The web of wizardry

by Coulson, Juanita

  Couples moved into the circle again as the music grew less violent. Lira sighed and said with regret, "I wish I could stay the night, but I must go."

  Danaer helped her down from the wagon and escorted her toward Yistar's staff area. Many times he was forced to step to one side or another to fend off the weavings of some sotted soldier or junior ofl&cer. Now and then Danaer saw an Azsed warrior. But wine had been working on these, too, and they had become too befuddled to be a menace.

  Women were never alone. The carnal sisterhood indulged little in drink, too intent on plying their calling with as many men as possible. They lay with one, left him to drunken sleep, then sought out another. As they went by such scenes, Danaer again and again glanced at Lira. But she said nothing.

  Near the officers' tents the crowds began to thin a trifle. From here Danaer could see beyond the oasis.

  Twinkling watch fires studded the night beyond. Were some of those torches in Gordyan's Zsed? His warriors, unlike most, seemed fairly sober. They would be on the prowl, seeking out HabUt's minions lest there be more trouble.

  Lira had a tiny private tent in the comer of the command section, close to Yistar's own, but at one side, nearly at the edge of the camp. Campfires cast an unsteady glow and threw shadows along the tent walls. In such soft light. Lira took on an ahen loveliness that held Danaer's gaze.

  Then he was aware her mood had become very morose. She had been happy, watching the dancers. "Lira?" he asked tentatively, scarcely knowing what he intended to say when she responded.

  "Ah!" Was she in pain? A frown tightened her high forehead. Danaer tried to enfold her in an embrace, but Lira pulled away from him, her eyes very wide in sudden fright.

  She was cold to the touch.

  Cold!

  Her body might have been encased in snow brought from Irico and farther north, from the region of Eternal Night.

  "No, you must . . . must . . ." Lira's hands were icy, and she whimpered. "You must control . . . Hab-lit . . . cannot locate him . . . somewhere! Find him!"

  She looked at him, but did not see Danaer. He had hoped, once she left Siank and Ulodovol's daunting influence, this Web would not bind her, torturing a lovely young woman made for joy and a man's love. Angered, Danaer longed to deal directly with Ulodovol's magic and end Lira's servitude.

  And then he too was cold—cold beyond bearing. An awful spasm shook him, worse than any shiver in winter's blasts.

  The torches were growing dim! Their light faded, and though the night had seemed black a moment earlier, now it was pitch, the inside of a demon's maw. Utter darkness, raging with the terrifying cold.

  A wind was rushing upon them—a bitter storm from the bowels of Bogotana's realm, stinking with

  the very breath of sorcery. But there was nothing there! No ice, no wind! The pennants at the officers' tents hung limp in the hot spring night. He should not have been able to see them in the icy blackness—yet he could!

  He was being swallowed, though he could look out at Ufe, at the world that was. All about him and Lira was a rustling, a murmuring, as from a number of presences, gathering close, shutting him off from warmth.

  HabUt's face swam before him—or was it only an illusion? Danaer saw a lust for vengeance in Habht's eyes, saw his lips moving soundlessly, as if he were speaking of that vengeance to someone.

  The vision enlarged, and there was another figure, hidden in shadow, form and face concealed by a cloak. About this second person there was an aura of wizardry and evil. A small, gloved hand cast down a pouch before Hablit, and much gold spilled forth. Gold—to buy death and betrayal, to keep Hablit safe from his pursuers while he carried out the will of his conspirators. There was a seal on the pouch, and though Danaer did not know its specifics, he marked it well as one belonging to some lord of The Interior.

  Cold! Too much cold for mortal form to endure! It covered Danaer and searched along his veins and sinews.

  Somehow he found will to speak, trying to shout, though he could only whisper. "Lira . . . Lira . . ." It seemed to break away some of the ice, and he grabbed the sorkra and shook her, driven by fear for them both.

  Lira shuddered, and more of the ice vanished. Danaer released her, at last able to raise his hand and clutch the obsidian talisman. As he did, cold and darkness fled. Slowly, Lira's abstract gaze focused squarely upon him, losing that wild fixation. "Oh, Danaer! I did not mean to involve you!" She wept, clinging to him.

