Dith did not. But all that meant was that they were not using any magic at the moment. He frowned. “Perhaps they do not want trouble.”
“Only if they are oblivious. Your presence alone should give them pause, but combined with mine? Then again, you’ve not used any of your power. I suppose it is possible that they do not know we are here. Regardless, when they find us, they will do all they can to destroy us.”
“It could be that they have accomplished their mission and simply return home the way they came,” he continued, “without a care to create more strife.”
The guard captain’s eyes widened. “You say this as if it should give us comfort.” He gestured toward the closed shops and the burned out homes around him. “They passed through Pyran in haste on their way to whatever their mission actually was and nearly destroyed us in the process!” Suddenly aware of the looks he was getting from passers-by, he dropped his voice. “Please. We cannot survive another such onslaught!”
“Neither can we. They were able to defeat my defenses and myself, on my own ground. Granted, they caught me by surprise, but even so. You and I alone, with no fortifications and no help, cannot hope to hold them off, and it might be worse for these people if we try. We must find a way to escape. The captain’s ship, perhaps…”
An arrow hit the ground in front of the guard captain’s feet.
“They are no more than two miles out now,” he said, terror creeping into his voice. “Can you help us? Will you help us?”
Dith considered. West would take them right into the mage army’s hands. A confrontation there would slow their entry into the city, but not for long. North or south would likewise only put off the inevitable if they did know Dith was there. And east lay the sea. He could act preemptively, but the moment he might do anything against them, he was sure they would bring themselves right into the heart of the city to find him.
“Not necessarily. Even if they are completely unaware of us right now, as unlikely as that is, the moment we do anything, they should become quite focused on our destruction, almost to the point of ignoring Pyran. Especially if we were not actually in the city…”
Us. Dith frowned. What did that “us” imply? And what had Galorin said only a moment ago?
“Your power alone would give them pause, but combined with mine…”
“Can you help us?” the captain repeated. “Will you help us?”
“I think so, yes,” answered Dith, his mind spinning with the implications of what Galorin had said, “but it involves you telling your men to stand down.”
Barod blinked. “I must not have heard you right.”
“Captain, you asked for my help, and I will give it, but you must trust me and tell your men to stand down. Do not engage, do not provoke them. Do not so much as draw their gaze as they pass. Let them come straight to me, past your city. Only give me a signal when they enter the gate.”
Without waiting for a reply, Dith turned Glasada and rode him toward the piers, toward where only a handful of ships were docked, their skeleton crews readying them for voyage at the morning’s tide. The sea bucked against the docks irritably, smashing small waves against them with surprising violence.
The horse slowed at the edge of the pier and took in Dith’s vision of the water. This was a sight he’d never seen, and gratitude flowed from him into the mage. But Dith barely noticed. He was also looking out over the water, uncertain of his path now.
“What are you waiting for?”
Dith frowned. He had known what Galorin had thought they should do since before their arrival in Pyran, but he had resisted. Perhaps a simple illusion would be better, extending the pier beyond where it actually stood, so the mage army would port out too far and end up in the water instead…
“Are you daft? Do you suppose them to be so many slow witted children, that they should be so easily fooled into marching off into the sea?”
A flush of embarrassment filled his cheek. The idea was ridiculous, of course. But the alternative…. Such an extravagant display went against every instinct that had kept Dith alive during Kadak’s pogrom against mages. To say nothing of the destruction it would wreak up and down the coast. Was he supposed to sacrifice thousands to save a single city?
“No. Not to save one city. Far more is at stake than just one city. Do you think I know nothing of evading hunters, of hiding my power from those who would kill me? Do you suppose I, Galorin, know nothing of mages being massacred by the millions? Boy, you are about to be beset with an army of mages who will have no compunctions against using every shred of their combined power to annihilate us both, even if it destroys this world. Stop sipping at your power and use it or all is lost!”
Dith shook his head, uncertain. As overwhelming and unpredictable as his power had become, he wondered if he could direct so much of it so finely, especially under pressure. Every time he’d tried to use his power since Gikka gave him the strange stone, the outcome had been far beyond what he’d intended, sometimes dangerously so, and he’d found more and more reasons not to use it.
“Oh for pity’s sake. We do not have time for your tiresome self-doubt now. You have the power to do this. And it is the only way. Why do you hesitate? It is the most elegant solution.”
“I am afraid!” Dith shouted, the agony of the admission washing over him. “I am afraid of this power!”
“Fine. Be afraid. That’s right and proper, given the amount of power you hold now. But do not let your fear paralyze you into doing nothing when the ability to save these people and this land lies in your hands. Do as I once did. Do what you must. Save them, and worry about the consequences later.”
Dith looked down and saw his hands shaking. Galorin was right, of course. There was no other way. Millennia ago, Galorin might have been able to guide him to port to Byrandia safely, but not now. So much could have changed. No, if they would achieve Byrandia, this was the only way.
He looked out over the ships at dock, his gaze lighting on one in particular, the Jenna Calera. He saw strands surrounding it, strands that a year ago he might not have seen, strands he would not have been able to touch. Now they seemed so obvious, so simple. He raised a gloved hand.
