The Silence of Medair

by Andrea K Höst

  Away from solitude.

  ChapterTwo

  Medair rode at a speed both reckless and unkind to her mounts, all the way down Bariback Mountain and far along the neglected road toward the forest. The thought of those five men, of the noise her lump of wood had made colliding with the head of the one called Glyn, was a hound nipping at her heels and she would not stop to do more than water the horses until she was certain they could not catch her that day. It was only when she had forded the Sorbry River and was faced with the forest that she thought beyond simply 'away'.

  With the sky darkening, and her heart finally easing out of her mouth, Medair looked about for a grassy verge, then stripped the gear from five of the horses and sent them scattering toward the river, impelled by the ring. Guilty over not having rubbed down their sweating flanks, she lavished attention on the last horse, a sturdy bay, cosseting him and securing a tether while the ring kept him complaisant. Then she slipped the circle of silver from her finger and replaced it in her satchel.

  The bay immediately sidled away from her, but, as she had hoped, he did not consider her quite so much a stranger any more. He was more interested in cropping grass than escaping. Turning her attention to the sky, Medair frowned at the clouds crawling south. The long-brewing storm wasn't far away: tomorrow, if not that night. She would get wet before she reached the nearest city, Thrence, nearly three days' ride away.

  More information was what she needed before she began making choices, so she turned to the stolen saddlebags. Only a small amount of food: most of that must have been on the pack animals. She had six bedrolls, which guaranteed a relatively comfortable mattress for the night, even without drawing on the resources of her satchel. Five canteens, various items of male clothing, oddments like little pots of oil and saddle soap. A scattering of coin minted with the crests of a half-dozen kingdoms. No insignia at all, no documents, no neatly packaged explanation of who and why and how.

  Having sorted out the gear and stowed what she considered would be of use, Medair cooked herself some dinner and sat back against a tree, thinking.

  They had not known what to expect, that elite, unscrupulous little group. They had approached with caution, but had not known she was mage until the second Decian had misunderstood the traces of power given out by the ring. They knew neither her name nor her features and, really, considering what she carried, five men, only one a mage, seemed a little...inadequate. If they had taken her by surprise, then yes, they could have had her. But with the contents of her satchel, if she were desperate, she could fight off a great many more than five, no matter what their skill. With what her satchel held, she could bring down an army. That was irony.

  Did the one who had sent them know? "If she's as valuable as it sounds," the leader had said. If whoever had sent these people knew who she was, what her satchel contained, why not adequately prepare those set on her trail? Why not a greater effort at secrecy in their approach? She couldn't think of any reason for them to come after her if they didn't know.

  "I am Medair an Rynstar, Herald of the Empire," she said to the dying embers of the fire.

  She had been one of the two heralds Grevain Corminevar had sent to greet the Ibisian refugees when they'd appeared in Kormettersland. Wild magic, forbidden in Farakkan, had destroyed the Ibisians' island home. Not with the massive Conflagration the mages of Farakkan warned would be the consequence of wild magic slipping from control, but by a creeping blackness which melted the land from beneath their feet. As Sar-Ibis dissolved into nothing, the Ibisians had fled to Farakkan through arcane gates; an incredible feat of magic.

  Riding through their camp that first time, she'd actually been glad to see how organised they were. Their tents were in orderly clusters: small suburbs in a city of cloth separated by securely penned animals, crates, carts and carriages. Even saplings, their roots bound in sacks. With their own supplies, the hundreds of thousands of refugees would not be such a strain on the north-east as had first been thought.

  She'd felt desperately sorry for them, before they'd declared their intentions. She'd wanted to reach out and help, to show them the bounty of the Empire, wondering what she could do to make it easier for them. Their alien appearance, so tall and bleached of colour, only made her feel sorrier for their displacement, for the desolation they had to feel.

