Voice of the Lost

CHAPTER TWO

Sunset saw thousands gathered along the southern reach of Athere’s outermost wall. The army beyond had spent the hours since its abrupt appearance positioning for attack, and casting. Impossible at such distance to distinguish the exact nature of so many spells but, as Avahn remarked, the sheer number and strength told them all too much. The Ibisians' long supremacy in matters of magic seemed to have been lost, like so many other things, in the transformation wrought by the Conflagration: wild magic slipped from control.

But magic-rich armies appearing overnight was only one of too many changes. The Conflagration had not left the land seared and blackened, but it had altered Farakkan to the point where Athere’s defenders' greatest disadvantage was lack of knowledge. The attackers and the spells they might use in this transformed world were a puzzle the Ibisians did not have time to unravel.

Yesterday Medair had stood safely invisible among a less orderly crowd, watching as the city’s most powerful adepts constructed a shield to hold back the Conflagration. Today, unmasked and under escort, she could not fail to notice the ripple of attention which followed her. Abandoning her uniform would not grant her anonymity.

There’d been a time when she’d enjoyed people looking at her. Proud little herald.

"Were you on the wall, Ileaha?" she asked. "When they raised the shield?"

"No," Ileaha’s attention was on Avahn as he slipped through the knot of people surrounding the Kier. "I was on Fasthold."

Ileaha must have stood with Cor-Ibis while he served as keystone for that formidable casting. And now he was mere feet away, at the Kier’s elbow, turning in response to a word from Avahn. Looking back at her.

Before the world had been transformed by flame, and before Medair had slept away five hundred years, there had been two brothers, their island kingdom consumed by disastrously misused wild magic. The younger, Illukar, died ending that Blight. Medair had met his young daughter, in the company of the elder brother, Ieskar, the Ibisian Kier, who she hated above all things for deciding to conquer Athere rather than accept the Emperor’s offer of refuge.

The man on this wall, tall and too pale, with his ridiculous length of hair neatly bound in braids, was the fourth to be named Illukar las Cor-Ibis. Descended from the first Illukar’s child, with no drop of Farakkian blood to sully him, he was the epitome of a traditional Ibisian: measured, powerful and reserved. Medair was ashamed to be so glad he had survived acting as keystone for the shield.

That, above all else, made her every decision suspect. Had she given the Horn of Farak to the Ibisian Kier, to Ieskar’s descendant, because she did not want Illukar las Cor-Ibis to die?

"The Horn is in that chest," Ileaha murmured. "The shielding isn’t so complete as that on your satchel, but it serves."

"The air feels thick," Medair said, not certain if that was due to the unbound power lingering in the wake of the Conflagration, or to the enchantments of two armies. "It’s different than – different to other sieges."

"Other–" Ileaha’s gaze wavered, and the hand she rested on her sword hilt twitched. "It takes some adjustment, knowing who you are, realising what you have seen. I don’t imagine that in any of those past battles blood magic would have been used by either side, and I fear that is part of what we are feeling. Look."

She stepped closer to the parapet, but Medair was slow to follow, reluctantly moving to gaze down at what had driven her, finally, to take up her name.

A most orderly army. The Ibisians had been the same way: arraying themselves before the walls of the Empire’s cities with care and precision. Five hundred years after Athere fell to the Ibisian invaders, the Decian King, Estarion, used wild magic to give himself the strength to drive them out. Now his forces were placed safely out of the range of combat casting, and in the tinted light there was an almost pleasant symmetry to their serried ranks. Sewn with an even hand among them were giants, near half again as tall as ordinary Farakkians, their horned helmets increasing that height further. Had they been human once, before the transformative power of wild magic had swept over everything outside Athere’s shields, and changed their entire world and all its rules?

"Not all blood magic is foul," Ileaha was saying. "It’s very closely related to the healing arts and, used with care and good conscience, a portion of life force can be sacrificed without permanent injury. But that is not what we feel now, what is stifling the air. If that truly is blood magic, then people are dying out there, before the first blow of this battle has fallen."

