The Starfollowers of Coramonde

by Brian Daley

  Chafing his arms and legs after their stresses, he sneered. “There is a higher price on your Hand. Make me one among you; promise a station coequal with your own, then I will do as you desire. Oath-take that now. Refuse and you perish, nor cares Yardiff Bey.”

  They howled their wrath, but their terror was greater. The Five made hurried, irrevocable vows, concretized by their own infernal sources. Satisfied, he agreed. All the energy of magic, all the power of will that the Five could bring themselves to surrender, flooded into him, expanding his strength beyond anything he’d felt before.

  He’d been processing this information about the Birds. The last known wood of the Lifetree had gone north, and only recently it must have come through Ladentree. Bey’s agile mind leapt that gap in a flight of speculation. “Where is the axe called Red Pilgrim?” he asked them.

  The Five stretched out their perceptions, ascertaining it, and told him; in the dray, bearing hard for the mound of the Lifetree. Even then he found a moment to admire the subtlety of it all.

  So much attention had been diverted to Bey that the deCourteneys had triumphed in the issue of the doors, When the tall, wide doors of the Fane closed after them, the siblings refused to permit the darkness to continue. The insistent blackness fell back before their blue glow. Wrapped in azure light, they made their way to the heart of their enemies’ stronghold.

  As they rounded the huge column Bey, guided by the Masters, slipped around the other way, undetectable in the overwhelming presence of the Five. He knew that the Masters must prevail, so long as the Lifetree was eliminated. Until the deCourteneys were fully engaged, he would wait in the shadows. He must not become embroiled in this battle.

  Gabrielle’s voice broke the ponderous silence. “Why do you Five love the night so well? We do not fear to behold you.” She broadcast the light of her enchantments. The Masters bore down hard; their art kept hers from illuminating the farthest limits of the temple, where they waited. But their bloated outlines could be seen, moving clumsily. No longer human, distorted by their own deeds and traffickings, and made horrible to see, they hid from view.

  “Nor do we hesitate to name you!” she proclaimed. Andre added his imperative to hers; the walls of the Fane trembled. “First, Skaranx, whose high charge and honor was to guard the Lifetree, and who chose instead to destroy it.”

  To one side, a long, serpentine shape writhed, hearing its name and crime.

  “Temopon, seer for the Unity, who vowed sound counsel but rendered lies. So did your will become Amon’s.” Next to Skaranx, the barely seen form of Temopon stirred uncomfortably, like a slug near a flame.

  “Vorwoda, who was her husband’s buttress and confidante. Poisoning his mind, you made him ripe for tragedy, earning demon’s gifts.” The reigning beauty of the world in ages past, Vorwoda gave a scream from the shadows, thrashing grotesque, insectile limbs in her mossy bed.

  “Kaytaynor, the Supreme Lord’s most valued friend, who slew him from envy and lust for Vorwoda. Your love is long since turned to abhorrence. Did you think to steal what you did not merit?” Kaytaynor, his swollen body twisted and bent, tried to reject what he heard, radiating his resentment.

  “Lastly, Dorodeen. And where are there words to denounce you? Not brave enough or wise enough for the loftiest seat in the Unity, yet clever enough to breed treason, and so bring it down. Worst of all are you, for you loved the Unity, but cast it low because you could not rule it.” Dorodeen, the Flawed Hero, who had ended an entire civilization to salve his own inquietude, moved not at all. He repressed the only thing he feared, his memories, and waited, impassive as a crag of ice.

  The Masters were assailed by a second excruciating, lucid understanding of what they’d become. Then they hid from it, and struck at the deCourteneys with all their weight of evil.

  But their strength was less than it had been. Andre and Gabrielle pooled their powers, and withstood it. Furnace heat and arctic cold skirmished, and the Fane rumbled. But the interlopers deflected every onslaught with anti-spells of their own. Then deCourteney magic erupted. Riding the crest of their emotions, the two counterattacked.

  The energies warred, unseen by the eye but palpable enough to set Gabrielle’s fiery hair floating, riding their currents.

