The Mountains Rise (43 page)

***

Tyrion released his hold on the wind as he dove forward. He had angled the direction
a few seconds before, to send his enemy closer, to hurtle by just a few dozen feet
from the eye of the storm where he stood. Releasing it at the last moment
,
the wind began to die quickly
,
but its momentum wouldn’t
dissipate
instantly.

Anchoring himself with his power as he moved into the screaming air
,
he moved to place himself in the Krytek’s path. Along his arms were lines of intricate
triangles, each containing one of several symbols, and yet they weren’t complete.
Touching them with his will
,
he created a final line along the edges of his arms. That extra line created a new
set of triangles in the third dimension, slightly above the ones decorating his skin
,
and with a whisper of aythar they flared into life, solid and
lethal
.

His arms were sheathed in deadly force, much as they had been many times in the past,
but now there was a difference. This magic could cut through spellweavings as easily
as it did everything else. This magic could kill his opponent.

The Krytek was not as addled as he had hoped, however. A human
who
had been through what it had, would have been thoroughly shaken, if not outright
concussed, but it was still in full control of its faculties. Before it reached the
location where he was waiting
,
it lashed out, not with a spellweave, but with a focused strike of raw magic.

The attack was much like what he would have expected from a human mage, but it was
sufficient to do what was needed, causing him to dodge to one side, missing his opportunity.
One of his normal shields would have been able to stop the attack, but he hadn’t bothered
using them since he had assumed any attack coming from the Krytek would be a spellweaving.

It couldn’t focus well enough to spellweave, so it used simple magic instead.

He cursed himself for not considering that possibility as the winds died and the insectoid
creature came to a rolling and bounding stop several hundred feet away. His opportunity
was gone
,
and things were about to get
difficult.

The Krytek had only just come to a stop
,
and spellweavings shot forth even before it took to its feet. Long weaving lines
crossed the space between them in mere seconds, coursing toward Tyrion like snakes,
homing in on him. All that saved him was the half second delay that preceded their
appearance.
When h
e felt his enemy’s will gathering
, he
reinforc
ed
the strength in his legs
,
and
bounded up and to one side in a leap that carried him almost twenty yards away from
his original location.

He could jump farther, but experience in past battles had taught him not to try it.
Longer jumps were harder to control and any
mistake could cost him a broken leg or worse. The Krytek’s attack swerved and twisted,
like a living thing, and shot toward his new position.

He jumped again
,
but the spellweaving followed, the lines stretching and growing at unbelievable speed.
He couldn’t avoid them for much longer.
Leaping once more,
he created a wide shield across the field to slow them when they turned to follow
,
but it hardly slowed their advance.

If I cut them my secret is blown
,
and my enemy will realize the danger.

Crying out loudly
,
he released his aythar and yanked at the earth, ripping up a section of the hard
ground almost ten feet deep and a hundred feet across, using it as a physical shield.
It was a feat of unbridled strength, but it cost him. Although his level of aythar
was much greater than his opponent
’
s
,
his reckless use of power with the windstorm and now the earth
,
had weakened him. Soon he wouldn’t have enough energy left to fight.

The spellwoven snakes struck the earth and tore into it, trying to reach him, but
the vast quantities of soil and rock thwarted them at every turn. As soon as they
tore through one section
,
another moved to stop them. Tyrion ran toward his foe now,
using the sheer bulk of the earth to shield himself.

He closed the distance quickly, from a hundred feet to fifty, then twenty. A sudden
burst of raw aythar shaped into an attack of blunt force slammed into the personal
shield he had placed around himself
,
but it failed to stop his advance. Ten feet and he activated the magic along his
arms, he was almost within range.

Something shot upward, lines of spellwoven power that he hadn’t noticed, hidden beneath
the ground near the Krytek. They closed around his feet and sank in, ripping through
his small shield. Once they contacted his skin
,
they discharged a powerful electric
al shock and his body convulsed;
pain and strange sensations overwhelming him.

