"No fight is ever futile."
-Attributed to Eleriad Deerfriend, Councilmaster and Lady of Rowan, inventor of starflight and the most successful battle-leader against the humans in the War of Acceptance.
Dawn.
It never ceased to amaze Kaoslel how slowly the dawn came in here. As he stood in the doorway of the stables, staring out across the baked black earth, he thought that surely it must rise more quickly than that, to have a chance of spreading the oppressive heat that was the trademark of the Nymari.
On the other hand, he couldn't really blame the light, supposedly a symbol of goodness, for being reluctant to enter this place.
A snort came from behind him, and Kaoslel shivered as a cold nose brushed his shoulder. Heat or not- after all, they were in the middle of a black desert- there were some things the sun would never warm.
He turned and looked slowly up into Imastia's eyes, lifting a hand to stroke her mane. Cold and white as the snow that he sometimes missed here, it tossed slowly under his hand, though no wind stirred it, like seaweed moving with some strange current. Her red eyes gazed patiently at him from the middle of black fur so dense that Kaoslel's own eyes sometimes hurt trying to comprehend it. Her teeth were set in a permanent, fixed rictus, like the grin of a skull, but he could still feel her calmness and steady strength, unusual from one of her high-spirited kind.
"We only get one chance," he said quietly. "I know that you think you can do something fancy, and they'll still accept it. But our only chance is to do this exactly right. We have to show them that we can belong here when we want to, not merely that we're good at this job."
Imastia bobbed her head. Her voice was sharp, and it seemed as though she had rearranged the past to drop her words in, rather than spoken them either aloud or mentally. Kaoslel shook his head a little. The impression was still jarring even after three years with her. -I don't think that they'll mind what we show them. If they do, we can always go somewhere else-
"I want to stay here," said Kaoslel, a little sharply.
The deathtrotter mare snorted and glanced away from him. Kaoslel sighed. At least in one respect, Imastia was exactly like every other trotter he had ever met. She considered herself, and her rider, too good for anything save life among the noble death Elwen Klainai.
-We could still go home- she muttered, lashing out with a bone-colored hoof. The wooden wall of the stable puffed into dust under the powerful kick, and Kaoslel began to murmur soothing words almost at once. Imastia ignored him, staring out the front door of the stables again. -You have golden eyes. You belong with Deepen Klaina-
"I couldn't stand it there any longer." Kaoslel made his way around her and sat down on a bale of hay, keeping one hand on her flank in the hopes that it would soothe her. Her fur felt like velvet over ice. Imastia was not really alive, but neither was she dead. She was in the middle, unmortal, a child of the Forces of Death. "There was too much death, and my blood is too mixed to accept it. I need sunlight, and warmth, and life around me."
-Then why did you come here-
Kaoslel smiled wanly, and looked down at his hands. They looked the same as they ever had, though more callused than when he had first ridden into the Oasis, half-dead, three years ago. They were still a deep, rich brown, neither the black of his half-churni mother nor the pallor of his land Elwen ancestors. "It may have been a mistake," he admitted. "But we are here now, and we've made all the sacrifices they demanded of us so far." He looked up and held her red eyes. "Do you really want to leave now, and say that it was a mistake, and a waste of time?"
Imastia stamped a hoof. -Not without trying-
"Thank you." Kaoslel leaned his cheek against her flank and closed his eyes. He could feel the ribs beneath his face, but that was all right. He had slept pillowed on her flank often enough that it no longer bothered him.
Imastia turned and nuzzled his hair. Kaoslel smiled at her.
Whatever happened with the final test, at least he would have a friend with him when he left. That was more than most could say.
______________________________________________
"The test must now begin."
Kaoslel walked down the corridor of land Elwens as calmly as he could, considering that this was the last chance he had to prove himself. Imastia waited at the far end, saddled and bridled since that was the way the land Elwens insisted on doing it, scraping a hoof as she watched him. Kaoslel walked with his head up, keenly conscious of many more eyes than his friend's.
