Fire in the Mist Page 22

  The old man rested one hand on the warrior's shoulder. "I've given up my voice and my vote for you, Song—and for the chance of preventing bloodshed," he whispered. "You will only get one chance to say anything here. Don't waste it."

  She nodded solemnly, and as she took her place at center stage, she looked up into the crowd, slowly turning until she had seen the full round of sajes that towered over her.

  Now, what do I say? she wondered. What can a warrior hope to say that will bring peace?

  She took a deep breath and began. "My name is Medwind Song, of the Huong Hoos, ten years tenured mage in Daane University." She swallowed hard. She'd faced warriors in battle, and would, at that moment, have preferred the black-and-white simplicity of battle to presenting a bad case to a room full of the enemy. "I will tell you now that what you have heard so far is true. The murders happened, the saje-ring was found among the bodies, war against the Sajerie was planned, the Fendles have returned—and one of my students did fly to Saje-Ariss without permission to warn you of our plan of attack, and your danger.

  "What that student did not know, and what you have not therefore heard, was the depth of apparent evidence we have against the sajes. We found the ring, true, but we are as knowledgeable as you about the ease with which a trinket can be tossed among bodies to deceive and mislead. The ring would have cast suspicion, but not conviction. However, each of the bodies was slain in the ancient saje ritual style of mehevar—the same necromantic ritual that is historically noted as the cause of the First Ariss War and the split between Mage- and Saje-Ariss."

  There was a sudden undercurrent of angry whispering that spread through the assembly like flames through dry grass. One man, ignoring the Conclave rules, shouted, "Mehevar was developed by mages! Don't blame that on the Sajerie."

  Medwind, frustrated, snapped, "We have only our histories to go by, and those claim sajes as the sole developers and users of mehevar."

  "And our histories categorically state mehevar was purely the creation and technique of mages!"

  Medwind nodded and looked into the eyes of her "enemies." She licked dry lips. "There are, to put it mildly, discrepancies in the historical records of the Magerie and the Sajerie. Mage lore says the Fendles are good; saje lore, that the Fendles are evil. Saje lore says the mages were torturers; mage lore, that the sajes were torturers. In our books, the Wisewoman was a hero; in yours, she was a devil. Now the past, which was dead and gone, is alive and walking among us once more in the form of the Fendles—and in the ritual of mehevar. There is truth to be found here—truth that must be found, but we will not find it among the tomes of history in the libraries of the Magerie or the Sajerie. 'What is the truth?' is not an academic question for us anymore, to be debated in learned letters and presented in papers. Now, in the balance with truth hang life and death for all of Ariss.

  "We have a little time—I will tell you that there have been no mehevar murders in Mage-Ariss within the past fivedays or so, and while the Magerie waits and watches, it will not strike Saje-Ariss without additional cause. The ringing of the Conclave bell will undoubtedly cause consternation among my colleagues, who already feel threatened—it would be best if we move quickly to find answers, before someone panics. With great trepidation, knowing as I do the danger in this route, I suggest that we use some of the time we have to reach back into the past, into the days when the Fendles first lived and the war began between the mages and the sajes. I suggest that we look at the true past, and see the truth."

  She glanced around the arena with pleading eyes, and prepared to make room for the next speaker.

  "It is all very well, Medwind Song," one saje hissed, "to speak of looking into the past and seeing what really happened, but the histories are the only record. There is no other way."

  She moved back into the center of the arena and crossed her arms over her chest in defiance. "Not so," she argued. "There is a way to visit the living past. It is a Hoos magic, and it is deadly—of the mighty Hoos Timeriders who go out, only half return... and of those who return, more than half come home without their minds. None who venture into the Timeriver walk out unchanged."

  Another saje in the arena laughed, "Myths of barbarian magic! Ha! If there were a way to view the past, we of the University would have found it. Not a rowdy mob of horse-bound goat-herding tent-dwellers!"

  Another saje responded to the insulter—"What you know about barbarian magic would sit on the point of a dagger and still leave ample room for what you know about everything else, Fondar. Be quiet and let the woman speak."

