The Warrior's Tale (56 page)

A low fire glowed in Gamelan's brazier that stank even worse than most incantatory pyres. Gamelan explained a bit of an old sail was the centrepiece of the fire, and would hold the wind and lift me free. Among the herbs burning were peppermint, hemp and myrrh.

I had prepared the words to recite, and said them as I stood
there naked. Gamelan sat silentl
y nearby - I'd wanted him to help, but he was afraid his still-absent Talent might overshadow the spell and ruin it. First I began by reciting over and over the names of ten of the local gods and goddesses who might have power in these circumstances. There was the god of storms, the goddess of the sea, godlets who danced the winds, some zephyr-nymph's name remembered from Xia's childhood, and so on. I don't list them here, although I think I could remember them all, because according to most magicians a minor god's power only extends to lands where he or she is worshipped. Someone wishing to try this spell should use their own deities, or none at all, keeping in mind what I believe is the nature of gods in the first place.

Then I began the spell itself:

Feel the wind

Touch the wind

Be apart from yourself

The wind is your sister

You must roam free

Float up, float up.

As I spoke, I let bits of paper drift down across the brazier. I'd written the same words on the paper before ripping it apart. The smoke caught and carried them up, and I felt my head swimming, as if a high fever had struck. Then I was lifted
above
myself, and I was looking down at my body. Then the physical me slumped down to a sitting position, then sprawled. But I had no mind nor time for that body, because the top of the tent had suddenly opened, and I heard the whisper of the cord as Gamelan pulled it away, and above me was the night sky and the stars and I was free.

I was hurled up and on, high into the sky and I caught a glimpse of a constellation and knew I was being borne south. I was not on the wind, I was the wind, and I felt my heart singing. My body was far below me, and far behind me, but my spirit could feel her ghost-hair blowing back as I rushed on and on, and the sharp stinging of the night air, just like when one comes from a sauna in the depths of winter and plunges into an icy pool. It was as if I still had a body, but then again, I didn't. I didn't have to turn my 'head' to 'see' our galleys far behind and below, their masthead lights gleaming against the dark seas, nor further back to the star dots that were the Konyan shiplights.

Now I understood what sorcery could be, what it could give, instead of being a dark power for death and overpowering another, or a niggling series of words and incantations intended to avoid hard physical work. Maybe I understood and even sympathized for an instant with Janos Greycloak, feeling what had drawn him to magic, the same thing that had destroyed him.

Ahead I sensed land, and then saw it as the gale raced me onward. There were ten, perhaps twenty islands, the smaller ones spread like they'd been scattered in front of the largest landmass. These were the Alastors, I knew, having seen sketchy maps of the islands the Konyans had named as The Sarzana's refuge. As I swept across the outer skerries, I could sense, down below, men waiting, whose task was to report the first sign of our fleet. The magical part of me was still marvelling at being able to see eveiything, from horizon to horizon, but the cold soldier within was reminding Captain Rali there'd be little likelihood of surprising The Sarzana, since his sentinels were well posted. Not that I'd ever thought we'd be able to anyway, since physical sentries would be the least and most easily fooled of any of The Sarzana's watchguards.

His name crossing my mind made me 'feel' ahead, as Gamelan had told me to do, trying to sense if there were any magical traps lying in wait. I could sense none, but wasn't reassured. I was a fresh recruit walking along a path trying to avoid an ambush that may or may not have been set by a crafty old warrior.

The main island rose ahead. Now it was time for me to make the second change, into a hopefully less vulnerable form.

The wind that was me did not want to change, did not want to give up its free roaming, but my mind forced the words:

You must change

You must take shape

You are now your cousin

You are the wind's friend

You are flesh

You have shape

You have form

You have flight.

And it became so in a dizzying instant. Not only had I taken on physical form, and was tossed by the wind that had been me moments earlier, but there were many 'me's'. Gamelan had suggested a less noticeable disguise than that of an albatross, and I'd gone him one better. Why must I be a single bird? One creature could well be a spy, particularly if it behaved oddly. But an entire flock? He lifted his eyebrows in surprise, then chortled, and said it was time, indeed, for younger minds to take over magic. There was no reason not to at all.

I was a flock of terns, coming in towards the shore. I suppose I ought to call myself 'we', but I notice a look of confusion from my Scribe, so will try to keep this as simple as I can. It was strange, being many creatures at the same time. I was ten, perhaps fifteen birds, with a common way of thinkin
g, but each with her own eyes. I
swooped low over a geo that jutted from the sea, flying past on both sides of it, and it was as if I had only one pair of eyes, but eyes that could see the front, sides and back of something at the same time. Yet everything was quite normal, and I had no feeling of strangeness, nor of disorientation.

I swooped into the sky as the flock closed on the main island. It was high-mountained, and a long, narrow bay clove the land nearly in two. I could see cities at the tip of that bay, cities guarding the gut's portals. At the bay's end was the island's greatest city, which was named Ticino. Even in this near-dawn hour there were lights gleaming, and I estimated the city to be nearly as large as Isolde's metropolis.

The Sarzana's fleet was anchored in the roadstead, with picket boats around them. I knew he'd have many warships, but was startled by how many there were. I tried to count them, but couldn't, and estimated there were at least four hundred - as many as we had - and most likely more.

I was coming closer to the anchorage and flew perhaps a thousand or so feet overhead. It looked as if most of the ships were huge galleys
exactly
like the Konyans sailed, and my soldier's soul, far back in my conscious, felt pleasure. The new battle tactics I'd devised might work well. There were other ships as well, anchored close inshore in another division, and I swooped closer. But somehow I couldn't see them well. My vision was blurred in spots, just as when water's flung unexpectedly into your face before you have time to blink, or, perhaps, when fog swirls in banks between bright sunlight.

