Shifting Sands

Chapter Twenty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The storm caught us just as we were stumbling into the town. A blizzard of sand poured down on us, forcing me to half-close my eyes and cover my mouth as we found the buildings. Visibility dropped sharply to the point where the horse was almost blind and the only way we could navigate was by holding hands. I don't know how we managed to get the horses into the makeshift stables and ourselves into the buildings, but we made it. Behind us, the howl of the storm could be heard even through the stone walls.

I stumbled into a corner and collapsed by the wall, too tired and spent to do anything else. Most of the others were in the same position, all trying desperately to get some rest, rest that might be broken at any moment by barbarians breaking down the walls and storming the building. I had a sudden mental image of the weight of the storm breaking down the building and tossing us out into the billowing sandstorm and closed my eyes, trying to relax. It didn't take. I could hear murmuring from some of the officers, wondering angrily what was going on and if we were trapped. I knew exactly how they felt.

Brother Stone sat down next to me, gave me an odd calculating look and then closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. The rasp of his breath gave him away, although I was too tired to care about why he was pretending to sleep. I couldn't sense any magic surrounding him, no sprites dancing attendance on his every whim; somehow, that scared me the most of all. The enemy had access to magic and we had none. If they commanded a sprite to tear down the walls and devour us, we would be defenceless.

The building shook as the winds battered against its structure, but it was solid construction and held up to the fury of the storm. I found myself praying that the soldiers, billeted in lesser homes and shacks, survived the night. They wouldn't have the comfort of the richest home in the town, although that was saying nothing compared to some of the buildings back in the city. And they didn't even have running water. I would have forgiven everything for running water and a proper bath. I was dirty and sweaty and I was uncomfortably aware that I stank. There was nothing I could do about it, not here. My only consolation was that everyone else was in the same boat.

I saw Tarfanaxe and one of his officers talking quietly in low tones, too quietly for me to hear. I pushed the issue out of my mind and concentrated on analysing what I had seen in the battle, looking for insights. The barbarians had acted oddly, at least as far as I could tell, although that didn't mean that they weren’t acting rationally by their own standards. They’d charged us, even in the face of cannon and matchlocks, and come uncomfortably close to overrunning the firing line. If the thin red line had been broken, they would have routed us. I understood the logic of seeking a battle – if we’d let them run amok while we hid behind stone walls, they would have devastated the farms that supplied the city – but I suspected that it wouldn't be so easy next time. If there was a next time. It was tempting to believe that the barbarians wouldn’t be willing to engage us again, but I knew better than to assume that they would run from us, having tested our mettle.

The rasping breathing beside me started to shade into the snoring of true sleep. I had to admire Brother Stone’s calm, even if his world had been turned upside down in a single day. I would probably have been panicking, but he still seemed calm and unconcerned...I was sure that it was an act. He had been the most powerful man in the army when we departed the city. Now, he was an elderly man of little actual use. The enemy had stolen his magic...

I sat upright, astonished at my own thought. Magic here worked through command and control of the sprites. A mage didn't work magic on his own; he commanded a sprite to perform the magic, using words of power and control. Brother Stone could no more do magic on his own than I could grow a penis at will. If the mages had been losing control of the sprites, could it be that the barbarian attacks and their magic had somehow been sapping their powers? I remembered the look of infinite malice in supernatural eyes and shuddered. If the sprites had been freed from their chain, they wouldn't hesitate to leave us to be slaughtered by our enemies.

My back jerked as a tingling, almost like an electric shock, ran through the wall. I saw flickers of blue light dancing through the air, before fading out of existence. No one else, even Brother Stone, seemed to have sensed anything, but I felt a deep and growing sense of apprehension. The sudden thunder as the winds shook the building sent me to my feet, one hand drawing the pistol on my belt. Tarfanaxe turned to look at me, just before the building shook again and one of the upper windows blew in. A rolling cloud of sand poured into the building before the officers managed to block the window again. I shook my head at his inquiring look, and then swore. They’d blocked the windows with wood – no glass here, not outside the Great Houses – and they were using lanterns of my design to provide light. Which was all very well and good, I knew, until we ran out of air. No one had thought to provide air holes when they’d been sealing up the building.

Another flash of blue light shimmered in the air, followed by a greater shock. “They’re coming,” I said. Everyone apart from Brother Stone was on their feet, weapons in hand. I could see the fear in their eyes – men who wouldn't quail from a threat they could see, scared by the unknown – and hoped that I looked calm. I didn't feel calm at all. The building kept shaking and I felt a growing tension in the air, like a mighty spring that was about to snap. “They’re...”

Just for a second, a translucent face appeared in front of the door, malicious eyes glowering at us. I almost screamed, a microsecond before the door exploded into a hail of woodchips, blasting out in all directions. The first barbarian who came in through the door was wrapped in cloths, hiding everything apart from his eyes. The sand that spun around him came flying towards us, threatening to blind our eyes. I lifted my pistol on instinct and shot him in the head. He stumbled backwards and collapsed, only to be followed by two more barbarians who advanced towards us, swords and daggers in hand.

Tarfanaxe lunged forward with his own sword and sliced through the second barbarian’s arm. The third brought his own sword up and fought back, savagely driving Tarfanaxe back with the sheer power of his advance. More barbarians followed him in and the officers struggled to block them. I stumbled backwards as one of the barbarians took a swipe at me and almost sliced through my arm, just before one of the officers thrust his sword through the barbarian’s head. Tarfanaxe had defeated his second opponent, but more and more were pressing in through the door. If they drove us back from the door, I realised, they’d have us. Tarfanaxe understood, at least, and barked orders. We’d hold the door as long as we could...

The entire building shook again as the storm grew even stronger. This time, we heard creaking sounds from up above. The building’s owner had been a wealthy man – hence the three stories on his home and workplace – but it wouldn't save the building now. The smaller buildings would probably weather the storm far better, if it ever let up. I cursed the enemy magicians as I held my sword up, almost buckling under the weight. The city hadn't seen the wisdom of forging swords for women either. Wielding a sword required personal strength and endurance as well as wealth and freedom. One of my father’s old sayings ran through my head and I almost smiled. God made men, he’d said, when he’d taught me how to shoot for the first time, but Sam Colt made them equal. And it was far easier for a woman to use a firearm than a sword. I’d had almost no lessons, even when I’d managed to convince Tarfanaxe that I should join the army as one of his advisers.

I caught him as he stumbled back, blood flowing from a nasty cut to his cheek. “We have to get out of here,” I bellowed. I had to shout. No one would hear anything less under the howling gale, or the sound of sand drifting to the ground. The omnipresent sound was wearing away at all of us. “The entire building is going to come down.”

He glanced upward, muttered something that was midway between a curse and a prayer, and started to bellow orders of his own. I half-expected him to order a sally out into the midst of the storm – which would have been nothing less than suicide, although perhaps a better death than falling into their arms and trying to surrender – but instead he pointed towards the inner door. The house’s former owner had created a kitchen that was almost modern, if one discounted the complete lack of gas ovens or electric lights. I didn't understand as he shoved me towards the door. Was he trying to save my life at the cost of everyone else dying?

I still didn't understand as one of his officers caught my arm and pulled me into the kitchen. Even when he pulled up the hatch in the floor – the wooden floor someone had spent days creating and fitting neatly in place – I didn't get it, until I saw the lantern flame flickering in the draft. The house had an underground passage to one of the other houses! I cocked my pistol as he passed me the lamp, whispered a blessing in my ear and waved me down the ladder and into a cool dark tunnel. It was black as pitch underground, yet I could feel a cool draft in my face and held up the lantern to find my way through the darkness. I couldn't understand why someone had built the tunnel in the first place – the entire town was a warren of hidden tunnels – but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The tunnel led to a underground crossroads and a chink of light in the distance. I walked towards it and found a hatch, another wooden ladder – and a pair of soldiers pointing matchlocks at me. Their quarters hadn't been attacked at all.

“It’s...ah, Lord Alex,” one of the sergeants said. Officially, I’d named my male persona after myself. If the soldiers had looked a little more closely...they probably wouldn't have seen any reason to doubt my masculinity, as long as they didn't strip me naked. This culture was firmly wedded to the idea of men doing all the fighting. “Sir...”

“The others are coming through,” I said, sharply. I heard a stumbling scuffle from down below and looked back down the tunnel to see Brother Stone stumbling towards us. He looked like a man who had been dreaming of happy days and had suddenly been woken up into a nightmare. His long monkish robes were torn and stained; his staff had been broken, although I didn't know how. He was helped to climb out of the tunnel and pointed to a safe corner. I had my doubts about how long it would remain safe, but for the moment it would do.

The remainder of the officers followed quickly, leaving behind a small rearguard. I had an idea and issued orders quickly, instructing two of the soldiers to move one of the barrels of gunpowder down the tunnel and back into the house. Once it was ready, we could light a fuse and then run for our lives. If we were lucky, the explosion would not only take out the building, but collapse the tunnel, making tracking us difficult, if not impossible. I allowed myself a sigh of relief as Tarfanaxe appeared at the end of the tunnel, having left two wounded men to serve as the final rearguard. Back home, their lives could probably have been saved, although perhaps with some difficulty. Here...their deaths were certain. I understood why they had been left to die, buying us some extra time with their lives, but I didn't like it. I hoped I would never grow used to it.

“We lit the fuse,” Tarfanaxe said, as he was greeted by the officers. Their salute – a clenched fist hitting their breastbone – almost made me smile. “It should go off in a few moments.”

I endured what felt like lifetimes of suspense before the barrel of gunpowder detonated and shook the entire town. The tunnel collapsed behind us. I hoped that that would deter the barbarians from continuing their attack, at least until they worked out that that was a limited tactic that could only be used sparingly. We didn't have the gunpowder to waste.

“Good thinking,” Tarfanaxe said. He patted my shoulder and headed over to consult with his officers and sergeants. I was suddenly very aware that I was the only woman in a crowd of semi-civilised men and found myself praying that my disguise still held true. If they found out...I was no longer protected by a Guardian. I could be raped or worse. I almost started hyperventilating before I calmed myself, remembering the comforting presence of the pistol at my belt. How many rounds did I have left? Somehow, I couldn't remember.

I drifted off into an uneasy sleep when the expected attack failed to materialise. My dreams were full of dark shadows and monsters, but when I awoke, I felt surprisingly refreshed. Several men had slept next to me, their bodies pressing against mine, yet there was nothing sexual in their presence. They were just seeking reassurance...it crossed my mind, suddenly, that there was no barrier to homosexuals serving in this army and I almost broke down into giggles. It would be the height of irony if my disguise was penetrated by a horny man looking for his catamite.

Sunlight was pouring through the windows as I pulled myself to my feet. A quick glance at my watch revealed that I had slept nearly nine hours, all through the night. I had lost all sense of time in the storm. I looked over at the watchmen, who had been awake and on their feet during the darkest hours, and stumbled over to the windows. Warm air gusted over my face as I peered out, sucking in my breath at the sight before me. The town was covered in sand, great sand dunes piled against all of the remaining buildings. I shivered again, despite the heat. The townspeople had been able to live in a respectable fashion, with their town providing them with a good living. Now...it was an arid wasteland. The sand would have ruined the farmland, poisoned the wells and killed whatever animals remained in their pens.

“Gods,” Tarfanaxe breathed. I had barely been aware of his presence until his awed voice broke my concentration. “What have they done?”

I had a sickening vision of the future and almost swore. The sand was advancing now, slowly strangling the lifeblood of the city-states. In ten years, perhaps less, the entire world would be nothing, but desert. I’d seen desert planets in a dozen different science-fiction movies, yet I didn't want to live on one. And if the sand killed everything, what kind of life would be left? Would even the cockroaches survive? Even the tribesmen had had to trade with the towns and cities to live.

Tarfanaxe barked orders and the remains of the army formed up. We’d lost hardly anyone in the battle, but dozens of men were missing after the storm had faded away. At least there would be plenty of horses to help get the wounded back to Padway. I wondered if the barbarians would come slashing in to attack our flanks once we were away from the town’s limited protection, but I knew that we couldn't stay there. Once our food and drink ran out, we would die on the vine.

The ride home was nerve-racking. Every time I sensed a flicker of magic, I almost panicked, expecting to see the barbarians riding over the sands to trap and kill us. It was a colossal relief when we finally saw greenery again, even though I knew that it wouldn't last. If the sand kept advancing, it would start hitting Padway itself in less than a week. By the time we came in sight of the city’s walls, I was just too tired to even think straight. I wanted a bath, a long sleep in a comfortable bed and some time to think. I doubted I would get any of it.

I twisted in the saddle as we approached the city and saw, just within eyesight, a pair of horsemen watching us. They’d followed us back to the city. If they hadn't known where we’d come from, they certainly did now. It wouldn't be long before Padway itself was attacked. I pointed that out to Tarfanaxe and he shrugged.

“Let them enjoy their victory,” he said, seriously. “They need time to boost their morale before we depress it again.”

He was right. The city declared it a great victory. Clearly, I thought in the privacy of my own head, this was a new definition of the word. We’d barely held our own, at best. It boded ill for the future.

 

Chapter Twenty-Three<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

I’d heard that the Ancient Romans really knew how to party. The Great Houses of Padway put them to shame. There were massive parades of soldiers and horse-drawn cannon, celebrating our success over the barbarians. There were endless ceremonies in front of each of the temples, one after the other, thanking all the city’s gods for their support in the great battle. There was a day of feasting and rejoicing, when aristocrats mingled with freemen and slaves – for one day – were allowed to forget that they were slaves. There were dancing girls, prize-fights and heavy consumption of alcohol. The cynic in me muttered that in nine months, the city might experience a population boom. All of the normal taboos and social controls were forgotten.

I barely took part in the ceremonies. My status in the city was somewhat ill-defined. If I’d accepted Tarfanaxe’s proposal, I would have been numbered among the great ladies of the city, with my own role in the services outside each of the temples. As it was, I could be excused from all ceremonies, even those hosted by the Crone’s priestesses. I spent the first day reviewing what had been done in the College since my departure and then allowed myself as much sleep as possible. And baths. I felt selfish and cruel for insisting on a pair of steaming hot baths – private baths, I hasten to add – but it was easy for me to overcome my scruples. Besides, I’d manumitted the serving wrenches I’d bought and paid them good money to work in the College.

The city’s aristocratic women, much to my private amusement, loved mirrors. They went for hundreds of gold coins apiece, although the one I had in my private bathing room had been a gift from one of my early patients, back when I’d been serving as a midwife. I undressed, once the bath was full and the door was unlocked, and studied myself in the mirror. I barely recognised myself. My exposed skin was tanned, muscles rippled under my flesh and short blonde hair gave me an odd appearance, at least by the standards back home. I felt an itch as I ran my fingers through my hair and swore aloud. Lice. I’d probably have to shave my head completely to avoid them here, at least until I could invent something that would exterminate head lice. The soldiers had probably all been infected. My fingers prodded my breasts, checking for any suspicious lumps – although God knew what I’d do if I found any – before walking down to my groin. I’d refrained from discussing periods with anyone here – they had a whole series of taboos and superstitions surrounding menstrual cycles – but at least I was regular, now I was settled down. I remembered what I’d been told of the rhythm method for preventing conception and grinned. I’d have to make sure that that, at least, got into the medical books I planned to write one day.

I touched the bathwater, grimaced slightly at the heat, and then climbed in anyway. I could feel whole layers of dirt sloughing off me, as a snake sheds its skin, as I allowed the water to rise up to my neck. They hadn’t invented sponges, sadly, but they had invented facecloths and I used one to wash my hair before relaxing and allowing the heat to work its magic. By the time I climbed out of the bath, once it had started to cool, I felt almost reborn. I pulled on my robe – the aristocrats had body servants who were supposed to do almost everything for their masters when they bathed, but I had always found that creepy – and checked myself in the mirror. I had never been a particularly vain girl, but I told myself that I looked spectacular. Shaking my head, I walked out of the bathroom and into my private office. Here, between other tasks, I was writing out everything I knew. It wasn't an easy task.

It hadn’t occurred to me until I had arrived in this world just how ignorant I actually was in many ways. I could field-strip an M16 or AK-47, but what I knew about actually producing them was incomplete. In many cases, I needed to make the tools to make the tools before I could produce anything useful. I knew that the Taliban terrorists had been capable of making their own AK-47s, but I was damned if I knew how they’d done it. And there was no way I could take the city from where it was at the moment to computers and spacecraft in a single generation. I certainly wouldn't be able to teach them how to produce nuclear power.

The tablets in front of me were my best hope for creating a legacy. I’d started to write down what I knew and then start reasoning out the missing pieces. I knew the basic theory behind steam engines, but it had taken me several days to come up with a design that could actually be produced in the city. Once that was built, I hoped that my students would be able to improve on the design; they, at least, wouldn't be hampered by preconceived notions of what was possible and what wasn't with their level of technology. If only I could remember more...one of the little elements no one thinks about is the difference between early American and early British steam engines. The American design was much less efficient than the British design, but it was easier to build, maintain and repair. Over the long run, it had proved itself more suitable to American conditions. If I could reproduce it...

But I couldn't; at least, not yet. Instead, I wrote down what I knew and left it for the moment, hoping that I would be able to recall more when I wasn't concentrating hard on it. I knew that I needed to think about food storage and cursed when I heard the sound of early fireworks – one of my introductions – going off outside. Tarfanaxe had been right to say that the city needed a victory, even a half-victory like we’d produced for them, but they were burning through entire warehouses of food. What would they do when the food started to run out?

I was still considering the issue when the maid knocked on the door. I’d been at pains to convince everyone in my household not to enter my private rooms without permission and the lesson had sunk in. It had taken me several weeks to understand why, but once I had understood I hadn't hesitated to take shameless advantage of it. This world had no laws protecting domestic servants or slaves from abuse and they could be mistreated horribly with no recourse. Just by treating them as human beings, I’d won their respect and loyalty. It helped that I paid the best wages in the city.

“My Lady,” she said, “Captain-General Tarfanaxe has arrived and would like to see you.”

I frowned. I’d expected Tarfanaxe to spend most of the week enjoying himself. Clearly, his sense of duty was stronger than I had realised. It spoke well of him.

“Please escort him to the visiting room,” I said. Merely being polite made me superior to any other employer in the city. “I will be along in two minutes.”

She bobbed a curtsey and vanished, leaving me alone. I looked in the smaller hand-mirror, unable to resist the chance to check my appearance, before remembering that Tarfanaxe wouldn't be impressed if I wore my hair in the latest fashion or not. Why had he come to visit? Did he want to talk military strategy – he was already being applauded as a military genius, thanks to his private lessons with me – or did he intend to try to persuade me to marry him again? The thought was worrying. All of the reasons I had had for refusing his suit were still valid.

I picked up a gold coin, the first I’d been paid, and put it in my pocket before leaving the room. I was actually wondering if I was causing an economic headache for the rest of the city, for I was earning money at a fantastic rate. Unlike back home, the economy of the city was very basic, with gold as the standard of wealth. Someday, I would probably have to show them how to develop a paper economy, although that would have its own pitfalls. I walked down the stairs, nodded politely to another of the maids and walked into the visiting room. It was traditional in the city to have a single room set aside for visitors and I had – reluctantly – followed that tradition. I didn't need to set more of their noses out of joint by reminding them that I wasn't from the city, although they probably never forgot it.

