“I didn’t call the Caliban, Giles. He attacked me, too.”
“Yet you live. And against Khory Bannefin, he wouldn’t even raise a hand.” Giles levered himself upright to face her and there was little left in him of the doddering academic. What Elora beheld was the adventurer who had braved nigh-insurmountable odds to gather his library of arcana. “The library is safe. I am safe. Now our task is to make sure the same can be said of you. This was another battle, Elora. Think of the war.”
He gave her a slight shove, sending her stumbling a step or two in Khory’s direction. The warrior didn’t reach out to her; this was a decision for Elora herself to make.
They followed the Caliban’s route, out across the rooftops, Khory leading the way unerringly to an exterior wall far removed from Giles’s lane, where they could both slip unnoticed to the street and out of University.
“The fat’s in the fire for sure,” Khory said, as they took refuge in an alcove to allow a mounted squad to race by.
“How do you mean?”
“No possibility any longer for Renny to turn a blind eye. Given what’s happened to Anakerie, the last thing they’ll want here is you running loose.”
“Good move,” Elora said suddenly, as pieces of strategy clicked into place.
“Eh?”
“If I allow myself to be taken into custody, how much access d’you think I’ll be given to Giles and his library?”
Khory’s snort was pure disdain.
“Precisely,” Elora agreed. “The Caliban works with Chengwei, this we know from our encounters at Tregare. What brought it here?”
“You’re a key element of Sandeni’s resistance, they learned that at the fort as well. Now you’re discredited. Advantage to them. As for how they found us, the Khanate has spies aplenty to tell ’em that.”
“But they possess a weapon that renders my efforts moot. Be simpler just to kill me.”
“You have an alternative?”
“The other person it fought tonight but didn’t kill.” They both understood that Khory wasn’t included in that analysis.
“Anakerie?”
“Why else take her? If you want a man to do your will, what better way to persuade him than with the fate of someone dear to him. Especially if, in the process, you deprive the Deceiver of his premier commander and his consort. They probably aren’t even aware they’re getting two for one.”
“Aye. A bolt aimed at Castellan Mohdri, to cripple the Maizan, strikes Drumheller as well. One benefit for us in this, however.”
“What’s that?”
“Even the Caliban can’t be in two places at once, especially with his acolytes slain. He’s limited until he can raise another such circle.”
“Be helpful to know why the Caliban chose to work for the Khanate in the first place, but at least while he returns his prize to his masters in the east, we’ve time to investigate what happened at Tregare.”
Khory quirked an eyebrow and Elora found her gaze looking everywhere suddenly but at her companion.
“We need to know what happened,” she repeated. “We need to know what that infernal device Thorn and the brownies saw is capable of.”
Khory nodded assent but both of them knew that wasn’t the true reason for Elora’s determination. She needed to count and name the dead, in search of one in particular.
“If you’ve a way to get us there quickly,” Khory told her. “It’ll take too long to retrace our journey from Sandeni’s World Gate to Tregare’s, even assuming the other is still open.”
“I can do that.”
* * *
—
Row houses lined the Street of Lost Dragons, stout and formidable structures all. They were originally built for the burghers of the town, upper-middle-class merchants and professionals, with a sprinkling of senior academics from University. But fashions in real estate change as often as in clothes and the solid citizenry of the isle of Madaket gave way over time to a younger and more volatile population. Single-family homes were adapted into hostelries and from there into taverns and coffeehouses.
Black-Eyed Susan’s wasn’t the biggest or the most ostentatious. Quite the opposite, in fact. The dominant impression, without as within, was of comfort. Here was a place where a body could spend some time, where good food and drink combined with good conversation and good entertainment to sate body and spirit both.
The ground floor was divided into a series of three rooms, the smallest being the reception foyer, which led guests upstairs to the rooms that were for rent. Immediately off that was the small restaurant that formed a fair measure of the establishment’s reputation. Through another set of doors opposite was the tavern, combining a good-sized bar with table service. There was the obligatory hearth, big enough to qualify as a room unto itself, and a dais that served as the performance stage. In addition, a couple of alcoves afforded special patrons a modicum of privacy. The ceiling was unusually high, prompting comments that the original builder must have possessed a measure of giant’s blood to justify such formidable dimensions. The beams that supported the building’s upper floors were of a piece, solid lengths of oak and mahogany that looked like they’d been in place for an age and were likely to withstand many, many more. The brownies loved it up there, for the open beams afforded them a spectacular view of the room below, where they could pick their targets with relative impunity. The eagles, Bastian and Anele, also made their home in those rafters and the sound of their hatchlings made an interesting counterpoint to the bustle of nightly conversation.
There was a stir among the patrons as Elora made her entrance, at the sight of the great golden male eagle swooping from the ceiling shadows to a landing on her upraised arm. She wore no guard on her sleeve, neither gauntlet nor vambrace of any kind, with only the leather of her tunic between her skin and claws that could score plate armor. The eagle’s wingspread matched her height and more and Bastian’s strength could lift her from the floor, and if necessary break her bones. Most disconcerting of all, for any who met the eagle’s gaze, was the intelligence that danced behind his amber eyes. Here was a mind that was a match for many Daikini, mated to a noble spirit that put those many to shame.
