The Mountains Rise

by Michael G. Manning

  Once again he lived it, feeling his heart ache at her beauty, being surprised by her assertiveness as she knocked him from his horse. Their conversation replayed, but it was an interplay of emotions rather than words. Lyralliantha would see the images and feel the moving tide of sentiment flowing between them, but the actual words were missing. It was no loss, for they were secondary to the meaning that arose from their meeting.

  Love, regret, a touch of anger, and a deep abiding sorrow that followed their last lingering kiss, all of these he played for her, with his hands and with his soul. By the time he neared the end he had lost all sense of himself, and as the music receded and his hands became still he felt the cool tracks that his tears had left on his cheeks.

  Lyralliantha was bent over him, her head resting partially against his own, and her arms were around his torso, tightening with all the strength her slender frame could bring to bear. Her hands pressed into his shirt, almost painful where her nails pulled against his skin, while her body shook. She was crying, sobbing in the honest, uncontrolled, and deeply embarrassing way of a small child.

  Tyrion kept still, shocked by her reaction and unable to formulate an appropriate response to it. He waited, unmoving, almost fearful, unsure how the She’Har woman would deal with the excess of emotion once she resumed her senses. His instincts told him to embrace her, to turn and comfort her, as he would have done for a friend, a family member, or a lover. She was none of those things, though. Ultimately, she was alien, and at the ugly heart of the matter, she was his owner.

  “You are a rapist,” she had told him before. Any attempt to return her gesture might be misunderstood.

  Eventually her weeping slowed and faltered to an awkward end. Straightening, Lyralliantha released him and took a small step back. “I am sorry,” she said softly.

  He didn’t turn. “No need, what’s done is done,” he replied.

  “No,” she said insistently. “Not that. I meant for all of it. For my people, I apologize. This past month, I have seen…,” her words trailed off. “They didn’t understand your kind. Even I only understand a little, but I know now, it was wrong. What we did, it was wrong.”

  Does she mean enslaving humanity or stealing our world? Either way, nothing she could say at that point would heal the damage done. “The past cannot be changed,” he told her. “And in a few days it will no longer matter to me. You weren’t even alive back then.”

  “I am one of the She’Har. I am part of my people. The guilt is on all of us, a black stain, whether we understand it or not,” she said.

  Tyrion had had enough. The last thing he wanted that evening was the apologies of one of the She’Har. He gave a slight bow and gestured toward the trunk, the path that she would take to leave. “It is late, and I am tired. Farewell, Lyralliantha.”

  A new pain appeared in her aura, but she quelled it as rapidly as it arose. Moving to leave, she said one more thing, “I will not forget what I have learned. Whatever I can do for your people, I will do.”

  Tyrion listened to her words with some bitterness. Too little, too late, he thought. “If you would do something to pay for your people’s wrongs, bet on me. Bet everything you have.”

  She didn’t respond, and a minute later she was gone.

  Chapter 49

  The day of reckoning arrived, not bright and sunny, as bloody days often do, but dark and foreboding. The sky was pregnant, heavy clouds swelling with rain that wanted only the right impulse to send a rushing deluge of precipitation down on the great trees that waited below.

  A great day to be a tree, not so great to be a man.

  Especially one particular man—Tyrion Illeniel was to face his appointed death that day. Garlin arrived to escort him to the arena, although by now he knew quite well how to get there. Any other place, a prisoner would need to be heavily guarded before such a lethal assignation, but the She’Har had no fears of their ‘pets’ escaping. The spellwoven collar around his neck made such precautions unnecessary.

  “It’s time,” said the warden.

  Tyrion nodded and followed him down the trunk. It felt strange to be naked again, even though he had only been wearing clothes for a few months. It hadn’t taken long for him to become accustomed to them again. Now he was naked once more, bare and vulnerable.

  The air on his skin made his hair stand up whenever a breeze came, sending shivers up his spine. He felt sensitive, and more than anything, acutely aware of his environment. I guess, in some ways, fighting naked isn’t so bad. It keeps you alert, and anything this Krytek attacks me with isn’t likely to be bothered by leather armor anyway.

  Still, he wished he could have worn clothes. If he had been allowed that much, he might have tried to prepare them with one of his new spellweavings. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been allowed.

  “You didn’t tattoo your name,” noted Garlin.

  “That’s right,” said Tyrion.

  “What’s that?” asked the other man, pointing at his arms. Tyrion had redecorated the scars that lined his forearms from elbow to finger tips. They now had intricate rows of triangles containing odd symbols adorning the scars.

  “The beginning,” he answered.

  “Of what?”

  “Something new,” replied Tyrion. “Watch today and you’ll see. No matter what happens, live or die, things will change after this.”

  Garlin frowned, “For better or worse?”

  “Probably both, that always seems to be the way of things.”

  They had arrived, and he took his place within the holding cell, to wait for the announcement. He had been continually scanning his surroundings, looking for any sign of Lyralliantha, but there had been no sign of her aura in the crowd. Once the door closed his magesight was cut off, and he had only his ears to inform him of the doings outside.

