by Tara Janzen
Thousands of years before the Trelawney Rebellion, great sandstorms had arisen in the south of the world and swept northward, a ceaseless tempest turning all the land into the Waste and driving the tylwyth teg from their ancient home into the mountains of the Middle Kingdom. Over the following millennia, the wars of men had driven them back, bringing them together as the Ilmarryn, a people returned. The descendents of the Quicken-tree, Daur, and Ebiurrane, of the Wydden, Red-leaf, Kings Wood, and all the northern tribes, they had set forth from their mountain fastnesses in search of the lost fortress, finally finding it on the coast of the Sand Sea, buried beneath the dunes—and there, waiting for them, had been the Sha-shakrieg and their Desert Queen, the true masters of the Deseillign Waste.
The sinking of the sun cast light into the shadows beneath the canopy, gilding Avallyn’s hair and limning the high curves of her cheekbones, her upturned nose, and the indelible trace of her Ilmarryn heritage—her delicately pointed ears. Her ragged cloak fell from a bloodred garnet brooch on each of her shoulders, the pale, stained cloth pooling about her on the granite dais.
She was stronger than she looked, thank the gods, for she looked as fragile as any Ilmarryn beauty. Strength or nay, though, Palinor would countenance no physical union with the tech-trash prince Dray had unearthed. Those plans had died with the Night Watcher captain’s words. The priestesses of Claerwen would bind the pair another way. If Morgan ab Kynan could fight, she would consider the day’s needs well met.
“Blessed daughter,” Au Cade began, addressing Avallyn in her richly resonant voice. “The captain of my guard has brought the news for which you have so long awaited. The Prince of Time has been found.”
Thus was the first and the last of the queen’s good tidings. Palinor held her tongue as Au Cade unwound the tale, with no sordid detail of the man’s existence left unrevealed. Whatever comfort she might have offered was withheld, no matter the growing paleness of Avallyn’s face, for any comfort was hollow in light of the truth—the prince had come, and he was no more than the least of men—a drunken thief from the Old Dominion.
Chapter 2
The Old Dominion
The woodland below Dolwyddelan Castle lay still in the morning light, the ground untrammeled beneath Morgan’s feet, the grasses laden with dew. Nary a breath of wind stirred the leaves on the trees. Nary a bird’s song sounded in the cool air of the rising dawn.
Above him on the hill, the walls of the keep faded in and out of the mists, Llywelyn’s keep. He had not forgotten. He had not forgotten anything.
He breathed deep, filling his lungs, and pleasure rushed through him, intense and sweet, making his head spin. Reaching out to steady himself, he laid his hand on the trunk of a tall beech tree. All was as it should be, the smooth, gray bark damp beneath his palm, the forest alive with the smell of old leaves, the fainter scents of flowers. A horse snorted close behind him—so close he felt the soft breath move through his hair—and he stilled.
The Cypriot? he wondered. Dain’s shadow mare?
For certes he’d seen no horse on his walk up the hill, and who other than she could stand so near yet remain unseen? And if the Cypriot was here, could Dain be far?
“Du Kommer sent,” an unmistakable voice, wry and gently chiding, said. “You’re late.”
Hope took hold of Morgan’s heart, daring him to turn around and once more see the face of his friend. He started to pivot, but stopped, his attention diverted to the west by the stray melody of a song. Softer than an angel’s kiss it wound down through the mist, seeming near and then far.
“Pwr wa ladth... pwr wa ladth... fai quall a’lomarian, es sholei par es cant.” The strange words, sung in a fair voice, bound him with longing. ’Twas a woman’s voice—or rather, a sprite’s voice. Llynya.
She was here, the elfin maid.
“I expected you before St. Winnal,” Dain spoke again from behind him.
Smiling, Morgan turned—and stumbled back, a groan of horror torn from his throat. All around him was darkness, malevolent, frigid darkness. The abyss. Screams came at him from every direction. Dain’s voice deep and agonized: “Morgan! Morrrgannn!” Llynya crying his name in a plaintive wail, “Morgannn!”
He leaped, dragging his sword out of its scabbard.
“Son of a bitch!” a man shouted.
