Second Sight: Second Tale of the Lifesong

by Greg Hamerton

  She had been wrong to focus on the weapons, she realised. Even without any weapons, these warring peoples would fight. Those crippled Hunters who lay on the bloody ground still tried to slash their opponents. Dying Lûk warriors pulled arrows from their chests and threw them at their enemies.

  The fight was in their hearts. She had to change what they felt.

  As she considered what emotions might rule the men, she began to see the world in a different way. The fighters had writhing outlines and their bodies were filled with threads of coloured light. Moving threads coiled outward from hearts and danced between them in shimmering cords of emotion, like a ruby essence, flowing in curving, waving channels, but such clean bonds only joined the Hunters to Hunters, and the Lûk to Lûk.

  The currents between adversaries were dirty red streaked with grey, covered with hooked silver barbs. The dirty tendrils were prolific, like vines, splitting and multiplying at many nodes, choking the space between the fighters with silver-tainted hatred, pulling them toward each other, binding them tight, clutching at their hearts with those wicked thorns. Wherever a tainted tendril gripped a heart, silver ugliness bloomed across the red. Chaos drove this battle on. A desire for destruction infested their emotions. The Sorcerer’s touch ran deep; it seemed he could influence more than the physical world.

  She had no idea how Ametheus had achieved the effect she could see, but she suspected that if she could link them all with a purer emotion, just for a moment, they might be released from their madness. They needed to feel something beyond hatred for each other.

  Love, she needed love. Tabitha touched Garyll. She drew on her feeling for him, gathering the music of their bond and giving it a voice. As Tabitha sang each note, she felt an answering vibration in the clear essence throughout the glade. She gathered it without thinking and as she sang, something came free within her. The simple melody opened her awareness and she was swept up in the torrent of sound, of music, of emotion, of voices that sang multiples of supporting harmonies. She was made sensitive.

  The spearlike vision of Ethea’s agony pierced her heart: the priests had come, the priests had come, with their bitter words and madness in their eyes, in the flames, in the sacrifice.

  She reached for more power and her spirit soared. A current of glory flowed through her as she spread her arms wide to encompass everyone.

  The priests sang in a circle, and the fires burned, and the flesh became flame then flesh again. Their breath was taken away; her breath began.

  She sensed the men spread out in the forest. They were like stars, and she would be the light that danced between them. What was it Sihkran had said? They only take from life, never give. Well, she could give, but before she had completed her song, the Hunters attacked the trio of Eyrians. Some of the archers must have replaced their broken strings, for a sudden volley of arrows rained down upon them. Garyll moved with lightning speed and caught the first arrow before it had struck the ground, but Mulrano fell back, two shafts in his shoulder. Garyll danced over him, using his baton to swat the next three arrows from the air. He moved in a blur, but he could only do so much. An arrow struck the ground between Tabitha’s feet and another brushed her hair as it whipped by.

  “You must fall back!” Garyll shouted at her, as she sang. “You must run, Tabitha! Run!”

  “Give me time!” she cried, panicked by the discontinuity in her song. Garyll seemed to understand, because he turned to face the battle again as she sang louder. She could not run because she would lose her connection to the quickening spell and her link to the essence. Tabitha could feel the emotion spreading through the people, swelling as her attention expanded, reaching in secret through the tangled tension of the fight. If she ran now, she would lose any hope of stopping them. The Hunters would surely follow them if they fled, and hunt them down. She had to stand against this hatred and change it or they were all done for. Tabitha backed slowly away to give herself a few more seconds to sing. Things happened fast around her.

  Four Hunters ran through a gap and came for them, running hard. Mulrano staggered to his feet behind Garyll. He pulled the arrows free from his left shoulder. Blood spilled down his arm. He grunted as he lifted his axe with his right hand and stepped up to cover Garyll’s flank.

  A vision struck her like a warhammer—dead birds fell from the sky, their heads torn from their bodies. Tabitha stumbled backward, singing desperately, giving life as part of her died, driving her melody to completion. The advancing Hunters veered to follow her.

