Chapter Eleven
Swan blinked the sleep away from her eyes. The cyclonic wave straining uselessly against a magical barrier which it could not pass loomed over her, was omnipresent. Its roaring was and had been unceasing, but now she was only dimly aware of the cacophonous howl. The noise had not awakened her even once during the night, nor did it awaken Al’An, who slept beside her still.
She looked aft along the littered deck of their all-but-ruined ship. Bodies would heal—she’d seen to that—and structures would be repaired, by means natural or otherwise. What mattered was that the Company of Mir had survived her mother’s evil magic one more time.
Swan was frightened, but not by the cyclonic wave, which would eventually dissipate, nor by her mother’s power. This latter was dangerous beyond imagining; yet it was something she had long since ceased to fear. Fearing her mother’s magic would have been an exercise in futility. Eran’s evil was like a force of nature, always there, inevitable, waiting to strike. Rather, Swan respected its awesome capabilities and rationally chose to resist its tyranny.
What filled an inexorably expanding segment of Swan’s consciousness with unreasoning dread was her own magical power.
Her magic was becoming stronger, draining from her less quickly, replenishing itself more rapidly. Swan didn’t know why. Her wind summoning had amazed her, curiously terrified and intrigued her. She had enjoyed it for itself, beyond its being a necessity by means of which she might save all of their lives.
Like an angry beast at the end of some unbreakable tether, the towering cyclonic wave continued to threaten, glared back defiantly under her gaze. Yet it was unable to trespass within the aura of the summer palace, because evil magic was its very substance.
When she had first met Al’An, he might well have contended that there had to be some explanation other than magic for the wave, or for the creatures they’d battled on Arba’Il’Tac; after enduring all that had befallen them, she knew that he believed. Accepting the reality of that which was indisputably obvious was never a test of faith, of course, and magic was reality in Creath. Yet she was pleased that Al’An accepted this reality. In Al’An’s realm, although magic surely existed, evidently its presence was not readily apparent to the untrained observer.
If, somehow, the cyclonic wave had been a naturally occurring anomaly, rather than the manifestation of evil magic, its strength would have rapidly depleted upon entering the aura, the phenomenon soon vanquished by the power of good magic. But the wave would have intercepted them just inside the aura, while there was yet strength enough remaining in it to destroy their little armada. The aura might have saved them from death, but Swan could not be certain.
Wrapped in two blankets and a borrowed greatcape, Swan and Al’An had huddled the night together against the stump of their ship’s broken mast. Carefully, lest she awaken Al’An, Swan sat up, stood up.
Before taking her own rest, Swan had seen to the wounds of the Company of Mir, resisting the impulse of her woman’s heart to first take away the pain of Al’An’s broken wrist. There had been others more seriously injured, more needful of her magic. The energy necessary for her to magically transport herself to each of the other four ships in turn had drained her, almost more than she could bear. Unnatural magic was always the most fatiguing. Accelerating the healing of wounds, on the other hand, required virtually no magical energy at all.
A night’s sleep at anchor within the summer palace’s aura recharged her, however. Swan felt the magical energy coursing through her, strong and nearly full.
She never dreamed in the way that mortals dreamed. Her sleep was a perfect rest, especially within the aura. And, between exhaustion and having Al’An beside her, the sleep she’d taken could not have been deeper. Nor could any rest have better prepared her for what lay ahead: the attempt once again to cross Woroc’Il’Lod, then march on Barad’Il’Koth.
Swan was still attired in tatters, the greatcape clutched close about her for the dual purposes of modesty and warmth. She approached the portside rail. The two ships anchored some distance off the bow had raised no distress flags. As agreed upon, they would do so should any of the injured require additional magical attention.
The company of her little ship, save for a single warrior on watch at the stern, slept against the rails, in the oarsmen’s wells, wherever they could. She had spellcast over all aboard the five ships that their sleep should be peaceful and long. As silently as she could, lest she unnecessarily rouse any of the exhausted, Swan approached the starboard rail, ascertaining that no flags summoning her had been raised aboard either of the other two ships anchored nearby.
There was much to do and little time in which to do it.
Although the wave still taunted them, lurked in wait for them, it would eventually disappear. Sustaining the cyclonic wave required an enormous expenditure of magical energy. Even if the Handmaidens had assisted their Queen Sorceress in its creation, had formed their great circle six by six, only the Queen Sorceress herself could be maintaining the cyclonic wave for this long a time. In any case, when the cyclonic wave finally vanished, her mother’s magical energy would be dangerously low, urgently require renewal.
Swan, too, had used precious energy, but not as much as she would have used had she attempted to dispel the cyclonic wave rather than outdistance it. And within the summer palace’s aura, magical energy returned extremely quickly, even under normal circumstances. Her mother, Eran, did not have that advantage.
By the time that the cyclonic wave vanished, what Al’An called “Swan’s Armada” would have to be fully ready to set sail for Edge Land, and at best speed.
If she was the Company of Mir’s leader, the Virgin Enchantress, Daughter Royal, Princess of Creath, she’d have to see to it that she looked her part. Glancing toward the stern rail and reassuring herself that the warrior on watch was not looking her way, Swan shrugged out of the borrowed greatcape. She was nearly naked beneath it, her dress torn in places no maiden’s dress should ever be torn.
Swan raised her hands, fingers level with the crown of her head, then envisioned the style of hair and raiment she desired. Drawing her fingers down slowly along her body, her hair arranged itself, her tatters vanished, replaced by attire nearly identical to what she had worn before the storm. Her new dress was deep maroon, rather than the dark green color which coordinated with the shawl made for her by Bin’Ah’s wife; the shawl had blown overboard and was lost.
Again, Swan raised her fingers to the crown of her head, then drew them downward, and a black, fur-ruffed hooded greatcape spell-woven to protect her against the cold emerged. Swirling its skirt close about her, Swan tossed back its hood.
