The Wheel and the Great Tomb of Nazarick
A FAN FICTION BY BUF_BUODA
CHAPTER ONE: An Unexpected Turn
AN: This is my first Fanfic. I'm a huge fan of the Overlord Series, and the Wheel of time series (and own none of them, obviously). Big shout out to atheistbasementdragon. His "God Rising" universe is also a big influence on me. Thanks to those who helped me beta this, especially to everyone on the Overlord Fanfiction Discord server. I'd greatly appreciate useful reviews: critical or otherwise, and will try to respond to those I find especially useful. Please be patient with me, I will try and improve my writing as I go on. I'll try to put up at least one update every month; will probably be more, but definitely won't be less (demanding job irl). BTW, certain scenes in this first chapter are just lifted with minimal editing from the Eye of the World. RJ wrote it best, and I didn't feel at liberty to change it too much since i was using the same scene. Thanks once again
Lan's cloak flapped in the wind that blew from the direction of the Blight, sometimes making him hard to see even in the sunlight. Ingtar and the hundred lances Lord Agelmar had sent to escort them to the border, in case they met a Trolloc raid, were riding back hard, hoping to get in on the action at Tarwin's gap. They had looked grand, but it was the towers that had held the attention of the boys with Moraine.
Each tower stood tall and solid atop a hill, about half a mile from its neighbor. East and west others rose, and more beyond those. A broad, walled ramp spiralled around each stone shaft, winding all the way around by the time it reached the heavy gates halfway to the crenellated top. A sortie from the garrison would be protected by the wall until it reached the ground, but enemies striving to reach the gate would climb under a hail of arrows and stones and hot oil from the big kettles poised on the outward flaring ramparts above. A large steel mirror, carefully turned down, away from the sun, now, glittered atop each tower below the high iron cup where signal fires could be lit when the sun did not shine. The signal would be flashed, to towers further from the Border, and by those to still others, and so relayed to the heartland fortresses, from where the lances would ride to turn back the raid. Were times normal, they would.
From the two nearest tower tops men had watched them. Just a few men on each, peering curiously through the crenels. In the best of times the towers were only manned enough for self-defense, depending more on stone walls than strong arms to survive, but every man who could be spared, and more, was riding to Tarwin's Gap. It was a sobering thought. The fall of the towers would not matter if the lances failed to hold the Gap.
Lan had shivered as they rode between the towers. This was the Border. The land beyond looked no different from Shienar, but out there, somewhere beyond the leafless trees, was the Blight, and he imagined that it called him. He thought back to the exchange before Ingtar had left them...
Ingtar lifted a steel fist to halt the lances short of a plain stone post in sight of the towers. A borderpost, marking the boundary between Shienar and what once was Malkier. "Your pardon, Moiraine Aes Sedai. Pardon, Dai Shan. Pardon, Builder. Lord Agelmar commanded me to go no further." He sounded unhappy about it, disgruntled at life in general.
"That is as we planned, Lord Agelmar and I," Moiraine said.
Ingtar grunted sourly. "Pardon, Aes Sedai," he apologized, not sounding as if he meant it. "To escort you here means we may not reach the Gap before the fighting is done. I am robbed of the chance to stand with the rest, and at the same time I am commanded not to ride one step beyond the borderpost, as if I had never before been in the Blight. And My Lord Agelmar will not tell me why." Behind the bars of his face-guard, his eyes turned the last word into a question to the Aes Sedai. He scorned to look at Rand and the others; he had learned they would accompany Lan into the Blight.
"He can have my place," Mat muttered to Rand. Lan gave them both a sharp look. Mat dropped his eyes, his face turning red.
The boy was afraid - and who wouldn't be? Yet his trickster heart made him… unstable. He didn't know why Moraine put her eggs in that particular basket - or rather, he knew, but didn't have to like it. But he was a sword; a sword needs only to cut. Besides, Perrin and Rand were more reliable, and could rein Mat in - probably.
"Lan? Let go." At Moraine's words, he heeled Mandarb to a walk and took point. "Remember," he said to the others over his shoulder, "do not touch anything."
Perrin felt nothing but ever increasing rage as the warder led them deeper. The corruption, the sense of wrongness was so palpable that he'd started caressing his axe without knowing, glaring at everything around him. Loial had wrapped his nose and mouth with a scarf, despite the heat. Mat had emptied his stomach over the side of his mount more than twice. Rand had the beginning of the implacable face that was a feature of the warder. But all he felt was anger.
Lan's voice broke through the rage,
"The real blight lies ahead," he said. He was responding to a question that Perrin missed. "There are things in the blight that hunt by sound. Keep up, and stay quiet if you want to live."
The heat did not abate even though the bloody sun fell toward the horizon. In the distance to the north, the mountains rose higher than the fabled Mountains of Mist, black against the sky. Sometimes an icy wind from the sharp peaks gusted far enough to reach them. The torrid humidity leached away most of the mountain chill, but what remained was winter-cold compared to the sweltering it replaced, if just for a moment. The sweat on Perrin's face seemed to flash into beads of ice; as the wind died, the beads melted again, running angry lines down his cheeks, and the thick heat returned harder than before by comparison. For the instant the wind surrounded them, it swept away the fetor, yet he would have done without that, too, if he could have. The cold was the chill of the grave, and it carried the dusty must of an old, newly opened tomb.
