City of Jade: A Novel of Mithgar
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Chapter 1 - Cold Anger
Chapter 2 - Training
Chapter 3 - Opening of the Ways
Chapter 4 - Wolf and Falcon
Chapter 5 - Vadaria
Chapter 6 - Reconnaissance
Chapter 7 - Black Fortress
Chapter 8 - Flight
Chapter 9 - Trickery
Chapter 10 - Securing the Watch
Chapter 11 - Warding
Chapter 12 - Vows
Chapter 13 - Darda Galion
Chapter 14 - Kraggen-cor
Chapter 15 - Scout
Chapter 16 - Greatwood
Chapter 17 - Grotto
Chapter 18 - Plot
Chapter 19 - Plans
Chapter 20 - At Sail
Chapter 21 - Voyages
Chapter 22 - Onset
Chapter 23 - Risky Business
Chapter 24 - Away
Chapter 25 - The Black Dog
Chapter 26 - On the Road
Chapter 27 - Raudhöll
Chapter 28 - West Bank
Chapter 29 - Purloined
Chapter 30 - River Drift
Chapter 31 - Urchins
Chapter 32 - Ashore
Chapter 33 - Chicken Thieves
Chapter 34 - Criminals
Chapter 35 - Jade Carving
Chapter 36 - Over the Wall
Chapter 37 - Doom
Chapter 38 - Nearing Vengeance
Chapter 39 - Under Way
Chapter 40 - Recruits
Chapter 41 - Fair Warning
Chapter 42 - Spy
Chapter 43 - Augury
Chapter 44 - Crossing
Chapter 45 - Lurking
Chapter 46 - Strife
Chapter 47 - Respite
Chapter 48 - Calamity
Chapter 49 - City of Jade
Chapter 50 - Escape
Chapter 51 - Recovery
Chapter 52 - Homeward
Chapter 53 - The Red Slipper
Chapter 54 - Dark Designs
Afterword
About the Author
BY DENNIS L. Mc KIERNAN
Caverns of Socrates
The Faery Series
Once Upon a Winter’s Night
Once Upon a Summer Day
Once Upon an Autumn Eve
Once Upon a Spring Morn
Once Upon a Dreadful Time
The Mithgar Series
The Dragonstone
Voyage of the Fox Rider
HÈL’S CRUCIBLE
Book 1: Into the Forge
Book 2: Into the Fire
Dragondoom
The Iron Tower (omnibus edition)
The Silver Call (omnibus edition)
Tales of Mithgar (a story collection)
The Vulgmaster (the graphic novel)
The Eye of the Hunter
Silver Wolf, Black Falcon
City of Jade
Red Slippers: More Tales of Mithgar (a story collection)
ROC
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, October 2008
Copyright © Dennis L. McKiernan, 2008
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TR ADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
McKiernan, Dennis L., 1932-
City of jade : a novel of Mithgar / Dennis L. McKiernan.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-436-28132-4
1. Mithgar (Imaginary place)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.C376C58 2008
813’.54—dc22 2008012568
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To Martha Lee McKiernan
The heart of my world
Acknowledgments
To Martha Lee McKiernan for her enduring support, careful reading, patience, and love. Additionally, much appreciation and gratitude goes to the Tanque Wordies—John, Frances, and Diane—for their encouragement throughout the writing of City of Jade. Lastly, I would say of all the languages used herein—some of my own devising, others of known nationalities—any errors in their usage are entirely mine.
Foreword
Back when I began the Mithgar series, I didn’t know about Aravan and his Elvenship, the Eroean. I wrote The Silver Call and The Iron Tower completely ignorant of that magnificent ship. Then I wrote Dragondoom, followed by Tales of Mithgar, and it was in Tales, in the very last story—“When Iron Bells Ring”—that the name Aravan first appeared, though we only saw the name and little else of that Elf.
But then I wrote The Eye of the Hunter and there he was—Aravan, a crucial member in the search for Baron Stoke. It was here we first learned of the Eroean and of some unknown tragedy that lay in Aravan’s past, and of the disappearance of that splendid ship. What had happened, none knew . . . but Aravan held subdued grief in his eyes, and his ship was among the missing.
