Dragon's Trail Page 5

  The stew was hot enough to likely be sterile and smelled of alien spices and garlic. Lots of garlic. “Carter . . . the coffee?”

  Carter made a point of stopping everything else he was doing. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  “Okay, I’ll ask.”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s rude. And you’ll draw attention to yourself.”

  “Carter, there is no coffee anyplace this cold. Coffee doesn’t grow in places this cold. Chicory, I’d believe.”

  “Dandelions,” the cook replied from behind them. Though plump, she had a nimble footstep. “Roasted dandelion root,” she admitted. “We call it dandy. Do you like it?”

  “It smells . . . like something from our homeland that I’m very fond of,” said Jarrod.

  She smiled again, all dimples and motherly manners. “I took it you two were foreigners.”

  Jarrod rubbed his stubbly chin. “Ah, you could say that, yes. Forgive us our mannerisms, my lady.”

  Carter made himself a potato-bowl of stew similar to Jarrod’s, and they took a seat at a near table.

  Jarrod tore at the potato, which was sweet and slightly carrot-y. Carter could see the younger man’s hands shaking, and put his own hand on Jarrod’s wrist to steady it.

  “I’m scared,” Jarrod told his stew.

  “It’s okay, man. Hell, I freaked.”

  “Why us?”

  Carter again made a point of stopping what he was doing.

  “Why not you? What I’ve been asking myself for the past few days is, why me?”

  Jarrod attacked his food, which was hot, oily, and heady with thyme and garlic and something he couldn’t remember the name of that reminded him of Turkish coffee. The meat was stringy with a slight organ flavor—venison of some type. He was halfway through when the cook brought him a plate piled high with fried vegetable nests drizzled in butter and honey, and a cup of the dandelion-root tea. When his food was gone, Jarrod drained his tea—which was so like coffee that it could have been coffee, replete with cream and sweetener—and picked grounds from his teeth.

  “You better?” asked Carter.

  “I’ll make it,” Jarrod pushed himself away from the table.

  “You want a beer? You’ve got to try the beer. They’ll put a brewer in jail here for making bad beer.”

  “Good,” said Jarrod. “But no beer, yet. I want to go talk to somebody and I want to be sober.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Carter whistled, waking three large brindle bulldogs near the firepit. He set their plates on the floor, and one of the dogs lumbered up and trotted over. They left as the dogs took to their job.

  Jarrod stood in the doorway, watching as the dogs mopped up the mess, and Carter clapped Jarrod on the back. “It’s gonna be okay. I think you’re gonna love this.”

  Carter pushed open the door. “Jarrod, this is Master Crius Lotavaugus, Lord High Sorcerer of Gateskeep.”

  Crius stood behind his desk and threw up the rock sign with grave formality. “Dude,” he announced sagely.

  “Roll with it,” Carter advised, before Jarrod could even turn to ask.

  Jarrod shook his head with a disbelieving smile. “We’ve met.” He dropped to one knee with a flourish. “Sir, I owe you an apology for my rudeness and a tremendous debt for my life.”

  “An apology is hardly necessary,” said Crius. “Your refusal to lease me your sword arm distinguishes you as a man of honor. Arise, sir.”

  Jarrod rose with the elation of a batter who’s watched his line drive bounce off the foul pole into the left-field bleachers.

  “Please, be seated. Are you well?”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Jarrod, sitting in a chair before Crius’s desk. “I’m very well. Whoever healed me did fine work.”

  “Do you wish the Chancellor to stay?”

  Jarrod looked behind himself. “Chancel—oh. Yeah. Yes. Please. Carter?”

  Carter hulked by the door like an oversized palace guard. “Right here.”

  “Jarrod Torrealday,” Crius knew his last name, and Jarrod could only assume he had been speaking with Carter at length. “Lord of . . .?”

  “Knightsbridge,” Jarrod answered. Knightsbridge was the name of his family estate in Connecticut. “My father would, uh, be Lord of Knightsbridge.”

  “Jarrod, Son-Lord of Knightsbridge.”

  Suddenly, irresponsibly, overwhelmingly, Jarrod wanted this gig.

