Wings of Flame

by Nancy Springer

  Auron shook his head, silenced, and Kyrem could not see the bleakness of his face. For his own part, Kyrem looked as pale as the mist wraiths over the Ril Melantha.

  “It was no use anyway,” he mumbled. “She was already gone. I don’t know what they did to her. She just … faded away.”

  Without preamble the trees to either side of them burst into flame with a roar like that of great wings.

  The horses reared before their startled riders could control them. The men clung on by the manes, brought the steeds down, forced them forward once again as more blackthorn trees blazed up with fire that popped and sizzled through their crooked boughs, making a blinding trail of flame all the way up to the mountaintop. Kyrem sent Omber straight through it, sensing challenge and rising to it scornfully. But then, in the very midst of the fire, they came to a barrier they could not comprehend.

  They could see nothing, but they all felt it and came to a halt. It might as well have been made of stone, whatever it was; it barred them. They ventured along the steep terrain to one side and then the other, the fire following them each time. The barrier stood there as well.

  “A wall of will,” said Kyrem. “Nothing more.”

  The horses were becoming frantic. When they could be driven forward by legs and heels, they were manageable, but standing still under scorching flames and burning, falling thorns, they could no longer be restrained; they reared and fought, and all the riders’ energies were bent toward controlling them. Only Kyrem seemed to have any inner strength to spare, strength of grief and rage. He brought Omber around to face the invisible barrier, and then, with a wild shout and a body clenched hard as rock, he sent the stallion plunging through.

  Auron went with him, willy-nilly, hanging to his waist. And Kyrillos leaped his thick-necked charger through on Omber’s heels with a lion’s roar of his own. The others could not manage it. They let their maddened horses turn and run away, down the mountain, out of the fire, and the fire no longer followed them.

  “We are within the shadow of that enmity,” Kyrem murmured to himself or Auron or his father.

  A mighty presence sought to crush them with its weight, its curse, its hatred. Hot fires of hatred. Fire filled the mountaintop, and the curse bore down on them like molten lead. They sagged under the weight of its unseen presence, and the horses slowed to the slowest of walks, their heads hanging, in spite of all urgings. And even though fire seared all around them, the way seemed almost as dark as night.

  “We have to get out of this,” Kyrem said, perhaps to himself, a small note of panic in his voice.

  “Let him wear himself out on us,” Auron said in reply, speaking directly into the youth’s ear, his voice labored but calm. “We can withstand his worst. That is all I am good for any more, lad—enduring.”

  They endured, and the horses took them at a snail’s pace forward until they came out of the burning trees into a stony clearing on the mountaintop. Heat and the leaden weight of unseen hatred fell away from them and their heads came up as, with a scream, the demons attacked them.

  More than a dozen demons. Their hard, heavy black hooves hung down on their yellow legs, swinging like maces as they swooped low, shrieking and going for the head. Kyrem, who had witnessed this mode of attack once before, crouched over Omber’s neck, pulling Auron down behind him, and sent the stallion cantering forward. Kyrillos drew his curved slashing sword and joined battle with the horse-headed birds.

  The old man awaited Kyrem at the gloomy entrance of the cave.

  The prince brought Omber to a halt and stared at him, all other sensations lost in surprise. The frailty of this ancient, his limbs protruding thin and twiggy from under a patched and grimy robe, his back hunched, his head emaciated and the thin hair on it grizzled with age. He seemed one to pity and succor rather than one to fear. But his colorless eyes stared far too bright from out of a brown and expressionless face, and Kyrem remembered how he had at first scorned Auron.

  Warily he slid down from Omber to face his adversary. Auron remained on the horse.

  “Why have you killed Seda, old man?” Kyrem asked, his voice low, his eyes never leaving those of the one he faced. “And why do you curse us with your enmity?”

  For answer the Nameless One only stretched his lips, baring his teeth in a mirthless rictus. He stirred, slightly lifting the arms that hung at his sides, and the sorrel rocks of the mountaintop began to move. Omber neighed in panic as his footing shifted under him, and Auron hastily grasped hold of his mane. From somewhere behind them Kyrillos gave an alarmed shout. Kyrem did not glance around to see how the others were faring; he did not dare to take his gaze from the sorcerer he faced.

