He wasn’t sure that he did.
“And knowing that, and knowing that you understand about duty and sacrifice, I hope you can find your way toward letting go of your anger.”
So she assumed that he was only upset with her because she hadn’t taken him with her when she’d fled Alantris? Her understanding of his motivations was intriguingly flawed. “It’s foolish to hold tight to anger,” he said.
“Spoken like a seasoned alten. N’lahr told me what you managed in Alantris, Rylin of the Thousand. You were greater than I thought. Potential only waiting for release. I would have liked to have been there to see it.”
He feigned he hadn’t detected her suggestive wording. “I would have liked that, too,” he said.
She smiled in sly self-satisfaction, then grew more serious. “I understand why you respected Varama. She was one of a kind.”
“She was.”
“Ah, see. You’re angry with me still. You’re doing your best, but you can’t quite conceal it, can you? That actually speaks well of you. I know Varama was incapable of inspiring warmth in others, but you were loyal anyway. A good officer.”
“I hope I was.” He saw no reason to correct any of her erroneous assumptions.
“I hope you won’t hold her death against me. She could have come through, you know. She must have seen someone else running for the portal.”
“It might have been the Naor general,” Rylin suggested.
“Yes, N’lahr mentioned him. A curious-sounding fellow. But not worth sacrificing her own life for, surely. You know as well as I what a great asset she’d be to us now.”
Rylin could only nod.
“Why, look at you. You really were attached to her. That’s commendable.”
“She was cold,” Rylin said, though he knew she only presented as such. “But she was brave, and very smart, and I looked up to her.”
“You saw only her best points, and admired her for them. I like that. I hope we can get past all of these misunderstandings.” She reached out for her goblet once more, though she did not drink. She rubbed its stem. “I realized late in the day that I’d been high-handed with you. I got to wondering why, and it dawned on me that I was treating you poorly because I was mad at you for being mad at me. As though we were teenagers in the midst of a love spat.”
“We’re all under a lot of pressure.”
“I’m sure that has something to do with it, but the truth is, I had thought you and I had a connection, and I was angry it seemed broken.”
Rylin knew that if he seemed too eager to agree, he wouldn’t be believed, so he offered a rueful smile and told the truth. “I felt that connection myself.”
“I knew you did. It was easy to see you respected me. And me, well, I recognized your potential just as Varama did. She was an odd one, but she could spot excellence. And so does N’lahr. Who did he send away with Kyrkenall? Elenai. Who did he keep close? You.”
Once again, she had seen the same events and arrived at a different causal relationship behind them.
She ran a well-manicured finger slowly along the rim of her goblet. “I need people I can depend upon, Rylin.” She looked at him through long lashes. “We will stop the Goddess. Even if the realms don’t need restoration—and I think that they will—they will certainly need repair. You’ve noticed how the borders are shrinking. Because of my preparations, once we defeat the Goddess we’ll be able to draw on her powers. Almost nothing will be beyond us.” Her eyes gleamed with either joy, or madness, or both.
He worked hard to appear curious rather than alarmed. He thought he managed the former. “That sounds like a lot of responsibility.”
“It will be. And it will take a certain kind of person to handle it. You see the help I have here. Their loyalty is without question. But they’re not independently minded.”
“Are you thinking of me?” he asked.
“Almost from the moment I met you,” Cerai said. “You made quite an impression, holding off that Naor cavalry all on your own.”
“I seem to remember that you arrived just in time to help.”
“You see? I’m not all bad.” Cerai smiled and was beautiful. “When this is all over, a dedicated force will have to manage the queen’s energy, and I’d like you to be one of them.” She held up a hand to stay any unvoiced objection. “Don’t decide now, and don’t talk to me about how you’re Altenerai first and can’t be anything else. Times will be different. A new and greater order of heroes will be required to rebuild our realms. And there will be benefits, for while we can follow the basic design, we can also shape things after our own desires. Lesser women and men might use that to their advantage.”
