'If I might suggest something . . .'
'I'm telling you, I don't have any power left!' she shrieked.
'Highness,' Oracle said softly, 'that might be so, but you might be able to make them think you still have power. Or rather that another does.'
Moriana looked up at Oracle, the idea germinating in her brain. She slowly smiled and rose. The damned Hissers would never forget this day after she - and another - finished with them.
Fost tried valiantly to stop the animal but his lack of skill in riding betrayed him. His arms flailed wildly and it appeared that he urged on his troops. None heard his cries: 'No, you forsaken son of a bitch! No! Stop! Halt! Oh, shiiit!'
Shieldless, unhelmeted, Fost rode through the surging masses of Zr'gsz. He struck out in truly heroic fashion, left and right in great looping arcs, so fast his blade blurred like a hummingbird's wings. His usual berserker madness failed to take him. What gave Fost such superhuman strength was stark terror.
He swept among the reptile men. His blade lopped limbs, crushed skulls, stove in chests, and Fost did not tire. He didn't dare.
The low caste Zr'gsz were much less intelligent than the darker skinned nobility. They could cope well enough with normal battle situations: Find enemy, kill enemy. Nothing in their limited experience prepared them for anything like this.
The Hissers' front ranks ran up against the lines of Borderland spearmen - and recoiled. The Border Guards and militiamen from the Marches had already stood firm in the face of their own fleeing comrades. Now they met the full force of the Zr'gsz charge and did not yield. But off to their right the surviving wing of cavalry was being pushed back slowly. It wouldn't be long before the lizard riders overwhelmed the knights. Then they would fall on the border men like an ocean wave falling on a sand castle.
A tall noble in whipping black robe and shiny green armor turned the wedge-shaped head of his riding dragon toward Fost and kicked it into a run. Still hewing frantically, Fost saw the lance drop to the horizontal. He had no shield and in the crush of reptilian bodies surrounding his dog he couldn't dodge. He was a dead man.
He stopped the wild flailing of his arms. Immediately, fatigue turned them leaden. He gripped his sword two-handed, trying to make himself believe he had a chance to knock the lancehead aside before it skewered him. He saw the Zr'gsz grin above the rim of the shield, saw the triangular lancehead streaking toward his chest. . .
With a scream of demonic fury, the nobleman was plucked from his saddle by sudden claws seizing his head from above. His plumed helm fell away. Black blood fountained from his punctured eyes. With a drumming of wings, Ch'rri bore the Vridzish up and away. Fost swatted the riderless dragon across its scaly snout with the flat of his blade. It turned tail and ran.
From five hundred feet in the air, the body of the Zr'gsz warrior plummeted down to smash into the ground not ten feet from Fost. The Vridzish bounced once, limbs waving like a rag doll's. Then it lay still.
The low caste Hissers scattered in all directions. Fost raised his eyes to the terrible apparition hovering above his head. He saluted Ch'rri with his bloody sword. It seemed an appropriate tribute.
But Ch'rri paid him no heed. Her blue slit-pupilled eyes stared toward the north where men of the Empire made their final stand. Fost followed the gaze. He couldn't believe the sight.
Jirre had come.
Tall as the sky she strode across the hills. Her hair blazed golden and her eyes were emeralds. Her flowing robes shone green and gold. In one hand she held a lyre, in the other a sword. Beholding her, men forgot their mortal peril to drop to their knees and worship.
Jirre had come.
Jirre, named by some priests the foremost of the Three and Twenty Wise Ones of Agift, Jirre, of all the gods one of the bitterest foes of the Dark Ones.
Vridzish hissed in dread. 'The devil-goddess! She comes again!' The lower caste foot soldiers knew Jirre and hated her, as they hated all gods of Light.
Half mad with fear, the nobles and officers tried to bring their troops into a semblance of order. Clouds of arrows were loosed at the apparition. She did not deign to notice. Skyrafts drove at her, through her. All to no effect.
Jirre struck her lyre. A pure, sweet tone throbbed in the air. The Zr'gsz skyrafts crumbled to dust beneath their crew's clawed feet. She swung her sword, and the Hissers fell. They fell without mark of violence on their bodies, but fall they did up to the very feet of the hard-pressed border men.