The land Elwens could feel emotions. Kaoslel knew they would hear his heart and sharp breathing, as other Elwens would, but they would also be able to tell the fear he was feeling.
He had to ignore that. He had to keep his mind on the final test, and the words that Findae, the weathered commander of the Oasis garrison, was speaking.
"You must prove to us that you are worthy of a place in our garrison. While we recognize your talents, only land Elwens have served in Nyesain time out of mind. We will think twice before accepting a mixed-blood. And so you must capture an avenger and bring him in."
Kaoslel nodded. He had reached Imastia. Cold or not, she was a source of strength under his hand as he turned and looked at Findae. "And if I bring one in, then I will be considered as part of the garrison?" he asked.
Findae hesitated. Kaoslel concentrated. He could feel emotions, dimly; his blood was three-quarters land Elwen, after all. And he could feel that Findae was struggling with whether or not she wanted to tell him something.
"I cannot make the garrison accept you."
A sussurus of astonishment traveled through the crowd. Kaoslel raised his eyebrows. He, too, had not expected this.
"Then I should simply ride out the gate and not waste my time?" he asked, as sharply as he dared.
Findae took a deep breath. Her eyes were dark and piercing, her silvery hair short and cropped almost to the skull in places. She had a face like metal. This was the first time that Kaoslel had seen her look even remotely uncomfortable. "I meant that I cannot insure my garrison will accept you as an equal," she said. "Yes, you might join. But I cannot promise that the taunts about your mixed blood will stop."
Kaoslel inclined his head, with a cold smile. "That is all right, my lady. I knew long ago that I must make a place to fit in the world, since there wasn't one that was made for me. As long as you are willing to try and help me make that place if I fulfill the requirements, I have no objection."
Findae jerked her head sharply in return. "Then go forth, and bring an avenger back to us."
Kaoslel turned and vaulted smoothly to his seat on Imastia's back. He heard someone mutter something about show-offs.
-I could show them what it really means to display skill- said Imastia, so that Kaoslel was the only one who could hear her.
"No," he murmured. "There would be no point."
Two of the Guardians raced ahead to open the gates. Kaoslel rode out a distance, then turned around and looked back.
The gates had closed again. On either side of them, the great walls of specially trained and bred cacti that encircled the Oasis reared. Kaoslel moved his gaze along them, and was satisfied. No one could scale them. And no one in the walls would believe that anyone could scale them, either.
No one could possibly think that he would cheat and try to return earlier.
He turned, and rode.
______________________________________________
-Take off the bridle. I hate chewing on the bit-
Kaoslel had already been fumbling with that last bit of tack, and at last he got it off and turned to a small hole he had managed to chip in the hard black sand. "Is that better?" he asked, dropping the bridle in after the saddle and then tipping the dirt in on top of them.
-Much better- Imastia stepped and shook herself as though she had just suffered some vague humiliation. -I don't know how horses stand it-
"They're horses," said Kaoslel, as he closed his eyes and began to concentrate. "Not as intelligent as you are."
-And don't you forget it! If I told you every tale of the times that I had been treated as a horse-
"Quiet, now. I need to concentrate."
Imastia quieted. Kaoslel could hear her tap a hoof now and then, but after the length of time they had spent together, that wasn't enough of a distraction to keep him from his duty.
His mind whirred out over the black desert, which spread for miles in every direction, the sand hard and hot, little to no life save that which could use magic growing or moving anywhere. There were a few diamond cacti to the west, a small village of land Elwens whom the Oasis generally ignored since they were determined to live outside the protection of the walls to the east, and-
Kaoslel went very still. Then he opened his eyes, and turned his head to face the south.
He had hardly expected it to be that easy.
-What is it-
Kaoslel shook his head, unwilling to commit himself just yet. Yes, the mind to the south felt like that of an avenger- an expert assassin, trained to make himself so undetectable that he wouldn't rouse suspicion no matter what happened. It was cool, focused, competent.
But something about it was wrong.
