On the distant horizon he saw the black towers of Ertsud Grand to the west. That pool of gray shadow off to the other way was the city of Hoikmar, from which he had set forth. By his best calculation he had come twenty miles—through heat and thirst, across lakes of dust and ancient seas of ash, down spiraling fumaroles and over fields of clinking metallic lava. He had eluded the kassai, that thing of twitching antennae and eyes like white platters which had stalked him half a day. He had fooled the vourhain with the old trick of the double scent, letting the animal go chasing off after his discarded tunic while he went down a trail too narrow for the beast to follow. Five trackers left. Malorn, zeil, weyhant, min-mollitor, zytoon.
Strange names. Strange beasts, native to nowhere. Perhaps they were synthetics, created as mounts had been by the forgotten witchcraft-sciences of the old days. But why create monsters? Why set them loose on Castle Mount? Simply for the testing and annealing of the young nobility? Hissune wondered what would happen if the weyhant or the zytoon rose suddenly out of all this rocky rubble and sprang upon him unawares. They will injure you if you allow them to take you by surprise. Injure, yes. But kill? What was the purpose of this text? To hone the survival skills of young Knight-Initiates, or to eliminate the unfit? At this time, Hissune knew, some three dozen initiates like himself were scattered along the thirty miles of the testing grounds. How many would live to reach Ertsud Grand?
He would, at least. Of that he was certain.
Slowly, poking with his cudgel to test the stability of the rocks, he made his way down the granite chute. Halfway down came the first mishap: a huge, secure-looking triangular slab turned out to be only precariously balanced, and gave way to the first light touch of his left foot. For an instant he wavered in a wild lurching way, desperately trying to steady himself, and then he plunged forward. The cudgel flew from his hands and as he stumbled, dislodging a small avalanche of rocks, his right leg slipped thigh-deep between two great slabs keen as knifeblades.
He grabbed whatever he could and held on. But the rocks below him did not begin to slide. Fiery sensations were running the length of his leg. Broken? Torn ligaments, strained muscles? He began slowly to pull it free. His legging was slit from thigh to calf, and blood was flowing freely from a deep cut. But that seemed to be the worst of it, that and a throbbing in his groin that would probably cause him some bothersome lameness tomorrow. Recovering his cudgel, he went cautiously onward.
Then the character of the slope changed: the big cracked slabs gave way to a fine gravel, even more treacherous underfoot. Hissune adopted a slow sliding gait, turning his feet sideways and pushing the surface of the gravel ahead of him as he descended. It was hard on his sore leg but afforded some degree of control. The bottom of the slope was coming into view now.
He slipped twice on the gravel. The first time he skidded only a few feet; the second carried him a dozen yards downslope, and he saved himself from tumbling all the way only by jamming his feet against the gravel and burrowing under for six or seven inches while hanging on fiercely with his hands.
When he picked himself up he could not find his dagger. He searched some while in the gravel, with no success, and finally he shrugged and went on. The dagger would be of no use against a weyhant or a min-mollitor anyway, he told himself. But he would miss it in small ways when he foraged for his food along the trail: digging for edible tubers, peeling the skins from fruits.
At the bottom of the slope the valley opened into a broad rocky plateau, dry, forbidding, dotted here and there by ancient-looking ghazan trees, all but leafless, bent in the usual grotesque convoluted shapes. But he saw, a short way off toward the east, trees of another sort, slender and tall and leafy, clumped close together. They were a good indication of water, and he headed for them.
But that dump of greenery proved to be farther away than he thought. An hour of plodding toward it did not seem to bring it much closer. Hissune’s injured leg was stiffening rapidly. His canteen was all but empty. And when he came across the crest of a low ridge he found the malorn waiting for him on the other side.
It was a strikingly hideous creature: a baggy oval body set within ten enormously long legs that made a huge V-bend to hold its thorax three feet off the ground. Eight of the legs ended in broad flat walking-pads. The two front ones were equipped with pincers and claws. A row of gleaming red eyes ran completely around the rim of its body. A long curved tail bristled with stingers.
