by Rick Shelley
They still don't understand how completely we are one, Silvas replied, careful to shield the thought from any possible eavesdropper. That is our greatest advantage. Do not spend it lightly.
Gavrien did not take part in the initial sparring in either venue. He added to the defenses of his brother and sister, but did not launch any offenses of his own-other than the continuing bombardment of raucous music.
Slowly, the two physical armies drew closer to one another, though few of the soldiers realized that they were going at less than a canter. Only those with at least a strong measure of divinity were aware of the double movement of time. Felix was thoroughly confused. He could sense time moving at contrary speeds, but had great difficulty relating one to the other. He braced himself for combat to start at the normal pace of the physical world, and found himself tensed without cause at the slower pace of the magical duel that was proceeding in advance of the other. He did have time, however, to delve within his new knowledge to puzzle out the differences.
"They will attempt to draw you off to the other plane just as the battle is fully joined here," Josephus told Silvas. "That is the way of such conflicts, and has been since before I was born. Barreth will not seek new tactics, and the others will follow his lead in this. They will attempt to isolate you from your supporters here with the duel in the other place. Then, when the bulk of your mortal supporters have been destroyed, it will be that much easier to deal with the few of us who remain."
Yes, that is what I expect from them, Silvas replied. But I do not exclude the possibility of surprises.
Gioia, perhaps, might delight in novelty, Josephus conceded, but Barreth appears to be taking the lead.
Silvas and Maria linked more actively to the pentagram in the Seven Towers, and used the flow of power there to direct a blow against the forces of the invaders from behind. It was as if an inner covering to the veil surrounding the valley fell, cracking into plates of various sizes as it tumbled on the horses and riders, scaring some of the riders, and momentarily panicking many of the horses. But the disruption was not major. Only two riders were unhorsed, and the remaining effects were quickly countered. Riders brought their mounts back under control. Barreth warded off any additional pieces of falling sky.
You caught them unawares, Josephus noted with some surprise.
Only because they don't give us full credit for what we are, Silvas replied.
He spared no more time than that. Barreth and Gioia, and perhaps even Gavrien, would strike quickly in response to Silvas's foray. The image of the gods waiting in their own land pressed more vividly on Silvas's mind, as they tried to draw him there by force of will. The faces of the spectator gods grew larger in the sky, as if they were coming closer, the better to see the denouement.
The ground started to shake violently. This was more than the earlier attempt to split the earth under the defenders, or the tremors that had accompanied the valley's initial contraction. These tremors were deep and strong, spread widely. For an instant, the spells that Silvas and Maria had cast to stop the contraction of the valley slipped. All around the edges of the valley, the land started to crunch inward again, slowly but with a persistence that required the almost total concentration of Silvas, Maria, and Josephus to halt it. The shaking continued even after they had halted the contractions again.
While they were involved in that, the dual streams of time seemed to alter, to move closer together. The two armies drew quickly nearer each other. Three comets of black fire-blazing balls trailed by long, luminous trails-shot forward, one each from Barreth, Gioia, and Gavrien, aimed to converge on Silvas and his companions in the front rank. Silvas used a wizard's spell to bounce the balls of fire back, shattering them to shower the army of the invaders with flame.
Then, while Barreth and the twins sought to protect their soldiers from the ricocheting black fire, Silvas and Maria laid their power on the trembling of the earth and raised a physical barrier directly in front of the invading troops, too close for the front rank to stop or turn aside. Horses ran into the projecting dike of rock and dirt at speed. Riders were flung from the saddle, some up onto the higher mound, others below the hoofs of flailing animals. Several of the soldiers were trampled-killed or too badly injured to fight. The confusion caused by the collisions, and by the hurried efforts of the other ranks to avoid the mess, fully disrupted the orderly procession of the invaders. For a moment, Barreth, Gioia, and Gavrien had to turn much of their attention to regrouping their forces.
The twin streams of time flowed farther apart again, but the armies were almost within striking distance of each other.
Now! Silvas ordered the villagers at either side of the road. Do what you can to disrupt them.
At the same time, Silvas and Maria reached back to the Seven Towers with their minds to bring Braf and his warriors into place. They put these reinforcements close enough to the enemy that the dual stream of time was no barrier. They were almost on top of the invaders, where they could strike at the first rank of Barreth's troops, the ones still fighting to recover from the shock of colliding with the earth.
Braf and his fighters started the butchery.
No armor was proof against the knives of the gurnetz and esperia. With many of the armored invaders on the ground or struggling to get to their feet, they were virtually helpless, especially against the lupine ferocity of the gurnetz. A knife through open visor, or in the joint between helmet and gorget, could find vulnerable flesh all too easily.
Time snapped together suddenly, and the melee was joined in full.
In the confines of the mountain pass, it was impossible to hold regular lines during the battle. The opposing forces flowed together as soldiers found targets for their weapons. The ridge that Silvas and his companions had raised across the road was a continuing obstacle. In some ways, it was an advantage for the defenders, allowing many to hurtle down on the enemy, but that tactic was hazardous for their mounts, and for the warriors on foot. At the sides of the road, the villagers moved to attack any invaders they could reach, particularly those who were reeling from other assaults, or wounded.
