by Allan Cole
"Absolutely not and forgive me if I gave you that impression, Holy One," Kalasariz hastened to say.
"However, you have asked my best advice. And it is my sad duty to say that my advice is for you to prepare for Rhodesa€™ and Clayre's failure."
Lottyr pealed chorused laughter, her six voices echoing so strongly that they resounded through Rhodesa€™ bones and the king kicked and swore in his sleep.
She waited until he rested again.
Then she said, "Know this, Kalasariz: when the dawn commences, it will be not one, but two battles Safar Timura and Iraj Protarus will have to fight."
And then she was gone. There was not even a flicker between her presence and her absence. One moment she was there, the next she wasn't.
In the distance the volcano rumbled into life. There was a heavy blast and an intense, fiery light poured into the king's pavilion.
Rhodes suddenly sat up, rubbing his eyes. Sleepily, he asked, "What's happening? Is there an attack?"
Kalasariz replied, "Go back to sleep, majesty. There's no reason for alarm."
And so Rhodes fell back on his soft pallet and slept.
Despite the tempest, Clayre was resting peacefully when the Lady Lottyr came to her.
But as soon as the Queen Witch sensed the goddess's presence she bolted up from her pallet.
"Is everything all right?" she asked.
And Lottyr said, "All is ready, my dearest one. I've only come to you to make assurances."
"What of my son?" Clayre asked. "Are we ready for him as well?"
Lottyr replied, "It's just as we planned, Clayre. At the dawn, when the first enemy arrows fall, your son will die."
Reassured, Clayre smiled. "It'll be good to be rid of him," she said. "He always was just like his father."
Despite his demon strength and speed, Palimak was no match for the infuriated Leiria.
He jumped in front of her to stop her charge against Iraj/Safar, but she only ghosted to the side and kicked his legs from under him.
Worse still, Jooli was on Leiria's heels, her own sword in hand to back up her friend. But Palimak snagged out a hand, demon claws scything out, and caught her by the ankle to bring her painfully down.
None of this mattered. The instant Leiria came within striking distance, she fed all of her hate for Iraj into the sword blow she struck.
Except, in mid cut, she saw that it was Safar she was also about to kill. One part of her wanted to halt the deadly blow. The other demanded that she ram her blade through Iraj's guts.
Between Palimak's feeble intervention and Leiria's hair's-breadth hesitation, Iraj stepped in, taking full command of Safar's body.
Safar almost used his own powers to slow Iraj down, but then he realized Iraj was only using his half-empty brandy goblet for a weapon and released all of his physical energy.
In that moment of hesitation he had three questions that were answered swiftly.
The first was the question of his own survival. If Leiria killed Iraj, Safar would die as well. However, that was of little importance to him. After all he'd experienced and all the people he believed he'd made suffer, death would be welcome. He ached for Leiria's slashing blade as a release from his guilt.
The second was that if Leiria succeeded the whole world was doomed. Except now Safar found himself beyond worlds and the fate of all living things. Let it happen, he thought. We deserve whatever comes!
The third cause of hesitation was that Leiria would never be able to forgive herself for what she'd done.
Safar thought, She loves me! And then he thought, by all that is holy, I love her too!
And so Safar let Iraj have his will.
The killing sword came in and Iraj, moving like lightning, stepped lightly into its sweeping arc, crashing the brandy goblet against the blade.
The goblet shattered, the sword went to the side, but all this was nothing to Leiria. She only shifted her grip, so that both her hands were on the sword's haft. Then she swung with power enough to cut a stone column in half.
But Iraj only continued his forward motion, stepping within the blade's path and grabbing Leiria by the throat with immensely strong fingers.
He squeezed and brought her choking to her knees.
"I am the only mortal-man, woman or demon-who can best you in a fight," Iraj said to her in his own voice. "Now, please remain quite still while I explain my intentions."
Leiria's answer was to drop her sword and draw her knife, thrusting it at his exposed belly.
