Citadels of the Lost (43 page)

“I am most impressed,” Shebin smiled once more. “So you have invited me to watch you play with your toys, then?”

“If I may,” Sjei said, stepping up to where Shebin and Ch'dak stood. “This game may hold a special interest for you, Tsi-Shebin Timuran.”

“Ah,” Shebin smiled warmly. “Sjei Shurian. And how does this game hold a special interest for this humble servant of the Imperial Will?”

“You see the valley running down the center of the sand?” Sjei said, gesturing toward the Battlebox.

“I do.”

“It is a rather obscure place known locally as the ‘Willow Vale.' It is a depression that runs down to the sea west of a place called Glachold. Those brown-and-yellow figures near the end of the depression represent the armies and people of the Drakis Rebellion.”

Shebin's nostrils flared at the sound of the name. “Indeed?”

“The rebels and their families are backed against the sea—the waters of the Straits of Erebus,” Sjei continued. “To the east is Glachold which we have now secured with a garrison. To the south, these green figures arrayed at the end of the valley depression represent the Imperial Legion of the Northern Fist who, last night, caught up with the revolutionary forces.”

“What about those rust-colored figures on the western slope?” Shebin asked.

“A goblin army,” Sjei replied. “They have come to enjoy the show—as shall we. But perhaps of more interest to you, my lady, will be that bright red figure in the midst of the brown figures of the rebellious camp.”

“A single figure, my lord?” Shebin asked.

“That is one very important figure,” Sjei nodded. “That is the only elf I know that could find Drakis . . . and though he does not know it yet, he is about to be a prisoner.”

“B
Y THORGRIM'S BEARD,”Jugar breathed. “Have you ever seen the like?”

The broad, ancient roadway ended abruptly in the massive ruin of what once had been the Citadel of Light. Most of the walls had collapsed and the upper stories were completely gone, yet here and there among the jumble of stones were glimpses of the glory of what had once stood here. Elegant carvings of coiled jade dragons wrapped around red marble pillars jutted upward in a jagged line on either side of the wide passage that once might have been the entrance from the avenue behind them. The base of one of the gate towers remained, its spindle peak now fallen next to it, flattened and cracked like an ancient eggshell. The foundations looked as though they had been half a league square.

Urged on by Mala, they followed a meandering and often bewildering path through the ruins, but from the beginning their goal seemed obvious: a towering set of buttress stones that arched over a region roughly in the center of the ruin. At last the narrow path led them between two walls and onto the outer edge of a wide circular plaza. The arches of stone—sheared off at various heights—curved overhead from the edges of the plaza. Broken foundation walls could be seen in a peculiar pattern of circles radiating from the center of the stone floor. Yet even its magnificence was overwhelmed at once by the vision greeting them from the center of the plaza.

Three statues of dragons stood in a circle, crouched down as though bowing to the dome of crystal. They reminded Drakis of the statues on the Sea of Sand that had brought them all to this place seemingly ages ago, except that these were somehow grander in scale, majesty, and beauty. The wings, which on two of the dragons stretched back and upward from the ground, pointing toward the arched buttresses overhead, were broken off of the third dragon statue and lying next to it on the ground. All were dulled by the dust and mud of time yet even in their fallen state they conveyed a glorious and inspiring visage.

“The Font of the Citadel,” Jugar crowed. “You are ours now, my beauty!”

The dwarf dashed forward, immediately followed by Drakis and the rest of their expedition. The morning sunlight beat down on them in the open space as each marveled for a moment at the intricately carved statues towering above them.

Drakis turned to the dwarf. “Jugar! They are incredible!”

“Aye, they are that lad,” he replied, climbing up onto the raised stone shelf surrounding the dark, mud-splattered crystal. It was twenty feet in diameter from the portion of the stone that was visible above the surface of the surrounding cobblestones. The curvature of its surface, however, only rose to about three feet above ground level at its highest. “If this particular stone is a globe, it's a mighty large piece of Aether Well! I should think it will take a mighty effort to get it flowing again.”

“But can you do it?” Ethis asked.

“Starting it, aye, that we can do,” Jugar said, his eyes squinting as he considered the enormous crystal in front of him. “Keeping it going . . . well that may be a different tale altogether.”

The dwarf pointed. “Can you see that fissure in the top of the stone?”

“No, I don't see . . . you mean that crack?” Drakis asked.

“That is where the key is supposed to go,” the dwarf replied.

“There?” Drakis was astonished. “I couldn't fit the edge of a knife blade in that let alone some sliver of a key!”

“It may look insignificant to your eyes,” Jugar said with a thoughtful frown, “but placing that ‘sliver' completes the matrix of the crystal. That is the object that will hold the Font open and keep the Aether flowing throughout the land of your ancestors for the eternities . . . and especially until we can get a few of those folds activated and our cheery selves out of this realm of your destiny.”

“What the dwarf is saying,” Ethis said, clearing his throat, “is that we need a key to make all of this work; a key that was hidden over four hundred years ago in order to prevent exactly what we are attempting to do now—open the Font of magic. There is an alternative, however, Drakis, and I think we should consider it. We could continue down the River Tyra, follow it to the seashore and then find a more traditional means of crossing the Straits of Erebus.”

“He's right, Drakis,” Urulani said. “Maybe we could find the ocean and then . . .”

“I know where the key is,” Mala said in a loud and firm voice.

Everyone turned toward her.

“What did you say?” Drakis asked.

“I . . . I know where the key is,” Mala said clearly, not looking Drakis in the eye. “I can get it for you but you have to open the way.”

