The Archons of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  She leafed on through the worn and dog-eared pages, then froze at one particular illustration: a woman battling the Crowned Dragon. The artist of this volume had for some reason chosen to include an apocryphal image in the canonical Book of Doom. She stared at the woodcut in dismay. The iconography was traditional: the Tryna Lia wore a crown of stars and stood upon an upturned crescent moon, brandishing her Star Stone while the dragon reared up with wings outspread, spitting fire from his jaws. Auron and old Ana had both told her the future was fluid, that it was not irreversibly set—and yet there it was, before her, inescapable. No warrior angel would come again to fight the foe. That battle was in the past, never to be repeated. It fell to her now to take the champion’s role, not wait along with others to be saved.

  Her throat hurt when she swallowed, and she felt chilled and hot in waves. She set the book down and slumped against the pew in front of her, dozing from sheer exhaustion while those around her thought that she prayed. With the loss of consciousness her glaumerie faded: anyone who lifted her hood now would see the face of a young woman and not an elderly one. Still she slept on, insensible of her danger. She dreamed of—or did she see in truth?—this same chapel in long-ago days, with robed knights and monks kneeling in the pews. One was a young man of angelic beauty and earnest expression, with shoulder-length hair of ruddy gold and wondrous eyes of almost the same hue. A knight and prince, he was then: freed from the torment of his early boyhood, to live a life of honor and proud service untroubled as yet by shades of a still darker future.

  No, it was too much: she could not endure it. She cried aloud in pain against the vision.

  She hardly felt the hands that shook her, trying to wake her: it had all become part of a fevered dream that she could not escape. She was lifted, she dimly sensed, and carried; then there followed a long time of darkness. She heard someone moan far off, and then nearer; then she realized it was her own voice. And faintly, from some distant place, there came another voice that seemed familiar, though she could not match it with a face:

  “It’s she, all right. Ailia! We’ve found her at last.”

  THE CITY SEEMED STRANGELY HUSHED and subdued as evening fell. The people, having obtained what they needed at the market square and shops, did not linger in the streets but hastened home. By day it was not possible to tell how many of the citizens had fled their homes, but at night the emptying of Raimar became apparent. Once the whole of the city would have been lit with the warm yellow lamplight glowing from its windows, but now many pockets of darkness revealed that at least a third of the people had left. More would certainly follow them in the coming days if the news did not improve. All of Raimar seemed to cower in expectation of a deadly blow.

  Jaimon Seaman stood gazing out the open door of the abandoned house that he and his extended family had taken over for their own use. He had gone to the harbor that afternoon to glean what news he could from the crews of the merchant ships. Two rival powers were now fighting for supremacy in Zimboura: yet another man who claimed to be the God-king, and his rival, a sort of desert prophet called the Zayim who worshipped a goddess, of all things. Ambassadors had been sent to Zimboura, to both sides, but it was not known how they had been received by either one. If only the two new tyrants would content themselves with fighting each other, or if one would ally himself with the western lands to defeat his rival! Then there might be peace. But uncertainty filled the voices of the sailors, and fear was in their eyes. Some ships had been attacked at sea, looted and burned. Whoever now controlled the Armada had no fear of the Commonwealth.

  Jaimon turned and went inside, wondering whether he should share what he had learned with his family. It seemed that he was fated always to be the bringer of ill news: years ago it was he who had advised them to flee Great Island and seek refuge on the Continent from Khalazar’s fleet. He decided to say nothing yet, and only speak of other things. His sister, Jemma, was in the kitchen soaking a cloth in the washbasin, and he went to stand at her side.

  “She still hasn’t awakened?” he asked. Jemma shook her head. Wringing out the rag, she returned to the sickroom and he followed her. Their aunt sat next to the bed, not taking her eyes off its occupant. For a moment Jaimon and Jemma stood motionless, gazing at the unconscious figure. The girl’s eyes were fast shut and deeply shadowed, and her skin was waxen-pale. From time to time she moved restlessly, her hands twitching on the coverlet, but she did not wake.

  Jemma took the seat next to Nella and handed her the cloth. “There, Ailia, my love,” the older woman murmured, placing it on the girl’s forehead. “That will cool you down a bit.” She spoke knowing that her daughter would not answer: it was as if she sought to reassure herself with her own words. Jemma watched her ministrations with anxious eyes.

