Coda, Chapter Ten: Visitors
Nagual sat in his own quarters, simultaneously trying to hear and trying not to listen. Voices echoed down the hall: the resonant bass of the angry Blood-Father, scolding and rebuking, and the insolent reedy tenor that was Ju'xatl, defending himself --- no, not even that. Boasting.
The pleasant shock of learning Ju'xatl was alive after all --- of seeing him suddenly appear in the Great Hall, alive and grinning --- had evaporated within heartbeats, when the Third Strategos had reported where he had been, what he had been doing.
Fighting alongside the insects. Transporting the insects to the far side of the wall, to fight against the northern interlopers. Fighting with the insects.
Claiming that the insect Queen was intelligent. Well, perhaps she was: perhaps intelligence developed only with sexual maturity, which most of the insects never attained.
But intelligent or not, the insects were as much interlopers on Auberean as the northerners, not to be made allies --- not to be given the power of returning to life, once slain. Nagual shuddered. Now the meaning of that rough blue stone glimpsed in the mansion to the southeast was clear: a stone to which a warrior's soul could be bound, so that when slain far away he would rise up again, alive and almost whole, back at the stone.
If the northern interlopers had such stones already, it would explain a good deal.
There was no point in his trying to tell Ju'xatl that --- the man could think faster on his feet than anyone, and talk so persuasively as to convince his listeners that black was white. If the Blood-Father couldn't convince him, nobody could; but Nagual had tried. He had written out his thoughts as plainly as possible, and left the letter in Ju'xatl's quarters.
The Blood-Father's voice rose to a crescendo; a door slammed. Nagual stood up, expecting to hear Ju'xatl's angry feet stamping down the hall ... but there was nothing. Only a kind of whisper of wind down at the other end, as of a mass of air suddenly thrust aside. Nagual thrust open his own door, ran down the hall to Ju'xatl's quarters, flung the door open. There was no one there. The letter also was gone.
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The walls of Cragstone Castle had been rebuilt, smooth and white, filling in all the gaps that might have allowed enemies into the city. Four massive gates, built of sturdy oak bound with bands of dramastic, hung in the gates at the compass points, and troops stood before the gates. All the towers (except Nalicana's) were manned by watchmen. All the old apartment buildings had been refurbished and inhabited, mostly by fighters (and healers and provisioners and the rest of the support staff).
Down by the shore, a second ring of walls was being built, a palisade of sharpened wooden timbers, to be replaced with stone someday, maybe, if there was time. Anything attempting to swim the moat --- even if it could climb its steep rocky sides --- would have to scale the wooden walls as well, and there was nowhere at their base to place a siege tower. There were gates across the bridges, too, and a fourth bridge was being built to the south, and a road made to connect it to the old road that ran south to Molwirth.
Prospero the Alchemist walked behind this southern wall, opened the bridge gate wide enough to let him through, and walked over the bridge to the far side; here he turned and looked back over the whole of the fortress. Not bad, not bad; certainly it had been much worse only a few months ago. He remembered how, in the second year of reclamation, great stretches of curtain wall had been taken down to provide easier access to the city ... well, they were rebuilt now, and heightened and strengthened. But there were these bridges, which provided access for Cragstone's troops now, but might do as much for Cragstone's enemies tomorrow or the next day. Yes, he had better put his proposal to the Council when next it met. He walked along the southern bank, looking carefully at the pilings that underlay the bridge. Yes, that was the vulnerable spot, there.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The west wall of the Northern Cobalt Outpost had also been raised, so that enemies could no longer leap over it from the road above into the enclosure. The Outpost had been attacked twice more, but none of the defenders had taken wounds that would not heal. Two new cases, however, had come from the attack on Northeast Esper two days before. One was the Esper Warder, who had been slain at his own post, reappeared at the Lifestone across the road, and run up the road to give the alarm while still under Lifestone protection. The other was a small Drudge with a bad shoulder wound, who lay muttering in delirium. All five cases were walled off now by screens painted in the old Sho patterns that were coming back into style, and a very big tall Lugian nurse stood before them, to make sure that no one wandered into the quarantined area by accident or by purpose. Daraua visited them daily. Some of the patients were still conscious, but their morale was very low.