On the hilltop, Moriana raised herself on tiptoe and held her arms high above her head. Ecstatic, she felt the power pulsing through her. She blessed Oracle for his inspiration, for the idea of the illusion of one whom the Fallen Ones dreaded above all others.
'It's working!' she cried as the Zr'gsz armies disintegrated below her.
Fost flung his sword down so hard it buried itself to the hilt in the soft, blood-drenched turf. He jumped off the dog's back, letting it run off to drag down any fleeing Hisser it could catch.
He stood shaking on the now stilled battlefield. The Zr'gsz that still lived were in full flight back toward the River Marchant. Many wouldn't stop running until both their hearts burst from exertion. The armies of the North stared into the sky at their deliverer. Teom came to the door of his great pavilion and dropped to knees before the Goddess.
'Well done, Moriana! Well done, girl!' Erimenes cried. 'You've beaten them,' sang Ziore.
And the apparition turned to face Moriana. The princess turned white.
'Daughter,' boomed Jirre. 'We love you well but never again can any of the Wise aid you in this manner. Only because you opened a pathway was I able to come. I cannot come again. But know that we will do what we can, that Night shall not claim this world again.
'Farewell, most-favored daughter. Know that I love you above all.'
And Jirre was gone.
'That's what I call verisimilitude,' said Erimenes with a knowing wink. Moriana couldn't control the shaking of her hands or the cold knot in her stomach as she continued to stare into the space recently occupied by Jirre.
EPILOGUE
The hills and meadows of the Black March shivered with joyous celebration. The night air rang with boasts and jubilation. Many brave men had fallen but others still lived. Foedan of Kolnith was there, his huge domed head swathed in bandages. And Sir Tharvus, one of the pitiful handful surviving the catastrophic pursuit of the routed Zr'gsz by the cavalry on the left, sat as far from Moriana as possible, giving her poisoned glances over the rim of his goblet.
But seated at the great table of honor inside Teom's pavilion, Fost and Moriana picked at the sumptuous banquet spread before them with neither joy nor appetite.
Emperor Teom had knighted Fost where he stood in the middle of the battlefield, and the battle-weary survivors had hoisted him on their shoulders, bearing him directly to the pavilion.
Moriana arrived in much the same way. Their eyes met. An infinity of meaning flowed between them.
'Now tell me, Your Highness,' said the knight sitting at Moriana's right, 'how did you get the Lady Jirre to answer your call?'
She slammed her fist down on the table. Heads turned toward her.
'I did not! It was an illusion,' she said.
Disbelieving, the heads turned away and returned to light conversation or serious consumption of food and wine. Fost laid his hand on Moriana's leg and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She nodded acknowledgement without looking at him.
'Erimenes,' he heard Ziore whisper. 'You were magnificent!'
'Of course.'
Fost shut his eyes and shook his head.
At the head of the table, Teom pounded for silence with the golden pommel of a sword never drawn in anger.
'Silence! Let us have silence! I propose a toast!'
The noise died. He rose, resplendent in a gilded breastplate sculpted in the likeness of a muscular torso, with a robe of yellow lacebird silk thrown over his shoulders, the jewelled rings on his fingers shining with inner lights of their ow
n. He raised his goblet.
'To the Princess Moriana,' he cried. 'Mightiest sorceress of the Realm, favored by the Lady Jirre, and . . . and . . .' His Adam's apple rode slowly up and down. Even the rouge and paint on his face failed to give him color. Tense silence gripped the revellers as all eyes followed his to the uppermost part of the pavilion.
'Greetings,' said Zak'zar, Speaker of the People. 'I foretold we would meet again, dear cousin Moriana. And so it has come to pass.' A corner of his mouth twisted. 'Not precisely as I predicted, I grant you, but this is after all no victory you've won. A petty respite, at best.'
He floated at the top of the tent-pole, his body radiating a cold black light. Sputtering on a mouthful of wine, the captain of the Guard bellowed for archers.
'It will do no good. I am not here. Only my likeness. A trick your Oracle knows well.' He inclined his head toward the pale, round man beside Fost.
