The Night of the Swarm

spellcraft.Yet he was a terrible opponent, fast and vicious and strong. He swung the axe in two-handed arcs at shoulder height, or flashing down from above. Thasha was appalled by his skill. But Diadrelu was an ixchel battle- dancer: a fighter who would have shamed Turach or sfvantskor or Tholjassan war- master, if they had ever faced such a foe of human size. Whirling, spinning, her blade like a solid ring about her, she moved at twice the mage’s speed. The trouble was that her spectacular movements were better at evading an enemy than holding ground against him. From childhood, ixchel learned to weave and dodge and slip through human fingers. They did not hold ground. Diadrelu had to fight her very instincts to keep Arunis from reaching Thasha’s bed.

Except that there was no bed any longer. Thasha lay on bare earth, head propped on a stone, the roots of the evil trees wriggling beneath her. Alifros was nearly gone: nothing of it was visible save the porthole, a slight discolouration of the darkness. Her friends’ shadows lacked definite shape; their voices had dwindled to meaningless sounds.

But Diadrelu was improving. She slipped inside the sorcerer’s blows, stabbing at him, forcing him to parry with the axe. When he tried to grapple with her, she twisted under him and whirled and clubbed him down with her sword-hilt.

Arunis rolled, and swung the axe one-handed, expertly. Dri leaped back, sucking in her stomach, and the blade passed within a hair’s breadth of her ribs. Arunis swung again, sensing his advantage, driving her back towards Thasha. Dri’s balance was lost. She dodged a third blow, reeling now, and Arunis came at her with a gleam in his eye.

His fourth blow was too eager, and hence his last. Dri whirled out of range, then spun back again and kicked the mage hard in the chin. Arunis staggered, and whiplash-quick, Dri wrenched the axe from his hand and clubbed him down. With one foot upon his neck, she swung the mage’s own weapon. The axe severed his arm at the wrist.

Arunis howled. But the wound did not bleed: perhaps there was no blood in Agaroth, as there was no true and final death. Diadrelu snatched up the severed hand and flung it with all her might into the dark.

‘Go!’ she said to Arunis, ‘and if you return, I will take your other hand, and both feet, and give them to the corpses in those holes.’

A shadow appeared beside Thasha, hovering over her, speaking without words.

Arunis groped to his feet and plunged into the darkness. When he was nearly gone from sight he turned and shouted: ‘You cannot prevail. Night comes for Alifros! The Swarm will devour these maggots you defend. There is no stopping it. I have already won.’

With that he fled, cradling the stump of his arm. Then Thasha felt a gentle hand lifting her head, and cold liquid against her lips.

The wine was delicious, here in the land where it was made. Thasha felt life returning even before she swallowed. A vibrant energy rushed through her from head to toe. The shadow closest to her took shape: it was Pazel. She could hear him, feel the warmth of his hand.

Diadrelu rushed to her side. ‘They’ve done it, haven’t they?’ said Dri. Evidently she could not see the others in the cabin, or the bottle at Thasha’s lips. ‘Not too much!’ she cried. ‘Two swallows, and no more.’

Thasha had just swallowed for a second time. With effort, she turned her head away. ‘Dri,’ she said, ‘is this really death?’

‘It is death unfinished,’ said the ixchel woman. ‘Agaroth is a strange and frightening land, but still more like the world of the living than what comes next, I think. The dead may reach backwards from here. It is that reaching that keeps them from sailing on with the tide of souls.’

‘The ghosts that walk the Chathrand-’

Dri shook her head. ‘Ghosts are different. They are souls who have yet to come even this far. They are trapped in a living world, a world with no use for them. I think they suffer more than those in Agaroth. Captain Rose is among them, now.

‘But listen carefully, Thasha, while you can still hear my voice. I have been to the dark vineyards where this wine was made, and spoken with those decrepit spirits who guard its secrets.’

‘You did that for us?’

‘Listen! Erithusme’s spell on your bottle was a sound precaution, given the wine’s evil past. The Fell Princes used it for a century: they sipped the wine slowly, making each bottle last years. This allowed them to wield the Nilstone for years as well — and they did so, to the sorrow of Alifros. They exterminated whole peoples, made pyres of cities, withered entire lands.

‘Erithusme wished to leave a weapon hidden on the Chathrand, but she could never risk creating another tyrant. Hence the curse, which forces the drinker to finish the wine in a matter of days. Each sip gives a few minutes of perfect fearlessness, and so the ability to use the Nilstone. But each sip also forces the drinker to sip again within two days. Otherwise the poison is activated.’

‘I think Ramachni detected the spell at last, after it was triggered,’ said Thasha. ‘I heard them fighting about it. But Dri, what happens when I run out of wine?’

‘Very simple: you swallow the dregs at the bottom. They contain the final cure. Better yet, pour off the wine and swallow the dregs immediately. Only then will you be out of danger.’

‘But I can’t do that, Dri. We need this weapon!’

‘This weapon nearly killed you.’

Suddenly Pazel’s voice cut through the fog: ‘Thasha! Can you hear me? Come back, please come back-’

She could dimly make out his features, now — but Agaroth was fading, and with it Diadrelu. Thasha was suddenly, almost unbearably conscious of how much she had missed the ixchel woman. ‘Don’t go. Not just yet.’

‘It is you who are going, Thasha, back to the living world. But I have one last discovery to share with you first. You are bound for Gurishal, to cast away the Nilstone. But Gurishal is immense, and overrun with the Shaggat’s worshippers. You will have no time to search it shore to shore. Look for a sea rock called the Arrowhead, Thasha. Can you remember that?’

‘The Arrowhead?’

‘That is where you must land, if you have any hope of sending the Nilstone back to the land of the dead. Oh, if only you could place it in my hands! For I shall soon be crossing over, and would bear it gladly, and rest fulfilled.’

‘But Dri, how did you learn about this rock, this Arrowhead?’

‘By making a nuisance of myself. Many come to this land by the River of Shadows. They told me of a terrible fall into an abyss, down a stone tunnel, with a last round glimpse of blue sky above them, and endless darkness below. Some had heard whispers of the place before they reached it, and knew it lay near the shores of Gurishal, at the spot marked by the Arrowhead. Remember, Thasha.’

The light was growing. Diadrelu’s form grew paler still, and Thasha fought back tears. ‘I’ll remember. Oh Dri, what they did to you, Taliktrum and the others-’

‘Never mind. Show them a better example, as you always have done.’

‘You’re the best of us all, Dri, and the strongest.’

The ixchel woman smiled. ‘From childhood I thought my reason for living was to fight for my people. I was right about that. But it took a great deal longer to find out who my people were.’

‘Hercol still loves you.’

Dri paused, then looked up at the sky, where the ceaseless flow of souls went on. ‘I must leave soon. I do not know what awaits me in the land of the dead. But make certain he knows that I died undefeated, with a heart made whole by him. And say that I will look for him when his turn comes to make the final journey. But Thasha — tell him not to wait for that day, and a reunion that may never come. Do you hear me well?’

‘I hear you.’

‘Tell him the kiss I send with you is a command. He must go on living. Embrace every joy that still awaits him, every scrap and crumb of life. That is my wish for dearest Ensyl, too. It is my wish for you all.’ She bent down, and pressed her lips to Thasha’s own, and Thasha lifted her arms and embraced her. For an instant she felt the hard strength of the woman’s shoulders, the warmth of her lips. Then both sensations were gone. Dri’s body lifted, escaping Thasha’s arms like smoke. The darkness vanished, and with it Agaroth, and Dri herself.