The Commanding Stone Part 28

"I have no idea, Warden," said Hollin. "We were running for our lives. The only effective power we had was a Word of Reflection."

"Wardens, send messages to the wizards along the walls to use Words of Reflection against this attack," said the Archmage. She glanced at Gerin's sword and staff. "Can those help us?"

"I'll do what I can, Archmage," he said. "But even my powers were of little use against them. I also don't know how to create a Word of Reflection."

"There's no time to teach you," said Kirin. "You haven't been properly trained to use that kind of power."

Gerin tightened his grip on Nimnahal and watched as the demons sped toward them like a flock of nightmarish birds. He could hear the faint sounds of their shrieking on the air.

"G.o.ds, I forgot what an awful sound they make," muttered Balandrick. He'd sheathed his sword and nocked an arrow in a bow he had acquired from the Sunrise Guard.

Gerin could feel the Presence stir within the Staff of Naragenth. It had been a long time since he'd felt it, the voiceless ent.i.ty that haunted Naragenth's greatest creation. He wondered what had awakened it. Did it sense the coming conflict? Was its true purpose as a weapon of war?

He projected his question at the staff with his thoughts. Are you intended to be a weapon? He felt the whisper of the Presence, like a chill moving back and forth within the staff; but he received no images from it, no answer to his question.

"Archers, when they're in range, fire at will!" shouted the Lord Commander. His command was relayed down the length of the Hammdras.

But they never got the chance. Before the demons got into range they split into two groups and veered sharply left and right. The sudden division and change of direction created a strangely beautiful geometric symmetry in Gerin's eyes. Their shapes cast fast moving shadows onto the plain far below.

Then he realized what they were about to do.

"They're going to attack the hilltops!" he shouted. He felt helpless as he watched the demons soar up toward the towers. The garrisons atop the hills were too far away for their magic to reach. The wizards at the far ends of the Hammdras might have some luck, but from where Gerin and the others stood at the center they were out of range.

"Warden, will our terror spells and other defenses stop these things?" asked the Archmage.

Khazuzili's mouth worked silently as he pondered her question. "I don't know, Archmage."

"They'll fly right over them," said Kirin. "The spells only reach about thirty feet off the ground. We don't have enough power to keep them in place if we make them taller."

The wizards at the ends of the Hammdras created Words of Reflection to combat the demons. Points of golden light appeared ahead of the demons' paths. Even at this distance, Gerin could feel the concussive force of the power when it inverted.

The vortices of energy engulfed a few of the demons, but not nearly enough. They veered away from the Words the moment they sensed them. Those trapped within the power struggled against it but could not break free. Within moments they winked out of existence as if they had never been. The Words vanished as soon as the demons within them were gone.

"Can you move the terror spells?" asked Balandrick. "Don't make them any larger, but lift them off the ground and place them between the hilltops and the demons? That would leave the fields in front of us exposed, but if you can move the spells around quickly enough, it won't matter."

Marandra turned to Abaru and Warden Khazuzili. "Is that possible?"

Abaru was nodding and stroking his chin. "I think so. But we can't move the entire web of spells. We'll have to split them apart, and that's going to take time."

"Then you'd better get started," she said.

"Yes, Archmage."

The archers upon the hilltops launched volley after frantic volley against the demons, but even those few arrows that found their targets did little harm. Through a Fa.r.s.eeing, Gerin watched one demon with three arrows sunk deep into its chest yank them out and throw them away as if they were a mere annoyance. Dark blood gushed from the wounds for a moment before halting, as if the punctures had already begun to heal.

Balandrick stepped close to Gerin. "Is there anything you can do from here, Your Majesty?" he said in a low voice.

Gerin shook his head. "They're too far away."

The demons fell upon the garrisons.

They were too far to hear the screaming of the men who were carried into the air by the demons and torn limb from limb. Others were thrown over the walls, their bodies caroming off the rocky slope as they fell toward the plain far below. One of the trebuchets launched a stone inadvertently. It hurled through the air toward nothing, and sank into a soft spot in the earth near the bodies of the Loremasters.