  Titters echoed through the Basin.

  Medwind swallowed hard and looked around her at the sajes. These were not some faceless enemy; they were people. That they didn't like her, or didn't trust her did not matter—but she had to make them believe her. The murderer of the mage-students might still be one of them; that was not impossible—any more than it was impossible that the murderer might be one of the mages. But Medwind's mind would admit no possibility that all of the sajes had conspired against Mage-Ariss. There were too many reasonable men among them.

  She knew suddenly how Faia had felt, thinking of half the city unfairly condemned to death. If I die, I'll die having done the right thing, she thought.

  "It is possible to see the past, unfolding before the Timerider's eyes as fresh as if it were happening that instant—and I know how to find the Timeriver," she admitted, "but I have never ridden it. Worse, the facts we need lie more than four hundred years behind us, and to follow the Timeriver so far upstream, while it branches and rebranches and meanders among the endless empty spaces of what-might-have-been must mean near-certain death. I cannot promise that I will find my way back. But if the Sajerie will anchor and tether me, I will go."

  "Why not, if you can see the past, just look to see who killed your students?" one saje asked.

  "The question is reasonable, and if there were no Fendles swimming in the lake at Daane, it is what I would suggest. Gods know, the trip would be safer. But the Fendles are here, and they are creatures of history—beasts whose significance has been lost or distorted through the years until no one knows any more what their presence means. They participated in the Mage-Saje War—and they are here at the beginning of what is about to become a second Mage-Saje War. Why? What do they mean? This is the price of history and lies, that we bury our pasts to hide the dirtiness of our foundations from ourselves, then forget whether our houses have been built on rock or sand. Now we must pay the price to find the answer."

  From the upper reaches of the circle, one of the Sajerie's Hoos members called out, "I have driven the drum for the Timeriders of the Stone Teeth Hoos—to my knowledge, no one has ever gone back more than twice a lifespan and returned. But I will drive the drum for Song."

  Burchardsonne, Medwind's "Flamboyus," took the floor from Medwind. "I feel it would be in our interests to know the truth, and quickly. As Speaker of the Conclave, I declare the floor closed to further statements. We will explore this Hoos Timeriver, and, once we have found what we can from that avenue, we will open the floor to debate."

  Medwind, Nokar Feldosonne, and the Stone Teeth Hoos drummer met in the center with Burchardsonne.

  "Show us what we must do to travel the Timeriver," the Conclave speaker said.

  Into silence so deep it had weight, Medwind began to outline the forms of the magic of Timeriding.

  Sahedre closed her eyes for an instant and scanned the lifeglows that emanated from the university grounds. Then, abruptly, she gathered her Fendles around her and ran flat out to the wingmount stables. Woman and beasts crept through the opened barn doors and paused inside, still and listening.

  Faia, watching through Sahedre's eyes, was lost for a moment in the sudden darkness of the massive, cobblestone stable. When she could see, she made out long, dim rows of stone stalls leading off to her left and right. The homey scent of dried hay and sweet-feed mingled with the stronger smells of horse and manure. Flies droned; nesting swallows fl
itted in and out feeding their nestlings; and two fat old cats dozed in the rafters above Faia's head—otherwise the stables seemed empty. The wingmounts were out to pasture. The sounds of the city were present, but muffled, distant, and strangely unimportant. The atmosphere of the place was of peace and drowsy contentment.

  :She is here!: Sahedre's exultant burst of thoughtspeech startled Faia out of her mental repose.

  :She, who?: Faia wondered.

  Sahedre picked up the errant query.

  :Your Mottemage,: she answered. :Your idiot Mottemage is deep in a trance, playing with her quaint little winged horses. She knows nothing, nothing, of the ringing of the Conclave bell, nothing of my presence—! Oh, this is too rich!:

  Sahedre trotted noiselessly down the right passage and looked over a gate near the end.

  The Mottemage was, as Sahedre reported, deep in trance. The filly on which she worked curled at her feet, its gauzy new wings growing and unfurling like the petals of an exotic flower.

