The Second God

by Pauline M. Ross

  He straightened his back and looked me in the eye. His tear-streaked face might have been child-like, but there was a man’s strength in his eyes.

  “I could not permit her to live,” he went on, in stronger tones. “I compelled all the eagles to land here, and instructed the lion guard to destroy her. I truly believed I loved her, Princess, but she used me. She really wanted to get rid of Ly, so that I would be the only byan shar. She tried to kill you first, and when that didn’t work she tried to destroy the army so that your queen would destroy him. But that’s not what I want. The gods sent two byan shar, and I want to be worthy of their choice. She betrayed me – all of us – so… so I killed her.”

  I could hardly swallow, my throat was so constricted. It tore at my heart to hear him call me Princess, just as Ly did. “Ly? Are you watching this?”

  “Yes. That is impressive. I begin to feel that he is trustworthy. But I do not understand how Jes could do so much without touching anyone. Unless… you still have the amber?”

  I touched it as it lay at my throat. “Yes.”

  “Then I do not know.”

  But perhaps I did. Amongst the scraps of fabric discarded by the lions, I saw the remains of a mage-belt, designed to be worn next to the skin with pockets for magic-filled jade stones. Jes had taken Krant’s mage-belt, and used it to enhance her own powers.

  ~~~~~

  Axandor sent his message to the Speaker at Shannamar, and received a reply confirming that there was no change of plan. The army turned around and marched back to camp, the tents and pavilions were erected again, the cook fires restarted, new latrines dug. We settled in to wait for the equinox and the appointed hour for battle.

  Sho was subdued, but resolute in wanting to help, not hinder us. I left his magic to build, just in case we needed to summon any war-beasts. Krant and Sallorna had been completely under Jes’s spell, and found it difficult to believe that the memories they had of Jes working mage-magic were completely fabricated.

  “She was never a mage?” Sallorna said, eyes wide. “But I remember seeing her shoot flames. So when she asked where the vessels were kept, I had no reason not to show her. Are you sure she wasn’t a mage?”

  It worried me more that I hadn’t noticed that she was wearing the belt. There was a time when the jade vessels would have been as clear in my mind as the moon. But the blood magic in me, and the number of eagles and lions and riders competing for my attention, had distracted me. And perhaps Sho’s magic was so strong in my mind that it overshadowed the mage vessels.

  As we waited for the march to war, I spent a great deal of time alone in my tent, talking to Arran. He’d had a shave now, and felt more comfortable letting me see his face in the mirror, but he looked so pale and gaunt. I borrowed a hand mirror and held it up so that he could see my face, too, but only once. It was too upsetting for both of us.

  And so the suns and hours counted down.

  I was too cross with Ly to spend much time looking through his eyes. Not that there was much to see, just happy family meals, music and song, and quiet hours tramping about the wild hills hunting and foraging. His brother’s continuing resentment was the only interruption to the idyll. I began to wonder whether Ly was ever coming back. The only interesting moment was on one of his walks, when a rise in the land brought a clear view to the west, and a single peak standing, rocky and forbidding, snow dusting the summit.

  “Look, Drina,” he said. “That is Dragon Mountain.”

  “Why don’t you go there, then?” I said crossly. “Throw yourself in the magic pool.”

  He just laughed.

  But one afternoon, he contacted me unexpectedly, excitement filling his mind. “The wild hunters are coming back! They will be here in an hour or two.”

  They came, a dishevelled band of no more than half a dozen men and women, clothes ragged, feet mostly bare, leading a long line of mules bearing their haul of skins, antlers and numerous sacks whose contents I couldn’t guess at. Even as I watched them unloading, I couldn’t identify most of what I saw. The perishable goods were all smoked or dried, but there were odd stones and lumps of coloured rock, bones and wood, and pottery jars in bags stuffed with straw to protect them.

  “What will they do with all this?” I asked Ly.

  “Most of it will be traded with neighbours, and they will trade with their neighbours, and eventually it will end up at the sea of plenty.”

  “The sea of plenty? Oh, where the castle is.”

  About an hour after the hunters had arrived came one more, older and even more ragged than the rest. He’d brought the traditional fresh meat for a feast to celebrate their safe return, and he led two mules laden with deer, birds, fish and rodents. Ly yelped when he saw him, and waved, his mind suffused with pleasure.

  “So you haven’t gone to join the ancestors yet, my grandfather,” he shouted.

