Stealers' Sky

"But Savankala wants it here!" Rashan answered, his voice rising 'n pitch, like the wind. He wrung his hands. "What-can I do?"

She grabbed the front of his robes again and pulled him close. The wind was screaming now, as if it were trying to drown her voice and stop her words. "Dig that thing up!" she ordered. "The Bright Father rejects it. The Fire in God's Eye can't dwell in the same house where it's buried. Purify this place. Use every priest you have. And prepare the mounting as swiftly as you can!"

"How much time?" Rashan wailed.

Chenaya gazed at the festering sky. "Very little," she answered with a cold shiver. "Do what I tell you," she charged. "The diamond must stay with me until you're ready. I'll send Dayrne and some men to help with the digging. He'll act as a messenger, also. Send him to me at the private temple by the Red Foal River as soon as you're done!"

Rashan ran back inside to organize his priests, and Chenaya ran to her horse. There was no sign of Reyk. The dust stung her eyes as she leaped astride her mount and raced away. The streets were almost empty, but still she nearly rode down an unwary pedestrian. He cursed, and she cursed, and then she raced on.

People were huddled in doorways, in nooks and alleys, under carts, behind barrels and crates, all cowering down, faces half covered with shawls or cloaks or collars. On the docks, ships and timbers groaned and creaked. Sails snapped like angry whips, and riggings hummed wildly. Rising whitecaps danced on the surface of the sea.

Chenaya sped through the Gate of Gold, at last catching sight of Reyk as the falcon followed overhead. In no time she was at the southern gate of Land's End. She pounded furiously on it with her fists. "Let me in!" she shouted. "Let me in!"

The stablemaster opened the gate for her. She raced past him without explanation and rode for the training fields. There she found Dayrne ru

"Take as many men as can leave right now!" she told him loudly enough for everyone to hear. His jaw dropped when he heard her speak. Then he snapped it shut. He knew her well, and he knew by her face alone when she was deadly serious. "Take shovels and do what Rashan tells you." She started to turn away, then paused long enough to add, "Some of you may have to hold off Walegrin and his men. Don't let him interfere."

She sped away, taking the memory of Dayme's sudden grin as she crossed the field and pulled up before the armory. She dismounted. The door was unlocked. Rushing past the racks of wooden training weapons, she drew down four good swords with sheaths, whose weight and balance suited her. With the one she wore at her belt, that made five. She prayed they would be enough.

Carrying the swords under one arm, she mounted clumsily again. Reyk sprang from the armory's roof edge and screamed shrilly to let her know he was still with her. She rode off, weaving among the banks of huge training machines, casting a glance toward the stables, pleased to see Dayrne's force already assembling there.

At the east wall of Land's End was another double-doored gate with a wooden bar. Without dismounting, she wrestled with it, nearly dropping her armload of weapons, but managing. She sped through, leaving the doors to bang in the wind.

The waters of the Red Foal lashed the shoreline furiously. She paid little attention, but rode straight for her private temple to Savankala. It stood, white and beautiful and open-roofed, a circular arrangement of eight slender columns, just above the shore. She jumped off the horse, clutching her swords.

The sky churned above her, as if she were the center of a great disturbance. It was not her, though. It was the diamond. Forces were marshaling, forces that would steal the diamond back or destroy it. The priests of Ranke had not suffered the magic-stealing destruction of the Nisibisi Globes of Power, which had robbed Sanctuary of so much arcane vitality. Their magic was still quite formidable. Already, in the strangely colored clouds, she could feel things probing, searching, taking shape.

Here, at her own temple, she stood the best chance of facing whatever shape their magic took. Also, out here beyond the city wall, there was far less threat to the townspeople. Chenaya ran up the three steps, across the round marble floor, to the small altar. Twin braziers stood at either end, kept always burning, tended each day by Rashan. She laid her swords down upon the altar and added to them the one she wore. She cast away their sheaths, exposing the bright blades.

Chenaya lifted each blade and prayed over it, then shoved it deep into the coals of a brazier. There was a small chest near one end of the altar where Rashan kept the fragrant incense, kasabahr, favored by the sungod. She scooped two bountiful handfuls and cast them on the coals. Smoke and sweet scent rose swirling up, and she prayed again, consecrating the blades in the heat and fumes, and with her prayers.

The air screamed suddenly. Out of the vortex of clouds, a pair of demons came shrieking down, the vanguard of an army taking form in the demented sky above the temple. The demons' eyes burned redly, and they reached for her as they dived, slavering, fanged mouths yawning.

Chenaya gave a scream of her own, snatched one of the swords from the coals. The blade shone, endowed with a white heat the braziers alone could never have achieved. It trailed smoke and light as she swung at the first demon. A red flash erupted, the demon wailed in pain, darting aside, and the blade's light dimmed a little.

The second demon flew at her. Again she swung, Striking at the neck as she sidestepped, and again there came a red flash as sword touched demon flesh. Twice more she chopped. Each time the flash nearly blinded her, and the sword dimmed a bit more. The demon emitted a piercing cry of pain. It seemed no more to the eye than a creature of gas and cloud, but Chenaya felt the impact of her blows. It clutched its vaporous body suddenly, and with taloned fingers, as if to end its agony, it ripped itself apart and discorporated.

Chenaya had no time to cheer her victory. A rain of demons fell upon her then. She swung her blade in a dazzling arc, driving them back, striking a clawed hand, severing it in a red flash. It dissolved into nothingness before it hit the ground, and the demon wailed. Others pressed her, and her sword dimmed, each blow having less and less effect.

Abruptly, the glow wavered and faded from her blade altogether, and it was just a sword again, its metal scorched and blackened. Before she could react, a demon sprang at her. One hand tangled in her hair, and she screamed with pain, while its other hand ripped open her chiton and closed on the purse and the diamond within. Chenaya tried to push it off, and though her fists beat on nothing tangible, still it struggled and clung on, grappling with the leather thong about her neck.

Then a sword swung down, passing harmlessly through the creature's skull. Chenaya twisted enough to see Daphne, crouched on the altar and swinging ferociously, but ineffectively, at the hideous shapes that swam around her.

"The consecrated swords!" she cried to Daphne. "Use those!"

Daphne understood at once. She drew a blade and swung it in one practiced motion, and a burst of scarlet erupted over her head as a demon died. The red glow reflected spectacularly on the silver links of the manica she wore on her sword arm. "Nice!" the princess muttered. With a weird smile she chopped at the demon wrestling Chenaya, slaying it.

Chenaya spun toward a brazier, grabbing a pair of swords. She whirled them twice, sectioning a creature as it reached for her. Cold hands raked suddenly at her back, and she cried with pain and despair as the severed thongs gave way, and the purse fell to the floor. The diamond spilled out, glowing like a compressed beam of sunlight.