They stepped through the opening and nearly ran at once into a stone wall. His eyes were still adjusting from the light of the setting sun, and he could make out a glow to his left. He felt along the rock face, his right hand in front of him as he pulled Mala behind him with his left. The wall ended abruptly beneath his fingers where the glow was, and Drakis turned the corner.
The warrior’s grim face relaxed into awestruck wonder.
The entire stone hill was hollowed into an enormous dome surrounding a magnificent central fountain. Luminous waters cascaded from the top of the ornate spout, fashioned from the purest white marble to resemble the branches of a tree. The skill of its artisans insured that the water splashed in its descent to appear as the foliage of the tree, ever living and moving as the water fell down to where its stone roots gripped the floor of a wide, shining pool. The shimmering light from the surface of the waters played across the detailed carvings of enormous trees, hewn in relief from the encircling stone with intricate detail, their own branches interlacing in the dome above them. The movement of the light occasionally revealed figures in the carvings: faeries and sprites that seemed to form just at the fringes of his vision, nymphs that danced for a moment and then vanished, dryads that smiled back at him and then could no longer be seen at all. There were the unmistakable marks of age in the cavern, for it had long been untended, yet its beauty remained.
Jugar stepped up next to Drakis, his head hung in dejection. “I wanted you to see it in all its glory. There were gems, lad. . gems as big as your fist and more gold and silver than a soul could see in a lifetime. But the tomb has been despoiled and its riches taken by thieves. . oh, lad, I’m so sorry.”
“You’re wrong, dwarf,” Drakis said in a whisper.
“How then?”
“The riches are still here,” he said with a gentle smile. Drakis stepped carefully into the enormous chamber, his eyes gazing in reverent joy at the wonders around him.
“Welcome, my brave friends!”
Drakis turned with some reluctance from the glorious, magical carvings on the walls toward the deep, sultry voice now carrying through the hall. It came from the shining fountain tree, and for a moment he wondered if the tree itself had spoken to them.
The soaked form of the Lyric emerged from the nimbus of water. She had abandoned her field pack next to the pool. Now her wet dress clung to her body as she moved, revealing a strong and beautiful form that Drakis would not have supposed her to possess. She was transformed; her narrow chin was raised in elegant poise, and she carried her chest high and shoulders back so that a regal curve formed down her spine. She held her arms away from her body and bowed gracefully until the tips of her fingers lingered near her strong thighs. Drops of the water sparkled and shone in the white bristles of her emerging hair.
“I thank you all,” the Lyric said in a deep, sleepy voice. “Together we shall triumph. Together we shall be free!”
Mala stepped out from behind Drakis, her questioning eyes fixed on the majestic form standing in the water. “Lyric?”
“So you may have known me,” the Lyric replied, her head nodding slightly in acknowledgment. “But you have awakened me from my long sleep and freed me. The grateful thanks of my kingdom shall be yours!”
“Kingdom?” RuuKag rumbled. “What kingdom?”
“I see, you do not understand,” the Lyric said with slight condescension. “It is to be forgiven.”
“Perhaps our good lady would humor us?” Jugar said with a smile although his eyes showed uncertainty.
The Lyric raised her face in statuesque magnificence.
“I am Murialis,” she said, her deep tones resonating in the hall. “Fae Queen of the Hyperian Woodland, lost these many years to my native lands, lying in forgetfulness until you, good friends, have freed me from my awful captivity. To you I offer the protection of my kingdom, sanctuary from your pursuers, and the grateful thanks of the woodland realm.”
RuuKag gasped. “You’re. . you’re a queen?”
“I am, RuuKag of the manticores,” the Lyric intoned solemnly, “Fae Queen of the Hyperian Woodland.”
Belag nodded thoughtfully. “It is another sign from the gods. It begins, Drakis-do you not see it? It is spoken of old that ‘he shall meet with commoners and kings that the works of his justice shall be wrought.’”
Drakis held up his hand before his maticorian companion could get any further with his religious discourse. “Jugar, we. . I’ve never heard of such a queen. Do you know what she is talking about?”
Jugar kept his eyes fixed on the imperious form of the Lyric in the water. “I. . there is a faery queen that is said to rule in cold isolation in the great woods west of the Aerian Mountains. Her realm is closed to outsiders, however, and there are no tales-at least, none reliable-concerning the ruler of forest spirits and sprites. It is said that those who have ventured beyond her borders never return, having been ensnared by that mystical realm and brought into a sleep that lasts a thousand years.”
“Who would have been awake, then, to tell the tale?” Ethis asked dryly.
Jugar rolled his eyes. “These are indeed but tales, and I am, after all, a fool who is telling them. Entertainment is my business, not the chronicle of the ages.”
Five notes. . Five notes. .
A queen of the north. .
In hope drawing forth. .
“But such a queen,” Drakis persisted. “Could it be possible that Timuran somehow captured her. . enslaved her?”
Jugar screwed his left eye into a hard wink as he considered. “Stranger things have happened, lad. . although I can’t recall any of them at the moment.”
