Wings of Power

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Gard wondered vaguely what had happened to his body. Far from feeling more pain, he felt nothing at all, as if the fibers of each sense had snapped like the lashings of the soul-catcher. He puzzled for a long moment over how to spell his name.

  With an extraordinary effort he stood up. Oh, he recognized the woman leaning against him, her nose buried in his shoulder. Deva, that was her name. His wife. Somehow the very banality of that concept was reassuring.

  And that was Senmut binding the cut on his arm. The old monk was cackling, “Let us see Bhai come up with a trick to match that one!”

  “Huh?” Gard inquired.

  “The tame lightning, boy, that shocked you from your dream!”

  “Not exactly a dream, Senmut,” said Deva’s muffled voice. Gard leaned his chin on her head. Dream. Maybe this was a dream.

  That was Ladhani who sat beaming foolishly down at Raj, who lay beaming foolishly up at her, the blood on his forehead dried to a carmine fingerprint. He had been wounded, poor man; pink scars winked as comically as a child’s berry-juice scrawl across his mahogany skin.

  And that was the child. Narayan—where had he come from?—pummeled his father’s pillow. “Papa, Papa, can I ride in your chariot tomorrow?”

  “I never,” Ladhani told him emphatically, “want to see another chariot as long as I live!”

  Rajinder croaked. “Thank you, Gard.”

  For dreaming? Faces floated, separated and coalesced. Gard could not tell how many people were in the room, a legion or only three. He tightened his grasp upon Deva’s firm body. She swayed against him.

  “You must rest and heal,” Senmut told Rajinder. “No more battle.”

  “But there—” Raj licked his crusty lips, “—should be no more battle.”

  “Well,” Jamshid said, clearing his throat, “You see, Vijay and I . . .” His mouth moved. Words emerged in bubbles and drifted above his head, bouncing off each other. Gard had a niggling idea that this was not normal, but he could not quite remember what normal was.

  “What?” Raj gasped. He tried to sit up and Ladhani pushed him down. He coughed. His face paled and then flushed. “Father, I beg of you . . .”

  “Rest,” said Senmut again. “You can discuss politics some other time.”

  With a groan, Raj’s head fell heavily to the pillow. Jamshid considered him, his face askew, like a child working through a puzzle. “But, my son, you cannot trust the Allaudin.”

  There was probably some significance in that statement but Gard missed it. Deva grimaced against his shoulder. “Are we back where we started?”

  Or maybe this was a game, where the same squares repeated themselves over and over . . .

  “Please, Nazib-ji,” Deva’s voice continued, “tell no one that Rajinder is still alive.”

  A grim face, with black pearl eyes like a temple idol hovered before him. “Kundaraja,” Srivastava said. Her expression fractured. The sternness flaked and fell away, revealing the harrowed features of an all-too-mortal woman. “Kundaraja. It was a miracle. You saved him. A miracle.”

  “Perhaps an overdue one,” muttered Senmut as he gathered up the debris of his machine. “And Gard once said he did not want to be an adept, did not want to make a difference to anyone.”

  A difference could be as much for ill as for good . . . Deva was nudging him with her elbow. He watched bemused as the words, “You are welcome, Srivastava,” formed in his mind and were propelled past his throat by a sudden snore from the dragonet. “Ji,” he added a moment later.

  Deva smiled. “Our pleasure, Srivastava-ji.”

  The night flushed faintly pink with dawn; time passed quickly when you pleasured yourself.

  “My thanks, wizard,” said Jamshid.

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” returned Gard gravely. He squinted, but the old man’s face swam out of focus. “No impropriety goes unrewarded . . .” With a tolerant smile Deva tugged at him; he bowed as best he could, staggered over his own steps, and escaped on her arm.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gard’s eyes were gummed with stale honey. He pried his lids apart. Either the ceiling was smudged with spots of mildew or his pupils were rotting. The shutters were closed against the dawn; the air was the clear violet-pink of rose quartz, every object tinted with decay, not quite real. The dragonet’s lashes fluttered and revealed a vacant gray gaze.

  But it could be neither dawn nor dusk; he and Deva had gone to sleep early in the morning . . . He was still asleep. With an effort he opened his eyes, parting lids like velvet drapes. The ceiling was ordinary cracked plaster. The shutters were closed against the bronze sun of late afternoon. The dragonet twitched in his gut, muttering imprecations.

