by Ryk E. Spoor
“He then went to the Winnower, who was mildly surprised to see me but it was not entirely unheard of for me to change my mind, especially if there was something particularly interesting about the next group.”
“And was there?” Tobimar asked.
A flash of a sharp-fanged smile. “That, Tobimar Silverun, you will have to tell me.”
Poplock looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“All in due time. As I said, the impostor returned and then escorted the next group—the five young people you described. What makes this particularly disturbing is that while you should have noticed nothing during your visit to the Throne, there are—even more so than in the rest of the castle—powerful, subtle, and—until now—absolutely reliable wards and seals which would not permit any to approach the King without being escorted by myself or one of a very few others.”
Poplock understood in a general sense what that meant—after all, he’d been subverting some similar security himself not all that many days ago. But Tobimar reached up, took the Toad off his shoulder with a grip that almost squeezed the air from his body, and set him down. “Sacred seals,” he said. It was not a question, it was a statement, one filled with grim horror. “This is the capital, this is the castle whose ruler is blessed by the Father of Dragons himself. There is not the faintest possibility that those ‘wards and seals’ were not placed there by Elbon Nomicon and the Sixteen themselves.” He held Toron’s gaze, and the Sauran nodded, slowly.
It dawned on the little Toad, finally, why this seemed to strike Tobimar so personally. His mother was the ruler of a country of her own, one probably protected by wards very much like those here. And something had apparently walked through them without so much as raising a question, let alone an alarm. “Oh, now that’s bad.”
Both the human and the Sauran gave a tiny smile. “Yes, one might say that,” Toron said. “Now, exactly what happened next . . . we do not know. Perhaps the group he escorted were innocent, perhaps they were accomplices. If they were innocent—”
“—then the ritual gave him the perfect opportunity to kill, at that point when you have escorted the guests out and close the door to take your own leave and hear anything that the King wants to tell you privately,” Tobimar finished, running a hand through his hair absently. “Then he escorted them out and . . . vanished wherever he came from.”
“And we have checked every single person—Sauran, human, Artan, even Toad—in the Castle. None of them are our impostor.”
Poplock scratched his head with a rear foot. “Um, I’m just a Toad, but that confuses me. If he could walk through god-forged wards, how can you be sure he’s not one of the people you’re questioning?”
“Because we found the body of one of my guards concealed under one of the floors, so we know what face he’s been wearing when he wasn’t wearing mine: one of the Heads of Watch, Fureas. We’re still working on determining just how and when he died, but it was quite some time ago.” Toron stamped his foot suddenly and his next words were very nearly a roar. “And I spoke with Fureas myself just three days ago—not two hours before the assassination! The impostor was within my grasp!”
“If he could do that, though,” Tobimar said slowly, “why didn’t he just . . . kill the King whenever, maybe when he’s sleeping and wouldn’t be disturbed for maybe many hours?”
“Could be plenty of reasons,” Poplock said quietly, hopping back onto Tobimar’s shoulder—and receiving a small, apologetic glance and a pat for the prior rough removal. “Fear and confusion. Maybe get the other people blamed. Maybe get you blamed, Toron—then they take out the King and his heir in one shot.” Or other reasons. “Maybe something made it necessary they do it now. I don’t know. But the longer they stayed hidden, the more they could learn, right?”
“True enough, Sylanningathalinde,” Toron acknowledged, using the Ancient Sauran name for Poplock’s people. “A perfect spy in the household—and if he—or better, it—could be disgused as myself, well enough that the Winnower did not sense the deception, one must presume that at various times it could have been anywhere in the Castle, as anyone.”
The door was suddenly flung open; Poplock flipped backwards off Tobimar’s shoulder, drawing Steelthorn; he saw the lightning-fast flicker of the Skysand Prince’s twin swords being drawn, and Toron was on his feet and in a crouched combat stance.
The Winnower almost screamed in panic, throwing up his hands. “Apologies! Apologies!”
