Angus Wells - The God Wars 03

by Wild Magic (v1. 1)

  What the rest saw was a manifestation of starlight, of moon's glow, the coruscating essence of a god bound in sparkling shadow and dancing radiance, elemental matter shaped in form of a man, save for the great jet horsehead, the eyes alight with benevolent fire.

  Horul reached out one hand to touch Calandryll's shoulder, unnoticed.

  Life you gave us, that Tharn should have taken. A service well worthy of reward, that. And so a life in return, in gratitude, in my name and those of all my kin.

  Gravely, the god nodded, mane of night and stars shifting, fluttering proud. The hand left Calandryll's shoulder, the smoldering eyes surveyed the chamber, and then Horul was gone on a silent wind.

  Calandryll did not see the god, neither heard him speak, but he felt flow into him and through him a tremendous power. Not that strength that had invested him as he fought with Rhythamun, though it was akin to that, but something greater: the very power of life. He felt it blaze, fiery, down the roadways of his being, his heart become the engine that drove lungs become a furnace that pushed the power out, past his lips, into Cennaire. Into her mouth, her throat, her veins, her heart, filling her. He felt her lips grow warm and move against his, her arms rise to encircle him, clutching him. He felt her ribs rise, and fall again, breath sweetly stifled against his mouth. He pulled back, gazing into eyes no longer lusterless, but shining, vital; alive. He shouted laughter and pulled her to him anew.

  In time they drew apart, and by then the assembly was recovered enough from the shock of Horul's manifestation that Katya had thought to ask a gown be brought. Cennaire drew it on, suddenly demure, her eyes ablaze with wonder.

  "I thought," she said softly, weak as yet, resting in the curve of Calandryll's arm, "that I was lost. I felt . . . nothing. Dead."

  "You live," Calandryll returned her, his mouth against her glossy hair. "Praise all the gods, you live."

  "And I am entire? Myself again?"

  "Aye," he answered her. "Your heart is once more yours. Yours alone."

  "I think not." A hint of coquetry entered her voice. "For it's a new owner now."

  "And mine," he said, "is yours. For so long as you'd have it."

  "That," she told him earnestly, smiling, "shall be a very long time. Indeed, for all my life."

  Across the chamber Bracht said, "Ahrd, but I sicken at all this sweetling talk. Do we find wine and celebrate in fitting manner?"

  But he was laughing as he said it, and an arm lay about Katya's shoulders, and she drove an elbow against his ribs and said, herself laughing, "Better you take heed, Kern, for I'd hear the same from you ere long."

  Bracht exaggerated a frown of dismay at that, then shrugged and sighed, and said, "Calandryll, do you tutor me then? Lest I offend this woman I intend to wed."

  Calandryll answered him, "Willingly, though I suspect it shall be the hardest task we've yet faced."

  "Likely it shall," said Bracht, but Calandryll barely heard him, because he was kissing Cennaire again, and so did not see the Kern turn Katya's face up and follow suit in practice of his first lesson.

  THEY quit Anwar-teng under the indifferent gaze of a wintry sun. The ground was churned by the feet of the rebels, by the hooves of their horses, the wheels of their departing wagons, but the season froze it hard, and with spring's advent even those last memories of Tharn's madness should be forgotten. The wind blew clean and cold, devoid of the Mad God's charnel reek, fluttering the banners of their escort, a century of kotu-zen, Ochen riding with them as they went eastward, to Vanu. To the holy men of Katya's land, who should at last destroy the Arcanum, that none of Rhythamun's ilk, or Anomius's, again have chance to dream of dominion, to seek the resurrection of the Mad God. That the world be once more safe from chaos, and men go about their affairs under governance of the Younger Gods alone.

  They turned a moment in their saddles, hands raised in salute and farewell to the wazir-narimasu, the young Khan, and the Shendii, who stood by the gate, their presence token of the respect accorded the questers, and then looked only forward, to the future.

  "Shall you be wed in Vanu?" Calandryll asked Katya.

  She looked to Bracht and her smile was glorious as she answered, "Does this Kern still want me, aye."

  Bracht said, "I've wanted you since first I saw you. Ahrd, but I knew not I'd such patience."