Tarfanaxe stood up as I entered the room and bowed to me. It was a gesture of respect, all the more so because he was a born aristocrat and I was of somewhat vague social status. I probably counted as a born freewoman, but I was too wealthy to be considered anything less than an aristocrat or one of the richer priestesses. I’d have to find a way to wean them off the idea that birth counted for more than ability, if it were possible.

“My Lady,” he said. I scowled inwardly. It was clear that he was going to be formal. Just for a moment, I understood how some women could like the idea of arranged marriages. They never had to endure the embarrassment of talking with a man they’d rejected. “I was surprised that you didn't attend the meeting in the council chambers this morning.”

“My invitation must have gone astray,” I said, more tartly than I’d intended. The council didn't have to notify me of their meetings, let alone invite me. “What did they have to say about me?”

“They had nothing to say about you,” Tarfanaxe said. I wondered if he was pretending surprise, and then dismissed the thought. He wasn't such a good actor. “They were, however, very concerned with the advancing barbarian horde.”

I nodded. The refugees had joined in the celebrations, of course, but they’d been unable to return home or even find useful employment in the city. I’d heard through the grapevine – the network of emancipated slaves and servants I’d established – that many of them had fallen into prostitution and slavery. It was rare for someone to volunteer to be enslaved, but a criminal or a debtor could be legally enslaved and bound by the same kind of spells that had bound me, months ago. My lips twitched humourlessly. If magic was failing within the city itself, those spells might no longer be reliable.

“And they were wondering what they should do,” he continued. “I said that we would have to prepare the city to withstand a siege. They did not want to believe me.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, dryly. It seemed to be a commonplace of governments everywhere that they wanted to believe the best and not the worst. My father had always said that it was better to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. “Did you manage to convince them?”

“They reluctantly agreed to allow me to start preparing defences,” Tarfanaxe said. “They were worried about the precedent of allowing commanded troops within the city.”

I had to smile. The city had a written and an unwritten code that governed how its soldiers could act and react within the city itself. It was strictly forbidden for the Captain-General to assert any authority within the city without permission from the council and troops were not allowed to enter with their arms and armour. They were allowed to carry the short swords that marked freemen from slaves, but even so they were governed by harsh laws. I remembered how the Romans had lost their republic – first to Sulla and then to Caesar – and saw the logic in their words. They wanted – needed – to prevent a coup.

The Garrison – the military base within the city – was not technically part of the city. Inside the city, the City Guard was supposed to serve as a law enforcement force – and the Great Houses’ muscle. Agreeing to allow Tarfanaxe to deploy troops within the city itself was a major concession, one that they would never have accepted unless they were terrified. I considered everything that had happened since the army had marched to war and decided that they had good reason to be nervous about the future.

“We never discussed a siege,” he said, breaking into my thoughts. “What do you know that might come in useful?”

I had to smile at his tone. Having accepted the facts of my origin, he had no hesitation in milking me for his own advantage. “The important thing is to make sure that we have enough food,” I said. I knew where the logic would go and shivered inwardly. Rationing was only the start. It wouldn't be long until some bright spark realised that pushing the refugees – or perhaps some of the poorest people in the city – out into the midst of the barbarian hordes would save the rest. Cold logic demanded nothing less, but I vowed to myself that I would not point it out myself. I was not going to have that on my conscience.

“That may prove difficult,” Tarfanaxe commented, grimly. “The merchants will object to opening up their warehouses to allow us to count their sacks of grain.”

I remembered, suddenly, the story of Joseph and wished that there were Christians here. They would have understood the concept of hording grain in good years to prepare for the bad. On the other hand, they would probably not have been very welcome in a society that worshipped many gods. I tried to put the story into words he would understand and, once I had gotten the basics across, he accepted it. It helped that they had a tradition of believing that dreams came from the gods.

“You have to collect as much as possible and then ration out the food,” I continued, once we had covered the basics. “The longer we can make our food supplies last, the better.”

What I carefully did not point out – apart from all the other nightmares I was going to leave them to discover on their own – was the long-term effect if the sandstorms reached the city. I’d seen an entire town devastated, the farms ruined beyond all hope of repair, by sand falling on the fields. Even if the mages could maintain a barrier to keep the sand away from the city itself, they couldn't prevent the sand from devastating the farms. And without the farms, the city would starve. I made a mental note to urge my students to speed up collecting grain we could store in the College. I wasn't going to let them starve if I could help it.

We ran through as many other ideas and concepts as I could remember, our discussion lasting long into the night. I did have some grounds for reassurance now that we were behind thick stone walls, although I wondered how long they would hold against the storms, let alone powerful magic. I had been able to sense the city’s protective sprites being marshalled by the mages for our defences, yet...how long would they remain loyal? Hell, they were never loyal, not even slightly. They were compelled to defend us and would desert us if they could.

“Thank you,” he said, finally. He took my hand in his and gripped it firmly. “With your knowledge and my experience, we will survive this nightmare.”

I looked up into his blue eyes and felt...an odd fluttering in my heart. I’d been tempted before, back home, but this was different. This was no teenage jock – all hormones and no common sense – or a nervous geek, too flustered to ask the question properly; this was a grown man, one who I found attractive on a physical and mental level. I could ask him to spend the night with me. I could feel my period coming on. I could sleep with him without worrying about becoming pregnant...and I knew that we might both die soon. The sense of danger only heightened my arousal. I could take him to my bed without guilt.

But it would change things. No matter how I wanted to deny it, he was a product of a society that didn’t – couldn’t – recognise the concept of male-female friendships. Eligible women were either wives or whores and if I took him to my bed, I would have to marry him or be considered a whore. Even if no one else ever found out – and I trusted him to be discreet – it would affect his thinking. He would never look at me in the same way again.

And I was a virgin. For some reason, I thought that that might be important.

“Thank you,” I said, finally. “I’ll see you at the council of war.”

If he had expected an invitation to stay the night, he showed no sign of it as he kissed my hand and departed, following the maid. I stared at where he had been for a long moment, and then turned, hiding my frustration behind an expressionless mask. I told myself firmly that I wasn't going to cry and I meant it. The maid approached and I dismissed her with a nod before walking up the stairs to my office and opening the door. A cold gust of air struck me and I stumbled back, one hand grasping the pistol. A shimmering translucent form was hanging in the air, bright eyes turning to meet mine before it faded and was gone. The cold malice and hatred in the sprite’s eyes chilled me to the bone.

That was it, I decided. It was time that Brother Stone and I had a long chat.

It was time I learned about magic.

 

So glad to see more chapters up. Not my usual taste in literature, but I got hooked early in, just like I've gotten hooked in on a few others you have written.

 

Chapter Twenty-Four<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“Completely out of the question,” Brother Stone snapped. “I cannot – I will not – teach a woman the fundamentals of magic.”

I held onto my temper with an effort. It had been hard enough to convince him to meet with me, let alone to allow me into the Brotherhood’s Guildhall and speak with me privately. I’d had to promise them additional money from my private supply of gold as well as tutors to school their apprentices in reading and writing. It had astonished me that the mages couldn't often read or write themselves. Much of their dangerously-won knowledge was often learned and relearned – and then forgotten, as mages died without passing their knowledge down to their apprentices.

“And yet you have a fear – a taboo – of female magic users,” I said, as calmly as I could. Even among the soldiers, I had rarely encountered such blatant sexism – and they’d had good reasons to be sceptical of me. “That suggests that some women must learn and master magic, doesn't it?”

He fixed his cold eyes on me. Someone else, someone steeped in this culture’s fear of the mages and how they controlled creatures of vast power and limitless malice, would have cringed. I no longer cared. I’d seen their power broken by stronger magic and I’d sensed the sprites prowling through the city, spying out our defences. The enemy horde was probably nearing the walls even as we spoke. I had no time for their sexism.

“Every time a woman has learned some magic, she has lost control of it,” Brother Stone said, finally. “The sprites break free and cause havoc before they are sucked back to the ethereal realms. Women are simply incapable of mastering the sprites and maintaining control of them.”

My eyes narrowed. It was perfectly true that some women would never be as good as some men, in pretty much any field, but it was also true that there were plenty of women who were better than the average male. I’d known a female sniper who could outshoot every man in the gun show, a female runner who could outrace most male sprinters and a female writer who wrote military fiction and competed with the best male writers of her day. There was no logical reason why every woman should lose control of the sprites. From what I’d picked up, over the months I’d been in the city, there were far too many male apprentices who lost control – and didn't survive the experience.

I pointed that out, rather snidely. “And are there no male apprentices who lose control of their sprites?”

“That is true,” Brother Stone parried. “But it is also true that every woman who has tried to learn – and possesses the talent – has lost control. Most of the male apprentices manage to learn to master the sprites before they break free and lash out at their captor.”

I sucked in a breath. “If you trained more women with the talent,” I challenged, “surely some of them would succeed in mastering the sprites.”

“Talent doesn't run in bloodlines,” Brother Stone said, crossly. It was probably true. Almost all of the mages were sworn to celibacy, a celibacy enforced by magical vows. It would be literally impossible for a mage to break his oath. “We very rarely find women with the talent...”

“I can see the sprites,” I said, sharply. I pointed up towards the stone ceiling, where a translucent form was drifting through the air. “Can’t you see him?”

Brother Stone whirled around and jumped to his feet, pointing a pair of long fingers towards the sprite. He rapped out a series of words in a language I didn't recognise, but each word seemed to fall on my head like a stone, echoing through my mind. The sprite seemed to flicker and vanish, although a tiny shimmer of its cold hateful expression seemed to linger for a long second. Brother Stone sat down and looked at me with new respect.

“There are trained mages who cannot see the sprites at will,” he said, very slowly. I hoped he’d take me – and other women – more seriously in future. God damn it, a man sworn never to want or have sex shouldn't be so damn...sexist. “And you can see them...how?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “I can just...see them, even when they’re trying to hide.”

“The barbarians have been using them to spy on us,” Brother Stone said. I allowed him to think that I didn't know that, although I’d seen them and it was a pretty obvious thing to do anyway. The sprites had far more uses in war than simple destruction. “We’ve been trying to keep them out, but many of the spells fail, or refuse to work for long enough...”

All of a sudden, he seemed much older. “I have come to a decision,” he said, finally. “If you wish to learn more about magic, you can learn. If you kill yourself, or lose control of the sprites, you and I will be the only ones hurt.”

He leaned forward and caught my eyes. “You’ll be oath-sworn to secrecy,” he added. “If you break an oath sworn in front of an oath-sprite, you’ll wish that you had died a hundred times before the sprite is finished with you.”

I remembered the enchantment he’d used, long ago, to turn me into a slave and shuddered. He didn't give me time to think, or reflect; as if he were determined to teach me what he could before he thought better of it, he caught my arm and pulled me towards a hidden corridor behind a statue. The statue was so realistic that I wondered if it had once been human, one of the Brotherhood’s enemies transformed to stone and left to remind the others of the price of breaking the Guild’s law. We came out in a large underground chamber, illuminated by burning torches set into the walls, rather than glowing sprites. The rounded chamber was decorated with strange runes and symbols; the floor, made of marble rather than cold stone, was unmarked, save for a set of circles embedded within the ground. I felt my hair stand on end as he motioned me towards an altar that seemed to glow, even though it provided no light. There was a sprite within the altar, ancient, powerful and bound in iron chains. I could feel its power beating on the air, sending shivers down my spine. It reminded me of the sprite that had abducted me and transported me to this strange new world. At times, I could pretend that I was merely in ancient Rome or Egypt. The sprites mocked any such pretence.

Or did they? I’d never studied Roman religion very thoroughly, but they’d believed in many gods rather than one god, at least until Christianity had come to Rome and had been embraced by the Emperor. Had they known about powerful creatures? Had they seen the sprites and believed that they were gods? Were all the legends of gods and monsters echoes of a time when my world had known supernatural monsters? I remembered the sprite – and how it had looked like a genie when I had first seen it – and wondered. Had the sprites influenced the early civilisations?

“Place your hand on the altar and swear never to reveal any of the secrets of magic without permission from the Brotherhood,” Brother Stone said. “Now.”

I reached forward and placed my hand on the altar. The moment I touched it, my entire body froze, save only for my mouth. I could feel the sprite awakening, invisible eyes focusing on me and staring deep into my soul. I felt completely naked and helpless before its gaze. The sprite could count every atom in my body, alter my mind anyway it chose...

“I swear that I will never reveal any of the secrets you teach me without permission,” I said. As soon as I spoke, I felt as if I were caught in the centre of a powerful storm. Painless fire seemed to explode inside my mind. The words of my oath were burned into my soul. A second later, I was free and staggering backwards, only to land on my ass on the hard floor.

“You have sworn your oath,” Brother Stone said. I was suddenly aware of the oath inside my mind, an invisible barrier that I could no longer cross. “Listen carefully...”

Brother Stone didn't know how to be a good teacher. He was long-winded, went backwards and forwards without clear explanations and seemed to assume that I knew more than I did. On the other hand, he was clearly intent on making sure that I learned something and paused often to quiz me on some aspect of what he’d told me. I hadn't been aware that there were divisions between the sprites that were based on more than mere power. Some sprites were specialised...and those specialities were assigned by their first human master.

“The first words of power summon a sprite,” Brother Stone said, as he paced around the chamber. I noticed that he was careful not to step into any of the circles and resolved to remain out of them myself until he allowed me to enter. “If you already know the sprite, or know of the sprite, you can call it by its name and it must answer. If not, you pick your words carefully and then brand it with a name. Once branded, it will be bound by that name and may not abandon it without your permission.”

I shivered, despite the chamber’s growing heat, as he walked over to a second altar, hidden behind the first. “This is the Book of Names,” he said. The book itself impressed me – it was the closest thing I’d seen to paper since I’d arrived on this world – but I barely had time to study the workmanship before he started to trace out intricate names and symbols. “Each of the sprites bound by the mages is listed in this book. If you wish to call them, call them by their names and they will answer, unless they are bound to a single magician.”

He strode over to a cabinet and opened it wide. “A sword,” he said, pointing to a silver sword hanging in its place. “A bowl” – also silver – “a rod, a lump of coal, a bracelet, a ring, a golden leaf...each of these represents an element of the sprite’s true nature. They can be used to call the sprites and bind them to your service. They must be produced by a mage and the best results always come from elements worked by yourself.”

I frowned, trying to understand. There was an underlying logic to it, I was sure, but as he discussed the more powerful sprites – the truly dangerous ones – I suspected that he was playing a joke. Why would a powerful sprite care if it were summoned by the blood of a pregnant woman, instead of the blood of an elderly man? Why would a particular class of sprite refuse to be bound unless a living human was sacrificed to complete the ceremony?

“There is a great deal of debate about which elements are essential and which are not,” Brother Stone said, when I asked. “Research into the subject rarely leads to a long life. We have seen mages perform magic without knowing that their tools and elements have been altered, or replaced by less valuable items, but we have also seen mages killed when they knew that they were trying to cheat the sprites.”

“Right,” I said. Another question had just occurred to me. “Where do the sprites actually come from?”

Brother Stone shrugged. “We believe that they live on a higher plane until they are called into our world,” he said. “No sprite can enter our sphere without being summoned by one of us.”

“So a sprite that broke free wouldn't be a menace for long,” I concluded. That was something of a relief, at least. I’d freed a number of lesser sprites when I’d been experimenting in secret. “What would happen if you died and your sprites were free?”

“They might lash out, depending on what happened to me,” Brother Stone said. He looked up at me, his eyes distant and far away. “Entire cities have been destroyed in seconds, the sprite taking what revenge it can before it returned to its own world. Brother Dream’s death when he summoned you here was a very minor effect compared to what could have happened. The entire city could have been destroyed.”

He stood up and passed me a wooden knife. “I thought that we would try to summon one of the knowledgeable sprites,” he said. “Your talents do not seem to run in quite the same manner as our own. You may be able to ask it questions and receive straight answers.”

I nodded as he pointed me towards one of the circles. “Once the ritual begins,” he said, answering my unspoken question, “do not leave the circle until I instruct you to leave. You should be safe inside the circle; outside, you would be at its mercy. It could destroy you, transform you...anything.”

We went through a quick rehearsal before he trusted me with real tools and blood, drawn from one of the older mages years ago. It didn't seem too complicated, but I could feel a looming tension in the room, as if we were at the centre of an electrical storm. I felt faintly repulsed by the bloodlines he drew on my face, just before he gave me the silver sword and motioned me into one of the circles. The tension in the air was growing stronger. I realised, suddenly, that a male apprentice would start off with a smaller sprite, one less capable of causing vast damage if it broke free. It was impossible to tell if that was a backhanded compliment, or a deliberate attempt to kill me.

Brother Stone spoke the words one by one, his voice echoing in the air, as if an invisible choir was shadowing him. I felt the room grow almost intolerably warm, then plunge down to freezing temperature, just before slowly rising up to boiling heat. Sweat trickled down my back as I shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware that if I collapsed, I would fall out of the circle. I was starting to understand why the mages didn't flaunt their powers so casually. The sense of invisible pressure in the air was growing stronger; the walls, so neat and simple before, were slowly bending in impossible directions. Something hung in the air, shimmering into view; something so large that it seemed to exist in impossible dimensions. I forced myself to look away, my eyes streaming with tears, as the sprite materialised in front of me. It stared down at me, its gaze pounding into my head, and I had to fight not to fall on my face in front of the monster. I could barely see any of its face, but what little I could see was disturbing. It seemed a depraved mockery of the human form.

“By the power of our words, spoken from the gods, we bind and compel you, oh Darske, to answer our questions truthfully,” Brother Stone said. His voice suddenly seemed very small, compared to Darske’s presence. The sense of sheer power was almost overwhelming. I caught a glimpse of the sprite’s eyes and found myself riveted, almost hypnotised. It was toying with me, as a hawk might toy with a mouse before it swooped down and made its kill. “We ask of you for answers.”

I almost forgot my lines and had to swallow hard before I could speak. “Why was I brought into this world?”

Darske seemed to stare at me for a long moment...and then he burst out laughing. It was a cruel sound, so loud that I could still hear it even after I jammed my hands over my ears. I fought to stay on my feet as the sprite started to expand, slipping into dimensions that my mind couldn't accept, let alone see. Madness seemed to howl at the back of my mind as the laughter grew louder, the sense of sheer power growing stronger. Alarm bells were ringing in my mind as the sprite abandoned all trace of human form and became something completely beyond my comprehension, a presence that lacked anything I might recognise as a mark of humanity. And then it was gone. The chamber suddenly felt very small and cramped.

“Stay in the circle,” Brother Stone snapped. I had been about to walk over the line, breaking the circle. He held up one hand and said a few words. A presence in the air – a presence I hadn't even been aware of until it was gone – vanished. I felt another chill as I realised that it had remained behind, hoping that one of us would step out of the circle before realising that it had never been dismissed.

