Beyond the Veil

by Janet Morris

  And thus he finally let go the jeweled and prodigious globe so that it rested in its stand. And then he knelt before it and, with his palms outstretched to set it spinning, began the incantations which could put his eternal soul's survival in direst jeopardy, but which would lift the curse from Kama, deflect all evil directed at the Riddler back unto its source, and, if love could heal, might even set poor Niko free.

  * * *

  Roxane sat bolt upright in her bed, hands clapped to her skull in agony. The pain that lanced there tore a howl from her throat and made the human boy beside her scramble up, a sheet around him, and dash for safety to the corner of the room.

  This disturbed her new house snakes, which hissed and rose up on their coils to threaten the child with darting tongues.

  "Have him!" She freed the snakes to feed upon the twelve-year-old she'd chosen from the free zone.

  Before his wails had ceased she was out of there, seeking her own globe of power in her Frog's Marsh summoning room.

  Only one power tool in the known world was stronger than her globe. And that, a greater globe than this one she now spun with fervid invocations while sweat beaded on her upper lip, had belonged to Datan, the vanquished archmage whom Roxane had served so long.

  Who had it now? Who dared to turn it on her, spin it contrary to her wishes—use it on Death's Queen as if she had no recourse?

  Her water bowl beside her on the table, she watched the light her globe spilled out and held her breath against the pain that beat upon her flesh and bones like hostile wings from unknown hells.

  When she had spun the pain away, Roxane was nearly exhausted. To refresh herself, she conjured up a fire in the stone hearth and called the snakes that ate the boy and ate the snakes, first one and then the other, roasting them in turn upon the hearth. Too bad—she'd thought to keep this pair. But snakes were expendable right now.

  Her strength replenished, she gazed into her water bowl while across the walls colors spun from globe-light danced. In the water there formed an image of the mageguild, Tyse's home for hubristic prestidigitators.

  She tried to see inside it. She waved the water with her palm and spoke words so ancient she had needed them but once in all the summer wizard war—that once, when she'd escaped the wrath of Tempus and his summoned gods unscathed, had been the first time in her life she had had to use them.

  She used them now, for whomever or whatever had that globe within Tyse's mageguild was turning Roxane's own spells back upon her—the wasting death and anguished agues and lingering ill-fortune she'd cast upon the Riddler's spawn called Kama and on Straton, Critias's 'friend," and on all the other Stepsons… that bad luck which hung over the entire Sacred Band, a dedicated pall, had been thrown back at Roxane from a canny hand within those high stone walls.

  She couldn't see her enemy's face, but just a hand, busy at its spelling and its spinning.

  The results of this meddling fool's endeavor, though, lay clear upon her water bowl's bright surface: Kama sat up smiling; Straton swaggered down Brother Bomba's stairs with Madame tucked against him; the Stepsons' float rolled bravely down the middle of Embassy Row toward the reviewing stand in the midst of a parade unspoiled.

  Roxane howled with fury once she'd gobbled the last bit of tasty snake and the last spell had been tried and failed to change the tableaux that her scrying bowl reflected. The worst, her bowl had left for last: young Niko, in his precious armor, with Tempus by his side and grinning; and Grillo, not out with Oman on the way to seize the caravan as he should be, but attending to law and order in the town.

  Then did Roxane bend her head to magic as she'd never done before: she wrenched and molded time and space and even rent reality as she rent her own black garments before she cast off clothes and human form and, quenching her own fire, went soaring up her chimney in a falcon's form to wreak havoc upon the town and her enemies among men.

  Her shadow, where it fell that sunrise morning, blighted ground and crops and sickened animals and men it touched while passing over.

  When it fell upon the mageguild, stones groaned, foundations trembled, roofs began to quake. When it darkened Brother Bomba's doorway, the buttressed bottom floor gave way and fell in to crush the magazines and wine cellars and what luckless individuals were caught inside.

  As she soared over the parade route, the governor's own float was beginning, with great fanfare, the trek up Embassy Row; beneath its wheels cobbles turned to muck and paving stones opened wide to reveal sharp teeth and gaping maws so that in moments the entire float, its oxen, attendant outriders and revelers by the tens, were swallowed up or sucked on down and crowds surged backward, fleeing.

