by Kate Elliott
The dead man opened his eyes.
Rage startled back. Sorrow set up such a racket of barking that Alain clapped his hands over his ears. The body jerked in a most unnatural manner. Arms and legs shifted awkwardly as it clambered to its feet in a way no human person had ever moved. The griffin feather fell off its body to the road, and it seemed not even to notice.
“Who are you?” demanded Alain. He felt a little sick, seeing a puppet in what had once been a proud man.
“Where is he?” said Sanglant.
Although his strong tenor with its hoarse scrape sounded the same, Alain knew this was not Sanglant talking. Blood oozed from his belly, smearing the rings of his torn mail. Gray guts pouched from the ragged edges of the wound. One of his hands was smashed, and his leg left should not have been able to hold weight with the foot twisted sideways to the knee and the thigh crushed and shredded until flesh and bone were intermingled.
“Where is the one I love? They told me that I would find him if I came here, but he is not here.”
“Whom do you seek?”
“The ones born of earth called him ‘Heribert.’ I loved him because he favored me who was ugliest among my cousins, for we are born in the sphere of Erekes and many of us have not the beauty of our higher brethren. Yet he spoke kindly to me when others did not. But he walked away by the command of the prince of dogs and even when he returned to me he was not there. Only his shell. Where has he gone?”
“He is dead, I think,” said Alain gently.
“What is death?” it asked him.
It used the face of Sanglant to speak, but its grimaces showed neither grief nor anger. It did not comprehend the emotions of humankind and could not imitate them or even know that it might strive to do so. It was a creature of the aether—its substance blazed blue behind the eyes of the prince—and although Alain did not know how it had been coerced out of the spheres and down to Earth, he could see that it had become trapped here because the daimones of the upper air have one thing in common with humankind: they can love.
“Our souls depart this Earth when it is time for them to ascend to the Chamber of Light, a place which lies above the uppermost sphere,” he said. “Where is the soul of the body you now inhabit?”
“There is no soul here. It was here when I first came looking, and I pushed it aside while I searched for the one I love. But then a weight struck us and I felt how the threads that weave it to the flesh were severed.”
“How can this be? No creature male or female can kill him. You are sure no other soul resides in that body?”
Horribly, it cracked its head sideways, looking up into the sky. Blood leaked from parted lips, although otherwise the face was unmarked, yet the vigor that made Sanglant handsome was extinguished. Here now was merely an assemblage of indifferent features. “I can apprehend its track. It has crossed out of the lower air into the sphere of Erekes.”
“Ai, God,” whispered Alain. His tears fell as Sorrow whined and Rage gave a hesitant wag to her tail. “He is a good man. Can you not fly after him and bring him back?”
Without anger, without curiosity, without desire, the daimone spoke. “Why should I?”
Alain shrugged helplessly. The hounds nosed his hands, and he stroked them, who loved him and who had stayed with him all this time only because of the affection that binds creatures one to the other. This essence cannot be touched and cannot truly be named, but it exists in the world just as the Lady of Battles does, knit into the bones of the Earth and of every living creature that dwells on Earth or in heaven.
“Because Heribert loved him.”
It stared at him as would a man who is amazed to hear you speaking in a language he expects to understand but does not. It blinked, but the movement was as steady as that of a sunning lizard. One shoulder twitched. It lifted a hand and regarded fingers and palm without expression.
Wordless, it staggered, limbs jerking, and turned around in a full circle as if seeking a missing friend. Then the body collapsed onto the ground. Emptied.
He knelt beside it, but Sanglant was dead.
Weeping, he pressed a hand against the dead man’s forehead. His voice was no more than a whisper. “God, please heal him.”
But the corpse did not breathe, and did not stir. No heart’s blood pulsed under the skin.
The guivre’s hot breath blew over his back. It hit the road so hard that the shudder passed up through his feet. Its huge beaklike snout lowered until it was at a level with his face. Its breath was hot but not unpleasant; it smelled of calming frankincense.
