Silvas watched the approach of the final storm. There was a sour taste in his throat, but he gave no outward sign of how he felt. Inwardly he uttered a prayer. Lord, lend me your strength for the coming fight. Help me to stand strong for you. For a moment he seemed to sense Auroreus standing at his side, hand on his shoulder, the way his mentor had often stood by him when Silvas was a boy learning the ways of the trimagister. I have taught you as best I could, the old wizard seemed to say. You have promise. You will serve our Unseen Lord well. Then the image faded and Silvas felt intensely alone. I hope I do serve Him well, Silvas thought, and on a more secret level he added, And I pray He lets me survive.
"It's time to stand and fight," Silvas said aloud. The churchmen had fallen to their knees. Silvas could feel their minds struggling with fear. Bishop Egbert overcame his terror quickly and rose, new vigor in his projections of power and resolve. He helped Brother Paul find the strength to get to his feet as well.
Bay was as solid as ever, broadcasting neither fear nor confidence, betraying nothing of his feelings. He stood motionless in his segment of the pentagram, marshaling his own spells, exhibiting more power than Silvas had ever felt from him.
Bosc emitted waves of fierce determination, seeming more like one of Braf Goleg's lupine warriors. Bosc's magic was limited, scarcely more than Brother Paul's, but he was ready to give everything he had in the coming fight.
And Carillia. There was still no time for Silvas to brood on her revelation. He could do no more than think, How little I have known you, my love, for all our years together. She wore her power more openly now, but it wasn't the same sort of power that Silvas had felt from the Unseen Lord. Even facing this challenge, Carillia radiated more the power of the nurturer, not the warrior.
Silvas let his mind quest farther, touching the minds of the monks lined up below the castle wall, then the soldiers above them. The monks were deep in their magics, channeling their power to the bishop. When Silvas fully raised the defenses of his pentagram, the monks would be on their own, and in greater danger. On top of the wall, Sir Eustace, Henry Fitz-Matthew, and the garrison watched in terror. There could be no mistaking the supernatural nature of the coming storm, and those men had only physical weapons to defend themselves with. Silvas broadcast a spell of calming and courage to all of them. The spell might not last long, and it couldn't relieve all of their fear, but Silvas knew he owed them what help he could provide. Without help some of the soldiers might lose the last of their courage before the enemy arrived.
The storm expanded over Blethye, spreading to cover the entire horizon even as it continued to advance toward Mecq. The waves of fear that swept out in front of the clouds of night were as real as an Atlantic storm tide washing against the shore, breaking, washing sand back out to sea, to destruction.
"Time runs behind itself," Silvas said softly. "The storm races for us, yet we experience each moment as if it were five." That is part of the evil, he thought. "It is simply a way for the Blue Rose to make its terror work harder. If they were as strong as they try to seem, they would not need such artifice." He looked around at his companions. They were watching the approaching storm. Concern, fear, was on every face. I expect it's on mine as well, Silvas conceded. There is certainly cause enough.
"We are with you, my heart," Carillia said. She managed a smile, but it was tinged with sadness… or regret.
Silvas returned her smile. "I know you are, my love." He nearly stuttered over the last two words.
He turned to face the storm again. It covered half of Blethye now, stretching out for miles on either side, curving in at the edges like the horns of the gibbous moon. The leading edge was no more than a mile from the northern slopes of the twin hills now. Silvas started to chant, projecting part of his mind forward to meet the night that flowed across the morning. I must make my challenge, let them know that I stand ready to do battle.
The curdling cries of demons, the soul-destroying wails of the banshees who waited like vultures to feast on the souls lost in battle, the laughter of the Blue Rose's gods, all rose to greet Silvas's probe. He chanted, closing his eyes to concentrate on his spells, doing what he could to ignore the leeching of resolve. After a moment he felt the sun burning brightly behind him, heating his back, seemingly enlarging itself to challenge the unnatural night sweeping south toward Mecq. Silvas's armor grew hot, the trembling inside him seemed to ease. He forged ahead with his incantations, feeling stronger, more confident. Even if I fall, the Blue Rose will know they have faced a battle, he promised himself. If a heaven remains when this day is over, the angels will sing of our stand.
The musics of hell assaulted Silvas. The chanting of Bishop Egbert's monks rose in reply, the traditional plainsong of the White Brotherhood. The music of the Unseen Lord came not just from the monks on the ledge with Silvas, but also from the monks in St. Katrinka's, in perfect unison, though the one group could certainly not hear the other.
– |The people of Mecq huddled together in their church. At first many of them had little real notion what was coming. There was some foreboding, but not all that much more than there had been since the first storm had assailed Mecq after the arrival of the wizard. Some of the bolder villagers stood at the doors of the church for a time, watching the storm gather beyond the twin hills. But as the black night rose to the heavens and stars returned to the sky, terror finally gripped all the villagers so completely that rational thought became impossible. Even Master Ian shrank from the sight and retreated inside the church to lose himself in Pater Nosters and Ave Marias.
