Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (32 page)

           
. . . The quest ended with him!

           
Three, always three: every prophecy,
every scrying, had spoken of three. It was scribed on his mind: Katya, Bracht,
himself—the questers, those ordained to stand against Rhythamun's fell design,
against the resurrection of the Mad God. Did one fall, all was lost. The
thought filled him with sadness. Not for the loss of his life, for that had
been a consideration, even a likelihood, since this quest began, and while he
had no wish to die, still he accepted that someday he must. Rather, it was a
sadness that after so much travail the quest should be ended, that Rhythamun
should win. Anger stirred then, hot, righteous, dispelling sorrow, and he
determined to sell himself as dear he might.

           
Abruptly, he realized that the
darkness overhead assumed a different hue, that motion ceased. He gasped as he
was dropped carelessly to the ground, the leg on which his horse had rolled
throbbing. He grunted a curse that was no less a prayer, and fought upright,
hand falling instinctively to his swordhilt.

           
The blade whispered from the
scabbard, defensive, defiant, and he stared, eyes narrowed in an attempt to
penetrate the shadows, confused that no attack came. Gradually, his night
vision returned and he stared around, wondering what obscene game was played,
what tune his captors plucked on his taut-strung nerves.

           
They stood in a circle about him,
seven of them, behind them a ring of high, wind-rustled pines, stately and
solemn. The uwagi seemed to wait, leashed by some imperative beyond his understanding,
beyond sword's reach, watching, their breath like the panting of wolves, or
rabid dogs. Indeed, they appeared as much lupine as human, a hideous blending
of characteristics: creatures out of nightmare. They stood shorter than the
Jesserytes they had been, for their legs were bowed and curiously bent, as if
the bones, the joints, changed shape, and their shoulders were hunched,
massive, extending into unnaturally long arms that ended in hands like paws,
great talons thrusting where once nails had been. Muscle bulged and corded over
their torsos, bursting the clothing, the armor, they had worn, tatters of cloth
and mail hanging like cerements, like memories of their forsaken humanity.
Tufts of grey hair, coarse and thick, sprouted from pallid skin, from features
horribly shifted to semblance of animals. Their brows were low, flattened,
ridges of bone extending over deep-seated eyes that glowed with a red, unholy
fire. Nostrils flared wide above prognathous muzzles, the lips stretched back
from long fangs, sharp as daggers, slaver hanging in streamers that swayed with
their panting. One sported a hand that flapped loose, the arm broken between
wrist and elbow. It showed no more sign of discomfort than the one that still
wore his dirk in its cheek.

           
They reminded Calandryll of nothing
so much as a wolf pack. No, for irrelevantly he recalled Bracht's words—that
wolves did not attack mankind. A pack of hounds, then. Great, foul, ensorcel-
led hounds, set to the hunt, now waiting ... On what? The order to attack?
Their master's command?

           
Aye! Of course—they waited on their
creator!

           
Calandryll turned slowly round, his
sword on guard, and as he turned, so the changeling creatures backed away,
drawing clear of the blade's threat. His own breathing came deep and urgent,
and he could no more deny the fear that stirred than he could the throbbing of
his bruised leg—the uwagi waited. Perhaps even some vestiges of humanity
remained within their contorted shapes, within their deformed souls, and they
feared the blade, themselves feared the death it might bring them. Perhaps he
had a chance.

           
"So, are you afraid?" He
lunged at the closest monstrosity, saw it dart back, the circle shifting to
hold him at its center without coming in range of a blow. "You fear my
sword? You know what it can do?"

           
The uwagi growled, shuffling,
studying him with horrid red eyes, like coals glowing in blackened pits. He
felt a little encouraged, and sprang closer, whirling the blade, taking care it
should not quite strike. The changelings backed away, circled, pacing,
snarling, continuing to hold him within their aegis. He wondered what they
might do did he charge them, and raised the straightsword high, feinting an
attack.

           
One spoke, and it was like the
rumbling growl of a dog, the words thickened and distorted, spraying drool and
fetid breath in equal measure.

           
"Attack and you die. We die,
but you, too. Our master commands—wait."

