As she followed the General out into hall she seemed to hear the Oracle’s voice again, almost hissing with pleasure. Victory will only come at a price for you. You will cut out your own heart. The first time they had met, she had told Eliza that she would lose all those she loved. Those words had haunted her ever since. According to the Oracle, Eliza was sure to meet a terrible end, the road ahead full of heartbreak and loss. Yours is the lonely road, the Oracle had said that first time. Now that Nia was free, surely that time had come, the time the Oracle was speaking of. But not everybody believed in prophecies. The Mancers believed the future to be undetermined and took prophecies more as warnings than as certain predictions. Eliza clung to this now and wished Foss were here to advise her. Now that the military was aware of Nia’s creature and could prevent it from reaching her mother, she had to find a way to break Nia’s spell on the Mancers. She couldn’t face the battle ahead without them. But first, food and sleep.
Chapter
~10~
Nia climbed the black stone steps into Tian Xia, leaving the lake of the Crossing behind her while the nebulous boat faded to nothing. With this moment ever before her, she had been patient for years. She had prepared everything meticulously and at last the time had come for vengeance. For truly only revenge, the laying low of all those who had hurt and betrayed her, would give her any peace now. She reached the top of the steps and looked out over the red domed temples of the Faithful. She did not need to be patient any longer.
As she approached, black-robed figures massed in the fields and filled the catwalks on the outside of the temples, pointing at her. Soon they had all disappeared inside. Praying, no doubt. As if the Ancients were listening, as if they cared what happened here in the world they had left behind. The High Priestess descended a set of stairs from the Temple of the Nameless Birth and waited, alone, for Nia. Her eyes were like empty pools beneath her beaded hood. She bowed low as Nia approached and said in the Language of First Days, “The Ancients have allowed that the Great Sorceress has returned.”
“Forsake the Ancients,” said Nia curtly, pushing past her and climbing the steps. The fatalism of the Faithful irritated her to no end. She had never been able to share their beliefs, though she had endured the trials, sworn allegiance and donned the cloth simply out of gratitude for their protection once. They had been her first friends in the worlds, though she had not stayed with them for long, and so the Oracle’s betrayal had stung all the more later on. It was the Oracle who had formed the Triumvira. It was the Oracle who had decided on banishment. She would pay for that now.
The chambers in the Temple were full of the Faithful chanting and praying. She could feel the power of their words joining and rising up. Such a waste of power. They were calling on beings too far away to hear or care. Nia passed them quickly, annoyed by their passivity. She descended the central spiral staircase and made her way swiftly along the dark, narrow passageway at the very bottom of the temple. None followed her. She stopped suddenly, shrugged off her coat, and drew from its scabbard a curved sword she had strapped to her back. She knelt on the cold floor and touched one of the flagstones lightly, whispering to it. It fell away without a sound. Nia leaped into the chamber. The Oracle stood against the wall, waiting for her.
“Somehow I knew you’d be huddled in a dark corner like a bug,” mocked Nia. “It occurred to me that you might have moved quickly enough to gather your little cabal but clearly you’re not as organized as I’d feared. Do you know, your people are all just babbling away up there. Not one of them tried to stop me.”
“Destiny cannot be prevented,” said the Oracle. “Though you will show me no mercy, I must tell you that I have never acted out of malice. I speak only the Truth given to me by the Ancients, Lords of us all.”
“Calling yourself unmalicious shows a shocking lack of self-knowledge,” said Nia. “And I don’t know who is whispering answers in your ear but I’d be wary of assuming the future is set in stone. You’ll never be a match for those who believe they can make the future what they will. But never mind. I’ll ask you a question and you tell me the answer. When will the Oracle of the Ancients die?”
The Oracle closed her eyes and raised her head. A single tear slid down her cheek. “I have seen it,” she said. “I am ready. You will strike my head to the ground with your sword.”
“You could try to stop me,” said Nia. “I don’t know if that’s crossed your mind. But I’m in a rush anyway, so thank you for being an idiot.”
She stepped forward and swung her curved sword so it made an arc of light through the chamber. A great wail went up in all the temples as the head of the Oracle of the Ancients rolled to the earthen floor and her eight golden legs crumpled beneath her. Before her body had fallen, Nia had turned away and left the Chamber.
