The Dark Queen

by Michael Williams

  "May the gods and the god beyond them hear me," he whispered. "And may Fordus and Larken someday understand."

  "You are a dead man if you leave me, Stormlight," Fordus shouted to the backs of the departing rebels. "All of you are dead. Without me you will have no water, no defense. Istar will take you at its leisure, or you will go to the Kingpriest and beg for his mercy!" Without so much as a good breath between, he turned to the loyal and continued in an even conver shy;sational tone.

  "The gods alone send dreams, and the Prophets alone can divine them."

  He clambered atop a stand of stones and looked down upon the sizeable crowd that remained. Four hundred Plainsmen and barbarians sat on the hard, rocky ground and watched him expectantly.

  "Stormlight did not remind you that his words interpreted mine when we emerged from the kanaji. It was he who told you that the water was north of the desert, the moon and wind were on our side, and that Istar was waiting."

  Larken looked up at him sharply.

  Some of the barbarians stirred and murmured among themselves.

  "If any prophecy failed," Fordus continued, "it failed when the interpreter brought you the words."

  Larken set aside the drum. The only music Fordus wanted was that of his own voice. He stood above his company, waving and gesticulating, his move shy;ments swift and frenzied and sinuous. His argument was as shimmering and elusive as a mirage. She could not piece the logic of it, and yet those who remained were listening, were nodding, were agreeing.

  As Fordus spoke, preparing his followers for the morning's march into the lands of Istar, the bard fin shy;gered her drum hammer absently, uncertainly.

  Perhaps, she thought guiltily, her music for For shy;dus had fled along with her love.

  Confidently and ardently, after the speech of the Water Prophet, her cousin Northstar stood in the midst of the seated multitude.

  "Hear the word of the Prophet!" Northstar cried exultantly, lifting his salvaged bronze medallion into the cool desert night. "Fordus Firesoul is the War Prophet, the man who needs no translator, no inter shy;preter of broken words! I, for one, have kept my eyes to the heavens for forty turning seasons. I have steered you by planet and star, and I have steered by my heart and mind as well.

  "For those years, the gods have told me to guide. And now my heart tells me to follow.

  "To follow Fordus Firesoul, the War Prophet, the Liberator! On to Istar, warriors of the Que-Nara! To the walled city, friends and brothers!"

  A roar arose from the seated multitude, a rumble and shout like the roll of an enormous drum. Lucas soared away from the loud and menacing sound, circling dolefully in the silence of the upper night air until he seemed like a swiftly moving planet, a meteor in the dark vault of the heavens. Below him, the torches converged and filed toward the camp, the council doomed and concluded.

  The next morning the rebels departed from the camp at the base of the Red Plateau.

  The War Prophet was steady now, firm of footfall and strong in his stride. His pain had vanished, replaced by a fierce and jubilant sense of his own destiny.

  He set off on foot at the head of his army. Waves of the Que-Nara danced in their white robes behind him, and the motley garb of bandit and barbarian decorated the bleak desert with color.

  It was the morning of the Shinarion, and they formed the last of the caravans headed for Istar.

  If the gods willed it, Fordus Firesoul would be in the city within a week, celebrating the close of the holy days on the throne of the Kingpriest.

  Stormlight watched their departure from the edge of the salt flats. Fordus, his eyes straight ahead toward the beckoning north, did not acknowledge his old companion, nor did the others who flocked around the War Prophet, watching each gesture and listening to each word, certain they were present at the making of history.

  Wearily, Larken set out in the middle of the col shy;umn. Almost as an afterthought, she wrapped the lyre, carrying it in a knapsack over her shoulder.

  Dreamlike, she touched the instrument in the dark cloth, and it seemed to quiver in her weary hand.

  By the jostling of totem standards and bandit ban shy;ners milling in the company ahead of her, she could locate Fordus, though she could neither see nor hear him. All around her a river of robed bodies surged and pushed, and she felt as though she were being washed away to the north, borne on an irresistible tide.

