Chapter 16
They sat in a circle on the floor of the Majesty’s throne room, deep in the Darkworld. Candles flickered all around, filling the chamber with an oily smell. They held one another’s hands. A map lay on the ground before them with lines like veins drawn across it. Divad traced a thick line with his pale finger and tapped a spot in the south.
“They will reach the city soon,” he said.
“They must hurry,” Virginia said.
The Majesty’s face was tight and drawn in the darkness. The priests especially seemed aware of it; attuned to their king in a special way, they watched him with concern.
“You have done right, Majesty,” said Rehtse. Maggie held the young priestess’s hand tighter than before.
“The lives of my sons are at stake,” the Majesty said.
“The lives of many are at stake,” Libuse said.
The Majesty turned hollow eyes on the map. “Is it worth it?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Jarin Huss. “Prince Caasi was wise in his words to you.”
Divad stood and placed his hand on the Majesty’s head in comfort and blessing. “It is as it should be. As it must be,” the high priest said.
Rehtse looked at Maggie with eyes that betrayed the conflict within her. The young priestess’s mind might agree with Divad, but her heart only wanted to know that Caasi would be safe. Maggie’s heart moved for her. She remembered how it felt.
“It will not be easy,” Virginia said. “More awaits them than they know.”
“Will they win?” Rehtse asked.
“That,” Virginia said, “I do not know.”
* * *
The riverboats scraped against sand in the darkness beneath the city of Athrom. A winding staircase, wide and older perhaps than the river, led up into the inky silence. The Ploughman stood at the base of the stairs while his little army left their ships and assembled behind him, lanterns in their hands. His heart had beaten strong as the river while the boats traveled south, but now, facing up a passageway that seemed to lead through the ages, it quailed. Surely he only imagined the foreboding presence he felt in the dark.
A low voice at his shoulder said, “The men are assembled, my lord.”
The Ploughman turned his head and nodded. “Thank you, Ytac.” He looked up the dark staircase and steeled himself, drew his sword and raised it high. The air whistled behind him as four hundred and fifty swords were held aloft. The men raised no battle cry. They were below Athrom now, and had no wish to alert the enemy of their coming.
The Ploughman took a step upward. The edge of the stair crumbled slightly. He heard the crunch of stone as his men followed him, wordlessly, step by step, higher and higher. In the darkness ahead, something moved.
Fragments of stone showered down on the step in front of the Ploughman. He stopped and held his sword ready. Listening.
More stone fragments tumbled over the steps with a sound like dry rain. An animal whine sounded through the passageway. The men stood frozen. Not one said a word. The Ploughman stood alone at their head and stared into the unknown.
There was a movement at his elbow, and a man slunk forward, stepping ahead of the Ploughman. With a shock, the Ploughman recognized Asa’s lanky form. The strange man cast amber eyes on the Ploughman and whispered, “Be pleased, mighty leader, that I am with you. You do not know what awaits beneath Athrom. I do.”
Asa looked into the darkness, his eyes a slit. “Come now,” he said in a high, cajoling voice. “We know you’re there.”
In answer came a crack like thunder or the beat of enormous wings, and the darkness was lit by a burst of flame that revealed a terrifying visage of red scales and white eyes, teeth, claws, and wings.
“A dragon,” the Ploughman whispered.
Pebbles rained down as the dragon moved into the lantern light. Its front legs, clawed and terrible, rested on a step not twelve feet from the Ploughman. Its long body disappeared in the darkness. It opened its mouth and hissed. The inside of its mouth was the burnt red and orange of a furnace. Its teeth were long and sharp.
Before the Ploughman or Asa could move, one of the men shouted and let an arrow fly. It bounced off the dragon’s neck. The creature’s head snapped forward, and the Ploughman leaped backwards down the stairs while arrows and spears whistled around him and clattered off the dragon’s scales onto the stone. Asa stood his ground, daring the dragon to come near him.
The Ploughman grabbed a spear from the hand of one of his men and let it fly. The dragon turned its head an instant before the spear would have pierced its eye. Asa turned his head, looking at the Ploughman and his soldiers. “Fools!” he cried. “You cannot destroy it! The beast is too great for you!”