Its long neck swayed hypnotically, and its eyes whirled until he fell into those depths and saw, within, the field of battle laid below him and all the forestlands and even farther beyond, as the land fell away until all earthly landmarks became tiny scratches on the vast tapestry that is the world. Rivers were threads of blue, and forest swathes of multicolored green. Towns and houses poked ragged holes in brighter colors. Here and there the many creatures crawled within the interstices of the weave as do mice within the church walls and among the meadow flowers. It seemed to him that each living thing appeared as an infinitesimal flare of light and heat against the colder and weightier spans of stone which buttress the architecture of life.
Spread across the lands lie the many stone crowns, a vast loom of magic. Faint passageways link them. Threads strung between crowns and stars grow taut, or loose, as the world shifts its position, ever rolling, and the stars rise and set on their endless round. A bright figure trailing a wispy blue ghost of aetherical wings races along one of those corridors in the company of shadowy companions; their trail leads them to a crown glittering above the solid, familiar compound that he recognizes as Hersford Monastery.
But greater wonders draw his gaze away.
For an instant he believes he can glimpse the span of the heavens and the spheres themselves: the pearl that is the Moon, icy Erekes, rosy Somorhas, the blazing furnace of the Sun, Jedu’s angry lair, the hall of Mok, the dazzling light of Aturna. Beyond these and locked around them rests the realm of the fixed stars, with its heavy silver sheet of sky and flashing, molten surface of liquid aether.
And farther yet, beyond all, you may find the pure heart of the universe which is light and darkness, whirling in a silence so vast that it is both something and nothing, substance and void, an infinite span impossible to comprehend but also as finite as a grain of sand resting in the palm of his hand.
This is the Abyss, into which all of humankind falls in the end. Yet it is also the Chamber of Light, incandescent and encompassing, the rose of compassion whose bloom restores the world.
The guivre nudged him, and he fell flat on his buttocks and found himself back on the road with the hounds whining and his head aching from that guivre’s breath blasting right into his face. What calmed others roused in him a nagging discontent. Restlessness stirred in his heart.
Liath was returning to Wendar, but she would come too late to save her beloved.
No matter. Grief and anger will always ride in the world. There was still work to be done.
He stood shakily and raised both hands. “I release you,” he said to the guivre. “Go free, friend. You have honored the trust I placed in you.”
Its chirp was as high and light as that of a baby bird, incongruous in such a huge and terrifying beast. It opened its wings, spanning the width of the road, bunched its haunches, and sprang heavenward. The draft slapped him back down on the road. The hounds were flattened by it, and men and riders who had until now remained poised like statues were flung aside, tumbling to their knees, horses pushed sideways within the circle of that powerful gust It gained height, circled once, and arrowed northwest, back toward its old haunts deep in the wild forestlands where few men dared hunt.
He dusted himself off, got to his feet although every muscle twinged, and sought the paralyzed figure of Conrad. The duke of Wayland had been tossed from his horse and was now grimacing, on his knees, struggling to rise and grasp hi
s sword as the influence of the guivre waned. Alain drew the sword, wresting it out of the duke’s hand, and heaved it to one side. It rang on the stone paving and tumbled off the roadbed.
Conrad blinked, shook himself, and with a roar of anger staggered to his feet. “What means this?” Then he saw the mangled body and the shattered wagon. “Ai, God!” he cried, stumbling forward to kneel beside the corpse. “What is this? Sanglant! Cousin!”
“Call off your men,” said Alain.
Conrad looked up at him in surprise, noted the hounds, and with a shake of his head recognized him.
“Call off your men,” repeated Alain. “The battle is over.”
Movement stirred along the road, out in the siege works, and up along the ridgeline as soldiers found their legs and crept cautiously to get a view of the field. The silence was oppressive, but it also made men hesitant to strike the first blow at others as bewildered and groggy as themselves.
Alain trotted over to the Wayland’s banner bearer, a towheaded lad still rubbing his eyes as he searched for the banner he had dropped which lay folded in the dirt. He wore a horn looped to his belt. Alain tugged it free before the lad had recovered enough strength to protest, and raised it to his own lips.