Theirs was the most severely battered of the five ships, and logically so. From this ship, she had controlled the wind and this ship had felt the greatest rush of its power. And this had been the rearmost of the five because it had been ahead of the other four prior to having to come about. Although the other vessels had sustained damage, it was minor. Hence, her own vessel—Al’An called it the Armada’s “flagship”—would require the most rebuilding. There was little that Swan could do about repairing the ship immediately, however. Even by magical means, there would be a great deal of noise.
So she set about the ship doing little things: water-logged charts were restored, food and drinking water supplies were replenished, the processes of rust and corrosion attacking the metalwork of swords and spears were reversed, and such tasks were seen to.
While she was searching her memory for a spell which could produce wood to be used for deck planking, Erg’Ran came to stand beside her. He seemed at once physically rested, but on edge. “You realize that your magic grows more powerful each time that you must rise to meet the dangers your mother thrusts upon us.”
“I have been thinking about that, yes. Do you know why, Erg’Ran?”
“All that I can say, Enchantress, is that I had anticipated it, with great expectation and great dread.”
“You fear that I will become more and more like my mother as my magic becomes stronger and stronger.”
“Yes, Enchantress. We need your magic if we are to win against her. Yet I cannot help but ask myself at what cost to you, to Creath’s future, do we attempt to win? Do you understand?”
“I understand that you love me very much, and always have been concerned for my welfare, ever since you brought me to the summer palace for the very first time.”
Erg’Ran set his weathered face, cleared his throat, then laughed. “How else should an uncle treat his niece, but with kindness and care to her well-being, Enchantress?”
They stood in the bow pulpit, and Swan sank against the rail. “You are—” So many things were suddenly confused, so many things clear as well, things which she had never understood. “That is why my mother hates you so? More than organizing the last of the K’Ur’Mir to resist her. More than getting them to use their magical energy to create the aura surrounding the summer palace. And even more than whisking me away from her before I reached womanhood! You are her brother, Erg’Ran?”
“Yes, Enchantress. I am her brother.”
Swan threw her arms about her old friend’s neck, pressed her cheek against his chest. “I love you, dear uncle!”
Erg’Ran laughed. “I never doubted that, Enchantress.”
Swan pushed back from his chest, kissed him quickly and lightly on the lips. “To you, I should not be the Enchantress!”
“To me, dear one, you will always be the Enchantress,” Erg’Ran confessed.
“How... what—How did—?”
Erg’Ran smiled down at her benignly. “And why did I choose this very moment to tell you? Is that another question for which you wish an answer, Enchantress?”
“Yes, Erg’Ran—uncle.” She noticed his searching the pockets of his robe for flint and steel. Swan did not want him to be distracted, so she lit his pipe for him. Something dawned on her which she had never before considered. She asked, “Why is it that you will use magic not at all to aid yourself? You could light your own pipe with magic any time that you wished.”
“That’s part of the answer to the questions you’ve already asked of me, Enchantress.” He puffed busily on his pipe for a short time, then looked at her across its bowl, smoke curling from his lips and nostrils, dragonlike. “I was a young man,” Erg’Ran began, “son of the Queen Sorceress, brother to the Daughter Royal. Your grandfather, our father and my mother’s husband, was the most respected man in all of Creath, for his mind and for his sword. Only man that I’ve ever seen as good as, perhaps better with a blade than our Gar’Ath.
“Creath was a happy place, then, Enchantress, and, like most young men, I was very full of myself. In those days, there was nothing really to do. Periodically, the Gle’Ur’Gya, who would raid coastal shipping whenever given the opportunity, would find themselves with a young chieftain who had conquest in his blood. And he’d come inland with his band. I longed for such times, so that I could have adventure, test my skill with a sword, feel the blood in my veins. My father and my mother preached to me that while it was every man’s duty to be proficient at arms, it was also everyone’s duty—female or male—to study the ancient prophecies, to learn all that could be learned of history. Even as a male, I was encouraged to study the use of magic. Some K’Ur’Mir men, in those days, Enchantress, could give a K’Ur’Mir female a good challenge in magic.”
“I’d heard of such things,” Swan told him.
“But, of course, the woman would always prevail, because magic is natural to the female. At any event, Enchantress, my father was most noted for his studies of the dark times before the coming of Mir. Much against my desires, I was persuaded by my parents to accompany my father on an expedition to what was suspected of being the site of one of the ancient cities. I consoled myself with the thought that such a trek might bring me a little of the excitement which I craved.
“And that, Enchantress, is how it all began, with that fateful expedition.”
“How what began, Erg’Ran?” Swan inquired earnestly.
“Your mother’s turning to the blackest of magic and the near-total destruction of the K’Ur’Mir.” His pipe was going out and she not only relit it, but restuffed it magically. “Oh! Thank you, Enchantress.” Erg’Ran leaned heavily against the pulpit rail, staring toward the summer palace, which was far too many lancethrows away to be seen, except with the second-sight. He turned away from the unblemished surface of the sea and toward the cyclonic wave. “It was during that expedition that your mother first began to learn the arts which led to that! And,” Erg’Ran tapped at his wooden peg, “this and all of the dark times which followed and will follow until she is destroyed utterly.”
“Sit, uncle. Please?”
Swan dropped down to the second from the top step leading to the bow pulpit, gathering her skirts close around her legs. Erg’Ran—Swan knew that he would not want her to help, because of his pride—managed to seat himself on the top step. Swan gazed up at him, watching the smoke rising from his pipe, only to be swept away in the morning breeze. “Eran had already asked our father if she could come along. He was pleased that she wished to do so, worrying more gravely and more frequently than he would admit that she was obsessed with her study of magic. And, because both of her children were going, our mother decided to come, too. Of course,” Erg’Ran chuckled, “mother and father were wildly in love, despite how long they’d been married as much taken with each other as young lovers sharing a first kiss.”
