by Angus Wells
“That was well done,” Anomius remarked. “Now wait.”
Cennaire stooped, wiping the dagger clean on grass, seeing, as she rose again, that the pulsing blood slowed, coming in a trickle now. The horse sighed, sinking down, rolling heavily onto its side. For a while it lay there, busy flies gathering about the great dark pool of crimson, crawling industriously over its neck. Then it shuddered again, and heaved, its eyes opening as it lurched to its feet. Where the knife had cut its flesh, the skin seemed to writhe, binding over the wound until only a drying clot remained. The flies transferred their attentions to the richer pickings that puddled the grass.
“Now you’ve a mount,” said Anomius. “And one that will bring you to the Daggan Vhe. Ride!”
Cennaire hesitated a moment. “Do I need call on you,” she asked, “what then?”
In the mirror, the wizard’s ugly face wrinkled. “Call only if you must,” he said. “There are shamans in Cuan na’For with powers to sense such a summoning, and they’re best avoided. Indeed, avoid what folk you see, and call me only at direst need. When you reach the Kess Imbrun, call then, if it be safe. Above all, do not let the three know I’m your master.”
“And do they find Rhythamun, and I be with them?”
“You’d best be with them.” Tacit threat hung on his words. “But then, use your wits. Rhythamun may well know you for a revenant, but if I guess this game aright, the three have the means to conquer him. Let them, and after, take the Arcanum.”
“Think you they’ll allow me?”
Anomius’s image twisted with sour laughter. “I doubt me that”—he chuckled—“but you’ll find a way. How, I leave to your wits and wiles; only secure me the book. When you have it, call on me. Now go!”
The scent of almonds faded as he ended the spell. The mirror reflected only the larches and the blue sky, Cennaire’s face. She studied herself a moment, arranging strands of raven hair, then put away the glass and turned to the horse.
It stood docile, its tail flicking idly, more, it seemed to the woman, from habit than because the flies were irksome. When she looked at its eyes, she saw them dulled, emptied of life. That commodity, she thought, seemed Anomius’s to command. Her’s, the horse’s, both belonged to the wizard: she wondered if he valued the one any more than the other. But still he has my heart, she reminded herself, and while he holds that I can only obey. She climbed astride the gelding and turned its head toward the egress of the pass.
When she drove her heels against the animal’s flanks she was taken by surprise. The roan snorted and broke into an immediate gallop, almost spilling her from the saddle. She clutched the pommel, letting the reins hang loose, more concerned with holding her seat than directing the beast, which, anyway, seemed not to need such ordinary management. It charged headlong over the meadow, ignoring a lesser trail in favor of the wide road that cut deep through the backbone of the mountains. Its hooves rang loud on the stone as it ran, thundering as if it charged into battle, the pace impossible for any normal animal to maintain. This, though, was no longer a normal horse, and it showed no sign of faltering as it hurtled along the pass, so that in a while Cennaire hung the reins from the saddlehorn and locked both hands firm about the leather.
She felt the wind of their passage whip her face, spilling her hair loose to stream behind her, the rocky walls flashing by in a blur of motion, hoofbeats echoing behind. Soon she was more confident, content to let the ensorcelled horse run, its stride, for all its unnatural speed, comfortable enough that she no longer feared a tumble. It appeared that Anomius’s thaumaturgy endowed the roan with an agility, a surefootedness, to match its speed and stamina, for even when the ground became broken, littered with rockfalls from the slopes, or fallen trees, still it held its pace, charging around obstacles or leaping over them. Cennaire needed only to clutch the saddle and stay astride, for which her own sorcerous strength proved ample, and before long confidence became enjoyment.
By late afternoon, she was through the heights of the Gann Pass, the retreating sun throwing long shadows over the descent into Cuan na’For, and as dusk settled across the prairie, into the foothills. By midnight, she was on the grass, the revenant gelding still running at breakneck speed, slowed no more by darkness than it had been by ascents or obstacles.
