“Oh Tarja, they’re beautiful!” Mandah breathed reverently.
He glanced at her and smiled. She was staring up at the sky as though seeing something from her dreams. He had allowed her to come to greet their new guests because he could think of no way to stop her. And besides, of all the people in the Citadel, Mandah was the least likely to offend the Harshini when they arrived.
Tarja watched the dragons settling on the sandy floor of the amphitheatre, almost as awestruck as Mandah and the Defenders who stood behind him. He hadn’t expected there to be so many of them. Or so many dragons. Garet Warner studied the swarming sky with a frown, then turned to him with a shake of his head.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Tarja,” he murmured.
“My Lord! Sir!”
Tarja turned towards the urgent voice. A cadet was running towards him across the sand. Garet had pulled all the Cadets out of training and was using
them as messengers and for minor administrative tasks to free up as many Defenders as possible. The lad was no more than fourteen and seemed torn between fear and pride that he had been chosen for such an important task as he skidded to a halt in front of the Lord Defender.
“What’s wrong?” Tarja asked.
“It’s the Kariens, sir. Captain Symin sent me to fetch you.”
“What are they up to now?” Garet asked.
“It’s the dragons, sir. Ever since they appeared the Kariens have been going wild. Some of them are even fleeing the field.”
Garet glanced at Tarja in surprise. “Well, that’s an unexpected bonus. I’ll check out what’s happening at the gate. You’d better stay here and keep your new friends under control.”
Garet followed the boy back to the tunnel entrance, as a tall Harshini with dark red hair slid gracefully from the back of the dragon that looked like the one who had accosted Tarja at the vineyard near Testra. He walked forward to greet her, pushing back a momentary wave of apprehension. She looked so much like R’shiel.
“Hello, Tarja.”
“Shananara.”
“Thank you for letting us come home.”
“You may not thank me in a few days. We’re under siege, and you’re not exactly welcome here. This isn’t going to be easy.”
“I know.” She noticed Mandah, who had followed Tarja cautiously, and smiled at the young woman. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Of course. Shananara, this is Mandah Rodak. Mandah, this is Her Highness, Princess Shananara té Ortyn.”
“I’m
Queen
Shananara now, but we can talk about that later. The gods’ blessing on you, Mandah.”
“Your Majesty. Divine One,” she gushed, falling to her knees in the sand. The young pagan woman looked set to faint with happiness.
Shananara smiled indulgently. “Arise, child. We have no time to stand on ceremony.” She looked at Tarja then, and her smile broadened mischievously. “I fear I have an apology to make, my Lord Defender. Childish and petty as it may seem, I’m afraid I could not resist taunting your besiegers. We strafed the fields surrounding the Citadel on our approach. I fear I’ve caused something of a panic among the Kariens.”
Tarja tried without success to hide his amusement. “I’m sure I can find it in myself to forgive you.”
“I thought you might.”
He glanced over her shoulder at the other Harshini, who were climbing down from their dragons and looking about them with expressions ranging from happiness to rapture. There were no children among them, which surprised him a little.
“I’ve made arrangements for you to be accommodated in the dormitories. As we’ve no Sisterhood any longer, there didn’t seem any point keeping the Novices and the Probates.”
“What did you do with them?” Shananara asked with a hint of concern.
He was tempted to tell her he’d murdered them all in their beds, just to see what her reaction would be, but thought better of it. “We sent them home.”
“May we visit the Temple of the Gods?” When Tarja looked at her blankly, she smiled. “I believe you call it your Great Hall.”
“Tomorrow, perhaps, and I’d prefer you did it in small groups. Hundreds of Harshini marching through the streets of the Citadel might cause a riot.”
“We shall be discreet, my Lord.”
“Thank you. Mandah will act as liaison between us. She’s a pagan, and a number of her people are here. I thought you might be more comfortable dealing with them, rather than the Defenders.”
“Your consideration of our feelings is both unexpected and appreciated, Tarja,” she told him with a slight bow. “It seems R’shiel was correct when she said you could be trusted.”
“She’s not with you?”
“She and Brak had something else to take care of, but they should be back by nightfall. Which brings me to a rather delicate matter. I cannot ask the demons to stay melded in dragon form, and you have nowhere to accommodate them in any case. But if I dissolve them, I cannot guarantee their good behaviour.”
Tarja groaned silently. He hadn’t thought about that when he’d told R’shiel the Harshini could return. On the other hand, she had conveniently neglected to mention the demons were a part of the deal.
“Can’t you just…disappear them, or something?”
