The Dark Queen

Chapter 6

From his vantage point in the lofty tower, the Kingpriest watched a meteor plummet through the distant sky above the Tower of High Sorcery, dropping out over Lake Istar, where it crumbled and collapsed into the water like dust sprinkled from the heavens.

Like dust.

The ruler of Istar turned from the window.

His private chambers were as spare as a novice monk's. So he insisted, despite the flattery of the attendant clergy and the growing temptation to sur shy;round himself with beautiful things. A single cot and a threadbare rug lay in the center of a vast and

vaulted room.

By day, the chamber was austere, but lovely in the subtle light that shone through the opalescent win shy;dows.

But it was night now in Istar, and by night the Kingpriest saw shadows. At night, if he gazed too long into the graceful garden below the tower win shy;dow, he saw the trees as things with daggers, and the streams and fountains blackened and thickened under the silent moons.

No. He would not look into darkness, would not think on his … transgressions. Better to sit here by a cheery fire, to sift the dust-the opal dust-that would eventually bring his joy.

The windows had told him about the opals long ago as he walked in private meditation along the outer passageway, the huge, encircling hall of the tower.

Alone, his white hood raised above immaculate white robes, the Kingpriest had been praying, but the prayer passed into a curious reverie in which he remembered his early days of priesthood, a candlelit chamber in the novices' quarters. .

A girl. An auburn-haired chambermaid.

His hands trembled at the memory. So lost was he in a dream of ancient lust that he did not hear the win shy;dows speak at first. But the words intruded at last on his thoughts, and, startled, he looked toward the sun-struck clerestory, where the surface of the pink, opalescent windows whirled with unnatural light.

Like calls to like, they told him, each window speaking in a voice of different pitch and timbre, until it seemed as though a choir sang the words into his baffled hearing.

"Like calls to like, indeed," he whispered in reply, when the corridor had settled into expectant silence.

"Water to water, and stone to stone."

He did not know why he had thought of water and stone.

Furtively, he glanced up and down the hall. Per shy;haps someone was weaving deceptive and illegal magic to make him seem the fool…

Seem unsuitable.

Two windows at the bend of the hall widened and darkened, as though the corridor itself were watching.

Like calls to like, they repeated, strangely and absurdly, as the great scholar ransacked his memory of ancient scroll and codex for any mention of speak shy;ing windows, of omen and sign and portent.

His memory returned to the girl, to the candlelight pale on her bare skin. In the corridor, the windows promised him that auburn-haired girl. Her, or another just like her.

It was time, they urged him, to take a bride.

She was approaching, the windows told him. The Kingpriest's bride. Soon the time would come, in ceremony and ritual, when he could call her forth, anchor her errant spirit in a new, lithe body.

When the time was right, they would teach him the chant, the arcane somatic movements. But for now, he should gather the material components.

The dust of a thousand glain opals.

It seemed an obscure command, and yet, lulled by the prospects of the young girl, he vowed to comply, to gather. There in opalescent light he took a firm, unbreakable oath, and twenty years later, when he ascended the throne of the Kingpriest, he set about fulfilling his duty to the swirling, disembodied voices.

The stones would house his approaching bride, some god had promised him, through the translu-cency of opals.

The sounds of the city faded into the darkness and the approaching morning. Sleepless and eager, the Kingpriest sat on the edge of his cot, black dust sifting and tumbling through his pale, anticipatory fingers.

The young man slipped through the dark Istarian alleys, his movements silent and veiled.

Twice he lurched into shadowy doorways, stand shy;ing breathlessly still until a squadron of soldiers rattled by on the moonlit street, Lunitari spangling their bronze armor with a blood-red light. Winding his way through the intricate streets of the city like a burglar, he passed the School of the Games.

Silently, anonymously, he continued past the Ban shy;quet Hall and the Welcoming Tower, once festive buildings now muted with night and the recent news of an Istarian defeat. He stepped into the moonlight here, and the red glow tumbled onto his dark skin, his green-gold eyes, the short, well-kept beard. His hair was cut in the dark roach of Istarian servitude-the topknot extending from nape to widow's peak. His wide mouth fell into a secret mocking smile.

They said Fordus had put it to the Kingpriest. Put it to him well in the grasslands to the south. Who shy;ever Fordus was.

Now those vaunted legions, decimated and lead-erless, camped by Istar's outer walls with their backs to the cold stone, their garbage piling up around them, had orders to defend the city at all costs.

It was ludicrous. They heard the march of rebels in the wind and confused the low stars on the northern horizon with a thousand rebel campfires on the plains. They saw Fordus's face under every lackey's hood.

