Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

“Then get back on your feet immediately.” He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed. He shot into the sky again and circled the center of the pass three times, screeching loudly. Then he dropped to the canyon floor in the midst of the battle—and disappeared. So did the rest of the Golden Throng.

Erri grunted and looked at Serphimera. She was smiling serenely back at him. “He is rather impressive, isn’t he?” the old sailor rasped.

Serphimera raised her eyebrows. “Rather.” Then she bent over to look back at the pass.

As quickly as it had vanished, the Golden Throng reappeared. During that moment of cloaking Bronwynn’s army was unaware of what was happening, but it faced a newly stunned enemy. The blue-robed warriors were backing away in confusion. Pelmen took advantage of the relative hush by making an announcement. In a voice rich with the polished tones of the theater, he shouted: “Men of Lamath! Your dragon is dead! If any man asks you who told you so, tell them I! Pelmen Dragonsbane!”

As if on cue, Flayh’s illusion came whistling down out of the heavens. Its double-throated roar of rage was real. It echoed Flayh’s own thunderous bellow in a castle tower more than a hundred miles away.

That was quite all right with Pelmen. He now had everyone’s attention and was ready to give his demonstration. He shot skyward in his falcon form. This time he flew straight for the dragon.

The struggle for Dragonsgate had become a shaper battle. Yet it really wasn’t a contest. Flayh was too far away. With all his art and power, he couldn’t outmaneuver an experienced wizard who was there on the scene. All he could do was roar in frustration as the falcon flew through his illusion and emerged above it. The spectators below stared upward in rapt silence as the falcon banked to one side and swooped around to pierce through the dragon again. It did so a third time before another voice, if anything richer and more mellow than even Pelrnen’s, thundered, “You’ve heard the Dragonsbane, cowards of Lamath! Men of Chaomonous, at them again!”

No one asked who’d spoken those words. The armies simply responded to them. The Golden Throng charged forward with a shout. The men of Lamath raced desperately for the North-mouth and the road home. And Gerrig, who had shouted, leaned against the eastern cliff face, cackling with glee, and congratulated himself on another fine performance.

The Golden Throng camped in Dragonsgate. The ensuing celebration made the walls of the canyon ring.

It had been a long time since Chaomonous had enjoyed such a victory— certainly not in the lifetime of any of these warriors. The fact that it had been won for them by magic stole, nothing from their triumph.

Instead, it enhanced their images of themselves as an army. The men of Chaomonous considered the Golden Throng to be charmed. Their very location exhilarated them. They would sleep this night in the ancient lair of the dragon, in the pass that had born the name of the twi-beast for centuries! What other army in history could make such a boast?

While the warriors whooped in delight, their leaders renewed an old quarrel. Bronwynn’s pavilion had been erected in the center of the pass. Within its fish-satin walls she and Joss engaged in a heated debate.

“We must go northward, my Lady! Any other move is suicidal! We have routed them today! One day’s pursuit and we could utterly destroy them!”

“I don’t want to destroy them,” Bronwynn said firmly. “I want to turn westward and march on Flayh’s fortress.”

“Your friend Pelmen has told you of its impregnability!” Joss pleaded. “How can you turn away from a clear-cut victory and certain conquest and march through the snow to an unavoidable defeat?”

“I’ve made up my mind—”

“If we move west, the Lamathian army will march back into the pass and cut off our retreat. The Golden Throng will be trapped on the Westmouth Plain. Again.”

“I said I’ve made up my mind!”

“My Lady, consider this. Divide the force. Give me a part of it to pursue these dragon worshippers—”

“You’ve never suggested dividing our army! You’ve always said there could be no quicker path to ruin!”

“Yes, my Lady, but you’ve shown me there is indeed a quicker path—marching westward without utterly destroying Lamath!”

“I will not destroy Lamath! That’s final!” Bronwynn shouted.

Both she and the general were terribly shocked when a voice from just inside the doorway said, “I can’t tell you how much that relieves me.”

“Who’s there?” Bronwynn demanded imperiously.

“Can’t you see me?” Erri asked.

Pelmen answered, “I’m afraid she can’t.” Then the shaper removed the cloaking spell.

General Joss already had his sword out. Now he pointed it at the four intruders and demanded, “How did you get inside?”

“I think that’s obvious,” Pelmen said quietly.

“There was no need,” Bronwynn snapped. “I would have let you in.”

“I was certain of that. A few of your warriors, however, took offense at the garments of my friends. This seemed the simplest solution.” Pelmen spread his arms. “Bronwynn?” he asked.

Had they been alone—were she not the queen—had she not experienced shaper power that somehow demanded she maintain her independence—she would have run into his embrace. Instead, she walked deliberately across the tent and reached out her hands to take his. “Welcome, Pelmen.”

“Am I?” he asked. “I fear we’ve intruded…”

“You’re all welcome. Erri?” She reached out with one arm and hugged the prophet warmly. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

“And I’m glad so many of my people still are, despite your victory. General Joss, I hope you’ll accept her decision.”

“I always accept my monarch’s decisions. I don’t always agree.”

“Perhaps you’ll eventually come to agree with her.”

“Or perhaps we’ll all die in the snows of the Mar,” Joss replied coldly.

“If so, it won’t be due to the army of Lamath,” said Erri.

“You’re certain of that?”

“So I believe.”

Joss snorted. Beliefs were meaningless to him. Still, he held his tongue. Decorum demanded it.

Bronwynn turned to Serphimera. “He found you again, I see.” She smiled. Then she looked at Pelmen.

“And you found my Rosha.” Pelmen nodded. “Is he safe?”

“He was when we left.”

“Then he still doesn’t need my aid?” Bronwynn asked archly, her nose angled upward. She was prepared for an unpleasant reply.

“My Lady, at this point we all need one another’s aid. Whether he realizes that yet or not, he will.”

“If he doesn’t kill himself playing the hero,” Bronwynn snorted.

“He’s not playing the hero. He is a hero.” These words were the first Serphimera spoke. They got immediate attention.

“What does that mean?” Bronwynn asked after a brief pause.

“Only that Rosha is being the one he must be—as you are, as Erri is, and as am I. The Power inspires us all, yet each of us takes his own approach. We must. We’re different people.”

Bronwynn looked at the priestess a moment, and her expression began to soften. “Then do you think this.. .this grand march of mine… my army… do you think the Power might have inspired it?”

“I don’t think such,” Serphimera said briskly. “I know it.”

Bronwynn peered at her, then looked back and forth from Serphimera’s face to Pelmen’s. “Really?” she asked, her eagerness growing.

“When she says she knows,” Pelmen murmured, “you can believe her.”

“That’s such a relief!” The queen sighed. “You don’t know how I’ve battled with the fear that it’s all been a monumental