Violence hummed through her as she walked away from the temples, unsatisfied by that single swing of the sword. It was done, but it was not enough, it was not enough. She turned and looked back at the Faithful fleeing the Temples and her heart was taut like the strings of a violin. She threw her head back, flung out her arms, and called down a storm. Black clouds hurtled towards her across the sky and then they dove down, twisting into tornados. Great jagged swords of electricity leaped from the sky, turning everything white for a moment. Thunder drowned out her cries for more. The sky cracked and boomed, the wind howled, the rain descended in a roar. Nia found herself laughing as the temples were torn apart and burned and the earth was drenched. This was what she wanted. She could not hold within her all this rage and all this joy. Only nature was large enough to express it for her. She stood beneath the storm she had called until her heart was spent and soothed, and then a breeze swept it away and the day was quiet again, the harsh Tian Xia sky clear overhead. She was soaking wet but she felt better. She wiped the rain and tears from her cheeks, pulled back her drenched hair, and left the wreckage of the temples drying in the sun behind her.
~~~
Eliza woke suddenly. The room around her was dark and silent. At first she couldn’t remember where she was. She sat up, heart racing, groping for her dagger, which she found under the pillow as always. Then it came back to her. She conjured a small light and looked around General Malone’s bedroom. She was alone but when she opened the door she found a guard had been posted outside.
“Where’s the General?” she asked the Guard. “How long have I been asleep?”
“A few hours,” said the Guard, wary. “General’s busy now.”
“Tell him I’m leaving,” said Eliza, striding off down the hall.
“Hold up, hold up!” the soldier called after her. “You can’t just walk out. I’ll get the General. You wait in his room.”
Eliza hesitated. She didn’t want to have to get out the way she’d come in but neither did she want to waste time here.
“I need to see him in ten minutes, aye, or I’m leaving,” she said, folding her arms and facing the Guard. The Guard gave her an incredulous look.
“Is that right?” he said.
“I can walk through walls,” Eliza told him. “Have you nay heard?”
The Guard gave a little shake of the head. “Just wait,” he said, pointing at the bedroom.
Eliza went back in and sat down on the bed. It was half an hour before the General arrived.
“Planes are on their way,” he told her. “They’ll take care of this thing. But we can’t hold off all of Tian Xia. We need the Mancers.”
“I’ll do my best to turn them back,” said Eliza.
“I have a daughter your age,” The General said, and he smiled a bit sadly. “I don’t know what to think of you, Eliza. Your life is mighty strange.”
Eliza nodded. “It really is, aye,” she said.
The soldiers watched as the General escorted the girl to the edge of the plateau in his private car around midday. She climbed down to the valley by herself and headed for the foothills to find Ka’s dragon. In spite of having slept and eaten, she was bone-weary. The mos
t important task for her now, if she was to undo anything Nia had done, was to discover exactly what Magic the Sorceress had wrought. This she could discover by Deep Seeing. The wall of the Library would show her what had been done to Foss. If the dragon that had gone north was successful and found the Book of Barriers in the Arctic, she ought also to be able to find how Nia performed the spell of Making. She did not trust that she would be strong enough to break Nia’s spells or even to perform the Deep Seeing without Foss’s help but she had to try.
The dragon Nia’s creature had mauled lay in the grounds of the Citadel, glaring about with furious eyes. Ka’s dragon landed near it, screaming out its greeting, and the hurt dragon released a piercing cry in reply. Eliza saw the symbol for wood branded into its neck. So this was Anargul’s dragon, then. Eliza made straight for the Library in the north wing, her legs stiff and aching from the long, cold flight. She did not think Nia would still be here but her heart quickened nonetheless.
