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Chapter 13:
Land of the Fallen


I


“You were right to be afraid,” the witch said to Hanuvar.

Just as her home was not a dark pit of infamy from myth, Rokana herself was neither a hideous crone nor a blinding beauty. She was merely an even-featured older woman with a mix of brown and gray hair. After her assistance against the Dervans during the war, she had feared their retribution but had not wished to leave her native lands for Volanus. And so Carthalo had found her a new identity and she had retreated to this dwelling on an out-of-the-way hilltop. The city-born woman seemed to have adapted well enough to the countryside. She kept her practices to herself, and neither the Dervan legions nor the revenants had ever found her.

Hanuvar sat upon the hearthside chair across the table from her and watched her unfocused gaze, directed at whatever unseen supernatural information surrounded him. Her eyes were crinkled in concern. She did not explain her statement, and he did not pry. She would report when she was ready.

He heard Antires fidgeting behind him in the closed doorway of the stone cottage. A beam of sunlight slanted in through the shuttered windows, and another streamed past the open doorway that led to what was presumably the woman’s bedroom. Rokana owned a small, comfortable dwelling, aged and sturdy, surrounded by a well-tended garden of herbs and vegetables and guarded by a pair of dogs. She possessed a small flock of chickens, and, fenced in back, a smaller herd of goats. Inside, her home was cluttered but tidy, full of pleasant scents of drying mint and stewed goat meat and old fires. In different circumstances, Hanuvar might have found it restful.

Finally, Rokana looked away and with a prominently veined hand reached for the steaming cup of tea beside her. Hanuvar’s still rested nearby, untouched. She sipped from hers delicately, then rested the cup in her hands. “Your years are galloping out of control,” she said. Her voice was clear and unburdened by the husk or quaver of advancing age. “How did this happen?”

“A sorcerous entity stored life force,” Hanuvar said. “When it died, the force flowed into me.”

Rokana lowered the cup to the table and closed her eyes once more. She leaned toward Hanuvar, her hands stroking the air to either side of his head. “Whoever wrought this spell was incompetent. Any healthy effect is only temporary, at expense of measured lifelines. They’re no longer fixed.”

“What does that mean?” Antires asked.

She answered while still exploring the invisible beside Hanuvar’s face, as if she combed tresses she alone could see. “It means that his own body has lost sight of its proper cycles. The general’s natural limits look as though they’ve been magically burned away. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What can be done to fix it?” Hanuvar asked.

Rokana sat back, blinking, and put her hand once more to her tea cup. She touched it as often as the devout brushed their sacred talismans. “Your lifelines must be modeled after another Hanuvar.”

Before Hanuvar could ask for explanation, Antires spoke up.

“That . . . that doesn’t make any sense.” Antires walked further into the cottage, a few steps shy of the little table. There the Herrene was mostly in darkness, a slim man hungry with questions and pent-up energy.

“I am sorry that I have no more chairs,” Rokana said. “What visitors I have usually see me one on one.”

“I don’t care about that,” Antires said. “There’s only one Hanuvar. What do you mean about modeling off of another one?”

Hanuvar had an inkling of her thought process, but said nothing, waiting as the woman marshaled her thoughts.

“There are a thousand, thousand worlds, tapestries beyond counting where things are perhaps only a little different from what you know here. Or vastly different. I need to model his lifelines off of another Hanuvar from one of those tapestries if I wish to do it properly.”

“That sounds complicated,” Hanuvar said.

Antires agreed. “Why can’t you just . . . shore up what’s already in place here?”

“He’s not a building,” the woman said with tart good humor. She faced Hanuvar. “Your lifelines are broken. If I alter them without a proper model, I could cause you terrible harm. And I cannot shape it based on your friend’s lifeline, or mine, because our lines are very different.” Seeing that her audience still looked uncertain, she thought for a moment, then seized upon another analogy. “Think of me like a tailor. I need to have the same kinds of threads and needle and pattern if I’m to make a similar garment.”

Hanuvar looked down at his hands and flexed them. “How long do I have?”

“The condition appears to be worsening. In a few weeks or months, you will be old and gray. Or dead.”

“So. We need a magical tailor,” Antires said. “Are you one?”

She looked across the table at Hanuvar. “I think I can be. But there will be risk for us both.”

“Have you done this before?” Antires asked.

Hanuvar had been wondering that; he waited for her answer, then saw it in her eyes.

“I have not,” she said with a quiet sigh. “I don’t think anyone has.”

“How great is the risk?” Antires asked.

The witch didn’t answer the Herrene. She looked to Hanuvar. “Do you fear?”

“I would not risk you, or myself, without good reason. I have already lived far longer than a man like me can expect.”

“Yet few of us wish to die,” she said kindly.

“That’s true. And there are things I would live to do.”

She spoke decisively. “You present an interesting challenge. I have always been curious about the other tapestries, but too cautious to look long at them. You may be able to glimpse them yourself as I work. You must prepare for visions that may disquiet you.”

“I am ready,” Hanuvar said.

“You speak without hesitation.”

“My people have searched for a solution for a long while. You are the first person to offer a cure. I am prepared to act, for with every hour, weeks are passing from my life.”

“I’m not sure the magic flows in a steady stream like that, but you’re essentially correct. There is no time to waste.” She patted the table. “Drink the tea. I will ready the incantations.”

The spellworker rose and passed through the doorway to the backroom. After a moment she could be heard unrolling a stiff sheet of papyrus.

