Coda, Chapter Six: Revelations

"Grubs and Newborns in Rithwic, your Grace,"

The Duke of War shrugged. "Who's up next on the rota, and are they assembled?"

"Scorsha's unit, ma'am. They're right outside."

"Send 'em." The Raven turned her attention back to the rota list on her desk. For something put together late last night and early this morning, it was in remarkably good shape --- assuming it reflected reality, and those scheduled to be on call at a given hour would be present. So far they had been, but the day was young. As she studied the list, she was vaguely aware of Scorsha, at the other end of the hall, crying "Form up! Buffs on! Everyone Lifestoned here?" and the caster on duty saying, "Summoning Rithwic portal."

The sudden emergence of the escaped baby Olthoi was a nuisance, if you looked at it one way; a menace, if one could believe the tales that the escapees were more intelligent than their wild cousins. (It would be scarcely possible for them to be less so.) From the Raven's point of view, it was a fortunate coincidence that these mostly harmless targets had appeared on the scene just as she was in need of them, to train her fighting units not only in organized combat but in keeping their schedule, reporting to duty when they were supposed to. It would have been a little easier if the baby Olthoi had not been in the habit of calling in their big wild cousins for help. Tapuaua had Lifestoned in this morning, having been slain by a Soldier only three levels higher than herself. But she hadn't seemed to mind: her eyes shining, her tail lashing, she had beaten her drum and portaled away at once, muttering, "I must find Aracoeli."

The Cragstone Allegiance Hall had been taken over for use as general headquarters, until a better site could be found. The Raven had her office in a little hut behind the walls near the entrance, Nalicana had set up a Lifestone just behind the Binding Stone last night, and in another hut at the opposite end of the cavern a portal-caster was stationed before a wall of pigeonholes, each fitted with a portal nexus to places all over Dereth, Arramora, and even Knorr. So far, the escaping baby Olthoi had not managed to break free to the surface more often than units could be sent against them, and ---

"Newborns here, your Grace."

"What?" She looked up. Sure enough, across the hall a dozen Newborn Olthoi had crawled out of the wall atop the balcony. "Somebody swat 'em."

"Already being done, ma'am. The two units waiting on duty are pot-shotting them." And as they watched, the Newborns squealed and fell, by ones and twos.

"Fine. Carry on."

"Nalicana!" the speaking mouth on Nalicana's wall said. "Are you here?"

"I'm here, Tapu. Come on up ---" and the Tonk appeared on the rug Nalicana had laid down on the arrival point, her fingers wrapped around Aracoeli's wrist. "I don't know anything about this," Aracoeli was protesting. "She seized on me in the trait shop and said 'You have got to hear this,' and ---"

"Are we alone?" Tapuaua asked, looking around. "I'm to tell this only to you two."

"Yes, yes. Prospero will be coming in later this morning, but ---"

"I have seen Asheron."

Their response to this news was all she might have wished. Nalicana stammered, "When? Where? Waking?" and Aracoeli cried, "He's alive?"

"No. Not alive: not dead either. He appeared as a spectre, like a shadow of light in the darkness. Yes, I was awake. He died; but he can't die, not until --- I'm not entirely sure of this. He said he could not die altogether and leave Auberean, until the shadow of the Hopeslayer was finally cleansed from this world for good. I ventured to tell him that Bael'Zharon died when he did, and he said, 'Not yet. There will be another.'"

"Will be," Aracoeli repeated.

"That's what he said. And he said to tell only you two, because you must be prepared, and because of the love you had for him, and he for you ---"

She stopped in mid-sentence, for the two Empyreans were no longer listening to her, but staring wide-eyed at something behind her. She turned.

Nalicana had hung a tapestry on her wall, a relic from before the Sundering; like Tapuaua's banner-fragment, it represented the Realaidan arms, but the sun and the two moons were displayed against a background of sparkling stars, small gems sewn onto velvet. Against this dark backdrop, like a sunbeam falling through a window, the robed and hooded figure could be clearly seen. "Don't be afraid," he said. "I am here."

Aracoeli's knees buckled, and she sat down hard on the floor. Nalicana stepped forward, arms held out; twice, thrice she tried to embrace him, but her hands passed through the shining figure. She put out one hand and leaned against the wall, laughing helplessly. "It's so good to see you. Tell me: what must we do?"

