Wit'ch Gate (v5)

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FOREWORD

  Book One

  THE WEIR

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Book Two

  CASTLE MRYL

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Book Three

  BURNING SANDS

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Book Four

  STORM CASTLE

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Book Five

  BROKEN CROWNS

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Book Six

  RUINS OF TULAR

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Book Seven

  GUL’GOTHA

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY JAMES CLEMONS

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

  COPYRIGHT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to all the friends and family who have helped polish and hone this book into its present form, especially my personal group of work junkies: Chris Crowe, Michael Gallowglas, Lee Garrett, Dennis Grayson, Penny Hill, Debbie Nelson, Dave Meek, Jane O’Riva, Chris “the little” Smith, Judy and Steve Prey, Carolyn McCray, and Caroline Williams. Additionally, a special thanks to the four people who remain my best critics and most loyal supporters: my editors, Steve Saffel and Veronica Chapman, and my agents, here and abroad, Russ Galen and Danny Baror.

  FOREWORD TO WIT’CH GATE

  by

  Proctor Sensa Dela,

  Chairman and President of University Press

  Treach.er.y, trech´ .r, n. (1) breach of allegiance, faith, or confidence (2) an act against the Commonwealth (3) disparagement of the Law by word or print (synonyms: betrayal, knavery, double-cross, villainy, treason, Scroll-kissed)

  —Encyclopedia of Common Usage, Fifth Edition

  READ AGAIN THE definition above; then look around the classroom, a chamber once filled with bright-eyed, eager scholars. How many students still remain after the study of the first three Kelvish Scrolls?

  See the empty seats.

  By this point, statistically, two-thirds of each year’s students fail to pass the rigorous psychological examinations following their study of the Scrolls. As you know, those who were found wanting were shipped to the sanitariums of Da Borau, where they await the painful surgeries to dull their minds and remove their tongues. But I am not here to speak of the fallen ones, those slack-jawed unfortunates dubbed the “Scroll-kissed.” Instead, I write this foreword for those of you who have successfully passed these tests and have been deemed of sufficient constitution to read and study the fourth of these banned texts.

  This warning is for you.

  In the past, many students have grown haughty after succeeding this far in their course of study, but now is not the time to lift toasts to one another—for ahead lie pitfalls that may yet capture the unwary. Herein lies the path to treachery.

  The forewords to the other texts admonished you about the nefarious nature of the Scrolls’ author, declaring the madman of Kell to be a liar and a deceiver—a snake in the grass, if you will. Now it is my turn to expand upon the dangers that yet await you.

  In the past years of study, you have experienced the hiss of the snake. You have carried the beast in your hands, in your school bags. You have fallen asleep with it at your bedside. But do not be lulled by its pleasant caress or its pleasing colors. They mask the hidden poison of the beast.

  Only now, while you are dulled to the danger, will the snake begin to show its true demeanor. In this book, while you look elsewhere, the snake will raise up and strike! That is what I’ve come to warn you: This book has fangs.

  So beware its bite!

  Even as I write these words, I can hear the whispered scoffing. Do you doubt me? Look around your hall once again. Not at each other, but at the empty seats. Already the Scrolls have claimed many of your fellow classmates.

  In this fourth volume, the author will continue his assault upon your sanity, to try to win you to his will, to spread his poison throughout your body. But I hope to give you the antidote to this toxin.

  A cure in two simple words: knowledge and guidance.

  To attempt to read these cursed scrolls on your own would be like pressing a viper to your breast, inviting death. Scholars of the past have devised this course of study to keep the poison from your minds, so be mindful of your lessons.

  It is imperative that you listen to your instructors. Obey their every order, complete every assignment, and most important of all, do not read ahead on your own. Therein lies your only hope. Even a single page could corrupt the ill-prepared. So do not stray from the path of instruction, a track well-worn by the heels of previous scholars. Without this guidance, you would surely be lost among the weeds and tall grasses—where the snakes are waiting.

  So be forewarned one last time: There is poison in these pages.

  Poi.son, poi´ zon, n. v. (1) a substance that taints, corrupts, or destroys (2) the act of administering a toxin, venom, or deadly draught (3) to alter one’s perception of right and wrong (i.e., “to poison another’s mind”). (synonyms: corruption, perversion, venom, bane, miasma, contagion, disease)

  —Encyclopedia of Common Usage, Fifth Edition

  WIT’CH GATE

  Sung in ice but born in thunder;

  So the land was torn asunder.

  I FIND MYSELF growing restless again. Lately, the wit’ch has been calling to me in my dreams to complete her tale; she whispers in my ear as I walk about the city. At times, I swear I feel her breath on my skin, like the itch of a rash. Nowadays, as I go about my errands, I hardly see the streets and avenues of my home. I picture other places, other sights: the sun-seared ruins of Tular, the broken granite shield of the Northwall. I find myself living in the shadowy half-world between past and present.