  Trained for her memory, Medair could not wipe out any part of that first day. She would always remember riding through that endless camp of white-skinned people, and how glad she'd been to carry a message of aid. Try as she might, she could not forget the first time she'd seen the Ibisian ruler, that cold statue of a man framed by the graceful black heads of carved ibises. She could even recite every word of the message the Emperor had sent to his homeless counterpart, the message her teacher, First Herald Kedy, had delivered:

  "Words are small things," Kedy had said, his voice an echo of the Emperor's deep, measured tone. "They cannot possibly carry the weight of events, or convey anything but an outline of thoughts and feelings. My sorrow and dismay I must give you in words, knowing that nothing I say can begin to alleviate your loss. Instead, I offer you my welcome, people of the Land of the Ibis. Farakkan is a wide and varied realm and the Bountiful Lady will gladly receive another people into her fold. The Palladian Empire will give you a home."

  It had been a message of sympathy and understanding, full of generosity. Medair had been so blindly proud as her mentor delivered it. She'd stood there in the tent of the Ibisian ruler – the Kier – conscious of the image of strength and security she projected, willing to do whatever it took to make loss easier for the Ibisians.

  Then the world had changed forever. Kier Ieskar, the Ibisians' implacable, incomprehensible leader, had declared war and waged it with total efficiency. Farakkan hadn't seen a battle fought primarily with magic since before the Fall of Tir'arlea, and the Empire had been woefully unprepared. Massed spells cast by hundreds; Ibisian adepts whose strength dwarfed their local counterparts; their damnable geases solidifying their victories; and, behind it all, the relentless brilliance of the Ibisian Kier. The White Snakes were close to unstoppable.

  But the invaders had been hopelessly outnumbered. They couldn't have won. Couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't have won if the West hadn't betrayed Grevain. That had been the worst moment of the war, more horrible even than that first battle at Mishannon, when the White Snakes had taken the city without losing a single warrior. Destal an Vesat had delivered the message, unable to hide his gloating. The western kingdoms were throwing off the 'yoke' of the Empire. They would not support Palladium against the Ibisians, for the Ibisians were now their allies.

  It had become only a matter of time before the White Snakes took Athere, Palladium's capital. Unable to bear the destruction of the Empire whose peace she had been raised to venerate, Medair had turned to the past, when mages more powerful than any White Snake had waged their own battles. Those mages might have long since departed Farak's breast, but the artefacts they'd created remained, at least in legend. There was one which would surely save them: the Horn of Farak, hidden among the Hoard of Kersym Bleak. Medair's Emperor had given her leave to seek it, but few had thought she had any chance of success.

  Telsen, half-delighted, half-angry, had turned up from nowhere the day before she'd left. The last time she'd seen the man she no longer loved or hated.

  "You're not really going to chase that children's tale?"

  "You have an unfailing ear for gossip," she'd replied. Maintaining her dignity around Telsen had always been of primary importance. If he knew how much he'd hurt her, he'd probably work it into his music and she'd find her heart being sung to the world. Such had been her logic.

  "You can't know that the Horn still exists, Medair, if it ever did. Can't know if it's in Bleak's Hoard, can't possibly hope to find the Hoard just when we need it most, when so many have sought it before you."

  "You've always told me to trust in coincidence. That Farak will provide."

  "Maybe." He
had smiled, tilted eyes lighting with that particular fire which told her he was inspired. "Maybe. What a tale it would be! The Horn of Farak, fashioned from the bones of the Goddess Herself. Athere under siege, surrounded by White Snakes, and you appear, raise the Horn to those kissable lips, summon a mighty army and save us all."

  He'd hugged her enthusiastically, as ready as ever to forget that he'd fallen out of love with her years ago, and gone through a dozen women since. She'd answered half his questions, only hinting at the clues she'd discovered in the archives. She knew better than to tell him her conclusions. He'd been planning verses for her epic when she left him.

