by Rachel Lee
“Aye,” Jenah agreed. “They carry their shields before them.”
Giri chuckled quietly. “This is not the meeting they expect.”
Archer nodded agreement, but in his heart he knew sorrow. Would that it did not always come to this killing. Yet it always had, sooner or later. And like it or not, he was going to have to help train the Anari and forge them into an army for the first time in their history. After that…
The wind snaked into his cowl and down his neck. After that there was an even bigger battle awaiting them. He felt it on the breeze. He tasted it on the air. And wishing it were not so changed nothing.
War was on the wind. Death was on the wind. The future of the world hung in the balance.
Just then he felt the ground beneath him shudder. ’Twas but a small shudder, but it felt as if the mountain were waking from sleep.
The soldiers were closer now, the first of them beginning to enter the defile. It wasn’t a huge column. Maybe two hundred. At their head rode an officer in gleaming armor, a blood-red feather in his helmet. His horse pranced slightly sideways, as if it would prefer not to enter the gorge. The beasts of the world had always been more sensitive than the men.
Scouts appeared at the top of the gorge walls, sent ahead to ensure no attack awaited the column. The riders signaled with their spears, and the column quickened its pace, moving forward as if they hoped they could hurry through fast enough to escape any ambush.
Indeed, the gorge was an ideal place for an ambush, but the soldiers were unprepared for the one that came their way.
At first it seemed merely to be a loose boulder that fell toward them. The sound of it breaking free warned those below so they could scatter away from the point of impact. For a while the column was disordered while the officer worked at regrouping them. When he finally had his column reformed, he looked up again at his scouts, positioned at the very lip of the defile. Again they signaled that all was clear.
The unit marched forward at a double-time pace once again. And then they were at the very middle of the defile.
Archer felt the ground beneath him shudder yet again, but this time with more ferocity, yielding a growl from deep within. Great power coiled in the rock, like a waking beast, and he felt a moment’s pity for the soldiers in the gorge.
Then it happened. Defying every belief in the solid immobility of stone, the mountains to either side of the gorge screamed with stress and embraced the entire unit, reaching out with huge fingers of stone to block any escape. The scouts atop the ravine walls yelled as the ground beneath them collapsed with a roar and they were swept down to join their fellows. The confounded troops broke formation and began to run in every direction, but wherever they ran, sheer stone walls met them.
Then, with a groan almost too deep to be heard, the walls of the defile reformed until they covered the whole, sealing themselves together.
The groan faded away. The world became eerily silent as if the forces just unleashed had sapped even sound from the air.
The ravine was gone as if it had never been. Above it lay a tumble of rocks that appeared to have been there for ages.
And, somewhere beneath, an entire unit of soldiers lay buried.
11
The strange silence lasted for a long time. It seemed as if the entire world fell quiet before the power of what had just happened, even the stonemasters themselves.
Archer barely moved a muscle as he stared at the place that had once been a ravine and now appeared to be an extension of the mountains to either side. In his life he had seen many great magicks, but this surely was the greatest. The earth had swallowed up two hundred men and left no sign of their passing. It was not what he had expected, and the prickle at the base of his neck warned him that it had not gone unnoticed.
Jenah finally flopped over onto his back, his eyes closed. He appeared exhausted, as did his fellow stonemasters. When he spoke, his voice was heavy and hollow. “I do not think we can ask that again of the stone. We had best hurry to Anahar.”
“Aye,” Archer answered, “for we are not being pursued by the Bozandari alone. I have no doubt that other eyes have seen what just passed.”
Jenah’s eyes opened, blazing with anger, as he looked at Archer. “Do you realize how this twists us? What it makes of us? In times past, no master would ever have dreamed of asking the stone to kill.”
“I know.” Archer’s answer was simplicity itself.
“For countless centuries, since our creation, we have always cooperated with the stone, helping it become something even more beautiful. The stonemasters and the stone worked together, creating a wonderful harmony that enhanced both. And as long as we did that, the stone was willing to be cut from its moorings and reshaped into the very essence of its own soul.”
Archer nodded, then gripped the other man’s shoulder in understanding.
“We did not ask the stone to kill them,” Jenah said, his mouth drawn into a tight line. “We asked only that they not be allowed to pass. The stone has done this thing. Good stone, not the evil stone, of which we are always wary.”
Finally Jenah shook himself and sat up. “It saddens me. This war will make beasts of us all, yet I can no longer tolerate what is being done to my people.”
“It is the sad truth of war,” Archer agreed. “I would that it were not necessary. Unfortunately I fear your rebellion is but the first step on a longer, darker road to amend errors of the past. His rank smell is on the wind now. He plays with us as he would play with toys, and when at last he grows impatient with his amusements, he will move to slay us all.”
Jenah’s brow creased. “How can he have so much power, Lord Archer? He was merely of the Firstborn.”
“He was merely the favorite of one of the gods, Sarduk, else he would even now be dead at the end of his brother’s sword.” Bitterness laced the words, along with haunting loss.
Jenah reached out and briefly gripped Archer’s forearm. “Why should a god have favored him?”