"As you've been doing. I've been watching, you know, and I'm happy with how you've progressed. Continue as you've begun, and we will make our way through this season of darkness into the light. Aracoeli, let me impress upon you that you must tell no one about me. Above all people on Auberean, Kellin and Valind must not know, till the time comes."

"I promise," she whispered.

"Now then," he began, but the speaking mouth on the wall said, "Nalicana? it's Prospero," and Asheron said, "Later," and disappeared in a shower of sparkling light.

"Come, Prospero," Nalicana said, while Tapuaua helped Aracoeli to her feet. They composed themselves as the alchemist portaled in. He was a big, burly Human, so that it seemed he would need only to take off his thick yellow hair and beard to change into his Darkside form.

"I am happy to report," he said, "that I've analyzed the incense you gave me. It's made of eleven different components, ten herbs plus amber, all but one growing on Dereth; the sandalwood grows only on Knorr. I've brought you some, to test out, to see if it still has the required magical effect. But I think it will." He held out a wooden box, bound and hinged with bronze, and Tapuaua took it.

"I'll do it today," she said. "Thank you. I have a censer in my house; I'll have to go and get it. We have plenty of little Olthoi to try it out on, and I also want to see what it'll do to the fungi in Drudge Citadel."

"Let me know," Prospero said. "I need now to set up a workshop to produce it in large quantities --- and to recruit a team of good woodchoppers to bring me sandalwood. Fortunately, it grows all over the Gardens. Ladies, I'm glad to have made you so happy." For Aracoeli and Nalicana were smiling like sunbeams, and Tapuaua's white teeth flashed.

Eshivon Ugim looked up from the scroll he was reading as his door slid open. "Shi Daraua! Welcome to the Library. How is your research getting on?"

"Not so badly," Daraua said. "I ran out of incense a couple of days ago, so I've been deconstructing the chant. When you and Tapu translated it, you were careful to retain the meter, the rhyme scheme, and the syllable-count, and that was good. Sometimes that kind of thing is important. Sometimes, not.

"In this case, I'm coming to the conclusion that it isn't. I think that very carefully fixed form is a medium, a carrier for the essential content of the spell, the way a sweet syrup can dilute a few grains of active ingredient. If I want to brew a medicine for a patient with a bad cough, say, I make a certain amount of soothing syrup, and add so many grains of poppy to it, to calm the nerves, and then I tell the patient to shake the bottle well before taking one spoonful every three hours --- I'm making sure that just a tiny amount, the same amount, of poppy will get into the patient each time.

"Now, here we have a verse of eight lines, each line having eight syllables, and the music also has eight lines, each having eight notes, and all the notes of the same length. If the singer adds or drops a syllable, then it won't fit the meter or the music; it prevents the singer from making a mistake.

"But not all sixty-four of those syllables are necessary to the spell itself, do you see?"

"Yes, I see," Eshivon said. "That's a very interesting idea. There were some old Milantian religious hymns that were structured the same way, so that the heretics couldn't waylay the hymn, insert a 'not' into a statement of doctrine, and claim it for their own."

"Exactly. Now, if I can find the few grains of magical instruction among the containing carrier of the song, I can do other things with it. How would you like, say, to have a little egg full of incense, with a few words inscribed around its middle, that will break when you throw it at Olthoi and burst into flame, activating the incense and the magic all in one? Or a pillar erected on a boundary, with the activating spell carved on it, such as you see here and there to this day on Omishan? With either a brazier set up on it to put out incense, or --- this is a long shot --- a pillar of wood, not stone, impregnated with the incense components, to diffuse them slowly into the air?"

"I'd like both of those. So, I'll wager, would the Princes."

"Princes? Are they calling them that now? The successors to the Fallen Kings? All right; doesn't bother me.

"So that's why I've come, Eshivon: to study other magical texts in your books here, by your leave, and see what patterns I can find."

'You're always welcome," the Librarian said. "The books of magic are in the western stacks, top floor, except for a few in the locked cases. Let me know if you want to see those."

