Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (62 page)

           
"I fear we were too late. Oh,
Horul! There's no more we can do. Cennaire is truly dead."

           
“No!”

           
Calandryll flung the smaller man
aside, hurling himself at the table, at Cennaire's corpse.

           
“No!”

           
It was cry of absolute denial, blind
refusal of his eyes' testimony, of Ochen's words. There was no grief in it, not
yet; rather it was a scream of rage, of total rejection. He cupped Cennaire's
ashen face, lifting her head. Her cheeks were cold. Her raven hair spread,
dulled now that magic's illumination was gone, a dark and lifeless shroud. He
shouted, "No," again, and, "You cannot die. Not now," and
pressed his lips to hers.

           
What the others there present saw
then he did not, for he held the woman he loved in his arms, seeking to infuse
her with his own life, to breathe his vitality into her corpse, and he was blind
to all else.

           
What the rest saw was a
manifestation of starlight, of moon's glow, the coruscating essence of a god
bound in sparkling shadow and dancing radiance, elemental matter shaped in form
of a man, save for the great jet horsehead, the eyes alight with benevolent
fire.

           
Horul reached out one hand to touch
Calandryll's shoulder, unnoticed.

           
Life
you gave us, that Tharn should have taken. A service well worthy of reward,
that. And so a life in return, in gratitude, in my name and those of all my
kin.

           
Gravely, the god nodded, mane of
night and stars shifting, fluttering proud. The hand left Calandryll's
shoulder, the smoldering eyes surveyed the chamber, and then Horul was gone on
a silent wind.

           
Calandryll did not see the god,
neither heard him speak, but he felt flow into him and through him a tremendous
power. Not that strength that had invested him as he fought with Rhythamun,
though it was akin to that, but something greater: the very power of life. He
felt it blaze, fiery, down the roadways of his being, his heart become the
engine that drove lungs become a furnace that pushed the power out, past his
lips, into Cennaire. Into her mouth, her throat, her veins, her heart, filling
her. He felt her lips grow warm and move against his, her arms rise to encircle
him, clutching him. He felt her ribs rise, and fall again, breath sweetly
stifled against his mouth. He pulled back, gazing into eyes no longer
lusterless, but shining, vital; alive. He shouted laughter and pulled her to
him anew.

           
In time they drew apart, and by then
the assembly was recovered enough from the shock of Horul's manifestation that
Katya had thought to ask a gown be brought. Cennaire drew it on, suddenly
demure, her eyes ablaze with wonder.

           
"I thought," she said
softly, weak as yet, resting in the curve of Calandryll's arm, "that I was
lost. I felt . . . nothing. Dead."

           
"You live," Calandryll
returned her, his mouth against her glossy hair. "Praise all the gods, you
live."

           
"And I am entire? Myself
again?"

           
"Aye," he answered her. "Your
heart is once more yours. Yours alone."

           
"I think not." A hint of
coquetry entered her voice. "For it's a new owner now."

           
"And mine," he said,
"is yours. For so long as you'd have it."

           
"That," she told him
earnestly, smiling, "shall be a very long time. Indeed, for all my
life."

           
Across the chamber Bracht said,
"Ahrd, but I sicken at all this sweetling talk. Do we find wine and
celebrate in fitting manner?"

           
But he was laughing as he said it,
and an arm lay about Katya's shoulders, and she drove an elbow against his ribs
and said, herself laughing, "Better you take heed, Kern, for I'd hear the
same from you ere long."

           
Bracht exaggerated a frown of dismay
at that, then shrugged and sighed, and said, "Calandryll, do you tutor me
then? Lest I offend this woman I intend to wed."

           
Calandryll answered him,
"Willingly, though I suspect it shall be the hardest task we've yet
faced."

           
"Likely it shall," said
Bracht, but Calandryll barely heard him, because he was kissing Cennaire again,
and so did not see the Kern turn Katya's face up and follow suit in practice of
his first lesson.

