A Glimmer on the Blade

by Rachel E. Baddorf

  Norsson’s response was hesitant....You’re sure?

  Do it, commanded Anoni.

  Good luck, boss. See you in the capital.

  Goodbye.

  He was gone, and she swallowed the stone. He knew what to do.

  She relinked with Ildiko and told her, I’m coming.

  They’ve got both ramps. The guards are holding them off with crossbows and threats. The marines call for us to surrender the prince, Ildiko told her worriedly.

  I’m coming.

  Anoni had just enough forethought not to eat her disguise stones. There was a dangerous fizziness low in her belly and her sight was beginning to spark on the edges. Corin held her hand as she finished the command stone and lay back on the pallet.

  ***

  North Road, Safiro Wilds

  Corin

  Dragons, I need your help. It was Anoni’s voice in his head. Corin listened as the men outside dismounted and tied up their horses so they could safely answer the call. One by one the Dragons responded in the affirmative. Belatedly, Corin added, I’m with you. Only Yupendra was silent.

  Here. Anoni pulled their minds the distance to Aquillion in an instant, and down below ground to the twelve men and women left conscious in the Ordeal Chamber. She pulled them in. Pick one person to help, she instructed the Dragons. The men lined their minds up, getting close to their chosen one.

  For a moment, Corin thought the Dragons would only advise the people, but a quick command from Anoni to Go deeper, proved that wrong. Anoni jerked them inside the minds of the clergy and guards. It was like suddenly finding oneself in deep water, the air was thick and full of power, disorienting to be suddenly in another’s body.

  Corin centered himself, and realized he had more experience in this than the Dragons. Their own minds overlaid those of the clergy and the remaining guards. Corin blinked her eyes and could see the silver light of magic glowing from the eyes of the clergy and remaining guards.

  Corin moved the arm of the woman he occupied. Are you all right? he asked her tentatively. It was a frightening power, but he knew he was on the top of it. How would it feel to be on the receiving end? he wondered to himself.

  No. But if the alternative is death, I can handle it, came the tart response.

  Right, Corin replied. Corin had her move over to the pile of weapons. He used her hand to pick up several swords and test them for weight and balance. The woman didn’t have the arm muscles built up to handle a heavy sword so he found a light curved dagger that would suit her. Around him the priestesses and priests settled the swords and axes in their hands like professionals. It was a bizarre thing to watch.

  Make a ring around the pillars. We need to buy them time to get the prince ready. Then we make for the north ramp and fight our way up, came Vansainté’s calm direction. They rushed to comply as a shout rose from the south ramp. Several marines came through the smoke that filled the chamber, stepping carefully, their body language that of hunting animals as they tried to get visibility on their targets. They seemed surprised to see eight clergy armed to the teeth, standing calmly in guard positions.

  Don’t let them draw you away from the pillars, Vansainté commanded. Wait for them to get to us. An indistinct yell came from the ramp and it must have been an order to charge because suddenly the marines were rushing toward them with bloodcurdling battle cries.

  There are too many of them. There is no way out, muttered Giovicci.

  Dragon breath and Dragon fire. It’s not just our motto. This is what we trained for, Anoni said.

  The marines redoubled their charge out of the north ramp. It was at least two squads, Corin estimated, as the marines closed in on the pillared circle. Eighty men against eight clergy and three guards. With a clash of steel, the front line of marines met the clergy.

  Corin dodged the first blow, cutting in at a marine’s neck. The marine barely blocked it; Corin didn’t give the marine any time to recover and swiftly stabbed him in the eye with a dagger. The marine sank down and was replaced by another. Corin could see a short, pudgy priest a few feet from his clergy member was being helped by Nekobashi; it was easy to see the golden-skinned man in the priest’s lightning fast movements. He laid waste around him with an iron-shod staff. Corin’s quick observation of the room was interrupted by another attacker. He ducked under the marine, cutting him along the side. Something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned just in time to see a marine cocking back an arm, readying to throw his weapon. Corin spun, leapt onto the slab where his real body lay and knocked a wheeling airborne sword to the marble floor with a perilous counter using his dagger. On the recoil his foot jarred his real body.

