Authors: Michael A. Stackpole
Pyrust shook his head. “It would take fifteen years at least to raise a new crop of warriors. Twenty would be better.”
“I hope you’re right, but the fact is that we’ve no idea how many troops he’s fielded. His
vhangxi
are animals, but they’ve torn apart troops the equal of any we have in the field. The
kwajiin
are as fierce fighters as I have ever seen.” Soshir glanced at Vroan. “And you’d best not make any comments about my experience. I am
jaecaiserr
, and
kwajiin
swords have cut me more than once.”
Vroan chewed his lower lip and said nothing.
Pyrust traced a finger over the map. “If he did slip troops through the mountains, he could use them to harass our lines. Were I he, I might push a larger force through and go raiding through the western Naleni marches, into Ixun.”
“I don’t disagree, but then we know more of Naleni politics than he is likely to.” Soshir folded his arms. “I would not blame you, Count Vroan, if you returned to Ixun to safeguard your home.”
The slender man’s chin came up. “If Nalenyr falls, Ixun will go with it. The battle will be decided here.”
Soshir shook his head. “You’re still not listening to me. Nelesquin knows how to fight this ground. It may not look it to you, but this is a trap. Withdraw. Strike at his flanks. Raid his supplies. Send troops into Erumvirine.”
Pyrust listened. The urgency in Soshir’s voice underscored the wisdom of his words. They were facing a foe they did not know, who might well have superior troops—thousands of them. To take up a position and adopt a strategy in the face of so many unknowns was foolishness.
“Understand something, Master Soshir. Your assessment of the enemy may be accurate—and I base this on your experience in Erumvirine alone, not your history with Prince Nelesquin. I shall even break one of my reserves down into regiments and send them east and west to find any troops Nelesquin has sent through the mountains. That said, I feel I must make a stand here. You may be correct that Nelesquin knows this site, but we both know there is no better spot between here and Moriande to oppose an army.”
The
xidantzu
nodded reluctantly. “There is no arguing that point.”
“I find myself, therefore, on the horns of a dilemma. If I act on what you have told me and it turns out that you have erred on the side of caution, withdrawal could jeopardize the whole of Nalenyr. While Moriande can doubtless hold out against the army for a while, if we are bottled up there, Nelesquin could pour past, take Helosunde and Deseirion, and then return for Moriande.”
“If he shatters your force here, he’ll do that anyway.”
“Yes, but he will have fewer troops with which to do it.” Pyrust shrugged. “There is another problem, of course.”
“Which is?”
“The Empress Cyrsa has commanded me to stop Nelesquin here.”
Soshir blinked. “Then the Imperial crown on the unit banners was not to annoy Nelesquin? The Empress
has
returned?”
Pyrust nodded solemnly. “She has.”
Soshir looked toward the tent flap. “I saw none of the troops that have been waiting in Ixyll.”
“I don’t know if those troops are myth or not.” The Prince rubbed his half hand over his jaw. “She said nothing about them.”
The
xidantzu
frowned. “I had an apprentice who was traveling through Ixyll to awaken her. Did he succeed?”
Pyrust shook his head. “I do not know. The Empress had long since left her sanctuary. She’s been here for eons, waiting and watching, creating her own intelligence network. You certainly knew of her: the Lady of Jet and Jade.”
Soshir blinked with disbelief. “That cannot be.”
Vroan nodded. “I confirm it. I met her before I left Moriande. She was the Lady of Jet and Jade. My first wife was once a student of hers.”
Soshir rubbed a hand over his forehead. “How could I not have seen it? She was Paryssa.”
Vroan nodded slightly. “You called her Paryssa, after the flower?”
Soshir looked up, his expression open and unguarded. “It was after a scent she favored before she became Empress. When I later met the Lady of Jet and Jade, she burned paryssa incense. I called her that. Part of me may have remembered, but . . . ”
The man’s reaction to the news fascinated Pyrust, primarily because it revealed an unexpected side of him. Virisken Soshir, if camp gossip was to be credited at all, had a soul of iron armored in steel, and the combat skills to keep that armor untouched.
And yet, at the mention of a woman, he has softened abruptly. Is that love?
Pyrust thought fleetingly of his wife, Jasai, seeking a similar reaction. He certainly had felt something for her. Pride. Anticipation for the child she was carrying. He might have even labeled what he felt
love
, but it burned so much more coldly in him than it did in Soshir.