  This was Bey’s moment. He extended his arms, while militant winds cracked his black robes around him. First, he’d need a means of travel. With puissance he’d never known before, he ripped aside the curtains of the half-world, and summoned it to him. In an instant his desire was filled, rearing above him, taking the shape of a horse of smoke, of night-black substances of dread borrowed from dreams. It was even taller at the shoulder than a dray horse of Matloo, its breath hot and sulfurous. Its eyes beamed yellow malevolence, and its restless hooves of polished jet left the rock beneath them glowing from their touch. The nightmare horse shrilled, then bowed knee to Yardiff Bey. He scrambled up to its back, sinking his fingers into the coarse tangles of its long mane.

  He swept out across the Fane. The Masters redoubled their assault on the deCourteneys, so that the sorcerer would go unhindered. Outside, the northerners ran for safety as the mountainous doors crashed open. Bey blurred past with such speed it seemed a black wind had blown by. The soldiers heard his demoniac laugh echoing back along the boulevard.

  The detonations of the doors, slamming open, rolled across the Fane in a shock wave. Gabrielle spun, thinking it an attack from the rear. Sensing that, the Five spent a major effort. But the offensive burst like a comber off Andre’s stubborn wards; he’d let his concentration fail once, on the Isle of Keys, and had vowed it would never happen again. Alone, he held, sweat streaming down his face, nails digging into his palms until blood seeped. He was driven backward bodily, pressed to his limits.

  All that was in the moment Gabrielle turned. Now she was back, supporting Andre with her arm, shaping a shield against which the Five could do nothing. She dispatched enchantments that rocked the foundations of the Fane, far down in the roots of the earth, and lit the entire room. Shrinking from the light of her sorcery, the Masters sped their total fury at her.

  Gabrielle deCourteney, reaching her zenith, bolstered by emotions not unlike the Berserkergang, converted the Fane of the Masters into a crucible of magic.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Yet is every man his greatest enemy and, as it were, his own executioner.

  Sir Thomas Browne

  Religio Medici

  YARDIFF Bey bore down on the arch of Salamá’s entrance. One of the men on watch just found time to leap aside; the other, frozen in his tracks by surprise, was trampled under the hooves of the hellhorse, his flesh crumbled and scorched by its passing.

  Yardiff Bey drew to a halt out on the plain. He turned his heightened, one-eyed gaze to the east, seeing farther and better than mortal sight. He descried the war-dray far off, throwing out a plume of dust. Its way led through low, gutted hills from which much stone had been quarried and cut for use in Salamá. Beyond those rose the bare little mount upon which the Lifetree could thrive.

  He sensed an emanation he’d come across before; Calundronius, accursed gemstone of the deCourteneys, was there. No simple spell would stop his prey. And even with his infernal steed, Bey could not overhaul them in time; they’d gained a commanding lead. It would require extraordinary measures to halt them, or at least impede them until he could catch up.

  He ordered his thoughts, sorting out the things he must invoke, flows he must tap, oaths to bind and vows to make. He used a forbidden tongue, his aristocratic hands darting through the passes of his Shaping. The hellhorse, scenting sorcery, reared high, beams of amber light arrowing from its eyes. Ears flattening to its skull, it screamed its excitement; not an equine sound, but rather the cry of a giant feline.

  Van Duyn and Katya, having dropped far behind the main party as rearguard, heard that sound. They turned, and saw a horse and rider, tiny in the distance, coming at uncanny speed. They brought their horses around, the American unslinging
the M-1, to do whatever they must to buy time for those riding with the Lifetree.

  The main party thundered down into the lowest part of the valley, their horses lathered with sweat, flinging up the earth in clots. They passed striated cliffs and deserted stoneyards, catching sight of low-lying excavations where ground water had formed pools. That an open body of water could exist here proved their destination was close.

  Springbuck’s heart was alive with hope; all victory seemed possible. Then Fireheel slowed, his senses sharper than his rider’s, testing the breeze, ears pricked forward, moving with quick, high steps, head swiveling. Springbuck scanned for danger, taking Calundronius from his chest and holding it by its chain. He saw nothing approaching from any direction, and the sky was vacant.

  The brown earth jumped, like a horse’s shoulder-twitch; Yardiff Bey’s sorcery was taking hold, Shaping this most inert and difficult of the elements to his purpose. Rising in a mound, as if a baker kneaded dough, it folded and refolded, swelling. Here, where the earth had already been opened and raided, Yardiff Bey had found pliant material, receptive to his arts.

