Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) (31 page)

She
humphed
. “Of course. Some are bound to wells, others to cisterns that collect water from the rains. But most are bound to the waters that run in streams and rivers, before they reach the salty seas.”

“Exactly,” he said, nodding. “And that is how we will find them.”

***

“Long has it been since I have ridden one of these terrible beasts,” Tri’a-Shalun remarked as the pair of magtheps took them deeper into the forest south of the village.
 

“It has been far longer for me,” Tara-Khan said softly, thinking of the nearly two hundred cycles of relative time he had spent beneath the ice with Ria-Ka’luhr. But his riding skills came back naturally to him, although his buttocks and thighs were no longer used to such abuse. With a smile at the thought, he guided his magthep along the trail that would take them to a stream not many leagues from the village. The water in that particular stream, Tri’a-Shalun had said, was part of a watershed that ran all the way to the sea beyond the Great Wastelands.
 

She had been concerned before they began their quest over what might happen if a hunting party stumbled upon them. “For my own life I do not fear, for I have outlived both my youth and my usefulness. But I do fear for you, child,” she had told him.

“Save your fear for any who may choose to stand in our way,” he had told her with grim determination.
 

The sun was midway to noon in the magenta sky before they reached a shaded glade beside the stream. The water burbled over moss covered rocks as it made its way downstream. After they dismounted, Tara-Khan hobbled the magtheps, which immediately began to graze. Tri’a-Shalun took his arm, and he slowly guided her to the moist, soft sand at the stream’s edge under the shade of towering ferns.

“I am still unsure what you intend, young one,” she rasped as she knelt with a heavy sigh. She dipped one hand into the water, and after a moment the surface became utterly still, smooth as a pane of glass. Then shapes began to appear, ridges that grew to form complex, graceful shapes that swirled and collapsed in a complex dance. “I can bend water to my will, but that will not help you find what you seek.”

“We shall see,” he said as he knelt beside her, mesmerized by the display of her skill. “When I was away, I learned a great deal.” He drew his dagger. “Give me your hand.”

Frowning, she did as he asked.
 

Holding her hand palm up, he drew the blade across the skin. To her credit, Tri’a-Shalun did not so much as wince. “I read of this and many other things, but I also saw Keel-Tath perform something akin to this with a builder.” He took off one of his gauntlets and drew the blade across his own palm. “On our own, we can only accomplish so much. But together,” he took her bleeding hand in his own, “we may accomplish far more.”

“
Oh
,” she gasped. The dancing water surged higher, far over their heads, as if the power she used to control it had been enormously amplified.
 

“As a porter of water,” Tara-Khan told her, forcing his eyes closed, “you are bound to it, and it to you. And through it may I go wherever it goes, touch whatever it touches.” Casting forth his second sight like a stone tossed into a lake, his consciousness was swept into the stream. Faster and faster, his senses expanded, rushing through the water as if he were riding endless rapids that bore him toward the distant sea.
 

“I…I can see,” Tri’a-Shalun stammered, “I can see through the water’s eyes.”

“Yes,” Tara-Khan whispered as he drove his second sight ever faster, ever farther.
 

They rushed down the stream, up the creeks and brooks that fed into it, then down to the river into which the stream emptied many leagues to the west. Farther and farther, faster and faster. Every creature that touched the water, the deadly swimming things in the deeper, cooler places, the beasts large and small, and the people who bathed in or drank from its waters, all came rushing into focus.
 

Tara-Khan struggled, his mind overwhelmed by the titanic wave of information that slammed into his brain. He was trying to categorize, prioritize, to think and understand, but his mind could not keep up with the surging waters.

“Do not try to control it,” Tri’a-Shalun whispered, clenching his hand more tightly. “You cannot fight the water, for it does not understand defeat. Instead, become one with it. Let it wash over you, let it carry you. Relax your mind, child. Do not swim against the current, but go where it takes you.”

Letting out his breath, Tara-Khan did as she asked, forcing himself to relax. After a few moments, the building sense of panic in his mind faded, to be replaced with exhilaration.

