Tides of Darkness (19 page)

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Authors: Judith Tarr

BOOK: Tides of Darkness
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“Ah, great lady,” said Batan. “Your fears are flattering, but you needn't fret for us. We're well defended here. Who's coming for us? Raiders? Pirates? Rebels and renegades? We're armed against them all.”
“Against this you are not.” She urged the mare forward, up the steps of the dais, until she stood over the lord in his tall chair. “Where are your mages? Why are your walls not warded?”
“Lady,” he said, barely cowed by the sight of her looming above him, “with all due respect, mages and fighting men have little in common.”
“Indeed?” said Perel. Merian had not seen him move, but he was off the back of his senel, leaning lightly on the arm of Batan's chair, with the point of a dagger resting against the great vein of the lord's throat. With his free hand he conjured a flock of bright birds that scattered, singing, through the hall. “Warrior and mountebank, I, and occasional imperial errand-runner. Do believe her, sea-lord. I've seen what this city is about to be, and it is not a pleasant sight.”
“We are defended,” Batan said.
“Not against this.” Perel lowered the knife but kept it ready, angled to pierce either eye or throat if the man moved untimely. “You should not have let your mages die off or settle elsewhere. Strength of arms is all very well, but this requires strength of magic.”
“Indeed? Then why isn't—whatever it is—choosing mages for targets? Is it hungry to taste good clean steel?”
“It shatters cities,” Merian said, “and takes slaves. It comes from beyond the stars. I can defend you, but I ask a thing in return.”
“Of course you do,” said Batan. “What do you need of me, beautiful lady?”
“A hundred of your best fighting men, with mounts for them all. And leave for my guardsman here to do whatever he deems necessary for the defense of this city.”
“Men and mounts,” said Batan, nodding slowly. “And provisions? How long a campaign?”
“One night,” she said. “From dark until dawn.”
“Then you won't be going far.”
“Just out of sight of the city,” she said. “If there's a level of land within that distance, with room enough to build a city, that will do best. If not, we'll make do with what we can find.”
“I know of a place,” he said. “It was a city once. They say mages broke it in a war, ages ago, when mages still fought wars.”
Her eyes widened slightly. She knew nothing of such a city, or of such wars as he spoke of. They must be ancient beyond imagining, forgotten in the mists of time.
Now they would live again. “Yes,” she said to him. “That will do very well. Choose your men now. We mount and ride within the hour. It were best we be in place before nightfall.”
“I do like a strong woman,” Batan said. Perel's dagger had withdrawn; he rose. His armlets and collar clashed as he flung them on the floor. His people were staring, mute, comprehending only that there was a battle ahead of them. He singled out ten of them, swiftly. “Fetch your men. First court, now.”
They flung off the fumes of wine and idleness and leaped to do his bidding. Merian nodded approval. Perel was not pleased with the task she had given him, but for once he did not object. This was battle—he would defer to his general, however little he liked his orders.
When she came to the courtyard, she found her hundred men already gathered. One more joined them: Batan on a seneldi stallion as massive and beautifully arrogant as he was himself. He was armored as they all were, cloaked against the cold, but grinning delightedly at the prospect of a fight.
She found that she was grinning back. Gods knew she was no pirate,
but after so long in fretting and in waiting, she was more than glad to be taking some action, even if it should prove completely useless.
The sun was sinking, but there was time, Batan assured her, to reach the ruins and set up camp. They could ride at speed, with no need to spare the seneldi. The evening was clear, if cold; the wind had died to a brisk breeze.
As they rode at the gallop through the city gate, the wards rose into a high and singing fortress, a flame of golden light in the long rays of the sun. Merian sighed and let herself slump briefly on the dun mare's neck, before she straightened and urged the senel onward. The mare was desert-bred: that pause in the lord's hall had been as good as sleep and grazing to her. She would need water and forage soon, but with the gods' good favor, she would have it.
