by Alison Baird
“I think perhaps it need not be slain or conquered,” said Ailia. “What if it could be tamed?”
“Tamed?” He frowned.
“Made subordinate to my will, but allied with it, so that I might draw on its strengths.”
“That would be very dangerous. Mandrake too thought he could command the beast within, and he ended by becoming a beast.” And you came close to it, he added with his eyes alone—not accusing, but gently warning her.
She looked down, not able to meet his gaze. “I am so glad you are back with us, Damion. Back home, as it were.”
“It isn’t really my home,” he answered, his blue eyes growing distant. “I was never more than a sojourner on this plane. Much of the time it horrified me with its cruelty. I returned because I was asked to do so by you. But this is not my place, not anymore.”
“You wish to return to the Ether?” Her heart sank within her.
“It is my true home.” He saw her look, and went to put his arm about her. “And yours also. Will you go back there with me, when this is all ended?”
She looked up at him, and then down at her body, viewing it as if it were a separate creature and feeling a strange pity for it. It wanted to do all those things for which it was made: to live on this plane, to love, to bear children. To become an Archon again meant to abandon all that she had become through her incarnation . . . The mere thought filled her with sorrow. “I—don’t know,” she answered. “I had not thought of what will come after, if I live. I suppose I must return.”
He turned to look away into the depths of the jungle. “Have you noticed how he’s changing back again?” Lorelyn had said to her earlier. “The way he stands, and talks, and walks? He’s becoming more, well, Damionish.” Perhaps he was. But as she gazed at him now, at the clean, comely lines of his profile, chin, and throat; at the blue of his eye, at the way his fair hair grew on the nape of his neck, she thought how all these things were the same as before, and yet he was not. He was the child of an angel, and now a full Elaia; it was curious how she had sensed that otherworldly quality in him from the first time she saw him in the chapel, without knowing who and what he was. Eons ago, as it felt to her now . . . He had returned, and in a way he had not; it was the same Damion who stood beside her, and not the same. He was farther from her now than ever before. She felt a stirring of anxiety. Have I regained him only to lose him once and for all? Or will I change too?
Ailia lifted her face to the sky, as if seeking the hidden stars. I don’t ask for life—I have loved the mortal son of an angel—befriended a dragon, and ascended to Heaven on his back—lived as a princess in a palace—it has been wonderful, all of it. Few have lived as I have, though they may have lived longer. I asked that my life be a story, and I have had my wish. I will ask nothing more. I will only do what I must do. She still shrank from that destiny, that decreed she must be murderer or victim. But if it were the price for this mortal life with which she had been gifted, then she would pay it.
There came a sudden commotion from the far end of the camp: shouts and yells and the sound of running feet. Ailia, grateful for the diversion, hastened toward the scene with Damion following. “What is it?” she asked.
“The guards have caught something,” said a Paladin. “Some creature stole into the camp—one of your venomous beasts, perhaps. I’ve never seen anything like it,” added the man, looking a trifle revolted.
A loud squalling filled the air and Ailia, recognizing the sound, rushed toward it.
“Twidjik!” she cried, seeing the amphisbaena struggling wildly in the grip of several men. “No, let it go—I know this creature. It saved my life!”
They released Twidjik and he crawled toward her chittering. “Sorceress lady—we heard you were coming again. Don’t let them harm us.”
“No one will hurt you,” said Ailia, kneeling beside him. “You are safe here, Twidjik.”
“We must stay here. We daren’t go back—the Dragon King, he grows more terrible each day—all go in fear of him. Palace people have fled—the city is emptying—strange things are happening. We are afraid!”
“There, you can stay with me now,” Ailia reassured him.
“Are you sure the creature is not a spy, Trynel?” asked one of the Paladins.
Ailia briefly entertained the thought that Twidjik might hold a grudge against her, considering her treatment of him while she was under the influence of the philter. But she decided against this. “Mandrake has other, better ways of spying on us,” she said. “And Twidjik has given aid to me in the past, at great risk to himself.”
