Wind Rider (13 page)

I nodded, and moved into the washing room. I shut
the door behind me. For the second time I realized how dirty I was.

I stripped down and scrubbed myself, poured hot
water over my head and back, and felt the disgust of battle wash away. I felt
at home here, and could not restrain a groan of pleasure. It felt so good to
wash… How long had it been? I grabbed a towel and dried myself, then dressed
quickly.

The smell of hot food hit me as I opened the door.
Spice, and hot baked bread, and frying griddle cakes… Had my own mother ever
cooked for me anything so enticing? I thought suddenly of my parents, lying in
wait in the forgotten city. What was I doing to free them? I felt useless,
then. I should be by their side, or battling the dark lord. Well, I was
battling the dark lord, wasn’t I? And had I asked to get into this? Had my
parents asked to be put into an enchanted sleep?

All I knew, is if we lost, my parents would be
enslaved forever. Or maybe they would die.

I pushed the thought of my parents out of my head.
I felt alive again in my clean clothes, and my stomach grumbled. Kara and her
aunt were beaming at me, and I felt embarrassed suddenly.

Why are you looking at me like that?

Kara grinned.
You just look a lot better than
before the shower.

I blushed, and stopped.

Don’t be silly, Anders. Come, eat with us.

Then we were sitting, all three, at a roughly-hewn
wood table. It was clean and polished and made me feel grounded as I sat. Kara
served me cakes and there was juice as well.

Kara smiled at me.
My uncle will be coming as
soon as he can. He sends his greetings.

Then we were all eating. The food was warm and subtly
spicy, and sweet. They were the best griddle cakes I had ever eaten. Warmth
moved out from my stomach to the rest of my body. How long had it been since
I’d had a hot meal? Just a day or so? Why did it seem so long?

It was good to eat; it reminds you how alive you
are. The battle and the long flight on
dragonback
had
cooled and numbed me; at last sensation and warmth returned to my limbs.

I took a deep draught of my juice, and looked up
from my plate. Kara and her mother were beaming at me again.
It is good to
see you eat.

It’s wonderful.

You must be very hungry.

I nodded.
And cold and numb, until now.

Dragons! I always wanted to believe the tales
were true, but I never thought I would see one! And you rode on one’s back! And
my Kara did too! Truly this is an age of wonders.

Just a few months ago I was locked in my room,
with my schoolwork. Now… everything is different, and never will anything be
for me like it was…

Never again like it was. I was afraid that was
true. I thought of my parents. Would I ever see them again? Did I deserve to?

We ate for awhile in silence then, keeping
thoughts to ourselves.

I felt warmer and warmer as I ate. It felt like my
cheeks must be glowing. There was heat in the room from the oven, from which
more bewitching aromas emanated.

There was a knock at the door. I looked up to see
Thorald
, king of the
Kriek
, at
the door.

Thorald
smiled at me.
The
preparations are almost ready. My people have allowed me to come to talk to
you. And to eat.

I stood up.

Stay seated, please. You need to eat, and then
rest. We have war ahead of us. I need to ask you some questions, but I promised
my wife and niece that I would not pry your head until your stomach was full.

It’s getting full fast. But I can put a little
more in.

Thorald
chuckled.
You
will be able to sleep it off tonight, in any case.

Helga came in from the kitchen with more food. The
smell of vegetables and spices filled the room.
I hope you have room for one
of my pies. They are very fortifying. We
Kriek
do not
eat meat, but they are filled with root vegetables and mushrooms, that will
give you strength for the battle ahead.

The battle. Everything always came back to that.
And would I be able to release my parents from the spell that enchained them?
Probably not, I thought. If the dark lord would not engage himself, as the
others thought, he could not be defeated.
We can defeat his army, but we
cannot defeat the dark lord. Not yet.

I had not meant to think aloud. After all the
shielding I had practiced with Elias, it was embarrassing to have let my
worries slip out.

Thorald
looked me
straight in the eyes.
Even a small defeat for the dark lord would be a great
victory for you and the
Kriek
, Anders. For too long
now he has terrorized the country, and thought himself invulnerable. But you
worry about your parents.
Woltan’s
family will take
care of them, of that I am sure. And if we are victorious, this victory will
not be our last.

I thought I was supposed to be trained here;
how can I fight wizards when I know little more than how to swing a sword?

Thorald
paused for a
moment, and looked first at his wife, then at his niece before answering.
Your
blood knows what your mind knows not.

Kara nodded.
It is time for you to read from
the book of Id, Anders. Here, now, in this room. It is not a long book, but
reading it will fill your mind, and what is in your blood will then be in all
of you… So speaks the prophecy — as your sword was made whole in the
reforging
, so shall your body and mind, your blood and
brain be made whole in the reading.

But... how will I read it?

