The web of wizardry

by Coulson, Juanita

  Danaer looked around apprehensively. This demon was dead, but what if more should come while Branra was still too weak to use his most potent sword? "Mount my roan," Danaer said, shoving Branra's foot into the stirrup.

  "It is . . . your horse," Branra mumbled, arguing even as he clambered into the saddle.

  "We will ride double," Danaer said, wrapping

  Branra's limp fingers tightly about the roan's mane and gathering himself to leap up behind the cantle.

  Then a blow struck him, and a wave of excruciating pain boiled from his back. Danaer slumped heavily against the roan. Though restive, the animal stood his weight. Danaer shook his head and gasped, then gingerly slid his left hand across his chest and over his shoulder, groping to find what had hit him. His fingers touched the shaft of an arrow, and fresh agony nearly made him faint.

  XIX

  You Go INTO Danger, Destre-Y

  Fighting away increasing dizziness, Danaer craned his neck to locate the arrow and estimate its penetration. As he did, he saw a Markuand archer entering the square, riding for him and Branra. Perhaps, like the snake-bird, he was directed by his wizard master to slay Branra.

  Danaer's legs threatened to give way under him. If he now attempted to mount behind Branra, it would mean death for them both. And he would not be able to fend off the approaching Markuand and then mount.

  "Hold fast, Lieutenant," he said, then gave the roan a Destre command. Eager to leave the carcass of the monster serpent, the horse sped away, following the wagons toward the western gates. Branra, though only half conscious, stuck to its back as well as any tribesman.

  With the roan's support gone, Danaer dropped helplessly to his knees. The Markuand was almost upon him, cursing an empty quiver, flinging down the bow and drawing sword, flailing his stolen roan and trying to catch up with Branra. Danaer was in his way, and would be but a moment's work to cut down. He saw

  that the Markuand was already defeated, for Danaer had sent Branra's horse off at a rocking gait, and the enemy would never be able to overtake him. The Markuand realized this also, turning toward him, angry frustration in his manner.

  "Kant, prodra Argan," Danaer whispered. He had sent Branra to safety that his people, that Krantin, might live. That was to die with honor, and he begged the goddess to grant him a merciful death.

  Suddenly the Markuand archer fell, landing supine, a great bloody smear on the back of his neck. Dimly Danaer identified the wound as one made by a Destre sling. The enemy's stolen roan came to a halt when its reins touched the cobblestones. It snuffled and pawed as Danaer peered dizzily at it. A pair of large boots were moving across his line of sight, closing in on the Markuand as the archer attempted to rise. A heel came down on the Markuand's neck with a hard snapping sound and he moved no more.

  A moment later, Gordyan was crouching beside Danaer. Confusion and pain pounded at him as he tried to speak. "An ... an arrow ..."

  "I see it, maen," Gordyan said gently.

  "Danaer!" Lira too was kneeling before him.

  "The wagon. Get back in the wagon," he begged.

  "Be still, my Sharp Eyes. There may be more wizardry afoot besides that bird. You need my sorkra arts. Gordyan, we must help him."

  "Ai! He cannot ride alone. Take that roan the Markuand was using. Hold steady now, warrior. I must break this shaft." There was a wrenching crack, and from the pain Danaer was certain Gordyan had broken a bone rather than the arrow. The big man pulled at Danaer's armpits, heaving him to his feet, insistent. "Get up. Stand up!"

  A loud ringing filled Danaer's ears, and everything seemed to have a peculiar yellow cast. "I cannot ..."

  "Gordyan?" Lira sounded very far away.

  "It struck deeply. I have seen this before. Stay awake a bit longer now, hyidu." Those powerful arms hfted Danaer and carried him Hke a child. Gordyan

  was trying to put him atop his own big blue roan. Years of habit helped Danaer gain the saddle. The sway of the horse under him churned his stomach and jolted new hurt into his shoulder. By now nearly all other noises were lost in the roaring within his head. Gordyan was mounting and briefly brushing against that torment at Danaer's back; then an arm closed protectively about his chest.

  The roan galloped forward, the brisk gait driving a soft moan past Danaer's clenched teeth. He tasted vomit and choked it down. The nausea faded, and his main concern became fighting back a shameful outcry as the agony in his shoulder grew.

