Sunrunner's Fire Part 43

"So all this is your way of getting even," Andry prompted.

"Nothing could ever repay us for what we suffered. This is only a flicker of revenge on her descendants."

Every muscle in his body drew taut. "Pol?"

"And you!" she spat. "Proud of it, are you, Lord of G.o.ddess Keep? To be the blood of that murderous abomination?"

"How do you know this?" he breathed.

"Don't you think we've kept track of all of you through the years? And haven't you made the connection yet between Lord Garic of Elktrap and Lord Gerik, Merisel's husband? Ruala is one of us!"

"But the names-"

"A blind," she sneered. "To make everyone think that their power comes from Merisel and Gerik, not Rosseyn. She's as much a full-blooded diarmadhi diarmadhi as I am, as Ruval is! As as I am, as Ruval is! As Pol Pol is!" is!"

This time he was physically staggered.

"I don't know how, so don't ask." Annoyed by her lack of knowledge, still she obviously enjoyed her triumph. "Sioned's line is obscure in many places. He must get it from her. She wears no Sunrunner's rings anymore, so there's no indication that way of her blood. But if you placed such a ring on Pol's hand, and our arts were practiced around him, his finger would burn like fire."

"Pol," he breathed. He could scarcely believe it. Then, shocked anew: "Rings?"

"Don't you know anything?" she shouted. "In a Sunrunner with the Old Blood, the rings burn in the presence of one of our spells!"

"Tell me the rest," Andry said with no voice at all.

She rubbed her wrists as she told him Chiana's part in the plot-ripe for suggestion and sorcery, Chiana hated Sunrunners and Rohan about equally. Andry regretted her essential innocence. Then Mireva began to describe the scene of Sorin's death with vicious glee.

"Stop," he whispered, in pain.

"Stop? You're the one who wanted to hear all of it-and so you shall! He had to die, just as Maarken and his children will have to die so there will be no one left to inherit the Desert. Oh, and Hollis, as well-for murdering Segev. You claimed Marron's life for killing your brother. Ruval will claim hers for the same reason."

"You'll have to kill me, too."

"Not for dynastic reasons. No, you and your little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds will die because you're Sunrunners, and Merisel's get."

The father in him trembled for Andrev and Tobren and Chayly. But what he said was, "You've already acknowledged that you're the one who's going to die-one way or another. Who's going to perform these executions?"

"Ruval."

It was fairly easy to laugh. "He'll be ashes by midnight!"

"Perhaps. But if not him, then others. How many of us do you think there are?" she taunted. "Hundreds? Thousands? Remember that one diarmadhi diarmadhi parent guarantees that all the children will inherit power. You Sunrunners are few and weak compared to us! And how would you even find us? Merisel drove us into the Veresch-but we have moved into every other part of the continent by now. As Sioned's heritage proves, the unsuspected power she gave to Pol. How will you find us, Lord of G.o.ddess Keep? How will you eliminate us?" parent guarantees that all the children will inherit power. You Sunrunners are few and weak compared to us! And how would you even find us? Merisel drove us into the Veresch-but we have moved into every other part of the continent by now. As Sioned's heritage proves, the unsuspected power she gave to Pol. How will you find us, Lord of G.o.ddess Keep? How will you eliminate us?"

"I have a question for you," he said with a tiny smile. "How will you stop me?" "How will you stop me?"

He already knew how he would do it. Those who had joined Chiana were still captive at Dragon's Rest. It would be simplicity itself to be rid of them-but not until they had revealed the locations of the others. Additionally, anyone who possessed power probably used it; rumor alone would lead him to diarmadh'im diarmadh'im from Firon to Kierst-Isel to Dorval. He would find them, and they would die. from Firon to Kierst-Isel to Dorval. He would find them, and they would die.

His only problem would be the highly placed ones. Sioned. Pol. Riyan. But they were all Sunrunners-of a sort. He would find some way of putting them under his watch, if not his control.

