Wind Rider (12 page)

XIII

The air crackled with energy as I
approached the clearing. Tentacles of thought reached out from the circle to
attach to me and my companions, making us part of the circle before we arrived
in it.

I could feel Elias come alive behind me. I smiled.
It’s amazing isn’t it.

Never in my life could I imagine so much energy.
One thousand
Kriek
and the dragons as well!

The air crackles with energy.

Not just the air, Anders, open your third eye
and your inner ear!

They are open.

No, Anders, open them fully! You are seeing
things with your eyes closed.

I’ll go blind!

No, Anders; open them!

So I opened my third eye, and my inner ears. Sound
and color and light rushed through me.

It was a mistake.

Elias was wrong.

There was no way to handle it all. I was going
deaf and blind. I opened my mouth to scream.

Instead, my eyes adjusted.

I could see and hear everyone and everything
around me. Everything was bright, but after that initial moment, nothing hurt.
Auras blazed around me, separately and as a whole. They welcomed me, their
lines of thought reaching out to me and my companions. So much energy, yes, but
there was also love, and care, and concern, fear for the future, and hope. A
tremendous quantity of hope.

The circle drew us in. It was like a great dome
made up of curved arcs that connected everyone in the circle. And inside the
circle were more circles, concentrically, and at the very center was an older
man.

I knew who he was, then, and felt his thoughts.
The man reached out to me, and bid me welcome.

Welcome Anders
Tomason
.
I am king
Thorald
, Kara’s uncle, the chief of the
Kriek
. Hail and well met.

There was warmth there, and wisdom, but also pain.

Like you, I bear scars from the dark lord. We
have much in common, you and I, and not just the blood we share.

My legs kept on walking; I was being guided into
the circle, the circle that was actually a sphere, reaching up and above us,
and down and underneath us, connecting us together and shielding us from the
outside.

Then we were all there: my companions, the
dragons, all linked into the great sphere of thought, our auras made one.

Anders, please share your experiences with us.
We need to know everything.

But uncle,
Woltan
must show you the forgotten city.

Patience, Kara. First we must see and judge our
new kinsman.

I felt a surge of panic. A thousand
Kriek
were going to judge my experiences, my thoughts, my
guilt?
Kara, what does he mean, everything?

Father, you are scaring instead of welcoming
him; he does not know our ways.

I am sorry, Anders — you have barely arrived
and instead of a welcoming feast you find yourself in full council. War is at
hand. We ask you to share — we do not probe, we will not look at thoughts that
are not for us. Yet we know the truth when we see it.

So I felt the tension drain out of me, and began
to share, starting with my earliest memories of my father and my mother, and of
the man who would become the dark lord…

Parts of my mind seemed closed to myself, even,
but I showed them my testing, proving I was a full wizard born, and my tutors
who had taught me the little wizardry I had learned, keeping me away from the
other students. And then when everything had changed, when Kara had come into
my life.

Pulling her through the barrier. And then Gerard.
The first attack. And then the
keiler
, my first kill.
The lost city. Being testing by
Woltan
and
Jona
. Training. Singing the sword together. My parents,
frozen, as good as dead, yet alive. Reading the future,
scrying
.
Pain and death. Recovery. The images flashed through my head, faster than I
could read them. The tree mother, my new vision of plant life. The dragon that
tested me and found me worthy. One test after another. And now one last test.

Enough. The boy has been through enough. Show
us the dark lord again and these demons, and we will see if that tells us
anything of use.

I was weary, but I felt Elias and
Woltan
and the others join us, and what came then was
multidimensional, a composite recent history. From me came the image of the
dark lord, when he had burned me red and destroyed
Karsten’s
mother. From me and the others came the memory of the dark lord when we had
tried to teleport, and images of the demons. I heard their voices, and felt
them. Now I was a spectator too, watching
Woltan
and
Elias battle the demons, throwing spell after spell at them as the demons
sucked the life out of the tree and killed with spittle and bite.

I heard whispers and echoes of horror.
These
are demons of the 6
^th
level! How could anyone have conjured them? He
must have had help… But who? And where would he get the knowledge?

The demons spoke words in an old ugly tongue.

Then the spell, that sent them back into another
plane, and the rift that shimmered in the air. The healing of
Woltan
.

That was great old magic, magic we thought was
lost but for the book of Id. He has not read it, has he?

Kara spoke then.
It is in his blood.

And in the blood of the dark lord. His uncle.

Some of it, perhaps, yet incomplete. So the
dark lord seeks the book, while this
bloodsinger
boy
does not need it.

The dark lord seeks Anders, as well. With him
he would not need the book.

A book is easier to understand than the blood
of a boy. But still Anders would be a fearsome ally to the dark lord.

You’re right. He’s dangerous. He shouldn’t be
here.

I felt anger welling up inside me, but it was
nothing compared to that of the dragons and my companions. It came out
together, in one great rush of thoughts.
He has proved himself in battle!
The dark lord has scarred him. How dare you question him!

There was silence for a moment.

Point taken. The boy knows his own parents are
enslaved until his uncle is destroyed.

Take it to a vote — do we accept the boy and
give him our full support, as kin?

I recognized the thoughts of King
Thorald
.

We vote. Those who doubt him, let us feel your
doubts.

There were a flurry of thoughts.
He is so
young. He is fragile, but powerful. I fear he can be misused. He should not be
a warrior; he should be with his parents!

My parents. As if it would be any use to be with
them now. But I seconded their doubts. How could anyone expect me to lead a
battle against my own uncle, three times my age and as hundred times as
powerful?

