The Tale of the Five Omnibus

by Diane Duane

  Segnbora moaned out loud, took back her muscles, slid in and struck with Skádhwë at the Charriselm being raised against her.

  With no more feeling than if it had been cutting air, the shadowblade sheared effortlessly upward through Charriselm and then downward to take off her otherself’s arm at the elbow. The thick sound that the arm made in striking the floor, like so much dead meat, turned Segnbora’s stomach. The agony in the other’s eyes was beyond words as she fell to her knees.

  Segnbora would gladly have dropped Skadhwë, but it seemed to be holding her hand closed about it. Her otherself reached down to work the broken Charriselm out of the severed hand, and struggled to her feet. She lifted the useless sword left-handed, and faced Segnbora with tears streaming down her face.

  “Why couldn’t you have stayed?” the other Segnbora screamed at her. “Why couldn’t you just let it happen! You always wanted—”

  Segnbora swung Skádhwë again, and felt nothing as that head with the silver showing in its hair went rolling away across the crystal floor, trailing red. The slender trunk dropped, pumping out what seemed too much blood for so slight a frame.

  One more body. That’s all it is. One more body. Oh, Goddess help me—!

  Time was short, and the sorcery was unraveling, assaulted by her revulsion at what she had done. Segnbora lurched toward the doors, aware of Efmaer off to one side, of Herewiss and Freelorn drifting away. The doors were sheer, without any latch, and fitted so closely together that a thin knifeblade couldn’t have been pushed between them. There was no hope of swinging open their massive weight.

  Unless, perhaps—

  She raised Skádhwë over her head and struck down, a great hewing blow. The sword sank half its depth into the crystal, as if into air. Again she struck, and a shard of the thick glass peeled away and shattered on the floor. Again, and again—

  A great prism-slice the size of an ordinary doorway leaned out toward her, slow as a dream, and fell. It smashed thunderously right at her feet.

  “Come on, get out!” she shouted at the others, yanking in her mind at the compulsion-sorcery.

  Like hounds on leashes they all came stumbling after her, Freelorn and Herewiss, Lang and Dritt and Moris, Harald and Torve and Sunspark, out the jagged hole into the true twilight. The Moon was telling the truth again, and the truth was awful. Its lower curve had dipped behind the wall of the Adínë glacier’s cirque. Only the crescent’s two horns still showed in the sky. West of the Moon, the Evenstar balanced precariously on the ridge of the cirque, a trembling, narrowing eye of light.

  Behind Segnbora, Herewiss shook his head as the wind hit him, and glanced around like a man roused from reverie. Then he glanced up at where the Moon should have been, and wasn’t. “My Goddess, it’s almost gone, the bridge—!”

  Segnbora stood poised by the door, peering in desperately. “Efmaer!” she cried.

  Just inside the door Efmaer stood, looking over her shoulder, trying to catch a last glimpse of her loved through the twilight.

  “Efmaer!”

  The Queen turned to Segnbora, reached out a hand. Segnbora took it and pulled, and Efmaer stepped through the jagged portal—

  —She had not even time to look surprised. She simply stopped in midmotion and went to dust, the dust of a woman five hundred years dead. In seconds the relentless wind howling down from the mountain took her and whirled her away.

  Segnbora stared stupidly at her empty hand, then turned and ran through the group, who stood watching her with confusion and fear on their faces. “Come on,” she yelled through her sobs, “the wind is back, the bridge is going to vanish! You want to try standing on air?”

  She ran out onto the phantom part of the Skybridge, half-hoping it would give way under her and wipe out the sickening memory of the Queen’s hand going to dust in hers. Oh, Efmaer—!

  Footsteps pounded close behind her. The Moon’s horns looked across the cirque ridge at her, far apart, growing shorter. The Evenstar wavered. Segnbora ran, gasping and terrified. Freelorn came pounding past her, showing off his sprinter’s stride to good advantage. Hard behind him came Herewiss, with Khávrinen once more afire on his back. Then came Sunspark, streaming fire like a runner’s torch from mane and tail. Torve and Lang and Harald and Moris and Dritt passed her too, wheezing.