A young Darkworlder sprinted forward, sword held high, aiming for the creature’s throat. “For the Majesty!” he cried. In an instant his cry died along with him. The dragon snapped its jaws around his body and flung him through the air. The young man’s sword flew, and Asa caught it. He held it high, letting out a strange battle cry, high and unearthly. The men watched in horror as the dragon loosed a stream of flame that caught Asa in mid-stride and engulfed him. They could see his body, black in the midst of the fire, and they heard him scream.
Yet he did not fall.
The dragon drew back its head. Asa still stood before it, still engulfed in flame. His skin shone bright amber and seemed to fall away. Beneath it appeared a new skin, the colour of the sun. Asa’s eyes glowed a deep crimson. The men stepped back, awed and terrified, as Asa shed his form as a snake sheds his skin. He stood before them as something older and greater and more terrible than man.
Asa raised his fist and shouted. He threw himself up, into the air, and flew for the dragon’s neck. Into a soft spot at the base of its skull Asa drove his sword, and the dragon screamed and writhed. It shook Asa from his place. Smoke and fire filled the stairway, blinding the Ploughman and his men, but they thought they heard the snap of jaws and saw the flash of teeth. And then a wind blew past them, leaving an impression of amber in their minds.
The smoke thinned and the fire ceased to burn. The Ploughman stepped cautiously forward. The dragon was dead.
“My lord,” Caasi said.
The Ploughman turned. Caasi stood two steps back, over the body of the man they had called Asa.
“We will take him home for burial,” Caasi said, his voice tight.
“Yes,” the Ploughman said. They would bury Asa. But the Ploughman knew—they all knew—that a being called Undred the Undecided yet lived, and he would not be buried with Asa’s body.
The men followed the Ploughman onto the body of the dragon. They clambered over its long tail and glistening red scales, up toward the city of Athrom.
* * *
Thick black clouds rolled over the city of Athrom, and a wicked streak of blue lightning snaked across the sky. Cold rain began to fall on the city. In the coliseum, the Gypsies shivered.
Marja tightened her arms around the shoulders of a toothless old woman and looked up at the gathering blackness. “Hurry, Nicolas,” she whispered.
* * *
The High Police stood in long rows beneath the shadow of the Emperor’s Palace. Lucien Morel himself inspected their ranks. They stood tall and strong, faces implacable beneath the grey onslaught of rain.
The Emperor’s voice was strained in his own ears. “On my orders you rid the world of an ancient pestilence,” he said. He grimaced, but beneath his distaste, exultation held quiet sway. This would rid him of the haunting. The one who had tormented him—who had appeared in his court that very day, at last revealing himself—would never come again.
Behind the dull eyes of the soldiers, thoughts flashed. There is nothing honourable in killing captives.
“They have overrun the world for centuries, spreading sedition as rats spread filth.”
Nothing right in slaughtering Gypsies.
“You cannot show pity.”
Nothing good in murdering Gypsies.
“You have laboured and died to bring them here. Do not shrink from finishing what you have started. It is an honour to serve your Emperor in whatever he may ask.” Morel hesitated, then strengthened his voice. “Finish it before the sun rises! Salute me!”
Dead eyes turned to regard their emperor. We who have lost our souls—salute you.
Thunder clapped as a thousand black-gloved hands snapped in a salute. Two thousand dull grey eyes followed their Emperor as he returned to his palace. One thousand hands tightened around one thousand spears.
The night was still young.
Lucien Morel, Lord of the Seventh World, stopped in the shadowed gateway of the palace. His bodyguards waited a respectful distance behind. Morel turned eyes full of hate on a dark figure in the doorway, a man in black who stood with a fainting girl behind him.
“They will march on the coliseum, as you have desired,” the Emperor said. His little finger twitched sharply.
“It is good,” hissed the Nameless One.
“It is good if it earns me your promise,” the Emperor said. “I will not see you again?”
The Nameless One smiled. He tightened his grip on Miracle’s wrist. “After tonight,” he said, “I will never bother with you again.”
* * *
Nicolas stepped beyond the fringe of black vegetation, and the river bed disappeared. He stood in a flat plain. The black earth was soft under his feet. He looked out on an endless horizon: a dry ocean.
He swallowed. The air in his throat and in his nostrils was hot and scorched, though his heart was still leaping from his encounter with the King. His feet sank in the soft black earth, and the sand burned as though it had been years too long under the sun. He pulled out one foot and then the other, sinking as he walked and then pulling himself back out.
