Authors: Michael A. Stackpole
The ground opened beneath him.
Ciras rode a dirt-and-grass avalanche into a breached tunnel. Four yards down, the mount found its feet. It kicked at dirt-covered men. In response to Ciras’ commands, it started scrambling back to the surface. Ciras clung to it, but a flying stone struck him full in the chest. It glanced off his breastplate with enough force to somersault him backward, casting him again into the darkness.
He landed on one knee, somehow retaining the
vanyesh
blade. He rose and placed his back against a tunnel wall. Surprise pulsed through him, chased by fear. Many men emerged from both sides of the darkened tunnel. They all brandished swords, their lethal silhouettes intent on his death.
Ciras invoked
jaedun
. What he saw and heard took on secondary importance. He concentrated on what he
felt
. He parried. His blade came around and up, then thrust through a throat. He pulled back, and slashed left. The
vanyesh
blade clanged off a battle mask, then chopped down. Blood splashed black and hot. Shift left, parry with a hip and twist, letting another thrust pass wide of his ribs. Slash up through an armpit. A limb drops, a scream echoes.
The battle shifted. Close quarters had favored his foes initially. Quickly, however, fear constricted the battlefield, dictating their movements. Their desire to elude death just made them easier to kill.
One man lunged from the darkness. Ciras sensed him only as a point of fury in that sea of fear. Ciras parried the thrust, then riposted. His blade arced up and around, slashing at the man’s head.
His opponent ducked, whipped his other hand around. His blade’s wooden scabbard cracked against Ciras’ knee.
Pain exploded and the swordsman danced back, eluding another slash. Ciras gingerly planted his right foot. More pain, but his knee held. Then something grabbed his ankle. A dying man, blind and desperate, curled himself around Ciras’ leg.
I am rooted in place like an oak!
A vision flashed before his eyes. His feet extended roots into the earth. His limbs stiffened like branches. His skin became bark.
Then came the killing stroke. It passed beneath Ciras’ left elbow, aimed at his waist. Sliding below the breastplate, the blade sliced cleanly through armor lacings and his robe.
It will open me cleanly. My guts will pour out in one steaming mass
.
He prepared himself for the sting, for the gush and flow, but it never happened.
The cut
splintered
flesh and caught firmly in the wood beneath.
Ciras’ blade fell, driven by the weight of an oaken limb. It drove the man to his knees, crushing his shoulder. He looked up, disbelief in his eyes. Ciras hit him again, scattering his brains, then slashed down and rid himself of the man hugging his leg.
Three thumps heralded the arrival of
gyanrigot
reinforcements. One killing machine began working its way south, while the other two charged into the tunnel’s north end. Men screamed, and the machines clanked. Both sets of sounds grew distant quickly.
Alone save for the dead, Ciras probed the wound at his left hip. His glove came away darkly stained, but he smelled no blood.
And those pale flecks . . . they
are
splinters
. Oak
splinters
.
He wiped the glove against his thigh, then scrambled out of the tunnel. His mount awaited him, standing stock-still behind the breastwork of the
xonarch
’s body. Ciras pulled himself into the saddle and guided the mount around the hole.
He hadn’t been underground for that long, but already the invaders were in full retreat. The ram burned fifty yards shy of the gate, and one of the towers had fallen over—also the victim of a collapsed tunnel. The other tower still stood tall, abandoned on the road.
The Voraxani had regrouped and were heading back. Vlay Laedhze hailed him heartily. The man’s right arm hung limp, transfixed by a pair of arrows. Most of the Voraxani had made it back, with a few worse for the fight, but most just spattered with the blood of others.
Once through the sally port and safe again, Ciras studied his stained glove.
What happened?
He understood the magic of the sword, he could invoke it as needed but this was something else, something strange.
He did not like it.
If magic can make me invulnerable, how then am I different from war machines that cannot be destroyed?
Chapter 33
K
eles practically lived on
tzaden
-flower tea. His hands had recovered significantly, and he practiced each day at drawing maps. His lines became strong, even bold. While nothing he drew created a physical change in the world, the clarity of his charts heartened Moriande’s defenders. Word had gone out that Prince Cyron was using Anturasi maps.
