The web of wizardry (3 page)

"Argan, Argan, most mighty goddess . . ." Osyta crooned, rocking back and forth. Her healmg skills had availed little against the terrible plagues which had wracked her tribe. Companions of her childhood were all gone, save the one woman who now cared for her needs, gently trying to tidy her disarrayed garments.

Danaer watched with mingled fear and pity. Those blank eyes seemed to be glistening with new wisdom, a final touching of Osyta's spirit by the goddess, ere death took her.

Despite her venerable years, the herb-healer wore the fawn-colored breeches and shirt and leather vest of a warrior woman. She had ridden on caravan raids with the boldest of Nyald Zsed, tending wounds and drawing the enemy's blood, as need be. No half-skirt marked her garb, for she had never bound herself to a man nor borne a child. Her eiphren, that faith-jewel

she had received as a girl, dangled from a frayed rawhide thong and rested between her scraggly gray eyebrows.

Quite abruptly, she reached out, seeking to explore Danaer's face. Her skinny hands groped across his tunic and at the hilts of his belt knife and his army sword. With surprising strength, she clawed down along his left arm until she touched his eiphren, the simple gemstone he wore on his mid-finger. More boldly, she probed ribs and biceps and patted at his belly. At last she sat back on her heels and said, "There is more flesh on you than I remember, kinsman. You begin to resemble your sire in the fullness of his years, when he fought in the Kakyein wars, fought for the honor of Nyald Zsed."

"He died for that honor," Danaer said somberly. "But my honor is pledged to the army of The Interior. I am a warrior of Nyald Zsed no longer, Osyta."

"And soon you will journey to Siank, to join the great battle that is to come." The herb-healer pointed toward a sunrise she could not see, and Danaer shuddered. Perhaps her mention of Siank had been only a shrewd guess, a copying of some gossip she had overheard, for the army caravan's destination was no secret. But her speaking of a great battle . . . Whence came those words?

"Siank," she repeated in a wistful voice. "I shall never know Siank now. But you will, blood of my blood. You shall ride out Nyald and unto Siank."

Without warning, Osyta began to keen a death prayer. Danaer pulled his mantle more tightly about his shoulders to shut out a, cold far deeper than that of the fading night. The herb-healer's friend wept quietly as Danaer's kinswoman sang, readying her path to Keth's holy portals.

At long last, the sound trickled away on the sulfur-ous air and Osyta's lips slackened. Visibly, she brought herself back to the earth of the living. "Ai, warrior, you carry the pride of Nyald Zsed with you to Siank."

Danaer grimaced and said with studied patience,

"Search your mind, old one. Remember that I am now Captain Yistar's scout."

"Ai! He is your Siim, since you rode into his fort and took oath unto our fire-haired enemy, that Straedanfi." Osyta's leathery face creased in a cryptic smile. "Straedanfi, who never takes his fangs from our throats until we surrender, then feeds us from his hand, like his pets. A most worthy Siirn, this Straedanfi, my kinsman. You were wise to follow him, in the time of death."

Against his will, led by her words, Danaer's thoughts turned back through the cruel seasons.

Choose.

Eight years had gone by smce he had made the fateful decision. Then he had been but a youth, mounted on a staggering and half-dead roan. Danaer's belly had been empty, his tongue parched, and his heart had been drained of hope. In his mind's eye he saw himself approaching Captain Yistar, dropping his weapons, lifting his hands in supplication, seeking the oflBicer's mercy. What honor was it to die to no point in the clan wars or to starve or suffer the torments of disease when plague struck less severely in the town and fort and there was food aplenty? Better far for a young Azsed to offer his meager talents to Yistar, to that Straedanfi, who had been a brave and respected foe and had so often bested the bloodiest warriors of Nyald Zsed.

Choose.

Danaer was not the only youth who had submitted himself to Yistar and begged mercy. The Zsed had not known whether to spit on the weakness of those who surrendered or to praise their courage—for it had taken much courage to ride willingly into the stronghold of the army of The Interior. Of all those who had taken the risk, only Danaer had survived the test of Yistar's discipline and learned to accept the strange new ways of the unbelievers who now claimed his loyalty.

Choose.

He had chosen, and he had become a man between two worlds and belonging to neither.

Osyta had brooded, as if sensing what troubled Danaer and at one with his hurt and regret. But at last she spoke, without accusation. "Now you serve the King of the lit."

"I cannot deny it. King Tobentis rules from his place in Kirvii, in the mountains of The Interior. The army moves by his command, and Captain Yistar must obey him."

