Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (97 page)

“But the main reason is that, yesterday evening, just after the comte had presented the king’s silver to the high priest, he collapsed. When he woke this morning, he told me that he’d encountered the aura of a very powerful sorcerer who had struck him down. I was surprised, since I’d always been told there are no sorcerers in Amorr.”

The high elf blinked once, and although his face didn’t change expression, Theuderic had the distinct impression he was considerably more interested than he’d been a moment before.

“There are no sorcerers in Amorr, little one, save me and my colleague. And your companion here, of course. You said you were struck down, magician?”

“Yes, my lord. I felt someone spying on me. But when I attempted to determine who it was, I was too clumsy, and he noticed me. I say he noticed because it wasn’t a woman, I’m sure of it. The next thing I knew, I awoke the next morning with the feeling that someone had tried to smash my head with a warhammer. The whole episode seemed extraordinary, since I too was under the impression that anyone with any training in the arts would not survive long here. My lady suggested we first come here and speak with you, if you would grant us an audience, and that seemed a wise course of action.”

“We shall see. So it was a Man, or at least something male, at any rate. Did you notice anything else?”

“No,” Theuderic shook his head. “Wait, yes, there was one thing. It was close, very close. In material terms. I’m convinced it was either in the palace or somewhere very nearby.”

“Could it have been the Sanctiff himself? I have only seen him once, from afar, but he was only recently raised to the sanctal throne.”

“No, absolutely not. I’d spoken with him and kissed his ring only a short while before. As far as I could tell, he has no magical capabilities at all.”

“You are confident of your ability to notice such things?”

“I can sense yours, my lord, even though you keep it well-cloaked. You’re very strong, and yet, I’m not sure even you are as powerful as whatever I encountered last night.”

“‘Whatever’? It’s fascinating you should say it that way. Wouldn’t ‘whomever’ be the more natural term to use?”

Theuderic paused to think about it.

“It would,” he admitted. “I suppose I don’t truly think it was a man. I’ve known all the most powerful Immortels at L’Academie, and none of them was anywhere nearly as strong as that thing in the palace.”

The elf lord nodded. His face was still impassive, but he had abandoned all pretense at disinterest. “Yes, your academy magicians are poorly trained by our standards, and of course your lives are much too short to develop any real mastery, but even so, your powers are far from negligible. I wonder, was your
lamaranth
in place?”

“My what?”

“I think you would call them your shields.”

“Yes, absolutely. He blew through them as if they weren’t even there.”

“I see. Then I believe your initial instinct was correct. What you encountered was no Man.”

“In the Church?” Lithriel was skeptical. “Do you know what this creature might be, my lord?”

“Do I know?” Silvertree spread his hands and shrugged. “I cannot say that I am certain. But I have some very strong suspicions. Indeed, if what you say is true, I may have to give serious thought to returning to Elebrion myself. But first, I have a few more questions for your magician. Have you noticed any unusual upheaval in the north of late, either in Savondir proper or anywhere in the Seven Seats?”

“A year ago there was a rebellion in Montrove,” Theuderic said. “The duc was killed and the city was sacked by the Red Prince. I was there, and I am confident it wasn’t anything more than a discontented noble attempting to throw off his liege lord. Hardly the first time, and I can’t imagine it will be the last. Although around the time we departed for here, the prince was sailing across the White Sea, as it seems the Dalarn have been all but wiped out in the Wolf Isles.”

“Have they now?” The high elf’s casual tone belied the sudden gleam of interest the news had sparked in his eyes. “And what nearly wiped them out? The demonspawn?”

“If by demonspawn, you mean the beasts they call aalvarg, yes. We call them ulfin. It seems they have all but destroyed the reavers. A pair of their young royals appeared before the king to beg his assistance in helping them drive back the monsters, which he granted.”

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised if the second one is behind those events. This bears a closer look. But where are the others? That is the question.”

“The second what?” Lithriel asked before he could do the same.