“Tehry,” King Toron said, slowly relaxing and straightening up, “this is a poor time to be surprising us. What is it?”
“My Lords . . . Your Majesty . . .” The Winnower seemed at a complete loss for words, gesturing outward.
Toron glanced at Poplock and Tobimar, and strode out towards the front gate. They followed, Poplock once more riding in his accustomed position, and all three quickened their stride as they heard an unfamiliar murmuring, a sussuration of unrest that grew to fearful calls and shouts.
They reached the open doors of the Castle, in view of the Gates, and the King staggered to a halt. “Q’ u rr’ a Terian khe’ Elbon . . .”
In the courtyard were dozens of people—some human, a few Iriistiik, a Child of Odin or two, but mostly elves, Artan, and all with the haggard, drawn look of those who have been running for their lives. Some were bandaged, stained with blood, injured to a greater or lesser degree.
Poplock spotted a small knot of Toads trying to make their way to the left fountain, and leapt from Tobimar’s shoulder, hopping as fast as he could. “People! Hello! What—”
As he got closer, he recognized some of his people—and especially the keg-sized one being carried, bandages ominously dark. “Oh no. No. Barkboat!”
The old priest opened one gold-and-black eye. “. . . Poplock. Is that really you, or—”
“What happened?” Even as he asked the question, he felt a terrible cold feeling, like sinking into an icy bog, rising over him from the ground under his feet.
“Duckweed . . .” It was Padsinker, who he’d never liked, but the wide eyes and scratched, loose hide brought with them an aching empathy. “They . . . they were everywhere. Armored warriors, wizards, monsters . . . mazakh, humans, fire exploding . . .”
Oh, no.
He’d been too late. Too late.
“M . . . Majesty . . .” an Artan warrior was speaking, so exhausted that he did not even attempt a bow. “Majesty, we . . . we are attacked. Hali-Shan-Alyin, the Suntree, is fallen. The Forest Sea . . . we no longer hold its heart.”
Barkboat’s eye slid shut, and he was limp. Unconscious, or . . .
The little Toad hopped a few feet, then stopped and sank to the ground, hearing the tiny peeping noises that were his sobs. He’d had four years.
Four years.
And he’d wasted them all.
24
Tobimar staggered as he placed yet another gasping body—a child, no more than ten in human terms, with delicately pointed ears and long silvery hair smeared with blood—on the altar. I can’t fall now. We aren’t even near done. He called on his meditations, the training Khoros had given him, released the reserves of his soul. Strength flowed back into his body, clarity to his thoughts. There’ll be a price for that, later . . . but not now.
The Lurali, a priestess of Terian, looked even more exhausted than he had felt. She wavered as she laid hands on the girl, invoked the power and prayer. Blue-white light as gentle as gathered starlight flowed from the Lurali, into the little Artan girl, knitting the injuries, pulling together sundered sinew and flesh, restoring blood to the flow and pulse of life. Then she collapsed to her knees; Tobimar caught her before she fell forward. “You have done as much as the Light in the Darkness can ask, Lurali,” he said. The semiconscious priestess tried feebly to argue, but others came to bring her to a place of rest.
Tobimar shoved his sweat-soaked hair back into place and looked around. The Temple of Terian was filled all along the eight walls with refugees, the injured, the ho
meless, and he could see more being brought in. “Sand and sun . . . how many are there?” he whispered.
“A lot.” The voice, a very subdued one, spoke from near his feet. Poplock looked up at him, a completely uncharacteristic expression of exhaustion and pathos clear on his amphibian face. “Tobimar . . . it’s like this all up and down the Blessed Quarter. The Hall of the Aesir’s practically full—not that the Spear and Hammer will turn any with the courage to make it this far away. You know the Palace courtyard was crowded. The Cavern of Endless Crystals,” Tobimar nodded to show he recognized the name of the temples of the Dragon Gods, “the Cavern’s full. Hundreds of refugees there. The Triad, the Three Beards, the Lifecross, the Aegeians . . . even Blackwart’s Pond. All of them, it’s the same.” He seemed to deflate. “The priests are running out of strength, even the greatest of them. There will be people dying in the temples tonight, Tobimar. Dying. In the temples of the gods.”
