The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) Page 6

  Then the boys were upon them, milling around with bright eyes and chattering in hushed, excited tones. When they drew near the big building, they eagerly grabbed at the reins as everyone dismounted, casting quick, mischievous looks at the riders as if daring them to refuse.

  The building was partially buried in the rocky land of the Wilds, but it had an enormous, open verandah that embraced the yawning, velvety green chasm in front of it. Rodge chose a chair—clever things built of wood and hide and sinew—far back from the edge. His face was still a little pale. No sooner had they settled in than another swarm of grinning, silent, courteous acolytes swirled through their midst, offering mugs of cold, frothy liquid. Ari, staring at it in puzzlement, realized it was milk.

  “How…exquisite,” Cerise murmured diplomatically, blinking down into her cup. In the Empire, liquid from udders was normally reserved for infants.

  For the most part, there was just a collective sigh. It was enormously contenting, this environment, the stupendous view, being out of the saddle, the old man chuckling indulgently at his happy acolytes…it had the feeling of a journey’s end, a quest over, a reward earned and received.

  “I am Galeb,” the Shepherd began once the youngsters had slipped out of sight, and after they had all introduced themselves, continued, “And now, tell me, what brings Northerners so far into the wilderness?”

  “We come in search of information…lore…lost to us through the centuries despite our chronicles. Lore we hope that you have retained.” Melkin’s rough voice was patient, as if he hoped to start a long conversation.

  “We are secluded in these high places,” the Shepherd warned when the Master paused. “Much of what concerns the Realms does not reach us here.”

  “It is the Empress we wish to discuss,” Melkin said carefully. The word seemed to hang in the jewel-bright air, the memory of a child’s story the world had long outgrown.

  “We think,” Banion muttered as he stroked milk off of his bushy face.

  Galeb’s thick white eyebrows rose. “You come all this way to ask of her? She whose great life was devoted to the Realms? Is there no knowledge of her left below the Kendrick?” It was gently said, but Cerise jumped in quickly, “The Histories deal with facts, sir, not stories and legends.”

  He gave a deep chuckle (thankfully unoffended—the boys wanted to throttle her). Raising his hands expansively, he said good-naturedly, “Very well, my friends. Leaving the FACTS behind, what part of her long life are you interested in…her beginning, her miracles, the wars…?”

  “The end,” Melkin said. Ari’s eyebrows inched up. For not knowing anything about her, he seemed pretty sure of himself.

  “Well,” the Shepherd grunted, “Like all great Good, her whole life was devoted to the fight against Evil—to include the very person of the fire-god himself. They were bitter enemies…”

  “Yes,” Melkin said softly, leaning forward. When the Shepherd made no sign of continuing, he pressed, “Could there be an association between her story and the possibility of war coming again? There are signs, worrisome, old omens that are now only half understood, that our peace may have an end. That the Sheelmen stir in the south and with them the malice that would threaten the Realms.”

  “There will always be war,” Galeb answered, unconcerned. “The Realms will fight themselves eventually if the Tarq do not provide.” The idea didn’t seem to disturb him much.

  Ari frowned slightly. Before Banion’s story the other night, he’d never heard Sheelmen referred to as anything but ‘the Enemy.’ Yet now, here at the far end of the world, amongst these rustic, secluded people, not only was their presence known, but so was this other name.

  “There are Ram patrolling almost to the Kendrick,” Melkin said gently, eyes like a hawk on the seamed face across from him.

  “Are there?” Galeb seemed genuinely surprised. He shook his heavy grey head. “I will tell you, there are ever wars and rumors of wars. It concerns us little here, for we are always prepared.”

  The sun had already passed behind the high crests of the surrounding mountains, and the verandah was cooling in more ways than one. A great eagle floated with inimitable grace out over the deep crevasse in front of them, hunting—probably considerably less frustrated than the predator after knowledge on the verandah.