With his free hand Iraj caught her attacking wrist, putting so much pressure on it that she had to let it fall.
Then he maintained the pressure there, just at the bone-breaking point.
And Iraj said, "Leiria, I love you more than I have ever loved another." Then he laughed bitterly. "That's not saying much, as I'm sure you understand. But I beg you, not because of my love but because of Safar's, to hear us both out!"
Leiria, face purpling from the grip Iraj had on her, nodded. And both Safar and Iraj understood she was making a promise.
Iraj released her and she fell back. And he said for all to hear, "Speak to them, Safar. Tell them what we have planned."
Then he relinquished all control over his brother/enemy and Safar found himself standing in his own body again, while Iraj curled up into the spirit nest he'd vacated.
But as before, Safar was quite blind. He knelt down beside Leiria, guided by her perfume. He reached out to touch her face. She flinched, but then relented as his blindness became apparent.
"Is it really you, Safar?" she asked, voice tremulous.
"I swear it is, Leiria," he replied. "And if you don't believe me, think back to the last time we saw each other in Esmir. Do you recall how we parted?"
Leiria nodded, then remembered that he could not see. And she said, quite softly, "Yes."
"I told you then that I planned to get Iraj's help to stop the machine in Caluz," he said. "Isn't that right?"
"I thought you were making a dark-humored joke," Leiria said as the memory of that sad day came flooding back. "I thought you were just sacrificing yourself to save us."
"As you know now," Safar said, "I did win Iraj's help. Although it was against his will. Well, only partly so. He wanted desperately to break the shapechanger's spell and escape Kalasariz and Fari and Luka.
And I gave him the means to do that."
"Is that how he ended up in your body?" Leiria asked.
"It's not so simple as that," Safar said, "but it's close enough. The main thing is, I didn't realize then that I truly did need Iraj's help. Not just to stop the machine in Caluz, but to end what is happening here."
"But how did he end up controlling you instead?" Leiria asked.
"I let him," Safar said. "We both need eyes to do our work. And he can give us sight." He smiled. "Of course, being Iraj, there were lies involved. And betrayal."
"And you're going to let him take over your body again, aren't you?" Leiria said.
"Yes," Safar replied. "I have no other choice. To awaken the gods and end this misery, Iraj and I must enter the hells and face Lady Lottyr. And we'll need eyes to do that."
Then he embraced her and kissed her, murmuring words of love. Leiria wasn't certain whether he meant them, or was only trying to comfort her.
Finally, Safar rose to his feet. Palimak came to him, hugging him fiercely.
"Isn't there something I can do, father?" he asked, tears welling up.
"If you mean about Iraj," Safar said, "there's nothing you can do. But he and I will need every scrap of your strength to face the coming day."
Then he pushed Palimak gently away. He waved blindly to Coralean, Biner, Arlain and the others. And gave them a crooked smile.
"I won't say goodbye, dear friends," he said. "Because I'll be close to you until the end. I only ask that you trust me. And you must trust Iraj as well."
Everyone was weeping, but they all murmured that they would do as he said.
Then S
afar opened the gates to Iraj, who once again assumed control. Iraj/Safar blinked his eyes as sight returned and light flooded in.
"Now it's my turn to address you all," Iraj said in his own voice. A voice that made them all shiver. "And the first thing I have to say is this:
"In the morning we'll have not one, but two battles to fight!"
Part Five
Into The Hells
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
THE BATTLE BEGINS
Clayre and Lottyr brought an end to the storm just before dawn. Rhodes immediately sent his men out to gather up any farmers who had survived the tempest and had them put to the sword.
When first light came it revealed that the whole valley was in ruins from the storm: trees ripped up by the roots, farmhouses roofless or smashed, the fields and crops a muddy mess.
The lake was filled with debris, including thousands of dead fish, white bellies turned upward to greet the red Demon Moon as it rose over the volcano, grinning its ghastly smile.