Clear spaces remained around the six monks in the church. The villagers held back from the monks, their chanting, and the almost visible aura of power that grew around them. The monks chanted magical formulas that the peasants couldn't hold on to long enough to really hear. Only when the chants moved from the spells of the Greater Mysteries to the plainsong of the Church Revealed did the people of Mecq find any ease. Familiar hymns loosened the ropes strangling their hearts and souls-for the moment.
– |It is time, the voice of the Unseen Lord said within Silvas. You must strike now.
Silvas lowered his gaze from the Devil's darkness to the plain of Blethye. His telesight came upon him without bidding, and Silvas found himself staring at a single man who stood on the plain, in the center of a pentagram much like the one Silvas had scribed outside the gate of Mecq's castle.
That is Caradoc, the wizard of the Blue Rose in Blethye, the god's voice said inside Silvas. He is the wick of their attack.
As I am the wick of yours? Silvas asked, but no reply came.
Silvas focused on Caradoc. He had never heard the name before, had heard no rumor of this wizard. I did not know that there was another such wizard-potent in all of England, he thought. That another as powerful as he could operate and gain no fame was amazing. Whether he worked for good or evil, there should have been some rumor of his power. Unless the Blue Rose has saved him unused for this one moment, Silvas allowed.
Caradoc was a man of exceeding height, taller than Silvas and thinner, as if fasting had been a way of life for him. The discipline of the Blue Rose is stern, the Unseen Lord's voice said. Silvas studied the other wizard. Coal black eyes (they could be nothing else) were raised toward the leading edge of the demonic darkness. The face was lined and gaunt, hard-edged with anger and consuming hate. His passions are those of the Blue Rose, pain and punishment. The cheeks angled sharply down and inward to a pointed chin of great exaggeration. His robe was an unadorned black, blowing fitfully around him in the winds that his magic had raised against Mecq. His hands were raised, the right one clenched in a fist, the left one… Silvas couldn't make out at first what was wrong with the left hand. It formed no fist. The fingers seemed stiff and bent at unnatural angles so that the hand looked almost like the claw of a hawk. The punishments of the Blue Rose.
Silvas transferred his quarterstaff to his left hand, resting the iron tip on the ground just inside his point of the pentagram, and he drew the sword at his side for the first time and held it out over the intersection of the lines, aimed directly at Caradoc. A spell and a word of power came to Silvas's lips without searching. Thunder roared in the heavens and spat out a single bolt of lightning at the Blue Rose's wizard. The lightning coursed directly at the man but shattered against the dome of protection that covered Caradoc's pentagram, sending dozens of ribs of light harmlessly into the ground around the perimeter.
It was too much to hope for, Silvas thought, but he immediately tried again, racing through the spell and adding words that would rain lightning down on the other wizard as heavily as it had rained down on Mount Balq barely a half hour before.
Caradoc, the five assistants in the pentagram with him, and the pentagram itself were covered by a dome of lightning, a solid sheet of white fire that glowed brighter than the sun. But the white fire turned a muddy clay red and then faded into blackness. The last bolts of Silvas's lightning cracked with uncommon loudness and seemed to turn back on the sky.
Within the night of the Blue Rose, the voices of the demons and banshees grew louder and became audible even to ears unaided by magic. Silvas felt his concentration waver as he heard cries of fear from the soldiers on the rampart behind him. Fighting to shut out those cries, Silvas struggled to regain his focus on the Blue Rose wizard, and managed to seal his mind to the task just as Caradoc launched his counterattack.
Caradoc pointed his deformed hand at Silvas, and a blaze of blue lightning seemed to emerge directly from that claw. Silvas imagined, and knew that it was only imagination, that he could smell burning flesh. This blue lightning appeared to move at the pace of a donkey under a heavy burden, leaving Silvas sufficient time to erect an extra shield against it. But before the blue light reached the ledge on Mount Mecq, it divided into five fingers as misshapen as those that had launched it and came at the pentagram from every side.
Though Caradoc's attack was neither as intense nor as powerful as Silvas's opening thrust, Silvas couldn't meet the blue fire as simply as Caradoc had met the white. If he merely shunted the blue lightning aside, it might engulf the monks standing below the castle walls, or even rebound against those on the ramparts. Instead Silvas reached out with his mind, attempting to cup each finger of fire in a palm filled with water. The blue fire faded into red and limped away across the ledge, feeble enough that the monks were able to step clear of the dying tendrils.
But even as Silvas damped the blue fire, black lightning struck from above, a jagged edge of night cleaving the remaining daylight over the twin mountains. This bolt seemed to be directed at Carillia rather than at Silvas, and she was able to respond more quickly than he, raising her hands and shattering the black lightning into bits of black coal and shiny crystals of diamond that scattered and bounced as they hit the ground.