“Yes,” Rylin said, as if this all made perfect sense.
Cerai set down the goblet and rose, gracefully. “Well, I’m giving you a lot to think about.”
He stood. “Indeed you have.”
“We can talk in more detail about it tomorrow. It’s been a long day, and we should both get our rest.”
He gave her his best smile as he offered his hand.
She laughed even as she presented her fingers to him. He kissed her knuckles, noting he felt no callouses on her fingertips. Artifice, he was sure, for he’d seen her wielding a sword only a few weeks ago, and one didn’t remain that skilled without frequent practice.
“Until tomorrow then, dear Rylin,” she said.
“Until tomorrow.” He left her then, alone with her luxuries and her lunacy, and climbed up through darkness to seek his dreams.
16
The Visitor in the Sky
In the darkness before dawn, they gathered in the courtyard near a small pyre. Cerai and a dozen of her warriors watched to one side, while Anzat and a few of his Naor stood on the other.
Rylin, the exalts, squires, and aspirants stood in rows facing the fire as N’lahr solemnly welcomed everyone to the ceremony of remembrance. He reminded them that parchment and ink had been placed upon a table to the right, if any of them had not already written a note, and then he bade them to reflect silently upon their favorite memories of the fallen, mentioning each one in turn.
Rylin had drafted a short message to Meria, thanking her for her bravery and dedication and expressing his wish that they could have had more time to know one another. He had meant it to say more, but his thoughts while drafting had been sluggish. He’d written something similar in his note to Vannek, who’s passing actually struck him harder. He was incredibly thankful he hadn’t had to create a note of farewell to Varama.
As he waited his turn, Cerai, in uniform once more, caught his eye and gave him a subdued smile. Until their talk last night, he would have been concerned he didn’t look as shattered as someone who’d lost their mentor and close friend. He now understood Cerai wouldn’t be suspicious of his manner, for she lived under the foolish assumption no one would deeply mourn Varama.
Once he had consigned his messages to the flame so that they could be read in the undying realm, Rylin returned to formation, head bowed, his memory shifting through not just the lost of this battle, but those brought down over the course of the struggle. Every one of those needless deaths could be laid at the feet of a ruler focused with single-minded abandon upon her own selfish aims.
When he looked up, a final five squires were queued in front of the pyre. The Naor soldiers watched in curiosity, and for the first time Rylin wondered about their own traditions for the dead.
Once the farewell portion of the ceremony concluded, the commander returned to the front of his troops. He looked over them for a long moment, then drew himself up, preparatory to speech.
But he said nothing, nor did he move. Rylin grew troubled as the moment stretched on. Thelar turned his head to him and arched an eyebrow, as if to spur Rylin to act, but M’vai beat him to it, walking forward to touch N’lahr’s arm.
“Commander?” she asked.
N’lahr’s eyes were fixed, looking to the left. They did not blink.
“Commander N’l
ahr?” M’vai persisted. She gripped his arm and shook it.
N’lahr’s dark eyes moved, meeting hers. “She’s drawing close,” he gasped, as though he’d been holding his breath. Then he added more forcefully: “The Goddess. She’s almost here.”
The squires stirred uncomfortably at this news. Rylin had never known the commander had sorcerous ability, but Cerai called out: “He’s right! Soldiers, to your stations! Weavers, with me, to the walls! She’s coming from the west!” Cerai hurried off.
A distant horn call rang in the morning air. Someone far away had inexpertly blown an alarm. A slightly less terrible version of the call rang more closely, until the best trumpeter yet sounded his horn from high atop the wall.
Rylin joined M’vai to check on N’lahr.
“I’m fine,” the commander said. “Go with the mages. Both of you. Hurry!”
Before very long Rylin stood upon the battlement with M’vai, Thelar, and the aspirants, staring into darkness being burned off by the growing daybreak at their backs.
Cerai’s servants hurried out of the stairwell with a wooden table, which they deposited before their ruler. Four others carried perfect cubes of flawless crystal a small degree larger than a helmet. These they placed upon the table. Cerai spared them only a moment’s attention. The renegade alten was holding a pasty-white cylindrical object almost the length of a small bow.
