by Martha Wells
Florian’s jaw had dropped at some point and now she finally managed to make it work enough to say, “Here? On the ship? Now?”
“Yes.” Niles gave her an ironic look. “He’ll be under guard the entire time, of course. Even though Gerard and I, with Giliead and Arisilde’s assistance, weren’t enough to keep him contained last time. Oh, Chandre was good enough to admit that Ixion’s original offer, to make the body for Arisilde, was probably a bad idea, since even with all the new spheres Arisilde is still our best line of defense. Averi believes the entire idea is mad, but Chandre pointed out that Averi was originally against using the world-gate spell, after the failed attempt killed Riardin.” Niles slumped in his chair, his jaw set. “And if I find out who in the Viller Institute imparted that bit of information to Chandre, he’s going to spend the rest of the voyage with an uncomfortable medical condition in his nether regions.”
Florian dropped into one of the armchairs. Unfair, to hold Averi’s original opposition to the world-gate spell against him. At that time they hadn’t even known it was a world-gate spell. She shook her head, wondering now if Nicholas had been right. “I don’t understand. How is Chandre getting away with this? Where did he get all this power? Didn’t Count Delphane put Colonel Averi in charge?”
Niles took a deep breath. “Power is the key word.” He glanced at her, his face weary. “Count Delphane is only a man, Tremaine. Just as Colonel Averi is only a man. Delphane, in fact, has less power than Averi, since the remnants of the Rienish military see Averi as their commanding officer and still obey his orders. Delphane’s power rests only on the support of Averi and Captain Marais, and the others.”
Florian protested, “But Count Delphane was one of the Queen’s chief advisors….” She let the words trail off, as she really thought about what Niles was saying. She said reluctantly, “But Chandre has more support in Capidara than Delphane. And the Capidaran sorcerers and military men have to pay attention to him because the Capidaran Ministry told them to.”
“The only thing Chandre lacks is a sorcerer,” Niles said, impatiently pushing things around on the table. “Kressein is his own man, and primarily loyal to Capidara. He may have to work with Chandre, but Chandre won’t be able to lure him into his camp. That’s why Chandre is courting Ixion.”
Florian pushed to her feet, unable to hold still. “But he doesn’t understand that Syprian sorcerers are different.” She had thought Ixion might be of use, but somehow she hadn’t envisioned this. “I can see why he thinks— We could free so many trapped sorcerers. But—”
Niles shook his head, gesturing in annoyance. “But is it a question of freeing a prisoner, or bringing the dead back to a kind of artificial half-life?” He leaned forward, tapping the table for emphasis. “We know what happens when a sorcerer tries to return a trapped soul to a body. It’s called necromancy for one thing, and the result is one of the reasons that particular branch of sorcery has been outlawed in Ile-Rien for centuries.”
Florian let her breath out, nodding. Necromancy was outlawed not only because of its primary concern of using the dead for divination, but because a soul returned to a dead body became little more than a slave for the necromancer. Or a ghoul or a lich, or other things even more frightening. She hadn’t considered Ixion’s body-changing spell in that light before, but maybe Niles was right. “I was thinking of something else, though.”
Niles frowned warily, the look of a man who had had about all the bad news he could take. “What?”
“How do we know that what he’s going to be growing is really a human body?” She leaned on the table, biting her lip in thought. “I’m not exactly certain, but he said he grew his body in a vat. That’s the same way Syprian sorcerers make curselings.” She looked up to meet Niles’s gaze. “And that’s what Syprian sorcerers do, how they take over villages, or try to. They make curselings.”
Niles regarded her a moment in silence, then buried his head in his hands again. “Oh, that will be all we need.”
Chapter 8
It was Giliead’s turn to go with Gerard next, and Tremaine was beginning to feel the strain. It was like playing roulette, only you had to win with each spin of the wheel or else.
And she found herself wanting a chance to talk to Ilias alone, though it seemed like whenever she had a chance, she had no idea what she wanted to say. She rubbed her eyes. I give up. She declared herself officially hopeless.
