Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

Chimolitha whirled around to face him. She was greatly surprised when he wasn’t there. “Thuganlitha? Thuganlitha! Why can’t I see you? Are you there? Thuganlitha!” Certain that her antagonist was once again playing tricks on her vision, she wandered off around the northern rim, calling the name of an adversary who could no longer hear at all.

Behind her, the interrupted battle resumed. Now, however, things were worse than ever for Bronwynn’s beleaguered band. They were completely encircled, and Janos was tightening the noose.

Rosha paused before the door, battling his memory and his fear. The last time he’d stood here, he’d been an arrogant fool. Was he any different now? He and Mar-Yilot had never discussed what they would do if he got this far—perhaps because neither of them expected he would. Was she covering him at this moment? He wished he could understand the speech of the walls.

He was but a plaything of powers, he thought to himself, but he felt no bitterness at that—only an aching pain that he had managed to come so far but was so unequal to the task. If Pelmen were only here, he would—

What would Pelmen do? The answer hit Rosha with a shock of realization. Pelmen would do nothing.

Pelmen would let the Power do it.

Suddenly the young warrior felt new strength in his arms and new breath in his lungs. He charged forward. He slammed through Flayh’s door and leaped to the center of the room, swinging his great sword before him in a grand arc. Anyone seated there would have been decapitated immediately. Of course, no one was.

“Was that your entire plan?” a voice asked from the corner, and Rosha whirled to face Flayh once again.

Then he froze as he watched a beautiful ball of green flame explode before him. His sword slipped from his fingers. A chill crawled up his body, starting in his toes and numbing him slowly from the floor up. As it touched his throat it choked off his voice; as it touched his mind it erased all possible options of escape.

It left only a portion of his thought processes free—enough for him to recognize what was happening to him.

Then he began to see the fears and miseries of all mankind become a vivid part of his own experience.

Failure, hatred, disappointment, disease, grief—he participated vicariously in every horror. The most telling burden of all was his realization that he was powerless to change it, and that he was just as lost as all of those whose cries of misery he had heard. This was the dread, the true dread that had condemned Lord Syth to days of hell. Now it consumed Rosha. He wanted to scream, but that release was denied him. There was no release available. “That was it?” Flayh asked pleasantly. “To rush in here, whirling a sword about? What foolishness. What waste! Oh, not for me. Those bodies you left on the stairs are no concern of mine. But what a waste for you. All that effort, with not a thing to show for it.” Flayh paced around Rosha and picked his book up off the lectem. “I was just about to depart when the castle told me of how the little slaver had knifed his master in the back. Such treachery intrigued me. Then I grew curious, wondering just how you planned to challenge me. I thought you must certainly have some other stratagem besides the one that failed so miserably the last time you came leaping into this room. How anticlimactic. I’m disappointed. On the other hand, you’ve never impressed me as a man of subtle thought.”

The sorcerer walked to the black drapes and threw them aside. He winced at the bright light that streamed in the window. Down in the city it was still snowing; but here above the clouds, the sun burned brilliantly.

“Your friend Pelmen has just revealed his location to me, so I must be off. And you, my insistent young gadfly, must be off as well. Of course, you left by air the last time, too,” Flayh said as he opened the door to the balcony. “But that was through the back window, and you fell into the reservoir. Remarkable, how you managed to clear the wall. Perhaps you’ll clear the front battlements today! Of course, there’s no lake on the front side of this fortress. Only cobbled streets.” Flayh turned back to Rosha and summoned him with a wave of his hand. “Come along,” he said. “Jump off.”

Rosha had no control over his muscles. They now took all orders directly from the powershaper. His legs walked obediently to the opened door and onto the balcony. There they climbed the small balustrade.

Like the frantic flutterings of a trapped bird, Rosha’s mind sought some means of survival. Abruptly, however, a calm settled upon him, a peace the young warrior could not account for. He was in dread, yet he was also in the presence of the Power, for the Power was present in him. In that moment Rosha tossed his need for self-control aside and surrendered to the future. Come what might, he suddenly understood the shaping of the Power. Everything was all right. He watched disinterestedly as Flayh caused his legs to throw him off the tower. Then he was falling…

Try as she might, Bronwynn couldn’t make the magic come. She vented her frustration on a string of foes, yet she made no more progress toward her goal. As her warriors dwindled in number, she began to look behind more than she looked ahead, hoping for some sign of reinforcements coming up the Down Road. Only a fraction of her army had made it up the hill, and she’d not seen General Joss since he turned aside to regroup for the first assault. But the men of the Mar now held the top of the road, and Mari supporters lined the cliffs. Without a tugolith to lead Joss up, any attempt to scale the heights would be senseless—in the general’s own words, suicidal.

The queen had started applying that same description to her own situation. Hopelessness stole its way into her spirit, and her arm felt the immediate effects. Suddenly it lost the elasticity, the wiry toughness that had allowed her to sling the sword from side to side all day. She reined her horse away from the fight, seeking refuge in the midst of her faltering force. Her arm dangled limply as she sucked in air, wishing she had some new inspiration to suck in along with it. A moment later, a new wave of sound deepened her despair— the Maris who stood along the cliff were all looking downward and were cheering wildly.

“The tugoliths have returned to their bloody business,” she mumbled to herself. That’s why Joss hadn’t come. The beasts were nothing but huge children. Left to their own devices, they would behave as any group of unsupervised children might— with utmost cruelty. And she could do nothing about it.

The cheers swelled in volume. Bronwynn hung her head in defeat. Then her defiant spirit surged back, and she jerked up to glare savagely at the Mari warriors clustered around the top of the Down Road.

Suddenly they were falling back before the object of their adulation, and Bronwynn saw a new troop of warriors gallop onto the High Plateau. Leading that charge was Dorlyth mod Karis, riding upon the steel shoulders of Pelmen’s old horse.

Dorlyth had long been a Mari hero. Since leading his people to victory in the Battle of Westmouth, his story had taken on the proportions of a legend. The rumors of his death had traveled widely, but many had disbelieved. Now those who’d scorned the story crowed aloud in their triumph. King Pahd had fallen, and golden-mailed invaders fought in the very heart of the High City. But here was Dorlyth mod Karis, come to lead the Mar to victory once again! Little wonder the people of the city cheered. They were perplexed, however, to see golden warriors riding up behind him. Side by side with Ferlyth came a tall, grim-faced soldier in armor the color of sun!

“General Joss,” Bronwynn breathed, and she swung her weary horse and rode wildly out to meet them.