Mercedes Lackey - Aerie

by Aerie (lit)

  Roaming animals had pretty much cleaned up everything there was that was large; now it was up to scavenging insects to actually scour it.

  Bearing in mind what the Chosen had said, Kiron paid very close attention to those insects… even going so far as to take a polished plate from another home and use it to reflect some light into the noisome and dark corners.

  And that was when he found it.

  It was the ants that told him.

  At first, he thought there was nothing unusual there, just the work of a horde of ants, taking advantage of the situation to scour the very mud bricks bare of anything even remotely edible.

  But then he saw it. Yes, the ants were scouring the corner, a steady stream of them coming in and leaving with their tiny burdens. But while they were actually in the corner, they moved in a circle. An anti-sunwise circle. There was, in fact, a swirl of ants on the floor in that corner, all moving in the same direction.

  He went to get a metal signaling plate from the garrison. He was going to need more light.

  By carefully reflecting a spot of sun into that dark corner, he was able to search it for anything that the ants were surrounding but leaving alone. And, eventually, he found it.

  A bead.

  A tiny, ordinary, dirt-colored faience bead. When he took it away, the ants stopped moving in a circle and went back to behaving like ants.

  And when he took it out into the sunlight, he saw that what he had taken for irregularities in the glaze were, in fact, some sort of writing. At least, he assumed it was writing. The minute shapes were very regular and marched around the surface of the bead in a swirl, the way the ants had marched around it.

  Now it could be that this was just an ordinary talisman; there was no way for him to tell that. It would have to go to the Chosen.

  But he could not imagine how a talisman would have survived the magic-consuming spell enough to still have affected the ants, if it was not, itself, part of that spell.

  So he ran as fast as he could back to the temple, excitement giving his feet an extra boost. Finally, finally, there was some change in this situation. It was only a toehold, but by the gods, a toehold he would take!

  And in fact, his efforts were rewarded when, just as he crossed the threshold of the Temple, he heard Rakaten-te shout, "Stop!"

  Obediently, he did just that. Rakaten-te got up slowly and walked with careful steps toward him. "You found one of the objects, and you brought it with you." The blind face showed some of the same excitement that Kiron felt. "I sensed the magic draining from the holy fire I had kindled on the altar just as I heard your footsteps. Describe the object to me."

  "It is a faience bead, about the size of the last joint of my smallest finger," Kiron told him. "It is the same color as dirt, making it hard to see. There are black markings in a spiral around it, but I cannot read them. They look like the tracks of birds."

  "Alas that I do not know either what writing looks like, nor what the tracks of birds look like," the Chosen said dryly and Kiron flushed. "No matter. How did you find it?"

  Kiron laughed nervously. "I thought like a stranger who wanted to leave these things in a town and a land that was not his own. I went to a filthy tavern and looked for anything strange. Ants were swirling about this thing, and when I looked closer in the dirt, I saw it."

  "Ants… so it may be an earth power. Hmm." The Chosen pursed his lips. "That does not sound like the Altan Magi. Their power was based in water."

  "Whose power?" Kiron turned at the voice. Aket-ten stood wearily in the door. "Please tell me you have found something? I have been chasing a goat that I thought was acting oddly, that in fact had only gotten into something fermented, or perhaps had eaten an intoxicating drug. Do you know how high a drunken goat can leap? And what he will try to leap up to?"

  "Yes, Kiron has found one of the keystones," Rakaten-te ignored her question about drunken goats, which was probably just as well. Quickly, at an impatient hand gesture from the Chosen, Kiron described what he had done and where he had found the thing. "I would like you to collect as many of them as you can find between now and sunset, and bring them here. Even if I cannot decipher the magic, with some of the keystones in hand I can destroy it."

  "Think like a stranger," Kiron prompted her, as she turned to go. "A stranger in a hurry to place these things, perhaps. They are the color of dirt, so perhaps places where there is a bit of debris. But it will have to be a place that a stranger would not have to hunt for."

