by Rachel Lee
He dropped to his knees, ignoring the harshness of the glass poking into his leathers, and let the tears fall down his cheeks, not caring if they froze there. He had failed his brother and his people, and quite frankly he was not certain that he would not fail them this time.
The wind bit harder but he ignored it. He was not certain he had grown enough or changed enough to avoid failing again. He might be cursed with immortality, but he was also cursed with the same weaknesses and failings of men everywhere. He had been arrogant enough in the past to think he was doing the right thing, and now he knelt on the results of all his mistaken decisions. How could he possibly be certain of what was right now?
The anguish of all that had happened and all that was to happen overcame him then. He bent over, ignoring the press of his sword hilt in his side, until his head nearly touched his knees.
He had been born to such privilege and beauty, and all he had managed to do was create a darkness that spanned the ages.
Death was too good for him.
Chapter Thirty
Tess stood somewhere beyond time, somewhere that appeared to be nowhere. Above, darkness ruled, with not even a star to pierce the void. At her feet lay a featureless, colorless plain that stretched as far as she could see in any direction. That she could see at all when there was no light surprised her.
The beautiful man had long since vanished. He had not achieved whatever he had wanted from her. How she knew, she could not say, but gathered that she had been banished to this place where nothing lived, nothing moved. A prison.
For an eternity, or perhaps two, she neither moved nor really thought. It was as if her mind had been utterly emptied and left as barren as the plain around her, as void as the sky above.
No memories. No wishes. No wants. Non-being.
The last thought frightened her, and with the fright came the first glimmers of memory. Who she was. Who she had been. Where she sought to go.
Not much. Like fireflies the memories darted around her brain, appearing and disappearing, only to reappear in another place. She began to struggle with all her might to grasp even one of them, sensing that if she could hang on to some part of herself, the rest would follow.
Then a voice reached her, seeming to rise from the deepest part of her being. She knew that voice. And she knew that he needed her.
Closing her eyes to banish the prison that held her, she focused on the anguished voice, and formed his face in her mind. Then his name came to her.
Annuvil!
Her eyes popped open, and this time she knew exactly where she was. Knowledge flooded into her and she felt her strength grow.
The wind whistled about him, bitter and clawing, the sleet battered whatever exposed skin it could find. Lost, alone, always so alone, Archer battled his own doubts, his own guilt, his own anguish, for much as he deserved to die, despite how much he had failed, others depended on him now.
Then, barely audible above the wind, he heard a gentle woman’s voice. Startled he turned and saw Tess, arrayed in her usual white riding garb, a hooded white cape billowing backward over her shoulders.
“The past is not a prison,” she said. “It is a map and a star toward a new path.”
Relief at seeing her awake hit him so hard it drove the wind from him, but only for a second. Then her words penetrated, sending a shaft of warmth into his long-riven heart.
“My lady,” he said hoarsely. “Thank the gods you have returned.”
“Just in time, it seems.” She stepped closer, then bent a little as she touched his shoulder. “From somewhere out of my poorly remembered past comes a saying. The only true mistake is the one we do not learn from. You have learned. I know you have learned. And you will not repeat your errors.”
“I thought I acted rightly before.”
“I know.” She lifted her hand and brushed some long strands of dark hair back from his face. “My lord Annuvil, you were young then. Much much younger. Barely a man even in terms of your immortal people. The young are prone to error and arrogance. When I look at you now, I see no arrogance at all. You are not the man you were then. Do not doubt it.”
He still knelt on the painful ground before her, and nothing could have prevented him from what he did then. Straightening on his knees, he took her hand in both of his and brought it to his lips, warming her chilled skin with a kiss.
With her other hand, she smoothed his hair back, only to see it tossed again by the wind.
“Come with me,” she said gently. “Back to the tent I share with my sisters. ’Twill be a sad day indeed if you freeze out here.”
He rose easily to his feet in a single movement. “I will not freeze. I cannot.”
She started to smile then, and her impish expression surprised him. “Are you so sure?”
Then she grabbed his hand and tugged him back toward the camp. “Come. My sisters and I will warm you, and we will talk about what lies ahead.”
In the tent of the Ilduin it was as if the original party, lacking only Giri, were together again as they had been at the outset of their journey. What had begun as a quest to find the thieves who had so brutally slaughtered a trade caravan had turned into something so much greater, that if any of them thought back to the day they had departed the village of Whitewater, they could scarce believe what they had come to.
“It is ironic,” Sara said as they sipped mulled ale around the central fire, the tent walls billowing with each gust of the killing wind, “that it was this very winter that sent Tom and me along with you on your journey to find those who had slaughtered the caravan.”
“How so?” Cilla asked.
“We were facing starvation in Whitewater,” Sara explained. “Our fields had been blighted by snow and ice just before harvest, and little enough we had remaining from the year before. I insisted on accompanying Archer and your cousins Giri and Ratha in hopes of finding trade to the south so that I could bring food home to my people. My father’s ale is usually good coin. Instead…instead I found no food. I found starvation in Derda, and the storm that killed so many. From that point on, I knew my path lay elsewhere.”
