by Alison Baird
In the front row, close to the curtain so that the court might at least have an idea of her beauty, sat the king’s current favorite, a slender fourteen-year-old beauty named Jemina, with her personal slave at her side. Mandrake recognized the latter as Princess Marjana, daughter of the deposed king of Shurkana. She sat quietly, her eyes downcast, a slave collar around her neck. No doubt it pleased Khalazar to humiliate a royal princess so.
“Let it be known,” Khalazar’s voice boomed, “that Khalazar of Zimboura is the true and only God-king. In our royal person all prophecies are fulfilled: at our command genii and spirits of the Night appear”—gesturing to Mandrake and Roglug—“and at our bidding were we raised up on high, where all the secrets of the heavens were revealed to us. We did look upon the celestial body that is called the Morning Star, and beheld within its shining sphere a fair country, a veritable paradise rich in grain and timber, gold and gems, where the wild beasts are so tame that one might walk up to them and slay them with ease. As for the cities—never have I beheld such splendor, nor such iniquity. But the wickedness of the people of that world is as nothing next to that of their ruler. For this paradise of which I speak is ruled by that evil enchantress, the Tryna Lia, daughter of the Queen of Night.” The God-king turned his attention to the main dish: a roasted peacock, elaborately arrayed in its feathered skin. Mandrake watched with distaste as Khalazar’s fat beringed hands tore away the shell of plumage and rent the bird’s carcass limb from limb. “But she shall not reign for long. Many genii and beings of great power stand ready to do our bidding. By their aid shall the witch-princess be cast down, and the riches of her sphere be given into our hands. Our armies shall enter the world of Arainia, with the aid of the chief genie of Azar—aye, even that planet whose name I bear, so you see in this the workings of fate! Azar is a rival to Arainia, and with her aid shall the cities of the Morning Star be smitten, her people slain, her ruler laid low. On that day there will be divided among our people such spoil as has never before been seen! Gold and gems, cattle and slaves, rich lands with all their yield shall be Zimboura’s! I shall drive out this Tryna Lia, even as the burning sun drives away the stars of night!” He gestured to the royal crest above his chair, the golden face within a sunburst, and smote his chest with a greasy fist. “Behold us: we are the Avatar and Voice of God, the Immortal One, Valdur incarnate.”
Another faint leaf-murmur ran through the court. Had not Zedekara, and others before him, made similar claims in their time? Mandrake glanced toward the high windows of the hall and concentrated. There came a collective gasp from the courtiers as a lighting bolt cracked over the battlements like a whip, so close that its glaring blue light and the ear-sundering sound were nearly simultaneous. Shouts and cries came from people in the street far below, for the sky above the battlements was clear and cloudless.
The courtiers cowered, their fear palpable as a stench of smoke. Khalazar stood somewhat shakily, regaining his composure. “You see! It is a sign. Let heralds be sent out to every quarter of the city, and to all the lands that we have conquered. Let them tell of the wonders we have wrought. Tell them that the true God-king has come! First I shall crush Maurainia and all the Commonwealth. Then when all this world is yielded to me, I shall reach into the heavens to take Arainia! The banner of the Black Star shall fly over her lands!”
The heralds would hardly be needed, Mandrake reflected as he listened to the commotion in the street below. Peasants and courtiers would spread this tale. Traders’ caravans would carry word of the “sign” to all adjacent lands, and Commonwealth spies would inform the western monarch of what had taken place here. Three thousand years ago in Maurainia a lone thunderbolt had inspired a goatherd to become a prophet, and created a faith that had swept the world like flame. Who could say what his own sky-bolt might accomplish in time for this grim despot and his ravenous hordes?
Now, Ailia, he thought. What will you do? Remain in Arainia in safety—or come to the aid of a world that once you called your home?
“CHARGE!” JOMAR BELLOWED, holding his sword blade out in front of him as he spurred his warhorse’s flanks.
With an answering roar his army plunged yelling over the stony ridge. There were hundreds of the enemy in the desert below, rank upon rank of spear-wielding foot soldiers backed by chariots and cavalry: the setting sun glowed red upon spearheads and unsheathed swords, as though the weapons were already stained with blood. But not one of Jomar’s men faltered. Straight into the fray they pressed, swords and spears flashing. The air rang with the sounds of sword on shield, of yells and death-cries, of horses neighing in terror.
