by Jack Massa
She shut her eyes. For some time she breathed deeply, suppressing the panic, the awful urge to be sick. The act was done, the design cast. Now she must hold to her course and trust it was the rightful thing, cling to her faith in herself.
She shifted her legs off the bunk and sat for a few moments. A water skin hung on a peg near at hand. She opened it and drank. The ceiling was too low for her to stand upright. Rather than stumble with lowered head and shoulders, she crawled on hands and knees to the hatch.
Pushing it open, she emerged on the deck—and immediately braced herself against the foredeck to keep from toppling. The sky was overcast, the cranock riding up and down on heaving swells. Away to the left, gray cliffs marked the coast of Gwales.
At the middle of the boat, Wilhaven and Draven were bailing with long-handled pails. Karrol and Eben stood on the rear deck, beside the tiller which was lashed in place. Amlina glanced over her shoulder and spotted the eidolon of the queen, hovering like a statue of light at the prow.
Draven came toward her, stamping on wide-spread feet to keep his balance.
“Amlina.” He touched her shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“I will be all right.” She wiped her forehead, then stared down at her fingers, remembering.
“I sponged the blood off,” Draven said, “while you slept.”
She offered him a feeble smile. “Thank you for that. How long did I sleep?”
“It is afternoon,” Draven answered. “This weather kicked up soon after we left the fjord. Our tent got soaked and put everyone in a foul mood. Lonn and Glyssa and Brinda are trying to sleep in the storage hold. I’d best get back to bailing.”
He returned to work, leaving Amlina holding the rail. Her stomach was empty; she’d eaten nothing since early yesterday morning. But the heaving of the boat made the thought of food sickening. She was thinking she might best go back to the crawlspace and lie down, when Wilhaven approached.
He leaned close to her and spoke quietly. “I am glad you are awake, my lady. I am concerned about the queen. She seemed so full of life during the night. But now when I speak to her she is spiritless, distant, hardly there at all.”
Amlina followed his gaze to where the queen’s translucent figure rose and fell with the waves. The witch sought to recall what she had studied about the energies of the eidolon body. “In fact, she is not entirely there. Part of her existence resides in the Deepmind, from whence she draws the force of life. But maintaining the light body in this world is a strain. She needs to rest.”
“Aye, but how can she rest?”
“I will speak to her. Bring a lamp and a bowl filled with sea water—clean, not from the bailing.”
The bard nodded and set off. Amlina climbed the three steps to the foredeck. Moving on hands and knees, she reached the prow, braced herself on the rail, and rose to her feet.
The eidolon seemed dimmer now, in the pale daylight and silvery luminescence of the sea. The wizened face stared straight ahead, lips parted, eyes dull.
“My queen, are you well?”
The witch waited a long moment, then spoke again. “My queen. It is Amlina.”
The head rolled down, eyes staring. The voice sounded faint and faraway. “Amlina, my dear … I so wanted to be here. I am so happy that I am.”
“How are you feeling?”
A slight shake of the head. “I almost feel that I am not here, that I am dreaming … But then it seems the whole world is a dream.”
“So it is perceived by many who are privileged to see as you can now see.”
“But I want … I wanted …”
“My queen, you need to rest. To enter a state like sleep, where you can dream in truth. Then, when you rise, you will feel stronger and more awake. Will you come with me?”
She glanced anxiously at the sea. Then her chin dropped. “Of course, if you think it best.”
Amlina clambered over the slippery foredeck, the eidolon floating behind her. Wilhaven waited at the hatchway, holding the lamp and bowl. The witch opened the hatch and ushered him inside. The queen hesitated, staring into the darkness with apprehension.
Amlina spoke cheerfully to reassure her. “I am sorry for the cramped quarters, my queen. Please do me the honor to enter.”
“Oh, I’ve slept in smaller spaces,” Meghild answered, then sank down and floated inside.
