The Ruined City

by Brandon, Paula

  “Fine sentiment, but we must deal with Them, one way or another. They’ve already caused us delay. If They come back, there’s sure to be more of the same, and we can’t afford it.”

  “There is something in that. But it is with the power of our minds that we must oppose Them. No other weapon will serve.”

  “How can you be so sure? If good steel won’t do the job, then what about fire? Has that ever been tried?”

  “Certainly, and to no avail. You must not suppose that ours is the first human encounter with these beings. They are known of old. They have appeared, even within Vitrisi itself, when the Source has threatened reversal and pestilence has walked abroad. At such times, men have called Them the plague-wraiths.”

  “They seem formed of fog and vapor. Why don’t you and your fellow arcanists get together and raise a great wind to sweep these plague-wraiths to the far side of Faerlonne? Or better yet, out to sea?”

  “Ah, Aureste.” Innesq shook his head smilingly. “That is rather imaginative, but I fear you must resign yourself to the use of mental weapons alone. Cultivate energy and determination. You possess both in abundance.”

  “So be it.”

  The conversation with Innesq was shortly followed by another exchange, less amiable in character.

  In the evening, Squad Leader Xelli of the Belandor guards requested a moment of his master’s time. The man radiated discomfort, and Aureste anticipated new difficulty.

  “Yes, what is it?” he demanded discouragingly.

  “It’s the men, Magnifico. We’ve been talking.” Xelli met his master’s lowering black gaze and continued bravely. “After what happened today, it’s clear that we’re up against something that can’t be fought. Arrows passed clear through; there’s nothing we can do. That being so, there’s nothing for it but to turn around and go home. We’re not meant to be here, anyway. Everyone agrees to it, including the Taers. Why, even the horses are of like mind. You saw how the beasts wouldn’t go forward today, and it will be the same story tomorrow. We’ve not much choice. So there you have it, Magnifico.”

  “So there I have it.” Aureste nodded slowly. “Indeed I do, provided I am ready to accept the rule of my own servants. And the Taerleezi servants. Not to mention the horses. Perhaps it will surprise you to learn that I am not so inclined. Understand here and now, Squad Leader—nobody turns back. What, are my own handpicked guards so faint of heart? I haven’t noticed the women among us whining for home and hearth. The Magnificas Sonnetia and Yvenza, even the little Nissi—none of them speaks of giving up and turning back. Are my guards weaker than the women? Answer.”

  “Could be that the women haven’t the sense to know when it’s time to pack it in.”

  “Or else it could be that they, unlike my precious guards, possess some courage. Well, before you lads think of slinking off, consider this. You’re traveling among a nestful of arcanists. Do you really imagine that Ojem Pridisso, Littri Zovaccio, and the others will let you walk away? Use your head, man. If you attempt desertion, they’ve spells to find you wherever you hide, and magic to set your bowels on fire, to twist your bones like lengths of rope, to turn your brains to boiling soup. Depend upon it, they’ll have their vengeance. On the other hand, if you do your duty, carry on to the end, I’ll offer a ten-diostre reward at journey’s end to every man of you, even the Taers. I trust we understand one another?”

  “Aye, Magnifico.”

  “Tell the others. Now leave me.”

  Xelli bowed and withdrew. Quite possibly the guards’ fears and doubts would resurface at some future date, but for now the problem had been contained.

  Events soon demonstrated the error of this assumption.

  Aureste retired and slept soundly, but some nameless instinct woke him early. For a few moments he lay wondering at his own pronounced sense of wrongness, then identified the cause. It was surely morning, but there was no noise, no familiar stir of human activity. He rose and emerged from his tent to discover a quiet, fireless, depleted camp. In the dark predawn hours, all the guards and servants, both Faerlonnish and Taerleezi, had silently departed. With them they had taken all of the horses and most of the food.