Bay bared his teeth and neighed in anger, faced with some challenge of his own that Silvas couldn't discern. The horse didn't move, though, and after a moment his face relaxed.
"It is truly joined at last," Silvas mumbled, though no one heard him.
– |Outside Silvas's pentagram, the ground, the hills, even the castle walls and the monks and soldiers were covered by a thin orange haze. An unnatural silence descended with the mist, leaving hollow echoes of emptiness ringing in Silvas's ears. To the north, the infernal night continued to advance, more slowly than before. Its leading edge was within a hundred yards of the foot of Mount Mecq. A new terror advanced more rapidly beneath that mantle of blackness.
"The armies of the night approach," Carillia announced.
"Demons of hell, driven by the Devil," Brother Paul said, astonished that he could actually see something of the enemy even though they were still some distance away and concealed by the necessary night that sheltered them.
"Near enough the mark," Bishop Egbert said. "Lord Silvas, do you have a specific defense in mind for these?" The bishop's voice remained remarkably calm despite a certain quaking within him. He was ready, even eager, to make this stand for his faith.
"How has the White Brotherhood fought the Blue Rose before?" Silvas asked, a mostly rhetorical question.
"We raised a crusade against them in Burgundy," Egbert said, uncertain of the real tenor of Silvas's question.
"You sent a crusade of living soldiers against the living tools of the Blue Rose. Now we are faced by tools of the Blue Rose who do not live, who likely have never lived. Can we not meet them with an army of martyrs who have already died for their faith?" The idea had come to Silvas almost as he spoke, prompted as much by the bishop's response as anything else.
Bishop Egbert stared off toward the coming night and the armies of the never-living while he spoke a quick prayer and contemplated Silvas's suggestion. While there is time to think, it would be a sin not to think, he told himself.
"It might be the best of all replies," the bishop said. Deliberation did not require excessive delay. Egbert had a quick mind.
"Amen," Silvas said-so be it.
He raised his sword and quarterstaff toward the darkness and started to chant. The spells came to mind without searching, although they were ones that he had never used, or even contemplated, before. It was as if they had been especially entrusted to his mind for this battle. After a moment Carillia started to speak in unison with Silvas, and the others in the pentagram fell in automatically, even Brother Paul, who had no idea what he was saying. Words he could hardly have grasped, could scarcely have heard, outside the pentagram flowed easily from his lips. It was as if Silvas or one of the others were driving his throat and mouth as well as his own. This is of the Greater Mysteries, the vicar thought. It takes me beyond where I have ever been. His feeling was more of wonder than fear. I always thought that the Greater Mysteries were beyond my talents.
The cadence of the chant gave the semblance of music. The different registers of the voices gave it harmony, from the clear contralto of Carillia and the reedy tenor of Bosc through the baritones of Silvas and the two churchmen to the basso profundo of Bay rumbling underneath all of the others. The six monks lined up beneath the wall finally picked up the chant, as automatically as Brother Paul had. They seemed to remain half a sound behind the rest, though, giving the chant a tremolo, an echo.
For the soldiers on the walls above, the effect was one of growing noise, sound without form. Neither Sir Eustace nor any of his men had the gift to grasp the words of the ancient spells.
For several minutes there was no visible result. Silvas and his companions within the pentagram could feel the increase of power they were generating, but they could see nothing new. Then…
The army of martyrs rose silently from the dirt and rock of the twin hills. It was easiest to see what was happening across the river on Mount Balq, but the same thing happened on Mount Mecq. Soldiers grew out of the earth, already mounted on spectral steeds. The knights and men-at-arms seemed to come from different eras and from all parts of Christendom. Their manner of dress, their weapons and armor varied. All wore a bright white cross on their shoulders, though, whether on ragged tunic or rusted mail. The ghosts of these warriors who had died for their faith were pale images, less substantial than a reflection in a rippling pond, but the blades of their weapons caught the sunlight and glinted. Men rose from both slopes of the two hills. Those who emerged on Mecq's side of the hills advanced over the crests, moving into position behind those who had appeared on Blethye's side. Steep slopes, even sheer drops meant nothing to this army of the dead. Kings and high lords called out their commands, and the martyrs fell into ranks and rode into the sky, moving out under the darkness that had been projected to cover the advance of the demons of the Blue Rose. Under the darkness the army of martyrs became more visible, a pale luminescence that shimmered in subtle ways.
Even the soldiers on the castle walls could see these warriors. Most of the soldiers fell to their knees in uncontrollable fright or desperate prayer. Not even Sir Eustace was immune.
