The Warslayer

by Edghill, Rosemary

  Belegir uttered a small dismayed bleat and reached out as if to soothe her.

  Vixen smiled. "Aw, c'mon, Belegir. You wanna live forever?"

  CHAPTER TWO:

  Earth and Sky

  Glory didn't even try to get back to sleep after that. She pulled on her jeans and her sneakers and her sweatshirt and sat in the doorway of the wagon, her feet on the ground, clutching Gordon and doing her best to deal, as Christina might have put it.

  This hallucinatory world was still here, and she was still in it. Her faint hopes of waking up back in her own life were gone. She was stuck here for the duration, and the Allimir's problems seemed somehow more immediate now than they had before she'd seen the slaughtered stallion. She was going to have to solve them—or someone was, and the Allimir didn't look like being the ones to do it.

  Item: they'd gone looking for a hero to save them from a bogeyman who'd taken down their entire civilization and was now hunting them slowly to extinction—horse by horse, if tonight's attack was any clue. Helevrin had said She was toying with them. Glory'd discounted that as empty rhetoric at the time, but it seemed more reasonable now. And that meant their monster was a smart monster, able to think and plan and not gulp its pleasures.

  That wasn't good.

  Item: the Allimir mages had gone looking for a hero to slay their monster, and had come up dry. They'd come to her. She'd explained their mistake (where had Englor gotten a copy of the Cox book anyway?) and they'd been going to leave without her, only something had gone wrong with that and she'd ended up back here with them by accident. After all she'd seen, Glory couldn't believe they'd lied to her about that. She didn't think the Allimir could lie, any more than they seemed to be able to stand up for themselves.

  And that was odd, wasn't it? But she didn't have enough information to give the matter proper consideration, and there were a lot of other things that seemed much more important right now—like Belegir's plan to take her to the Oracle (whatever that was) to find out what to do next.

  He'd said—or at least implied—that this Oracle had the power to send her home, which would probably be best all round, but she wasn't completely comfortable with the notion. She was the Allimir's last hope. They'd been really clear about that. And while she wasn't much of a hero, they were obviously doing a piss-poor job of coping on their own.

  Around her, in the predawn darkness, the encampment slowly roused to greet a new day. She could hear the murmur of low voices from the nearer wagons as the word of this latest disaster spread, and listlessly the Allimir drifted together, clustering around their central fire.

  "Slayer, are you all right?" Englor asked.

  Glory yelped. He'd come around the back of the vardo, quiet as mice, and she hadn't seen him. He jumped back, gazing around himself wildly for the source of her distress.

  "I was," she growled. It was Vixen again—Vixen's attitude, Vixen's dialogue—and Glory cringed inwardly. Being Vixen felt too much like lying, and she didn't want to lie to these people.

  "I brought you something to drink." In each hand, he held one of the leather quart-jacks. Steam rose from them. She took one and sipped cautiously. Hot spiced beer. Not bad, though not what she'd choose to replace morning coffee with.

  "You were so brave," Englor said sighing happily. "It was just like something out of one of the Unofficial Journeys."

  Glory shook her head. "You do know that everything in that book of yours isn't real, don't you, mate? It's all made-up?"

  Englor regarded her tolerantly. "The Prophecies of Cinnas tell us that every story, no matter how seemingly fabricated, is yet woven around a kernel of essential truth. And I have seen you rush valiantly forth into the darkness to do battle against an unknown foe. You would have remonstrated with Her."

  I would have been dead, Glory thought.

  "And you have a sword," Englor added, as if that were a deciding factor.

  "And you don't?"

  "Oh, no." Englor sounded horrified and intrigued at the same time. "Swords are instruments of war and aggression, tempting people to try to solve disputes by force. Violence never solved anything."

  "It certainly solved the question of what that bloody nag was going to be doing come Saturday night, I reckon," Glory growled. "Englor, this doesn't make sense. You keep going on about how you are a harmless gentle people who abhor violence. You don't have a single weapon in this entire camp so far as I've seen. But you came looking for me, because you reckon I'm—" A homicidal maniac with poor impulse control, that's what he thinks. "Well, anyway. You came looking for someone to be violent for you. Isn't that a little—" Hypocritical? "—inconsistent?"