  During the long journey north, Medair had daydreamed often of the song Telsen would write for her victory. The Hoard of Kersym Bleak was legend, true, but legend based on fact, and she'd planned to destroy the White Snakes with what it contained. She was not certain if even Telsen could put into words how she felt when, in the heart of a dripping limestone maze, she'd lifted the Horn from a cushion of silk and quailed to think how many deaths would stain her hands when she used it.

  She still blamed that moment of self-doubt for the disaster which followed. If she'd been more certain, more eager to strike down the invaders, she would not have rested at the heart of the maze, and slept away any hope of success.

  It had taken two days after leaving the cave for Medair to realise the cost of that night. Her missing horse she'd put down to an inadequate knot. The confusing, indefinable difference of five hundred years of forest growth she did not recognise for what it was until after she understood what had happened, until after she'd reached Morning High. Never before or after would the sight of a ploughed field bring such confusion. She'd stared at the neatly churned earth which had not been there two of her days ago, and stumbled on to discover a village she knew full well didn't exist. And people who were strangely tall and blond. Her reaction to their concerned questions – uttered in a mix of Parlance and Ibis-laran – had nearly caused her to be locked away as a madwoman. Because one night in the maze had become five hundred years in Farakkan, and the world had moved on without the victory Telsen had prematurely set to music.

  That had been last Spring. She'd travelled blindly south, heading toward the city which had been the Emperor's last defence: Athere. By the time she'd reached the old capital of the Empire, she was sure she didn't want to see it. The whole north-east of Farakkan was under Ibisian control, and White Snakes were everywhere, calling themselves Palladians.

  But, because she did not know what else to do, because she had to look, Medair had walked through the city she had thought to return to in triumph. There were more walls, but the palace still stood, and much of the city was all too familiar. A Corminevar even sat the Silver Throne: a pale-skinned, snow-haired descendant of Kier Ieskar and the Emperor's only daughter. It was unbearable. She hadn't been able to stay more than a day in that monument to defeat.

  Medair hated the White Snakes, for it was impossible to feel anything else for the people who had wrought such destruction in the Empire. Not that it had been difficult to hate: they were arrogant and over-civilised, mannered and cold. Despicable in their greed.

  She'd been told her own history in Athere, even listened to stupid tales about how she would be reborn, would come back to save Palladium from the White Snakes. The ballads knew the start of the story well enough. Two years after the Ibisians had arrived on the continent of Farakkan, it became obvious that the Emperor's armies could not hold. In a month, perhaps two, Athere would surely fall. So Medair an Rynstar, Imperial Herald, had left to find the Horn of Farak.

  They couldn't tell the end, those ballads of futile heroism. Only Medair knew that her quest for a weapon to defeat the White Snakes had been successful. She'd found the Horn of Farak and brought it back to the Emperor's city. Five hundred years too late, five hundred years after Grevain Corminevar had lost.

  -oOo-

  How easy it would be to use it on the White Snakes anyway, in memory of the Empire she had served. She'd certainly considered it, after buying an afternoon of answers from a scholar, and listening to the facts of the fall of Athere in the driest and most enervating of terms. She'd stood just within Cantry Wall and stared up at the White Palace and pictured herself taking the Horn from her satchel, raising it to her lips. No-one, nothing could have stopped her. And the White Snakes would have died.

  But it was impossible. During the war, she would have done anything to defend her home from the Ibisians. She had dreamt of a world where White Snakes did not exist to destroy her peace, where she had never heard one voice in particular: cool, tranquil, hateful. But to use the Horn on the Ibisians who now dwelled in Athere? Who were Palladian?

  She'd run away from the desire to do just that. Away from White Snakes and the part of her which demanded that they be driven out of the city they'd stolen, that they be punished, wiped out of existence. Because no matter how much she hated them, she'd known it was wrong.

  After she left Athere last Summer, Medair had carried the Horn with her and tried not to think. The Duchy – now Kingdom – of Kyledra had been her first home, and she had travelled to her family lands north of Kyledra's Bariback Forest, only to find no trace of the Rynstar demesne. From there, stewing in hatred which no longer had a true focus, she had ignored warning of plague and headed for the mountain. Its lofty solitude had been a balm of sorts, and, until now, a refuge. With these Decians on her trail, she needed to find somewhere else.