He looked up and saw a familiar ship on the black ocean. His heart jumped in his throat. He said the word before he had time to think: “Father!” But he blinked, and the ship was gone. Tears stung his eyes. The voice called again. Hurry! Set me free!
He nearly tripped over a sword. It was half-buried in the sand, only its sooty hilt visible. He took it and pulled it free of the earth. It was a beautiful sword, finely made and perfectly balanced. The hilt where his fingers rubbed away the soot was gold and marked with the sign of a seven-starred crown.
As he made out the symbol, Nicolas thought he heard voices. Ancient voices, crying ancient battle cries.
And then there was nothing.
Nicolas held the sword in both hands reverently. He looked up at the orange horizon. It seemed to pull him toward the vast expanse before him. Filled with a sense of terrible significance, he reached the edge of the sea-that-was-not.
She was there. The captive River-Daughter.
She lay at the place where the river should have emptied into the sea; where, on the other side of the Veil, it did. She was asleep.
In wonder, Nicolas fell to his knees before her. He still held the sword in his hands. “Wake up,” he whispered. He hardly understood the emotions filling him now. If he tried to speak any louder than a whisper, he would not be able to go on. Sorrow, ancient sorrow and fear for the future, would choke him. “Wake up, please.”
She did not stir.
He had never seen anyone like her. Her skin was blue-pale and her hair deep gold, and even in the dryness and the stillness she seemed to flow. Her hair, her dress—green and blue, pink and sun-sparkled—her fingers, and everything about her was fluid. Hers was beauty that did not belong to the human race, that did not belong to anything but the rivers and the seas.
But she was still sleeping. He had come for her, but he could not wake her.
He knelt in the black sand with the old sword balanced across his knees. His shoulders bowed, and his head fell. He closed his eyes.
Stillness.
The world had never been so still. So still and so silent. And in him, fire still burned.
Up from the stillness the song arose. Nicolas sang it softly. The notes were uncertain. He was not a singer. He whispered the words. But they came.
He sang the Father-Song, Lover-Song, Fire-Song. The Song of the Burning Light.
And when he was done, he opened his eyes and she was looking into them. Her eyes were no colour he could describe: they were the crystal of the clearest stream. She did not smile at him. The expression on her face was a deep pool under dark pines in the farthest north—still, solemn, and ancient.
She spoke. He knew the voice already. It rippled and flowed, a dozen little swirls running up and down in the current of her speech. “There is work to be done,” she said.
The voices of the Veil cried out in pain when Nicolas and the River-Daughter passed through to the other side, but there was peace and a blessing in the pain. Nicolas carried the old sword with him, brandishing it like a warrior.
He meant to use it.
* * *
The lookouts, perched high on the wall of the coliseum, saw the soldiers first. They shouted warnings, wailing in fear and hopelessness as the soldiers marched. On the floor of the great prison, old women and children picked up the wail. Through their own cries, they heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of boots and the jangle of swords.
For a few minutes Marja tried to comfort the old woman who rocked and moaned in fear, but her efforts were more than useless. She stood, brushed off her skirt, and began to move through the crowds of her people to the coliseum gates. She went to meet the death of the Wandering Race with courage. Those who watched her go whispered with admiration.
She had never felt more alone.
A hand touched her arm, and she whirled around. “Wait for him,” Caspin the Cripple said. “Hide in the crowds. Live as long as you can. Maybe he will get you out.”
“Not alone,” Marja said. “We live together—all of us—or we die together.”
“Child of the Sky,” Caspin whispered. “You cannot save us.”
“Come with me,” Marja said. “Come and meet our enemies boldly.”
“A bold cripple and a brave woman,” Caspin said. “What a pair we make.” He tried to smile, but his face twisted with grief. He nodded his head too quickly and began to hobble ahead.
The crowds of weeping Gypsies parted for Marja and Caspin the Cripple. Some ceased to weep as they passed and held their heads high instead.
At last Marja and Caspin stood between their people and the doors. They waited.
