Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 19:23:07 -0700
From: Trewin Greenaway <trewingreenaway@cronnex.com>
Subject: A TALE OF WIZARDRY (Jessan Chapter 23)

JESSAN  - A TALE OF WIZARDRY Chapter 23

Copyright 2007 Trewin Greenaway All Rights Reserved

To learn more about me and the genesis of this tale, visit my website
http://www.cronnex.com/ .

And if you're enjoying the story, do let me know!

     ooooooooooooo0000O000ooooooooooooooo


		Chapter 23


When I woke again, it was dark, with a field of stars glinting over my
head. I lay half awake for a bit, looking up at them, until gradually I
began to sense that something was amiss. It took me a moment to grasp
what it was -- more an absence of the familiar than the presence of a
threat. The ship was motionless. There was not even a trace of a
breeze. Even as I became aware of this, I heard whispering nearby.
	"I can do nothing if I can see nothing," Orien was saying. "I can't
cast spells at random into the dark."
	"Orien," Alfrund said, "if they have to get close enough for you to see
them, they will be over the side before you can raise your staff. Jessan
can at least try."
	"And that might be worst of all," Orien said. "Let him sleep. If we
fail, he may at least die without ever knowing how or why."
	But before Alfrund could reply, I said in the same low voice they were
using, "Well, I'm awake and I do know. But surely they won't row out in
the pitch black."
	Alfrund made his way to where I was struggling into a sitting position
and squatted down. "This side of the Tejj looks toward the shore," he
said. "But on the ocean side, the moon has risen on the horizon, and it
shows us plainly. The raiders have no fear of dark; it's their favorite
element. If you listen you can hear the sound of their oars."
	I did so, and it was as he said -- a sound just slightly louder than
the gentle slap of water against the hull. I could hear them
approaching from several directions. "There are many of them," I said.
	"Yes," Alfrund agreed grimly. "Too many for them to share the spoils.
They'll kill us and then fall to killing each other."
	I closed my eyes for a moment, then said, "Bring me my wand in its
sheath."
	"Jessan," Alfrund replied, "Orien told me what happened to you. It's
too risky."
	"Than being killed?" I said. "There are too many boats on the water for
Orien to deal with at close range, and I know that as well as you. Now
hurry and get it. There's no time left to argue."
	Alfrund slipped among our baggage, feeling for my sack. Fortunately, it
was made of stiff military canvas and easy to distinguish among the
rest. He pulled it free and brought it to me unopened. Together we
undid the straps and I felt among the clothing for the sheath, which
I'd buried deep among them, then pulled it out of the bag. By now we
could hear the grunts of the rowers as they threw themselves at the
oars. I hesitated another second and then took the wand from the
sheath.
	The moment my fingers closed around it I felt as I'd just been given
the kiss of life. Power flowed into my body as if poured from a large
and bottomless vessel. It filled me up and yet seemed still untapped. I
remembered now, when I'd brought it with me into the force, how it had
absorbed the flow entirely, while I'd merely floated in it. If I'd been
holding it when I touched the mythrad -- well, I'd have been shredded
flesh from bone by the discharge. But, instead, I'd met the worst
attack He had made on me yet and still survived.
	I felt such relief flow through me that I wanted to fling myself into
Alfrund's arms and laugh for hours. As it was, I did nothing, leaving
him waiting with baited breath for my response. Well, I'd give it to
him.
	I closed my eyes and entered the deep inner space, reaching through it
to find the psychic ripple of each of the boats that approached us.
Then I closed a fist tightly on each end of the wand and, calling on
the powers of air and water together, brought a great burst of energy
together.
	The sky was rent with a flash of lightning that shredded the darkness
of the night. It split apart into branches, each one striking one of
the approaching boats. Following  on its heels came a clap of thunder
so great that it deafened us all and shook the very timbers of the
boat.
	Then, as an afterthought, I did what, if I hadn't been so agitated by
these events, I would have done instead. I summoned a wind. The night
sail shuddered and swelled, the Tejj lurched, and we were underway,
sailing on until the cries of the drowning could no longer be heard.