Shananara laughed. “A demon you can’t see is likely to cause a lot more trouble than one you can keep an eye on, Tarja. I’ll do what I can, but I really should dissolve the melds.”
“Just try to keep them out of trouble.”
“I will. And now, if you would be so kind as to let
us find our accommodation, we’d like to settle in. It has been a long night.”
“Mandah will show you the way.”
Shananara looked at him with a sad little smile. “We know the way, Tarja.”
Tarja refused to acknowledge the unspoken accusation. “These men will escort you.”
“Are we prisoners?”
“They are for your protection, Shananara. I’m not worried about what you’ll do to the citizens of the Citadel; I’m worried about what they’ll do to you.”
“Then once again I thank you for your consideration. Will we meet again later? There are things we need to discuss.”
“Of course.”
Shananara bowed and returned to her people, who had patiently gathered behind her, waiting for their queen to finish her discussion. Mandah followed her, still wearing that same look of awe that she had acquired when the dragons first appeared over the Citadel this morning. Tarja called over the lieutenant in command of the escort, gave him his orders and then headed for the tunnel.
As he entered the cool darkness he felt the ground tremble faintly under his feet. He stopped, curious, waiting for it to happen again, but when no further tremors eventuated, he shrugged and kept on walking, certain that he must have imagined it.
“The Kariens are frantic,” Garet informed him later that day.
“Shananara did more than just fly over them, Garet,” Tarja told him with a grin. “She strafed them.
They must be having quite a crisis of faith at the moment. How many priests do you think they have left out there?”
“Not many. The priests liked their creature comforts. Most of them were billeted in the Citadel.”
“Then they lack spiritual guidance as well as leadership. How many fled?”
“A few thousand at least,” Garet informed him. “Any word from King Jasnoff yet?” Their demands had been sent in a carefully worded message to the Karien king. They’d dispatched a dozen birds carrying the same message, to ensure that at least one got through.
Tarja shook his head. “It’s far too early to expect a response. The birds we sent may not have reached Yarnarrow yet.”
“What about our relief forces?”
“Maybe R’shiel will be able to tell us something when she gets back.”
Garet nodded and took a seat on the other side of the desk. Tarja was too restless to sit. There was too much to be done.
“I’ve had the lads check the stores. We’ve enough here to hold out for years. Mathen was looting the countryside, but he was rather considerately storing it all here in the Citadel. He was expecting to use it for the troops outside.”
“Which means they’ll get hungry soon.”
“That’ll thin their numbers some more. Desertions are always a problem when your army isn’t being fed.”
“Well, between the Harshini scaring the wits out of them and their bellies grumbling, hopefully, by the
time help arrives they’ll be down to a manageable number. Has there been any trouble in the city?”
“No more than usual. Once again, thanks to Squire Mathen, the people are getting quite used to living under martial law. And we reopened the
court’esa
houses, so that’s eased the tension, somewhat.” Garet smiled faintly. “I did it in your name, of course. You’re very popular at the moment.”
“I wonder how long that will last?”
The walls trembled faintly again before Garet could answer. The tremor he had felt in the tunnel under the amphitheatre had not been his imagination. They had been going on all day, growing steadily stronger and more frequent. He frowned and glanced at Garet, who looked just as concerned.
“That’s all we need,” he muttered. “First a siege, then the Harshini, and now a bloody earthquake.”
“It’s not an earthquake, Tarja,” Shananara informed him, stepping into the office as Mandah opened the door for her. “It is the Citadel awakening from his slumber.”
“You talk as if the Citadel is alive.”
“The Citadel may not be ‘alive’, by your definition, Tarja. But it is sentient by ours.”
“This is where I leave,” Garet announced, rising to his feet. “You can sit here and swap pagan fairytales with the Harshini, Tarja. I have better things to do.”
Shananara turned her regal gaze on the commandant. “You are Garet Warner?”
“You’ve heard of me?”
“Brakandaran speaks quite highly of you, sir. For a human.”
“Does he now?”
Tarja recognised the dangerous edge to Garet’s soft-spoken reply and inwardly cringed. This could get very ugly if he didn’t head it off, and quickly.
“Are your people settled in, Your Majesty?”
“Yes, thank you, although we took the liberty of removing the tapestries and other…impediments, that you have used to disguise the Citadel’s origins. I hope you don’t mind. It looks almost like home again, now.”
As far as Tarja was aware, most of the dormitories had been whitewashed to conceal the Harshini frescoes that had once decorated the walls. He sighed; they had been here barely more than a few hours and already they were redecorating.
“You didn’t do any structural damage, I hope?”
