death's knight 25

 

Chapter 25

 

Kaz stood on the blue floor of the vaults of heaven. Alethos had come up to be with her, and gave her a brief kiss. She leaned into him, then stepped away to the ritual area.

Chrysandion marked out a circle on the floor around Kaz, which glowed white. Then he inscribed another circle around the outside which glowed red. He began chanting, and the white circle of runes rose up and danced up and down Kaz. More chanting saw the red circle doing likewise, both circles passing each other up and down.

“Are you ready?” asked Chrysandion.

“As ready as I will ever be,” said Kaz. She locked her eyes on Alethos, pale, and with fear lurking in her big amber eyes, as if to lock his features in her memory. He mouthed, ‘I love you,’ and she managed to smile, as the scene around her changed, and she found herself halfway up a hill. She had come from the cold of Mesolimnos, to the un-temperature of the sun court, and now it was cold, though not as cold as Mesolimnos under its unnatural winter.

The hillock was covered in grass; at the top was a structure, and just above where she stood was a high hedge. She stood on a path which led to a gap in that hedge which seemed to stretch all the way around the hill. Kaz trotted off round the hedge, and circumnavigated the hilltop. There appeared to be no other breaks in the hedge.

The sun would be at its zenith in two hours; that was how long she had.

There was no other choice. She took a deep breath, and walked through the gap.

There were more hedges on either side; but there was a turn some way in, and gaps.

Kaz had heard of labyrinths of stone; this was a labyrinth of plants. And the plants had thorns which oozed sticky substances which unnerved Kaz.  Presumably it was to deter anyone trying to force a straight path through. She had seen it from above as she was sent down in the circling rings; and there had been a haze over the whole top of the hill, so nobody might fly over it and see the pattern. Kaz shrugged, and decided to try a logical expedient of turning first left. It was not long before there was an apparent dead end. Kaz moved cautiously right to the end, and her darksense told her that a portion of the hedge was further away than most of it, it merely looked contiguous to the eyes. She slipped through the gap, with a grim smile.

This made it likely that she was on the right path.

She made sure to see with sound, something Daze could not understand, and found other concealed entrances, hidden with perspective and by out and out illusion.

Then the hedges gave way to stone walls, and stone pavements under her feet. Darksense revealed hollow space beneath some stones, and one path had a pattern that was solid only in the pattern of the children’s game of hop-scratch, a single stone to hop onto, and a double stone to land with both feet. Something rang metallic at the edges of the double stones; it was, Kaz thought, like a spring, checking that both weights were equal. One could not stroll up the middle. Kaz hopped and jumped across the offending part, and turned left at the end.

Then the riddles started.

Instead of clear ways, there were doors with riddles inscribed on them.

“A man in a simple one-room hut painted the west wall white, the east wall green, the north wall black, and the south wall blue. What colour would he paint the stairs?”

“No stairs,” said Kaz, succinctly.

The door opened. Now she was fully inside a structure.

“What moves without legs, and runs without stopping?” asked the riddle on the next door.

“Time,” said Kaz, bored by the simplicity of the riddles. There were a couple more in similar vein. She hesitated at one which read, “I have no beginning, but I have an end. I am always ahead, but I am never behind. What am I?” Kaz scowled.

“The classic answer is, ‘the future,’ but it fits ‘Fate’ better, for Fate predates the beginning.”

There was a chime; but the door opened rather sullenly.

 

The next left turn had a mosaic on it, showing Daze triumphant; it read ‘Be well primed to pass.’

“Oh, Protasion, you are invaluable,” muttered Kaz, who had listened politely to a lecture on those numbers Protasion called ‘prime numbers’ which could only be divided by themselves or one. She counted the number of stones across the picture, which was twenty-five.

“Here goes, then,” said Kaz, reaching up to press one, two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, and twenty-three on the first line.

The door swung back, and Kaz pushed on.

The next riddle was a little more esoteric.

“Is a sound made by a tree falling if nobody is there to hear it?”

“Of course it is, because it still sends sound vibrations out,” said Kaz. “And the wildlife will hear it.”

She thought the door opened with a rather snippy plop. Sound vibrations were beyond those who did not use them to see.

Next, she came to a pair of doors side by side. To her left, the door was inscribed ‘I only go up.’ To her right the door was inscribed ‘I only go down.’

“Logic suggests the tried method of going left,” muttered Kaz; and spoke out. “Which one do I choose to get to the centre?”