Antires stepped into the light, his handsome face twisted by a frown. “You didn’t ask her what could happen if it went wrong.”

“I know what will happen if we do nothing,” Hanuvar replied evenly. He lifted the cup to his lips and drank. Mostly he tasted water, with a pleasant mint overlay.

“You should ask for more detail about the risks.”

“Since she’s endangering her own life to aid me, that would be disrespectful. It is enough to know if we don’t act, I will die soon.”

“So she says.”

“It’s not as though we can go find another mage for a second opinion, is it?” he asked with gentle humor. While many pretended knowledge of magical powers, most were charlatans. A majority of those who were not were allied with the Dervans or had long since been rounded up by them. Likely a few others lived on in remote parts of Tyvol, and it was possible his old Ceori friend Bricta might be able to help, for she had spoken to him last winter about tapestries. But she was far away still and had not yet responded to Carthalo’s message. Besides which, Rokana was expert with the magics of life. For the last few years of the war, she had aided his surgeons and helped save hundreds of wounded.

Hanuvar lowered the tea and met his friend’s eyes. His voice was measured and serious. “If something does go wrong, you will have to carry on without me.” He did not welcome his end, but he no longer feared his people were doomed if he himself fell. With Carthalo and Izivar helping to carry out his vision, the safety of his people no longer rested as heavily upon his shoulders alone.

“Things will run better if you’re involved,” Antires objected. “You know it.”

“Nevertheless. The plans must unfold even if I am not able to direct them.”

“I can guess what your orders are,” Antires said crossly.

Rokana returned bearing a browned scroll wrapped around a pair of time-blackened wooden rolls.

Hanuvar wasn’t sure what he expected next, but it was not that she would begin chopping ingredients—among them oregano and lavender, a tiny bit of rue, and some flower petals—and then brew them.

While the ingredients steamed in a pot she burned incense, and after that, she turned to Antires.

“Are you staying inside, or going?”

“Staying inside. Why, is it dangerous?”

“Not to you. But you must not interrupt. That would be dangerous. For the two of us. Do you understand? Once the spell begins, you must not interfere.”

“No interfering,” he said, hands raised and empty.

She grunted doubtfully at him.

Rokana didn’t bother with any theatrical flourishes like colored fire or speaking to unseen spirits. With charcoal she drew a few runes on the stones above and to the side of each window and the single door and even the doorway to the bedroom. She then did the same thing above the entrance to the little hearth. She turned to Antires. “There are blankets folded on the shelf near the bed. Bring four of them in here in front of the hearth. Oh, and we will have to move the table to the right, there.”

Antires retrieved the blankets, helped Hanuvar move the table, and then the three of them folded the blankets so that two lay beside one another on the hardpacked dirt floor, and a second lay on top of each.

“It’s not going to be comfortable to lie there, even still,” Rokana said to Hanuvar.

“I’m unaccustomed to much comfort.”

She nodded, then sat and picked up her scroll. She studied it for another hour and then said they would be ready shortly, and it was time to consume the brew. Hanuvar drank a mug of the concoction along with her. The mint and lavender and floral scents couldn’t completely obscure the rue’s astringency.

She instructed him to consume everything served to him, including the leaves and little grains or seeds, some of which were sweet as honey, and others of which delivered heat.

Antires paced and eyed the pot from which the tea had come, looking irritated he couldn’t be more closely involved, or be better able to help.

At last, Rokana set down her scrolls and told Hanuvar he needed to lie at her side.

As he stretched out upon the blankets, she sat down beside him, smoothing out her stola, then lay back. “It may take me some time. Whatever you hear from me, do not fear on my account. We are tethered to our world so long as you are with me. And I can find our way back because of the strong roots I’ve used to anchor myself here.” She looked into his eyes. “Do you feel the tea taking affect?”

“I feel at peace.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that,” Antires observed. Hanuvar smiled wryly at him, noticing as he turned his head that the motion seemed too rapid, as if his body moved faster than his soul. He rotated more slowly back to Rokana and experienced the peculiar sensation a second time.

“Breathe easy,” she instructed. When she reached out to take his hand, he found her grasp warm.

His body felt light. She told him he was apt to see strange things but that he should not be alarmed. Her voice was like the steady drip of a water clock. Calming, certain.

He realized he was looking down at his body, but even this was not alarming. His chest rose and fell. His eyes were closed. The world blurred as though he perceived it through drunken eyes, and the cottage vanished.

He was aware of the woman beside him in this experience, and that he held her hand, but he did not feel her so much as perceive her presence. About them lay a blue-gray fog, swirling and cool, and through it strange images swam. At first, they were simply disjointed shapes, but he and Rokana drifted closer to them through the fog.

The images grew clear. He looked upon himself once more, and marveled. There he lay in a stone hut by Rokana, but with a single arm, and it was Carthalo waiting in the doorway, not Antires. The mist swirled and he saw himself striding through a gray countryside toward a promontory. One of his eyes was filmy and sightless.

That image rippled and he again looked on a version of himself, though this one had an eye patch, and a beard. He seemed untroubled by the disfigurement, though, for he smiled broadly and sat with a toddler clasped to his shoulder, patting the child’s back while speaking to someone on his left. Who? Was it his child? Where was he?

Other Hanuvars came and went before him. There he was with a scarred face. There he marched in Dervan armor at the head of a band of legionaries. There he toiled with a pick in some dim place against a wall of rock. His frame was shrunken, and his neck was collared. Immediately after that he stood upon a battlement overlooking a stormy sea while a flotilla of triremes flying a banner that wasn’t quite the flag of Volanus drew near.