  Oh Ethea, do we both die now? Is this end of the story? Is this the end of the Lifesong?

  It was all happening too fast, she needed to find the end to her song, but she couldn’t tell where the end was until she reached the notes perfecting the pattern. The song had a progression that couldn’t be hastened if it was to be true. She was the descant worked over the driving theme the hidden voices sounded in her ears—she was the witness, not the source. The approaching blades rose, their motion slowed, and her soft music flowed against the chaotic currents of dying, hatred and violent abandon that rushed at her. She felt so terribly exposed, like a single flower, a delicate lily standing in the trampling madness of the battle, a little songbird vying against a howling storm. It was useless.

  Garyll leapt to block the first Hunter’s lunge and he dropped his shoulder hard into the man’s chest. The Hunter was thrown toward the second charging man, who vaulted clear. Garyll met that Hunter’s blade with the edge of the Lûk shield he carried, then whirled and struck the assailant’s knee with the baton. Beside Garyll, Mulrano swung his axe in a similar low arc, missed then found his target with a reversed strike. That Hunter screamed as he clutched the axe lodged in his groin, his voice tearing through Tabitha’s song like a bitter banshee. How could she sing of love in the face of such horror? But how could she not sing against it? She could not afford to falter.

  Mulrano struggled to pull his axe free but the Hunter fell and he had to abandon it. He plucked an arrow from the ground as he staggered back, waving it desperately in front of him, but the fourth Hunter advanced on him. The man whom Garyll had shouldered down had regained his feet. The two Hunters grinned cruelly as they closed on their prey, their hatred boiling forward like a cloud of bloodied tendrils.

  Garyll worked with feverish intensity to keep the two blades from penetrating his defences while he retreated, protecting the weaponless Mulrano with his shield. He didn’t see how the tainted cloud of hatred swept around him, past him.

  Did it drive him to fight too? Five more Hunters came at them from the left, savage men, leather-armoured, their hair wild, their bloodied blades raised. Garyll would not be able to face them all. Tendrils of silvery red reached out from their tainted hearts. They were all going to die here.

  Tabitha sang against the hatred, holding onto the idea of love until it overcame her. She reached the climax of her song. The pattern felt true at last, balanced, complete. The essence changed as her spell engaged. Her awareness grew in scale—she felt like the earth and the sky in the same moment—then she threw her heart out wide and released her intent, touching them all with her love. Light bloomed in the glade like the burnished copper fire of a desert sunset.

  In the pool of blood, Ethea turned her head toward her, a glimpse of hope upon her strange, beautiful face. Then with a whipcrack in her mind that vision was gone.

  The men who charged toward her cried out. They stumbled to their knees and turned their faces away from her, raising their hands as if to fend off a terrible brightness, or a sudden burden. The two Hunters Garyll had fought stood motionless. Their weapons slipped from their hands. Beyond them, the Lûk warriors had turned from where they had engaged Hunters—the knotted mass of fighting bodies was suddenly still. All around the glade, men turned to her, Lûk and Hunters alike.

  The sky shivered, but when she looked there was nothing but a brilliant blue beyond the canopy.

  A soft silence settled upon the forest as the resonance of her song
faded away. Even the wounded men had ceased their cries to look upon her. She had not expected such a profound effect. The men were linked in a glowing web of emotion, heart to heart, ruby red, with her at the centre. They seemed entranced by her and could not take their eyes off her. She couldn’t guess how long the enchantment would last.

  She raised her voice to carry to the farthest of the men. “Set down your weapons,” she said. “There will be no more fighting here.”

  Men separated. Despite their dialect, the Hunters understood her, for blades dropped from slack fingers just as spears fell from the hands of the numbed Lûk warriors. Lûk and Hunters alike seemed to be in a state of momentary awe.

  “Gather your wounded and bring them to me, I shall do what I can to take their pain away,” she declared. If she didn’t offer healing, they might resume their fighting. The coloured currents of emotion faded as she released her demand on the burning ring.

