'Azrak-Tchan, Second Instrumentality of the People, gave her the secret of true magic, which is the providence of the Dark. He also gave her a child.' Heads swung toward Moriana.
'This Moriana, surnamed Etuul, received great powers. But it was her daughter Kyrun, half human and half Zr'gsz, who possessed them in full measure. She aided Riomar shai-Callri, accursed traitress, in casting my folk from the Sky City. So the blood of the People entered the Etuul line. And it has been passed down from that day to this. And renewed, perhaps, by the late Instrumentality Khirshagk, blessed be his name.' 'He's dead?' demanded Moriana, looking up sharply.
'He is. He delivered Istu from bondage and fulfilled the role for which every Instrumentality had trained.'
'You're lying, you filthy scum, lying!' Fost screamed, shaking his fists at the Hisser. 'Am I?' Zak'zar asked softly. 'Moriana does not deny it.
'I hope you will find some measure of happiness, all of you, in the time you have left before we come for you with He Who Will Not be Denied. Farewell to you all. And to you, cousin.' He folded taloned hands across his breast and faded.
Moriana sat in a silence and isolation unlike any she had ever known.
BOOK THREE
Demon of the Dark Ones
For cherry: agent amp; sorceress who made six out of one -
'it's better to burn out
'cause rust never sleeps.' love,
– vwm To all of you whose patience exceeded my own
Sharon
Geo.
Mike
Kathy my parents amp; grandmother; and, of course, always, Kerry -rev
CHAPTER ONE
The man was a sadist, a killer, a eunuch. He was also a genius. But now Prince Rann Etuul gave little indication of those traits. He wore a plain robe that covered him from neck to ankles and made him appear to be little more than a hermit. The only outward signs that this man was different lay in the coldness of his tawny eyes and the network of fine scars glowing on his face where the light from the dying sun touched him.
He leaned forward, hands on a dilapidated table covered with maps, and stared out to the west. His mind worked methodically, savoring the sunset and the coolness and varied scents blowing in from the Gulf of Veluz. The songs of cinnamon birds and the evening lark mingled and vied for his attention over the cries of vendors in the city streets eastward and below his vantage point in the Hills of Cholon. He watched the western sky with little appreciation for the beauty of a vivid sunset. His mind was focused on a demon. The Demon of the Dark Ones.
Rann tensed at the sight of a mote floating among clouds touched with the colors of gods. At first a spark less bright than the evening star, it grew and became cruciform. Growing still more, underwings burning with the reflected glory of the now hidden sun, it took on detail.
Thunder sounded. With a loud scrabbling of claws, the war eagle found a perch on the sill jutting from Rann's window. The window, like the others in the former Ducal Palace of Kara-Est, had been built in such a fashion that the opening was too small to admit the war bird, twice as tall as a man. Even the rider, small and lithe like most Skyborn, had to duck to pass through the opening before dropping to the stone floor. The eagle's rider dismissed the mount, leaving it to find supper and a roost in the aerie the fugitives of the City in the Sky had constructed in a lesser tower of the Palace.
The rider turned to face Rann. Her hair hung lank about a face high of cheekbone and narrow of chin. Under the grime and exhaustion masking her slightly foxlike features, she might have been attractive. Her hair was a lusterless tangled brown giving only hints of its possible beauty when cleaned. She carried a bow and quiver, and circling her left biceps was the gold brassard of the elite Sky Guard.
'Sublieutenant Tanith,' Rann greeted her. His voice rang out like the pealing of a silver bell. When he desired, his tone increased the terror he inspired. He gestured toward a wrought-iron stand holding a large ceramic bottle and a goblet similar to the one he held. 'Drink, if you like.'
'I'm on duty, sir,' the Guardswoman said instinctively, her voice hoarse with dryness. Rann merely looked at her. He was not above tricking the members of the Guard into infractions of discipline. But in a moment of reflection, the sublieutenant realized such behavior belonged elsewhere, in the City in the Sky now lost to the Demon. Too few of the Skyborn had survived in the Demon's onslaught or the reptilian Hissers' vengeance for Rann to further reduce their numbers over petty crimes against corps discipline. 'Thank you, lord,' she said, pouring the wine.
