The Irda: Children Of The Stars lh-2

by Linda P. Baker

  “It’s heading for the other ship,” Tenaj said dully. She ran toward the railing, waving her arms and shouting as she went, hoping to distract the creature.

  It sailed past, half submerged. As she reached the end of the deck, she cast a spell with all her might. Something like a thunderbolt sizzled through the air and fell short. She threw fireballs, one, then two, more. They flew through the air, but fell short.

  By her side, Igraine also cast a spell, and something hit the water very near the monsters, sending a geyser high into the air.

  The Xocli swam on toward the smaller ship.

  “There’s no one on that ship with the power to stop it,” Tenaj said, her voice defeated. The ones who were more advanced in magic and spellcasting had sailed together, hoping to spend their time on board learning from each other.

  She watched numbly as the creature repeated its performance with the smaller ship, ramming it repeatedly. She saw bodies fall into the water, heard thrashing and screaming, then stillness. On her ship, there was moaning and songs of sorrow.

  The smaller ship tipped over on its side, like a toy in a pond. Bodies slid off the deck, scrabbling to hold on. Something beneath the water tore at the Ogres as they hit the water. Still the creature butted its golden heads against the ship. Again and again.

  Tenaj tore loose from Igraine and ran back up to the captain. “Go back!” she screamed. She scrambled up the ladder to the upper deck. “Go back! We’ve got to help them!”

  “We can’t.” The human met her gaze squarely. “It would sink us, too.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said his second mate gruffly, pointing. “It’s going.”

  Tenaj turned. The sea monster was sailing away, gracefully, beautifully, gradually disappearing beneath the water as it moved.

  The second ship was still afloat, but listing badly to the right. Starboard, she corrected herself.

  As they watched, signal flags slid up the mast. “Taking on water,” the captain translated. “Able to sail, though. Signal them back. We’ll fall in beside. Help out as best we can.”

  Tenaj insisted they circle close and check the water for survivors, but she knew it was useless, even as the captain acquiesced.

  How many lost?

  She went back down the ladder to her place at the bow. The people behind her on deck were subdued now, crying softly, speculating in whispers as to who among their friends and family was lost.

  Igraine joined her, then Lyrralt. The sun set. Still she stayed, watching the black water ahead, lit by Solinari so that it sparkled like diamonds. The wind grew colder. The stars came out.

  She was still standing there when the lookout shouted. “Land!”

  She looked this way and that, then realized it was right in front of her. The blackness she’d taken for starless sky was an island.

  A large island.

  Igraine and Lyrralt joined her once more, pushing through the Ogres who had crowded up from below deck.

  For a moment, Igraine stared at the black finger of land on the horizon. Then he spoke quietly. “We will be called the Irda, Children of the Stars, Watchers of the Darkness. As we have found our way to this place, we will make our own way into the future.” For the first time since Everlyn’s death, he felt hope and peace and a wonderful calmness in his heart.

  Khallayne sat for days, silent and uncommunicative. She ate when food was put before her, slept when a slave led her to bed. She shivered when the room was cold, sweated when she sat too near the fire.

  She hurt. Her teeth, her skin, her fingers. Her muscles, her eyes. Everything ached, and for days, a sound, even the tiniest one, made her cringe. But she knew all that would pass. Her aches would recede, and her ears would return to normal. She wasn’t so sure about her sanity.

  It was all hazy, like an early morning high in the mountains when the clouds haven’t lifted and the air hangs heavily moisture laden and nothing has sharp edges.

  “Why are you keeping her alive?” Kaede’s voice, tinged with jealousy, broke through the haze.

  “Because it amuses me,” Jyrbian’s voice answered, his despicable voice as smooth as silk.

  She watched it all as she would have watched a play, waiting for her heart to wake up and tell her she was alive. The thing that made her look, listen, made her at last return to the world of angry whispers, was a scream, the scream of a dying man.

  “So,” a voice said from near the window. “You are going to wake up.” The voice didn’t sound very pleased with the prospect.