Tyrion collapsed, helpless at the feet of his adversary. Above
,
he could see nothing but grey, a sky occluded by dark clouds, until the Krytek body
leaned over him
,
blocking his view. He was numb, his body tingling and twitching
,
but his mind floated free. His
perspective shifted
then
,
and it felt as if he was looking down on himself and the She’Har warrior, watching
from some third vantage point.

The human body was still twitching, but he no longer felt it, it was distant. The
strange creature leaning over him was extending an arm now, about to finish him with
some strange magic
. He was larger than that though, his body was not limited to such a small fleshy
thing, it was light, it was air, and in the clouds above—it was brimming with power.

He smiled, or rather, the wind smiled, though it was not something that could be seen
with the eye. The sky boomed with thunder and the world exploded.

The clouds overhead discharged at once, sending a thousand bolts of lightning down
to meet the earth that made up the arena. The spellweaving that shielded and isolated
the arena disintegrated in a vivid instant of actinic light
,
and then the entire area beneath it was inundated by a cascading avalanche of blue
fire.

The soil of the arena exploded upward in molten drops of fusing silica
,
and the Krytek was transfixed as the power of the sky struck it repeatedly, causing
it to fall backward and then pull its arms and legs inward as the lightning struck
again and again.

Only Tyrion was untouched, though drops of molten earth fell on him in places, leaving
small burns across his skin.
The pain caused his mind to retreat
,
and the sky, which had seemed so close before, drew back leaving him alone, small,
mortal and hurting.

The electrical storm vanished, leaving the air full of the burning odor of ozone and
scorched earth. Struggling to his feet, Tyrion surveyed the field
,
and though his body still shook with weariness and the lingering effects of the Krytek’s
attack, he smiled, for he liked what he saw.

The Krytek was less than seven feet away, and somehow, beyond all belief, its spellwoven
defense was still intact. The hazy outer cushion was gone, but the hard inner shell
remained, and it had protected the creature from the blazing electrical force that
had assailed it. It looked unsteady, swaying slightly as it began to lift itself
again on four legs, but it was unharmed.

“Whatever you did has failed, baratt,” it said in clear Erollith. “Now you will…”

Its final words were cut off as Tyrion stepped close, burning his bare feet on the
molten glass that lay between them. His arms rose, limned with deadly aythar
,
and they cut through the Krytek’s shield as though it were tissue
. The creature never finished its sentence as its body fell away in three separate
portions.

Silence reigned in the arena, and its dominion went unchallenged while Tyrion slowly
turned, looking at the stunned She’Har
who
watched him.

Absently
, he shielded his feet
to keep them from being further scorched, and then he reached up with his left hand
to lift the spellwoven collar that lay at his
throat
.
He had the power to destroy it now, though he wasn’t sure whether the She’Har had
planned for such an event. It might simply unravel, or it might kill him, but he
no longer cared.

“I am not a slave any longer!” he screamed to their waiting ears. “And if any of
you would like to dispute that fact, you are welcome to come down here and discuss
it with me!”

Across the field he saw Lyralliantha emerging from the crowd, running toward him.
His left hand still held the collar up and out. He slipped his right hand beneath
it and briefly activating his new magic, he cut the collar away
.

Lyralliantha’s mouth rounded into an ‘o’ as she yelled something at him, but he couldn’t
hear her. The collar came apart
,
and as it tore and disintegrated
,
it felt as though his soul ripped in half. Blinding pain drove his consciousness
into oblivion, but it was not a soft release, it was a darkness filled with knives
and thorns.

Warm light was filtering through his eyelids, but not unpleasantly. It began slowl
y, a trickle of light that gently coaxed him to consciousness. He was somewhere soft,
floating perhaps.
Did I die?

Tyrion opened his eyes slowly and discovered that the light was filtering through
a canopy of leaves and branches high above. He was lying on a bed of—well
,
he wasn’t quite sure what it was. It appeared to be some sort of fine fibrous material,
light brown and impossibly delicate, as though someone had unwound raw silk and made
it into a cushion.

