MEDWIND struggled through the roaring current, swimming furiously after the pale yellow line of the contracting Timerope. She became trapped in an eddy and was thrown toward the dark mouth of an alternate stream. The Timerope bent, and she could see that it would break off if she fell past the point of the "island" of darkness that marked the bifurcation of the streams. She fought valiantly and corrected her course, only to be pulled toward yet another wrong turn.
I'm too too far from home. Most of the four hundred years of tangled, branching Timeriver is still ahead of me. My arms feel like lead, my breath won't come, and my brain insists I'm going to drown in this awful stuff. This— she realized with despair —this is why half of the Timeriders never come back.
She yearned for a chance to stop and catch her breath, but the legends and the reports of surviving Timeriders agreed that there was no way to pull out of the stream without breaking the rope.
All around her, the conversations of people long dead screamed and babbled. She found them even more disconcerting now that they were running in the proper direction. She dove through folk and events, trying not to see them, trying only to concentrate on the position of the riverbanks and the myriad tangles and crossings of the everbranching streams.
She fought on.
Somewhere, seemingly hours along, she began to develop a horror of getting the thick ooze of the Timeriver into her nose and mouth. She struggled to keep her head high, and her swimming worsened by another degree.
She had one hope. The closer she got to her destination, the thicker—and stronger—the Timerope got. It had been the thickness of a massive old oak when she left the Basin—only the thickness of a strand of finespun wool yarn by the time she'd reached Sahedre's past. Now, as she contended with the deafening roar and spuming Timeflows of a savage stretch of rapids, she noted the Timerope had attained the same girth as both of her thighs.
Bits and pieces of the history in which she swam began to look familiar. She placed herself about a hundred years in her past. Three-fourths of the way back, she told herself, elated.
Hope gave her strength, and she swam on.
The waters grew more placid, with fewer branchings. She had not realized how peaceful and uneventful the period preceding her life had been. She allowed herself to float in the river, attentive but relaxed, and let the Timerope drag her along.
The rope's girth continued to widen, and with a jolt she began to recognize events from her own early years in Ariss. She saw herself with Rakell, not yet the Mottemage, as her friend tutored her patiently, obviously hoping to change Medwind from a plains warrior to a cultured city-woman. She saw Rakell's succession to Mage-Ariss' fourth highest office, the Mottemagery of the University of Daane, and her own subsequent rise in stature in the Magerie.
The waters roughened, and multitudes of branches spread out in front of her again.
A sudden burst of images overtook her. There was Faia, and the leveling of Bright, and there, her runaway spell that freed the Fendles from captivity. There were the Fendles, murdering her students—she could see it plainly now—and planting the ring among the bodies. Faia on a rock, suddenly surrounded by Fendles—the water grew rougher, and Medwind struggled to stay above it and still see and hear what was happening—Faia, and one Fendle that became Sahedre for an instant, then died and crumbled to dust.
And Sahedre's voice coming from Faia's mouth. Sahedre gloating that she had overthrown Faia in the battle for control over Faia's body. Sahedre changing Yaji to a Fendle. Sahedre with the Fendles at her heel, in the stables, and Rakell and her damned cat Flynn and the Fendle Yaji fighting against the whole motley mob of them—fighting—
—and dying—
—and dead.
The massive Timerope convulsed and shriveled away to nothing, spewing Medwind out of the Timeriver and up into the waiting hands of her anchors.
Once out of the warm stream of Time, she shivered spasmodically. Then she sobbed and screamed to be let back into the River.
It was a bad moment for the sajes. Kirgen released his hold on the Timerope and stared with the rest of the sajes at the quivering, death-pale Timerider who lay helpless on the floor of the Basin. Medwind Song's breath came in ragged gasps, and her limbs twitched and jerked. She was obviously afraid of something, obviously grief-stricken by something—and obviously changed. Her face and body seemed younger, harder, more muscular. There was a feeling of depth and ancient knowledge to her that hadn't been there before. But those were subtle changes. The shocking alteration was one of appearance. Her hair, which when she left had been blue-black as ebonwood in starlight, was burned pure glowing silver by the river of Time. And her eyes, once the rich bottomless blue of autumn skies, were now the cerulean-white of ice... or moonstones. She had gone into Time a woman. She returned a raving, dying goddess.
Kirgen shuddered. Goddesses were not cheerful company.
"She's in shock," the Hoos drummer bellowed, seeming unsurprised by the changes in her. He shoved a mug full of hot green fennar at Medwind. "She has to get this down or she'll die." He held her head with one hand and forced the cup to her lips.
She pushed it away weakly, and tried to kick him. The sajes surrounded and held her, and again the drummer forced her to drink.
She finished the cup. Her muscles relaxed—slowly. Her color improved and her voice lost its unintelligible tremor. Kirgen could finally make out what she said.
"Let me go back. Rakell is in there," Medwind was repeating over and over. "She's dead. Rakell is in there, and she's dead, and I never got to say goodbye."