He permitted her to refill his cup. She drained hers at a single swallow, then quickly filled her cup again. Rann watched without comment. The mellow ale was not that heady, and her farings would have given her a great thirst.
'What have you learned?' he asked when she had lubricated her throat sufficiently to speak in a natural voice free of dry croakings. 'The City approaches, milord, even as you said it would.' 'How far is it?'
'It should come into view sometime before dawn of the day after tomorrow. We could launch an eagle strike against it tomorrow.' Her voice rose in hope that Rann would order such an attack. The Sky Guard had been shamed by the loss of their City. Tanith was like the other survivors who wanted nothing more than to redeem themselves and feel as if they were doing something to recoup their intolerable loss.
'And what did you see in the Sky City?' he asked, choosing to overlook her eager recommendation.
'The Hissers are at work, lord. They've completed the destruction they began the day… the day they cast us out. They build now. Defensive works, missile engines, and some construction that seems of no military purpose.'
Gripping his left wrist with his right hand, Rann nodded above the rim of his goblet. He understood, or thought he did. No sooner had they turned on their human ally Moriana and the forces of her sister Synalon that earlier had been their common foe, than the Zr'gsz had set about erasing any hint of the nine-thousand-year occupancy of the humans who had supplanted them, the original builders of the City in the Sky. That done, it was obviously important to set their mark anew upon their recaptured prize to prepare to defend it.
Or to prepare to reassert their dominion over a continent. And eventually an entire world.
'The Demon,' Rann almost hissed, leaning forward, his eyes gleaming in the last glow of twilight. 'Did you see Istu?'
'My lord, I… I do not know.' Tanith averted her eyes and bit her lower lip in consternation. For a heartstopping instant, she thought he would reach across the table and seize her by the throat, shaking her the way a terrier killed a rat.
'What do you mean you don't know?' Rann's voice was calm, level, deadly. Tanith now feared it more than if he had shouted.
'I saw Istu the day he was released, milord, as you did. A black shape towering in the sky like a doorway into darkness, his body like a man's but with horns set on either side of his skull. His eyes were slits of yellow fire.' She shuddered at the memory. Better to face a hundred swordsmen than to even think about the Demon. 'Like the Vicar of Istu, lord.'
'That statue is his likeness. Now, I ask you again, did you see him?'
'Perhaps I did,' she said, and met his polar stare. She managed to suppress another shudder. 'But if so, he did not wear the same shape.' Breaking the bond of their locked gaze, Rann wheeled. 'Explain!' he snapped.
'I saw no such towering dark being as walked through the streets of the City… that day. But the Skywell is filled with a blackness, lord, a rounded blackness that gleams like a giant black lens. I've not seen anything like it before. I thought it might be some manifestation of the Demon.'
'The Black Lens.' A look of stark pain flitted across Rann's ruined features. 'One of the last tricks Istu concocted before Felarod bound him. And we must face it at the outset of this War of Powers.'
He turned to her. Her eyes were wide above dark fatigue hollows. Rumors had flown among the ragged refugees streaming to Kara-Est and Bilsinx from the Sky City and the fury of its returned builders that
a second War of Powers lay at hand. She had tended to dismiss such saying as idle gossip.
The scarred lips of Prince Rann confirmed those rumors of truth. 'And skyrafts, Sublieutenant. Did you see any?'
'Few, lord. Ten or a dozen flew around or beside the City, but no more than that. We were observed, I think, but none pursued us.' Her teeth showed bright in the twilight dimness of the room. 'They've learned that lesson, at least!'
Rann waved his hand. The dearth of skyrafts mystified him, but it was only a minor mystery. The reptiles holding the City might have dispatched their fleets elsewhere for some arcane mission. A few sharp skirmishes since the day the City was conquered had demonstrated that, without magical aid, the skystone craft the Hissers rode couldn't survive long in the sky against the eagles of the bird riders. It was a trivial fact. The real enemy was the Demon of the Dark Ones. Against him the might and speed of the war eagles were little more than a sparrow smashing senseless into a stone wall.
