Author's Note: I have no excuses…I just couldn't pull it together, until now. So here is the next chapter. I know I have no business asking anyone to review, it's been so long since I updated, but…please review anyway? Please? :(
The late, great David and Leigh Eddings own everything from the Elenium and Tamuli, not me so…on with the story!
(review!)
A Thief In Armor (Arc 2)
Chapter 15: Confrontation
Part I.
A pure blue sky loomed overhead, its cerulean brilliance unmarred by even the trace of a cloud. The sun, arrayed in all its fiery radiance, beat down on a borderless sea of grass plains extending east, west, and south to the distant horizon. The only edifice of any variety loomed in the north; a set of arching aqueducts rising in majestic heights over the cool gurgling sound of a shallow river.
All thoughts of confrontation and the previous question fled from Talen's mind as he stared in disbelief at the scene before his eyes. "Where are we …and where the hell is Chyrellos?!"
Danae stood a few yards away, her arms wrapped around herself as she gazed into the distance. Her dark eyes were a mystery as she studied the arches. Finally she gave a small sigh and seemed to return to herself.
"Danae…" Talen tried again. His world was literally falling out from underneath him and he felt badly shaken. The dark haired princess turned from her minute study of the shallow river.
"Now is not the time for a collective apoplexy, Talen. We should keep moving."
"Where?" Talen shrieked, throwing his hands in the air. "We are standing in the middle of nowhere if you haven't noticed!"
Danae tipped her head to one side and waved a dismissive hand. "You really need to calm down, Talen. Throwing fits is really poor etiquette for a Knight."
Talen was silent for two heartbeats. "…poor…etiquette? Are you serious, Danae? Is it poor etiquette for a Styric god to parade around as an Elenian princess? Is it poor etiquette to lie to your friends and family? Is it poor etiquette to use people like puppets for you own perverse entertainments?"
"You are blowing this out of proportion." Danae replied with a slight edge to her voice.
Talen took no heed. "You enjoy it, don't you? He said reflectively, his voice lined with disgust, "Toying with our existence as if we were lifeless figures on a chessboard."
Danae turned fully toward him and narrowed her eyes. "Don't be absurd, it is not like…"
Talen interrupted "That's exactly what it is! Danae or Flute or whatever you are calling yourself at the moment! You are just as heartless and ruthless as any of the elder gods! You just like to meddle more!" He said stabbing his finger at the petite young woman.
For once the young princess seemed as if she would actually lose her composure. Tears stood openly in her eyes.
"It's easy isn't it? Talen? To make rash judgments when you understand so little. Do you know what else is easy? Making people do what you want by force. It's easy to hate your enemies and kill them, completely wiping them out of existence simply because you can."
Talen whirled around and started toward the shallow river, but the princess' words easily caught up to his ears.
"Do you know what's hard, Talen? Finding a way to stop enmity between people who are bent on mutual annihilation. You know what's hard? Trusting those who have slaughtered your people for no reason."
Talen spun back around, but his refute died in his throat at the sight of Danae's tear stained face.
"You weren't there…when the elder gods reigned. It was worse then hell, Talen," she continued. "Anon built a tower as massive as the Basilica out of the bones of his human sacrifices… Thirteen lifetimes it took to end the domination of the elder gods…three millennia of the war, death and destruction before that. How could you ever compare me to one of those monsters?"
Talen stood silent as the bright sun mocked his dark and torn soul.
The silence stretched and Danae abruptly wiped the moisture from her eyes and swept past Talen. Too deeply confused and angry to do anything else, he followed at a distance.
The sun had begun its decent to the west when the two reached the shallow river. Talen shaded his eyes as he looked up at the massive arches of the aqueducts. They reached incredibly high and consisted of a pattern of dark bricks he had never seen before. The shadows fell over the water coloring the stream with rivets of blue and midnight.
Talen followed Danae as they made their way up the river, no words being exchanged between the two. The Pandion wondered if he should apologize. He felt bad, but his anger got the better of him as did his wounded pride. After all this time he should have somehow figured it out. Berit had even hinted at the subject several times, but Talen had thought it far too ridiculous to be true.
A princess and a goddess, how did she manage that? Talen was painfully curious, but the volley of questions was held in check by the previous argument. He was never talking to Danae again, he resolved. He choked back a disgusted sound. If she had her way he would be propped up on the throne of Elenia playing prince consort, dressed like all those pansy flops at court.