  He longed to tell Crius of his schooling at the Academie d’Espée, Paris; and at the Royal College of Arms in Cambridge; and of his junior World Cup saber title; and his black belt in Judo.

  But he knew he wouldn’t have to. The job was his. All his qualifications would come through revelation, as he moved across this, his Disneyland, like a hurricane.

  “What we have—why you’re here,” Crius began, slouching back in his chair, “is the result of a most unfortunate turn of events. Unfortunate for our kingdom, mind you; not necessarily for you.

  “This is—we are—the Kingdom of Gateskeep. How much has the Chancellor told you?”

  Jarrod wanted the whole damned thing to buttress Carter’s claims. “Not a lot. How far back can you begin?”

  The sorcerer bit his lip in thought, scooted his chair around, leaned forward a bit, and sighed.

  “Long ago, a race of beings—we called them The Demons—came to us. They had done what we had never done, what we had never allowed ourselves. They had developed, from our water wheels and fires, what came to be known as the New Magic. They knew, or claimed to have learned, why trees grow, why fires burn. They could create fire—any of them—with tools they all carried. They had tools to kill, tools to take the place of maps, tools for mounts, tools for light. Not unlike what I’ve seen of your world.

  “The danger, we realized from the inception of our allegiance with The Demons, was that of power without discipline. Any fool among them could create fire, which we all know is the most dangerous element in existence. Similarly, any madman of their ranks could kill. Effortlessly. They had cast out their gods and taken their salvation into their own hands.

  “This was The New Magic. The Demons’ Way.

  “Here, we train our strongest minds to bend the will of the Universe. We become the sorcerers and the healers. Understand, there is a tremendous amount of discipline a sorcerer must undergo. To inflict harm, to create malignancy in any form, is forbidden. It is schooled out through the rigors of instruction.

  “The threat we sorcerers foresaw in the Demons’ Way was similar to that of lit torches in the hands of children.”

  Jarrod found his mouth dry.

  “A war erupted over the importance of this deliverance. So great was this war that the Demons themselves finally stepped in to make amends. Those of us favoring a life of technology for their descendants—to be trained in The New Magic—would be taken to your world, a sister world.”

  Jarrod took the moment of quiet to poke the anthill. “Earth, right? Is that why we speak your language?”

  The sorcerer smiled. “Our language was taught to you by a particularly gifted sorcerer—a telepath—while you rested.”

  “The same guy is tutoring me, Jarrod,” interrupted Carter. “You wouldn’t believe how fast you can pick up a language when your teacher’s telepathic.”

  Crius smiled again. “And though I would observe that you speak quite well, your command of our language will increase if you choose to study further, and you’ll become more familiar with our language the longer you stay. As it is, you’ll make do.”

  “Carter said something about ogres, goblins . . .”

  “Yes. The gbatu.”

  Jarrod found that the word brought a crawling prickle up his spine and a childish hatred of shadows. “What’s a gbatu? And shit, that’s hard to say.” The g was a ghost; a glottal stop before the b. The name felt practically vomited. On top of that, the word gbatu he somehow associ
ated with fear of the dark.

  “Gbatu are the lesser races.”

  “Lesser? That’s not really a word we use where I come from.”

  “Less than human, more than animal. Some are common, some are rare. Some were . . . mistakes.”

  “Jesus.”

  “You are here because it was learned by our intelligence organizations that the Gavrians—”

  “Gavrians?”

  Crius held up a finger to freeze the conversation, and, reaching behind his desk, picked up a wide scroll which he unrolled across his desk. Jarrod saw it was a large, intensely detailed map.

  Carter was right; it was a continent. The countries—kingdoms, regions, whatever they were—were not delineated with drawn borders. Most of the towns and cities, he noted immediately, lay along rivers.

  Aqueducts. Plumbing. Fresh water.

  Civilization.

  “You are here. The castle of Regoth Ur, in the Gateskeep Northlands. To the north of us lie The Wilds, and beyond the sea lies Ice Isle, our northern principality, ruled by Prince Damon.”

  “To the east is Falconsrealm,” said Crius, “also our principality.”