Rann chose not to tell the officer of the insignificance of the superiority to which she had alluded with such feral delight. He did not play his torment games with his own soldiers. Not now, not when so few remained. As spurious as it was, he would let her revel in the superiority of eagle over skyraft. All humans needed what comfort they could find now.
He sipped the ale. His cheek muscles contracted to give him a slight squint. 'The others remain to shadow the City?' he asked.
'Yes, lord. Four of us alternate resting on the ground and fol lowing the City. We've had luck in the form of clouds to hide in.' She shrank again from her own cup. 'But still, I think they know they're being watched.'
Rann nodded. That was one of the disadvantages of aerial observation. As a general rule, if you can see your foe, he could also see you. But this, too, meant little. Such was the strength of the reptilian Vridzish that they didn't care if they were spied upon or not. They now held the City – and had freed it from its once-set course over the center of the Sundered Realm. Using this immense aerial rock raft as their base, they could now travel at will and lay siege to even the most heavily defended cities.
'Well done, Sublieutenant Tanith. Go below and get some food and rest. You've earned them.'
She paused beneath the doorway arch and asked, 'Do we strike them tomorrow, lord? Or wait till they come to us?' In the dusk, her eyes shone with their own inner light.
'I shall take your suggestions under advisement, Sublieutenant. I assure you I'll undertake no weighty strategic decision without first consulting you.' Feeling the lash of his irony, the officer turned and fled.
He listened to her heels tack-hammering down the stairs. He had been harsh with her. That struck him as an ill omen. He usually controlled himself with far more precision. His skill in inflicting hurt led naturally to his knowing how not to inflict it, and when not to. This had been one of those occasions.
He shook his head and poured more ale. He was losing his grip in obvious ways. It was a new problem for him, more alien than the ways of the reptilian Zr'gsz. Though he knew how to manipulate that problem to maximize the despair and suffering of others, he didn't know how to cope when it came to haunt him.
Prince Rann knew fear. Great fear, overwhelming fear, for the first time in his life.
Her fear almost as tangible as the perfume of the two burly youths standing behind her, Governor Parel Tonsho fumbled at the door of her apartments, the brass key clicking against the lockplate as her fingers jumped and jittered. To cover fear and clumsiness alike, she cursed the smoky yellow glare of the oil lamps set in alcoves along the hall. If either of the youths realized that her difficulty had any cause but the dimness of the corridor, neither spoke the thought aloud. One did not maintain a much sought after position in the Governor's harem by being quick to find fault.
The key finally slid home with a thin screeching. Tumblers clicked and the door opened. She cast a quick look up and down the hallway before pushing into the darkened chamber beyond. Her pretty-boys were skilled with swords, but if the doom she'd feared so long had decided to overtake her now on the eve of battle, neither these two nor an army like them would help her in the least.
Then she was in the foyer, her heart hammering, as though she'd escaped a stalking, half-seen menace. A lamp flared in the room. With an odd relief she saw the small, neat figure sitting at ease in a fur-draped chair, hand raised to turn up the lamp even more. The long-awaited doom had come and, in coming, removed all fear of the waiting.
The door closed softly behind her. She sensed that neither of her kept youths had entered.
'I suppose,' she said bitterly, 'it would do me little good to call for help.'
Prince Rann smiled the lazy smile of a cat that has awakened to find a mouse creeping across an expanse of open floor. 'Does it surprise you that your playmates are in my employ?'
'No.' Her lumpy body sagged against a cool, plastered wall. Her pitbull eyes closed to weary slits. 'Not really.'
'Come in and sit down, milady Governor. Join me in a glass of this excellent Jorean Chablis. I find it vastly more palatable than that turpentine you Estil squeeze for yourselves.' He gestured at a square bottle cut from blue glass bearing the wax seal of a renowned Jorean vintner.
Knowing the hopelessness of her situation, she saw nothing else to do but comply. The soul of graciousness, Rann poured full the crystal cup he had set out on the stand at his elbow, rose, handed her the glass, then eased back into the chair.
The thick furs strewn across the floor clutched at her feet as she walked to the divan opposite Rann. Cushions sighed protest as she dropped listlessly, spilling drops of white wine down the front of her purple silk tunic.