  The old man broke into a delighted grin. “Little-Ly? No, the ancestors don’t seem to want me. Ah, but it’s wonderful to see you. Ay, ay, ay, look at the height of you! Quite a man now.”

  They embraced, grandfather and grandson, and Do-haem – another name I just knew – wrapped an arm round Ly, leading him towards the fire. Dea-famaar joined them, and they sat side by side, three generations, catching up on several years’ worth of news, for hours. From time to time, someone would push food at them or a beaker of something, but they never stopped talking. After a while my attention wavered, and I turned to Arran instead.

  It must have been quite late in the evening, for I’d eaten and gone to bed, and Arran was yawning, when I became aware of excitement surging through Ly’s mind. It was interesting how attuned to each other we were now, so that any sudden change for one of us immediately alerted the other two. Arran stopped mid-sentence, and we switched our focus to Ly.

  “—can’t be so simple, surely?” Ly said.

  “Well, now, I don’t say that the one means the other, necessarily, but every byan shar who used lightning was an elder, yes.”

  “So all I have to do is go to Dragon Mountain and drink from the blue pool.”

  Do-haem and Dea-famaar exchanged glances. “All you have to do?” Dea said gently. “Oh Little-Ly, you make it sound so simple. So many go there, and so few return. And those with the strongest power are the most likely not to come home afterwards.”

  Ly bowed his head. “And yet I must try,” he said quietly.

  40: Dellonar

  Nothing I said could dissuade him. I know Arran tried, too, but it was no use. Ly was determined to go, to drink from the blue pool and become an elder, or die in the attempt.

  “You have Sho,” he said for the twentieth time at least. “He can summon the war-beasts if you need them. You can help him to control them, now that you have the amber and can manage the lion guard. It will not be so bad as it was with me. And if he gets in too deep, you can take his magic.”

  “I don’t want Sho, I want you! Don’t leave me all alone, Ly. It’s bad enough that…” But I was crying too hard even to say Arran’s name. I was so close to losing him for ever, and now Ly would be lost to me, too. “Please…”

  He wouldn’t listen. The plan was to go with his grandfather and his father and his brother, and he was quite sure they would keep him out of trouble. But I could see the bubble of doubt in his mind, and knew that he wasn’t as sure as he pretended to be. But he was beyond my powers of persuasion and far beyond my reach, so I said no more. But every night after Arran had gone to sleep, I lay awake for hours, tears soaking my pillow.

  The hour came when the army marched east, and this time there was no turning back. I sat on the rocky outcrop above the camp with the lion riders, watching the long line of stern-faced men and women striding away to Dellonar. In my head I was counting – how many hours until they reached the town, how many hours before word would reach the Dragon God at Greenstone Ford? And then, how many hours before they started punishing Arran for this? Would they really start chopping off fingers, toes, hands? Or wou
ld they move straight to something worse? The uncertainty gnawed away at me. If I could only see him one more time, touch his face, kiss him… just once before he was gone for ever.

  Sunshine flew me eastwards, Kalmander shadowing us, above the winding line of soldiers. The lumbering wagons at the back, then the long line of foot-soldiers, and at the front the gaily fluttering pennants of the commanders, and my brother leading them. Axandor had no demoralising uncertainty, no doubts of the wisdom of our actions, or the outcome. We would engage the enemy and we would prevail, Dellonar would be saved from tyranny and he would be a hero. His world was a simple one, and I envied him that.

  Veering south for a while, I drew near to the coast and the endless southern ocean. There on that vast expanse of blue were the little brown dots of the Port Holdings’ ships, ploughing fearlessly towards Dellonar to play their part. So small they looked from above, but their flags flew bravely, too, and I knew every ship was full of soldiers, or defenders, as they called them.

  One last night we camped beside the road, and then at dawn the army moved again, this time with visors lowered, swords drawn, bows primed. And so into Dellonar. Yannassia had wanted me there as witness, but I’d never felt so useless. From high above, I watched our soldiers flooding into the streets from the west, and the defenders from the harbour to the south. And from several places, streams of gold, as the Dragon God’s army moved to the defence. There was a brief skirmish, lasting perhaps half an hour, then the golden streams fragmented and melted away and vanished. We had retaken Dellonar, and with little loss of life.

  But Arran’s fate was sealed.

