The Second God (33 page)

There were four of us at evening board, Ly and me, Mother and Cal. None of us ate much, although the cooks brought out all my favourite foods. The servants tiptoed round me as if I were sick, and when they spoke, there was a solemn tone that I imagine was supposed to sound sympathetic. I didn’t want sympathy, I wanted Arran back and since they couldn’t give me that, I wanted nothing from them.

Then Ly and I climbed into the big bed that had seemed so full such a short time ago, and now seemed so empty. We clung together as fiercely as if we were drowning, and cried, and we couldn’t even talk to Arran, because he was asleep.

~~~~~

“Come to me! Come now!”

I almost fell out of bed. Ly was up and was reaching for his clothes almost before I’d worked out what was happening. I couldn’t think for the boiling anger rolling off him in a torrent.

“Drina? Why is there a summoning?”

A summoning! And Ly was right with me, and it wasn’t him. It could only be Sho-heest.

“Is he really doing this?” I whispered. “But why? Is he going to war?”

“He is not going anywhere!” Ly hissed. “The little
shit
! What does he think he is doing? Ancestors preserve me from imbeciles.”

“I don’t understand,” I wailed, trying to make sense of it and failing. “Why would he do this?”

“It hardly matters why,” Ly said. “All that matters is that we find him and stop him.”

“How will we stop him?” I whispered. “Take his magic, I suppose.”

“Yes, to start with. And then we kill him.”

Arran’s voice was plaintive.
“What is the matter with Ly? He is so angry, and I cannot talk to him.”

“He’s mad as fire about Sho-heest’s summoning. He’s talking about killing him.”

“That is not good. Can you calm him down?”

“I’ll try.”

“Ly, I don’t think—”

He was already dressed for flying, and halfway to the door. He turned, and frowned at me. “Why are you not ready yet? Come on, we must go.”

“What’s the big rush? It’s still dark.” I glanced at the night lamps. “Gods, Ly, it’s barely past midnight, and I can’t fly at night anyway.”

“Kalmander could take you. The sooner we fly, the sooner we can take that stupid shit out.”

“Drina…? I have never seen Ly like this.”

“You’re worrying Arran,” I said. “He can’t talk to you and all he sees is violent anger.”

Ly’s face changed instantly. “Oh, ancestors! I never meant to… Wait…”

There was silence, but Arran’s anxiety lifted, so I guessed Ly was talking to him.

“Arran is right,” Ly said after a while. The anger was still there, but it had faded to a much lower level. “I should not allow my anger to overwhelm me. We will fly at dawn.”

“Not if you’re planning to kill him,” I said.

“Why not? He is too stupid, he does not deserve to live. The gods gave him this power, and he is abusing it. He is not ready for a summoning or a war.”

“We don’t know his reasons, and you’re a fine one to talk about abusing power. You had your own summoning and war before you were ready, remember?”

He was immediately contrite. “Oh. I see your point.”

“Is there anything to be gained by going to find him right now, rather than, say, tomorrow? Can we delay one sun to talk this over with Yannassia?”

“I… suppose so. One sun.”

“And when we go looking for him, let’s keep an open mind, all right? Because he might have good cause for a summoning that we know nothing about. The gods gave this power to
both
of you, and there must have been a reason for that.”

He nodded, and I saw his mind switch to resigned acceptance.

“So let’s go back to bed, shall we?” I said.

“All right, although I daresay we will get no more sleep.” He started undressing again.

“Well done,”
Arran said.
“And thank you. I hate not being able to talk to him.”

“Has he done that before? Shut you out?”

“Once or twice, when his mind was fully occupied with you or Yannassia or someone. But he always told me in advance that he was going to do that.”

“Oh, so he has full control over it? He can shut us out whenever he wants?”

“Yes, and he can talk to both of us at once, or individually. I can only talk to one at a time.”

“Me too,”
I said.
“Interesting. He has far more power than we do, doesn’t he?”

“He is byan shar,”
Arran said simply.

Ly and I got back into bed. He lifted an arm for me, and I snuggled into him, one arm wrapped around his waist, one leg entwined with his. It was just how I used to lie with Arran, and that brought tears prickling at the back of my eyelids. I tried to blink them away, but they kept coming, a slow but steady trickle. Would I ever stop crying for my lovely drusse? Only when I stopped grieving perhaps, which would be never. Perhaps there would come a time when I could sleep beside Ly, or look at Callon, or eat wine-roasted venison without crying, but there would always be that dull ache inside, the empty space in my life where Arran used to be and wasn’t any more.

After a while, Ly shifted position to move further away from me.

“Why did you do that? Don’t you like being so close?”

“Of course, but Arran asked me to move, so that he could see your face.”

“Oh.”

“Sweetheart, please do not cry. I hate to see tears on your cheeks. It makes me so happy that I can still see you, and if Ly touches you or kisses you, I feel that too. So we are still together… for a little while. Until… until Yannassia sends the army in.”

I scrabbled round for Ly’s hand, and kissed it and held it to my cheek.
“Can you feel that?”

“Yes! Would you two like to…? I mean, that last time we were together, I had no idea it was the last time, and… and I do not know what the next sun may bring for me. Or the next hour, even. I have to take every opportunity to be with you. Would you mind?”

We didn’t mind. Ly did whatever Arran asked him to, and kept his eyes open as long as he could, and we all enjoyed it, because it was impossible not to. But afterwards I cried all over again.

And constantly in the background, Sho-heest’s summoning went on.
“Come to me! Come to me now!”

