The Dark Queen

Chapter 10

Takhisis stormed into the fastness of thc salt flats. The warrior's body she inhabited had stiffened and dried, almost to the point of crumbling and dissolv shy;ing, so the goddess moved heavily, clumsily.

Muttering a dark oath, she hastened between the droning crystals, over the level black sand, silk robe and translucent, faceted legs blurred with unnatural speed. The crystals themselves bent at her passing, like trees in a strong wind.

Takhisis crossed the flats to an upturned spot among the crystals, a black whorl of churned salt and crossing tracks. She had wandered this spot upon other nights, clad in the crystal flesh of the dark woman, her other avatar.

Now, preparing for yet another change, the god shy;dess crouched amid the black rubble, her glinting hands dry and fragile from her long stay in the invented body. Her brittle finger traced the outline of new tracks in the salt.

A fresh trail. A horse. Its path encircled this cen-termost spot…

And headed for the rebel camp, weaving through the barren landscape of crystals.

Takhisis glanced up warily, the features of her face suddenly crumbling, hardened and angular. Sun shy;light caught in her eyes and vanished, the warrior's body she inhabited glittered like polished onyx.

Somehow, she would get to that elf, Takhisis thought, as her assumed form of Tamex crumbled into black powder. She would eliminate that slight, wiry shadow with the desert eyes and the grand suspicions.

He must know of the opals. Of the watery black stones and their secrets. After all, he was Lucanesti, the opalescence of his own skin protecting him from her energies.

But he was vulnerable … on other counts.

The goddess hovered, a dark, incandescent cloud over the pooled salt.

Slowly, the salt and rubble began to whirl, as if borne on an unearthly wind. The spinning, unnat shy;ural cloud took on another shape-that of a huge creature, its leathery, angular batwings fanning the chaos of the hurtling debris. For a moment the cloud dwarfed the surrounding crystals, then suddenly it began to diminish toward a smaller, more solid form-that of the beautiful dark-haired woman, the temptress of all mythologies.

The woman emerged secretly from the Tears of Mishakal, at the southernmost edge of the salt flats after sunset. She came when the watches changed and the sentries, caught in the last business of the day before their long night vigil, turned their atten shy;tions briefly and idly elsewhere.

Nobody saw the whirling black sand, borne on a cold night wind, as it descended and coalesced at the border of the salt flats. Nobody saw the woman it formed, saw her slip into the camp. She blended in at once and well, her black silk robe discarded for a deerskin Plainsman tunic Tamex had taken from one of the newly dead. Nobody saw the woman take a place by the fires of the Que-Nara, her long dark hair tangled and covered with sand as though she had been grieving.

But it was not long until they noticed her, Plains shy;man and bandit and barbarian alike. They could not help but notice.

The woman was splendidly beautiful, her skin pale and luminous and her amber eyes glittering under heavy, sensuous lashes. But those eyes were red-rimmed and that pale face tearstained, and though her face was cold and impassive, it was easy to see that she had lost someone-someone dear-in the raids of the morning. And though all the men of the encampment looked upon her admiringly, long shy;ingly, they kept the mourner's distance out of decency.

Even Gormion's bandits were respectfully silent in her presence.

Stormlight noticed the woman as well, as he stood alone by his fire near the foot of the Red Plateau. Above, like a soft accompaniment to her arrival, the bard's singing tumbled from the height of the mesa, where Larken kept watch over Fordus as he drowsed and waked and wandered and continued to heal.

The-woman's amber eyes followed the elf intently as he walked across the littered campground. Storm-light approached slowly, drawn to stand silently beside her fire, the opalescence in his skin playing from blues to golds in the flickering light.

Stormlight wished then that Larken had come with him, to fable his deeds into wonders and miracles for this enchanting woman. His face flushed at the foolish prospect. He needed no glamour or go-betweens. He would show her who he was, without embellishment or ornament. He …

But what was he thinking? She was likely a new widow.

"You're too close to the fire, sir," a soft, echoing voice observed, breaking through the tangle of his confused thoughts.

"I… I beg …"

He stepped back as small sparks scattered on his lower legs, spangling his boots for a brief, uncom shy;fortable moment. He thought the woman laughed, but her expression was unchanged, nor had she moved from her spot by the dwindling fire.