Jomar rode his horse apart from the battle, watching intently for several minutes. Then he raised an arm. “Enough! Stop!” he shouted.
A robed Nemerei on a nearby ridge raised his own hand in acknowledgment. At once the enemy soldiers vanished like a mirage into the desert, their armored forms thinning and fading on the air. Only Jomar’s men remained. They looked at him, anxious and expectant.
“Better,” said Jomar, and with this succinct appraisal he swung himself down from the saddle.
With these Arainian men, volunteers all, he had traveled to this dry and barren region of the inner continent that somewhat resembled the deserts of Zimboura, in order to train them as an invading force. The people of Eldimia, filled with alarm after Ailia’s seeming oracular fit, wanted her to lead the army as foretold, but this her father and guardians would not permit. There had been some whispers that Ailia had feigned the “fit” in order to take command of her prophesied army, and though most ignored the accusations, it would not look well for her to have anything to do with it. As for the men, they had learned to tolerate the heat and arduous terrain, and Jomar’s pessimistic prediction that most of them would leave within a fortnight had not come to pass. “They may not know much about fighting,” he admitted to Damion as the two of them climbed back up the ridge, “but they’ve got spirit, I’ll give them that. Lothar!” he bellowed, halting and placing his fists on his hips. “What’s wrong with you?”
A young Elei knight jumped up guiltily from the boulder on which he had been sitting. “Please, sir, I’m dead, sir.”
Jomar was annoyed. “Again? How many times is it this week?”
“Six, sir.”
“And what happened this time?”
“Took a spear in the eye, sir. Fatal wound.”
“Getting killed once might be an accident. Dying six times means you’re too reckless. In a battle you’re supposed to try not to get killed. Whatever it is you’re doing, don’t do it again.”
“Yes, sir. I mean no, sir.”
Not far away some new knights in training were practicing swordplay, moving with such a grace that they seemed to be dancing rather than fighting, even with the weights Jomar had made them strap to their legs to simulate the stronger pull of Mera’s gravity. Lorelyn was with them. She fought like a mongoose battling a cobra, he thought—prancing around her opponent, darting in, darting out; inducing him to lunge at her and then dodging swiftly so that he went too far and lost his center of balance. She was turning his superior strength and weight against him, using techniques she had learned in—of all places—the Kaanish monastery where she was raised. The Kaan people, small in stature compared to the other races, had perfected a form of fighting that enabled them to take on larger and heavier adversaries. Byn-jara depended more on speed and agility than brute strength and was based on the movements of wild animals, birds, and wind-swayed reeds. Over time the Kaanish priests had also learned these movements, for when performed slowly and accompanied by meditation they served another purpose: to discipline body and spirit. Lorelyn had apparently made quite a study of Byn-jara when she lived with the Kaanish monks, and he had to admit that she was a better fighter for it. He cast his eye around the training field, observing the lithe armored bodies as they swung and clashed and parried. They were all good fighters, these earnest young people in their proud fighting gear.
But were they good enough? In Arainia the arts of war had become literal arts, like music or dance. Archers let fly their arrows at targets, not to train for killing, but in contests of skill. Swordplay was simply a sport, like fencing, and mock jousts a popular form of public entertainment. In the great Hippodrome of Mirimar, show horses were taught to rear and kick and leap sideways in a kind of graceful equine ballet; few recalled that these had originally been the battle moves of warhorses, designed to protect their riders from assailants in the field. It was almost as though the Arainians had deliberately sought over the centuries to transform violence into beauty.
All the skills of battle were present in this world, but when the time came, would Arainians be able to wound and slay their opponents? These young men had learned at last to “kill” the illusory assailants the Magi conjured for them, glaumerie warriors who made realistic yells, cries, and moans—but they still knew these to be only phantoms. Would they be as able to pass their swords through real bodies, strike living men?
He muttered, “They must have an instinct to kill, deep down. Perhaps not even so very deep. Scratch any man and you find a beast.”
