Shannivar (34 page)

“What do you think I am?”

“I asked
you
.”

She shrugged delicately. She was right—whatever she was, she posed no threat to him. He could break her with one hand, crush her against him, cover that pale pink mouth with his own.

He jerked back, remembering in that moment another pair of lips, chapped by ice-edged wind, and muscular arms, not these overly thin, soft limbs. Skin like sun-kissed honey, eyes black and almond-shaped, at times bold or tender, instead of colorless orbs that revealed nothing of the soul behind them, if indeed such a creature had a soul.

He thought of Shannivar's obsidian-dark eyes, how secrets had glinted behind them—perhaps all the feelings she did not need to say aloud. He was struck, as he had been so many times, at her quickness and her strength. Her courage. Her honor. If he stood at the threshold of the hell Denariyans spoke of, he would hear her call him and return to the land of the living. He remembered how he had once lain in her arms, had breathed the mingled smells of cedar and wood-smoke, had felt the slowly fading pleasure in the pit of his belly.

The mists pulsed and the pale woman shone like the rising moon. He inhaled her perfume and it sent his senses reeling.
Your destiny calls you,
she seemed to be saying.
Loose yourself from the chains of the past.

And there was something more, something that had come of that night together, but he could not think what. It did not matter. These notions were illusions born of the weakness of his own flesh, a weakness that would soon be purged.

The ice-woman's eyes gleamed. He felt drawn into a sea of ever-changing radiance, of warmth and lassitude, of forgetfulness—

Then another woman's face rose to his mind. His heart shuddered at the sight, pressing against the stone of his chest. Black hair woven into seven braids, eyes dark with tenderness, a voice soft as thunder, calling his name . . .

“Zevaron, my son . . .”
With those words came a stirring behind his breastbone.

Pain lanced through him, sudden, searing. His heart turned molten. He felt poised on an incendiary edge, where a whisper might push him one way or the other. He did not know what he might do to be free of it, except hold fast while the white mists set him back on his proper path.

He waited while the last twinges of discomfort faded. What cause had he to feel regret or guilt or loyalty? Such emotions had no place in this kingdom of kaleidoscopic glory. The light was not white but every color imaginable, every texture, every temperature, every taste. The old distinctions—
so dry and artificial!
—no longer had any power over him. He could feel anything and everything, be anyone, endure forever! He could rule the puny kingdoms of men, from the vast reaches of ocean to the unending depths of the sky. Let the nag-riders howl! He would crush them under his feet.

“Call me anything you like,” the ice-woman murmured, as if the words were love-play, “and I will give you whatever you desire.”

“I think you are a manifestation of Fire and Ice or else its servant.” Zevaron struggled to get the words out.

She tilted her head, considering. “Does it then follow that we must be enemies?”

“It does. We must. Of course, we must.” Even as he spoke, his voice sounded hollow and without conviction. Did he really believe that? Did such distinctions apply to a man of his stature, called by his destiny? Surely all the powers of the world, natural and otherwise, must serve his cause.

Now she turned so that her body was in profile, her gaze low and sidelong under thick, white lashes. He felt her awareness of him like the whisper of silk over his skin. “Tell me then, brave Zevaron, have I ever harmed you? Used you ill? Spoken unjustly about you? Insulted your honor? No? Betrayed a promise, then? Taken what is rightfully yours?”

He stood immobile, unable to summon a denial because there was none. Whatever this creature was—woman, spirit, monster—she was innocent of these things.

She faced him again. “Have I ever harmed someone you love?”

Someone I love . . .

Tsorreh.

His breath locked in his throat.

She waited, giving him time to gather his thoughts. All the while, those pale, earnest eyes searched his face. “But someone else has harmed one you loved. So is
he
not your true enemy?”

“I will not listen to your lies!”

“Have I spoken one word of untruth? Have I tried to distract you or trick you?” Her voice did not alter from that soft, persuasive tone.

She moved so that the sword was centered on her body. With both slender-fingered hands, she positioned the tip between her breasts. “If you truly believe me to be your enemy, then you had best do away with me straightaway. If your purpose in coming here, to this Kingdom of the Mists, is to conquer whatever you find, then do it now! I will not protest. I consent freely to
whatever
you desire.”

