The Last Whisper of the Gods (32 page)

“And if we choose not to return to Vantok...?”

For the first time, Sorial noticed a slip in the elf’s veneer of flawless courtesy. It was brief - a narrowing of the eyes - but he didn’t miss it. Her expectation was that they would turn around and go back from where they came. She didn’t want them proceeding into The Forbidden Lands. That made her intentions suspicious at best. He wondered how Warburm, the eternal cynic, was assessing this encounter.

“That is, of course, your affair. I offer you a means of escape from those who pursue you and the
advice
that you use the horses to return to safer lands. Whatever you seek here, if it is to the south, you will not survive to find it. Entire armies have been lost in The Forbidden Lands. It is not a friendly place to those who are not born and bred here.”

“Your advice be welcome,” said Warburm, although Sorial noted he made no promise to follow it. “As well as your locating those horses for us.”

“They are close, and will likely remain there until past sunrise. Travel on moonless nights is dangerous, even for those familiar with the terrain and willing to carry lanterns. If you move at first light, you should be able to catch them unawares before they break camp.” She laid out the particulars of how to locate them.

As she spoke and Sorial continued to study her, a nagging possibility dawned.

“Now I must go,” she said. “Before morning arrives, I must be away from here. Your pursuers will not have arrived by first light. If you are swift, you can capture the horses and be away before they find you. To the south, there are others, however - many others.”

She then turned and looked directly at Sorial, her eyes boring into his. Her final words seemed directed to him alone. “This is the last time I will help you unless you turn back. You know what awaits should you forge ahead.” The cryptic statement crystallized Sorial’s suspicions. He nodded almost imperceptibly, as much to himself as to her.

Then the light vanished and Ariel, in her guise as Eylene of the Farthan, disappeared into the night.

“Damn queer,” muttered Warburm once she was gone. “Smacks of sorcery.”

“Still,” said Lamanar, “We’ve got no choice but to do as she said and hope there will be horses and not a trap.”

“Oh, I ain’t got no doubt there’ll be horses,” replied Warburm. “There ain’t no reason to approach us otherwise. A trap? Already sprung with us in the noose. She got a reason for helping us, but damned if I know what it be.”

“She wants us to go back to Vantok,” said Sorial.

“That she do,” muttered Warburm. “That she do. And we’ll be sure to tell the king about her once we be done with what we came here to do.”

“So you admit we should have come mounted,” said Brindig, the most vociferous objector to the group traveling on foot.

“You can have your ‘I told you so’ moment.”

As Warburm conversed with the others, planning a strategy for taking the horses, Sorial considered his sister’s latest visitation. Ariel’s aims weren't a mystery to him, not that he would enlighten the others. Her
reasons
were murky but not her intentions. Was she afraid he would die at the portal? Or, worse, that he wouldn't? She had dismissed the possibility of his being her ally but she didn’t want him as an enemy or victim. There were things she could have done to ensure he’d never reach the portal but, at least thus far, she had refrained from taking decisive action. Advising, persuading, warning... She was conflicted, that much was certain. It concerned him that, the closer he got to his goal, the more desperate she might become to prevent him from reaching it.

But Sorial’s path was set, and not just because of Alicia. In a way he didn’t fully understand, he had become committed to testing himself at the portal. If not now then at some future point. It was as if a compulsion had been awakened deep within him and the only way to find a measure of peace was by answering it. Maybe that explained why his sister, after fleeing her home to escape the portal, had eventually sought it out. She knew the power of
the lure
in a way that none of his escorts could imagine. How long before she gave up on the lost cause of dissuading him and tried a more violent form of persuasion? One more thing to worry about…

* * *

Obtaining the horses proved to be as simple as Ariel had indicated. As soon as it was light enough for travel, Warburm sent Lamanar ahead to scout the situation. In particular, he wanted to make sure the horses and their riders were where the “elf” had said they would be. The priest returned in ten minutes to report that all was as expected.

As they prepared to move out, Warburm instructed Sorial to stay clear of the fighting. It turned out to be an unnecessary precaution because there was none. As soon as the nomads - a group of poorly-fed, unwashed vagabonds - realized their camp was being raided by well-equipped, armed men, they fled, leaving behind the horses.

The animals, apparently recently stolen, were in better condition than their handlers. They showed signs of food and water deprivation, but they were well-rested and fit to travel, at least for a while. Sorial, whose riding experience was limited to lessons while serving in Carannan’s militia, was given the calmest of the beasts. Warburm, awkwardly astride the largest of the horses, showed signs of discomfort, likely because of his girth. The other three sat on their animals with a practiced, easy air.