Tobimar bent and picked up his exhausted friend, hearing the grief still in Poplock’s voice. “Don’t blame yourself. Please.”
“How can I not?” the little Toad’s voice was something between a scream and a croak, a pathetic sound that sent a shiver of sympathy up Tobimar’s spine. “I knew they were planning everything . . . I should have made people listen to me!”
The thought of little Poplock—dangerous though Tobimar knew he could be, in the right circumstances—trying to force someone like the Winnower to listen brought a faint, sad smile to the exiled Prince’s lips. “You know that wouldn’t have worked. And Khoros always told me that we must learn from the past, but not let it pain us more than the learning requires. For like any open wound, it will never heal if we do not let it alone.”
“Heed the words of your friend, Poplock Duckweed.” It was the Nomdas herself, highest priest of the mortal god on all Zarathan, the Shading Glory’s pearlescent glow blurring her features as all representations of Terian blurred his. She was clearly exhausted as well, but refusing to stop. “You cannot fault yourself for being who you are. Learn, but do not punish yourself. There is too much at stake for those who are already a part of this great game to abandon their places.”
“Great game? What are you—”
Yet the Nomdas had passed on, was bent over an injured mazakh, and Tobimar could tell the time for talk was already past. He saw how few of the priests were still up, still able to act, and realized that Poplock’s horrific prediction was all too likely to come true.
Deaths in the Temples. It was a horror story, something to frighten children with. Yes, it could happen in the wilds, in places where there were few priests, but in the greatest city of the world, in the very temples of the Blessed Quarter?
But looking around him, seeing the refugees still trickling in, a slow but relentless flow of need and pain that was overwhelming even the servants of the gods, the alchemists, the sorcerers who practiced the healing arts, Tobimar realized that was going to happen. It was happening. And the very fact that it was happening told him that Master Khoros’ warning had to be true; somehow, the gods themselves could no longer act, could not step down from their realms and wield their supernal powers directly to stem the relentless tide of the injured and dying.
“I refuse,” he muttered.
“What?”
Poplock’s confused query shocked him; he hadn’t realized he’d actually spoken that aloud. “I refuse to accept this, Poplock. This is . . . monstrous.”
The little Toad looked at him with a wry tilt to his body that seemed at least something more like the old fearless, carefree Poplock Duckweed he’d come to know. “Well, yes, it is, but exactly how can you not accept it? If you close your eyes and put your thumbs in your ears you’ll still be tripping over the people.”
“I mean that this is part of what they—whoever they are—intended.”
Poplock narrowed his eyes. “Oh. Oh, my. You mean that the assassination—”
“Has to be part of it. It was all coordinated.” He whirled, strode over to the northern wall, picking his way carefully past healers and injured and sleeping, to point to the inlaid map of the continent. “Look. That first group of refugees . . . came from Pondsparkle. Right?”
“Well . . . some of them had ’ported or gated from farther in, but they’d come to Pondsparkle, yes. Couldn’t pop to Zarathanton for some reason.”
“So here . . . Pondsparkle’s about two hundred miles north of Zarathanton—but if you go about this far south you can take the river for a good long distance, which you would if you were refugees in a hurry. If they took that route, when did they start running, to get here when they did?”
Poplock thought for a moment, tongue flicking out absently, and he suddenly sat up. “That’s—”
“Exactly. The attack must have started almost precisely when the assassination took place.”
The little Toad bobbed slowly. “And the refugees . . .”
