The panther snarled and the Archon's eyes flickered. I hoped it was fear.
I raised up the axe. 'Do you dare face me in that form, sorcerer?' I said.
I swung the axe with all my strength. There was a sound like a potter's furnace exploding. The shimmer of the wall glowed white hot, then vanished. I stepped forward, the panther at my side.
'To kill me,' I said, 'you must destroy all else.'
I knew by the fire dying in his eyes what I'd said was true. Hate unfroze him and he reared up and the air crackled with magic. I threw the axe. It hit him square in the chest - biting through and carrying him back. He slammed against the wall. He should have been dead then. Or, I should say, dead again - for I slew him once before. But he struggled up, the axe hanging from the wound. I drew my sword to finish him off, but before I could, red smoke poured from his body. It boiled up until it filled the room to the high ceiling. And out of that smoke reared the transformed Archon.
The two-headed lion roared at me; twin jaws gnashing teeth as long as spears. But the roar was answered in kind by the panther. She leaped for the beast and sunk her teeth into its forepaw. The lion heads shrieked pain and anger. The beast hurled the panther from it, but as she cat-twisted in the air, she grew in size and by the time she landed and came up again, her head was as high as mine. With a final enraged howl, the beast that was the Archon burst through the walls of the turret, spread wings and flew away.
The castle shuddered. Molten iron began to run down the walls. Then the entire edifice - castle, machine, simulacrum, and all -began to crumble around and under me. The panther screamed, jolting me out of my shock. Somehow I knew what I had to do. As the floor collapsed, I jumped for her, grabbing great fistfuls of fur. I felt her leap and we were soaring through the gaping hole the Archon had made.
Instead of falling, she soared up and up. I twisted until I was on her back, riding her through the night skies. I looked beneath me and saw the iron castle explode in flame and fury. Then I looked ahead and far away I saw the red wings of the fleeing Archon.
The panther moved faster, then faster still, until all was a blur of wind stinging my eyes. I clutched her tighter, felt myself blend with those great, rolling muscles. Then those sleek muscles were mine, and the sharp heavy claws as well. The panther's heart was my heart, and my nerves were afire with quick cat hate, and my mind hungered for the stalk and the kill. I was that panther now, and I howled in joy at all the strength and hate inside me as I pursued the Archon. I leaped from cloud to cloud, disdainful of all winged things, which must be my meat if I commanded it.
I caught him first on a mountain top. Fire and lightning flared from the mouths of the beast. But my panther reflexes let me slip easily past those threats and as I closed he fled again. I was just on his heels now; but a great black hole yawned in the sky and the beast shot through it. I followed - knowing I was leaving this world for another, but my panther's heart didn't fear, my panther's brain didn't care - and I found my panther self charging across a great field of ice.
It was translucent blue and shot with thick pink veins. My claws scythed out, gripping the ice and I scrambled across it, screaming my panther war cry at the lion beast just ahead. I didn't have to think that neither of us could take to the air in this place, I just knew it; accepted it as the law that governed creatures such as ourselves.
Then the world shifted again and I was in another place. A place of fire and thick smoke. I charged blindly ahead, my paws skittering and scorching on the hot path, my lungs searing in the heat. It must have been just as hellish for the Archon, because the fiery world suddenly dissolved around me ... and I found myself in a narrow ravine.
Poisonous snakes littered the path by the hundred and they struck at me - a dozen at a time - but I bounded over them; leaping from boulder to great boulder. The ravine, whose walls soared high on either side, twisted like those snakes towards a huge rock face. Far above, sitting on that clifftop, was an emerald-domed palace with columns of gold, which gleamed in the moonlight.
The twin-headed lion was trying to scramble up the rock face to the palace; somehow I knew if he reached it, all would be lost. But the rock was rotten shale; crumbling under his powerful claws.
I screamed and my hunter's cry froze him. The beast turned to confront me. He grew larger and larger and then he transformed into the shape of the Archon again. But this Archon was twenty feet high or more and he had immense lion claws and huge yellow teeth. He howled a challenge that echoed all along the ravine. I leaped up at him; felt those claws close on me and pierce my flesh.