"Yet you keep your honor, kinsman." All else was of no matter to Osyta, as was proper for a daughter of Azsed. Truly, a Destre-Y was honor, no matter if the Siirn be an unbeUever.

Danaer forced a wan smile. "It is so. I keep my honor. Aejzad was a most worthy Siirn, in the days of my father. But my father and Aejzad are dead. Whom shall I follow now? Chikaron? He would claim to be Siirn, but no priest has judged him so. The Zsed is scattered and ruined like grass before a storm. The goddess alone knows if we will regain our strength again."

"Nyald Zsed will be renewed," Osyta announced with a sharp jerk of her little chm. "All of Destre-Y will be made powerful as it never has been. More! Destre-Y shall be one with the lit. Hear me! It will be Andaru! Andaru!"

"Andaru?" Danaer said softly. "Long have the priests spoken of Andaru, for generations—telling of the commg of a new birth for all Azsed and all Destre-Y."

"It is close upon us, kinsman! Hear me! Andaru! The Siirn Rena who rules all the tribes shall become Te Rena Azsed—lord of all Krantin from Deki on the River to the Tradyan Plains. Destre-Y and unbeliever shall be as one, shall be Krantin!" Osyta's shrill intensity made Danaer lean back, awed by the death vision that had taken possession of the hag. "Andaru! Soon! Kinsman, it will be soon, and you are to be part of it!"

As any honest warrior must, Danaer respected the prophecy, yet wished nothing to do with the thing. The darkness Osyta had penetrated unmanned him as no enemy's sword or lance could. He stammered as he

had not since he was a boy. "How . . . how can this be, ancient one? Long has the Zsed yearned for the army of The Interior to give up the fort and vanish back into the Mountains of the Mare. But it will never happen. Every year The Interior grows stronger, and the hatred of the tribes does not abate. How can Destre-Y and lit be as one . . . ?"

"Andaru will change all that has been and will be," Osyta said. She traced patterns in the air, recounting a history Danaer had learned in childhood.

"Andaru will change us. We have changed before. Again our feet will be set on a new path, even as our ancestors set forth from Ryerdon to cross the broad Irico River and the unknown Plains of Vrastre. Generations past, we were one people—Ryerdon, dwelling where the sun rises. Ryerdon vied against great Traecheus, the empire of empires, and there was in Ryerdon neither Azsed nor lit, for we worshipped false gods then. As one people, we spanned the Irico and raised the walls of Deki, the entrance to life, forever to guard against the invasion of Traecheus, should it come."

Danaer wanted to take up the tale, reciting as he had heard it so many times from his elders' lips. Osyta nodded approval as he continued. "And beyond Deki the people encountered many testings. They journeyed through the wasteland of Bogotana's Sink and the flaming waters of the Vrastre. In the testing the holy ones separated Ryerdon and gave us unto our destiny. Those of Azsed learned the rule of Argan, and she gave unto us all the Vrastre."

"Ai! Ai! No more was there Ryerdon. There was lit, the unbelievers who bowed to Peluva and Desin, and Azsed, the Destre-Y, the people," Osyta said, eagerly resuming the narrative. "We came to hate, as Ryerdon had once hated Traecheus and rivaled her through ancient generations. Now those who dwelt in the mountains and valleys prayed to Peluva's golden orb and to the jewels and bright metal of Desin's wealth in the earth. For those who roamed the plains, the goddess of wills and fire was holy. Many seasons and years have turned, and still we hate, ever at dag-

ger and lance. We are Krantin—two peoples, two lands "

She paused, and Danaer was held by the spell of the words, thinking of his own life, suspended in the midst of that unending rivalry.

"It is so, by the will of the divine ones—until Andaru," Osyta finished. In a peculiar singsong, she cried out in the far-seeing, the prophecy most rare. "Andaru, and you will witness it, my kinsman. Ai! Do not doubt me! You shall sit at the feet of the mighty, and new legends shall be borne. Andaru comes upon us swiftly, upon wings of fire and blood! Much, much blood! Ah! And there is evil, kinsman! Forces powerful beyond all dreaming, a great and terrible evil."

Danaer could not move. His stare was locked on Osyta's ecstatic old face. Her milky eyes swam with the visions, and she stabbed a finger toward the smoking mountain. "There lie the weapons to be found against this evil, kinsman, weapons forged together by all Krantin's gods. lit and Destre-Y must be one. They must use these weapons as one, or the evil will devour us all! From Krantin must come a strength, a magic—fire and fierce power and a matchless blow! It is in the children of the mountain.

