The Deadwalk (22 page)

Riordan felt with her mind through the Amber, searching after the last
vestiges of his thoughts. But if he still had thoughts, they were lost in the
maelstrom of others' minds and she couldn't spare that much of her energy. Not
while Rau hung in the balance, waiting desperately for any last lapse in her
concentration.

“I wish you'd told me what you wanted me to do once it was all over,” she
said aloud.

“Riordan--” Nhaille started to say something, then fell silent.

“I wish you told me something, anything.”

If he heard her, the King made no sign. His gaze fastened on the Sword.

“You didn't think I could do it, did you?”

None of us did, Rau admitted with a hint of grudging admiration.

“Don't do this to yourself, Riordan.” Nhaille's voice cut through her
thoughts. “This self-torture has no purpose. None of us can change the
past.”

And a pity that is, Rau remarked, refusing to be quiet even now.

“You never told me what you wanted me to do about you,” she told her father.
“This wasn't an outcome you planned on.”

“No one wants to plan for their death,” Nhaille said quietly.

But the King was still staring, one-eyed at the Sword.

The Sword! Understanding hit her full force. What other outcome could there
be?

For an instant their minds linked. The King bowed his head.

The Sword clove the air between them. She heard Nhaille's startled intake of
breath, the wet thud as her father's head rolled from his shoulders. She shut
her eyes, not wanting to look upon the further ruin of his body.

Fragmented half-thoughts poured into her mind. At last peace, she thought he
said. Then his mind was silent.

Sensing her distraction, Rau's will flexed to spring.

“No!”

Riordan gripped the Sword of Zal-Azaar with both hands and swung.

A blinding flash of light erupted as it hit the Amber's surface. Then, like
two magnets rushing toward each other, the Sword sliced cleanly into the
stone.

The world rippled, time and space running together. Beneath them, the ground
rumbled. The palace shook as if rattled in a giant hand. In her mind she heard
Rau's startled scream, followed swiftly by the shrieks of a myriad voices.
Human, male and female and high airy screams of long dead Shraal poured into her
mind. Jagged thoughts pierced her consciousness, ancient memories, scenes of
cities long lost.

The world folded in on itself, dragging Riordan with it. Darkness emerged the
victor, claiming everything.

#

Riordan lay on a smooth tablet of rock. Above her the sky was streaked with
magenta. Sunset. Stiffly, she rose and looked out over the desert around
her.

Tall spires rose from the plain in the distance. A city, but not one she
knew. The diffuse half-light around her cast no shadows. Beneath her bare feet,
the sand was soft and warm.

She looked down suddenly, finding the Sword still within her hand.

It didn't work, she thought, desolation overtaking her.

But then she noticed the translucent robes that swished about her legs as she
walked. Opal fires ran the length of the fabric, changing spectrum as she moved.
She squinted into the distance, studying the city on the horizon. Something
about it was familiar. Something she should know.

Bayorek. She couldn't say how the knowledge came to be in her mind, but she
knew with certainty this was the Bayorek of the legends. Before the fall of the
Shraal.

I'm dead.

The thought didn't frightened her. With a deep sigh, she turned in the
direction of that far off city and began to walk, dragging the Sword behind
her.

Spires, twisted like rope, rose above the horizon. The gates swung open as
she approached.

Inside, the city teemed with life. Tall, thin, silver-haired Shraal swarmed
about their business. No one spoke to her. No one touched her. They endured her
curious stares as if she didn't exist. Yet when she approached, they moved
courteously aside.

Above the city, tall spires formed the upper floors of the palace. A road of
crystal marked the path. Riordan put a cautious bare foot onto the strangely
warm pavement and started toward it.

Unfamiliar speech wove itself in silver threads around her, snatches of the
forgotten language she recognized from the historical scrolls Nhaille insisted
she read. Exotic cooking smells tantalized her senses. And all the time, the
waif-like Shraal drifted around her, as if they merely sensed rather than felt
her.

Palace doors admitted her into a cool temple-like entrance. Pillars of
polished crystal flanked the sides of the vast hall. In the center, a sweeping
staircase wound its way to the upper floors. Riordan followed.

Her feet whispered up the stone staircase to the gilded halls on the level
above. She wandered down the golden halls. Pictures were embossed in gold on the
walls. Scenes of Al-Alaar, the highest of the Seven Heavens. Depictions of
Al-Gomar, the lowest of the Seven Hells. A door more richly decorated beckoned
at the end of the hall. She stopped before it. With a rush of air it swung
smoothly inward.

