Echoes of the Fourth Magic tcoya-1 Page 9

  Now he understood the identity of that guardian angel.

  At length, Calae’s breeze came again. “A people call out to you,” he said. “Your path lies east, to Illuma.

  “But now, sleep, ancient ones, for the road ahead is hard and long, and sorrow and weariness will find you in the days to come.” As he spoke, the mist returned, bringing with it suggestions of slumber the mortals could not resist. They collapsed into a deep and restful sleep.

  Calae looked down upon them, mere shadows under the shroud of gray, and realized again that he had grown fond of this being called man and cared deeply about this race’s struggle to find its true path.

  “Go, ancient ones,” he said softly. “Go hence to Lochsilinilume. Seek out the Children of the Moon and teach Aielle the lessons of the past.”

  Chapter 8

  The Desolation of Thalasi

  DUSTY SUNLIGHT WOKE them sometime later. They struggled to orient themselves, trying to distinguish reality from dreams. Gone was the cavern, or had that, too, been just the delusions of wounded men? They were outside now, sitting on the parched dirt of a wasteland that stretched brown and barren as far as they could see in every direction except north, where loomed the great ominous stone mountains, standing resolute and undiminished by the dulling veil of sea fog. Del shuddered as he viewed that towering range, jagged and foreboding, for the image of its black heart, Talas-dun, remained unnervingly clear in his thoughts.

  Dressed still in their blue and white uniforms, each of them now had a hooded gray-brown cloak tied about his shoulders and a sheathed sword strapped to his hip. Water-skins and packs of provisions lay at their feet.

  More riddles.

  Despite the new situation, the pervading thought that pressed upon them was the image of Calae, and they understood him least of all. The memory of the angelic specter flooded each of them with distinctive, powerful feelings. To Mitchell, it was frustration and even anger, for in the presence of such a being, he seemed small and unimportant, and against the power of the Colonnae, he had no recourse. Reinheiser was also frustrated, not because he felt belittled, but because the mere existence of the Colonnae disputed the foundation of logic that had guided his entire life.

  Billy and Doc Brady accepted the Colonnae prince as the embodiment of peace and serenity. Del felt that inner comfort as well, but in a more profound way. Calae was the promise of answers, the guide to truth and to a level of existence beyond the human experience.

  Finally, Mitchell could contain his rage no longer. “What the hell was that thing?” he snapped.

  “Hell?” Billy echoed, contentment stamped indelibly upon his face. “Nothing to do with hell.” Doc Brady chuckled in agreement, but Mitchell glared at him and Reinheiser was quick to attack.

  “Leave naive spiritual fantasies out of this,” he huffed. “I know you, Mr. Shank-have known men like you all my life. Something happens which you can’t readily explain and you yell ‘miracle’ and fall on your knees to recite hollow prayer verses.”

  “You got a better explanation?” Billy retorted.

  “All of this and still you doubt?” Doc Brady added.

  Reinheiser stroked his goatee. “Have you considered that this entire episode might be part of an elaborate deception?”

  “Yeah, right,” Billy muttered, echoing Brady’s sentiments exactly.

  Del tuned out of the heightening argument. He considered any discussions of Calae to be pointless. He didn’t understand everything that was going on, but that wasn’t important, for Del knew instinctively that the science and rationale of his time offered no explanations for what had occurred. Logic, as they understood it, did not apply here. So Del broke through the limitations imposed by his inadequate knowledge and experience and released himself to the boundless acceptance of his imagination. He embraced Calae’s tale and this new world, not with his mind, but with his heart.

  Ignoring the others, he turned his attention to the sword at his side. A sense of wonderment engulfed him as his trembling fingers felt the exquisite detail in the hilt. This came from no assembly-line mold. Its delicate designs were crafted with the patient workmanship and love of caring hands. He marveled at the sword, not as a weapon, but as a symbol. Something about it set his imagination free to wander in lands of soaring dragons and dark dungeons of treasure and danger. And, of course, beautiful maidens waiting to be rescued from loathsome beasts by him, the Hero, or better still, of warrior women, fighting beside him. Consumed with his fantasy, he drew the sword from its scabbard and swung it about slowly, getting used to the feel of its perfect balance.

