As if to punctuate the challenge, a blast of blue lightning forked in the sky to the right.
“Liar,” Vannek announced triumphantly. “I’ve seen your hearthstone. You pull it out of your inner pocket, where you keep it in some kind of shining bag.”
Varama didn’t like having been called out, for her nostrils flared.
Once again the blood mage tried to ease tensions. “I don’t think it’s a hearthstone shard, Lord General,” he said quickly. “It doesn’t have nearly as much energy. But I’ve seen it too. What is it, Alten?”
“It is a shard, but one I cannot use to power a portal. When I investigated the queen’s chambers, and those of the exalts, I discovered a number of experiments. Few were successful, but one of them was the pouch in which I keep this shard.” She patted her uniform, where Vannek had seen Varama store the thing in an inner pocket. “It effectively blocks magical energies. I keep the shard there not because I’m hiding it, but because I mean to shield its effects, which are detrimental to the commander.”
“Commander N’lahr?” Vannek laughed without humor. “He’s nowhere near us.”
“Proximity doesn’t matter. Whenever I open this shard, I am linked with him. I dare not do so for long, because its mere existence appears to be injurious to him.”
Vannek wasn’t entirely sure he understood the shard’s threat to N’lahr, but that was secondary to the rest of Varama’s admission. “Wait. So you’ve been communicating with your general?”
“Yes. I informed him of our condition, and he has informed me of his, and we’ve made plans.”
“You know how my people are?” Vannek’s voice lifted in anger. “And you didn’t say anything?”
“I didn’t wish to alarm you. Your mood is foul enough already.”
Rarely had Vannek been so eager to hit someone. He barely held back. “Are they all right, or aren’t they? Where are they?”
“They are in a fortress controlled by one of our erstwhile comrades, an alten and mage named Cerai whom I trust far less than you. Your soldiers are following the orders of Anzat, who seems likely to support Cerai’s aim for utter domination rather than Commander N’lahr.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Vannek climbed to his feet, but Varama was there faster. The general was reminded of something he’d forgotten as the alten’s aspect changed. While Varama usually presented as distracted and aloof, in a moment she had transformed from a gangly woman with frizzy hair and an irritated manner into a dangerous combatant.
“I have said all that was necessary.” Varama’s voice was thin. “You waste your energy, and my own.”
Muragan drew to Vannek’s side, and came very close to putting a hand on his arm. He seemed to decide at the last moment not to, which was fortunate, because Vannek was fairly sure he would have struck him. The blood mage addressed Varama. “You should have told us you were in touch with Commander N’lahr. I don’t think the Lord General would be as upset if you’d done that.”
Vannek wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but that simple declaration from Muragan apparently hit home, for Varama looked thoughtful.
“You’re right,” she said at last. “I was reluctant to reveal the commander had a weakness, but given the circumstances, it might have been an injudicious course.”
“Thank you,” Muragan said. He glanced to Vannek, then continued: “And it must be said that your manner overall hasn’t been entirely welcoming.”
“Lessons in courtesy from a blood mage,” Varama said slowly, as if to herself, as if she could not quite believe it. But before Vannek could muster the insult forming on his lips, the alten replied: “Perhaps I have been brusque. My worries have me preoccupied, but there is no benefit in behaving more impolitely than I intend. I apologize that my manner was discourteous.”
“We thank you,” Muragan said.
Vannek decided not to reprimand him for speaking for them both. “You said you and Commander N’lahr were working on a plan,” he said with icy courtesy. “Would you share the details?”
“There are many moving pieces, but in short, the Goddess has been stopped before. Elenai and Kyrkenall are seeking a weapon once used to successfully oppose her, and Rylin and Thelar are seeking another of proven worth against her. We are to obtain certain tools in Darassus, then join them.”
“Do my men in Darassus know what’s happened?” Vannek asked.
“No one in Darassus is likely to have learned anything about the battle. Anzat will not have been able to usurp your authority over the soldiers there.”
Varama had bluntly gotten right to Vannek’s chief concern. Before he could ask more, the alten turned to stare at the horizon as a landscape flickered into existence for the length of several breaths, one where the heights of trees were storm tossed and dark clouds rolled. It vanished.
“Is that good, or bad?” Muragan asked.
“Good,” Varama answered. “Natural order may be fighting to reassert itself.” When the landscape failed to reappear, the alten frowned. “It does not appear to be winning, yet.”
“Would it help to use blood magic to open a portal?” Vannek asked. “We might use one, or several, of the horses.”
“An interesting idea,” Varama said. “But I don’t know how to wield blood magic, and it delivers tiny results for great expenditure. Also, Muragan knows nothing of the complex theory of portal magic, so he himself is poorly suited to attempt what you suggest. Additionally, the thought of murdering these well-trained, loyal Altenerai mounts is abhorrent to me.”
“I don’t think blood magic could be woven together with what she’s doing, anyway,” Muragan said. “Perhaps I could be of assistance without the blood. I’ve studied some Dendressi sorceries.”
