Rylin found a mass of people streaming from the west gate and out into fields that girdled the amphitheater. Once through the gate, he kicked his horse into a canter around the clogged thoroughfare and on toward the rear of the stadium where few but important visitors from other realms entered. Its oval walls rose toward the gray skies, pennants flapping with colors and symbols from not just the realms but the cities within them. Banners draped above the entrances, promising joyful news.
The venue was primarily intended for the yearly games where competitors who’d excelled at the trials throughout the realms competed for a place in the Altenerai Corps. Other competitions used it throughout the year, but none that filled it so thoroughly.
As he rode to the guest entrance, he heard the noise of the restless masses beyond, thousands talking amongst themselves, presumably curious about what the queen intended with this unprecedented gathering. There was a festive excitement in the air.
The city guards on duty at the back entrance let him through without question, for he briefly wore the semblance of the black-haired exalt he’d fought on the palace landing. He nodded when their eyes fell upon him then stepped into the cool shadows of the stadium’s hallways and into the darkness. He hurried up back stairs, conscious of the low rumble of the crowd, then stepped into a narrow hallway, empty and lit only intermittently with lanterns.
Having watched the squire tryouts at the stadium as a boy, applied at the games, and then supervised them from backstage as an upper-level squire, he was familiar with the layout of the place. There were dozens of dressing areas and several fine suites set aside for visiting dignitaries. If the queen was going to address the people within the hour, she was probably there already in one of the three largest suites, having her hair brushed, adjusting her dress, practicing her speech, and so forth.
He saw a trio of white-shirted young men and women in the hall ahead—he now knew them as aspirants—and re-donned his semblance to wordlessly return their salutes. Fortunately, they didn’t seem familiars of the person he imitated, and they didn’t tarry to converse with him. Almost he asked if they knew the location of the queen, but he decided against it. He had no idea how this person he imitated actually sounded.
The semblance was all but spent, now. He was checking its supply as he neared a narrow service stair. At the same time he heard the scuff of boot heels descending he sensed he had but moments of energy left.
Thelar stepped out of the stairwell. Behind him was a gaggle of aspirants and another exalt.
Rylin couldn’t help that his lip instinctively curled, which might have been why Thelar looked startled when he met his gaze. The hooked nose turned straight at him as Thelar’s eyes widened farther, and Rylin knew then the man had recognized him even through the semblance.
Yet Thelar stepped forward, calling to him in a friendly manner: “Meraht! Just who I wanted to see!” Rylin flinched as Thelar put a hand to his arm and guided him toward a dressing room door. His own hand was to his sword hilt, but Thelar called over his shoulder to his companions. “I’ll be along shortly.”
And then the exalt had thrown open the door, and with a significant look to Rylin, entered before him.
Rylin walked warily after, searching right and left in the little dressing area for ambushers. He saw a couch and desk and one lantern with guttering candle. A woman’s dress lay across the back of a lone chair, beside discarded footgear and a small travel kit.
Rylin kicked the door shut, keeping his hands free.
“What are you doing here?” Thelar hissed. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
Rylin’s semblance dropped. Apparently mages skilled enough could see right through the thing once they knew what its effects were like. He stared at Thelar, ready to slay, and yet … this wasn’t the reception he’d expected.
“I am not your enemy, Rylin,” Thelar said softly, and raised two empty hands.
“No?” He couldn’t stop the tremble of fury in his voice, though he spoke softly. “So you’re not the one who fled to tell the queen about the meeting with the councilors?”
“I…” Thelar searched his eyes and found no compassion there. “What’s happened?”
“Did you tell her?”
“I demanded she tell me if any of it was true. She killed them, didn’t she?”
“She murdered most of the councilors. She killed Lasren.” He waited for Thelar to challenge him so he could cut him down.
But his old enemy refused satisfaction. In all the years he’d known the man, Thelar had carried himself with smug self-assurance. This halting, troubled creature seemed a pale shadow. “I’ve tried to plead with her ever since I learned The Fragments were under attack. She keeps saying that it will all be fine in the end, that the pain is transitory…” Thelar looked up at him. Even through Rylin’s anger, he saw that the man’s eyes were anguished. “That all would be made right in the end. When I asked her why N’lahr had been imprisoned, she said it was because she needed the Naor hearthstones, and that they’d threatened to destroy them. She expected I’d understand.”