"Was he known to use it? The Estarion before the Conflagration?" Medair was finding some slight comfort in Estarion’s lack of morals. She had called the invading Ibisians White Snakes, thought them cold and greedy, but they had prosecuted their war with an aim to minimise losses, taking advantage of their disproportionate strength in magic to capture their first city without the loss of a single life. Estarion threatened the opposite, promising to slaughter every Ibisian down to the smallest child.

"Known?" Ileaha lifted both hands to measure her lack of certainty. "Not in the world which was mine. But is one who is willing to risk the possible consequences of drawing on wild magic less likely to directly sacrifice lives to his cause?" She lowered her voice. "You – you must not continue to blame this on yourself, Medair. If you had given the rahlstones to Decia instead of us, they still would not have granted Estarion enough strength to take Athere with any surety, let alone place himself before her gates so abruptly. There is every chance he still would have turned to wild magic to gain the strength he lacked."

"Unless he had the Horn," Medair pointed out, and Ileaha fell silent because it was true. The whole reason Medair had set out to find the Horn of Farak was that it promised easy, overwhelming victory; a single weapon to lay low an entire army. Lacking that, Decia’s King had summoned wild magic, the temptation of every mage who desired more than they had strength to achieve. The secret of how to do so was supposed to be hidden, locked away, because if wild magic slipped from control it would burn unchecked over all Farakkan. That was a consequence which no-one should have been willing to risk, but without the Horn, Estarion had taken that step. Impossible to predict that the arcane fire he unleashed would not burn the world to dust, but remake it into one where he was well able to bring down the walls of the White City.

With so much changed, what had become of the Corminevar heir Estarion claimed to support? Was he out in that forest of swords? When the Horn was sounded, would Medair be responsible for his death?

The sky faded, and it was a relief not to be so visible. But then Cor-Ibis stopped talking with the Kier and moved several steps closer to Medair. The glow surrounding him – an after-effect of serving as keystone to the shield – grew ever more marked in the gloom, and he made an admirable beacon for those who wanted to stare at the past come to life. He did not speak to Medair, had not said a word directly to her since she had revealed herself. He seemed impossibly Ibisian: cold and distant. How strongly had her actions been influenced by this man? How could someone who so epitomised everything purely Ibis-lar, who reminded her so strongly of Kier Ieskar, draw her as he did?

"MEDAIR AN RYNSTAR."

The voice rolled out of the twilight, turning Medair’s name into a wave which crashed across Athere. Medair was not altogether surprised that Estarion chose to address her, that he knew what she had done. For the southern king to underline her betrayal would likely be only one of countless incidents. Assassinations and accusations. The life her conscience had not allowed her to avoid.

"MEDAIR AN RYNSTAR," Estarion repeated, voice thoughtful, contemplative, despite being magnified to an almost painful volume. "A NAME I HAVE HEARD ALL MY LIFE, IN BALLADS, IN TALES TOLD TO ME WHEN I WAS A CHILD TOO RESTLESS FOR SLEEP. A NAME OF HOPE AND HONOUR. A NAME WHICH MADE A PROMISE."

"I sense a major casting, Ekarrel," Cor-Ibis warned Kier Inelkar. "Something beyond the enhancement of his voice."

Glancing secretly at the Keridahl’s cool profile, Medair saw his eyes narrow slightly at Estarion’s next words.

"I ENVY YOU."

"He is a showman, this Estarion," Avahn murmured, moving to stand beside Cor-Ibis. "Full of dramatic pauses." He smiled reassuringly at Medair, but in the dim twilight he looked worried.

"THE PALLADIAN EMPIRE, THE GOLDEN AGE OF PEACE. IT SHINES IN OUR PAST, A TIME OF GROWTH WITHOUT STRIFE, OF A SEEKING FOR PERFECTION RATHER THAN POWER. WE WILL NEVER KNOW THE WORLD YOU WERE BORN TO, MEDAIR AN RYNSTAR, BUT WE SHARE A DESIRE TO SEE AN END TO THE WARS WHICH SNATCHED IT AWAY."

"Don’t tell me he’s going to back down?" someone muttered disbelievingly. Medair barely heard the interjection, eyes fixed unwavering on the stone beneath her feet. Where was Estarion leading? This was not the harangue for which she had steeled herself, but a far crueller attack. She faced the despair which had kept her paralysed this past year. The Empire was gone. Everyone, everything which had been hers. Nothing would ever change that.