“You’re at the center of so many places,” he heard Rokana say, her voice surging around him like a tide.

The images gathered faster, and then one hove into view that did not waver.

He lay on his side upon a bed, looking perhaps a little grayer, but whole and more at ease. Propped up on one arm beside him, her other arm distractedly playing with her own graying hair, lay lost Ravella.

His heart skipped in a pain that was both sweet and striking.

Beside him here in this spirit place the witch released his hand and lifted her own. He could not see what she did, but he felt it, as though she stirred the waters of his bath. In some unseen way, he thought, she was measuring his duplicate, or at least his energies.

And then she turned her attention upon him and her hands stretched apart, as though she separated yarn. The more she manipulated these invisible strands the more he realized that with each shift he felt a slight tingle. One change left him suddenly breathless and constricted and he put hands to his throat. The witch worked rapidly then, as if untying a knot, and the impediment eased, then vanished altogether.

After that her adjustments were minor, though she shifted behind him and to his side, floating now here, now there. The while, Hanuvar looked down on this other version of himself, lying peacefully with a woman he had loved. In what version of his life had she lived, so that the two of them reclined comfortably together? This other Hanuvar laughed with his lover. They were relaxed; two intimate friends. Were they talking about people they knew? Or the war? Or might their war be long since over? Could they be talking about children?

Someone called his name.

It sounded so much like Rokana that he turned to her. Her face was obscured by mist, but her mouth was closed and she looked intent upon some final adjustment. He was watching her as his name rang out through the ether, and with it he heard another female voice.

“Father,” the voice called, and it was achingly familiar, though he could not be certain.

Rokana let out a sigh of relief and lowered her hands. She studied her work with the satisfied air of a master craftsman until she too heard his name called.

This time Hanuvar recognized the voice as his daughter’s.

“No,” said Rokana, but he turned toward that sound, and apparently in this strange place to focus attention keenly was to move, because suddenly the voices grew louder and more certain and the fog scrolled past him and behind him the spell-maven called to him, telling him no . . . 

And then he was lying once more beside Rokana. At some point they must have stopped holding hands in the real world just as their spirits had.

But he realized he was no longer on blankets as he propped himself up on his elbows—nothing lay beneath him but grass. The woman blinked blearily and rose up at his side.

From his left came a feminine gasp.

He saw then that he did not lie in a stone house. A canvas awning peaked above them, supported by tent poles. The same rune that the witch had drawn beside the doorway was etched to the right of the closed tent flap.

And there, standing where Antires had been, his own daughter stared at him as though he were a ghost.



II


Narisia looked much as he remembered her, dark hair touched by red, and shorn short. An unfamiliar scar stood out along her forehead, just below where the line of a helm would lie. She was dressed like a warrior, complete with breastplate engraved with entwined, winged serpents, leather pteruges hanging skirt length, metal shin greaves, and worn soldier’s boots. A sword hung at her side, not a Dervan gladius, but a falcata, the long blade of his own people, convex as it lengthened and tapering to a point.

“How—how are you here?” his daughter asked.

“I’m not sure.” A wave of dizziness struck him as he climbed to his feet and she was there, supporting him.

To have her at his side was almost intoxicating, and she seemed just as shocked to be in his presence. A grin spread slowly across his face even as he took in the environment. “This isn’t right,” he said. “Though you can’t imagine how pleased I am to see you.”

“And I you,” Narisia said, though she still looked stunned.

Rokana sat up, breathing heavily, her eyes wide as they fastened upon him. She looked different; her dress was of finer quality, and her hair was professionally arranged. About her wrist was a bracelet in a serpentine shape he recognized for a stylized depiction of an asalda.

Before she could speak, the tent flap was thrust open and in stepped a broad, heavy figure, a powerful man in similar armor to Narisia’s, his beard graying, his neck corded with muscle.

“What’s happened?” he asked, and then his eyes widened and he roared out a question. “Hanuvar?”

His brother Adruvar. Alive. They surged toward one another in delight and the next thing Hanuvar was being enfolded in his brother’s great arms. He laughingly slapped his back.

“By the gods!” Adruvar stepped back and beamed at him. To Rokana, now supporting herself on a chair to the side, he said: “You said you two were only going to consult with him—but . . . you’ve brought him back!”

“He is not your brother,” Rokana said. “Or your father,” this to Narisia, “though he will be much like him.”

“He looks like him,” Narisia said, staring at him with huge eyes.

“I’ve slipped into another tapestry, haven’t I?” Hanuvar asked of Rokana.

“Yes. Very good,” she added.

“But you didn’t expect me? I heard you calling my name.”

“Rokana was going to consult with another you,” Adruvar explained. “You weren’t supposed to come back.” He laughed in joy. “This is fantastic!”

Hanuvar nodded agreement. There was so much to ask his family, but first he looked back to Rokana. “In my tapestry you were trying to heal me of a magical accident. But not in a tent.”

“You were working with me?” she asked. “Interesting. But then similar threads appear in similar tapestries.”

“Are you sick?” Narisia asked him, then, before he could reply, she curtly demanded of the woman, “Is he well?”

“He appears healthy, both in this world, and magically.”

“We need your help,” Adruvar told him. “The Dervans are marching on Volanus.”

“Only now?” he asked.

Adruvar’s look was curious. Hanuvar gently patted his arm and stepped past to push aside the tent flap.