“Mala, you're not making sense . . .”

“The secret is the book, Drakis,” Mala said.

“Lass, I've looked all through that book from front cover to back and every word scrawled betwixt and between,” the dwarf said, shaking his head. “There's naught there about where to find this key or . . .”

“It isn't
in
the book,” Mala shouted. “It
is
the book! It's how the book was hidden . . . that's how they hid the key! The priests or wizards or whoever was in charge of the magic would not have stopped it until the last possible moment. There wouldn't have been a lot of time to hold the Font open and hide the key. So they put it somewhere convenient—somewhere nearby—where no one could get at it until the Font was opened again.”

Ethis nodded in appreciation. “They put it in a fold.”

“Yes,” Mala urged.

“It's ingenious,” Jugar said with a wry smile. “Everyone was looking for the key to open the Font when you needed to open the Font in order to get the key. And it would take quite a few people all working together to open the Font . . . a Font located in a place where few people were likely to come at once.”

“And I know where to find the fold that they put it in,” Mala said in a rush. She turned, pointing to a ruin set atop a rise to the northwest. “There is a temple . . . on top of that rise . . . and a tower there—or there used to be a tower. If you can open the Font while I'm there, then we can recover the key.”

Drakis shook his head. “How could you possibly know . . . ?”

“I knew about the drakoneti attacking in Pythar before it happened,” Mala said, desperation in her voice. “I knew about the river that brought us to the Ambeth before anyone. I know how the key was hidden and I know . . . I know where it is, Drakis. Please, please believe me this one time.”

Drakis looked at her, anguish in his eyes. “Mala, you have to understand. I can't . . .”

Urulani pushed the Lyric aside and stepped between them, her hand on Drakis' chest. “She is going for the key . . . and I am going with her.”

Urulani paused and then looked around, her eyes falling on the dwarf's red sash tied about his waist. The raider captain stepped over to Jugar and snatched the sash loose, spinning the dwarf about as it unwound from around him.

“Urulani,” Jugar protested. “That is the finest article of decoration I have left!”

“This is our signal,” Urulani said, stepping back in front of Drakis and brandishing the bright red sash in his face. “We will put this somewhere you can see it when we get there. Then you finish activating the Font and we will bring you back this precious key.”

“How can you possibly believe her?” Drakis asked heatedly. “After all she's done to you . . . to your crew . . .”

“I believe her because I must,” Urulani said, her eyes flashing. “Because after all that has happened, she has come to see the truth.”

“Then go with her,” Drakis snapped, turning toward the dwarf. “How long will it take us to open this Font?”

“That's a most difficult question, indeed . . .”

“How long, dwarf!”

“Perhaps half an hour,” the dwarf shrugged. “Perhaps longer.”

“You have half an hour to get to that ruin and signal us,” Drakis said to Mala and Urulani. “If you do not hear from us by the time the sun reaches noon, then return to the harbor and we'll try to meet you there near the boats. Understand?”

Urulani nodded. Mala just watched him as he spoke.

“Then, one way or another,” Drakis said, “we are all going home!”

“One way or another,” Mala said through a soft smile. She turned and ran from the plaza with Urulani at her heels.

Soen Tjen-rei stood grimly at the door of the Grahn Aur's tent and surveyed the valley below him.

Belag had placed his tent after the elf fashion—atop the knoll of a hill looking back up the Willow Vale. It was a mean rise of rock, with sand and tough, stubborn brush clinging to it near the southern shores of Mistral Bay. Its only virtue was its height, which afforded a view back up the broad expanse of the Willow Vale and, at the moment, of the pending catastrophe that was about to befall the followers of Drakis and turn the valley into a slaughterhouse. Unlike the elves, however, Belag and all his officers preferred to command the battle near the front. This left Soen gratefully deserted and alone on the singular mount of stone as he considered his next move.

Across the valley, the manticores had, under Belag's direction and those of the army commanders beneath him, arrayed themselves once again in their classic battle lines. They were prepared to meet the elves in battle as they had fought their wars for centuries. They did so with trepidation. The warriors knew all too well the horrible defeat and routing that had had been their fate during their last battle with this same Legion on the Shrouded Plain. Yet they once again lined up in their ranks and formations and prepared for the inevitable charge that would signal the beginning of their fated defeat. The manticores were fierce and determined warriors and would have adjusted their tactics if they had any answer to the flexibility of the Rhonas folds and the Proxis who were as effective as they were disposable.

Soen could see the goblins on their strange wyvern mounts lining the top of the western ridge. They were here only for the spectacle—having made it clear to Soen and Vendis both that their interest in the impending battle was merely a sporting one and largely running along the lines of how long it would take the Legions of the Northern Fist to crush every living soul in their path into oblivion.

At the far southern end of the valley and stretching partially along the eastern flank were arrayed the Rhonas Legions who were biding their time in attacking. It was the strangest part of the whole affair for Soen. They had all been in place since dawn and yet they had not made any move against the Drakis forces.

The Drakis forces! Soen sneered at the thought. There was the real folly in all of this. He had begun all this hunting for an insignificant runaway slave who had somehow slipped his Devotions. Now two entire Legions of the Empire—sixteen thousand trained warriors—were being committed to the extermination of over sixty thousand men, women, and children—and those same sixty thousand followers were equally committed to defending their faith—all because they believed in the story of a man they had never seen and who, if he was somehow still alive on the wild northern continent, would never even know of their sacrifice in his name. Soen's own Order was seeking to snuff out not only the lives of both himself and his prey but to obliterate all knowledge that either had ever existed as well.