The Dark Warden (Book 6) (23 page)

“Because they did have magic of their own,” said Calliande. “The Keeper of Avalon wielded her powers against the foes of Andomhaim, and her staff was passed from apprentice to apprentice for generations.”

“It was the Keeper of Avalon who traveled with the knight Calobrand to Cathair Solas,” said Ridmark, his face grim as he watched the Warden, “to ask Ardrhythain for aid against the urdmordar.” 

“And so Calobrand became the first Swordbearer, the first Master of the Order of the Soulblade,” said Arandar, “and his sister became the first Master of the Order of the Magistri.” 

“And the realm was saved in glorious battle,” said the Warden, his words heavy with mockery. “Until then, the Keeper’s magic stood against the powers of Andomhaim’s foes. For the Keeper’s magic was of Old Earth, and no magic of this world could contest it. Hence the Keeper could match the power of dark elven wizards a thousand times her age. Tell me, then, Calliande of Tarlion. What became of the Keeper?” 

“The Keeper oversaw the Order of the Magistri,” said Calliande, “and usually a Magistria became the new Keeper. She led the realm of Andomhaim against the Frostborn when they appeared, and she summoned Kalomarus the Dragon Knight to defeat them. And then…and then…”

“The Keeper disappeared,” said Arandar, “from the histories and chronicles of Andomhaim. No one knows what became of her.”

“She had been slain fighting the Frostborn,” said Ridmark, “and she left no apprentice to pass on her staff…”

His voice trailed off as he stared at her.

They were all staring at her.

“No,” said Calliande, her voice hoarse. “I…I cannot be…”

“The Keepers never revealed their names and only used their titles in public,” said the Warden. “So no one recorded that Calliande of Tarlion was the last Keeper of Avalon. No one knew that she was the only daughter of a fisherman who lost his wife to the plague. No one knew that on the day her father drowned her power manifested as she tried to save him. No one remembered that the Magistri took Calliande as a novice, that her grief for her father’s death drove her to become the most gifted healer the Order had seen in its two and a half centuries. Certainly no one recalled that Calliande’s talents caught the eye of the Keeper, that she became the Keeper’s new apprentice after the Frostborn slew the first. All of this was utterly forgotten.”

Every word hammered in Calliande’s mind. She wanted to scream a denial. But she knew in her bones that he was right. 

“I was the last Keeper of Avalon?” said Calliande. 

A small voice whispered that the Keeper would have taken no husband, that Calliande could have kissed Ridmark without hesitation. That she had let him go to Morigna for no good reason. 

But even that paled to insignificance against the Warden’s next words.

“You were,” said the Warden. “Actually, you still are, since you never passed your staff and office to a new bearer. You were a remarkable woman, for a human. I watched your progress from afar with great interest. When the old Keeper fell in battle as the Frostborn began their final assault, you took up her staff and mantle. You rallied the lords of Andomhaim and led them to victory. You could speak with lords and commoners both. Your powers were immense, and your skill in wielding them considerable. You were the architect of Andomhaim’s victory against the Frostborn. You convinced Ardrhythain to give you the Dragon Sword, which you bestowed upon the knight Kalomarus, making him the first human Dragon Knight.”

“So the Keeper and the Dragon Knight led the hosts of Andomhaim in the final battle,” said Ridmark, quoting the chronicles of the High Kings of Andomhaim, “and shattered the host of the Frostborn and destroyed them utterly.”

“More accurately, you closed the gate to the world the Frostborn had used for their invasion,” said the Warden. “Cut off from their world, they could not survive here, and so they perished and Andomhaim had the victory.”

“Why?” said Calliande. “Why did I do this to myself? Why did I cut out my memory and bury myself alive?”

The Warden’s smile grew crueler. “Because your apprentice was one of the first Eternalists.” 

“What?” said Calliande.

“The apprentice betrayed you and tried to kill you at Shadowbearer’s bidding,” said the Warden. “What you did next…in a way, it was farsighted. For a human. Humans are blind. Your lives are so short, and every generation must learn anew the fundamental truths. Little wonder so much is lost between generations. Little wonder the bearer of shadow has found humans so easy to corrupt. But you saw the dangers of the coming corruption. You realized that Shadowbearer had summoned the Frostborn the first time, and would do so again. You also realized that he had set in motion secret societies that would eat away at the foundations of the realm, so that when the Frostborn returned, Andomhaim would be ill-equipped to resist. You saw the danger, as did your contemporaries…but would your children? Would their children? In two hundred years, would anyone believe that the Frostborn would return,” he gave a contemptuous flick of his hand at Ridmark, “or would only ragged exiles see the danger while the lords of Andomhaim rested secure in their pomp and pride?” 