That was a wonderful thought, a wonderful image that Swan wished that she had in her memories, her grandparents in each other’s arms, deeply in love.
“So, Enchantress, we all set out with a retinue of assistants and a squad of palace guard, from the summer palace. Your grandparents, by the way, loved it there. Even before the aura was lain in place by the dying K’Ur’Mir, it had been a wondrous place to behold.”
“Is that why you chose it, Erg’Ran? Is that why the summer palace was picked out of all of Creath?”
“Selfish of me, I know, Enchantress.”
“No. It was sweet,” Swan told him honestly. “It was very sweet. So tell me what happened next.”
“Well, we set out, as I said, and we traveled overland for a great many lancethrows, eventually reaching Edge Land. My father, you see, always interviewed travelers who’d come from distant parts of Creath, always assembled every fact that he could concerning his studies. He’d come to the conclusion that one of the oldest cities on Creath, dating almost from the mists of time, was located there. Also that there had been a great civilization which had arisen there, only to be destroyed by some natural cataclysm. Over the years, he’d collected relics perhaps attributable to it.
“It was one of these relics, in fact, which had secretly ignited my sister’s passion to accompany him in the search. She had her own agenda, Eran did, to which none of us was privy.”
“There was something in that old city which would enhance her magical abilities?”
“Exactly, Enchantress.” Erg’Ran drew heavily on his pipe, exhaled as he went on, saying, “Our mother, your grandmother, second-sighted for us, projecting it through birds and other creatures in an attempt to locate what still-standing ruins or even blemishes on the ground there might remain.
“Edge Land was a harsh place, even in those gentler days, and the journey took its toll on us all. After some rather harrowing experiences—sandstorms, ice storms, an attack by witches—”
Swan interrupted. “Witches!” Incredulous, she repeated the word. “Witches? In those days.”
“It was a happy world, but never perfect. There was a tribe of witches, warriors also, which had been rumored to have survived since before the coming of Mir.” Erg’Ran s face looked suddenly odd, as if he were somehow embarrassed. “They were a female only society,” he said. “At any event, at last your grandmother’s second-sight—”
“Tell me about this tribe of witches, first.”
“You wouldn’t really want to hear about them, Enchantress.”
“Must I command that you tell me, Erg’Ran?” Swan felt awkward even saying it. “Please,” she added after an eye blink’s pause.
Erg’Ran shrugged his still powerful shoulders. “I suppose you’d have to hear about them anyway, Enchantress. Very well then. The witches were female only. Some of your mother’s less pleasant tendencies when it comes to the men in her life may have something to do with their influence.”
“She associated with them?”
“That was to be, yes. The witches needed males, of course, for the obvious reason of procreation. They would waylay travelers, slaughter the females and kidnap the males to be used—you get the idea. Most of the male prisoners were killed, of course, after it was certain that fertilization had taken place. A witch can tell immediately, of course, if she’s with child. Some of the males—the less lucky ones, by my reckoning—were gelded and kept as slaves. The witches didn’t treat their slaves well, and when these wretches would fall ill or show the first signs of age, they were put to death. There were stories—never substantiated—that the witches ate human flesh. I don’t believe those stories, although there is truth to the tales that they would consume the hearts of those who died bravely.”
“How is it that I have never heard of this tribe?” Swan wanted to know.
“I never thought it decent to tell you, Enchantress,” Erg’Ran smiled, albeit a little awkwardly. “Now, Enchantress, I pray that I might be permitted to continue.”
“Of course,” Swan conceded, but there were more questions about the witches, more answers that he must know and she would pry from his memory.
“At last, as I said, our mother’s second-sight prevailed and we were able to locate on a plain not far from the very tip of Edge Land what appeared to be the site of a long forgotten city. From the subtle indicators along the ground, it had been very large. There were a few monoliths standing, on one of them a few lines of runes faintly discernible, apparently in the Old Tongue, or something earlier. Your grandfather was very excited; for the very first time, I saw what had always so fascinated him with learning. It was exciting! Of course, I wasn’t about to mention that, young as I was. But I think that he realized my interest, because he made certain that I accompanied him throughout the examination of the area.”
“And what did you find, Erg’Ran?”
Erg’Ran cocked his eyebrow as he exhaled. “More than we’d bargained for, Enchantress.”
His story-telling techniques perennially irritated her, Erg’Ran’s flare for the dramatic always interfering with his narrative flow. But Swan endured it as well as she always had.
“So, with my mother’s help and some considerable help from your mother, my sister, the few lines from the early dialect of the Old Tongue found on that monolith were translated. It appeared that we might have found the legendary Barad’Il’Koth—”
Swan gasped.
“—as, indeed, time has proven that we had. Several things happened almost at once. A messenger, who had taken up after us once it was no longer possible to send messages by arrow shot, brought word that a fearsome Gle’Ur’Gya chieftain whom I later learned was named Ag’Riig had decided to raid inland. My father was our greatest warrior, and duty called. I prevailed upon him that I might accompany him. Practicality dictated that three men—he, the messenger and myself—stood a better chance should we encounter the witches again. Your grandmother ordered that your grandfather and I should depart and the squad of guards from the palace would remain behind.”
“And?”
Erg’Ran smiled. “We were off on another adventure, your grandfather and I. We managed to avoid the witches, thanks in large part to a spellcasting my mother made. To reach the shoreline where Ag’Riig’s vessel would be awaiting his return, the shortest route was through the great wood which we had meticulously avoided on the journey to Edge Land, avoided at the cost of several days’ travel.”
Somehow, Swan knew what Erg’Ran was going to say. It was no magic, just an unpleasant guess. “When it was too late to turn back, we encountered the tree demons.”
“Ugh!” A shiver of disgust ran along Swan’s spine. “Don’t tell me the details. Please!”