Four times he blew. The call rang over the field. When it faded, a second horn answered and then a third, one higher voice and one lower. A captain wearing Wendish colors fell to his knees beside Sanglant’s body. He lifted a horn to his mouth. It stuttered a weak, weeping cry, and broke off as he folded forward in anguish. Conrad reached to comfort the captain, resting a hand on his shoulder.
To the southeast, a procession—mostly on foot—cut a path toward them, flying the banner of Saony. Of Arconia’s banner there was no sign. Individuals rose from the cover they had taken. All converged on the wrecked wagon: a cleric in torn and dusty robes; a dozen soldiers groaning as they saw the wreck of their noble leader; a young Eagle with white hair; a pair of young, dazed-looking noblemen supporting an equally young man who bore the look and dress of the Quman tribes; a straggle of Eika shifting a cautious advance down the ramp while, above them, their brethren eased a pair of wagons onto the slope. Alain saw the one he sought at the head of this company. He was limping as he eased his passage with the broken haft of what had once been his standard. Alain handed the horn back to Conrad’s standard-bearer and loped forward with the hounds at his heels.
“Brother!” he called.
The Eika raised a hand in salute.
When only a few paces separated them, Alain halted as Stronghand halted. They stared at each other because they were, in this way and at this moment, scarcely more than strangers although they had dreamed deep into the life of each other for so many years. Stronghand had changed. He had an Eika’s posture, bold as predators are bold, accustomed to the kill, but a man’s expression.
“I am come.” Stronghand scanned the field with a look as weary and filled with pain as that of any human captain who has seen his soldiers scythed down before him. “I am come to find you, as OldMother and the WiseMothers commanded me, their obedient son.”
3
SOLDIERS made room as Hanna pushed through the crowd to the body and its attendants. No more than a dozen people had reached the wreckage, but more were coming, shaking free of their stupor to stagger in from all sides. Men wept openly, while others stared in shock, eyes dry. The body had been horribly crushed and mutilated by its impact with the wagon. She could do nothing for the dead man.
But Sorgatani might yet be alive in the overturned wagon.
Turning, she stared into the face of a slender Eika warrior. Like all his kind, he smelled of the scent that rises off rocks baking in the sun. His eyes narrowed.
“I have seen you before.” It was startling to hear human words issuing from an inhuman mouth.
She sidestepped without answering, flushed as adrenaline raced. He held no drawn weapon, but he looked as dangerous as any sharp spear and he had besides many ranks of Eika filing down the ramp after him. The front ranks of this silent army halted at a prudent distance rather than descending into the midst of the shaken crowd of Wendish and Varren combatants.
Sorgatani’s sorcery could protect her if fighting broke out. It was a coward’s instinct, but she was numb to the bone, still reeling from the torpor that had gripped her when the guivre screamed overhead. Her skin burned with a fading memory of the passing of the galla. So close that they might have devoured her, as they had so many others.
All gone, although she did not know what had driven the galla away. Sanglant was dead, but his body was not consumed.
She shuddered, taking a too hasty step away, and tripped over the tangle of harness. A strong hand caught her. She looked up into the face of a young Quman warrior. Swearing, she yanked her arm out of his grasp, and jumped away.
“Hanna! Steady!” A hand braced her.
“Wolfhere! How are you come here?”
“It seems Sanglant is truly dead.” The familiar face and his kindly expression soothed her.
“How can it be? I thought his mother laid a geas on him, that no creature could kill him.”
He shrugged, surveying the wreckage. “What wagon is this? Not Wendish, by the decorations. What manner of creature bides within? There is sorcery knit into those walls.”
Hanna flushed. “A Kerayit shaman, that’s all. She can have known nothing of this. It’s an accident that her wagon struck the prince—the king—at all. You cannot—you must not—let the blame fall on her.”
“So she is a woman,” he murmured. “Nothing strange in that.”