  He tried to assume the calm that he had learned in the past, before so many of his previous bouts, but it wouldn’t come. His mind circled, constantly wondering what his opponent would look like, what abilities it would have. That was the worst, not knowing. Before, he had known what they would look like, what would kill them, for they had all been men. Once he had learned the meanings of the grove names, he had been able to predict their special talents as well.

  Today would be a surprise, and surprises were seldom good during a fight to the death.

  The wait seemed to last for over an hour, but in actuality was probably far shorter than that. When the announcer finally began introducing him, he could understand the words, which was a small relief compared to the past.

  “Today’s special event will now begin. All wagers are considered final as of now. Tyrion, of the Illeniel Grove will face one of the Krytek, graciously provided by the Prathion Grove. Illeniel, present your champion!” As the announcer finished the statement, the door to his holding cell opened wide.

  Stepping out into the overcast arena, Tyrion Illeniel looked upward, amazed by the vast crowd lining the balconies around the field of battle. The She’Har had come in numbers far beyond anything he had seen in the past. They were packed tightly in the trees and on the ground, the throngs extending far back into the great forest. Most were well beyond the range of visible sight and would be relying purely upon their magesight to see anything.

  That’s a shame for them, he thought. They won’t see nearly as much.

  They began to cheer when he emerged, reassuring him that he had not been forgotten since he had been retired. Are underdogs so popular then? he wondered, for they showed their support despite believing in his imminent demise. Perhaps they are just ready to see my blood spilled.

  He waited now in his place, his opponent had not yet appeared. Once the door to his waiting cell had opened his anxiety had vanished, replaced by the calm he had come to expect in the arena. His heart beat steadily, its pace slightly increased, but not excessively. His senses were open, his pupils dilated, and his magesight even more acute than usual. The earth thrummed beneath his feet, enduring and eternal in its pow
er, while above, the sky vibrated with the untapped potential of the wind and rain. He could feel it, like an avalanche of rain and lightning above his head.

  The earth and wind had always been present for him, like two friends, ever close but never intruding. They felt alive, vital in a way that went beyond his rational knowledge that they were simply inanimate.

  The creature that stepped out from the other side of the arena was definitely animate, though. It rose on four widely spaced legs that surrounded a sturdy armored body. Above that rose a smaller section bearing two slender arms.

  That would be the head and torso? Tyrion didn’t have the proper words to describe the insectoid creature. He would have guessed that it outweighed him by a factor of two; it was sturdily built and well protected from mundane assaults, but it was far from a physical juggernaut. It was bigger than he was, but modestly so. The brilliance of its aythar indicated that it was likely a puissant mage, which was precisely what he had expected. Anything else would have been foolish.

  He had half hoped that they might choose a larger form to use against him, for the bulkier the body the slower it would be to move. The Krytek’s effectiveness as a mage and spellweaver was probably independent of its size anyway, though he didn’t know for sure. His biggest fear had been that they might choose a small body size coupled with the ability to fly or some other form of speedy movement.

  The arena lights changed, shifting from pale azure to fierce red. It was time.

  The earth around Tyrion exploded into the sky as he lifted his hands and spoke into the wind. His words were carried away by the roaring wind and earth around him but their effectiveness was easy to observe. He was surrounded by a screaming tornado of dirt, debris, and howling air. With each second it expanded, growing greater in diameter as it picked up even more incredible speed. Tyrion marched forward, and the eye of the storm marched with him.

  The Krytek didn’t move, using the first seconds after the lights changed to erect a spellwoven shield around itself. The action took a few seconds and then a few more as it improved and reinforced the shield. By the time the edge of the storm reached it, the shield was complete and had been thoroughly strengthened.

  The She’Har warrior didn’t even attempt to anchor itself or slow the wind. It had already measured the difference in their strengths. It knew, as he did, that it stood no chance in a direct contest of wills, but then, it didn’t have to. It only needed to kill him. Tyrion’s strength meant nothing since he couldn’t possibly harm his opponent.

  The wind lifted it and initially knocked it away, so that it slammed into the spellweave that protected the crowd from the arena battle. The Krytek bounced back and was ensnared again, this time to be firmly caught. Grit and small stones tore at its shield even as it was carried upward into the spiraling winds.

  It’s waiting for me to exhaust myself.

  A simple strategy, although a boring one. If its defense were perfect there would be no reason to take risks. Just wait for him to tire and then kill him when he could no longer mount an effective defense.

  There’s a flaw in that plan, though, the assumption that its shield can protect it from anything.

  Tyrion knew from prior experience that violent motion, whether it defeated a shield or not, could do damage to the occupant. Fling a human around with sufficient speed, and even if they had a shield strong enough to protect them from a sudden impact, you could still scramble their brains. Whatever the thing that Tyrion was fighting was modeled after, he was pretty sure that it had to have a brain of some sort.

  Manipulating the winds slightly, he made sure that the Krytek was thrown against anything handy, that being the ground and the shield surrounding the arena. The speeds were unbelievable, and the impacts strong enough to destroy the shield of any opponent he had ever faced, but they did absolutely nothing to the She’Har’s defense.