“She’s in Moriande now. She stopped me from killing Cyron.”
“And ordered you down here to destroy her enemy.” Soshir nodded. “Did she . . . ?”
“There doubtless would have been orders for you, had she known you were here.” Pyrust shrugged. “She likely thinks you in Ixyll with your apprentice.”
“Of course. You’re right.” Soshir nodded. “Will you have your dispatch rider convey a message for me?”
Pyrust nodded. “A rider will leave at dawn. A reply could come as early as the next day.”
“Thank you, Highness.”
Pyrust bowed his head. “Of course, your troops are welcome here. I trust they are eager to kill more of the
kwajiin
.”
“As many as we are able, Highness.” Soshir’s eyes tightened. “This is not the place I would choose to die, but for killing, it will suffice.”
Chapter 17
J
orim gave Tsiwen as brave a smile as he could muster. “This will be for the best, sister. Thank you for convincing Grija.”
She gave him a dark-eyed look. “This will get you back to the mortal realm, but it does not settle how you shall deal with your sister. What will you do?”
He began pacing along his balcony, relishing the feel of cool stone. It didn’t matter that it was an illusion. “I do not know. Nirati might be convinced to go willingly into the Underworld to save reality.”
Tsiwen frowned. “That would solve the immediate problem but leave Grija with another. Having a mortal in the Underworld—someone with her physical form intact—is trouble.”
Jorim cocked an eyebrow. “This has happened before?”
“Several times. Human heroes seeking to free a loved one from our brother’s clutches. They generally beat Grija into submission or trick him, and he lets the soul loose.”
Jorim stopped and faced her. “A mortal has beaten Grija?”
“It happened with some frequency until we hid the gates to the Underworld. Our brother accepted dominion over the dead because the dead are not likely to outthink or overpower him.”
“But a mortal?”
The goddess of Wisdom smiled. “Mortal life is a power unto itself. Mortals will often appeal to you or me for divine aid, but you have seen how swiftly time passes down there. By the time I might notice an entreaty, the time to intervene is long past. And yet, somehow, those mortals figure out a solution, or find courage in themselves. They attribute it to us and give us thanks and praise, but we did nothing. If they knew their power, they might mount a campaign to unseat us, just as we threw down our father.”
Jorim rubbed a hand over his jaw. “You suggest that life itself is magic.”
“No suggestion. It is the way of things. The birth of a child is as much creation as making a world. Shaping a bow or mastering a sword cut, all of these things are creations.” Tsiwen’s smile grew. “Every act of creation, no matter how big or small, changes reality. The consequences of a change are all but impossible to calculate, which makes our position a precarious one. Once someone decides the gods do not exist, we may, in fact, cease to exist.”
The dragon god slowly nodded. “Those who create instead of destroy get used to expanding reality. There comes a time when their access to it expands. They gain control over it.”
“True, but too many see themselves as limited. You and your brother may have wondered what it would mean to become a Mystic cartographer, but that was to study a cup of water when you were submerged in an ocean.”
“So developing a skill is a means to an end, not an end in itself?”
“Not if one is capable of pushing beyond.” Tsiwen walked to him and enfolded him in a hug. “Our brother comes to strip you of all I love. I recall only too well the pain of the last time, so I shall not stay.”
Jorim lowered his head and kissed her brow. “Wait for me on the
Stormwolf
. I may need help navigating to Anturasixan.”
“I shall be glad to be of service.” In the blink of an eye she shrank into the form of a bat. She flapped hard and circled him twice before diving from his heavenly palace to the mortal plain below.
Jorim watched her go, only to turn and face Grija. Something looked different about him. He appeared less craven, more bold, but the difference was subtle and made Jorim wary.
“We have agreed, have we not, brother, that I shall remain in my physical body for a normal span of years, then return here?”
The god of Death nodded solemnly. “We have, brother. I will not cheat you of years, even though I know it is your intent to waste them in dalliance with the woman from the east.”
“You almost sound jealous.”
“Of the pleasures of the flesh? Never. Too fleeting.” Grija opened his hands. “Shall we begin?”
“Please.” Jorim let his brother precede him up the broad ivory stairs to a bedchamber. “We have agreed my essence shall remain here until my return?”
“I have already sworn there would be no trickery.”