  Aket-ten nodded. "I reminded the dragons that they are to hunt on their own. They don't much like it. Avatre was positively sulking. When we hunt with them, they never miss kills, and the goats and donkeys here are getting much more aware of a dragon in the sky."

  He shook his head. Poor Avatre; well, he need never worry about her wanting to fly off and leave him then. Her belly would keep her right at his side, even if love and loyalty didn't.

  Not that he had any doubts about the latter.

  Consulting his mental map of the town, he headed off in the direction of the next seedy beer shop. This was a garrison town. There were many such. It might be a long afternoon, especially if there were no more helpful swarms of ants.

  A half dozen of the dirt-colored beads lay in a pile in a flat bowl Aket-ten had fetched from the kitchen and placed in front of the Chosen. Kiron stared at them. They seemed very innocuous to have made such trouble.

  "Is it fully night yet?" Rakaten-te asked, turning his sightless eyes toward the door. Kiron shook his head, then remembered that Rakaten-te could not see it, and said "No. The sun-disk is just now passing below the horizon." Rakaten-te did not have to explain why he wanted to perform his ritual after dark. Seft was the god of shadows, after all.

  Rakaten-te pondered his course of action. Finally, he spoke aloud. "This magic is strange to me, yet all magic comes from the same roots. It either comes from the elements about us, or the gods themselves. I do not think this particular spell is of the gods. This means it is of the elements

  "You said something earlier about it being earth-magic, Chosen," Aket-ten reminded him.

  He nodded. "And that in turn would make a great deal of sense. The earth can absorb a great deal, and that could account for so small a thing having so great an effect." He smiled a very little. "I muse aloud here, so that we all may learn. I find that those who come to a path with few or no preconceptions are often the ones to suggest new directions. Now… earth's opposite is air, and unfortunately, air is not very strong against it." He grimaced. "Nor, I fear, is the magic of Seft strong in the element of air. That would be for a Priest of Haras—I think I shall have to oppose earth with earth, and that is where you two come in."

  To Kiron's surprise, Aket-ten began to blush. "I know that some magic requires that—" she stammered. "That—ah—certain—conditions—"

  What is she on about? Kiron was baffled as to what the problem could possibly be. But not so the Chosen. He chuckled dryly.

  "Not that of Seft," he said. "I told you, I had made a very careful choice in you two. Just because I cannot see, it does not follow that I am blind."

  Aket-ten was quite scarlet by this point, and Kiron decided that this was one of those points on which he was probably better off remaining silent.

  "I have no sense of whether our time is running short," Rakaten-te continued, "but it is better to err on the side of caution. So to counter this magic, I am going to use brute force. It is faster. The drawback is that it is… likely to draw attention."

  Kiron frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. He had spent most of the afternoon hunched over looking for ants. He hadn't spent that much time hunched over since he had been a drudge of a serf.

  "What does that mean?" he asked, and shook his head. "I confess all this magic business leaves me baffled."

  "It means that if the magus or magi who set this spell happens to be—for lack of a better word—'watching' it for interference, then it will be as obvious as a club to the side of the head t
hat I am destroying it, where I am, and possibly even who and what I am." The Chosen nodded, and so did Aket-ten. They apparently knew exactly what this entailed. Kiron could only guess.

  But it wasn't difficult to imagine that if these unknown magicians could, they would probably attack Rakaten-te. The only real question was what form that attack would take.

  Since the Chosen himself probably couldn't predict that, all Kiron could do was be ready and try to react quickly, whatever happened.

  "If you can try and find me two large flat stones that have never been carved or altered in any way—" the Chosen began.

  Aket-ten had revived from her earlier confusion, and now wore a look of triumph. "I already have, Chosen," she said. "A half dozen of them, in fact. I also have fuel for a fire that are sticks that were broken and not cut, and I have been harvesting such herbs as I can find in what is left of the gardens. I think I can collect water without using a container that was made by man—"

  "That will not be needed. It is earth and fire that are the elements Seft's priests use. I knew I had chosen wisely," Rakaten-te said with satisfaction. "Well done, Aket-ten; please bring me two of those stones. Then the two of you do as you please until I summon you."

