MERIAN PASSED THROUGH THE GATE INTO THE DARK WORLD. Armies crossed with her, armed with light. They brought a dawn that this world had not seen in ages beyond reckoning.
Battle raged on the barren plains, in the fortresses and the slave-cities, and across the beds of the dry seas. Slaves had risen against their masters. Mages urged them on. For weapons they had whatever they could find: stolen knives and spears, miners’ picks, cooks’ knives, even bricks and stones. Anything that could be lifted to strike or hurl, they had. And if that failed, they had their teeth and fists and feet, the power of their bodies, and the sheer weight of numbers.
Merian’s forces came through the Gate in the heart of that world, before the king’s citadel. The battle was fiercest here, the dark lords most numerous, and not all their slaves had joined the revolt. The warrior
slaves fought, many of them, for their lords. Their weapons were strong and their anger terrible. They blasted the lesser slaves with dark fire, mowing them down like grain.
Light alone was not enough against those. Too many wore helms without eyes, shielding them from the searing pain. Freed slaves, who had no such protection, burned and died, but those whom they fought, fought on unharmed.
Merian was aware of Estarion within her, his grip on her power, his enslavement of its will. But she had expected it; she knew him, and she had had the same thought. She had divided herself; her power held its own deep realm, but her body’s will kept its freedom. She led the assault on the citadel, mounted on a senel that, being blind, had no fear of the dark.
But she had not come to command these armies. The chief of the Olenyai had that honor here, and at his back the commander of the imperial armies—great lords and generals both, and far better versed than she in the arts of war. Her art was another altogether. She had come for that. The rest, little as the armies might have liked to know it, was diversion.
As the rams rolled through the Gate, driving toward the gate of the citadel, she took a handful of mages and went in search of the postern that Daros’ message had promised. She damped the light about them, dimming it to nothing, calling up mage-sight to make her way through the dark. Glimmers of light from the battle cast a fitful glow on the sky, and limned in deeper shadow the curves and corners of the walls.
There was war in heaven. The darkness overhead roiled and surged. The earth rumbled underfoot. The fabric of creation had begun to fray.
Merian thrust down fear. Her companions had enough of their own; she must have courage for all of them. She pressed to the fore. The wall of the citadel stretched endless before her. It was wrought without mortar, stone fitted to stone with no gap between. There seemed to be no gate, either, but that which the armies beset, now far behind her.
The way grew impossibly steep. They had to leave the seneldi; even
afoot, they struggled on sheer slopes. Merian began to despair. If there was no way in but the one gate, even an assault of magery might not win them through soon enough. The dark was not yielding to the threefold attack upon it. Something, some force, had risen against them.
She must come to the heart of the citadel. The heart of it all was there—and hope, if any at all was to be had.
She halted on the narrow track, turning to face the rest, taking their measure one by one. If any could not bear the force of dark and fear, she would send him back now.
They were all strong, all firm in resolve. Strongest and firmest of all was one who hung back, almost invisible even to mage-sight. Even as Merian’s eye fell on her, she raised power to blur it. Merian struck aside the working with a fierce slap of temper. “My lady!”
The Lady Varani sighed, perhaps in relief, perhaps in resignation, and lowered the hood that had concealed her face. “Lady,” she said coolly.
“I never summoned you here,” Merian said through set teeth, “nor would I have allowed it if you had asked. What possessed you to—”
“My son is here,” Varani said. “Is there time to debate this, lady? If my ears tell me true, the enemy is holding all too well against your armies. His walls are strong and something else rises within. Something that—I fear—”
Merian would not let her go on. “Go back. Now. Urziad, look after her. Don’t let her—”
“With all due respect,” Varani said, “you need me here. There is a gate ahead. It’s well hidden, but I can sense it: there’s the dying glimmer of a beacon on it. Let Urziad and the rest go, if you must, but let me lead you. This art is mine, to find what I look for. Would you lose it out of folly?”
“Out of policy,” said Merian. “Your rank forbids—”
“As yours does?”