As night fell, the warder began to look worried. He slowed down and fell back to walk his horse at the same pace with Moraine, and they put their heads together to discuss. Perrin's ears could pick out the concern in the voice of the warder.
"There's a place to camp not too far from here," Moraine said as she spoke loudly enough for the party to hear. "Moving at night is suicide, and we will need the rest against tomorrow". As usual, her musical voice didn't carry a hint of tension. She might as well have been in a garden having tea.
Egwene guided Bela after the warder as he angled them westward. The part of his exchange with Moraine they heard made it seem like he knew the place Moraine referred to when mentioning their prospective campsite, and he led them at the same brisk pace he'd maintained all day.
Nothing could have prepared her for the blight - or so she thought till the warder casually mentioned that they'd be in the real Blight by tomorrow. She glanced at Nynaeve when the warder said that, but the moonstruck woman was fairly drooling at the warder's shoulders as he rode - not like she'd ever accept that that was what she was doing. But then, she didn't really care about the other woman - at least not now. How could a woman moon all day? Her stomach felt empty and hollowed out - she'd thrown up until there was nothing but dry retches. The entire Blight - damn whatever the warder said about real or not - the entire thing was an unrelenting assault on the senses.
The sun was a mostly red ball that was just touching the treetops when they crested a hill and the Warder drew rein. Beyond them to the west lay a network of lakes, the waters glittering darkly in the slanting sunlight, like beads of random size on a necklace of many strings. In the distance, circled by the lakes, stood jagged-topped hills, thick in the creeping shadows of evening. The Warder was dismounting, his face with all the emotional expressiveness of a stone, and everyone was quick to do so too.
"Couldn't we camp down by the lakes?" Nynaeve asked, patting her face with her kerchief. "It must be cooler down by the water."
"Light," Mat said, "I'd just like to stick my head in one of them. I might never take it out."
For one brief moment, the absurdity of agreeing with Mat occurred to her, but she didn't care. They were all fixated on the lake, which was why they clearly saw dark waters roiling as a large body rolled just beneath the surface. Lengths as thick as a man sent ripples across the lake and a tail with a stinger as long as a leg and covered with tentacles waved lazily before slipping in quietly into the waters.
Egwene couldn't look away until the thing disappeared, and when it did, she tore her eyes back to the warder who hadn't stopped dismounting, not even to answer them. Loial sighed quietly behind her - if a bumblebee the size of a horse could be quiet.
"I will set wards around our site," Moraine said as she dismounted. Her voice galvanized them from their shock and got them moving, at least all of them except Mat.
"A ward?" He started rudely.
"Can't it be a real barrier? Something that size will rip through any ward!" His voice had gotten shrill towards the end.
"You're a fool, Matrim Cauthon," snapped Nynaeve at the same time Egwene hissed at the uncultured lout.
"What?" He protested under the combined gazes of the three women. The rest of the men had joined the warder to make camp.
"A barrier would keep most things out," began the Aes Sedai in her musical voice that just gave the impression that Mat was stupid for even mentioning it.
"However, we'd wake up with the whole blight at our door and waiting to chomp us up." Moraine continued."I hope I don't need to explain why that's a bad idea to you too?" Mat reddened and hurried off to join the rest, hunching over and staying as far away from the Aes Sedai as he could. Insufferable lout.
Rand and Mat and Perrin helped Lan unsaddle and hobble the horses while the others began setting up the camp. Loial muttered to himself as he set up the Warder's tiny stove, but his thick fingers moved deftly. He'd been unusually quiet - Rand couldn't remember him uttering up to 20 words. Egwene was humming as she filled the tea kettle from a bulging water bag. Rand no longer wondered why the Warder had insisted on bringing so many full waterskins.
Setting the bay's saddle in line with the others, he unfastened his saddlebags and blanket roll from the cantle, turned, and stopped, fear coursing through him. The Ogier and the women were gone. So was the stove and all the wicker panniers from the packhorse. The hilltop was empty except for evening shadows.
With a numb hand he fumbled for his sword, dimly hearing Mat curse. Perrin had his axe out, his shaggy head swiveling to find the danger.
"Sheepherders," Lan muttered. Unconcernedly the Warder strode across the hilltop, and at his third step, he vanished.
Rand exchanged wide-eyed looks with Mat and Perrin, and then they were all darting for where the Warder had disappeared. Abruptly Rand skidded to a halt, taking another step when Mat ran into his back. Egwene looked up from setting the kettle atop the tiny stove. Nynaeve was closing the mantle on a second lit lantern. They were all there, Moiraine sitting cross-legged, Lan lounging on an elbow, Loial taking a book out of his pack.
