Náiir focused on the goblets, and a sanguineous liquid swirled up to fill them. He handed one to Trell.
Trell arched brows. “When did you start making wine?”
Náiir gave him a lazy half-smile and settled back onto the edge of the desk. “About a century before Ramu and Balaji.”
“So you started the debate?” Trell stared at him for an instant. Then he drank the wine. It was a very good Volga.
“My brothers have yet to master my technique.” Náiir winked at him. “Now you know a truth shared only by a few. To your health, Trell of the Tides.” He raised his goblet to Trell and they both drank anew. But as Náiir lowered his cup, his expression sobered. “So…what happened to you?”
Trell told him in brief sentences while Náiir drank his wine.
“Viernan hal’Jaitar.” Náiir grumbled an oath. “Would that a Whisper Lord might’ve claimed him in the First Lord’s name and saved the rest of us the immense misfortune of his involvement. I asked Loghain once if he might, as a favor to us, make the ‘mistake’ of executing hal’Jaitar earlier than his Calling.” The drachwyr made an airy wave. “You’ve seen these Nadori wielders with their black keffiyehs and silk robes. They all look alike. Loghain could’ve passed it off as an honest mistake. The First Lord would’ve forgiven him.”
Levity drained from his expression as he frowned down into his goblet. “Now Viernan hal’Jaitar has brought M’Nador’s forces once again to those bleak sands north of Ramala, and the princedom to the edge of ruin.”
“The Khalim Plains,” Trell murmured.
“Where last M’Nador forced the Mage’s hand so disastrously.” Náiir’s gaze as it lifted back to meet his bespoke a night of storms. “Now the desert air carries the electric charge of Radov’s fermenting malcontent. We wait to confer with Ramu upon his return from T’khendar. We don’t know what Radov waits for.”
“No attacks as yet?”
“They sit. The Emir’s forces sit. Archers wait with arrows nocked on both sides of that no man’s land, which neither force yet dares cross. The stalemate has become a stalking.”
“What kind of force has Radov mustered?”
Náiir cast him a telling look. “They are ten thousand strong, Trell.”
Trell sucked in his breath. “Where did Radov get that many men?”
“Allies unknown to us undoubtedly. If that sour mass somehow presses past our defenses, the Emir’s forces will have difficulty holding the oasis against them.”
Trell understood this with painful clarity. By all the gods, but his reasons to complete his mission rapidly only seemed to be compounding! He shifted in his chair, stifling a wince. “Can you tell me anything of the magic being worked at Khor Taran? The wielder there is already proving problematic.”
“The currents show a constant flow of the fourth channeling into the lowest tier of the fortress—likely where they’re holding your father’s soldiers. The consistency of flow suggests static compulsion patterns—that is, the wielder is not himself constantly working them. They must be painted or carved or otherwise fixed into the room itself. The good news with this kind of working is that if you can destroy one of these patterns, the circle will break; but beware entering the space yourself until you do, Trell, for you could become prey to whatever malicious working holds the rest in thrall.”
Trell glowered into his wine. “So it’ll be a cinch then.”
Náiir grunted. “If it makes you feel any better, Rhakar routinely relieves himself while flying over the fortress. If he sees the wielder below him, he takes special aim.” He downed the last of his wine and then settled his gaze more seriously upon Trell. “But there is something else you should know.”
The gravity in this pronouncement gave Trell a stab of foreboding. “Yes?”
Náiir stared into his goblet while more wine swirled upwards, clearly not seeing the dark liquid but another memory, much reviled. “Something happened at the sa’reyth.” He lifted a direct gaze to meet Trell’s. “Vaile was injured, and we cannot find Mithaiya.”
Trell lowered his wine from his lips. “What happened?”
“A Malorin’athgul found his way to the sa’reyth. His every step left deep indentations in the cosmic fabric. Vaile described him but couldn’t tell us his name, which is…troubling.”
Incredulity pinned Trell against the back of his chair. “Did Vaile fight him?” He could hardly fathom this news. “How was she injured?”