  Sometimes his wits rallied and matters were clear. At those times, he tried to assess their progress. Escape. That was the important thing. He could not remember why, but it was all that was real at this moment, a desperate need.

  Gray walls flowed by, and the ragged unsteadiness of the roan's lope made Danaer's belly heave often. He shut his eyes tight for long minutes. When he opened them again, green countryside stretched out on every side. Tiredly, he supposed they must have won free of Deki and be entering the outlands. How far had they ridden? He could not tell, and did not much care. He roused and fell back into pain.

  Finally the roan came to a stop. The animal was lathered and blowing hard, for it had carried two men, one of them Gordyan. Gordyan spoke close to Danaer's ear, but he addressed Lira. "We must rest a bit, or the horses will drop. And I must see if I can staunch this blood."

  Dismounting was torture. Danaer managed to get down fairly well, but when his feet touched the earth he collapsed. He sat on wet grass and let Gordyan and Lira tend him, only half knowing what they did or said.

  "Can we find some of your warriors, Gordyan? We have lost the track of the wagons. The army must be far ahead of us now."

  "I fear my men are badly scattered. Destre-Y always accept control Ughtly. We must ride on to the

  Sink, or there will be no hope of getting away from the Markuand."

  "Bogotana's Sink?" Lira wailed in dismay. "But Danaer must have water and food ..."

  "There is a fair oasis not far from here, just after we cross into the Sink. It is known to even very few Destre. Perhaps it will be safe for us to make camp there," Gordyan assured her. "But it will be slow going with Danaer. He can take little more jostling. The need now is to save his blood until I can build a fire and dig that barb free. What of the Markuand wizard? Does he hunt us with more of those snake-birds?"

  "I think not," Lira said. She felt Danaer's brow and fussed over him. "Such creations as that take unfathomable wizardry to sustain. Further, he spent his powers breaching Deki's walls with magic. It may be that not even Ms terrible strength is mexhaustible. When Branra slew the demon, it hurt the Markuand sorely."

  "Good!" Gordyan growled. "We will get away while he nurses his well-earned hurt."

  Lira looked anxiously into Danaer's sweating face. "Qedra, do you hear me? Will you be able to ride again?"

  He found his voice, though it was faint and unsteady. "I ... I beUeve so. The ringing in my ears has stopped."

  "Ah!" Gordyan cried, pleased by that.

  Danaer rallied enough to say, "If you can reach the caravan, the surgeons can help me ..."

  "Not possible, hyidu. There is now very deep hatred between Destre and your army. We have passed numerous bodies of stragglers slain by plains people, not by Markuand. In time the anger may cool on both sides and let us approach your caravan without being killed on sight. But you need help now/* Gordyan allowed no more arguments, nor had Danaer the strength to make them. "Hold still while I tie this."

  After a bit the throbbing dropped to a bearable level. Gordyan had removed Danaer's mantle and used part of it as a crude bandage; the remainder he laid over Danaer's head; it was starting to rain, a cold and

  miserable shower. In the death struggle with the demon snake, Danaer had lost his helmet, but he still had his sword, which Gordyan cursed as a nuisance. He unbuckled it and gave it to Lira, then put Danaer atop his roan again.

  The following time was a horror which must be borne. Sometimes Danaer sank into a state where no distraction could reach him, but the pain could
. Now and then he roused enough to know the sky was darkening as the day wore on into evening. Once they stopped and Lira readjusted the makeshift bandage. She and Gordyan gave him some water and a bit of grain cake from the Destre's saddle pouch. The taste was satisfying but brief, for Danaer promptly vomited most of what he had swallowed. Then there was the ordeal of remounting and more riding toward the west. He no longer cared about anything, and when the ringing in his ears started once more, he had no strength to tell Lira or Gordyan of it.

  The roan stopped. Danaer gazed about dully. It was night, and in the distance there was a campfire. It looked inviting. Why did not Gordyan take them there? The comforting warmth of his friend's big body disappeared from behind him, then Danaer felt a tug at his arm. "Slide off, maen. I will catch you." In a few moments Danaer was lying on his side, on sand, his head pillowed in Lira's lap.