As for the volcano itself, a large gash had been ripped from its cone by the previous night's activity. Small black clouds puffed upward, looking like storm clouds; from his hilltop command post Rhodes could smell the acrid stench drifting in with the breeze.
The volcano made his men nervous, so Rhodes called for his priests and they cast the bones to show that all was well. This relieved Rhodes as much as his men. For although the Lady Lottyr had promised him the volcano was no threat, he was not entirely convinced the goddess didn't have plans which might not necessarily include his own survival.
What convinced him even more than the casting was that, just as Lottyr had predicted, the Kyranians kicked the castle gates open not long after the first rays of the sun spilled into the valley.
As they came screaming out to confront his men, Rhodes chuckled in delight.
Did he have a surprise for them!
He signaled the counter-attack and at the same time passed the word to his engineers. And as he sprang his trap on the attacking Kyranians, the bombardment of the Castle of the Two Kings began.
Jooli burst through the castle gates, Sergant Hamyr and a contingent of twenty men right behind her, shouting their fierce war cries.
Just past the bridge she saw a bristle of pikemen surging forward to meet her. Behind them were archers and she could hear the twang! of their bows as they fired.
But she and her men were moving too fast for the archers and as the arrows lofted she waded into the pikemen, cutting men down left and right as Hamyr and the other Kyranians bunched in around her, then muscled outward to break the pack apart.
As she'd expected, her father's soldiers broke ranks too easily and began to retreat. But it was an orderly withdrawal. Not a flicker of panic as the pikemen moved back and the archers threw down their bows and drew swords.
They weren't true archers. None of their missiles had found a mark. But they were excellent swordsmen and they gave Jooli and her men a vigorous fight as they backed up along the road.
Far off, she saw her father's command-post banner waving in the morning breeze. She aimed for it, shouting orders to Hamyr and the others to redouble their efforts.
They overran the retreating men, stopping only to cut the throats of those who had fallen. As Iraj Protarus had warned, most of the men were feigning wounds and were only waiting their chance to leap up as Jooli passed so they could attack her from the rear.
Despite these precautions, with every step Jooli took she could sense her father's trap closing, pinching in from the sides, while leaving the way open to the fluttering command flag.
Any minute now the men she knew were lying in wait on either side of the road would spring up to overwhelm her. Even as she cut a man down she cast a spell of confusion to addle the brains of her hidden enemies.
But she knew that however great her efforts, soon it would be a case of too little and too late.
And she thought, Where's Leiria? Where's Leiria?
In the courtyard of the Castle Keep, the circus folk were desperately trying to get the airship aloft. Huge siege arrows fell all around them, sheeting green flame in every direction as the crew laboriously filled the twin balloons with hot air.
The axiom of all balloonists is that anything that can go wrong will strike in threes. And Biner's difficulties were further proof of that already well-worn prophecy.
First, the fierce storm had forced them to take refuge in the castle. The couldn't tend to the airship's engines and without fuel, the magical fires had gone out. In order to refill the balloons Biner had to waste an enormous amount of time heating up the engines.
Secondly, as the huge balloons slowly filled, straining against the lines, several cables snapped. They'd been badly stressed by the previous day's battle against the tempest and everyone had been so tired that they hadn't checked the obvious danger points.
Thirdly, the rudder had been damaged-another flaw that had gone unnoticed.
Biner and Arlain blamed themselves, not the crew, for these oversights.
As Arlain said, "I thould have been wat'thing. I'm your thecond-in-command, Biner, and it'th all my fault."
But Biner, a perfectionist to the core, cursed only himself for his shortcomings. Never mind the soul-rattling disclosures of Safar's dual identities. Never mind that he hadn't slept for two days. He was at fault, dammit.
It was the ringmaster's duty to oversee all things, and to anticipate all potential problems. And, by the gods, Biner had fallen down on his job.
So, as the explosive arrows slammed in from the skies, it was Biner who constantly threw himself into the most dangerous tasks. Shoveling fuel into the engines while others fought fires on the decks on the airship.