  Falconsrealm, Jarrod noted, was a snarl of geologic badassery where several mountain ranges came together and upthrust. Falconsrealm was isolated, lightly-populated, and a real bitch to reach from its mother country.

  Ripe for the picking.

  “Falconsrealm is ruled by Princess Adielle, heir to the throne of Gateskeep, eldest child of King Rorthos and Queen Adrassi. They’re Riongoran-Thurdins.”

  “I should probably be writing this down,” Jarrod mused.

  “These are the Shieldlands,” said Crius, pointing to a wide, flat plain dotted with towers and villages, below Falconsrealm. “We fight Gavria for it about once a generation or so.”

  “Who rules those?”

  “Those are the border lords I was telling you about,” Carter interjected. “It’s the Wild West out there.”

  “South, but yes,” Crius nodded to Carter and continued. “The lords of the Shieldlands are sworn to Gateskeep. Our beloved king lives in The City of the Gate, at Gateskeep Palace, here.” He struck the map lightly with his index finger. Gateskeep Palace was a hand’s length across the map from Regoth Ur, bumped up against a line of mountains.

  “South of the Shieldlands is Gavria, our southern neighbor. Most of Gavria is mountains and arid lands. Gavria has mines, so they trade with us: gold, iron, salt.”

  Jarrod interjected, “Iron and gold? Dear God, what’s their military like?”

  Crius nodded slowly. “Their armies are vast. Professional. Armed to their balls. We’ve been fearing war. Moreso, now, with a spate of recent developments.”

  “And these new, uh, developments, involve us.”

  “They do.”

  Jarrod felt like interlacing his fingers behind his head and kicking his feet up on the desk, but refrained. “Let’s have it.”

  “There has been a recent appointment to the Gavrian Parliament. He’s one of yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “From Earth,” said Carter.

  “Yes,” agreed Crius, “and blood son of one of the most black-souled malefactors to ever walk this world.”

  Jarrod gave that what he deemed an appropriate span of respectful silence. “I,” he said quietly and with deliberation, “am going to want every last detail.”

  “Four hundred years ago, his father, a sorcerer of tremendous power, seized the throne of Gavria. He is still renowned as the most powerful sorcerer who has ever lived.

  “He didn’t hold the throne long. He and his entire family—wives, children—were put to death. Gavria wanted an end to the bloodline. Gavrian forces tore down his palace and his lands fell to ruin, swallowed by the Eastern Freehold.

  “Legend has it—and we now know it to be true—that one wife, bearing an unborn son, escaped to your world, with much of the family fortune. She wasn’t pursued, for your world is in the psychic backwaters of the universe and the forces of magic don’t flow easily there.”

  “Four hundred years ago.”

  “For us. Far shorter, we fear, for your world. The dread son is of Carter’s approximate age. A native of your country, of the metropolis of—wait—New York, yes?”

  “New York,” Jarrod confirmed. The word was a spear of daylight. “So, what, then? She learned English? Got a day job? Sent him to parochial school? Come on.”

  Carter shrugged. “Hey, it’s been known to happen. Land of opportunity.”

  Jarrod put his head in his hands. “And he’s from New York. Tell me he’s no one I know.”

  “I can’t answer that. We do know that he returned to his father’s lands twelve years ago, and he has proven most enterprising. He has built a magnificent palace on the ruins of the last and has amassed a considerable fortune. He’s quite brilliant in the ways of commerce.”

  “Most of us are,” Jarrod admitted, omitting compared to you, I’m sure.

  “His country is Ulorak,” Crius tapped the map, showing a high country ringed with mountains in the northeast corner of Gavria. “They declared themselves sovereign from the Eastern Freehold some years back. He is King Sabbaghian the Silver.”

  “King,” grumbled Jarrod.

  “And sorcerer. He would have possessed limited powers in your world, but here his magic would be amplified a hundred times. By all reports, he is many times the sorcerer I am.”

  Jarrod looked back at Carter. “Oh, that’s great,” he breathed. Carter only nodded. “Anything else?” Jarrod asked.

