Authors: Michael A Stackpole
She’d sat with Keles while he slept, softly reading to him from the tales of Amenis Dukao.
He’d always enjoyed the stories when he was a child—all three of them had—and he’d
slept easier as she read. Her attending him let her mother get sleep, and that, too, was a
blessing. But Nirati would have given an arm to be able to do more.
A blush rose to her face as she came into the area around Xingnakun and saw a young
boy with a withered left arm.
At least I have an arm to give.
Someone she took as his father crouched beside him at the edge of the first stone circle
surrounding the dome. The man tousled the boy’s hair. “Dunos, you know I can’t go in with
you, but you’ll find me waiting here for you. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not really, Father.” The tremble in the boy’s voice undercut his reply.
Nirati walked toward them and bowed. “Peace of the Festival to you both. Might I ask a
favor?”
The man rose, then bowed, and his son joined him. “Peace with you as well, my lady.
What would you have of us?”
She smiled at the father, then pointed at the vast and empty courtyard around the dome.
“It is distant yet to Xingnakun, and I worry about being able to make it without an escort.
Might I be so bold as to ask your son to accompany me?”
The man nodded, then wiped a smudge of black on his son’s cheek, keeping an eye line
crisp. “Dunos would be pleased to accompany you.”
The boy nodded and Nirati took his hand in hers. “Thank you. I shall have him lead me
back here. I am Nirati.”
“This is Dunos and I am Alait. I will find you here. Thank you.”
“Bye, Father.”
Nirati and the boy crossed the courtyard. A granite circle broke the line of the cobbles
every hundred yards. Black at the outside, then grey and white, the circles warned people
to stay away. Whereas the other streets and courts in the capital teemed with people,
Xingnakun’s courtyard remained empty save for the broken wandering toward it. In the
midst of a Festival full of joy and hope, the hopeless and desperate trickled in slowly.
Dunos looked up at her. “Why are you going to be healed, my lady? You look okay.”
“Not all of us have visible injuries.”
“Are you talking woman stuff? That’s what my mother calls it before she tells me to go
help my father.”
Nirati smiled. “Perhaps. I just hope I bear my trouble as well as you do.”
Dunos nodded, then let his withered arm swing forward. “Once I get this healed up, I’m
going to be a swordsman.”
“That’s a fine ambition.”
A little tremor ran through his hand. “Have you seen Kaerinus before?”
She shook her head. “You can only do this once, Dunos.” She’d heard from many that the
omen of the years combined with a spike in the cyclical magic activity promised much
from this ritual. It was thought that if a dead body could walk into Xingnakun this year,
Kaerinus might even cure it.
“Why do you ask, Dunos?”
The boy shrugged. “Well, it’s not that I’m afraid, you know, but I have heard stories. He
was with Prince Nelesquin in Ixyll. He’s the last of the
vanyesh
. He lived through the
Cataclysm. He’s really old and he’s a monster.”
“I’ve heard all those things, too.” She gently pulled him in front of her as they started up
one of the narrow ramps leading to an entryway. The entrances were all circles, unbroken,
with a low lip so one had to step over them. Though she had never seen it herself, she
had heard stories of magical energy guttering out of these holes during the ceremony.
He stepped in first, then held her hand as she crossed. “I think, Dunos, that he might be a
monster, but if he is willing to heal peo-ple, he is not entirely bad.”
The boy nodded, then looked back again. “For the healing, you’re not going to have to get
naked or nothing, are you?”
She smiled. “No.”
“Okay. I’ll have to take my robe off, so he can see my arm.”
“Okay.”
They strode through the tunnel and paused at the top of the steep stairs. Back in Imperial
times the area closer to the earthen circle would have been reserved for the nobility.
Dunos tugged her toward the left, preparatory to climbing up to the higher reaches where
the poorer people gravitated, but she shook her head.
“We’ll go down and get closer.”
“But my father said—”
“You’re my escort, remember?” She winked at him. “We’ll get closer so we get a good
healing.”
