Tamuli carrying the dispatches so vital to the cause.
On this particular day Cordz was flogging his exhausted horse
southward toward the corrupt cities of southern Daconia, cesspools
of sin and licentiousness, if the truth were to be known,
where the citizens not only did not know that they were sinners,
they did not even care. Worse yet, an obscure and probably
heretical tradition of the Dacite Church prevented laymen from
speaking aloud during Sabbath services. Thus, God’s very own
spokesman, the perfect man, was not permitted to expose and
denounce the sins he saw all around him. The frustration of it
sometimes made him want to just scream.
He had been riding hard for the past week, and he was very
tired. Thus it was with some relief that he finally crested the hill
that overlooked the port city of Melek.
Then all thoughts of the sins of others vanished. Cordz
reined in his staggering horse and gaped in horror at what
he saw.
There on a sea sparkling in the winter sun was a vast armada,
ships beyond counting, sailing majestically down the coast
under the red and gold banners of the Church of Chyrellos! The perfect man was so overcome with horror that he did not
even hear the plaintive sound of a shepherd’s rude pipe playing
a Styric air in a minor key somewhere off to his left. He gaped
for a time at his worst nightmare, and then he desperately drove
his spurs into his horse’s flanks, rushing to spread the alarm.
General Sirada was the younger brother of Duke Milanis, and
he commanded the rebel forces in Panem-Doa. King Rakya had
so arranged it that most of Scarpa’s generals were Arjuni. Sirada
knew that there were risks involved, but the younger sons of
noble families were obliged to take risks if they wanted to get
ahead in the world. For them, rank and position had to be won.
Sirada had endured the years of association with the crazy bastard
son of a tavern wench and the discomfort of camping out
in the jungle waiting for his chance.
And now it had come. The madman in Natayos had finally
sent the order to march. The campaign had begun. There was
no sleep in Panem-Doa that night. The preparations for the
march went on through the hours of darkness, and the undisciplined
rabble Sirada commanded was incapable of doing anything
quietly. The general spent the night poring over his maps.
The strategy was sound, he was forced to admit that. He was
to join forces with Scarpa and the other rebels near Verel. Then
they would march north to the Tamul Mountains to be
reinforced by Cynesgans. From there, they would march on
Toea in preparation for the final assault on Matherion.
General Sirada’s own strategy was much simpler. Scarpa
would crush any resistance at Toea, but he would not live to
see the gleaming domes of the imperial capital. Sirada smiled
thinly and patted the little vial of poison he carried in his inside
pocket. The army would capture Matherion, but it would be
General Sirada who would lead the final assault and personally
run his sword through Emperor Sarabian. The younger brother
of Duke Milanis expected an earldom at the very least to come
out of this campaign.
The door banged open, and his adjutant burst into the room,
his eyes starting from his head and his face a pasty white. ‘Good
God, my General!’ he shrieked.
“What do you think you’re doing?’ Sirada demanded. ‘How
dare you? I’ll have you flogged for this!’
we’re being attacked, my General!’
Sirada could hear the squeals of terror now. He rose quickly
and went out the door.
It was not yet daylight, and a clinging mist had crept in out
of the tangled forest to blur the ruined walls and houses of
Panem-Doa. There were fires and flaring torches pushing back
the darkness with their ruddy light, but there were other lights
in the weed-choked streets as well, pale, cold lights that did not
burn or flicker. Creatures of light, pale as wandering moons,
stalked the streets of Panem-Doa. The general’s heart filled with
terror. It was impossible. the Shining Ones were a myth! There
were no such creatures!
Sirada shook off his fright and drew his sword. ‘Stand fast!’
he roared at his demoralized men. ‘Form up! Pikemen to the
front!’ He bulled his way into the milling mob of terrified troops,
flailing about him with the flat of his sword. ‘Form up! Make a
But there was no rationality nor fear of authority in the panic-stricken
faces of his poorly trained men. The screaming mob
simply diverged and bypassed him on either side. He ran at
them again, swinging great strokes with his sword, cutting
down his own men.