"I shall; and thank you. It's such a pleasure to see the stacks filling up again! --- Oh, one more thing. Do you ever see Isin Dule?"

"Few of us have ever seen him," Eshivon said drily, "other than in Verdantine of last year, when he was searching for the Lost Artifacts and recruiting everyone who would come to him. But Nalicana sees him fairly often; I can send a message by her."

"If you'd be so good. I'd like to request that, when he has the time, he return to the Falatacot camps and see if he can beg, borrow, steal, or overhear any more of those counted-syllable magical chants."

Eshivon grinned. "Sure!"

"Thanks." The old Tonk tucked his roll of fine Reeshan vellum under his arm and loped away to the stacks.
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Tapuaua hit the Citadel Southwest Outpost drop point, laid down the bundle she held in the crook of her arm, and lit her censer. This stretch of flat ground near the ringway would do for her purposes; the Drudges in the Outpost never came down here unless greatly provoked. It was a far cry from the days when she had first come to Dereth, when the Outpost was empty but the Drudges were scattered across the plains and hills and a youngster could hone his skills by cautiously hunting Glooms and Murks and Mystics, a little further from the portal each day.

She walked back and forth in neat rows, like a plowman cutting one furrow alongside another, chanting and swinging her censer. Prospero's incense performed as they had hoped: the fungi crumbled and died, leaving bare soil. When the incense had burnt away, she was left with a nice little garden patch, soft and crumbly, ready for planting.

She went back to the bundle she had left and unwrapped it: a dozen young Aconite plants, roots and all, wrapped in wet bark to keep them alive. The claws on her own feet served for digging-tools, and her fingers carefully piled the soil around each root-ball. Clouds were building up overhead to a rainstorm, so she needn't worry about watering them, but she would have to return every day to keep the fungi off the borders ---

All the Drudges had come out of the Outpost, and were standing in a row on the edge of the bluff, watching her. After a long silence, she said, "Hello."

"Hello," "Hey," Ho," the Drudges answered in a ragged chorus. Then a big Murk asked, "What you doing?"

"I've killed all the mushrooms on this patch of ground, and planted aconite."

"Shrooms taste bad," the Murk observed. "Aconite good to eat?"

"Not good to eat at all," Tapuaua said firmly, remembering how Scor-chan had said the wild Drudges lived on the unpalatable fungi, to the worsening of their tempers. "Make you sick. These are just for pretty."

"Pretty." The big Murk squatted down, taking a closer look at the two neat rows of Aconite plants, their yellow flowers tossing in the rising wind. "No shrooms up in camp," he said, gesturing behind him. "Plant pretties in camp?"

"Yes, you could do that," Tapuaua said. "We need to leave these where they are, they need to rest after their journey. But I can bring you some more tomorrow. Other plants, too, that you can eat once they're grown, cabbages and potatoes and turnips." She smiled inwardly at the thought of a troop of Drudge gardeners.

"Cabbages," a wizened Gloom Drudge muttered. "Cabbages is what food eats."

"It's better when you cook it," Tapuaua said, now torn between two duties. If these wild Drudges were showing an interest in civilization, she really ought to stay and encourage them, but she had other errands to run ---

"Oooh!" all the Drudges murmured, and she turned to see a Drudge Chirurgeon, splendid in his rose-colored robes, appearing at the drop-point behind her. A Drudge she knew, what's more: the one who had joined Lunar's troop the day the Raven had run the army's first maneuvers. "Hail, Cradoc! Would you come up here, please? There are some fellows here who would like to talk to you."

