Stardeep

CHAPTER EIGHT

City of Telflamm, Gates

The caravan set out from Telflamm, making good time down the Golden Way. Grasslands and cleared farmlands soon gave way to forested boughs in the north-the Forest of Lethyr.

The saddle transmitted a jolt up Raidon's spine with each step of his steed. At first tolerable, he was fast approaching the point where he supposed the regular punishment would probably kill him. Where swords, enchantments, curses, and vengeful criminals had failed, a long journey by horseback would accomplish.

Raidon wondered if contracting as a caravan guard had been the best idea. Quent, the caravan chief, explained he would gain his saddle legs soon enough. In the meantime, Raidon required all his discipline to ignore the pain.

They stayed the night beyond the walls of Phent, where Quent received several wooden crates in trade for a few stained barrels. Raidon didn't inquire what was contained in either. It wasn't his business to know, but more significantly, extinguishing the least hint of saddle-soreness from his joints required the majority of his attention.

When Raidon's hauling and lifting duties for the evening were complete, he moved some distance from the encampment to practice his forms. Soon enough, he was stepping lightly over the frosted grass, slicing the air with his moon-sheened daito, his breath a cloud of white, the jolts of the day a mere memory.

The next morning they veered off the Golden Way, taking a lesser-traveled trade route south, toward the jagged spine of the Dragonjaw Mountains. Quent boasted of a secret pass he knew that would see them straight through to the edge of the Umber River, and then back to the city of Emmech in Aglarond. Raidon nodded, but thought about his darkened forget-me-not.

They camped in a slew of rugged, bare-topped hills bordered by sharp, razor-edged peaks. As darkness descended, bone-chilling winds stole down from the Dragonjaws to race each other through the maze of surrounding hills and valleys. The temperature dropped so precipitously the horses had to be gathered in the lee of the wagons for fear they would freeze.

Raidon supposed that he trusted Quent. The man was obviously a veteran of several trips. The caravan chief led a tight crew. From the discipline he instilled in the scouts who ranged ahead, keeping eyes out for trouble, to the concern he demonstrated for the welfare of the pack horses, to the punishment he doled out to the grub cook for failing to give Raidon equal portions the previous day, it was clear Quent wasn't one to leave things to chance.

The next morning broke with an out-of-season storm. The night's screaming wind had been the harbinger of a movement of warmer air out of the west, but the scourging rain that pelted them was worse than snow. Quent thought they could get clear by heading over the pass instead of waiting the storm out. So they broke camp and rode south, up the hills toward the razor peaks, huddled on the necks of their horses or within the shelter of the three wagons. Quent found the track and they ascended through lashing winds and a downpour of rain that turned to bitter sleet. They pushed forward through a slender ravine, while above them thunder followed closely on the heels of shrouded streaks of lightning. Raidon clung to his horse, its warmth a welcome aid in conserving his own heat.

The storm fizzled out after they left behind the highest point of the pass. Quent called a halt and passed around a celebratory flask of watered wine. Raidon sipped, despite normally abstaining from such things-this was a celebration of sorts, and he wouldn't insult his employer by refusing to partake.

With half a day's light left, the caravan chief called camp. His entire crew was exhausted. And one of the three scouts had yet to return from his foray down to the edge of the Umber.

Raidon prepared a small fire only ten or so paces from the larger cook fire and, with supplies from his pack, boiled a kettle of water. He produced his precious package of loose Long Jing and brewed a fragrant kettle of tea. Raidon offered to share a cup with everyone who wished to sample it.

Quent, his black hair peppered with experience, gratefully accepted a cup. The man was worldly enough to properly thank Raidon for an excellent pour.

Quent's crew was less practiced. Hark and Sulvan, the two scouts who had returned on schedule, each accepted a cup and smiled. The wagon drivers, Ledroc, Corthandu, and Khuldam the dwarf, waved him off. They were happy sharing a flask among themselves. Raidon got a whiff from the flask; it was something harder than tea.

Three others who, like Raidon, had signed on to guard the caravan against brigands and move crates, all accepted a cup with silent nods. One was a dwarf who spent an inordinate amount of time braiding his beard. Raidon never did learn his name-the dwarf either couldn't or wouldn't speak in a tongue anyone could understand. The dwarf never strayed far from his pride and joy, a crossbow runed with faintly glowing lines.