  “So you command the forces of earth,” he said to him. “It seems that I must learn to do that as well. You have taught me much.” Power of his youthful will swelled within him, and he also raised his arms, though only as high as his waist, his hands spread in a calming gesture, palms downward.

  “Kimiel, be still,” he murmured, eyes intent but open and focused. At the same time, his adversary twitched his arms a bit higher, and the uproar of the earth increased. Trees began to sway and rocks to crack and yawn. Thin lips pulled back in a wider grin.

  “Anka, be still,” said Kyrem sharply, and all fell to silence with a thud. For a moment a flicker of surprise showed in the bent old man’s bright eyes.

  “Press, Kyrem,” Auron said crisply.

  It was too late. Already the ancient had regained his mental footing, and his was the next move. Fire and earth he had attempted already. Next came air. He lifted his skeletal arms above his nearly fleshless head and fluttered them like wings. So frail were his bones that with the wide arms of his threadbare robe trailing about them, they looked nearly translucent, like cloud wisp in wind, almost like the wings of a bird—

  With a demented wail, a wild wind arose, the most keening and desperate of winds, the hot, strength-sapping south wind, and on the wings of the wind came birds by the thousands, starlings mostly, their own wings helpless, outspread but twisted, feathers awry, broken. Their squawking assaulted the ears of those on the mountaintop and the scorched, fusty smell of them stung their nostrils and the yellow of their beaks came at their eyes and their sooty bodies pelted them like stones, filling the air, a feathery up-piling hot flood of birds, eerily horrible. Kyrem felt as though he were choking, boiling, drowning in them, and he realized all in a searing moment that he was exhausted. Weeks and wounds and sorrow had drained him; he stood no more than a weary youth, callow and shaking.

  Auron sat safe on Omber’s back. “Auron,” the prince appealed, “help!”

  “I’m sorry, lad.” Auron’s voice sounded thin in the shrieking mistral. “I am just a cipher these days. You are on your own.”

  With a shock Kyrem realized that he would not have come to this mountaintop so boldly if it were not for the comforting feel of Auron’s presence behind him. “You might have told me sooner!” he cried.

  “I tried. Hurry, lad, your father—”

  Wind or demon had unhorsed Kyrillos.

  Sudden strength of rage poured through Kyrem, wrath—whether more at Auron or the old man, he could not tell; it did not matter. He was rock hard and immense with strength, and power filled him with a fiery sheen. “By Suth,” he shouted, “now you spirit of the simurgh, cease!” And in the instant he spoke, the wind dropped to a dead calm and the birds flew away, crying plaintively, except for those whose bodies littered the ground. And the old man fell down against the stone lip of his cave—the sudden cessation of the storm had unbalanced him. Kyrem strode over to him and stood straddle-legged, towering over his enemy.

  “Old One,” he said grimly, “think not of water now, for that is my element.”

  Kyrillos came up to stand by his son, for the black horse-headed birds had flown away with the others. And Auron slipped down from Omber’s back. And crouching like a verminous, cornered animal, the old man did nothing but stare. His lips covered his yellow teeth now. For
a long moment they all stared, until at last they realized what had happened.

  “Kyrem,” Auron whispered, “you have called him truly, and he obeys you.”

  Kyrem comprehended at the same moment, reached down swiftly and caught the sorcerer by the cloth of his robe, jerking him upright.

  “Old One,” he demanded, “why have you killed Seda? What is your grudge?”

  The old man spoke in the dry, rasping voice of defiance. “Curse you, Devan dog. Curse you, people of Suth. Die—”

  But Kyrem was still in plenitude of power, and the curses came back at the curser, choking him. He stopped, his eyes wide and glaring. Kyrem glared back for a moment, then tugged his prisoner inside the cave, the others following. There they found filth, dung; and an empty shackle against a stony wall. The sight maddened Kyrem. He shoved the old man up against the hard red rock.

  “Why?” he shouted. “Why have you killed her?”

