Darwath 3 - The Armies Of Daylight (15 page)

There was movement on the stairs, eerily silent, of men and women naked to the waist, their bronzed shoulders darkly gleaming under jeweled collars and pectorals. The breeze from across the lagoon rippled in the elaborate frills and tuckings of long gauze skirts and shifted the rainbow-dyed curls of servants who bore a carrying chair whose design Gill half-recognized. The style was sinuous, carved with winding lines of hearts, eyes, and diamonds, like the furniture she and Alde had found in the most ancient storerooms in the Keep.

Gil was not sure whether this was an intelligence report, a documentary, a manual, or the opening chapters of a novel, or what the date was, or the historical context. But she knew that she looked into the Times Before.

A haughty bishop descended from the barge, the Earth Cross of the Faith embroidered in bullion and sardonyx on the edges of his frilled white loincloth. Jewels flashed from white, unworked hands and from the earlobes and nostrils; people moved about, amid a bobbing of ostrich plumes; some kind of rite was clearly in progress. Gil noted that, though the bishop was shaven bald, all the others wore their hair as long as they could, braided into elaborate coiffures such as Minalde wore on ceremonial occasions, plumed, flowered, or jeweled. Beneath the eye paint and rouge, the faces of the audience on the steps looked bored to death, and Gil saw that they flirted among themselves whenever the bishop's head was turned, or else covertly eyed one another's outfits.

Govannin's words came back to her, with the memory of soft chanting among the tiered darkness of the great Sanctuary. I have heard that the men of the Times Before were evil and that in their pride and their splendor they practiced abominations… One man in a padded, sunshine-yellow silk loincloth produced an ivory eyebrow comb and made minute adjustments with the aid of a mirrored ring on his little finger. A youth with lilies coiled in his blue-dyed hair noticed him and blew him a kiss. Sunlight glittered on the waters of the lagoon; parrots fluttered among the garlands that hung the marble colonnade along the shore. Gold flashed on the bishop's white, upraised hands.

Beyond the pillars, past the myrtle trees and arbors of roses, Gil had a glimpse of mountains, blue and close and shawled with a thin lace of snow…

Mountains she had seen before.

Where?

It was difficult to be sure because of the trees and the domes and turrets of the city in the distance. But a sense of familiarity pulled at her—a memory of ruined streets, of fallen and smoke-blackened walls, and of the buzzing, crawling stink of decay. Hadn't she turned to look over her shoulder once, her bones aching with the jarring jog of the exhausted cart horse she rode? Hadn't she glimpsed those mountains, standing just so, above the corpse of a despoiled city?

Those were the mountains that stood above the plain of Gae.

Frowning, Gil turned her eyes from the crystal at the center of the table, and the bright images before her died.

She sat for a long moment, staring into the darkness that seemed to press upon her from the walls of that narrow room.

This isn't how it's supposed to be, she told herself numbly. We were supposed to find the ancient records of the Times

Before, and there it would be in black and white or in this case in living color—the Answer. How to Demolish Dark Ones. (See: Secret Weapons, Specs. Appendix A.)

But of course that's stupid. When the Dark Ones hit, civilization probably lost all capability of making record crystals. There won't be any of these made after the coming of the Dark.

She pressed her hands to her head, her fingers tangling in her coarse, unruly hair, her palms cold against her scalp. Why do I care? she wondered, rather rhetorically, for she knew perfectly well why she cared. I'm going to be leaving this bloody universe to its own devices in a little under ten days, and the whole thing should be nothing to me.

But the thought of leaving, rather than bringing her joy as it once had done, stabbed her with nostalgia and a kind of hurtful, ambiguous grief. She fought a weak longing to bury her face in her arms and weep. Instead, she picked up a stick of charcoal, marked the number 14 on the bottom of the latest crystal, and etched on her tablet, “14-relig. crmny— Gae?”

Hard work is the novocaine of the soul.

“Spook?”

She looked up to see Rudy silhouetted against the darkness of the doorway. He hesitated in the narrow aperture, his Aztec cheekbones and broken nose thrown into curious, craggy shadows by the pallid light of the glowstone, his coarse, homespun shirt sleeves pale against his sheepskin vest. In a fit of annoyance against the multiple layerings of shin, tunic, breeches, surcoat, doublet, and cloak, Rudy had recently reconstructed a sort of ski vest for himself that would keep him warm but leave his arms free for work in the labs. In a reminiscence of his old Pachuco days, he'd painted on its back his private omen, a child's hand clutching a flowering branch, barbaric yet strangely beautiful, in a circle of stars.

