The Swords of Night and Day (43 page)

Skilgannon’s limbs were getting heavy now. The Swords dropped from his fingers.

Numbness crept through his limbs. Slowly he toppled sideways, not able to feel the cold grass against his cheek. Despite the paralysis he felt a sense of exultation. The three Shadows were dead, and he had won again!

His eyes were still open—and he saw a fourth Shadow moving up the hillside.

You are an arrogant man, Skilgannon.

Oh how true it felt at that precise moment.

The Shadow approached him and squatted down, staring at him with baleful eyes. Then it drew a wickedly curved dagger. “Eat your heart,” it said.

Skilgannon could not reply. In a bewildering instant the creature was suddenly looming over him, the dagger resting on Skilgannon’s chest. He could see the dagger, but could no longer see the creature above him. He heard it grunt, though, as it slumped across him. He wondered what was happening. Was it biting through his paralyzed, unfeeling neck?

Then its body was hauled away and dumped unceremoniously on the ground. Skilgannon could see that a long shaft had shattered its temple, the point emerging on the other side.

Askari sat down beside him. “Well, well,” she said, brightly, “what have we here? It cannot be the legendary, invincible warrior. The man who fights alone and never loses. The man who needs no help. Must be someone who looks like him.”

The ground drifted away from him, and Skilgannon became aware he was being lifted. His body was hauled up, his head falling against Shakul’s chest.

“You are going to have the worst headache of your life when you awaken, Skilgannon. However, you deserve it,” said Askari, leaning in toward him and closing his eyes.

O
nce back in his apartments Memnon removed his clothes and washed the blood from his hands and arms. His satin shirt was ruined. Bloodstains rarely completely vanished from the fragile cloth. It was a shame, for the shirt was one of his favorites, dark blue, with gold trim. Once he had cleaned himself and donned fresh clothing, he called for a servant to summon Oranin.

The young man arrived an hour later, bowing deeply and offering profuse apologies. “I was not in my room, Lord, so it took them some time to find me.”

“No matter,” said Memnon. “You will be working alone for a while. I require you to search through the journals, looking for any reference to the technique Landis Khan used to create me. You understand?”

“Of course, Lord. Is Patiacus returning to Diranan?”

“Patiacus is dead. He betrayed me. Parts of him are still littering the laboratory floor. Clean them up yourself. The sight of his remains would disturb the servants. I shall be leaving tomorrow, to join the Eternal. You will work diligently while I am gone. I expect to see a successful conclusion to your studies.”

“And you shall, Lord,” said Oranin, bowing once more. “Might I ask how Patiacus betrayed you?”

“Why?”

“So that I do not make the same mistake,” replied the man, with transparent honesty.

Memnon sighed. “It was not a small oversight, Oranin. I did not kill him out of pique. He poisoned my Reborns. I should have expected something of the kind. Always been a problem of mine to see the best in people.”

“Why would he do such a thing?” asked Oranin, appalled.

“On the orders of the Eternal. It is so obvious, really. As a mortal I could serve her diligently. As an Immortal I might have become a threat. Understandable. I don’t doubt, had the situation been reversed, that I, too, might have come to the same conclusion.”

“You are not angry with her, Lord?”

“I do not become angry, Oranin. She is the Eternal. It is not for me to question her on grounds of loyalty, or treachery. The virtues of the one are ephemeral, the vices of the other debatable. It is merely the nature of politics, Oranin. Go now, and do as I have bid.”

Alone once more Memnon stretched out on the sofa and closed his eyes. It took him time to release his spirit, but once he had done so he soared up over the palace and sped north. He hovered for a while over the tent of the Eternal. Guards patrolled outside, while inside she slept. He gazed at her face, enjoying the exquisite beauty of her. Then he moved on.

Some twenty miles north of the encamped army he found Decado, asleep in the midst of a group of soldiers. There was no sign of Skilgannon. Memnon circled the area, at last heading east over wide grassland. He almost missed the dead Shadows, only seeing the bodies at the last moment when one of them screeched in pain. Memnon floated down above it. Its skinny legs were drawn up, its clawed, blood-covered hands seeking to stem the flow of blood from its gutted belly.

