Victor Milan - War In Tethys

The mob cheered rapturously. And then hundreds of hands were pointing skyward, and voices were crying, "Look!" in tones of mingled fear and wonder.

Zaranda looked up. Selune hung overhead, in a state even the most confirmed pessimist would have to ac-knowledge was past half-full, with her Tears a glowing trail behind her. Against the moon's face a great shape wheeled, winged and dark.

"Don't worry," she called to the crowd. "She's with me."

She turned to Hembreon. "If you'll excuse me, I have some personal business to attend to." He frowned. "If you could find it in you to say a few words—"

Brightening visibly, the old man stepped forward, raising his arms. "Friends, fellow Zazesspurians, coun-trymen and -women—" he began. The mob booed lustily.

As she reached the top floor, a young man in black police armor called out to her. In a burlap sack, he was carrying something large and round.

"Countess? I'm Constable Watrous. We were sent in a few hours ago to secure the building from looters. We searched the quarters of the false priest Armenides—" His handsome young face went a shade paler. "You wouldn't believe what we found there."

"Oh, yes I would," Zaranda said. "Now, what's on your mind?"

"Well, we found this there." He reached into the sack and lifted up the brazen head. "It, ah, it's been demand-ing to be brought to you."

"And so I have, and I must say you took your own sweet time about it, boy."

Zaranda sighed. "Hello, Head. It's been a while."

"Well, now that you've dispatched L'yafv-Afvonn back to the depths of hell—my personal thanks, by the way; you can't imagine how trying it was being com-pelled to speak for that horror—but now that you've es-tablished yourself as one of the foremost heroes of the age—of this or any age, and should I say heroine? be that as it may—unquestionably you'll want to learn the secrets I have to offer—"

Zaranda took the head from the youth, putting a hand over its mouth in the process. "Thank you, Con-stable Watrous. You did a good job." The youngster saluted, looked as if he wanted to say something, then turned and marched briskly away.

"Rmmph!" the head said, so emphatically Zaranda shifted her hand. "That young man clearly admired you. However, if you have a taste for more mature com-panionship, I can certainly provide—"

"Shut up," Zaranda said, "or I'll march you back down to the catacombs and chuck you in the lava."

The palace roof was flat. It was dotted with low ce-ment blocks of varying sizes, to what purpose Zaranda couldn't imagine. Maybe they were meant to serve as pedestals for statues. They might just as well have been meant to serve some otherworldly evil aims of Ar-menides' or L'yafv-Afvonn's.

From the noises drifting up off the plaza, a general celebration had broken out below. A familiar slight fig-ure sat on one of the blocks, her back to the stairs. She didn't stir as Zaranda approached.

Chenowyn whipped around when Zaranda laid a hand on her shoulder. She made as if to knock it away, then covered her face.

"Thank you for saving us today," Zaranda said.

"That wasn't me," the girl sobbed. "That was some monster. Some freak."

"That was you. You chose to help us. You found a way. I'm glad, anyway."

"I hate myself."

Zaranda shook her head. "Don't talk that way about my friend."

"I'm nobody's friend. I'm not even real. I'm just a con-struct."

"No," Zaranda said, hunkering beside her. "You're Chenowyn. You're a young girl; you're my apprentice; you're somebody I love and don't want to see hurt. And that's all that matters."

Vast wings boomed. Zaranda looked up to see a great draconian shape settling toward them, scales glinting purple in the light of moon above and city below.

The dragon touched down, and then a woman was walking toward them. Zaranda straightened.

"An amethyst dragon? How come you're so obsessed with sapphires?"

"I like sapphires," Nyadnar said. Her perfect fea-tures showed the first expression Zaranda had ever seen on them: puzzlement. "Why would I not like sap-phires?"

"Well, I'd figure an amethyst dragon would like amethysts, whereas a taste for sapphires would indi-cate—never mind."

She walked back to where she had discreetly left the brazen head before approaching Chen.

"Here," she said, tossing the artifact to the sorceress. Nyadnar caught the heavy object as if it were a child's rag ball. "Item delivered. You can arrange payment at your convenience; I'll be around. For a while, anyway."

"So you're Nyadnar," the head said. "I've heard a lot about you. And, I must say, now that I get a look at you—"

The sorceress gestured. The head went inert in mid-indelicacy. "That's a good trick," Zaranda said. "Wish I'd known how to do that."

"You will of course be paid," the sorceress said. "But you understand, my commissioning you to bring me the head was merely a pretext, all along, for—"

Zaranda shot a meaningful side-glance at Chen. "Maybe we should save that?"

"Oh," said the sorceress, who was also a dragon.

She held out her hands to the girl. "Come with me, Daughter," she said. "Fly with me. You have proven yourself worthy, and more than worthy, to assume your legacy. Now I will teach you who you are, and what you are; I will awaken in you power unimaginable to lesser beings."

Chenowyn stood. "I know who I am, and what I am: Chenowyn, apprentice to Zaranda Star. I chose to awaken my own power, thank you very much. If I have more, I expect to work it out on my own. Now, good-bye."

Nyadnar stared, aghast. "But I'm your mother."

Chenowyn frowned; for an instant her eyes gleamed red. "A mother doesn't demand proof of her child!" she cried. She grabbed Zaranda's hand. "There's only one person in the world entitled to call herself

my mother: Zaranda. I'm staying with her. You do what you choose."

She started walking toward the stairwell, tugging on Zaranda's hand. "Can we go? I'm hungry."

"Sure, honey. We can do that."

Zaranda looked back at Nyadnar. The sorceress slowly raised her head. To Zaranda's amazement, a per-fectly formed amethyst was sliding down one cheek.

"Yes," Nyadnar said, "even dragons cry. And our tears are gemstones."

About the Author

A former cowboy, former rock D.J., and current Yale dropout, Victor Milan says, "What I mostly do is write." Referring to that occupation, The Washington Post calls Victor a "contender for major stardom" in science fiction.

Victor has published over sixty novels, including Rune-spear, co-authored with Melinda Snodgrass, and the award-winning The Cybernetic Samurai and its sequel, The Cybernetic Shogun. He has recently published the technothriller Red Sands, the WILD CARDS novel Turn of the Cards, and the STAR TREK novel From the Depths. A charter member of the New Mexico-based Wild Cards Mafia, Victor helped create the acclaimed SF shared-world anthologies of the same name.

His house is infested with dogs and ferrets. He enjoys birding, playing games of various sorts, walking by the Rio Grande, and exploring on his mountain bike the ancient network of irrigation ditches in Albuquerque's North Valley. He also studies tae kwon do.