Realms of Shadow Part 20

I serve the clan, was Embracing the Clouds's reply. The mountains? The heavy air?

Astride the Wind flew fast toward his clanmate, glancing back to see an obviously irritated, scowling arch-wizard in the flying boat, giving chase.

The mountains, yes, Astride the Wind responded. The heavy air.

Amidst the Blue twitched under the ministering hands of the human while Kaeralonn paced angrily across the aviary. Behind him, the clear sky sparkled with stars that moved as one as the floating city gently turned. Warmth spread from the human's hands and Amidst the Blue twitched again when the now familiar nettling itch of the priestly healing magic closed his oozing wounds.

There were more than you told us there would be, Amidst the Blue sent to the pacing human.

Kaeralonn stopped pacing and spun on him angrily. "That's what I sent you to determine, youpea-brained fool. You killed as many of your own men as the enemy did. Need I remind you again of the cost to train you feathered savages, to keep you and equip you?"

Amidst the Blue looked away, his feathers ruffling. He had no answer. He'd been sent to lead a flight of his brother kenku against a small flotilla of flying boats set into the sky by a neighboring enclave. The battle had gone badly from the start. The enchanted maidensthigh melons they'd been given to drop on the boats from above instead exploded in the hands of a good dozen kenku- blasting them apart in a blaze of green-white flame. Only two actually managed to land on a boat, neither working the way Kaeralonn had planned. All they did was illuminate the invisible shields with which the enemy mages had encircled their boats. Arrows both enchanted and mundane ripped more kenku apart, and the small spells of the kenku and their weapons and talons took some toll on the enemy, but in the end it was Amidst the Blue who broke off and retreated, with only a quarter of the force he'd flown out with.

Kaeralonn had reason to be displeased, but so did Amidst the Blue.

"Silence?" Kaeralonn asked with a sneer. "You have nothing to say for yourself?"

What is there to say, General? Amidst the Blue answered.

"I am finished here," the priest muttered to Kaeralonn, who waved him off dismissively. "Your slaves are well cared for, General."

Kaeralonn stepped closer to the priest and grabbed his arm with a tight, commanding grip. "Hold your tongue, priest," Kaeralonn said through tight lips, "and get out." The priest looked offended but left quickly. Kaeralonn went back to his angry pacing and Amidst the Blue was left to ponder the priest's words. Slaves.

He had heard the word many tunes in the last two years. He had heard it uttered by his own people-kenku whom Amidst the Blue had brought to Shade Enclave himself, brought into the service of Kaeralonn. Amidst the Blue had been confused, baffled by his brothers' inability to see the warmth and friendship in Kaeralonn or the value in service to his cause. The other kenku regarded Kaeralonn with fear and suspicion, even hatred-but why? Amidst the Blue was beginning to understand.

He sat up on the cold metal table and looked next to him at the young kenku, Along the Thermals, who was lying next to him, bandaged and writhing in pain. Their eyes met and Amidst the Blue could feel the emotions of the young kenku, wrapped in a psychic package of pain and pleading.

You're the only one, Along the Thermals sent.

The only one? Amidst the Blue asked, a tear coming unbidden to his bruised eye.

You brought us here, the young kenku replied, and only you can take us out. Resist him. Break our bonds, Amidst the Blue, and we will follow you to- "Silence!" Kaeralonn shouted just as a flickering, jagged string of bunding blue-white luminescence leaped from the tips of his fingers and smashed into Along the Thermals hard enough to lift the young kenku off the table and pound him into the mudbrick wall. The wall cracked and the kenku screamed, twitching madly in the hold of the vertical lightning. The bolt was gone in less than the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat, but its path was burned onto Amidst the Blue's vision. Along the Thermals lay dead and smoking, a melting black ruin on the scorched floor.

Amidst the Blue felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Kaeralonn smiling at him in a condescending, twisted, evil way. "Don't listen to these slaves, my friend, they're just-"

Kaeralonn went down hard from Amidst the Blue's kick. The human grabbed at his midsection and tried to breathe in but couldn't.

You, Amidst the Blue dropped into the gasping human's mind, are not my friend.

Kaeralonn reached up with his right hand, his fingers moving through the traces of a spell and he found his voice in time to utter only the first arcane syllable before Amidst the Blue grabbed his face with one sharp-taloned foot. I'm no longer your slave.

The kenku ripped down and tore into the silky flesh of the general's face. Blood flew everywhere and the other kenku-nearly a hundred of them lying around the open room in various states of disrepair and despair-stood up and took notice.