Cradoc his old eyes agleam with the fervor of the newly converted, sailed up to the bluff and addressed them. "You Drudges! Are you still following the commands of the vile Burun? Have you not learned that they were the puppets of the detestable Gurogs, and they themselves the dupes of the abominable Geraine ---?" Tapuaua backed away into the ringway portal, lest the sound of her drumbeat interrupt his rhetoric.
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Time passed, as it generally does. The Shapers built and restored, the army formed up and marched and trained and broke again into units that went out and slaughtered defenseless baby Olthoi without a qualm. Prospero and Daraua, Durgan and the Gear Master and even mad Ludward studied in their several laboratories, slowly teasing the thread of truth out of the tangled mass of observations. Tapuaua visited the gardens of the Southwest Outpost every day, and brought in one of Thromer's stalwart cousins from Keidelur to teach the Drudges how to use spade and hoe and watering-can. Daraua came too, to plant by the bed of Aconite a rune-carved pillar that smelt even sweeter than the flowers of the garden; and day by day the threads of the fungi backed away in a cautious circle, like onlookers at a fight in the town square, when the Constables arrive and raise their clubs. And when the triple walls were built, across Cavendo's peninsula and around the ringways and around the portals to Shoushi and Rithwic and Knorr, the settlers began to arrive from the Shelters, clutching their tools and their children and blinking at the unaccustomed light.
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"My lords, ladies, and gentlemen! Welcome to Rithwic! Three large apartment buildings are ready for occupation, and as you can see, we have another five houses a-building. Shops will be set up sometime this week; until then, you can get your groceries and other supplies in the Hall. The area here within the inner walls, around the Allegiance Hall, is completely safe; nothing will get in here. Outside in the town proper inside the curtain walls, there may be a few lingering Beetles or Wasps. None of them will last long, because we have two units of troops on patrol, but I'd advise parents to keep the children indoors, or take them by the hand, for the first few days. Those volunteering for military training, see Sergeant Dogsbody at the Lifestone in the town square; those volunteering for building and other craft work, see Shaper Cuthbert on the bridge. You there, sir. Question?"

"Can we farm the bottomlands down there?"

"Uh, not just yet. When we've cleared the area of wildlife, particularly of Undead, you can plant something like grass or vetch or clover, something you could harvest in a hurry for fodder. I wouldn't plant slow-growing crops there; I understand at some point we're going to break down the dam and let Lake Artefon fill up again; but I don't know how soon that will be."
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The scout materialized at the Lifestone and ran, panting, around the shielding walls into the Raven's hut. "Your Grace! There's ---" she stopped to draw a breath. "There's a big Olthoi mound arisen just outside Tanua's Outpost. Not one of the little pillars we get up here; a big one, like the one above the Shieldwall to the west --- bigger, maybe. It's inside the new curtain walls the Shapers are building outside the old ones. The Shapers and everyone have backed off, not to disturb it. Nothing's come out so far."

"All right." The Raven cast one more look over her lists. "The second maniple, First Cohort, is on spot duty. Let 'em keep on it. The rest of the First Cohort, stay on Dereth in case this mound on Knorr is a distraction to cover an attack here. Second through Fourth Cohorts to assemble at the Shieldwall Gate. Anyone who hasn't passed the Shieldwall yet, report to the commander of the First Cohort for relief duty; but they should all have done it by this time. Units without a Strathelar portal, come here to be portaled." She took her staff from the wall, tossed her cloak over her shoulder, and ran for the portal-caster.

Above the Gate, the troops were assembling around their pennons, sergeants and centurions looking them over for signs of difficulty. The Raven took her place on the nearby hill and looked them over. "Jepetto! Come up here, please."

The big Lugian left the ranks and climbed the hill. "Stay here and watch the muster," the Raven told him. "I'm going through the Gate, see what the situation is. And where's Reggik?"

"Here, yer Birdship." The tallest Drudge on Auberean, almost Human-sized with legs longer than the rest of his body, ran up and waved.

"Reggik, run to the Fort please, and ask the Gear Master if he can spare me any Knights. Sane ones only, mind. Don't listen to anything Ludward tells you, only the Gear Master!"

"Gotcha," the Drudge said, and ran off at a great pace. The Raven descended the hill, followed by the handful of scouts and aides that accompanied her everywhere nowadays, and stepped through the Gate.

"Well," she said. "That's quite a mound." Taller it seemed even than the one north of the Shieldwall where she had fought in the old days --- but that one had been atop a hill, so it was hard to be sure. This one squatted on the plain like a gigantic Burun, not far outside the little gate in the wall of sharpened timbers that so far was the only defense of Tanua's Outpost. Fort Tanua, we will rename it when it's done, she thought, so that everyone will remember his name. But there were things to be done first.

