by Tom Deitz
Avall gnawed his lip. What they proposed made sense. But why did they have to bring it up now? Surely they could see that this was no time for theory, what with the siege still hanging at a crucial juncture.
Yet the images remained: the images his mind had sieved from the water. Like pools among stones, they were: each reflecting the sky—except that these pools reflected events. Nor could he resist gazing among them. One of them had caught his attention even now: the hold flooded, and the water rising from where the river flowed beneath it, then finding the hidden entrances to the mines that no men knew, and rushing into them, where they found, at last, the deep-hidden seams and veins where the few remaining power gems remained. And when the water touched those gems, it somehow touched all gems that touched the same water. And touched blood in that water as well, and anything in that blood that had met with the gems before.
For the briefest instant, Avall saw all the water in Eron, like a golden network spread across the land. And saw also certain places where parts of that network were brightest.
Places that already had names.
“Wells.”
Avall whispered the word aloud.
“What did you say?” Merryn demanded.
He looked up at her. “Wells. You know that I’ve always said that some of the gem effects feel like what happens when I drink from Wells? I think I know why now—except that I’m not certain I can explain it, except to say that as best I can tell, whatever’s in the gems … may be everywhere. But it’s only in the gems that it’s concentrated enough to have much effect. And only through our blood—and maybe our thought and will—that any of that effect can be manifested.”
He broke off, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, folks; I can’t manage this right now. The war’s come back to haunt me, and we haven’t even finished testing the powers and limits of the gems we’ve got already—and now we find that Zeff has more of the wretched things, and that there are even more beneath Gem-Hold, and that the gems themselves may be influencing events more than we thought. All of which means—I don’t know what it means. One thing it means is that I don’t even know how much of me is me, anymore.”
“The part we love,” Rann said simply. “And what you’ve just said—though I don’t understand half of it with my surface mind—well, it still resonates in my gut. And it confirms what Merry and I came here to urge you to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“You have to go back. More to the point, you have to go back now—as fast as you can. You have to take the sword, the shield, and the helmet and return to the war. It’s hanging on Fate’s thread, Avall. There’s bound to be confusion there—you could probably tell what’s going on there if you dared touch your blood to the water—that’s my guess. But the fact remains. You have to go. At once.”
“The others—”
“If you tell them, we’ll have to discuss everything and argue everything and explain everything,” Merryn said. “Obviously gem power can bring a person—or more—here. Therefore, it can take as many people back.”
“Let me stress that,” Rann added. “You’re going nowhere without me, no arguing, and you need Merryn.”
“Strynn—”
“Is as strong as steel, and she’ll still have all she needs in the way of allies. We’ll come back for them if we can. And if we can’t, they’ll understand. But this can’t wait, Avall. The Ninth Face has literally lost its head, and while I’m certain that there’s a chain of command, that chain is probably kinked up in confusion right now, what with Zeff having vanished. Besides, do you think Tryffon would sit still through all this? This is his chance to push that siege he’s been wanting for eights. Fifteen spans of water half a span deep to an undefendable door. He won’t be able to resist.”
“No,” Avall sighed. “He won’t.”
He rose at that and gazed back toward the impromptu camp a quarter shot up the shore. An eruption of bushes screened part of the group, and none of the rest were watching, intent as they were on Vorinn’s narrative. “I’ll go get Boot,” Merryn volunteered. “I’ll pretend I’m bringing her down to drink. That’s when you can get the regalia.”
Avall rolled his eyes. “You’re asking a lot.”
“No more than I think you can accomplish.”
“Not of me,” Avall flared. “Of the regalia. Of the gems in it. We’ve never used them all at once to jump; we don’t know if they even can, since they all seem to behave differently, and who knows what the combination might do—or not. And even if they can get someone back to Gem, we don’t know if they can take all three of us.”
“And a horse,” Merryn added—“if possible. You’ll need it to make a proper entrance—and maybe to make a proper escape, if it comes to that.”
