Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (55 page)

"We will go to Axis. Not to face Xartasia – she has numbers beyond ours, and the Devourers held in thrall – but to the CWA itself. We will stand before the Alliance and challenge them to battle. We go ourselves as bait to rally their army, so that they will be armed and ready when Xartasia comes to Axis."

Another sound rose from the theater, no longer pleased but cries of disbelief and dismay. The Arcadians pulled back from the stage, cringing. Maeve wanted to tell them not to be afraid, to take back the words she had already spoken, but there was no going back.

What has been can never be again.

"It will be dangerous. Many of us will die," Maeve told her people, struggling with the words and to fight back tears.

She recognized Duke Ferris in the crowd. The old nobleman stood at the base of a blasted tower, a black stump of shattered glass, with angry eyes and clenched jaw. But he was there. He was listening. Maeve brought her spear down on the uneven stage. The charred glass cracked with a sharp, hollow noise like a gunshot.

"We may die. Or at least spend the rest of our lives in Alliance prisons. And you know that itself is nothing less than a death sentence! Since the fall of the White Kingdom, we have waited to die, for the Nameless to finish her work. But now we have the chance to die
for
something," Maeve cried out. "I know what it is I ask of you, Kaellisem! But I know that it is in you to give! When I came here, when I called to you, I did so with the sole intent to stop Xartasia. That was my only plan, my only desire. But you have built an entire city of sunset glass, of fire given form unlike anything even the pyrads ever dreamed to build!"

Maeve swept her spear in a wide arc to gesture out across the broken theater. "We will rouse the Alliance to battle. They may kill us, or Xartasia's army may, but we will fall defending life and light. We are Arcadian, Kaellisem. The gods made us to sing the new songs, to dance those steps never danced before. They made us to live and to die as they cannot. What has been can never be again. Xartasia has forgotten that. She would sing the old songs again. She would tear apart all that is new, turn back time and unmake all!

"It is our responsibility, our destiny, our right and our pride to stop her, to forge ahead and never to look back!"

Maeve raised her spear again and sang out a single high, pure note. There were no words. What else could she say? She asked her people to die so that others could live, to throw themselves at CWAAF in the mad hope that when Xartasia came, the Alliance would be ready for war. It was not even a hopeless battle. It was pure sacrifice of blood for the future of a galaxy that despised and dismissed them.

Logan was the first to take up the note, an octave lower. And then Anthem sang, too, clean and clear as glass. Another voice joined the three, high and tremulous. It was Duke Ferris, his face raised to the darkening sky and tears streaming down his withered old cheeks. One by one and then hundreds of voices joined, a single thrumming, resonating note.

Maeve stared out across the shattered theater. Hundreds of Arcadians were turning away, so many leaving and returning to their safe home and filling the night with retreating white wings. But more stayed.

"Do not weep for my death. I pass now into the light while my enemies hide in the dark."

– Suvaen Dammar (234 PA)

Logan selected the fastest of the starships Vyron had hired for the flight to Axis. The Dailon was right; there were far more ships willing to ferry Arcadians in trade for a drum of Xyn's new phenno than fairies willing to die for the Alliance. Panna's final count was nine hundred twenty-seven volunteers, including all of Anthem's knights, herself and the crew of the Blue Phoenix. Less than one quarter of Kaellisem.

Maeve argued with both Ferris and Panna. Someone had to manage the city. More than three thousand Arcadians remained in Kaellisem. But both just shook their heads. Thanks to Panna's planning, everyone in the glass city should have food and water enough for the next month. She bribed the Gharib police extravagantly to check in from time to time with the understanding that there would be more color later if the Arcadians remained safe and well.

"I'm not sure where we'll get the money," Panna said with a wry smile. "But if we don't stop Xartasia on Axis, it's not like they'll be sniffing around after their cenmarks. If Captain Janse even exists, Kaellisem won't."

"Captain?" Maeve asked.

"She got promoted while you were gone."

An hour before dawn, twenty-eight ships lifted off from Gharib's dusty landing crescent, flew in a crooked diamond across the dim pewter moon and then were gone.

________

"They're gone?" Kessa asked.

Vyron nodded. "They left this morning."

"Did you get them a good deal on the ships?"

"Of course, Kes."

Breakfast sat untouched on the table. In the corner of the kitchen, Baliend had found a spoon and merrily banged on one of his overturned pots. The baby boy burbled happily. Kessa looked at her son and husband.

"Without them, we wouldn't have any of this," she said. "If Xartasia changes time and even lets Maeve live after Tamlin, then she will still be in Arcadia. Maeve won't have been on Axis when I ran. Logan won't be fighting with her that day. I'll have been alone. The Sisterhood will catch me. They'll kill me and Baliend."

"I'll still be with the Steelskins," Vyron agreed quietly. "Probably dead in the next few years, if not already."

Kessa took Vyron's strong blue hands in hers. He raised his black eyes to hers and closed his fingers around his wife's. They leaned across the table until their foreheads touched. Black hair fell down around Kessa's shoulders. Baliend squealed in delight and hurled his spoon across the kitchen.

"Father of life," Kessa prayed. "God of all the worlds. Please watch over our friends. They need your help. We all do."

________

Hyra went to the glass forge early. The tent was long since gone, replaced by a wide, gently spiraling hall with windows that looked out across all of Kaellisem. The city glowed red and copper and gold with the first light of dawn. White-winged shapes stirred in windows and the smell of cooking bread and petrimeat drifted into the warming morning.

He called out for Lorren, but the younger glassmith did not answer. Hyra stumped down the glittering pink corridor, searching and twitching his single wing in irritation. Where was that girl? But Hyra found only a couple of confused apprentices in the drawing room and a startled pigeon in the central forge chamber. The gray and brown bird burst into the air with a flurry of tiny wings and vanished through one of the arched windows. Something small and white drifted down to the floor at Hyra's feet. Not a feather, he realized, but a scrap of paper.