After traveling all morning and into the early afternoon, Warburm called a halt to rest both horses and riders. Rations for the animals would be a problem. They could munch on the burnt grass but there were no water sources and the men couldn’t afford to surrender any of their dwindling supply. Finding water - a scarcity in the sunbaked terrain - was moving up the list of priorities. The horses would falter in a day without it and it would reach a crisis point for the men within a week. The growing lightness of Sorial’s pack testified to how much of their provisions had already been consumed.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully and the group made good time. With the terrain more rocky here than where they had spent the previous night, considerations of travel after dusk were moot. Once they settled down for the night, munching on chewy strips of dried meat and taking sips of tepid water, Warburm announced they would reach the coast within an hour of sunrise.

“We be near.” His disembodied voice emerged from the darkness. “I can hear the distant crash of waves on the shoreline and smell the tang of salt in the air. Brings back memories, it does.”

As hard as he tried, Sorial could hear nothing but the breathing of his companions and the noises made by the horses, although his nose detected a faint, unfamiliar scent. The soreness in his legs and buttocks made for an uncomfortable night. He slept fitfully, tossing and turning as he hadn’t since leaving Vantok, and awoke just as the blackness of night was losing its battle to the hazy gray of another warm morning.

Two of the horses died during the night, presumably of dehydration. The corpses were already attracting flies the size of moths. The other three looked ill and weak. After examining them, Warburm decided the group would be best served by moving forward on foot, leaving the surviving animals to forage and fend for themselves. To Sorial, who had spent most of his lifetime caring for animals, this seemed cruel, but he recognized the necessity. None of the horses could bear more than one rider; the men would make better speed without them. Untethered, there was a hope, albeit a faint one, they might locate water or other men to care for them.

Ariel had provided them with a means of escape from their immediate situation but not a manner of quickening their journey for more than a day.

Lamanar suggested butchering the dead animals for meat, but Warburm vetoed the idea. The day’s heat would spoil anything they brought with them and, according to the innkeeper, the “sea would provide” food aplenty. Ironically, because the water was salted, finding something to drink remained a critical issue. Sorial found it difficult to grasp how, with such an abundance of water, they could die of thirst.

Less than a half-hour later, Sorial was granted his first glimpse of an ocean.

The decision to travel along the coast proved to be a fortuitous one. The men’s first view of the ocean wasn’t promising - they were poised on a cliff thousands of feet above the crashing breakers. The sheer face of rock dropping off below their feet disappeared into the churning white water far below. Gradually, however, even as the hills became mountainous and the inland crags grew taller and more imposing, the distance down to the ocean decreased and the slope to the waters became gentler. Eventually, they were able to venture into the shallows, wash the accumulated dust and dirt from their bodies, and catch a meal of scuttling sand crabs. After three days of walking along the shoreline, Warburm announced that they had passed into The Forbidden Lands.

It was an anticlimactic moment, although a milestone on the journey. Since their brief time on horseback, they had seen no signs of pursuit. Other than the small critters that became their meals and the occasional stinger-snail, there was little evidence of life. Ariel didn’t reappear and, although the sea teemed with a variety of fish and crustaceans, the land remained barren. Concerns about water lessened when they found an inland freshwater stream. With full skins, their packs were once again heavy, but the weight was welcome.

Another obvious change was the climate. Whether because it was naturally cooler by the sea or because the distance from Vantok was sufficient to take them out of the city's heat bubble, conditions were tolerable at the border of The Forbidden Lands. The sun still blazed at mid-day but it was cool enough to sleep comfortably at night and they weren’t drenched in sweat after walking only a mile or two in the mornings. The ground wasn’t as hard and crumbly as it was to the north.

The improvement in climate, the discovery of fresh water and a sustainable food supply, and the acclimation of their bodies to the rigors of all-day traveling made for a more endurable time than they had experienced in the plains and hills to the north. The easier the trek became, however, the more Sorial found himself focusing on what lay at its conclusion. In a way, he almost missed the danger and deprivation. It had been an effective distraction. He had been less concerned about facing the portal when he thought he might lose his life to nomadic tribesmen or die of thirst.

During one of their occasional breaks, he approached Warburm. “Do you know where we’re going?”

The innkeeper, whose rotund shape had slimmed enough to reveal muscle under all the fat, glanced at him. “To the portal. You know that, lad.”

“I mean like on a map. Where is it? Do you even know?”

