The Eye of Zuebrihn, page 9
part #1 of Eldenworld Series
There are a dozen, and they are all city guards, not the local rabble you’re accustomed to.
Damn. I wish I had a smoke grenade.
What’s that?
A device that I throw to generate a lot of smoke, very quickly.
Oh… I can do that, no problem. Chiu’s thought sounded, smug.
What?
Tell me where and when you want it… and how much.
Gareth studied the square for a few moments. I’m going to wander down the alley to my left. I can see a number of soldiers there. Wait for me to whistle, and then fill that end of the square and alley with smoke. All the guards should go to the assistance of their comrades, leaving you free to release the captive. Go down the first street you find, and circle back to me in the smoke. I’ll be heading in the other direction as fast as I can.
That sounds dangerous—to you. There was a sharp edge to Chiu’s voice.
You have thirty seconds to come up with a better plan. Gareth said flatly.
Fine. Chiu blurted angrily, after ten or fifteen seconds. We’ll do it your way.
Gareth spun the hickory staff in his fingers as he sauntered toward the alley. Further down the side street one of the armored soldiers laughed. As he disappeared around the corner and down the street, Gareth began to whistle. From her perch high above, Chiu created dense gray smoke boiling from the spot his feet had been, flowing out in all directions like some strange viscous liquid. From the alley came the sounds of a brisk fight. In the square there was a shout, a barked command, and all the remaining soldiers turned in mass, heading at a run for the smoky alley. Chiu swooped behind the bonfire pile, her human feet striking the ground as she changed. From the smoke-filled alley came the sounds of shouting.
Gareth burst out of another alley, running. “Are you all set?” he called, puffing.
“Almost.” Chiu pulled at the chains that bound the blond woman, finally loosening them enough for the captive to wriggle free. The image of the blond woman wavered for a moment, and then a large gray wolf bounded down from the pile of wood and streaked down the alley, past Gareth. Gareth ran in the same direction as the wolf, as a small falcon swooped past his head. Hurry! Chiu called. The guards have figured out which way you went!
Instead of running harder, Gareth stopped and turned to face his pursuers, at the same time removing the crossbow from his back. He loaded quickly, but without undue haste, finally raising his bow and sighting on the soldier who was only thirty paces away by this time. The crossbow chunked, and the soldier shrieked, falling to the road and clutching at the bolt buried to the flights in the meaty part of his upper thigh. A second soldier pounded past his fallen comrade, only to join the first on the narrow alley, one of Chiu’s long arrows neatly piercing his calf.
More smoke, please. The narrow street filled rapidly with a thick billowing cloud. Gareth turned and ran. Behind them they could hear voices calling out in consternation, but not following. After a time, Gareth slowed to a walk as he panted. How far to the library?
The hawk flared to a landing beside him, and Chiu stood at his side, bow and quiver strung over her shoulder. “Two or three kilometers. You’d better let me look at you,” she said with an angry snap to her voice, glaring at the slow trickle of blood that ran down his arm, one of several small wounds that he had been pointedly ignoring.
“When we get to our destination. I’ve traveled further with worse.”
Chiu turned away in disgust. “Men!”
Gareth couldn’t help but chuckle. “Have you seen any sign of our wolfie friend?”
Chiu laughed lightly. “She thinks she’s being sneaky. The wolf is currently forty meters further down this street, in a second story window on your side, watching us from the shadows.”
Gareth gave Chiu a long look. “Thank you for your help back there. That was a good shot.”
The dark-haired woman gave him a grin. “You’re pretty good with that staff. I thought you came from a high-tech world.”
Gareth spun the staff in the air. “I studied the art of hand-to-hand fighting for a number of years. Part of that training dealt with handheld weapons, like this staff.”
“That was all part of your job?” Chiu asked curiously.
“Naw.” Gareth laughed. “I did that for relaxation. Two hours in the Dojang, the training hall, will leave you totally relaxed, no matter how tense you were when you walked in.”
“You fight to relax?” Her tone was perplexed.
“I practice a system designed to keep muscles, joints and mind supple and limber.” They walked for some time in silence, as Chiu mulled over his words.
