It was a hazard whose avoidance he had not mastered, nor did he see, to his additional frustration, how he possibly could master it. A sound, a smell, or some otherwise meaningless, simple thing passing before his eyes would trigger a cascade of thoughts, experiences, and impressions that threatened to overwhelm him and, he knew, had completely overwhelmed others. In those moments he retreated to his training, occupying himself with repetitive tasks of his warrior calling until he beat back those unwelcome memories. Even then he could not avoid collapsing to the ground from time to time, fighting to control his thoughts and cope with the monstrous past that threatened to engulf him. Each night he awakened both screaming and weeping, his heart pounding at the nightmares that filled his sleep.
And he was not alone, for Belag and RuuKag both were doing the same. Each of them seemed to be clinging to something else that kept their individual monsters at bay.
Then there was Mala.
His perfect companion had become sullen, angry, moody, and argumentative, all while generally complaining to the point of distraction. She cried often and the rest of the time eyed him with such contempt as to make him feel shame without telling him why she hated him.
Part of his confusion was that he also knew why; there were memories of harsh words, snubs, slights, insults, fights, and far worse in his treatment of her that were roiling around in his memory. That he had been manipulated by Timuran and each of his masters-he realized now that there had been many different masters-made little difference to him since he had no connection between the memories to judge whether they were cruelties to Mala that had been manipulated by either Timuran or his daughter or terrible acts of his own volition. He flushed as he remembered the many nights when Shebin had called him to her rooms, disgracing him before her lusts, only to discover that the elven whore had arranged for Mala to discover them. Shebin took particular sadistic delight in breaking Mala night after night until she tired of that monstrous game.
Shebin was gone-dead more than likely at the hands of the very slaves she despised-and yet Drakis and Mala were left to deal with the horrors of the memories that now flooded into their minds.
How were they to have a future after such a past?
Drakis awoke with a start, a massive hand covering his mouth. His body tensed for a struggle but a great weight pressed on his chest, pinning him to the ground and making it impossible for him to move.
A huge silhouette crouched over him, its outline framed by the brilliant stars of the night sky. The pressure on his chest let up gently, and the hand came away from his mouth.
“You were crying out,” Belag’s deep voice whispered over him. “I thought it best to quiet you. It is not good to attract the attention of the night.”
Drakis lay still for a moment, then sat up in the darkness. The nightmare still hovered around his thoughts as he struggled to awaken fully.
The manticore warrior moved silently away from him and the others of their group lying close together at the top of a small hill. He stood apart, tall and proud, his eyes searching the horizon as he watched over them.
Drakis stood up and moved to stand next to the lion-man. The manticorian clans hailed from Chaenandria, a land far to the north and east of the Rhonas Empire. Drakis wondered if Belag had ever walked its legendary plains and then realized that Chaenandrian lands might look remarkably like the land over which they traveled now.
The human turned to gaze at the Hecariat. The strange obelisk of mountain stone lay to the southwest still; it seemed to be at a great distance, but Drakis could make out details of its cliffs during the day. In the dark of night, however. .
“What do you suppose that strange light is at the summit,” Drakis asked idly.
Belag frowned. “I do not know. It shifts about the peak. It is an ill omen. We pass well to its north. I shall see that you are kept safe from its curse.”
“Thank you,” Drakis said, his smile unseen in the darkness.
“It is my honor, Drakis,” the manticore replied solemnly. “You are the chosen one, the incarnation of our hope and the prophesied savior of us all. You shall unite the clans-bring to pass the restored Empire of the north and cast doom upon the elven oppressors.”
The great warrior turned toward him in the darkness.
“You are meaning to our existence.”
Drakis said nothing but kept his eyes fixed on the strange lights dancing about the crest of the Hecariat. Belag, it seemed, was clinging to his faith in Drakis as some sort of hero of the gods. It was not true-or, at least, Drakis had to admit that he didn’t remember it being true-but the one thing the human warrior was certain of was that an insane manticore would easily spell the death of them all. Better to let him believe whatever kept him calm for the time being.