All it would take was a push. She'd fall, and he'd use his weight to drive the sword point home. It would slide over her breastbone and slice through the muscles between her ribs and then into her heart. She must have known this when she placed it just so. He could imagine the faint catch of steel against bone, the smooth glide through flesh. The blade was sharp. Would she bleed red blood or snowy meltwater? Would she sigh as the light left her eyes, eyes that now shone like moonlight? Would he feel a surge of pleasure at her death? The next moment, he was utterly appalled that he could think such a thing. But the disgust faded as soon as she began speaking again.

“Lay down your burden,” she murmured. “Be free of your pain. Don't you see? That's all I want for you. That's why I'm here.”

“To die for me?”

“To serve you. If this is what you truly desire. Whatever you desire . . .”

Gelon, burning.
And Cinath, his face streaked with his life's blood, his eyes rolling up in his skull, his voice shrieking in agony too crushing for words.
For every moment Tsorreh had lain in that filthy, lightless cell, he would dole out a century of suffering. For every whimper of pain or despair or humiliation, a thousand years of terror. For her death, an eternity of damnation.

The Gelon on the slave ship, the one who lied, who told him Tsorreh was dead—his back a tapestry of bone-deep lacerations, a dozen whips slashing down again. And again! Lines of bloody flesh overlap one another until his entire back from nape to heels turns into a single oozing, pulpy mass. Splinters from the wooden desk rise up like jagged needles to pierce his chest, his belly, rip them all to shreds. And his voice, screaming, gibbering, begging for mercy.

The same mercy he had shown. The same mercy Cinath had shown.

Each thought, each image pulsated through Zevaron to the pounding rhythm of his heart. His belly quivered, as if he were on the verge of sexual release. He craved this revenge more than he'd ever wanted anything.

Blood courses through the streets of Aidon. The riverbanks are slick and the water stinks of it. The skies turn black with smoke, the flames so hot and fierce, the sound drowns out the cries of the dying. And not just Aidon, but Verenzza and Roramenth, Borrenth Springs, where the false scholars spin their lies, Sidon and a hundred other cities, until all that is left of them is cinders falling over the salted earth.

All the hills and valleys of that accursed country, the rivers and plains and mountains, all blacken into a continent of whitened ash, pure and cleansed, ash and ice. The burned-out, frost-blasted relics of past atrocities waited now, expectant, for the world to be reshaped and born anew.

Fire swept the horizon beyond those borders, incinerating everything in its path, cracking stone, vaporizing forest and river alike. The Firelands volcanoes erupted in an extravagance of celebration, spewing forth billows of ash and rivers of molten rock that turned the seas into steam for hundreds of miles around. Ice, pure and cleansing, glassed over the skeletal remains of the creatures that had once blemished the ocean bottoms. Snow whipped across the glassy surface, and then each flake became an ember. Ice burned, and water, and air.

He remembered vowing,
Gelon shall burn
. A fierce, wild joy filled him, as if the exultant fires and ice-storms in his vision had taken root there. The world would become the pyre of his vengeance.

Aye, indeed. Gelon shall burn.

His whole body was shaking now. His belly turned to water and then to steel. The visions were so sweet. So alluring. So compelling. A sense of peace washed over him. It was all so clear now, what he truly wanted, what he had to do, and the destiny that had brought him here.

Yet the woman before him might be an obstacle to that destiny, not an ally. A minor one, true, but an inconvenience. She had not denied his accusation that she was either an incarnation of Fire and Ice or else its agent. She had only asked what
he
thought she was. A pretty toy? A seductress? A demon with a human form? Would she turn on him the instant he relaxed his guard? Or pretend to obey him while plotting his downfall? How could he trust anything she said? And yet, if she swore rightly to serve him, she might have the power he needed. Yes, this was a place of immensely powerful magic, of uncanny forces, but was it enough to bring down Gelon? What could one frail-looking woman do against Cinath's armies?

She had stayed very still while the fever of vengeance raged through him, crested, and partially subsided. He had no idea how much of what he felt had been revealed in his expression, nor did he care. Either she would submit to him and bring him what he must have, or he would destroy her and her master alike.