  It was a good time for dinner; the acolytes appeared again, this time almost overburdened with heavy plates of delicately grilled lamb, a surprising array of vegetables, and best of all, such thick, rich, redolent slices of fresh bread that Ari almost dripped saliva all over himself. The acolytes giggled, the Northerners inhaled and gave small exclamations of delight and for several minutes there was nothing but the sound of a simple meal being deeply savored. The atmosphere was much more convivial once they all sat back, indolently choosing grapes from the desert platter and picking lamb unobtrusively out of their teeth. Banion rumbled out casually:

  “The Five Hundred Years of Peace are known here in Addah, are they not?”

  And Galeb, who with great and oblivious courtesy had yet to give Melkin a single bit of information, said readily, “But of course! They began not a hundred leagues from here!”

  Melkin’s chin, which had been resting pensively on his chest, came up. Everyone looked at the Shepherd. Curiosity became almost palpably intense, sparking like a current of electricity through the group.

  “You mean…the last battle?” Melkin said, as if he couldn’t believe his luck.

  “We refer to a different event with that title,” Galeb said with a quiet smile, “but the Battle of Montmorency, yes.”

  “Clarmorency Fields!” Loren whispered reverently. He and Ari exchanged deeply satisfied looks—history was the only class they’d paid any real attention in, especially when it came to the legendary battles, the Great Heroes and the Lesser Heroes. Loren had even studied.

  “The Fields of Clarmorency once lay in what is now the northeast Empire,” Cerise began, in the voice of one setting things straight.

  Banion smoothly drowned her out. “Perhaps we should hear the Addahite version, seeing as we’ve come so far for it…” She narrowed her eyes tightly at him.

  Galeb chuckled. “Aye, and it might be a bit different, at that,” he conceded. “But I will give you the Truth and you do with it what ye will.” The acolytes swirled though one more time just as he opened his mouth, distributing heavy skins thick with silky fur. The temperature had already dropped rather dramatically, summer evening notwithstanding.

  Galeb settled the beautifully tanned pelt over his knees and began, “The Battle of Montmorency was the culmination of all the dark, endless centuries of the Ages of War. Since Raemon had turned his face to evil, the thousands of years that had passed had been spent trying to stem the tide of Tarq, swarming from their desert hole like ants over a carcass. With the power of Raemon behind them, they were a formidable, insatiable, tireless foe, literally unstoppable. They gained on us, by the will of Il, through all the long, bloody centuries. It was the last stand, there at Clarmorency, north of the Kendrick by several leagues and just west of Ramshead. All the Realms had warriors there, for in those days we all gave our lives equally to defend any border, and this battle had been in the gathering almost twenty years. The Tarq had poured in from the Kendrick’s mouth, but it was their discovery of a way around Ramshead that allowed them to sweep down from the north in such droves that they vastly outnumbered the gathered Realms. All that could be mustered were there, and word has come down of the great despair of that day. The high ground had been thought to be the last refuge, and to see it taken, aswarm with the foe, to see Raemon walking down, long-strided and vicious and proud in front of his unbeatable army…well, it was a dark hour.”

  His voice had gone quiet, respectful, like he was discussing a family member that had passed on. Ari caught Loren’s eye, just a gleam now in the fast-fading light. They’d grown up on stories of Montmorency, played at Enemy and Hero since they were old enough to whack each other with sticks
…but neither had ever heard this version. When gods walked among men…

  “But Il’s ways are not ours, and often He brings us to darkness before we can see light. And so it was that day. When Raemon strode, uncontested, to the middle of the Battlefield, he gave a great laugh and cried out in his overloud voice:

  “Now, Realms, kneel to me and I will spare you utter destruction. Or, if you wish, keep fighting—” flippancy and casual cruelty were ever his way “—and I will repopulate your lands with real men. In fact, that will save me the trouble of chasing down your pitiful survivors!”

  “And in all that great, silent, grim theatre there was no answer for him…save one. Clear and pure as the great clarion bell at Merrane it was, and it belonged to the Empress. She cried, “Hold, Raemon! These Realms do not yet belong to you!” And she strode forth until they two stood alone amongst all that immense host, but yards apart.”