Avall rolled his eyes again. But by that time, Merryn was already jogging toward the pickets.
Avall gave up thinking. Better not to, for the nonce. There were too many ways to think at once. Better he let instinct take control. Rann seemed to sense his trepidation and laid an arm across his shoulders. “A hand from now, it will all be better.”
“A hand from now everyone I know could be dead,” Avall shot back. “I’m willing to do this because I truly have no choice, given the time frame—but have any of you thought about this in the larger sense? The gems are giving us something for free. Over and over they do that. That can’t be right. There’ll have to be an accounting. One day … who knows? Maybe someone will jump and not come out of the Overworld. Maybe we’ll bond and never be able to separate. Maybe the gems will overwhelm us utterly.”
“Later,” Rann said sadly. “Here comes Merry.”
Merryn was indeed returning, with faithful Boot in tow. And now that she was screened from the rest of the camp, she was wasting no time divesting the mare of the regalia. Rann collected it as she passed it to him. Shield first, then sword, then helmet. “Up you go,” she told Avall, nodding toward the horse.
Avall said nothing at all, simply stuck his foot in the stirrup and vaulted atop Boot’s broad back. Sturdy though she might be, Boot was not a warhorse. He hoped the poor beast was up to this—whatever “this” turned out to be.
Still not speaking, Rann passed Avall the helm, then held the reins while he donned it. Merryn gave him the sword, then Rann the shield. He fumbled for a moment, not having bestrode a horse in full caparison in a while. Nor did the fact that he was trying not to awaken any of the gems make his efforts easier.
But then—far too soon—he was ready.
“One more thing,” Merryn said at last. And with that she passed up Zeff’s severed head. “He’ll have to ride in your lap,” she continued. “Probably not pleasant for you, but you’ll need proof.”
Avall nodded—and tried not to flinch as he nestled Zeff’s head between his crotch and the pommel. It was only so much meat, he told himself. The soul was fled. And thanks to the gems, he knew that the soul—at least in part—outlived the body.
“You two?” he demanded, to distract himself.
“Behind you, if you don’t mind. We’re only going a dozen spans. Boot can manage that.”
Avall was too agitated to argue. If this was going to happen, he wanted it done and over. Yet when he felt Rann slip up behind him, and Merryn slide on farther back—in what had to be a very perilous seat indeed—it seemed too soon.
“Now or never,” Rann whispered in his ear. And before Avall could stop himself, he set heels to Boot’s sides and rode into the river. The middle channel was deepest, but still not deep enough to reach higher than Boot’s breast, which was a problem they had not considered.
“Fate help us now,” Avall muttered. “I can’t.”
And with that he slammed his sword hand into his forehead, tripping the blood trigger there, then clamped down with both hands as hard as he could on sword and shield alike, let go the reins, and—relying on balance alone—thrust both hands into the water, one to either side.
Willpower did the rest.
Wanting this done and over was enough, and “done and over” meant returning to Gem-Hold-Winter.
Avall tried to drag his hands back above the water, but the water knew him, and sang to him, and then it seized him and pulled him apart like waves eating up a sand sculpture at the seashore.
The last thing he saw was mountains above woodland above river. The last thing he heard was Vorinn splashing through the water behind them yelling, “Not without me! Not yet. No!”
CHAPTER XXVI:
LULL BEFORE THE STORM
(NORTHWESTERN ERON: GEM-HOLD-WINTER–NEAR-AUTUMN: DAY II–SHORTLY PAST NOON)
“What just happened?” Ahfinn demanded of the tall soldier standing at his right, who was gazing, as was he, at the chaos that had just engulfed the dueling ground. Empty chaos, perhaps—for the focus of that duel had vanished. Yet even now the square was filling with eight men from two factions, all rushing forward in utter confusion to stare over the platform’s side into less than a span of water, where, it appeared, two other men had, not ten breaths earlier, vanished without a trace.
“It’s the same thing that happened the other time,” the soldier told Ahfinn sourly, reaching for his sword. “And curse them for it, too. Damned tricksters.”