She went back to her tent, Twidjik following. “Tell me, do you know what became of Mag and her daughter?” she asked. “The woman from the inn, who cared for you?”
“They safe, both. The woman send us through jungle to find you, when she hear your army come. She want you should know about Overseer.”
“The Overseer?” The human ruler of the city of Loänanmar, deposed by Mandrake. “You mean he has come back?”
“Yes, yes—come with army. He wish to fight Dragon King, take back city. He has army, many many men. But not enough, we think.”
“Do you know where they are now?”
“No. But Mag and her daughter, they know. Daughter has been with his people in jungle, in camp. She help cook food for them.”
“I see. Could you take me to Mag?”
“Yes, yes. She want see you, very much. And daughter Mai can take you to Overseer. But maybe he not let you near. He very strict about who may come and go. Mag says he not believe in Tryna Lia, nor sky-army.”
“Well, he should be glad to learn that we are real, for we can add our forces to his, and help him win back Loänanmar. That is why we are here: not only to conquer the Dragon King, but to free those under his rule.”
“Very good. You come, then?”
“Yes. Lead the way, and I will follow. Is it very far?”
“Many days.”
She smiled. “By foot perhaps, but not if my dragon friend takes us.”
Ailia set out a dish of food for the creature, and then went to talk to her friends and the army’s leaders.
“I can trust this messenger,” she said. “He’s Twidjik, the amphisbaena who helped me.”
“What is an amphisbaena, Highness?” asked a knight who had not seen Twidjik arrive.
She smiled. “A sort of two-headed monster. Don’t look so alarmed! He is quite small, and will be far more frightened of you than you are of him. He says he can lead me to a gathering of rebels, in another hidden camp in the jungle.”
“You should take a company of soldiers with you, Highness,” advised Taleera. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“No—I think it will be better if I go alone. They might be afraid.”
Auron said, “I will fly you there, and then go with you to the camp in human form.”
“And I too,” offered Damion. “They won’t fear a small group, if we are unarmed.”
Her other friends also wished to accompany her, but Auron advised against it. “As few of us as possible should go,” he said. “And Jomar has a rather threatening aspect, and can be somewhat aggressive.”
Jomar was about to argue, then realized he would only be confirming Auron’s point. “Right, then. I’ll fetch the Thing and tell it to lead the way,” he said with a shrug.
“He’s not a thing,” reproved Lorelyn. “He’s an amphisbaena.”
“Thing takes less time to say.” He headed off through the camp.
AURON FLEW WITH AILIA AND DAMION on his great golden back, while Twidjik perched in Ailia’s lap craning both his necks to look for familiar features in the landscape below. At last he indicated a place of many old ruins about ten leagues from their own encampment. All three of the Nemerei could feel the presence of iron in that place: perhaps it was only in use in tools and cook pots, or lay deep in the earth itself. But it hampered Auron’s flight. He descended with some difficulty into the trees—their branches caught
at the webs of his huge wings—and waited as his three passengers climbed down. “I cannot join you,” he said. “The iron inhibits me from taking any other form, and the humans will be frightened of a dragon. I will wait here, and if you are not back in a few hours I will assume you have been captured, and come to your aid.”
Ailia and Damion thanked him. Then they followed the amphisbaena through the jungle. Presently they smelled the cook fires of the camp, and heard many voices. The refugees from the city had gathered in a large cleared space, filled with the stumps of fresh-cut trees. Twidjik led them into the midst of the encampment.
Ailia saw a familiar face bent over one of the stew pots. “Mag!” she cried, rushing forward.
Hearing her call, the dark-haired woman started and looked up from the pot. “Lia, is that you? Lia!” she cried, throwing down her ladle and looking all about her. “Where are you?”
“I’m here, Mag—I’ve come back!”