“Bah. Since when are you so soft? First the horse, now this. Very well, but if you do this little act of charity for your new friend, know that they will be upon you at once. If you must risk martyrdom, at least prepare yourself first.”
He nodded imperceptibly.
The ship at dock vanished, followed a few seconds later by a pop. Dith cried out in pain. The fingers of his glove smoldered where they had trapped some of his power. He ripped the glove off and threw it to the ground.
Suddenly, he felt dizzy, and Glasada reared.
“Do you feel that? They’re trying to find you. You startled them, and they are disorganized. They were not expecting such a surge on the strands. Good. But it won’t take them long to discover where we are, not if they can restore any discipline.”
Now he could feel the mages pulling at the strands, trying to find the source of the power that had just blasted outward across the sea. Another few seconds, and they’d port in upon him.
He stripped off his other glove. Then he started to unfasten his clothing, but already the air was shimmering around them. The mages had found them.
“No time!”
Behind him, around him, even down the beach in front of him near the waterline, several hundred pops filled the air as the army of mages came into existence around him. Fire surged around him, but it did not touch, surrounded and protected as he was by his own power. Yet even as the fire reached for him, his latent defenses hurled those who had attacked him against the sea wall, crushing them right through their own defenses.
Glasada bucked his head and screamed with terror, kicking furiously at the writhing crackle of magic power around him.
But instead of throwing a shield around himself as the mages anticipated, Dith turned Glasada away and reached out to grasp the great cords of
power that led downward into the sea. Ancient, ropy vines of bound strands that lay just where Galorin had dropped them, unseen and untouched for nearly four thousand years, cords these mages could not see, much less touch without destroying themselves, but could only feel at the periphery of their perception.
Dith closed his eyes and released the tremendous seductive rush of his power, freed it to flow through his body, barely aware of the fragile resistance of his clothing giving way beneath his power. A tiny corner of his mind continued to watch the mages around him on the strands. He felt their power massing around him, then felt it fall away in panic as they watched the strands writhe under the massive surge of energy he’d put through them. He felt the collapse of the mages’ power as they saw what he held and what it meant. Most ported away in terror, but as the last few left, he could feel order returning to their ranks. They had not given up. They were merely protecting themselves for now, regrouping somewhere else, and they would come after him again.
He drew the strands upward, bringing with them a gigantic mass of land that spanned the reach between Syon and Byrandia, a great bridge hundreds of miles across, covered with remnants of sea plants, those that didn’t get swept off with the sea water, as well as coral reefs hundreds of feet high and a few sea animals that clung to the ground stubbornly, refusing to be swept away. The ground rumbled menacingly beneath his feet, but his own protections stabilized it and kept the tremendous violence from destroying him or the city behind him.
The sea churned angrily, at first filling in the vacuum created where the landbridge had rested on the sea floor, sucking water in violently and dropping the sea level around it. Rumbling beneath the landbridge as it rose, bursts of fiery rock, the world’s own heartsblood, surged and hissed angrily where it met sea water, filling the void.
Dith sweated with the exertion of lifting the land, not because of its weight but because he battled against the ancient certainties of its place at the bottom of the sea. Slowly, painfully slowly, the tortured land twisted and writhed its way upward, supported by the new rock beneath it. Vast spills of water poured off the surface as it rose, which, combined with the tremendous energy of the landbridge’s rise, sent a pair of great waves racing away from the newly raised landbridge, a strong one that moved southward, gaining in size and power as it went, and a weaker one that surged to the north.
The docks were mostly crushed as it rose. They were within Dith’s protections, but the ends that were moored in the water rose with the landbridge and broke to bits under the stress. The ships that were tied down stood grounded and smashed on the landbridge. Those that were not were swept off the sides. This narrowest part of the landbridge, no more than perhaps a mile across where it met Pyran’s shore.
“They will return in a moment hoping to catch you while you’re weakened. Do not wait for the ground to settle! Ride, ride, ride!”
Glasada did not hesitate but ran across the newly raised land, racing over the ancient stone roadway that emerged beneath his hooves.
Twelve
Pyran
Ten and Seventh Day of the Feast of Bilkar
“Now, I’m not saying the boy’s involved, mark you,” the ship’s captain said, stalking angrily along what was left of the quay where his ship had been tethered, “but I find it interesting that I go near the whole of my life without hearing a single word about Byrandia, then along he comes, this velveted lordling with the bright blue eyes, insisting that he must get there at once…and then this happens.” He glanced at the small band of horsemen beside him and gestured out over the ruined docks and shattered remains of the fleet scattered over the newly raised ground. “This bloody happens. Passes twice a tenday since, and I’m still in Pyran wondering what I’m to do now.”
Trocu nodded sympathetically beneath his cowl. Only Lord Daerwin and Nestor were at his side. Not far from him, Jath was calming their horses, a few of whom were still skittish in spite of their training because of the residual energy that lingered from the use of such power. Farther off, Gikka crouched down where the landbridge had knit with the old Pyran beach, examining the tale of battle and its aftermath tamped into the drying silt.
