A sudden billow of smoke, blacker than midnight, enveloped her form. As the sorcerer fell back, stunned by the sudden change in her aspect, the darkness swirled and gathered into three great petals, becoming a looming tripartite shape reaching to the library’s high ceiling.
A Black Trillium.
She came forth from the center of the Flower, suspended above the floor, a woman cloaked and hooded in lucent white that somehow seemed to combine within it all the colors of the rainbow. Held high in her right hand, the Three-Winged Circle enclosed a dark void that the sorcerer could not take his eyes from. The void expanded suddenly, as if it were a great round window opening into a night without moons or stars, hiding the glowing form of the Archimage. But her radiance still shone from within the boiling smoke.
She did not speak, and yet he felt himself impelled to enter that Circle, as though it were some viaduct leading to eternity.
“No!” he cried, unwilling to accept that she would really threaten him with death when he had left himself unguarded for love and trust of her. “Haramis, you cannot do this!”
The Circle widened further, obliterating all view of the library shelves, the furnishings, the great stone hearth, swallowing the very light in the room. He hung amidst shining smoke with doom only an arm’s length away, magnetic and terrible, compelling him to enter into unending night.
He was afraid. Mortally afraid. But as the dread Circle continued its advance his prayer was not to the Dark Powers but to her.
“Haramis, dearest Haramis! You cannot play false to our truce, to your oath as archimage—to our love. Let me go!”
I know it is unjust to destroy you in this way, Orogastus. I know I have lied to you and broken faith. But by doing so I can spare our world great pain—perhaps even prevent its destruction. Without you, your Star Guild will founder and disappear. There will finally be peace and balance.
“My dearest love, is it you yourself who contemplate this monstrous betrayal—or is it that perfidious talisman? Has it tempted you to impose your own will upon destiny? Denby Varcour knew the peril lurking within the Sceptre of Power! He argued with Binah and Iriane against letting you and your sisters possess the pieces of that dire instrument, even when broken apart from its threefold whole. Do you know why? It is because the talismans can own their owners!”
Haramis was silent, hidden. The enormous Circle drew nearer until it hovered only a finger’s length from his paralyzed body. Beyond was nothingness. Extinction. In another moment he would be gone. She would consign him to emptiness everlasting, thinking that by trampling her own conscience she would bring about a greater good.
In the extreme of desperation, he cried out to her, “Do not trust yourself, nor the talisman! Ask your Flower if you should do this. Ask the Black Trillium if it is right that I die this way! Ask the Flower if this is the way to restore the world!”
He was suddenly blind.
The Circle has swallowed me, he thought, and I am alone in the dark forever, with nothing but my own soul showing me my sins over and over again. Why would she not listen to me? Why would she not let me explain—
He heard her weeping.
Felt the fire’s warmth.
Smelled wine and the exhalation of ancient bookbindings, paper, and parchment.
He opened his eyes and saw her, crumpled facedown on the rug before the hearth. The Circle on the chain around her neck was an empty silver hoop, but atop it the trillium-amber shone like a tiny winged sun.
Numb with relief, he was capable only of standing stock-still, daring to breathe again, looking down at her. After a time she drew herself upright, sitting there amidst the white folds of her Archimage’s cloak.
“How could I?” she asked him, speaking more like a small child confronted with some horror than like a woman repentant. “Holy Flower, how could I have contemplated such dishonor, even for a moment? And all the while not ceasing to love you?”
“The answer is in your hand,” he told her gravely.
She lowered her eyes to the talisman. “I do not believe you.” But her fingers opened and she let the Three-Winged Circle drop, swinging from its neck-chain.
He said, “While I was Denby’s captive I discovered things about the Sceptre—about the magic of the three talismans—that you will have to confront and deal with, Haramis. Let me tell you—”
“Go away!” she said in a voice roughened with misery. Her eyes brimmed. “You have always been a liar and a manipulator. Now I have become like you. Iriane and the Teacher were mistaken. Our love is a despicable thing and I will root it out of myself or die in the trying!”