The tent was pitched in the shade of an oak, on a rise overlooking an armed camp and ordered rows of tents. Beyond, low clouds scudded in an evening sky.

A sentry stood beyond the tent. He turned and gaped at Hanuvar. He was approaching middle age, a bearded man in Volani armor with a deeply scarred forearm.

“General?” he whispered.

“Gisco?” Hanuvar asked in response. Gisco had climbed through the ranks, starting out as a clown of a soldier until he was a steady veteran and a signalman who could almost intuit the commands Hanuvar meant to relay. He had died at Mazra, taking a spear while struggling onto his horse when they prepared to retreat.

Both men stared as though they looked upon a ghost, and their smiles flared at the same moment. Hanuvar laughed and offered his hand and the two men clasped forearms warmly, slapping each other in the shoulder.

Gisco looked bewildered. “I saw you die, General! But you’re real as me. You’re no ghost!”

Adruvar spoke behind them. “With my brother at our head, we’ll finish those Dervans, Gisco.”

“I am sure of it, sir,” Gisco agreed. He was still grinning widely, vigorously shaking Hanuvar’s arm.

“It’s good to see you.” Hanuvar wiped at tears and couldn’t tell if they were of sorrow for his lost companion or of joy in seeing this living duplicate of him; he had the same trouble when he looked upon his brother.

Narisia waited with the tent flap open. But Hanuvar turned and considered the camp again, seeing where the horses were picketed. There were mahogany-skinned Ruminians at work feeding them. And there, he saw a separate contingent flying standards from the Herrenic city-states, including Orinth, in his world leveled by the Dervans as thoroughly as Volanus. He also spotted bands of Ceori among the armed host, readying equipment.

This, though, was not Tyvol. While these same kinds of trees could be found in the southern coast of the peninsula, he instinctively knew that he was north of Volanus, not far from the coast.

Hanuvar clapped Gisco’s shoulder and walked toward his beckoning daughter. Adruvar followed. Rokana sat at the table, drinking tea, and his daughter regarded him with wary optimism, as though they were estranged. Seeing her manner, he kept from pulling her close, though it pained his heart. He tried to remind himself that this was not truly his daughter.

“Gisco says he saw his Hanuvar die,” Hanuvar said. “How long ago?”

“Sixteen years,” Narisia answered.

“How?”

“You fell against the Dervans, at the battle of Mazra.” Adruvar stepped behind Rokana and rubbed her shoulders. She closed her eyes and relaxed under the care of his huge hands. That was an interesting development. In his world, the two had never met, for Adruvar had died before she joined forces with them.

“In my land,” Hanuvar said, “I survived Mazra. Though I lost the battle.”

“In this world, you won but died of your injuries,” his daughter said.

“And Ciprion?”

The furrow on his brother’s brow suggested his surprise that he cared. “He was killed in the battle.”

“And then what happened?” Hanuvar asked.

“Well, there was a big funeral for you,” Adruvar started, and looked as though he meant to say more.

“Not that. What happened in Volanus?”

His daughter answered. “We’ve had an uneasy truce with the Dervans ever since. The Herrenes and Cerdians have been keeping them distracted, but they put down a rebellion in Ethenis last year and Caiax is marching on Volanus.”

“Caiax.” Hanuvar’s lip curled as he said the name. “In my tapestry he sacked Volanus. Tens of thousands were slain and only a few live on under the Dervan yoke.”

They swallowed his words but could not digest them.

He spoke on, slowly. “Narisia was one of them. You escaped, but I’ve no idea where you went.”

“What about me?” Adruvar asked.

That reply came hard. “You’ve been dead a long time, brother. One of Catius’ sons intercepted a message you sent me.”

Again that great brow furrowed. He repeated the name as though he mentioned a Herrenic health tonic. “Catius?”

“How fortunate for you,” Hanuvar said. “A world without Catius. What of Melgar?”

Narisia answered. “He’s marshaling our forces in Volanus.”

Melgar lived. He let out a shuddering breath. “Volanus stands. Adruvar and Melgar live. My daughter is free. What of Harnil?”

Adruvar grinned. “He’s one of our shofets.”[16]

Hanuvar laughed in delight. All of his brothers were still alive. “And what of Imilce?”

Adruvar shifted sheepishly and cleared his throat. “Melgar . . . married Imilce. You’ve been dead a long time,” he added apologetically.

Hanuvar laughed.

“What happened to Mother in your world?” Narisia asked.

It was a bleak answer, but he did not blunt it. “She died in childbirth. We thought we were blessed, that she would bear another child of ours, but it proved the death of both.”

She nodded slowly. Almost he asked after Ravella. But it might be that Narisia didn’t know of her, or that this Hanuvar had never met her.

Narisia straightened, as if making a mental shift in the adjustment. “We need to focus on the tactical situation.”

That sounded so much like something he would say that he nearly smiled. “Tell me about the Dervans.”

Clearly, soberly, succinctly, Narisia described the problem they faced. Caiax, eager to prove himself, had marched in advance of the other consul, Aminius. “We lured Caiax forward to cut him off. He’s retreated into a highly defensible position, on a rocky hillside. They have enough water, and food, to hold out for a few more days. Our scouts tell us we have two days before Aminius’ legions rejoin him.”

“Tell me more about their positioning.”

“It’s a decent natural fortress. The hill is sectioned off almost like giant steps, with the main camp on the upper level and skirmishers on the lower.”

“Troop quality?”

Adruvar answered. “A core of veteran legionaries, but almost half are recent levies.”

“Sorcerous adjuncts?”

