To Green Angel Tower Volume 2 Page 3

  In the south, Miriamele and Cadrach at last reach Kwanitupul where they meet Isgrimnur and Tiamak, as well as the even more suprising spectacle of a resurrected Camaris. Before they can do more than exchange hurried news they learn that Aspitis, anxious for vengeance, has discovered their whereabouts. They escape the city just ahead of Miriamele’s spurned lover and his soldiers, taking a small boat into the Wran, the vast and dangerous swamp that is Tiamak’s home.

  Things have changed in the Wran. The discovery that the people of Tiamak’s village have vanished is followed rapidly by Tiamak’s own disappearance. Helpless without a guide, Miriamele and her companions struggle to find their way out. They find another Wrannaman floating dazed and feverish in Tiamak’s boat, and from him learn that Tiamak has been taken by the subhuman ghants and is being held prisoner—if he still lives—in their sprawling mud nest.

  Cadrach is terrified of the nest, but Miriamele, Isgrimnur and Camaris enter it in search of Tiamak, and find him being used by the ghants as the centerpiece of a strange ritual. They rescue the little Wrannaman and bring him out into the light once more.

  Back on Sesuad‘ra, Simon and the others bury their dead, among whom is Josua’s most stalwart companion, Sir Deornoth. The cost of defeating Fengbald has been very high, and their greater enemies, Elias and the Storm King, have not even begun to exert themselves. At a somewhat muted victory celebration, Simon’s romantic encounter with a local girl is interrupted by the sudden appearance of Aditu, Jiriki’s sister, who has come as an envoy. The Sithi are going to take a part in mortal wars for the first time in five centuries.

  In the Hayholt, the High King is troubled. His soldiers have been defeated by Josua’s peasant army, and now the immortals themselves have entered the fray. Pryrates tries to reassure him, but it is clear that he and Elias are pursuing separate strategies. Beneath the castle, Rachel the Dragon has a frightening encounter with the king’s demented cupbearer, Hengfisk, and Guthwulf finds himself increasingly drawn by the magical pull of the king’s sword, Sorrow, and its yearning for its brother swords.

  Under the icy mountain Stormspike, the Norn Queen Utuk‘ku is also troubled by events, and dispatches a team of assassins southward.

  Miriamele and the others make their way out of the Wran. Relations are strained within the company—Tiamak thinks Cadrach is trying to steal his precious scroll, and Isgrimnur and Cadrach’s arguments have also caused a smoldering distrust. After Aspitis Preves catches them at last on the fringes of the marsh, but is defeated by an unwilling Camaris, Cadrach steals a horse and disappears. Miriamele and the others push on toward Sesuad‘ra and Josua. They reach Sesuad’ra at last, reviving hopes and bringing important news about Nabban and the Fire Dancers.

  Simon is more than a little overwhelmed by Miriamele’s return, and she in turn is suprised to see that the kitchen-boy she remembered is almost a grown man. Their friendship has an edge of attraction with which neither is quite comfortable. When she rejects his attempt to gift her with the White Arrow, he insists she let him become her knightly Protector. Pleased but troubled, Miriamele agrees.

  Prince Josua mourns Deornoth and the other lost lives and tries to decide what to do next. Sesuad‘ra’s growing population and the Storm King’s terrible winter have combined to reduce their resources almost to nothing. The prince’s companions seem evenly split between pursuing the war against Elias into Erkynland or forging southward into Nabban in hopes of toppling the High King’s more vulnerable ally, Benigaris, and using the Nabbani forces to bring them closer to parity with the king’s power. Josua decides on this latter course, despite fierce opposition from Miriamele, who will not explain all her reasons, and from Simon, who wants a chance to reclaim the sword Bright-Nail from King John’s barrow near the Hayholt.

  Tiamak and Father Strangyeard become Scrollbearers, and with Binabik and Geloë they struggle to interpret Tiamak’s scroll. It seems to speak of Camaris, whose wits are still clouded, and when they realize that the gift Amerasu of the Sithi sent to Josua with Simon is Camaris’ old battle-horn, they resolve to try to bring him back to his senses. After the horn and the blade Thorn are put into his hands, and Josua implores him not to let Deornoth have died in vain, Camaris re-awakens, full of secret sorrow, but willing to do what he can to stem the encroaching tide of darkness. Josua’s company prepare to move south.