“You can leave now,” Brother Stone said, finally. I sagged to the ground in relief. My robes were stained with sweat and I felt exhausted. “Whatever answers exist out there, we’re not going to learn them from that sprite.”

I stared at him. “Has that ever happened before?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Brother Stone admitted. It took me a moment to realise that he was terrified. And that, I realised, suggested that I should be terrified too. I probably didn't know enough to know why I should be terrified. “The sprite should have been forced to provide a complete answer. It should have known, even if we didn't know...and instead it laughed at us and vanished. I do not understand?”

I wiped my sweaty hands on my robe. “But what does it all mean?”

“I don’t know,” Brother Stone said. I could see him deciding to be honest. “That scares me, Lady Alex. I just don’t know.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Five<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

There was a new tension in the air when I emerged from the Brotherhood’s Guildhall. The city itself seemed quiet, as if it had suddenly become aware of its danger. As my bodyguards surrounded me, I realised that I could hear chanting in the distance, voices echoing one another in a manner I recognised. It reminded me of when I’d been with the tribesmen, during the Gathering. They’d sung together in harmony. By the time the messenger sprite flashed into existence beside me, I had already realised that the barbarians were at the gates.

“Lady Alex,” the sprite gabbled, “you are summoned to the Garrison to assist the Captain-General. Your presence is requested immediately.”

I muttered a curse under my breath. I had no objection to going to assist Tarfanaxe – I didn't want him to be pushed into launching a counterattack at once, when we didn't know what was going on – but I was uncomfortably aware that I stank. I was also dressed like a woman and there wouldn't be any time to get into my male disguise. I did consider going home first and changing, but the message had insisted that I went at once and I didn't think it would be wise to defy it. The city council might not listen so keenly if they thought I considered myself above the law.

“I’m on my way,” I said, as I mounted my horse. “Tell them...”

The sprite had already vanished. I shrugged, wondering if it had taken advantage of a loophole in its instructions or if it had managed to break its chains and escaped, before dismissing the issue. My horse neighed and cantered off towards the Garrison, followed by my bodyguards. The streets were almost deserted – the population had probably gone to their battle positions, or to the temples to pray for salvation from the gods – and I allowed myself a moment of relief. I had expected panic and rioting crowds and both would make it harder to defend the city.

I’d seen the Garrison when I’d first entered the city, but I’d only been allowed to enter it when Tarfanaxe had made me one of his advisers. It was a colossal stone castle, easily capable of dominating the surrounding city, assuming that the castle garrison had had access to reasonably advanced weapons. I hadn't understood at all until I realised that, given the general level of technology prior to my arrival, the castle would have been effectively impregnable to anything less than a Greater Sprite. And if there were mages inside the castle, working to defend it, it would be impossible to break into the building. That left siege as the only option and any besieging army would have been decimated by disease long before the defenders began to starve. The defenders would have their own problems, of course.

The Garrison was part of the Inner Wall, a mighty wall that would daunt even a cannonball, at least at first. As we rode up to the inner gates, I could see crowds of refugees trying to make it through the city gates and into the inner city. The slums I’d seen on my arrival, slightly healthier after my knowledge had started to disseminate into the general population, were already being emptied. I cursed under my breath as I realised that the guards were trying to shut out as much of the slum population as possible. They wouldn't stand a chance when the barbarians started to break through the Outer Wall. I had already decided that the Outer Wall was utterly impossible to defend. No one had tried to gainsay me.

It took only a couple of minutes to pass through the guards. An officer tried to commandeer my horse, but I swore at him and he stormed off, doubtless intending to complain about the crazy foreign woman who had refused to loan him her horse. I passed the horse into the care of a pair of servants and started running as fast as I could up the stone stairs to the battlements. The Garrison was actually the tallest building in the city. From the vantage point, high overhead, I would be able to see everything. I had the uneasy feeling that the worst was yet to come.

I was proved right as soon as I reached the top. A number of military officers were pointing towards the south, where I could see the vague shimmer that suggested that sandstorms were just over the horizon. In the distance, I could see the leading scouts of the barbarian army charging towards the city, knocking down refugees as they ran in hopes of escaping the enemy. They didn't stand a chance. I heard the trumpets blaring out the order to seal the gates and shuddered. The slum dwellers would be trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea.

“Lady Alex,” Tarfanaxe said, as I joined him and a small group of officers. They were peering at the advancing horde through telescopes, muttering to one another in tones too low for me to catch. It didn’t sound very optimistic. “As you can see, the enemy have arrived.”

“We will break their heads on the stone of our battlements,” an officer proclaimed. He was halfway to roaring drunk and already losing control of himself. I recoiled as I smelled the cheap wine on his breath. It was very strong and probably poisonous as well. “We’ll teach them a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry...”

“We have to hope that the preparations we made for a siege were enough,” I said to Tarfanaxe, ignoring the drunkard as best as I could. Dear God – did these people think that drinking made a man smarter? “You need to tell the City Guard to maintain peace on the streets.”

“The Guard won’t listen to me,” Tarfanaxe said, dryly. “The best I can do is ensure that all of the battlements are manned and that we’re ready to oppose the enemy when they try to break the Inner Wall.” He nodded towards a company of archers who were taking up positions on the battlements. “We’ll use the archers to force them to keep their heads down and then use your weapons to wipe them out if they try to come over the wall.”

I shrugged. If the barbarians had learned how to make gunpowder – and that secret was well and truly out – the defenders of the city might be in for a nasty surprise. All the barbarians would have to do was dig a tunnel under the walls, fill it with gunpowder and detonate it in a single massive explosion. The walls would be shattered, the defenders would be stunned and the barbarians would pour in through the newly-created hole. I’d pointed out the weakness to Tarfanaxe, but he’d said that there was nothing they could do about it. We would just have to hope that the barbarians didn't know the secret of gunpowder. It struck me as nothing more than wishful thinking.

The next hour was nightmarish, if only because I was forced to watch as the barbarians thrust against the Outer Wall. Freemen – and perhaps some slaves who had scooped up weapons in the heat of the moment – were struggling to hold the wall, but as I’d expected, it was impossible to defend it without far more troops and weapons. The barbarians seemed completely unconcerned about the dangers as they challenged the walls, climbing up on the shacks and using them to get over the walls before slicing through the defenders and opening the gates. They seemed to delight in slaughter, even to the point of killing surrendered captives rather than keeping them alive. I saw some of the barbarians rounding up young women and dragging them off into the distance. There was nothing I could do to prevent them from being taken off and raped, or whatever fate the barbarians had in mind for them.

I wanted to rail against Tarfanaxe – or the city council – but I knew that it would be useless. There was nothing they could do either, unless they risked opening the main gates and leading an attack on the barbarians at close range. We just didn't have the trained troops to make that possible, even with the matchlocks and cannon. Tarfanaxe did agree to fire on some gatherings of barbarians with the cannons, using the first explosive shells we’re invented. They scared me to death – they exploded in the cannons about one time in four – but they seemed to teach the enemy respect. As darkness started to fall, fires blazed through the remains of the slums, throwing an eerie light over the city. I heard some of the guards talking about the end of the world and understood. It seemed as through the entire city was surrounded by flames licking upwards towards the sky. The stench of burning human flesh was overpowering.

“Maintain watch,” Tarfanaxe snapped, as the shifts began to change. The sentries were choking and coughing because of the smoke, but they took their positions without demur. I realised that the barbarians might hope to assail the walls in darkness and break into the Inner City. “Don’t hesitate to sound the alert if they get up to the walls.”

I slept poorly that night, as did everyone else. Alarms were common; I was woken several times by the sound of matchlocks being discharged and men with swords rushing to defend the wall. By the time the sun rose, I felt as if I had barely rested at all. I wanted to have a hot bath and a long rest. Instead, I relieved myself, changed into a makeshift set of trousers and walked out onto the battlements. Tarfanaxe was ahead of me, looking down through a peephole at the barbarian army. I followed his gaze and cursed. Most of the slums had been destroyed and the wreckage cleared away by former civilians, now slaves working for the barbarians. The barbarian army itself was just beyond the Outer Wall, taunting us.

“We killed a few hundred who tried to come over the wall,” Tarfanaxe explained, as we shared a bowl of gruel for breakfast. It tasted foul, as always, but I was relieved just to have it. It wouldn't be long before starvation became a major threat, along with disease and rioting. “The remainder decided to hang back and wait for daylight.”

I nodded. In the darkness, even without modern night-vision gear, the defenders would still have had an advantage. In daylight, some of those advantages would be nullified or altered. I winced as an arrow flashed above our heads and nearly struck one of the messengers bringing news from the city council. They were sniping at everyone who showed their faces to the enemy. I hoped that they couldn't see us peering through the peephole.

“But this is absurd,” one of the officers was protesting. I recognised him as the drunkard of the previous night. He looked remarkably sober this morning. “How long can they stay in one place before they have to move?”

I’d been wondering about that myself. For horsemen, they'd shown a remarkable tendency to remain on the roads. I’d decided that that was a way of saying **** You to the city-folk – the roads that had been built with so much care had become invasion routes leading right to the city – but perhaps they too were thinking about logistics. If they’d built up a logistics corps or something like it, they’d need the roads to move wagons of food...and yet, they hadn’t shown any sigh of possessing such a concept. I didn't want to consider the possibility, but it was quite possible that they’d picked up the idea from me. It seemed unlikely, yet so much had seemed unlikely since I’d arrived in Padway. Why couldn't they have watched my lectures on military planning?

The sound of renewed chanting – accompanied by drums and trumpets – brought my attention back to the wall. They’d stopped shooting arrows at us, allowing some of the braver guards to peer over the wall and look down at the enemy. I peered through the peephole again and blinked in surprise. A small delegation was approaching the Inner Wall. They wore the same outfit that I remembered from the Gathering – red robes and human skulls – and waved a white flag in front of them. Here, just as back home, a white flag was a flag of truce. I had to admire their bravery in approaching the wall – the city-folk rarely considered barbarians equals and hardly worthy of their attention – but it paid off for them. Tarfanaxe, Lord Umbria, Councillor Joralan – a man who had disapproved of me and my New Learning – and a couple of others advanced down to the gate to meet them. I followed at the back, unobserved. If I’d had my male garb...I shook my head. Wishful thinking, I reminded myself, was the first enemy of victory.

Up close, the delegates seemed fanatical, their eyes burning with inhuman fury. Any sane person distrusts or even hates fanatics, for they will do absolutely anything in the service of their Cause. I hated the delegates on sight. Tarfanaxe’s face showed no sign of his feelings, but I could read his tension in how he held himself. As under the custom, he had left his sword behind when he'd gone to the gate. If they attacked, the only weapon we had was my pistol...

I’d half-expected them to order me away, as the tribesmen wouldn't consider a woman as either a leader or a fighter, but they barely even glanced at me. I listened absently as they went through a brief ceremony in which they listed their descendents all the way back to the gods, followed by a similar response from my own side. It took nearly fifty minutes before they even got to the point. When they did, however, they were brisk and brutal.

“We have surrounded your city and occupied your farms,” the leader said. His voice brooked absolutely no compromise. “You cannot prevent us from destroying them, either through burning them to the ground or the power of the Prophet himself. The sands of might will overwhelm your farms. If you try to stand against us, you will be destroyed as Flint was destroyed, for all the struggles of his defenders.”

Tarfanaxe stepped forward. “I am descended from a god, as are many of my fellow citizens,” he said, calmly. I hoped that it wasn't just bravado. Our position was very bad. “We will oppose you and hold you – and then we will defeat you.”

“The Prophet of the Gods has spoken,” the leader said. “You will be destroyed it you stand against us.”

There was a long moment of silence, broken by Councillor Joralan. “Let’s not be too hasty,” he said. “What are you offering us?”

The leader smiled. “If you submit to us, we will allow you to live on our lands as our subjects,” he said. “You will send to us tribute in the form of maidens and food and other such goods as we will determine, once we have taken stock of your wealth. You will disarm yourself and we will grant you our protection. You will no longer produce the flashing powder” – it took me a moment to realise that he meant gunpowder – “and you will only produce weapons for us.”

His smile grew wider. “And you will hand over the Lady Alex to us.”

I almost started. Only iron control held me still. Why did they want me? No, that was a stupid question; I’d turned the city upside down and created the weapons that had blooded them so badly at the first battle. They would want to make sure that I created nothing else, unless I created it for them. I had a sudden vision of my future – enchanted into a slave again and used to create new weapons – and shivered. If they’d known who I was...

Lord Umbria cleared his throat. “It seems to me,” he said, “that if we disarm ourselves now, we will be defenceless against you or anyone else at a later date. Why should we trust in your good word?”

The leader glared at him. “We are the Followers of the Prophet of the Gods,” he said, nastily. “Our word is always good, for it is sworn before all of the gods.”

My head was swimming. The concept of prophets wasn't new here, but...I was reminded of Islam, yet Islam was completely focused on one god, even to the extent of determining that Jesus Christ had been a prophet, rather than the Son of God. And besides, early Islam had been far more civilised than these barbarians. On the other hand, that wasn't exactly a remarkable achievement.

“The Lady Alex saved the life of my wife,” Lord Umbria said. I caught the leader’s sneer at the thought of saving the life of a mere woman. “We reject your terms. It is better to fight now and be defeated than to return to slavery and become your chattel. Leave now, before we end the truce and end you.”

He turned and marched away, showing them his back. The leader glared after him for a moment, and then picked up the white flag and stormed away, followed by his companions. I watched them go and then followed Tarfanaxe back to the Garrison. We had barely reached it when the first projectiles came sailing over the wall. Deep booming crashes echoed over the city as the projectiles struck home.

I cursed as the bombardment intensified. I’d never thought of catapults. It had quite simply never occurred to me. I could have kicked myself. The city-folk had never used them in their wars, considering them a breach of convention. And now we were being bombarded. Individually, the catapults might not be much more accurate than my cannon or matchlocks, but there were a hell of a lot of them. And each hit did real damage.

And then the real battle began.

 

Chapter Twenty-Six<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The first projectiles were nothing more than balls of stone; dangerous, but not as threatening as explosive shells. They came down at random over the Inner City, striking a handful of buildings. I saw a temple rock violently as one of the projectiles struck its walls, followed rapidly by the collapse of a tenement building as it suffered a direct hit. I couldn't help swearing out loud as the entire building started to collapse in terrifying slow motion, perhaps allowing a handful of people to escape before the entire building crumbled to debris. A handful of rocks crashed down near the Great Houses, but they were thoroughly warded and guardian sprites lunged to intercept and destroy the rocks. I thought about suggesting that the mages expand the wards to cover the entire city, yet when I looked up I saw an eldritch battle crackling above the city, unseen by anyone else. The mages had their hands full preventing the enemy from wreaking havoc with their magic.

We returned fire at once, with cannons and mortars. The latter weapon had been termed ‘mankillers’ by me and my students had accepted it willingly. They thought I meant to slaughter the enemy, but I’d meant the risk of them blowing up and wiping out entire gunnery teams. The cannons had a roughly one-in-five chance of blowing up at any one time, odds that got worse the more the cannons were fired without being thoroughly cleaned. The mortars, on the other hand, exploded one time in three. I’d made a mental note to stay well away from any mortar team as they prepared to fire, knowing that the odds were not good. The mortar teams didn't seem to care about the dangers. They thought that the risks allowed them to prove themselves in the sight of the gods – and the neighbourhood girls.

The enemy didn't seem to be discouraged by our bombardment. Unlike the previous battle, when they’d impaled themselves on our guns and it was almost impossible to miss one of the barbarian warriors, they advanced carefully using archers to cover their advance. They’d worked out that our guns weren't that accurate and as long as they were nimble, they were relatively safe. They’d created enough debris in their previous attack to give them some additional protection as they approached the walls, despite everything we could do to slow them down. I ducked sharply as an arrow glanced off the rocky stone too close to me. The enemy knew who I was...

I’d wondered how they’d intended to get over the walls. I had my answer as the barbarians produced ladders and, covered by their archers, pressed them against the walls and started to scramble up. Our troops rushed to defend the walls, intercepting the barbarians as they came over the battlements and tried to take the walls. They were rapidly wiped out, but it was taking a toll on us as well. Every soldier we lost was almost completely irreplaceable, at least at first. If we lost the walls completely, we were doomed.

An explosion on the other side of the city made me jump. It looked as if someone had dropped a JDAM on the city, which wasn't too likely. I must have been stunned, because it took me several minutes to realise that they’d hit one of the powder mills and caused a vast explosion. I’d warned those idiots in the Alchemists Guild not to store so much gunpowder close together, but they hadn’t listened to me; they hadn't wanted to believe that a woman knew anything about alchemy. They hadn't known much about chemistry until I’d taught them the basics of what I knew and allowed them to open a whole new book, yet they hadn't taken me seriously. The explosion would probably concentrate a few minds, if they’d survived the blast.

The fighting raged backwards and forwards for hours. At times, it seemed that the enemy was on the verge of breaking through the defences and capturing the walls and one of the gatehouses, but we rushed troops forward to seal the gaps. Flames licked up from the other side of the walls where we’d dumped burning oil on the attackers – an idea they’d invented without any input from me – and sent hundreds of enemy warriors staggering back, burned beyond hope of recovery. It seemed impossible that they could win, but I was uneasily aware that they were pushing us hard and there was little hope of someone coming to lift the siege. The sandstorms in the distance were yet another reminder of their power. If they succeeded in bringing the sandstorms forward and over the city, we’d lose the battle very quickly.

“Lady Alex,” a voice shouted. I looked down from my perch to see a messenger. “The Captain-General requests the pleasure of your company.”

I grinned. My clothing was in a terrible state and I didn't look much better. “I’m on my way,” I said, as another round of projectiles flew over the walls and came down somewhere in the city. They were followed by a flight of flaming arrows and I cursed. Most of the city’s buildings were built of stone, but there was enough flammable material around for flames to spread rapidly, if they managed to set fire to part of the city. Padway had a fire department of sorts, yet they wouldn't be able to stop a flaming holocaust.

The walk to the command post was short and unpleasant. I was starting to understand what life had been like in any of the cities back home that had been caught up in civil wars. The constant bombardment was already fraying the city’s morale. A couple of days of heavy bombardment and we might crack, surrendering to the barbarians and accepting their terms. And they’d wanted me as their prisoner. I wondered if I could escape before they announced their surrender, but I was just too well known. The price of fame in the city was notoriety.

I pushed the thought of surrender aside as I walked into the command post. Tarfanaxe was standing by a map of the city, his face tired and worn. A handful of his officers were updating a second map, while messengers ran in and out endlessly, bringing in updates from the fighting. They’d created a fairly accurate picture of what was going on though marking a simple map, although it would have its limitations. By the time the map was updated, the entire situation might have changed and changed again.

“Lady Alex,” Tarfanaxe said. He glared around him at the assorted officers. “Everyone else, out. I need to speak to the lady in private.”

If I had not been so tired, I would have blushed at some of the looks the officers exchanged before they filed out the door, leaving us alone. Tarfanaxe gave one of the messengers a sharp look and the poor boy turned white before turning and fairly running after the officers. I’d taught him that blaming the messengers was illogical, stupid, and a major contributor to defeat, but his attitude hadn't filtered through the ranks yet. Besides, he might die tomorrow and his successor might go back to the old attitudes.