The left hand door swung open.

Kaz stepped forward, and was wafted upwards on a puff of air, another door opening as it stopped lifting her. She stepped out.

She was in a temple courtyard.

Kaz had shorn away her long hair, and bound up her breasts; in a simple tunic, made more comfortable with warming runes embroidered in it, and with bare feet, she might pass as a simple slave. Her eyes were too big in her scared face, and she could pass for being malnourished, rather than built on spare lines with whipcord muscles.

Daze was there, arms outspread, pronouncing curses on the toróg for their attempts to break his limits on them. His gaze fell on Kaz, who dropped to the subservient squat of a trógling.

“I curse you all that more births will be of stunted travesties, not even as tall as humans, born in litters to keep them weak, and outbreeding you with more of the same!” he roared.

There was a chime. Daze looked self-satisfied; he thought the chime was for him, and for his curse, which in a way it was.

But that was only half the battle. Kaz swallowed hard, rose to her full five feet in height, and walked forward, ready to face off to a god.

 

 

oOoOo

 

In the Selenite camp, which was in something of a disarray as soldiers searched fruitlessly for a child, and whispers were passed that a Sun-Seer had been murdered, a priest of Librax stiffened.

He had been known for true prophecy before, and some notice was taken of his pronouncements.

“Behold! Death’s tool unravels riddles and...”

He got no further as the ground suddenly gave way, and he found himself floundering in icy, muddy water. Allenna Dren found that her bed floated, after a fashion, but that she was wrapped in the clammy embrace of her tent, which had, like most of the command tents, collapsed with the ground beneath it. Allenna, ancient, no longer in the peak of fitness, and smothered in wet canvas, proceeded to have a heart attack from her efforts to breathe through the suffocating tent. Others were also dragged down into the fluid mud by the weight of canvas above them, and, unable to escape the canvas holding them down, drowned. Many would be sorted that day by Alethos in the halls of the dead, and Thorus Mils was only spared the ignominy of a muddy end by having left Allenna in her tent to call a war council. And nobody cared about the truncated prophecy of a rather wet scholar.

 

Protasion, on top of one of the towers of the wall, watching with an eagle-sight spell, was hugging himself in sheer delight at the scale of the mayhem. He had the mining trógling who had helped with him, to enjoy the fruits of their endeavours. Having spell-casting power to spare, he had cast the spell for each of them, too, and there was a party mood atop the tower.

“What now?” asked the trógling Kaz had rescued.

“Cake,” said Protasion. “Rich, dark cake, to celebrate the mud, and butter-icing between layers flavoured with those exotic beans from across the far seas.”

The Alethosi tended towards the frugal most of the time; and cake was always good as a treat.

They went back to the temple to get warm, and radiate smugness.

“Kaz not back yet?” asked Protasion.

“No,” said Lelyn. It was almost a snap.

“She’ll do it just fine,” said Protasion. “What, surely you don’t have any doubts? When has our Kaz ever failed to deliver?”

“She wasn’t sure she could do it,” said Lelyn, tears in her eyes for her friend.

“Lelyn,” said Protasion, “Do you remember when we went in search of the silver star plant?”

“Yes, of course! We were little more than children, then,” said Lelyn.

“Do you remember rescuing the enslaved plainsmen?” asked Protasion.

“Yes; and Kaz made a pretended circle of gating with made up runes,” said Lelyn.

“And before we crossed the road, under the eye of the guards, what did she say and do?”

“She told us to wait until the guard left and then cross the road; she set up a diversion to sound like fighting.”

“And did we go to see if she needed aid, if it was she who was fighting?”

“No. We trusted, and obeyed.”

“It’s a bigger trust today, but it’s the same thing,” said Protasion.

Lelyn cast herself upon him, and sobbed, in fear for her friend. Protasion was not averse to having an arm full of the girl he loved, though he hated to see her distressed.

There was a chime.

“Well, she’s done the first part,” said Protasion. “Let us pray to Alethos to do whatever we have to do, and that she is able to do so too.”

“Or that she already did it,” said Lelyn.

“I try not to think of that part; it makes my head ache,” said Protasion.

“Kaz reckons that time and space are the same,” said Lelyn.

“Yes, and that’s what makes my head ache,” said Protasion. “Trust me, if anything had gone wrong, the web of Fate would have torn, and there would be all kinds of anomalies of time happening, like hour glasses running backwards, and people ageing at the wrong speed, or disappearing because they were never born.”

