The Mountains Rise

by Michael G. Manning

  “I have never been amused at the thought of your death.”

  “What do you want then?” he challenged.

  “Why did you leave your home?” she countered with another question.

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  Lyralliantha’s face grew wistful. “Since you came here, I have learned much about your family and your life before, and yet you left it all behind. Why did you leave?”

  He touched his collar.

  She shook her head. “No, the first time, before you found me. Why did you leave?”

  Tyrion frowned. “Because staying would hurt them. I left to protect them, from me.”

  “Even though you knew it would hurt you?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Something of that feeling has affected me,” she explained. “I do not wish to see you die, even if that means I must give you up.”

  “Are you saying you’ve been contaminated by human feelings?” he said incredulously. “I hardly believe that.”

  Her aura flickered, going from soft and diffuse to an angry energetic vibration. “Perhaps you doubt it, but the elders do not. Sending you away might serve to clear my mind.”

  Tyrion was confused by the chaos in Lyralliantha’s aura. She seemed to have several emotions swirling through her, and that, combined with the strangeness of her words made it difficult to understand her. Was she trying to save his life, or remove an unwanted distraction from her own? Either way, he knew one thing—he never wanted to be at the mercy of Thillmarius Prathion again. He focused on that and let his anger speak for him.

  “I won’t accept this deal,” he told her flatly.

  “It is not your decision…” she responded with acid in her voice. After a second she added, “…baratt.”

  His nostrils flared, and he felt his blood rise. “Decide what you will, if you pass me to Thillmarius, neither of you will know peace. I won’t cooperate. I’ll kill every person he sends to give me instructions or even to feed me. I’ll keep killing until he sends enough wardens to put me down. I’ll be dead within a day, and I’ll make certain to cause as much damage as I possibly can before I die.”

  Her eyes narrowed, “You think you can subvert his will that easily? He won’t let you have your easy death. Behave and you can live well. Don’t throw this chance away.” There was anger and something else in her reaction. Fear?

  Why would she be afraid? Is she afraid for herself—or for me? I haven’t threatened her, he thought.

  She had him thinking, though. Her words were accurate. If he rebelled, even if he killed half a dozen wardens, Thillmarius wouldn’t execute him. He’d have him subdued, and then it would be time for ‘retraining’. He would spend however long it took until he had broken his new pet’s will. Tyrion felt his skin crawling as he thought of Thillmarius’ punishment. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to hide.

  In an instant, he made his decision. Taking one step to the right, he moved to Lyralliantha’s left side and caught her hair in his left hand while bringing his right arm up in a sweeping motion as he jerked her head back. He stopped just before the blade of force that he had summoned reached the tender skin of her neck. “It’s your choice. Attempt to sell me, and I’ll have your head first.”

  She stared at him from the corner of one eye. “Killing me won’t prevent it. Nor would it necessarily earn you the death you seem to desire.” Her aura flickered as she considered using her aythar.

  He tightened his grip on her hair, “Don’t. I can kill you before you can blink.” He knew from repeated observation that even the fastest spellweavings took at least a half-second to begin, and he was far too strong for her to dislodge him using a surprise attack with raw magic.

  “Would you really rather die than accept his offer?” she asked. There was no fear in her, only curiosity.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I will refuse him,” she said suddenly. “Release me.”

  In a human such a response, given under duress, would have been highly questionable. Coming from a She’Har, it was a simple statement of honest intent. He had never known them to lie, even Thillmarius. He released her and stood back, although his body did fall into a defensive crouch.

  She arched one brow, “Do you fear reprisal?” She had not bothered to raise a defense of any kind, which left Tyrion feeling slightly foolish.

  “Most of my learning among the She’Har has been about fear,” he answered.

  Those words did evoke a response from her, though she gave it no voice. Instead, she stared at him with something like pity in her eyes. “I will speak with Thillmarius. The deal is unacceptable,” she said after a moment, turning away from him.

  “Will you be wagering on my fight?” he asked suddenly.

  “I had not planned to do so. Few will bet with such long odds.”

  “Bet everything you can on me,” he told her.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to win.”

  Chapter 48

  Thillmarius didn’t return, which was fine with Tyrion.

  He spent his days practicing Erollith, studying the examples of spellweaving that Lyralliantha produced for him, and attempting to find some way of producing something similar of his own, or at the very least, finding a way to get around what seemed to be an enormous disadvantage.

  There were only eleven days left before his arena match when he began trying to replicate small portions of the spellwoven canopy over his platform. He wasn’t able to produce anything so fine or delicate, but he could create the same shapes on a larger scale. Most of his efforts were complete failures. He would create glowing hexagons in the air, complete with their internal symbols, but as soon as he diverted his aythar to something else, they began to fade.

  He had tried many variations of the same thing, using different sizes, different portions and symbols, but nothing seemed to work. Before he could finish any sizeable chain of the hexagons, the first ones were already fading away.