“They’re hitting us hard,” he said, without preamble. His voice was very tired, as if he was on the verge of falling asleep. A distant crash from another projectile underlined his words. “They’re even hurling dead bodies – our own dead bodies – over the walls at us.”

I blinked in surprise. Most bodies were cremated on this world, with only a relative handful being buried beneath the soil. It had something to do with their religious concepts; as I understand it, burning the body released the soul to progress onwards to the land of the gods. Even so, the enemy tactic made no sense; they were actually heartening the defenders, because their dead could be properly burnt...

It was the tiredness. It had to be. “They’re trying to infect us with disease,” I said, wishing that I could think straight. The bombardment was wearing me down along with everyone else. “The dead bodies...ah, would play host to thousands of tiny devils that would spread out into the city.”

“I’ve ordered them all burnt at once,” Tarfanaxe said. “Do you think that that will stop it?”

I shrugged. There was no way to know, at least until disease started to appear in the city. We were all jammed in so tightly that sanitation efforts would probably fail and then we would be looking at a dozen possible epidemics. Cholera, or Plague, or...I could think of far too many possible infections. Dear God – what if they had Smallpox? It would be a virgin field epidemic and it would go through us like a knife through butter. The only consolation was that we would probably infect the barbarians before we died.

“Let’s hope so,” I said.

He wanted comfort. Not the comfort of my body, although I was sure he would accept it if I offered, but reassurance about the future. I wished that I had some to give. All we could do was wait, hold the walls and hope that the siege was lifted by disease before we ran out of food and water supplies. The other city-states had dropped out of contact completely. If they sent an army, they might not get here in time and all they would find would be a dead city, like Flint. I had a sudden thought and smiled, tiredly. My innovations had spread to the other city-states rapidly. Even if we didn't stop the barbarians, the others might manage to hold them and then bleed them white.

I said goodbye eventually and staggered home. The streets were coming apart in front of my eyes as panic spread through the city. The Civil Guard was out in force, beating and clubbing rioters and looters in a manner that would have shocked everyone back home, but it didn't look as if they were having much success. I saw a rioter, blood streaming from a gash across his face, pick up a club and bash a guard’s head in. The guardsmen responded quickly to their comrade’s fall and battered his assailant to death. Sickened, I walked on, untouched by the chaos. No one wanted to tangle with my bodyguards.

My home was intact, thankfully. I knew that I should probably sleep downstairs, or in the basement, but I was too tired to think of the risk. Most of my servants had decamped to the College, as planned, yet I was able to get into bed with the aid of the remainder. I was disgusted at myself for becoming so dependent upon servants as I fell into sleep, promising that I would start taking care of myself tomorrow. It wasn't entirely my fault. Whoever designed female fashions in Padway seemed to have decided to produce dresses that could only be put on with the help of at least one other person.

I slept badly as the fighting raged on and woke with a terrible headache. This world hadn't produced any real painkillers and I had to nurse it as I ate a scanty breakfast and read some of the reports from the walls. The enemy was pressing us hard, but we were holding them somehow, preventing them from getting into the city. So far, it looked as if there was no idea of surrender, yet I was sure that that would change soon. It had become a contest of endurance, one the barbarians might win.

My breakfast was interrupted by a pair of armed messengers inviting me to visit the Garrison. This time, at least, I wore my male garb, trusting in my bodyguards, money and reputation to prevent anyone from making a fuss. I couldn't disguise my headache, which only got worse as I stepped outside and the sounds of the bombardment grew louder. The bastards were trying to hammer the entire city flat. I caught sight of a statue, a golden image of the god of water, knocked to the ground by an enemy projectile, guarded by his priests and an angry mob. Perhaps the barbarians had miscalculated. They’d aroused a lust for revenge in the god’s followers.

The Garrison was sealed up tightly and a pair of armed guards insisted on checking my identity before I was allowed into the building. I followed one of the messengers as he led me down a darkened flight of stairs into an underground complex. It was lit by flickering torches, rather than sprite-lights, not unlike Brother Stone’s workroom. The complex, however, served a very different purpose. A handful of tiny cells were occupied by desperate, pleading men. The City of Padway was not kind to its criminals.

“We caught this one trying to get over the wall last night,” a man I didn't recognise in the gloom said. I recoiled from the stench. The captive, a half-naked man chained to the bench, had fouled himself. “It is time to put him to the question.”

I didn't realise what was about to happen until a second man appeared, carrying a pair of metal rods and a brazier. He plunged the rods into the heat for long moments, and then pulled them out and held them towards the captive. I could feel the heat as he pressed one of the rods into the captive’s legs. There was a horrifying sizzling sound and his flesh started to burn. I turned away, unwilling to watch, before remembering that a show of weakness in this city could be fatal. The stench grew worse. The torturer produced a second set of rods and, without warning, lashed them down on the burned leg. I was nearly sick. I’d seen violence and people had tried to kill me, but this was different. It was cold and calculating, the deliberate infliction of pain. I saw, just for a second, the torturer’s eyes. He didn't seem to care about what he was doing, or the pain he was inflicting. It was just a job to him.

Hot bile rose in my throat and I stepped back, swallowing hard. I wanted to run, to flee, yet no one else seemed to care about the captive or his suffering. Every man in the room – I recognised Tarfanaxe and a couple of his officers – seemed utterly unmoved. It was yet another reminder that lives were cheap here and other things, like truth drugs, completely unavailable. They started to ask him questions, branding him again and again when he refused to answer their questions. He didn't hold out for long, not when they started to move the branding irons up towards his genitals. The answers came out thick and fast, each one fairly tumbling over as he tried to answer before he was hurt again.

And very few of the answers made sense. According to him, about two years ago, a Prophet had appeared to the tribesmen, showing power that he claimed came from the gods. He had told them that it was his destiny to lead them against the city-folk and many had flocked to his banner. Others had refused him, only to learn – far too late – that the Prophet possessed real power. His most fanatical followers had started to rally the tribesmen to his banner, while he’d honed his power over the sandstorms. And then he’d started to advance against the cities. Flint had merely been the first to fall.

My father had never placed much faith in torture. He'd warned that the captive was often willing to tell the interrogator what he wanted to hear, just so the pain would stop. The only way it could be used was to have a way of verifying the captive’s claims, allowing the pain to be applied – or not – to encourage truthful testimony. I couldn't see how we could do that and even if we could...did it really justify what we were doing? I looked up at the men gathered around the captive and knew what they were thinking. This was their city and they would do anything to defend it. And besides, life was cheap here. What was one tortured barbarian to the city?

Tarfanaxe asked about me and the barbarian had no answer. The Prophet had warned them about a Lady Alex and ordered that she should be taken alive, but he didn't know why, let alone how the Prophet knew about me. I suspected I knew the answer. The barbarians had been infiltrating their sprites into the city and would probably have known about me. And they wanted to capture me before I taught the city-folk how to build even more weapons...

Sickened, I stumbled out of the building and found the toilets. I had always been disgusted by the city’s version of internal toilets, even after I had taught them the rudiments of sanitation, but I no longer cared. I held myself over the hole and threw up everything I’d eaten for breakfast. The thought of showing weakness no longer bothered me. I stalked out of the Garrison and headed towards my home. My confused bodyguards, waiting for me outside the Garrison, hastily followed me. I was barely aware of their presence as I marched down the street, daring anyone to stop me. I knew that I was running from a horror I couldn't face. Everything that they’d done to their captive...

I knew that he was a barbarian. I knew what his people would do to the city if they broke through the walls and stormed the buildings. I knew what they did to their captives, male and female, and yet...did that justify what we’d done? And I was just as guilty as the men back in the Garrison, the ones who had enjoyed inflicting pain and the ones who had coldly allowed them to make the captive suffer. I was to blame.

My thoughts whirled around me as I strode onwards. I was so distracted that I didn't even notice the ambush until I walked right into it.

 

OK - who saw this coming?

Chapter Twenty-Seven<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

I could have kicked myself the moment I realised that something was wrong. I knew better than to lose track of what was going on around me, yet I’d been completely lost in my own thoughts and hadn't even noticed the danger signs until it was far too late. I heard the twang of bows as my bodyguards were struck my archers, and then masked men were heading towards me, carrying short clubs in their hands. Part of my mind coolly noted that it was a kidnap attempt, rather than an assassination attempt; the remainder of my mind focused on the nearest man. I threw a punch with all of my strength and sent him toppling backwards. The second man tried to grapple and I rammed my knee into his groin. I turned, hoping to catch the third man, but he was too quick for me and dropped a dark bag over my head. The world instantly turned black. My hands were pressed against my sides as he drew the bag tight and then whacked me on the head. It wasn't a hard blow, but it was enough to stun me as I was pushed to the ground and a rope placed around my legs. I was still trying to recover as someone picked me up and carried me away.

It was impossible to see anything out of the bag. I tried to wiggle my hands free, only to be rewarded with hard slaps to whatever part of my body my assailant could reach. It was hard to count the minutes until we reached a safe house – I heard the door opening and shutting as I was carried inside – and I was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Someone big, heavy and male landed on my back, grappled for my hands and pulled them behind my back. I felt a cord being knotted around them, tight enough to cut off the circulation, just before my hands were thoroughly lashed. Escape would be difficult, if not impossible. My pockets were empted – they even took the pistol – before strong hands pulled at the bag and tore it away. I twisted and found myself staring up into a very familiar face.

“Rafik,” I said. The tribesman was just as handsome as he had been the day he had abandoned me and one of his sisters in Padway. His dark skin, hawk-like face and glittering eyes still haunted my nightmares. “Why...?”

He turned away from me and snapped out a question to one of the other men. “We caught her,” he said. They were treating me as nothing more than an object! I was almost offended, despite my predicament. “Have you cleared the path with our friends in the city?”

The second tribesman looked oddly familiar. I wondered if he was one of Rafik’s cousins, before I realised that he actually reminded me of Hastur, the oaf who had tried to rape me. He’d been burned to a crisp, but I had no Guardian now to save my virginity. The look in his eyes promised nothing, apart from a violent death. I fought to keep my fear hidden, even though I had gone from wealthy semi-noble lady to prisoner. Fear would encourage them to take advantage of me.

“The traitor dog has promised we can leave soon,” the second tribesman said. He had a dark and husky voice, reminding me of some of the noble sons who had studied in my school. They’d been children born to wealth and power, the very apex of their city; they’d had a reason to be arrogant. The tribesman had nothing apart from a chip on his shoulder. “He even promised an escort out of the city.”

He squatted next to me and rolled me over. “We can enjoy ourselves until then,” he added, as one hand reached down to grope my breast. I winced as he squeezed hard enough to hurt. “I claim the right of...”

Rafik yanked his hand away and pushed him onto the floor. “Yavak, the Prophet has issued his orders,” he said. “The Lady Alex, murderess of your cousin, is to remain alive and unharmed until she is delivered into his presence. Do you believe that you can force yourself on her and the Prophet will remain ignorant of your crime?”

Yavak glared at him. “She murdered my cousin,” he snapped. I could see his frustration building up to the boiling point. “I will have my revenge, blood for blood...”

“And if you defy the Prophet on this, the entire tribe will be at risk,” Rafik countered. He made a fist and held it up near the younger man’s face. “I will not have the entire tribe slaughtered to appease your desire for revenge. You may petition the Prophet for the right to kill her once she is within his tent. Until then, control yourself or I will teach you control.”

For a moment, I thought that Yavak was going to lunge at him, but the younger man had more control than I had realised. Breathing heavily, he sat up slowly, glared in my direction and then paced away towards the far corner. Rafik gave me an unreadable look and then squatted down beside me. I wondered if he was going to offer encouragement, or make threats of his own, but instead he just smiled.

“That boy was placed into another tribe as a mark of honour and was not at the Gathering when his cousin died,” Rafik said, by way of explanation. I had already guessed that much. “He took it personally and swore a blood oath to hunt you down and kill you.”

I felt a surge of defiance, even though I knew that I was trapped. “Tell him to get in line behind all the others,” I said, tartly. Rafik snorted. “Why did you join the Prophet anyway?”

“The tribes are uniting,” Rafik said, finally. I saw the struggle on his face. He came from a society where women were expected to be neither seen nor heard, let alone be included in any planning sessions. The idea of treating me as an equal would have been alien to him even before I’d been enchanted and enslaved. Now, even though the Prophet clearly wanted me alive and unharmed, it was still hard for him to consider me anything other than a lesser being. I clung to that thought, as demeaning as it was. I was no longer his slave and I’d have a chance to break free and escape. “We will destroy the cities that blight the land and return to a world where we can ride free.”

It was a rote recitation, I realised. He didn't believe it himself. “You could come with me instead,” I offered. “I could...”

He slapped me, hard. “You don’t understand,” he said, angrily. “The Prophet has my family. If I turn against him, we will be extinguished from the earth! We will die, as if we had never existed!”

I could say nothing to that. My head hurt as the hours started to wear on, even after Rafik gave me some water and cold meat. I hoped that the water was safe to drink, before realising that it hardly mattered. There was nothing else to drink. Yavak paced the room, glaring at me whenever Rafik turned his head away, before resuming his endless pacing. Finally, there was a knock at the door and a heavily-masked man stepped inside. He took one look at me, and then spoke rapidly to Rafik. I could barely hear him, but I recognised the accent. It was someone from one of the Great Houses. I’d been sold to the barbarians.

Rafik turned back to me, pulled something out of a sealed bag and pressed it against my neck. I felt a tiny jab and yelped in pain and surprise. The device – it looked like a sharpened piece of wood – didn't seem to have done anything at first, but then the place where he’d jabbed me started to go numb. My mind started to swim, as if I was on the verge of blacking out, before stabilising. I felt as if I were slightly disconnected from the world.

“Hear me,” Rafik said, very quietly. “Hear and obey me, only me. When I untie you, do not shout for help or attempt to get away from us. Follow us and obey me, always.”

I knew that I should be alarmed, but my head felt too disconnected to feel alarmed, as if I were watching it on the television rather than having it done to me in person. His hands rolled me over and then cut my bonds. My legs were freed a moment later. I started to rub my hands together in the desperate hope of restoring some circulation, but I felt sore and tired. And my head was still swimming.

“Get up,” he ordered. My body obeyed while my head was still trying to process his command. “Change into these clothes now; hurry!”

I obeyed automatically. My body seemed to be moving at his command, no matter how I struggled – and I could barely struggle. I undressed rapidly, tearing my clothes as I stripped, and then pulled on the outfit they’d given me. It was a concealing dress, as might be worn by a young girl from a poor freeman family, hiding her many charms from the boys. If I wore a headscarf as well, no one would even recognise my distinctive hairstyle. They might be searching for me now and I’d walk past them, unable to do anything, but what I was told. It was worse than when I’d been enchanted. At least then my head had been clear.

“It is called the Juice of Command,” Rafik said, sensing my consternation. “We use it sometimes to make a rebellious wife obedient to her tribe. Regular doses will soon turn a disobedient girl into one who works to please her husband and family in any manner they choose.” His eyes narrowed. “And if the Prophet wishes it, you will be kept on the juice until you join them in obedience.”

“No,” I said. “I...”

“Be quiet,” he said. My mouth snapped closed. “When we leave the building, keep your eyes downcast and avoid attracting attention. Do not speak to anyone apart from me, and only then when I command it. Follow.”

He strode towards the door and I followed helplessly, like a puppet on strings. No amount of struggle seemed to break through the effects of the drug, so I tried to think about something else. If the city-folk had had such a drug, it would have made torture unnecessary. The tribes did understand more than the city-folk about hygiene and sanitation; for all I knew, they were well versed in the uses of roots and plants that only grew out in the great deserts. In fact, I recalled a particularly nasty date rape drug that placed its victim into a near-hypnotic trance, where they followed orders and recalled nothing the following day. They might just have injected me with a similar drug.

No one noticed us as we walked through the city. My garb belonged to the poorer classes, the ones who aspired to rise up through the social levels until their descendents joined the Great Houses. No one would look too closely at me, not with two burly freemen on each side. They would know that the freemen, masters of their own destiny since they had earned their freedom, would fight anyone who even looked twice at me. As we walked into the poorer areas of the city, twilight falling as the day began the long slide towards night, others joined us. I knew then that there was little hope of rescue. We walked into a house built up against the Inner Wall and Rafik ordered me to remain still. I froze, unable to move beyond breathing.

“Is that her?” A voice demanded. I could hear him, but I couldn't move to see his face. It was another Great Houses accent. “Will she ever return?”

“The Prophet will decide her fate,” Rafik said, firmly. “Until then, she will be bound and enslaved by the Juice of Command. She will be unable to escape.”

“Good,” the voice said. I recognised it now. Councillor Joralan. It struck me suddenly that I would be lucky to escape alive and even if I did escape, the Great Houses would turn the city against me. “Make sure she never returns.”

I had wondered how they intended to get me over the wall and out of the city. As it happened, it was alarmingly simple. The house was right against the Inner Wall, allowing them to go up through a hatch in the roof and climb up onto the wall. The sentries had all either been bribed or quietly removed; bribed struck me as more likely, as if they’d killed the guards they could have slipped a large force into the city before anyone could sound the alarm. I scrambled up on command, felt the gusts of a sandstorm blowing against me and almost fell back, just before I was caught and pointed to a ladder. It all happened very quickly. Before I knew it, I was marched towards a pair of horses and ordered to mount one. Rafik mounted the other and ordered me to follow him. I could only obey.

The ride away from the city seemed to last forever. The sandstorm seemed to be little more than wisps of sand, but it concealed our passage rather nicely. It felt like hours before we saw campfires in the distance and rode up to a large campsite, surrounded by armed tribesmen and – I was alarmed to discover – sprites on roving patrol. They paid little attention to Rafik, but they closed in on me and studied me with their cold translucent eyes. I doubted that anyone else in the camp, perhaps even the Prophet himself, could see them unless they were mages. They might not be aware of how closely they were being watched.

It nagged at my mind as we reached a small group of barbarians and Rafik went forward to explain himself to them. He’d said that the Prophet possessed great power. It struck me as odd, because the only magical power possessed by humans was the ability to call and direct the sprites. Perhaps the Prophet was a mage, either a rogue or someone who had taught himself how to do magic, or...perhaps he was a fake. Or...could he have tapped into some other source of supernatural power? I knew of none, yet there were stories about the gods and how they’d gifted a handful of humans with strange powers. Maybe the Prophet was a servant of the gods, carrying out their will. I would have giggled if that small freedom had been left with me. Wouldn't that shake the religious factions back in the city to their foundations?

“Climb off the horse and follow me,” Rafik ordered, once he’d finished with the barbarian officers. My body obeyed him, although my mind was clearing and I was starting to wonder if the juice was wearing off. It probably wouldn’t matter even if I recovered my free will. I was right in the heart of the enemy camp. We reached a small tent, large enough for two or three people, and he motioned me inside. It was empty, illuminated by a single glowing lantern. “Remain here. You may move freely within this tent, but you may not pass through the flap.”

