Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (22 page)

           
Briefly, he felt psychic hands
clutch at him, a pang of fear replaced by hope as their grip proved weak,
unable to halt him. A sensation of angry disappointment, of malign frustration,
radiated from somewhere, from someone—from Rhythamun!— far below, and he
reveled in that small triumph.

           
He sped faster and faster, uncaring
now, confident again, heady and gleeful with the velocity, winging steadily
closer to the light, to safety.

           
And halted with an abruptness that
left him dizzy as he hovered, looking down on his supine body, Ochen beside
it—beside
him
—kneeling with upraised
hands, mouth moving in near-silent muttering.

           
Bracht and Katya and Cennaire
crouched close to the wazir; all the camp was awake, Chazali and his warriors
watching, grim sentinels, only the guards not intent on the sorcerer and his
occult working.

           
Calandryll descended, reclaiming his
corporeal form.

           
And opened his eyes to see Ochen
smiling, shoulders sagging in exhausted relief.

           
"Horul, but I thought you lost
then."

           
"Ahrd! What happened?"

           
"Praise all the gods you've
returned."

           
They spoke together, tumbled words,
Ochen and Bracht and Katya. Only Cennaire was silent, her eyes huge and awed,
studying him with ... he was not sure . . . anxiety, welcome, reverence? He
smiled wanly, opening his mouth to speak, finding it dry, blinking as sweat ran
into his eyes. He shivered, feverish a moment, and Bracht carried a cup to his
mouth, an arm about his shoulders as the Kern bled water between his lips.

           
The water was refreshing, the
solidity of Bracht's arm a comfort; he rested back against that support,
drinking deep, and sighed, a long, shuddering sound.

           
"What happened?" he asked.

           
To feel his lips move, to know that
cords vibrated in his throat, to be aware of the coolness of the water on his
tongue, to hear his own voice again, all were wondrous sensations. No less the
fire's warmth, the reality of the hard ground under him, the scents of leather
and human skin, horses and woodsmoke. To know himself returned was unimaginable
joy: he laughed.

           
Ochen set hands about his chin then,
turning his face—the feel of the dry, warm flesh was in itself a comfort—and
stared deep into his eyes. For an instant he felt himself almost lost again,
falling into the tawny light of the sorcerer's gaze. But this was not like
before—this light was akin to the beacon that had brought him back. He heard
the wazir speak, softly, the words arcane, unintelligible.

           
Then Ochen said, "All is well.
No taint remains."

           
"Taint?" Calandryll thrust
abruptly forward, away from Bracht's arm, hearing his voice come harsh.
"How say you, taint?"

           
"I suspect," the wazir
said gently, "that our enemy sought to ensnare you. Perhaps to delude and
seduce you. But he failed—no ill remains."

           
Calandryll swallowed, his throat dry
again,- Bracht proffered the cup, refilled, and he took it, able now to drink
unaided. Ochen said, "Do you describe to me what happened and I can better
explain it."

           
Calandryll nodded and told his
story.

           
Ochen listened in grave silence, and
when the telling was done said, "Rhythamun waxes ever more powerful—I
warned of that, no? He closes on those portals through which Tharn's dreaming
comes strong, and the Mad God knows it—reaches out to aid his minion. God and
man, both, sought then to draw your pneuma from you, to deliver you into limbo.
Had you entered that mist you saw— had you traversed that barrier between the
worlds—I doubt you'd have returned."

           
"Then you've my thanks,"
Calandryll whispered. "For I'd not the strength to resist."

           
"But resist you did."
Ochen laughed, an accolade, triumphant, his eyes sparkling between the narrow
slits of the lids. "I gave you some help, aye
_;
so did the
wazir-narimasu of Anwar-teng, but you it was who defeated the enemy's
intent."

           
"I was caught," Calandryll
protested. "I was a leaf blown on the wind, no more."

           
"Much more," said Ochen.
"Far more. There's a strength in you that withstands the blandishments of
Rhythamun. Even Tharn's wiles! Horul, but they must be chagrined now!"

           
"You speak of this power in
me?" Calandryll frowned, lost. "Was it not that allowed Rhythamun to
suck out my pneuma?"

           
"Aye," said Ochen.
"At least, it was your contiguity with the aethyr let him find you, but
that same power gave you the strength to fight him— and Tharn—and that's a mighty
gift."

           
"You name it gift?" asked
Calandryll. "That a mage such as Rhythamun is able to part my soul from
body? That seems more curse to me."

           
"Were you not so powerful as to
resist, aye." Ochen nodded, absently patting Calandryll's shoulder, as
might a parent or a pedagogue, explaining. "But you
were
able. Do you not see? No, of course not—forgive me, I assume
knowledge you've no way of having. So, listen—most men—those not so
gifted—would have been drawn out and forever lost. A 'normal' man, such as Bracht"—this
was with an apologetic smile to the Kern—"is armored against such
depradation by his very normality. He stands distant enough from the aethyr
that he is, in effect, invisible. You, however, stand close—as I told you
before—and so Rhythamun is able to find that part of you that exists on the
occult plane."

           
He paused, and Bracht muttered,
"Ahrd be thanked that I be normal. I stand with Calandryll on this—it
seems more curse than blessing."

           
"Are the two not often the
mutual faces of the same coin?" Ochen said. "The power in you,
Calandryll, allows Rhythamun knowledge of you, and that knowledge waxes greater
the closer he draws to his master. But equally, that same power grants you the
ability to fight him better. Had you not that power, you should have crossed
the barrier and been lost—we should now observe a body bereft of its animus, a
wasting husk.