Still, Istar was far from beaten. The army that this Fordus had crushed, though formidable, was not a tenth of the Kingpriest's power. Already the city echoed with new tidings, with the rumor of military movement in high places, of counterattack and reprisal.

When the young man was halfway across the Cen shy;tral Court, a third patrol approached-slowly, with a clatter of gruff voices and new, ill-fitting armor. The young man crawled catlike beneath a broken wagon abandoned not a hundred feet from the main entrance to the Great Temple. He held his breath again until the last of the soldiers passed, muting his thoughts in case a cleric traveled with them. When the courtyard was once again clear, he peered through the cracked spokes of the wagon wheel at the dome of the Great Temple glittering in moon shy;light, red as the helmets and breastplates of the patrolling soldiers.

As he watched, the bell in the lofty tower swayed and tolled the fourth hour since the turn of night- the last hour of darkness.

Vincus was somewhat early; the call to First Prayer was not for several minutes. He would have to wait until the clerics began their silent, ritual movement toward chamber and candlelit chapel. Then, when most of the residents' thoughts wool-gathered in peasant rite and pretty ceremony, he could cross the open courtyard undetected.

Vincus crawled up into the tilted bed of the wagon and, lying back in the sour straw, lifted and then settled his seamless silver collar so that it did not clank against the wood. The bright heavy circle was marked only by the common lettering of his name.

Vincus was a temple slave, and not a contented one.

For a year now, he had served as silent go-between in the usual tower intrigues, and in one case, he abetted the out.-and-out treason of an eccentric, superstitious priest from the west-a man strangely attuned to weather and seasons and growing things, more pleasant to him than any of those mush-faced, white-robed sycophants.

But in the end, all sides were the same to Vincus. All sides but his own. Daily, patiently, he awaited an opportunity either to steal enough to pay off his father's debts or somehow to break the silver collar, the sign of Temple slavery that neither smith nor armorer would dare loosen. If he were free of that collar, he could flee into the city shadows, let his hair grow back and lose himself among the narrow side streets and alleys and winding sewers he knew so well.

His chance would come. Not tonight, but soon, he knew.

Meanwhile, this hiding place was odorous, but at least it was comfortable. He had waited in far worse surroundings: in the dark rat-infested cellar of an ale-house, in the cobwebbed rafters of a foul-smelling tannery, once even neck-deep in oily har shy;bor water, clinging for his life to the treacherously barnacled side of a moored ship.

The ship had been the worst, for Vincus was no swimmer, and the barnacles had cut and savaged his hands.

With that memory in mind, the wagon bed seemed suddenly more than sufficient.

Scarcely an hour from now, while the clergy droned and murmured in the first foolish rite of the day and the hard-hatted soldiers drowsed at their assigned guard posts, he could cross the courtyard virtually unnoticed. Slipping from shadow to shadow, he could scale the outer wall, stroll through the garden to the braided green silk rope dangling from the high window that would be left open for him, and there, in the shadow of vallenwood branches, scramble up the tower wall like a burglar.

For wasn't that what he was? A thief of secret thoughts?

Vincus laughed silently and closed his eyes, rustling into the soft, makeshift mattress. He could drowse now, for his days on the streets of Istar had taught him to sleep with a strange vigilance. Soft sounds three blocks away tumbled like dreams through the edge of his senses, and Vincus took note of each of them: the low chuckling of a pigeon stir shy;ring in sleep, the scuttling of a rat amid the offal in an alley.

The sound of a dagger drawn from a gilded sheath.

Instantly, Vincus's golden eyes popped open. His right hand slowly reached to a fold in his tunic, where he kept his homemade leather sling and six stones. Once again motionless, assured his weapon was there, he turned his head with agonizing slow shy;ness to the slit in the wagon's side, where the boards had long ago shrunk and parted. From there he watched the mouths of the alleys, listening for metal on metal again, for a clue to the sound's direction in the directionless dark.

He fought down his fearful imaginings. Perhaps it was another patrol, this time with dogs or Irda or minotaur. Or a ghost. After all, the city was said to be deep with the roving dead.

Maybe an evil god, set on a cruel and arbitrary hunt. Hiddukel of the broken scales. Chemosh of the undead, his yellowed skull agleam in torchlight.

Vincus closed his eyes, banished all the fears. Had the kindly Vaananen not taught him that such gods could not prosper against him?

Kick them in the backside, I will, he thought. And send them packing to the Abyss.

You are safe, Vincus, he reminded himself. You have not come this far to be abandoned. Your chance will come.