“You’re saying you’re suddenly filled with remorse?” Rylin didn’t believe it.
“It’s not sudden,” he snapped, finally sounding like the arrogant, bitter hastig he’d always been.
“It seems sudden to me.”
“You always thought you were better than the rest of us,” the exalt said with a sneer. “So quick to judge. But you never felt the Goddess. She’s there, inside the hearthstones. Queen Leonara taught me how to find her pulse.”
“The queen’s insane. You should know that by now.” He saw Thelar looking at him in doubt. “Why am I even bothering with you?”
Thelar gritted his teeth and started for his own sword. Then his shoulders slumped. “Maybe I should just let you kill me,” he said softly.
Silence had grown as a presence in that room, a shield between them. Rylin heard the thud of a multitude of distant feet as more made their way into the seats above. “Why did you place that bust of Asrahn in the office?” he asked.
Thelar’s answer sounded a little like his usual self, for his reply, though subdued, implied his listener was an idiot to miss the obvious. “To honor him.”
“Did you know that Alten Cargen and an exalt killed Asrahn?”
The answer was strained. “It was M’lahna. And no. Not until I heard the governor read Commander N’lahr’s letter. I’m still not sure I believe it.”
“You must,” Rylin said slowly, “or you wouldn’t have pulled me in here.”
“There have been little things, all along,” Thelar said bitterly. “I was so certain, once I felt the Goddess, that the queen had the right of it. That we had to act in secret. But I’ve started to see what the secrets have wrought. The signs have been there, and I kept pretending I didn’t see them.” His voice trailed off and his expression soured. “You’ve always hated me,” he snapped. “You look like you’re just waiting for an excuse.”
Rylin’s first thought was to confirm that, but there seemed no point. “I’m really waiting for something else,” he said.
Thelar looked the faintest bit curious. “And what’s that?”
“First tell me why you pulled me in here rather than exposing me.”
“I’m trying to figure out what to do,” Thelar admitted. “After the queen raced out of here I tried talking to Tesra, but she’s one of the ones Synahla altered.”
“Altered how?”
“She won’t believe any bad news about the queen, or her plans. She used to question more than I did.”
Rylin had come pretty close to being manipulated by Synahla himself. He hoped Tesra’s transformation wasn’t permanent. But this wasn’t the time to worry about that. “Do you know what your queen did to the squires after Varama and I fled?” Rylin waited only briefly before answering his own question. “Every morning we’d wake up and find a couple more of them dead. Turned to bits of crystal while they slept. That’s what she did to Lasren and the councilors.”
Thelar groaned as if he himself had taken a blow. “What are you waiting for?” he asked softly. “Get it over with.”
“I’m waiting,” he said, slowly, uncomfortable with both his words and his sentiment, “to see if you’re an ally. They’re in short supply.”
“An ally for what?” Thelar looked up cautiously.
“I’ve got to stop her.”
“By yourself? Even with me it’s impossible. Do you know how powerful she is?”
“I have an inkling.”
“You have no idea.”
“I’m going to let the queen say her piece so everyone can hear how crazy she sounds, and then when she finishes I’m going to arrest her.”
“It’s not possible,” Thelar repeated. “She’s surrounded by exalts.”
“She has to be stopped.”
Thelar breathed out through his teeth, then spoke slowly. “After she shares her prayer, the queen’s going to start opening the stones. Even with the exalts and the aspirants it’s going to take a while, and a lot of focus. I suppose that might be time to try something.”
“When she has all of those stones open?” Rylin asked.
“That will be too late. I mean right as she starts.”
He wished Varama was with him. She would know what to do. “Are there any other exalts you can talk sense into? What about those twins you had me fight?”
“Meria and M’vai? I don’t know. I’ve occasionally heard some of the exalts express doubts, but I don’t think you ought to expect them to help you arrest the queen.”
“I don’t think she’s really going to allow me to arrest her,” Rylin said, wondering if his newfound ally would balk at more severe action.
“I know.”
“And you’ll back me?”
Thelar hesitated, then nodded, his eyes bleak. “Yes. How bad was it in Alantris, really? Do you think the people have a chance?”
