His conquering sword

CHAPTER THIRTY

Aleksi knew how to get places without being seen. Charles Soerensen knew how to be seen. Once they had ridden far enough in toward the battle, once the prince had been recognized and waved forward by enough people, Aleksi got them lost and brought them out on a different side of Karkand, three jaran riders of no particular importance headed out on patrol. He did not find it difficult to avoid jaran patrols. But the khaja who had been driven from the outlying districts of Karkand flooded every path and road and least byway, and in the end they cut up into the hills early and wound a laborious way through the scrub until they came at last to a small defile hidden between two ridges.

"Here," said Charles, and they dismounted and led the horses down the steep hillside to the flat grassy floor. It was midafternoon by now, and already shadows covered the western flank of the little valley. They stood there, resting while they watched the horses graze.

"We're only about eight kilometers from camp," said Marco, "had we ridden straight here, but we rode over twice that. Goddess, what a lot of refugees."

"Let's hope," said Soerensen quietly, regarding the sky pensively, "that none of them decide to hide in the hills until we're gone. Or at least, in these hills."

Marco sighed. "Just think of all the people still left inside the city. I wonder what will happen to them."

The prince folded his arms on his chest and regarded the other man. A breeze slid through the grass. Here, in this peaceful valley, it was hard to remember that a battle raged a short ride away.

Marco clenched his hands. "Or what will happen to the people in camp if Bakhtiian loses." He looked white.

"I'm sorry, Marco," said Soerensen, more quietly still.

"You're sorry!" demanded Marco. "You're the one who abandoned Tess!"

"And Cara and David and all the rest of them, true. But I have faith that Bakhtiian will win. Hell, I have to believe it. And in any case, that's not really who we're talking about."

Marco swore and stalked off to talk to the horses who were, no doubt, more soothing company.

"Romance," said the prince, looking after him," is vastly overrated." He sat down and reclined on one elbow.

Aleksi crouched down beside him. "Is Erthe really such a place as this?" he asked, waving toward the ridges and the silent stretch of grass and brush lying within the valley walls. "Or is it like the plains? And if it lies up in the heavens, why can't we see it?"

Soerensen smiled. "You remind me of Tess," he said. "Hell, you remind me of me."

The simple words provoked a sudden flush of happiness in Aleksi. By this, he was acknowledged. He could not help himself. He smiled back.

The prince chuckled. "Well, we have about two hours until the shuttle is due in. Let me see." He settled into a more comfortable position. "I'm not a very good storyteller, and I don't have any visual aids…"

"Oh, I don't mind," said Aleksi hastily. "Tell me a simple story first. Tell me about-" He hesitated, stunned for a moment by his own audacity. But Tess was his sister and, by some measure, Charles Soerensen his brother. "Tell me about your mother and your father and your tribe."

"My mother and my father and my tribe," mused the prince. "Well, then, let me start with the story of how they met-or at least, how they told it to me. I heard a different story from my mother's sister, which I'm afraid I believe more." But by his grin as he spoke, Aleksi saw that both these stories rose from love. Content, Aleksi settled in to listen.

The sun had fallen below the western ridge and twilight cloaked the valley when Marco left the horses suddenly and ran over to them, interrupting Soerensen right as he was getting to the part where Tess was born.

"Perimeter alert," said Marco. "We've got two riders approaching." He had a huge black stone attached to his wrist, and he stared into it now as a Singer might stare into feathers and bones to read omens.

"Refugees?" the prince asked, climbing to his feet. "Damn."

"I don't- No. They've got homing equipment. Must be ours."

Aleksi heard the horses before he saw them, picking their way down the western ridge. Soon enough he could make out their riders as well: One person walked, leading both horses, and a second clung to the saddle of her fine mare.

"Tess!" Aleksi said her name on the same breath the prince did. Then Marco said, "Maggie! What the hell-?" They all stared.