Damion remembered a firedrake skull mocking him with its grinning teeth. A man might slay such a monster—but what of the monster within himself? “True enough,” he said, his tone grim. “But Jo, does it really matter whether they can kill? We’re still not to do any actual fighting, by order of the Council.”
“Forget the Council. The people are afraid and the Magi are studying ways to enter Mera. I’m not sending anyone there who can’t defend himself. Raimon!” Jomar shouted. “You’re getting careless again. Rynald doesn’t really mean to kill you, but someday you may meet someone who does.”
The dark-clad figure nodded, but did not answer or raise the visor of his helmet. “Raimon, stop that stupid play-acting and pay attention!” bellowed Jomar.
The knight put up his sword and turned, obediently doffing his helmet to reveal his mop of curly black hair and boyish face—indeed, Raimon of Lothain was little more than a boy. “Please, sir,” he said in tones of reproach, “I told you I wished to be known as the Unknown Knight.”
“I’ll knight him,” muttered Jomar under his breath as he stalked away. “On his backside with the flat of my sword. Young idiot!”
“How are those camel creatures coming along?” Damion asked as they walked along the top of the ridge. Jomar had discovered that a kind of hoofed beast known as the ypotryll lived in the Barrens, and that it was adept at surviving in the inhospitable environment, dromedary-fashion. They were large unwieldy creatures, with long necks, humped backs, and tapering serpentine tails. He had instructed Melnemeron to capture as many of them as possible and hand them over to animal-charming Nemerei. Training them was a slow process, however, for the beasts, though by no means savage, had a camel-like tendency toward stubbornness. They also had sharp tusks jutting from their lower jaws, which they used for piercing cactuslike desert plants to get at the stored water within, and they were not above biting people when in a cantankerous mood.
“The Nemerei tell me they’ve tamed a small herd,” Jomar told Damion. “We’ll take horses too, but ypotrylls will be more useful in the desert—which is what most of Zimboura is.” He felt a thrill of anticipation. How often had he dreamed as a boy of returning to the labor camp at the head of an army—setting everyone free, and driving off the Zimbourans? It had been a boy’s dream, founded on helplessness and fear: he had known this even as he dreamt it. But now Ailia had handed him a whole army of his own, and placed him at its head. General Jomar. It had quite a ring to it.
Lorelyn now came running up to him, her fair skin flushed with heat and victory. “Well?” she demanded.
“Well what?” he replied.
“Oh, come, Jo—you know! You’ve put me through much harder testing than anyone else here, and I’ve passed your tests again and again. So am I going to Mera with the others?”
“No.”
Her blue eyes blazed indignation at him. “Why not?”
“Because it’s too dangerous, that’s why not.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m a good fighter, Jo. You can’t deny that.”
“I don’t.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“The problem,” he growled, “is your attitude. You’re too enthusiastic about this, and that means you’re not taking it seriously enough.”
“Ailia said this was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission, not an attack.”
“That’s right: so we don’t need your fighting skills.”
“Well, then it’s not dangerous, so I can go.”
Arguments with Lorelyn always seemed to have the same circular shape. Jomar glared at her in exasperation. “You talk to her,” he grunted to Damion, and moved off along the ridge.
He gazed across the Barrens at the figures of fighting men. It was true that if they did go to Mera, it would only be to intimidate the God-king and his allies. But Jomar had no illusions about Khalazar or Mandrake obediently backing down. If only he could get at one or both of them, instead of having to slaughter their battalions of soldiers, many of whom were probably reluctant conscripts. In his youth Jomar had yearned to kill the Zimbouran king; when Zedekara was overthrown, he had shifted his hatred to the successor, Khalazar; now it was Mandrake who had become the chief threat. It seemed to him sometimes that there was but one enemy: some dark, lurking power that wore men’s bodies like masks, taking up another guise every time one was killed.
“We ought to fight, Damion,” he confided to his friend sometime later, when they stood watching the knights joust. He gestured to the mounted figures galloping at one another over the sere ground, raising clouds of reddish dust. “But they still aren’t ready, not really. Those Paladins and their knightly names: Rynald Iron-arm, and Lothar Lion’s-heart—all that rubbish! And Martan the Valiant—he’s the worst of the lot. He’s the kind that gets killed—the brave young warrior who asks to be put in the front line of battle, because he thinks it’s going to be all glory and honor like in the stories. He believes he’s indestructible—so he ends up getting slaughtered. I’ve seen it happen, time and time again.”