  The room was thick with an odor, patchouli overlaid with something thick and nasty, like a charnel house. He gagged. Beside him, Deva stretched and turned; her face was a skull, teeth bared in a hideous grin, eye sockets filled with darkness in which will-o’-the-wisps danced.

  With a cry of terror Gard leaped over the edge of the bed, scrabbled across the floor, came to his feet clutching the washstand. Wake up! Wake up!

  He woke up and peered suspiciously about him. The dragonet sat, front paws primly together, looking at him somewhat blearily but not, thank goodness, vacantly. Deva sat amid the trailing bedcovers, her hair tangled over her brow, the lustrous pools of her eyes roiled by his sudden movement.

  He splashed his face with cool water from the basin and rinsed the taste of decay from his mouth. Several troops of Apsuri cavalry pounded up and down his head, hoofbeats reverberating against his skull, a choking dust muting his perceptions. “Nightmare,” he said lamely.

  “Me, too,” she said.

  He strode to the window and flung open the shutters. The stable yard beneath emitted a reassuringly earthy smell. Voices in the distance shouted and cheered amidst a blare of trumpets. Now what?

  Deva was beside him. The sapphire in her nose flared in the sun and just as quickly died. “Gard,” she breathed, shaking her head, “they have no reason to be celebrating.”

  His head rang hollowly. The stable yard faded. He clutched at both windowsill and Deva . . .

  The vision filled him like molten lead. A cold, clear dawn; a rose sheen across land and sky alike, veiling both with illusion. Campfires cold, sentries dozing, the Mohan burbling as Jofar’s weight shifted the bridge in the water. The bushy islands black lumps against a luminescent sea, the walls of Ferangipur black streaks against the translucent sky.

  Jofar propped his shield and his sword against the end of the bridge, returned the languid salute of a yawning guard, and plodded across the field toward the gates. He held a piece of paper in his hand.

  The claws of the dragonet traced letters upon Gard’s shrinking flesh, repeating the black words upon the parchment. Deva’s fingertips sank to the quick in his arm. “Private, for the eyes of Jofar-ji only, from her grace Srivastava of Ferangipur. Meet me at the gates at dawn, alone, and we shall finish this war between our people. I shall prevail upon my relatives, and you upon yours, and agree to peace.”

  Jofar’s heavy face was almost handsome in the clear light, touched by affection, respect, hope, trust.

  Gard sank to his knees, burying his face in Deva’s belly. This had already happened. It was too late—as if there had ever been time to save everyone . . .

  The gate creaked. A cloaked figure, head bowed and face concealed, slipped out. Jofar quickened his step. He waved. The figure made a limp-wristed gesture. Srivastava never makes limp-wristed gestures, Gard wanted to scream. But Jofar had only seen her posed in ceremony.

  The sky lightened, rose fading to blue. A red rim of sun peeked over the horizon. Jofar smiled and bowed.

  A sudden swirl of cloth. A flash. A sword glanced out as quickly as a serpent’s tongue, again and again. Jofar’s smile froze into a grin of horror. Blood splattered his cheek and sprayed in cold, hard drops across his breastplate. He staggered back, turned, and fell. The sword waited upraised.
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  “No,” moaned Gard, his own breath draining from his lungs in an echo of Jofar’s last rattling sigh.

  The sword sliced down. The gates opened and soldiers ran out. “There,” spat a familiar voice. “Take it and parade it before the Apsuri.” Hands picked up Jofar’s head, set it upon a pike, carried it toward the bridge. The sentry turned and ran, throwing aside the great shield so that its supernatural shine fell face-down into the mud and was extinguished.

  The sun mounted placidly into the sky, trailing gold and blue across the morning. The mutilated body before the gates of Ferangipur steamed. Vijay threw back the hood of his cloak and laughed, a quick clattering humorless laugh that did not touch the jet gleam of his eyes. “Fool,” he said to the sprawled body. “You believed my letter was from her. Fool.”

  Gard’s forehead was damp with cold sweat despite its comfortable position in Deva’s stomach; her fingertips trembled in his hair. The dragonet’s wings drooped, its snout paled into a sickly puce. “I never thought,” quavered a voice that only with an effort did Gard recognize as his own, “I would be ashamed of being Vijay’s friend.”

