City of the Lost l-1

by Mary H. Herbert

  She poured herself another drink and tried not to sigh too loudly. The air was still and stiflingly hot under the trees. It gave her a headache that pounded behind her eyes and threatened to split her skull with increasing pressure. She rested her head in her hands and rubbed her temples, but nothing seemed to help. After several hours of talk, she stopped listening and turned her attention inward to the pain. All she wanted to do was go back to the Citadel, take some feverfew, and go to sleep.

  The sun was an hour from sunset when Iyesta brought an end to the council. Weary, hot, and thankful it was over, the humans, centaurs, elves, and half-elves made their farewells to the brass and went their separate ways. Most were satisfied at the progress that had been made. All they needed was time and effort to complete the plans.

  Sir Morrec, gritting his teeth, stayed until most of the guests were gone then went to Iyesta to pay his respects. The big dragon accepted his remarks gravely, and her red-gold eye stared at him unblinking. Iyesta knew how Sir Morrec felt about dragons, but she liked the man nonetheless.

  After the Solamnics left Iyesta’s lair they rode without speaking. Linsha and Sir Morrec led two columns. The first part of their way passed through ruinous areas of the old city left deliberately unsettled by order of Iyesta. The phantom images of Gal Tra’kalas hovered around them, showing pleasant homes, flowering gardens, and elves preparing for evening.

  Linsha watched the scenes around her for a little while, hoping the idyll peace would ease her headache, but it seemed to only grow worse. She felt breathless as if the air were thick and heavy and too difficult to breath. She had to force herself to sit straight in the saddle and not slump over her horse’s neck. The stillness of the evening around them became oppressive. The horses’ hooves echoed with an uncanny sound through the ruined streets.

  A sudden gust of wind swept around them causing Sandhawk to tremble and toss his head. Linsha calmed the horse with her hands and knees, but her eyes stared in surprise at the ghostly scenes around her. The gust of wind that startled her horse had stirred the phantom trees and whipped up swirls of ghostly dust and debris in the vision of the elves’ old city. That wasn’t supposed to happen that she knew of. The old familiar feeling of apprehension suddenly bit her.

  Another gust blew over them, a sucking wind from the east that stirred the sunken heat and sent dust devils dancing. In Gal Tra’kalas, a young elf maid ran by with her hand clutched to her head scarf and her eyes wide with dismay. A phantom dog dashed along the street, barking furiously. Other figures could be seen hurrying for shelter, closing windows, and rushing children under shelter.

  “My lord,” Linsha heard one of the Knights call out. “You should see this.”

  As one, the group reined to halt and followed the direction indicated by the Knight’s hand. They looked up beyond the ruins, beyond the images of the Missing City, to the western sky where the sun sat like a fiery egg on the edge of what looked like a sullen black mountain range of jagged, soaring peaks. On the nearly flat and treeless grasslands around Mirage, the phenomenon was startling.

  “Kiri-Jolith’s glory!” one Knight exclaimed. “What is that?”

  “Maybe it’s a dust storm,” said another.

  “An eruption of volcanoes?” ventured a third.

  “Could Thunder be doing that?”

  After the long meeting they had just endured, the blue dragon was close on everyone’s mind, but Linsha, eyeing the odd-looking formations, doubted he was involved. For one thing, the clouds seemed to be expanding. Already the gray-black mass stretched from north to south and billowed upward at a frightening rate.

  Worried, she said, “Sir Morrec, I don’t think Thunder has the power to do something like that, and I don’t believe that is a dust storm either.”

  The Knight Commander squinted hard at the sky. “It reminds me of the thunderstorms we’ve seen sweep across the plains… hut I’ve never seen one quite like that.”

  Around the riders the light dimmed and turned an odd gray-green color as the sun, already on its descent, was overwhelmed by the towering banks of cloud. The Knights watched the seething mass approach with frightening speed. “Sir,” said Linsha. “We should return to Iyesta’s lair. That storm looks ferocious.”

  The old Knight waved aside her warning. “I agree we should seek shelter, but at dusk storms always look worse than they really are. We’ll ride on to the Citadel. We should have time to reach it.” He raised his hand and waved on the squad before she could protest. They moved out at a quick trot.