  "Argan protect us! What was that?"

  Superstitious terror raked at him, but in honor he could not run away. He had sworn to protect her, and

  now Danaer looked down at Lira in fear and pity. She was trembling like a woman taken deathly ill, only bit by bit calming herself. She said between chattering teeth, "Qedra, you must not stay with me—near me. These things ... they are ..."

  "I will guard you, as I told you I would." Danaer spoke with more courage, by far, than he felt. *'You are in danger."

  "Danger?" Lira's trembling grew less and she managed a bitter smile. "No, no danger, not as you think of it. No swords, no knives, no blood is shed in these undertakings. This is something far worse."

  "I will lend you my strength," he said in grim determination.

  Lira brushed his cheek with cool fingers. Cool, not that supernatural cold which had imprisoned them earlier. She was trying to dismiss him, like a beloved but unknowing child. Resentment flared, wiping out ardor.

  Then that too was gone. He remembered nis panic, and its cause, and that Lira, for all her desirability, was a sorkra.

  Wizardry seemed to be a path that led in many directions. Lira could reach out with her enchantments, touching her Web in distant places. And in return, she could be reached, and not always by wizards friendly to her kind.

  He had been near her, and that hostile magic had made him its target as well, forcing him to share what she experienced. Though he wanted to flee, murmuring prayers, invoking Argan's protection, Danaer said, "I will stay. I will guard your sleep."

  Lira's pretty face was upturned, and for a delicious minute her lips were warm and inviting beneath his. Then she was gone, with no further word. Frustrated and confused, Danaer stood rooted. The flap of her tent was shut tightly, and a lamp was being lighted within.

  Danaer stared at the tent. If she were Azsed, there would have been teasing banter between them and more kisses filled with promises, some veiled in sweet phrases, some most frank. And if he had pleased an

  Azsed woman, she would bid him enter the tent and take joy with her, worshipping the goddess in that ritual as ancient as earth and fire.

  But a sorkra? If he acted so with Lira, would her fire, like a tenderly nursed ember, burst into ardent flame? Or would her alien nature be repelled, affection become loathing, not love? He could not tell.

  Her lissome form was outlined against the cloth by the lamplight. Lira was bent as if in prayer. Then she straightened, her head thrown back, her body rigid. He heard a mewling as she called to her Web across space a man could not ride in a three-day or more.

  She must contact them, he knew, for Ulodovol must be informed of Hablit's activities, that the conspiracy was wider than they had known. Danaer's own fire was quenched by that sight. He could not leave and keep honor. So he loosened his knife and sat beside the tent. The blast of cold evil had robbed him of both lust and sleepiness.

  Lira said she was not in danger from ordinary weapons, but she might have spoken in womanly innocence. The cloaked traitor in the vision and Markuand's wizards dealt in incantations and icy winds from nether regions. Hablit would prefer a more direct method. Lira had not broken that spell until Danaer had cried out to her and touched the talisman, he remembered. She had needed him. Perhaps her powers were somewhat diminished here, so far from her master.

  Very well, he would guard her with steel and bronze, companioning her magic with his soldier's skills. Danaer sat, ignoring the dewing grass and the raucous shouts and music from elsewhere in the camp. Within her tent, Lira
communicated with those unseen —Ulodovol and other wizards called by strange names and dwelling in stranger places. Danaer had not heard them before, nor did he wish to now.

  Gradually the revelry died, and the early morning was punctuated only occasionally by an annoyed complaint as someone stepped on another's foot or hand or interrupted lovers in their blankets. Picketing blacks

  nickered to the rest of their herd and to the roans tethered near Gordyan's Zsed.

  Still Lira's chanting continued, and Danaer held sleep at bay. He would pay a hard price, once day arrived. And with little to show for it save a dark memory! Not even the pleasure of being drunk. Ruefully, amused by his dilemma, he grinned. While his troops sported with women, he sat guard, chaste and all too sober, keeping watch over a sorkra.

  Osyta had prophesied he should be part of things undreamed of by most Destre-Y. Again the crone had foreseen rightly. He sighed and acknowledged his dead kinswoman had told him the truth.

