by Jim Grimsley
The bed had seen a lot of use. A good goose-down mattress, and as a bonus one could hear the geese out the window. Kirith Kirin could barely stand in the room, the ceiling was so low. We undressed by a single lamp and lay down in the clean linen, smelling the pig sty and the chicken roost through the torn grease-paper. He made a joke about it and we lay together talking for a while, touching shyly. The room made him curious about my farm and my family and I told him some about it. “When all this is over,” he said, “we’ll go there. I want to see the place. If you can stand the sight.”
“It would be good, I think.”
We made love in the feather mattress with Kirith Kirin’s feet sticking off. He had some trouble working round my arm and I felt the comic touches as keenly as the touches of pleasure; we were laughing through to the end. His body reached through me and while we were moving together, with his presence inside me and mine in him, I pictured his touch as cleansing me of all the places Drudaen had reached, when my body lay undefended. The healing went on and on. At the end I told him so, and he said he thought the boy was back. He could feel the difference himself. This was when his heaviness finally lifted.
Neither of us really slept. Our hours together being short, we talked into morning. We had never talked as much before and repeated all kinds of nonsense to one another, the things companions like to say. None of it bears repeating though every word is etched in my memory.
Sometimes, with the part of me that was kei, I stopped to listen to the sounds of the other planes. The certainty that my enemy was gathering force beneath shadow returned. I tried to hide this listening from Kirith Kirin but he knew too much, and finally asked, “What do you hear?”
“There’s a change in his presence. I don’t know what.”
“Don’t you?” He sat up in bed and pulled me against him. “Don’t you think he can guess where you are and why you’re here?”
I hadn’t thought of that. Kirith Kirin went on. “He’s preparing something to drive you back into Laeredon.” The wisdom of this surprised me and it showed in my face. He laughed, touching my nose with his fingertip. “I told you, I’ve known the great magicians. I know how he thinks. He’s afraid I’ll take you with me into Vyddn. Mark my words.”
Too soon his prophecy came true. A sudden light filled the narrow window of the chamber, and on all the planes Drudaen set out a huge cry, raising his Tower against mine and beginning the song that sends the circular storm. I had the Necklace near me and could hear his voice. The assault shook all my Wards and I shivered in the cramped bedroom, Kirith Kirin curled around me. Sadness filled him. “I was right.” Sliding out of bed, he handed me my drawers. “It’s nearly morning anyway.”
I made him look me in the eye, standing naked against him, I kissed him brazenly, like a strumpet. His body responded and we clung to each other. “This time we know we’ll see each other again. As long as you don’t get yourself hurt in Vyddn.”
That made him laugh. “I’m too tough and old for that.”
We dressed, and he sent for someone to have Nixva saddled. All the sentries were watching the weyr-light on the horizon, a funnel of fire pouring upward. As I fastened the Cloak, I spoke Words of my own, reaching out to Laeredon for an answer to my enemy. The Tower responded and the soldiers, nearby, looked back at me. Murmuring prayers, they drew back, lest some stray lightning bolt should fall on them, I guess. Kirith Kirin stood his ground until Nixva came cantering, all saddled and ready, impatient to be off. I gave them all a show as I was leaving, kindling the Cloak till it threw off light as bright as the Towers. “I’ll see you in Genfynnel,” I said, and he took my hand a moment. “Mind you get there soon.”
“Very soon,” he said, meeting my eye.
I rode off in a storm of light. As I departed, I saw Imral and Pelathayn running to him across the field; I waved and headed toward my work, as soon they would head toward theirs.
4
We rode at higher speed on the return journey, and I spent the time deep-singing and setting into motion defenses I had already prepared during my days alone on the High Place. This time, heading to Laeredon, I had a sense of joy and fullness.
That the Wizard stood on his High Place and fought me Tower to Tower was proof of respect. Now I did not have to wonder whether he had laid some trick for me; his hand was revealed. I was determined, on that ride, to make it backfire against him if I could. He meant to pin me in my High Place. That was all well and good from his perspective. But I meant to do the same to him.
