Fire in the Mist (32 page)

"I imagine they found out about the Fendles when you stole the Mottemage's wingmount and flew to Saje-Ariss to tell them, Faia," Jann snarled. "I imagine that's why you survived, too, don't you think?"

I forgot about this peasant-idiot's trip. It
would
be her body I needed! Hells, this makes things difficult.

She ignored Frelle Jann and continued. "Yaji and I ran to the stables when we heard the Mottemage scream. The Fendles came with us. All of us—the Mottemage and her cat, the Fendles, and Yaji and I, fought side by side until one of the sajes did something and the Fendles turned on us. The sajes spelled us, and we all fell together—they did
mehevar
on the Mottemage, and then on one Fendle. They spirited Yaji off to Ariss-Sajera, and left me for dead, I suppose, and the Fendle that lay beside me as well. That Fendle
was
dying, but as its spirit left its body, it came into me."

Frelle Jann's expression hardened, and her eyes narrowed. She studied Sahedre with intense scrutiny. "Just what do you know of
mehevar,
Faia?" the instructor asked sharply.

Ah—Faia would not know a thing of it, would she?
She scrambled for an answer. "The sajes called their ritual by that name—the Fendles told me more of it."

"I thought the Fendles were turned against you?"

"The Fendle, I meant to say. The one that gave me its spirit when it died. I'm sure the ones that escaped are still dangerous."

"Leave the girl alone, Jann," Frelle Brynne snapped. "She has fought demons today, and nearly died trying to save our Mottemage." The Healer gave Faia a gentle pat on the shoulder and a worried frown. "Escaped?"

"They must have. There were seven, remember. There weren't that many dead in the stables."

Frelle Jann nodded. "Quite true. There weren't that many. How very clever of you to notice—considering how badly injured you were at the time."

The Wisewoman glared at Jann. The others were so willing to believe—Sahedre could feel their carefully tended and nurtured rage and hatred toward the sajes swelling in the room, fed by the rituals they were performing—aimed, conveniently, at her preferred target. Only Jann, whose hatred was aimed at her, kept seeing the flaws in her alibi. She needed Jann out of the way. She needed the cooperation of the rest of her intended victims.

Enough, then,
Sahedre thought.
I feel stronger by the moment, and Faia's strength and the power of the
mehevarin
course through me. I need not tolerate Jann any longer. The time for my revenge is finally come, and she shall not keep me from it a moment longer.

She pulled in the necessary earth and air energy, and spread a delicate, unobtrusive shield around herself and the mages in the Greathall. She filled the space inside the shield with her own hatred of the sajes, augmenting the already thick atmosphere of paranoia in the hall. Gently, then, she spoke to Jann.

"We are fighting the sajes," she said, and reinforced her statement with a magical aura of sincerity. "We must not fight each other." Underneath her words was the command,
:Obey me.:

Jann was a strong mage, but she did not have Sahedre's four hundred years of pent-up fury and hunger behind her. When Sahedre looked into her eyes, her will overwhelmed the young frelle, and everything the Wisewoman asked seemed suddenly reasonable—and Jann nodded politely, and said, "Yes, of course. How shortsighted of me."

Sahedre then faced the assembled women of Daane University.

They moved through their rituals, spiraling the force of their wrath into a maelstrom that pulsated and surged, waiting only release and direction.

Their anger makes them mine,
she gloated—and reached out a hand, and pulled their unwholesome fire into her belly, and made it hers.

"
:The sajes must die,:
" she whispered into their minds.
:This is all you want—it is all I want. Give yourselves to me, and I will give you the power to bring them down.:

They were already so close to the edge, so open to this voice that promised them what they wanted. To a woman, the mages opened themselves and welcomed in the voice that promised victory and revenge—and to a woman, they toppled headlong into Sahedre's abyss.