Nirati started down, intent on taking a place right at the circle’s edge, but she stiffened.
Majiata had preceded her and stood there, head high, black hair shining. Her robe, while
poorly woven and cut, had still been made of silk. Not wishing to speak with her, but
interested in watching her, Nirati chose a place several rows back and directly behind.
More people filed in and Dunos looked around, his eyes wide. He freed his hand from hers
and waved to a man. Nirati turned and looked at him, wondering why he had come since
he looked no more injured than she was. He moved easily down and toward them from
the row in front.
Dunos smiled hugely. “Why are you here, Master?”
“We all bear our wounds, Dunos.”
The boy nodded. “This is Nirati. She’s here for woman stuff.”
The man smiled. “I am Moraven. Peace of the Festival to you.”
“And you.” Nirati smiled, but kept her voice low. At the mention of her name Majiata’s head
had half turned.
Just ignore me, Majiata, or I’ll go down there and give you some bruises
that will really need healing.
From somewhere deep in the building’s bowels, drums began to pound. Nirati actually felt
the vibration before she heard it, but as the crowd quieted, the echoes filled the dome. As
each sound rippled through the throng, waves of fear rose in its wake. In a few places,
people started to run toward the exits. Their fear became contagious and still others fled.
Nirati expected Majiata to run, but she didn’t. She did glance back again and Nirati
realized her game.
As long as I am here, she won’t run.
That reason alone would not have stopped Nirati, but if she’d left, the boy would have gone, too.
And he needs this more
than I.
Yet her resolve to remain faced stiff opposition, for remaining there—inviting the attention
of a magician—had, since the Cataclysm and even before, been considered foolhardy.
Kaerinus was the last of the
vanyesh
and, having existed for so long, clearly had reached a mastery of magic that allowed him to work miracles. It was said the gods remained in
the Heavens for fear he would find them and send them back.
The sort of power he could wield had destroyed the world. It had triggered the Time of
Black Ice, killing millions—flattening mountains, erasing cities and towns, and threatening
humanity with extinction. Stories of wandering
xingnaridin
frightened children into good behavior, and rumors of them banded men into mobs. The dome had been created to
contain Kaerinus’ power against the fear that he could initiate another Cataclysm.
A light grey mist began to pour from a circular entrance across the arena. Little tendrils of
intense blue color played through it—part flame, part lightning—that cracked when they
winked out. Nirati’s flesh tingled. The fog deepened, filling the opening, then a blue light
built inside it. Fire flickered faster, and little spiderwebs of lightning flashed.
All around her people exposed their injuries. Dunos clumsily tore at the buttons on his
robe. She bent to help him slip it off and noticed the blue lightning playing up and down
beneath his flesh, outlining veins and arteries. In front of them, Moraven took off his robe,
revealing a hideous scar on the left side of his chest. Nirati and Dunos both stared at it for
a moment and she wondered how someone strong enough to survive that could ever
imagine himself needing healing.
Beyond him, Majiata let her robe slip down to beneath her shoulder blades. She clutched
it modestly closed at her breasts and Nirati shook her head.
That makes a circle, silly
girl.
Had it been anyone else, Nirati would have said something, but looking at the red worm of a scar on Majiata’s shoulder blade disgusted Nirati. Majiata’s stupidity had earned
her that scar, and her stupidity would see to it that it remained.
A gasp rose as Kaerinus emerged from the tunnel. He wore a purple cloak with a high
collar that hid the lower half of his head. A hood covered it and shadowed his face, but
could not hide the blue fire burning in his eyes. No decoration adorned his cloak, though
azure lightning cascaded down from his shoulders.
Two things became immediately apparent to Nirati and knotted her stomach. The first was
that Kaerinus’ head had not been bowed when he left the tunnel, nor had his shoulders
been stooped, but now he stood at least ten feet tall. His shoulders, she felt certain, would
have brushed either edge of the tunnel. Even as she made that judgment about his size,
he grew larger—until he could have dwarfed a Viruk warrior with ease.