  ~~~~~

  “Where have they gone? Armies do not just vanish. They must have gone somewhere.”

  Even through the medium of two interpreters and two lion riders, I could imagine the petulant tone in Yannassia’s voice.

  It was the Port Holdings’ Speaker who answered, rather wearily. “They fled east and then north. It is almost desert there, so not many will survive, I think.”

  “Why did they not stay close to the coast? There are towns to the east, I understand.”

  “Very small towns, not large enough to sustain an army. They are trying to get to Rinnfarr Gap, we believe, but we plan to be there before them, Most Powerful. If they survive.”

  “Send an eagle to find out what they are doing. We must know precisely where they are.”

  “I will go,” I said. “I’m not needed here, and I can follow you all to Rinnfarr Gap. How long will it take you to get there?”

  “We will not stay here long,” the Speaker said. “We will leave a force strong enough to deter any attempt to retake the town, but organising that will only take a couple of days – suns. Then we will have to float the Bennamore army upstream on barges – perhaps three or four more days. Our swordships could make it sooner, but obviously we will all progress together.”

  They settled down to discuss the details, but I made an excuse and left. We were in the Hold, a walled compound of ugly, mismatched buildings where the Holder and her family lived. I’d seen Shannamar, the golden city with its elegant towers and spires, and I’d heard of the beauty of Dristomar far to the west, the silver city on its bay of white sand, but Dellonar was the black city. From the roof of one of the Hold towers, I could look out over the array of squat houses and workshops and warehouses, dark and dismal, with high chimneys belching choking smoke into the air. The inhabitants burned some kind of rock for fuel, but the smoke was thick and coated everything in a thin film of soot. The wind blew the worst of it out to sea, but even so I found it hard to breathe. I couldn’t wait to leave, and the eagles spent most of their time over the sea, or circling the hills to the north.

  And now we were going to Rinnfarr Gap, and after that it would be Greenstone Ford. All Yannassia’s fine words about treaties and obligations had gone for nought. Just Dellonar, she’d said, that’s our only commitment. After that, we need only defend our own borders. So we had fulfilled our obligation to the Port Holdings, but it wasn’t enough, because if the golden army regrouped at Rinnfarr Gap, there was nothing to stop them from floating downriver and retaking Dellonar again whenever they chose. We would have to leave half the army there permanently to protect it. We had to clear the golden army out of the southern plains altogether, or we would never be safe.

  I didn’t much care. Another town, another battle. What did it matter now? The first move had been made, and Arran’s life was the price to be paid. We were only waiting for the end.

  Summoning Sunshine, I took to the skies, Kalmander my ever-present shadow. Sho followed me, too. Krant and Sallorna were using their skills to aid the injured, but Sho, like me, had no proper role to play, and trailed round after me like a small child. He was drawn to me in the same way that Ly had been, but I was able to manage the problem by keeping his magic burning at a low level. When we reached Greenstone Ford again, he would need enough magic to summon the war-beasts, but until then I didn’t want him losing control and jumping on me. I’d surrendered to the pull of Ly’s magic, long ago, and that had worked out in the end, but the thought of coupling with Sho was horrifying. So I kept his magic low, and hoped for the best, and it seemed to work. Or perhaps the blood-bonding deterred him, for he treated me with the same deference as the lion guard.