“Because Elanor favored the Ilduin. It seems those who created the world are little better than those they created to inhabit it.”
“Then,” Jenah said, “we must find a way to be better than even the gods.”
“Such purity existed once.”
“Theriel.” Jenah breathed the name. “Oft have the mothers told us of her. They have promised that another would come in her stead.”
“The Weaver.” Archer’s jaw tightened. “Let us hope she comes in time for you, for it is already too late for me.”
Jenah’s expression was questioning, but Archer spoke no more. Instead they mounted and rode back to the others, bearing a tale that would both gladden and sadden hearts.
The next two days brought an arduous trek, for the city of Anahar was hidden in the most rugged of the mountains. They were not attacked again, but the sense of being watched grew with each passing hour. Archer began to scan the skies almost ceaselessly, and Tess noted it.
“What do you think is up there?” she asked, falling in beside him as they rode.
“I do not know,” he answered.
“Perhaps the oily thing that keeps creeping around the edges of my brain and along my spine?”
He lowered his gaze and took her in. She looked exhausted, but exhausted from something more than the trek. There was something weary within her deep blue eyes, something wary and frightened.
He summoned a faint smile. “I doubt I would find anything oily in the skies.”
She shrugged. “We are being followed. You feel it, too.”
“Aye. Although in my case there is nothing oily about it. It is rather more like a prickle at the base of my neck.”
She surprised him with a smile of her own. “It’s not after you.”
“If that is so, it is only because it has not realized I am here. Our enmity goes far back.”
“It wants me.” She said it simply, but her tone indicated that she had come to a grim acceptance. “I do not even know who I am, or w
here I came from a few weeks ago, but it wants me. I am beginning to wonder if that caravan was slaughtered because of me.”
He reached out and laid a gloved hand on her arm. “Think not that way, my Lady. You did not force anyone’s hand to commit such an atrocity. Blame those who committed the act.”
She looked straight at him then. “How do you know I didn’t do that? You saw what I was capable of after Tom was hurt. Can you be truly sure of me? I can’t.”
His hand fell from her shoulder, and they rode a while in silence amidst the cacophony of many quietly talking voices, the crying of young children, the jingle of harness, and even, from time to time, the sound of men and women laughing.
“At first I distrusted you,” Archer admitted after a while. “I do not feel quite so inclined since you faced Lantav.”
“Since I met Lantav, I feel even more inclined to distrust myself. Do you know what I bade Sara do to him? I am a woman without a past riding into a future I know nothing about, in a world I cannot remember. At this moment, Archer, I am quite terrified of myself. And mostly I am terrified because something is clinging to my mind, trying to draw me to it. I don’t care to be someone’s weapon. I don’t ever want to call down fire from the sky again!”
At that moment, his face hardened. “Lady, we are not always granted choices about what we will do. Sometimes we must do what is necessary for the greatest good. And sometimes what we do will be ugly. But if we do not fight him, there will be ugliness and suffering beyond your imagination. What was done to Lantav and those soldiers will fall upon the innocent, even to the newborn babes. The Bozandari are but a pale shadow of the Enemy, yet even they will come into an Anari telner and, taking a fancy to a woman, dash her nursling child to the stones and carry her screaming away. That is men’s evil, and yet it is a bare shadow of the evil the Enemy will cause.”
Tess rode on in silence for a while, sensing that there was much the man beside her was not saying, yet sensing also that his strength and wisdom would protect her.
“I feel terrible about what I did to poor Tom’s eyes.”
Archer grunted. “You saved his life, Lady Tess. I doubt either he or Sara would have it otherwise.”
“Perhaps not, but it would certainly be nice if I could avoid unintended consequences of my actions.”
He chuckled deep in his throat. “Don’t we all feel so?”
“I don’t understand why that should have happened. I was trying to heal his wounds.”
“Perhaps you healed more than you knew.”
“You mean what has happened to his eyes was a healing? I cannot believe that.”
Archer seemed to shrug within the dark folds of his cloak. “It may be that our Tom will now see more clearly than he ever has. Time will tell.”
All of a sudden, he said, “Follow me, my Lady. I have something to show you that you will not see from the path we take.” Then he spurred his horse off to the left.
Tess followed him, leaving the column of refugees behind as she went with Archer up a narrow trail into the trees. Here the vegetation was far more lush than up north. Soon her nose and mouth no longer were full of dust and grit, but instead filled with the scent of pine and some kind of flowery perfume.
The slope was steep, the trail full of switchbacks. As they climbed, the air grew cooler, until the horses were snorting clouds of steam.
The trail opened from time to time, giving breathtaking views of valleys and rivers far below. The peaks of the mountains, as far as the eye could see, already wore wintry cloaks of white. Occasionally, in a deeply shadowed place, their horses trod through snow.
But it was around a tight turn in the trail that the view opened out upon a breathtakingly beautiful city, visible in a valley some distance away.
“Anahar,” Archer said simply.
Tess caught and held her breath, astonished that the city appeared to be a larger version of the village they had fled. Much larger. But she was even more astonished that stone could appear to be so golden, so shining, at once seeming to reflect the sun and to hold the sun within it.
