Then the noble's head departed its shoulders atop a column of blood.
'Again I greet you, O Chosen of Ust,' said Jennas, hetwoman of the bear clan, as she flicked black blood from the six-foot blade on her greatsword. 'This is getting to be a habit,' she added in a quieter voice.
The timely arrival of the Ust-alayakits threw the Zr'gsz into confusion. Jennas wheeled her bear Chubchuk away and launched herself against their common foe. The long hair and body fat of the bears provided excellent armor; the beasts absorbed savage blows without harm. Fost saw the plumed Zr'gsz captain fell a male bear rider only to have another rider roll down on him like an avalanche. The rider was a grossly fat woman with a steel cap strapped atop wiry red curls. The Hisser threw up his shining green blade. A giant axe swept down with all the force of that huge body. The green sword snapped. The axehead hurled on. Through gorgeous plume, through green helmet, through skull and body until it sank into the cold ground of the Steppe. The Zr'gsz was sheared in two, the halves quivering over dead legs for a second before falling in separate directions.
The Hissers ran for their rafts. The fat woman laughed and threw her giant axe into the air. It cartwheeled up until it was outlined against the swollen disk of the setting sun. Then it returned, a huge hand snared it and the battle was done.
Flames danced high against the nighttime sky. Drunken and boisterous, the bear riders staggered in a victory dance around the bonfire.
Fost sat with Jennas and the monstrous redheaded woman, Vancha Broad-Ax. Her great axe, Little Sister, was laid carefully on the ground by her huge rump where she patted it from time to time and crooned appreciatively to it. The Bear folk still talked about the way she'd struck down the Zr'gsz noble that afternoon. Fost had never seen anything like it, and to judge from the talk of the Ust-alayakits, neither had they.
'I had the proper motivation,' Vancha boomed in a voice as big as she was. 'Ust has kept little Jennas appraised of what goes on in the world north of our Steppe, by means of visions.' She laid a companionly slab of arm across 'little Jennas's' shoulders, who was every bit as tall as Fost and just as powerful. The hetwoman smiled, but her amber eyes were troubled.
'It's good to see you again, Fost,' the hetwoman said as Vancha poured herself a fresh mug of rakshak, the liquid fire that these nomads drank. 'It is as Ust foretold.' She looked away quickly.
Fost felt a tingling and glanced over his shoulder. Synalon sat away from the fire on a saddle taken from the corpse of Fost's dog. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts, and she regarded the courier with sullen, smouldering eyes. He bit his lip and turned away.
When the Vridzish had fled, Synalon had seized him and hugged him tight. Her lips had sought his; the slaying had aroused passions in her that wouldn't be put off. Yet he had shrugged her off to share a tearful embrace with Jennas. Only when he had literally felt Synalon's gaze laid across his back like a whip had he turned from Jennas to see the anger and hurt glowing in Synalon's eyes.
Though Synalon drank nothing, she had grown more sullen since the sun fell from the sky. When a young bravo had swaggered up and tried to put his arm around her, she had given him a glare charged with more than anger. He cried out in a high-pitched voice and fled, stumbling and falling into the fire and being badly singed before his fellows dragged him out. The bear riders were of a rough humor and thought this a capital joke. Fost read darker implications in it.
'So you're herding these two-legged sheep to Athalau' Vancha said, her immense paw settling on his arm. She nodded toward the Ethereals, who sat like so many pallid statues. Silently Fost counted the unmoving figures. They didn't number one hundred. There was only one way of learning if they would be enough for the dangerous task ahead of them.
'Well, we're glad to strike a blow against the foul lizards. We'll gladly escort you to the Gate of the Mountains, won't we, Jennas?'
'What say?' Jennas asked, shaking herself. 'Oh, yes, we must do anything we can to help. Ust wills it.'
Vancha's pig eyes, as green and hard as emeralds, narrowed into slits amid fat.
'Something's eating you, girl.' The eyes flicked to Fost. 'I think I know what it is, too.' 'Thank you, Vancha, but you do not know.'
Fost studied the hetwoman. He had thought her handsome at first, but in the months they had spent together chasing Moriana all over the Sundered Realm, he had come to know the beauty in her strongly sculpted features, her high, proud cheekbones and close-cropped shock of reddish hair. And in ways he loved her, though he told himself Moriana took preeminence.
