Jane S. Fancher - Dance of the Rings 3 - Ring of Destiny.pdf - Jane S. Fancher - margozap

Prelude

They made love for the first time on a gilt-edged dream

beneath a shadow of doom.

Fingertips extend. Iridescent motes ripple and flow, co-

alesce as skin touches skin, flare as fingers intertwine.

With separation, even death, an imminent probability,

they'd packed a lifetime of experience into one brief night.

Mouths explore, caressing, savoringremembering.

They'd come to know one another that night, to a depth

no poet had ever dared to imagine.

Two Minds brush with a feather's light touch . . .

Her thoughts had smelted of raspberries that night, rasp-

berries dusted with cinnamon and the faintest hint of clove.

. . . then merge into a unified awareness, as two Bodies

become one in the most ancient of mortal dances.

That scentnot truly scent at all, but rather some essen-

tial radiance that bypassed nose and tongue altogether and

plunged straight to his heartthat essence filled him now,

heart, mind, and soul. It was indisputable evidence that she

was truly, impossibly alive and in his arms, and not some

guilt-driven memory come to torment his dreams.

They made love for the second time on a moss-covered

hillside, while a new leythium node blossomed deep in the

earth beneath them.

They were little more than novicesshe a Khoratumin

ringdancer, he with a past as black as the hair on his head

but the love they shared transcended fumbling, uncertain

hands and shyly diverted eyes, and as they merged, one

into the other, experience ceased to have meaning. There

was only...

Need.

Desire.

Joy.

The glittering false dawn of ley-touched mountain air tin-

gled against their skin. Music born of the crystalline web,

steadily evolving in the caves below, filled their minds.

Life emerged in those caverns. The very essence of the

earth gained form under the impact of the unbridled energy

that bathed this instant in time and this tiny spot of earth. It

was energy focused, in part, by the lovers' simple presence.

And as the very ground beneath them surged and re-

ceded with slow undulationas if the mountain itself

breathedthey explored those indescribable places, both

mental and physical, where Self held no meaning.

Where existence was a deluge of . . .

Anticipation...

Sensation...

Consummation.

Release.

Mikhyel.

My name is Mikhyel.

Isolation.

She . . . is . . . Temorii.

And the mountain stopped breathing.

Chapter One

Night gave way reluctantly to morning. The glitter in the

misty air confused the transition, making ghosts of the rows

of field tents, corpses of the blanket-wrapped bodies lit-

tering the ground outside the tents.

Assuming, of course, those erstwhile soldiers weren't, in

fact, dead and that Ganfrion of No Family and No Node

wasn't the only man still living on this hell-blasted moun-

tainsidea mountainside with the unmitigated gall to ap-

pear, in dawn's light, as if it were a perfectly ordinary

mountain meadow bathed in a perfectly ordinary Khora-

mali summer morning.

But hellfire had filled that deceptively innocent sky last

night. Throughout the midnight hours, blasts of energy that

owed nothing to the honest blaze of gunpowder or the ex-

hilarating song of steel had blazed an unnatural iridescent

web from the northeast to southwest: that was to say, be-

tween the cities of Khoratum to Rhomatum, as any man

here knew. It had been a battle between node cities, more

specifically, a battle between Towers, a battle the likes of

which he had never heard, a battle in which these men had

had no part, but a battle that, in its aftermath, had rained

who-knew-what down on their heads all night, here in the

open as they'd slept . . . having been given license by their

commanding officer, Deymorin Rhomandi dunMheric, the

Rhomandi himself, to leave their underground haven.

License to leave when they damnwell should have been

ordered to stay in the limestone caverns nearly encircling

the campgrounds until the world was normal again. Why

else had they chosen this cave-riddled spot for their semi-

permanent base camp all those months ago?

Lightning, a part of him answered his own question. He'd

been here when they'd laid out this camp, begun its two

permanent structures, the field hospital and the granary.

They'd had no idea, not even the slightest suspicion, that

they'd need protection against anything other than the wild

storms that raged regularly in the Khoramali. They'd set

the lines of the camp relative to the caves with those

wicked storms in mind, protecting their supplies from deer

and lightning, not . . . leythium.

That's what they had had in mind, those men who had

located and surveyed this site, but he wouldn't hazard a

guess as to what the Rhomandi had suspected. Not

anymore.

Not after last night.

