Circle at center sc-1

by Douglas Niles

  Natac stabbed and parried, with a lunge driving his blade through the breastplate of a Delver’s armor. Any further thoughts of aggression were curbed as he saw his companions forced back to either side, with the Unmirrored continuing their advance unimpeded. It quickly became clear that the only thing they could do was retreat faster than the Delvers could follow.

  And so the warriors of the rearguard withdrew toward the city, staying just out of reach of those deadly swords. Around midnight, near the middle of the causeway, the eyeless dwarves finally abandoned the pursuit-to be safely underground by the Lighten Hour, Karkald speculated. Exhausted and wounded, the battered defenders could only look across the lake, where the flames still consumed the Blue Swan, and smoke and fire seemed to rise into the sky as a funeral pyre for the world.

  PART TWO

  14

  War Years

  Rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him;

  Not on the chance of his not attacking, but on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

  From The Art of War by Sun Tzu, warrior scribe of the Seventh Circle

  Natac stood in the prow as Roland guided the Osprey into the sheltered cove. The stars sparkled above them, and the night was so still that the sailor had used a wind of his own casting to glide them silently, quickly across the lake. By following a circuitous route, tacking far in the direction that was neither metal nor wood, then approaching this anchorage along the lakeshore, the Osprey had avoided the heavy Crusader galleys that controlled so much of the water.

  “That’s half of the job,” Roland said in a hoarse whisper as the boat glided to a halt within a few paces of the grassy shore. “And if we can get out of here before dawn, I can outrun those hulks back to the harbor.”

  “I’ll be back before then,” Natac promised. “I hope she’ll come with me…” He sighed and shook his head.

  “I know,” Roland said sympathetically. “But she’s always lived here… and who knows how much longer-” He stopped, but the question lingered in Natac’s mind as he slipped into the shallow water and waded ashore. He heard a splash behind him as Ulfang, too, sprang from the deck. The white dog swam to the shore and then, conscientiously turning away so that the warrior didn’t get sprayed, shook himself vigorously until he was nearly dry.

  Roland whispered encouragement and then, with the aid of his small crew, pushed off. Natac knew he would keep the Osprey waiting in concealment against the Tlaxcalan’s pre-Lighten Hour return.

  Natac and Ulf climbed the hill to Miradel’s villa. Still the night yawned around them, vast and utterly still. Far away the lights of Circle at Center blinked across the city’s expanse. Great houses and fabulous museums stood outlined in yellow illumination, while the fortified towers at the ends of the causeway were surrounded by the bright, white light of coolfyre. Even at this distance the Metal Highway stood outlined in clear relief-and Natac knew that, on the other side of the city, the causeway on the Wood Highway was similarly protected.

  The camps of the enemy armies were for the most part invisible from this vantage, but he knew that within the valleys and lowlands along the shore there were ten thousand or more fires burning. The blazes marked the great city-camp of Delvers and Crusaders, the two armies that, in uneasy alliance, had worked so ceaselessly to breach the defenses of Circle at Center. The sprawling encampment had, through the years, grown to include the shoreline ends of both causeways, effectively cutting the city off from the rest of Nayve. Preventing those attackers from gaining a foothold on the island had become a life’s work for the Tlaxcalan, and it was a task that had no foreseeable end.

  But now Natac’s thoughts turned inward, a mixture of melancholy and delight as he and Ulf approached the white-walled villa. Candles and torches glowed around the outer walls. Halting just beyond the periphery of brightness, Natac knelt down and looked into Ulfgang’s bright, intelligent eyes.

  “You’ll keep an eye out here?” the human asked.

  “All night,” promised the dog. “I’ll be a ghost on the hillside.” And just like that he was gone, vanishing into the shadows to commence a circuit of the slopes below the villa.

  Natac climbed into the corona of light surrounding Miradel’s house, following the path toward the wide front stairway. He was not surprised when Fallon met him at the top. The elf, as always, had been keeping watch-indeed, Natac wondered if he ever slept. Now Fallon spoke very quietly.