"I CAN ONLY GUESS AT YOUR FEELINGS, WHEN YOU RETURNED HERE, TO WHAT HAD BEEN THE HEART OF THE EMPIRE, AND FOUND IT AS IT IS. DID IT NOT WRING YOUR VERY SOUL TO SEE IT? WERE YOU TEMPTED TO USE THE HORN, EVEN THOUGH THE MOMENT WAS LOST?"

Again a pause, serving to underline his last words. She remembered that angry desire all too well.

"I DO NOT NAME YOU ENEMY, MEDAIR AN RYNSTAR. YOU, AS I, SEEK PEACE, AN END TO WAR. YOU FELL INTO THE HANDS OF THE WHITE SNAKES AND LOST PERSPECTIVE, REACTED TO THE MOMENT RATHER THAN THE LARGER PICTURE. THERE WILL BE NO PEACE WHILE A SINGLE COLD SNAKE THINKS TO RULE FARAKKIAN TERRITORY. THERE WILL BE NO END TO WAR UNTIL THE ROT IS CUT OUT. CAN YOU DENY THAT?"

Medair suspected he was right, but shied from the slaughter he seemed to consider the solution. Did Estarion plan to hunt down every Ibisian on Farakkan, after razing Athere? What of those like Ileaha, who were also Farakkian? Or those with barely a drop of cold blood? And yet, and yet– She started to raise a hand to her head, then restrained herself, too aware of all who watched her through the gloom. Ibisians. White Snakes. She would not show weakness before them.

"AFTER THE BATTLE, SEEK ME OUT, MEDAIR AN RYNSTAR. THERE IS SOMEONE I WISH YOU TO MEET; A TRUE DESCENDANT OF THE ONE TO WHOM YOU GAVE OATH."

He was talking of the heir he supported – or used as banner and excuse for war. Said to descend from Verium, her Emperor’s son, a line long kept hidden and protected until the moment came to return them too their rightful place on the Silver Throne. And Medair knew very well that it was possible, that Verium had been involved with the woman said to have borne a true Corminevar heir. Had she turned her back on him, this Tarsus, so-called Emperor-in-Exile?

And it was all too long ago, too muddied and tangled. For Kier Inelkar descended from Medair’s Emperor as well, and her throne had been won in conquest, making questions of legitimacy secondary. More to the point, thousands of Farakkians, loyal Atherians with no drop of White Snake blood, would give their lives to protect their Kier. To them, Decia was nothing but an invader, and Tarsus an irrelevancy.

Numbness gripped Medair, the crushing weight of impossible choice she had struggled with all year. She shifted her gaze to the box which held what had been meant to be the salvation of the Empire.

"NOW. INELKAR. HAS IT YET OCCURRED TO YOU THAT THE HORN OF FARAK WILL NOT ANSWER YOUR COLD BLOOD?"

Estarion chuckled, a rumble of thunder in the night. The glint of fire on metal served as lightning. Out among the massed troops, torches were being lit. They flared like stars, thousands upon thousands of points of light. Medair’s attention was briefly torn from the almost mesmeric influence of the metal-bound box. She saw with a shudder that Estarion’s army was holding aloft not torches, but burning swords. The wind carried the tang of hot metal, and a faint whisper of words she could not understand. Then Estarion’s voice boomed again.

"WHITE SNAKE, PALE INVADER. YOU BURIED ANY TRACE OF FARAK BENEATH GENERATIONS OF OUTLAND BLOOD. IT IS –"

"Could he be right?" the Kier asked.

"– A SOURCE OF AMAZEMENT TO ME THAT YOU COULD HOPE TO USURP –"

"It is all too possible, Ekarrel," Antellar, the Keridahl Alar, replied. "We were not certain what the Horn would do before the Conflagration, let alone in the world we now face."