“By Thorgrin’s beard and all the jewels of Bardak,” Jugar muttered in a tone more nervous than angry. “Where do you think you’re leading us, lass?”
Murialis, Queen of the Fae, looked down her nose at the fuming dwarf. “Your impertinence shall be forgiven, master dwarf, but I must warn you against trying my patience. We are not amused by your antics, fool, and your disrespect in this hallowed place. We have come to pay homage to your betters, and I would thank you not to interfere in that which you do not fully comprehend!”
Drakis cleared his throat. They were much closer to the Hecariat than he had hoped, but the Queen had insisted that they divert more southerly and could not be persuaded otherwise. The tower of rock itself was still perhaps three or four leagues to the south, but its brooding presence unnerved him.
Worse, the plain surrounding the Hecariat was strewn with rock, blasted with great black stains. Most of the stones were nondescript pieces of shattered granite, but occasionally one side of the boulders showed carvings of strange, winged animals or of figures in warrior pose.
The Lyric-or Queen or whoever she was-had not given them any trouble since they had left Togrun Fel, but that in itself gave Drakis cause for worry. The woman had walked for over a week now westward across the plains with regal step and imperious demeanor. However, for someone, who claimed to have been a slave of the Empire for many years she showed no signs whatsoever of the same memory trauma from which the rest of them were suffering. Perhaps it was an effect of her being of the faery-if, in fact she even was faery-but her very lack of problems troubled him.
The Lyric turned from the dwarf and strode with casual step among the boulders. From time to time she would stop, stoop slightly and examine the rock before straightening back up and moving on.
“What is she looking for?” RuuKag snarled, his eyes darting about.
“I don’t know,” Drakis answered in exasperation. “We’ve been wandering this stone field for most of the morning and I still don’t know.”
“I cannot exhort you in stronger terms,” the dwarf spoke with emphasis but was careful to pitch his voice so that the Queen would not hear him. “The Hecariat-that very mountainous pillar to which we have unwisely turned our backs-never sleeps. The lights that play upon its summit herald the doom of any who awaken the spirits that still strive within its cursed halls. I am but a humble dwarven fool, but wise would be the soul who could convince this ‘Queen’ to move her royal court to a safer distance. . where is she?”
Drakis, distracted by the anxious Jugar, looked up.
The Lyric had vanished.
The Lyric lay asleep under a twilight sky.
The stones of the Hecariat stood about her, the carved faces all turned toward her. The air lay gentle as a blanket about her. No blade of grass moved. No cloud shifted in the sky above. The world was silent and watchful.
An enormous woman stepped from behind a broken stone, crossing the grass with silent steps as she approached the lithe form lying beneath the frozen sky. The hem of her turquoise robe brushed across the blades without disturbing them. Brown hair fell in waves around her cherubic face. She stopped and watched the sleeping human with a deep sympathy in her eyes.
A
second figure stepped from behind a shattered pillar. This one was a broad-shouldered human woman with powerful arm muscles and a narrow, determined jaw. She wore armor of leather tooled with ancient symbols and carried a scimitar with practiced ease. Her dark eyes, too, were on the Lyric.
“Murialis,” the human warrior-woman spoke in hushed tones as she nodded in acknowledgment to the large woman.
“It is good to see you as well, Felicia,” said Murialis in a whisper.
“Does she sleep still?” asked Felicia of the Mists, leaning closer over the Lyric.
“She does,” Murialis nodded, “and so she must remain.”
A new figure-a chimerian in mismatched armor-stepped hesitantly from behind a jumble of rocks, its four hands shaking slightly as they gripped four blood-soaked swords. The chimerian spoke warily as it approached. “Who are you?”
“I am Murialis, Queen of the Faery,” the enormous woman answered. “This is Felicia of the Mists-Raider of the Nordesian Coast. And who are you?”