  Sahedre laughed and pushed open the gate and strode into the stall. Faia felt power surging around her as the Wisewoman drew in energy for an attack. At her feet, the Fendles bared their teeth and shivered with excitement, ready to leap.

  :Mottemage!: Faia mindscreamed. Mottemage! Watch out!:

  :She will never hear you,: the Wisewoman remarked, and chuckled. :Not in time, in any case.:

  The Timerope was built with the name of the mythical Wisewoman and the ghost-image of a body of a Fendle; with the gathered anger that always, always the innocent died and the guilty lived; with the chanted words of the woman who had seen too many wars; with the barely breathed prayers of men who hoped for peace. It shimmered, cold glowing yellow, ethereal, encasing the barbarian Song at one end, coiling deep into the heart of the earth at the other. It was almost a sentient thing, that knew the name of its destination and the reason for its journey. With Medwind or without her, it would try the passage to the past, and fight its way back home. Beside the Timerope flowed the deep and murky currents of past, present, and future; the infinite river of mind.

  The Timeriver was summoned into Medwind's sight as the drum pulsed, as the voices chanted in hushed monotony, as the past was coaxed into solid form by reverence and longing and need. It shimmered into being in the dark, hot, cavernous Basin. The River was not water, was not cold. It was warm and wet, thick as blood, dark as nightmares—it streamed past Medwind as she stepped into it and swirled around her in time to the pounding of her pulse, which was the beating of the drum, which was heavy and strong in her ears.

  She slipped completely into the stream, still able to feel the hands of her human anchors touching her, surrounded by the glowing light of the Timerope that webbed around her like a net. As the hands of the anchors fell away, she headed upstream, against the current.

  She looked back almost at once, to see the glowing tree-trunk-wide streamer of her lifeline behind her, leading back to her anchors, back to safety. And already she could see the bifurcations in the downstream flow that were the principal danger of her trip home. Frightened, she promised herself she would not look back again.

  The pulsebeat, heartthrob, drumsurge drove her—she swam against the tar-black, sticky-thick current that protested her nonconformist passage.

  Images flashed by, fast—so fast—yet with total and unforgiving clarity, and voices cried out in nonsense sounds and were silenced with such speed that only the impression of emotion remained to haunt the spying voyager. Laughter clanged with brittle notes, crying left a residue of lingering pain, fear shivered through the torpid fluids of time in malingering currents—the dead arose with shocked expressions on their faces and squalling infants leapt back into their mothers' wombs; grievous wounds undid themselves, curses unraveled and blessings reversed. She spotted, flashing past, the Fendles, undoing the flaying of one student after another in the deep woods where the bodies had been found. Her mind registered dull shock at this turn.

  The drum beat faster, and Medwind Song began to understand the agonized madness of returning Timeriders. The voices, howling gibberish, never grew fainter—only faster. And the backward-leaping images never grew indistinct. Her mind would not disengage from the dramas and traumas enacted in reverse in front of her eyes. She was forced to see and understand the actions that raged around her: the removal of a knife here would spare the life of a child, the giving of a gift there would stop a war. Yet, knowing everything, when her hands reached out to touch and repair, they touched nothing and passed through, and her heart contracted in anguish.

  Behind her, she knew without looking that the Timeriver was a maze, growing more convoluted with every pulse of the throbbing cadence, and that the Timerope that linked her to home and sanity grew thinner and stretched tighter with every drumbeat....

  —that quickened—

  —and quickened—

  —that drove her pulse and her body faster and faster through the sweet-sticky, deadly congealing waters of time—

  —through every personal agony that stemmed from the splitting of Ariss—

  —back to the point where the one special pain she sought began.

