Shroud of Eternity Read online

  They came upon a group of four cavalry riders, their massive destriers wearing full battle gear. Nathan recognized the ornate components of equine armor, the chanfron to protect the horse’s head and face, the crinet for the neck, the peytral for the sides and flanks. Worked into the metal and leather was the stylized-flame symbol of Emperor Kurgan. The right foreleg of one of the warhorses was upraised as if the mount bounded off in a gallop, but now the statue stood precariously balanced.

  The soldiers astride the destriers wore exotic antique armor, which gave them a fearsome appearance: large padded helmets with a crest above the forehead, a nose guard and sweeping pointed chin guards, a smooth metal cuirass covering their chests, lapped leather thigh guards worked with metal disks for extra protection. They held curved swords upraised, ready for a charge. Their round shields were also emblazoned with Kurgan’s flame.

  Bannon paused to admire the statue cavalry. “They must have been riding out on a sortie.”

  Amos pressed both hands against the stone horse with the raised foreleg. “Help me with this.” Jed and Brock joined him without question, and Amos looked at Bannon. “You can pitch in, too. We’ll let you.”

  Unsure, Bannon took his place next to the three youths. “What are we doing?” All four of them planted their hands against the stone horse.

  “Doing our part to fight the old war.” Amos and his friends pushed, making the stone horse wobble. Bannon’s uncertain assistance did little.

  Nathan expressed his biting disapproval. “That’s a historical artifact, lads. You shouldn’t—”

  “It’s an enemy soldier.” Amos gritted his teeth, and his cheeks flushed with the strain. With a final heave, they tipped over the stone horse and rider. The heavy statue crashed to the ground, breaking the horse’s foreleg and cracking the statue soldier in half.

  The young men stepped back, congratulating themselves. “Only about a hundred thousand more to go,” Jed said, and sauntered onward.

  They moved through the large, silent camp, where innumerable ancient warriors were frozen in the midst of frenetic activity. Many of the statues wore armor, ready to fight. Two burly men stood with gauntleted arms crossed over their chests like implacable guardians, apparently standing watch.

  “Why are there no tents or banners?” Bannon asked.

  Nathan realized the answer. “Any such things would have decayed over the centuries. Even if the soldiers themselves turned to stone, the other trappings rotted away long ago.”

  He shaded his eyes in the bright afternoon, scanning across the tableau. Ten fossilized warriors sprawled in a circle on the ground where weeds and grasses had grown up around them. From their positions and state of undress, he surmised they had been at camp, sleeping around a fire, covered with no-longer-existent blankets. Others squatted nearby, arms extended toward the center of the circle, as if they had been holding sticks, roasting meat over flames.

  One man stood with his hands at his crotch, gazing toward the ground, preserved in the act of urinating. Amos and his companions found this intensely amusing, and they used their iron-tipped staffs to batter away at the stone hands and pulverize his petrified manhood.

  They came to a clearing among the fossilized soldiers, perhaps a place where a large supply tent had disintegrated with time, leaving an unoccupied area. “Here’s a good place to make camp,” Amos said, then looked at Bannon. “Did you bring supplies?”

  “I hope you have decent food,” Jed added. “And enough to share.”

  Nicci gave them all a hard look. “You should have prepared better for your expedition.”

  Amos frowned at the criticism, but Nathan shrugged out of his pack. “We have food. Happy to share.” He undid the strings and opened it to reveal the spell-preserved venison steaks they had carved from one of Mrra’s recent kills.

  The strangers gave appreciative grins. “Fresh meat sounds good,” Brock said.

  Working together, they gathered armfuls of dead weeds, grass stalks, and fallen branches. Nathan laid out a circle of stones he collected, and the Ildakaran youths piled the debris in the center without finesse.

  Looking at the unruly heap, Bannon bent down, getting to work. “Building a fire takes a little more skill than that. Dry grass, then twigs for kindling, with larger branches built up around it.”

  Amos rolled his deep brown eyes. “Why bother?” With a gesture, he released a flicker of his gift and ignited the piled debris. The crackling grass and twigs quickly built into a healthy fire.

