She focused on Mairen, struggling near the crystal god, reaching for the obelisk, her fingers barely touching it.
The crystal flared and Connebragh gasped, for it seemed as if something, some humanoid, was inside!
“Usgar?” she breathed, and she dared hope.
The ground before the crystal began to churn, rolling over, and then a gigantic head rose from the ground before her, showing the distinctive markings of the invaders, the red nose and bright blue streaks. He, for it was a male form, continued to rise, up, up, standing thrice the height of the tallest Usgar.
He reached down with one hand, giant but slender, and cupped Mairen’s chin, tilting her head back so that she had to look up at him.
Connebragh nearly fainted. A million questions darted through her thoughts. Was this Usgar? But how could it be Usgar, looking like these strange monsters now slaughtering the tribe?
She did well to stop herself from screaming.
She did better by rushing away, out of the grove and to the highest point on the plateau’s northwestern edge. There, she clutched the green-flecked crystalline tip of a spear she had collected in her run—Ahn’Namay’s spear. She called to the song within, and leaped, fast-floating down the mountainside.
* * *
You hear my voice inside of you, the godlike giant imparted to Mairen. Echo it. Sing.
Mairen couldn’t possibly refuse. She had never seen anything so beautiful as this creature in all of her life, had never heard anything so beautiful as his voice in all her life.
This was Usgar, she believed, come to her in her time of need.
She found the notes, the harmony of light, of beauty, of life itself, and so she sang, and the ground did roil beneath her, the churning soil lifting her up, releasing her from the earth’s grasp.
She stood by the crystal god and she sang, and the great giant moved to each of the sisters in turn and showed them his light, and they, too, sang, and they, too, were lifted from their earthen traps.
Dance! the giant compelled them, and so the Coven danced once more and sang in harmony, and even Moragh, so new to this music, so tentative before, twirled and sang at the top of her voice.
The crystal flared with power, its tip glowing as brilliantly as the sun above.
Beneath the northeastern section of the grove, directly ahead of the crystal’s tip, the ground began to glow angrily, and smoke began to rise.
One of the pines in that area flared with fire, then others joined, a sudden and ferocious conflagration.
Sap exploded and cinders flew, small fireballs launched into the air to be caught on southern winds.
But the witches didn’t shy and didn’t stop their dance and song.
A great gust of wind came up, a hurricane to mock the blast Aoleyn had used to topple Mairen and the others, and so aimed was it that not a branch shook on any tree that was not within the conflagration. But those burning trees, their roots incinerated, the ground beneath them more molten than solid, flew away like great flaming spears.
Through that opening in the grove, the view opened wide, down to Loch Beag’s eastern banks.
Sing! the giant godlike creature told them, and how could they not? For none of them had ever heard a sweeter music, a song promising peace and eternal joy.
* * *
Gliding on the southern winds, the boat holding Aoleyn was more than halfway across Loch Beag as the sun neared its zenith that day. Many of the other boats of refugees moved beside them, most ahead. Dozens of other boats had broken off, most going for the eastern shore, but some turning west, intending to land north of Car Seileach.
“The Carrachan Shoal survivors are not pleased by our choice,” Talmadge said to Khotai, Aydrian, Aoleyn, and Bahdlahn.
“I should be with them,” Khotai answered. “I would be, except that I’d be only a burden.”
Aoleyn stared at the woman, awkwardly sitting, her one leg tucked under her, its girth tilting her to the side.
A call from another boat had them all turning, looking back to the south, to Fireach Speuer. There, high on the mountain—at the winter plateau, Aoleyn believed—a host of trees went up in a sudden burst of angry flames.
“Mairen,” Aoleyn reasoned, but she was wrong.
Smoke billowed into the sky and moments later the fiery line blew out, exploding forward and scattering on the mountain winds.
Aoleyn was standing then, staring hard. “Mairen?” she repeated, this time questioning. She couldn’t tell from this distance, of course, but she feared that the fire was up by her tribe, was, perhaps, at the sacred grove about Dail Usgar, trees she had climbed as a child.
All of them, on all the boats, stood and stared—some of the lakemen on Aoleyn’s boat quietly cheering at the apparent demise of the Usgar. From that spot high on the mountain, there came a bright light, brighter than the midday sun, and Aoleyn shielded her eyes and could not stand to look at it directly for more than a brief moment at a time.
White light, searing light, light so brilliant that it mocked the noon sun on this clear day.
A beam shot out from it, from that spot, down the mountainside, hitting a high outcropping and melting the stone, then bursting through on its path of obliteration. It shot through a stand of tall trees, which immediately burst into flames, then continued down the mountainside, crossing east of Fasach Crann, high above the sacked village of Carrachan Shoal.
A great hissing sound to the east broke the trance and all the refugees on all the boats swiveled their heads to regard the source, and all gasped as a spray of steam arose from the lake, the water superheating under the power of that strange beam of white light.
Then came an explosion, huge and terrible, and a gout of molten stone leaped into the air, breaking the waves, and then a second line of fiery stone, fountaining from the rocky ground along that eastern shoreline.
“By the gods, what…” Talmadge started to say.