  Then he tensed, hand on knife, peering into the approaching dawn. Seeing would have been easier had it still been full night. But his scout's vision probed movement where none should have been, past the pickets, coming toward Lira's tent.

  Quietly he got to his feet, cocking his head. There was a moving shadow out there, and he would know how it was shod. Boots? Sandals? It was no animal, and it was not a thing of magic, but had weight and substance.

  He kept his back to the tent, letting the flickering torchlight fall over his shoulder and catch the glint of his blade. As he did, the movement in the darkness stopped, frozen.

  For many minutes Danaer waited patiently, watching. The unknown stalker waited also. Then, as furtively as the light seeping through purpling clouds in the east, the figure withdrew. Danaer did not lessen his vigilance until it was gone. The horses stamped nervously and whinnied, apparently reacting as the stranger crept by their pickets. Whoever he was, he had successfully evaded sentries of both army and Des'tre.

  Daring at last to lower his guard, Danaer eased himself down beside Lira's tent once more. He scanned the area, looking for other forms lurking in the twilight, finding none.

  Had it been one of Hablit's men? Or was this an

  agent of that mysterious cloaked figure, the traitor from The Interior?

  No matter. It was too late. They did not like the day, and now the sun was Lira's ally, forestalling the enemy. The sky was coloring to pink and gold. Soon the trumpets would blare the call to muster. Lira's web was safe, and so was she, and Danaer prided himself that his diUgence had served her well.

  XIII

  Bogotana's Sink

  There had been little conversation among the troops this day. At first that had been the result of too much merriment and drunkenness the night before; and Danaer too had been silent, held by memories of magic and lurking assassins, though he had not shared his unit mates' revelry. The caravan moved deep into the blasted wasteland east of Vidik. Dullness left by drink and lack of sleep were forgotten, for now the column entered Bogotana's Sink.

  Since midmorning they had been passing bleached bones of humans and animals and the wreckage of countless carts and wagons. Sulfurous pits boiled and bubbled, emitting a poisonous stench which made men choke and sickened the horses that strayed into the fumes. The scant vegetation was encrusted with a peculiar white exudation. If man or beast touched that material by accident, skin burned and seeped agonizingly, and after a few such occurrences, all took great care to avoid the stuff. The trail grew serpentine, winding around great rifts and fissures torn through the earth. Some ancient cataclysm had rent this place, and the legends said it was then that Bogotana climbed from his realm and took possession of the Sink. The tortured waste stretched far to north and south, nearly

  to the borders of Krantin. There was no swifter way to Deki than through its fiery width.

  Not only the land assaulted the caravan, but the sky as well. The heavens were leaden, and a sun which had seemed comfortingly warm at Siank and Vidik now shone with merciless fury. The sandy ground gave the heat back again, redoubled. Men trudged listlessly and the animals' tongues began to loll. At Vidik, Gordyan and Yistar had taken good care to see that every water wagon and vessel was filled to the brim. Now they exhorted their commands to hurry through the worst of the Sink, fearing to lose both time and lives.

  But trouble afresh had come from a quarter no one could have expected. The sky lowered and filled with terrible black clouds. Men had only moments to appreciate the blotting out of the burning sun. Then rain poured down in long, sleeting streamers, a dark loom set against the horizon, the warp threads thundering down on the column.

  No rain had fallen in this part of Bogotana's Sink in generations. Yet it fell now, in torrents that tore away the trail and made the road a sodden trap. Dry sand sucked up the rain, and wheels sank axle-deep. Cart horses mired and bleated piteously as they tried to get free. Drivers flogged their brutes; soldiers, soaked to the skin, put shoulders to the wheel, pushing the wagons out of the new-made ruts. Some animals burst their hearts in the struggle; a few men slipped and were crushed under the wheels when the wagons came free too suddenly for them to step out of the way. Curses and wails rose into the steaming air, and many prayed to any god who would succor them.