"Shayphim take the b.l.o.o.d.y things," muttered Balandrick.

Then it was over. All of the men on the hilltops were dead.

The demons rose into the air above the hills. Their shrieks echoed across the valley.

"Wizards, prepare to repel!" shouted the Archmage. "Abaru, Rahmdil, if you can move the terror spells to protect us, now would be the time!"

But the demons did not attack them. They hovered in the air, wings beating rhythmically, and winked out of existence.

"What just happened?" asked Medril. He was visibly shaken by the slaughter on the hills. "Why did those things vanish?"

Warden Khazuzili rubbed his temples and faced them. "The demons were returned to their native realm, Lord Commander. They were pulled here, to our world, by some power in that army, and when that power ceased, the demons could no longer remain."

"Are they like sheffains?" asked Hollin.

"Yes, exactly. Though they seem to have more of a material form than the sheffains, who do not possess physical bodies, at least as we understand them."

Gerin saw the Archmage close her eyes and press her lips together in an attempt to rein in her impatience at Khazuzili's tendency to wander. The Ammon Ekril flashed in the sun.

"Warden, please. Is there anything you can tell us as to why they vanished before attacking us, or how we might defeat them?"

"I believe they vanished because whatever beings have called them here could no longer hold them. If you remember our own summoning of a sheffain, it was quite taxing. I tried to examine the amount of power needed to hold these demons here, and it was substantial. I would guess that those who summoned them will not be able to do so again for some time. But since we don't know how many can call demons, it does not necessarily mean a reprieve for us. They may have only used half of their numbers, or all of them, or a tenth. In which case more could be sent at us at any time."

"What of the devices of war we retrieved from Naragenth's library, and the Varsae Sandrova?" said the Archmage with irritation. "Surely something we have will provide us a measure of protection against these creatures."

"Those devices have been spread out along the Hammdras and in other areas of Hethnost, Archmage," said Kirin. "The ones from the Varsae Sandrova are potent, but they must be used at a much closer target."

"The weapons from Naragenth's library are better suited to repel a line of soldiers rather than creatures darting through the air, Archmage," said Hollin.

"Can we defeat them with something other than a Word of Reflection?" asked Kirin. "A single Word completely drains a wizard for hours. If we have to use them to defend against these demons, we won't be able to fight off anything else they send at us."

"I believe I can come up with alternatives," said Khazuzili. "Let me ponder this. I'll also need to consult books from my library."

"I'll send someone to retrieve whatever you need," said the Archmage.

"I'll make a list. I just hope they can find everything without making too much of a mess."

"Do you know how they were able to drive off your demons?" Ezqedir asked Moliu Hu'mar for the third time.

The leader of the mursaaba eunuchs was seated upon the floor of Ezqedir's tent, his huge body sunken into a number of velvet cus.h.i.+ons whose plush ta.s.seled shapes seemed to mirror the eunuch's own rounded, overweight physique. The eunuch was a native of Nurembi near the Vaas River in the far north of Aleith'aqtar, where winters were long and cold and filled with ice and snow. Ezqedir had seen snow and ice only a few times in his life, and would be content to never see them again. He was a creature of the desert down to his bones, and had no love for either wet or cold.

Hu'mar's pale skin, thin blond hair, and purple eyes bothered Ezqedir almost as much as the thought of a man bereft of his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. Ezqedir had lived most of his life among desert dwellers, men and women with a mult.i.tude of hues to their flesh. He had not seen white skin until he was thirty-three, at the Battle of Kohun-reh, and the sight had shocked him. He'd never imagined such a thing, men with skin so fair it seemed nearly translucent. He had loathed the sight of them at once.

There was something unnatural about Hu'mar as well, beyond the whiteness of his flesh. And about all of those like him. Their t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es were removed in ceremonies of power that imbued them with the ability to summon demons from another world.

He did not know how a child was chosen to become a mursaaba-if some hidden talent had to be discerned, or if any child could become one after being cut and undergoing the proper ceremonies. Ezqedir s.h.i.+vered and hoped it was the former. He did not like the idea that he could have been chosen to serve the Exalted in such a manner, and that only a chance of fate prevented such a doom from befalling him.