Another explosion shook the whole of the plateau, and another geyser of lava leaped forth.
“Sail, row,” Aoleyn whispered. As with anyone who had ever looked down upon Loch Beag from the higher perches of Fireach Speuer, Aoleyn had often wondered what might happen if the mountains forming the eastern banks of that huge lake had ever broken and split. Beyond that narrow bank of mountains, the land fell away for nearly half a mile, way down to the lifeless lands of Fasail Dubh’clach, the Desert of Black Stones.
Another explosion, and another after that rocked the Ayamharas plateau, more gouts of liquefied stone spewing into the midday sky.
And deeper grumbles followed, as if reaching far below the lake.
“What is that?” asked Talmadge and many others across the water.
“Sail, row,” Aoleyn said again.
“What are they doing?” Talmadge demanded of her.
“I do’no know,” Aoleyn answered.
“Breaching?” Aydrian asked his friend, but he did not know the word for that in the language of the plateau. Khotai gasped and translated.
“Sail!” Talmadge yelled, to those on his own boat and all the others. “Get off the lake! Get off the lake!”
Many of the boats were already trying to do so—many of those already on the way to the east fast tacked and tried to turn about.
Unseen explosions could be heard beyond the mountains, and screams came from unseen folk—the folk of Sellad Tulach, no doubt, as it was the only village along that shore—and more fountains of lava reached up among the eastern mountain range.
Fiery boulders flew high, some arcing out over the lake to splash down angrily. A rain of them dropped near to the bank, among the leading boats that had turned that way, pummeling them, igniting them, sending men, women, and children leaping helplessly into the sizzling waters.
“We have to go to them,” Khotai cried.
“No!” came an emphatic denial, from Aoleyn, which surprised all others listening.
“Deamhan,” one man said.
“The boat is dri
fting,” Aoleyn told them. “All the boats are drifting. The lake, the lake!”
“The lake?” Bahdlahn and Khotai asked together.
“It is draining,” Talmadge explained before Aoleyn could, as he, too, noticed the new current. “The eastern wall of the plateau is breached.”
He ran to the side of the boat, grabbed one of the simple rigging lines, and leaped up on the rail, shouting for all the boats to row hard and sail hard to the north or the west.
A huge explosion shook the lake and nearly sent Talmadge overboard.
Then came another answer, this time from the lake itself, as the water broke not so far away and a huge, serpentine head appeared, rising up above one of the other boats, all teeth and horns and primal fury, as angry as the spews of lava, as unstoppable as a volcano.
Down it crashed, splintering the boat into a thousand pieces, crushing the poor sailors or sending them flying.
Aoleyn stood and lifted her arms, facing the sail. She called upon her moonstone and brought forth a tremendous rush of wind and the boat leaped away, speeding to the north.
The man in the silver breastplate protested, she knew, though she couldn’t understand his words. Using his own magic, the man took the end of a rope in hand and leaped out from their boat, running across the water to tie off a second boat, the one carrying Catriona of Fasach Crann.
Aoleyn paused in her magic, but listened not at all to the shouts coming at her.
“We go or we die” was all she would answer, and given the growing catastrophe all about them, it was hard to dispute the notion.
Everyone on that boat, on all the boats, wanted to help their fellow lake dwellers.
Everyone on that boat, on all the boats, realized to their horror that there was nothing that could be done.
Aydrian came back to the rail then, looking miserable, but with Catriona’s boat somewhat in tow, and now tied to their own. He said something to Talmadge, who turned grimly to Aoleyn and nodded.
“Bring the wind,” the man named Aydrian agreed.
What else could they do?
Aoleyn brought forth the power of her moonstone, the sails bending, the boat racing away to the north. As they passed other craft, Aoleyn bade the man at the rudder to move them near, and she offered as much wind as she could to the other boats, as well, though the focus remained on her own. Soon they were far in the lead, speeding toward the northern shore.
To the east, the explosions and gouts of lava continued. Out of sight, along the sheer mountain wall dropping to the desert far below, huge boulders shifted and blew out, the pressure of the lake sending great waterfalls spraying forth, falling, falling.
Far behind, boats were swept away on the rolling tide. The great monster of the loch came forth again and took a second boat, then a third.
Up atop Fireach Speuer the beam continued, reaching down to eat at the eastern wall, to crack the mountain bowl that held Loch Beag.
Aoleyn collapsed with exhaustion when her boat at last slid ashore the northern beach—a shoreline that was noticeably lower than it had been earlier that same afternoon. She let Bahdlahn help her out of the boat and fell down on the wet sands, her magic gone.
The second boat, towed by the line Aydrian had given them, came in right after, but the next in line was still far away, oars splashing, sails trying to catch those southern winds.
Aoleyn watched the strange man in the silver breastplate run out from the beach, rope in hand. He was a good man, she decided. He would try to help.
Aoleyn wanted to, as well, but she had no strength left, had nothing left at all. She doubted she could stand on her own at that time, and the song of her magical gemstones was naught but a distant buzz, inaccessible.
When the sun went down and twilight fell, the beam continued and bright lava leaped high, and the crackles of explosions intertwined with the continual thunderous roar of gigantic waterfalls.
