Rath and Storm Read online

  The ship gave a great shiver, as if a giant hand had seized it. Then it shot forward, in a blinding burst of speed. The landscape rushed by, and now Gerrard saw the portal, light swirling within it. As he gazed, he seemed to see a ghostlike parade of figures flitting through, escaping the dark prison of Rath. Above the portal, clinging to a rope that swung from the arch above the portal, was the slender, blond, boylike figure of Ertai.

  “Slow down so we can get Ertai!” Gerrard shouted to Hanna.

  “I can’t!” she yelled.

  Philip Athans has lived somewhere or another for his entire life. He has known many people, some of whom he is related to. A short attention span and various hobbies and interests occupy some of his time. After graduating from college he held a number of jobs including the one he currently holds, and which he will hold until he lets go or is pulled off.

  Hannovi Braddock was born in Tucson, Arizona. In college, he changed his major five times, probably out of frustration that there was no major called Fantasy Studies. He finally settled for a B.A. in Humanities, which was the next best thing. He’s the author of a MAGIC: THE GATHERING® novel from HarperPrism, Ashes of the Sun. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, where you can’t swing a cat without hitting a science fiction or fantasy writer. (Not that Hanovi would swing any cat who didn’t want to be swung.)

  Miranda Horner lives in the state of Washington, where she edits projects for the DRAGONLANCE:® THE FIFTH AGE® roleplaying game. In her small amount of spare time, she loves to read, visit local areas of interest with her husband, play games, and write.

  Kij Johnson has published short stories in various science fiction magazines (including Asimov’s, Amazing, F&SF, Weird Tales and many others), for one of which she won the 1994 Theodore A. Sturgeon award for best short story of the year. She is the coauthor of a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Dragon’s Honor. An original novel titled The Fox Woman is due as a hardcover from Tor Books in late 1999. She got involved in writing for MAGIC: THE GATHERING by generating flavor text for cards in the game. She figured that it make be a pleasant change to be allowed thousands of words in which to describe something.

  J. Robert King, author of numerous books set in the shared worlds of DRAGONLANCE, RAVENLOFT®, PLANESCAPE® and MAGIC: THE GATHERING, has eluded Dark Knights on Krynn, roamed the dark forests of Barovia, battled Tanar’ri on the Outer Planes, and walked the planes of Dominia. When not doing these things, he lives in southern Wisconsin with his wife and two sons and an impressive collection of cigars.

  Francis Lebaron lives in the Seattle area with his wife, daughter, a hamster, a fish, and a cat. While writing Mercadian Masques for the MAGIC: THE GATHERING novel line he comforted himself with the thought that humans will eventually outlive their fascination with computers and return to the saner and more civilized world of the fountain pen.

  Michael G. Ryan gave up his dream of having the definitive Harrison Ford collection—Indiana Jones pinball machine and all—after he realized that Harrison Ford, by definition, has a better one. Now he’s working on the definitive Michael G. Ryan collection (sans the pinball machine), though he still wears the Ford fedora.

  Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, aka the “Goblin Editor,” is a displaced Canadian currently living outside Seattle, Washington, where she is employed as a mild-mannered MAGIC: THE GATHERING editor. By night, she is a crusader for neglected games, a puzzle fiend, and a reptile groupie. She has the usual complement of cats.

  RATH AND STORM

  ©1998, 2003 Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering, their respective logos, and all character names and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.

  Cover art: Kev Walker

  First Printing: July 1998

  eBook Publication: March 2018

  Original ISBN 9780786911752

  Ebook ISBN 9780786966486

  640-C5611000-001

  EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS

  Hasbro Europe

  4 The Square, Stockley Park

  Uxbridge, Middlesex UB11 1ET

  UNITED KINGDOM

  Save this address for your records.

  U.S., CANADA, ASIA,

  PACIFIC, & LATIN AMERICA

  Wizards of the Coast LLC

  P.O. Box 707

  Renton, WA 98057-0707

  1-800-324-6496

  www.magic.wizards.com

  v5.2

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Authors

  Title Page

  Copyright

  A Dark Room

  I: Weatherlight

  Gerrard’s Tale - Michael Ryan

  A Dark Room

  Tahngarth’s Tale - Hannovi Braddock

  A Dark Room

  Ertai’s Tale - Hannovi Braddock

  A Dark Room

  II: Tempest

  A Dark Room

  Greven’s Tale - Philip Athans

  A Dark Room

  Hanna’s Tale - Miranda Horner

  A Dark Room

  Starke’s Tale - Jennifer Clarke Wilkes

  A Dark Room

  III: Stronghold

  A Dark Room

  Karn’s Tale - J. Robert King

  A Dark Room

  Crovax’s Tale - Kij Johnson

  IV: Exodus

  A Dark Room

  The Weatherlight’s Tale - Francis Lebaron

  A Dark Room

  Mirri’s Tale - Liz Holliday

  Dawn

  The room was long and dark, lit only by a single, guttering candle. The bookcases that lined the stone walls, each loaded with leather-bound tomes, seemed to lean inward, menacing the slender figure who knelt by an open chest. Wild white hair straggled across his face, and from time to time he brushed it impatiently away. His eyes flickered uneasily about the room, especially toward the high vaulted window covered by heavy drapes. Through a gap in the curtains there flashed intermittently a harsh, ghastly light.