Fost found his voice and said, 'You're bluffing, Zak'zar. We whipped you from the March like dogs.'
Zak'zar's laugh chilled him to the bone.
'See then, friends, what we were doing while you were whipping dogs.'
He stretched forth his hand. A globe of intense blackness formed. A point of light danced in the middle, expanded to become a picture. The City in the Sky floated over the slate roofs and boxy pastel structures of Kara-Est.
Fost wondered why he was showing them the conquest of the seaport by the floating City; this was old news. Then he realized no eagles winged over the City and saw the strange blackness that filled the Well of Winds in the center of the City.
A black vortex extended downward from the Skywell. Where it touched, stones, people, entire buildings were uprooted and drawn upward into the blackness where they . . . disappeared.
'Istu!' The name ran through the tent.
'Istu,' Zak'zar agreed. 'Do you see what the great victory you won today signifies, Pale Ones? Do you, my cousin?'
Moriana wouldn't look at him. Her eyes were fixed on her plate, her face hidden by her golden hair.
'Why do you name her "cousin," you wretched creature?' Ziore shrieked at him.
Counterfeit surprise crossed Zak'zar's face.
'Why shouldn't I call her that, good Ziore? Surely, you cannot object if I call my blood kin by their right name?'
'You lie!' Fost screamed as he came to his feet.
'Ah, poor Fost,' Zak'zar said, a sad chuckle escaping his throat. 'Do you truly think you can change the truth by denying it?' He raised his head to address them all. 'Know you the truth: nine thousand years ago an Athalar-trained adept came to Thendrun to receive the secret of true magic, not the petty mental tricks which the Athalar knew how to play.'
Erimenes sputtered in outrage.
'Azrak-Tchan, Second Instrumentality of the People, gave her the secret of true magic, which is the providence of the Dark. He also gave her a child.' Heads swung toward Moriana.
'This Moriana, surnamed Etuul, received great powers. But it was her daughter Kyrun, half human and half Zr'gsz, who possessed them in full measure. She aided Riomar shai-Callri, accursed traitress, in casting my folk from the Sky City. So the blood of the People entered the Etuul line. And it has been passed down from that day to this. And renewed, perhaps, by the late Instrumentality Khirshagk, blessed be his name.'
'He's dead?' demanded Moriana, looking up sharply.
'He is. He delivered Istu from bondage and fulfilled the role for which every Instrumentality had trained.'
'You're lying, you filthy scum, lying!' Fost screamed, shaking his fists at the Hisser.
'Am I?' Zak'zar asked softly. 'Moriana does not deny it.
'I hope you will find some measure of happiness, all of you, in the time you have left before we come for you with He Who Will Not be Denied. Farewell to you all. And to you, cousin.' He folded taloned hands across his breast and faded.
Moriana sat in a silence and isolation unlike any she had ever known.
BOOK THREE
Demon of the Dark Ones
For cherry:
agent & sorceress
who made six out of one -
'it's better to burn out
'cause rust never sleeps.'
love,
—vwm—
To all of you whose patience
exceeded my own
Sharon & Cherry;
Geo. & Lana;
Mike & Marilyn;
Kathy & Melinda;
my parents & grandmother;
and, of course, always, Kerry
—rev—
CHAPTER ONE
The man was a sadist, a killer, a eunuch. He was also a genius. But now Prince Rann Etuul gave little indication of those traits. He wore a plain robe that covered him from neck to ankles and made him appear to be little more than a hermit. The only outward signs that this man was different lay in the coldness of his tawny eyes and the network of fine scars glowing on his face where the light from the dying sun touched him.
He leaned forward, hands on a dilapidated table covered with maps, and stared out to the west. His mind worked methodically, savoring the sunset and the coolness and varied scents blowing in from the Gulf of Veluz. The songs of cinnamon birds and the evening lark mingled and vied for his attention over the cries of vendors in the city streets eastward and below his vantage point in the Hills of Cholon. He watched the western sky with little appreciation for the beauty of a vivid sunset. His mind was focused on a demon.
The Demon of the Dark Ones.