He would never see the light of day, never travel to the Tamuli continent again, never ride out with the Peloi, or train with the Cyrinics. He would never run the backstreets of Cheadin or lift trinkets from the pockets of wealthy Cimmurans. He would be trapped at court bored to death in endless counsel meetings and getting flabby from sitting on his behind all day.
Suicide seemed a more viable option.
Talen could not even consider the implications of being married to a Styric goddess. A wave of fear made him feel dizzy. So intent was he on his musings that he didn't notice the body lying facedown on the ground until he nearly tripped over it.
Talen dropped to his knees and shoved the body over. It was Kyyis. "Danae!" he called discarding his earlier resolution. The young princess turned back and seeing Kyyis, quickly rushed over. Talen's brother was still breathing, but completely unconscious with dried blood on his right temple.
"Kyyis!" Talen shouted, trying to shake his brother awake.
"Stop jostling him!" Danae commanded as she knelt on the other side of the wounded man. Talen abruptly stopped and leaned back on his heels. The princess touched the Knight's temple and studied him intently. After what seemed like a lifetime to Talen she leaned back.
"He seems to be alright, but he may not wake up for awhile." She said.
"What happened to him?"
Danae shook her head. "I don't know. I think he got hit in the head or fell down as he was running from something."
Talen's brows furrowed. "Can't you just…you know…" Talen wiggled his fingers.
Danae gave him a dark look. "No, I don't just go traipsing around in people's minds for fun."
"Oh…I see."
The princess continued to look down at the unconscious man. "Why don't you get him some water, Talen? He's probably dehydrated."
Talen nodded and jumped up to go to the river. The pair had been traveling close to the water and the endless grasslands kept Kyyis visible to Talen as he sprinted to the river's edge. He patted his clothes searching for his canteen. He finally found it and held it against the waters edge.
He returned to where Kyyis was and handed the pouch to the princess. She tore a piece of her sleeve off and moistened it with the water gently cleaning the blood at Kyyis' temple. It was a maternal gesture, full of care and concern. Talen felt a bit of his anger lessen as he watched.
Feeling suddenly drained he sat down next to Kyyis. The sun continued to sink in the sky, the bright afternoon fading into a lavender and violet hued evening. The fading rays of light drenched across the companions keeping silent vigil. The long hours crept away bringing the darkness of a fading day.
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Part II.
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Khalad stared at the gruesome battlefield. It could be worse, the young preceptor reasoned as he did a swift headcount of the remaining Pandions still in the field. The retreat was proceeding according to plan, but Khalad couldn't to be too careful, he didn't want what happened to the eighty seven to happen to any more of his men.
The scouts had brought back no intelligence concerning the fate of the men left behind the first day of the siege. Khalad was nervous to say the least, still no news meant there was still hope. Finally the last of the mounted Knights rode into the side entrance. Khalad nodded, signaling the opening to be shut.
This new tactic had proven to be very successful. He and Sparhawk had developed them while Khalad had still been the squire of the former preceptor. The idea was that during a siege, the last thing the enemy expected was for the gate to open. The first step was to open the gate and allow the front lines of the adversary in. Then when he was partially committed, the gates were closed. The enemy inside were systematically slaughter by strategically placed archers. Meanwhile, the ones outside were treated to burning tar, naphtha, and other deadly surprises.
During this, a contingent of Knights would come around from the secret entrances of the Chapterhouse and charge through all the confused fighters. The Knights would then return while the enemy was distracted by an illusory force coming from the other side.
According to the sketchy reports from his scouts, all adepts in the secrets; the enemy force had been reduced by a quarter thanks to the attack. Khalad grinned darkly, they would reduce it some more when the reinforcements arrived.
"Preceptor Khalad, sir!" One of the novitiates ran up to Khalad.
"Calm yourself." Khalad said sternly to the youth. The young man straightened up and snapped to attention.
"There's a woman, she…she appeared out of nowhere and demands to see you. We have her in one of the holding cells."
Khalad frowned. His gut told him to be on guard. He grabbed on of his smaller daggers and slipped it under his sleeve. "Take me to her."