“I hadn’t planned to, Enchantress. Suffice it to say, your grandfather and I were both injured, and our companion, the messenger, was lost. We escaped the wood with our lives, racing toward the Woroc’Il’Lod coast to rendezvous with our warriors and confront the Gle’Ur’Gya chieftain.
“But, meanwhile,” Erg’Ran went on, “something far more important was about to transpire on the plain where my mother and sister had remained behind.
“Unbeknownst to us all, the artifact which Eran had discovered within my father’s collection was the key which would allow her to unlock the secrets of the old magic from the days when Barad’Il’Koth was the center of power on Creath. She was about to take that power into her hands.”
Erg’Ran stood up with some difficulty. Swan watched him as he paced about, his peg tapping rhythmically on the deck planking. She shifted position, perching now on the edge of the step, knees nearly to her chin, feet drawn under her, lost beneath her skirts. “Barad’Il’Koth ceased to exist as a city a very long time before the coming of Mir. What befell its inhabitants is still unknown. It is as if they vanished from the face of Creath. Perhaps some few remained behind and it was their legacy which Eran discovered. But whatever befell the evil ones of Barad’Il’Koth, a cache of tablets graven in stone was left behind. This legacy became our woe, yours and mine and all of Creath’s.
“The tablets,” Erg’Ran went on, “were the means by which Eran learned to heighten her magical powers to a degree unknown in Creath since ages before the coming of Mir, magic more evil than that which Mir himself dispelled.”
“Didn’t your mother try to stop her?”
Erg’Ran’s voice caught, and she thought she spied a tear in his eye as he turned quickly away from her.
“Eran killed my mother.”
Swan lowered her face into her hands...
Alan Garrison awoke. He was cold, and his right wrist felt stiff. He raised his right arm from beneath the blankets and rolled back the knit cuff of his bomber jacket. His wrist had been broken, a compound fracture, bone sticking through his skin. There was no evidence of that now.
But what had transpired was not a dream. Looking aft along the deck, the sight of the cyclonic wave was an undeniable reality. It waited for them to venture out from the aura of the summer palace, waited to kill them. Since his right hand seemed to work perfectly, Garrison raised its middle finger and jerked it toward the wave. Somehow, he hoped, Swan’s mother would be able to see it, know the meaning of the gesture, appreciate fully the words which would normally accompany it, were she only near enough to hear them.
His guns lay beside him on the deck, as did his knives. Swan had been busy. The guns were in seemingly perfect condition, despite being doused in seawater. Garrison pushed the button on one of the knives and the blade sprang out reassuringly. He closed the knife.
Since he seemed to be in one piece, he tried standing up. Aside from a little stiffness, the maneuver was completely successful. His pants were ripped along the right leg from the cuff halfway up the right thigh. Matter of factly, Garrison assumed that Swan would use her magic to fix the tear when she got around to it.
Garrison stretched, and turned to look toward the forward section of their little ship. He immediately started walking toward the bow pulpit, where Swan sat, face in her hands, Erg’Ran standing nearby.
Most of the ship’s company were still asleep, so Garrison didn’t call to Swan until he was nearly beside Erg’Ran. “What’s wrong, Swan?”
Erg’Ran answered. “I just informed my niece that her mother murdered her grandmother.”
Garrison just looked at the older man’s face for a moment. “I came in late, remember?” Garrison looked at Swan, then dropped to his knees before her, raising her face in his hands. Her eyes brimmed over with tears.
Throughout the morning and the afternoon, Swan busied herself about their five ships, using her magic to speed the healing of the injured, facilitate repairs to the ships themselves and the attendant gear of the ships’ companies, generally avoiding any sort of prolonged contact with Alan Garrison or her newly discovered uncle, Erg’Ran.
Food magically appeared at midday, but Garrison wasn’t hungry, worried instead about Swan.
The most time Garrison spent with her was when she used her magic to see to his sartorial needs. “I’ll make new clothes for you, but of the style you are used to.” Swan led him forward along the deck. “You’ll be naked for an eye blink as the new clothes replace the old.” She placed her hands at the top of his head, then gradually drew them down along the length of his body.
Garrison’s hair actually felt as clean as if he’d just washed it when her hands passed through it, magically combed as well. “This is nuts,” he told her, but she only smiled. At least, he thought, he’d gotten her to shed her frown for a moment. There was a tingling feeling where his stubble had been growing, and in the next instant, his face felt clean shaven.
Her hands stopped moving as she asked, “Do you want your new clothes to be the same color as before?”
“Yes, please.”
Swan’s hands continued their motion along the length of his body, only very rapidly, the old T-shirt vanishing, replaced with a new one in the blink of an eye. She actually blushed a little and averted her eyes when her hands passed below his belt, but he never even felt a draft. Somehow, she was not only replacing old clothes with new, but cleaning his body as well.
Under different circumstances, what Swan was doing would have felt terribly erotic. At the moment, it was insanely frustrating.
The new boots felt good, and their leather positively gleamed.
“There.” Swan turned away and left.
Garrison called after her with a superfluous, “Thanks,” but she didn’t turn around.
By late afternoon, Garrison took a break from helping Gar’Ath with rigging the new sail and took Erg’Ran aside, up to the bow pulpit. “What gives?” Garrison sat on the same step where Swan had sat that morning.
Erg’Ran seemed to ponder the question, then a moment later answered, “I suppose that I should tell you, Champion. She had to know. And, because of who you are, you should know as well.”
“So, tell me.”
And Erg’Ran did. Garrison had given up on the use of his wristwatch as anything other than an item of jewelry on Creath because of the way time seemed to move at differing speeds without any rhyme or reason. After what Garrison mentally gauged as an hour, Erg’Ran concluded by saying, “That is what I told the Enchantress, Champion.” As Garrison was about to ask for the rest of the story, Swan joined them. “I saw the two of you speaking with one another.”