  The sounds of the argument suddenly stopped and Del realized that all eyes were upon him. He tried to hide his embarrassment behind a screen of comedy.

  “Goblins!” he roared, a smile fighting through his serious facade. “Bring on the goblins!” He tightened his muscles into a Hollywood-mimicking fighting pose and grimaced away his growing smile.

  “Talons!” Billy corrected lightheartedly.

  “Bring them, too,” Del clowned. “For my vengeance is great and my sword is hungry!” He thrust the weapon to the sky in triumph.

  “Hey, jerk!” the captain shouted, in no mood for games. “Put the toy away.”

  That stole a bit of Del’s bluster.

  “Swords,” Mitchell spat. “I’d trade the whole lot of them for one rifle. Or even a stupid pistol, for that matter.”

  At the mention of the word “pistol,” Del instinctively grabbed at his shirt pocket and felt the familiar bump of the derringer.

  “I-” Del began reflexively as he fingered the bullet, about to tell the others. But then he realized the implications, remembered the frightening image of Mitchell on the beach, wild-eyed and bordering on delirium with the power afforded him by his superior weapon. Best that the derringer remained his own little secret.

  “What?” Mitchell snarled in open contempt.

  “Nothing,” Del answered quietly, hoping the issue would be dropped. Mitchell glared, scrutinizing him and, Del understood, searching for some further excuse to vent his frustration.

  “I told you to put that damn sword away!” Mitchell raged. “When I give you an order, you jump, mister!”

  Now satisfied that he had put his junior officer in place, Mitchell’s need for power and domination seemed temporarily satiated. He turned to Reinheiser. But this time Del wasn’t going to let him have the last word.

  “Not again,” he said under his breath. “Time to get some things straight.” And as Mitchell swung back at Del to blast him for mumbling, Del looked him square in the eye and asked firmly, “Why?”

  “Why what?” Mitchell demanded incredulously.

  “Why do you give the orders?” Del asked as calmly as he could, taking extra care to make sure there wasn’t even a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

  “You got guts,” Billy whispered to Del, even as he took a cautious step away from his doomed friend.

  The imposing captain approached, but Del held his ground. “If the country blew up twelve hundred years ago, the Navy, and NUSET, went with it.”

  Mitchell listened unblinking, his muscles corded dangerously, on the verge of an explosion.

  But Del had committed himself and felt he had to finish his point. “We’re civilians.”

  Pure outrage reflected clearly on Mitchell’s contorting face. The others stared in disbelief. The captain turned to them and pretended to relax, grinning wickedly as he heard Del’s relieved sigh behind him. “Did you hear him?” the captain asked calmly, his smile broadening. “He wants to know why I’m in charge.”

  Suddenly, he wheeled back, the masking grin torn away by a snarl of unbridled rage so wicked that the blood drained from Del’s face. “I’ll tell you why,” Mitchell growled, and thwop! his huge fist smashed into Del’s jaw.

  Del reeled backward under a wave of dizziness. His knees wobbled but he refused to let them buckle. “I’m not going down,” he groaned softly, and by sheer determination he held
his balance. Then thwop! came the second blow, and Del felt the warmth of the blood running freely from his nose.

  “I’m not going down” he grunted angrily, covering his face with his arms just as Mitchell began unloading punches on him. The others quickly jumped in and separated the two.

  “Enough!” Mitchell shouted, and he pulled away from Billy and Brady. “It’s over!” He pointed ominously at Del. “You’re asking for more trouble than you can handle, pal.”

  Del kept his eyes averted but couldn’t ignore the threat.

  “I don’t think it’s broken,” Doc Brady said, holding Del’s head back to stop the flow of blood from his nose.

  “I wasn’t going down,” Del said with grim pride, firmly convinced that he had achieved a victory without throwing a punch.