"Who's Rakell?" one of the sajes asked.
Slowly the question penetrated her exhaustion. "The Mottemage—" she answered. "My best friend—my only friend—Sahedre and the Fendles just slaughtered her—" The barbarian went into another spasm of grief.
There was a moment of silence as the significance of this struck the Sajerie. The murder of the Mottemage could be the trigger that set off Mage-Ariss.
But it took time, and several more mugs of hot green fennar, to get the whole story out of Medwind Song, and more time after that for her to gain enough strength to propose a plan, and longer still to ready a rescue party to attack Sahedre and the Fendles. By then, events had moved onward.
Sahedre lay in the straw, bleeding and still, for only a few minutes. Then, with difficulty, she sat up and looked around her. The pain that ate at her body was formidable, and she was tired—agonizingly tired—but considering how well things were going, she would live with that. Three of the Fendles lay dead on the floor. Two were missing—the one the Mottemage had returned to human form who had immediately thereafter crumbled into dust... and Faia's little friend Yaji, who had apparently escaped. A problem, that, but only a small one. One Fendle remained in the stables, watchful and cowering. The dead winged filly, the disemboweled cat, and the flayed Mottemage completed the picture.
Sahedre felt the power from the Mottemage's mehevar coursing through her. Almost enough, she thought. Almost—but not quite.
Her wounds throbbed, and still bled profusely. She could, she thought, heal them—but that would make her story of a saje attack less impressive. She ached worse inside than outside—gnawed at by a curious, dull lethargy—she shook it off. No time for that.
She eyed the surviving Fendle with distaste. "Took a liking to my throat, did you, Malner? Wished me dead, then thought perhaps that I would forget your indiscretion? Thought I would remember how much I needed you? I knew you hated me, but you would have done well to have hidden it a bit longer."
She shrugged once. "You were correct. I do still need you." She smiled. "Come here, then."
The Fendle stayed crouched in its corner.
Sahedre fingers drew a sign in the air. "I said—come here."
This time, a pawn that moved knowingly to its own sacrifice, the Fendle slowly advanced.
"Better. I never found out who actually wielded the knife against my Beliseth. Never. I suspected you, Malner, but none of your soon-to-be-Fendle associates would confess, nor would you tell me. The rest are gone. You alone remain to pay the price I had intended to extract from all. Very well—now is the time that I require payment."
The Fendle's eyes were white-rimmed, and it struggled ineffectually to back away from the Wisewoman.
"A death for a death, Malner. You for Beliseth—and I have still gotten the worse of the bargain. No matter. Your death will also give Ariss-Magera into my hands to dispatch against Ariss-Sajera. Two cities for a life—that is better payment." She looked down into the panicked brown eyes. "Would I could take the whole of the world," she whispered, "or have my Beliseth back."
While the Fendle struggled to escape, Sahedre began the ritual of mehevar. The Wisewoman laughed as she listened to the beast's screams.
The frelles huddled in the Greathall in terror. The mindscreams were upon them again, the terror of a soul being ripped and rent from its body and consigned to nothingness.
The Mottemage did not come, and did not come—and the ghoulish daylit echoes of carnage continued and continued until the frelles, huddled together to comfort each other, screamed in sympathetic anguish with the dying soul.
In the silence that followed there was no peace.
"The second slaughter in as many minutes," Frelle Jann whispered. "That was the meaning of the Saje bell. The attack has started. The sajes have come. If we just wait here, they'll find us and kill us."
Young Frelle Tardana muttered, "The Mottemage or Medwind Song should have been here by now. Where are they?"
One of the assistants said, "I saw the Mottemage down at the wingmount stables."
Jann snapped her fingers. "Of course. The most recent batch of mounts was ready for finishing today. She'll still be there—in a trance, most likely, for then she would not have heard the bell or the deathscreams." The redheaded frelle stared at the ground for an instant, muttered something to herself, and nodded.
She glanced around the room at the assembled University staff. "Tardana, you organize the rest of the frelles, and get all the students back here to the Greathall. Begin to build the power for our strike. Mersa, contact the Hub and let the others on the Council know the sajes have attacked. Litthea, you know Song as well as anyone. Find her. She is the one who devised the majority of our strategy against Saje-Ariss. We need her here now.
"I will go down to the stables and rouse the Mottemage from her work. We shall all meet back here."
Sahedre sensed the presence long before she actually heard the footsteps in the corridor. Someone is coming, she thought. Good. Appearance now is everything. She smeared the fresh-killed Fendle's blood over her to add drama to the appearance of her own wounds, lay back in the straw, and arranged herself in an artful sprawl.
"Mottemage?" a high voice called from just inside the stable. The voice echoed down the stone corridors. "Motte? It's Frelle Jann. The saje attack has started. We need you."
Perfect, Sahedre thought.
"She must still be in trance," the Wisewoman heard the frelle mumble.
Sahedre heard footsteps, and the creak as the gate swung open, then a sudden gasp and an instant of silence—followed by a perfectly gratifying scream.
