He had failed his master again.
The once at the Lozin Gate, where the might of the Horde he had raised to being Ashar’s will to the Three Kingdoms broke against the determination of a single manling, and now again when that same weak creation of flesh and blood had stood against him, aided by no more than a weaker woman.
And the talisman, said a voice that was not a voice but a crescendo of agony within him.
He opened his eyes and saw only fire. Ashar’s fire, which had sustained him and now seared him. He screamed, knowing the fury of his master, and the fire abated a fraction, enough that he could assess his situation, order his memories, sense the emptiness inside him.
“The talisman?” he asked in a voice that quavered, no longer confident.
Kyrie’s talisman! The god spat the words as if even mention of the Lady’s name was distasteful.
“She gave them power?” He saw a fragment of hope, a faint glimmer of optimism that glinted dimly through the threatening flames.
Estrevan gave them the stones; the two halves of the talisman. With those they defeated you.
He shuddered afresh. Had his eyes been capable of producing tears he would have wept, but they could not and instead he said, “Kedryn was blind.”
Kedryn regained his sight, the god responded. He entered the netherworld with the woman and found the one you used to take his eyes. Borsus gave him back his sight.
“Borsus?” Disbelief was in his reply. “Borsus was my man. How might he aid Kedryn Caitin?”
Did I create so feeble a creature? The utter contempt stung him with a fiery lash. Do you not know that all is a balance? That for each move of mine there is a countermove she—again the single word spat out—may take? It is decreed so by a power greater even than mine, and that allowed the one they call the Chosen to gain back his lost sight. / had thought to outmaneuver her; thought that your suborning of the one called Hattim Sethiyan must win me the game, but it did not. You failed me, Taws.
He felt resentment then, and the god’s knowledge of it brought pain afresh to the embodiment of his creation. He screamed, knowing the ululation was as music to his master and might thus placate the god. After what was either a little while or an eternity the anguish eased and he spoke again, fearfully, knowing that he pleaded for his very existence.
“I did not know he penetrated the netherworld. I did not know he had regained his sight. I did not know he possessed the half of the talisman, the woman the other.”
And I could not warn you. said the god. She is strong in the Kingdoms—stronger now for your defeat—and 1 could only trust in you to do my will there.
“As I did,” Taws moaned, cringing as the flames that surrounded him burned brighter. “Had I but known of the talismans I could have taken measures against their power.” You had knowledge of the ones whose souls you drank, countered Ashar. You had Kedryn Caitin and the woman called Wynett within your grasp.
Taws groaned, remembering the blue light, the quintessence of all he opposed, that had struck against him and quelled his own hellish fire. “I could not fight against the joined strength of the two halves,” he gasped.
No, Ashar agreed, you could not. That power was too great, but it has shown me two things.
There was a pause that the cringing form of the mage took as hopeful until the god spoke again.
While that talisman exists I cannot hope to vanquish either Caitin or the Kingdoms. He holds the one part, his woman the other. Their love binds them as one, uniting the stone. While they, together, possess the cursed thing the balance is weighted
in the Lady’s favour. I must wrest both parts from them.
“The woman,” Taws said quickly, “she will be his weakness; he hers. Separate them, let the one be bait for the other, the talisman the ransom for the captive’s life.”
It had occurred to me, responded Ashar with massive contempt. Indeed, I have begun my move. And this time I shall not be thwarted.
Taws smiled then, his fleshless lips stretching despite the pain of Ashar’s fires. He asked, “What part do I play, Master?”
You have no part, answered the god. You have outlived your usefulness and l have no further need of you, What / do now, I do alone. Now Kedryn Caitin shall face me.
The smile upon Taws’s mantis features became a rictus of inexpressible agony as the flames burned higher, brighter, becoming all that he knew, the core of his being, until that gift of Ashar was taken back.