Wilhaven struck the lamp and set it down where the witch indicated. Amlina opened one of her trunks and brought out candles and two desmets. She lit the candles from the lamp and pinned the feathered trinkets to a beam overhead. She set the bowl of seawater on a shelf and asked the queen to draw near.
“The sea is a symbol of the Deepmind,” she said, “the Ogo from which all things emerge. With your permission, my queen, I will draw your light body down into this water, your head to rest on the surface, and so you may dream and revitalize yourself.”
Amlina placed a cushion on the floor and sat, her back against the frame of the bunk. She locked her eyes on the eidolon, took three long breaths, and began to sing.
Her words called power up from the depths. When the power had grown to a glowing force inside her body, she lifted a hand and sent out her intention. Her song took on the tone and rhythm of a lullaby.
Slowly, the form of the eidolon folded itself into a glimmering mist that spiraled and swirled as it drifted toward the bowl. The head floated with the mist, and came to rest just above the surface of the water, eyes shut in deep repose.
Amlina let out her breath. Wilhaven stared at her mutely.
“She will rest now,” Amlina whispered. She touched her forehead, then climbed unsteadily onto the bunk. “I had better rest as well.”
Wilhaven blew out the lamp and candles, then crept quietly from the cabin. Amlina lay flat on her back, exhausted and slightly dizzy.
But after a short time, her eyes flew open and she sat up again. She needed to reinforce her designs of concealment and protection. She had not replenished them in several days. Worse, the vast forces she had unleashed with the blood magic would have sent ripples across the Deepmind, disturbances that would be all too apparent to a skilled seer—such as the Archimage of the East.
For the next hour, Amlina sat erect in the dim cabin, eyes closed, lips whispering, fingers weaving patterns of magic in the air.
* O *
The Seat of Supreme Splendor hovered in the temple sanctum, a brilliant replica of Glimnodd’s orange sun. Its blazing light shone on the polished black floor and spiraling white columns. The light dazzled the eyes of the orange-robed priests and attendants grouped around the huge onyx table, forcing many to shade their brows or look away. Beryl enjoyed their discomfort—up to a point. She had to be careful to modulate the intensity of the sphere in which she floated, so that her minions could pay heed to her orders.
In a calm, imperious voice, she listed the requirements for the unprecedented ceremony she would perform to restore her vitality—the lamps and banners to be hung in the temple; the arrangement of drummers and gong players around the furnace pit; the parade of acolytes who would slice open their forearms to contribute a few drops of blood to the fire.
After months of effort, Beryl had finally completed the grand design—composed the verses to be chanted, devised the energy forms that she would create and then encase in trinkets to be released at the proper moments. But on one point she had stalled. The design necessitated a considerable supply of animalistic vitality, more than a single human body could provide. And yet, it required that the life-force be focused within one sacrificial entity.
Then, while in trance, the answer had come to her.
Now, as the temple officials listened in grave silence and scribes scratched furiously on parchment, she explained that last, crucial element.
“In addition to the foregoing, the youngest and most vital of the sun lions will be brought to the temple. It must be carefully bound, not drugged, so that its vital energies flow undiluted. At the climax of the ceremony I
will cut its throat. It must then immediately be skinned and butchered. I will clothe myself in the skin, while the meat is consumed in the fire pit.”
Beryl scanned the assembly, noted the parted lips and shocked expressions. The orange, white-maned lions were sacred, embodiments of the solar light. Never before had one been sacrificed—the very idea could be called blasphemy. The queen waited in silence, to see if anyone dared oppose her. Though Beryl herself was the living incarnation of the Sun, she had never before gone so far in violating tradition. She had actually been worried that her plan might spark an outcry.
“Do all of you understand me?” she said.
Around the onyx table the clerics gave murmurs of assent, heads bowed, none daring to meet her eyes.