  Slowly, Khallayne sat up. She spotted Kaede standing at the window, a crystal from Jyrbian’s collection held in her palm.

  Bakrell’s death came back to her. “Bakrell…” she choked out.

  Kaede put the crystal back onto its bronze stand and turned toward her. “Ummm. I always thought you liked my brother a little more than you let on. No doubt he’s one of Igraine’s most loyal followers by now. He never did anything halfheartedly.”

  She didn’t know! Khallayne understood immediately. Jyrbian hadn’t told her. She opened her mouth to tell her, to let the anger and pain come pouring out. But she didn’t. That revelation might be something she could put to good use, later.

  With effort, Khallayne pushed her legs over the edge of the bed and pulled herself up. Wobbly and weak, she made her way toward her scant wardrobe. “What does Jyrbian want with me?”

  Kaede shrugged, but Jyrbian answered her from the door. He was dressed beautifully in a red uniform, brimming with good health. “There might still be a few spells I don’t know.”

  She leaned her head against the door of the wardrobe. “You’ll have to kill me,” Khallayne said quietly. Then with growing vehemence, she added, "I'll die before I’ll ever teach you another thing!”

  He shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

  And it didn’t. What miserly, little spells could Khallayne teach him when he already knew how to torture someone to death without leaving a single mark on the body? When she glanced at Kaede, standing in the light pouring through the window, her fingers moving lazily over the crystals from Jyr-bian’s collection, she suddenly knew there was one spell to teach. And she knew, even before Kaede gasped, that he would kill her, if necessary, trying to wrest the secret from her.

  At that moment, Kaede snatched up the crystal, her mouth open wide in disbelief, holding it up to the light. The clear, round ball was filled with a curling ribbon of smoke. Sunlight streamed through the crystal, creating a dancing rainbow of light.

  ‘The History!” Kaede gasped, holding it close to her ear. “The History. Jyrbian, how did you get it?”

  Jyrbian was as perplexed as Khallayne was horrified.

  “What are you talking about?” He held out his hand, but she refused to give him the crystal. He* wrested it from her hand, repeating his question.

  “It’s the History. The Song of the Keeper! It’s in there. How did you get it?”

  “Are you sure?” He held the sphere up to his ear, then up to the light. “That’s ridiculous! How could that be?”

  “I can hear it! Give it to me. It’s mine! Someone stole it from the Keeper. She wasn’t sick. She was murdered!”

  He held it higher, out of her reach, pushed away her grasping hands. Before Kaede could stop him, he’d strode to Khallayne, thrust it into her hand.

  Round and smooth and cool. Khallayne’s fingers closed around the sphere. She recognized the tingle of life. She carried it, cradled, to the fire and held it up.

  “You did this,” Jyrbian said with absolute certainty. “Lyrralt said something the day the Keeper took sick, something cryptic, about singing for his fortune, the same day he was so angry with you. But he alone never had the knowledge to do this, so you must have helped him. How?”

  Yes, the Song was still in there. She could feel it, the way Kaede could hear it. “No. I didn’t do it.” She lied. Khallayne handed the crystal back to him. “I don’t feel anything but a piece of glass.”

  Jyrbian regarded her
for a moment. “Try to remember,” he said sweetly. “Perhaps it’ll come back to you. Before I have to jog your memory, the way I had to jog… someone else’s.” He thrust the crystal back into her hands.

  Kaede cried out in protest. “It’s mine! You can’t-”

  One glance from Jyrbian silenced her, and she followed him from the room with murderous eyes.

  Khallayne carried the sphere to the bed. Propped up on pillows, buried in warm quilts, she placed the crystal in her lap and stared at it, trying to remember the night it all happened, trying to remember the spell and how it had felt and the way it had all worked together.

  Then, when she thought she remembered the rib-bony darkness and the flow of the Song from the Old One’s lips, she reached out with her power. In her mind, she tapped the crystal ball.

  And the sphere opened. The Song flowed out, around and about her hands, through her fingers, a music beyond description, so bittersweet that tears clouded her vision, a song about a world that would soon vanish forever. A beautiful, glittering world like an apple with a worm of decay in it.