“I thought you were simply a soldier.” She admitted at last. “I see that I was wrong.”
Looking up at the sky, he chuckled. “Well… not simply.”
The gray wolf sauntered out of the rubble as they were about to step into the square fronting the great building that Chiu told him was called the library. Twenty five meters tall, the domed roof had long since been stripped of all its gold, leaving it looking leprous and splotchy. The wolf form wavered for a moment, and standing in its place was a dirty young woman, with short crudely cut blond hair. Wearing cast-off clothes, her eyes were bright green and she looked at Gareth and Chiu with her head tipped slightly to one side.
“Thank you for saving me,” she said in a surprisingly soft mezzo-soprano voice. “My name is Lyndra Tr'oell.” She bit her lip. “Why are you going into the library?”
“We need to find the answers to certain questions,” Chiu said gravely.
Lyndra frowned. “Did you know that the library is controlled by the Dispensable Champions? You can’t get in without a…” Gareth reached under his cloak and withdrew a small leather pouch. From this he withdrew three golden rings, each with a silver moon etched in the top. He held them up, in the palm of his hand.
“Would these help?”
Lyndra’s eyes nearly bugged from her head. “Holy hells! How did you get those?”
Gareth closed his fingers over the rings. “I had a disagreement with the Dispensable Champions.” He said simply.
Chiu gave him a slightly disgusted look, and continued where he’d left off. “The Dispensable Champions took out a contract on him with the Black Maggots after he killed four of their number. The assassins fared no better than the thieves, or the pirates.” She gave Gareth a long look. “I believe you have a few of those rings also, don’t you?”
Gareth gave her a sour look in return. “Yeah. I have a few.”
Lyndra looked first from Gareth, then to Chiu, and finally back to Gareth. “What the hell are the two of you?”
Gareth gave her a dry look. “She’s a shapeshifter. I’m just a Marine.”
Lyndra’s disbelief was plain in her emerald eyes. “Those men back there in the black and gold armor were city soldiers. You went through them like a hot knife through butter.”
He touched a gash in his cheek that was still weeping blood and grimaced. “They were actually pretty good.” Then he grinned. “But they weren’t Marines.”
Chiu gave him an exasperated look. “We should go, and save the chitchat for the fireside.”
Gareth grinned at the young woman. “You’re free to go, Lyndra.”
The blond woman returned the grin. “I’ve a nose for interesting things, and you two are about as interesting as I’ve ever seen. There’s something about you…” She shook her hair, and touched the ragged ends with more than a little disgust. “They had great fun cutting my hair.” She let out a low, totally wolfish growl. “They said I wouldn’t need it any more. It was down to my waist.”
“Are you with us?” Gareth asked, glancing at the lowering sun. He really didn’t want to be stuck in the city after dark.
Lyndra smiled, showing her small white teeth. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Gareth opened his fingers, offering her a golden ring. “You’ll need one of these.”
She picked the ring up and tentatively slipped it on her ring finger. Chiu followed suit, and then Gareth. “I always wanted to be a member of a guild.” Lyndra let out a little giggle. “My mother would be so proud.”
Gareth shook his head, and wondered if having Lyndra around was such a good idea. “How do we get in?”
Lyndra laughed with a clear ringing sound. “We have our rings. We simply walk right in.” She raised an eyebrow. “Where are we going? The library is pretty big.”
“The map room,” Chiu replied briskly. “We need to find a lost city.”
Lyndra rubbed her hands together, her eyes alight. “Cool, a lost city. This will be fun; just follow me.” Gareth groaned.
The library had seen better days—about a century earlier. Gareth noted the chipped and cracked white columns flanking the main door, and what might have been bloodstains on the wide white marble steps. A hooded man lounging in a gutted chair looked up at their approach, took in their rings as well as Gareth’s staff, and gave them a casual wave. Gareth returned the wave, and taking a deep breath stepped over the threshold, and into the library.
He stopped in the entryway and stared. He’d expected books or scrolls. Instead, what he found was row after row of what he had to believe were data terminals. Each terminal had a gently reclining mouse-eaten chair, along with an unidentifiable collection of plugs, goggles and headpieces. He turned to Chiu.