  Dismayed, Linsha urged Sandhawk on. The chestnut snorted nervously and balked, his eyes rolling in fear, then he lunged forward. It took all of Linsha’s strength to keep the horse from bolting.

  The other Knights’ horses were terrified, too. Their heads tucked down, they fought to snatch their bits and escape from the coming storm. They pawed the ground in their agitation, and their ears lay flat on their heads.

  The wind abruptly veered from the west, and the earlier gusts strengthened to a cold, hard gale that whipped grit and dust into the Knights’ faces and threatened to tear them from their saddles. The sky darkened to black. By unspoken consent the squad sped into a canter in spite of the risk of the rough road and the panicky horses.

  Linsha looked up once and saw the churning, roiling mass of clouds had almost overtaken them. She peered around desperately for some place where they could seek cover, but they were still in an empty area of the ruinous city. Only ghostly buildings rose around them in mocking illusions of shelter. Strangely enough, she could see the coming storm was still affecting that city as well. Its streets were being whipped by the same wind and the inhabitants ran for cover.

  “Sir!” Linsha yelled to Sir Morrec. “We need shelter now! We won’t make it to the Citadel.”

  To add emphasis to her plea, a blinding bolt of lightning exploded across the sky followed two seconds later by a crash of thunder that made the ground tremble.

  The horses reared and screamed in terror. Most of the Knights fought to stay mounted. One threw up his arms and crashed to the ground where he lay motionless on his back.

  Over the mining chaos of frantic horses and scared men, the lightning streamed again across the sky. In that split second moment of time, Linsha happened to be looking toward the fallen Knight when the electric white light filled her entire vision.

  She blinked and the light was gone, but for that second she saw something long and thin protruding from the man’s chest. She forced Sandhawk to a trembling standstill and tried to look for the other Knights. The fallen Knight needed help, but she could see little in the increasing blackness that surrounded them.

  A horse neighed to her right, and she could hear cursing and the scrape of horses’ iron shoes on stone. In the wail of the wind it was hard to hear anything. Was that a scream or just an effect of the wind?

  Just then another furious bolt seared down and struck the ground close by with a jarring impact. The concussion slammed her off her horse. Sandhawk, freed of her weight, galloped away in hysterical terror.

  Linsha lay flat on her back, her body one large ache and her lungs heaving to pull in some air. Somewhere close by, she heard more voices and the frantic cries of horses. Something didn’t seem right. Most of the voices were frightened, surprised, and full of panic. Others sounded fierce, and one screamed something in a language she did not understand. Her aching head reeled. How many people were out there?

  She staggered to her feet and fumbled for the short sword she wore at her side. “Sir Morrec!” she cried into the howling wind.

  “To me!” came a reply from her right.

  Another sudden blast of lightning broke through the clouds, and in the glare of the stark light, Linsha saw her fellow Knights-mostly now on foot-locked in struggle with a strange foe. They were being attacked by tall, muscular, human-looking warriors-warriors Linsha had never seen in the Missing City. The illumination burned out and thunder rocked the sky.

  Linsha’s s
haking hands finally found a grip on her sword and wrenched it free. She had not seen Sir Morrec in that glimpse of fighting men, but he had to be close by. She had heard his voice.

  All at once, the tempest broke. With a rapidity that stunned the senses, the world became a driving, battering vertical wall of rain and stinging sleet. Linsha was drenched in an instant. The lightning now came thick and fast followed by such thunderclaps the whole sky shook with the rolling roar.

  Linsha fought her way toward her companions. Although the shouts and cries had lessened, she knew the men were close by. She just had to find them. To her dismay, the solid curtains of rain made that very difficult. She could see almost nothing, even when the lightning lit the landscape again. Rainwater filled her eyes and her mouth. The sleet stung her skin. The wind pummeled her like the fists of the gods and tried to drive her to her knees. She ducked her head against the deluge and pushed forward.

  Without warning, her foot caught on a heap of rubble and she fell sprawling on the muddy ground. The impact knocked her sword out of her hand and sent it sliding into the impenetrable gloom.

