Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles) (7 page)

The day, the day, here comes the day.

The time of War is here.”

As the last note died, the thirteen circles burst into flame and burned themselves into the floor, one at a time, as the magic released fought for a way out. A moment later all of the fires died down together, and Glynn flew from their midst down the center of the throne room, more like a rag doll than a Caster, to bounce from the polished surface of the double doors and to fall unconscious on the carpet in a heap.

* * *

              The bar was smoky, crowded and reeked of beer and aftershave. Bill showed up after he ate, lots of starches, so he wouldn’t get drunk. Whatever happened, he wouldn’t compound it with a DUI.

             
He found them all sitting at the bar, all smoking and each with a drink. They were clearly waiting for him, and the stool next to Melissa had been left empty.

             
“Hey, there he is,” Roy said.

             
“There I am,” Bill said. He sat next to Melissa on the stool, and she kissed him on the cheek.

             
“Thanks for coming,” she said, probably to cover his embarrassment, rubbing off her lipstick with her thumb right after.

             
“What are you drinkin’?” one of the bartenders asked him. There were at least four of them. If he went out at all, Bill usually went to the sort of place that had one person behind the bar.

             
“Bud,” he said.

             
“Uck, beer,” Chelsea, one of Melissa’s girlfriends, said. “Half the alcohol at ten times the calories.”

             
“You mean I might lose my girlish figure?” Bill said, taking a stab at being funny at his own expense.

             
That got an ‘Ohhhhh,’ from the girls and a few smiles. The bartender poured a one-pint bar glass and Melissa pushed a five in front of Bill.

             
“You don’t have to pay,” he said.

             
“Nope, you’re mine for the night,” she said. “Deal’s a deal.”

             
“Yeah, but that’s not right,” Bill said.

             
“Check out Galahad,” the girl who had tried to start Melissa’s car said.

             
“I thought I was Lancelot?” Bill said, not knowing if he should be offended.

             
Melissa smiled at him. “You’re both,” she said. “I think it’s sweet. Boys don’t know how to act these days.”

             
“Well, how are
we
supposed to know?” Roy protested. “You want us to open doors but you go racing through them ahead of us, then you smack us down for being sexist.”

             
“I got smack down for ordering for a date, once,” another of the hanger-on guys said. “Said I did it to make her feel stupid.”

             
“Uff—I hate it when guys order,” Chelsea said. “They always get it wrong.”

             
“Then you have to choke down a steak and potatoes when you wanted chicken,” Melissa said.

             
“Or lobster,” another of the girls said.

             
“Slut,” Chelsea commented, smacking lobster-girl’s hand on the bar. All of the girls smiled, though Bill didn’t get it.

             
“Well,” the girl said, “the first part of hitting pay dirt is
pay
.”

             
“Wow,” Roy said to Bill.

             
Bill just shook his head and took a sip from his beer.

             
“I thought I was being cool showing up with flowers,” another of the guys said.

             
“Oh, you
have
to show up with flowers,” Bill said.

             
All of the girls laughed. “No one does that,” Melissa said.

             
“They should,” Bill said.

             
“I did once,” Roy said. “The girl said I was playing her.”

             
“Were you?” Bill asked.

             
He at least had the class to say, “Yeah, but I was doing it with
flowers
.”

             
They all laughed. Little by little, Bill began to think this would be nothing more than the first fun night out in a year.

* * *

              “She lives,” the Uman-Chi healer said. Glynn recognized him as a priest of Adriam from his yellow robe.

             
Glynn lay on her back in her own bed, in her suite of rooms. Avek, D’gattis and Chaheff attended her, their white robes covered in soot.

             
“Where…what?” she asked.

             
“You are in your suite in the palace,” D’gattis said. “Your song burned a hole in the floor and then fired you like a crossbow bolt down the throne room.

             
“Is anyone hurt?” she asked.

             
“Only you,” the priest said. She recognized Taffer Roo, whose people had been Adriam’s beloved for as long as Uman-Chi could remember. Angron claimed a Roo had helped bring him into this world.

             
“Am I…” she began to ask, and then her courage failed her.

             
Taffer smiled. “You are well, just exhausted,” he said. “Still the same fingers, the same toes, and all of your hair still attached.”

             
She ran a hand reflexively through her green locks.

             
“When can she cast again?” Avek asked.

             
“Avek, please,” Chaheff said.

             
“The matter
is
somewhat pressing,” D’gattis said.

             
“What is?” Glynn asked.

             
They looked at each other, then at her. Finally, Taffer said, “Well, it seems that, since you cast your spell, there is a vortex in the throne room we can’t close.”

             
Her head buzzed like there were bees in it, but Glynn tried to sit up. The bedclothes fell to the floor, revealing her naked beneath. Her knees and elbows felt as weak as a newborn colt’s.

