“No, I was born-yes, dear Xylina, weare born-in one of these places of wild magic. Most of us were, in fact-and most of us had no idea what our own nature was, until something revealed it to us. There have not been any demons born since the kingdom of Mazonia was founded, though. Perhaps the change that made your kingdom and conjuration possible ended the conditions that permitted the creation of my kind.” He fell silent for a long time, but Xylina had the feeling that it was because he was thinking. “I know that I have told you that in many ways, we are not different from your kind, but I have not told you why we feel this way.”
“That is true,” she admitted. “And I thought you were mad to say something like that-that is, until we met the Sylvans.”
“Ah, the Sylvans.” He chuckled for a moment. “No, that is not what I meant. You see, most of us had at one point every reason to believe that wewere of your kind. Humans born in the realms of wild magic can have so many things odd about them-everything from extra fingers to extra heads, and powers ranging from conjuration to wingless flight. There seemed no reason in my case to think that I was any different from the humans about me. I thought only that I had a particular talent for dematerialization and for entrancing. No one told me that these were things associated with demon-kind; perhaps no one knew. I thought I was no different from the rest of the folk I knew.”
He fell silent again, and Xylina asked the obvious question. “How did you find out differently?”
“Ah,” came the reply, “I fell in love, you see.”
There was such a bitter sorrow in those few words that Xylina would have left it there. This was the first time Ware had allowed the conversation to drift into the area of the personal. She was not certain she wished to hear or know more. But Ware seemed now determined to continue.
“I fell in love with a human woman-and my nature became-obvious. I was appalled. Horrified. It was a very difficult time for me.” He took a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh. She wanted to ask what he meant, but she felt she dared not. Let him reveal what he chose, she decided. If she overstepped the bounds, he might never tell her anything again.
She did not question why she wanted to know these things about him; it was more than simple, or even perverse, curiosity. It was almost as if shehad to know.
“I am not a light-minded creature, Xylina,” he said, after a moment. “I am not a philanderer. That was why it was so difficult for me. I honestly had not thought about this for a very long time, you know-it was a very painful period, and I often choose to forget it. But I was true to her for as long as she lived-”
“But you outlived her,” Xylina was moved to say.
“By more years than you can reckon. I had not thought to find another woman like her.” He chuckled dryly. “Then, as I gained in experience, I realized that like every first love, mine was somewhat callow. I would not care for her, if I met her today-though I cared for her deeply then. So then I thought that I would never encounter a woman who could match my somewhat demanding tastes. And for many, many years, I did not. I do not engage in liaisons for amusement, and so I remained without liaisons of any kind. Then, of course…”
He said nothing more, but Xylina knew him well enough by now to fill in what he did not say. He was as honor-bound in his way as she was in hers. He had certain rules-“playing the game,” he called it-and he would not violate those rules for any reason.
What this confession meant, then, was that he was telling her something she had not even dreamed of. He had been in love with this unknown woman; presumably she had loved him in turn, never mind that he was a demon. He had said that he was not light of mind or heart; that he did not have affairs simply to assuage his lusts.
It followed, therefore, that not only did he desire Xylina, he was actually in love with her. Not the kind of “love” that a Mazonite male could offer to his mistress, a fawning kind of lap-dog emotion, but something astounding, the love of an equal for an equal.
She did not know what to say, and sat bundled up in her wrappings, trying to find some way to turn the conversation to something more comfortable.
In the end, it was Ware who did just that, telling her tales from his wanderings that almost made her forget what he had revealed. He had a knack for storytelling, and it did not hurt that his experiences of other times and places were fascinating. But when he stopped, out of courtesy, to let her sleep, she found her thoughts going back to his startling revelation.
And she fell asleep wondering just what she was going to do about it.
Finally, the mist-barrier in the distance signaled that they were about to reach a new region, and Xylina put all her speculations aside for the moment. As eager as she was to get out of this realm of giant insects and killing plants, she was reluctant to face a new set of dangers. Yet she had no choice-for the shard lay ahead.
But for once, when the expedition crossed the border, Ware gave a brief exclamation of mingled pleasure and apprehension. Xylina looked at him askance, for there was nothing in this stark landscape to give cause for such an exclamation.
“This is territory that I know,” he said. “In fact-it is the same place where I was born. It has moved, of course; I did not expect to find it here-but I think we can be certain that it is the same.”
Xylina wondered what it was that made him so certain; Ware himself had said that realms that looked familiar would often have changed in ways both unexpected and deadly. Still, she was not going to argue with him just now.
The land immediately in front of them was a hilly grassland, with never a sign of trees or bushes. The grasses were waist-high, and rippled in a brisk wind, green and silvery-grey. Yellow-gold, white, and pink flowers dotted the sea of grass, and closer to the ground many herbacious plants filled in among the tall, slender grass stems. There was nothing in sight but grass for as far as Xylina could see, but she did not trust her eyes. In land like this, entire villages could be hidden in a fold between the hills, and they would not know one was there until they stumbled on it.
