The Cataclysm Read online

  "I am Ciri," said the sweet voice. "Welcome, Sir Knight. My deliverance is at hand."

  Ciri led Trevarre and Matya around the edge of the village. "Quickly," she said softly. "The fewer the folk who see us, the better."

  Matya wondered why, but it wasn't her place to ask. Trevarre tried to walk faster, but it was clear his wounded leg was causing him great pain. Ciri laid a fine hand on his elbow, and the grimace eased from the knight's face. He walked more easily with her hand on his arm. Matya noticed that Trevarre seemed to have taken more than a passing interest in Ciri's lovely face. "I'll warrant he's more interested in her looks than his honor," she muttered, suddenly annoyed for no particular reason.

  As they walked, Matya looked at the village in the ruddy light of the setting sun. Nothing appeared out of order, but something was not right. You're tired, Matya, that's all, she told herself. Tomorrow you'll ride into Garnet and leave this knight and his foolishness behind. That thought should have made her feel better, but it didn't.

  Ciri led them to a small, thatch-roofed cottage standing slightly apart from the others. She looked about to make certain no one was watching, then opened the door, gesturing for Trevarre and Matya to enter.

  The cottage was warm and neatly kept. A fire burned on the fieldstone hearth, and the wooden floor had been scrubbed clean. Ciri bade them sit down. She filled a wooden cup with crimson wine for each of them. Matya raised the cup of wine, then set it down without drinking it. It had a funny smell to it. Trevarre, however, drank deeply, thanking the woman for her hospitality — all politeness, as his Measure called for, Matya supposed with a frown.

  "And now, my lady, you must tell me why you have called to me," Trevarre said. Ciri smiled at him, a sweet, sorrowful smile. "And I hope your reason is a good one," Matya noted, crossing her arms. "It was no mean feat getting this knight here, I'll tell you"

  Ciri turned her gaze toward Matya for a moment, and suddenly her smile was neither sweet nor sorrowful. 'Tor that, I do thank you, my good woman," Ciri said. Matya could not mistake the coldness in Ciri's otherwise lovely voice. It was clear that Matya's presence had not been expected; neither was it wanted.

  Ciri's gaze turned soft again as she regarded the knight. Matya scowled, but she said nothing. If the young woman feared competition for the knight's attention, then she was as much a fool as Trevarre. There was little room in a bargain driver's life for love. Such fancies dulled the sharp edge Matya depended on for her livelihood. Besides, there was nothing about the knight she liked, even if his pale eyes were strangely attractive and his voice DID remind her of a trumpet's call.

  The gloom of twilight descended outside the cottage's window. Ciri began her tale. "I fear the fate that lies before me is dark, my knight. A terrible wizard — my uncle — means to force me to marry him, against all propriety and my own wishes. He is a mage of great power, feared by all the folk of Tambor, and even beyond. He is away now, gathering components for his magecraft, but when he returns, he will compel me to wed. You have arrived none too soon, my knight."

  "Well, why don't you simply run away?" Matya asked. Ciri gave her another chill look. "I fear it is not so simple. You see, my uncle dabbles in the black arts, heedless of the peril to his soul. He has cast an enchantment upon me. I am unable to leave the village. The banks of the stream are as far as I may tread. Should I take but one step beyond, I would perish."

  "But what of your father?" Trevarre asked. "Will he not protect you from your barbarous uncle?"

  Ciri shook her head sadly. "My father and mother both died many years ago. There is no one here to protect me. That was why I wove the boat of rushes and sent the doll down the waters of the stream, hoping someone might find it and hear my plea"

  "How does the doll speak with your voice?" Matya asked, not caring if she aroused more of Ciri's displeasure.

  "It was but the echo of my voice," Ciri explained, her eyes on the knight. "The doll is a magical thing. My rather brought it all the way from Palanthas for me when I was a child. If you speak to it, or sing it a song, it will echo your words back to you with the rising moon, exactly as you spoke them."

  Matya's eyes glittered brightly. This was better and better. The doll would be almost beyond price. almost, that is. Matya always had a price.

  "And how can I break this grievous enchantment?" Trevarre asked earnestly. He was good at this knightly business, Matya had to admit, despite his sorry looks. Ciri stood and walked to the window, gazed through it sadly a moment, then turned to the knight.

  "There, in the center of the village, stands a shrine. In that shrine is an altar carved of marble. The altar is the focus of all my uncle's dark powers. I know, for I have seen him work his wicked spells there. From it, he draws his strength. But the magic of the doll has the power to counter it. If one who is strong of heart sets the doll upon the altar of his own free will, the enchantment will be broken."

  "And what will happen to the doll?" Matya asked suspiciously.

  "Its magic will be dissipated," Ciri answered. "It will become an ordinary doll and nothing more."