“The Citadel is not that easy to harm, my Lord.”
He wasn’t sure what she meant by that and decided he really didn’t want to know. “Garet was just telling me that your rather dramatic entrance this morning has caused quite a stir among the Kariens.”
She shrugged. “We cannot fight with you, my Lord, but we help where we can. Xaphista’s believers either deny our existence or consider us the essence of pure evil. Either way, they do not know how to react when they see us.”
“We deny your existence, too,” Garet pointed out. “Yet our people aren’t panicking.”
“No, Commandant, you have never denied our existence. You tried to eradicate us and thought you had succeeded. There’s a distinct difference.”
Garet glared at her, but made no further comment. The building trembled again, hard enough that Tarja
clutched at the desk for support. Shananara looked around the room thoughtfully for a moment then turned to Tarja.
“I really should do something about that, I suppose.”
“Exactly what did you have in mind?”
“I need to speak to the Citadel. It can feel our presence, but the humans here are disturbing it. Once I’ve reassured it that you mean us no harm, things should settle down.”
Garet muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse.
“How can you speak to…it…him…whatever the hell it is?”
“It will have to be in the Temple of the Gods. The Citadel’s presence is strongest there.”
“I’ll have someone escort you.”
“Founders, Tarja! You don’t seriously think sending this woman down to talk to a building is going to stop an earthquake, do you?”
Shananara turned to Garet with a serene smile. “Perhaps you and the Lord Defender would like to accompany me, Commandant?”
“Why? So we can watch you talking to the walls?”
“No, Commandant,” the Harshini queen replied with solemn dignity. “You should come because you and your people have occupied our home for two hundred years. You have vandalised and defiled it, with no thought to the consequences. It is time you understood what you have done.”
Like R’shiel, Tarja had never been able to refer to the Great Hall as Francil’s Hall without choking on the words. At least now he could change that, if nothing else. The Great Hall would be known as the Great Hall once again, although, as he escorted Shananara up the broad steps with Garet, he wondered how long it would be before the Harshini convinced everyone to refer to it by its original name: the Temple of the Gods. If they were as determined to do that as they were to return the dormitories to their original condition, he figured it would only be a matter of days.
It was almost sunset and the chill of the coming evening was settling rapidly over the Citadel. A score of Defenders stood on guard outside the Hall, causing Tarja to glance questioningly at Garet. He’d ordered no detail to guard the Great Hall, and there was no need he knew of to protect it. Shananara strode on ahead, anxious to do whatever it was she was planning. The ground trembled under their feet.
“Why the guards?” he asked the commandant curiously.
“We’ve confined the priests in there. Couldn’t think of anywhere else to put them.”
Tarja cursed softly and hurried after the Harshini queen. The guards on the doors, seeing the Lord Defender and Commandant Warner were escorting the Harshini, made no effort to prevent her from entering. She disappeared inside before Tarja could stop her.
He pushed open the door to find Shananara frozen in shock. She was as pale as the whitewashed walls and looked as if she had forgotten how to breathe. More Defenders lined the walls, watching the Karien priests warily. The hall itself was littered with bedrolls and the milling priests who had been confined within. They were still dressed in their dull brown cassocks and all but a few had stubbled heads and the beginnings of scraggly beards.
Nobody was foolish enough to give these men a razor.
Robbed of their staffs and their dignity, they were a sorry lot. The priests turned at the sound of the doors opening, showing no interest in the new arrivals, until someone noticed Shananara’s eyes.
And then all hell broke loose.
The priests began shouting hysterically. Some of them rushed towards the Harshini queen while others backed away in fear. The building trembled, as if in outrage. Shananara cried out, but it was a cry of despair, rather than a scream. The Defenders reacted immediately, calling for the guards outside to reinforce their numbers as they drove the priests back. Tarja drew his sword and stepped in between Shananara and the oncoming priests, whose eyes burned with fanatical hatred.
He felt, rather than saw, Garet take a stand beside him, just as ready to carve a few priests up as he was. The priests who had thought to attack the Harshini backed off sullenly, as wary of the dangerous look in Tarja’s eyes as they were of the blades he and Garet wielded.
Once the other Defenders were inside the Hall, the ruckus was put down quickly. The Kariens were no match for the armed Defenders, particularly men who were itching for any excuse to cause them harm. Garet Warner issued his orders with a few hand signals and the priests were herded into a loose circle in the centre of the Hall, surrounded by the Defenders. Tarja studied them warily for a moment then slowly sheathed his blade before turning to face Shananara. She was shaking all over, and although he had no ability to detect it, he had a strong feeling that she was channelling her power. For a moment he was very glad it wasn’t R’shiel standing there. The priests would be splattered all over the walls if it had been Shananara’s half-breed cousin under attack.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I didn’t know they were being held in here. I’ll have them removed at once.”
