Antiagon Fire (39 page)

“Neither do we,” replied Vaelora.

“Except we already are.”

“You’ll figure out a way.”

“We will,” he affirmed.
Even if you don’t have the faintest idea how you’re going to do it, let alone whether the High Council is willing to be reasonable.
The Pharsi weren’t always known for that. Certainly, many wouldn’t have thought what Quaeryt had in mind for all the imagers of Lydar was at all reasonable.

He smiled and tried another sip from the beaker.

39

For all their speculations on Samedi evening and after they woke on Solayi morning, Quaeryt and Vaelora still had no real idea what might face them in or on the so-called Hall of the Heavens. They dressed, Quaeryt in uniform and Vaelora in riding clothes, ate, and then repaired to the front study until Quaeryt rose to ready their mounts.

“I could—” began Vaelora.

“Not without compromising your status. Besides, you’re getting to the point that you need to be a bit more careful. We’ll be riding most of the day, remember.”

Vaelora made a face, and Quaeryt shook his head in return.

He returned in little more than a quint with both mounts, while Zhelan was forming up second and fourth squads. Shortly, they mounted and rode toward the formation. They had only moved into place, at the head of the column when a rider, presumably their guide, rode through the stone pillars of the compound and then reined up at the front of the column.

The slim and wiry white-haired woman in dark leathers looked at Vaelora, then at Quaeryt. She smiled, then said something.

From where he sat on his mount behind Vaelora Calkoran said quietly, “She says that it’s likely to be quite a day.”

“Tell her we hope it will be beneficial for both Telaryn and Khel,” returned Quaeryt.

The guide’s response, according to Calkoran, was, “One way or another, the skies will decide.”

The guide gestured and turned her mount.

“Forward!” ordered Quaeryt.

“Forward! On the guide!” echoed Zhelan, and all the Telaryn riders began to move, with the scouts falling in directly behind the guide, followed by Quaeryt and Vaelora, Calkoran and Zhelan, the undercaptains, and then the two squads.

For the first quint, they simply retraced the path back to the hill that held the council building, but rather than taking the lane up to the building, the Pharsi guide led them along the avenue around the hill to a narrow stone road little wider than a lane that headed due west toward the higher hills. That lanelike road was paved, not with the gray stone, but with a pinkish stone that looked every bit as durable as the ancient gray stone. Quaeryt saw no wear marks or gouges, and from its appearance the stone itself could have been cut and laid within the last year, though the worn and gentled appearance of the shoulders of the road gave the lie to that.

The lane continued due west, running through apricot orchards, where the branches of the trees had been trimmed back to just short of the graveled shoulder, itself only about half a yard wide. That explained to Quaeryt, at least partly, why he hadn’t noticed a straight road running due west from Saendeol, since it would have looked like a space between trees.

He couldn’t help but smile at that.
Hidden in plain sight
. That raised the question of what else might be so hidden.

He turned slightly in the saddle and looked back to Calkoran. “It appears we’ll be on this road for a time, and there are a few things that could use more explanation.”

“You wish to know why we left Khel?” asked the former marshal.

“It might help us to understand.”

“I had three regiments left after Khelgror. We fell back to the road from south Ouestan. The Bovarians brought five regiments from the coast and at least ten from Khelgror. They surrounded us. We fought. We killed almost half the Bovarians, more than eight regiments worth. It was not enough. When all was over, there were less than three battalions of Khellan troopers remaining. Those are what we took to the northern mountains.”

“If that was what happened, why don’t they understand?”

“Because,” said Calkoran slowly, “the High Council had ordered me to disband my men and to have them go to the hills in the dead of winter and fight in small groups. We had few supplies, no golds. I was withdrawing from Khelgror and trying to get the men south and closer to the coast, where they would have a better chance to survive. I did not know that the Bovarians had used Antiagon Fire to level most of Ouestan and left that city to march toward Khel. But they moved more quickly than I had thought, and we had no choice but to fight.” Calkoran sighed. “In the eyes of the Council I had disobeyed. In the eyes of the Bovarians, we were to be hunted down and destroyed for the toll we had taken.” He shrugged. “We decided to cross the northern lands in winter. It took much longer than that, and many died. We did not think we would survive to see Khel again, but we decided that we should die in battle against the Bovarians.”