On and on it ran, unwavering, guided by whatever weirdling instinct Anomius’s glamour had imparted, moving of its own accord from its northward line to a northwesterly direction. Wild dogs barked in anger as it thundered through their dens, and horses whickered as it disturbed their sleep. Several times Cennaire saw fires burning, and twice came close enough to see the outlines of great leather-tented wagons against the flames, but if she was seen, she was gone before the observers had time to mount a pursuit.
Night darkened toward morning and still the gelding ran, onward through the brightening of the false dawn and the ascent of the sun. Little, brightly colored birds rose in chattering flocks from the grass, and overhead black-winged predators rode the sky. The wind blew warm, though to Cennaire it felt cool, chilled by the sheer speed of her passage. Once that day she saw riders nearby, and tensed, thinking they might seek to halt her. The gelding ignored them, charging inexorably toward its destination, and though they brought their own mounts to a gallop, shouting challenges, they could not match its pace, and after a while gave up.
Cennaire felt a heady sense of power then, such as she had only experienced before in her dealings with men. It seemed she flew, unstoppable, her ensorcelled mount an automaton, untiring, unwavering, she like some goddess, borne ever onward by such a steed as the world could only dream of, beyond man’s touch. She shouted laughter that was lost on the wind, and when next she saw riders felt no fear, even though they stood across her path. What they thought as she charged them, she could only guess from their startled expressions and half-heard shouts. One man, she saw, nocked arrow to bow, but before the shaft was loosed the gelding was on them, and the bowman’s mount squealing and tumbling as the roan crashed headlong past, no more deterred by living barriers than any other. Arrows flew then, and behind her Cennaire heard cries of outrage, briefly, for she was soon outdistancing the warriors, their pursuit falling off as their worldly horses foundered.
The leagues and the days were swallowed, the sun rising to chart its path across the sky and give sway to the moon, that orb falling down past the western horizon to accord the sun fresh passage, the cycle repeating, timeless: Cennaire rode on, no less inexorable. How many days had passed since she quit Gannshold, she forgot, for time grew meaningless, the ride a thing entire to itself. She knew only that she crossed all the vastness of Cuan na’For at a speed no mortal creature could hope to match, and that surely she must come to the Kess Imbrun before her quarry, for they were fleshly beings and subject to fleshly demands, delays, and hindrances beneath such as she.
And then, on a day when the sky was banked with great castles of massy white cumulus, she saw before her a barrier that stretched wide and dark across the grass, farther than her eyes could see, running out to east and west, so far northward it seemed to fill all the world. Like a sea, it was, an ocean that swayed and stirred under the wind. She felt the gelding change direction then, turning further west, as if reluctant to come too close to that great shadow that filled the heart of the grasslands. She made no attempt to correct this new course, for as they drew closer she saw that it was an ocean of trees, and knew it for the Cuan na’Dru, the holy forest, home of the god Ahrd, and somehow knew that to enter there was to die, no matter what sorceries Anomius employed to grant her existence. She felt a kind of fear then, turning in her saddle to study the enormous woodland, aware of its presence as though it were some sensate thing, a gestalt entity comprised of all the myriad trees that grew there; and all, she knew deep inside, in what, did she yet own such, she would name her soul, opposed to her and the task imposed upon her.
It came to her then that her mount had avoided every stand of timber along the way, hursts and copses
alike. For sake of speed, she had assumed, the grass offering a clearer path, the woods, no matter how small, obstacles that should, inevitably, slow it, or sweep her from the saddle. Now she thought that likely the god had a presence in the trees, in every one, and that the glamour Anomius had placed upon the roan horse sensed that and directed the animal around, clear of Ahrd’s influence. She eyed the Cuan na’Dru warily then, leaving the horse to find the way, thinking that Ahrd could have little truck with one entrusted with the Arcanum’s seizure; and then, appended to that thought, that Ahrd and all the Younger Gods must surely look with favor on those who sought to destroy that threat to their existence.
Aye, she mused as the forest flashed by and the day aged toward evening, surely the Younger Gods must grant a boon to their savior. And surely the Younger Gods must have such power as could restore a revenant’s heart, and find it in their own to forgive past transgressions, were such a service done them.