  With an agonizing wrench, Time reversed, and for Medwind the Timeriver seemed to disappear. She stood in the center of a classroom—a university classroom—one that looked exactly like—

  She started, and shook her head. She had never felt before the ancientness of her surroundings in Daane. This is the Basic Sciences lecture hall in Daane—centuries ago! she realized. She was surrounded by students, all oddly dressed, with quaint hairstyles—and again she felt the schism between her present and the past. Male and female students sat side by side on the hard stone benches, old-style pens and lecture pads spread out on the trestle tables in front of them. At the front of the class, a darkly handsome woman in her early forties sat on the top of her desk, lecturing passionately.

  "The individual human life," she was saying, "is insignificant in the face of history. The actions of only a talented few people will actually matter in the larger view of time. The rest will live and die unnoted by the people of the present or the future, unremarked—wasted.

  "You are not destined to take a place among the ordinary masses. You are special, with talents and visions that set you apart from and make you better than them. It is your destiny to change the world, to harness the stars to do your bidding, to command the very firmament—and it is your destiny as well to be surrounded by human cattle, who will add nothing to life... and take much from it.

  "But all of you, as senior magicians, can make use even of the most useless of humans. Through mehevar, you can turn wasted lifeforce into greater power for yourselves, and make real for the whole the wonderful visions you are able to imagine for the future. From admitted unpleasantness, you will bring forth great good."

  "From mehevar?! There is nothing good about mehevar! You would justify anything, you bitch!" Medwind screamed.

  "Lady Sahedre," one student asked, unaware of Medwind's outburst, "what is mehevar?"

  The instructor nodded. "Very good, Perchon. Mehevar is the science of drawing strength from death."

  "It's necromancy, you dung-heap, you filth!" Medwind interrupted again.

  The Lady Sahedre lectured right through Medwind's furious response. "These are the essential points of mehevar:

  "First—the more vital the lifeforce, the more strength one will obtain from it. Therefore, a mage would give you more power than a mundane, and a child more even than a mage. Infants and young children before puberty are your best choices.

  "Second—the more potential lives connected to the mehevar subject, the more power you will obtain. Fertile subjects will be more useful than those who, for whatever reason, are infertile.

  "Third—the less this life-potential has been drained away by actual births, the more you will benefit. Therefore, the virgin is a preferable subject to the mother or father—"

  "How dare you tell them to murder children?! How dare you call the unfu
lfilled promise of a child 'wasted lifeforce'?! How dare you—"

  The Timerope contracted with a convulsive shiver, and Medwind swirled for only an instant through the murky waters of Time. She briefly glimpsed the terrifying onrush of maze walls, black and forbidding, before she was ripped out of the Timestream again and thrown into a wooded glade.

  She found herself standing to one side of twelve dark-robed strangers who stood with knives poised above a young child. Voices rose and fell in a deep, lilting chant. The beautiful child watched with drugged, frightened eyes and struggled faintly against the coarse hemp that bound her to the rock. She pleaded for the magicians to let her go. Medwind realized what was about to happen, and lunged at the nearest of the knifewielders, screaming, "No! Stop it, stop it!"

  She passed through the scene of the impending sacrifice. Nothing in the tableau changed. She couldn't alter anything. Helpless, she shuddered and pressed her eyes closed, unable to watch.

  The child cried out for her mother, and there was a lingering, high-pitched scream that wavered and cut off abruptly as the Timerope contracted again and threw Medwind into a scene further along in time.

  She was in a darkened room. The windowless walls were paneled in black wood, and the darkness was broken only by a few feeble candles that flickered hopelessly in wall scones. In the room stood the same dark-haired instructor, the Lady Sahedre Onosdotte, and six male and six female magicians, all young, all still clad in black robes. Medwind recognized the twelve students from the classroom and again from the scene of the sacrifice.

  "Your sacrifice was my child, you bastards! My child, who I hid and kept safe from all of this; my child, who knew nothing of magic. I protected her. I watched over her. I wanted none of this for her."

  A frail, parchment-skinned young man protested, "It was your own requirement, Lady Sahedre, that no mage or saje breed or bear children. You said that parenting dulled the magical faculties, and tore loyalties into too many directions—that one who had a child would be too weak and prone to mercy.... How could we have known you had not followed your own rules?"