~~~~~

“Why would this new
byan shar
summon the war-beasts? What possible reason might there be, other than war?” That was typical Yannassia, straight to the heart of the matter.

Ly sighed. “There is no other reason. That is what the war-beasts are
for
, to fight. It might be defensive, but we are not attacking the Clanlands, the Icthari are in disarray at the moment and there is nothing beyond that, only scattered groups of goat-herders and the like.”

I had to smile at Ly’s identification of himself as Bennamorian. Just as Arran and I were becoming more Clan-like, so Ly was settling into his role as a Bennamorian.

“Could it be the Vahsi?” Yannassia said.

“There have been no reports of them so far west,” Axandor said.

We had woken Yannassia at first light with the news of the summoning. Now we were gathered in her private sitting room, she and Torthran still in bed-robes, and Axandor dressed, but with a just-out-of-bed rumpled look. Mother and Cal were slightly rumpled, too, but then they always were. I had to imagine Arran, but he was there, too, watching through my eyes or Ly’s.

“More likely the idiotic boy is planning to attack
us
,” Ly said. He was far from calm, but his initial fiery rage had been considerably damped down.

“This is most inconvenient,” Yannassia said, in the tone of voice that made servants and nobles alike tremble. “We have been directing troops south and east in anticipation of tackling this Dragon God, and now we are under assault from the northwest. It is not good enough, Ly. We depended on you to keep this boy under control. He was no threat, you said.”

“He swore an oath to me,” Ly said, his eyes narrowed. “He swore by the gods and the ancestors that he would
not
attack Bennamore.”

“And perhaps he meant it,” I said. “We have no idea what his purpose is. Ly, explain how this works. You have already summoned some of your war-beasts. Will they answer this new summoning?”

“Yes, it is impossible for them to refuse. Sho-heest is not yet capable of summoning only some riders, as I am, so this is a general summoning and every war-beast and rider will answer.”

“But not you.”

A half smile. “No. I hear the summoning, but Sho-heest cannot compel me or my
clavaia
.”

“Can you summon these beasts back again?”

He chewed a lip thoughtfully. “I do not know. There have never been two
byan shar
before, so no one can say how it works.”

“Had you released your war-beasts at all?” Cal said.

“No, I wanted to keep them close to Arran, in case... Well, they might have been needed. Before this summoning, they were bound to me and the connections were strong. Now those connections are broken, and they are bound to Sho-heest. I can see them all moving west.”

“But that means you could pull them back to yourself with a summoning of your own,” Cal said.

Mother and I both protested. “Have these poor souls pulled two ways at once? By two summonings that are impossible to refuse? They would go mad trying to comply,” Mother said.

“Ah, good point,” Yannassia said. “But after this summoning is over, you could have your own summoning, Ly?”

“Possibly, yes, if there is a need.”