           
THEY
quit Anwar-teng under the indifferent gaze of a wintry sun. The ground was
churned by the feet of the rebels, by the hooves of their horses, the wheels of
their departing wagons, but the season froze it hard, and with spring's advent
even those last memories of Tharn's madness should be forgotten. The wind blew
clean and cold, devoid of the Mad God's charnel reek, fluttering the banners of
their escort, a century of kotu-zen, Ochen riding with them as they went
eastward, to Vanu. To the holy men of Katya's land, who should at last destroy
the Arcanum, that none of Rhythamun's ilk, or Anomius's, again have chance to
dream of dominion, to seek the resurrection of the Mad God. That the world be
once more safe from chaos, and men go about their affairs under governance of
the Younger Gods alone.

           
They turned a moment in their
saddles, hands raised in salute and farewell to the wazir-narimasu, the young
Khan, and the Shendii, who stood by the gate, their presence token of the
respect accorded the questers, and then looked only forward, to the future.

           
"Shall you be wed in
Vanu?" Calandryll asked Katya.

           
She looked to Bracht and her smile
was glorious as she answered, "Does this Kern still want me, aye."

           
Bracht said, "I've wanted you
since first I saw you. Ahrd, but I knew not I'd such patience."

           
Katya laughed long, reaching out to
take his hand, and asked, "And you? Shall you two wed?"

           
"It's my wish," said
Calandryll solemnly.

           
"And mine," said Cennaire,
meeting his earnest gaze with a smile.

           
He was surprised as he realized he
had never seen her blush before. He thought that tomorrow, and all their
tomorrows, should be joyous.

           
ANGUS
WELLS
was born in a small village in
Kent
,
England
. He has worked as a publicist and as a
science fiction and fantasy editor. He now writes fulltime and is the author of
The Books of the Kingdoms (The Wrath of
Ashar, The Usurper, The Way Beneath)
and
The Godwars (Forbidden Magic, Dark Magic, Wild Magic).
His next
novel will be a single volume fantasy called
Lords of the Sky.
He lives with his two dogs, Elmore and Sam, in
Nottinghamshire, where he is at work on a new novel for Bantam Spectra.

           
LORDS OF THE SKY

           
The
upcoming fantasy novel
by Angus Wells

           
Lords of the Sky
tells the story of a
conflict that brings together two peoples in a clash of cultures and magics
over the one land they both call their home. The tale begins, however, with a
small boy in an obscure fishing village. From his perspective as an old man,
worn by life and much wiser for the wear, Daviot begins his story: how his feet
were set upon the path that would ultimately make him Mnemonikos—one who
remembers the history of his people—and how that path was an integral part of
the upheaval that would reshape the only world he knows.

           
I was a fisher child. I played on
the sand, amongst the beached boats and the black pines. I hoarded shells and
bird's eggs. When the brille swarmed, I waded in, knee- deep, to haul the nets.
I swung a sling and pulled girls' hair; fought with other boys: I was a child
like other children. On the cliff above the village I had a camp, a secret
place: a fortress as great as Gahan's keep,* a bastion from which I and
Tellurin, and Corum defended Whitefish village against-^the Kho'rabi. Sometimes
I
was
a Kho'rabi knight, and'With my
bark-peeled blade wrought slaughter on my friends, though I always liked it
better when I had the part of noble Gahan's man—a commur, or a jennym, even a
pyke—for then I felt, with all the intensity of childhood's fierce emotions,
that I fought for Kellambek, to hold off those invaders the Sentinels could not
prevent from crossing the Fend.

           
What did I know then of the Comings?

           
Little enough: to me, the Kho'rabi
knights, the kingdom of Ahn-feshang, they were legends. When I was very

           
young
my mother used to tell me that should I disobey her, a Kho'rabi knight should
come and take my head. I spent some small time cowering beneath my blanket at
that, but as I grew older, sneered. Kho'rabi knights, what were they to me?
Creatures of legend, of no more account than the fabled dragons of the
Forgotten Country, who had gone away before even my grandfather was born.

           
But then, in my twelfth year, I saw
the Sky Lords.

