Wit'ch Fire Read online

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FOREWORD TO WIT’CH FIRE

  PROLOGUE

  Book One:

  First Flames

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Book Two:

  Hearths and Hearthstone

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Book Three:

  Paths and Portents

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Book Four:

  Moonlight and Magick

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Book Five:

  Thunder

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY JAMES CLEMONS

  TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OTHER GREAT EBOOK TITLES FROM BALLANTINE . . .

  COPYRIGHT

  For my parents, Ronald and Mary Ann,

  who encouraged my dreams

  and gave me the home and the world

  to make them real.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, I wish to thank Terry Brooks, John Saul, and Don McQuinn for their kind words and support at the Maui Writers Conference and for their help in introducing me to the Del Rey family. And, of course, I must thank John and Shannon Tullius, directors of MWC, for bringing us all together in the first place among the gardens and waters of Wailea.

  I owe Kuo-Yu Liang, associate publisher of Del Rey, a debt of gratitude for taking a chance on a new author—and I can’t find nearly enough words to thank Veronica Chapman, editor-supreme (I think that should be her new title), for honing the novel into its present incarnation. Thanks also to my agent, Pesha Rubinstein, for her willingness to take up my banner.

  Likewise, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge a group of people who had to trudge through every page of every draft of this novel, and without whose comments, critiques, and words of encouragement, this novel would never have seen the light of day: Judy and Stephen Prey, Caroline Williams, Dennis Grayson, Chris Crowe, Ron Ball, Nancy Laughlin, Jeffrey Moss, and Dave Meek—or known collectively and affectionately as “The Warped Spacers.”

  And finally, two folks have been my right and left hand during the entire production of this world and its characters. They have shared my dreams and my heart. I owe all my worlds, imaginary and real, to them. My eternal love and thanks to Carolyn McCray and John Clemens.

  FOREWORD TO WIT’CH FIRE

  by Jir’rob Sordun, D.F.S., M. of A.,

  director of University Studies—U.D.B.

  FIRST OF ALL, the author is a liar.

  Do not proceed deeper into this work without first accepting this fact and holding it firmly in mind as you grasp this translation in hand. The author will try to confuse your mind, to cloud your reason. Beware of his many traps.

  For five centuries, this document has been outlawed. At one time, the mere perusal of its first page warranted execution.1 And even in this enlightened time, many scholars still believe every copy of the Kelvish Scrolls ought to be destroyed. I, too, am of that circle of scholars.

  So why, you must wonder, am I writing the foreword to this vile first document?

  Simply, because I am practical. Banning, burning, and outlawing the texts have not eradicated their existence.2 Handwritten copies, memorized translations, pages written in secret code, and many other nefarious incarnations of the Scrolls survived the purges. Over the recent decades, it was sadly realized that the only practical way to deal with this abomination was by regulating it and thereby limiting its access to only those with prior instruction and study. By doing so, its lies, deceptions, and half-truths could be debunked.

  For this reason, this version of the Scrolls has been released for postgraduate studies only. Your instructor has been properly trained and licensed in the safe reading of this first text. Do not scrutinize the book without this instruction. Do not read beyond your prescribed schedule as outlined in the syllabus. Do not share this with a friend or family member unless they are attending the same class.

  For more than a decade, this manner of control has kept the rumors and curiosity about the Scrolls to a minimum. There is nothing like dry academia to bleed the thrill from a banned document.

  This translation of the first Scroll is to our knowledge one of the few that reflects the true original. There are scores of bastardized translations in other countries and lands. But in your hand is a direct translation, written almost three centuries ago, of the original text. Where the actual handwritten scroll disappeared to and who wrote it still remains a scholarly mystery.3

  So here in your hands is the closest approximation to the true abomination you are likely to encounter. Only a select cadre of postgraduate students are allowed to attend this instructed reading. It is both an honor and a responsibility. After you have completed the reading of this text, you will undergo a vigorous class on how to conduct yourself when queried about the book.

  And you, dear student, will face questions from the uninitiated!

  So beware! Much curiosity still surrounds this document among the poor and uneducated public, and one of your main goals is to weaken this curiosity. We will teach you methods to calm the curious and turn interest into a yawn.

  Proceed with caution. And remember at all times, in your waking hours and in your dreams . . .

  The author is a liar.

  WIT’CH FIRE

  This is the way the world ended,

  and like grains of sand cast into the

  winds at Winter’s Eyrie,

  this is the way all other worlds began.

  WORDS, WRITTEN IN black ink on parchment, are a fool’s paradise, and I, as a writer, know this only too well. Pronunciations change; meanings mutate; nothing survives intact the ravages of blind time.

  So why am I writing this? Why pursue this folly? This is not the first time I have told her damned story. I have written of her many times, in many incarnations. One time, virginal in her honor. Another time, evil without soul or conscience. I have portrayed her as a buffoon, a prophet, a clown, a savior, a hero, and a villain. But in reality, she was all these and none. She was simply a woman.

