Dragons of War (65 page)

"They said thy skull was fractured but not badly. They did not know if thee would ever wake up."

"Orphans have to have hard heads," he said.

Torches flared on the battlements of the Tower of Guard, flickering in the wind. Thick clouds hid the moon and stars. Armed men tramped to the changing of the guard. The enemy invasion had been turned back, but there was still warfare raging on the frontier. The martial spirit was high, nerves were strung, officers were anxious.

High as the men's spirits were, they received a further manic uplift in the hour before midnight. It came suddenly, a storm on the emotional plane that brought laughter and swollen faces to many in the great tower. It passed just as suddenly, and left everyone staring and astonished. There had been witchcraft practiced within the tower for hundreds of years, but never anything quite like this!

On a certain high floor, the mania passed into another kind of psychic tension which rose and rose and made those who passed the door to a certain apartment clench their teeth, while their skin tingled, their hair rose on end, and the very breath caught in their throats.

Deep magic was woven within that door. Those who could, fled the upper part of the Tower and formed muttering little groups in all the surrounding taverns. Their complaints were muffled, however, by the realization that there was a war in progress and that whatever witchcraft this was that was being practiced, it was connected to the war effort.

A few, who knew what was being attempted in that apartment, kept apart from these little groups. They kept their knowledge to themselves, although it if had been released, it would have stopped the mouths of the complainers in a moment.

The witches were trying to bring back the dead.

Within the suite, in a room filled with the pungent odor of singed hair and wood smoke, a fire blazed in the grate though the room was uncomfortably hot. At the table, Lessis of Valmes prepared small bundles of herbs and twigs, wrapped tight with leaves of freepure. One was of sea holly, wild carrot, and herb paris; the other contained sage, mandrake, and golden tinkerfoil. She bound these bundles with a scarlet silk thread and, as she bound them, she intoned a passage from the Birrak. On the table in front of her lay open a book of ancient Spellsay, and from this she took pointers for the spell she fashioned.

She looked as a presence entered the room, but did not hesitate in her recitation. She knew these sections of the canon better than the back of her hands. The acolytes who waited in the dark by the door bowed to the Queen of Mice, who acknowledged them with brief courtesy and came to sit by Lessis at the massive old table. The air was hot and stagnant. On a pallet set on the blue-stone floor lay Lagdalen of the Tarcho, unconscious. She had never awoken from the spell that was supposed to retrieve her from the mind of the eagle.

The spell had gone awry. It was a complex spell with many declensions and the caster of the spell had been in a state of deep fatigue, beyond exhaustion. Whatever the cause, something had slipped. Perhaps a volume had been misshaped. Perhaps some detail of phrasing had been too slow or too quick.

Lessis blamed herself. It was true enough that they had been close to the point of collapse. Their time spent trapped within those tiny animals had been far too long. A deep fatigue had built up that in the end had forced her to sleep for two entire nights and a day. Even Ribela had been forced to sleep an entire night.

And Lessis knew well that for Lagdalen, a mere girl, the entire experience of animantic possession had been far worse than for the witches. It was her first experience of such terrifying animancy and she was not in control of the spell. To be powerless in such a position was the most terrible feeling. And there was the effect of sharing the brutal, direct thought of the eagle. The thought of the great raptor was strange indeed to the human perspective. It was obsessed with tiny movements at the limits of vision, a vision that spanned the entire countryside, stoking a constant hunger for warm meat that could be torn apart and devoured. The thing's feet itched for prey to smash and rend. There was an erosive effect to such co-existence. Lessis was sure that this had contributed to the difficulty. Somehow it had affected Lagdalen at the end. During the spellsaying to remove her from the animant, she had lingered as if unwilling to leave.

Slowly, painfully slow, she had emerged from the mind of Cuica, the eagle. It was an exhausting process for Lessis. Then, during the final conversions, the thread had snapped and Lagdalen had never woken up.

While the appalled witches had tried to recast the spell with anxious chanting, Cuica had celebrated the removal of the spell with a scream of triumphant relief. He beat his huge wings until someone flung open the door to the balcony and he'd swept out into the night. There he'd circled, screaming defiance for an hour before finally vanishing into the west.