Four bodies there were—one with an arrow through the skull.

It was unheard of. Four Shadows killed in a single night. He floated closer. Three had been killed by a sharp blade, the last by a shaft. They would not have attacked had the victim not been alone, or vulnerable. Far off to the right Memnon saw a twinkling campfire. His spirit sped to it.

There were Jiamads there, and several humans. One was the Eternal’s Reborn, the other a bearded man in clothes of bright crimson. Memnon admired the tunic shirt, which was beautifully cut, though the cloth was not of the highest quality. The third human was Skilgannon, who was lying down, apparently asleep.

“Might have been better had they killed him,” said the man in the red shirt.

“Don’t say that, Stavi!”

“I didn’t mean it. Well . . . not entirely. Because of him my lads are going into danger.”

“That is not fair. They are going because of you. You could always stay here. After we succeed I will come back and find you.”

“I love the optimism. You are going to find a temple that no longer exists and destroy the source of a magic you don’t understand. What does it really look like, this thing you call an egg? How will you know it when you see it? Silver eagles, magic shields! None of it makes any sense.”

“It does, as Skilgannon explained it to me. The ancients could and did work miracles that we no longer understand. They created the magic. It doesn’t matter how it works, the fact is that it does. Now bear with me. The artifacts of the elders were just that, for a long while. Empty and dead. Suddenly they had life. Something woke them, powered them. Something at the temple. The legend says that all this power comes from the silver eagle in the sky.”

“Metal birds,” muttered the man, scornfully.

“Forget birds. Something metal was raised into the sky by the ancients. Whatever it was gave them the power to work magic. Now somewhere, way back in the olden days, that power suddenly stopped. It no longer reached the artifacts. They all stopped. They . . . slept . . . would be the best way to describe it. Then something happened, and the power returned. You understand?”

“I understand this is making my head hurt.”

“Think of it this way. There is a cup that is empty. It does nothing. It sits. It has no uses. Then someone goes to a well and fills the cup with water. Now it is useful again. You can drink from it.”

“The power source is someone with a jug?”

“No, it is the water, stupid. The water makes the cup useful. Inside the temple there is something that fills the artifacts. We will destroy it. The artifacts will become useless. No more Reborns. No more Jiamads. No more Eternal. She will age and die like the rest of us.”

“All right,” said the man in the red shirt. “Suppose all you say is true. You still have to find a temple that is no longer there.”

“It must be there, Stavi. It is the source of the power. And the power still operates. If it were truly gone the artifacts would already have become useless.”

“This is all very well,” he said, taking her hand. “But I would think more clearly if you were to take a little walk in the woods with me.”

“You would
not
think more clearly,” she said. “You would fall asleep with a smile on your face.”

“So would you,” he countered.

“That is true.”

Hand in hand they crept through the sleeping Jiamads and away into the woods.

Memnon did not follow. He had seen people rut before.

Instead he flew back to the palace. There was so much to think on, and so many plans to initiate.

T
here were times in Jianna’s long life when she considered boredom to be almost terminal. Intrigue had long since lost the fascination she had felt for it when young, and the new queen of Naashan. Manipulation, coercion, seduction had been exciting then, and each small victory had been something to celebrate. This last hundred years particularly had seen those skills honed to a perfection she felt she should have been proud of. Instead the practice of them had become a chore. There was a time when she had found men fascinating and intricate. Now they were—at best—merely diverting. Their needs and their values were always the same, their strengths and their weaknesses easy to manipulate.

It was one reason her heart yearned for Skilgannon; why she had sought his body for so many centuries. The prophecy meant nothing to her. She had lost count of the number of prophecies concerning her that had come to nothing over the centuries. It was not that some of the seers did not possess genuine talent. It was merely that a level of wish fulfillment entered their heads, coloring the visions they had. No, Skilgannon was unique among the men she had known. He had loved her fully and completely—loved her enough, indeed, to walk away from her. Even after all these years the shock of his departure remained a jagged wound in her heart.