The ruined city lay somewhat over a league away, perched on a crag over a swirling maelstrom of waves. Its walls were broken, its towers tumbled in the winter grass. There was still a fragment of citadel, and enough wall to shelter this small an army. While they made camp, pitching tents and building fires and posting sentries, she walked the line of the old walls, gathering power as she went.
It had been some while since she made such a working, a great illusion and a subtle lure for the darkness. She could feel the stretching at the edges of her magic, the strain of arts and powers unused or little used, but she was not taxed unduly, not yet. If she had been less in haste, she would have brought with her a company of mages from Starios. It was only Perel's stubbornness that had given her such support as she had.
Too late now for regrets. If—when—she did this again, she would do it properly. Now she had to hope, first, that her workings would rise and hold, and then that she had guessed rightly; that the enemy would come here and not somewhere altogether unforeseen.
Batan followed her on her round of the walls. He did not vex her with chatter, but his eyes were a little too intent for comfort. She closed them out while she brought her magics together and raised the walls anew, stone by stone at first, then swifter, as the magic found its stride.
The earth woke to the working, and drew up power of its own, startling her, but she had wits enough to make use of the gift as it was offered.
She built a city of air and darkness. Each of the men who camped in it, she swelled to a dozen, then a hundred, populating the city with strong warriors. Herself she scattered through it, so that she was a myriad of women, young and strong, with babes at the breast and babes in the belly, and flocks of children.
When she was done, she encompassed multitudes; and this broken city seemed alive again, if any had looked on it from without. From within, without magic, there was little to see, save a flicker of shadows.
A few of the men were white-rimmed about the eyes. Those had enough power to sense a glimmer of what she had done. She mounted a heap of rubble that might once have been a stair, and waited for them all to take notice of her. The sun was nearly down; swift dusk was falling. She mantled herself in light, damping it lest she alarm the men, but letting it seem as if she had caught the last glow of the sun. “Men of Seahold,” she said, “I thank you for this gift that you have given me. You are the shield and bulwark of your city, and its greatest defense. It may be that you will have to fight tonight. Don't be astonished if shadows seem to fight beside you. You may die; you may be taken captive. This will not be an easy battle, if battle there is. If any of you would withdraw, you should do so now. I can send you to safety while it is still possible.”
“What will we be fighting, lady?” asked a whip-thin man with a terribly scarred face. “There's no threat from the land, and nothing will come at us by sea, not on this cliff.”
“It will come from the far side of the night,” Merian answered him,
“and it will do its best to enslave you. You are bait, captain; if I've laid the snare properly, this invasion will pass by Seahold altogether and fall on us here.”
“Ah!” said the captain. “Bait we understand. Deadly danger, risk of being boarded, captured, sold in the Isles—what! Are you shocked, lady? Do you think your laws can bind a pirate?”
“I think,” said Merian, “that those laws might be enforced more strictly hereafter—but also that some sentences might be commuted for services rendered to the empire. If you survive. If this gamble succeeds.”
“We are all gamblers here,” another man said. Grins flashed white, spreading fast, for none was to be outdone by any other.
She had them. They were no cowards; they did not know enough to be afraid, nor maybe would they quail even if they had known. They took their ease as seasoned fighters could, alert but wasting no strength in fretting.
She settled on the broken stair, wrapped close in her mantle. Batan brought her a cup of wine, spiced and steaming hot, and a loaf of bread that must have been brought from the city. There was cheese baked in it, still warm, savory with herbs and bits of sausage. She ate every scrap, and sipped the wine slowly, until she was warm from her center outward.
Batan watched her, smiling slightly, as the twilight deepened and the stars bloomed overhead. In a little while both moons would rise together, but now there was only a gold-and-crimson glow along the eastern horizon.
His regard was deeply respectful, but offered more, if she would take it. If she had been another woman, she might have welcomed the warmth. But she was the cold daughter of the Sun, who carried the god's fire in her, but took none of it for herself.
