“A shortcut?” Iome wondered. Her heart pounded. With all of his endowments of metabolism, Gaborn was certainly far ahead of her. At her current pace, Iome would never reach him in time to be of help. But if she had indeed found a shortcut...
At the top of the shortcut was an icon, like the head of a crevasse crawler.
It’s an old crevasse crawler tube, she realized excitedly. It could save me...a hundred miles, maybe two hundred. That is, if Gaborn keeps following the main tunnel.
I couldn’t be so lucky, Iome thought. Even if there had been a shortcut once, what was the chance that it still existed? With all of the pocket crabs around, the walls of the tube would be pitted and scarred at least, and might even have caved in.
Iome studied the drawing. Dare I take the risk? she wondered.
She took her newfound weapon and raced down the tunnel, where she soon found a wall brimming with burrows dug by a large crevasse crawler. Each passageway was three or four feet in diameter. An Inkarran icon had been chiseled above the entrance to one burrow. Iome peered in, the light from her opal crown dancing off the pale stone.
The crawlway wormed this way and that, as if dug by a madman. As Iome had guessed, the walls were pitted with burrows from pocket crabs, but the tunnel seemed passable. Dark lichenous plants felt almost rubbery beneath her palm, and dozens of mushworms—green sluglike creatures that squished into a syrup under the slightest pressure—fed upon the plants. Iome wriggled in, clutching her reaver dart. Only a hundred yards in, the tunnel shot down nearly straight, just as the map had shown.
Iome’s heart pounded. The only way to go forward was to let herself drop and hope that the slope at the bottom would be gentle.
But she imagined what might be down there—a cave-in that choked the passage with rock so that when she hit, the impact would shatter every bone in her body—or a chasm carved by water that would send her falling into some void.
Iome turned around, so that she could go feet-first. She hesitated, suspecting that once she dropped blindly down the tunnel, her life would come to a swift end.
She pushed herself over the edge.
Deep shadows peeled away with each foot that she dropped. She slid over mushworms that formed a thin oil, slicking the way. Now and then, some blind-crab would be clinging to a wall, and these she kicked free, so that they tumbled all around her.
The tube plummeted down and down, but she took no serious harm. Suddenly it veered right, then left, then right again, and Iome found herself spinning, thrown down face-first as she slid ever onward.
Darkness flowed in behind her to reclaim its territory.
28
The Light of Heaven
Alliances should be like flowers in the desert: quick to blossom, quick to fade.
In the hills twelve miles west of Carris, Raj Ahten’s army gathered before dawn, a hundred thousand strong. His flameweavers raised a cloud of oily smoke that clung to the ground like a morning mist, hiding them from view, and the morning sun was so obscure, that it looked like a blood red pearl hanging in the air above.
His troops cut trees for scaling ladders, sharpened their weapons, ranged their catapults, and otherwise prepared for war. Raj Ahten spent most of the early hours listening to reports from scouts and far-seers he had sent abroad during the night.
The news disturbed him. To the south the reavers marched in a horde that blackened the lands, heading toward Carris as a host of Knights Equitable vainly fought to forestall their attack.
To the east, the far-seers spotted only ragged bands of women and children, fleeing the coming battle along the highways, or floating in boats and makeshift rafts down the River Donnestgree.
But to the north, his spies found things to be a bit more interesting. Lowicker’s daughter, Queen Rialla of Beldinook, had marshaled a powerful army, some 180,000 strong. Most of these were archers, armed with the yew tallbows common in Beldinook. They rode in war carts drawn by heavy force horses, and thus could be conveyed quickly to the battlefront. The army also boasted many powerful Runelords, cavalrymen mounted on heavily armored chargers that were both swift and powerful.
But Lowicker’s daughter, it seemed, was unsure what to do. The scout said, “We saw her march some troops within a stone’s throw of the gates of Carris last night. Then she retreated twenty miles back north, to a place where the reavers’ curses have not blasted the grass. There she has set camp on the road, where there is plenty of forage for the beasts. Even now her troops squat, holding the road against any allies that might seek to lend aid to Carris.”
“Is there help from the north?” Raj Ahten asked another pair of scouts that had ranged farther afield.
“Indeed there is, O Light of Heaven,” his spies answered. “Several thousand lords have ridden from Orwynne, along with warriors of Fleeds and Heredon.”
“What of Crowthen?” Raj Ahten asked.
“We could see no troops from Crowthen,” the spies said.
Raj Ahten smiled. He could see Rialla’s plan. She had ridden south to lay siege to Carris, only to discover the reavers coming. So she had ridden back north, to get out of their way. She would let the reavers do her dirty work.
Carris didn’t stand a chance. Raj Ahten had already gutted Mystarria, throwing down the northern fortresses, killing the Dedicates at the Blue Tower. The warriors that held the city were weak, lacking endowments.
And once Carris fell, nothing could stop Lowicker’s daughter from overrunning Mystarria—except Raj Ahten.
Her army worried him, though. Her archers and heavy cavalry could easily defeat his common troops, though with his wizards and Runelords he could probably even the score. But if the two giants wasted their strength fighting each other, who then would win Mystarria?
A plan began to form in Raj Ahten’s mind.
“Gather together a thousand lords to act as an honor guard,” Raj Ahten said. “I think I shall pay Lowicker’s daughter a visit.”
As Raj Ahten’s most powerful lords and wizards prepared to ride, he sat in his crimson tent. He could feel himself growing from moment to moment as his facilitators in Deyazz vectored endowments of stamina to him.
He had never felt so hale, so robust. He sweated profusely, though he had done no labor to warrant it. It was as if his body recognized that the time had come to cleanse away all impurities, make him something more than human.
He felt as if life and virility were combining in him so powerfully that it bled from every pore.
This is it, he told himself. This is the moment I have been waiting for. I shall be the Sum of All Men.
“Food for the poor!” a small girl called in the markets of Ghusa in Deyazz. “Food for the poor!” The market streets were still gloomy as the morning sun rose like a ruddy coal beyond the sand hills.
Turaush Kasill, a large man grown fat from years of convenience, rounded a stall stacked with tall clay urns to discover the source of the call.
He overshadowed the waif that he found. She was small, no more than eight or nine, with huge eyes like almonds. Her brown skin was paler than the black hue of the folk of Deyazz. She gripped the hand of a small boy, perhaps five years of age.
“Please,” the girl said holding out an empty wicker basket. “We need food.”
Turaush smiled pleasantly. “I could give you food. How much do you want? A basketful? I could give you that.” The girl’s eyes went wide, and her lips parted hungrily. “What would you like to eat? Peaches? Melons? Rice? Duck? Sesame cakes with honey drizzled over them? If you could have anything to eat, what would you like?”