Kaoslel eased himself back towards Imastia. She felt his intentions, and stood still while he reached for the one piece of tack he had not discarded, the saddlebags attached to a thin, belt-like piece of leather looped around her withers. He pulled out a handful of silver powder he hadn't needed in a long time, and which he used only when he absolutely had to. He couldn't get any more, since it had been made from the powdered flesh of his mother's hands.
He tossed it into the air.
There was a violent silver flash, one that tossed him back several feet. He stood up as quickly as he could, panting, and glanced at Imastia.
"Call, would you?"
-What are you-
"Do it!"
Imastia tossed her head back, stretching her long, slender neck as far as it would go, and bellowed into the air. The call echoed and re-echoed, and Kaoslel could feel the few animals in the vicinity fleeing. He felt them the same way he had hoped to find the avenger, through the detection of life-force, a gift from his death Elwen ancestry. Avengers sometimes trained to guard against that, too, but they didn't do it often, and so there was every hope that he could find one using it.
But he hadn't.
He had found something else, or thought he had. And the silver powder confirmed it.
He was utterly sure as the call came back, a loud, trumpeting shout something like the scream of a wounded horse, but deeper and deadlier. Not suspecting anything, the other mare had answered Imastia's call.
There were other death Elwens and deathtrotters in the vicinity.
And he knew what they wanted.
He turned to Imastia. "Leave me," he said softly. "I can hide for a little while, and I'll take as many of them as I can before they capture me."
-No- Imastia scraped at the ground. -I'm not leaving you. Who ever heard of a trotter leaving her rider? No, you're my friend, and my rider, and there's nothing I can do but stay with you-
"Please. Go." Kaoslel's fingers were at work, drawing a starmetal blade from another pouch on Imastia's "belt." This was a metal so black it hurt to imagine light sliding into it, so chill that the hilt hurt his hand. "They only want me, but they'll hurt you, too, if you try to defend me."
-I stay-
Kaoslel flung her an annoyed look and started to argue, but Imastia pointed past his shoulder with her nose.
-They come-
Kaoslel turned.
Racing towards him over the black sand, as dark as if that sand had suddenly animated and incarnated itself in Elwen form, came two deathtrotters and their riders. At least one was a mare, Kaoslel knew. The other might or might not be. The mare was enough to suggest who had come after him.
"Too late," he muttered. "Even if you start running now, you couldn't outdistance them." Deathtrotters were the fastest things on four legs. These were already near enough that he could make out the magma shine of their eyes. "I did tell you to leave me while you still could."
-Why won't you agree-
Kaoslel cast Imastia an incredulous glance, wondering if he was going to have to fight his best friend now, as well as the rest of them.
Imastia tossed her head, her mane flying. -I will help defend you. I was just wondering-
"I take exception to their choice of spouses for me," said Kaoslel shortly, and then turned around, setting his back to Imastia's flank and gripping the starmetal blade in his hand. The hilt was comfortable and refreshing. He held it loosely enough that he could throw it if necessary, and waited.
The trotters pulled up a few yards short of them, stopping as smoothly and quickly as their kind did anything else. Kaoslel studied them, and then nodded. Yes, the mare was Nyla, and her rider was-
Well, was the woman he had expected, really. He wasn't dangerous enough to merit her attentions, but apparently the Lady Columa was going to be insistent. He sharpened his gaze and waited.
Kuolema Deathwield pulled back her hood and smiled at him. She was as lovely as a blade, perfect and poised, her dark face angular and her green eyes brilliant. Her hair was as long and white as a deathtrotter's mane, and it moved in the same unsettling way, at infrequent intervals. She wore a sword at her side. That was the only weapon she wore openly.
It was enough.
She said pleasantly, "Did you really think that we would let you go forever? We did so hope that you would come to your senses and return home without prompting, but then we received word that you were going to take the final test and become part of the Oasis forever." She shook her head, eyes fixed on him. "That was really very disappointing. The Lady Columa said words to me that I won't bother repeating. It was distressing."
Kaoslel glanced at Kuolema's companion. He still had his hood over his face, but the hands that gripped his mare's mane were slender and sable. It did not really matter who he was, compared with what he was.
Churni, death Elwen, and come to take Kaoslel back to a life that he had decided he no longer wanted.