  And for the first time, I will tell her true story. A truth that may, with luck, finally destroy me. I still remember her promise, as if only a single heartbeat has passed. “Curse or blessing, little man? Do with it what you want. But when the marching of years weighs too heavy, tell my story . . . Tell my true story and you will find your end.”

  But can I? So much time has passed.

  A thousand tongues, mine included, have distorted the events with each telling, twisting them detail by detail, word by word, each storyteller embellishing his favorite parts. Like starving curs on a meat bone, we tear at its substance, dragging it through the grime, fouling it with saliva and blood, until nothing but a ragged remnant of the original survives.

  As I put ink to paper, my hand shake
s. I sit here in this rented room and scrawl each word with a sore wrist. Around me are piled stacks of crumbling parchments and dusty books, bits and pieces of the puzzle. I collect them to me, like dear old friends, keeping them close at hand and heart, something I can rub with my fingertips and smell with my nose, some tangible evidence of my distant past.

  As I hold a pen poised, I remember her final words, each a knife that cuts jaggedly. Her sweet face, the sunlight off her shorn red hair, the bruise under her right eye, the bloody lip that her tongue kept touching as she fought out her final words to me . . . and I remember the sadness in her eyes as I laughed at her folly. Damn her eyes!

  But that was later, much later. To understand the end, you must first know the beginning. And to understand even the beginning, you must understand the past, the past that had disappeared into myth long before she was born.

  Let me show you, if I can find it: a parchment that tells of the creation of the Book itself, the tome that would destroy a girl and a world.

  Ah, here it is . . .

  PROLOGUE

  [Text note: The following has been determined to be an excerpt from L’orda Rosi—The Order of the Rose—written in the high Alasean tongue almost five centuries before the birth of she who will be known as the Wit’ch of Winter’s Eyrie.]

  MIDNIGHT AT THE VALLEY OF THE MOON

  Drums beat back the stillness of the winter’s valley, snow etching the landscape in silver. A hawk screeched a protest at the interruption of its nighttime nesting.

  Er’ril leaned his knuckles on the crumbling sill and craned his neck out the inn’s third-story window. The valley floor was dotted with the fires of the men who still followed the way of the Order. So few campfires, he thought. He watched the black shadows bustling around the firelight, arming themselves. They, too, knew the meaning of the drums.

  The night breeze carried snatches of shouted orders and the scent of oiled armor. Smoke from the fires reached toward the heavens, carrying the prayers of the soldiers down below.

  And beyond the fires, at the edge of the valley, massed a darkness that ate the stars.

  The hawk screeched again. Er’ril’s lips thinned to a frown. “Silence, small hunter,” he whispered into the moonless night. “By morning you and the scavengers will be feasting your bellies full. But for now, leave me in peace.”

  Greshym, the old mage, spoke behind him. “They hold the heights. What chance have we?”

  Er’ril closed his eyes and let his head hang lower, a sick tightness clamping his belly. “We’ll give him a bit longer, sir. He may yet find a weakness in their lines.”

  “But the dreadlords mass at the entrance to the valley. Listen to the drums. The Black Legions march.”

  Er’ril turned from the window to face Greshym with a sigh and sat on the sill, eying the old man. Greshym’s red robes hung in tatters on his thin frame as he paced before the feeble fire. The old mage, his dusty hair just wisps around his ears, walked with a bent back, his eyes red from the fumes of the hearth.

  “Then pray for him,” Er’ril said. “Pray for all of us.”

  Greshym stopped and warmed his backside by the fire while frowning back at him. “I know what’s working behind your gray eyes, Er’ril of Standi: hope. But both you and your Standi clansmen are clutching empty air.”

  “What would you have us do? Bow our heads to the dreadlords’ axes?”

  “It will come to that soon enough.” Greshym rubbed the stump of his right wrist, almost accusingly.

  Er’ril remained silent, his eyes caught by the sight of that smooth stump. He should not have pressed the old man some six moons ago. Er’ril remembered the Gul’gothal dog that had trapped the two of them and a handful of refugees in the Field of Elysia.

  Greshym seemed to notice his stare. He raised his stump toward the flickering flame. “Listen, Boy, we both knew the risks.”

  “I panicked.”

  “You were frightened for the children, what with your niece among the townspeople.”

  “I shouldn’t have pushed you. You told me what would happen if you tried to renew.” Er’ril bowed his head, picturing the late afternoon sunlight slanting across the fields of tallac. He again saw Greshym raise his right fist to the heavens, begging for the gift of Chi, his hand vanishing in the fading sunlight as the ritual began. But this time, when the old mage pulled his arm back down, instead of his hand reappearing richly coated in red Chyric power, Greshym pulled back only a stump.

  “It was my choice, Er’ril. Put this aside. It was you who saved all our hides that day.”

