For a moment the two of them just stared at one another. High above them the thrashing of the dying ikati loosed an avalanche of small rocks, which rained down upon them both. Colivar felt one strike his temple, drawing blood. He did not move.
And then the thrashing ceased. Somewhere in the distance a final blow was struck . . . and the ikati was dead at last.
The girl shrieked.
It was not a human sound, nor even a bestial one. It was a bloodcurdling amalgam of terror and madness and agony such as never should have issued from any living throat. The fact that it came from so young a girl made the sound doubly horrifying. Colivar could sense the men surrounding him freeze in their tracks, unable to comprehend such a sound. But Colivar understood it. He had heard it before. And in the depths of his soul, where his own darkest secrets lay buried, he understood the pain behind it, and he could feel his own heart bleed for her.
Moving wildly now, she tried to draw back from him. A shard of bone broke through the skin of her upper arm, and she howled in pain as another bone snapped, but still she scrambled backward. Pure animal instinct. She must have been joined to the ikati for a very long time, to have so completely lost touch with her humanity. Her age was probably just an illusion. Sometimes that happened. Sometimes they wanted to retain the appearance they’d had the night they were joined to the ikati, so they drew upon the power of their consorts to keep looking young.
Colivar could have used sorcery to help heal her wounds, or at least ease her pain. But that would have been a violation in her eyes, and he could not bring himself to do it.
“Kossut!” she hissed. “Kossut tal getu!”
In another universe Guardians were climbing the rock mount, trying to get to the Souleater before the poison in its flesh dissolved the body parts they needed to harvest. More spear tips must be crafted. More arrowheads must be made. If the ancient formulas that the Archivist had researched did what they were supposed to do, then the creature’s hide could be crafted into new armor, tougher to pierce than the finest steel plate.
Slowly, Colivar knelt down before the girl. She was sputtering broken phrases in a foreign tongue, fragments of a language that he had had not heard for so many years he had to struggle to remember its meaning.
“What is she saying?” Ramirus asked him. Sometime in the last few minutes he had come up beside Colivar, and now he gazed down at the girl with naked curiosity.
“That her children are gone,” Colivar answered. “Someone took them from her. She thinks that is what we are here for, to steal her children. But she says they have already taken them all, so there is nothing left for us.” He furrowed his brow as he listened to the broken words, trying to make sense of them. “Queen of sand, queen of ice, there must be two . . . ” He shook his head. “I can’t make sense of it all. The dialect has changed since . . . .” He hesitated. “It is a dialect I do not know.”
“What language?”
Favias’ voice came from behind them.“Kannoket.”
Colivar nodded.
Ramirus reached out toward the girl. Colivar’s first instinct was to stop him, but he did not interfere. She was not his to protect.
A misty image began to take shape above her head. It started as a mass of swirling gray clouds, with hints of orange light playing about the edges. As Ramirus teased the image into finer focus, the clouds parted, revealing a bird’s-eye view of a mountainous land. In the distance, on all sides, were vast expanses of ice and snow, lifeless but beautiful. In the middle of that frozen wasteland was a narrow island of green earth, set in a valley between several rugged ice-bound peaks. There were houses in the valley, constructed of sod and manure, and herds of sheep had gathered to graze near the banks of a clear black river. It might have seemed a peaceful scene, under other circumstances. But the animals were clearly agitated, and as Colivar watched, they looked about nervously, as if expecting that at any moment some danger might come rushing at them.
The earth rumbled.
The herd began to move . . . and then began to run, scattering terrified across the landscape. People came out of the sod houses to see what was going on, and one of them pointed to the mountain directly to the north of them. It was a tall peak, with footpaths winding up its rocky flanks and a wide caldera at its summit. Hot pools steamed about its base, and smoke was rising from the caldera itself, as a bulging dome began to push upward through the rock.
And the mountain exploded.
The girl who had fallen off the Souleater shivered violently, and she wrapped her good arm about her knees as she rocked back and forth, keening in terror. Colivar watched in horrified fascination as Ramirus’ vision was filled with roiling clouds of gray ash, backlit with the orange light of molten lava. One particularly thick cloud began to move down the volcano’s flank, heading toward the pristine valley below: a wall of ash and fire roaring down the mountainside, searing everything in its path. Crops were incinerated, houses charred and blackened, animals seared like cooked meat. The people turned to run, but even if they could have run fast enough to get away, there was nowhere to go. A few tried to make it to the river, but they could not get there in time . . . nor was it likely that the boiling steam rising up from the river’s surface would have provided a useful shelter.
It was all over in moments. Where once there had been an expanse of rich and verdant life, now there was only death and ruin. There was no movement left, save for the clouds roiling overhead. No noise, save for the mountain’s rumbling.
The image faded.
It was a moment before Colivar could bring himself to speak. “Their food source was destroyed,” he whispered. “That’s why they came south. The Wrath wasn’t strong enough to hold them against the force of certain starvation. Perhaps it had never been strong enough, but no one had ever tested it on that scale before . . . .”
