In Siege of Daylight

by Gregory S Close

  He couldn’t wait to be rid of the damned stone hanging on his neck, however precious Jir’aatu seemed to think the thing. Times weren’t going to be easy. He knew that. From everything the wilhorwhyr had discovered and the apparent strength of Malakuur, war was inevitable. But war he could deal with. He’d been in wars aplenty over his career as a sell-sword. With the dreamstone on someone else’s neck, and Dieavaul no longer after his, he could get back to what he knew best. No more magic rocks, no more andu’ai, no Sunken Cities. Perhaps after the spring thaws he would return to Vae. They would need all the steel and experience they could find to hold the Marches. Evynine would need him.

  “Ah, little kinfolk running about in my city?” The glint in Two-Moons’ eyes had intensified. Osrith no longer wondered if it was a product of his imagination. The reawakened Jir’aatu tapped his chin with a finger. “What to do? What to do?”

  “What are you talking about?” snapped Osrith. Vaujn had said in no uncertain terms that there were no kin anywhere near this place.

  “The little Ebuouki man insists that you know them,” continued Jir’aatu, “but I can’t abide their presence in my city. They bring back so many bad memories.”

  “His name is Two-Moons,” said Symmlrey icily. “You are a part of each other now, and he deserves your respect.”

  The chuckle that passed Two-Moons’ lips sounded nothing like him, both smug and mocking. “Ah, my lovely shoungeighl, you are awake. Come sit with me.”

  Symmlrey’s perfect face distorted into an ugly mask of hatred. “We are not your little children anymore, Qal Jir’aatu,” she said, “and I will not be a token for your amusement. Now, what of these kin you claim to see?”

  “I suppose I should admire your spirit, as they say, but in truth I find it most annoying. I would watch the insolence in your tone, lest I tire overmuch of your presence. Your lives matter little to me other than as temporary amusement.”

  “Is that so?” Symmlrey knelt down to Jir’aatu, looking him square in his inhuman eyes. “Then burn me down with your ancient magics, Great Qal.” Her sarcasm sent Osrith’s hand to his axe haft instantly, and earned her a warning glance from both him and Kassakan. She didn’t heed either. “Make me your mindless slave or loving servant, if you’re able. I don’t think you can. I think your little plan backfired on you, Old One. You’re too weak to use him as you will, and every moment you share with him, he gains in strength. Your little Ebuouki man is going to heal you whether you truly intended it or not. If I err, then prove me wrong.”

  Two-Moons didn’t blink. “You tempt fate,” he said, “but more dangerously, you tempt me.”

  Osrith remembered the crushing grip of invisible hands on his body, silencing his heart and smothering his breath. He wasn’t sure he shared Symmlrey’s conviction concerning the impotence of the andu’ai’s magic. “Why don’t you two exchange threats later?” he said. “But for right now, you can tell us about these underkin.”

  “See for yourself,” Jir’aatu said with a disdainful gesture of his hand.

  The air above the pool erupted into a scintillating tornado of color, the meandering rainbows lasting but an instant before rushing together into a translucent reflection of twelve kin, hovering above the still waters. Osrith blinked away tears after the momentary flash of brightness, taking in the small company and focusing, somewhat astonished, on their leader.

  “Vaujn?” Osrith’s mouth hung open in an unflattering gape. “What in the Pits?”

  “Dieavaul must have chased them down here,” said Kassakan, more concerned than surprised. “Possibly the same day we left, or the next. But it seems they are all intact.”

  “Keep your beasties away from them, Jir’aatu,” said Osrith, his gape replaced quickly with a warning scowl. “They won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.”

  The qal had his own look of disgust. “I will not have their kind in my demesnes,” he said flatly.

  “Bring them here,” said Symmlrey, “and we’ll take them with us. We won’t allow you to harm them. They saved our lives. Your life, as well.”

  “They have done nothing for me,” snapped the andu’ai. “I can’t repay every debt this little Ebuo– this Two-Moons, has accumulated. They shall leave or I shall destroy the lot of them.”