           
The creature emphasized its order
with a slash of its taloned paw: Calandryll retreated, not yet quite ready to sacrifice
himself. He lived yet, and so there was yet hope. Perhaps his comrades would come,
would somehow find a way through the forest. Perhaps Chazali's archers would
rain shafts on the beast-men; Bracht and Katya, all the surviving kotu-zen,
fall on the creatures,- Ochen come with his magic.

           
Then: No, he thought, for he had
already seen what Ochen's magic did to these things, and knew that its use must
ensure his own death as certainly as if he drove his blade into the mocking,
snarling face. Seen, too, how little use plain steel was against them, and the
forest was too deep, the way they had come too trackless, that he should be
found.

           
He was trapped: he lowered the
sword, waiting, not sure for what, other than death.

           
It was unnerving, to stand thus
surrounded, and he sought a measure of reassurance in the psychic exercises
Ochen had taught him, concentrating, focusing his mind, seeking calm. What had
the uwagi said?
Our master commands
—
wait,
and Rhythamun was their undoubted
master, but why did he not order his creations to attack?

           
Save he intended some worse fate
than mere death! Calandryll thought then of the terrible pressure that had
driven him across the aethyr, of the sense of awful dread as his pneuma had
been drawn ever closer to Tharn. That should be a fate infinitely worse, to
"live" eternally in the power of the Mad God. His mouth was suddenly
dry,- his body abruptly chilled. He struggled to retain calm, and low, the
words little more than a rumble in his throat, voiced the cantrips that should
ward his pneuma, his essential spirit, from kidnap, hold it—he hoped!—firm
against occult assault.

           
And the uwagi that had spoken was
suddenly rigid, shoulders flung back, the ghastly features straining upward,
howling at the clouded sky, the taloned hands opening and then clenching as the
body shuddered and seemed to shift, another image imposed over its brutish
form: the shape of a Jesseryte warrior, the veil of his helmet thrown back to
reveal a face, indistinct, beastly and human, both, that smiled malign mockery.

           
Calandryll stared, scenting the odor
of almonds mingling with the reek of the creatures, seeing the form of the
Jesseryte imposed on the flickering shape of the uwagi, one then the other,
dreamlike, like the shifting, darting movements of a fish glimpsed through
rippling, sun-lit water.

           
He braced himself, favoring his
bruised leg, the straightsword extended, knowing beyond doubt what—
who
!—possessed the were-thing.

           
And Rhythamun chuckled and said,
"A tidy trap, no? Use that blade and you die, leaving me the victory. Do
not use it, and my pets rend you limb from limb. You've seen their work, I
think—shall you enjoy that fate? No matter, for I take the day. The day and the
Arcanum, both, with all the world to follow when I raise Tharn. And for you,
suffering beyond your imagination."

           
The warlock laughed, or the uwagi
laughed, for they both occupied the same temporal space. Calandryll snarled,
not now unlike the ferocious growling of the were-beasts, for rage burned in
him, and hatred, exiling all fear, all sorrow, leaving only wrath.

           
"Which do you choose?"
Rhythamun asked. "The one death is, perhaps, swifter than the other, but
whichever—your quest ends here. In a lonely place, with none to mark where you
fall. Does that sit bitter, Calandryll den Karynth? Do you see now how foolish
it has been to oppose me; to oppose Tharn's raising."

           
“No!”

           
It was a challenge and denial,
together, and met with mocking laughter. He saw the armored shoulders of the
Jesseryte, and the hulking width of the uwagi, shrug.

           
"No? How say you, no? What
shall you do, save die? Die knowing your quest comes to naught, that I am
victorious. That in time your allies shall die. The Kern and the Vanu woman,
the upstart sorcerer who aids you—all of them! While I go on to raise my master
and stand at his right hand, favored. And you? Your body shall lie here, riven
by your own sword or by my creations, while your spirit suffers tortures past
your comprehension. Yet, at least; though you shall find them soon
enough." Again, the horrid laughter, confident and contemptuous. "Was
it such a gift your feeble goddess gave you? It seems to me a curse now—the
instrument of your death, if so you choose."