The Wisewoman let the scream carry for several seconds. That should bring a few others. A bit longer, mayhaps a bit louder, dear—
Enough, she decided. Time now to bait the hook. Sahedre groaned, weakly.
The frelle heard, and flinched. "One lives? Who?"
Sahedre groaned again, slightly louder.
She located Sahedre among the bloody bodies. "Gods, oh, gods, wake up, you—whoever—" Frelle Jann's voice stopped cold, and when she spoke again, her tone was murderous. "You! Open your eyes! Tell me, what part did you have in this, you bitch?"
Sahedre fought the impulse to open her eyes in surprise. What!? Me? she wondered. How can she already suspect me? She groaned again, and slit her eyes open slightly, and croaked, "Sajes..."
"No doubt," the other voice said bitterly. "And just as in Bright, none live but you to tell the tale." The frelle kicked the wounded woman viciously in the thigh. Sahedre held her response to a faint moan. "You have amazing luck," Jann snarled. "Death rides on your shoulder like a pet bird, striking all but you."
Ah, how easy to forget—you see not me, but Faia. Well, Sahedre thought, you have amazing luck, too, little frelle, to kick me and survive. Not for long, though. You will pay when your usefulness is past.
Several frelles and students ran into the stables. "Frelle Jann," one called, "who screamed?"
Sahedre heard them running down the corridor, then into the altering stall. There was another brief, charming round of screaming, and some equally delightful crying. The dear late Mottemage was apparently quite popular with her subordinates. So much the better.
Frelle Jann said, "Faia still survives, but she seems badly wounded. She may not live."
Do not sound so hopeful, dear.
"Has she spoken?"
"She said, 'Sajes.' Nothing else."
"So all is as you said. But the sajes have killed the immortal Fendles. They're stronger than we thought."
"Apparently so."
"Where are they, then?"
Sahedre whispered from her bed of straw, "Preparing to—attack the Hub. I—heard them—when they thought me dead. They wanted to be rid—of the leaders."
"Medwind!" one voice blurted out. "Is she dead as well?"
"Who can say?" Jann muttered. "Perhaps Litthea has found her by now."
"What will we do with the bodies of the Mottemage and the Fendles and—"
Frelle Jann cut them off. "We will leave them, and bury them when we can. Grief and sentiment are for times of peace. This is war."
Sahedre watched through slitted eyes as two students carried in a makeshift litter crafted of horseblankets and shovel-poles.
"What is that for?" Jann snapped.
"Faia. We're taking her to the Greathall. The healers will be there."
"Don't bother—she's done for," the frelle told them. "Leave her here to die in peace."
Little snake! Sahedre thought. You shall suffer for that, Frelle Jann.
"She's still breathing, and she knows what happened," one of the students said. "There's some hope."
"I said leave her!" Jann snarled.
The other student walked over to the frelle and whispered, so low that Sahedre could barely hear her, "It would look bad for you, Frelle, to leave her here when all know how you hate her. Though I'm sure you are right and she is beyond saving, think of your reputation. Better the hero than the villain at a time like this—especially with the Mottemage dead and her unpopular choice as successor missing—and you the favorite of the Council."
Sahedre did not miss the calculating look that sped across Jann's face and vanished in a heartbeat. She did not miss, either, the alteration in Jann's tone as the frelle said, "You are right, Derla—I was drowned in grief because of Rakell's death. I don't have any hope for Faia, but bring her to the Greathall. We have to try."
Once inside the Greathall, a stout young Healer with dimples and several chins was summoned from the chanting circles of mages and brought to Sahedre's side. One of the students gave her a rapid-fire report of the occurrence in the stables. The young woman nodded grimly and knelt on the floor beside Sahedre.
"I don't know if you can hear me," she said softly, "but my name is Brynne. Frelle Brynne, First Instructor of the Healing Arts at Daane. I'm going to take a look at you, and I need you to hold very still.
"Deep cuts, bruises, some rough wounds on the throat—" the Healer mumbled, as her fingers poked and prodded over Sahedre. "Oh! A spell, too. Very powerful and tenacious—"
Sahedre suppressed a smile. A powerful spell, indeed. I have some aches and some scratches—" But she groaned once, for effect. "Sajes," she whispered. "Sajes everywhere.... I can't stop them...." She thought she would thrash a bit on the litter, then decided not to. She was surprised that it took such effort even to whisper. She lapsed into silence.
"We're going to get them. Believe that, child." Brynne's voice was hard stone and cold fury. She murmured a soft, lulling incantation.
"What are you doing?" Frelle Jann asked.
"Diagnostic test. I can sense the burrowings of a massive spell, but I can't quite make out—" The Healer gasped. "A settling spell. Gods on hot rocks—why would the sajes put that on her?"
Frelle Jann asked, "They put a—what—what did they do? I don't recognize the spell you named, Brynne."
"Settling spell. She's been overcome by lethargy—she wouldn't even have realized that she was spelled. She would have simply lain in one place until she starved, convinced that at any moment she would get up and go on with her life.