She drew her cloak more tightly about her and shifted a little away from him. He shrugged, then smiled ruefully. He did not retreat to the greater conviviality of his comrades.
He was guarding her. She decided to allow it. When the fight came, if it came, she would need his strong arm and his skill in weaponry, until the trap was sprung.
They all settled to wait. The light in the east swelled so slowly that it was barely perceptible. Then the blood-red arc of Greatmoon's rim lifted above the horizon. Brightmoon blazed in its wake.
The silence was absolute. The phantom city grew stronger, more real,
in that twinned light. No shadow came. Nothing stirred but the wind and the crashing of the waves.
Merian felt herself slipping into a doze. She shook herself awake.
He
was on the other side of dream, calling to her. But she could not answer. Not tonight. Not without betraying them all.
A
S THE MOONS CLIMBED THE SKY, SHADOW CREPT TO COVER them. It seemed at first like mist or cloud, but it was too deep, its edges too distinct. It was like a curtain drawn across the moons.
The dimmer their light grew, the more campfires seemed to burn within the ruined walls. The city of shadows was stronger. It was feeding on old magic sunk deep in the earth, tapping roots that had grown there in times before time. It was stronger than Merian now, and had grown apart from her. It no longer drew from her strength.
There was danger in that, but no more, surely, than she had courted in baiting this trap. The fabric of the world was tearing. Things were pressing on it, seeking entry from without. Every instinct screamed at her to raise wards against it, but she must not. She did not want to keep it out. She wanted to draw it in, trap it, and if possible destroy it.
The tone of the waiting had sharpened. The darkness grew deeper, though the moons rose higher. The sea battered the cliff-wall. She could taste the salt of spray.
They came in the deepest night, when the only light was a struggling flicker of firelight. They rode through the tatters of the world's walls, an army of darkness mounted on beasts like nothing this world had seen.
The riders were human. Sworn and bound to darkness though they were, they were men. They were not mages. They were as mortal as men could be. The shadow was darkness absolute—but these riders had not wrought it. They wielded it, perhaps served it, but it was not theirs as the illusion of a city was hers.
They fell on it with a bombardment of weapons so strange that they caught Merian off guard. Siege-engines, even mage-bolts, she would have known how to face: feigned the proper response of mortal walls, and allowed them slowly to crumble and fall. This was like a blast of dark flame. It seared through the illusion. The western side of the camp caught the edge of it and puffed to ash.
There was no light, not even heat as she had known it. It simply destroyed whatever it touched.
Batan's men had no mage-sight. They could not know what had attacked them: their fires, dying too swiftly, revealed nothing but enveloping darkness. Those who had been in the western tents stumbled through the heaps of ash where they had been, naked and blind. The armor that they had worn, even to the garments beneath it, was gone, but the dark fire had harmed not a hair of their heads.
The raiders had stopped. One of them raised a weapon like a thick spearhaft and cast from it another bolt of lightless flame.
This time Merian was ready. The wall that met it had the strength of stone. It trembled before the assault, cracking and crumbling.
Batan barked orders to his men. Merian cast a magelight over them, shielded against the attackers, but clear enough that they could see as she saw. They spread across the field, weapons at the ready. As they moved, they doubled and trebled and doubled again. Her working had
found its strength once more, rooted deep in this crag. Her armies of air were gathered. The living men took it for a dream, or understood and yet were not afraid.
Pirates, she thought with something very like admiration. They always landed on their feet, whatever deck they fell to.
The enemy broke down the walls, battering them relentlessly until not one stone lay atop another. If it astonished them to find an army arrayed against them, they betrayed nothing of it. The foremost rank raised their flame-spitting spears with a lack of haste that reeked of contempt. Swords and spears, even arrows, were no proof against them.
The earth quivered underfoot. Far below, beneath even the ancient magic, fire surged and swelled like the sea: fire of earth, born of the sun's fire.
Merian called it up. She grasped it with both hands, the hand that was mortal flesh and the hand that was immortal gold. She drew it into herself, filling her body with living flame.