  She was lost in the Song, unable to follow the music, when she heard cheers, the uproar of something in the courtyard below. She leapt to her feet and ran to the window.

  In the courtyard below, she could see a crowd of troops, all milling about, shouting, crying out greetings and congratulations. She thought she saw Jyrbian, resplendent in dress uniform, marching through the crowd of men and horses. Then she saw the reason for all the noise.

  The crowd of troops surrounded a group of prisoners, chained together around a wagon on which a lone prisoner stood, chained and tied: Eadamm, the human leader for whom Jyrbian had been searching like a madman.

  * * * * *

  Jyrbian forgot everything-the History, Kaede’s angry entreaties, and the tantalizing spell Khallayne would surrender to him, sooner or later.

  Hundreds of humans, old and young, had descended into Jyrbian’s dungeons and not returned. They had died, screaming and begging for mercy, or so far gone into insanity that they could not even cry out. As he had destroyed each of them, it had been Eadamm’s likeness he saw on their savage human faces, Eadamm he wished he were killing.

  Now he would have that pleasure.

  Jyrbian strode through the throng of Ogres and humans who had crowded into the courtyard, pushing them out of his way. He climbed up onto the wagon and faced the human he hated above all else. “What a pity you can die only once,” he told the man, disappointed when the slave maintained his composure.

  He searched the crowd for the captain of the troop that had brought the human in, motioning the man forward. “Where did you find him? Was he guarding Igraine’s people, as I thought?”

  “No, Lord. As far as I know, the others have not been found. He was captured near Persopholus. We think he was directing the siege of the city.”

  “And the battle?”

  “We won, Sire.” The captain pulled himself up proudly. “The humans were slaughtered.”

  Jyrbian grinned with pleasure and leaned down to clap the Ogre on the shoulder. “And did you find anything valuable on him?” He jerked his head in the direction of Eadamm.

  “Yes, Sire, just as you said. My warriors brought it to me.” The captain reached into his tunic and drew out a pile of silver chain attached to a charm, wrapped in silver wire.

  From his tunic Jyrbian pulled out another charm just like it. The bloodstone he’d taken from Everlyn’s neck. He held them both up wordlessly for the slave to see.

  Eadamm lunged at him, his lips pulled back, teeth exposed like a feral animal. The chains wrapped around his body held as Eadamm strained against them uselessly.

  A beatific smile on his face, Jyrbian climbed down from the wagon. He found Kaede in his bedroom. She was barely dressed, her hair long and loose, her perfume heavy and heady, seductive.

  “You’ve heard?”

  She nodded, proffering a glass of wine. “His death must be spectacular. It must be an example to others.”

  A slow, candied smile creased his lips. His mind was already beginning to ferment with ideas, with images. His smile grew wider, eyes wandering over her body. He took a step toward her, saw her answering smile and the heat in her eyes…

  Khallayne barely heard the noise of the crowd as she mounted her horse and followed the others out through the courtyard and into the city. The sun was bright on the cobblestones and glinted on the gray stone walls.

  She rode behind Jyrbian, fear in her throat. “Only a parade,” he had said, smiling a smile as guileless as a child. “In honor of the capture of the humans. You really shouldn’t miss it.” She had played along, eager to get out of the castle, hopeful of a chance to escape.

  Now they traveled slowly, regally, down the curving switchbacks that led into the city streets, and along the wide avenues toward the coliseum. All along the route, Ogres lined the streets, waiting for the entertainment, drinking, buying food from vendors who worked the crowd. Khallayne felt a terrible foreboding about the event for which the whole city had turned out.

  The streets outside the coliseum were lined with platforms, viewing stands draped with satin in the colors of all the powerful clans. Jyrbian’s was nearest the center, in the shade of the looming coliseum. Only the Ruling Council’s was better positioned.