Shananara shook her head. “No. Leave them. Just keep them out of my way.”
“Are you sure?” He studied her warily. He knew the Harshini were incapable of doing harm, but right at that moment he wasn’t that certain Shananara could be trusted.
The queen nodded then took a deep breath and walked past Tarja towards the centre of the Hall. The Defenders cleared a path for her, pushing the priests back, being none too gentle about it.
Shananara looked about her, ignoring the priests and the Defenders, then she closed her eyes and the Citadel began to tremble in earnest.
Silence descended, fractured only by a whimper that came from one of the priests as the Harshini queen stood in the centre of the Hall, her head thrown back, her eyes closed in concentration. Certain he was imagining it, he thought he saw a faint glimmer of light surrounding her in a soft, white nimbus. Small white flakes began to fall from the whitewashed ceiling.
The Citadel rumbled beneath his feet.
It was only a few at first, and Tarja thought them simply the result of the building’s movement. But soon the flakes of whitewash began to fall faster, until he felt as if he was caught in a snowstorm. A sudden popping made him jump as a plug of plaster burst out of a small alcove in the pillar on his right. It was followed by a dozen or more tiny explosions as the plastered-over niches spat out their fillings, which shattered into powder as they hit the floor.
The Hall shook so hard it rattled his teeth.
The paint on the ceiling was coming away in strips now, and he could just make out the first signs of the paintings underneath. The walls blistered and their whitewash began to fall off, too. He was powdered in flaking whitewash and plaster as he glanced at Garet, who looked as if he’d been dipped in flour. The commandant’s eyes were dark sockets of incomprehensible horror set in a bone-white face. The priests began to wail in terror as the building shuddered so hard that Tarja could barely stand upright.
Shananara did not move.
Then a splintering sound echoed loudly through the hall. Tarja looked in the direction of the sound through the swirling white storm and noticed a large crack had appeared on the wall at the back of the podium. Another crack appeared and then another, sundering the painted symbol of the Sisters of the Blade that decorated the far wall. Shananara had claimed the Citadel was not easily harmed, but she appeared to be bringing the building down on top of them. The wall cracked even further and began to crumble, but amazingly, the half-cupola over the podium held fast.
As the wall tumbled down in a shower of plaster and white dust, taking with it the last vestige of the Sisterhood’s imprint on the place, Tarja saw the reason why. The wall had been nothing more than a false front, concealing the rest of the podium behind it. Red light from the setting sun flooded the circular alcove, turning the falling white dust into glittering motes of fire. The cupola was tiled in an intricate pattern, resting on a curved wall that was painted with a glorious fresco, although from where he was standing, he could not make out the detail.
But it was not the fresco, or the gilded dome that made him stare in wonder. In the centre of the podium was a massive crystal, taller than a man, mounted on a block of polished black marble. He had no idea what it was, or what its purpose might be, but it obviously held pride of place in the Temple of the Gods. He realised then why the wall had been built to hide it. Too massive to move and probably indestructible, there would have been no way to get rid of the Stone when the Sisters of the Blade had tried to remove all vestiges of the Harshini from their new home.
They had done the next best thing and hidden it.
The shuddering slowly trembled to stillness and Tarja looked about him in awe. Shananara had restored the Hall to what it had been during the reign of the Harshini. Although it was almost nightfall, the pillars shone as bright as day. The ceiling had a painting on it that depicted the Primal Gods. Along the gallery was a mural dedicated to even more gods. It looked as if a hundred—maybe a thousand—different craftsmen had added to it over the years. The parts of it he could see were magnificent. There was writing—songs perhaps—covering some of the walls, too. The pillars supporting the gallery now had alcoves set in the side of each one and he wondered for a moment at their purpose.
Then he noticed the priests and forgot all about the Hall.
To a man, they were on their knees. Some were sobbing like broken-hearted children. A few others were tearing at their robes, howling with despair. One man was clawing at his own face until the blood flowed. Then a shattering scream pierced the sudden silence as one of the priests leaped to his feet and ran blindly towards him.
Tarja felt his stomach churn and had to forcibly stop himself from vomiting. Where the priest’s eyes had been was nothing but two bloody sockets. In his hands he held his own eyeballs. The fool had clawed his own eyes out rather than witness the return of the Harshini.