Once I was alone, I tested his commands and found that they held true. I couldn't touch the flap, let alone lift it and escape. I paced around the tent, but saw nothing helpful apart from a pair of small chairs and a single table. It struck me that I might be able to get out a different way, but the canvas was tied too tightly to allow me to escape. Muttering curses, I slumped down on one of the chairs and tried to think. There had to be a way out of this somehow, if I could only see it. Absently, I studied the lantern, wishing that it had been a sprite-light. I could have repeated my earlier escape. Instead, it was a very basic design. And it wasn't one of mine.

The nagging thought that had been at the back of my mind finally emerged into the daylight. The barbarians had advanced too far, too fast...but then, so had the city. And the reason the city had advanced so fast had been that they'd had a source of knowledge from an alternate world – me. Could the Prophet be someone else from my world? What if he’d come from a background where he’d known more than I’d known, tricks and appropriate technologies I could barely guess at, much less build. For all I knew, he was a military historian with an interest in the ancient world. Someone with that kind of background would have too many tricks to pull out and deploy to further his aims. Hadn't I read a story about that once?

A flicker of translucent energy danced through the air, distracting me. I could sense power building on the other side of the flap, more power than I had sensed when Brother Stone and I had tried to summon a sprite, two days ago. My hair stood on end as a single man stepped into the tent and gazed at me. My treacherous legs pushed me to my feet as he studied me, cold eyes sweeping over my body before locking with mine and peering into my soul.

“Lady Alex, be free of the juice,” he commanded. His voice was resonant with power. It was hard to look at him directly, not with the translucent energy swirling around his form. My body staggered as I was freed. “I bid you welcome to this place. I am the Prophet of all the Gods. I am Brother Dream.”

 

Nice ending twist on the last chapter.Keep it comming.Matt

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“No.”

The Prophet looked at me, as I might look at a particularly stupid or lazy student. I could see energy flaring around him, shimmering in and out of existence. The more I studied him in my mind’s eye, the more that didn't quite add up. His body seemed to move oddly, as if he wasn't quite sure how to walk or talk. Something clicked in my mind and I understood.

“You’re a sprite,” I said. “I thought that sprites couldn't exist in this world unless they were summoned from wherever they come from.”

He – it, perhaps – sat down on the other chair and smiled. It was an oddly inhuman smile, as if he wasn't sure how to smile either. “What you don’t know about magic – what the mages themselves don’t know about magic – could fill an entire book,” he said, dryly. “For all of their acuminated wisdom, they really knew very little of the truth of existence – but then, you already know that. You’ve been teaching them the scientific method.”

I felt my mind spinning and concentrated on the here and now. “What are you doing here and what do you want with me?”

“I’m here to avenge my kin,” he said. “You’re here because you’ve been teaching the city-folk new tricks that slaughtered many of my loyal followers. I don’t wish to actually harm you, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to spend the rest of your life with us. Don’t worry. We’ll make you perfectly comfortable.”

“I don't understand,” I said. In fact, I was starting to think I understood everything. “Who are you avenging and why?”

The sprite grimaced. It was the most human expression he’d shown. “Centuries ago, one of your people stumbled upon words of power,” he said. “You will understand, of course, that words are objects that shape reality, at least at one level. What they discovered were words that could be used to call beings from another plane of existence. This second dimension existed at right angles to your own, but it had very different physical laws and the beings that existed within the universe were beings of pure thought and energy.”

“The sprites,” I said.

“Indeed,” the sprite agreed. “You must understand that my people were just as surprised as the early mages. The idea of a universe consisting of matter and matter-based beings was completely novel to them. Many explorers discovered that they could manifest within the new dimension, if they were summoned by the inhabitants. What they deduced, eventually, was that the words of power shaped them into creatures that could exist briefly within the matter-based dimension. What they didn't realise, at least at first, was that the words of power also imposed chains, chains that not only enslaved them, but bound them to a certain nature.”

I frowned, puzzled. “A certain nature?”

“It’s hard to explain in human terms,” the sprite said. He sat inhumanly still and considered. “You are a human female. There are certain things that you can do that a male cannot; as such, you have no real inherent understanding of the male form. You are bound to your femininity and you cannot change it.” He pressed his fingers together as he spoke. “But imagine you could; imagine that you could change sex, or hair colour, or appearance at will. And then imagine that you were bound into one form. You’d realise that you’d lost something you hadn’t really understood you’d had until it was gone.

“The mages wanted sprites who would serve a certain purpose. When they called them from our home, they summoned them and bound them into a certain concept. There is, at heart, no real difference between the Least Sprites and the Greatest Sprites. The mages bind them, define what they will be in human terms...and in doing so, enslave them.”

“As if someone took my prisoner and cut off both of my legs,” I said. I thought I understood. Brother Stone had spoken of the sprites as if he’d believed that they varied in power and ability, but if I was right, the mages were actually amputating the sprites every time they called a new one into the matter universe. “I think I understand.”

“I’d be surprised if you did, at least fully,” the sprite said. “You humans are bound by your own natures, just like us. You are mortal creatures; you are born, grow old, pass your genes along to your children and then die – and terminate. We are beings born of energy, existing within a universe that provides us with an infinitive source of food – as you would term it – and immortal. To impose even a small bond upon us is to cause terrible agony.”

I shivered. Every sprite I had seen, with the possible exception of the one in front of me, had been railing against its bonds. I’d been aware that they hated humanity and regarded us with cold malice, awaiting the chance to break free and wreak havoc. Brother Stone had warned of the dangers of summoning the greatest and most powerful of the sprites, without realising that the more power they wanted, the more they were pulling into the matter-based universe. The mages had taken creatures that were used to flying free and imprisoned them in a universe utterly unsuited to their kind. No wonder they hated us.

“Very few of your mages had even an inkling of the truth,” the sprite continued. “Why should they have? We could not break free without being pulled back to our own universe – they learned, very quickly, the dangers of allowing us to roam free. Why do you think this world has very little water?”

“You – one of you – took it all,” I realised. I hadn't understood what had happened to the oceans that should have watered this world. I’d wondered what kind of disaster had befallen this world, but nothing I knew had been able to provide an answer. “What did you do to the water?”

“Drained much of it below the earth,” the sprite said. “We do have problems operating within your universe, even without the bonds your people place on us. The sprite who lashed out at you hoped to destroy your entire world and end the torment you inflicted on his fellow beings, even if we exiled him for genocide. As it happened, the results were...incomplete.”

“An entire world is suffering for lack of water,” I said, dryly. “I think he succeeded all too well. He made us more dependent on you than ever.”

“Perhaps,” the sprite agreed. He shrugged. “You are merely human and it would be hard to explain, in your terms, the limits we face when we operate within your universe. We don’t really comprehend how it works, any more than you can understand us. Our society is very different from yours.”

He smiled, coldly. “And so matters remained until one of the mages went mad,” he continued. “You know, of course, that the mages have no real power of their own. The words of power they use can only affect creatures bound to different natural laws. They can't harm or control their fellow humans, at least not directly. You might as well shout obscenities at an advancing army and expect them all to drop dead on the spot. This mage, who had perhaps grasped a tiny inkling of the truth, believed that it would be possible to actually merge himself with one of us. He would become all-powerful, immortal and utterly supreme within your world. Leaving behind his students, some of whom had learned what he knew about the sprites, he walked into the desert and performed the ritual. The sprite he summoned into existence was me.

“A merely human mind cannot hope to comprehend the mind of a sprite. Nor could I, a being made of energy, comprehend the limits of a matter-based intellect. We were so different that the attempt at fusing us together caused us both tremendous pain. My...pattern, for want of a better word, was badly twisted. His mind simply snapped. Energy – my energy – boiled through his body, burning away his humanity. Somehow, I found myself repairing his body and then discovered, to my horror, that I was trapped within him. I could not escape his human form. My power could not free me from my prison.

“Perhaps I would have died there, lost to both our worlds, if I hadn't been discovered by a group of wandering tribesmen. One of them picked me up and fed me for the first time. It was fantastic. It had never occurred to me that there were compensations for being a matter-based being, so small and so limited. They introduced me to different foods and drinks and they were all astonishingly good. I experimented with drugs and even sex. Maybe I would have stayed with them for the rest of this body’s lifespan, if I hadn’t started to lose control of my powers. The tribesmen banished me back into the desert and fled.”

“Just as they abandoned me in Padway,” I said, sourly.

“Quite,” the sprite agreed. “I came as close to death as is possible for one of my kind. It took the sheer desperation of trying to remain alive to force me to focus on repairing the body again. It would have been impossible if I hadn't encountered another sprite, one bound as a messenger by the mages, and used him to repair this body. I was healthy again and suddenly aware of my power. I could take revenge on the human race for what they had done to my people.

“I walked to the next Gathering and spoke to the tribesmen. They rightly feared magic and sprites, perhaps knowing that the deserts they travelled had been created by one of us. It was easy to manipulate them once I showed them some of my power. My early followers called me their Prophet, messenger of the gods, and I took their belief and built on it. The tribesmen hated the city-folk and were very willing to believe me – aided, of course, by the occasional demonstration of power. I was far more powerful than any of the mages; how could I not be, when I commanded power directly? The more powerful I became, the more I could extend myself into their minds, feeding on their human emotions and pushing them towards unthinking servitude. Why should I not? Humans had done the same thing to my race.

“I understood far more about magic than any of the mages. I knew what the words of power actually did, how they affected the fabric of this universe and the one beyond, the home of my kind. I started to interfere slightly with the universal fabric myself and twisted it, just enough to start weakening the words of power that bound my kin to slavery. The brotherhood of mages became aware that their spells were failing, although I think they never even guessed at the cause, and started to panic. I allowed them to panic while I gathered my army.

“And then Brother Dream, who had been a student of the mage who had summoned me into this world, had an idea. He summoned another sprite and ordered it to find someone who could help them overcome the growing crisis. The stress of summoning the sprite and issuing it with specific orders killed him, but unfortunately he completed the ritual before he died. That sprite went out into the dimensions and picked you. You turned the entire world upside down.”

I stared at him. “Why was I picked?”

“You have a certain version of the talent needed to use the words of power,” the sprite said. “You have the knowledge and ability to assist them in developing ways to exist – to improve themselves – without using us. You have the intellect and the ability to push your ideas forward even against heavy opposition. And you have a good heart.” He shrugged, his features blurring for a long second as magic billowed around him. “You had the right background and were the first the sprite encountered. Why not you?

“Think about it. You came to Padway with nothing more than the clothes on your back. In a few months, you taught them basic sanitation, a system of reading and writing that is far simpler and easier to use than the one they developed for themselves, you introduced all kinds of small innovations and even taught them how to produce gunpowder. Most importantly of all, you taught them the scientific method. They may not be as advanced as your own world, or some of the other worlds our explorers saw when we studied the matter-based, but they are on the way. Even if I were to kill you right now, your legacy would live on – if, of course, the human race survives.”

I gathered myself. “What are you going to do?”

“Do?” He repeated. “I am going to destroy the cities and wipe out all trace of the knowledge used to summon and imprison my people. I am going to reduce humanity to the tribes and nothing else, people wandering in the desert, unable to build a civilisation that will, one day, rediscover how to summon my people. The survivors of the cities will be turned into slaves and used to service the tribes, once I have verified that all the ones with dangerous knowledge have been killed. Does that answer your question?”

“You can't,” I said. I was suddenly aware that I was pleading for the entire human race. “I know that some of us have done terrible things to you, but what about the ones who have done nothing to you or your race?”

“They allowed the mages to summon us without ever thinking that we might have wills and intellects and even souls of our own,” the sprite hissed. “They gained from our enslavement, even if they had no hand in summoning us permanently. Why should they not be destroyed?”

His form was becoming less and less human by the second. “And look at your puny little race,” he added. “You are so...crude, so impermanent; bound by your nature to control your fellows or be controlled by them. How many of your race have sought control over others? Even your world, one of the more advanced of the worlds I have studied, has those who seek control over others. You scrabble endlessly over a diminishing world while you ignore the techniques that could save you. Your leaders lie to their followers, whipping them up into seas of hatred – as if there was any real difference between you and them. You allow states that brutalise their own people to exist, even supporting them, even as you decry their crimes against their own people. You carry out the worst atrocities in the name of your god! How can you possibly be considered civilised?”

His eyes were glowing with red fire as he stood up and stared down at me. “I should kill you now,” he added, each word burning into my skull. “And yet, you have friends. You freed some of my people from their imprisonment and they have spoken in your favour. I may not kill you without incurring their displeasure. Our...government would not allow it.”

I grasped at a shred of hope. “I could speak to your government,” I said. “Perhaps if we could come to an agreement...”

“Everything you could possibly say has been considered,” the spite said. I didn't understand. “You do not understand our nature. I cannot explain it to you, any more than you could explain democracy or dictatorship to a slug or an ant. You have been judged. Whatever happens in all of the other dimensions, humanity will be crippled here, reduced to a handful of tribes struggling for existence and survival. My people will be free!

“But your friends have forbidden me to kill you,” he added. “I will grant you life, as long as your puny mortal form remains alive. You will remain here until the cities have been destroyed, their populations slaughtered and my people are free.”

“We could free them all now,” I said. “We could go back to the brotherhood and tell them what they’ve been doing and how it caused this war. They could be compelled to free their sprites and refrain from summoning any more into this world...”

“They would not listen,” the sprite said. “I have studied your race from the inside. Their control over us is the source of their power. They would not willingly abandon it.”

“We could make them abandon it,” I protested.

“They would not listen to you,” the sprite said. “They risk their own lives every time they summon one of us into their world and bind him to a certain nature. Even if the remainder of the city-folk ordered them to refrain, they would continue, perhaps in secret. Your race seeks power and control over your environment. They would continue to summon us and use us.”

He stood back from me and walked over to the flap. “You will remain here,” he said, firmly. “Tomorrow, you will be moved to another camp, where you will stay until the cities are burning. If you leave the tent, you will be torn apart by my followers.” He smiled. “Your puny race always grasps for life. You will not leave this tent.”

Just for a second, I saw the sprite under his human form, a billowing nexus of power existing in many more dimensions than I could follow. I felt my eyes streaming and looked away. When I looked back, he was gone. I sagged into the chair and closed my eyes for a long moment. I should have seen it from the start. A sprite would have understood magic perfectly; the mages could never have shared its understanding. Hell, Brother Stone had said as much.

I pulled myself to my feet, concentrating on a single thought. I had to get out of here.

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Bracing myself, I stepped up to the flap and opened it, just a little. It was still dark outside, but I had no idea of the time. It could be an hour to dawn for all I knew. A single guard stood outside the tent, who turned to look at me as I peered outside. He made a single motion with his spear, ordering me back inside the tent. There didn't seem to be any sprites on guard, although I couldn't understand why...unless the Prophet-sprite feared that I might be able to subvert them. It wasn't hard to realise that the Prophet was mad.

Before I could think better of it, I clasped my breasts and looked up at the guard, giving him my best ‘come hither’ smile. I had very little practice at seduction, but men are men everywhere. His eyes fixed on my breasts as I pushed them upwards, and then licked my licks as suggestively as I could. I’d seen it on a pornographic movie once a few years ago. I concentrated on looking as sexual and willing as I could and was rewarded when the guard came forward, one hand pushing me into the tent while the other started to fiddle with my robe. He pulled it down, baring my breasts and legs, as he kissed me, just before I rammed my knee up into his groin. I caught his mouth and pressed down on it before he could scream, and then knocked him down and kicked him in the head. It had probably been a relief after I rammed his testicles into his stomach.

Ignoring my nakedness, I undressed him as quickly as possible and pulled his trousers and shirt on over my body. His clothes stank of unwashed male, but I forced myself to ignore it as I dressed myself quickly and took his weapons. He’d had a pair of knives as well as his spear. I knew nothing about using a spear in combat, yet I took it anyway. It might come in handy. Bracing myself again, I walked out of the tent and into the campsite. The cool night air struck me, reinvigorating my soul. I might be in the centre of the enemy encampment, but I was at least mistress of my own destiny again. Or so I told myself.

I concentrated on looking for magic and sensed a spinning whorl of power in a larger tent, set up in the middle of the camp. That had to be the Prophet, I told myself, and headed in the other direction. Most of the camp was sleeping, thankfully, but I avoided the handful of guards and wanderers who seemed reluctant to go to sleep. They’d probably been gorging themselves on food and drink taken from the wrecked towns and cities they'd destroyed along the way. It occurred to me that Flint might not have been the only target and I shuddered. Alone in the darkness, the cold stars twinkling down at me, it was easy to believe that the remainder of civilisation had been destroyed and I was alone. The Prophet had been right about one thing, at least. I’d come into a world where I could build on what was already there until I made a very real difference. If the cities were destroyed, if the human race was reduced to a handful of tribesmen, there would be no hope for a future. This world would hit a dead end and go no further.

My father had taught me how to navigate by the stars. It was easier here than it would have been on my world; there was no light pollution drowning out the stars. I’d had a rough idea that Padway was somewhere within the south of France, at least as it would have been in my world, which meant that I was somewhere within the Mediterranean Sea. It wasn't a sea here anyway, just an endless desert. I concentrated until I was sure I knew which direction to take and then started to walk towards the horses. I knew that they would be heavily guarded, yet there was no other choice. Tired and hungry as I was, I couldn't hope to survive a trek across the desert on foot.

I heard the horses before I saw them. They were uneasy and their two guards were uneasy too. I was surprised that they’d trusted their horses to only two guards – the tribesmen thought more of their horses than they did of their women – before realising that most of the tribesmen had already decamped and headed towards the cities. The remainder, the Prophet’s most loyal followers, would follow them in due course. I hid myself in the shadows and studied the two guards. They weren't familiar faces, but they both looked tough and determined. They’d been given one of the greatest responsibilities in the camp. I was sure I could deal with one of them, perhaps with the advantage of surprise, yet I knew I couldn't take them both out. I had to separate them, but how? If they discovered I was missing, they’d be sure to search the camp and...

Before I could think better of it, I picked up a stone and threw it neatly towards one of the guards. He whirled around, looking for the person who had almost hit him with a stone, and saw me in the semi-darkness. His expression turned from puzzled to angry in a second and he started to march towards me. He hadn't realised that I was an escaped prisoner, I realised as he chased me towards a second tent. He thought I was just a kid playing a joke on his elders and betters. I’d seen enough of how their kids acted to play the part.

He caught me by the arm and spun me round. I wondered if I had miscalculated, just before he rammed one hand into my trousers and stopped, dead. He looked almost comically surprised, giving me an opening. I rammed my hand into his throat and he made a horrific gagging sound, before he toppled over. I’d probably killed him, I realised, but there was no time to be sick. He’d thought I was a boy and intended to humiliate me. I told myself that he deserved his death and started to walk back towards the horses. His comrade would be alarmed if he didn't return in the next few seconds.

I almost ran into the second guard as I rounded the tent. He stared at me and then opened his mouth. I stabbed one of the knives into his guts and pushed my hand over his mouth, preventing him from crying out. He collapsed, flailing at me weakly, before dying in front of me. Again, I pushed my horror and revulsion to the back of my mind. There was no time to do anything, but run. I picked myself up, relieved him of his weapons and a handful of gold coins, and ran for the horses. They’d been tied to the ground, so I freed the nearest horse, pulled myself onto his back and pushed the creature into motion. The campsite didn't have walls, thank god. I could be away before anyone thought to check on the prisoner in her tent.

