The Warrior Returns - Anteros 04

by Allan Cole

  How could she have come upon an insight so grand that until Greycloak no other had considered it? And in complete isolation, at that?

  "You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Rali?" she said.

  "Yes," I answered.

  "Your loyal Evocator told me you would," she said. "He told me all about Orissa. Janos Greycloak. Your brother and mother and family. The Far Kingdoms. Your battle with the Archons. All of it. It was quite a stirring tale. Inspiring, as well."

  Lord Searbe, I thought, had been a busy little coward these past few days.

  She shifted subjects. "You know there are other worlds, don't you?" "Yes," I said.

  "Lord Searbe said you'd entered some in your battle with the Archons."

  "If you know," I said, "why ask?"

  "I can draw on those worlds for power," she said.

  "That's what magic is," I said, shrugging. "We reach into the Otherworlds and draw out the means to cast our spells."

  "No, I mean real power. I mean enough to blast a mountain."

  "You can't do that," I said. "You said yourself that you used natural forces such as an already brewing storm to carry your biggest spells. And you can't focus that. It's sort of like casting bits of paper into the wind. You have to have a blizzard of those bits to make certain you hit your target. Like a shower of arrows on opposing troops."

  "I can't do it now," she said. "But I'll be able to when I'm done. And more. Why, the power is unlimited. Whole ranges of mountains could be turned to dust"

  "If you could," I said, "which I doubt... for what purpose? Why would you want to blast all those innocent mountains?"

  She laughed. "Don't be silly," she said. "What do / care about mountains? It's the power I want The delicious power. Why, it's the stuff that makes all wizards' dreams."

  "Not mine," I said.

  "Come now," she said. "How can you say that and claim it's true? Look how hard you've struggled to reach where you are. Look at how you have been treated by the men who rule this world, who command all women to keep their place and do their bidding like slavish animals with convenient orifices to please their masters."

  "Ah, I see," I replied. "All you do is in the name of sisterhood. You attack your neighbors, stalk the trade routes with pirate ships, kill my friends or lure them into betrayal, violate my dreams, and all in the name of our dear sisters, martyred in the temple of brute men."

  She became angry, her lovely features swelling with fury. "Why do you insist on arguing with me?" she demanded. "I've explained everything to you. Every word I've spoken is the truth! You know it's the truth. And you still argue. You still mock. You still turn away. Why is this?"

  "Where are my men?" I demanded.

  She huffed. 'That again!"

  "Yes," I said. "That again. Where are they?"

  "Dead," she said.

  "All of them?" I asked, keeping all feeling under heavy rein.

  "Except for your Evocator," she said. "I needed him for something else."

  "And if I spurn you," I said, "I suppose you'll kill me, too."

  "That's not going to happen," she said. "I need you alive. Willing or not."

  "For the same purpose as Lord Searbe?" I asked. "And Daciar? And my other Evocator, Lord Serano?"

  "Partly," she said. "Although I have more need of you than all of them, including the others I've captured. I've gathered quite a collection of wizards since King Magon began his raids."

  I made no response to this. To do so would draw me deeper into her sphere.

  "Don't you want to know why I've gone to such trouble to collect them?" she pressed.

  I remained silent. She had to tell me freely. Only then would the knowledge come without spell-tainted strings.

  She finally said, "I'm doing with them what the wizard did with all those girls. Except the presence I'm creating will be commanded by me"

  Now I knew how she was able to cast such a deadly spell on that storm. She'd somehow seized the powers of all the wizards she'd captured and molded them into a creature of her will.

  I gave no indication of my understanding. I casually drained my goblet and tipped in an inch or so more brandy. I was also remembering my conversation with Daciar when I'd declared that it wasn't possible for a wizard to steal another's power. Novari, it seemed, had certainly proven that statement false.

  "It appears to me that I have two choices. Join all those wizards in whatever hells you've condemned them to. Or side with you."

  She tilted her head, a coy smile on her lips. "I had more intimacy in mind than merely choosing sides," she said.