A table crashed to the floor, hewn in two by his blade, shards flying everywhere. A lantern rolled off into the gloom. Men and women scrambled in all directions, trying to get away. His next lunging strike shattered glasses and bottles, and a cry of pain echoed through the cavernous building called Racht Square.
“Somebody stun him!”
“Or shoot the bastard!”
“No!” A more familiar voice intruded on Morgan’s haze of darkness.
He struck again, and a chair splintered.
“Morgan! Milord!” The familiar voice grew louder, closer, and a hand reached out to take hold of him.
Morgan roared, swinging his sword up over his head and bringing it down to within a hairbreadth of Aja’s brow. Eyes wide and near colorless with terror stared up at him from beneath a shock of red hair.
“Morgan,” the boy whispered, his voice a rasp of fear. “Milord, ’tis me, faithful captain good and true.”
Trembling, Morgan stared down the length of his blade, the edge so sharp and fine, and so close to cleaving Aja’s skull.
“Morgan, we are here in Racht Square, the hour is late. You fell asleep, milord, and dreamed. Only dreamed.”
It had been no dream. Aja knew the truth as well as he.
Morgan looked around him at the destruction he had wrought and the people who had backed away, some cowering, others with their lasguns drawn, silently daring him to strike again, to give them an excuse for murder.
It had been no dream. Carillion wine had the potency to take a man beyond the delusions of dreams. The fermentation seeped into the cerebrum, some said changing it, rewiring synapses, delving deep into the cells and enticing memories to the fore, sliding them into the conscious mind on a trail of Carillion ooze. Eyes, nose, tongue, ears, skin—all believed what the wine told them was real.
But as with all things Carillion, the method was not foolproof. Mistakes were made, memories were tangled, and in the end, he was never truly back in Wales with the people he loved. He never really saw Dain’s cynical smile, nor ever really gazed into the green eyes of the warrior sprite, Llynya.
Slowly, Morgan lifted his blade away from Aja’s head. He heard the boy take a breath.
“More wine,” he ordered, stumbling back and clearing off the closest table with a broad sweep of the sword. Glasses broke on the stone floor and mugs clattered in their wake. “Bring me more wine.”
He lurched into a chair and slammed his sword down hard on the table, his knuckles white around the hilt. The wine would take him back to Wales, to Dolwyddelan Castle, and this time he would not make the mistake of looking behind him.
“Milord, it’s late,” Aja said. “We are better off going home.”
The last word no sooner left the boy’s mouth than Morgan whirled and grabbed him around the throat.
“Home?” he snarled, dragging the boy in close. “That friggin’ hole where I sleep isn’t home. Only one thing takes me home, boy. Fetch it.” He shoved Aja away, heard him fall, and heard the curse that left the boy’s mouth.
He dropped his head into his hand, dragging his fingers back through his hair, and swore even more vilely than Aja. Lights danced all around him, streaming in from beyond his peripheral vision and glittering in front of his eyes, messing with what little was left of his mind. A cold wind blew into the square through Racht’s cracked roof. The chill of it seeped into his bones, adding to his misery.
“God’s blood,” he muttered. He was half-blind on wine, and his skull felt like it was cracking open, the fracture raw and jagged. He hurt everywhere, inside and out, and in places too deep to delve. The rotting Carillions couldn’t even get a good drunk right.
Jiang had been the first to leave him. Wils and Robbi had soon followed. York was no doubt lurking somewhere in the square’s many shadows, waiting for God knew what. There would be no more money, no more jobs. Morgan hadn’t paid them for the last one, the heist in Sonnpur-Dzon, the friggin’ hole.
He was broke, the gold dragon still in the bag looped around his belt, smelling of worms, and his, by God, until the end.
Rotting prize. He was doomed. The Dominion trader had been backed by the Warmonger of Magh Dun, and the Warmonger wanted the cursed dragon. Already he had hired Van the Wretched’s skraelpacks to sniff it out. They’d caught the trader three weeks past and dealt him a brutal death. Morgan figured he’d be dead himself inside of a month, unless the wine killed him first.