  Katya laughed long, reaching out to take his hand, and asked, "And you? Shall you two wed?"

  "It's my wish," said Calandryll solemnly.

  "And mine," said Cennaire, meeting his earnest gaze with a smile.

  He was surprised as he realized he had never seen her blush before. He thought that tomorrow, and all their tomorrows, should be joyous.

  About the Author

  ANGUS WELLS was born in a small village in Kent, England. He has worked as a publicist and as a science fiction and fantasy editor. He now writes fulltime and is the author of The Books of the Kingdoms (The Wrath of Ashar, The Usurper, The Way Beneath) and The Godwars (Forbidden Magic, Dark Magic, Wild Magic). His next novel will be a single volume fantasy called Lords of the Sky. He lives with his two dogs, Elmore and Sam, in Nottinghamshire, where he is at work on a new novel for Bantam Spectra.

  LORDS OF THE SKY

  The upcoming fantasy novel

  by Angus Wells

  Lords of the Sky tells the story of a conflict that brings together two peoples in a clash of cultures and magics over the one land they both call their home. The tale begins, however, with a small boy in an obscure fishing village. From his perspective as an old man, worn by life and much wiser for the wear, Daviot begins his story: how his feet were set upon the path that would ultimately make him Mnemonikos—one who remembers the history of his people—and how that path was an integral part of the upheaval that would reshape the only world he knows.

  I was a fisher child. I played on the sand, amongst the beached boats and the black pines. I hoarded shells and bird's eggs. When the brille swarmed, I waded in, knee- deep, to haul the nets. I swung a sling and pulled girls' hair; fought with other boys: I was a child like other children. On the cliff above the village I had a camp, a secret place: a fortress as great as Gahan's keep,* a bastion from which I and Tellurin, and Corum defended Whitefish village against-^the Kho'rabi. Sometimes I was a Kho'rabi knight, and'With my bark-peeled blade wrought slaughter on my friends, though I always liked it better when I had the part of noble Gahan's man—a commur, or a jennym, even a pyke—for then I felt, with all the intensity of childhood's fierce emotions, that I fought for Kellambek, to hold off those invaders the Sentinels could not prevent from crossing the Fend.

  What did I know then of the Comings?

  Little enough: to me, the Kho'rabi knights, the kingdom of Ahn-feshang, they were legends. When I was very

  young my mother used to tell me that should I disobey her, a Kho'rabi knight should come and take my head. I spent some small time cowering beneath my blanket at that, but as I grew older, sneered. Kho'rabi knights, what were they to me? Creatures of legend, of no more account than the fabled dragons of the Forgotten Country, who had gone away before even my grandfather was born.

  But then, in my twelfth year, I saw the Sky Lords.

  I did not clearly understand it at the time, save that all the village mantis had preached, and all that Thorns and my parents had told me, became amalgamated in one instant of inchoate terror, as though the nightmares of infancy took form from shadow and became real: the thing that dwells beneath your bed emerging, physical, fanged and horrible.

  It was the end of summer. The sky was cobalt blue, the sun a sullen eye that challenged observation. There were no clouds, and the sea was still, unrippled. I was on the sand, passing my father the tools he needed to sew gashes in his nets. Battus and Thorus worked with him on the skein.

  Thorus was the first to see it, dropping his needle as he sprang to his feet, shouting. My father and my uncle were no slower upright, the net forgotten on the warm sand. I followed them, staring to where they pointed,
not sure what it was they pointed at, or what set such fear in their eyes. I knew only that my father, who was afraid of nothing—not tides or storms, I thought then—was afraid. Battus shouted and ran from the beach, and I felt their fear, like the waft of sour sweat, or a drunkard's breath.

  I remember that Thorus said, "They come-^gain," and , my father answered, "It is not the time," and'then told ~ me to run homeward, to tell my mother that the Sky Lords came, and she would know what to do. I suppose, in reflection, that he assumed Battus would warn the mantis, and he send someone north to the Holding, that the aeldor be warned.

  In any event, I was sent from the beach as all the men not at sea gathered, staring skyward, and I lingered a moment, wondering what held them so rigid, like old statues.

