The web of wizardry

by Coulson, Juanita

  Very soon, Danaer's eyes closed. He could not feel the cold touch of the web tonight. He gave himself over to Branra's care, as once he had put himself into Yistar's mercy, sinking into a dreamless sleep.

  XIV Deki-Te Vond ve Exis

  Yistar's troops had hoped to make but one day's journey from the Wells of Ylami out of the Sink, but in vain. The worst of the wasteland was behind them, passed in that first terrible leg. The water wagons were refilled at the wells, suflicient to sustain the slow-moving caravan through the following two days and another night's encampment. There had been more magical rainstorms, but of less fury. Danaer heard Yistar saying to Branra that surely now the enemy wizards had learned Lira's counterspells were a match for their assaults, and there would be an end to this weather soon. Danaer had shared that wish, though with less confidence. He did not doubt Lira's powers, but he had felt the force of the Markuand magic and knew it was most awesome.

  Bogotana's Sink seemed loath to release the caravan from its clutches. There were many opportunities for Danaer and Xashe to stop and wait while wagons were repaired. On the second day, Rorluk was so much improved he insisted on rejoining his companions and riding point once more. Occasionally Danaer had seen Lira, riding in one of the lead wagons. She had nodded a greeting, but always appeared preoccupied. He did not disturb her, wary of distracting her from some incantation that might be the caravan's protection.

  Most of all, Danaer was happy to be a scout, not a

  driver. He had ridden by when a loud argument boiled between Yistar and the chief wagoneer, and pitied the hapless teamster. "It is the brakes, Captain," he had been explaining. "We will have them repaired soon."

  "Bog' take the whoreson who designed your wagons! And Bog' take this infernal trail, and you!" Branra was grinning appreciation at his captain's stream of profanity. "Bejit, dog-spawn of a . . . storms, heat, mirages . . . wizardry! I declare, by the Black Mare's Mane, I will run through the next man who speaks failure to me! We will reach Deki tonight!"

  Flogged by Yistar's temper, the column moved forward again. This time, it was on the descent, though the slope was so gradual that Danaer was uncertain for a while that they truly crept downward. He checked landmarks, seeking signs of change. Yistar was right. Soon they must leave this bone-dry waste of jumbled rocks and merciless sun and bones of those less fortunate.

  At last, several candle-marks eastward, Danaer saw what he had been expecting. He made no annou^nce-ment, waiting for his novices to notice the subtle difference in the landscape. Rorluk was still a trifle unsteady in the saddle and not yet fully recovered. It was Xashe who cried out, "Bushes, Troop Leader! And trees! We have seen nothing growing since ..."

  "The Wells of Ylami," Danaer agreed.

  His apprentices grinned at one another, anticipating what lay ahead. There would be grassland and water aplenty. They were winning through to Deki, and the triumph tasted sweet.

  But though they were slipping out of the claws of Bogotana, the ordeal had not ended. Only a short time after Danaer had spotted those signs of vegetation, an immense dark cloud built on the horizon, a towering column of churned-up dirt.

  Danaer's first thought was that they were menaced by a priuda, the terrible dust storms which sometimes haunted the Vrastre. Priuda could trap hunting or raiding parties, cutting warriors off from their Zseds, strangling their roans with dirt. Entire sections of

  Zseds had been swept away in priuda, and if this was such a dust demon, the caravan might be hard hit.

  Then, at the base of the onrushing cloud, Danaer discerned life, a rolling movement—motge! A great herd of the bovines, galloping toward the wagons. His panic rose, then was quenched, his senses tingUng and the obsidian responding to a supernatural warning. Not motge! Argan guided his will and opened his eyes. He could fathom the truth of it readily now. The tossing heads and pounding hooves and fat bodies, even the swirling dirt, were wavering and shimmering before him. "It is another cursed mirage!"

  "The column. Troop Leader? Will they think it is real? The cart horses may bolt and tear their traces ..."

  Danaer nodded, approving his apprentices' concern for their duty. He turned to ride back to the caravan. The wagons had stopped, and all were gazmg at the oncoming stampede. The earth seemed to tremble with the weight of the thundering kine; dust appeared to blacken the sky. Lira was standing up on a wagon seat, shouting to Yistar, "It is an enchantment, Captain, no more. Order the men to stand fast and steady the horses."