Keles spent much of his time in Qiro’s observatory atop Anturasikun. To the south, beyond the battlefield, lay the hills where Nelesquin’s troops waited. Those hills had not actually been quite so close—at least he did not remember their being so close—but their location matched the available charts.
Remembering how Qiro’s perception of a map might have transformed it, Keles had sketched out a new map that pushed the hills back to where he remembered them. He made a show of taking as many measurements as he could—scaling the map precisely—then had his cousins copy the map again and again. He wanted them to believe it was accurate, too.
But in drawing the hills, Keles had met resistance. His hand didn’t want to move forward. Something inside him screamed that what he was doing was wrong. The voice sounded like Qiro, which steeled his resolve to continue.
It also left him uneasy.
His grandfather was out there. He sensed Qiro strongly, but Keles could not connect with him. Something else was blocking him. Keles felt another presence—someone who was bending Qiro’s will to his own. If Nelesquin could do that, it would be impossible for Moriande to stand against him.
More disturbing was the void behind the hills. His sense of it had grown since the battle. Keles tried to push his sense into it, but did not get far. A staggering array of images assaulted him, but he could make little sense of any of them.
Keles spent the vast majority of his time in the tower. His uncle, Ulan, and his cousins accepted his commands without question. Qiro had so cowed them that they were unable to function without forceful leadership.
Yet as much as he found them cloying and annoying in equal measures, he preferred his kin to the people of Moriande. The stories of what he had done had spread like wildfire. Some people took hope from the tales, but most were simply terrified. They said he was
vanyesh
and would betray them. The wilder tales suggested that he and Kaerinus were actually the same person. After all, their names began with the same initial and no one had ever seen them both at once. Kaerinus had vanished at the same time Keles had. Some wags went so far as to suggest that the creation of “Keles Anturasi” had been a plot by the princes to allow Kaerinus his freedom, and that Nirati Anturasi had been slain because she knew the truth.
He could have dealt with the speculation easily, except people’s behavior revealed their true nature. Drinking
tzaden
-flower tea became wildly popular—though crediting it with Princess Jasai’s recovery helped immensely. People did wear circles on their clothing and a dead zone formed around Anturasikun, but at its edges little shrines blossomed. Elsewhere they venerated Prince Cyron, but near Anturasikun they offered bribes so Keles would leave them alone.
Had he the luxury of time, he might have hated the foolishness. In fact, as he walked in his grandfather’s footsteps, he understood his grandfather’s contempt for people. From the chamber below, he could study the whole world. For most of the people on the streets, however, Moriande’s north half was exotic territory. Helosunde was a fabled and distant land. Keles, Jorim, and Qiro before them, had traveled further and seen more than hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens. Anturasi knowledge of the world allowed Nalenyr to prosper and brought fantastic trade goods to Moriande.
And, in return for all this, they were feared.
And my grandfather was trapped in this tower. He resented those who
had
freedom and did not exercise it, while those who deserved freedom were trapped
.
Keles leaned on the railing, alone save for a family of bats roosting beneath the roof’s eaves. “We are alike, aren’t we? You are wise, yet often feared for your appearance. Tales abound about you and the evil you can do but I bet all you want to do is fly freely, eat bugs, and enjoy your life.”
The bats, perhaps confirming his assessment of their wisdom, continued to ignore him.
Keles laughed and wandered around to the south again. Bodies littered the battlefield, though burial-detail teams from Moriande tossed them into collapsed tunnels and buried them. Other bodies were tossed onto pyres made from the siege towers. The dead
xonarchii
had decayed overnight. Their ivory skeletons swam in a sea of black putrescence, frustrating the efforts of an intrepid crew trying to drag bones clear.
The cartographer smiled. They were out there at the behest of Prince Cyron. The Prince would want the bones to study. Jorim had brought Cyron countless animals—mostly alive, but some preserved carcasses, too. Cyron’s intellectual curiosity had driven Naleni exploration and prosperity—both of which the invasion had ended.
