The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “But not perfect failures,” added Ramachni.

  “No,” said Arim, “and for an addict, even the smallest whiff of one’s chosen poison can be irresistible. To our knowledge, fifty-one eguar were sought out and killed to provide such whiffs: a sword that splintered on its third use, a siege engine that exploded on the battlefield, a helm that gave the wearer titanic strength, then burned through flesh and skull like some horrible acid. Fifty-one eguar: and to our knowledge that leaves but eighteen alive in all the world.”

  Corporal Mandric hissed. Pazel looked up, and terror seized his heart: from the archway a sea-green light had begun to shine. It grew stronger even as he watched, and so did the heat.

  The dog growled. Pazel was struggling to breathe. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to hear it. He stepped backward, and would have tripped if Neeps had not caught him.

  “Rin’s blood, Ramachni!” said Thasha. “That mucking thing’s language is a torture to Pazel, you know that!”

  “Peace, Thasha,” said the mage. “The creature has pledged not to speak in his native tongue.”

  “But what a splendid gift, Pazel Pathkendle!” said Thaulinin. “Not even the selk have ever learned to speak the language of the eguar.”

  Pazel was shaking all over. “Never … try,” he said.

  At that moment a shimmering vapor began to pour from the archway. It was exactly the same vapor that had engulfed Pazel on Bramian—and there, there was the smell: rank, acidic, burning his nostrils. Out it came: the sliding, slouching black creature, lizard-shaped, elephant-huge, hotter than the depths of a furnace. The row of spines along its back scraped the top of the archway, and above the black crocodile jaws its eyes glowed white-hot.

  The creature emerged only halfway from the arch, then settled on its belly at the top of the stairs, with one great clawed foot dangling over the ledge. Within the cloud of vapors it was hard to look at steadily. But its eyes drilled down at them with an intensity that was almost physically painful.

  “Humans!” it said, and its voice was like a boulder shifting. “Woken humans! Come forward, and do not fear me. It brings me joy to see you.”

  “Why is that, old father?” said Ramachni.

  “So many reasons,” said the eguar. “Because their form is fair. Because I sense friendship, even love, between them and their dlömic comrades, although the dlömu enslaved and killed them. Because to see the proof that their race is not extinguished gives me hope for my own.”

  With each breath, the creature threw off waves of some great force; Pazel could not see anything, but felt them pulsing through his body. His mind was thrown into confusion: the eguar had spoken with undeniable courtesy, and yet it was so much like that other, a creature that had swallowed a man whole before his eyes.

  “They must pass swiftly on, Sitroth,” said Lord Arim, “but I shall return within the hour, and will count myself blessed if you will talk with me awhile.”

  “You honor me, my lord,” said the eguar, “but can they not tarry a little? Since I cast my lot with the selk my blood is thinned. I crave company, and speech, although my kind would call me weak if they heard of it.”

  “Our kind calls you friend,” said Arim. “But no, they cannot wait. The humans are castaways, and the one ship that can bear them home is drawing away even now. They must hurry to catch up with it while they can.”

  The eguar lowered its head onto its forelegs. “That need I understand. The fate of the castaway is hard. Go, then, humans, and seek your ship.”

  Pazel dared another glance at those burning eyes. Dumbfounded, he realized that the terrifying creature was lonely, starved for companionship of its own kind or any other. It had allied with the selk, and been changed—as they themselves had, perhaps. For just an instant he felt tempted to speak to the creature in its own tongue. But no, that was impossible: eguar put whole speeches into single, unimaginably complicated words. On Bramian, just hearing one of them had felt like being screamed at for an hour by a mob. Trying to form such words might just drive him mad.

  But he could speak to it in the common tongue.

  “I wish—” he said aloud, sputtering (what in Pitfire did he wish?). “Oh, credek—that is, I wish you could be happy.”

  Happy? Neda and Neeps were both staring at him, incredulous. The selk warriors looked simply astonished. Slowly, the eguar turned its enormous head in Pazel’s direction. Black lids closed slowly over the searing eyes, opened again. It spoke.