Silvas, Maria, and Josephus sought to fight their way through the crowd to close directly with Barreth, Gioia, and Gavrien, but those gods strove equally to keep apart, always maneuvering to keep soldiers between them, while they tried to pull Silvas to them in the land of the gods.
I will not go alone, Silvas informed Josephus. Maria was linked completely with Silvas, as she had been since the start of the close combat. I'll carry the two of you with me, at least.
Though seeming merely to yield to the pressure exerted by Barreth and the twin gods, Silvas actively projected himself and his companions to that other place-though they also remained in the mountain pass, continuing the fight there.
In the land of the gods, the sky was clear. The sun was bright and warm. The only clouds in the sky were soft white mats against which the faces of the spectator gods were limned-white clouds instead of the lavender ones over the valley of the Seven Towers. There was a gentle breeze flowing across the plain, carrying the scent of summer flowers and ripening grain, though neither garden nor farmer's field was visible. The vista was of an open plain, wild but not chaotic. The summer grass had brown tops but was lushly green beneath.
Silvas and Josephus emerged as close together as they had been in the pass leading toward the border of the valley of the Seven Towers. Maria, however, was off at some distance, a hundred yards or more from the others, behind Barreth, Gioia, and Gavrien. Maria sat quietly on Camiss, making no movement that might draw the attention of her enemies, holding Camiss as still as if she had wrapped the horse in a spell.
As always, time ran differently in the land of the gods than it did in the mortal world. While men fought and died in the valley of the Seven Towers, gods and demigods stared at each other across the plain on the other level. Josephus and Silvas were no more than fifteen yards from their foes. Barreth, Gioia, and Gavrien stared at them, casting
divine power directly against them, power that was met and discharged by Silvas and Josephus, then returned in kind as they sought to chart the extent of each other's power. There was a ritual-like quality to the opening exchanges, as if no one truly expected any of these early movements to offer any decisive outcome.
"I know you," Gioia said during one brief lull, directing the statement at Josephus. "You were once the plaything of my sister Carillia."
"I was once the captain of her guard," Josephus replied. "I know you and your brothers here."
"You have no place in this conflict," Gioia said. "You have our permission to withdraw."
"I wish I could offer the same civility to you," Josephus said. "For my part, I would allow each of you to withdraw, but my permission must be dependent on that of my lord, Silvas, the proper heir to Carillia."
"We withdraw our permission," Gioia snapped. "You will die with this other bastard."
"That is yet to be determined," Josephus said.
Silvas had seemed no more than a passive spectator to the exchange, though he had been deep in magics the entire time, drawing on his store of wizard's lore to erect defenses and prepare offensive strokes. Barreth and Gioia seemed to know only the blunt application of power, and Gavrien still did nothing more than support his sister's strokes. The way of the Trimagister also taught the more subtle applications of power, and Silvas concentrated on those.
Barreth glanced to the side and down, as if he were looking at the other engagement somewhere below them. Silvas spared an instant of his attention to check on the progress of that other battle as well. His consciousness meshed briefly with the consciousness of his figure on the road inside the valley of the Seven Towers. The slaughter there was proceeding apace. There were casualties on both sides. In the pass, Silvas, Maria, and Josephus were still attempting to reach Barreth, Gioia, and Gavrien, and the latter trio still managed to avoid that meeting.
"We will settle this here," Barreth announced, as if he were clearly aware of what was passing through Silvas's mind.
"Here or there, it matters little," Silvas replied, affecting a disinterested confidence that could not help but give even these haughty opponents an instant's pause.
In the battle below, Felix was unaware that the three divines at his side were more occupied on another plane than they were within his vision. The former monk was caught up in the thrill of battle, feeling the bloodlust of combat for the first time. He met each opponent with a prayer, and with a quick spell that brought skill to his arm and knowledge to his thoughts. But the lore of the Trimagister, as new as it was to Felix, could not totally balance his thin frame. He could support himself with magic to the extent of not being an easy mark for larger and stronger opponents. He could not become a paladin, able to win through any opposition.
The total confusion of the melee brought Felix an excitement he had never experienced before. It seemed akin to the religious ecstasy of some of the notable saints he had studied in his years of monastic life. But he decided that he could worry about that, if it called for worry, later. While the battle lasted, he reveled in the experience, even in the danger.
Braf Goleg did not concern himself with any thoughts apart from the efficient disposal of his master's enemies, and staying alive to continue that work for as long as possible. In the heat of battle, Braf trusted to the training and instinct of his warriors. He was not the sort of leader to hold back and leave the fighting to others. There had been few opportunities for Braf to unleash the feral side of gurnetz nature in his long service to Silvas. He intended to make full use of this chance.
March the miller leaped from a stony prominence onto the horse of one of the invaders, landing behind the armored rider. March wrapped his left arm around the head of his foe and slit the man's throat with his knife. But he did not release his grip in time to avoid being carried to the ground with the dead invader. A horse's hoof struck March's head, and he was unaware of his last moments, being trampled slowly to death in the confusion.
One death among scores.