Within the farthest reaches of the Beltrevan, Caroc hunters trembled as flame lit the night sky, its brilliance dimming the light of the spring stars, midnight becoming as noonday in high summer. It seemed a rift was opened in the very skin of the world to give access to Ashar’s fire, the roiling column stretching to the heavens, its outwash rendering the mightiest trees to pale ash that blew on the hellish wind, that awful gusting felling timber in a great corona about the central pyre. Birds roasted in the branches and small animals upon the ground, burrowing creatures died in their holes while others fled in stark terror from the conflagration, forest bulls running alongside the great cats, wolves pacing them, companions in fear with the deer that bounded, wide eyed and oblivious of the predators, all unified in their desire to escape that ghastly holocaust.
No men were seriously harmed, for none ventured near that place where first, so legend had it, Ashar had brought the Messenger into the world. It was a place both sacred and cursed, for the Messenger had promised much and led the tribes of the Beltrevan down into defeat. Now, with peace agreed and the world turned on its head with a Kingdomer hef-Alador by swordright, it was deemed best to steer well clear. Consequently only a few suffered hurt: a handful struck by storm-tossed branches, some by charging bulls, a scattering burnt by the more natural fire that followed the initial eruption.
Most hurried to the more hospitable regions ot the torest, wishing only to get themselves well clear of the raging flames, not wishing to know whether Ashar expressed his anger or lamented his defeat. That was something for the shamans to debate, and they would not come together until the time of the summer Gathering; honest warriors, having tasted the ashes of vanquishment, preferred now to go about their human business and leave the arguments of the gods to the deities.
In High Fort, the chatelain Rycol was summoned from his dinner table to observe a most curious phenomenon. It was an event without precedence and drew a sizeable crowd of onlookers, doubtless on the Keshi side of the Idre, too.
The seijeant sent by the captain of the watch to inform Rycol did not believe it was the work of the woodlanders for it moved down the river and there was no sign of human participation in its coming. In any event, it came too swiftly for the great booms to be swung out and was, in the seijeant’s breathtaken opinion, too large for even the booms to halt. Alarmed, Rycol set down his eating implements, pushed back his chair, and hurried from the dining hall, bellowing orders as he went. Consequently, in addition to those merely interested in the sight, it was also seen by a large part of the garrison as soldiers manned the ramparts with readied bows and the artillerymen realigned their catapults and mangonels. Rycol and those with him had the better view, for they rushed to the quayside where sight of the river was unobstructed.
The night was light, the moon full, its radiance offsetting the shadows cast by the bulking walls of the river canyon so that the surface of the Idre shone like velvet spun with webs of silver. Winter’s snows were long melted, though the runoff from the forest country to the north still raised the level of the river, sending her hurrying swiftly southwards like some watery lover anxious to meet her paramour. The flood tides of early spring were ended and Rycol had counted on the great waterway lowering gradually from his walls, the races ceasing to permit a resumption of normal river traffic. What he saw brought a frown of misapprehension to his lean features, for he had never seen its like before.
From the north came a surging wall of water, foam lining the crest, creamed by the moon’s light, the waves that buff
eted the rocky walls confining the river filling the night with angry sound. Rycol’s warning shout was lost beneath the liquid cacophony, though fortunately the sight alone was sufficient to send the observers darting back from the riverside. Fortunate because the surge overlapped the banks, spilling waves knee high across the flagstones, drenching boots and dress hems, toppling several of the less agile on their rumps. The fort’s boats were tossed like corks, three filling and sinking, two others hurled ashore by the sheer force of the wave. Rycol heard it slap the stones and felt the wash over his feet, heard the fishing boats and ferry craft of the town below his citadel crash together and against the docksides, heard the shouts of alarm that rang from his own people. He doubted what he saw, for he thought that within the wave he discerned a shape, the behemoth outline of a massive creature that swam the Idre, creating the unnatural wave with the speed of its bulky passage. He shook his head, staring into the darkness as lights abruptly burned in the town, the folk there rushing to assess the damage. He could not have seen what he thought he saw: No such creature existed; it must surely have been a trick of the light, wave and moon combining to fool his eyes.