  “When my grandfather first took this spire in his claws, little eel, the world beneath it was still a tomb of ice. He lived in the long, terrible ages before any creature with hands yet walked the earth. In his day the Gorgonoths still crawled, ground the bones of the earth in their teeth, and cut the chasms of the sea. And then in my father’s day the world caught fire, and ashes rained from heaven for a century; but he waited, and new trees grew, and Urmesu the Bear emerged from her cave and prowled the forests of the South.

  “I can see through their eyes: I can examine the world that was. Even now I look, and see that cold star falling in Siebr Shidorno that carried you to brutal Alifros—that slow-falling star that set the plain alight, as though in tribute to your birth. And in all that time not one of you has wished us happiness. If you speak the truth you are a stranger being than you seem.”

  “He’s pretty strange,” murmured Neeps.

  Thasha elbowed him. Then she in turn looked at the eguar, and Pazel knew that she too was aware of its loneliness. “When our work is finished,” she said, “I will gather your people together in one land, if you wish. There’s room enough in Alifros.”

  “Gather us, child?” said the creature. “By what unearthly power?”

  Thasha looked as though she might speak again, but then Hercól touched her arm, a gentle warning. “You cannot have forgotten our love of fantasy, great one,” he said. “Forgive our chatter; we will leave you now.”

  “I will be with you anon, Sitroth,” said Arim. “Come, travelers; the road ahead is long.”

  One by one they passed the staircase, right under the beast, coughing as they touched the vapor cloud. Pazel feared the waves of force surging out of the creature would make him stumble, but he kept his feet. When they were all passed he felt an immense relief. Some distance ahead the cave narrowed once more into a tunnel. But they still had to get there, and Pazel could still feel those blazing eyes.

  “Happy,” whispered Neeps, shaking his head. “ ‘I wish you could be happy.’ Has it occurred to you, Pazel, that you’re raving mad?” Then he jumped and cast a guilty look at Lunja. “Aya Rin, sorry—”

  The dlömic woman brushed against him deliberately. “You will be sorry,” she murmured, mock-severe. “Mad this, crazy that—”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” said Neeps, hushing her in turn.

  So blary intimate, thought Pazel. Like lovers, Neeps and Lunja were starting to talk in a style no one else could quite understand. It’s the only way, he reminded himself. We asked her to do this, and she’s trying. They both are, magnificently.

  To their right, Olik was coughing badly; the fumes seemed to have affected him more harshly than the others. Bolutu took him by the arm.

  “A few more steps, Prince Olik. When we reach the tunnel you’ll feel just—”

  Lunja howled. A warning. Pazel clutched his temples: the waves of force had surged a hundredfold. Instinct took over: he turned and dived on Thasha, whose hand was already on her sword. The eguar was smashing through them like a cannonball. Thaulinin had been knocked aside; another selk was in the creature’s teeth. Pazel tried not to breathe, while the others fell around him, writhing in pain. This close the vapors were like a mule-kick to the chest.

  Olik! The eguar’s white-hot eyes were locked on the prince. Olik had his sword out and was holding his ground—but then Hercól lunged before him, whirled with blinding speed, and stabbed.

  The eguar gave a deafening roar: Ildraquin had pierced its flesh behind the jaw. The beast
threw its head, wrenching Hercól from the ground and hurling him away. The eguar spat out the fallen selk and lunged once more at Olik—and then a searing light filled the cave. The beast twisted, and its roar grew louder still, shaking the cave and bringing stalactites down like hail. Then it turned and fled. In three heartbeats it had flown up the stairs and vanished through the arch. They could still hear its bellows of pain.

  “Lord Arim!” cried Thaulinin. “Eyache, master of masters, are you burned?”

  Arim had fallen on his side. “I am burned,” he gasped, “but by my own spell merely. It is long since I called down the lightning, and this body is too old to be a lightning rod. Never mind, Thaulinin! What of the others?”

  The answer to his question was plain to see: the selk the eguar had bitten was dead, his body horribly torn and scalded. Another warrior had also been burned by the spittle of the creature, and Hercól was bruised and shaken, but both were on their feet.