  Jaimon remained standing, staring down at his sick cousin. She had been his close companion during their childhood, even closer than his sister because Ailia had shared his yearning for adventure. They had played many games together, imagining that they were heroes in the faerie tales and old histories, and talked about the faraway lands that lay beyond the encircling sea. He wondered at times whether this kinship that had gone far beyond the bonds of blood was responsible for his failure to marry. He had never yet found a woman who understood him as deeply as Ailia had.

  Looking down into her face, drained now of animation as well as of color, he remembered the light of eagerness and longing that had filled her eyes, and the delicate flush of excitement that would come to her cheeks when she spoke of her desire for knowledge and experience. He recalled her childlike delight at finding herself here in Maurainia—a wish come true, despite the alarming circumstances that had brought it about. And then, mere months later, she had disappeared from the Royal Academy, leaving him and all her family frantic with worry. None of them believed the explanation offered by the authorities: that Ailia had joined a secret witches’ coven, and escaped after she and her fellow witches had been placed under arrest. The charge of witchcraft had been absurd enough; but even if it had been true, she would have run back to her family and not vanished altogether. They knew their Ailia. If she had left Raimar, Jaimon thought, it had been against her will. He had scarcely been able to believe it when Jemma and Betta had come to him with the news that she had been found. They had never given up searching the hostels on a weekly basis, hoping that Ailia might yet turn up in one of them, but with the passage of years that hope had begun to wither. How they had all rejoiced when that vigilance was at last rewarded! Then they had suffered anew as they watched her alarming illness progress: the high fever, and the terrifying delirium that had set her to raving of strange places and people they knew nothing of. It would be too cruel to find Ailia again, only to lose her forever—and without her even waking to recognize them. Her fever had gone down at last, however, and it seemed she was on the mend. Jaimon felt weak at the knees with relief. Now, he thought, we will finally learn what happened to her.

  “She has changed,” said Jemma presently.

  “Ah, yes, poor thing. She’s gotten so thin.” Nella lifted the cloth and felt the girl’s forehead.

  “I don’t mean that. Her hair is longer—long enough to sit upon. I suppose it could grow that long in all this time, but it’s also more golden than I remember. It was more, well, mousy before. And I swear she’s grown taller. If she were standing up she’d be taller than I am, and we used to be the same height.”

  Nella said nothing, and after a moment her niece got up again. “Well, I must go feed the hens,” Jemma said. “And see if they’ve laid any eggs. Will you help me, Jaim?” She felt a need to speak to her brother alone, share confidences as they had done when they were younger. They went out the back door together, into a little yard where a lone horse was stabled, and a few scrawny chickens pecked about in a desultory fashion.

  Jemma sighed as she opened the grain bin. “We’re lucky to have these. Poultry are priceless nowadays. But I don’t know how much longer we will be able to feed them,
Jaim. Grain is getting terribly expensive, and we need it for the cart horse. What if we had to flee the city?”

  He nodded. “I know it’s a great temptation to kill and eat the poultry, but as Uncle Dannor says, better a few eggs than one meal of meat. I’ll see if I can find some food for them.” He stooped to pick up two brown-shelled eggs. “Though if they don’t lay more we’ll surely have to kill them.”

  Presently Jemma spoke again. “I am so glad Ailia is back safe with us again, and feeling better. And yet—everything still seems wrong, somehow! I’m afraid, Jaim. It’s not just the wars, and the talk of invasion—there have always been wars—but now there’s that, as well.” She raised a hand, pointing. They both looked up at the night sky above them, wondrous and terrible with its shower of many long-tailed comets. “Some people say this means the world is ending.”

  “I don’t believe in portents and prophecies,” said Jaimon, as they returned indoors and placed the eggs on the kitchen table. “I don’t think the comets mean anything at all. They’re just a natural phenomenon,” he declared, following his sister into the sickroom.

  “What’s that?” said Nella, looking up as they entered.

