The Rift War (34 page)

Something twinged in her chest, and it startled her even more than his too-quick
response. Emrillian felt breathless for a moment. Did she have hopes, where she had no
reason?

* * * *

Their trio passed the ruined manor house without incident, and Grego felt a little queasy
with the strength of his relief. He wanted to laugh at this sign that he had expected Edrout to set
up another ambush at the place where Emrillian had beaten him, then the next moment he
decided that would just make the anticipation from then on worse. Every step along their trail
from now on, retracing the journey the first Emrillian had taken when she hid the Zygradon, was
unknown territory for all of them.

Noon came and went. There were enough small interruptions--wildlife startled as their
paths intersected, signs of recent campfires, even meeting up with two units of mounted soldiers,
that indicated they approached the no man's land between Quenlaque's territory and Encindi
territory--to keep breaking the tension before it grew too tight.

Two hours before sunset, they stopped to study a map for places where Baedrix thought
they could make camp for the night, depending on which direction they chose to ride. Emrillian
went to the small brook a dozen steps from the trail to refill their waterskins while the men
checked their horses. Grego felt the resonance in his chest flare up, tightening everything as if his
muscles shrank and his ribs hummed like harp strings. He clutched at Baedrix's arm, and the
other man's eyes went wide, showing he felt the chiming filling him.

"Emrillian!" Baedrix barked.

"I feel it." Emrillian hurried across the clearing to them, the waterskins leaving a trail of
drops behind her. "I think it's happened. The enemy navies have crossed the line and turned their
attention to us rather than each other."

"What's that mean?" Grego said, and was relieved to find he could breathe, despite the
compressed feeling.

"Papa is using magic to link the communication devices from Kayn's ship to the
Threads, to talk to all the ships and navies and governments at the same time. Grandfather was
talking about possibly commandeering all the government communication systems in the world.
The Threads have spread out more, reweaving their patterns around the whole planet since the
dome fell. That makes communicating, using the equipment as linkage points, at least
theoretically possible. It would be easier if the Zygradon had been undone, but..." She turned her
palms to the sky and shrugged.

To Grego, her shrug expressed all the unknowns, the variables, and the tasks that
couldn't be accomplished in time.

Ships and soldiers and governments of Moerta.

Athrar's voice rang in the center of Grego's head and his chest, and his limbs folded
without warning. Baedrix and Emrillian caught him and helped him sit.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered, and half-expected to have his voice reverberate
across the planet.

Emrillian pressed her gloved fingertips against his lips.

By now, you have gained enough information to realize that a continent has
appeared in the place of radiation and chaos and devastation you have so eloquently labeled the
Death Zone for the last two millennia. Whether you choose to believe or not, magic is real, and
the land you know from legend as Lygroes has been released from a protective dome of magic,
brought forward in time, to rejoin your modern world.

I am Athrar Warhawk, High King, defender of all nations and lands against the
scourge of blood magic, barbarians, and rebels. Your belief or refusal to believe matters not to
me. As the wisest of minds have said: What is, is. There is no changing reality.

Here is reality. What is, and what will not be changed. Lygroes will suffer no attack
from your bickering governments. Lygroes will acknowledge no claims, no demands, no
interference. You had a taste of our power and our willingness to defend ourselves and our
shores when the Fedarstanian battleship approached our shores to attack, and was utterly
destroyed.

Here is what Lygroes says to you. We will be enemy to no one and we will be
friends to everyone. In three moons' time, we will welcome envoys at the harbor of Quenlaque
only. No sooner, and at no other place along our shores. Approach us as friends, as partners in
peace, or do not approach us at all. Until that time, leave us to find our place in the modern
world and to deal with our enemies.

Try to force our hand. Make demands. Make threats. And when you do, you will
brand yourself our enemy for all time and learn the power of the star-metal sword, Braenlicach,
the wrath of the Warhawk and the enchanters of Wynystrys, the combined power of the
Stronghold, the Queen of Snows, and Mrillis the enchanter.