"Andaru. Krantin must be bought with blood, kinsman. The blood of Azsed, of ancient Ryerdon. Much, much blood! Only then shall the people of the plains and those of The Interior be rejoined as they were in the old days. Hear me! Traecheus calls out for our help, and we must heed her. Krantin in its strength, new-bought with the blood of great sacrifice, must aid Ryerdon's enemy. And Traecheus will praise our name . . ."

Surely madness now seized the old woman! Traecheus was no more. The Empire of the Eastern Islands was buried with the bones of time. Ryerdon itself was no more than a dimly remembered legend, preserved only in words and by a namesake city in the interior of Krantin.

Some whim made Danaer look to the east and wonder. Was not Traecheus the ancestor of Clarique, the

people who now ruled the islands where the sun rose? And though Ryerdon was dead, did it not still live in the seed of Destre-Y and the people of The Interior?

"That was very long ago . . ." he whispered, trying to thrust away unsettling ideas.

"And it is now," Osyta said, hearing him, though he had kept his voice very low. "There will be rewards. I see beauty. It is woman, deeply tangled with your own life thread. Oh, this prophecy is not only of blood and evil—not all of it. Beauty, ai, and death is its companion, kinsman. Evil, and death. All woven finely together, like the most costly mantle. And what is this?" Osyta gasped in shock, then held out her hands to Danaer. "Let me give you my blessing. Quickly! It is very needful!"

Shaken, Danaer cast aside his helmet and knelt before her. Osyta brushed back the Destre mantle from his hair and caressed Danaer's head and face. "The goddess guard you well, you of my sister's blood." An unseen power might have flowed from her old fingers into his being. Osyta's feeble touch tightened almost hurtfully against his temples then. "What? I see it plainly now! Sorkra! The wizard kind! Ai! There is much wizardry in this prophecy, magic both good and evil, most potent and awful. You must beware of such magic, warrior. It is not wise for those of Azsed to traffic in these things. Stay to the rule of the goddess. Ride Argan's sacred path .. ."

He nodded assent willingly, wishing she had not spoken of such matters. A prophecy was the truth of the holy ones. What had she seen? Wizards? Indeed, that was nothing any warrior would treat with.

Above the Zsed, from the rocky face of the fortress, drums rumbled out a call to muster. The summons woke Danaer from a grim mood. The old woman sensed that other loyalties had ended her link with him. Her hands fell away, releasing Danaer from bonds of prophecy and dark visions.

Though she could not see his gesture, he hid his actions from Osyta as he beckoned her aged friend close. Danaer slipped a few of the King's silver coins in the crone's waiting palm and whispered, "For the

death-giving. You will chant her to Keth's portals, and favor the priest and the fire-walkers that Osyta shall be well mourned?" The herb-healer's friend wiped tears from rheumy eyes, murmuring promises that all should be fitting, according to the will of the goddess.

Still he hesitated, looking down with pity at his dying kinswoman. She seemed to be sinking back into a senile crooning once more, her power of foretelling gone. But as he took up the rein of his horse, she suddenly woke from uncaring and cried, "I have told you the truth, only the truth. I shall not see you again on this earth, warrior, for when the sun dies, so will I. Remember, you of my sister's blood, you will be part of Andaru. You go into danger, Destre-Y . . . much, much danger, and perhaps glory as well, if the goddess smiles."

Had Osyta given him a blessing or a curse? Danaer made a brusque farewell, receiving only a disinterested muttering for an answer. Duty satisfied, he vaulted onto the roan's back and drove his boots hard into its flanks, riding hard through the sulfurous miasma, leaving the Zsed behind.

Osyta's words chased him toward the cliff trail, making him urge the horse up at a risky pace through the narrow twists and turns. Not until he was well beyond the outer perimeter and approaching the drill field did Danaer begin to shrug off Osyta's spell. He was grateful to set himself to plain tasks, falling in beside Shaartre as they marshaled the sleepy troopmen and checked equipment for the long journey.

Captain Yistar was on the prowl, alert for any lax-ness. His square jaw, pocked with the marks of plague, was set, his lips thinned under his bristly red mustaches. There was a touch of gray in his hair now, but he had not weakened. He had survived the plague and many a campaign, assuming command of the fort when no highborn officer of The Interior would leave the capital and take the post. They had lacked the courage to risk disease and hardship.