“He threw something around her—an energy field of unfamiliar construction. She exhausted herself into unconsciousness trying to escape from it. Rhakar found her and with not inconsiderable effort managed to free her from it.” Náiir’s gaze grew dangerous and dark. “They were created in the Genesis to unmake stars, Trell. They have abilities beyond our ken—not meant for our ken—even as the Realms of Light were not meant for theirs. This is Balance at its utmost unbalanced.”
Trell’s wine sat forgotten in his hand; his breath hung leaden in his lungs. “And Mithaiya?”
Náiir pressed his lips together and shook his head. “We don’t know what happened to her. Vaile saw nothing of what transpired after the Malorin’athgul trapped her. We believe he may have taken Mithaiya across a node, or…” his brow pinched, “there are other possibilities. We perceive our sister via the binding we all share, but none of us have been able to reach her.”
Trell exhaled a slow breath. The constant discomfort in his side mingled with a new disconcertion, making his entire body throb with pain. “Is there anything I can do?”
Náiir regarded him wonderingly. “All of this is to explain why we may not be able to aid you again, and you ask to help us…instead…” Abruptly his gaze narrowed. He rose purposefully from the desk. “You said you were healed. Why have you kept your injury from me?”
Trell hadn’t realized until that moment that he’d been holding back a wince…or he supposed, not holding it back, since the radiating pain had infused his expression. “You’ve already done so much—”
Náiir very nearly hissed at him. He went to one knee beside Trell, laid a hand on his shoulder and locked eyes with him. “Have you any idea the storm that would meet me if I left here without ensuring you were well and whole? And here all this time you’ve been hiding your infirmity?”
Even while Náiir was still talking, Trell felt elae channeling into him with such power that it made Madaam Chouri’s Healing of the night before feel like a trickling brook next to a river in flood. No…a tidal wave.
A heady disorientation overcame him; his side prickled powerfully, and heat flooded outward from where pain had once reigned. Rather than the subtle intensification he’d experienced during other Healings, this one burst into being, an explosion that seared through his life pattern and forced repair with whiplash intensity.
Then it was over. The room slowly stopped rotating. Náiir stood, and Trell felt…
Restored hardly described the sensation. He felt like elae had wrapped itself around his bones. He rather imagined he could withstand the force of a mountain collapsing atop him.
Trell shifted his eyes to meet Náiir’s gaze. “Thank you,” he choked out.
“Don’t mention it—except to my sister,” Náiir added with a wink. “Jaya fancies herself a better Healer and eschews my methods as uncouth. I find my own approach more expedient. Why spend five minutes when the deed can be accomplished in two?”
“A worthy question,” Trell somewhat gasped.
Náiir settled him a look of stern reprimand. “You must seek aid when you need it, Trell. A good commander never fears utilizing every resource available to him and must do so ruthlessly. The game intensifies. Never let yourself forget that we’re closing in on the finish, for better or worse.”
Trell exhaled a slow breath and nodded his understanding. Then, newly decisive, he rose from his chair—happily divested of all pain; verily, he felt as strong as a bear!—drank Náiir’s excellent wine in several deep swallows, and set down the goblet wit
h finality.
That done, he looked at Náiir with a determined glint in his gaze. “Before you leave, there is one last thing I’d like your help with, if you’re willing.”
The drachwyr grinned. “Finally! Someone who gives my advice its due regard.” He gave a little bow. “At your service, Prince of Dannym.”
Trell led him out of the tent.
Loukas and the others got to their feet as Trell emerged.
“Summon the men,” Trell told them. “It’s time to honor our dead.”
The sun had fallen behind the mountain and the forest lay in shadows by the time the men had all gathered around the funeral pyre. Bundles of wood jammed the lowest tier and interwoven logs the second, while upon the third lay the bodies of the eleven men who’d lost their lives to Saldarian blades.
Trell walked to the pyre and faced his men, feeling in return the weight of their focused attention. He raised his voice to be heard by all.
