northern Hope very quietly just six days ago. I hope we can make his
departure a little less quiet. Now is the time to thank him for finding
and removing the curse that has blighted our town. I give you our
deliverer: the great mage Anarr!"
 |
|
|
|
| Rate this Story 14 other readers have! |
|||
|
Loved it! Very good Good No opinion Not good Hated it! |
||
| Optional Comment: |
|||
| |||
 |
|
 |
|
 |