  “Or, I suppose that would be faster,” Bannon muttered. Nicci also usually started their campfires.

  As dusk fell, they roasted meat and hunkered down to eat, but Nathan’s attempts to elicit further conversation resulted in few details. Adding their part to the dinner, the young men pulled out honeyed wafers and dense grain cakes from their packs, sharing them. Nathan found them to be flavorful, but the young men claimed they were tired of eating the stuff.

  As the darkness deepened, Nathan gazed across the sweeping expanse, which reminded him of the Azrith Plain in D’Hara. The open grassy prairie extended to the steep drop-off at the river that bisected the vast plain, and even the immense open space seemed barely large enough to contain the countless soldiers that had come to conquer Ildakar.

  Taking a second honeyed wafer, Nathan gestured with his chin toward the distant river. “That looks like an extreme uplift. Normally, a river like that would have carved a wide valley, but it seems to have cut the plain like an axe. Those are enormous cliffs above the water.”

  “It didn’t happen by accident,” Amos said, licking venison grease from his fingers. “In order to defend Ildakar, the wizards’ duma combined their magic to raise this side of the plain, lifting it up like a giant swatch of sod hundreds of feet above the Killraven River. The sheer bluffs prevent any attacks from the water.”

  “Only fools would attack Ildakar,” said Brock, chewing on his blackened meat. He plucked a lump of gristle from his mouth and inspected it between thumb and forefinger before flicking it off into the grasses. “General Utros and his army learned that lesson.”

  “How can anyone attack the city if they can’t find it?” Nicci asked. “Where did Ildakar go?”

  “That was part of our genius,” Amos said, without elaborating further.

  As night insects in the grasses set up a soothing chorus of songs, Nathan pondered what he knew from legends and history. If the wizards of Ildakar could do such astonishing things, surely they could help him recover his gift.

  First, though, they had to solve the mystery of the vanishing city.

  * * *

  The next day, long after sunrise, they set off across the plain, wandering among the petrified soldiers. At random times, the three young men found stone warriors that caught their attention. One squatting man with his stone trousers around his stone knees had fallen over onto the ground when the latrine he was using had weathered into dust. Amos and his friends broke that statue into pieces.

  They targeted particularly fierce-looking warriors, stone men who looked hungry to conquer Ildakar. Amos and his friends used their iron clubs to batter the eyes, noses, and mouths, leaving the faces chipped and featureless, which they found hilarious.

  After all he had read about the glory of Ildakar, Nathan was disappointed in their attitude. He surveyed the countless figures that covered the open plain. “I suppose General Utros is one of these statues. It would be be intriguing to find him, just to look upon his features—for the sake of history.”

  “How would we know who he is?” Bannon frowned at the broken statue the others had just smashed. “These warriors wear no identifying badges.”

  “Dear boy, I assume that if we looked long enough, we could find one with a general’s garb or armor, probably near the center of camp in a command tent.” Nathan brushed the front of the ruffled shirt he had worn since leaving Cliffwall. “But there would be no tent left after all these years, alas … no tables, no remnants of charts, no
banners.”

  Nicci looked ahead at the distant river and the sheer cliff drop-off. “If your wizards were so powerful, why were they afraid? Uplifting half the plain, tearing the landscape to create huge cliffs above the river—that is not an act of confidence.”

  “It was a demonstration of our invincibility,” Amos said. “The Killraven River brought trade from distant lands, but as times grew darker it also brought foolish invaders who sought to conquer the city, so the wizards created the high bluffs and dragged the river closer. They reshaped the landscape like a potter manipulates clay. Ildakar has stood for all this time, and we are stronger and greater than ever.”

  With a grunt of effort, he shoved another stone soldier over, toppling it into the weeds.

  As they approached the uplift that loomed above the river, Nathan wondered how they would ever descend to the water, if that was their destination. The boys refused to explain, and seemed to find Nathan’s persistent questions annoying.

  When they were within a mile of the drop-off, in the heat of the afternoon, Nicci expressed her frustration, “So, where is this city?” Her black travel dress was flecked with tan seeds, burrs, and dry grass tips.

