The Silver Mage

by Katharine Kerr

  “They won’t, not with me on guard!” Devar raised his head high and lashed his tail.

  He was acting so like his father at that moment that Dallandra found herself speechless. Medea turned to him and hissed.

  “Oh, listen to you!” Medea said. “Very fierce, I’m sure, for a hatchling!”

  “Well, there’s the three of us,” Devar said. “That’s triple fierce!”

  “Just so,” Dallandra said. “And now I suggest you all get ready to fly. I see the column’s moving again.”

  By some hours before the late sunset, the disorganized throng of townsfolk had managed to travel fifteen miles from their town walls. Dallandra realized that while they dithered and complained and spread out randomly, they also had a grim persistence that ignored exhaustion and drove onward. The column began to remind her of the slow tides in the estuary of the Delonderiel that crept in a few inches at a time, barely noticeable, until the seawater filled the channel and threatened to drown anyone caught in it.

  Still, once the Horsekin held the town, they could send out fast-moving patrols to search for the refugees. Once they spotted the townsfolk, they would be able to strike fast, too, without worrying about their supply train, safe behind good stone walls. When Dallandra scried for Cerr Cawnen, she saw the town clearly. Just to the north, she spotted the tangled mass of the army’s auras. As she watched, the red-and-gold clouds of etheric energy, shot through with the black lightning of sheer hatred, poured in through the north gates. Detachments broke off and swirled east and west to secure the other breaches in the walls.

  Oh, dear gods, Dallandra thought. Our only hope now is whatever Arzosah has in mind.

  Rori had followed the army for the last mile or so as it approached Cerr Cawnen. He too saw the Horsekin ride up to the north gates and find them open. The rakzanir at the head of the line of march drew their horses up to one side and conferred for a few brief moments. Squads trotted through and paused their horses to look around, then trotted out again. Brass horns blared as shouts spread up and down the line. Although he couldn’t understand them, he could assume that the men were being warned to ride ready for a trap.

  Detachments of several hundred cavalry each broke off from the main army and trotted round the walls to secure the east and west gates. Another hundred horsemen rode straight through the north gates to the commons, where they paused, guarding archers who climbed up the catwalks on the inner wall and secured the high ground. Only then did the rest of the army ride in, breaking into two columns, one spreading east, the other west, along the grassy area below the walls.

  Citadel presented a nice military problem. The rakzanir rode down to the lakeshore and drew up on horseback. Rori could see them shading their eyes with their hands as they peered through the lake mists at the rocky island across the water. The council barge, tied to a nearby pier, sat invitingly close at hand, but Rori doubted that the rakzanir would risk using it, not so close to nightfall. If the townsfolk had planned some sort of ambuscade or armed surprise, they would have laid it on Citadel, and doubtless the rakzanir could figure that out for themselves. Sure enough, they turned their horses and rode back to the army.

  Brass horns blared once more. The army began to ride, half east, half west, around the lake, spreading out as they rode. Some men dismounted and peered into the houses built onshore. Some, bolder than the rest, found their way through the maze of steps and piers to the crannog houses and gardens. As the sunset turned the lake mist pink and gold, the Horsekin slowly took over the entire town. Rori circled high above and watched them tethering out their horses in the various sectors of the grassy commons near the gates. Squads climbed the catwalks and manned the walls while down below them, slaves pulled the gates shut under the eyes and whips of the Keepers of Discipline.

  The rats had helped build their own trap. With a rumble of laughter Rori flew back to Arzosah through the gathering twilight.

  Still bruised and sore as he was, Salamander had spent a painful day riding south among the Westfolk archers. Sleeping on the ground proved worse. In the middle of the night, just as the tide of Water was flowing out and that of Earth flowing in, he woke, squirmed, turned over several times, swore, squirmed some more, and finally got up. Besides his stiff muscles, he felt a sense of dread, a coldness in his mind and very soul. The Horsekin were near, too near—he could feel it. He put on his boots and picked his way through the sleeping camp. Out among the sentries, Prince Dar greeted him in a voice just above a whisper.