  Without questioning, Yistar obeyed the sorkra, sending his aides loping to carry the command along the column. Danaer saw that many drivers and troops had already reached the same conclusion the young scouts had. The trek had hardened conscripts as well as veterans, and they were learning to brave each new challenge of the journey. Fear changed to angry muttering. Soldiers tightened reins and stared belligerently at the stampede which seemed about to crush them.

  Lira's head tilted back and her eyes closed. She could not see the mirage which now filled the horizon, and Danaer knew she called on her Web, and on her own powers. Her Web was very far away from her, and much engaged in other magic, dealing with wizardry on many fronts. Lira was not afraid, though. Had she the strength to deal alone with this latest attack of Markuand sorcery? She chanted into nothing, as officers and their men watched the raging beasts

  approach. Then, like dew, the vision began to die in the sunUght. By ones, then twos, then tens, the motge winked out of existence, and with them the cloud of dust. A stillness covered the land. The charging animals had never been. No hoof prints marked the earth.

  Lira sat down and for a moment buried her face in her hands. Danaer was about to rush to her side, but other men were closer; they offered her water and fanned her with their cloaks. After a while she regained her poise, looking embarrassed that she had come near fainting. "I sensed some abatement of the enemy wizard's magic this time. Captain."

  Yistar and his aides grinned. "Well at that, sorkra lady! Now the way to Deki is clear before us!" They doffed their helmets and cheered, then passed the word to set forth once more.

  Danaer continued to stare at her anxiously, though Lira forced him a thin little smile. Was her Web involved in this last conjury? He thought not. Danaer suspected she reached out into skills and arts of her wizardry that were beyond her training and experience. She had succeeded, but the strain had been extreme. She lifted her head proudly and tried to look as if nothing had happened, as if the countercharm had not been a terrible effort. He did not shame her by voicing his doubts while others could hear. But Danaer prayed there would be no more assaults on her powers, at least until they reached Deki. Perhaps there she would have time to recuperate from the ordeals of the trek. If the repelling of those demon beasts had taken Ulodovol's strength so severely, how much more must this responsibility weigh upon Lira, who had not his years of wisdom to help her.

  He went back to the point, wanting to lead them directly to Deki, to comparative safety. But there continued to be delays, some of them the curse of fate, and some of them part of the Royal Commander's plan. Once, when they had barely started along the downgrade that led to the distant river, a halt was called at a rebuilt ruin. The place was a strange building of stone and brick and timbering. Generations ago, it might have been the castle of some Ryer-

  don lord, soon after his people had crossed into Krantin. It had been laid waste several times since, and now the workmen of Lorzosh-Fila had come out from Deki to reconstruct its walls and roof. They were not quite done when the caravan stopped there, but enough was completed to shelter against the weather—not men, but supplies. Quickly, several wagons were wheeled out of line and their teams unhitched and corralled. Half a unit was ordered to stay and help the Dekan workmen thatch the roof. Then they must stand guard, as long as need be. With that, the caravan rolled on, toward a second such halt, and then a third, each a bit farther down the long grade approaching Deki.

  The officers did not comment, but there was whi
spering among the men as they wondered on this procedure. Danaer and Shaartre and some of the veterans exchanged knowing looks and then took pity on the greener men. "Caches," Shaartre explained to them at the third stopping place. "The men we leave are to guard the supplies for us until we need them."

  "When will we need them, Troop Leader?" Rorluk asked innocently.

  Danaer grimaced, knowing the youth had spent an easy life. "When we are fleeing from the city and must have the food and water in order to cross the Sink successfully once more, back to Siank."

  Rorluk's wondering stare shifted from Danaer to Shaartre and to some of the older men. "You are thinking we may not win?"

  "The Royal Commander considers all possibilities," Shaartre told him as gently as he could. "A good soldier hopes he will not need such caches as these. But if disaster comes, the Markuand are not likely to let us take much out of Deki with us—// we can get free."

  An even younger conscript than Rorluk was round-eyed with dread, gazing at the wagons being rolled into the buildings, at the troopmen and Dekan workmen setting barricades to guard the supplies against intruders. "Have . . . have you ever had to retreat and use such caches. Troop Leader?"