  We flew out to sea first, to avoid the unpleasant smoke, and then circled round to the east, crossing the rocky coast with its little fishing ports strung out along the winding road like beads on a necklace. Every tiny cove had its cluster of turf-roofed cottages, fishing nets spread out to dry and children scampering through the bracken, waving to us. But as we headed north, away from the sea, the villages petered out and then disappeared altogether and we flew over empty grassland, with not a road or a building to be seen.

  There was one marker, though – a wide swathe of flattened grass where an army had recently passed by. I’d thought they might disperse, with some heading along the coast and others vanishing into the trackless hills that surrounded the Dellonar River, but no. This was a systematic and unswerving march north. I followed the track for many marks, and saw no signs of an overnight camp or even a resting point, a wider area of trampled grass, with perhaps the remains of fires or debris. They were marching onwards even by night.

  I didn’t try to catch up with them. Instead, I turned back for Dellonar, to warn the armies that they would need to move fast to reach Rinnfarr Gap before the golden army arrived.

  “We cannot leave before tomorrow at the earliest,” Zand, the Speaker, said. “Unlike these people, we cannot travel by night. If Rinnfarr Gap has been reinforced before we reach it, so be it. We will fight them wherever we find them.”

  “And then on to Greenstone Ford?” I said.

  “Yes. We must, I think. Our aim is to push these people out of the southern plains altogether, and Greenstone Ford is too close to Bennamore for comfort.”

  “Then Sho and I will go straight to Greenstone Ford to summon the war-beasts,” I said.

  To my surprise, Axandor crossed the room to wrap me in a bear hug. “May the gods protect you, sister,” he said, his voice thick, and that brought me close to tears myself. “Give my best to Arran. I… I always liked him, you know.”

  ~~~~~

  Truth to tell, I was glad to be away from the army, the relentless pressure of discipline and rules and planning. I couldn’t wait to escape it all, to be aloft with Sunshine, floating serenely above the conflict. Down below, the dirty streets of Dellonar were filled with people celebrating as people celebrate everywhere – with ale and shrieking and milling about in large gangs and generally behaving like a herd of kishorn bullocks. Up above, there was freedom and quiet and a warming northern wind and the whole of the southern plains laid out like a blanket.

  At first we followed the river, a shimmering ribbon winding fast and deep through the hills. A few barges made their way upriver, the merchants already getting back to business after the disruption of a pitched battle in the stre
ets. From the north, nothing came. But after a while, we veered to the west and flew above the hills, disturbing some deer and a few goats, but seeing no settlements. There were a few villages along the river itself, serving the needs of the barge trade, but beyond the perimeter the hills were forbiddingly rocky, and home only to wild animals.

  By mid-afternoon, I was tired and ready to make camp. A sheltered valley beckoned invitingly.

  “Can you find some food while I build the fire?” I said to Sho.

  He nodded. He’d shut me out of his mind for a while, but since Jes had died, he’d been much more open towards me and allowed me to talk to him, mentally. He disappeared into a patch of scrubby woodland.

  Gathering firewood and laying a fire kept my hands occupied, but it didn’t stop my mind from churning. Ever since that first meeting with the Dragon God, he’d been to visit Arran every single sun. Sometimes it was a shared noon meal, sometimes an afternoon whiled away with a game of some sort. A couple of times he’d taken Arran to watch the golden army training, and once to watch a formal parade, which had lasted all afternoon and consisted of a thousand men – for their soldiers were all men – standing motionless, while another thousand marched in perfect step around them.

  But so far this sun, he hadn’t come, and I worried over the possible reasons for that.

  Arran fretted too. “He cannot know yet, can he? Surely no word of Dellonar has reached him yet.”

  I had no answer for him.

  Sho had found rodents, some roots and mushrooms, and a few herbs. He hadn’t Ly’s skill with cooking, and I hadn’t the least idea, but between us we muddled through and got something edible out of it.

  He was docile enough now, but I still didn’t feel I could trust him. He was byan shar and in the learning and regeneration phase, so he couldn’t help being drawn to me. The magical void inside me drew all magic, but in him, as with Ly, it was a compulsion. And now I was camping in the wilderness with him.