  The earth-elemental found its feet like a drunkard, the problems of balance and motion altogether alien to it. It came from quiescent soil, used only to movements dictated by simple gravity and the patient adjustments of the substrata. It was twice as tall as the tallest of the humans, crudely wrought. Headless, it worked its arms and legs slowly, with a rain of dust and gravel, chance minerals and bits of rock.

  To the right of the road was the valley’s side, and to the left, a jumble of stone blocks in the abandoned yards, leaving no room to go around. The eight bulky dray horses reared and neighed, kicking, threatening to break their cracking swingletrees. Gil and Hightower could do nothing but endure the rocking and jolting grimly.

  Dunstan had himself braced in the curve of the driver’s waist-bar, fighting the reins. Fireheel had shied away from the apparition, but now Springbuck forced the gray close, holding Calundronius out. The thing sensed the gemstone and its power. It stomped clumsily, gathered more earth to it and flung it at the Ku-Mor-Mai. Sand, dirt and shale hit Springbuck like a wall. The stallion and his rider were blasted backward, falling; Fireheel whinnied in fright, and Calundronius was torn from the Protector-Suzerain’s fingers. Swan lofted a javelin that drove deep into the creature’s side, then began to slough out again without effect, telling her no mortal weapon would avail.

  Dunstan and Ferrian were working together to back the neighing, bucking team. Reacher rode up to seize the right lead horse’s bridle.

  Sorcery drew the elemental to the axe, guiding it in its only purpose, to stop the Lifetree. It lifted a boulder, hurled it at the dray. Its aim was off; docile earth, it was unused to something as bizarre as trajectory. The boulder missed the team, but smashed into the dray, snapping a wheel rim, crunching its spokes.

  The elemental went to the wagon and, without sign of effort, it began to topple the vehicle over on its side. Dunstan clung to his place at the prow a moment, then the reins were dragged from his hands and the weakened hitch broke. The eight horses milled and reared. Ferrian, arms and legs gyrating, was tossed headlong. Reacher managed to break his fall by leaning far out of his saddle, but the King’s own horse, flinching in fright, robbed him of balance. Both went down. The team broke and ran blindly, and with them went Reacher’s horse. The King scrambled madly to pull Ferrian and himself from beneath the great hooves, but his leg was struck, and Reacher’s left leg hung useless, crushed and numb.

  Inside the dray, men tumbled as wall changed place with ceiling and floor. Gil managed to catch himself by a handhold ring, igniting white agony in his side. Red Pilgrim lay nearby, having narrowly missed his head. Hightower’s restraints came loose, and he met the wood with a thud.

  The earth-being began to pry at the dray bed, not understanding what it was, but only that the object it sought was within. Clumsily conceived arms hunted the chassis for purchase, to sounds of sliding soil and gravel. Its weight tilted the war-dray still more. Those inside struggled to the rear hatch, but its lock was jammed, and the prow had been crumpled in. There was a roof hatch but it, too, resisted them.

  Swan was out of her saddle, helping dazed Springbuck dig himself out of the soil that half-covered him, hoping to find Calundronius, as the Shaping commenced tearing at the bed of the overturned dray. Tugging the limp Ku-Mor-Mai free, she found his fingers empty and condemned the luck; Calundronius was the one thing that would help now. She began scooping dirt furiously, looking for the negator.

  Planks were torn away from the dray bed. The elemental began working its crude hands in for a new grip. Gil was helpless to aid Dunstan, who was throwing himself against the rear hatch.

  There was a creaking from the roof. Inch by inch, the hatch there bent open, as the monster gradually pulled the floor away. The roof hatch parted further, and Gil saw the King of Freegate, Lord of the Just and Sudden Reach. His right foot was planted against the roof, back bowed in exertion. Now he threw his head back, face bracketed with strain. He’d peeled one corner back, and now the latch gave. The hatch popped open.

  Reacher, asprawl, thrust his hands in, took Gil’s shoulders and yanked. The American was pulled to momentary safety with a shriek of pain. Dunstan came behind, dragging the bulk of Hightower in short, desperate tugs. Then Reacher seized the Warlord, hauling him out in one motion. The Warlord’s blood ran copiously from his mouth.