“Studied and deployed them in battle,” Varama said, and at Muragan’s surprised look, she added, “I am aware of your reputation and skills, Muragan. You are quite talented. But I barely understand portal theory myself, and it would be dangerous to involve you in its workings. We might as well get moving.” With that, Varama walked back to her mount and began to restore its pack.
Muragan eyed Vannek doubtfully.
“You shouldn’t have spoken for me,” Vannek told him.
“Sometimes you shouldn’t speak for yourself. What was your goal? Why were you testing her?”
“My goal was to have her treat us with courtesy.”
“You chose a dangerous way to do it,” Muragan said, and before Vannek decided how to respond, he’d stepped to his own horse. Almost he asked the man what Dendressi magics he had mastered, but decided silence was the better course.
Soon, Vannek joined them, and then, together, they rode off along the impossible white road, the lightning dancing in company.
22
The Last Resort
N’lahr and Cerai arrived with a lantern, and in its beam the beak of the giant, motionless bird of prey loomed dangerously. Squinting to see beyond the light, Tesra saw a gaggle of squires and Cerai’s soldiers crammed into the narrow corridor behind them.
She managed to convey that the powdery dust had once been M’vai. Tesra backed away from the remains, though she couldn’t stop looking at them.
N’lahr ordered the others off and stood frowning, burdened with one too many tragedies. Cerai’s eyes narrowed in cold fury as Tesra struggled to explain what had happened to M’vai. “She was worried about the Commander,” Tesra said. “She insisted on trying to consult with Thelar.”
“And you helped her?” Cerai interrupted. “Why didn’t you come see me?”
“She said she was going to do it right away, even if I didn’t help. And I didn’t want her to be hurt.…” Tesra’s voice trailed off.
“Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” Cerai asked.
She was right, and Tesra felt tears restart their flow.
N’lahr’s question snapped her back. “How did she end up like this?”
“She—we—encountered the Goddess. I just brushed against her. B
ut M’vai was in deeper. She talked about beauty and perfection and then crumbled.” Tesra sobbed and then forced herself quiet, as though she were once more a squire in line before Asrahn.
“I can sense the Goddess more and more easily,” N’lahr said. “Her power’s growing.”
Cerai and Tesra shifted their attention to him.
“What have you learned from her?” Cerai asked.
“She’s mainly concerned with the attack from the chaos spirits. She didn’t expect we could consort with them. She thinks of those chaos spirits as fragments of the other.”
“You said something about that before. Do you have a better sense about what it is?” Cerai asked.
“A lover. A peer. Something she cherishes and fears and misses and despises all at once.”
This made little sense to Tesra, but Cerai’s expression cleared, as if some long-standing mystery had been explained. “Do you have any sense about where she is?”
“No. But she intends to build strength before she returns; she seeks the last of the hearthstones.” N’lahr shuddered.
“Commander?” Tesra asked.
He stilled, mouth partly open, left arm raised. Not a muscle moved upon him, not even a nostril flare.
“Commander?” Tesra repeated.
“Sounding shrill won’t help,” Cerai snapped, and touched N’lahr’s sleeve. A moment later he blinked, and lowered the arm.
“It’s getting worse,” Cerai told him bluntly. “We have to address this while we still can.”
“I agree,” N’lahr replied, with the grim determination he was known for.
She turned to Tesra. “Are you in any kind of shape to assist?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Cerai said. “I’m not sure I should trust your judgment at all.”
“You can trust me,” Tesra insisted.
“I suppose I’ll have to.” Her eyes flicked to the powdered dust that had been a talented young woman. “We’ll see to your friend’s remains later.”
Tesra wiped her eyes and looked purposefully away as they left.
Cerai led them to the second floor, and a rectangular room roughly sectioned into two areas. At one end, near a hearth, a desk was grouped with some chairs and couches. Cerai placed the lantern on the desk. “Do you want to lie down on the couch?”
“Will that make this easier for you?” N’lahr asked.
“I don’t believe so.”
“Then I’ll stand.”
“Do you want me to get the shaping tool?” Tesra asked.
“That would be like wielding a sledgehammer to sound a tuning peg. I will do this with my hands.” She faced N’lahr. “I don’t mean to alarm you but … have you given orders to your chosen successor?”
“Yes.”
Cerai’s mouth twitched into a faint smile. “Of course you have. And you’re probably not going to ask me for the likelihood of success.”
“You can’t predict it. But I know that I will be useless soon if my condition worsens.”
Cerai paused, then spoke with quiet candor. “I have always respected you, N’lahr. I want you to know that if this doesn’t work, I’ll use what I learn to better our future.”
N’lahr had no reply to that insensitive bit of comfort.
Cerai adjusted a lock of hair “Ready yourself, Tesra. I’ll attempt to do this without a hearthstone, but I may need to draw upon one, and if so I want you monitoring. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. All right, N’lahr. Let’s try this.”