"I'm going to do some things that hurt, Faia," the Healer added, "but the spell is working on you right now. It will soon destroy you unless it can be stopped."
Nonsense, Sahedre thought. I'm laying here because this is all part of the plan—
The Healer said a few more words in a gentle sing-song. For a moment, nothing happened. Then incredible pain blazed through Sahedre's body. She screamed. Incoherent with anguish, she writhed on the litter.
Freed from the spell, she came up off the litter in a fury. "Jann!" she screamed. "I'm going to—"
A strong hand settled on her shoulder and forced her back to the floor. "You are going to lay back down again, Faia. A weaker woman would have died of your wounds, and you are still bleeding," the Healer said. "Whatever you had to say to Frelle Jann will wait a few moments more."
She tsk-tsk'd over Sahedre's wounds, washed her off, made her drink several unbelievably foul elixirs, then said with typical medical cheer, "Bad, but not as bad as all that. Big, strong, healthy girl like you—took a bit more than they thought you would, I'd say. All that blood off of you and you look like you might just make it."
She touched Sahedre's throat with puzzlement. "These are animal bites, though, not knife wounds—and they are bad ones. They damn-near took out the artery." She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against the ripped flesh, and Sahedre's throat burned.
The Wisewoman cried out.
"There, now—hurts like the hells, doesn't it? But that's healed it. You'll have a nasty scar, but you'll not be in danger of breathing through your neck. So—what bit you?"
Damn, damn, and damn-all! Bloody Fendle bites—or—wait. This could solve the Yaji problem nicely. It could, indeed work very well. "A Fendle." There were gasps from around the Greathall. "The sajes did something to them," she told Frelle Brynne and Frelle Jann and the rest of the assembled women of Daane. "I don't know how, but they knew of the Fendles—and they had some magic that turned them against us."
"I imagine they found out about the Fendles when you stole the Mottemage's wingmount and flew to Saje-Ariss to tell them, Faia," Jann snarled. "I imagine that's why you survived, too, don't you think?"
I forgot about this peasant-idiot's trip. It would be her body I needed! Hells, this makes things difficult.
She ignored Frelle Jann and continued. "Yaji and I ran to the stables when we heard the Mottemage scream. The Fendles came with us. All of us—the Mottemage and her cat, the Fendles, and Yaji and I, fought side by side until one of the sajes did something and the Fendles turned on us. The sajes spelled us, and we all fell together—they did mehevar on the Mottemage, and then on one Fendle. They spirited Yaji off to Ariss-Sajera, and left me for dead, I suppose, and the Fendle that lay beside me as well. That Fendle was dying, but as its spirit left its body, it came into me."
Frelle Jann's expression hardened, and her eyes narrowed. She studied Sahedre with intense scrutiny. "Just what do you know of mehevar, Faia?" the instructor asked sharply.
Ah—Faia would not know a thing of it, would she? She scrambled for an answer. "The sajes called their ritual by that name—the Fendles told me more of it."
"I thought the Fendles were turned against you?"
"The Fendle, I meant to say. The one that gave me its spirit when it died. I'm sure the ones that escaped are still dangerous."
"Leave the girl alone, Jann," Frelle Brynne snapped. "She has fought demons today, and nearly died trying to save our Mottemage." The Healer gave Faia a gentle pat on the shoulder and a worried frown. "Escaped?"
"They must have. There were seven, remember. There weren't that many dead in the stables."
Frelle Jann nodded. "Quite true. There weren't that many. How very clever of you to notice—considering how badly injured you were at the time."
The Wisewoman glared at Jann. The others were so willing to believe—Sahedre could feel their carefully tended and nurtured rage and hatred toward the sajes swelling in the room, fed by the rituals they were performing—aimed, conveniently, at her preferred target. Only Jann, whose hatred was aimed at her, kept seeing the flaws in her alibi. She needed Jann out of the way. She needed the cooperation of the rest of her intended victims.
Enough, then, Sahedre thought. I feel stronger by the moment, and Faia's strength and the power of the mehevarin course through me. I need not tolerate Jann any longer. The time for my revenge is finally come, and she shall not keep me from it a moment longer.
She pulled in the necessary earth and air energy, and spread a delicate, unobtrusive shield around herself and the mages in the Greathall. She filled the space inside the shield with her own hatred of the sajes, augmenting the already thick atmosphere of paranoia in the hall. Gently, then, she spoke to Jann.
"We are fighting the sajes," she said, and reinforced her statement with a magical aura of sincerity. "We must not fight each other." Underneath her words was the command, :Obey me.:
Jann was a strong mage, but she did not have Sahedre's four hundred years of pent-up fury and hunger behind her. When Sahedre looked into her eyes, her will overwhelmed the young frelle, and everything the Wisewoman asked seemed suddenly reasonable—and Jann nodded politely, and said, "Yes, of course. How shortsighted of me."
Sahedre then faced the assembled women of Daane University.