  In Hernystir, Eolair leads Jiriki down into the mountain fastnesses where he and Maegwin had encountered the shy dwarrows, but the cave-dwellers have fled, and only their magical Witness, the Shard, is left behind. Jiriki tries to turn it to his own purposes, but a more powerful force takes hold of it and he is almost killed, saved only by Eolair’s intervention. Afterward, Jiriki and his mother Likimeya proclaim that they will lead the Sithi toward Josua’s old stronghold Naglimund, which is now in the posession of the Norns. Eolair and some Hernystiri volunteer to go with them. Maegwin insists on coming along, and Eolair, despite his worries about her continuing delusions, has no choice but to accede.

  Josua and company make camp, unaware that they are’ being stalked by Utuk‘ku’s Norn assassins. Geloë and Aditu discuss the mystery of Camaris, sharing fears that it may have something to do with the current conflict. Simon searches the camp for Miriamele and discovers her trying to escape the camp and set out on her own. She begs him not to stop her. Torn between his duty to Josua and his fears for Miriamele’s safety, he at last decides to accompany her—he is, after all, her Protector. Together they ride out, leaving nothing behind but Simon’s hasty note. As they depart, they see fire and smoke behind them. The camp has been attacked.

  End of PART ONE

  PART ONE

  The

  Turning Wheel

  1

  Tears and Smoke

  Tiamak found the empty treelessness of the High Thrithing oppressive. Kwanitupul was strange, too, but he had been visiting that place since childhood, and its tum bledown buildings and ubiquitous waterways at least reminded him a little of his marshy home. Even Perdruin, where he had spent time in lonely exile, was so filled with close-leaning walls and narrow pathways, so riddled with shadowy hiding places and blanketed in the salt smell of the sea, that Tiamak had been able to live with his homesickness. But here on the grasslands he felt tremendously exposed and utterly out of place. It was not a comforting feeling.

  They Who Watch and Shape have indeed made a strange life for me, he often reflected. The strangest, perhaps, of any they have made for my people since Nuobdig married the Fire Sister.

  Sometimes there was solace in this thought. To have been marked out for such unusual events was, after all, a sort of repayment for the years of misunderstanding that his own people and the drylanders on Perdruin had shown him. Of course he was not understood—he was special: what other Wrannaman could speak and read the drylander tongues as he could? But lately, surrounded again by strangers, and with no knowledge of what had happened to his own folk, it filled him with loneliness. At such times, disturbed by the emptiness of these queer northern surroundings, he would walk down to the river that ran through the middle of the camp to sit and listen to the calming, familiar sounds of the water-world.

  He had been doing just that, dangling his brown feet in the Stefflod despite the chill of water and wind, and was returning to camp a little heartened, when a shape flashed past him. It was someone running, pale hair streaming, but whoever it was seemed to move as swiftly as a drag onfly, far faster than anyone human should travel. Tiamak had only a moment to stare after the fleeing form before another dark shape swept past. It was a bird, a large one, flying low to the ground as though the first figure was its prey.

  As both shapes vanished up the slope toward the heart of the prince’s encampment, Tiamak stood in stunned amazement. It took some moments for him to realize who the first shape had been.

  The Sitha-woman! he thought. Chased by a hawk or an owl?

  It made no sense, but then she—Aditu was her name—made little sense to Tiamak either.
She was like nothing he had ever seen and, in fact, frightened him a little. But what could be chasing her? From the look on her face she had been running from something dreadful.

  Or to something dreadful, he realized, and felt his stomach clench. She had been heading toward the camp.

  He Who Always Steps on Sand, Tiamak prayed as he set out, protect me-protect us all frorn evil. His heart was beating swiftly now, faster than the pace of his running feet. This is an ill-omened year!