“Can you break the connection between a war-beast rider and a
byan shar
?” I said. “If they are bound to Sho-heest, can you sever the bond?”

“I do not know,” Ly said, subdued. “There is much that I do not know.”

“This is all speculation,” I said impatiently. “The first thing to establish is Sho-heest’s purpose in summoning. Once we know that, we’ll have a better idea of what to do next.”

“You will need to go and find him, I presume?” Yannassia said. “It is not good timing. The Speaker and I have agreed a date to begin the campaign to free Dellonar, and we really need your help with that, Ly.”

“You have fixed a date?” I whispered. “When?”

She understood my meaning, for her face softened. “Drina, I am so sorry, but we must do this. For Arran’s sake, I wish it could be avoided, but the Port Holdings cannot fight alone.”

“I know. When?”

“The spring equinox.”

Two moons. That was all the time Arran had left.

~~~~~

We stayed another night, so that the eagles were well-rested, and then we all flew northwest, Mother and Cal returning to Lakeside, Ly and I to begin our quest to find Sho-heest. But long before we reached the little town, we realised that we had no need to look further. We’d been so occupied with events at Greenstone Ford that we hadn’t noticed Sho-heest moving east, but now that we were looking for him, his magic was clear as the sun, and he was in the exact direction of Lakeside.

There was a fuzziness to it though, which reminded me of the time Ly had been at war with Bennamore. Then, he had shut himself away in the scribery on the sacred island and tried to manage his war-beasts from there, but his power had been too weak and it had almost driven him mad. Now Sho-heest was trying exactly the same thing, and it looked as if he’d hidden away in the scribery too.

The summoning went on, every hour of sun and through the night, a constant drone in my head.
“Come to me! Come to me now!”
When I was busy, I barely noticed it, but in quiet moments it was still there, calling, calling. And the war-beasts would be answering the call.

Below us, the land was still wrapped in its winter blanket, the trees bare above and shrouded with decaying leaves below, the distant hills dusted with snow, and the fields ploughed ready for the spring crops. Spring. Far away, Arran sat in his cell in impenetrable darkness waiting for the spring, when the troops of the Port Holdings and Bennamore would march to war, and his life would be forfeit. We were all waiting for spring, and yet wishing that winter would never end.

Lakeside was quiet. The ringing of stonemasons’ hammers and the rhythmic sound of the carpenters’ saws had stopped. The streets were empty, shops and craft halls shuttered. Half the town, it seemed, had packed up and left. Even the Kellon had sent his family away to safer parts with the arrival of Sho-heest.

“No, we had no warning,” the Kellon said, his expression sombre, meeting us in his echoing receiving room, with only a couple of guards and the mages in attendance. “He just appeared a few suns ago, marched into the scribery and threw everyone out. Since he was surrounded by huge lions, naturally everyone complied at once. There was no time even to send a message from the mirror room. We sent a rider, of course, but she would barely have reached Kingswell even now.”

“And what have you seen of him since?” Ly said.

“Of the boy-god? Why, nothing at all. We sent mages over to ask how long he would be there, for it has been most disruptive, as you may imagine, but the lions were… very threatening. So we have left the island alone. But there is a great deal of movement over on the far side of the lake, with many, many beasts milling about, so I ordered everyone who could find transport to leave. There are just the guards and mages left now. And myself. We have sent word to the fortress asking for support, but no response has been received as yet. It is very unsettling, I must say, but I am most relieved to have you all here. You will be able to fix this, I am sure.”

“Perhaps,” Ly said. “He has made it easier, in one way, by choosing to hide himself away in the scribery.”

“It makes it easy to find him,” I said.

“We would find him wherever he is, as we did before,” Ly said. “That is not the problem. If he had buried himself away in the heart of the Clanlands, we would have had to deal with him ourselves, just you and me.”

“Isn’t that what we’re going to do anyway?” I said.

“
You
are the only person who can deal with Sho-heest himself, by taking his magic. But
I
would have had to deal with the lion guard, and you know how well I managed Sho’s lion last time.”

“I remember it vividly, the parts I was conscious of.” The lion’s gaping maw, with its huge teeth, bearing down on me. Yes, I remembered it all too well. Even now, just the memory dredged fear from my very bones and I trembled.