Batan's men howled and sprang to the charge. The enemy lowered their spears. Merian loosed the fire.
They went up like torches. Their beasts, their armor, burned with a fierce white flame. The light ate them alive, devoured them whole. Nothing remained of them but a drift of ash, swirling in the wind.
Merian stood astonished. The wind blew the cloud of ash away. There was nothing left, not one thing. She had destroyed them utterly. Even the shadow was gone; the stars were clean, and the moons shining as bright almost as day.
 
“It can't be that easy.”
Merian had called council as soon as the sun came up, gathering it in the fire in front of Batan's tent. She could see each one where he or she was: her kin in Starios, Ushallin in Kuvaar, Kalyi in the ruins ofYallin in the Isles, and Perel in Seahold, which had passed a peaceful night within the protection of his wards.
It was her brother Hani who had spoken, from the library that she
missed with sudden intensity. “If a simple spell of fire could destroy them, they would never have come as far as this. Someone else would have lit them like torches long ago.”
“I took them by surprise,” Merian said. “They may come warded next.”
“I'm sure they will,” her mother said. “But do think. If they're so vulnerable to light—if they travel in a cloak of absolute darkness—we have a weapon against them. Light is our simplest magic, one that even the least of mages can raise. We can muster our mages with that knowledge.”
“It is useful,” Hani granted her, “but I can't help thinking, wouldn't it be better to track them to their lair and destroy them? If all we do is defend, they can keep coming and coming. We should attack.”
“We need to know more,” said Merian. “I saw men, not mages. Someone or something is behind them, and that has power enough to blind the stars, to break or ignore Gates, and to overrun worlds.”
“Still an enigma,” her mother said, “but a little less of one than before. If we can capture one of them, discover what he knows …”
“We'll try,” Merian said. “They may come back here to find out what became of their raiding party. I'll be waiting for them.”
“You'll have reinforcements,” Daruya said, “but we can't spare many. We're spread dangerously thin as it is.”
“We may be able to predict where they'll come,” Merian said. “If we have mages ready to spring through lesser Gates at the first indication of the enemy's coming, we'll be able to do battle wherever he is.”
Daruya nodded briskly. “Yes. That's well thought of. I'll see to it. Look for the newcomers before sunset.”
“They'll find us here,” Merian said. “I'll have men fortifying this place as much as they can—walls seem to be of some use, and better walls of stone than walls of air.”
That ended the council. Merian lingered by the fire. She hardly needed its warmth: the magefire was still in her, burning with a steady flame.
Batan's shadow fell across her. Those of his men who had been
touched by the dark fire were laid together in one of the larger tents; he had been with them until a moment ago. His face was grim. “They're blind,” he said. “They flinch and scream when the sun touches them, but they can't see it. Their eyes are sealed shut.”
Merian rose stiffly. She was weary; she had not slept since before she could remember. “Let me see,” she said.
 
There were a dozen of them. The skin of those who were not already white-skinned seafolk was blanched to the color of bone. Their eyes were indeed sealed shut: the lids had melted into the faces. It might have seemed that they were eyeless, save that Merian could see the wild shifting of the eyes beneath the skin. When she came into the tent, bringing with her a shaft of sunlight, those nearest her writhed and moaned as if in pain.
Her lips tightened. Her anger was too deep for speech. She knelt beside the first man. He shrank from her; his skin shuddered convulsively. When she touched him, he shrieked.
She withdrew her hand, sat back on her heels, and drew a careful breath. The power she had was Sun's power, power of light. These men had been so poisoned that the touch of it was agony.
“Darkmages,” she said. She spoke across the long leagues of the empire. “Mother. Send a darkmage. Quickly.”
Daruya's mind touched hers, brushed it with assent, slipped away. She felt the press of power on the Gate within her.
Here
, she bade it.
Outside.
