“Maybe it’s just being pregnant,” she murmured. “I can’t be this way all the time. Right now even I can’t stand me.” A weak, mocking smile toyed with her lips. “Ihave had friends.”
The baby kicked. She rested her hands upon her stomach, tried to guess if she were feeling an arm or a leg. “Guess you’re going to be a boy. They say boys are more active.”
The baby kicked again. She gasped. It was strong. “Varth?” But he wasn’t there. Out with the King again, probably. What were they up to, anyway? She still didn’t know why Bragi wanted Varth here. Not really. He had his tale to tell, but he was tricky. You never knew. Even Varth might not know.
She hadn’t gotten out of the apartment much, but still had sensed the deep currents twisting through Castle Krief. Servants chattered and speculated. There was trouble with the succession. Bragi had been chosen King, but his family hadn’t been made hereditary custodians of Kavelin. The crown would be up for grabs if he died. Several parties wanted control of the succession.
Then there was the eastern situation, and the sporadic civil war in neighboring Hammad al Nakir, which could have considerable impact here.
And, of course, there were the traditional ethnic frictions within Kavelin itself, frictions three enlightened monarchs had been able to ameliorate only slightly.
She stared out her window and thought of her distant mountain home. She had been no more happy at Fangdred. Each day had witnessed its prayer that the outside would call them forth. Now they were free of that isolation, and she only longed to retreat to the safety of her mountain fastness.
“I must be mad. I can’t even be satisfied when my prayers are answered.” The baby moved again. “What are you doing in there? Jumping rope?” She tried to relax. There was surcease in sleep, sometimes.
Sleep was slow coming. Her back ached. Her legs and feet hurt. Her mind would not abandon its neurotic harping despite her efforts to silence it. And the baby would not lie still.
But sleep of a sort did come, and with it visions as disquieting as anything her mind threw up while awake.
They belonged to a family of dreams she had begun to know well. She dreamed about Ethrian, a desert, and a great, frightening shadow. Her son was calling for help. His voice was weak and remote. The shadow was amused. It lashed out at her child, inflicting intolerable torment. She reached out for Ethrian, but he couldn’t tell she was there.
She had had a lot of Ethrian dreams lately, mainly when she wasn’t too deeply asleep. They varied, yet always showed her son alive, trying to evade some shadowy peril.
Varth claimed it was just pregnancy doing strange things, that her dreams had no parallel in the real world. But she had been through this before, several years ago. She hadn’t been pregnant then.
She believed cluster dreams reflected truth. There was great magic in dreams, though she hadn’t the knowledge to interpret them. Her own touch of magic was severely diminished now she no longer had brothers. Their grasp of the Power had always required the concentration of the entire family...
Varth was no expert, either, but he should know enough to realize her dreams had significance... or did they? Suppose he was right? Suppose they were manifestations of her fears and insecurities?
She was coming out of the twilight into which she’d fallen. She wasn’t chasing every will-o’-the-wisp notion. She was trying to think linearly... And she was disappointed. For an instant she’d felt she’d reached a half-open door, about to capture an unsuspected glimpse of the truth.
She heard a soft rustle, quiet footsteps. She recognized the maid’s step. “I’m awake, Margo.”
“Ah, Lady. I didn’t want to interrupt your nap. Your husband asked me to check.”
“Tell him to come in.”
Varthlokkur seated himself on the edge of her bed, held her hands. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good. What’s happening in the rest of the world?”
“The usual. They’re being born, they’re dying, and generally acting silly in between. Four hundred years I’ve watched them and they haven’t changed. They keep right on doing the same stupid things.”
Disappointment trickled through Nepanthe. There would be no discussing her dream while he was like this. “You’re in that mood again?”
“What mood?”
“All is vanity and chasing after the wind.”
“Hunh! Sometimes it’s the only realistic philosophy.”
