by Jack Lovejoy
Mrem were independent to the very neb of their claws; all political unity beyond the city-state, itself invariably a welter of feuds and factions, seemed alien to their nature; all regulation was opposed with fury. And yet hundreds drudged ceaselessly to shore up the crude barrage, from which the arms and legs of hundreds more—drowned in the first obstruction of the current—protruded at grisly intervals. Battle priests, rather than captains or chieftains, urged on the work. Whether driven by fear and superstition, or just greed for plunder, brigands and marauders drudged like slaves.
Zeshmer glanced at Mithmid, who nodded. Reed bundles, sandbags, timber pilings, fieldstone: the force of the backed-up waters was rising, but so was the object that resisted it. No engineering was needed; the barrage was only an expedient, built to last a few days at most, perhaps just a few hours. Ar could hardly withstand an onslaught directly upon its walls much longer than that.
The onslaught upon the barrage needed only minutes, and far less mind power than anticipated, and not even the most decrepit wizard of The Three was left fatigued. This was because Mithmid had had the foresight to consult a master builder about engineering principles before leaving the city; the man had volunteered to accompany the expedition.
“The water will do your work for you,” whispered the master builder, pointing to the timbers propping the center of the barrage. “Rotten work. Built it straight across the gorge, like the ignorant barbarians they are. Won’t hold such pressure long, no matter how many timbers they prop it with.”
“It won’t have to,” said Mithmid, as the wizards assembled around him on the brink. “Just long enough to overrun the walls of Ar. Should we attack the timber props at the center?”
“A waste of energy,” said the master builder. “Just open up a trickle anywhere, and the water pressure will do your work for you.”
Mithmid, tapping the telekinetic powers of The Three, focused on the reed bundles in front of tangle of pilings, sandbags, and propping poles just below. The reeds shattered, and a small stream of water hit the sandbags, whose upper courses were then shivered into rags and loose sand. Shouts and confusion erupted allover the riverbed below; hundreds ran to plug the tiny waterfall, which broadened within seconds into a cascade, whose rush carried away more timbers and sandbags, widening the gap further still. As the master builder had predicted, the water pressure did all the work, and hundreds now ran for their lives.
“We may now return to Ar,” said young Tristwyn, patting the hilt of his sword—which in fact he had never drawn from its scabbard.
The attackers were once more balked by a rushing river; once more the populace of Ar indulged themselves in joyous celebration. Tristwyn suddenly found himself popular, even respected, for the first time in his life. It was a new feeling, and he liked it. Wild dissipations awaited him at the palace; but he listened to Sruss’s counsel, and instead made public speeches—which to his surprise he rather enjoyed—and appeared among the worshippers at various temples whenever their particular god or goddess was feted.
Furious, his mother responded by implementing her plan to discredit The Three. But the decisive role they had played in twice delivering the city from disaster was known everywhere, and the insinuations of the Silent Ones were ignored.
This did not improve Rhenowla’s temper. Her son increasingly tended to ignore her blandishments as well.
Not until the water level of the Mraal again began to drop, several days later, did her temper begin to improve. For the new barrage, scouts reported, was guarded by wooden towers, stone-throwing catapults, and a veritable army. The patent helplessness of The Three in the face of this new dilemma could be turned to their discredit, and once more the Silent Ones began to whisper among the people, more and more of whom began to listen to them.
The Army of Shadows
“A TRAGIC story, my lady,” said Mamre, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Sad as you’d ever want to hear.”
Once the new attack had been frustrated, Sruss had had no trouble locating the former proprietors of the Blue Dragon. This was because they were still the proprietors of the Blue Dragon, no longer a sprawling caravansary in Kazerclawm, but a little backstreet tavern for refugees here in Ar.
“ ‘Don’t meddle where it’s none of your business.’ That’s what my husband told me,” Mamre continued. “But Branwe was always a good son to me, the son I was never blessed with myself. Anything I can do to help him, my lady. Anything at all. It’s just like a tonic to me, to know he’s still alive. I can’t tell you how worried I’ve been. Now I wouldn’t ask money to tell everything I know about him. Nor would I accept it, if offered,” she added firmly, unwittingly implying that somebody close to her had in fact told her to get as much as she could for the information.
Sruss listened patiently to the good-hearted old she-mrem’s stories and digressions, to her adventures since fleeing doomed Kazerclawm. She seemed proud of having salvaged her best furniture, including a handcrafted mirror that now hung in all its splendor over the bar of the new Blue Dragon, here in Ar. Her husband, it seemed, still nagged her about the expense of hiring fellow refugees to haul it, league upon league, all the way from Kazerclawm. But among these ramblings were hard facts, and Sruss was at last able to extract the confirmation she was looking for.
“And you say this mysterious nurse was murdered shortly after leaving the infant with you?” she asked.
Mamre began dabbing at her eyes again. “The very night, my lady. Her and another poor kit she’d found somewhere, bought or stolen, I never knew. Cut up terrible, they were. Nor were the wretches who did it ever caught.”
