Relics of War

Chapter Eleven

Grondar came around the corner of the house with a hoe in his hand and Ishta at his heel. “What’s this?” he demanded.

“Are you Grondar of Lullen?” Hargal demanded in reply.

“I am,” Grondar said, stopping a few feet away and raising the hoe. “Who are you?”

“Hargal of Varag, in the service of Lord Dakkar,” Hargal replied. “The baron sent us to talk to you.”

“The baron?” He looked past Hargal’s shoulder at Garander, who nodded. “What does he want with me?”

“You reported seeing a shatra in this area, did you not?”

Again, Grondar looked at his son, but this time Garander kept his face as blank as he could. He saw Ishta, standing behind their father, look frightened, and hoped none of the baron’s representatives noticed-or if they did, that they misinterpreted her concern.

Grondar considered for a second or two, then lowered the hoe and said, “Yes, I did.”

“The baron takes an interest in potential threats to the safety of his people,” Hargal said. “A shatra would qualify, don’t you think?”

“Of course I think it’s dangerous!” Grondar replied, thumping the hoe on the ground. “That’s why I warned my neighbors. But I didn’t think the baron would concern himself with it! I’m not even sure we are his people, and not Lord Edaran’s.”

Hargal smiled an unpleasant smile. “Well, Lord Dakkar certainly thinks this is part of his own domain, and he’s sent us to investigate.”

“Very well,” Grondar said. Then he looked expectantly at the soldier.

Hargal barely hesitated before asking his first question. “You saw a shatra?”

“I did,” Grondar said firmly.

“You’re sure?”

Grondar hesitated. “Fairly certain,” he said.

From Hargal’s reaction, Garander did not think that was the answer he had expected. “Tell me about it,” the soldier said. “Where did you see it? When? What did it look like?”

Grondar looked at his son again, but then turned up a palm. He pointed to the northeast. “In the woods, over that direction, around the time of the first snowfall-maybe the end of Leafcolor?”

“Not since then?”

“No.”

“What did it look like?”

“Like a man dressed all in black, with a strange black helmet-all his clothes were strange. He had a big pack on his back, with several carved sticks tied to it.”

Hargal glanced at Sammel, who nodded. This evidently did not satisfy the soldier, who asked Grondar, “Why did you think it was a shatra?’

“Because it fit the description my lieutenant gave us back during the war perfectly!”

“But the war is long over and the Northern Empire is gone. What made you think it wasn’t just a strangely-dressed man? Perhaps someone who found some old Northern gear?”

“Because nothing human ever moved like that! It ran up a tree and then jumped from branch to branch as if it was swimming through the air, faster than any fish ever swam in water. Just the way the lieutenant said shatra moved.”

Garander saw the two magicians exchange glances. Sammel adjusted his pack, then asked, “Where did you see it, exactly?”

Grondar pointed again. “Over there. In the forest.”

“How far inside the forest?” Sammel asked, as he fished in his pack.

Grondar hesitated, and turned to the direction he had been pointing, considering the question. “Fifty or sixty yards, perhaps?”

“What were you doing that deep in the woods in the snow?”

Grondar blinked. “Gathering mushrooms,” he said.

“In the snow?” Hargal demanded. Meanwhile, Sammel had apparently found what he had been looking for; he pulled an object from his pack that Garander could only describe as a big golden egg with a handle. He began fiddling with it, squeezing the handle.

“Well, if we’d waited, they’d be buried, wouldn’t they?”

“They were good mushrooms,” Garander volunteered, before anyone could argue. “The orangey-brown ones. They’re all gone now.”

Sammel turned, the egg-thing in his hand. “You were with him?”

“Sort of. I was looking a little ways away. I told you I saw something, but I wasn’t as close as my father was.”

“Anyone else?”

Garander was careful not to look at Ishta. “No.”

Hargal asked Grondar, “Did anyone see it besides you two?”

“Not that I know of.”

Garander was pleasantly surprised to hear his father tell this outright lie-but then, he was protecting his daughter. Garander knew that however unhappy his father might be about Tesk’s presence, however displeased he might be with his children’s actions, he still loved them and wanted to keep them safe.

“Do you have any evidence?” Hargal asked. “Any way to prove the two of you didn’t just make it up?”

“No,” Grondar replied, “but why would we make anything up?”

“To keep people away, perhaps? You might have something in the woods you don’t want anyone else to find?”

Grondar looked genuinely puzzled. “Like what?”

Sammel was pointing the egg-thing at Grondar; Garander guessed it was a talisman of some sort. “You really saw a shatra, as you described?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” Grondar answered.

Sammel looked at his talisman and said, “He’s telling the truth.”

“So there really is a shatra?” Hargal asked.