He hated himself for hurting her, but she knew from the start that he loved Moriana and would go to her if possible. It hadn't stopped them from becoming lovers.
It would be harder for Jennas to understand why they couldn't resume their relationship. He set down his mug, stretched, managed a good imitation of a yawn that turned into the real thing. 'It has been one hell of a day,' he said. 'I'm going to bed.'
Vancha rose and gave him a fond, spine-crushing squeeze. Across the campfire Ziore told dirty jokes to the younger warriors. She knew a surprising number for a nun. The trip to Medurim had given her more than any of the warriors.
He nodded to Jennas, not able to meet her eyes. He turned and walked off into the darkness, away from them, away from Synalon, too. It had all become too much for him. He wanted only to be alone.
He heard the crunch of a step behind him. His spine turned icy with premonition.
'Fost.' It was Jennas, soft-voiced, diffident. 'There's something I must tell you.' She took him by the shoulders. Her hands were slapped away.
'Get away from him!' screamed Synalon. I'll share him with my sister, but he's not going to be soiled by any filthy barbarian bitch!'
Jennas turned to face the sorceress. Her face was calm in the orange firelight. Around the fire voices were raised, asking what was amiss. Torches were lifted and the bear riders came at a run, sensing something deadly wrong.
'You thought to sneak off with him and seduce him,' hissed Synalon. 'Perhaps you got away with this before. But he's too good for the likes of you!' 'He can make his own choices,' Jennas said in a level voice.
'He'll not choose you!' Synalon lunged forward. Fost caught the flash of steel and gasped. The bear riders growled and closed in.
'No! Get back!' cried Jennas as she sidestepped, dodging the gleaming arc of Synalon's dagger. 'It's between me and her! Leave us be!' Reluctantly, the bear riders stopped where they stood.
'That's enough,' Jennas told Synalon. 'I've no quarrel with you.'
'I challenge you!' spat Synalon. Her face was an icy mask of fury. 'I'll not even use magic. But still I'll have your heart, you slut!'
She lunged forward, her right arm a blur. Jennas jumped back, not quite fast enough. The slim dagger opened a long gash in her arm. Her face hardened. A heavy-bladed knife appeared in her right hand. She crouched, holding the weapon low for a disembowelling stroke, while Synalon circled her like a stalking panther. 'Fost, Fost, what's going on?' cried Ziore. 'Can't you stop them?'
He started forward.
'No!' Jennas cried without turning. 'You can do nothing. This was meant to be.'
Synalon moved in. Jennas's blade met hers with a skirring sound. Grimacing, the princess struck again and again. She could not penetrate the steel ring of Jennas's defenses. With a catlike scream of rage, Synalon launched herself at Jennas. Though the bear rider was heavier, Synalon bore her to the ground. But only for a moment. Jennas's brawny arm caught Synalon by one pale shoulder and flung her away.
In an instant Jennas was astride the prostrate princess, eyes wide, dagger poised for the deathstroke. Then the killing light went out of her eyes. She lowered her arm.
Synalon thrust upward. The needle-slim blade bit through mail and leather, punctured skin, slipped between ribs to pierce the woman's heart. Jennas jerked, reeled backward and fell heavily. The sorceress jumped to her feet waving the bloody dagger.
'Kill her! Kill the bitch!' somebody cri
ed as the bear riders rushed to their chieftain's aid.
'No!' Jennas's voice was strong but ragged with pain. 'It – ah! – it was a fair fight. She challenged and I accepted.' 'She struck when you stayed your hand,' growled a bear rider.
'The fight was fair.' Jennas's body shook. She clamped her jaw against the pain. Blood welled around her teeth. 'You must not harm her. She must yet play her part or all… oh… all is lost.' She looked around wildly.
'Vancha! Promise me. You will aid the outlanders as we promised. Do it for our people, or they shall… pass.'
The redhead thrust herself forward, shouldering aside the warriors as if they were children. 'I will,' she said through the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Jennas's back arched. When the spasm passed, she said weakly, 'Fost.'