He glared at Kuolema. "My mother was allowed to do as she wished."
"Your mother didn't have golden eyes."
"Has it ever occurred to you how ridiculous a system of leadership that is?" said Kaoslel harshly. "Just because someone is born with golden eyes, or green eyes, or whatever the colors of the other Klainai are, you enslave him for the rest of his life in nobility, or what you call nobility? And the others never have a chance to lead, even if they would be good at it?"
Kuolema shrugged lightly. "I didn't invent the Order. I was given orders that you should be brought back. I am going to bring you back."
Kaoslel swallowed. Kuolema had served as an Ender, one of the Council of Arcadia's official assassins, for more than two Ages. There was no way that he could defeat her in a fair battle. And her companion wasn't helping matters.
"Who is this one?" he asked.
The other rider pulled back his hood in answer. Kaoslel blinked. The face beneath was black, but not death Elwen; there was not a revolving pool of liquid in his cheek such as Kuolema bore.
"My name is Doran," the rider said softly. "Of course, I hope, you have heard of me?" He raised his dark eyebrows in polite inquiry. The eyes beneath those brows, though, as golden as Kaoslel's own, glared fully into Kaoslel's, showing nothing as obliging.
Kaoslel couldn't speak. This man was half darkness Elwen, half death Elwen- half soul-eater, half a feeder on life force. He had spurned life in the Deepen Klaina, as well, until Kuolema came and got him. And then he had married her.
"I have indeed heard of you, my lord."
Doran inclined his head gracefully. His eyes were still intent as he raised a hand and stripped off the glove that covered it.
Kaoslel shuddered.
"Heard a great deal about me, I see," said Doran.
"Yes, my lord."
Doran had been born with more power than normal for even a full-blooded death Elwen, though his blood was mixed. Any being he touched bare flesh to bare flesh, save a churni or trotter, would simply die, its body crumbling to black dust. Kaoslel was not sure what the touch would do to him, but he didn't want to find out.
"These are the threats, then?" he asked harshly. "Unless I come back and marry the woman you picked out, then you'll kill me?"
Kuolema nodded, smiling.
"No," said Doran softly.
Kaoslel and Kuolema looked at him at the same time. The death Elwen woman's face was a study. "You said-" she began.
"I said that I wanted to come and talk to him," said Doran mildly, turning and facing her. His mare, Ealantin if Kaoslel remembered the legends correctly, turned with him, facing Kuolema. "You took that the wrong way. I want to persuade him to come back, not threaten him to come back."
Kuolema stared at her husband for a long moment. Then she said, "You have one hour. No more."
Nyla spun, and trotted off into the distance.
Doran smiled for the first time. It was a quiet expression, and Kaoslel thought he must not do it often. He slipped down from Ealantin's back and nodded to Kaoslel, and Kaoslel was a little startled to see that the man was actually shorter than he was. "Shall we walk?"
-I go with him- said Imastia.
Doran looked up at her with another smile, a different one filled with memories. "You may be sure that I have no intention of harming your rider," he said softly. "You could smell it on me if I did."
Imastia scraped at the ground with a hoof again. -I don't like you taking him off alone. I want to come with you-
"No."
Imastia looked at Kaoslel.
Feeling oddly light-headed, Kaoslel shook his head. "No. Stay here, Imastia. I think he does just want to talk to me."
His trotter bared her teeth, but stood still and watched the two Elwens walk away. Ealantin tried to say something, but Kaoslel doubted that Imastia really heard her. Her gaze was still, fiercely, on him.
"What did you want to talk to me about?" Kaoslel asked, when they had gone a far enough distance that Doran couldn't have been worried about the trotters overhearing. There was no special place in sight they were making for. Just more endless, flat, black desert, what the whole of the southern Nymari looked like. "You're going to try to persuade me to come back, I suppose?"
"I am going to tell you what will happen if you don't."
Kaoslel blinked. "That sounds like another threat."
"No. The truth."
Kaoslel stopped walking. "Then tell me this 'truth,' my Lord Doran, and we will see if it makes me return."
