Waterdance

by Logston, Anne

  Atheris shook his head.

  “The prophecy,” he said in a slow, dead voice. “The destiny that brought you here. It is said that the final sacrifice that will wake Eregis will be that of an enemy of royal blood.”

  Peri gave a short bark of laughter and backed away, sitting back down on her pile of hay.

  “You laugh,” Atheris said, not raising his head. “But it is no jest, I assure you.”

  “Oh, no, it’s a fine joke,” Peri said, shaking her head. “In fact, it’s about the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you know, six months ago I was betrothed to my best friend, my clan leader. I had a clan I belonged to, a life that suited me, and everybody pretty much accepted—no, respected, damn it!—that I had a true vocation for the sword. Then suddenly because I have this ridiculous, pathetic excuse for magic, suddenly I may end up the Heir to Bregond. Not because I’d have any magical talent to speak of, either, mind you—but because that’s the best use for my useless, piddling hint of magic. The best use for me. Well, I wonder what Mother would think of this! I mean, the sacrifice that’ll wake a god, save a country! I can hardly be more useful than that, can I? And better yet—I don’t have to have any skill or talent at all for this!”

  Atheris raised his head just enough to glance wearily at her.

  “You are no more bitter than I,” he said. “I had no more notion than you of the path destiny laid before our feet.” He sighed. “I am almost relieved to see the end of that road ahead.”

  Peri gritted her teeth.

  “Well, I’m not ready to kick my boots off and be measured for my pyre robe yet,” she said. “But if you say the word ‘destiny’ one more time, I’ll be happy to shorten your road that much more.”

  Atheris chuckled mirthlessly.

  “Lady Perian, if you granted me a quick death, you would be doing me a kindness,” he said. “But I submit that allowing me to finish out my own destiny, which is a slow public death by the crudest tortures the Bone Hunters can devise, will far more perfectly satisfy your desire for revenge than anything you could do to me yourself.”

  Peri sat quietly, staring into the darkness. There was nothing to be gained by telling Atheris what she thought—that death in one form or another, probably quite disagreeable, was no more than she’d expected if captured by the Sarkonds. If her execution was called a sacrifice to the Sarkonds’ god, what did that matter? Either way, Peri would prefer to cheat the Sarkonds of their goal—by escape, if possible, and if not possible, then by a death that wouldn’t serve Sarkondish purposes. She had little faith in the idea that her death would actually wake a god; but belief and magic and madness were powerful things, and here there were all three combined, and that was a dangerous mixture to her way of thinking. At the very least, she hoped she could achieve a quick and easy death and spit in her enemies’ eyes one last time.

  She scooted closer to the bars separating between her cell and Atheris’s.

  “Tell me about this prophecy,” she said. “All of it this time.”

  Atheris shrugged tiredly.

  “The prophecy says that an end will come to a time of death and hopelessness,” he said. “The enemy who comes as a friend is one born of two worlds, cursed with the gift of life and gifted with the skills of death. The appearance of the Harbinger marks the time of upheaval and rebirth, when the royal blood of an enemy will wake Eregis. And Eregis will bring life out of death, and our people will rise up and live again in a land of plenty.”

  Peri waited, expecting more, but when she realized that Atheris was finished, she laughed again, bitterly. How could an entire nation devote its hopes so single-mindedly on a prophecy as vague and ambiguous as every other prophecy she’d ever heard?

  “Did it ever occur to your Bonemarch,” she said, “that maybe they were taking that prophecy perhaps just a little too literally?”

  Atheris was silent. Again Peri waited, and this time a faint jolt of realization cut through her bitter lethargy.

  “Of course,” she said. “It occurred to you, didn’t it, a long time ago. That’s why you tried what you did with your cousin. And a temple built on—Eregis was once a water god, I remember you saying that, right?”

  “Before He slept,” Atheris murmured, “He was the Father of Waters.”

  “Right,” Peri said, chuckling. “Temple built over the biggest damned underground reservoir that I ever—right. Making rain, bringing life. I see where you got the idea. And your cousin, you said she was a healer?”

