"You are younger and stronger, since this journeying has hardened you, beloved," Ware said, when they had read the proposal through. "But do not underestimate Adria. She is cunning and vicious, and she has survived many of these challenges."
Xylina took a deep breath, and looked into his eyes. It had finally come to this-a challenge that she did not want, for power she did not wish to have; something she had tried to avoid and which had, in the end, come for her.
And yet-the reward would be something Adria had never known, and would never understand.
"I have to survive only one, beloved," she told him. "And believe me, I do intend to survive that one."
The burning sun beat down upon the two women: two combatants, who were the very antithesis of each other. Xylina, small, slender, long-waisted and high breasted, with her blond hair streaming down to her waist-and Adria, lean, whip-cord-tough, no more figure than a boy, and with her dark hair cut aggressively short. And yet Adria, who was by far the more experienced and tougher-looking, already showed some slight discomfort-perhaps from the exposure to the sun. Xylina, clothed only in her signature banner of hair, seemed completely serene and at ease-perhaps because she had been the plaything of the elements for some time now, and had gotten used to them.
Between them lay the crystal, on a flat rock in the center of the makeshift arena. Xylina had insisted on that one change in the challenge-rules; the crystal lay beneath a pair of transparent domes of near-unbreakable adamant. She had created one, Adria had created the other. Any force great enough to smash the domes would also smash the crystal. Neither of the combatants would be able get at the crystal unless the other was dead, for at death, all conjurations dissolved.
Adria had not liked that rule, although she had agreed to it, and her glance kept straying to the glinting gold-and-crystal shape of the protected shard. Perhaps she hoped to trick Xylina into dissolving her conjuration so that the Queen could grab the shard and use it to win. Or to lure Xylina away from it, to where she could be ambushed or driven away. In a day her conjuration would dissolve anyway, and then the Queen could get the shard. Ware had warned Xylina that if the Queen found any way to get the shard without finishing the combat, she would. "Kill her," he had cautioned. "No mercy, no hesitation. Just kill her, as quickly as you can. Nothing else." Faro and Thesius had nodded agreement.
So Xylina did not look at the shard. She kept her attention fixed firmly on the distant figure of Xantippe. When the old warrior dropped the banner she held, the combat would begin. Only Adria knew what Adria would do first, although it was a fair bet that it would be a sudden and overwhelming attack. One of the reasons that Adria had been so successful in these challenges was that she never did the same thing twice, so there was no way to anticipate her. Every combat she had undertaken had begun differently.
Xylina hoped that her own first move would take the Queen off-guard. The banner dropped.
An enormous block of stone appeared just above where Xylina was standing, and crashed down into the ground, smashing everything beneath it to powder. But Xylina was no longer there.
She had created a tiny springboard just in front of herself, and had used it to catapult herself through the air, landing well out of range of the stone, and-most importantly-right next to the domes protecting the shard. Now she could use the domes as a kind of shield, and unless Adria wanted to risk smashing the crystal, she could not use any more weapons like that block of stone. If she dispelled her own dome, Xylina would be able to get her hands on the crystal, thus greatly increasing her own power. Adria's scream of rage told Xylina that this first ploy, at least, was a success. Now Xylina took her second move, while Adria was still off-balance. It was the essence of simplicity: she copied the Queen's first move.
A block of stone the same size as the one Adria had made appeared over the Queen's head. And stayed there-for the Queen had conjured several stout metal posts to support its weight. A standard defense for a standard attack.
So the first round was done. There were no turns in such combat, but the action did tend to fall into segments as one attacked and the other countered. A woman who did not counter would soon be dead.
There was more than the usual significance to this round, however. The Queen had tried to finish the battle swiftly, and had failed. Conjuration was limited; a woman's magic grew progressively fatigued, until finally she was unable to conjure any more. The victor in past battles between ranking women had generally been the one whose power of conjuration outlasted that of her opponent. Xylina suspected that the Queen had gambled most of her power on the first ploy, hoping not to have to follow up. She also suspected that her own power of conjuration was now significantly greater than the Queen's, because of her practice in the wilderness. Xylina could conjure a second block the mass of the first; she doubted that the Queen could.
But at the moment this didn't matter, because there was no way to drop such a block on the Queen. The stout posts would support both, leaving the Queen unscathed. Defense in such cases was usually cheaper than attack. So the massive conjurations were over-unless Xylina could somehow force the Queen out of her impromptu shelter where she would be vulnerable to another block. She wanted to save her power until the Queen thought she was safe from it. So for now Xylina planned to limit herself to diminishingly smaller conjurations, as if she were weakening, hoping to make the Queen overconfident.
The Queen conjured a spiked metal ball that she hurled at Xylina. Xylina, wary of what else might be coming, stepped aside while conjuring her own matching spiked ball. Sure enough, the Queen's second ball came at her, and she was unable to dodge it. So she conjured her own second ball in the path of the Queen's. The two collided in air and dropped to the ground as Xylina threw hers at the Queen. The Queen stepped behind a post, and the ball missed. But Adria looked wary; she saw how readily Xylina was matching her, and she didn't want to try something that would hurt her when the response came. Xylina was, in effect, teaching her manners.
This was proceeding into early stalemate. Xylina didn't trust that. She knew she could not afford to stand around while the Queen figured out something more deadly. But she wanted to force the Queen to use up her power of conjuration. The very best thing that she could do would be to make Adria so angry that she would stop thinking and merely react.
And the way to do that would be to attack Adria with a weapon that Adria was not expecting, and by her very nature, would not ever expect.
She must make Adria look ridiculous. While the Queen was still trying to change her plans to include Xylina's use of the domes as a shield, Xylina concentrated and conjured something of her own above the Queen's head. Directly above, and so near that Adria would not react by creating anything to shield herself from what was about to drop over her. For the Queen had left Xylina an opening, inadvertently, by remaining under the propped-up block of stone.
And since this was one of the simpler things Xylina could have conjured, it appeared instantly. On top of the block. Then Xylina dissolved the block, for it was hers. Before Adria even knew that Xylina was launching an attack, she had been buried waist deep in a very large, and very fragrant, pile of manure that lost its support just above her head and fell on her.
And to add insult to injury, Xylina topped it off with a brief rain of overripe vegetables.
Of course the Queen reflexively conjured a small shielding tower, so that the material did not land on her head. Such fighting reflexes made it difficult to score directly with barbs or acid, which was why Xylina hadn't tried them. But the stuff did pile up around her, and enough of it slopped in around her body to achieve good effect.