“Well, there was,” Sammel replied. “That was months ago, according to these two.”

“Show us where,” Hargal ordered.

Grondar looked from Garander to Ishta, then spread both hands. “This way,” he said.

Garander and Ishta followed along as their father led the four outsiders past the barn, around the woodshed, across the north field, and into the woods. As they walked, Sammel put his golden egg-talisman back in his pack and dug out a boxlike blue thing with two handles and four shiny inset squares.

Snow still covered parts of the forest floor; the springtime sun had not penetrated to melt it as much as in more open areas. Last year’s leaves made a sodden layer beneath and between the snowy patches, providing a soft surface that gave uncomfortably beneath their feet. Still, the party of seven trudged on until they came to the tree where Tesk had set up his magical shelter. There was no sign of the cloth there, but Garander remembered the shape of the branches, and was sure his father had found the right tree.

“Here,” Grondar said, pointing. “That’s the tree it ran up.”

Hargal looked at Garander.

“This is it,” Garander said.

“You’re sure?”

Father and son nodded, and Hargal looked to the baron’s sorcerer.

Sammel raised his blue device and waved it around slowly, watching the shiny insets as he did. One of them seemed to flash, Garander thought, but it might have just been catching the sun through the branches overhead.

“There’s been sorcery here,” Sammel said. “Probably not recently, though.”

“Could it be left from the war?” the other soldier asked.

Sammel shook his head. “It’s not that old.”

“It’s consistent with Grondar’s story?” Azlia asked.

“I’d say so, yes.” The sorcerer frowned at the blue talisman. “But I think the shatra, if that’s what it was, may have come back once or twice since then. There are traces that might be from only a few sixnights back, not Leafcolor.”

Garander did not like the sound of that. He had been starting to relax, thinking that Tesk could easily avoid these people, but their magic might be enough to track the shatra down.

“If you can give me an exact time,” Azlia said, startling everyone, “I can see if it was really a shatra. It might just be some sorcerer pretending to be one, to scare people.”

Sammel turned to look at her. “How exact?”

“Within a quarter of an hour.”

Sammel snorted. “I can’t do that!”

Azlia turned to Grondar. “Can you?”

“Uh…it was the day of the first snowfall. In the morning.” He glanced at Garander. “Perhaps an hour before noon?” He turned up an empty palm. “You understand, we are farmers-we have no clocks, we live by the sun, and the clouds hid it from us that day.”

“What day was that?”

Both Grondar’s palms turned up, and he shook his head.

“The first snowfall in Varag was on the twenty-third of Leafcolor,” the soldier whose name Garander did not know volunteered. “It was probably the same here.”

“How do you remember that?” Hargal asked, startled.

“My sister was born on the twenty-fourth of Leafcolor in 4999,” the soldier said. “She celebrates her birthday with a big dinner every year, and this year I missed the feast because of the snow.”

“We can try that,” Azlia said. She set down her pack, knelt beside it, and began rummaging through it.

“What are you doing?” Garander asked, staring at her.

“The Spell of Omniscient Vision,” she replied. “Or at least, I’m seeing whether I brought the ingredients.”

“The Spell of…what? What’s that?”

She pulled out a small black box, then looked thoughtfully up at the sky. “It will allow me to see this place as it was on the morning of the twenty-third of Leafcolor. But it doesn’t work in sunlight; we’ll need to find someplace dark.” She set the box aside, then reached back in the pack and brought out a handful of strange gray cones, each one tagged with a colored ribbon that had been pinned to the base. The cones varied from the size of a baby’s thumb to the size of Shella’s spindle; Azlia selected a medium-sized one with a blue-green ribbon and set that atop the black box. “It also takes about an hour to prepare, maybe a little more, and then the vision lasts no more than a quarter-hour.” She looked up at Grondar. “Is there somewhere I can work undisturbed for an hour, where the sun cannot reach? A cave, perhaps, or a root cellar?”

“I don’t…” Grondar began.

“We have a root cellar!” Ishta volunteered excitedly.

“That should work,” the wizard said. She dropped the other cones back in her pack, and buttoned a flap over them.

Garander was torn, unsure whether to be angry with Ishta for her outburst; he was afraid of what the magicians might discover, but at the same time, a chance to actually see their magic in action was hard to resist.

Besides, who ever heard of a farm that didn’t have a root cellar? And this time of year it would of course be mostly empty, since the family and livestock had been eating its contents all winter.

“I’ll show you the way,” Grondar said resignedly.

“Will you let us watch?” Ishta asked.

Azlia looked at the girl and smiled. “If you like,” she said. “But you must promise, swear by any gods you know, not to interrupt the spell! It could do terrible damage if anything goes wrong.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Garander said. He did not admit, even to himself, that this was really just an excuse to watch the magic himself.

