In the Earth Abides the Flame (2 page)

Maps

Prologue

1. The Great City

2. Behind the Iron Door

3. The Pinion

4. Firefall

5. The Riddle of the Arrow

6. Escaigne

7. Morals and Miracles

8. The Water Chamber

9. Sundered

10 Deruys

11 Children of the Mist

12 The Valley of a Thousand Fires

13 Ecclesia

14 Castle in the Clouds

15 The Guardians

16 In the Earth Abides the Flame

17 The Sentinels' Revenge

18 Stella's Choice

19 The Lake of Gold

20 Healing Hand

Glossary

USING THE BLUE FIRE LEFT DEORC panting, as always. These reports were not strictly necessary, but he could not avoid the contact if he wished to persuade the Undying Man of his continued fidelity, even though the fire took so much out of him. He sensed his master had become suspicious of him, but knew the Destroyer could not possibly know any details of his plans. Had those details been known, the fire would already have consumed him.

There was no way of telling how convincing his words had been. For a dreadful moment he had thought his master knew all about the four Maghdi Dasht and Deorc's reasons for sending them west in pursuit of the Falthan Trader. The Undying Man did not know about the Falthan, of course. Why should he? The Trader had been but one, and not the most important, of many people the Voice had interrogated in Andratan, and it was Deorc's task, not the Destroyer's, to keep track of those who had been questioned. So when Vaniyo the Bhrudwan Trader had reported the Falthan's escape, Deorc saw his chance. Indeed, he had no option but to have the man pursued, apart from telling the Destroyer that he had allowed someone to escape his impregnable castle. And that, quite simply, would have condemned him to death.

Sufficient reason for him to ensure the truth had to remain hidden.

Deorc of Jasweyah had taken a great risk in coming north to serve the Lord of Bhrudwo.

Many years he had spent carving out a fiefdom in the Great Southern Mountains, a rugged country inland from the Fisher Coast, a country still beyond the Destroyer's long reach. But Deorc had seen the inevitable end of his success would be to attract the Undying Man's attention, and he knew the limits of his own strength. So, before Jasweyah could be invaded, he made a gift of his lands and people to Bhrudwo. His kinsmen called him a traitor, but he was soon safe in Andratan, soon being groomed to become the Destroyer's lieutenant, and he emerged from the dreadful castle to put down a rebellion led by his former countrymen. He'd surrendered his lands and suffered keenly the loss of his childhood friends: proving his loyalty to his new master necessitated his participation in their deaths. He had forsaken everything known to him in pursuit of the unknown.

It had been worth it. Oh, how his risk had been repaid! Absolute power within his own domain, a vast sphere of influence, the ability to command respect, his choice of women, licence to indulge his habits. Far more importantly, his new position gave him access to the deep secrets of the world, and with it membership of the most exclusive group of all, the magicians. Those who knew how the world really worked. Deorc of Jasweyah, son of a stablehand, had become Deorc, Keeper of Andratan, magician, a mere mortal no longer.

The crowning glory of it all was that now, of all times, the Lord of Bhrudwo chose to reveal his intention to invade Faltha. The moment came within Deorc's lifetime and only a few years after he became the Keeper of Andratan. Deorc convinced himself he was part of the reason for this bold step, for finally, after a thousand years, his master had found someone he could trust. His great plan depended on the success of his faithful vassal. Deorc had a crucial part to play: he was to travel west to Instruere on a mission so secret the Destroyer would trust only a servant of the blue fire. What riches might fall into his hands! What new secrets might he uncover! And in the hidden depths of his mind he began to think about the ultimate betrayal.

But before he could leave, Vaniyo the Trader had come to him with news about the Falthan Trader's escape. What could be made of this? Vaniyo maintained that the Destroyer had shown great interest in something or someone called the 'right hand'. What might Deorc be able to do with such knowledge? He had no idea, as yet. But he had not risen to his exalted position by leaving important discoveries to others, so, after carefully concocting an ambiguous form of words, he approached Lord Vartal, his friend and trainer of disciples for the Maghdi Dasht.

Vartal shared Deorc's concern that a Falthan could contrive to escape from Andratan, and agreed the Undying Man need be alerted to the situation only if the man could not be captured. He spoke with Nimanek, his long-time lieutenant, and together they selected two of their most capable disciples. After ensuring that Vaniyo would not betray Deorc, the four Maghdi set off after the Trader on what promised to be a swift pursuit and an early recapture, followed by a lengthy interrogation conducted in the Keeper of Andratan's private quarters.

The pursuit had been swift, but there had been no recapture. The four Lords of Fear travelled far beyond Deorc's reach, and what was supposedly a journey of mere weeks had taken over a year - so far. Many uncertainties centred around their disappearance. Had they been killed in some mishap? Had they betrayed him to the Undying Man? Were they playing some game of their own? These concerns now overshadowed in Deorc's mind the potential usefulness of any information the Maghdi Dasht might be able to win him.

