FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Whelan said, “Truth is, I’ve always been terrible in love. I’ve only ever loved two women, and it’s ended poorly both times.”

  They sparred for a few minutes, Whelan occasionally giving him a bit of advice. Darik already knew about Whelan’s love for Queen Serena, and wanted to ask about the second woman, but remembered the painful conversation as they left the Desolation and waited for Whelan to speak first.

  He thought the matter dropped, but at last Whelan sighed and said, “The first love was Serena, of course. I was only seventeen.”

  Darik did some figuring. “Seventeen? That means you’re only thirty?”

  Whelan nodded, apparently lost in thought. He swung his stick again, knocking through Darik’s guard and clubbing him on the shoulder.

  “Hey!”

  “Oh, sorry about that.” He paused. “Yes, I’m only thirty. I’ve seen enough to turn me into an old man before my years, I’m afraid. As for Daria, I’ve met her several times with her father. She is shy. She has known few people and doesn’t understand the way the world works. Don’t be the one to teach her, please.”

  They battled for a few more minutes, Whelan getting the best of him whenever he wished. Whelan said nothing more, and Darik found himself wondering about the man’s second love. He had a good guess at her identity. Darik had seen the way Whelan worried about the khalifa. That was nothing special. Half the men in Balsalom loved Kallia, but it was a hopeless love, even for Whelan. Ah, but the man had already loved one queen. What was one more hopeless love?

  Darik hadn’t thought himself capable of anything but crawling into bed and sleeping until morning, but he woke midway through the night, unable to sleep. He wasn’t thinking about yesterday’s battle, or Daria, or even his sister in Balsalom. No, the thought that crept into his mind was that the steel book sat downstairs where someone could come into the aerie and steal it. Never mind the foolishness of that thought—Darik fully recognized it as such—but he could think of nothing else.

  Very well, he thought. I’ll go downstairs and bring it up here where it’s safer. Then I can sleep.

  It sounded like a good argument, but didn’t quite explain why he walked so silently down the hallway. He didn’t want to disturb the others. Yes, that was it.

  The fire had dwindled to embers, lapping at a log that might burn for another hour before the hearth grew cold. Darik pulled the steel tome from the saddle bag, wrapped himself in the blanket taken from his room, and sat close to the fire. He opened the book.

  To his surprise, the picture of the cloud cities wasn’t the first thing inside. Instead, there was a picture of a tower, tall and gray against the sky. Like the other picture, it had been hammered into the metal and painted. And like the other page, the lettering was written on the back.

  He thumbed through the other pages, but didn’t see the cloud cities. Had someone come and removed the first page? No, because he remembered that the second page had been a picture of a dragon with its wings spread and fire bellowing from its maw. Had someone reshuffled the pages, then? Markal, perhaps?

  He looked at the first page again. He thought at first that the tower was the Citadel, but no, the city over which it towered stood at the edge of the sea. The city must be Veyre then, although he’d heard of nothing so tall that it stood that much higher than any other tower or minaret in the city. The top of the tower was uncompleted with a windlass on top to lift stones.

  Darik turned the page to see if he could read the script as he’d done before. At first he saw nothing, just a tangle of strange letters. And then words came to his mind.

  “You are looking, my young apprentice, upon the seat of the dark lord’s power. Built and destroyed twice, the Dark Citadel points to the sky in a vain attempt to reach the clouds. When the dark lord has the power to reach the cloud cities, the Sky Brother will—”

  All at once the letters swam on the page, breaking the elegant old script and reforming into blocky letters in the common tongue. For a moment, the two scripts struggled, one taking over and the other one writing itself over the top. At last, the newer letters won, writing a single sentence on top of the page. They didn’t speak to his mind anymore, but he could read them clearly.

  “Who are you?” the first line asked.

  “Who are you?” Darik read aloud, wondering what it meant.

  The letters reformed themselves. “Yes, boy, I’m talking to you. Who are you?”

  Startled, Darik didn’t speak, but immediately thought his name. The letters swam again.

  “Darik, Darik. This means nothing to me. Do you live in the khalifates?”