That was, in essence, exactly what Ware told them. “The magic in this realm is confined to the people and their domesticated beasts, and not the plants or the wild things. There is much conflict in this realm; virtually every tiny enclave of humans is at war with every other enclave, and they trust outsiders no more than they would trust their familiar enemies. We are as much at peril here as we were among the beasts behind us. More.”
Xylina nodded, slowly. “So, we must trust no one, and nothing, is that it?”
Ware nodded his agreement, and she sighed. “Well then-which way are we to go?”
Faro consulted the instruments that Ware had entrusted to him, and pointed off into the entirely trackless grassland. Xylina considered the lack of roads, and the supplies that they had left.
“Can the wagons go through this?” she asked Horn.
He considered the grass. “I think so,” he replied. “Don’t hold me to it, though. That stuff might get tangled up in the axles, and if we have to cut the wagons loose every couple of cubits, we might as well not have them.”
“All right. Men,” she said, projecting her voice so that it would carry to the rear of the column, “we’re going to try taking the wagons across this, but if they can’t make it through, we will have to leave them. If that happens, we will load all the beasts with as much as they can carry, and ourselves as well. Faro, Ware and I will march with you, in that case. But for now, we will try to keep them with us.”
There were nods, and expressions of relief among the men. Xylina did not blame them; she was not looking forward to walking, with or without a pack.
There seemed nothing else to say, so without another word, Xylina led them off, her mule pushing through the grass as if he were swimming.
Chapter 15
The wagons made slow progress through the tall grass, but it was progress, and Xylina saw no reason to abandon them yet. Nothing interfered with them during the day except omnipresent clouds of stinging insect
s. But Xylina thought she saw shiny glints of something, like gleams of metal, on the horizon now and again. That could have been nothing more than the sun shining on a bit of water-or it could have been a reflection off armor or weapons. There was no way of telling, really. Ware had a distance-viewer, but it was useless here, for something in the air kept distant things hazy and indistinct. Whatever it was that made those glints of sunlight kept its distance-or else they passed it by.
Faro said once that the creatures that were circling over them like curious vultures were like no birds he had ever seen. Sunlight glinted from them, too, as if they wore some bright bits of metal about them, or were even metallic constructs themselves. Still, there was nothing to be made of any of that; Ware had told them that the people here would be hostile, and it made sense that they would keep a watch for intruders. Creatures of the air would make good spies for such a purpose. Xylina hoped that her party appeared too small for a threat but too large to trifle with.
Night came slowly, here; the sun descended through a golden haze, and the enormous clouds on the horizon turned red, yellow-orange, and gilded as it sank behind them. There was no particular place that seemed better than any other for a camp, so Xylina arbitrarily chose a hill and decreed that they would stop for the night. They trampled the grass flat for a camping-place, and Xylina conjured a huge, flat stone to put the cook-fire on, a stone covering an area as large as her tent. Horn, who had been on many a campaign before, cautioned her about setting fire to the grass accidentally. He swore that such a wildfire was as dangerous as any enemy, and Xylina was prepared to take his word about it. The stone was his suggestion, and it seemed a good one to her.
She conjured the tent-materials, and while the men assembled the camp, she debated setting up a stone palisade as she had done before. Her magic power had returned during the respite of the tentacle plants and now seemed stronger than ever, but she remained cautious. The lessons of the spiders had shown her that such a “defense” was not necessarily the best idea. While it was true that such a palisade would protect them from some things, the spider-creatures had already shown that such a defensive ring was not proof against creatures that could climb or fly over it. Only luck, and her forethought in creating the fire-ring inside the palisade, had kept them from being trapped in there, and had enabled them to trap some of the spiders in turn and keep the others at bay. And if they were confined within a high stone ring, they would not be able to see what was coming up upon them from the grasslands in the night. They could, in fact, wake to find themselves surrounded.
Ware cautioned against such a defense; when Faro came to see what they were discussing, he argued for it. Finally, she decided to compromise.
She set up a ring of stones with gaps in them, gaps at which she stationed a guard for the watch. If an entire army came marching up to confront them, she would have time to conjure stones to fill those gaps. And if something that was able to pass over or through the stones attacked them, they would at least not be trapped inside their own protections. This would be no harder to guard than any other perimeter, and it had the added advantage of requiring only four guards on any one watch.
The air felt overly warm, heavy, and thick. Every little exertion made her sweat uncomfortably. Her temples began to throb, but she saw no point in complaining. She conjured wood for the fire, torches, and oil for the lamps as usual, but by the time full dark fell, she was suffering from an inexplicable headache, and one which no amount of headache-powder would cure. Although since they had first hosted the Pacha she had made a point of taking meals with the men and sharing their camaraderie, tonight she excused herself, ate sparingly, and took to her bed. When Faro came to see how she was, the pain was sufficient to ask him to substitute someone for her on night-watch.
This was unusual enough to prompt Faro to return several times to find out how she was doing, and for Horn to appear with a special sweet posset and a solicitous inquiry on behalf of the men. Finally Ware arrived, as she endured a throbbing in the front of her face that nauseated her, and asked if he could help.