His smile widened. "How will you stop me?" "How will you stop me?" he repeated. he repeated.

Her steel-braceleted arms came up and fire gushed from her fingertips. She screamed with the agony of working with iron piercing her flesh. But flames shot from her hands and his cry echoed with hers as his clothing caught fire. He fell, writhing, and rolled across the stone floor to extinguish fire before it charred him to the bone.

The next instant the flames were gone.

So was Mireva.

Her brain told her she must seal Andry inside the cell, but there was no time and she could not make her swollen fingers work. Half-blind, she stumbled toward the stairs, groped her way up them. Surely there had not been so many on the way down- She sobbed as she collided with a door. It had no lock, but in the dimness, with pain bleating along every nerve, locating the latch and shoving the door open was endless agony. She moaned with relief when she saw the hall stretch ahead of her, empty. No one had heard her shrieks or Andry's cries. But this was the inhabited part of the keep, and she must be careful.

Mireva breathed slowly and carefully, wis.h.i.+ng for just the tiniest pinch of dranath dranath to clear her head. But the memory of the sweet invincibility was almost enough. She grabbed a torch from its sconce and wedged it under the door. It wouldn't slow Andry down for long, but it was better than nothing. to clear her head. But the memory of the sweet invincibility was almost enough. She grabbed a torch from its sconce and wedged it under the door. It wouldn't slow Andry down for long, but it was better than nothing.

Twisting her hair into a knot at her nape, she brushed off her clothing and walked down the hall as if she belonged there. She met no one until a footman came by, loaded down with Fironese crystal on a silver tray-for Pol's victory banquet, Mireva thought acidly. She purposely stumbled into the man's shoulder. He swore and almost lost his balance. Her hands were still clumsy, but she managed to grab one of the thin-stemmed goblets. The crystal broke very neatly against the wall and as the footman righted himself, catlike, without dropping his burden, Mireva slashed his throat.

The ensuing crash would bring people running. She must hurry. Racing down the main corridor, she climbed the servants' stairs as fast as she could, encountering only an incurious maid carrying an armful of sheets. As she ran, she tried to pick the wire from her ear, gave it up as being too tightly wound, and started on the steel circling her wrists. By the time she reached Ruala's chamber, the first bloodied wire had fallen to the floor.

There were no guards, not even a maid sitting in the shadowy bedroom. Ruala was asleep. As Mireva opened the curtains, the flinch brought by the rasp of steel rings on rods was forgotten in the blessed sight of new stars. She rummaged frantically through Ruala's dressing table. Scissors at last to hand, she snipped the other bracelet from her wrist. Quickly, she must work quickly. She could draw on Ruala's power once she was free of the steel and could work. She tried to still her tremors and leaned down to get a better look in the mirror as she worked on the wire in her earlobe.

"Put it down."

She spun, astonished to find Ruala standing beside the bed, ready to kill her with the elegant jeweled knife clutched in her fist. She held the blade by its handle, not its tip, ready to throw it; she probably didn't even know how. Thus she would have to come closer-close enough for Mireva to disarm her, with luck. While the wire was still twisted in her earlobe, she could not use sorcery with ease-and she was two and a half times Ruala's age.

"Why isn't your loving lord hovering over his precious darling?" Mireva asked sweetly.

"Put the scissors down," Ruala said, just as quietly as before.

Long black hair swirled about perfect shoulders; the dark green eyes were reminiscent of Mireva's own in some lights. The old woman saw herself as she had been over forty years ago: young, beautiful, with the promise of power in her eyes. "We're the same, you and I," she murmured.

"We're no more alike than Fire and Water. Now, put it down."

Mireva set the scissors on the dressing table behind her. "I know power when it's near me. You're diarmadhi, diarmadhi, just like me." She could almost feel Andry pounding on the door down below. Time, time-"Do you think Andry will let you live, knowing what you are? Or do you suppose your brave lord will protect you? How can he, when Andry will be after his blood, too?" just like me." She could almost feel Andry pounding on the door down below. Time, time-"Do you think Andry will let you live, knowing what you are? Or do you suppose your brave lord will protect you? How can he, when Andry will be after his blood, too?"

