swords. Around midnight, near the middle of the causeway, the eyeless dwarves finally abandoned the pursuit-to be safely underground by the Lighten Hour, Karkald speculated. Exhausted and wounded, the battered defenders could only look across the lake, where the flames still consumed the Blue Swan, and smoke and fire seemed to rise into the sky as a funeral pyre for the world.
PART TWO
14
War Years
Rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him;
Not on the chance of his not attacking, but on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
Natac stood in the prow as Roland guided the Osprey into the sheltered cove. The stars sparkled above them, and the night was so still that the sailor had used a wind of his own casting to glide them silently, quickly across the lake. By following a circuitous route, tacking far in the direction that was neither metal nor wood, then approaching this anchorage along the lakeshore, the Osprey had avoided the heavy Crusader galleys that controlled so much of the water.
“That’s half of the job,” Roland said in a hoarse whisper as the boat glided to a halt within a few paces of the grassy shore. “And if we can get out of here before dawn, I can outrun those hulks back to the harbor.”
“I’ll be back before then,” Natac promised. “I hope she’ll come with me…” He sighed and shook his head.
“I know,” Roland said sympathetically. “But she’s always lived here… and who knows how much longer-” He stopped, but the question lingered in Natac’s mind as he slipped into the shallow water and waded ashore. He heard a splash behind him as Ulfang, too, sprang from the deck. The white dog swam to the shore and then, conscientiously turning away so that the warrior didn’t get sprayed, shook himself vigorously until he was nearly dry.
Roland whispered encouragement and then, with the aid of his small crew, pushed off. Natac knew he would keep the Osprey waiting in concealment against the Tlaxcalan’s pre-Lighten Hour return.
Natac and Ulf climbed the hill to Miradel’s villa. Still the night yawned around them, vast and utterly still. Far away the lights of Circle at Center blinked across the city’s expanse. Great houses and fabulous museums stood outlined in yellow illumination, while the fortified towers at the ends of the causeway were surrounded by the bright, white light of coolfyre. Even at this distance the Metal Highway stood outlined in clear relief-and Natac knew that, on the other side of the city, the causeway on the Wood Highway was similarly protected.
The camps of the enemy armies were for the most part invisible from this vantage, but he knew that within the valleys and lowlands along the shore there were ten thousand or more fires burning. The blazes marked the great city-camp of Delvers and Crusaders, the two armies that, in uneasy alliance, had worked so ceaselessly to breach the defenses of Circle at Center. The sprawling encampment had, through the years, grown to include the shoreline ends of both causeways, effectively cutting the city off from the rest of Nayve. Preventing those attackers from gaining a foothold on the island had become a life’s work for the Tlaxcalan, and it was a task that had no foreseeable end.
But now Natac’s thoughts turned inward, a mixture of melancholy and delight as he and Ulf approached the white-walled villa. Candles and torches glowed around the outer walls. Halting just beyond the periphery of brightness, Natac knelt down and looked into Ulfgang’s bright, intelligent eyes.
“You’ll keep an eye out here?” the human asked.
“All night,” promised the dog. “I’ll be a ghost on the hillside.” And just like that he was gone, vanishing into the shadows to commence a circuit of the slopes below the villa.
Natac climbed into the corona of light surrounding Miradel’s house, following the path toward the wide front stairway. He was not surprised when Fallon met him at the top. The elf, as always, had been keeping watch-indeed, Natac wondered if he ever slept. Now Fallon spoke very quietly.
“Warrior Natac… I thought it would be you. She is waiting.”
“Thanks, old friend. How is she?”
“The same.” The elf’s eyes were sad, and Natac touched him on the shoulder, then crossed the veranda to enter the house.
He saw her immediately, sitting upon a wooden chair near the fireplace. A blanket, a weave of many bright colors, was pulled over her thin legs. Her face was a relief map of wrinkles, creases radiating until they met the scalp of snowy white hair.
But the smile that brightened her face was as familiar to Natac as his own skin. And her eyes of violet, still as bright and colorful as they had been on the night so long ago, when she had sacrificed her own future to bring him life here in Nayve, pierced his heart with that mixture of joy and sorrow that seemed always to mark his visits to the villa.
“Hello,” she said, almost shyly.
“Hello.” His voice was thick, and he leaned down to kiss her on each cheek. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”
“And you’re as big of a liar,” she said with a tart laugh. “The Goddess knows, I can barely lift myself out of bed on these chill Lightens. But come, let’s eat-and talk.”
He helped her up, let her lean on his arm as they walked, very slowly, toward the large wooden table. As he did upon each of his visits, he noticed now that her steps seemed shorter, her stance more frail and halting, than ever before. Her hands trembled slightly, an effect he had witnessed in the elders of his birth world, but something that seemed monstrously out of place in Nayve.
“It has been a long time since you visited,” she said, and though there was no accusation in her tone, he felt a stab of guilt.
“Yes… three intervals now,” he said. “The war-”
“Of course, the war.” She cut him off, gave him a quizzical look. “How long has it lasted now, that war?”
“It was twenty-five years ago, just last seventh interval, that we fought the battle at the Blue Swan,” he reminded her.
“Twenty-five years,” she mused. “It seems only yesterday-you were a naif from the Seventh Circle, and I-I was so much younger.”
Natac knew that she was right. In the time since she had begun to teach Natac the ways of Nayve, Miradel had continued to grow older at a shockingly rapid rate. It was probably nothing more than the ordinary mortality faced by every person of Earth, but in this eternal place it seemed to the warrior as though she were withering before his eyes.
“Of course, many things besides myself have changed over those years,” the druid said pointedly, in her oddly disturbing way of responding directly to Natac’s thoughts. She looked at him with that same sense of pride she had shown from the beginning. “You are the general of ten thousand warriors-a whole army answers your command, and a city depends upon your skill for its survival.”
“I play my part-but there are so many others. Rawknuckle, Tamarwind, Karkald-”
“Of course. But I don’t want to talk about them. You must return to the war before the dawn, yes?”
Natac nodded, and drew a breath. “This time, please come with me! You will be comfortable in the city-you know Belynda has offered you rooms. And more importantly, you’ll be safe. You don’t know how many times we’ve seen Crusader patrols coming along this shore of the lake. It’s only a matter of time before they come here.”
“Nonsense. I’ve seen some of those patrols-my eyes are quite good, you know. They stay miles away from here.”