“Would we notice, if we were in the reality in which they had never been born?” asked Lelyn.

“You spend too much time with Kaz talking about things mortals have no right to even think about,” said Protasion, severely.

 

oOoOo

 

Thorus Mils needed to establish some kind of order. The mud was getting shallower as it drained away, back through the other sluice gate, and he could see where the field had been undermined. If he had his way, they would wipe all trógling off the face of the earth.

“Get off this mud bath and move back!” he ordered. “Officers! Help out anyone trapped in collapsed tents! Any intact tents, take to the drier ground, and set up camp! Collect such firewood as you can to set up a good fire, and get soup and hot drinks on the go, and set up racks to dry bedding.”

He did not notice, but the desertions began, quietly, in ones and twos. The private soldiers had suffered less than the officers, but they were wondering if they were next to be tipped in mud, and packed what dry clothing and blankets they had, and stole tools, and vanished into the countryside, to move into the abandoned farm houses until they could surreptitiously make their ways home. A lay member of Librax’s cult, who had been drafted, would later amass a small fortune for forging passes, and discharges from the army for his fellows.

What Thorus did notice was that his army was diminished in size, and the reason for that lay, partly at least, face down in mud under heavy tents. He had lost fully two thirds of his officers; and an eighth of his common soldiery, even before the desertions began.

Thorus had not cried since he was a child, but he came close to it.

 

death's knight 24

 

 

Chapter 24

 

The boy, Epiphio, came to the Alethosi temple shortly after dawn on the solstice.

“He has gone,” he said, numbly. “Make it the best quest of your life, for his sake, Lord-Priest of Alethos,” he added, to Kaz.

“Best shot of my life,” agreed Kaz.

 

oOoOo

 

Erytheon knew he was with the child, and his blind eyes saw that she was in some vile cross between a cot and a cage; and she would appear to human eyes to be perhaps four years old.

“Hello, little one,” said Erytheon, softly. “I am here to ease the pain, and to teach you about our father, the sun, who is no enemy of ice, but gives it a sparkle greater than any jewel.”

“Are you my father? They said my father does not care about me.”

“I am not your father; and your father does not know you exist. But you will have a new mother and father. I am here to tell you about them, so you will not be scared.”

“They will hurt you.”

“Of course. But it does not matter. I am here to help others right a wrong; and to give you a blanket with glyphs on it.”

“Will you take out the pins Allenna Dren has put in me? They hurt, and if I do not cry enough, she pulls on them to make them hurt more.”

Erytheon was now a priest of fate; which was to say, also of time. The bars of the cot-cage rusted and fell away to his touch; as did the pins, driven through the child’s flesh, and bent to form rough rings so she could not pull them out.

“Where it bleeds, rub it on the glyphs. That will activate them. Then, they will be a beacon for your new parents. Fear no more, Chionea. Sleep when you open the glyphs of Storm and of Truth. And let Fate herself remove from you the chaos taint of unnatural ageing.”

The child sank down in sleep, covering the glyphs.

“Poor child,” murmured Moraia, in her priest’s mind “With the chaos taint, she would have been an old crone by the time she had lived five years; but by then, Selen would have had no more use for her.”

“Moraia, can you give her back the age she should be if I sacrifice the years I might have lived, if I was not fated to come here? I could, after all, still choose to leave. If she was a baby again, not remembering all this pain and hatred...”

“You would do that for the child? Age as fast as she de-ages?”

“I would.”

“I accept your sacrifice, dear one.”

The child shrank and de-aged before him.

“Now, leave the tent. If you will give the prophecy, I will show you where to go.”

“I will go and do what I am here to do; and as I do, Thyella can take the child, and the Daykaz can go to her fate.”

Erytheon walked as he was guided, directly to the tent of Allenna Dren, and moved with an agility not to be expected of an old man right past the guards and into the tent before they realised his intention.

Allenna was going through papers, and looked up.

“I said I was not to be disturbed! Who are you?”

“I am Erytheon Sun-Toucher. I have been guided to you to speak a prophecy,” said Erytheon. He smiled as the guards followed him in. “If they strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine,” he said.

Allenna flipped a hand in dismissal.

“Leave us; what can old father time here do to me?” she sneered.

The guards reluctantly withdrew.

“Speak your prophecy,” said Allenna.

Erytheon let the words which he knew were hidden from him come to his unconscious lips.

