by Holly Lisle
Sahedre lay in the straw, bleeding and still, for only a few minutes. Then, with difficulty, she sat up and looked around her. The pain that ate at her body was formidable, and she was tired—agonizingly tired—but considering how well things were going, she would live with that. Three of the Fendles lay dead on the floor. Two were missing—the one the Mottemage had returned to human form who had immediately thereafter crumbled into dust... and Faia's little friend Yaji, who had apparently escaped. A problem, that, but only a small one. One Fendle remained in the stables, watchful and cowering. The dead winged filly, the disemboweled cat, and the flayed Mottemage completed the picture.
Sahedre felt the power from the Mottemage's mehevar coursing through her. Almost enough, she thought. Almost—but not quite.
Her wounds throbbed, and still bled profusely. She could, she thought, heal them—but that would make her story of a saje attack less impressive. She ached worse inside than outside—gnawed at by a curious, dull lethargy—she shook it off. No time for that.
She eyed the surviving Fendle with distaste. "Took a liking to my throat, did you, Malner? Wished me dead, then thought perhaps that I would forget your indiscretion? Thought I would remember how much I needed you? I knew you hated me, but you would have done well to have hidden it a bit longer."
She shrugged once. "You were correct. I do still need you." She smiled. "Come here, then."
The Fendle stayed crouched in its corner.
Sahedre fingers drew a sign in the air. "I said—come here."
This time, a pawn that moved knowingly to its own sacrifice, the Fendle slowly advanced.
"Better. I never found out who actually wielded the knife against my Beliseth. Never. I suspected you, Malner, but none of your soon-to-be-Fendle associates would confess, nor would you tell me. The rest are gone. You alone remain to pay the price I had intended to extract from all. Very well—now is the time that I require payment."
The Fendle's eyes were white-rimmed, and it struggled ineffectually to back away from the Wisewoman.
"A death for a death, Malner. You for Beliseth—and I have still gotten the worse of the bargain. No matter. Your death will also give Ariss-Magera into my hands to dispatch against Ariss-Sajera. Two cities for a life—that is better payment." She looked down into the panicked brown eyes. "Would I could take the whole of the world," she whispered, "or have my Beliseth back."
While the Fendle struggled to escape, Sahedre began the ritual of mehevar. The Wisewoman laughed as she listened to the beast's screams.
The frelles huddled in the Greathall in terror. The mindscreams were upon them again, the terror of a soul being ripped and rent from its body and consigned to nothingness.
The Mottemage did not come, and did not come—and the ghoulish daylit echoes of carnage continued and continued until the frelles, huddled together to comfort each other, screamed in sympathetic anguish with the dying soul.
In the silence that followed there was no peace.
"The second slaughter in as many minutes," Frelle Jann whispered. "That was the meaning of the Saje bell. The attack has started. The sajes have come. If we just wait here, they'll find us and kill us."
Young Frelle Tardana muttered, "The Mottemage or Medwind Song should have been here by now. Where are they?"
One of the assistants said, "I saw the Mottemage down at the wingmount stables."
Jann snapped her fingers. "Of course. The most recent batch of mounts was ready for finishing today. She'll still be there—in a trance, most likely, for then she would not have heard the bell or the deathscreams." The redheaded frelle stared at the ground for an instant, muttered something to herself, and nodded.
She glanced around the room at the assembled University staff. "Tardana, you organize the rest of the frelles, and get all the students back here to the Greathall. Begin to build the power for our strike. Mersa, contact the Hub and let the others on the Council know the sajes have attacked. Litthea, you know Song as well as anyone. Find her. She is the one who devised the majority of our strategy against Saje-Ariss. We need her here now.
"I will go down to the stables and rouse the Mottemage from her work. We shall all meet back here."
Sahedre sensed the presence long before she actually heard the footsteps in the corridor. Someone is coming, she thought. Good. Appearance now is everything. She smeared the fresh-killed Fendle's blood over her to add drama to the appearance of her own wounds, lay back in the straw, and arranged herself in an artful sprawl.