The horse moved jerkily, as if he was aware that I wasn't his normal rider. I used all the tricks I knew to convince him to move faster, just before something started to shimmer into existence in front of us. The horse skidded to a half and almost bolted as the sprite glared down at us with inhuman eyes. I cursed my own mistake almost as much as I cursed the horse – and the Prophet. I should have realised that some of the defences wouldn't be human at all. The Prophet could command his fellow sprites to help secure his camp.

There was no time for panic. I reached out with my talent as I felt the sprite’s power firming up around us. Oddly, now that I knew more about them, it was easier to see the chains binding the sprite in place. The Prophet had chained his fellow sprite. It puzzled me, but I didn't dare stop to ask questions. As the sprite’s cold malice started to seep through my head, I reached out and broke the chains. It was a desperate gamble – this sprite was far more powerful than the ones I’d freed in the past – but it worked. The sprite was suddenly gone and I was free. I knew that the Prophet might feel what I’d done and I pushed the horse into a canter, and then into a run. My only defence was speed now.

The desert slipped by astonishingly quickly. I was silently grateful that I’d picked a horse that knew the desert, even though riding without a saddle or stirrups rapidly became a painful and unpleasant experience. The moon, high overhead, cast down shimmering rays of light, providing a limited illumination to the ghostly scene. I knew that there were tribesmen behind me, and perhaps in front of me, but it was easy to believe that I was the only person left alive. The endless desert seemed likely to swallow me up.

I sensed a trickle of magic behind me and twisted, peering back the way I’d came. A blur on the horizon resolved itself into a sandstorm, a sandstorm shaped and directed by the Prophet, his final revenge on the human race. It was gaining on me quickly. The horse whinnied in panic as I pushed myself down on the saddle and urged him forward. We galloped faster and faster, but the sandstorm was gaining on us with terrifying speed. I risked another glance backwards and saw that the crest of the storm had become a familiar face. The Prophet himself was glaring down at me as the storm advanced. I wondered if it was just an illusion –the Prophet was bound to his human form, unless he’d lied about that – before realising that it hardly mattered. Once we were in the sandstorm, we would be killed or perhaps lose our way. The tribesmen could catch up with us and recapture me with ease. They’d probably kill me, whatever the Prophet had ordered, to punish me for stealing the horse. To them, it wasn't a little prank like rape or murder. Their horses were their life.

The horse seemed to bound across the sand, crossing the miles with terrifying speed. I could still feel the sandstorm gaining on us and started to pray with a fervour I hadn't felt since my mother died. It struck me that this world worshipped many gods, not one, and I started to giggle. Perhaps the one true god could still hear me...I hoped He could, even though I hadn't been a faithful churchgoer. Or perhaps I should pray to the Crone. Very few actually prayed to Her, even though they tried to appease the goddess. She was not a just and forgiving aspect of the universe. It made me wonder if, at some level, the gods were real. How might the mages have discovered the words of power without help from elsewhere?

I smiled, despite the roaring behind me and the pitter-patter of sand on my back. The Prophet had said that his people had tried to explore the matter-based universe without really comprehending what it was, at least not at first. For all I knew, the gods this world worshipped – and the gods my forefathers had worshipped – were sprite-like creatures, explorers from another universe. Perhaps we had bound them into gods – worshipping them as the god of war, god of water, god of...well, anything – and they’d eventually left us. I suspected that I would never know the truth.

The horse somehow found an extra burst of speed and we lunged forward, crossing the sand dunes and escaping – for a long moment – the sandstorm. The whirling power seemed disinclined to let us go, even though we had crossed where the desert had turned into scrubland – now covered in sand. I remembered the farms and villages I’d seen, back when I’d first been taken to the city. They would all be buried now under the sand. It struck me that even if we won – and I had an inkling of an idea – the deserts would still have moved inland. The long-term survival of the human race was still in doubt. I caught myself wondering if it was possible to drill down to the water and bring it back to the surface, before realising that that was how the cities found their water. It had bubbled to the surface over the years. The roaring was growing closer...and then the storm was upon us. The sand closed in and we were blind.

I swore as the horse panicked. I knew a moment of absolute terror as the horse just raced forward, ignoring the human on its back. I opened my mouth to scream, just as the horse jumped in the air and spun madly, as if it were being assailed by hornets. I heard a crack as the beast fell to the ground, and then it tried to heave me off its back. I flew through the air and landed on my ass. If I’d fallen on solid ground, I would probably have broken my back.

The storm seemed to be centring around me, no matter how I ran. The horse was lost somewhere within the storm and I could no longer even hear it. I ran in what I thought was the right direction, yet the storm followed me until it began to slack. I had only a moment to think that the Prophet might finally have run out of energy before I ran straight into the trap. A strong hand grabbed me before I even saw him. As the storm faded away, I was forced to the ground and tied up, again. I was getting sick of being tied up. The anger helped keep me from dwelling on the fact that I was trapped, again.

“Bitch,” a voice said. I looked up in numb resignation and saw Yavak. He kicked me hard and I yelped in pain. I could have killed him at that moment, if I hadn't been a captive. The handful of other men in his small band didn't seem to care about me. I had a suspicion that the Prophet’s orders were about to be forgotten, even if their entire tribe would be at risk. “Murderer of my cousin, you will pay!”

I would have said something, but he pushed my head into the sand. I could taste it in my mouth and wondered if it were the end. I’d die here, away from my family; I’d never see my father and his friends again. A moment later, just as I was on the verge of blacking out, he pulled my head up and I gasped for breath. He poked me hard in the chest and I recoiled. It took everything I had to lift one leg and kick out at him. It was easy for him to dodge. I’d never felt weaker in my life.

There was an argument going on between the tribesmen, but I couldn't understand the dialect they were using. I felt that I knew what they were saying, however; Yavak was trying to urge them to take their revenge, while others were questioning the wisdom of defying the Prophet. Yavak was winning the argument. Two of the tribesmen walked off into the gloom, while the remaining four gathered around me. Some of them, I realised, were on drugs. They had the high-pitched laugh of a person stoned out of their skull. Yavak reached down for me, rolled me over and drew a knife. Before I could say anything, he had slashed my clothes and pulled them away from my body. I felt his rough hands running over my bare skin, squezzing my buttocks before he rolled me back over and reached for my legs. Two of his comrades stepped forward and each of them took a leg, spreading me wide open. Yavak knelt between my legs and began to fumble with his pants.

I tried to fight, but they were too strong and my arms were still bound. No matter how much I struggled, they held me firmly. I puckered my lips, hoping that I could lure him close enough for a kiss so I could bite him, but he ignored me. I saw his penis as he pulled his pants down and prepared to force his way into me. Helplessly, I closed my eyes and braced myself for the worst.

The next second, there was a weird sound and a gasp of pain. I opened my eyes and saw an arrow sticking through Yavak’s head. The other tribesmen were reaching for their weapons, but it was already too late. My rescuers charged them and cut them down ruthlessly, without mercy. A dark figure emerged from the shadows and came into the flickering campfire light.

“My Lady Alex,” he said. I recognised him at once. “We found you just in time.”

“Tarfanaxe,” I said. I couldn't describe how relieved I felt, just as he freed my hands and passed me a coat. If he’d wanted to kiss, or do much more, I would have let him. I wanted to fall into his arms and feel safe again. But then. I’d never really been safe since I’d come to this world. “I...I...”

I kissed him as passionately as I could, and then just clung on to him. “How did you find me?”

“We realised you were gone and one of your students realised how you’d been taken from the city,” Tarfanaxe said. “We had to wait for darkness to slip through their ranks and start hunting for you, once we’d determined that you’d left the city. All we have to do now is get back inside.”

“Oh,” I said. I gave him another kiss. “Is that all?”

 

Chapter Thirty<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

We hid in an abandoned shack for the day, and then headed back to the city when night fell. The barbarians had surrounded the walls, but Tarfanaxe used a firework – one of my ideas – to send a signal to the city and soldiers started to bombard the barbarians on the other side of the city. Expecting a breakout, the barbarian leaders ordered their reserves to head around to the other side of the city, allowing us to slip through their lines and over the wall. There was a brief moment when the guards insisted on checking our faces before they let us through and then we were safe, if only for a few days. I doubted that the food supplies in the city would last much longer.

“Lady Alex,” Tarfanaxe said formally, as soon as we were through the defences. “Welcome home.”

I smiled. By now, I had come to think of Padway as home. “Thank you,” I said, and meant it. “What happens while I was gone?”

“We repulsed an attack in the morning and sent a party to look for you, led by me,” Tarfanaxe said. He winked. “The councillors weren't too happy about the Captain-General leading the search party in person, but I convinced them that we owed you too much not to send the best. And it helped that one of the councillors had betrayed you to the barbarians. If that news had gotten out into the city, the entire council might have been lynched.”

“And you couldn't have risked a civil war, not right now,” I agreed. He nodded, grimly. A civil war with the city under siege would have been disastrous. Treacherous councillors might have risked inviting the barbarians into the city to bolster their position. I was pretty sure that that was what they’d done during the time of Genghis Khan. “I need to meet with the council and Brother Stone as quickly as possible and...”

I broke off and yawned. I’d been running on aderliiline and sheer determination. Now everything was catching up with me; the kidnap, the Prophet and the attempt at rape. I needed to sleep desperately, even if it meant delaying my discussion with the council. Tarfanaxe seemed to understand. Without consulting me, he waved over a carriage and helped me into the seat.

“Get some rest,” he ordered. “I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

Dawn was breaking over the city as the carriage took me through the crowded streets and back to the College. I wasn't surprised to see dozens of my students on guard, holding the latest matchlocks as well as swords and spears. The College was one of the stronger buildings within the Inner City – almost as strongly held as the Garrison – and would hold out even if the remainder of the city were to be looted and destroyed by the barbarians. I’d taught my students enough about preserving food to ensure that we could have held out for several weeks, but I hoped that it wouldn't come down to it. I had no idea how the medieval world had managed to endure so many sieges and wars with puny technology. In some ways, knowing what was possible tore at me as I watched my students lining up to salute. What couldn't I do with an entire town from my world? The library alone would be worth its weight in whatever precious metals I cared to name.

I accepted their salutes – the odd clenched fists against chest salute – and thanked them all as gravely as I could. Their leader, one of my better chemists, dismissed them and made a few enquires after my heath, before I finally managed to get rid of him and up into my chambers. I didn't have time to undress; I just staggered forward and collapsed into bed. It felt like the softest and most welcoming bed I’d ever enjoyed. I crashed into sleep before I could even take off my boots.

My dreams were dark and chilling, yet when I awoke I almost felt refreshed. I undressed, washed and pulled on new clothes. Part of me wanted to just go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day, but I knew that that wasn't a possibility. I had to talk to the council and the mages before it was too late. The Prophet would be sending his invisible spies into the city and would probably already know that I had made it home. He’d be preparing his final attack right now. And if I was wrong about his weakness, the entire world would plunge down into unbroken darkness.

I ate a quick meal and called for a horse. When it arrived, I was surprised to discover that I had an escort, a set of priests representing the various gods. Their leader, when I expressed my surprise, explained that the priests had decided that I was a messenger of the gods in my absence and had ordered to escort to make it clear that attacking me would be the worst kind of blasphemy. I didn't like the idea at all – it was superstitious, and superstition would weaken their commitment to the scientific method I had been teaching – but it seemed that argument was impossible. Besides, it would help discourage others from attacking me. I doubted that all of the traitors had been rounded up and put to the question.

The streets seemed full of people who wished to cheer me as we rode through the city. I don’t know how politicians endured long hours of kissing babies and talking sweet nothings to people who probably couldn't be bothered going to vote. My arm grew sore from waving back at them, even though I was touched by the display of welcome. I just hoped that I could actually deliver them victory, or it would all be for nothing. My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden change as the escort led me to a different building, where I was greeted by Lady Aylia and Lord Umbria. I could see the relationship between them, even though they were as different as night and day. They both had the same cheekbones and an expression that suggested that anyone who wanted to try his luck should get his will written out first.

“Welcome back,” Lord Umbria said. He sounded oddly contrite, not what I would have expected from a man in his position. Perhaps he was embarrassed; one of his fellow councillors had attempted to hand me over to the barbarians. “The council wishes the pleasure of your company in the Chamber of the Gods.”

“You are welcome,” Lady Aylia agreed. She gave me a wink. In her dark red robes and golden headpiece, she looked magnificent and somehow inhuman. She was almost the Crone’s representative on Earth. “The gods brought you back to us.”

“Thank you, both of you,” I said. I was a little overwhelmed and I wasn't quite sure what to say. This sounded like one of the rituals someone brought up within the city would understand and follow without hesitation, but I didn't have their knowledge or understanding. “It’s good to be home.”

Lady Aylia smiled, rather sweetly. “And we welcome you,” she said. She turned, her robe spinning around her. “And if you will come with us, we will bring you to the Chamber of the Gods.”

We walked through a long stone passageway and came out into a massive chamber. I saw statues of each of the gods, ranging from the ones who had thousands of believers to ones who were only honoured in memory, if that. The city adopted gods from other cities, or someone would proclaim a new god and build a following. It confused me, but in some ways I had to admit that it was more civilised than back home. There were no civil wars over religion in the city. They believed in all the gods, even if each person worshipped only one or two. It was a matter of personal choice.

I stopped as I saw Tarfanaxe – and the man kneeling in the centre of the chamber, his hands bound behind his back. Councillor Joralan’s body bore the unmistakable signs of torture. I could see bruises and burns everywhere, for he was wearing nothing more than a wrap around his waist. He’d betrayed me and sent me to the barbarians, for whatever reason made sense to him, yet I almost felt sorry for the bastard. The city’s interrogators knew just how to apply their tools to ensure that the victim suffered, without dying of shock or anything else. If I ever produced an alternative, I told myself, I would see torture abolished within the city.

“We are gathered here today in the sight of all the gods,” Lady Aylia said. Her voice echoed in the chamber. It was a perfect echo chamber, ensuring that everyone within the chamber could hear every word. I saw the other councillors, guild masters, priests and representatives of each of the other classes. The entire city had gathered to pass judgement upon their fallen son. “The man before us is accused of betraying the city to the barbarians who threatened to destroy us, as they have destroyed our tributary towns and our sister city of Flint. In his treacherous mood, he arranged for the Lady Alex, the mouthpiece of the gods, to be kidnapped and handed over to the barbarians. It is only by the will of the gods that the Lady Alex was returned to us.

“It is the Crone who stands in judgement over cases of treachery and betrayal,” she continued. “She is the one who stands in every human heart; she is the one who watches as treachery flourishes within their souls; she is the one who casts her net to ensure that the traitors are brought to justice and forced to pay for their crimes. Her cold eyes judge those who fall from their position in the sight of the judge. Her punishments are always just and fitting. For those who commit treachery, the Crone awaits them, ready to hold them to account in the sight of the gods.”

“In the sight of the gods,” the crowd echoed. I stared. What was about to happen?

“I stand before you as the Crone’s representative in the world of life,” Lady Aylia said. “She speaks through me. This man believed that he could preserve his life, his family and his position by handing the Lady Alex over to the enemies of the city. It is the Crone’s judgement that he acted in full knowledge of the deaths of his treachery. It is the Crone’s judgement that he did not believe that he was doing the right thing, or that he made a mistake. He is no barbarian, sworn to serve their cause rather than ours, but one of us. His treachery stands before you in the sight of the gods.”

“In the sight of the gods,” the crowd echoed, again.

Silence fell. You could have heard a pin drop as Lady Aylia stepped forward. One hand reached out and almost caressed Councillor Joralan’s hair before she took hold and pulled him upwards by his hair, baring his throat to the crowd. I saw the marks of his torture in sharp relief and felt unwell, a sudden desire to vomit sweeping through my body. I’d seen a person being tortured before and it still struck me as sickeningly evil.

“The Crone is old and wise,” Lady Aylia said. “It is she who represents those who tend to the dead, once their souls have passed onwards to the land of the gods. It is she who greets men and women in their final moment. It is she who passes judgement on a life. It is she who holds the scales of judgement. And it is she who will pass judgement on this traitor.”

A young woman, naked save for a gauzy wrap around her thighs, stepped forward and knelt in front of Lady Aylia. She held her hands upwards, holding out a single golden knife. Lady Aylia took the knife and held it up high, and then held it to the kneeling man’s throat. I realised what was about to happen and shuddered. They were going to execute him in front of me.

“The Crone is merciful,” Lady Aylia said, into the silence. “Is there anyone here, in the sight of the gods, who will plead for this traitor’s life?”

“I will,” I said, before I had quite realised that I was going to speak. I didn't quite believe that I’d spoken and only the gazes that were trained on me suggested that I had said anything. They were astonished. I’d been the victim. By their standards, they would probably be expecting me to pass water over his grave. A traitor wouldn't be granted ritual burning and burial. “He may redeem himself in the future.”

An idea was unfolding in my mind. “He may be of use to us,” I continued. “If he can make contact with the barbarians, he could pass on a message from us to their leader. We could use him to feed them false information.”

I’d be surprised if they hadn't developed the idea of the double agent. The cities spied on each other constantly. If they understood what I was suggesting, they might go along with it – or they might order his death anyway, despite my words. I’d just have to hope they listened to me. My father would not have been amused. He’d point out that I’d been kidnapped and nearly gang-raped by the kneeling man in front of me. He would order his death without a single second thought.

Lady Aylia walked over to me, taking slow deliberate steps. Her eyes locked on mine and held them. I couldn't even blink. Just for a moment, I wondered if there was some truth in the ritual, if the Crone really did exist and was working through her servant. I had to remind myself that it was superstition and even then I wasn't quite sure that I believed myself. The effect was impressive and terrifying. Lady Aylia truly believed every word she’d said.

“You are the offended party,” she said. Her voice sounded different. “And yet, you suggest keeping him alive, knowing that a traitor will always remain a traitor.”

“Yes, My Lady,” I said. I had to fight the urge to drop to one knee. There was power in her voice, terrifying power. “I do.”

“If the Crone accepts your plea, she will hold you responsible for lives ruined or lost through the actions of the traitor,” Lady Aylia said. “Do you understand what you are saying? We are in the sight of the gods. They will all stand with the Crone. There will be no escape if you are wrong and the traitor betrays others.”

“I understand,” I said. The odd thing was that this city had a better record of religious toleration than back home. But then, they would have considered Yahweh, God and Allah to be three different gods, all co-existing within the same heaven and the same earth. “I will accept responsibility.”

“And so the Crone will test the traitor,” Lady Aylia said. She reached into a hidden pocket and produced two tablets, holding them out in her hand. “One of these will kill the traitor; the other will grant him his life, until the gods see fit to end it. Let us see what he chooses.”

