"Tell me what happened, Esta," Jaith commanded, walking forward and, after a slight hesitation, taking the woman’s hand.
The woman wrapped her arms around Jaith’s waist, holding on to him like an anchor in a storm, not seeing the discomfort on his face.
"Mother’s different, Jaith. I don’t understand. I’m just back from Callamere – delivering the kabli-man’s order, you know. There are all these people roaming about outside the city walls, looking as stunned as pole-axed cows. I avoided them, as best I could. And something has killed all the grass around the walls – at least a hundred feet out. Inside the walls, it was just the same – people roaming about aimlessly and talking all the while about something called the Conflagration and fires and who knows what? I thought Mother would explain, but she… she…"
"Is part Farak-lar," Jaith finished. He stared deep into the woman’s eyes. "You were outside the walls," he said.
"Well, I could hardly travel to Callamere inside the walls, Jaith!" Esta snapped. "What does that matter? What’s happened here?!"
"You – Esta, you are Farak-lar," Jaith told her, sounding miserable.
The woman frowned, looking faintly hurt. "My mother has some hot blood, it’s true. You’ve always told me that it didn’t matter, Jaith."
"It doesn’t! Esta, Esta. Ah, AlKier, I don’t understand this. Esta, you are not…as you were."
There was a stricken little silence.
"It’s not me who has changed," she said, eventually, voice small. "Mother is different, and Tehan. And…" She trailed off, gazing at his face. "I’m not Farak-lar. Mother is not Farak-lar. We have that blood, yes, but so does half Athere. The cold blood is dominant, Jaith. You know that!"
Seeing only incomprehension in his face, the woman’s self-control broke and she tore herself from his arms.
"It’s you who have changed!" she cried, stumbling backwards. "You!"
Then she was gone, the bartender running after her. Medair left amidst a buzz of horrified speculation.
The cold blood was dominant. The girl had only been quarter or half Ibisian, but there had been no sign of Farakkian blood. She obviously remembered the bartender and her family and everyone within the walls, but all as slightly different people. What would Athere be like if the flames of the Conflagration had been allowed to sweep over it? Who would Medair be now?
Lassitude had claimed her by the time she found an inn with a spare room, the same deadly apathy which had followed her visit to Athere the previous year. She went to bed, and lay thinking of the Conflagration and black denans and the threat of war. And a soft, eternally courteous voice.
Chapter Seventeen
Another pale and beautiful dawn. The dew-studded hills were stained with jewels of colour beneath a sky of streaked pastel. It slowly brightened to reveal what had been moving in the shadows for a full-measure or more. Black specks, like a flock of crows which had settled on a meadow. But no flock of birds was so orderly, or endlessly numerous. Or so formidably armed. The hills south of Athere were blanketed with an enemy army, come to lay siege in the night. Their black and white pennants fluttered in the wind.
Magic had again woken Medair and she had travelled back to the watchtower, joining the same kaschen and Das-kend in a silent vigil in the pre-dawn dark. They could all sense the distant throb of power, and could only wait to see what daylight would bring them.
"It isn’t possible," the kaschen suddenly said, speaking for the first time since Medair had entered the watchtower.
"Of course it is possible, Mira. We have done it ourselves, in a time of great need."
"Not without aid. Not to make war."
Yes, to make war, Medair thought, viciously. But no, the Ibis-lar had fled to Farakkan. It was only once there that Ieskar had decided to make the land his own.
"We would do it in war if it did not mean exhausting our adepts buildings gates." The Das-kend turned a brass-bound spyglass over and over in her hands. "To take the enemy unprepared, that is a great advantage. To overextend yourself in doing so, that is a great foolishness. Estarion – the Estarion we knew – could not build such gates. He had adepts, true, and could gate a sizeable force, just as we can. But we could not do this. At the fall of Sar-Ibis, we drew on the very magic which was destroying the island, but the Conflagration is already fading. He should not have the strength to gate an entire army. We certainly do not."
"Then how?"
"The Herald spoke of a weapon. It may be what builds them the gates, or it may be that he has adepts which now surpass us. What can one say to this new world? Decia was by no means ready to make such a move, before the events of yestermorn. What I see here…" The Das-kend shook her head. "We may be outmatched."
"Almost I wish the Conflagration had left the world a charred ruin, rather than this."
The Das-kend looked at her daughter. "Do you really?"
"No. I wish it wasn’t happening, though. We don’t even know our home territory. Probably those who come against us have a better idea of these hills and that forest."
"Possibly. They at least know enough not to make their gates within reach of our adepts. Even if we had anticipated this move, used the warning brought to us, we could not have hoped to disrupt all of them. Not without covering the land with patrols able to bring down a gate as it formed. And they have protected themselves immediately against attacks from a distance. With what, I cannot say precisely, but likely the winds and mirrors, unless they have things we do not even know of. We will not be throwing sleep at them."
"The Cloaked South." The kaschen made an angry, exasperated noise. "It’s as if all the rules have changed! What are we to do against so many, when we’ve lost the advantage of our blood? When they have equal power?"
"If not more." The Das-kend stroked her daughter’s arm lightly. "We will fight. Have faith in our Kier, and those who serve her. The Ibis-lar have triumphed in the face of great odds before this."
The kaschen did not reply, but her look of doubt was answer enough. Medair, standing as far from the magic-sensitive pair as possible, felt sympathy stir through the lethargy which gripped her. This was the same as Mishannon. She had stood on Mishannon’s walls and stared out at an Ibisian army. It was the first battle of the war and their tactics and their strength had been unknown. Mishannon’s defenders had done what they could to prepare. They’d tried to guess how the Ibisians would do battle and had been wholly unprepared for what came next. A massed spell, cast by dozens of adepts. It had rolled over Mishannon as inexorably as the Conflagration. And that had been it. Battle over. Only a handful of Palladian defenders had been able to resist the sleep spell and they’d been immediately overwhelmed.
Now, the southern army was moving slowly forward. Towering over the leather-clad soldiers were what could only be giants, though giants had been gone from the world longer than dragons, were as much legends as…as Kersym Bleak and the Horn of Farak.
These figures wore armour of silver, with wicked horns projecting from glittering helms. They carried swords longer than Medair was tall. She could see no more detail from such a distance, and wondered what faces might hide beneath those helms. Would someone within the walls recognise a friend or relative, lost to the change?
The silver armour reflected incongruously roseate hues as they advanced beneath the strawberry dawn. She had counted no more than a hundred bright warriors scattered randomly among the thousands which marched towards the city, but a hundred of such proportions would count for a battalion of ordinary warriors.