Lightnings Daughter, Mary Herbert [year 7 reading list .TXT] 📗

A little while later the gorthling rose in his stirrups and caught sight of something rising out of the plain far ahead. He rode toward it. As he drew closer, he saw more details and features. There was a high, crumbling wal , and behind it he could see buildings, towers, and parapets, but they were al in ruins. What was this place?

It was not-until he rode to the enormous entrance and saw the two huge stone lions laying in the rubble that he realized where he was. They had guarded the city since its birth, or so the stories said.

Viciously he reined his horse to a stop. What had happened? The gorthling could see now that Moy Tura had been destroyed. The entrance gates had been shattered by a tremendous explosion and most of the buildings had been razed. The streets were ful of rubble, wind-blown debris, and weeds. As far as he could see the only life here was a rat, some magpies, and a swarm of flies. Even the land around the city was empty and barren. Where were all of the magic-wielders?

The gorthling cursed and urged his reluctant horse into the ruins. There was still time to search the place before dark. Perhaps he could find some clue to the whereabouts of the sorcerers. There had to be a few left to pass on the inherited talent or his host body could never have summoned him. The gorthling rode forward and disappeared into the dead city.

*****

"Are you sure he went in there?" Gabria asked as she stared at the broken walls casting shadows in the early morning light.

Secen nodded, his face pale under its tan.

The travelers were silent as they gazed about them in nervous curiosity. They had arrived at the plateau late the night before, but they had not tried to enter the city for fear of losing Branth's trail in the dark. Now it was the dawn of a warm, breathless day, and Branth's tracks led directly into the old ruin.

Just in front of the riders, the entrance lay open, its gates in pieces. A stone lion crouched nearby, cracked in two, resting on the rubble.

Piers studied the lion curiously. "I thought there used to be two," he muttered. "The stories always mentioned a pair."

Athlone took a deep breath. "Let's go," he called. Eurus, his ears pricked and his nostrils flared, walked warily into the city. The others came behind, keeping dose together as they passed the fal en lion and the piles of rubble at the gateway. The ruins closed in around them.

The party silently fol owed the tracks of Branth's horse through weed-choked streets, around crumbling houses and wind-torn towers, past empty shops and decaying walls. Grass grew in every available chink, and piles of broken stone lay everywhere. Here and there a few fallen statues or shattered fountains could be seen in the ruins, attesting to the grandeur of the once-proud city.

Gabria was amazed by the remnants of beauty that still survived in the desolation. Moy Tura had not been a large city, even by the standards of two hundred years ago. It had been a close community of people dedicated to the art of sorcery. They had built what they thought was the greatest, most magnificent city in the known world.

That was the tragedy, Gabria thought to herself. All of their beauty, wisdom, and power had not protected their homes from the jealousy, greed, and anger of the outside world. The sorcerers who had lived here had been too isolated from their their kin. They had put themselves on a pedestal and had ignored the warning signs when the pedestal started to crack.

According to legend, the city was betrayed by a sorcerer, a bitter man who had told the clans of the secret ways into the city---ways that skirted Moy Tura's deadly magical defenses. The man was, in turn, betrayed by a chieftain. He, along with all the other sorcerers, were massacred. It took the gathered clans only one day to destroy the city. For two hundred years it had lain, slowly sinking into dust, hidden behind a shroud of fear and terrifying legends.

Gabria's thoughts were stil on the past when Sayyed rode close beside her and drew her out of her reverie.

"I hope all the tales about this place aren't true," he said. His horse snorted at a rat that scurried past.

Gabria shivered and watched Treader chase the rat into a pile of stones. "So do I. There are some particularly nasty' ones: ghosts, a guardian, a sorcerer's curse, hidden traps for unwary looters, and evil beings that lurk in the city at night."

"That guardian," the Turic said, looking nervously around. "Even the Turic tell the story of Moy Tura's guardian."

"The Korg?" Piers said behind them. "No one has proven that it exists."

"What's the Korg supposed to be? Doesn't that word mean lion?" Gabria asked.

"Yes, it was an ancient breed of large lions that once lived on the plains. That lion at the front gate was supposed to be a korg, one of two that guard the gates," Piers explained. "But the guardian of the legends was a sorcerer originally---a shapechanger. He altered his shape to avoid the massacre and remained here after the city was destroyed. It is said he went mad and lost the power to revert to human form."

Gabria thought of the desperate sorcerer and stared sadly over the ruins around her. Living here would drive anyone mad. Even in the sunlight the shattered city was bleak and desolate. So much wisdom gone to waste.

The riders fell quiet again. Their voices seemed jarring and unnatural in the dead city. It was better to ride in wordless haste and get through there as fast as possible.

Before long they found the remains of Branth's night camp in an empty house. His tracks, still clear in the dust, continued from there deeper