“I could kill you with a mirror!” Hissune told it. “Just let you see your reflection and you’d ugly yourself to death!”
The malorn made a soft hissing sound and began to move slowly toward him, jaws working, pincers twitching. Hissune hefted his cudgel and waited. There was nothing to fear, he told himself, if he kept calm: the idea of this test was not to kill the trainees but only to toughen them, and perhaps to observe their behavior under stress.
He let the malorn get within ten yards. Then he picked up a rock and flipped it toward the creature’s face. The malorn batted it aside easily and kept advancing. Gingerly Hissune edged around to the left, into a saddle of the ridge, keeping to the high ground and gripping his cudgel with both hands. The malorn looked neither agile nor swift, but if it tried to charge him Hissune intended that it would have to run uphill.
“Hissune?”
The voice came from behind him. “Who is it?” Hissune called, without looking around.
“Alsimir.” A knight-initiate from Peritole, a year or two older than he was.
“Are you all right?” Hissune asked. “I’m hurt. Malorn stung me.”
“Hurt bad?”
“My arm’s puffing up. Venomous.”
“I’ll be there right away. But first—”
“Watch out. It jumps.”
And indeed the malorn seemed to be flexing its legs for a leap. Hissune waited, balancing on the balls of his feet, rocking lightly. For an infinitely long moment nothing happened. Time itself seemed frozen: and Hissune stared patiently at the malorn. He was perfectly calm. He left no room in his mind for fear, for uncertainty, for speculation on what might happen next.
Then the strange stasis broke and suddenly the creature was aloft, kicking itself into the air with a great thrust of all its legs; and in the same moment Hissune rushed forward, scrambling down the ridge toward the soaring malorn, so that the beast in its mighty leap would overshoot him.
As the malorn coursed through the air just above Hissune’s head he threw himself to the ground to avoid the stabbing swipes of the deadly tail. Holding the cudgel in both his hands, he jabbed fiercely upward, ramming it as hard as he could into the creature’s underbelly. There was a whooshing sound of expelled air and the malorn’s legs flailed in anguish in all directions. Its claws came close to grazing Hissune as it fell.
The malorn landed on its back a few feet away. Hissune went to it and danced forward between the thrashing legs to bring the cudgel down into the malorn’s belly twice more. Then he stepped back. The malorn was still moving feebly. Hissune found the biggest boulder he could lift, held it high above the malorn, let it fall. The thrashing legs grew still. Hissune turned away, trembling now, sweating, and leaned on his cudgel His stomach churned wildly and heaved; and then, after a moment, he was calm again.
Alsimir lay some fifty feet up the ridge, with his right hand clasped to his left shoulder, which seemed swollen to twice its normal size. His face was flushed, his eyes glassy.
Hissune knelt beside him. “Give me your dagger. I’ve lost mine.”
“It’s over there.”
Swiftly Hissune cut away Alsimir’s sleeve, revealing a star-shaped wound just above the biceps. With the tip of the dagger he cut a cross over the star, squeezed, drew blood, sucked it, spat, squeezed again. Alsimir trembled, whimpered, cried out once or twice. After a time Hissune wiped the wound clean and rummaged in his pack for a bandage.
“That might do it,” he said. “With luck you’ll be in Ertsud Grand by this time tomorrow and you can get
proper treatment.”
Alsimir stared in horror at the fallen malorn. “I was trying to edge around it, same as you—and suddenly it jumped at me and bit me. I think it was waiting for me to die before it ate me—but then you came along.” Hissune shivered. “Ugly beast. It didn’t look half so repulsive in the training manual pictures.”
“Did you kill it?”
“Probably. I wonder if we’re supposed to kill the trackers. Maybe they need them for next year’s tests.”
“That’s their problem,” said Alsimir. “If they’re going to send us out here to face those things, they shouldn’t be annoyed if we kill one occasionally. Ah, by the Lady, this hurts!”
“Come. We’ll finish the trek together.”
“We aren’t supposed to do that, Hissune.”
“What of it? You think I’m going to leave you alone like this? Come on. Let them flunk us, if they like. I kill their malorn, I rescue a wounded man—all right, so I fail the test. But I’ll be alive tomorrow. And so will you.”