“Lady,” Kalyi said before Merian could erupt, “time’s passing. The enemy is not growing weaker. If we have to fight our way in, we’d best do it quickly, or we lose all element of surprise.”
If indeed there had ever been any, Merian thought grimly. “Very well,” she said. “But if your death incites a civil war in the empire, I refuse to accept the blame.”
“My lord will cast no blame on you,” Varani said. “That will be entirely mine.”
“I do hope so,” said Merian.
Varani had the grace not to be excessively satisfied with herself. She turned and led the way, surefooted in the dark, on that sheer track. The others, none mountain-born as she was, followed more cautiously. Merian elected to take the rear. Her heart was full of doubt: dangerous in a mage at war, deadly in a commander. If she had erred in giving the lead to Varani, she would lose it all, war and world both.
The postern was indeed well hidden. Merian would have passed it by. But Varani halted, questing like a hound after a scent, and ran her hand along the bend of the wall. It yielded with a sound like a sigh, sank inward and froze.
“Your key,” Varani said to Merian. “Here.”
“What—”
“You have that which opens all doors. Will you use it?”
A riddle. Merian’s wits were thick and slow. Her power was not her own; nor, it seemed, was much of her intelligence. Much too sluggishly, she remembered the thing that burned incessantly in her hand. She set the Kasar to the door. The flare of white heat left her blind, dizzy and stunned.
The door slid open. The passage within was black dark. Kalyi kindled a spark of magelight, a dim blue glow to light their feet. Sparks echoed it, a track laid by mages: vast relief to them all, and a glimmer of hope. Perel and his mages had prepared the way for them.
Varani led. The others were there to shield and ward, and to keep watch for the enemy. Merian had nothing to do but follow and keep silent, and try not to stumble.
This she had not foreseen. Nor the length of the hunt, the darkness,
the weight of lightless stone. The diversion had succeeded: these passages were deserted, their defenders drawn off toward the beleaguered gate.
Urziad went in search of the mages, if any were left here; most or all of them would be abroad, leading slaves against their masters. Varani was still on the scent, following the track upward and inward. Merian knew where she must be going. The compulsion of it reached even through her own fogs and confusions.
Estarion was weakening. Daruya, with the Sun’s power to draw on, had risen to match him. Merian, trapped in the dark, was no more than a link in the chain, without strength or volition of her own.
She must break free; must find her will, wield her power. Two alone could not fight this fight. She was the center, the key. This heaviness of spirit, this darkness within her, was the enemy—far more so than men fighting men under the starless sky.
One mage remained in the citadel after all, waiting for them. It was a darkmage, hardly more than a child, but strong in her power. The track ended in the passage in which she waited, up against a long stair. There was a strange scent in that place, somewhat like thunder and somewhat like blood. It raised Merian’s hackles.
The others seemed not to notice it. The darkmage, whose name was Gaiya, greeted them with rigid composure and a spark of gladness that she could not quite conceal. She spoke in a whisper. “They have the prince,” she said. “They caught him here. The Mage is dead; they’ve bound the prince and will compel him to work their magics for them, unless he dies first. We didn’t know until we’d scattered to wage the war. If our mages should have come back and tried to free him—”
“No,” Merian said. “The war needs them more. Can you guide us to him?”
“He’s in the lords’ tower. That’s warded. We haven’t been able to break the wards, and he forbade us to force them. Then he was taken, and there was the war, and—”
As strong as she was determined to be, she was near tears. This had been a cruel duty. That none of the mages had broken was a tribute to their strength and the clarity of their power.
“Go to Perel,” Merian said, “and serve him as you may. We’ll find our way upward.”
“But—” said Gaiya.
“Go,” said Merian. “Give him this message for me: ‘Fight until it all ends, or until I myself bid you stop.’”
“Until it ends,” Gaiya repeated, “or you command it to end.”
“Yes,” Merian said. And for the third time. “Go.”
The child fled with relief that almost cleansed the air of the memory that haunted it. The others would have been glad to follow, but they had a war to fight.