  I’ve begun to wonder: If I write again, will I be forever lost in the past? Will this land constructed of letters and ink become more real than the air I breathe? Will I become mired in memories, doomed for eternity to relive old terrors and rare triumphs?

  Though I know the risk must be taken, I find I cannot write. I know it is the only way to lift her curse of immortality. Only by completing her tale will I finally be allowed the balm of death. Yet, in the past moons, I’ve begun to doubt her promise. What if her ancient words were a trick, a final act of malice on the part of the wit’ch?

  So for too long a time, I have sat frozen, hovering between terror and salvation.

  That is, until this morning—when she sent me a sign!

  As I woke with the crowing of a cock and splashed cold water on my face, I discovered a miracle in the mirror above my washstand. Nestled within my dark locks rested a single gray hair. My heart clenched at the sight; tears blurred the miracle. As the morning’s fog melted in the rays of the rising sun, I refused to move. I dared not even finger that single strand, afraid it might be an illusion. I could not face such cruelty. Not now, not after so long.

  In that moment, I felt something long dead in my heart spring to life—hope!

  I fell to the floor, knees too weak to hold me up any longer. I sobbed for what seemed like days. It was a sign, a harbinger of old age, a promise of death.

  Once I regained control of my limbs, I rose and touched the strand of
gray. It was real! The wit’ch had not lied.

  This realization shattered the impasse. Without eating, I gathered the tools of my craft—pen and scroll—and set to work. I must finish her tale.

  Outside, the winter days have grown muted, as if all color has been bled from the world. People huddle down drab streets, wrapped from head to toe in the browns and grays of heavy woolens. Beyond the city walls, the snowy hills are stained with ash and soot from the hundred smoking chimneys of Kell. It is a landscape done in shades of gray and black. Even the skies overhead are cloaked by flat, featureless clouds—a massive blank slate.

  Midwinter.

  It is a storyteller’s season, a bare canvas that awaits the stroke of a pen to bring life and substance back into the world. It is a time when folks crowd around hearths, awaiting tales full of brightness and sharp colors. It is the season when inns fill up, and minstrels sing bawdy stories of other lands, of fire and sunlight. In other seasons, stories are bought with coppers—but not in winter. In this season of dull skies and somber hearts, even a poor storyteller could find his pot blessed with silver and gold. Such is the hunger for tales in winter.

  But, of course, with this tale, I seek not gold, but something more valuable, something all men are granted at birth but that was stolen from me by a wit’ch. I seek only death.

  So as the world huddles in the quiet of a winter’s cloak, I once again begin Elena’s tale. I ask you to close your eyes and listen. Beyond this season of whispers, angry voices are raised. Can you hear them? Men using words like swords, hacking and parrying one another . . . And there sits one lone woman, caught in the midst of their fury.

  Book One

  THE WEIR

  1

  ELENA FOUND HER throne an uncomfortable seat. It was a chair meant for someone harder and more age-worn than she. Its high, straight back was carved in twining roses, the thorns of which could be felt through her silk robe and dress. Even its seat was flat and unforgiving, polished ironwood with no pillow to soften its hard surface. For ages past, it had been the seat of power for A’loa Glen. Both kings and praetors had sat here in judgment, sea-hardened men who scowled at the comforts of life.

  Even its size was intimidating. Elena felt like a child in the wide and tall chair. There were not even armrests. Elena did not know what to do with her hands, so she ended up simply folding them in her lap.

  One step below her, though it might have been a league away for as much as they paid her any attention, was a long table crowded with representatives from every faction willing to fight the Gul’gotha. Elena knew what the majority here in the Great Hall thought of her. All they saw was a slim woman with pale skin and fiery hair. None noticed the pain in her eyes, nor the fearful knowledge of her own dread power. To them, she was a pretty bird on a perch.

  Elena brushed aside a strand of hair from her face.

  All along the length, voices cried to be heard in languages both familiar and strange. Two men on the far end were close to coming to blows.

  Among the throng, there were those Elena knew well, those who had helped wrest the island of A’loa Glen from the evil rooted here. The high keel of the Dre’rendi Fleet, still bearing his bandages from the recent war, bellowed his demands. Beside him, the elv’in queen, Meric’s mother, sat stiffly, her long silver locks reflecting the torches’ radiance, a figure of ice and fire. At her elbow, Master Edyll, an elder of the sea-dwelling mer’ai, tried continually to force peace and decorum amid the frequently raucous discourse.

  But for every familiar face, there were scores of others Elena knew only by title. She glanced down the long table of strangers—countless figureheads and foreign representatives, all demanding to be heard, all claiming to know what was best for the war to come with the Gul’gotha.

  Some argued for scorching the island and leaving for the coast; others wanted to fortify the island and let the Dark Lord destroy his armies on their walls; and still others wanted to take the fight to Blackhall itself, to take advantage of the victory here and destroy the Gul’gothal stronghold before the enemy could regather its scattered forces. The heated arguments and fervid debates had waged now for close to a moon.