"Mottemage?" a high voice called from just inside the stable. The voice echoed down the stone corridors. "Motte? It's Frelle Jann. The saje attack has started. We need you."
Perfect, Sahedre thought.
"She must still be in trance," the Wisewoman heard the frelle mumble.
Sahedre heard footsteps, and the creak as the gate swung open, then a sudden gasp and an instant of silence—followed by a perfectly gratifying scream.
The Wisewoman let the scream carry for several seconds. That should bring a few others. A bit longer, mayhaps a bit louder, dear—
Enough, she decided. Time now to bait the hook. Sahedre groaned, weakly.
The frelle heard, and flinched. "One lives? Who?"
Sahedre groaned again, slightly louder.
She located Sahedre among the bloody bodies. "Gods, oh, gods, wake up, you—whoever—" Frelle Jann's voice stopped cold, and when she spoke again, her tone was murderous. "You! Open your eyes! Tell me, what part did you have in this, you bitch?"
Sahedre fought the impulse to open her eyes in surprise. What!? Me? she wondered. How can she already suspect me? She groaned again, and slit her eyes open slightly, and croaked, "Sajes..."
"No doubt," the other voice said bitterly. "And just as in Bright, none live but you to tell the tale." The frelle kicked the wounded woman viciously in the thigh. Sahedre held her response to a faint moan. "You have amazing luck," Jann snarled. "Death rides on your shoulder like a pet bird, striking all but you."
Ah, how easy to forget—you see not me, but Faia. Well, Sahedre thought, you have amazing luck, too, little frelle, to kick me and survive. Not for long, though. You will pay when your usefulness is past.
Several frelles and students ran into the stables. "Frelle Jann," one called, "who screamed?"
Sahedre heard them running down the corridor, then into the altering stall. There was another brief, charming round of screaming, and some equally delightful crying. The dear late Mottemage was apparently quite popular with her subordinates. So much the better.
Frelle Jann said, "Faia still survives, but she seems badly wounded. She may not live."
Do not sound so hopeful, dear.
"Has she spoken?"
"She said, 'Sajes.' Nothing else."
"So all is as you said. But the sajes have killed the immortal Fendles. They're stronger than we thought."
"Apparently so."
"Where are they, then?"
Sahedre whispered from her bed of straw, "Preparing to—attack the Hub. I—heard them—when they thought me dead. They wanted to be rid—of the leaders."
"Medwind!" one voice blurted out. "Is she dead as well?"
"Who can say?" Jann muttered. "Perhaps Litthea has found her by now."
"What will we do with the bodies of the Mottemage and the Fendles and—"
Frelle Jann cut them off. "We will leave them, and bury them when we can. Grief and sentiment are for times of peace. This is war."
Sahedre watched through slitted eyes as two students carried in a makeshift litter crafted of horseblankets and shovel-poles.
"What is that for?" Jann snapped.
"Faia. We're taking her to the Greathall. The healers will be there."
"Don't bother—she's done for," the frelle told them. "Leave her here to die in peace."
Little snake! Sahedre thought. You shall suffer for that, Frelle Jann.
"She's still breathing, and she knows what happened," one of the students said. "There's so
me hope."
"I said leave her!" Jann snarled.
The other student walked over to the frelle and whispered, so low that Sahedre could barely hear her, "It would look bad for you, Frelle, to leave her here when all know how you hate her. Though I'm sure you are right and she is beyond saving, think of your reputation. Better the hero than the villain at a time like this—especially with the Mottemage dead and her unpopular choice as successor missing—and you the favorite of the Council."
Sahedre did not miss the calculating look that sped across Jann's face and vanished in a heartbeat. She did not miss, either, the alteration in Jann's tone as the frelle said, "You are right, Derla—I was drowned in grief because of Rakell's death. I don't have any hope for Faia, but bring her to the Greathall. We have to try."
Once inside the Greathall, a stout young Healer with dimples and several chins was summoned from the chanting circles of mages and brought to Sahedre's side. One of the students gave her a rapid-fire report of the occurrence in the stables. The young woman nodded grimly and knelt on the floor beside Sahedre.