  Er’ril fingered the scar on his forearm. “Perhaps . . .” After Greshym’s maiming, he had lunged at the Gul’gothal beast, tearing the creature to bloody ribbons. Even now, he was unsure if rage or guilt had driven his wild stabs. Afterward, he had been covered in steaming blood and gore; the children had shied from him in fear—even his niece—as if he were the monster.

  Greshym snorted. “I knew it would happen. The same fate befell the other mages of the Order.” He shoved the sleeve over his stump, hiding it away. “Chi has abandoned us.”

  Er’ril raised his eyes. “Not everyone has suffered the same fate.”

  “Only because they have held off renewing.” Greshym sighed. “But they will. They will be forced to try. Eventually even the hand of your brother, Shorkan, will fade. When I last saw him, the Rose had already waned to a feeble pink. Barely enough power for one decent spell. Once that is gone, he will be forced to reach into Chi himself, to try to renew; then he, too, will lose his hand.”

  “Shorkan knows this. The academy in the neighboring valley—”

  “Foolish hope! Even if he should find a student who is still bloodred, of what use is one child’s fist? It would take a dozen mages fresh to the Rose to drive off the force out there. And what of the other hundred battles going on across our lands? We’re besieged by the Gul’gothal dreadlords from all fronts.”

  “He has a vision.”

  “Posh!” By now, Greshym had returned to face the fire. He held silent for several breaths; then he spoke to the embers. “How could three centuries of civilization vanish so quickly? Our spell-cast spires that once reached to the very clouds have toppled to dust. Our people rage against us, blaming us for the loss of Chi’s support and protection. Cities lie in ruin. The feasting roar of the Gul’gotha echoes across the countryside.”

  Er’ril remained silent. He had squeezed his eyes closed when a horn suddenly trumpeted across the valley—a Standi horn! Could it be?

  Er’ril swung to the window and almost fell through as he leaned out into the night, one ear cocked to listen. The horn blared again, and even the distant drums of the Black Legion seemed to falter a beat. Er’ril spotted a commotion by the northern campfires. He squinted, trying to pierce the night’s blanket. A roiling of activity disturbed the fire pits; then for just a heartbeat, outlined by the camp’s cooking fire, he saw the rearing of a chestnut stallion. It was Shorkan’s steed!

  The dark swallowed away the sight before Er’ril could tell if the horse was mounted by one or two riders. Er’ril struck the sill with his gloved fist.

  Greshym was already at Er’ril’s shoulder. “Is it Shorkan?”

  “I believe so!” Er’ril pushed away from the window. “Hurry below! He may need assistance.”

  Er’ril did not wait to see if Greshym followed as he rushed from the room and pounded down the wooden steps of the inn, leaping from the last landing to the main floor. Once his feet hit the planks, he charged across the common room. Makeshift beds lined the wall, with bandaged men occupying nearly all of them. Normally, he would stop beside a bed and place a hand on a knee or exchange jokes with one of the injured, but not now. Healers stepped aside as he burst across the room, and a posted guardsman swung the door wide to allow him outside.

  The frigid night air burned his lungs as he flew through the portal and across the inn’s porch. As he reached the icy mud at the foot of the porch, he heard the thun
dering of heavy-shod hooves approaching fast. Flickering torches around the entrance did little to illuminate the horse’s approach; no sooner had he sighted the flaring nostrils and wild eyes of the stallion than it was upon him. The rider yanked back the reins. The steed buried its forelimbs to the pasterns in mud as it heaved to a halt. Foamy spittle flew from its lips as it shook its mane, and huge plumes of white blew into the black night from its feverish nose.

  But Er’ril gave no more than passing notice to the savagely exhausted horse. Where he might ordinarily blast the foul rider who would so poorly treat such a beautiful beast, tonight he knew the rider’s urgency. He raised a hand to his brother.

  Shorkan shook his head and slid off the horse, landing with a groan but keeping his feet under him. He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Well met, Brother. Give me a hand with my friend.”

  For the first time Er’ril noticed the small second rider who had been mounted behind his brother. The small figure shivered in a borrowed coat over a set of nightclothes. Blue lipped and pale faced, the towheaded boy could be no older than ten. Er’ril helped the boy off the sweating horse and half carried the trembling child up the steps to the porch.

  “We’ve a warm room and hot Ko’koa on the third floor,” Er’ril said over his shoulder to his brother. Shorkan was passing the reins of his stallion over to a groomsman. Er’ril saw the pain in his brother’s eyes as the horse limped away.

  Both brothers bore the gray eyes and thick black hair of their Standi heritage, but Shorkan’s face, even though he was the younger of the two, wore deep-etched lines of worry at the corners of his mouth and eyes. Er’ril wished he could shoulder more of his brother’s burden, but he was not the one chosen by Chi to bear the gift of the Rose. Er’ril could only offer the strength of his arm and the edge of his blade to aid their cause.