"High Nine. Rulers of Hidden Kingdom, secret society trying to take over world. Has members everywhere. Fadema of Argon. Lord Chin of Shinsan. Others of equal power in Mercenaries Guild, in Itaskia, everywhere. Same have no mercy upon such as self." He spoke as a man who had firsthand knowledge.
Fear caressed her. "What do they want you to do?"
He clammed up. He wouldn't say another word no matter what she tried. Her fear grew by the minute. "Defy them," she insisted. "You know they won't go through with their part. Will they? Kidnappers never do."
She might not have existed for all he reacted. His mind was made up. He was betting the long odds, hoping to save their son. She loved him for that.
On that ground alone she allowed him to talk her into staying behind at Maisak. She shut down her fears, tuned out her conscience, and prayed the deed wouldn't be something so heinous the shame would dog them the rest of their days. She sat in the cell-like room the garrison commander had allowed her, numbly awaiting news.
A soldier came one afternoon. A sergeant. He closed and locked the door and went away. Now the room was a genuine cell. He did not tell her why. She knew nothing for days. No one would speak to her. The men who brought food and removed the honeybuckets looked at her in a way that terrified her. As if they were building her a custom-designed gibbet.
Then Varthlokkur came. His face was long and tired. He released her under Royal parole, and when they were out of the fortress, on the road down to Vorgreberg, he told her.
Mocker had tried to murder Bragi. Had tried and failed. He had died in the attempt.
Her world, briefly reborn, had come to an end.
5 Years 1014-1016 afe
The Gathering Storm
ETHRIAN SLEPT AND DREAMED. He visited the greatness that had been Nawami before the split with Nahaman. It had been a large and industrious empire, quite unlike any of his own time.
Into his dreams crept whispering voices, arguing.
"It's not worth the risk, Great One."
"He has to be polarized. He has to finish what he started."
"But the Power we'd use... We have so little. If we fail... "
"If we fail, we're lost. And if we don't try, nothing changes. We're as good as lost."
The stone beast and woman in white? Ethrian wondered. Had to be. But how was he tapping their exchange?
He slept, and yet had a feeling of wakefulness, of being outside himself. He could float and gaze down on the curled form of Ethrian, lying there between the stone beast's paws. He could be amazed. That boy had changed. He had grown.
So had the pool. It was bigger, deeper, murkier, and muddier. A few droopy reeds now grew along one side. A frog peeped out from among them. Insects swarmed. A family of dull-colored mudhens patrolled the pond's surface. Swallows had daubed a few mud nests into cracks in one of the stone beast's forelegs. There was a twig nest in the scraggly old acacia that had been there when Ethrian had arrived.
A turtle dragged itself from the pond and paused to take the sun.
"We're growing. He's opened the door... "
"It's a crack too narrow to slide a razor through. All this time. What's been gained? A bigger pond? Ten thousand years of this won't restore Nawami. The door has to open all the way. We need a flood of power. Take him there, Sahmanan. Show him."
"The investment is too big. It would leave us blind. We couldn't see to K'Mar Khevi-tan."
"I know the risks. Nevertheless, you go. The Word has been spoken."
"As you speak, so must it be, Great One." There was more. Ethrian lost the thread. His new awareness slid down a wormhole into yesteryear, into a time when the stone beast was a thing freshly hewn from the heart of a mountain. Artisans clambered over it, polishing away the last marks of hammer and chisel. The thing loomed over the landscape like some timeless guardian, yet at that moment it was just shaped stone.
Nahaman and Sahmanan conducted fell rites between the monster's forelegs. They and a thousand lesser priestesses dragged sacrifices to their altar, tore out hearts, and filled buckets with blood and the air with a stench of burning corpses. They bathed the stone with the blood. Their summons went out.
It was heard, and to them came a hatchling god, a bundle of dark energy so small the women gathered it into a basket. They hauled it up the stone beast's back, and down a stairwell which plunged to the monster's heart. There, with further ceremony, they bound their new national godling, and constrained him to their service.
The god in the stone beast grew. His power waxed. His cunning sharpened. He was subtle. Not till too late did the sisters realize there had been a reversal of the roles of servitor and served.
Sahmanan surrendered to her Great One. Nahaman rebelled and fled. She made herself mistress of another land. She returned with her fleets and dragons and dark dragon riders.
The wars were bitter and pointless. That which had been lost was gone forever. The stone beast was master now. He would not yield.
Who can slay a god?
"Deliverer. Arise."
Groggily, Ethrian abandoned his slumber. Night masked the deserts of Nawami. Tenuous, the woman in white stood over him. Straining, he rose.
Something was wrong. The ground seemed too far away... He had grown. He had to be years older... How could that be? He glanced around. The pool was exactly as he had seen it in his dream.
"Yes. There have been changes. You opened the door a crack before you fled into sleep. You have to open it all the way."
Ethrian did not reply. He reviewed the arguments he had thought out before. He added what he had learned by eavesdropping. And still he could not bring himself to decide. Something down deep told him this was not the time.
"You haven't shown me what to do." How long would they endure his temporizing?
"You know, Deliverer. The Power is in you. Give us Nawami. We'll reward you with your enemies."
My enemies are greater than you know, Ethrian thought. They could not imagine the might of Shinsan. He could not himself, and he had seen it. They believed their Nawami the epitome of imperial achievement.
He suspected the lords of the Dread Empire themselves could not encompass the size and strength of what they had wrought.
"Deliverer!"
He gave her his attention. She was exasperated with him. "Will you liberate us?"
He shrugged.
Angry, the woman faced the darkness between the stone beast's legs. Her stance shrieked I told you so!
"Show him, Sahmanan."
"Show me what?"
"Yesterday. A yesterday dear to you," the woman replied. She cast a tremulous glance at the stone beast. "The day your father died."
"Time it well, Sahmanan. Err, and you face my wrath. And my wrath can be eternal."
She told Ethrian, "The Great One wants me to take you back to your father's death, that you might know the revenges at your command."
"Close your eyes. Concentrate on staying beside me."
"I'd rather see my mother. Is she alive?"
The woman started singing. Something tugged at the folded-in corners of Ethrian's soul, tenderly pulling him free. He was returning to his out-of-body state. He settled onto his pallet and let go.
But he made Sahmanan work. He had made one decision. No matter what they got, they would work for it. He would hold back. He would make them underestimate him.
He was free. Sahmanan took his hand. They drifted up into an afternoon sky, above the terrible desert. The will and power of the stone beast carried them, higher and higher, farther and farther from the lonely mountain.
A barren Cordillera passed below. The range was but the parched bones of what had been. Not a lichen discolored its shades of grey.
Beyond, fifty, a hundred miles, they reached land where life still flourished. It seemed to leap up and tickle Ethrian's soul with joyful chlorophyl fingers. A surge of happiness swept through him. The desert was not all the world.