The Dark Queen

Chapter 18

The Old Wall faded into the darkness behind him as the first of the lakeside camps came into view.

For a moment Vincus stopped in the shadows, baffled.

The camp looked like Bywall, or Westedge, or Pierside-one of the sprawling communities of pau shy;pers that dotted the shimmering marble of the inner city. The tents were there, and the lean-tos, the banked fires, and the barrels set on their sides to house the poorest of the huddled poor.

For a brief, disorienting second he imagined he had somehow turned himself about in the city, retracing his steps unknowingly.

But no. Behind him was the Old Wall. If he stepped back from the camp and looked carefully, he could see the outline of the ancient battlements, the crenels jagged and crumbling like the rotten teeth of an ancient animal.

Through the camp the ragged people moved, dodging in and out of the firelight. Perhaps what he had seen from the brewery roof was illusion.

Perhaps the world was all city, all Istar.

All of a sudden the country ahead of him, glimpsed only fleetingly from the starlit brewery roof, seemed like a murky maze again, its whorls and corridors leading nowhere. And yet the mem shy;ory of the lake, the dark waters and the vaulting horizon beyond rose foremost in Vincus's mind as he passed from camp's edge to camp's edge on his way toward the shore.

It is only an hour's journey, he told himself. I will reach the lake in an hour.

But it was longer than that.

Twice in the early morning, when the campfires behind had settled to ashes and the road before him lay at its darkest, he had slipped behind tents to con shy;ceal himself from a passing squadron of the Istarian Guard.

"Rebels," they muttered. "Fordus."

Once in the rumble of voices and rattle of armor, he thought he heard the druid's name. He leaned forward, wrapping himself in musty canvas, and lis shy;tened intently for more, but the name and the noise and the squadron passed on into the night, and scarcely three breaths later, Vincus leapt from behind the tent, running to keep himself awake and alert, his hands silently saying an ancient protective prayer.

It must have been prayer that protected him on the last occasion, scarcely an hour before dawn, when a company of Istarian cavalry rode by, their commander so lost in thought that he never looked above, to the branches of a blasted vallenwood, where Vincus perched like some huge, outrageous bird, newly flown from its cage.

Finally, in the purple dawn, the tents and ruins gave way to the cemeteries, the great funerary grounds that bordered the south of Istar. Now, beyond the scattered white monuments burnished by the rising sun, Vincus saw shimmering blue ris shy;ing out of the darkness and smelled the waters of Lake Istar-the lake of his rooftop vision.

It is true, he told himself, leaning against a marble stone. There is a lake out here, and there are moun shy;tains, beyond the buildings.

And Fordus is somewhere beyond the edge of sight. I am glad I kept believing.

And he rested, free from fear and Istar, for the first time in years.

At nightfall, Vincus found the coracle Vaananen had left tied to a willow by the lakeside. Slowly and clumsily, for it was his first time in a boat of any sort, he steered the craft into midlake, where he circled aimlessly, rowing ever more frantically as a distant bell tolled and the night turned.

He could not be found here in the morning. He had to get across the water.

Now Istar and the mountains seemed equidistant-

dark, looming forms against the darker shores. Worn out with rowing, with spinning, with trying to steer by stars that ducked in and out of the clouds, Vincus lay down in the coracle.

Just a few minutes, he promised himself. An hour at most.

When he awoke, it was nearly noon. The craft had drifted to the far side of the lake, and the foothills lay in front of him, inviting and solid and wonder shy;fully, delightfully dry.

Vincus thanked whatever gods had taken charge of the water and the fools who ventured onto it, and, giving the craft a kick he hoped would send it on its way back to the Istarian shore, he scrambled up a narrow path and, by midafternoon, found himself at a great height-at the mouth of the Western Pass with a distant view of the city.

Of the three passes leading through the Istarian range, only the Western Pass was free of the sterim- the harsh winds off the desert that seemed to gain force as they climbed. Had Vincus traveled through either the Eastern or the Central Pass, his chance of survival would have been slim.

Vaananen had known, Vincus thought. Those hundreds of times he rattled on about it-they were all for this. For by the time he had wakened on the southern shores of the lake, Vincus was so turned around, so disoriented, that he was not quite sure if the path he followed led to the Western or the Cen shy;tral Pass.

