The riverboats scraped against sand in the darkness beneath the city of Athrom. A winding staircase, wide and older perhaps than the river, led up into the inky silence. The Ploughman stood at the base of the stairs while his little army left their ships and assembled behind him, lanterns in their hands. His heart had beaten strong as the river while the boats traveled south, but now, facing up a passageway that seemed to lead through the ages, it quailed. Surely he only imagined the foreboding presence he felt in the dark.
A low voice at his shoulder said, “The men are assembled, my lord.”
The Ploughman turned his head and nodded. “Thank you, Ytac.” He looked up the dark staircase and steeled himself, drew his sword and raised it high. The air whistled behind him as four hundred and fifty swords were held aloft. The men raised no battle cry. They were below Athrom now, and had no wish to alert the enemy of their coming.
The Ploughman took a step upward. The edge of the stair crumbled slightly. He heard the crunch of stone as his men followed him, wordlessly, step by step, higher and higher. In the darkness ahead, something moved.
Fragments of stone showered down on the step in front of the Ploughman. He stopped and held his sword ready. Listening.
More stone fragments tumbled over the steps with a sound like dry rain. An animal whine sounded through the passageway. The men stood frozen. Not one said a word. The Ploughman stood alone at their head and stared into the unknown.
There was a movement at his elbow, and a man slunk forward, stepping ahead of the Ploughman. With a shock, the Ploughman recognized Asa’s lanky form. The strange man cast amber eyes on the Ploughman and whispered, “Be pleased, mighty leader, that I am with you. You do not know what awaits beneath Athrom. I do.”
Asa looked into the darkness, his eyes a slit. “Come now,” he said in a high, cajoling voice. “We know you’re there.”
In answer came a crack like thunder or the beat of enormous wings, and the darkness was lit by a burst of flame that revealed a terrifying visage of red scales and white eyes, teeth, claws, and wings.
“A dragon,” the Ploughman whispered.
Pebbles rained down as the dragon moved into the lantern light. Its front legs, clawed and terrible, rested on a step not twelve feet from the Ploughman. Its long body disappeared in the darkness. It opened its mouth and hissed. The inside of its mouth was the burnt red and orange of a furnace. Its teeth were long and sharp.
Before the Ploughman or Asa could move, one of the men shouted and let an arrow fly. It bounced off the dragon’s neck. The creature’s head snapped forward, and the Ploughman leaped backwards down the stairs while arrows and spears whistled around him and clattered off the dragon’s scales onto the stone. Asa stood his ground, daring the dragon to come near him.
The Ploughman grabbed a spear from the hand of one of his men and let it fly. The dragon turned its head an instant before the spear would have pierced its eye. Asa turned his head, looking at the Ploughman and his soldiers. “Fools!” he cried. “You cannot destroy it! The beast is too great for you!”
A young Darkworlder sprinted forward, sword held high, aiming for the creature’s throat. “For the Majesty!” he cried. In an instant his cry died along with him. The dragon snapped its jaws around his body and flung him through the air. The young man’s sword flew, and Asa caught it. He held it high, letting out a strange battle cry, high and unearthly. The men watched in horror as the dragon loosed a stream of flame that caught Asa in mid-stride and engulfed him. They could see his body, black in the midst of the fire, and they heard him scream.
Yet he did not fall.
The dragon drew back its head. Asa still stood before it, still engulfed in flame. His skin shone bright amber and seemed to fall away. Beneath it appeared a new skin, the colour of the sun. Asa’s eyes glowed a deep crimson. The men stepped back, awed and terrified, as Asa shed his form as a snake sheds his skin. He stood before them as something older and greater and more terrible than man.
Asa raised his fist and shouted. He threw himself up, into the air, and flew for the dragon’s neck. Into a soft spot at the base of its skull Asa drove his sword, and the dragon screamed and writhed. It shook Asa from his place. Smoke and fire filled the stairway, blinding the Ploughman and his men, but they thought they heard the snap of jaws and saw the flash of teeth. And then a wind blew past them, leaving an impression of amber in their minds.
The smoke thinned and the fire ceased to burn. The Ploughman stepped cautiously forward. The dragon was dead.
“My lord,” Caasi said.
The Ploughman turned. Caasi stood two steps back, over the body of the man they had called Asa.
“We will take him home for burial,” Caasi said, his voice tight.
“Yes,” the Ploughman said. They would bury Asa. But the Ploughman knew—they all knew—that a being called Undred the Undecided yet lived, and he would not be buried with Asa’s body.
The men followed the Ploughman onto the body of the dragon. They clambered over its long tail and glistening red scales, up toward the city of Athrom.
* * *
Thick black clouds rolled over the city of Athrom, and a wicked streak of blue lightning snaked across the sky. Cold rain began to fall on the city. In the coliseum, the Gypsies shivered.
Marja tightened her arms around the shoulders of a toothless old woman and looked up at the gathering blackness. “Hurry, Nicolas,” she whispered.
* * *
The High Police stood in long rows beneath the shadow of the Emperor’s Palace. Lucien Morel himself inspected their ranks. They stood tall and strong, faces implacable beneath the grey onslaught of rain.
