Winged Magic

17

In the celestial throne room of the Shar-Ja, the spectators were growing restive. The breeze that wafted in the open windows blew a faint clamor of war from the city below that disturbed the sacred dignity of the rites. Only the Shar-Ja and Zukhara seemed unaware of the increasing din.

The ceremony had reached the moment that signaled the death of the current monarch. The sword for the beheading had been blessed, and the priests stood by with a basket for the head and wrappings for the body. A soldier stepped behind the Shar-Ja’s throne and pulled Rassidar’s head up and back to expose his neck.

Zukhara grasped the hilt of the sword with both hands. It was a two-handed broadsword of great weight and antiquity, yet he handled it as skillfully as a master. His eyes on the Shar-Ja, he walked to the throne and raised the sword over his shoulder.

A boy, of no more than thirteen years, darted around (he crowd. He drew back his arm and, with the accuracy earned from months of practice, fired a rock from a slingshot at Zukhara’s head. The missile missed the Gryphon’s temple by a mere inch and hit instead just above his right eyebrow. The man staggered from the surprise and pain of the blow; the sword fell from his hand and clanged on the floor.

Swift as a striking hawk, Kelene snatched the moment. She took two steps away from Gabria, gathered the magic around her, and aimed a sphere of energy at the ivory ward beneath Zukhara’s robes. The power hit him hard and knocked him into the dead guard by the throne, but it wasn’t quite enough to break the ward. Furiously he lashed back, sending a fistful of stunning blasts at Kelene and the boy. The people in the crowd screamed and ran for safety.

The first blow took Kelene in the chest before she could defend herself and sent her spinning against the wall. She sagged to the floor, unconscious. Gabria choked on a cry and ran to her side. A second ball of energy caught Tassilio and threw him skidding across the floor.

The priests and the guards looked at each other uneasily. Zukhara spat a curse. Blood dripped down his face from a cut on his forehead. He yanked out his dagger to stab the Shar-ja, and another rock cracked into his arm.

Tassilio knelt on the floor, looking very much alive and very aware of what he was doing. He pulled a knotted piece of rope out of his shirt and jiggled it tauntingly at the Gryphon.

Zukhara recognized it for what it was. His face grew livid. “Sandrat!” hissed Zukhara.

“That’s right!” Tassilio yelled fiercely, sliding another rock into his slingshot. “A bastard, just like you! But now I am Shar-Yon and that is my father, the rightfully ordained ruler of the Turic. You are nothing but a traitor, Zukhara, and I will see you dead!”

The Gryphon raised his hand to strike down the loathsome boy. With surprising strength, the Shar-Ja twisted his body and lashed out with his foot. He caught Zukhara on the back of the knee and knocked the leg out from under the usurper. The Gryphon fell heavily down the stairs. He pushed himself upright, shaken but uninjured, and glared malevolently at the old ruler.

“They’re coming,” a hollow voice intoned close by.

Zukhara spun around and saw Gabria standing upright and staring blankly at the large double doors. From somewhere in the corridors came the sounds of screams and the hard clatter of approaching hooves. He wasted no more time. He dashed to Kelene and lifted her over his shoulder. Gabria was too weakened by the poison to fight him off, and a backhanded blow knocked her to the floor. In a daze she watched him go behind the throne and disappear; then hoofbeats pounded outside the room and the doors crashed open.

A red-haired woman in full battle dress and wearing a red cloak rode in on a black winged Hunnuli. Gabria smiled through her tears. The horse wasn’t white, but Demira was quite good enough.

The remaining priests and Fel Azureth must have thought so, too, for they took one look at the furious sorceress and fled, leaving only Tassilio and the Shar-Ja with the two women. Tassilio ran to his father and used the dagger to cut him free. Demira skidded to a stop on the patterned floor and Helmar slid off.

Her heart in her throat, the chief ran to Gabria’s prostrate form. The older sorceress stared at the stranger as if she were still a vision. Her hand grasped the red cloak. Helmar was shocked by Gabria’s thin body and shadowed face. Blood oozed from a cut on her cheek, and her hands trembled. But anger smoldered deep in Gabria’s jewel-green eyes, and she managed to push herself to a sitting position.

“You,” Gabria gasped. “By Amara’s grace, where did you come from?”

Helmar steadied her and helped her rise to her feet.

“Out of the past, Lady Gabria.”

Kelene! Where is Kelene? Demira neighed. She clattered around the room to look for her rider.

Tassilio guessed what she wanted. “He took her out that way,” he cried and pointed to the hanging blue drapes behind the throne. He hurried around to show her the door and found it closed and locked.

The Shar-Ja leaned his frail weight heavily on the throne and told them, “It leads to the courtyard outside and the path to the temple. He probably had horses waiting to take them up to the pinnacle.”