"– THIS AS WELL. FARAK WILL NOT ANSWER YOU, INELKAR! THE HORN OF FARAK SERVES THE CHILDREN OF FARAKKAN ALONE! AND, MOST MAGNIFICENT IRONY, YOU HAVE OBTAINED A WEAPON YOU DARE NOT ALLOW BE USED BY ANY NOT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD. FROZEN, CREEPING WHITE SNAKE. HOW COULD YOU RISK GIVING THE HORN INTO THE HANDS OF ONE WHO TRULY IS OF THIS LAND? DO YOU KNOW THE HEARTS OF THOSE YOU RULE? OF THOSE WHO SHOULD BE RULING IN YOUR PLACE? WHO WOULD THE WARRIORS OF FARAK CUT DOWN?"

Who indeed? Medair stared down at the box. If she used the Horn, would Farak make the final judgment on who deserved death? That was a path Medair had never thought to take, and it seemed to her both right and just. Almost of its own volition, one of her hands lifted.

Cool fingers caught hers.

"There is compulsion in his words," Cor-Ibis murmured, lifting her hand to study tight-strapped bandages. "This is a choice which, if you need to make it, should be made without such." He added a word beneath his breath, the trigger for what must have been a dispell. A cool breeze whisked away the cobwebs tangling Medair’s thoughts. She straightened, and looked first at his expressionless face, then at the box.

"MAKE YOUR PEACE WITH YOUR GOD, INELKAR," Estarion boomed, and Medair’s shoulders tensed. A compulsion in his words. His prolonged speech to her had more purpose than demoralising those he was about to fight. She could feel it now that it struck her afresh, not layered upon her behind the shield of words.

Cor-Ibis still held her hand, and she dragged her eyes from the box to his fingers. They glowed faintly, paler even than her swathing of bandage. The same old arguments trudged a circle in her mind. Enemy, innocent, oath, trust, betrayal, loss, futility. How many times did she have to chase the tail of her own internal rhetoric? She had made her decision.

Momentarily, she tightened her clasp. Cor-Ibis was not Ieskar. He had never been her enemy. Then she drew her hand free, and moved away from the Horn, looking inward towards the lights of the White Palace rather than the fires of the army at the gate. She would not use the Horn.

"If Farak does not answer, She does not," Medair said, glancing at the Kier. "But I have never heard that She picks and chooses. All born to Farakkan are Her children."

"And you, Keris N’Taive?" Kier Inelkar asked the woman who had been outside the shield when wild magic’s Conflagration had transformed the world and made her into Herald of a kingdom once thought dust. "What is your judgment?"

"How could it be otherwise?" the Mersian Herald asked, her eyes shining with sincere faith. "Farak is the mother of all."

Beyond the wall, the whisper had become a chant: steady, full-throated, accompanied by the tramp of booted feet. The army had begun to move. They would soon be within bow and spell-shot.

"Casting in the chant, Ekarrel," the Keridahl Alar said.

"Massive," Cor-Ibis added. "As if the entire army is contributing."

"Is it possible? Look to the walls, Antellar."

Protections were always set on the walls of Athere. Over the day which had just passed, these enchantments had been reinforced along the southern reaches of Ahrenrhen. Now, at a signal from Keridahl Antellar, they were strengthened to counteract anything which might be thrown at them in the first advance.

"Now we shall see if the air attack you predicted comes to pass, Keris N’Taive," Keridahl Antellar said. "You are prepared, Cor-Ibis?"

Cor-Ibis inclined his head briefly.

"What of–" the Kier began, and everyone looked anxiously at her suddenly arrested stance, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowing. Medair guessed that she was listening to a wend-whisper, a message sent by magic.

"Ekarrel?" asked the Kend, turning from whispering commands to her Das-kend.

"N’Taive, what is the Charaine Regiment?" Kier Inelkar asked.

The Mersian gave the Kier a startled glance which meant she’d asked about something the Herald had assumed she could not not know. But wild magic had made the world outside Athere nearly unrecognisable, transforming the loose clans of Mersians into a formidable power, and replacing three kingdoms with an inland sea. A single regiment could have become anything.

"Charaine is the mountainous land to the south of the Forest of the Guardian," N’Taive replied, carefully. "It is where most of your deskai are stationed. The Regiment is a mainstay of Palladium’s south-east defences."

"And what are deskai?"

