If my dreams are true, she is out there. I will find her.
A large hawk circled overhead as he made his camp, its brown wings gleaming in the dying sunlight. By the time Andovan had seen to his horse’s needs and his own and then settled down to sleep, it had flown away.
That night he dreamed of his quarry.
Dark, the streets are so dark; the narrow towers press close, crowding out the sunlight. On the streets below them a beggar boy crouches, his pale skin crusted over with half-healed scars from some past plague, his eyes bloodshot and hungry. Beside him a woman stands, gaunt and desperate, begging the nobles who pass by for the spare change in their purses, crying out that she has a virgin daughter of pleasing aspect, if lust moves them more than pity. Then the image fades and the street is clean and the woman was never there at all, save perhaps in his dreams.
Overhead a single tower looms, a surreal structure devoid of any doors or windows, save at the topmost level. Near to it a dozen lesser towers stretch their necks upward like ducklings attending their mother, curtains fluttering like agitated wings. The breeze coming from the west is a foul thing, redolent of rotting fish and algae, the noxious vapors of a stagnant swamp. It seems out of place in the dry and pristine streets.
Amid the towers a woman walks, and he knows it is his quarry as soon as she appears. He tries to cry out, to get her to turn toward him, so he can see her face and learn her name, but the weakness within him is suddenly too great, the words die in his throat, and he falls gasping to the cobblestoned street.
Now, now, she is turning toward him at last, and he looks up at her. Why? he demands of her silently, unable to draw in enough breath to form the words. But his vision is fading, the Wasting is claiming him, and everything goes black just before he can see her face . . .
He awoke shivering, his body drenched with cold sweat. For a moment he felt as weak as he had been in his dream, and panic overcame him. He struggled to his feet, needing to prove to himself that the dream had not truly sapped the last of his strength. When he managed to get himself upright with no greater difficulty than the night before the wild beating of his heart began to slow a bit, and he managed a few long, measured breaths, trying to steady his spirit.
It was a dream, Andovan. Worse than some others, but likely not the last nightmare you will have on this journey. Are you so weak of heart that mere dreams can unman you now?
Did she know he was searching for her? The dream would imply so, but he was reluctant to read that much meaning into it. Nightmares were more often the simple product of a sleeper’s own fears than any prophetic vision, and this one was certainly cast in that mold.
But the towers . . . how strange they were, all clustered together . . . surely they had some meaning. What was the significance of the tower without doors? Why was the smell of a swamp so pervasive? And who was the beggar woman who so clearly did not belong in that place, that disappeared when he looked at her?
He wracked his brain and came up with nothing, and finally, with a sigh, broke off a piece of cheese from his supply and ate it, letting the sharp flavor drive the remembered taste of swamp muck from his mouth.
And then he remembered.
Gansang.
It was built in the marshes of the western delta, on walkways and stilts set over what had once been thriving wetlands. Shoreside it was said there was one section where the bedrock was solid, and it rose in a crest above sea level just far enough to escape the flood plain. The nobles lived there, of course. Andovan had been taught about Gansang as a child. Taught that a city is a living thing, and as with any living thing, if its growth is frustrated in one direction, it will expand in another. The nobles of Gansang could not expand outward without moving into the marshes themselves, and so they had expanded upward instead, building towers that were taller and finer than any others on earth—or so they claimed. Andovan had been told the story by his tutor when he was a young boy. It had seemed unreal to him then. But now . . . Gansang was due west of him, if he remembered it right. Which meant that he had been heading in that direction all along. Could that be where Colivar’s sorcery had been driving him? Was his would-be killer there at this very moment, might he surprise her there if he moved quickly enough?
Gansang was on the other side of the Blood Ridge, he recalled. Not a day’s ride past the western foothills.
Feeling more confident than he had in a long time, Andovan pulled his tightly rolled maps out of the saddlebag, and by the light of a single moon began to plot the journey to Gansang.
Chapter 18
COME IN, my dear.”
The tattered edges of Gwynofar’s silk gown fluttered like the wings of a black angel as she entered the chamber. Her clear eyes took in everything at a glance: her hawk-browed husband in a carved wooden chair, black eyes squinting in what he doubtless believed was an expression of affection; the Magister Kostas in tight-fitting ebony robes sitting upright in a cushioned chair opposite him, tracking her every movement like a hungry bird; the fireplace behind them, cold due to the summer’s heat, with its polished silver mirror over the mantle. In it she could see herself, pale of face and dusty of hem, a mere ghost of a presence compared to the aggressive and powerful men who had called her to audience.
There was no chair set out for her, she noticed. Doubtless Kostas’ idea. As always his presence made the bile rise in her throat, and she had to swallow hard to smile with requisite royal politeness as she curtseyed to them both. Then, disdaining to meet Kostas’ eyes, she fetched a chair for herself and sat, daring her husband’s disapproval to do so. But a small smile played on Danton’s lips, which told her she had guessed correctly. He liked it when she had spirit, providing it was not him she was defying. Other subjects would die for the same gesture.
“You summoned me, Sire?”
