Dragons of War (27 page)

"And this will give us enough time?"

"We believe we can get two legions from Cunfshon to Kadein within a month and from Kadein to the High Pass within ten days more. If we can concentrate several legions at either the pass or in the Upper Argo country, we can hold back the enemy's thrust. Then we will mobilize our full strength and bring it to bear. Eventually, we will take the battle to him and drive the invaders back across the Oon."

"There will be enormous damage done in the meantime."

"Inevitable."

Ribela had her chin resting on her right hand.

"Your Majesty, have there been any recent reports concerning trolls in the enemy force? Any unusual trolls?"

"All I have heard is that there are a great many trolls. Perhaps a thousand all told."

"How can our forces in either valley stand against that many?" said Irene.

"We will slow them up with traps and pits. The bowmen of Kenor will seek their eyes. Our dragon squadrons will attack where necessary."

"We will hold them up, but we will not stop them."

"We cannot hope to stop such huge armies with single legions. Even with the volunteers, we will simply be too few in numbers to do more than slow them and harass them."

"But there have been no reports of unusual trolls?"

"No, Lady, not yet at least. You refer to the mammoth question that Irene brought before us?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Lessis has been seeking information on this matter, but when last I heard from her, she had not yet discovered anything concrete."

"She is in Marneri again?"

"She is, Your Majesty."

Sausann was white-faced now.

"If they can seize the High Pass, then there will be nothing to stop them crossing into Arneis. They might even reach Kadein."

A silence fell on the witches. Sausann was panicking.

"Everything we have built up over these last three centuries will be laid waste. Everything will die."

"We shall hold them at the pass, good Lady Sausann."

"What force do we keep there now?"

The emperor spread his hands. "I am not sure, General Hektor mentioned the recent economy drive when I spoke to him. There is perhaps a company, perhaps less."

"They cannot hold the pass against such huge numbers of the enemy."

"Of course not. They will be reinforced."

"May the Mother preserve us, I feel so afraid." Sausann pressed her hands together.

"Do not fear, Sausann, our forces are already in motion. I heard from Marneri that Captain Hollein Kesepton left for the High Pass this morning with thirty riders."

"Thirty? That hardly seems enough."

"The forerunners of several hundreds more. And there will be some from Kadein and Minuend as well. The High Pass will be held."

"Captain Kesepton did you say? I know only the general."

"The captain is old Kesepton's grandson, I believe. He las already established a strong reputation in the legions. He a as one of the heroes of Tummuz Orgmeen, for instance."

Sausann shuddered at the thought of that evil city. The emperor had not finished, however.

"And we must remember that he served alongside the Lady Ribela herself in the final struggle in Ourdh. In the pit with the monster."

Sausann looked to the Queen of Mice. Gentle Sausann had never understood Ribela. She could not conceive of fighting anyone, of actually taking up a sword to smite them.

"I see," she said, and looked down again. Soon she would leave all this, it was time for gentle Sausann to enter the mystic. This war threatened an end to all her work, or so it seemed.

The emperor turned to Irene, Queen of Oceans.

"How is the news being taken in Kadein? I have had little word from there."

"It so happens, Your Majesty, that I received a message from the Witch Ina, who serves in the harbor at Kadein. She says that panic reigns among the wealthy classes. Some private guardsmen tried to seize control of the white ship
Cloudsride
in the harbor.
Cloudsride's
crew repulsed them with some loss. Every berth leaving the city is taken. They are boarding up the great houses and hurrying south."

The king?"

"King Neath is with his High Council. He has sent word that Kadein will muster a full legion within one month. He promises a second within another month. The second will be reserves and veterans."

The emperor turned back to Ribela.

"Have we heard from Lessis?"

"We have, Your Majesty. I am going to join her in Marneri."

The emperor was puzzled.

"What means this?"

"We have a terrible need of better intelligence. Our Office has failed us all in this matter. We suffered a disaster last year and consequently failed to pinpoint when this attack would come. Lessis has a plan to improve our situation."

The emperor nodded, understanding.