She walked cautiously to the gate, and looked it over. It wasn't quite as close as the scout had indicated, maybe a bowshot away, but certainly within the Shapers' half-finished walls. But there was room for a cautious unit to walk past it, hugging the timber wall on either side, without disturbing it --- Light willing. That was what she had needed most to know. She turned and portaled back through the Gate.

"Listen up!" she cried. No longer did she need to bellow at the top of her voice; a few weeks' practice had taught her troops to be silent and listen --- most of the time. "The Olthoi mound is far enough away from the little gate that a unit can safely squeeze past it --- I hope. So you're going to go through the Gate one unit at a time, and march out of the little gate, as close to the timber wall as you can manage, and around well away from the mound, to your position.

"Second Cohort, go left; there's a ridge to the southeast; form your ranks there. You can kill the few Takeru you'll find there, but don't do anything to rattle the mound. Third Cohort, go right; form up on the plains to the southwest. North of the mound ---" She paused, listening to the delightful sound of clanking armor coming down the road from Fort Strathelar. "North of the mound, just inside the little gate, I'll put the Gearknights. Fourth Cohort, stay outside the Shieldwall in reserve, awaiting my signal. When everyone is in position, the mound will be triggered; I assume we'll see some Olthoi after that. Third Cohort will attack at once; Second Cohort, remain on the ridge till I give the order."

The company of Gearknights was in view now, about fifty of them, a gleaming Gear Captain at their head. "Fourth Gear Company, all present and accounted for, Gear Captain Verge commanding, ma'am!"

"Thank you, Captain, please hold your forces in readiness while I deploy the Second and Third Cohorts. Second Cohort, proceed through the Gate."

To move the two Cohorts through the Gate and into position, the Gearknights into place at the little gate, took half an hour. "All right," the Raven told Jepetto as they stood on the walkway inside the wooden wall. "Are the Princes here?"

"Nalicana's here, with the Gearknights. Thromer's out there with his unit, in the Second Cohort. Nobody's seen Isin Dule, but nobody generally does."

"Blast. Thromer shouldn't be out there in the thick of it. Too late to go get him now; we'll have to hope his cousins keep him away from the Lifestone. All right, let's begin. Let me have your pennon."

He gave it to her, and she moved to the southwest corner of the Outpost, nearest the Third Cohort, and waved it in signal.

"Archers, bend your bows!" called Pfeil, now commander of the Cohort. "At my signal, loose at the mound. ... Loose!"

"Saint Elysa, be my friend," Rebvaz murmured, and loosed his arrow, and Jorgen at his shoulder did the same. The arrows darkened the sky for a moment as they flew; they hit the mound with a sound like hailstones. And the mound erupted.

Like ants from a disturbed nest, the Olthoi poured out, chittering and scuttling toward the Third Cohort. The archers shot again, and the swordsmen and pikemen raised their weapons for the assault. The fungus-bleached soil rose as dust in clouds around the battling mortals and monsters. Pfeil watched, as carefully as she could, and sent in new units to the relief of those that were overborne. Some, certainly, had fallen, and were now back at the Lifestone waiting to be portaled back; others, just as certainly, were lying still waiting to be resurrected.

Mannace the Alchemist dashed out, sprinkled the nearest body with life-giving elixir, and ran back again with his reviving fellow slung over his broad shoulder. Tapuaua, more vulnerable and less daring, hovered behind the first rank of fighters, trying to target others whom she might raise. "Lifestones," Pfeil muttered. "What we need is a Lifestone right back here. A Lifestone on wheels, on a little cart, that we could park somewhere among the rear, that's what we need, and I'll tell Nalicana that if I ever get the chance."

The Raven leaped from the parapet and ran across the Outpost, behind the Gearknights, to the eastern wall and climbed to the walkway. "We need a proper gatehouse over these walls," she told the aides who scrambled behind her, "So we can run from one side to the other without having to get down, and I'll tell Sigurd that if I ever get the chance."

She surveyed the battlefield. Most of the Olthoi, some of them still burrowing out of the sides of the mound, were attacking the Third Cohort and had their backs to the Second. She raised Jepetto's pennon again, and waved it in signal. She could hear Thromer's clear, powerful tenor voice shouting, "Charge!" and the Second Cohort came down the hill at a run. They took the Olthoi from the rear, as they were meant to do, and the insects began to fall as if someone had applied poison to an anthill. She could see Thromer and his cousins beating away with their heavy swordstaves, and Palerath's tall Empyreans slashing and casting and smiting with a kind of terrible joy, that they were able to do this at last.