  Sand? Then they had reached the Sink. Gordyan had pressed them hard to come so far so quickly. Danaer's shoulder lessened its throbbing, and he was startled by a sudden clarity of thought and senses. Lira was caressing his forehead as he looked up at her. Her face was illuminated by a wavering golden glow far brighter than that campfire should have cast. "Lira?" She bent close to hear him well as he asked, "Where is Gordyan?"

  "At the camp ahead. He said he would go and see what their clans were." The wisdom of this satisfied Danaer, but it sounded as if the fragile aUiance of Malol and Gordt te Raa had been thoroughly undone. Gordyan, unsure of his fellow Destre-Y and checking

  their calling and tribes ere he entered their camp? And wary of all army men save Danaer?

  "Lira, why can I see your face so clearly in the darkness?" Danaer asked in childlike wonder.

  She turned eastward, her expression grim. "There is a great fire back there, qedra. It is Deki. But what would burn in that city of stone?"

  "Bodies," Danaer said with tired frankness. "Thatch, fodder for beasts, any manner of thing which could tinder the conquerors' celebrations." He considered this and added, "But if the Markuand are looting, they will not be pursuing survivors. They may believe the desert, and our own rivalries, will destroy us for them."

  Suddenly and silently, Gordyan was back with them. "They are none of mine, these warriors," he said with a low growl. "But we must have water and fire." The big man eyed Danaer worriedly, then took out his knife and slashed open the scout's tunic.

  "What are you doing?" Danaer protested, struggling to rise.

  Gordyan forced him back. "Making you into a proper Azsed." He cut the tunic into a Destre's loose vest, then tucked Danaer's breeches into his boots in the fashion of the plains people. Badges and insignia were sUced off and discarded. "You will pass for an ordinary Sarli with no trouble, Lira. Bury that sorkra cloak of yours, though. And that sword of Danaer's as well. I will tell them you are one of Qhorda's women who became separated from your little companions. Speak only Sarli, no Krantin, or they may turn suspicious. Lead the roans. I will say Danaer was unable to ride the last leg, and from his looks they will not doubt me. Bog'! This cursed thing is bleeding again. Up now, maen, just a bit further ..."

  Danaer could not stand alone, his knees sagging uselessly, and finally Gordyan carried him again. Danaer turned his head to the campfire and the Destre-Y gathered around it. He imagined he saw a ha-usfaen dancing and heard a delisich's silvery song. Then he realized it was only the ringing in his ears.

  Gordyan was loudly complaining at someone, but the debate passed over Danaer, without meaning. He

  was stretched full length on the ground and then pulled up into a sitting position. The ringing noises quit abruptly, and Lira braced her hands against his chest to keep him from falling. Gordyan's voice eventually penetrated the pain. "You know me, stander. Do I ask much? Water and a cautery, in the name of the Siim Rena." Gordyan hunkered by Danaer and said softly, "You have already borne much, hyidu. Prove yourself an Azsed now, or they will kill us all."

  He was much pleased when Danaer met his gaze steadily and said with shakiness, "I will not disgrace Nyald Zsed."

  If the arrow had struck more outward, Danaer knew he could expect to lose his arm. But this wound was more dangerous. His father's tribe friend had died of such a wound suffered in the clan wars. Pride ruled him, and he hoped the men watching them so narrowly would know any weakness came from loss of blood, not lack of courage. Lira put a small, battered copper pot of steaming water at his feet, and Gordyan was heating his knives in the fire.

  "Take your arm with your good hand," Gordyan instructed. Danaer had barely time to comply when Gordyan started to cut away his shirt and bloody tunic. He worked at withstanding any wince or outcry. "Are these Markuand arrows barbed much, hyidu?"

  "A slight barb, but sharp." Danaer managed a bitter smile.

  "Then I shall have to dig a bit."

  At what seemed the peak of his pain, Gordyan gasped in triumph, then splashed the hot water over the wound. He took his other knife out of the fire, its blade smoking.

  The ringing in Danaer's ears came back powerfully, and Lira's face swam before him. Oddly, the pain subsided as the ringing noise built. A yellow blur spiraled in from the edge of his vision. He watched with mild curiosity while it came closer and closer, and the more it contracted the faster it curled in upon him, blotting out everything but Lira's eyes.