They moved through their rituals, spiraling the force of their wrath into a maelstrom that pulsated and surged, waiting only release and direction.
Their anger makes them mine, she gloated—and reached out a hand, and pulled their unwholesome fire into her belly, and made it hers.
":The sajes must die,:" she whispered into their minds. :This is all you want—it is all I want. Give yourselves to me, and I will give you the power to bring them down.:
They were already so close to the edge, so open to this voice that promised them what they wanted. To a woman, the mages opened themselves and welcomed in the voice that promised victory and revenge—and to a woman, they toppled headlong into Sahedre's abyss.
:Now,: she said, :I tell you first that I am Lady Sahedre Onosdotte, the ancient Wisewoman of Ariss-Magera, and master of you all. I have returned to lead you against the sajes—we shall leave nothing of them but wisps of smoke in the rubble of their city.:
She felt the surge of excitement in her followers—her slaves—and she exulted. The destruction of Ariss rested in the palm of her hand. She commanded the energies of the mages, and expanded the shield further, to cover the whole campus of Daane and to bring any stragglers into her sphere of influence. She would need to spread the shield further soon—she would have to bring every soul in Ariss-Magera under her command, so that she could channel the life energy of half the city into her attack against the other half. To do that, she would have to replenish her strength with mehevar frequently just to keep all her fronts covered. She needed to detail someone to bring her young children—in the meantime, adults would have to do.
Frelle Jann, she decided, would be a good first subject.
Meanwhile, she thought, I need to get the attack on Ariss-Sajera underway.
:The battle begins now,: she announced. :Ariss-Sajera will be reduced to dust, and everyone in it. You will first destroy the sajes' University, then the Saje-Hub. When every saje has been obliterated, you will then annihilate every living thing in the rest of the city. You will not stop until the city of Ariss-Sajera is empty and dead—or all of you are.:
She waved an arm and shouted, "Send forth the storms and the fires! Send forth the wind and the water! Focus it, send it—send all of it! Now!"
Sahedre's vassals reached up their hands and willed forth doom on Saje-Ariss. And lightning cracked from newborn stormclouds that billowed out of the Greathall in an ugly stream of night-dark poison, and winds screamed and twisted in the skies above Daane, before they raced in funnels toward their destination.
Yes! the Wisewoman thought, and laughed with joy. Yes! I have waited lifetimes for this—and it is all I had hoped for, and more. She beckoned to Frelle Jann. "We need more magic, dear girl," she said, and drew the frelle to her. She caressed the young woman's cheek with her knife.
"More magic... and you are going to give it to me."
Medwind, still too weak to stand, gave Nokar Feldosonne a mind-picture of his destination. He passed the picture on to the rest of the transport-specialists. Everyone gripped weapons, made last-minute checks of ammunition, and one by one, signaled their readiness.
Medwind nodded at Nokar; Nokar knelt beside her cot and rested one hand on her shoulder. He began the backward count.
"Three—two—one—NOW!"
Medwind once again felt everything twist and wrench and spin inside her and around her. This time, the wrongness didn't stop. She became aware of the others in the rescue party, trapped in the same non-place. She could feel their frustration and their growing fear. A smooth, gleaming, impassable wall arrested their progress.
:Go back!: Nokar commanded. :Retreat! Retreat!:
Medwind felt no panic in the old man's mind—only calm intelligence and quick recognition of the obstacle that blocked him.
Hell of a commander—for a librarian, she thought with admiration, as the world buckled further in on itself and shifted again.
Then space untwisted, and Medwind groaned and sprawled on the Basin floor. Around her, other members of the stymied rescue party did the same. Sajes throughout the towering seats gave startled cries.
Through the swirling cloud of multicolored smoke, Nokar's voice could be heard, explaining to the sajes in the auditorium, "They've shielded the University. We can't get through."
Without warning, the Basin rocked from side to side, and tiny bits of masonry from the top of the dome crumbled down to dust the sajes below. The low rumble of an earthquake mixed with the howl of tornadoes and the green glow of mage-light that arced and spit through the cracks in the ceiling.
"We're under attack! Disperse!" Burchardsonne shouted. "The south field—quickly!"
With a "whoosh" the Basin cleared.
Medwind found herself slumped neck-deep in the swamp to the south of Ariss, Nokar's hand locked on her braid, surrounded by the thousands who'd simultaneously fled the Basin. A sluggish breeze dissipated the saje-smoke.
One man behind her cried out once in anguish, then cursed dully and without emotion. She turned to see why and looked away quickly. A young man, one of Mage-Ariss' would-be rescuers, had materialized partly in the swollen base of a primordial swamp-cypress that grew nearby. He was dying even as she glimpsed him, and she was utterly helpless to save him. The sight of his face—of his agony and his resignation—would stay with her, she thought, for the rest of her life. She noted that other sajes averted their eyes from him, and from the few others who suffered the same fate.