Zhashi looked no worse for wear, although not surprisingly she wasn't happy about going down an unfamiliar slope at twilight, but Tess looked awful. They reached the valley floor and Aleksi ran to help Tess down off the mare.

She collapsed into his arms and just hung against him while Maggie took the horses out to me others and hobbled them.

"And what the hell," Tess demanded of her brother as he hurried up to her, "do you think you're doing?" Her voice was strong, but still she clung to Aleksi. He wondered if she could even stand by herself.

"I might ask the same of you," Soerensen said, looking shocked, but he did not move to take her out of Aleksi's grasp. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"What? You don't want me to? You still have too many uses for me?"

"I'm asking because I care, damn it!" he exclaimed, and Aleksi was astonished to hear how hurt he sounded.

She did not reply immediately. Instead, she tested her feet on the ground and Aleksi helped her to sit down. Her face shone gray in the dusk. She still had to lean against him, even then. "Oh, God," she said. "It just happened so fast. God, I'm exhausted."

"As well you should be," interjected Marco. "Goddess, Tess, it's hard enough to leave without worrying that you might-" He broke off and knelt down beside her, hugging her, and Aleksi let her go. "Why did you come after us?"

"That's a stupid question," said Tess. "I receive a note that states that urgent news from Odys forces Charles to leave Rhui at once, and you don't think I'd-" She paused for breath, Marco let go of her and stood up. "I need something to drink." Aleksi offered her water from his flask. She drank and gave the flask back to him. "If you're leaving this way, you must be leaving for good. Forever. It doesn't take any great brilliance to read your mind, Charles."

Aleksi was amazed by her tone of voice, and by the prince's expression, like that of a master of saber who has just realized that his apprentice can match him now. "It doesn't?" he demanded. "Then how am I to negotiate the maze of Chapalii politics?"

"By not underestimating your opponent, first of all. What am I to tell Ilya? That you disappeared? Right out from under his army?"

With dusk, the wind had dropped. Now it picked up again, a faint moan through the air.

"We've got incoming," said Marco.

Tess set her fists on the ground and took in three deep breaths. She heaved herself to her feet. Soerensen caught her by the arm and helped her up. "No, I'm all right. Just tired. So what am I to tell Ilya?"

"That I'm dead."

"How do I prove it? It isn't easy to fake a death, Charles. I won't have a body. At least a dozen people know I left camp, against their wild protests, and I refused any escort except Maggie's. I had to take messenger's bells and a seal to get past patrols without any questions. Ilya will hear all about that, I can assure you."

"You could come with me," said the prince.

She cocked her head to one side. Fear washed through Aleksi, and he took a step toward her. If she went, by the gods, he would go with her. But Tess only grinned. "No, I couldn't. You know that as well as I do."

Soerensen sighed and rested a hand on her shoulder- the gesture looked both awkward and intimate. "Tess," he said slowly, "I do regret how little time I've ever had just for you. I'm sorry."

Her eyes widened. "So you really are leaving Rhui for good."

"Yes! I don't have any choice. Listen!" He bent toward her and repeated to her the words that the woman Suzanne had told him. Aleksi realized that they had raised their voices to talk over the rising roar of the wind. How had the wind come up so suddenly? A few clouds lay torn across the sky, building in the west and concealing patches of stars, but there was no sign of imminent storm. The horses flung up their heads and pulled at their reins, nervous, and Maggie stayed with them, calming them.

Tess listened to her brother's recital in silence, and when he was done, she simply nodded her head. "Yes," she agreed. "You have to go."

As with one thought, the four khaja looked up into the heavens. It wasn't wind at all. Aleksi tilted his head back and stared.

It was a creature, a bird-not a bird-some monster- not a monster. The prince had said a ship was coming. And Dr. Hierakis had told him about ships that sailed the ocean of night, as it was night now, fallen all around them. A huge shadow blotted out the stars, and the air sang in a bellowing howl around Aleksi as the ship sank like a bird sailing in on the wings of Father Wind and settled onto the ground.