  “A gifted and powerful one,” Atheris said dully.

  Peri chuckled again.

  “Poor Atheris,” she said. “Combining death and life. You probably got too literal, too.”

  Atheris raised his head at last, gazing at her somewhat narrowly.

  “What do you know of it?” he snapped.

  “I know that if you had ten healers and as many of what amount to battle mages,” Peri said shortly, “you couldn’t summon up enough rain to drown an ant. Healing and battle spells aren’t water magic. If the two of you had raised enough raw power to crack the world in two, you still wouldn’t have made one single drop of rain. You needed a water mage, like my aunt.”

  “She could have made it rain?” Atheris said skeptically.

  “I don’t know,” Peri admitted. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know if even she can make rain out of nothing. You were probably on the right track, though. Two mages combining, maybe you could have raised enough sheer raw magic to manipulate the weather; but then what do you do with all that energy? For that you needed the affinity of a water mage to direct all that power.”

  Atheris was silent for a long time. Peri glanced over at him; he had lowered his head again, and his shoulders shook slightly. For a moment she thought he was weeping; then a slight sound reached her ears, and to her amazement she realized he was laughing helplessly.

  “What?” she said. “What’s funny?”

  At last Atheris raised his head and leaned it back against the wall, his eyes closed. He was still laughing silently to himself.

  “Thank you, Lady Perian,” he gasped. “Eregis knows I have not earned this last gift from you, but I thank you nonetheless. I can at least go to my death knowing that my dream was not a delusion, that Amis and I touched at least the hem of the truth.” He was silent for a moment. “I think I can give you something similar in return.”

  Peri chuckled again.

  “Unless you happen to have a cell door key or the like, I can’t imagine—”

  “Waterdance,” Atheris said softly. “I know its secret.”

  Peri froze, silent. At last she spoke in a bare whisper.

  “Tell me.”

  “I have been on a boat only once,” Atheris said thoughtfully. “There are a few small, fouled rivers in the north country, although most have dried up now. I journeyed by river to the temple for my dedication. But as a child I would watch the boats dock, load and unload.

  “The true power of the river,” he said slowly, “is not disruption, but seduction. You step aboard the boat and for a time the rolling confounds your balance, but soon you adapt. Soon you do not even notice the motion.

  “And then the boat docks again and you step off, and suddenly it is not the water, but the land which is in motion, which rolls dizzily beneath your feet. The river has seduced you, changed your reality. Now it is the familiar land which has become strange and unbalancing. The experienced sailor expects this and walks carefully but steadily away. But the unwary traveler who has allowed himself to be seduced finds himself feeling helpless and alien on the very solid ground on which he has tread all his life. That is the power of the river.”

  Peri’s eyes widened.

  “Of course!” she breathed.

  How could she not have seen it sooner? Pulling her opponent with her into a new qiva, of course he’d be prepared for the change in balance, requiring a more extreme shift that tripped Peri up as well as she tried to simultaneously control, shift, adapt—but a more subtle
shift, gradual, seductive, then an unexpected return—unexpected, at least, to Peri’s opponent ...

  “So simple!” she murmured wonderingly. “So perfect.”

  Her fingers clenched reflexively at her hip, twitching with frustration. It was so unfair, so unthinkable that she’d understand only now, now when there was no one to show, no one to share that wonderful dance of steel in which Waterdance would come to life for the first time. She’d gained her dream just in time for it to die with her.

  Peri grinned sourly. A similar gift indeed. Like Peri herself, Atheris must be grinding his teeth with the frustration of seeing his goal close enough to touch at last—and knowing that he would never bridge that last tiny gap. Knowing that his dream would die with him.

  But unlike Atheris, Peri was not prepared to accept the inevitability of that loss.

  “You said you betrayed me only to destiny,” she said slowly. “What did you mean?”

  “I began to suspect what you were even before we reached Darnalek,” Atheris said, barely audibly. “The old woman you spoke to, the healer, she knew, I think. But I did nothing. If you were indeed the Harbinger, destiny would lead you along the path chosen for you. There was nothing I needed do but wait and watch.