  "We sought a hero because we have lost the arts of war and cannot learn them," Englor said sadly. "Without a hero, we will all die."

  Glory sighed and took another swig of her drink. The sky was starting to lighten. The sun would be up in a few hours. Then they could start trying to get the animals back.

  "And there wasn't anyone local you could call?"

  "Serenthodial belongs to the Allimir, from the Hilvorn to the Carormanda," Englor said, as if that were an explanation. Glory sighed again. The trouble with having a meaningful conversation with any of these people was that you couldn't. They took their world for granted, and any time she wanted to know something, she had to cross-examine one of them. It was a pain in the ass.

  "So what do you know about this Oracle?" she said at last.

  Englor smiled, obviously happy to tell her everything he knew. "The Oracle of Erchane is revered throughout the land. Even we mages bow to the wisdom of the Oracle of Erchane. Since before time began the Oracle has served the Allimir."

  "Nice, but a bit vague," Glory said. "But what is it? Have you ever been there? What do you see?"

  "Indeed I have been there. Every child of the Allimir visits the Oracle before his tenth birthday, to see what path his life should take. By the Oracle's grace, I became a mage, bound to the study of the Prophecies, and so served many years within the Temple as well."

  "Um." Glory thought that over. "But what if you hadn't wanted to become a mage?"

  Englor stared at her, with the blank expression she was coming to know too well. "But why would the Oracle tell me to do something I didn't want to do?" he finally said.

  Right.

  "Tell me about being a mage," she asked, trying again. "I guess you've got to be a pretty bright lad to manage that, hey?"

  "There can be only three," Englor said proudly. "It takes years of study to master the Prophecies and understand all the signs and portents, so that all we do is in accordance with Erchane's will. Until Fadril died, I was Belegir's apprentice, because of course we all thought he would die first. Aldien was Helevrin's apprentice, but he . . ." There was a long pause. "He was in Drathil the night She came," Englor whispered.

  Glory reached out and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. Every time she started thinking of these people as the inhabitants of some kind of weird sitcom, something like this happened. No matter how peculiar they were, they felt pain. They grieved.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  Englor bowed his head, then looked up, smiling through his tears. "But now we have hope once more. You have come. You will hunt Her and save us all—just as you saved Queen Elizabeth from the werewolf!"

  "I didn't—"

  "I know," Englor said, smiling gently and holding up his hand. "They are only stories. But every story contains a grain of truth. Ay reckon this one does too," he added, in a fair approximation of her nasal Melbourne accent.

  "I reckon," Glory echoed. "Look, if I'm going somewhere today, I'd better get dressed. Thanks for the beer, mate." She handed him the empty mug and fled to the safety of her wagon, closing the door behind her.

  It was dark inside the vardo, though the light of dawn was seeping through the chinks in the closed shutters. She bundled the bedding up off the floor, and found that the bed-benches folded back. With three of them pegged out of the way and the fourth holdin
g the bed-gear, she had a little more room to maneuver. She groped for the hanging lantern in the middle of the ceiling—she'd rung her head on it more than once the night before—and took it down, setting it atop the tall chest at the front wall, next to her purse and tote-bag. She rummaged around in her purse, locating first a flashlight key-card and then a disposable lighter, both stamped with the show logo. After a few tries, she got the lantern lit, then sat down on the remaining bench.

  What am I supposed to do? What in God's name am I supposed to do?

  She hadn't felt this inadequate in years. You trained for years for the Games, but once you got there, you had one chance to do your best, and a thousand bad-luck things might happen. In television there was a different kind of pressure: you got as many tries as you needed to get it right—or nearly—but each try cost money, and there was so many peoples' livelihood riding on one person's ability that every failure hurt.

  This was like an unholy amalgam of both. Everything was riding on what she did. And there was one chance to get it right, and no ground rules.