Against the walls stood a solemn line of Shraal. Their opal eyes glittered as
she passed, moving unerringly toward the golden throne at the end of the
cavernous chamber. The Sword hummed as she dragged it across the smooth floor
after her.

Riordan came to a halt before the heavily decorated throne, afraid to look up
into the terrible face of the Shraal who sat there.

Look! Her subconscious urged. You'll never know unless you do.

And so she dragged reluctant eyes up toward the ferocious being on the
throne.

The Shraal had a face that could have been cut from crystal itself. Hard
planes shaped his face. His opal eyes glowed with the fire of the stars
themselves. With a shock she recognized the shadow of her own features on that
imposing face.

There wasn't an ounce of fat on the willowy body that bent earnestly toward
her. Yet there was unmistakable strength in the pale hand that extended, palm
facing outward.

“Well done, child.” The words echoed in her skull.

Slowly, she drew up the Sword, handing it to him hilt first.

The Shraal hefted the blade in his hand and gazed at it wistfully. “Too long
the Sword of Zal-Azaar has been the scourge of our kind. And our descendants,”
he said, fastening jeweled eyes upon her.

“Have I done the right thing, then?”

In answer, the Shraal raised the Sword high above his head. Those terrible
eyes bored into her skull. He brought the Sword down in one glittering bolt.
Light lanced through her mind.

Riordan pitched forward. Falling into blinding light, she was lost in its
brilliance.

“Riordan!” Nhaille's voice pierced the radiant fog. She swam upwards, groping
toward the sound. “In Nuurah's name, speak to me!”

“Is she dead?” She recognized Penden's voice followed by Nhaille's muffled
curse.

“She's not dead.” Nhaille's voice was edged with indignation. His hand moved
gently across her face. “See, she breathes.”

Eyelids, heavy as lead, refused to obey her. Like hauling on a heavy door,
Riordan dragged them open. Faces swam above her: Nhaille looking haggard and
drawn as if he would collapse at any second, but refused to until he knew she
was safe. Penden hovered uneasily nearby. Levering her arms beneath her, she
tried to sit up only to come crashing back down into soft pillows.

Golden cloth decorated the canopy above her. She felt with her hand, finding
a silk coverlet beneath her fingers.

“Where am I?” The words rasped from her throat. She swallowed past a mouth
gone dry as sand.

“The King's bed chamber,” Penden said from behind Nhaille's left shoulder.
“Figured he wouldn't be needing it anymore.”

Nhaille glowered at his cousin who fell sharply silent.

“Do we still hold the city?”

“Hael is in Kanarekii hands,” Nhaille said but offered nothing more.

“And the dead?” Damned if she'd let him get away with these fragments of
answers.

“Dead.”

Riordan felt within her mind, finding only silence. Her eyes widened.
“They're gone.”

“No, Riordan,” he said gently. “They're merely dead as they were meant to
be.”

“Not the dead.” She stared up at him in wonder. “The voices in my mind.”

Images pressed upon each other, tumbling back into her mind, overlapping
until they became a whirlwind of thoughts. Rau's voice carried above the rest.
She fought against the relentless press of his will. The blinding flash as the
Sword hit the Amber, the horrible sensation of the world being torn asunder.
Falling, forever it seemed. And then the eerie half-memory of wandering through
the long-vanished city of Bayorek.

Riordan drew in a deep breath, reveling in the blessed silence. Exhaustion
tugged at every muscle, every cell. And though she had not even a vague memory
of her last meal, her stomach contracted violently and threatened to spill its
contents.

Nausea or no, there was work to be done. She sat up slowly, heedless of the
points of light that seared her vision. Nhaille reached out to steady her. For a
moment they clung together, holding each other up.

“Riordan, you must rest. The battle is over. The prophecy is fulfilled. There
are others to do your bidding now.”

“And now I have a kingdom to rebuild.” The knowledge settled like a hard lump
in her stomach.

“You needn't start today. It can wait until tomorrow.”

Riordan seized the wooden poster and pulled herself to her feet. But the
floor spun precariously beneath her. Buzzing points of light threatened to send
her down the dark spiral to unconsciousness.

She glanced at Nhaille, taking in the blood that soaked through his shirt,
the gray tinge to his skin, the bone-deep weariness that threatened to topple
him from his feet at any moment. Riordan sagged back onto the bed. “Tomorrow
then,” she said quickly. “That is if we can spare the soldiers from the
occupation of Hael.”

“Penden has agreed to stay behind and oversee it.”

One task she didn't have to see to personally. Nodding her thanks to Penden,
she drew in a deep breath of relief.