Then he saw gentian and edelweiss-hardy moun shy;tain flowers, but not stormfast-at the mouth of the pass. It had to be the Western Pass, Vincus concluded, and he set out through the treacherous mountains by the lone safe route, congratulating himself on his new shy;found mountaineering skills.

Three days later, he emerged on the southern side of the mountains. Thinking that the hard part of his journey was over, he trudged merrily southward, his last day's food his only baggage besides the precious book.

As sunset overtook him, he crested a rise and looked down into a quiet, shadowy valley, where felled and stunted trees littered a gray basin in the midst of the plains. To Vincus's city eyes, it seemed like the area had been touched by fire or high wind in a distant time; the dried boles of trees, already crusted with sand and salt and a shimmering opales-cence, were a pleasant change from the grasslands' monotony.

Vincus lay down amid the sheared remains of a vallenwood grove. Branches of elm and willow lit shy;tered his campsite, and he gathered some of them to build a small fire in the twilight.

He would travel by night from now on, he decided. It was easier, he had seen, to steer by the stars and to avoid discovery.

With a smile of contentment, he rested his head against the blackened trunk of a willow. All of a sud shy;den he was weary, and his thoughts strayed over the road behind him and back to the city.

What was it called?

Istar. That was it.

For a moment it seemed to Vincus that something was not right, that he should have remembered the name quickly, more easily. But his mind drifted from this brief, pointless worry, and he began to drowse.

It seemed as though the collar was back around his neck.

Vincus stirred uneasily.

The collar tightened, and tightened again, and the young man sprang into wakefulness.

The dead branches of the willow had closed around his neck, gripping, clutching, and strangling.

A rare carnivorous plant, the black willow masked itself as log or tree and preyed on hapless creatures it lulled to sleep beneath its spreading, branchlike ten shytacles.

A child of the city, Vincus had never seen such a monster, and when the willow grabbed him, he struggled vainly against its grip and his own grow shy;ing drowsiness. The plant seemed to sing to him, an eerie and menacing lullaby, and despite his fright, the young man found himself listening.

No. From his robe he drew half of his silver collar, a ragged crescent that glittered in the moonlight. Desperately, his strength and senses failing, Vincus sawed at the largest branch with the sharp metal edge until black sap, sticky and cold like the blood of a reptile, dripped over the tendril and onto his chest.

The willow let out a shrill, hissing scream and, for a brief moment, released him. But a moment was all Vincus needed. He rolled away from the monster, snapping two thinner branches that remained around his shoulder. Springing clear of the grove, he crouched in the dry grass for a moment and gath shy;ered his breath, rubbing the long, fresh lashes on his arm where the pliant wood had whipped and cut him.

He had seen everything now, he thought.

The country itself could kill you.

Forewarned and wary, he slipped the silver cres shy;cent-an excellent weapon, he had discovered- back into his robe. He would make good on his plans tonight, traveling sleepless by moonlight. Surely he would be safe as the desert slept.

Many months ago, at Vaananen's insistence, Vin-cus had scanned a map of the plains. Meticulously, the druid had moved the small meditative stones in the rena garden-red Lunitari representing the mountains, white Solinari the plains beyond. Slowly, precisely, Vaananen had traced the safest route with his finger, and then, standing over Vincus, had urged the young man to mind it all.

Now, Vincus wished he had minded more closely. Was the army southwest of the city, or had Vaananen said go south-southwest? Was the camp five miles from the desert's edge or six miles?

He could not remember.

Vincus scrambled to a little rise, a high point in the featureless landscape. Prairie stretched all about him, endlessly and shapelessly, the warm wind rustling and rattling through the dry grass. Even from this vantage he saw nothing but plains.

Unless it was the floating shadow on the farthest southwest horizon-a cloud, perhaps, or a mirage, but at least something amid the sea of grass. Vincus shielded his eyes and stared long and hard, but he could see nothing more than the shifting, formless gray.

When the night came, it was cloudy. Solinari and Lunitari darted in and out of the clouds, the only luminaries in a slate-gray sky.

Vincus knew that the tail of the constellation Sargonnas "was his guiding star, that it would point him due into the heart of the desert. But glimpsed fitfully in the early hours of the morning, the constellations seemed different, almost alien. Vaananen's neatly plotted drawings of the heavenly maps were gone now, and in their place was a chaos of faint and wavering light.