He balanced easily on her shoulder, turning his head back upon itself in that boneless way birds do, to nibble behind Elora’s ears. He knew where she was most ticklish, the fiend, and she couldn’t help a bubble of laughter that was answered in him by an equivalent chrrup of delight. They’d been too long apart, these eagles and she, and they had no qualms about letting her know how much they’d missed her, especially since they realized she had returned only to take her leave.
As she and Khory gathered their gear and made their final preparations, Elora took the proprietress aside and told her what had transpired. Susan was a handsome woman of middle years whose calm and generous nature made her a good friend as well as a host and she took the message in stride. Elora ended with an injunction for Renny Garedo to take care with the slain Barontës. Being servants of a magical creature, special precautions and procedures would be needed for the safe disposition of their remains. Susan assured her the missive would be delivered promptly and then, characteristically, turned her concern to Elora herself. Her worry was plain and Elora found no easy words to assuage it.
“Whenever you’re ready, Elora Danan,” Khory prompted, as they stood before the tavern hearth. The room itself had been cleared, the front door locked. Save for Susan herself, they were alone.
Susan brought over food for their journey, which Elora speedily transferred to her traveling pouch.
“Someday,” the older woman commented with a chuckle, “you’ll have to make one of those for me.”
“Someday,” Elora assured her, “Drumheller and I will.”
Susan took Elora in her arms, enclosing her in a mother’s embrace.
“Come back soon,” she said, with th
e force of a commandment. “Come back safe. I want to hear you sing again.”
“Do my best,” Elora replied, but the lightness of her tone sounded too forced. She rubbed her palms down the thighs of her trousers to exorcise a sudden attack of nerves.
“Problem?” Khory inquired.
“This is safe, yes?” asked Franjean, feeling quite exposed on Elora’s shoulder.
She assured the brownie that it was quite safe but that spoken affirmation lacked a measure of confidence.
“This is safe, yes?” repeated Rool.
“There’s a risk,” she confessed.
“You tell us so, now?” both brownies squawked in tandem and Elora’s imagination filled in a rush with the vision of the inconceivable heat of the World’s core flashing them all to ash.
“I’ve done this before,” she told herself sternly. “Why am I so anxious tonight?”
“Thinking too much,” said Khory. She took Elora by the shoulders, looked her straight in the eye in a manner that few were able to; Elora found herself meeting that level, assessing gaze, which was even more rare. “Time’s wasting, girl. You spoke bravely of taking action. Now’s the time to start.”
All Elora could manage in return was a curt nod as she took both Khory’s hands in her own, noting as she did that each woman bore her share of calluses. They were strong hands, these two pairs, shaped and defined by years of honest toil.
“It’s a hard thing,” she said, emotion turning her voice even deeper and huskier than normal, “being worthy of respect. Being worthy, period. Until Thorn rescued me from Angwyn, I never knew what that meant.”
“Had Drumheller not come to Angwyn in search of you, I’d never have lived at all. We each have our debts, girl, and our obligations. I’ve come to learn it’s how we shoulder them that matters.”
“I just want to say that nothing means more to me. It’s an honor I will treasure always, more than any title, more than any victory.”
Just like that, a thought struck her, more piercing than a spearpoint, and she couldn’t tell if the voice was hers or Khory’s: if you want a soul to do your will, what better way to persuade him than with the fate of someone dear to him? What better price to demand, than what he treasures most?
Worse than that was a faint and distant chittering, the mocking, knowing laughter of the Malevoiy, as if some monstrous comedy was being performed and they alone knew the punch lines.
To silence them, to burn the fear from her awareness, Elora pitched herself backward, carrying Khory and the brownies with her.
They never touched the floor, they passed right through it. Down they plunged, as if riding the funicular from the crest of the Wall to the plains below, only without controls or brakes. Through flagstone floors and open cellars, then floors of heavier stone, past structural foundations of quarried granite until they reached the substance of the Wall itself. Here were layer upon layer of primordial rock, composed of the same basic fabric as the mountains that formed the Stairs to Heaven and the Shados.
Deep into darkness they descended as Elora’s call to the Realm of Earth was answered by safe conduct and a comparatively easy passage. For Elora, thrill danced arm in arm with stark terror, as she beheld the inner body of the world in a way no Daikini had ever done. The farther they went, first through the surface crust—itself the thickness of a score of miles—and then into the semisolid mantle, the greater the pressure grew around them, and the heat as well, quickly reaching white-hot intensity, a temperature where most metals would have long since melted. Strangely, again because of the density of the environment, the rock wasn’t liquid but more like a thick mud. At the point where crust and mantle met was where magma formed, the raging lifeblood of the world that burst free from time to time out of the mouths of volcanoes and deep ocean vents.