Ruala smiled. "You know power, do you? We'll see." She started slowly for the door, never taking her eyes off Mireva. But when she reached her hand to the k.n.o.b, Mireva made a supreme effort-and what Ruala touched was a thing slimy and foul, a writhing piece of corroded flesh that oozed acid. She screamed and jerked her fingers away.

Mireva could hardly see. The pain was unendurable, spreading along her limbs from a brain that seemed to be on fire. But the torture was worth it. Ruala, stunned and terrified for that brief instant of sorcery, was vulnerable. Mireva threw herself blindly forward. They sprawled together on the floor, locked as tightly as lovers. Mireva dimly heard the knife clatter away.

She wrestled herself atop Ruala, gasping as fingers dug so deep into her lacerated wrists that she was sure the bones would shatter. Ruala was no fool; recovery from shock had been swift, and she knew exactly where to hurt Mireva the most. Mireva flung them over and hoped her pain-hazed sight could be trusted. The thud of the girl's head against the stout wooden bedframe proved her correct. Ruala wilted.

Gulping for air, Mireva pushed herself to her feet and went for the scissors again. Her hands shook so hard that she drew blood from the side of her neck-but the wire dropped to the dressing table. She was free.

The stars beckoned. She wove their light swiftly, craving dranath, dranath, and hurled herself down the silvery skeins toward Rivenrock. and hurled herself down the silvery skeins toward Rivenrock.

It was as she had feared. Pol and Ruval were already battling, Air and Fire whirling around them, hideous visions conjured and countered in a maelstrom of power. The ungifted onlookers were masked in horror at what they saw. Those who were sensitive to the arts-Sioned and Morwenna, Tobin, Maarken, and Hollis-were on their knees in the sand, faces contorted with agony. No perath perath had been woven to s.h.i.+eld them. This suited Mireva perfectly. She could enter the battle without hindrance and the Sunrunners would feel the deathblow as if it had been directed at them. had been woven to s.h.i.+eld them. This suited Mireva perfectly. She could enter the battle without hindrance and the Sunrunners would feel the deathblow as if it had been directed at them.

Pol backed away from Ruval's gambit-a blazing whirlwind that sprouted claws from which lightning spewed. The princeling looked frightened. Mireva laughed her satisfaction. It seemed Ruval was doing just fine without her. Still, she watched in wariness for Pol's reply, for all she knew about him warned of cleverness.

His right hand groped in a pocket of his trousers, emerged fisted around some small thing. He flung it into the air as one might release a hunting hawk-and from a tiny bright glitter it indeed grew wings. Swirling with Sunrunner's Fire, the thing became an immense golden dragon as tall as the canyon walls, wings aflame, eyes glowing white as if suffused with stars.

Mireva gasped out a curse and hastened her own work. For the trick to this illusion was that some of it was not not illusion. Fire concealed the working until it was ready in all its awful details-so that the portions that were real could not he guessed from watching its construction. Any part of the conjured dragon might be made from that small glinting thing Pol had thrown into the air. She had taught Ruval the technique, shown him how stone gathered from the sands could form talons and teeth, or real fire could gush from mighty jaws. If Ruval could not discern fact from illusion, it would cost him his life. illusion. Fire concealed the working until it was ready in all its awful details-so that the portions that were real could not he guessed from watching its construction. Any part of the conjured dragon might be made from that small glinting thing Pol had thrown into the air. She had taught Ruval the technique, shown him how stone gathered from the sands could form talons and teeth, or real fire could gush from mighty jaws. If Ruval could not discern fact from illusion, it would cost him his life.