“So I did.” He reached for the flagon of wine by his side and poured out a third goblet full, then offered it to her. She accepted it gratefully, using it to wash down the lump in her throat that Kostas’ presence had conjured. The Magister Royal watched the exchange impassively, utterly still but for his eyes. Like a spider’s, she thought. She half expected a spider’s quick movements out of him the moment she touched the wrong string of his web. “Kostas expressed an interest in the religious beliefs of your homeland. I thought it better coming from your lips than mine.”
Gwynofar nodded politely, as if conversing with Kostas was not an unpleasant task at all. She knew what Danton thought of her religion—“rock worship,” he called it—and he had probably meant this audience as a courtesy to let her explain things herself. He knew she disliked Kostas—she had never lied to her husband about that—but he had no idea how deep within her soul the revulsion was rooted, how hard it was to be in his presence long enough even to exchange niceties.
Nonetheless, she was queen, and that meant learning to hide her true feelings, no matter what the cost.
She forced herself to turn to the Magister and meet his eyes without flinching. He must never suspect how much she hated him, she knew that, or how much she feared him. You must never let a Magister sense your fear. So she forced her voice to be steady and soft, even casual, as she asked him, “So what do you wish to know?”
His voice was a low hiss, the kind of sound you would expect out of a lizard or a snake, not a man. “Tell me of the Lord Protectors.”
She glanced at Danton, who nodded. “They are the leaders of bloodlines founded to maintain the Spears of the Wrath, to guard against its weakening, and to stand in the front lines of battle should those protections fail us.”
“Gods save us from a woman’s recitation,” Danton interrupted. “You start at the end of the story when he does not even know the beginning yet. Tell him of the war itself . . . yes, Kostas?” He glanced at Kostas, who said nothing; his eyes were fixed upon the High Queen with an intensity that made her skin crawl. “That would be best, I think. The end of the war, the coming of the Wrath . . . that is what he wants.”
; She nodded. “As you wish, Sire.”
She drew in a deep breath and tried to ignore Kostas’ stare. “Long ago, in the Dark Ages, when demons roamed the earth freely, feasting upon human souls, there gathered a band of the witching folk. These alone had resisted the power of the demons enough to remember the First Age of Kings, and they believed that man could be restored to his rightful inheritance if the vile creatures were destroyed.
“It was decided that they would seek out those last few warriors who still had the spirit to fight—for you must understand that the demons’ magic robbed men of all aggressive instinct, so this was no small thing—and they would launch a final campaign against the enemy. Not to kill the demons in the lands they had invaded, the ruins of the First Kingdoms, for all efforts to do that before had failed. Rather they would attempt to drive them to the far north, to the lands of ice and snow, where the kingdoms of man had never taken root. For it was believed that the deep cold weakened them, and perhaps in such a place they would become feeble enough that men might destroy them at last.”
“Tell me of these demons,” Kostas said quietly. His eyes upon hers were like a lizard’s, cold and unblinking; she dared not look at them directly, lest her revulsion show.
“It is said they were born of the souls of corrupted men who feared entering the lands of Death, yet who might remain in the world of the living only by feeding upon the souls of others. They took on the forms of great flying creatures with wings so vast and black they cast shadows upon the earth beneath them as they flew. It is said that their gaze could turn a man to stone, so that no warrior could stand before them. Many armies tried when they first appeared, and many stone monuments remain to bear witness to their failure.”
“But this time would be different,” the Magister offered.
“Yes.” She glanced at Danton. He believed in some of this, she knew that, though he did so in the manner of his own people, preferring to believe the demons were merely fearsome beasts and the tales of their supernatural powers no more than legends. Yet something had ended the First Age of Kings and plunged mankind into spiritual and intellectual darkness for the span of ten centuries, she thought stubbornly. No man doubted that. And something had then killed all the invaders, so that the Second Age of Kings could begin. No man doubted that either. Why was the tale of a sorcerous war less credible than believing mere beasts had been the cause?
“There are many tales told in the north of the witches’ quest to find the few remaining heroes among men. If the Lord Magister has interest in that . . .” Kostas gestured with a short wave of one bony hand that he did not. “Some believe the gods aided the witches in their search, for otherwise it would surely have been impossible. At last they succeeded in finding a handful of warriors whose spirits were resistant to the demons’ power, seven men in all, to whose banners others would flock in order for an army to be mustered.”
She was remembering the epic tales of her childhood now, offered up by minstrels before a roaring fire in the darkness of the northern winter. It was hard not to fall into their cadence, or offer up half-remembered fragments of their songs, as she tried to distill centuries of speculation and myth into a few simple sentences for Kostas’ consumption. In truth as a girl she had been more interested in the tales of the exciting search for the Seven Heroes and of the magical exploits that were said to attend them, but that was clearly not what Kostas wanted to hear, and so she skipped over it.