  “No, Jir’aatu, leave them be.” Kassakan loomed over the old man, but her hand fell gently on his back. “You must save your strength for the Wellspring, and honor your bargain. You agreed to spare Two-Moons’ friends, and these are his friends as sure as we. They will undoubtedly be the last to pass through here for quite some time.”

  Qal Jir’aatu stared at the image with lingering distaste, but his anger seemed abated by Kassakan’s calm words. Osrith didn’t know if it was her magic or her manner, but that gentle voice had soothed many an agitated temper over the course of their time together, including his own.

  “One of you should be off to bring them here, then,” said the human with the andu’ai eyes. “I will hasten the fashioning of the portal just to be rid of the traitorous little fiends.”

  “I’ll go,” volunteered Osrith, knowing there would be no objections. He was obviously best suited to deal with the kin, and as far as he was concerned, they were best suited to stay and watch over Jir’aatu. “How am I supposed to find them?”

  “T’nkh’t’chk will take you to them,” said Jir’aatu, and a cave-mantis immediately appeared from one of the recessed archways to wait by the corridor for Osrith. It was at least as tall as the specimen that had brought them from the riverbank, but its carapace was adorned with even more scalps and other once-living trinkets of esteem.

  Osrith palmed a moss globe and took a deep breath of the relatively fresh air within the courtyard. It would probably be his last for quite a while.

  It took twenty clicks to find Vaujn and his kin, by Osrith’s reckoning, but he supposed T’nkh’t’chk could have covered the same distance in half that time. He had to jog to keep up, regardless, and was the subject of several impatient glances. He couldn’t see any emotion within the honeycomb facets of the cave-manti’s eyes, but he did notice that T’nkh’t’chk rubbed its rear appendages together more rapidly whenever it was forced to wait. The resulting sound was not unlike the night-song of the crickets that used to sing every summer in his father’s fields, but considerably louder and deeper in tone. Whatever the purpose of the impromptu tune, whether simple anxiety, agitation, or some cave-manti mating song, T’nkh’t’chk ceased making it once the kin were near.

  The kin marched in cadence, precise and orderly in their twin columns, crossbows at the ready and face shields down. Osrith had mixed feelings about seeing the kin soldiers here. First, he felt guilt, and no small measure of it, for he had brought Dieavaul, and evidently great destruction, to Outpost Number Nine. But also he felt relief, for they all lived and seemed no worse for their journey.

  He shouted a quick greeting in kinspeak before showing himself, and even so kept his hands empty before him. He imagined the kin were at least as nervous and ill at ease in this place as he was, and didn’t want to risk explaining his appearance to a hail of crossbow bolts. As it turned out, they didn’t seem too surprised at his arrival.

  Captain Vaujn shook his head and frowned. “There you are. I thought we were going to have to march to the heart of this damn place to find you.”

  Osrith saluted them, scanning the twelve wary sets of eyes that were fixed on him. “The day’s not over yet,” he said.

  The kin weren’t much pleased with his explanation, nor were they eager to put their trust in the scalp-covered mantis, T’nkh’t’chk, or his andu’ai master. In the end, however, they knew that none of the choices afforded them were any more desirable. Like Osrith, they decided that they could overlook the questionable method of their escape for the chance to put this place behind them quickly. This didn’t prevent them from muttering a few choice phrases as they trudged on towards the Wellspring.

  Vaujn kept pace with Osrith, just a
few steps behind T’nkh’t’chk, but well in the van of his own force. The captain took one last look over his shoulder to satisfy himself of their privacy before speaking to the Shaddach Chi beside him. “I hope you know what you’re doing. I’m risking more than my good name by trusting you. The lives of my people, and my wife, are riding on this, too.”

  “I know that. You think I’m not worried? Between the Wellspring and Jir’aatu and these big bug people.” He pointed at T’nkh’t’chk’s back. “I don’t trust any of them. I don’t even know how much I trust Two-Moons anymore. That’s why we have to do this. We have to get away from here, far away, and as quickly as we can.”

  “I told you not to come this way,” grumbled Vaujn.

  “That you did,” affirmed Osrith, “and next time I’ll listen to you. You have my promise on that – my word as Shaddach Chi.”

  “Aye,” Vaujn said, looking up at Osrith with a creeping grin, one eyebrow arched. “Next time. If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon avoid a next time.”