Doran didn't look at him. He strolled to a point a little further on, and then spoke softly, his eyes staring into the distance as if he could see something that was invisible to Kaoslel.
"Death is a constant presence in the world. All of us can feel it. The churni are taught early to control that awareness, though, and their whole Order is bent towards making sure that those who might go mad with it are protected. And towards the survival of a race that makes the rest of the world nervous, of course.
"I grew up on my own, without any churni training. I used my gifts to hunt criminals, especially avengers-"
"I am trying to do the same thing."
Doran looked back at him with a faint smile. "And do you realize what you are doing when you do that?"
Kaoslel sighed. "The answer isn't going to be 'killing criminals,' is it?"
"No. I entered a world of death that lies behind this world in order to track those who should be undetectable. You use a different method, I am sure, or perhaps have yet to discover that method. The point is that such gifts take their toll. I never realized the price I was exacting. I hope to make sure that no one else ever exacts that price, or at least knows the consequences of it."
Kaoslel stared at Doran's back. This really wasn't part of the legends. "What are you talking about?"
Doran turned around. Kaoslel took a step back. The other man's golden eyes were burning with a quiet intensity that suddenly made Kaoslel wonder how many murderers had seen those eyes as their last sight in Arcadia.
Probably quite a few. The Lord Doran had been hunting for more than a thousand years, or so said the tales.
"Do you trust me enough to take my hand?" he asked, and extended it.
Kaoslel swallowed. He looked at Doran's eyes. They revealed nothing but that intensity he had already noted. He looked back down, took a deep breath, and then moved forward and clasped the extended hand.
The world changed around him.
Kaoslel screamed aloud. The place where they stood now was lit in a strange black-red light, the ground looking as though it were covered with a mantle of withered autumn leaves, the sky the color of a rotting muscle, the stink of corruption and decay and the scent of blood everywhere.
He looked at Doran, trying to distract himself.
That was actually worse.
Every inch of Doran's body was lit with black flame, and he blazed as though he were the most important thing inside this strange world. His eyes looked brighter, wilder. He sniffed the air, and then laughed aloud. Kaoslel shuddered. The laughter was the laughter of hidden things in the shadows he had feared as a child.
Doran looked at him. "Do not worry," he said softly. "I will not harm you. I wish to show you what I caused in this world."
He turned, and Kaoslel followed his gaze, to the east- or at least the direction that would have been east back in his own, sane world. He was not sure what the name for it was here.
It was horrible.
Black flares of flame burned there, casting off red smoke, the stink of them so awful that Kaoslel could feel his eyes watering, although the nearest was miles away. He had never before felt evil in his life. He had been sure that he hadn't. But this was evil, was wrongness-
He felt himself falling forward.
Doran caught and cradled him, setting him easily back on his feet. "I caused those," he said softly. "For every place I murdered a man or woman I tracked in this world- for every death in this world of death- there burns something like that."
"Why?" asked Kaoslel, choking. "Why did you do that?"
"I didn't know at the time what I was doing," said Doran simply. "I saw this world differently then. The Order trains eyes to see this world as part of the world of the living, though very few non-churni ever see it at all. But I separated the worlds out, and I brought life into a pure place where it was never meant to intrude. Life, and the concerns of life."
"Will it- does it- affect the world of the living?" It seemed to Kaoslel that it must, but he had never been here before, and so he had to ask.
"Yes." Doran's gaze was unmoving. "I am doing what I can to repair the damage. It is a very long process, very slow. I have done evil deeds, and I am spending the rest of my life in atonement for them. I do not wish to see the same thing happen to another mixed-blood who might have the same gifts that I do." His eyes were still wild and happy, contrasting oddly with his words. "Come with me, and come back to the Order to be trained to see this world. You do not have to marry yet, if you would prefer not to.
"The Order is for the preservation of the death Elwen race, of course. The rest of Elwenkind would destroy us if they could. But it also protects the world from death Elwens. You left us still too young to learn that. But you could do harm to the world if you are not trained. Come back. If you still want to leave when your training is completed, then you can do so."