Rylin realized it must be what he’d sensed from outside her office.
The dawn brought out the shapes of trees and bushes and even the roofs of the village across the gray sward below them. Rylin sensed Cerai staring into the inner world and resisted the impulse to do so as well. Checking to see if he could spot the approaching Goddess when so many other mages were there to do the same would be a waste of his limited energies. Instead, he stepped to the merlon and looked down, for he’d heard Anzat shouting for his men to “put their backs into it,” as well as the rumble of wheels.
Two finished catapults were being pushed forward by a combined force of Naor and squires. Pairs of wooden wheels were attached to a heavy platform at the bottom of each war engine. The launching arms hung slack behind them, and the stones they were meant to fling were carried in a thick wagon being pulled by the plow horse and four of the black riding mares. Rylin didn’t see N’lahr. He hoped he was on his way, and not struck with immobility somewhere.
On the battlement, Thelar was in hushed conversation with the exalts and aspirants. Rylin hadn’t had time to consult with them about their battle plan, so he stepped up and waited for an opening. “What are our tactics?”
Thelar answered. “The aspirants are going to release the chaos spirits. Cerai and M’vai and I will try to rip energy from the Goddess while she’s distracted. You and Tesra will feed us energy from the hearthstones.”
Even as he wondered where the stones were, Tesra pointed to a pair of canvas satchels the servants had just set beside Cerai.
“What’s that cylinder Cerai’s holding?” Rylin asked.
“It’s a shaping tool,” Cerai answered, though her gaze was fastened still upon the distance. “It helps refine hearthstone energy and was a huge aid in raising the fortress. It might help this fight, though I’m not sure how much.”
N’lahr arrived at last with a trio of squires. Cerai’s troops scattered along the battlement to either side of the mages, and were armed with spears, slings, and bows. An attack with those would be about as productive as flinging sugar at an armored warrior, but Rylin supposed they couldn’t just do nothing.
“Here she comes,” Cerai murmured.
The Goddess was a dark figure drifting from the dying night. She floated rigidly, relentlessly, toward the citadel, growing larger by the moment. Rylin estimated she must easily be thirty-five feet tall. As the sun rose in her face, the black of her skin was so intense it glowed against the color-muted landscape coming to life behind her.
Rylin grew aware of a long trail of change in the deity’s wake. The landscape had altered as she passed above it so that everything directly beneath her was white as bleached bone.
As the Goddess drew within a few hundred yards, Rylin’s attention grew more and more fixed upon her personal characteristics. Her face was exquisite perfection. The black gown and her long hair trailed behind her. Her arms drooped listlessly, and her feet hung slack dozens of feet above the ground.
“I want to speak to her,” N’lahr said, and Cerai turned her head in surprise. Rylin thought to hear her object, but she said nothing. The commander moved to the edge of the battlement and raised his voice to the troops ready with the catapults below. “Hold until my command,” he shouted.
“Holding!” Elik called back. Anzat gruffly repeated the order.
N’lahr made a speaking trumpet with his hands and called out with his parade voice. “We do not wish to fight you! What do you want?”
The Goddess drifted past the final cottages of Cerai’s village and halted, suspended upon the air twenty yards beyond the citadel. A voice came from her direction, though Rylin did not see her mouth move. The answering words were honey smooth and utterly calm. They were loud enough to hear, without sounding as though they had been shouted.
“I am here for what is mine.”
Rylin glimpsed a movement to the right; the male aspirant, Veshahd, had lifted both his hands, preparatory to launching a spell. Rylin saw fear in his eyes, wondering if it shone in his own.
N’lahr said: “What will you do once you have it?”
The Goddess’ voice lacked emotion when she answered. “I shall wipe clean all that has been wrought, and start anew.”
Rylin’s heart, already hammering, skipped into double-time with that pronouncement.