Dust sprayed out. Maggie's mare bolted and crashed down, constrained by the hobble, and struggled back up to its feet. Marco and Aleksi ran over to help Maggie, and the three of them led the animals back to Tess and the prince, fighting them, soothing them until they calmed, ears back, and resigned themselves to the presence of the beast. It roared; that was its voice, then. The swirling air was its breath, hot like summer, hammering at him, tearing at his clothes.

They showed no fear at all.

"What happened to Karkand?" Charles shouted, straining against the screaming voice of the ship.

"I don't know. Last I heard the jaran broke into the city. That's all I know. You really can't come back now, can you?" She sagged, just slightly, and Aleksi left the horses to Marco and Maggie and went to her. She cast him a glance, relieved and grateful, and let him hold her up. She shook, she was so exhausted.

"No." The wind pounded at Soerensen's back where he stood facing Tess, his back to the ship. It hulked there; small lights caught and winked on it, like eyes opening and closing. "There must be no link between me and Rhui until we're ready to launch the next rebellion, not anything else for dukes like Naroshi to grab hold of. I have to work as far into the Chapalii court as I can. In a way, I'll be providing the distraction. Because once the rebellion is launched, we'll need Rhui."

"You have Rhui," she yelled back. She squinted into the tearing gale, blinking back grit, and lifted an arm to protect her face.

"More than that." His pale hair whipped and danced in the breath of the ship. "You have to unite Rhui, as far as you can, you and Bakhtiian, his descendants, if it takes that long. So when the interdiction lifts, as it must, when we need its resources for the rebellion, we'll have some kind of central authority. But one that's grown slowly, without alerting the Chapalii. Without that central authority to coordinate our efforts on planet, it will be far too inefficient to exploit her resources with the speed and initial secrecy we'll need to make the rebellion work."

"We're such damned hypocrites!" The ship screamed behind her, and the wind battered them in waves. "By what right do we meddle on Rhui like this? By what right do you? You leave, but in turn you make Rhui the heart of your plans. And yet you made the interdiction in the first place. Now you're breaking it worse than anyone else. By what right?"

A single bright white light speared out from the ship.

It illuminated the prince and Tess as if the sun had risen on them alone, leaving the rest of the world in darkness.

"By the promise I made to free humanity," the prince said. His face was shadowed though light spilled around him, but hers was ail lit, white and angry, and then she rolled her eyes and laughed.

"I'll never be free of you, Charles."

"Never," he agreed. "We never are free from ourselves and our heritage." Abruptly, he wrung his hands together, a gesture that showed how deeply this parting hurt him. Only he wasn't wringing his hands; he was pulling the signet ring off of his right middle finger. "This is yours, the sigil of the Prince of Jeds. I left the gold chain of office in my tent, and Baron Santer in Jeds holds the scepter in trust, until you return."

She pushed herself away from Aleksi and took the ring from Charles and stared at it as if she had never seen it before. "How am I supposed to prove all this? When am I supposed to ride to Jeds? Is there any guarantee that Baron Santer will remember me, or be willing to give up his regency? And how in hell are Ilya and I supposed to unite Rhui, anyway?"

He lifted his hands, palms up, and smiled. "Tess, I never said it would be easy."

She laughed. "Damn you!"

"The prince is dead," said Marco, his voice almost obliterated by the ship's voice. "God save the prince."

"Marco," said Maggie. "Go to hell."

"No doubt I will."

The ship coughed. Only it didn't cough. Its mouth opened and a golden glow penetrated the night, washing into the hard white glare that illuminated Tess and her brother. A ramp pushed out from the maw of the beast, a bridge linking the heavens and the earth. A figure appeared in the glow and hurried down the ramp. An angel? One of Father Wind's attendants?

It resolved into a man like any man, except for the strange cut of his clothes and the blithe way he strode out of the ship and ignored its screaming howl and the battering wind. Marco hailed him, and the two men shook hands-that strange Erthe greeting-and he came over to Soerensen.