There were thicker vines wrapped around his arms and legs, holding him gently but
firmly in place. No, they were doing more than that. Those around his arms had several
thorny protrusions jutting into his flesh, painlessly piercing the skin. He had seen
their ilk before, years
ago
when Thillmarius had subjected him to one of his ‘examinations’.

Fear sent ice through his veins
,
and he started to struggle. The thorns withdrew at the first sign of movement
,
and the vines released their hold on his limbs. Moments later he was free, floating
on the strange cushion without any sort of restraint. Relaxing
,
he allowed himself a moment to take in his surroundings and immediately noticed that
he wasn’t alone.

Lyralliantha lay close by, separated by only a few f
eet of whatever it was he was l
ying on. Her body was naked, and the vines were around her arms and legs in much
the same way they had been with him. She seemed to be unconscious
.

Shifting and rolling
closer
he took the opportunity to enjoy the view of her skin with his natural vision. Magesight
had provided him with far more intimate views of her body for years, but there was
something to be said for seeing something in the flesh, with the eyes you grew up
using.

He wasn’t disappointed.

Movement distracted him from his artistic studies
;
someone was approaching, walking through the nearby hall. As his mental view expanded
,
he realized where he was, back in the building in Ellentrea, where Thillmarius performed
his studies and managed his human slaves. The approaching form was that of the Prathion
lore-warden himself.

What happened?
He couldn’t imagine how he had wound up there.

Thillmarius opened the single door to the room and addressed him, “I was alerted that
you had awakened.”

“How did I get here?” asked Tyrion, iron in his voice.

“A better question would be, ‘W
hy am I still alive?’” said the She’Har.

Tyrion’s glare was the only response the Prathion She’Har received.

“I brought both of you here, after you collapsed in the arena,” answered the golden-haired
She’Har.

“What’s wrong with her?” questioned Tyrion.

“Nothing serious,” answered the other, “lack of blood, though that should be almost
resolved. She almost killed herself trying to save you.”

Tyrion’s eyes narrowed, “I don’t recall needing a rescue.”

Thillmarius gestured toward his neck, “When you severed your collar, it began a hemolytic
cascade, destroying your blood cells. It’s part of the design, to prevent anyone
from successfully doing what you attempted.”

“Hemo—what?”

“Hemolytic,” repeated the She’Har. “It means the rupture or destruction of the cells
that comprise the functional majority of your blood. I’m speaking in plain Barion
to make it easier for you to understand.”

“I
have
never heard that word before.”
Nor am I entirely sure what a ‘red blood cell’ is for that matter,
he added mentally.

Thillmarius nodded. “It never ceases to amaze me how easily your kind loses knowledge.
What was common information to your forebears is now completely forgotten, which makes
it all the more incredible how much they accomplished.”

Tyrion’s mood was deteriorating. “If you wouldn’t mind finishing?”

“Your blood lost its ability to carry oxygen
,
and the destruction of its red cells led to a vast disruption of your circulatory
system. You died, or came as close to it as anyone can. She…” Thillmarius pointed
at Lyralliantha, “…foolishly tried to save you by connecting her blood vesse
ls to yours
. She expelled much of your ruined blood and replaced it with her own.”

“What?!”

“She nearly died along with you. Both of you wound up with a grossly inadequate blood
supply, and your immune system quickly began to reject her blood, which became a serious
issue for both of you,” explained Thillmarius.

“I hope you realize that very little of what you are saying makes any sense to me,”
Tyrion informed him.

The She’Har frowned, “I have come to respect your intelligence, but native wit can
only do so much when it is overcome by such vast ignorance. Allow me to rephrase
things f
or you. Your blood was ruined. S
he removed most of it from you and replaced it with her own by connecting one of her
main arteries to one of your large femoral veins.” He illustrated his point by pointing
at his wrist and then toward Tyrion’s thigh.

Thillmarius continued, “That succeeded in keeping you alive, briefly, but she lost
consciousness as her blood pressure plummeted
. Most of those present thought it best to leave things alone and let you both perish.
I, however, had a different opinion.”

“You saved us?” asked Tyrion.