“What the hell is this?” A noise made him turn in time to see a rat as big as a Rottweiler scuttle into the shadows. He shuddered, noting that both Chiu and Lyndra were standing very close to him.
“My father told me stories of this place.” Chiu began. “He said that you simply sat, rested a small device on your temples and asked questions in your mind. In return, the library provided the answers.”
Gareth reached down and delicately picked up one of the aforementioned headpieces. It fell apart in his fingers, and he wiped his hands together sadly. “Can you imagine the wealth of knowledge stored here? The entire history of your world is here, and we have no way to access it.” He saw Chiu swallow. “Where now?”
“The map room is on the fourth floor.” Lyndra whispered as she pointed to the sweeping stairs at the other end of the massive room. The air in the library smelled of mold and rotted wood, underscored with less pleasant smells. Gareth sincerely hoped that the floors held, because he really didn’t want to have to climb up out of the cellar.
The second floor was identical to the first, with a few dozen Dispensable Champions camping on one partly cleaned side, while garbage and a scattering of odd bones littered the third floor. The carrion smell was thankfully, old. To Gareth’s eye it looked as though something had been using the third floor for a nest but, luckily, was no longer home. He felt his stomach clench when he noted webs draping the walls in dusty white. They kept climbing.
The center of the massive vaulted map room had been a metal globe of the world, ten meters in diameter. Now the top of the globe had been crushed in, turning it into a truly huge barbecue pit. Gareth could see where vellum maps, tables, chairs, and anything burnable had been thrown into the barbecue. He began backing toward the stairway when he recognized a burned human femur. It showed signs of having been gnawed.
“Scheiße!” He swore. “Scheiße, scheiße, scheiße!” He took a deep breath. “What do we do now, Chiu?” His familiar looked… stunned.
Lyndra frowned. “What is this city you’re looking for?”
“Zuebrihn.” Gareth said, trying not to let the sound of despair edge into his voice. They’d come so far… for nothing.
“Zuebrihn?” Lyndra asked. He nodded slowly, staring out of the dirty windows at approaching evening. “I know where that is. I was born in Apheacham, a small village a few hundred leagues southwest of Zuebrihn.”
Chapter 6
DRAGONSIGN
Gareth turned around very slowly to stare at Lyndra. “Would you say that again?”
Lyndra’s frown deepened. “I said that I know where Zuebrihn is. I was born near there.” She blinked when she saw that Chiu was giving her the identical wide-eyed look. “Ahhh, the only problem is that Zuebrihn is on the other side of the world from here.”
“Where?” Chiu bit off the word.
Lyndra glared at the dark-haired woman. “Do you know where the Realm of Ezidran lies?”
Chiu thought for a moment. “North of the Realm of the Shattered Plain.”
Lyndra’s smile lacked any warmth. “Bingo! Zuebrihn is roughly in the center of that miserable country, tucked up north right against the ice. It’s truly a miserable place.”
Gareth gave her a long look. “How did you ever manage to get way down here?”
“I said I lived in a small village. Apheacham sat on the northern end of the Lake of Shadows, in central Ezidran. Slavers struck and took the whole village, those they didn’t kill that is. My parents were lucky. They died. I was fifteen. I waited until they brought me to civilization and then I changed into a wolf, tore the throat out of the slaver who was guarding me, and escaped.” She wiped away a single tear, and Gareth suddenly saw a lonely little girl in the young woman before him.
Chiu, standing by the windows, caught his attention. “We have company,” she said quietly.
Frowning, Gareth approached the window, and following her gaze looked down. “Oh hells,” he rumbled. A full hundred black and gold armored soldiers were pounding out of the side streets in the direction of the library. From the stairwell they could hear shouts of dismay from the Dispensable Champions. “It looks as though the city soldiers managed to follow us, or they have some very good informants.”
“Informants.” Lyndra spat. “This city is filled with them.”
“Okay, no more mister nice guy this time.” He looked at Chiu. “The two of you head for the ship. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. Tell Evvos to be prepared to cut our lines.”