But the terror didn't last. The army of martyrs raised a hymn, and while the words weren't completely audible to those without entree to the mystic realm, their comfort was. The soldiers on the wall struggled back to their feet as the martyrs charged toward the advancing enemy. When Sir Eustace looked out through one of the crenels, he had regained his customary scowl. This time he focused it toward Blethye rather than toward the people who had raised this latest terror. He even found grudging approval for the fact that the wizard and his allies had dispatched this terrible army into Blethye to fight. Better there than on my land was his easy assessment. Such a fight could leave the land on which it is fought barren.
– |The transition was as sharp and jarring as an unexpected slap in the face. Still, allowing for an instant of shock, Silvas recognized the field immediately. This is the land of the gods, he thought, and then he spoke the words when he realized that Bay and Carillia were with him, one on either side. Then he recalled Carillia's divinity and felt embarrassment.
"This is not my home," Carillia said. "My home is with you, my heart, always." She leaned against him. Since Silvas held weapons in both hands, they could do little more than touch shoulder to shoulder.
"My love," he whispered. Warmth spread over the edge of fear that remained in his thoughts. Perhaps we do have tomorrows left together.
At first Silvas was only aware of the three of them. Then he saw the armies of the gods arrayed on the field. Silvas and his companions were in the midst of one army. The second faced them from two hundred yards away. There was little to obviously distinguish between the armies. This was no clash of light and dark, white and blue. This was the land of the gods, and everything was bright and perfect. These warriors were dressed in full metal plate. From toe to top, they were covered in armor that gleamed like the brightest mirrors ever devised. Visors were pulled down on helmets, giving the assemblage an anonymous look. The horses were magnificent, many appearing to be Bay's equal in size. Their coats, where they were visible, were glossy. Their harness was impeccable, and most were draped in armor and in silken finery.
"My brothers and their cohorts," Carillia said. "And my sisters."
"All of them?" Silvas asked.
Carillia shook her head. "Some few have forgone any part in this fight. It does not matter. It will debase them as it debases all of us." There was tremendous sadness in her voice when she added, "Yet it cannot be avoided. It must be endured."
If any can endure, Silvas thought-and that startled him, for it did not seem to originate in his own mind.
A trumpet blew.
– |Hail assaulted the top of Mount Mecq. Ice pellets the size of plums struck with incredible fury. Their impact was blunted by the dome of protection that covered Silvas's pentagram, but only for those within it. The soldiers on the ramparts of Sir Eustace's castle, dressed in chain mail and wearing helmets, still raised their bucklers above their heads to guard their faces. The monks in front of the wall were left with no defense except for the partial protection of the wall itself. They were forced to break off their chanting to turn and face the wall. They hunched over and pulled the cowls up over their heads to try to protect themselves until Silvas and the others in the pentagram could stop the onslaught. Satin and Velvet growled in anger and pain, then retreated under the cover of the gate, hugging the wall on either side to avoid the rest of the storm.
The hail quickly covered the ledge and made the ramparts treacherously slippery. Bishop Egbert took the lead in fighting the hail, calling for holy fire to cleanse it. Silvas lent his power to the bishop's chant, and soon the ice started to burn away with tiny flames that didn't affect people. The fire of Pentecost. Egbert's mind projected that thought so clearly that Silvas could hardly miss it. The flames seemed to climb into the sky on ladders of hail, clearing the air.
Silvas looked up to the castle ramparts. The soldiers were slow to expose themselves again, but there seemed to be no serious casualties there. Below the wall, one monk didn't rise. Two of his companions went to check on him. "He is dead," Brother Andrew reported. Brother Andrew had blood streaks on his chest from the hail.
"Look down the road toward Blethye," Bay said. Silvas focused his telesight and scanned quickly.
"The Duke of Blethye and his army," Silvas said. Then he said it again, loud enough for Sir Eustace to hear, and added, "He appears to have a dozen knights, as many archers, and six score men-at-arms. They're over a mile from the foot of Mount Mecq."
Sir Eustace climbed up into a crenel and looked off that way. "Are you sure it's Blethye himself? I can't make out the emblem on the banner."
Silvas described both the pennon and the man he assumed was the duke, and Eustace confirmed it. "Twenty minutes will see them entering the pass," Silvas said.
"We are ready," Sir Eustace said. "Blethye will have far fewer men by the time he reaches my gate."
It is too soon to gloat, Silvas thought. Blethye is not alone in this battle. Without the power of the Blue Rose behind him, Blethye certainly couldn't hope to take Sir Eustace's castle with so few men. The approach would be too costly. There were piles of stones just waiting for targets below. The small garrison of Mecq's citadel could bombard Blethye's force with impunity as it came through the pass and climbed the mountain… if not for the Blue Rose.
Silvas looked out over Blethye again, but Carillia suddenly cried, "Above!" Silvas turned and she pointed over the castle.