  “He is no longer Vijay,” said Deva.

  “Jofar was my friend!”

  “Prophecies,” Deva said calmly, “have a way of working themselves out.”

  Gard emerged from the shelter of her gown. Her eyes flickered with damp amethyst and blue. Her face was plain, unremarkable except for the glow of faith from within. Even now she would not doubt. He thrust her away and stood, clenching his fists to keep from slapping that condescending certainty from her face. Blood throbbed in his head, Jofar! Jofar!

  “I shall go to the maidan at dawn tomorrow, and pray at each temple,” she said. “Will you come with me?”

  That was all she could offer his anger, his pain? “No! Go alone and I hope you profit from it!” From outside came another rolling cheer.

  Gard threw on his clothes and rushed from the room. Rajinder, surely Rajinder was still sane. No one else in the Mohan was, least of all Deva, least of all himself . . . The dragonet inspected each claw. Its eyes glittered in Gard’s throat, choking him with his own power.

  * * * * *

  Senmut paced up and down the floor. Each slap of his feet sent a wave of pain through Gard’s mind. “Will you stop that!” he growled.

  The old monk stopped in mid-step and scowled at him.

  “Fool!” said Rajinder to his brother.

  Vijay stood his ground, his helmet under his arm, his sword sheathed at his side, his mouth twisted in a sour little smirk. A ray of sun stretched across the floor like a spill of gold, up to but not touching Vijay’s feet. Beside its brilliance his form was insubstantial, half swallowed by shadow.

  Gard squinted. Rajinder’s pallid face lay on the pillow, his long limbs stretched beneath the coverlet, the steel in his soul glinting in his eyes. Jamshid squatted on a chair like an aged spider bloated by a lifetime of web-weaving. Vijay’s gleaming exterior was riddled with corrosion, the base metal showing cruelly through. Only the child Narayan, playing with his toy horses on the foot of his father’s bed, was what he seemed.

  “Fool!” Rajinder repeated. “Killing Jofar, and by treachery . . .”

  “Clever,” said Jamshid with a dry laugh. “Their greatest warrior dead, by a ruse yet. Doubly clever to give the false message to a serving-maid to give to Bogatyl—he truly believed it to be from Srivastava. And they trusted Bogatyl; let him rot with them, now.”

  Gard winced at the effort of thinking. So Bogatyl was gone. He had not returned from delivering the message to the other camp. Hopefully, Tarek had turned him into a toad—but if Tarek had known the message was false he would never have let Jofar go . . . Would he? Bogatyl did not matter anymore. Jofar did not matter anymore. Tarek did. Iron-shod hooves struck the bones around Gard’s eyes, blurring his thought, muting his vision.

  “This will destroy us all,” Raj warned. His face paled even further and Senmut hurried forward with solicitous scoldings.

  “Then tell me why,” said Vijay through his teeth, “the Allianzi have broken camp and loaded their ships. They are leaving.”

  “Took the stuffing out of them, son,” crowed Jamshid.

  Raj groaned. Narayan patted his father’s hand. Senmut rattled the dishes on the bedside table. “Which one is the sleeping draught?” he demanded.

  Gard fumbled among the pots and flasks, trying to remember the order Ladhani had rehearsed with him an hour or so ago when Raj had at last prevailed upon her to go and rest. “This one.” The liquid in the container sloshed; damn it, his hands were trembling. The Allianzi were leaving . . .

  “I do not want any more sleeping draughts,” said Rajinder.

  “Sleep,” Vijay told him. “I am in charge here.”

  Gard darted a glance at Jamshid. The old man was looking up at a tapestry depicting himself as a young man fighting with Allaudin. The scene was a tempest of horses and weapons, but someone had omitted the carmine stitches of blood. “Took the stuffing out of them,” he repeated.

  “It is a matter of trust,” Rajinder said. He struggled to sit up. Senmut pushed him down. “How can we pride ourselves on being in the right, if we lie and cheat? How can we deserve to win? If we do win, which I doubt.”

  “You would rather Gard-ji let you die? You would rather hand over the city without a fight?” sneered Vijay.

  “Oh, I fought,” Raj replied bitterly. “I fought everyone.”