"I don't know if you can hear me," she said softly, "but my name is Brynne. Frelle Brynne, First Instructor of the Healing Arts at Daane. I'm going to take a look at you, and I need you to hold very still.
"Deep cuts, bruises, some rough wounds on the throat—" the Healer mumbled, as her fingers poked and prodded over Sahedre. "Oh! A spell, too. Very powerful and tenacious—"
Sahedre suppressed a smile. A powerful spell, indeed. I have some aches and some scratches—" But she groaned once, for effect. "Sajes," she whispered. "Sajes everywhere.... I can't stop them...." She thought she would thrash a bit on the litter, then decided not to. She was surprised that it took such effort even to whisper. She lapsed into silence.
"We're going to get them. Believe that, child." Brynne's voice was hard stone and cold fury. She murmured a soft, lulling incantation.
"What are you doing?" Frelle Jann asked.
"Diagnostic test. I can sense the burrowings of a massive spell, but I can't quite make out—" The Healer gasped. "A settling spell. Gods on hot rocks—why would the sajes put that on her?"
Frelle Jann asked, "They put a—what—what did they do? I don't recognize the spell you named, Brynne."
"Settling spell. She's been overcome by lethargy—she wouldn't even have realized that she was spelled. She would have simply lain in one place until she starved, convinced that at any moment she would get up and go on with her life.
"I'm going to do some things that hurt, Faia," the Healer added, "but the spell is working on you right now. It will soon destroy you unless it can be stopped."
Nonsense, Sahedre thought. I'm laying here because this is all part of the plan—
The Healer said a few more words in a gentle sing-song. For a moment, nothing happened. Then incredible pain blazed through Sahedre's body. She screamed. Incoherent with anguish, she writhed on the litter.
Freed from the spell, she came up off the litter in a fury. "Jann!" she screamed. "I'm going to—"
A strong hand settled on her shoulder and forced her back to the floor. "You are going to lay back down again, Faia. A weaker woman would have died of your wounds, and you are still bleeding," the Healer said. "Whatever you had to say to Frelle Jann will wait a few moments more."
She tsk-tsk'd over Sahedre's wounds, washed her off, made her drink several unbelievably foul elixirs, then said with typical medical cheer, "Bad, but not as bad as all that. Big, strong, healthy girl like you—took a bit more than they thought you would, I'd say. All that blood off of you and you look like you might just make it."
She touched Sahedre's throat with puzzlement. "These are animal bites, though, not knife wounds—and they are bad ones. They damn-near took out the artery." She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against the ripped flesh, and Sahedre's throat burned.
The Wisewoman cried out.
"There, now—hurts like the hells, doesn't it? But that's healed it. You'll have a nasty scar, but you'll not be in danger of breathing through your neck. So—what bit you?"
Damn, damn, and damn-all! Bloody Fendle bites—or—wait. This could solve the Yaji problem nicely. It could, indeed work very well. "A Fendle." There were gasps from around the Greathall. "The sajes did something to them," she told Frelle Brynne and Frelle Jann and the rest of the assembled women of Daane. "I don't know how, but they knew of the Fendles—and they had some magic that turned them against us."
"I imagine they found out about the Fendles when you stole the Mottemage's wingmount and flew to Saje-Ariss to tell them, Faia," Jann snarled. "I imagine that's why you survived, too, don't you think?"
I forgot about this peasant-idiot's trip. It would be her body I needed! Hells, this makes things difficult.
She ignored Frelle Jann and continued. "Yaji and I ran to the stables when we heard the Mottemage scream. The Fendles came with us. All of us—the Mottemage and her cat, the Fendles, and Yaji and I, fought side by side until one of the sajes did something and the Fendles turned on us. The sajes spelled us, and we all fell together—they did mehevar on the Mottemage, and then on one Fendle. They spirited Yaji off to Ariss-Sajera, and left me for dead, I suppose, and the Fendle that lay beside me as well. That Fendle was dying, but as its spirit left its body, it came into me."