:Now,:
she said,
:I tell you first that I am Lady Sahedre Onosdotte, the ancient Wisewoman of Ariss-Magera, and master of you all. I have returned to lead you against the sajes—we shall leave nothing of them but wisps of smoke in the rubble of their city.:

She felt the surge of excitement in her followers—her slaves—and she exulted. The destruction of Ariss rested in the palm of her hand. She commanded the energies of the mages, and expanded the shield further, to cover the whole campus of Daane and to bring any stragglers into her sphere of influence. She would need to spread the shield further soon—she would have to bring every soul in Ariss-Magera under her command, so that she could channel the life energy of half the city into her attack against the other half. To do that, she would have to replenish her strength with
mehevar
frequently just to keep all her fronts covered. She needed to detail someone to bring her young children—in the meantime, adults would have to do.

Frelle Jann, she decided, would be a good first subject.

Meanwhile,
she thought,
I need to get the attack on Ariss-Sajera underway.

:The battle begins now,:
she announced.
:Ariss-Sajera will be reduced to dust, and everyone in it. You will first destroy the sajes' University, then the Saje-Hub. When every saje has been obliterated, you will then annihilate every living thing in the rest of the city. You will not stop until the city of Ariss-Sajera is empty and dead—or all of you are.:

She waved an arm and shouted, "Send forth the storms and the fires! Send forth the wind and the water! Focus it, send it—send all of it! Now!"

Sahedre's vassals reached up their hands and willed forth doom on Saje-Ariss. And lightning cracked from newborn stormclouds that billowed out of the Greathall in an ugly stream of night-dark poison, and winds screamed and twisted in the skies above Daane, before they raced in funnels toward their destination.

Yes!
the Wisewoman thought, and laughed with joy.
Yes! I have waited lifetimes for this—and it is all I had hoped for, and more.
She beckoned to Frelle Jann. "We need more magic, dear girl," she said, and drew the frelle to her. She caressed the young woman's cheek with her knife.

"More magic... and you are going to give it to me."

Medwind, still too weak to stand, gave Nokar Feldosonne a mind-picture of his destination. He passed the picture on to the rest of the transport-specialists. Everyone gripped weapons, made last-minute checks of ammunition, and one by one, signaled their readiness.

Medwind nodded at Nokar; Nokar knelt beside her cot and rested one hand on her shoulder. He began the backward count.

"Three—two—one—NOW!"

Medwind once again felt everything twist and wrench and spin inside her and around her. This time, the wrongness didn't stop. She became aware of the others in the rescue party, trapped in the same non-place. She could feel their frustration and their growing fear. A smooth, gleaming, impassable wall arrested their progress.

:Go back!:
Nokar commanded.
:Retreat! Retreat!:

Medwind felt no panic in the old man's mind—only calm intelligence and quick recognition of the obstacle that blocked him.

Hell of a commander—for a librarian,
she thought with admiration, as the world buckled further in on itself and shifted again.

Then space untwisted, and Medwind groaned and sprawled on the Basin floor. Around her, other members of the stymied rescue party did the same. Sajes throughout the towering seats gave startled cries.

Through the swirling cloud of multicolored smoke, Nokar's voice could be heard, explaining to the sajes in the auditorium, "They've shielded the University. We can't get through."

Without warning, the Basin rocked from side to side, and tiny bits of masonry from the top of the dome crumbled down to dust the sajes below. The low rumble of an earthquake mixed with the howl of tornadoes and the green glow of mage-light that arced and spit through the cracks in the ceiling.

"We're under attack! Disperse!" Burchardsonne shouted. "The south field—quickly!"

With a "whoosh" the Basin cleared.

Medwind found herself slumped neck-deep in the swamp to the south of Ariss, Nokar's hand locked on her braid, surrounded by the thousands who'd simultaneously fled the Basin. A sluggish breeze dissipated the saje-smoke.

One man behind her cried out once in anguish, then cursed dully and without emotion. She turned to see why and looked away quickly. A young man, one of Mage-Ariss' would-be rescuers, had materialized partly in the swollen base of a primordial swamp-cypress that grew nearby. He was dying even as she glimpsed him, and she was utterly helpless to save him. The sight of his face—of his agony and his resignation—would stay with her, she thought, for the rest of her life. She noted that other sajes averted their eyes from him, and from the few others who suffered the same fate.

Nokar pulled her to a sitting position and leaned her against a tree. He said bitterly, "We always knew that we would lose a dozen or so sajes with the emergency evacuation of the Basin. No one could ever come up with another big, nearly clear space that would take everyone at once and wouldn't endanger innocents. So we knew we would be taking our chances.