Nine notes. . Seven notes. .
“But if she is who she says she is,” Drakis persisted, “then we have a chance at a life. If we can make it to this kingdom of hers. .”
“The Hyperian Woods?” Jugar laughed. “You are ambitious, lad! That’s full well sixty-maybe seventy leagues from here!”
Five notes. . Five notes. .
“But it is to the north, isn’t it?” Drakis pressed with urgency.
“Aye, well, more west than north it is. . but that’s more than two weeks on stout legs with nary a rest between. And it would be well to point out that most of that is open country-not settled land by any measure of the term.”
“We’re provisioned,” Drakis countered as he unconsciously hooked his thumbs under the straps of his field pack, a plan forming quickly in his head.
“Aye, partial field packs but that’s not for the length of two weeks!”
“It will get us far enough,” Drakis continued. “We can take local game. . we’ve done that before on the longer campaigns. . and RuuKag, you weren’t always a gardener. I remember you in the work sheds. . didn’t you work for the butcher for a time?”
RuuKag’s eyes closed painfully, his long fangs bared. “Yes. . I was a butcher once.”
“There, then!” Drakis answered enthusiastically. “What about this water, Jugar. . can we drink it?”
“These are the sacred waters of the. .”
“Can we drink it?”
“Well. . yes, but. .”
“We’ll take our fill, rest here tonight and then set out at first light,” Drakis continued. “We’ll ration what provisions we have and then forage for the rest.”
“The Iblisi will come for us,” the Lyric intoned ominously. “They will not give up a Queen of the Fae.”
“Then all the more reason for us to travel quickly and to travel light. .”
“Stop, Drakis!” Mala interjected. “Just think for a moment! The Lyric hasn’t said one believable sentence since we fled the master’s House, and now you’re willing to believe she’s a queen of some place we’ve never heard of?”
“Jugar has heard of it,” Drakis replied, irritation creeping into his voice.
“Jugar said that anyone who went in never came back!”
“Look, if we’re going to survive and make any kind of life for ourselve
s, we’ve got to go somewhere!” Drakis heard his own voice growing louder with his frustration. “And if this faery place offers us asylum from the Iblisi then maybe I’d rather not come back from it!”
Mala wheeled to Ethis for support. “And you! You haven’t said anything for a while. What do you think of this insane plan?”
Ethis looked up as though returning his thoughts from a distant place. “What? Oh, I quite agree with Drakis. By all means, we should make for the Hyperian Woods.”
“What?” Mala squeaked.
The chimerian spread his four arms, then clasped them in two sets before himself. “The Iblisi surely will come for us. We are now considered-what is their term? — ah, yes, ‘bolters.’ They will have enough problems for a few days sorting through many others like us that have escaped from the armies-at least those who remain alive after the slaughter we’ve witnessed so far-but ultimately they will search us out. They cannot let us go free-no matter whether we have a ‘queen’ with us or not.”
Ethis turned and focused his eyes on the Lyric standing with regal grandeur in the light of the pool. “We have run and must keep running. It seems that our hopes now rest with the Queen of the Fae.”
CHAPTER 23
Murialis
Qinsei knelt with one knee on the steps leading up to the portal, her Matei staff held vertically at her side. The deepening sunset cast a deeply colored salmon pall over the dead carpeting the ground before her. Qinsei did not move, her eyes shifting from time to time to the other portals at the distant points around the field of death.
The carrion birds had come and were only mildly disturbed by her return. Indeed, the longer she knelt here watching the field, the more it appeared to move, undulating under the motion of the rats, carrion birds, and other vermin whose task in the world-ordained by the gods themselves-was to clean up after the violence of conflict, death, and destruction. The pulsing blue-white glow emanating from the headpiece of her Matei staff not only kept the elven Iblisi Codexia safe but also served to isolate her from the scavenging going on all around her.
It was quite beautiful, she thought, her dark reddish robes shifting in the wind. All the power of death brought down to its absolute and common simplicity. The dead flesh would be rendered, the bones would dry, the metal disintegrate into rust, and all the death and violence would fall back into rich earth in time, smoothed over until even this blood-soaked field would be leveled not by the will of the Emperor but by the small things of creation. Elven children would one day walk this field and never know that the horrifying visage and overwhelming stench of death had ever troubled the grass beneath their feet.
Not that the any elves would pass this way for a very long time. The Myrdin-dai would very quickly and quietly reroute their fold system so that such embarrassing places would no longer be anywhere near where anyone might discover them. Fields of the dead like this would be abandoned and forgotten-along with their dead.
Qinsei alone would remember.
So she waited under the darkening skies as she had been told to do-as the Inquisitor expected her to do.
A ripple rebounded across the surface of the portal to the far south. Qinsei slowly stood as a figure in a robe matching her own emerged from the shimmering, vertical pool, Matei staff held with both hands across his chest.
“Phang,” Qinsei murmured.
