Aerie

by Mercedes Lackey

  That corpse stench came from her. With every beat of her wings it drove down at them as she looked down at them and sang.

  Give up, said the song. Give up, despair, and die. Death is inevitable. I will have you, and you will go down into the darkness and be forgotten. I am the End of All Things, and you cannot escape me.

  Kiron felt his will being sapped, his knees weakening, and black depression surrounding him, smothering him, drowning him.

  Surrender to me. I am Inevitable. Hope is an illusion.

  This was where that insidious, corrupting voice had come from, the voice that had whispered in his mind and told him how foolish it was to believe that Aket-ten cared for him—

  That moment of recognition flashed across his spirit and jolted him awake, out of the mire of despair, giving him one tiny moment of freedom in which to act.

  He put on the diadem.

  Around him, he sensed the others doing the same, as some strength in each of them lashed back at Tamat’s Song.

  Then his mind was clear, clearer than it had ever been in his life.

  Of course, his mind was no longer in control of his body. Something—Someone—else, was.

  That Presence filled him; he felt his mortality straining to contain it, like too much grain being poured into a sack until the fabric was tight enough to drum upon. It was Light. He was Light. He was Haras, offspring of Siris and Iris, the Hawk of the Sun. But . . . what that was . . . was so much more than anyone had ever written.

  Beside him, his other self, his complement, She who completed him.

  In fact, Kiron sensed all of this only dimly. This Being that had taken him over, and was using him as an anchor to the mortal world, was too enormous to grasp, and as for comprehending it—he might just as well as a beetle could comprehend the thoughts of a man.

  And yet to act in the mortal world, these immortal beings required a mortal anchor, one person who would give them that right-of-usage. He had given that consent, and Haras had taken it.

  And Kiron was now only baggage.

  Peri stood on the edge of the path leading up to the top of the cliff where Kiron and the others had been overseeing the battle. She had brought them water—no, truth, she had brought Kiron water, and the others would be welcome to have some, but she had brought it for Kiron—

  But now she clutched the water jar to her chest, unthinking, as she stared up at the monstrous shape of the column of darkness looming over them all. A cold storm wind whipped her clothing against her body, and the lightning that lashed out of the column to strike nearby made her jump and scream, dropping the jar, which shattered at her feet.

  What have I done? she thought, as terror froze her.

  When Huras had told them all he was returning to Aerie, that he was needed there, and that there was going to be a battle, she had begged him to take her with him. Sutema wasn’t strong enough to make such a long, grueling trip with a rider, but she could and would follow, if Peri was carried behind another Jouster. In fact, that had been one of Peri’s own ideas, to train fledglings too young to carry much weight how to fly. Sutema had been flying strongly for a sennight or more now.

  Huras hadn’t hesitated, not for a moment. “We’ll need every hand,” he had said, somewhat grimly, and gave her only as long as it took for Sutema and Tathulan to eat their fill to gather what she needed. She realized just how urgent it was when he did not stop for the dragons to hunt midway through their journey. Sutema had been tired beyond measure when they had arrived, and Peri hadn’t been in much better shape. They both ate and drank enormously and curled up to sleep together in a strange sort of cavelike house that had a dragon pen in the bottom of it, alongside Huras’ Tathulan. Peri had not even had the strength to go up the stairs to try and find a proper bed.

  And when she woke, an army was already almost to Aerie itself.

  She knew better than to pester Kiron; instead she made herself as useful as she could. She had fetched and carried all manner of things, helped to build barricades, helped to channel water into a reservoir, even cooked and baked so that food would be ready and on hand when fighters needed it. Finally, she got a moment of respite and decided that there would be nothing wrong with taking water up to the commanders of this battle.

  She had only really been aware of a harsh wind whipping up; the switchback path she had taken to the top of the cliff where they were faced away from where the army was assembled. So until she got to the rim, she’d had no idea of the horror hanging in the sky, a pillar of lightning and darkness that was taller than the cliff—and had eyes.