  * * *

  Roxane screamed a challenge from her falcon's throat; this bird, the fastest winged warrior nature ever made, dodged with ease the crossbow bolts Tempus and some Stepsons launched at her. She veered; she dived; she dared to defecate upon the Riddler's very head and wing away, toward the eastern pass between mountain peaks where Oman's insurgents waited for Grille's specials, and for a certain caravan from far Caronne to come.

  Meanwhile, on her orders, certain death squads and three dead squads made up of subjugated souls and led by demons marched on through the rent she'd made in Frog's Marsh. These met and joined forces at Peace River and by the demons' aegis went raiding in the town, headed toward the reviewing stand.

  And as they did, in the blighted free zone, the holy Spring of the Prophet which fed the town turned red and ran with blood and bile, and overhead, a rain of toads began to fall.

  * * *

  Grillo, despite himself, had ended up deploying specials and Oman's grisly crew of "troops" at the eastern trade route's pass, called the "general's route" for some reason lost to antiquity.

  He didn't remember riding out here. The little golden figurine he'd found somewhere was fastened to his collar; it was bringing him good luck.

  Ahead, the caravan's dust could be seen in the first true light of dawn.

  His specials silently assumed positions high above the pass where boulders had been rolled into place and fulcrums, wedges, and pushing-poles of freshly trimmed pine were waiting to box the contraband carriers in Grille's trap. His men were uncharacteristically reserved this morning, either spooked from rubbing elbows with the death squads, whom everyone was sure had devils' help, or just overworked.

  Grillo couldn't worry about them—control, command, communications: these were his main concerns. Morale in times like these was always dicey. The same could be said of his allies—death squad members, revolutionaries who kept their hoods well down over their faces.

  Watching a segmented, tiny procession far below, Grillo gave a whistled command. From fore and aft, boulders should have tumbled.

  But pine saplings snapped and cracked, and boulders tottered, not to fall, as planned, upon the caravan below, but to roll backward, like living things with wills of their own, over the men who tried to move them—and over some who were not men, who lost their robes to rolling rocks and then, naked, unfurled fishbelly-wings and turned batlike heads about, and whirred and leaped into the air.

  Thereupon, as only pebbles fell below and rocks chased men and crushed them flat in weird pursuit, the attackers broke in rout and fled, the humans stumbling as they ran, the others taking to the air or disappearing in a burst of sparks.

  Men were turning now upon untrustworthy allies—Grille's specials drew their blades and hacked at nearby revolutionaries. Javelins flew and crossbows spat forth quarrels and everywhere pandemonium raged, so that below, Grillo saw as he too began to scramble for higher ground where a boulder couldn't roll him flat, the caravan was warned and picked up speed to make it safely through the pass.

  Scrambling on scree which wouldn't hold his weight or afford him purchase, Grillo found that his mouth was dry and darkness edged his vision. Among the screams of wounded men and fleeing fighters run down in their tracks by hostile boulders, or pushed over precipices, or skewered by recent allies, he hear
d a fiercer, piercing cry and looked up in time to see a falcon circling high above, wings motionless upon the air.

  He was just cranking his own crossbow, bead drawn upon Oman, the traitor who had set this trap to kill every special worth his salt, when a dark shadow from those wings above passed over him and Grillo knew no more. He never guessed that it was Roxane who wheeled above him in falcon's form, furious that her own spells had been turned upon her minions and powerless to stop the unknown mage who spun Datan's globe against her, spoiling everything.

  * * *

  There was madness in the streets which sought to swallow every Tysian and refugee and celebrant alive. Niko, riding his sable stallion at Tempus's behest, thought he might be the only one in town who could tell from the color of the ground ahead where it was and was not safe to tread.

  He'd gotten out his panoply at Tempus's suggestion. At the time, he'd resented his commander's order to dress for the occasion, knowing Tempus meant him to don his Aškelonian weaponry; now he was glad he had it.