And the waters of Loch Beag lowered, waterfalls raining on the desert far below, sweeping boats and refugees away to the east.
EPILOGUE
She had only two magics in the spear tip she held: the green-flecks of malachite to lighten her step or allow her to float down the mountain, and the small bits of diamond that allowed her to brighten or darken the area around her.
Connebragh used the second of those magical powers most of all now, down off the mountain and along the western bank of the fast-diminishing Loch Beag. Surrounded by enemies, human and nonhuman alike, the terrified witch crouched in the shadows, and enhanced those shadows around her.
She didn’t know where she could possibly go, so she kept moving away from the mountain. Her people were all dead, she believed—how could any of them have survived the hordes of attacks and that giant, godlike creature she had seen rising from the ground of the sacred lea?
What could she do?
Where could she go?
She had passed by a town of lakemen only moments before a horde of those painted-faced humanoids had sacked it. So many had fled, the same way Connebragh had been running. Over and over again, she had heard the screams as the invaders caught them and cut them down.
The sun was setting now before her. Terribly afraid, Connebragh found a cubby under the exposed roots of a leaning willow tree, and there she huddled.
She closed her eyes tight and kept them shut, but she did not sleep. She could not sleep because the night was full of screams and thunderous explosions, and earthquakes that shook the ground about her so violently that she feared the tree under which she huddled would topple over at any moment.
She didn’t know what to do.
* * *
Aoleyn awakened the next morning to find herself alone in the shallow cave she had shared with Bahdlahn and some others. She came out, bleary-eyed, still exhausted from the events of the previous day. She had slept more than most because of her sheer exhaustion, for she had used the magical gemstones of her jewelry more extensively the previous day than ever before—even counting her battle with the fossa. Still, hers had not been a solid sleep, for the ground had shaken and rolled so many times, as if entire mountains had fallen.
She crawled out and looked about the lower trails to the north and west, but saw little activity, though she did note that many of the huge stones of this boulder-strewn region seemed as if they had moved in the earthquakes. She couldn’t be certain because she did not really know this area, and had only glimpsed it in the twilight briefly, and while exhausted. Still, it looked different to her.
Everything looked different to Aoleyn.
Making her way around the rock that formed this shelter, she found her companions, many of them standing along the higher ridge up above, all looking back toward Loch Beag.
Aoleyn crawled up the slope, noting Bahdlahn, Talmadge, the strange man in the silver breastplate, and the crippled, dark-skinned woman named Khotai. When she got up beside them, she had no voice with which to greet them.
For there before her, Loch Beag was gone, and in its stead lay a vast and huge valley. To the east, a large section of the mountains had indeed fallen away, leaving a wide opening, and just below the lower edge of a massive crack in the bowl of the Ayamharas plateau, as far as Aoleyn could see, the Desert of Black Stones was no more, replaced by a seemingly endless lake.
She turned her attention to the uncovered valley, and it seemed strange to her, unnatural, as if some giant hands and not simple nature had shaped it. She noted worked stones all along its steep sides. Steps? Structures built among the dark holes that appeared to be caves?
Her gaze traveled to the valley floor, half a mile below, and to a large mound, it seemed, down there in the center.
No, not just a mound, she realized, but a strange four-sided, mountain-like structure, too constant and homogeneous, its sides symmetrical.
“It’s a pyramid,” Talmadge said.
Aoleyn stared at him blankly.
Aydrian stepped over and held something out to her. As soon as she took the item,
a lens, she felt its magic. She brought it to her eyes and called upon the song, and gasped as the “mountain” at the bottom of the valley came clear to her.
The sides were all stepped, evenly and beautifully, though mounds of silt covered many of the stairs.
She moved her gaze about, seeing many structures, hundreds of structures, thousands of structures, and came to understand that she was looking down upon what once had been a massive settlement, a village a thousand times larger than all the lakemen villages and the Usgar encampments combined. It lay in disrepair, of course, with mounds of mud and waste, vast puddles, even small ponds, of water, and fields of dead fish, all about.
But it was there, without doubt. A city, once a glorious and massive settlement.
How could it be?
Aoleyn’s magically enhanced gaze roamed far to the south wall, to the stairs there, carved along the wall, climbing out of the vale to the shadows of Fireach Speuer. She saw the invaders, swarming like hungry ants, working their way down those stairs, cleaning them.
Reclaiming them.
Aoleyn brought the lens down from her eyes and stared openmouthed at Talmadge and the others, completely at a loss.
“’Tis not possible,” she whispered, and none of them had an answer.
On a sudden impulse, the young woman brought the lens back up to her eyes and gazed far across the valley-that-had-been-a-lake, to Fireach Speuer, up, up, to see what had become of her people. From a still-distant vantage, she found the sacred grove, and saw that a part of it had been blown out, as she had suspected the previous day. She started to magnify that image, wanting to peer inside, and she did see a shining point that she believed to be the obelisk of the crystal god.
But then she screamed and dropped the lens, and fell away in shock and fear.
Aydrian gathered up the lens and took her place, quickly looking back to the mountain. He, too, gasped and backpedaled, and waved for all the others to get down.
Reckoning of Fallen Gods Page 39