  A muffled boom of thunder rumbled through the room, and a few books tumbled from the shelves. The white-haired man, surrounded by packets of papers, started and half-rose. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he returned to his documents.

  So preoccuppied was he that he took no notice when a small wooden door at the far end of the chamber swung open and a boy entered. Slight of figure with slender wrists, perhaps ten or eleven years old, he was clad in the brown robes of a student. Softly he advanced until he was directly behind the man.

  “Master…?”

  “Whuff!” The older man started again, scattering papers and nearly upsetting the candle. “Don’t do that, boy! Are you insane? You could be killed, sneaking about like that!”

  He paused in his tirade to consider the boy more closely. “What are you still doing here, anyway? You should be in bed.”

  The boy shook his head, tears starting in his eyes.

  “Don’t be angry with me, Master
. I was frightened by the storm, and I saw a light in here. One of the other masters was telling us of a fire started by lightning that burned down a great library, and I was worried. I couldn’t bear for all this to be lost….” His voice trailed off as he hung his head, sobbing openly.

  “Nonsense! The storm? Just thunder and lightning. Nothing that will hurt anyone.” The master’s voice softened. “What’s your name?”

  “Ilcaster, sir.”

  “Well, Ilcaster, take it from me that this library will still exist long after you and I are gone. It can outlast any storm.”

  “But how, Master?” The boy gazed disconsolately about the room, most of it sunk in shadow. “Books don’t last forever.”

  The master’s hand lightly slapped his pupil.

  “Books!” he said contemptuously. “Books are not the soul of the library.”

  “But Master, it’s written elsewhere that a library without books is like a castle without walls, a monastery without monks, a—”

  “The true library,” interrupted the old man, tapping his forehead, “is up here.”

  “What do you mean, Master?”

  “I mean, foolish boy, that what matters are the memories in our heads, not smudges of ink on paper.”

  Ilcaster wrinkled his brow. “I think I understand, Master. But then why preserve books at all? And why are you bothering with these?” His outstretched hands indicated the papers lying about them.

  The older man grunted and bent again to his task. “Because although the library is the sum of memories, we need reminding occasionally. But these papers are perishable. Never forget that, lad. Now, as long as you’re here, help me sort these. This part of the archives hasn’t been touched in decades, and I want to clean it up.”

  The two figures bent over the documents, their shadows stretching over the floor to meld with the deeper darkness beneath the library walls. To Ilcaster it seemed as if the flashes of light were growing more frequent, and the deep-throated rumbles were louder than before.

  “What’s this?”

  The white-haired man glanced over the boy’s shoulder. “A flying ship. See, down there’s her name.”

  “Weatherlight.. It’s a pretty name.”

  “A fine name for a fine ship. But it’s quite well-known. Didn’t you read about her in Early Dominarian Legends?”

  The boy hung his head, and even in the dim light the master could see he was blushing.

  “For shame! The story of Weatherlight’ is one of the great epic stories of the age.”

  “Well, I never heard it, anyway,” observed the boy. “And I never heard of a sailing ship that could fly. Flying is for ornithopters.”

  “Ah, well then, naturally you know all about it.” The old man returned grumpily to his papers.

  Ilcaster saw he’d gone too far. “I beg your pardon, Master. I didn’t mean to disbelieve you. Weatherlight. No, I never heard of her. Who was her captain?”

  “Gerrard Capashen. Though how he came to be captain…” The old man’s voice trailed off and he glanced up at the gloom that surrounded them.

  “Go on, Master. What happened to him?”

  The master sighed and spread his hands in resignation.

  “Very well. This was many years ago, but still thousands of years after the Brothers’ War—you have heard of that, I suppose? In Argive Reckoning, the date of the Rath Cycle would be 4205, but the story actually begins some twenty-six years previous to that.

  “Gerrard was an orphan, living in Jamuraa. He’d been given into the care of a warclan by his parents before their death, and raised by the Sidar Kondo along with his own son Vuel.”

  “Sidar Kondo—who’s that?”

  “The leader of the warclan.”

  “Why did Gerrard’s parents abandon him?”

  “They did not abandon him. They gave him over to the warclan for his own safety.”

  “Why? Who was threatening him?”

  “Ah, well. As Gerrard grew older, he heard stories of a mysterious figure called the Lord of the Wastes. Some members of the warclan even claimed to have seen this strange figure. They said he was tall, with burning eyes, surrounded by a halo of flame that destroyed everything it touched.”

  Ilcaster nodded. “Yes, Master, I think I’ve even heard of those stories. So that’s who was threatening Gerrard’s life?”

