Karel looked at her for a moment. “Well, if he does he can’t catch us in a straight chase. He’s only been able to keep in contact with us this long because we keep doubling back and trying to get past his forces.”
“Don’t forget,” cautioned Orvet, “that he’s a powerful sorcerer, and may send some of his creatures after us.”
“Can you protect us against such things?”
“Only if the sendings involve supernatural beings. I’m an exorcist, not a wizard, and I know as little about the energy he throws or the overmind as you do.”
Ina, wiping her violet eyes, asked rhetorically, “Why does he persecute us so? We’ve never done him any harm?” Surprisingly, Adelinda chose to answer the question. “He isn’t an evil man. He really believes that he’s doing the right thing. He has been taught that only the upper ranks of the clergy are wise and benevolent enough to run things and that the common people are really better off being cared for and shepherded. We outraged his ideas of propriety and he took measures to restore things to order.”
“I think things have gone beyond that. The battle is something personal between you and him now,” said Karel, dryly.
“Yes, because I symbolize all the disorder he’s fighting against. Religion does that to people—it makes them think they know the right answers for everybody. They may do the most horrendous things in the name of goodness and mercy. I’m not without fault myself. If I had sat down with him when we first got to the Vale, and calmly and rationally discussed our different ways of looking at the world, I think we could have worked things out.”
“You can’t discuss things rationally with a religious fanatic,” said Karel. “They’re beyond the reach of reason.” “That’s true, but An-Shai isn’t a fanatic. He believes in his religion because it’s a tool he can use.”
“I’ve got to say that I’m surprised to hear you defending him.”
“I’m not defending him. The only chance we have to ever see home again is to understand our enemy. We’ve underestimated him all along, and this is where it’s gotten us.” She gestured at the bleak campsite, and the encompassing desert.
“Will we ever see home again?” asked Len. Silence followed, save for the unending whine of the wind and the rushing sound of the blowing grains of sand, as each waited for one of the others to say what none of them wished to hear.
At last, Orvet, more at ease with exile than the others, said slowly, “Maybe not. We never have had any idea of how to get back across the ocean without An-Shai’s cooperation. Perhaps it’s just as well we never did reach the ocean. We’d have been trapped between saltwater and An-Shai’s forces.”
Adeiinda’s gesture was eloquent of despair. “Then what can we do? If we can’t reach home, where can we go? In all this continent, there is no place of safety for An-Shai’s enemies.”
“Surely,” said Karel impatiently, “even An-Shai wouldn’t follow us out into the desert. Somewhere there must be grass for the horses, game to hunt, land to plant crops. Maybe there are even other nations, more hospitable than Godsland, where we could live for a year or two. In time, we could find another way home or learn to live here.”
“Live here, in this forsaken desert, among these religion-mad people? We’d be better off dead!” said Tobin, vehemently. “I want to go home. I didn’t contract to spend the rest of my life wandering in the wilderness.”
Adelinda sighed. “We all want to go home, but we certainly wouldn’t be better off dead.”
“You!” said Tobin, viciously. “Why should you care where you live? You don’t have the dimmest notion what it’s like to love someone or care about a home and family.” “Tobin, shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Len, wearily. Abashed, Tobin quieted.
“One thing’s certain: we have to get away from An-Shai before we can plan anything else,” said Karel. There was a low murmur of agreement. Adeiinda’s gaze rested on the ground in front of her crossed legs.
“Then in the morning, we head west. Agreed, Adelinda?” said Orvet.
“We won’t escape An-Shai,” she said quietly. “He’ll follow us to the ends of the earth. But we have to go somewhere, and maybe it would be better for the final confrontation to take place on ground that’s as strange to him as to us. West it is.”
An-Shai sat on his ragged greathorse staring out over the desert. His hugely elongated shadow stretched out before him onto the desert floor, pointing the way like some prophetic omen. He ground his teeth with rage and frustration. “She’s headed west,” he said to Tsu-Linn who had brought soldiers to help in the hunt. “She’s given up trying to cut back to the sea and she’s going to try to lose me out there in the wilderness.”