  The body twitched and a fiery shock ran up his leg, collapsing his borrowed knee and tumbling him to the ground. Rolling to catch the impact, he fetched up on the legs of marines, with a startle he realized he could still move and slashed the dagger across their hamstrings.

  Corin diverted a small bit of attention to the woman’s mind he occupied. Madame, could you stop shrieking? You’re breaking my concentration.

  ***

  North Road, Safiro Wilds

  Anoni

  There’s no way out. We’re all going to die...Lady, oh Goddess, Ildiko prayed frantically. Anoni ignored her as she opened her senses, creating a net so that she could see the battle from all of the clergy’s eyes. She buffered the net so that the clergy and Dragons could see it too. The marines were dying in droves because the Dragons were using the knowledge to work in flawless accord. Like a well-oiled machine, they trapped, drew out, and struck down the marines with the assistance of the Dragons beside them. Unfortunately, their strength was waning.

  Anoni studied the room. It was a large marble room, similar to the layout of moon temples. The ceiling was seven stories tall with a circular skylight in it. There was the circle of twelve one-story-tall pillars that the clergy were using for cover. There were two slabs of marble inside the circle and at the center a ceremonial font made of a metal stand and a stone bowl with water in it. Time was running out. Her eyes caught again on the skylight. Sun shone down through the panes of glass in the ceiling seven stories away.

  Up, Anoni said. Yupendra? she called. There was no answer. Yupendra Califf damn you, open up to this link now!

  What? I said I wasn’t going to help you kill yourself. You could kill everyone in this link with you if it goes wrong, replied Yupendra angrily.

  Yupendra, this is an order. You are going to help me. The prince is more important than anything else, spat Anoni. Anoni used the connection to send Ildiko for a long bow. She barely made it with the help of Giovicci’s little priestess, who winged around cutting holes in the marines like a surgeon with a scalpel.

  Anoni reached into Yupendra’s unprepared mind. She pulled him in, and tossed his mind like a hot potato into Ildiko. The woman’s hands shook as both she and Yupendra strung the bow and took an arrow from the quiver. They tied a rope to the arrow.

  It won’t work, Yupendra said. The arrow won’t fly with that weight.

  It will! Anoni commanded as she concentrated all of her energy on the rope, the arrow, and the bow. She poured the energy in through Ildiko, and her casters, feeling like a waterfall was pounding through her head. The woman and the equipment glowed.

  It won’t be enough to hold anyone, Ildiko mumbled. Anoni’s directions shot through her, causing the woman to pick up a sword and cleave at the ceremonial font in the middle of the circle. A clang, and sparks. Another swing and the metal bent. Another hit and a curved piece of the metal broke off. Anoni made her tie it to the arrow and they threaded the rope through a loop of the ornate metal. It would work as a grapple and a pulley to lever someone up when another person pulled on the other end of the rope. The arrow arrangement now weighed more than a pound.

  Anoni concentrated more effort on it all. She tried to funnel the twisting, burning feeling in her gut into the arrangement.

  It will work. Now shoot it, ordered Anoni.
Yupendra took control of Ildiko’s arms again. He pointed the arrow at the skylight. Anoni found herself praying, Our Lady, my call is for your son-on-earth. Help this arrow fly straight and true. Now! Ildiko flared like a sun as the magic flooded her body as she drew the bowstring back and loosed the arrow. The arrow flew, dragging its cargo up and up, burning like a fallen star determined to return to the sky. It smashed through the skylight and out, catching on the roof. The broken glass tinkled down on them. The rope was barely long enough, its two ends only dangling down to waist height.

  Now up. Get the prince into a rope sling with you Ildiko. Dragons, we need another few minutes. I need five of you to pull on the other side of the rope, Anoni directed.