           
I did not clearly understand it at
the time, save that all the village mantis had preached, and all that Thorns
and my parents had told me, became amalgamated in one instant of inchoate
terror, as though the nightmares of infancy took form from shadow and became
real: the thing that dwells beneath your bed emerging, physical, fanged and
horrible.

           
It was the end of summer. The sky
was cobalt blue, the sun a sullen eye that challenged observation. There were
no clouds, and the sea was still, unrippled. I was on the sand, passing my
father the tools he needed to sew gashes in his nets. Battus and Thorus worked
with him on the skein.

           
Thorus was the first to see it,
dropping his needle as he sprang to his feet, shouting. My father and my uncle
were no slower upright, the net forgotten on the warm sand. I followed them,
staring to where they pointed, not sure what it was they pointed at, or what
set such fear in their eyes. I knew only that my father, who was afraid of
nothing—not tides or storms, I thought then
—was
afraid. Battus shouted and ran from the beach, and I felt their fear, like the
waft of sour sweat, or a drunkard's breath.

           
I remember that Thorus said,
"They come-^gain," and , my father answered, "It is not the
time," and'then told ~ me to run homeward, to tell my mother that the Sky
Lords came, and she would know what to do. I suppose, in reflection, that he
assumed Battus would warn the mantis, and he send someone north to the Holding,
that the aeldor be warned.

           
In any event, I was sent from the
beach as all the men not at sea gathered, staring skyward, and I lingered a
moment, wondering what held them so rigid, like old statues.

           
Against the knife-sharp brilliance
of the sky I saw a shape. It seemed, in that moment, like a maggot, a bloated
grub taken up by the hot late-summer wind, a speck against the eye-watering
azure, that drifted steadily toward me.

           
I wondered why it promoted such
consternation.

           
Then my father, knowing me, shouted,
and I ran to our cottage and yelled at my mother that the Sky Lords were
coming.

           
I think that then, for the first
time, I truly knew what terror they induced.

           
Tonium and Delia fashioned castles
from the dirt of our yard. My mother screamed at them, bringing them tearful to
her arms, she so distraught she found only brief, hurried words t6 calm their
wailing as she gathered them up. The bell hung above the cella began to sound,
its clanging soon augmented by a great shouting from all the women, and the old
men, and the howling of confused and frightened children. My mother snatched
Delia's and Tonium's hands in hers, shouted at me to follow, and drew my
siblings, trotting, away from the house towards the cella. The mantis stood
atop the dome. I remember that the sinews in his fat arms stood out like cords
from the effort of his bell-ringing, and that his plump face, usually set in a
smile, was grim, his head craned round to peer at the shape approaching across
the sky. All around me I heard the single word:
Kho'rabi,
said in tones of awe and terror. I wondered why, for the
thing in the sky was as yet very small, no larger than the shapes of the sea
gulls that were the only other things to break the blue. I watched as the
mantis gathered up the skirts of his robe and slid ungainly down the sloping
side of the dome. Robus, who owned the only horse in Whitefish village waited
nervously. I saw that he had belted an ancient sword to his waist; and that all
the men, and not a few of the women, carried weapons of one kind or another:
fish knives, axes, mattocks. The mantis spoke urgently with Robus and though I
could not hear what was said, I perceived it had a great effect on Robus, for
he dragged himself astride his old horse and slapped the grey flanks with his
blade, sending the animal into a startled, lumbering trot out of the village in
the direction of the Cambar road. Then the mantis shouted that all should
follow him, and led the way to the cliff path, up through the pines to the
fields beyond, where a track wound by drystone walls to a wood where caves ran
down into the earth.

           
In the confusion I became separated
from my mother, and as I watched the worried faces of those who passed me,
wondering why so many cheeks shone with tears, I succumbed to childhood's
temptation.