There
. He saw a group of what could only be honorless ones sheltering near the mouth of a cave protected by a deep overhang of rock. He could see the eyes of those in the water staring at it as if they could see his face in the water’s reflection. Some even shouted and pointed. Then he found more, farther on, and more. He could see the trace of the river in his mind as if it were drawn on a map, and knew precisely where each group was located. He found fourteen in all, all of them along the river that flowed through the expanse of the Great Wastelands to the sea. They were far to the west, each separated from the others by only a few leagues, and all of them close to a tributary that ended not far from Ka’i-Nur.

With great reluctance, he gently disengaged his hand from Tri’a-Shalun’s. With a disappointed sigh, she let him go, and the swirling, morphing water that had risen from the stream slowly collapsed back to its natural form.

“That was…amazing,” she breathed. “I see that you found what you were looking for, but I still do not understand why you need them.”

“Because I must raise an army,” he told her as he rinsed away the blood on his hand. Looking up at the sky, he was shocked to see that the sun was sinking toward the horizon. Their journey through the water had taken most of the day. “And the honorless ones will serve as my warriors.”

“Then we will put their heads on pikes beside yours.”

Tara-Khan whirled around, his sword sliding from its sheath with a hiss of steel, to find the warriors of a hunting party emerging from the cover of the trees.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Standing at the end of the compartment that served as the great hall of her flagship, Keel-Tath stared out through the clear crystal that let her eyes see beyond the ship. Arrayed before her was the fleet that she had built over the last ten cycles, the warships and crews that had fought in her name against the forces of the Dark Queen. Most of the ships were little more than pinpricks of light to the naked eye, but were artificially enhanced in the crystal’s display by the semi-organic machines that made up the ship’s central nervous system. But Keel-Tath did not need the machines to know where each ship was, or how many warriors and robed ones were on each, awaiting her commands. She felt them all, each and every one, in her blood, and saw them in her second sight as she swept her mind’s eye through space, metal, and flesh alike.
 

They had come far since the day of their first victory over Syr-Nagath when Keel-Tath and her companions had taken the enemy ship for their own. They had taken others after that, but only until the builders upon the Great Moon were able to build their own. And that, they had certainly done, producing a fleet of ships the like of which had not been seen since the Second Age. Hundreds of thousands of warriors and even more robed ones were now sworn to live and die by her command, and the six priesthoods remained bound to her. She was the most powerful warrior who had lived since ancient times.

Except for Syr-Nagath. Keel-Tath fought off a wave of bitter despair as she thought of the Dark Queen. While Keel-Tath had enjoyed her share of victories, she had never been able to strike a strategically decisive blow against her opponent. Every time Keel-Tath felt sure she had her hands about the Dark Queen’s throat, Syr-Nagath either slipped away or drove an unseen blade into the ribs of Keel-Tath’s forces, as if Syr-Nagath had known exactly what Keel-Tath was planning. The Dark Queen was smoke, mirrors, and slashing steel, all the while fighting with a huge numerical advantage that the surviving might of the priesthoods had only barely countered. But even they had suffered grievously. Having learned from Keel-Tath’s earlier successes, Syr-Nagath’s ships had soon been equipped with defenses that had made them death traps for the priests and priestesses to attack, and the seemingly inexhaustible supply of Ka’i-Nur warriors had been equipped with even more devastating weaponry that was both dishonorable and highly effective. In a closed meeting with Alena-Khan, Sian-Al’ai, and the other most-high of the priesthoods, Keel-Tath had in desperation broached the possibility of arming them with First Age weaponry. The priestesses had declined, as Keel-Tath had known they would. In a way, she had been relieved, for once they took the first step down that path, she was unsure where it might lead. The same was true of her own powers. She could not have won the war single-handed, but she had the power to destroy ships or entire legions with little more than a focused thought. She could feel it in her blood. But to strike down proud warriors, let alone defenseless robed ones, who stood no chance against her, would have been to dishonor herself. She wanted — needed — to win the war, but not at the cost of all they had been fighting for in the first place. The Way had to be preserved, and victory had to be achieved as tradition demanded. And so she had fought with sword and claw, and those who had crossed swords with her had died with joyful glory in their hearts.
 