The woman started to run toward her, and then she halted in bewilderment, looking full at Ailia without recognition. Of course: in her delight at seeing her friend, Ailia had forgotten that Mag had known her only in a glaumerie guise. The illusory “Lia” had looked altogether different, round-featured and dark of hair and eye. “It’s I, Mag, truly it is!” Ailia said, going up to her. “I had to alter my looks before, but I am the same person you knew. Listen to my voice. It hasn’t changed.” Mag continued to gaze at her in wonder.
“Ah—it’s true what they said,” she murmured. “You are not at all as you appeared to be.”
“I am sorry to have deceived you, dear Mag. But I was alone and afraid. If I had known you a little better then I would have trusted you with my secrets.”
“Bless you! I’m not blaming you. It’s only—it’s a little hard to understand. But your voice is just the same. It’s true, isn’t it—what that little old man said about you?”
She meant Auron, Ailia knew. Mag had never seen him except in human form. “You mean that I am the Tryna Lia? Yes, it is true.”
“Some of our old tales mention her. But I thought she was a sort of goddess.”
“Not exactly. I am a sorceress, and I come from a world called Arainia. This is my friend Damion, who has also lived there.”
“When we heard the rumors about your army, and the dragons and all, we sent Twidjik off to see if he could find you,” Mag told her.
“I am glad you did. Mag, I wish you would come away with me—you and Mai.” Ailia’s eyes shifted to a slender young girl who had emerged from the crowd, and now stood shy and wordless at her mother’s side. “To my own world. They would take care of you there.”
“Thank you so much, but I don’t feel right about leaving with my people in this fix. Take Mai, if you’d be so kind. But I will stay.”
“We are here to help your people, Mag. That is why we came. To help you, and to end the Dragon King’s reign.”
“I expect you’ll want to meet with the Overseer, then. There are folk here who know where he is living in hiding. Mai’s young man, for one.”
“Young man?” asked Ailia.
“The boy she loves: Teren, his name is. He’s a rebel, one of their army, and visits here to bring her food and give us news. He’s here now, if you want to meet him.”
MAI INTRODUCED THEM TO TEREN, who agreed to lead them through the dense groves to the rebel camp. The youth was as beautiful as the girl, with eyes of the same liquid brown hue as hers and skin like dark honey, and Mai clung close to him as they walked, gripping his hand in hers. Ailia felt a pang of unexpected poignancy as she observed this. Was it fear for these two young lovers that she felt, knowing the dangers they faced from the coming war, and the threat of loss and an end to their happiness? Or was it envy that they had this happiness, even for a little while, even to lose it at the last? She wondered if Damion felt any such regret, or if his altered nature was no longer sensible of such things. Casting her eyes down, she strove not to look at their guides, or at the fair young Archon who walked with her.
At last Teren stopped, challenged by a curious cry from deep within the trees. It sounded like and not like an animal’s shrill scream, and as Ailia and Damion stood watching he returned a similar call. “The guards,” he said to his followers, glancing back at them with his splendid eyes, that now looked to Ailia dark and wary as an antelope’s. “They have heard us coming, and would have shot us with arrows had I not called right away. The Overseer will take no chances. He may not let you approach him, I fear.”
There were rustling sounds to either side of them, but no figures could be seen through the thick screens of leaves and vines. Teren and Mai walked on. After fifty more paces one of the Loänei ruins could be seen: a beehive-shaped hill that had been carved without and hollowed within to form a fortress. At its low, dark door two Cynocephali in human armor stood guard. Both dog-men lowered their halberds threateningly, and showed their yellow fangs at the sight of the strangers. The guard on the left growled, but the one on the right suddenly spoke in Elensi, to Ailia’s astonishment. “Strangers come,” it said in a thick slurred voice. It was speaking not to them, but to someone inside the fortress.
An unkempt man in shabby clothing emerged from the damp dark chamber within and stood at the entrance, leaning against the side of the doorway and watching the visitors with a surly, indolent expression. Ailia stiffened when she saw his face.
“I know that man!” she exclaimed, turning to Damion. “His name is Radmon Targ. He is a robber and murderer.”