* O *
Outside, Beryl’s gold palanquin waited at the bottom of the temple steps, flanked by her entourage and a company of soldiers. The Archimage descended the broad gleaming steps with her erect, unhurried gait. Stepping into the palanquin, she reclined on the silken cushions. When the sliding panels were closed, she was able to relax and massage the throbbing scar on her forehead. She was pleased to have this meeting done—and without apparent opposition. Now she could concentrate on the rituals to prepare the energy forms—and herself—for the culminating ceremony. When Grizna, the large moon, was full again, her vitality would at last be fully restored.
The palanquin was lifted onto the shoulders of bearers, who began the slow march back to the palace. The summer air was warm and humid, stifling in the closed sedan chair. Sniffing that air, Beryl sensed again the grim urgency to complete her rejuvenation.
Over the past days she had felt a new force in the currents of the Deepmind. Long experience told her that somewhere in the world, a powerful sorcery had been unleashed. To Beryl, this foretold a new rival, some deepshaper who might one day challenge her as the preeminent mage in the world. It had even occurred to her, in the drowsy moments emerging from trance, that this deepshaper might be Amlina, her former apprentice.
Beryl dismissed that notion as unlikely. While Amlina surely had such potential, Beryl did not believe she could possess the knowledge—or more importantly, the will—to create such a dark and powerful disturbance.
But then again, Amlina had surprised her before.
Thirteen
Glyssa knocked and immediately heard Amlina’s voice within, calling for her to enter. Pulling the hatch open, she bent at the waist and stepped across the threshold. The cramped cabin was similar in size and shape to the crawlspace below the rear deck, where Glyssa and her mates now slept when not on watch. But the feeling of this enclosure was far different. Candles flickered in glass lamps; desmets hung from the beams and swung gently with the swaying of the boat; the air held a perfumed fragrance. But more than all of that, Glyssa perceived magical energy—which, to her awakened mind, came as a brushing on the skin, a faint tingling behind the eyes.
“Welcome, Glyssa,” Amlina said. “Come and sit down.”
The witch sat cross-legged on a cushion next to her bunk. Behind her, on a shelf, Glyssa saw the head of the queen, floating in a cloud of light over a black bowl. Glyssa removed her boots and settled herself on the cushion facing Amlina. A tiny lamp burned on the floor between them.
“First I must apologize,” the witch said, “for not speaking with you sooner—and for not being there to help you when you came out of your trance. I have not done what I should, as your teacher. But now that I am more myself, I promise to do better.”
For the first two days of the voyage, Amlina had hardly emerged from her cabin. Then, to regain her strength, she had entered the dark immersion, and remained another four days and nights in that state of death-like insensibility. During that time, the Iruks had landed at a settlement near the southern tip of Gwales. Under Wilhaven’s supervision and with the help of local tribesmen, they had repaired the boat, patching the interstices with new moss and pitch. A day later, they rounded the cape and set off across the wide channel that separated Gwales from the Tathian island of Lustre. The weather since had been fair, with a steady wind from the northwest and seas far less choppy.
“I am glad you are better,” Glyssa said. “Draven was very worried. But somehow, I knew you would be all right.”
Mention of Draven’s name brought Amlina a fleeting smile. “Yes. I am more in balance now. But tell me how you are feeling. You seem calmer than before.”
“Yes. I am more steady. The first night after I awoke I felt very strong, exhilarated by the battle and our setting sail. But since then … well, the fear has crept back. Not as strong as before, but still bleak and hopeless. Each time it does and I become aware, I try to face it. That is what Belach advised me.”
The witch frowned. “Who is Belach?”
“Oh,” Glyssa laughed. “Of course, you do not know.” She related what she had experienced in her visions, the desperate fleeing over the ice, the meeting with the shaman from her village.
As Amlina listened, her gaze grew severe. When Glyssa had finished the tale, the witch got up and retrieved the talking book from a shelf behind her. Resuming her seat, she set the book in her lap and flipped open the cover. She spoke words of summoning. After a moment, the pages glimmered in the dim cabin, and the book answered. Amlina spoke to it in Larthangan, her voice low and urgent.