“I am. . I am Dyan, assassin warrior of the Shadowclan,” the chimerian answered, slowly returning all four sword blades to their scabbards crossing its back.
“You are new here?” Felicia asked.
“Yes,” Dyan answered then nodded toward the Lyric, still sleeping on the large flat slab before them. “Is she the reason we are here?”
“Yes,” Murialis answered. “We have come for her.”
A ghostly man, transparent down to his long, flowing hair drifted through a stone to meet with the three females in their observations. These were joined almost at once by four more figures stepping from behind even more stones-a towering female manticore in ancient battle armor, a sad elven woman in tattered robes, a pinch-faced human woman in an elaborate black-mantled robe, and a small, female gnome carrying a sack over her shoulder. These joined with the others, forming a circle about the sleeping form of the Lyric, all gazing down upon her.
“Who is she?” asked Dyan, the chimerian.
“She is all of us now,” said the black-robed woman.
“Better to ask who she was,” spoke the ghostly man.
“Who was she then?” Dyan said as she gazed down on the sleeping figure.
“She was loving,” the gnome said sadly.
“She was an incomparable talent,” said the black-robed woman.
“She was powerful,” agreed Murialis.
“She was fragile,” said the sad elf.
“She is fragile still,” said Felicia. “We are all she has to protect her. She has seen too much, heard too much. She cannot protect herself from the truth of her past. Without us to watch over her, her mind would be forever broken, and she would cease to exist.”
“And we would no longer exist along with her,” the ghostly man added.
“I have protected her,” Murialis said, stretching out her hand and brushing it gently across the stubble of her growing hair. “I shall live in her and for her. I shall continue to stand between her and the truth that would destroy her and all of us. And each of us must be prepared to do the same.”
“But we are only characters from the stories she has told,” Felicia said, frustration evident in her quiet voice. “We are only dreams.”
“Then we shall be made real through her,” Murialis replied. “We shall stand between her and the truth of the world, and within our circle she will be safe.”
“Will she not feel our pains, too?” the sad elven female asked with concern.
“Yes,” Murialis responded. “And we shall bear them, too.”
“Lyric?” Drakis called carefully. “Uh, Murialis?”
Mala nudged him, then whispered. “Listen!”
Weeping.
They found her lying across a great stone half buried in the plain. A carving of a woman, her face broken and now missing, lay beneath the Lyric’s embrace. The Lyric sobbed, tears running down her cheeks and washing streaks across the blasted stone.
“Tianya!” she cried. “My sister and darling! That your tragic love should have brought this doom upon all your people! Was it not enough to break your heart? Did you have to break the hearts of the mothers and daughters of your ruined kingdom, too! May the woodland spirits curse a passion that should cause such pain!”
Drakis leaned toward the dwarf. “What is she talking about?”
Jugar shook his head. “Lad, I have no idea.”
The sky was dark. Rain clouds had gathered in the afternoon. Lightning flashed to the south, rolling thunder in their direction.
Drakis, his beard thickening along with the ragged hair on his head, stepped wearily toward the chimerian, who squatted on the ridge at the top of a narrow hill. They had left the Hecariat and its terrible pillar five days behind them, and yet still his gaze was drawn to it off to the southeast. He felt sometimes that it was calling him back to his death.
“How much farther do you think we have to go?” he asked.
Ethis didn’t look back, didn’t turn. “We can’t stop and rest, Drakis. We have to continue the march tonight.”
Drakis blinked. “What?”
Chimera were difficult for Drakis to read even in the best of times. Their pliable faces and shape-altering bodies and limbs made it impossible to judge their moods. Still, there was something in the way Ethis spoke-those few times he did speak-that stood the hairs up on the back of Drakis’ neck. Something was different about Ethis, and, as every warrior knew, what a fighter doesn’t understand can kill him.