Kaoslel closed his eyes. Too much death, he had told Imastia. But what damage he might cause to the life he loved-
Slowly, he nodded.
When he opened his eyes, Doran was smiling at him. Kaoslel caught his breath. The wildness was gone out of the Deepen lord's eyes. There was nothing there but simple happiness, and as he watched, the awfulness of the world around him slowly faded, until they were back in the Nymari he knew.
"That was the final test," said Doran very softly. "Kuolema didn't think you could be persuaded to come back at all. But I hoped that you could, and that you would prove yourself worthy of being a noble of Deepen."
"I- I don't understand. I thought they wanted to make me a noble because I was born with Deepen eyes."
Doran leaned forward. Kaoslel found that he couldn't take his eyes from those piercing ones.
"That is so," said Doran softly. "But being a churni noble means more than that. Our existence is a problem for the world. It cannot accept us, and it cannot reject us. With us, the world of death behind the world of life came into being. That means that we have the responsibility to guard and protect both worlds- the one that we birthed and the one that we harmed."
Kaoslel shook his head. "If anyone had told me that-"
"That was the test," said Doran. "To see if you would accept the duty with your heart as well as your mind." Gently, his hand rose, brushing Kaoslel's cheek, and still did not turn him to dust. "There is still much that you have to learn. But showing you the fires was the only way I could think of that might convince you."
"It did."
Doran turned, and started to walk towards the waiting deathtrotter mares. There were three of them now, Kaoslel saw. Kuolema must have gotten tired of waiting for them and gone back to the other two.
"My lord, can I ask you something?"
"Of course," said Doran, not glancing back.
"How do you live with the regret and guilt for what you did to the world?"
Doran stopped. He stood there without looking back. His voice, when it emerged, was very slow, as though he were picking through his thoughts even as he spoke them.
"I could say that I didn't know I was doing it. But that is no excuse. The evil I did is too horrible to deserve that kind of excuse. I could say that my healing is helping. But it will be years before I see results as yet. I could say that Kuolema and Ealantin and the Order sustain and comfort me after I was alone so much of my life. But I would still be left with the burden.
"In truth, my Lord Kaoslel, I believe that I don't live with those emotions. I continue to do what I may to heal the damage, and in return I sometimes get a few hours of peace or joy."
He walked away.
Kaoslel stood there for only a moment, his heart pounding, his eyes shuddering with tears, and then went after him.
__________________________________________
That night, when Doran went alone out of the camp, Kuolema told Kaoslel not to be concerned. "He often does this. He never harms himself, and he always comes back in the morning."
Kaoslel was not satisfied. He noticed that Ealantin left the camp silently, without fuss, and watched her rider.
He went with her.
Doran was simply sitting on the ground, looking away to the west. His hair was whipping around his shoulders in the wind, which he didn't seem to notice. His back was turned to them, and his posture was still, almost relaxed save for a certain vague tension that could have meant almost anything.
-I wonder what he thinks about- said Ealantin. Her voice was soft, just like the mood of the night. -I never know-
Kaoslel wondered, himself, for a moment.
Then he remembered the wildness in Doran's eyes, when they had stood in the world of death; the intense joy with which he had sniffed the air, like a predator come back to its home ground at last.
For a moment, he glimpsed what it would be like, to bear both the responsibility of knowing that you had to repair terrible evil, evil that you yourself had caused-
And what it would be like, knowing all the while that the magic you were born with was still calling to you-
The vision fled.
"I don't think I would want to know," he said softly.
Ealantin stared at him, then snorted and trotted towards her rider. Doran put up a hand to rest on her nose without glancing at her.
Left alone again, Kaoslel shivered once more.
A nose nudged him in the back, and he almost shrieked as he turned around and saw Imastia behind him. He wrapped an arm around her neck, and looked at the pair on the plain once more before turning back to her. "Don't ever leave me," he pleaded with her.
Imastia looked as if she wanted to ask questions, but she didn't say anything as she bowed her nose to rest on his hair, other than -I won't-