“I did this to myself,” said Calliande, “to…prepare for the return of the Frostborn?”

“Indeed,” said the Warden, “and to keep your most potent weapons from falling into the hands of the bearer of shadows.”

“When I awoke,” said Calliande, “Shadowbearer looked into my mind. He kept asking about a sword and a staff…he meant the Dragon Sword and the Staff of the Keeper, didn’t he?”

“That is correct,” said the Warden. “The woman you were foresaw the danger. So she prepared. You founded the Order of the Vigilant, to keep watch for the return of the Frostborn. You hid the sword of the Dragon Knight in a place hidden even from me and the Staff of the Keeper at Dragonfall. Then you cast a spell beneath the Tower of Vigilance, binding your memories to your staff and putting you into a deep sleep. The Order of the Vigilant would guard you and keep watch until the day of the omen of blue flame. When the omen came, they would awaken you, you would retrieve your staff, and defend the realm from the danger. A solid plan.”

“But it went wrong,” said Calliande, “didn’t it?”

“Remarkably so,” said the Warden. “You hid your staff and the sword too well for Shadowbearer to claim them, but he could move against you in other ways. He founded the Eternalists and the Enlightened, and after the Eternalists were destroyed the Enlightened of Incariel grew strong. He instigated the civil war within Andomhaim simply to destroy the Order of the Vigilant. The spells upon your vault meant that he could not enter…but he knew you would awaken on the day of the omen of blue flame. He simply needed to await you, kill you, and use your stolen power to activate his empty soulstone. From there he would proceed to the circle of standing stones atop the Black Mountain to open his gate, and the Frostborn would come to Andomhaim once more.”

“My God,” said Calliande, shaken. She looked at Ridmark. Shadowbearer had come so close, so utterly close, to complete triumph. If Ridmark had not rescued her from the Mhalekites, if they had not defeated Qazarl’s siege of Dun Licinia, then she would have been killed and Shadowbearer would have opened the gate. The Frostborn would have returned, and everything Calliande had done would have been in vain. 

Everything would have been in vain. The destruction of the Order of the Vigilant. The Watcher’s long vigil. The terrible things she had done to herself…it would all have been for nothing. 

“Yes,” said the Warden. “He almost prevailed…but the Gray Knight intervened. Such is his gift. His destiny and his curse, as it were.” He turned in a circle, regarding them with his deadly smile. “Now you know the truth. You know what the Frostborn are, and you know who Calliande really is. Tell me. Does the knowledge comfort you?”

“It does,” said Ridmark, “save for one thing. Where is Dragonfall?”

“Dragonfall,” said the Warden, “is the tomb of the last of the ancient dragons. It is located in the heart of the ruins of Khald Azalar, beneath the mountains of Vhaluusk.”

“Khald Azalar!” said Caius. “That is preposterous. Khald Azalar was one of the Nine Kingdoms of my kindred. Surely the stonescribes would have known if a dwarven kingdom had been built around such a place.”

“Does not the King of Khald Tormen have his secrets?” said the Warden. “So too the King of Khald Azalar had his secrets, including a pact with Ardrhythain to guard the tomb of the dragons. A secret that was forgotten when the Frostborn destroyed Khald Azalar. Forgotten to all save Ardrhythain…and the last Keeper of Avalon.” 

“My staff and my memories are in Dragonfall, then?” said Calliande, and the Warden nodded.

“We walked right past it,” said Gavin with a shake of his head. “A turn north of Moraime, and we could have been there in ten days.”

“Azakhun was taking artifacts from Khald Azalar that the Vhaluuskan orcs had found,” said Jager. “We were very close.”

“The sword of the Dragon Knight,” said Calliande. “Where is it?”

“I have no idea,” said the Warden. “You concealed that well enough that even my sight cannot discern the location.” 

“Then we know what we must do next,” said Ridmark. “We must go to Khald Azalar and retrieve Calliande’s staff.” He looked at the Warden. “Unless you mean to stop us?”

The Warden stared at him for a long time, and then threw back his head and roared his insane laugh. 