Her account confirmed what Sruss already had learned from Srana about the mysterious nurse: that she had sent a cryptic message to the Sentinel, and was in fact on her way to see him the night she was murdered. Her substituting another infant for the one she sought so valiantly to save clearly indicated that she knew implacable enemies were in hot pursuit.
It also confirmed that the original infant had indeed been the son of the Shadow Warrior; the last kit of his exile, born when he himself was being pursued by implacable enemies. Sruss did not mention this to the old she-mrem—the gossipy proprietress of a tavern—who might not be able to resist boasting about it to her cronies. Who in turn might do some boasting of their own....
It was a cloudless summer morning, and Sruss personally escorted old Mamre, still dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, to the garden gate. She did not insult her by offering money—although she suspected that her innkeeper husband was never insulted by such offers—but promised to keep her informed about the fate of young Branwe.
Only now was Sruss free to communicate her confirmation to Mithmid. He was still a houseguest, but Mamre had refused to say a word in his presence.
“I will have nothing to do with a wizard,” she had insisted.
“I believe I’m as tolerant as the next woman, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Nor would I serve one a drink, though he had the money in his hand. My husband is not so particular, but that’s his business. I never meddle.”
It was Mithmid who intended to meddle, as soon as he could, by any means, no matter what the danger. He had hardly rejoined Sruss in the garden when he was on his feet again, pacing anxiously back and forth.
“The ring closes,” he muttered. “The world turns back on itself. Yes, why not? It’s all clear now. Before it was just a notion … hardly that, really. Just the shadow of a … notion.”
Again Sruss listened patiently; although this time there seemed to be no hard facts she could grasp, until Mithmid at last stopped pacing, stared distractedly off into space for several minutes, then reseated himself on the garden bench beside her.
“The Khavala.” He lowered his voice. The White Dancers had begun their morning exercises at the far side of the garden, and a flute droned melodically through the morning air; but still he was war
y of being overheard. “The Evil One tried to get it, and that was the beginning of all our woes. He got only a fragment, but may try to get it all. In fact, I’m sure he will. He may be trying again even now. All-Mother, pray we are not too late! I blame myself for not foreseeing this peril sooner.”
“What of the immediate peril to Ar?” Sruss asked.
He sighed, and wrung his hands, and started to rise again, but reseated himself at once.
“If only it were just a war! Army against army, sieges and battlefields, and so forth.”
“The host besieging us seems to think only of plunder,” Sruss exclaimed. “They’ve ravaged everything to the east of us, and should Ar fall as well, I doubt that any city-state of the west could long resist them. Certainly not without allying their forces, which they still seem unable to do. The disunity of the eastern kingdoms, and its inevitable consequences, has taught them nothing. The disunity of the land was, I believe, what the Eastern Lords counted on from the first. Now at least we have the League of Ar to oppose them.”
“Thanks to you, my lady,” added Mithmid. “But the Eastern Lords may have other forces opposing them, forces deadlier than our own.”
“The Evil One himself?”
“I believe so.” He frowned in perplexity. “There is no following a liskash mind, but I do indeed believe that he is trying to bend this war to his own purposes. Why, for instance, isn’t he here now? Exactly how powerful the Third Eye makes him, I can’t say for certain—”
“Can he say for certain how powerful The Three, your magic redoubled by other fragments of the Khavala, are in turn? The reports of your power have surely reached him by now.”
“Perhaps.” Mithmid frowned again. “But no warlord would want to admit failure to him, for his reactions are unpredictable, like those of a madmrem. I’m sure he’s not really insane, at least not as we understand insanity. It’s just that his mind is so alien to ours.”
They were silent for several moments, each with his or her own thoughts. The melodic flute continued to drone; the White Dancers performed their exercises with a grace that seemed almost supernatural. Wispy clouds, like streamers of gauze, had begun to drift out of the west.
“I told you about my dream,” Sruss said at last. “Were the reptile-demons trying to capture me real, or only illusions?”
Mithmid shrugged. “Who can say what is real, when we know that other dimensions exist? The reptile-demons belong to the same evil dimension as the Khavala itself. Our greatest fear from the beginning was that the Evil One would learn to summon them forth into our own dimension, to do his bidding. Some believe they are the spirits of the Old Race.”
“Which he seeks to return to its old dominion over our world? The Eastern Lords, I’m told, are not of the same race?”
“Reptilian, but only distantly related. The Evil One no doubt considers them degenerate, to be annihilated in turn when they have served—” He stared blankly at her for a moment, as if thunderstruck. “That’s it! You said illusions!”
Again he began pacing back and forth, muttering. Sruss watched him with a kind of maternal amusement, for despite his advanced years he was still boyish in his enthusiasms.
“Some mrem—I accuse no one by name—have been trying to discredit us with the citizens,” he muttered. “But we’re not after power, and we’re not just foolish old mrem ... a few are, I’m afraid ... And by the All-Mother, we’re certainly not helpless!”