“He is high in the Overseer’s favor,” Teren warned. “I would not object to his presence, were I you. It will not endear you to his master.”
Ailia thought back to her days in Loänanmar, to the squalor and cruelty that had reigned there, in large part due to the Overseer and his thuggish followers. What allies are we making here? she wondered in dismay. Will they turn the city into a place of misery again, this time with our aid?
Radman leered at Mai, watching the youth beside her with one mocking eye as he did so. “Well, if it isn’t the witch’s daughter! You should stay away from that young lad, Mai-girl. He’ll get you killed, traipsing all over the jungle with you. You can do better, my love.” His baiting words were aimed not at the girl, but at the boy, who stood tall and protective at her side.
Teren would not be drawn, however. “These people wish to see the Overseer,” he said in his quiet voice. “And if he knows what is good for him he will see them.”
“They can help,” Mai broke in. “They are sorcerers, both of them, and they have brought their own army from beyond the world.”
“I know Brannion Duron does not believe in such things,” Ailia hastened to add. “But we ask him at least to grant us audience.”
Another person appeared out of the darkness within the doorway: a woman older than Mai, with slightly darker skin and long black hair bound in a single braid. It was apparent that she had been listening, for without wasting words she dismissed the guards, and then directed the strangers to follow her. Within the entrance there was a passage, lit at intervals with torches, and at its end a curtained doorway led to a large domed chamber that must lie at the heart of the hill. In it a middle-aged man with olive skin and a grizzled beard sat at a table reading a roll of parchment by candlelight. Ailia recognized the beetling brow and sternly cast features: she had seen them before, in a bronze statue of Duron in the city of Loänanmar. Here, it seemed, was the metal man-made flesh: but still the flesh somehow appeared to her as hard as the bronze, its features as unyielding and grim. This was not a man to cross, she sensed, and she remembered what Mag had told her of his violent victory over the theocrats years ago.
He spoke without glancing up. “Well, Jelynda, what is this you have brought me?”
Their guide bowed low. “This young woman would speak with you. Will you hear her?” she asked.
Ailia stepped forward. “I have come to warn you of a great danger.”
“Silence!” cried Jelynda, scanda
lized. “One does not address the Overseer unbidden!”
The man Duron fixed his dark gaze on Ailia, then he waved Jelynda aside. “I will overlook the infraction for now. What danger do you speak of, girl?” he demanded.
“The Dragon King, whom you are planning to overthrow. He is not a beast, nor a figment of the imagination. Nor is he a god. He is a sorcerer, named Mandrake: a very powerful one.”
“You say nothing that is new to me.” He leaned back in his chair with a sigh of impatience. “Do you know how all this talk of gods began? In ancient days our people were vassals of a race called the Loänei, who claimed to be offspring of the creatures they called dragons. Our people actually worshipped these Loänei, who were mere flesh and blood like themselves—can you believe the foolishness of it? It was easy for the dragon-folk to feign godhood with the help of their sorcery. Oh, yes, I know well that sorcery exists. I forbade any mention of it in Loänanmar after I took the city, not because I myself disbelieved in it, but because I wished to discourage anyone from seeking knowledge of it. There must be no more false gods.”
Ailia thought guiltily of the adulation of her own people in Arainia. Then she recalled the Overseer’s bronze image in the square, and met his eye again. Whatever this man might say, he too had been an object of reverence in his city—and worse, of fear. “If Mandrake were here, he would say the people had been freed merely so that they could tyrannize one another.”
Damion gave her a swift warning look, and she said no more. Brannion Duron took no notice of her comment, but continued, “A few years ago some of the Cynocephali fell into error, showing an unwholesome reverence for an exceptionally large and strong bull in the communal herd they were charged with protecting. Before I knew what was happening, they had begun to worship this animal, placing garlands about its neck and singing its praises. I acted swiftly, ordering my men to slaughter the bull and butcher it before the dog-men’s eyes. This may seem a cruel thing to have done to the Cynocephali, but the lesson was for their own good.”