I slashed at him, and bit through his beard; felt his hot, soft throat beneath; and I clamped my strong jaws shut. The blood I lusted for pulsed out. The claws fell away. The Archon collapsed; I didn't loosen my death grip, but only shook and shook until the blood ceased to flow and his heart was still.
I let loose, and lifted up my head. I was standing on the Archon's corpse. I saw a small, dark wisp rise from his chest and knew it was what was left of his soul. I slapped it down with my paw like a mouse and crushed it. The Archon was no more.
My scream of victory resounded from the very moon.
Then Archon, palace, ravine and moon vanished and I was no longer a panther, but only Rali, an all-too-mortal woman and soldier.
I was lying on a deck of a ship, bleeding from many wounds. It was my ship. And the corpses of my Guardswomen were piled around. Just to one side was Gamelan's body. Next to him was Polillo's. I struggled up and looked out across the rolling seas.
I knew I'd never left that deck - except as a spirit. We'd fought a battle here. And continued the fight in the ethers; where it was finally won. I knelt down on one knee and prayed thanks to Maranonia for gifting her daughters with noble deaths.
I looked at my palm. The lion scar was gone forever.
Then I wept. I wept for Polillo, I wept for Gamelan and Corais and Ismet and all the others. I also wept for me. I still lived and I knew the guilt of being among the living would not be easy to bear.
Twenty-Six
The Cry of the Gull
I
DON'T REMEMBER much about what happened next. It was a long, hard journey home. I think I hungered. I may have suffered from cold and heat I couldn't say. Somehow I jury-rigged a sail and went on, still to the east, still towards our home. Somehow I must have lashed the tiller. Somehow the winds were kind, and didn't rip the sail from the mast. Somehow the seas held their hands. Perhaps the gods saw an end to their jest, and realized there was no more of me to make sport of.
Finally one day I saw a ship and it was an Orissan ship - a merchantman from Amalric's fleet. This time it was no trick and the captain who greeted me appeared in awe when he learned who I was and what I had done.
Once home, I got a hero's welcome, as you well know. And it was honest and warm and I was filled to overflowing with joy. The people of Orissa mobbed me and carried me through the streets to the Great Amphitheatre where my praises were sung, and honours heaped on me; and afterwards the wine flowed freely in all the homes and taverns in a proper Orissan celebration.
Amalric welcomed me with a hug I thought would crush my ribs. Omyere kissed me and we both cried for being so happy. Porcemus and my brothers were delightfully cold and distant. I treasured the constancy of their dislike almost as much as I valued Amalric's love.
I was even more delighted to learn Jinnah had never enjoyed any of the honours the Archon envisioned in his false Orissa. When he'd returned from Lycanth, he'd been damned by the Magistrates and Evocators for his misdeeds in the siege, and for sending me after the Archon's fleet with such a puny, rag-tag force. He'd been stripped of all rank - condemned even by his family - and banished from the city and all its provinces. When last heard of he'd been kidnapped by slavers and was pulling an oar on a leaky barge that plies the pirate-infested waters offjeypur.
While I was gone a vigil was kept for the whole two years, and many were the prayers and sacrifices for our safe and v
ictorious return. Before I came home a great earthquake shook Orissa, with its centre seemingly the hill on which the Palace of the Evocators stood. Fortunately, damage and loss of life were slight. The Evocators have traced that great quake to the time when I fought the Archon in the ethers as a panther.
As for that holy beast itself, I've never seen her again - except in troubled dreams.
My love life could be full, if I wanted. Many women have sought to share my days and nights. As the Princess Xia predicted, Tries came running to me as soon as I got back. She hadn't married, of course, but swore she'd kept her love alive all that time. She said it was all a silly misunderstanding and sometimes I think I might even agree. But other times - well, let's just say I've chosen to remain unattached and chaste for a time.
You ask what will I do next? What does it matter? The book is done, the tale is told and that should be the end of it.
Oh, very well, Scribe. I'll tell you as best I can.