Now what do you do or say, for the sake of the Nameless?
“Knowing this … you accepted a mission back to Khel?”

Calkoran straightened in the saddle. “You risked everything and saved Khel from the Bovarians. You did it many times. You did it when you could not image, when any musket ball or shaft would have struck you dead. How could I refuse? After I had failed once, already?”

Quaeryt shook his head. So did Vaelora, if almost imperceptibly.

After they had ridden at least two milles through the bare-leafed apricot orchards, at the western edge of the valley, the road swung to the north, circling around a hill into another dryish valley filled with scattered pines and junipers that angled northwest. The road rose slightly over the next mille or so, then leveled out. With little warning, just as their guide passed a grove of junipers, she raised her arm and reined up. On the right was an open area, with a low stone wall encircling a fountain that spilled down a stone trough into a circular pool.

“She says that this is the last water,” relayed Calkoran.

“Then we should water men and mounts,” said Quaeryt. “Major, if you would.”

“Water by squads! Second squad.”

Vaelora immediately dismounted, as did Quaeryt, happy to stretch his legs. Calkoran followed.

Vaelora turned to face the former marshal. “You haven’t been here before?”

“Lady, I did not even know that there was a southern council building. Until yesterday, I did not know that the Hall of the Heavens was near here.”

“You had heard of it?” asked Quaeryt.

“Most in Khel have heard of it. It is where the
Eherelani
and Eleni are tested, and I knew it was somewhere in the south. There are tales that there was once another Hall in the north, but that it has been lost.”

“How are they tested?” asked Vaelora.

Calkoran shook his head. “That is a secret they keep to themselves. I know only that often those who would be
Eherelani
are never heard from again.”

“Hard-kept secrets,” said Quaeryt.

“If you return, I would not be surprised if you would be the first outlanders to walk the Hall of the Heavens and survive.”

“Probably because they haven’t let any others try,” said Quaeryt.

“They don’t have much choice with you,” added Vaelora. “They need proof that you are what everyone claims before they dare even consider any serious talks about the future of Khel.”

“Proof of what we’re claimed to be,” corrected Quaeryt.

Vaelora offered a faint smile in return.

Calkoran looked away, nervously moistening his lips.

Once all the mounts had been watered, the guide resumed leading Quaeryt and Vaelora and their squads up the valley. With each mille that passed, the valley walls grew higher, and the valley itself narrower until it was more canyon than valley. Roughly a glass and a half later, the road turned north again, up an even narrower way with the paved road only wide enough for a single mount or possibly a small cart drawn by a single draft animal. Quaeryt rode in front of Vaelora, his shields extended slightly to cover them both.

Less than two-fifths of a mille later, the road ended in a circular space at the base of a cliff that rose to the northwest. Quaeryt judged that the cliff was not that tall, perhaps twenty or thirty yards, but an expanse of the hard, pink, granite-like stone some hundred yards wide had been smoothed and polished into a mirror-like finish. In the center of that expanse was a set of stone steps, also of the hard pink stone, that had been chiseled out of—or imaged into—the sheer cliff.

When he looked up the steps, Quaeryt could see nothing but sky.

The guide called out something.

“If you choose,” said Calkoran, “you are to walk to the top and meet what awaits you.”

Who knows what lies at the top of those steps?
He turned to Vaelora. “Are you ready?”

She nodded.

They dismounted, then walked toward the guide in dark leathers, who had also dismounted and now stood near the base of the steps, which followed an angled cut up through the stone of the cliff.

Quaeryt looked at the guide, then inclined his head. She nodded.

Vaelora looked at the guide. The guide’s eyes widened, and she stepped back, as if involuntarily.

“Let us begin, dearest,” said Vaelora quietly.