“Behold! The willing sacrifice of years from Fate’s beloved shall be riven from him to punish the defiler of the child of winter. Let her look in the mirror to see how the fairest of features is ravaged by the age forced on the Snow White child.”

Allenna felt her skin changing, sagging, her breasts suddenly heavy and dragging. She glanced down at her hands, which were wrinkled and unsightly, with age spots. She snatched up the light shield she kept with her arms, and gazed into its mirrored surface, to see an old, wrinkled face, not the dignity or serenity of age on a face which has lived life to the full, but an ugly face full of discontentment, each sour thought echoed by a wrinkle.  And before her, Erytheon was de-ageing, becoming a vigorous man of indeterminate age somewhere around the right side of forty. His eyes cleared as hers dimmed with cataracts. She screamed in terror and rage, and picked up her dagger, and drove it home into Erytheon’s chest. His body sank to the ground... and dissolved.

“Guards! Guards!” screamed Allenna Dren.

The guards ran in.  There were some clothes on the ground but no old man; there was an old woman, however.  They looked at each other, and seized Allenna Dren.

“What have you done to Allenna Dren?” one demanded, roughly. “Who are you?”

Allenna Dren might sob for all she was worth that she was Allenna Dren; but they did not believe her. She was dragged off to the stockade for prisoners, and thrown onto a bundle of straw in the roughly covered, but open-sided prisoner pens. Then they went in search of Thorus Mils.

 

oOoOo

 

Moraia embraced her Chosen.

“Well done! I knew you would make all the right choices,” she said.

“I’m still a little confused; I don’t know what I said,” complained Erytheon. “Or why I felt my body burst with vigor before she killed me.”

“You know as well as I do that if made immortal, you keep the age at which you achieve it, even if not ageing any further,” said Moraia. “Well, I cheated. Because you made a sacrifice freely and willingly for another, I was allowed to pass that off onto Allenna Dren; and that was the prophecy. That her ill treatment of that poor child made it possible to exchange her ageing for yours. And I may have gone a teensy bit further than what you gave.” She kissed him. “Now, let us check that Harkon and Thyella do their job properly, and that the Daykaz is on track of when she is supposed to be, and then I’m going to shag you senseless. I’ve been waiting all eternity for you, my promised one, so it will wait a little more.”

 

oOoOo

 

Thyella was pacing back and forth.

“Love, you will wear yourself to bits,” said Harkon. “Come over here, and sit on my knee, and tell me how much you love me, and we can kiss and cuddle, and pass the time better than pacing like a cat on hot tiles.”

“I don’t know what to expect, and it unsettles me,” said Thyella. “Hark! That was a chime; is that for us?”

“Time to get involved,” said Moraia, in the thoughts of both of them.  “And Erytheon has made a choice which enables me to make Chionea into a baby again, and wipe her memory of pain, so you only need love her and bring her up as your daughter.  He has left the glyphs for you to follow; Chionea is essentially in your temple, Thyella. Go and get her.”

Thyella could feel a new temple; hardly more than a chapel, but it counted. She seized Harkon by the hand, and walked into it.

“What is this cage?” she cried.

A baby girl with hair as black as soot, skin as white as milk, and lips like rosebuds opened eyes as blue as ancient ice, surrounded by sooty lashes. She was partly in the clothes of a child of about four.

“Mamamam?” she said, putting up her arms; Thyella scooped her up.

“Come home with Mama and Papa,” she said, picking up the blanket with glyphs, which had constituted a makeshift temple. Harkon took them both in his arms to bring into the temple of Alethos, there not being a dedicated shrine to Thyella in the city.

“Mother! Let it rain!” cried Thyella. “And may my gentle sister, Zephyra, blow and carry away the snow and ice.”

The desultory snow had stopped, and presently a warm, western wind started parting the freezing fog, bringing with it heavy rain.

“And now, Protasian shall release the sluice gates,” said Harkon, happily. “Baby girl, you will be avenged!”

“And by the grace of Fate, she will never know that she needed it,” said Thyella.

 

oOoOo

 

Thorus Mils knew Allenna Dren’s family, and had no difficulty in recognising that the hysterical old woman was a Dren; and claiming to be Allenna under some ensorcellment was not a far stretch to make.

“But what is this about an old man, and where is he?” asked Mils, puzzled, once Allenna was back in her own bed, with a hot stone at her feet, and warmed mead to drink.

