The Rose of the World (80 page)

The shadow of a slighter figure appeared behind that of the stout Istrian general. A tall, wiry man, his long black hair whipping in the wind, his fiercely handsome face as chiselled as a wood-carving, a dagger gripped between his teeth.

Manso Aglio watched the Rosa Eldi’s gaze slide past his master and her eyes widen. When he turned, it was to see a bearded man, stealthy as a cat, climbing up onto the Rock. Behind him came a clutch of northern warriors, their eyes alight with battlelust.

At this juncture, several things happened at once.

Behind Mam, there was a bubbling cough, followed by a low cry of despair. Then Saro Vingo came running towards the Goddess, his fingers scrabbling at the ties on his tunic. Light shone out of his hands, silver-gold, the coldest light in the world.

‘You must help Katla!’ he cried, dragging the moodstone clear so that she could see the thing she had made. ‘My lady, you must help her! Use the stone – the deathstone: only you can save her—’

Tycho Issian stepped swiftly between the two of them and snatched at the shining pendant. His hands closed over the stone and it reflected in his eyes as if the light it emitted – and nothing else – was somehow inside his skull, shining out.

A deathstone
. He remembered with goddess-given clarity the words of the northerner who had broken into his chambers at Jetra, the man with the ill-dyed hair and rough accent:
a mighty weapon . . . a deathstone . . . an artefact with the power over life and death
.

He gave a death’s-head grin, his face made a diabolic mask by the harsh play of light and shade.

‘A deathstone,’ he mused. His grip on it tightened convulsively.

There was a cry behind him, and he turned just in time to see Manso Aglio plummeting over the edge of the Rock with a dagger in his chest, and five barbarians advancing upon him. In their forefront, his sword red to the hilt, was King Ravn Asharson.

‘Give me back my wife,’ he snarled.

Wild panic flickered briefly in the southern lord’s eyes. Then he swung the deathstone the his enemy, hauling Saro with it. ‘The lady is not yours, barbarian!’ he spat. ‘But I have a different gift for you.’

On his knees, his neck dragged upward at an unnatural angle by the pendant’s sturdy thong, Saro saw a coruscating white light shatter the air above his head. It broke through the cage of Tycho Issian’s fingers in a searing blast and tore towards Ravn Asharson.

The blast struck the King of Eyra square in the face and his mouth opened in a silent scream. His sword spun away from him in what seemed a slow descent, till with a clatter it struck the rock at his feet and shattered into a dozen shards.

His eyes rolled up in his head.

Then, like an axe-toppled tree, he staggered backwards and measured his full, dead length on the rock.

All across the vast battlefield, an unearthly cry rang out. It swept as a stormwind across the plain and out into the Skarn Mountains, skimming spindrift off the peaks to dance in the freezing air like a thousand dervishes. Down through the bones of the earth it ran, stopping streams in their tracks, bringing rockfalls and avalanches in its wake, causing herds of yeka in the Golden Hills to bolt for lower ground. In the far south of the Istrian continent, it brought lava flowing like blood.

Men fell to their knees, momentarily stunned. A pack of wolves, gathered now from their rocky habitat, gave back the call so that it echoed like the wail of a thousand ghosts.

Up on the Sur’s Castle as she slid towards endless night, Katla Aransen felt the scream as a rumble beneath her torso, a thrumming which drummed in the skeleton for which she would soon no longer have need.

With a galvanic heave, the Rock broke itself in two. A great cloud of dust hurled itself into the air. When it settled, two new figures stood silhouetted against the skyline. One was a man, golden of hair, blue of eye, beatific of visage; the other a huge black cat.

‘We answer your summons, sister–wife,’ said the man; and the cat roared its welcome.