The two brothers, Erik and Adrik Commorand, argued constantly. Raidon tried to follow their talk, but it concerned topics too esoteric for the monk's training: somatic, material, and verbal power components, mostly. The brothers were sorcerer-mercenaries. The two were Quent's concession to reports of increased Red Wizard activity in the area. The monk wondered at the brothers' abilities-either the Commorands were rank novices, or the caravan chief had deeper pockets than Raidon would have guessed. Either way, the brothers were gracious to Raidon.

In fact, everyone was friendly enough, or at least not unfriendly, except the grub cook Japhoca.

Japhoca was a blond-haired, hard-bitten tribal from the plains of Rashemen, and she disliked Raidon the moment she laid eyes on him. From the comments she'd let slip, she held his ancestry against him. Strange. He supposed the woman had tangled with the Nine Golden Swords. Those outside Shou Town didn't always know that the organization was reviled among honest Shou. But it was not his responsibility to bring the woman clarity. Her prejudice was her burden to bear, not his.

When he offered her a steaming cup, she grunted and said, "I don't treat with half-bloods." She spat and stalked off. Raidon paused a beat, then poured the cup of tea out on the ground. He hated seeing Long Jing wasted, but the cup had been poured and refused. Decorum insisted on its disposal.

His surmise concerning Japhoca's dislike had apparently been mistaken. What had she meant by half-blood? His mother's blood, of course. Something he never gave thought to. Her likeness manifested in him only faintly. His ears may have been slightly pointed, the shape of his skull was perhaps narrower than other Shou, and his bearing was straight, though no straighter than any other practitioner of Xiang Do. He thought of himself as Shou. The knowledge that others might see him as something different threatened to pull him out of his carefully constructed focus. He concentrated on rinsing out the cups and tea pot, imagining his mind a depthless pool of water. Insult, injury, and pain were as pebbles and rocks thrown into that pool-the water would absorb them all and show nothing but a placid, untroubled surface. Raidon returned his implements carefully to his pack.

A shout. Heads turned down the tree-lined path. The last scout appeared, riding hard.

His voice came harsh and panicked on the wind. "Thayan patrol! Red Wizards on the river!"

The camp exploded with hustling forms. Quent screamed for his caravan guards. The Commorand brothers and the dwarf crossbowman immediately heeded the chief's call. Raidon glanced at his pack with all its precious contents. No time to stow it-he slipped it onto his back as he joined Quent and the others.

Quent was pointing up. . two figures hung red in the air over the trees, as if standing on an invisible tower. The hard-riding scout looked up and back, terror evident on his face. The hovering Red Wizard on the right, a woman, raised a ruby-tipped wand. From its tip burst a swarm of angry red pinpoints that descended unerringly upon the scout. The scarlet points burrowed into his flesh as he screamed and convulsed.

The scout's blood-spattered, wild-eyed horse returned to camp without its rider.

Quent pulled an arrow from his quiver, drew, and released. The shaft arced high into the air. Mere feet from its target, it bounced away, as if hitting a brick wall, though one without color or shape. Undeterred, the dwarf crossbowman cranked hard on his enruned weapon. An iron bolt screamed up and buried itself in her torso. She shrieked and her stance wavered in the air. A shimmering globe briefly sparked into visibility around her then faded.

The dwarf voiced something incomprehensible, though his tone was satisfied. He selected another metal bolt and began to crank again on his crossbow's mechanism.

High above, the male Red Wizard pointed a strangely irregular blue wand. Raidon, responding to cues he couldn't articulate, dived away from the dwarf an instant before a bolt of the storm's pure fury connected wand and dwarf. The blast still lifted and threw the monk against the side of a wagon, though he absorbed the impact with a midair roll. A dark, many-legged column lingered across his vision; he blinked away the after-image and saw the smoking remains of the dwarf, charred fingers yet clutching his beloved, red-hot crossbow.

Quent was across the clearing, staggering to his feet. One Commorand brother was on the ground, his staff blown to splinters. The other, Adrik, remained upright, the grass around his feet unburned.