"Ah, Javier, how are you?" said Soerensen. "This is Tess. I don't believe you've ever met. Javier Lu Shen." Formal greetings were exchanged.

"Hold on," said Tess, turning first to look at the horses and then back to the new man. "Javier, can you ride?"

"Ride?" Soerensen turned to his sister. "What are you thinking about, Tess?"

"Charles, I have to tell Ilya something. He'll never believe you're dead unless he has more witnesses and a credible story of how you-God, it's impossible. But what if I tell him the truth, in terms he'd understand? You already laid down half the smokescreen, you know, by pretending to ride into the battle. So if I tell Ilya that you're dying here, as Prince of Jeds, in order to go back to Earth-to Erthe-to fight the khepelli, and if Ilya tells the army that you're dead, who will question him?"

"Yes. I had thought that far. But what has this to do with whether Javier can ride?"

"A horse?" Javier demanded. "Do you mean a horse? One of those things? I've never ridden one."

"You'll learn," said Tess with a brief smile. "I did." She turned back to her brother. "Charles, you have to go on the shuttle. But if Marco and Javier ride north and swing back to Abala Port, where you came in last spring, and sail to Jeds, then they can go out on the shuttle through Jeds."

"Which means that Marco can deliver the news of my death to Baron Santer."

"Yes! And meanwhile, Ilya will get the report that two khaja men, you and Marco, rode through jaran territory and left by ship. For Erthe."

"This is all very convoluted, Tess," protested Charles.

Poor Javier looked appalled.

"How else can I explain it to Ilya? I've got the messenger bells and messenger seal-they'll provide Marco and Javier with safe passage, new mounts, and supplies. They can ride as quickly as-well, as Javier learns. Speed and secrecy. Isn't that what we need? To prepare Rhui for the rebellion? You leave, Ilya knows enough to satisfy him, knows that he's part of the conspiracy, and he can say you died in the battle today. Cara can confirm it. We can burn some poor nameless soul as your body, and it's done."

"But what about Marco?" asked Charles. "Does Marco want to ride all that way?"

"What about me?" wailed Javier.

"I don't mind," said Marco in a low voice, barely audible above the roar of the ship. "Pm leaving camp anyway. What do I care? It has to be done. I think it's a good idea."

"Javier doesn't look anything like me," said Charles.

"That's true, but you're both khaja." Tess dismissed this objection with a wave of her hand. "If he wears a hood and none of the patrols ever gets a close look at him, and they pass along quickly, then how much of the physical description will ever get back to us? None of the patrols or tribes you'll pass will have seen you before anyway. It will do. It's the best we can do. Trade clothes. You'll be fine. I'm right in this, Charles. You know I am."

He considered her. The trees tossed in the wind, and leaves tore free from branches and swirled away into the night. "Convoluted," said Soerensen, "and worthy of a Chapalii duke's heir. We'll see if you can pull it off."

"But, Charles," said Tess sweetly, with a wicked gleam in her eyes, "you don't really have a choice, do you? By this ring, you've given me authority on this planet. So I order you to do as I say. Damn you, anyway. We're just pawns to you, Ilya and I, aren't we?"

His lips quirked up, and he laughed. "Don't forget how chess is played. With patience and cunning and wit, as well as the right strategy, a pawn can become the most powerful piece in the game."

He bent and kissed her, once on each cheek, in the formal jaran style. He said farewell to the others, to Aleksi, and then he and Javier turned and walked back to the ship. Aleksi watched as he vanished into the golden light of the interior.

Tess's legs gave out, and she collapsed to the ground. Aleksi dropped down beside her immediately, scared for her, but she nodded her head against him and just sat there, breathing shallowly.

"Tess!" Maggie exclaimed.

Tess shook her head and lifted-with great effort-one hand as a signal that she was all right.

