It was a middle-aged woman in dirty torn robes. She bowed. Behind her stood a file of soldiers who appeared to Shimmer to be Quon Talian, yet were painted and dressed in native fashion in loose loincloths. They did, however, still have their weapons, which they carried in their hands or on belts about their shoulders. Two of the soldiers carried bodies over their shoulders — more unconscious mages perhaps.
‘Just a sorceress,’ the woman murmured.
‘Yet you are not overcome in the … disturbance?’
‘I managed to protect myself in time.’
‘How very fortunate for you.’ Ardata pressed her hand to her throat once more. She tilted her head and her voice fell to a low whisper: ‘Do I know you …?’
Shimmer felt the hairs of her neck stirring in the sudden crackling of energy in the air. What is this? A confrontation? Who is this woman?
‘It is … possible,’ the sorceress allowed.
‘And what is it you wish?’ Ardata asked, her attention full on the woman. Shimmer shivered upon seeing her robes stirring as if with a life of their own.
The newcomer was completely unruffled. ‘I wish a great deal,’ she answered offhandedly. ‘First, however, we really ought to speak of your daughter.’
Ardata laughed, yet her hand clutched at her throat. ‘You are mistaken. I have no daughter.’
The woman’s face stiffened. ‘That is a terrible thing to say, Ardata.’
The Queen of Witches threw her arms straight down, the fingers clawed. Dust swirled about her. Beneath Shimmer’s sandalled feet the ground shuddered as if drummed. Rocks tumbled down nearby ruined walls. The tall palms swayed.
K’azz gestured, his hand signing the imperative: retreat!
Shijel darted forward to snatch his sword then ducked away, hunched. K’azz waved Shimmer back.
The sorceress beckoned aside, close to Shimmer. Backing away Shimmer bumped into someone. She spun to find the girl, or young woman, wrapped in her white robes. Yet for an instant she did not appear young. Rather, it was as if she were an aged crone, her face disfigured, the flesh swollen, grey and pebbled, the eyes clouded to blind white staring orbs. Shimmer reached out to steady her. At that moment she returned to the appearance of the young woman, her face pretty once more, elfin and heart-shaped. She peered up at Shimmer, searchingly. ‘It is you,’ she murmured, full of wonder. ‘The one I have seen so often. Even when I was a child. Why is that?’
Shimmer stared, stricken. Unmerciful gods! It is her. One and the same. The child, woman, crone. Oh, the fate that awaits you … She rested her hands gently on the young woman’s slim shoulders.
The girl, whose frightened gaze now peered at Ardata, jumped at the touch. She peered up, shivering, wary. She shuddered as if she were desperate to escape. ‘Be brave,’ Shimmer told her, her voice thick with emotion. ‘Be brave.’ The girl started in recognition, then gave a solemn determined nod.
Shimmer ached to hold her then but the sorceress beckoned again, calling, ‘Come.’
‘Strangers frighten her!’ Ardata called.
The sorceress took the young woman’s hand. She faced Ardata. ‘Or perhaps it is you who are frightened that others should see her?’
A wordless animal snarl escaped the Queen of Witches. Power now rose about her in glimmering tendrils like the lacing of webbing. She threw out an arm, pointing. ‘Who are you? How dare you?’
The sorceress held the girl before her, hands on her shoulders. The ground between her and Ardata erupted into flames. The thin grass blew away in rising ash and soot. Then the soil crackled and smoked as if dropped into a crucible. It slumped into a growing pool of glowing liquid rock.
K’azz, Shimmer, her companions, the Avowed and Disavowed, all flinched back then. They shielded their faces against the blasting heat. A lean woman had been hovering close to the sorceress all this time. She had one good arm, the other bound to her side. At that moment she darted forward and wrapped her one arm round the girl to pull her aside. The woman’s sandals, shirt and hair burst aflame as she did so. Soldiers rushed forward with a few tattered blankets to throw over her. Through the waves of heat and smoke it appeared to Shimmer that the girl was weeping.
‘Let her go, Ardata,’ the sorceress called through the crackling filaments. ‘It is time to let go.’
‘Who are you!’ the Queen of Witches howled.
‘Look closely … sister,’ the sorceress answered.
Ardata jerked back a step, her eyes growing huge. ‘No! Not you.’
The sorceress’s voice came loud and reverberating: ‘Let it all go, sister.’
‘No!’ She thrust her arms out and a coruscating wall of power washed towards the sorceress, only to halt suspended between them. The sorceress seemed to be holding it in place, somehow containing it.
K’azz bellowed over the roar in his best battlefield voice: ‘Retreat!’
Everyone now scrambled in earnest. The one-armed woman chaperoned the girl off while soldiers carried the unconscious, or bleary, mages. Shimmer saw Quon soldiers falling and being helped up by Disavowed as everyone fled in a panic from the titanic and still escalating confrontation.
Behind a set of low ruined walls and a broken bell-shaped tower, Shimmer paused and turned back to watch. A glaring light of summoned powers blazed from the clearing beyond. K’azz came to her side, as did an older officer whose bearing fairly shouted imperial service. Both forces gathered here all intermingled. One of the Quon soldiers was hurried over; he was supported by two others. This one wore only a loincloth, his hair a tangled mess. His goggling eyes were tearing, bloodshot, and he was squeezing his head as if to keep it from flying apart. ‘Still too close!’ he shouted to the officer, his words slurred. ‘Just run for it!’
The officer caught K’azz’s gaze and they shared a curt nod.
‘Move out!’ K’azz yelled.
Everyone set off once more at the fastest possible pace. Soldiers shared the burden of the staggering and dazed mages. Two ran past carrying Petal draped over a stretcher between them. The one-armed woman, singed, her hair half gone, actually scooped up the girl and took off with her at a run. Shimmer stared, amazed. Damn! Who is that woman?
Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw the top of a swelling dome of lightning-lanced power. It appeared to be chasing after them. The expanding wall of flickering energies swallowed trees and ruins as it came.
‘Hurry!’ she yelled, now truly panicked.
Everyone ran. They dodged trees, jumped the low stone foundations of buildings long gone. Far ahead, Black the Lesser pointed aside to a long earthwork mound. Yes! Intervening ground. The ragtag column curved in that direction.
When they reached the rear of the steep earthen mound they threw themselves down behind stone blocks and tall thick trees. Beyond the hillock, the sky blazed now with an astounding swelling concentration of power that appeared as bright as a sunrise. To the west, behind them, the sky hung a deep purple-black that choked the setting sun.
Then the bubble burst. That was the only way Shimmer could interpret what happened. A wave of pressure struck the mound a hammer blow and it juddered. Trees flew backwards from its crest. The wave hit them all like mattocks to the chest and Shimmer grunted, her breath knocked from her.
Dirt, dust and broken branches swept over and past them. Shimmer waved the dust from her, coughing, and searched among the crouched soldiers and Disavowed. She found the girl still with the one-armed woman. From the girl’s shuddering Shimmer could tell she still wept. The woman appeared to be whispering soothingly to her.
After the dust and branches swirled away there came a descending wave of leaves, and intermingled with them fluttered countless flower petals. They rained down over everyone in tears of crimson, purest white and orange and pink. She plucked one from her arm to rub its skin-like smoothness in her fingers.