Giliead, Ilias and Gerard had already gone back down to the lower circle chamber, Aras following them down the stairs. As Tremaine turned to head after them, Cimarus called her back. “She wants something,” he explained, jerking his head toward Balin.
The Gardier woman was standing near the fire, her arms folded tightly. “I want to walk around,” Balin said, giving Tremaine an uncertain glare that somehow combined defiance and diffidence.
Tremaine started to say no, then groaned under her breath. She didn’t suppose it could matter. “All right, fine.” She said to Cimarus in Syrnaic, “Let her walk down to the circle chamber, but keep an eye on her.”
As Tremaine started down the stairs, Meretrisa joined her, saying, “Only a few more circles to try.” She sounded optimistic.
“Right.” Tremaine disliked optimists at the best of times. And Meretrisa had every reason to look cool and unaffected, since she wasn’t taking any of the risks and had no particular relationship with any of the people who were. As Tremaine stepped down the too-high stone stairs, careful in the dimming light, she added earnestly, “Too bad we don’t have any other sorcerers to help Gerard.”
Either the barb failed to land entirely or Meretrisa simply ignored it. “I understand you are not a sorcerer yourself? Yet we had heard the prototype sphere would only work in your presence the first time it was used.”
“It got over that.” The sphere Arisilde now inhabited had been an old one he had made as a gift for Tremaine. When she was a child, she had had just enough magic inherited from her maternal great-grandmother to use it to make colored light and find lost toys. She had never tried to use her small talent for anything else, and it had faded along with her childhood. It would mean an ordinary Viller sphere could do its automatic defensive spells if she held it, but she couldn’t make it do anything else. But she wasn’t going to elaborate on that to Meretrisa.
She persisted, “But Giliead is also a sorcerer, or perhaps the natives would call it a shaman?”
Tremaine glanced up over her shoulder, making sure Cimarus and Balin hadn’t caught up with them yet. She didn’t want to discuss whether Giliead could or could not use magic in front of any other Syprians except Ilias. And the idea didn’t exactly make Ilias comfortable either. “Not… exactly.”
“But I thought he was the one who was able to use the Gardier crystal to let you all escape from their world?”
“Yes, that was Giliead, but…” They reached the chamber, where Gerard knelt beside the circle, making a last few notes, and Aras had busied himself with building up the fire. Giliead was standing near Gerard, waiting patiently, and Ilias stood beside him, his back tense. Tremaine knew the risk of stepping into those circles was starting to affect him as well. She glanced at Meretrisa, who had stopped beside her, waiting for an answer. “It’s complicated. Giliead is technically responsible to the god of Cineth, and the Syprian gods aren’t keen on magic. With good reason.” Tremaine didn’t want to get into the fact that Giliead believed he had already irrevocably violated the god’s trust.
“I had heard about their gods.” Meretrisa looked across the room, studying Giliead for a long moment, frowning. “Is it true they think his power comes from it?”
“It’s true.” Tremaine sensed doubt, and felt her hackles rise. “I’ve met Cineth’s god.”
Meretrisa lifted her brows, her faint smile suggesting she knew she was being mocked. “Surely it isn’t real.”
Tremaine valiantly suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and sigh. Yes, because I have nothing better to do with my time than invent
elaborate jokes. “It’s very real. Gerard thinks the gods might be elemental spirits. Every city in the Syrnai—and some of the other places they have contact with—has gods. The gods help keep away the curselings, the creatures that wizards create, and other unfriendly etheric beings. The Syrnai is a very dangerous place to live without a god somewhere nearby. Just like Ile-Rien used to be, when the fay practically ruled the countryside.” Crisscrossing the country with steel train tracks had broken the power of fayre in Ile-Rien, though the fay still lurked on coastal islands, in deserted ruins and deep forests. It hadn’t been that different from the Syprians’ situation, now that she thought about it. Before the trains, every village had had its priests and its family of hedgewitches to protect the inhabitants against fay. The Gardier were bound to encounter fay, as they were now supposed to be attacking the Bisran border. Tremaine sourly hoped they enjoyed each other’s company.