  Well, he had lived in Balsalom, but of course he didn’t live there anymore, as a matter of fact, he doubted—

  Whatever hand wrote on the steel sheet was impatient. “Are you alone?”

  Darik grew alarmed. The older script demanded his attention, had called him from bed even, but this new language could read his mind. Before he could think, Whelan and Markal flashed into his mind. Outside, an owl hooted, startling him.

  “Yes, of course,” the letters wrote out. “You travel with that old fool of a wizard and his friend. So he found the book, did he? In the Tombs of the Kings? I’d have never guessed that one of the old tomes lingered in this part of the world, unfound for so many years. Does Markal know that you read his book?”

  And now Darik knew what hand wrote the letters, or thought he did. Terrified, he tried to slam the book shut, but his hands froze on the binding. The owl hooted again, this time closer, a chilling sound. He struggled for a moment, but he couldn’t close the book or tear himself away. In horror, he looked back at the page.

  He heard a chuckle in his mind. The letters wrote themselves out, this time changing from blood-red to a darker red, just a shade brighter than black. “Yes, of course he would never let you look at it. And here is why, boy. You will bring me the book, and we will read it together atop the Dark Citadel.”

  An image appeared in Darik’s mind. He saw the Dark Citadel rising from the midst of Veyre. It cast a shadow over the entire land, and would soon reach the very heavens. Magic, palpable and inexorable in its desire, stretched from the tower, bringing all of Mithyl under its sway. Who could resist it?

  Yes, Darik thought. I will give it to him. Give it away, get rid of the book for good. He looked over his shoulder. He could bring it to the master at Montcrag, be halfway there before the others realized he was gone. He picked up the book and made his way for the door. It was cold outside, but the master would warm him.

  He paused at the door, struggling to remember something. The book pulled at his mind even when shut, and soon he found himself turning the handle. He stepped outside and pulled the door shut, then walked through the dark, his feet instinctively knowing the way.

  The owl called again, a loud hoot to his left. And then, a massive black shape swooped down from the sky. It struck him hard on the shoulder and knocked him to the ground. Alarmed, he looked up to see the shape diving again. At first he thought it was a griffin, but when it swooped past a second time, he could see its eyes and round face. A giant owl, with horns of feathers. Darik dropped the book and put his hands up to protect his face.

  The instant his hands left the book, he knew what had happened to him. Markal had told him not to open the book, but he’d opened it anyway. He’d opened it and drawn Cragyn, who’d nearly forced him over the mountains all night until he put himself in the dark wizard’s power. The wind bit deep, but sweat stood out on his forehead and he felt flushed with fever.

  The owl landed about ten feet away. It stood motionless in the darkness. Darik had no idea an owl could be that tall, it stood as high as a man. No, he realized it was a man, not an owl at all. He looked around but the owl was nowhere to be seen. Or were the owl and the man the same person? Darik bent and picked up the book and walked toward the man to get a better look, too surprised to be afraid.

  The man leaned against a thick walking stick. His hands, grizzled with age, gri
pped it firmly. He eyed Darik for a moment, then turned, shambled his way into the trees and disappeared.

  Darik returned to the aerie, putting the book away with no temptation to read it ever again, then made his way to his bed. He lay awake for some time, trembling at how close he’d come to betraying his friends and his queen. At last it faded, like a bad dream.

  Clouds marred the sky the next day, threatening a late-summer thunderstorm. Flockheart went outside and sniffed at the air for a few minutes before declaring that they would fly. He’d made an early morning excursion to leave Scree, the griffin fledglings, and the steel tome, the latter at Darik’s urging, in the care of another griffin rider who lived nearby. They ate a hurried breakfast of cold venison stew, then saddled up the griffins.

  “Whelan is riding Joffa,” Flockheart told his daughter. “If you want, the boy can ride on Brasson with me.”

  “He can ride with me,” Daria said, quickly. “I don’t mind.” Her father looked at her with a curious expression and she blushed and looked away, worrying herself over Averial’s saddlebags.