Sunrise broke over east Kellyxa with the two Towers still belching light. The early striving went to him almost by definition, since he stood in his body on Yruminast while I held Laeredon by voice and thought. His shadow broke over my Wards and from the western mountains came wind and gathering clouds. But I noticed, in my fourth-level seeing, a curious fact. While Laeredon and her power withstood little of his early assault, Ellebren held her countryside entire and his hand never troubled her. This difference could not be credited to the virtue of Arthen, since his troubling weather broke over Arthen easily in her southern reaches.
But I had heard enough through the locket by now to know it was the lines of Praeven runes that made the difference. Though I knew nothing of them, the locket made that irrelevant; the Praeven Words harmonized with the Wyyvisar and Ellebren reached him with a two-voiced magic against which he knew no defense.
So, while I employed the strength of Laeredon to hold my Wards and to repel shadow to some extent, I sent the main part of my thought back to Ellebren. I called to Ellebren to move against him, to unsettle his power in the mountains and to counter his stormbringing. The whole Tower answered, Wyyvisar and Praeven magic blended.
He knew the Laeredon High Place but had never set foot in Ellebren. No one knew Ellebren except her builders, and they never wakened her power to use. Only I had done that. The Praeven magic had a feeling like nothing else. Its presence in Ellebren troubled him deeply. While I stood on Laeredon in my body, I had not noticed this. But riding toward Genfynnel I saw the distinction.
I sang to Ellebren to move against his storm and suddenly his thought was not so clear. Answering my calling-song, Ellebren’s deep places reached toward Cunevadrim and I could feel his palpable confusion, a wavering of his thought. He recovered quickly; his skill and power allowed him to do so. But the wavering recurred when I reached to him from Ellebren again, while my hand from Laeredon hardly touched him.
As I rode, the Bane Necklace dangled from my neck, its strange runes beating against my chest.
We reached Genfynnel soon. Even in the urgency of the moment, we merely cantered through the city streets at sunrise as the merchants were setting up in the market. Near the Tower base, beyond my Wards, I found a delegation from the City Lord awaiting me, wishing news about this present battle. Would the Keerfax return? I told them no. The City remained under my protection. But when I climbed to the High Place they would see signs of conflict.
They bustled away. Through the kirilidur I ascended. I climbed to the shenesoeniis and walked under the clouds.
My vision sharpened through the seeing-stone. The movement of Words beneath me in Laeredon matched itself to the movement of Words within the engine of distant Ellebren. I had learned to use the Bane Necklace well enough by now that I no longer needed to grasp it, and I heard his voice calling storm. Now he contested my hand in the east as well, confusing my own winds.
I entered fourth-level sleep with my body beside the Eyestone, my awareness grown very small in the place where Words are spoken. Seeing a long way, I understood his strength. Light cascaded on all the planes from the White Tower in which he stood, and his song moved in waves like a rainbow. There was nothing repulsive in his voice or in the Words. The sound of Ildaruen was not so strange to my ears this time and I had less difficulty concentrating. The vastness of him at that moment defied belief, his hand moving from four shenesoeniisae, his voice making shadow over half of Aeryn, his wards stretching out through valley and forest
, storm kindling at his behest in the west and east at once, and his whole thought bending toward Laeredon. He meant to shrink me down to size and pin me here by throwing all of Yruminast against me. For a moment, on fourth-level, I could feel and see the motion of all this. His magic filled the terrain I had come to know. The sight pleased me no end. He was moving his hand in all places doing all things, making shadow over the southern countryside and stirring storm on both sides of the mountains. Now he was pushing my wards and setting himself against the Tower in which I stood. I had only to defeat him in one place and his pride would suffer.
Drawing the Cloak around me I began the pattern of breathing in my body that would deepen the dual trance. Quietly reasserting myself from Laeredon into the east, moving under veil, I divided my eye onto Ellebren and Laeredon at the same time. I divided my song with an equal mind; I had never done this before but saw it as if it were a new move in a dance. I sang from both places in different ways and brought the weight of Ellebren onto him. As I did, linking the runes of the Necklace to the runes of the distant Tower, I began to understand.