“Alright, lad, I’ll tell you. No reason not to. We be going to the ruins of the once-great city of Havenham. Fifteen hundred years ago, men lived in The Forbidden Lands, at least in the north on the coast. And, like every other major human city, there was a wizard portal. But the city died before the powers were taken back by the gods, so no one ever destroyed the portal there. Supposedly, it still be active. Or so Ferguson says.”

“Supposedly? Ain’t you been there?”

“Never. This be my first time this far south. Most of my youthful adventures were in the North, where the air be colder and the women warmer.”

“Then where did you take my... brother?”

“The prelate’s found two active portals. Could be more’n that but them be all we know of. This one, the Havenham one, ain’t never been tried, at least not in recent memory. The other be in the North, beyond Syre, in the ruins of another ancient city called Ibitsal. After what happened to your brother, Ferguson decided not to trust that one again. He wonders if it were the portal, not your brother, that caused what happened.”

Unlikely, since Ariel undoubtedly used that portal to activate her powers
.

“The ruins of Havenham should be easy enough to find. They be on this coast, so as long as we keep following the shore, we’ll get there. Then we just got to search out the portal.”

“So you don’t know exactly where it is?” Sorial doubted finding it would be as easy as Warburm’s words made it sound.

“All portals look much the same. They be big and tall, with rough stairs cut into the sides. At the top, there be a gaping hole. I done seen the one at Ibitsal and pictures of others in books, and they be impossible to miss.”

“He’s right,” said Lamanar. “They’re big. But this one has been out there for fifteen hundred years. That’s a long time. It might not be easy to locate. It could be buried. In fact, it might no longer exist.”

“You made the same argument to Ferguson,” countered Warburm. “He didn’t think so.”

“As he discounted my suggestion that it made more sense to go north. There’s no proof that portal is damaged. More likely, the boy wasn’t a wizard and his fate was that of all pretenders. Ferguson isn’t the one who has to trudge all the way down here then all the way back and to the other end of the world if he’s wrong. Easy enough for him to say from the security of the temple.”

“We done got a better shot with this one than t’other.”

“So he says. Ferguson isn’t infallible,” said Lamanar. “If he was, Braddock wouldn’t be dead.”

“No, but his record be better than yours by more than a short distance.” It was an unmistakable rebuke and it shut Lamanar up immediately. He returned to a sulky silence.

“Where’s Vantok’s?” asked Sorial.

“Vantok’s what?”

“Vantok’s portal. There must be something left of it.”

“Very little, lad. After the iris was caved in and filled, it was chipped away over the years. Then someone built an inn nearby and put a stable on top of the smooth, flat stone of what remained of the portal.”

Sorial’s eyes widened. “You knew?”

“’Course I knew. That’s why I bought
that
inn in the first place. Ferguson thought it would be a good thing for you to live there. Thought maybe the constant exposure would make you more susceptible or something. Can’t see how it could matter if the thing be dead. But you lived a good part of your life right on top of Vantok’s leveled portal. You and the mice.”

For some reason, the revelation was deeply unsettling. It reinforced how carefully orchestrated everything about his upbringing had been. Nothing left to chance.
It makes it that much less likely that what happened to Annie was an accident
. The single thought re-ignited his cooling anger toward Warburm. He was past the point of feeling indignation for the way he and Alicia had been manipulated. But Annie… she had deserved better than a lonely roadside death.

That evening, as they were setting up camp for the night, Brindig pointed out a dark smudge on the western horizon, out to sea. As the sun vanished behind it, it spread and grew, revealing itself to be something Sorial hadn’t seen in a long time: a Summer storm front. How long since such a sight had been commonplace?

“No shelter ’round here,” grumbled Warburm. “We be headed for a soaking.”

“At least we can refill some of the empty skins. That stream was like a gift from the gods, whether they still exist or not, but I wouldn’t like to rely on another one,” said Darrin.

“Oh, I don’t think water will be a problem,” said Warburm. “But I detest traveling in wet boots. Wrinkles your damn feet. No help for it, though.”

For a while, it felt good to be rained on. Sorial, like his fellows, stripped off his ragged, filthy clothing and allowed the water to wash away the accumulation of salt that was a byproduct of bathing in the ocean. After a while, however, the refreshing sense of cleanness gave way to a waterlogged feeling. The storm brought with it not only a cool wind but a marked drop in air temperature. As the ground beneath his feet turned into liquid mud, Sorial had to wrap his arms around his chest to keep warm

The storm didn’t last long and, as the more permanent darkness of night fell in its wake, Sorial had trouble finding sleep. He shivered and curled into a ball. He would have given anything for a warm, dry blanket but it was worse putting on sodden clothing than lying naked and exposed.