He turned to his wife and saw her stooping to wring the soaked skirts of her gown. “Did you see it?” he asked.
“How might I miss it?” demanded Marga, her tone somewhat irked. “I am drenched.”
“What did you see?” he wondered.
Marga let fall her skirts and looked at her husband, frowning. “I saw a wave. A great flood-tide wave. What else?”
“Nothing,” said Rycol, shaking his head, wondering if age began to cloud his vision.
“Nothing would not put that look on your face,” Marga said. “Tell me what you saw—or think you saw.”
Rycol turned to stare at the river, its surface still marked by the swell-tom aftermath, but settling now, smoothing, so that the silvery meshing of moonlight again set a patchwork patterning on the darkness. Wavelets still slapped against the quay, but their sussuration was the small irritation of disturbed water rather than the furious roaring of that mighty wave.
“I thought,” he said slowly, taking her arm to escort her over the slippery flags, “that something moved within the wave. A shape—I am not certain, it was so far out—huge.” “A log?” she suggested. “Disturbed by the river?”
“No.” Again he shook his head. “It was too large. I thought it created the wave.”
“There is nothing that big in the Idre,” Marga retorted pragmatically.
“No,” Rycol agreed, “it was probably a trick of the light.” Thoughts of dark magic crossed his mind and were dismissed. Kedryn and Wynett had defeated the Messenger, mehdri had brought word from Andurel of their victory over Taws, and with the mage gone, the usurper Hattim Sethiyan slain, the Kingdoms knew peace from Ashar’s fell machinations. Not magic then, he decided, merely some natural occurrence. A late spring tide, a melting of snow from the mountains that bound the Beltrevan to the north, perhaps some log jam higher up the river; no more than that and an imagination rendered excessively fertile by the events of the past months.
“Probably.” His wife’s voice brought him back from his musings. “But meanwhile I am wet and the night is chill; shall we find dry footwear and a fire?”
“Aye,” he nodded, and gave orders for the watch to stand down.
His doubts, however, lingered and the signalers in the great towers were ordered to send word across the water to Low Fort, from which Fengrif, the Keshi commander, returned his surmise that some snowy plateau must have slipped to create a tidal wave. Discreet questioning of his men revealed a similar opinion, and even those who, like Rycol, had thought they saw something could not be sure what. The next day he made a personal inspection of the town, taking the opportunity to question the folk there. They concurred with the majority of the garrison that the phenomenon was of natural origin and that whilst several boats had been wrecked when the wash drove them against the wharves, neither Ashar nor the woodlanders could be held responsible. Finally he allowed himself to be convinced and inscribed only a brief mention of the occurrence in the log he kept, not bothering to send word downriver to Andurel.
Gerat, Paramount Sister of Estrevan, closed the leathern covers of the book she held and set the slim volume on the simple oak table before her. The spring sunlight that filled the tower room shone on the worn bindings, lightening the blue so that it assumed a shade to match the color of the gown she wore. She stroked the smooth surface as though reluctant to give up its touch, assessing the thoughts that filled her mind, seeking to impose order on them.
Alaria had warned of so much and explained so little, that often enough in terms of parable or near rhyme so that certain understanding had become a nebulous thing, like the half- remembered images of a fading dream. Yet that had been her intent, surely, for the visions granted her by the Lady were dreamlike, and even with Alaria’s talent for prognostication, not clear indications of the path to be taken, but rather suggestions, warnings, hints. That was the way of the Lady— to allow always the freedom of self-determination—and the very basis of the Sisterhood’s philosophy. To define a clear path was to define the actions required, the way to be taken, and thus to limit the freedom of choice that was the essence of the Sisters’ faith. The Lady Yrla Belvanne had quit Estrevan of her own free will, under no coercion, to go into Tamur where she had met Bedyr Caitin and become his wife. That had been a matching of hearts that had produced Kedryn Caitin, the Chosen One foretold by Alaria. And Kedryn, a stripling then, barely come to his manhood, might without any loss of honor have refused to face Niloc Yarrum in single combat. Yet he had chosen to do battle with the leader of the Horde and thus halted the foresters’ invasion at the very portals of the Three Kingdoms, forging afterwards a peace with the barbarians that was unprecedented in living or written memory.