  “Linsha!” a voice cried in despair.

  “My lord!” she screamed.

  A black figure, indistinct in the violent darkness lurched toward her. A sheet of lightning whipped through the clouds overhead and in its instant light, Linsha saw the gleam of a sword in the figure’s hand. With desperate strength, Linsha hauled herself to her hands and knees and scrabbled in the mud for her sword. Her trembling fingers found nothing but gravel and muck.

  She heard a noise above the wind and rain that sounded something like a boot scraping over stone, and she instinctively rolled to her left. A sword blade whistled by her shoulder, burying its tip in the ground.

  Another voice shouted angrily out of the black storm. Linsha could not understand the words and yet the voice sounded vaguely familiar in its tone and depth. She struggled to her feet, tilted her head against the lashing rain, and drew her dagger. It felt small in her hand, but it was better than nothing.

  She could not see the dark figure-in fact, without the lightning she could not see more than two feet in any direction.

  Movement caught her eye. A swift shape flitted through her vision and out again, hidden by the torrents of rain. She twisted toward it, her hand clenched around her dagger. Lightning exploded in ropes of fire over the Missing City, and in the sudden incandescence, Linsha saw her enemy not more than four feet away from her, its sword tip lowered. She grimaced in the painful light and tried to wipe the rain out of her eyes. It seemed to her the figure raised its sword and came at her. With her lips pulled back in a silent grimace of fury, she lunged forward, her dagger raised to attack. Her body swerved past the man’s guard and her blade sank into his chest. She heard a grunt of pain and felt him sag beneath her.

  Too late she saw on the edge of her vision a second shape, blacker than night, spring at her. Pain exploded in her head and face. Her legs lost all control, and she staggered sideways. She tripped over something bulky and collapsed in a heap on the cold, unyielding ground. Rain pounded on her body. Her thoughts reeled in a jumble of images and disjointed thoughts.

  In the last fleeting moments of consciousness, she heard voices again, this time speaking directly above her head. They seemed to be arguing in some language Linsha had never heard. They would kill her; the small thought emerged through the fog of pain in her brain.

  But they did not. One speaker stamped away, his feet squashing the rain-soaked earth. The second speaker paused a moment, then reached over her and pulled Linsha’s dagger out of her nerveless fingers. She tried to move, to speak, to indicate in some way that she resented this intrusion but could not. A heavy lassitude settled over her. Her muscles could not even tense as she waited for the pain of the dagger to slice into her flesh.

  Instead, the figure raised her arm and dropped it gently over her face as if to shield her features from the pounding rain. Through the haze of pain that crept through her head, she felt a hand brush her skin. The fingers felt cold and hard as if encased in steel. She felt a pressure on her temple, then a color she had never seen before exploded in her head like a lightning blast, and she was gone, out of it all.

  The storm closed down around her.

  8

  Midsummer’s Day

  She woke to more voices. Several spoke from above and around her-strong, disembodied voices that spoke Common and seemed terribly upset about something.

  “There they are! Over here!”

  “Oh, bloody Chaos, all of them?”

  “Iyesta will have our guts for bow strings.”

  “We couldn’t help that storm last night. The whole city is in a shambles.”

  “It wasn’t a storm that killed them.”

  Killed them? Linsha wondered. Killed who? But curiosity wasn’t enough to pull her fully awake.

  “What do we do, Caphiathus?”

  “Do not touch them. Leave them here for now. Azurale, gallop to the Citadel to tell their commander to bring litters. He will want to see this. You, Leonidas, stay here to guard the bodies until the Solamnics come.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  There was a heavy intake of breath. “Tell Iyesta.”

  Like a frog in a pond that has risen for a quick look, Linsha’s consciousness slid slowly back under the depths. The voices went on around her unheeded.

  Some time later a louder, more persistent noise finally penetrated the heavy gloom in Linsha’s mind. Hooves, most of them shod with iron, clattered up the road in a rapid staccato that cut through the bonds of her unconscious sleep. She woke slowly, one layer of thought at a time, while the sounds around her increased and became more demanding.

