The Commanding Stone Part 15

She grasped his hand in her own. With a single fluid motion he swung her up on the saddle behind him and spurred his horse into motion. "Hold on tight!" he shouted.

"We have to get my medicines!"

He shook his head. "We can't!" He was already past her horse's corpse, and the demons were swinging about to come in low once more. He would have to charge right at them to get her pack.

"No! We have to! I need them! We can't leave them behind!"

He ignored her. There would be time later-at least he fervently hoped so-to replace her medicines. To try to retrieve them now would be suicide.

"Zaephos!" shouted Gerin. "Help us!"

The divine messenger shook his head. "I cannot. Even if I threw off this mortal form and unleashed my power, it would destroy all of you as well, and level part of these mountains."

"Will you die?" asked Nyene, hunched low over the neck of her horse.

"This mortal body can be slain, but I will not die. I will return to the divine realm."

"So you need not fear death," said the Threndish woman.

"You need not fear it, either. The Maker is altering his covenant with mankind. He returns now for a reason. What lies beyond death is not what it once was."

"You are truly mad," said Nyene.

"My lord!" shouted Balandrick. "Look!"

In the distance, rising from behind a long root of the mountain that stretched far into the valley, they could see the tops of several black towers.

Gerin redoubled his efforts, this time releasing powerful Forbiddings from Nimnahal in an attempt to hold the demons back. The enemy cavalry was close enough now to rain arrows down upon them, though none had yet hit their mark.

He placed as much of his power as he dared into the Forbiddings, making them as large as possible. They held the demons back a little better than the Wardings had, but the creatures battered his spells relentlessly, and he knew the barriers would shatter in moments.

With a coordinated effort, the demons clawed at his Forbiddings. There was more than sheer physical strength in their attack-their bodies contained energy of a kind that warred with wizards' magic, trying to cancel it out.

The Forbiddings shattered beneath the weight of the a.s.sault. Even the Khedes.h.i.+ans could see a sudden amber glow in the air above them that grew bright for an instant before winking out.

The backflow of magic from the shattered spells stunned Gerin. Nimnahal slipped from his fingers as he slumped forward over the pommel. Elaysen frantically tried to hold onto him, but he was too heavy, and a second later he fell from the horse.

He heard Elaysen scream for Balandrick, who swore loudly and swung about. The Taeratens followed him as Elaysen tried to grasp the reins of the terrified animal.

Gerin had broken his arm in two places and cracked a rib when he'd fallen. He sat up slowly, his body wracked with pain. The Taeratens formed a line behind him while Balandrick leaped down from his saddle.

"My lord, are you hurt?"

Gerin took a breath and winced as pain stabbed through his chest. "We have to keep moving."

Balan helped him to his feet. His broken right arm was on fire, and each breath felt like a roundhouse punch. Balandrick picked up Nimnahal and flipped himself up onto his mount, then held out his hand to help Gerin. With a great deal of effort, Gerin managed to get onto the saddle behind his captain.

"Elaysen...?" he asked.

"Up ahead, my lord."

The Taeratens had raised their s.h.i.+elds against an incoming volley of arrows. Four thudded into the ground within a few feet of Gerin and Balandrick. The king turned his head and saw that the Havalqa cavalry were frighteningly close. And the demons were again descending upon them.

Balandrick and the Taeratens raced off, but there was now no chance they would reach the Towers before both the demons and the Havalqa caught them. He was spent. He could release more of the spells contained within Nimnahal, but they were not enough to hold off their pursuers. The most he could hope to do was kill some before they swarmed over them.

The Staff of Naragenth was still bound to his horse. Since its vast reservoir of accrued magic had been depleted driving back the Havalqa army marching on Almaris and breaking their naval blockade of the city, he had found it a less useful weapon than Nimnahal. Still, he would wield it now if he could get his hands on it.

He looked ahead for Elaysen and saw her coming back toward them, her face frantic. Time seemed to slow down; his perceptions grew almost painfully sharp. He saw Hollin and Abaru, both exhausted, their eyes upon him as if hoping for a miracle. Far ahead, Nyene had paused to see what was transpiring with her captors. Zaephos was a short distance behind her, his face calm. I wonder if he's curious what it will be like to die, thought Gerin. Or maybe he's interested to witness the deaths of mortals from a mortal point of view. He wished bitterly that the One G.o.d's messenger would do something, anything, to help them.