It was almost as painful to work without dranath dranath as it had been with iron poisoning her blood. She needed the drug, could feel its lack screaming shrilly inside her as she readied her weapon. But she did it: Pol's dragon turned to gla.s.s. It cracked and splintered to the sand, and as it did the real portion of it-the las.h.i.+ng tail concealing the little golden carving-crumbled. as it had been with iron poisoning her blood. She needed the drug, could feel its lack screaming shrilly inside her as she readied her weapon. But she did it: Pol's dragon turned to gla.s.s. It cracked and splintered to the sand, and as it did the real portion of it-the las.h.i.+ng tail concealing the little golden carving-crumbled.

Pol fell back stunned as his masterwork vanished. Real fear flashed into his eyes. Mireva sobbed for breath, silently screaming at Ruval to be quick in his answering illusion. She could not sustain this for long, not without the drug in her veins.

She whirled then to stare at Ruala. The young woman was still unconscious, but her power was accessible. Without dranath dranath it would be difficult, but if she did not try, Ruval might be dead before the next star appeared. She broke the threads of light and grunted with effort as she hauled Ruala over to the windows. The spell was arduous under the best circ.u.mstances; Mireva felt her head was ready to explode with the strain. But she probed and pushed, groping for the hidden core-and found it. it would be difficult, but if she did not try, Ruval might be dead before the next star appeared. She broke the threads of light and grunted with effort as she hauled Ruala over to the windows. The spell was arduous under the best circ.u.mstances; Mireva felt her head was ready to explode with the strain. But she probed and pushed, groping for the hidden core-and found it.

Swiftly she rewove the starlight. It was easier now, sustained by Ruala's young strength that had never been taught how to resist this. She saw the sand and walls of Rivenrock much more dearly now, and the two combatants.

Now it was Ruval who fumbled with something in his hand. A new inferno appeared, a monster forming within it. When the thing leaped from its concealing blaze. Pol fell back involuntarily. Fully the size of the dragon, it was the entirety of what Mireva had used to terrify Ruala. Had she had strength, she would have laughed in delight; she had taught Ruval this beast herself, they had formed it together.

She was momentarily distracted by a quiver from Ruala's mind. She was beginning to wake up, as if sensing the use to which her powers were being put, outrage and sheer terror rousing her from unconsciousness. Mireva groaned with the pain of keeping her under control, and returned her attention to the monster Ruval had conjured.

It was horned and crested and covered in livid scales of every conceivable color, like a stained gla.s.s window gone berserk. The gaping eyes oozed yellowish matter down to an open maw filled with endless sharp teeth. These dripped blood onto forelegs as big around as a horse that ended in thick, slime-coated claws like steel spikes. It reared back on its hind legs and plummeted down, ready to clamp its jaws around Pol.

Mireva knew the teeth were not real, nor the claws. It was the pus leaking from the eyes that was dangerous. Formed of sand mixed with a paste Ruval had learned to make as one of his first lessons, hidden in a pocket until he needed it, when it touched Pol's skin it would sear him to the bone.

She saw him leap away from the hundreds of teeth. Now, it must be now. She could feel her strength waning, her control over the awakening Ruala fading, her heart beating with savage throbs, her brain on fire. A last effort, a gust of Air conjured at an impossible distance-and a spurt of poisonous yellow muck spattered toward Pol.

She did not see it hit him. She was wrenched back to Stronghold by an agony so horrible that the scream died before it left her throat. The cool starlight turned to needles of ice and fire stabbing into her eyes, matching the stabbing pain in her heart. Her fingers groped for the knife, felt the jewels on its hilt. Staggering around from the window, she expected to see Ruala's white face as she fell.

"That's for Sorin," Riyan told her before she died.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

Rivenrock Canyon: 35 Spring.