“He just walked in and said he had a prophecy to give,” said Allenna. “He said, ‘Behold! The willing sacrifice of years from Fate’s beloved shall be riven from him to punish the defiler of the child of winter. Let her look in the mirror to see how the fairest of features is ravaged by the age forced on the Snow White child’ and whilst he grew younger as I watched, I grew older. I stabbed him in rage and outrage, and he... he just accepted it, and his clothes fell to the ground, empty.”

“It’s something to do with the unnatural growth of the brat, isn’t it?” said Thorus Mils.

“I suppose so,” said Allenna. “I did what my goddess told me; hurt the child to make her produce bad weather.”

“I suspect you may have to pray for divine intervention,” said Mils. “I’ll go and check on the child.”

 

He was back shortly.

“She’s gone,” he said. “The side of her pen has been.... rusted away. I sent people out to look, but there’s worse.”

“Worse? How can there be worse?” Allenna Dren paled. “Our goddess will never heal me of this unnatural ageing if we’ve lost the brat.”

“I had an envoy with a letter from the city,” said Mils. “It reads as follows. ‘From Lightfather Chrysandion Lightspear, surnamed Chrysandos, of the Temple of Solos, to Thorus Mils, commander of the Selenite  camp, Greetings. It has come to my notice that Sun-Seer Erytheon Sun-Toucher, surnamed Chrysandos and own brother to me, Chrysandion, insisted on approaching your camp under the trance of true-seeing, with the need to deliver a prophecy. He has not returned, and we demand his return immediately in good health; or at least, his body if you barbarians do not recognise the sanctity of a seer and have caused him harm. He is in frail health being many years my senior. If he has been harmed, we shall, of course, under proper usage, require the perpetrator to be delivered up for justice.’ How in the name of Chaos can I deliver a man or the body of a man who has disappeared? And obviously I cannot deliver you up for having killed him, over such an infamous prophecy.”

“Write back that the impudent fellow used prophecy as an excuse and used some magic to vanish, leaving only his clothes, and has stolen a child, an innocent, who is dear to us, a little girl some four years old, with black hair, pale skin, and blue eyes,” said Allenna. “Chide him for pretending to believe in the old man’s motives when plainly he was bent on kidnap.”

“But what if he did not kidnap her? You said you struck him and there is blood on the clothing.”

“What else are we to suppose? Do you think she got out of that cage on her own?”

“No, and I suspect he had others – some of those damned trógling, no doubt, who sneak around seemingly freely. Who knows what toróg messes there are which can turn steel to rust.”

“Well, make a bluff of it and act outraged,” said Allenna.

“Well, I can try,” said Thorus Mils.

 

Thorus Mils did not expect much of an answer from the Lightfather of Solos, a position respected in all the Empire, as were Sun-Seers. Losing one was a serious breach of protocol.

Chrysandion was outraged, and half crazed with grief.

His brother was helpless without his guide, and he had directed his young guide, a nephew to both of them, to go to the Alethosi, leaving him to find his own way to and through the camp. There was no child of that description in his temple, and nobody he questioned had heard of her.

“We must make a sortie and punish them,” he said to Pythas. “Perhaps your people can scout...”

“Chrysandion, read this,” said Pythas, giving his old friend the letter dictated by Erytheon. The Lightfather read it.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“The child was a child of Ombros, and Erytheon had precise instructions from Fate herself to create a diversion for the rescue of the child; and he has ascended directly to the halls of Fate in reward for faithfully reporting all that she needed,” said Pythas. “I am sorry for your loss, but I rejoice for Erytheon. And the child is with the kin of Ombros.”

“We can’t let this slide, though.”

“We aren’t. Protasion thinks we have another hour before their camp collapses into muddy pits,” said Pythas. “And your duty is to Kaz. She is waiting for you.”

Kaz was indeed waiting, and went quietly with Chrysandion to the Solosi temple.

 “We ascend to the god-plane, to send you where and when you need to go, as sunlight can penetrate anywhere,” he said. “Do you know what you have to do?”

“Not in detail, no,” said Kaz. “I expect it will be one of those things like sudden chimes that I know without knowing,  which I will know when I get then.”

“Get then?”

“Well, isn’t the timing about more than the place?” said Kaz. “Then and there become the same thing.”

“Don’t give me more of a headache; I had enough of one calculating the ritual.”

“I am grateful,” said Kaz. “How difficult can it be, go back in time, confront Daze, make him think of trógling to start the being of my people, insult him enough to curse me, come home.”