* * *
The Ploughman led his men forward, toward the place where Caasi’s maps promised they would find a way up. His mind went over their plans again: wait for the night. Ascend in silence. Take the coliseum guards when they do not expect it; spirit the Gypsies out. Battle—he steeled his jaw. They would fight if every other choice was lost to them. But he knew well enough the odds of their winning.
Another step forward, and the Ploughman stopped. His heart pounded—expanded, swelled to the presence of something else in the darkness. Something good, this time.
Something golden.
With a sound like falling sand, a bright light appeared in the corridor before him, shaping itself into a giant on horseback. The Ploughman smiled at the gasps behind him; they all saw it. But his smile faded quickly. The horsemen appeared for war, and the Ploughman did not want to go into battle now.
“Are you ready?” the Rider asked. “It is time to go above.”
“Here?” the Ploughman asked.
“They need you now,” the Rider answered. “Prepare yourselves for battle.”
* * *
The High Police approached the coliseum in a long column, the foremost of them falling beneath its shadow. Great wooden doors barred the way before them.
They halted.
A muscle twitched in the jaw of their commander, but he hardened his face and raised his sword. When he brought its tip down to face the door, all would be over for the Gypsies.
He hated the word massacre.
But then, he had never liked the Gypsies.
He brought his sword down, and the ground erupted before him. The High Police fell back before the thrashing hooves of a horse, dazzling white and shining like the sun, half as tall as the doors of the coliseum when it reared on its hind legs.
On the horse’s back sat a great golden warrior. Bronze eyes looked down on the High Police, who stood frozen in shock and fear.
The Rider raised his fist and said, “Let the battle begin.”
In a moment the Rider was gone, but the fissure he had opened in the ground was crawling with men. Farmer-soldiers and Gypsy men rushed from the earth alongside pale, hairless warriors whose battle cries shook the air.
“Darkworld!”
“The Majesty!”
The Ploughman led his rebels as they charged the ranks of the High Police, shouting, “For Pravik!”
“The King and Pravik!”
“The King!”
Two armies, both small and unprepared for battle, clashed before the gates. The noise of their meeting carried over the walls.
“What is it?” breathed Marja.
“It can’t be…” said Caspin.
“Nicolas,” Marja breathed. “Hurry.”
* * *
“They come out of the ground,” the soldier said. “Their battle cry is Pravik. Forgive me, your excellency. They are slaughtering your men.”
“How can they have come here?” the Emperor demanded. He bit the nail from his little finger and spat it on the tiles of the floor. “Call out every soldier in Athrom. We will destroy them. From this day forward there is no rebellion in Pravik!”
Lucien Morel strode out of the throne room and turned on a sickly shadow in the hall. “What of your plans now?” the Emperor snapped. “Get out of my sight. You have brought this upon me!”
The Nameless One drew himself up. “You do not know who you are talking to,” he said.
“I know what I am talking to,” the Emperor answered. “I am talking to a dead man.”
Lucien Morel stalked away, and the Nameless One whirled on Miracle. She leaned against the wall behind him, pale and worn. He had stolen too much life from her already—taken it from her as a spider drains its prey. They had fallen through Covenant Fire, and its effect made her too weak to fight him.
“Heal me,” he shrieked.
She met his eyes and did not look away. She said nothing.
“It does not matter,” he said. “I will be healed. The sacrifice will bring the Blackness into the world, and I will be found within its shades. I am immortal!”
Her strength began to drain from her again. She fought to remain conscious. His voice rang in her ears even as darkness darted through her eyes. “I will make the sacrifice myself. I will drink death as the Blackness drinks it. I will live…”
Lucien Morel, Lord of the Seventh World, did not hear the Nameless One. He threw a purple cloak over his shoulders as he rushed down the hall, calling for his attendants. “Make my coach ready,” he commanded. “I must leave Athrom.”
Morel’s men scrambled to obey as their emperor stood and looked out on the city. He could see and hear the upheaval of battle around the coliseum. His finger twitched. He breathed short, nervous breaths. They were here. The rebels were here. Perhaps they would win, and the Gypsies in the coliseum would come for revenge. But no, they couldn’t win. He was sending out his army. The whole army of High Police would destroy the Pravik rebels forever.
But then again…
“Hurry!” Morel shouted, not caring if anyone was near enough to hear him. “I must leave the city!”