  Two-Moons couldn’t decide if the sensation was more akin to soaring or floating. Watching as if a spectator through his own eyes as Qal Jir’aatu made the preparations to bring the Wellspring back to life, he felt connected but distant from the body he had called home for so many years, watching with a detached interest as his hands wove intricate symbols in the air. He faced each archway in turn, gesturing before the andu’ai characters of dark stone, surprised and fascinated that their meanings were now obvious to him. They were alive – flowing, beautiful glyphs rather than the static, two-dimensional runes of mortals. Congealing power spilled from them in rivulets of shimmering cerulean down the archways and into the luminous waters of the Wellspring itself.

  This was but a mote in the corner of his newfound awareness. All of Oszmagoth lay before him, open to him, tied to him. The cave-manti, or the ohk’tkh’chk, as they called themselves, were as familiar to him as his own tribe, some like his children. He knew them: their language, their ways, and their unspoken communion. He could feel the shadowborn prowling in the darkened reaches of the far bank as if they were insects on his leg, bothersome but contained. They had hungered for his soul since the Great War.

  No, not his soul – Jir’aatu’s.

  The dringli, hovering gnat-like in the rifts and caverns that spiraled from the Sunken City like the strands of a great web: they were less than insects to him. And there, the human and the underkin, coming up the broken steps of the Chancellery Hall where the traitors had ambushed and overcome the mighty Thuoringil. He could still see his city now, as it had been, astride the mountain peaks, glowing proudly by day and brooding quietly by night. Yes.

  No, Two-Moons corrected himself, willing invisible walls around his thoughts. Not the human, but Osrith; not my city, but Jir’aatu’s. His thoughts, his madness – not mine.

  But it is yours, said another voice in his head. Now it is all ours.

  Two-Moons flinched mentally. It was true, what the Old One said. They were a part of each other, integrating and intermingling more with every passing moment. He fought back a growing sense of panic. He would not lose himself to this odd union if he could control their joining. If he could preserve his sanity and identity, then it would go better for both of them. He could do it. He would. There was no other way for his plan to work. Jir’aatu’s knowledge would be worth nothing without guidance and direction.

  Don’t fight, me, said the voice again. I don’t have the strength to do this alone. Help me.

  Yes, Two-Moons answered, letting his calm spread outward like a salve, ordering their thoughts. I’m here.

  At that moment it became clear how fragile was their symbiosis. Anything less than measured control would bleed into and affect Jir’aatu’s consciousness, with unpredictable but likely unpleasant or deadly results. Two-Moons couldn’t explain his realization, but he could feel the fragile balance between them, the delicate interplay of their being. He didn’t need any better reason than that to restrain any potentially dangerous thoughts. He put the future out of his mind, concentrating on the moment before him. He was still aware right now, and that was what mattered.

  “They’re here,” Symmlrey whispered to him.

  Osrith stood there with his battle squad of kin, their armor and faces awash in the blue light of the glyphs and the Wellspring. The iiyiraal around the mercenary’s neck emitted its own soft glow, and Two-Moons felt his eyes drawn to it. Before he even asked the question consciously, he realized the answer was already there, waiting for him to notice.

  Yes, Jir’aatu’s mind whispered, now you see.

  Two-Moons fought to control his lips, to move his sluggish flesh in warning and explanation, but when he spoke, the words were not his. “Hurry, you must all be ready to enter when I finalize the spell. Time is short.”

  Let me tell them! Two-Moons implored, keeping his thoughts ordered and calm with an effort. He couldn’t afford to destabilize the mage in the midst of this spell and leave his companions stranded within the tenuous fabric of the Veil.

  There is no time, Jir’aatu replied.

  “I guess this is it,” said Osrith with a nod. “I hope you know what you’re doing, old man.”

  Kassakan lowered her head to Two-Moons in a half bow. “Peace and good fortune, friend.”

  She and Osrith stepped away to rejoin the kin, who were keeping a conspicuous distance, leaving only Symmlrey to stand with Two-Moons. He watched helplessly as his hands completed the gestures that focused and defined the energy at his command, the word that would unleash the magic ready at his lips. He stood there, frozen in concentration amidst the rushing power he held at bay, as Osrith, Kassakan, and the kin all lined up at the edge of the water.