But Lagdalen had not opened her eyes and now it was the third day and she remained lost in limbo. An occasional low moan was all she had uttered during this time.

Ribela eased herself into the chair, Her body was still stiff and painful after all those weeks without movement. Her lower back was occasionally struck by a thunderbolt of pain and so she moved cautiously. Once seated, she waited with her eyes closed and her palms together in her lap until Lessis had finished her work.

The two bundles were ready. Lessis closed her eyes and took a long slow breath. It was best to let the mind down gently after an effort like this. Three thousand lines, six volumes, all produced in perfect timing and voice. It took prodigies of energy.

"I have good news," said Ribela at the precise moment that Lessis opened her eyes.

Lessis completed her breath.

"That is good to hear, Sister."

"Commander Sear has broken through to Cujac. Another large band of imps was rounded up and destroyed in the mountains. General Felix believes he will retake the High Pass within the next week."

"Thanks be to the Mother."

"The news from Kenor is very encouraging. A victory at the crossings of the Oon has broken the resistance above Fort Teot. The relief force will be there within two or three days."

Lessis raised her hands together.

"We have survived, Sister. The Empire of the Rose has withstood our enemy's greatest thrust. Now we must gain the initiative. We must rededicate ourselves to our work. We must find a way to seek vengeance for what they did."

Ribela stared at Lessis briefly. There was something odd about Lessis, an unusual carelessness, even a wildness that she had never detected before.

"You have never lacked dedication, Sister Lessis."

"I thank you, Sister, I only wish my dedication had carried through to better execution of our mission." Lessis's eyes betrayed a terrible guilt. It was inadmissable. Young women like Lagdalen were soldiers of the empire just as much as the young men in the legions. They must accept the risks involved.

"Lessis," Ribela leaned forward, "we have won a great victory. Indeed, I would go further and say that you, personally, have won it."

Lessis smiled, and Ribela did not understand. The small personal concerns—ties of friendship, love—these things were not Ribela's strength. Ribela sensed the criticism and nodded fiercely. "Yes, you are right, Sister."

She glanced over toward Lagdalen's silent form on the pallet in front of the fire.

"No change I take it."

"No change, but I believe I have the answer now."

Ribela glanced at the book laid open in front of Lessis.

"
Simpkins Parasympathia?
she snorted. "That was old when I was a novice. For how long have you been going to old Simpkins then? A very quirky old fellow. I don't know that I would trust anything he wrote."

"Now, Ribela, you betray your dislike of the masculine sex once again. Simpkins was a little wild, but he was a visionary and he excelled in animancy as few men ever have. It is not widely known now, but his work in reanimancy is the basis for all the best new work in that field."

Ribela sniffed and bit off her first retort concerning the worthiness of reanimancy research.

"I wish you success, Sister."

If Lessis would try some wild spell from the fourth aeon, let it be on her head.

"I thank you, Sister."

They both turned their heads to the door.

Another figure entered, the Abbess Plesenta, come to say prayers over Lagdalen's silent form. She had done this every night at the same time. She nodded to the witches, pulled off her outer shawl, and sat beside Lagdalen's still form.

During the prayers, Lessis and Ribela remained utterly silent. Lessis gathered her strength and prepared herself for the major work of sorcery she was about to undertake.

At length, the abbess finished and got to her feet. It had been a long day and she was a little unsteady at first. She saw the witches look at her and she felt their condescension. Undying things, she thought, they would long outlive her. How strange must be their thoughts! Lessis looked exactly as she had when the young Plesenta, then a Priestess Minor, had first seen her in the flesh. Somewhere between her mid-thirties and her mid-fifties, flesh firm, eyes still good, hearing keen and powers still potent, and yet Plesenta knew the Grey Lady was hundreds of years old.

"Will she ever wake?" she said to them.

Ribela's dark eyes showed no emotion. As cold as ice, thought Plesenta. Lessis, however, smiled and said "Yes, Abbess, we will awaken her. I think we know now what went wrong."