Instinct screamed at Pol to wince away, but instinct was hampered by his mind's cold calculations over what was real and what was not. Part of him was well and truly horrified by this hideous apparition. Curses and screams behind him told him he wasn't alone. But another part of him writhed in a frenzy of a.n.a.lysis. What of this was real, and what not? The yellowish ooze might be only a feint, something to distract him while the true attack was mounted. Instinct and intellect interlocked in near-paralysis-but then he saw Ruval's eyes flicker with sudden astonishment.

Ruval had not expected the gust of Air that flung the ooze onto Pol; therefore someone else had initiated it.

No one present would dare such a thing; therefore Mireva was free to work.

She had expended a vast amount of power in calling Air from a great distance-therefore this foul matter was real and to be avoided at all costs.

The reasoning took a split instant. Pol flung himself to one side, but not quickly enough. The filth splattered onto his tunic; a drop hit his face. He was about to wipe it away when his cheek tingled with sudden heat. Within moments the pain was excruciating. If he touched it with his fingers, the agony would spread. And if the pus had hit his eye- Frantically, trying to avoid gaping jaws that might or might not be real, he pulled a knife from his boot to sc.r.a.pe off the sticky slime. He wished he could throw the contaminated blade into Ruval's heart-but rules were rules, and if he broke them his honor would be forfeit. Stupid and possibly suicidal to have such scruples-but he could do nothing else.

He used the knife like a razor against his cheek, nicking the skin, groaning at fresh fire as a hint of the poison mixed into his blood. It felt as if skin and flesh had blistered black and peeled away to the bone. The pain half-blinded him, found outlet in a cry of sheer rage against Mireva's treachery. The knife nestled with deadly familiarity in his fist. But he couldn't use it. Rohan and Sioned-and Lleyn and Chadric and Audrite and everyone who had had a hand in raising him-they had all done their work too well. Roelstra's grandson would have loosed the knife; the son of Rohan and Sioned could not.

But nothing prevented him from using the matter that clung to the blade. The gruesome monster loomed over him, slavering for his blood. Pol took a deep breath and decided on the basis of no evidence at all that the only thing real was the poisonous filth-and strode right through the illusory body toward Ruval. As quickly as he could, careful not to touch the ooze, he flicked it back at its maker.

Ruval dodged it, terror in his eyes, so desperate to avoid the yellow muck that he lost his balance and tumbled to the sand. Pol flung the knife away and used the moments of Ruval's panic to catch his breath. His cheek still burned, but it was a goad now, not a crippling wound.

"Give it up," he panted. "Your best has failed."

"Best? That was nothing!"

Sheer bravado. "Give it up!" Pol shouted furiously. "I don't want to kill you, d.a.m.n it! Yield! Princemarch is mine! The Desert belongs to me by treaty made before we were born!"

" 'As long as the sands sp.a.w.n fire,' " Ruval quoted mockingly. "I see no fire here, princeling, nor is anyone ever likely to!"

"No?" Pol asked softly. And smiled-because suddenly he knew what had to be done. The s.h.i.+ft of facial muscles brought back pain in sickening waves. But he refused to feel it. He was tiring-it was harder to concentrate, harder to summon strength enough. He raised both arms slowly, his gaze never relinquished his half-brother's. Starlight caught the topaz-and-amethyst ring, glowed from the moonstone that had been Andrade's. Arms straight, fingers spread, he stood very still. His hands clenched slowly into fists. He called, and the Fire came.

It sprang to life in gra.s.s and flowers baked dry by the hot spring sun. It filled the mouth of Rivenrock Canyon, fountained up the sandstone watchspire, spread across the dunes. The sea of sand became a sea of Sunrunner's Fire until it seemed the sand itself caught and burned.

Ruval conjured Air to bend the flames back toward Pol. It only fanned them higher. So great was Pol's control, so sure was his power, that he appeared to glow in the perilous brightness.

"Illusion!" Ruval bellowed. "Unreal!"

Pol laughed. "Walk into the flames and see!"