  She walked to Trevarre then, and he rose to meet her. She laid a hand gently upon his breastplate. Matya could see the pulse beating rapidly in the man's throat. It was clear Trevarre was not immune to Ciri's bewitching beauty. Another weakness of knights, Matya thought acidly. Not that she cared one way or the other, she reminded herself.

  "Will you do this task for me, my knight?" Ciri pleaded. "I cannot break the enchantment with my own hand, and there is none in the village brave enough to defy my uncle. Will you help me?"

  Trevarre sighed and glanced at Matya. "I would, with all my heart, that I could do this thing, my lady, but I fear I cannot. You see, I have given Matya the doll in payment for bringing me to this place. On my honor, I cannot ask her for it back"

  Ciri's face twitched. She shot Matya a look so filled with malice that Matya shivered. Then, aware of the knight's eyes on her, Ciri's sweet, sorrowful look had returned to her lovely face. She bowed her head.

  "Then I am doomed, my knight."

  "No," he said, with a fierce smile. "No, I cannot think that. I am no sorcerer, but I expect there is another — albeit cruder — way to free you." His hand moved to the hilt of the sword at his hip. "I will stand before your uncle when he returns, and I will demand a duel. The enchantment will be broken when your uncle lies dead at my feet. Won't that solve your problem, my lady?"

  Ciri sighed. "My knight, you are indeed brave," she murmured. "So very brave."

  Matya noticed, however, that Ciri did not answer Trevarre's question.

  Matya awoke in the gray light before dawn. Ciri had provided her a bed. Trevarre slept soundly on a bed of furs before the cottage's hearth. Matya looked around the cottage, but Ciri was nowhere to be seen.

  Just as well, Matya thought. This way she would not have to bid the strange young woman good-bye.

  Matya knelt beside the sleeping knight before she left. His careworn face was peaceful in slumber, his brow untroubled.

  "I hope you find your honor truly reward enough, Knight," she whispered softly. She hesitated a moment, then reached out a hand, as if to smooth his mouse-brown hair over the bandage on his head. He stirred, and she pulled her hand back. Quietly, Matya slipped from the cottage.

  "Trevarre has what he wants," she reminded herself, "and so do I."

  The ruddy orb of the sun crested the dim purple mountains to the east as Matya made her way through the village. A few folk already were up at this hour, but they paid her no heed as they went about their business. Once again, Matya had the feeling there was something peculiar about this village, but she could not quite fathom what it was. She hurried on toward her wagon and the restless Rabbit.

  Then it struck her.

  "The shadows are all wrong!" she said aloud.

  Her own shadow stretched long before her in the low morning sunlight, but hers was the only shadow that looked like it was supposed to look. The shadow cast by a
twostory cottage to her left was short and lumpy — much shorter than she would have expected for a building so high. She looked all around the village and saw more examples of the same. Nowhere did the outline of a shadow match that of the object that cast it. Even more disturbing were the villagers themselves. None of them cast shadows at all!

  Her sense of unease growing, Matya gathered up her skirts and hurried onto the stone bridge. She suddenly wanted to be away from this troubling place. She was nearly across the bridge when something — she was unsure exactly what — compelled her to cast one last glance over her shoulder. Abruptly she froze, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry.

  The village had changed.

  Well-tended cottages were nothing more than broken, burned stone foundations. The smithy was a pile of rubble, and there was no trace of the mill except for the rotted remains of the waterwheel, slumped by the bank of the stream, looking like the twisted web of some enormous spider. There were no people, no horses, no dogs, no chickens. The dell was bare. The dark ground was hard and cracked, as if it had been baked in a furnace.

  Matya's heart lurched. She ran a few, hesitant steps back across the bridge, toward the village, and she gasped again. Tambor looked as it had before, the villagers going about their business. Blue smoke rose from a score of stone chimneys.

  Perhaps I imagined it, she thought, but she knew that wasn't true. Slowly, she turned her back to the village once more and walked across the bridge. She looked out of the comer of her eye and again saw the jumbled ruins and blackened earth behind her. Slowly, she began to understand.

  Tambor HAD been destroyed in the Cataclysm. The people, the bustling village, were images of what had been long ago. It was all illusion. Except the illusion was imperfect, Matya realized. It appeared only when she traveled toward the village, not away from it. But how did the illusion come to exist in the first place?

  Resolutely, Matya walked back across the bridge. She found that, if she concentrated, the illusion of the bustling village would waver and grow transparent before her eyes, and she could see the blackened ruins beneath. She walked to the center of the village, toward the single standing stone of pitted black basalt. This was the shrine of which Ciri had spoken. At the base of the standing stone was an altar, but it was not hewn of marble, as Ciri had claimed. The altar was built of human skulls, cemented together with mud. They grinned at Matya, staring at her with their dark, hollow eyes.

  "Did you really think I would allow you to leave with the doll?" Ciri spoke behind her in a voice cool and sweet.

  Startled, Matya turned around. She half expected to see that Ciri had changed like the rest of the village. The woman was as lovely as ever, but there was a hard, deadly light in her sapphire-blue eyes.

