by Allan Cole
I found one not too far distant. I jabbed a golden finger at that point, held it steady, then slipped a sniffer through. Knowing Novari, I did so quite cautiously. I snaked the tendril about, probing for the alarm net. I felt a familiar tingle as I touched the first strand and snatched the tendril back.
Nothing happened. My touch had been too light to trigger the alarm.
I took courage and probed about again, locating the strand. I felt out from there, nerves popping as I found a second and a third and then so many that my spiritself was a continuous buzz of discovery. No matter where I probed I found an alarm strand. And in no place was there space enough to slip through.
The net was huge and quite complex but not so large or difficult as the personal shield Novari had created in Orissa. The one I’d set the Cheapside monkey to work on. Obviously Novari had a much higher regard for her own safety than for Kato’s and his soldiers.
Still, in the short time I had, the tangle I now faced was good enough to block me. Pride kept me going, but I finally gave up and flopped over on my back to rest. I cleared my mind and settled into a soldier’s cold comfort. It was someone else’s job now.
It was Palmeras’ turn.
Then the flare went off. A hot burst of sorcerous fire that shot up from the valley and hovered over us for long moments, spitting sparks into the night.
We all rose to our feet. My comrades looked at me, waiting for the signal. I shook my head. Held out a finger telling them to wait. I pointed up, then forward, meaning we’d go with the diversion.
Just then I heard a great horn blare from above. We looked up. Above Galana we saw the moon glowing dimly through the haze. The horn blew again and the moon seemed to burn hotter and then a wide fiery road rolled out across the sky, sweeping the mist aside, plowing it into big boiling hills and banks.
Then we heard the drum of giant hooves and armor rattling like thunder. A spectral cavalry burst forth, Palmeras at the lead, and charged along the Otherworld highway. They were huge ghostly figures, formed of mist and magic. Their armor and weapons shone like the Godshearth itself. And their bellowed war cries thundered against the enemy hillsides like the Godshearth hammer.
Palmeras’ roar sounded above all the others and he waved his sword, crying out for his enemy to come meet him.
My heart leaped at his cry and I thought then that nothing could beat us. But no sooner had that thought formed then I heard the twang of a lyre string, sounding the alarm. Then there was a whole stream of golden harp notes forming around the enemy encampment. Out of that stream boiled a second spectral cavalry. Black armor and golden swords and mailed horses with spiked hooves. Emblazoned on their shields was the symbol of the Lyre Bird.
A huge wizard in armor of silver and black led the charge. His great beard and streaming hair were tied up in flaming ribbons and he made an awesome sight as he rushed to meet Palmeras’ challenge, screaming:
“For Novari!”
And his wizard warriors roared back:
“For Novari!”
Pip tugged my sleeve and whispered in my ear: “That be Kato, Cap’n.”
Then the two ghostly armies clashed, horses rearing and screaming, wizard warriors flailing about with their swords.
As the spectral battle raged above us I leaped off the barricade and raced up the hill, the others at my heels.
I led them to the large hollow beneath the first shield. I stopped there, indicated how to go, then slithered through. Twenty paces beyond my senses brought up short at the second shield - more like an immense magical close-woven fishnet. I wasn’t worried about setting off an alarm now. Palmeras had covered that. However, any rent I made would have to be immediately repaired. Otherwise the gap would be noticed soon as the diversion ended. I carefully picked the magical fence apart, making space enough for largest of us - Derlina.
After we’d gone through I quickly put everything back the way it was. And I powdered the area with Emiliedust to eliminate my spoor.
Derlina took us to the top of the first hill. Any opposition we met at this point would have to be overwhelmed immediately. She had her ax up and chin set, long legs eating the distance at a furious rate. I pitied any mere mortal who got in her way.
Just before we reached the top the thunder and lightning of the battle stopped. The abrupt silence that followed was so sudden that the sound of my running bootheels seemed shockingly loud.
Then we were at the top, crouching among low boulders, catching our breath and getting our bearings. All of us, I noticed, sneaked looks overhead. Marveling at the empty sky. Wondering if we’d only imagined Palmeras’ grand diversion.
Then the second flare lit the sky to remind us how real this was. We had two hours to go.
The haze Palmeras had promised was closing and I had little time to study our surroundings before we were blinded. Beyond our perch was a dark rolling landscape dotted with hundreds of campfires.
Novari was erecting her secret weapon somewhere in that wide wing of hills. I had no doubt that’s what she was doing. After seeing all the sorcerous machines in Galana it was a logical conclusion. I knew Novari’s preference for such machines. Hadn’t I slaved in her mines to feed one?
As I looked out at the hills and myriad fires the problem seemed enormous. Where could it be? Which way should we search first?
Then the mist enveloped us and all vanished from view.