“I suppose for heroes it is that simple,” sighed Chrysandion.

“No, it’s because I’m terrified and trying to kid myself that I’m not,” said Kaz.

“Ah, then I am more hopeful that you will succeed. I wish you good luck,” said Chrysandion.

 

death's knight 23

 

Chapter 23

 

Harkon strolled out of the temple in the deadlands for the plainsfolk, nodding to Arrag.

“Harvest all cached?” he asked.

“Not only cached but with more than one way in and out,” said Arrag. “We’re running a series of underground passages, and the speed is really only limited by how many sand to stone spells my people collectively can cast in a day, because we need more than just props, because there are going to be cattle and horses thundering over the top.”

“Well done,” said Harkon. “I’ll be back and forth, scouting, and when the army is committed, I’ll be arranging for fire on the steppe. Tell Kurihor to be ready for it, and to have the priestesses of Mother Rain, or whatever they call her here to give the land a really good soaking.”

“And any soldiers underneath it as well?” said Arrag, sniggering. “I think it’s Mother Mare, mother of the Skyhorse.”

“Well, at least that’s the correct relationship,” said Harkon. “Fine, carry on.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Arrag.

The weather here was significantly warmer, and dry, if a little sullen. Clouds covered the sun. This made travel easier for Harkon, who sprang lightly upwards, calling on Thyella’s spells. The whiff of ozone made him wrinkle his nose; and he realised that Thyella had no idea how noisy her arrival and departure was. He managed not to snigger. After all, he loved her dearly.

 

Things had moved on at the Great Plains River. Harkon appreciated looking down as if on a map made of real land. It gave him an appreciation of the vastness of the Selenite empire, occupying the greater part of the coast, and their impressive road network, wider even than was shown on maps. Harkon cursed, having thought mostly in straight lines, and using the lakes for transport; there was also, it appeared, a large contingent of sea-going ships assembling at the coastal port of Selenopolis, which had sailed in from other coastal cities, and were embarking troops. These were doubtless to sail north to Hals Ochuroma to march to Mesolimnos. Other troops were leaving Phrourion, a garrison with a road to the road which skirted the Great Plains, and went on to Rhinopolis. There were troops marching beside the river, with its barges, but the enemy had been more flexible. This would, thought Harkon, be Thea Drex, who was a phenomenal planner.

The sea troops were the greatest threat. Harkon dropped a couple of lightning bolts on ships in the harbour; they lay closely enough together that with luck, fire would spread from one to another. Then, with deep regret for the wild animals, he set fire to the grass of the steppe nearest the road; and again along the road that skirted the plain. The plainsfolk were prepared, and would have breakfire ditches ready, to fight fire with fire, using burnback to create clear areas around their positions.

He saw a boy and a mule, trapped by fire, and used the lightning travel to land and whisk them both into the sky.

“Mighty Pieran! I will worship you and no other!” said the boy, and Harkon felt his sacrifice from his kormajiea. There was a chime.

Harkon’s thoughts could not be expressed clearly, or without a heavy number of words Kaz would scold him for using. He placed the boy down at the settlement he appeared to be heading towards.

“No, don’t kneel!” he said, hastily, as the boy would do so. “Live a good life.”

It was enough; the plainsfolk must do the rest. Harkon was tired, and he wanted a bath and his wife, and not necessarily in that order.

 

oOoOo

Thea Drex was managing to ignore the irritating dreams. Moreover, there was something about the handsome northerner which was familiar; and it nagged at her, and somehow repulsed her more than it attracted her. She threw herself into planning, and worked with Erlax Sorn to come up with how best to move troops north.

“I don’t like almost emptying Phrourion, lady,” said Sorn. “It leaves it vulnerable to attack from the north, if the plains barbarians approach it on the side not protected by rivers.”

“I know; but it is a strong fortress town, and I think they have enough to hold it against the sort of undisciplined raids the plainsmen favour,” said Thea. “They will have their own troubles when we strip them of their harvest. They might be desperate enough to attack, but they will be weakened, and therefore unable to use their full strength.  They can probably, if it looks serious, be bribed to go away with a meagre amount of grain.”

Erlax Sorn nodded.

“Yes, Lady, you are probably correct. I like your idea of placing the exhausted troops from the siege in Hals Ochuroma, to rest and recuperate, and leaving the fresh troops there whilst sending out the standing garrison, who have had a chance to become used to the northern climate.”