“All the witching folk who existed in that day came to fight by their side, for the gods had revealed to them in dreams the importance of this battle, and they knew that mankind would rise or fall based upon their efforts. Terrible war was waged across the whole of the earth then, not merely with weapons, but with sorcery as well. In all the places where great kingdoms had once stood, the bodies of fallen soldiers were now strewn, some torn to bits by the claws of their enemies, some whole in body but with their souls rent by the demons, their ghosts howling in agony. The bodies of countless witches lay beside them, empty shells from which the life had been drained as fuel for magic. The whole of the earth had become a place of blood and death, and those who could not or would not fight fled and hid trembling in holes like rats, lest the enemy find them and devour them for strength.
“In time the seven great warriors and their armies drove the demons to the far north. Ice froze upon their wings then, and it robbed them of strength, just as the Seers had foretold. Yet even such an advantage could not turn the tide of battle completely. The blood of countless men was spilled in that great battle, rivers of it churned to scarlet mud beneath the soldiers’ boots. Long summer days began to give way to the darkness of winter as the fighting went on, and the armies of men knew then that they were not strong enough to carry the battle to conclusion by themselves, not before the Great Night enshrouded all the northlands in darkness.”
In the springtime, maidens of the Protectorates would make themselves garlands out of the crimson daisies that grew in the northern plains, which the legends said had once been white but were stained with the blood of heroes. She still remembered the look on Danton’s face when he first caught sight of her in her wedding dress of that same arterial color. Why? she had wondered. Was not the color of courage and sacrifice suitable for weddings?
“So the witches offered up their lives in final sacrifice,” she whispered, “if the gods would free mankind from the Souleaters and let the battle be won. And the gods heard them, and accepted their offer.”
Kostas stiffened slightly. He seemed to be listening to her more intently than before. With his long thin limbs, staring eyes, and bony edges he reminded her of nothing so much as a praying mantis about to strike.
“The gods forged spears out of lightning and cast them down into the earth one after the other, in the midst of the battle, between the demons and the men. They struck in a line that stretched across the snow as far as the eye could see. The blood of the earth gushed upward where they pierced, and was frozen into fearsome spires many times the height of a man as it struck the air. The Wrath blazed forth from each earthwound, so terrible in its power that no living thing would go near it, nor could any living creature pass between the spires without going mad.
“The demons to the north fell back shrieking in fury, for they knew themselves bested. It is said the whole of the night sky blazed with fire, then, and veils as red as blood flickered from horizon to horizon. The soldiers killed those few demons that had been caught on the southern side of the barrier, and then an army of witches—the last ones living—crossed the Wrath to hunt down the last of the creatures. Trapped in the winds of the icy north the demons were truly helpless, they believed, and might be destroyed at last.”
How could any outsider understand what it was to be born in a land that still echoed with the cries of that great war? The demons were still out there, or so the priests taught. If the Wrath ever faltered and the battle resumed, her kin would be in the front ranks. Even the women. That was their duty.
She thought of Rhys and the other Guardians, traveling from spire to spire along the edge of the Wrath, braving its terrible power to inspect the frozen founts of earth’s blood, to repair them if necessary, and to lend the strength of their prayers and their offerings to the gods who maintained them. For if and when the demons did return, the Wrath was the only thing standing between them and the fertile, civilized southlands, and not Danton and all the High King’s armies could muster a defense against them if it faltered.
“This is why,” she concluded, “when the Second Age of Kings began, there was no sorcery. All those who could work the soulfire had been sacrificed.”
“Tell me of the Protectors’ bloodlines,” Kostas said quietly. “Their . . . special powers.” His tone had not changed, nor was their any change in his demeanor . . . yet the question cut into her soul like a knife. She had felt such things before with Ramirus, when he used his power to read the truth behind her words. It was chilling to think this hollow-faced Magister was
weaving his power about her now, but she kept any sign of the knowledge from showing on her face as she responded while hating him silently for daring to touch her with his sorcery, an invasion so unclean and intimate it felt like rape.
Yet even while she hated him she wondered why it was so, and she remembered Rhys’ words in the courtyard: The reasons you offer me do not match the hatred in your heart.
The King’s hounds do not like the new Magister either, she told herself. They do not have to know why.
“They are descended from the surviving leaders of the great battle. The priests decreed that those bloodlines should serve as kings in the north, and so they have, ever since.” She paused, watching him closely. “What more do you wish to know?”
“It is said the gods gave them gifts, is it not? Special powers that would help them protect the world against the demons, should they come again. At least that is the rumor.”
Like a deer catching scent of a hunter, she stiffened. This is the question he wished to ask all along, she thought. This is why he called me here, rather than letting Danton tell him tales of my people.
It made her wary. It made her want to hide the truth. “There are many rumors, my lord.”
“Superstition,” Danton snorted.
She blushed and looked down in what she hoped would seem to be feminine embarrassment; sometimes with men that could deflect suspicion. “Perhaps, Sire.”
“You have not answered my question,” Kostas pressed.
She shrugged, attempting to make it seem like the matter was of little import to her. “It is the duty of the Protectors to guard the Spears, hence it is said that the gods granted them the ability to approach them more closely than the common man is able to. I do not know if you would call that a ‘gift,’ Lord Magister. They are fearsome things, and only those bound by duty would ever wish to be near them.”
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