First Master Prothis thought of a scrap of information on an old, tattered scroll. He contacted Scholar Tetherys and asked him. It took no energy at all for the gathered, idled scholars on Wynystrys to confer through the Threads with their scholarly counterparts scattered throughout Lygroes, asking about memories and rumors and legends. Master Breylon heard the whispering background murmurs through the Threads. Alarmed by the filmy image that had begun to form, he called Ceera to warn her.
Too late, she called, and reached for Mrillis' hands as they heard Endor's command shouted through the Threads.
Each ship had a cup of star-metal built into its prow, and a teamed Valor and enchanter to focus the Threads that spun out from the lip of the cup, to draw in energy and send it back out again. The enchanters and every Rey'kil and Valor with a hint of imbrose who stayed behind on land sent all the power and strength of the Threads to those hundreds of ships that surrounded Flintan's rocky, ragged coastline. Magic exploded from the cups in the prows on Endor's command, the magic tinted bloody red and blue-black with intensity.
The webs of Mrillis' childhood visions became reality, visible to the naked eye as searing lines of power, sometimes as thick as a man's arm. They crisscrossed the continent and when the Threads flung out from the ships met the controlling cups of other ships, the power magnified and bounced back. The web thickened and multiplied until a dome arched over the entire continent of Flintan, the light bleaching all color from the black and red soil of the cliffs, causing trees and fields to burst into flame.
Now! Endor roared, and the dome inverted itself, going down through soil and rock, into the foundations of Flintan.
Every Thread wrapped around boulders and cut through granite like a hot knife through cheese. The enchanters controlling the cups pulled sideways, skewing the web, warping it, tearing apart the bedrock of the continent. Men on board the ships cried out in pain and collapsed, many to die, with their brains scorched by the effort and blood streaming from ears and nose and mouth.
A voice sounding like Endor's rose up through the deafening rumbling and creaking and shrieking from deep underground. Mrillis watched, sending all the power of the Stronghold to Endor, who guided the effort, and felt the shock and guilt, a momentary burst of childish terror, all overwhelmed by fury as his friend recognized his father. The Nameless One had remained on Flintan, either refusing to believe anyone would be able to beard him in his den, or too confident that he could defend himself and escape once again.
"Stop him!" Endor shrieked, and vanished in a corona of burning white power as he threw everything he could find, the power of every Thread within his grasp, at the presence that was his sire.
Mrillis watched as the Threads all around the World lost color, rapidly, like water draining from a shattered bowl. They thinned, grew transparent, until only a shimmer of energy remained in the air. And still Endor sucked up all the imbrose and magic and power to hurtle at the foe of all they believed in.
Triska stood with him, her voice shrill as she taunted the father who would have killed her as a baby. What Endor could not grasp and throw into the destruction of Flintan and the Nameless One's forces, she gathered up and fed to him.
Until Valors and enchanters and Rey'kil the World over grew blind and numb to the Threads that remained. Until there was no energy to gather up. Until people everywhere collapsed like wheat before a scythe, in waves, leaving the web of the effort, some merely exhausted and unconscious, others dying, with no one to help them.
Mrillis cradled Ceera close, blessing the chains and rings of star-metal that adorned her and protected her. He was too drained dry and exhausted to even weep as he felt her heart stutter and her breathing grow almost too shallow to sense. He felt as if he clung to the face of a cliff with his fingernails, and a furious gale tried to yank him loose and send him pinwheeling into oblivion.
Tidal waves erupted from the disintegration of Flintan, capsizing many of the ships that surrounded the vanishing continent. The soldiers and sailors were too busy trying to stay afloat and escape the ravages of the sea to tend to the unconscious, dying enchanters and Valors among them. The waves roared as if alive and starving, chasing down the ships and little boats of the Encindi who had fled.
The Encindi who managed to land on the coasts of Lygroes and Moerta immediately attacked, while their boots were still wet from wading ashore. Noveni warriors met them, without the help of Rey'kil magic for the first time in centuries. Mrillis watched, unable to move or speak or even think, except to bless the Estall that Athrar had the foresight to hold back ranks of soldiers to protect those who were physically drained and could not defend themselves.
Strategic retreats, planned ahead of time by Athrar and his war leaders, reduced the numbers of dead by an estimated half.
Ceera and Mrillis spent the first few days after the attack curled up in their bed or lounging in their sitting room with Emrillian, exhausted. They didn't try to grasp the Threads when they could finally see and sense them again, and refused to panic and waste energy when it seemed that the Threads had diminished in size and numbers. They sent riders out to every settlement with an enchanter of any power whatsoever, urging the same tactics. Later, Mrillis thought that caution and their rested state was what saved them when a massive lump of star-metal came down over Lygroes late in the season, and only five days after the destruction of Flintan.
Ceera woke him, with Emrillian still cradled against her from her early morning feeding. At first, her words made no sense. What did it matter if star-metal fell toward Lygroes? The web woven of Threads that protected their land for centuries would do so again.
Without thinking, Mrillis reached for the nearest Threads, to check the web just to make sure.