“I stabilized you, and using
the
more advanced techniques available to me here
,
I kept your body from destroying the foreign blood that was keeping you, and your
owner alive. It was close, but I managed to increase the fluid in your bodies enough
to keep you both from complete system failure. You’ve been convalescing here for
over a week now.” There was a note of pride in the She’Har’s voice.

Tyrion knew that whatever he had done, it had been terribly clever, but he didn’t
want to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. Still, he couldn’t help but admit
to a faint gratitude that the man had saved his life, and more importantly Lyralliantha’s.
“Thank you,” he said at last.

Thillmarius smiled, “You are welcome.”

“So—Lyralliantha’s blood is inside me now?” asked Tyrion, staring at his arms in mild
amazement.

“No, not any longer,” corrected the She’Har. “That situation could not endure
for long
. At the moment your body is filled with blood that you manufactured with a lot of
stimulation on my part, along with a neutral fluid that I used in the interim to provide
for you until you could replace it.”

“Is she alright?”

“She should make a full recovery, as will you,” said Thillmarius. “For now, I would
advise you to remain here, at least until she awakens. If you are seen in your current
state
,
you will likely be slain.” The She’Har touched his throat to indicate his meaning.

Tyrion furrowed his brow, unsure what the lore-warden was trying to tell him. Then
he touched his throat and realized that the spellwoven collar he had worn for over
five years now was gone.

“That’s right,” said Thillmarius, nodding. “Any She’Har
who
sees you without a collar is
probably going
to attempt to correct the situation.”

I’d like to see them try,
thought Tyrion, but he couldn’t dispute the wisdom of avoiding a confrontation. Then
something else occurred to him, “Why are you helping me?”

Thillmarius graced him with a beatific smile, “I would not go so far as to say that
I am helping
you
. I serve the interests of the Prathion grove and I still believe that we have much
to gain from you. For that reason I am helping
her,
in the interest of continuing
my
involvement in your future.”

“You just said that if I am seen
,
they will try to kill me,” pointed out Tyrion. “It sounds unlikely that your aid
will produce any profit for you.”

“That depends on your owner,” said Thillmarius.
“What I would really like to know is how you produced that electrical storm.”

Tyrion stared at him without blinking. He didn’t understand what had happened with
the lightning either, but the last person he felt like trying to explain it to was
the man standing in front of him.

Thillmarius sighed and then
turned to the door, “I will return later. One of the baratti will bring food for
you shortly.” With that, he was gone.

Tyrion was left with little to do, other than watch the silver-haired woman beside
him breathe. That wasn’t such a bad idea. Her hair fascinated him. Like most of
the She’Har
,
its color was far beyond what a human would consider ‘normal’. He ran his fingers
through it, letting it slide through them, shimmering like a waterfall as it settled
beside her.

With one hand he traced the line of her jaw and throat,
and
then
let it drift along her chest and down to her abdomen. The skin was soft and unblemished,
lacking even the casual scars that most humans collect during an active childhood.

But, she didn’t have a childhood, did she? She’s only nine or ten years old, and
she began life as a mature adult by our standards.

She had never engaged in the simple games or normal play that
natural
human children did. It was a sad thought, but he didn’t let it distract him from
his exploration.
The curve of her hip was irresistible
,
and it drew him lower, to admire the shape of her thigh and the healthy tone of her
calves.

The feet were elegantly shaped and even the toes seemed perfectly formed. He examined
her left foot before running one finger along the bottom of it. The skin there was
tougher than the rest, testimony to a life spent barefoot or in minimal footwear.
His touch caused her leg to twitch
,
and then he saw her eyes open.

“What
is your endless fascination with my feet?” she asked in a raspy whisper.

“Your feet?” said Tyrion. He had never shown any particular interest in them before,
but
then he remembered their first meeting, when he had kissed her foot. He removed his
hand and edged away to give her more room. “Nothing in particular, I just wanted
a closer look.”

“You were molesting my foot,” she said, arching one eyebrow.

“I was just curious…”

“Is that what you call it—curiosity?” Her eyes moved to
below
his waist, noting his tumescent condition.