“The sunsets,” Favias said quietly.
Colivar knew what he meant. There had been a few months in the winter when the northern sky had turned the color of blood, especially at sunset, and men had wondered at the cause. Various religions had come up with explanations that had to do with warring gods, ancient omens, or even the end of the earth. Now they knew the truth.
That was when the invasion had begun.
That was why it had begun.
Overhead the sound of knives hacking at flesh could be heard, and occasional curses in northern dialects. Other men moved silently among the fallen warriors, seeking those who were still alive. There were many bodies that would never stir again, including that of the Penitent witch, who had expended the last of his life-essence to keep the portal open. A sacred cause, for which his intolerant god would surely reward him.
Kneeling down by the girl’s side, Colivar whispered hoarsely to her in her own language. The Kannoket words tasted strange on his tongue. At first it seemed she did not hear him, but then she began to respond. Tears ran down her face as broken sounds poured out of her. They made little sense to him, but he could use his sorcery to draw meaning from them in the privacy of his own head. All he needed was an anchor to work with.
She was quite mad, of course. She would never be anything but mad, ever again. That was the price a human being paid for such an unnatural union.
And a Souleater, also.
When he had gathered all the information he needed, he took her dirt-streaked face in his hands—gently, oh so gently!—and gazed steadily into her eyes. She trembled in his grasp but did not pull away. Perhaps she could sense what he truly was . . . or what he had once been. In all the centuries since his First Transition he had rarely felt anything akin to human compassion, but he felt it now. What a strange and alien feeling it was.
Carefully, gently, he severed the vital connection between her heart and her brain. He eased his sorcery into her flesh as delicately as he could, not wanting her to be aware of what he was doing. Go to sleep, little sister. Find your peace in the next world. There is none for you here.
Slowly, the girl re
laxed. The rhythm of her breathing slowed, and her trembling began to subside. He released her from his hands, and she lowered her head to the rocky earth, dazed and exhausted. Her eyelids fluttered shut. The heart that had been pounding so wildly managed a few final beats, then subsided into silence.
Gently, Colivar brushed the tangled hair back from her face. He did it respectfully, reverently, as befit the queen mother of an entire species. It amazed him how human his emotions felt, in that moment. Which was, of course, the ultimate irony, given that the cause of it was anything but human.
Standing up, he saw that Salvator now stood beside him, along with Ramirus, Gwynofar, and Favias. The other Guardians were still up on the mound, cutting apart the dead Souleater, and Salvator’s men were tending to the fallen. Death was in the air.
Three parallel gashes now ran diagonally across one side of the High King’s face, barely missing his eye. It gave his expression a strangely predatory aspect as he glared at Colivar. For one mad moment the Magister thought Salvator might actually have the audacity to berate him for using his sorcery to help bring the Souleater down. His own eyes narrowed, and the warning in them was clear: Don’t start with me now, Salvator. I’m not in the mood.
But the High King said only, “What have you learned?”
He drew in a deep breath, trying to settle his thoughts. “The men of the colony took her eggs. That’s why the nests we found were all wrong. She hadn’t made them. They wanted to raise another queen that they could bind to a southern woman, so they took her eggs away from her . . . a new queen will not hatch if another one is too close by . . . .” His words trailed off. Further explanation was unnecessary. The consequences of that effort were all around them, the desperate attempts of a raging beast to replace what had been stolen from her. How many clutches had they taken? How many times had her maternal instinct been awakened, only to have it violated? How many human children had she kidnapped from their mothers in turn, trying to fill the terrible void inside her, only to find that she lacked the capacity to keep them alive? Casting each one down upon the rocks as it died, weeping over its fallen body before setting out to try again.
“They left some of the males to guard her. That is . . . an offense among their kind. So she killed them all. The ones we found . . . they were the last ones to die.” He shook his head solemnly. “She says that only one of her daughters is alive. They took her down south, to what she calls a place of sand and sun. They wanted to be as far from the ice as possible, so that no man could ever trap them in the cold and the dark again.”
“Anshasa,” Ramirus said quietly.
Colivar shut his eyes for a moment. “There are several nations surrounding the Great Desert. And several smaller deserts, besides that one. But yes, Anshasa is a possibility.”
“If there is only one female left . . . .” Favias began.
Colivar nodded. “If the last queen dies, the entire species can be destroyed. It may take years to destroy them all. But those who are killed will not be replaced.”
“Then we must find this other queen and deal with her,” Salvator said firmly. “Before she lays a clutch of her own.”
Easier said than done, Colivar mused. Especially when that one is bound to a woman of the Witch-Queen’s formidable intelligence.
One of the guards was walking toward them. The expression on his face was grim.
“What is the count?” Salvator asked him.
“Three dead, for certain. Three more in some kind of coma. We can’t wake them up.”
“Szandor?” Salvator asked, naming the witch.
Lips tight, the man shook his head.
Salvator sighed, and he made some kind of religious sign over his heart. “May the Creator have mercy upon their souls.”