“It will be worse than usual; our goddess has obtained a means to visit the sort of winter on them normally found only in the northern mountains.”

“Ah, no wonder you wanted them hardier,” said Sorn. “And now I understand the tents with warming runes ready for activation, and stoves.”

“I want armies approaching from many directions, so they cannot send any hero to disrupt all of them,” said Thea. “If we lose one army, it is a problem, but not a tragedy... what is that shouting?”

An adjutant burst in.

“My lady! My lord! The ships in the harbour are burning! There was a storm, and lightning...”

“Daze’s bollocks!” swore Thea. “The knights of the clear skies have done this!”

“Natural storms do happen,” said Sorn. “They would surely not have the impudence to strike us in our own heartlands?”

“I... maybe not,” said Thea. “Bad luck happens too, and it is not all enemy action. Let us go and see what can be saved.”

 

oOoOo

 

“How is she resisting my dreams? It isn’t fair,” whined Zeandine.

“Maybe it’s just bad timing,” said Secalia. “Give it a rest; you can prod her when she is face to face with him.”

“I suppose so,” sulked Zeandine.

 

oOoOo

 

“I feel as if I should be doing more,” said Kaz.

“You’re preparing to be on Trickster’s Mound, outside of Selenopolis on the solstice,” said Harkon. “I can jump around causing some damage but it isn’t actually much more than an annoyance.”

“Can you arrive more quietly than Thyella and introduce an irritant to the supplies?” asked Kaz.

“I can’t hear myself, so I assume Thyella can’t, either, and so we can’t control the volume,” said Harkon.

“Well, you’ll just have to use your own little feet after arriving out of earshot,” said Kaz.

“You’re taking being offensive to new levels,” said Harkon.

“Practising for the Trickster,” shrugged Kaz. “I have to offend him enough to curse me.”

“Fair point,” said Harkon. “And what irritant were you considering?”

“Rats,” said Kaz. “If we set people to capturing them in the sewers it serves a double purpose; get rid of ours, and add to the misery of the Selenites.  I’ve eaten rat, at need; it isn’t pleasant, and humans need to boil them, rather than roast, as you don’t have such aggressive digestive systems as those of the toróg, but that’s by the by. Unless it ends up being the only meat they have.”

“I like it,” said Harkon. “I need time to rest, though. I wouldn’t have done as much, only I got worshipped a little bit by a lad I rescued from my fires, and he and his family worshipped me which seems a bit much as it was my fault he got into danger in the first place.”

“Just live with it,” said Kaz. “You know how to store power.”

“I do,” said Harkon. “But it takes it from Thyella and Ombros...”

“I’m at least half-resigned to losing my brother,” said Thyella, sadly. “He won’t be able to adapt. It’s why I’m spending time with him, until he makes me lose my temper with him. I love him better when we don’t meet too often.”

“I feel like that about Erippion Windblown,” said Harkon.

“My brother is the reason there are descriptive nouns like ‘blowhard’ and ‘windbag’ for boasters and the wordy,” said Thyella. “But I love him.”

“You can warn him; and maybe he can change,” said Harkon.

“I was wondering,” said Kaz, “If we could use shaping cantrips on dead rats to reduce their incisors and increase their canines, and tweak the skull shape, and cook them in that red spice the easterners like so much, and present Thea Drex with a meal of red ‘wolves...’”

“Now, that would get her hopping mad,” said Harkon. “Better to do once she arrives.”

“Or I can see to it being served to Allenna Dren and Thorus Mils before the reinforcements come,” said Kaz, happily. “I need to practice shadow-shifing, anyway.”

“You’re supposed to be resting for your ordeal,” said Lelyn.

“I can’t. It tires me out,” said Kaz. “If I can do something amusing, it will make me feel better.”

“I suppose I understand that,” said Lelyn. “I’ll obtain some red spice from Sono and Mono, the eastern twins.”

“We’ll have to do something about the tails, but a group of three red wolves, howling at the moon should get their attention,” said Kaz.

“Before, or after, I release the waters?” asked Protasion.

“Before; I want them to really enjoy the impact,” said Kaz.

 

Kaz and Lelyn turned their attention to making a beautifully displayed dish of spiced wolf, wearing collars, and presented on the rice which was a staple for the Selenites. There was a lot of shadow for Kaz to merge with, and she quickly reached her objective of the officers’ mess tent, where the senior priests were also catered to.