“Ridmark Arban,” he said. “Do you not yet understand why you are here? None of you are leaving Urd Morlemoch alive.”

###

Ridmark braced himself. The Warden’s revelations had given him fresh hope. If they could escape Urd Morlemoch, they could retrieve Calliande’s staff. They could defeat Shadowbearer and stop the Frostborn from returning. 

If they could escape Urd Morlemoch.

“No more games, then?” said Ridmark. “You’re just going to kill us?”

“The time for games is past,” said the Warden. “I am deadly serious. Why do you think I let you depart nine years ago?” 

“Because I won your game,” said Ridmark.

“In part,” said the Warden. “Do you remember what Ardrhythain told you about the nature of time?”

“That the past is like stone, unchanging,” said Ridmark. “That the present is a fire that burns, and the future is a changing shadow cast by that fire.” 

“It is the nature of the elven kindreds that we can see the shadows of the future,” said the Warden, “and I saw that your shadow, Ridmark Arban, was long and black indeed. I saw that you would return to Castra Marcaine and suffer a terrible loss. And I foresaw that loss would set you upon the path of your quest, a quest that would lead you to the Keeper of Avalon…and would, inevitably, lead you back here to me.” 

The sense of unease, the sense of a trap closing around him, grew sharper. “Why would you want the Keeper to come here? She has neither her staff nor her memory.”

“Yet she is still the Keeper,” said the Warden. “She still possesses certain unique magical properties.”

“Properties that you would find useful?” said Calliande, her hands flexing as they did when she prepared a spell.

“Exactly,” said the Warden. “You saw the weapons of Old Earth. Bombs that can annihilate entire cities in a single heartbeat and poisons that can destroy the population of a nation. All these weapons, and their possessors neither believe in God nor possess any magical power. They would have no defense against me. I could conquer Old Earth in a matter of weeks, simply through enthralling the leaders of the most powerful nations. From there it would be easy to unify Old Earth under my command, and then to open gates to new worlds. With the armies and weapons of Old Earth, I would rule an empire that would span the cosmos, an empire that would make the empires of my destroyed kindred seem like the playrooms of half-witted children.” 

“A fine plan,” said Ridmark, “but you are bound within Urd Morlemoch.”

“Yes, Ridmark of the Arbanii,” said the Warden with gleeful malice. “You are entirely correct. My physical body is undead and invincible, and it is bound within Urd Morlemoch. It can never leave.” 

“Your body…” said Ridmark. 

He remembered the Eternalists. He remembered what Coriolus had tried to do to Morigna. 

And in a single horrified instant, Ridmark realized just how badly the Warden had fooled him.

“No,” said Calliande, her eyes wide as she came to the same realization. 

In that same instant they all attacked. Ridmark seized his axe and swung it for the Warden’s head. Calliande and Morigna both began casting spells, and Arandar charged with Heartwarden. Kharlacht and Gavin and Caius and Mara and Jager ran forward with their swords and daggers, attacking the Warden from every angle. 

The Warden crooked a single finger.

Blue fire erupted from him, and Ridmark froze in midair, caught between one step and another. He could not move a single muscle. The others had been frozen as well, and stood like a ring of motionless statues around the Warden. 

“I have,” said the Warden, “been waiting a very, very long time for a suitable host to come to Urd Morlemoch. And a suitable host bearing an empty soulstone of Cathair Solas, no less! I can grow my own, but those of Cathair Solas are stronger by far. It will make opening the gate to Old Earth considerably easier.” He gestured, and the unseen force spun Ridmark around. “Do you see the standing circles?” Blue fires pulsed in the darkness of the Torn Hills. “Already my acolytes among the Devout are at work, preparing the way. Soon they shall be ready, and they require only an activated soulstone to open the gate. All is in readiness…and I need only a suitable vessel for my spirit.” 

Ridmark struggled, trying to break free of the Warden’s spell. He might have well tried to pull down Urd Morlemoch with his bare hands. It felt as if he had been encased in bands of iron. 

“Come,” said the Warden. “Let us commence.” He beckoned, and the invisible force lifted Ridmark a few feet into the air. The Warden strolled into the ring of standing stones, and Ridmark and the others floated into the ring. The Warden gestured, and Ridmark drifted to one of the menhirs. He felt an electric jolt as he came into contact with the black stone, its aura of cold, malevolent power wrapping around him. One by one the Warden’s magic moved the others against the menhirs, pinning them in place like crucified men.