The monsters had no names. There weren't of the traditional demon sorts, but they were clearly raised by demonic forces. And they were clearly visible, even to men with no mystical gifts. At Carillia's cry, everyone looked. The dozen beasts charged through the air, huge mouths agape, wicked long claws on their feet. No two creatures were alike, though all seemed to have been created of parts from many different beasts and then inflated in size. There were bits of scaled hide, sections that appeared as the shells of turtles, the jaws and teeth of lions or bears, lizard tails, bat wings, totally mismatched legs-some had four legs, others had six, seven, or eight, of different lengths, from different origins.
There was no time for fancy work. Silvas saw that these monsters were as willing to attack the soldiers in the castle as the people on the ledge. A quick chant, a single word of power to trigger it. As your makers enlarged you to attack, I enlarge you in defense, Silvas thought as his spell lashed out at the creatures. They suddenly doubled or tripled in size. It differed from beast to beast, but the growth stopped only when the pressure within caused them to explode.
It was a messy magic. Bits and pieces flew everywhere. Blood splattered everything.
– |The earth trembled. The shaking made dust dance. Silvas widened his stance to maintain his balance. But then he felt himself being split, divided.
I have need of you, the Unseen Lord seemed to say.
We have need of you, the army of martyrs echoed.
But the physical battle outside the castle of Mecq couldn't be abandoned either. Three separate views fought for the wizard's attention. His mind and senses were stretched from Mount Mecq into the sky where the army of martyrs and the army of demons charged each other, and on to the plane of the gods, where trumpets continued to blare the call to charge. Silvas sensed that-in some fashion-he was physically in all three places at once. Whichever venue he turned his attention to took over the premier place, but only for so long as his thoughts remained there.
Silvas struggled to hold each view, going from one to the next almost instantly, responding wherever the press seemed most critical. But he was only one man, not three, and the concentration required by this juggling act meant that he had to focus very tightly on each task in turn. It left no room for anything else. The battle became an endless series of tableaux blurred into jerky movement, a series of still images giving only an impression of motion. All three fights continued simultaneously regardless of which Silvas was viewing at the moment.
Demons continued to assault the people atop Mount Mecq while Blethye's army advanced toward the pass between the two hills. Overhead, the unnatural night of the Blue Rose finally reached the hills and stretched on into the valley of Mecq. Night came at mid-morning.
In the land of the gods, Silvas found himself mounted on Bay, even though he remained aware of Bay standing in his segment of the pentagram outside the castle of Mecq. Carillia was to Silvas's left, also in both places at once. In the land of the gods Carillia was mounted on a beautiful palomino mare. To Silvas's right in the land of the gods the Unseen Lord sat atop a white charger that was as large as Bay. Off to either side Silvas could see the gods allied with his Unseen Lord, and the army of heroes and demigods they had gathered. Across the plain, not more than eighty yards away now, was the divine army of the Blue Rose, led by the gods and goddesses who were trying to take over the orthodox Roman Church.
The scene that was etched in Silvas's mind was of bright lights, pristine colors, and brilliantly gleaming armor, an idealized rendering of the moment "Before the Battle." The blues were the most perfect blues imaginable. The yellows and reds were the epitome of their hues. It was so with all of the colors and forms. Nothing so ideal could possibly have existed on the mortal plane. Snatches of conversation or thought were tagged to the view. "It is our moment of glory." "For truth, my brothers, for Truth." "The song we sing today will echo through eternity. It will never be forgotten!"
At the same time Silvas could feel the fear and the pleas of hordes of believers in the mortal world. The people there were somehow aware, at least in their souls, of the tremendous battle that was beginning. They knew that it might bring them all to the end of the world. It wasn't just the people huddled in St. Katrinka's in the village of Mecq (though for an instant Silvas could see them inside the church). This voice of terror echoed through Silvas's mind and soul and seemed to be the entire congregation of Christianity trembling against the Day of Judgment.
On the divine plane, the armies of the gods collided. Weapons rang against one another and against armor with the purest bell tones that could be imagined. An intricate ballet of death whirled in almost symmetrical patterns. Blood flowed and spurted-fountains of the most exquisite crimson and scarlet. The cries of triumph or defeat, victory or death, were almost operatic. Death visited the gods, and Death was a visible if ghostly presence, moving untouched among the flashing weapons reaping his most glorious harvest yet.
Laughter echoed over the battle, the laughter of gods at play. Silvas was aware of it, but only on a peripheral level. While they fought their own duels, the gods seemed to be enjoying a split consciousness like Silvas's own. But the gods were watching the fighting on the other levels almost as if they were watching wrestlers compete in the great hall of some mortal lord. It seemed as if none of the horror on the other levels was real to the gods, as if none of it really mattered. That brought an ache to Silvas's gut more distressing than the deaths among the warring gods.
– |The battle between dead martyrs and never-living demons commenced at the same time as the battle in the land of the gods. This battle ranged over sky and land in a confusion that no eye could completely follow. The colors were not as clean and brilliant as they were in the land of the gods. The dying-if the dead and the never-born could truly be said to die-was not so heroic. If not death, this was a destruction even more complete, a destruction of souls and spirits. The greenery of the earth seemed to wilt and char where the blood of martyrs and demons was spilled. The earth seemed to recoil from the touch. Blood? Perhaps it was something else, but it flowed just as freely in muddy reds and browns, and its loss brought down those who lost too much of it.