  She had done it! She had worked a miracle, and the Sorcerer’s magic had not touched her. She had power in this place. Pride swelled in her chest. She raised her voice again, louder this time.

  “You need not fear Ametheus! I have found a way to work around him!”

  They stopped, and as one their faces fell. The men looked at her with abject horror, Lûk and Hunter alike.

  “She has spoken his name! Dorra kan balaan beshiru! She has spoken his name!”

  “Allerall ye frommer Eyree so blanbrainen!” cried a Hunter.

  There was a sudden movement, a ripple in the ground. Her stomach gathered in a tight knot. She knew what it meant. His name? Ametheus? She was not supposed to say ‘Ametheus’? Too late she remembered the warning in the Revelations. Too late.

  across Oldenworld shall his Wildfire spread

  massing Chaos upon every caster’s thread

  ending the work of the wise and the ordered

  till Eyri alone stands protected, shield-bordered.

  hold still your tongue when you translate –

  each founding letter of these verses eight

  uncovers the provoking name of that capricious-headed

  Sorcerer of the silver fire, thrice-dreaded

  The provoking name. Too late she understood the Riddler’s warning. Oh Zarost! He had expected too much of her! The earth stood in little ridges, all around the glade. Shifting, feathered ridges, pointing inward towards her, through the men who stood motionless; struck still by horror. The air tightened.

  It would come from the sky. The wildfire was gathering, and it had marked its target.

  Tabitha threw her head back. A harsh light fractured the sky beyond the broken canopy. The fracture-lines joined at a node high overhead, where silver burst forth. A cluster of wildfire threads spat down toward them, a many-tentacled writhing mass that lit the river white.

  They were going to get many wildfire strikes, all around them, all at once.

  It was all her fault. It was coming too fast; there was no time to run anywhere. Tabitha fell as her legs collapsed. She had allowed herself to feel pride at her achievement. Like the pheasant that sang its own praise, she was about to end up cooked, by Chaos.

  Oh mercy! Now that the men had had a change of heart, they were all going to die.

  She took a last look around the glade. The awe had faded from the faces. There was only stark horror now, as the men turned their eyes skyward. The Lûk Spearleader Sihkran, much bloodstained, was one of the few still watching her.

  “What have you done?” he shouted. “What have you done? We can’t outrun this. You seemed like an angel, Tabitha Mahgu, but you have brought the dorra upon us. This is no way to end!” He raised his fist at the sky and repeated defiantly, “This is no way to end!”

  Some men scattered into the forest, but most understood it was too late.

  A heavily injured Lûk, his bald head glistening with blood, sank to his knees, reaching his arms to her, imploring her to save him, but she didn’t know what to do. A silver light flashed into the canopy. Bright flickering lightning snaked down one tall trunk. The stricken tree cracked and shattered where it stood, disintegrating upon its own collapsing carcass. Then another strike came, and another. The undergrowth heaved in a wave of altering form. All around the trees screeched and imploded as the impacts of the wildfire rushed inward. The river exploded into spray.

  Closer, closer; and she, alone at the centre.

  Men screamed. Life flashed before her eyes.

  Life, and all she had learnt from it.

  25. A FAR AND DISTANT PLACE

  “As soon as you can touch the stars

  You’ll need to be everywhere at once.”—Zarost

  Twardy Zarost paced among the Lûk children, where they sat dabbling with symbols they would soon forget, drawn in coloured inks. They were assembled in a neat spiral on bright cushions, on the floor of the readroom, deep in the down of Koom. He had enjoyed teaching the rules of logic to the bogadins while their Tattler Jhinni had worked on the translation of the Book of Is for him. He hadn’t planned on spending so many days in Koom, but there were worse places to be, and Tattler Jhinni could be very insistent once she’d decided what constituted a fair trade.