  Galeb was as much a master of storytelling as Banion. On the entire verandah, not a sound was heard, his audience spellbound.

  “And Raemon smiled a slow smile when he saw her, for she was beautiful beyond the knowledge of men, and long had he desired her. “I will consider a bargain,” he proposed to her, and his voice was dark with foul meaning.”

  “You wish a union with me?” she roared and all could hear them, for Raemon used his unwholesome power and the Empress spoke with the power of Il and with His Justice. “Yield this Battlefield,” she cried, “and take your foul hordes back to the Sheel or you will know such burning bonds as are not even imagined in your furnaces!”

  But Raemon just laughed and leered, and then he began to grow taller, swelling himself until he towered dozens of feet in the air, the Ruby Triele on his chest almost incandescent with power. Then, still laughing his unholy laugh, he reached out one hand toward the Empress and bent his will to draw her to him, finally, by pure force.”

  “A great beam of his foul red light hit her, engulfing her body, and she cried out, bending away from him. Mightily she resisted, bending further and further back until one hand touched the ground even while the other was raised as if to ward him off. And then, his laugh faded. Raemon frowned and threw his hand more insistently at his prize. Still she held her pose, though her face was twisted as in agony. Before another moment had passed, a look of fear came to Raemon’s blue-black eyes. The gathered armies then saw clearly that the stream of power had changed, turned a white gold that pushed back against the flow of flaming red, that somehow she was now drawing him to her. And then the armies saw something else…that a change was coming over the Empress. She was solidifying, her essence stilling.”

  “Suddenly, Raemon gave a great, “NO!” and with a deafening clap of sound, he was gone. The light was gone. There was no sound. And where the Empress had been stood a stone statue in her exact likeness, arched backwards as in her last defiance. Like the sound of the ocean came a roar from the Tarq, and with great confusion and distress, they turned as one body and fled.”

  When Galeb finished, there was utter silence. For one thing, the information just presented required some adapting of thought processes. Some of them didn’t even know where to start, and her voice was the first heard.

  “So,” Cerise said with a smooth and awed sarcasm, “you’re saying the Empress turned to stone, killed a god, and saved the world from certain destruction…?”

  “Oh, no,” the Shepherd corrected mildly. “Raemon is not dead…only imprisoned in the statue that had once been the Empress.”

  While the rest of them were chewing over these juicy improbabilities, Ari saw the outline of Melkin and Banion, silhouetted against the tremendous mountain background, turn their heads and look at each other.

  “Is that where the promise of peace arises?” Melkin asked. “Of all that story, that is the only part that survives—and that only in bits—in the Northern Histories.”

  “The Merranic, too,” Banion said, surprised or maybe embarrassed. They were dancing gingerly around full acceptance of this tale, hungry for any usable information without wanting any commitment to the more outlandish parts.

  “Yes,” Galeb confirmed. “That came several days later, brought by the Followers as the Armies of the Realms rested and recovered from their decades, centuries actually, of war. The Followers rode up to the Tents of the King one morning, when the mist lay like a soft blanket over the exhausted land. They were battered and bruised, it is said, for in those days they fought alongside the Realms and were much honored.” His voice had dropped back into the deep, resonant sing-song of the story.

  “King Kamron came out to greet them, and bent a knee to the Chieftess. ‘We owe you our unending gratitude,’ he said simply.”

  “Rise, High King, for you are delivered by none that yet walks the earth,’ she answered. The Statue of the Empress sat nearby, and all present turned to gaze upon it.”

  “She gave her life for us,’ the King began.”

  “She gave her life to Il. Now, High King, hearken unto me. Five hundred years the Statue shall bind Raemon, and in that time there shall be peace. As has not been since the days of Raemon’s Taking Out, so shall it be again. Yet, if the Statue were to fall into the hands of the Tarq, all will be surely lost. You must guard it more surely than you do your own borders.”

  “King Kamron sank again to a knee, promising, “I accept this sacred trust, and will hold true faith to this great sacrifice, I and all my generations.”