One way for Elora to travel was how she and Drumheller had escaped from the Caliban, by remaining at rest and letting the world spin around them. That was wonderful for moving from east to west, something of a misery if your destination was toward the sunrise. Moving north or south could likewise be a chore. In this case, she faced the worst of both situations, since Tregare was located south and east of Sandeni.
That’s why she called for help.
It was quick in coming.
They presented themselves as quicksilver flashes against a backdrop of absolute darkness, generating a radiance so bright it left fierce afterimages on the eyes, even when closed. Covering the face with an arm was little help, for their light turned flesh so transparent the skeleton (itself translucent in that infernal glare) could be seen. To behold firedrakes in a Realm closely akin to their native element was to come face-to-face with the legendary gorgon and by so doing, be struck instantly and forever blind. Elora’s advantage was her ability to heal, in this case herself by constantly reminding her eyes of what it was like to see; her physical contact with Khory and the brownies allowed her to do the same with them.
In form, firedrakes closely resembled eels, but their boneless sinuosity put those creatures of flesh and blood to shame. They gamboled through the molten heart of the world as easily as if rock were no more hindrance to them than open air, twisting their bodies through an incredible series of gyrations as they recognized and welcomed her.
For mages, as for the common folk, there were few creatures more feared. They were considered kin to demons, but only because no one could decide how better to describe them. Their origins were as unknown as their purpose, for the simple reason that almost every attempt to contact them, and by extension control them, had met with disaster. Thorn had shown her such a spot, during the early days of their flight from Angwyn, where a sorcerer had opened a doorway to allow the firedrakes access to the Daikini Realm. A castle had stood there, as proud and magnificent as any in recorded history, its massive walls proof against the force of arms as the spells that were laced through its stone and steel construction protected it from magical attack.
Nothing remained.
In its place was a shallow bowl, roughly a half mile across, where the ground had been fused by such incredible heat it had turned to glass, a mirror finish that the passage of countless epochs had not dulled in the slightest. For a hundred leagues in every direction, so the stories went of that terrible day, whatever could burn, did. Lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, they all boiled dry, and the land close by the stronghold was left cracked and broken, as if by the cruelest of droughts. What was fertile became a desert, and the people who called that country home, no more than a memory.
Elora had seen firsthand what firedrakes could do, again during their flight from Angwyn. She and her companions had crossed to the peninsula north of the city, dominated by the ancient seat of the mountain kings, Doumhall. The forest there was consecrated to the fairy queen, Cherlindrea, who for Elora had acted as a kind of guardian angel. The Deceiver had loosed a school of firedrakes on that sacred grove, and though it was supposedly impossible, they had gleefully set it to the torch. The fire swept on Elora’s party like a wave, consuming everything before it with a casual ease that Elora still found hard to believe. Thorn had cast magical wards to protect them. Elora believed they would have, but also that the effort would have cost the Nelwyn mage his life. That had been the Deceiver’s intent, to strip her of every champion.
The Deceiver forgot what Elora herself had for so long, that she had within herself the strength, the will, to be her own champion. In that frightful conflagration, she began to prove it—not by conquering the firedrakes, or imposing her will on them, but by making friends.
Now, as friends, they came to her aid and the rock around her and Khory rang with the delightful passion of their greeting.
Hello, they cried, rolling around the pair of them and even through Elora herself, in a tickling caress that made her laugh aloud. Hello hello hello hello.
Her own greeting to them was the opening phrase of the Nelwyn c
atechism: The First Realm is Fire.
It burns, the firedrakes responded in a rollicking chorus. We burn. All things burn.
And from that eternal, infernal fire, she thought, are all things reborn.
She didn’t need to voice her desire, they knew that when they came. The school grouped around her and Khory and from them Elora gathered the ability to move as they did through the substance of material things. It was as if, when the ’drakes coursed through her body, they consumed her bones, allowing her to twist and flow with the same natural sinuosity. The sensation was wonderful and as she glided through the earth she had to remind herself constantly not to leave wayward pieces of herself behind. It was so tempting to lose herself in the wild physicality, the raw and untamed passion—and above all, the simplicity—of the firedrakes’ lives. No thought of past or future, what existed for them was an eternal “now,” without conflict or complication. For them, existence was pleasure; their purpose was to burn a reality whose purpose was to be burned. And when nothing was left, their own immolation might well be the spark to ignite a whole new volume in the saga of Creation. They had no comprehension of the lives consumed along that road; to the firedrakes, all was fuel. It had no other reason for being.
There was no awareness of any passage of time. Night in Sandeni gave way to night in the ridges overlooking Tregare. Elora took care to emerge through rock, at a fair remove from the nearest stand of anything combustible, preferring the lack of cover to the possibility that the heat she carried with her from the mantle might accidentally ignite a blaze.
“Well,” Khory said in a battlefield voice that carried her words to Elora’s ear and no farther.
“Are you all right?”
Elora heard wry humor in the reply. “Ask me in a thousand years, I doubt I’ll have an answer. I will say, Elora Danan, you make the damnedest friends.”
“It’s a gift, so I’m told. My first friend in Angwyn was your sire, a demon.”
Shadow Star Page 30