“Do we have some shortage of scouts, Svor, that we need to hire strangers?”
“We have none like these,” Svor said. And beckoned forward a bony-faced man of extraordinary height, at least a head taller than any man in the camp, but so lean and long-limbed that he seemed as frail as a wand that could be snapped in two by a good heavy shove. His hair was very dark and cropped short, and his aspect was a dark one too, swarthy skin almost like Svor’s own, and a coarse thick beard blackening his heavy-jawed face. He gave his name as Gornoth Gehayn and said he was a man of the nearby town of Thaipnir on the tributary river of the same name. Behind him stood three more men almost identical to him in their great height and gauntness and dark aspects, but they seemed no more than half his age; and behind them was a long cart drawn by a pair of mounts. Four large square boxes covered by leather shrouds rested on the cart’s bed.
“What is this?” Prestimion asked brusquely, for he was in an uneasy mood and short of patience just then.
“Your lordship,” said Gornoth Gehayn in a thin, high reedy voice, “we be trainers of hieraxes, my sons and I, who make them fly where we will, and ride clinging to their backs. It is a secret art private to our family, which we have been a long while in mastering. We go far and wide, and see many strange things.”
“Hieraxes?” Prestimion said, taken aback. “You fly on hieraxes?”
Gornoth Gehayn made a grand sweeping gesture; and one of his sons leaped up on the cart and pulled back the shroud that covered the hindmost box. Which stood revealed as a steel cage that held a huge bird, one with vast gray wings folded over its body like a cloak, and big glittering blue eyes that gleamed outward between the bars of the cage like angry sapphires.
Prestimion caught his breath in surprise. He had seen hieraxes before, on many occasions, when traveling between Castle Mount and the Labyrinth. They were gigantic predatory creatures of the upper air, which glided lazily on the warm atmospheric currents high above the Glayge Valley, scarcely flapping their wings as they coasted from place to place and now and again snapping some unfortunate smaller bird out of the sky with a swift movement of their long beaks. In their way they were graceful and very beautiful, at least aloft, though they seemed nothing more than bony monsters huddled here in their cages. But he had never known a hierax to be taken captive, and the thought of men riding on their backs as though they were tame well-bred mounts was beyond belief.
“These are somewhat different from the hieraxes of the east,” Gornoth Gehayn explained as his son raised the portcullis of the bird’s great cage. “These are the black-bellied ones of the Iyann region, which are bigger and much stronger than the pink ones of the Glayge, and so intelligent that they can be trained to obey. We take their eggs from the nest, and raise them and train them to our will, all for the pleasure of going aloft. Shall I demonstrate, my lord?”
“Go on.”
At a cue from Gornoth Gehayn’s son, the huge bird came waddling awkwardly from its cage. It seemed barely to know how to unfurl the enormous wings that were wrapped tight about its body, and its long thin legs were plainly unaccustomed to movement on the ground. But after a moment it got its wings to open, and Prestimion emitted an astonished hiss as he saw those long and arching pinions unfold and unfold and unfold until they were spread out for an unthinkable distance on either side of the bird’s substantial elongated body.
Immediately the son of Gornoth Gehayn, a boy so long and lean and light that he seemed almost to be the bird’s own kin himself, sprang lithely forward and seized the hierax delicately but firmly just at the place where the powerful wings sprouted from the bird’s muscular shoulders, and lay himself down sprawling along its back with his head just beside its own. Then there was a flapping of wings, a wild thumping beating of them on the ground, and after a moment’s seeming struggle the hierax leaped up a short way above the ground, and then two instants later was coursing upward through the air, with Gornoth Gehayn’s son still clinging to it.
It swept strongly higher almost at a straight line, and circled once overhead far above them, and shot off northward with phenomenal speed so that bird and rider soon were lost to view.
Gialaurys, who had joined Prestimion and Svor just as the boy had let the bird from its cage, laughed and said to Gornoth Gehayn, “Will you ever see either of them again? For I think the bird will fly off to the Great Moon with him.”