“What are you saying?” Glyssa demanded. “I do not understand.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” Amlina said. “I was starting to tell Buroof about your meeting with the shaman. It’s not something I expected, and I’m not sure what it portends in terms of your training.”
“What is it you want from me, Amlina?” Buroof asked impatiently. “And should I continue to speak Larthangan, to hide my responses from the barbarian?”
Amlina sighed. The book had disingenuously asked the question in Tathian, so that Glyssa would understand it clearly. “No, I do not wish to conceal anything from Glyssa. I am trying to understand about her vision, and to ascertain what if anything needs to be done.”
She explained how Glyssa had fallen into trance immediately after the Threshold of Deepshaping rite, and had not awoken for six days. Glyssa then repeated all she recalled from those days, culminating in her encounter with Belach.
“So in summation,” Buroof said, “you took a primitive young woman, who was already damaged by enthrallment, and subjected her to the traditional Larthangan initiation rites, with absolutely no preparation, and all in the space of two days. A most reckless decision, I must say.”
“I am aware of my many failings, Buroof,” Amlina replied. “My question to you is: what light can history shed on our situation? The fact that she fell into a trance, and there encountered an entity that might or might not have been a magician of her people—”
“—Speaks to the fact that you gave no thought to her cultural context.”
“I know! But there must be cases on record where initiates with foreign backgrounds encountered beings from their own traditions.”
“Certainly. But not without first receiving a full and adequate grounding in Larthangan principles. No, Amlina, here you have broken new ground of incompetence.”
Amlina gave up and shut the book.
“I’m sorry, Glyssa. Buroof is right in that I ought to have prepared you better. Of course, I would have, had there been more time ... ”
“I don’t understand your concern,” Glyssa said. “Belach helped me. He gave me the courage to return to this world.”
Amlina gazed at her intently, as if peering deep into her soul.
“I see that,” she said. “The problem is, we have no way to tell if it was truly the shaman that you know, or some other entity pretending to be him. Many spirits inhabit the realms of vision, and skilled deepshapers may journey there and take on any form. This being might have helped you to gain your trust. It may wish to use you, to wield power in our world, even to possess you, as you were possessed in the past.”
That thought made Glyssa shiver. She wan
ted to insist that the guide she had met truly was Belach, that she felt this in her heart. But Amlina knew much more about the spirit world than she did, and so she was uncertain.
“What must I do?”
“Begin your training,” Amlina said. “I will teach you exercises to draw power from the Deepmind, to move this power through your body. We need to dissolve that fishhook in your heart; that is still our goal. You must practice the exercises every day. Sometimes, they may put you into trance. While you are in trance, or while asleep and dreaming, you might meet again with this entity. If so, be wary. If it speaks, ask why it has come to you and what it intends. Try to judge if it is really your shaman, or something else. Above all, do not follow it anywhere or give it any of your power.”
When she first entered the cabin, Glyssa had felt strong and stable within herself. Now the witch’s somber warnings had stirred up her fears. Hopelessness and dread yawned within her like a dark abyss.
“All right,” she said. “I will try.”
Amlina again seemed to read her thoughts. “I did not mean to worry you, Glyssa. The truth is, you have done very well—and without any of the help you ought to have had. Training for a deepshaper is difficult, and often there are pitfalls and quandaries. But when I look at you, I see strength and remarkable bravery, and …”
“What?” Glyssa asked.
The witch offered a tenuous smile. “I see again how fortunate I am to have you and your mates with me on this voyage.”
* O *
In the days and nights that followed, Glyssa practiced the witch’s exercises with the same determination as she had always applied to training with sword and spear. She stood still and chanted, clearing her mind of all except the sound of her voice. She moved her hands in slow spirals, focusing on the muscle force stretching from shoulders to fingertips. She meditated on the sea waves, imagining that her thoughts created their ceaseless movement. Twice a day, she sat on the rear deck, back straight, eyes shut, and envisioned a hovering light around her, a cold and infinite fire. Then she drew the fire into herself, moving it from place to place along her spine, circulating it through limbs.