The novitiate nodded and nearly ran out the door with Khalad right on his heels. They reached the holding cell, its dank underground location not unlike many dungeons. Two Knights stood guard against the door, both looking uncertain and nervous. Khalad pulled one aside, outside of earshot of the cell.
"What happened?" he said as he waved the lingering novitiate away. Once Khalad was sure the novitiate was gone, he nodded the Knight to begin.
"I don't know how she got in, sir…she just appeared in the middle of the courtyard'" The Knight said lifting his hands in a helpless gesture.
"What did she say?" Khalad asked. The guard shook his head. "She said 'bring your preceptor to me immediately' and er…she called me a 'detestable knave'."
Khalad raised an eyebrow. "Quite something isn't she?" The Knight nodded nervously. "Well, let's see what she wants, shall we?" Khalad asked.
The preceptor signaled the other guard to open the door. The keys jingled and the door creaked open, an ominous sound in the silence of the hold. Khalad inched forward carefully into the room. He flexed his fingers, keeping them loose and prepared.
At first he didn't see the figure seated on the low bench. Being underground, the hold wasn't especially well lit and the woman wore a dark hooded cape which obscured her face. The Pandion preceptor broke the silence as he was never one for a pregnant silence.
"I was told you wanted to see me, ma'am?" He asked in a bland voice.
The prisoner lifted her glove clad hands and pushed back her hood. Underneath regally arched brows burned the eyes of a fanatic. The strangely glossy depths glimmered ebony without the aid of any light. Khalad knew instinctively that he was dealing with a very dangerous woman.
"You are…preceptor Khalad?" Her voice had strange inflections, and a slight undertone that made the preceptor's skin crawl.
"I am. May I ask who you are ma'am? And how you managed to find your way here?"
The woman crossed her legs. "I am called Shendar, and I come with a proposition for you, preceptor."
Khalad narrowed his eyes, his instincts screaming at him the wrongness of the situation. "What is your proposition Shendar? Make it quick—I have this little siege on my hands."
The woman smiled slightly, but her eyes burned darker. "I can make that army go away, preceptor," she said.
"Is that so?" Khalad asked gritting his teeth. "I wonder if you could prove that?"
The woman pursed her lips. "Do not insult me preceptor. I brought the army here easily enough and I can remove them just as easily."
"Just for the sake of argument, let's say I actually believed you, Shendar. What would you want to make the army go away?" Khalad asked, a tic working in his jaw.
"Simply information, preceptor," she answered. "Your brother recently left the Chapterhouse. I require his location and whatever you know about his so-called 'quest'"
"Why in god's name would I tell you that?" Khalad scoffed.
Shendar laced her fingers together. "I will find out where Talen is in either case; I am merely giving you the opportunity to avert a war. When the time comes for my master to awaken, this siege will seem like a minor skirmish…Do you want to save your men, Khalad?" she asked lowering her voice. "Or do you want to allow them to suffer the same fate of those eighty-seven you left for dead?"
In two steps Khalad closed the distance and grabbed the cloak of the prisoner, lifting her to her feet. "Where are they!" he roared, pulling her to eye level. The woman threw back her head and let out a high pitched laugh. Before his next breath, Khalad was being flung across the room. The woman continued laughing, still suspended in midair with no apparent help.
Her screeching cackle rung in Khalad's ears as his back connected with the far wall and he slumped to the ground. Shendar lifted her hands in a gesture of supplication. "Now, you maggot, face the wrath of the arm of H'va-ken!"
Incandescent light filled the Khalad's vision, and then everything went black.
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Part III.
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It was an unrelenting journey.
Sparhawk no longer looked at the sky, its infernal burning made his stomach clench. Not that the charred ground was any better. At least he could see his feet moving forward to whatever lay ahead. Beside him, Sparhawk's companion walked at a seemingly leisurely pace, but it was brisk enough to keep abreast of the Pandion.
Sparhawk had no idea how long he walked beside his pale-eyed ally. It could have been an hour or a decade. The Elenian had tried to draw his companion out in conversation but the comments of the strange man had been enigmatic and evasive.
Eventually it was the pale-eyed man who broke the silence. "The woman thou doth call Lillias… is she an acquaintance of thine?" he asked.
Sparhawk was startled as the deep voice broke the otherwise profound silence. The Elenian prince considered how to answer and decided to be candid. "She was my lover during the years I was in exile from my homeland."