As time went on, she had withdrawn her warriors from the ground battles on all four worlds, for those conflicts had proven little more than vicious stalemates that had dragged on without end. Syr-Nagath could afford such a drawn out war of attrition, for she had hundreds of millions of warriors at her command, but Keel-Tath, who commanded perhaps a million souls all told, could not. She also could not risk the destruction of the priesthoods, which had become a very real possibility as Syr-Nagath fed ever more deadly weapons to her beloved Ka’i-Nur warriors. Abandoning the war on the ground had been an agonizing decision, but she had been left with no choice.
 

The fleet had become her primary weapon, for she could magnify the power of her warriors through the ships and their weapons. Syr-Nagath still had a huge numerical advantage, for she had far more builders at her disposal, but the ships of Keel-Tath’s fleet had proven superior in every engagement. They had not been victorious every time the fleets had clashed, but even in battles lost they had left Syr-Nagath’s ships in tatters.

But the upcoming battle, she thought as she stared out at her fleet, was likely her last chance. Despite the outward might of the armada at her command, the hour was every bit as desperate as when she and the exhausted survivors of the priesthoods had fled to the Great Moon, and perhaps more so. She was committing every space worthy vessel, every warrior, and many robed ones to this single battle, hoping to drive a spear through the heart of Syr-Nagath’s fleet. There would be no withdrawal this time, no retreat. To do so had always galled her warriors, she knew, but this time they, and Keel-Tath herself, would be granted their final glory if Syr-Nagath carried the field. The halls of the palace on the Great Moon were empty. The robed ones not involved in the fight and the younglings would remain on special transport ships here at the rendezvous point until the battle was decided. Should the fleet be destroyed, the shipmistresses had orders to return to the Homeworld and pledge their honor to Syr-Nagath. Their lives would go on.

But Keel-Tath had no intention of letting any of that happen. She knew in her heart that she could win. She had to. But her hopes were hanging on a thread.

“You worry yourself overmuch, mistress.”

She turned to see Ka’i-Lohr standing at the entrance to the hall. After rendering a salute, he strode down the central aisle toward her. Grown to full adulthood, he stood tall with wide shoulders and narrow waist, handsome in his gleaming black armor. He had several battle scars on his face, which he wore with great pride, for each had been earned in separate fights against Ka’i-Nur warriors. Few who were not of the priesthoods had lived to boast of such a claim.
 

“I thought I would bring you some refreshment before the others arrive.” He held out a mug of ale.
 

“My thanks, great warrior,” she said, accepting it gratefully. She sipped it, letting the strong brew warm her as they shared a quiet moment, both looking out at the great fleet.
 

“From such humble beginnings have we come to this,” Ka’i-Lohr whispered as he shook his head in wonder.

“More are yet to join us,” she told him. “The ships still being repaired from the last battle will soon sail from the Great Moon to join us. Then we will find Syr-Nagath’s fleet and destroy it.”

“Assuming, of course, that she does not find us first.”

Keel-Tath rewarded him with a reluctant nod of agreement. Her fleet was secreted deep in the folds of a nebula, its location known only to Keel-Tath and the shipmistresses. Her greatest fear was that Syr-Nagath would find the fleet and attack before Keel-Tath was ready.
 

“Do you really think it wise to strip away the last of the ships protecting the moon?" he asked. “As powerful as its own defenses are, the moon will not stand long against the massed firepower of Syr-Nagath’s fleet.”

“We have no choice,” she told him quietly. “The moon must fend for itself for now.” She felt a spear of guilt at the words, for what she had told him was true…and it was not. In truth, Keel-Tath was leaving the moon undefended to entice Syr-Nagath into attacking, and planned to hold her own fleet hidden until the Dark Queen committed her own forces. Once that happened, Keel-Tath’s fleet would attack, acting as the hammer to shatter Syr-Nagath’s warships against the anvil of the moon’s defenses, which had been greatly, and secretly, improved over the last several cycles. No one, not even Dara-Kol, knew her true intent. Subterfuge was alien to her, but somehow Syr-Nagath had divined Keel-Tath’s plans on far too many occasions. This time would be different.