“The Herrenic uprising played havoc with their sorcerers. Eledeva burned down their ship shortly before arrival.”

Hanuvar brightened at that. Maybe it wasn’t the great winged serpent who’d been his friend, and given her life to swim him to safety, just as this really wasn’t his daughter, or his brother, but . . . he felt a fluttering in his chest. Of course Eledeva lived, if Volanus hadn’t yet fallen, for the asalda had called the city home for centuries. “She’s alive. What of her sister?”

“Eledeva was wounded during that attack and is still recovering,” Narisia reported. “Merontia’s broody again and isn’t leaving the city. Or even taking to the skies.”

That there might be asalda eggs in this Volanus was astonishing, even thrilling, but not germane to their current concerns. He returned his attention to the disposition of their forces. “How good is the Dervan intelligence about your army?”

“Adequate,” Narisia answered. “We’re not aware of any large leaks, and use the small ones to feed misinformation.”

Hanuvar asked about the quality and numbers of their own troops, how experienced their own skirmishers were, whether the Ceori were new recruits or better intercalated, and the composition of the Herrenic levies.

All but the Herrenes had served with the united forces for a long time, and Hanuvar learned to his surprise that many old friends survived in this tapestry, and commanded units. The fates had been far kinder to his people in this world.

While Narisia briefed him, Adruvar departed and returned with a map. Rokana left them, saying she had some matters to look into. Hanuvar had questions for her, namely how he was to get back, but right now his attention was devoted to the needs of this family, so much like his own.

Someone on staff had drawn a fair map of the countryside, carefully noting the placement of the military divisions. Elevations and likely ingress and egress points along the rise where the Dervans camped were well detailed. He would expect nothing less, for these were the same kind of precise maps his father had taught his army to work from.

“Our plan was to pretend a retreat, and hit their flanks when they come down,” Adruvar said. “But Narisia isn’t sure Caiax can be lured out before it’s too late. Caiax thinks he’s safe, and together the two Dervan armies outnumber ours. He means to crush our army between the two of his.”

“The trick would be to make it seem like we’re almost clever enough. And there’s a matter of timing, as well.” Hanuvar leaned over the map, weighted on each end by a small stone carved with a horse’s head with wide brows. Part of his brother Adruvar’s standard. He could not help glancing at the big bluff man drinking beside him. He would never, he swore to himself, take this moment, or the memory of it, for granted.

Then he looked across the table at his daughter, still watching him as though he were a stranger, or possibly a magic trick. He returned his attention to the map and the lines of their own troops. He asked their proximity to a road, and the density of trees, and several other topographical questions before arriving at a decision. He tapped the land in front of their camp. “First, we make a big demonstration of pulling out. We’ll kick up dust. And cause lots of commotion. But at the same time, we close off this valley here, with two thousand, and here, with another two thousand. The rest of us stop our advance behind this tree line. While all that’s going on we deploy skirmishers against them, as though we’re actually screening a retreat, but then we use them to push, hard.”

“Our skirmishers are veterans,” Narisia said. “They know how to push.”

“And then?” Adruvar asked.

Hanuvar smiled tightly and explained his plan.



III


Hanuvar remained upon the hilltop as the army quietly waited for orders to depart. They’d eaten well that evening and would now rest until the early hours of the morning. Probably word had spread among the army that some miracle had been worked and a new Hanuvar was among them, but a small band of sentinels kept anyone from climbing the hill. Apart from Rokana, who had just reached the height.

“Are you all right?” he asked. She looked tired.

“I’m well enough. And you? From what you’ve said, this must be an incredible shock.”

“I cannot express how good it is to see them. Even if they’re not my family, they feel like them.” He met her eyes. “How do I get back?”

She shrugged wearily. “Why should you want to? From what you say, this world is a far better land for you and yours. I have seldom seen your brother so happy. And I can see in your eyes that you feel the same.”

“I do. The circumstances are different, but the people are like mine.”

“You must have come from a very similar tapestry.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I tried to reach out to get advice from a Hanuvar in a tapestry close to ours. But you were between. Maybe that still means you came from one close. I think you should embrace your good fortune.”

“It’s very tempting. These people need me here, at this moment, and I am glad to help. But the people of my world need me, too.”

“I worried you might say something like that.”

An armored figure had started up the hill. It was Narisia, her hair burnished by the sinking sun so that it gleamed almost the same color as the helm beneath her arm.

“I’ve studied my books,” Rokana said, “and all my own notes, and . . . I’m sorry. I’ve no idea how I can find a way back for you.”

Narisia arrived and stood waiting while they finished.

Rokana explained further. “I can keep thinking. I can even look at tapestries again, with you. But I don’t know how to tell which one is yours, and I do not know how to send you there.”

“Why not stay here?” Narisia suggested. “Volanus dead, every one of your brothers dead, Mother dead . . . your world’s a terrible place.”

“Were I to choose a better land, I could do far worse,” Hanuvar conceded. “Maybe there’s somewhere I was triumphant in Tyvol and there never was a Mazra. Maybe I might have known you growing up. I wondered, when I first arrived, at the distance I saw in your eyes. But I understood as we kept talking. You never really knew your father, did you?”

“We met once, before Mazra,” she said. “I was thirteen.”

Hanuvar nodded. That echoed his meeting with his daughter in his own world.

“It was nice,” Narisia said hesitantly.