“Chilly this morning,” muttered Warburm several days later, emerging from beneath the cloak he had been using as a blanket. It wasn’t yet cold enough for his breath to be visible, but it was getting close. Sorial had to clamp shut his teeth to keep them from chattering. When the sun was high, it warmed considerably, but the mornings were the worst.

Later that day, they reached a barrier. The easy shoreline route they had been following for a week vanished as the land once again rose up from the ocean to create a precipitous drop into crashing surf. The top of the cliff, where it fell off in a five-hundred foot plunge into the ocean, was unsafe. The footing was insecure and an accident couldn’t be risked. They had little choice but to move inland and climb.

The crags here weren’t as high or dangerous as those to the north and east, but they proved taxing; Warburm would lead them miles out of their way to find a gentle passage or manageable trail rather than risk a challenging slope. It took them three days to cover the same distance they might have trekked in three hours over smooth ground.

Then they saw it.

They crested the top of a rise that was too steep to be considered a hill but too gentle to be called a mountain, and glimpsed it far below on the ocean-facing side. At first, they weren’t sure what they were looking at, then Lamanar put it into words. “That’s Havenham. Or at least what’s left of it.”

If Sorial had expected it to resemble a city, he was mistaken. All that remained were the broken remnants of stone towers, pointing like accusing fingers at the sky. The smaller buildings had been devoured by the shifting earth. Surprisingly, little in the way of vegetation grew there, despite its abundance in the mountains. It was the absence of greenery more than the presence of visible ruins that called the eye’s attention to the spot.

And there was one other thing: smoke. Havenham might have been abandoned fifteen centuries ago by its citizenry, but it was no longer uninhabited.

“A settlement?” asked Warburm to Lamanar.

“We’re too far away to tell for sure, but that’s probably it. They may have dug out some of the old buildings to use for shelter. It’s only natural. People lived here once for reasons, and those reasons remain valid.”

“Why was the city abandoned?” asked Sorial.

Warburm shrugged. “Who knows after so many years? We know little ’bout Havenham, ’cept it was the biggest of all the southern human cities.”

“Plague,” said Lamanar simply. “Plague the likes of which men never seen before or since. Some of the old scrolls tell of it. So many bodies that streets were impassable. A stench so foul that the living had to flee into the mountains to escape it. No one knows what started it, but it took half the population in one night and the rest who stayed in the second.”

“No one tried to re-settle it?”

“Oh, it was tried. Many times. Over the first hundred years, more’n a few expeditions went to Havenham, some organized by survivors who emigrated to Vantok. Most were never heard from again and the few that were told tales of strange, inhuman creatures inhabiting the lands around the city, as if the plague that killed men gave birth to monsters. After that, the territory south of the mountains became known as The Forbidden Lands, and no one with any sense ventured there.”

“And now we be here,” said Warburm. “Strange how things work. So, was it truly plague that killed all those men?”

A plague that killed so quickly, without warning, and left no survivors? And gave birth to a land populated by monsters? “Sounds like magic.”

“My thinking exactly,” said Warburm. “And of the most ill sort. Be interesting to know what caused it, and why.”

“I don’t see a portal,” said Lamanar, who was studying the landscape below using a small telescope produced from his backpack.

Warburm shielded his eyes from the bright sunlight and squinted down at the brown patch of ground far below. “We be too high up to see it.”

“Or it’s buried.”

“Or it be buried,” he agreed reluctantly.

“And if it’s buried, how do you intend to find it? Ask the current inhabitants if they wouldn’t mind if we dig up their settlement looking for an ancient ruin?”

Warburm scowled, but it was clear he didn’t have answer. Of the various possibilities he had prepared for, this wasn’t among them. “We’ll know better when we get closer. Maybe this be where the Farthan live.”

Lamanar’s skepticism was plain on his features.

“Let’s go,” said Warburm. “We got to find a way down there.”

For Sorial, the taste was less like the triumph of a journey nearly finished than the terror of an ordeal begun.

The path to the remains of Havenham proved to be anything but straightforward and it became clear it wasn’t going to be a quick or easy few miles. One full day after first spying the ruins, they had descended into a valley within the mountains and altogether lost sight of their destination.

“In the morning, I’ll scout ahead,” said Lamanar. “There has to be a faster, easier way down. We’re getting low on water again and we can’t afford to waste a week stumbling around in these mountains.”

“Faster and easier, yes,” said Warburm. “Safer, no. Our goal ain’t to get there as quick as possible. It be to get there alive and whole. I seen a half-dozen ways down we could have taken that would put us much closer... or dead in a ravine.”