He was just within the penumbra of melancholy. He would be unfit to live with if his mood deepened. But he was salvageable now, if she kept him from losing himself inside. “What set you off?” Let him roll it out. Let him look at it and get mad. That would break the chain.
“It’s Bragi. He’s changing. A few years ago his eyes were wide open. Nothing got by him. Nobody fooled him. And he never fooled himself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He isn’t that way anymore. There are intrigues here in Kavelin. Conspiracies about to explode. And he won’t see what’s happening. He goes off and plays Captures or plots against Shinsan. While the real danger grows like a cancer, right behind him.”
Victory! He was angry. “Why do you care? Kavelin isn’t your home. And you’ll outlive its troubles.”
“I don’t know. You’re right. Since Ilkazar fell I haven’t been attached to any particular place. But maybe I like what the old King, Queen Fiana, and Bragi wanted to do here. Maybe I like the promise of their dream, if it succeeds. Maybe I’m aggravated because Bragi has gotten distracted from the real issues. Maybe he’s changing into somebody I don’t like.”
“And maybe you’re misjudging him, Varth. He’s tricky. You never know what he’s doing. He might have his thumb on the pulse of whatever it is that’s worrying you. You can’t ever forget that he’s got Michael Trebilcock. The way people talk, Michael is everywhere and nowhere, and not a whisper of intrigue gets past him. My maids say the nobles are scared to death of him.”
“Uhm. Bragi does have good help. But what happens if he gets so weird they stop agreeing with what he does? Never mind. It’s beyond my influence. I shouldn’t worry. How was your day?”
He had slipped into a more pliable mood. Not a good mood, but the best she would see. “I had another dream. Ethrian was calling for help again.”
Varthlokkur’s face folded into a dark scowl, like a savage old thunderhead. She half expected lightning to prance across his brow.
She chose her words carefully. “I don’t think this is just pregnancy and wishful thinking, Varth. There’s something touching me. I’m not saying it’s Ethrian. Probably it isn’t. But I think you should take me seriously and try to get to the bottom of it. It might be important in some way neither of us can see right now.”
“All right. I’ll do that.” His voice was cool, unhappy. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything to it.” He rose. “I have to go out. I shouldn’t be long.”
She watched him leave. Run, she thought at his back. Get away. Why do you get so upset when I talk about Ethrian?
Several days had passed. Varthlokkur encountered the King in a hallway. Amidst the dancing shadows cast by oil lamps, they paused. Varthlokkur asked, “Any word on Michael yet?”
“Aral found a cold trail. A friend of his saw Michael in Delhagen a few days after the attack on Liakopulos.”
“Strange.”
“Everything is, these days. How long till Nepanthe’s time?”
“Two weeks. Three.”
“Nervous?”
“Very.” The wizard’s smile felt weak. He was beginning to worry. He was getting tied up here, and he had promised Nepanthe that he would take her home before the birthing.
“Nothing to worry about. She didn’t have trouble with Ethrian.”
“Do me a favor? Don’t mention that name. She’s got a bee in her bonnet about him lately. She’s decided he’s still alive. Thinks we should try finding him.”
“Is he?”
“I don’t k
now.”
“A couple weeks ago you said... “
“I know what I said. This isn’t the time to worry about it. We’ve got a baby to get born.” He was surprised at himself. He was snarling. Did the possible survival of the boy so threaten him?
“I’ll check back later, in case something turns up.”
“It won’t.” He watched the King depart. The man’s shoulders were stiff in a carrying-the-weight-of-the-world fashion. “My friend, you’re going to have to learn to mind your own business at least some of the time.” He wheeled and stalked toward his apartment.
8 Year 1016afe
Warlord of the Dead
THIS ONE IS coming right at us!” Ethrian shouted. “Let’s get out of here!” Sahmanan ran down the stone beast’s neck. Ethrian pursued her.
A flash of silver plunged out of the blue. The beast shunted it slightly. It hit his side. He responded with a great bellow of rage.
“What are they?” Sahmanan asked, rising from the beast’s back.