The morning's red sky restored the east, and Vin-cus found that he had turned in the night, had wan shy;dered due west on the indefinite plains. His hands flickering a mild oath, he sat down on a small cluster of rocks and, chin cupped despondently in his hands, watched the horizon shimmer and recede as another day of uncertainty began.

He felt famished. He breakfasted on the provi shy;sions he had brought from Istar, and the grimness of his situation dawned on him.

Soon he would have to forage for his food, for meat and roots and water in this inhospitable coun shy;try. Armed only with a dagger and a schoolboy's knowledge of edible plants, he faced even greater hunger in the days to come.

That is, unless the Istarians caught him.

Vincus drew his new dagger slowly, scratching idle designs on the dry earth. Istar and slavery almost seemed better now. A sudden anger at Vaana-nen fluttered briefly through his thoughts-at that druid with his intrigues and fond ideas.

Fordus, indeed! Vaananen had conjured the rebels out of sand and stone. They were no more real than…

Than Vincus's freedom.

He looked down at his feet. Absently, numbly, he had sketched Vaananen's five glyphs on the hard, grassy ground.

No. He had come this far.

It was then that the hawk shrieked overhead, and Vincus looked up.

Lucas had been circling for an hour, aloft on the morning thermals. His red feathers glowed in the sunrise, and his angular wings tilted smoothly as he circled.

His mistress had loosed him to forage and scout in the early hours, whispering a song of return in his ear. Over the plateau he had arced, then east over the Tears of Mishakal, gliding swiftly in a low flight before gaining altitude and sailing into the grass shy;lands, where the hunting was good and the Istarian army ranged uneasily.

The solitary man seated in the midst of the grass shy;lands was something new. For a while Lucas watched him curiously.

Not enemy. Not a soldier.

When the man took a small scrap of meat from his pocket, Lucas noticed immediately.

Noticed as well the jagged pieces of silver in his hand as they caught the sunlight.

It was something more than instinct that made the bird circle and call, made him skim the high grass and pass not five yards from the seated man, his hooked wings banking gracefully as he rose again, turning and returning, circling and calling, through all of his actions urging the man to follow.

Once in his motioning, the bird had swooped near enough for Vincus to hear the bells on its jesses. Vincus stood and followed.

The bird had surprised him with its circling and cries. South and north it sailed, south and north, shrieking as though in signal and warning.

Vincus had laughed at the thought. Too long in the wilderness, he told himself, when a bird becomes your messenger.

And yet the bird would know where to find water and game.

For a morning he followed, the hawk never lost from his sight. Turning and returning, its circles nar shy;rowing, the bird seemed attentive, almost protective. Far to the west a column of smoke hovered on the horizon-the gray shadow that Vincus had seen the day before, now obviously no mirage, but the watch-fires surrounding an armed encampment.

Istarians. Had he been slightly wiser, and hadn't needed to follow the hawk, he might have walked right into their camp. Vincus shuddered to think what might have happened.

He quickened his step, searching the sky for the hawk that had become his omen and guide.

Seated on his horse, shielding his eyes against the sunset, the sergeant watched the man trudge out of the foothills and onto the dry, waving margins of the grasslands.

A solitary wanderer. On foot.

The sergeant nodded to his three companions- troopers, skilled swordsmen, and even more skillful riders. Dressed in the light brown cotton robes and red kaffiyeh of the Istarian desert fighters, mounted on roan horses, they blended with the brown land shy;scape until, with the blinding sun around them, they were almost invisible-mirage warriors on the high ridge.

In tight formation, the four cavalrymen descended from the high ground toward the trespasser, their horses breasting the tall brown grass in long surges, overtaking him quickly when the grass gave way to rocky flatland.

The war horses' hooves clattered over the ground, kicking up stones and dust. Nearly engulfed, the traveler turned, raised his hands, began an elaborate series of gestures and signals.

Mage! the sergeant's instincts cried. Somatic prepa shy;rations! Since the strange death of his lieutenant- the one dissolved by the spells of a dark enchanter-a month ago, he was wary of encounters with solitary men in the desert.