“Give it up,” the initiate answered. “You’ll never catch her out there. It’s never been explored. No one knows the trails or where the water’s hidden.”
An-Shai turned on his superior haunted eyes that glittered as if fevered. Indeed, haggard and strained as his face was, he looked ill, as if his consuming obsession was burning away his very flesh. The Erinys, wavery in the sunrise, pointed at him and wailed sorrowfully, unheeded. “No. If she can live out there, so can I. She’ll never escape me. I will break her!” He drew a ragged breath.
“Forget her. Come with me to the Hall of the Initiates. You’ll rise fast; already you’re as powerful as at least half of the initiates.”
“No. Come with me or not, just as you like. But I’m going to catch her.”
Tsu-Linn sighed. “Don’t be foolish, man. Look at your precious horses. Three dead already, and more will die before the day’s out. You’ll never catch her on these horses.” An-Shal raised his fists above his head, a gesture eloquent of rage and despair. “I must! I must!” Random energies popped and crackled in the air about his form.
Uneasily, Tsu-Linn drew a little away. Li-Mun spoke from the background, where he had been quietly observing the argument. “Yes, Your Grace, you must.” He turned apologetically to Tsu-Linn. “He’d be no good to you in the Hall. This is what he has to do. But we won’t take the horses. Return to the Vale, sir, and take the horses with you. We’ll follow the outlanders on foot.”
“You’ll never catch up with them. Men on foot against those speedy horses!”
“We’ll catch them,” said An-Shai hoarsely. He dismounted and pulled at the saddlebags. “Len isn’t well, and he’s getting worse. They won’t be able to travel fast.” Tsu-Linn snorted. “And when you do? Two of you against the six of them?”
For the first time An-shai looked directly at the initiate. “When I catch her,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’ll make her beg for mercy, and weep for joy to get a pat on the head.
She’ll tremble if I frown, and if I care to smile upon her, she’ll think the sun has risen. She’ll plead for the chance to wash my feet or sweep my room, but I shall not indulge her often, for fear of spoiling her.” This vision was so pleasing to the bishop that his gaunt features curved into a travesty of a smile.
Tsu-Linn shuddered and looked away. “Well, when you do catch her, bring her to the Initiates’ Hall.” He gave An-Shai a slip of bark paper with the directions to that mysterious place written upon it. “If both of you should survive the encounter.” Raising a hand in sardonic farewell, he wheeled his horse back into the rising sun, the soldiers following after.
Shouldering their bags and their canteens, the two clerics followed their shadows out onto the desert floor.
Gathered about the bitter alkaline water, waiting for seepage to refill the shallow basin Tobin and Ina had scooped, Adelinda and Orvet did what they could to ease Leo while Karel scouted ahead. In the days they had ridden and walked into the west, Len’s condition had worsened, exacerbated by the exertions and privations of their trek. He was delirious much of the time now, and it was becoming increasingly clear that without rest and care and good food, his life was in grave danger.
Orvet looked up at Adelinda, who was supporting Len’s wasted form while the exorcist c
oaxed him to drink a little of the bitter water. “Is An-Shai still following us?” he asked quietly.
Adelinda raised her head as if listening to the wind, though she sought with an inner sense. “Yes,” she said at last. “But he’s farther behind. He’s getting desperate. He’s beginning to think we may get away, and he can’t bear the thought. The Erinys is distressing him more and more, too. It keeps him awake at night and disturbs his concentration during the days.”
“Ah, good. I didn’t hope for such a success when i summoned it.”
“Why not?”
“They only appear to those who act against their own consciences. If An-Shai were a truly evil man, he couldn’t perceive it at all. Erinyes are only found on one small island offshore of the Republics—an island with exceptionally civilized inhabitants. I thought the appearance of an unknown supernatural might serve to distract the bishop for a while. It was beyond hope that it would actually fasten on him. It means that he knows, whether he will admit it to himself or not, that what he’s doing is wrong.”
Adelinda smiled. “I expect it would make you think twice before you did something wrong if you knew you were going to have to put up with one of those things pointing at you all the time. But it doesn’t help us much.”