He slammed his fist into his other hand, and cried so loud that some of the White Dancers glanced curiously at him across the garden. Self-conscious, he reseated himself on the bench beside Sruss, and lowered his voice:
“Illusions, my lady. Many of The Three despair over the new barrage being raised at Dragonneck. Mostly the foolish old mrem, which, I’m afraid ... In any case, I’ve questioned every scout who managed to return alive—alas, but a small percentage of those sent out—and have a pretty clear picture of what we’re up against. Redoubtable, to be sure. Perhaps invincible by ordinary means. But not against the extraordinary powers given me to wield.” He held up his left hand, and sunlight glittered brilliance through the fragments of the Khavala that dangled like charms from his bracelet. “We too may have shadow warriors, my lady.”
His wizened old face lighted up with such boyish enthusiasm that Sruss could not help smiling, though she knew full well the perils confronting them.”
•
It was a rare configuration of the night sky in which at least one of the planet’s three moons did not shine. But the one now shining was still at a low angle, and would be in the eyes of the defenders. Anything approaching them from the direction of Ar must seem eerie to begin with, like an illusion.
Doubling the size of an army multiplies its effectiveness fourfold. That was an unchallengeable principle of military strategy, and Mithmid had been hard-pressed to convince the kings of the League of Ar that their best chance of success now lay in dividing their forces. It was the intervention of young Tristwyn, counseled by Sruss, that was at last decisive. Ultimately, in ways she had not foreseen; for the counsels of Rhenowla in this matter had been exactly the opposite, and her failure to wreak vengeance upon The Three was driving her to desperation.
Many of its wizards also resisted dividing their forces in the face of such overwhelming odds; some resisted the bare notion of dividing their persons from the protective walls of Ar, especially at night, with but a single moon low in the sky. But Mithmid—and Sruss—had at last prevailed, and a long file of wizards now found themselves tiptoeing apprehensively through a gloomy forest, without so much as a cart to ride in. Concealment magic had had to be used to leave the city this time, and some were already fatigued.
Surprise was everything. Once it was lost, so were they and the great city of Ar along with them. For the new barrage was now complete, the riverbed again mere puddles; the enemy host, its numbers swelled by a new legion of desert marauders recruited by the Eastern Lords, was ready to attack at dawn. Torches and campfires, seeming more numerous than the very stars in the skies, covered the southern plains to the horizon. Only for a mile or two south of the puddled riverbed, the range of an effective sortie from inside the city, did darkness still prevail.
But tonight’s sortie was of another kind, in another direction. Ortakh led a handpicked contingent of highlanders: those who had survived the diversion against the ford and supply depot downstream, when the barrage was first destroyed, recruited by highland soldiers from the regular army. They were freebooters by heritage; more cunning than the bandit hordes, more ruthless in battle than the very desert marauders. Those pockets of resistance in the land, still unconquered by the invaders, were mostly in the highlands. Ortakh had led this contingent in other sorties against enemy preparations.
The trees loomed unnaturally before the motley company of wizards and grim highlanders in the low angle of moonlight. The first sentries they encountered, posted haphazardly at checkpoints along the route, were drunk or asleep on watch, and quickly dispatched. Not until they were within a mile of Dragonneck Gorge did they run into their first real obstacle. A notorious bandit gang had occupied an old fortified manor, the seat of one of Ar’s noblest families, which commanded a strategic road crossing. But scouts reported that the bandits were carousing drunkenly with a troupe of dancing girls, and either they had neglected to post sentries or the sentries had joined the carousal.
Ortakh decided prudently to bypass the manor. It was not the primary objective tonight, and even a surprise attack here might raise an alarm as far as Dragonneck. There was some grumbling among the highlanders over missing a golden chance to cut the throats of bandits, but he kept them firmly in hand, even when they divided their forces in an orchard less than a half mile downstream.
The wizards now also had reason to grumble among themselves. All had heard gruesome tales about the savaging of magicians by highland clans, and being left at t
he mercy of so many grim highlanders at night, in a deserted orchard, caused them to huddle apprehensively together. Many found it difficult to prepare their minds for the ordeal before them.
The key was Mithmid. He had to be almost literally in two places at once. With a third of the wizards and three fourths of the highlanders, he headed straight for the cordon of towers guarding this side of the river, impossible to infiltrate in force, and placed too far from the gorge for kinetic magic to operate effectively on the barrage now spanning it. Nor could enough towers be destroyed before The Three themselves were overwhelmed by cruel numbers. Somehow these numbers had to be equalized....
A score of colossal towers loomed into the night sky, their size exaggerated by the weird angle of moonlight, every space between mounded with ramparts or fenced with logs or palings. The sentries here were many, and all awake, although the rising moon was directly in their eyes whenever they looked eastward, half blinding them to anything approaching from that direction. What they did see appalled them.
Mithmid assembled his wizards in a cornfield. Their own terror of what could happen to them should anything go wrong made a goodly number too nervous to concentrate properly at first. It took him several minutes of patient reassurances before he was at last able to tap their mind power, to focus it, remultiplied by the fragments of the Khavala, upon the minds of the sentries, to create there terrifying illusions, monsters of the imagination....
The first sentry to spot the nightmare dragon descending out of the moon was a chaw-eared old rogue, more accustomed to plundering Villages than standing watch. He had been bored and sleepy, but now his eyes boggled in fright, and he raised the alarm with a wild howl, as he dived for cover. He had never seen a dragon like this before.