  Amos said, “We’re in the right general place, but I don’t know exactly when the shroud will come down. There’s nothing we can do to hurry it.”

  “We might have to camp again tonight.” Jed sounded disappointed. “I’d rather—”

  As if some lookout from within the unseen city had spotted their approach, the air suddenly shimmered and changed. Nathan caught a sharp metallic tang in the air, as if lightning had struck nearby. A sizzling sound like millions of swarming gnats grew louder, and rose to a persistent drone that made his teeth rattle.

  Then the expansive view of the empty plain dissolved, the air itself peeling away to reveal what had been hidden behind a camouflaged barrier.

  When the shimmer faded, Nathan stared at the enormous and breathtaking city of Ildakar directly in front of them.

  CHAPTER 6

  Nicci stopped in her tracks, staring at the city that had not been there moments before. Bannon staggered backward. “Sweet Sea Mother!” The crackling hum in the air faded as details sharpened into perfect clarity.

  A walled city as large as Tanimura unfolded from behind a wall of time. Countless layers of buildings were perched on a mounded uplift that rose like a plateau sculpted from the plain.

  Nathan shaded his eyes as he gazed upward to take it all in. “Dear spirits, even the wildest legends did not do this city justice. I see why Iron Fang insisted that it be conquered.”

  “It is Ildakar,” Amos said, as if that explained everything. “Many outsiders have tried to possess it, and no army has ever succeeded.”

  Since the three young men offered no details, Nathan turned to Nicci and Bannon. “Ildakar was the most prominent city in the southern part of the Old World, a cultural wellspring for arts and crafts, a focus for research into the magical arts. Many of the greatest scholars and discoveries in ancient times came from here.” He stroked his smooth chin. “In fact, many of the seminal works in the Cliffwall archives originated from Ildakar—three thousand years ago.”

  “Our city has only grown greater since.” Amos adjusted his fur-lined half cape and strode forward across the unmarked plain toward the great gates in the towering wall. “That’s because we were protected behind the shroud. If Ildakar had remained vulnerable, we would have been conquered by General Utros or any number of other warlords.”

  Nicci nodded in admiration at the imposing stone walls that surrounded the uplifted city. Her blond hair drifted in front of her face. “If Emperor Jagang had known about Ildakar, he surely would have sent Imperial Order troops down here to conquer it.”

  “Then Jagang—whoever he was—would have failed as well,” Amos said. “By shielding our city behind time, we avoided the wars, the devastation, the hardship over the ages. We have had fifteen centuries of isolation to build a perfect society.” He paused in front of the nearest stone soldier, a man with a drooping mustache and a wart on his nose. With a sneer, he swung his staff to smash the head of the statue. Releasing their pent-up anger, Jed and Brock joined in, the three of them hammering until they shattered the petrified warrior into rubble.

  Nicci was impatient with their misplaced destructive tendencies, but she did not chastise them, having seen far worse atrocities among Jagang’s soldiers. Bored Imperial Order troops would rape, torture, and mangle living captives, just because they had nothing better to do. Restless vandalism couldn’t hold a candle to that.

  Turning his look of obvious distaste away from the young men, he blinked, coming out of his reverie as he turned back to the amazing metropolis that rose up like an island on the edge of the plain. “That city is alive! Let us go see Ildakar.”

  They trudged across the grassland toward the stone wall. They walked on the weathered remnants of a great road that had vanished into little more than occasional rough cobblestones overgrown with tufts of grasses and hardy weeds.

  Nicci studied the exotic, colorful buildings that clung to the slopes of the sculpted plateau, comparing it to Altur’Rang and Aydindril. Ildakar was so large it loomed like a mountain of buildings with steep streets, greenways, terraced gardens, orchards. The succession of rising walls and steep barriers formed concentric defenses that rose dramatically from the otherwise-gentle valley.

  After all the colorless stone soldiers and the brown grasses of the plain, vibrant Ildakar was bursting with color. Purple and red pennants flew above crenellations on the stepped walls. Rooftops on the crowded whitewashed houses sported tiles of glazed red, ocher, or black. Some of the windows glinted with rainbows of colored crystal in the bright sunshine. Hanging gardens, verdant waterfalls of vines and vegetation, were draped over the wall.