He would have enjoyed this victory.

Agrias, apparently outnumbered and outmatched, had pulled back his army toward the ruins of an ancient city. Jianna’s forces had swept forward through a valley between a line of wooded hills, pursuing the fleeing enemy. It had been a trap, and beautifully worked. Agrias had sent out three regiments, two of men, one of Jiamads. The beasts had attacked from the high woods to the west, the enemy infantry sweeping down from the east. The third regiment of lancers had emerged at the rear of Jianna’s forces, completing the circle. It was a splendid ploy, which she had much enjoyed. Sadly for Agrias she had also anticipated the maneuver and held back the regiments of Eternal Guard, the finest fighting men on the planet. Highly trained and superbly disciplined, they had fallen on the enemy rear, scattering the lancers. Jianna’s own Jiamads had torn into the enemy ranks. The encircling maneuver had been the only potent weapon in Agrias’s arsenal. When it failed the spirit of his troops was broken. They had fought well for a little while, but then panic set in, and they fled the field. In the rout that followed, thousands were slain.

Agrias himself was taken, and the War in the North was over in just under twelve days. There were still pockets of resistance to overcome, mainly in the Drenai lands to the west. This, however, was a relatively simple matter. The Legend riders had a few thousand doughty fighters, but no Jiamads, and no reserves to call upon.

Jianna opened the flaps of her tent and stepped out into the moonlight. The two Guardsmen saluted. Several of her generals were waiting outside, and she saw Unwallis walking across the campsite toward her tent. He had been hurt by her rejection of him. It amazed her that he could have considered becoming a regular lover again. The man was old and lacked the stamina she had once enjoyed in his company. It was not a mistake she would make again.

Agrippon, the senior general of her Eternals, bowed as her gaze fell upon him. Jianna liked him. She had tried to seduce him several years ago, but he was a married man and ferociously loyal to his wife. She felt that with a little extra effort she could have broken down this resistance, for he was obviously besotted by her, but she rather liked his stolid honesty and his attempt to be true. So she had drawn back, and now treated him with sisterly affection. Summoning him to her tent, she told the Guard to admit no one else until she ordered it.

“Sit down, Agrippon,” she bade him. “What are the figures?”

“Just over a thousand dead. Eleven thousand enemy corpses—not counting their beasts.”

“And my Guard?”

“We lost only sixty-seven men, with another three hundred bearing light wounds.”

“Excellent.”

“As indeed was your battle plan, Highness.” The compliment was clumsily made, but she sensed his sincerity. Agrippon was not a man given to compliments.

She gazed at the black-bearded soldier and wondered if she should reconsider her sisterly demeanor. The battle had been exciting, and Jianna felt the need to have the tension relieved. He grew uncomfortable under her direct gaze and rose from his seat.

“Will that be all, Highness?”

“Yes, thank you, Agrippon. Convey my congratulations to your officers. Will you have Unwallis attend me?”

“Of course, Highness,” he said, bowing.

After the general had left, the statesman ducked under the tent flap. He, too, bowed.

“How did you enjoy your first battle?” she asked him. He had ridden alongside her at the center of the army, looking faintly ludicrous in a gilded breastplate and overlarge helm.

“It was terrifying, Highness, but having survived it, I wouldn’t have missed it for all the wine in Lentria. I thought we were trapped.”

She laughed. “It would take someone with more skill than Agrias to trap me.”

“Yes, Highness. Might I ask what your plans are for him? I thought—”

“You thought I would have had him killed immediately.”

“Indeed, Highness. He has been a thorn in our sides for many years now.”

“I expect he is contemplating his situation even as we speak. We will allow that contemplation to continue.”

“Exquisitely cruel, Highness,” he said, with a sigh. “He is an imaginative man, and will be considering all the horrors that could come his way.”

“Indeed so. You wanted to see me. Do you have news?”

“We have been questioning some of the captured officers. It seems that the Legend riders attached to Agrias—some three hundred of them—left his service two weeks ago. One of the riders is fond of a local whore. She was, in turn, fond of the particular officer we questioned.”