  Segnbora saw them all make the solid part of the bridge just at the moment the Moon pulled its horns completely beneath the ridge, and the Evenstar closed its eye and went out. With ten yards to go, the bridge of air dissolved beneath her, and she began to fall….

  But Hasai was doing something. The fall simply went no farther, as if she had wings. In the moment of time he bought her, hands grabbed at her frantically and pulled her up onto the steel.

  Segnbora shook them off and headed down the bridge, fast, only slowing when the angle of the arch made footing difficult. Tears blinded her, burning cold in the icy wind. She struck them out of her eyes, raging at heart, and plunged down to the end of the span, down to rock and snow. There Segnbora ducked around to one side of the Skybridge, and slid on her rear end toward one of the huge supports rooted in the mountainside.

  The others were out of sight. Above her she heard them calling her, confused, frightened, relieved; and she ignored them. Poor crippled One, I pity You—but You’ll have no more company in Your exile. Nor am I going to let Herewiss give up a piece of his life to bind this grave closed. Enough life’s been wasted here. I have a better way—

  She came up hard against the leftmost support, a pillar of Fire-wrought steel easily as thick as Héalhra’s Tree in Orsmernin grove. Even in the dark it shimmered a ghostly blue. “Segnbora!” Herewiss’s voice floated down from above. “What are you doing?”

  Segnbora didn’t answer. The others had had enough time to get off safely. She raised Skádhwë and with a great swashing blow sliced right through the steel support. Stone or steel or soul, Efmaer had said— And the Fire in the steel was no hindrance. The pillar cracked and buckled backward, groaning, peeling apart from itself like a wound in metal flesh. Segnbora sliced at it again. The groan grew terrible as the upper part of the pillar came away from the lower, and the span of the bridge began to lean away from the mountainside.

  Segnbora scrabbled across rock and snow to the second support, and hewed that too. Far above, the groan grew to a scream of tortured metal. Smiling grimly, taking ferocious pleasure in the sound, Segnbora made her way to the last support, swung Skádhwë back, and struck. The slim shadow of its blade flicked through the metal and out the other side. The immense shadow of the Skybridge above her, shifting, leaned faster and faster away, and suddenly gave way completely to the deepening violet of the evening sky.

  The screaming stopped. Silently as a flower petal—as slowly, as gracefully—the huge strip of steel floated down into the abyss of blue air. Then with a crash that shook all Adínë, it struck the south-face glacier halfway down its slope, shattering it. Up and out the broken bridge rebounded, falling again. The air was littered with small, lazily turning splinters of ice and steel as the bridge fell on, broke into more pieces, fell again…until at last only the faint echoes of its fall remained, along with the sound of Segnbora’s gasps, coming through tears of anguish and triumph.

  There was a long silence from above, broken after a while by Herewiss’s subdued voice.

  “Well,” he said, “that’s one thing less Eftgan has to worry about…”

  TEN

  Fear hissed at me and struck

  from beneath a stone.

  I crushed its head with a rock.

  Though dead, it still squirmed.

  (Darthene Rubrics, xxiii)

  Segnbora came down from her room the next morning and made her way to the breakfast hall only to find it empty. There was not even a single platter or cup on the table. The great inner court, when she passed through it, however, was lively as a wasps’ nest is after it’s been kicked. People and horses in the courtyard clattered and shouted so loud she could barely
hear Hasai’s comments inside her, and the mdeihei were drowned out entirely. Tack was being burnished, weapons readied, and the silver chains of officers were everywhere.

  (What is all this?) Hasai inquired, as loudly as was polite.

  (How the Dark should I know?) Segnbora said. Up the stairs to the battlements she went, three at a time, Charriselm’s scabbard bouncing at her side, its every bump a reminder of the black non-weight that was sheathed in it now. The place where her sword had been felt like the socket of a lost tooth. She was grateful when she reached the top, but not reassured at all by the sight of Freelorn and Lang and Moris and Dritt and Torve leaning on their elbows, looking over the battlements, calm of face but tense of stance.

  As she came up to them, something went rap! through the bright morning air, a sharp sound that raised goosebumps on her arms.