Nokar pulled her to a sitting position and leaned her against a tree. He said bitterly, "We always knew that we would lose a dozen or so sajes with the emergency evacuation of the Basin. No one could ever come up with another big, nearly clear space that would take everyone at once and wouldn't endanger innocents. So we knew we would be taking our chances.
"It doesn't seem right that Chak was one of the ones we lost, though. He was a scholar," the old man added. "Loved books, loved learning—I'll miss him."
"The senseless deaths were what I hated most about war," Medwind admitted. "My inability to love killing was the embarrassment of the Huong Hoos, to be honest. So I left. There was no room in my tribe for a life-loving warrior."
"You'll never fit into somebody else's world, Song. You have your own ideas—you won't let someone else think for you. The only place you will be accepted be the place you make for yourself." Nokar studied her intently. "You'll get to your own place someday."
"If I live that long."
The old man's mouth twisted in a humorless smile. "Yah. There is that."
The evacuations' survivors were finally assembled around Burchardsonne, Nokar, Medwind, and the remains of the hand-picked rescue team. To the north, the refugee sajes could see the green blaze of Faulea University—burning—and hear the raging winds that battered the helpless city.
"We can't get into Daane to stop this," one young sage said. "So what do we do now?"
Burchardsonne looked grim. "We have few alternatives. First, we can blast back randomly. Anything we aim at that mage-shield will likely bounce off and scatter away from the target. We'll probably hit nothing but innocents."
"We should try it anyway."
Burchardsonne looked from face to tired face. "Should we? We know who the enemy is. Should we destroy people who aren't the enemy, simply because they are unlucky enough to live near her?" He shook his head. "I don't think so. Second, we can do nothing. That will give over the city to Sahedre Onosdotte—and I don't want to see what she will do with it.
"We have a third option only if one of you can make it work. I want some idea of how we can break through that barrier."
There was a long silence.
"Thoughtspeech," Medwind offered. "Break through to those on the campus near her, tell them the true story about Rakell's—" Her voice broke, and she had to catch her breath before continuing. "—About Rakell's death—and let them raise rebellion against Sahedre from inside the shield."
"Surely she's thought of that, and blocked against it."
"It won't kill any innocents if we look and find out."
Burchardsonne sighed. "True enough. But who's going to try it?"
Medwind looked up at him from her place at the base of the tree. "None of you would know who to talk to—none of you would know what to say to keep from getting your minds blasted by someone who thought you were trying to attack. It will have to be me."
Nokar Feldosonne shook his head vehemently. "You are as near death as you need to get, Medwind." He crossed his arms and furrowed his brows. "Something this taxing, right after your ride through the Timeriver, is likely to kill you."
"Maybe—but that doesn't mean I'm wrong."
The old librarian bit his lip. "No, it doesn't."
"This is war, Nokar, Burchardsonne. Don't be afraid to lose a few players if it will win you the battle. I always figured I was meant to die in combat anyway. Not as some old woman sleeping on my mats." She managed a weak smile.
The old librarian didn't return it. "You are right, and I can't change that. So go." He looked into her eyes, and she read pain there—and concern—and maybe something else. "But come back."
The barbarian nodded. "I'll try." She closed her eyes and forced the natural swamp-images of seeping water and swimming snakes and biting insects out of her thoughts. She breathed slowly, narrowed her focus to a tightly controlled whisper, and sent her mental murmur questing toward Daane.
:Listen,: she said. :Help is on the way. Can you hear me?:
Her question, to her astonishment, slipped through Sahedre's shield like a dagger through silk. Sahedre had blocked physical and magical approaches... but not mental. Medwind probed across the campus, immediately found the familiar mind of her fellow instructor, Litthea, and slid inside.
Instantly, wrongness enveloped her. Where she should have been met by the identifiable forethoughts of her friend and colleague, she was instead overwhelmed by a foreign, hypnotic urge to "kill the sajes." She felt compressed fragments of her friend Litthea's self as if from a great distance—but Litthea was trapped, seduced by the evil that commanded her in her own body. The mind and wishes of Sahedre overrode everything, and Litthea had no choice but to obey. Medwind fought free from the gluey trap of Sahedre's magic, and rushed out of Litthea's mind. Sahedre's virulent personality vanished. Medwind's lean frame, miles distant, shook with relief.
Close, she thought, repressing panic. If Sahedre had felt me, she could have had me. Who is left that I can talk to? she wondered. Whose mind is still safe?
Her delicate psychic probe skimmed from colleague to student, from student to friend, all across the campus. She darted down, a hummingbird seeking nectar, and flitted back in revulsion each time. Every mind—every single mind in the university—was poisoned by Sahedre's control.
How can she force them all— Medwind started to wonder.
And the telltale horror of the start of another sacrifice for mehevar invaded her skull.
That's how. Gods! Will it never end? In answer to her own question, she thought, No, it won't. She'll kill forever, because that's where she gets her strength. As long as Sahedre lives, people will die to feed her.