             
“You must be still now,” Taffer told her, as he pressed his hand between her naked breasts.

             
His hand felt as smooth as the silks she wore to bed. Healers’ hands, sensitive and loving. ‘The wife of a healer knows contentment,’ it had been said, and she knew why.

             
Power radiated silently from him, refreshing her body. She took a breath of air and the energy she breathed in amazed her.

             
“She is ready?” Avek demanded.

             
Avek enjoyed no great power, so he didn’t understand being strong and then being weakened. Her power already exceeded his, centuries her senior. He demanded that she rise to a challenge he could never hope to equal.

             
Protocol allowed her no alternative but to wave a weary hand and to acknowledge him. “I am well,” she lied. “Let us to the King.”

             
She dressed in her whites, now scorched and frayed and nowhere near as good as before. With Chaheff helping her, first to dress, then holding her elbow, Glynn returned to the throne room.

             
She made no effort to glide this time—she couldn’t have done it, had she tried. She felt relieved merely that her knees didn’t buckle.

***

A multi-colored whorl sat at the base of the throne now.

“Angron first tried to dispel it,” Avek informed her, wringing his hands.
“Then he tried to move it so he could depart his throne. Finally we tried to rally the Casters in a joint effort to terminate the thing.”

             
“Nothing worked,” D’gattis interrupted him. His contempt was clear. “Now Angron seeks your counsel.”

             
Glynn stepped into the throne room and almost tiptoed down the long, red carpet. She felt no rush of air from the vortex, no roar of great energies, no sound at all, in fact. The room had become velvety quiet, the other Casters standing like white crows at the vortex’s edge, all in contemplation of whatever this could be.

             
“I am amazed,” Glynn admitted.

             
“Yes,” Chaheff agreed, “we all are. This is an anomaly and we cannot dislodge it. There are spells which, once cast, cannot be undone except by the caster, and we are in hope now that this is one.”

             
“It is not,” Angron said. They all looked up at him, still pristine and white and ancient upon his throne.

             
“It is an opening, and we do not know to where,” he continued. “We dropped an orb into it, and it rolled across the surface. We wait in contemplation of this thing, for what comes out.”

             
“What comes out?” Glynn asked.

             
D’gattis clicked his tongue. “Surely, girl, you must understand that, if nothing can go in, then something must need to come out.”

             
“Then what use have you for me?” she asked. She felt weary on her feet, even from the short walk.

             
“In fact, our need for you has grown,” Aniquen said.

             
“It is my opinion that you are ill-advising our monarch,” D’gattis said.

             
“I believe I am not,” Aniquen said.

             
“And I am swayed by him,” Avek said. “As is Angron.”

             
“In what?” Glynn asked, thinking she must already know the answer.

             
And they confirmed it. “That you should sing, of course,” Aniquen said. “You have sung something halfway here, clearly you must sing it the rest of the way.”

             
“My song is sung,” Glynn said. It was true—she no longer felt the need, although the words now were burned upon her memory.

             
“I have tried to sing a portion of your song,” Avek said, “and I cannot. Nor can any other, and that is strange, because you are not the greatest among us, Glynn Escaroth. Some here, Aniquen for example, could not hear your song, which speaks for its power. We believe that this is your destiny, and you must continue in it with your own voice.”

             
Chaheff nudged her elbow where he held it. “Do not sing your song at first,” he said. “Sing something sweet, as you might use to coax a horse from a barn.”

             
Glynn nodded. She thought this made sense. If something
was
trying to come through, it might be lost because it sought her voice.

             
She opened her mouth, and she inhaled.

             
This would be disaster; or her greatest moment yet.

* * *

              Bill, in his day, had been a power drinker. He could pound it with any client like he had a hollow leg. It was a matter of pacing, even if you were pounding; little sips instead of a few big gulps, and of course eat before, during and after.

             
Bill wasn’t pounding on Melissa’s bar tab, but the rest of these kids were on their own, and that made him really nervous because drunks don’t always remember things very accurately.

             
“So, yanno,” Melissa said, with her tiny hand on his shoulder, “how did you get so good at sales and stuff?”

             
“Stuff?” he asked. Her breath smelled like a brewery. Roy and another hanger-on had been trying to get her attention and shoehorn in between them all night, but Melissa would have none of it. She was entirely focused on Bill. She’d made him her mission apparently.

             
“Yanno,” she said. “Like, cars ‘n co’puters and boys ’n stuff.”

             
“Ah,” he said sagely. “Well, by living it, I guess. Benefits of growing old, more memories than expectations.”

             
“You say that too much,” she said, and slapped his shoulder. “You aren’t
that
old.”

             
“Nah,” Chelsea said. “You are totally middle aged.”

             
“I would do you,” another of the girls said, with a wicked grin.

             
“You would do anyone,” Chelsea said.