This seemed to pique the pale-eyed man's interest as he arched an eyebrow at "Sparhawk. "Seest thou no strangeness in her action and behavior?"
"Like a giant Onyx?" Sparhawk interrupted, "Or the ability to fly? No she was, at least as far as I could tell, a bit high stung and given to melodrama…but I could say the same of many women."
That particular comment dredged a rueful laugh out of the pale-eyed man. The action transformed the strange man's stern face dramatically. One moment he was an austere, overly –serious, and generally intimidating figure, but when he laughed the lines of his face relaxed and rather closely resembled a benevolent grandfather.
The unexpected amusement almost stopped Sparhawk from noticing the change around him. The barren earth was subtly changing into a rocky outcrop. If the Pandion strained, he could even hear the sound of the distant ocean.
Sparhawk felt his heartbeat quicken as the salty tang of the unknown sea reached his nostrils. Imperceptibly he picked up his pace longing with every fiber of his being to see the water.
"We will reach our destination shortly, Anakha. There danger and decisions await thee. It is thy choice, though I advice thee to take heed to my counsel."
Sparhawk frowned. "I will listen friend, but I keep my own counsel."
That seemed to satisfy Sparhawk's companion and the silence stretched between them.
Abruptly the fire ended along with the earth. The shore was unlike any shore Sparhawk had ever seen, even in his distant travels to the Tamul Empire. The colors of the coastline were oddly transparent; as if they were in more than one place. The shore line was wrenched and uneven; a testament to the earlier cataclysm.
Strangest of all were the gates. Spaced out in uneven intervals were several gates. They were all of differing patterns and materials, but all seemed to be isolated on the sands. Even stranger, the immediate area surrounding each gate seemed to be another place entirely with different lighting and vegetation.
"Where…what is this place?" Sparhawk asked in wonder as he approached the promontory overlooking the coast.
"Thy actions, Anakha…even thy presence, have disrupt the precarious balance of this world. What thou regardest as absolute truth; time, space, distance…it is only so because the mightiest of us have decreed it must be."
"That doesn't answer my question, friend."
The pale-eyed man held up a hand. "Allow me to finish. What lies before thee is, in truth, choices. I have seen that it is difficult for man to grasp truth that is intangible, so I have lain before thee what is concrete."
The pale-eyed man spread his arm back indicating the direction they had come from. "Hereto, thou hast wandered in a land unchanging. So thy world will become so long as thou makest no decision. Barren…and condemned to destruction."
Sparhawk interrupted. "So, friend, you saying that if I do nothing, the world will end?"
The pale-eyed man nodded gravelly. "Why?" Sparhawk asked. "I'm not a god and I gave up any power I had when I relinquished the Bhelliom."
"Thou must seeth the truth." The pale-eye man pleaded, clearly frustrated at Sparhawk's lack of perception. "Thy power is not the mere holding of a stone! Thy power is thy nature. Thou art Anakha. Thou art unfettered by the constraints of fate, yet by thy actions is the world unmade!"
Sparhawk sighed. He wasn't really in the mood for a philosophical debate. "Alright, so I'm assuming you want me to save the world again, right?"
The strange man regarded him closely. "Yes, but it will require more of thee than wielding force. First, thou must choose." Sparhawk's companion pointed down at the beach.
"Each of the gates leadeth to one who is connected to thee. Thy errant threads have imperiled the world. Thou must make the threads straight again before thou proceedeth to the next part of thy sojourn."
"I get it, friend. Do you know which gate leads to my wife?"
The pale-eyed man pointed to a wrought iron fence that was surrounded by cobblestones and a steady drizzle of rain. Sparhawk turned to sprint down the beach.
"Thinkest thou on thy decision, thy mate is in no immediate danger, thy other companions require thy aid more." The pale-eyed man called to him.
Sparhawk stopped, the rain-spattered gate leading to his wife looming before him. With all his strength he tore his eyes away along with his sudden hope to see his lovely gray-eyed bride. "Where would you advise me to go?" Sparhawk asked his companion.
The strange man leaped from the promontory directly onto the sands of the beach. His cloak billowing out behind him, he walked to a gate made of dark patterned stones with sunlight streaming through.
"Follow, Anakha. Follow."