The earth seemed to recoil and shake on the mortal level. The quaking started without warning and seemed ready to continue indefinitely. Once more the ground danced under Silvas's feet. Standing became as difficult as standing in a wagon whose horses were galloping out of control down a rocky road.
"Mother Earth shows her pain!" Bosc shouted.
It was a difficult moment for Silvas. His eyes were locked on those of the Blue Rose wizard as they contested the mastery of the pass between mounts Mecq and Balq. Blethye's army had come to a halt on his side of the pass, still out of reach of the physical weapons of Sir Eustace and his soldiers. Silvas had put up a wall of force in front of Blethye's force, and the other wizard needed to scribe a new pentagram to penetrate it… and as long as Silvas held him locked in mental duel, the other wizard could not scribe that pentagram.
Sweat poured off of Silvas's face, soaking the garments under his armor. Keeping his balance against the earthquake was an additional complication that was almost too much for his mind to handle. Only slowly did he bring himself into balance with it all-and the quaking eased off then. On the plane of the gods, Silvas was also being pressed hard by the forces of the Blue Rose. The might of the White Brotherhood was being compressed from both ends, forced in against itself. Silvas was not the only focus of the Blue Rose's wrath in the land of the gods. All of the divine forces behind the White Brotherhood were arranged at the wizard's side. The auras of power overlapped, interlaced.
An arrow, perfect in shape but fashioned of the stuff of stars, struck the line of the White Brotherhood not far to Silvas's left. One of the armor-clad figures-one of the gods allied with the Unseen Lord-was consumed by the flash of starfire. The rest closed ranks and fought on.
– |"Mother Earth bleeds!" Bosc screamed, his voice climbing so high that it forced Silvas's attention. The wizard felt a sharp crack that seemed to penetrate his head from temple to temple, a blinding pain that made his eyes water and squeeze shut. He reeled so wildly that he almost fell. For just an instant Silvas's concentration faltered.
Brother Paul chanced to raise his right hand to draw the sign of the cross before him. A silver-tipped arrow, sparkling as if on fire, struck the vicar's hand. Blood spurted.
Silvas focused tightly again. The shaking of the ground stopped-at least for the moment. Silvas looked to Bosc, then followed the groom's outstretched arm. He was pointing south, into the valley of Mecq. As Silvas looked, he heard the echo of faint laughter from the Blue Rose wizard, a laugh of triumph as Silvas's blockade fell and the army of the Duke of Blethye moved into the pass between the two hills.
Mother Earth does bleed, Silvas thought as he stared at a sight he had heard of but never seen. The Norsemen tell of this happening in Iceland. Molten rock was flowing up out of the ground. It seemed to originate at the spot where he and Bay had rested when they first caught sight of Mecq-scarcely a week gone by, Silvas realized with a touch of shock. It seemed so much longer.
The lava appeared to inch along, welling out of a crack in the earth that, at Silvas's first glance, seemed to be thirty feet long and no more than five feet wide. The road out that side of the valley had been broken by the shaking of the earth. Now the molten rock was spilling over into Mecq's valley. Steam rose from the surface, partially obscuring the dull reds and brighter yellows that lurked beneath. Yellow fades into red that fades to black at the edges, Silvas observed. And already I catch a hint of the fires of hell in it.
"They will not surrender the water of the Eyler to us even now," Brother Paul said, his voice quaking as roughly as the earth had until a moment before. He clutched his bleeding right hand with the left, wrapping some piece of fabric around the wound. His face had paled, but he stood without wavering. "They send a river of fire to block the river of water."
Silvas nodded. His mind, fighting battles on the other levels at the same time, had not moved that far in its thinking yet. He focused his telesight on the lava flow. It was moving much faster than he had originally estimated, and in much greater volume. It won't take long to reach the Eyler, he realized. Possibilities chased one another through his mind. The lava might boil away the Eyler, fill its course completely, damming it at the south end of the valley, upstream, undoing his work. It might flow downstream and melt the dam he had already erected. It might flow farther and block the pass between the twin hills, perhaps turning the entire valley into a reservoir that would drive the people out as it put Mecq and its fields under water in the months to come. If months remain to come, Silvas qualified. It might even overflow the village, roasting the people inside the church.
Somehow I must stop this river, Silvas thought. But how? For once he could imagine no magic that might suffice. This was far beyond anything that Auroreus had taught him, far beyond anything he had taught himself in the years since the death of Auroreus.
He started running through spells of power. He stretched out his arms and drew in energy from wherever his magic could touch it. I have yet to test my new limits, he thought, but it didn't buoy his spirits as much as he might have hoped. The power that had enlarged him when the Unseen Lord revealed himself was vast, but the wizard could not know if it would be enough.