  In an odd sort of way, Vinz Corvestri was almost glad of the servants’ defection, for it added another item to Aureste Belandor’s account, further justifying hatred. Somehow, in some manner that was not readily apparent but nonetheless real, Aureste had driven them away. Probably he had abused them, or alarmed them with his recklessness, or perhaps they had come to feel the degradation of serving an infamous kneeser. Whatever the specific cause, it was doubtless through Aureste’s agency that the quality folk of the expedition now found themselves abandoned and adrift in the soggy wilderness, deprived of every comfort and forced to shift for themselves. And it was not as if they could call heavily upon their very considerable supply of arcane power to satisfy their immediate needs. No, that precious commodity was reserved for another purpose.

  Without horses, the carriages were useless. Hereafter the nine remaining members of the group would walk. All of them, even the women, would carry packs of provisions and essential belongings on their backs. The countless possessions deemed inessential would be left behind, despite their value and desirability. The drudgery of cooking would theoretically be shared by all, but probably the women would do most of it. And all would assist in easing Master Innesq Belandor’s way.

  One of the abandoned Belandor wagons contained a sedan chair intended to transport Innesq, should wheeled transport fail. But the muscular young servants meant to carry the sedan had decamped, and the remaining aging, weak, or sedentary wayfarers were ill equipped to bear the burden. Thus it was agreed that Innesq would travel on in his wheeled chair. A modest collective investment of arcane energy would smooth the ground beneath the chair, in much the fashion that the trail beneath the carriages and wagons had lately been smoothed. Innesq lacked the physical stamina to propel himself over long distances, and therefore his companions would take turns pushing him along. It was a task that even the smallest among them could perform without great difficulty.

  Vinz enjoyed pushing the wheeled chair. The exercise was useful, not unpleasant, and above all gave him the sense of compensating Innesq in some small way; of performing service to offset impending disservice. As he trudged along, the chair rolling smoothly over the impossibly level ground, he was able to study his companions as he never could when all had traveled within their respective carriages.

  At the head of the group strode Ojem Pridisso and Aureste Belandor, side by side. Typical. No doubt each imagined himself entitled to leadership by natural law. The Taerleezi, while annoying, was essentially well intentioned, but Aureste was truly malevolent. Then there were the others—the Magnifica Yvenza and her ward Nissi, both marching along uncomplainingly; Littri Zovaccio, somehow achieving self-effacement in broad daylight; and finally Sonnetia and Vinzille, strikingly like one another, both formed of finer clay.

  He studied his wife covertly. She had not addressed a single word to him throughout the day. As she walked, she contrived always to maintain a nicely calculated space between herself and her husband, wide enough to free her of any need to speak to him, but not so wide as to call attention to a deliberate separation. How tactful she was, how perfectly correct. How infuriating. Soon, however, there would be no more reason to doubt or suspect her. He would trust her again, and all would be as it had been. After tonight.

  The day crept on, blessedly featureless. The Overmind was present but not intrusive, and there were no spectral manifestations. There were only silent hills, dark conifers massing beneath an unwontedly clear sky, bare rocks, and an infinity of brown needles carpeting the ground. And then, in the late afternoon, one thing more—a slight, almost imperceptible vibration underfoot, scarcely more than a suggestion. Subtle though it was, it brought the expedition to a halt, but only for a moment.

  “Friends, be easy.” Ojem Pridisso turned to address his followers with the air of a reas
suring father. “Here’s nothing to fear, it’s only the world flexing its muscles, and that’s just natural. And we should be glad of it, too, since it tells us that we’re getting near our destination. For certain, the Quivers aren’t far off.”

  He was probably right. Within the next day or two they would reach that site, so famously infused with arcane energy, and then their real work would begin. Were the six of them equal to the task of cleansing the Source? Vinzille, for all his natural ability, was an incompletely trained youth. And little Nissi, whatever her potential, remained an untried and unproven talent. Nevertheless, Vinz realized, his own confidence ran high. After tonight, with a mind clear of doubt, misery, suspicion, and a heart at peace, his power would rise to any challenge. He would buoy the others up, if need be, with his own strength.

  It was the longest, slowest day in the history of the world, a day stretching on into eternity. At times Vinz thought it would never end. But the centuries dragged by at their own pace, and the day dimmed toward its close.