She was awkward because their meeting had been awkward. That day they had met for the first time. She had been reared in Volanus while he’d spent the entirety of her life marching back and forth across the Tyvolian peninsula, trying to bring the Dervans to heel. When he’d finally spoken with her, a Dervan invasion was imminent, and his forces were few. He’d had other things on his mind, and no good way to suddenly tighten bonds with the strange young lady who shared his blood. That’s all she would have seen of him. The Hanuvar from this land hadn’t had the pleasure of later years to get to know his daughter as a person.

Rokana raised a hand in farewell to them and stepped away. They both returned the gesture. As she started down the hill, a distant trumpeter in the Dervan camp sounded the call to retire for the night.

Narisia’s eyes somehow held the light, and they searched his own. “What am I doing in your world?”

“You and a few Eltyr escaped imprisonment. I don’t know where you went. I’m searching for you. Someone is murdering high-ranking Dervans and leaving an Eltyr symbol behind. It may be you.”

“So I’m fighting back against the Dervans?”

“It may be. Someone is killing children so Dervan parents can suffer, in the name of the Eltyr.”

Her entire face showed the same revulsion he felt. “And you think it’s me doing that?”

“It doesn’t seem like you. But seeing your city destroyed, your husband killed, everyone you know dragged off in chains, or dead . . . I’ve met people who’ve been terribly warped by what happened.”

“What did it do to you?”

The question, cutting and sudden, was so much like something his own Narisia might have said that it startled him. “I’m not sure yet. I’ve kept busy so I don’t have to think about it.”

“Busy doing what?”

“I was away from Volanus when it fell. I founded a new colony, weeks away. I’d returned to recruit more colonists and arrived just as the walls were breached. Eledeva died getting me to safety. By the time I got back, the Dervans had sold the few survivors. I’m buying them secretly, or freeing them, and getting them on ships.”

“How many?”

“A little over a thousand. That’s all that were left.”

Her eyes widened in horror. “By the gods. I can see why that would drive someone to kill. Do you think it did to me?”

“I don’t think so. That’s not the woman I know.”

“How well do you know me?”

She strove to sound self-possessed, but there was no missing the longing there. A desperation to hear of something positive. He told her the truth. “After the war, you and I became friends. I ruled as one of the shofets for almost seven years, until Ciprion warned me the Lenereva faction and the Dervan military were conspiring against me.”

She looked bemused. “Tannis Lenereva,” she said. “I wouldn’t think even he could sink so low. But Ciprion warned you? A Dervan?”

“He’s a good man. He spent all of his political capital trying to stop the third war and then spent most of his money buying Volani children so they wouldn’t end up in far worse circumstances.”

She assimilated that and ground her lips together. Beyond the camp, the final rim of sun had vanished, though the clouds were still stained red in its wake. Volani trumpeters now called their own soldiers to their bunks, a lonely sound that cut through the night. Narisia spoke quietly. “I suppose things can be worse than losing your city and parents and being sold into slavery. What was I like there, before the war?”

“You were tempted to come with me to found the colony. But you were an officer of the Eltyr and wanted to continue to mold the corps. You and your husband thought you might be pregnant.” He wondered if he should ask if she had children.

“My husband,” she repeated. “Who is he?”

“An artist.”

She laughed.

“Are you married here? Do you have children?”

“Three, and yes. But he’s no artist. He’s a friend of Melgar’s. An admiral.”

“Bomilcar?” he suggested.

She laughed. “Yes! How did you know?”

“He was smitten with you in my world. Melgar kept telling him to court you, but he couldn’t get up the nerve.”

She laughed, then sobered. “Is Bomilcar alive there, too?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “In the colony.”

She seemed pleased that her husband’s counterpart still lived, but she was curious about another topic. “Tell me about this colony.”

“A little over four thousand live there. It lies past the Lesser Lenidines, east and further east, almost two weeks beyond the isle of Narata, in an archipelago. There is a deep, sheltered bay, and the air is rich with the scent of flowers at nearly every time of year. Fruits grow in abundance, and the fishing is plentiful. It is not Volanus, but there our people live free. They must labor hard, but they are happy. And they are far from Dervans.”

“I named one of my boys after you,” she said suddenly. “And another after grandfather. You can meet them, after we win.”

“That would be a fine thing.”

Her gaze had softened. It was wistful now, clouded with imagined moments she had never had with her own father. “You seem just like him.”

“And you seem just like her.”

“Rokana said that we had to find a tapestry close to ours, or you wouldn’t be similar enough to offer the kind of advice we needed.”

“I hope I do not disappoint.”

“Not so far. We should see you fitted for armor. Are you ready to dress for war?”

“I am.”

“Come with me then. Father,” she added. She didn’t sound entirely comfortable saying it, but a warmth had kindled in her eyes.

“I will come, daughter. And we will fight together. For Volanus.”



IV


The Volani tried to be secretive as they pulled out in the predawn hours, but the scouts had noted the dust plumes against the stars.

Marius peered out from the height where the majority of the legion was bivouacked. The enemy had left their tents in place, and skirmishers had been trading spears and slingstones with their own force through the night, on the lower, east side of the hill. That the enemy had recently increased the tempo and the ferocity of their attack was meant to suggest that an assault might be imminent, but they had failed to count upon the excellence of Derva’s best scouts.

The general was up. He hadn’t emerged from his tent, though, because he was sulking. Caiax had been trapped and only by chance had Marius discovered this excellent defensible spot before Adruvar’s army closed in.

When he neared the consul’s tent, Marius saw candlelight from under the canvas barrier. He had the sentry announce him, and then Caiax gruffly bade him enter.

