But to kill her, to kill the boy—Yannul’s throat scalded with bile. He did not know what to do, so he went on listening.
“There is a city, you can see it far off. It’s big, but fallen. Black stone, like in the Lowlands. You said the Lowland city was black, didn’t you, father?”
“Yes,” said Yannul.
“But the valley was fertile. There were fruits growing, and I saw sheep, and orynx. And a river.”
“They say an abandoned city is like a broken sword,” said the Olmish officer. Yannul had not seen him come up. “It rusts, rots away. But it wasn’t like that. It felt alive. There was a light there. Did you see that, too?”
“Yes,” said Yannul’s younger son. “A kind of flame on the ruin, when it got dark.”
“A city of fire then,” said someone else. “Not rust.”
Yannul’s belly clenched.
“You’re saying you had the same dream, the two of you—and my son?”
“Maybe. What about you, Lord Yannul?”
Yannul hesitated. At the back of his mind something stirred. In sleep he had thought it was the Lowland city, and had been puzzled because—because a river ran across the plain—
A hundred feet away, Medaci was standing by Safca. Beyond them, a man was running along the pass from the lower end.
Yannul got up and went over.
The man gasped for breath and said, “My zeeba fell. Dead. I ran for miles. They’re almost here. A hundred of them, more. They saw my mate. Spear shot got him. Didn’t see me. Not that it makes any difference, lady. I dreamed of it all last night, dropping asleep in the saddle, seeing the valley. But we’ll never get there now.”
There was a wash of sound. They had all had the dream apparently, but many were only just discovering. Mind-speech was not recognized among Lans. A mental link of such magnitude was unconscionable, therefore sorcerous, therefore, at some level, absurdly acceptable and accepted.
Safca climbed one of the tumbled rocks. Standing higher than the rest of them, she raised her arms.
Yannul looked at her, the philosophical part of him awed, the man amused.
When she became a priestess, this unbeautiful woman changed. A sun seemed to rise behind her face, her whole body, and to be channeled out upon them. She must have looked like this the night they killed the Karmians at Olm. Transfigured.
Suddenly he heard a woman from his past speaking inside his head. “None of us could harm him. He is his god’s. And the gods protect their own.” She had been referring to Raldnor. Raldnor walking back from the forest of the second continent, branded by Anackire.
Safca began to cry out to them. She was telling them the goddess was near and would save them.
The wind and the bad weather had stopped, and she was clearly visible, audible. It was no trance, no rolling of the eyes, wriggling, salivating, howling. She was in command of herself, disciplining herself instinctually that the wondrous energy might pass through her and to them, unsullied.
It was not her power. Someone had trained her. Or gifted her—
It was like something of Raldnor’s. Something he might have passed on to his sons. But Rem had been the son of Raldnor. Beyond that princely and striking but quite human aura, the often striking, not always quite human good looks. Rem had had nothing of this, or seemed not to. Raldanash, seen as a boy, had been more of Raldnor’s way, yet he was heatless as dead coals. Raldnor, even Raldnor as a god, had never been that.
Yannul had loved Raldnor as a brother, but with more love than he had ever felt for the loved brothers of his flesh.
The love had never gone, though Raldnor had left all their lives a generation ago.
Why think of this now?
The Olmians were moved by Safca, electrified. But Yannul had not even heard her. Yet he heard something. Something that had no sound.
He had heard it previously. On the plain under Koramvis, the night before the last battle. The silent strumming of the air, the earth, over and over.
Power.
He felt suddenly young as he had been then, afraid as then, and with a new fear astride the first. Something would happen. He could not see why it should, but it would. Energy, power—and death. An avalanche, perhaps, tearing the mountains out by their roots, burying the Karmian soldiery who hunted them, simply because they were ordered to do so, would commit atrocities upon them because they were scared and cowardice invented evil.
He partly turned. They were all turning, to face toward the lower end of the pass, from which the Karmians would come.
Yannul glimpsed his son. The fine young face was open and savage with strength, a man’s face, a demon’s. Yannul wanted to shout. Whatever they confronted, this was no answer. To meet sword with sword, prevent death by death. They had killed Koramvis and the might of the Vis, and the world was altered, and had brought this, more killing, more pain. Endless. A circle of fire.
“No,” she said. Who was it now? The hand slipped into his was cool and sure. “In the Lowland city, Raldnor made us kill. I recall so well. In my sleep I’ve lived it again and again. But this isn’t like that.”
Medaci.
He was himself now like a child, and clung to her hand.
The wind rose, then.
And around the slight curve of the mountain pass, the Karmians appeared.
The Karmians had had a harsh journey up from the foothills, but had suffered no casualties. They knew perseverance was expected of them.
Their leader, who had been appointed to his post months before by Kesarh himself, was yet galvanized by the meeting, and had imparted some of his dedication to his soldiers. The plan was to slaughter all male Olmians. The women would be sent as slaves to Karmiss, or put to similar work with the army of occupation.
Coming up around the pass and seeing the huddle of humanity before them, their backs literally to a wall, the leader kept his zeeba to a walking pace, allowing the entire Karmian force to fill the pass and so to fill the sight of the Olmians. From here, he would presently command his javelins into position. They could take out a random selection of the rebels as a precedent, before the detachment moved in to a more tidy execution.
Before this could be arranged, the leader noticed a man standing on the stone track, exactly between rebels and soldiery.
It was odd, since he had not seemed to come forward from the rebel side, and certainly could not have climbed down the mountain steeps unseen. From some cave, maybe.
The leader held up his hand to halt the column. There was a problem here. The man was a mix Vis, almost black, but his mane of hair was blond-white and even from here, the eyes were seen to be pale and peculiarly brilliant.
Unwillingly, the leader became aware of muffled exclamations and curses behind him. He even fancied he caught the phrase of a frightened prayer. As this went on, his own skin started to crawl along his neck. Then he knew why. The man on the pass ahead of them wore the dragon-mail of Old Koramvis. He was tall, had the look of a king, and the face of a god—
Behind the leader now, they were kneeling, some of them. Zeebas were shying, officers bawling for order, their voices cracked with shock.
The man on the track was Raldnor Am Anackire.
The leader strove to control his mount. He would have to do something, but what?
Then everything was taken from his hands.
Behind the figure of the god-hero, a gleam began to burnish the air. Gradually the world faded, leaving only this gleam, which touched the sky. A second figure formed within it. It was the figure of the serpent goddess, Ashara-Ashkar-Anackire, the Lady of Snakes.
Rather than screaming, the men of Karmiss had fallen utterly quiet, and motionless. The leader was caught in this same weird grip. He did not feel afraid. He felt a terror, but it was almost ecstatic.