  Ciri gazed at Matya, then understanding flickered across her face. "Ah, you see the village for what it is, don't you?"

  Matya nodded silently, unable to speak.

  Ciri shrugged. "It is just as well. It makes things easier. I'm glad you know, in fact."

  "What do you want from me?" Matya asked.

  "To strike a bargain with you, Matya. Isn't that what you like to do above all things?"

  Matya's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.

  "You have something I want very much," Ciri said softly.

  "The doll," Matya said, eyeing the woman.

  "You see, Matya, despite the illusions I have used to mask the appearance of the village, much of what I told you last night was the truth. An enchantment does prevent me from leaving the village, and only the doll can break it."

  "How is it you came to be here in the first place?" Matya asked.

  "I have always been here," Ciri said in her crystalline voice. "I am old, Matya, far older than you. You see me now as I was the day the Cataclysm struck the face of Krynn, more than half a century ago."

  Matya stared at her in shock and disbelief, but Ciri did not pause.

  "By my magic, I saw the coming of the Cataclysm. I prepared an enchantment to protect myself from it." A distant look touched her cold eyes, and her smile grew as sharp and cruel as a knife. "Oh, the others begged at my door for me to protect them as well. The same wretches who had mocked my magic before wanted me to save them, but I turned my back on them. I wove my magic about myself, and I watched all of them perish in agony as the rain of fire began." Ciri's face was exultant, her fine hands clenched into fists.

  Matya watched her with calculating eyes. "Something went wrong, didn't it?"

  "Yes," Ciri hissed angrily. "Yes, something went wrong!" She paused, recovered her composure. "I could not have foreseen it. The power of the Cataclysm twisted my magic. The enchantment protected me, as I commanded, but it also cursed me to remain here alone in this ruined town, not aging, not changing, and never able to leave."

  Matya shuddered. Despite herself, she could not help but pity this evil woman.

  "I want to be free of this place — I will be free of this place," Ciri said, "and for that I need the doll."

  Matya was no longer afraid. Magic was Ciri's element, but bargaining was Matya's own. "And what would you give me in exchange for the doll?" she asked. "It is worth a lot to me."

  "I made that one, and once I am free I will have the power to make more," Ciri replied. "I will fashion you a dozen such dolls, Matya. No one in Ansalon will be wealthier than you. All you have to do is give the doll to Trevarre. HE wants more than anything to rescue me, to preserve his precious HONOR". She said this last word with a sneer. "He will place the doll upon the altar, and I will be free. And so will you. I swear it, by Nuitari."

  "And what will happen to Trevarre?" Matya asked, as if she didn't much care.

  Ciri shrugged. "What does it matter? You and I will have what we want."

  "I'm curious, that's all," Matya said, shrugging.

  "You'll find out anyway, I suppose," Ciri replied. "He will take my place in the enchantment. He will be imprisoned within Tambor even as I am now. He will not suffer, however. I will see to it that HIS soul is destroyed. The empty husk of his body will dwell here until the end of all days." Ciri arched her eyebrow. "Are you satisfied?"

  Matya nodded, her expression unchanging. "I'll need to think this bargain over."

  "Very well," Ciri said, annoyed, "but be swift about it. I grow tired of waiting. Oh, and if you are thinking of warning the knight, go ahead. He won't believe you." The enchantress turned and stalked away, vanishing among the ruins of the village.

  Matya retrieved the leather pouch with the doll from its hiding place in her wagon and tied it to her belt. She sat for a time on the wagon's bench, alone with her thoughts, then finally made her way back to Ciri's cottage. Like all the others, this building was in ruins. The roof was gone, and two of the walls had fallen into a jumble of broken stone.

  Trevarre had risen and was in the process of adjusting the straps of his ornate armor. He looked up in surprise.

  "Matya. I did not hear you open the door."

  Matya bit her tongue to keep from telling him there WAS no door.

  "Have you seen Ciri this morning?" he asked. He ran a hand through his lank brown hair.

  "I saw her out in the village," Matya said, afraid to say more.

  "Is something wrong, Matya?" Trevarre asked her, frowning.

  Matya's hand crept to the leather purse. She could have everything she had ever wanted, if she just gave Trevarre the doll. He would take it. She knew he would. As unlikely as Trevarre looked on the outside, the heart that beat in his chest was a knight's, true and pure. He would break the enchantment, and Ciri would be free. She had sworn her oath by Nuitari — a vow no sorcerer could break. Matya would be rich beyond her dreams. It would be the greatest bargain Matya had ever struck.

  Her hand reached into the pouch, brushing the smooth porcelain. "I wanted to tell you…" She swallowed and started over. "I just wanted to tell you, Trevarre.. "

  "Go on," he said in his resonant voice, his pale eyes regarding her seriously.


  Matya saw kindness in his gaze, and, for one brief moment, she almost imagined she saw something more — admiration, affection.