"Once again she will risk herself for our cause. And yourself, Lady? Will you be at risk? Both of you are very valuable to our cause. Please be careful."

"I believe Audacity is the Lady Lessis's middle name, Your Majesty."

"Then I must rely on you to temper her impetuosity, for the good of the empire, Lady."

"I will try, Your Majesty."

The white city of Marneri glowed ghostly in the light of the waxing moon. Through the city's streets the deeper quiet of the night was settling. Only the lights of a few inns that served the late night trade still showed on the main thoroughfares. On the city walls the guard was changing. The bell for middle night was ringing from the Temple. If you were close enough, you could hear the Sisters in the Temple begin the singing for the service to greet the new day.

Inside the Tower of Guard, the massive fortification on the highest ground in the city, the families of officials and legion officers were abed and asleep. The guard was changed atop the tower with the customary barks of command and the crash of men in heavy sandals coming to attention, but none of this disturbed the sleep of those who were as used to this as they were to the rising of the sun in the mornings.

To the routine inquiry as to the state of things, the outgoing sergeant muttered something about the chamber on the uppermost floor that only the witches used. The place where people materialized out of thin air, or as the troops said, ''where three go in and four come out."

Great magic was underway. The chamber was rarely used, and the soldiers attached great significance to the event. It was a visible sign of the witch power, the secret strength of the empire. The outgoing guards listened carefully as they passed the solid oak door of the chamber. Those who were sensitive to it felt the hair on their arms and necks rise as strange, fantastic fears and fancies popped into their minds, but they heard nothing from within the black door. On they went, feet tapping nervously down the stone steps into the lower floors, whispering together, infused with strange emotions of pride, suspicion, and fear of the weird.

In the chamber of the Black Mirror surrounding a tall stone stood three women in a circle. Two wore the grey robes of the witch, the third the more sumptuous mantle and gown of the priory. The witches were Lessis of Valmes, slightly built, utterly ordinary in appearance and Fi-Ice of Marneri, dark-eyed, raven-haired, and statuesque of appearance and profile. The third was the Abbess Plesenta, a plump lady on the verge of retirement after a long career in the service of the Mother.

Both witches were calm and composed as the spell was said. Lessis and Fi-Ice brought great power to the spell, and the abbess was there only to form the triune and to make the responses.

With a powerful crackling sound, like a giant's frying pan being plunged in water, the mirror opened above the stone, a window into the dark subworld of chaos.

The abbess swallowed with difficulty. Her recent experiences around the Black Mirror had not been pleasant. Indeed, on one occasion just a couple of years before, they had come within a hairbreadth of losing Lessis to a Thingweight. In fact, the monster might even have seized all of them. Plesenta included. She shuddered every time she thought of being seized up by one of the dread rulers of the dark chaotic ether.

The mirror sizzled. Waves pulsed through the grey and white ocean of motes. Jumbled, quaking shapes suddenly flew past and sounds like the hiss of hot metal broke across the constant rumbling of the surf of chaos. Suddenly a fat red spark leapt from the empty non-surface of the mirror and broke with a sharp crack in the room. A smell of ozone followed.

Plesenta shivered. Sometimes she wished that she had never been chosen to be trained in the knowledge of the Black Mirror. Indeed, as her time for retirement drew closer, these desires grew stronger.

But something stiffened in her heart. She was the Abbess of the Marneri Priory. She would not flinch. She would do her duty. She had volunteered, long ago, for service to the Office of Unusual Insight and had been accepted. She had always been proud of this service. She would not disgrace herself by flagging now. Plesenta was no Lessis, no Queen of Birds, but she also served the empire in the secret world and knew some of its mysteries.

The ether surged in the mirror. Looking in was like falling through tumbling masses of cloud. But if the onlooker's attention hovered too long on any single point, pseudo-vortices would appear at once, shifting in contrary directions, sickeningly swift, capable of producing intense nausea. Plesenta shifted her view from here to there and kept her grip firm on the hands of the others.

How long, she wondered. How long would they stand here, trembling on the brink of death? The ether boiled, waves seethed in the grey-white backwash. Plesenta felt the sweat trickling freely down her sides. Her under arms were damp.