Medwind's mind rang with the pain and the fear of the victim—Frelle Jann, she realized, noting familiarities of shading and character in the tattered and dying soul that screamed for mercy. The barbarian fled back to her distant body, too weak to witness the torture and annihilation of another colleague without embracing madness.
As she fled, she felt a lone mind, frightened and surrounded by darkness, weakly and futilely protesting the killing.
One survives in Daane who has free will? Who is it? And where is she hiding?
But she was already headed back to her body, and too weak to reverse long enough to identify the protester. She found herself, still leaning against the tree, propped up by a saje on either side, weak and sweat-slicked and shaking. It was more effort than she could imagine, just to speak. "Sahedre had—all of th-th-them in mind-thrall," she whispered. "I b-b-briefly touched one mind that had managed to hide from her—but I didn't have—time to r-r-reach into it." The chill of the breeze on her wet skin, the coldness of the swamp water on the parts of her that were submerged, and the hard shiver of fever-wrack gripped her. Her limbs shook and her teeth rattled.
The librarian knelt beside her and gripped her hand. He rested his wrist lightly on her forehead, then laid his fingertips on her neck to measure the pulsing beat of her blood. His eyes darkened with worry. "We need to get her out of this swamp," he told Burchardsonne. "Fast—or she's going to die."
Medwind smiled up at Nokar. In Hoos, she told him, "Just leave me. Old man, I'd m-m-make you one of my—husbands if I h-h-had the chance. I like you. But I'm n-n-not g-going—to survive this. You get rid of Sahedre. Then make sure—I get a—good Hoos f-f-funeral—with l-l-lots of horses and all. And honor f-for my head."
"Sheepshit," Nokar snapped back in Hoos. "Don't give me your noble-warrior-dying-bravely act. You're going to survive—we need your help to get rid of Sahedre." He did a sudden double-take. "You'd really take me as one of your husbands?"
Medwind managed a faint grin. "Yah, old man. Even make you—a H-H-Hoos warrior if you—survived the w-w-wedding night."
"You'll live now just for that, by the gods. I claim Hoos honor on your word. Your husband, huh? There's a hell of a way for an old man to go down in glory."
In Arissonese, he told Burchardsonne, "I'm taking Song to Demphrey's healer's station out on Tenth Round in the Ka district. Find Demphrey and send him along. If you come up with anything that will win us this war, contact me there. Otherwise, I'll find you when I can."
Medwind heard this with fading interest. She felt the old man's fingers once again on her shoulder, but noticed only the first part of the wrenching of the universe before darkness overtook her.
For an instant, Faia had felt someone else, someone not tainted by the bloodlust in Sahedre's soul, who went questing through the darkness she occupied. She reached out, cried out briefly for release—
And then the light of that other soul vanished, and she was left again in empty blackness.
There is something on my face. Crawling. It itched and tickled, but she didn't have the strength to brush it off. She opened her eyes, and found herself eyeball to eyeball with an enormous roach.
Medwind Song, rising to consciousness out of what seemed an eternity of fire and pain and darkness, did not find this a good omen.
"A-a-agh!" she groaned. The roach scuttled off.
It was replaced in the narrow circle of her vision by the flowing beard and locks and wrinkled visage of Nokar Feldosonne. This seemed an equally bad omen, for it indicated that the horrors she began to recall were not phantasms brought on by too much booze, but real events.
"I liked the cockroach better," she croaked.
"Nice to know I'm appreciated. Healer Demphrey says you might live. He says you need rest."
"How is the war going?" She didn't really need to ask. She could hear the howling of the wind, the lash of torrential rains, the steady thunder of explosion as fireball after fireball battered the saje city.
"We're losing badly."
"Then Healer Demphrey can—well, no, he probably can't. It usually isn't anatomically possible. But he can keep his advice to himself." Medwind managed to pull herself up on one elbow. The world spun wildly, but she ignored it. "Look, Nokar, I have to go back. There is someone in Daane that I might reach. I think I know where to look."
Nokar brushed stray hairs off Medwind's forehead. "It's no good, Song. You've been under Demphrey's drugs and spellings for almost four hours. In that time, Burchardsonne has sent dozens of Mindspeakers into Daane. Most fell into Sahedre's clutches and died. The few who made it back report that there is no one under her shield who is not in her thrall. And in that time, she's done half a dozen mehevarin, and expanded the shield to encompass about a third of Mage-Ariss."
"What happens when the shield is attacked directly?"
"The damage bounces back directly onto the senders. Burchardsonne lost two units that way. He won't try a third."
Medwind lay back on the slab she occupied and stared up at the reed thatch poking between the wide-spaced ceiling beams. "I see."
"We've lost this one, Medwind." Nokar sighed. "And this one is for the whole of Arhel, I'm afraid. Sahedre is unstoppable."
"I see." Medwind closed her eyes. "I'm going to sleep a while, old man. Don't wake me up if the world ends. I'd rather not know."
She felt dry lips brush her cheek. "I'm glad you're going to rest."
