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The Fall
"Take your hand away from the bracelet, hon," the woman next to me suggested huskily. "I've had my eye on it for a while now."
Was this Gharu'ndim enchantress speaking to me? Who would dare take that tone with a Dune Singer Warmage? "That Mayoran garnet is badly cut, anyhow; it has worth only for the dedicated collector," she said. "Someone who is familiar with its history."
"Someone like you?" I said, smiling thinly. "You're from the Marshlands, aren't you?" She gently lifted the piece from my hand. "Pride still goes before a fall," the dark-eyed woman murmured at my insult. "Even Marshlanders would not botch a buy like this." The jeweler, his greasy smirk dissolving into a frown, looked on with widening eyes.
"If you were an expert," she continued smugly, "You would not offer this son-of-a-drudge two hundred pyreals for it. Clearly you know little of Sho workmanship." Part of me wanted to drub this rude newcomer into next morningthaw, woman or not; but curiosity -- or was it intuition? -- bade me hold my ire. After all, it was just possible that this enchantress really had no idea who I was. Dunes take me, it was just possible.
Without waiting for my reply she plowed on, holding the bracelet up for emphasis. "The Sho would consider this piece worthless, an inferior example of craftsmanship. Even when it was made it was considered bad work, and you don't have to be that familiar with the antiquities of Lao Shan to realize it." She held the golden band up to the light. "You see how the etchings are uneven, much more concave that they should be?"
Despite myself, I peered as closely as I dared. There appeared to be something to what she said. "Mayor was attacked by banderlings during the Spring of PY 8. Lao Shan lost his right hand during the fight, when a banderling guard decided he had the greater claim to it. For eight moons afterward the artist produced inferior jewelery because he was unfamiliar with the quirks of his left hand."
She was young, and her large, dark eyes bored into mine as if caught with fever. I hardly noticed the white curls beneath the bassinet. "It turned out that Shan couldn't give these away to his fellow Sho. The Alluvians, however, and the gullible Gharu'ndim, fevered as they were from the desert heat, paid extremely well for them over the years. As they continue to do," she finished wryly.
"You obviously know your jewelery," I acknowledged coolly. "Why did you decide to save me from this blunder?"
She counted out ten pyreals before the astounded shopkeeper. "I've been buying up Lao Shan's work for moons, for my own collection. You're not mad at me, hon, are you?"
I said nothing, but the jeweler had no such compunction. "You can't do this," the man cried excitedly, waving his thin arms in the air. "I had it sold for two hundred! It is not right!"
The Gharu'ndim enchantress allowed the bracelet to disappear into one of the many folds in her garment. "I'm afraid you will have to accept the natural order of things, sir. Or would you like me to inspect your entire stock for examples of Lao Shan's left-handed work?"
I didn't think it was possible for a man's eyes to pop that far forward, and still function. In the event, the shopkeeper muttered nothing coherent and disappeared behind the heavy shop tarp, apparently signaling the successful completion of the transaction. The enchantress stepped into the bright sun. "I am Breanna," she said. "Of Khayyaban." I decided I liked her.
The bracelet meant nothing to me, but it had been a way of getting the jeweler's trust. What interested me the most was tracking down a persistent rumor that a Black Stone had made its way to Hebian-To from the Direlands. The stone could be transformed into a Black Fire Orb, which reputedly was one of the most powerful magic items in Dereth. I had spent days following its weak trail all over the southern lands; now everything might be ruined because of an impetuous desert enchantress. "I am Maulan Take-a-Bow, of --"
"Of Al-Arqas, yes, it was obvious," she interrupted. "There is only one Dune Singer Warmage who carries around three packs full of gear. I have heard it said that a sleeping armoredillo can outrun the great Take-a-Bow of Al-Arqas. It is why you are such an accomplished healer, yes? Don't worry about it, hon," she finished. "I'll keep your secret."
I managed a thin smile. "I do not hide who I am." Turning toward the sea to get some air, I contemplated the development. The stout shops of Hebian-To sprawled around us, a refuge from the drudge-infested wilds beyond the little town. The woman's leathery dillo coat squeaked as she followed. "Don't be silly, hon," she said quietly, behind me. "I'm speaking of your hunt for the Black Stone."