  “What is it?” Segnbora said, joining them at the battlement. No one answered, so she looked for herself. Down in the valley, looking remote, a dark blot surrounded the starshaped walls of Barachael town. The blot heaved and moved oddly, separated into smaller pieces, consolidated again. One part of the darkness moved rhythmically backward and then forward again, toward the town’s big brass-studded gates.

  The forward movement arrested suddenly, and after several seconds the faint rapping boom of the battering ram came floating across the air.

  “Damn, oh damn,” Segnbora said, and out of reflex reached for Charriselm’s hilt in frustration. She snatched her hand away as it fell to the not-hot-not-cold smoothness of Skádhwë’s end.

  Torve, beside her, raised his eyebrows idly at Segnbora’s swearing. “It’s silly, really,” he said. “The valley people are all inside khas-Barachael, so there’s no reason for the Reavers to force the gates—if they can. I just hope they don’t decide to fire the fields. It’s late for putting in another crop of wheat…”

  There was really nowhere else to put her hand. After a couple seconds of hooking it uncomfortably in her belt, Segnbora sighed and let it fall to Skádhwë’s hilt. It was an odd feeling, neutral, like touching one’s own skin. “The Reavers arrived last night?” she said.

  Torve nodded. “Through the pass. I dare say the Queen is wishing she’d had Herewiss seal the pass before taking on Glasscastle.”

  “Where is the Queen?”

  “Upstairs with Herewiss,” Freelorn said, giving Segnbora a sidewise glance meant to be disciplinary. “If you’d get up earlier, you wouldn’t miss so much.”

  Segnbora made a face at her liege and leaned on the battlement like the others, elbows-down, staring at the Reavers’ futile work in the valley. “More are coming?” It was a rhetorical question. There were always more coming.

  “Here and elsewhere,” Lang said, not looking at her, in that way he had when he was worried and didn’t care to let his eyes betray it.

  “What happened at Orsvier?”

  “She won.”

  “You said ‘elsewhere’ just now,” Segnbora said, puzzled. “Where’s the new incursion?”

  Lang wouldn’t answer her. She looked past him at Dritt. “Bluepeak,” Dritt said.

  Segnbora’s stomach began to churn, and inside her the mdeihei sang their own unease in response to hers. Herewiss’s dream was starting to come true, then. Of all the places in the world where the Shadow’s sleeping influence shouldn’t be disturbed, Bluepeak was the foremost.

  “How many Reavers?”

  “Her scrying wouldn’t come clear on that point,” Torve said. “Maybe three thousand. People, a large supply convoy, beasts…and Fyrd.”

  “Oh no,” she whispered. These must be more of the thinking kind, then, the species of Fyrd they had fought en route to the Morrowfane.

  “Looks like Bluepeak will be our job,” Moris muttered.

  “Looks that way,” Torve said with his usual calm. He turned his eyes back to the Reavers in the valley, who—having had no luck with the town gates—were apparently now sitting down to a late breakfast.

  “Idiots,” Harald said under his breath. “Torve, couldn’t you send out a sortie?”

  “Without orders? The Queen would hang me up by my privates with my officer’s chain.” He sounded like he was only half joking. “Besides, they’re out of bowshot.”

  Wings whistled overhead. Segnbora and the others glanced up and saw what looked like fire flying. Feathers burning like embers, eyes like live coals, a tail like flame streaming back from a torch…

  They flinched back from the parapet as the brightness landed there. It stood still long enough to smooth a couple of smoldering feathers back into place, then ruffled itself up in a flurry of red-hot brilliance.

  (Levies,) it said, (Strategy and tactics, forced marches, that’s all your soldiers can talk about. I’m bored.)

  Segnbora raised an eyebrow at the form Sunspark had adopted. “Shame, Firechild! There’s only one Phoenix!”

  (What’s shame?) Sunspark said. (As for the Phoenix—if it’s so fond of this shape, let it come try a couple of falls with me. If it wins, I’ll let it keep the form.) It peered over the battlement at the Reavers below, interested. (Are they with us?)

  Segnbora gazed at Sunspark with idle affection. Its tail-feathers were like those of a peacock, but red-golden and bearing eyes like coals, and they were searing the stone against which they lay. She started to get an idea. “No,” she said.