Kentha made Ellebren and made the Necklace too, and in so doing fashioned the perfect weapon against Drudaen, tying the Tower through the Praeven Runes to the gem he had given her, which was all his weakness handed to her in love. The power of Ellebren worked against him out of proportion to my skill because Drudaen could not defend himself entirely from the gem, and the magic in two languages perplexed him as well. The Diamysaar had not known this to teach, no one had, till someone climbed to Ellebren and used the High Place.
I sang against his shadow using Ellebren’s whole strength, and even in daylight I could see the bright answering fire over the horizon. My object was not to push shadow farther back but to strike at its heart, at Yruminast-over-Cunevadrim where the Wizard stood. I opposed him in no other way, bringing all my thought from Ellebren against his High Place. Even on fourth level I could feel the shuddering of many curves.
Over Cunevadrim I tore open shadow and ruptured his veil to see him clearly. It was as if I reached toward him with a single fierce light and burnt him. A shuddering went through all of shadow and his song faltered. I could see the bulk of his thought before he closed the tear I had made.
This was the thought I read: he meant to ride south as soon as he could, and his intention remained to bring the White Tower to bear on me in such ways that he could use from afar to keep me penned in Laeredon. He meant to prevent me riding after him and opposing him on the ground. Fear of the Gem and Ellebren loomed big in his mind. He wished to undertake a work in the south that he thought might bring me down. That thought he held protected even with the veil torn, and I could not discern what he intended to do.
Before he closed the veil I could feel his surprise and then his chill, when he understood the blow had come from Ellebren. He would wonder if I had returned there. So I lifted my song over Laeredon and reached to the eastern mountains, conjuring storm to send over the army he had abandoned on the Vyddn Plain.
To his eye, I stood in both places at once. I could feel his confusion even beneath his defenses. I struck from Ellebren again but this time he was better prepared; I broke shadow but his veil held. We continued in this way, through a long day and into another. He stayed on the High Place as I did.
This was later called the War of Lights, named by those people who suffered the effects and made stories and songs about it. I kept fair skies in the part of the world where Kirith Kirin traveled, but the Wizard’s storms tore across Arthen, Genfynnel and the Fenax, while mine raged over Vyddn and Antelek. For ten days I stood on the Tower without a moment’s rest, till I was thin and worn as old bone. But for that ten days he stood with me, not daring to ride south as he wished, and we took the measure of each other. Because I did not lose, I won.
My wards bent but held. By concentrating my strength, I could thwart any part of his magic-making I chose; and so I chose my victories carefully. I broke shadow over Arroth, Turis and Antelek, the countries in which it had held longest. I broke shadow, for a time, over Ivyssa as well, to make a point. The people there would know the Wizard to be opposed, and it is remembered that they took heart at the sight of the sky. Because of the distance I could only hold back shadow for a time; but the story spread. I hurled storm with good effect and did so where I chose. The key to this was simple. I never opposed him in all ways and I never lifted my hand against him directly except from Ellebren. I never fought where I could not beat him.
I beat him with strategy, not strength. But strategy counts. This I learned walking on Laeredon and Ellebren at the same time.
The Genfynnel garrison came marching from Arthen during all of this. Lady Idhril led the soldiers, mostly infantry and a few mounted folk, across the storm-swept country into a terrain that burned night and day, kaleidoscopes of whirling fire. I noted their progress and protected their passage, though I could not protect them from his weather entirely. The garrison crossed the bridges and came through Osar Gate at night, under threat of lightning in pouring rain, with the Tower lights casting eerie color onto the walls and buildings, the countryside and the surfaces of the rivers. Lady Idhril moved the soldiers first into Telkyii Tars and from that acropolis she dispatched patrols throughout the city, manning the walls. She spoke to Zaevyeth, met with the militia commanders, sent messengers to Laeredon to await my descent, making each move crisply.