Soerensen emerged from the ship, except it wasn't Soerensen but the other man, dressed in his clothes and in his jaran armor, helmet strapped awkwardly onto his head. The maw closed behind him. The white light snapped off, bathing them in darkness.

"Why me?" he asked as he came up to them. Then he saw Tess. "Oh, my. M. Soerensen, are you-?"

A high-pitched whine pierced the roar of the beast, and the ground trembled under Aleksi's feet. The horses pulled away, and Maggie and Marco tugged them down and tried to reassure them with their voices, only the ship howled and all at once bucked up and as slow as if Father Wind's invisible hand lifted it, it rose up into the night, jewel eyes winking open and closed, open and closed.

Tess tucked her head down. The wind washed over her, where she sat huddled on the ground. Maggie fought her two horses, dragging on them as they whinnied and tried to jerk free, to bolt, even though they couldn't bolt because they were hobbled. The hot breath of the ship slapped Aleksi's face, and the creature spun and showed a new face to him, gleaming pale in the starlight, and rose up into the night, blinking, blotting out stars, and rumbled and roared, and the wind howled down, and the trees bent under its force, and dust clotted the air, and he choked on the grit and shut his eyes and held onto Tess.

And the roar lightened and faded and the wind dropped and a low moan rang through the night air. Stars winked in and out, and then only the wind blew and the night lay silent under the stars. The canopy of clouds grew in the west. The horses calmed.

"Now what?" asked Marco, his voice a ringing shout in the quiet.

"You'd better go now," said Tess, her voice as soft as Marco's had been inadvertently loud. Aleksi showed Marco how to bind on the vest of bells. Tess roused herself for long enough to discuss with Marco routes and strategies, and at last the two men left, leading their horses up the confining slope, heading northeast. The muted ring of bells faded into the night.

Weakly, Tess brushed dry grass off her trousers. She lifted her hand and squinted at the ring on her middle finger. "My God," she said, to no one.

"Is that how the gods travel in the heavens?" Aleksi asked, looking from her up into the sky. Were any of those stars the ship? Were all of them ships? But, no, the doctor had said they were worlds-or not worlds, but suns. He shook his head. He was too tired to sort it all out now.

Tess sighed. "They're just machines, Aleksi."

"I've got a perimeter alert," said Maggie. "Horses and men."

Aleksi leapt to his feet and drew his saber. Maggie pulled a knife from her belt. Slowly, Tess drew her saber and rested it on her knees, but anyone could see she hadn't the strength to wield it.

But it was only a group of jaran riders, twelve of them, picking their way down the western slope. It didn't surprise Aleksi to see how astounded they looked when they discovered that they had stumbled upon a daughter of Mother Orzhekov, the woman who was also, of course, Bakhtiian's wife.

"We saw a strange light in the sky," said their captain.

"I saw it, too," said Tess, without moving from the ground. "It was an omen."

"We'll escort you back to camp, then."

"Tomorrow," she said. "I just can't go any farther tonight."

So they spent the night in the little valley, Tess sleeping on coats and under blankets provided by the riders, guarded by a ring of fires, and in the morning they remarked on the strange burn on the ground in the center of the valley and saddled their horses and formed up around Tess. If they thought it strange to have found her out here, practically alone, they did not discuss their thoughts with Aleksi. Tess was pale and still horribly tired. They rode back toward Karkand slowly, stopping frequently. The day was overcast, and the light had an eerie yellow quality to it.

Soon enough they began to pass refugees from the city. At first clumps of them, cowering away from the patrol. A woman carried a baby on her back and held another child by the hand. An old woman stumbled along, weak and crying, and a little boy dragged a bundle behind him and followed in her wake. Larger groups, families, trudged along the road. Children wailed. A broken-down old horse bore an injured woman slumped over its neck, her thigh a bloody mass of tissue, open to the air. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs, and a few of the lucky ones, a handful of possessions wrapped in cloth, whatever they had grabbed before being driven from the city. A gray-haired woman walked under the weight of a silk bundle. A tall woman with a strong, dark face stopped to shift a pack of roughspun cloth to a better position on her back. A baby shrieked. A woman clad in rich damask linen sobbed with each step, holding a hand to her throat. Two girls held a limping crone between them, helping her along. Most kept their heads bowed. An adolescent girl, her face veiled, balanced a large ceramic vase on her head, walking steadily, only her eyes showing dark and angry as she watched the riders pass.