The Emperor’s voice was strained in his own ears. “On my orders you rid the world of an ancient pestilence,” he said. He grimaced, but beneath his distaste, exultation held quiet sway. This would rid him of the haunting. The one who had tormented him—who had appeared in his court that very day, at last revealing himself—would never come again.
Behind the dull eyes of the soldiers, thoughts flashed. There is nothing honourable in killing captives.
“They have overrun the world for centuries, spreading sedition as rats spread filth.”
Nothing right in slaughtering Gypsies.
“You cannot show pity.”
Nothing good in murdering Gypsies.
“You have laboured and died to bring them here. Do not shrink from finishing what you have started. It is an honour to serve your Emperor in whatever he may ask.” Morel hesitated, then strengthened his voice. “Finish it before the sun rises! Salute me!”
Dead eyes turned to regard their emperor. We who have lost our souls—salute you.
Thunder clapped as a thousand black-gloved hands snapped in a salute. Two thousand dull grey eyes followed their Emperor as he returned to his palace. One thousand hands tightened around one thousand spears.
The night was still young.
Lucien Morel, Lord of the Seventh World, stopped in the shadowed gateway of the palace. His bodyguards waited a respectful distance behind. Morel turned eyes full of hate on a dark figure in the doorway, a man in black who stood with a fainting girl behind him.
“They will march on the coliseum, as you have desired,” the Emperor said. His little finger twitched sharply.
“It is good,” hissed the Nameless One.
“It is good if it earns me your promise,” the Emperor said. “I will not see you again?”
The Nameless One smiled. He tightened his grip on Miracle’s wrist. “After tonight,” he said, “I will never bother with you again.”
* * *
Nicolas stepped beyond the fringe of black vegetation, and the river bed disappeared. He stood in a flat plain. The black earth was soft under his feet. He looked out on an endless horizon: a dry ocean.
He swallowed. The air in his throat and in his nostrils was hot and scorched, though his heart was still leaping from his encounter with the King. His feet sank in the soft black earth, and th
e sand burned as though it had been years too long under the sun. He pulled out one foot and then the other, sinking as he walked and then pulling himself back out.
He looked up and saw a familiar ship on the black ocean. His heart jumped in his throat. He said the word before he had time to think: “Father!” But he blinked, and the ship was gone. Tears stung his eyes. The voice called again. Hurry! Set me free!
He nearly tripped over a sword. It was half-buried in the sand, only its sooty hilt visible. He took it and pulled it free of the earth. It was a beautiful sword, finely made and perfectly balanced. The hilt where his fingers rubbed away the soot was gold and marked with the sign of a seven-starred crown.
As he made out the symbol, Nicolas thought he heard voices. Ancient voices, crying ancient battle cries.
And then there was nothing.
Nicolas held the sword in both hands reverently. He looked up at the orange horizon. It seemed to pull him toward the vast expanse before him. Filled with a sense of terrible significance, he reached the edge of the sea-that-was-not.
She was there. The captive River-Daughter.
She lay at the place where the river should have emptied into the sea; where, on the other side of the Veil, it did. She was asleep.
In wonder, Nicolas fell to his knees before her. He still held the sword in his hands. “Wake up,” he whispered. He hardly understood the emotions filling him now. If he tried to speak any louder than a whisper, he would not be able to go on. Sorrow, ancient sorrow and fear for the future, would choke him. “Wake up, please.”
She did not stir.
He had never seen anyone like her. Her skin was blue-pale and her hair deep gold, and even in the dryness and the stillness she seemed to flow. Her hair, her dress—green and blue, pink and sun-sparkled—her fingers, and everything about her was fluid. Hers was beauty that did not belong to the human race, that did not belong to anything but the rivers and the seas.
But she was still sleeping. He had come for her, but he could not wake her.
He knelt in the black sand with the old sword balanced across his knees. His shoulders bowed, and his head fell. He closed his eyes.
Stillness.
The world had never been so still. So still and so silent. And in him, fire still burned.
Up from the stillness the song arose. Nicolas sang it softly. The notes were uncertain. He was not a singer. He whispered the words. But they came.
He sang the Father-Song, Lover-Song, Fire-Song. The Song of the Burning Light.
And when he was done, he opened his eyes and she was looking into them. Her eyes were no colour he could describe: they were the crystal of the clearest stream. She did not smile at him. The expression on her face was a deep pool under dark pines in the farthest north—still, solemn, and ancient.
She spoke. He knew the voice already. It rippled and flowed, a dozen little swirls running up and down in the current of her speech. “There is work to be done,” she said.
The voices of the Veil cried out in pain when Nicolas and the River-Daughter passed through to the other side, but there was peace and a blessing in the pain. Nicolas carried the old sword with him, brandishing it like a warrior.
He meant to use it.
* * *
The lookouts, perched high on the wall of the coliseum, saw the soldiers first. They shouted warnings, wailing in fear and hopelessness as the soldiers marched. On the floor of the great prison, old women and children picked up the wail. Through their own cries, they heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of boots and the jangle of swords.