Finally, he heard the dagger replaced, the sound scarcely in range and nearly lost in the clatter of hoofbeats from a passing rider.

Traveling away, Vincus thought. Whoever it is. Traveling toward the School of the Games.

He relaxed, staring past the foul straw up into the city sky. Faintly, through the ash and smoke and torchlight, he caught a glimmer of stars in the north shy;ern sky. Bright Sirrion floated through the constel shy;lated harp of Branchala, as though the old planet played accompaniment to this sly nocturnal busi shy;ness.

It was curious tidings Vincus had gathered tonight for Vaananen at the Temple. Dissent in the ranks. First threat to the rebels. Try as he might-and Vin shy;cus was shrewd and inventive-he could not piece together a story out of the fragments he had heard. An Istarian mercenary captain, an augurer, and a seller of salt in the Marketplace-three conversa shy;tions had spawned three versions of a rumor. Each story seemed somehow linked with the others, shar shy;ing a common substance like the facets of a crystal, but again like facets, each shed diverging and frac shy;tured truth.

But it was not Vincus's job to piece together the evidence. Calmly and silently he waited to deliver it, while the fiery old planet passed through the starry harp and the last hour of the night turned into the first of the morning.

The tower bells tolled that first hour, and the city of Istar wakened slowly in the early morning dark shy;ness.

In the corridors of the great marble temple, dozens of white-robed figures filed down the shining steps from the Outer Tower toward the Sacred Chamber, the underground sanctuary in which the Kingpriest and the principal clerics of Istar greeted every new day with First Prayer. The torches that lined the stairwell and the corridors smoked and sputtered, and among the clergy were many who nodded or shuffled sleepily, wrested from hard sleep and com shy;fortable beds by ritual demand.

At other places in the temple and in the city, more clergy gathered in similar ceremony, but those in the Sacred Chamber were the chosen, the elite whose service to Istar had spanned years, decades-in some cases, even the reigns of several Kingpriests.

At an hour more daylit or in a place less secure, the guards might have counted the white robes that entered the chamber that morning. Had they done so, they would have found that four of the number were missing, and that the infirmaries of the temple accounted for only three of the absent clergy.

But the hour was early, the guards as drowsy as the celebrants. The bronze-armored sentries nodded and blinked and closed the doors to the chamber at the appointed time, never knowing that one whose presence was expected-the cleric Vaananen of Near Qualinesti-had chosen not to attend the morning's ceremonies.

Instead, Brother Vaananen remained in his medi shy;tation chamber, stirring the fine white sand in his rena garden.

Vaananen was a westerner, and therefore seemed quite austere to some of the others in the brother shy;hood-mainly the Istarians who were spoiled by the city's soft ways and easy living. He was a tall, spare man, with long black-and-silver hair, which he kept clubbed neatly at his neck. His eyes were moss green and seemed to fill his entire face.

Vaananen smiled frequently, but always in secret, under his ample hood. He was a disguised druid working among the clerics, a man whose solitary pursuits made for few friends.

All the better.

His druidic masters had set him in Istar with the purpose of salvaging any ancient texts from the Kingpriest's destructive edicts. Secretly, painstak shy;ingly, Vaananen copied what he could find, translat shy;ing from rune and glyph into the common alphabet, and smuggling the new-made books out by silent courier and under other covers and titles.

Of late, he had found new things to do as well.

Vaananen's chamber was sparely and beautifully appointed: a small carved cot, a handmade teak table and copy desk, an exquisite stained glass lamp, and the rena garden-a simple, ten-foot-square recession in the floor, filled with sharp-grained white sand and punctuated with cacti and three large but movable stones, each of which represented one of the moons.

The secret of the garden was an old sylvan magic, perfected among the elves who, in the Age of Dreams, brought the sand into the forest to build the first of the renas. These elves had also known the true meaning of the stones: that the black stone was

augury, foretelling with the fractured, fitful light of divination, while the red stone told the past, its vision warped by the many versions of history. The white stone showed the present, showed what was happening someplace, usually unknown, a hundred feet or a thousand miles from the reader.

Moving slowly, carefully over the bright sand, Vaananen stirred circles with one foot. He bent, hoisted the red stone, and set it beside the white. Then, seating himself on the black stone, he stared across the broken expanse of sand, reading the fresh geometry of dune and ripple, the violet shadows cast by the stones.

The rena garden was now only a relaxation tool among the human clergy of Qualinesti. Absorbed and tamed into the Istarian theocracy, it was little more than a sedative, its true ancient powers forgotten. Now the sand and the abstract positioning of the stones were supposed to calm the mind for contem shy;plation, create a serenity in much the same way as, say, growing flowers or watching a waterfall.