We will read the first few lines together. You
should be able to read the rest on your own. The script is similar to what you
read on the pillars. Today you will read it, and Kara will share your reading,
and tomorrow you will fly into battle. Together.

Thorald
put an old
leather and gold bound book in front of me. And then Kara spoke out loud, in an
old tongue: “We will begin on the first page, Anders, and read without
stopping. Drink one last draught, for this is no ordinary, casual reading. We
will realign your body — your blood and brain will be separated no more.”

Helga filled my cup, and I drank. My stomach was
full of food; my mouth and throat were wet; my skin was clean; I felt warm, and
I felt ready.

I nodded to Kara, and spoke: “I am ready.”

She opened the book, and we began to read; she
held my finger under the characters that swam before me. Slowly I pronounced
syllable after syllable with Kara. Gradually we went faster and faster, and in
my mind I heard a tale that was in my blood already, and now filled my entire
body and mind: the tale of the three races, of the dragons, of the demons of
the many levels, of battles, of the trolls, and the kobolds, and the goblins.
And the fairies, and the
djinn
, and the demons once
again. There were instructions for the raising of fairies, incantations to
control the
djinn
, and spells to bring forth all but
the highest level demons. But all that seemed little more than an introduction
for what came after. The fall, the lost ages, and the new age to come.

The prophecy.

The old tongue now seemed almost as clear as the
language I had learned at my mother’s feet years ago. We must have been reading
already for hours, but my throat and tongue remained wet and the words flowed
fluidly from my lips. The words of the fall and the future flowed from my lips:

“As all of the knowledge falls now into darkness,
as the connections between the nations that were our strength are now lost, so
then all of our past and our future is in this book that you hold in your
hands. The wars between what the grey lord stirred up from the deep and the
rest of humanity will end with a dark age that will last a millennium. With my
ancient art of
seersight
I see a thousand years of
darkness and confusion; the great city of
Duln
will
be forgotten; the
merpeople’s
underwater homeland
will be lost to dark sea creatures of the deep, and fall into ruin; and when
the creatures die the
merpeople
will return, but
their city will never be the same; its written art and culture, along with most
of its magic, its machines all will be destroyed.”

“In the forgotten city the once proud race of
Duln
, those who survive the goblin wars and the attacks of
the 6
^th
plane demons, will forget most of their history and allow
many lines of magic to be forgotten. And in the Black forest, where once at
Freiburg the princes of the
Kriek
sat in their royal
halls, there will be flames and destruction and nothing will remain except the
royal family and those who serve them; and they will become people of the
forest. They will retain their magic, and this book, but their days of finery
will be over, forever. They will become one with the forest and be forgotten or
feared by the rest of the world. The dragons, the proud race that once worked
in harmony with men to rid the world of evil and make it safe for all, will
withdraw to the mountains of
Yslien
, to guard the
great mountain passage and wait for the world to turn again. Even for the
longest lived of races, the wait will be long, painful and tiresome.”

“Instead of battles, they will have only rogue
demons to break the long tedium. Their symbiotic relation with humans will be
over, until the new era. The great dragon magic, that flourished in the
thousand years that they worked freely with humans to protect the world, will
be all but forgotten, left only in their blood memory. The magic of faerie,
that flourished for a thousand years, since the princes of humankind and faerie
made their alliances, will be lost to humankind. Only a few swords will remain,
and the art of their use will be all but forgotten. The pixies will grow bored
and sullen, and forget their ties to humankind. But their memories are
stronger, and their lives much longer.

“Then there will come into being a new era, in
which a dark lord attempts to turn the chaos of the old world into the order of
his new evil. And he will bring terror onto the land, but one prince, a blood
relation, will rise up against him. And this prince will be of three
bloodlines, and he will reunite them: the
Kriek
and
the city that was forgotten and the
merpeople
will
one by one accept him as one of their own, and he shall wield a sword,
reforged
from those of the great blood lines, and the sword
shall sing in his hand. He shall reestablish contact with the dragons, and
fight with them against the dark lord. And the dark lord shall not engage
himself until the final battle… And the end will be definitive.”

I closed the book.

“And the end will be definitive
? What is
that supposed to mean?”

Thorald
smiled a faint thin
smile.
Prophecies cannot be complete, the future cannot be completely
written until it is lived. We have studied this last line with all our art. We
believe it means that only you or the dark lord will survive, that either the
dark lord will perish along with his evil forces, or… he will survive.

And we will perish.

Thorald
shook his head.
We
won’t perish. This is an era of change, after all. And we feel it is change for
the good. We all feel it, even you, Anders, if you examine your heart. There is
hope in the air, for the first time in our memory.

Outside the window it was dark. I stifled a yawn.
Thorald
patted me on the back. “Your mind and body are tied
together now, Anders
Tomason
, and the two of them are
tired. You would do well to sleep now, and rest for tomorrow. Tomorrow there
will be no rest; no rest for the good, and no rest for the wicked. Rest now,
while you still can. Drink some of this sleeping draught, that my wife has
prepared using herbs of the forest, and you will sleep, no matter how full your
mind is.”