Hyra,
the note read.

I have gone with the queen. We have built such beauty here. I cannot stand by while Xartasia tears it all apart.

- Lorren

The little idiot…! He had forbidden Lorren to attend Maeve's speech. Lorren was three hundred years old, but still only half of the senior glassinger's age. Hyra did his best to watch out for the girl and was afraid that there would be more riots following whatever the Gray Queen had to say. But Lorren had gone anyway. Hyra read the note twice and then crumpled it in his hand.

"Fallo!" he called. "Anallia!"

The two apprentices landed in front of Hyra a moment later, still scrubbing the sleep from their eyes. Anallia had cut her white-blonde hair short, Hyra noted with exasperation. Ever since Sir Ballad's return from Hadra, the style had grown in popularity. Hyra stabbed his wing at the younger Arcadians.

"We are down a voice," he told them. "You two will cover Lorren's work until she gets back from Axis."

Fallo and Anallia shared a look. "She went with Queen Maeve?" Fallo asked. "But they are saying that the queen will not return…"

Hyra grabbed the boy's pointed ear between his thumb and forefinger, making him screech. "Lorren is coming back," Hyra said sternly. "She is. And you two are doing her work until she does."

________

Malla ignored another catcall from one of the Gunju Prince's crewmen. One day on the ship and she had already been in two minor brawls and fended off a Dailon who was far too curious about what a bird-back might be like in his bunk. Even if Malla wanted one last toss before she died, it would not have been with a huge, strange blue alien.

She pushed the door control with the side of one wing and went into the bunk she shared with Eranna and three other Arcadians. The room was designed for two.

Eranna sat on the edge of the upper bunk. Malla handed one of the trays to the other knight. Eranna took it with a small nod. "Thanks," she said.

Malla accidently stepped on someone's wing as she climbed up to sit beside Eranna. "Sorry," she said. There was a grunt from somewhere below.

Eranna unwrapped a fork and began picking at the pink-brown mass of what appeared to be some sort of sausage. She made a face. "If I had known that saving the galaxy would involve food like this, I might have stayed in Kaellisem."

"As though we ate any better there," Malla snorted. "Without dryads to do our farming, we rely on Cyrus and the other farming worlds just as much as the rest of the Alliance does."

Eranna speared a crumbling cube of processed green vegetable. "We are knights. Even if Arcadians ever become farmers, it will not be you and I who take up spades."

"Hannu talked about it sometimes," Malla said. She handed her dinner tray down to one of the other fairies on the bottom bunk. She suddenly wasn't very hungry. "Even before we left Sunjarrah to follow Queen Maeve. There was so much open grassland there. It wouldn't have taken much to fly out past where any of the Mirrans could find us and start a little farm. Just enough to feed a couple of us."

"Your brother wanted to be a farmer? But he was a knight," Eranna said when she had chewed and swallowed. "It is the highest calling the gods can bestow."

Malla looked down at her hands. Without her glass gauntlets, they looked small and fragile. "Maybe. But Hannu and I didn't become knights because the gods called us or even because Queen Maeve did. Hells, we tried to join Xartasia first, but she wouldn't take us. We were too young. All we wanted was a home. A real home."

"Why are you flying to Axis to die, then?" Eranna asked.

"Because my brother is dead. Hannu died at the enassui with a piece of glass as long as my arm through his guts. Xia came, but it was too late. Hannu died. Without him, I don't care about home anymore. So I may as well die for someone else's."

________

Stars streaked past outside the O'Collin's rows of windows. There were more of the elongated rainbow lights outside now, as the ship raced toward the galactic core. Four more days and the O'Collin would land on Axis with the Blue Phoenix and the rest of Queen Maeve's tiny army.

Dellan held Gael's hands gently. Gael's eyes were closed and his lips moved silently. Even after all these months, the withdrawals were bad. Dellan had found Gael in Gharib twice, trying in broken Aver to buy more Deep from suspicious coreworlders. Dellan had managed to get Gael back to Kaellisem before anything terrible happened, but his friend was always so quiet afterward.

Like he was now. Dellan squeezed Gael's hands until the other Arcadian finally opened his eyes. The right one was still cloudy and blind, despite Xia's best efforts. She offered to send away for a cloned replacement, but Gael always refused.

"Where are your thoughts?" Dellan asked.

"Here," Gael said.

"Why do you seem so sad? Are you afraid to die?"

Gael shook his head. "I have been waiting to die since our home fell, my friend. I do not fear the Nameless."

"What is it, then?"

Gael touched his fingertips to Dellan's cheek. They were cool and shook slightly. "You," Gael said.

"Me?"

"I worry for you, Dellan. Why are
you
here? You loved Kaellisem, my friend."

"Queen Maeve asked us to come. After all she has done for us, how could I stay behind?"

Gael's pale lips turned up into a thin smile. "After what she did for me, you mean. She saved me, not you."

"By so doing," Dellan said, ducking his head, "our queen saved me, too."

Gael leaned against Dellan and rested his head on the other man's shoulder. "You are not really here for Queen Maeve. I know you better than that."

Dellan did not answer. He wrapped his wing around Gael's shoulder. The O'Collin was a Glawn ship. Glaw was a cold, dark world of tunnels and ice. It was probably too cool for Gael. The thin fairy smiled again.

"Thank you, Dellan," he said, "for being here with me at the end of everything."

"Always."

________

Duke Ferris Verridian looked up at his reflection in the computer monitor. It was more gray than golden now. Ferris was still younger than King Illain had been when he died, but looked far more ancient.