  “No, of course not. Those stories were so much superstitious nonsense. Halo of flame indeed!” The old man’s eyes grew dim, as if he were looking deep inside himself, drawing forth memories that had not been recalled in a very, very long time. “No, the real enemy was someone much worse.”

  “Who could be worse than someone who burns everything he touches? Or…someone named the Lord of the Wastes?”

  The old man scowled. “I’ll tell you, if you’ll be quiet and listen. For the moment, it suffices to say that Gerrard grew up knowing his parents were dead, murdered by some mysterious force whose true name he did not know.

  “Gerrard was brought to the clan by a silver golem named Karn, a bequest from his parents. The golem was a marvelous machine that you might almost mistake for a living being. But even more marvelous, the golem carried within it a collection of magical artifacts known as the Legacy.

  The old man turned over a paper. “I had a list here, somewhere,” he murmured. “A list of the items that were part of the Legacy. Well, no matter. Here, boy. Sort through that pile and separate all the documents headed in red. You can do that while I talk.

  “The Legacy had also been bequeathed to Gerrard by his parents. The origins of this collection were unknown to Gerrard or, indeed, to Karn himself. Nonetheless, the golem knew the collection was of supreme importance and that both Gerrard and the Legacy must be closely guarded until some far-off day of destiny.

  “Gerrard and Vuel, the sidar’s son, were close as blood brothers. They played together, learned together, and together they sampled all the pleasures and pains of growing boys. But as they neared manhood, Vuel grew jealous of Gerrard, an envy egged on by a mysterious fellow named Starke.”

  “Another mystery,” said the boy, drawn by the story. Who was this Starke?”

  “None knew at the time. He appeared from out of the desert and sought refuge with the warclan. At first he spoke softly and gently. But some noticed that he spent much of his time watching—watching the two boys. Some thought as time went on that Starke seemed to look with a special intensity at Vuel, as if he had some great future planned for the young man. And always he whispered in Vuel’s ear, though what the young man heard from Starke he kept hidden from all, including both his father and Gerrard.”

  “Others might have resisted Starke’s blandishments, but Vuel was jealous, quick to anger, sensitive to slights. Starke persuaded the foolish Vuel—who was also arrogant as only a young man can be—that Gerrard intended to steal his birthright.

  “But Gerrard was innocent,” interrupted Ilcaster.

  The old man, in the full flow of his narrative, swung round and glared at the student, who blushed and pretended to study carefully an illustration on the manuscript before him.

  “Yes,” conceded the librarian, “Gerrard was innocent of the intentions Starke attributed to him. But Vuel believed the whisperings of the mysterious man, and in all Gerrard’s actions he saw only plots against his rightful place in the clan.”

  The master paused, and Ilcaster, after a moment, said, “Perhaps Starke was working for the Lord of the Wastes. Or rather,” he added hastily, “for the force that had killed Gerrard’s parents.”

  The librarian nodded grudgingly. “That’s an interesting guess. Whatever the case, Starke succeeded in turning Vuel against Gerrard and against his own father. His plot culminated during Vuel’s rite of passage.”

  Ilcaster nodded. “I’ve heard of those. They’re used in some societies to show passage to adulthood
. Was that what this one was for?

  “Yes, it was a ritual to which every sidar’s son was subject. To succeed his father in the leadership of the clan, Vuel had to pass this test. Starke knew this and manipulated matters so that Vuel’s life was threatened during the ritual. Starke also knew that Gerrard could not bear to see his friend in danger and would rescue him.”

  The old man sighed. “Gerrard performed just as Starke had expected, and Vuel was saved from death. But since he had disrupted the ritual, Vuel angrily accused his stepbrother of destroying his chance to become warlord. Vuel brooded on the insult until finally, at Starke’s urging he decided to steal the most precious thing Gerrard possessed—the Legacy.

  “Karn became aware of this plot, though too late to prevent it. One night, when the clan slept, Vuel rose from his bed, gathered the pieces of the Legacy together, and carried them away with him.”

  Ilcaster looked puzzled. “But how could he steal them so easily?” he asked. “Wasn’t Karn guarding them?”

  “He should have been. But the golem ws deceived by Vuel, like both Gerrard and the sidar.

  “Karn was aware of the theft almost immediately, and gave chase to the treacherous young man. His journey was long, for the golem could not travel nearly as fast as the sidar’s son, and he lost the trail many times, but at last he traced Vuel to a remote village and there demanded the return of the Legacy.”

  “And did Vuel fight? I wouldn’t have thought he’d have had much chance against a golem.” Ilcaster asked, his tone skeptical.

  “No, in ordinary circumstances Karn could probably have defeated Vuel easily. But the young man tricked the silver golem. During their fight, Karn was responsible for the death of an innocent bystander. Horrified, he stopped the fight, swearing that he’d battle no more lest others be hurt. And in that moment of weakness, Vuel used a piece of the Legacy called the Touchstone to deactivate the golem.”