  “Warrior Natac… I thought it would be you. She is waiting.”

  “Thanks, old friend. How is she?”

  “The same.” The elf’s eyes were sad, and Natac touched him on the shoulder, then crossed the veranda to enter the house.

  He saw her immediately, sitting upon a wooden chair near the fireplace. A blanket, a weave of many bright colors, was pulled over her thin legs. Her face was a relief map of wrinkles, creases radiating until they met the scalp of snowy white hair.

  But the smile that brightened her face was as familiar to Natac as his own skin. And her eyes of violet, still as bright and colorful as they had been on the night so long ago, when she had sacrificed her own future to bring him life here in Nayve, pierced his heart with that mixture of joy and sorrow that seemed always to mark his visits to the villa.

  “Hello,” she said, almost shyly.

  “Hello.” His voice was thick, and he leaned down to kiss her on each cheek. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”

  “And you’re as big of a liar,” she said with a tart laugh. “The Goddess knows, I can barely lift myself out of bed on these chill Lightens. But come, let’s eat-and talk.”

  He helped her up, let her lean on his arm as they walked, very slowly, toward the large wooden table. As he did upon each of his visits, he noticed now that her steps seemed shorter, her stance more frail and halting, than ever before. Her hands trembled slightly, an effect he had witnessed in the elders of his birth world, but something that seemed monstrously out of place in Nayve.

  “It has been a long time since you visited,” she said, and though there was no accusation in her tone, he felt a stab of guilt.

  “Yes… three intervals now,” he said. “The war-”

  “Of course, the war.” She cut him off, gave him a quizzical look. “How long has it lasted now, that war?”

  “It was twenty-five years ago, just last seventh interval, that we fought the battle at the Blue Swan,” he reminded her.

  “Twenty-five years,” she mused. “It seems only yesterday-you were a naif from the Seventh Circle, and I-I was so much younger.”

  Natac knew that she was right. In the time since she had begun to teach Natac the ways of Nayve, Miradel had continued to grow older at a shockingly rapid rate. It was probably nothing more than the ordinary mortality faced by every person of Earth, but in this eternal place it seemed to the warrior as though she were withering before his eyes.

  “Of course, many things besides myself have changed over those years,” the druid said pointedly, in her oddly disturbing way of responding directly to Natac’s thoughts. She looked at him with that same sense of pride she had shown from the beginning. “You are the general of ten thousand warriors-a whole army answers your command, and a city depends upon your skill for its survival.”

  “I play my part-but there are so many others. Rawknuckle, Tamarwind, Karkald-”

  “Of course. But I don’t want to talk about them. You must return to the war before the dawn, yes?”

  Natac nodded, and drew a breath. “This time, please come with me! You will be comfortable in the city-you know Belynda has offered you rooms. And more importantly, you’ll be safe. You don’t know how many times we’ve seen Crusader patrols coming along this shore of the lake. It’s only a matter of time before they come here.”

  “Nonsense. I’ve seen some of those patrols-my eyes are quite good, you know. They stay miles away from here.”

  “That’s no guarantee that they’ll always stay
away.” In fact, Natac too had noticed that the enemy troops had so far assiduously avoided the stretch of shore below Miradel’s villa. He drew little consolation from this observation, since it was something beyond his control, and a fact that could change at any time.

  “This has been my home for hundreds of years,” the druidess declared. “Ever since I came here from the Seventh Circle… from our birth-world.” She looked at him directly and he nodded.

  “I have plucked the Wool of Time. I am ready for the casting, if you want to see,” she said quietly.

  “Is it finished yet?” he asked, looking at the door into the darkened viewing chamber.

  “Soon… soon it will be over.”

  It had become a place of horror for him, that room. Natac knew that he would have to go in there, to watch the final scene in a terrible story of violence and treachery, of theft on an incomprehensible scale, and of the end of the world that had been his home. But each time now, that watching, that remote observation, was a brutally agonizing affair.