Hissune helped Alsimir to his feet and they moved slowly toward the distant green trees. He found himself trembling again, suddenly, in a delayed reaction. That ghastly creature floating over his head, the ring of red staring eyes, the clacking jaws, the soft exposed underbelly—it would be a long time before he forgot any of that.
As they walked onward, a measure of calmness returned.
He tried to imagine Lord Valentine contending with malorns and zeils and zytoons in this forlorn valley, or Elidath, or Divvis, or Mirigant. Surely they all had had to go through the same testing in their knight-initiate days, and perhaps it was this same malorn that had hissed and clacked its jaws at the young Valentine twenty years ago. It all felt faintly absurd to Hissune: what did escaping from monsters have to do with learning the arts of government? No doubt he would see the connection sooner or later, he thought. Meanwhile he had Alsimir to worry about, and also the zeil, the weyhant, the min-mollitor, the zytoon. With any luck he’d only have to contend with one or two more of the trackers: it went against probability that he’d run into all seven during the trek. But it was still a dozen miles to Ertsud Grand, and the road ahead looked barren and harsh. So this was the jolly life on Castle Mount? Eight hours a day studying the decrees of every Coronal and Pontifex from Dvorn to Tyeveras, interrupted by little trips out into the scrub country to contend with malorns and zytoons? What about the feasting and the gaming? What about the merry jaunts through the parklands and forest preserves? He was beginning to think that people of the lowlands held an unduly romantic view of life among the highborn of the Mount.
Hissune glanced toward Alsimir. “How are you doing?”
“I feel pretty weak. But the swelling seems to be going down some.”
“We’ll wash the wound out when we reach those trees. There’s bound to be water there.”
“I’d have died if you hadn’t come along just then, Hissune.”
Hissune shrugged. “If I hadn’t come, someone else would. It’s the logical path across that valley.”
After a moment Alsimir said, “I don’t understand why they’re making you take this training.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sending you out to face all these risks.”
“Why not? All initiates have to do it.”
“Lord Valentine has special plans for you. That’s what I heard Divvis saying to Stasilaine last week.”
“I’m destined for great things, yes. Master of the stables. Keeper of the hounds.”
“I’m serious. Divvis is jealous of you, you know. And afraid of you, because you’re the Coronal’s favorite. Divvis wants to be Coronal—everybody knows that. And he thinks you’re getting in the way.”
“I think the venom is making you delirious.”
“Believe me. Divvis sees you as a threat, Hissune.”
“He shouldn’t. I’m no more likely to become Coronal than—than Divvis is. Elidath’s the heir presumptive. And Lord Valentine, I happen to know, is going to stay Coronal himself as long as he possibly can.”
“I tell you—”
“Don’t tell me anything. Just conserve your energy for the march. It’s a dozen miles to Ertsud Grand. And four more tracker beasts waiting for us along the way.”
THIS IS THE DREAM of the Piurivar Faraataa:
It is the Hour of the Scorpion and soon the sun will rise over Velalisier. Outside the gate of the city, along the road that was known as the Road of the Departure but will be known from this day forward as the Road of the Return, an immense procession is assembled, stretching far toward the horizon. The Prince To Come, wrapped in an emerald aura, stands at the head of the line. Behind him are four who wear the guise of the Red Woman, the Blind Giant, the Flayed Man, and the Final King. Then come the four prisoners, bound with loose withes; and then come the multitudes of the Piurivar folk: Those Who Return.
Faraataa floats high above the city, drifting easily, moving at will over all its vastness, taking in the immensity of it at a glance. It is perfect: everything has been made new, the rampart restored, the shrines set up once more, the fallen columns replaced. The aqueduct carries water again, and the gardens thrive, and the weeds and shrubs that had invaded every crevice have been hacked down, and the sand drifts swept away.
Only the Seventh Temple has been left as it was at the time of the Downfall: a flat stump, a mere foundation, surrounded by rubble. Faraataa hovers above it, and in the eye of his mind he journeys backward through the dark ocean of time, so that he sees the Seventh Temple as it had been before its destruction, and he is granted a vision of the Defilement.
