The Towers Of the Sunset (35 page)

“YOU ARE A demon-damned fool! You’ve probably just killed us both.” Megaera is flushed. While the afternoon is hot and cloudless, the sweat upon her forehead is not from the sun’s rays.

… damned oversexed, thin-brained lusting animal…

“You couldn’t wait! You couldn’t be patient! You couldn’t learn more about me! No, like all men, just when you think they might have some understanding, they start thinking with their glands.” She takes a quick breath, ignoring the breeze with which Creslin cools the terrace. “What I don’t understand is why Lydya even considered this idiocy.”

“Because…” Creslin stumbles “… she said that it was already happening one way or another, and…” He has to change what he was about to say. “… and I think she felt that if the process was too drawn out, neither one of us could possibly survive it.”

“Happening already?”

“Yes. Sometimes I can hear what you think, at least when you’re really angry.”

“What?”

“You just thought that I was an oversexed, underbrained, lusting animal.”

“Thin-brained!” she snaps.

“Fine. Thin-brained. It’s the same thing.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Where are you going?”

“For now, I’ll stay with Shierra.” She steps back toward the room that has been hers. “No, you don’t have to worry about my leaving Reduce. Not yet, at least.”

… not until the next time…

Creslin shrugs, although the words and thoughts go through him like a short sword, and he has to swallow. Again she is giving him no chance at all.

“I’ve given you more than enough chances, and you twist each one around to suit yourself.”

“That’s not true. Not quite true,” he amends.

“True enough.”

He feels the discomfort, although it is not his, and shakes his head.

“You… you don’t understand at all!” Megaera shouts. “Now even my feelings are yours!”

“Mine have been yours, and you’ve certainly been kind enough to use them against me when it suits your purpose.”

… damn you! Can’t keep anything… how could he have stood it for so long?

“Damn you…” The words are more sob than curse. Her hand touches the blade hilt. “You come after me… now…”

… and… kill us both…

Creslin stands helplessly as she backs away, her hand still on the blade, before she disappears into her room.

There on the terrace, caught between the sun and the surf, between the past he did not create and the future he cannot foresee, he waits and watches until a flame-haired woman in blue marches north and westward, back to the keep, back to another outpost of Westwind.

WITHIN THE WHITE mist of the mirror on the table rears a forest of masts upon the dark green swells of the
Eastern
Ocean
.

The High Wizard nods. “Soon…”

“Soon what?” Hartor watches the images in the glass.

“Soon we will cloak their fleet from both eyes and magic.”

“Jenred, do you really think that Creslin could not penetrate the cloak?”

The thin wizard smiles, only with his mouth. His reddish-brown eyes glitter. “Of course he could… if he bothered to look. But he’s not in the habit, and those who would look for him do not have the ability.”

“What about the Westwind detachment? Why did you let it land?”

“If we had attacked it, he would have been alerted.”

“I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of a Westwind detachment on Recluce. And how would he have known?”

“From Klerris. His Black bitch was on the coaster.”

Hartor asks, “Won’t the Westwind group make a difference if… when the Hamorians storm
Land’s End?”

“So? We can’t lose. Either the
Marshall loses troops or the Hamorians do. Creslin is destroyed, or the Hamorians discover that they have another enemy among the western continents.”

“Fine. What if Creslin wins? What about Montgren?”

Jenred snorts. “What about it? Neither Creslin nor that bitch Megaera will ever claim it, and Sarronnyn can’t. The Duke has no heirs. We’ve seen to that. It will be ours, without even a battle. Korweil can’t live that much longer.”

“I wish I were as certain as you.”

Jenred shifts his eyes to the mirror, and to the ships that fill the glass. More than enough to take
Land’s End. More than enough.

“ARE YOU SURE you don’t want to try to break your blood-link to her?”

The two men look out over the dark gray cliffs onto the low, sweeping swells of the black-green northern sea. Only an occasional wash of white breaks across the crests of the slow-moving waves. Despite the high clouds, no rain has fallen, and the powdery red dust has drifted from the road onto the black stones of the terrace and over the uncut stones stacked beside the terrace where Creslin still works in the early mornings.

Now the guards are beginning the mortar work on the second guest house, using the stones he has cut, and Klerris has brought up enough timbers for the guest-house roof.

“What good would that do? Lydya said that the linkage would develop anyway.” Creslin leans down and picks up the short-handled stone sledge. Even though the essentials of the Black Holding proper are finished, the windows need glass and the kitchen is only a shell. In the interim, Creslin still putters with the stones for the walkways for the second and third guest houses. Someone will use them, he hopes.

“It might buy you some time.”

“Has that done us any good?” He cannot just stand and wait. Despite Megaera’s insistence on patience, the more he senses of her feelings, the clearer it is that patience is only an excuse for her not to face her feelings about him, and his feelings for her.

He lusts after her. He cannot lie about that, either to her or to himself. He also loves her, independent of lust, because of the other things that she is: determined, intelligent, incisive, and when she is not threatened, kind and considerate.

