FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Londu returned with a wrobly, freshly skinned and ready to roast. She rejoiced at the sight of Elu, placing her palm against his, and together the three enjoyed a feast, far richer than Elu had eaten in some time: roasted wrobly, accompanied by many vegetables from their garden and bread the neighbor had given them the day before as thanks for Londu’s healing services.

  “So, Derry. Elu. When do we leave?” said Londu.

  Elu looked at Derry, concerned.

  “Wife. You are perceptive and shrewd. Yes, Elu has come to ask my help. But I wish you to stay here. I do not want you in danger.”

  “Fa! And I do not wish you in danger either. Where does that put us then?”

  Derry looked at Elu, pleading for help.

  “Londu, the Terror is powerful. In every encounter with her, I only just escaped. This time I go hunting her. There is no telling what dangers we face. We may both die.”

  “Which is why I am coming with you. Three masks of power are better than two, and his is no greater than mine.”

  They had no response.

  “Londu,” Derry tentatively began.

  “Enough. I have spoken. I do not accept your word as command. If Elu forbids my coming, then I will abide. But I will hate him for it.” She said this last part fiercely, but with this slightest hint of a smile behind her witch’s mask. Elu knew she would not accept anything other than a plea for her help.

  “Londu. I do not think I could do it without you,” he said, adding to Derry, “Sorry. I fear what she would do to me if I said no.”

  Derry sighed. “As do I.”

  They left in the morning. Elu had just recovered from his prolonged entrapment in the shape of the gull and was wary to even touch his shapechanger’s mask, but he could see little alternative.

  “Why not just don the Guardian’s mask and jump to where she is? Do you think you could bring us along with you?” asked Londu.

  “I believe I could. But the problem is this: when I become the Guardian I can see the Terror’s mind. Discern her thoughts. I fear that if I don the mask she will do the same and jump away before we reach her.”

  Derry frowned behind his wizard’s mask. “A puzzle for the ancients, then. We can’t get close quickly without revealing ourselves. And if we travel over land she may not be there when we arrive. Where is there, anyway?”

  “She was far to the south when I last wore the mask. Possibly over the Inner Sea. On the island of Ter, perhaps. Without the mask I can still feel her, but only just. I do not believe she has moved far.”

  “And why, then, do you reach for your shapechanger’s mask?” said Londu.

  “I had thought to change to a shape that could easily bear all of us. But I have only ever changed myself into a gull.”

  He eyed them nervously, wondering if they guessed at his purpose.

  “Have you changed anything else before?” said Derry.

  “I’ve changed stone to wood, and water. But never another living being, or their mask.”

  “Try on me,” said Londu.

  “Wife, no. I will not permit it.”

  “It is not yours to permit. Elu?”

  Elu did not want to get in the middle of their dispute, and his mind raced with possibilities and options.

  “Let me first attempt it on an animal,” he said, and looking down at the ground he added, “or insect.”

  After switching his maskmaker’s mask with the shapechanger’s, he focused his eyes intently on a small bug crawling along the dirt. He reached within the mask and called the power of its spirits, thinking of the longing call of the sky, of its safety and exhilaration. He directed the mask’s power to the bug. It suddenly grew, sprouted wing, and soared aloft, screeching excitedly. Before it had flown ten paces he maintained his focus, but thought of earth, of food, of damp, dark places, imagining things he thought an insect might like. It fell to the earth and shrunk, landing with a tiny thud several paces away.

  Derry bent to inspect it. Holding it up to his eyes, he murmured his approval as he watched its twitching legs moving excitedly still as if the bug hadn’t yet realized it was no longer flying.

  “Very well. Make us gulls, then,” said Derry.

  “Wait one moment. Let me give us a gentle push,” said Londu, and she closed her eyes and began a murmured, wispy chant. Elu watched the moss of her mask change color to white and azure, and it rippled as if caught in a powerful wind. Looking at her mask he could feel its spirits reaching upward, calling the very air to come and heed her call.