What had been a natural, simple action with his mind, for as long as he could remember, now felt like he tried to move broken and battered limbs. Mrillis nearly gave up, but he woke completely as the thin, limp, colorless condition of the Threads penetrated his mind.
"They can't stop anything," Ceera said, nodding, as understanding flashed between their minds.
"It's like a fisherman's net without anyone holding it." Mrillis sat up and held out his arms. "It's still there, though. We should be able to do something with it."
"We should." She settled down on the bed next to him, still holding their daughter. Then Ceera paled, took a deep breath, and got up to put the half-asleep baby back in her cradle. "Just in case we drain ourselves too much. I wouldn't want to drop her, if I lose consciousness."
Mrillis saw the unspoken thoughts in her eyes: In case we drain ourselves so dry that we die.
Ceera settled into the bed next to him, caught in the curve of his arm, both of them braced against the wall behind them. Mrillis wrapped his mental awareness around her and reached with one hand for the sky web, and with the other strummed the Threads that let him communicate with Master Breylon and the other leaders of the Rey'kil. He and Ceera had fought star-metal without knowing what they were doing, when they were children, but as exhausted as they were and as limp and unresponsive as the Threads were now, only a fool could believe they might win this battle unaided.
The Threads closest to the incoming star-metal thickened almost perceptibly and took on faint shimmers of pale rainbows. Mrillis reached, stretching and straining for the first time in years, to snatch at the energy coming into the Threads. Using that energy, he wrapped Threads around the star-metal and pulled.
The strain on the star-metal, as an outside force pulled it off its course, released more energy into the imbrose of the World. Ceera siphoned that energy away before it could be absorbed evenly throughout the sky web, and fed it to the enchanters who awoke in answer to Mrillis' call to enter the battle. Some energy, she held back, wrapping it like a cloak around herself and Mrillis.
I've felt only half-alive until now, he remarked with a silent chuckle.
What's frightening is that we didn't even realize how drained we--Mrillis!
Mrilli
s felt the tug on the Threads half a heartbeat after Ceera did. He flung more Threads around the star-metal and yanked harder, pulling it down at a steeper angle than the momentum of the object allowed. Energy spilled through the Threads. Someone had caught hold of the star-metal and pulled it away from them, fighting their effort to bring the deadly object down where it would do no harm.
Impossible, Ceera cried, half in shock, half in fury.
Mrillis smelled the stink of old, rotten blood, felt something siphon away the new spill of energy from the star-metal, and understood, even as everything he understood about the rules of magic cried out against it. Blood magic was at work, yet somehow the enemy was able to siphon energy from the Threads, which was theoretically impossible. The last time he and Ceera had played tug-war with the enemy over a chunk of falling star-metal, the enemy had only been able to pull the Threads and warp the protective web. Now, whoever he was, he gained energy released in the strain of the battle.
Blood magic and imbrose work together, Master Breylon called to them, as a ghostly impression of his hands joined theirs, pulling harder on the Threads.
More power spilled through the Threads, and Ceera siphoned it away to those joined in the battle with them. Master Breylon cursed, startling Mrillis so he laughed aloud.
This should not be, their teacher explained, and his mental voice sounded as if he spoke through clenched teeth, slightly out of breath. Imbrose and blood magic working together, paired, not one trying to control the other.
Traitors, Mrillis said, disgust and understanding flooding him.
Chapter Nine
Exclamations of shock and revulsion came to them as the discovery filtered through all those who had roused from their lethargy to join the battle. That fueled their resolve and helped the exhausted enchanters dredge up some last little reserves of energy.
Let go! Ceera shrieked, just a heartbeat before Mrillis felt the change in the tension of the battle.
He yanked his mental hands free of the Threads that wrapped around the star-metal, and instead of twisting his mental awareness aside, he reached for the people most closely connected with the tug-war and yanked their hands free of the Threads.
Before one person could resist, a loud, clanging reverberation shuddered through the entire sky web protecting Lygroes. All the warped Threads snapped back into place. Mrillis cried out at the sudden flood of energy scorching through his mind and body. Dimly, he heard Emrillian crying, startled from sleep by his physical and mental shout.
The enemy had let go, and the star-metal and Threads rebounded back to their intended course and configuration. Mrillis could have laughed at the irony, the childishness of the action, but darkness swallowed him.
* * * *
"We weren't strong enough to do more than check to make sure the sky web guided the star-metal down to where we could use it," Ceera said, when Mrillis woke a few hours later and demanded, in a harsh whisper, to know what they had learned. "Even if we had wanted to follow the enemy's trail and determine who was helping him, the flash of energy released at the last burned away all traces. No telltale chord, no trail, not even any mental markings or residue on the Threads. Even if our enemy had very dirty hands, all clues were wiped away."
She offered a weary smile at the allusion to the joke between them. Depending on how adept an enchanter was at using the Threads, how light or heavy the touch, Mrillis theorized that someday they would be able to tell who had used particular Threads just by the imprints left behind, just like dirty hands left distinctive markings on clean, white surfaces.
He nodded and wrapped his arm more securely around her as they sat in silence in the tangled, sweaty sheets of their bed, digesting what had happened. The mere concept of blood magic and Thread magic working together, in partnership, was an abomination that threatened to paralyze their thoughts. Mrillis tried to push past the natural revulsion. They couldn't afford to let their enemy startle them into retreat, even for a few hours.