  “Arpathwin, you matched my spell, as in elder times,” said Lord Arim. “How do you fare?”

  “I have felt better,” said Ramachni, shaking the dust from his fur, “but also much worse. You took the better part of the shock, my lord.”

  “Betrayed,” said Thaulinin, kneeling by his kinsman’s corpse. “After all these centuries, Sitroth has turned on us. How could this happen?”

  “Could he be under another’s spell?” asked Pazel.

  Lord Arim shook his head. “No spell to control the mind of an eguar has been cast in Alifros since the Dawn War, and even then it was a great undertaking. No, something terrible has occurred in the heart of Sitroth, to bring him to this pass.”

  Ramachni looked up at the prince. “You were his target, Olik Ipandracon. He attacked the moment Bolutu mentioned your name. No, Doctor, the fault does not lie with you—” For Bolutu had bowed his head in shame. “—nor with any of us. This was a disaster no one could have foreseen.”

  “And it leaves an entrance to the Vale unguarded,” said Thaulinin.

  “Yes,” said Arim, “for we cannot let Sitroth remain here. The faithful one was not faithful.” He sighed. “I must do a thing while the power is in me. Go, all of you, into the tunnel ahead, and await me there.”

  Thaulinin protested, but Arim waved for silence. “You must remove every bit of clothing that the eguar touched. Leave it here; I will send our people back to collect and burn it. Then wash your hands and faces, and clean any wound with utmost care: first with water, then with our good wine. Do it quickly! There is poison to rot flesh and weaken hearts in an eguar’s mouth.”

  He made for the staircase, and the others reluctantly obeyed him, leaving the cave for the narrower tunnel. The selk had the worst of it, but Hercól and Olik too had to discard their coats and gloves, and Thaulinin personally scrubbed out a wound on the back of Hercól’s hand.

  “Aya!” said Hercól, gritting his teeth. “So that is eguar spittle! It is far worse than the slobber of the flame-trolls.”

  Suddenly there came a great boom and a blast of air and dust. Thaulinin dashed into the cave, and returned supporting Arim, who looked exhausted and frail.

  “I have collapsed the tunnel behind Sitroth,” said the old selk. “He has another exit to the mountains, but he will not soon be returning to Uláramyth. And now I must rest, and return with our fallen comrade’s body, when I can.” He looked at the travelers sadly. “I have failed you, here in this first moment of your journey. If I had the strength I would go with you to the Sky Road. But that strength is fled. I called, and it came a final time. I do not think it will dwell in me again.”

  “You failed us in nothing, Arim,” said Ramachni. “Go to your rest, and be certain that a part of us goes with you.”

  Thaulinin commanded two selk to escort him, and to carry the body. “We will make do with your seven comrades,” he said. “But you two: leave your coats and gloves for Hercól and the prince. Their road will be far longer than yours.”

  Lord Arim looked up at Thasha. “You are trying to breach the wall inside you,” he said. “You must persist in that struggle, but do not overlook its cost. A battle in the mind will tax the body, and in the high country your body will need all its strength. At all costs you must reach the sea alive. Once aboard the Promise you will be warm and fed, and have long days to seek a path to Erithusmé.”

  Then his gaze swept them all. “Farewell, citizens. Your quest is our own, though we did not foresee its coming. It is not likely that we shall meet again in your short time in Alifros. But there are worlds beyond Alifros, and minds that reach out to us from them, and in that reaching there is hope for us all.”

  With that he started back toward Uláramyth, and the selk warriors lifted the body of their companion and followed after.

  “Quickly, now,” said Thaulinin. “The portal is just ahead.”

  He led them on, and very soon it proved so: the tunnel ended in a pair of tall and curious doors. They appeared to be carved from two enormous pieces of jade, and on each was carved a staring eye.

  “The Gates of Cihael the Explorer,” said Thaulinin. “He was the greatest mountaineer of all our people, and he fell here, defending Uláramyth from the ogres of the Thrandaal Caves. Shield your eyes when I open the door, or the sun will dazzle you.”