Kaz returned, sniggering.

“Ah, if only I could see their faces when they uncover the dish,” she said. “Let’s not mention this to Polia and Vulk, however; they might not think it as funny.”

 

oOoOo

 

Kaz was glad of Alethos, spending time in her dreams to help soothe her to sleep. The time seemed to creep forward like a snail, and then at other times it seemed to rush by, so that the time when she must confront Daze in the past rushed up on her.

She spent the day before the solstice in meditation and vigil, in the innermost sanctum of the temple, and there, Alethos came to her in person, and held her to him.

“I am some fine Alethosi, I am shaking in fear,” said Kaz.

“We all fear, at times,” said Alethos. “Courage is in doing that which you fear. Tell me about it, my little love.”

“I fear that if I die in the past, I will not come to you because you did not know me then,” said Kaz. “And I fear that I will not get it right, and he will not curse me, so that when I return to the future, I will no longer be your beloved, because it changed things if I get everything wrong. And I fear losing you...”

“My mother is in charge; she will see that all goes well,” said Alethos. “And if it’s any help, around the time of the trógling curse, I heard a quite painfully loud chime, which I did not understand, and my mother said, ‘You will know all about it one day.’ So, you see, you have already succeeded, and your quest is a mere formality.”

“But I haven’t, and I might tear all of space and time if I make a mistake...” said Kaz.

“I don’t think you can, my sweeting. Otherwise, you would not be foredestined,” said Alethos. “I believe in you. And now my mother has opened a memory she had clouded, that I received prayer from a powerful one of my people whom I did not know; but I was there for my hero.”

“Oh! Well, I can only do my best; but I hope you will not forget me too much if I fail,” said Kaz.

“Beloved, I can never forget you,” said Alethos, hoping that it was true, and that she would succeed, and that it would not change the world to be as if she had never existed; because that was beyond sorrow.

He felt his mother’s irritable presence, and was reassured.

To find such love and to lose it was not to be contemplated.

But never before had a night seemed so long to any of the immortals.

 

oOoOo

 

Erytheon woke Epiphio early.

The boy clung to his mentor.

“Hush, child, I am ready,” said Erytheon. “I will be able to visit you in dreams, I believe; so do not grieve. Learn what you may from the Alethosi, and wish the Daykaz good fortune. In truth, I am quite excited, for I have never had an adventure myself, having given my life over to foretelling the adventures of others. Lead me to the gate.”

“Will they let you out?” asked Epiphio.

“Yes, because I found out who was on duty, and bribed them ahead of time,” said Erytheon.

Epiphio gasped.

“But surely Alethosi and Pollosi cannot be bribed?” he gasped.

“No, but the city militia can,” said Erytheon. “Besides, I told them that I had cult business and it was best to ask no questions, but that I would be pleased if they would drink to my success. My poor young friend! I have shocked you by the perfidy of our fellow men.”

“But... suppose they are bribed to let others in?”

“Son, there are degrees of venality.  Letting out a glyph-level member of one of the senior cults of the city is a long way to letting in enemies; especially when the bribe is a gift of thanks to drink to my success, so it can be dismissed in their own minds as not really a bribe. And when they know that it is foretold that I must be without the gates on this day, and will be so, will they, nil they. And this way, they get a nice gratuity.”

Epiphio was almost quivering still, in outrage, and the old priest suppressed laughter. The boy was so very innocent.

Well, the Alethosi would protect him from the worst behaviour of mankind.

 

“Good luck, old man,” said the gate guard, soberly. “May fortune smile on you; and may your end be fast. It is a one-way mission, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Erytheon. “Don’t let the boy follow; he has to seek out the Alethosi and tell them I am on my way.”

“One of us will escort him,” said the guard. “The sun shine on you.”

“And on you,” said Erytheon, sketching the Solosian blessing. He set off sure-footed across the bridge, without any hesitation.  His inner eye saw the path he must take with absolute clarity, as if someone else’s eyes were feeding the view in front of him into his eyes. He knew he would not encounter anyone, nor even any beast, nor trip on any guy-rope. He knew that there was a freezing fog, and that desultory snowflakes fell, and his boots, with warming charms in them as in his clothing, crunched through the fresh snow. He skirted sundry tents until he came to one with guards, who fell to quarrelling as he would have loomed out of the mist, and started pummelling each other. Erytheon walked around the unseemly brawl, and into the tent.