"Deskai…" The Herald shook her head. "There were no deskai in the past where you lived? How horrible!" She made a gesture to acknowledge that now was not the moment to digress. "Vecka, my mount, is part deskai. They are shape-shifters, born to two forms, and to powers more enduring than most mage-cast." She smiled obliquely. "Tanis Araina will find it disconcerting to be forgotten. Deskai are not easily put from the thoughts."

"Your horse can change shape?" asked the Kier, surprised.

"No. Vecka is more horse than deskai. They can breed to either race."

"I see. It would seem this Tanis Araina hurries to our aid. According to her wend-whisper, she is less than a quarter-measure away and regrets her failure to reach us before sunset."

"Wonderful!" exclaimed the Mersian.

Cor-Ibis lifted a hand, a short, sharp movement, adding a few hasty words beneath his breath. The air shuddered, and Medair was nearly knocked from her feet by an invisible blow. She had to clutch the smooth stone of the parapet to keep upright.

"A gate," Cor-Ibis said tersely as the blast died away. Medair’s ears were ringing. "Pass on to all points," he ordered Avahn. "If Estarion can produce a gate so soon after transporting his army here, we must focus much of our own defence on counteracting them. Or allow the fight within the walls."

"How can he–?" Avahn asked, then restrained himself, obediently sending messages to mages throughout Athere.

But his question hung in the air, passing in glances between those who waited tensed for the next move. A gate was beyond the strength of even adepts, and could only be produced by melding power in a grouped casting, or through the enhancement of a rahlstone. The use of gates large and enduring enough to transport an army had already warned Athere’s defenders that Estarion must have at his command dozens of mages of the highest calibre. That there were enough casters to use gates in battle, in addition to the enchantments which would protect an attacking force from massed sleep or death, suggested immense superiority of both number and strength of casters…as the Palladian Empire’s defenders had faced, when the Ibisians had invaded…

"It seems to me," the Kier said into the hush, "that the Horn must be used. If it summons no aid, we have lost nothing. We are outnumbered in a battle where the rules are no longer familiar. I am willing to take the risk that we might hasten our deaths." She signalled one of her attendants to fetch the box.

"In range," the Kend announced, and gave a command which sent a hail of arrows down on the approaching troops. Selected mages added a drift of combative magic – flame darts, poison clouds, blood roses. Medair stepped forward to see the volley hit, and flinched as one of the spells was reflected back to the top of Ahrenrhen. There was a muffled shriek and a flurry of movement along the wall to the right, where the flame darts had caught a few unprepared. Not so the southern troops, whose raised shields reflected the arrow shot. Most of them hadn’t even wavered in their chanting.

Only one of the defenders' spells had not been deflected or dispersed. Medair could see a dull green cloud drifting over the first line of attacker, some distance to the east. But, as she watched, a little whirlwind whipped it away.

With barely a pause, the first two ranks of attackers, all along the vast southern reach of Ahrenrhen, took two running steps forward and launched themselves into the air. Not flying, exactly, but bounding up toward the top of the wall as if they weighed little more than thistledown. Medair backed hastily away as Cor-Ibis snapped out a word of activation.

A blast of icy wind tossed the Southerners awry, and most of them were catapulted backwards to land in the midst of their troops, the upraised swords of their own forces doing more damage than their fall. A few still reached the wall. They were significantly outnumbered, but a giant now stood among Athere’s defenders, far along the wall to Medair’s right.

Barely had the first wave been flung away when another two ranks of soldiers leapt upwards. Again Cor-Ibis raised a gale sufficient to knock the nearest back, but those further down the wall had not managed it. Medair staggered as Keridahl Antellar disrupted another gate. Cor-Ibis said something about set-spells, but Medair could barely hear him through the ringing in her ears. And then came the song of the Horn, as the Kier opened the box.

Keridahl Antellar warded another gate, but even as those around the Kier’s vantage point struggled to remain on their feet, the sky warped and twisted, shimmering as if from the heat of a fire. How could Estarion summon so many, almost more quickly than they could disrupt them?