  “Ulorak has recently become a Gavrian protectorate, and King Sabbaghian is now Lord Sabbaghian, High Sorcerer of Gavria.”

  “Gavria, your neighbor whom you think is preparing for war. The guys with all the iron and gold.”

  “With the appointment comes a seat on the Gavrian War Council.”

  Jarrod shifted in his seat. Princesses. Monsters. Rising armies. Exiled sons of evil sorcerers returning to claim dark thrones.

  “And you want us to, what? Stop him? Kill him?” It didn’t sound as convincing as he’d hoped it would.

  “Counter him,” said Crius. “We know nothing of his patterns and processes. Our greatest fear, of course, is that of power without discipline. Our sorcerers don’t kill—even Gavria’s—we’re trained not to. We use sorcerers in battle, but to control the elements, frighten the horses, raise rivers,” he recalled something untold with a fond smile for a moment, “and suchlike. This man lacks internal controls. But more to the point, we have no idea what he might do. You’d be advisers here. Carter, at court, and you, Jarrod, on the field.”

  Jarrod licked his lips and braved, “Isn’t that backwards?” he jerked a thumb at Carter, “He fights for a living. I just teach.”

  “I have seen you fight. You are our choice.”

  “That wasn’t much of a fight,” Jarrod admitted.

  “And what impressed me, quite frankly, was not just your ability with a blade, but that you displayed fairness and integrity, and in victory you showed decency and restraint. Carter has assured me that you are one of your homeland’s greatest swordsmen, and that you were recently chosen to champion your entire nation. I have no doubt that you will make an exceptional advisor.”

  “We’ll see,” said Jarrod. “What’s involved?”

  “For you? Admission into a royal order.”

  “You mean knighthood?”

  “Not quite. We have a specific rank for those who have been accepted into an order on merit of arms. You’ll be a ‘rider’ for the order, a knight without lands. The title of rider is normally given by a knight officer for heroism on the battlefield, or skill at arms in a tournament. It can also be awarded directly from the king himself. This will be your case; you’ll be a King’s Rider.”

  “I don’t, um, ride particularly well.”

  “It’s only a title,” Crius assured him. “You’ll study hard under a pati
ent knight, and be his sergeant so that you may learn our tactics, our weapons, our strategies—and help us understand your own, of course—and in a year, perhaps sooner, you will receive full knighthood and with it, a commission. Once you’re commissioned, should necessity arise, you’ll be on the field, commanding. The crown equips you with everything you need. Weapons, squires, a handsome spending allowance—”

  “White horse, shiny armor?”

  “Our armor is black, and our finest warhorses, as well. But we can arrange the other marks of your station—inclusion in a royal order, eventual rank and knighthood, and the adulation of beautiful maidens everywhere.

  “After the threat has been neutralized, if you wish to remain, we can discuss a court appointment or a charge of land. You will be welcome to stay as long as it suits you.”

  Jarrod wrestled with a breaking smile.

  It was hard to remain seated, so he took a knee. His legs quivered as he bowed his head and put his fist on his heart. “I owe you my life. But there are, um, difficulties, involved here. I have responsibilities back home.”

  “Such as?”

  An uncomfortable pause followed as Jarrod received a rare, bird’s-eye glimpse of the universe and his place in it.

  Responsibilities wasn’t a word he normally associated with himself. He’d spent his twentieth summer alone in the Utah desert “seeking perfection through the art of the sword.” All he could really attribute to himself was a healthy trust fund and a recent history of waking up drunk somewhere in Europe.

  Further, his responsibility to the next six months’ made-for-Canadian-TV fight sequences seemed to collapse under its ostentatiousness like a giant sculpture made of Cheez Whiz. And it occurred to him that he hadn’t yet even found a space for his fencing school.

  Crius sensed his hesitation. “You have your own lordship at home. I understand. If, after your oath is fulfilled, you wish to split your time between your world and ours, we can arrange that, too.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Once you’re a lord here, you’d have your castle and lands, and your own sorcerers on retainer. We’ll just make sure we assign you one who can make it happen.”

  “Could I go home for a few days and square away my affairs, maybe grab a few things?”