“Did you—did you find anything?” he asked hesitantly.

For an answer, Gil flung her stylus against the opposite wall. “Nothing,” she whispered. “Bloody nothing. There wasn't one of these things made after the coming of the Dark.”

Rudy was silent, He, too, had expected to find the answer cross-indexed under World. Saving of.

“Christ, Rudy, what are we going to do?”

“Do?” His voice was suddenly bitter and grating. “We're going to get the hell out of here before the ax falls. We meant to do that once, remember?”

“And never know?” she asked.

He closed his eyes, fighting pain with cynicism, the only weapon he had ever had. “And never know,” he affirmed quietly.

The booming of kettledrums echoed like thunder against the ice-pure silence of the Vale of Renweth. Above it, like the thin cry of wind, Gil could distinguish the high, mellow sweetness of horns.

It seemed to her that every man, woman, and child in the Keep was gathered before those black walls, carpeting the hill of execution with its sinister, chain-hung pillars and blackening the snow of the lower meadow. A shifting lake of humanity spread out beyond the lines of the Guards, the ranked masses of the scarlet troops of Alwir's private corps, the Church regiments, and the long, disorderly row of the Gettlesand rangers. Now and then gusts of talk would swell over that close-packed, uneasy body and spread like wind ripples to its edges—rumor, speculation, and fears. Only at the end of the Guards' rank, where Gil stood on the lowest step of the Keep, was there silence, centered upon the Guards' burly Commander Janus and the old man who sat on the ground at his feet.

At length Ingold stood up and put away the yellowish crystal into whose depths he had been peering. “I make their numbers some three thousand,” he said, brushing the snow from his robe.

Janus did some rapid calculation in his head. “We've over half that strength here of fighting men, not counting volunteers. Even with the flame throwers, it will be a near thing.”

To that Ingold did not reply.

The drums boomed louder, an insistent, throbbing rhythm that seemed to engulf flesh and bone, and someone in the lower meadows cried out as the first glittering ranks of the Army of Alketch broke through the trees.

Except for the small corps of halberdiers, the Army of the South was composed solely of men; an Imperial Army, gleaned from the half-dozen races that acknowledged the sway of the lord who sat in Khirsrit. It emerged from the woods like a gilded serpent, spined with spears, rank after rank of haggard, grim-faced men who had fought their way here from beyond the swampy ruins of the Penambra Delta through hundreds of miles of freezing, haunted countryside. From the crowd in the meadow a cheer rose, sweeping all the watchers, echoing against the flat walls of the Keep.

Gil had to admit that they were a brave sight, these stern and hard-faced men beneath the gaudy rainbow of banners, and the roar of the drums and wave after breaking wave of the sound of horns would have stirred the coldest blood. But she could see that Ingold was not cheering, and the ranks of Penambra and Gettlesand were silent.

Like the shrill whinny of stallion answering stallion, horns sounded in the passage of the Keep gates. Looking up, Gil saw them emerge, remote and hieratic as chess pieces beneath a black velvet canopy—Alwir, Minalde, Prince Altir Endorion, Maia, and Govannin, scarcely human at all in their formal robes; the cold, brittle daylight sparkled on the bullion embroidery of their pennants, on ivory and ebony, opal, sapphire, and pearl.

The honor guard that surrounded them blew a final blast on its trumpets. Before them, the kettledrums fell silent. Hooves scrunched daintily in the crusted snow as a white horse emerged from the front ranks, and Gil recognized upon its back that graceful young courtier who had tried to murder the Icefalcon—Ambassador Stiarth of Alketch, clothed in primrose satin and gilded chain mail. Dismounting, he bent himself almost double in a deep salaam.

“My lord,” he said in his lilting voice, “my lady. I greet you in the name of the Emperor of Alketch.”

Minalde stepped forward, opals flickering like chains of misty stars in the coils of her hair. Carefully, but with a grave confidence possibly imparted to him by his stiff-cut brocade gown, Tir toddled at her side, one fat, pink hand clutching hers. Gil was conscious of Rudy standing beside Ingold, his face glowing like a two-hundred-watt bulb with pride.