'I'm here.' He knelt by her side and took her head, cradling it in his lap. His own face shone with tears.
'I know,' she said in an almost normal voice. 'Do not blame yourself. This was all… foretold.' She seized his arm in an iron grip. 'Keep well, Longstrider. For the sake of your people and mine. .. and your golden-haired princess. And, ah… remember Jennas, who loved you.' Her head rolled back on lifeless muscles.
The Ust-alayakits surged toward Synalon, raising blades and torches. A huge figure stepped between them and her. An axe head glittered against the stars, came howling down to split a stone in a shower of sparks.
'No!' roared Vancha Broad-Ax. 'You'll obey our hetwoman's command or I swear I'll butcher the lot of you!' Her face dissolved in tears, her huge body shaking. But the fat-ringed hands that gripped the black haft were as steady as rock. All knew that what Vancha Broad-Ax promised, she performed. The Ust-alayakits drew back.
Heedless, Fost let Jennas fall and lunged for Synalon, ripping his sword from his scabbard.
'You murdering bitch!' he shouted, cocking his arm to run her through.
'Will it be you to break the oath, then?' she asked, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. 'What do you mean?'
'The oath we swore in Tolviroth Acerte. Was it just words to you?' 'But you've broken it, you murderous… thing. You killed Jennas.'
'Oh? Perhaps my memory fails me,' she said, tilting her head as if listening to a distant voice. 'When we swore that oath together, I do not recall Jennas being there.'
The strength went out of Fost. His sword tip drooped to the ground. His knees gave way beneath him. He sensed a nearness, looked up to see Vancha against the stars.
'What Jennas commanded shall be done, outlander,' she said. 'We shall aid you in reaching the Gate of the Mountains, and you and your witch-woman will come to no harm. But I beg you, stay out of my sight from this moment on. I would not betray my hetwoman's last wish!'
With a sob, she turned and fled. One by one, the Ust-alayakits turned and walked away until he was alone with Synalon and Ziore and a grief as boundless as the uncaring skies above.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Fost stared in amazement. When the bird rider patrol had spotted them at the head of the pass and winged low enough to shout down that the way into Athalau lay open, Fost assumed that Guardian had opened a narrow passage as he had done previously. Or Moriana had found an ice worm tunnel and convinced the glacier to let the humans use it. Instead, a great arched tunnel yawned ahead. Synalon's dog trotted around the bend and stopped beside the bear Fost rode. 'My sister's done well.'
Fost only grunted. He could still scarcely bear to speak to Synalon. Though last night, only a night after Jennas's murder, when she had come to him – that had required no talking.
Wings cracking like sails in a stiff wind, a flight of bird riders passed low overhead and disappeared through the entrance. Fost heard the scraping of a cane, and Selamyl came into view. He stopped. His face lit with awe and wonder, and then he dragged himself on.
Vancha Broad-Ax appeared at the head of the file of Ethereals. Seeing the entry opened in the living ice, she stopped and stared for a long moment. She turned then to Fost, looked through him, wheeled her huge mount and went back the way she had come. Shouts echoing down the canyon told Fost the bear riders were going home. Jennas's last command had been fulfilled.
Another shout brought Fost's head around. His heart jumped in spite of grief and bone-deep weariness, and he kicked the bear into a lumbering run toward the tunnel and the woman and the blue figure stepping from it.
In all his fevered adolescent fantasies, Fost had never even remotely imagined that he might pass a night in fabled Athalau, lying abed on silken sheets with a beautiful princess. Of course, if he had dreamed of the horrors and travails that went along with the fulfillment of the never-entertained fantasy, he probably would have slit his wrists.
The six of them had exchanged terse greetings over dinner in a dormitory in the center of Athalau, next to the Palace of Esoteric Wisdom. On convincing Guardian to open the pathway, Rann had sent back a message via Moriana for a squadron of bird riders to come ahead and provide defensive strength. Their meat that evening was an antelope the flyers had shot in the foothills, quartered and flown in.
After dinner, Fost and Moriana bid good night to Synalon and Rann. Fost had dreaded this moment but Synalon did not explode with temper, did nothing but smile and nod in a specially meaningful way before going off with her eunuch cousin. Moriana watched them go. 'They're up to something,' she said quietly. 'I mistrust them.'
