In her dream, she had been no more than seven or eight years old, her body still awkward and coltish, her sense of wonder at the world she lived in still undiminished and untainted by its harsher realities. She had dreamt of running down the forest trails around the convent, her long hair streaming behind her in the breeze as her feet pounded on the sun-dappled ground. She had run with all the exuberance and joy of youth, trying to keep up with Sorak, who even then could outsprint her easily with his elvish speed and endurance. It had seemed, then, that they would live out their whole lives that way, studying and training at the convent, nurtured by the loving bond of the villichi sisterhood, bathing in the bracing cold waters of the small lagoon fed by the stream running down from the mountains, running through the peaceful, green valley with its sheltering canopy of trees, sharing simple pleasures and true contentment. It had been a happy and uncomplicated time. And as she awoke, she realized that it was gone forever, faded just like her dream.
“We have arrived,” said Sorak.
She sat up and followed his gaze. They were being blown across the inland silt basins and, ahead of them, now clearly visible, was the ancient, ruined city of Bodach.
It was shortly after sunrise. From the height at which they flew upon their wooden raft, Ryana could see the peninsula jutting out into the silt basins from the north bank of the Estuary of the Forked Tongue, where it met the Sea of Silt. Near the tip of the peninsula, the spires of Bodach rose high above the surrounding countryside. Ryana caught her breath.
At one time, it must have been a truly magnificent city, testimony to the accomplishments of the ancients. But as they approached, they could see that it now possessed merely a shadow of its former glory. Many of the buildings were crumbling into ruin, and the once sparkling edifices were now scarred and worn by blowing sand. There were ancient, rotting wooden docks extending out into the silt basins, where boats had once been moored when the basins and the sea were water instead of slowly shifting sand and dust. At one time, during an earlier age, a time that no one now living on Athas could remember, the city had stood almost completely surrounded by water, a bastion of commerce and flourishing culture. Part of the spit of land now extending to the east must once have been submerged, forming a protected bay that opened out onto the sea.
Ryana tried to imagine what it must have looked like then, with triangular-sailed dhows gliding across the sparkling, blue water of the bay, pulling into the docks and unloading their cargoes. She tried to imagine the bustling crowds around the docks, the merchants loading up their wares to take to market, the fishermen sorting and cleaning their catches and hanging out their nets. As they started to descend, she could see the city streets, once paved with brick and cobblestones, now covered with blowing sand that had piled up into dunes against the building walls. She could see the large and ornate fountains in the plazas, many of them surmounted by beautiful stone sculptures that had once spouted water in graceful arcs, all of them now dry and filled with sand. The streets were totally deserted. There was not a sign of life anywhere. And, of course, she thought, there wouldn’t be. It was now a city of the undead.
(Legend had it that those who first came to Bodach, seeking the fabled treasure of the ancients, fell under a curse the long-dead sorcerers had left behind. They now roamed the streets at night, dead but animated, held in thrall by the curse of the ancients and doomed to spend eternity protecting the treasure they had left behind. They had come to plunder, and they stayed to act as terrifying sentinels, preying on all those who came in their way. And in this manner, over the centuries, their numbers had grown until Bodach was now a city populated by an army of undead, deserted by day and crawling with horror by night.
As their little raft descended farther, skimming over the rooftops and weaving among the crumbling spires and towers, Sorak and Ryana stared down silently at the deserted streets below. The ruined city was filled with an eerie and disquieting stillness. Nothing stirred down there. Not even a rodent or an insect. Whatever lay in wait for them, it lay in hiding.
The raft descended as the force of the funnel-clouds holding it aloft gradually abated, and one by one, the air elementals dispersed, peeling off and disappearing into the distance with a sound like wind whistling through a canyon. Finally, only Kara remained, and she lowered them gently to the ground in a large, central plaza of the ruined city. The raft settled with a slight bump and Sorak stepped off first, followed by Ryana, as the swirling vortex that whirled scant feet away slowed and gradually dissipated, revealed Kara standing in its place. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly and wearily. Even with the help of the elementals, it was obvious that the journey had taken a great deal out of her.
Sorak glanced up at the sky. They had perhaps twelve hours before the sun began to set once more and the darkness unlocked the full extent of Bodach’s terror.
“Are you well, my lady?” Ryana asked Kara with concern.
The pyreen smiled, wanly. “Yes. Merely tired.”
“Perhaps if you took some time to rest-”
The pyreen shook her head, emphatically. “No. There is no time. I do not have much to fear from the undead. I can avoid them easily enough. But you will be vulnerable when darkness falls. We must try to find the talisman by then and be gone.”
Sorak recalled the last time he had faced undead. It had been back in Tyr, when a defiler templar had raised them from their graves and sent them out against him. He had managed to summon Kether barely in the nick of time, and the mysterious spiritual entity had somehow defeated them through the use of powers Sorak could not even begin to comprehend. He had no consciousness of what happened when he manifested Kether, nor did any of the others. And he did not know if Kether had prevailed over the undead because he had been stronger or because he had found a way to neutralize the spell that animated them. Either way, it had happened only once, and he could not be sure it would happen here in the same way. Fighting dozens of undead was one thing, especially when he had the preserver wizards of the Veiled Alliance to help him. Fighting hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of them was something else again.
“Do you know where the Breastplate of Argentum is to be found?” he asked Kara.
“I know where the treasure is,” she replied. “However, if it is not among the treasure, then we may have to search the entire city.”
“But that could take weeks!” Ryana said. “Days, perhaps,” the pyreen replied. “I do have the ability to detect magic, and that should help us greatly in our search. It was how I knew not to trust your friend, Valsavis.”
“He is no friend of ours,” Ryana said. “Wait,” said Sorak. “You mean you detected magic on him?”
Kara nodded. “I could not tell specifically what sort, without being obvious, and that would have alerted him. But there was a strong aura of defiler magic about him.”
“The Shadow King,” Ryana said. “That settles it. There can be no doubt about Valsavis now, not that I ever had much to begin with.”
“Well, we do not need to concern ourselves about Valsavis now,” said Sorak. “There is no time to waste. We had best be about our business.”
“This way,” said Kara, leading them across the plaza.
“What if we do not find the talisman by nightfall?” asked Ryana as they followed her.
“Then we must allow enough time for us to leave the city and be well way from it before darkness falls,” said Kara, “so that we may return and continue our search again in the morning. Of course, that is no guarantee that the undead shall not follow.”
“But if they do not know that we were here-” Sorak began.