The gates were drawing vital attention from the army leaping forward, and a surge of new attackers almost gained the wall. Pushing them back meant no-one was able to stop the newest gate, and the sky opened to drop a small cadre of warriors almost at Medair’s elbow. Two silver-clad giants and a dozen soldiers leapt in every direction. The Kier had many protectors, but was only saved from death by a set-spell of her own, which sent the giant lunging for her spinning backwards to land with a thunderous crash on the upward stair. But the attendant standing before her had crumpled to the ground, blood spurting from a gouged throat, and the iron-bound box he carried fell beneath booted feet. The song of the Horn took on a peculiarly ringing note as it clattered into the melee.

Medair, tucked against the inner parapet, found herself facing two women in leather. She choked as an arm wrapped around her throat, and struggled to turn away from her other attacker as she frantically thrust her hand into her satchel.

"The way to the wall’s blocked!" one hissed, trying to clap a pad of white cloth impregnated with some noxious substance over Medair’s nose.

"Tell me something I don’t–" the other began, then shrieked. There was an audible snap as Medair firmly removed the arm about her throat. Smiling, she threw the woman off the wall into the street below. The other went the same way, a moment later.

It felt too good. Medair hastily removed the strength ring, even as she was buffeted by stumbling Ibisians. She didn’t dare fight within the curious euphoria of the ring, any more than the Ibisians would risk most of their arsenal of combat spells with enemy and ally in close melee. Invisibility was a far better option and she hastily took it, working to get out of the press of battle. The struggle surged toward the left, where the remaining silver giant was trying to reach the Kier. Medair wriggled in the opposite direction.

Another gate began to form, but someone managed to block it. Medair was knocked from her feet when the Kend – commander of the Ibisian armies – backed into her. All along Ahrenrhen, battles were being won and lost amidst a maelstrom of sound: shouts, rushing wind and the boom of disrupted gates, grunts of pain, a man bellowing, scuffling feet, metal on metal. Close behind her, someone wept. The battle chant of the invaders rose above the cries and small explosions, and winding through it all was the song of the Horn.

From out of the maze of boots skittered the source of that song, followed by two Southerners diving for the prize. Still on her hands and knees, Medair grabbed it reflexively when it struck her chin. As bare flesh touched the bone of a goddess, the power of the Horn filled her and she gasped. It hurt, like running too hard for too long, like a muscle stretched too far, spasming into a knot.

Then one of the Southerners ploughed into her, grabbing for the Horn even as it began to fade into invisibility. If not for the shocking effect of its touch, he probably would have wrested it from her. But he flinched, which gave her the chance to roll away, fetching up against the parapet with the Horn of Farak cradled to her chest. Feet slammed into her back, her leg, and she dragged herself upwards to avoid further injury. The Southerner was searching frantically, unable to pinpoint the source of the song. An opportunistic Atherian spitted him as he struggled toward her.

Something roared, in fury not pain. The giant which had been so determinedly trying to reach the Kier whirled, incidentally cutting down a Southerner and the Keridahl Alar’s son. It looked across the heads of the combatants, directly at Medair.

Medair flinched in outright horror as it lunged, pushing aside friend and foe alike. Trapped by the press of battle against the parapet, she scrambled on top of the smooth stone, gripping the Horn by its braided cord. She could see Ileaha at the top of the nearest stair, fighting for her life against two Southerners.

Ileaha. Of two bloods, fiercely loyal to both Palladium and the Kier. There was no more perfect a person to use the Horn. Medair ran unsteadily along the parapet toward her.

Her footing slipped and she gripped a nearby Southerner’s shoulder for balance as the air shook from another gate formed, was dispersed, and was almost immediately replaced. There seemed no limit to Estarion’s gates. Southern warriors poured into Athere, both onto Ahrenrhen and in the streets below, and the top of the wall became almost impassable, more tightly packed than even the Kier’s throne room had been. Medair stopped dead, faced suddenly with three separate silver giants trying to plough their way through a field of flesh towards her.

"Oh, Great Lady!" she groaned aloud.

There was no time. The giant directly ahead of her had reached the inner edge of the wall and was thrusting its way to her position. Several Southerners and Ibisians, having no idea what the giants were chasing, began to turn in the same direction. Whatever the consequences of Medair using the Horn, it was surely better than the artefact falling in the hands of these metal-clad monsters.

Taking a deep breath, Medair clasped the Horn of Farak firmly in flinching hands, and set it to her lips.