* * *
The Ploughman cut a wide swath with his sword as he sprinted for the heap of rubble around the fissure in the ground. He climbed the broken blocks of stone and looked down on the battle. His men had driven into the ranks of the enemy. The sheer surprise of the attack, rising like a whirlwind from the ground, had driven the High Police back.
But they would not lose ground for long. Over the turmoil of the battle the Ploughman could see a dark river of men moving through the streets toward the coliseum. More soldiers. He closed his eyes and ducked his head for a moment as numbers swam in his head. They were outnumbered—how greatly? His spirit refused to give him an answer.
A contingent of High Police, spears lowered, drove through the rebels, straight for the gates of the coliseum. The Ploughman thought he heard a child sobbing over the sound of the battle: a Gypsy child behind the gates. He raised his horn to his lips and blew.
“Form ranks!” he shouted. “Guard the gates!”
His men picked up the call. Horns that had once belonged to farmers blew the signal, and the men regrouped before the high wooden gates of the coliseum. Many fell before they reached their comrades. The High Police rushed forward. The Ploughman heard himself shouting, “Stand your ground!” His men stood with their backs to the coliseum. High Police surrounded them on three sides. They had no choice but to stand their ground—though they die trying.
Swords clashed as the High Police reached the rebels. A high, wailing blast sounded on a horn made of bone and scales: the Darkworlders broke ranks and charged forward, led by Harutek and Caasi. The battle surged around the heap of rubble where the Ploughman stood. He leaped down and drove his sword into the nearest soldier. He pulled it out and whirled on another. Beside him, Harutek screamed a shrill battle cry.
A silver horn blew, and another rank of High Police charged the gates.
“Hold!” the Ploughman screamed as he ran to join the men who guarded the coliseum. Eyes that had known him since boyhood followed him as he sprinted the length of their ranks. “They must not break through!”
A volley of arrows rained down on the rebels. Men cried out and sank to their knees as silver-tipped arrows struck, driving through the rebels’ leather armour and burying themselves in the thick wooden gates.
“Shields up!” the Ploughman cried. He turned his head to see that his orders were obeyed. His men crouched under battered shields. The wailing cry of the underground warriors rang in his ears; they were shieldless, yet still they drove into the vanguard of the enemy.
The Ploughman felt and heard an arrow drive into his shoulder. He cried out and fell. His knees slammed into the smooth pavement, and for an instant the world swam before him. Then he rose again to his feet and made for the heap of rubble. He climbed with clenched teeth as arrows rained behind him and swords rang and clashed all around.
From the top of the heap, he watched the archers draw once more and let fly. Too many of his men fell beneath the volley. The enemy foot soldiers were waiting now. When the bowmen had weakened the rebels’ ranks beyond endurance, the High Police would charge again. It was clear enough: the rebels had to take the archers down.
“Caasi!” the Ploughman called. The young prince of the Darkworld felled two men and turned to face the Ploughman above him. He saluted, his pale skin streaked with blood.
“The archers!” the Ploughman said. “We must defeat the archers!”
“We have no protection!” Caasi answered. “Our fish scales cannot withstand their silver.”
“Scales,” the Ploughman repeated to himself. Light filled his eyes. “Scales!” he shouted.
Understanding glimmered in Caasi’s eyes. He whirled on his heel and raised a horn to his lips. The high blast called his own men to him, and the Darkworlders disappeared into the ground beneath the Ploughman’s feet.
They needed time now. That was all. The Ploughman turned his head to those who still huddled beneath their shields at the gate. He blew a charge on his horn. The men raised their heads and shields and ran forward, into the ranks of the High Police, where arrows could not kill them without taking down their own men as well.
But there was no one now to guard the gate. The commander of the High Police saw through the confusion to his chance. He sounded a battle cry and led the march toward the doors of the coliseum.
The Ploughman leapt from his place and ran over the slick street to the gates. Power flowed through him as he ran. His face glowed golden; his hair blew wildly in an unearthly wind. He raised his sword and lifted his voice, and the Riders came to his aid. Hooves pounded the ground around him. The battle cry of the heavens resounded through the earth. Twelve golden warriors arranged themselves before the gate, and the High Police drew back in fear.
You have come, the Ploughman said to them, in wordless thanks.
We cannot kill men, the lion-haired captain said. This you know.