  I primped my hair with exaggerated femininity, touching the pin in my hair as if making certain it was in place. It was my only weapon.

  I dimpled a smile as coy as her own. "Why not?' I said.

  Then I turned the smile into a broad grin. I gulped my brandy and set the goblet down. I made my voice rough as I said, "I like a good fuck as well as the next woman."

  Novari winced at my crudeness. "Please," she said, voice trembling.

  "What more do you want?" I said.

  She slipped toward me, body glimmering in the firelight. I lay there motionless, watching. She sank down beside me. She looked deep into my eyes, and I could see emotion boiling in her own. Her lips were swollen, soft. Her perfume a heady musk that warmed me as I drank in the air.

  She touched my arm. "Please," she said again.

  I did nothing.

  She touched my breast. "Please." Softer now, almost a whisper.

  She leaned over me, her hair brushing my cheeks, making my skin tingle. Her lips were inches from mine and her breath was as sweet as a field in flower.

  "I can't give you what I don't feel," I whispered.

  She nodded. "Let me help you," she whispered back.

  Her face still mere inches from mine, she stroked my temples and looked deeper into my eyes. The spell of her perfume increased, and it was as if I were drifting in warmed honey. I could feel the heat grow where her body was pressed against mine.

  Lyre music swelled, soft and washing against me like gentle waves. The strings spoke to me of past loves, old regrets.

  I wasn't frightened but let the song take me where it would. I nearly cried out loud when it found Otara.

  My dear Otara. My only real love. The woman who had been all to me and whose loss was a wound that would never heal.

  "Oh, Rali!" Otara cried. "I've missed you so."

  And she came into my arms and all the years between us vanished.

  We embraced.

  We kissed.

  And we wept.

  The tears came like rivers, and the more we wept the more joyous I felt, and then we were laughing and tickling like schoolgirls. Passion flared and we were clutching each other, caressing each other, and I felt all the sweet lust that only Otara could arouse in me.

  Then we were moving toward our bed, our great, soft familiar bed which we'd shared for so many years.

  Just as we reached it I stopped. I unpinned my hair, letting it fall in waves across my shoulders.

  "You always liked my hair this way," I said.

  Otara laughed, low and throaty. The laugh I loved so much. Then she drew me into the bed and began undressing me, kissing each place she unveiled.

  My heart was hammering so hard I thought my ribs would crack. My limbs were like jelly, pliant to her every touch. Her every caress.

  But I had the golden pin clutched like a dagger in my fist.

  Otara embraced me, twining her limbs around me, and I could feel the heat of her loins against my thigh.

  I took all the love I had for Otara, all the great emotion Novari had roused with her succubus spell, and I made it my strength.

  And I plunged the golden pin into her back.

  She screamed, and her scream was shrill lightning, scorching my hearing. She arched her back, struggling to escape the agony of the magic pin. I held tight, trying to press the pin deeper still.

  Suddenly I was buffet
ed by huge wings. They lashed my head and my sides like great padded clubs. The Lyre Bird shrieked and fought and clawed at me with her spurs.

  I struggled to hold on, and then a blinding flash exploded in my face. I felt an immense force push at me and my arms were ripped open. The Lyre Bird's weight suddenly lifted and I heard the thunder of wings and felt the blast of wind they stirred up.

  I leaped to my feet, half blind, naked, and fighting for breath, waving the golden pin in front of me.

  Dimly, as if through a haze, I saw the Lyre Bird's glowing form against the far wall of the chamber. She shimmered and my eyes cleared and the spirit bird became Novari.

  She sagged back against the wall, then came up, leaving a smear of blood on the stone from the wounds I'd caused. Blood trickled down and pooled at her feet.

  I reached deep in that shadow of a moment and grabbed desperately for some of my old power. With all the spells cast over the palace, it was like scrabbling in flowing mud for a lost object.

  As I searched I could see Novari's face turn from shock to a mask of hatred. Her naked body shot off magical sparks of anger. She reached out to revenge herself, and I grabbed what power I could, scrambling back before she had me trapped.