I wonder what happened to Jorim and the
Stormwolf? Keles had tried to connect with his brother, but their link had become more ephemeral. He was certain Jorim was still alive, but his location and condition were uncertain. As it was, given the sense of distance, Keles assumed his brother was on the other side of the world. He hoped, for Jorim’s sake, he would never return.
A small bell rang, summoning him back to the workshop. Keles descended and emerged from the Master Cartographer’s sanctuary. Ulan, seeming smaller and more frail than Keles remembered, smiled timidly.
“Nephew, there is a man to see you. Ciras Dejote awaits you in the audience chamber.”
Keles frowned. “Qiro might have received people there, but Ciras is my friend. Send someone to bring him to the room at the ramp’s base.”
Ulan’s eyes widened. “You’ll not bring him up here, will you?”
“Be calm, uncle. I shall not violate the Prince’s rules.”
“Yes, nephew, of course.” Ulan started down the ramp. “I shall fetch your guest myself.”
“Thank you.”
Ulan paused as if Keles had spoken in Viruka or Soth, then nodded and scurried off.
Keles looked around and smiled. A few of his cousins looked up. The youngest ones even smiled back. The others, trained by Qiro, distrusted the smiles and returned to work nervously. They measured more carefully and took a bit more time with their drafting. Had he not been Qiro’s grandson, he would have been doing the same, so Keles spared his cousins any disdain or pity.
But the next generation will not be afraid
.
Keles slowly descended the ramp. Qiro had not been allowed to walk down the ramp and pass through the golden gate. He had remained a prisoner within his own tower for fear that what he knew would be shared outside Nalenyr. Keles had not been placed under any similar prohibition, but outsiders were still not allowed into the workshop. Though he would have welcomed Ciras and thought the man would have enjoyed a visit, rules were rules.
He stopped halfway down, then returned. “Dricol, fetch me our most recent map of Tirat, please.”
The dark-haired boy brought one quickly. He presented it to Keles with a flourish. “I drew it myself. Would you like it sealed and with a ribbon?”
“This will do nicely for now, but I do wish to have another drawn up. Add color and pinpoint the location of the Dejote family land.”
“Yes, Keles.”
Something clicked in the back of Keles’ mind. He raised his voice. “I have a project to be undertaken immediately.”
He waited for his cousins to set their brushes down. “I wish to have copies of all of our charts made to the size of nine by eighteen. They will be bound into a folio, so leave room for the binding. I wish a two-inch margin all the way around and in that margin you are to draw the flora and fauna or landmarks found there. Include family crests and any other details you can think of. You will consult with
bhotcai
and other experts. You will make certain the images are perfect. I want color everywhere, lots of it. Start with Moriande, then Helosunde, Deseirion, and the islands. Do the Five Princes after that. Finish with Erumvirine.”
They nodded in understanding.
“Two more things. You will work in teams, a minimum of two per team. Make a record of anything too difficult to finish. You will know what I mean. You may leave those areas of maps blank, but you will bring them to my attention immediately.”
They agreed silently, then set about to work.
Keles took the map and wound his way down the ramp. He passed through the golden gate, and nodded to his uncle, who locked the gate behind him.
Old habits die hard
.
Ciras waited over by one of the tall windows. Sunlight illuminated a serious expression.
“So thoughtful.”
Ciras blinked, then bowed. “I beg your pardon.”
“No need. I’ve been lost in thought before, too.” Keles presented him the map. “It’s of Tirat, obviously. I’m having a better one prepared for you.”
“You are most kind.” Ciras studied it briefly and smiled. “Beautiful.”
“I shall let my cousin know.” Keles joined him at the window. “It’s good to see you, and a surprise. A welcome one, in fact. I had heard you were wounded in last night’s action.”
“This is why I came.” Ciras slowly rolled the map into a cylinder. “I had a most disturbing experience, and I would ask you about it. I don’t know if you can help me.”
Keles nodded. “I will do what I can.”
“While fighting last night, I invoked
jaedun
. A dying man grabbed my leg and I thought, to my horror, that I was rooted like an oak. Before I could do anything, another man tried to cut me in half.”