The ceremonies that imbued them with the power to summon demons had a deleterious and unavoidable side effect: it made the eunuchs insane.

Over the centuries, some of the greatest minds of the Steadfast had tried to understand why this occurred, with the hope of deriving some means of preventing it. Insanity in a being with the power to summon highly destructive demons was a dangerous liability. There had been numerous instances when the eunuchs, in one of their mad frenzies, wrought devastation among those they were sworn to serve. Once, nine hundred years ago, an Exalted himself had been slain by a mursaaba, which led to the prohibition against them coming within several miles of an Exalted, under pain of immediate death.

From what little Ezqedir had gleaned, those studying the insanity of the mursaabas had deduced that their madness was brought on by the fact that at times their minds existed in two worlds at once. Such an incongruity could not be understood by a human mind, and so it broke beneath the strain, splintered into fragments by the pressure of attempting to comprehend such vastly different worlds simultaneously. The incongruity was unavoidable.

Which meant that the insanity was also incurable. The very thing that brought them their power and gave them purpose was what drove them insane. To remove the insanity was to remove their usefulness.

Hu'mar, splayed upon the cus.h.i.+ons, was at the moment in the throes of a fit of madness. He entire body trembled, the fat beneath his chin jiggling in a way that the general could not help but watch, eerily fascinated by the rhythmic vibration of the smooth white skin. The eunuch's eyes were rolled back into his head, showing only the thinnest sliver of pupil within the red-rimmed lids. A bit of froth bubbled from his mouth and dribbled down his chin.

Ezqedir held a knife in his hand, ready to slit Hu'mar's throat at the first sign that he was calling a demon. He would take no chances. The general was close enough to the eunuch to nearly decapitate him with a single stroke of his blade.

Ezqedir waited patiently for the madness to subside. He did not fear for his life since he knew exactly how long it took to summon a demon and was familiar with all of the attendant signs-the crackling in the air, the stench of dead meat, a sudden chill on the skin. At the slightest hint of any of them, Hu'mar's life was forfeit.

After all, they had more eunuchs, but there was only one Ezqedir.

"Do you know how these wizards were able to drive off your demons?" he said for the fourth time in a calm, soothing tone. He knew from experience that soft sounds could sometimes break the fits that came over the eunuchs. It did not always work, but it was better than sitting in silence, doing nothing.

Ezqedir's bodyguards waited outside. He saw no need for them to view Hu'mar in such a state. Sometimes in their fits, their bowels or bladders gave way. While he found the appearance of the mursaaba eunuchs repulsive, in some ways he liked Hu'mar, and saw no need to humiliate or embarra.s.s him because of a condition he had no power to control. Certainly, Hu'mar was better company than Tolsadri or the Loremasters.

The eunuch's body shuddered and heaved; a huge sigh escaped his lips, along with a small river of frothy spittle. He jerked once, his eyes rolled down, and he looked at Ezqedir with dawning comprehension.

Hu'mar wiped the spittle away with the back of his arm and took a deep breath. "Regnel's curse?"

Ezqedir nodded. "For nearly half an hour."

He glanced at the general's blade. "Taking no chances, I see."

"I never do." Ezqedir sheathed the weapon and placed it on a table.

"Water," said Hu'mar. The general pa.s.sed him a nearly full skin. "That came over me quickly. I usually know when it's about to take me."

"You stopped what you were saying and your eyes rolled into your head. I got you onto those cus.h.i.+ons before you toppled into my supper."

"Thank you for that. I've broken my right arm twice and my left wrist once when the curse came upon me at inopportune times. Not that there are ever good times for such things, but you know what I mean."

"Of course. Better in your bed than strolling along the top of a cliff."

Hu'mar laughed and nearly choked on his water. "Yes, well, you will never find me taking such a stroll. Only a fool would do such a stupid thing. Anyway, what was I saying before the curse took me?"

"We were talking about what the wizards had done to your demons. I asked if you knew how they were able to send them away."