They ensconced Ziore and Erimenes in a room on the bottom floor of the dormitory where the sounds of their reunion wouldn't keep the others awake all night. Then Fost and Moriana climbed the stairs to their chamber on the second floor for a more intimate welcoming of their own.
Half-drowsing afterward, Fost lay on his side, running his fingers through Moriana's hair. It was fine and soft – like Synalon's. He shook himself. He didn't want to take that pathway. 'What's the matter?' Moriana asked sleepily.
'I was just wondering about this room. The bed smells fresh and these sheets certainly don't seem two hundred years old.'
'We had Rann's bird riders fly in the bedding this afternoon,' she said. 'As for the sheets, they're of Athalar make and meant to last.' 'It's just as well,' he said, glancing down at the rumpled bedding. She smiled lazily. 'Let's test them again,' she said, reaching for him.
Finishing, they drowsed for a time, woke, made love again. Privately Fost marvelled at his own response. Synalon had been wringing him dry every night since the first time in the Ethereals' village. But he wanted to lose himself in the taste and scent and feel of Moriana, the textures and tempos of her body, and it was as if he hadn't been with a woman in weeks.
When they were done, he rose and poured them both wine from a crystal decanter.
'It's hard to believe this hasn't gone to vinegar,' he said, carrying the cups to the bed.
'The Athalar magics were versatile.' She sipped the wine. 'I hope their knowledge can be recovered.'
They had made a good start that day, and a vital one. As they had walked the long road leading from the Gate of the Mountains down into the softly glowing city, Fost had remarked that he hoped they would be able to find the Nexus in time. It'd be brutal irony to make it all the way here and then not find that which they sought.
'I don't know where it lies,' Erimenes said. 'But I think it will be no problem. The Ethereals have Athalau in their blood. Being present in the city works on me, makes my powers grow. They will know where they are to go, mark my words.'
And it was true. Selamyl had no sooner set foot on the rim of the depression in which the city lay than he stopped and went as rigid as a hunting dog catching a scent. Fost thought it simple wonder at first. There was reason enough for that. One didn't have to be of Athalar descent to marvel at the beauty of the place, its soaring spires and well-ordered colonnades, a symphony of form and shape and color. A smooth, seamless substance paved the road that sloped gently before them into the heart of the city. Over all shone the sourceless, shifting, polychromatic and restful light of Athalau.
Here and there blocks of stalactites of ice had fallen and damaged buildings. Fost, Moriana and Rann, who had all been there before, kept hands on sword hilts and a watchful eye for ice worms. These creatures, some big enough to swallow a man whole, infested the glacier to Guardian's annoyance, and had over the years filtered down to lair in the city.
But neither the unconscious vandalism of falling ice nor the invasion of the deadly worms detracted from Athalau's beauty. Yet it was not the beauty that gripped Selamyl or the others as they came up behind him to stand transfixed.
'I… I remember,' Selamyl said in a distant voice. 'This was meant to be.' As the quiet syllables echoed through the vast dome of ice, he set off at a vigorous walk down the road, neglecting now to use his cane.
No one had seen an Ethereal hurry before, let alone a crippled one, but one by one the rest came out of their trance and followed, some trotting to catch up. As if he had walked these boulevards every day of his life, Selamyl led them to a wide plaza at the center of the city, which was dominated by the most striking building in Athalau, a tower carved from a single giant ruby whose top was lost in the ice above. He turned down the street flanking the plaza and walked quickly to a building whose front was mostly blocked by a great chunk of ice fallen from above, crushing the marble portico.
He looked in dismay at the obstruction, and then down at the sinister rusty stains on the pavement under his feet. 'What has happened here? We must get in.'
Rann stepped forward, a curious half-smile on his hips. He scuffed at one stain with the toe of his boot. 'Blood,' he explained. 'Mine.'
Fost and Moriana looked at each other. They knew this place, and what had happened to it. It was the Palace of Esoteric Wisdom, once holding the Amulet of Living Flame and the treacherous Destiny Stone. The ice had not fallen by random chance. Erimenes had called it down to crush Rann and his bird riders, who had tracked Fost and others here to seize the Amulet for Synalon.
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