He heard voices behind him: "Let me through!" and "Sir, you can't ... Oh, Shi Rinauri! well, I suppose...."
Rinauri walked carefully around the little Drudge's cot to join Daraua. "I have to show you something," he said. He drew off the thin gloves he had been wearing since the battle, and held out his hands. The palm of the right hand, the fingertips of the left, were black.
"Ah," Daraua said. He bent down a little, to look at the marks as closely as he dared. "Any pain? Any swelling?"
"No. Only a slight numbness, as if the black stuff were a coat of paint on my skin. Daraua, I think I had better leave."
"I think you had better stay right here, in quarantine with the rest."
"I'd go mad," the young Tonk said flatly. He drew the gloves back over his hands. I don't feel ill, Daraua, aside from this strange stuff on my fingers. But I must assume I'm contagious, so I'm going out into the wilds where I can't harm anyone. Kill a few Burun or something. If I start feeling sick, I'll come back."
"If you can, you mean."
"Well, yes." Rinauri grinned. "Don't worry, Daraua. There's worse things happen in war." He had wandered away from the Elder Shaman, between the beds toward the far wall, glancing over the patients' sweating faces. Suddenly he began to beat his drum and, before Daraua could run up to him and interrupt the pattern, portaled away.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"... And nobody has seen him since," Daraua reported at the next Council meeting. "I've put out the word for people to look for him --- particularly on Omishan, since he mentioned killing Burun. Not that there's much they could do about him if they found him."
"By the time they find him, he may be willing to come in and be put to bed," Nalicana said. "My Lord, have you any comment to make?"
"Only that this illness appears to take effect much more slowly than the Ayai Heauviri that felled Caerlin," Asheron said. "As I said, I was not among those who cared for him; but I do remember being told that the hand that slew Omadin was black and burning to the elbow before the Emperor returned from the battlefield to Knorr. And after that he was ill for four years, and insane for the last six months, before he died. So we have, perhaps, a longer space of time within which to work."
"Very well," Nalicana said. "Lord Sigurd, you have a report?"
"Yes, my Lady." The Master Shaper rose and bowed. He had only recently been admitted among those who knew the secret of the Council, and he glanced nervously at Asheron's shimmering form as he spoke. "The towns and outposts of Osteth and of Linvak Massif have their first lines of defense completed. The outer walls of Cragstone, just inside the moat, are being completed; and the walls of Linvak Tukal have been filled in, so that the Citadel (which is also being rebuilt) is now ringed with three lines of defense. There's a fourth and outermost wall that surrounds the city in all directions but the east; that wall will be built during the next few weeks, after we've decided whether to build it out to take in the four Kingdom Shrines, or to move the Shrines into the city. The Outposts inhabited by our Drudge and Gurog allies are also fortified, except for South Gevoth: no one is going to live there until the last of the mad Gearknights are rounded up and shipped off to Strathelar for treatment.
"In Omishan, the towns have been garrisoned and a single palisade built around each; those towns have two lines of defense really, since most of the habitations are up in the trees. Ikeras is also protected by its moat, and can be reached only by means of the Nexus or by the narrow bridge that leads in from the east. On the eastern shore, a second palisade has been built, enclosing the Lifestone, the ringway, and the four town portals; a camp has been built there, mostly tents at present, surrounding a stone keep. Archers stationed on the walls of this camp can also cover the bridge to Ikeras island."
"Now, talking of bridges," Prospero said.
"Yes?" Nalicana prompted him.
"I was going through some old records in the Library, and I found a reference to a substance used for quarrying during the Golden Age. In solid form it can be very small, like a pebble, but when activated it turns suddenly into a large volume of gas that expands rapidly, shattering anything that tries to contain it. In that happy time, no one seemed to realize that it could be used as a weapon of war. After reflection, I think I don't want it to be used as a weapon of war; it would be too terrible; if we used it as a weapon we would leave Auberean once again in ruins, and we might as well return to the Shelters and have done with it. I don't want its existence known outside this Council.
"But, having done that, it occurs to me there are a few things we might use it for, very quietly. Collapsing Olthoi tunnels, for example. Or, since we were talking of bridges, a pellet of this stuff the size of your fingernail, fastened to the pilings underneath a bridge, could collapse it into the moat if your enemies are trying to cross it. The commander of the garrison could be entrusted with the spell to trigger the stuff, without needing to know what it was made of or how it worked."