  Elena glanced sidelong to Er’ril. Her sworn liegeman stood to the right of her seat, arms crossed, face a stern, unreadable mask. He was a carved statue of Standish iron. His black hair had been oiled and slicked back as was custom along the coast. His wintry eyes, the gray of early morning, studied the table. None could guess his thoughts. He had not added one word to the countless debates.

  But Elena noticed the tightness at the corners of his eyes as he stared. He could not fool her. He was growing as irritated as she at the bickering around the table. In over a fortnight, nothing had been decided. Since the victory of A’loa Glen, no consensus had been reached on the next step. While they argued, the days disappeared, one after the other. And still Er’ril waited, a knight at her side. With the Blood Diary in her hands, he had no other position. His role as leader and guide had ended.

  Elena sighed softly and glanced to her gloved hands. The victory celebration a moon ago now seemed like another time, another place. Yet as she sat upon her thorny throne, she remembered that long dance with Er’ril atop her tower. She remembered his touch, the warmth of his palm through her silk dress, the whisper of his breath, the scuff of beard on her cheek. But that had been their only dance. From that night onward, though Er’ril had never been far from her side, they had scarcely shared a word. Just endless meetings from sunrise till sundown.

  But no longer!

  Slowly, as the others argued, Elena peeled back her lambskin gloves. Fresh and untouched, the marks of the Rose were as rich as spilt blood upon her hands: one birthed in moonlight, one born in sunlight. Wit’chfire and coldfire—and between them lay stormfire. She stared at her hands. Eddies of power swirled in whorls of ruby hues across her fingers and palm.

  “Elena?” Er’ril stirred by her side. He leaned close to her, his eyes on her hands. “What are you doing?”

  “I tire of these arguments.” From a filigreed sheath in the sash of her evergreen dress, she slipped free a silver-bladed dagger. The ebony hilt, carved in the shape of a rose, fit easily in her palm, as if it had always been meant for her. She shoved aside memories of her Uncle Bol, the one who had christened the knife in her own blood. She remembered his words. It is now a wit’ch’s dagger.

  “Elena . . .” Er’ril’s voice was stern with caution.

  Ignoring him, she stood. Without so much as a word, she drew the sharp tip across her right palm. The pain was but the bite of a wasp. A single drop of blood welled from the slice and fell upon her silk dress. Still Elena continued only to stare down the long table, silent.

  None of the council members even glanced her way. They were too involved voicing their causes, challenging others, and pounding rough fists on the ironwood surface of the table.

  Elena sighed and reached to her heart, to the font of wild magicks pent up inside. Cautiously, she unfurled slim threads of power, fiery wisps of blood magicks that sang through her veins, reaching her bloody palm. A small glow arose around her hand as the power filled it. Elena clenched her fist, and the glow deepened, a ruby lantern now. She raised her fist high.

  The first to spot her display was the aged elder of the mer’ai. Master Edyll must have caught the glow’s reflection off his silver goblet. As the elder turned, the wine spilled like blood from his cup. He dropped the goblet with a clatter to the tabletop.

  Drawn by the noise, others glanced to the spreading stain of wine. Gaze after gaze swung to the head of the table. A wave of stunned silence spread across those gathered around the table.

  Elena met their eyes unflinching. So many had died to bring her here to this island: Uncle Bol, her parents, Flint, Moris . . .

  And she would speak with their voices this day. She would not let their sacrifices be dwindled away by this endless sniping. If Alasea was to have a future, if the Gul’gothal rule was to be challen
ged, it was time to move forward, and there was only one way to do this. Someone had to draw a line in the sand.

  “I have heard enough,” Elena said softly into the stretch of quiet. From her glowing fists, fiery filaments crawled down her arm, living threads of reddish gold. “I thank you for your kind counsel these past days. This night I will ponder your words, and in the morning I will give you my answer on the course we will pursue.”

  Down the table, the representative from the coastal township of Penryn stood up. Symon Feraoud, a portly fellow with a black mustache that draped below his chin, spoke loudly. “Lass, I mean no insult, but the matter here does not await your answer.”

  Several heads nodded at his words.

  Elena let the man speak, standing silent as fine threads of wit’ch fire traced fiery trails down her arm, splitting into smaller and smaller filaments, spreading across her bosom and down to the sash of her dress.

  “The course ahead of us must be agreed by all,” Symon Feraoud continued, bolstered by the silent agreement of those around him. “We’ve only just begun to debate the matter at hand. The best means to deal with the Gul’gothal threat is not a matter to be decided over a single night.”

  “A single night?” Elena lowered her arm slightly and descended the single step to stand before the head of the table. “Thirty nights have passed since the revelries of our victory here. And your debates have served no other purpose but to fracture us, to spread dissent and disagreement when we must be at our most united.”

  Symon opened his mouth to argue, but Elena stared hard at him, and his mouth slowly shut.