           
I was afraid: how should I not be? I
was but twelve years old, and all around me were folk I knew as calm neighbors
and friends,- and now all wore the same expression, masked with fear and
desperation. I
was
afraid, but I was
also intrigued, fascinated to know the
why
of it. As I ducked clear of the throng, I saw the last of the villagers go by,
five grandfathers in rear guard, clutching old swords and flensing poles. They
were so anxious they failed to spot me where I crouched beside a wall, and in
moments a cloud of dust, raised by hurried feet, hung betwixt me and them. With
the unthinking valiance of innocent youth, I turned back toward Whitefish
village.

           
My father was there, and Thorus, and
I wondered what they did, and why the shape in the sky produced such fear.

           
Oh, I had heard tales by then of the
Kho'rabi knights, of the Sky Lords. I had listened to Thorus tell of how he had
been a pyke, wielding his blade in the last Coming, when two airboats landed.
But Thorus was old, and all we children knew that the Sky Lords came but when
the shifting of the worldwinds and the waxing power of their mages allowed, and
that was more time than I could then conceive of. It was a matter of lifetimes,
I thought then. And so, quickly, my fear became laid over with curiosity, and I
watched the dust cloud skirl away toward the wood, and turned back toward the
village.

           
I knew my mother would be angry when
she found me gone, but I dismissed that concern and ran back to the cliff path.

           
I halted among the pines, where they
edged and then fell down over the slope, looking first at the village and then
at the sky. The village was empty,- the beach was lined with men. The sky was
still that steel-hot blue; the shape of the Sky Lords' boat was larger.

           
I could discern its outline now: a
cylinder of red, the color of blood; the carrier beneath was a shadow sparkling
with glints of silver as the sun struck the blades of the warriors there. I
wondered how it had come up so fast, unaware, then, of the occult powers that
drove it across the sky. I watched it awhile, my eyes watering in the sun
glare. I looked back and thought perhaps I should have done better to go after
my mother and find the safety of the wood, where the ancient crypts ran down
into the earth.

           
Instead, I ran down to the village,
through the emptied houses to the beach, to my father.

           
He did not see me at first, for his
face was locked on the sky, etched over with shadows of disbelief. He stood
with a flensing pole held across his chest, high, the curved blade striking
brilliance from the sun. It was not the manner in which a flensing pole was
normally held and it was a moment before I recognized that this was how I had
seen the poles clutched when men argued, and threatened to fight. Thorus stood
beside him, and in his mottled hand was a sword, not rusted like Robus's old
blade, but bright with oil, darker along the edges, where the whetstone had
shaped cutting grooves. It was a blade such as soldiers carried, and for a
moment I stared and lusted after such a weapon.

           
I suppose I must have made a sound.
Perhaps that of foot on sand, or a cry of admiration, for my father turned and
saw me, Thorus with him, though their faces bore very different expressions.

           
My father's was angry; Thorus's
amused. I felt a fear greater than anything a Kho'rabi knight might induce at the
one,- pleasure at the other.

           
My father said, "What in the
God's name are you doing here?"

           
Thorus said, "You breed
warriors, Aditus."

           
I remember that very surely.

           
I would likely have run away then,
back through the village and up the cliff path, across the fields to the wood,
far more afraid of the look gouged over my father's face than of any Kho'rabi
knight. But Thorus said, "Blood runs true, friend," to my father,-
and to me, "Best find yourself a blade if you stand with us, Daviot."

           
My father said, "God's name,
man, he's only a boy," but I was swelled with pride and honor and found a
discarded net hook that I picked up for want of better weapon, and strode with
all the majesty of twelve years' growth—and all its ignorance—to stand between
them, and Thorus laughed and clapped me on the shoulder hard enough I tottered,
and said, "Blood to blood, Aditus."

           
My father's face remained dark, but
then he grunted and nodded and said, "Likely they'll pass over. So, you
can stay, boy. But on my word, you run for the caves.
Yes!"

           
I nodded, without any intention
whatsoever of keeping my word: if the enlarging shape of the Sky Lords' boat
dropped fylie of the Kho'rabi knights upon us, I planned to stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow warriors. I planned to die gloriously in
defense of Whitefish village, in defense of Kellambek.

           
I was a man then: I am older now,
and wiser.