The consul looked worn and angry, and his gray head craned out over the map in his quarters. Marius wasn’t sure what the old man searched for, given that the map was of the coast, but Caiax studied it for a good long while before finally looking up. “First Spear,” he said, addressing Marius by rank rather than name. “You look happy with yourself. Have my messengers returned from Aminius?”

“No, sir. I have other news. The enemy’s retreating and trying to conceal themselves. I think Aminius has gotten too close for their comfort.”

Caiax grunted. “There are reports that the Volani have redoubled the assault of their skirmishers.”

“Yes, sir. I believe that’s an attempt to deceive us. They want us to think that they’re not really leaving. After all, they wouldn’t leave their skirmishers behind.”

A rare smile ticked up the corners of Caiax’s mouth. “You’re certain it’s a trick?”

“They are not nearly so clever as they think, General. Every one of them thinks they are Hanuvar—”

“—And none of them are. Yes. Good. Turn out the men. We’ll move fast.”

“Yes, sir. Should we feed them?”

“We need to hit the enemy hard and fast. It’s no time to coddle the boys. They’re tough. And they’re itching for a fight.”

“Yes, sir.” Marius saluted and left. Caiax’s confidence was a salve to his own worries. In good spirits, he passed along his general’s orders. He, too, was eager for the fight, but he wondered if it was truly wise to send out the men before breakfast. An additional half hour’s delay surely wouldn’t prove too advantageous for the Volani, and while he agreed that the men were ready for a fight, men always fought better well fed.

He ordered the signalmen to call the men to arms, and soon they were falling out of their tents and their optios and centurions were shouting them into gear and into line.

On the lower step of the hill camp, some thirty feet below, he heard the occasional shout and the clatter of arms, and, sometimes, a scream. Soon, though, an optio came puffing up to report that the skirmishers were starting to retreat.

Dawn’s light sharpened the sky. To north and south, on either side of their flattened hilltop, the growth was thick and forested and dark, and Caiax startled him when he appeared at Marius’ elbow.

“We’ll get them this time,” Caiax said. “Full on their heels, Marius. Do you hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

He set their skirmishers after the enemy’s. Then, as the sun began to scale the trees, the first cohort crossed down from the lower level and moved onto the plain, in hard pursuit. Soon half their force was either on the lower hill or moving forward. Runners came in that the enemy skirmishers were digging in behind fortifications beyond the tree edge at the edge of the plain below. Scouting reports from flankers from north and south were late returning, which was a little concerning, but not nearly as troubling as the sun now shining straight into their eyes. It would prove an impediment, and one Caiax should probably have thought of. After all, it wouldn’t be quite as pronounced when the sun was higher, and a delay to eat would have seen to that.

Beside Marius on the lower step of the hillside, Caiax shielded his eyes and watched his men marching out and forming up. Their skirmishers could be seen further ahead, exchanging slingstone and javelin with the Volani, sheltered behind wooden barricades hastily thrown up in front of the distant woods. He shifted his attention to Marius and frowned. “I know that look. Do not whine like an old woman, Marius. The men will be at a brief disadvantage. But speed is our advantage. Fortune loves the bold. The Volani light troops can’t long hold those positions. We’ll soon have them flanked.”

The unmistakable ululating cry of the Eltyr Corps erupted from somewhere to the south.

It wasn’t one voice, or ten voices, it was hundreds. And they were very close.

Caiax’s beak of a nose swung first toward the noise, then swiveled to poke at Marius. “You said the defile to the south was too steep to bother with!”

“I said it was an impediment,” Marius objected. “I placed sentries there.”

“Well, they’ve done a bang-up job, haven’t they? The Eltyr have doubled back around and are trying to flank us!”



V


From his family, Hanuvar had confirmed that the Caiax of this tapestry was just as confident and heedless as that of his own. Caiax, embarrassed by his mistake, was eager for a victory, especially if he could claim it without having to share accolades with Aminius. Now his forces were strung along the ground below the stairstep hill and split upon its two levels.

While the Eltyr held the attention of the Dervans with their attack up the southern slope, Hanuvar’s contingent advanced from the dark screen of trees and started up the steep northern side with little opposition. Dervan sentries spotted them just as the advance slingers brought the foremost sentry plummeting thirty feet to sprawl dead a horse length to Hanuvar’s right. The nearby Volani soldiers laughed, and then Hanuvar shouted at them to move.

And move they did. A picked force of warriors charged on the double, falcatas in one hand and their notched oval shields in the other. A screen of thirty slingers advanced before them, bolstered by a small cadre of Adruvar’s best spearmen, held back from the main force of light troops. They reached the north edge of the higher hill and fought to hold it.

All of the Dervan slingers had scattered across the plain below; there was nothing to counter the advancing Volani skirmishers but the Dervan reserve, which he knew from intelligence reports to be the greenest troops, sprinkled with a handful of veterans. They came scrambling to counter the Volani assault, and slingstones and spears sent them tumbling to the earth and down to the underworld.

Veteran rankers rushed up to push back the invaders, better armed men, in better order. A few dozen of Hanuvar’s heavy infantry had joined the advance, and at his command the skirmishers slipped back through gaps. The heavy troops surged ahead while the Dervans still struggled to form a line. The next few moments were the crucial ones. The Volani were outnumbered, but the Dervans were on the wrong foot, disorganized. Hanuvar shouted at his soldiers to hurry to reinforce, and up they clambered over near vertical spans of slope.