  She opened her eyes. “It is done. We should fly faster now, no?”

  Elu paused for a moment, feeling the gentle breeze that wrapped around his mask. “Yes, Londu, I suppose that might—” he began, but noticed her pointing upward. He looked up to the sky, and marveled. Morning had arrived with few clouds, but now these raced across the sky to the south, pushed by an unseen gale. The clouds further west and east held steady, but those directly over their heads moved as if in a swift river. Elu laughed. “Well now, that will help. Come, let us begin.”

  Soon, three gulls rose steadily into the sky, and as they ascended the wind grew fiercer, blowing them swiftly to the south. When they reached the height of the clouds Elu looked down and gasped. They flew far faster than he had as a gull with Zand, and even faster than when mounted on Brea Indys. The hills and streams whipped past them. Towns and villages flew by at astonishing speed. Before the sun had reached its peak in the sky they flew over water, which Elu guessed to be the Marian Sea. They passed over land again, rising up above vast mountains that came nearly up to their level, and the air grew cold around them. But the earth gave way once more to water, dotted with numerous small islands.

  Land loomed ahead and Elu flew lower, coming out of Londu’s summoned stream of wind. They spied small fishing boats bobbing along the shore and children playing in the shallow water as their parents labored in the small craft. A large town spread out from the seashore and the gulls descended to one of the quieter streets.

  Elu changed back to a man, and directed the power of his mask to his two gull companions to change them too.

  “Where do you suppose this is?” said Derry, looking around himself.

  Londu shrugged. “Ter, perhaps? Or is this Glant?”

  Elu picked up his satchel and hefted it over his shoulder. Looking around himself, he approached a man in a merchant’s mask.

  “Aye, Ter this is, stranger,” he said, eyeing Elu’s mask of power warily, “but you’ve chosen an ill-fated time to visit our land. Evil tidings! Black sorcery torments us and curses our towns.”

  Elu’s eyed narrowed. “How so?”

  “A malevolent spirit wanders the land. Not three days ago, a blackness passed over my heart and all the town wailed in fright all the long night. When we woke with the sun the next morning the magistrate and his entire house lay dead, as well as a handful of travellers on the roads coming into the town. It has been an uproar ever since as half the people think assassins from Ister are to blame, and the other half believe dark wizardry from the isles of the Inner Sea has made its way to our shores. But no one alive saw anyone come or go that night.”

  Elu glanced at Derry and Londu, fearing their judgment of him. He had let Thora wander all this time, unchecked and unchallenged, fearing her power. What must they think of him? A coward.

  Shutting those thoughts aside, Elu pressed the man further. “Have you heard from merchants in other towns?”

  “Frandle, the nearest town, has seen nothing of this darkness. But I heard a rumor from a traveler that the city of Tor Rhondyll is in chaos. That is the seat of the lord of Ter’s power. He said the people riot in the streets and that there is turmoil in the lord’s house itself. Mercy be upon us all if the Glantish wizards made it as far as Tor Rhondyll.”

  “You believe the threat to be from Glant, then?” said Elu.

  “No assassin from Ister could have made my heart ache with terror within me as it did. Only the darkest sorcery coul
d do that.”

  They made their goodbyes with the man and stood quietly for a while, waiting for Elu to speak. When he broke his silence, he murmured, sounding forlorn and distant.

  “We must go to Tor Rhondyll,” he said. “And quickly. Londu?”

  Londu breathed her words of chant and the clouds overhead whipped across the sky. Assuming their gull forms, they rose to meet the wind.