The second thing she found even more frightening. He moved forward at something
slower than a gentle walking pace, but gave no sign of moving. She could not see foot or
knee press against the cloak. Instead, he drifted forward on the grey fog. He could have
been the figurehead on a ship sailing serenely down the Gold River.
Then, suddenly, in the center of the earthen circle, he stopped. The cloud around him did
not continue to roll forward; it stopped, too. He remained unmoving for a heartbeat, then
slowly spun. Some people shrank from his gaze—a few broke, others fainted. Dunos
slipped his hand into hers and squeezed and even Moraven shifted his shoulders
uneasily. As her gaze met the mage’s, she felt a hint of recognition, but only a cursory
one.
As if he is a trader inspecting livestock, nothing more.
The drums faded and the lightning no longer pulsed through the fog or his cloak. The light
in his eyes shifted from blue to purple. The fiery tongues twisting through the fog likewise
changed, matching his eyes. From somewhere within his hood—or in
him—
words rose.
Nirati didn’t think she was even hearing him speak, and the idea of words seemed wrong
as well.
Is this what my brothers share with our grandfather?
Images boiled through her mind quickly. She caught sight of a boy’s hand reaching for a
glowing crystal. She felt the weight of a lash against her back. The searing-hot pain of a
sword slicing flesh drew a line over her ribs. Those things she guessed came from Dunos,
Majiata, and Moraven; so she assumed the other things came from the rest of the crowd.
Beneath them all, however, came a chorus of screams—Men, animals—all in pain,
horrible pain.
Nirati found herself screaming as well. Everyone did, filling the dome with a horrible sound
that doubled back on itself, increasing and pulsing, drilling through her more powerfully
than the drums. They had shaken her physically, but this reached inside and touched her
pain, her fear. Before, she had been unlike anyone, for she had no talent, but here she
now was like everyone—she was broken and was afraid she could not be fixed.
The fog around Kaerinus thickened into tentacles that lashed out full of sizzling electricity.
One thick rope hit a crippled crone, lifting her off her feet. Purple lightning wreathed her
limbs, shocking them straight. Her head flew back, her dowager’s hump vanished as her
spine untwisted. She shrieked and the fog left her a crumpled heap, vapor rising.
Again and again the tentacles flicked out, swirling to the left. A lower disk of fog spread out to fill the arena. Kaerinus rose with it and the tentacles spun faster, stirring the fog so it
would slop over the arena’s edges. One wave crashed into Majiata and her scar burned
so intensely Nirati could not look at it. Majiata screamed and dropped her robe, her back
bowing, then her whole torso snapped forward. For a moment it looked as if she would
pitch headlong into the opaque vapor roiling below, but she clutched at the edge and
sagged down, half-naked. Purple fire filled vacant eyes as she sprawled sloppily—looking
as if she were drunk and had been ravished by a Turasynd horde.
Nirati had but a heartbeat to relish Majiata’s dishevelment before a larger wave surged up
and engulfed her. In an instant it felt as if she were naked in a stinging steel rain. She
looked down, expecting to see her flesh freckled with blood, but her eyes no longer
registered reality. She saw herself as a child again, viewing herself from both a distance
and within her skin. She was walking hand in hand with her grandfather through the
gardens of Anturasikun. The sun shone on them both, and the sting melted into warmth.
She half remembered the incident, but it crawled from her memory with the reluctance of a
Soth ripping free of its cocoon. Qiro let her hand drop and turned to face Ulan. Only her
uncle was much younger than now; her grandfather was still his powerful, white-maned
self. Ulan unscrolled a chart for Qiro to inspect. Before she had enough time to even begin
to recognize shapes, Qiro savagely berated Ulan.
Nirati did not hear the words, but rather saw them as arrows flying straight into her uncle.
They ripped into his chest and blood gushed. One transfixed his skull and another sank in