Meretrisa nodded seriously. “I see.”
Tremaine wasn’t sure Meretrisa did, but she wasn’t going to waste her time on further explanations.
Gerard stood, tucking his notebook away. “Ready?” he asked.
Giliead nodded. He looked down at Ilias, who said uneasily, “Just remember the way back.”
Giliead didn’t say anything, just ruffled Ilias’s hair and gave him an affectionate shove, then stepped into the circle with Gerard.
Gerard took a deep breath, the sphere sparked faintly, and the two men vanished.
Tremaine bit her lip. Right, now the real anxiety starts again. Cimarus had drawn even with her and Meretrisa, watching the process in unwilling fascination. Tremaine realized that while he had been through world-gates a few times, he had never actually seen it from the outside. She started to ask him what he thought, then abruptly realized who was missing from their little group. “Where’s Balin?” she demanded.
Startled, Cimarus scanned the chamber, then swore in guilty chagrin.
Tremaine clapped a hand over her eyes. “Great.” There was only one place Balin could have gone, and that was outside through the crack in the wall. “I’ll go after her.” Tremaine started away, putting a hand in her pocket to touch her pistol.
“Wait,” Ilias called sharply. He ran to catch up with her and they started toward the back wall of the chamber.
“It’s going to be all right,” Tremaine told him, not meaning Balin. Though considering they couldn’t keep track of their one prisoner, she wasn’t sure why anyone should feel secure in their competence to explore these circles.
He shook his head, giving her a rueful look, and climbed out through the narrow crack in the wall. Tremaine struggled out after him. The late-afternoon light was bright enough in the open areas, but it was dark and shadowy under the trees. Ilias went to the dirt flat just beyond the rocky outcrop, thoughtfully studying the ground. Tremaine looked, but there was no sign of Balin near the streambed or in the twilight fringes of the pine forest. “This way,” Ilias said suddenly, turning back toward the rocks. “She went up here.”
“Not toward the forest?” Tremaine followed him around the outcrop and up the rough slope, the gravel slipping under her boots. There were only a few straggly pines on this side, and clumps of dry grass sprouted in the sunny areas between. “Wouldn’t that be the easiest way to lose us?”
He shrugged, still scanning the ground as they climbed. “Does she know how to live in the forest?”
Tremaine had to give him that one. “I doubt it.”
Balin seemed to have found an old trail, or at least Ilias had. They hadn’t explored this way before, simply because it hadn’t looked as if there was anything up here. The path they were following wound up around the side of the outcrop, heading toward the cliff top. Warily watching the folds of rock above them, Tremaine kept half expecting Balin to tumble a boulder down, but there didn’t seem to be a great deal of loose stones larger than pebbles.
They came around a knob of rock and were suddenly out on the cliff, a cool wind and the roaring crash of the waterfall accenting the view of snowcapped mountains and the woods across the gorge. Tremaine stopped, startled; there was something else up here admiring the view.
Stone statues, each about twenty feet high and with about that much distance between them, faced the river gorge. Their surfaces were smooth and dark, pitted enough by the weather to show a faint mottling of silver-gray. The bodies were just squat lozenges, details barely suggested, but the faces were round, serene and smooth, like those carved above the plaza in the Wall Port city. There were seven statues in all, and if Tremaine had the distances right, the collapsed half of the dome must have stood out from the cliff wall directly below the center one.
Ilias nudged her arm, jerking his head toward the cliff, and Tremaine saw the lone figure dressed in a dusty white shirt and pants. Balin stood in the yellow grass and wildflowers between two of the statues, looking out over the gorge and the mountains. She had her arms wrapped around herself, perhaps from the cold.
Tremaine sighed, scrubbing the sweat off her forehead. She made her way forward, careful of her footing on the uneven ground. She stopped far enough away that Balin couldn’t suddenly grab her and throw her off the cliff. “So. Where are you going?”
Balin glanced back at her, with an expression that tried to be stoic but only looked forlorn. “There is nowhere to go.”
