The world grew still for a moment, but Iardu’s shout broke the stillness. The killing vines shattered like kindling about his blackened limbs. His mouth and eyes blazed with white flame, and the Shaper grew. He grew beyond the ability of her eyes to follow. Rivers of white flame danced along his carmine robes… and now he stood as tall as Elhathym.
The two sorcerers filled the sky.
Taller than the Gods themselves…
She lay there, stifling a scream, a prisoner of awe, as they wrestled above her, their feet stamping hills into prairies and hurling quakes along the coastline. The ocean crashed about their ankles. She imagined herself a gnat caught between the feet of feuding Uduru. The black lion had melted to a pitchy sludge, and she pulled loose her golden sun-spear. She stumbled toward the western hills, dragging the weapon behind her as the soil trembled and trees uprooted themselves.
Iardu spewed gouts of white fire from his mouth, but Elhathym only laughed as his face melted and reformed. His serpentine tongue wound about Iardu’s neck, a flame of darkness, and his huge claws locked between Iardu’s fingers. They shouted indecipherable words of power that split the earth and sky worse than any thunder. Sharadza fell among the grass of an open field, transfixed by the spectacle of warring titans.
If they should fall…
Instinct demanded that she run… flee this terrible sight before she went mad… or watch the sky-tall sorcerers fall into the sea and set loose typhoons to swallow half the earth. But she could not tear herself away from their struggle. Iardu did this impossible thing because of her. She witnessed the summit of his powers now, and she knew that he was not the equal of Elhathym. Not in strength, ferocity, or sorcery.
What could she do? What could a speck of dust do to aid a mountain?
She clutched her spear of sunlight and watched the wrestling of immortals.
Elhathym opened his great mouth hideously wide. Stars and nebulae swirled inside. It yawned wider and wider, beyond the confines of his godly head. The stars fell away, swallowed by a sea of infinite darkness, and the maw grew wider and taller than Iardu, who struggled to pull away from its celestial gravity. Elhathym was a vast black gullet now, large enough to swallow the ocean, sucking clouds and wind into the void at its center.
Iardu turned away, his white fires dying.
It was too late.
He fell into the cosmic orifice, shrinking as it pulled him deeper. Where Elhathym had been was now a swirling shard of the ultimate void. Iardu was a tiny speck lost in the depths of nothingness. Now rocks, trees and debris went flying into the void-mouth. It closed slowly, deliberately, until it was again the mouth of a yawning titan. Then that titan was a Giant, then the Giant was a solitary man wrapped in black silk and blood-colored jewels. He stood in triumph amid a wasteland that had once been called Zaashari.
Sharadza had crawled through the grass between mounds of rubble as he diminished. Her soundless tears spilled onto the ground like the trail a slug leaves behind as it glides.
Elhathym stood quietly in the smoking desolation. The waters of the sea had invaded the ruined cornfields, and the structures of man were obliterated. The coastline had been altered by the powers unleashed here. Perhaps he reflected on the loss of his five thousand Yaskathans or his legions of Vakai. For whatever reason, he stood silent as a statue, his silver mane waving in the wind.
Behind him Sharadza rose from a pile of pulped masonry, and she hurled the sun-spear with all her might.
It sped toward his back, and time seemed to slow. Dust-motes danced in the air… Brown leaves blew between her and the sorcerer, stirred by the wind of her cast.
The bright spear struck Elhathym between the shoulders and passed half its length through his body. He stood transfixed by the bolt of sunfire, his robe smoking and burning, but he did not bleed.
He turned to face her, the golden spear-blade pointing from his breastbone like an accusing finger, flaming with sorcery. His eyes met hers across the brief expanse of ruined ground, and they were lightless things… as empty as the void he had become.
She held her breath. Her knees trembled.
His head fell back once again, and he laughed. The crown sparkled on his brow as he wrapped a hand about the spear and yanked it from his breast. He snapped it in two and it melted into rays of sunlight that faded on the wind.
He smiled at her, and she stared at the hole burned completely through his chest. As she watched, powerless to move, unable to fall or scream or even speak, shadows bled forth to fill that gaping wound.
He has no physical body.
This is only a garment he wears to disguise his true substance.
He is not a man at all.
Elhathym reached a claw toward her, and a second claw, much larger and made of darkness, wrapped itself about her body. She reacted inst inctively in the only way she could. Her flesh took on the gray pitted substance of the rocks under her feet. She became a statue of solid stone, frozen in his awful grip, but rigid and unfeeling. She could not have borne his chill touch on her soft flesh. It would have killed her.
He drew her close to study her granite features, admiring a skillful piece of sculpture.
“Princess,” he said, and even with ears of stone she heard him.
Inside the stone her consciousness lived and was fully aware.
Trapped.
“You have taken a form that is pleasing to me,” he whispered. “What a fine ornament you will make for my throne room.”
The dark claw shrank, and the Sharadza-statue shrank with it. She was fully in his power now. She could no more regain her fleshly substance than she could speak or run. Now she dwindled to a tiny figurine, a mere trinket in the palm of Elhathym’s hand.
“Perhaps in a while I’ll restore your tender and lovely flesh,” he said, “and you will please me in other ways.”
He tucked her into a pocket of his black robe. After that she knew only darkness.
Despite e='e='3'›He all her efforts, war had come and swept over her, a tide she did not even see until it completely drowned her. Like the ocean that drank the torn fields of Zaashari, it would spill across the land and devour every living thing.
She wanted to weep for Iardu, for Khama, both of whom had died because of her.
But a stone figurine could not weep any more than the statue of a Giantess could.
Gods of Earth and Sky, forgive me.
28
The legions of Mumbaza moved across the plains of northern Yaskatha, a sea of white silk, bronze blades, and ebony faces. In their fists gleamed ten thousand spears, and tall plumes waved atop their masked helms. The vanguard was three legions of horsemen, their stallions caparisoned with silver and gold. At their center rode a blended cohort of warriors from Uurz, Shar Dni, and Udurum, northern banners flapping beside the flag of the Feathered Serpent. D’zan, Tyro, and Lyrilan rode in the front ranks, alongside a coal-black charger that carried the High General Tsoti. A blade of Udurum steel hung at the general’s side, a golden spear in his hand.
Behind the cavalry came five thousand spearmen on foot, wrapped in ivory cloaks and corselets of boiled leather. Each man bore a curved bronze blade and dagger, but they were devotees of the spear. Their shields were pointed vertical ovals made from wood, hide, and bone reinforced with ribs of bronze. In lieu of metal helms the footmen wore headdresses of war, towering displays of plumage on frameworks of bone and wire. From afar they seemed a vast flock of predatory birds.
Two thousand archers marched behind the spearmen, their great bows of horn and cedar hung with the pale feathers of seabirds. Quivers stuffed with barbed arrows hung on their backs and bronze blades at their belts. They