And Wynett, Gerat thought, she was committed to the way of the Lady, dedicated to the celibacy that ensured the continuance of her healing talent, yet she had gone willingly into the Beltrevan with Kedryn. Gone farther with him, into the regions of the netherworld, where together they had won back his sight and Wynett had seen her destiny lay not in sole duty to the Lady, but in love of Kedryn. Without that choice made they would not have celebrated the love that bound them, uniting the two parts of Kyrie’s talisman that it might stand against the power of Ashar’s Messenger and overcome his magics to restore unity to the Kingdoms.
All those choices had been made and the Messenger defeated, Ashar’s workings thwarted that peace might reign, the Kingdoms secure.
Is it then, Gerat wondered, ended? Is the Text fulfilled? She relinquished her touch on the book and rose to cross the small chamber to the closest window, raising eyes of a startlingly clear blue to the sky. Larks swooped there, pursuing the insectile bounty the warmth of spring raised above the city, darting shapes against the heat-hazed heavens. Far, far off, the Gadrizels were a blur across the eastern horizon, darkening even as she watched as the sun continued its westerly path towards its setting. She let her gaze move slowly over the plain that ran from the foothills of the mountain range to the walls of the city, seeing less with her eyes than with her inner knowledge the burgeoning pasturelands and the farms that dotted the fertile champaign. The senses that had made her
Paramount Sister welcomed the emotions she felt emanating from those simple homesteads, where farmers were content to till their fields and husband their animals, yielding slowly as her eyes moved closer, looking down to encompass the rooftops and avenues of the city men called sacred, to the busier emotions of the inhabitants. Here she could feel the pleasure of merchants at a fair-struck bargain, and the delight of clients in their purchases; the anticipation of good food prepared in a comfortable home; the warmth of companionship; above all, the peace that was an aura of almost physical intensity about the central buildings of the Sisterhood, the very core of Estrevan, the focal point of the city’s growth and being,
Perhaps, she mused, we hav
e too much peace. Perhaps we live too far from the daily workings of the Kingdoms. Yet Sisters inhabited Tamur and Kesh and Ust-Galich; teachers and hospitallers, those gifted with the sending powers and the far-sight, the prognosticators. Bethany governed the college in Andurel, and in all the towns of the Kingdoms there were others bringing Kyrie’s word and the succor of their individual talents, and through them Estrevan was made aware of the worldly happenings of mankind. And was it not important that one place should stand apart? A place where those who sought it might find peace? They did not have to come—that, too, was a choice made freely, both by those laymen and -women who came, and by those who sought to develop latent talents in service of the Lady. Without them—without the tranquillity Estrevan bestowed—would it have been possible to interpret Alaria’s Text? To inform those needed in the Kingdom’s defense of the choices that lay before them? Without Estrevan would the Messenger have been defeated?
Perhaps I ponder overmuch, she told herself. What is done is done and cannot be turned back; Taws is gone and Kedryn wed to Wynett, as best I know hailed king. Young, admittedly, but of unquestionable integrity, and gifted with wisdom. He has Wynett to advise him, and his father, too, and Bedyr Caitin is a good man. And I have done all I can to see the way Alaria foretold and guide Kedryn’s steps along the path.
So why, she asked herself as she turned from the window to look westward to a sun preparing to go down in a blaze of golden glory, do these nagging doubts linger still?
Why am I not sure it has ended?
Kyrie’s prophecies leave Gerat filled with questions, but her questions are the most important she will ever ask. Only time will tell how Ashar will manifest his wrath at last, but one thing is certain: In the end Kedryn must face him, for the safety of all he loves, and more important, for the fate of the Kindoms themselves.
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