A Path to Coldness of Heart (57 page)

There was the winged horse, airborne, streaking over a vaguely discernable river. Nepanthe had adjusted her bowl to see in limited light, but there was little of that. Ragnarson thought he saw ruins and a substantial wood that had been ripped to kindling.

“That’s right outside Lioantung,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s running from something. It gets away but then when it tries to hide the thing that’s after it always finds it again. There! That shadow.”

It was dark out there. Ragnarson saw nothing but the night.

“That’s a demon,” Ekaterina said. “One of the… Serving the one we aren’t supposed to name.”

“So,” Ragnarson mused. “He’s lost all patience.”

“Varth was right,” Nepanthe said. “He has a problem with his horse not doing what he wants.” She backed off the point of view. The horse became a white toy flapping desperately toward the shattered forest. The demon, a sprawl detectable only where it masked whatever lay behind it, followed. It had trouble staying locked onto its quarry.

A bit of red light, just a point but so intense it hurt the eye, appeared at the edge of the bowl. It moved toward the demon at an absurd speed. A second point, paler but more intense, ripped toward the winged horse.

Ragnarson blurted, “What the…?”

Neither Nepanthe nor Ekaterina managed that much.

The easterners on duty crowded round, excited. They knew what was happening but lacked the language skills to explain.

...

A startling amount of progress had been made toward restoring Lioantung. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, however, had established himself in the worst of what remained unreclaimed. He led a company of specialized artillerists. They had a dozen transfer portals in support, against a need for hasty redeployment. There was no obvious sign of their presence, from ground level or the air.

A runner approached. “Message from the Empress, Lord.”

“Another one?”

“Yes, Lord. Another one.”

She would drive him crazy if she did not stop. He wished he dared cut communications completely so he need not waste time keeping her reassured.

He had sent one message bluntly asking her to stop. She had apologized, then had kept right on fussing.

She would be watching now, he knew. She kept sending updates, repeating what his own people had reported already.

His second for the operation, Lord Chu Lo Kuun, announced, “The target has changed course and put on speed, Lord.” It had been drifting lazily, out of range, going nowhere. “It might finally come close enough… Something odd, here. Ah! It isn’t alone!”

Lord Ssu-ma stepped over. “I see.” He saw more than the obvious, in fact. “Sixty miles separating them.”

“But closing fast.”

“Total alert. Stand by for action.” He wanted to step out where he could see the eastern sky but there was no point. It was dark. He would see nothing but stars and a sliver of moon too slight to dust the ruins with silver. Winged horse and demon both would remain invisible unless right overhead.

A demon, though—and one of considerable power—was after the winged horse. Only the Star Rider was calling up devils these days. The horse had been shunning its master. Must have disappointed him hugely to have generated such a cruel reaction.

Lord Chu saw it, too. “What do you think?”

Shih-ka’i’s response would not be popular in some quarters. He removed his boar’s mask so Lo Kuun could read his lips, which he shaded with his right hand. “Target lock them both and calculate their probable closest points of approach.” Unstated, do all that before higher authority intervened. Before the Empress decided to take the Windmjirnerhorn for herself.

Lo Kuun might have some slight ambition, too, though only Old Meddler had ever been able to control the Horn. His body language suggested that he did not like his orders. Nevertheless, he executed them. Nor did he remind his superior that angles of fire and points of approach would change by the moment as horse and demon maneuvered. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i had written the doctrine for extreme range use of this artillery. He had proven that doctrine against the Great One.

That Lo Kuun would do as instructed was why Lord Ssu-ma had chosen him as his second.

Coming events would be choreographed to serve the empire, not individual ambition. Thus did the pig farmer’s son will it.

Shortly, from nearby but out of sight, Lord Chu announced, “All set, Lord. They are in range, targeted and locked.”

“Launch one on each.”

“Launching now, Lord.”

Came a roar like the combined release of a hundred heavy ballistae in barrage. The ruins shook. Rubble fell.

“One is away,” Lo Kuun announced.