Merian had some of her wits back. It was Varani now who seemed fuddled, who stood slack with despair. “If they have him,” she said, “there is no hope for any of us.”
“He’ll die before he surrenders,” Merian said.
No one gave voice to doubt, which was a kindness. Time was running out; but now she had a focus, and knowledge. “Upward,” she said. “Those who would come, come. The rest of you, go where Gaiya went. I’ll have no deadweight in this.”
They all stood watching her. None retreated. She nodded briskly and began to ascend the stair.
There had been wards. They left a memory behind, like the scent of blood and terror below. The Mage’s death had broken them. They would rise again if Daros surrendered his will to his captors.
Merian’s heart was keening, nor would it desist for any will she set on it. Yet her mind was very clear. She had left confusion down below. The mortal war, the war in heaven, had shrunk to insignificance. It was all coming to this single point, this stair, this tower and its captive.
Varani walked close behind her. The others trailed somewhat, weaving wards as they went. Kaliya, in the rear, climbed with drawn sword.
Merian’s weapons remained in their sheaths. This fight would have little to do with steel. The quiet grated on her nerves. No sound of fighting came through the walls. Her legs ached. Her breasts ached. She was weary to the bone.
They were near the top of the stair. Varani’s hand gripped her shoulder. She halted. After a moment she heard it: a sound below the threshold of mortal hearing, like the pounding of waves on a distant shore.
Wards, beleaguered by a force such as she had not seen before. It had nothing in it of living spirit. It made her think, somehow, of the automatons that craftsmen made in the Nine Cities to amuse the Syndics’ children. Metal and glass; power without soul. Magic trapped and twisted to mortal will.
That was the secret—the key. Stripped of magery, the dark mages of Anshan had found another way. It was darker than dark magic, and cruel beyond conceiving.
If she had harbored any faintest glimmer of pity for those mages so long bereft of their power, it vanished in that moment of understanding. She broke the door at the top of the stair, and blasted the guards beyond it with the Sun’s fire.
They went up like torches. Even in her rage, she was taken aback. Altogether without intending it, she had taken all that was in her, Sunpower threefold, and wielded it as if it had been hers to command. Estarion’s startlement, her mother’s shock, sparked in her awareness.
The light of the working lingered, plain light of day in any mortal world, but unbearably, searingly brilliant here. Those defenders who had not fallen to the blast of fire were felled by the light. They lay writhing, screaming soundlessly. She stepped over them. Behind her, Kaliya did the merciful thing: a swift stroke of the blade to each throat.
Merian was beyond mercy. She followed the path of fallen defenders. The end of it was a door, and a barren room, and a cage of metal about a shape of shadow.
The defenders there wore shielded helms and carried the weapons that spat dark fire. She left them to Kaliya and the other mages. Estarion
was broad awake inside her, and Daruya in a rage that nearly matched her own. They confronted the last of the defenders, the tall man who stood in front of the cage. Royal blood knew royal blood.
The dark king had shielded his eyes with a band of metal and black glass. In his pale face with its black beard, Merian saw a distant echo of Batan and his people, the warrior folk of Anshan.
He had no power to see what she was, and perhaps no spirit for it, either. He had courage; that, she could not doubt. His men fell before they could even lift their weapons, but he neither wavered nor flinched. “Whatever becomes of us,” he said, “the dark will rule.”
“That might be true,” she said, “or it might not. Either way, you will be dead. You were condemned long ages ago for crimes beyond the reach of mercy. Your crimes have only grown worse since you fled that sentence. If there could ever have been hope of appeal, that is altogether gone.”
“Indeed?” said the dark king. “And who are you to stand in judgment?”
“I am everything you ever feared or fought against. I am the destroyer of darkness, the bringer of light. The Sun begot me. The light reared me. I rule in the Sun’s name.”
He flung back his head and laughed. “Brave little maidchild! When ours are so puny, we drown them. How were you let live? Pity? Scorn? Weakness of spirit?”
“Only the weak resort to mockery.” She raised her hand. The Sun in it roared and flamed.
