by Rick Shelley
Sir Eustace climbed up into a crenel and looked off that way. "Are you sure it's Blethye himself? I can't make out the emblem on the banner."
Silvas described both the pennon and the man he assumed was the duke, and Eustace confirmed it. "Twenty minutes will see them entering the pass," Silvas said.
"We are ready," Sir Eustace said. "Blethye will have far fewer men by the time he reaches my gate."
It is too soon to gloat, Silvas thought. Blethye is not alone in this battle. Without the power of the Blue Rose behind him, Blethye certainly couldn't hope to take Sir Eustace's castle with so few men. The approach would be too costly. There were piles of stones just waiting for targets below. The small garrison of Mecq's citadel could bombard Blethye's force with impunity as it came through the pass and climbed the mountain… if not for the Blue Rose.
Silvas looked out over Blethye again, but Carillia suddenly cried, "Above!" Silvas turned and she pointed over the castle.
The monsters had no names. There weren't of the traditional demon sorts, but they were clearly raised by demonic forces. And they were clearly visible, even to men with no mystical gifts. At Carillia's cry, everyone looked. The dozen beasts charged through the air, huge mouths agape, wicked long claws on their feet. No two creatures were alike, though all seemed to have been created of parts from many different beasts and then inflated in size. There were bits of scaled hide, sections that appeared as the shells of turtles, the jaws and teeth of lions or bears, lizard tails, bat wings, totally mismatched legs-some had four legs, others had six, seven, or eight, of different lengths, from different origins.
There was no time for fancy work. Silvas saw that these monsters were as willing to attack the soldiers in the castle as the people on the ledge. A quick chant, a single word of power to trigger it. As your makers enlarged you to attack, I enlarge you in defense, Silvas thought as his spell lashed out at the creatures. They suddenly doubled or tripled in size. It differed from beast to beast, but the growth stopped only when the pressure within caused them to explode.
It was a messy magic. Bits and pieces flew everywhere. Blood splattered everything.
– |The earth trembled. The shaking made dust dance. Silvas widened his stance to maintain his balance. But then he felt himself being split, divided.
I have need of you, the Unseen Lord seemed to say.
We have need of you, the army of martyrs echoed.
But the physical battle outside the castle of Mecq couldn't be abandoned either. Three separate views fought for the wizard's attention. His mind and senses were stretched from Mount Mecq into the sky where the army of martyrs and the army of demons charged each other, and on to the plane of the gods, where trumpets continued to blare the call to charge. Silvas sensed that-in some fashion-he was physically in all three places at once. Whichever venue he turned his attention to took over the premier place, but only for so long as his thoughts remained there.
Silvas struggled to hold each view, going from one to the next almost instantly, responding wherever the press seemed most critical. But he was only one man, not three, and the concentration required by this juggling act meant that he had to focus very tightly on each task in turn. It left no room for anything else. The battle became an endless series of tableaux blurred into jerky movement, a series of still images giving only an impression of motion. All three fights continued simultaneously regardless of which Silvas was viewing at the moment.
Demons continued to assault the people atop Mount Mecq while Blethye's army advanced toward the pass between the two hills. Overhead, the unnatural night of the Blue Rose finally reached the hills and stretched on into the valley of Mecq. Night came at mid-morning.
In the land of the gods, Silvas found himself mounted on Bay, even though he remained aware of Bay standing in his segment of the pentagram outside the castle of Mecq. Carillia was to Silvas's left, also in both places at once. In the land of the gods Carillia was mounted on a beautiful palomino mare. To Silvas's right in the land of the gods the Unseen Lord sat atop a white charger that was as large as Bay. Off to either side Silvas could see the gods allied with his Unseen Lord, and the army of heroes and demigods they had gathered. Across the plain, not more than eighty yards away now, was the divine army of the Blue Rose, led by the gods and goddesses who were trying to take over the orthodox Roman Church.