He looked at the broken form of the driver, who had fallen underneath the still living horse. The beast’s hindquarters were crippled, and every time it tried to struggle up, it collapsed again on top of the driver’s battered corpse. The other horse was quite dead, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Flies buzzed around its open eyes, although, strangely, no flies afflicted Sanglant’s corpse. “Lord Berthold, here is your healer. I fear she is dead.”
A trio of young men pressed forward to surround the body of the Kerayit woman who had been driving the wagon.
“Where did she come from?” asked Hanna. “God Above! Where did all of you come from?”
She stepped back as the Quman picked a route past her. He knelt beside the dead woman and pressed his mouth to her mouth in a gesture nothing like a kiss.
Sitting back on his haunches, he spoke to his companions. “Dead in truth, Lord Berthold. No breath lives in her.”
“A faithful servant,” said the one called Berthold quietly, “if quite the ugliest woman I’ve ever set eyes on.”
The Quman shrugged. “She was one of that kind. I know not your word. In our language, we say they have two spirits.”
Hanna happened to be looking toward Wolfhere. Now the Eagle’s gaze fixed on the young Quman. His breathing quickened, and he leaned over him to frown at the body. It was true that the Kerayit had a coarse face and big hands; her felt skirts, hiked somewhat up because of the way she had fallen, revealed thickly muscled calves not quite those of even a soldierly woman.
“What do you mean?” The Eagle reached for the skirts to pull them up, but the Quman half drew his sword, a gesture hidden from everyone but the five clustered around the dead Kerayit. The movement was just enough to show that he would allow no desecration of the corpse.
“These, the Kerayit, are enemies of my own people. But we respect those of two spirits. It is ill luck to trouble these who are touched by the gods.”
“Odei!” Lord Berthold spoke impatiently, seeing how folk moved around the corpse of the king not a stone’s throw from them. “Let us do her honor, who kept faith with us, but let us not stand here talking about nothing. If you have something to say, say it.”
“Have you not such kind of people among your tribes? A person born in a girl’s body with the spirit of a man. If she can take on a man’s life, then who will say she is not a man? This one, also. She holds a woman’s spirit, and li
ves a woman’s life, even if she wears a man’s body.”
“What are you talking about?” cried Berthold.
Wolfhere rose with a grim smile on his face. “So the riddle is solved. And the weapon unlooked for. No creature male or female can harm him. It seems I am lucky rather than clever.” He touched Hanna on the elbow. “Fare you well, Hanna. Stay strong, for the Eagles will need you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked him, but his expression told her nothing and his gaze had already lifted beyond hers to reckon the movement of soldiers and nobles that churned in a massive current drawing them all to the heart of the battle: the fallen king.
“Yes, what do you mean, Odei?” demanded Lord Berthold. “Do you mean Berda is really a man? And only dressed as a woman? And we didn’t notice all this time?”
Odei’s jump from crouching to standing grabbed Hanna’s attention. Quman soldiers were notorious for being the most phlegmatic of men, immune to hardship, safe from emotion, but he was really angry. “Berda was one person, with two spirits. So it is known among our people, who respect those so favored. We must give her proper burial rites.” Seeing the stricken look on the young lord’s face, his own expression softened. “You cannot know. You see only with your outer eyes. My uncle is a shaman. He taught his nephews to look with the inner eye.”
“Wolfhere,” she said, turning back.
The old Eagle had vanished. She turned all the way around, but he was nowhere to be seen among the milling crowd, with more on their way, and the banner of Saony and that of Fesse moving purposefully in their direction. All coming here. All wanting to blame someone.
“Oh, God.” The wasp sting burned in her heart.
The axles had cracked. The wheels shattered. The driver’s seat had torn free. Worse, the wagon had fallen onto the side with the only door. She slapped the skin of felt stretched taut over the unseen scaffolding that covered the bed of the wagon.
“Sorgatani! Sorgatani! Can you hear me? It’s Hanna!”
Did the luck of a Kerayit shaman survive her death? Or was it the other way around? No person can survive without a measure of luck. She remembered the stories she had heard concerning the death of Prince Bayan and his powerful mother.