  “Maybe you should have,” the pragmatic doctor replied. “He probably wouldn’t have hit you again.”

  “That’s not the point!” Del retorted, frustrated that Brady apparently didn’t share his dedication to principle. “We’re civilians now. We can’t let him push us around!”

  “Humor him, Del,” Brady advised. He looked back over his shoulder as he started away. “Or he’s going to kill you.”

  “Yeah, right,” Del muttered, too low for anyone to hear, and he gradually rejoined the others. Mitchell eyed him threateningly, but again Del didn’t return the look.

  “How do you figure all of this?” Mitchell asked Reinheiser, the captain apparently satisfied that his fight with Del had come to a temporary halt-just a plateau, they both knew, and they knew, too, that they would be climbing much higher before too long.

  The physicist shrugged. “I have no answers for you.”

  “Well, then what the hell do you suggest we do?” Mitchell snapped, his expression showing mounting frustration.

  “What can we do?” Reinheiser answered. “We cannot stay here, and I’ve no desire to go back to the beach and meet those creatures again.”

  “Only one choice left,” Brady cut in.

  “Play along, Captain,” Reinheiser advised. “Go east as the being instructed us. Perhaps our answers are there.”

  Mitchell closed his eyes in dismay; he had feared that advice. To him, going along with this game meant accepting it as real, and he wasn’t prepared to do that. “Okay,” he finally said, out of options. “Then let’s get going. Shank, take the point, and Doc, you and him-” He motioned at Del. “-bring up the rear.” The situation may have had Mitchell confused, but he was still shrewd in handling his crew. He knew that he had to keep Del and Billy as far apart as possible if he was to maintain control.

  And so the five men picked up their gear and set off eastward across the barren plain in search of answers. They plodded on in silence, each examining possible explanations. Del, though, having fully accepted the situation, was more concerned with the people he had left behind. He determined that this would be his time of mourning, and yet he found no tears to shed. Perhaps it was the unreality of the adventure, the subconscious expectation of awakening from a dream at any moment; or maybe, he hoped, it was his newfound awareness of the universal mysteries. With his heightened insight, he didn’t perceive his father or Debby as dead. Rather, they existed in a different time than he. Separated by eons, yet all very much alive. Immortality within our own little bubbles of time-space?

  Del hoped he wasn’t dreaming.

  For most, the deep reflections soon passed. The relentless sun and the choking dust simply weren’t conducive to contemplation. As the distraction of thought passed away, Billy got bored all alone up front, but knew better than to argue with Mitchell, given the captain’s foul mood. He wouldn’t have found much company with the other four anyway. Mitchell and Reinheiser had begun a private planning session, discussing courses of action should certain situations arise. Del had lightened his thoughts, but they remained private. Now he was enjoying another fantasy as a warrior engaged in a heroic battle. And this time the loathsome beast was Hollis Mitchell.

  Brady, too, was preoccupied, stubbornly trying to sort out a general uneasiness with this whole situation. His concern ran too deep for the discomfort of the wasteland to distract him. For the doctor, alone among the group, something just didn’t seem to fit.

  The sun climbed high above them, its penetrating rays draining their energy with every step and weakening their determination to go on. Finally, lathered in sweat, with irritating dust clinging to their wetness, they took their first break. There was no shade to be found, but at this point they gladly settled for a bit of food and, more important, something to drink.

  Their packs contained dried, bland-looking cakes that the men eyed with grudging acceptance, if not hungrily. But they were in for a pleasant surprise, for one nibble turned their lips up into delighted smiles. The cakes proved wonderfully delicious, and the sweet-smelling liquid in the skins incredibly refreshing, revitalizing their lost energy with every drop. Their resolve returned with their strength, for they knew that this gift from the Colonnae would sustain them across the wasteland. All too soon they felt themselves sated, but in packing up, they were stunned to find that they had actually consumed very little.

  “It seems that we have more provisions than we thought,” Billy said cheerfully.

  “Probably just means that we’ve got farther to go,” Mitchell grumbled, equating anger with alertness. He was scared now, not knowing what to expect next, and would not allow himself to be caught unawares.