"You'll die by your own Fire, Sunrunner!" Ruval leaped for Pol. The physical attack was so unexpected that Pol went down in a tangle of limbs, feeling his knee wrenched nearly apart with the awkwardness of his fall. A long tongue of flame reached out nearby, licking across a growth of gray-green cacti, close enough to singe the two men as they wrestled on the sand. Pol felt beringed fingers lock around his throat, cutting off precious gulps of searing air. His vision began to go black around a raging wildfire. He tore at Ruval's hands, then took a terrible chance and rolled them both toward the blaze.

Ruval scrambled away with a howl of pain. He dug his right arm into the sand to quench the flames that had caught on his s.h.i.+rt. Pol tried to gain his feet but his knee collapsed, sent him sprawling once more. They were encircled, caught in a tiny s.p.a.ce of sand and rock as the inferno raged all around them.

Pol ripped off his s.h.i.+rt and wrapped it tightly around his knee, hoping the support would be enough. He swayed up on his good knee, glaring at Ruval. "Illusion?" he mocked, bruised neck muscles making his voice a rasp. Gathering himself to take advantage of the shock he was about to give, he forced a tiny smile to his lips. "Would you kill your own brother?"

The flames etched Ruval's suddenly white face in red and gold.

"My brothers are dead!"

"What, no loving welcome? I distinctly heard you swear revenge on the High Princess for ordering your youngest brother's death. I'm hurt, Ruval. Deeply wounded." He summoned the words of the Star Scroll to mind. So simple, really, when one didn't consider their implications or intellectualize over right, wrong, and justice. Power was there to be used; why else possess it? His father's policy of acting only when action was necessary was a waste of resources. But then, Rohan had never experienced this kind of power. "I am Ianthe's lastborn, Ruval. Sunrunner and diarmadh'im. diarmadh'im. How else would I be able to do this?" How else would I be able to do this?"

The fire he called this time came from the stars, sweeping cold and white down Rivenrock Canyon. It mantled his own body in brilliant silver-and struck Ruval down in a flash of lightning.

What he had kindled exhilarated and terrified him. The way power should, he thought remotely. He watched with breathless fascination, caught between exultation and fear, between the thundering heat of Sunrunner's Fire and the chill silver silence of a blaze called down from the stars. Having ignited flames across the Desert, he did not have to work to sustain it as with his dragon illusion. But neither did the sorcery require thought. Each came naturally to him, destruction from two opposing forces that met and merged within him. He throbbed with power and the terror of power, not knowing which kind and source of power he feared most.

Ruval lay writhing on the rocky ground. His screams split Pol's skull like spikes. "Would you kill your own brother?" "Would you kill your own brother?" Pol could do it; he had only to twist starfire a little more tightly around Ruval, and the man would die. He would not even be breaking the Sunrunner's oath he had never taken-never to kill using his gifts. For it was not a Pol could do it; he had only to twist starfire a little more tightly around Ruval, and the man would die. He would not even be breaking the Sunrunner's oath he had never taken-never to kill using his gifts. For it was not a faradhi faradhi skill he used. skill he used.

"Would you kill your own brother?"

The grandson of Roelstra would have done it. The son of Rohan and Sioned could not.

Pol let the Star Scroll spell fade. He felt no exalted sense of his own goodness or righteousness or n.o.bility. All he felt was empty, and grindingly tired. And something of a fool for not silencing his scruples and killing Ruval outright. He rubbed his torn knee, waiting while Ruval caught his breath. When there was sense in the man's eyes again, Pol said simply, "Yield."

Fright competed with fury in Ruval's eyes. Then his head bent. "Help me," he whispered.

Pol snorted. "Life you may have. But trust? Stand on your own or stay there, I don't give a d.a.m.n which."

"Don't you know what that spell does to diarmadh'im? diarmadh'im? I can't feel my legs, d.a.m.n you! Look at the Fire-if we don't move, we'll burn to death! Help me up!" I can't feel my legs, d.a.m.n you! Look at the Fire-if we don't move, we'll burn to death! Help me up!"