When I descended I smelled of lightning and my hair nearly stood on end. I greeted her with appropriate courtesy and we stepped aside from her retinue. “I bring Kirith Kirin’s blessings,” she said. Idhril was tall, with hair the color of fire, and her arms were thick with muscle; she had the broad, pallid face of uplands people, the Svyssn, not of the finer boned, darker Jisraegen. “He sent me messengers from Lake Dyvys.” She offered me folded parchment, sealed with the Prince’s ring. Addressed in his own hand, not written by one of the clerks. I slid the letter into my Cloak.
Indicating the High Place, she said, “We’ve been watching the show all the way from Arthen. The southern light, is that Cunevadrim?”
“Yes, ma’am. I expect it will go on for a while. I can’t do much more than I’ve done to protect the city from weather, any more than I could protect you, so you might warn folks about that.”
“I’ve opened Telkyii Tars. I have a room ready for you, whenever you can sleep.”
I took the moment to nibble cake and drink cumbre. We talked a while. I asked about the march, especially leaving Arthen. She had not walked out of tree-shadow in a long time, she said. She asked about the early battle for Laeredon and I told her some of the details, and then the aftermath, the work I had done to restore order in Genfynnel. She asked me a few questions about that — Kirith Kirin briefed her in letters so there was not much she didn’t know. I asked about the Verm. They were still in the city.
When in my body and away from the High Place, I lost track of the Wizard. I could hear his voice and it seemed to me he still stood where I had left him. But when I returned to the summit again, I knew he had gone.
He had taken his opportunity to ride away; I was sure of it. I searched for him in various ways. I failed to detect any change beneath his Veil that would indicate his whereabouts, except that the Verm under his eye were marching as well, west beyond the Narvos Ridge.
Soon, however, when Drudaen sang ithikan to increase his speed, I knew he was on horseback.
He rode in a fury. He had much strength left to him, as far as I could gauge. I called up what I had to spare to force him back, but his own Tower, answering to his Words, rendered me ineffective. He had chosen his moment carefully. I slowed his riding some but could not stop it.
At the same time, in the north, Kirith Kirin dropped a gem into fire that gave me the signal I awaited. So I turned my attention there.
My enemy rode south, as had been his wish. I lost sight of him in the Hills of Slaughter.
5
The Drii force reached southern Cundruen near Monta
jhena as Kirith Kirin marched north from Lake Dyvys, moving quickly up the Pajmar into Vyddn. When all was in place, on signal, I focused Laeredon Tower on breaking shadow as far south of Vyddn as my hand could reach. In place of shadow I left storm cloud of my own, the type armies hate, with torrents of rain and teeth of lightning or cyclone. This cut off any real hope of retreat.
I maintained this tense posture through the long wait that followed. Stretched, with Drudaen’s Tower still singing at my back, I brought my will to bear from Vyddn through Trenelarth and Rars, even reaching into north Onge. This wait encompassed two days or more. The Prince meant to let the Queen’s soldiers get a good look at his forces before he sent his terms to them. These hours of readiness would save lives, he thought.
At last he signaled me a battle would begin, and a small battle was indeed fought. Some Verm put up good resistance but the Queen’s soldiers quickly sued for terms. The Verm retreated toward Cundruen, preferring that to my storm, and the Venladrii caught them there. They fought again, and the Verm died or were captured; none surrendered. The Queen’s soldiers laid down their arms with few casualties. Kirith Kirin spent a day processing the prisoners, getting wagons for their abandoned arms, ordering the march back to Genfynnel and greeting King Evynar, who had led the Venladrii through Cundruen. They were aware of the need for speed, though they did not know Drudaen had gone south already. Within a day, the armies marched for Genfynnel with their prisoners, five thousand of the Queen’s soldiers. I hear they were a jolly lot, congratulating themselves on being marched to a comfortable confinement in Genfynnel. Before they surrendered, Kirith Kirin had let them know shadow was broken there.