His money was on the wine. The streets of the Pathian Quarter were littered with the bodies of Carillion wine junkies, some breathing, many not. Aja was the only thing keeping him out of the gutter, but even Aja had to give up soon and let him go.
Aye, that’s what he wanted, to be let go. Let go by whatever force had brought him to the future. For as surely as he breathed, he should have died in the weir. He had only to look at the scar that ran from his chest across his abdomen to his hip to know he’d been nearly cut in half by Caradoc’s last blow. He should have died from such a grievous wound.
Death was what he wanted, and there were many about who were willing to deal it to him. If not for Aja, he most assuredly would have been dead five minutes past. The price on his head was large enough to lure even the fainthearted into violence; the fear of Aja’s wrath was enough to stay their hands—for now.
Friggin’ wine, he swore to himself, shaking his head. He needed more wine.
~ ~ ~
“Have you seen enough, lady?”
From high on a balcony in the southeast sector of Racht Square, Avallyn nodded to Dray, not trusting herself to speak. Her sense of loss was a hard, painful knot in her chest, her disappointment skirting the borders of despair. Au Cade had not been wrong as she had prayed. The supposed Prince of Time that Dray had found was no more than a man, a tech-trash thief who was cruder even than Tamisk had warned, abusive, violent, and most assuredly insane, his mind eaten away by the Carillion wine he kept demanding.
Palinor wanted him brought to Claerwcn. So be it. Avallyn would take him there—and leave him there. The wretch below was of no use to her.
“Take him,” she ordered—and ten thousand years be damned. She was better off alone.
“And the boy?” the Night Watcher captain asked. He and the other Sha-shakrieg guards were shrouded head to toe in their tattered black robes, as was she, all of them no more than shadows against the wall. They all had tech-jaws in their mouths.
Avallyn shifted her gaze to the wild boy. He, at least, appeared to have his wits about him. Racht Square, the remains of a spaceport hangar bombed out in the Second Rising, was at all times a place for caution, something the boy’s master was sorely lacking. Thousands of people milled about the multilevel square, and Avallyn doubted if many in the southeast sector had not been noted by the boy or the hulking mercenary working with him. The man changed positions every half hour like clockwork, his last move taking him halfway up the side of the building to Racht’s third tier.
Great steel beams encased the square’s inner structure of balconies and platforms, holding up what was left of the main building. The hangar doors above had been blown off, exposing all and sundry to the night sky and the elements, and giving Racht the look of a giant, cracked-open egg. Rain had fallen earlier in the day, and water yet dripped off the beams and pooled on the floor, much of it finding its way into the canals that had once held cables and fuel lines for the bays to the east, where Dray had left their rovers. The wind that had begun shortly after sunset was picking up strength, bringing with it a peculiar tension and the musty scent of impending rain. The storm was returning in force, and Avallyn would as soon be done with the job at hand and headed back into the desert, away from the Old Dominion. The rotting city was even worse than she’d been told, its streets choked with the refuse of civilization, its rancid quarters full of religions and bereft of truth.
Picking up the prince posed no problem. He was nearly catatonic, staring at his table, one hand gripping his sword, the other holding his head, a travesty. She had no need of her mother’s dreamstone. Dray could take him alone.
The boy did pose a problem, though, one the people around him seemed to appreciate. Tiny glints of silver ran the length of his left arm, throwing stars poisoned with the sap of the bia tree, the weapon of the Waste. He had a dagger in each boot, a carbine strapped to his back, a shortsword hanging from his belt, and a lasgun holstered on his hip. Almost everyone in Racht Square was armed in a like manner, but they had not the boy’s deadly speed. No one drew on a wild boy and lived to tell the tale.
“I will speak to him,” Avallyn said.
Dray shot her a questioning glance, his eyes shadowed by the folds of his hood. A thin purple scar marked the Night Watcher’s weathered face, running from his ear across the rise of his cheek. Similar scars, but shallower and webbed in a fine tracery, covered the back of his right hand, mementos of a life lived in desert battles.
Avallyn shrugged away his doubts. “Given the man’s condition, the boy might welcome the chance to be rid of him.”
“His loyalty runs deeper than that, I think.”