She attempted to climb to her feet, but her legs were bereft of strength. He helped her up. Then, before she could protest, he kissed her lips fleetingly.
“We will talk again,” he said, “when you have meditated upon this meeting further. And when other events have helped to clarify your thoughts.”
“Go!” she cried, holding the Circle between them with both hands trembling, her eyes squeezed tightly shut against the fresh tears that would have poured fourth. “Go!”
He gathered up his discarded vestments and the second Star, put on his own medallion, and went away.
9
Lummomu-Ko, Speaker of Let, leader of the Wyvilo Folk, and devoted friend of the Lady of the Eyes, had willingly obtained passage for her and her party on a flatboat owned by his cousin that was bound down the Great Mutar River. Over her protests, he had insisted upon accompanying Kadiya as far as the capital of Var, which lay at the rivermouth on the southern coast of the Peninsula.
Kadiya had been tense and moody during the days they had already spent on the voyage. And now the Archimage had come to her in a Sending, and Lummomu had waited for over an hour outside the forward deckhouse while the two sisters conferred secretly. When the Lady of the Eyes emerged at last, the Wyvilo felt his heart sink. Her body was taut with suppressed anger and the grime on her face betrayed the tracks of dried tears.
“The Sending from the White Lady contained evil tidings indeed,” Kadiya declared. “I must speak at once with Wikit-Aa.”
“My cousin is at the tiller,” Lummomu said. “Come with me and watch your footing.”
From behind, the Wyvilo chief had the appearance of a very tall, robustly built man; but his race’s sizable admixture of Skritek blood gave him a face that was pointed like that of a beast, having fearsome white teeth and prominent golden eyes with vertical pupils. Both his neck and the backs of his hands were partly scaled and partly clothed with short red hair. Indulging the proclivity of the Forest Folk for human finery, the Speaker of Let was sumptuously attired. His raincloak was supple maroon leather with embossed golden borders at the hood-edge and hem. He wore pantaloons and a jacket of ocher brocade beneath a sleeveless jerkin of emerald green milingal hide. His matching jackboots had platform soles and spur-leathers, even though he had never sat a fronial in his life. The outfit was completed by a glittering gem-studded baldric and scabbard of flamboyant Zinoran workmanship.
To the untutored eye, the young woman trailing the splendid aborigine looked to be nothing more than a servant. She wore drab gray wool and scuffed black leather, and only her magnificent sword and her assured bearing hinted that she commanded the expedition.
Kadiya and Lummomu made their way cautiously to the stern of the big boat, dodging around bales and hampers and casks of cargo. The deck was slickened and treacherous from the endless rain. Mist clouded the air and made the distant riverbanks nearly imperceptible, so that the flatboat’s midstream progress seemed deceptively slow. But the Great Mutar was already in full spate and the aboriginal trading craft raced through the turbulent brown water almost as fast as a mounted courier could gallop. It was expected that they would reach the twisting river’s mouth, and the Varonian capital of Mutavari, within another nine days.
As she passed the lamplit afterdeckhouse, she saw young Prince Tolivar and his crony Ralabun through the thick, bubbly windowpane. They were wat
ching the Oathed Companions and the off-duty members of the Wyvilo crew play game after game of dance-bones to alleviate boredom. Jagun had discovered years earlier that he and Ralabun were not destined to be congenial, and so he spent most of his spare time with the Wyvilo skipper, Wikit-Aa.
Kadiya and Lummomu found the pair in the small sternhouse that gave the steersman meager cover from the elements. With a little crowding, all four of them shared the shelter.
Jagun beheld the despondent look on the Lady’s face and murmured, “Bad news, then, Farseer?”
“There has been a signal disaster,” she said, and proceeded to describe how Queen Anigel had been swept away in the flooded mire near the Virkar River. “Antar’s warriors and the Nyssomu scouts accompanying the royal entourage have searched for two days. They rescued Immu, who was carried off by the waters at the same time as the Queen, but of my poor sister they found no trace.”
“Surely the White Lady’s talisman—” Jagun began.
But Kadiya shook her head. “It will not show where Ani is, nor reveal anything else about her state, not even if she is alive or dead. Clearly, there is dark magic at work.”