  He strode forward and set a shoulder to one of the doors. He pushed, then looked back with a sad smile. “Blocked with snow. Ah well; perhaps we had better remain.”

  The prince actually laughed, and went forward to help him. Together they pushed, and the door moved slightly, and a blade of sunlight appeared in the crack—

  —Pazel was swaying, stumbling on his feet, and then he fell. His knees met snow. Wind-driven snow tapped at his face. Everything was white. A hand gripped his shoulder.

  “You’re confused,” said Hercól. “Don’t worry. You will not be for long.”

  They were on a narrow ridgetop covered in snow. The sun was high, and the others were all here, ten white-clad figures against the whiter snow. Pazel was exceptionally tired, as though he’d been walking for days. All around them, close and savage, towered the peaks.

  “What—how—”

  “You can’t remember coming here,” said Hercól.

  “Of course I can, I—”

  Pazel looked back over his shoulder. The ridge ran straight behind them for a mile, then twisted down and to the left. There was no door of jade. There was no opening of any kind to be seen.

  “It is happening to us one by one. I myself came out of the memory-fog just minutes ago.”

  “Memory-fog?”

  “The doorway set a spell in motion,” said Bolutu, coming up beside them. “We have been walking a long time, Pazel. We have descended into valleys, and climbed again to saddles like this one, and turned at many forks and crossroads. It has all been stunningly lovely, and quiet. And now as the spell breaks it is carrying away all our memories, from when we passed through the door of jade to this very moment. Thus is Uláramyth protected: we cannot find our way back there, or tell another soul just where it lies.”

  “Why do you remember?” Pazel demanded.

  “Because the spell has yet to break for Belesar, of course,” said Ramachni, picking his way through the trampled snow. “In time his memory will vanish, too—and you may be explaining all this to him, or to Lunja, or your sister. Those three are the last holdouts.”

  “How long have we walked?” said Pazel.

  Bolutu flashed him a smile. “I’d rather not say.”

  “Ah. Right.” Pazel struggled to his feet. “You mustn’t tell me. That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?”

  “The rule of the house,” said Big Skip, laughing. “And an irritating one, to be sure. I’d like to know how long I’ve been on my feet.”

  “Days,” said Thaulinin, “but more than that we cannot tell you. We have our oaths. But this much I will gladly tell: we are at last upon the Nine Peaks Road. Do not imagine that we will be climbing nine of these grandfather-mountains from the
base—not at all. Rather we shall climb once, and never fully descend until we pass the ninth. A massive ridge runs through Efaroc, like a wall of the Gods. The peaks are like turrets along that wall—and the Road is like a set of daredevil catwalks leaping between them.”

  “I thought it was supposed to be a grand highway,” said Pazel.

  “We have not yet reached the Royal Highway,” said Thaulinin, “nor will we always be upon it, for we must take every shortcut we can.” He pointed at a huge, crooked, ice-sheathed summit in the distance. “There stands the first of the Nine Peaks, which we call Isarak. A shelter awaits us on its western slopes. And that is fortunate, for I sense that tonight will be colder by far than any other night this year. Our tent will not suffice. We much reach Isarak by nightfall, or freeze upon this ridge. And it is already past noon.”

  He started walking—or resumed walking—and the others fell in behind him. Pazel winced: his shoulders were sore and his muscles ached. Of course they do. You have been walking for days! Just how many? It unsettled him to think that he would never know. But his selk boots were dry and comfortable, and the pack, which they had made for him, rode snugly.

  Nor was the snow as pervasive as he had thought at first. They were passing through a long drift, but just ahead the ridge was bare, and there were even tufts of ice-withered greenery along the trailside. The peaks themselves were deeply snow-clad, but the slopes beneath them less so. They were not too late, it seemed. Even the light snowfall of a moment ago soon ended, and ahead was bright blue sky.

  When they were out of the snowdrift and marching over frozen soil, Hercól approached him again. “You’re a lowlander,” he said. “Those bumps above Ormael you call Highlands do not count. Listen to one who came of age in the wicked Tsördons, and take no chances on the trail.”