  “Ingryst keep you,” Symmlrey said, and placed her hand on his heart before turning to join the others.

  Take care, my child, he thought, even as Jir’aatu spoke the word that fully awakened the Wellspring.

  The travelers shielded their eyes from the intensity of the light that erupted from the pool, hesitating at the brink of the open portal. A rumble like distant thunder shook the stones at their feet, and several of the glyphs ignited in sparkling amber flames.

  “Go!” Two-Moons yelled, and this time it was his voice, at least in part.

  Kassakan was the first to enter, diving in headfirst. She disappeared instantly and the intense glow of the water diminished slightly. Symmlrey followed suit, glancing once at Two-Moons before vanishing. Again the light dimmed.

  “Hurry!” urged Two-Moons and Jir’aatu with one voice. “All of you must go now!”

  Osrith and Captain Vaujn exchanged a telling look, and the next instant the whole of the remaining company took a running jump into the water. The Wellspring swallowed all of them, sucking them down with every last glimmer of light and power to sail through the in-between of reality.

  Two-Moons collapsed and lay there, silent in the dark, and hoped they emerged on this side of Shadow. He shivered as a breeze cooled his sweat.

  “Are you well, Master?” chirped T’nkh’t’chk from his side.

  “I’ll be fine,” assured Two-Moons, hardly noticing the ease with which he spoke their language. He dragged himself to his feet.

  “And the soft-skins are away?”

  “Yes, child,” he said, leaning on his bodyguard’s carapace. “They are away.” And gods help them, he added to himself.

  Jir’aatu was drained and resting, and though this put the burden of recuperation mostly on Two-Moons, he accepted that role as one of necessity. It would take weeks, if not months or years, for the healing to begin. And then, if that much were successful, at least as much time to find the answers he sought. He could waste little time with worry now; there was much to do, and his work had only begun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SHADOWS AND PORTENTS

  PAKH THAOLL slept. It was not a peaceful rest, yet neither was it troubled. It was, if anything, expectant. Today, even as the glaring sun
s beat down on the day-walkers somewhere above its head, it slept and it waited – waited for its master to find it in the restless dreams of sleep.

  Unbeknownst to the hrumm, it had been found already. Dieavaul watched it there for a moment, from his perch in the land of dreams. Thaoll hunted here in its un-waking world, guided and spurred in its chase by phantom scents of blood and fear. It was a pure predator, acting on instincts as old as time, its heart on fire with killing lust. The nameless human it pursued screeched in terror, but this only heightened the hunter’s resolve. And there, in that windless world, under a canopy of blackest night, it fell upon the fleeing man. Its jaws worked, clenching, tearing and chewing at the nonexistent flesh of its imaginary prey. And with every bite, it knew peace.

  Dieavaul smiled.

  Pakh Thaoll was a good choice, he thought, allowing a rare hint of approval to cross his face. It was of Pakh Ma Dhoamag’s ruukmwr, the closest equivalent the hrumm had to family. As hermaphrodites, their complex system of mating and reproduction left no easy correlation between their hereditary units and those of other mortals. He could simplify the whole matter by calling Thaoll the son of Dhoamag, but that would be as inaccurate as it was lazy. Thaoll didn’t have two parents, it had ten or twenty of them, depending on how many of its ruukmwr had taken part in the mating rites. Only the strongest were selected by the pakh ma, chosen to indulge in a ritual that could last for days. Each hrumm would become pregnant with at least one child, and all involved would share lineage with the offspring. It was odd, and more than a little disgusting to Dieavaul, but it was an important aspect of their race and their culture. And understanding the hrumm as best he could is what led him to be their feared and esteemed Gal Pakh. Even Thar Duhlgma, the high priest of their horrible deity, showed Dieavaul the respect of that title.

  “Thaoll,” spoke the Pale Man, a translucent ghost in the primal forest of its dream.

  “Yes, Gal Pakh,” responded the hrumm, its visions fading as its Master’s form solidified from the hazy mist. “How may I serve?”