"Stop!" the human gasped, his face a b.l.o.o.d.y ruin, his hands pressed against his cheeks to hold the flesh on.Amidst the Blue drew his sword and raised it over the head of the archwizard. You have taught us well, Kaeralonn, but you have taught us too much.

As the blade came down fast and hard at the human's neck, Kaeralonn pulled something from inside his mouth-a tooth, Amidst the Blue saw-and when the sword came down past where his neck should have been, the human was gone.

Amidst the Blue let himself laugh. There will be a time, slaver. We will not forget.

With that Amidst the Blue led his people to freedom.

The jagged brown mountains loomed before them. The sky directly above seethed with potential energy and Astride the Wind and Embracing the Clouds found it difficult to maintain alt.i.tude. Astride the Wind's side burned and his head ached, but still he fought on.

Where are you going? Kaeralonn asked the kenku's reeling mind. Leading me back to your nest, in hopes that your clanmates will overwhelm me? You're as foolish and as vain as Amidst the Blue.

Astride the Wind ignored him. Instead, he thought to Embracing the Clouds, This is it. It ends here.

Astride the Wind fluffed his wings, bringing himself up short-and his wings were pressed hard against his sides by some heavy, outside force. He was covered in a ma.s.s of white silk like a spider's web, but the web had appeared out of nowhere, in the air all around him. The source of it was obvious, even before Kaeralonn's gloating statement, Wrapped like the gift you are, thrall.

Astride the Wind squawked in defiance and began to fall. Unable to spread his wings, he couldn't fly. He could twist his body enough to control his spin, though, and he managed to see what Kaeralonn was doing. The flying boat was moving fast on a course obviously designed to bring it under Astride the Wind. Kaeralonn had immobilized him so he could drop like a bundle into the open boat.

Arrows whistled through the air from a circling Embracing the Clouds. Kaeralonn didn't even bother to hold up a hand. The arrows-which should have lodged deep in the man's chest-whirled around him and down like water caught in a drain. Embracing the Clouds cawed in frustration, though they both had always known this enemy would be harder to kill than that.

Astride the Wind slammed onto his back on the wooden deck of the flying boat and his vision spun from the impact. Above him were the deep black clouds, below two thirds of a mile of open air then the stony foothills. Astride the Wind struggled against the web, but it held his wings and arms tightly to his sides. Kaeralonn looked down at him and said something in his vile human speech that Astride the Wind couldn't understand.

The bound kenku managed to sit up in the gently rocking boat, and he could see Embracing the Clouds wheeling in the distance against the backdrop of the barren mountains. Embracing the Clouds's bow was around his shoulders and a dagger was in his right hand. His wings arced and he turned to fly fast at the boat.

No, brother, Astride the Wind sent to him. Keep your distance.

Embracing the Clouds whirled around in the air and started back the way he'd come without a moment's hesitation. The human had the audacity to laugh.

Astride the Wind ignored them both, only barely feeling the boat lift and turn in the direction of Embracing the Clouds's flight. The human meant to give chase.

Astride the Wind felt the energy building within him. The human, for all his great power, was still dependant on spells. Spells required hands, a tongue, and sometimes items of focus or power. What Astride the Wind had drawn the hated human here to do required none of those things. It was a natural progression from the seed of power planted in the ancient kenku by Kaeralonn himself, as shortsighted as he was long-lived.

The kenku's reverie was deep, but not so deep that he failed to hear Kaeralonn begin the chanting cadence of a spell-from this close so obviously different from his normal monotone, mumbling speech.

Astride the Wind's legs were still free, though not entirely. He could, and did, kick out and up just enough to jostle Kaeralonn's elbow, knock him just enough toward the edge of the boat to startle him-and in the process ruin the spell.

The archwizard spun on the restrained kenku, his scarred face blazing with anger.Know, the archwizard screamed into Astride the Wind's mind, when you're beaten, slave!

The human reached down and grabbed Astride the Wind's shoulder roughly. The human wore a ring on that hand, a ring that started to burn when it touched Astride the Wind's feathers. Kaeralonn was obviously immune to the heat, but Astride the Wind was being burned painfully. He couldn't help but call out a single pained shriek.

Astride the Wind... Embracing the Clouds sent, concern making the thought spiky and urgent.

Go, brother, Astride the Wind replied. Tell them what happened here.

Indeed, "brother," Kaeralonn interceded. Tell them all that the master has returned and their service is required once more. Your clanmate-or what's left of him-will be waiting for you on Shade Enclave.