Silvas chanted, the volume increasing as his companions within the pentagram once more echoed his words without understanding them. The light faded and surged in time with the wizard's rhythms. The air whined around the pentagram, faster and higher with every phrase.
A silver bubble suddenly formed around the pentagram and just as quickly popped. Silvas looked around quickly and could scarcely credit what he saw. The wizard and his companions were no longer on the ledge outside Sir Eustace's gate. They were down on the floor of the valley, not a hundred yards from the leading ledge of the river of molten rock. Silvas glanced down. Even the pentagram he had traced in the ledge on the hill had been transferred with them. Everyone was still in place.
Is this real or a projection? Silvas asked himself. He focused his telesight toward Mount Mecq. He saw no trace of himself or his companions on the ledge. Bay's head at least should be visible, he thought. He moved his gaze to the rampart of the castle. The consternation he saw among the soldiers there was more persuasive. They don't see us. We vanished. And finally someone looked into the valley and spotted them. He pointed directly at Silvas.
That was all the time Silvas dared spare on that. The castle's defenders were coming under direct attack again, but for the moment they would have to face it alone, with only the weapons of Sir Eustace's men and the magics of the monks who remained outside the gate. Silvas had a more urgent danger to face. The lava was advancing steadily. The point of the pentagram in which Silvas stood was aimed directly at the molten rock.
"Courage," he said softly. He felt the fear of Brother Paul and, to a lesser extent, Bishop Egbert. "This is where we stand or fall. If we can't stop this river or divert it, the molten rock will entomb us here and the Blue Rose will win."
Except for one brief flutter, Silvas felt remarkably calm. For once my duty is as plain as the sun in the sky, he thought. He started to chant, looking around carefully as he worked through preliminary spells, building a foundation of power for the actual work of stopping the flow of molten rock. Carillia looked as serene as ever. She beamed confidence and love at him. Bosc and Bay were calm, ready for whatever came. Brother Paul still fought against an edge of terror and the pain of his wound. His prayers were coming faster and faster. Bishop Egbert seemed to be torn. There was fear, under control. There was preparation, as the bishop worked his own way through to the power of the Greater Mysteries of the White Brotherhood. But he also displayed an unmistakable fascination with the molten rock that was moving toward the pentagram.
Silvas shared, as much as he dared, the bishop's fascination. The lava bubbled and fumed. Steam and tongues of fire rose above it. The wall of fiery rock moved forward, rolling over its own leading edge, like a waterfall in slow motion, advancing a few inches every second. Cinders formed and fell from the periphery. The wall was already near Bay's height, and it seemed to be growing as it approached. Even tree sap does not run so thickly, Silvas thought. It was part of the fascination.
And part of the danger.
The other phases of the battle could too easily be forgotten, and they had not ended yet.
– |The battle between the martyrs of the Church and the never-born demons of the Blue Rose continued. The remains of twice-dead martyrs and never-born-but-once-dead demons faded quickly, but before they vanished, they poisoned the land on which they fell. The battle had progressed beyond the control of either Silvas or the Blue Rose wizard. The martyrs and demons fought with an abandon that mortal warriors rarely could. The demons fought because they had been created to do nothing else, because they understood nothing else. The martyrs fought to save their souls. The terrors of death and the terrors of the night consumed each other in a visible nightmare that spread from horizon to horizon… but still only on Blethye's side of the twin hills. We did that much right at least, Silvas thought with what little satisfaction he could muster.
On this level, Silvas was still locked in a duel of magic with the Blue Rose wizard. Caradoc had found time to scribe another pentagram, almost within the pass between the hills, and to invest it with protective spells. He had a sword in his hand, using it as a pointer. Silvas raised his own sword, spoke a short spell, and watched lightning flash from his blade to the other, a blast that wasn't completely turned aside by Caradoc or his pentagram. I can reach you, Silvas projected. The other wizard grinned at him. He raised his sword again and pointed into the sky. Silvas followed the gesture, but he did not see the night that the Blue Rose had brought, or the battle of demons and martyrs.
This transition was like another slap in the face. Silvas found himself back in the land of the gods. That battle had progressed as well, and Silvas found serious gaps in his memory. I participated, but I don't know what I did. The battle was no longer that of two colliding armies. The forces of the White Brotherhood had been reduced and compressed. Few of the soldiers who had lined up against the Blue Rose here were still on their feet or horses. Their bodies littered the field.
Silvas was no longer mounted on Bay. He was standing within one of the points of a divine pentagram. The lines shone like purest gold. The pentagram itself was more than twice the size of the one Silvas had scribed outside the castle of Sir Eustace. Carillia guarded the point to Silvas's left. The Unseen Lord stood in the point to his right. Two other gods-whose faces Silvas couldn't see-held the other points. Bay was in the center, where the greatest power present would normally be stationed. Silvas didn't understand that positioning, but he had no time to question it. The pentagram was surrounded by enemies, and off behind the gods and soldiers of the Blue Rose, Silvas saw a vast cyclone approaching.
