did.”
That was when the last and worst convulsion started. Walls shook. Stone chips and splinters rained from the ceiling. The floor danced. There was nothing for Segnbora to grab for support but the Dragon’s head. A brief feeling of hot stone—
— and the next moment, her head burst open from the inside. Segnbora knew how it felt to share her mind with another consciousness, but this was nothing like her experiences in the Precincts; those decorous, sliding melds of one Rodmistress-novice with another, each always wary of disturbing the delicately balanced economy of the other’s mind. This was like a boulder dropping into a bucket—a brutal invasion that smashed her against the borders of her self and threatened to smother her.
Strangling, agonized, she flailed about inside for room to think. There was none. Her inner spaces were crowded with otherness, a multitude of ruthless presences straining and seething in intolerable confinement—minds that beat at her, buffeting her like wings; painful thoughts that gnawed at her like alien jaws; strange memories that stalked through her past, promising her a horrifying and incomprehensible future. The Dragon’s imminent death—
No! Segnbora screamed. She pushed desperately away without knowing for sure what she was pushing back from, but ready to do anything, even die, to avoid it. She fell and fell, yet the images followed her inexorably as a doom, becoming more and more real, happening again, happening forever. I don’t want to remember! she screamed, but the words wouldn’t even come out right. Instead, a white-hot burning and a strange language took her by the throat, twisting the plea into a wracking curse: ‘sta, tauëh-stá ‘ae mnek-kej, mnek-kej...!
A roar of condemnation went up in the stifling, crowded darkness; the damp cold dirt rushed up toward her face. Then mercifully the fall ended in a pain-colored flash that killed the presences, and the memories, and, Segnbora hoped, her too....
***
FOUR
“ Are you going to kill me?” said the child to the Dragon.
“ Kill you?” The Dragon smiled at him. “Certainly not until we have been introduced.”
Tales for Opening Night, Nia d’Eleth
The darkness tears wide, splitting as hewn skin does when the sword strikes.
This is Etachnë field, all one gloomy sodden mass of misery—lead-gray above with clouds that have been pouring rain for three days now, dun and black and red below with the scattered bodies of the slain. The stench is incredible. Those who fight do so with their faces wrapped, and fall as often to the sick miasma of the air as to Reaver arrows. Fyrd are harrying the fringes of the battlefield, devouring the dead. A few hundred feet away, a maw, a horwolf and a nadder are busily dismembering a fallen woman. Her surcoat was once Darthene midnight blue. Now it’s mostly red-brown.
She gulps down sourness for the hundredth time and stares across the misty valley. Somewhere over there the Reavers have retreated into cover, regrouping for the next attack. There are only about a thousand of them left, but those are more than enough to break the Darthene defense at the other end of the valley and let them out into the open lands. Once that happens they’ll begin their pillaging at Etachnë and leave the country burning behind them as far as Wendwen. Around her, the other Darthenes holding the gap are huddled, soaked through, hungry, outnumbered, waiting.
The Rodmistress is dead, so they have no idea when reinforcements may be coming. Segnbora is the only sorcerer left, and over the past few days her sorceries have been going progressively flatter—a starved sorcerer is good for very little. It was all she could do yesterday to stop the miserable rain for a little while; today her head still aches with the backlash. Oh, food, she thinks. Just oatcakes and milk— She stops herself, does a brief mind-exercise to calm down.
It doesn’t work. Her partner
That was when the last and worst convulsion started. Walls shook. Stone chips and splinters rained from the ceiling. The floor danced. There was nothing for Segnbora to grab for support but the Dragon’s head. A brief feeling of hot stone—
— and the next moment, her head burst open from the inside. Segnbora knew how it felt to share her mind with another consciousness, but this was nothing like her experiences in the Precincts; those decorous, sliding melds of one Rodmistress-novice with another, each always wary of disturbing the delicately balanced economy of the other’s mind. This was like a boulder dropping into a bucket—a brutal invasion that smashed her against the borders of her self and threatened to smother her.
Strangling, agonized, she flailed about inside for room to think. There was none. Her inner spaces were crowded with otherness, a multitude of ruthless presences straining and seething in intolerable confinement—minds that beat at her, buffeting her like wings; painful thoughts that gnawed at her like alien jaws; strange memories that stalked through her past, promising her a horrifying and incomprehensible future. The Dragon’s imminent death—
No! Segnbora screamed. She pushed desperately away without knowing for sure what she was pushing back from, but ready to do anything, even die, to avoid it. She fell and fell, yet the images followed her inexorably as a doom, becoming more and more real, happening again, happening forever. I don’t want to remember! she screamed, but the words wouldn’t even come out right. Instead, a white-hot burning and a strange language took her by the throat, twisting the plea into a wracking curse: ‘sta, tauëh-stá ‘ae mnek-kej, mnek-kej...!
A roar of condemnation went up in the stifling, crowded darkness; the damp cold dirt rushed up toward her face. Then mercifully the fall ended in a pain-colored flash that killed the presences, and the memories, and, Segnbora hoped, her too....
***
FOUR
“ Are you going to kill me?” said the child to the Dragon.
“ Kill you?” The Dragon smiled at him. “Certainly not until we have been introduced.”
Tales for Opening Night, Nia d’Eleth
The darkness tears wide, splitting as hewn skin does when the sword strikes.
This is Etachnë field, all one gloomy sodden mass of misery—lead-gray above with clouds that have been pouring rain for three days now, dun and black and red below with the scattered bodies of the slain. The stench is incredible. Those who fight do so with their faces wrapped, and fall as often to the sick miasma of the air as to Reaver arrows. Fyrd are harrying the fringes of the battlefield, devouring the dead. A few hundred feet away, a maw, a horwolf and a nadder are busily dismembering a fallen woman. Her surcoat was once Darthene midnight blue. Now it’s mostly red-brown.
She gulps down sourness for the hundredth time and stares across the misty valley. Somewhere over there the Reavers have retreated into cover, regrouping for the next attack. There are only about a thousand of them left, but those are more than enough to break the Darthene defense at the other end of the valley and let them out into the open lands. Once that happens they’ll begin their pillaging at Etachnë and leave the country burning behind them as far as Wendwen. Around her, the other Darthenes holding the gap are huddled, soaked through, hungry, outnumbered, waiting.
The Rodmistress is dead, so they have no idea when reinforcements may be coming. Segnbora is the only sorcerer left, and over the past few days her sorceries have been going progressively flatter—a starved sorcerer is good for very little. It was all she could do yesterday to stop the miserable rain for a little while; today her head still aches with the backlash. Oh, food, she thinks. Just oatcakes and milk— She stops herself, does a brief mind-exercise to calm down.
It doesn’t work. Her partner
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