  This was not what she had expected to see. There was nothing in this world that she could compare this to, and horror dried her mouth, knotted her gut, and froze her feet in place.

  And then the—Thing—came out of the top of the pillar and began to sing, and she could not even scream. Her mouth opened, but all that came out was a strangled squeal. Tears of fear and despair poured down her cheeks, and she wanted to throw herself off the top of this cliff, because breaking her neck on the rocks below would be a blessing compared to what that—Thing—was going to do to them. To her. It told her somehow, deep in her mind, in a whirlwind of horror and panic, it showed her what her fate was to be.

  We’re going to die. We are all going to die.

  The Being that inhabited Kiron bowed with deep respect to the One looking from Ari’s eyes. The five who wore the diadems now wore power and glory like so many shining mantles. Their eyes glowed with it; their faces were radiant, and auras of light coruscated around them. “Father,” he said, his voice sounding strange and echoing in his own ears. The Being cast a glance at the Chosen, who had discarded his staff and moved to join them striding as surely as if he could see despite his bandaged eyes. “Uncle. I greet you.”

  Tamat screamed, and all five of them looked up at her. She hovered in place, wingbeats spreading her noisome stench, all three heads glaring down at them.

  “She is not yet a god,” observed Seft, through his vessel’s lips.

  “Not yet,” said Iris, as Tamat shrieked in outrage at the sight of the five of them. “But enough blood has been spilled to unbind her. She is loose now in the world and if we do not bind her again, enough blood will likely be spilled to make her a god. And that would be an evil day indeed.”

  “She is stronger than we,” replied Siris doubtfully. “We have never faced her thus. Always before, we have been on equal footing with her. We are constrained by the limits of our mortal hosts. She has made a body to suit herself.”

  “Then we must be wiser, faster, and more skilled!” said Haras, with all the fierce determination of a desert falcon. His words rang out against the screams from Tamat above them, and the whine of the wind in the rocks.

  Seft’s dark powers pulsed with the beat of his heart, and against the brilliant gold and incandescent white of Haras and Siris, he looked like a shadow. His words echoed ominously. “Blood called her. It may require blood to bind her again.” Despite the bandages shrouding his eyes, there was no doubt that he was looking directly at Siris. “As it was in the past, so it may be again. It may be that one must fall. It may be that only then will the power be sufficient to bind her.”

  “No!” Iris moved forward in protest, but Siris waved her back.

  “She cannot be left to rage across this mortal soil. So be it.” The words had all the weight and finality that only a god could give them. “But that moment is not yet. Let us see what mortal hands and immortal powers can do.” He turned toward the waiting dragons, that had not moved in all this time. He spread his hands wide, and Power filled the cliff top.

  The top of the cliff blossomed with light, as if the sun-disk itself had alighted there. At last the terror let her go, and Peri dropped to her knees, whimpering. She turned her face away from the shining creatures that had once been people she knew, or at least recognized. They were nothing she recognized anymore. They seemed twice the height of perfectly ordinary people; they radiated light and fo
rce, she didn’t even dare look at their faces, and merely being in their presence made her gasp as if she had been running for half a day.

  Gods. These were gods. How they had come to take the place of the people she knew, that was a mystery. But the gods were mysteries, not just mysterious, they were Mysteries and they did things she could not even begin to understand.

  Blinding light filled the top of the cliff, making her cover her eyes, and when she could look again, four of the gods were in the sky, flying toward the hideous Thing in the midst of its darkness, mounted on—

  Well, what they were riding bore as much resemblance to dragons as these Beings bore to humans. If someone had taken pure light and shaped it into the form of a dragon—well, that was the closest she could come to what was winging toward the demonic nightmare in the sky. A blue more intense than the sky itself, a scarlet that flames could only envy, a purple-shaded scarlet that would make the most glorious sunset look washed out, and a blue-black that vibrated with intensity; these were the colors of the celestial creatures that the gods rode. There was nothing in her experience to compare these colors, these creatures, to. The colors of jewels perhaps, but nothing less.