  None of this made any sense at all to Kiron, but he was fairly content to leave it at that. Why the Chosen would need unaltered stones, or sticks for a fire that had been broken and not cut, he could not imagine. Since Aket-ten was practically glowing after Rakaten-te's praise, that was enough for him. And besides, he was starving.

  "Is there any reason why we should not eat?" he asked hopefully. She shook her head. "It's probably a good idea, and also not a bad idea to bring some oil for the lamps to the sanctuary," she said. "If it's a long night, we might need to refill them several times over."

  "Oh, we meaning me," he said, with a good-natured grumble. "Since the oil jars weigh as much as a donkey—"

  "As a donkey?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  "A small donkey. A foal." He chuckled as she sighed with exasperation. "Nevertheless, I shall move one of them into the sanctuary, in obedience to your wishes."

  "You make me sound like a small-minded overseer," she complained. "Isn't it better to have the jar there if we need it?"

  It seemed to him that this was unnecessarily cluttering up the sanctuary, but he didn't say so. Instead he carefully wrestled and rolled the big jar to the room, leaving it just inside the door. Rakaten-te was chanting something and seemed deep in concentration. If he noticed Kiron, he said nothing and reacted not at all, which was exactly the way Kiron liked it. He was of two minds about the blind priest. On the one hand, Rakaten-te for himself was someone that Kiron was coming to like. He had a dry wit and sense of humor Kiron appreciated. He might not be telling them everything, but what priest ever did? There was a reason why the rites of the gods were called "Mysteries."

  On the other hand… Chosen of Seft. Seft the Prince of Lies, Seft the Treacherous. And the Chosen of Seft might have a plausible-sounding explanation for the story of Seft's betrayal, but… that could be just as much a lie as anything else.

  But Avatre liked him, and so did Re-eth-ke. Perhaps that was what he should go on. The dragons did not care about gods and their histories; they relied on their instincts. They had hated, loathed the Magi of Alta, one and all; every dragon in the compound would go mad whenever one was near. Avatre and Re-eth-ke not only tolerated Rakaten-te as a rider, but they would carefully, gently nudge him to solicit scratches.

  He relaxed a little at that thought. If he could trust nothing else in the world, he knew he could trust Avatre as a guide.

  Aket-ten came to stand beside him just as he came to that conclusion. She watched the Chosen chanting with a furrowed brow. "Not only do I not know what he is saying," she confessed in a low voice, "I don't even know what language it is in. It sounds like Tian, but… it isn't, exactly."

  "Huh." He became aware of a sense of… unease? Portent? Both really. A feeling of pressure in a way. Despite the fact that the sanctuary still held the heat of the day, he felt a chill and shivered.

  But then he felt more than a chill, as Rakaten-te's chanting increased in volume and intensity, and the Chosen of Seft raised the smaller of the two stones and smashed it down on the collection of beads.

  Suddenly every hair on Kiron's body threatened to stand on end. A strange, dry silence dropped over them all. Kiron could hear his own heart pounding in his ears. But then, he heard something else entirely.

  Something that sounded like—rain? Or a shower of sand on a roof?

  Movement on the floor by the door caught his eye. It looked as if the shadows there were moving. And that was where the sound was coming from, too… a strange, sharp, musty odor suddenly assailed his nose, and as his heartbeat quickened, he peered at the moving shadow, trying to make out what it was.

  Wait. That was no shadow. That was—

  A living carpet of black scorpions, moving slowly toward them.

  Aket-ten gasped the same moment he realized what they were. She stood there, paralyzed with fear, her eyes blank and black with sheer terror.

  The deadly creatures paused at the edge of the light, as if making up their minds whether to go on or not. Their eyes glittered in the lamplight like a myriad of tiny black gems, and the sound of their claws on the sandstone floor was exactly like the sound of a rain of pebbles on a roof They stared at him, and he stared back.