Jagun, Lummomu, and Wikit-Aa bowed their heads and intoned, “May the Triune and the Lords of the Air have pity.”
Kadiya continued. “Since the Queen’s Mireway was ruptured—perhaps by lightning, more likely by the sorcery of the Star Men—the royal caravan has had to turn back to Ruwenda Citadel. It will be impossible to perform road repairs until the Dry Time.”
“And the hunt for the poor Queen continues?” Lummomu inquired.
“It does,” Kadiya said, “with reinforcements from Bonar Castle and the local Nyssomu settlements. But the search may be futile. Just before my sister disappeared, a party of warriors was sent out from the royal train to guard a viaduct site near the mireway. These men have also vanished utterly.”
“By the Holy Flower!” Jagun exclaimed. “Then it is virtually certain that the Star Men have abducted them all through that viaduct!”
“Certain as the changing phases of the Three Moons,” Kadiya said with a grimace. “And the almighty White Lady says she can do nothing about it. Nothing! She has been dallying with that bastard Orogastus, and he has somehow got her all in a swivet, and she says she must think over the alternatives before taking action! While she dithers about, my poor pregnant sister and the others could be dying—or enduring torture. And so I will go to their rescue myself, since Haramis declines to do so. We must turn back at once.”
“Lady, no!” exclaimed the Wyvilo skipper, in a voice full of dismay. “You do not understand the difficulty—”
“I have made up my mind, Wikit-Aa,” Kadiya stated. “You will be handsomely reimbursed for any losses.”
“That is not the point,” Wikit said. “I would gladly sacrifice my cargo if it would help to rescue your sister the Queen. But to return to Let the way we came, against the flow of the Great Mutar in flood, would take no less than two tennights. Possibly three.”
Lummomu-Ko added, “And then it is still nine days or more of travel from Let to Bonar Castle via Tass Falls, Lake Wum, and the mireway. After so long a passage of time, how can you hope to find the Queen alive if the White Lady herself has failed?”
“I will seek them until the Conquering Ice freezes the ten hells!” Kadiya declared. “As to how … the answer came to me moments after the Sending of the Archimage had withdrawn. I shall go to the site of that viaduct with a force of brave warriors, and I will command it to open, using words the White Lady taught me. Wherever the viaduct leads, my comrades and I will go—and at the other end we will find the Star Men’s hideaway, and the Queen and the other persons held captive.”
“Your Royal Sister may already be dead,” Jagun said quietly.
“Anigel is alive!” Kadiya insisted. “We are Daughters of the Threefold—Petals of the Living Trillium. I would know if she had expired. Wikit-Aa, I order you to turn back.”
The Wyvilo skipper said, “Lady of the Eyes, you must understand that this boat is not suitable for upstream travel against a strong current. It is little more than a massive raft with twin deck housings, as befits a watercraft that must withstand the rigors of vicious rapids and the battering of floating debris while hauling much cargo. It is our usual custom, after descending the river to the capital of Var, to sell the boat for its timber after the cargo is disposed of. We make the return journey paddling small Varonian canoes through the shallows.”
“Then you must put me and my knights ashore at the nearest village,” Kadiya said. “I will procure other small craft and boatmen to take us back to Ruwenda. Prince Tolivar and Ralabun will remain with you, and take ship from Mutavari as we had planned.”
“There are no human villages in these parts,” Wikit told her. “Until the Truce of the Mire, the people of Var were too terrified of the savage Glismak Folk dwelling hereabouts to even consider using the Great Mutar as a trade route. Even we Wyvilo shunned the lower section of the river passing through Glismak tribal territory, and this prevented commerce between the Varonians and us. Now, of course, the merchants of Mutavari eagerly welcome our boats. But human settlements along the river are still almost nonexistent because of the uncertain temper of the Glismak. There are only rude outposts here and there where factors of the Mutavari companies trade with tribal gold-gatherers or trappers.” He gestured toward the right bank, which was largely obscured by fog. “One such trading post is nearby, but it is an unsavory place—”
“Pull in,” Kadiya ordered, “and we will review the situation.”