“There is no danger,” the man replied. “He’s been flying these hieraxes of ours since he was six years old.” Gornoth Gehayn gestured toward the cart and said to Gialaurys, “We have three other birds, my good lord. Would you care to go aloft yourself?”
“Gladly would I, and I thank you for the invitation,” said Gialaurys with a bright gleeful grin that was far from typical of his wintry nature. “But I suspect I might be somewhat too heavy for the creature to bear.” And he tapped his bull-like chest and each of his powerful shoulders. “A smaller man, perhaps, would be better. Such as you, my lord Duke Svor.”
Prestimion joined in also: “Yes, Svor! Go up there, tell us what you see!”
“Some other day, I think,” said Svor. “But look—look—is that the boy returning?” He pointed toward the sky; and indeed it was possible now to see a dark spot high above, which resolved itself against the brightness of the air into the widespread curving wings and long black-feathered body of the hierax; then, as it descended, the son of Gornoth Gehayn could be seen still clinging to the bird’s back. They landed a few moments later, bird and boy, and the boy jumped off, flushed, beaming with pleasure, exhilarated by his flight.
“What have you seen?” his father asked him.
“The armies, again. Marching up and down, drilling beside the lake.”
“Armies?” Prestimion said quickly.
Svor leaned close to him. “I told you they’d discovered information that would be useful to us.”
* * *
The fliers had indeed been making reconnaissance flights up the valley of the Iyann all week, once they noticed the military movements north of their town, and they had learned a great deal already, all of which they were pleased to make available to Prestimion for just a few silver royals. A great force of men, they said, had come riding lately in floaters across the land out of the east, men with weapons and armor; and upon reaching the Iyann they had gone straight up along the part of the river that flowed down from the north, until they had reached Mavestoi Dam, at the foot of the great reservoir that held the water supply for much of this province.
They were camped now all along the dam’s rim, and up both sides of the lake behind it. Each day one of the sons of Gornoth Gehayn had flown up there to see what was taking place—Gornoth Gehayn himself no longer went aloft, he said; he was too old for the game—and each day they saw additional troops arriving and digging in.
“The interesting thing,” Svor said, “is that three days ago one of the boys swooped low and saw a man in the center of the camp, a tall dark-haired man wearing a Coronal’s clothes, the green and gold with trim of white fur; and it seemed to him that he saw something flashing on the dark-haired man’s brow that might just have been a crown.”
Prestimion gasped. “Korsibar? Korsibar himself is out here?”
“So it would appear.”
“Can it be? I thought he’d stay safe and snug in the Castle as long as he had men like Navigorn and Farholt to fight his battles for him.”
“It seems,” said Svor, “that he has come to fight this one himself. Or so our airborne spies tell us.”
“Why is it, I wonder,” said Prestimion, frowning, “that Korsibar’s men allow these birds to fly low and spy them out, and make no attempt to shoot them down? I suppose they see only the hierax from below, and not the rider clinging to its back, and give it no heed. Well, no matter: if this is true, Svor, opportunity’s in our grasp, would you not say? We’ll send word to our friend Duke Horpidan of Alaisor to hurry those troops, and gather them in, and make an attempt on Korsibar while he�
�s here. It’s our one great chance. Seize him and the war’s over, simple as that.”
“I’ll bring him as a prisoner to you myself,” said Septach Melayn, whose wound was healing quickly and who was eager to be wielding his sword once again.
Each day, now, the hieraxes went forth; and each day they returned with further reports of the activities at Lake Mavestoi. The army there, they said, was a considerable one, though all three of Gornoth Gehayn’s sons were of the opinion that Prestimion’s own army was larger still. They had set up tents and were chopping down the trees around the lake to use for fortifications; and, yes, the man in the vestments of a Coronal could readily be seen whenever they flew over the camp, moving vigorously about in the midst of the soldiers, directing things.