Never, in all the years he’d known Thelar, had he seen him so open. So vulnerable. He knew the truth would hurt, but he shared it. “It’s bad. Varama’s in there making things difficult for the Naor but a lot of people are dead, and more are probably going to die. You have family there, don’t you?”
His voice was heavy with anger and regret. “All of my family’s in Alantris, Rylin.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.
He reached into a belt pouch without giving himself time to question his decision, and came out with his hand closed around the object he’d found inside. “I went by the Altenerai offices. I linked all the rings and took them with me. Synahla couldn’t break through when she attacked, even with a hearthstone shard.”
“What happened to her? Oh.”
Rylin nodded.
“You held off a hearthstone shard with linked rings? That’s pretty clever.”
“The rings won’t shield us from a concentrated attack, but if we can strike fast…” He hesitated to use the famous Altenerai battle cry, then decided it fit, perfectly. “… if we strike as one, we may get past their defenses.” Rylin opened his hand to reveal an Altenerai ring. One he thought would fit. Probably Asrahn’s. “You should wear this.”
Thelar looked down at the ring in the palm of Rylin’s hand, then back up. He was clearly startled.
To blunt the delicacy of the moment, Rylin spoke casually. “It’s linked to the same network of rings. As long as we’re within a few feet of each other I think we’ll both be protected by all of them.”
Thelar, too, pretended this was only the acceptance of a tool, and not the borrowing of a sacred symbol from a guardian order in which he’d once fervently sought membership. Probably, at some level, he still desired it. He spoke with quiet dignity. “Thank you, Rylin. I’ll guard it well, and strive to prove worthy of its heritage.” He eyed the ring reverently as he lifted it from Rylin, then slipped it onto the ring finger of his right hand.
Rylin made sure he didn’t sound critical as he spoke. “Do those ruby rings you exalts wear do anything?”
“They’re similar. Honestly, they’re not as good. Synahla was working on improving them. But I’ll link my ruby to your defensive screen. Every little bit helps.” He cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t have cheated against you.”
“What?”
“In the duel. With the twins,” Thelar added, seeing Rylin’s blank look.
“Oh. “
“You were just so cocky. Like you owned the world and were set on kicking me out of it.”
He supposed he had been. That entire moment felt like it had happened to another man.
“But I acted without honor, and, worse, set a bad example for my charges. It’s bothered me ever since.”
“Whatever lay between us is behind,” Rylin said. “We can only succeed if we stand as one.”
From somewhere far away trumpets sounded. Both men stilled as the fanfare continued, and then musicians struck up a tune. Not, Rylin noticed, anything Altenerai related, as was usually heard within the space, but something new. She’d probably commissioned it recently.
“Come on.” Thelar rose. “I think we can monitor best from one of the boxes. All the exalts and aspirants will be in the stage wings, or up there with her.”
“Won’t they be wondering where you are?”
“They’re probably wondering where Synahla is, too. But don’t the actors always say that the curtain must rise regardless?”
Rylin nodded. He thought he probably knew the arena at least as well as his new ally, but allowed Thelar to precede him through the narrow back hallways. They paused as someone ran down an intersecting corridor bearing a tightly wound scroll, then preceded around a corner and slipped into a small audience box. As they did so, applause echoed through the stadium, louder than a thunderstorm, and Rylin looked out on a sea of heads, young and old. He recalled that venue’s capacity was almost fifty thousand, to accommodate visitors from out of town coming to the games. The static population of the city was somewhere in the thirty thousands, and it looked to him like most of them were there.
The far end of the stadium had been closed off by a huge black curtain, so that the remaining three quarters of arena had good views of a raised platform extending out from the curtain: a stage.
The queen had stepped onto center stage as the musicians retreated to the wings with their trumpets and drums. She was garbed in a flowing green gown with wide sleeves, and her long hair was bound high in a swirling emerald tiara. She looked vibrant and crisp and slim and lovely, waving regally to the assembled cheering crowd. Behind her in two long half-circle lines were the exalts, and white-shirted aspirants. The huge curtain backed them all.
As the queen raised her hands for silence, Rylin kept to the shadows of the box so as not to draw attention to himself. Thelar did the same.