For a few minutes Marja tried to comfort the old woman who rocked and moaned in fear, but her efforts were more than useless. She stood, brushed off her skirt, and began to move through the crowds of her people to the coliseum gates. She went to meet the death of the Wandering Race with courage. Those who watched her go whispered with admiration.
She had never felt more alone.
A hand touched her arm, and she whirled around. “Wait for him,” Caspin the Cripple said. “Hide in the crowds. Live as long as you can. Maybe he will get you out.”
“Not alone,” Marja said. “We live together—all of us—or we die together.”
“Child of the Sky,” Caspin whispered. “You cannot save us.”
“Come with me,” Marja said. “Come and meet our enemies boldly.”
“A bold cripple and a brave woman,” Caspin said. “What a pair we make.” He tried to smile, but his face twisted with grief. He nodded his head too quickly and began to hobble ahead.
The crowds of weeping Gypsies parted for Marja and Caspin the Cripple. Some ceased to weep as they passed and held their heads high instead.
At last Marja and Caspin stood between their people and the doors. They waited.
* * *
The Ploughman led his men forward, toward the place where Caasi’s maps promised they would find a way up. His mind went over their plans again: wait for the night. Ascend in silence. Take the coliseum guards when they do not expect it; spirit the Gypsies out. Battle—he steeled his jaw. They would fight if every other choice was lost to them. But he knew well enough the odds of their winning.
Another step forward, and the Ploughman stopped. His heart pounded—expanded, swelled to the presence of something else in the darkness. Something good, this time.
Something golden.
With a sound like falling sand, a bright light appeared in the corridor before him, shaping itself into a giant on horseback. The Ploughman smiled at the gasps behind him; they all saw it. But his smile faded quickly. The horsemen appeared for war, and the Ploughman did not want to go into battle now.
“Are you ready?” the Rider asked. “It is time to go above.”
“Here?” the Ploughman asked.
“They need you now,” the Rider answered. “Prepare yourselves for battle.”
* * *
The High Police approached the coliseum in a long column, the foremost of them falling beneath its shadow. Great wooden doors barred the way before them.
They halted.
A muscle twitched in the jaw of their commander, but he hardened his face and raised his sword. When he brought its tip down to face the door, all would be over for the Gypsies.
He hated the word massacre.
But then, he had never liked the Gypsies.
He brought his sword down, and the ground erupted before him. The High Police fell back before the thrashing hooves of a horse, dazzling white and shining like the sun, half as tall as the doors of the coliseum when it reared on its hind legs.
On the horse’s back sat a great golden warrior. Bronze eyes looked down on the High Police, who stood frozen in shock and fear.
The Rider raised his fist and said, “Let the battle begin.”
In a moment the Rider was gone, but the fissure he had opened in the ground was crawling with men. Farmer-soldiers and Gypsy men rushed from the earth alongside pale, hairless warriors whose battle cries shook the air.
“Darkworld!”
“The Majesty!”
The Ploughman led his rebels as they charged the ranks of the High Police, shouting, “For Pravik!”
“The King and Pravik!”
“The King!”
Two armies, both small and unprepared for battle, clashed before the gates. The noise of their meeting carried over the walls.
“What is it?” breathed Marja.
“It can’t be…” said Caspin.
“Nicolas,” Marja breathed. “Hurry.”
* * *
“They come out of the ground,” the soldier said. “Their battle cry is Pravik. Forgive me, your excellency. They are slaughtering your men.”
“How can they have come here?” the Emperor demanded. He bit the nail from his little finger and spat it on the tiles of the floor. “Call out every soldier in Athrom. We will destroy them. From this day forward there is no rebellion in Pravik!”
Lucien Morel strode out of the throne room and turned on a si
ckly shadow in the hall. “What of your plans now?” the Emperor snapped. “Get out of my sight. You have brought this upon me!”
The Nameless One drew himself up. “You do not know who you are talking to,” he said.
“I know what I am talking to,” the Emperor answered. “I am talking to a dead man.”
Lucien Morel stalked away, and the Nameless One whirled on Miracle. She leaned against the wall behind him, pale and worn. He had stolen too much life from her already—taken it from her as a spider drains its prey. They had fallen through Covenant Fire, and its effect made her too weak to fight him.
“Heal me,” he shrieked.
She met his eyes and did not look away. She said nothing.
“It does not matter,” he said. “I will be healed. The sacrifice will bring the Blackness into the world, and I will be found within its shades. I am immortal!”
Her strength began to drain from her again. She fought to remain conscious. His voice rang in her ears even as darkness darted through her eyes. “I will make the sacrifice myself. I will drink death as the Blackness drinks it. I will live…”
Lucien Morel, Lord of the Seventh World, did not hear the Nameless One. He threw a purple cloak over his shoulders as he rushed down the hall, calling for his attendants. “Make my coach ready,” he commanded. “I must leave Athrom.”
Morel’s men scrambled to obey as their emperor stood and looked out on the city. He could see and hear the upheaval of battle around the coliseum. His finger twitched. He breathed short, nervous breaths. They were here. The rebels were here. Perhaps they would win, and the Gypsies in the coliseum would come for revenge. But no, they couldn’t win. He was sending out his army. The whole army of High Police would destroy the Pravik rebels forever.
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