"You need a pennon of your own," Jepetto said, "red, to match your cloak. I'll get someone to make you one."

From time to time a few Olthoi, emerging from the northern face of the mound, attacked the Gearknights whose shining bodies filled the arch of the gate from wall to wall, and were cut down. One big Eviscerator Nymph flew up to where the Raven was standing, and she raised her staff and split it like an egg, and felt better about spending the whole battle up there on the parapet. The Derethians were definitely getting the better of the fight, and ---

The mound trembled, and its eastern side burst open under the onslaught of a dozen Workers and Drones, but they were only the vanguard for a huge glistening black shape that thrust her way through the crumbling walls. Her foreclaw slashed backhanded, and sent Thromer flying: his cousins drew him back, bleeding from nose and mouth, till a Sage healed him. The nearest troops slew the Workers and Drones, but could make no headway against her.

"A Queen," the Raven said with a sigh.

"No, ma'am," said Jepetto. "Not quite. I was here when the Queen burst through the Shieldwall and we had such ado to knock her back. This is a virgin Princess: look at the tip of her abdomen! No ovipositor. She has never mated nor laid eggs; and Light willing, we can kill her before she gets the chance."

"Tell the Commander of the Fourth Cohort," the Raven said. "Tell them to come in through the Gate. Captain Verge! Take your Company and attack the Princess! Ignore the other Olthoi; concentrate on her."

"Yes, ma'am!" The Gearknights clanked as one, and began to march four abreast through the gate.

"Talking of Princesses," Jepetto said, pointing to Nalicana, standing behind the Gate as the Gearknights left her behind.

"Right," the Raven said, and raising her staff Called Nalicana up to the parapet beside her. "You're a spellcaster, my Lady," she said firmly. "You can cast all the spells you like, from up here."

"Yes, ma'am," said Nalicana meekly; but she was smiling. She threw a bolt that knocked a Worker tail over teakettle, and it thrashed and twitched and stopped moving.

Thromer was on his feet again, surrounded by his unit, and by several others: five Virindi Monitors had appeared around him, tentacles waving, sickles menacing anything that came near the Imperator. They would not go far afield to attack, but they were splendid protection for Thromer and anyone near him. He spoke sharply to one of them, in a high-pitched hiss that no one else understood, and one of the Monitors drifted reluctantly forward and cast a rainbow cloud of Mesmerism around the Princess's head, and drifted back. The mortal fighters took the opportunity to regroup, to heal, and to resurrect their dead.

The Gearknights resumed their attack, breaking the mezz, and the Princess turned to spit and strike at them with her terrible claws. Other Olthoi moved in from the western side of the battle to come to her aid. The archers came in behind them, and the rest of the Third Cohort, cautiously and prepared to retreat if that turned out to be the better part of valor. An arrow caught the Princess in the eye; but it had not had the benefit of the poison with which Asheron had tipped Elysa's arrows, and the insect clawed the arrow aside and went on fighting, one eye-facet dripping ichor, hissing and spitting with increased anger.

The Gear Company were falling, outnumbered and battered. The Fourth Cohort moved in behind them, four abreast. fighting and falling as the Princess took note of them. Then from the corner of her eye the Raven caught a flash of light, and turned her head to look. Palerath was guiding his unit, in the shape of a phalanx with Cashtal at its tip, toward the angry Princess. The Templar, his two swords flashing with unchancy green lights, shone himself with the injuries he had taken. There were rifts in his armor, rifts in his skin, and light poured out through them as through rifts in a stormcloud, his wounds transmuted into healing for his fellows. Aracoeli stalked behind him, making up with her spells what his sacrifices could not cover. Straight up to the Princess he strode, swords flying, trying to take out her eyes. Meanwhile the other troops fought her from both flanks, and behind her the archers and Mentalists and others of the Third Cohort had climbed the slumping mound and were attacking from above.