Something whispered, and said I shouldn't look closer. Not yet. And no matter how I tried to 'gaze' at them, the fog still hung between us.

There was no sign of alarm below. The few sailors on the decks of the galleys went sleepily about their dawn routine. No one looked up, and if they had, all they would've seen was a flight of swallow-tailed grey-shaded birds overhead, no doubt looking to break their fast.

I determined to fly closer to the city, closer to the danger that was The Sarzana's and the Archon's magics. But once more, my 'eyes' blurred, and I couldn't quite make out details on the ground, although I was quite close and my sharp tern's vision let me make out a single small school of fish as it broke water. Again I felt that whisper, and it became almost a voice, a warning. Reason caught me, and sent me banking away, back down the bay.

I'd seen nothing to give me alarm, but felt as if I were bare moments from danger. I flew in three great lazy circles, higher and higher into the sky as the sun glinted on the horizon and the shadows on the land and water below drew in on themselves. I had enough for my first scouting.

The Sarzana's fleet was where it had been predicted, and was clearly ready for
battle
, as the Konyan Evocators had predicted. But what were these blurry patches?

I didn't know, but felt them to be threats. It didn't matter. I'd done enough for one night.

I would return.

Later, my real self took a different and much more pleasant flight -with Xia. I remember coming back from the far place her lips and hands had sent me, knowing nothing, body still echoing to that great roar. I became aware, very dimly, that her head was pillowed on my stomach. I managed a grunt, incapable of more. Xia giggled.

'You went away on me.'

'Mmm.'

'I'll bet I can send you there again.' And her fingers moved. I found energy enough to pull her hand up to cradle my breasts.

'No you can't,' I said. 'I'm a noodle,
I'm a string, I'm a soggy mass
of wet silk.'

'You
are
silk,' she agreed, but left her hand where I'd put it. After a few moments of silence, when I almost went to sleep, she said, 'Rali? What comes next?'

'Next I try to get some sleep, you sex-mad animal.'

'No. I mean after we kill The Sarzana?'

'I love an optimist,' I said. 'Once we kill the bear, should the roasts be larded or soaked in vinegar? There's a bit of a task to putting this bear on the table, you know.'

'We'll kill him. I know that,' Xia said. 'So answer my question.'

I sat up, quite awake now. 'I've got to go back to Orissa,' I said.

'What about me? What about us? I can't see me going with you as your companion, at least not for very long. I mean, I'm a Kanara. The last one.'

'Of course I didn't mean for you to just traipse about after me,' I said.

'So then do you want to stay
here}
With me? I don't think your barons, or whatever your rulers call themselves would object, considering what you've done for them.'

'No,' I said. 'They wouldn't.'

I didn't say anything more, but lay back, thinking. What
did
come next? She was a Kanara, and I was an Antero
...
and commander of the Maranon Guard as well. Being an Antero might not be that important - Amalric and our idiot brothers could handle the estates well enough. But was I through with the Guard? Was I through with being a soldier? Even more simply - was I ready to leave Orissa for good?

'What would I do,' I wondered, 'if I did come back with you?'

'I'll show you,' she said, and her fingers tweaked my nipple, and it rose erect. 'As often as we can.'

'No,' I said. 'I meant
...'
but let my words trail off. How odd. Mosdy I'd been the person in charge, if that's the right word, of my love affairs. Yet here was this eighteen-year-old starting to plan my future. I didn't know if I liked that. I guessed that was the way royalty reasoned. At least I was being consulted in the matter, I thought wryly. But the idea of being a lapkitten didn't call to me, although I'm sure Xia would find a position for me commanding soldiers if I wished. Noble folk always need a sword to keep their power. But still
...
but still
...

I took refuge in the old soldier's way of dealing with the morrow: the hell with it. We'll never make it off this battlefield alive anyway.

Not that there was much left to think with anyway. Xia had found the knotted silk cord, and was coiling it into place as her other hand swept across and across, smoothing oil on my stomach.

A day or so later, just at dawn, I was on deck, letting my body wake up very slowly. Sergeant Ismet was a few feet away, doing a series of muscle-stretching exercises. She finished, and joined me at the rail. The day was gorgeous, the sky offering the deepest of blue, the sun bright and welcoming. A breeze touched the crests of the low waves as our galley sped through the waters. Behind us, in our spreading wake, was the rest of our forward element and behind them, bare dots on the horizon, the main fleet.

'Odd,' I mused aloud, 'here we are, in romantic seas on a day made for a holiday, and we're sailing into battle.'

'I don't know about a holiday,' Ismet said. 'I could never relax seeing that haze ahead of us on the horizon, and not knowing what might be hidden in it.'

'If you weren't a soldier?'

'If I weren't a soldier,' she returned, 'I'd never be here, now would
I?'

Without waiting for a response, she went on, 'If the Captain will excuse me, I've some lazy slatterns to roust out of their hammocks who need their exercise.' And she was gone.

I was reminded once more what a puzzlement Ismet was. She may, in my tales, sound as if she were stupid, as if she were no more than a beede-browed goon. But this was far from the case - I'd seen her on occasion match verse with verse with poets when they recited the old lays of
battle
. But when it came to love-songs, or tales of the giants and fairies who supposedly walked our land before man, she knew, and wished to know, nothing at all.

Even now, I wish I could say I understood her. But I didn't. None of us did. Perhaps Ismet was one facet of Maranonia incarnate as I'd once fancifully wondered.