Nia was gone, but the Citadel was far from deserted. Word had spread rapidly through Tian Xia that the Great Sorceress Nia was free and the Mancer Citadel unguarded. A great many greedy giants, who more than any beings in the worlds loved to rule over the weak, had come to Di Shang to divide it into kingdoms among themselves. Cra had poured over the Crossing in great numbers, giving various treasures and powers to the Boatman in exchange, thinking to stay forever. Harrowghasters and half-hunters came – seeking easy prey – as well as curious or adventurous witches and such. The Mancer Citadel housed great treasures and objects of power. Unprotected by barriers, it drew all those that could scale its vast walls. Almost as soon as she entered the north wing, Eliza stumbled upon a cluster of mountain womi, muttering together and touching the wall in the hopes of finding a way into the Library. They were cloaked in heavy robes, hoods so large their faces were barely visible. When they saw her they leaped against the wall, first alarmed, then curious. Eliza did not pause. She was not going to worry about mountain womi at a time like this. Their bright little eyes peered at her as she passed them by and one made as if to grab her, but she drew her dagger and he jumped back. They muttered and followed her a little way, then lost interest and turned back to continue their futile assault on the Library wall. Nia had broken the barriers that surrounded the Citadel but the walls around the Library and the Treasuries were still full of their own Magic, which held fast against the intruders.
As she ran up the broad marble stairs she spotted one of the Cra further up, tearing his nails along the carpet in an apparently random act of destruction. As soon as the thing saw her it emitted a hideous shriek and made away fast down the hallway on long black wings.
The Old Library was much as Eliza had last seen it. The great bookcases stood half empty, several of them toppled against their neighbours. She could not cross the Library without walking on the sea of books emptied by Nia that covered the floor. A chilly breeze came through the shattered window at the far end, the one Nia’s creature had leaped through. A being no taller than Eliza, frizzle-haired and snaggle-toothed, with a nose like a little squashed turnip and brilliant deep blue eyes, was tapping Foss’s stone arm in a curious way with a long knobby staff. Under his arm he clutched a tattered notebook.
“Who are you?” Eliza demanded in the common language of Tian Xia, approaching him with her dagger drawn. He squealed and stepped away from Foss. Eliza could not bring herself to look again at the stone figure of her teacher shielding his face. It was too painful. She turned her upwelling anger instead towards this intruder.
“I am Uri Mon Lil,” he stammered, backing away from her as books slipped and slid beneath his feet. “I am the wizard of Lil. I intend no harm to...anybody, least of all you, whoever you might be...?”
He left this hanging as a question but Eliza saw no reason to answer him.
“Stop moving,” she said angrily, and he stopped. It did not occur to her, at that moment, that a wizard was likely rather more powerful than she. Her fury carried her like a great wave and the wizard was so frightened by it that it did not occur to him, either, that she might not be equal to him in power. “Tell me what you are doing here.”
The wizard hesitated, rather transparently trying to assemble a good story. Eliza pointed her dagger straight at his throat and ground out between her teeth, “The truth, Uri Mon Lil. I will know if you’re lying.” Of course, this was altogether untrue, but the wizard was rattled and believed her.
“Lil is an island in the Far Sea,” he explained in a rush. “I have lived there many years. It is a beautiful place.”
“I didnay ask you to tell me about your home town,” said Eliza impatiently. “I want to know why you’re here. You shouldnay be here.”
“Of course, yes. Please don’t interrupt me! It will be gone soon! I heard the Great Sorceress had defeated the Mancers and that many beings were crossing over. Oh dear, oh dear, it will be gone in a moment.... The Library of the Mancers is known in both worlds to contain the Deepest Secrets, the most ancient Texts. I feared the Cra or some other kind of stupid and malicious creature would burn the Citadel down and destroy the books. I came for the books but they are empty! Empty! Do you see? How will I help my poor Gautelen?” He sat down on a heap of books, dropped his staff, and burst into tears, which made it very difficult to keep pointing a dagger at him. Eliza hesitated, then lowered her weapon, still keeping a ready grip on it however.
“The Sorceress emptied the books,” she said coldly. She wanted to know more about this wizard. It was dawning on her that if he could be trusted, she could greatly use his help in trying to break the spell on Foss. He did not seem very powerful (after all, he was afraid of her) but if he was really a wizard he would surely know quite a lot of Magic. The wizard continued to sob for a while but at last his tears subsided and he looked up at her with a face damp and crumpled with grief.
“I apologize,” said the wizard. “Who are you?”