Prestimion longed to hop on the back of one of these hieraxes himself, and verify that with his own eyes: but when he spoke of it to Gialaurys and Septach Melayn, sounding more than half serious, they rose up in wrath against him and told him that they would slaughter Gornoth Gehayn’s birds with their own hands should he make any motion to go near them. And Prestimion promised them that he would not; but still he yearned for attempting it, both for what he might learn concerning his enemy and also for the sheer wonder and splendor of flying through the air.
There once had been airborne vessels on Majipoor, a very long time ago: Lord Stiamot, so it was said, had fought his war against the Shapeshifters from the air, setting fire to their villages by dropping burning brands on them and driving them into captivity. The skill of making flying machines had been lost in the distant past, though, and to get from place to place on the enormous planet it was necessary to crawl along by floater or mount-drawn vehicle, and no one but these bony lads from the district of the Iyann knew what it was like to go up above the surface of the world. Prestimion bitterly envied them.
But there would be no hierax-flying for him. He knew it was a skill you had to be born to, and learn as a child; and perhaps he was too sturdily built for the birds to carry. And in any event he had a war to fight, and soon.
They had decided not to wait for the reinforcements from the west. While they waited, Korsibar’s other armies would be coming upon them from the east, and if the forces of Mandrykarn and Farholt and Navigorn were given the opportunity to join with those under Korsibar’s command, they would have no hope against them. The thing to do was to strike at once, against an army apparently not as numerous as their own.
“Had Thalnap Zelifor not left us,” Gialaurys said, “we could be using his witcheries to see into Korsibar’s camp and count their number. And also to learn the best route by which to attack.”
“We see the camp through the actual eyes of these boys,” Prestimion told him, “which is better than glimpsing it by sorcery. As for the route, this is Gornoth Gehayn’s home country, and he has drawn good maps for us. Thalnap Zelifor will return one of these days, bringing those thought-reading devices of his. But we’ll finish Korsibar off without his help, I think.”
They bent low over the maps. There were paths through the forests on both sides of the river leading up to the dam. Come up by night, on a night when no moons were in the sky; station half the cavalry on the east bank, half on the west; at a signal, ride into Korsibar’s camp and attack from both sides at once. Prestimion would have his archers atop mounts for this engagement: come riding in, riddle the enemy with arrows as they came. That would be a sure producer of terror, men on mountback with bows. And then the heavy infantry, Gaviad coming in from the east side, Gaviundar from the west—the Divine preserve them if they were slow this time!—a series of massive strokes, one after another, Septach Melayn’s bright sword cutting a path into the royalist camp, Gialaurys with his spear—
Yes. Yes. What wild miscalculation of Korsibar’s was it that had delivered the usurper by his own free will into their hands?
“There’ll be no moons shining three days hence,” Svor announced, after consulting his almanacs and almagests.
“Then that’s our night,” said Prestimion.
The Iyann here was a narrow river, not very deep, easy to ford. Most of its flow out of the north was choked off by the dam that Lord Mavestoi had constructed eight hundred years before. It was simple enough for Prestimion to divide his forces, sending half to either bank. He took up a position on the eastern shore, with his mounted archers; Gialaurys was behind him with the heavy infantry, and Gaviad’s army in back of those. On the river’s western side was the regular cavalry detachment under Duke Miaule, with Septach Melayn’s battalions accompanying them, and the army of Gaviundar poised to the rear for the second thrust.
The night’s only illumination was that of the stars, which in this part of the world shined with particular brilliance. There were the great stars that everyone knew, Trinatha up to the north, and Phaseil in the eastern sky and its twin Phasilin in the west, and Thorius and blazing red Xavial marking the midpoint of the heavens. Somewhere out there, too, was the little yellow star of Old Earth, though there was no agreement on which one that really was; and then, too, the new star, the fierce blue-white star that had appeared to the world while Korsibar and Prestimion were making their separate journeys northward up the Glayge to Castle Mount, was in plain view straight overhead, piercing the sky like a furious staring eye.