There were nods and murmurs of agreement among the Council. "Make it so," Asheron said, and the Raven added, "Give me the spell, and I'll see it's distributed among those who need to know. And we can discuss Olthoi tunnels a little later --- no, wait. I want a little of that stuff to destroy the tunnel that led to the mound at Fort Tanua, today if possible."
"You shall have it."
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The sentries stationed on the walls of the Ikeras secondary camp, which was beginning to be known as Fort Ariaki, watched with bored interest as the tall Human pulled off his mage's robe, folded it neatly on the ground beside him, and waded into the water beside the Ikeras bridge. His foot slipped and his head went under; he surfaced again, spluttering and (though they could not hear the words) cursing. The two Tonk who had accompanied him slipped into the water beside him, and helped him swim to the floats at the base of the bridge, which he looked at and poked at and went on to the next. Perhaps he was checking for stability? The bridge was a flimsy narrow little thing, and rather than trying to make their way across it, most Tonk had preferred to swim to the island, before the palisade went up. The sentries lost interest and returned to their usual topics of conversation: ale, hunting, and the opposite sex.
There was a murmur of voices on the island; it grew louder, was a chorus of shouts, and the rumble of drums and the clash of spears against armor. The sentries shouted for the corporal of the guard, who shouted for the archers to man the walls and the rest of the garrison to assemble at the gates. But whatever the trouble was, it did not approach Fort Ariaki.
Prospero, applying his little pellet of highly secret stuff to the last of the floats, heard the murmurs and the shouting, and started making his way from float to float toward the island. But Tapuaua and Daraua seized him by the elbows and swam him at top speed to the shore and through the wicket gate beside the bridge. Ignoring his robe, Prospero reached into his pouch for a tiny vial, and raised it to his lips. "Excuse me, I hate this," he muttered, and with a groan and several other unpleasant noises he changed into a great hulking brute, pale as milk, its eyes round and bloodshot. Clenching his fists, he stalked toward the center of the island, where the noise was coming from; the two Tonk followed.
Shi Dengori had backed away behind the Trait Shop. In the center of Ikeras where he usually stood, a faint rosy light hung in the air, such as sometimes appeared at the drop point of a summoned portal. Out of that portal, Olthoi were pouring like ants out of their nest when someone has dropped the honey jar. Daraua made a quick sideways slashing motion which Tapuaua correctly interpreted as "You go that way, I'll go this way." Each climbed the nearest ramp into the nearest tree; Tapuaua made her way across bridges to the platform where Ingara stood --- peering cautiously around the bole of her tree --- and saw Daraua standing beside Tvik the Town Crier. Warriors of all the mortal races were surrounding the Olthoi, trying to hem them in; the insects were trying to slash their way out. As fast as mortals or Olthoi fell, others came in to replace them. Reinforcements were pouring in from the Nexus and over the bridge; word must have spread rapidly. One more figure appeared beneath the rosy light, and it vanished: a tall Empyrean in Falatacot armor. She could hear Tvik wailing, "But they're supposed to be locked in mortal combat!" and saw Daraua impatiently push the terrified Crier behind him.
With the portal gone, the number of live Olthoi were dwindling. Now the mortals began to attack the Falatacot, but he seemed to be taking no damage at all. He laughed at them, and called out something Tapuaua could not catch, probably an insult. She concentrated on one of her fellow mortals at a time, healing each and going on to the next, leaving the Falatacot to those who had even a slight chance of dealing with him.
Daraua, across the way, was doing the same. It was an unavoidable fact of life on Dereth that one person could learn only so many skills in one lifetime; one who learned all the healing arts the world had to offer must forgo most of the arts of doing harm. The Falatacot, apparently a Hieromancer since he carried no weapon Daraua could see from where he stood, was casting bolt after bolt into the crowd. Wherever he aimed, he could hardly avoid hitting somebody; on the other hand, wherever his bolt did not land, someone was casting spells or arrows or hammers at him. There was a faint thread of blue blood trickling down from under his helmet onto his face; some of the attacks at least were hitting him.