“We’re within fifteen-perhaps twenty-leagues southeast of the border,” Ethis said casually. “We can pick up the River Galaran to the north and follow it all the way up to the Weeping Pool.”
“Wait,” Drakis said, cocking his head to one side. “How do you know about. .”
“The banks of the river will be our guide in the darkness,” Ethis continued. “It’s the surest way we have of getting there, and we haven’t a moment to spare.”
“That’s not possible,” Drakis felt his anger rising. “Mala was a House slave. She’s in no way prepared or trained for the rigors of a forced march. Besides, we all need rest. We’re nearly there now, why not just. .”
Ethis turned his head toward the human. “We are being followed, Drakis.”
“We’re. . followed?”
“For a week now, perhaps longer,” Ethis replied.
“And you didn’t tell. .”
“There was only one of them then. I could keep track of him. But now there are four, and we are in real danger,” Ethis continued. “Our best hope now is to run-all night and tomorrow-as far and as fast as we can toward Murialis’ realm.”
“What do I tell them?” Drakis asked. “What can I say that will get them moving again?”
“Tell them they are being hunted.”
CHAPTER 24
Hyperian Trap
The grasslands rose steadily before them as they moved northward, making the going more difficult. A growing black belt of trees-the fringes of the Hyperian Forest-split the horizon to the northwest, a dark line growing wider with each step. Yet it was not so much the hope beckoning before them as the fear at their backs that drove Drakis and his companions on.
It was an hour past sunset when they reached the steep banks of the River Galaran that Ethis had promised would guide them. Belag bounded down the ten-foot embankment, reaching the riverbed first, his keen eyes reconnoitering both up and down the length of the dark, murmuring water before him.
“You call this a river?” Drakis said to Ethis, his voice hoarse with exertion as he hurriedly made his way down the precarious slope, struggling to steady both himself and Mala at the same time. He had seen many of the great rivers in his time-including, he suddenly recalled, the majestic Jolnar, which ran through the heart of the Empire-but this shallow bed only twenty to thirty feet in width barely qualified as a stream by those standards. “A child could cross it! What good is it for defense?”
“It isn’t a fortress, Master Drakis-it’s our road,” the Lyr
ic replied, her nose lifted in haughty displeasure as she stepped quickly across the smooth rocks and knelt next to the stream, the long fingers of her left hand scooping up the water and letting it run through her fingers. “This is the lifeblood of our nation that you so casually dismiss. You would be wise to remember that and be grateful for our largesse.”
“How much farther,” RuuKag groaned, rolling his wide head as he rubbed his neck.
“Not far,” Ethis said, “Seven, maybe eight leagues.”
“Eight leagues!” RuuKag bellowed.
Belag hung his head, shaking his growing mane.
Jugar coughed. “May I suggest that we take a different course? We must head north at once! This western track will plunge us into dangerous lands that can only. .”
“We follow the river,” Ethis asserted as though to a child. “That is the plan.”
“You follow the river, chimerian,” RuuKag snarled, his large, furry hand sweeping in a dismissive gesture before him. “It’s all well and good for you grand warriors! You’re no doubt used to walking your feet off crossing the length and breadth of the Empire and all its conquests, but some of us are House slaves! By the gods, look around you; you’re wearing campaign sandals of the Legions and we’ve been crossing open country in these household sandals. Have you even taken time to notice that Mala’s feet are blistered-that she’s had to repair her sandals every day for the last three days and wrap her feet in whatever cloth she can tear from the hem of her wrap? No. . you’ve been too busy looking to the sunset to see what’s at your own feet. Well, that may be your life, warrior, but it isn’t mine, and I’m not taking another step until. .”
Drakis turned from Mala, his short sword ringing slightly as he deftly pulled it from the scabbard at his side. In two quick steps he closed the distance between himself and RuuKag. With his left hand, he reached up and, before RuuKag could react, closed his fingers in an iron grip on the manticore’s right ear.
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