  Once she looked back. At the edge of the Tears of Mishakal, framed in the glittering black of the crys shy;tals, a solitary figure watched the passing of the army, at last signaling his forces to follow, his ges shy;tures tired and heavy. He was distant, his features lost in the sandy wind and the liquid shimmer that rose from the hot desert surface, but she recognized him at once.

  Stormlight.

  She wanted to wave, to signal to him something about peace and friendship. But a banner, waved by an enthusiastic barbarian boy, flashed green and golden through her line of sight, and the babble of a foreign tongue distracted her. When she looked to the flats again, Stormlight was gone.

  She looked to where the banners encircled Fordus. Energized by the sun, by the adulation of his follow shy;ers, the Prophet was moving more quickly. Already the colors danced at the edge of her sight, moving resolutely into the distance, where the cloudless sky seemed to open and swallow them.

  * * * * *

  At midday, deep in the Tears of Mishakal, a funnel of black sand swirled skyward, propelled on an unnatural desert wind. Weaving between the crystals like a dark, intangible river, the sand brushed and chimed against the ancient, gleaming stones until the whole salt flat seemed to wail and whistle like a thousand lost souls.

  Out into the desert the black wind rushed, over the site of the Plainsmen's recent battle with the con shy;dor, scattering sagebrush and ash in its path as it hastened north. It passed about a mile to the east of Fordus's marching legions, and the scouts and out shy;runners took shelter on the leeward side of the dunes, convinced that the wind was the herald of a great approaching rain.

  In its wake, the desert lay calm again. Brush tumbled from dune to dune in sedate, everyday winds, and the sun beat relentlessly over the shifting browns and reds of the arid landscape. The Plains shy;men soon forgot about the storm as they scanned the horizons for signs of the Kingpriest's army.

  But high above them, a solitary bird soared after the dark wind.

  The bard's hawk, Lucas, his wings extended, watched the curious cloud from a distance as it raced from the desert into the plains. Skimming low over the dry terrain, the bird watched the ripple of the high grasses and followed the path of the wind through that wide and deceptive country.

  Soon the grasslands gave way to rocky slopes, to foothills, as the dark wind hurried over farmlands and villages, headed toward mountains and the daunting walls of Istar beyond. Soaring at hunting speed, Lucas at last overtook it as it skimmed across the great expanse of Lake Istar, and from his high vantage, the bird looked down upon the gritty, undulating spine of the wind.

  It seemed to the bird that he flew above a huge serpent or above the thrashing tail of an even greater beast. Cautiously, he kept his distance and contin shy;ued to follow and watch.

  As the wind neared the city seawalls, its writhing form condensed and compressed. The wind became liquid, then solid, darkening and coalescing until, to the hawk's acute eyes, it looked like a watersnake, glittering like crystal in the harsh sunlight, wrig shy;gling swiftly over the lakeside to the city waits, winding and thrashing across the steep, rocky incline.

  Now, his confusion over, Lucas swooped for the snake, gliding low over the water behind it, extend shy;ing and flexing his fierce talons. He narrowed the gap in seconds, caught a glimpse of faceted edges in the skin of his quarry, the smell of salt, and the smell of something older than salt, brilliant and sinister. He shrieked, struck out with his talons, but the snake was swift, elusive. Slipping through a small crevice at the base of the great wall, it vanished, the tip of its tale flickering taun
tingly against the gray stone.

  Lucas landed hard by the city walls and ruffled himself in frustration. Then he climbed steeply on a thermal close to the Istarian walls and, turning above the Kingpriest's Tower, made for the south and Fordus's approaching forces. He would not for shy;get the snake and its strange transformations.

  And somewhere in the dark beneath Istar, the long, serpentine form altered and grew.

  Chapter 16

  Shinare's festival was doomed from the outset.

  From the abandoned Tower of High Sorcery, its gates draped in drooping golden ribbons in honor of the goddess, all the way across the central city to the School of the Games, where tarnished bronze griffin wings hung as a reminder of earlier, more vibrant festivals, the city stiffened under a turgid pall. The few paltry booths, decked with the ribbons of the goddess, looked muddy and stained in the hot, windless afternoons. The goods sold in the Market shy;place seemed tawdry and cheap: shoddy earthen shy;ware statuary from Thoradin replaced the customary carved stone, the scrimshaw from Balifor seemed abstract and rushed, and the scaleless fish from northern Karthay was the worst of all failures.