The Falatacot raised his hand and cast, and a big Lugian fell before him. A Tonk spearman threw his shaft through the opening the Lugian had left, and pierced the Falatacot's shoulder. The Hieromancer brushed the spear aside, cast again and killed the spearman, but his shoulder evidently pained him and his motions now were not so swift. The next person to engage him was Prospero, flinging explosive vials with his heavy hands; the Falatacot threw him back, bleeding heavily, and Daraua healed him. Now the Hieromancer looked upward, saw Daraua, and threw at him a bolt that looked like a cluster of little bubbles; each burst on impact and left blisters, and Daraua staggered backward, dangerously near the platform's edge --- and was healed, and returned to the fight. He took a moment to wave thanks to Tapuaua, on her platform at the other side of the battleground. The Hieromancer looked up toward her, and cast; but she backed up rapidly and the bolt hit the underside of the platform.
The Falatacot was on the defensive now, and seemed to be using more of his skills to heal himself than to attack others. The mortals closed in, climbing over the bodies of Olthoi and of their fellows to get near him. He glanced to left and right, and gestured --- and vanished in a swirl of blue and purple bubbles.
The mortals stood there, stunned. The Tonk on their platforms above continued to cast heals. "Why, that dirty ..." someone began. "Olthoi-loving ..." someone else added. "Son of a Dr --- I mean, a Burun. He Lifestoned out!"
Daraua leapt to the ground, joining Tapuaua, who was already there. "The Falatacot have Lifestones," he whispered into her ear. "And summoned portals. Or at least, that one does," she answered. "Let's go find Nalicana."
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Rinauri crouched before the Shrine of Great Sister Rain, his gloves at his feet, showing Her his hands. He made no prayer; if She chose to heal him She would. A puff of breeze blew through the leaves, shaking the last drops of the previous hour's rain onto his fingers. It felt good. His hands still did not hurt, exactly, nor were they swollen; but they were rather warm. He rose and bowed, picked up the gloves, and ran down toward the beach to bathe his hands in the water of the sea.
Cool, gently flowing; not the fierce cold that had gripped Osteth during his first winter out of the Shelters, but just cool enough to leach the unpleasant warmth from his hands. It wasn't so bad a life, this, as long as his disease didn't get much worse. Cool water and spit-roasted Darkenfowl were good enough for any Tonk, and the hollow crown of a thorn tree was adequate shelter. He must leave a message somehow, that if he died of this thing he was to be burnt, as Tanua had been, not buried to pollute further a land already tainted by the Burun ---
And something hit him a great buffet across the back, rattling all the jewels in his breastplate. A big Myrmidon Burun, snuffling like a toad with a bad head cold, having no better sense (but the Burun never did have any sense) than to attack something with twice its strength. With his fist he struck it hard in the soft tissues under its jaw, and sent it sprawling. It whimpered, staggered to its feet, and ran away. Rinauri bathed his hands again, and held them up to let Great Sister Wind dry them, and put his gloves back on.
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Nagual, being off-duty, sat in his quarters thinking about the defection of Ju'xatl, his mind worrying at it like a Carenzi gnawing at a bone from which every trace of nourishment had been scraped long ago. It had been said that by thinking about it constantly one could solve almost any problem; Nagual's own thoughts must not be constant enough, for they kept wandering off in random directions. Insects; morale among the troops; the need to supply a steadily advancing frontier; and the Blood-Father's unending bad temper with everybody ---
His door opened and he rose, astonished at what he saw: the Blood-Mother had laid aside her comfortable scholar's robes and was in full armor, a fine mesh Celestrum glittering upon her hand. "Grand Paragon, I've just spoken to your superior," she said. "He says I may borrow you for a while."
"At your service," he said, and managed to bow.
"I've found something very strange, and I want to investigate it, and I want you with me. Two heads are better than one; but that only works if they have brains in them. Come along." He took his helmet and gloves, and some weaponry, and followed her.
They went out of the Great Hall and passed the lily pond with its spray of water shooting high into the air. A pair of guards stood by, ready to shoot down the random Nymph that still tried to get in occasionally. They walked together down the road, also lined with guards that kept off the random Olthoi, down to one of the ruined buildings by the sea. They stepped over some fallen timbers onto a reasonably sound floor that had a large shard of something, perhaps its former roof, lying in one corner. The Blood-Mother lifted this, revealing a deep hole that went down through the floor, deep into the earth, with a neatly knotted rope ladder fastened to the ends of the floor-joists and descending into the depths. The fibers were smooth and white; the rope was new. "I want to know where this leads," she said, "and I want a little help in case we meet insects. At my age, I think it's no shame to say that my reflexes are not quite what they were."