It was when I went back in the history of Mithgar and wrote The Voyage of the Fox Rider that we first got to sail on that Elvenship—with its crew of forty men and forty Dwarves, and a Pysk and two Mages—and sail we did, over much of the world. It was also there that we discovered why grief dwelt deep in Aravan’s gaze, and where the Eroean had gone when it vani
shed from the world.
Once I discovered where the Eroean was, I realized then that Aravan had indeed sailed on the Eroean during the Winter War, a war at the center of the story told in The Iron Tower. And so when the book was revised, I added a single paragraph telling of Aravan’s mission during that conflict.
However, after Voyage of the Fox Rider, we didn’t get to sail on the Elvenship again through three more Mithgarian novels—The Dragonstone and the two books of the Hèl’s Crucible duology—but finally we re-boarded that craft in Silver Wolf, Black Falcon, and then once again in Red Slippers: More Tales of Mithgar.
And so, of the many books about Mithgar, in only two (or perhaps three) have we really spent time with the crew on the decks of the Eroean.
This story—City of Jade—is about to rectify that dearth, for an untold adventure in that mislaid city was first mentioned in the opening chapter of Red Slippers, and many of you have pestered me to recount that tale, for once again you would voyage across the seas of Mithgar on the fastest ship in the world, with her Elven captain and Mage mistress and crew of forty men and forty Dwarves, and her scouts—a fox-riding Pysk and a Warrow or two. So unfurl all sails and heel to the wind and we’ll get under way.
—Oh, and yes, bon voyage, my friends. Bon voyage to all.
—Dennis L. McKiernan
Tucson, 2008
Background
EVENTS IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE FIFTH ERA
In the year 5E1009, in the Boskydells, three Warrows dreamt the very same dream—or was it a ghostly visitation? Regardless, they beheld the specter of Aurion Redeye, who told them that he was redeeming a pledge made long past. Redeye called for the Warrow Company of the King to be reassembled, formed as it was in the Winter War, for a great storm was coming from the east, and the Gjeenian penny would soon be seen on the borders of that small land, summoning the company to the side of the High King.
And so, the word went out, and Warrows flocked to the cause. Among those who volunteered were two buccen—Binkton Windrow and Pipper Willowbank, who slipped away from their uncle Arley, and went to the village of Rood to see the local Thornwalker captain to join the ranks. The captain turned them down and sent them packing, for Pipper Willowbank was but thirteen summers old and Binkton Windrow just three moons older. Fuming in disappointment, they went back into the care of their uncle, who was training them in their professions yet to come.
And as to this uncle Arley, his own past was shrouded in mystery; it was something he spoke little of, though the skills he taught to his nephews would be most useful in many ways.
Regardless, Pipper Willowbank and Binkton Windrow resolved to run away and join the Company of the King, once it was on the march.
In that same year of 5E1009, as foretold by Redeye’s apparition, a dreadful threat to the High King’s realm came from the east: it was Kutsen Yong, the Dragonking, and he would destroy all, he and his Golden Horde. He would be joined in this endeavor by the ancient enemies of the High King—the Lakh of Hyree, the Chabbains, the Rovers of Kistan, and the Fists of Rakka—Southerlings all. But the most terrible foes the High King’s Host would face were not the Southerlings nor the Golden Horde, but the Dragons under the sway of the Dragonking, for nought could withstand the might of Drakes . . . none but the gods, that is, for other forces were at work, other powers in motion.
The Gjeenian penny arrived at the Thornwall, and the Warrow Company of the King set out to join the Host on the banks of the Argon. Binkton and Pipper then made preparations to follow after. Yet they were thwarted by a great blizzard that enveloped the Boskydells, and by the time the thaw came in the spring of 5E1010, the Dragonstone War was over.
Even so, the end of the war was not the end of things to be done, for an Impossible Child—Bair by name—was yet to challenge those very same gods to stop their meddling in the fates of Man and Elf and Dwarf and Mage and all other beings as well.