Rahe, the world’s greatest mage, watched these transformations with dawning terror. He had been keeping his distance from the violence of men, seeking an opportunity to take back his prize.
Let them all kill one another
, he had thought, with a certain satisfaction
, let them make their enemies’ blood flow like rivers across this barren waste; let the fools wipe each other from the face of Elda.
Then, and only then, would he make his move. But the sight of Sirio, apparently unharmed, with the cat at its full and menacing size beside him, gave him horrible pause. He must escape! Since the Rose’s return to herself, he had felt his powers dwindling day by day as the power he had stolen from her found its way back to the source: but the least use of magic in this place would draw her eye: worse, it would draw the attention of the god and their beast. And that would be his death. He stared about in dismay. The sea was surely his best chance.

He threaded his way between discarded skiffs and dragged-up rowing boats, between leaky coracles and beached hulls, looking for a vessel he could handle with his old-man strength and failing magic. It was then that he spied a familiar figure, pale as death, clutching what appeared to be a badly broken leg.

Rahe grinned from ear to ear. It seemed his store of luck had not entirely run dry . . .

One moment the world had been at his fingertips, his rival blasted to searing death before his very eyes; the next, the leather of the thong holding the pendant around the boy’s neck had snapped, sending him to his knees, and Elda had erupted. Scrabbling to save himself from toppling off the Rock as it buckled and tore itself apart, Tycho Issian lost the stone, and then could not see it for dust.

When he finally raised his eyes, he stared about in bewilderment. The world as he had known it was no more. Instead, a trio of figures bound by a shining golden light stood gazing down upon him. A man, a woman and a great cat, separate, yet joined. Names hovered on his lips, itched at his scalp. He did not know them: but he
knew
them.

Falla. Feya. Sirio. Sur. Bast. Beast. Bëte.

Come and join us
, the woman said into his mind. And she smiled at him, a smile of infinite gentleness and humour, and extended a hand.

He stared. It was the Rosa Eldi, but she was much changed. Gone was her ethereal silvery pallor, her vulnerability, her fear. In their place was a woman all of gold, a woman who radiated confident, joyous life from every pore of her skin. Gone, too, was her robe. The Rosa Eldi had bloomed, had in an instant gone from perfect bud to perfect flower, wide open to the world. Her fragrance flooded out across the rock, musky and floral and hot. He caught his breath in bliss, and suddenly found himself on his feet, walking towards her like a man in a dream.

The tiniest voice at the back of his skull whispered warning, but he ignored it, pushed it down, intoxicated as he was by the sight of her lush curves, by the tumble of golden hair across those glorious round breasts, flushed with new blood, by the lift of her rosy nipples, by the curl of new golden hair at her pubis. Only the sea-green eyes had not changed: and they regarded him with the same chill they always had. Even so, he found himself taking her hand. The fingers closed on him, strong as iron; the green eyes bound him to her.

I know you now,
she said into his mind,
though it has taken too long to recognise you. We are the Three: Man, Woman and Beast; but you, you are Death: the Fourth. You have escaped us long enough, my friend. Look out across this battlefield, and see what you have made of our folk
.

And Death looked out across the plain and saw below how men fought each other with spear and axe, with sword and knife and crossbow. Ripping great red wounds in one another, they roared and hated and bled.

Now watch
, urged the Rose of the World.

She closed her eyes and shaped a thought and in the wake of that thought an ineffable sensation trembled through the hands of every man holding a weapon on the Moonfell Plain that day.

When the sensation faded, each warrior looked down to find that the sword, the spear, or the bow they had a moment before been wielding had been transformed. Forged metal disintegrated, broke down to its component parts to flow as useless nuggets of ore to the ground; spearheads and arrowheads became first molten, then lumpen; carved staves and curved bone twisted in the grip and took back the form of tree and beast.

As the moment passed, they stared in puzzlement at these new tools – budding branches, ore-filled rock and cattle-horns; then started to beat one another, if rather less fatally, then with no lessening of violence, with these artefacts instead.

She shook her head sadly. Tears stood in the sea-green eyes.
You see how strong is your influence? Their hearts are so full of hatred they no longer see the truth of things
.

Sirio touched her shoulder.
Do not distress yourself, sister–wife. Perhaps it would be best to clean them all away, let life start anew
.

But look!
Bëte nudged her leg.
Over there – something is happening
.

As one, the four deities gazed out across the plain.