No, Kaeralonn, Astride the Wind replied. When Amidst the Blue took your face and your slaves from you, he remembered everything. When that ragged band of kenku flew from your hated aerie and found a home in the high caves far away, they painted his memories and his warning... and his wishes for the future, on the walls. He told us the manner of the death of the slaver, should the day come that he or his kin returned.

The burning subsided and the archwizard smiled in a condescending, unimpressed way. How lovely for you all.

The manner of your death was decreed by your first slave, Kaeralonn. You will share the fate of the martyr, Along the Thermals.

Along the... ? Kaeralonn responded, confused. Astride the Wind closed his eyes, the power inside him linked to the heart of the clouds. He could feel Kaeralonn's hand come off his shoulder. The first half of the first syllable of a spell certainly designed to get him away whispered off the tip of the human's lip-and the sky exploded in blinding light.

The lightning bolt held all the fury of the heavy mountain clouds. It slammed into the boat and through Kaeralonn with force enough to blast the archwizard into a spray of flaming gobbets of sizzling flesh. The wood of the boat shattered, exploded from within. Astride the Wind's body tensed and he could feel small bones break in his hands, his jaw, his talons. The web boiled away, taking rows of feathers with it, and Astride the Wind screamed at the pain of his unprotected flesh burning.

He tumbled madly away, laughing through the pain and loss, knowing that he'd taken the slaver with him. The hands that grabbed him grabbed him hard and a flood of emotions flowed into his mind from Embracing the Clouds. Astride the Wind opened his eyes and found that he could only see out of one of them, but he could see his clanmate.

It is done, highest of brothers, Embracing the Clouds told him, his arms gently circling Astride the Wind's burned, limp form. The clan awaits.

Astride the Wind could feel Embracing the Clouds's wings carry them both higher, turning to the west and home.

The Fallen Lands

Murray J.D. Leeder

19 Ches, the Year of Wild Magic

I remember sitting in the cla.s.s of my mentor, the wizard Maligo of Mistledale. Retired from his adventures to the clergy of Azuth, he occasionally defended the Dale from its enemies but mostly was content to live quietly and teach a new generation of mages. He would die several years later of a miscast spell during the Time of Troubles, a hard blow to me. I learned almost all I know about magic from him. In this particular cla.s.s, I took it upon myself to ask a naughty question: "If Mystra is a G.o.ddess of good, why does she allow evil people to use magic?"

The other children around me t.i.ttered that I asked such a question, but not Maligo. He was a man of infinite patience.

"What do you children think?" he asked."It is not for Mystra to deny magic to anyone," answered another mageling, the son of one of the Council of Six and certainly my archnemesis of the moment. Despite his best attempts, he never became nearly as close to Maligo as I did. "She teaches us wisdom instead," he explained, "and if we do not heed her wisdom, if we use her power for destructive means, she is not to blame."

This was the usual answer to that question. It wasn't the first time I'd heard it, nor the last. I had to hear that answer many times before it started to sound reasonable....

I woke up to the sun stabbing me in the eye. a.s.sessing my situation as best I could, I found I was wrapped in some kind of animal fur and naked underneath. The chill air on my face kept me awake. I tried and failed to sit up, so badly was I aching, though I knew my wounds had been healed.

Wounds. Where did I get them? The orcs. I remembered the orcs. They attacked us at night.

Hundreds of them, far more than I had seen at one time, moved toward us in waves. Many were riding flightless avians, like ugly featherless ostriches. My spells slew many, but they kept coming. These orcs looked unusual. In their eyes, shining in the torchlight, I did not see the manic bloodl.u.s.t typical of their kind. Instead their eyes were gla.s.sed over, faraway.

I remembered Neril slipping between the orcs, slashing at all sides with his great broadsword and cleaving them by the dozens. Mystra! There was a moment when they were around him on all sides, separating him from the rest of us. That was the last I saw of him.

"The others," I croaked, my throat parched. "The others."

"Did you hear that?" said someone with a deep male voice. "He speaks our language!"

"Are you sure?" somebody else said.

"Please . . . the others." I was regaining my faculties, and I attempted a complete sentence: "Are the others all right?"

A man stepped over me. My eyes widened as I stared up at him. His head eclipsed the sun, so I couldn't make out his features clearly. He was tall, probably a head above me, and in the Dalelands I was considered a tall man. His hair was long and black, and he was clad in the pelt of a wolf. A barbarian.