“That was actually my point.” Tremaine looked up at the nearest statue, knowing Ilias would intervene if Balin made a move toward her. She stepped close to it, feeling the slight rise in the ground that marked a paved platform under the layer of dirt, and put her hand against the stone. It was still cool, despite sitting all day under the sun, and rougher than it looked. God, I wish she’d just jump and save us all this trouble. She thought of the Capidaran woman Balin had killed, in the Women’s Auxiliary uniform, and that stupid little cap. But it was superseded by an image of the young Gardier truck driver Tremaine had shot, who had died because he was foolish enough to stop and offer help to a supposedly injured boy. God, I should jump and save us all this trouble. But the thought was just an echo, with no force behind it.
Back on the Isle of Storms she had realized that Arisilde had been trying to communicate with her from the sphere, that he had somehow passed along fragments of Giliead’s and Ilias’s experiences, some of which had worked their way into her plays. That his unconscious melancholy influence had been partly responsible for fueling her need to kill herself. Realizing that had helped in many ways. Meeting Ilias, now waiting so quietly behind her, had helped in others. But at some point Tremaine had come to a place where even dying couldn’t solve her problems.
She patted the statue. “Don’t you think you’ve been gone too long?” she asked Balin, actually curious, looking at the woman standing stubbornly on the cliff. “If you did get back to them, won’t they think you’ve been corrupted by us?”
“They would know I was loyal,” Balin said stiffly, but the uncertainty was there.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re loyal or not, and you know it.” Tremaine shook her head. “You’ve seen too much. Hell, I’ve seen too much. Of course, I think I’d seen too much before this ever started.” She pushed away from the statue, deciding that when it came down to it, it was up to Balin. “Come back when you’re hungry. Or go native. Or jump. Whichever seems appropriate.”
She went back to Ilias, drawing him along with her, and they followed the rough path back down to the cave entrance.
About an hour later, Balin returned.
The sun was setting when Tremaine wandered the empty rooms along the corridor to the upper circle chamber, thinking, God, I hate this. One last circle to test, and then… She had no idea what came after that, if the last circle didn’t lead anywhere either.
Giliead and Gerard hadn’t been gone long. Their circle had taken them to a partially walled-off chamber. Giliead had been able to climb to a vantage point where he could see that they were in a city, bearing some resemblance to the Wall Port, but located in a d
esert with a mountain range visible in the distance. It hadn’t taken Giliead long to realize that the city was actually inhabited, and that they were in the Barrens, and that they needed to get the hell out of there.
Tremaine had heard them talk about it enough to know that that circle was a dead loss. The Barrens had no gods, and had become the refuge of wizards and curselings. The only other people there were slaves, enspelled by the wizards. Giliead had never heard of an ancient city out in the Barrens either, so the chances were that it was deep in that hostile territory, far from the Syrnai.
Aras had tried to argue with Gerard about it, much to Giliead’s teeth-gritted annoyance. “But surely much of this is just native superstition. The sorcerers there might know something of the circle,” Aras had argued. “They might be able to—”
Ilias swore in irritation. “They won’t talk to us. They’ll just kill us. If we’re lucky.”
“We can’t take the chance,” Gerard had said firmly, putting a stop to the discussion before Ilias could elaborate on the probable fate of people who blundered into godless areas, or Giliead gave in to temper and punched Aras. “Besides, the stone used to wall up the chamber looked nearly as old as the city itself. The circle was probably walled up before the original inhabitants left. Which means the Syprian wizards inhabiting the place might not even have any idea it exists. And frankly, I’d rather they not learn about it. We have enough to contend with from the Gardier.”
They had called a halt to the explorations for dinner, hoping that would restore everyone’s nerves. Ilias had listened to Giliead’s description of the Barrens with the appalled fascination of someone hearing a first-person account of a visit to Hell. Cletia had pretended to be completely unaffected, but Cimarus had volunteered to stand guard all night, probably because he was too unnerved to sleep. Then Gerard and Aras had taken the next circle.