“Courage is a word that tempts us—dares us—to live bolder, to strive harder, to test our mettle against the clock of Fate and race Destiny to life’s last horizon. Courage is the measure of our willingness to persevere beyond right or reason; to forge a shape from the formless aether of impossibility. Courage shouts, and courage is silent. It derives from the fears that whisper louder than any battle cry. It thrives in those choices to deny instinct, to stand firm when all would have us quivering, to live on when Death sings a serenade of escape. Courage shines in enduring when all reason is shouting submission, and in submitting when all else would demand we persevere.”
Trell held a hand to the pyre behind him. “Tonight, the men we honor sit at Inanna’s banquet table—” He paused and then offered a wry smile. “Let’s be honest. They’re probably drinking themselves into a stupor on Huhktu’s wine, ogling Inithiya, and lewdly propositioning Qharp.”
This earned a round of chuckles among the men.
“With their courage, our comrades purchased honorable passage into Annwn. Now we must raise our courage and allow them to enjoy the spoils they’ve earned in the Afterlife.”
The men murmured concordance at this.
“Do not chain them with our grief. Let us instead take up their weapons and carry forward…”
Hearty agreement met this statement.
“…and with every step, honor the courage they taught us as they stormed bravely beyond life’s horizon.”
The men gave a collective cry.
Trell looked to Náiir. “Would you honor us with flame, Náiir?”
Náiir pressed a hand across his heart. “The honor is mine, Trell.” He looked to the pyre with a moment’s contemplation.
Blue-white funnels of fire shot upwards to engulf the entire three-tiered structure. The men quickly pressed themselves back to the far edge of the clearing, for the heat from these spires was so intense that the sand beneath the pyre soon started boiling. Only Náiir remained near, haloed in the corona of his geysering flame, and Trell, at his side, safe within his protective sphere.
When the smoke billowing from the pyre’s center abated and all had burned away, the columns of blue-white fire reached for each other, and the tips of their flames became entwined. Out of this tangle emerged a spire, spreading wings of flame too bright to look upon.
The roar of the flames became almost painful then, and the heat so intense that it crisped the leaves on the trees edging the clearing.
Then, all at once, the flames vanished.
But something remained.
As the spots cleared from Trell’s vision, he gazed at a soaring monument of glass. Eleven twisted spires, each as thick as a tree trunk, reached three stories high. At their top, the glassy flames interwove beneath the talons of a great winged bird. An eagle.
The men stood in mute silence.
Trell looked to Náiir, utterly at a loss for words. The drachwyr pressed a hand to his heart. Trell turned to his men and cleared his throat. “We have honored them.” Determination filled his voice. “Now let us prove our own honor!”
The men emerged from the safety of the trees murmuring agreement.
Trell told them, “A wielder sits behind the aggression that brought us here today. The same man holds a thousand of my father’s men hostage. He is the target for our vengeance! Focus your eyes to the south. In the morning we ride, and he shall hear the thunder of our coming!”
A rousing shout went up, which quickly fell into an alternating chant of ‘Trell of the Tides, King of the Converted! Trell of the Tides, Prince of Dragons!’ As the men were breaking up, the chant faded into talk of the Dannish soldiers being held at Khor Taran and this so-called wielder who thought to take on their A’dal.
Trell looked back to Náiir with gratitude weighty in his gaze and gave him a brief but tight embrace.
“May you ever remain in Fortune’s favor, Trell of the Tides,” Náiir said into Trell’s ear. Then he flashed one of his more dashing smiles and headed off beneath the singed trees.
Raegus and Trell’s other officers joined him at the monument, crossing from browned grass into a circle of living green that extended about five paces around Trell. They all looked a bit round-eyed.
While Tannour knelt and ran his hand across the glassy surface where the sand had been boiling, Raegus stared up at the towering monument and visibly swallowed. “It this what you meant when you said it never hurts to have a few immortals on your side?”
Trell sighed. “Not exactly.”
“He didn’t have to do this.” Loukas looked bemusedly to Trell. “Why did he do this?”