I do not ask you to kill. Only guard the gates.
“March!” the commander of the High Police shrieked. His men surged forward and drove into the Golden Riders, whose horses reared and slashed down with their hooves. The blows passed through the bodies of the High Police, bearing them to the ground but not wounding them. Arrows arced through the air to the gates once more, sticking in the golden warriors. The horses whinnied in pain. High Police surged in, around and under the giants.
The archers all aimed at one Rider. He gave a cry of anger and pain as their arrows drew blood. Three arrows, expertly aimed, pierced his horse’s right eye. The animal fell to its knees. The Golden Rider dismounted and drove into the High Police, but now foot soldiers swarmed over him. The Ploughman watched in agony as the High Police brought the giant warrior down. High Police stood atop the Rider’s shoulders and screamed victory to the air, even as a gentle breeze turned the warrior’s body to sand and bore it away.
Strength and fury filled the Ploughman, and he rushed forward. Twelve men were dead at his hand before he became aware that he was fighting. There was fire in his veins, golden fire. The arrow wound in his shoulder grew hot, and the heat seared through his arm and hand, but it was the heat of a forge. It made him stronger even as it burned. The golden sands of the Rider’s body swirled around him as he fought, flecking his skin with glints of gold. He threw back his head and roared like a lion.
The Ploughman raised his sword, and three arrows hit him. One drove deep into his already-wounded shoulder; one pierced his armour and lodged in his thigh; one slashed through the skin of his left arm. His leg buckled beneath him, and he fell to the ground, racked with pain. He looked through a haze of blood at the battle.
The ground was trembling. Hooves. The High Police were sending horsemen.
The rebels were still fighting, but they could not hold much longer. The Golden Riders alone stood between the High Police and the coliseum—but they could not kill. The Ploughman cried out in frustration. The heat of battle-joy left him. They were losing the fight.
Darkness started to drift across his eyes. But then he heard a high wailing horn, and Caasi rushed from the ground with his men at his back, armoured in the flashing red scales of dragon hide.
They charged through the enemy, leaving dead men in their wake. They charged for the archers. The Emperor’s foot soldiers scattered before them. Arrows rained down on them, only to bounce off the scales. The archers broke ranks and turned to run—too late. Caasi and his men shrieked and wailed as they bore down on the enemy.
The skin at the corner of the Ploughman’s mouth cracked as he smiled. He felt strong arms behind him, helping him up.
“My lord,” Harutek said.
“I am all right,” the Ploughman said. His leg nearly buckled. “I will live.”
His hand shook as he raised his horn to his lips and blew the signal for the men to form ranks. Farmers, Gypsies, and stable boys withdrew from the melee and formed tight ranks again, though their numbers were thinned. Protecting the gates.
The Ploughman leaned on Harutek as he heard other men shouting the words that had been his: “Stand your ground! They must not break through to the gates!”
Harutek led the wounded leader to the fissure in the ground and began to descend with him. “You’ll be safe down here,” the prince said.
“No,” the Ploughman answered. “I want to see how the battle goes. I want my men to see me.”
Harutek nodded, though there were tears in his eyes. “Yes,” he said.
Together they struggled up the heap of rubble until the Ploughman could see. The Emperor’s horsemen were in the rearguard, preparing to ride down on the gates. The rebels could not stand against them. The Ploughman looked up to the Golden Captain.
The horses, he said.
Aye, the captain answered. He raised an ornate gold horn to his lips and blew a charge, and the eleven remaining Golden Riders charged forward, knocking down men and riding over them. Army horses lost their nerve before the Riders and bolted. Some charged forward, High Police riding with their lances leveled. A group of them knocked a Rider from his horse and bore him to the ground, lances deep in his chest. The Ploughman closed his eyes and felt a breeze around him; felt sands in the air.
He did not ask Harutek to tell him what he knew already. Though they fought bravely, though they had already beat enormous odds, they were losing the battle.
Horsemen, regrouped and determined, charged for the gates.
* * *
Miracle lay on the stone edge of the coliseum. Wind whipped at her hair as the world spun around her and the rain lashed down. The Nameless One stood beside her and shrieked strange, harsh words into the black sky. He thrust his hands to the clouds. Lightning, blue and terrible, sliced the air around him.