I turned. "What do you know of that?"
"Only that a mage would give his eye-teeth for one. A Black Fire weapon would make Asheron himself take note; supposedly they are remnants of the old Empyrean magic."
"A connoisseur like you ought to know a little of their history," I suggested. Despite myself, and her crass demeanor, I was warming to the woman. "Is it true that a man in Samsur can craft a Black Fire Orb from one of the Direland stones?"
"Oh yes," she said, her thin nose bobbing up and down excitedly. "I am on my way there now, for just that reason."
"But," I wondered, "You would need to have a Black Stone first, right?" A cool onshore breeze blew in over the cliffs. The Tower of Serenity reared up behind us, a beacon for weary Derethians. The trail to the Black Stone ended right here, with this Gharu'ndim woman. She had known all along. "May I see it?"
Grinning, she handed over a small pouch. "I took the bracelet from you; I may as well let you ogle this trifle."
The stone was much smaller than I thought it would be, dull and uninteresting. One would run right past one of these Empyrean remnants in the gloom of a Derethian night. And she had one. Just like that.
I returned the pouch. "Then we shall make all haste to Samsur," I said.
"Oh, there's no need," she stated unconcernedly. "I already have six Black Fire Orbs."
"What?"
"Close your mouth, hon, you're attracting shreths. That's better. It isn't good for warmages to stand around looking like banderling caves," she observed. "They don't do me any good, the Orbs, I mean. Trying to cast through one is like throwing yourself into a river; you are simply carried away by its force. There is no controlling it."
When I said nothing, she added, "You didn't think a gem-hog like me would let these things go uncollected, did you? Anyway, they are much too powerful for the likes of you and me to actually use. They do look very nice, though." She fumbled in another pouch, and tossed me a smooth, faintly glittering egg, indeed one of the fabled Black Fire Orbs.
Tracing the faint, spidery thin web engraved on its surface made me aware of its inherent power; she was right; there was enough arcane energy stored within to sweep aside a column of Tumeroks. And I was powerless to tap it. "May I accompany you to the desert?" I asked, handing the treasure back carefully. "I'd like to see the Stone transformed into an Orb." It was the plain truth.
"I thought you'd never ask, hon," she grinned impishly. "I was hoping to convince you that it was your idea in the first place. I could use a good lifemage on the way to Samsur."
* * *
From Hebian-To we portalled to Zaikhal that very night, and from there began the long run to Samsur across the wastes; there was no point losing time. Besides, with the moons up we could see almost as well as during daylight. It was just that hunter shreths and reedsharks were upon us more often than not, before we could detect them. It was slow going.
Breanna was right; my packs did slow us down. At one point I commented wryly on her vast collection of rings, bracelets, and necklaces, and what effect they might possibly be having on our progress, but she didn't think it funny.
A day later we emerged onto a ridge somewhere north of our goal. Dust swirled around us, even on these heights . . . dust, and gromnie stench, thick in our dirt-caked nostrils. The hill fell away from us on either side in faded runs the color of ochre and iron ore. Heat turned the horizon to an uncertainty, at best. I pushed a significantly lighter canteen at my companion. "Drink," I said. "It will be the last until Samsur."
She upended the canteen into her mouth, trying at the same time to grin. "Too proud to drink before a woman, Take-a-Bow? This is the third time today you've secretly denied yourself a drink in favor of me. Should I remind you again what inevitably goes before a fall?"
Her dark eyes suddenly flicking past my shoulders was all the warning I had. Turning with an astounding lack of speed, I dropped my packs to the dust and fumbled for my wand. Breanna shrieked as a stream of acid found its target.
The posse of gromnies bearing down on us had materialized out of thin air, that was the only way to explain it. Their dry screeching, bellowed from azure-scaled bodies, clove the air around us. They clearly meant to occupy the space we were currently in; I would have let them have it, had I been given advance notice.
It was all I could do to focus my counter-attack on a single creature, so quickly did everything happen. Out of the periphery of my sight I was aware of Breanna, face bubbling horribly, hurtling herself down a narrow cut in the ridge, to gain a few precious heartbeats on the foul beasts. A gromnie hurtled after her, screaming its acrid fury. There was nothing I could do but deal with my own pair of brutes.