  The elemental turned on her fiery eyes that glowed hotter by the moment. The others moved down the battlement, all but Torve, who stood his ground. She felt Sunspark examining her state of mind with hot impatient interest. (This is a new kind of joke, perhaps?)

  (Yes. And no. Better than a joke.)

  (Something for Herewiss? Something to make him glad?)

  (Yes.) She considered her thought carefully before sharing it. (Before I tell you, consider this: When he finds out about it, will he be angry, will he be in pain? If he won’t…)

  Sunspark looked down at the Reavers, considering carefully. For all its power, it knew it had much to learn yet about being human. (What are they doing?) it said, audible to the others.

  Torve looked at it as calmly as if it had been one of his own people. “Breaking the gates of the town,” he said, “to get inside and kill the people, or take their belongings at least.”

  Sunspark didn’t look up from the valley. Segnbora caught its thoughts: Herewiss doesn’t care for killing, or for robbing either. He tries to prevent them whenever possible. (And when they’ve done that? What then?)

  “They’ll come here and try to kill us, so that no one can stop them from doing as they please in this part of the country,” Torve said.

  (Oh, will they now!) Sunspark said, and leapt from the battlement in a swift flash of fire that sent them all staggering back. Segnbora felt her singed face to find out if her eyebrows were still there. Once certain that they were, she looked around hurriedly. Sunspark had vanished. But Harald and Dritt were pointing down at the valley and laughing.

  Far down in the depths of air, the group around the battering ram suddenly began to break up. One person after another jumped up to beat frantically at smoldering clothes, their yelps of consternation trailing tardily through the air.

  “Can it manage a whole army, though?” Lang asked uncertainly.

  Then it was Segnbora’s turn to point and laugh, as a bloom of light erupted before the gates of Barachael, followed by the sound of screaming. The ram—a lopped monarch pine, full of pitch as monarchs are—literally exploded in red-hot splinters and clouds of burning gas. People and ponies were flung in all directions. Then from the explosion site something like a serpent of flame went pouring over the scorched ground. It lengthened and wound right around the walls of Barachael, met its tail and kept on going, coiling around, reaching upward. In moments the town was lost behind burning walls, and the huge head of a coiled fire-serpent wavered lazily above the town. The confused shrieks and yells of routed Reavers mingled with the screaming of their ponies. People and animals ran every which wa
y. A roar of amazed laughter and applause went up from the walls of khas-Barachael.

  In response the Reavers, who had moved away from Barachael town and toward the keep, raised a chorus of war shouts. But their shouts had a half-hearted sound to them, as if they had other matters in mind. Sunspark was looking down at them with innocent malice, its fiery head swaying like that of a sleepy viper deciding whether to strike.

  “What the—!” someone said from a higher parapet.

  Segnbora glanced up and saw Eftgan and Herewiss looking over the rail at Barachael town, very surprised.

  “Your idea?” Eftgan said to Herewiss.

  “No!” he said, grinning down at Sunspark.

  It stretched up its flame-hooded head and blinked at him good-naturedly. (They had torches,) it said, (and might have burned the town. If anybody’s going to do any burning around here, it’s going to be me.)

  Herewiss and Eftgan came down to the battlement together and leaned on the parapet with Freelorn’s followers. “I wish that sealing the pass was going to be as simple,” Eftgan said.

  Freelorn glanced at her. “It actually can be done?”

  Herewiss nodded. “It took me a while to work out the exact method, and it’ll take some hours to attune to the mountain properly… but, yes, I can do it.”

  “And survive?”

  Herewiss’s glance crossed with Freelorn’s, gently mocking.

  “That’s with Her, of course,” he said, “but I have a few things to do yet before I go willingly to death’s Door. I believe I’ll live.”

  “It’s risky, though,” Eftgan said, as if resuming an argument with herself. “The earth always moves better on a night when the Moon’s full, but the next time that happens there’s an eclipse. The Shadow will be very strong then—”

  Segnbora bit her lip. In a place as bitterly contested as Barachael, where the land was soaked with centuries of blood and violent death, nearly any wreaking could be warped by the built-up negative forces. An eclipse was no help at all. And to attempt a wreaking that involved unconsciousness of the upper mind, as this one surely would—