Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 39

After miserable days of fighting through awful swamps and monstrous creatures, Maxim finally saw the thornbushes and razor grasses open into a normal marsh. It was still an unpleasant wilderness, but he was relieved to face a natural hazard rather than a predatory and malicious obstacle. Small wonder that no enemy had ever attempted to strike Ildakar from the direction of the swamps, although he had never envisioned that those defenses might hinder his own escape.

At least he had left the persistent Adessa far behind.

He was sore and hungry, and perspiration clung like grease to his skin. His fine garments, the stylish pantaloons and silk shirt open at the chest, had been through rough conditions. He had used his gift repeatedly to dispel the grime and freshen his clothes, but the rigors of the swamp now resisted even his powers of magic. How he longed for a pleasure party again in the grand villa!

So many centuries ago, he had given everything for the glory of his city, to protect it. He and Sovrena Thora were the heart and soul of Ildakar, but he had come to despise the wealth and obliviousness of the nobles. Endless ennui would do that to people. While sealed beneath the shroud of eternity, the society had rotted. Maxim recognized that, while Thora had merely grown blind to what was going on. It was only one of the reasons he had come to hate her.

Originally, Thora had been fresh and desirable, like his beautiful city, but like a fish left too long out in the sun, both had grown foul. Maxim had devoted much of the last century to planning how to tear down Ildakar. The people would destroy their own lives and their homes. It was so delicious!

He merely dabbled to amuse himself in the endless days, and he hadn’t known exactly how to bring his plans to fruition, until the great shroud faltered, as magic itself weakened and then abruptly changed. Ildakar had been thrust back into the normal world, stripped of its protective barrier. The wizards had been able to erect the shroud again and again, through extensive bloodworkings, but it wouldn’t last.

That taste of freedom and the outside world after fifteen long centuries had convinced Maxim to finally set the wheels in motion. Ildakar was doomed, and the revolt was inevitable. The downtrodden people needed to cling to hope and were so easily manipulated, like a cart loaded with boulders tilted downhill. Maxim simply provided the nudge, and let the slope and the weight of their oppression drive the city to its inevitable crash.

Maxim relished the thought of starting anew, creating another legendary city, a perfect society under his own terms. Once he found a new home, Maxim would be wizard commander again, without the shrewish Thora, but he hadn’t really thought it through.

As he splashed along through the mud and grasses, he plucked at his garments, releasing more of the gift to freshen the color and dispel his unwashed body odor. His once neatly trimmed goatee had grown out and the stubble on his cheeks was long and scratchy. Bugs hummed around him, thirsty for his blood, and he used more of his gift to dispel them. It was exhausting and annoying.

With no trail to follow, he kept to hummocks of grass, working his way through reeds taller than his head. He easily vanished among them. He was surprised to find a path of trampled grasses on solid ground, a trail perhaps made by swamp boars or deer, but the path widened as he walked along. The reeds were too high for him to see far ahead, but the narrow streams led to larger pools of water where fish jumped—and he found baskets tied with cords and weighted down in the water. Animal traps of some kind? He saw footprints in the mud on the path.

He paused, wondering if these were Adessa’s footprints, but he hadn’t seen the morazeth leader in days, and he was sure he had lost her. No, this was something else, maybe a real settlement with dry homes and good food.

Maxim followed the trail through the reeds until it became an actual footpath, joining other paths leading from the scattered fishing ponds. Abruptly, the reeds opened up, giving him a view of the Killraven River, a calm oxbow on which stood a village of more than fifty reed huts, some structures extending out on stilts, with smaller huts built in the marshes. He saw racks of gutted fish angled over smoky fires, and his stomach grumbled with hunger. Villagers went about their daily business. Some took canoes through the waterways, while larger boats ventured out of the calm oxbow into the river’s main current.

Seeing the settlement, Maxim felt true joy, not just at the thought of warm food, clean clothes, and a dry place to sleep. This was a real town with a fair number of people, and he needed people if he was ever going to build a new city for himself.

Maxim counted more than a hundred men, women, and even rambunctious children. Fishermen in canoes dumped their catch on wooden docks, while half-naked villagers sat on reed mats at the shore to gut the fish and cut the heads off, separating the meat and the offal into different buckets. Old women tended smoky fires to preserve the fish. Teenagers clustered together weaving reeds and marsh grasses into baskets, while groups of women pounded the reed fiber and twisted it into twine, with which they wove and strung nets. Women and men came in from foraging in the marshlands, carrying sacks of spiny seedpods or muddy tubers they’d pulled up from the soft ground. Small children lay on paddleboards in the mud near the shore, using little nets to scoop up crayfish, which they dumped into pots.

Maxim was pleased to see his new village thriving. Cleaning any last smears of mud off his face, grooming his dark hair, which had grown longer than he preferred, he walked out of the marsh. With the power of his gift, he could make these villagers think positively of him, see him as their new leader, believe every statement he made.

He’d used that power long ago to enchant Thora into becoming his lover. He’d been ready to give anything for her! He had wanted her so badly. By the Keeper’s crotch, if only he could go back and tell himself not to waste the effort. There had indeed been some good times in their relationship, maybe a hundred years out of fifteen long centuries, but the best part was that he never needed to see Thora again.

He came into view with his arms raised, and as the villagers noticed him, their casual singsong chatter dropped into silence. They stared at the stranger in wonder and fear.

Seeing that he had their attention, Maxim released his gift with a flourish and made a boom of thunder echo through the cloudless sky. Then he put on a benevolent expression as he stepped forward. “I greet you with kindness. I am Maxim, the wizard commander of Ildakar.” He waited for the name to sink in, and smiled more broadly as he released his gift, let a tingle of glamour flicker through the air, like a blanket smothering their uncertainty. “And I have even better news, because I am now your wizard commander, too! What is the name of this village?”

“Tarada,” said an old woman at her fishing nets, plucking at the twine and tightening a knot. “We are a simple folk, and we have little. If you’ve come to steal, you’ll be disappointed.”

“I’ve not come to steal,” Maxim said. “You have great potential, and that is what matters. Who is your village leader, so I can meet my second-in-command?”

A broad-shouldered man in his midforties came forward, not looking happy. He had short gray-brown hair and was missing two fingers on his left hand. “I am Danner. I resolve disputes here, but Tarada doesn’t need much more leadership than that.”

“You have more leadership now. You have a wizard commander.” Maxim released more glamour, and the people muttered, nodding, displaying uncertain smiles.

“We’ve never had a wizard commander before,” Danner said.

“Then this is a great day for your village. I’ll help you make changes. You are all my subjects, and we’ll build Tarada into something much greater than it is. You’ve never before dreamed what was within your reach, but I’ll help you make it happen.” Maxim smiled at all of them, glad that he no longer needed to hide his face with a mirror mask. These people were already in the palm of his hand.

“First I’ll need food, clothing, and a home appropriate to my station.” He gestured to the town leader, who didn’t yet understand that he no longer had any power here. “Danner, find me what I need. I’m sure the people will be happy to sort through their possessions and provide the necessary items for their wizard commander.”

He scanned the women in the town, wistful for the beautiful noble ladies at his pleasure parties. When he had left Ildakar in turmoil and fled into the wilderness, he hadn’t considered how long it would be before he had a woman in his bed again, to lay her down and stroke her, to hear her moan as she experienced the pleasure of being the wizard commander’s lover.

The women in Tarada seemed plain and washed-out, looking older than their years from eking out a life with no luxuries. He did see some young ladies still barely in their teens. Maybe if they were cleaned up, he might find them attractive, and if Tarada was going to be the start of a new rule for him, he would have to grant these people at least some small reward. If the women pleased him, he would return the favor.

Men paddled in with their canoes, curious about the stranger that the rest of the villagers gathered around. Larger boats returned from the wide river, and Maxim greeted them all. He maintained the calming veil of his gift like a mist throughout the air. The village was already his, and he merely had to finish arranging the details.

Within several days, thanks to Maxim’s efforts, Tarada entirely changed. Five of the smaller huts had been torn down, and the reeds, structural poles, and thatched roofing were used for a much larger building. It certainly wasn’t a palace—anyone in Ildakar would have laughed at the very suggestion—but it did have a certain amount of grandeur in relation to the rest of the village.

Until now, life in Tarada had mostly concentrated on gathering food, and the people had succeeded well enough, but Maxim had far greater ambition, and he had to start his new empire somewhere. Even Ildakar had humble beginnings on the shores of the Killraven River in ages past. Once he established himself in Tarada, Maxim might move on to a grander place, maybe one of the bustling towns downriver. Tarada was a fine start, though, and he was pleased with his progress.

Danner proved to be quite skilled as his second-in-command. The man knew all the villagers and resources in Tarada. Under Maxim’s glamour, he threw himself wholeheartedly into serving the new wizard commander.

Maxim chose two young women who were comely enough—one of them Danner’s own daughter—and took them as his lovers, granting them that extra glow of importance. The village girls were inexperienced and unimaginative, but pleasurable, and Maxim could train them, or even try others who might catch his attention. He didn’t want anyone in Tarada to feel left out. For the first time since he had abandoned Ildakar, Maxim saw a bright future.

Then Adessa arrived.

Over the last week, Maxim had prepared for the possibility of her coming and given the villagers instructions to sound a warning upon the approach of any strangers, but Adessa was fast.

A fisherwoman came running through the reeds, yelling at the top of her voice, “The morazeth is here! To arms!”

Moments later, Maxim emerged from his palatial reed structure to see a haughty Adessa stride into the village with her weapons drawn and a deadly gleam in her eyes. Under Maxim’s spell, an older fisherman threw himself upon her, attacking with a boat hook, but Adessa chopped the wooden staff in half, then sliced her knife across his stomach. Not even slowing her pace, she kicked the man aside as he fell clutching at the ropy entrails spilling out of his stomach. “Maxim, I am here for your head! On orders from Sovrena Thora.”

Knowing she was protected from his magic, Maxim cried out to the people, “Protect me! Stop her!” He used his glamour spell to nudge the villagers who were already wrapped around his finger.

Danner charged forward, lips drawn back in a grimace of anger and disgust. “We won’t let you harm our wizard commander!” Two more fishermen joined him.

Adessa looked at them as if they were bothersome flies. The villagers clumsily swung makeshift weapons, as Maxim had known they would. He needed them only for a diversion. They slowed Adessa for a moment, but she cut the legs out from under Danner, stabbed the two fishermen, and kept moving forward at her inexorable pace.

With a wild shriek, Danner’s young daughter bounded forward and threw a torn fishing net at Adessa, surprising her. The morazeth thrashed, tangling her short sword in the net, while other howling villagers rushed into the brief opening. The mob struck the morazeth leader with sticks. A young child darted in with gutting knife to stab her rune-marked legs. Adessa kicked him aside and into the water. More villagers crowded forward with murderous intent, but Adessa slashed herself free from the net.

Now the morazeth took the attack seriously. Whirling as if she were in an exhibition for the Ildakaran combat arena, she slew the Taradan villagers as fast as they came within reach of her sword. A few of them managed to land blows, though Adessa ignored the pain. She killed them all, leaving the marsh path and the village littered with severed limbs and decapitated heads.

Maxim dispatched more villagers to come running to his defense, well aware that the morazeth would surely defeat them all, and as the villagers died, one after another, his own tenuous glamour frayed. Terror loosened his hold on the population, and they pulled away.

Maxim knew it was time for another tactic. This small fishing village would never have served as the capital of his new empire, he realized. It was just an experiment, a way-stop on his journey, and it was time for him to use the supreme power of his gift so he could escape unscathed.

His magic would not harm Adessa, but he was clever enough to put it to other use. He used his gift on the sluggish waters of the oxbow bend, pulling upon the current.

As Adessa hacked her way through the last villagers, Maxim hurled the river water in a wide smothering flood over Tarada. The sudden wave washed away his reed palace and the numerous huts. Adessa braced herself for the crash of the wave.

At the same time, Maxim unleashed more magic, triggering a surge of heat that exploded the curtain of water into hot steam. Searing vapor roared and whistled, scouring the village. Boiling water drenched the people and structures, and swept Adessa away in the hot rush. As more of the river exploded, the entire oxbow was engulfed in impenetrable fog.

It gave Maxim the perfect cover to escape. He had already found a boat, which he would take to the main river. From there, he could get far away.