  “What are you doing here, Dar?” Salamander said. “You should be sleeping.”

  “I can take a turn on watch with all the rest,” Dar said. “What about you?”

  “I’m too bruised to sleep. Why not let me take your position, and you go get some rest? You’ll need your wits about you tomorrow, dealing with this lot.”

  Dar chuckled and agreed. Salamander watched him as he made his way back to the archers’ camp. Dawn would be soon enough to apprise the prince and the banadar of the omens he was feeling, the dread and the sense of death hovering close on widespread wings. When he turned his mind to Cerr Cawnen, he saw in vision that the Horsekin army had invested the town. His stomach knotted so badly he nearly vomited. Too close, indeed. He thought of alarming the camp right there and then, but the two dragons, the silver and the black, were flying toward the lake. He waited, watching them in vision.

  Rori and Arzosah flew high above Cerr Cawnen in an odd path, back and forth in long loops, one flying deosil, the other widdershins, while the waning moon shone upon their scales and made them glitter in the night. Back and forth as if they were weaving—they were doing just that, Salamander suddenly realized, weaving a dweomer spell over the sleeping army. All at once, the pattern changed. Rori spiraled down toward Citadel while Arzosah flew a spiral up toward the stars. It seemed that he might land on the island, but he smoothed his flight and began to spiral up, whilst she changed her course and spiraled down.

  Three times they danced out the dweomer, then met in the sky and began to wheel in tandem. Salamander focused his vision upon them. Their mouths moved as if they spoke, but he could, of course, hear nothing. Around and around—the earth shook under him, breaking the vision. Salamander dropped to his knees as the camp behind him exploded with shouts and screams of fear. The earth trembled and rolled yet again. He twisted round and saw everyone in camp getting to their feet only to fall to their knees as the earth quaked a third time. Horses whinnied and pulled at their tethers. Children shrieked, and the young dragons took flight, wheeling high above the panic.

  Salamander forced his mind steady and brought all his trained will to bear upon his second sight. The vision returned. It seemed that he hovered above Cerr Cawnen with his brother and Arzosah as, below, the town shook and rolled. The water in the lake broke into waves as large as a stormy sea, rushing onto the crannogs, then pulling back to expose the lake bottom. Steam rose in great gouts from the lake and between the houses. Once again the earth trembled under him, but Salamander managed to lock his scrying onto the town.

  Cerr Cawnen’s walls were shaking and twisting as the earth beneath them quaked and bucked like the terrified horses tethered on the commons. The wooden gates shattered and tore away from the stone. The horses reared, kicked, and broke free, racing in panicked herds out of the town at every gate. Behind them men went running back and forth. Some rushed out of the broken gates behind the horses just as the walls began cracking into huge hunks of mor tared stone. They fell, crushing anyone beneath them. Out in the lake the water rose into huge waves that bubbled and steamed. They came roaring toward land and slammed onto the crannogs. Houses ripped apart and fell. Salamander saw men slide, openmouthed and screaming, into scalding water and tore his gaze away.

  Citadel shook the worst of all. The sides of the island were giving way, crumbling like a child’s sand castle at high tide. Rocks, houses, huge lumps of soil—they all slid into the lake below. Above the island, Arzosah and Rori still flew their long l
oops, weaving their dweomer. The peak of the island cracked open and split in avalanches of rock and dirt. Ugly yellow steam rose in tendrils through the cracks. Through the shimmering curtains of this deadly mist, Salamander saw the gleam of fire.

  With a roar that reached the camp, some fifteen miles away, the ancient caldera sprang to life. Liquid fire, the boiling blood of the earth, rose high into the air in long streamers and then plunged down. A deadly rain of glowing rocks fell with it, pounding down on the Horsekin camp and the Horsekin soldiers. Salamander saw men catch fire as they rushed back and forth, their mouths open in an agony that he couldn’t hear. As much as he hated them for Meradan, Salamander could no longer bear to watch. He scried for the two dragons, saw them flying safely south, and broke the vision.

  Salamander staggered to his feet just as Dallandra came running.