  Against the knife-sharp brilliance of the sky I saw a shape. It seemed, in that moment, like a maggot, a bloated grub taken up by the hot late-summer wind, a speck against the eye-watering azure, that drifted steadily toward me.

  I wondered why it promoted such consternation.

  Then my father, knowing me, shouted, and I ran to our cottage and yelled at my mother that the Sky Lords were coming.

  I think that then, for the first time, I truly knew what terror they induced.

  Tonium and Delia fashioned castles from the dirt of our yard. My mother screamed at them, bringing them tearful to her arms, she so distraught she found only brief, hurried words t6 calm their wailing as she gathered them up. The bell hung above the cella began to sound, its clanging soon augmented by a great shouting from all the women, and the old men, and the howling of confused and frightened children. My mother snatched Delia's and Tonium's hands in hers, shouted at me to follow, and drew my siblings, trotting, away from the house towards the cella. The mantis stood atop the dome. I remember that the sinews in his fat arms stood out like cords from the effort of his bell-ringing, and that his plump face, usually set in a smile, was grim, his head craned round to peer at the shape approaching across the sky. All around me I heard the single word: Kho'rabi, said in tones of awe and terror. I wondered why, for the thing in the sky was as yet very small, no larger than the shapes of the sea gulls that were the only other things to break the blue. I watched as the mantis gathered up the skirts of his robe and slid ungainly down the sloping side of the dome. Robus, who owned the only horse in Whitefish village waited nervously. I saw that he had belted an ancient sword to his waist; and that all the men, and not a few of the women, carried weapons of one kind or another: fish knives, axes, mattocks. The mantis spoke urgently with Robus and though I could not hear what was said, I perceived it had a great effect on Robus, for he dragged himself astride his old horse and slapped the grey flanks with his blade, sending the animal into a startled, lumbering trot out of the village in the direction of the Cambar road. Then the mantis shouted that all should follow him, and led the way to the cliff path, up through the pines to the fields beyond, where a track wound by drystone walls to a wood where caves ran down into the earth.

  In the confusion I became separated from my mother, and as I watched the worried faces of those who passed me, wondering why so many cheeks shone with tears, I succumbed to childhood's temptation.

  I was afraid: how should I not be? I was but twelve years old, and all around me were folk I knew as calm neighbors and friends,- and now all wore the same expression, masked with fear and desperation. I was afraid, but I was also intrigued, fascinated to know the why of it. As I ducked clear of the throng, I saw the last of the villagers go by, five grandfathers in rear guard, clutching old swords and flensing poles. They were so anxious they failed to spot me where I crouched beside a wall, and in moments a cloud of dust, raised by hurried feet, hung betwixt me and them. With the unthinking valiance of innocent youth, I turned back toward Whitefish village.

  My father was there, and Thorus, and I wondered what they did, and why the shape in the sky produced such fear.

  Oh, I had heard tales by then of the Kho'rabi knights, of the Sky Lords. I had listened to Thorus tell of how he had been a pyke, wielding his blade in the last Coming, when two airboats landed. But Thorus was old, and all we children knew that the Sky Lords came but when the shifting of the worldwinds and the waxing power of their mages allowed, and that was more time than I could then conceive of. It was a matter of lifetimes, I thought then. And so, quickly, my fear became laid over with curiosity, and I watched the dust cloud skirl away toward the wood, and turned back toward the village.

  I knew my mother would be angry when she found me gone, but I dismissed that concern and ran back to the cliff path.

  I halted among the pines, where they edged and then fell down over the slope, looking first at the village and then at the sky. The village was empty,- the beach was lined with men. The sky was still that steel-hot blue; the shape of the Sky Lords' boat was larger.

  I could discern its outline now: a cylinder of red, the color of blood; the carrier beneath was a shadow sparkling with glints of silver as the sun struck the blades of the warriors there. I wondered how it had come up so fast, unaware, then, of the occult powers that drove it across the sky. I watched it awhile, my eyes watering in the sun glare. I looked back and thought perhaps I should have done better to go after my mother and find the safety of the wood, where the ancient crypts ran down into the earth.