  “We’re talking about the comets,” said Jemma. “But, Jaim, what if one of them fell to earth? It would be like the Great Disaster again.” She shuddered. “Whole lands burning up. Comets are made out of fire—”

  “Ice,” Ailia murmured, moving her head from side to side on the pillow.

  “What did she say?” Jaimon asked.

  Nella hastened to the girl’s side. “Something about ice—perhaps the fever’s back?” She felt Ailia’s brow. “No, she’s just a little warm, but will you get another wet cloth for her forehead, Jemma?”

  Ailia stirred and spoke again. “Comets are made out of ice—not fire.”

  “She’s raving again,” said Jemma.

  Seeing the tears gathering in her niece’s eyes, Nella turned brisk. “Just get me the washcloth, please.”

  “I’m sorry, auntie—it’s the worry getting to me. Poor Ailia being so ill, and folk going on about the end of the world—” She swallowed a sob. “I wish it really were the End Times. Then we need only wait to be delivered by the angels. I wish that someone would come, and fight for us.”

  At that moment Ailia’s eyes fluttered open, and they all fell silent as she lay staring upward. Her gaze shifted from the ceiling to their faces, and recognition dawned in her eyes. “Mamma? Jaim, Jemma—

  is it really you? Or am I dreaming still?” she murmured.

  Nella took her hand and held it close. “We’re really here, love—you’re back with us again. Oh, we have been so worried, Ailia!”

  “Why am I in bed? Have I been ill?” Her head tossed from one side to the other, and her cheeks seemed more flushed than before.

  “Yes, dear, but you’re better now,” said Nella. “Here, have a sip of this—” She held a cup of water to the girl’s cracked lips.

  Ailia tried to drink, but choked, and that set off a fit of coughing. “Where am I?” she asked as soon as she had breath. “This isn’t home. What is this place?”

  “It’s a house we have—well, you might say borrowed, since its owners have abandoned it. Lots of empty houses in Raimar these days. But, well, never mind that.”

  “Raimar,” Ailia said softly. “I had forgotten. I was thinking this was the Island.”

  “We found you in a hostel, in the city. You were suffering from fever, and you have been asleep or delirious for nearly two days now. How are you feeling, love?” Nella asked, placing a woolen shawl around Ailia’s shoulders.

  Ailia looked up at her foster mother and essayed a feeble smile. She was still pale from her illness, except for the two spots of color in her cheeks, but her eyes seemed more clear. “I feel . . . so tired, so weak—as if I have been running, but I don’t know from what.” She coughed again and pulled the shawl closer.

  “But wherever have you been all this time?” Jaimon burst out, no longer able to restrain himself.

  “Been?” Ailia looked at him for a moment with blank bewildered eyes. Then she sank slowly back onto the pillow.

  “I can’t remember,” she whispered.

  4

  Fire in the Sky

  “AVATAR. HEAR US.”

  The voices entered Mandrake’s mind, disturbing him as he lay half-asleep and half-submerged. As his eyes slowly opened he believed, for an instant, that he lay in his own watery cavern beneath the Forbidden Palace, in his own world; but then he noted the pale light coming from above, which illuminated the pool and revealed its floor and sides to be smooth, not rocky. Then he remembered: he was reposing in a heated pool in the pleasure gardens of Temendri Alfaran. His armies had taken that world without a struggle—or so they had reported, for he had not been present during the assault, and had arrived to find the moon-world already conquered and the Emperor fled. As he roused and looked about him he saw three familiar figures apparently suspended in the water, a claw’s reach away. Elazar and Elombar, and Naugra the Regent. He opened his jaws and lashed his tail with displeasure, causing the pool’s surface to boil and froth. These invasions of my privacy are intolerable, he rebuked, showing his great teeth.

  The three visitors, being incorporeal images, showed no fear. The Naugra-image said, But Lord Prince, we bring you important news. We have dispatched many flying ships and firedrakes, in your name, to subdue Mera. And we know Ailia is still within that sphere. Now is your chance to defeat her, while she is out of Arainia and cut off from the power it gives to her. This was the whole aim of your campaign in Mera—to lure her into a world where her powers are lessened! You lost your great chance when she was in your power, in Nemorah. Do not squander another opportunity!