Dodging the scything release of broken cables, while clamping new ones in place. Once his tunic caught fire while he was heaving new ballast sacks into the airship.
Arlain beat the flames into submission while Biner continued to work, driving the crew to complete a hasty patch-job on the rudder.
Despite the brave and frantic work of Biner and the rest of the airship crew, for a time it seemed that all would be lost. The siege arrows kept falling closer and closer, marching their way across the courtyard as Rhodesa€™ engineers gradually corrected their aim.
One arrow-as thick as a sideshow fat man's waist-slammed into the bow of the airship, igniting the well-oiled deck.
Arlain led a crew of foam-spraying fire fighters into the breach, but the flames became so intense that they drove everyone back except for Arlain. Hot flames licked all around her pearly body as she pumped foam on the blaze.
If it had been a circus act instead of real-life danger, the audience would have been thrilled at the erotic vision she presented. A fantastic female body, clothed only in a modesty patch at her thighs and two tiny dots over her breasts, sucking flames into her flat dragon's belly while she shot foamy spume onto the main fire from the hose that she held between her dragon claws.
But it wasn't an act and the fire drove her back, licking all around her fabulous form as she fought stubbornly on.
Then Eeda appeared, running out of the gates of the Keep, waving her arms as she composed a fire-quenching spell, her pregnant belly swelling her tunic to the bursting point. She looked as if she was going to deliver her child at any moment as she hastily cast the spell.
A fierce cold wind suddenly blew into the courtyard, killing the flames. Then the wind was gone.
"Get up as fast as you can!" Eeda shouted to Biner and Arlain. "I don't think I have the strength to do it a second time!"
Biner and Arlain needed no further prodding and minutes later the airship shot up into the sky just as a new barrage of fire arrows fell.
And Eeda dashed back into the relative safety of the Keep.
Coralean had a deep sense of foreboding as he waited at the edge of the golden-tiled pentagram. Events were moving so swiftly that he felt he barely had control. Looking at the figures of all the gods and goddesses portrayed in the
fabulous wind-rose that the pentagram contained didn't help.
Particularly the portrait of the Goddess Lottyr, whose arrow pointed in a direction opposite to the others-straight at the painted flames of the Hells.
Behind him, six Kyranian pikemen were prodding Yorlain's aides across the chamber, hustling them toward stairs that led down into the dungeons.
Meanwhile, in the center of the wind-rose, tail lashing, muscles trembling in anticipation, stood Khysmet.
Iraj, wearing Safar's body and speaking in Safar's voice, said, "Easy, friend. Easy."
Then he vaulted into the great stallion's saddle. He leaned down to offer Palimak a hand up, but the young man gave a grim shake of his head and jumped up behind him without assistance.
Khysmet whinnied eagerly, stomping his hooves on the wind-rose.
Iraj chuckled to himself when he saw Coralean's worried face. Speaking in his own voice, he said,
"There's no sense fretting, old friend. Safar and I were either born for this moment or doomed to it. You just concentrate on Rhodes and leave the Hells to us."
The caravan master sighed heavily and said, "If Coralean had a copper coin for all the times he was advised not to worry, Your Highness, he'd be even richer than he already is."
Iraj laughed. "Why is it that every phrase you speak dwells so much on profit?" he asked, half jokingly.
"There's more to this world than money, don't you know?"
Now it was Coralean's turn to laugh. "That was always your trouble, Majesty," he said. "You think of profit as a base thing. A dirty thing. Whereas I, Coralean, know profit to be a thing of the utmost beauty.
For profit is at the heart of all mortal endeavors.
"As a merchant sage once said, a€?It is profit that drives all civilization.a€™ How true, how true. For isn't it profit that makes kings-and lack of the same that ruins them? And does not profit allow the artist to make art and the musician to make music?
"More to the point-if you and my old friend Safar Timura win this day, why, the whole world will profit from your victory. So don't mock profit, majesty. But, praise it to the heavens!"