  Novari gestured and a spark arced out. The spark became a lightning ball hurtling at me as if from a ship's catapult.

  I cast a shield with the golden pin, and the lightning ball exploded against it. White-hot globes splattered the walls, cracking the stone, while the force of the explosion itself blasted back at Novari.

  I dropped the shield, hurled a spear of fire, then raised the shield again.

  Novari was quick. She flung up her own shield, shattering the force of the blast and diverting my spear.

  I didn't give her time to recover, but charged forward, slinging my magical shield at her eyes—it sliced at her, a red-hot wire of force, and she flung up her shield to block it.

  I came up under her guard, saw her eyes glow with power, and I struck at them.

  She snapped her head back and the pin sliced her cheek, leaving a long smear of blood across those perfect features.

  Novari screamed and I stabbed again, striking for those eyes—striking for her power.

  But the killing blow stopped short as heavy hands grabbed me from behind, dragging me back. Heavy blows rained on me and I fell to my knees.

  I fought them—three, perhaps four guards. I broke one man's knee trying to get up. But the others clubbed me down again.

  While I fought I desperately tried to form another spell. I had to strike before Novari recovered.

  I had the spell half formed when an explosion lifted me up and I was slammed back against the walls of the chambers. Heavy objects hit me. I was stunned, lying in rubble. I tried to come up, woozy, drained. There were dead guards beside me.

  Novari loomed over me. I blinked at her. Helpless. Burned empty by her attack.

  She said nothing, and I heard heavy boots as more guards arrived. Novari gestured at me and they hauled me up.

  I hung there between two of the guards, unable to hold my weight on my feet.

  I saw the pretty maids rush up to Novari, weeping at the wound on her cheek and wiping at the blood. She stood there, staring at me as they dabbed at the wound and pulled a robe onto her.

  Then she flung them off and stalked forward, her strides long and slow. She stopped in front of me.

  "To think I believed I needed you," she said.

  I didn't answer. I couldn't have if I'd wanted to.

  Novari touched the wound on her cheek. Her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away. Then she said, "You went for my eyes."

  In the silence that followed I saw a flicker as she made some sort of a decision.

  Novari hissed at me, "Bitch!"

  Then she turned to the guards. 'Take her to the mines," she said. "They'll find useful work for her there." The guards started to drag me away.

  "Oh, yes, one more thing," she said. The guards stopped. Waiting.

  And Novari said, "Bring me back one of her eyes." Again she touched her right cheek where I'd cut her. "Bring me the right one," she commanded, voice hoarse with rage. "Make certain of that. Only the right eye will do."

  I CAN'T SAY much about what happened next. The days and weeks that followed were a blur of constant shock and pain. It was all a mad chariot ride through a nightmare that had no beginning or end.

  I don't remember how and when they took my eye. I only remember through a thick haze my first awareness that it was gone.

  It was like floating up from the bottom of a muddy lake of misery. I emerged gasping and choking in hot sooty air that seared my lungs. I found myself stooped at the head of a line of creatures dressed in filthy rags. I felt stiff scratchiness on my own skin and knew I was dressed the same.

  I heard fire roar and bellows pump and I tried to turn my head to look.

  The world spun and I lurched into someone. That someone cursed me and I felt a hard tug and heard the clatter of chains. I muttered an apology and became dimly aware that I had a steel band about my waist and that I was linked together with the rest of the group by a heavy chain that ran from belt to belt. My feet and arms, however, were free.

  I heard the iron slap of a hammer against an anvil—a slow, steady measure. I tried to look again. Everything seemed strange, distorted and flat-dimensioned, making it

  difficult to make out the edges of things or how far or near they might be.

  I tentatively touched my face. A bandage was looped across my forehead, covering the right side. Beneath the bandage I felt the throb of a hollow socket where my eye had been. Just below was the stinging sensation of a healing wound.