  Horses pounded around her and wagon wheels groaned to a stop somewhere close by. Voices intruded into her awareness.

  “They’re over here, sir,” she heard someone call.

  Leonidas. The name swam out of the depths. She knew him. She tried to open her eyes, but a weight pressed down on her face.

  “Holy gods,” said a voice close by in a cool tone that belied the emotion of the words.

  Another name surfaced from the muddy waters of her mind-Remmik.

  “Are they all here? What happened? What evidence have you found?” The questions shot out like arrows, fast and pointed.

  Linsha felt irritation hit her like a bucket of cold water. The unfeeling bastard. There were dead around somewhere. How dare he use that tone. The curiosity that failed to rise inside her before came welling up, bringing her mind awake and filling her muscles like a tonic. She realized the weight on her face was her own arm. It felt as unwieldy as a log, but she managed to pull it off her eyes.

  “She moved!” Leonidas yelled. “Sir Remmik, she’s still alive!”

  Hooves clopped on the ground by her head and gentle hands lifted her arm off her face. She stirred and tried to open both eyes. Only one would open, and it was too much. Bright morning sun bore into her vision; pain hammered into her head. The ground rocked underneath her, and nausea spread through her belly. She curled into a ball and moaned.

  “Is she injured? Is she bleeding?” she heard Sir Remmik demand to know in a tone that was more irritated than solicitous.

  Is she dead? Is she rotting? Linsha’s thoughts added perversely. Never had she hated that man so much.

  “She has a head injury,” Leonidas replied. “I can’t tell if she’s wounded anywhere else.”

  “Then get her away from Sir Morrec’s body. And leave that dagger. I want it for evidence.”

  Through her misery, the words penetrated her mind like a knife. Sir Morrec’s body? Was he dead? And what dagger? She tried to remember what happened before her head exploded, but it was so hazy all she could recall was rain and darkness and thunder.

  Several people put their hands under her head, shoulders, and knees and carried her to a patch of shade at the side of a tumbled wall. A cloak was laid down for her, and she was left to recover her se
nses while the new arrivals set to work. Like an appointed guardian, Leonidas brought her water and placed himself beside her.

  Linsha lay still and mustered her strength. Slowly she turned her mind away from the light and the noise and concentrated on the keening throb in her head. She did not have enough strength or mystic talent to heal the damage to her skull completely, but she could use the magic power within her to ease the pain and settle the sickening queasiness and the lightheaded dizziness of shock.

  The pain gradually receded, and as it loosened its iron grip on her mind, a few memories slowly filtered into place. She now knew who she was and where she was. Only the details of the night in the storm remained maddeningly vague.

  Linsha slowly sat up, grunting with pain. She could not yet open one eye, hut now her questing fingers found a gash and a massive swelling above her right eye. Blood caked over her eyelid and the side of her face. She sighed and slumped on the cloak, too weak to try to clean her face. Her clothes were wet and clammy. Her auburn curls lay flat, plastered down by blood and mud. An odd acrid taste lingered in her mouth.

  “I am pleased you are still alive,” the young centaur said hesitantly.

  She glanced up at his earnest face. She could not think properly, could not put patterns together. Memory, imagination, and reality went back and forth and made no clear sense. Yes, she remembered riding out of Iyesta’s lair with Sir Morrec and the escort, but what happened after that? Why was Leonidas here? She rubbed her arms and finally formulated an answer. “Thank you.”

  She said nothing more, only sat and stared and tried to think. As she watched the activity around her, the words spoken in her twilight sleep came back to her. It wasn’t the storm that killed them. She sat up a little straighter and grew more alert.

  Sir Remmik sat on a horse about ten paces away, supervising the removal of the bodies. The bodies. Oh, gods, no. Linsha’s thoughts clutched at that painful reality. A squad of eight Knights had brought a wagon and some litters. Silently, they laid out the bodies of their fallen comrades, wrapped them in canvas, and laid them gently in the wagon. The rigidity of the body that usually occurred right after death had already begun to recede in the heat of the new day, making their job somewhat easier.