Was it possible there were traitors among the Rey'kil, who knew enough to take advantage of the exhaustion after the destruction of Flintan, to try to guide the star-metal down to where it could do harm? Or was the intent even more insidious? Did someone want the star-metal itself, rather than the destruction it could cause? He thought over the images and possibilities that filled his mind, even as Ceera told him everything they had discovered in the hours since the battle in the sky ended.
"Someone has learned how to forge star-metal and use it?" he murmured, finally putting his thoughts into words late that afternoon. He kept his voice low to keep from disturbing Emrillian, who had been upset by the battle and wouldn't let her parents leave her sight. The three of them were curled up together in their favorite low, wide chair, taking strength and comfort from being together. "Could we have someone attempting to make another Zygradon?"
"Such activity would be disturbance enough that we would feel it, even if they gathered enough star-metal to go invisible." She frowned, staring off into a place beyond their candle-lit room. "A lump of star-metal that big... The traitor would need a company almost as large as the one that forged the Zygradon."
"Let's hope all he was trying to do was keep us from using it."
"He failed." She shook her head and her gaze returned to the present moment and place. "I saw the sword emerge from the Zygradon, as we fought." Ceera tried to smile, and licked her lips in a nervous gesture she rarely used. "It's time for the sword, love," she whispered.
* * * *
Ceera re-assembled the original forgers of the Zygradon. To replace those who had been killed, she added Nainan, Triska, Endor, and Master Breylon. She did not want to add Endor, and only shared her reluctance with Mrillis and Master Breylon, simply because she could give no solid, explainable reason for why. She only knew her spirit recoiled against adding him to the song to forge the sword and bind it to the Zygradon. There was no way she could refuse to add Endor without causing a political upheaval. Endor was the hero of the decade, because he had engineered and insisted on and commanded the plan that destroyed Flintan.
No one seemed to care that thousands of Encindi had landed along the coasts of Lygroes and Moerta, and those who did not go into hiding seemed dedicated to destroying lives and property and nothing else. That was a result of destroying the Encindi land and giving them nowhere to go except into the territory of others, and no alternative except to take by force what they had always refused to ask for. No one took that into consideration when they hailed Endor as the savior of the World.
Mrillis didn't like the childish glee Triska displayed when Ceera informed her she would be part of making the star-metal sword--or the immediate pout that darkened her expression when, a breath later, Ceera announced that Nainan would be part of the effort as well. As quickly as those expressions came, they vanished, and Triska again displayed the poise and maturity that had made her much easier to live with since Endor took her on the tour of Lygroes. Mrillis suspected he would have imagined Triska's reactions, if Ceera hadn't been watching for them as well. Despite the visible progress her heir had made, she had doubts about Triska's worthiness for her future role.
"However," she said, when they discussed their concerns in the quiet of the night watches, "she will have decades to grow into her position. I hope to see her return to the sweet, considerate child she once was. Perhaps binding her to the sword will help mellow her temperament, just as the song that binds us all together seems to have mellowed everyone."
"We were all children, when we forged the bowl," Mrillis reminded her, and smiled crookedly when she rolled her eyes in response. "We have all matured, grown a little humbler, learned to look ahead before we leap into the next challenge."
"So that means there is indeed hope for Triska." She propped herself up on her elbow and kissed the tip of his nose, which never failed to surprise--and tickle--him.
Mrillis growled, as he always did, and flipped her onto her back, holding her down for kisses and tickling. Ev
en through the laughter and sweet pleasure that spun around them, at the back of his mind, he marveled that he was only thirty-one years old, and yet had seen and done so much. He thanked the Estall that he had been chosen to help Ceera carry the burden of her duties as Queen of Snows, and prayed that the rest of their lives would be boring and dull, so that the forging of the bowl and the sword would be the only things that later generations would ever remember them for.
* * * *
Endor came to the Stronghold to participate in the preparation for the forging of the sword. Mrillis knew within an hour that it had been a mistake to gather everyone there, instead of out on the shore where the massive new chunk of star-metal had come to rest. Endor caught Nainan and Nixtan kissing in a shadowy corner of the common room. The only saving grace was that Mrillis was there when it happened. He had a few seconds to realize that Endor's genial, welcome neglect of Nainan had come to an end.
The icy, silent fury rolling off Endor as he paused to stare at the occupied couple, made the tips of Mrillis' fingers tingle with repressed, straining power. He barely caught the movement when Endor took a step toward them. Mrillis caught his friend by the arm, stopping him. Endor turned on him and the fire in his eyes scorched Mrillis.
"Don't tell me you approve," Endor growled. He started to shake off Mrillis' hand, but stopped when the other man dug his fingers in harder.
"As the only family she has had for the past few years, yes," Mrillis whispered, his voice harsh with the effort not to growl. He stared into Endor's eyes, willing his friend to understand and not disturb the couple, who still sat and smiled at each other and whispered between slow, sweet kisses, oblivious to the argument only a dozen steps away, separated by shadows and firelight.
Braenlicach Page 13