  Behind the tall defensive barricade, the city’s neighborhoods and districts were like the layers of an onion, small dwellings, large warehouses, observation towers, gathering areas. Nicci thought of Richard’s seat of power, the People’s Palace, an enormous city within a single structure that overlooked the Azrith Plain. Ildakar was just as imposing, just as magnificent, but with strange, curving architecture that featured pointed towers and swooping arches.

  Approaching the outer wall, they came upon the weathered remnants of deep trenches—overgrown moats that must have been used to discourage cavalry attacks ages ago—but they had slumped and filled in with time. The group picked their way through.

  Amos gestured to the ditches. “For years, Ildakar’s traditional siege defenses were considered impregnable, but after the wizards erected the protective shroud, none of that was relevant anymore.”

  “The shroud was all we needed to keep the rest of the dangerous world away,” Jed said.

  When they had first seen the city from Kol Adair, Nicci now realized the shroud dome was flickering, perhaps faltering, as the spell faded. From what Amos and his friends grudgingly revealed, the shroud had been going up and down intermittently for years—well before Richard’s star shift had changed the rules of magic.

  The three young men strolled along, yelling up at the walls. Even though they had talked about eating and bathing—and visiting their mysterious “silk yaxen”—they seemed in no hurry to get home.

  “What if the city vanishes again before we reach it?” Bannon asked, picking up his own pace. “Don’t we want to get inside?”

  Nathan also added his concern. “We’ve come a long way to find Ildakar. I wouldn’t want to miss our opportunity.”

  Amos shrugged, slowing his pace a bit, just to be difficult. “Now that the shroud has been dropped, the sovrena and the wizard commander won’t work the magic again for at least a week. The city will be open to the outside world for now.”

  Nicci was eager to learn more answers, to speak with representatives who showed more interest in the outside visitors. She no longer expected much from Amos and his companions; she had seen layabouts before. “We don’t know how
long our business will take.” Nicci glanced over at Nathan. “The wizard has an important request to make of your rulers.”

  “And Nicci’s supposed to save the world,” Bannon interjected. “A witch woman sent them here.”

  “A witch woman?” Amos rolled his eyes again. “A minor sorceress? A trivial seer? Witch women don’t have much standing in Ildakar. In our city, the gifted are strong.”

  Nicci was glad to hear that, since she’d had enough of witch women. “Why were your wizards so much more powerful than any opponent? In those days were there not other gifted enemies? Dream walkers? Shapers?”

  “Ildakar was different because our wizards banded together. Their secretive research had taught them magic and spell-forms that no one else knew, and when they united their abilities, no outsider could defeat them.”

  From the sound of his words, Nicci guessed that Amos was just parroting what he’d been taught all his life. Nevertheless, it seemed to be true.

  They soon reached the first of the high outer walls and a towering double gate made of stone-hard wood held in place with giant iron hinges; each plank was the length of a full tree. The gate looked impervious to any kind of siege or battering ram. Nicci ran her gaze up and down the construction, trying to imagine whether she would have the power to blast her way inside. Or to escape, if need be.

  Bannon looked intimidated. “Will they let us in?”

  Amos snorted. “They’ll let us in. I’m the son of the sovrena and the wizard commander.” He went to a smaller, person-sized door inset on the lower left side. He hammered with his fist. “High Captain Avery, are you on duty? Open up! I brought visitors.”

  Nicci heard voices on the other side, then a rattle and clank as iron bolts were drawn back out of their sockets.

  She sensed a flash of magic as a different kind of seal peeled away from around the jamb; then the smaller door swung open. A uniformed guard stood there, tall and handsome, with a red pauldron on his left shoulder. Brown leather armor lapped with iron scales covered his torso but left his arms bare. His wide belt held a dagger and a sheathed short sword. Though the air was warm, he wore a cape lined with a wiry brown pelt from an animal Nicci could not identify. His high boots came to just beneath the knee.