  Gard turned away. His head was too heavy for his shoulders. The clink of glass as Senmut poured and mixed struck his temples like maces. His stomach ached as the dragonet preened itself meticulously, like a warrior arming for battle, each claw polished, each tooth cleaned, wings smoothed and furled, scales gleaming silver and purple.

  The door to the bedchamber opened on a whisper of silk. “You called me, Vijay-ji?” asked a soft, almost expressionless voice. The scent of roses eddied like dust motes across the shaft of sun.

  The ray of light disappeared as the sun dropped behind a building. The room dimmed as if filled with fog. Vijay’s shadowed form turned. “Yes, Yasmine, I have won your hand once and for all.”

  “I am pleased,” she said. The bells in her voice were slightly flat.

  “Then let us go celebrate.” Vijay strode across the room, armor clanking, and with a lewd wink and a proprietary hand swept Yasmine away.

  Jamshid chortled. Rajinder accepted a cup from Senmut’s hand, sipped, and closed his eyes.

  Once I liked Vijay, Gard thought. Once we played together like children. I won Yasmine, too.

  His head was swelling; his skull would explode, spraying bits of blood and magic all over the fine inlaid floors. He rushed headlong for the door. Senmut’s “Where are you going?” trailed after him down the corridor. To hell, he wanted to shoot back, but he said nothing.

  Apparently everyone was carousing in the maidan; no one had lit any lights inside the palace. The tangled corridors were illuminated by a phosphorescence like that of wan and waxy camellia blooms. The intricate friezes and tapestries waved mockingly in the corner of his eye. Footsteps followed him. The dragonet cocked an ear and coiled defensively in the pit of his stomach. Permutations of nightmare—Gard walked faster and faster—hurry, hurry. Cold breath fanned his neck . . .

  He was outside. Torchlight flared down the maidan. Shopkeepers stood in their doorways ladling out wine and beer. Here was a clutch of people singing discordantly, there a group staggering through the steps of a dance. Soldiers, their helmets askew, tried only halfheartedly to maintain order.

  The city was so bright he could see no stars or moon, only a bilious gray-green sky reflecting a turgid glare. Atop the high tower the black limbs of the semaphore dangled like a hanged man.

  By the temple of Vaiswanara the torches emitted such a haze of black smoke the building seemed to burn. Songs of thanksgiving drifted down the fitful wind. Only fools believed in gods. If that made Deva a fool, so be it.

  His skull was
not exploding but caving in. He should have asked Senmut for a painkiller. Maybe some wine . . . A tavern tart draped herself over his shoulder, her breath stinking with vinegar and rot. His gorge rose and he jerked away. The dragonet, a sphinx in his gut, did not react.

  Bony fingers tapped on his skull; Deva was throwing her fortune-telling bones, doggedly, again and again—gambling in a supernal game she could never win. What good would it do to ask what she saw? Lies, from Amathe’s prophecy to Vijay’s letter, it was all lies.

  Shouts and cheers reverberated from the lid of the sky. The frenzied crowds began to push toward the gate. Gard fought against the current, lost, and was swept along . . .

  A stairway. Wrenching himself free of the crowd, the miasma of heat, noise and beer, Gard hurtled upward and collided with a body. Black eyes raked him. “Ah, wizard-ji,” said Srivastava. “Come to see the fools celebrate?”

  Someone who agreed with him! He could have wept. He contented himself with a bow and asked, “What is happening, lady?”

  “The Apsuri have left us a gift. I cannot think why.”

  In exchange for the gift we left them, Jofar’s head on a pike, peering with glazed bewilderment toward its forfeited birthright? The dragonet hissed softly, like a kettle simmering. No, they had rescued the poor piteous side of meat that had been his body, reunited its pieces and laid them upon the great shield now draped with black silk . . . The vision coiled around him like wool on a wheel, snapped and broke.

  Srivastava’s profile against the dark drape of her sari was that of a predatory bird. “Look,” she said.

  Gard looked. Amid whirlpools of humanity were several soldiers leading a horse. A gray horse, garlanded with red and bronze marigolds. The creature walked quietly, its dark eyes inspecting its surroundings, its sleek coat not even twitching as a hundred Ferangi hands reached out to touch it. “Take it to the palace!” shouted a voice. “It is a gift for the Rajah!”