Now it seemed almost a duel, one-on-one, between Cashtal and the Princess, her claws and his swords advancing and retreating in a deadly dance. The Princess was bleeding from both eyes now, and the foremost joint of her right claw was disabled. Her left struck out and knocked him back; and Aracoeli healed him and his fellows raised him to return to the fight.

But in that moment a small Lugian --- small as Lugian females went, at any rate, and wearing deep shining blue from top to toe, leaped down from the top of the mound, swordstaff flying. With one well-aimed stroke, as the Princess bent her head to breathe on Cashtal again, Penthesilea severed the neural cord between head and thorax; and with a second stroke the tendons that surrounded it, and the head fell to the ground. The remaining Olthoi faltered, and scattered, and were slain.

"Well!" Penthesilea said, sliding nimbly from the Princess's back to the ground. "Well fought, Cashtal ---" and offered her hand, but the Empyrean ignored her. He leapt to the top of the dead Olthoi, and from there to the top of the mound. The troops were cheering Cashtal, Penthesilea, the Raven, and one another turn and turn about, but when they saw Cashtal atop the mound they directed their cheers to him --- except for a few, such as the Raven, and Nalicana, and Tapuaua, who were waiting to see what came next. Penthesilea, for her part, merely shrugged, and stood wiping ichor from the blades of her staff, and waiting to see what came next.

The man on the mound raised his arms for silence, and eventually got it. "I thank the Light," he began, "for the victory it has granted me this day." More cheers. He silenced them again.

"This day has shown us the pattern of the days ahead," he said, "as we move against the monsters that infest our land, and in good time against the Falatacot who would try to take from us what is our own." More cheers.

"Now is the time to cast off all disguise and deception!" he cried, and those who knew looked at each other, and loosened again the weapons in their sheaths, where they had been so recently replaced. Palerath looked only puzzled. Aracoeli (but no one noticed her) clenched her fists and her jaw. Aurian/Valind moved up through the ranks till she was standing in the very front, only a pace from the fallen Olthoi head.

"Now is the time," he said, "when I shall tell you my name! I was born Cashtal, but in an hour of grace my name was changed. I am Kellin Realaidain! I am your Emperor, who ruled over you in the days of old. I led you out of danger before the Sundering; I will lead you again for the reconquest of Auberean and the restoration of the Seaborne Empire of Yalain!"

For a long moment, there was dead silence. Then a few cheers, from five or six scattered voices, but rising to swallow them and all other sounds, an ominous murmur, like the buzzing of a hive of angry bees who have fought long and hard to defend their hive and now, with the battle won, discover the invading snake already making its home among their honeycombs. There were scattered shouts. The buzz grew louder. "KELLIN!" someone yelled. "YOU LET THE OLTHOI INTO AUBEREAN!"

"You!" cried another. "You and Gaerlan together, you betrayed Asheron and all of us!" "Used us for your own greedy designs!" and in a high voice that overpowered all the others, "WHAT HAPPENED TO CELLAURAI?"

The angry, noisy crowds were moving now, brandishing fists and weapons, moving toward the mound where Kellin still stood. "Betrayer!" "Murderer!" "Traitor!"

"And that's not all!" came a woman's voice, Aracoeli's, as she waved a long arm above her head for attention, the Celestrum still shining on her hand. "This, standing here, this is the Nali Valind, his accomplice then and now! This is Valind, who exterminated the Adjanites! Valind, who sullied the stones of Ithaenc Cathedral with the blood of the innocent! Valind, who burned Mistress Kathendi at the stake, who forced the Order of Hieromancers to swear to her own creed, who made a mockery of the benediction of the Light! There she stands!"

But Valind no longer stood there; she had scrambled up the back of the dead Princess to join Kellin atop the mound.

"I am your Emperor!" Kellin shouted in turn. "If any are loyal to me, if any will join me, let them join me now!" One or two Empyreans among the crowd pushed forward, struggling to reach the mound; people standing nearby pushed them forward with shoves and buffets.

"Hear ME!" another voice cried. Palerath with Aracoeli in his wake, was struggling through the crowd to the little gate, where the Raven and Nalicana still stood atop the parapet. "My Lady, I swear to you, I did not know who that man was, nor that woman. If I had, I would never have made allegiance with them."