He was so desperate to restore order that he did not even feel
the knife-stroke that went in just below his ribs on the left side.
He could not even understand why his knees buckled or why
he fell under the trampling feet of his soldiers as they fled
screaming into the trackless forest.
‘Are you sure this map’s accurate, Tynian?’ Patriarch Bergsten
demanded, peering at the miniature world under hiS fOOt.
‘It’s the most accurate map you’ll ever see, your Grace,’ Tynian
assured him. ‘Bhlokw cast the spell, and the Troll-Gods put their
hands into the ground and felt the shape of the continent. This
is it – down to the last tree and bush. Everything’s here.’
‘Except for Cyrga, Tynian-Knight,’ Engessa amended. The
Atan general was completely healed now, and he looked as fit
as ever. His face, however, was troubled. His Queen had greeted
him almost abruptly when she had first arrived, and she was
now quite obviously avoiding him.
Sephrenia was seated on one of the benches in Aphrael’s alabaster
temple with the rainbow light from the impossible sky
playing over her face. ‘We’d hoped that Schlee might be able to
feel Cyrga when he re-created the continent, your Grace,’ she
said, ‘but Cyrgon’s illusion seems to be absolute. Not even a
Trollish spell can break it.’
‘What’s the best guess we can come up with?’ Bergsten
asked.
Aphrael walked lightly across the tiny world Bhlokw had conjured
up for them. She stepped over the minuscule city of Cymestra
and continued south to a mountainous region in the center
of the desert. ‘It used to be somewhere in this general vicinity,’
she said, gesturing vaguely over the mountains.
‘Used to be?’ Bergsten asked her sharply.
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes we move things.’
‘Whole cities?’
‘It’s possible – but it’s a reflection of bad planning.’
Bergsten shuddered and began marking off distances on the
miniature continent with a long piece of string. ‘i’m up here at
Pela,’ he told them, pointing at a spot in central Astel. ‘That’s
almost three hundred leagues from the general vicinity of Cyrga,
and I’ll have to stop to capture Cynestra along the way. The rest
of you are much closer, so you’re going to have to hold off a bit
if we all want to get there at approximately the same time.’
Aphrael shrugged. ‘i’ll tamper,’ she said.
Bergsten gave her a puzzled look.
‘Divine Aphrael has ways of compressing time and distance
your Grace,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘She can -‘
‘I don’t want to hear about it, Sparhawk!’ Bergsten said
sharply, putting his hands over his ears. ‘You’ve already put
my soul in danger just by bringing me here. Please don’t make
it any worse by telling me things I don’t need to know about.’
‘Whatever you say, your Grace,’ Sparhawk agreed.
Emban was pacing around the cluster of up-thrusting mountains
in the center of the Cynesgan Desert. ‘We’re all going to
be converging on these mountains,’ he said. ‘i’m no expert, but
wouldn’t our best move be to just stop in the foothills and wait
until everyone’s in place before we make the final assault?’
‘No, your Grace,’ Vanion said firmly. ‘Let’s stay out a bit from
the foothills – at least a day’s ride. If we run into Klael’s creatures,
we’ll need room to maneuver. I want a lot of flat ground around
me when that happens.’
The fat little Churchman shrugged. ‘You’re the soldier,
Vanion.’ He pointed toward the south. ‘There’s our weakness,’
he said. ‘We’ve got a good concentration of forces coming out
of the east, the northeast and the north, but we don’t have
anybody covering the south.’
‘Or the west,’ Sarabian added.
‘I’ll cover the west, your Majesty,’ Bergsten told him. ‘I can
poSition my knights and the Peloi to block off that entire quadrant.’
That still leaves the south,’ Emban mused.
‘its already been taken care of, Emban,’ Aphrael assured him.
Stragen’s been spinning stories about a vast Church fleet off
the southern coast, and I’ve been weaving illusions to back him
up.
“How long is it going to take the Trolls to get into position
%lkrrth of Zhubay, Ulath?’
just as long as it takes to persuade the Troll-Gods that we