“But…” He could tell that she was struggling to keep her composure. “What will you do?”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “I will do my own famous version of shapeshifting. I will become a city guard. Can you take my staff and cloak?”
Chiu frowned. “I already have my bow and arrows. I don’t know…”
“I’ll take them.” Lyndra injected. “I’m not carrying anything.”
Gareth gave the young woman a hard look. “How will you carry a staff and cloak if you’re a wolf?”
Lyndra opened her mouth, but Chiu interrupted. “Why don’t we have this metaphysical discussion later, when we have the time? Lyndra can take your equipment.”
Gareth nodded. “Thanks. I’ll keep the pistol, kukri and crossbow…just in case.” He glanced out at the rapidly approaching crowd of men. “You should go now.”
Chiu came closer, until they were virtually nose-to-nose, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “You be careful, Ernst Gareth Köhler,” she whispered.
“I will, Chiu. I have something to live for, don’t forget.”
The two women morphed into a bird and wolf respectively, then disappeared into the shadows. Gareth could hear the distant crash of fighting downstairs that told him the city soldiers had made it as far as the first floor. Drawing the kukri, he headed for the stairs. Crossing the litter-strewn third floor a glint amidst the debris caught his eyes as he moved silently across the room. One of the ancient machines, a squat heavy apparatus five meters on a side, and studded with what Gareth guessed were lights, had been split open by a falling chandelier, disgorging a half dozen quarter sized perfectly formed white parallelepiped crystals on the floor beneath the smashed unit. Only able to spare a bare glance and a second’s time, he scooped them up, stuffing them into a pocket of his pants until it bulged. He slowly worked his way down the stairs to the next level, keeping careful track of the sound of fighting.
Sliding from shadow to shadow, he crossed the vast second floor, invisible to the guild-members who were preparing to meet the attack of the approaching guardsmen. There was a rough shout from the stairway, and he pressed himself back into the deeper shadows barely in time as a dozen guardsmen rushed up the stairs, swords drawn. Gareth permitted himself a feral grin when he noticed the visors down on all the guard’s helmets. The last guardsman never saw the moving shadow as it approached his left side, and only knew that something was amiss when the kukri drove up into his left armpit, killing him instantly. No more than two minutes later a groaning Gareth stumbled down the stairs to the first floor, and out the front door. Dressed in the armor of the fallen guard, and with his closed helmet, he wasn’t even questioned in the confusion of milling bodies outside. The approach of evening made it almost too easy. Entering the nearest side street, he began to run in earnest, or as fast as he could manage while wearing ten kilograms of clumsy armor. After two kilometers he decided to lose the protection of his metal shell, favoring speed above deception. By the time any informers happened to see and report him, the Spray would have sailed.
As he ran a shadow swooped out of the night sky. Nice to see you too. He sent the thought skyward as he strove to get enough air into his burning lungs.
There is a pack of wolves coming at you from your left. Be careful.
Now she tells me. He returned, moving to the right to put the wall of a building at his back. A stone clattered on his left, and he froze, slowly drawing the kukri and facing the sound. Four, then five shadows moved out of the buildings. A sixth shadow bounded up the street to stop at his side, facing the approaching pack. The teeth of the wolf were very white in the dim light. “Lyndra?” he asked aloud, never taking his eyes from the wolves who seemed to have stopped their approach to reassess the situation. The wolf at his side turned her head slightly, and gave him a wolfie grin. The grin disappeared as the wolfpack began to circle the human and his companion. Gareth very slowly sheathed the kukri, and drew his Colt. The snap as he chambered a round was loud in the quiet street. An approaching wolf growled low in its throat, and Lyndra’s ears went flat as she returned the compliment. Gareth was raising the pistol when a dark shadow detached itself from a rooftop, morphing as it fell into…
The ground shook as it landed. Gareth stumbled, and gaped. What the bloody hell is THAT? He shot out to Chiu. The creature that stood beside him was close to three meters tall, all gnarly and ugly… and it smelled of carrion. Roughly man shaped, very roughly, it reached a long six fingered hand down and patted Gareth on the head, like you’d pat a dog. Gareth picked himself up from the street, where the sign of affection had driven him. The wolfpack was slowly backing away for good reason.