The duke turned and made his way up the former beach toward Gikka with the captain and the others following. “I am relieved, at least, that Pyran was spared.”
“Spared?” The captain’s eyes flashed between the three men with anger. “Do these wrecked ships say to you that we were spared?”
“Spared, aye!” thundered the duke, and the captain cringed beneath the power of his presence. “Brannford and the other coastal towns were utterly destroyed, their homes and shops washed away, their citizens drowned and crushed beneath the weight of the sea, while Pyran lost not a soul. Count your blessings!”
Trocu ignored the captain’s apologetic stammering. His eyes narrowed, looking out over the landbridge and over the ships’ crews scavenging through the wreckage, then southward toward the devastation he and the others had witnessed all up and down the coast. Until they’d reached Pyran, he had allowed that the wave had simply been an act of nature, but to see Pyran still standing, virtually untouched, clearly shielded when the landbridge had been raised right here left no doubt in his mind. This had been a deliberate act. He had a good idea of who this blue eyed “velveted lordling” was, as well.
“If he raised the landbridge as you say and sent that wave to scourge the coast,” the duke said, “then this man is responsible for the deaths of thousands as well as the destruction of the entire Syonese fishing fleet, and he will surely answer for it. But it remains to be seen why he raised it, assuming he did. So let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” The duke lowered his voice. “Now tell me, Captain. Did you see him raise the landbridge yourself?”
The captain scratched his head. “Well…not directly, no. I was in the tavern, finishing up a fine jurfaele, when I felt a great tremor in the ground. Of course I had been drinking most of day, so at first I paid no attention, but it got worse. So we all came out the tavern to see what the rumble and toss was about, and instead of the sea, I saw us suddenly land locked, and in the midst of it all, I saw this same boy that spoke with me, only naked as the day he was born, riding away across muddy ground toward Byrandia! Meanwhile now, my Jenna Calera’s gone, along with my crew, and the other ships you see wrecked or sunk in the mud.”
Daerwin crouched beside Gikka and saw where she traced the edge of a hoof print in the sand. She looked up at him, her eyes full of confusion.
“Riding,” murmured Nestor, looking between the Gikka and the sheriff. “Riding a…horse?”
“Yes, a horse,” growled the captain, “what else would he be riding?”
“Begging your pardon, sirs, but he did raise the landbridge. I saw it.” One of the Hadrians who stood guard over the wreckage came closer and lowered his voice. “Some of us were talking, wondering what might have set Limigar off so––”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snarled the captain. “Limigar, indeed. Such a superstitious lot, these Hadrians. Show them a blue eye or two, and they’re off to fill the shrines and grovel. Lad, were this boy a god, surely he’d have no need of a ship to get where he would go.”
“You scoff, but the shrines are empty, and the town is safe. No one knows the ways of…” he lowered his voice, “the gods.” The Hadrian shrugged and turned back to Gikka and the others. “The captain of the guard asked this blue eyed one if he were a mage, and he said yes––”
The ship’s captain swore at the Hadrian. “He wore a doublet and had a sword at his belt when he talked to me! You saw him, boy, he was riding a horse! My life upon it, but he could not be a mage…”
“Sure they’ll ask if he’s a mage, but not one thinks to ask of him his name for all that his eyes are blue.” Nestor quipped in Bremondine to Gikka, and the duke cast them both a wry look. “Stupid bloody Hadrians.”
Trocu breathed out slowly. For all the world, this mage sounded like Dith. He could not be more certain of it, and he s
upposed he should not be surprised. But riding a horse, wearing clothing with seams and buckles? Not to mention raising the landbridge. Dith was reckless at times, yes, but the duke had never known him to be stupid. He could not imagine him risking the destruction of every coastal city on Syon on some sort of thoughtless whim to go to Byrandia. Something must have driven him to it, but what?
“And naked, besides, for all the wind and storm as rose up.”
Nestor smiled. “I thought you said he wore a doublet and carried a sword. Now you say he was naked?”
The captain scowled. “He wore clothes when he came to speak to me in the tavern, but as he rode away, he was naked. And when I say he was naked, I mean with not so much as a handkerchief on him. Just his bloody orange rucksack.”
“There’s no sense to that,” muttered Gikka. She rose. “Sure he’d not go naked to ride about horsed and wreak havoc on Pyran. Or Byrandia.” She considered. “Not without righteous cause to provoke it.”
“He had righteous cause, Bremondine.” The Hadrian guard cleared his throat. “He said he would draw off all the other mages––”
“All the…?” The sheriff advanced on the little Hadrian. “What other mages? And why did no one mention this before?”
The guard retreated beneath his glare. “The same ones who came through a few months ago, sir. The whole army of them that came through! I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew.”
They looked at each other.
“How many?” Lord Daerwin barked, “Report!”
The Hadrian snapped to attention reflexively. “Battalion strength, sir, but about half as many as when they arrived the first time.”
Trocu watched Daerwin interrogate the Hadrian, drawing every bit of information out of him, but the colorless little man knew very little: the mages had very nearly destroyed Pyran with their appetites and that the city and its environs might well have been destroyed but that these mages seemed set on some important mission and had left quickly.
Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) Page 19