She smiled in spite of herself at the one who came in, though she frowned immediately after. “Hani. You can't—”
“My father is taking his turn in the library,” her brother said. He was dressed for travel in leather and fur, the common garb of Shurakan; his straight black hair was plaited behind him. He knelt beside her.
She had not even thought of him when she asked her mother for a darkmage. She never saw him so; he was her brother the scholar, the quiet and perpetual presence either in Starios or in Shurakan. He did
not flaunt his power; even in councils of mages he spoke more often as a scholar than as a darkmage. Yet he was strong though he had come to it late; and he was skilled, as a scholar could be who had studied both the theory and the praxis of his art.
When he laid his hand on the wounded man's brow, the man twitched, then sighed. Hani echoed that sigh. “This is an ill working,” he said, “well beyond my power to heal. Better all these men be taken where healers can look after them. There's too much broken, too much twisted. This horror of the light—it goes to the heart of them. Can you see?”
Through the mirror of Hani's power, she could. Without that, she was blinded by her own light. “We'll send them to the Temple of Uveryen in Kundri'j,” she said. “You will stay here. If we manage to capture one of the enemy, he may be even more appalled by a lightmage than one of these men. We'll need you then.”
“Very likely you will,” he agreed. He fixed her with a hard stare. “And now, sister, you will rest while I see to what needs to be done.”
“I can't rest,” she said. “There's too much to—”
“I'll do it. You're out on your feet. Tonight we need you alive and conscious. Shall I throw you over my shoulder and carry you to bed?”
She glared. He was more than capable of doing just that, and rather too often had. “I can walk,” she said tightly.
“Then walk.”
There was a tent for her, pitched long since. Her belongings were in it—rather more than she remembered bringing with her. Someone had laid out bread, salt fish, strong cheese. She was not hungry, but she ate as much of the bread as she could choke down, and made herself swallow a bite or two of fish, and drank the sour wine that had come with it.
While she ate, she felt the rising of power, the opening of the Gate that took the wounded men away. She heard men talking: Hani and Batan, the latter at first brusque, then softening before her brother's unshakable good humor. The lord of Seahold was out of his depth, and not liking it; but she saw in him no taint of treachery. He would keep his
oaths to the throne, however little it pleased him, and however poorly he understood the reasons.
The gods had been kind, to set this lord here, where such a man was most needed. She could rest. Hani would see that all was done that must be done.
She fell asleep to the sound of men arriving, masons and carpenters with the tools of their trade. They would build a wall to bolster her magic.
 
Her dream was drenched with sunlight. She caught a scent of flowers, and heard water lapping, waves of a lake or broad river on a green shore. The air was breathlessly hot, a great blessing after the damp and biting cold of winter by the sea.
He was standing on the bank, more deeply bronze than before, almost black against the dazzling white of his kilt. Sweat sheened his broad shoulders and ran in a runnel down his back. His hair had grown since last she dreamed him. It was cut in a way she had not seen before, straight across the brows and straight above the shoulders. A plaited band bound it above the brows. It was odd, but she rather liked it.
He had a bow in his hand and an arrow nocked to the string; he was watching a flock of birds that swam together on the water. They were large birds, grey and brown and white; their call was an odd and almost comical honking. In his mind was the thought that their flesh, when roasted, was very good to eat.
He was alone. She might have expected hunting companions, servants, a guard or two, but in this world of dream, there was only he.
He turned. The splendor of his joy weakened her knees. He caught her as she sank down, lifting her in a long delicious swoop. His laughter healed her of weariness and fear, cold and anger and the lingering touch of the shadow.
When he would have set her down, she drew him with her, body to his body, swept with a white heat of desire. He was ready for her after a moment's startlement: beautiful dream-lover, giving her her every wish.
They lay naked in a bed of reeds, breathing hard, grinning at one another. He stroked her hair out of her face, letting his hand linger, caught in curling golden strands. “It's been so long,” he said. “I thought I'd lost you, driven you away with my wantonness. You are no light woman, and I—”

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