  Instead, I ran down to the village, through the emptied houses to the beach, to my father.

  He did not see me at first, for his face was locked on the sky, etched over with shadows of disbelief. He stood with a flensing pole held across his chest, high, the curved blade striking brilliance from the sun. It was not the manner in which a flensing pole was normally held and it was a moment before I recognized that this was how I had seen the poles clutched when men argued, and threatened to fight. Thorus stood beside him, and in his mottled hand was a sword, not rusted like Robus's old blade, but bright with oil, darker along the edges, where the whetstone had shaped cutting grooves. It was a blade such as soldiers carried, and for a moment I stared and lusted after such a weapon.

  I suppose I must have made a sound. Perhaps that of foot on sand, or a cry of admiration, for my father turned and saw me, Thorus with him, though their faces bore very different expressions.

  My father's was angry; Thorus's amused. I felt a fear greater than anything a Kho'rabi knight might induce at the one,- pleasure at the other.

  My father said, "What in the God's name are you doing here?"

  Thorus said, "You breed warriors, Aditus."

  I remember that very surely.

  I would likely have run away then, back through the village and up the cliff path, across the fields to the wood, far more afraid of the look gouged over my father's face than of any Kho'rabi knight. But Thorus said, "Blood runs true, friend," to my father,- and to me, "Best find yourself a blade if you stand with us, Daviot."

  My father said, "God's name, man, he's only a boy," but I was swelled with pride and honor and found a discarded net hook that I picked up for want of better weapon, and strode with all the majesty of twelve years' growth—and all its ignorance—to stand between them, and Thorus laughed and clapped me on the shoulder hard enough I tottered, and said, "Blood to blood, Aditus."

  My father's face remained dark, but then he grunted and nodded and said, "Likely they'll pass over. So, you can stay, boy. But on my word, you run for the caves. Yes!"

  I nodded, without any intention whatsoever of keeping my word: if the enlarging shape of the Sky Lords' boat dropped fylie of the Kho'rabi knights upon us, I planned to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow warriors. I planned to die gloriously in defense of Whitefish village, in defense of Kellambek.

  I was a man then: I am older now, and wiser.

  I watched the ship grow larger, my hands tight on my hook. It came up faster than any natural wind might propel it. I saw that the blood-red cylinder was all painted with occult sigils, and that the long basket beneath was spread with more. I saw the glimmer of the magic that drove
it, trailing back from the pointed tail like heat haze against the sky, like the shifting translucence of fire's glow. The sea gulls that were a constant punctuation of the sky fled before it, and I suddenly realized that the cats that prowled the shoreline were also gone,- likewise the handful of dogs our village boasted. That seemed very strange to me—the absence of such familiar things—and I glanced around, my valor threatened. I saw that my father's knuckles bulged white from his tanned hands, and that Thorus's lips were spread back from clenched teeth in a kind of snarl. I realized then that a terrible silence had fallen, as if this unexpected Coming drove stillness before it, or the presence of the Sky Lords absorbed sound. No one moved. I stared in shared dread, feeling the shadow of the boat fall over me, which it should not have done, for the sun westered and that shadow should not—nor could—have reached us yet.

  But it did, and I trembled, for all my youthful bravery, in its cold. My father did the same, though he sought to hide it from me, looking down at me and smiling. I thought his smile was like the grin I had seen on the faces of drowned men.

  Then the great shape was directly above us. I stood, trembling, cold weight heavy on my head and shoulders, the sand no longer warm under my feet. I craned my head back, seeing that the airboat hung high above us, though it darkened all the village, and where it rode the sky, strange stars and prancing shapes showed through the blue, as if elementals sported there.

  Some arrows fell, unflighted by the height, and fired, I think, in amusement; a fisherman named Vadim even caught one in his hand, that feat producing a shout of encouragement from all the rest.

  And then the ship was gone, passed beyond the cliff and out of sight.

  It was both disappointment and relief to me: I had anticipated glorious battle,* I was also glad that horrible weight was passed. I enjoyed the way my father held my one shoulder, Thorus my other, and both told me I had played my part, even as men went running to the cliff, to follow the ship's passage.