Caught up in this aftermath precipitated by Bair were Aravan and Aylis and others, later to include Binkton Windrow and Pipper Willowbank.
This is their story.
“Nervous, me? Pah. I mean, after all, what can possibly go wrong?”
BINKTON WINDROW
EARLY AUTUMN, 6E6
1
Cold Anger
DARK DESIGNS
LATE AUTUMN, 5E1010
[THE FINAL YEAR OF THE FIFTH ERA]
In a tall tower hidden deep in the Grimwalls, that long and ill-omened mountain chain slashing across much of Mithgar, a being of dark Magekind sat in his dire sanctum and brooded about retribution. In the time since the end of the Dragonstone War, the Ban had been rescinded and the ways between the Planes had been restored, though most of those crossings were now warded by Elves and Humans and even Magekind to prevent the passage of Foul Folk from Neddra into the High and Middle Worlds. But none of these things were what occupied the seething thoughts of Nunde. Instead, his rage was directed at the vile Dolh—vile Elf—who had slain the Black Mage’s god, to the ruin of all Nunde’s plans.
Well he remembered that day, when Gyphon’s silent scream of the dying had sounded across the Planes; it had driven Nunde and all of Black Magekind to their knees in agony, the unbearable pain affecting all Drik and Ghok and Oghi and Vulpen, along with other fell beings, all the creations of the Dark God.
How to take vengeance, how to gain redress, occupied all of Nunde’s thoughts. Aravan must die, that is certain, but the method of it is the question; for he is surrounded by staunch and powerful allies, and slaying him will be no easy task. Oh, there are ways the Dolh can be killed outright, but that isn’t the point at issue; instead agony and grief and unbearable despair must overwhelm Aravan before he suffers a dreadful death. Hence, stripping him of all he values comes first, and doing so in a fitting—some would say unspeakable—manner must precede the Dolh’s own demise.
How to do it, how to accomplish what most certainly had to be done, that was the question, that was the issue, and that was what the Necromancer pondered throughout the long tides of night.
Indeed, I could bring an army from Neddra to Mithgar, but where would be the pleasure in that? No subtlety, no iron taste of cold revenge? Pah! With the ways between the Planes now open, it isn’t like that time I slew ten thousand on Neddra to gain enough
As dawn broke in the eastern sky, Nunde rose from his seat at the slit of a window, preparing to descend to his quarters. It was not as if he had to flee from the light of day, for, thanks to that fool of a boy Bair, the cursed Rider of the Planes, not only were the in-between ways now open, but Adon’s Ban had been lifted as well, and no longer did the Black Mage and his ilk suffer the withering death.
No, instead Nunde, by force of ingrained habit—a habit many millennia long—was a creature of darkness, as were his minions, all beings of Neddra.
Down the stone steps of the shadowy stairwell Nunde descended to his torchlit quarters below, and there he fell into a restless sleep, his mind still churning with thoughts of revenge, as it had done for weeks on end, ever since word had come t
hat it was Aravan, wielding a Silver Sword, who had put Gyphon to death.
But as the sun came up on this day, Nunde would set aside his scheming and rest, for in the dusktime morrow night he would begin the long journey to the crossing to Neddra to meet with a small conclave of Black Magekind, where, if his immediate ruse came to fruition, the conclave would be under his heel. After all, he had plans to wrench their power from them.
Aravan could wait.
2
Training
BOSKYDELLS
LATE AUTUMN, 5E1010
[THE FINAL YEAR OF THE FIFTH ERA]
It was a blustery day in the Boskydells, with the wind swaying the lofty pines to and fro and the tall grass in the adjoining field rolling in undulant golden waves. An eld buccan stood back from the edge of the woods, his cloak whipping in the air. Behind him sat a stripling in chains, his wrists shackled, his legs in irons. But the elder paid no heed to the youngster on the ground; nor did the chain-wrapped stripling seem concerned over his own fate. Instead both Warrows looked up high at a rope spanning the gap between two of the swinging pines, the line alternately looping slack and then snapping taut.