The following morning I woke up  in Alfrund's arms, feeling refreshed
and feeling completely myself. We had quietly made love to each other
burrowed in my mound of blankets, after the others had retired -- all
that is but Hestal, who had the night watch. But he was out of sight at
the tiller and, though he was not out of hearing range, well, he was
welcome to what he heard.
	One sure indication of my increasing health was that I once again
overflowed with questions, some serious, some less so. After we had
shared a breakfast of soldier bread and brackish tea, Orien ensconced
himself on a bale of hay and warmed his old bones in the sun.
	I came and sat cross-legged at his feet, silent for the moment.
	Orien opened one eye and said, "Ask. I can feel the questions bubbling
away inside you like the water in a boiling pot. Just try, for once, to
ask something interesting."
	"They're all interesting to me," I said. "Or at least the answers are."
And, when he said nothing in reply, I continued, "I fear this isn't
interesting, but I'd like at least a short answer. Are the Nithaial
wealthy? Do I have some hidden store of gold or jewels?"
	Orien looked down at me. "Nooo," he said, articulating the word slowly.
"Is that short enough?"
	"I suppose so," I answered. "There was certainly nothing like that
tucked away at Sondaram."
	"Nor will there be at Wethrelad or Gostranar. Your enemy took it all
long ago. In days of old, tribute was given freely to the Nithaial and
they possessed great wealth. Now, The Unnameable One simply demands it
and uses it to foul purpose as fast as He can seize it. But why do you
ask?"
	"As I lay half asleep this morning, I was thinking again how empty
Sondaram is. No servants, no musicians, no cooks. I realized this first
when Caelas jokingly chided me for my lack of hospitality.  Was this
always the case? Or is it meant be so..., so...."
	"Utterly austere?" asked Orien. He chuckled. "Remember, to you Sondaram
is a home; to others, it's a temple, a place of worship. One reason
you're allowed to make time stand still at Sondaram is to provide you
as much privacy as you like, while giving free access to the pilgrims
who come to witness and worship before the force made visible.
	"Because of this, in former days, the site was served by several
auxiliary buildings, which, unprotected by magic, were utterly
destroyed when Sondaram's physical aspect was obliterated. Among these
were a guest house, servant quarters, a commissary/kitchen, and a
residence for the acolytes who are specially chosen by the Nithaial to
perform the rites."
	"Chosen how?" I asked suspiciously. "For their religious fervor?"
	"No," answered Orien, "for the beauty of their form and of their
singing voice." He glanced down at me again, and added, "Or so I
imagine your criteria to be, once all this is brought back into being."
	I laughed. "Well, finally you've given me something to look forward to.
But," I went on in a more serious tone, "what you tell me is that I've
no way to provision and equip an army, even if I'm able to raise one?"
	"You've already raised an army," Orien said, "provisioned and equipped.
But this isn't a war that will be won by great battles or by how great a
pile of gold you manage to amass."
	He touched my shoulder. "'D' as in 'damned,'" he said. "Tuck that
letter away, too."
	I nodded, and after a bit he went on. "When The Unnameable One found
that by his vile act He had lost access to the powers of the Nithaial,
He turned away from the elemental forces -- which are, at their source,
forever pure -- and looked in places of corruption for His source of
power. All He has now are the magics that degrade and pollute. They are
to elemental magic, our magic, as cancer is to human flesh."
	"Like what He did to the Summoner," I said, "or did to a man in order
to create the Summoner."
	Orien nodded somberly. "It's one and the same. Those He has corrupted
for His evil ends are doomed by that very fact to a horrible end. They
know it and serve Him, even as they hate Him, because He has the power
to stave that end off for some time -- if that pleases Him, even as He
has  managed this Himself.
	"The point," he went on, "is that no external threat will affect Him
any more than one of your scourges or curatives, no matter how
powerfully concocted, will cure a tumor in the lungs or the brain. It
must be destroyed from within.
	"Now, leave me be," he said, 'these thoughts are too dark for such a
sunny morning." As I rose to leave, he added, "Remember, Jessan, you
were not brought here to wield a sword or to direct those who do. Such
is the province of Caelas and his ilk. Your task lies elsewhere."