It was midday when the flatboat docked. The Varonian factor in charge of the dismal outpost was a stocky bearded fellow named Turmalai Yonz. He wore greasy buckskins and had a suspiciously enthusiastic manner. When Kadiya and her party came ashore, he greeted them cordially and brought mugs of salka, the bitter cider that was the national beverage of Var. He went away then, promising to check into the availability of manned small boats.
The day remained dark and gloomy and the rainfall was unabating, leaking through the ill-thatched roof of the porch attached to the factor’s squalid lodge. Kadiya, Lummomu, Jagun, Wikit, and Lord Zondain, the senior knight of the six Oathed Companions, sat waiting on crude stools at a rickety table.
“At least the factor seemed sanguine about being able to assist us,” Lord Zondain said in a hopeful tone. “Can’t say that I like the fellow’s looks much, though.” The knight was a burly man of two-and-thirty whose sparse hair was already going gray, a native of the Dylex country in northeastern Ruwenda. His younger brothers, Melpotis and Kalepo, who were also part of Kadiya’s company, had remained on the boat with the other three knights.
“This Turmalai has the smile of a brigand,” little Jagun said, scowling. “I have seen his like skulking about the waterfront of Derorguila and the Trevista trade fairs. They will promise you anything, but delivery is something else again—especially if you have paid in advance.”
“I doubt any well-found craft can be obtained in this wretched pelrik-hole,” growled Lummomu-Ko. With increasing unease he had been watching the activity down by the dock, where figures could be discerned loitering around the Wyvilo vessel. “The humans in these regions are poor and lawless. The honest merchants of Mutavari hold them in contempt.”
“That is true,” said Wikit-Aa. “These river people also hate Wyvilo Folk, since we are so much more hardworking and prosperous than they. We never stop at these sorry outposts if we can help it. And I tell you with all sincerity that we would be wise to quit this one promptly and move on.” He tapped his muzzle with one taloned digit. “My nose itches—and amongst the Wyvilo, that is a sure sign of trouble ahead.”
“I must find a way to return to Ruwenda!” Kadiya was undaunted. “I don’t need a royal trireme, only three or four dugout canoes to accommodate me and Jagun and the knights—”
“And I myself,” Lummomu appended. “You require a trustworthy guide to lead you through Glismak country, an
d can hardly hope to find one here.”
Wikit-Aa tossed salka down his throat with practiced ease. “It will be touch and go for the Lady and her party, even with your redoubtable assistance, Cousin. Would it not be wiser to continue downriver to Mutavari, and there embark with the young Prince on a ship sailing around the Peninsula to Labornok?”
“The sea voyage would take even longer than going up the river,” Lummomu said, “because of the greater distance and the adverse winds at this time of year.”
“And we would then have to travel overland from Derorguila to Ruwenda in order to reach the viaduct,” Kadiya said, “crossing the Vispir Pass. With the yearly monsoons, we could find the pass snowed in by the time we arrived. No … I am determined to return up the Mutar.”
The sagging door of the lodge creaked open, and there stood the beaming factor with a tray, on which stood a steaming crock, a stack of chipped bowls, and a collection of wooden spoons. “Noble guests! This humble one begs you to partake of a nice fresh karuwok stew. Although the utensils are lowly, you will find the dish both bellywarming and delicious on this dreary day.”
Kadiya frowned. “That is most civil of you, Factor Turmalai, but we did not order food.”
The bearded man chortled and began setting out the bowls. He nodded at a pair of tall shabby youths who had emerged from some rear door and were carrying a covered cauldron and a big wicker-covered salka jug down the muddy path to the river. “I have taken the liberty of sending my sons with refreshments for your companions on the boat. The cost will be modest, I assure you. While you eat, my associates are looking into your request for small boats with paddlers.”
“The stuff smells edible,” Lord Zondain conceded, sniffing the portion of stew that had been ladled into his bowl, “and I for one am famished.”
“Splendid!” The factor rubbed his hands and grinned. “I’ll fetch more salka.” He hurried off into the lodge.