For a long time after Athrar finished speaking, Grego sat still, feeling the reverberations
fade from his body, waiting until he could breathe normally again. He finally opened his eyes.
Emrillian and Baedrix sat facing him, the three of them forming a close triangle. It was almost
amusing how their horses cropped at the grass and bushes in the small clearing and the brook
gurgled over the pebbles in its bed, and the world went on as if nothing had happened.

"You do realize," Emrillian said, sounding tired, "the most vicious and paranoid idiots
will take his words as a challenge, and attack."

"They have been warned. Have they learned nothing from history?" Baedrix stood and
held out a hand to help Grego get to his feet.

"What you don't understand is that what is history and truth to you, and to us, and to the
Archaics...the rest of the world considers fable. Who pays attention to and actually learns from
fictions made up to amuse children?" She took his outstretched hand and let him help her to her
feet.

* * * *

Grandmother?
Baedrix stepped away from their small camp to communicate
with Meghianna, even though he knew it wasn't necessary. He was proud of his growing skill
and control, so that he could carry on private conversations through the Threads.

Baedrix, what a nice surprise. Eleanora is right here with me. Would you like her to
join the conversation?
Meghianna sounded a little startled.

Is this a bad time?
He had a sudden image of having walked into her private
quarters without announcing himself, and seeing her scrambling to finish dressing. That made
him slightly queasy.

Not at all. We just didn't expect any communication. Any luck?

Not yet. Grego is still buzzing from the Warhawk's announcement earlier, and it's
bad enough that it's interfering with Emrillian's sense of the Zygradon through the Threads. I
wanted to ask if you could help us with that, if you had any theories, any advice. We're worried it
might interfere with finding the Zygradon.

Perhaps it isn't a reaction to that at all.

Grandmother?

Baedrix heard voices, threatening his concentration. He opened his eyes and moved
farther into the darkness, a dozen steps away from the campfire. A hunched shape approached
the fire. He saw Emrillian reach out, smiling in welcome, and help the figure sit down. They had
encountered several tiny villages in their journey already, little more than two or three families
living in simplicity and isolation. This was probably yet another representative of yet another
peasant village, attracted by their campfire, drawn by curiosity, or asking for help of some
kind.

Pyris never recorded where their company was, exactly, when the first Emrillian
divided them and took the Zygradon to hide it. The possible territory that could have been
covered... Every member of their party was a child of the forgers of the Zygradon and
Braenlicach. All born into power. All linked to the Zygradon. The memories of that time were
chaotic, because of the attack on the Stronghold from inside its walls, because of the deaths and
treachery among Emrillian's company. She could have sent the Zygradon far away from her
when she hid it.

So... We could be closer than we think, and that's what Grego's feeling?

Possibly. Baedrix, please, take good care of her. Despite all her training and
wisdom and power, Emrillian is still a lonely child in some ways. Her life is in turmoil. She
needs a Valor to rescue her, contrary to all appearances.

Rescue her?

Good night, Grandson. Give her my love. You have my love as well, you
know.

Thank you, Grandmother,
he managed to respond, as the link broke. Baedrix
suspected she had ended their conversation because she was about to laugh. He groaned at the
thought of Eleanora's reaction if she had been listening in.

Opening his eyes, he leaned back against a tree and gazed at their campsite through the
trees, maybe twenty paces away. They had a shallow cave at their back. Not large enough for
them to sleep in without being on top of each other, but it gave a nice sense of security, and
shelter if the gloomy skies that had gathered above them all afternoon delivered their threat of
rain. There was plenty of firewood, ferns for comfortable, spicy-scented beds, grass for their
horses, a swift-flowing, shallow stream a dozen steps away, and Grego had surprised them all by
catching several birds and a hare for their dinner. As if thinking of their meal had been a signal,
Baedrix smelled the roasting meat.