Below her the city lay spread out, the round central temple rising high above all other buildings. The streets, of which there were many, all much longer than in the village, curved, following a winding path, as had the shorter ones at Gewindi-Tel. Clearly could she see that the village had been a smaller copy of the great city.
But where the one had been charming, this was breathtaking. No wonder the Bozandari had wanted Anari builders. The city of Anahar was not only built from living stone, but the stone continued to live in its new shape.
“Words fail,” she finally whispered to Archer.
“Once the cities of the Firstborn had such beauty,” he said, “but now they are dust. Anahar lives on, a bulwark, a memory, a tale, a promise. When we arrive there, our journey truly begins. There we will build the army that will throw off the yoke of Bozandar. And there you will follow the temple mazes until you have learned who you are.”
“It will tell me who I am?”
“It may give you no names and bring back no memories, but it will tutor you in your powers if only you find a key. And keys are there to be found.”
Tess found herself reluctant to turn from the view and follow Archer back down to the party of refugees. The reluctance arose not so much from the burden that awaited her—and Sara, of course—in Anahar, but simply from the fact that the city was so beautiful from up here, one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
She hoped desperately that her sojourn there would not forever turn it into an ugly memory.
12
As Tess turned away from the view, the Presence within her simmered with anger and rage. Anahar stood for everything that had been stolen from him. At the end of the First Age, the Anari were the only race whom the gods had permitted to live on in their original state, and their city was a monument to the secrets of that age. In it he saw not beauty, but betrayal.
Betrayal by his own brother. Over the centuries, the world had come to look upon Ardred as the Enemy, due to the lies of his brother. He was no enemy. He was Ardred the Fair, second son of the Firstborn King, a king in his own right. Annuvil was the evil one, the one who had stolen Theriel and then had demolished Ardred’s kingdom of Dederand.
Soon all that would be set right.
As Tess rode down the slope after the man called Archer, Ardred withdrew into a small corner of her mind so that she would not feel his presence for a while. He wished he could reveal himself to her, show her his love and admiration for her. He wished he could tell her how he had searched across the ages and the sundered world for her and her alone, the woman who was the equal of Theriel, the woman whose purity of heart could make him weep for joy. He wished he could tell her how he had tried to bring her to himself, only to discover his efforts had somehow been interrupted, leaving her memoryless in this ugly world.
But it was not yet time. First he had to deal with the mess Annuvil had made of things. First he had to deal with the corrupt Ilduin, who had abused their power after his attempt to save Theriel from Annuvil had resulted in her death.
His hatred simmered like a stew not quite ready to be served, but Ardred was patient. An immortal could afford to be patient, and this was not yet the time to correct the wrongs his brother had inflicted upon the world. But that time was approaching, and with each passing day, as the world faded even more from the heights of its ancient glories, it drew closer.
Soon he would emerge. Soon Tess would stand at his side as his bride. The three worlds would be reunited, with him as the rightful king.
All would be as it should have been in the First Age.
Gently he eased himself from Tess’s mind, careful not to make her aware of him as he did so. There was much he needed to prepare, and for now he could safely let Tess and the Anari move forward unimpeded.
The Anari. They would be punished for their crimes of indifference in the First Age. And Annuvil and the Ilduin would
be punished for their crimes, as well. It was only a matter of time.
Tess felt somehow lightened as she and Archer returned to the Anari. The refugees still wound their way through the mountains, but Anahar was within reach before nightfall.
As they rejoined the column, it seemed that everyone shared Tess’s lightening of heart. A group of men and women were singing a cheerful harmony, tossing the verses of the song back and forth. Children, too, felt the excitement, even those too young to truly understand. They were laughing, running in and out of the column. Burdens seemed to have grown lighter, and steps had quickened.
Anahar.
Tess shivered a little as the name whispered in her mind, but then she realized it was not the inky voice she had heard in the past but something lighter. Something that almost seemed to be part of herself, yet not.
Anahar. The whisper came again, and Tess grasped the leathern bag of stones that hung around her neck.
The voice whispered again, Come to me, sister, and we will learn together…. And then it was gone.
Tess clung to the stones for a while longer, trying to feel these sisters she had felt before, pondering the voice and its words. With sudden certainty, she knew that there was another Ilduin in Anahar. Perhaps at last she would get some answers.
In Anahar there was no difficulty in finding places to stay. As a place of pilgrimage, the city was prepared for large numbers of visitors, and lodgings were maintained near the temple for all who might come.
But as the Anari began to settle in, Sara and Tess chose to walk up the winding street to the temple.
“The city is every bit as beautiful on the streets as it was from the mountaintop,” Tess remarked. Indeed, every stone seemed to glow with a rainbow hue.
“It inspires awe in me,” Sara said almost reverently. “I never dreamed of such.”
“Nor I,” Tess agreed. She was struck, too, by the friendliness of everyone they passed, when they might well have been mistrusted because they looked like pale Bozandari. But here, in the heart and hearth of the Anari people, it seemed generosity ruled.