           
"But you possess that power!
Horul, do you not see it? You withstood the blandishments of the Mad God! You
were able to fight the machinations of Rhythamun!"

           
"I felt anger," Calandryll
said, shrugging. "Anger and disgust at all Tharn stands for. No more than
that."

           
"Which anger and disgust,
righteous as they are, afforded you the power to deny the god," said
Ochen. "I think that is a very great power."

           
"When first we saw the Vanu
warboat ..." Bracht spoke slowly, thoughtfully. "When we believed
Katya our enemy . . . You called up that tempest to drive her off."

           
"And in Gash, when we were
attacked," now Katya took up the theme, her grey eyes wide and wondering,
"then you drove back the canoes. It was as though you summoned up a
terrible wind."

           
"And in Kharasul," Bracht
said, "when Xanthese and his Chaipaku looked to slay us ... As in Gash,
you fought like a man possessed."

           
"Or in fear of his life,"
said Calandryll.

           
"The spaewife there—Ellhyn—she
said there was a power in you," Bracht murmured. "Do you not
remember?"

           
"Varent's—Rhythamun's—stone."
Calandryll shook his head. "That gave me the power."

           
"That is not what Ellhyn
said." Katya studied him with wide, thoughtful eyes. "I recall her
words."

           
There
is power in you that you could use without the stone, did you know the way of
it.

           
"So," he admitted,
"do I. But even so ..."

           
"And in Vishat'yi," Bracht
pressed, "Menelian said the same, or so you advised us."

           
"And did you not bring Burash
himself to our aid?" Katya added. "When the Chaipaku would have
drowned us?"

           
Calandryll threw up protesting
hands: to fight these arguments was as hard as the struggle against Tharn's
summons, Rhythamun's force,- harder, for they came from friends.

           
"So be it," he allowed.
"So it is, if you all say so—there's some power in me I cannot understand.
Only that it renders me prey to magic. That it enables Rhythamun to find me
_;
to draw me out like some vampire leeching my blood, my soul."

           
"Against that," Ochen said
gently, "there are cantrips of defense that I can teach you, be you
willing."

           
"Willing?" Calandryll
hawked bitter laughter. "Should I refuse such gramaryes as relieve me of
that fear? I'd sooner go sleepless than bed down each night wondering if I must
journey to Tharn's domains."

           
"And yet," the wazir said,
"there's some advantage may be gained from that."

           
"Advantage?" Calandryll
fixed the ancient face with a disbelieving stare, wary of what thoughts lay behind
those musing eyes. "I'd sooner keep my soul, Ochen, be it all the same to
you."

           
Ochen smiled, bowing his head.
"I'd not see you lose your soul," he declared, his voice earnest,
"but I think you able to go where few others may. I am not without occult
resources, but even I could not have resisted that tide that swept you
along."

           
"You brought me back,"
Calandryll said, almost a shout, for he began to sense the direction of the
mage's thinking; and liked it not at all. "Had you not used your talent, I'd
be lost."

           
"I tell you again” Ochen said;
carefully now, his voice pitched low, insistent,
^“
that it was your
power as much as mine that brought you back. Alone, I could not have done it.
^”

           
^“
You were aided by the
wazir-narimasu. You said as much.
^”
Calandryll's response came
hoarse, trepidation mounting apace. "Your magic and theirs, you said.
^”

           
"Nor did I lie," promised
the wazir. "But still, had you not that unknown power, ours should not
have been sufficient to stand against those forces that looked to destroy you.
To destroy the threat you mean to them."

           
"What say you?" asked
Calandryll, softer, almost resigned: he felt sure he would not enjoy the
answer.

           
"That you are better able than
any wazir in this land to confront, to observe, Rhythamun," Ochen replied.
"I do not pretend to understand how this is so—save it be some gift of the
Younger Gods; or some duty imposed on you—only that I believe you may go to,
and return from, places none others may."

           
"I do not understand."
Again Calandryll shook his head. "You speak in riddles."

           
He looked to Bracht for support, and
found none, for the Kern, like all of them, was intent on the wazir.

           
"There is much of riddling in
sorcery," Ochen agreed with what Calandryll felt was an altogether
unseemly cheerfulness. "It is a riddle in itself, I sometimes think. But
heed—you were able to come close to Tharn and yet return. Rhythamun sent you
there, to end your threat, and so may you go to him. You've the power for it,
and he knows it . . ."

           
"I'd put my blade in him, were
I able," Calandryll snapped.

           
"Aye."
Ochen nodded absently, caught in the flow of his own thoughts. "And
perhaps it shall come to that; but edged steel is not the only way to destroy
Rhythamun. Could we draw out his pneuma, as he did yours, then so might we
ensnare him just as he endeavored to trap you."

           
Presentiment, trepidation, fear, all
came together in unwelcome understanding: Calandryll said, "You'd ask me
to hunt him on the occult plane?"

           
"Only after I've taught you the
cantrips of protection," said Ochen. "Only when you're armored with
such sortilege as can wholly defend you. And only with the aid of the
wazir-narimasu."

           
"You ask much of me."
Calandryll ducked his head, staring at the straightsword that rested, sheathed,
beside him,- touched the hilt. "I'd face him man to man. But there ...
?"