I nodded. I brought my hand down to my sword, and
Carolina was before me. She smiled at me.
You have done well, Anders. Drink
the sleeping draught. Tomorrow we both have a lot of work to do.

I brought the cup to my lips. Then I followed Kara
to the guest room they had set up for me, and before I knew it, I was asleep.

I did not dream.

XIV

I awoke to a gentle prodding of my
mind. Wake, little one. We fly into battle after you have filled your stomach.

My eyes stayed closed.
Yesenia
,
where are you?

Yesenia
sent a mental
image to me, of a series of caves where she and her brethren had slept.
We
are hungry, little one, and we will have to hunt along the way. Your human
friends are all awake, and await you.

I opened my eyes.

Kara was smiling at me.
“
The sleeping
draught was more powerful than I thought.”

I sat up. “It felt like I hadn’t slept in days.”

“So deep was your slumber that your dragon was the
only way to wake you. But come now, and eat, and the hot food and drink will
melt away the remains of the draught.”

I yawned and nodded. “I can barely believe I’m
hungry again, but the smells from your mother’s kitchen would tempt the stomach
of anyone.”

I found Elias and
Woltan
waiting for me in the kitchen. Soon, Ulrike and Cullen joined us. The smith
smiled at me. “The sword has been
reforged
, Anders.
Now we have four swords with pixies. They will serve us well in the battle that
awaits us.”

I grabbed a fritter, and ate quickly. “Are your
people ready to march?”

Thorald
nodded. “I’ll
lead them myself in half an hour’s time.”

“And we’ll ride,
Woltan
?
That’s the plan?”

Woltan
shook his head.
“I’m still not sure what the plan is. I’m torn between flying straight to my
sister, or trying to go around from behind, so the dark lord or his minions
can’t see us.”

“I thought the dark lord wouldn’t be there.”

“He’s not there now… But remember he’s powerful,
and surely has magical means of transportation that we know nothing about. We
know he won’t be there for the battle, but maybe he will use his eye to watch
over the preparations.”

Kara nodded. “We must be wary. Remember what
happened when we tried to form a gateway from the forgotten city.”

Woltan
looked away. “I
am worried. I think my sister needs me now.”

I felt my face grow hot. I had left my parents in
Woltan’s
sister’s care. And
Woltan
was the one worried, while I stuffed my face.

I looked up from my food. “Why don’t you call
Jona
through your sword?”

Woltan
cursed. “Why
didn’t I think of that?” He brought his hand down to the sword and was quiet
for a moment.

Then he looked at everyone. His face was filled
with horror. “They are being attacked, as we speak. From outside the gates, but
also from the air. There are demons and mages flying in the air. We must fly
now, before it’s too late.”

I bolted down the rest of a corn fritter, and then
I was running out the door with everyone else.

Thorald
called out
behind us. “Remember, we will follow you on foot, and the tree people will be
there too. Fly swift, and let your arrows and blades be true!”

I ran with Kara and
Woltan
beside me. I ducked to avoid hitting branches in our path. Kara ran ahead.
Follow
me. The dragons are harnessed. Our
armourers
and
leather-makers spent all night finishing harnesses for all the dragons… they
are made out of hardened leather, and will stretch instead of breaking.

I reached out my mind to my dragon.
Yesenia
?

We are here, waiting still, little one. You
have had time to stuff your face, I see, but we dragons have been waiting,
hungry. We will have to grab a bite to eat on the way. Or eat our enemy, which
will only sour our stomachs.

You may have to eat whatever you can. The
forgotten city is under attack, by some kind of winged demons…

Winged demons?

I ducked again, as Kara pulled ahead. I was
breathing hard.

Ask
Woltan
, through
his dragon. He saw them when he connected to his sister, through their swords.

I felt her break the connection. We were coming to
the clearing where we had met in the circle the night before. Kara pointed to
it.
The dragons are meeting us there, they are on their way…

I could feel them, not just
Yesenia
,
but all of the dragons, lumbering through the trails to the
Kriek
center. And something strange in them… was it anger? Excitement? The two of
them? The dragons didn’t seem to be hiding their emotions; they were radiating
them out in all directions.

Yesenia
?
What’s going on? Why are you all so angry?

It would take too much time to explain, Anders.
The dark lord has done something very ugly, very horrible, and forbidden to all
who live in this world, human, wizard, faery or beast. We will talk more when
we are up in the air. For now I will concentrate on controlling my anger and
getting us out of here as soon as possible.

Still roaring with rage she came, the others
behind her, onto the clearing. I ran up to her and climbed on her back. There
was a saddle and straps.
I’ll send you an image. Kara explained it to us.
I
saw an image of a rider with the straps tied on to his legs and trunk.
They
can be released easily, if you tie them right. It leaves your arms free to
shoot spells or defend us.