The days continued to pass, if slowly. Orien taught me what he knew
about the forces of air and water and how they were manipulated; I'd go
off by myself and see what sense I could make of these lessons and work
to sharpen and extend what I managed to make work at all.
	The breeze remained fair, occasionally by my own efforts, but not as
much as the others supposed. The shore, if anything, grew more
depressing, for the cliffs were now made a dark, crudely surfaced rock
that might have been the left-over waste when the world was made.
	I remarked on this to Alfrund as we stood at the rail, watching it
creep past.
	"You are more right than you know," he said. "This area was created by
a great eruption that happened not all that long ago. I've seen
descriptions of it and the volcano created from it in manuscripts kept
at the famous library at Tarrusor, the greatest city of our kingdom and
the home of the king."
	"A volcano?" I asked. "I'd love to see such a thing! Why isn't it
visible now?"
	Alfrund laughed. "Alas, it erupted a second time and blew itself to
pieces. If you strain your eyes, you can see remnants of it -- those
dark spots in the water ahead. Those are called by the Pharroseans,
Hwrithnat Granwad, the Fangs of Hell.
	"In fact, they mark what remains of the edge of the volcano's crater,
which, in fact, is the very place I told you about before. As you see,
Wendma is already changing our course to bring us far enough out to sea
to sail outside them. Did you ask Orien to tell you the story of
Cytheria?"
	"No," I said. "I missed my chance. Recently, it's all been lesson after
lesson after lesson."
	"I've noticed your studious demeanor," Alfrund said, "and I admire it,
especially late at night, when you pass your lessons along to me."
	I punched him. "If Orien taught me such as that I might have no time
for you at night," I answered.
	He feigned a return blow, and said, "That would be a pretty sight, the
two of you wrapped in amorous study."
	I refused to rise to such paltry bait. "You tell me about Cytheria," I
said, "or we'll be long past it before I learn anything about the place
at all."
	"Well," Alfrund said, "it's really not a complicated story. You
noticed, I'm sure, how difficult it is to transport goods from Gedd up
over the mountains and into the kingdom proper?"
	I nodded. One couldn't live there even for a day and not be aware of
this.
	"Well," Alfrund continued, "that's why it took an accident of fate for
Gedd to become a trading city at all. The self-destruction of that
great volcano created a natural, steep-sided harbor and, equally as
important, thrust a way almost entirely through the mountain range
separating the Kingdom from the sea.
	"All that was required to connect the two was a short tunnel -- and one
of the greatest of the wizards, Hezzakal, by name, went to the kobolds
and persuaded them to do this for him, whether for gold or favor has
never been discovered.
	"Once they had done so, Hezzakal brought a great port city into being
and ruled over it for many, many years, becoming immensely wealthy in
the process.
	"The kings of that time were always desirous of this enclave, but they
were powerless to attack and seize it. Hezzakal was a very powerful
wizard and Cytheria was, at least if attacked by land, obviously quite
easy to defend. And, at the time, the Kingdom didn't have any navy or
any understanding of making war by water."
	As Wendma shifted our course to pass around the outer rocks, the wind
began to die. I paused for a moment to summon one to fill the sails for
her. Then I asked Alfrund, "Was this a usual thing for a wizard to do --
create a kingdom for himself? I thought they were solitary creatures."
	"So they are -- or were -- so far as I understand," he replied. "But
Hezzakal was not by any means the usual sort of wizard -- as you shall
see. Cytheria prospered just as I described for well over a hundred
years. But then something terrible happened.
	"The volcano erupted again, this time deep under water. A great cloud
of boiling steam rose out of the sea, covering the surface of the bay
with dead fish. At the same time, an earthquake shook Cytheria. But
while that brought down some buildings, it didn't badly damage the
city. And after it, the volcano settled down again, contenting itself
with merely roiling the water at the center of the bay with great, fat
bubbles of some gaseous substance released from the bowels of the
earth.
	"At first, the wind blew offshore, wafting this effluent harmlessly out
to sea. But that night the wind switched direction, forcing it toward
the land. And because the city was formed in the shape of a long
funnel, the gas, odorless and deadly, penetrated everywhere and spared
no one. When the sun rose the next morning, Cytheria was a city of the
dead."
	Wendma called to me and I realized that my breeze had shifted
direction, and was now actually blowing the Tejj in the direction of
the rocks. I spoke some sharp words of command, and it swung back from
where it had been blowing before.
	I turned again to Alfrund. "Hezzakal, too?" I asked.
	"Hezzakal, too." he answered. "But the wizard had in his possession a
magical artifact, a globe of power called the Ystherüd, which allowed
him to place a spell over the entire city, and bring everyone back from
the dead. No one knows how Hezzakal was able to manage this. It may be
that before the effluent reached him, he sensed what was happening and
had sufficient time to do what he could to combat it.
	"In any case, the people picked themselves up from where they had
fallen, and city was soon full of the hustle and bustle that had
characterized it before. Nevertheless, these people soon discovered the
nature of this bargain -- they had not been given their lives back.