  The monstrous vision screeched, a sound that made Peri cover her ears and duck her head, overcome by panic. When she could look up again, it was to a sky gone mad.

  The Thing lashed out against the four attackers with bolts of lightning. Somehow they evaded these, and returned the favor with balls of light, great gouts of flame, and some lightning of their own. For Peri, it was impossible to sort out who was doing what, the sky was too full of light, the air too full of thunder.

  The ground shook with the force of their exchange.

  She felt a hand seize her shoulder and shake it, and turned to find Huras kneeling beside her. It gave her some small measure of comfort to see that he looked as terrified as she felt. “Peri!” shouted Huras over the sound of the unearthly battle. “Peri, what’s going on? Where are Kiron and the others?”

  Hands glowing with dark power seized both their shoulders and pulled them to their feet. “What do you think is going on, Children of Alta?” shouted the one who held them.

  He, too, must have once been a man; his eyes were bandaged, and he wore the robes of a priest and a coronet with the image of Seft’s Scorpion. But he moved as surely as a sighted man, and his face was full of that same terrible glory as the others. It burned in his regard, it invested every word, and every tiniest gesture.

  He did not wait for them to answer.

  “The gods war to put back what should never have been released,” he continued, shouting over the howl of the wind and the crashing and booming of strike and counterstrike.

  Huras seized their captor’s hand. “Is that Thing a goddess?” he shouted.

  “Not yet, you mortal children of the Two Kingdoms. Not yet,” the being shouted back, with a bitter laugh. “Foolish, foolish mortals—the Heyksin being fools, and not you—as below so above, the wretched Heyksin wanted a God of Vengeance, and so they strove to create one in their own image. Look at it!” he continued, flinging out an arm, and the power behind his words forced Peri to look back up at the raging battle, and at the dreadful Thing that was the center of it. “Look at it! Do you think for one moment that something like that is going to go quietly away when this battle is over?”

  Numbly, Peri shook her head, sheltering her eyes with one hand from the wind.

  “Wiser than they, you are. Of course it won’t. If we lose here, it will not be content with that! It will remain manifest and demand blood and blood and still more blood, and it won’t be the blood of bulls it calls for.” The Being let them go. “The blood of men made it, and the blood of men is what it feeds upon. And one must fall to bind it again.”

  But he gave Huras a push. “You! There is another battle being fought, and it is mortal against mortal. Gather your Jousters, Huras of Alta! Strike now, while the enemy is as befuddled as you! It will serve you ill if the Gods win their battle, only for the mortals they serve to lose theirs!”

  Huras did not hesitate for a moment. He turned and ran for the edge of the cliff, leaving Peri standing before——before a god.

  Kaleth and Marit were chanting, lost deep inside ritual and magic. Essentially, Peri was alone with this god. Seft. Seft the Dark, Seft the Liar, Seft the Betrayer.

  She turned her eyes back toward the four who hung in the midst of Light and Darkness. “Kiron—” she whispered, without thinking. What were her dreams in the face of something like this?

  What had her dreams ever been—when he could become—a god?

  “He does not love you,” the Being said flatly, without emotion. “Here and now, in this place and time where will can become manifest, there must be Truth. And he does not love you. He was being kind to you, nothing more.”

  She felt tears spring up in her eyes, and turned to the Being angrily. “You cannot know that!”

  “Oh, I can, and I do. If he had loved you, it would be you up there beside him, wearing the diadem of Hattar, and not Aket-ten.”

  Her eyes stung, and her cheeks burned. But she could not deny what she saw. With a little mew of despair, she turned away. The Being seized her shoulders and shook her.