And then, very suddenly, there was a tiny dot in the midst of the mirror. It was stable, unmoving in the midst of fluid chaos. Lessis murmured softly, "She comes."

Plesenta's mouth had gone dry. Now was the time of the greatest danger, for as the traveler drew closer to the Black Mirror in Marneri, so would she draw the great predators after her.

Half a minute went by. The dot had scarcely increased in size. The ether of chaos raged and buzzed. Another red spark leapt from the mirror, arched into the air, and exploded with a pop above their heads.

Still there was no sign of the curtain of energies that would mark the presence of a Thingweight. Plesenta looked briefly to Fi-Ice, but the witch had her eyes closed, concentrating on her sensing spell. Plesenta had no such spell, and clung on between the two witches, praying for a safe journey's end.

And then suddenly the dot resolved into a tiny figure, and this form grew swiftly until they could see the witch, her black robe fluttering around her in the winds of the chaotic ether as she flew through the surf of vortices.

A moment later, she stepped forth from the mirror as if from a hidden room and stood there in front of them on the stone. The witches raised their arms and broke the spell. The mirror snapped out of existence, and the witch stepped down to join them.

Ribela, the Queen of Mice, stood there, clad as always in her black velvet garb with the decoration of silver mouse skulls.

"Welcome, Sister," said Lessis with palms pressed together and a tiny nod.

"Thank you, Lessis, and my thanks to both the Sisters of Marneri. Your mirror was well placed and strong. I had no trouble homing to it."

The abbess was moved to dare a comment.

"A smooth journey, for once."

"Indeed, Abbess, not at all like my last visit to this tower."

"The abbess is the most steady of all response givers," said Lessis. Along with the words came a subtle spell that the abbess was unaware of, but suddenly she felt suffused with pride in her achievements and of her service at the Black Mirror.

"I thank you, Lady," she said.

"Quite all right, Abbess, quite all right." Lessis patted her hand for a momet, and then she and Ribela passed out the door held open by Fi-Ice. Outside they paused for a moment as Plesenta pulled out the great key and locked the massive door, top and bottom. Then they strode down the passageway to the central landing. Together they made their way down two flights of stairs until the Great Witches halted and bade good night to Plesenta and Fi-Ice.

All was quiet and few lights were showing in the Tower of Guard, except in the sparsely furnished suite of rooms on a high floor, where Lessis stayed when she visited Marneri.

Lessis and Ribela spoke together in the hidden tongue of cats, a language familiar to both their animal personae.

Then came a knock on the door. Lessis opened it cautiously. A young man wearing the worn, green and grey uniform of a frontier Ranger entered.

"Ribela, this is Ranger Hawthorn. He rode here from Fort Teot."

"Nine days, Lady. 'Tis a record."

"Not even the Talion horse can equal it." Lessis sounded absurdly proud. Ribela was less impressed. In nine days a man had ridden a distance a little farther than that she had just traversed in three minutes.

Lessis felt Ribela's derision and smiled sadly.

"Ranger Hawthorn was on the fringes of the enemy army for five days before he rode here from Fort Teot."

Ribela's attention quickened noticeably.

"Indeed?" she said.

"Yes, Lady. I was out on the breaks, not far from the Oon, where the Gan grass is still high. The land is flat, one can see a great distance with a good glass."

The Ranger, his face brimming with honest achievement, patted the telescope case he wore over his shoulder.

"And what did you see, Ranger Hawthorn?"

"First thing I saw was a mob of Baguti cavalry. They had the death's head on their flags. I do not know this tribe."

" 'Tis Hazogi," said Lessis, "from the cold lands."

"Aye, I had thought it possible. They were very numerous but they were never closer to me than about a mile, and they did not see me or my horse in the tall grass."

"What else?"

"I waited, perhaps an hour, and then I saw long lines of banners coming from the west. Imps, Lady, tens of thousands of them. So many they seemed to cover the earth. I was forced to keep retreating to the east while I made observations. However, I soon spotted lines of troll, about three miles from my position."