In the land of the gods, Silvas and Josephus used every weapon at their command. The gods they faced were more powerful than Josephus, and more experienced than Silvas. Only Gavrien appeared to be out of place on the battlefield. His interests had never run to personal combat, and he had only rarely taken part in the direction of military affairs.
Only briefly did the two groups actually close and fight with swords, a moment of dueling before they moved backward-as if by mutual agreement-to resume the pure battle of minds. This contest was vastly different than the skirmish that Silvas and Maria had fought against Barreth and Gioia in the Shining City. This was more intense, utterly violent in a way that beggared description.
Silvas's stock of wizardry kept the battle even for a time past time, but could not turn the tide against Barreth and the twins, Gioia and Gavrien. Power and subtlety balanced each other to a fine point. Weapons of brute force alternated with insidious attacks against the inner core of mind and spirit, deadly darts of pure energy, or drains that sought to sap the life force without notice. Whirlwinds swirled around them, deadly cones of force. Lightnings flared in the land of the gods as well as in the valley of the Seven Towers. On the higher plane, the lightning appeared normal, but it was no less deadly than the brilliantly colored bolts in the pass near the veil that hid Silvas's valley from the rest of the world.
Bay handled himself easily. All of the magics and brute applications of power could not faze him unless they struck him directly, and it mattered not how long the contest continued. Bay's strength would not flag. But Josephus was mounted on a lesser steed, nearly the equal of Bay in size, but without Bay's special gifts. He tried, and when a blast of power hit close, he shied away, often near the edge of panic. All of the calming his master could offer scarcely sufficed to hold him under control.
Maria remained apart from the fray, cloaked from the enemy as well as she could manage, though her linkage with Silvas was so complete that in the spirit and in the mind there was no separation at all. They were totally one, fully aware of each other, but presenting no duality that might remind their foes that she was there behind them, another consciousness, another power.
Maria looked up into the sky, her eyes drawn by the pure golden color of the sun over the land of the gods, a perfect orb shedding light that seemed to be too ideal to be real. She did not focus directly on the sun, remembering as if firsthand the experience Silvas had undergone as a young boy, when he had looked into a star and nearly lost his eyes.
Such power in a light, she thought. But Maria did not lose track of what was happening on both levels of the battle. Her mind was drawn by the image of the glowing crystal of the pentagram back in the workshop of the Glade, and the memory of pentagrams that Silvas had drawn at various times to work his magics.
And then Maria saw the end of this battle.
She reached into the sky over the land of the gods with her mind and laid hold of the golden fabric of the sun. With a touch as deft as if she were doing fine needlework, Maria concentrated the light and brought it to a narrow focus, a delicately spun thread of energy that reached down to touch the ground.
Maria used that thread of sunshine to scribe a golden pentagram around the other divines on the field in the land of the gods. Silvas and Josephus, and their horses, were in the central pentagon, the seat of power. Barreth, Gioia, and Gavrien, and their steeds, were in one of the side triangles-not in one of the points of the star, but in one of the power voids between them. The pentagram was large enough, and so finely drawn, that neither Barreth nor the twins seemed to notice that it had been drawn around them, and most likely they would not recognize immediately that they were in one of the weak segments.
Silvas and Josephus were aware of the pentagram, and where they were in it. But Josephus had little experience of such magics.
Slowly, Maria forced the outer side of the pentagram behind Barreth and the twins to fold in toward the center. As the
threatening line moved closer to them, those three gods moved forward, toward the apex of their collapsing triangle, but without being aware of why they were being forced toward Silvas and Josephus.
As the distance between the two groups of gods narrowed, the fury of their fighting increased. Reaction time disappeared. Each stroke had to be met as it was loosed, and the fury of it drove all of the horses, except Bay, almost to madness. Power crackled and snapped. Great heat rose around the combatants, and the air itself seemed to waver.
Finally, there was too little room for Barreth, Gioia, Gavrien, and their horses within their diminishing section of the pentagram. They were forced forward again, into immediate peril. The three of them drew swords, unable to prevent being drawn within sword's reach of Silvas and Josephus.
At the same time, Josephus moved forward, partly to close with the enemy, but mostly because his horse had started to spook again. Josephus and Gioia crossed swords over the line of power dividing the core of the pentagram from its outer reaches.
The battle ended then, in an instant of consuming flame. Gioia seemed to erupt into a miniature sun. Josephus was thrown back, against Silvas, and then sank to the ground at the wizard's feet, still wholly within the central section of the pentagram. Gavrien, attempting to come to his twin's relief, was caught up just as quickly. Barreth was thrown into the line of power just behind Gavrien, and he too was caught up in the blaze. The sun seemed to touch the ground in the land of the gods.
Silvas could not close his eyes in time to fully avoid the flaring light. Images danced on the inside of his eyelids until Maria took control of his damaged optics and restored his sight.
They were back on the road at the edge of the valley of the Seven Towers then, together, looking down at the smoldering remains of Barreth, Gioia, and Gavrien. Josephus, too, was on the ground. The armor covering his right arm had melted and fused against the skin beneath it. Outrageous pain was visible in Josephus's face, but he was a demigod as well as a warrior. He would survive.