  “Fool!” he snapped. “Look higher than the mud at your feet! Look at the Truth in you! You do not love him either. You love a dream of what you thought he was! The lies you hold give That thing power! You blundered into the place of power, and you can overset Us or aid Us by what you are! Now give over the pretty lie, and give Us your strength! Be strong, as strong as the one who survived the loss of all! Be strong as you do not yet realize you are! That thing came to life on the will of her worshippers—she is everything that they are writ large across the sky—now you are in this place of power—serve the same purpose for us!”

  Shocked into silence, she looked, since she could not look into his eyes, at his mouth.

  Why me? was her first thought. But he had answered that. She had stumbled inside a place of magic. He had said that “will became manifest” here. If she persisted in her illusions——would that weaken the bond between the Haras and Hattar that battled above her head?

  She knew the answer before the question finished forming. Yes.

  And if that happened—

  “Any weakness, that Thing can exploit!” the Being said ruthlessly, giving her another shake. “Any doubt feeds her, any despair aids her. Face the Truth! Give Us your strength! Be strong, and become their channel to help us!”

  He does not love you. That was hard, hard to face. But . . . you do not love him—that was . . .

  Truth.

  She felt something turn inside her, as she faced her innermost self and saw—the Truth. She . . . she had wanted, not love but . . . protection. She had wanted to be dependent on someone else. For all that she had joined the Queen’s Wing, for all that she had taken on responsibilities there—she had wanted, in her heart of hearts, to be told what to do. To be taken care of. Had wanted her story to end in some vision of unrealistic harmony, where nothing ever went wrong, where she and—this vague man-shaped image—never quarreled, never differed, never experienced the least little bump in their unending contentment. A storyteller’s ending . . . and they lived happily until the end of their days.

  And in that storyteller’s tale of a life, she would tend to this image’s every want, serving as a faithful priestess, and in turn, being protected and told exactly what to be, what to do, what to think, in return for this fat, stupid, sheeplike contentment.

  That was what she had been in love with. Not a man. Not even a dream of a man. And not a woman’s dream, but the dream of a child, lost and bereft, wanting only someone who would make her safe.

  False and hollow, all of it. She was no longer that child, and safety was always an illusion.

  She felt the fragments of falsehood falling away from her, like bits of a dragon’s shed skin as she slowly straightened her back.

  There was no saf
ety in the world. This Thing howling and fighting above her head should tell her that. Contentment was for cattle and sheep—who were used, herded, and then slaughtered, never knowing the reason why.

  Freedom was not safe. Love, if and when it did come, was not safe. Life was not safe, it was full of brawling and strife and terror and pain—and love and joy and bravery and passion.

  She could choose to be a sheep, or a dragon. A child, or a responsible adult.

  Without even being aware of starting to move, she found herself joining the priest Kaleth and his consort.

  If the gods needed her will, her strength, then by all that was holy, they would have it. And it was more than time to grow up.

  TWENTY

  THE Jousters of Alta and Tia rained down jars of Akkadian Fire on the heads of the Heyksin.

  That was a kind of strength that poured into those who wore the mortal shells of Jousters themselves. The Jousters believed that their Gods would overcome this abomination that the Heyksin had created and that bolstered the battle going on above their heads. As below, so above. Belief.

  That, at least, was what Marit told Peri, as she paused for a precious drop of water to moisten a throat gone hoarse with chanting.

  Peri could not watch the battle above; not because she was afraid—though she was—but because she couldn’t see anything of what was going on, amid a maelstrom of fire and lightning and glare. And even if she could have seen it—it was all too big for her to grasp. The battle below, however—she could tell how that was going.

  And at the moment, it was stalemate. The Jousters were able to keep the front lines of the enemy in a state of chaos, as flames blossomed among them, and men and horses screamed and tried without success to extinguish the Akkadian fire. As she watched, little eddies in the chaos emerged. Three chariots tangled together, dragging their drivers. The sickening stench of burning flesh, the sharp smell of Akkadian fire, the stink of flamed hair. The sting of sand whipped into her face and bare skin by the wind. The chill of the wind and the chill in her gut.