  “Did you see?” she called out in Elvish.

  “Yes, and it’s horrible.”

  “Very, but hurry! We’re moving the camp out. I have no idea of how far or fast the molten rock will run.”

  In the gray light of first dawn the refugees rushed to gather goods, livestock, and children. Salamander mounted the horse that an archer brought him, then scried again. He could see nothing of the town under a huge blanket of steam. The water meadows were boiling around Cerr Cawnen’s grave. From the center of this cloud, ash rose in a tower like an enormous fist thrust into the sky.

  When Salamander expanded the vision, he saw terrified horses, dusted with ash and cinders, still running south, and a few men as well, staggering through air that seemed as thick as porridge. He broke the vision to find Calonderiel and his archers forming up around him.

  “Some of the horses escaped,” Salamander called out.

  “We’ll worry about that later, you drooling idiot!” the banadar called back. “Ride!”

  The warband set off at a fast walk with the prince at its head and the banadar at the rear, herding the refugees along as quickly as they could possibly move. Every now and then the earth trembled, but more and more gently, as if the shocks were dying away in slow waves. At intervals Salamander scried; he could assume that Dallandra and Grallezar were doing the same. Steam mostly obscured the smoking crater that once had been a town and an army, but occasionally Salamander could see enough of the fringes of the disaster to realize that the lava had stopped spreading some five or six miles from the eruption. He reminded himself that he’d witnessed no natural event, but one caused and thus to some extent controlled by dweomer.

  Yet the tower of ash, gray flecked with black, continued to rise into the sky, like the smoke from a funeral pyre for the Horsekin army. All that morning he could see it, rising on the horizon, until a south wind sprang up and began to push it to the north, spreading it out into a vast fan, letting it fall like deadly snow upon the farmland and the grass.

  Dallandra was riding near the middle of the column of refugees when she saw Rori and Arzosah arrive. The two elder dragons joined their young, then sorted the clutch into a formation like that of flying geese, with Rori at the head. They glided as much as flew, swinging first to one side, then the other as they kept pace with the slower refugees below.

  Dallandra had seen so many horrible deaths during the eruption that she hated the thought of scrying out the destruction again. Grallezar, however, had more steel in her soul. At times, she tossed her reins to Dallandra and let her lead her black gelding along while she herself scried. She came out of one vision trance with a grimly satisfied smile upon her face.

  “It be safe to let the folk stop and rest,” Grallezar said. “The earth’s blood flows not our way.”

  “Well and good, then.” Dallandra tossed Grallezar’s reins back to her. “I’ll go tell the prince.”

  Dallandra turned her horse out of line and rode at the trot up to the head, where Prince Dar rode beside Calonderiel. She guided her horse in between theirs.

  “We can stop now,” she said. “The molten rock’s not spreading our way.”

  “Good,” Dar said. “Everyone’s weary, especially the horses.” He glanced up at the dragons wheeling in the sky. “I want to send one of the wyrms off with messages. We need to let Gerran and Cadryc know what’s happened.”

  “Just so,” Calonderiel said. “And I suppose we should send a letter to that spoiled child in Cengarn.”

  “It would be politic.” Dallandra glanced Cal’s way with a smile. “If Rori takes the messages to Cadryc, Cadryc will probably agree to pass the news on to Ridvar. For now, though, everyone needs to rest, even the dragons.”

  “Especially the dragons, I’d say,” Dar put in. “They worked that dweomer, and it must have been draining. Maybe that young green one can take the messages on.”

  At the prince’s orders, the grateful refugees spread out along a stream and made a rough camp in the tall grass. The dragons landed a good ways off to the south. Dallandra and Salamander left their horses with the Westfolk archers and made their way over the rough footing to join them. The two elder dragons were rolling on their backs in the grass, wiping away ash and cinders. At the sight of the two Westfolk, they rolled back onto their stomachs and arranged themselves in more dignified poses, front paws outstretched.

  “I suppose you’re wondering how I worked that dweomer,” Arzosah said. “It’s a dragon secret, and I shan’t tell you.”