So soon? Grego was just getting up to go to the water's edge to wash the meat after
cleaning his catch, when Baedrix had stepped away to contact Meghianna. Prickling
apprehension dug into his scalp, and he rested his hand on his sword hilt as he hurried back to the
campsite. Why had he walked so far away into the trees?

"What's that smell?" Grego called, coming back into the firelight. He carried a
cloth-wrapped bundle that dripped water and blood. That had to be their dinner.

So what was that cooked meat smell that came stronger every moment on the breeze?
Every breath Baedrix took smelled more sour, turning rotten, so it burned and coated his mouth
and throat with slime.

"Smell?" Emrillian stepped up to the fire with a small pot and the metal support hook
that suspended it over the fire for boiling. She stuck it into the soft soil next to the fire and hung
the pot on the hook. "What are you talking about?"

"Who are you?" Grego jerked backwards, as if he hadn't seen the hunched figure sitting
on a fallen log by the fire.

"Emrillian, move away--" Baedrix clutched at the star-metal torque set with emeralds
that Meghianna had given him at the seashore. He pulled hard on the Threads, begging the Estall
for power and skill he had never needed before.

Edrout erupted from within the small, hunched, ragged figure sitting by the fire. A gush
of stench heavy with rotting blood and charred flesh swirled from him on a harsh wind that
battered Baedrix, pushing him backward. Grego went flat on his back and slid away until he
fetched up against the cliff face with a harsh rattle-thud of his chain mail against rock. He
spasmed and went still.

Emrillian stood perfectly still, her hair streaming out behind her, glowing as power
flared from her star-metal armor.

"Pretty trick," Edrout growled. His voice was a shredded rasp compared to his rich,
viciously amused tones of just a few days before. "But you don't have Braenlicach this
time."

She leaped at him, fists flying. Red light flared from her gauntlets as they connected
with Edrout's chin and gut.

He grunted and stumbled backward. Black light coalesced around him like a tornado,
and he swung at her.

Red flared, blinding Baedrix for two heartbeats. A thunderclap shook the ground.

Emrillian fell backwards, nearly going to her knees.

The force of the wind died. Baedrix staggered forward, nearly flung off balance when he
no longer had to throw all his weight into standing upright. He knew it was useless, but he drew
his sword as he raced the score of steps from the darkness of the trees to the campfire.

Emrillian leaped at Edrout again, fists flashing with blinding speed and trailing
sparks.

Please, Estall, make the impossible possible,
Baedrix prayed as he focused on
Edrout's back and raised his sword above his head.

In a flash, he remembered a conversation where Grego and Emrillian and Mrillis had
laughed about how the Archaics accomplished so much in their first lessons in using their
star-metal, simply because they didn't know what was impossible.

Edrout's joined fists connected with the left side of Emrillian's face, knocking her
sideways, snapping her head back.

Baedrix called up all his belief, his desperate fury, and stretched out with his mind to
search for the Threads surrounding the clearing. A rainbow-streaked Thread thicker than a
hundred-year oak writhed in front of him. It curled around itself like a child's tangle of ribbons.
He reached for it with his mind and released his sword with one hand as he passed through it. He
wrapped the tangle of threads around the hilt of his sword with physical and mental hands. His
vision filled with rainbow streaks and he couldn't feel the ground under his feet.

Emrillian caught herself as her knees hit the ground. She twisted sideways, dodging as
Edrout slashed at her neck with a sword that burned with a foul, poisonous
red-and-black-and-green-streaked light. She tumbled away, her hair whipping in her face, and
drew her own sword.

"Edrout!" Baedrix roared as Edrout leaped after Emrillian and slashed down as she
shoved herself upright again.

Their swords clanged. Hers flared red, the metal glowing, visibly heating. He feared it
would melt out of her hands in another moment.

Edrout turned, sneering, and let go of his flaming sword with one hand. He used it to
whip streamers of the same filthy, blood-tainted light at Baedrix. His sneer shattered and his eyes
widened as rainbow light erupted from Baedrix's sword and overpowered his death-light.