Instead, Hezzakal gave them something different: life in death.
	"Those who came to Cytheria to trade with them soon realized this, and
some of them turned and fled. But the bolder and greedier among them
continued to come to trade, and this let the city continue to prosper,
at least, after a fashion. No children were born; those that had just
been born grew no older; nothing changed. And, worse still, an eerie
malignancy crept into everything.
	"After a time, even travelers who disembarked there for the first time,
not knowing anything of Cytheria's history, found themselves filled with
dread the moment they left their ship. And this despite the fact that
they could see nothing but normal city life passing about them. There
was no liveliness, no joy, no anger in the air; eyes lacked curiosity,
welcome, suspicion even...if you could bear to look into them. For they
seemed less like organs of vision than a thin veil behind which lurked a
dreadful secret.
	"Mothers pressed impassive babies into the arms of sympathetic
visitors, begging them to take their infant away with them. If they
did, the moment the ship passed beyond the range of Hezzakal's powers,
it withered before their horrified eyes into a tiny skeleton, which
itself then crumbled into dust.
	"It might have been that, as time passed, no one would have found any
profit in going there. But, instead, something happened," Alfrund said,
his voice now lowered, "only no one knows what. Those who traveled to
Cytheria, whether by foot or by sea, no longer returned. So boats
refused to sail there and Martinas, the king at that time, ordered that
the far side of the kobold tunnel be sealed off with massive blocks of
stone."
	"Some speculated that the Ystherüd had failed," a voice said behind us,
"and the inhabitants of the city became vampires in order to sustain
their living death." This, of course, was Orien, who had heard what we
were discussing and come over to us.
	"But the Ystherüd didn't fail. Something still inhabits Cytheria. Every
now and then, someone sails a ship, drawn perhaps by all the wealth
waiting there for the taking, hoping to outfox what awaits him there --
or, more likely, that the curse has lifted and the city is a threat no
more."
	Orien sighed and shook his head. "No ship has ever returned that dared
enter Cytheria's harbor."
	He stood between us at the railing and looked out at  the bay. We had
now come close enough to see that its color was different from the sea
-- a curiously brilliant blue. "Of course, only you two would decide to
discuss this subject just as arrive we on the place's doorstep, so to
speak. Why not climb up the mast and wave signal flags."
	"I think no paltry effort of ours can compete with having a Nithaial
aboard," Alfrund responded, adding "and, of course, a distinguished
mage such as yourself."
	Oriel snorted and turned away. The breeze had again turned capricious
and again the boat was slipping a little toward shore. Wendma called us
over.
	When we arrived where she stood at the tiller, she said, "There seems
no way that the wind will let us steer beyond that last rock, and it
now seems more prudent to pass just inside of it. Do you think it
matters if we fail to skirt it?"
	Orien lifted his hand to shade his eyes. "We're still a great distance
out to sea," he said. "If we had a choice I wouldn't risk it, but it
seems we don't. My main concern is that we not run aground on a rock
just beneath the surface of the water." He turned to Alfrund and said,
"Go wake Hestal and have him ready to drop the sail at once. Then go to
the prow and look for any sign of danger."
	Orien then turned to me. "Jessan," he asked, "can't your powers control
the wind?"
	I shook my head. "Every time I freshen the breeze, it either swings
around or fades away. And for some reason I can't keep it blowing."
	He turned to Wendma. "And what if Hestal simply drops the sails now?"
	Wendma shook her head. "I've been fighting a current that pulls us
toward the shore," she answered. "Better to fight a fickle wind, even
if it blows us a bit off course."
	Dwinsa had eaten enough of her hay to free up a nice dark corner where
Hestal could sleep after steering the boat all night. He had already
crawled from it and stood by the mast, rubbing his eyes.
	Orien said, "I do not like this one bit. If we must, we must, but keep
as close as you can to that last rock and sail back out to sea the
moment you can."
	As soon as Wendma pushed the tiller to change our course, the wind
picked up, and moved us onward at a good clip. I joined Alfrund at the
prow and found that the water was unusually clear, which perhaps
accounted for its luminous color. As we passed into the bay, the rim of
the volcano was clearly visible beneath us, a great half circle of
jagged rock, but far enough down -- at this tide, at least -- for us to
pass over without scraping against it.
	The outermost rock approached on our starboard side, a jagged,
blackened tooth showing greenish decay around its roots. A skalgür
roosted at its very top, watching our approach with its piercing eyes.
It spread out its wings and flapped them as we passed by, but did not
launch itself into the air. Instead, it lifted its head and uttered a
hoarse shriek.
	The sun was already sinking into the west, and the rock cast a long
black shadow over the water. As we sailed into it, Alfrund seized my
shoulder. "There!" he cried. "You can already see the land of Pharros
in the distance! We'll be there tomorrow."
	Before my eyes could focus on the distant line of land, the wind
completely died. As it did, the prow of the Tejj, as though by its own
volition, turned slowly toward the land, and, sails flapping, we began
to move toward Cytheria.