“And I’ll watch over all of you,” Hargal said.

“Is there room for all of you in this root cellar?” Sammel asked.

Garander had not thought about that. “How much space do you need?” he asked Azlia.

“Not much,” she said as she closed up her pack, leaving the black box and the gray cone to one side. “Room to raise both elbows on either side, and an arm’s length in front.” She looked around, still kneeling, then drew a knife from her belt. She looked at the tree where Tesk had sheltered from the snow, then used the knife to cut a glyph into the matted leaves by her left knee. Garander had no idea what the glyph meant, since he could not read much. He stared at the knife, which seemed to gleam unnaturally bright; it was clearly not an ordinary steel blade.

Grondar noticed where his son’s gaze was focused. “I think it’s silver,” he whispered.

Azlia looked up. “Yes, it’s silver,” she said. “Or silver-plated, anyway; I’m not sure pure silver would be strong enough.” She sheathed her knife, then hoisted her pack onto her shoulder. She picked up the black box and gray cone and got to her feet. “Let’s see this root cellar.”

Grondar looked around at the others, and decided nothing more need be said. He turned and led the way back to the farm.

As they walked, Garander leaned over and whispered to Ishta, “You don’t want to help them find…uh…anything, do you?” As he spoke he watched Azlia, three or four paces ahead; the wizard had already demonstrated that she had keen ears, and Garander did not want her overhearing.

Ishta looked up at him, startled. “They won’t find him if he doesn’t want them to.” Her whisper was not quite as quiet as Garander might have hoped.

“Ishta, she’s a wizard. Remember what Father said he had orders to do if he saw a shatra?”

“Send for a dragon!”

“A dragon or a wizard.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah.” She glanced at Azlia’s back. “I guess I forgot. But what could she do?”

“I don’t know, and that’s why I’m worried.”

Just then Azlia glanced back over her shoulder at them, and Garander decided not to risk further conversation.

A few minutes later they were back at the farm, where Grondar led the way down through the barn’s lower level to the root cellar. He opened the door and stood aside, letting the wizard peer in.

The room was dark and cool, the walls of rough stone and the floor of hard-packed earth. Wooden bins lined both sides, leaving a narrow path down the middle. On a shelf just inside the door stood a small lantern holding a stub of candle.

Azlia seemed more concerned with the heavy wooden ceiling than anything else; she leaned in, studying it for any signs of sunlight. Finding none, she turned to Grondar and said, “This should do.” She set her box and cone on the shelf beside the lantern, then drew the silver knife from her belt. She transferred it to her left hand and then, to Garander’s astonishment, stabbed her own right index finger, drawing a bead of blood. Then she began speaking, but her voice had changed-it had dropped almost an octave in pitch, and the tone had altered so that it barely sounded human as she recited something incomprehensible. Then she curled the fingers of her right hand into a fist except for the index, which she held out, straight and rigid.

The drop of blood burst into flame, bright and yellow. Azlia used it to light the candle stub, then curled her finger; the magical flame instantly went out.

Garander stared, and realized his mouth was hanging open. He snapped it shut, then glanced at Ishta.

Her mouth was open, too.

“She’s just showing off,” Sammel muttered behind them. “I could have lit it more quickly.”

Azlia turned. “I heard that. I’m also getting the sense of the magic in this environment.”

“I thought you said you needed darkness,” Grondar said.

“It’s really just sunlight that’s a problem,” Azlia said. “In fact, I need light to work, and the candle’s easier than a spell.”

“But you lit it with a spell!” Ishta said.

Azlia smiled at her. “Just a little one. It’s called the Finger of Flame. A proper light spell that would last long enough would be much more difficult.”

“Oh.” Ishta continued to stare as the wizard picked up the lantern and marched down the three steps into the root cellar. She took up a position in the center of the chamber, then held the lantern high as she looked around.

“This should do.” She unslung her pack and dropped it to the earthen floor, then looked back at the others. “Anyone who wants to watch, get in here. Anyone who doesn’t, go away. And close the door behind you.”

Garander and Ishta almost collided with one another as they hurried down into the cellar; behind them, Hargal moved onto the steps and closed the heavy wooden door behind himself. The chamber was plunged into near-darkness, with the lantern’s dull glow the only illumination.

Garander hesitated for a moment, wondering what he was getting himself into, trapping himself in here with a wizard and a soldier and his silly little sister. But then he remembered he was about to see a demonstration of real magic, of wizardry.

But he didn’t want to stand here for an entire hour, with Hargal right behind him. He turned and clambered into one of the bins, kicking aside a few scattered onions that still lingered in the bottom.

Ishta followed his example, climbing into a bin on the opposite side. Then both of them settled down to watch Azlia perform her spell.