Before Tesra had even opened herself to the inner world, Cerai was at work, deftly touching her sorcerous energies to the threads of N’lahr’s life force. The white latticework wrapping him like a second skeleton had thickened even since Tesra had last seen it. Cerai gently brushed one edge of it and nothing happened.
“Do you feel any different?” she asked.
“No.”
“That may be good.” Cerai paused for a moment, then her fingers twitched as she directed her lines of magic to bolster N’lahr’s own life force.
The commander breathed deeply. He seemed to stand taller.
The white threads pulsed once, then thickened.
“It’s growing faster!” Tesra cried, though she felt stupid afterward. Cerai had already seen that, surely. The older woman pulled back her efforts to increase N’lahr’s energy and instead chipped away at the expanding white threads. But for every one that she snipped, three more snaked up in their place. It looked an awful lot like what had happened the moment the dragon attacked the Goddess statue in Darassus. The hearthstone energy inside the commander was responding defensively.
Cerai’s brow beaded with sweat and she reached for a hearthstone shard she kept in a belt pouch. She wove its energies into her ongoing battle.
But the white threads had exploded exponentially through the commander. After a moment, Cerai dropped her hands, ceasing the hearthstone access at the same moment.
“N’lahr?” she asked.
The commander neither answered, nor moved. His eyes remained open and unfocused.
“Commander?” Tesra asked softly. She didn’t expect a reply.
Cerai let out a slow sigh. “It’s no use. He’s completely in stasis now. More protected than he was in the stone.”
Tesra didn’t process what Cerai had revealed for a moment, then failed to conceal her surprise. “You saw him when he was trapped in a hearthstone?”
Though she’d suggested only a few hours earlier she herself hadn’t known about N’lahr’s imprisonment until he’d told her, Cerai spoke with blithe confidence. “I didn’t know originally,” she said. “But Belahn and I were brought in after that idiot Denaven couldn’t free him. I couldn’t see how to do it, either, but I learned an awful lot about holding bodies in stasis. If he were frozen like that this time, I might be able to free him. But this—I just don’t see how.”
Tesra pretended to accept the explanation. “Why were you trying to strengthen the lines of his energy first?”
“To make him more resilient. I was trying to protect him in case something went wrong.”
Had she been? Tesra wondered.
Cerai locked eyes with her, as if judging the strength of Tesra’s belief in her. “We shall have to tell the aspirants and squires what’s happened. Don’t look so glum. We won’t need him for the next phase anyway. And if we survive, we can try again. His life force is protected now, thanks to me.” Tesra nodded numbly. Cerai was watching her once more. “You should never have let M’vai attempt that nonsense on her own.”
“There wasn’t time to come and get you.”
“Is that the real answer? Or is it that you don’t trust me?”
Tesra thought quickly, for she knew her indecision was obvious. “I want to believe you. But like I’ve said, too many people have tricked me over the years. The queen tricked me. Rylin tricked me. I think M’vai tricked me, too. It’s hard for me to really trust anyone.”
Cerai, uncaring that one of the greatest heroes of the five realms was for all intents and purposes a statue beside her, folded her arms. “You need to decide where you stand, Tesra. And who your friends really are.” She considered N’lahr the way someone might evaluate a potted plant. “I think I’ll put him near the couch, over there.”
“Right now?”
“No, I’ll have the servants do it. You and I should go speak to the squires and aspirants.”
Tesra nodded, but her eyes didn’t leave the commander. “I’d like a moment alone with him.”
“He’s not really dead. You don’t have to make a formal good-bye.”
“But he may not be alive ever again,” she said.
“Very well.” Cerai frowned. “I’ll go talk to them by myself. Find me when you’re finished.” She turned and left the room via the far door, leaving the lantern behind.
Tesra had never directly served under N’lahr as a squire. She’d grown up south of Harata, far from
the regions regularly menaced by Naor. She’d never known anyone during her childhood who had suffered at the hands of the enemy, as he had. Yet she well knew all that he had done to keep similar tragedies from other people of the realms.
That Cerai had known about his earlier imprisonment was just one more secret she’d kept that might have changed history. The alten had explained away her knowledge of it with a clever excuse. Everything she said might be a lie, or come from a twisted perspective, or omit a few details to cast her in the best light.
Had Cerai truly been building up his life energies to help sustain him? Or had she been trying to learn more about altering them in a new way, since his structure was already reinforced by the ordered matrix that had invaded him?
Tesra suspected the latter. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared into the immobile face. N’lahr’s features were constricted, as if in his final moments he’d felt pain. His right hand had dropped toward the hilt of his magnificent sword. How long, she wondered, before Cerai bequeathed the weapon to herself?
Tesra straightened with resolve. The others had to be warned. She had made so many bad choices that no matter the risk, she owed it to her people. She would have to tell Rylin and Thelar what had happened.
“And maybe, in the end, one of them can save you,” she said to the immobile commander. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know if they’ll be able to save me. But that’s not important. It sounds like the kind of choice an alten makes, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s my numbered day.”
For no reason she fully understood, she gently kissed his cheek before she left him.
When the Goddess Wakes Page 26