But the knights were good. Their years of training, in the Hippodrome and at the Paladins’ annual tournaments, had stood them in good stead. Several managed to unhorse all of their opponents, and young Martan was impressive—though Damion saw why Jomar was concerned about him. He took too many chances, and seemed too self-conscious. His young face under its pale halo of hair was more like a saint’s than a warrior’s. Raimon also acquitted himself well: he took a bad tumble early in the proceedings and had to be carried off ignominiously by the healers, but he reappeared later in the joust and managed to unseat the knight who had caused his fall.
Hope stirred in Damion’s heart as he watched. Perhaps, after all, the Arainians were not as helpless as they had seemed. But it remained to be seen whether they could hold their own against the fierce warriors of Zimboura should they ever meet in battle.
AILIA TUCKED HER FUR WRAP around her, shivering. The cold would take some getting used to: she had all but forgotten what it was like to feel chilled. She felt tired, too, but that was in part the height-sickness that she had been warned about when she arrived. She had not slept well since coming here and her breathing was quick and shallow, but she had so far escaped the headaches that plagued many sufferers of the sickness. The Nemerei must be used to these things, she thought, or else they had found ways to master them. She now wore a plain white robe like all the Nemerei, for at Melnemeron she had no special status. White, she had been told, was their chosen color because it reflected all the light it received: other colors returned only a part, and black kept all, giving nothing. The robe was not very warm. At least there were the furs—taken from the bodies of animals that had died a natural death, she knew, for no one was permitted to hunt an Arainian beast.
All around her reared mountains whose jagged c
rowns were twice as high as any mountain of Mera, and would whiten with snow only in winter. There were many waterfalls, misting down from such stupendous heights that they looked like columns of cloud. Here, too, were the haunts of many wild Arainian creatures. A bird that Ailia took at first for an eagle soared high above the snowy crests of the range, and only when it settled upon one peak with a flap of its vast wings did she realize its vast size. A roc! She had also spied many cat-a-mountains on the crags, their luxuriant mantles of mottled fur stretching from forepaw to hind paw. When they leaped from one stony perch to another these mantles spread out on the wind, as did those of the smaller flying squirrels of Mera, making the great cats look rather comically like airborne leopard skin rugs. There was very little sound up here, for the rumor of the lands below could not reach so high. It was as though the upward-climbing land drew silence from the sky. But now and then she heard a faint, hornlike note echo down from the stony peaks above. Up there, the Nemerei told her, lived a mute beast that sported on its head a single branching antler, with hollow open-ended tubes in place of prongs. When this creature stood in a mountain pass the wind flowing through these tubes made a music that served it in place of a voice.
Ailia was reminded of the summit of Elendor in Trynisia, although this high valley held only a small cluster of connected buildings rather than a city. The structures were of the same gray granite as the mountain peak, not built of quarried blocks but rather gouged straight out of the living rock, and so seemed still to be a part of it—as though wind and water, not human hands and tools, had formed their towers and walls and arching windows. Melnemeron was truly as old as the mountain itself. One gold-plated dome stood out, shining in the sun; the rest of the complex melded perfectly with its surroundings, seeming to vanish into the granite behind it. The dome, Ailia had learned, was an observatory. For millennia the Nemerei had come here to study the stars—not as a Meran astronomer or astrologer or navigator would, as natural phenomena or portents or points of reference, but rather as the features of a celestial realm, familiar to them as the surrounding landscape. So many more stars were visible in the skies of this world than in Mera’s, and here in the mountains the atmosphere was thinner still, affording excellent viewing. Many of the stars had worlds of their own, it was said, worlds to which Arainians of olden days once traveled—to which they might travel again, if today’s Nemerei could but find a way to unlock the gates of the Ether. Her gaze shifted to a neighboring pinnacle, jutting from the mountain’s side and divided from its summit by a plunging chasm. Atop it there stood a pair of gray stone statues: two dragons, each wound around a tall pillar. It was a spirit-gate, such as she had seen before in Mera. A slender stone bridge joined the pinnacle to the mountaintop.