Yes! I remembered the barbarians. They rushed out of the night like ghosts and joined the fray, their spears and axes and hammers sailing across the battlefield. Just before I pa.s.sed out, a warhammer shattered the skull of the orc with its sword to my throat. It likely saved my life. Now, a similar hammer was in the hands of the man standing above me.

"Do not move, Civilized. Stay still, or you will taste Uthgardt steel. How did you come to speak our language?"

I heard Common, but his lips moved in his native tongue.

"I don't," I said.

I ran my weak hand up to my chest and confirmed that I was still wearing the amulet. I pulled it out from under the fur. It glowed serenely, and gave off a certain amount of warmth, something I was glad for in these northern winters.

This makes it possible for me," I explained.

The amulet was a gift from my mentor, many years ago. It translated my language into that of the listener and his language to mine. It had served the Blazing Band well over the years, even though it had limitations. The barbarian's use of "civilized," for example, was probably the best translation it could manage of a concept not present in Common.

"I knew we should have taken it away from him, Thluna. It's magic!"

"I knew it was magic, Gar," answered the barbarian above me. "That's why I didn't touch it. I was afraid it might poison me."

"It is not a weapon. It's not a danger to you or anyone," I said. "Tell me, who else from my company survived the battle?"

"No one," he said.My heart sank, though I wasn't surprised at his answer. I reviewed them all in my mind. I had known Neril the longest, since we were children. The two of us formed the Blazing Men together in Mistledale-it wasn't until we took on our first female member that we amended the name-but somehow I felt saddest for our youngest member, dear young Shalinda. She had joined us in Sundabar barely a month before. She was just a northern farm girl, eager to see the world and with a minor apt.i.tude for the longbow gained from shooting wolves. It was her first battle that killed her, and I doubt she was able to slay even a single orc before they reached her.

Sundabar. That's where we were when we heard the news. The Lords' Alliance was dispatching troops-even the Blackstaff was rumored to be on the move. Neril suggested we take an unusual route-east of the High Forest-to Evereska, one that would get us there quickly while avoiding major roads, which might be compromised. We were lucky to get through the Nether Mountains before the blizzards began.

"Ask him if he's a mage. Ask him if this is a magic book."

I forced myself to sit up and saw the other barbarian, an equally brutish-looking fellow. He had my spellbook, my one possession of true power, my one defense, lying closed in front of him, with my quarterstaff and robes beside it. My mind was empty of spells. I could not fight my way out if I wanted to.

I recalled the advice a seasoned adventurer once gave us. We met him in a tavern in Neverwinter.

He said, "If you ever want to commit suicide easily, tell an Uthgardt you're a mage."

But I suspected they had a still lower opinion of liars.

"I am a mage," I confessed. "My name is Arklow of Ashabenford."

I turned my eyes to the barbarian above me. As he moved his head out from behind the sun, I realized that he was very young, probably barely fifteen winters. His scars told me that at this young age he had seen more combat than I had in my thirty. In his eyes, I saw an odd mix of revulsion and something else. Curiosity?

"A mage? We've saved a mage, Thluna," said the other barbarian. "Sungar will skin us for this. He won't be happy that the shaman healed him before some of our own."

"He was the most badly wounded, and he fought fiercely against the orcs," replied Thluna, "even if he is a mage."

I filled in the appropriate adage- -the enemy of my enemy is not my enemy-but I detected a strange undercurrent to Thluna's voice that made me suspect there was more to it than that.

"Arklow of Ashabenford, I am Thluna, son of Haagravan, of the Thunderbeast tribe. That is Garstak."

Thunderbeast. I'd never heard of that tribe before, and I was happy for that since the most famous tribes were generally those who raided civilized settlements. Somehow, though, the name made something click in my mind. There were mountains visible in the distance, and I knew they were among the northernmost of the Greypeaks. I turned and looked behind me, and I saw an expanse of dry, dead earth stretch off to the horizon. There was some shifting snow but not much. The area seemed almost devoid of weather. I knew the name of the place we were cutting through to get to Evereska. It was a dismal, little-visited corner of Faerun civilized men called the Fallen Lands.

Once I was ready to walk again, Thluna and Garstak let me dress. They did not return my spellbook or staff, and for the moment I didn't ask for them. They led me through the Thunderbeast camp, a hodgepodge of portable dwellings of animal skins, filled with a selection of stocky barbarians, all male and mostly wounded in some way or another, and all looking at me with fear and contempt. They took me before their chieftain, Sungar Wolfkiller.