“I’ll tell you, aye,” said Eliza, making up her mind and putting her dagger back in her coat. “My name is Eliza and I am the Shang Sorceress.”
“I see. And...I beg your pardon, but...who am I?”
Eliza stared at him. “You just told me you are Uri Mon Lil, wizard of Lil,” she said.
“I see. And, excuse me for asking, but where are we?”
This was too much for Eliza to fathom. The little wizard seemed entirely earnest, looking up at her with eyes of the deepest, shining blue, still wet with the tears he had shed.
“Why are you asking me these questions?” she asked him, beginning to be afraid it was some kind of dupe.
The wizard shook his head pitifully. “I don’t remember anything. I am so terribly unhappy and I don’t even remember why.” He looked around at the vast Library and the floor swamped with books. “By the Ancients! What a mess! What happened here?” He looked at the book in his own hands and opened it. “Ah!” he sighed. “Everything is explained here.”
He became immediately deeply absorbed, turning the pages rapidly, sometimes gasping aloud and sometimes letting tears trickle down his wrinkled face and drip onto the pages. The pages were warped and worn and Eliza suspected he had wept over them a great many times.
“I see,” he murmured when he had done. “It must be obvious to you that I am under a Curse. This is the work of the King of the Faeries and I shall forget it all again in twenty-nine minutes. How terrible.” He looked up at Eliza with his head cocked on one side, his fear of her entirely gone. “How long have we known each other? You are not in my book.”
“We just met a moment ago,” said Eliza.
“Ah! I must write it down immediately.” The wizard took a pen from the thicket of his hair. Peering over at his book Eliza saw instructions on the last page relating where he would find a pen and that he must write down any new and relevant information.
“You said you were Eliza, the Shang Sorceress?” he confirmed, writing it down with a brief description of her that she couldn’t help reading upside-down, young, f
unny face, big hair. Except for the young part, it sounded just as much like a description of him, she thought indignantly.
“And are we friends? Or, on friendly terms at least?”
“That remains to be seen, aye,” said Eliza. Crestfallen, the wizard wrote down undecided relationship.
“But you are a powerful Sorceress, are you not? I might have guessed that! You will drive the others from this place and, and, and...” he glanced at the stone figure of Foss. “It is one of the Mancers, is it not?”
“He’s my teacher,” said Eliza. “I need you to help me break the Curse on him.”
Uri Mon Lil leaped to his feet. Although he was spindly and bow-legged, with white hair exploding around a wizened little face, he was very spry. “Madam Sorceress, I am absolutely and one hundred percent at your service! It would be an honour to help you and the good and noble Mancers, Keepers of Knowledge, as my book calls them.”
“Good,” said Eliza. “Lah, if we have only twenty-nine minutes, tell me what you’ve just read. Why has the King of the Faeries done this to you?” Knowing what she did of this King, she was inclined to think well of the wizard for somehow incurring his wrath.
“Yes! These first pages explain to me that I married a Storm Seamstress from the Isles of Shol and our daughter, when she grew up, was the most beautiful woman in all of Tian Xia.” Eliza looked at him doubtfully but he carried on as if he hadn’t noticed. “Our daughter is a Storm Seamstress like her mother. Having a wizard for a father meant that her storms were in a class all of their own. Thunder like mighty drums, lightning that danced! She made wind that sang as it blew and ice crystals that rained down like diamonds falling from the sky! We were very proud of our strong and lovely daughter and imagined she would do great things. Word of her storms spread as far as the realm of the Faeries, on the opposite end of the world! The King of the Faeries called forth a storm from her to see it for himself. So taken was he with this storm that he summoned my daughter to his kingdom, that he might meet her. My daughter, as I said, is known to be one of the great beauties of the worlds. I knew what would happen if the King laid eyes on her. I had heard many things about this King. I had heard he was cruel and corrupt and I did not want him to marry my daughter. My daughter was frightened and begged me to help her, for refusing such a king would mean death. So before she went, I worked a spell to make her appear homely. Such a fool I was, to think I could deceive the Faeries with Illusion! I knew little of Faeries, then, but they are immune to Illusion!”
The Unmaking: The Last Days of Tian Di, Book Two Page 13