Dark Magic (64 page)

T
HE
sun stood some little distance past its zenith as she rode her newly purchased horse out through the
gates of Gannshold. The soldiery there eyed her appreciatively, their lewd comments ignored, as were the warnings against a lone woman—and especially one so lovely—venturing without escort into Cuan na’For. She was thankful she had bought riding gear in Lysse—breeks of soft brown leather and a tunic to match—for it meant she could sit astride the roan gelding. What equestrian skills she possessed had been learned in childhood, on plodding farm horses, and she doubted her ability to travel far riding sidesaddle, as was more usual for ladies. Indeed, she felt little enthusiasm for this ride at all, for while she was now immune to most of the physical discomforts suffered by those whose lives were governed by a beating heart, still she felt the steady pounding of the saddle against her buttocks as she steered the gelding along the pass.

Walls of sheer grey stone rose to either side, footed with scrubby bushes, the band of sky above streamered with mares’ tails of high cirrus, dotted with the dark shapes of wheeling birds. Cennaire lifted the roan horse to a canter, leaving the city’s north gate behind, proceeding along the flat roadway until the canyon began to rise and Gannshold was lost in the distance. At this time of day there were few enough travelers venturing the pass, and those she encountered she ignored, soon finding herself alone as she climbed a defile that curved around the base of a lesser peak. She slowed there, her mount straining as the altitude began to take effect, though she herself felt no discomfort, and let the animal walk the final league to the egress of the cut. The road widened again here, devolving on a mountain meadow part encircled by a rushing stream; she recognized it from Gart’s and Kythan’s description, seeing here and there mute evidence of the fight in the churned ground and the broken arrows that still littered the grass. This was, she decided, as good a place as any to halt and obey her master.

She reined in, walking the gelding over to the
stream, tethering the animal to a larch, and fetching the mirror from the saddlebag.

For a moment, she waited, listening, her preternatural senses telling her she was alone, but still took the precaution of walking in among the trees before she unwrapped the glass and spoke the gramarye.

The scent of almonds joined the resinous perfume of the larches as the mirror’s surface shifted, shimmering colorful, revealing Anomius’s unlovely features, puckered with irritable impatience.

“You take your time, woman.”

In the mountain-girt silence his voice came loud. “I had to buy a horse,” she said defensively, “and ride clear of the city.”

“Where are you now?”

“In the pass. High up, in a meadow.”

“Alone?”

“Aye, nor any near as best I can tell.”

“Good. Hold up the mirror and move it round that I may see.”

She did as he bade her, standing and turning the device in a slow circle, thinking all the while that she had not, known he could see more than her face through the glass, storing that information as she stored all the little tidbits she gleaned, against their future usage.

“It will do,” came his voice. “Now look at me.”

She brought the mirror back before her face. Anomius asked, “You’ve a blade of some kind?”

Cennaire nodded, touching the dagger sheathed on her waist. “A knife,” she said.

“Show me.”

She drew the dagger, holding up the blade.

Anomius nodded and said, “I must teach you another gramarye. Listen now, and carefully.”

He spoke slow syllables, guttural words that seemed torn from deep inside his scrawny chest, the almond scent strengthening with their utterance. Cennaire listened attentively, and then, on his order, repeated each word. They were hard of saying, as
though the product of a language designed for tongues other than human, and it took some time before she had them right and Anomius pronounced himself satisfied. Even then, he had her repeat the sentences until they came fluid, the one after the other, in what, to her, was a meaningless babble.

“Good enough,” he declared, and chuckled maliciously. “If not, you’ve a lengthy walk. Now bring your horse where I can see it.”

Cennaire wedged the mirror between a low-slung bough and the trunk of a larch and fetched the gelding from its placid grazing. She brought the horse to stand before the glass, awaiting her master’s further instruction.

“Take out that knife,” he ordered, and she obeyed.

The gelding snickered, stamping fretfully, as if sensing something amiss.

“Hold it firm,” Anomius said, “and speak the gramarye.”

Cennaire began to voice the words, the almond scent thickening, heady, stronger now than the piny smell of the timber or the horse’s drying sweat. In the mirror, Anomius spoke with her, an echo that seemed to lend power to the spell. The gelding ceased its fretting, its head drooping as though the arcane syllables were a soporific.