Tassilio tried to work the lock; Demira tried to kick in the door. But it was wasted effort. The door was solidly barred. Frustrated, the mare took another circuit around the room and saw there were no more doors and the windows were too narrow for her bulky wings. Before anyone could gainsay her, she suddenly turned and cantered out the double doors to find another way to reach Kelene.

“He’s taking her to the citadel,” Gabria said fiercely. “She needs more help than Demira can give her.”

The sounds of fighting had grown nearer since Helmar’s arrival, yet it had not lessened in intensity. The Fel Azureth fought like wolves and still had the slight advantage of numbers and familiarity with the city streets. It could still be a while before Lord Athlone or Sayyed or Rafnir could subdue them enough to come and help, and that might be too late.

“Take me up there,” Gabria pleaded.

Helmar exhaled sharply. “But, Lady, you are too weak. If you tried to use magic—”

“I am too weak to destroy him. Not to distract him.”

More hooves pounded in the hallway, and Tassilio’s dog bounded into the room just ahead of Marron. Barking and wiggling, the dog leaped delightedly on the grinning boy.

“Cal, I told you to stay outside,” the boy laughed.

Well, you did not tell me to stay, Marron huffed to the chief. She was breathing heavily and hot with sweat.

“And glad I am I didn’t,” exclaimed Helmar. “We must still try to free Kelene.”

“A white Hunnuli,” Gabria breathed. She held her hands out to the mare and let Marron sniff her hands and face.

Helmar snapped her fingers. “Nara! We need her. Is she still alive?”

“Zukhara may be many things,” replied the Shar-Ja dryly, “but he is not wasteful of things that are valuable to him. I heard he has the black Hunnuli under guard in the palace stables.”

Marron stamped a hoof. I will get her. I saw the stables on my way up here.

“Pity the guards who stand in the way of that horse,” the Shar-Ja said in wonder as he watched her go.

Tassilio ran out then and came back with a pitcher of water. “It was all I could find,” he said, offering some to the women and his father.

The Shar-Ja took a sip of the proffered drink and smiled at his son. “By the Living God, where have you been? Zukhara told me you were dead, too.”

Tassilio blushed at the warmth in his father’s voice, and for once the voluble boy was tongue-tied. He grinned and shifted from foot to foot. “I was helping my friends,” was all he could say.

The Hunnuli mares came back, sooner than the women expected. The guards were gone, Marron explained. The palace is almost empty. Everyone has either left to fight or to hide.

Nara said nothing but pushed close to Gabria, sniffing her all over and whickering her joy and relief. Whatever sedative Zukhara had given her had worn off, and she looked thin but fit. Gabria threw her arms around her mare’s neck, burying her face in the black mane. With Helmar’s help, she climbed onto Nara’s broad back.

“When Sayyed and the others reach here, tell them where we went,” Helmar told Tassilio.

The boy nodded fiercely. “Take the first left hallway, go to the end, and turn right. There are doors there that lead outside.”

A quick salute and the sorceresses were gone, their Hunnuli’s hooves echoing away down the corridors. Tassilio softly closed and locked the doors behind them and returned to wait with his father.

Helmar led the way along the opulent hallways. She noticed Marron was right—the palace seemed deserted. No one tried to stop them as they trotted the horses through the corridors.

Tassilio’s directions proved accurate, and the women found themselves out in the bright sunlight on a broad, grassy esplanade. In front of them the towering bastion of stone soared high into the blue sky. On its top, like a red and green crown, sat the temple of the prophet Sargun.

Built originally as a citadel, the redstone buildings had been consecrated as a monastery and a temple a few generations after the death of the holy prophet. It housed a magnificent library, gardens, the royal crypt for the Turic shar-jas and a population of perhaps one hundred contemplative monks and active priests. It was used by the Turics only in times of the most sacred rites. A narrow road rimmed by a stone fence zigzagged its way up the steep face to the top. There was no sign of Zukhara or Kelene anywhere, and nothing moved in the sky but a few wisps of clouds.

Marron and Nara hurried off the esplanade and found the beginning of the temple road at the end of a long courtyard. Together they trotted up the steep way.

Kelene was too groggy to understand what was happening. All her whirling mind could recognize was the pain in her chest and stomach and the difficulty of breathing. She concentrated on her lungs and the effort of pulling in the air. Her chest seemed so sluggish, even heavy, as if something were pressing it down. Her stomach hurt from something that pushed into it, making her nauseated. She seemed to be moving by some outer volition, certainly not on her own feet, and her head felt strangely heavy and “swollen.

She opened her eyes and looked at something fuzzy and dark brown. Her vision rocked sickeningly, so she closed her eyes, took a slow breath, and tried again. This time her eyes focused a little better, and the brown, fuzzy blur became clearly a horse’s belly. With that understanding came full realization. Zukhara had thrown her over a saddled horse and was leading it somewhere uphill.