  "Kiron!" Rakaten-te's voice cut across his paralysis. "Aket-ten! What do you see?"

  "Scorpions," Kiron said, as Aket-ten whimpered the same word. "There must be hundreds of them—"

  The carpet of insects surged forward at that moment. Reflexively, Kiron grabbed the object nearest to him and hurled it at them.

  It was a lamp.

  It broke just in front of the scorpions, spilling its fuel all over the stone floor. The oil caught fire before the wick spluttered out—

  And with a scuttling of claws, the scorpions got out of the way of the flames.

  Fire! Kiron ran for the jar of oil. Ruthlessly, he broke in the top and tilted it over. The oil spread toward the scorpions, forming a barrier between them and the venomous insects. Paying it no heed, the scorpions scuttled forward again, into the oil.

  And Kiron threw another lamp into the middle of the pool of oil. Flames spread across the surface of the oil, catching some of the scorpions before they could escape.

  Yes!

  Shaking off her paralysis, Aket-ten ran out of the room and came back with unlit torches. He seized one from her, lit it, and began beating at the scorpions with it. The insects retreated, making an angry, dry clicking sound. Some of them tried to find a way around the burning barrier of oil; Aket-ten spotted them first and ran to intercept them with her torch. He gave her his and turned and sprinted for the overturned jar; there was still plenty of oil in it. He manhandled it into his arms, then staggered with it to Aket-ten's side, sloshing the oil clumsily out to finish the barrier that accident had started.

  Wave after wave of the black creatures surged toward them over the burning floor. Each time they met the wave with torches and more oil. Even as they tried to build a bridge across the burning oil out of their own bodies by smothering it, he and Aket-ten threw more oil on them and then set fire to them.

  Kiron's world narrowed to the oil jar, the torch in his hand, and the army of scorpions.

  He fought them until his hands were burned and his body dripping sweat.

  And then—suddenly—they were gone. The only trace of them was what was left of the ones that had burned.

  Kiron let his knees go and sat down rather abruptly on the floor, with Aket-ten beside him.

  "Well," said the Chosen of Seft. "That was unexpected."

  SIXTEEN

  « ^ »

  AKET-TEN jerked her head around to stare at the priest, suddenly filled with fury. "You knew something like that was going to happen!" she snarled. "You knew it and you didn't warn us!" The heat of the dying f
lames was nothing to the heat of her anger. How dared he? Priest or no priest, how dared he?

  "Aket-ten—" Kiron said, making a placating gesture. "I don't—"

  "I knew? Child, my life was as much in danger as yours. More." The priest's tone was mild, with no hint that he was affronted by her accusations. He made a little gesture at his bandaged eyes, as if to emphasize his point. "I could not even detect what had been sent against us with my magic, which requires preparation and spells. Had you not defended me, I would have been swarmed within moments. You, at least, could have run away."

  Shame overcame her. She bowed her head. Of course. I'm being stupid. What was I thinking? Rakaten-te could have been killed far more easily than she or Kiron.

  "Now I will say that I guessed that breaking the spell so abruptly might draw unwanted attention," the priest continued, sounding a little shamefaced. "But I honestly thought it would come in the form of magic sent against magic, directed at me, and not at all of us. I anticipated retaliation that was magical in nature rather than material. It was a clever strategy. And one I did not anticipate." Now he sounded irritated. Aket-ten guessed that it was irritation at himself and his next words confirmed that. "I am at fault there."

  "Well, now what do we do?" Aket-ten demanded, bringing her head up. This was not the time to indulge in recriminations, self or otherwise. "Whoever 'they' are, 'they' know we've uncovered them—"

  "You two remain on watch for things I cannot deal with," Rakaten-te said, firmly taking charge of the situation. Aket-ten bristled a little, then forced herself to back down. He was in charge. They were there as his hands and eyes, no more. She was spoiled, really having a leader who simply didn't act like one most of the time, and that even more so with her. Her nose twitched a little at the smell of hot stone and the odd scent of fried scorpion. She really needed to sweep those things out the door. The cats would probably love them.