Frelle Jann's expression hardened, and her eyes narrowed. She studied Sahedre with intense scrutiny. "Just what do you know of mehevar, Faia?" the instructor asked sharply.
Ah—Faia would not know a thing of it, would she? She scrambled for an answer. "The sajes called their ritual by that name—the Fendles told me more of it."
"I thought the Fendles were turned against you?"
"The Fendle, I meant to say. The one that gave me its spirit when it died. I'm sure the ones that escaped are still dangerous."
"Leave the girl alone, Jann," Frelle Brynne snapped. "She has fought demons today, and nearly died trying to save our Mottemage." The Healer gave Faia a gentle pat on the shoulder and a worried frown. "Escaped?"
"They must have. There were seven, remember. There weren't that many dead in the stables."
Frelle Jann nodded. "Quite true. There weren't that many. How very clever of you to notice—considering how badly injured you were at the time."
The Wisewoman glared at Jann. The others were so willing to believe—Sahedre could feel their carefully tended and nurtured rage and hatred toward the sajes swelling in the room, fed by the rituals they were performing—aimed, conveniently, at her preferred target. Only Jann, whose hatred was aimed at her, kept seeing the flaws in her alibi. She needed Jann out of the way. She needed the cooperation of the rest of her intended victims.
Enough, then, Sahedre thought. I feel stronger by the moment, and Faia's strength and the power of the mehevarin course through me. I need not tolerate Jann any longer. The time for my revenge is finally come, and she shall not keep me from it a moment longer.
She pulled in the necessary earth and air energy, and spread a delicate, unobtrusive shield around herself and the mages in the Greathall. She filled the space inside the shield with her own hatred of the sajes, augmenting the already thick atmosphere of paranoia in the hall. Gently, then, she spoke to Jann.
"We are fighting the sajes," she said, and reinforced her statement with a magical aura of sincerity. "We must not fight each other." Underneath her words was the command, :Obey me.:
Jann was a strong mage, but she did not have Sahedre's four hundred years of pent-up fury and hunger behind her. When Sahedre looked into her eyes, her will overwhelmed the young frelle, and everything the Wisewoman asked seemed suddenly reasonable—and Jann nodded politely, and said, "Yes, of course. How shortsighted of me."
Sahedre then faced the assembled women of Daane University.
They moved through their rituals, spiraling the force of their wrath into a maelstrom that pulsated and surged, waiting only release and direction.
Their anger makes them mine, she gloated
—and reached out a hand, and pulled their unwholesome fire into her belly, and made it hers.
":The sajes must die,:" she whispered into their minds. :This is all you want—it is all I want. Give yourselves to me, and I will give you the power to bring them down.:
They were already so close to the edge, so open to this voice that promised them what they wanted. To a woman, the mages opened themselves and welcomed in the voice that promised victory and revenge—and to a woman, they toppled headlong into Sahedre's abyss.
:Now,: she said, :I tell you first that I am Lady Sahedre Onosdotte, the ancient Wisewoman of Ariss-Magera, and master of you all. I have returned to lead you against the sajes—we shall leave nothing of them but wisps of smoke in the rubble of their city.:
She felt the surge of excitement in her followers—her slaves—and she exulted. The destruction of Ariss rested in the palm of her hand. She commanded the energies of the mages, and expanded the shield further, to cover the whole campus of Daane and to bring any stragglers into her sphere of influence. She would need to spread the shield further soon—she would have to bring every soul in Ariss-Magera under her command, so that she could channel the life energy of half the city into her attack against the other half. To do that, she would have to replenish her strength with mehevar frequently just to keep all her fronts covered. She needed to detail someone to bring her young children—in the meantime, adults would have to do.
Frelle Jann, she decided, would be a good first subject.
Meanwhile, she thought, I need to get the attack on Ariss-Sajera underway.
:The battle begins now,: she announced. :Ariss-Sajera will be reduced to dust, and everyone in it. You will first destroy the sajes' University, then the Saje-Hub. When every saje has been obliterated, you will then annihilate every living thing in the rest of the city. You will not stop until the city of Ariss-Sajera is empty and dead—or all of you are.: