The Dark Queen

Chapter 15

Stormlight decided to speak against Fordus's prophecy. Standing before the assembled camps, his voice rang loud and true and assured, as it had on a hundred occasions before, when he had helped to guide the Que-Nara through long, waterless stretches of the desert in search of oases, of underground pools, of arroyos suddenly and strangely filled by an outburst of subterranean springs.

In the years of drought his voice had been rain, so the people were inclined to listen.

"I have heard the prophecy of Fordus Firesoul," he began, "and I believe his dream has misguided him. Where before have we found the water, and looked in the sand for the approach of Istar, for other dangers and for enemies? Speak, if you know."

The sea of faces was still and quiet. They knew, of course, of the kanaji pit-that there was a magic within the crumbling, sand-swallowed walls that had lasted an age or more. They knew that Fordus entered the pit to seek visions and wisdom. They knew something of the glyphs, and all believed that the gods sent messages through them to the Prophet. But they did not know how. "In all those times," Stormlight continued, "I have stood beside the Water Prophet. I have seen the birth of the visions, and when he has spoken, I have spo shy;ken after him. His words were cloudy, but I have made them plain so that you may understand them. Always we have worked together-the Storm of Prophecy and the Stormlight. We have found water, and when we needed to elude the slavers, they went home with their collars empty. In these wars of liber shy;ation, we have found Istar and the unprotected flanks of the Kingpriest's army."

"Why did the wars start, Stormlight?" Fordus asked softly, and all eyes turned to the Prophet, all ears awaited his answer. "Was it in the kanaji that the gods told me to move against Istar? No, I tell you. This vision came to me in a dream. I alone was its Prophet and interpreter. The Namers and the shamans all know that I speak the truth."

A dozen gray heads in the first circle of watch shy;ers-heads covered in beads and oils, locks caked with penitential and meditative mud-nodded in fierce agreement.

The Prophet was a dreamer. And Stormlight? Per shy;haps he was jealous. Perhaps the gods had moved him aside.

Stormlight himself wavered with a moment's doubt. Was he jealous, as no doubt they must believe? Had the words of Tanila and Gormion struck him so because they were the same words, spoken on the same day, or because they had touched the secret desires of his own heart?

Yet he knew it was foolish-these doubts, these suspicions-because most foolish of all was For-dus's reckless haste. If they moved in accordance with Fordus this time, all of them, Plainsman and bandit alike, would surely fall in the grasslands north of the desert, where Istar's might was ready. There were fifty thousand of them, to the rebels' five hundred.

He could not let that happen.

Stormlight gathered himself for an answer. "It was your dream that began this war, Fordus. I cannot deny that. But did you dream the thousands of slaves, both Plainsman and elf, who wear the Istar-ian collars, laboring in their households and markets on their swarming docks and in their lampless mines? Did you dream the legion after legion that Istar has set before us, and did you dream the great mountains south of the city, and the lake we need to encircle, and then more plains, and, finally, the great Istarian walls, twenty feet thick, of solid stone?

"There will be a time for great victory, a time to march through the streets of Istar in celebration, with thousands more following us, thousands more at our side. And we will set them free, and forever break the bondage Istar has put upon our people. We will leave the desert and have warm homes and restored families. But it is too soon. Istar will crush us like shells."

He looked out over the armies. Some of the lead shy;ers-Breeze and Messenger among the Plainsmen, Gormion and Rann among the bandits-nodded in agreement with his words.

They were war leaders, skilled soldiers all.

A fleeting cloud of distaste moved over Fordus's face, but almost at once he converted it to a limpid sweetness. He lifted his hands-the Prophet's ges shy;ture of inspiration and blessing-and he turned with a smile toward Larken.

"In the time of glyphs and of defense," he said, "Three of us guided you, not two. I call on Larken in this new age. I call on her song to lift us out of ques shy;tioning and debate."

Stormlight's hopes sank as the girl stood and walked slowly to her drum. Larken was Fordus's bard; he was her true love. She had followed him for years, exalting him, adoring him.

There was no question whose story she would tell. How could it be otherwise?

"Let her sing," Stormlight proclaimed quietly. "She will surely sing for you. Once before you led us out of the desert's fastness, and the Kingpriest's army followed us back. There are orphans and wid shy;ows who remember that day sadly, and there are grieving ancient ones who did not expect to outlive their sons.