She could see her brother gazing at her and then stepping down from the platform. Qinsei understood; Phang had found no trace of their bolter prey just as she, too, had failed. But then, neither of them had expected to do otherwise. Wordlessly, Qinsei stood and lifted her Matei from the ground. Both Iblisi moved quickly across the carrion field, their light footfalls scattering the rats wherever they trod. They were both Codexia, well trained and experienced in performing their duties far from the eyes of the Emperor.
They both approached the third portal where the young Assesia-Jukung-had entered earlier in the day. They reached the portal at the same time, climbed the steps together, and stared through its rippled surface to the marshaling field beyond. Battle had been joined there too, but at least they could see movement on the other side. Whose movement and whether the survivors were still under control of the Imperial Will they could not see.
Crows cawed angrily behind them, then subsided.
The wind rose slightly, then fell.
“We should kill him,” Phang observed.
Qinsei glanced casually at her companion. “He is young and foolish.”
Phang was unmoved. “He is a spy.”
“Yes, but whose? He may only be Keeper Ch’drei’s spy,” Qinsei noted with emphasis. “Had Inquisitor Soen wanted him dead, he would have slipped him among the rest of these corpses earlier in the day.”
“You do not believe he has a mandate, then?” Phang asked.
“From the Emperor or one of the other Orders? I don’t know,” Qinsei spoke with a casual air though both Codexia knew that each of their words was chosen with the utmost care. “I believe that Soen does not know either, which is why both we and the Assesia have spent the day chasing shadows while our Master Inquisitor proceeds ahead of us.”
The vague, shifting form of a dark-robed figure was approaching the portal from the other side.
“Then we’ll not kill the Assesia,” Phang agreed, folding his arms in front of him as he cradled his Matei in the crook of his arm. “With a full day’s lead on us, will we be able to overtake the Inquisitor?”
Phang was surprised by her response. It was a rare and noteworthy occasion when Qinsei smiled.
“Only if he wants us to.”
Togrun Fel, as Jugar explained with the enormous surety that comes when no one else present can possibly challenge one’s facts, stood at the northernmost end of the Sejra Hills, a range of round-topped mountains that formed the northwestern boundary of the Ibania region. Beyond it stretched the plains of Western Hyperia.
None of these names were of any use to Drakis. Standing with the sun rising at his back, all he saw was a grassy plain that stretched to a hazy, indistinct horizon whose line was broken only by a single vertical finger of mountain so indistinctly blending its purple form with the dark horizon that he could almost doubt its existence. Even the dark line of the Aerian Mountains far to the north seemed more real than the single pillar to the west.
“What is that?” Drakis asked Jugar.
“That?. . Oh, that. Well, uh,” Jugar said, then spat on the ground suddenly. “It’s nothing, really, just a big pillar of rock. We won’t be going anywhere near it, I assure you.”
“It’s called the Hecariat,” Ethis said, walking quietly up to join them. “A place which the dwarves considered both cursed by their gods and haunted by the restless dead-if my memory serves me well.”
“The Hecariat is not a place to be spoken of,” Jugar said and then spat quickly on the ground once more. “That sad tale and its tragic end is best left within the blasted stones of its lost glory. It is an abomination towering over the Hyperian Plains. .”
“And it is our only landmark by which we may guide our steps across those same plains,” Ethis said to Drakis. “We’ll need it to get across, but the dwarf is right; we should endeavor to keep it on our left and pass as well to the north of it as we dare without running into the Occupied Lands to the north. The Emperor, I suspect, still has a large contingent looting the Mountain Halls of the Nine Kings, and they would make a quick end to us all if we ran into them.”
“I’ve got to stop!” Mala dropped down among the tall blades of grass suddenly, her arms folded across her chest.
The stretching plain had proved to be both difficult to navigate and, at the same time, filled with an incredible, dull sameness. For the three days they had trekked across its expanse, the grim dark finger of stone on the horizon by which they fixed their path seemed to grow no closer. Everything now seemed to come with a mixture of both blessing and curse. Streams winding their way around the hills and ponds that accumulated in their hollows
brought the welcome, life-giving water that they needed to sustain their march to the northwest, yet their advent was unpredictable, always bringing into question whether this was the last river or lake; moreover, each presented a diversion from their path as they searched for a crossing or way around its shores. Copses and even forests of trees offered the promise of cool shade and rest during the day but in so doing also offered the threat of wild beasts that took such places for their lairs. The rations they had secured as they passed through the portal system had thus far sustained them and kept them largely clear of any dangers the woods presented, but most of Drakis’ companions knew that they would not last them the full measure of their journey. Within the week entering the cool shade of the woods and confronting the creatures there would become imperative. Even the stretches of flat grasslands that made the going much faster and easier also gave in their ease time to think, question, and, worst of all, remember.
“Now is not the time,” Drakis responded with mounting frustration. “There is a copse of trees just atop that far slope. It does not appear large enough to be threatening. We can all rest there in the shade.”
Mala looked up at him with such hatred in her eyes that it took Drakis aback. It was all so confusing. He was smart enough to realize that he had just said something that terribly angered the woman but could not possibly know what it was he had said that should provoke her. Something in their past-some memory he had just tripped on by accident.
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