The crowd quieted, and the queen spoke, her voice confident, even joyful, magically amplified. The opening words were almost identical to those he’d read in her chambers.
“My people, I am grateful for your love and support. I know that there are some among you who have wondered about my long absence from public life. I regret that I have had to be apart from you for so very long. I want you to know that I would never have made such choices if I had not had good reason. It was my love for you that kept me closeted away.”
She paused, then continued in a more serious tone. “We are under grave threat from many quarters, you see. My loyal exalts have risked their lives to put a permanent end to those threats, and many have died for their efforts, and their glory has been unknown, for it had to be done in secret, lest you be alarmed about the dangers on every hand.”
Only “the exalts,” Rylin noted, knowing that Altenerai had fought and died for the accursed stones as well. And some who’d been sent after them had never returned, like Renik.
Murmurs rose from the crowd, but she raised a hand and they stilled. “You needn’t worry! A time of prosperity lies before us. We are shortly to walk the streets of paradise.” She encompassed the crowd with her hands. “Yes, my people, paradise lies before us all. The true goddess is nearly here. With the aid of magical artifacts my loyal exalts have recovered, we shall summon a new age.”
The queen continued. “There shall be no more war. Old age and death will no longer await us, and those lost to us will live again!” She beamed at this, perhaps expecting applause. The audience only looked back blankly, confused or even alarmed. The queen pressed on. “The Naor, the kobalin, and terrible predators from The Shifting Lands will no longer threaten us, for we shall be one with the great goddess, who will finally oversee our realms as was meant from time immemorial.”
Low talk spread through the stands. Rylin saw heads turning and even those who weren’t asking those nearby what was underway traded looks of consternation.
“Is this the sort of thing she used to say to you?” Rylin asked his companion.
“Yes. But I swear to you, Rylin. You can feel the presence of the Goddess in the stones and when you do this all makes more sense.”
The queen spoke on. “What I am doing will not be easy, and it comes at great personal risk to myself and my most loyal allies. But I do it for you. Behold, the one true goddess!” She pointed with both hands to the stage rear.
The curtains parted, creaking faintly and swaying as they were drawn by hidden stagehands, and then Rylin and the people of Darassus looked upon the Goddess.
He muttered in unconscious awe. “By all that’s holy.”
He had thought the statue of Darassa, or of the lawgiver, were masterworks. Here, though, stood a forty-foot statue of beauty undreamt, a woman beyond parallel formed all of shining crystal, composed of hundreds of colors. She was slim and muscular and impossibly perfect. She stood with head turned off-center, her hands raised in a warding gesture, one well-formed calf twisting as she rotated. She was supported in part by scaffolding, but so lovely was she in all those blending streams of colors that Rylin scarce noticed.
The crowd let out a variety of sounds that registered as a collective gasp.
It was only as Rylin looked more closely that he saw there were gaps in the structure. Her nose had a few chips missing. A wedge was absent from her right hand, and there were various smaller holes and divots across her body.
The queen turned and beamed at her audience, and they clapped appreciatively, if a little hesitantly.
Only then did Rylin begin to feel misgivings. “She’s certainly beautiful.”
“You’ve felt the beauty of the hearthstones, haven’t you?” Thelar asked him. His question was challenging.
He hadn’t known quite what to expect and he realized now he’d been a fool not to ask what he might see. Somehow it had never occurred to him the hearthstones might actually piece together this way. Or that being in the presence of them all would evoke such warmth, even when they were inactive. He cursed. If he himself was feeling drawn to the thing, what must the crowd be thinking?
“We should have tried to stop her before,” Rylin said to Thelar. “Why didn’t you tell me they’d react like this?”
“I’ve never been near her this assembled,” Thelar admitted. “I didn’t know.”
A trumpet blast sounded from the nearby walls, a high, clear call. Rylin knew it instantly for a summons to arms. The queen froze, puzzled, and her head rose, as though she could see through the upper rank of stands. He wondered if her powers allowed her even that.
Many in the crowd might have no better idea of a trumpet fanfare versus a signal, but there were enough who’d served or paid attention that shouts of alarm spread through them. Someone backstage shouted that Naor were almost within sight of the city.