When goats have kittens, Medwind thought. She gave a very good imitation of a woman drifting off to sleep. When she heard Nokar sigh again and walk away, she summoned what little energy she could and sent her mind searching back along the path she'd traveled earlier.
The spark of light was returning. There had been others, casting back and forth at a distance, but this one was coming straight to Faia. She could feel it as if it were the full blaze of the sun breaking through a pinhole in her prison.
She stretched out and greeted it.
:Who are you?: she whispered.
:Medwind Song. And you—are Faia! Of course. She must have forgotten about you.:
:She did not need to forget about me. She has me trapped and helpless—I cannot harm her, and she cannot put me to work, so why should she waste any of her precious energy to control me? But you—what are you doing here?:
Medwind sent the tiniest flutter of a laugh into Faia's mind. :I came to see if you would try to rescue us.:
:Hah! I would be astounded if I could rescue me. Not much hope of that, I am afraid.:
Medwind's next comment was long in coming, and thoughtful in tone. :It would be the same thing. Let me tell you what I've found out about her, and you see if there's anything you can use.:
Faia listened patiently, only interrupting once to remark—:This fiend had a daughter? Easier to imagine a blood-spider suckling its young than her a mother.:
:Nevertheless, the death of her daughter Beliseth was the start of this whole disaster.: Medwind's thoughtvoice wearied. :I must go. I am too weak to stay any longer. Faia, there is nothing else that we can do from the outside. And you are the only one left on the inside. If our world is to survive, it will only be because of you.:
Then she was gone, taking the light and hope of her presence with her.
Faia, in her blind cage, was vaguely aware of Sahedre surrounding her. If she concentrated, she could hear the other woman's now-unguarded thoughts. Maybe Medwind Song was right. Maybe Sahedre has forgotten about me, she thought. An idea occurred to her. She wondered if she could steal through Sahedre's memories for a look at the child, Beliseth, without alerting her mother.
Stealthily, she extended a thin fiber of thought into the other woman's mind. She kept away from Sahedre's noisy, angry awareness, and concentrated on the darkened backways of her past. Beliseth was not hard to find. All Sahedre's past thoughts were wrapped around her. Every waking moment was overlaid by pictures of a sweet-faced green-eyed child with soft blue-black curls that tumbled half-way down her back. In the clearest memories, she was about eight, growing early into beauty. Faia could sense her mother's enchantment and adoration of the child. Younger images of Beliseth were fuzzed slightly by time, but even as a young child, and before, as a toddler, there was never anything but love in the memories Sahedre held of her daughter. Faia rummaged carefully, and found Beliseth again as an infant, round and pink and dimpled, and even deeper, located Sahedre as she concentrated on the movement in her belly, the first delightful quickenings of life.
Faia backed out, and held her breath. An idea occurred to her, breathtaking in its simplicity—and in its cruelty. Could I do that, even to Sahedre? she wondered.
She stretched a little, peeked out through the eyes Sahedre controlled, saw what was left of the bodies of instructors and other women's small children in piles around the Greathall—all victims of Sahedre's mehevar and her pursuit of the destruction of Ariss.
I could be that cruel, she decided grimly. This time, to this woman, I could be that cruel.
She drew in passing surges of the power Sahedre had forgotten to guard, stored it, hid it, squirreled it away. She waited until Sahedre's energy began to lag, until the madwoman began to cast about for another sacrifice to increase her strength. Then, with feigned amazement, Faia screamed a sudden mindshout that tore across the Wisewoman's consciousness—:I am pregnant?! I am PREGNANT! And she is a girl!:
She dumped her carefully tended images of Beliseth as an infant and Sahedre's memories of pregnancy back at her.
Sahedre's concentration shattered. She paused everything and sent her awareness careening into Faia's belly, into her womb—and the shout came back, I am pregnant! Oh, I am! Oh, Beliseth, I shall have you back! I shall!
—And Faia's mind scrambled for her body, flowed back into the cells that were her soul's home. She reached—deep into the center of the earth, and up into the sky—and pulled. She drew the earth's pure energy inward and expanded, forcing the dark and sullied presence of Sahedre smaller and smaller and tighter and tighter, until the other woman had no place left to hide.
Sahedre snapped out of her distraction, and still full of mehevar and hatred, resisted. She pressed against the hill girl's spirit, attacked Faia's determination to destroy her, shot insinuations of weakness and unworthiness into Faia's heart.
But Faia's magic was not drawn from the malice of others, or from their deaths. Faia drew her strength from the near-infinite energy of earth and sky, and her confidence from the assurance, finally, that she was doing right.
Sahedre lost ground. She lost control of legs and arms, of eyes, of tongue—and her shield crumbled, and her mind-thralls broke free from their chains—
Ariss rang with the Wisewoman's furious mindscreech, as her soul was forced completely out of Faia's body—
—Into nonexistence.
There was silence.
And standing alone in her own body, in the sudden startling light after the tenebrous gloom of Sahedre's soul, Faia was beset by niggling worries.
What did she mean, "I am pregnant?"