  Silence fell again. The acolytes, unbeknownst to any of them (except perhaps Kai, who stood alertly at the edge of the verandah), had started a fire in the verandah’s pit. Its evocative crackle was the perfect backdrop for the tingling tale-telling. Loren, who loved all this deep chivalry stuff, heaved a great, contented sigh.

  No one said anything—whether brooding over what they’d heard or mute with disbelief that they were expected to believe all this, Ari couldn’t tell. Galeb, perhaps the professional storyteller in him feeling this wasn’t a satisfactory ending, finished, “And from that came the Five Hundred Years of Peace. For innumerable generations, the Statue sat in the courtyard at the very center of the Palace Grounds in Archemounte, but as the centuries passed, and the reality of everything that Peace means began to dominate the thoughts of the Realms…it was gradually forgotten.” He chuckled. “We humans are an ungrateful lot, with short memories unless it serves our purpose to be otherwise.”

  “And where,” Melkin said in an odd, low voice, “is the Statue now?”

  Galeb shook his head regretfully. “You ask things of the world, now, my friend. The Empress has been lost to history…in more ways than one, apparently. I don’t know where the Statue has disappeared to, nor who took it.”

  “Disappeared?! Took it?!” Several voices said at the same time. Galeb, gazing on the fire-lit faces around him, looked a trifle helpless at their repeated demonstrations of ignorance. “It is long gone from Archemounte,” he clarified, shrugging.

  “Then the Enemy could have it,” Melkin snapped. “Perhaps that is why we are seeing these omens of enemy activity!” Cerise gave him a look of profound and cynical scorn.

  “Not necessarily,” the Shepherd demurred, pausing to search the Master’s face quizzically. “Do you not know?” he asked slowly. He looked around the group, at the blank faces, at the obvious ‘know what?’ in everybody’s eyes.

  “The Five Hundred Years are up.”

  “The Followers…” Banion groaned from his mattress of pine boughs, where he lay like a beached whale covered in hairy barnacles. He’d even run a comb through the haystack on his head. They were all, with the exception of an un-missed Cerise, in various stages of cleanliness in one of the spacious rooms further back in the Shepherd’s hall. A fire blazed cozily on the big hearth, and they were taking turns with the fresh water.

  “Who are the Followers?” Rodge asked cynically, just heaving his skinny self out of the basin.

  “The Whiteblades,” Banion said unhappily. “The Swords of Light.”

 
; Rodge stared at him. “So, gods fighting humans, streams of supernatural power, humans being turned into stone, gods captured in stone that used to be human—none of this bothers you, but mention the Swords of Light and you feel like we’re pushing the edges of probability.”

  “The Whiteblades are real,” Banion lowed. He reminded Ari of a sick, hairy, downed cow.

  Rodge looked up from his toweling in shock. “None of that nonsense tonight was real! They’re fairytales, Banion! He was telling us stories.”

  “Oh, they exist all right,” Banion contradicted him glumly. “There’ve always been plenty of girls down through the centuries deluded enough to take on the roles.”

  All three boys looked at him blankly. Melkin said dryly—and carefully, as he was trimming his iron-shot beard, “Merrani has been particularly plagued by the Whiteblades’ missionary zeal.”

  “The Swords of Light have been Pains in Butt for centuries—and now we have to go and hunt one up!” Banion was almost howling. He was an astonishing sight from a Northerner point of view; they tended to be more circumspect with their body size—and hair growth.

  Personally, Ari had felt that took first place among all the implausible statements made that night. After Galeb had admitted that accurate calendar-keeping was not an Addahite strength, and that the actual anniversary of Montmorency was sometime close but in reality unknown, Melkin had pressed him hard for any details about the Statue. Where it might be. If the Enemy knew of the importance of it. What would happen if they got a hold of it. What exactly was due to happen when the five hundred years ended.

  And Galeb’s advice?

  To ask the Swords of Light. After all, he explained, the happenings of the world were their province. They’d all looked at him in open-mouthed incredulity. When they’d parted with Cerise shortly afterward, there’d been a steady stream of contemptuous disbelief flowing from her thin lips.