Ganfrion propped himself against a marker post that pro-

claimed this block of tents the Aerie of the Seventh Eagle

and scanned the rows, seeking any sign of movement, any

hint of the sort of stirring that ought to occur among sea-

soned troops as the sun's first rays gilded the snow-capped

tops of the mountains. Never mind most had lain awake

watching that web disintegrate into sparkling motes of en-

ergy, motes that had drifted down from the sky hovering

and darting and floating on a breeze like a billion fireflies

on Midsummer's Eve.

And this morning . . . the bodies lay still as death.

The cough that had plagued him since long before the

world ended threatened, and he slaved it off with a long

pull from the flask he carried. Stolen, that flask, or given

to him sometime last night before men turned to corpses.

He honestly couldn't recall how it had come into his posses-

sion. He only recalled wanting a drink, badly, and that flask

arriving in his hand in a moment of darkness between one

heartbeat and the nextmuch as he had arrived in this

camp last night. One moment, he'd been gasping his last

in the middle of the Khoratum Maze, his back braced

against a wooden door, the dancer he'd gone to rescue

huddled against his side; the next, he'd been .here on the

leyroad side of the camp, the dancer still at his side and

his back to the earthen fortification, his feet hanging in a

half-dug trencha day's ride from that maze under the best

of circumstances.

At least, he'd assumed it was the same night. The tower

battle had ceasedbefore or after that final moment in the

maze, he couldn't swear tobut the web in the sky had

only just begun to disintegrate. The moon was still full.

And it was just himself and the dancer, both as immobile

as they'd been in the maze. Time had passed; the leythium

motes had drenched them, and eventually he'd found the

strength to gather himself and the dancer up, to stumble

across that waist-high ditch and through the camp to the

caves, miraculously alive, and without a clue as to why that

was true or how he'd come to be here.

Later, after the stand-down had been ordered, with his

precious charge delivered into the proper hands, with every

right to a month's rest, with in 'fact his liege lord's direct

order to celebrate his unexpected aliveness in that man-

nerand still no answers to the mysteries surrounding that

facthe had refused to so much as lie down as long as the

glitter remained in the air. Having cheated Death once that

night, in a Khoratumin alleyway and against honest steel,

he wasn't about to lie down and passively surrender to this

new, insidiously attractive threat. Never mind he'd stood

outside the caves watching the spectacle, as mesmerized as

all the others by the sheer beauty of the moment. He'd

recovered. He'd given in once, but had resisted that subse-

quent effect, that feeling of somnolent well-being that ar-

rived with the glittering rain like a post-orgasmic lethargy.

No, he hadn't fallen asleep, and damned if he hadn't

cheated those unnamed gods of the Ley and the Lightning

yet one more chance at his oft-compromised soul.

Even now, for all he had a tent somewhere in this sea

of tents that seemed doubled and even tripled in size since

his last time here, he refused to seek out that haven, re-

fused to surrender to the very real exhaustion that made

his eyes flicker in and out of focus and his knees turn to

liquid. He refused to surrender because even now he had

to wonder whether the glitter was gone or simply overpow-

ered by the light of dawn. .

Another part of his fractured thinking wondered if per-

haps his personal battle was long since moot. Perhaps, con-

sidering the flask, still full after so many hours and so many

throat-quenching drafts, the gods had won. Perhaps he was

dead after all, and death, for that compromised soul, was

to walk alone, among bodies dreaming the peaceful dreams

of the righteous, bone-deep aches in every joint, sharp

pains everywhere else, wounds that never healed. Never

healing, never dying . . .

With only the flask for company.

He took another swig.

He could liveor not livewith that. He'd made his

decisions in life, and he'd die with the consequences.

The precisely aligned field tents rippled, faded, and

fluxed back into focus before they disappeared altogether.

Caught in mid-stride by this new twist of his singular real-

ity, Ganfrion froze, one foot in the air. But his abused-

possibly-dead body betrayed him. Balance went, knees

gave, and he staggered. His boot encountered an unex-

pected lump. The lump produced a curse, and a glancing

blow caught Ganfrion's already uncertain knees.

His mercenary blood surged, his vision cleared, and

strength returned to his limbs. Battle-honed instincts held

him upright, wavering but readyeager, evenfor a fight.

A good, honest fight would be a welcome relief after the

recent ambiguity of his life.

And proof he wasn't alone in his post-leythium-rain hell.

But the lump ignored him, rolled over and bun-owed

deeper into its cocoon of blankets, returning to its former

corpse-like condition.