“I don’t know.” Ethrian surveyed the destruction wrought among the beast’s soldiers. “But they’re effective. Let’s get down from here before one of them gets us.” He gave her a gentle shove.
He looked out across the desert. The Tervola remained standing atop their dune. They did not seem dismayed by the advance of the armies of the dead.
Ethrian and Sahmanan were almost to ground level when another shaft arrived. It plunged almost straight down, in front of the beast’s nose. It released its energy in Sahmanan’s pond.
Huge gouts of steam flung skyward. Chunks of stone fell out of the beast’s forelegs. The paving blocks between them churned and tossed. The exit from the caverns collapsed.
Sahmanan wept for her shattered project.
“Your Great One isn’t doing so hot,” Ethrian observed. “They’re cutting us to ribbons. Maybe I made a mistake, giving him the power to defend us. He’s just wasting the armies.”
“He can get more.”
“Really? You think the Tervola will let us out of the desert? That’s just an exploration party. What happens when they get mad? They know what’s going on now. They know what they have to do. Your Great One keeps on, we’ll be dead by the end of the week. Him included.”
Sahmanan cocked her head. “The silver things. They’ve stopped.”
She was right. The bombardment had ended. Ethrian examined the damage the last shaft had done. “Going to take a lot of work to clear this.” He walked on round to where he could see what was happening at the dune.
Nothing was happening. The stone beast’s soldiers were standing around. “What now?” Ethrian demanded.
“They’re gone. He can’t figure it out. They walked down the back of the dune and disappeared.”
Ethrian spat in disgust. “A transfer portal. I swear, I could do better than this so-called god if... “
“Don’t talk like that!”
“I’ll talk any way I want. Incompetence is incompetence. I want out of this place. I won’t make it if this keeps on.”
The stone beast growled something about not yet being in possession of his full might. Ethrian snarled that he had misused what he had been given. The argument persisted throughout the four days it took to clear the exit from the caverns. Ethrian insisted that the beast become his slave. The beast refused.
Sahmanan usually spoke for the godling. Now she remained quiet and thoughtful. She pottered round her pool like a child trying to find all the pieces of a broken china doll.
“They’re waiting in the mountains,” Ethrian told the woman. “A full legion, ready for battle. I suppose your Great One will waste the rest of his manpower there.”
“He doesn’t take defeat lightly, Ethrian.”
He glanced at her. That was the first time she had used his name. “Neither do they, friend. Neither do they. In fact, they’ve been defeated only once. By my grandfather, my uncles, my aunt, and the man who killed my father. They were trying to avenge that when I was captured.”
As if hoping the stone beast would not hear her, Sahmanan whispered, “I believe you. I’m afraid of them. But how do we get Him to listen? It isn’t like it was. He doesn’t give me my share anymore. In the wars with Nahaman I did most of the fighting.”
“Maybe he blames you for losing.”
“But I... “
“Whose fault it was wouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t admit it if it were his. He’s supposed to be a god. Gods are supposed to be omnipotent and infallible.”
“What should we do?”
“Follow the army. Be ready to help. We’ll share its fate whether we do or not. The Tervola aren’t merciful.”
Sahmanan nodded. “Wait here.”
She went down between the stone beast’s legs, bucking the flood pouring from the caverns. For a long time Ethrian watched the soldiers march out, form units, and head toward the mountains. There seemed no end to the hidden horde.
Maybe the beast needed no finesse. Maybe it could accept the ridiculous casualties indefinitely.
Sahmanan returned as the sun was setting. She led two small dragons. “They lost their riders. The Great One has no use for them.”
The thought of flying startled butterflies in Ethrian’s stomach. “I don’t know... “
“There’s nothing to fear. It’s like riding a horse. Just tell it what to do. They were as intelligent as us when they were alive.”
“They aren’t alive now.” He meant they had to be animated by the stone beast. Riding them, they were at his mercy.