“I still doubt the wisdom of the whole double linkage.”

Klerris adds.

“There wasn’t a choice.”

Klerris frowns.

“Lydya was right. I was already sensing Megaera’s feelings and thoughts. For better or worse, we’re linked. Right now, if she stays in the keep and I stay here, we have only the strongest of thoughts and feelings, but before long it won’t matter.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Wait until the link gets stronger.” Creslin pauses. “In the meantime, we might think about a good stream and a waterwheel.”

“A waterwheel?” The Black Wizard shakes his head. “I don’t think you understand. In a few days, if she has a mind to, Megaera could kill you both. That could be exactly what she’s waiting for.”

The silver-haired man listens, but his hands wield the hammer and order-sharpened wedge, trimming the black stone before him. For an instant, he can sense salt spray and hear the raucous call of a sea gull. Is that an illusion? He thinks not.

“Would she be that desperate?” Klerris shrugs. “What woman wants her feelings known?”

“Do you think I have exactly enjoyed her knowing every strong emotion I feel?”

The Black Wizard laughs. “Women have always known what men feel, even without magic.”

“You’re talking about eastern women, about those who no longer follow the Legend.”

“Creslin, all women-except the warrior guards of Westwind, and I suspect that they just do not find it convenient to mention their abilities-all women can read men better than most men can read women.”

Clung… clung…

“Why should that make a difference? It’s probably due as much to practice as to an inborn talent.”

The older man shakes his head. “What will you do?”

“Wait until the link is stronger. Then we’ll see.”

“Lydya’s worried.”

“So am I. So am I.” His hands trim the stones automatically, only his senses pointing the weaknesses and sheer lines in the hard black stone.

“NOW WHAT?” ASKS Thoirkel, placing another rock on the field wall.

Locked into the soil and the order lines within and around the small section of field, Creslin does not hear him. The not-quite-stifling heat has begun to create wavering heat lines above the walls and the clay road.

“Now what?” repeats the dark-haired man, who is now as clean-shaven as Creslin.

Creslin returns to himself and wipes his forehead. The plateau gets hot earlier in the day than the town and stays hot longer, but Klerris has noted that the soil is far more fertile here. Creslin doesn’t need the Black Wizard to tell him that, since the town is built on rock, sand, and red clay so hard that even few weeds appear on the hillside or the flat behind the pier.

Creslin has been merely repeating the painstaking process that Klerris has taught him, strengthening the right worms, grubs, and beetles, ignoring those that are not helpful, and infusing order into the shoots that will become dry maize. Between the liberal application of order and the not-so-liberal application of spring water and limited rain, the maize-destined, if it survives the hazards of Reduce, to become flour for bread and pasta-shows healthy growth, far healthier than that in more temperate lands. Creslin wipes, his sweating forehead again.

“Ser! Ser!” A figure sprints from the northern edge of the field.

Creslin straightens at the urgency behind the voice and moves toward the running man. “What is it?”

“Raiders! Pirates! Sails, lots of them!”

“Damn… damn… damn…” Creslin sends his senses to the winds, reaching toward the northern sea, where a forest of masts sweeps shoreward. No White-pulsed energies lurk beneath the sails or within the hulls, but the masses of archers and armed men speak loudly enough.

The co-regent of Reduce scoops up his shoulder harness and adjusts it as he strides eastward, already searching the skies, grasping for the winds. His feet carry him toward the road leading to
Land’s End. Thoirkel trots beside him.

From the keep, a horn calls-a Westwind trumpet.

Creslin attempts to twist the high winds lower, to call for the cold torrents that sweep toward the Roof of the World.

Warships… Creslin?…

He pauses at the edge of the plateau. A dozen ships creep on partly furled sails toward the harbor. The lead ship has already slipped past the breakwater, out of the sullen, dark green swells and into more sheltered water, and two boats are being lowered.

“Darkness…”he mutters, still working to channel the winds toward Land’s end, realizing the truth of Klerris’s example all too well. Yes, he will have winds, but already he can tell that they will not arrive before the first two ships reach the pier. Perhaps not even then. His feet bear him downhill as his mind struggles with the elements and the winds.

A squad of Westwind guards races for the pier, and Creslin rums cold as he sees a flash of flame-red hair near the lead.

… show you, best-beloved…

His soul twists the skies, and he rips winds by their roots from their icy heights. Yet, as fast as the high winds speed, as quickly as the darkness builds to the west, the lead ships, and the boats filled with armed men, move more quickly, now nearly touching the pier.

As he hurries downhill, Creslin does not run, for even he knows that arriving at a dead sprint and exhausted will do no one any good, especially himself. But his heart pounds as he thinks of Megaera. He forces his thoughts elsewhere, coldly studying the scene unfolding below.

A second squad of Westwind guards and the duty detachment of the Montgren troopers have started downhill from the keep.

The third and fourth ships are sailing past the harbor and to the east, toward the flat beaches where boats may also land. Even if the guards can hold the harbor, they will soon face attack from behind, although it will not be instantly, since it will take some time for the beach-landing troops to cross the soft sand and climb the low but rocky hill that shelters the town.