“I’m not so certain,” Ahfinn retorted through a scowl. “Did you see Vorinn’s face when—?”
“All I saw was his blood on his hand,” the guard gritted. “All I want to see is his head.”
“Orders,” someone panted at Ahfinn’s other side. “Do you have orders?”
Ahfinn blinked at the man. And only then did he realize that he was now facing the impossible responsibility that Zeff had laid on him that morning in Gem-Hold’s assembly hall, before most of the Ninth Face force in residence.
“I go to fight,” Zeff had announced. “I go to meet our foe in order to end this impasse. We could all fight here, and many could die, and still nothing would be accomplished. Or I can fight their champion. I have that in my possession which all but assures my victory. Our foes have nothing but pride. They sought to trick us with false goods, but we have seen through their deception, and any weapon they may have with them, be assured that we have better. I will be our champion because this has been my venture from the first, and because the law of our order demands that no man ask of another what he would not himself willingly undertake. I have always been a fighter. I will fight.”
Silence had followed—for a moment. Then, from a young woman: “And if you lose?”
“There are better warriors in this hold, and better scholars, and better theologians. But there is not a better man to oversee all these things than Ahfinn. He will take my place. His orders will be my orders.” A pause, then: “Torai, you will retain command of all strategy and tactics, save that Ahfinn himself will ordain fight or flight. Ganaron, you oversee our hostages. Pyvv: supplies. And now,” he had concluded. “I go to prepare for this battle. I will see you all at dinner—where we will all laugh at how moot these orders have been.”
Moot indeed! Ahfinn snorted as he pondered the unhappy present. The whole mess had begun to unwind when Vorinn had tricked Zeff out of the rest of the regalia. Not that Zeff had really had any choice once affairs had been set in motion. But he could have anticipated, could have established a contingency.
And now …
“Orders,” someone prompted.
“Secure the hold,” Ahfinn yelled back from pure reflex. Then, to a young man who had come rushing down the stairs, and who he knew to be one of the lookouts: “What’s Eron doing? Not those we can see, those we can’t!”
“Milling about like ants whose hill has been upset. But they’re armed. I saw swords everywhere—drawn, and those who wield them pressing forward.”
“Into the gap? Or have they come through it already?”
“They’re as … hesitant as we, it seems. I think what just happened surprised them as much as it did us. I—”
“They are gone, sir,” a young man panted, having just run up the pontoon bridge from the dueling square. Ahfinn recognized him as one of the seconds—the one with Zeff’s helm, in fact, which he still bore. Ahfinn snatched it impulsively but did not put it on. A ring of gems sparkled on the forehead. Zeff had set them there, trusting no one else, relying on smithcraft learned in his youth. The rest was Avall’s work—in replica. And still the most beautiful helm Ahfinn had ever seen.
“Someone give me a sword,” Ahfinn snapped. “And bring Zeff’s shield—the one he should have worn in that accursed duel. I’m no soldier, but it’s still my duty to lead. And if I die, that is my duty as well.”
Both shield and sword appeared, as if by magic. Ahfinn paused to sheathe the sword in his belt, then, with the shield in one hand and the helm in the other, strode onto the pontoon bridge. “Dammit! Secure the bloody hold!” he shouted, as he reached the center, turning around to face the arcade’s door. “And get this water rising; Tryffon’s bound to be scenting blood. Now find me a herald and prepare for attack. I’m going to try to parley, but I want a secure hold at my back. Move every archer we’ve got to this end. And get the hostages back on the galleries. No, never mind. We don’t have time for that.”
And with those orders still ringing in the air, he continued on, trying to match his steps to the bounce-and-jounce of the bridge, and not entirely succeeding. He met Zeff’s remaining seconds there, looking as confused and apprehensive as he felt. The Royalists clumped at the other end of the platform, near the causeway, looking no more certain of what had transpired than Ahfinn’s men.