  Kaede was already on the stand, resplendent in an emerald gown with matching jewels at ears and throat. But when she saw that Khallayne sat at Jyrbian’s right, she frowned and turned away. Jyrbian dismounted and led Khallayne up the stairs.

  The Ruling Council arrived. Anel looked across the banister and bowed to Jyrbian. There was a buffet table, laden with delicacies, at the back of the viewing stand, and someone thrust a bronze goblet filled with deep red wine into Khallayne’s hand.

  Music began, the high, trilling sound of a flute. Other instruments joined in, adding their melodies. Drums. Cymbals. Bells. Another flute. Twining their light, playful sounds.

  The light seemed to dim, as if the sun had gone behind a dark cloud. Khallayne shivered, blinked her eyes to clear them, and found the light as bright as before. She clutched her goblet tighter to keep her fingers from trembling and peered down the street, as everyone around was doing. All except Jyrbian, who stood straight, stared straight ahead.

  First to appear were the children. Ogre children, dressed in white with ribbons of every color, strewing flowers in the street as they danced, laughed, played, and shouted.

  Behind them were the flute players, more musicians, more children. Young women and men tossed flowers to friends in the crowd. Troops, smartly dressed in their best, swords shining in the light, followed, then more children, older ones, all so filled with a gaiety that it struck Khallayne as false.

  Then came the captured slaves, naked, barefoot, oiled as if they were on display for the auction block. They were bound together with chains that shone as bright as the soldiers’ swords.

  The crowd cheered and clapped the same as they had for the dancing children.

  Through it all, Jyrbian displayed a ghastly smile. “You don’t want to miss this,” he said, taking her arm gently.

  More troops marched out of the coliseum. These were on foot, though from their uniforms it was obvious they were officers, higher in rank than those who had come before. They walked in perfect rows, in perfect step, shoulders thrust back proudly.

  As they drew near, Jyrbian’s fingers tightened on her arm.

  Three figures walked in the center of the rows of officers-one stumbling, almost carried by the two who walked at his side.

  That one was Eadamm. His wrists were bound in front, and his legs streaked with bright red. He had been hamstrung, the heavy tendons cut just above the knee.

  Khallayne cried out. The goblet of wine fell from her fingers, flashing in the sunlight. Jyrbian held her against him, forcing her to stand where she was. When the goblet hit the street below, it made not a sound.

  Khajllayne looked down and saw that, while Jyr
bian held her in a tight grip with one hand, with the other he held Kaede’s fingers, lightly, gently stroking them. “Eadamm will be paraded every day for six days,” Jyrbian was saying. “One day for each of the

  six months since the rebellion. Then he will be publicly executed.”

  He looked down at her and smiled before turning back to the spectacle, his eyes following Eadamm’s every step.

  And Khallayne saw that his face, which had once rivaled hers for beauty, now had become twisted and ugly, like his soul.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  Six.

  Each day, Jyrbian sent a new dress to Khallayne’s apartment, each more elegant than the last.

  Each day, he sent two burly guards, well versed in magic, to escort her. They broke through her wards. They carried her when she resisted.

  Each day, Jyrbian sat astride his horse in the courtyard and watched as they brought her out and lifted her into the saddle of her horse beside him.

  “Why do you slap and kick when you could destroy them with a simple magical thought?” he asked, amused.

  “Kill them because they blindly follow your orders?” she asked. “That would make me just like you.”

  Each day, he laughed as he led her down the mountain into the festive streets.

  Each day, he stood beside her and held her arm and forced her to watch Eadamm’s humiliation, Eadamm’s torture.

  On the seventh day, it was late afternoon before a slave came with the tunic and embroidered vest she had worn all those many nights ago, at the party where she’d looked at Jyrbian with lust and anticipation.

  The castle had been rumbling with parties and celebrations all day. The execution was soon, she knew. And she knew Jyrbian would force her to watch, but she could feel nothing but relief that it would soon be over. At least Eadamm would be beyond Jyrbian’s reach, beyond pain.

  The late afternoon sun shone brightly in the courtyard, making the cobblestones so warm that she could feel them through her boots.