„Just in time," Mist replied. „The gateway will open in a minute."
Bragi tried cracking a joke. Mist looked at him oddly. Nepanthe and Varthlokkur kept their eyes fixed on the portal. Bragi tried again. He could not get a smile. Not even from himself. „The hell with you all, then."
Nepanthe twitched. Varthlokkur did not respond that much.
„Time," Mist said. „I'll go first. You second, Nepanthe. Then Bragi and Varthlokkur and that." The Unborn had drifted into the room, its infant face alert and diabolic. Mist stepped forward and disappeared.
Ragnarson paced. Was this some grand trap meant to eliminate himself and Varthlokkur, Shinsan's dearest foes?
Nepanthe tightened her grip on Smyrena and stepped into the portal. Fighting butterflies, Bragi pocketed his whetstone, raised his sword, and stepped up to the mark. I'll charge through, he thought. They won't expect that.
He jumped.
Mist and a single Tervola waited on the far side. Ragnarson flew across the room, tripped over rubble, plunged headlong. His sword slipped out of his hand. He scrambled after it, conscious of stares, feeling sheepish. „Better safe than sorry."
Mist smiled and shook her head. The Tervola's face was concealed behind his mask, but his stance betrayed patro nizing amusement.
Varthlokkur came through the gateway. He looked around intently but said nothing. He joined Nepanthe. The Unborn popped through seconds behind him.
The Tervola nearly jumped out of his boots. Bragi chuck led. Mist said, „Easy now. It's all right." The Tervola had his fingers up twisting the initial gestures of a spell. „Take us to Lord Ssu-ma."
Bragi walked through the city in a state approaching shock. Lioantung, Mist called it. Dead Lioantung, he thought. Never had he seen such destruction. Fire had gutted everything. In some places brick and stone had burned, or melted like candle wax. The remains were strewn as if by an earthquake. Bones and fragments of corrupt flesh were thoroughly mixed with the rubble. The stench was overwhelming. Twice their guide used a minor spell to destroy particularly noxious clouds of flies.
„About time somebody used the Power for something practical," Bragi joked. Mist looked at him askance. He muttered, „Gods, this place is depressing. What the hell happened?"
„Ethrian happened, that's what. Varthlokkur. Do you believe me now?"
The wizard ignored Mist.
„What's that?" Bragi asked, indicating a pillar of smoke to the south.
„The legions burning their dead so Ethrian can't use them against us. Come on. We have to hurry."
The meeting with Eastern Army's staff was exactly what Ragnarson expected. The Tervola nearly exploded when they learned who he was. Only the calming presence of the army commander, a Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka'i, kept their fury leashed.
Bragi responded positively to Shih-ka'i. The man didn't belong with the usual run of Tervola. Short and wide where they were lean and tall, he had a mischievous sense of humor. His mask represented an enraged boar. Mist said he sprang from peasant pig farmer stock. „Tell him he looks like an honest soldier," Bragi told Mist.
She translated. Shih-ka'i responded. Mist said, „He says you'd find him more stubborn than Lord Ko Feng." The woman and army commander engaged in a long exchange which betrayed occasional flashes of heat. Bragi guessed Shih-ka'i was dubious about her plan to bring Ethrian face to face with his mother. Mist apparently convinced him. Shih-ka'i led them back into the tortured streets.
Bragi watched Nepanthe closely. She drifted through the ruins with gaze firmly fixed, her face pallid. But near Lioantung's north gate she got the shakes. She paused to retch into the gutter. When Varthlokkur tried to comfort her, she waved him off. „I can stand it. I always could. I'm a real grown up person."
Rebuked, the wizard resumed his air of aloofness. His inner turmoil was reflected only in the agitation of the Unborn, which bobbed and flitted like a moth with indiges tion.
Lioantung was enough to gag a maggot, Bragi reflected. „Mist, this should be frozen in time. Made a memorial. Bring every would-be warlord in here and make him live with it for a week."
Mist answered with a weak smile. „It wouldn't do any good."
„Probably not. Human nature."
Shih-ka'i took a white flag from a soldier and headed out the gate. He set a brisk pace. Bragi hurried to stay close, so as not to seem less determined. These dread creatures in black had to be shown he was fearless. He laughed at himself. Human nature.
Ahead, an emaciated creature in rags rose atop a hum mock, ran his hand through his hair. A woman in white, who seemed fuzzy around the edges, helped him stand. He gestured. A panther, a bear, and a forest buffalo quickly joined him, assuming guardian stances. Mist and Shih-ka'i exchanged a few words. Mist told Nepanthe, „There he is."
That derelict is my godson? Bragi thought. That's the monster who wasted Shinsan's eastern provinces?
The boy looked ghastly, looked almost as dead as the corpses which supposedly fought for him.
Shih-ka'i halted. Bragi stopped beside him. Mist and the wizard stopped too. Nepanthe never slowed.
„Ethrian?" she said. „Look. See? This is your sister. Her name is Smyrena."
Bragi almost exploded from tension laughter. The incon gruity of it! And yet, how better to shock Ethrian back to reality?
Torment filled the boy's eyes. He started blubbering. „Mama. I thought they killed you. I thought they killed you."
Nepanthe held the baby in one arm, put the other around her son. „It's all right. It's over now, Ethrian. It's all right. You can come home."
The air was still, but... something was wrong, Bragi thought. The woman in white... her clothing fluttered as if stirred by a rising wind.
Suddenly, the beasts rose and loped away. Ragnarson sighed. He hadn't relished facing them.
Mother and son started toward the city.
Ethrian hurled his mother aside. A dark nimbus formed around him. The air crackled. Shih-ka'i bellowed. Varthlokkur caught Nepanthe before she fell. Ragnarson drew his sword, crouched, growled like a cornered beast.
Nepanthe shrieked at Ethrian. The Tervola tackled the boy, clamped fingers round his throat. From the corner of his eye Bragi saw movement on Lioantung's wall. He whirled, saw a long shaft arcing across the sky. Timing! he thought. His sword hammered the air above Shih-ka'i.
The Tervola bounced to his feet as Bragi pulled the broken spear from the earth. He said something which must have been a thank you, turned to the boy.
It all became confused, Bragi couldn't tell what was real and what was illusion: The woman in white apparently didn't exist in the flesh. Something equally fleshless appar ently possessed the boy. Mist and Shih-ka'i did a lot of yelling at one another. Ethrian kept trying to shout and Shih-ka'i kept stopping him. The woman in white kept helping her partner's enemies. At one point Varthlokkur spoke at length in the language of Shinsan. Then a great black cloud exploded from Ethrian, rushed upward in an oily pillar. At its base a glistening dome formed. And Mist said, „The devil in him has been forced out."
Baffled, Bragi stared up the pillar of black smoke-stuff. „I don't understand what's going on."
„We've won. We've conquered the Deliverer."
„I still don't understand. You said that before."
„I didn't... ."
The earth trembled beneath them. Maybe he couldn't understand everything, but he could sense that great forces were contending. He would have to be content to take Mist's word for the importance of the confrontation.
„It's over," she said. „Let's leave Nepanthe alone for a while. It was a slim hope, but she lost. Hell." She started toward the city. The Tervola was hurrying thither already, probably to find out about the shaft that had come within a whisker of killing him. Bragi walked beside Mist. She tried to explain.