“And?” Garrison inquired, looking up at her.
Swan shook her head resolutely. “I’m sorry that I have been so much to myself. I just, uh—” Swan began to cry, heavy sobs from deep within her racking her body with tremors.
Garrison stood, swept her into his arms and just held her.
Gar’Ath cried out from the stern rail, “It’s vanishing, breaking up! The wave is disappearing!”
Swan looked up. Garrison handed her his handkerchief, fresh like the clothes he wore and owing to the same magical manufacture.
Swabbing at her eyes, his arm still around her, Swan moved toward the rail.
Garrison was afraid to blink. Because, obviously, he’d never witnessed anything like this, he had no idea if there would be some enormous puff of smoke or what would happen.
The air around the cyclonic wave seemed to bend, ripple, twist, contort with an energy that was, somehow, more powerful than the wave itself.
The trough was shrinking, the wave expanding and contracting, as if it were breathing.
For an instant, the cyclonic wave grew, as if racing to obliterate all view of the horizon. Garrison had to blink. The cyclonic wave imploded, shrinking to nothing, vanishing into the contorted air surrounding it.
And the sea was calm, as if the cyclonic wave had never been.
A cheer rose up from their own ship and from the other four. Swan threw her arms around Garrison’s neck and Garrison kissed her forehead.
“I love you,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure if she’d heard him, as the cheering grew louder and louder by the second. But then he knew that she had. Swan turned her face up to his and—she had to be standing on her toes, he thought, or levitating herself with her magic—whispered into his ear, “I love you, Al’An.”
“The heck with this cheering thing,” Garrison whispered back. He had better things to do with his mouth. He kissed her and kept on kissing her.
The cheers kept up, grew louder still. After a while, Garrison realized that the cheers were no longer because of the disappearance of the cyclonic wave. The cheers were for the Enchantress and her Champion. When he stopped kissing her, Swan laughed and shouted to him, “Kiss me again, Al’An! Kiss me again!”
He did...
It was late that evening, after a hearty supper, that things were once again calm. In the morning, at dawn, they would set sail again for Edge Land, and Swan had promised them “a fine wind to carry us.” Garrison could imagine from whose hands that wind would originate.
Swan brought cups of wine for Garrison and Erg’Ran. Once again, they sat on the steps leading to the bow pulpit. Globes of blue-white magical light swayed almost imperceptibly in harmony with the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull of their ship, similar arrays of light visible on the other four vessels of the armada.
The sky was particularly beautiful, Garrison observed. The sun was not yet gone from the horizon, both moons in ascendancy. For the first time since coming to Creath, Alan Garrison noticed that the two moons were apparently identical in size. There was probably a story about them. There seemed to be a story about everything in Creath, and the moons were likely not the exception.
But Alan Garrison was more concerned with the story Erg’Ran was finally continuing. “After my father and I escaped the wood, we made good speed toward the shore where we would meet with a company of our warriors and deal with Ag’Riig of the Gle’Ur’Gya before he and his men could reach their vessel.”
Swan sat down beside Garrison, gathering her skirts close about her legs, a shawl around her shoulders against the breeze which blew fitfully across the water. With her head resting against his shoulder, Garrison felt her breath against his face when she looked up into his eyes. “At the time,” Erg’Ran continued, “we, of course, knew nothing of what had transpired between my mother and my sister. All that might have alerted us was that my father seemed strangely tense, sad. He himself put it off to our experience in the wood against the tree demons and the tragic death of the young messenger.
“In fact, there was such a love bond between them, your grandparents, that the husband actually felt the death of his wife, in the very instant that it occurred, it would seem.”
Garrison knew that this was painful for Swan, but they were committed to the story now and Swan seemed to want to know the whole story. So Garrison asked a logical question. “Did Eran just go to her mother and, well—just kill her?”
“It happened in the passion of the moment, according to the words of the few survivors from the palace guard. Oh, for a memory pool, that I could recall the details more clearly!” Erg’Ran lamented.
Erg’Ran continued his narrative. “My mother discovered Eran with the artifact taken from my father’s collection. The markings—they were not runes, but something else, magical as well. They exactly matched the markings at the base of one of the stone tablets which had been uncovered after the clue translated from the runes on the monolith. Wisely, my mother had decreed that my father alone should be the one to translate the writings from the tablets, lest merely by writing or saving the words some magical incantation would be invoked. For a woman, there would be much greater risk, Champion.”
“Gotchya,” Garrison nodded.
“But my mother translated the tablets?” Swan suggested. “That’s a stupid question. Forgive me for even asking it, uncle. Of course she did.”
“Eran began to translate, and in the very act of doing so, her magical abilities increased. But she learned forbidden knowledge, as well, knowledge which she would use to magnify her powers beyond any seen on Creath since the coming of Mir, perhaps since the most ancient of days. That was her moral undoing, Enchantress, Champion.”
“What kind of forbidden knowledge?” Garrison inquired.
Swan answered, and Garrison was surprised. “Before the coming of Mir, Al’An, a different kind of magic was practiced, the kind that my mother has brought back to Creath. It is the knowledge of this magic which was forbidden. In the earliest times, such magic was more powerful than any of us could imagine.”
“Who forbid it? Having this knowledge, I mean. Mir?” Garrison queried.
“Not forbidden in that way, Al’An. Neither Mir nor anyone ever said that such knowledge could not be acquired, merely that it should not. It is magic which corrupts the user.” And Swan leaned forward, taking Erg’Ran’s hands in hers. “That is why you have chosen now to tell me these facts, isn’t it, Erg’Ran?”
Garrison looked at the older man. “You’re afraid that Swan’s getting too powerful, and that she might go over the edge, like her mom did.”
It took Erg’Ran a moment on the word “mom,” but he responded, “Yes. As a member of the Company of Mir, as one of the comparatively few surviving K’Ur’Mir, as uncle to the Enchantress, yes. I fear for the Enchantress and I fear for Creath should the evil magic overpower her.”