  My thoughts were a dim-witted babble: "My eye? That's right Novari has it She ordered it taken out."

  I had no feelings about the mutilation, other than dull interest I was too numb. Too much in shock from hard treatment.

  Someone bellowed. A heavy hand struck my shoulder. I shuffled forward on aching legs. The others followed me, chains rattling.

  Another blow brought me up short Someone stumbled into me. I automatically snarled a curse, and got a muttered apology in reply. Why I knew to do this, I couldn't say. But it came to me that I'd been in these circumstances for some time. Somehow I'd learned what to do in order to survive.

  I was streaming sweat and it was hard to breathe. My mouth was dry from dehydration. I tilted my head and cautiously peered about with my good eye.

  I was in a large blacksmith shop. The walls were covered with hunks of iron and chain and racks of implements in various stages of repair or construction. I heard the hiss of metal being plunged into a tempering bucket and smelled steamy oil.

  The bellows resumed their pumping and I located the forge. A blacksmith with a fire-scarred apron covering his bare torso manned the bellows. To one side of the forge was his anvil. On the other was another man dressed in clean expensive robes. He stood before a small table with a few medical devices on it and a pile of dirty rags folded like bandages. A Healer of some sort. I didn't think that when I saw him. I was too fuzzy to make even such a simple guess. I just knew it somehow.

  Someone had told me. I didn't recall when or who.

  A guard with a piggish face unlocked my chain, freeing me from the others. He shoved me forward and I tottered up to the forge. I was dragged to a stop in front of the Healer.

  "Let's see your arm," he said, bored.

  I didn't have to ask which one. I automatically lifted my left.

  I gaped. The arm stopped short at my wrist A ball of rags stained with blood was tied about the end. The Healer peeled off the rags, unwinding them swiftly and with no thought for the pain he was causing as he ripped them away.

  I found myself staring at a pink stump where my left hand used to be. There were two metal bolts driven through the stump with threaded ends protruding on either side.

  The Healer held my arm by the bolts, turning it this way and that so he could get a good look. He
sniffed at the flesh, smelled no corruption, and nodded in satisfaction.

  "This one looks ready," he said to the blacksmith. "I did a pretty good job, even if I do say so myself."

  The blacksmith sneered at him. 'Takes no talent to whack 'em off," he said. "Any butcher can do that. The real work's makin' 'em new again."

  "Don't be stupid," the Healer snorted. "She wouldn't be any use to you if her stump was rotted, would she, now?"

  He let go of the stump. I held it there for a while, squinting with my single eye to see it better. All emotion was at great distance. My only wonderment was that I thought I could still feel my hand. Absently, I tried to wiggle my fingers. But there was no sensation other than a burning at the stump.

  The blacksmith grabbed it roughly and pulled me to him. It hurt and I tried to pull back. The guard slapped me on the back of the head.

  "Stay still, bitch," he said. "He's not done with you yet." I did as I was told.

  The blacksmith looked the stump over, paying more attention to the bolts than to my flesh. He daubed the threads with an oil mop, then shouted over his shoulder to his apprentice.

  "Size seven ought to do it," he said.

  I watched a fat young man waddle to a rack. On it I saw scores of black metal hands. The fat apprentice searched among them until he found one he thought would satisfy his master. He fetched it to the blacksmith, who burred and polished the fittings with a round file, then directed the apprentice to hold my stump.

  "Steady, now," he said to the apprentice. "Last time you flinched and ruined a perfectly good stump." He gestured, indicating me. "Don't mind if it pains her," he advised the apprentice. "She ain't nothin' more'n an animal. Got no feelings we need to think on."

  The apprentice got a good grip, and the smithy greased the interior of the metal hand, then forced it on the stump, twisting back and forth to do so. The pain was incredible. I think I moaned. I'm not certain.

  "Good rough fit," the smithy said approvingly. "Won't need much touching up."

  He yanked hard and the metal hand came off. I nearly fainted from the pain. I must've staggered, because the guard slapped the back of my head again and snarled for me to straighten up.