But still Anomius owned her heart. Still it lay ensorcelled in that pyxis in Nhur-jabal, and even though the bonds placed upon the wizard by the Tyrant’s sorcerers denied him ready access to the palace until the war in Kandahar was ended, at some time he must return there. And what then? Then he would hold her being in his hand, and he was mad, and he was her master, and he could destroy her with a word.
Still, there was, perhaps, some thread here that she might weave to a tighter pattern should opportunity come: she locked the thought in her mind as the sun went down and the Cuan na’Dru fell dark.
She rode through another night and into another day, and still the great forest lay to her right, vast and impassable, a dendriform wall, transformed by the sun into a barrier of shifting green shadows from which, she noticed, her undead mount kept a respectful distance. It seemed she could almost sense Ahrd’s presence, for along all the length of the edgewoods there was a kind of stillness, a ponderous solemnity, and she grew uneasy, wondering if the god looked out, watching her.
Toward noon, however, she was distracted by a curious sight. In the grass ahead she discerned the signs of a camp. Not one of the great clan gatherings, but such as a small group of travelers might make, the grass flattened, the remains of a long-cold campfire visible at the center of the trampled circle. Of itself that meant little enough, but as the gelding brought her closer she saw the signs of combat, corpses sprawled, picked over by wild dogs and carrion birds, a patch of dried blood, rusty red, as if something—or someone—had been butchered. She saw two heads separated from their accompanying bodies, and a torso devoid of limbs, the amputations strange to her, for it seemed unlikely the wild dogs would gnaw so precisely. She thought perhaps a fight had taken place and the losers been ritually mutilated, and thought no more about it, though she felt oddly glad when the littered battleground was left behind.
The gelding thundered on through the remainder of the day and then, when night was fallen, shifted direction once more. By the moon’s silvery light, Cennaire saw that they had reached the western edge of the Cuan na’Dru, and that the forest now stretched out northward. How far, she could not guess, for when the sun rose, it seemed still endless, and for all her mount’s supernatural speed, it seemed they must run forever with the trees ominous at her elbow.
Another day and most of another night they continued, and then, a little before dawn, she saw that the great stands of timber thinned, the massive oaks fewer, giving way to elder and rowan, thickets of blackthorn that straggled out as if reluctant to concede dominance to the prairie. As the sun came up she saw that the Cuan na’Dru lay at her back, and that ahead there again stretched the great grass sea, swaying and rustling in the wind. She felt a lightening of her mood then, the dendroid weight lifting as the forest receded shadowy behind, though in the deepest and most secret part of her mind she stored those musings she had entertained as she rode within Ahrd’s aegis.
THE sun stood at its zenith as she saw another shadow impose itself upon the landscape, this a curving black line that meandered vast across her path, as though an enormous river of darkness flowed over the prairie. At first she felt confused, wondering what fresh obstacle this was, and why the gelding made no attempt to alter its course, but instead raced headlong onward. Then, as the afternoon aged, she realized that she had reached the Kess Imbrun and that what had appeared a river of night was the shadowy immensity of the rift canyon.
The gelding halted scant feet from the rim, as abruptly as it had commenced its englamoured gallop, so that Cennaire was flung forward, almost unsaddled, clutching at the beast’s neck, wide-eyed as she stared down into the depths of the chasm. Her nostrils wrinkled then, offended by an odor of decay as she felt the horse shudder and hauled herself upright. The smell came from the animal, and she frowned as she dismounted, springing a step backward as the equine lips parted to reveal a clutch of sickly yellow-white maggots that fell squirming onto the grass. The rotten stench grew stronger and she hurried to unlatch her saddlebags, carrying them a little distance off, remaining there as she stared at the horse.