  For a moment, as he reached the nearest edge of the vast field of tents, he was reassured. It was quiet, and few campfires burned. But there was too much quiet, he decided a moment later. It was not early, but still well before midnight. People should be about, or at least there should be some noise from those not yet asleep. What could be wrong?

  It had been long moments since he had caught his most recent glimpse of the swooping bird—he was certain now it was an owl—and he hobbled on in the direction he had last seen it, his breath now coming in harsh gasps. His injured leg was not used to running, and it burned him, throbbed. He did his best to ignore it.

  Quiet, quiet—it was still as a stagnant pond here. The tents stood, dark and lifeless as the stones drylanders set in fields where they buried their dead.

  But there! Tiamak felt his stomach turn again. There was movement! One of the tents not far away shook as though in a wind, and some light inside it threw strange moving shadows onto the walls.

  Even as he saw it he felt a tickling in his nostrils, a sort of burning, and with it came a sweet, musky scent. He sneezed convulsively and almost tripped, but caught himself before falling to the ground. He limped toward the tent, which pulsed with light and shadow as though some monstrous thing was being born inside. He tried to raise his voice to cry out that he was coming and to raise an alarm, for his fear was rising higher and higher—but he could not make a sound. Even the painful rasp of his breathing had become faint and whispery.

  The tent, too, was strangely silent. Pushing down his fright, he caught at the flap and threw it back.

  At first he could see nothing more than dark shapes and bright light, almost an exact reflection of the shadow puppets on the outside walls of the tent. Within a few instants, the moving images began to come clear.

  At the tent’s far wall stood Camaris. He seemed to have been struck, for blood rilled from some cut on his head, staining his cheek and hair black, and he reeled as though his wits had been addled. Still, bowed and leaning against the fabric for support, he was yet fierce, like a bear beset by hounds. He had no blade, but held a piece of firewood clenched in one fist and waved it back and forth, holding off a menacing shape that was almost all black but for a flash of white hands and something that glinted in one of those hands.

  Kicking near Camaris’ feet was an even less decipherable muddle, although Tiamak thought he saw more black-clothed limbs, as well as the pale nimbus of Aditu’s hair. A third dark-clad attacker huddled in the corner, warding off a swooping, fluttering shadow.

  Terrified, Tiamak tried to raise his voice to call for help, but could make no sound. Indeed, despite what seemed to be life-or-death struggles, the entice tent was silent but for the muffled sounds of the two combatants on the floor and the hectic flapping of wings.

  Why can’t I hear? Tiamak thought desperately. Why can’t I make a sound?

  Frantic, he searched the floor for something to use as a weapon, cursing himself that he had carelessly left his knife behind in the sleeping-place he shared with Strangyeard. No knife, no sling-stones, no blow-darts-nothing! She Who Waits to Take All Back had surely sung his song tonight.

  Something vast and soft seemed to strike him in the head, sending Tiamak to his knees, but when he looked up, the several battles still raged, none of them near him. His skull was throbbing even more painfully than his leg and the sweet smell was chokingly strong. Dizzy, Tiamak crawled forward and his hand encountered something hard. It was the knight’s sword, black Thorn, still sheathed. Tiamak knew it was far too heavy for him to use, but he dragged it out from beneath the tangle of bedding and stood, as unsteady now on his feet as Camaris. What was in the air?

  The sword, unexpectedly, seemed light in his hands, despite the heavy scabbard and dangling belt. He raised it high and took a few steps forward, then swung it as hard as he could at what he thought was the head of Camaris’ attacker. The impact shivered up his arm, but the thing did not fall. Instead, the head turned slowly. Two eyes, shining black, stared out of the corpse-white face. Tiamak’s throat moved convulsively. Even had his voice remained, he could not have made a sound. He lifted his shaking arms, holding the sword up to strike again, but the thing’s white hand flashed out and Tiamak was knocked backward. The room whirled away from him; the sword flew from his nerveless fingers and tumbled to the grass that was the tent’s only floor.

  Tiamak’s head was as heavy as stone, but he could not otherwise feel the pain of the blow. What he could feel were his wits slipping away. He tried to lift himself to his feet once more but only got as far as his knees. He crouched, shaking like a sick dog.