The roar repeated itself. So did the shaking. Somewhere not far off a brick wall groaned and collapsed.

“Two is away. Three and four are targeted and locked.”

“Stand by. Reload one and two.”

“Reloading one and two, Lord.”

Shih-ka’i stepped over to where farseeing specialists were tracking the shafts. They reported both flying true.

He whispered, “She will be extremely unhappy,” inside his mask, not moving his lips.

She might dismiss him. Though she had not given specific instructions she would expect him to preserve something with the potential of the Windmjirnerhorn. And, as certainly, he knew that this attack would tell Old Meddler a great deal about what he now faced.

The shafts were no secret, though. They had been employed in number against the Great One, then against Matayanga to the extent that any remained in inventory after the struggle in the east. But Shih-ka’i’s ability to target them precisely, against objects in motion… The Empress would rather that neither the Star Rider nor the world know her artillerists were able to do that.

But what point to owning an unknown power never deployed?

Shih-ka’i believed that success tonight would be worth the secret. Loss of his horse and Horn would cripple the Star Rider forever. He would be reduced from demigod status to the level of a Varthlokkur or Magden Norath—except for his command of the iron statues. Which advantage might be lost to him already.

Shih-ka’i watched the fiery points of his shafts cross the scrying bowls at speeds difficult to encompass. Somewhere, Old Meddler might just now be realizing that something was terribly wrong.

“Shield your eyes!” he barked.

He protected his own as shaft one came on target fifty miles away. The flare overwhelmed that quarter of the world.

Shih-ka’i gave it a half minute before saying, “Targeteers, report.”

Two men replied, “Hit, Lord!” Two more declared, “Standing by to launch, Lord.”

“Did we actually accomplish anything?”

“The demon is burning, Lord.”

Lord Ssu-ma scooted over while the other targeteer reported, “The animal is going down, Lord, damaged but still struggling.”

“Launch number four.” This follow-up was the shot that would irk the Empress most. He moved in behind the specialist tracking the demon. “That is impressive.”

A vast patch of sky had become a thunderhead of hazy, oily fire.

The technician, so excited he failed to maintain his composure, declared, “That is screaming amazing, Lord! We caught it completely by surprise!”

“Yes. If he sends another, though, expect it to be prepared.”

Shih-ka’i was nearly as awed. He had not killed a demon before, nor had he watched one die. And this was a major demon. This would get attention across this world and on other planes. Could Old Meddler watch without the Windmjirnerhorn? If not, he would be lost. He had sent a king demon, yet would hear nothing back.

No. Wrong. He would hear, eventually. The demon’s kin would clue him in when he decided to send another. They would show him, when they refused to be condemned to an identical fate. Maybe they would be intimidated to the point where they would abandon the weakened him altogether.

Compulsion could be counted on only so far.

There would be no powerful demonic urge toward revenge. Revenge was not, generally, something that drove demonkind. Socially, they interacted more like crocodiles than primates.

Shih-ka’i moved to the man tracking the winged horse in time to catch the second weapon in its final approach. “Shield eyes!” he barked.

The winged horse was only twenty miles away now, and just two hundred feet up. The flare even generated a mild shock wave.

“Hit again, Lord. It was more ready... Oh! It crashed. I’ll zero in when my eyes adjust.”

Shih-ka’i studied the downed horse. Its one wing was partially crisped and probably broken. Its right foreleg was broken for sure. It tried to walk but could not. Neither could it get airborne. The farseer conveyed no sound so Lord Ssu-ma could not hear its screams. He observed, “I don’t see the Horn.”

“Underneath it, Lord. And damaged. It started smoldering after the first shaft hit.” The technician backed the viewpoint off. A scatter of debris stretched along the animal’s line of flight for half a mile. It looked like all the goods of a grand bazaar had been spewed across the rocky countryside. Some scrubby bushes wore tattered silk. The mess would be more striking once the sun rose. “It appears to have puked tons of random stuff.”

Shih-ka’i nodded. “How far? I’d like to go see—if it’s reasonably close.”