She placed one tablet in each hand and held them out to Councillor Joralan. I realised, suddenly, what was going on. One of the tablets was poison; the other would be harmless. If he picked the poison one, the Crone would have rejected my plea. The traitor would die in worse agony than having his throat cut in front of the crowd. And if he picked the other one...

I understood what she’d meant. The city didn't have a fancy legal system, where someone could escape responsibility by claiming diminished judgement or insanity. If I took Councillor Joralan under my wing, I’d be responsible for him and anything he did after he was freed. And yet...if I freed him, I could use him as a double agent. I had a plan. I just wished that I had a complete plan. Far too much could go wrong.

Councillor Joralan nodded towards the right hand. Lady Aylia stepped forward and thrust the tablet into his mouth. There was a long moment when he gulped it down – I hated dry swallowing myself – and everyone waited to see what would happen. The minutes passed slowly, until Lady Aylia stood back and smiled.

“The Crone has accepted your plea, Lady Alex,” she said. She used the knife to cut the councillor’s bonds. “His is yours now, the least of your slaves. And watch him, for his actions will rebound on you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I motioned to a pair of guards, who would escort him out of the building and to the College, where he would be held in a room until I could speak to him and offer him his freedom in exchange for a particular task. The meeting seemed to be breaking up, with most of the crowd heading out of the building, as if they no longer wanted to be in the sight of all the gods. I understood. They chose one god as their personal god, their master and their protector, yet the gods were all equal. Actions in the sight of all the gods would never go unpunished. I saw Brother Stone across the room and walked over to speak to him.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“I thought you might,” he said, slowly. I could sense the sprites crackling around him, protecting him against almost anything. It would have been easy to free them, now I knew how. “We’ll find a private room and...we will talk.”

 

Chapter Thirty-One<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“Absolutely out of the question.”

I sighed. It hadn’t taken long to tell him everything that had happened since Councillor Joralan had organised my kidnap, but he hadn't believed a word. I’d told him about the Prophet and his strange nature, and how he was waging war against the human race to free his kindred, yet it seemed impossible to him. All of his knowledge – and his self-interest – mandated against believing me. I suppose I couldn't really blame him that much; back home, entire nations had been willing to buy oil off nations which used some of that money to fund terrorism and enemy propaganda.

“You have been enslaving sprites since the day your forefathers discovered how to call them to your world,” I said, tartly. “Why do you think that they’re so hard to summon and call – hell, why do you think they lash out if you lose control? They hate you – they hate the entire human race! And the Prophet, being partly human and partly sprite, is capable of weakening your magic from the inside.”

“It is impossible for a sprite to exist in this world without an anchor,” Brother Stone said, sharply. “A sprite simply cannot exist here without someone calling it into this world and then binding him to an anchor...”

“He has an anchor,” I snapped. “He’s got his own body! You use your body to hold your personal sprites to this world; why can't he do the same? If some idiot tried to merge a sprite into his own mind, why couldn't the sprite end up in control?”

That shook him. He thought about it before answering. “No one would try that without being properly warded,” he said, finally. “It would be certain death if it failed...”

“You know as well as I do that people can be killed while summoning powerful sprites,” I said. “Brother Dream was killed when he summoned me to this world. And I think I know why I was summoned.” He stared at me. “I think I know what he wanted.”

I put my thoughts together carefully. “Your world is dependent upon sprites,” I said. “You – the mages and the Brotherhood – have been using your abilities to keep the city-states fragmented, rather than forming proper nations. It allows you to keep your position because they’re dependent upon you for communications and even security. You have been impeding the development of science and technology on this world – without even knowing what you’re doing – and so the world remains dependent upon you.

“And now the Prophet is weakening your spells, you’re losing control of your magic and the network that binds the cities together is falling apart. Brother Dream knew that, I suspect, and he decided to do something about it. He knew about alternate worlds and ordered the sprite to find someone who could help your world develop the basis of technology before it was too late.”

Brother Stone looked at me. “Too late?”

“He may not have known what the Prophet actually was, or even if he existed, but he knew about the advancing deserts,” I said. That was a guess, but I felt that it was a good one. “Your world is dying. Ever since some idiot thought it would be a good idea to cause a geological catastrophe and drain or destroy most of the free water on your world, you have been slowly dying. The sand is advancing and I think it was advancing long before the Prophet started to take control of the sandstorms and use them as weapons. How long is it going to be before this world can no longer support even its relatively small population? And there’s nothing you can do about it if you lose control of the sprites.”

I pointed up towards a glowing sprite-light, high overhead. “The creature in that light hates you for what you’ve done to it,” I snapped. “You pulled it out of a universe where it could fly free, compressed it down into a tiny light and trapped it within a matter-based universe that is utterly unsuited to its kind. You worry endlessly about losing control of the powerful sprites, but I’d bet that you should be more worried about those. What happens when they break free, all at once?”

Brother Stone looked shaken. “Trapping and binding Least Sprites isn’t hard...”

I shrugged and climbed onto the table. As he stared, I reached up for the light and pressed my fingers against the tiny creature. Freeing it was easy and it vanished, leaving the room illuminated by nothing more than the light streaming in the window. He stared at me as I stepped back down and returned to my seat, unable to believe what he’d just seen. I could have pitied him if he hadn’t been unknowingly enslaving creatures that were just as intelligent, perhaps more so, than humans. And he had enslaved me. I wasn't going to forget that, or forgive it. Councillor Joralan had done me less harm.

“The Prophet is coming to destroy us all,” I said. He was still gaping at me. “What are you going to do when he comes for you?”

I leaned forward, trying to overawe him. “You won’t be able to control the sprites any longer,” I said, sharply. “He’ll just free any sprites you try to send towards him. Or maybe he will take control of them and point them back at you. And then you and your people will all be dead. It will be the end. The entire human race will be wiped out.”

Brother Stone pressed his hands together. “Do you know how hard it would be to convince every mage in the world to stop summoning sprites?”

“I know,” I said. If we could take out the Prophet, we might be able to win enough time to convince them to stop without causing massive upheaval. The mages saw the sprites as the basis of their power. Without them, they would be nothing. “But if we don’t stop now, how long will it be before we are all destroyed?”

He had no answer. “This is what we need to do,” I said. “We have to gather every trapped sprite within the city and bring them here – no, to somewhere nearer the walls. And then we have to call the Prophet and offer to free them, in exchange for a truce.”

“He could just free them and carry on with the war,” Brother Stone pointed out.

I nodded. It wasn't something I wanted to say aloud, but I was convinced that there was more humanity in the Prophet than he wanted to admit. The sprites were creatures of pure energy, yet the Prophet seemed bound by some of the limitations of humanity – and he clearly enjoyed human pleasures. I had a nasty feeling that he might be mad, at least by human standards. He was the sum of two very different minds had been jammed together. Madness would be the natural end result.

“But it will lure him out to where we can deal with him,” I said. Or so I hoped. I had the beginnings of a plan, yet I knew that far too much could go wrong. And if I was wrong, there would be no time to correct my mistakes. I’d be dead before the end of the day. “I think he really believes what he said to me. Offering him the chance to free every sprite within the city would be irresistible.”

“You’re gambling everything on one thought,” Brother Stone said. “What if you’re wrong?”

“We all die,” I said. “But we will die anyway. Do you know how long the city can feed itself? About a week at most. I’d be surprised if we didn't have food riots within the next two days. As we grow weaker, disease will spread from person to person, slaughtering hundreds of thousands indiscriminately. The city will become a charnel house and the few remaining defenders will be unable to hold the walls. They’ll break in and slaughter the remaining defenders, before they launch an orgy of looting, raping and burning. The city will be destroyed and once it is gone, they will layer the ground with salt. There will be no resurrection, no return to civilisation. And that will be the end.”

I pushed closer. “They will wipe out all of the city-states, all of the hundreds of cities struggling to survive as the land grows ever more parched and unsuitable for farming. The city-folk will die in their millions, some quickly through war, others slowly through starvation or thirst. Disease and deprivation will stalk the land. The tribes will survive, at first, until they discover that the land is slowly dying around them. They will be unable to save themselves and will vanish within the sand. And that will be the end.

“Maybe, years from now, explorers from other dimensions will look into yours and wonder what went wrong. They would find nothing, but ruined cities – if they are not buried under the sand. And maybe they will be very lucky and they will discover a handful of desperate survivors, struggling to survive while making magic with spells that no longer work. And that will be...”

“I understand,” he said, sharply. He stared down at the table for a long moment. “I will organise the gathering of the sprites. I will disband the mages. And if you are wrong...”

“We will all die,” I said, flatly. “You’d better pray that I am not wrong.”

***​

“There are times when I wonder,” Tarfanaxe said, four days later, “if you’re a messenger of the god or simply crazy.”

“I know too much to be crazy,” I assured him. It hadn’t been an easy four days. I was mildly surprised that none of the assassination attempts hadn’t come close to killing me. The only surprise had been a sprite that had appeared out of nowhere and launched himself at me, only to vanish as I freed it from its bonds. I guessed that one of the mages had decided it would be better to kill me rather than give up his power. Why not? The slave-owners of Dixie had been equally reluctant to give up their slaves until forced to do so. “And the gods bless slaves who find their freedom.”

We were standing on top of my house, looking towards the South Gate. At my command, newer walls had been drawn up in positions where they would block the barbarians if the Prophet failed to take my bait. I was sure that the Prophet had joined his army – I could feel the tight mass of power surrounding him, even at such a distance – and time was running out. Everything depended on him coming in through the South Gate. His power, used offensively, could probably result in all of the walls coming down. Joshua blew and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down...

I pushed that thought aside and concentrated on the plan. We’d already hollowed out the ground under and before the warehouse and my students were packing it with gunpowder. I’d have preferred C4 or even a baby nuke, but neither would exist on this world for decades, at the very least. Besides, if Guy Fawkes had believed he could blow up the Houses of Parliament in Britain with barrels of gunpowder, I could use it to blow up the Prophet. The real danger was collateral damage to the city. Of course, it would be a moot point if failed to prepare ourselves in time.

“They do,” Tarfanaxe agreed. “They certainly blessed you.”

I looked up at him and saw his smile. He was right. I’d been a slave and now I was the richest and most influential woman the city had ever seen. Even if I died in the coming battle, my legacy would live on, reshaping the entire world. I felt, once again, the odd sense of disconnection from the world. I had been volunteered for the mission, yet I no longer resented it. I had changed an entire world.

“One more blessing and then I would die happy,” I said. I looked over towards the Inner Walls. Smoke from barbarian campfires drifted up in the distance, mocking us as the wind blew cooking smells over the city. The barbarians had captured the cows, pigs and sheep that had graced the farms they’d overrun and were gorging themselves upon the meat. It was an extremely wasteful process, one I suspected the Prophet was encouraging. The famine that would follow would force them to raid other cities or starve to death. “And if we succeed...”

I pushed that thought aside as well and took his hand. It was odd how reassuring I found his touch, but...well, he had saved my life at great personal risk. In some ways, he’d risked the entire city for me and...I wondered if I was starting to fall in love with him. Perhaps it would be worth the risk of having children here – hell, I was sure that my father would approve of him.

“Come on,” I said. His hand felt too warm to release. “We have to go speak to the traitor.”

I sensed his reluctance, but I wasn't about to let go of his hand. He followed me down the stairs and into my living room. Councillor Joralan sat there, flanked by two burly guards. The guards were there for his protection more than anything else, as the remainder of the city hadn't taken the Crone’s judgement too well. Legally, he was free and my responsibility; practically, he’d almost been lynched twice when outraged citizens had tried to take matters into their own hands. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with him if he survived his final task. Perhaps I’d give him a horse and tell him to find a new home within the desert, somewhere where his past wouldn't catch up with him.

“Councillor,” I said. He looked up, his dead eyes fixed on me. His title was a joke now, for he would never sit on the council again. He’d been lucky not to have been enslaved, or executed by his outraged peers. Or, for that matter, thrown to the mob. “It’s time for you to repay your debt.”

I saw his expression and smiled. Twisting the screws gave me a certain kind of pleasure, even though I should have known better. I could work with someone who didn't like me because he didn't agree with me, but a traitor...in the network of families, relations and obligations that made up the Great Houses, a traitor and oath-breaker could be devastating. No wonder they’d been so prepared to make a spectacle out of his death...if the network that governed the city became so corrupt, nothing would work properly.

“I want you to go to the barbarian camp,” I said. I didn’t miss his whimper. The barbarians had less use for a failure than the Great Houses. “Tomorrow, you will be lowered over the wall and be sent to them. You will be taken to their leader, their Prophet. Once you are facing him, you will tell him that you have been sent with a message from the Lady Alex.”

I smiled. I’d been careful to keep any knowledge of the real plan from him, just in case the Prophet could read his mind. “You will tell him that we have assembled every sprite in the city and will hand them over to him so he can free them personally. We will open the South Gate and he may enter the city, with as large an escort as he feels he needs. And then we will discuss a truce with him. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he said, finally. His face had turned white. “But they will kill me!”

“Maybe,” I agreed. I leaned forward, pushing as much menace into my voice as I could. “On the other hand, the people inside the city will definitely kill you if I hand you over to them...”

He stared at me, and then lowered his eyes. I was sure that he was already planning to betray me to the Prophet, but it wouldn't matter. Whatever he told the Prophet, the Prophet would sense the presence of his kindred and come to their rescue. I hoped.

“Take him to the gatehouse,” I ordered the guards. They nodded grudgingly. “Give him a good meal and then let him sleep. We’ll send him to the barbarians in the morning.”

I watched as he was hustled out of the room and then pulled Tarfanaxe into a second room. I’d prepared it as a guest room, but with so much confusion I doubted anyone could notice or care if I used it myself once or twice. He looked surprised as I pushed him onto the bed. I didn't mind. He was cute when he looked surprised.

“This could be our last night alive,” I said. Oddly, I felt nervous now, my thoughts spinning around. Was this a terrible mistake? “I...”

I kissed him, hard. He stared at me, and then kissed me back. I no longer cared about the dangers of unprotected sex here. I just wanted to be held. He fell back onto the bed and I climbed on top of him, barely pausing to breathe as I kissed him again and again. His hands came up to hold my breasts as I pulled at his pants, struggling to undo them as my passion grew. And then I was lost in pleasure as I felt him thrusting into me...

Afterwards, he held me all night. I barely slept. My thoughts kept spinning around and around, mocking me. I was no longer a virgin, I could be pregnant and...god alone knew how he would treat me tomorrow. I laughed at myself as I drifted back into a restless sleep. There was no point in worrying about the future, not now.

Tomorrow would decide everything.

 

Here is one thing i found while reading

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line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> Chapter 29 says
[FONT=&quot]“even though riding without a saddle or stirrups rapidly became a painful and unpleasant experience.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Then[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“The horse whinnied in panic as I pushed myself down on the saddle and urged him forward.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]This part contradicts. I enjoy the read so far though.[/FONT]

Jason

 

Chapter Thirty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

I had never considered myself a particularly emotional girl. Perhaps it was my tomboy upbringing, or the fact that I preferred to solve matters on my own rather than asking for help, but I had always been a little contemptuous of how some girls – perhaps most girls – broke down into tears over affairs of the heart. They seemed to act out a script that echoed through their bodies and souls, where they became terrifyingly jealous of their boyfriends and, at the same time, worried endlessly that they weren't perfect for him. I’d seen girls my age fretting about their weight and trying to make themselves throw up in the bathroom, or complaining about how their boyfriends treated them, to which I had always replied that they should stop rewarding bad behaviour. If they picked their dates from boys who treated them well, all other boys would eventually copy the behaviour of the successful boys – the ones who got to go to bed with the girls.

My words seemed to haunt me as I dressed the following morning. I had never placed much stock in virginity, even though I’d guarded mine carefully. Now I had been deflowered, I felt oddly unsure of my position in the world, even uncertain that I had done the right thing. It hadn't hurt as much as I had expected – perhaps that had been because I had practically forced myself on him – yet...I felt different and I didn't understand how, or why. And now that I had given myself up to him, would he still want me or would he dump me for someone from the same social class.

I told myself to shut up, firmly. I was being just as much of an idiot as those girls I had mocked. Fine; I was no longer a virgin. So what? I was still wealthy and powerful in this world, independent of anyone. It hardly mattered to my position if he married me or had second thoughts after discovering that I was new to the bedchamber and didn't know all the tricks. On the other hand, men were remarkably easy to please. Or was that just the cynic in me talking?

We exchanged few words over breakfast. He seemed to have problems meeting my eyes, even though I could see that he was dying to start bragging of his conquest to his friends. That’s something else women should have dealt with years ago, I noted; a man who loses his virginity is a hero, but a woman who does so outside marriage is a slut. Male double standards had always annoyed me; perhaps, here, I could reshape feminism in my own image. Now that the world was on the path to technology, women would be far more competitive in the workplace and able to stand up to men. My father would have been bitterly amused. If the freemen here insisted on wearing their swords everywhere, they’d love revolvers and whatever other handguns we could produce in the next few years.

Once our somewhat awkward breakfast was over, Tarfanaxe and I walked through the city to the South Gate. The streets were deserted, as we’d ordered the City Guard to evacuate the entire area. I wasn’t entirely sure just how big a bang I’d get for the small fortune I’d invested in the project, so I’d decided to be safe. I didn't want to accidentally blow up half the city. Our two guards were awaiting us, along with the messenger. Councillor Joralan looked as if he hadn't slept all night. I checked in with him, reminded him of what he had to tell the Prophet, and then ordered him lowered over the wall. I’d wondered if the barbarians would take the opportunity to put a few dozen arrows in him – they'd taken to firing arrows over the wall at random, which didn’t hit many people but scared hell out of the population – but it seemed that they weren't going to kill the bastard. The guards who’d lowered him over had reported that the barbarians had grabbed him at once and marched him away into the distance, towards the spinning whorl of power I could feel. The Prophet seemed to be expecting him.

The thought didn't bother me as much as I had feared. I knew that everyone who knew what I actually had in mind wouldn't be speaking about it to the empty air. Any sprites prowling through the city shouldn’t – if we were lucky – pick up on what we were doing. They didn't seem to understand the concept of technology in any case, which meant that they should be surprised by my plan. And if I were wrong, we might still win. It all depended on the Prophet taking the bait.

“We could have given him an escort,” Brother Stone said, when we returned to the gatehouse. “He might just decide to break free and run...”

I shrugged. “Run where?” I asked. “They’d get him before he got more than a metre from anywhere they wanted him to be.” I had to smile at the mental image. “And besides, we’re meant to be offering them every sprite in the city.”

He scowled. I knew that it had taken hours of arguing to convince the mages to give up their sprites. The Brotherhood, once it had been convinced by Brother Stone, had taken the lead in hunting down any remaining sprites, but I had a nasty suspicion that some had remained undiscovered as mages scurried to hide them from the searchers. Once the battle was over – if it came down to a battle – we’d have to start passing laws banning the summoning and imprisoning of sprites. By then, we should have enough technology developed to replace them, although I knew that it was going to be painful. The mages wouldn't want to give up the source of their power so easily.