He had found hints - tenuous threads, hard-won from detailed examination of the words of the Lord of Bhrudwo - that his master sought something in his invasion of Faltha. Something, or someone. Could it be the 'right hand'? His master's motives for this risky and expensive invasion clearly went beyond the vast wealth he stood to control. The most obvious was revenge, never openly stated but underpinning every Bhrudwan attitude and action towards Faltha. Whatever small thrust Kannwar - yes, Deorc knew the name, even though his master believed it lost - whatever thrust he could make against the land of the First Men, favoured of the Most High, he made with relish. The Undying Man prided himself on the rationality of his actions, but he seldom acted rationally in his dealings with Falthans. A blind spot, possibly his only one. Something to be exploited. And if his master sought something in Faltha other than the mere subjugation of his bitter enemies, then power would accrue to the man who found it first.

Perhaps this 'right hand' was the key. Deorc, the Lord of Bhrudwo's right hand, could not miss the threat to his own posi' tion implicit in the name. So it was providential indeed - or a deliberate slight on his present right hand, an indication he was expendable - that the Undying Man should send Deorc to Faltha to act as the cornerstone of his great plan. Trust born of ignorance, and the position, the very life, of the Keeper of Andratan depended on keeping his master ignorant. And somewhere out there in the wilds of Faltha walked four men who carried knowledge that would give him the key, perhaps, to unimaginable power - or place him firmly in the pitiless hand of his master.

Deorc took a deep breath and extinguished the blue fire. These confrontations always left him weak and shaking. The Destroyer thought he alone knew the cost of magic, but Deorc had known it even before leaving Jasweyah. It was a mark of his strength that he chose, in his pride, to draw power from himself. Still, when he finally arrived in Instruere and began to order it to his satisfaction, he would have time to regain his strength and lay his traps.

Heaven defend anyone who found themselves in his way.

LEITH STOOD SILENTLY on a narrow Instruian street, shaking with a deep, nameless emotion as the members of the Company finally reunited. First his father, then his distraught mother sought him out and they embraced, careless of anything but their grief, and bitter tears flowed.

They felt no joy at their narrow escape. The travellers had narrowly avoided the senseless violence that culminated in the death of the Fenni woman; and simply clung to each other, as much as anything reassuring themselves of the reality of their friends amidst the terror of the pursuit and the swiftness of Parlevaag's passing.

'It is over,' Mahnum said quietly. 'It is over.' He repeated the words like an incantation designed to drive away despair.

'Yes, it is over; but I will not forget her sacrifice,' said Kurr.

'Nor the hatred and evil that struck her down,' Farr added bitterly.

Indrett lifted her tear-streaked face from her husband's breast, sobbing, her eyes filled with visions of her friend's horrific end. 'She is dead!'

'Yet she died with honour, and in the eyes of the Fenni has redeemed the death of her mate,'

Perdu said sternly, his voice gruff in the attempt to mask his own feelings. 'Do not grieve! She wearied of life, and so gave it nobly so that we might live to continue our mission.'

Indrett turned her eyes on him. 'You mock her death!' she said, jaw clenched. 'What meaning can it be given?'

'Perhaps no meaning for us, but who knows what meaning it had for her,' said Hal. 'At least she found rest.'

'But it was senseless, senseless!' Still in shock, Indrett struggled to come to terms with what had just happened.

'Senseless according to you, maybe.' Perdu turned to the coast-lander woman. 'Look past your First Men understandings. The Fenni would not regard Parlevaag's death as a tragedy. To them her sacrifice would be a thing of beauty, bringing final balance to her life. How do you know this was not the one thing to make sense to her, since her husband was taken in similar violence? Have you considered that maybe your friendship with her gave her the strength to do this thing? And now you want to make it a vile act?'

'I saw no beauty in it.' The words were torn out of her. Leith could see the suffering in her eyes, as though she felt that harrowing sword piercing her own flesh, felt the life go out of herself, could still feel it, and could not stop her mind from recalling the savagery over and over again.

'But why didn't the soldiers on the wall come to our aid?' Stella asked, anger in her voice.

'Why did they close the gates?'

'It was they as much as the Widuz who killed Parlevaag,' Farr said. 'Someone will answer for this cowardly act.'

'What sort of place is this, where those sworn to protect instead shut the gates on us?'

'Perhaps they saw a threat approaching the city, and did not distinguish between us and the Widuz,' Hal said quietly.

'Let us hope that the Iron Door will open for us more swiftly than did the gates of Instruere!'

Kurr did not believe in omens, but even to his mind their time in the Great City had not begun well.

A few streets away a guard rose unsteadily to his feet amidst the shards of a broken jug, hand pressed against his badly bleeding head; all the while trying to explain with little coherence to his fellows the events that had led to this assault on his person.

Eventually he told his tale, and guards spread out to begin a search for anyone answering the sketchy description of his assailant. Assaults on the Instruian Guard were always taken seriously: this northern boy would likely face an unpleasant time in The Pinion when the guards found him.