  They look similar to something written in Erollith, but they aren’t. They don’t branch the same, and the words don’t follow a path from past to future, relaying information. They just describe what is being created as a brute fact.

  The hexagons also linked in tube-like patterns, but the numbers varied, forming three dimensional shapes. That was something entirely different than the pattern Erollith used when something was written. On a whim he tried imitating the structure the hexagons were linked in.

  His first attempt was with a short section of five hexagons, but before he could complete the rest of the supporting hexagons, they began to separate. He tried again, this time using only one and creating five more linked to it in a ring. Once they were joined it was a composite of six hexagons, and viewed on a cross-section, they formed another hexagon. He stopped at that point, waiting.

  Nothing happened.

  They sat on the floor of his platform, glowing and independent of everything else, and they showed no sign of fading. He waited an hour, practiced his music, and when he checked them again they were unchanged.

  “Is that it?” he wondered aloud.

  He studied the spellweaving overhead again. Many parts of it didn’t have hexagonal cross-sections; some parts were triangular although they were more limited, primarily because they couldn’t repeat. The hexagons would interfere with one another. He was unable to continue his six-sided tube as well. It was too tight for another group of six hexagons to connect to it properly.

  Theirs are done in larger sections, but I can’t create that many at one time before I lose the first ones.

  It seemed that, as he didn’t have their mechanism for spinning out vast swaths of self-supporting hexagons simultaneously, he would be limited to being able to create only singular rings of six at a time, and he wouldn’t be able to join them to other rings.

  He continued to fiddle with them, but he only grew more frustrated. It was annoying to have disco
vered what seemed to be a basic unit, but be unable to do anything with it. Even worse, assuming he did manage to create anything larger or more complex, there was no way he could manage it in the arena. His latest insight was worse than useless.

  The next two days he made more large, awkward, and ultimately worthless spellwoven rings. He never managed to create anything greater than a six hexagon ring, and it took him almost a half-minute to construct even that. To go beyond it would require mixing shapes or creating larger collections of hexagons, something he simply couldn’t stabilize long enough to hold it all together until it could be completed.

  It was the morning of the third day when he finally gave up.

  “They’re right. This isn’t something a human mind can accomplish. I might as well try to grow wings and fly,” he told himself. Actually, a Gaelyn wizard could grow wings and fly, but that isn’t the point.

  My hexagons are big and clumsy, and I can’t hold them all in my mind while piecing it together. It would be a lot easier if they worked with simpler shapes like triangles.

  He stared into the air. Why not do it with triangles? Just because they don’t use them, doesn’t mean they won’t work.

  His first attempt was to make a simple tetrahedron with four triangles, something he had done in a more basic way in the past. This time though, he formed each triangle separately and joined the edges in the same way he had done with the hexagons. The end result was stable. It would take a day or two to be sure, but he could feel its balance.

  Next he constructed triangular tubes using sections of six triangles at a time. By joining them in pairs, he could create square sections that then balanced one against the other in a triangular cross-section. Since they would fit neatly against another identical section he could easily create longer and longer segments.

  “Ha!” he said, to no one in particular. Now, if I were to make this do something I’d want to plant my new symbols, one within each triangle.

  The more he worked with the triangles, the more he realized he didn’t know. There were deeper mathematical principles involved. Until he discovered those he would only be able to progress through trial and error, but he felt that he could probably accomplish a lot using just the simple triangular structures he could build now.

  When Lyralliantha came to listen to him play that evening he kept his new insights to himself. The next morning he set about revising his new set of magical symbols, so that each of them would fit neatly within a triangle. The first two he redesigned were his symbols for ‘sharp’ and ‘force’, and once he was ready, he fashioned them into as small a form as he could. The individual triangles he created were no larger than a ladybug. He folded them together into long sections, alternating the two symbols within each piece until he had a three dimensional structure almost two feet in length.

  Tyrion intended to test it against one of his older hexagonal rings (they were still lying around), but he nearly lost a finger when he went to lift his newly created construct. It cut a deep wound into his thumb and index finger. It happened painlessly, and it might have severed his index finger completely if he hadn’t seen the blood before trying to lift it. The flesh was open to the bone.

  “Shit!” he exclaimed and then began stitching his flesh back together. It was a task he had gained a lot of experience with during his years in the arena. In less than a minute the only sign of his wound was a fine silver scar across his thumb and forefinger.

  After that he added a new section to one end of his ‘razor switch’ as he decided to name it. The newer part used the symbols ‘force’ and ‘smooth’ and he worked until he had a serviceable handle for his weapon.

  That done, he tried it against one of his hexagon rings and felt a satisfying discharge of power as it met some resistance and then cut through the older construct.

  “Now I just have to learn how to remake something like this in just a few seconds,” he said to himself, shaking his head. It had taken him several hours of intense concentration to create his razor-switch.

  Two more days passed, and while he refined his method for creating his modified version of spellweaving, it was still a slow and painstaking process. He could envision it being used to create any number of useful permanent magics, but it would never be suitable for battle, not the way the She’Har used it anyway.