“Only if you can magic away this pain,” she said crossly, the dull ache making her short of temper. “I am afraid to take any more drugs for it-if something attacks us, I dare not have my senses blunted, and pain-drugs often interfere with conjuration. But if I do not, I am not certain I could hold my concentration long enough to be effective. I can’t imagine what has caused this. I do not feel feverish or ill, and I have not eaten anything that the rest have not also eaten.”
“I cannot magic it away,” he replied, keeping his voice soft and soothing, for which she was grateful, “but perhaps I can entrance you so that you may sleep. I can make certain that the trance is a light one, and any disturbance in the camp will awaken you. I can if you will trust me, that is. I should not blame you if you did not. I know the Mazonites claim that an incubus can do whatever he wills with an entranced victim, and I would not be offended if, in the present circumstances, you would rather not take the chance that I might exceed the bounds I promised.”
It was the sad resignation in his voice that decided her in his favor as much as anything else. That, and the fact that she knew now that he was far more honorable than many of the Mazonites who told those tales about dishonorable demons. “Of course I trust you,” she replied, the pain making her voice sharper than she had intended. “You are honorable, Ware; you made me certain promises, and you will not violate them. If I know nothing else about you, I know that, for a certainty, as certain as the sun will rise.”
“Well, at least the sun is beyond the vagaries of wild magic,” he replied, some of the humor coming back into his voice. “And I do not think anything is likely to change that at any time soon. Well then, if you will permit me-you must look deeply into my eyes, and try to relax.”
She nodded, and fixed her eyes on his. The flame of the lamp he had brought with him reflected a metallic scarlet in the center of his pupils; the many colors of the irises seemed to swirl, and swirling, pull her whirlpool-like into those orbs-further, deeper, away from her body, until the pain was nothing, a thing remote and far from her and no longer a part of her. She relaxed further; now that the ache in her head was no longer the center of her thoughts and she emptied her mind as the soft voice told her, and in a moment, there were no thoughts at all to distract her.
She woke all at once in a spasm of pure terror, her heart pounding and her ears echoing. She was so very overcome with fear that there was no room for anything rational, only animal fear and paralysis in the darkness.
A heartbeat later she knew what had awakened her-as a lightning-bolt lashed down somewhere near the camp and thunder flattened her to her bed. The first one must have hit right on top of the camp-
One moment, the air was still; the next, a blast of cold wind slammed into the wall of the tent, bringing with it the storm. A torrential rain lashed at the tent-walls, and lightning flashed so constantly that there was no true darkness.
Thunder, wind, and rain pounded the tent and the ground made it impossible to hear anything clearly.
The fabric of the tent billowed and writhed in the intermittent light, and the poles threatened to pull out of the ground at any moment. Wind caught the tent-flap and ripped it open, sending in a torrent of rain. Quickly, she seized some of the non-conjured pieces of her wardrobe, pulled them on, and ran outside.
She dashed into the worst storm she had experienced; the worst she had ever heard of. Rain drenched her to the skin the moment she left the tent-and then the tent-polesdid pull loose, and tent and contents went flying out into the darkness. The tent itself caught on one of the stones, and wrapped around it; she couldn’t see what happened to the rest. Hail struck her painfully, and she shielded her head with her hands, as stones fell all about her, seeming to jump up from the grass in the uncertain light. Lightning lashed down nearby again, striking one of the conjured stone walls. Thunder stuck her with a physical shock, just as something hit her from behind, sendi
ng her down face-first into the soaked grass.
There was a man clinging to her knees; he crawled up beside her to shout at her. “Stay down!” Hazard bellowed into her ear. “Lightning hits whatever is above the ground! Two have already been killed!” Lighting and thunder punctuated his words; she saw no reason to argue with him.
“What’s happening? Where’s Faro?” she shouted back, over the howling of the wind. “Where is Ware? How long has this been going on?”
“It just started! It caught us all off-guard, and everything is completely confused! Ware is trancing the animals-the ones he caught before they spooked and ran,” Hazard yelled. “Faro is trying to find all the men still alive and bring them to one place so you can conjure a shelter over us!”
That was the best idea she had heard yet. As hailstones continued to pelt them both painfully, she followed Hazard in a crawl across the grass that led them to the huge stone that had held the cook-fire. The fire was out; the very logs gone, washed or blown away. Now it held a huddle of miserable humans, their eyes wide, their hair and clothing plastered to their skins. She could not count them; the lightning made counting uncertain. There were not as many as there should be; that was all she knew.
“This only started a few moments ago,” Hazard shouted, as she took her place among them. “One moment everything was fine, then this storm blew in out of nowhere! The tents went flying, lightning hit Lisle and Stef and killed them where they stood, the livestock panicked-Ware went after the mules and his horse, and Faro has been collecting us here-half of us were already asleep, and the first thing we knew was that we were being half-drowned and bombarded with hailstones.”
Well, that explained why no one had tried to awaken her; they hadn’t had time. Their experience matched hers.
Right now what they all needed most was a shelter that would stand against the wind and rain. And the lightning. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathered her concentration, and began to conjure.
If I Pay Thee Not in Gold Page 32