"Blood-Mother, surely you want a larger force? I would bring along a century at least."
"All strung out in this tunnel? I've been down to the bottom level; it's a straight tunnel, about as wide as it is tall, heading north-northeast, I don't know how far. I mean to know what's at the end; but if it's bad news, I don't want word to get out among the troops until we've decided what to do about it. You and I between us may be able to keep a secret; a century never could."
She climbed down the ladder into the depths; Nagual perforce followed. When they had reached the bottom, the Blood-Mother made a sphere of light that floated ahead of them, and revealed a tunnel empty of everything but dust. They set off along it at an easy run. They traveled in silence for perhaps half an hour, before the Blood-Mother held up her hand and they stopped. In the silence, they could hear something up ahead, like bare feet shuffling over sand; and then one insect grub came creeping into the light. They killed it without difficulty, and proceeded cautiously, sending the light a little further ahead of them. There were three more grubs, then nothing for a while, then a small worker.
Now, with the insects lying dead behind them, they began to hear other sounds, as of voices, and sharp sounds as of pickaxes striking against stone. Suddenly the roof of the tunnel broke up over their heads, letting in the sunlight, and they dodged falling rubble, running forward up an unsteady slope onto the surface.
They had come out between the two curtain walls of a fortress, a small one attached to the base of an immense wall, its workmanship cruder than the works of the Yalaini further south, but impressive nonetheless. They were surrounded by about a dozen of the northern vermin, in all shapes and sizes. The nearest one, wearing a long robe, looked almost like one of themselves, except that he was too short. The others were much stranger.
Both sides, understandably, experienced a moment of shock. The Falatacot reacted faster; glancing quickly around, the Blood-Mother caught sight of a stairway leading up to a rampart inside the outer wall, and ran toward it. Nagual followed on her heels. Behind them, the northerners babbled in confusion. At the top of the stairs, a northerner who had been lighting a pair of torches backed away in alarm and jumped to the ground.
Atop the wall, they got a good view of the inside of the fortress, which was laid out simply in two concentric half-circles around a massive gate in the great wall, its only other structures a few campaign tents. Outside the wall, however, the view was more surprising. At the very limit of vision they could see the usual blasted landscape of insect territory: the bare earth, dead trees, clusters of tall fungi. Closer in, however, the ground was green with grass, and there were actually wildflowers sprouting here and there, yellow and white and tall purple. At intervals tall poles had been driven into the ground, with runes carven onto their squared-off sides. The northern interlopers had made at least a beginning of taking back the ground south of the wall.
All this in a glimpse, before they turned to face their pursuers, who had halted at the base of the stairs. There were more of the short stocky kind; there was another that was tall enough, but his body was massive and his skin grey; there were several of the kind whose bodies bent forward to balance the weight of a long tail. And there were many of the despised Yalaini in glittering armor not much different from their own. But --- what were those things floating over the head of the tall grey one? They appeared to have heads and arms, but no legs; their bodies were concealed by flowing robes and their faces by painted masks, and their hands --- were not hands at all. Nagual raised his sword; the Blood-Mother raised her hands to cast ....
And the air shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow, and everything stopped moving. The robes of the floating things ceased to flutter; the vermin standing by stood still as statues; the very flames of the torches froze.
And moved again, and they were somewhere else. A round room, walled with stone, with little window-slits letting in some of the daylight. And they were weaponless; even the Blood-Mother's celestrum had been removed from her hand.
Some of the northerners were standing at the other side of the room: the tall grey one (but its strange floating companions had vanished), and a Yalaini female with a soft face and gentle eyes. And there were --- Nagual blinked. No, there were no others. Why had he thought there were others in the room?
"Greetings," the Yalaini said. "I am Nalicana, the acting leader of the Order of Dereth. This is Thromer Olvidan, the Imperator of the Virindi Dominion. Will you tell us your names?"