"Here," Stormlight muttered, clumsily tossing kindling onto the blaze. "It will be cold tonight, and your fire is failing."

"Thank you," the woman said, her voice chilly and somber. She lifted her amber eyes to him for a moment, then lowered them demurely.

Stormlight hovered above the fire, more dried twigs in his hand. He started to turn, started to slip

into the shadows back to his lonely post, but her presence held him in unwilling fascination-the fire shy;light shimmering on her dark hair, the pale, almost translucent skin.

When she spoke again, it was like precious rain in the expectant desert.

"I am Tanila," she pronounced. "From the south. From Abanasinia."

"Que-Shu?" he asked hopefully. Larken's father was of the Que-Shu tribe. He knew something of those Plainsmen.

The woman shook her head slowly. "Que-Kiri. From the foothills near Xak Tsaroth."

Stormlight nodded, but they were names only, these distant tribes and places. The strange woman remained a mystery.

"You are Stormlight," she said, her voice still strangely vacant. "And you command these armies."

"No," Stormlight began, crouching by the fire, his gemlike hands radiating purples and reds as he extended them to the warming glow. "Fordus com shy;mands the armies. I am his lieutenant."

"You are Stormlight the elf, are you not?" Tanila asked skeptically. "I have heard that Stormlight commands these armies."

For a moment his heart cried Yes! Yes, I command these armies, in the field and in encampment. Fordus is only foxfire, a brilliant spark, and I am the substance, I am the guide through the wilderness of his words..

But he stopped before he voiced the cry, amazed at his own vehemence and dishonor.

"My husband. ." Tanila continued, her gaze shifting toward the fire, "my husband fought in your legions. Moccasin was his name."

Still shaken by his own vaulting thoughts, Storm shy;light plumbed his memory for the face of the man, for the name itself.

Nothing. It was as though Tanila's husband had vanished in the depths of the desert, and the sands had settled over him for a thousand years.

"I … I am sure he was a brave man, Tanila," he offered, knowing his answer was not enough.

In the distance, by the foot of the Red Plateau, the campfires waxed with a brighter light, and for the first time on that somber evening, the sounds of music and storytelling arose from the encampment. As is often the case in a warrior's camp, the rebels were putting the ambush behind them. Having mourned the dead for a brief space, they had set about to bolster their hearts for the coming day.

For if the Istarian cavalry had struck once …

Stormlight glanced toward the fires, which seemed to glow across a gap of miles and years. Part of him longed to be in the midst of the councils. There his cool presence was encouragement.

"Go ahead and join the others, if it please you," Tanila urged. "You have been most kind."

She sat by the fire, her dark hair covered in ash and sand, but oddly, almost unnaturally, beautiful.

Larken's drum sounded, and her sinewy voice carried over the campfires. They were too far away for Stormlight to make out her words, but he no longer listened to them.

For the first time, as he sat beside her near the fire, Tanila smiled at him. He banished his awareness of the camp at once, his thoughts transfixed by her depthless amber eyes.

He remembered little of what he said to her that night, but he was surprised that he said it.

Long tales he told, ranging across hundreds of years, of his wandering days with the Lucanesti, and finally of the ambush, the slavers, and his hostage people in the caverns below Istar. The telling drained him, sapping his strength as his story unwound. And Tanila changed as he spoke, the mourning lift shy;ing from her until Stormlight could see only the dev shy;astating, almost haughty beauty that had no doubt imprisoned …

Moccasin. Yes, that had been his name.

Tanila listened intently as Stormlight told her of the night among the crystals when, for the first time, Fordus read the mysterious glyphs of the gods. Tanila was most curious about that night, her ques shy;tions soft at first, encouraging the story, then more subtle, more detailed. When he turned to other sto- ries-of their exploits in Fordus's youth, of the hunts and the battles, and of this great venture against the rule of the Kingpriest-her interest seemed to waver. Yet he persisted, story after story as the night passed toward morning.

She asked him most often about the opals, leaning toward him hungrily as he explained the stones his people had hunted for since the early times: the white and the black, the water and fire.

And of course the opal darker than black-the glain, which the Lucanesti called the godsblood, for obscure reasons lost in the Age of Light. Her ques shy;tions tunneled and probed, her eyes urged and tempted and haunted.

The eyes. The elf felt swallowed by their loveli shy;ness.