  Niko had no sooner picked up Aisha at the Machadi Embassy and headed with her toward the reviewing stand when havoc broke out along the parade route.

  Chaos about him, his first thought was for Aisha, astride a white pony right beside him. One hand on her mount's red bridle, he'd thought to see her home. But he'd lost her in the crowd somehow. He didn't understand it: a white horse was hard to miss.

  So he was seeking her among the terror-stricken throng, restoring order where he could, using his steed to stop the desperate who'd take any risk to loot, when he saw the white pony, running, bolting out of control, southwest toward Peace River.

  Giving the sable a kick, Niko set out after the white rump he now could see, now could not. And thus he galloped right into a pitched battle at an intersection which was cracked and heaving: Stepsons fighting death squads. He had to lend a hand.

  He fought his way into the thick of it, the sword Aškelon had given him warm with recognition of magic close at hand. And when it sliced a human-seeming throat, its owner burst apart in flames. A blue wing whickered by his ear. He'd seen it coming, but not in time to duck away. It seemed to Niko that the flying wing had veered off as if his armor had deflected it.

  A crossbow bolt which struck him between the shoulders shattered on his cuirass; another, coming low, went deep into his thigh, but he was infused with excitement and the lust of battle. He kept after a particularly enticing foe, one whose cowl never slipped away and who had taken swordcuts and even been pierced through by a peltast's spear and not been fazed.

  Niko's stud, teeth clacking, did its share and once (as it snapped about it, not knowing friends' mounts from foes' and certainly not caring), it bit a Stepson's horse and Gayle shouted, "Stealth! Pork-all! Keep that porking nag of yours away from our horses or you'll be fighting by yourself." As if Gayle were prescient, soon enough Niko was alone: his horse and quarry had led him to Peace River. They forded it in a froth of water, this indestructible foe who did not seem to bleed still well in sight.

  His sword sheathed now, Niko cranked and sighted through his crossbow, but every bolt aimed true seemed to go astray.

  Frog's Marsh was on the far side of Peace River here. Approaching it, his horse slowed, snorting, head tossing, showering Niko with foamy spit from gaping jaws. "Come on, horse, we've gone this far… a little undergrowth won't hurt us." His quarry's trail was clear ahead, bilious blue-green and supernatural; so was the pinkish trail of the girl he'd promised a safe-conduct to the festival. If the wizard, or demon, or what-have-you, was chasing the girl's white pony, then Niko couldn't let it go. The sable danced in place despite Niko's urging knees. Had Tempus made a coward of this horse? Or exhausted it? No, the Aškelonian was neither fool nor weak: Niko knew this beast and respected it more than many men he'd met.

  Stealth dismounted, rubbed its muzzle, held it by the headstall and looked it straight in the eye. "Either we go together, horse, or I go in alone. I left a pitched battle back in town to run this murderous creature down; I can't fail to do it. And I've my word to an innocent to make good. Come or stay behind, horse, it's up to you."

  He realized then that he'd never named it. He should have, perhaps, to make a stronger bond between them. But he'd given it to Tempus and really had just borrowed it tonight.

  It cocked its head at him and then, deliberately and slowly, pawed the ground three times, its tiny ears pricked forward.

  "I hope that's 'yes', horse. I haven't got time to argue." He swung up on its back and this time it moved ahead with little urging, testing each step as if it trod on eggs before it put a hoof firmly down.

  At this pace, they'd never catch someone fleeing fast, but the horse was right: this ground was tricky. In it were deep hoofprints; as long as daylight lasted, he'd have no trouble with this trail.

  He had a moment then to realize he was almost glad the town had erupted in confusion; Tempus had been slowly and methodically drawing from Niko everything that Aškelon had said. Niko didn't want to explain about his rest-place, or that through it Aškelon had a hold on him that the western-trained fighter was powerless to break. Another time, perhaps, he'd tell the Riddler. As it was, he'd been saved from a discussion more perilous than a hundred-to-one encounter with assorted demons: he couldn't talk about Meridian yet.

  And so, after what seemed an hour of reflection, he came upon his quarry: both the cowled figure and the Machadi girl.