  Through the past few years, the warrior had observed the tragedy unfolding as an inexorable progression. He had insisted that Miradel show him every moment, each step in the destruction of everything he had left behind. The story held an intense, if horrifying, fascination. Unlike the people of his native land, he had some awareness of the power of European weapons, and he had at least a vague understanding of the invaders’ passion for gold. Furthermore, he had witnessed the power of European religion, in the belief in one god, in whose name works both good and evil were consecrated.

  But he had been awed and enraged by the audacity of the man called Cortez. Natac had watched the captain general of conquistadores sink his own ships on the coast of Mexico so that his tiny army would have no means of retreat. Even as Natac hated them, he admired the Spaniards’ discipline in battle, felt the courage of a small force facing overwhelming numbers. The efficacy of metal armor against weapons of stone was proved and proved again, and he saw the sweeping power of a cavalry charge against men who, though they were bold warriors, had never seen horses.

  His own Tlaxcalans, the bravest fighters in all the world, had waged a frenzied battle, a full day of fighting against the small band of invaders. Hundreds of warriors, including one of Natac’s sons, had perished during the savage fray. Cannons had roared fire and iron, and whole swaths of brave fighters fell. And at the end of that long and bloody day, only three of the conquistadores had been wounded-wounded-by the full might of the armies of Tlaxcala.

  So his homeland had surrendered to Cortez, and now Tlaxcalan warriors fought under the command of Spanish masters, slowly choking a ring of death around the heart of the Aztec realm. In that army they had been part of the Aztecs’ destruction, but to Natac it was a hollow victory for, at the same time, they were helping to obliterate their own world. Now Moctezuma was dead, and a terrible pox-another gruesome weapon of the insurmountable invaders-had decimated the ranks of the surviving Mexicans.

  Miradel lit her candle and once again the pictures played across the wall. The great temples and pyramids, structures that had risen like mountains into the sky above the Aztec capital, were already gone, razed by the deliberate pounding of Spanish guns. Most of the city was a ruin, and in the rest the defenders fought like madmen, and were slaughtered like dogs. Lancers charged on horseback, picking off any Aztec who showed himself. Arquebuses blasted lethal volleys, and each fortified building was simply smashed to rubble by thundering artillery. It would be a matter of days, Natac saw, before the world of the Aztecs and Tlaxcalans was gone, replaced by something he couldn’t imagine.

  The picture began to fade, and he noticed that Miradel had drifted off to sleep, her head resting on her frail-looking hand. Gently the warrior lifted her up and carried her to her bed. He thought for a long time of simply carrying her away, taking her to the boat, but in the end he carried her to the same sleeping chamber-the room that held his first memories of Nayve-and laid her gently on the bed.

  Fallon escorted him back to the stairway. Natac clasped the elf by the arm, then looked upward to see that the sun had just barely begun its descent toward daylight. It glowed as a star bright enough to cast a faint illumination on the flagstones of the courtyard, but the hillside below was still cloaked in shadow.

  “Take good care of her,” said the warrior.

  “Of course-now, make haste,” Fallon encouraged, and Natac nodded.

  He trotted down the path, and quickly found the white dog sitting in a clump of underbrush. “Let’s go,” the warrior whispered.

  “You go,” Ulf replied. “I think I’ll stay over here for a while, to keep an eye on things.”

  Natac was touched. “Thanks, friend. I’ll feel better knowing that you’re here.”

  “I’ve already spoken to Fallon about it-he’s quite a good cook, you know. He said he’d be delighted to keep me fed.”

  Laughing quietly, Natac ruffled the dog’s fur with an affectionate pat. “You’ll eat better than most of us, I wager,” he said, before starting down the trail, directing his footsteps toward the Osprey, Circle at Center, and the war.

  “C ome up here, where we can get a good view,” Karkald urged Tamarwind, gesturing toward the tall stone tower that flanked the end of the causeway. The dwarf had found his elven comrade on the harbor dock, where Tamarwind was inspecting the modifications to his caravel, the Swallow. Though the Lighten Hour already brightened the sky, the lakeshore and causeway were still illuminated by the coolfyre globes mounted on tall poles all across the area.