Just as she gathered power to blast him, a shadow darted past her toward the shape in the cage. The bolt of light flew wide. The king sprang. Merian stumbled aside, warrior skills forgotten, fixed on Varani, who had flung herself at the cage, and at the thing that whirred and spun on top of it.
The king howled and leaped toward Varani. Merian clutched wildly at his arm and spun him about. He slashed at her with a steel claw.
Merian’s arm and side burned. She snatched her sword from its sheath, stabbing with all the strength she had. The blade struck armor, turned and snapped. The king spat in contempt. She slashed her second blade, the long sharp dagger, across his throat. The hot spray of blood spattered her face and drenched her armor.
She gagged in disgust, but she had already forgotten him. Varani tore at the cage with bleeding fingers. Merian caught her hands and held them, though she struggled, cursing.
“Lady,” Merian said. “Lady, stop.”
After a stretching while, Varani yielded. Merian kept a grip on her until she had eased completely, then let her go, but warily. The cage showed no sign of her efforts. The thing of metal spun faster, that was all. The shape within the cage was visible as if through dark glass. The width of the shoulders, the copper brightness of the hair, were unmistakable, though the rest was lost in shadow.
He was alive—just. The king and his guard were dead, the rulers of this world gone away to the war, but the soulless thing that held him cared nothing for that. It ate at his mind and power, sustaining the life in him when he would have let it go, and bleeding away his magery like a slow wound.
The Kasar was a white agony in Merian’s hand. She raised it to unlock the bonds of the cage, but hesitated. If he was deeply enslaved, wholly bound to the dark, she would unleash a horror that would put the Sunborn’s madness to shame.
Varani read it in her eyes. Merian braced for recrimination, but in some deep corner of her spirit, the lady had found both strength and sanity. “If he must be killed,” she said steadily, “I beg your leave to do it. I gave him life. Let me take it away.”
“Not yet,” said Merian. She could barely speak. The tide of the dark was rising. The magery in her, doubled and trebled, strained to hold together. The effort of sustaining it across the worlds, against the force of the dark, had begun to wear on both the powers within.
The dark, like the cage, had neither mind nor soul. It simply and inexorably was. A mage, even a god, one could fight. But how could any fleshly being stand against the universe itself?
“Light,” said Estarion within her. “Fight darkness with light.”
“Darkness so vast?” she demanded of him. “Oblivion so absolute?”
“Can you see any other way?” asked Daruya.
“No,” said Merian. “But—”
“Tides of light,” said Estarion. “If all the mages could be gathered—if he could be freed, and persuaded to lend his power—”
“He is dead or corrupted,” said Daruya. “The other mages must be enough.”
“The other mages are fighting a war across the face of a world,” Merian said.
“Call them in,” said Estarion.
“There’s no time.” Merian swayed as she spoke, buffeted by the force of the dark. It smote the bond that joined the three of them, and battered the edges of the light. The war was a bloody confusion; the lords had rallied, and the armies of freed slaves were flagging, their numbers terribly depleted, their makeshift weapons broken or lost. She could feel their despair in her skin, in the outer reaches of her magery.
With no thought at all, she set the Kasar to the cage. Its cold metal resisted, but Sun’s fire was stronger than any work of hands. The whirring thing spun faster, faster, until it was a blur. It burst asunder in a flash of blinding light. In the sudden and enormous silence, the bars of the cage drew in upon themselves. The shell of glass crumbled into the sand from which it was made.
The captive lay on a bier within, robed in darkness. No breath stirred. His eyes were open, empty of light. His flesh was cold.
His mother breathed warmth upon him. She gave him light; she poured out her own life to feed his. Merian laid her hands over Varani’s, not to stop her, but to give her what strength there was to spare.
It might be madness. She could find no light in him. They had taken
his eyes, his life, his spirit. There might be nothing left of him at all. But she could not stop herself. She was corrupted, maybe; enspelled. It mattered nothing. There was no hope. The light could not win this war. Not without all the power that they could bring to bear.