The dawn came before he expected or even imag shy;ined, the eastern horizon rising from the darkness and the night's fires fading into the sunlight. Slowly, with the barking of dogs and the cry of Larken's hawk hunting overhead, the camp awakened. Now Stormlight could make out shapes moving from tent to tent, and he realized to his dismay that he had been thoughtless and rude, filling Tanila's mourning night with his boastful stories.

"And all of this. . from that single night in the salt flats," Tanila remarked, her amber eyes brilliant and alert.

Stormlight shifted uncomfortably and rose to his feet. The eyes again. Where had he seen them before? His memory was tired and scattered.

She was just a girl. Dark-haired and very beauti shy;ful.

But she had noticed him-preferred him-to For-dus.

As he was turning back to her, to those glorious amber eyes, as he thought of another story and a story to follow that one, suddenly a call rose up from the encampment. Fordus approached, hobbling, leaning on Larken for support.

"So this is where the night has kept you!" Fordus exclaimed, a strange laughter in his voice.

Now Tanila rose to her feet, brushing back her hair with a graceful wave of her translucent hand. Mod shy;estly, she lowered her gaze at the approach of the commander.

Fordus's sea-blue gaze darted from Stormlight to Tanila as though he read a glyph in the morning sand. He smiled fiercely, and the bright blue of his eyes grew suddenly flat and cold.

"Who is your friend, Stormlight?" he asked qui shy;etly, gently pushing away Larken and standing unsteadily on his own. "Lady, I do not recall your presence in this camp, and I would remember those eyes and the long temptation of this raven hair."

Larken stepped away, a look of familiar hurt and anger passing over her face.

Fordus took two wobbly steps toward Tanila and extended his hand, his fingers playing softly with a braided strand of her hair. "I know I would remem shy;ber you," he murmured lazily.

"Her name is Tanila," Stormlight replied icily, glaring at the commander. Fordus was like this- had always been like this-the joy of the chase and the conquest impelling him in the hunt, in battle, and in more tender matters. He meant no harm, no injury, but when he set forth, he was cold and indif shy;ferent to the hearts of all around him.

"Tanila?" Fordus replied, blue eyes locked with amber in a fervent, stormy exchange.

"The widow of Moccasin," Stormlight continued. "One of your followers, who fell yesterday in the ambush." His own voice annoyed him with its thin, weak self-righteousness.

"I am sorry to hear of your loss, Tanila," Fordus said, his expression never changing. "In such a sor shy;rowful time, it is the commander's duty to see. . that all your needs are met."

"Great Branchala!" Larken spat, turning from the fire and stalking back toward the camp, whistling to the hawk as she broke into a run.

Of course, Fordus's gaze never wavered.

"I shall study to be deserving of your kindness," Tanila replied, almost formally and yet with a subtle and sinuous heat.

It was Stormlight's turn to mutter.

Then, overhead, Larken's hawk screamed in alarm.

All eyes shifted to the bird, the moment forgotten in the outcry and the approaching tumult of his wings. Lucas swooped out of the pale morning sky and, gliding low across the shadowy sand, struck the gloved hand of his mistress and frantically pulled himself upright. His shrieks and whistles were shrill, almost deafening, and a strange green light flashed over his pinions. Larken soothed the creature, her fingers stroking his feathers like harp strings.

Stormlight rushed to the side of the bard. Fordus was not far behind, the pain in his foot forgotten.

Larken stared at them, her brown eyes wide with alarm.

"Istarians?" Fordus asked, his right hand reaching instinctively for the throwing axe at his belt. Still the bird screeched and yammered. Larken raised her hand to the two men, motioning for their silence.

Not Istarians, she signed with one hand, inclining her ear toward the loud, insistent bird. Not sandlings nor ankheg, not panther …

"Then what?" Fordus exclaimed impatiently.

Larken shook her head, her fingers slow and deliberate.

Their fresh hostility forgotten for the moment, Fordus and Stormlight exchanged troubled glances.

It is nothing he knows, Larken concluded, as the bird whistled once more and fell silent. Nothing he has ever seen. There is no word for it in Hawk.

"Then we shall find the words for it," Stormlight declared.

Fordus nodded and drew forth his axe.

By the cooling ashes of the fire, Tanila regarded them impassively. The black pupils of her amber eyes slitted and closed.