  Then, almost in an instant, the rain vanished. In its place was the normal climate of Bogotana's Sink— the cloudless sky and a sun so brilliant it leeched juice from man and beast. Damp fairly boiled from clothes and hair as the caravan doggedly staggered forward again. Yistar set his jaw and ordered the advance, no matter what supernatural form the weather would take. Far on the fringes of the army column,

  Gordyan's warriors suffered the same astonishments and discomfort. And like Yistar, Gordyan would not be bested by these strange events.

  Within a thousand lengths, the rains closed in upon them again. No! Upon part of the caravan. This time some drivers baked while four wagons ahead men were drenched and their teams floundered.

  Once more, as quickly as it had begun, the storm dissipated, moving to strike at another section of the afficted column.

  Uneasy whispers ran through the lines. Men spoke of witchcraft, when they had wit and strength to speak at all. Danaer felt the same dread, and he knew his young apprentices must share his fear of magic. Xashe and Rorluk made no complaint, though. Perhaps they were too wearied after their night's carousal. If they spoke at all, it was a terse comment on landmarks, a question about the route.

  That was a sore point, and an embarrassing one, for Danaer. Twice he had led the caravan a hundred lengths astray, for the mirages had come back in full force. These were so real he had not doubted them.

  Once Gordyan, more familiar with the trail, had ridden close and warned Danaer before the caravan had gone too far in the wrong direction. The second time he caught the mistake before Gordyan had to come to advise him. But his chagrin was growing. He was a Destre, a scout, and he should not let himself be tricked by the overheated air and lying images in the sand.

  Even as Danaer had sought to steel his resolve and be fooled no more, the accursed rain had rushed over him once more. He thought of Lira, remembering how she had turned back the magical storm which had attacked the Destre council. Was she even now waging a similar war against this furious torrent? That was her calling, and she would try to combat that sorcery with her own. But she was so far from Ulodovol, and she was so young. Had she sufficient art? It was a heavy responsibility, worse than Danaer had first realized.

  He ignored regulations and took off his helmet. He

  shook out his mantle and used the cloak against the sun, kicking up his tired roan. Gordyan and his warriors had likewise taken out their full cloaks, and Danaer wished he still owned that Destre garment. But the army traveled these sun-baked regions seldom, and they had brought little equipment to cope with Peluva's blazing orb.

  Burned and drenched in rapid succession, the column crawled through the miasmic wasteland. In the distance, tantalizing, a dark line se
emed to dance above the dry plains. It was the Dekan ridge, marking the end of the Sink. But Danaer knew the landmark was farther away than it appeared.

  For now, he wanted only to reach the Wells of Ylami, the only safe campsite between Vidik and Deki, the only water that would not be tainted with sulfur and poison. With Gordyan's help and the Destre map Yistar possessed, Danaer would guide the column safely there. He forced himself to sit up in the saddle, pretending an energy he no longer owned. His eyes burned both from sand and sleeplessness, but he concentrated on the route ahead, beyond the mirages and noxious pits.

  Shortly after center-stand—^which Yistar had not allowed for rest, fearing they would never reach the wells if they tarried in the Sink a moment too long— Rorluk fell from his horse. Danaer hurriedly dismounted and examined the young soldier, finding no broken bones. He and Xashe rolled Rorluk onto his back. An unhealthy flush suffused his face. His breathing was rapid and shallow, and he did not react to Xashe's voice or fussing over him. The peasant herdsman stood between his friend and the sun, hoping a bit of shadow would give Rorluk ease. Danaer fanned his stuporous apprentice with his helmet.

  Thirty lengths behind them, the caravan again was at a stop, but not because the scouts had halted. Rain again lashed at the wagons, and the foremost drivers had bogged down completely. Officers shouted and troopmen swore; even as Danaer looked, wind and water closed about the column like a dark curtain.

  Eerily, the very world seemed to still. He heard his

  own blood coursing. The streamers of rain parted a fraction, and Lasiimte Kandra rode out of the storm, coming toward Danaer.

  He stepped away from Xashe and Rorluk, staring incredulously. The Destre princess was untouched by the rain. Exquisite, flawless, her hair and mantle gently stirred by a kind breeze, she drew rein and looked down at him. "Yaen, stander, Danaer of the clan of Aejzad's woman, I seek your favor, Azsed." Her accent was pure, dulcet, seductive.