The demons were almost upon them. There was nothing to be done. They would have to make a stand. Gerin raised Nimnahal to release everything left within the weapon. He pointed the tip at the nearest demon- -and nearly dropped Nimnahal when a curtain of blue fire erupted from the ground behind them. It rose with blinding speed, a sheet of translucent flame that stretched from the foothills into the valley as far as he could see. He felt no heat from the fire, and the gra.s.ses at its base did not burn. It was not wizards' magic, but it was similar, a kind of distant relative to his own power.

The demons could not halt their trajectories or veer off in time. They smashed into the barrier and stuck fast to it, like flies in amber. Their bodies ignited moments later, bright spots visible through the cool blue flame. The wall continued to rise, carrying them quickly out of Gerin's sight.

On the far side of the wall the Havalqa cavalry came to a sudden halt. They fired arrow after arrow at the barrier, but the missiles turned to ash the moment they touched it.

Gerin looked up. The top of the wall of fire was at least a thousand feet high. He could not imagine the kind of energy necessary to create such a thing.

"My lord, is this your doing?" asked Balandrick.

He shook his head. "No. This is beyond anything I can do."

"Who, then?" He craned his neck to look at Zaephos.

The messenger and Nyene were trotting toward them. There was a look of awe on the Threndish woman's face.

"Did you find a way to help us?" Gerin asked Zaephos.

"This barrier is not my creation. It comes from the Towers."

The wizards approached, staring at the barrier with open wonder. "This is the barrier that kept Paraclade from reaching the Watchtowers," said Hollin.

They were all startled when the barrier began to move.

The section closest to them remained stationary, but the distant ends of the wall curled away from them, bending back toward one another, closing to form a cylinder. The Havalqa on the other side realized they would be trapped were it to close completely and turned quickly about. The barrier closed faster, and its ends came together before the Havalqa could escape. Through the translucent flame, Gerin could dimly see them darting about, trying to force their way through. Some of the soldiers tried to push through the barrier when they realized it emitted no heat, but the moment they touched it, their bodies flared and turned to ash.

When the barrier closed, it was a ma.s.sive cylinder reaching far into the sky. Where the power moved across the ground, the gra.s.ses and trees it had touched were gone. The ground was cut to an absolute smoothness, fused somehow, leaving what looked like polished stone.

"This was certainly provident for us," said Hollin. "I wonder if they'll hold these soldiers here until our business at the Towers is concluded and we're safely away."

"I hope not," said Balandrick. "Just kill them and be done with it. And take care of the infantry that's coming for good measure."

As if in response to Balandrick's wish, the cylinder began to contract.

The blue fire moved across the earth with a steady rumble, leaving smooth, dead ground in its wake. Every contour of the land disappeared beneath its touch. When the fire contracted over a small hillock, it left only a flat expanse of stone and the smell of burned earth.

Within the shrinking cylinder they could see the Havalqa cavalry racing about frantically, trying to find a way out. More and more of the hors.e.m.e.n collided with the barrier and vanished in a cloud of ash.

The contraction became more rapid as the cylinder shrank, until, in the final few moments, it raced across the earth with the speed of a war horse at full charge. It shrank all the way down until it was nothing more than a line of blue light no thicker than a finger.

Then it winked out, leaving no trace of any living thing in its wake.

"Shayphim take me," muttered Balandrick. "I'm glad they're on our side."

"I'd hesitate to say they're on any side," said Hollin wearily. "They have a message to deliver to Gerin. The Havalqa interfered with that, but I doubt we can count on their help outside of this valley. We must be careful not to anger them."

"Who are they?" asked Nyene. "What manner of being commands such might?"

"No one knows," said Hollin. "These Towers have existed for thousands of years, but the inhabitants do not venture from them. Or if they do, they leave no trace of their pa.s.sing."

"Or no witnesses," said Abaru.

Hollin and Abaru together managed enough strength to work a spell that healed the bones in Gerin's arm. He relieved some of the pain of his cracked rib himself, but did not want to do too much for fear of losing consciousness. As it was, he felt ready to drop.

Elaysen was frantically searching for her pack of medicines, but it quickly became apparent that it had been destroyed by the blue fire.

"You don't understand," she said when Gerin said they needed to go. "I can't lose it. There are medicines in there I can't replace here. Things I can only find in Khedesh."

"Then you'll have to wait until we get back to get more," he said as gently as he could. "It's gone, Elaysen."

She set her jaw and blinked away tears, but said no more.

"Come on," said Gerin. "Let's get to the Towers and hear what they have to tell us."

17.