The Blood-Mother was silent for a moment, seeming to consider. Then she said, "I am Blood-Mother Helethiska, of the True Falatacot. My companion is the Grand Paragon Nagual Mij'jab of the Third Cohort."
Nalicana inclined her head gracefully. "We are honored. We have heard of you both, and ---"
But the Blood-Mother interrupted her. "But who is that who walks on the other side of you?"
Thromer started, and looked to the other side of Nalicana, where there was certainly nothing to be seen. The Yalaini's eyes widened, but she said only, "I'm sorry. I am not permitted to tell you."
Then suddenly there was another in the room, quite visible, one of the short people, dressed all in black armor, with a sheaf of black feathers in the crest of her helmet. "My lord, my Lady," she said. "The, uh ---" she stopped and looked at Nagual and the Blood-Mother --- "the fellow who caused the trouble in Ikeras has come back there."
"Oh, dear," Nalicana said. "Well, let me get our guests settled, and then I'll go see. It's late in the evening anyway." She raised her hand, and a chime sounded, and four strange creatures entered, their bodies and limbs made of shining crystal, with no faces but only a pair of triangular eyes. They formed up on either side of the two Falatacot and escorted them out of the room and down a long hall. They opened a door with a round crystal window in its top, and ushered the Blood-Mother into it, and closed it behind her. The door next to it was for Nagual. "Good evening," Nalicana said. "Dinner will be served in a few minutes; if there's anything you need, tell the Servitor. We'll have a chance to talk tomorrow, I hope."
Left to himself, Nagual explored his new quarters: the first duty of a prisoner is to escape. The door was locked, of course. Through the window he could see the hallway, and one of the crystalline guard-things standing in it. The room he was standing in had a chair and a table, and one of its walls was a mirror --- no, it was a window, showing a room with another chair and table on the other side. A door in the back wall led into a bedroom, and beyond that was some of the plumbing he had seen in the Lyceum, quaint in design but usable. On the bedroom wall was a painting, showing some of the long-tailed northerners crouching or reclining around a campfire, while one stood playing on a musical instrument.
A sound in the outer room brought him to the door; one of the blank-faced Servitors with a single eye-jewel in its forehead was placing a tray of food on the table. It bowed and retired. The door clicked shut.
"I trust there's something there you can eat," a woman's voice said. The fair-haired Yalaini was standing in the room on the other wide of the crystal window. "The white meat is chicken, that's a large bird from Ispar, the Human homeworld. The red meat is Levannath. The orange vegetables are carrots, the white ones are potatoes, the pale green ones are cabbage, and you can pour the sauce in the small pitcher over them if you like it. In the jugs are milk, ale, and just plain water. I'm Aracoeli; I'm the juniormost member of this little group. Good night."
He tasted the strange food, item by item. Everything was edible; better than merely edible; perhaps good cooking was what had made the Yalaini so soft. However, a warrior must keep up his strength ---
After eating, he explored his quarters in more detail: every corner, every wall-seam. He looked under the bed and tried the strength of the door-lock and tested whether any of the plumbing fixtures would come loose. They wouldn't. Finally, having exhausted the immediate possibilities, he washed and lay down cautiously on the soft bed.
And he dreamed again, the dream that had been sifting in and out of his sleep for many nights. He had something in his hands. He had never known what it was, and now he realized that he could not see it: it was so black that it defied sight. He was carrying it in his hands through a green forest, along a path that ran beside a river. He could hear the sound of a waterfall, and as he came out of the trees he saw it, falling from far above in a shower of rainbows. Above it stood a colossal figure, dim in the mists, holding something in its right hand like a lantern over the land. He was walking closer to the falls, where the spray hung heavy in the air, closer, until all the water fell upon him and cast him into darkness.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
At Ikeras, the troops were dancing. "We got the dastard!" was the burden of their song. "There's nothing on him," someone said in disgust. "Just a piece of paper."
"Let me see," Nalicana said, and they made room for her. "Somebody make me a light." Four warriors dug in their pouches and equipped the Light of Alb'arel, and filled the glade with moonlight. She took the two torn pieces and held them together to read them.
"Oh, dear," she said after a moment.
"I beg of you, Ju'xatl, do not bestow such a gift upon her. It is not natural for beasts to persist in such a manner."
"Oh, dear," she said, and portaled away.