A crowd of women had gathered on the slopes above the battlefield. At their head stood three women: an Eyran and two Istrians. The northern woman had hair of flame and salt, the other two, despite the wide disparity in their ages, were clearly related. Bera Rolfsen stood beside her new friend Flavia Issian and her granddaughter, Selen, come it seemed, out of nowhere. Several hundred strong, and gaining numbers all the time as they made their way forward, the women pushed into the midst of the fighting men, and the warriors paused in their beatings, their new weapons hanging loosely by their sides and their faces full of confusion.

The older woman said something to her companion and together they gripped the hems of their robes and hauled them up and over their heads to stand exposed and vulnerable in the middle of that arena of death. A moment later, the rest followed their example. Sabatkas, veils, tunics, jerkins, skirts, shifts, stockings – all were discarded. White flesh stood next to brown flesh, freckled skin to burnished skin; old next to young. The women of Elda stood forth in all their naked glory of sags and swags, curves and planes, bellies and breasts and hair of all shades of white to black and every variation in between. Some held hands and laughed, others looked sombre; some blushed with embarrassment and gazed at their feet, while others looked the men around them brazenly in the eye.

For a moment, everything went quiet. Then, one by one, the men dropped their weapons.

The Four stared down at this bizarre spectacle, stunned to sudden silence. At last, the Rose of the World smiled. Then she threw back her head and laughed.
I do not think they need our help any more: it seems they are ready to change their world without us. We have offered them the excuse for division and fanaticism long enough, do you not agree, brother?

Sirio considered the women and his eyes were a little wistful.
Look at all this bounty to enjoy! I have been back in the world for such a short time, and now you are taking me from it
. He sighed.

Am I not enough for you?

Sirio drew his eyes back to his sister–wife and his smile was wry.
Feya, you are all that is or ever could be Woman
.

Neither do you need the bodies you have borrowed
, she suggested softly.

True
. Sirio shook his head, and suddenly bones and shells in his new braids clattered against the tattoos of his face.

Bëte yawned.
I have enjoyed my time here lately
, she declared.
But now I am ready to sleep
.

Feya released her grip on Tycho Issian.
I know you did not always know yourself and that you cannot help your nature
, she said sternly.

And for a moment some part of him flared with wild hope. It was soon to be quenched.

However, we cannot have you running rampant across our world any longer. Elda is out of balance: we must contain you. Every creature has the right to its own life, and you have taken too many, too soon.
The deathstone became a vivid presence between them. Then it flared and burst into flame.

I welcome you to my fires
, breathed the Goddess, and in an instant his clothes were gone from him and his erection was standing proud, wrapped about by a golden conflagration. She glanced down at it, amused.
Ah, Death
, she said into his mind,
always so virile, so determined to take as much of Life as you are able
.

She dropped her hand to cup his balls and delicious agony enveloped him. He felt his essence explode. He was at once vast and tiny, unbound yet contained. Light seared out across the world; then died abruptly.

Feya closed her hand over the Deathstone.
Will you look after this precious object, or shall I?
she asked her brother–husband; but the Beast was quicker. Nudging her hand, the great cat knocked the stone into the air, caught it up between her glistening fangs and swallowed it down, Death and all, then sat there between them, smiling as enigmatically as only a cat can.

The Rose of the World stroked its head.
It is as safe a place as any
.

Are you ready now, beloved?

Almost. There is one more thing to attend to
. She gazed down into the milling crowd
. There they are, our faithful ones
.

A small group was moving up the strand. They stood taller than even the tallest of the warriors who surrounded them, and their limbs were long and lean. Some were male, some female. Most owned but a single eye, set square in the centre of their foreheads. In their midst were three figures, one woman and two men. The woman looked fearful, her turquoise eyes darting here and there as if she expected some new cruelty to be visited upon her. She carried the stub of a broken oar in one hand and with the other supported a hobbling man with long white hair which had come unbound out of its tail. He was pale and thin, and looked near to death. The third figure was an old man bound in a shining net of spellcraft. He sported a large purple bruise over one eye.