Raidon gained control of his breathing and dashed toward Adrik. He gasped, "Can you bring them down?"

The sorcerer nodded briskly, his hands already essaying a complicated nulling pattern, his lips shaping words whose meanings slipped across Raidon's memory without leaving a mark. Adrik finished by throwing wide his arms. A pulse of mazing, twirling energy leaped up and around the suspended wizards. The woman, her footing in thin air already questionable, dropped like a stone. The man wavered, then rapidly dipped behind the tree line. The Red Wizard hadn't fallen; he'd merely descended under cover.

"By the coin!" yelled the sorcerer, "he's still alive! If he gets away, he'll call down a full Thayan patrol!"

Raidon bolted down the path, then into the trees where he expected the wizard would find the ground. If he could surprise the man. .

Red fabric flashed ahead past intervening trunks, and a sinister chant floated on the air. The Red Wizard was casting. The Xiang monk summoned his training and became like the wind, flowing through the trees without slowing. He rushed the lone wizard like a zephyr-

A flash of green light, and the wizard was alone no more. A rubbery-skinned, olive-hued creature towered before the Thayan. The newcomer was thin, but wiry muscles sheathed its ungainly arms and legs. Its hair was thick and black, and seemed to writhe as if straining for a life of its own. From stories he'd heard and images he'd seen in books, Raidon guessed it was a troll.

The Red Wizard called out, "Devour the Shou peasant! Rip off his arms and save one as a trophy!" So much for surprise. The monk broke off his charge several yards from the troll.

Raidon shook out the sleeves of his travel-stained silk jacket. They snapped, and the troll's eyes flicked toward the distracting sound. Just long enough for Raidon to kick a nearby stone hard, launching it directly into the troll's left eye. The partial blindness distracted the creature, and Raidon vaulted up and over the troll and its too-long arms. He landed lightly in front of the wizard, the troll at his back. Better to deal with the spellcaster before all else; it was a certainty the Red Wizard was capable of other destructive spells.

A strangely luminescent scar disfigured the red-robed man's face. And he was already chanting. Raidon stepped forward and delivered a magnificent roundhouse kick. It was like hitting a stone pillar. His shin flared with pain, but despite the rocklike density of his adversary, Raidon also saw the man flinch. Something of his attack had penetrated the wizard's stony ward. He delivered a killing elbow strike to the scarred man's face. The wizard flinched again, but the ward absorbed most of the strike's lethal energy.

Ribbons of black fire streamed from the wizard's open hands. Raidon evaded, leaping sideways. His pack, an unfamiliar weight on his back, snagged on a low-hanging tree branch. The monk's trajectory skewed left, and he fell.

Raidon was already rolling to his feet when another volley of darkling fire found him.

Warmth streamed from Raidon's open mouth, from his nostrils, even from his eyes and the ends of his fingers. Numbness raced through his limbs. He tried to pull himself upright on the bole of the tree his pack had snagged, but failed.

Desolation beckoned.

Then something warm touched him on his back, high on his shoulder blades. Heat returned to his core, and tendrils of sensation stole back into his limbs as quickly as cold had numbed them. Raidon whispered, "From form to formless and from finite to infinite." It was a mantra of his temple about overcoming limits. He'd overcome a limitation, but not through his own efforts.

Accepting the gift of salvation without understanding, Raidon deflected a green-muscled claw with his forearm. The troll snarled-his left eye was bloody, but was already visibly regaining its normal hue and shape. A memory surfaced from stories he'd heard-few things could permanently hurt these hulking terrors. Raidon slipped below another claw's vicious thrust.

He couldn't be distracted! The Thayan was still the greater threat.

Raidon ducked beneath the troll's legs and charged the wizard, unsheathing his daito. The look of triumph on the Red Wizard's face crumbled, and he backpedaled. A root caught his heel, and he went over onto his back. The monk leaped forward, his knee coming down firmly on the wizard's neck.

"Yield," he instructed the scarred man.

The red-robed caster mumbled something unintelligible, then clearly stated, "You have made an understandable mistake-I am your friend, so I forgive you. Now, get up and help me to my feet." The words rang through Raidon's head like a gong, growing stronger and more reasonable the more he considered the new idea.