Vaananen stared intently at the red, lava-pocked stone.

Sedative, indeed. The Istarian brothers did not know the half of it.

He passed a hand over the large, squat cactus in the center of the sand, feeling its aura of moisture and expectancy.

Rain. Rain within the hour.

But still no rain in the desert.

Slowly he stood, pacing softly about the garden, his eyes on the center of the square, where the combed dunes spiraled tightly like a whirlpool around the three glyphs he had drawn in the sand.

Rolling up the white sleeves of his robe, Vaananen rubbed off a patch of concealing potion on the inside

of his left wrist and focused on the red oak leaf tat shy;tooed there. He had hidden this mark from his com shy;rades for the six years he had served with the Kingpriest's clergy.

The red oak leaf. The druid's hand.

Vaananen focused, and the glyphs glowed and shimmered and then disappeared. Now, miles away, they would rest in the floor of the kanaji.

The rebels would find water now. They would also learn of the Istarian withdrawals.

Briskly, without ceremony, he crouched and raked over the smooth sand where the glyphs had been. The area once again matched the rest of the garden's surface.

From the rumors that swirled about the temple, through the corridors, towers, and the roseate Audi shy;ence Hall of the Kingpriest, Vaananen was certain that all his meticulously drawn symbols had done their distant work.

So it had been for years.

His heart had gone out to the eccentric, alien Plains shy;man lad who had found the ancient kanaji, the boy who searched for water. And so, through the first years of Fordus's Water Prophecy, Vaananen had guided the young man, and with druidic augury located the underground sources of water for the Que-Nara, informing Fordus through glyph and kanaji.

When, after the inexplicable dream a year ago, the Water Prophet became the War Prophet, and the rebellion against Istar began, the druid had begun to shroud even more information in the ancient sym shy;bols: the location of Istarian troops and their move shy;ments.

He also kept a constant warding spell upon the golden tore around Fordus's neck. This, too, was magic at a distance, and the druid's sleep was fitful and unsettled as his incantations protected the wan shy;dering Plainsman from the elements, the Istarians …

And from something else, far more grim and dark and powerful. Vaananen was not sure exactly what this larger menace was, but he had his suspicions.

Zeboim, perhaps. Or Hiddukel. Or an evil god even more powerful. Of one thing Vaananen was certain. He was safe, and so were the rebels he pro shy;tected, only as long as he was beneath Istarian notice.

So he stayed obscure and low, and helped Fordus quietly.

Obviously, the lad had a gift. He could discover both weather and tactics in the shimmering lines on the sand. And then the elf would translate Fordus's reverie, and the Plainsmen would travel, and Istar would fall to another desert defeat.

So it had been, and so it was.

With his finger he traced the next of the spirals inward, then sat back on his heels. Slowly, the sand began to boil and turn about the white stone.

Good, the druid thought. A sign from the present.

Suddenly, the white stone dulled and grayed, its brilliance transformed to a sick, fish-belly white, and the whirling sand sent out ripple after ripple, the white stone sinking slowly into the garden until it rested at the bottom of a widening coil of sand.

Then the stone itself began to bristle and swell. Vaananen watched in horrified fascination as the thing sprouted eight white, rootlike legs, which sud shy;denly began to twitch and wave …

Like the funnel trap of a springjaw, the druid thought, and felt the hair on his arms rise. Peace. Tis but a vision.

Yet despite himself, Vaananen shrank from the image. A human form appeared at the edge of the whirlpool, a wavering translucent shape like a mirage on the desert horizon. The apparition scrambled vainly.toward the top of the sandy whirlpool, the springjaw clambering after it, its smaller set of fangs clacking hungrily.

"Fordus!" Vaananen whispered, stepping forward in alarm. He knew that somewhere this was actually happening. The rebel was fighting with a monster. Here in his chamber, powerless to help, the druid could only watch and hope.

And breathe the warding over the distant tore.

At the edge of the eddying sand, the ghostly man clutched, grappled, slid back. The springjaw scrambled toward him, a dull light shining in its great green eye. Huge, sand-colored, and insectlike, it scrabbled at the bottom of a funneling pit, its ragged jaws opening like a crab's claw, like a Ner-akan mantrap.

Fordus lurched toward the lip of the pit and safety as the creature reared and plunged, its huge mandibles encircling his ankle, widening, arching …

"Watch the other eyes. ." Vaananen muttered, staring at the dull black orbs resting behind the false, brilliant eyes of the springjaw. The black eyes, the true ones, would signal the attack.