"And now you lead us forth once again, and again we will follow. I will come behind you-not follow, but come behind-because the Que-Nara are my people as well, and will need someone to defend them from your great foolhardiness. Still, I cannot blame those who choose to stay behind.

"But know this: If your ambitions outstrip your love for your people, if you venture into country that promises death like the death that swept down on us beneath the Red Plateau … why, I shall be the first to turn against you. I will kill you myself"

With a silent prayer that his words had found lis shy;teners, Stormlight stalked from the council. The crowd parted like high grass in his passage, but he did not look back until he reached the steep, inclin shy;ing trail that led down from the plateau.

Northstar had stayed.

And Larken … immoveable in her uncertainty.

Nonetheless, ninety warriors came behind him. Gormion and Rann and their henchmen, Messenger and Breeze and their followers and families descended the trail in a long, uncertain line.

He looked toward the camp, where the muted fires, left untended, had lapsed into darkness.

"May the gods and the god beyond them hear me," he whispered. "And may Fordus and Larken someday understand."

"You are a dead man if you leave me, Stormlight," Fordus shouted to the backs of the departing rebels. "All of you are dead. Without me you will have no water, no defense. Istar will take you at its leisure, or you will go to the Kingpriest and beg for his mercy!" Without so much as a good breath between, he turned to the loyal and continued in an even conver shy;sational tone.

"The gods alone send dreams, and the Prophets alone can divine them."

He clambered atop a stand of stones and looked down upon the sizeable crowd that remained. Four hundred Plainsmen and barbarians sat on the hard, rocky ground and watched him expectantly.

"Stormlight did not remind you that his words interpreted mine when we emerged from the kanaji. It was he who told you that the water was north of the desert, the moon and wind were on our side, and that Istar was waiting."

Larken looked up at him sharply.

Some of the barbarians stirred and murmured among themselves.

"If any prophecy failed," Fordus continued, "it failed when the interpreter brought you the words."

Larken set aside the drum. The only music Fordus wanted was that of his own voice. He stood above his company, waving and gesticulating, his move shy;ments swift and frenzied and sinuous. His argument was as shimmering and elusive as a mirage. She could not piece the logic of it, and yet those who remained were listening, were nodding, were agreeing.

As Fordus spoke, preparing his followers for the morning's march into the lands of Istar, the bard fin shy;gered her drum hammer absently, uncertainly.

Perhaps, she thought guiltily, her music for For shy;dus had fled along with her love.

Confidently and ardently, after the speech of the Water Prophet, her cousin Northstar stood in the midst of the seated multitude.

"Hear the word of the Prophet!" Northstar cried exultantly, lifting his salvaged bronze medallion into the cool desert night. "Fordus Firesoul is the War Prophet, the man who needs no translator, no inter shy;preter of broken words! I, for one, have kept my eyes to the heavens for forty turning seasons. I have steered you by planet and star, and I have steered by my heart and mind as well.

"For those years, the gods have told me to guide. And now my heart tells me to follow.

"To follow Fordus Firesoul, the War Prophet, the Liberator! On to Istar, warriors of the Que-Nara! To the walled city, friends and brothers!"

A roar arose from the seated multitude, a rumble and shout like the roll of an enormous drum. Lucas soared away from the loud and menacing sound, circling dolefully in the silence of the upper night air until he seemed like a swiftly moving planet, a meteor in the dark vault of the heavens. Below him, the torches converged and filed toward the camp, the council doomed and concluded.

The next morning the rebels departed from the camp at the base of the Red Plateau.

The War Prophet was steady now, firm of footfall and strong in his stride. His pain had vanished, replaced by a fierce and jubilant sense of his own destiny.

He set off on foot at the head of his army. Waves of the Que-Nara danced in their white robes behind him, and the motley garb of bandit and barbarian decorated the bleak desert with color.

It was the morning of the Shinarion, and they formed the last of the caravans headed for Istar.

If the gods willed it, Fordus Firesoul would be in the city within a week, celebrating the close of the holy days on the throne of the Kingpriest.

Stormlight watched their departure from the edge of the salt flats. Fordus, his eyes straight ahead toward the beckoning north, did not acknowledge his old companion, nor did the others who flocked around the War Prophet, watching each gesture and listening to each word, certain they were present at the making of history.