  Despite all the spicy comforts and foreign delights of being in the Six-sided Land, he couldn’t stop thinking about Tabitha Serannon. He had been away from her for too long. True, there was little of danger in Eyri that she couldn’t handle, now that the Darkmaster and his minions had been conquered. Zarost couldn’t relax, because a singular truth kept turning over and over in his mind.

  Young wizards had a habit of getting themselves into trouble.

  He knew, because he had been a young wizard all of his life.

  He was her Riddler; he should be getting back to Eyri. The Gyre could deal with the issue of the traitor, and work on meeting the challenge of Ametheus. They could summon him when they had need. Now that he had collected the fully translated manuscript of the Book of Is, the Gyre should have an advantage against whatever spell it was Ametheus was devising.

  He paced his way back to the oval slateboard, where he chalked up a riddle in orange.

  I can be big, I can be small,

  I poke through trousers before they can fall

  I can curl like a snake, yet I cannot see

  I have only one fang—what can I be?

  He sat down on his own cushion, and riffled through the pages of the Jhinni’s translation. One last lesson and he’d be gone. How long would it be before he’d be in a Lûk down again? Some of the children were giggling and whispering. They were older than he’d thought.

  One brave little bogadin had his fist raised in the Lûk manner.

  “Yes, Jikjak.”

  “A belt, Twardy Mahgu, it’s a belt!”

  “Very good. Who else thought of that?”

  After a telling hesitation, all the hands went up. The Lûk were compulsive liars, and the children had learnt the tradition. No one wanted to admit to being slower than little Jikjak, especially since he was the youngest.

  “My, my, my, what a clever lot you are,” Twardy Zarost said. “Always remember, he who thinks in little steps can often answer big questions. Tell this riddle to your parents, and see if they are as quick as you are.”

  That would provide some reddened faces in the family cots tonight.

  He was about to pose a more difficult riddle on the board, when a sweet and beautiful distant voice came through the earth, so delicate it would be inaudible to the children, but it made him stop dead in the action of cleaning the board.

  Had he really heard it? Or was it an echo of his concern?

  No, he could have sworn on a double-headed dragon, he had heard the Lifesong!

  An improvised stanza.

  Tabitha?

  It could not be her! If he heard her voice, she would have to be beyond the Shield of Eyri, in Oldenworld itself, and that would be a bad thing, bad for her, bad for the Gyre. She might be a wizard, but she had no preparation for the dangers of Oldenworld—
no warding skills, no understanding of second- or third-axis spells, not even the Transference to escape the worst trouble. The wildfire! She would trigger the reactive web, and be ended.

  He had to leave at once.

  Twardy Zarost swiped a cloth across the board. There was a sudden indrawn breath from the doorway. Tattler Jhinni was there, looking at the slateboard over the heads of the seated children. Colour was rising in her old grey cheeks.

  “Zarost!” she exclaimed. She clicked her tongue at him as she advanced into the chamber. “You should not be teaching such—”

  “Tattler Jhinni,” Zarost cut in, “So I have taught them more than you traded for? Surely then you are in my debt again?” But he could see by the hardening in her hard jaw that Tattler Jhinni was about to give him a piece of her mind. He didn’t have the time. Although he was fond of Jhinni, she had a particularly long mind, especially when she was angry. “But I’m in a generous mood,” he added hastily, “because you’ve been so kind, so I’ll leave you with a gift, a problem for your mind.”

  He snatched up the orange chalk. On the slateboard, he drew a one, a line, and the symbol for infinity beneath it. Beside it, the equals sign and a question mark—the formula for the Transference spell.

  Then, as an afterthought, he drew a head, arms and legs upon the one. That was him. He gave the little stick figure a tiny hat.

  Then he spread his awareness, as fast as thought, which was always faster than the speed of light, but often not quite as direct. He drove his being in a rush, outward to the non-boundary of infinity.

  He was the tunnels, the grass, sky Earth space stars galaxies universe…

  He touched infinity, and vanished from the Lûk down, right before the delighted audience of bogadins.