“Kill it,” said the sorcerer. “Cut its throat and repeat the gramarye as you do it.”

She took hold of the gelding’s halter and drew the knife, once more mouthing the words as she drove the blade deep into the animal’s neck, severing the great artery there. The horse shuddered, air whistling from its flared nostrils. Blood spurted in a long, thick jet when Cennaire withdrew the dagger, but the gelding remained on its feet, only trembling, as if the out-flowing of its life was no more irritation than a bothersome fly as she completed the glamour.

“That was well done,” Anomius remarked. “Now wait.”

Cennaire stooped, wiping the dagger clean on grass,
seeing, as she rose again, that the pulsing blood slowed, coming in a trickle now. The horse sighed, sinking down, rolling heavily onto its side. For a while it lay there, busy flies gathering about the great dark pool of crimson, crawling industriously over its neck. Then it shuddered again, and heaved, its eyes opening as it lurched to its feet. Where the knife had cut its flesh, the skin seemed to writhe, binding over the wound until only a drying clot remained. The flies transferred their attentions to the richer pickings that puddled the grass.

“Now you’ve a mount,” said Anomius. “And one that will bring you to the Daggan Vhe. Ride!”

Cennaire hesitated a moment. “Do I need call on you,” she asked, “what then?”

In the mirror, the wizard’s ugly face wrinkled. “Call only if you must,” he said. “There are shamans in Cuan na’For with powers to sense such a summoning, and they’re best avoided. Indeed, avoid what folk you see, and call me only at direst need. When you reach the Kess Imbrun, call then, if it be safe. Above all, do not let the three know I’m your master.”

“And do they find Rhythamun, and I be with them?”

“You’d best be with them.” Tacit threat hung on his words. “But then, use your wits. Rhythamun may well know you for a revenant, but if I guess this game aright, the three have the means to conquer him. Let them, and after, take the Arcanum.”

“Think you they’ll allow me?”

Anomius’s image twisted with sour laughter. “I doubt me that”—he chuckled—“but you’ll find a way. How, I leave to your wits and wiles; only secure me the book. When you have it, call on me. Now go!”

The scent of almonds faded as he ended the spell. The mirror reflected only the larches and the blue sky, Cennaire’s face. She studied herself a moment, arranging strands of raven hair, then put away the glass and turned to the horse.

It stood docile, its tail flicking idly, more, it seemed to the woman, from habit than because the flies were irksome. When she looked at its eyes, she saw them dulled, emptied of life. That commodity, she thought, seemed Anomius’s to command. Her’s, the horse’s, both belonged to the wizard: she wondered if he valued the one any more than the other. But still he has my heart, she reminded herself, and while he holds that I can only obey. She climbed astride the gelding and turned its head toward the egress of the pass.

When she drove her heels against the animal’s flanks she was taken by surprise. The roan snorted and broke into an immediate gallop, almost spilling her from the saddle. She clutched the pommel, letting the reins hang loose, more concerned with holding her seat than directing the beast, which, anyway, seemed not to need such ordinary management. It charged headlong over the meadow, ignoring a lesser trail in favor of the wide road that cut deep through the backbone of the mountains. Its hooves rang loud on the stone as it ran, thundering as if it charged into battle, the pace impossible for any normal animal to maintain. This, though, was no longer a normal horse, and it showed no sign of faltering as it hurtled along the pass, so that in a while Cennaire hung the reins from the saddlehorn and locked both hands firm about the leather.

She felt the wind of their passage whip her face, spilling her hair loose to stream behind her, the rocky walls flashing by in a blur of motion, hoofbeats echoing behind. Soon she was more confident, content to let the ensorcelled horse run, its stride, for all its unnatural speed, comfortable enough that she no longer feared a tumble. It appeared that Anomius’s thaumaturgy endowed the roan with an agility, a surefootedness, to match its speed and stamina, for even when the ground became broken, littered with rockfalls from the slopes, or fallen trees, still it held its pace, charging around obstacles or leaping over them. Cennaire needed only to clutch the saddle and
stay astride, for which her own sorcerous strength proved ample, and before long confidence became enjoyment.