Struggling did little good because he had tied her to the saddle. Those same Hunnuli hair ropes, Kelene thought sourly. She lay still and tried to sooth the pounding in her head while she waited to see what he would do. It wasn’t easy. Zukhara seemed to be in a desperate hurry. He rode a second horse and cantered the mounts as often as he dared up the steep grade. By the time they reached the top of the incline, both horses were blowing and lathered in sweat. He urged them through a strong-looking gate and brought them to a rough stop in the cloistered courtyard at the main entrance to the citadel buildings.

Leaving the horses where they stood, he ran back to close the gates. Kelene could not see what he was doing, because he had his back to her, yet he seemed to take an inordinate amount of time just to lock a gate. Finally he came back, tugged Kelene off her mount, and carried her over his shoulder into the forecourt of the front entrance. Several priests ran to meet him.

“Where is the Tobba?” he roared at them. “Bring him to the Chamber of Unity.”

Kelene’s mind whirled. What did he intend to do? Didn’t he realize his cause was lost? The Shar-Ja was still alive. Cangora was falling into the hands of the loyalists, and his fanatics were being defeated. “What are you doing?” she said aloud.

The Gryphon heaved her over onto her feet and held her bound arms in an iron grip. “I failed to kill the Shar-Ja today, but without the antidote, he will die shortly anyway. The throne will still be mine. I am Fel Karak, the Gryphon, the anointed servant of the Living God!” he ranted. “And you are still my chosen wife.” He wrenched her forward and dragged her with him through the corridors of the outlying buildings toward the inner sanctum of the temple grounds.

The sorceress struggled to bring her thoughts under control. It was time to act, to fight back, but her head and chest hurt so much from the earlier arcane blow that her wits felt addled and her vision was still blurry. She could hardly form a single coherent thought, let alone a strategy to defeat a sorcerer with a functioning ward. She staggered after Zukhara, paying little attention to where they were going.

After what seemed a very long time to Kelene, Zukhara pushed open a door adorned with vines and wooden roses and tugged her into the Chamber of Unity, the chapel used by members of the royal family for marriages and betrothals. Zukhara did not bother to explain anything to his captive, he simply placed her in front of a tiny, wizened old man and wrapped his fingers around her wrist.

The old man, the Tobba, was the spiritual leader of the community of priests and monks at the temple. He was very familiar with the Gryphon and his methods, and he did not even murmur a complaint at the hasty and unorthodox arrival of the man and his intended bride. He stretched out his skinny arms and lifted his voice in supplication to Shahr as set forth in the ancient texts of Turic matrimony.

Kelene did not need a translator to tell her what the priest was doing, nor a witness to interpret the self-satisfied smirk on Zukhara’s face. She had to get away from him now, before she became married to him in the eyes of Turic law. She glanced around the room, hoping for some bit of inspiration. She knew she was not strong enough to fight Zukhara physically. He was a powerful, athletic man who could overpower her all too easily. Nor could she use spells against his body as long as he wore the ivory ward. Perhaps, she thought, she could manipulate something around him that would give her a chance to slip away. She knew him well enough by now to know he would come after her, and she hoped he would. She still wanted the antidote hanging around his neck. She needed time only to untie her hands, clear her mind, and perhaps get some help.

The Chamber of Unity, she noticed, was more like a garden than a room. The walls were hung with pink silk handpainted with delicate white roses. Living roses grew in pots in every corner, along a small ornate altar, and in hanging baskets around the ceiling. To the right, wide doors sat open to the sunny warmth of a magnificent rose garden where rosebushes of every color filled the air with a sweet, heady fragrance. In the quiet of the afternoon, Kelene heard the gentle hum of bees.

A slow smile tickled the corners of Kelene’s mouth. A spell came to mind, a simple, ordinary, everyday spell from Lady Jeneve’s book: a spell to attract bees to a new hive. She breathed the words to herself and worked the magic into a gentle spell; then she shifted just enough to let her fingers touch the edge of Zukhara’s ceremonial robes.

The magic worked faster than she thought it would. The Tobba had just finished his first set of prayers and was laying a strip of linen over their joined wrists when a bee whizzed into the room and settled on the Gryphon’s cheek. He brushed it away only to have ten more suddenly buzz about his head. All at once the room was filled with honey bees whirling in a cloud around Zukhara.

The Tobba fell back in a panic. The usurper yelled, waving frantically with his free hand at the determined insects. His flailing arm angered them, and they flew at him aggressively. He pulled his hand off Kelene to slap at several bees crawling down his neck, and she hoisted her long skirts and bolted into the garden.

Zukhara’s furious shout rang out behind her, but he was too occupied with the bees to give immediate chase. She raced down the grassy paths between the raised beds of roses until she was completely out of sight of the chamber before she slowed a little to take stock of her position. She had entered not just one garden but an entire complex of landscaped gardens of every variety, lovingly tended by the monks of the monastery. The rose garden was but a small part of a natural labyrinth that covered a large area of the temple grounds. The temple itself was not far away.