  They came to a small stream wandering among the trees, and beside it they halted to make camp. The task was pitiably simple, demanding little more than the gathering of wood and the kindling of a fire. There were no tents to pitch. The tents had been left in the abandoned supply wagons, along with the extra bundles of fuel, the heavier tools, most of the blankets, and all the larger barrels and sacks of foodstuffs. Henceforth all of them would sleep as best they could on improvised bedrolls.

  The Magnifica Yvenza prepared a simple meal for them all. She worked competently, but the selection of ingredients was far more limited than ever before, and the end result unavoidably bland. Seated on rocks or folded squares of oilcloth ranged about the fire, the nine of them ate in glum silence. Presumably all dwelled with regret on lost comforts, and all considerately suppressed complaint. Ordinarily, Vinz might have shared the sentiments of his companions. This evening his mind was elsewhere. He did not notice what he was eating, what people said or did not say. He chewed his boring supper mechanically, and did his best to keep his overt attention away from Aureste Belandor. Should his eyes come to rest upon that detestable face, there was no telling what they might reveal.

  And at last, at last, the minutes dwindled down to nothing, and it was time to spread out their bedrolls. Sonnetia, he noted bleakly, chose a solitary resting place far from him on the opposite side of the banked fire.

  But still the waiting was not over, and would not be over until he could assure himself that every member of the group slept soundly. Feigning slumber of his own, he lay wrapped in his blanket, eyes shut, face slack, every sense alert.

  When a low harmony of snores rumbled the air, Vinz judged the moment ripe, and sat up. The night was exceptionally clear and bright. The moon overhead was brilliant, and by its light he could easily observe the recumbent bodies all about him, could even discern the features of his companions. But that was trifling. He would do far better, presently.

  Swallowing a tablet, he sat waiting for the familiar reaction. And while he waited, he recalled a certain analogous event in the career of his boyhood hero, the great arcanist Soliastrus. The relevant lines from The Journey of the Zoviriae rose up and marched across his mind:

  Grey Soliastrus recognized the hour.

  The hour so oft desir’d, so long delayed.

  The Sword of Varis burned within his grasp;

  The matchless blade born of the ageless fires

  That heat the waters of the Well of Life.

  The virtue of the flames imbued the steel,

  Which ne’er submitted to a faithless hand,

  But served a worthy master’s righteous ends.

  Thus armed, the mage staked all upon the hope

  Of breaching the enchantments of his foe,

  To end the monstrous tyrant’s loathly life.

  The poetry fired his blood. To end the monstrous tyrant’s loathly life! His awareness expanded then, and his breath caught. Heart swelling, he stood up under the moon, readied himself, and spoke the requisite syllables, breathing them forth almost soundlessly. His mind and skill were at their height. The Source gave of itself generously, and almost he could have imagined that the camp, the sleepers, and the brooding conifers were flooded with a great light that radiated from the glory now blazing within him.

  He saw the camp and everything in it in minutest detail. He could even see beyond, if he chose—through the stand of green-black trees, past the distant hills, on as far as the sea itself. But there was only one thing he cared to see now. He was ready. He was Soliastrus.

  Tensing his intellect, he marshaled the power and sent it forth in the form of a Fume. To ordinary observers, it would have been invisible. Even accomplished arcanists would probably have detected its existence only by way of heightened perceptions. To Vinz, it appeared as a serpentine current, aglow with the ineffable colors of the epiatmosphere, flowing silently and swiftly over the ground to entwine the form of the sleeping Aureste Belandor.

  Aureste tossed in his sleep, frowned and grumbled. The Fume slid through his parted lips and into his mouth. Insinuating tendrils of itself into his nostrils, it plunged to the depths of his lungs, thence finding its way into his blood.

  It was done. Events would now proceed to their beautifully inevitable conclusion. Vinz allowed his connection with the Source to lapse, lest the surge of arcane activity in their very midst lure his colleagues from slumber. Spent, he lay down again, and drew the blanket up to his chin, but did not allow himself to sleep, did not so much as shut his eyes. Soon Aureste Belandor would wake, and Vinz very much wanted to see what would happen then.