Reflexively, she took the glass in both hands and gulped the wine, needing the warmth and reassurance of its alcohol more than the sweetish taste.
'You've done well for yourself under the aegis of the City in the Sky, Governor.' Rann's eyes, cat-yellow in the light, appraised her over the sparkling arc of his glass. 'You've already accumulated a Tolvirot banker's ransom worth of new furs and silken cushions to replace those spoiled during the late, uh, unpleasantness. And by the diligent scrubbings of your servants and application of incense, you've almost managed to eliminate the smell of the blood that was spattered so liberally throughout these quarters.'
At his words she twisted at her necklace of tiny seashells so violently that the strong silk thread snapped. The shells clattered to the floor in a pink and yellow rain.
"We have even provided you with a new seraglio to replace the one Colonel Enn found necessary to have shot down in this very room. And you still possess one of the finest cellars in all the Sundered Realm.' He hoisted his glass in salute, drained it, swirled the wine across his palate for a long moment before swallowing. 'No, all in all, the yoke of the City has lain lightly on your shoulders, Governor Tonsho. This you must admit. And in my turn, I admit that none other could have done as splendid a job administering the recovery of your city. You have amply earned both the rewards we your conquerors have lavished on you, and -' He leaned forward, eyes hardening, brightening. '- and the confidence we put in you.'
Knowing the hopelessness of her position, she dashed her glass into fragments on the marble floor at his feet.
'Enough of this fencing. You know what I've done, damn you. Isn't that why you're here?' Her puffy face twisted in a sneer. 'Since we're both admitting so much tonight, let's get it all out into plain sight.' He laughed.
'Ah, my good Governor. Of course I knew who employed those assassins in Bilsinx. Trying to assassinate me before we attacked Kara-Est was a clever move. Had I been in your position, I'd have done much the same myself.' He sipped wine. 'By the way, you'll be pleased to know that the young mage who saved me recovered not only from the trauma he suffered when the magical communications geode to which he was tuned shattered over the killer's head, but that he also escaped the massacre in the City.'
As he spoke, a spark appeared in Tonsho's almost colorless eyes. She ran
her hand repeatedly through her frizzy, graying hair. Rann smiled. She was allowing herself to hope.
'Or do you refer to the team of assassins you sent off for to Tolviroth Acerte, when you'd learned I'd be coming to Kara-Est after we were forced from the City? I'm afraid they won't be carrying out their mission. We intercepted them at the dock.' He dropped a hand to his sword belt and toyed with something thrust between leather and tunic. 'You were better advised to go with Medurimin fighting masters, as you did the first time. The Brethren of Assassins are much overrated, I fear.'
Parel Tonsho hadn't risen to Chief of the Chamber of Deputies and de facto ruler of the richest seaport in the Realm by being slow witted. But it still took several seconds for the portent of Rann's statement to penetrate her numbed mind. She uttered a strangled sob and covered her face with chubby hands. He had learned all.
He sat quietly drinking as she wept. Soon, the ragged rhythm of her sobs faltered, broke. She raised a tear-wet face to his, jaw quivering with the effort it took to defy him.
'Did you bring that for me?' she asked, gesturing at the object he toyed with. 'Do you plan to tranquilize me, to make it easier to carry me to your torture chambers? Or does the tip carry some terrible poison that will give me a lingering, painful death?' He raised an eyebrow.
'This?' He took his hand away from the object. Briefly, Tonsho wondered that she hadn't remarked on it before. It was a hand dart used by the savage tribesfolk of the Thail Mountains, a bit over a handspan in length, carved from yellow wood, fletched at one end with yellow bird feathers. The tip was weighted with a ring of stone strapped to the shaft by strips of cured human skin. From the tip jutted a stiff black spine. It was incongruous for Rann to carry such an artifact; one similar had been used on him by the Thailant savages to drug and capture him. Before a band of his bird riders could rescue him, the prince's genitals had been burned away by the tribal leman.
'No,' said Rann softly, shaking his head. 'It's not for you. It's for an experiment.' She forced her upper lip to curl into a sneer.
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