Cheated of his fight, Ganfrion responded with the only

sensible alternative. He slid down to sit cross-legged next

to the lump and offered it a drink. The lump rolled over,

produced a heavy-lidded eye that took in the flask, blinked

slowly, and a reluctant grin joined the eye above the

blanket.

"A bit early, don't you think?"

"Can't be." Ganfrion took a carefully measured sip, then

extended the flask again. "Haven't been to bed yet."

The lump's eyes followed his moves, showing a healthy

suspicion, a keen analysis. A good border man, like all

those other lumps lying about. Grant the Rhomandi that

much: luck, good advice, or more sense than Ganfrion had

once attributed to him, he'd recruited a good lot for his

personal guard. Sixseven hundred, perhaps, encamped

here at what amounted to little more than a supply station

in the southwest shadow of Mount Khoratum. Large for a

personal guard, but the Rhomandi hadn't truly gathered

them for his personal protection.

"Maybe you haven't been to bed, but I have." The bor-

der lump made as if to return to sleep. "I'm in it."

"So?" Ganfrion nudged him with a toe. "Hell, man, first

call isn't until midday. The Rhomandi's own order. Break-

fast." He shook the flask suggestively. Eyes and grin above

the blanket edge developed into a stubbled face atop a

hairy chest, then a hand that accepted the flask. The man

sniffed and pulled back. "Whew. That Stuff'11 kill you."

Ganfrion snorted, reclaimed his prize, and gulped a

mouthful. "Where'd the Rhomandi pull you from, missy? A

Kirish'lani slave market?"

The lump growled and grabbed the flask, coughed as the

potent liquid hit his throat, and swallowed again. "Shit, just

my luck, the Rhomandi'll call a surprise muster." Which

expectation did not stop the lump from helping himself to

another hefty sample.

"He won't."

The man snorted and tossed the flask back. "And you,

of course, are in his direct counsel."

Ganfrion just lifted a suggestive brow and took a swig

that should have emptied the flask. It didn't. But he didn't

wonder at that phenomenon any longer. After what he'd

witnessed in the past few days, after what he'd experienced

in the last few hours, he refused to wonder at anything

ever again.

"Who are you?" the lump asked.

"Ganfrion," he answered, then recalled: "Captain Gan-

frion, newly anointed gorMikhyel." As if he could forget.

The flask made another round. "And as your superior, I

order you. It's your sworn duty. For Princeps and Node

and . . . hellsabove, drink to my promotion!"

The lump guffawed, but forced himself to obey the direct

order. The return pass was accompanied by one more of

those Looks. "Captain Ganfrion. Heard of you. .You're the

man the Barrister pulled out of Sparingate Prison and the

Rhomandi himself elevated to Captain. And gorMikhyel?

Hadn't heard that. The Barrister's sworn man? Should I

be worried?"

"Suit yourself," Ganfrion replied with a frown, and

under cover of his coat, twisted the ring itching and cutting

off circulation to his smallest finger. Damned spider-

fingered pen-scratcher. In one brief moment, Mikhyel dun-

Mheric had saddled him with a ring several sizes too small

and an associated oath that choked his whole gods-be-

damned philosophy of life.

"Heard tell the Rhomandi's brothers showed up in camp

last night. Guess you're proof of that, eh?"

He shrugged, tacitly avoiding the details of that arrival.

A handful of returns later: "What's he like?"

"Hm?" He grunted, forcing his eyes to focus.

"You're shat, man. Better stop."

He growled, and the man raised a warding hand. It was

lack of sleep, not too much drink that slurred his tongue

and made his eyes droop, but damned if he'd explain that

to the lump. "Wha's who like?"

"Th' Barrister. Met the kid brother oncenever can re-

member his name."

"Nik" His voice caught with the stitch in his side. "

aenor. Nikki."

"Yeah, that's the one. Odd name, to my way of thinking.

Kid visited the Rhomandi on the border back when Dey-

morin Rhomandi was still Deyrnio even f the likes of us.

Solid man, Deymio. Liked what I saw then, liked what I

heard after. City man who looks after somethin' other than

th' Cities. Knows th' value of a fighting man and a farmer,

he does. Proud, I was, when he included me in his special

muster. The kidhell, he was a kid. But what about this

middle brother? As hard as they say?"

What was Mikhyel dunMheric like? Certainly nothing

like his brothers. Deymorin Rhomandi, Princeps of Rhoma-

Jane S. Fancher - Dance of the Rings 3 - Ring of Destiny.pdf

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