The scene that was etched in Silvas's mind was of bright lights, pristine colors, and brilliantly gleaming armor, an idealized rendering of the moment "Before the Battle." The blues were the most perfect blues imaginable. The yellows and reds were the epitome of their hues. It was so with all of the colors and forms. Nothing so ideal could possibly have existed on the mortal plane. Snatches of conversation or thought were tagged to the view. "It is our moment of glory." "For truth, my brothers, for Truth." "The song we sing today will echo through eternity. It will never be forgotten!"
At the same time Silvas could feel the fear and the pleas of hordes of believers in the mortal world. The people there were somehow aware, at least in their souls, of the tremendous battle that was beginning. They knew that it might bring them all to the end of the world. It wasn't just the people huddled in St. Katrinka's in the village of Mecq (though for an instant Silvas could see them inside the church). This voice of terror echoed through Silvas's mind and soul and seemed to be the entire congregation of Christianity trembling against the Day of Judgment.
On the divine plane, the armies of the gods collided. Weapons rang against one another and against armor with the purest bell tones that could be imagined. An intricate ballet of death whirled in almost symmetrical patterns. Blood flowed and spurted-fountains of the most exquisite crimson and scarlet. The cries of triumph or defeat, victory or death, were almost operatic. Death visited the gods, and Death was a visible if ghostly presence, moving untouched among the flashing weapons reaping his most glorious harvest yet.
Laughter echoed over the battle, the laughter of gods at play. Silvas was aware of it, but only on a peripheral level. While they fought their own duels, the gods seemed to be enjoying a split consciousness like Silvas's own. But the gods were watching the fighting on the other levels almost as if they were watching wrestlers compete in the great hall of some mortal lord. It seemed as if none of the horror on the other levels was real to the gods, as if none of it really mattered. That brought an ache to Silvas's gut more distressing than the deaths among the warring gods.
– |The battle between dead martyrs and never-living demons commenced at the same time as the battle in the land of the gods. This battle ranged over sky and land in a confusion that no eye could completely follow. The colors were not as clean and brilliant as they were in the land of the gods. The dying-if the dead and the never-born could truly be said to die-was not so heroic. If not death, this was a destruction even more complete, a destruction of souls and spirits. The greenery of the earth seemed to wilt and char where the blood of martyrs and demons was spilled. The earth seemed to recoil from the touch. Blood? Perhaps it was something else, but it flowed just as freely in muddy reds and browns, and its loss brought down those who lost too much of it.
The earth seemed to recoil and shake on the mortal level. The quaking started without warning and seemed ready to continue indefinitely. Once more the ground danced under Silvas's feet. Standing became as difficult as standing in a wagon whose horses were galloping out of control down a rocky road.
"Mother Earth shows her pain!" Bosc shouted.
It was a difficult moment for Silvas. His eyes were locked on those of the Blue Rose wizard as they contested the mastery of the pass between mounts Mecq and Balq. Blethye's army had come to a halt on his side of the pass, still out of reach of the physical weapons of Sir Eustace and his soldiers. Silvas had put up a wall of force in front of Blethye's force, and the other wizard needed to scribe a new pentagram to penetrate it… and as long as Silvas held him locked in mental duel, the other wizard could not scribe that pentagram.
Sweat pou
red off of Silvas's face, soaking the garments under his armor. Keeping his balance against the earthquake was an additional complication that was almost too much for his mind to handle. Only slowly did he bring himself into balance with it all-and the quaking eased off then. On the plane of the gods, Silvas was also being pressed hard by the forces of the Blue Rose. The might of the White Brotherhood was being compressed from both ends, forced in against itself. Silvas was not the only focus of the Blue Rose's wrath in the land of the gods. All of the divine forces behind the White Brotherhood were arranged at the wizard's side. The auras of power overlapped, interlaced.
An arrow, perfect in shape but fashioned of the stuff of stars, struck the line of the White Brotherhood not far to Silvas's left. One of the armor-clad figures-one of the gods allied with the Unseen Lord-was consumed by the flash of starfire. The rest closed ranks and fought on.
