Air and Darkness

by David Drake

  “Lady Hedia,” said Corylus. He was standing very straight, but his voice was choked. “Lady Hedia, thank you.”

  “It’s nothing to do with me, dear boy,” she said archly. “They’re your jewels, after all.”

  Corylus turned abruptly. He spread out the cape with a snap and began scooping handfuls of gems into the center of the cloth. Alphena thought she saw a tear on his cheek.

  She threw herself into Hedia’s arms and began sobbing for joy.

  * * *

  HEDIA FELT QUITE PLEASED WITH HERSELF. She had solved a problem that had concerned her ever since she met Corylus and realized that Alphena already knew him from the exercise ground at the rear of Saxa’s town house.

  It was as clear as daylight that Alphena would want a physical relationship with the youth. Alphena’s stepmother certainly had!

  The problem was now solved, and solved in a much more satisfactory fashion than having Corylus murdered. But the problem was going to be solved.

  Hedia kept her expression one of pleasant blandness. She often showed emotion, but it was always the emotion that she had decided was the proper one under the circumstances.

  Turning to her son’s little Indian friend, she said, “Master Bhiku, would you care to accompany us to Carce? My husband would be happy to show you a different side of the Republic from that which you saw previously.”

  “Thank you, Your Ladyship, but I will decline your offer,” Bhiku said. His broad smile made him look even more like a monkey than he had already. “I like to travel to new places, but I’m happy to walk. My own world here—”

  He gestured. Presumably he meant something more general than the burning ruins about them at present.

  “—is new, now that both Govinda and Lord Bacchus are gone.”

  “Very well,” Hedia said; it was nothing to her. “In that case—”

  “Your Ladyship?” Bhiku said, interrupting her thought. “I believe Lord Varus is…”

  Bhiku let his voice trail off, probably because he didn’t know how to describe Varus’ state any better than Hedia herself did. The boy stood motionless with a slack expression. By now she realized that meant that his mind—spirit? soul?—was somewhere else.

  Alphena noticed her brother also. She drew the iron Janus from her sash as she had when she led Hedia and Corylus from Dreaming Hill to the palace.

  “I can … well, we can, I think,” she said.

  “Of course I can!” chirped the little figure. “Can you fall off a log, girl? You should be able to open the portal even without me. Your brother could!”

  “That will be enough, Master Janus!” Hedia snapped. “My children are both remarkable people, but they have different skills. At the moment Lord Varus is otherwise occupied, so you will please confine yourself to carrying out Lady Alphena’s instructions with the deference properly owed to her birth.”

  That was taking a rather strong line with what was a god of sorts, or anyway a godlet. Nevertheless, Hedia had found that an air of haughty superiority was as useful in some circumstances as tears were in others. Men had a near monopoly on physical force in her world, but a successful woman learned to use the tools at her disposal.

  Sex—Hedia’s usual first choice—wasn’t useful here, but there were other things available.

  Janus muttered like a distant cricket, but that was all right. As Corylus lifted the makeshift bag, Hedia turned to him and said, “Master Corylus, I will take your jewels for the time being. Can you carry my son as far as the portal?”

  She nodded toward the sheet of alabaster that remained undamaged in Govinda’s former sanctum. The panel through which had come the monsters of Anti-Thule had vanished completely. It hadn’t left even a dusting of powdered stone like those that lay beneath the frames of the portals that had shattered during Varus’ battle with King Govinda.

  “Ah, I can, Lady Hedia,” Corylus said with a frown, “but Varus can generally walk along if one of us is there to guide him. Whichever you please.”

  He’s treating me like an irritable bitch with a dangerous temper, Hedia thought. She grinned. Well, I can hardly blame him for that.

  Aloud she said, “I’ve never noticed that Gaius was particularly mindful of a mother’s guidance, but we’ll see if this time is different.”

  She stepped to Varus’ side and gently turned him to face the panel. As Corylus said, Varus was easily biddable. He demonstrated no consciousness in the process, though, just a physical response to mild physical pressure.

  Hedia started forward with her hand on her son’s arm. Varus walked with her.

  Alphena strode ahead, holding the iron baton in her right hand. Corylus was close beside, though he didn’t have his hand around her waist.

  Hedia noted that with silent approval: Corylus wasn’t the sort of youth who pushed matters to see how far he could go. That said, he had gotten what he wanted and he hadn’t backed off while the outcome was in doubt, as it must have been in doubt until they saw Hedia smile.

  Alphena and Corylus waited at the portal for Hedia and Varus to complete their more stately progress. Hedia smiled coolly at them.

  She had watched while they battled the demon to rescue her. They were a natural team. After marriage they could each have a thousand other lovers if they wished, though she rather doubted that they would.

  Having seen them moving as a single entity against the demon, Lady Hedia had decided that she would not accept a reality that decreed they had to be separated.