"He tells truth," Aracoeli said. "He never knew. I did; I kept silence at your command. He didn't know."

"But I know now," Palerath went on. "I cast them from the allegiance now." He made a vindictive gesture toward them. "If anyone will stand by ME, and disavow Kellin and Valind and all their cursed works and all their empty promises, come now. And I will swear to you, Lady," he said, "and serve you in every thing; if you will have me." The outcasts on the mound now numbered five. Belegon the mage had taken a few steps toward Kellin, then turned back; now he made his way toward Palerath, who was collecting a larger crowd than had been in the True Inheritors before.

"Fools!" Kellin cried above the crowds, who had adopted two general paths of movement: away from the mound, and toward the gate where Palerath stood below and Nalicana above. "You had your chance! Who does not gather with me, scatters!" And raising his sword, he cast a portal, and vanished. The others followed him, and the mound was empty.

"I'm afraid I know where he went," Palerath said. "To the Skyport, quickly!" "Coming up," Nalicana said, and cast a portal into the air, large as a millstone and shining like a moonstone.

They found themselves in the Concourse, five of them: Palerath, and Aracoeli, and Belegon, and Nalicana, and Tapuaua. The Raven had stayed behind to dismiss the troops and see the Shapers returned to their work of building. "This way," Palerath said, and led the party through a door that was generally considered incapable of opening. It led to one of the long turning corridors of which the Skyport had such a large number; but there were no Servitors in it. Palerath led them down, and around, and down again. "This is the door," he said. "A moment: I worked it shut; I can work it open." Something clicked, and the door slid open under his hand.

There were chairs scattered about, and other signs of disorder, and one young Yalaini woman who was accustomed to help Aracoeli in the kitchen, sitting on the floor and weeping.

"I don't know what's the matter with him," she said. "He came out of the Lifestone like a thunderstorm, him and Aurian, and a few other people, knocking things around, knocking me down; they took some weapons from the armory and I think some food from the kitchen, and portaled away again."

"They Lifestoned in," Palerath said. "They could no longer use the Binding Stone, since I've cast them from the allegiance. What shall we do about the Lifestone?"

"Find me a room we can drag it into and lock it up in," Nalicana said. Palerath and Belegon went off to do this. Nalicana brought out the Lifestone Key and opened the Lifestone to inspect its scroll of names. Interestingly enough, she could see the names "Kellin" and "Valind," not "Cashtal" and "Aurian," which hinted at some interesting additional powers of the Lifestone. Nalicana raised the Key to the scroll, and lowered it again. "No, not yet," she said. "But after it's locked up, no one else in your allegiance must ever use this Lifestone again. Go and Lifestone in the Concourse, and then I will make you another one to use in here." She laid her hand on the Stone to close it. "Palerath, I see that this Stone originally stood out in the wilds of the Drudge Citadel. Did you move it here yourselves?"

"Yes, my Lady. It was Cash --- Kellin's idea."

"All right. You can move it again, into that room, and then lock the door. And ---" she was looking at an empty niche on the wall, and a broken lamp that lay beneath it. "Was that a shrine of the Light?"

"Yes, my Lady. A little one. Valind made it."

"Then you'll want to replace it: but not just yet; Give me a day or two; I'll tell you when it's safe to put a shrine here again."
[p]-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=[p]
High overhead, darkened Alb'arel loomed, the strange lights in its southeast quadrant sparkling brighter than ever. Lower down, but still higher than the bottoms of Artefon, one could hear the guards marching, meeting and exchanging reports and parting again, and the sentries walking along the town walls, and the watchman singing as he went his rounds: "Twelve o'clock; look well to your lock, your fire and your light, and so good-night...."

Down below, Tapuaua ran in pursuit of a pale Skeleton that had caught sight of her and turned tail. It stopped, turned, driven to attack by the hateful enchantments of the Archons; and as it approached she wielded her rattle and watched the luminous magic capture and clothe the bleached bones. She caught the living, dying man in her arms as he fell, listened to his tale, murmured words of comfort, heard his last breath and watched him fall again into dust. Then she wiped her eyes and went after the next, under cover of the silent darkness with none but the moon to watch.