  "I have," Danaer said grimly, and ended the conversation by walking away.

  The wagons that went on from those places now faced a new problem. Where once they had struggled through wet sand and obstacles which slowed the caravan, now drivers stood on brakes to retard their descent. Infantry and cavalrymen slung ropes at the back of the wagons and acted as drags to help the teams. Some wagons overturned, and either the supplies were transferred to vehicles that still operated, or the drivers were ordered to make their way back to the cache points and deliver their cargoes there.

  Downward, steadily, the column went, and the country changed from dust and sand to soft earth and grassland thick with brush and copses. The trail wound through pasturage and tilled fields. They were entering the Dekan lowlands, rich river country. Small forests dotted the hills, and little valleys and prairies began to be junglehke. Indeed, a bit farther south this terrain was jungle, the start of the Sarlos marshes which led to Lira's homeland.

  The trail widened into a true road, and there were more and more villages. The path was beaten earth paved with chips of rock and broken brick taken from old farmhouses and the face of the river bluffs not far ahead. The comparatively smooth highway was a relief to many a driver whose wagons were being held together by little more than rope and curses. Now wheels rolled easier and men marched more quickly.

  Bogotana and his demons no longer ruled. Here there were spring-planted fields green with new shoots of grain and pastures grazed by woolbacks and tame motge and roans. Youthful herdsmen tended the beasts, and they looked curiously at the army wagons. Danaer returned their scrutiny, recalling the taletellers' stories of Deki. At Nyald there were few tame motge. But Deki was an ancient city, and here the animals had been domesticated for generations. The herdsmen must drive them out to graze each day, then bring them back to pens near the city walls at nightfall, or perhaps into Deki itself, now that the threat of siege was near. The herds seemed smaller than he had expected, as if many animals had been culled already,

  to feed a city feeling the hunger of diminished trade and approaching war.

  There were few tents about, and no Zsed, just thatched huts made of bricks and quiet Httle farmers' villages. Deki's inhabitants were Destre who lived a life half nomad and half city-bound. Some still roamed out to hunt the Dekan lowlands, yet deemed themselves citizens, dwellers behind walls. Of late, it was doubtful many hunted at all. Markuand would force them ever more tightly within the security of their defenses. Deki's Siirn had long ruled from behind her gates.

  The villagers and herdsmen were content to watch the passing caravan from a distance. They waved, not unfriendly, for they had heard of the new alliance. But they did not as yet trust their old enemies. A few young people decided to prove themselves and finally rode out to meet Danaer and his novices. The boys and girls looked over the three scouts rudely, giggling, and one exclaimed, "It is true. The Siun promised that the army was coming in force to Deki."

  "Did you not believe Lorzosh-Fila, young warrior?" Danaer asked with a smile. None of them was above twelve summers, yet they wore weapons, as befit Destre youth; the knives and lances were castoffs, for the most part, but they flaunted them proudiyr The lances were sheathed, Destre style, under stirrup straps, and both boys and girls wore belt blade and boot knife and Dekan mantles. Rorluk and Xashe stared at them curiously, but the youths' attention was held by Danaer. They could not understand his uniform and his Destre ring and cloak. Danaer nodded and told them, "When Royal Commander Malol te Eldri says he will ride to the aid of his Destre aUies, he will keep that pledge."

  Their laughter rang in the moist, heavy air and they chattered in thick Destre slang, further annoying the two soldiers from The Interior. Danaer glanced warningly at them as one of the girls boasted, "It is Argan who has wrought this miracle, through guiding her Siirn Rena. If Gordt te Raa did not permit it, you would never have crossed the Vrastre alive."

  Danaer's comrades sulked while he traded banter

  with the young ones, and at last they rode back to tend their herds. Despite their boldness, Danaer had noted their pinched faces and that ribs showed through their thin shirts. Hunger and siege had not quenched their spirit, however. Deki was the Zsed of Walls, and the courage of her people was a badge they might wear proudly.

  Zsed of Walls, and The Entrance of Life, as the Ryerdon had called it when jfirst they looked west from this place, ere beginning their trek across the Vrastre. In the old language they had styled it te Vond ve Exis, and when Destre tribes came to rule the Vrastre, they did not abandon any of Deki's titles.