  Chapter XIII

  That Other World

  THORA HAD NEARLY KILLED THE cooper. Elu remembered rushing into Gheb soon after unleashing the Terror and bending over the cooper’s moaning form, seeing his charred flesh under his mask. He wondered if those travellers outside spoken of by the merchant had faced a similar doom as the slavers outside the barrow entrance. Their faces. Just like Thora’s. Now, after a fashion, just like his. But his burning anger towards Thora had cooled, for the wound she had given him had subsided, replaced now with determination. He would stop her. Certainly many guilty had died at her hands, but undoubtedly many innocent had as well. And what gave her the right to determine which were guilty and which were innocent? Weren’t they all guilty, after their own fashion? And therefore, weren’t they all innocent, after their own fashion?

  The large island sped away underneath them and they passed over numerous smaller towns and farms and grasslands. In the distance he saw great buildings loom on the horizon, reminding him of the ancient stone palace and halls of Hartree. They sank lower on the wind and slowed their approach, landing a short distance away from the city on a nearly deserted street of the lower town, for the great center of the lord of Ter’s power was built on a towering hill in the middle of a vast grassy plain.

  The town reeked of fear. Even without his maskmaker’s mask he could read the spirits of the masks around him as a scroll, and they spoke to him of panic and despair.

  “She is here,” he said to his companions. They nodded grimly, signaling that they knew already. Elu addressed a beggar sitting against a building. “What is going on? Why is everyone so morose?”

  The beggar, his plain wood mask sullied with filth, said nothing but pointed up to the city.

  They passed through the lower streets and approached the gate into the city proper. Elu would have expected it to be manned by guards as was the custom in the north, and indeed he saw quarters for the guards on one side of the gate, but no one checked their approach. Trash littered the street and they encountered few people, though they saw many eyes catch fleeting glimpses at the newcomers through windows and around corners.

  They ascended the city’s hill, making their way for the center where they presumed the palace of the lord of Ter would be, and where they assumed Thora worked her dreadful craft.

  At last they arrived at the palace, a stately stone building at the very top of the hill in the center of the city. The courtyard in front presented them with a ghoulish sight. Strewn with the former inhabitants of the palace, the green grassy lawn stretched out before them and ended with the lord’s throne, having been uprooted out of its place in the throne room and placed outside the palace itself. Before it stretched a line of people, cowering, whimpering, guarded by men in soldier masks but whose eyes appeared equally terrified.

  And atop the throne, sitting with her feet resting upon the unmoving form of what looked like the lord himself, was Thora. A quivering man stood before her, his mask that of a palace courtier. She addressed him.

  “Poor fool. You were one of the good ones, weren’t you? At least, you thought you were. You served your lord well, did you not? You bristled at his uncaring commands and balked at carrying out his most grievous wishes. I see it now, there in your spirit, in your mask—you thought yourself as a balance to his monstrous rule. You set aside food for the widows and poor of the city without his knowledge. Very commendable,” she paused, smiling magnanimously at him, but with a smirk. He looked up at her and his shaking slowed ever so slightly. “And yet….” The shaking intensified. “And yet, you still profited from his rule, did you not? You live here in the palace. You hoard your money, and not just yours … ah yes, I see, you skimmed a little off the top of all the transactions that passed through your slippery hands. And for that, your judgment is set.”

  She absentmindedly waved a hand and the man shrieked in pain. They saw steam or smoke rise from the man’s mask and he struggled to rip it off but could not. Soon, the steam ceased and he collapsed to the ground, moaning in agony. A nearby guard dragged him away to a group of other afflicted men and women laying on the ground.

  They were the lucky ones.

  Elu nodded quickly to Derry and Londu, initiating their prearranged plan. He separated from them, walking to a point among the waiting crowd of despairing people while Derry and Londu slowly approached the Terror sitting in presumed judgment against the people.

  Londu looked down. Slowly, steadily, the moss and lichen of her mask flared red and brown. Elu saw her lips move with an inaudible chant under her breath, and within moments began to hear a low rumble in the earth.

  Before the guard summoned the next victim to stand before her Thora stood, sensing something amiss. Without warning, a giant earthen fist smashed up through the ground under her, sending her flying through the air, only to be met by a second fist which slapped her back down again. Elu had not been watching Derry, but now he saw a cyclone of fire jump over the courtyard wall, bearing down on the Terror now sprawled on the ground in front of the stunned people.