“That’s just across the river.” The technician drew the view back. “It’s there. We’re here. Six miles?”

“Fine. Excellent, in fact. Lord Chu. Let’s go meet a legend face to face.”

“As you command, Lord.” Lo Kuun lacked enthusiasm. He preferred to use another shaft and make absolutely sure.

...

Ragnarson demanded, “If you’ve got weapons that ferociously powerful why use them way out there instead of throwing them at himself? You could…”

“Exactly the sort of point the Tervola would raise to argue that a girl shouldn’t be in charge. Ignoring the practicalities. Like there were only nine shafts available and all of those were on the frontier, whence they would have to be transported close enough to shoot at himself. He took a shortcut getting to Throyes. We can’t shortcut those things. Normally, in fact, they’re made where they’re going to be used.”

Ragnarson was not mollified, nor was he ready to take that at face value. She had known she had those weapons from the start. Had she not? She should have started moving them months ago…

Maybe she had not known. Such weapons might be hoarded jealously by those who controlled them. Plus, there would have been no way to know where they would be needed before the need arose. Right?

He needed to think more before he barked.

...

Old Meddler sensed disaster even before his attempt to conjure another supernatural soldier produced a demon messenger who delivered visual proof.

He watched his hunter burn. He watched his old friend, twice hit, go down so violently that no protective spell was enough.

Nor was the Windmjirnerhorn engineered to survive such punishment. Chunks came off, some aflame. A gout of miscellany, literally dozens of tons, spewed out, including sparkling new coins, casks of wine, clothing, a carpet fifty feet long and twenty wide. Weapons. Shoes. Several living things. A fine art sculpture the size of an iron statue.

It was his own worst disaster since his condemnation to this horrible plane, happening almost casually. Absent the Horn…

He had to stop it. All of it. Now. He had to take time out to reflect seriously, not just about how to survive in times to come but about what this all meant in the grander scheme.

He was not watching a chance encounter go foul. That was an ambush. Tervola had been in place and waiting, armed with the most ferocious weapon in their arsenal. That they had been waiting told a hundred tales—none of them happy for the Star Rider.

The product of the combined equations was that that the Star Rider needed to leave the stage immediately, abandoning the play while it was in progress. Any other course would lead to the end of everything.

They would be waiting at Fangdred, Varthlokkur and the she-Tervola. They had been ahead of him most of the way. They had immense resources, some of which he had remained unaware.

All that was obvious. He did not send demons to spy. There was no point. They would be prepared for that, too.

The messenger demon brought word of Varthlokkur’s raid into the Place of the Iron Statues, further proving that the enemy had exceptional resources and impossible knowledge. Varthlokkur might reasonably remember that the Place existed but how could he possibly know how to get past the safeguards to do the damage that he had done? Could it be that the Unborn was that much more powerful than anyone had imagined?

Old Meddler sighed. He slumped. The long struggle might be over—with him as the loser.

Not yet! No. He had options. Again, the best was just to hide till today’s devils died and their knowledge faded. They always did die. The knowledge always did fade—though this time could be the exception.

Was there any real point? His enemies had eliminated his last few tools. With no Horn, no horse, and the Place in shambles, he had nothing left but time.

There was one final refuge, beneath the Mountains of the Thousand Sorcerers. He had not gone there since his effort to ready the Disciple for his role. He could head for the Horned Mountain now and let himself be wrapped in the arms of his lover, Time, underneath, till he could emerge and amaze and terrify tomorrow with his return. He would have to do so armed only with Magden Norath’s grim journals, because there were almost no resources cached in that deep labyrinth. He knew not why. Those choices had not been made by him.

But. The Horned Mountain was a long way south, through deserts and mountains, a harsh passage for a man several thousand years old.

Also… Varthlokkur really had invaded the Place. How much damage had he done? Had he broken any chains? Had he cracked any confining walls? If he had done more than just finish off already damaged iron statues, things could begin to come apart in a huge way. And the warder in charge, the warder once able to handle it all with ease, no longer possessed the powers or tools to do his job effectively.