I got out Emilie’s cup of magical dust and, shaking it like a baker shaking flour, coiled the white powder along the ground in the shape of a snake. I made the head a bit broader than the body.
Then I unwrapped the silver splinter I’d kept from my ship. I kissed it, whispered an apology, and pierced the snake’s head to make an eye.
I held my golden etherhand over the snakehead and chanted:
Fang and venom.
Venom and song.
The Lyre Bird sings
And the serpent stings
But serpent and bird are one.
Sister find your nest.
Brother find your mate.
Fang and venom.
Venom and song.
The Emiliedust snake stirred on the ground, white powdery scales sparkling all along its sides. Then the silver eye glowed into life and I heard Derlina gasp as the sparkling head suddenly lifted up. It weaved back and forth, inches above the ground, single eye probing the mist, glittering ethertongue flickering to taste the air.
Then it caught Novari’s scent and froze. Tongue flicking in and out. Slowly it rose higher, still facing the same direction, coming up until one third of its glowing white body was off the ground.
“Get ready,” I warned the others.
“Too friggin’ right!” came Pip’s blurted whisper.
As if his blurt were a signal the ethersnake shot forward, slithering through an astonished Pip’s legs and disappearing around a boulder.
“Let’s go,” I hissed and we all hurried after the small hunter.
It took me a few minutes to get some control over the snake, making it slow enough so we could maintain a safe pace or stop and hide if we encountered the enemy.
At any other time it might’ve been an amusing chase. The glittering little creature would pause on mental command, then turn and impatiently bob its head up and down at me, flicking out that silvery tongue in protest at the delay. Much like Emilie herself, I suspected, when she got caught up in play.
The scent of the Lyre Bird’s nest drew the ethersnake along misty trails that wound past hills and crept through gullies. The deeper we went into the enemy’s stronghold the more times we had to dive for cover. Flattening ourselves on the ground as soldiers wandered past, calling greetings to some and cursing others under their breaths.
Then a breeze stirred the air, clearing the mist and it became easier to follow the spectral hunter. It also became easier to be discovered so our progress remained painfully slow.
Finally we came to a low hill, wide and round as a dome. A road heavily rutted by
cart wheels intersected with the hill and climbed its face to the top. At the base was a ramshackle tent camp. Men moved about the tents and campfires. Some wore uniforms and carried weapons. Some wore rugged workman’s costumes with heavy boots and belts to carry hammers and hand axes. All were groaning and stretching and cracking joints as if they’d just ended many hours of hard work.
A few oxcarts loaded with materials were being driven up the hill and I could hear the thud of hammers and the screech of worked metal echoing from the top.
The ethersnake had gone very still, staring at the hilltop with its silver eye. Only its tongue moved, flickering eagerly as it tasted Novari’s spoor.
The place we sought was on top of that hill.
I got out the cup and slipped up to the snake. It turned its head, eye glittering, tongue flicking, as if it were saying, “See there? That wasn’t so hard?” Then it sagged down, weary, and collapsed into dust.
I swept the dust up and returned it to the cup. I wrapped the silver splinter that’d been its eye in a scrap of silk and slipped it into my boot.
We hid in a water channel just off the road and studied the workcamp and hill for a long time, looking for a way up. Quatervals and Derlina slipped off in opposite directions to examine the ground while Pip and I waited, silent and cold.
They returned together. Smiles and handsignals were exchanged. There was a ravine, they said, on the opposite side. It cut right to the top and would cover our movements all the way.
As we prepared to move out the sky lit up over Galana. Another flare. Time was getting short.
We followed the water channel all the way around the hill. The ravine dumped into it and we had to wade through rushing, knee-deep water for the first leg. Then the water became a smaller but still swiftly moving stream running down the ravine’s center. We kept to the banks and mostly stayed dry. Except for knuckles and knees skinned on the rocks, the going became easier.
Then the ravine flattened and the stream became a slower trickle and then stream and ravine both disappeared and we were climbing a short cliff-face, moving quickly with Quatervals at the lead, showing us the best handholds in its weather-pocked surface.
Light and sound battered us when we cleared the top. The light seemed to come from a thousand torches and firebeads and our ears rang with the racket of heavy construction.
We were all momentarily dazed and a second too slow finding cover.
Just as I hit the ground I heard a soldier bark alarm. A heavy weight struck me between the shoulders, knocking out my breath.
I forced myself up, reaching blindly with my golden hand. I grabbed cloth but it was torn away and I stumbled around to find the enemy. I saw Quatervals grappling with a soldier with a ripped cloak.
There was a loud crack as the man’s neck snapped and he sagged, dead.
Another soldier loomed up behind Quatervals but a small shadow launched itself from a boulder. It was Pip, knife in hand, soaring like a deadly bird.