Aide's voice carried clearly in the silence. “In the name of my son Altir Endorion, Lord of the Keep of Dare and heir to the Realm of Darwath, I greet you, and through you, your Imperial Uncle, the Emperor of the South and the Lord of the Seven Isles. I bid you welcome as guests in this Realm and to this fortress.”

Stiarth bowed again. Another man, both taller and stockier than the slender Ambassador, dismounted and handed the reins of his charger to a kneeling groom. Then he, too, stepped forward and made his obeisance. “My gracious thanks for your greetings, my lady Minalde,” he said, his voice harsh as unpolished stone under the lisping accent of the South. “I am Vair na Chandros of the Imperial House of Khirsrit, and I greet you in the name of the head of my House, Lirkwis Fardah Ezrikos, Emperor of the South and Lord of the Seven Isles, whose name and ancestors are revered from the White Coasts to the Black and on all the Islands of the Ocean. I am designated Commander of this expedition—and your humble servant.”

Straightening up, he surveyed man, woman, and child on the steps before him with eyes that were cold, honey-colored, and anything but humble. Like Stiarth of Alketch, Vair na Chandros was black-skinned, his features haughty and aquiline, more Arabic or Pakistani, Gil thought, than Negroid. His hair reminded her of an Arab's, thick and closely curled, silvered to pewter but still retaining a few streaks of black. His one hand, the left, rested on the turquoise-crusted hilt of his cross-hung sword. His right arm ended in an ivory stump, equipped with two steel hooks inlaid with silver. The metal glinted palely in the cold daylight as he introduced the third of the men who had ridden at the head of the Army.

In contrast to these dark members of the Imperial House, this man was of the ivory-fair race of the Isles, his eyebrows over his green eyes proclaiming that, before he had entered the Church and shaved his head, he had been red-haired. Like Maia and Govannin, he wore the arcane white of the High
Church panoply; he was a tall, kindly-faced, elderly man whom Vair introduced as Pinard Tzarion, Inquisitor-General of the Army of Alketch.

“Aye,” Gil heard one of the Guards in the back ranks mutter in a thick northcountry brogue, “come to make sure we're all in't' Faith proper.”

“As long as we fight their battles for them,” Gnift's rather hoarse voice replied, “they don't care if we worship sticks and old bottles. So,” he added maliciously, “you can breathe easy, Caldern, my pear blossom.”

“Garn to your sticks and old bottles. If they'll eat our porridge, they best not squeak over't' grace we says.”

“They best not,” Melantrys' purring voice agreed, “but what will you bet they do?”

Odds were given—Gil had long ago learned that the Guards would bet on anything—while, on the steps of the Keep, Alwir was continuing his gracious welcome, looking like Lucifer in his Sunday-best. The hook-handed Vair did not seem pleased about bivouacking his men a mile and a half from the Keep, but Stiarth smiled suavely and said, “Of course this excepts our personal bodyguards, servants, and key members of the General Staff—a minor point which you must forgive my even mentioning, since certainly that was your intent.”

“Indeed it was,” Alwir beamed, with a determined amiability that reminded Gil of the old tale of the Spartan youth and the fox.

Stiarth tested his boundaries. “The way there is not too rocky for you to send the daily rations to the troops? But naturally, it wouldn't be.”

“It's a matter that will have to be discussed,” the Chancellor informed him affably.

“Ah!” White teeth flashed in his dark face. “But then, so much will.”

Vair na Chandros barked a summons, and an officer came hurrying from the ranks, scarlet plumes nodding in the thin, snaking wind. He rasped a string of orders in the singsong tongue of the South; the man bowed deeply and effaced himself. In a moment the drums began again, a deep, hollow booming that vibrated in Gil's bones. The ranks began to move, following the men whom Alwir had appointed as guides. Cold sunlight flashed upon their spears.

“My lord Vair's—incapacity—has ever prevented him from the field generalship that was his chosen career,” Stiarth purred, as he and those around him on the steps watched the hook-handed Commander summon the bodyguards forth from the main host. “But his years as Prefect of Khirsrit, and in particular his expeditious handling of the autumn food riots in the city, have given him more than ample experience to head these forces. I'm sure you will find him an able military co-Commander, my lord Alwir.” His dark, slender fingers toyed with the ruffles of his extravagant gloves. “But I am nominal head of the Expeditionary Force. It is with me that you will negotiate the final terms of the treaty of alliance with my uncle.”