It seemed that, the animal’s task dispensed, it no longer enjoyed the protection of Anomius’s spell. It decayed before her eyes, its hide shrinking, stretching tight over the bones beneath, the dull eyes liquefying, oozing amorphous tears that ran slowly over the suddenly shrunken cheeks. The wound in its neck opened, exposing blackened flesh from which more maggots spilled, and then the legs folded, depositing the moldering body in an ungainly heap. Bones thrust out as the skin split and the wind became pungent with the odor of rotting organs. Briefly, Cennaire caught the waft of almonds amid the putrid stench, and then both were gone, the gelding’s corpse desiccated, as if many days dead.
Cennaire turned away, her stomach offended, taking deep breaths until the last memory of rot was banished. Then she looked about. South and east and west lay the grasslands, the northernmost limit of Cuan na’For; ahead was the Kess Imbrun, a barrier as dramatic, as imponderable as the Cuan na’Dru. She walked toward it, going down on hands and knees as she came to the edge, for it seemed the depths called out, a siren song that threatened to suck her in, seductive, urging her to succumb and cast herself off, to fly down and down to the rocks below. She stretched flat on the grass, the sheer immensity of the cleft sending her senses reeling, dizzy, as she peered down a vertical face of dark red stone, seeing, far, far below, a thin thread of glittering blue that she guessed was a river. The farther rimrock was hazy in the distance, several bowshots away, crenellated with folds and buttresses infinitely more majestic than any man-built constructions. Nhur-jabal itself, she thought, awed, might be lost in that chasm, like a child’s toy house dropped into a well. Some way off, eastward of her position, she saw the rimrock split, a steep-walled gully descending at an angle, widening where it bled out onto a broad ledge that traversed a buttress, a trail of kinds evident there, winding precipitously downward: the Daggan Vhe, she assumed.
Cautiously, she wriggled back, and only when she was some several paces from the rim did she stand upright again and assess her situation.
She was alone and now unhorsed. Food and drink were meaningless to such as she, casual pleasures she could easily do without, but to be on foot was a matter of concern. Had her quarry already reached this lonely place? And if they had, what should she do? She ran to her saddlebags, hurriedly locating the mirror and speaking the gramarye that would summon Anomius. The scent of almonds reminded her of the decaying horse and she brought a perfumed handkerchief from her tunic, holding the cloth to her nostrils, startled by the wizard’s voice.
“You’ve reached the Kess Imbrun?”
“And the horse died!”
“It was already dead.” The sorcerer chuckled. “It served its purpose, though its remains shall still help.”
“I’m alone!”
“Ah well, not for very long.” Anomius seemed not at all disturbed by her discomfort; rather, he appeared greatly satisfied. “Be my calculations aright, then the three you seek are not yet come. When they do, they shall
find you there.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
Cennaire looked around, the emptiness of the landscape pressing in, a psychic weight. Anomius grunted, his bulbous nose flaring in momentary irritation.
“Do you doubt me?”
“No.” Cennaire shook her head nervously. “But are you sure?”
“As much as my thaumaturgy permits, aye. Did that steed I gave you not cross the grass faster than mortal mount might manage? Has it not brought you to the Daggan Vhe?”
“If the Daggan Vhe is a track that goes down and down into the canyon, then aye. But it’s a trail for goats or flies, not men,”
“Men use it.” He waved a peremptory gesture. “Listen, you’ve but to wait and they’ll come.”
Cennaire studied his unsightly features, her doubt visible, for he said, “I’ve scried all this with magicks beyond your comprehension, and I tell you that no matter what start they had, you’ve overtaken them. Rhythamun will have taken that trail and likely reached the Jesseryn Plain ere now, but your quarry’s yet to come there.”
“And so I’m to wait?”
“You’ll do as I bid.”
His tone was commanding, brooking no dissent. Cennaire was surprised to realize that her eyes were moist: she dabbed at them with her handkerchief and murmured, “This is a very lonely place.”
In the mirror, Anomius snorted. “Do you grow feelings now?” he asked scornfully. “Remember that your heart is mine, and you’ll do as I command.”
Cennaire nodded, crumpling the handkerchief in her fist as she muttered, “Aye.”
“Good. Then you’ve but to wait, and when they come they’ll find a poor, luckless woman, whose horse has died, leaving her stranded, alone.”