  “In Darnalek I became almost certain. You possessed a gift I had never seen—to generate the energy of life out of a ritual designed to prepare the skills of death. But I did not want to believe. I felt with you a—a kinship. More, perhaps.” Atheris turned his head, not meeting Peri’s eyes. “So I consulted the fortune-teller. What he said did not absolutely confirm my suspicions, but a part of me knew I could not refuse to see the truth much longer.

  “Again I did nothing, save to keep one small secret, one small test of my suspicions. The spells I purchased to conceal us from the detection of the Bone Hunters were not permanent. They would last only four days.”

  “What!” A hot red rage welled up from Peri’s gut; if she could have shot arrows from her eyes, Atheris would have been skewered a thousand times. “You—”

  Atheris held up a hand wearily.

  “If you were not the Harbinger, it would have made no difference,” he said gently. “Four days was time aplenty for us to ride back to Bregond and safely beyond the Bone Hunters’ reach. It was not wholly my choice—a permanent spell would have cost more than even we carried, and aroused such suspicion that the mage might well have simply brought guards down upon us immediately, rather than attempt to capture me for his own profit.”

  Peri clenched her hands tightly, fairly aching for the solidity of a sword hilt in her palm.

  “And were you ever going to tell me about this,” she whispered, “or just let us be captured by the Bone Hunters?”

  Atheris closed his eyes.

  “I thought there would be no need to tell you,” he said. “One way or another, it would make no difference. If it was our destiny to be captured, then that would happen; if not, then not. And when you killed the Bone Hunter, I thought surely that I had been wrong, that we would escape to Bregond as planned. But when you fell ill, I realized that that, too, was only a part of your destiny, that there was no avoiding the road to Rocarran. And I was right.”

  He shook his head.

  “Your destiny did the rest. I betrayed you by simply allowing it.”

  “Oh, I think it was a little more than that,” Peri said scornfully. She remembered Atheris’s touch on her shoulder in the corridor just as he’d touched the thugs in Darnalek, the way the strength had simply drained out of her body. “I think you helped it along a little. If it wasn’t for you, I’d have managed a clean, honorable death in combat.” Then a new suspicion woke. “And when I was wounded—was that your fault, too, that I stayed weak long enough to reach Rocarran? Did you just suck the life out of me then, too?”

  Atheris shook his head wearily.

  “No. Even had I wished to do so—which I assuredly did not—I would not have dared, lest in your weakened condition you died. But I can imagine easily enough how it was done. When the Bone Hunters found their fallen comrade, they found his weapon, still stained with your blood. I should have thought to clean or take it, but I was too shocked by your victory. Having your blood and the weapon that wounded you, the others could cast a leech spell easily enough, even without knowing your location. I tended you as best I could, but I am no healer and no life-giver. In the end it was simply your own healing magic and the potency of your will to survive that saved you.” He closed his eyes. “The distance to Rocarran—I did not know how far it was myself, and I did not ask the others in the caravan. I did not want to know. I left it to destiny to decide whether you would recover in time for us to escape, or—or not.”

  He shook his head again.

  “Yes, I prevented the battle death you sought in the corridor. If you were indeed the Harbinger, as I knew by then you must be—” He sighed. “I thought your life would be spared to ensure that your role in the prophecy had been fulfilled. I did not know your royal blood, you see. I did not know. And if I had known—”

  He fell silent.

  Peri shook her head, too.

  “Mahdha scour me raw.” She sighed. “Well, the question is, what do we do now?”

  “Do?” Atheris shrugged. “Sit. Wait. Die.”

  Peri ground her teeth.

  “Bright Ones, are you a complete idiot or just a complete coward?” she demanded. “Do you think there’s something noble about sitting around like a cull waiting for the slaughter?”

  Atheris’s eyes blazed at the insult, but the anger quickly faded into weary resignation.

  “No, there is nothing noble about it,” he said shortly. “But neither is there anything especially clever in futile struggle against destiny.”