“And I am a White Lady of Death.” Avallyn’s natural arrogance rose to the fore. “The boy will think twice before gainsaying my wishes.” Only two tribes dared the northern deserts of Earth, the White Ladies and the wild boys. For hundreds of years they had fought together against the never-ending stream of Warlords who wanted to conquer the Waste and control its vast supply of chrystaalt, the most precious mineral on Earth. When in trouble, the boys knew a place awaited them in the White Ladies’ temples. Although never completely dependable, they were good fighters who more than once had helped stem the tide of the Warmongers’ armies, fierce battalions of men, beasts, and every configuration in between, the dregs of creation recruited from the nethermost reaches of the galaxy.
“As you wish, my lady,” Dray conceded. “I’ll leave the boy to—”
Avallyn tensed in the same instant as Dray fell silent, both of them seeing the skraelpack enter the square three floors below. The crowd parted for the pack, with people shoving and pushing to get out of the way. Avallyn knew ’twas as much because of the pack’s stench as because of their bristling weapons. Beastmen all, skraelings were the offal of the galaxy, clawed and fanged more like animals than men, with overlarge jaws to accommodate their rapacious eating habits. Sweet Mother, they even ate each other.
Seconds later, across the square, an armed troop marched onto the main floor, their presence announced by sudden shouts and a bulging swell of bodies being pushed aside.
“Van’s beasts,” Dray said, identifying the skraelpack.
Avallyn nodded in acknowledgment. She’d recognized the captain, a sallow-faced, hunchbacked ogre with a morning star welded to his wrist. Then she swore when she saw the armed troop’s insignia. It was the Warmonger’s Third Guard, with a Lyran mark-tracker in the lead. Capable of discerning her prey’s scent at a remarkable one part per million, the female Lyran loped into the square and scanned the crowd with a slow swing of her head. Back and forth she sniffed, quartering the hangar, her mane of fine orange-gold hair lifting into the wind and flowing across her face in gossamer strands. In shape she was nearly human, her skin cast in shades of green. A black hauberk protected her torso. Leather leggings covered her powerful legs. When her nose passed in the prince’s direction, she halted, her feral, verdured features frozen in the stillness of a carefully indrawn breath.
A cold shiver coursed down Avallyn’s spine.
“We’re too far outnumbered to fight for him,” Dray said, voicing her sudden fear. The Lyran’s golden eyes had narrowed in concentration, her gaze fixing along a line of sight that
undeniably led to the wild boy and his drunken master.
Two troops against their handful of guards? Not even Night Watchers could overcome such odds. Yet as dearly as Avallyn was tempted, she couldn’t leave the thief to the doom preparing to descend on him and his cohorts.
Until proven otherwise, he belonged to the White Ladies.
Carillion wine and a Lyran mark-tracker—Shadana, she thought in disgust. No half measures for Morgan ab Kynan, whether in vice or enemies.
“Then we’d best keep it from becoming a fight,” she said, closing her hand around the dreamstone dagger sheathed on her hip. “Move out.”
~ ~ ~
Aja heard York’s warning through his tech-jaw and released the trigger lock on his lasgun, cursing under his breath. He knew they should have gone home. They should have gone home hours ago.
“Skraelings,” he muttered, loosening a row of iron stars.
Moving with all possible speed, York contacted him again from his new position on the lowest balcony. Aja felt himself blanch at the mercenary’s words: The Third Guard—led by a Lyran—had entered the main floor of the square and was closing in, the master’s right hand come to spur on the beasts.
They were doomed.
“Morgan, make ready for a fight,” he said, reaching over his shoulder and switching his carbine to automatic. “Milord. Please.”
His lord didn’t move, not so much as a muscle, not so much as the twitch of an eye, and frustration tightened Aja’s jaw, frustration aggravated in no small measure by guilt.
It was his fault. All of it. He’d been the one to give Morgan his first taste of Carillion wine years ago. He’d thought it would help ease Morgan’s loneliness if he could see his friends. He’d thought Morgan would be less inclined to bouts of melancholy if he went home for a bit now and again. He’d thought Morgan, a survivor of the weir, was too strong to fall prey to the grapish stuff.