Seven Sorcerers(34)
“What of Gammir?” Sungui asked.
Ianthe grinned, stroking Sungui’s chin. “Your beauty is unsurpassed,” said the Panther. “I am sure you can persuade Gammir to join our plans. Go to him tonight, as I came to you. Be sure to wear your female aspect.”
Ianthe stood to pull on her silver robe.
“What of the Almighty?” Sungui said. Her heart beat faster, as it had done during the night. “What if he should discover us?”
“Zyung cannot hear our words or taste our minds,” said Ianthe. “My own power prevents it. Speak to no one of this save Gammir.” She gave Sungui a lingering kiss before departing.
Sungui pulled away, wiping blood from her lower lip. Ianthe had bitten it.
Ianthe licked her own lips. Her eyes said: You may have me again, in both your aspects. Then she was gone, leaving Sungui alone in the cabin, a coppery tang on her tongue and drop of red staining the breast of her silver vestment.
Blood magic.
She changed her robe and decided to remain female as she toured the dreadnoughts to deliver the pronouncements of Zyung. Memories of Ianthe’s body and the phantom sensations of her touch lingered throughout the day.
In the early afternoon Damodar returned to the Daystar from Ongthaia. Wrapped in a luminous sphere of power, he emerged from a bank of dark clouds. Sungui had just returned from her own duties, so she came to the middle deck to greet him.
Damodar’s lean face was troubled; the remnants of rage still simmered about his eyes.
“Has the Jade King surrendered?” Sungui asked.
Damodar ignored her, but she knew the answer.
“I must speak with His Holiness.” Damodar stalked toward the Almighty’s cabin. When the great doors closed behind him, a peal of thunder shook the sky. The captain was barking orders to his crew. Men rushed to secure lines and masts while Trill Knights brought their flapping beasts in early. This was no weather for the winged lizards and their riders to brave.
Ahead of the flagship, the horizon was a mass of dark, churning clouds split by jagged veins of lightning. A wall of cold rain engulfed the decks, and the wind grew fierce. It moaned in Sungui’s ears like the howling of conjured devils. Thunder rattled the sails and drowned men’s voices.
“Hurricane!” called the captain from his high seat.
The Daystar sailed into the rising storm.
6
The Dreaming Ones
North we fly, in the shapes of white eagles.
We do not pause for sleep, or food, or rest. We do not speak, although there are many questions Sharadza would like to ask me. There are many things I would like to tell her.
Now is not the time.
“Our first ally lies deep in the Frozen North,” I told her before we left New Khyrei. She had turned a puzzled face toward me. Her emerald eyes sparkled, so like those of her mother.
“Is there a member of the Old Breed among the Udvorg?” she had asked. The blue-skinned Giants roamed the high plateaus of the Icelands. A great force of them had followed her brother south in his campaign against Ianthe the Claw. Yet many Udvorg tribes still roamed the tundra, or held the icy palace of Angrid that now belonged to Vireon.
“Not the Udvorg,” I told her. “Far beyond their hunting grounds we must go. To the shores of the Frozen Sea at the top of the world.”
She knew the urgency of our need and she asked no more questions. She had already delivered my message to Vireon and Tyro. The northern armies prepared to march along the Golden Sea coast to set up defenses in the Sharrian valley. Before they reached the shattered remains of Shar Dni, we must enter the white realm where even the Udvorg did not go.
Never had we flown so fast, or so far. I feared her strength might not be great enough for the long flight, and that she might slow me down. I would not leave her in any case. Yet I need not have worried. The tips of her wings were never far behind my own.
On the second day of flight we soared over the Stormlands. A continent of shifting clouds hid the fields and rivers from our eagle eyes. We flew higher than the storms so the angry winds would not impede our progress. On the third day we crossed over the Grim Mountains, sailing past frosty peaks and dark valleys where shadows danced. The bones of Serpents moldered in deep gorges. Beyond the mountains we passed over the City of Men and Giants. How long had it been since Sharadza had visited the city of her birth, seat of her brother’s power? No doubt she wished to dip between its ebony towers and walk its bustling streets again. Perhaps she longed to visit Vod’s tomb and lay a wreath of flowers at its door. Yet she said nothing of these desires. The time for returning to Udurum would be later, when the fate of the continent and all its peoples did not lie upon our shoulders.