The Guardians were climbing down from the mount now, passing Gwynofar from hand to hand to help her descend. Salvator watched for a moment, then headed toward where the horses were being held. “We’ll ride south, to the Danovar monastery. The brothers will see to our wounded, and we can arrange for transportation home from there.”
“Are we Magisters welcome to accompany you?” Colivar asked, a faint edge to his voice.
The High King turned to him. The bloody cuts on his face made his expression of displeasure all the more marked. For a moment he just stared at Colivar, and the Magister could only imagine what was going through his mind. But he simply nodded slowly, coldly, and responded, “You may follow us if you wish. But I make no promise about your reception at the monastery.” He glanced up at the dead ikati perched high above them, its long tail dripping blood down the side of the rock mound. “You are but one step removed from such creatures, in the eyes of my Church.”
“And in your eyes?”
Salvator’s gaze was dark and cold. There was no answer in them.
As the morati began to gather up their things, Colivar turned back to the girl’s body. How peaceful she looked now! There was a time when he had wanted nothing more than to know such peace, at any cost.
“It’s time, Colivar.”
He did not turn around when Ramirus spoke, or otherwise acknowledge him.
“War is no longer looming on the horizon,” the Magister said quietly. “It has engulfed us. We need all our weapons at hand.”
He said nothing.
“You need to tell us what you know about these creatures. All of it.”
Still he said nothing.
Finally he heard Ramirus walk away. He heard Gwynofar expressing her gratitude to him for his service to the expedition. Doubtless she would have thanked Colivar as well, had he shown any sign of being approachable. But his mood had chilled the very air around him, and no one dared come near.
He listened quietly for a few minutes more, then let his flesh melt into a winged form—black-feathered, in mourning for the dead queen—and took to the sky, where no one would be able to ask him questions.
Quickening
Chapter 14
T
HE VISITOR arrived in the depths of night, which said much for the strength and confidence of his Souleater; few ikati flew long distances without the kiss of sunlight upon their wings. It was a dark night, with only a single crescent moon to guide the pair’s passage, so little effort was required to mask their flight from the prying eyes of Jezalya’s sentries. No one would see the great creature approach the city as long as it stayed behind the mounts that flanked Jezalya; no one would see its dark bulk silhouetted against the gleaming sand when it landed.
The ikati queen observed the pair approaching the city and relayed that knowledge to Siderea. Through their connection Siderea felt as if she could sense the pair’s presence, and even get a sense of the man’s state of mind. Was that possible? Her recent transformation sometimes affected her witchery in strange ways, and at this point nothing would surprise her. The presence she was sensing was a patient one, if her impressions were true. Calculating. It was a curious mindset for one of the riders. Usually when such men came into her presence they were highly agitated, and she could literally taste the effort that it took for them to maintain a human demeanor. But for this one, she sensed, the subterfuge came more naturally.
The gates of the city would not open until morning. So her visitor would probably wait until then and arrive on foot, pretending he was nothing more than a common traveler. Anything else would be a waste of power, not to mention an offense against Siderea’s territorial rights. Souleaters other than the queen were not allowed in her city.
So she had time to prepare.
Dawn’s light was just beginning to creep into her bedchamber when Siderea called her maidservants to her. Sleepy young girls rushed to her side, bringing paint and powder and the brushes needed to apply them. Blinking the sleep from their eyes, they helped her apply delicate layers of color to her cheeks, then curled her long dark hair into sinuous ringlets. And of course they applied perfume. Always perfume. The fact that Souleaters were unusually sensitive to smell lent added power to that fa
cet of her feminine armory in dealing with their human consorts. Though of course any artificial scent had to be compatible with the natural perfume of her own ikati, that musky-sweet smell which clung to her skin these days no matter how often she bathed. But that, too, affected the riders in interesting ways, and among mortals it added yet another layer to her mystique. The scent of demons, some called it. They whispered that descriptor in the shadows, when they thought she was not listening.
But she was always listening.
She dressed in layers of silk gauze the colors of Souleater wings. The delicate arrangement of fabric was almost but not entirely opaque, and hinted at the curves beneath without actually revealing them. Such garments had always been useful to her in manipulating men, and the ones who were bound to ikati were especially susceptible to such visual tricks. Which was as it should be. The rider who claimed her as his mate would become first among his own kind, until such time as a rival managed to displace him. Rarely was the tie between sex and power so overt among humans.
How different things might be now if her ikati were fully grown and ready to mate! The queen’s sexual instincts were still abstract and unfocused. It was a good thing as far as the males were concerned, as it allowed them time to sort out their alliances with minimal bloodshed; they did not yet have a fertile queen to fight over. But once that changed, so would the dynamics of the colony. Siderea remembered her visions of combat from the night she had seduced Nasaan. If the young queen had responded so powerfully to those images while she was still a juvenile, what would it be like when the full force of sexual maturity came into play? It was a thought that was both unnerving and exhilarating to Siderea. Some days she felt as if she had dived off a high cliff in joining herself to the creature, and was now in midair, falling free, with no knowledge of what lay below.
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