By late afternoon, she was through the heights of the Gann Pass, the retreating sun throwing long shadows over the descent into Cuan na’For, and as dusk settled across the prairie, into the foothills. By midnight, she was on the grass, the revenant gelding still running at breakneck speed, slowed no more by darkness than it had been by ascents or obstacles.

On and on it ran, unwavering, guided by whatever weirdling instinct Anomius’s glamour had imparted, moving of its own accord from its northward line to a northwesterly direction. Wild dogs barked in anger as it thundered through their dens, and horses whickered as it disturbed their sleep. Several times Cennaire saw fires burning, and twice came close enough to see the outlines of great leather-tented wagons against the flames, but if she was seen, she was gone before the observers had time to mount a pursuit.

Night darkened toward morning and still the gelding ran, onward through the brightening of the false dawn and the ascent of the sun. Little, brightly colored birds rose in chattering flocks from the grass, and overhead black-winged predators rode the sky. The wind blew warm, though to Cennaire it felt cool, chilled by the sheer speed of her passage. Once that day she saw riders nearby, and tensed, thinking they might seek to halt her. The gelding ignored them, charging inexorably toward its destination, and though they brought their own mounts to a gallop, shouting challenges, they could not match its pace, and after a while gave up.

Cennaire felt a heady sense of power then, such as she had only experienced before in her dealings with men. It seemed she flew, unstoppable, her ensorcelled mount an automaton, untiring, unwavering, she like some goddess, borne ever onward by such a steed as the world could only dream of, beyond man’s touch.
She shouted laughter that was lost on the wind, and when next she saw riders felt no fear, even though they stood across her path. What they thought as she charged them, she could only guess from their startled expressions and half-heard shouts. One man, she saw, nocked arrow to bow, but before the shaft was loosed the gelding was on them, and the bowman’s mount squealing and tumbling as the roan crashed headlong past, no more deterred by living barriers than any other. Arrows flew then, and behind her Cennaire heard cries of outrage, briefly, for she was soon outdistancing the warriors, their pursuit falling off as their worldly horses foundered.

The leagues and the days were swallowed, the sun rising to chart its path across the sky and give sway to the moon, that orb falling down past the western horizon to accord the sun fresh passage, the cycle repeating, timeless: Cennaire rode on, no less inexorable. How many days had passed since she quit Gannshold, she forgot, for time grew meaningless, the ride a thing entire to itself. She knew only that she crossed all the vastness of Cuan na’For at a speed no mortal creature could hope to match, and that surely she must come to the Kess Imbrun before her quarry, for they were fleshly beings and subject to fleshly demands, delays, and hindrances beneath such as she.

And then, on a day when the sky was banked with great castles of massy white cumulus, she saw before her a barrier that stretched wide and dark across the grass, farther than her eyes could see, running out to east and west, so far northward it seemed to fill all the world. Like a sea, it was, an ocean that swayed and stirred under the wind. She felt the gelding change direction then, turning further west, as if reluctant to come too close to that great shadow that filled the heart of the grasslands. She made no attempt to correct this new course, for as they drew closer she saw that it was an ocean of trees, and knew it for the Cuan na’Dru, the holy forest, home of the god Ahrd, and somehow knew that to enter there was
to die, no matter what sorceries Anomius employed to grant her existence. She felt a kind of fear then, turning in her saddle to study the enormous woodland, aware of its presence as though it were some sensate thing, a gestalt entity comprised of all the myriad trees that grew there; and all, she knew deep inside, in what, did she yet own such, she would name her soul, opposed to her and the task imposed upon her.

It came to her then that her mount had avoided every stand of timber along the way, hursts and copses alike. For sake of speed, she had assumed, the grass offering a clearer path, the woods, no matter how small, obstacles that should, inevitably, slow it, or sweep her from the saddle. Now she thought that likely the god had a presence in the trees, in every one, and that the glamour Anomius had placed upon the roan horse sensed that and directed the animal around, clear of Ahrd’s influence. She eyed the Cuan na’Dru warily then, leaving the horse to find the way, thinking that Ahrd could have little truck with one entrusted with the Arcanum’s seizure; and then, appended to that thought, that Ahrd and all the Younger Gods must surely look with favor on those who sought to destroy that threat to their existence.