“I wish I could remember if you made that same oath last time.” Jorim lay down on the bed and shifted until he felt comfortable. He knew he needn’t do that, since his discomfort was also an illusion, but the shifting was something he had done as Jorim. “I am ready.”
“Good.” Grija raised a finger and a long talon grew out of it. Light glinted from the edge. “Death is change. What I shall do is slice away all that is not Jorim Anturasi.”
“I will remember nothing of being a god?”
“You may retain some memories, but they will gradually fade. Once I’ve severed your divine essence, you will be unanchored. That piece of your soul which was shaped during your time in that identity will return to his physical form.”
“
My
physical form, you mean.”
“Meat, skin, and bones, yes, yours.” Grija’s eyes hardened. “Shall we begin?”
Jorim nodded and closed his eyes. He willed himself to melt all the illusions. Gone was his sense of the physical, of heat and cold, of light. These things still existed, but they meant nothing to him. He sank into a dim void, then a rainbow of images danced before his eyes. One was a dragon, another was a Fennych. He saw himself as Jorim, and again as Tetcomchoa and the first Emperor, Taichun. All of the images floated around, connected by ethereal tendrils.
Then a claw swept through, severing his connection to the dragon. Pain such as he had never known ripped through him. Part of him remembered that it was all illusion, but even that knowledge was drifting away. A key piece of his essence grew dim, losing itself in the void.
The talon made another circuit and Jorim screamed. He could feel his throat ripping itself to pieces as Taichun vanished. More pain, molten and surging, pummeled him as Tetcomchoa disappeared. His blood burned like acid. His body shivered.
His mortal form, stiff and cold, was pulling him in.
Grija’s claw raked through his essence again and again. Each tendril parted with the twang of a tendon ripping free. Light exploded before Jorim’s eyes. Panic pounded through him. He’d lost who he was, what he was. He did not know himself anymore.
The part of him that was a god had vanished.
And his body accepted him again. Spasms wracked him and bowed his back. His arms fought. Fabric tore. His arms flailed, his legs kicked, then he landed hard on a solid surface. Sparks exploded before his eyes as his head hit. He struggled to suck in breath and finally succeeded in one grand wheeze.
He rolled onto his side and coughed. He tore at the cloth over his face. It ripped, freeing him. He inhaled again, hot air filling his lungs. He coughed explosively, tasting brimstone. Then he felt the heat of the stone and remembered that his body had been preserved in a barrel of oil. The rags binding him still reeked of it, but of the barrel there was no sign.
A low wail sounded from behind him. “Oh no, what have you done?”
Jorim rolled over and sat up. “Who? Grija?”
The god of Death looked every inch a starved cur. A thick black collar circled his neck, and a pair of black chains ran from it into infinity. The chains weighed him down, keeping his head low.
“What have you done?”
“I’ve done what you helped me do.” Jorim tore away the rags binding his legs. “I’ve returned to my body.”
“No, no, no, say you have not. I told you not to.”
“You did nothing of the sort.” Jorim stood over him and raised a fist. “You agreed to let me return.”
Grija cowered. “That was not
me
. That was Nessagafel in my place.”
“What? How is that possible?”
Grija wailed like an orphaned child.
Jorim almost slapped him. He dropped to a knee and lifted the chains. They didn’t seem heavy at all, but Grija was barely able to move. “You have to tell me what happened.”
“It was all your fault, you and the others.” Grija curled a lip back in a snarl, but it had no power or menace. “You all mocked me. You defied me worst of all. I punished you, but you did not care. The others laughed at me for it. I couldn’t abide that, you know, I couldn’t. No one admired me. No poems praised me. No songs favored me. All I got was fear. You cannot live on fear, Wentoki, you cannot.”
Jorim shook the chains and Grija yelped. “I need to know what you did.”
The god of Death looked through him. “You had all given Nessagafel to me and here he slept. You helped bind him and once he was gone, you chose to follow him, to become mortal, to live as he had lived. The others watched you, watched Men, enjoyed their antics, but could I? No. All I got was the shrieking souls coming here after they died. The dead are not peaceful. I do not visit torments upon them out of need. To torture one, all I need do is catch him in a mirrored sphere so he can watch the failures that shaped his life. Then, eventually, I release them so they live again. If they succeed, they dwell with you in the heavens. If they fail, they are mine again.”