– |"Mother Earth bleeds!" Bosc screamed, his voice climbing so high that it forced Silvas's attention. The wizard felt a sharp crack that seemed to penetrate his head from temple to temple, a blinding pain that made his eyes water and squeeze shut. He reeled so wildly that he almost fell. For just an instant Silvas's concentration faltered.
Brother Paul chanced to raise his right hand to draw the sign of the cross before him. A silver-tipped arrow, sparkling as if on fire, struck the vicar's hand. Blood spurted.
Silvas focused tightly again. The shaking of the ground stopped-at least for the moment. Silvas looked to Bosc, then followed the groom's outstretched arm. He was pointing south, into the valley of Mecq. As Silvas looked, he heard the echo of faint laughter from the Blue Rose wizard, a laugh of triumph as Silvas's blockade fell and the army of the Duke of Blethye moved into the pass between the two hills.
Mother Earth does bleed, Silvas thought as he stared at a sight he had heard of but never seen. The Norsemen tell of this happening in Iceland. Molten rock was flowing up out of the ground. It seemed to originate at the spot where he and Bay had rested when they first caught sight of Mecq-scarcely a week gone by, Silvas realized with a touch of shock. It seemed so much longer.
The lava appeared to inch along, welling out of a crack in the earth that, at Silvas's first glance, seemed to be thirty feet long and no more than five feet wide. The road out that side of the valley had been broken by the shaking of the earth. Now the molten rock was spilling over into Mecq's valley. Steam rose from the surface, partially obscuring the dull reds and brighter yellows that lurked beneath. Yellow fades into red that fades to black at the edges, Silvas observed. And already I catch a hint of the fires of hell in it.
"They will not surrender the water of the Eyler to us even now," Brother Paul said, his voice quaking as roughly as the earth had until a moment before. He clutched his bleeding right hand with the left, wrapping some piece of fabric around the wound. His face had paled, but he stood without wavering. "They send a river of fire to block the river of water."
Silvas nodded. His mind, fighting battles on the other levels at the same time, had not moved that far in its thinking yet. He focused his telesight on the lava flow. It was moving much faster than he had originally estimated, and in much greater volume. It won't take long to reach the Eyler, he realized. Possibilities chased one another through his mind. The lava might boil away the Eyler, fill its course completely, damming it at the south end of the valley, upstream, undoing his work. It might flow downstream and melt the dam he had already erected. It might flow farther and block the pass between the twin hills, perhaps turning the entire valley into a reservoir that would drive the people out as it put Mecq and its fields under water in the months to come. If months remain to come, Silvas qualified. It might even overflow the village, roasting the people inside the church.
Somehow I must stop this river, Silvas thought. But how? For once he could imagine no magic that might suffice. This was far beyond anything that Auroreus had taught him, far beyond anything he had taught himself in the years since the death of Auroreus.
He started running through spells of power. He stretched out his arms and drew in energy from wherever his magic could touch it. I have yet to test my new limits, he thought, but it didn't buoy his spirits as much as he might have hoped. The power that had enlarged him when the Unseen Lord revealed himself was vast, but the wizard could not know if it would be enough.
Silvas chanted, the volume increasing as his companions within the pentagram once more echoed his words without understanding them. The light faded and surged in time with the wizard's rhythms. The air whined around the pentagram, faster and higher with every phrase.
A silver bubble suddenly formed around the pentagram and just as quickly popped. Silvas looked around quickly and could scarcely credit what he saw. The wizard and his companions were no longer on the ledge outside Sir Eustace's gate. They were down on the floor of the valley, not a hundred yards from the leading ledge of the river of molten rock. Silvas glanced down. Even the pentagram he had traced in the ledge on the hill had been transferred with them. Everyone was still in place.
Is this real or a projection? Silvas asked himself. He focused his telesight toward Mount Mecq. He saw no trace of himself or his companions on the ledge. Bay's head at least should be visible, he thought. He moved his gaze to the rampart of the castle. The consternation he saw among the soldiers there was more persuasive. They don't see us. We vanished. And finally someone looked into the valley and spotted them. He pointed directly at Silvas.
