wanted to be whole again. He wanted to be handsome once more. He wanted to be able to think that women did not look at him with horror. There had been times when he had thought that dark sorcery might be the answer; it tempted him, particularly at night when he lay in bed alone with his thoughts. Under the sun, he could see it was madness. He had no desire to bear the stolen limb of another or to have the parts of an animated corpse grafted to his body. That was no solution to his problem.
“Could you work the healing magic?” he asked. The words just suddenly blurted out. They came from the deepest well of his being, and he had not expected to say them at all. Asea looked at him with something like pity on her face, and that was the worst part of it.
“In the right place, at the right time, possibly, yes,” she said. “On Al’Terra, where the flows of power were stable, strong and far more predictable than here it was difficult sorcery. Here on Gaeia, it would be even more complex.”
“Why is such sorcery difficult? You can summon demons from the Pit. Surely healing cannot be all that difficult in comparison.” She smiled as she might have done at a child who expected her to be able to reach up into the sky and pull down the sun.
“They are different types of magic,” she said. “Sometimes it is easier to do the big things than the little ones, just as it is easier to hack off a limb than to sew it on again so that it works. If you stimulate the body to repair itself you must do it exactly right. Otherwise it re-grows too much. Cancers come, or the limb becomes monstrous and malformed and useless, and you must amputate and begin the whole process again. That too is a risky procedure.”
“You do not make it sound easy.”
“No sorcery is ever easy. There is a cost for the sorcerer as well as the person ensorcelled. All magic puts enormous strain on the body and on the mind. Some think that this is why magic has so many ill effects on humans. They do not have the vitality or the mental capacity for it.”
Another thought occurred to Sardec. “Why can the Serpent Men re-grow limbs when we cannot?”
“I do not know. Their bodies are built differently from ours. They grow their entire lives, some of the Eldest are huge, almost the size of dragons. They are thousands of years old.”
“They must be an awesome sight.”
“They are. When I was in Xulander I visited several of the nest cities. Once I was shown into one of the sleeping chambers where the Eldest dream.”
“You never talked to one?”
“No- they are all asleep now. In hibernation I would guess.”
“Why?”
“Why do our own dragons spend most of their time asleep these days? It is a sign of the times, perhaps.”
“I have heard it said that the Serpent Men are cruel to their humans.”
“I have heard it said we are cruel to our humans.” She spoke in the High Tongue so the soldiers would not understand. He responded in kind.
“In the Dark Empire we are.”
“Some would say it’s not just in the Dark Empire.”
He shrugged not wanting to argue with her. He knew that politically they would never see eye to eye. She was too old and too radical. She had, after all, been a founder of the Scarlet faction.
“Do you think it’s true that the Serpent Men came from the stars?” he asked, to change the subject.
“So their Watcher Priests claim, and I see no reason to doubt them. It is said that many of the Elder Races did.”
“To cross the gulf between stars- that is a mighty sorcery.”
“To be sure, but no mightier than to cross between the worlds as our people did, when we came here.”
“Did they use gateways like we did?”
“You are in a curious mood this morning, Lieutenant Sardec.”
“I find it helps relax me when I may be riding into the teeth of Elder World weaponry. I fear I have the urge to learn something of the force that might destroy me.”
She laughed, a clear, ringing sound. “An admirable attitude but I think we are safe. I doubt Ilmarec will feel threatened enough by our force to unleash the horrors of the Ancients upon us.”
Sardec glanced back at the Foragers. They were a sadly depleted force. Perhaps thirty of the original company he had led into Achenar were present. The rest were either dead or recovering from their wounds. There were plenty of new faces, recruits posted from other companies to fill the roster. He hoped they had the skills of the men they were replacing. They were supposed to, but you never knew.
“My father fought in the sea battle at Ssaharoc. He said it was dreadful. The great towers guarding the harbour emitted beams of green light and our fleet just burned or exploded. Do you think Ilmarec has learned the secret of that light?”
“That seems as good a guess as any.”
“My father always said that if the Serpent Men could make the weapons on their Towers mobile, they could conquer the world.”
“Perhaps they can. Perhaps they simply have no desire for conquest. They are a strange people: alien and incomprehensible and I think to our mind very slothful. Perhaps they prefer inertia.”
“Then we had best hope that no one else learns their secrets.”
“All the Elder Races had mighty weapons, Lieutenant. They used them in their wars. That is why so much of the eastern half of this continent is devastated.”
A thought occurred to Sardec. “With such weapons we could have defeated the Princes of Shadow.”
“Perhaps, for a time.”
“You do not sound hopeful.”
“I think perhaps we could have defeated their armies, but the Princes themselves would have just done what they always did, and retreated into hiding until they had mastered the secrets themselves, and then they would have returned stronger than ever.”
“You do not think we will ever reclaim the Homeworld then?”
“It is a dream. Only a dream.” Sardec could not help but think that if they reclaimed Al’Terra, he might be able to regain his hand. He smiled sadly. It was a stupid petty reason to want to conquer a world, but he supposed such things had happened for lesser reasons.
The road passed over a ridge and suddenly, stunningly, Morven lay before them. Sardec barely noticed the walled townships on the islands in the river, or the sprawl of houses around the base of the great cliffs that rose above the river. He hardly saw the vast ruins that covered the land on one side of the tributary. What he noticed was the great stone spur rising above the town and the structure that perched atop it. Of course, he had seen the spire from a distance but the hills had blocked out the full view on their approach. This was the first time he had seen it in its entirety.
The tower was an immense structure, tall and thin, jutting a thousand feet into the air, tapering to a needle- sharp point at the tip. It glittered in the summer sun, reflecting the light greenly, for it appeared to have been carved entirely out of one titanic emerald. The sides were sleek and shiny. Here and there he could see small balconies and windows. Strange runes had been inscribed on its sides; they were of a lighter green and seemed to glow with inner light. Towards the tip were panels of the stuff, like vast stained glass windows.
The Tower was taller than any Terrarch structure he had ever seen, and gave off an aura of immeasurable age and strength. He knew those walls could resist dragonfire and sorcery; they could not be chipped with blades of truesilver. Seeing it for the first time he was brought face to face with the concept that there once had been mightier powers in this world than ever his own people had been. The sorcery that had created the Serpent Tower had been of an order greater than any his folk ever had access to, on this sorry world at least.
“It is beautiful, is it not?” said Asea.
“Aye, Lady. Lovely.”
“Strong beyond measure too.”
“Any fortress can be taken, Lady.”
“So Lord Azaar says but no one has taken the Tower since Ilmarec made it his own five centuries ago.”
“Who had it before him?”