  In the confusion Elu began moving towards Thora, who ripped at the bands of earth holding her, each time breaking an arm free only to be grabbed once again by another living tendril of soil. The fiery cyclone passed directly over her, drawing her attention and her power, for she lifted an arm to summon power, shielding herself from the heat.

  In a blink she vanished, reappearing instantly several paces from the cyclone and began turning around to catch a glimpse of her assailants. Eyeing Londu, she advanced towards her, and with an inclination of her head sent a wall of force that struck the girl to the ground. Elu waded among the confused people, who did not know whether to run or cower. Just a few paces now from Thora….

  The Terror lifted her arm towards the prostrate Londu, preparing to dispatch her, when a wall of fire erupted between them and the clouds parted, revealing the sun, but magnified as if by a giant drop of rain. The intensity of it shocked Thora, causing her to cover her eyes with her arms and turn away. In that instant Elu made his move. Ripping his shapechanger’s mask from his face he slid the Guardian mask in its place and jumped in front of her. The moment the eye openings passed down over his eyes, her head snapped toward him, her own eyes opened wide.

  Elu’s mind raced. This must work, or all was lost. He would die, and Terremar would fall under the rule of a merciless tyrant. His friends would perish. His family, his town, everything would change if he failed.

  He locked his eyes on hers, and they stood facing each other at barely an arms length.

  “So, brother,” she sneered the word, “You resort to trickery to find me.”

  “You ran from me otherwise,” he said, and softened his tone, “Thora. It’s time we end this. Please.”

  She lifted her head back and laughed.

  Elu removed his mask.

  The crowd of people gasped. They stared, open-mouthed, gaping at Elu’s naked face.

  Whereas before the Guardian mask had been shining brighter than the sun and the crowd had begun to hope against hope that the Terror would be banished or defeated, now all they saw was the scarred, naked face … of a man.

  He knelt, and looked up into her eyes. The old scars of his first encounter with her had faded somewhat, but now glistened with sweat.

  Her lips curled in a gleeful smile, but looking into her eyes Elu saw uncertainty. She did not know what to make of this. It was confusing her.

  “You fool,” she started, “you give yourself to me? Like this?” She drew her arm back and shot it towards him, sending a buffeting wall of power. It collide
d with his body and passed over him as a gentle wave, yet sending earth flying up all around him. Her eyes grew wide with fear. He extended his arm to her mask, reaching his hand to wrap around it. Another pulse of force shot out from her, but he swam through it as the hangra fish.

  He placed two fingers on the forehead of her terrible mask, and kept her eyes locked in his gaze.

  “Thora. I miss our wanderings. Our adventures. I miss you. Won’t you come back to me?”

  She yelled in fury and lashed out at his face with her fist. It collided with a solid thud, but with no more force than an angry homeweaver hitting her foolish husband. His nose bled, but he smiled at her.

  “Thora, please.”

  And the unbridled power of his face penetrated her. The masks that had always covered him and protected both him from the world and the world from him now lay in the satchel at his feet, and as the uncovered sky set afire with the light from that other world before its covering by Eldrin his face overwhelmed her. She could not look at it, and yet could not look away.

  “Thora,” he began again, “I forgive you. Please forgive me.” he added in a whisper, “Please come back. You’re my friend.” With those last words he removed his fingers from her forehead, and slowly, tentatively, reached behind her head for the straps that bound the mask to her head. She shook, struggling to resist him, but only half-heartedly. One strap came undone. He reached for the other.

  The mask fell to her feet.

  Her face, as he remembered it in that inn months ago now shone into his, the hideous scars on her nose and cheeks still appeared as a festering pit, but her eyes—her eyes were hers. Not the Terror’s.

  “Elu, I—” she began.

  A slow murmur built up in the crowd now gathering around them.

  “Thora? Will you come with me?”