  Given time and preparation he could imagine making any number of potent implements that he could use in a fight, but being forced to fight naked—with nothing but what Mother Nature had given him—he could see only one outcome.

  He was exercising on the ground one day when a familiar rider passed by, giving him a careful look. It was Garlin.

  Tyrion raised one arm and waved, and the warden circled around, reining in his horse a few feet away.

  “Tyrion,” said the warden with his usual brevity, but the familiarity in his voice made it an almost warm greeting, at least by the standards of Ellentrea.

  “Garlin,” said Tyrion. “I have not seen you in some time. I trust you are well.”

  “I still breathe,” answered the other, “for now. I heard you are to be sent back to the arena.” There was a note of disapproval in his words. Being elevated to warden was considered the greatest reward a human could receive, and the fact that Tyrion was now being sent into the arena again was bound to make the other wardens worry. It was an unwelcome reminder that no matter what anyone thought, they still lived at the whims of the She’Har. Garlin’s hand tightened on the reins, drawing Tyrion’s eye.

  He noted again the dark lines of Garlin’s name tattooed there in Erollith. Tattooing was a common practice among the wardens, an outward sign that not only did they have names, but they were reasonably sure they would be around to enjoy them in the near future. It was an affirmation of identity.

  In the past Tyrion had thought the symbols were merely decoration, but after he had begun learning to read the She’Har language he had realized that they were marking themselves to make certain anyone that saw them would know they had been named. He doubted that any of the warden’s had learned to read Erollith, though.

  “Their decisions about me are unlikely to affect the rest of the wardens,” said Tyrion, hoping to reassure the older man.

  Garlin’s brow furrowed. “Your death will not be welcome news.” It was the closest the man could come to saying that he would miss him.

  Tyrion smiled, “I have not resigned myself to defeat yet, but I am told there is little hope.”

  “Against one of the Krytek? None,” said Garlin, answering his own question. “You should have gotten your name inked while you had the chance.”

  Tyrion laughed. He had never had any desire to take up that particular custom. He had only recently come to accept his new name. The idea of having it permanently marked on his skin still didn’t appeal to him. His eyes suddenly widened.

  “Garlin!” he said with emphasis, as if worried the other man might leave already.

  “I’m still here,” said the warden dryly.

  “Who does the tattoos that the wardens get?”

  “Most of us do them ourselves,” said Garlin. “Why? Are you wanting to do yours before your final battle?”

  “Maybe,” lied Tyrion. “Can you tell me how it’s done?”

  ***

  Lyralliantha glanced curiously around his small platform when she came to see him that evening. There were scorch marks and charred bits of wood, along with a strange smell. The platform itself, or more to the point… the tree, was undamaged, but her curiosity was aroused.

  “What is that?” she asked, sniffing the air.

  “Alcohol,” said Tyrion truthfully. The wardens were occasionally given small quantities of spirits as a reward, so the substance wasn’t unknown among them, but it was uncommon.

  “You have never shown a desire for it before,” she observed.

  “I’m going to die in a few days,” he responded. “I thought I should try something new.”

  “Will you be able to play?” sh
e asked.

  Tyrion laughed, “I’m not drunk. It tastes terrible. My musical ability is still intact.”

  “Will you play of your last meeting—with her?”

  She hadn’t mentioned it in a few days, but he knew the subject was still one of importance to Lyralliantha; even more so now that his time was growing short.

  He gave it a moment’s thought. Tyrion still didn’t want to share it with her, it had been too intimate, too close to his heart, but he needed time and privacy to work on his ideas before the appointed battle.

  “I don’t want to see you again after I show you that,” he told her.

  “Why?” she asked bluntly.

  He had several reasons, but he chose to tell her the most difficult one. “It’s a very intense memory. I will be embarrassed to face you afterward—I think.” It was a half-truth, but it served its purpose.

  “You wish me to avoid visiting afterward?”

  “Let’s make it a farewell,” he said. “Our last moment together before the arena match.”

  Lyralliantha bit her lip in a most uncharacteristic gesture of anxiety. “I do not plan to attend the event.”

  “Too dirty for your high moral standing?” asked Tyrion sarcastically.

  A flash of anger emanated from her, “Don’t presume to judge my motives.” She paused before continuing, “I don’t want to see your death.”

  Sometimes she seems almost human. I’ve let her study me too much.

  “One final lesson then,” he replied. “I’ll show you the secret of my heart, and we can part here.”

  She nodded and moved to stand behind him, in her accustomed spot while he played, placing one hand on either side of his head and slipping her fingertips underneath his hair.

  He waited a second only, until he felt the touch of her mind against his, and then he began, letting his fingers have their way, improvising a melody both soft and sweet. The image he had withheld from himself for so long swelled to command the foreground of his mental space. Catherine Sayer stood before him on the road, defiant and sad at the same time.