He breathed a prayer that Fordus would know this as well.

The great jaws hinged and wavered over the Plainsman's leg. Sliding down the sandy incline, Fordus snatched an axe from his belt, pivoted, and hurled the weapon solidly into the thorax of the attacking monster. The springjaw roared, staggered back, its black eyes rolling swiftly beneath the chiti-nous exoskeleton of the head.

"Now!" the druid cried, and thirty miles away, in the heart of the desert, the Prophet felt the tore at his neck quiver and draw him up. With a last burst of furious energy, Fordus set his other foot on the springjaw's head and pushed. Crying out as the swiftly closing jaw flayed the skin of his ankle, the Plainsman rolled clear of the trap, pulling himself onto level ground as the springjaw slid back into crumbling darkness. He sat on the edge of the sand funnel, thankful to be alive, clutching his wounded foot.

Which already was beginning to swell with the monster's poison.

Vaananen leaned forward, trying vainly to judge the severity of the wound. But the white sand whirled in the other direction, and slowly the stone rose to the surface of the garden. Innocent and mute, it lay where the druid had placed it, next to the red stone, where its shadow formed a soothing pattern on the manicured sand.

Vaananen exhaled. The vision was over. The sand was smooth, featureless again. He was alone and safe in his sparely appointed room, the shadows on the walls lengthening and deepening as the colored lamplight dwindled.

Vaananen raised his head at the soft sound on the windowsill. Vincus gracefully lowered himself into the room.

"What did you bring me?" the druid asked, smil shy;ing and turning to face his visitor.

The young man's dark hands flashed quickly, rac shy;ing through an array of ancient hand-signs.

"Of course you may sit," Vaananen said, chuck shy;ling as he detected the smell of sour hay. "And the pitcher of lemon-water on the table is for you."

Vincus drank eagerly, then seated himself on the druid's cot. Swiftly his hands moved from sign to sign, like a mage's gestures before some momentous conjury.

"So they all mention this dissent among the rebels," Vaananen mused. "Mercenary, augurer, salt seller-same story."

Vincus nodded.

Vaananen turned slowly back to the sand. "But no more than a passing word?"

Vincus shook his head, then noticed the druid's back was to him. He shrugged and took another drink of the water.

"And what do you make of it, Vincus?" Vaananen asked, glancing over his shoulder.

The young man flashed three quick, dramatic signs in the lamplit air, and the druid laughed softly.

"Nor do I. But you have done your job. Now I must do mine."

Vincus gestured at the water pitcher.

"Of course," the druid replied. "Have all you like. Then you should leave quickly, the same way, I think. Prayers are short in these times, and your master will expect you in his quarters."

A scowl passed over the open face of the young man. Balandar, Vincus's master, was not unkind, and his library boasted the best collections among the Istarian clergy. But servitude was servitude, and it went hard to trade the freedom of the streets and the night for confinement and the slave collar-even if the collar was made of shining silver.

Vaananen turned away uncomfortably. In a moment Vincus would climb back through the win shy;dow and into the garden. He would reach Balan-dar's quarters in plenty of time to make the fire, pour wine from a rare and valuable stock for the ancient cleric, then set out his robes for the next morning. In an hour, old Balandar would be snor shy;ing, and Vincus would recover the time-for reading, for sleeping or eating.

For anything but freedom. Vaananen did not like to think about it.

Vincus's father had died in servitude, and the Kingpriest had visited the man's punishment on the next generation, but unlike the elves miles below them, digging into rock and oblivion, Vincus could have his freedom eventually. Someday, he vowed silently, Vincus will go free.

Carefully, the druid traced the glyphs once more in the pristine sand. Fordus would live. He had to.

And he would need water and tactics at once.

The Tine. The sign that would take him to the ancient dried fork of the river. There was water underground. Easy enough.

Third day of Solinari was more complex. The com shy;pressed, multiple meaning of the glyph. Water three feet below the surface, Istarian forces three days away…

Blanking his mind, Vaananen looked at the third symbol.

No Wind. Favorable weather, favorable strategy. The principal Istarian force lay miles and miles away, regrouped in defensive positions.

Good news on all fronts-news to be sent to For shy;dus over the miles.

But there was also this unsettling news Vincus had brought to him.

Rocking back on his heels, the druid inspected his handiwork. He needed a fourth glyph, to show warning.

He drew the chitinous exoskeleton, the antennae, the wide, hinged mandibles.

Springjaw. It would be fresh in Fordus's mind.

Beware. The ground is unsteady.