Surely that was paranoia. How could the Naor have gotten so close to Darassus without word having spread beforehand?
Thelar turned to face him. “What do you think we should do?”
“I think we’d better finish this while her attention’s diverted.” Earlier he had assumed the Darassans would side with him. Now he understood that his actions might earn him their enmity. He worried, too, that Thelar’s resolve would falter.
The exalt slid with him from the booth and together they hurried to the backstage stairs, where they discovered a frightened young guardsman in the midst of reporting to one of the red-haired twins Rylin had dueled in the exalt practice yard. Today she wore a stiff new khalat with red piping, and as she turned he saw the mole on her lip and recognized her as M’vai.
“The scouts have gotten a good look at them. They’re riding immense black beasts,” the guard reported, panting. “And there are huge ko’aye things flying above them!”
“How far out are they?” M’vai demanded.
“Less than a half hour.”
“How did they get so far with no one seeing them?” M’vai asked. She sounded as though she meant to find the person responsible and bring them up on charges. She caught sight of Thelar and Rylin for the first time and her eyes widened. “Where have you been? Why is he with you?”
“What are their numbers?” Rylin asked the guard.
The soldier replied quickly. “There’s one huge ko’aye closing on the city now. Our scouts spotted six more. There are dozens of the huge animals carrying standards. They’re gigantic, sir,” he said in dread. “Monstrous. Each is longer than a house and crowded with Naor troops. The earth shakes when they move. Cavalry follow in their wake.”
Rylin spoke quickly. “The first priority’s getting these people safely out of the arena and behind the inner walls. I have squires standing ready—signal an alert and put them on that. Until the people are secure keep the guards solely devoted to the gates and walls.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier saluted and hurried off.
Rylin turned to M’vai and found her staring warily.
There were more important things to worry about. Rylin peered past her and saw scaffolding, and a giant crystal leg, and the ranks of exalts and aspirants. He couldn’t see the queen, but he heard her working to quell the growing fear of the crowd, some of whom were already rising from their seats.
“The Naor pose no lasting threat!” the queen shouted.
Any remote chance of calm was shattered the moment a huge black-winged shape appeared in the air above the stadium. The crowd gasped almost as one, and then screamed as the beast circled, dived, and roared.
The sound of its attack was drowned out by the rumble of falling stone as a back section of the amphitheater collapsed upon itself. Screams of terror were replaced by screams of pain. An arch toppled sideways through the upper stands, smashing all it reached and sending stone shrapnel flying. A cloud of dust plumed and the dragon arrowed through it and banked even as Rylin raced forth, calling the exalts to attack. The wooden platform supporting the statue and its presenters vibrated under Rylin’s bootheels with each crash of masonry. He saw the queen’s look of surprise as he and Thelar drew close. She didn’t look so much like a queen as an actor who’d suddenly forgotten her lines.
The beast roared once more and sent another section of wall to ruin, along with hundreds of innocents crushed by the falling stone. And then it vanished beyond the side of the stadium once more.
The smell of blood was borne up on the wind with the white dust of crumbled stone. The air rang with the cries of the injured and bereaved and frightened, and the pound of feet as people fled for multiple exits.
Rylin turned to the ranks of sorcerers. “Exalts! Aspirants! It’s going to come back! Ready for its return!” He saw dozens of confused and anxious people, many of whom looked familiar, and some of whom he knew, like Tesra and Meria, M’vai’s twin.
“I will wake the Goddess,” the queen declared, her voice nearly lost in the sounds of her panicked people. She spoke then with greater force. “We will waken the Goddess together, and all will be well!”
“No,” Rylin cried, turning on her. “Use the hearthstones,” he urged, “but we’re summoning no goddess today. Not without consultation from the council and the people of Erymyr!”
“He’s right, Majesty,” Thelar urged. “Let’s just focus on repelling the Naor.”
She glowered. For a brief moment it looked as though she meant to say something, for her lips worked. Then she threw back her flowing green sleeves and sent blue white tendrils of energy rippling at them.
Rylin heard Thelar’s sharp intake of breath beside him and felt the sorceries like a physical force. The sapphire on his hand lit and with it all those linked to it blazed to life. The spell slid to either side of them both, striking the wooden floor, which shifted on the instant to that terrible crystalline substance.