Rann tensed at the sight of a mote floating among clouds touched with the colors of gods. At first a spark less bright than the evening star, it grew and became cruciform. Growing still more, underwings burning with the reflected glory of the now hidden sun, it took on detail.
Thunder sounded. With a loud scrabbling of claws, the war eagle found a perch on the sill jutting from Rann's window. The window, like the others in the former Ducal Palace of Kara-Est, had been built in such a fashion that the opening was too small to admit the war bird, twice as tall as a man. Even the rider, small and lithe like most Skyborn, had to duck to pass through the opening before dropping to the stone floor. The eagle's rider dismissed the mount, leaving it to find supper and a roost in the aerie the fugitives of the City in the Sky had constructed in a lesser tower of the Palace.
The rider turned to face Rann. Her hair hung lank about a face high of cheekbone and narrow of chin. Under the grime and exhaustion masking her slightly foxlike features, she might have been attractive. Her hair was a lusterless tangled brown giving only hints of its possible beauty when cleaned. She carried a bow and quiver, and circling her left biceps was the gold brassard of the elite Sky Guard.
'Sublieutenant Tanith,' Rann greeted her. His voice rang out like the pealing of a silver bell. When he desired, his tone increased the terror he inspired. He gestured toward a wrought-iron stand holding a large ceramic bottle and a goblet similar to the one he held. 'Drink, if you like.'
'I'm on duty, sir,' the Guardswoman said instinctively, her voice hoarse with dryness. Rann merely looked at her. He was not above tricking the members of the Guard into infractions of discipline. But in a moment of reflection, the sublieutenant realized such behavior belonged elsewhere, in the City in the Sky now lost to the Demon. Too few of the Skyborn had survived in the Demon's onslaught or the reptilian Hissers' vengeance for Rann to further reduce their numbers over petty crimes against corps discipline.
'Thank you, lord,' she said, pouring the wine.
He permitted her to refill his cup. She drained hers at a single swallow, then quickly filled her cup again. Rann watched without comment. The mellow ale was not that heady, and her farings would have given her a great thirst.
'What have you learned?' he asked when she had lubricated her throat sufficiently to speak in a natural voice free of dry croakings.
'The City approaches, milord, even as you said it would.'
'How far is it?'
'It should come into view so
metime before dawn of the day after tomorrow. We could launch an eagle strike against it tomorrow.' Her voice rose in hope that Rann would order such an attack. The Sky Guard had been shamed by the loss of their City. Tanith was like the other survivors who wanted nothing more than to redeem themselves and feel as if they were doing something to recoup their intolerable loss.
'And what did you see in the Sky City?' he asked, choosing to overlook her eager recommendation.
'The Hissers are at work, lord. They've completed the destruction they began the day . . . the day they cast us out. They build now. Defensive works, missile engines, and some construction that seems of no military purpose.'
Gripping his left wrist with his right hand, Rann nodded above the rim of his goblet. He understood, or thought he did. No sooner had they turned on their human ally Moriana and the forces of her sister Synalon that earlier had been their common foe, than the Zr'gsz had set about erasing any hint of the nine-thousand-year occupancy of the humans who had supplanted them, the original builders of the City in the Sky. That done, it was obviously important to set their mark anew upon their recaptured prize to prepare to defend it.
Or to prepare to reassert their dominion over a continent. And eventually an entire world.
'The Demon,' Rann almost hissed, leaning forward, his eyes gleaming in the last glow of twilight. 'Did you see Istu?'
'My lord, I ... I do not know.' Tanith averted her eyes and bit her lower lip in consternation. For a heartstopping instant, she thought he would reach across the table and seize her by the throat, shaking her the way a terrier killed a rat.
'What do you mean you don't know?' Rann's voice was calm, level, deadly. Tanith now feared it more than if he had shouted.
'I saw Istu the day he was released, milord, as you did. A black shape towering in the sky like a doorway into darkness, his body like a man's but with horns set on either side of his skull. His eyes were slits of yellow fire.' She shuddered at the memory. Better to face a hundred swordsmen than to even think about the Demon. 'Like the Vicar of Istu, lord.'
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