  That isn't true. That can't be true. I wouldn't be here if that were true, she told herself desperately.

  No matter that the Allimir mages had made an error in contacting her in the first place, the fact remained that a power greater than theirs had brought her here. Important Great Powers didn't make wrong choices of that magnitude (she hoped), so either they'd picked the right person for the job, or the job itself wasn't so much of a muchness. Left to herself, Glory would happily have chosen Option B—but she thought about the flayed stallion again, and shuddered. No matter that she thought the Allimir twitchy and sometimes outright weird: there was some sort of monstrous monster out there on the plains of Serenthodial the Golden.

  But was there? Maybe it was disease. Maybe it was underachieving army ants. Maybe. . . .

  It was almost a relief when Belegir finally knocked on the door.

  "Slayer? Are you within?"

  Glory opened the door, wincing slightly at the dawn light. Belegir was standing there in his long pink robe, looking very much as if he hadn't slept for the last several years.

  "Wozzer?"

  "We must depart now for the Oracle, if we are to reach it before nightfall," Belegir said. He regarded her civilian clothes dubiously.

  "Right." She could take a hint. "I'll change."

  She closed the door again and picked up her armor.

  Getting kitted out had all the charm of trying to put on a diving suit in a phone booth, but she managed. She rolled up her jeans, T-shirt, and sweatshirt into a tight wad, preparing to stuff them into the tote-bag duffle, and hesitated. Something was missing.

  The makeup. The painted mask that turned her from Glory McArdle, ordinary person, into the hieratic Vixen, scourge of evildoers. It was silly, but she just didn't feel like Vixen without the war paint. And though it felt very much like unlawful impersonation, she suspected the best thing all round was to at least seem to be the hero they'd ordered. She set the clothing aside and rummaged in her bag again.

  The pancake went on in a few swipes, covering plain Glory McArdle's pale-gold freckles. Then mascara, the soft kohl crayon around her eyes, then more mascara. Last of all, a good slather of blood-red lipstick. It was hard to manage with the tiny mirror and the dim light, but she'd done this so many times over the past months that it was almost second nature now. As she worked, she felt the Vixen persona settle into place, a soothing ghost.

  When she was finished, she bared her teeth at the compact mirror and admired the effect before stowing everything away all right and tight. She stuffed everything into the tote, slung the bag over her shoulder, and picked up Gordon and her sword.

  "Easy money," she muttered under her breath, and pushed open the door.

  Belegir was still patiently waiting.

  She stepped down onto the grass and looked around, then swung her sword up over her shoulder and into its sheath with a practiced flourish. It had taken her and Bruce, the swordmaster, hours to perfect that little gesture, but she had to admit it was damned impressive.

  "Where's everyone else?" she asked. Belegir looked blank. "The rest of the people going to the Oracle—you know, the armed escort?"

  Considering how terrified they all were of the Warmother, she'd thought Belegir would be bringing the biggest army he could field, or at least bringing his co-Mages Englor and Helevrin.

  "It is only we two," Belegir explained. "The others remain to aid our people. We have no 'armed escort' to offer you, Slayer. The Allimir are a peaceful people—"

  "Etcetera, etcetera, and so forth," Glory finished. "Yeah, I get it. So how are we getting there? We walk?"

  "The others are bringing in the animals now. Come, I will show you."

  Belegir led her to the edge of the camp. Most of the Allimir, children included, were gathered there, gazing out at the plain. Those who still had horses were holding fast to their manes; the others carried the simple riding tack of the Allimir. Glory looked, but didn't see the dead stallion's body anywhere, and made a mental note to refuse any stew she was offered this morning.

  Early morning mist still hung over the grass, and the sky was the palest blue of dawn. She was warm and comfortable beneath her leather, and chilly everywhere else—later in the day, the situation would be reversed, and she'd be glad then of her sweatshirt, odd as it might look with Elizabethan S&M leather.

  Helevrin and Englor stood about a hundred yards away from the camp, also facing outward toward the plains. They held their hands before them, heads bowed as if they were looking at something.

