Andrea Höst: Voice of the Lost

Medair suspected he was right, but shied from the slaughter he seemed to consider the solution. Did Estarion plan to hunt down every Ibisian on Farakkan, after razing Athere? What of those like Ileaha, who were also Farakkian? Or those with barely a drop of cold blood? And yet, and yet– She started to raise a hand to her head, then restrained herself, too aware of all who watched her through the gloom. Ibisians. White Snakes. She would not show weakness before them.

" AFTER THE BATTLE, SEEK ME OUT, MEDAIR AN RYNSTAR. THERE IS SOMEONE I WISH YOU TO MEET; A TRUE DESCENDANT OF THE ONE TO WHOM YOU GAVE OATH."

He was talking of the heir he supported – or used as banner and excuse for war. Said to descend from Verium, her Emperor’s son, a line long kept hidden and protected until the moment came to return them too their rightful place on the Silver Throne. And Medair knew very well that it was possible, that Verium had been involved with the woman said to have borne a true Corminevar heir. Had she turned her back on him, this Tarsus, so-called Emperor-in-Exile?

And it was all too long ago, too muddied and tangled. For Kier Inelkar descended from Medair’s Emperor as well, and her throne had been won in conquest, making questions of legitimacy secondary. More to the point, thousands of Farakkians, loyal Atherians with no drop of White Snake blood, would give their lives to protect their Kier. To them, Decia was nothing but an invader, and Tarsus an irrelevancy.

Numbness gripped Medair, the crushing weight of impossible choice she had struggled with all year. She shifted her gaze to the box which held what had been meant to be the salvation of the Empire.

" NOW. INELKAR. HAS IT YET OCCURRED TO YOU THAT THE HORN OF FARAK WILL NOT ANSWER YOUR COLD BLOOD?"

Estarion chuckled, a rumble of thunder in the night. The glint of fire on metal served as lightning. Out among the massed troops, torches were being lit. They flared like stars, thousands upon thousands of points of light. Medair’s attention was briefly torn from the almost mesmeric influence of the metal-bound box. She saw with a shudder that Estarion’s army was holding aloft not torches, but burning swords. The wind carried the tang of hot metal, and a faint whisper of words she could not understand. Then Estarion’s voice boomed again.

" WHITE SNAKE, PALE INVADER. YOU BURIED ANY TRACE OF FARAK BENEATH GENERATIONS OF OUTLAND BLOOD. IT IS –"

"Could he be right?" the Kier asked.

" – A SOURCE OF AMAZEMENT TO ME THAT YOU COULD HOPE TO USURP –"

"It is all too possible, Ekarrel ," Antellar, the Keridahl Alar, replied. "We were not certain what the Horn would do before the Conflagration, let alone in the world we now face."

" – THIS AS WELL. FARAK WILL NOT ANSWER YOU, INELKAR! THE HORN OF FARAK SERVES THE CHILDREN OF FARAKKAN ALONE! AND, MOST MAGNIFICENT IRONY, YOU HAVE OBTAINED A WEAPON YOU DARE NOT ALLOW BE USED BY ANY NOT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD. FROZEN, CREEPING WHITE SNAKE. HOW COULD YOU RISK GIVING THE HORN INTO THE HANDS OF ONE WHO TRULY IS OF THIS LAND? DO YOU KNOW THE HEARTS OF THOSE YOU RULE? OF THOSE WHO SHOULD BE RULING IN YOUR PLACE? WHO WOULD THE WARRIORS OF FARAK CUT DOWN?"

Who indeed? Medair stared down at the box. If she used the Horn, would Farak make the final judgment on who deserved death? That was a path Medair had never thought to take, and it seemed to her both right and just. Almost of its own volition, one of her hands lifted.

Cool fingers caught hers.

"There is compulsion in his words," Cor-Ibis murmured, lifting her hand to study tight-strapped bandages. "This is a choice which, if you need to make it, should be made without such." He added a word beneath his breath, the trigger for what must have been a dispell. A cool breeze whisked away the cobwebs tangling Medair’s thoughts. She straightened, and looked first at his expressionless face, then at the box.

" MAKE YOUR PEACE WITH YOUR GOD, INELKAR," Estarion boomed, and Medair’s shoulders tensed. A compulsion in his words. His prolonged speech to her had more purpose than demoralising those he was about to fight. She could feel it now that it struck her afresh, not layered upon her behind the shield of words.

Cor-Ibis still held her hand, and she dragged her eyes from the box to his fingers. They glowed faintly, paler even than her swathing of bandage. The same old arguments trudged a circle in her mind. Enemy, innocent, oath, trust, betrayal, loss, futility. How many times did she have to chase the tail of her own internal rhetoric? She had made her decision.

Momentarily, she tightened her clasp. Cor-Ibis was not Ieskar. He had never been her enemy. Then she drew her hand free, and moved away from the Horn, looking inward towards the lights of the White Palace rather than the fires of the army at the gate. She would not use the Horn.

"If Farak does not answer, She does not," Medair said, glancing at the Kier. "But I have never heard that She picks and chooses. All born to Farakkan are Her children."

"And you, Keris N’Taive?" Kier Inelkar asked the woman who had been outside the shield when wild magic’s Conflagration had transformed the world and made her into Herald of a kingdom once thought dust. "What is your judgment?"

"How could it be otherwise?" the Mersian Herald asked, her eyes shining with sincere faith. "Farak is the mother of all."

Beyond the wall, the whisper had become a chant: steady, full-throated, accompanied by the tramp of booted feet. The army had begun to move. They would soon be within bow and spell-shot.

"Casting in the chant, Ekarrel ," the Keridahl Alar said.

"Massive," Cor-Ibis added. "As if the entire army is contributing."

"Is it possible? Look to the walls, Antellar."

Protections were always set on the walls of Athere. Over the day which had just passed, these enchantments had been reinforced along the southern reaches of Ahrenrhen. Now, at a signal from Keridahl Antellar, they were strengthened to counteract anything which might be thrown at them in the first advance.

"Now we shall see if the air attack you predicted comes to pass, Keris N’Taive," Keridahl Antellar said. "You are prepared, Cor-Ibis?"

Cor-Ibis inclined his head briefly.

"What of–" the Kier began, and everyone looked anxiously at her suddenly arrested stance, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowing. Medair guessed that she was listening to a wend-whisper, a message sent by magic.

"Ekarrel?" asked the Kend, turning from whispering commands to her Das-kend.

"N’Taive, what is the Charaine Regiment ?" Kier Inelkar asked.

The Mersian gave the Kier a startled glance which meant she’d asked about something the Herald had assumed she could not not know. But wild magic had made the world outside Athere nearly unrecognisable, transforming the loose clans of Mersians into a formidable power, and replacing three kingdoms with an inland sea. A single regiment could have become anything.

"Charaine is the mountainous land to the south of the Forest of the Guardian," N’Taive replied, carefully. "It is where most of your deskai are stationed. The Regiment is a mainstay of Palladium’s south-east defences."

"And what are deskai ?"

"Deskai…" The Herald shook her head. "There were no deskai in the past where you lived? How horrible!" She made a gesture to acknowledge that now was not the moment to digress. "Vecka, my mount, is part deskai. They are shape-shifters, born to two forms, and to powers more enduring than most mage-cast." She smiled obliquely. "Tanis Araina will find it disconcerting to be forgotten. Deskai are not easily put from the thoughts."

"Your horse can change shape?" asked the Kier, surprised.