“Aye,” said Tom. “It was then we realized we faced more than unusual weather.”
“So, aye,” Sara said, “it is ironic, for it was the Enemy’s attack by means of weather that led us all to this moment where we will now face him.”
Ratha, holding Cilla’s hand, cracked a smile. “He may have set his own downfall in motion.”
“Let us hope,” said Archer. He sat on the ground near the fire, near Tess who sat just behind him on a camp stool.
“He is cunning,” she said quietly. “He came to me while I was held in thrall by his Ilduin Hesta.”
Archer turned his head immediately, looking at her. “I feared that.”
Her small smile held little humor. “I now understand how he could have created such havoc in the past. He is quite beautiful, your brother, and silver-tongued. Had I not known of him already, I would have found it easy to believe that he is all goodness.”
“How did you escape his Ilduin?” Cilla asked.
“’Twas not easy. She is very powerful, this one. What is more, unlike me she is very much in command of her powers. However, just as the storm created an irony, I believe his attempt to capture me may have done the same.”
“How so?” Archer asked.
Her smile deepened a shade. “While I was held in thrall, I learned from his Ilduin. I am not certain if that was by chance, or if it was what she wished to happen. I certainly felt that she was not entirely happy to be Ardred’s pawn. However it may be, I learned much. I think I shall be able to control and use my powers better now.”
Sara spoke. “You must teach us, Tess.”
Tess bowed her head a moment. “I will teach you what I can. All of you, including Lozzi, for you will need it to protect you. But I sense that in the end…” She trailed off briefly, then lifted her head and looked at her two sisters. “Yazzi is teaching Lozzi, and I
must teach her as well. But in the end I believe Annuvil and I shall have to face him alone.”
“Alone?” Ratha appeared appalled. “Never!”
“You do not understand,” Tess said gently. “It is the Enemy’s obsession that drives him. He is obsessed with his brother, and with me. It is the two of us he most wants. While the rest of you can deal with his armies and his other Ilduin and the hives, only the two of us can deal with him. Else he will never cease.”
“We can kill him,” Ratha said, his hand instinctively falling to his sword hilt.
“You cannot,” Annuvil said. “He must be struck with Banedread, or Ilduin fire.”
“If I cut off his head—”
“You will not get close enough,” Annuvil interrupted. “Trust me on this, Ratha. You will have other tasks of equal importance. If I should fail, at least you can deprive him of his teeth by defeating his armies and hives. That alone will save the world for a while. Indeed, if I fail, his obsession may pass.”
“’Twill never pass,” Tess said with certainty. “He thinks he must right wrongs of the past. He is blind to his own lust for power.”
Annuvil frowned. “Is that indeed how he understands it?”
“It is.” Tess sighed and leaned forward, holding her chilled fingers out to the fire and feeling them sting as they warmed. “He is righteous in his own mind.”
“Then perhaps he is righteous.” Annuvil shook his head. “How am I to know? After all this time, I have still not sorted all the threads that came together to create our downfall. I am still not entirely certain which of my actions were mistaken and wrong. Yet I know for certain that many of them were.”
Tess laid a hand on his shoulder. “You must cease this constant self-reproach. In the days ahead you must be strong and certain. You know Ardred’s intentions.”
“Aye,” said Tom. “There is no good ahead if he triumphs. In that you have always been correct, Archer. Always. I have seen it. Ask yourself what good could he intend when he causes the deaths of thousands through cold and starvation.”
Annuvil nodded. “True.”
“Simply because he convinces himself he is the right and his goals are good does not mean it is so,” Tom continued. “The means by which he achieves them are the truest indicator of the man he is. Even with all of Tess’s powers beside you, you have never sought to harm anyone needlessly. You have never asked her to do a single thing for your benefit. To me that is the best measure by which to judge you and your brother. It answers any question anyone might have.”
A round of “ayes” answered Tom’s words.
Archer lowered his head a bit and stared into the flames. For a long while he did not speak. Where his thoughts traveled none could guess, for his face revealed nothing.
At last he sighed and reached for his tankard. “’Tis fated that this comes to pass. All any can do is his best.” He looked around the group he had traveled with these months. “I have faith in all of you. I could ask for no better companions and comrades.”
“There it is, then,” said Ratha. He raised his mug to the others. “May we all live to meet again when this is over.”
Later, when all slept, it was Tess’s turn to walk out to the edge of the Sea of Glass and stare across its black, glittering expanse. The blizzard had given way to stillness, a stillness so cold she found it hard to draw in a breath. Overhead the stars shone again, their light illumination enough. All around the black glass the snow clung whitely, turning the hills and spires into ghostly shapes. On the glass alone it did not cling, and Tess wondered at that.
The Ilduin who had gathered not far from here to focus their powers on the destruction of Ardred, and consequently Dederand, had created a magick so great that after all this time it still clung.
Closing her eyes, she let herself feel the tattered remnants of the power her sisters had unleashed here. Anger. So much anger. They, too, had believed in their righteousness. They believed they would end the wars that tore the Firstborn apart, but more, they were angry that Theriel had been murdered. The Ilduin were inviolate, but Ardred had violated one of them.