           
"Save I strike you,"
Calandryll roared. "What then, warlock? Dera set holy magic in this blade,
and I think that do I plunge her power into that body you use, then your pneuma
shall feel the blow."

           
The uwagi that was Rhythamun in his
Jesseryte form howled horrible mirth. Slaver fell on Calandryll's face,
distasteful; ignored as he waited, poised.

           
"You take lessons in sorcery,
eh? Doubtless from the mage who came to your aid before. My pneuma, you say?
You think to harm me within the aethyr? You pride yourself, boy. Think you a
scant handful of lessons, a smattering of that lore I've studied down the ages,
can aid you or harm me? I say you again, no! Strike and discover!"

           
Calandryll held back, his mind
racing, delving frantically into all Ochen had told him, into all the
lessons—few enough, Dera knew!—he had received. Aloud, he said, not sure
whether he believed his own words, or merely looked to buy more time, "You
send your animus into this thing you made—you meld with it—so do I strike it, I
strike you. What then, Rhythamun? Are you greater than the Younger Gods?"

           
"I am," said the shifting
thing, with awful conviction. "Ere your blow can land, I shall be gone,
and that blade your puking goddess blessed strikes the flesh of my
creation—which shall be your destruction, and the ending of your quest. Tharn's
blood, boy, you've seen what magic does to these things! You've lost, and all
you've done comes to naught. So strike,- or do I set them on you? It matters
little to me."

           
"I think you are afraid,"
Calandryll said.

           
"Afraid?" The obscene
laughter filled the clearing, howling off the trees. "I afraid? Strike,
then, fool!"

           
"Aye!" Calandryll shouted,
and sprang to the attack, the blade carving swift at the mocking face.

           
CALANDRYLL was emptied of fear in
that moment: the rage that gripped him left no space for any other emotion. He
knew only that Rhythamun's animus dwelt in the uwagi, and hoped— trusted to
Dera and all her kindred gods—that his blow should land ere the warlock might
quit the body. That he would be consumed in the occult devastation was no
longer a consideration, a matter of scant importance were he able to slay the
sorcerer. Even did the blow serve only to banish Rhythamun's pneuma to the
aethyr it might still prove a victory—Pyrrhic, but what matter that, if Ochen,
if the wazir-narimasu of Anwar-teng, were able to hunt the warlock there? It
seemed a small enough sacrifice, his life against the sorcerer's defeat: he put
all his strength into the cut.

           
And saw, as if time slowed, as if he
stepped aside, occult and corporeal existences divided and he become observer
of his own actions, the blade swing down, true, at the cranium of the beast
that was Rhythamun.

           
He saw rank terror glint startled in
the red eyes, triumph in the tawny Jesseryte orbs. Smelled fear sweat and
almonds; heard mocking laughter. Saw the were-form flicker again, no longer
possessed, but wholly uwagi; and knew he was defeated, that Rhythamun fled the
body faster than his sword fell, and that as edge clove skull he was dead, the
triumvirate broken, the quest doomed to failure.

           
The blade sang down its trajectory,
sure as death, unstoppable, carving air that soon should be replaced by bone
and brain, and then the explosion of opposed magicks. He saw his death draw
remorselessly closer.

           
And a shape burst from the pines,
fleet as flighted arrow, too fast his peripheral vision had chance to discern
what moved. He saw the uwagi hurled aside, bowled howling over, the straight-
sword crash against empty turf, driving deep, the wrath-filled force of the
blow jarring his arms, his shoulders. He snatched it free, hearing the laughter
falter, lost under the uwagi's scream as the were- beast was hauled upright,
the hands that gripped its throat tugging back the neck as a knee drove against
the spine. Time resumed its natural passage then, as the creature was bent,
arched over until the horrid sound of snapping bone announced the breaking of
its spine. Its scream pitched shrill and abruptly died. Calandryll saw it
lifted and flung across the clearing, tumbling three of its kindred monsters
like skittles, and then he was grabbed, spun round, and hurled toward the
tenuous safety of the trees.