Cautiously Rand looked behind him. The hillside was there as it had been, the shadowed trees, the lakes beyond sinking into darkness. He was afraid to step back, afraid they would all disappear again and perhaps this time he would not be able to find them. Edging carefully around him, Perrin let out a long breath.
Moiraine noticed the three of them standing there, gaping. Perrin looked abashed, and slipped his axe back into the heavy belt loop as if he thought no one might notice. A smile touched her lips. "It is a simple thing," she said, "a bending, so any eye looking at us sees around us, instead. Our scents will be muted and dull. The sounds of our camp will also disperse, and will sound like it's coming from much further than it actually is. We cannot have the eyes that will be out there sensing our presence tonight, and the Blight is no place to be in the dark."
"Moiraine Sedai says I might be able to do it." Egwene's eyes were bright, and her enthusiasm was fairly bursting out of her. "She says I can handle enough of the One Power right now."
"Not without training, child," Moiraine cautioned. "The simplest matter concerning the One Power can be dangerous to the untrained, and to those around them." Perrin snorted, and Egwene looked so uncomfortable that Rand wondered if she had already been trying her abilities.
Nynaeve set down the lantern. Together with the tiny flame of the stove, the pair of lanterns gave a generous light. "When you go to Tar Valon, Egwene," she said carefully, "perhaps I'll go with you." The look she gave Moiraine was strangely defensive. "It will do her good to see a familiar face among strangers. She'll need someone to advise her besides Aes Sedai."
"Perhaps that would be for the best, Wisdom," Moiraine said simply.
Egwene laughed and clapped her hands. "Oh, that will be wonderful. And you, Rand. You'll come, too, won't you?" He paused in the act of sitting across the stove from her, then slowly lowered himself. He thought her eyes had never been bigger, or brighter, or more beautiful. Spots of color appeared in her cheeks, and she gave a small laugh. "Perrin, Mat, you two will come, won't you? We'll all be together." Mat gave a grunt that could have signified anything, and Perrin only shrugged, but she took it for assent. "You see, Rand. We'll all be together."
Together. Rand tasted the word, but the words he'd heard once from the boyish beauty kept coming unbidden, spoiling his enjoyment of the word.
They turned in quickly - Loial first, then Egwene, and it seemed like he just shut his eyes before he heard the Warder wake him with a terse "Sheepherder".
His eyes jerked open, the grass tickling the back of his neck where…
The grass…
He jumped to his feet and looked around, his eyes going as wide as they could. All around him, life teemed in a forest that was obviously not the blight.
They were obviously not on the hillside they camped on last night. Nynaeve was uncharacteristically quiet as the warder and that woman argued with their heads together. They were arguing, she decided. Normally, she'd be delighted with anything that puts a rift between the Aes Sedai and Lan - even if she'd never admit it to herself. But there were bigger problems now; like how she could not recognize any of the plants in this forest. Some of the trees were vaguely familiar, but the undergrowth was just like something from the stories of a gleeman - and a drunk one at that. The colours were normal, and they didn't look at all like the sickly abominations in the blight, but that was it. Every other thing was different.
She glanced over at Egwene, the woman she'd thought would be her understudy as a Wisdom. The poor girl's eyes were full of fear. She wrapped her arms around herself, as though to hold herself together physically.
"It's amazing, Moiraine Sedai!"
Nynaeve nearly jumped out of her skin as the Ogier boomed out his opinion. His face could barely conceal his excitement, what with his saucer eyes alight with curiosity, and his ears quivering in delight.
Irritation at her reaction to the surprise bubbled up, and she gripped her braid to stop herself from taking it out on the Ogier.
"How exactly is this," she began, gesturing around her vaguely.
"How is this amazing?"
Alright, maybe she couldn't keep all the irritation out of her voice.
Tugging to face the Ogier, she began to pull her braid as she continued, ticking off points with the tone of her voice.
"We're in the middle of nowhere. Our business at the eye of the world is now on hold for who knows how long. We don't even know if this "nowhere" even exists like we know."
Gritting her teeth, she fairly growled out her next statement to the much chastised Ogier.
"Tell me how any of this is amazing, Loial."
"The Wisdom is right," said Moiraine, raising her voice and addressing them all.
An almost childish annoyance flashed through Nynaeve as the Aes Sedai agreed with her. Gripping her braid even harder, she jumped on it mentally till the annoyance was gone.
"However, before I continue, I would like to know what made you say that, Loial." Moiraine continued.
The excitement on Loial's face had disappeared as Nynaeve tore into him. Now, he looked completely dejected at the Aes Sedai's request, though he cleared his throat to answer.
"The land is not in pain anymore," said Loial.
"I see," replied Moraine, her eyes going out of focus as she thought.
"This is definite proof that wherever we are right now is a completely different world from where we're used to," continued Moiraine.
"Lan will scout a bit around us, and when he has some idea of where this is, we will decide on a course of action."
The warder was already on his horse and leaving their encampment at a walk before the Aes Sedai finished the statement.
"Blood and bloody ashes," muttered Mat. How fitting that the first words from the lout's mouth should be dirty ones.