He smiled suddenly. He had nothing to fear. Did he? The godlet would preserve him till it acquired everything he had to give.
“Just do what I do,” Sahmanan said. “Up!” Her mount hurled itself into the air. Its wings pounded like brazen gongs. She circled a hundred feet overhead.
Ethrian took a deep breath. “Up, you devil.”
The dragon’s back slammed against his behind. He wobbled, held on. The ground sank away. His heart hammered. He closed his eyes.
When he opened them his mount was circling behind Sahmanan’s. They were a few yards above the stone beast’s head. The change in vantage made the desert look ten times more vast. “I don’t think I was meant for this,” he shouted.
The woman glanced over her shoulder, said something to her mount. It peeled off the circle and streaked westward.
“Follow,” Ethrian croaked.
He soon got the hang of flying, and knew he would never enjoy it. The fall was too long. Sahmanan, though, seemed born for wings. While he plodded along, inexpertly enduring, she hurtled high and low, exulting in aerobatics. He became queasy just watching.
Finally, she glided as close as the monsters’ wings permitted. “We’re almost there.” The mountains loomed ahead. Barren foothills climbed below. Her right hand thrust out. Ethrian spied a notch marked with patterned lines. The lines swelled into defensive works.
Sahmanan dropped like a stone. Her wild plunge broke only yards above the lifeless mountainside. Her dragon banked and slid off into a side canyon which expanded into what had been a broad meadow in olden times. Ethrian followed at a higher altitude, and descended only when there were no mountains to crowd him.
The one-time meadow boasted rank upon rank of undead soldiery, arrayed as they had been beneath the earth. He counted, and counted, and counted some more, and scanned the column still winding across the desert. He could not calculate the number of them.
“How many soldiers?” he asked as his feet hit the ground. He sat down immediately. His nerves were raw.
“We had a hundred-fifty thousand. All he could control, plus a margin for replacement.”
“What do you mean, all he could control?”
“He can only animate so many. About a hundred thousand right outside the mountain. Out here... Well... “
“Hmm.” This bore closer scrutiny. “You’d better explain. If he’s got weaknesses besides stupidity... “
“The farther from the mounta
in, the fewer bodies he can control. Inside five miles he can handle a hundred thousand. You couldn’t tell them from live soldiers, except they’d keep getting up. Out here he can’t control more than fifty thousand, and those clumsily. That’s why these are just standing around. He has thirty thousand up in the pass.”
“And if we go to the edge of the desert?”
“Ten or fifteen thousand. At a thousand miles he couldn’t animate more than four or five.”
Ethrian surveyed the ranks. “How did he plan to go anywhere? He has big ideas. Looks like a penny-farthing empire to me. It’ll never get out of the desert.”
“That’s why we’re important.”
“How so?”
“Later.” She would answer no more questions. It was not yet time, she insisted. First the beast had to avenge himself on the men in the pass.
Ethrian found some shade. After a time he decided he had it reasoned out.
The beast meant him to yield fully. It thought it could trick him into slavery. Then it would transfer its ability to manipulate the dead. Mobile, he would create the new empire.
He took his speculations to Sahmanan. She merely nodded.
He was smiling when he returned to his patch of shade. His position was stronger than he had anticipated. Smug, he dozed off.
He did not go into a deep sleep, only into a twilight state. He controlled his thinking. The moment was too good to waste.
Gently, gently, with little tugs at stubborn folds, he pulled himself free of his body. He floated over the army of the dead, unafraid of falling. He rejoiced in his freedom. There was no pain here.
He noted a darkness clinging to the mountains where the legion lay. He let himself sense, felt the edge of the stone beast’s power. It was driving its hordes against Shinsan’s earthworks.
Ethrian willed himself westward, was not pleased with what he found. The beast had hurled thirty thousand men at the defenses. Silver missiles slashed huge gaps in their ranks. Dead soldiers who got close enough to fight were overwhelmed immediately. The darkness was the smoke of fires burning the captured dead.