– |It's a trick of the mind, a magic, Silvas told himself. His attention had once more shifted from one arena to another. Now he was facing the Blue Rose wizard at a distance of only a few yards. Silvas's pentagram appeared to have moved again, this time to the pass between Mount Mecq and Mount Balq to physically block the way. But the effect wasn't quite identical to the transportation from the ledge above out into the valley of Mecq. This was not a true transportation.
Only a magic, Silvas reminded himself, a projection. He was still at the point of his own pentagram. The Blue Rose wizard was at the center of his. Only magic had brought about this appearance of nearness. Sparkles of light danced on the shields over the two pentagrams and bounced off the hills to either side. The wizards threw every weapon they could bring to bear at each other. Behind Caradoc the archers who had come with the army of Blethye stood waiting, arrows notched to bows, taking shots at Silvas and his companions. The arrows couldn't penetrate the wall of magic around the pentagram, though. And we are not really here after all, Silvas thought, uncertain whether that was protection enough. Overhead, the battle between martyrs and demons was nearly finished. Very few of either remained to contest the issue, and they were all locked in what would almost certainly be their final duels.
The Blue Rose wizard launched a ball of fire at Silvas. It grew quickly, blue fire splattering against and then flowing over and around Silvas's pentagram, hiding the Blue Rose force from his sight. Silvas struggled to quench the fire.
When it was gone, he was once more facing the river of molten rock in the valley. The wall of lava had continued to grow. It was now twelve feet high at the front… and that front was only a dozen yards away. The heat was overwhelming. Even the dome of magic that protected the pentagram was not enough to completely hold the fire off. And soon the river would bury the pentagram.
There was no time for complicated magics. Silvas took a deep breath and spoke the hidden name of his Unseen Lord aloud. The earth shook underfoot, more violently than it had before, though only for an instant. The air shimmered and crackled. For the barest instant the very fabric of being seemed to vanish and reappear. But the wall of molten rock was still there, still inching closer.
The only changes were within Silvas. He felt tremendous reserves of power being funnelled into him on all three levels. His companions in the valley seemed to drain into him. Even the gods around him in the golden pentagram in their land were channeling their power through him, using him as the cutting edge in their desperate last stand against the Blue Rose.
Are they giving me their energy, or am I taking it? Silvas wondered, but only briefly. Now more than ever, he was too pressed to waste time at idle thought. There was too much confusion. His eyes now saw on all three levels of the battle at once. He stood in three places: in the valley of Mecq facing the lava, in the pass between the twin hills facing the Blue Rose wizard, and in the land of the gods facing the gods of the Blue Rose and the cyclone bearing down on the golden pentagram of the White Brotherhood.
Silvas worked his way quickly through the most powerful spells at his command. The power that was accumulating in him was too much. He felt as if he were expanding, ready to burst from the inner pressure the way the monsters over Mecq's castle had exploded.
He held his sword in both hands and extended it: toward the river of lava, toward the Blue Rose wizard, toward the cyclone that had been raised by the Blue Rose in the land of the gods. An aura of blinding light emanated from Silvas and his outstretched sword.
I could not look upon this light from the outside and keep my eyes, Silvas thought. It is brighter than the star I tried to gaze upon when I was a boy.
The words of power spoken, Silvas's mind commanded and his body obeyed, on all three planes at once.
– He stepped out of the golden pentagram in the land of the gods and cut into the cyclone, cleaving it, destroying the windstorm, and then he turned and moved into the gods and heroes of the Blue Rose who had gathered like vultures waiting for the tornado to finish their work. Silvas moved with blinding speed. It was as if the others were frozen in time while he moved among them at will, and his sword destroyed all who wore the Blue Rose.
– He stepped out of the pentagram in the pass between Mount Mecq and Mount Balq. His now flaming sword cut through the outer lines of the pentagram controlled by the Blue Rose wizard. And then Silvas's sword cut Caradoc in half with a single blow, skull to crotch. He whirled and, in what seemed to be a single spinning blow, decapitated the five assistants who had stood in that pentagram with Caradoc.
– He stepped out of the pentagram in the valley of Mecq with the sword, now gleaming an icy silver, raised high above his head. He strode forward and swung the sword into the leading edge of the river of molten rock… and the lava froze, steaming madly for a moment as it cycled from ember red to coal black in the space of a breath.
But Silvas did not see the end of that cycle. The sword came out of his hands, buried in the wall of lava with only the hilt protruding. Silvas himself pitched forward, unaware of the burns on his face and hands, unconscious-or worse-before his head hit the rock wall. He crumpled to the ground as if dead.