  She was backed against a cypress, her festival skirts heavy with soaked-up mud, a little sticker in her hand. Her white pony lay on its side, blood running from its mouth red as its trappings.

  The cowled insurgent, if such the figure was, had its back to Niko and was closing in on the girl, who was telling it, "Stay away! I warn you, stay away! I'll kill myself before you'll touch me, you warty salamander!" And she called on a Machadi patron goddess, so that all around the trees began to shake their limbs.

  Niko dismounted silently and crouched behind an ancient bole big enough to hide him and his horse, squinting through his peep sight: a crossbow bolt could go right through the foe and impale the girl from this angle. And if the bolt went wide, as bolts had done before when launched against this perhaps unhuman target, it might do her more harm than good. His throwing stars were likewise suspect.

  He judged the distance, put the crossbow by, and slid his dirk from its sheath. He'd not used it since the summer war. It was yielding in his hand, warm and eager, proving magic lurked here, if Niko needed proof.

  He thought an instant more and then, decided, cast the charmed dirk and followed right behind it, drawing his enchanted sword as he leapt toward the girl and her tormentor.

  The cast he'd made, though even Niko doubted it would serve over so much distance, went true, and before him, as he closed upon his enemy, a back shivered. Then it seemed to swell and, from the wound around the dirk, in flesh up to its hilt, green and steaming ichor spurted.

  An arm raised to fend off the acid blood, Niko met his enemy as it staggered full around and with clawed hands raised came toward him, jaws open wide, its disguise—if ever it had had one—gone away and a red and awful demon face there in its place.

  It spoke. "Ah, death child, a worthy foe at last!" It hissed. "Well and good to meet you: I'll be an angel of high estate once these teeth have torn out your throat."

  Niko knew better than to meet its eyes or listen to its threats, supposed to stun him. He lunged forward, ancient sword in hand and arcing back and, without thought to dodging demon claws, swung it down, right to left, so that even as the demon sought to grapple him, he cut its head from its neck.

  Yet those claws screeched on his armor like fingernails on a child's slate, and its body bore him down under its twitching weight, and for a time he struggled there with something that should not be living, while the head, hanging by thick red skin, swung back and forth and jaws clacked near his naked arms.

  Niko heard the girl's screaming coming closer, but didn't realize what that mea
nt until her face appeared, mud-smeared and contorted, over the severed neck spouting acid blood, and she joined the fray, plunging her little lady's dagger into the demon's back and tugging at the weakening corpse, trying to get it off him.

  Niko yelled to her to get away, to watch the claws, to avoid at any cost the stinging demon-blood and especially its spittle, but in the end it was the girl, Aisha, who pulled away the corpse, now foul and steaming, heating up as it started decomposing while it hugged him.

  Freed from its deathly embrace, he rolled over on his stomach, wiping his face in the moist grass and dirt, seeking to clear away the stinging, viscous stuff that covered his face and made his eyes tear.

  He heard a tearing sound and hands were on him. He felt something touch his face and wipe his eyes. It was her bodice, soaked in water, he realized when he could focus his eyes again. He saw her fair young breast as she sought to tend him, heard her soft, sweet voice assuring him that he'd been marvelous. "You are my savior, bold Niko-demos, and the finest hero that's ever lived since ancient times. There now, just be still." She leaned close, first wiping his eyes with her wet cloth, then kissing them with gentle lips. "You'll soon be all right. And my uncle will show his gratitude when I tell him how you saved me. You're a lucky one, too. Except for that—" she pointed to the crossbow bolt embedded in his thigh "—you're not badly hurt at all… a few burns and scratches mostly." She sat back and smiled at him. "Say something." But he could only take deep breaths and fend off pain and watch her, this noble wench so soft and fair, who perhaps had just saved his life.

  * * *

  If not for the timely arrival of forty mounted strangers, who joined right in without awaiting orders and moved the panicked crowd back from the heaving streets, roped the floats to drag them to safety by dint of horse and muscle, and generally took up the slack left by Grillo's absent specials, Tempus knew they would have lost the day and perhaps the town to sorcery.