Frostborn: The Broken Mage Read Free

at its heart.” 
    She nodded. “The staff…it’s down and to the east, somewhere further within the mountain.” 
    “If this place is as great a maze as you say,” said Arandar, “it is possible we could wander for weeks without finding anything.”
    “Not necessarily,” said Caius. “There would be maps. I can read those, along with any dwarven glyphs we find. Every gallery and chamber and tunnel would have its own name, Sir Arandar, just as every street and forum within Tarlion’s walls has its own name. If we can find a map, perhaps we can reach Dragonfall and escape from Khald Azalar long before the Traveler or Mournacht locate us.” 
    “Very well,” said Ridmark, and they continued onward.
     
    ###
     
    They left the Hall of the West and entered a high pillared gallery, and Calliande felt a peculiar sense of disappointment.
    She knew it was entirely irrational. After escaping Urd Morlemoch, all her thoughts had been upon reaching Khald Azalar and Dragonfall, of recovering her staff and her memory at last. She had known that her staff would be buried deep within Khald Azalar. It would not be waiting for her just beyond the Gate of the West. Her past self would not have left any clues or secrets waiting in the Hall of the West.
    Yet the disappointment was there nonetheless.
    A dark sort of relief went with the disappointment. Calliande knew that she had once been the Keeper of Andomhaim, the woman who had led the High Kingdom to victory against the Frostborn. Yet she remembered nothing of it, and she dreaded the return of that memory. That woman had been willing to seal herself away in darkness for centuries, to lose everyone and everything she loved to awaken in the distant future. Calliande could not imagine the kind of woman that could make such a cold choice. 
    Yet she had been that woman, and she had made that choice. 
    They walked in silence down the gallery, the harsh light from Antenora’s staff throwing back the darkness. Here and there dwarven glowstones shone from the pillars, treated in chemical salts that made them luminous for centuries. More bones lay scattered upon the floor, both ancient dwarven bones and the more recent bones of Vhaluuskan orcs and deep orcs. Calliande wondered what had killed them. The Vhaluuskan orcs had probably been scavengers from Khorduk to the west, and they had likely killed each other in a quarrel over spoils or fallen to the arrows of the deep orcs. 
    The deep orcs, though…what had killed them? 
    Calliande knew some things about deep orcs, things that she had likely learned before hiding her memory in Dragonfall. The deep orcs lived in tribes in the Deeps, some independent, some enslaved by the dvargir or the dark elven princes. Granted, that information wasn’t useful just now. Anything could have killed these deep orcs. Other tribes, the Vhaluuskans, some horror that had wandered up from the Deeps…anything at all, really. 
    Another pile of the strange gray armor lay in a heap against a pillar, radiating terrible cold, a faint white mist crawling over the crystalline bones of a slain Frostborn. Calliande felt a strange crawling sensation as she looked at the bones. She was certain, absolutely certain, that she had seen armor like that before coming to Khald Azalar. 
    She just couldn’t remember when. 
    “Keeper?” said Antenora in her worn voice. “Is anything amiss?” 
    Calliande was still not sure what to do about Antenora. The woman had been the apprentice of the first Keeper, the Keeper who had helped Malahan Pendragon lead the survivors of the High King’s realm from Old Earth to Andomhaim. Antenora had remained upon Old Earth for centuries, cursed by her betrayal. She wanted redemption, wanted to be released from her curse, and Calliande had no idea how to do that.
    Perhaps Calliande would remember once she had recovered the staff of the Keeper.
    In the meantime, Antenora’s powerful fire magic might well help Calliande to reach the