  This fish, brought to the markets in thousands of pounds and kept on ice from the Karthayan moun-^ tains, was intended as the principal delicacy of this" year's Shinarion. But the heat of the city grew sud shy;denly unbearable, and the catch had spoiled by the second day, leaving the air of the city tainted, almost unbreatheable.

  The visitors could not help but notice. Despite the fuming incense on the windowsills of houses, despite the cloves hung by the thresholds and the attars of roses and violets let run in rivulets through the gutters of the streets, the city stank.

  By the second evening of the Shinarion, those who were leaving the festival outnumbered the arrivals. Into the adjoining towns about the bay they retreated, past the monastery or through the Karthayan forest, rushing on horseback, in carts, on foot toward the fresh, cool air, shaking the odors of incense and dead fish from their clothing.

  The few among them who looked back, nostalgic, no doubt, for the merriment of earlier festivals, saw the lights of Istar flickering and dim across the dark water. The Shinarion candles, once used to mark the festival time in such profusion that the light was vis shy;ible ten miles away, had dwindled to a few sad thou shy;sand, barely producing light to steer by.

  It was not long before the travelers lost the city behind them in the rising dusk.

  Alone on the Temple battlements, gazing out over the putrid city, Vaananen marveled at the quiet and darkness of this most unusual festival time.

  The city looked besieged.

  Of course, the rumors had spread through Istar more quickly than the smell of the rotten fish.

  A rebel force had come out of the desert again, headed toward the city, its numbers unknown. At its helm was the same man-the Water Prophet-who had burst into the grasslands less than a month before, inflicted great casualties on the Twelfth and Seventh Istarian legions, then hastened back into that godless country of rock and sand, where he had vanished like a dying wind.

  Vaananen shook his head. It was too soon.

  No matter the powers of this Fordus Firesoul, he and his rebels were not ready. The forces arrayed against them were more than formidable, the road ahead of them perilous and long.

  With Fordus away from the kanaji, there was no chance to warn him. Vaananen leaned against the cooling stone wall and stared out over the city. In the distance, the School of the Games blazed with gaudy purple light, and a roar erupted from a crowd accus shy;tomed to gladiatorial slaughter and reckless horse races.

  Now was the most dangerous time-for his own mission in the city, and for Fordus's rebellion in the outlands.

  For the Sixth Legion had indeed arrived in Istar. Of that much Vaananen was certain.

  After his trip to the stables and the other discover shy;ies, Vincus had rushed back to the druid's quarters, scrambled through the window in a net of torn vines and brambles, and gesticulated so wildly that it took Vaananen the goodly part of an hour to calm the young man down.

  By now, the druid believed the servant's story, but he accompanied him back to the stables anyway, and the horse's tattooed lip had confirmed the unpleasant truth.

  Not even three legions of Solamnic Knights could hope for victory against Istar's garrison of over five thousand veteran soldiers.

  He had warned the Prophet accordingly, drawn the glyphs in the rena garden, four symbols bold in the dark sand.

  But who would be there to read it?

  Vaananen pulled his cloak tightly about his shoul shy;ders. It always seemed to happen during the Shinarion: the last days of summer blended unaccountably into the first of autumn, and sometime, usually in midfestival, one cool, unforeseen night would signal a change in the season.

  Vaananen descended the battlements. The sun had drifted behind the delicate white spires and domes of the western city, staining the luminous buildings with an ominous red.

  He had one desperate hope. The Kingpriest, for all his skill in ritual and politics, was not known for his perfect choice of generals. Each successive comman shy;der had been worse than the last, culminating in the abysmal Josef Monoculus. To find a good leader had become next to impossible when the Solamnic Order, disgusted with Istar's.policy of oppression, had ceased to support the Kingpriesf s sterner measures.

  And a good thing that was, Vaananen concluded, because the Istarian army with a real general at its head would be matchless.