  He wanted to see it all.

  The Magnifico Aureste dreamed. In his dream, he walked a dark and gloomy wood, a place of loss and loneliness. At first he walked alone, wrapped in despondent reflection. But soon others came to him, surrounded and pressed in close upon him. They were pale and translucent of face and form, and they moved with impossible lightness, as if their feet did not touch the ground. He understood that they were not alive, but did not know whether they were real or imaginary, whether he was awake or asleep.

  Then he perceived that the faces were known to him. They came out of the past, both distant and more recent, and they did not come in friendship.

  There before him rose his trusting cousin, the Magnifico Onarto Belandor, who had offered him hospitality and protection during the wars. Onarto, whom he had betrayed, ruined, and ultimately murdered. Onarto, whose fortune and title he had usurped.

  And there beside Magnifico Onarto glimmered a woman, her face streaked with luminous tears. He knew those tears, he had seen them flowing endlessly from the eyes of his wife, the Lady Zavilla. She had been vastly wealthy and quite comely—it was from her mother that Jianna had inherited the exquisite alabaster complexion—but for all of that, a pitiful creature, weak and clinging. Within weeks of their wedding, he had come to despise her tears, her groveling pleas for affection, her whining reproaches. He had not troubled to disguise his contempt, and she had waxed melancholy and languid, then died in the aftermath of childbirth. Many women died in childbirth. But perhaps if she had been stronger, happier, allowed a modicum of hope—?

  And there was Onarto’s younger son Trecchio Belandor, his throat agleam with ghostly gore, shed at Aureste’s command.

  And there was an inhuman form among them—a Sishmindri. He recognized Zirriz, formerly of his own household. He remembered the ache in his arm from the violent exertion of the whipping. He remembered the smell of Zirriz’s blood.

  And then there was the stout albeit transparent form of the Magnificiari Flune Brulustro, whose false accusation and arrest he had personally engineered. He had witnessed Brulustro’s execution.

  And there was the old moneybags, Stizi Oni, strangled in his bed. If only old Oni had been more reasonable, if only he had died of natural causes as a person of his age ought, it would not have been necessary to arrange his removal.

  And there were others, so
many others. In some cases he had lost the names, but the faces were unforgettable.

  A tide of grief and guilt overwhelmed him. Its intensity was extraordinary, and even in his dream he wondered at it. Occasionally, throughout the course of a long and interesting career, the pangs of conscience had troubled him, and he had learned long ago how to distance such qualms, how to neutralize and reject them. He was, in fact, an expert at such mental maneuvering. But never before had he suffered such an assault. He could not contain, evade, or stand against it.

  Desperate in his dream, he snatched the dagger from his belt and thrust at the shape of Onarto Belandor. The blade passed through nothingness, and Onarto smiled upon him, but not in malice or triumph. It was the simple, kindly, trusting smile of old, and the sight of it shattered Aureste’s defenses. Despair crushed him, pressing the tears from his eyes in streams. He was, he realized, a piece of vile human pollution, unfit to live.

  The world would be a better place without him.

  It would. He did not know where the voice came from, whether it spoke inside his mind or came from the outside. He did not know whose voice it was, his own or someone else’s.

  You are a criminal, a murderer, a traitor to your country, loathed and detested by all decent folk. Your very name is synonymous with villainy. You have brought shame upon a proud House, never before stained with infamy. Perhaps your daughter once loved you, but only because she did not know you for what you are. In any case, she is gone, dead or worse, because you failed to guard and protect her.

  The tears were burning him, inside and out. The voice tolled like a passing bell—sometimes speaking in his own resonant tones, sometimes with the fluting notes of a woman, sometimes as an echoing chorus.

  The phantoms crowded in around him, too numerous to count, but all of them his victims, all of them tallying the sum of his crimes.

  You bring naught but suffering and ugliness to the world.

  You are hated by all, and such is your just desert.