  Finally those, too, vanished. The ringing sound sped

  up out of his hearing and disappeared, and with it went all sensation.

  XX In Dreams There Is Magic

  The fever visions blurred into one another mad-deningly, with no way to elude them. Danaer suffered again Yistar's death in poignant detail, knowing the ending of that gruff presence which had guided him so many years. His weapons availed nothing against the inexorable enemy, and once more he felt Yistar's life ebb through his hands.

  That horror was gone, and Kandra was before him, exquisite, the paragon of Destre womanhood. She was smiling, bowing, turning . . . slowly, slowly. As people in a tapestry come to life, Danaer witnessed Kandra speaking to Gordyan. His blood friend took his mistress's hand and kissed her fingers. It was more than the action of an adoring servant. In his dream he saw that Gordyan was deeply stricken and helplessly bound, held by a silken tress or the crook of a small finger. Sworn to serve lord and lady, and never to know the fulfillment of Kandra's promise.

  That image was gone, too, and now Danaer lay encircled by Markuand. They rained blows upon him with staves and swords and lances and knives, hurting and killing him, again and again. He died and lived once more, and suffered anew. Each blow had but one target—the fire in his shoulder.

  Always, in those rare times when he came to himself. Lira or Gordyan was there. His head would be lifted and water given him. He would sink back into fitful dreaming, despite Gordyan's pleas, and Lira's weeping. Their voices slipped away from him and he was allowed to drown.

  Kandra again was in his dreaming ... no, not Kandra. This was another woman assuming her form. The mirage, coming from the rainstorm—the rain sent by the Markuand wizard. This time Danaer knew the illusion for what it was, and in his nightmare he clutched at Lira's obsidian talisman and bade the false Kandra begone. Instead, she changed, became a cloaked figure, the traitor from The Interior. The hood was thrown back, and a lovely and evil face peered out at him, smiling. A man drew near her, leering at Danaer. He knew them both, thus revealed, as they stared their hatred at him. She was Kandra no more, but Chorii, the Prince's wanton mistress, and Diilbok himself abetted her in this treachery!

  They hated him and hated Lira. The woman, especially, hated Lira. She stretched forth her hand tipped with sharp painted nails, as if she would claw his face, scar him, and thus bring pam to her dainty adversary from Sarlos.

  Danaer moaned and writhed and fought to escape the nightmare, and the fever carried him elsewhere, away from that terrible pair. Now he gazed upon Malol te Eldri. The Royal Commander stood before a Destre council, swearing away his precious son's future, giving him to be consort to the
successor of the Siim Rena. It was a sacrifice far deeper than any at the council reaUzed, Malol's only seed.

  That dream faded, and Danaer held Ildate in his arms, slaking his lust, taking joy. The woman of ease smiled, and her image altered and became Lira's, welcoming him warmly, ardently. Danaer embraced her with delight, wanting this dream to be unending.

  But such things could not be commanded. Lira was no longer joined with him, their bodies one. Yet she was nearby. She sat and watched as Danaer and Gordyan mingled blood and pledged their lives to each other. The fervent emotions were reborn for Danaer —his woman, his blood friend, the three of them by the fire ...

  And from the fire came a devil beast, a winged snake from the very depths of Bogotana's Realm. Danaer wanted to scream and run, but his feet were

  encased in stone, words choking his throat. The vicious claws struck his shoulder. Pain ripped at him, and Danaer thought of the taUsman, focusing on the black stone.

  Branra was there, and in the dream Danaer did not question how the nobleman came upon the scene. Branra was slashing with his sword, killing the creature from the wizard's world of the damned. The sword hilt glittered in the sun, a holy thing, studded with obsidian—the same material as the talisman. Chased with silver, bright metal and black stone bhnd-ing, being one with the charm at Danaer's breast, combining their powers to slay the snake-bird. One— all one—silver and obsidian, the creations of the smoking mountains of Krantin.

  Osyta sat before him, mumbling prophecies, and behind her the volcano rumbled, birthing more glassy rock, cracking the mountains where the silver lay. She was chanting. "From Krantin must come a strength, a magic ... it is the children of the smoking mountain. . . . You go into danger beyond your imaginings. You go into danger, Destre-Y!"