Seeing that his Queen was safe for the moment, Nhaille rose to leave. Riordan
caught his sleeve. “You should be in bed, yourself.” And when he opened his
mouth to protest there were duties he had to see to, she shot him a stern look.
“That is an order, Captain.”

Penden smothered a smile.

“Find the Royal Physician,” she told Nhaille's cousin.

“I don't need--” Nhaille started to protest, but she cut him off.

“I have a vested interest in keeping you in one piece, Captain.” She glanced
at Penden. “See to it, Coren. And while you're pillaging Hael's resources, see
if there is any food in Marik-Rau's kitchen.”

“I can't imagine our Haelian hosts fancying starvation,” Penden said with an
appreciative glance at the gilt-edged furniture. He sent one of the soldiers on
reconnaissance.

Oblivious to the multitude of eyes around them, Riordan pulled Nhaille gently
down on the bed beside her. “Post guards on the door. The rest of
you...out.”

Penden saluted, more in deference to his cousin. “Yes, Your Majesty.” The
door closed on his laughter.

#

The soup didn't rest any easier on her stomach, in spite of the considerable
talent of the palace chef. She couldn't seem to get comfortable enough to sleep,
even in the king's luxurious bed. The eggs and sausage she ate the following
morning came back up immediately.

The balm the Royal Physician prepared for her wound made it itch unbearably.
Stiffness set into her sword arm and her back ached. When she wasn't being sick
into the gold bucket by Marik-Rau's bed, she slept like the dead.

A few day’s rest improved Nhaille's color but did little to heal the terrible
wound in his shoulder. Marik-Rau's physician had stitched the wound, and
glancing at the Kanarekii swords around him, had nervously proclaimed that he
doubted Nhaille would get much use from the arm. Nhaille accepted the prognosis
in stony silence.

A week passed before he was strong enough to ride.

Battle had reduced the Haelian population to a size manageable by the meager
Kanarekii army. And they had those left in Kholer as allies. Dead bodies lay
like puppets without strings, scattered where they'd fallen when the Amber was
destroyed. It lay to those who remained behind to collect and burn them.

Marik-Rau and his advisors were locked safely in the palace dungeon. Penden,
as Nhaille pointed out, after years of organizing the Kanarekii rebellion, was
quite capable of handling the occupation of Hael. Nothing more to do but leave
for home and try to rebuild a kingdom from out of the ashes of Kanarek.

But Strayhorn's swaying gait sent her stomach into instant rebellion. It's
the strain of the past few weeks catching up to me, Riordan thought. But the
rationalization rang falsely. A twinge of uneasiness hovered in the back of her
mind. During the battle she'd lost track of her cycle. The waist of her breeches
cut into her stomach in spite of the weight she'd dropped. She glanced at
Nhaille sitting stiffly on Stormback and banished the troublesome thoughts. Time
enough to worry about it when they got home.

#

Kanarek.

Where once towers had challenged the heavens themselves, now lay only ruin
and ashes. The main gate hung by a single hinge. Inside, the blackened streets
led to nowhere, the market and the huts having succumbed to the flames.

No need to worry about the dead in Kanarek, Rau had drafted them all into his
army down to the last smith, shopkeeper, and handmaiden. Even the corpses of
sheep and oxen, anything large enough to support a body be it adult or child,
had been put to his service.

There would be no parade, no ceremony, no medals of honor to welcome home the
veterans of war, Riordan reflected grimly. Only devastation and the impossible
task of rebuilding a kingdom stretched before her.

Silence greeted her return to Kanarek. Cinder crunched beneath Strayhorn's
hooves, ominously loud.

The door to the palace gaped open like an empty mouth. Inside it was gutted
by fire and singed with soot. The throne room, the banquet halls and audience
chamber all lay in ruin, but though the upper floors that housed the bedrooms
bore the lingering acrid odor of smoke, the fire had died on the lower floors.
Rau, in his haste to conquer Kholer, had not waited to see it relit.

Dreams lay among those ashes. Hers, her father's, and generations of
Kanarekii before him. From the cinder beneath her feet she was supposed to piece
an entire kingdom back together. There seemed no end to the obligations expected
of her.

Fine to prophesy such a thing... Riordan stepped through the main doors of
her ancestral home into the quiet blackened cavern beyond. The seer who dreamt
the prophesy didn't dream the instructions on how to accomplish it.

The stone staircase was still standing, leading in darkness to the floors
above. She watched the flicker of torches disappear into the shadows as
Nhaille's troop advanced to scout out and secure the upper levels.

“The structure is sound,” he said coming up behind her. “It can be
rebuilt.”