"Thanks be to the Mother that you've finally figured it out. 'Tis terribly sad to see our Lagdalen lying there lost in limbo, and she with a babe to bring up."

"Yes, Abbess, we grieve for her as well."

Plesenta looked at them carefully for a moment. Could they be capable of grief? After all that they have lived through?

Plesenta suddenly saw something in Lessis's eyes that told her that yes, they could grieve for the shortlived who served them for their brief moments on the stage of the sphereboard of destiny.

Plesenta made her good-byes and left them. Going down the stairs she told herself that it was a good thing she was retiring soon. She was getting too old to be able to stand the waste of young lives in these endless wars. The room she had left was already darkened and ahum with gathering energies.

The only sound now was of Lessis's voice calmly intoning fresh passages of the Birrak. Volumata were built up and released like cracks of gathering thunder. The bundles of herbs were burned in the fire. The smell of freepure rose. The light dimmed further. A thick, reddish smoke spilled out of the fireplace and settled to the floor of the room. It was an astonishing volume of smoke for two insignificant bundles of twigs. The sound of Lessis's voice grew louder. More volumes crackled from her lips.

A second smoke, this time white, rose from the fire. Lessis sucked in a great breath of this smoke and then bent forward, pressed her lips to Lagdalen's and drove the smoke into the girl's body.

Three times she did this, and the body of Lagdalen choked and spluttered briefly each time and then fell back to somnolence. Her eyes never opened.

Lessis returned to chanting. The power was vibrating the room. Ribela had slipped into a trance state to be ready to assist in any way if needed. The Queen of Mice was impressed by the power conjured up. Lessis had the most foolish way of presenting herself to the world, but one had to admit that she had strength.

Lessis's voice grew louder, the final volumes seemed to shake the very flagstones, and the acolytes pressed their hands to their ears and their heads to the floor. A terrible pressure had built up in the atmosphere. The entire Tower of Guard felt as if it were teetering on an edge.

Lagdalen suddenly shook upon the pallet, the first movement from her in weeks.

Ribela felt her heart skip a beat.

Lessis moved into the final declension. The lines rolled forth, the subtexts congealed and the capstone of a vast piece of sorcery was set in place.

Silence filled the room, a silence so thick with expectancy that it nearly induced vomiting in the acolytes on the floor.

Lagdalen did not move.

The silence grew, Ribela sensed an enormous energy trying to prise open a sealed vault. In her estimation the forces were about balanced. Lessis's eyes were closed and there was a line of spittle running from the side of her mouth. Ribela had never seen her so deep in trance.

The struggle went on. At these power levels it was incredibly difficult to maintain consciousness for any length of time. Ribela marveled as this level of power was not normally achievable in the setting of a world like Ryetelth—a cool world of moderate energies. Ribela was not sure she could generate such powerful fields herself, at least in Ryetelth.

And still the girl remained dormant. Yet she had moved the once, so Ribela knew that Lessis had reached her.

Lessis strained. Her spell was in the process of lifting up one corner of the world itself. Her fists were balled and raised beside her shoulders. The spittle running from her mouth had been joined by the tracks of tears, squeezed from her eyes by the sheer effort of what she was attempting.

And Lagdalen gave a sudden jerk.

Ribela almost broke trance from a sudden blast of elation.

Lessis gave a little involuntary moan and tried again.

The effort grew and grew until once again the very walls around them seemed to vibrate. The tension drove the remaining folk out of the ground floor of the Tower, all but for the guard, who were grinding their teeth and twitching in place as they stood on the battlements.

It reached a new excruciating level, painful to endure for more than a few moments, and now blood ran with the spittle from Lessis's mouth.

Then Lagdalen jerked again and her eyes opened and she emitted a long sobbing scream. Her lungs emptied, she sucked in a deep breath, her eyes wide, perilous, her mouth gaping in fear.

Her hand groped toward them.

"Air, light," she gasped, then broke down into coughing. In a moment she recovered. "Alive!" she croaked.