  It was just past center-stand when Danaer saw the famous walls. Far in the distance, a gray expanse seemed to rise, beginning to fill half the horizon. Not too long after, Xashe and Rorluk also spotted the city, and gasped in wonder. Siank's walls were fragile, a glorification of the goddess formed of stone and paint, for Siank was an Azsed city surrounded by loyal Destre. But Deki was very ancient. For generations she had stood on the brink of Krantin and watched against invasion from once-mighty Traecheus. Her walls were no symbols, but the outer fortifications of a strong city. Deki guarded the river and ruled it, and faithfully protected those who had gone on across the Vrastre. Traecheus had crumbled into dust, never breaching Deki's walls, and Clarique had arisen from the chaos and learned to keep peace between the lands, to share the mighty river.

  But Deki's walls must still stand firm, for another enemy was coming, one far more merciless and deadly than ever Traecheus had been. Te Vond ve Exis now must repel the invasion of Markuand, an assault of weaponry and wizardry most evil.

  "How close are we, Troop Leader?" Xashe asked in awe.

  Danaer squinted and held out his hand, measuring his fingers against the distance. "A candle-period. Perhaps a bit more."

  "La! And already we must look up at those battlements!"

  It was so. The city rose before them, growing, climbing skyward. Deki was their destination, the reason for the arduous journey.

  The walls were uniformly gray and hung with gates of tremendous height and thickness. As a boy, Danaer had been enthralled by minstrels' stories of Deki and heard these walls and gates described. It was one thing to hear of walls so wide a wagon could drive atop them; quite another was it to behold those walls with his own eyes. And the gates! The trees which had birthed them must have been floated downriver from Irico, the fruit of the Death God's haven. Krantin in her earUest days had learned of Irico's matchless timber, and the northern axmen had been willing to trade for Krantin's bright new metals pried from the bowels of her mountains. It was fair trade. The trees were magnificent and the wood resisted rot most well; the metal was silver or the dark iron that Krantin's craftsmen forged into axes far harder than bronze, tools that would not blunt when the forest dwellers of Irico
felled their towering trees.

  Now Markuand wanted Krantin's metal and Irico's timber, and they were prepared to hurl magic and armies of silent, white-clad soldiers in countless numbers against Deki's walls to conquer both peoples.

  The humidity of the lowlands diffused sunlight into a deceiving haze, but Danaer thought he saw some sort of official entourage gathering outside Deki's gates. He threw up his arm to signal the column to a halt, then told his apprentices, "Yistar will now pass the command for everyone to look his best. I hope you saved a clean shirt, as I bade you to ere we left Siank."

  At the caravan, a great cacophony filled the air. Equipment clattered and horses whinnied and pawed restlessly, leather squeaked—all combining into great confusion. As Danaer had promised, Yistar's orders were runnmg through the column. Wagons wheeled into line more smartly than most had hoped. Units regrouped. Men sought out their kits and splashed water on dusty faces, brushing stained uniforms. They had been frugal with water, but now there would be plenty. Most of the troops had come from the moun-

  tains of The Interior. They had spent their lives near castles and walled cities, and while the size of Deki's defenses impressed them, they looked upon this as a familiar thing, a city as it should be, not the anomaly Siank had been.

  Order came into being surprisingly soon. Indeed, the command had been strengthened by ordeal. The losses had been hurtful, but Malol had tried to make allowances for such. Stock had died, wagons had been wrecked and abandoned along the way, and some men had sickened, though very few had died of sunstrokes or accidents. Despite natural hazards and wizardry, it was a far stronger force now than when the shambling company had left Siank garrison days ago.

  Gordyan and his warriors came in to join the column, acting as honor guard for the entrance into Deki. Danaer was chasing a few scatterbrained conscripts past the head of the column when he heard Yistar bragging to Gordyan, "It may well be we have stolen a march. Lady Nalu says that General Ti-Mori holds fast with her army along the southern river. She has struck an alliance of her own with a Sarli brigand called Qhorda. And she said in her messages to Malol that we would never reach Deki in time to be of help! Ha!"