  Medair's oath had been to the Empire's heartland, Palladium, and to the people who had, over the centuries, mixed blood with their invaders. She could not let herself be involved in Decian plots, when Decia intrigued against Palladium. She could not use the Horn without killing the descendants of true Palladians. Perhaps – perhaps she should return the Horn to the place she had found it, deep in a maze beneath the far northern mountains, out of the reach of anyone searching for her.

  Medair nodded to herself. Yes, it would be safest to put the Horn and everything else out of the reach of these Decians and whoever had sent them. And, just maybe, she would go to sleep there again and dream away another five hundred years, until the world had become wholly unrecognisable, and not quite so painful.

  Or she could sleep forever and be done.

  Chapter Three

  Dramatic thoughts of suicide were nothing new to Medair. Waking early, she set about packing in the relative cool of dawn. The pile of saddles and bags she had taken from the other horses would mark the place she'd spent the night, but she didn't think it worth the effort of hiding them. She would do better to simply stay ahead of her Decian pursuers.

  The bay had almost chewed through his tether overnight and eyed her sidelong as she approached. He knew she wasn't his usual rider and didn't seem as indifferent to the fact as most horses she encountered. She offered him a dry biscuit, which he lipped eagerly, consenting to stand still long enough for her to heave the saddle onto his back. Then, when she was distracted trying to tighten the girth-strap, he stood on her foot. Her boot saved her from more than a bruise, but it was hardly endearing. Cursing, she gave an admonitory jerk on his bridle, and he blew his ribs out in retaliation. Now she could barely get the girth fastened, let alone safely tightened. Nasty creature.

  She considered continuing to wear the ring. Animal control was not a quiet magic, and the ring would act as a small beacon for any mages in the area. But she had no wish to fight her mount for the entire day. After a moment's hesitation, she used it long enough to get the bit and saddle properly settled and herself securely on the bay's back. The gelding snorted and surged a few paces down the road when she slipped the ring back into her satchel, but, though his ears were back, he didn't buck or bolt. That would be enough.

  Bariback was a forest of low, dark trees: tight, close and secretive. It had never been a friendly place and, beneath the tallest mountain in Farak's Girdle, it felt crushed and sullen. The road was well supplied with fallen logs and encroaching saplings, and on top of
that it was an awful day for any sort of travel. The air was treacle, buzzing insects pestered, crawling over sweat-soaked skin and making determined attempts to fly up her nose. The bay's tail flicked in constant punctuation to their progress and Medair spent half her time pulling at the collar of her greying shirt, which was sticking to her in the most uncomfortable manner imaginable. She made a note to cut her straggling hair, plastered with sweat past her nose and down the back of her neck. A year's untamed growth, when she'd once kept it almost daily trimmed.

  Despite the circumstances and the heat, Medair was feeling almost cheerful. Her tentative decision to return to the cave where she had found the Horn was now a definite goal. Whether she would stay to sleep was another matter, something she doubted she could decide until she was there. But giving up the burden of lost hope which was hidden within her satchel was something she was certain was a good idea.

  -oOo-

  Late morning, and the bay's head suddenly came up, ears pricked forward. He stuttered to a halt and sidled sideways when Medair tried to urge him on, nearly dislodging her on a low branch. Pacifying him by agreeing not to go anywhere just yet, she stared along the overgrown road, wondering what had set him off, and spotted a dozen thin streamers of smoke dissipating in the muggy air to the north. Camp fires? A forest fire? It was big, but didn't seem to be getting any bigger.

  She couldn't go back. Nor did she want to leave the road and risk getting completely turned around in the forest. It was important to get to Thrence quickly, so she could lose herself in the crowd and try to find a solution to the Decians' trace spell. The bay made his opinion clear by backing down the centre of the road.