Tarja caught the man and wrestled him to the ground. The man was howling in pain and outrage. Tarja looked up angrily at Shananara, who had finally lowered her head and opened her eyes. If she
was distressed by what the priests were doing to themselves, she gave no indication.
Garet helped Tarja hold the hysterical priest down as Shananara approached. The commandant looked as pale as the powdered paint that coated him.
“Is
this
your idea of doing no harm?” he snarled at the queen.
Shananara looked down at the blind priest for a moment before she answered. “This is Xaphista’s work, not mine, Commandant. To heal him would mean forcing him to break his faith and he holds that more dearly than his eyes. Even if I could restore his sight and remove his pain, he would just claw his eyes out again as soon as your back was turned.”
There was a strange twisted logic in what she said. A Karien priest would rather suffer and die than acknowledge the existence of the Harshini or the God of Healing. Tarja had no doubt that she could heal him—he had seen the Harshini ability. He also had no doubt that she was right when she claimed the man would simply try to harm himself as soon as they let him out of their sight. They were a sick breed, these priests. The sooner R’shiel did something about Xaphista the better.
“Get him to the infirmary,” Tarja ordered, standing back to let two of the guards pick up the struggling, howling priest.
Tarja looked at the other priests, who had been stunned into silence by the courageous action of their brother. They wore the look of men who thought he had done something to be proud of.
How many more of them were contemplating the same thing?
Suffering for Xaphista was more than just a hopeful wish for
these men; it was damned near a job requirement. He had to put a stop to it. Now.
“The next one of you that tries to harm himself,” he announced loudly, “will be delivered to the Harshini for healing. And he’ll stay there until he denounces Xaphista and swears allegiance to the Primal Gods.”
Shananara looked at him in surprise then nodded approvingly as she realised what his threat would mean to these men.
“How long is that going to last?” Garet asked, ineffectively brushing the white dust from his jacket.
“Tarja’s threat is very real to these men, Commandant. They will avoid stubbing a toe rather than risk being touched by one of my people.”
Garet stared at her coldly then looked around the Hall. “Did you make this much mess redecorating the dormitories?”
“Not quite.”
“And what the hell is that thing?” he asked, pointing at the crystal on the podium.
“It is the Seeing Stone.”
Garet stopped trying to clean his jacket and stared at the crystal with a thoughtful expression. “I thought that was in Greenharbour?”
“There is also a Stone in Greenharbour. This one belongs here.”
“What does it do?”
“It channels the power of the gods, among other things.”
Garet absorbed that piece of information silently and then looked at the priests. “I suppose we’d better get them out of here. I’ll move them to the Lesser Hall.” He looked at Shananara and added frigidly,
“Unless of course, you’re planning to do this to every building you walk into, Your Majesty?”
“I will not disturb your prisoners again, Commandant,” she assured him.
Garet obviously doubted her word, but didn’t voice his scepticism. He looked at Tarja and shook his head. “Look at this place, Tarja. They haven’t been here a day yet.”
“I’ll get everything sorted out,” Tarja promised, not at all certain he believed his own words.
“Well, you can start by making the Harshini clean up this mess. After all, she caused it.” With a pointed and very unfriendly glare in Shananara’s direction, Garet Warner moved off to organise moving the Karien priests from the Great Hall.
“I’m sorry, Tarja,” Shananara said as soon as Garet was out of earshot. “I thought only to help by calming the Citadel.”
The Harshini could not lie, so legend claimed, but he wondered if she was bending the truth a little. She must have known what making the priests witness her power would do to them. Or perhaps she really didn’t understand. If she couldn’t contemplate the thought of violence, how could she imagine a man willing to put his own eyes out?
“The damage is done now. At least the tremors have stopped.”
“That’s because the Citadel is awake.”
“Is that going to cause problems?”
She smiled suddenly. “Come and see.”
Grabbing his hand she pulled him towards the doors. He noticed that the bronze sheathing had peeled away and they were now carved with
unbelievably intricate knot-work designs that chased themselves across the doors in a complex pattern.
They stepped out of the Hall into a street that was crammed with people. The sun had set, but it was as bright as day. The walls of the Citadel had brightened and dimmed with metronomic precision for two centuries, but now, when they should have faded to darkness, they were burning with vibrant light. Every building he could see was ablaze, banishing the night.
“Founders!” he murmured in awe.
His sentiments were reflected in every face he saw. Although crowded, the street below the Great Hall was strangely silent as the people tried to make sense of what they were witnessing.
Then he heard the noise, like a distant wail of despair, coming from the distance, from the other side of the walls.
The Kariens.