“Because he could.” Tannour speared Loukas with an unapologetic stare. “Because it’s the power they were born to.”
“I think this was his way of honoring them.” Trell let out a slow exhale, deeply touched by Náiir’s creation. It would stand for centuries as a reminder to all who knew its tale, a memorial for every man who’d given his life in service of another’s cause. Trell vowed that he would make those sacrifices mean something.
He looked to Raegus and Rolan. “Let it be known—quietly—that the drachwyr came today with news that the Emir has summoned two thousand men out of Duan’Bai and that they’re even now marching on Khor Taran. We will rendezvous with them on the plains south of the mountain.”
“Huhktu’s bones!” Rolan hissed. “Is that what he told you?”
“Not at all.” Trell met every one of their confused gazes with a level one of his own. “But it’s what I want our resident spy to tell the wielder at Khor Taran. So speak among yourselves of these plans, and do it where others can overhear.”
They all nodded to this.
Trell looked to Raegus. “On your ride tomorrow you’ll need to collect wood—wagonloads of it. If I recall correctly, trees in the lowlands south of the fortress are sparse.”
Raegus looked bewildered. “Wood?”
“For campfires.”
He blinked at Trell. “For the nonexistent army we’re not actually meeting up with?”
“Exactly. Find a campsite within a day’s march of the fortress—defensible, and well hidden—and send a scout to wait for me by the river. That’s how we’ll find you.”
Rolan arched a bushy black brow. “We?”
“Loukas and I are riding out tonight.”
Loukas turned him a swift look. “We are?”
Trell gripped the engineer’s arm. “Saddle your horse. We ride for Khor Taran.”
Fifty-six
“Man suffers no greater deception than his own convictions.”
–Darshanvenkhátraman, Destroyer of Hope
Darshan stood gazing out across a vista of rolling green hills bordered by a great mountain range. The undulating emerald landscape reminded him vaguely of a nebula’s voluminous clouds, while the snowbound crags somehow seemed to mimic the points of distant stars. The symmetry of this construction reflected a beauty Darshan could appreciate.
He looked to Kjieran. “There is much to admire in this view.”
&n
bsp; Kjieran stood farther along the hill with the grass blowing long about his knees. In his acolyte’s colorless gaze, Darshan saw those untouchable, bright stars that ever beckoned from beyond the Void. No matter how long or far he’d soared through the immense reaches of Chaos, those stars had remained beyond his ken. He’d long wondered why. Now he knew they’d been the stars of the Realms of Light.
The spring breeze made Kjieran’s black hair dance around his shoulders, and the sun shining strongly on his face gave a radiance to his skin. Darshan reflected that Kjieran held his own sort of beauty, one that he found no parallel for in Chaos. Perhaps that was why he’d been so drawn to him from the start, because the truthreader’s essential construction was so antithetical and alien to his own.
A subtle smile hinted on Kjieran’s lips.
Darshan arched a brow at him. “What is this thought you’re keeping from me?”
Kjieran turned back to the view, still wearing that secretive smile. “There’s something different about you.”
Darshan looked down at himself, though he suspected Kjieran wasn’t referencing his clothes. Yet he’d never dressed himself so—in a knee-length coat of finely woven flax, Agasi in design. Kjieran wore a similar coat, but with less embroidery around the cuffs and hem. Darshan angled skepticism on his gaze. “Who’s weaving this dream?”
Kjieran looked him over and grinned. “Perhaps we both are.” He started off down the hill.
Darshan followed, clasping hands behind his back.
“These are the mountains of Tirycth Mir.” Kjieran affected a breezy manner as he glanced Darshan’s way. “They’re the tallest and longest mountains in Agasan. These hills demark the western edge of the Solvayre.”
Darshan cast his gaze across the jutting mountains—forbidding, gloriously wild and remote. They cast no shadow across this part of the land. Perhaps the sun found it too beautiful to cast into shadow.
Kjieran exhaled a long, contented sigh. “I have so many memories from my childhood here…or I did, once, when I could remember them. I can’t reach most of them now.”
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