           
He landed on his face, winded and
momentarily stunned, pine needles sharp, pungent, against his mouth.
Bewildered, unsteady, he pushed up on hands and knees, retrieved his sword, and
clambered to his feet, staggering, dizzy, back to the clearing's edge. And
gasped in naked amazement as a second were-beast was felled.

           
Cennaire?

           
He wondered momentarily if he
dreamed—how could it be Cennaire who stood there?

           
Yet it was; like a wildcat, furious,
moving with a speed, a strength, he could scarce believe, ducking beneath a
reaching paw to clutch the arm and snap it, to crush the windpipe and drive a
fist against the gaping jaws so hard, so savage, the bones crumpled, lifting the
bulky creature to hurl the thing as though it were no more than a weightless
rag doll, at its confused companions.

           
Two of the monsters lay dead then.
Others yammered rage and bewilderment. One stood, arms raised, its form
flickering, possessed by Rhythamun, the scent of almonds growing stronger.

           
Calandryll shouted,
"Cennaire!" and began to move out of the timber.

           
The woman shouted, "No, flee! I
can hold them!"

           
And light, eye-searing, burst from
the outthrust hands of the thing that was owned by the sorcerer. It struck
Cennaire, smashing her down, blackening the grass where she stood as if foul
poison sullied the night-dark green. Calandryll thought her surely dead then,
but she rose, shaking long hair from her face, and moved once more toward the
uwagi.

           
Calandryll raised his blade,
unthinking now, intent only on defending the woman. Four of the uwagi stood
before her, while the fifth again raised its arms, though now the eyes looked
not at Cennaire, but to where Calandryll came out from the trees.

           
"In Burash's name!"
Cennaire screamed. "Do you get yourself to safety! Leave me, for the gods'
sake. For your sake!"

           
Calandryll shouted, "No,"
and saw fresh light, bright beyond color, beyond belief, soul-searing, lance
from the Rhythamun-uwagi.

           
It seemed then that an ax collapsed
his chest, a garrotte wound about his throat. It seemed his eyes melted in
their sockets, that all his limbs shattered. He did not know he fell, for a
while knew only a darkness crimsoned by agony, as if all his organs burst and flooded
his body with ruptured blood, and a dreadful tugging, like a cord drawn tight
about his soul, about his spirit, seeking to drag his pneuma out into the
aethyr, into a limbo of eternal suffering. Not knowing he did it, he once more
mouthed the gramaryes Ochen had taught him, warding his animus against the
occult attack, careless of his body, concerned only that Rhythamun not take his
soul. Then he became aware that his mouth clogged, gagging on turf and needles,
which mattered little, for he was choking and burning. The scent of almonds was
pungent in his nostrils and he knew that he was dying, was killed.

           
And then he was lifted again and
some measure of sense returned, enough that he realized Cennaire held him, her
hair soft on his cheek, her arms incredibly strong, carrying him into the trees
even as the uwagi howled and all around them the forest flamed, wracked by
sorcery.

           
Trees toppled, felled by the blasts
of Rhythamun's sortilege,- the night was loud with detonations, the crash of
falling timber, the explosion of burning branches, the crackle of burning
bushes. He felt himself laid down, softly, and for an instant Cennaire knelt
beside him. Her eyes were huge and brown, moist as if she wept, but she smiled
and touched his face gently, and said, "Flee! Better you survive than I. I
will earn what time I can."

           
He shook his head, wincing as pain
knifed his skull, and mumbled, "I cannot/' the words thick on a tongue
that felt scorched and befurred.

           
"You must," she said
urgently, putting her mouth close that she might be heard through the thunder
of destructive magic. "They'll slay you else, and your quest be ended. Now
go!"

           
He began to ask, "Why?"
but she dammed the question with a touch, her fingers gentle, and rose, smiling
briefly, and said, "Because. Ask no more,- only save yourself. Before
those hunters come again."

           
Then she was gone, running back
through the flames and the tumbling trees.

