Seven Sorcerers(97)
“So I gave up and inhaled the seawater, knowing it was death. There was nothing else I could do. My lungs filled with brine, my eyes closed. I lay there twitching like the rest of them. But I failed to die. At last I lay still, not breathing, the sea filling me up like an empty jar. My panic had been drowned, so I finally removed the corslet and greaves. The surface of the sea above me was on fire, so I could not swim to it. Realizing that I was unable to drown, I walked and sprang across the seabed, stepping over the charred and bloated corpses of Yaskathans and Mumbazans. I passed the broken and tangled wreckage of warships, some of them still burning. Not even the deep water could quench the flames of Zyung’s sorcery.
“I walked among the feasting crabs and schools of rainbow fish, through forests of seaweed and coral hills. Far above me the burning went on. I passed legions of drowned men, wondering why I was not one of them. I walked in a daze, astounded at my own existence.
“I came to a black mountain and climbed the slimy rocks. It was an island, so I climbed out of the sea to walk along its shore. I vomited seawater from my lungs and learned to breathe again. There was a broad cove not far from where I surfaced. A handful of Mumbazans had swum there all the way from their lost ship.
“I looked across the waves at the pitiful remains of our great fleet–the greatest armada in history–and I saw thousands of Zyung’s ships still blotting out the sky. Then I truly understood how stupid we had been. I called out to Khama, and he came with Undutu to carry us away. We fled like cowards instead of dying with our men.”
D’zan falls silent and swallows more wine.
“You did what Kings must do,” I say.
“We should have listened to you, Iardu. We should have gone north with Tyro and Vireon.”
His cup is empty. I refill it.
“It might have been the same, even if you had done so,” I tell him. “Tyro and Vireon both fell at Shar Dni. Tyro will never rise again. Yet you live to fight on.”
D’zan drains the second cup of wine in a series of gulps. His breathing is heavy.
“Look at me,” he says, moving his hands across the mass of linens that band his flesh. “I saw Tyro die, and Undutu. I took spears in the gut, blades in the chest. Here–see this spot?” He points to a place near his heart. “This was a killing stroke. I bled like a fountain, yet again I did not die. Mendices and I led the retreat. Zyung’s wizards could have finished us, but he let us go.”
He tells me of the hooded stranger who turned the God-King to iron for a brief moment and disappeared. He asks me who it was, but I have no idea. Ianthe helped us break the spell of Udgrond, but surely she would not move so openly against Zyung. Whoever the stranger had been, D’zan tells me, his spell had allowed Dahrima to save Vireon. Suddenly I recognize the true courage of the red-eyed Giantess who watches over her King. And I know of a certain that she loves him.
I look toward Alua. Her head lies upon Vireon’s shoulder.
She too sleeps. Vireon does not move. “Can you explain it, Shaper?” D’zan asks.
“Can you tell me why I am not dead? Is it… Is it because of the spell you worked with Sharadza? This body you created to replace the one that Elhathym destroyed? Am I no longer even a Man?”
“You are very much a Man,” I say. “Yet your woman-born body no longer carries your spirit. The body you inhabit now is a creation of our sorcery and your own willpower. It is not above death, but it is far more durable than one born of a mother’s womb. You did not drown for the same reason you did not die in battle: Your flesh is invested with Sharadza’s power and mine. It will not age or sicken. Not while we both endure.”
D’zan has lost his words. Perhaps he thinks of the guilt he will carry for the rest of his life. I might tell him that I share that same guilt, but I say nothing. He drinks a third cup of wine. Slowly this time.
He leans in close. “What of my children? Will my son be… human?”
I could tell him what Sharadza never has. That his sturdy body is a sterile thing, without the procreative power that comes from a parental bloodline. When his original body died, so did his chance at having an heir.
Yet I know that his second wife carries a child in her belly even now. A child that she says is D’zan’s own son, even though this is impossible. D’zan had thought Sharadza to be barren, and she lets him believe it to spare him grief and shame.
Should I tell him the truth? That he cast Sharadza aside for a failing that was his own? That his new woman has lied and betrayed him with a bastard offspring? Should I shatter what little remains of his fractured humanity?