  The Dragons let go control of the five strongest people they had on their side: two surviving guards, two priests, and a tall muscular priestess. The Dragons concentrated their strength on those who still fought, giving them stamina. More than one Dragon was directing each remaining fighter, so that sometimes half of one body would be fighting one marine, while the other side fought someone else, causing terror among the marines. They were fighting in fear for their lives now.

  The five staggering clergy and guards lined up on the free end of the rope in the middle of the room. Ildiko tugged on the rope to make sure the grapple held. It seemed solid. Ildiko climbed into the sling with the crimson-wrapped bundle of the prince in her arms.

  Alright pull, and pull and...Anoni called. Ildiko rose five feet at a time, but it wasn’t quick enough. Faster! she yelled.

  The men and women pulled, but they were tired and not conditioned to this kind of work, and bleeding from small wounds. Another tide was brewing, threatening to turn Anoni’s insides out. She directed Ildiko to look down on them. The power from communion stone’s magic was tearing out of her. She touched the minds of the five men and women with it, threading it into their muscles, cupping it around their wildly beating hearts. They were dedicated to the Goddess; this was the power of the Goddess, and she thought, looking at the sleeping bundle of the prince, this was the Goddess’s will.

  Back in the wagon, she shouted to the Goddess, “Take me, take them, and let Ildiko and the prince make it to the window!”

  A brighter tide of light rolled through her and into the men and women. Their light made the inside of the circle brighter than day, brighter than lightning. They pulled faster, each pull taking more slack. There was thirty feet, then twenty feet to go. The fighters were hard pressed and retreated to inside the pillars, marines closing in. The circle became tighter, the fighters’ backs almost to the five laboring men and women.

  First one and then another of the fighters made the choice and turned their backs to the marines and took up part of the rope. They pulled with the will of many in their hands. They took sword strokes to the back and legs but would not lay down. Two fighters went down. The remaining clergy and guards dropped their weapons and pulled with the rest, their eyes glowing a brilliant silver as the power overwhelmed their bodies. Anoni felt as the Dragons were kicked out of the link. The marines shouted for them to stop, for them to surrender. They did not stop.

  High above the fighting, Ildiko screamed. One of the marines had gotten a lucky shot off with a bow. Anoni screamed with her at the pain of the arrow shaft spread through her thigh. Slick blood started trickling down her leg, but Ildiko put it from her mind. All that mattered was the window.

  Below, the marines sliced into the toiling backs of the men and women. The laboring men and women stayed eerily silent, not even breathing anymore. The clergy’s white robes were red with blood. It fell in curtains to the white marble floor, pooling around their feet.

  Another wave of power rolled through Anoni. She put it into the clergy and guards. There was one last pull and Ildiko reached the skylight. Ildiko pushed the prince through the window and dragged herself over the lip. As soon as they had made it safely through the skylight, the six remaining men and women exploded into the silver light. Anoni felt their souls shoot upward toward the Goddess. The blast wave blew apart the pillars, rushing outward, destroying everything as it went. It reached the outer wall of the temple and rushed up the two ramps, collapsing the walls. The wave overtook Ildiko and swept Anoni’s consciousness away on the tide of power with nothing but a final impression of the crash of stone filling the chamber.

  ***

  Imperial Palace

  Ildiko

  Hot tears slipped down Ildiko’s face as she stared down at the battlefield. The marble was scorched black, what was left of the marines lay in piles, and the font was a pool of slag. Where the bodies of the clergy had been only a fine silver sand remained.

  The pain throbbing down her thigh brought her back to herself. She sat back trying to catch her breath and looked around her with new sinking dread. The prince and she were in what was called a light well. It was a five-foot square piece of roof with the skylight in the center. On all four sides, smooth-stone towers climbed hundreds of feet into the sky. There were no windows for six stories above her, and even then, they were small. No one wanted a view of a light well. It was also the place where rainwater gathered, flowing down a long slot of a drain into one of the cisterns in the palace. There were hundreds of light wells in heights of the palace; they were just an architectural feature to allow a room in the depths of the palace to get some natural light. This one was even without maintenance hatches to keep people from knowing it led to the Ordeal Chamber. There was no way out except back down through the skylight.