  * * *

  VARUS STOOD BESIDE THE SIBYL. He looked down on not only his physical body but also the succession of events that had taken place during the past year, beginning when he first climbed this ridge in his imagination and met the old woman. There was far more than he could see at one time, but he did see it in all details at the time it was happening.

  Varus bit his lower lip as he watched the Blight engulf him. “There was nothing I could do,” he said. “I fought, but it was like being drowned in a cesspool. Eventually I would have tired, and I would have become part of the filth that was spreading over the world.”

  “You fought when you knew you could not win,” the Sibyl said. “If you had known from the beginning that you could not defeat the Blight, would you have run instead?”

  “Of course I fought!” Varus said. He started to add, What choice did I have? but those words did not reach his lips.

  He watched the Blight throbbing like the intestines of a horse disemboweled in the arena. Varus hadn’t seen that while he fought. His world had been foul blackness in all directions. The blue crackling that prevented the Blight from swallowing him would remain only so long as he willed it to remain, and doing that was like carrying the Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest on his shoulders.

  “I did know from the first that I couldn’t win,” Varus said instead. “But I had to fight. There wasn’t anywhere for me to run to, and even if there had been … I wouldn’t want to remember that I had let that horror destroy the Earth.”

  Varus watched as Bacchus, bathed in golden light, spread the transformed Blight across Anti-Thule like rich compost. Every sort of vegetation was springing up.

  “I tried,” Varus said to the Sibyl, “but I wasn’t strong enough.”

  “Yes,” said the old woman. She pointed at an unfamiliar jungle scene. “Your sister and Master Corylus fought a demon at the Tomb of the Eternals. They weren’t strong enough, either.”

  Hedia, whom Varus hadn’t noticed and whom the demon had certainly forgotten, stepped up behind the creature swinging a rock at the end of a silken cord. The demon dropped like a sacrificial bullock struck in the forehead by the underpriest’s hammer. Corylus knelt to cut its head off as Alphena drove her sword deep into the broad chest.

  “Lady Hedia helped them,” the Sibyl said, “as she helped you. But she is a very ordinary matron of Carce, Lord Wizard. She cannot work magic or use a sword.”

  Varus smiled wryly. “Mother isn’t ordinary,” he said. “But I take
your point.”

  He looked down at his body, walking on Hedia’s arm toward the remaining fragment of Govinda’s sanctum. He turned to meet the Sibyl’s eyes and said, “Sibyl, why am I here? What is next?”

  She smiled, another wrinkle in a face as seamed as a dried apple. “That is up to you, Lord Wizard,” the Sibyl said. “This is a fork in the road your future will follow. From here on, the world will be ruled either by logic or by magic. By wisdom or by superstition, as you would have put it not long ago. Which path will the future take?”

  Varus stiffened as though she had slapped him. He said, “I can’t make that decision!”

  “You will make that decision, Gaius Varus,” the Sibyl said. She did not raise her voice, but Hedia herself could not have put more steely certainty into the words.

  Varus rubbed his temples. “Sibyl, why me?” he said.

  “Did you not stand alone against all the power of the Cosmos, Lord Wizard?” the Sibyl said.

  “Yes, but I couldn’t win!” Varus said. “I couldn’t even have stood much longer!”

  “True,” said the Sibyl, smiling again. “The help of the gods was necessary to save you and to save your world. Our world, Gaius Varus.”

  “Then the decision is clear,” said Varus. With the words, he felt his spirit fly back to his flesh and his friends as they stepped into a Carce full of magic and wonder.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAVID DRAKE is best known for his military SF and has authored or coauthored more than sixty books. He lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina. You can sign up for email updates here.

  TOR BOOKS BY DAVID DRAKE

  Air and Darkness

  Birds of Prey

  Bridgehead

  Cross the Stars

  The Dragon Lord

  The Forlorn Hope

  Fortress

  The Fortress of Glass

  From the Heart of Darkness

  Goddess of the Ice Realm

  The Gods Return

  The Jungle

  Killer (with Karl Edward Wagner)

  The Legions of Fire

  Lord of the Isles

  Master of the Cauldron

  The Mirror of Worlds

  Mistress of the Catacombs

  Monsters of the Earth

  Out of the Waters

  Patriots

  Queen of Demons

  Servant of the Dragon

  Skyripper

  Tyrannosaur

  The Voyage

  Thank you for buying this

  Tom Doherty Associates ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Tor Books by David Drake

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  AIR AND DARKNESS

  Copyright © 2015 by David Drake

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Peter Lutjen

  Cover art by Donato

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Drake, David, 1945–

  Air and darkness / by David Drake.—First edition.

  p. cm.—(Book of the Elements; [Book 4])

  ISBN 978-0-7653-2081-0 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4299-5172-2 (e-book)

  1. Magicians—Fiction. 2. Monsters—Fiction. 3. Romans—Fiction. 4. End of the world—Fiction. 5. Europe—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3554.R196A73 2015

  813'.54—dc23

  2015023073

  e-ISBN 9781429951722

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: November 2015