  Flockheart turned his attention to Darik, fixing him with an uncomfortable look that was vaguely predatory. Then the moment passed, and Flockheart looked to his mount.

  They flew down the mountainside, low to the trees to avoid detection. In a few minutes, they entered the hills, passing over farms and small villages. Faces turned from fields and pastures to stare. Darik waved. A young boy, no older than seven or eight, ran through a pasture, abandoning his goats to wave and shout in excitement. Darik leaned forward to Daria. “You don’t come this way often, do you?”

  She shook her head. “Father keeps us in the mountains where it’s safe. Have you been down there? Have you been to the cities?”

  “I was born in Balsalom, the greatest city in the western khalifates.”

  “You were?” Her voice was full of wonder. “Tell me what it’s like.”

  Darik remembered what Whelan had told him last night about Daria’s innocence. “It is filthy and full of people. Some people are slaves, told what they must do and where they must go. Others seek after money every day, ruining anyone who stands in their way. You don’t want to go there.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “I would still like to see it some day. Maybe not to live, but to visit.” She grinned. “Do you want to fly?”

  “What? I can’t fly her.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “But what about your father?” Darik asked. Whelan and Flockheart soared ahead, rarely giving a backward glance.

  “Oh, he won’t like it. But I’ll be behind you and take over if anything goes wrong. Do you want to try it?”

  Darik laughed, a little nervous but excited. “Yes, let’s.”

  Averial dropped like a stone to the ground, lurching Darik’s stomach. She swooped upwards just before she hit, then came to a soft landing in an empty field. It took Darik and Daria a moment to switch places. Darik felt too exposed sitting in front with nothing to hold onto but the thin tether, hardly proper reigns at all. Daria checked the cords tying him to the griffin, before securing herself behind Darik.

  “Ska!” he shouted, digging his heels into the griffin’s haunches. She jumped into the air with a flap of wings. The ground dropped away below. Darik shouted with joy. The griffin lurched to one side.

  “Let up on the tether!” Daria said.

  He relaxed his grip and nudged the griffin along. In a few minutes, they’d caught up with the others, soaring a comfortable distance behind.

  Daria wrapped her hands around his waist and leaned close. He heard her breathing in his ear as she looked over his shoulder and felt the press of her body against his back. He’d never felt anything so wonderful as soaring through the air atop this powerful beast, with a beautiful, wonderful girl holding him tight.

  All too soon, Flockheart turned around and spotted them. He slowed Brasson until Darik and Daria caught up to him, then gestured toward the ground. Daria shook her head in a protest.

  “We don’t have time for that,” Flockheart shouted.

  Reluctantly, Darik brought Averial to the ground as soon as they found a suitable place. Daria shrugged as they changed places. “My father is distrusting of outsiders. I don’t know why.”

  Darik thought he guessed why. Flockheart had obviously seen more of the outside world than had his daughter. “Thank you anyway. Maybe I’ll come back and you can give me lessons.”

  She smiled shyly, then climbed in front.

  They reached the Desolation of Toth. It looked even more bleak from above than it had from the Tothian Way. Perhaps because he could see just how far it stretched, bleak and gray. A smell wafted from the ground making the griffin snort.

  After a few minutes, Averial flagged. Whelan and Flockheart’s mounts, too, lost speed and altitude at an alarming rate.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Daria asked, sounding afraid. “What is that down there?”

  “Take her higher,” Darik urged. “Hurry. We have to get higher.”

  She nudged Averial hard, pulling back on the tether. The griffin drooped lower, failing to respond. Now visibly frightened, Daria leaned forward and whispered to her mount, rubbing its neck, urging it to gather strength. Invigorated by her love, the griffin found new strength and flapped its wings harder. They climbed slowly higher, at last rising so far that the foul stench no longer reached them. Whelan and Flockheart too, rose higher. Breathing heavily, Darik thought what might have happened had he still been riding Averial. They’d have dropped into the Desolation.

  Flockheart rode Brasson back to his daughter. “Are you all right?” he asked, face pinched with concern. She nodded wearily, still looking frightened.