Those who have doubts have voiced them. We the
council of the
Kriek
have heard them. Now, those who
support the three-blooded prince, who recognize his importance to our cause,
who recognize him as our kin, show your support.

There was a rush of power, of light, of music that
hit me from all sides and ran through me and over me. I felt lifted up in the
air; dancing on current of positive thought.

We accept Anders
Tomason
as three-blooded prince, kinsman, and warrior-mage!

Then it was
Woltan’s
turn to make the case for the battle. Images of the dark lord’s attacks flooded
the council’s consciousness: the attacks on the tree mother, the attack when we
had tried to teleport to the
Kriek
. And then the
Kriek
were giving their own images: isolated attacks on
small parties,
Kriek
warriors assassinated. The
images were many and confusing, and deeply troubling. For a moment I saw red
again, and remembered my own scarring.

All those who have doubts on the wisdom of accepting
Woltan
and his city as allies, speak their mind now.

There was a pause.

We cannot leave our people undefended. … Most
of us never believed this forgotten city even existed!

And yet we sent a search party to find it,
Thaddeus, since we knew the dark lord would stop at nothing to possess the
knowledge within. Do I need to remind you of the prophecy that in that city the
three-blooded prince would be tested, and his sword
reforged
?
So has come to pass. We must unite with our friends to defeat a common enemy.
At the same time we must still keep our own city defended, for the dark lord is
devious, and would use our absence to his advantage.

There was a long pause as the council of a
thousand considered
Thorald’s
thoughts.

Then, suddenly, in an overwhelming rush, came a
consensus, overpowering all doubt.
We accept
Woltan
of the old city as ally and friend! We pledge to send half of our forces now,
to help the defense of his city.

I was amazed how for the second time more than a
thousand minds could come together to think as one.

King
Thorald
took the
floor again.
Time lost is lives, perhaps even battles lost. We must begin.
Let us look outward, guardedly, and probe our enemy. With a thousand minds
melded, the dark lord cannot hurt us, and if we are clever, our probe may go
undetected.

There was a great focusing of the minds around me,
and I tried to help, clearing my mind and letting it become one with those
around me. An eye formed above us, and suddenly I could see over the treetops.
The eye began to move, at first slowly, then flying over the hilltops as fast
as a bird, as fast as a dragon, as fast as wizard fire, as fast as shooting
star… it sped over the mountain now, and over the forest.

We slowed for a moment, and stopped over one tree
in the forest, made contact with a consciousness.

Tree mother?

My children prepare to fight the dark lords
forces, which threaten the forgotten city… They will leave me tomorrow.

Have you news of the battle?

They say the dark lord will attack in four days
time. We are sorely outnumbered.

And then the eye was moving again, and we were
over a great encampment. It was hard to tell for certain, but I felt sure that
there must be well over two thousand
orcs
, kobolds,
trolls and humans in the camp, not to mention the
keiler
running about. They had chopped and burned trees, and built crude shelters. In
the middle of the camp was a great fire, and within it, something strange. A
presence. An intelligence. There were others too, nearby. I felt them and the
others felt them too, and then suddenly the eye was dissolved, gone — I saw
only the green and blue lines of thought around me, and felt my own body again.

That was close. That was a major demon, there,
in the fire, and there were others… demons and wizards. But the dark lord himself,
we didn’t see.

The dark lord will reserve himself for the
final battle, as stated in the prophecy; he is careful, and will not risk
himself until he has everything to gain … or lose.

Just as well; the boy is not ready…

Neither are we…

Thorald
took the floor
again.
I will now dissolve this circle; I give you twelve hours to prepare
to march; we will march at daybreak, taking half of our warriors, and our
warrior-mages. If need be we will teleport more in; but danger looms with the
teleporting, as long as the dark lord has his eye on us.

Then, the magic was broken. Suddenly I felt very
alone, among a great group of people. Then Kara grabbed my hand, and led me
through the throng.
You need to rest now, Anders.

I stopped her for a moment, as we moved away from
the others.
And our dragons?

They will rest as well. We have a long day
ahead of us. I want you to meet my aunt, and be our guest. Come…

And so I walked, in a daze, and realized how
hungry, and tired, and cold I was; and that I was still dirty from the battle
that we had fought, splattered still with troll and kobold blood. Most of all I
was weary, so weary that my bones ached.

The forest was growing cold now, as afternoon
turned into evening. I reached out my mind and felt the energy all around me:
the plants, the trees, and also, the people. My people. My kin. Part of me, for
the first time in many weeks, felt at home.

We stopped and I saw a small brick house, nestled
among the trees.
This is where I live.

The door opened and a woman walked out. She was
dressed simply; her blonde hair was pulled back in a bun, but I could feel the
royal blood in her, in the way she walked with assurance and looked at me.

So you are Anders
Tomason
.
I, Helga, am honored by your presence. You have already saved the life of my
niece, and if the prophecy speaks true, you may save the life of all our
people. But for now, you probably wish more than anything for clean clothes and
to wash, and to eat.

I nodded.

She beckoned us in.

Inside the house seemed bigger than the outside.
There were small rooms for sleeping, with beds, and a small washing room, with
tile on the ground, and water in basins for washing, under a stove. A neatly
stacked pile of clothes were there, as well.

We have heated the water, and there is a cloth
there, with which you can scrub and wash yourself. The clean clothes are for
you as well. Wash yourself now. Then you will eat, and we will talk.