It was that anger, she realized, that had caused the worst of this destruction.
A saying from her other life wafted through her mind, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” She nodded to herself in agreement. They must take care, she realized. She and all her sister Ilduin must take care not to act from anger. They must enter into this confrontation with the purest hearts they could imagine or their magicks would turn wild as they had here, and who could then anticipate the destruction?
Squatting, she laid a hand upon the glass and drew into herself as much as she could from the remnants of power and rage that lingered here. Then, closing her eyes, she sent the knowledge and awareness to all of her sisters, including Lozzi and Yazzi, with clear warning.
Feeling their acknowledgements, she reinforced the images, then allowed them return to their slumbers.
Continuing to stand there, buried deep within the folds of her woolen cloak and hood, she meditated on all she had learned during her brief captivity by the Ilduin Hesta. Meditated on the strands of memory the plain of glass still harbored, meditated on the past she had only recently reclaimed, meditated on her purpose in this world she had been brought to.
The worlds had been rent by the jealousy of a brother and the rage of eleven women like herself. The black glass before her was a scar on the warp of reality itself.
And it was up to her to heal that scar.
Chapter Thirty-One
Every soul greeted the rising sun with gladness and relief. Even the first touch of its warming fingers felt miraculous after the bitter cold of the night. While they had lost no one to the cold, all were stiff and tired from a night spent fighting it.
Fires were fed fresh fuel, giving them new life and warmth. Rations were heated and tea brewed. To the vast relief of the rank and file, they were given time for breakfast before being ordered to form up for the march, while their commanders met with the emperor and the man they were all coming to know as the fabled Annuvil. Joining them were three of the Ilduin who traveled with Annuvil. Yazzi and Lozzi remained in the emperor’s tent.
“We must have some idea of what we face on the plain,” Alezzi said. “All of us need to know how best to plan and guide our legions. We must send out patrols.”
“And we must patrol in strength,” Tuzza said.
Annuvil nodded. “This is not a place for small bodies of men to be caught out. As for the terrain ahead, I can tell some. The glass itself is treacherous. As it cooled, the winds blew fiercely. This is why it looks so much like a black, frozen sea. Many of those ripples are still as sharp as a finely honed blade, despite the centuries of weathering. A fall may cause a serious wound. The surface itself is not as slippery as one might expect. It is not like walking on ice, for there is no water to slicken its surface. Carefully placed feet will find purchase on it.”
Everyone nodded.
“If all goes well, it will take us a day and a half to cross it on foot. I would advise no one to ride.”
“Can we bring our supply trains?” Tuzza asked.
“We must,” said Alezzi. “We do not know what awaits us. If we face a long march before we meet the Enemy, then we will need every bit of food we carry.”
“I agree,” said Archer. “The supply train must come. But care well for our mounts, and watch their steps more carefully than your own. If it slows us down, so be it. We will need our provisions, for we will find no more along our journey.”
“The Snow Wolves should form the patrol columns,” Tuzza said. “I have seen how Anari can move silently and invisibly. And my men have marched with them long enough to have learned some of their skills.”
Tess thought for a moment. On the one hand, the Snow Wolves might indeed be better at the patrol actions. On the other hand, their special tactical skills, operating as a legion, made them better suited to serve as a reserve, ready to unlea
sh their deadly efficiency at a key moment.
“No,” she said. “Tuzza, I know you are a brave man, and I have no doubt that the Snow Wolves could serve well as the army’s scouts. But the patrol columns will suffer attrition in detail, and the tactical value of your legion relies upon your Anari and Bozandari regiments working in concert.”
“Attrition in detail?” the emperor asked. “I am not familiar with these words.”
“Tess comes to us from a different world,” Archer said. “She sometimes still speaks from that world.”
“Aye, Emperor,” Tess said. “I apologize. The patrols will take casualties in the skirmishes along the way, as they contact enemy patrols and try to identify his main body. The Snow Wolf legion has trained to combine Anari and Bozandari tactics. It is our only such legion, and as such we should not divide and winnow it before we are ready to engage the Enemy.”
“And Bozandari lives are less valuable?” Topmark Crazzi said. His Golden Eagle legion had joined them outside Bozandar, and while the other legions seemed to have adapted to the alliance with the Anari, the Golden Eagles and their commander had done so only reluctantly. “Whose legion would you volunteer to suffer ‘attrition in detail,’ as you put it?”
“Mine,” Alezzi said. “We have marched alongside the Snow Wolves long enough to learn some of the Anari skills in stealth. And there are still those who look at my men with suspicion because we marched under Annuvil before the emperor declared the alliance. Let no one doubt our honor now. We will form the patrols.”
“Your men have no dishonor for which to atone,” Maluzza said. “You did not betray me, cousin. You simply had the opportunity to meet the truth before I did.”
“Aye, Emperor,” Alezzi said. “And that is kind of you to say. But you cannot command the hearts of men, Emperor. When this is over, my men do not want to take dark glances from other Bozandari. Allow us to redeem ourselves in the hearts of our countrymen.”