By the light of those stars, and especially that of the new star, the long, narrow white band that was Mavestoi Dam could be seen at the head of the valley above them, running between the dark cliffs. It was there, Prestimion knew, that he and his men must climb this night, up into those forested bluffs, then inward and down upon the unsuspecting royalists in their camp. Looking upward now, Prestimion thought he could make out tiny figures moving along the dam’s concrete rim. Sentries, no doubt. Did they have any idea that twin armies were stealing toward them along both sides of the river below? Very likely not. There was no sense of urgency or alarm in their movements: just some men, tiny as matchsticks from here, steadily pacing up and down along the crest of the dam.
Prestimion checked the positions of the stars. Trinatha, Thorius, Xavial, all in alignment. Time to get going now. He raised his hand, held it high a moment, lowered it. Began to move forward, up the pathway beside the river. On the western shore Duke Miaule’s forces were in motion also.
Upward. Upward.
The Divine grant us its favor, Prestimion thought, and we will finish this struggle tonight and bring sanity back into the world.
“What’s that?” Svor said. “Thunder?”
Prestimion looked around, puzzled. A dull booming sound, indeed. But the night was clear, cloudless. There had been no lightning; there was no storm.
“Brother? Brotherr Taradath, coming up the path. “Not so loud!” Prestimion said in a harsh whisper. “What is it?”
“Gaviad—the Zimroel men—”
“Yes?”
Another boom, louder than the first.
“I’ve just had word—they’re heading out. Marching away from the river as fast as they can.”
“Heading—out?” said Prestimion. “But—what—”
Svor said, “Look up there. The dam!”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
No figures could be seen along the dam’s crest now. Only a quick burst of red, like a flare going off, and then a dark jagged crack, and what looked like a triangular chip taken out of the face of that white concrete wall.
Boom! Louder than all the others.
Svor cried, in a ragged voice, “They’re blowing up the dam, Prestimion! They’ll send the whole lake down on us!”
“But that would flood a hundred villages and—” Prestimion replied, and said no more after that, but only gaped in disbelief, for by the lurid light of the explosions above them he could see the whole face of the. dam crumbling, and a stupefying torrent of water descending through the darkness toward the valley below and all his men.
V. The Book of Wizards
1
This was surely the bleakest place in all the world, Prest
imion thought, save only those terrible deserts of the continent of Suvrael where no one in his right mind would ever want to go.
It was a gray land that he was walking through in this black hour. The sky overhead was gray, the dry ground beneath his feet was gray, the very wind was gray with a burden of fine silt as it swept roaring out of the east. The only color in this place came from the plants, which seemed to be striking back against the universal grayness with some furious determination of their own. Big rigid dome-shaped fungi, a deathly yellow in hue, exploded into clouds of brilliant green spores whenever he trampled on one; the tough sparse saw-edged grass was an angry carmine; the trees, tall and narrow as spears, had gleaming blue leaves shaped like spines and constantly dropped a rain of viscous pink sap that burned him like acid whenever he passed incautiously within reach of it.
Low chalky hills that had the look of stubby teeth formed chains across the far horizon. The open country between them was flat and dry and unpromising, no lakes, no streams, only an occasional brackish spring oozing out of some salt-encrusted crack in the ground.
He had been walking for days, so many that he lost count of them. His tongue was thick and swollen from thirst and his eyelids were so puffed that he looked out between them as if through slitted windows. Sweat streamed on him constantly; caked dust clung everywhere to his sticky skin; the force of the sun became a metallic clangor sounding in his head. And through his mind ran, over and over without cease, the remembered images of the cataclysm that had destroyed his army and, for all he knew, robbed him of his dearest friends.
That merciless white wall of water riding down the hillside toward them, with the great sundered chunks of Mavestoi Dam coming down with it—
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