“What happened?” Ahfinn demanded. “Are they—?”
“Truly gone, as far as I can tell,” a Ninth Face warrior replied. “They hit the water, and then it was like seeing the shadows of two fish in there, and then blood was flowing, and we couldn’t see a thing, and then it was like the two of them … rippled, and they were gone as if they had never existed.”
“Sorcery!” one of the King’s men spat.
“If sorcery, it is yours!” Ahfinn shot back, turning to glare at Vorinn’s four allies. Sturdy men, they were. Grim men. Men in their prime. Men who, by the rules of the contest, had no swords. Unfortunately, by those same rules, neither did Ahfinn’s.
Steps slapped loud on the bridge behind him. A young man dashed up, flush-faced, but in a herald’s tabard. “You asked for—”
“Go find Tryffon syn Ferr—or whoever is Vorinn’s deputy. Demand to see Avall. If they deny you, tell them—tell them that a hostage dies every day until he shows himself.”
“Sir,” the herald challenged bravely, “once we have done that, there will be no reason for them not to level this hold.”
“While the water stands, their arrows can’t reach it, and there’s the same problem with the trebuchets they’ve always had. Now don’t argue. No, wait—Tell them that … what just happened was neither our wish nor our command. Tell them I will stand here undefended save by my own hand until I have reply; that I do this as a sign of good faith.”
“As you will, Lord,” the herald replied with a curt bow. He turned neatly and strode with cold dignity past Vorinn’s seconds, who, respecting the sanctity of the youth’s office, parted to give him passage.
Without a word, the Royalists turned and fell in behind the herald, not hurrying, though their backs faced enemy arrows unprotected.
Ahfinn found himself alone in the center of the platform, with all of a besieged hold behind him and an angry Kingdom on the verge of facing him down. This was a balance point, he realized: a crux of time, space, and history.
Time passed.
An eternity for Ahfinn, but no more than a hundred breaths in fact.
He heard the thunder of hooves before he saw them, and knew at once that it was not his herald returning.
It was Tryffon, Veen, and old Preedor, all sitting fully armed on horseback, with what looked like the entire Royal Army, some afoot, some mounted, pouring through the gap behind them onto the newly uncovered ground. And every third one of t
hem, to guess, carried a scaling ladder—which could reach the battlements of the viewing plaza, now that the moat had been pulled back and no soldiers—or hostages—commanded the heights above them. The horses couldn’t get up to the plaza, granted, but in this kind of fighting, horses didn’t matter.
The hold was vulnerable, too, if only at the door behind him. The attackers would have to fight in rising water, but so would his own soldiers. And the controls that worked the locks that dammed the river were only two rooms behind the entrance to the arcade. And if the Royal Army got that far …
The Ninth Face might well be doomed.
More boots rang on the bridge behind him: many pairs, and heavy. Mail jingled; leather creaked; metal clanged against more metal. Ahfinn turned casually, trying to appear calm, and saw Ninth Face soldiers marching out of the single door and across the narrow bridge. Not an endless stream, but a steady one.
“We came to fight,” the first one announced. His fellows crowded up behind. “We’ve had enough sitting, the lads and I. We’ll die here, or not, but we’re not going back inside. The rest—it’s their say, but your orders. But we won’t leave you to die out here alone, and we can’t let you be captured.” Without another word, those knights fanned out to either side—maybe thirty of them, effectively filling the platform. Ahfinn, paused for a breath, then passed his shield to a soldier for as long as it took to don Zeff’s helm. That accomplished, he retrieved the shield again, but remained where he was, waiting for the first man to come over the wall. A glance behind showed the door closing at last; a glance to where the water that surrounded the platform lapped against the wall showed that it might have risen a finger’s width. Or perhaps that darkness merely marked where it had splashed. Unfortunately, the locks could only be closed so fast, and the Ri-Megon would not be hurried.
Breath hissed loud in his helm, and sweat streamed into his eyes, but still Ahfinn remained where he was—waiting.