"It doesn't seem right that Chak was one of the ones we lost, though. He was a scholar," the old man added. "Loved books, loved learning—I'll miss him."

"The senseless deaths were what
I
hated most about war," Medwind admitted. "My inability to love killing was the embarrassment of the Huong Hoos, to be honest. So I left. There was no room in my tribe for a life-loving warrior."

"You'll never fit into somebody else's world, Song. You have your own ideas—you won't let someone else think for you. The only place you will be accepted be the place you make for yourself." Nokar studied her intently. "You'll get to your own place someday."

"If I live that long."

The old man's mouth twisted in a humorless smile. "Yah. There is that."

The evacuations' survivors were finally assembled around Burchardsonne, Nokar, Medwind, and the remains of the hand-picked rescue team. To the north, the refugee sajes could see the green blaze of Faulea University—burning—and hear the raging winds that battered the helpless city.

"We can't get into Daane to stop this," one young sage said. "So what do we do now?"

Burchardsonne looked grim. "We have few alternatives. First, we can blast back randomly. Anything we aim at that mage-shield will likely bounce off and scatter away from the target. We'll probably hit nothing but innocents."

"We should try it anyway."

Burchardsonne looked from face to tired face. "Should we? We know who the enemy is. Should we destroy people who aren't the enemy, simply because they are unlucky enough to live near her?" He shook his head. "I don't think so. Second, we can do nothing. That will give over the city to Sahedre Onosdotte—and I don't want to see what she will do with it.

"We have a third option only if one of you can make it work. I want some idea of how we can break through that barrier."

There was a long silence.

"Thoughtspeech," Medwind offered. "Break through to those on the campus near her, tell them the true story about Rakell's—" Her voice broke, and she had to catch her breath before continuing. "—About Rakell's death—and let them raise rebellion against Sahedre from inside the shield."

"Surely she's thought of that, and blocked against it."

"It won't kill any innocents if we look and find out."

Burchardsonne sighed. "True enough. But who's going to try it?"

Medwind looked up at him from her place at the base of the tree. "None of you would know who to talk to—none of you would know what to say to keep from getting your minds blasted by someone who thought you were trying to attack. It will have to be me."

Nokar Feldosonne shook his head vehemently. "You are as near death as you need to get, Medwind." He crossed his arms and furrowed his brows. "Something this taxing, right after your ride through the Timeriver, is likely to kill you."

"Maybe—but that doesn't mean I'm wrong."

The old librarian bit his lip. "No, it doesn't."

"This is war, Nokar, Burchardsonne. Don't be afraid to lose a few players if it will win you the battle. I always figured I was meant to die in combat anyway. Not as some old woman sleeping on my mats." She managed a weak smile.

The old librarian didn't return it. "You are right, and I can't change that. So go." He looked into her eyes, and she read pain there—and concern—and maybe something else. "But come back."

The barbarian nodded. "I'll try." She closed her eyes and forced the natural swamp-images of seeping water and swimming snakes and biting insects out of her thoughts. She breathed slowly, narrowed her focus to a tightly controlled whisper, and sent her mental murmur questing toward Daane.

:Listen,
: she said.
:Help is on the way. Can you hear me?:

Her question, to her astonishment, slipped through Sahedre's shield like a dagger through silk. Sahedre had blocked physical and magical approaches... but not mental. Medwind probed across the campus, immediately found the familiar mind of her fellow instructor, Litthea, and slid inside.

Instantly, wrongness enveloped her. Where she should have been met by the identifiable forethoughts of her friend and colleague, she was instead overwhelmed by a foreign, hypnotic urge to "kill the sajes." She felt compressed fragments of her friend Litthea's self as if from a great distance—but Litthea was trapped, seduced by the evil that commanded her in her own body. The mind and wishes of Sahedre overrode everything, and Litthea had no choice but to obey. Medwind fought free from the gluey trap of Sahedre's magic, and rushed out of Litthea's mind. Sahedre's virulent personality vanished. Medwind's lean frame, miles distant, shook with relief.