Meb lifted the twisted circlet of bladder-wrack off her head and stepped down the sloping beach to the foam-laced top of the surge. The sea was still gray in the new light of morning. The sun, still a half red orb on the eastern horizon, hazed by the wind-whipped sea-spray that trailed the breakers, gave everything curiously sharp outlines, even the flight of curlews moving in a ragged vee above the water. A wave came rushing up the stones, sending the cobbles hissing and clattering. Meb put the circlet into the water, and realized that she'd misjudged the strength of the wave. The water came half way up her boots. From being icy cold when she touched it, it was suddenly as warm as blood, and tingling. Meb was aware of a curious whistling and ringing in her ears, like the sound of the sea being somehow echoed through a thousand distant bells. Just for a moment she felt the race of the tide, the swirl of the water and the heartbeat of the waves, as if the sea were part of her and she, part of it.
"Groblek said to say he misses you," said Meb, feeling mildly foolish.
Beside her the pup sneezed. Snorted salt water. That didn't stop him biting the wave that was attacking her feet again. A dog couldn't be tolerating this stuff even if it was excessively salty! He'd teach it a lesson!
It did make her laugh and break the spell. The sun had risen just a fraction more, and the sea was bright with it. Or bright with something. It seemed bigger and wilder somehow.
The merrow did too. He was changing back into the blue-skinned tassel-finned creature she'd first met. He bowed respectfully. "For that, the thanks of all of the waters and all that live in them. I'll bid you farewell, for now."
And he slipped effortlessly away beneath the tumble of foam of an incoming wave.
Meb looked at the circlet of dried seaweed. It wasn't so well-dried any more. But it still looked pretty much like any other piece of seaweed that might have been washed up after a winter storm.
"Well," said Finn. "Unless you want to keep getting your feet wet and make your scrap of a dog even wetter, and swallow half the sea, maybe you'd better come back up to the caves. There is bit of driftwood there and what with the spray blowing up the cliff the smoke will be lost. And after that," he pointed at the dripping loop of seaweed, "there are going to be magic workers from here to far Prettisy Island wondering what is going on, anyway."
So Meb came away from the sea, away from the oneness and the power and deep currents of it, and was showered by the pup, who celebrated her return to common sense by dancing around her and shaking.
Finn was a wizard when it came to getting even an unpromising damp salt-encrusted pile of debris and flotsam to burn. He yawned. It was the first time Meb had seen him so obviously tired. "Tide's coming in, and this beach will be covered. But the top end of the cave stays dry, or not more than spray-damp. Sorry, Scrap. I need a rest. Then we need a boat."
Meb had noticed that there was not a sail to be seen. That was unusual unless it was stormy. Yet it seemed a good brisk fishing day to her.
The Lyr had been aware, at some basic level, that something had happened to one of itself. When news came, via the shocked priest of the Hamarbarit grove, that not only was the sister-Lyr that he had been with destroyed, but that Haborym had been destroyed too, Lyr knew fear. And, as near a plant-lifeform could rage—a sort of cold, bitter anger. They needed the human mage. But the plant-lifeform feared humans as well. She had every intent of seeing the human destroyed the moment that their work was done. Humans were near defenseless against the fire-being kind, and this had been part of the great agreement reached between them.
Still, human reportage could not be trusted. A Lyr was dispatched from her grove to go and see how much of the story was mere human exaggeration. They were very prone to that.
What came back frightened the Lyr even more.
Emissaries were hastily sent out.
"The alvar ships certainly always made other vessels look clumsy and slow," said Cyllarus to Ixion, his companion of the day, as they paced the low dock of Port Lapith.
"They're elegant enough." Even in today's light breeze the long hulled alvar vessel glided across the water. It was not by chance, naturally, that two of the centaurs-folk's leading generals were on the quay-side. Yesterday had been wind-still. They knew what the swan-ship carried.
They waited as ropes were cast ashore and the vessel was secured. Soon the gangplank was lowered and that in turn was used to put a horse-ramp in place. Soon an alvar prince, resplendent in sky blue silk hose, a delicately engraved silver mail-shirt, with a midnight blue surcoat embroidered in silver over that, rode out on a spirited gray horse, with silver bosses on her fine tack . . . And nearly fell off, as the fine mare found the half-horses very much outside of her experience.
"Prince Gywndar," said Ixion in greeting, as the alvar tried to keep the last shred of his dignity intact by at least staying in the saddle.