Hu'mar made a dismissive gesture. "Bah. They broke the connection between our minds and the demons. The very laws of the universe struggle to return the demons to their world. It's only our power, our force of will, that keeps them in ours. Whatever power these wizards have, they can sever our bonds. When that happens, the natural state of the universe a.s.serts itself, and the demons vanish."

"So they yank them from your grasp."

Hu'mar thought for a moment. "Yes. And without us holding them, they cannot be here, cannot do our bidding."

"Can you prevent the wizards from breaking your grip? Did you learn anything about the nature of their power when they used it against you?"

"I have no idea, Ezqedir. Our powers are not subtle. The wizards' power was strong, I will grant them that. We can try to fight them off, but I can offer you no strategy other than that. For such things you need the Loremasters. Perhaps one of them can thwart the wizards. You must have some left. Surely you did not send all of the Voice's minions to their doom?"

"No, there are others. And I will use them as I must, but as weapons they are slippery and treacherous."

"And when have Adepts and Loremasters ever been anything else? Especially with their accursed Voice among them? You are not so blind as that, Ezqedir. If you are, I will need to reevaluate my opinion of you."

Ezqedir smiled. He had not realized how weary he was until now. "No, I'm not that blind."

"What will you do next?" asked Hu'mar. "That wall is high and strong. Be sure you do not break yourself upon it. You saw what they did to the Loremasters."

"I must think on that."

"Perhaps you should use the Loh'shree. As much as I loathe them, they have a formidable reputation."

Ezqedir said nothing. The truth be told, he had planned to hold the Loh'shree in reserve, preferring to use his Herolen to conduct the siege. But the deaths of Nitendi and the other Loremasters had given him pause. The wall of terror, as he'd come to think of the barrier the wizards had placed across the valley, thwarted his plans. They had no means to counter the power or cut off its source. A frontal a.s.sault against it would more than likely leave several thousand Herolen dead or incapacitated with terror-he did not put much hope that numbers alone might overwhelm the power, or that they could move quickly enough to pa.s.s through it before the madness took them completely. War was all about taking risks, but these pa.s.sed beyond measured dangers into the realm of recklessness.

Fortunately, the barrier lay inside the range of the trebuchets they were constructing, so they would be able to hammer the fortress with their engines once they were built. But they would still be vulnerable to the trebuchets on the hilltops, a.s.suming the wizards sent fresh troops to man them. He also did not know how far this wall of terror could expand. They had learned from the incident with the Loremasters that the wizards could move the location of the barrier forward when necessary. But how far? Certainly not enough to reach their encampment, or they would have already done so. But what if the Herolen moved their siege engines into position, only to have them swallowed by this invisible power that drove men insane with fear? And what other weapons were these wizards holding back?

He needed to adjust his plans. He could not see a way to use his Herolen to reach the fortress that did not end in disaster. He would have to find another solution.

It galled his Herolen pride to use the Loh'shree. His hope had been to hold them back, except perhaps to protect the encampment from attacks of power from the wizards. If he did not have to use them at all, so much the better.

Wars are nothing but constant adjustments of tactics, he reminded himself. This is no different. I will do what I must to win. That goal is all that matters. We must take this place. We must have the Words of Making.

"What is your command, General?" asked Hu'mar.

Ezqedir sighed. "Return to your companions for now. I will summon you when we begin this siege in earnest."

32.

Gerin left the Hammdras to check on Elaysen, but she was not in her rooms. A few servants had seen her entering the Varsae Sandrova, but once inside, the few wizards and servants he came across did not know where she was. She was not in the section of the library devoted to the healing arts, which was her usual haunt. He wandered through several more floors and was about to give up when he heard a woman weeping. The sound was coming from one of the reading rooms.

He opened the dark paneled door and was shocked to find Elaysen on the floor, curled on her side, knees drawn up to her chest. She was crying uncontrollably.

"Elaysen, by the G.o.ds, what happened?" He knelt by her and tried to take her hand, but she pulled away from him.

"Leave me alone, please! I don't want you to see me like this!" She wept even harder.

"What is it? Are you ill?" He formed a Seeing, but a cursory glance revealed no obvious sickness.