“You think there are more of whatever this creature that attacked me is?”

Silvertree nodded. He rose gracefully from his seat and strode toward a table upon which was piled various old codices and capped cylinders containing scrolls. “About a month ago, two of the consuls visited me concerning some murders that took place within the palace. My companion and I were permitted to visit the chapel where the men died, and in the course of our investigation I observed the signs of a highly unusual sort of magic. It’s not one with which you would have been familiar, as it has been some time since such spells were in use. Hundreds of years, to put it in perspective.

“Ah, there we are,” he interrupted himself as he located the cylinder he wanted and unscrewed the brass cap. “As I told the consuls, the magic was distinctive. It’s not a sorcery we elves have ever utilized, and it is well beyond the limits of Man’s wizardry or the various primitive arts of the western races.”

“What is it?” Lithriel asked.

“You could do worse than to view it as a perverted form of daemonology, which I believe your Savondese companion would customarily refer to as
diablerie
.”

Theuderic considered himself more or less a prodigal son of the Church, the Sanctiff’s blessing notwithstanding, but this shocked him more than just about anything had since his boyhood, when the elderly king’smage had first told him that he possessed a talent for the arts. “Are you saying there is a
diableriste
in the Coviria summoning demons—in the very bowels of the Church?”

“Oh, I’m afraid the situation is rather worse than that,” Silvertree answered. “What I suspect is that there is not a diableriste but an actual immortal being residing within the bowels of Holy Mother Church. And I believe it intends to shape the Amorran Empire into a weapon capable of serving his purposes. And it would not surprise me in the slightest if it should turn out that there is another of its kind making use of the northern demonspawn for precisely the same reason.”

Theuderic couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “An immortal being? My lord, you elves are the closest things to immortal beings I’ve ever heard of, unless one counts dragons, I suppose. And I can’t imagine you’re suggesting that the Sanctiff is keeping a pet dragon in a giant cave underneath his palace.”

Silvertree smiled thinly. “No, magician, I am not suggesting any such thing. Here,” he said, extending the scroll he pulled from the cylinder. “Read this, and perhaps it will shed useful light on these matters. After my suspicions were aroused by the deaths in the chapel, I contacted an old friend of mine, the Magistras Daimonae at the Collegium. He has long been interested in these beings, for obvious reasons, and he sent me this document, which predates your calendar, as it was composed some three hundred years before the war with the Witchkings.”

Lithriel glanced at Theuderic, and he nodded. They both knew he wouldn’t be able to read such ancient elven writing. She took the proffered scroll from the high elf and perused it, clicking her tongue several times as she did so. Theuderic forced himself to wait patiently until she finally nodded and began translating it for him.

On the seventh day of the fourteenth month I reached Mount Arman and found that which I had sought. Upon the account of the king of Kir Kalithael, I spoke and conversed with the wondrous head of the divided man, who lived though he had been slain, and spoke though his head had been set upon a spear and his body given to the fire by the king of the men of the Cormazond.

Many prophecies did he speak unto the men who did not fear to approach him. Many oracles did he pronounce to all who listened. Many gifts did he promise to the man who would take his head down from the pike and give it to the fire, but none dared serve him in this manner for fear of the king of the men of the Cormazond. I climbed the mount in order to see what sort of man he was and what was the nature of this miracle that permitted him to see and speak although his head was cut from his body and his body was no more.

He told me of his kind, who are neither elves, nor men, nor angels, but a race that lived when the world was young. They were mighty and wise. They knew what was transacted in the heavens. They beheld the earth and understood what is there transacted, from its beginning to its end. They beheld summer and winter: perceiving that the whole earth is full of water; and that the cloud, the dew, and the rain refresh it. They considered and beheld every tree, how it appears to wither, and every leaf to fall off, except of fourteen trees, which are not deciduous; which wait from of old for the appearance of the new leaf, for two or three winters.

They saw that every work of the gods was invariable in the period of its appearance.