“He doesn’t understand what we’re really talking about, Erg’Ran.”
“So, great! Now I’m the stupid guy, huh?”
After a second, Erg’Ran responded, “No one is saying that, but as a man from the other realm, you cannot comprehend fully the magnitude of power we’re talking about, Champion.”
“So give me an example.”
Swan did. “What drove Mir to do what he did is unclear, simply because he was a complex person in a complex situation. But whatever else compelled him to change things in Creath, there was an immediate cause.”
Garrison realized what she meant. If someone asked, for example, what started World War I, the classic—wrong—history test answer was the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand. The actual cause traced back at least to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, 1914’s assassination in Sarajevo the immediate cause only.
Erg’Ran told Garrison, “Mir witnessed a duel, a fight to the death between the two most powerful sorceresses then living. The fight raged on and on between the two women, past many sunrises and sunsets, across vast distances. Many of those who had magic, female and male alike, were able to transport themselves out of harm’s way. But countless numbers of ordinary mortals were consumed in the flames, cast into the vast crevices ripped across the ground, devoured by the beasts the two sorceresses created. Mir, despite his magic, which was well-developed for a male, was unable to stop them.”
“Perhaps,” Swan interjected, “if it hadn’t been for that terrible time, well, perhaps those who became the K’Ur’Mir would not have listened to him, and things might have gone on as they were until we all eventually were destroyed.”
“So there was a war,” Garrison reasoned aloud, “but fought with magic so terrible that the sheer body count forced people to come to their senses.”
“They followed Mir,” Swan told him.
“What happened to the two sorceresses?”
Erg’Ran gestured toward the two moons.
Garrison looked at them, then at Erg’Ran, then at Swan. “Come on, guys! I may be the Federal flat-foot from Earth, and my SAT scores didn’t go into the record books, but you expect me to believe—to believe— to believe—that!” Garrison stabbed his finger in the direction of the two moons.
“As the war progressed, and the ranks of the dead grew and grew,” Swan recounted, “Mir sought out the most magically endowed of Creath. He reasoned with them, making them realize that neither of the warring sorceresses would win before the entire world was destroyed. But they could be defeated.”
Garrison looked at Erg’Ran. “He did the same thing that you did when the aura was placed around the summer palace.”
“Of course, Champion! Actually, I did the same thing which Mir did. It was his idea; I only copied it.”
“So, Mir gets all the other people with magic to concentrate their powers on the two sorceresses. But don’t give me this two moons stuff, guys.”
“It’s true, Al’An!” Swan insisted.
“How do you do that!? I mean, I’ve seen a lot of what I’d call impossible stuff since you brought me here, but how could anybody do—do that!” And, Garrison gestured again toward the two moons.
As if she were a teacher explaining a science experiment to some incredibly dense student, Swan explained, “It’s really not that difficult, Al’An.”
“You telling me that you could do that?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t want to. And I haven’t the power to do such a thing to someone whose magic is as strong or stronger than mine. What Mir did was to combine the magical energies of those first K’Ur’Mir so that it didn’t matter that the two warring sorceresses were individually unrivaled in their powers.”
“It was a marvelous object lesson, too,” Erg’Ran observed. “Had the warring sorceresses ceased in their attempts to destroy each other, their powers combined would almost certainly have been greater than those of all the rest of those who chose to follow Mir. In essence, they destroyed themselves with their hatred.”
Garrison took a cigarette from his continually full pack and Swan lit it. “So how do you turn someone into a moon?”
“Mir knew,” Swan said, “that in order to defeat the warring sorceresses it would be necessary to catch them off guard, to strike without warning. Once those he’d convinced to aid him struck, it would be imperative that the warring sorceresses could not retaliate. The only logical choice, Al’An, was to turn the women to stone.”
“So, poof! They turn into stone?”
“What is poof? Is it like holy shit?”
“No. Never mind about poof. How do you turn somebody to stone?”
Swan seemed to be pondering something, then told him, “Place your cigarette on the deck a little distance away from your feet, Al’An.”
“Should I put it out first?”
“There won’t be time enough for it to cause a fire.”
“All right.” Garrison set his cigarette on the deck.
Almost immediately, the glowing tip of his cigarette began to lose its color, its fire. The upward curling smoke seemed to pause.
Erg’Ran murmured, “Oh, very good!”
There were constant references by Swan and others to magical energy in the air, so it seemed oddly logical to Alan Garrison that the smoke itself was the first to begin to transform into stone, but in the blink of an eye the cigarette itself was stone as well. “After the object becomes stone,” Swan said in a low, even voice, as if she were whispering to herself, “the object can then be levitated.” The cigarette, smoke and all, seemed to shudder, then began to rise, floating upward to a level about even with Garrison’s eyes. “In the case of the two sorceresses, because of their size as compared to your cigarette, it might have taken a few eyeblinks longer, Al’An.” The cigarette just hung there. Tiny pinpoints of light, visible only because of the darkness around them, streaked toward the cigarette, moving at incredible speeds. Barely perceptible at first, the cigarette grew noticeably larger, beginning to lose its shape. “Then, mass is added to it, as I am doing now.” Gradually, the cigarette lost all of its identity, becoming spherical. “In order to change something or someone to stone, it isn’t necessary, of course, to alter the shape by adding mass. In the case of the sorceresses, Mir or the others with him must have planned to have them transform into the two moons from the very first. Nor, of course, Al’An, does one have to levitate the object or objects. I’m just demonstrating how I imagine that it was probably done.”
“Thank you, professor,” Garrison smiled.