“We have few resources for the rebuilding of anything,” she said hollowly.
Where in the wasteland surrounding the city would they find the timber? Where
would they find the craftsmen? She stared at the destruction around her, unable
to see the splendor beneath the soot. “Was it beautiful?” she asked Nhaille
finally.

“The palace?”

Riordan nodded. Wandering to one of the far walls, she scraped off the soot
and motioned for Nhaille to bring the torch closer.

“The mural of the Seven Heavens,” Nhaille supplied. “Your mother had it
commissioned shortly after she became Queen. She had impeccable taste.”

“Did you have a suite here?”

He hesitated a moment as if trying to guess her meaning, then said, “I doubt
any of it would be recognizable. I'm sure it was given to someone else long
ago.”

Standing in the empty hall, she realized he'd once had a life here. One she
knew nothing about. “Did you miss court life, Nhaille?”

Nhaille grasped her gently by the shoulders and turned her to face him. He
still moved stiffly as if each step caused him pain, but there was strength once
again in his hands. “I had a duty of far greater importance than murals and
parties. Do not misunderstand, Riordan. I would not have traded those years with
you, nor the difficult task we faced, for anything.”

Riordan looked up at the ceiling where the shadow of the mural disappeared
into smudges of soot. “I would have. I would have traded it all for one day of
life here in Kanarek without obligation or prophecy. But no one offered me that
trade.”

“It cannot be undone, Riordan. We can only go on. Build what we can over the
ruin of what was. You are still young, and you have a long reign ahead of
you.”

“I haven't a clue where to begin.”

He pulled her against him. “I am here, Riordan. And there are enough
experienced Kanarekii left to act as your advisors.”

Words, meant to reassure her, but they only served to fan the flames of the
nagging doubt inside. What will you say when you've heard what I have to tell
you, Nhaille? That I fear we may have made more than just love in those nights.
She turned toward him, to tell him of her worrisome suspicion, but just then
there were footsteps on the stairs above, and the moment was broken.

“The upper floors are secure, Your Majesty.”

Leaning on each other, they made their way across the uneven floor. Damage
lessened with each floor they climbed. Haelians in their haste had done most of
their vandalism to the lower, most visible and heavily decorated floors.

The second floor was almost as bad as the first. On the third floor there was
still evidence of the damage made by Haelian axes and most of the furniture had
been carried off to feed the flames. But, by the time they reached the upper
floor, the soot had thinned to the odd smudge here and there, but the smell of
smoke permeated everything.

Nhaille led the way, knowing where he was going even amongst the carnage. He
led her down a hall that still showed signs of having been decorated with gold
leaf and stopped before an imposing looking door. “The King's bed chamber,” he
said.

She noted he said the King instead of 'your father' as if that made it any
easier.

Riordan stepped into the darkness. In the shadows of the room she made out
the dim shape of a huge four-poster bed. Too big to carry off and not time
enough to set it aflame. Broken pottery crunched underfoot, vases, serving
dishes, everything that had decorated the room was lost when Hael stormed
through the gates. The rest of the room appeared to be empty.

Leather flaps hung crookedly on the windows, letting in the evening chill.
Tapestries hung in shreds on the walls, carpets were streaked beyond recognition
with dirt and soot.

“Perhaps you would be more comfortable in the camp,” Nhaille suggested. She
looked up into eyes darkly shadowed by the torchlight, but he said nothing of
his feelings.

His homecoming, too, she realized.

Riordan dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. “I've waited long
enough. This is my kingdom, my palace...” she glanced forlornly at what remained
of the bedroom, “my bed chamber,” she finished quietly.

“I'll call someone to clear out the room.” He strode off to see to it.

“We'll need to secure the main door,” she called after him.

Least of my worries. Riordan tore the hanging leather from its precarious
hook and stared out the window. Outside, the sun was just setting. Crimson
clouds scudded across the sky forming a curious red and black landscape out of
the charred remnants of the fields.

Among the scorched remains of wheat and corn, something moved. She stared,
straining her eyes to see in the half-light of dusk. Ghostly figures drifted
through the fields outside, making their way toward the palace.

“Nhaille!” Her summons echoed hollowly through the empty corridors.

Thinking her in danger, he appeared, panting, in the doorway.

“Look!” She pointed to the window. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of
the figures, nearly invisible in the dim light, creeping purposely toward
them.

“Stay here,” he said sharply.

“No.” She grasped his sleeve, worrying about his injuries, wishing Penden was
there to see to it instead. “I'm coming with you.”

Out of the darkness, shadowy shapes became filthy faces, tattered clothing.
Haunted eyes stared up at the silver-haired woman on the palace stairs and the
soldiers in Kanarekii armor who surrounded her.