A week ago, Amalric invited me to his villa. We had a lovely time, sipping wine and gossiping while Omyere entertained us on her lyre. The garden was its old, comfortable ramble of overgrown paths slipping by sweet-smelling flowers and fruiting trees. My brother and I strolled through it, taking the wine with us, and found a comfortable seat next to the fountain near my mother's simple stone shrine.
Amalric asked me the same question you just posed - what was I going to do next?
I laughed. 'I thought you just wanted me for my company, Brother dear,' I said. 'But now I see you've joined the throng hounding me. No one ever gives a soldier peace when she returns home. She must get busy right away, carve out a life for herself. Te-Date forbid, she might become an idler.' I raised my goblet. 'Right now, all I want is more of this. With a little sun and song as well. What's wrong with that?'
Amalric took my hint and refilled the goblet. Then he said: 'They're re-forming the Maranon Guard, you know.' I sighed. 'So that's it! Listen - the Magistrates have already been i
.1
beseeching me to command the new guard. And I've rejected them as politely as possible.'
Amalric blessed me with that boyish grin of his. 'So they've told me,' he said. 'And they asked me to apply a little pressure to get you to change your mind.'
I shook my head. 'Tell them you pleaded mightily,' I said, 'but I failed to see reason. And the answer is still no.'
'What has changed, Rali?' he asked. 'Once, the Maranon Guard was your whole life. Being a soldier was your girlhood dream come true.'
I drank more wine. Then: 'I grew weary of taking young women out to die,' I said. 'I've ghosts enough for company as it is. I don't need more.'
'Then you're through with soldiering?' he asked. 'I'm not certain,' I said. 'But as long as Orissa is safe, I doubt I'll take up arms again.' 'So what is that you want?' he pressed.
Unaccountably, tears rose in my eyes. 'Just to be left alone,' I said, struggling not to weep.
Amalric came to me, and put his arms around me. 'They won't do that, Sister dear,' he said. 'It's your misfortune to be a hero who lived.'
I drove off the self-pity and wiped my eyes. 'It's also my misfortune,' I said, 'that soldiering is all I know.'
'That's not true,' my brother murmured. 'There's more to you than sword and shield. I've known that since I was a hero-worshipping boy pestering his sister to be always in her company.'
I looked at the mossy stone that was my mother's shrine. Searching for guidance, I suppose. But none came. There was no sudden shimmering of an image coming to life. No scent of a sandalwood ghost, or whispered warnings, or advice.
A gentle wind blew up, carrying the smell of the river. And with it came the memory of a hard ship's deck, crackling sails, leaping seas, the smell of salt, the feel of cold spray needling the flesh, and the horizon - teasing like a gossamer-veiled dancing girl - always retreating before your eyes.
'I have an expedition leaving in a month,' Amalric said.
And I thought: Yes!
'There's tales of rich trading opportunities,' he said, 'far to the south where no one has ever been before.'
And I thought: Yes ... yes!
'I won't lie to you that it won't be dangerous,' my brother said. 'There'll be cold and hunger and only a small chance of success. But mere will be adventure, Rali. New lands. New people. New hopes. These things I can promise.'
And I thought: Please, yes.
'The expedition has need of an Evocator,' he said.
My heart dipped. 'But they'd never allow it,' I said. 'No woman has been an expedition Evocator in all the history of Orissa.'
Amalric said: 'Then it's time we started. After all, you're Rali Emilie Antero. And you can be anything you like. What do you say. Sister dear? Will you sail?'
And I said: 'Yes!'
So, there you have it, Scribe. The tale of a warrior some are fools enough to praise as a hero. You've got most of the journal bundled up now, and soon it'll be ready for the bookstalls.
I wonder what others will think when they read it? Sometimes I imagine a little girl turning the pages, curled up in her bed at night; reading by fire beads under the covers so her nurse won't catch her. I wonder what that little girl will think. Will she want to defy tradition and trade her dolls for a sword? If she does, is that what I desire? To be honest, I'm not certain. What would be best of all, I believe, is that she'd be her own woman; refuse to be anything but equal to any man in whatever life she chooses.
And perhaps, Scribe, when next that child hears a gull cry, she will think of me.
Table of Contents
Book Two
visibly
The Warrior's Tale Page 57