The unenlightened, by which I mean all those souls not privy to the workings of magic, have never been able to understand the process by which a mage calls upon those arcane forces which might save his life. They will say, "He is casting spells," or, "She is calling Volcanic Fire," but they do not truly understand what is meant by that. To them the process is linear: prepare spell components, cast a simple spell. But there is nothing linear or simple about it. Spells are nothing more or less than minute tears in the fabric of Derethian reality; by "casting," a mage, hopefully very deftly, organizes specific arcane bursts in those tears; normal matter caught in those bursts is then subject to the ravages of fire, acid, and worse, as it interacts with these powerful arcane energies.
A gromnie is many things: tough, tenacious, territorial, quickly roused, efficiently lethal in it's use of the breath weapon, but it is also composed of normal matter. Lots of it, in ugly, stinking quantities. Focusing through my wand, I unleashed great bursts of fire seemingly from the very boiling core of the world, to interact with these terrible creatures. The violence washed over me in vast waves.
My monarch, Maulan Gunnar, would have said I was kicking ass. All I could think of was Breanna scrambling down the cut, one of these brutes snapping at her neck, showering her with acid at every opportunity.
It maddened me that I wasn't prepared for it; I was even now too busy to heal the enchantress. But as swiftly as the foul things had descended upon us, the two who had challenged me arrived at their reward even quicker. Never had a mage of the Dune Singer Guild been taken so by surprise. I would have to atone to my brethren; it would be a long journey home. As the second gromnie exploded from within at the violence of my fiery attack, I whirled, stumbling to the cut.
How Breanna had scrambled down the narrow, pebbly groove, to reach an improbable ledge thirty yards below, I don't know. I was even less interested in how the azure abomination had managed it. Even now the beast lunged at her with all the power it's thick hind legs could muster. Unfortunately for Breanna, there was no way off the ledge except straight down. She knew it, and even in her pain, she straightened and faced the charging creature. She cried out arcane formulae with the focus of a Master, her own wand held up unswervingly.
The gromnie sensed victory, dispensing with its own acidic breath to lunge at the enchantress. Even from the top of the cut I was conscious of its confidence. "I've got it," she cried triumphantly, seeing my preparations for the killing blow. "Let me finish it, Marshlander!" It would be the last thing she said to me.
The narrow ledge had been precarious to begin with, but now, with the combined weight of two combatants, something in the ancient desert sandstone gave. A thunderous crackling, as if a Lugian were tearing a boulder from its foundation, and an explosion of dust were all the warning there'd be. In the space of one heartbeat, not even enough for Breanna to comprehend what was happening, the ledge sheared off the hill, taking her and the gromnie with it into the dusty depths below.
"Breanna," I cried, hurtling myself down what remained of the cut. This couldn't be happening! Not now, not after everything!
I scrambled to what remained of the rocky groove, peering over a jagged edge of sandstone, shards of dark shale, and dust. Down there, deep in a cloud of grime and dirt, the gromnie, astonishingly, still moved. The lower half of its jaw had been torn away, but still its eyes blazed with a fury only Asheron could understand. It's scales, once the color of a bright summer sky, now merely a faded reflection of it, looked incongruent amongst the desert rubble. Choking out the formula for a bolt of force to take the thing at last to the netherworld, I searched the boulders below for a sign of the enchantress.
In the farthest depths of my soul I knew that Breanna's body had not survived the terrible plunge; at the same time I understood that often the spirit survives that which the physical form does not. Was her indomitable soul even now on its way back to this very hill, searching persistently for that little mote of a mountain on Asheron's face?
I had lost a friend, and my mood was dark. More gromnies had gathered at the top of the hill, swarming around the only safe way down to the valley below. It didn't matter how many there were. Had I the use of a Black Fire Orb, I would have wreaked no more havoc among them than I did then. A part of me shouted that it was useless, that there were too many, but another part droned that a fair death honors the whole life. Such a trifle to pay for the avenging of the fair enchantress.
In the end, the dunes permitted me to live, and my vigil for Breanna's return began in earnest. I feared that the fall, my fall, had only just begun.
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