  It was close to full light now, and so Glory could see—beyond the two mages, on the perfect flatness of the vast Serenthodial—scattered dots: the routed livestock of the Allimir.

  "They use the Calling Tools to bring the flocks and herds back to them. It is Erchane's gift to the Allimir from ancient times, held in safekeeping by the Oracle against necessity such as this. Never did I think they would be required again."

  "Good thing you lot don't throw anything out," Glory commented absently. She craned her neck, trying to see what they were doing. Just as she thought nothing was going to happen, she began to see that the dots on the horizon were moving—toward the mages.

  The dogs arrived first, bounding up to the two mages, brisking and fawning, pink tongues lolling, but came away quickly as their owners whistled for them. A couple of them stopped to investigate Glory and Belegir in a quick professional way, before returning to their masters.

  Next came the ponies, trotting along as briskly as if someone were rattling an invisible oat-pan. As they clustered about the mages, nuzzling and pawing the ground, the herdsmen sent the horse-dogs out with a volley of whistles. The dogs quickly bunched the horses and began moving them away from the two mages. The mounted Allimir rode up to help, cutting out mounts and bringing them back to their brethren afoot. Soon all of the herd-riders were mounted. They rode out, dogs at their heels, toward the other beasts still drifting toward the mages' call.

  It was all accomplished with a minimum of fuss. Whatever else might be true of the Allimir, they weren't afraid of a little hard work.

  "What happens now?" Glory asked, impressed in spite of herself.

  "Ivradan will bring us horses, so that we may depart. Helevrin and Englor will Call until the herds are re-gathered. Once the oxen have returned, the wagons can move—perhaps tomorrow, as the beasts will be exhausted from their flight. And we will see what stock survives."

  Belegir sighed. "I fear we have lost many to this night's work. Even if She has not slain them, there are many deaths that roam Serenthodial the Golden. The wolf and the lion grow fat upon our misfortune." He shook his head, rousing himself from his melancholy with a visible effort. "I shall miss Helevrin and Englor. They will go from here as soon as they can, to return to the other camps of our people. We dare not stay together—it would be too easy for Her to slay us all with one blow, and in these dark times that would be a perilous lo
ss, for Helevrin's apprentice is but a child, and was to have stayed safe at the Oracle for many summers yet—and I do not know where an apprentice for Englor may be found, now that we may not approach the Oracle as we once did."

  Glory was surprised to realize how much she'd miss Englor and his weird combination of pragmatism and starry-eyed hero-worship. She guessed the three of them had only gotten together to go looking for a hero. She wondered what the other two would tell the rest of the Allimir when they caught up with them.

  "I'd like to take a closer look at this magic of yours," Glory said. Belegir motioned her forward.

  When she reached them, Glory could see that each of the mages was holding a faceted crystal sphere. The gems glowed with the same violet light that Glory remembered from the crystal that had topped Belegir's staff.

  "Where do those come from?" she asked Belegir.

  The pink mage looked uncomfortable, as if she'd touched on a sensitive issue. "Erchane sends them at our need."

  "Hm." Another conversational dead end. "So what else do they do?" She had a vague idea in the back of her mind that this stuff might prove useful later on—but only if she knew what it did.

  "These are for Calling only. There are others for other purposes—to tell the weather, to find water, to light a fire. They are the masterworks of generations of mages, all stored up against a time of great need."

  Like now.

  "Don't any of them do anything useful?"

  "All these things are useful," Belegir said in surprise. "Why would someone take Erchane's gifts to make that which was not useful?"

  Glory sighed. "But maybe there are some that would be more useful right now. Like something that could fling a lightning bolt, say."

  Belegir regarded her with a mixture of distaste and admiration. "But such things would be dangerous. Their use could lead to destruction and war."

  "Like you don't have that going on now," Glory muttered under her breath. She glanced sideways at the other two mages, but each seemed to be rapt in concentration on their crystals. "Oh, well. Just a thought."