Swan paused a moment, evidently determining the word’s meaning, then blew him a kiss. “And then,” Swan went on, “it was merely a matter of adding more and more mass, placing the two moons in the sky as they should be,” and the stone ball that was once a cigarette rose slowly, steadily upward, floating over the stern rail, ascending until it was almost too distant to be seen, then seeming to descend rapidly. Garrison realized that the distance between the sphere and the water was not changing, that the sphere’s size was increasing instead. It was about the size of a man’s basketball or the first Soviet Sputnik when Swan said, “I think that’s large enough to illustrate how it was done, Al’An.”
“Now what?”
“I can’t turn it back into your cigarette. I could transform the stone into a piece of stone in the size and shape of your cigarette, or even turn it into a real cigarette, but it wouldn’t be the same cigarette. That is gone forever.”
“So the two sorceresses,” Garrison deduced, “aren’t imprisoned inside the moons; they ceased to exist.”
“Yes. And although Mir did not foresee the cyclonic waves which would form when the two moons crossed paths in the sky—as if, somehow, the sorceresses were still capable of creating a destructive force—it was wise that he did what he did,” Swan told him.
Erg’Ran amplified. “Each night, since the coming of Mir, women and men have looked into the sky, known that the two moons were there, eternal reminders of the fragility of life and how the power of good overcame the power of evil.”
“Evidently, Eran isn’t much into moon watching,” Garrison voiced, realizing how sarcastic his words sounded only after he said them.
“Yes,” Erg’Ran agreed, the word drawn out so slowly that it was as if it had three syllables rather than one.
Swan swept her left hand gracefully toward the still floating sphere, and it augered downward into the water, making a great splash. Swan looked at Erg’Ran and urged, “Tell me the rest now, the rest of what happened. Please?”
Erg’Ran fumbled with his pipe, and in the next instant it was packed and lit by Swan’s magic.
Garrison took another cigarette from his pack—the pack was full again—and Swan lit it, too. He sipped at his wine and smiled. Erg’Ran spoke. “My sister murdered my mother with magic when my mother forbade her to continue the translations from the tablets. Consider this, Champion,” Erg’Ran digressed. “Our mother was the most powerful magic maker in Creath. Yet merely by translating the tablets, essentially just saying the words inscribed there, Eran was powerful enough—forgive me for being so blunt, Enchantress—Your mother was powerful enough to cause our mother’s heart to explode within her chest!”
Swan visibly shivered. Garrison folded her in his arm once again.
“And Eran discovered the secret to even greater power. Yet she was unable to either obtain or exercise that power at the time, and that enraged her. But the possession of that power, that continually renewing source of magical energy, was her goal. Eran never lost sight of it until it was hers.
“My father and I reached the shore, still ignorant of what had transpired between my mother and sister. We united with our warriors and intercepted the Gle’Ur’Gya chieftain and his men when they were about to return to their ship with their plunder.
“Ag’Riig was a fierce warrior and a talented tactician. The Gle’Ur’Gya fought bravely. Numerically, we were well matched, and both sides had endured similar journeys to arrive at the battlefield there along the shore. We may pass the site as we sail tomorrow.
“Many arrows were fired in fearsome volleys at the moment when the two forces initially sighted one another,” Erg’Ran continued. “I was wounded, but only a graze along my thigh. I used my magic to stem the bleeding and was beside my father again in a matter of eyeblinks.
“The Gle’Ur’Gya had surprised us. Both forces really stumbled upon the other. Because of that, the Gle’Ur’Gya had the higher ground. They rained arrows upon us with great accuracy; and, although we responded in kind, they had the advantage. Only a small number of the Gle’Ur’Gya were ahorse, and in that we found our own advantage.
“My father broke our force in two,” Erg’Ran enthused, “and honored me by placing me second in command of one of the elements, while he personally led the other. It was my company’s lot to fight our way down the beach and past the Gle’Ur’Gya position on the ground above, then find what way we could to reach the higher ground and harass them from behind, thus diverting a substantial portion of their force while my father led the main body in an assault against their position.”
“We call that an envelopment,” Garrison supplied.
“An envelopment,” Erg’Ran echoed. “Yes. A good word for it.”
“Then what happened?” Swan asked, caught up in the story.
“As I said, Ag’Riig was a fine tactician. He must have apprehended almost immediately that an, an envelopment was our intent. He dispatched a small body of his force to parallel the unit with which I rode, then position themselves to deny us access to the high ground. We didn’t know this, of course.
“When our company had traveled fifty lancethrows or so, the leader spied a narrow channel heading through the sand and rock and toward the higher ground. Without dispatching anyone to scout for enemy archers, he wheeled the company toward the channel. The first volley fired by the Gle’Ur’Gya took him out of the saddle with an arrow through his throat. He had no magic, and no one with magic was able to reach him in time to stop the bleeding. He was dead by the time I’d swung down from the saddle.
“His death, of course, meant that I had command of the company. I had no experience as a leader, and none as a warrior. Hoping that the courage of Mir would guide me, I split my company into three elements. The first I dispatched still further along the beach, to find another way of reaching the high ground. The second I set to providing almost continuous volleys of arrows against the Gle’Ur’Gya’s position above us. The third I led myself. Armed with pikes, a few crossbows, but mainly with swords and our shields, we stormed along the near side of the channel on foot.
“The Gle’Ur’Gya had not expected this, and the Gle’Ur’Gya warrior archers from the far side of the channel had gone on in pursuit of my maneuvering element which I’d sent along the beach.
“The fighting was fierce,” Erg’Ran continued, “and I bloodied steel for the first time there amid the dunes. We took the high ground. Immediately, I dispatched archers to pursue the Gle’Ur’Gya who had gone to intercept my maneuvering element. With the very warriors who had accompanied me in the charge along the channel to the high ground, I took horse for the main body of Gle’Ur’Gya against whom my father would lead his warriors in less time than I cared to consider.”