“You are correct,” she said. “I cannot defeat your enemies for you. The power I serve is not yet fully present in the material world. Even this—” she gestured about her with one graceful hand, “—is illusion, as you yourself suspected.”

“You're useless to me, then.” Zevaron stepped back, withdrawing the sword. He'd wasted enough time. Just as he turned to go, not caring whether he was heading in the correct direction so long as it took him out of her sight, the woman spoke again.

“I said
I alone
could not defeat your enemy. But there are those who can, and I can provide what will bring them under your command.”

He swung back to face her. “What do you mean?”

“Not what.
Who
. Did you not choose to come here, to the northern steppe, instead of journeying to weak, ineffectual Isarre in the hope of an alliance?”

She must mean the Azkhantian riders, the only force in the known world able to hold the Gelon at bay—and not once or twice, but again and again over the centuries. Even Cinath at his worst had been unable to break their defenses. Having seen how the nomads rode and fought, even in play, Zevaron understood why.

“They will not make a treaty with me.” He could not keep an edge of bitterness out of his voice. He had asked and they had rejected him.

“Not of their own choice,” she agreed.

Why should they have any choice in the matter? Their filthy, insignificant lives were nothing compared to the glory of his cause!

“What if I gave you the means to compel their cooperation—their loyalty unto death?” she continued. “What if you were to ride to Gelon with the tribes of Azkhantia at your command,
all
of them, not just a few hotheads?” She paused, her chin lifted, eyes half-closed as if in exultation. Every trace of color had drained from her skin. Her lips shone like alabaster.

The clans had never banded together, that much he knew, and even if they did, they would never follow an outlander. Superstitious, ignorant nag-riders!

Compel
, the woman had said.
Loyalty
, she'd said, and
unto death.

Like the waves of a storm-driven tempest, a vision engulfed him. He looked down on the steppe as if from an immense height. From one horizon to the other he saw a mass of horsemen, so many and so densely arrayed that the coats of their horses blended into a single mottled carpet. Here and there, standards carried aloft marked the different clans, thousands upon tens of thousands of seasoned warriors, the like of which the world had never seen. The dust of their passing rose up to cloak the sun. Their swords numbered more than the blades of grass over which they galloped. Their arrows rained down so thickly, they turned day to darkness.

His to command.

T
HE
ice-woman met Zevaron's gaze, unflinching. “Such a thing cannot be done overnight, you know. There must be preparations—
you
must be prepared. Even then, progress will be slow at first. You must gain mastery over one clan, then another, and so forth. The larger your following, the easier the conquests will become.”

Zevaron narrowed his eyes. “What will you get out of it? Why would you do this for me?”

“Who else?” She looked up at him and he saw no guile in her expression. No deceit, but no other human feeling, either. That was just as well, for feelings could not be trusted, any more than memories could. They made a man weak, gullible.

“The steppe riders will not answer my call,” she went on, “nor that of any other creature here. I could not take them from you even if I wished. They will be yours alone.” She wet her pale lips with her tongue. “You need not take my word on such a short acquaintance. We have much to discuss, you and I. I say to you again, you have nothing to fear from me. I will tell you only the truth, and even a fool can see that I have no weapons to harm you.” She smiled again. “You, on the other hand, can strike me down on a whim. You can change your mind, no matter what has gone before, if that is what you truly wish.”

“I will go wherever I wish.”

“I have no power to hold you. Or to compel you.”

She had used the same word,
compel
, that she had applied to the subjugation of the Azkhantian riders.

“Have you anything to lose by learning more?” she asked. “And do you have anything to gain by leaving now?”

He waited so long that she lowered her outstretched hand with a sigh, perhaps of resignation. Mist began to invade the clear space. The way before him was closing. In moments, the pavilion and everything in it would be shrouded, lost to view. Lost, too, would be whatever this woman offered him. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and he could renege at any time. She did not lie.

I can give you whatever you desire.

Gelon in flames. Gelon in ruins.
The Azkhantian horde at his back, trampling the bones of the oppressors into dust.
Rivers of blood. Pillars of flame. Oceans of ice.
The unmaking of the world and the birth of a new dominion.