With the quick reflexes practiced over a dozen years of horse-soldiering, the sergeant leaned back in the saddle, reined his horse to a skidding halt. One of the troopers, a young man named Parcus, weaved and nearly fell as he fumbled to draw forth his short bow.

"Move your hands no more, sir!" the sergeant shouted. "Upon your life, be still!"

Abruptly, the fellow buried his hands in the folds of his tunic. Two of the troopers dismounted and approached him.

Parcus stared at the trespasser over the shaft of a nocked arrow.

Vincus clenched his fists hard in his tunic as the Istarian troopers drew near, tightening his grip on the silver crescents hidden in his robes.

The plains were no city street. Here were no shad shy;ows, no alleys, no dark thresholds. Here in flat bare country and relentless sunlight, there was no place to hide.

He had begun to pray at the sound of hoofbeats, praying ceaselessly until the bowman menaced and the sergeant shouted his warning.

They would find the broken collar. They would….

"Who are you?" the sergeant asked coldly, stand shy;ing up in the saddle.

Vincus did not, could not answer. His great golden eyes never blinked.

"Bring him to me, Crotalus," the sergeant ordered.

The trooper dismounted and seized Vincus roughly by the shoulders.

Aloft in a swirl of wind, his sharp eye scanning the edge of the desert, Lucas saw the riders sur shy;round the man. Saw them dismount, approach him, and drag him toward the horses.

Something in the bird-an old instruction from his mistress, perhaps, or something embedded and pat shy;terned since his time in the egg-stirred him to action.

Folding his wings, the hawk plunged from the sky a hundred, two hundred, five hundred feet. The bird dove gracefully, its talons extended like deadly, curved knives, the falconer's jesses and bells trailing.

In a shimmer of ringing music, Lucas struck the sergeant in the back of the neck just as the man leaned over to question Vincus. The sergeant fell headlong, neck broken in a heap of spattered robes, his horse bolting away with a terrified whinny.

The bird jerked to free himself from the kill, the awkward jesses tangling and knotting in the fabric of the sergeant's robes.

He flies bound. Enslaved, too! Vincus thought. Somehow the thought inspired him.

With a fierce, powerful surge, he shook loose the astonished troopers. Crotalus spun about, his sword ringing as it fell to the hard ground. The other man, quicker and more resourceful, had already lifted his spear.

Rolling away from the flashing pont, Vincus drew forth the slivers of his collar, the edges forming deadly hooks on each side of each hand. They glit shy;tered in the dying sun like scimitars, like the talons of the hawk. Before the spearman could recover, the broken collar's sharp edges whipped cleanly and fatally into his throat. Vincus pushed him aside in a fierce, pantherlike rush toward Crotalus, who had managed to find and draw his crossbow from its place on the saddle of his skittish horse, just as Lucas hopped free of his tangles.

A piercing cry and the flap of wings about his head forced Crotalus's point-blank aim high, and the bolt whizzed over Vincus's shoulder, skidding long and hollowly over the cracked earth behind him. With a lunging leap, Vincus wrestled Crotalus to the ground, and the two men scuffled briefly, until the other collar half flashed high in the sunlight and plunged downward.

Moving away from Crotalus, who had breathed his last foul breath, Vincus covered his head, still expecting a rain of arrows from the last trooper's direction. But he heard the soldier cry out weakly, and looked up to see him already borne far away atop his rampaging horse, the two remaining steeds following close behind.

In high pursuit of them, Lucas swooped and glided and dodged, all the while crying shrilly until they were dwindling specks on the horizon.

Vincus stood up painfully, more bruised than he first had realized by the struggle with the outriders.

The hawk, unruffled and fresh, sailed back to him through the climbing dusk. With a cry it circled overhead, then soared toward the southwest, its flight now framed by Lunitari low in the sky.

His heart rejoicing for the bird-for its mastery and bravery-Vincus threw his hands up and fol shy;lowed eagerly. They had fought together. The hawk would not betray him.

When darkness had fallen and the stars spangled the clear sky, a comforting light seemed to rise from the looming shadows.

Vincus laughed and quickened his pace. He called to mind again the druid's patterns in the sand of the rena garden, the arranged stones, and the instructions.

At last Vincus knew where he was.

The camp of the rebels lay ahead in a soft, waver shy;ing firelight.