  At first the Old One seemed not to hear. Then he let out a wild cackle of laughter. “Die, Devan dog! Shun-shun-shuntali! Shun-shun-shuntali!” he chanted, for all the world like one of his cursing demons. “Shuntali! Shuntali! Nihil est—she is dead. She does not exist.”

  Before Auron could stop him, Kyrem had cuffed the grizzled head that lay against the dung-streaked wall. The old man grinned like a skull and spat out a dark vomit of blood. Essence of his life had been in his final efforts, and it was all spent. He laughed again and quietly, spitefully, died. Wordlessly they stood staring at the body, and when Kyrem let it go, it slid down the cave wall to lie in a bony jumble at his feet.

  A large owl sat on a ledge near the roof of the cave, looking on. It had not left with the caged birds, for it was no prisoner. It simply lived there, a wild thing, depositing little pellets of mouse bone and fur among the other droppings on the floor.

  From her refuge in the laurel not far away, she who had been named Seda looked on as well.

  Kyrem gave in. Stricken by sorrow, wounded, spent by weeks of striving and a day full of combat, once more the hurt child for a while, he turned to his father, sobbed briefly and collapsed. Kyrillos caught him and carried him to the cleaner air outside, where he laid him down. The prince did not come to himself. He lay in stupor and fever, and his father and Auron tended him far into the night.

  A few at a time the stragglers of Kyrillos’s retinue found their liege. They cleared away the broken bodies of many starlings, and they brought food. Sentries were set; they stood guard all around, against what they could not say, for the enemy was vanquished, slain or put to rout, but still they stood guard. Against death? A small camp fire had been built, and by it Auron sat, his hands on Kyrem’s burning head.

  “Can you not heal him?” Kyrillos pleaded.

  “Can you not see that I am trying to heal him?” Auron answered in a low voice. “But that power is gone from me, all my powers are gone utterly, I am but an empty husk, no king and not even man. It is as that renegade had said; I am a blasphemer.”

  “Because you rode a horse?” Kyrillos’s voice rose impatiently. “What nonsense. Try harder.”

  “It is gone, I say.” Auron withdrew his hands, turned away his face. When Kyrillos spoke again, his tone was gentler.

  “Well, go to sleep then. It makes no sense that we should both be up all night. The lad is tough; he will mend. I will take a turn at guard.” Kyrillos strode off into the surrounding blackthorn forest, and finally, for a little while, Auron slept.

  The night is very dark a few hours before dawn, and this was a black and moonless night. The sentries gave no alarm when a nameless thing crept quietly out of the underbrush and stole food from the kings’ camp. Auron awoke and saw it as the shadow of a bad dream. But it hitched away as he blinked, and it was not seen again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kyrem lay in a stupor of sickness for three days, but his fever gradually abated, and before long, Kyrillos and Auron knew he would be well. He took water and nourishment, and the third evening he eased from restless illness into a deeper and more natural slumber. He slept soundly through the night, then awoke groggily at dawn to stare at the two kings who sat companionably at the embers of the fire, watching the brightening sky.

  “I thought you were supposed to be enemies,” he mumbled.

  “Auron is the best of enemies,” Kyrillos said gruffly. He came over and touched his son’s forehead. He knew well enough that the fever was down, but he needed an excuse for the caress. “Auron has been explaining some things to me,” he added. “Lad, I am truly sorry about the girl.”

  “Seda. Yes. So am I.” Kyrem closed his eyes tightly in pain, thinking of her. “We were far too late to help her. My shame …” He could scarcely speak. “I did not believe in such an enemy. Malice, no reason … I could not believe.”

  “And I believed and could not go forth against him.” Auron came over and sat down on the rocky ground beside them, weary but oddly composed, accepting of all that had happened. “I might as well have been a stone statue in that palace, a fixture,” he added. “Not until you king of Deva came to knock me loose.…”

  Kyrem came out of pain for the time, opened his eyes and looked at his father.

  “Did you really come searching for me?”

  “Of course!” Kyrillos’s voice shook, and to his chagrin, he found himself close to tears, making that affirmation. The sight of his son threatened to loose a flood of tears in him, for too many years had passed without any.