  He could not speak but, cursedly, could still see. Camaris was stumbling, wagging his head—as damaged, seemingly, as Tiamak. The old man was trying to hold off his attacker long enough to reach something on the ground—the sword, the Wrannaman realized groggily, the black sword. Camaris was prevented from reaching it as much by the dark, contorted forms of Aditu and her enemy rolling on the ground beneath him as by the foe he was trying to keep at bay with his firelog club.

  In the other corner, something glittered in the hand of one of the pale-faced things, a shining something red as a crescent of firelight. The scarlet gleam moved, swift as a striking snake, and a tiny cloud of dark shapes exploded outward, then drifted to the ground, slower than snowflakes. Tiamak squinted helplessly as one settled on his hand. It was a feather. An owl’s feather.

  Help. Tiamak’s skull felt as though it had been staved in. We need help. We will die if no one helps us.

  Camaris at last bent and caught up the sword, almost over-balancing, then managed to lift Thorn in time to hold off a strike by his enemy. The two of them circled each other, Camaris stumbling, the black-clad attacker moving with cautious grace. They fell together once more, and one of the old knight’s hands shot out and pushed away a dagger blow, but the blade left a trail of blood down his arm. Camaris fell back clumsily, trying to find room to swing his sword. His eyes were half-closed with pain or fatigue.

  He is hurt, Tiamak thought desperately. The throbbing in his head grew stronger. Maybe dying. Why does no one come?

  The Wrannaman dragged himself toward the wide brazier of coals that provided the only light. His dimming senses were beginning to wink out like the lamps of Kwanitupul at dawn. Only a dim fragment of an idea was in his mind, but it was enough to lift his hand toward the iron brazier. When he felt—as dimly as a distant echo—the heat of the thing against his fingers, he pushed. The brazier tumbled over, scattering coals like a waterfall of rubies.

  As Tiamak collapsed, choking, the last things he saw were his own soot-blackened hand curled like a spider and, beyond it, an army of tiny flames licking at the bottom of the tent wall.

  “We don’t need any more damnable questions,” Isgrimnur grumbled. “We have enough to last three lifetimes. What we need are answers.”

  Binabik made an uncomfortable gesture. “I am agreeing with you, Duke Isgrimnur. But answers are not like a sheep that is coming when a person calls.”

  Josua sighed and leaned back against the wall of Isgrimnur’s tent. Outside, the wind rose for a moment, moaning faintly as it vibrated the tent ropes. “I know how difficult it is, Binabik. But Isgrimnur is right—we need answers. The things you told us about this Conqueror Star have only added to the confusion. What we need to know is how to use the three Great Swords. All that the star tells us—if you are right—is that our time to wield them is running out.”

  “That is what we are giving the largest att
ention to, Prince Josua,” said the troll. “And we think we may perhaps be learning something soon, for Strangyeard has found something that is of importantness.”

  “What is that?” Josua asked, leaning forward.‘ “Anything, man, anything would be heartening: ’

  Father Strangyeard, who had been sitting quietly, squirmed a little. “I am not as sure as Binabik, Highness, that it is of any use. I found the first of it some time ago, while we were still traveling to Sesuad‘ra.”

  “Strangyeard was finding a passage that is written in Morgenes’ book,” Binabik amplified, “something about the three swords that are so much concerning us.”

  “And?” Isgrimnur tapped his fingers on his muddy knee. He had spent a long time trying to secure his tentstakes in the loose, damp ground.

  “What Morgenes seems to suggest,” the archivist said, “is that what makes the three swords special—no, more than special, powerful—is that they are not of Osten Ard. Each of them, in some way, goes against the laws of God and Nature.”

  “How so?” The prince was listening intently. Isgrimnur saw a little ruefully that these sorts of inquiries would always interest Josua more than the less exotic business of being a ruler, such as grain prices and taxes and the laws of freeholding.

  Strangyeard was hesitant. “Geloë could explain better than I. She knows more of these things.”