The moment passed, leaving him feeling strangely empty. The world did need to be put right, he thought, but not just yet. The doorway of Mama Horne’s emerged from the darkness. Now there were diversions to be had, and a mind to be put back to sleep.
Rena was waiting for him.
Sardec strode the boundaries of the camp and looked up at the stars. It was the last night of Mourning and he felt the need of prayer and contemplation. Down below he could see the lanterns of the sentries. From the hilltop, he could see the stars emerge through a break in the clouds.
It came to him then that those were not the stars of Home. They were not the stars under which his people had been born and under whose light their civilisation had been raised up. The moon in the sky was not the orb that had filled the night of Al’ Terra. It was like it but not exactly the same, just as this world was like the home- world but not exactly so.
He paused for a moment and spoke a prayer. He knew of the discussions of the mages and philosophers who claimed that all the worlds of the great cosmos were the same world, and all of them were in some ways twisted reflections of all the others. He had heard the claims all worlds were pale shadows of some central and perfect world.
He was not in a position to know. He knew only that the Shadow argument was a heresy that had bedevilled his people ever since they set foot on this world. Certain sects claimed that if this world was but a shadow of home, it must belong to the great enemy, and that his people were tainted by their mere presence here.
Certainly such an interpretation was easy to support. His people were diminished. Their numbers were increasing once more but their purity was lessened. It was almost as if the presence of so many men had contaminated them by their nearness, and the Terrarchs were becoming more like the lesser breed they must live alongside. They were losing sight of their glorious past, and becoming dwellers in this tawdry age. Perhaps there was some way of regaining their former glory but he could not see it. Only by passing once more through the Eye of the Dragon and reclaiming their ancestral home could they hope to do that, and this was an impossibility. Even could they overcome the Princes of Shadow, Al’ Terra could no longer be the place it once was. It had been tainted by the victory of the Shadow.
It was said that the people of the East thought differently now, and bent all their thoughts to opening the forbidden paths back to Al’Terra and cleansing their home-world. He wondered how much of that was Scarlet propaganda and how much the simple truth. Maybe Arachne’s people had the right of it anyway. Perhaps it would be better to pass through the gate once more, to conquer or die in a final blaze of glory. Surely that would be preferable to this long, slow fading away.
He told himself that these were gloomy thoughts, and although perhaps suitable for the last night of Mourning in that sense, they were inappropriate for a time when he should be considering the sacrifices of the Fallen, and the Promises the Dragon Angel had made for the future. Had she not said she would return, and lead her people once more to their destiny? He knew he should have more faith, but he knew he did not live in a time that reassured the faithful, that there was something awry in the state of the world, and that many things would have to be set right once more.
He reached the top of the hill, and considered the camp below him. He could hear the bellowing of wyrms, and caught their acrid scent on the wind. Beyond the camp he could see the town. The great rotating lantern atop the Dragonspire burned bright and fierce, ready to guide any night-flying dragon rider to the temple. The tower atop Asea’s palace blazed with a light to rival it, as if the Lady of the First was at this very moment working some sinister and powerful sorcery.
Tomorrow was Solace. Tomorrow he would attend Asea’s ball and see her once more. She was a daunting figure but, now he had time to consider, there seemed to be undercurrents to the situation that were intriguing, if she were not just leading him on for her own unguessable purposes.
He decided that he did not like being a fish on the end of anyone’s line. He did not like the feel of being out of control.
Tomorrow was Solace, he repeated to himself, feeling a faint thrill of anticipation, a time of license and extravagance when anything was possible. When masked revellers caroused in the streets, and sometimes even the most restrained Terrarch lay with human.
That thought excited him, and he wished that it did not.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rena surprised Rik by handing him a package. She smiled and looked a little embarrassed as if she half expected him to reject it but he took it from her hand and rose from the bed. They were in the same room in which he woken the previous day. This was getting to be a habit, he thought. He was not sure if he liked the idea. Sabena had left him wary of being close to any woman.
“What is it?”
“A Solace Gift,” she said. Now he felt a little embarrassed. He had nothing to give her but some coin. It was not something he had expected from one of Mama Horne’s girls.
“Thank you.”
“Open it if you like.” He unwrapped the package and discovered a small prayer crystal on a copper chain. It was inscribed with Malok, the Elder Sign of protection. He performed a swift valuation and judged that it had probably cost the girl all the money he had given her and perhaps a bit more.
“This was unnecessary,” he said with more coldness than he intended. Malok was a sign traditionally given by parents, wives or sweethearts to those going into peril. He was more touched than he cared to let on. No one, not even the Old Witch, had ever given him such a gift before.
“I wanted to give you it. The spell-carver said it would keep you safe on your travels. It’s a very powerful ward, he said. And you are going to war.”
“Then I thank you for it, and am glad to have it. I am sorry but I have nothing to give you in return.”
“I did not give you it in expectation of anything of the sort,” she said. “I just want you to live and come back so that maybe I can see you again.”
She was obviously hoping for him to say something. Something more was going on here than he had expected. Things had become more ambiguous than the simple commercial relationship of soldier and brothel girl, even he was prepared to admit that. He had been half-looking for her when they had come back to Ma Horne’s last night and he had not been surprised when she approached him.
“I am sure you will see me again,” he said, the lie being easier than anything else, for he was not sure whether he wanted to do so, or to even acknowledge the small claim she seemed to be making on him. It was perfectly possible, he told himself, that he would march away from here and never see her again, and not regret it at all, but now was not the time to mention that.
She grabbed him and kissed him with more emotion than he expected and it came to him that she was not really seeing him at all, but the promise of something that she held in her own mind. There was no way she could really know him. If truth be told, there was no way he wanted anybody to really know him. He was certain that if they did, they would be horrified.
“I worry about you,” she said and then shut her mouth swiftly as if she had said too much.
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
“There’s the hill-men. There’s whatever strange business you and your friends are involved in. There’s the fact you are going to war soon.”
“If I don’t worry about them, why should you?”
“That’s all the more reason to worry. Put the prayer crystal on.” Somewhat reluctantly he did so, and he had to admit he felt better for it.
“This must have cost you a fortune,” he said. “Let me pay you for it.”
“No,” she said swiftly. “It’s a gift. I don’t want anything for it. Such things should be given freely and unstintingly to be effective. That’s what the spell-carver said.”
“He would. It lets him jack up his prices and claim it will increase the effectiveness of his wares.”