Wearily, Larken set out in the middle of the col shy;umn. Almost as an afterthought, she wrapped the lyre, carrying it in a knapsack over her shoulder.

Dreamlike, she touched the instrument in the dark cloth, and it seemed to quiver in her weary hand.

By the jostling of totem standards and bandit ban shy;ners milling in the company ahead of her, she could locate Fordus, though she could neither see nor hear him. All around her a river of robed bodies surged and pushed, and she felt as though she were being washed away to the north, borne on an irresistible tide.

Once she looked back. At the edge of the Tears of Mishakal, framed in the glittering black of the crys shy;tals, a solitary figure watched the passing of the army, at last signaling his forces to follow, his ges shy;tures tired and heavy. He was distant, his features lost in the sandy wind and the liquid shimmer that rose from the hot desert surface, but she recognized him at once.

Stormlight.

She wanted to wave, to signal to him something about peace and friendship. But a banner, waved by an enthusiastic barbarian boy, flashed green and golden through her line of sight, and the babble of a foreign tongue distracted her. When she looked to the flats again, Stormlight was gone.

She looked to where the banners encircled Fordus. Energized by the sun, by the adulation of his follow shy;ers, the Prophet was moving more quickly. Already the colors danced at the edge of her sight, moving resolutely into the distance, where the cloudless sky seemed to open and swallow them.

At midday, deep in the Tears of Mishakal, a funnel of black sand swirled skyward, propelled on an unnatural desert wind. Weaving between the crystals like a dark, intangible river, the sand brushed and chimed against the ancient, gleaming stones until the whole salt flat seemed to wail and whistle like a thousand lost souls.

Out into the desert the black wind rushed, over the site of the Plainsmen's recent battle with the con shy;dor, scattering sagebrush and ash in its path as it hastened north. It passed about a mile to the east of Fordus's marching legions, and the scouts and out shy;runners took shelter on the leeward side of the dunes, convinced that the wind was the herald of a great approaching rain.

In its wake, the desert lay calm again. Brush tumbled from dune to dune in sedate, everyday winds, and the sun beat relentlessly over the shifting browns and reds of the arid landscape. The Plains shy;men soon forgot about the storm as they scanned the horizons for signs of the Kingpriest's army.

But high above them, a solitary bird soared after the dark wind.

The bard's hawk, Lucas, his wings extended, watched the curious cloud from a distance as it raced from the desert into the plains. Skimming low over the dry terrain, the bird watched the ripple of the high grasses and followed the path of the wind through that wide and deceptive country.

Soon the grasslands gave way to rocky slopes, to foothills, as the dark wind hurried over farmlands and villages, headed toward mountains and the daunting walls of Istar beyond. Soaring at hunting speed, Lucas at last overtook it as it skimmed across the great expanse of Lake Istar, and from his high vantage, the bird looked down upon the gritty, undulating spine of the wind.

It seemed to the bird that he flew above a huge serpent or above the thrashing tail of an even greater beast. Cautiously, he kept his distance and contin shy;ued to follow and watch.

As the wind neared the city seawalls, its writhing form condensed and compressed. The wind became liquid, then solid, darkening and coalescing until, to the hawk's acute eyes, it looked like a watersnake, glittering like crystal in the harsh sunlight, wrig shy;gling swiftly over the lakeside to the city waits, winding and thrashing across the steep, rocky incline.

Now, his confusion over, Lucas swooped for the snake, gliding low over the water behind it, extend shy;ing and flexing his fierce talons. He narrowed the gap in seconds, caught a glimpse of faceted edges in the skin of his quarry, the smell of salt, and the smell of something older than salt, brilliant and sinister. He shrieked, struck out with his talons, but the snake was swift, elusive. Slipping through a small crevice at the base of the great wall, it vanished, the tip of its tale flickering tauntingly against the gray stone.

Lucas landed hard by the city walls and ruffled himself in frustration. Then he climbed steeply on a thermal close to the Istarian walls and, turning above the Kingpriest's Tower, made for the south and Fordus's approaching forces. He would not for shy;get the snake and its strange transformations.

And somewhere in the dark beneath Istar, the long, serpentine form altered and grew.