“They’re not trying to kill everyone. Driving so many people here will overload the Temples, terrify the population, demoralize people . . . and reduce support, because people will start to worry about protecting their own. Fewer nobility subscriptions because people don’t feel the privilege is worth it now, maybe established nobles retract their subscriptions . . . with the Sixteen not able to intervene and make a show, the State’s in trouble.”
“The Adjudicators?”
“They’ll do what they can, but they can’t support the defense of the whole city. If enough people lose faith, the whole system will collapse.”
“Oh, drought and quicksand.” Despite the grim situation, Tobimar felt his heart lighten a tiny bit. Poplock was sounding more himself, and somehow that made things better. “What can we do? I don’t think we can defend the city ourselves either.”
“No,” agreed Tobimar, “but right now we need to make sure the King sees the whole situation, and then . . .” he gave a weak grin and shrugged. “Then we do the best we can. He can’t leave. He’s the Sauran King, the living representative of the Dragon Father and the Sixteen. As long as he’s here, he might by himself be able to keep the people’s confidence. But he’ll need all the help he can get.
“Still, someone has to find out who did this, track them down, and stop them.”
Poplock hopped on his head and then leaned perilously over, looking down into Tobimar’s eyes. “That’s an awfully tall order for one exiled Prince and a somewhat height-deficient Toad.”
“True. But if we can at least find out who we need to stop, maybe after that we can figure out that little question of how.”
Poplock’s gaze bored into his own for an eternity of seconds; then the little Toad suddenly bounced off Tobimar’s head and onto his shoulder. “Then it’s a good thing we registered with the Adventurer’s Guild last week!”
“Helped to have Toron as the sponsor. Come on.” He turned, bowing to the remaining priests. “My apologies; we have just realized something of grave importance that needs to be told to the King.”
The Nomdas returned the bow wearily. “You have done much here already. Go, and Light Unto Darkness.”
“Light Unto Darkness, Nomdas.”
Tobimar strode out into the night.
25
Kyri looked up at the looming mountains ahead of her. It wasn’t the first mountain range she’d seen since leaving Zarathanton, but it was by far the most forbidding she’d ever faced.
Of course, she admitted to herself, that might just be because I know what it is.
Now, for the first time in weeks, she felt uncertain. There was no one near to help her, no one to advise her, and no one to reassure her that she was on the right trail . . . or tell her she had gone terribly wrong.
And when facing the gray-black, knife-edged spires of Hell’s Rim, the feeling of something gone terribly wrong was nearly the only sane reaction. Within that almost unbroken circle of mountains was a land of aberration and monstrosity, wracked by magical repercussions of battles and disasters that went back to the
very Time of the Fall. The city of Hell’s Edge existed for the singular and sole purpose of sealing the only existing pass into—or out of—Hell.
It wasn’t, of course, any of the netherplanes that were variously called Hell by any of a dozen dozen religions, but by all accounts it was something maybe worse. It occurred to Kyri that the stories of Hell were very similar to those of Moonshade Hollow, on the other side of Rivendream Pass.
Maybe too similar. The thought made her shiver.
The problem before her, of course, was to find the Spiritsmith’s forge. Unfortunately, given what Toron hadn’t been able to tell her, the best guess she could make was that it was probably somewhere between the Gyre River and the next river flowing from the Rim—a river which didn’t even seem to have a name on her map!
Kyri took a breath and got a firmer grip on both her pack and her resolve. Myrionar promised that I simply had to be true to It, and have faith. Not that I had to be right all the time. There would be small communities along the mountains—though not too near. And one of them would have to know something. After all, even the Spiritsmith, whoever and whatever he was, would have to get supplies from somewhere, unless he could just conjure them from nowhere. And even then, would he want to stay entirely alone for centuries?
Still, this could take a long time. I should be grateful for that wizard’s help. Those few days had been terrifying and nearly fatal, and the old man himself had been disquietingly enigmatic . . . but without him, she’d still be . . . what, maybe not even to Elbon, certainly nowhere near Asgard’s Fortress, let alone all the way to the Rim past the Gyrefell Forest.