Tess wept, to see them struggling along.

As they rode on, as morning passed to midday and midday into afternoon, the trickle became a stream, the stream a flood. Hordes of them; Aleksi had not known so many people, even khaja, could live together in one place. No wonder they were weak, crammed like insects into a rotted stump or an old hollow log. They walked, heads bowed. A layer of ash covered their clothes, and at their backs smoke rose into the heavens, a dark blot against the gray clouds far above. As the riders neared the jaran camp, they could see Karkand burning.

"My God," said Tess. "Isn't there a rise, where we can lookr

It was a relief to veer away from the road and along a trampled field until they reached a low ridge which gave them a vantage of the city.

Karkand burned. A huge black funnel of smoke marked it, and spits of flame. Aleksi watched the lines of refugees, like tiny insects, leaving the city along the roads and out through the fields. He saw the riders, moving among them, and wagons trundling away toward the jaran camp. In the middle of the blazing city, the huge dome of the temple glowed red with fire. Clouds of heat shimmered out from it, and the intense glow of the flames cast a hot, violent light up into the sky. As they watched, the dome collapsed into a monstrous cloud of ash and smoke that billowed into the air and shrouded the western horizon so that they could not even see the setting sun.

"Goddess save us," murmured Maggie. "Why did he order this? The whole city is going, all of it, even the suburbs are in flames. And it was so beautiful. Now it looks like a funeral pyre."

Tears streaked Tess's face. "Don't you see?" she asked, shaking her head. "It is a funeral pyre. For our son. For everyone who died today, for everyone who will die. For Charles." She wiped her face with the back of one hand, but it only streaked grime over her cheeks, blending with her tears. "For Rhui."

"Look." Aleksi pointed at the same time that the patrol captain did. "There is Bakhtiian's banner. He must be riding out to look for you."

"We'll wait for him here," said Tess.

So they met on the ridge, Tess and Bakhtiian, he with the pall of the dying city at his back, she with her face to it.

He said nothing, only drew his horse in beside her and raised one eyebrow, questioning. He looked remarkably neat for a man who had just destroyed a city and defeated an entire kingdom, with his armor newly polished and his surcoat untorn and marked only by a fine layer of ash. He wore his victory with pride but without gloating.

Tess lifted her right hand, to show him the ring. "I am now the Prince of Jeds."

He regarded her measuringly, as he might measure any threat to his power. "Where is your brother?"

"He's dead."

He took the news with no change of expression. "We still have no treaty between your lands and mine," he said quietly.

"That's true." She looked beyond him, toward Karkand. "I have seen what you and I must do: We must unite all the lands against the coming of the khepelli, whether while we live or when our grandchildren rule. What can you offer me, Bakhtiian, in return for my alliance?"

His mouth lifted, not quite into a smile. He twisted for the first time and cast a glance back toward the conflagration. Then he turned back to gaze on her again.

He drew his saber and held it up between them. "My army, which is my sword. And my vision, which was granted to me by the gods. That is all I have, and everything I have."

Tess stared at the inferno that was Karkand. Over the night and on that day's journey, she had seemed to Aleksi to change somehow, as if the ring her brother had given her had altered her forever. She was still Tess, but she was also a prince now, invested with a greater power than anyone here but Aleksi and Maggie, and she herself, knew. It was almost as if Karkand was her own pyre, burning away what she once was and creating her anew.

"Your army and your vision," she said, meeting her husband's gaze. "That will do."