  “Even if I knew,” Dallandra said, “I couldn’t make it work, even if I wanted to. I’ve never seen such an astounding act of magic in my life. I never dreamt that anyone could do such a thing, frankly.”

  Arzosah rumbled and ducked her head in a modesty that Dallandra suspected of being false.

  “You’ve saved the townsfolk,” Dallandra said. “I doubt me if we have to worry about being chased now.”

  “I doubt it, too,” Rori said. “Dalla, I’d be willing to wager high that the dead troops were the flower of the Horsekin army. They had the best warriors, the best equipment, and a fortune in horseflesh. It’ll take them a long time to recover from this.”

  “And the priestesses of Alshandra will have plenty to say about it, too,” Salamander broke in. “I can hear them now, nattering about how the army refused to listen to their goddess’ warning and thus paid for their stubbornness, arrogance, and so on and so forth. The rakzanir are going to have a cursed lot less authority from now on, well, the ones that survived.”

  Dallandra knew that she should feel joyful over this defeat of an enemy that would have slaughtered her and her entire people, had they been given the chance, but the memories of scalded men and burning horses rose up in her mind and turned the victory ugly and sour. Yet a victory it was. As she walked back to camp she saw the children and the townsfolk, huddled together around their wagons—refugees, exhausted, impoverished, but alive.

  That afternoon the townsfolk laid campfires and lit them with no fear of attracting their enemies’ attention. The women cooked soda bread and tried to quiet their frightened children while the men talked together in soft voices. Every now and then the earth shook, but each tremor felt weaker than the last. Still, Jahdo insisted that the town watch—he still thought of it as the town watch—post sentinels, just in case. No matter how many times the dweomerfolk told him what had happened, even his own sister, he found it hard to believe that the threat had died with the enemy army.

  Late in the day he walked out to the northern edge of the camp and stood looking back in the direction of the place that had once been his home. An enormous smear on the horizon, the plume of ash still rose, and the south wind still blew it back toward the north. How long, he wondered, would the caldera vent? He could ask Arzosah, he supposed, and eventually he would. For the moment, he only wanted to stand and look at the end of everything he’d loved.

  Niffa walked out to join him. When he turned his head to look at her, she slipped her arm through his.

  “Be you mourning?” she said.

  “Of course. Be not you?”

  “I do, truly. As you do say: of
course.”

  Jahdo forced out a twisted smile. “Ai! Our homeland it be gone now past all reclaiming. The cursed Horsekin, they be welcome to it now.”

  Niffa nodded and patted his arm. While he knew that she mourned Cerr Cawnen in her own way, he doubted if the loss meant as much to her as it did to him. He’d realized years before that her true home lay with the dweomer. Where her body might dwell mattered very little.

  “On the morrow,” Jahdo continued, “we’d best try to make speed. When we do reach this promised farmland, there be much work to be done ere winter falls, building shelter and planting the seed grain. Our time of mourning best be short.”

  “True spoken. Think of it this way, Brother. We be finally going home. The wretched Slavers stole our land so many years ago, but now they do need us so badly that they be forced to give some of it back.”

  Jahdo laughed, one startled bark. “Truly, I never thought of it in such a way. But you be right enough. Let me go back now and summon the rest of the council. We shall tell everyone we be going home to the Summer Country. And this time we be a free people!”

  As the news spread through the ragged camp of the refugees, laughter and cheers spread with it. Later, Jahdo knew, there would be more tears and regrets for what they’d lost, but from this moment onward, they once again owned a future.

  With Carra and her children riding in the lead, the royal alar had been traveling toward Cerr Cawnen—slowly, of course, the way alarli always traveled. They were still over fifty miles away when the earth’s blood boiled and rained down on the distant town. Even so, they felt the earthquake as a hard trembling of the earth. The flocks of sheep immediately panicked. Ewes and wethers bleated, shoved one another, and finally ran off in all directions. The alar had to stop to allow the dogs to round them up again with the help of some of the men while the rest of the riders, under Pir’s direction, kept the horse herd under control.