  “I’ll come too,” said Deltan Columbine. The two elves followed the dwarf off the dock, to the base of the tower, then up the steep stairway ascending to the upper parapet. Finally they reached the top, Karkald pushing through the trapdoor to the upper rampart. From here the trio looked across the lake.

  The detritus of war was all around. Masts jutted from the water where the last naval skirmish had carried the enemy almost to the shores of Circle at Center. These were like ghostly trunks in the growing light of day. Karkald looked at the steel-springed battery atop the tower, feeling a flush of pride. In the most recent fight, it had been the fireballs launched from here that had destroyed Sir Christopher’s lead galleys only two hundred yards from the harbor.

  Both attacking armies were visible in their encampments across the lake. Sir Christopher’s Crusaders, now numbering some twenty thousand elves, centaurs, goblins, and giants, occupied more than a mile of the lakeshore. The surroundings, once pastoral forest, were now a barren landscape of muddy hills. Crude barracks huts dotted the slopes above the flat ground. A hulking structure of sooty stone crouched beside a muddy stream, black smoke billowing from its tall chimney.

  Beyond, near the mouth of the Metal Tunnel, they saw the bristling barricade of the Delvers’ camp. During the hours of daylight, most Delvers remained in the darkness of the tunnel while others moved about only with elaborate precautions to ensure constant shade. At night, however, the Nayvian warriors had learned that there were no more savage fighters than the Unmirrored.

  When the blind dwarves and the savage crusaders had first encountered each other twenty-five years earlier, it had taken only a few days before it became obvious to those in Circle at Center that Zystyl and Sir Christopher had formed an alliance. The two forces had linked in dire purpose, both dedicating themselves to the capture and destruction of the city, the island, and the Center of Everything. In a series of ensuing campaigns the attackers had closed the ends of both causeways, and destroyed many of the villages, harbors, and settlements on the shore of the lake. Though they had never made it onto the island for more than a quick raid, the enemy had developed a fleet of large, powerful galleys. The great ships were slow and cumbersome, but conversely they had proven virtually unstoppable in the attack. For at least a dozen years they had patrolled the waters of the lake with virtual immunity.

  It had only been an interval ago when the fleet of Crusader galleys, fifteen ships strong, had a
ttempted to land the largest raiding party of the war right on the shores of Circle at Center. Karkald’s batteries, completed only during the last year, had seen their first action, launching balls of incinerating shot into the massed galleys from the two closest towers. Five of the ships had burned completely, while the survivors had beat a hasty retreat.

  “That bastard blacksmith’s forge is roaring,” Karkald grunted, pointing to the plume.

  Tamarwind nodded, not surprised. For all the years since his capture, Darryn Forgemaster had apparently labored nonstop to provide the Crusaders with metal weapons. The druid had been scorned as a traitor by Karkald and many others, but the elven scout suspected that Darryn’s apparent betrayal had a deeper explanation. Still, it galled him to know that without the smith’s weapons and armor, the Crusaders would be less deadly foes.

  “Of all the enemies who deserve to die,” spat Karkald, “that bastard blacksmith would be at the top of my list. If not for him, they’d have no swords, no steel heads on their spears and arrows. I suppose the scum is making himself rich on this!” It was an opinion the dwarf had expressed many times, but he still managed to work up a good measure of vehemence.

  “You might be right. But I still can’t help wondering why… why he works so hard for our enemies.” Darryn Forgemaster was not the only person changed by this war, far from it. Tam remembered the changes in Belynda since she had been a captive of Sir Christopher, so long ago. The elfwoman he had known for many centuries had seemingly vanished in that instant, to be replaced by someone who was as dark and bitter in her own way as any warrior accustomed to death and destruction.

  But now their attention was directed across the lake, where the long galleys of the Crusaders could be seen gliding along the shore.