  His opponent slowed, exerting his own power to cushion the next impact and then created a new spellweave. This one encased the harder shield around it with a softer, almost hazy layer that extended several feet outward, to serve as a cushion of sorts.

  It was too much to expect it would let me kill it that easily, thought Tyrion.

  Now it was apparent that he wouldn’t be able to batter his foe senseless, which made his windstorm a waste of strength, but it was also his only defense. Once he let his opponent have a firm footing again, it would surely begin its own offense, an offense he likely would have no way to stop.

  I have to close and finish it before my enemy can react to the calming of the wind.

  Clenching his will, he began his next, and hopefully, final tactic.

  ***

  Lyralliantha was pacing.

  Her movements were merely the outward sign of her inner discontent, however. She was anxious, tense, and completely out of sorts. It was a new state of being for her. Life had been calm, and her moods had been unbothered by such things before she had met Tyrion. His presence had begun to degrade her serenity from the moment his lips had first touched her foot.

  His audacity then, trying to manipulate her emotions, had almost made her rethink her decision to spare his life by taking responsibility for him. Since that day she had pondered the wisdom of that choice on many occasions, but the more she learned of him, the less she was able to consider putting an end to him.

  He will be gone soon, she noted silently. Then I will be free of his influence.

  That wasn’t what she wanted, though. She had tried everything possible to prevent his demise. She had initially requested permission to send him home in the hope of making him more content, but when the elders had named their price she had balked. She certainly hadn’t expected Tyrion to accept after she had explained what would happen to him afterward.

  He had yet to do anything she expected.

  When Thillmarius made his offer, she had been dismayed and hopeful. She hadn’t wanted to lose him, but the Prathion lore-warden had promised that she would be allowed to visit him as frequently as she could wish. But, yet again he had refused the only sane choice, the choice that would save his life.

  It wasn’t until his last performance, playing and allowing her to see his farewell with the human woman, that she had understood. She had been caught in a storm; engulfed and drowned by emotions that she had only recently begun to experience herself. His passion, his pain, his sorrow and isolation, they were too much for her. Living apart from his mate was too much for him.

  More than anything, humans were social creatures. At least that is what they became when they were allowed to develop naturally. The humans kept by the She’Har were stunted, violent aberrations compared to their wild kin.

  And now she was here, chained by a dark melancholia, overlaying a deeper more insistent anxiety. The core of it all was a feeling, something that drew her attention back to Tyrion whenever her mind drifted away.

  Without thinking she began to walk, and before she knew it, she had descended until she found his sleeping platform. He was already gone, she had expected that, but his meagre possessions remained; a few bags, some clothing, and his cittern. The sight of the instrument brought an aching sensation to her chest and made her vision blurry.

  Why? Why has it come to this?

  She stood there quietly, unable to understand, questioning herself and her motivations. The longer she pondered, the less she understood and the more she felt that she was missing something. Something was different, but she couldn’t quite decide what. The sunlight filtering through the trees made dappled patterns of light and shadow on the platform. There was some significance to that.

  “The canopy is gone,” her voice said, uttering the words her mind hadn’t been able to register. The spellweaving she had created for him was missing.

  It wasn’t an accident. It couldn’t have vanished accidentally. Only another She’Har could have removed it, and only by deliberate action. She had constructed it from multiple independent spellweavings. Simply attacking one part would not ha
ve destroyed the entire thing. It would take five or six separate attacks to undo it entirely.

  No one had any reason to do such a thing, no She’Har anyway.

  Surely he didn’t do this, she told herself, but there was a growing uncertainty in her heart, and with it came a complementary hope. Turning, she began to run. The fight would be starting soon. She had to find out, she had to know.

  ***

  Tyrion released his hold on the wind as he dove forward. He had angled the direction a few seconds before, to send his enemy closer, to hurtle by just a few dozen feet from the eye of the storm where he stood. Releasing it at the last moment, the wind began to die quickly, but its momentum wouldn’t dissipate instantly.

  Anchoring himself with his power as he moved into the screaming air, he moved to place himself in the Krytek’s path. Along his arms were lines of intricate triangles, each containing one of several symbols, and yet they weren’t complete. Touching them with his will, he created a final line along the edges of his arms. That extra line created a new set of triangles in the third dimension, slightly above the ones decorating his skin, and with a whisper of aythar they flared into life, solid and lethal.

  His arms were sheathed in deadly force, much as they had been many times in the past, but now there was a difference. This magic could cut through spellweavings as easily as it did everything else. This magic could kill his opponent.

  The Krytek was not as addled as he had hoped, however. A human who had been through what it had, would have been thoroughly shaken, if not outright concussed, but it was still in full control of its faculties. Before it reached the location where he was waiting, it lashed out, not with a spellweave, but with a focused strike of raw magic.

  The attack was much like what he would have expected from a human mage, but it was sufficient to do what was needed, causing him to dodge to one side, missing his opportunity. One of his normal shields would have been able to stop the attack, but he hadn’t bothered using them since he had assumed any attack coming from the Krytek would be a spellweaving.