Miracle rolled over and fought darkness as her stomach lurched. She could see people far below, pelted by the rain, huddled in little groups. She could hear them crying.
Her eyes went to a figure who stood before the doors of the coliseum. A young Gypsy woman. The young woman turned and looked up, and her eyes met Miracle’s.
The battle raged on the other side of the doors. Who could say what side was winning?
But it didn’t matter who won, Miracle remembered. The man at whose feet she now lay dying would kill them himself. He could do it. She had seen him kill.
And to think, he had pleaded with her to heal him.
As though she would ever help him.
He was too far given to evil to help. He was hardly human. He was sick…
Lightning danced in the Nameless One’s eyes as he spit the last words of his spell into the dark air. He felt Covenant Fire in his fingertips; felt it crackling through him. This was life. This was power. He was a god.
He jerked his hands down, and the Gypsies began to die. Old ones and children first.
Before the doors of the coliseum, Marja fought to stay on her feet as pain racked her body. Dark faces and grinning masks flashed before her eyes. She lifted her eyes to the cloaked figure on the wall.
“No!” she cried. Thunder drowned her out. The raindrops were black and hot and heavy like tar.
The High Police succeeded in breaking through the guard before the gates. The doors of the coliseum burst open, and the battle spilled in. The Gypsies were past caring. Some were past knowing.
A wolf’s howl split the night, strong with rage, and a stag leaped through the battle with a man on its back. Michael jumped down from the stag’s back and began to climb up the wall. He could see her.
He had to reach her.
Miracle saw him, too, but she forced herself to tear her eyes away. Slowly, painfully, she raised herself to her knees. Then to her feet. She took a step nearer the Nameless One. He did not see her. He was laughing, and his face was changing. He was a skeleton: a mask with nothing behind his eyes except deepest black.
But then she touched him. She stood behind him, raised her hands to his face, and held him; and his laughter turned to screams.
“What are you doing?” he cried.
“Healing you,” she said.
The Nameless One fell to his knees as power drained from him. Miracle fell behind him. She cried out and looked to the sky, but still she held on.
The death throes of the Gypsies were changing. They were only weeping now—and only the living can weep. The rain was rain, and it was not black, or heavy, or hot.
The Nameless One seemed to fold in on himself. He lay on his face and whispered for her to stop, to let go. But she would not, not until she had driven the pestilence from him. She would not stop until he was human again.
That would kill him, he reasoned with her in his mind. There was not enough left of him to live—he had lost it all to the Blackness.
The voice of Michael O’Roarke echoed in Miracle’s ears. She turned to see him leaping the steps and the seats of the coliseum. Kris of the Mountains was behind him, the white wolf following. And Archer: Archer, bless him, he was coming for her too.
She let go.
The Nameless One groaned wordlessly and rolled so that he could look into her face. She leaned on her hands, bent over him, breathing hard. She hardly recognized him. He was emaciated and afraid, nothing like the man she had known.
“Now you are healed,” she said.
She could not take her eyes from his face, so she didn’t see him pull a dagger from beneath his cloak. Not until the other hand grabbed her throat. His face twisted with hatred as the dagger stabbed.
Michael shoved Miracle aside and killed the man before the dagger pierced her skin.
The Nameless One was gone.
Michael knelt on the edge of the coliseum and took Miracle in his arms. She clung to him, shaking with weakness and pain, and they wept together. Kris of the Mountains stood over them and looked down on the coliseum as the skies cried rain.
“The battle is lost,” Kris said.
“No,” Gwyrion growled. “Can you not smell the change in the air? It is just beginning.”
* * *
The Emperor had elected to leave on the eastern road, where the entrance and exit of the city was bordered by the high walls of two aqueducts. Now he regretted it.
Lucien Morel emerged from his coach red with anger. “Why are we stopped?” he demanded.
“Your excellency,” the coachman faltered. “Look, your majesty…”
Lucien Morel failed to hear the man’s voice. He could see nothing but the water that was pouring over the road—his road—blocking the way out of Athrom. Water was pouring over the edges of the stone aqueducts.
The water began to gather around his feet and swirl in angry currents. Lucien Morel turned white as death and scrambled for the safety of the coach. A swift current in the water knocked him from his feet. He landed on his face, and water poured into his mouth and nose. He pulled himself up onto his hands and knees and crawled through the mud, crying in terror.