They considered the days of summer, that the sun is upon it at its very beginning; while the earth is scorched up with fervid heat, and the ground may not be walked upon in consequence of that heat. They considered the days of winter, which grow short with the retreat of the sun and witness the covering of the earth with ice and snow. They considered the days of spring, when the earth returns to life again and the trees put forth their green leaves, become covered, and produce fruit. They considered the days of autumn, when the earth brings forth her bounty and the harvests are collected against the barren season to come.

“Are you certain you have the right scroll?” Theuderic asked Silvertree.

“Indeed,” the high elf replied, looking amused. “Be patient, magician. The depth of your understanding will not increase according to the speed with which your knowledge is acquired. I will admit our ancestors do often betray somewhat of a predilection for belaboring the obvious, but there is often method in their meanderings. My lady Everbright, do continue.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said absentmindedly, staring intently at the scroll. “But what does that word mean? Ah, pay no mind, I see it now.”

It happened that his people looked upon the earth and saw that the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to the elves, elegant and beautiful, that in the forests and plains the generations of the orcs grew abundant, and that under the mountains the progeny of the dwarves swelled and became great in number. And they saw that even as the seasons proceeded from one to the next, one day they should have to make war upon the sons of men, the daughters of elves, the generations of orcs, and the progeny of dwarves, lest war be made upon them.

But they were mighty and they were wise and they were good, and their leader, Masyaza, said to them: we shall not stay and slay the sons of men and the daughters of elves, neither shall we remain and destroy the generations of orcs, the progeny of dwarves and the issue of goblins. I say we shall leave this world to walk the shadows and to build a new heaven and a new earth where we may live in peace, alone and unmolested. And their leader, Masyaza, said to them: I fear that you may perhaps be indisposed to the performance of this enterprise.

But they answered him and said: we all swear and bind ourselves by mutual execrations that we will not change our intention but execute our projected undertaking and walk the shadows with you.

Then their leader, Masyaza, said to them: how shall it be that we should leave this earth and build a new one if the sons of men and the daughters of elves will one day follow us? Then Qelbara, who was great among them and a keeper of the secrets, arose and vowed that he and twelve of his companions would not accompany Masyaza through the shadows but would remain behind to ensure that neither the sons of men, nor the daughters of elves, nor the generations of orcs, nor the progeny of dwarves would ever follow the path of their people. Masyaza acclaimed Qelbara, and the people acclaimed his companions, and those who were to stay behind were named the Watchers.

And the Watchers’ names were Qelbara, Laesa, Zahamiseh, Arphoqart, Herimon, Samsela, Samyaza, Merars, Vazeba, Amarazak, Karanylas, Baatral, and Arazayel. Qelbara was their prefect and their chief.

The one with whom I spoke gave his name as Merars, one of the Watchers. He said the Watchers could take any form they wished, but that as their memories faded over the passing years, they found it more comforting to return again and again to the same form. They could not die, although they could be slain, and once their bodies returned to ashes and dust they would sleep for a time, then awake again, fully restored and in their original form, which he said is like unto a man or elf, only larger and more perfect. Again he begged me to take his head from the spear and give it to the fire, that he might be reborn again in time and avenge himself on the king of the people of the Cormazond or his descendants.

When I asked him how he had come to this pass, he told me that his fellow Watchers had gone mad and involved themselves with the various peoples of Thelenothas. Some of them had taken wives, each choosing for himself whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited. They taught these wives sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. And the women, conceiving, brought forth giants, and monsters, and great evils of every kind.

Others made themselves out as gods. Arazayel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, and breastplates, so that the race of men became warlike. Laesa taught our fathers the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, and all sorts of dyes, so that the elves changed and became beautiful, as if they were of the people who left the Watchers behind. Arphoqart taught the dwarves the use of stones of every valuable and select kind and how to delve deep beneath the ground for the metal rivers that flow through the roots of the mountains. And Amarazak taught the orcs that the life is in the blood.