           
Calandryll rose awkwardly to his
feet. The straightsword was still in his hand and he needed rest on it a moment
as his head swam, sucking in deep breaths that, to his surprise, came clear and
clean down a throat he thought was crushed. He hefted the sword, looking about,
to find the way Cennaire had gone. He did not think of flight: that was
desertion, betrayal; instead, he went after her.

           
It was easy enough to locate her,
for fire burned where she went, the night air grown thick with the resinous
odor of pine smoke, the howling of the uwagi an aural beacon.
Sparks
smoldered on the leathers he wore, in his
hair,* his eyes watered, his hurt leg throbbed dully. He stumbled and
staggered, dodging falling trunks, going after her.

           
He was not sure how he survived the
devastation Rhythamun hurled at the forest, blindly it seemed, seeking to
destroy by sheer overwhelming force what Cennaire had denied his subtlety, what
Ochen's tutelage had denied his occult trap. Calandryll knew only that he did,
that he lived and that he found the clearing again, and saw Cennaire, a little
way inside the ring of flaming pines, a dead were-thing at her feet, three
others circling her.

           
The fourth—Rhythamun—stood aloof,
uwagi and Jesseryte warrior simultaneously, reeking of almonds, the man's mouth
forming the arcane syllables that shaped the blasts, the other drooling and
shrieking.

           
Then sudden silence. A pause, an
immense stillness, as if the world's turning halted. The flames consuming the
forest sputtered and died; Rhythamun's chanting ceased; the uwagi's howling
faded away.

           
Soft, clear light, like the lambent
radiance of the sun rising over the horizon at midsummer, or the perfect
clarity of its setting, shone across the sky above the glade, folding the
pines, the grass, within a dome of brilliance. The almond scent, somehow
softer, gentler, replaced the acrid smell of smoke. A curse rang loud from the
distorted mouth of the uwagi Rhythamun possessed and the creature's form
shimmered, leeched of its Jesseryte shape, become again only a were-beast,
falling to its knees, paws outthrust, head hanging as if a blow drove it down.

           
Inside Calandryll's head a voice
without sound said,
Ward yourself! Get
down,
and he dropped, flat, obeying the command without thought, aware
through that part of his mind still attuned to the occult that an aura of
benign power enveloped him.

           
Lucent bolts flickered then, lancing
down from the sky, shafts brighter than lightning, dazzling. They struck the
uwagi, and as they touched the creatures, the were-things exploded. Blinded,
Calandryll yelled, "No!" thinking Cennaire consumed in that destruction,
horrified, a void opening in him, gaping empty. But when his vision cleared he
saw her standing still, swaying as if she struggled against tremendous wind,
shaken by the gust- ing, but living still. Blood soiled her clothing and her
hair was wild, one arm flung up to protect her eyes. Of the uwagi, or
Rhythamun's animus, there was no trace, only little tatters of skin hung on
scorched branches, tiny fragments of hair and clothing draped on burned bushes.
But Cennaire lived!

           
Calandryll rose, limping clear of
the sheltering trees, sheathing the straightsword as he went toward her. There
was nothing left of the uwagi, nor any lingering hint of magic, save the dead
patch of grass were Rhythamun had cast his first spell, the blackened trunks
ringing the clearing. The light that had filled the sky was gone, the welkin
again cloud-struck, a moody dark.

           
Cennaire seemed stunned, unaware of
his approach until he put his hands upon her shoulders and turned her round to
face him. Then she moaned and fell against him, held him with arms that seemed
once more soft, no longer imbued with the strength he had felt before. She
shuddered, and he stroked her hair, her face, glad beyond dreaming that she
survived. She looked up and in her eyes he saw a terrible desperation, a fear.
Mistaking it for something else, he said, "They're slain. I know not how,
save Ochen intervened, but they are gone."

           
She trembled against his chest, and
he tilted her chin, lowering his face to kiss her, her lips responding eagerly,
her body pressing hard, urgently, against him.

           
When they drew apart, their arms
still comforting about each other, she said softly, "I feared you dead. I
thought ..."

           
Tears glistened in her eyes and he
shook his head. "No. I live," he murmured. "Thanks to you."

           
"Praise all the gods," she
whispered.