The long root of the mountains that thrust into the Hollow was too rocky and steep for them to cross, forcing them to swing their path to the west to go around it. The tops of the Towers loomed above the root like glowering giants, black and brooding. Gerin could not take his eyes from them, and wondered what answers awaited them there.

About a mile from the Towers, they encountered the ruins of an ancient road elevated above the ground of the valley, a ribbon of broken stone with tall gra.s.ses sprouting from the cracks and fractures in its surface. The road extended all the way to the Towers and ended in a slender bridge that spanned a wide chasm.

Beyond the chasm the ma.s.sive bulk of the Watchtowers rose into the sky.

Closer to the Towers the road was in much better repair. A stone curb now bordered its length, its mortar strong and unbroken. Gerin sensed powerful preservation spells at work, similar to the magic of wizards yet different in a number of fundamental ways.

The chasm's walls plunged straight down, its bottom lost from sight. He wondered if the chasm were a natural formation or something created by the Telchan. After the display of power they'd just witnessed, he did not doubt them capable of it.

Gerin felt strangely reluctant to speak, as if there were a spell of silence around the Towers. It was not that he thought this was a sacred or holy place; but it was a place of power, ancient and unknowable, and in that regard was worthy of reverence and respect.

There were nine Watchtowers in all. The tallest was in the center of a circle formed by the other eight. Their windowless, obsidian sides tapered gradually as they rose hundreds of feet into the air. The summits were capped with peaked turrets, also windowless.

"There's magic flowing all around the Towers," said Abaru. He spoke in a hushed tone, as if he, too, sensed something of the reverence for this place Gerin had felt.

"They look untouched by time," said Hollin.

As they neared the Towers, Gerin studied them more closely. Hollin was right-the Towers were flawless. No cracks, chips, or blemishes marred the perfection of their black exteriors. They had an odd, unnatural appearance. It took him a moment to realize that there were no seams or masonry visible; the Towers were as smooth as gla.s.s.

The stony earth within the circle of the Towers was inscribed with geometric symbols the wizards did not recognize. Paved paths stretched from Tower to Tower, but always in a curve or arc-never in a straight line. Gerin wondered if the paths and symbols were part of a spell of some kind.

Gaps like dry moats surrounded each Tower, as if they sat in great pits hollowed out of the bedrock. The pits themselves plunged into an impenetrable blackness, shrouded in a fog that crawled up the Towers in slow, writhing movements, like the hands of ghosts.

"It's darker here," said Nyene.

Gerin realized she was right. There was a gloom around the Watchtowers that was more than the deep shadows cast by their ma.s.sive bulk. When they crossed the bridge, the sun had been s.h.i.+ning brightly; but now, though no cloud had pa.s.sed before the sun, twilight seemed to have fallen in this small valley.

They dismounted at the central Tower. Gerin told the commander of the Taeratens to watch the horses and for signs of the rest of the Havalqa army. "If they appear, we need to know at once."

"I will remain here," said Zaephos. "The inhabitants do not welcome me, and will not allow me to enter."

"How do you know that?" asked Gerin.

"They have spoken to me, but not in a way you would understand. I will not press them on the matter."

This news made Gerin uneasy, but there was nothing to be done. He was not about to argue with Zaephos or force some kind of confrontation with the Telchan over his admittance. If the messenger was fine with remaining here, so be it.

A single arching walkway was the only means of reaching the deeply recessed door. They kept to the middle of the walkway, which had no curb or railing. Gerin stole a glance over the side, down into the pit in which the Tower sat, but could see nothing through the fog.

In the center of the metal door was a heavy iron ring, which Gerin grasped and pulled. To his and everyone else's surprise, it opened.

"That was easy enough," said Abaru.

"A little too easy if you ask me," muttered Balandrick, whose fingers were firmly wrapped around the hilt of his sword. "I don't like this place at all."

Beyond the door was an empty antechamber. Once they were all inside, the door closed of its own accord. Balandrick swore and lunged at it when he realized what was happening, but was too late.

"It seems we are at their mercy," said Nyene in the sudden darkness.

"We have been for some time now," said Hollin.

Gerin created a spark of magefire, but just as it flared to life, some other power snuffed it out. "What the...?"

"What happened?" asked Hollin.

"Something stopped me from making it."

Hollin and Abaru tried to make magefire. Both failed.

The sound of bells filled the room. Then a voice spoke from the darkness. "You will not be harmed, but do not work your power here. It is forbidden."

"You're the akesh that appeared to me," said Gerin, recognizing the voice.

"Yes." It did not sound strained, as it had during their first brief encounter. Now its voice was full of strength and vitality.