  They flew east as fast as they could, at last drawing free of the Desolation’s grip. They had made incredible time, much faster than they could have on horse or camel. Still, they had ridden away daylight and the sun set by the time they reached Balsalom. Daria gasped at the sight of the city.

  Darik also drew in a sharp breath, but in fear. Fires burned, boiling smoke into the sky. Even from this distance, he could see fighting, and dead bodies littering the streets. But before he could pick out details, they dropped to the ground.

  They landed the exhausted griffins in the midst of the Tombs of the Kings. The animals heaved and the muscles on their backs quivered. Darik too felt worn, as if he’d spent the day on a galloping horse. He stepped away from the griffin and breathed heavily. Whelan and Flockheart landed nearby.

  “Thank you,” Whelan said to Flockheart. “I won’t forget your help.”

  Flockheart said, “How long should we wait?”

  “Two days, no more. If you see danger, flee. We’ll find our own way back if necessary. Hunt your griffins only at night. There might be wasps in the city.”

  Whelan grabbed a satchel from the saddle bags. He slung Soultrup over his shoulder, and buckled a smaller sword around Darik’s waist. “Let’s go.” Darik made to follow, staring at the smoke pouring from the city.

  Daria touched his arm to get his attention. “Be careful, Darik.”

  He turned belatedly. His worry about his sister and the city had overcome any other thoughts. “I will. Thank you.”

  They turned. Balsalom’s walls beckoned.

  Chapter XI

  KALLIA DECIDED THAT THE TIME had come to retake Balsalom the same day that Cragyn’s forces assaulted Montcrag. The dark wizard hadn’t left Balsalom undefended. On the contrary, he left hundreds of his best troops, giants, and several mammoths. What worried the khalifa, however, was the bombard. Mol Khah set it up on the west side of the city and spent the better part of a day testing it on the Tombs of the Kings.

  His men, most of them Veyrians, sweated as they assembled and loaded the bombard, and not from the heat. They feared the tombs and the wights they worried might hide in the crypts and catacombs hidden beneath the sand. Mol Khah brought Kallia to the tombs to watch the destruction. She was not afraid of the
dead kings.

  Kallia remembered her tutor taking her to the tombs as a child. “Foolishness,” Gustau had told her all those years ago when she asked why the tombs had been built. They’d ridden atop sedan chairs carried by slaves, but even the modest effort of walking amongst the tombs had soaked Gustau’s robes with sweat. Perhaps if he’d eaten less and walked more, he wouldn’t have found the trip so arduous.

  “What do you mean, foolishness?” she had asked.

  “The kings tried to hide from the Harvester. They built towers and mastabas and wrapped them in spells, made traps and secret passageways for their spirits to escape while the Harvester slept. And should they be discovered, they buried themselves with treasure to bribe their freedom.” He snorted. “All the treasure did was attract grave robbers.”

  Kallia didn’t know whether Gustau knew what he was talking about or not. She suspected there was some truth to it, but certainly that wasn’t the entire story. The tombs had captured her imagination in any event. Remnants of the old city. The vast expense of the tombs hinted at wealth rivaling the khalifates.

  And now, Mol Khah showed off his new toy by destroying these tombs. The siege weapon—Cragyn’s Hammer, the pasha called it—took several hours to assemble. It consisted of two thirty-foot iron troughs, bound together with iron hoops. Half a dozen giants and twenty men hoisted the upper half of the weapon onto the lower half. Two blacksmiths heated the hoops to expand them, then slipped them around the troughs and doused them with water. When finished, the weapon looked nothing more than an enormous iron pipe sitting on a carriage, the cart also built on the site.

  “So what is it?” she asked.

  Mol Khah smiled in that wolfish way of his. “Watch and you’ll find out.”

  Men busied themselves about the front end of the weapon, but she stopped paying attention. Her father once had a man at court who spent years building a massive ballista that could fire arrows powerful enough to cut through three men. It could hurl its missile over a city wall. But it proved difficult to load, prone to break-downs, and thus of limited effectiveness. Yes, several of these might do damage to massed troops, but in most cases massed troops didn’t line up for the two or three days necessary to put the ballistas together.