The use of his name was almost the last distracting straw, and Gywndar had to grab the saddle to stop his suitably grandiose arrival in the lands of the centaurs from ending with a splash in the harbor. But, like all of the alvar he was good with horses and did eventually calm his steed. "Greetings," he said. "I seek urgent counsel with the leaders of the centaur peoples, our ancient friends."
"Speak, Prince." It was true enough that the alvar had always avoided conflict with the centaurs. Although to call them ancient friends was a little disingenuous.
"Take me to your leaders. I must speak with them," said Gywndar, tilting his head back and trying—and failing—to look down on them a little. They were taller than he was.
"We do not have hierarchical ranks as you do, Prince. In the herds Cyllarus and I are counted as the leaders of Phalanxes. I think it is us that you wish to speak to. That is why we are here."
The alvar prince looked at the two big centaurs facing him. Ixion had made a study of alvar kind. If the centaurs had been setting out to make things easy, they could have worn some kind of insignia or symbol of rank. Faced with two bronzed torsos, and no clothing at all, unless you counted the utilitarian weapons of war they carried, how was the alvar to have guessed? After a few seconds of looking into their faces he looked around and said awkwardly. "Um. Here? On the dockside? There are humans unloading loading crates of fish over there."
Cyllarus nodded. "We do not have palaces as you alvar do. We speak where we meet, Prince. What is it that you wish to talk to us about?"
Gywndar was by now thoroughly off his stride, and discomforted. Which, if he had been a centaur . . . or even a fire-being or a dragon, he would have realized was the purpose of their actions. But the alvar had fixed ideas about protocols, and had become very set in their ways. "Erm. Well, I come as an emissary. Can I present my credentials to someone?"
"We know who you are, Prince Gywndar," said Ixion. "Your coming was foretold."
"One forgets that the centaurs are so adept at reading the future," said Gywndar, favoring them with his best smile.
"We have not forgotten that the alvar are so silver-tongued. We are here to listen," said Cyllarus—which was true. They were.
"I've come to tell you of portentous and tragic happenings and to beg for your aid. I am the prince of Yenfar. We are the guardians of an ancient treasure . . ."
"The Angmarad of the merrows," said Ixion.
"Er. Yes. Anyway, there has been some kind of vile conspiracy. A conspiracy between some humans, the merrow, and, we are sad to say, a renegade dragon, to steal this sacred trust."
"They have returned it to the water. The shock of it, and the renewal of the sea, was felt everywhere," Cyllarus said.
"No, we recovered it. A large group of the thieves were caught with it in their possession. Nonetheless it was a breach of trust. A breach of the ancient compact. They must be dealt with before they try again. This means war!"
"Why?" asked the two centaurs, together after a moment of silence.
The alvar princeling opened and closed his mouth at them, like a fish out of water. "The balance of powers, the merrow and, and, and a human!" he squeaked eventually.
"Not to mention a dragon," said Ixion, controlling a desire to laugh.
Gywndar drew himself up. "The dragons rally behind us to show that this was just one renegade. They are our staunch allies. We are now gathering all the peoples to deal with them."
"All of them?"
"Yes," said Gywndar firmly. "Well, some of them. We're sending emissaries to the merrows to demand that they turn over the thieves for justice. And we'll give them a good lesson."
"I meant all of the dragons. Our scrying of the dark glass of the future shows dragon fighting dragon, and the lands of Tasmarin aflame."
"Lord Zuamar gathers the great ones to him. We'll soon weed out the handful of traitors. They and the merrows and their human allies will be eliminated. Will you join us?" demanded Gywndar.
Ixion tried reason, although he was sure that it would fail. "The merrows' sea does not threaten your forest and mountain home, nor our high grasslands. The war we see coming is an evil and ugly one, where friend will slay friend, and brother will turn on brother."
Gywndar lifted a face set in flinty determination. "We have no choice. I had not wished to tell you this, but the human thief is also a worker of magic. That must be dealt with. The dragons will give no respite until that is done. At this stage we hold them in check, barely. But they will destroy every human and every human holding until they find them. They will not spare the centaurs."
Cyllarus turned to Ixion. They looked at each other in silence remembering what they had seen in the dark pool. Then they turned to Gywndar. "We will gird for war. But we are a peaceful species. It will take us a great deal of time. We beg you to hold the dragons and your fellow alvar in check for as long as possible."
Gywndar looked at the two centaurs. "Shall we sign a treaty? Agree to timeframes?"