N’lahr would not relent. “Can you not create elsewhere, and leave these lands to us? We would care for them, and honor your work.”
“This work is flawed, and cannot stand. And your honor is meaningless.”
The Goddess didn’t so much as shift her head or twitch a finger, but Rylin sensed a change in the air as surely as he would have felt the onrush of a thunderstorm. Magical energies washed over them. Surrounded by such, he could have woven a complex spell without strain.
“She’s stealing the hearthstone energy,” Cerai cried, and Rylin, even tangentially connected to the inner world, saw she was right. Threads were being ripped from the ground itself and drifted into the hands of the Goddess. “We have to stop her!” Cerai leveled the shaping tool.
Already the power of multiple hearthstones streamed from the satchels and into the base of Cerai’s cylinder. Brilliant golden light sprayed from the cylinder’s far end and struck the deity in the chest, which began to crystallize and shine with a rainbow’s spectrum of colors. At long last the Goddess’ face portrayed expression; her eyes widened in profound astonishment. The crystallization spread quickly down her gown, the changed surface resembling hearthstones.
“Attack!” N’lahr cried.
The Goddess raised her right arm toward the battlement.
A mass of rocks hurtled toward the Goddess from one of the catapults. Thelar and M’vai visibly strained with flexed fingers, pulling upon air so rich with energy it shimmered even before Rylin looked deeply into the inner world.
His understanding of the battle changed the moment he did. The Goddess radiated an overwhelming spectrum of colors even as gleaming energies streamed up to her from the land on every side. Thelar and M’vai struggled to tug the closer of those strands away. Cerai, meanwhile, was reshaping the Goddess as the energy of the tool sprayed over her.
The catapult stones slammed into one leg and sent ripples of red energy through the gargantuan limb.
In the next breath, even as Tesra shouted at him to push more power toward Cerai, several things happened at once. The energy from the shaping tool spread through the whole of the Goddess’ chest. Three aspirants released a swirling mass of glowing energy from the table cubes—the freed chaos spirits spiraled toward the Goddess, a shining haze that enl
arged as they moved. M’vai and N’lahr shouted for everyone to get down. And the deity’s hand pointed to Cerai.
Thelar and M’vai threw themselves flat. Rylin hit the sturdy timbers a moment after Tesra. He turned his head as he hit, wondering if he would merely witness the attack, or if he, too, would be swept to nothing like poor Meria.
A strand of the crenellation blew into snow-like fragments ahead of a roaring wind that turned over the table even as all but its legs transformed into white ash. The cubes that had held the spirits dissolved as well; Veshahd clutched the remaining cube to his breast as he rolled away along the right wall. Two of the women had likewise thrown themselves clear, but the third woman was too slow, and Rylin watched in horror as she vanished like so much powder, leaving nothing behind but her borrowed sapphire, which rattled against a merlon. Tesra cried out in despair.
Cerai hurtled backward, a large swath of her skin and clothing flaking away. Her shaping tool twirled up and over the crenellations and into the courtyard.
Rylin felt certain that great black finger would shift along the battlement and the Goddess’ power would eliminate them all, but the chaos spirits had coalesced into a single humanlike shape reaching with outstretched arms, and the Goddess’ mouth rounded in alarm. She recoiled, raising arms to ward herself, then rotated in midair and soared off at great speed. The chaos spirit, now grown almost to her size, was right on her heels. As both figures dwindled into the distance, the men on the catapults cheered.
Rylin hopped to his feet, frowning in expectation of the horror he would see.
One of the aspirants knelt by the ashes of her friend. The small one, Tavella, helped her male companion rise as he clutched the remaining cube to his chest.
Incredibly, Cerai’s flesh and even her clothing was knitting itself together as she climbed to her feet. So advanced was the spell work she didn’t even appear conscious of its activity. She walked for the gap blown into the battlement even as muscle and flesh regrew over one cheekbone. By the time she stood at the breach she was almost fully restored.
When the Goddess Wakes Page 20