  They traveled on that afternoon, and the land remained brown and foul. Even the air tasted unwholesome, and the colorless and empty sky offered no hopeful promises. Jagged cracks gouged the landscape like parched mouths begging the unhearing heavens for water. The men saw no living thing, for they traversed the land of Brogg, the Brown Wastes, a desolation wrought by Thalasi in the early days before the Battle of the Four Bridges to discourage any curious adventurers who might discover Talas-dun and his secret army. Even centuries later, the scourge of the Black Warlock remained complete upon this land.

  Night came suddenly, cool and refreshing. But it was all too short, and almost without warning the morning sun burst over the eastern horizon. Again the day was hot and dry, as the men realized every day would be in this desert. To further their misery, a sharp wind came up, whipping stinging sand into their eyes and mouths. Still they saw no signs of life, and all of them grew more sullen and quiet, particularly Doc Brady. Something deeply troubled the doctor. He seemed uneasy, worried, his eyes constantly darting about as if in search of some impending disaster. But when Del asked him about it, he shrugged it off and would not answer.

  Day turned into night, and night back to day. And when the days became a week, the land still had not changed.

  That first week was brutal. The relentless sun took its toll on their skin, and the hike had their feet aching and swelling tight within their boots. On Doc Brady’s suggestion, the men tightened their laces and didn’t remove their boots even when sleeping, fearing they wouldn’t be able to get them back on.

  The second week proved worse. Physically, the men improved, their blisters turning to calluses and their skin tanning a deep brown. But boredom pressed in upon them. Each day became nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other in a countless procession that seemed to accomplish nothing in the never-changing landscape. The wasteland remained physically trying, but its demands multiplied when their hearts went out of the journey. Even Del had tired of this adventure. He had run out of fantasies to explore and now found only tedium. They trudged on, though, having nowhere else to go.

  In the third week the tops of dark mountains reappeared far in the north and the men’s packs grew noticeably lighter. They prayed this meant that their travels were nearing an end, but with the eastern horizon before them still an unbroken line of scorched brown, they feared otherwise.

  Near the end of that week, they passed a few scrawny bushes widely scattered and nearly as scarred as the broken earth. The desperate men welcomed even thi
s small change as a blessing, though their hopes sank quickly as several more miles of nothingness slowly rolled by.

  Then, so suddenly that it took their dust-reddened eyes a few moments to adjust, they breached the top of a sandy slope and found themselves on the edge of a green field with rich blue skies overhead. Birds fluttered excitedly about at the approach of strangers, and small coneys lifted their twitching noses high to examine the unfamiliar scent.

  Del fell to his knees and muttered a sincere thank-you to the heavens above. More than once Billy wiped tears from his eyes, explaining it as sweat, though the others shared his feelings and knew better. Only Doc Brady remained sullen. For some unknown reason, the change in scenery did little to lift his spirits.

  The green carpet spread wide before them, rising and falling gently in a series of rolling hills. The tall northern mountains seemed much closer now, and the men could also discern a low, rocky range off to the south. These majestic peaks looked markedly different from the foreboding mountains they had left far behind in the west. Curling streams of mica crisscrossed the mountainsides like icicles on a Christmas tree, sparkling brilliantly in countless reflections of the sun.

  The great range stretched eastward for many miles and then swung south, so that ahead of them, still a day’s journey or more, the men could see the towering landscape that they somehow knew held the refuge of Illuma. Perhaps Calae had ingrained this image in their minds as a guide. They picked up their pace considerably, for their hearts pounded with excitement at the prospect of finding their goal, and finding some answers.

  Hours and miles later, the northern mountains loomed even closer and the narrowing vale sloped gradually down. The spirited men could have gone on a few hours more, but soon the light began to wane.

  Crimson splayed across the western sky, marking the end of the day, igniting a thousand red fires on the mica rivers of the mighty northern mountains. Even Mitchell gaped in awe at the overwhelming beauty of the Crystal Mountain sunset.