Rylin’s face went ashen as he understood what she’d tried to do to them, what she yet attempted as she shouted and sent more power.
Even knowing she meant to kill him, he knew regret when he leapt with his knife.
He grasped one of her slim shoulders and delivered the perfect killing blow, the blade sliding up under her ribs and driving toward her heart.
She staggered and goggled as she leaned into him, and he was sickened by how much this death was like a loving embrace. He saw astonishing little blood as he pulled free and stepped back.
The queen looked down at the injury, then up at him, and he saw madness in her eyes, along with the glittering energy of the hearthstones. She should have been dead, or dying. Instead, she slapped at him, and while no strike landed, the air hit like a physical force. The rings couldn’t shield him from a hurricane wind, and he tumbled backward through the air, on past the scaffolding and the impossibly beautiful statue of the Goddess until the wall dividing field from seating arrested his flight.
As he painfully struck the stone, bright points of light trailed before his eyes, and he struggled to refind the breath that had been knocked out of his body. The screams of the crowd trebled, by which he guessed the dragon had renewed its assault.
He raised his head and called out feebly to Thelar, fearful the queen would kill him with the linked rings out of protective range, but the queen was distracted. This time the dragon aimed straight for the stage.
A handful of mages were whipping energy at the monster, not knowing to target the men who rode it. He saw the dragon’s massive maw open, and then the creature roared.
The queen cried out and threw up a vast, glittering screen of energy. By accident or design it not only shielded the people on the stage, but most of her precious goddess, and Rylin wondered why she hadn’t done something similar to protect the crowd.
As great as her spell was, it still wasn’t large enough to protect the whole of the statue. The end of the left elbow was blown free, along with parts of the face, and hearthstones rained down across the back of the stage. The floorboards rumbled under him as the immense statue swayed in its scaffolding. He staggered to his feet.
At the same moment something happened to the dragon. Just as it was pulling up from its dive white energies streamed out from the broken points of the statue and slammed into the monster.
A lattice work of crystal erupted across the dragon’s head and swept up across its shoulders. It dropped, wings beating furiously as it struggled not to plummet. What looked like a fine sheet of alabaster lay across the monster’s snout and down the length of its spine. The effect struck the Naor pilot and the three mounted behind them, coating them in what looked like ivory shards. They froze in mid-motion, though the dragon’s tail, unencumbered, still twitched.
The dragon struck the un-peopled back area of the arena, above Rylin’s head, with the sound of thunder, shaking the stage and the damaged statue once more. The queen screamed in fury, somehow louder than the background pandemonium. The citizens were still in flight for the exits, although some made their way to tend the wounded, and others cradled the dead, inconsolable with grief.
The queen cared only for her goddess, shouting for help. She should have long since dropped dead from that well-placed knife wound, and he could only assume Leonara’s intense connection to the hearthstones somehow sustained her.
He wondered what he might do, as his senses settled in. He tested his battered limbs by putting hand to his sword and sitting up. He hurt in many areas, but nothing seemed to be broken. He supposed he’d try to find out if the queen could keep weaving once her head was lopped off.
He searched for sign of his lone ally, thinking to find him dead, and discovered Thelar and a small group of exalts bending all their magical energy to keep an exitway out of the stadium from crumbling. Great jagged lines riddled the front of its decorative arch. Only their sorcery held it upright as hundreds fled beneath.
Right—he couldn’t call them from that. He turned for the queen himself.
That’s when he saw what the queen and the mages wrought: a distortion in the air behind the statue, almost as though he stared at salt flats at midday in the height of summer. That distortion multiplied, spread, and suddenly ripped open to encompass the queen, the statue, and her followers, and would have reached Rylin if he hadn’t dived away.
Groaning from yet another roll, he picked himself up and saw that beyond that wavering outline an entirely different landscape was superimposed upon the stage, a twilight land stained in crimson by a setting sun.
That landscape faded like morning mist, taking the queen and her statue and some scattered hearthstones with it. He glimpsed a bewildered Tesra caught at the spell’s edge, as if she were uncertain she wished to go, and then the dark-haired exalt faded with all the rest of the queen’s mad followers. The stage was empty.