Then warmth touched his back once again, and the compulsion blew away like ash, leaving only powerless words, naked in their inanity.

The man's eyes narrowed as he exclaimed, "That's the second spell you've thrown off! What fell resistance guards your-urk!"

Raidon leaned, exerting slightly more pressure with his knee on the scarred man's carotid. With the blood flow to his head restricted, the man passed out heartbeats later. The monk jumped and spun, but the rush of wind signaling the troll's attack had warned Raidon too late. The troll grabbed him and raised him in the air.

Whatever guardian spirit had protected him from the Thayan's magic failed to respond when the troll beat the monk like a wet rug against a nearby tree. The initial impact nearly jarred loose Raidon's grip on the daito.

The troll raised him high once more, ready to dash him against another tree. Raidon cast away pain and bent his body forward, slicing at the brutal fingers squeezing his leg. The troll squealed and lost its hold plus a few fingers. The monk dived into a shock-absorbing roll. He grunted on impact but used the energy of the fall to propel himself several yards away from the green-skinned giant before coming out of the maneuver on his feet.

Raidon turned and assumed a thrusting stance with the sword before him. He preferred using his limbs as weapons, but the daito was Raidon's answer to the troll's enormous, clawed reach.

Its roar of challenge was the sound of a furious waterfall at snowmelt. Raidon held steady in the blaring noise, but faint nausea touched him when he noticed new fingers growing from the bloody stumps of the troll's hand, waving and reaching like worms. It was obscene, too much like watching the birth of tiny monstrosities.

Raidon charged. The troll waited, its arms apart, its mouth wide and hungry. The monk feinted left and chopped right. Off came the troll's entire right hand. The creature's lack of response to such an injurious loss was unnerving. Raidon had expected to press his attack, but the troll was already clawing at him with its remaining hand and biting at his shoulder. Its breath stank of spoiled meat.

A sparkle of green light washed across the troll. Where the light passed, the troll melted away, entirely disappearing in the span of an eye blink.

The monk's head swiveled. Had a Commorand brother tracked him down and banished the Red Wizard's guardian? No, he remained alone, save for the scarred man. Raidon shrugged. The creature, called by a spell, had probably returned whence it came. He hoped that was so. The less palatable alternative had the troll in some nether realm waiting to ambush him. Raidon decided to act as if his first surmise was true.

He studied the defeated Red Wizard. He bent and wiped the troll blood off his daito on the man's expensive garment. The Thayan was not breathing.

"Xiang forgive me," he mumbled. He'd pressed more forcibly on the man's neck with his knee than he'd intended.

Raidon sheathed his blade and quickly stripped the man of his belongings, including a tome and a jagged blue wand. Raidon blinked when he found a writ of marque authorizing raids up and down the Umber River, even unto the edges of Aglarond. The writ was signed by Ansuram of Nethentir, Warden of the Fifth Lore. Raidon shrugged. If the scarred man had survived and regained consciousness without equipment or outer clothing, he would have fled upriver toward Nethentir and probably returned with an overwhelming force.

Raidon threw the man's red robe into a ravine. He pulled off his own pack and stuffed the book and wand into it, amongst the splinters of his cedar box. He'd felt it collapse when the troll had bashed him against the tree. He reached in and pulled out his mother's forget-me-not. It was warm to the touch.

A familiar warmth. It was the same temperature as that light touch on his back when he'd thrown off the wizard's spells. He wore his pack high across his shoulders. .

Raidon's eyes widened. He clutched the forget-me-not, hard. Could it be true? Had his mother left him more than a simple remembrance? It seemed clear the amulet was suffused with a potency he didn't understand. A potency that had twice saved him.

He reverently drew the chain over his head. He gazed down on the stone as it lay on his chest, then dropped it beneath his silk jacket. Against his skin, remnants of its original warmth seeped into his body. The years of storage in a dark box were done. Raidon vowed to wear his mother's forget-me-not from that moment until he found her.

She had left him an unexplained relic, something important. Why hadn't she told him its real nature? Why leave it with him in the first place? She must have been more than she seemed. After all, what was she doing with a relic of magic?

He would find her, as she must have anticipated. Then she would explain mysteries to him whose outlines he couldn't conceive.