  Shivering at the thought, the druid pulled up his hood and entered the great Council Hall of the Temple, where, in his guise as a loyal follower of the Kingpriest, he would join a handful of other chosen clerics in receiving the next, no doubt, in a sorry line

  of military leaders.

  "The fool of the season" Brother Alban had called the new commander.

  None of the priests had met the new man.

  Always an occasion for curiosity, the moVnent arrived, and Vaananen was somewhat shocked when, entering the torchlit hall, he saw the clergy crowded around the impressive figure of a black-robed man. The man stood next to the Kingpriest himself.

  For the first time in years, perhaps the Kingpriest had chosen wisely. Vaananen could tell by the cut of the man: sturdy and strong, his pale body chiseled, almost translucent, as though an able sculptor had carved him of marble. The black silk tunic he wore was simple and elegant, a striking contrast to the bil shy;lowing, ornate robes of his clerical hosts, and he wore a battered sword at his side-a weapon that had seen years of action, the druid guessed, unlike the ornamental baubles banging around on the belts of the last three generals.

  This man was dark-haired, handsome in a femi shy;nine, almost reptilian fashion, and he held the gaze of the Istarian priests impassively, with neither respect nor condescension. He refused the wine offered him by Brother Burgon and remained stand shy;ing when most of the clergy chose to sit, his pale arms crossed over his broad chest.

  Beside him, the Kingpriest displayed his gentlest features. He was a lean, balding scholar with bright sky-blue-no, sea-blue-eyes. If the power of Istar had not resided in the little man, he might have been mistaken for the new general's obsessively proper secretary.

  The two dignitaries spoke quietly to one another, as the priests and monks leaned into the conversation.

  The Kingpriest looked tired, harried; what remained of his auburn hair had thinned even more since Vaananen had seen him last, and for a moment the druid wondered if the monarch was ill.

  But when the blue eyes turned toward him, they were bright and hectic.

  And afraid.

  How odd.

  Vaananen edged closer through the crowd, hear shy;ing the stranger's name bandied excitedly by the murmuring clerics.

  Tadec? Tanik? The whispering was insistent, dis shy;tracting, the words blending together so that the druid could not make out the name in question. But whoever the man was, Tadec or Tanik, he continued to charm his hosts: a low, melodious c
omment from the man drew animated laughter and, with an icy smile, he scanned the room, his eyes locking at once with Vaananen's.

  The eyes of the new general were amber, depth-less, and slitted. He stared at the druid, and the black core of his gaze opened malignly. Looking into the heart of those eyes, Vaananen saw an image of a dark void, a huge winged shape spiraling in the windless nothingness, its webbed, extended wings flexing and shimmering.

  / know you, a dark voice seemed to say, rising from nowhere but registering inside the shaking druid's head.

  Then, as suddenly as it struck, the feeling sub shy;sided. Vaananen blinked, the general turned away, and the image vanished. But in that moment's com shy;munion Vaananen knew both what the man called himself, and who he really was.

  "Takhisis," Vaananen whispered to himself, as the clergy around him slipped past on their way to meet

  and admire and adore this new, mysterious leader. "Takhisis commands the armies of Istar. Now I know. "And now she knows, too."

  * * * * *

  The corridors of the tower were drafty and dank as the druid made his way back to his quarters. The hour was still early, his priestly brothers either at prayers or the festival … or adoring the general, breathless and rapt like vermin mesmerized before a sewer snake.

  There was still time to warn the rebels, if Fordus returned to the kanaji.

  Vaananen knew that the days to come would be dangerous for all of them. Now he would have to lock his doors, board his windows against the sud shy;denly hostile night. The goddess had recognized him-he was almost sure of it. And since that was true, his life was forfeit.

  A faint light wavered and approached from a side corridor. Not even an hour, and. it has already begun, Vaananen thought, wrestling down a rising fear. He stepped into a dark threshold, pressed himself against the polished wood of the door . . . and watched as a sleepy acolyte passed, bearing a torch to the last prayers of the night.

  Vaananen moved out from the darkness, laughed softly and sadly. It would not do. He would not hide and hole away in the temple, waiting for Takhisis to strike. He would not lie trembling in bed, awaiting a footfall outside his locked doors.