  Ildiko felt an emptiness where her terror used to be. It was used up.

  Scion? What should I do? she asked.

  There was no reply. She was alone, her only company a thigh wound and a comatose prince wearing nothing but a red silk sheet. The marines would come. They would find the light well, and she and the prince could not escape a second time.

  Ildiko dragged herself back to the edge of the window and hauled up the remains of the rope. It had been burned half way up by the wave of silver light. It was the last clue to where the prince and the last survivor of the temple had gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  Foothills, Safiro Wilds

  Corin

  Corin blinked into the cup of tea Yupendra handed him, pulling the blanket closer around his shoulders. He was sitting with the Dragons around a fire Copelia had built while they all had been out. She had gotten the horses rubbed down as well, though she seemed to have taken their entire party’s sudden collapse if not in stride, then at least with equanimity. Copelia was refilling teacups for the men, bullying them to drink Yupendra’s restorative. Corin had awoken in the wagon only minutes before, kicked out of the link and his communion stone crumbled to dust. The lack of knowledge about what was happening at the temple and the reaction headache were killing him. According to Yupendra, Anoni was still in the link somewhere, her body rigid with tension, but absent of consciousness.

  His body...He didn’t want to think of it. Supposedly it was still alive, absent of him. And all those men and women had died to keep him so. It hurt to think of them, but he didn’t want to die. He had to admit to himself that he wanted to live more than he cared about them. The old Corinado wouldn’t have cared either way, but he had to accept the knowledge that with all his new empathy he still put himself first.

  Yupendra went to check the wagon and reported no change. “I told her not to. I told her, she didn’t know what she was doing. Now we all have backlash headaches and...” He clenched his fists, furious. “Do you know why there are so few theomancers in the world?”

  “Uh—” Giovicci ventured, but Yupendra cut him off.

  “Too much power through the body kills the cells. The flesh itself.”

  “She saved the prince. You think it wasn’t worth it?” Corin crossed his arms in misery. He had not felt so separated from the men since the very beginning.

  “I think she could have asked,” Nekobashi snapped.

  “Hey, we all take orders here,” Vansainté growled back
.

  Arjent shrugged. “She may be crazy, but she’s been crazy-right so far.”

  “Sometimes I get the feeling she doesn’t care what happens to us...” Giovicci said.

  “Nothing happened!” Corin stood, exasperated.

  “We’re lucky we don’t have brain damage. She doesn’t know anything about those stones. I didn’t come here to have my orders ignored...” Yupendra said. He looked over Corin’s shoulder and took an involuntary step backward, his face frozen in shock. Corin spun.

  Anoni was ghostly pale, silently stalking from the shadow of trees into the firelight. Bright blood welled from her eyes and ears, while bright silver spell lines covered her skin. Her hair whipped around her like a candle flame in a wind no one could feel. One eye shone silver with light, the other was like a pit of deep blue-gray, almost black. She saw him, her gaze like a hot weight on Corin’s mind. She came at him in a rush and he stood there, stunned like a rabbit facing down a snake. She slammed into him and he winced before he realized it was an embrace. She held him, for all the world like she was desperate for comfort.

  “Anoni?” Corin asked as he very carefully returned the hug.

  “SOMEWHAT.” It was a woman’s voice, ageless and echoing with power.

  His sharp intake of breath was audible.

  She stepped back. “DO NOT FEAR ME.”

  “What may we know you as?” Yupendra asked, keeping very still.

  “YOU WILL KNOW ME BY MY ACTIONS.” She stumbled, fell to her hands and knees, and started throwing up silver slime.

  “Get out!” This time the voice from her lips was Anoni’s.

  She calmed, back under the control of the stranger. Anoni’s body rolled to her knees. “SCION OF THE TEMPLE, YOU ARE CALLED TO SERVICE. HOLD THE TEMPLE IN HER NAME, AS THE VOICE OF THE GODDESS ON EARTH.”

  She clenched her fists till they bled. The men stood helpless. What can we do about a woman who argues with herself? Corin wondered.