  Half the dray’s bed came loose in the elemental’s hand. Dunstan, grabbing up Red Pilgrim, was last to tumble through the broken hatch. The Shaping broke off its efforts on the dray, pushing it aside, rolling the wagon over onto its roof. Reacher, with one leg numb, had to move quickly to keep Gil and Hightower from being trapped beneath.

  Holding the greataxe, Dunstan ran for the nearest horse, Jeb Stuart. The elemental followed close after, and the horse shied and bolted from it. With nowhere else to hide, Dunstan made a frantic dash for the maze-work of quarries and stoneyards. The monster pursued.

  Swan left Springbuck to dig for the negator. She plunged into the stoneyards to help Dunstan, pausing only to pick up a flake of rock with which to blaze her route through the jumble.

  Reacher had already recognized that he couldn’t follow; he hopped and hobbled back to Ferrian. The Horse-blooded sat holding a gash in his temple that had come close to his eye. The King began to tear his old companion’s vest into shreds for bandage. Gil lay back, wearily cursing the luck that had stopped them so near their objective.

  The stoneyards were filled with unused pieces, from monolithic cubes the size of a house to keystones no bigger than a scent box. Lying where they’d been left, they formed a labyrinth terrain of roofless corridors and cul-de-sacs. Dunstan, weaving among them, Red Pilgrim clutched close to him, tried to quiet his own breathing, listening for sounds of the thing following him. He chose his path by guesswork, hoping he was moving the right way. The melancholy Horseblooded hoped the plan he’d conceived in transit, as it were, would work.

  He heard the calls of Swan, but withheld any answer, unsure if the creature could hear. Then Dunstan heard scraping, tons of stone being moved by illimitable strength. The elemental was close, guided by the decrees of Yardiff Bey that had targeted it on the Lifetree.

  He finally found what he’d sought, an excavation filled with murky ground water, surrounded by high blocks. Dunstan cudgeled his brain, twisting his sad face in thought. Which would be the best place to wait, one that would give his pursuer no long corridor of approach? He plotted the grating, grinding noise of dislodged stone, and positioned himself.

  Swan’s voice, nearby, made him look up. She’d ascended a series of blocks to stand high above the rest of the maze, and seen his plan. “That way,” she called through cupped hands, then pointed. “It comes, no more than thirty paces!” She turned, jumped, vanished from sight. He stepped to a better location. There he waited, sweat beading his long features and staining his shirt, as the thing heaved stone tonnage a
side to get at him.

  Dunstan’s gaunt face worked urgently. He’d come with the vague idea of luring the monster into the water, but if he waited on the brink, might it not catch him first? He was of the High Ranges, and could barely swim, but if he dove into the water now, could the thing not kill him and bury the axe with stones flung from the land? He berated himself; hadn’t that lifetime-night of captivity in Salamá even taught him to think!

  The block fronting him began to move, even as he heard Swan’s halloo. He hazarded a quick look over his shoulder and saw her there on the far side of the pool, a dozen paces from him, watching him expectantly. Her look brought home to him the fact that he was not in the Rage, that he’d thought and acted, under great pressure, and not yielded up control of himself. He was again Dunstan, and nevermore Berserker.

  Then his mind became cool, his course of action clear, his arms steady and strong. He fired the terse order to Swan, “Stand ready, Red Pilgrim flies!”

  As the last block was moved away and the earth-elemental lurched toward him, he took a two-handed grip at the end of the greataxe helve. He waited until the creature was nearly on him, a precise calculation. Then he heaved the weapon up, over his head, as high and as far as he could, and immediately threw himself between the elemental’s feet, curled in a tight ball.

  The creature’s limited senses remained with Red Pilgrim, as the axe spun and glittered through the air over the pool. The thing moved after its prize, prodded by dim-witted singleness of purpose. It plunged off the lip of the excavation, into the water. The axe descended, clanging to the stone near Swan.

  The water heaved and surged with earth and stone swirling through it as two antithetical elements met. Waves and foam pounded, a miniature hurricane in narrow confines. Dunstan got to his feet, brushing dirt from himself. The waves stilled, and the pool’s surface became as smooth as it had been before.