Then Kara was there, crouched beside me.
Anders,
I’ll tie the knots for you. I don’t have time to teach you how to tie them. But
to untie them just pull at them. They will loosen immediately.

Kara tied my legs down, and once around my waist.

Now you look like a real rider. Ride well, we
will talk more in the air!

She ran off to help the other riders. I felt
Yesenia
tense beneath me, and then she sprang into the air.
I held on tight, but realized that the harness held me in the seat. It was much
more comfortable than the last time I flew. I let go and looked down at a
second dragon launching into the air. Kara was helping my friends one by one,
and some were tying their own harnesses.

The dark lord has somehow conjured the
frujen
. They are the tortured souls of criminals from over
two thousand years ago, who sold their soul to some dark demon whose name has
been lost. With the loss of his name, we thought the art of calling them had
been lost as well. They are large and stinking creatures that fly through the
night or day, suck the souls of those who ride them and of those around them.
Their breath is foul and their spittle poison. Even before the name to call
them was lost all of the bloodlines signed a pact never to use them. Their very
existence is an affront to dragons and all others who fly. It is an affront to
all that eat and breathe and drink. To all those that live. To all those that
die.

How can we kill them, if they are not alive?

They can’t be killed, only sent back to another
plane from which they come. Or if the magic that conjured them, or the conjurer
himself is destroyed, then they will disperse and gradually move back.

But for now, let me concentrate on our flight
and our rage, Anders. Your last companion is about to take off.

Yesenia
was circling
high about the ground. I looked around and counted all but one of my
companions. I reached my mind out and found Elias down below.
I had a little
trouble with the harness; I’m a little small for it, but they brought me some
more straps. We will fly now, Anders. Tell
Yesenia
we
are ready.

I saw Elias rising up down below us. And before I
could think anything to
Yesenia
, she was off with the
others.

The sun had barely risen and I felt cold again in
the early morning air.
Yesenia
rose higher still as
we approached the Stone Mountain. We flew through the air faster than ever.
Maybe because the dragons were in a rage, or because they didn’t have to worry
about harnessed riders falling off.

I reached out my mind to Ulrike.
Do you have
news of your kinsmen in the battle?

This time her mind was unshielded, and I felt a
warmness in her mental touch. A flood of feelings for her washed over me, and
then I was listening to her thoughts.
I have been too busy in the
preparations. I will contact them now; you can stay with me while I contact
them.

Thanks, I would also see what the tree-people
are seeing.

My vision blended with Ulrike’s. We flowed through
the air, ahead of the dragons, out of our bodies. I felt all the trees below us
open to us, and I felt my kinship with Ulrike, a kinship only partly from our
passage through the tree mother.

Together we flew past the Stone Mountain and
onwards toward Ulrike’s kinsmen. We moved so fast now that everything was just
a blur.

And then, suddenly, we stopped.

We hovered over a battle scene.

A huge force of trolls were attacking the wall of
the forgotten city with great battering rams. Each time they hit the wall,
there were lightning strikes from above that lit up the scene. Dark clouds
blotted out the sun overhead. Another force of kobolds were trying their luck
with ladders, but the ladders were thrown back. Arrows flew out into the enemy
from inside the fortress, and human archers in the back of the dark lord’s forces
sent arrows back. Most of these just struck the wall, though. Where were the
tree people?

And then we saw them. They were spread out among
the trees, surrounding the small plain where the invading host had gathered.
And they were shooting spells at them, and arrows, and rocks, and all manner of
projectiles. There were far too few of them. I wanted to reach out to them, but
felt suddenly another presence there. A great red eye. An eye that I knew… Its
gaze was not on me but I felt it turn towards us.

Schluss
.

Ulrike had spoken a word of closure. We were back
on
dragonback
, separate, disconnected once again. I
felt the cold wind against my face, and blinked twice. The air burned my eyes.
Down below was the forest. We had passed the mountains, and far up ahead the
battle loomed.

I felt Ulrike reach out with her mind.
That was
your uncle, wasn’t it?

It was his eye. It is the color of his aura. It
burned me once, burned my mind and my soul. For weeks everything was red… and
then pink, and now at last I can see clearly. The tree mother in a few short
minutes finished the healing process that had taken a month. She changed us
both, didn’t she?

You have been changed so much, Anders, it must
be hard to remember who you are. For me it was different. From the day I was
born, I was prepared for my transformation in the tree mother. For Kara it was
the same. And for
Woltan
. Only you have had to assume
such fantastic responsibilities without preparation. We all respect you for it.
If the strain ever seems too much, remember we are all here for you.

Thank you.

Now, let us bring our minds to the battle
ahead. It will not be pretty, and we must all be focused.