The river had come for him.
He heard the incredulous cries of men and women somewhere in the streets, spreading the news that had even now begun to reach the city.
“The river has turned back on itself! It flows inland from the sea!”
* * *
The Ploughman watched from his vantage point as the battle streamed past him through the open doors of the coliseum. A soldier in black and green leapt up the rock and charged at him, and he calmly watched him come before Harutek cut him down. He looked down at the dead soldier’s face, and the sounds of battle rang in his ears. Battle, and screams—the screams of women, children, Gypsies.
The forge inside him flared to life once more. He felt the searing heat through his wounds and the strength that came with it. A strength not his own; a strength born of greater powers. For an instant his eyes flashed gold, and he leaped down from the heap of rubble and into the fight. He cut, slashed, whirled, lunged, and soldiers fell before him—ten, fifteen. Thirty.
Sand swirled around him. Three men charged him and he cut them all down. Five more came. Two before him; one to the left; one to the right; one behind.
He moved faster than any human being should move. One was dead; two, three, four. He could not move fast enough to kill the fifth. He whirled around to face the man charging him, knowing it was too late, knowing he would die now; and then a blur of red passed in front of him and made a sound like a wounded animal as the soldier’s sword drove into it.
The Ploughman killed the soldier and knelt by the body of Caasi, Seventeenth Son of the Majesty, clothed in a makeshift cape of dragon hide. The sword had found a rift in the cape and driven home.
Caasi groped for the Ploughman’s hand and gripped it tightly. The young prince’s eyes were racked with pain, but he gripped harder and licked his bloody lips.
“We have fought well, have we not?” he asked.
The Ploughman bowed his head. “Yes,” he said. “You have done proudly.”
Caasi looked up, past the Ploughman. “I am glad,” he said, “that it was done under the sky.”
Caasi’s eyes closed, and the Seventeenth Son of the Majesty slipped away.
The Ploughman bent his head low over the young man’s body. Sobs racked his frame and made the pain of his wounds come back. His face was wet with tears, every other inch of him wet with blood. But there was more—a new wetness, a new warmth around his feet as he crouched on the ground. He opened his eyes and saw clear water washing the blood from Caasi’s face.
In the distance there sounded a roaring as of a river broken loose.
* * *
Soldiers in and around the coliseum froze with their swords in mid-stroke as the sound reached their ears. The Gypsies turned wondering eyes to the gates.
The seven remaining Golden Riders sent up a shout that echoed through the streets of the jewel of Italya. The rebel army, streaked with blood and dirt, turned their faces east.
The river swept into Athrom. Waves crashed down over the High Police as currents picked up the rebel fighters and carried them up in the warm embrace of the water. It washed away the blood and gore and made even the dead clean. The Ploughman held the body of Caasi in his arms as the river cradled them and carried them away. He closed his eyes and let the warm waves wash his wounds and cool the fire in his soul.
Marja stood with tears pouring down her face as the water swirled around her feet and lifted her up. She saw Nicolas coming to her, riding in the arms of a creature more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. The River-Daughter swept Nicolas into Marja’s arms and carried them away together.
The rain and the river mixed together until all of Athrom was under the floods, and the people fled their city for higher ground in the country.
When they returned, the Gypsies and the rebel soldiers were gone.
The River-Daughter carried her refugees back to Pravik, but this time the rivers they traversed were above the ground. The Darkworlders drank in the sun as it sparkled on the water around them. When they reached Pravik, the Majesty and Libuse and Divad and Maggie and all of the people were waiting for them. The River-Daughter had sent word of their soon arrival by sweeping acres of water lilies into the caverns under the City of Bridges, filling the sunless world with the smell and sight of hope.
The Clann O’Roarke went home to the Green Isle and set about rebuilding their home. They mourned the loss of the child Kieran and celebrated the marriage of Michael and Miracle. Kris of the Mountains disappeared the morning after the wedding, and a north wind blew down from Fjordland in farewell. The white wolf was gone as well.
The Gypsies took to the roads in caravans of crimson and purple and brilliant yellow. They danced and sang and told stories, and the people of the Seventh World feared them.
And when their caravans rattled over bridges and past marshes and ponds, the water laughed.
* * *