That was all the time Silvas dared spare on that. The castle's defenders were coming under direct attack again, but for the moment they would have to face it alone, with only the weapons of Sir Eustace's men and the magics of the monks who remained outside the gate. Silvas had a more urgent danger to face. The lava was advancing steadily. The point of the pentagram in which Silvas stood was aimed directly at the molten rock.
"Courage," he said softly. He felt the fear of Brother Paul and, to a lesser extent, Bishop Egbert. "This is where we stand or fall. If we can't stop this river or divert it, the molten rock will entomb us here and the Blue Rose will win."
Except for one brief flutter, Silvas felt remarkably calm. For once my duty is as plain as the sun in the sky, he thought. He started to chant, looking around carefully as he worked through preliminary spells, building a foundation of power for the actual work of stopping the flow of molten rock. Carillia looked as serene as ever. She beamed confidence and love at him. Bosc and Bay were calm, ready for whatever came. Brother Paul still fought against an edge of terror and the pain of his wound. His prayers were coming faster and faster. Bishop Egbert seemed to be torn. There was fear, under control. There was preparation, as the bishop worked his own way through to the power of the Greater Mysteries of the White Brotherhood. But he also displayed an unmistakable fascination with the molten rock that was moving toward the pentagram.
Silvas shared, as much as he dared, the bishop's fascination. The lava bubbled and fumed. Steam and tongues of fire rose above it. The wall of fiery rock moved forward, rolling over its own leading edge, like a waterfall in slow motion, advancing a few inches every second. Cinders formed and fell from the periphery. The wall was already near Bay's height, and it seemed to be growing as it approached. Even tree sap does not run so thickly, Silvas thought. It was part of the fascination.
And part of the danger.
The other phases of the battle could too easily be forgotten, and they had not ended yet.
– |The battle between the martyrs of the Church and the never-born demons of the Blue Rose continued. The remains of twice-dead martyrs and never-born-but-once-dead demons faded quickly, but before they vanished, they poisoned the land on which they fell. The battle had progressed beyond the control of either Silvas or the Blue Rose wizard. The martyrs and demons fought with an abandon that mortal warriors rarely could. The demons fought because they had been created to do nothing else, because they understood nothing else. The martyrs fought to save their souls. The terrors of death and the terrors o
f the night consumed each other in a visible nightmare that spread from horizon to horizon… but still only on Blethye's side of the twin hills. We did that much right at least, Silvas thought with what little satisfaction he could muster.
On this level, Silvas was still locked in a duel of magic with the Blue Rose wizard. Caradoc had found time to scribe another pentagram, almost within the pass between the hills, and to invest it with protective spells. He had a sword in his hand, using it as a pointer. Silvas raised his own sword, spoke a short spell, and watched lightning flash from his blade to the other, a blast that wasn't completely turned aside by Caradoc or his pentagram. I can reach you, Silvas projected. The other wizard grinned at him. He raised his sword again and pointed into the sky. Silvas followed the gesture, but he did not see the night that the Blue Rose had brought, or the battle of demons and martyrs.
This transition was like another slap in the face. Silvas found himself back in the land of the gods. That battle had progressed as well, and Silvas found serious gaps in his memory. I participated, but I don't know what I did. The battle was no longer that of two colliding armies. The forces of the White Brotherhood had been reduced and compressed. Few of the soldiers who had lined up against the Blue Rose here were still on their feet or horses. Their bodies littered the field.
Silvas was no longer mounted on Bay. He was standing within one of the points of a divine pentagram. The lines shone like purest gold. The pentagram itself was more than twice the size of the one Silvas had scribed outside the castle of Sir Eustace. Carillia guarded the point to Silvas's left. The Unseen Lord stood in the point to his right. Two other gods-whose faces Silvas couldn't see-held the other points. Bay was in the center, where the greatest power present would normally be stationed. Silvas didn't understand that positioning, but he had no time to question it. The pentagram was surrounded by enemies, and off behind the gods and soldiers of the Blue Rose, Silvas saw a vast cyclone approaching.