  The dragon thrust his clawed feet against the pool’s stone floor and surfaced, spouting like a whale. Above him the night of Temendri Alfaran blazed, as bright almost as its day: lit by swarms of stars webbed within blue and pale purple nebulae, and by the giant ringed world of Alfaran that at present filled all the eastern sky. Mandrake emerged from the pool, and shook the water from his wings and mane. “I have done as you desired. I came to Temendri Alfaran to seize the throne from Orbion Imperator, only to find him fled. My journey here was futile, even if you did claim this world for us. And in any case, did you not desire me to go to Ombar next?” He roared as he spoke, and strode away from the pool into a grave of flower-trees. Their blooms were fading, falling to the ground, for this region of the dragon-world was approaching its autumn. Many of the ephemeri, the plant-creatures that flew like birds, were also falling to earth: surrendering their brief winged lives, to be transformed into seeds. The sight of their impotent fluttering made him melancholy.

  The three ethereal images followed him, floating in the air like ghosts. “We would have had you go to Ombar first, and leave Temendri Alfaran for another day,” Elombar said, drifting at his side. “Orbion is aged and ailing, and not so great a threat to you as is the Tryna Lia. In my sphere there is a power that can make you more than Ailia’s equal, should you choose to draw upon it. A sovereign power that is not confined to the sphere of Ombar, like that of Arainia, but can enter into you and go with you anywhere in Talmirennia—even Arainia itself. But you must come here and accept it first. I shall await you in the old city of the Archons that lies near the zone of shadow, along with Elazar. You have long desired to meet with us in person, you say, and you shall have your wish. But only if you come to Ombar.”

  “You are not Archons,” the dragon rumbled. “The Old Ones are long dead.”

  “Well, then, you have nothing to fear from us. Why do you not come?” said Elombar.

  “I do not fear you!” he bellowed, stopping short and half-unfurling his wings.

  But he lied.

  “I am glad to hear it; but the longer you delay our meeting the more it appears that you are afraid. The armies of Ombar await your command. We have slain all those in our world that defied us or would not own you l
ord: none will now dare to disobey. But the Morugei would behold their ruler with their own eyes, and your followers in Mera also await you: both those that are in open rebellion against Ailia, and others that bide their time in secret. We have prepared for your coming for many centuries. Come, and take what is yours!”

  Had the Morugei not seen him? He thought he recalled processing through a street in one of their worlds shortly after he agreed to claim his title, in human form, hailed by clamorous hordes—but had that truly happened? Now that he had learned to wear draconic shape all the time, his memory of his human life was growing curiously blurred. Sometimes he felt as though his dragon-form was not only imposing its strange senses and appetites on him but actually taking on a will of its own, causing him to be more than ever estranged from himself. Might a day not come when he was no longer Mandrake at all, but a creature entirely different in mind as well as in body? It was a troubling thought. But for the moment the dread of human frailty overpowered all other fears.

  So: at last he could meet the “demons” face-to-face, instead of discoursing with their ethereal phantoms. It was no bluff: they would not make the invitation if they could not indeed assume the material forms they projected. He had but to go to Ombar to confront them at last, learn who they truly were. Was this their answer to his many challenges? He had accused them of attempting to deceive him, and of hiding their true forms from him, but now if he did not accept their invitation it would look as though he were afraid of them. They lost nothing by refusing to come before him, for it was not shameful for them to fear him—the Avatar, the incarnation of the rebel god, commander of demons. It was he who lost face by appearing to avoid them. He would be shamed into going to Ombar—and what then? Did they believe, perhaps, that their physical presence would intimidate him? Or had they something more drastic in mind? A projection could do no harm: to work sorcery on another, one must be present in the flesh . . . But no, that was nonsense. They would not hurt or kill him even if they could, for he was their precious Avatar, and central to their long-laid schemes. No doubt this was but their way of bringing him to heel. One thing was certain: they were no mere illusions as he had hoped, nor were they lowly goblin-servants of Naugra’s. The goblin-race had many magical skills, but they consisted for the most part of glaumerie and other kinds of trickery. These two were shape-shifters, from the strange forms they took: and only the greatest of Nemerei could wield that power. It was plain too that they did not truly fear him, despite the power he wielded; and that alone was cause for him to be afraid.