  “Do you understand your father now, Kyrem?” Auron asked. “Sometimes it is necessary for a man to stand back for a while—”

  “Speak for yourself,” Kyrillos grumped. A hard edge helped to bring his voice under control. “The truth is, lad, I have been several kinds of an ass in my life, and all of them are starting to catch up to me. Do you remember Alim, your old nurse?”

  “Of course. Is she still well?”

  “She’s fine. She used to coddle all you boys, or so I thought. Don’t mother them so, I’d bark at her. I had never had a mother and it did me no harm.…”

  “And she would tell you that you didn’t know how much harm it had done you.” Kyrem smiled at the memory.

  “Yes. Well, she was quite right.” Kyrillos took a deep breath, trying to retain his fragile serenity. “Fortunately, she paid no heed to me at all, and she mothered you all she liked. I was always brusque with you boys, afraid of the way I … the way I loved you.”

  “And Auron?” Kyrem asked quietly after a moment. “What has happened between you and him?”

  “It took me years to look beyond the tip of my own pugnacious nose and see that Auron is—well, what you know him to be.”

  “Wise and true.”

  “That and much more.”

  “You could have told me,” Kyrem complained.

  “No, I could not. You had to come to terms with him yourself. But there were other things,” Kyrillos added awkwardly, “that I could have told you.”

  “Everything except why he had chosen you out,” Auron interceded. “You see, Kyrem, your father and I had agreed that his favorite son should be my heir, since I have none.”

  “Auron, hush,” Kyrillos growled. “You’ve stunned the lad, and he weak and grieving still.”

  “It will do him good to know how highly we have both thought of him,” Auron said.

  Kyrem slowly sat up, grappling with one concept at a time. “Favorite?” he whispered.

  “Yes, Ky,” his father answered. “I cherish all my lads,” he added judiciously, “but there is no denying that you have been special to me. Your mother—” The king stopped.

  “Who was she?”

  “Heart. All heart.” Kyrillos looked away. “I miss her still.”

  He could not or would not tell her name. Auron interceded again.

  “Vashti needs the vigor your youth and prowess can bring it. The people walk like donkeys in the paths of the priests—but you are not one long to abide Nasr Yamut and his ways. And you shall be the emblem and
agent of fertility for a sterile land.”

  “Your heir?” Kyrem whispered, marveling, and Auron laid a kind hand on his knee.

  “My heir and adopted son. No longer will there be war between Deva and Vashti.”

  Over the eastern steppes the sun came up.

  They talked no more, the three of them, until they had eaten. Kyrem ate everything they gave him. Then he stood up shakily and went down to the stream and bathed. When he returned, they could see that he felt stronger.

  “The bodies have been cleared away from below the force,” he said.

  “Yes. The men have been busy.” Kyrillos stared, for he knew Kyrem had not been that far afoot. “How did you know, lad?”

  “I—I can sense things these days, sometimes. You have left the Old One in his cave.”

  “True. We piled the loose rock over him, the stones he jarred free with his earthquake. It seemed fitting.”

  Kyrem shrugged. “And Seda’s bones lie nowhere hereabouts,” he murmured.

  “No. We searched for some few miles, but—” Kyrillos stopped with his hand upraised in a sort of appeal. “She could be anywhere, lad.”

  “I know. I have searched all around with my mind for as far as it can reach, and I find nothing on this mountain except horses and creatures of the wild.” Kyrem sat down by the fire with them. “I wanted only to mark her grave.…”

  “Exactly what are your powers these days, lad?” Auron asked quietly.

  “My powers?” Kyrem blinked. “Why, much the same as ever, I suppose, except that I had to learn to deal with yon old man.”

  “Ah, yes,” remarked Kyrillos. “Except.”

  “The most formidable of old men,” said Auron. “For a month and more you were able to withstand his malice and elude the focus of his mind, and you grew to sense his presence and whereabouts and the presence of Seda in his cave, and in the end you withstood his every weapon and vanquished him. And now you are a seer. Think of Avedon, Kyrem. What are the priests doing?”

  Kyrem smiled in wonder and amusement. “I cannot see that far,” he said.