“Possibly not. But then again, you never know. Here, Len, try to drink a little.” He bent again to the task of coaxing a few drops of water through Len’s parched lips.
lust then Karel rode over the crest of the nearest dunes. There was a broad grin on his face. “Mountains!” he yelled, as Dusty slid down amid cascading sand. “A huge range, bigger than the Black Mountains, I’d guess.” He pulled his horse up and stepped off, some of the old fluidity of movement restored for the moment by his elation. “Fresh water, game, grass for the horses!”
“How far?” asked Adelinda breathlessly, as they all crowded around eagerly.
“Two days’ ride. Easy days,” he added, with a glance at the semiconscious Len.
“We’ve made it!” said Adelinda wonderingly. “Once we’re in the mountains even An-Shai will never find us. Len’s going to be all right. We made it!” She took a deep breath and laughed for joy, sweeping Karel and Orvet into an enormous hug, to find her own ribs being cracked in turn by Tobin and Ina. Freeing herself, she ran to Len and bent over him, willing him to share the rejoicing. “Len, Len,” she called. “Len, there are mountains ahead, an enormous range. There’s going to be a place you can rest and get better. We’re going to be safe, Len!”
Len opened his eyes and looked into her smiling ones. “Mountains?” he whispered.
“Yes, mountains!” She gathered his bony hands into hers and felt, infinitely weakly, a returning pressure. “You’re going to be well again!” Then she burst into absurd tears as she knelt there beside him.
An-Shai stopped so suddenly that Li-Mun, his eyes on the ground where he was placing his dogged footsteps, crashed into him. “What is it?” he asked, a suspicion of irritation in his voice.
“She’s getting away! They’ve found something—somewhere to go that I can’t follow. She’s going to be safe from me!” An-Shai’s voice crescendoed to a scream. “No! I won’t let you get away!” Dropping his battered saddlebags to the ground, he flung himself down beside them and began to rummage feverishly through their contents. At last he drew forth a tattered scroll. Muttering with satisfaction, he opened it and scanned it intently. The sparks of energy that surrounded him constantly now sizzled and darkened to a sullen green. Finding what he sought, he rose to his feet.
The Erinys gave a sudden, bloodcurdling shriek as of unendurable pain. “No!” it cried, coalescing nearly into solidity, even in the full light of the desert sun. “Evil! Evil! Souls destroyed by willing evil!”
Li-Mun, fearing that madness had at last overtaken his superior, asked uneasily, “What are you going to do?” The Erinys sobbed and wailed.
Both were ignored. An-Shai began to gather the energy from the atmosphere around himself, clutching it into his clawing hands, kneading it into a denser and denser clot of lightning-shot, greenish-black fire. The crackling of sparks deepened to a hiss that rose to a roar. The power he held now between his outstretched hands was enough to blast the walls of a mighty keep, and if he had flung it at a living person, only rags and scraps would have remained. The terrible concentration required to control such an awesome charge distorted his face into a bare-teeth grimace. Li-Mun backed away.
Vibrating with the pulsations of the gathered and concentrated power he held, An-Shai flung his head back. “I, An-Shai, summon you, Supplililumalitlalumasulisimula!” he called, his voice a sonorous, full-throated chant as he carefully enunciated every one of the fourteen syllables of the name. The power between his hands melted and dripped away, leaving not a spark behind. An-Shai slumped to the pebble-strewn sand, his breath coming in heaving jerks.
Li-Mun, who recognized the name, was horrified. “Your Grace!” he cried, kneeling in the sand beside An-Shai’s exhausted body. “What have you done? Why have you summoned a dragon? You can’t control it; it will kill us all!”
An-Shai groaned and tried to lever himself to a sitting position. Li-Mun supported him with an arm around his shoulders. The two men found themselves facing the Erinys, only a slight flickering now betraying that this was an immaterial supernatural being. Its face, so like An-Shai’s own that it even reflected the havoc of hardship and hatred, was twisted with pain and terror and something like disgust. “An-Shai!” it moaned. “An-Shai is destroyed! An-Shai is no more! In pride and hatred, An-Shai has chosen to destroy himself so that he may destroy that which has done him no harm. An-shai, oh, An-Shai! Weep for An-shai! An-Shai who has chosen to slay that which he was meant to cherish is damned forever!” Never had the thing’s enunciations been so clear; its eternally pointing finger quivered right in the hierarch’s face.