  “It’s only futile,” Peri said just as shortly, “when you’ve tried and failed. And destiny is what you make it. I didn’t hear anything in your prophecy that said we have to sit here passively and wait to die. If it’s my destiny and there’s no way to prevent it, then nothing I try is going to do any harm, right?”

  Atheris shrugged.

  “I suppose not,” he said. “No good, but most likely no harm either. Since my destiny appears to be death by torture, I have no compunction against attempting to avoid it. What do you propose?”

  “Do you have any magic that can get us out of these cells?” Peri asked, hoping against hope.

  Atheris chuckled dryly, dashing her hopes even before he spoke. “I am geas-bound against any attempt to escape,” he said. “Do you think they would trust me, a heretic and traitor, any more than you?”

  “Attempting to escape,” Peri said slowly. “Just that?”

  Atheris shrugged.

  “As far as I can ascertain,” he said. “What else might I be expected to do?”

  Peri clenched her hands again.

  “Can you remove the geas binding me?” she asked softly.

  Atheris dropped his eyes.

  “Perhaps,” he said, just as softly. “But I will not. If it is your destiny to die as a sacrifice to wake Eregis ... I owe my people that, at least. If you are meant to avoid that fate, there will be another way.”

  Peri ground her teeth. Bright Ones knew she wanted to escape, but there was a far more important consideration. Eregis’s rising, real or imagined, could mean only one thing—a new attack against Agrond and Bregond. It meant Agrondish and Bregondish lives, more blasted earth—

  “Atheris,” she said slowly, “I’m going to tell you something, something you need to understand. I’m only High Lord Randon and High Lady Kayli’s misfit daughter, but I’m still a child of the royal house of Agrond. By the time I rescued you, my uncle already knew I was missing. By the next morning he’d know where I’d gone. By noon the garrison mage would have contacted my mother in Agrond and my aunt in Bregond. Between the two houses it wouldn’t take any time at all to raise at least a first-strike battalion and mount them on fast horses for the Barrier—and they’ve got good horses.

 
“By this minute, Atheris, I’ll wager there’s a good gathering of troops there and at least a couple dozen mages honing their battle magics—probably including my fire-slinging mother and my storm-herding aunt. They’re not waiting for a sacrifice or a prophecy or a god. In their mind, your people came down into Bregond to capture me, and that’s all the warning they’ll need that Sarkond is planning something that involves Agrond and Bregond. Believe me, it won’t take much to convince either country to go to war against Sarkond. I don’t know whether they’ll collapse the Barrier and march straight into Sarkond, or whether they’ll risk sending a mage and some troops through to scry and scout, but I doubt they’re going to wait too much longer before they do something drastic.”

  Atheris listened silently, but his eyes widened, and Peri spoke as earnestly as she could.

  “Say, just as speculation, your temple sacrificed me this very minute and your god came roaring up bright and perky from wherever He’s been sleeping. Just what do you expect your god to do? Go walking personally down to the Barrier to stomp out our troops? Wave His hands and make all the people vanish from Agrond and Bregond so your people can walk down there and take it? Short of that, suppose He does what gods usually do—make a lot of noise and spectacle and throw out a few minor miracles to get the worshipers all fired up.

  “Fine. He’s done that. Your people are all raring to march right down to the Barrier and conquer two countries full of enemies. Say Eregis empowers your mages, too, because they certainly aren’t going to be able to pull anything more out of those southern lands, are they? Even so, Sarkond’s still got to gather an army, and from what I’ve seen, finding soldiers who are up to any kind of battle is going to take a miracle right there.

  “But say there’s enough competent fighters, too, just for the sake of argument. After all, we’re talking gods and miracles here. Still, it’s going to take time to gather them and arm them—we won’t worry about training and drilling and strategy either, or how Sarkond’s going to muster up armor and weapons. The plain fact is that by the time Sarkond could put together any kind of force—weeks at the very least, even given the best possible circumstances—Bregondish and Agrondish magics and troops will have blasted what’s left of your country to ash.” Peri waited a moment, and when Atheris said nothing, she pressed, “Can you look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong?”