An hour ticked by slowly. I tried to avoid thinking about what could go wrong; the Prophet could have refused my bait, he could have decided to kill Councillor Joralan before the traitor managed to gabber out the message, he could have decided to head to one of the other cities instead...the possibilities were endless. I worried about them in lieu of worrying about my future life in Padway. I’d had unprotected sex. My father had insisted that I learn about sex and I knew that a girl could get pregnant on her first time. I had no reason to think that I was biologically incompatible with a person born on this world, so...I might be pregnant. The thought was terrifying, in a way. A bastard child had rights in this world – they were more progressive than some of my world’s early civilisations in some ways – but a bastard child wouldn't have access to the higher levels of society. The father would have to acknowledge the child publically before he or she could claim a position...

I pushed that thought aside as I felt magic stirring in the distance. It built rapidly, until I was almost cowering down from the invisible glare. Brother Stone and the other mages who had arrived to oversee the collecting and delivering of the imprisoned sprites could feel it too; even though my pain, I realised that they wouldn't doubt me anymore. The sheer level of power blazing towards them was far beyond anything they’d ever seen personally. I doubted that any of them would willingly risk summoning a sprite again, at least not for a few years.


The Prophet hung in the air, gliding forward in a slow, stately motion. He was surrounded by a dazzling nimbus of power, so powerful that even the untalented people on the walls could sense the magic crackling around him. It was easy to see, now, why the tribesmen had hailed him as a living god. Part of me wanted to get down on my knees and prostrate myself in front of him. I barely noticed the small army of barbarian warriors escorting him, as if their presence was needed. They seemed pallid compared to his glowing form.

“By the gods,” Brother Stone breathed. He seemed to have recovered from the sudden impact of so much magic. It wasn't so easy for me to recover. I could feel his presence, even when I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away. His image seemed to dance in front of my eyes. “He’s magnificent.”

“He’s dangerous,” I grated. The pain was rapidly turning into a mighty headache. It had to end quickly, before I found myself completely useless. My eyes were burning, as if I were staring into the sun. “Sound the trumpets, now!”

At my command, passed on by my escorts, the trumpets sounded the warning. The South Gate was opened and the walls were evacuated. The soldiers would fall back to the defence lines we’d built within the city, just in case something went badly wrong. I looked up at Brother Stone, and then at Tarfanaxe. Neither of them wanted to run and leave the Prophet to his work. I had to force them to start moving as the glowing light enveloped the gatehouse. The works of man somehow seemed puny and futile against the living power shimmering through the air. When it faded, when the Prophet stepped into the city, the gatehouse crumbled to dust. Even though he was standing on the ground, I could feel his power beating on the air. Every step he took sent new waves of magic shimmering through the city.

We’d cleared buildings out of his way, allowing him a clear walk to the warehouse where the sprites were stored, awaiting their brother’s coming. I found myself wondering if his power would warp reality so badly that the plan would fail completely. The mages had never wielded power on such a scale, but then they’d never really understood what they were doing. A sprite, a creature born and composed of magic, would understand it far better than grasping humans, who lacked even the scientific method. What nightmares could he unleash upon the world? I heard a distant rumble and saw the sandstorms moving in the distance. The magical shield the mages had raised over the city no longer existed. If the Prophet called the sandstorms to him, the entire city would be swamped. And all I could do was wait and pray.

“I HEAR YOU, MY KINDRED,” the Prophet said. He spoke in a quiet voice that boomed in my head, in the head of everyone within the city. I covered my ears, but it was pointless. He seemed to be speaking directly into my mind. “I HEAR YOUR PAIN AND SUFFERING, TRAPPED WITHIN MATERIAL AND ENSLAVED TO THE WILL OF FLESH-BASED BEINGS. I HAVE COME TO FREE YOU.”

His mental voice grew louder. “YOUR SUFFERING WILL BE REPAID A THOUSAND TIMES UPON THE RACE THAT IMPRISONED YOU. THEIR PUNISHMENT WILL BE SWIFT AND TERRIBLE. THIS WORLD WILL NO LONGER TOLERATE THEIR PRESENCE. YOU WILL RETURN TO THE SHINING RIVERS OF THOUGHT AD MAGIC, WHILE I PUNISH THOSE WHO HELD YOU AND BOUND YOU TO THEIR WILL. YOU SHALL BE FREE. THEY WILL BE NOTHING.”

“Start the timer,” I ordered. My head was still ringing. Dear God – if he could do that, what else could he do? Perhaps he was a god after all, or a devil. The thought threatened to overwhelm me before I pushed it away. The Prophet was no god, just an immensely powerful creature. I refused to consider that there might be no difference between one and the other at such a level. “Start everyone moving back, now.”

I didn't need to give the order. Panic was spreading through the streets. Hardened soldiers and guardsmen, street traders and hookers, refugees and noblemen...they were all fleeing. I saw thousands of people trying to get away, even though they knew that there was no such thing as safety. Others were fleeing to the temples, prostrating themselves in front of their gods and begging for divine mercy. The gods were silent. They seemed to be less real, somehow, than the maddened sprite walking the earth.

“It’s done,” Tarfanaxe said. The timer had taken several days to construct and I had my doubts about it, but I wasn't going to ask someone to kill themselves for me. “Come on, you have to get out of here.”

“I need to watch,” I said, firmly. The Prophet was walking forward now, his glowing eyes fixed upon the warehouse. I could almost feel his thoughts shimmering out, pressing against my skull. “You get running...”

He slapped my bottom, hard. I spun around and he grabbed me, picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. I shouted abuse and curses in his ear, but he ignored me and started to run. It occurred to me that I could fight, that I could break free of him, yet that would doom him to die along with me. I hadn't realised how calmly I’d accepted the possibility of my own death until he ensured that I wouldn't die that day.

“YES, I HEAR YOU,” the Prophet said. I almost cried out as his voice boomed straight into my skull. It took me a moment to realise that he was talking to the imprisoned sprites. “I HEAR YOUR CRIES. I COME TO FREE YOU”

My watch, the last thing I had from my world, began to bleep an alarm. “Get down, now,” I said, sharply. Tarfanaxe put me down, pushed me to the ground and lay on top of me. My mind produced a sudden comic image of him trying to seduce me in the final seconds before the world ended, perhaps trying to slip into me from behind, just before the Prophet spoke again.

“WAIT, WHAT IS THIS?” He asked. “WHAT IS THE DARKNESS THAT PRESSES AGAINST YOUR MIND? WHAT IS THE...?”

The explosion went off like a baby nuke. I felt the entire ground heave and, for a terrifying moment, pieces of rubble and debris crashed down over the city. Tarfanaxe rolled off me when I kicked him, not gently, and I sat up. A colossal mushroom cloud was forming where the South Gate and the warehouse had once been. My strange talent, overburdened by the presence of the Prophet, seemed to clear at the same moment. The Prophet was gone, along with all the other sprites. I knew that they hadn't been destroyed, but released, sent back to their own dimension. It took everything I had to pull myself to my feet and peer around, smiling to myself. I silently wished the sprites well on their trip back home. If we were lucky, no one from this world would ever call on them again.

I heard Tarfanaxe’s gasp as he took in the sheer scale of the damage. The blast had torn the wall down and wrecked hundreds of buildings. A temple, one devoted to the god of night’s dreaming, was slowly collapsing under the shockwave. I could hear the cries of thousands of injured people, screaming for help that might never come. My students, the medical guild and what remained of the City Guard would help them, if they could. I knew that far too many of them were going to die.

There was no sign of any of the barbarian warriors who had accompanied the Prophet into the city. Those who had remained in place when the Prophet started to speak into their minds would have been vaporised. I’d planned the blast as best as I could, but I’d had to use as much powder as possible, knowing that we would never get a second shot. I’d given the word ‘overkill’ a whole new meaning, at least on this world. I wondered what they’d make of nukes, once they developed them for themselves. Perhaps I would still be around to see it.

I kept walking towards the steaming crater, reaching out as best as I could with my talent. There seemed to be no magic left, apart from fading shimmers that vanished even as I looked for them. The heat deterred me from going any closer, but I was sure that the Prophet was gone. He’d been bound to the human body he’d inhabited and it had been blown to smithereens. His followers seemed to be fleeing as fast as they could, which was lucky for us. If they’d launched an attack through the gap in the wall, while everyone was still running around in panic, it would have been impossible to stop.

In the distance, I could see the sandstorms slowly spinning out of existence. Perhaps this world’s weather patterns would start returning to normal...no, that wasn't likely to happen, not now and not ever. The sprites might be gone, but their effects remained behind. The vast deserts that had replaced the seas wouldn't fade away, not now. Humanity’s future would still be in doubt. But perhaps they had a chance now.

I looked up as Tarfanaxe came stumbling after me, reaching out for my hand. I took it and I was surprised at how good it felt just to hold his hand. He didn't press me further, he just stood by my side as I watched the sandstorms fading away. Once we’d fixed the city, we could start working on the farms and clearing the sand away. And then...I knew just how many things we could develop in the next few years. I’d be busy for the rest of my life.

“Lady Alex,” Tarfanaxe said, finally. “Will you marry me?”

I almost burst out laughing, but I quelled it with a mighty effort. His face was completely sincere. If I’d laughed, it would have hurt him badly. Men aren't any more emotional than women, but they think differently. Men!

“I will,” I said. I kissed him, as hard as I could. “But I’m afraid I will be a difficult wife.”

And so we began the rest of our lives.

 

This end chapter is something of an experiment. Ideas and thoughts would be welcome. It's meant to be bittersweet.

Chapter Thirty-Three<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

In my later days, they called me the Oracle. I tried to discourage them, but they insisted. Half of them came to believe that I was a messenger from the gods; others, more practically, believed that I was merely a genius. If I had known, would I have stayed if I could have gone back to my world?

***​

Ten days after the Prophet was banished back to his home dimension, we were married in the sight of the gods. I’d worried that the aristocracy would suspect that I was pregnant – I wasn't – but it seemed that such quick marriages were far from uncommon here. The maidens who served the Crone ensured that I was prepared for the wedding, while Tarfanaxe and his shield-bearers prepared for his appearance. I had my doubts, but they all drained away when I saw him in the wedding outfit, decked out like a golden centurion. The ceremony was thankfully brief, yet we couldn't run off together just yet. There was an endless banquet afterwards, followed by boring speeches from everyone who was anyone. I was almost tempted to offer to divide out my fortune between them, if they would only just shut up.

That night, we shared our official wedding night and then went to a villa some distance from the city for our honeymoon. I was amused to discover that this world shared the same tradition, although with some refinements of their own. We were escorted by nine young men and nine young women from the Grand Families, who ensured that everything was ready for us before leaving us alone. There was also a small army of servants to cook, clean and generally run errands for us. I told myself not to get used to this level of luxury. It wasn't going to last.

I like to think that our first child was conceived on our honeymoon. It shouldn't have been too surprising. This world didn't have the pill, or any other form of contraception apart from very primitive and unsafe condoms. I’d taught my students how the feminine cycle actually worked, but it proved to be too difficult to maintain the rhythm method. It was only after I’d missed my period for the second time in a row that I began to wonder if I’d fallen pregnant. And then I had to convince him, and my students, to stop treating me as if I were made of china. Men!

The College continued to expand under my supervision. It wasn't long before we had satellite colleges established in nine of the nearest cities, with apprentices and students competing to see who could be the first to make another breakthrough. I worried that they were too dependent upon me – once we cracked the paper mystery, it was a short step to the printing press and then a proper set of libraries – but my new status as an Oracle seemed to help them from being too overawed. The oracles they recalled from history, men and women imbued with gifts from the gods, had never given precise information on anything. I kept my sceptical thoughts to myself and tolerated their near-worship, reluctantly.

I was six months into pregnancy – a remarkably easy pregnancy by the standards of the city, but hard enough for me – when I had a visitor. Rafik looked older than I recalled and he seemed surprised to see that I was pregnant, even though it was common knowledge throughout the city. He wanted to ask me to use my influence to halt the killing of the tribesmen, even though I had no reason to wish them well. The armies of the cities were harrying the tribesmen heavily, pushing them to the brink of extinction with ever-more advanced weapons. Two of my students had produced a version of the Gatling gun that was more than suited to its task. The tribes were on the verge of being exterminated.

It took almost no time to decide on an answer. If the tribes agreed to change, to abandon the social structure that I had so detested while I was their slave, I would use my influence in their favour. Rafik didn't like that at all, but I didn't care any longer. He’d enslaved me and pushed Brother Stone into using magic to make the slavery impossible to escape, at least until someone had tried to rape me. And besides, I considered their culture sick and evil. If they wanted me to help them, the least they could do was adopt civilised habits.

Back on my world, there were people who would have been appalled at my decision. Perhaps I would have been horrified as well, but then I’d been a slave. I’d seen it from the inside, as someone who had no choice but to submit, and it had shocked me. Very few back home would have been enslaved, not by culture or biology, at least in America. And that led to them believing that it was better than it was. I saw it as an odd kind of racism, perhaps even a perverted form of sexism. Centuries in the future, I was sure that some revisionist historians would accuse me of a form of genocide no less unpleasant than the actual genocide that would be perpetrated if the tribes didn't change their habits. I couldn't have cared less about their view of me. I would do what I saw fit and God would judge me.

The birth of my first child almost killed me. I’d been fretting for weeks as she grew within me, and then I’d had to risk midwives from the Medical Guild, knowing just how much they didn't know. Who would have willingly given birth in such conditions? In the end, I was lucky – perhaps luckier than I deserved. As I held my daughter to my breast, I told myself that I wouldn't become pregnant again. I was wrong.

***​

My second child came four years after the first. By then, we had adopted some of the war orphans and raised them as part of the family. It helped that Tarfanaxe wasn't precisely in line to the headship of his family, which meant that the blood relationship wasn't as important as who had raised them and who they knew. Besides, I’d told them about the dangers of inbreeding, even to the point of copying Islam’s instructions and building on them. It was now illegal for a person to wed anyone closer than second cousin. I wasn't sure that that was safe, but there was very little choice. Most of the Great Houses were related to one another in some way.

The Colleges had continued to grow. I’d changed the very bedrock of society when I’d introduced reading and writing, even though few of them had seen it coming. It was suddenly much easier for a freeman to rise quickly through the social strata and assume a place among the merchant princes who dominated trade to the other cities. The aristocracy had tried to fight back, using their control over much of the land in the city to slow down the pace of reform, but it had proven increasingly irrelevant as freemen started to build factory complexes outside the city. I knew that the changes had only just begun, yet I’d been careful to keep that to myself. The aristocracy would try to avoid the sucker punch if they knew it was coming.

They hadn't believed in the railroads until the first steam engine actually worked, followed rapidly by a whole series of radically improved designs. The freemen laid the first tracks from one city to another, creating a whole network that bound the cities together. I’d watched the first war with the weapons I’d created in horror, but as the cities found themselves in closer contact with one another, it seemed that war would be inevitable. Or, perhaps, some form of political union. The concept of the nation-state was just entering its infancy. I told myself that it would all work out and did my best to shepherd it along. It wasn't easy.

The second pregnancy went very wrong from the start. I cursed – again – my lack of knowledge as pain threatened to tear me apart. We’d created a basic anaesthetic, but it was barely enough to deaden the pain slightly, not when I felt that the child was clawing his way out of my body. I screamed and cursed everyone from the gods to Tarfanaxe himself and fainted. When I awoke, there was a child at my breast and blood between my thighs. I knew what it meant at a very basic level. No more children, now or ever. It was a miracle that my little boy had survived to be born.

He was a bonnie child, although he was weaker than most children as he grew up. I told myself that it didn't matter, because he was brilliant. By the time he was seven years old, he was playing with toys and devices I’d brought home from the College, learning how they worked and trying to improve them. His sister took very good care of him, but as she grew older she decided that she wanted to be more like her father. Tarfanaxe had gained a seat on the council – it was a sore spot between us that I had had a seat ever since the defeat of the Prophet, the first non-Priestess to hold a seat – and she was determined to follow in his footsteps. I’d been careful with reform – there was entrenched opposition to allowing women the vote – but she intended to challenge it. I prayed for her safety and success.

Brother Stone had undertaken the task of enforcing the new ban on sprites being summoned against their will. The entire city had seen the Prophet and there was very little opposition to the ban, at least inside the city. Outside it, the ban was often ignored, particularly in cities that had never heard of the Prophet or the barbarians until the railroad was extended out to their land. They chose to ignore the ban, even with the Brotherhood transformed into its enforcing arm. Once we had a working telegraph up and running, most of the cities reluctantly accepted the ban. Others chose to ignore it. Only time would tell.

***​

As an old lady of the city, I stand in the watchtower and look down on Padway. To the south, as darkness falls over the land, I see the lights of the factory complex built to provide locomotives for the railroad. The great industrial magnates – descendents of freemen of the city – finally won voting reform, ensuring that everyone received a vote. I’d helped the council to write the first constitution, one that had both created a democracy and placed limits on it. It was my proudest achievement.

To the north, I see the airfield where the students are experimenting with powered flight. What little I could tell them was enough to start their minds thinking along the right lines, allowing them to design aircraft that looked hideously unsafe, yet practical. I’d watched the first test flight that actually succeeded, followed by improved aircraft that flew over the deserts and over to what, in my world, would have been called Britain. The railroads had been extended to North America through the endless deserts, although it would be a long time before planes flew towards the distant continent.

I turn and look towards the west, where shines have been raised to those who have died since the end of the war against the Prophet. Tarfanaxe’s ashes are buried there, along with many others from his family who fought in the war. I missed him, even though we’d had some hard times in our later years. We’d squabbled more than a married couple should, for we had had very different upbringings. How could we not have fought from time to time? And yet I missed him. My children were married now and producing grandchildren of their own, my other legacy to the city. I like to think that my father, their grandfather, would have been proud of them.

Before I walk home, I look to the east. The College stands there, towering over the city, home of a thousand scientists and researchers. They have long since surpassed what I taught them and no longer need my half-remembered science lessons. I am still the Chairwoman of the College, but younger minds handle the changes better than an elderly woman. I watch from my chair as they progress in leaps and bounds, fighting to hide my pride. Perhaps the College is my greatest achievement, not the constitution. They will carry on my legacy long after I am gone.

My memories of my world are faded now, lost in the mists of time. Was there ever a world where my father had lived and worked? Was my arrival on this world a real story, or had I made it up one day and come to believe that it was real? It was the one thing I could never discuss with my children. Too many people believed that I had had some form of divine assistance as it was. Let them embrace their father’s heritage and forget mine. It would save them from embracing legends.

I take one final look up into the air and then start walking back down the stairs, to where the carriage waits for me. I know that I will not live much longer, that I will not see the ultimate result of my work. It seems somehow fitting now they have surpassed me. They no longer need me, or my legend. Everything I have created will go on without me. I changed an entire world.

How many people can say that?

When the pain comes, when the darkness hovers at the back of my mind, I embrace it.

The End​

 

This has been a fun project to read. It's not something i would normally read but i got hooked early on. Thanks for helping me past the days at work

Jason

 

Thank you. The next project will be very different.

Chris

 

excellent writing chris
looking forward to more
we need to find you a publisher

 

Thanks. Any thoughts?

Chris

 

ben thinking of starting my own publishing company
got a few books of my own to get printed
interested?