An-Shai was seized with a fit of trembling. He shrank back into Li-Mun’s arms, staring at the Erinys with weak fascination. It shrieked with unearthly pain, and he flinched as if struck a cruel blow.
The atmosphere shuddered and the glaring sun dimmed. Overhead, great translucent wings with spidery claws at the wrist joints spread two hundred feet across the sky. Effortlessly, the dragon banked and turned, flapped its wings once with a sound like thunder, and stooped to alight on the sand. It was a bluish bronzy red, and its gracefully curved neck was enormously long and as flexible as a snake. Huge it was indeed, but incredibly attenuated, so delicate that it seemed likely to crumple in the dry wind. Perhaps a hundred and fifty feet long, it could have weighed no more than a ton, its legs so unbelievably slender that they hardly seemed sufficient to support it, its wing membranes as thin as tissue. The head was as big as one of the greathorses An-Shai had left behind, but dry and spare, all hollows and concavities, save
for the great slotted eyes. It stretched its wings to the sky, supporting itself upon its two delicate legs and its serpentine tail. Then it placed the leading edge of one wing upon the ground, the wrist claws splayed to help support its weight, and spoke.
“Who summons me?” Its voice was like a chorus of sweet trumpets, brassy and yet melodious. “Often have I heard my name spoken in spells meant to drive me away, but never before has a human creature dared to call me. Who summons a dragon?”
An-Shai struggled to his feet, supported by his secretary. “I, An-Shai, summoned you. And now I conjure you to depart as you have come. Supplililumalitlalumasulisimula, begone!”
The dragon laughed, a symphony of bugles and horns playing a wild harmony of untamed mirth. “You, An-Shai, have not the power to send me away now. If you did not wish my presence, why did you call me?” It snaked its reptilian head down to look the two men in the eyes. Its breath was heavily sweet with a scent of crushed herbs. Its fangs were edged as well as pointed and fairly hummed with sharpness. “Was it because you and your companion wish to be a dragon’s snack?” Its ropy tongue slithered out to flick over them in feathery little touches. “Pah. Old and
dried out. I prefer the sweet-fleshed young of the human kind, milk-fed and no more than two years old, for my snacks. Are you perhaps a male and female of your kind? I have often thought of breeding up my own delicacies.”
“No!” said An-Shai. “We are both males.”
“Useless. But I perceive another herd of your kind a short way to the west. Perhaps there are females among them. Come along.”
The dragon reared itself into the air, the enormous downdraft of its wings blasting the two hierarchs off their feet. Before they had even ceased tumbling, they were each snatched up in one of the talons and borne vertiginously away into the air.
The party of outlanders were just putting the finishing touches on a horse litter in which to carry Len to the mountains. Two long poles were slung from Dusty’s stirrups in front to those on Len’s mare behind, and a rope wound around them between the two horses to support a pad of blankets and Len’s slight weight. They were unprepared for the sudden rush of dragon wings, the blotting of the sun, and the swoop upon them which left the two hierarchs sprawling in their midst. The dragon, having deposited its burden, circled once around the camp, setting the terrified horses milling, and settled itself upon the crest of the dune.
The awestruck outlanders stared at the towering creature, paralyzed in amazement. “A dragon!” breathed Orvet. “I’ve heard of them, but I never thought to see one!”
The dragon reared its snaky head against the sky and bugled one clear, piercing note. Then it lowered its head into the camp. “Are any of you female?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Adelinda incautiously, too surprised at the creature’s melodious voice to think what she was saying. “Two of us are.”
“Good. Then I will keep you. What do you graze upon?” “What does it want with us?” whispered Karel.
“It wants to breed us to provide snacks. It likes two-year-olds best,”' explained Li-Mun. The outlanders all looked at him, aware for the first time that their enemies were literally in their midst.
Claudia J Edwards - [Forest King 02] Page 22