Erg’Ran’s pipe went out, but Swan had it going again before Erg’Ran took notice of it. “We literally stumbled upon the rear guard Ag’Riig had established for just such a contingency. The fighting was nothing like I had imagined it would be. My hands became so sticky with blood, I could barely grip my sword’s hilt. Both sides fought with the unremitting ferocity of tree demons, as if we spilled blood for blood’s sake alone.
“My men acquitted themselves well, extraordinarily so. Ag’Riig was forced to divert some of his men from defense against my father’s impending attack in order to hold us in check.
“It was then that my maneuver element and warrior archers joined us. We gave the agreed upon signal—a fiery arrow, then two more shot skyward after it—and my father’s force began their assault. Ag’Riig held his ground, and when my father reached his position, the two men both ordered a cessation in the fighting, for all but themselves.
“My father’s sword was a wondrous blade,” Erg’Ran confided to them, “and I have never seen its like to this day. It had a single edge, the blade itself curved ever so subtly. Its hilt would easily accommodate two hands, but just as easily lent itself to use with but a single hand. The guard, very elaborately engraved in relief, was like a small shield, completely encircling the hilt.
“Ag’Riig’s sword was almost equally magnificent, but of a different style and longer by several spans. My father and the Gle’Ur’Gya chieftain faced off and fought. The sun was nearly setting when they began their duel, and darkness was upon us in full measure when it ended, fires lit there on the high ground so that my father and Ag’Riig could see.
“Both were exhausted. When the firelight caught their faces, their expressions were grim, each knowing that the other swordsman could deal him death. They were an even match, you see. That is the most dangerous battle to endure, the most compelling to watch. Sparks flew in great showers as steel would contact steel. I’ve never seen such since. At last, my father’s sword cleaved the blade of Ag’Riig, but the Gle’Ur’Gya chieftain fought on with half a blade, Ag’Riig’s steel failing him but not his courage. My father offered to give quarter, or lend him another sword. Ag’Riig accepted neither.
“My father was clearly about to triumph. I felt that my father would spare the Gle’Ur’Gya chieftain because of such bravery and gallantry. I was never to know.”
“What happened?” Garrison asked, unable not to interrupt.
“One of the Gle’Ur’Gya archers loosed an arrow. It pierced my father’s eye and into his brain. He was dead before he fell, and no magic could have saved him. We all stood there, motionless for an eyeblink. Then Ag’Riig flung his broken sword across the darkness and into the chest of the Gle’Ur’Gya archer who had dishonored him.
Everyone had his blades drawn, arrows nocked, crossbows cocked. Ag’Riig shouted out, speaking well enough in our tongue that he was understood, proclaiming that there had been enough blood shed here. Kneeling beside my father’s body, I raised my voice and ordered that our warriors not be the first to renew the fighting. We did not clasp hands, or make some vow or another. We were not friends, perhaps more closely bound than friends, bound in honor. Ag’Riig took his Gle’Ur’Gya and I took my men, he to his ship, I to tell my mother and sister the terrible events which had unfolded.
“My father’s body borne on a litter, we made our way to the encampment near the monolith. We traveled in sufficient force to risk the wood once again, and we traversed it unmolested by the tree demons.
“My heart was heavier than I thought then that it could ever be. But, upon reaching the encampment, I learned my mother’s fate. What could be done was done for the guards. Enraged beyond enduring, with my father’s sword I set out to find Eran. I have no idea if I would have killed her. As it was, I did not see her again until after you were born, Enchantress. I kept the sword for the day that I would avenge my mother.
“Eran established herself with the witches, became their leader. Not long before your birth, Enchantress, she at last obtained the ultimate power which she had so long sought. It is then that she began the destruction of the K’Ur’Mir in earnest. Yet already Creath was in the grip of violence and evil unlike anything known since before the coming of Mir. Eran was determined to make Creath still worse. And she has done so.
“Eran, whose curiosity was boundless, destroyed the person that once she was and nearly all of Creath as well. As you move against her, Enchantress, you must guard against the temptation which will present itself. You must use what magic needs be used in order to defeat Eran, then eschew its use, if you are strong enough. Eran has magic that no mortal or immortal was ever meant to know. In order to defeat Eran, you must learn this dark magic and then use it for purposes other than for which it was divined. Afterward, such magic must return to the darkness from whence it came.
“If you defeat Eran,” Erg’Ran warned, “your greatest enemy will be yourself, Enchantress. Never forget that.”
“Three questions, please,” Alan Garrison requested.
“The first question, Champion?”
“The sword, your father’s sword. You have it with you?”
“Yes. I hope to use it to take the life from Eran. While she lives, she will always be dangerous. But the important thing is not that I take her life, but that someone does.”
“The tablets she translated. Where are they now?”
“Eran would have them closely guarded, at Barad’Il’Koth, Champion.”
“Which leads to what is my third and presumably last question, Erg’Ran.”
“It is?”
“How would Swan avail herself of the same magical abilities her mother has, which you say that she must learn if we’re to win?”
Reading the older man’s face in the light of the blue-white magical globe, Erg’Ran seemed to carefully weigh his answer. Finally, he spoke. “The magic grows within the Enchantress. When she controlled the wind, this was something which she could not have done as she did only a short while ago. Her magic grows and strengthens and it will be enough for now. When the time comes, all will learn the source of the Queen Sorceress’s powers, and my niece will know what to do. You will help her, Champion.”
“So, I unintentionally lied, Erg’Ran. Another question, sir.”
“And?”
“How will I know how to help Swan if I don’t know what I’m supposed to do?”
“I was certain from the first, really. You will know what to do because the answer which you seek is already inside you, Champion. Circumstance will cause you to know it. I can tell neither of you anymore. Should I do so, our mission would be lost. You both must trust to me in this,” Erg’Ran concluded.
Swan rested her head against Alan Garrison’s chest. Garrison took another cigarette. When he felt the pack as he returned it to his jacket pocket, it was already full again.