Arrows have begun to fly from the inshore vessels, vessels that fly the orange sunburst of Hamor.

Creslin pushes and twists the great winds, those on which he had never called. They strike back, and he sprawls onto the dust of the road.

Thoirkel lifts him to his feet, the dark-haired man looking back toward the west. At least one Westwind guard lies flat on the pier stones, an arrow through her neck.

A gray haze covers the sun, and the darkness towers in the western skies as Creslin unsheathes his blade. He holds it loosely as he steps toward the storm of steel and shafts boiling up around the pier.

He continues downhill, his eyes on the harbor, his sense in the skies. Thoirkel is still there, with a blade that has appeared from somewhere.

… now… thrust…

By the time they are halfway to the fighting, boats are carrying troops onto the eastern beaches, and the end of the pier is held by the attackers.

“Aeeeüi…”

“Bitches…”

The sounds of swords and voices echo off the cots and rocks, and Creslin looks for the redness that is Megaera and sees none, but neither has he felt the pain he knows he will feel if she is injured.

Lightning forks from the sky and toward the seas, narrowly missing the tall ship that stands farthest seaward.

Arrows continue to arch into the air and sleet down upon those who struggle on the stones of the pier, but some now fly from the shoreward end of the pier onto the two Hamorian ships within the harbor.

RRhhhssttt…

… aeeeüieeee…

Creslin staggers at the white flame that sears him as Megaera releases the firebolt. Fire sheets from the pier, and the foresails of the lead schooner burst into flames.

Creslin strides forward onto the pier, wrenching winds, wrenching at all he can grasp in the skies above.

Thurrummm… thrum… crackkk!

The tall ship shudders as lightnings flash upon it and the winds howl, and as the mist and swirling tempests solidify into a funnel of blackness.

“Ooofff…” Thoirkel pushes Creslin aside as a bronze-faced man appearing from nowhere swings an ax toward the regent. A pair of swords stops the Hamorian.

Though Megaera has said nothing, the white agony of her use of chaos burns Creslin as though he had stood in the flame himself. He staggers before he remembers that he has a blade and lets his body react, even as his thoughts twist the black tower of water toward the next Hamorian ship.

The lead schooner at the pier is shrouded in fire, and her masts and timbers begin to burn.

Double lightning forks from the swirling darkness to the north and west, shivering another Hamorian vessel, which one Creslin is not quite sure as he struggles with blade and winds.

The two ships flanking the debris that had been a tall ship try to turn from the waterspout, but the waters swallow them in a tower that rears like a wall between the harbor and the north.

“… light!”

“… get the redhead and the silver-head!”

Creslin’s blade snakes out and drops another Hamorian as his thoughts twist the darkness upon the ships beyond the breakwater, knowing that he dare not bring that much water within the small harbor. ‘

“Around the regents… now!”

Creslin finds himself side to side with another fighter, one with red hair, and he almost lowers his blade in relief. “Get the other ships!” Megaera hisses.

… idiot…

Creslin swallows as he recalls those off the eastern beaches, as he pulls the waterspout around the point and toward the three ships. Only those three and the two schooners within the harbor remain afloat.

“Hit the center. That’s where they are!”

“Ooo…” Creslin winces. Flame seems to sheet through his right shoulder, but he continues to concentrate on the winds, bringing them and the entire wall of water down upon the Hamorian vessels off the beach.

Ruuu… swwussshhhHHH!

Creslin’s teeth grind under the impact of Megaera’s pain and his own. Yet, off the eastern beaches, only debris and bodies float. The sands are scoured clean by the mast-high wave that has ripped men, weapons, and vegetation alike off the low hill that protects
Land’s End from the stones and the waves-and that has driven one nearly mastless hull hard upon the sand.

Creslin’s guts are in his throat, and he pukes over the man felled before him by Megaera’s blade before she follows his example.

“Damn your weak guts…”

… puking… weak-kneed… bastard…

“Shut up…” he mumbles, lifting his blade.

There is no further use for the blade, for all of the Hamorians on the pier are fallen. Perhaps a score have dived into the debris-laden waters to swim out toward the second ship, which has slipped her cables and turns toward the seas.

The lead schooner flares brightly, burning so hot that steam rises where the waters from the sky pelt her. The few Hamorians remaining in the water try to swim beyond the heat.

Hard rain swirls around Creslin, and his right arm lies leaden at his side. He swallows, knowing that he is not finished. Taking a deep breath, he regathers the winds, waiting only until the last Hamorian ship clears the rocks of the breakwater. Then he calls, ignoring the white stars before his eyes. Willing away the agony in his arm and shoulders, he summons the high winds and the cold.

He watches until he is certain that only timbers and debris dot the heavy swells; then he turns to Megaera, who looks at him white-faced, blood smeared across her gray tunic and leathers.

He cannot hold the image, cannot speak, and finds himself sinking to the slippery and bloody stones underfoot, knowing that Megaera is sinking with him.