Something shuddered within his breast. It might have been the heart that was no longer his.

She held out her hand, the hand that he could have sworn was empty. On her palm lay a pearl the size of a plum. The shifting lights ignited pastel rainbows on its surface. Patterns moved, so that he could see into the very heart of the pearl, to the mote of quiescent magic there. He knew, without any need for speech, that she meant him to swallow it. Was this poison or some magic-infused trick designed to ensnare him? His face hardened. He had been right to suspect her!

Her eyes were as guileless as before. “I would take this myself to prove that it holds no harm, but I am not made of the same mortal flesh as you.”

Zevaron snatched the pearl from her. Its surface was smooth and warm. A fragrance rose up from it, like the smell of new snow or an icy stream cascading over rocks. “What does it do?”

“I cannot tell you its name, for there is no word for it in human speech. It contains a—glimpse, a taste—of the future, and it is for you alone.”

“Will it show me things that might happen?”

“Or perhaps what you yourself will bring about, simply by accepting the vision.”

He looked again at the pearl, tested its weight. If this woman, this emissary of Fire and Ice, meant to kill him, why had she not done so? He still believed she had spoken truly when she said she had no power to harm him.

Before he could change his mind, he slipped the pearl into his mouth. It softened and liquefied, passing almost instantly into the tissues of his throat. He swallowed reflexively, but it was already absorbed.

Before him, the mists eddied in the same rhythmic patterns as ever. But the woman and the dais were gone.

He felt himself sway, as if he were mounted on an unnaturally tall horse or perhaps one of the shaggy two-humped camels. This steed, however, was bigger and wider. He could not make out its exact form, only the suggestion of immense power, the stony hide and the stinging vapor of its breath. From behind came a rumbling sound, not from a single source but hundreds, tens of hundreds, dull and overlapping, so many that the ground must surely crack under their combined tread.

Ahead, the light grew steadier and he knew he had come to the end of the Kingdom of the Mists. He lifted one hand, gesturing for the army to halt. They would wait for his summons. He must go on alone. This first conquest, the hardest one, would be a test. The men who lived in these barren lands must obey
him
, follow
him
, not his monstrous army. Otherwise, they would fight out of fear instead of loyalty. And loyalty—the fanatic devotion that surpassed all other allegiances—was the only way to subdue the steppe warriors and bind them to his purpose.

As if his thoughts had the power to alter time and space, he found himself on foot, nearing the outskirts of an encampment. It was a poor sort of place, the herded beasts thin, the
jorts
in need of repair, the men with sunken cheeks and glassy eyes. Here on the farthest reaches of habitable land, these families scrabbled out a meager living under conditions even harsher than those the Snow Bear people endured.

Yes, he could see now how it would be: his approach, their consternation . . . then would come the challenge . . . the duel with the chieftain, too soon ended. It was a pity to waste the man's life, for he was the only one of the clan with any courage. Cold and near-starvation and seasons of fear had beaten the spirit of the others. Yet Zevaron had no choice but to kill him. Only the ruthlessness of his victory would give him the obedience he required.

He left the body in a pool of blood, already hardening on the bare, half-frozen earth. He hardly noticed the cries of those left behind as he led the surviving men and women south. They took all the horses capable of travel, having stripped the camp of its paltry stores of food. They would journey too fast to hunt or allow the animals to graze. Poor as they were, these horses would not last long, but their flesh would feed the riders. It would be enough, and then there would be another encampment, and another, with fresh horses and better food. And yet another conquest to swell the ranks of his army.

With each victory, he would sweep over the foolish resistance with greater ease. Before long, no clan would dare to stand against him.

The steppe was wide. Even though it was sparsely populated, by the time he reached the borders of Gelon, he would be a power such as the earth had never known.
Rivers of blood. Pillars of flame. Oceans of ice.

And always, a vast expanse of mist and light, of bitter frost and unquenchable fire, would follow him, no longer fixed to the northern mountains but liberated by his will. In its wake would come an army of monstrous creatures, ready to do his bidding. The nag-riders were but the vanguard. Against the army of Fire and Ice, the army that answered to his will alone, nothing human could stand.

Nothing could stop him now.

Gelon will burn.