Tyrion blushed, in fact his state was partly due to her presence, but it primarily
resulted from a pressing urgency in his bladder
. “Actually, I need to relieve myself,” he confessed.

“That is probably what you say to all the semi-conscious females
who
catch you fondling them,” she replied dryly.

Was she—making a joke?
She was so insouciant that it was difficult to ascertain her meaning. “Are you teasing
me?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes, but my humor seems to have failed,” she said clinically.

“No,” he reassured her, “I think it was fine. I just don’t expect it from you.”
He sat up and worked his way to the edge of their ‘bed’, such as it was. He had
already learned from previous experience where the facilities for elimination were.

Lyralliantha followed his example
,
and he helped her to her feet. Minutes later they both returned. “What now?” he
asked her.

“I need to tell you something,” she began.

“What?”

“This,” she said
,
and then she lifted her lips to his, kissing him softly at first and
then more deeply, pressing herself
tightly against him.

He responded with shock at first
,
but he adapted quickly and returned the kiss and the embrace with no small amount
of passion. Threading the fingers of one hand through her hair
,
he snaked the other arm around her waist, cupping her
derriere and holding her close.

Minutes came and went while the two of th
em talked using only their lips,
forsaking words entirely. Questions fluttered through Tyrion’s mind
,
but none of them stayed long enough to concern him.
Pausing only long enough to shift his stance and slip one arm behind her legs
,
he lifted Lyralliantha and carried her back to the strange bed they had awoken in.
He placed her there carefully and then he joined her.

And then he joined with her.

Some while later he lay watching her, trying to figure out what it had meant. Unable
to frame the right question
,
he said instead, “I had no idea you were a virgin.”

She showed incomprehension, “I don’t think I’ve learned that word.”

It took a minute for him to explain the meaning in Erollith
,
but eventually she understood. “Oh,” she said, “That’s a concept that has little
meaning for the She’Har. Does it increase the significance of sex for you?”

He shrugged, “Not really, but for some people it might. I was just surprised. From
what I had learned of the She’Har
,
I thought you were already experienced.”

“It is an infrequent activity among the children of the Illeniel Grove, since we do
not keep humans,” she answered.

“You wouldn’t necessarily need humans,” said Tyrion.

“The She’Har primarily do this only to produce baratti for the arena,” said Lyralliantha,
as if that explained everything. “Few choose to engage in sex for pleasure alone.”

Uncertainty took hold as Tyrion wondered at her motivations.
Why did Thillmarius save us? Was that the price?
Keeping his voice steady he asked, “What was your motivation?”

“Something new,” she told him. “What is wrong?” She had seen the change in his aura.

“I don’t want my children to be used in the arena,” he said bluntly.

She laughed, “Fear not, I will not conceive. My people almost never bear human children.
I am able to control the fertility of my flesh. Those who create children generally
do so using human females to gestate the offspring.” She paused, looking at him more
seriously. “Did you think I was planning to make a child? Such a thing runs against
my grove’s decision regarding baratti.”

“Then what was your motivation?” Tyrion’s suspicions were easing
,
but he still didn’t understand. “Pleasure?”

“In part,” she nodded. “As I said before,
it was something new. When I saw you in the arena, I knew something had changed,
and when you destroyed your collar
,
I thought I would perish.”

“Thillmarius said you nearly did.”

“It no longer mattered to me. If I couldn’t save you
,
I didn’t mind dying.” The words were spoken with complete calm, but her aura was
flickering with intense emotions
,
and her eyes were damp.

Of all the things she could have told him
,
that startled him more than anything else might have. “Are you…” The words trailed
off. He didn’t know what to ask.

“Teach me love, Tyrion” she said.

“T—th—that’s not something you can teach,” he replied with a brief stutter.

“Then show me what you can. Show me what you wanted to show
her.
” Lyralliantha took his hand in her own, guiding it to her bosom.

Tyrion hadn’t thought to perform an encore so soon, but Lyralliantha’s insistent lips
convinced him otherwise.