Ah! There, see! Upon the Tables of the Gods the unholy sacrifice is being readied. On each of the Tables lies a great water-king, still living, helpless under its own weight, wings moving feebly, neck arched, eyes glowering with rage or fear. Tiny figures move about the two huge beings, preparing to enact the forbidden rites. Faraataa shivers. Faraataa weeps, and his tears fall like crystal globes to the distant ground. He sees the long knives flashing; he hears the water-kings roaring and snorting; he sees the flesh peeled away. He wants to cry out to the people, No, no, this is monstrous, we will be punished terribly, but what good, what good? All this has happened thousands of years ago. And so he floats, and so he watches. Like ants they stream across the city, the sinful ones, each with his fragment of the water-king held on high, and they carry the sacrifice meat to the Seventh Temple, they hurl it on the pyre, they sing the Song of the Burning. What are you doing? Faraataa cries, unheard. You burn our brothers! And the smoke rises, black and greasy, stinging Faraataa’s eyes, and he can remain aloft no more, and falls, and falls, and falls, and the Defilement is performed, and the doom of the city is assured, and all the world is lose with it.
Now the first light of day gleams in the east. It crosses the city and strikes the moon-crescent mounted on its high pole atop the stump of the Seventh Temple. The Prince To Come lifts his arm and gives the signal. The procession advances. As they march, Those Who Return shift form from moment to moment, in accordance with the teachings of the Book of the Water-Kings. They take on in turn the guises known as the Flame, the Flow, the Falling Leaf, the Blade, the Sands, the Wind. And as they pass the Place of Unchangingness they return themselves to the true Piurivar form, and maintain it thenceforth.
The Prince To Come embraces each of the four prisoners. Then they are led to the altars atop the Tables of the Gods. The Red Woman and the Flayed Man take the younger king and his mother to the east Table, where long ago the water-king Niznorn perished on the night of blasphemy. The Blind Giant and the Final King conduct the older king and the one who comes by night in dreams to the west Table, where the water-king Domsitor was given into death by the Defilers.
The Prince To Come stands alone atop the Seventh Temple. His aura now is scarlet. Faraataa descends and joins him and becomes him: they are one.
“In the beginning was the Defilement, when a madness came over us and we sinned against our br
others of the sea,” he cries. “And when we awakened and beheld what we had done, for that sin did we destroy our great city and go forth across the land. But even that was not sufficient, and enemies from afar were sent down upon us, and took from us all that we had, and drove us into the wilderness, which was our penance, for we had sinned against our brothers of the sea. And our ways were lost and our suffering was great and the face of the Most High was averted from us, until the time of the end of the penance came, and we found the strength to drive our oppressors from us and reclaim that which we bad lost through our ancient sin. And so it was prophesied, that a prince would come among us and lead us out of exile at the time of the end of penance.”
“This is the time of the end of penance!” the people reply. “This is the time of the Prince To Come!”
“The Prince To Come has arrived!”
“And you are the Prince To Come!”
“I am the Prince To Come,” he cries. “Now all is forgiven. Now all debts have been paid. We have done our penance and are cleansed. The instruments of the penance have been driven from our land. The water-kings have had their recompense. Velalisier is rebuilt. Our life begins anew.”
“Our life begins anew! This is the time of the Prince To Come!”
Faraataa lifts his staff, which flashes like fire in the morning light, and signals to those who wait upon the two Tables of the Gods. The four prisoners are thrust forward. The long knives flash. The dead kings fall, and crowns roll in the dust. In the blood of the invaders are the Tables washed clean. The last act has been played. Faraataa holds high his hands.
“Come, now, and rebuild with me the Seventh Temple!”
The Piurivar folk rush forward. They gather the fallen blocks of the temple and at Faraataa’s direction they place them where they once had been.
When it is complete, Faraataa stands at its highest point, and looks out across hundreds of miles to the sea, where the water-kings have gathered. He sees them beating the surface of the water with their great wings. He sees them lift their huge heads high and snort.