David Drake - The Gods Return

"We've-the kingdom has, but you and I have too… we've survived a lot of things." "Yes, Garric?" Tenoctris said. The lanterns were twenty feet away, sufficient to see by but without the detail of bright sun. In the soft yellow glow, Garric could imagine that Tenoctris was the aged wizard she'd been when she washed up on the shore of Barca's Hamlet. Her new youth and vibrancy were positive advantages in all ways, and it was that rather than vanity which had impelled her to regain that youth. But- Garric had grown used to the old woman. The additional change, even though it was for the better, was disturbing at a level well below his consciousness. The thought was so foolish that he grinned. It was good to do that, but it didn't lead his mind away from the question. "Every time we survive, something new comes at us," he said. "Eventually, wewon't survive. You and I won't, and the kingdom won't. Isn't that so?" Tenoctris laughed.

She'd laughed often throughout the time Garric had known her, but this full-throated, youthful chortling was new. And a little embarrassing, truth to tell, because Garric had the strong impression that he was more the subject of her good humor than the person she was sharing it with. The guards didn't face around to watch, but he could see their heads turn slightly in hopes of learning why the pretty young woman was laughing so hard. "I think, now that you've suggested it…,"

Tenoctris said. She'd choked off a giggle and seemed contrite at her behavior. "I think that perhaps Icould become immortal. That's certainly one of the things the wizard whose powers I've borrowed intended to do. But I don't believe I could remain human, or that anyone human would want what immortality entails if they understood it as well as I do." She pressed three fingers of her left hand into the palm of her right while she considered how to proceed, then looked up with an affectionate smile. "The kingdom will be replaced, yes," she said. "Not necessarily fall, but no human creation lasts forever. Nor does anything else last forever, of course. Even cliffs-" She patted the face of rock. Light reflected from the pale limestone softened her silhouette, thrown onto it by the moon. "-will wear down to dust, then be squeezed up again in a different shape and place. Yes you'll die, Garric, though I hope it will be 'full of years and wisdom.' Certainly that's the result I'm striving for, for mankind's sake. But death's a natural part of life, not the triumph of evil." "But that's what I mean," Garric said with more heat than he'd intended. "Chaos, evil, will eventually win, won't it? We have to win every time, but if chaos wins even once, the fight's over. Forever." "Ah," said Tenoctris, nodding with a look of understanding. "Garric, these past few years have seen a great deal of disruption-a unique amount, even for the thousand year cycle, because this time it brought us to the Change.

But the preferred state of the cosmos isn't chaos, it's stasis: things remaining more or less as they are. I think-" She paused, apparently looking down past the scattering of strange trees to the encamped army. Garric doubted she was really focusing on her immediate surroundings, though. A trumpet blew, announcing a change in the guard detachments. "-Ihope, Garric," she said, "that when the Gods of Palomir have been returned to their rest, this world will rest also.

Now, I don't mean there'll be perfect peace!" Garric laughed. "Not unless people vanish too," he said. "Which I wouldn't regard as a good thing, though I suppose one could." "Yes," Tenoctris said. "But if-"

She waved a hand in the air. "-the priest-kings of Seres raise an army and conquer the Land, it doesn't matter in a cosmic sense. The Serians are human, and they'd be fighting for human reasons-the same kind of reasons that cause dogs to fight or boys when they're let out of school." "The Serians!" Carus snorted. "Not in this world or any worldI'min!" Which is missing the point, Garric thought, or perhaps illustrating it perfectly. Aloud he said, "I'll fight ratmen or lichs or demons, I suppose. I've fought them, and other men have fought them and won. But I hope if there're Gods to be fought, you'll handle the business, Tenoctris. I don't…" He rubbed his cheekbones to give himself a moment to put into words the thought he was struggling with.

"Tenoctris," Garric said, "when I think about fighting with Gods, I feel like there's a wall of crystal stretching up to the sky. There's nothing I can grip, nothing I can even see." "I'd like to say I know exactly how to deal with that problem," Tenoctris said with a wry smile, "but I don't think that lying to you would be helpful. I do hope that we can continue to gain information which will give me a better idea of what to do." She chuckled, though this time Garric thought the cheeriness was a bit forced. "And I also hope we survive the process of getting the information." "Yes," said Garric. "I-" His face was turned toward Tenoctris. The shadow of her head in profile lay softly on the limestone behind her. Rippling over the pale stone was another shadow. It was faint as undulations in still water, but it wasthere. "Hoy!" Garric shouted, leaping to his feet. He'd shifted his swordbelt to the front of his body so that he could sit comfortably on the ground, but his ancestor's reflexes had the blade clear in a singing arc before he was fully upright. "Tenoctris, watch out!" But there's nothing to see! The slope down twenty feet to where the guards stood was bare. Something might've been hiding against the trunk of the monkey-puzzle tree, but the moon would surely have shown anything approaching close enough to throw its shadow on the wall.

It's clear! Tenoctris had snapped a twig off a shrub growing at the base of the outcrop, ignoring the spines. Using it for a wand, she was murmuring words of power. A spiral of dust lifted from the gritty soil. Garric slashed the air in front of him. His long sword cut higher than it would've done against a human enemy, judging from the moon's angle to where the extra shadow had hirpled on the stone. To his utter amazement, the blade met a faint resistance as though he'd cut a jellyfish floating in clear water. Half the guard detachment ran toward Garric with weapons ready for use; the remainder of the platoon was faced out as before, though with their spears raised. Blood Eagles above on top of the ridge were standing to, their boots and equipment clashing. "Your highness!" said the commander. He must have thought the swipe of Garric's sword was directed at him and his men. "Friend!

Friend!" An overpowering stench flooded the night, thrusting Garric and the captain back in opposite directions. The next trooper got a long stride ahead his commander before he drew in a breath. He stopped, wobbled to his knees, and threw up on the inside of his shield. "Neber saudry rish!" Tenoctris shouted. The tip of her makeshift wand flashed brilliantly red, turning the air a lingering rose color for a dozen double-paces around. In its pale warmth, a bloody splotch dissipated into rags where Garric had cut at nothing.

Two dirty-looking creatures of serpentine horror swam through the air toward him; each was over ten feet long. Instead of fangs, their mouths were circular pits. In the wizardlight, the rows of teeth within gleamed like rusty iron. "Duzi!" Garric cried, jumping sideways more in disgust than fear. He held his sword between him and the nearer creature. A Blood Eagle stepped forward and hurled his javelin.

The head was a four-sided pyramid, slender enough to punch through a bronze cuirass and the ribs it covered; it slid through one of the floating hagfish without slowing, then chipped rock from the cliff face twenty feet beyond. The creature began to deflate around the exit wound, spilling a brighter color out in tendrils. "Sister!" Carus said. "I've smelled mules that'd burst after a week in the sun and they weren't as bad!" The stink was something you could touch, worse than a tanyard at the height of summer. Even the worst smells quickly dull the ability of people to sense them, though. Garric had his equilibrium back. The haze of wizardlight was fading, and the third creature was blurring back into the air through which it wriggled.