He caught the soldier about the head and carried them both to the ground. His knife flashed and the soldier went still.
Then I heard running footsteps and turned to see another soldier racing away from us. Heading for the lights and sound.
Derlina bounded over Pip and his victim, drawing her ax.
She paused, hauled back - her form practice field perfect - and hurled the ax after the fleeing soldier.
It struck him in the back and he went down, the ax sticking up from his spine.
And then it was over and we were all panting and trembling with after-battle shock. To our amazement the entire violent incident had gone unnoticed.
Relieved, but wondering if we’d just used up all our luck, we gathered up the three bodies and dumped them over the cliff. Then we found dice and money on the ground. The soldiers had obviously been relaxing with a little private game when we’d stumbled into them.
Pip threw the dice over the cliff with the bodies. “Wouldn’t wish them unlucky bones on me own worst enemy,” he commented later.
Then we crept toward the brightest lights and loudest sounds, making very sure we didn’t come on another group of such unfortunates.
The last flare floated up over Galana just as we were moving into the shelter of a large supply tent.
It’d taken us too long.
Time was up.
I looked at my friends. Derlina shook her head, a firm no. Quatervals, hesitated, then agreed. Pip pumped his hand up and down, signaling, “Let’s keep going!”
And so we ignored the flare and our hammering hearts and slipped around the side of the tent, keeping well within its deep shadow.
Light glared out at us from across open ground.
And there, towering over a swarm of workmen and knots of guards, was Novari’s secret weapon in the making.
It was a huge lyre sitting on a wide stone base. Scaffolding was flung up on both sides of the metal structure. Men were working on all the levels using pulleys to haul up pieces from the wagons below. Hammering them into place or filing and cutting to make the fit easier. Forges had been set up on each level and smithies in aprons toiled at their bellows.
I could see the sprocket holes where the strings would fit when it was done. And I wondered what song Novari would play on such giant cables. And I wondered how she would play it.
Then the breeze quickened and somewhere far off lightning flashed and thunder rumbled.
I suddenly knew the answer.
I signaled to the others.
And we turned and raced back the way we had come.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE LYRE BIRD SINGS
The return was bloodless and quick.
Palmeras made a second spectral attack and once again locked with Kato and his magical horde. We raced home with the battle raging overhead, encountering no one on the way. The gates were in sight when the diversion ended and when we trotted through a ragged chorus of cheers greeted our arrival.
Emilie broke away from her guards and leaped into my arms, covering me with kisses and tears.
“I was so afraid, Aunt Rali,” she said. “I thought Novari might catch you. And... and... she’d have gotten everyone in my family.
“Everybody’d be deaded, then.
“And I’d have no one left.”
I stroked her hair, saying, “There, there,” and “everything will be all right, dear,” and other such nonsense adults spew when they try to soothe a child.
She clutched me, saying, “There’s going to be more, Aunt Rali! Isn’t there?”
“Yes, Emilie dear,” I said. “Novari’s not done with us yet.”
There was no time to rest. Torvol and Weene led Emilie away and I hastened to wash myself and change, hoping water and soap and a clean costume would help me fool the demons of weariness.
I sprinkled on a little perfume to fool them more but instead the soft fragrance made me think of satin pillows and silken sheets. I thought of Salimar sleeping in our tomb, auburn hair all spread out and inviting. Sadness dripped slowly into a hollow place deep within me. I was not likely to touch that hair again. The realization brought a lump of self pity to my throat.
I wept a little. Then dried my tears and erased their stain. As I did so, a plan began to form.
We met in Quatervals’ sparse chambers. It was military neat - everything that might be quickly needed was close at hand and everything that wouldn’t was stored in a few big trunks that he’d put in the center and covered with a cloth to make a table. My friends, displaying various degrees of exhaustion, were slumped in camp chairs set about the makeshift table.
Palmeras was pale with fatigue but his yellow wizard eyes glowed with satisfaction at the successful diversions. Derlina’s long legs were sprawled out before her and she was clutching a cup of strong brandy to her chest. Quatervals was helping Pip dress a small wound he’d received in the fight with the unlucky soldiers.
I gratefully accepted a full brandy cup and sagged into a chair next to Pal
meras.
I waved the cup at him in a tired toast. “The Lord Gamelan himself couldn’t have staged better diversions,” I said. “They must have given Kato an awful fright.”
Palmeras nodded, pleased with himself - as he’d every right to be.
“Kato’s pro’ly still scratchin’ his noggin’,” Pip said, “tryin’ to figger what it was that scared his drawers brown.”
“I can only pray,” Palmeras said, “that Novari is his equal in confusion.” He drank, then said, “They told me about the great lyre you saw. I don’t know it’s purpose but it’s plain that we must destroy it at once.”