Quaeryt did not ask what she had done, although whatever it had been had clearly terrified the guide.

The steps were neither narrow nor wide, but they could walk up side by side, although there were no handrails and the treads were cut less than calf-depth into the angled passageway up toward what was presumably the Hall of the Heavens.

Halfway up, Quaeryt squeezed Vaelora’s arm. “Stop for a moment. You’re breathing too hard.”

“So are you.”

“Why do you think I told you to stop?” He offered a grin, one that faded. “I can sense … something … but I can’t tell what.” He felt almost stupid saying that he could feel something, yet it was that way with imaging. So why was this different?

“There’s someone up there, and they have … power.”

Quaeryt glanced back, and wished he hadn’t. While they weren’t terribly high, perhaps fifteen yards, it was clear enough that if they made any serious misstep, they’d tumble all the way down—and even with shields around them, they’d break more than a few bones, and that was if they were fortunate.

Could he anchor the shields to the stone?

Surprisingly … he couldn’t. Was that because the stone was so polished that there was no way to anchor anything?
Someone planned this to be able to deal with shields … at least to some degree.
That worried him, more than a little.

“Quaeryt?”

“Just a moment. I need to think.”

Could he anchor shields to the entire top edge of where the stone cut holding the steps emerged, spreading them far enough to provide enough support that something couldn’t push them down the steps? There was nothing else to do but try.

He concentrated.

After several moments he had the feeling that the expanse of anchoring or attempted anchoring would provide protection against moderate force—such as small boulders, arrows, and crossbow bolts … and perhaps a musket, but not against much more. Still, that was better than nothing.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I was about to ask you. What was that all about?”

“Later. I’ll tell you later.”

As they neared the top of the steps, Quaeryt could still see nothing but the sides of the angled passage that held the stone staircase … and the sky, as if they were indeed walking upward into a hall that held the heavens alone. Then, as his eyes reached the point where he could look above the sides of the stone staircase, he took a deep breath. The steps ended almost in the middle of a polished flat stone surface whose edge appeared to be an oval, cut off at the end behind them by the flat cliff through which they had climbed.

At that moment a gust of wind howled from nowhere, pressing them backward.

Quaeryt linked them to the shields, because, as he’d discovered more than a year earlier, shields by themselves provided no protection against wind. Even so, the wind ripped at their jackets and trousers.

He slowly surveyed the polished surface of what had likely once been a rocky hilltop, but saw no one and nothing.
The Eleni must have concealment shields … or something like them.
Just to see what might happen, Quaeryt wrapped a concealment around himself and Vaelora.

As suddenly as it had come up, the wind died down to nothing.

After several moments Quaeryt let the concealment vanish.

A huge wheel, some three yards high and two wide, appeared from nowhere, only yards away, rolling toward Quaeryt and Vaelora.

Quaeryt concentrated, then imaged it away.

Instantly a chill wind swirled ice flakes around them. As the wind died, it dispersed the light fog that had momentarily enfolded Quaeryt and Vaelora.

Before Quaeryt could consciously react, a crossbow bolt shattered on his shields, the fragments dropping and skidding across the polished stone surface.

Then the entire surface before them was filled with bleeding bodies and moaning women.

Except Quaeryt could tell that he was only seeing an image.
How do you remove an image?

Something
radiated from Vaelora … and the image vanished.

A second image appeared, this one of hundreds of hard-faced, black-eyed women in dark leathers, each with a crossbow aimed at Quaeryt and Vaelora.

That image vanished as well, and as it did, something crashed into Quaeryt’s shields from the side, with enough force that it shook his body, if for a moment. He glanced around, then winced as he saw the giant bird—a sun eagle—lying crumpled on the polished stone less than five yards away to his right.

He took a step toward it, and then another, hoping it was only stunned.

“Quaeryt!”

He glanced back, and then up, only to see two more of the sun eagles circling—not above him, but above Vaelora. The last thing he wanted to do was to kill another of the magnificent birds.