"No," said Cyllarus. "And in the end we foresee it being to no avail. The black dragon continues to work his destruction. We can see nearly all of it."
"What black dragon?" asked Gywndar.
"The one who is entwined in all the fate-lines. Can we help you to your ship?" asked Ixion, meaningfully. He wished again that his brother Actaeon might have been here to deal with the alvar. He had been better at it, which was why he was now in exile. For a centaur, death was easier than being apart from the herd.
The conspirators met at a request from the sprites. It was in a neutral spot here on Vorlian's Starsey, not far from one of the sprites' great dancing-glades. The centaur had to make do with a hand-mirror. He lived, Vorlian gathered, a very lonely existence in the meadows in the rocky north of the island. Lord Rennalinn had come across from the nearby Maygn isle—Vorlian wondered what his dragon overlord, or, for that matter, the alvar prince to whom Rennalinn gave fealty, would feel about this meeting. The alvar of Starsey were few in number, and, Vorlian gathered, not of a particularly noble lineage. Their duke was a bluff fellow of no particular intellect, who did his work for Vorlian well. Vorlian wondered why he'd never considered him for this role instead of the pretentious Rennalinn. As far as he could remember, he'd been introduced to this alvar by the sprites, when the panic about the collapse of the first tower was still raw.
There was a new visitor. Haborym had always seemed—and the dragon was aware that it was probably nothing more than a seeming—tall and affable.
This was one of the energy creatures, but it was not Haborym.
He was taller, and it would seem that his flames burned even hotter.
"Who is this?" asked Vorlian, his voice neutral. It was said that, yes, in open conflict, dragonfire, with the liberation of energy from any form of matter, was the one thing creatures of smokeless flame struggled to endure, besides immersion in water. The alvar were generally quite at good magical repulsion of the creatures of heat too, although Vorlian was not sure how they did it. But fire-beings were even more strict of rank and hierarchy than alvar, so it was unlikely that Haborym's master would not know of this.
"This is Belet," explained the sprite. "Haborym has become discorporate."
"What?"
"His energies have dissipated. You would say that he is dead," said Belet. "I have been sent to replace him. To see that the great goal is pushed towards its desired conclusion."
"The human mage killed him. She destroyed one of the parts of us too. She has allied herself with the water-people. And, also, we believe, with a dragon, although our acolyte says he saw a tall human with her as well. And there were traces of dvergar magics on the sister they killed. It seems she has been found by, and co-opted to, the cause of those who oppose us," said the sprite.
Vorlian sighed. "And to make matters more complicated there are several dragons now calling for the destruction of all humans, and also any dragons or others who try to stop them. Have our plans gone awry in any other ways?"
The sprite nodded. "Yes, Haborym's thieves succeeded in getting the merrow treasure. Unfortunately the alvar have recovered the treasure. They gear for war with the merrows."
"Awkward," said the centaur, admiring himself. "Merrow magic is effective on alvar, but not the other way around. The merrows are not going to be impressed, I think. But the sprites can deal with that, eh?"
"If we choose," said the sprite.
"And do you?" asked Vorlian.
"There is a price to all things," said the sprite.
"And the question of the dvergar, who in turn are beholden to the merrows to keep the dvergar hammer safe. It's all very beautifully balanced," said the centaur Actaeon.
"Perhaps you need to think about that bag of yours," said Duke Belet. "Now, Lord Vorlian, they're gathering their forces. Obviously they cannot be allowed to destroy our human quarry until we have done with her. In the interests of peace and security can we rely on you to raise some delays? We have some forces of our own. Besides those of our kind we have armies at our disposal who can fight delaying actions if need be."
"Do you propose to let me lead our world into war?" asked Vorlian dryly. He'd planned to defend his own. But . . . what other forces? Armies were not raised and trained overnight. Armies of which species? This smelled. And not of anything wholesome. And yet . . . what other way forward was there?
"Surely it won't come to that," said Belet. "Once they realize the weight of forces arrayed against them, they'll back down."
Vorlian suspected that Zuamar had no idea what the words "back down" meant. But . . .
"I'll look into it," he said.
"We arm our worshipers," said the sprite. "And the alvar have come calling on the Mother grove. Some, like Prince Gywndar, call for war, a war of punishment against the merrows. Other alvar beg us to hold back. We have told both sides that we favor them."
So much for the deep trustworthiness of the sprites, thought Vorlian. The alvar seemed predisposed to believe whatever the sprites told them, but he didn't. Still, he had a goal, and he needed the sprites.