He was exhorting the next line to follow when a wave of dizziness staggered him. He steadied himself against a rock. For a moment he thought a fog had risen, and then he understood that the strange mist of the lands between the tapestries had been superimposed across the battlefield. Rokana, the Rokana from his world, floated within it. Her eyes were bright and her hands sought his. “Come with me,” she cried.

“I can’t. Not yet.”

He backed away from her. The mists faded but clung to his vision like cobwebs. Stepping back from the slope, he saw the band of Dervans tightening in an arc, holding their own. Dervan reinforcements were closing. No more Volani could reach the ground, and those that had taken it were sorely pressed. Unless he acted quickly, those soldiers would die, and their attack would fail.

But he spotted another path up the hillside. Steep, yes, but unwatched. He motioned for the men to follow and started up through tough grass and rocky ground. He scraped a knee on a sharp gray stone and bashed an elbow against the steep side, barely feeling either. He vaulted a boulder then raced up a final four feet of slope and saw that as soon as he advanced, he’d be behind and to the left of the Dervans. He held position until six more men were with him, then eight, then twelve, and then, with others close on his heels, he lifted his falcata and charged.

A grizzled centurion turned at the sound of their footfalls and opened his mouth as if to shout warning, then gaped. His eyes widened in recognition. “Hanuvar!” he cried. “It’s Hanuvar!”

Belatedly the centurion cried for his men to swing about, his eyes alive with fear. Hanuvar brought the falcata swinging down. The blow swept the Dervan gladius aside. The broad front end of his blade struck more with an axe’s force than a sword’s, shearing through the centurion’s collarbone. It was only when he yanked the falcata free from the sinking flesh and armor that he registered the man as one of Ciprion’s standard bearers.

Other Dervans had turned then, with his name on their lips, and it spread through their ranks with a note of hysteria.

But the Dervans had not yet cracked. Optios and centurions shouted to hold the line, and Hanuvar led his men ahead, swinging his falcata into a shouting face and transforming it into a screaming red horror before it dropped away.

All then was madness and ruin, with enemies before him and allies to right and left. He fought and slew and ducked and heaved, shouting until he was hoarse. The old instincts were still with him, and his little band smashed through the invaders on the rise. Those few Dervans not caught between the two bands of Volani fled for the main body of their troops, shouting that Hanuvar was back from the dead. Both of the Volani routes were open now, and he motioned his soldiers on, screaming at them to hurry.

And once again Rokana was before him, her forehead creased with worry. “Soon it will take too much energy to pull you back.”

“A moment,” he said. “I’m needed here.”

Her eyes were accusing, and he hated to turn from her.

Before him the Volani line advanced. He heard the call of the Eltyr, and frantic horn blasts of the legion, trying to form into some coherence. He clambered onto a boulder for a better view and saw where the two sides of the Volani line had caught the Dervan column in the open. Adruvar’s command had reached the lower hill and crashed forward even as the first of Hanuvar’s band was hitting from the rear.

“The center!” Adruvar called. “The center!”

His brother’s distant face was blood streaked, but he grinned through it, a warrior’s fierce smile.

The Dervan standard beyond the helms on the lower hill wavered. Those few left on the higher hill were perishing between the remainder of his force and the Eltyr.

Seeing that the upper hill was all but won, Hanuvar followed with his contingent. He paused for a moment before descending, looking over the wave of allied troops overwhelming the column on the plain, and advancing on every side against the shrinking center on the first level of the stairstep hill.

There about the shining eagle standard an armored figure sat upon a horse, his mouth opened in a shout, his long neck stretched forward. The Dervan officer pointed frantically, then swung his horse about, as if he searched for a line of retreat while his men screamed and faltered and died.

It was this tapestry’s Caiax. And as the Dervan leader looked upslope his eyes settled upon Hanuvar, motionless upon the upper rim only a few hundred feet away.

Caiax froze. His head lifted, and Hanuvar would have sworn that the man gaped. Hanuvar pointed down at him.

The moment seemed suspended in time, as though it stretched for hours, but then, with a finger snap, the main Dervan line shattered and the center caved. The few survivors retreated to a tiny circular core, about the standard, the crush so great Caiax was forced to abandon his horse. Hanuvar lost sight of him in the savage flurry.

He spotted his brother, directing troops on the lower level, and started down for him, calling his name.

The big man heard, and broke away from his soldiers, though he still pointed them forward toward the final knot of enemy soldiers. Adruvar stepped apart, eyes bright, and waited for Hanuvar, wiping his face of some other man’s blood.

From beyond came an exultant shout, for the Dervan standard with its gleaming eagle had fallen.

Adruvar grinned and laughed at him. “Your plan worked perfectly! Just like always, my brother!”

Hanuvar smiled back, but his brother recognized his heartache, and his expression fell. “What’s wrong? Are you wounded?” He stretched out his hand.

“I’m fine. But I have to go.”

Adruvar snorted in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t need me anymore.”

Adruvar shook his shaggy head. “Of course we do! Your plan won the day!”

“And now you can face Aminius and squeeze his army between yours and Melgar’s.”

“With you at our head we will be victorious.”

“My brother.” Hanuvar gripped Adruvar’s arm. His warm, living arm. He blinked tears away. “There’s nothing I would like more than to sit again with you and Harnil and Melgar and my daughter. To see my former wife.” His voice broke. “To walk the streets of Volanus. To hold my grandchildren.” He shook his head and forced himself together. “But the people of my own land need me more than you. Tell Narisia I’m sorry I can’t be there for her. I’m sorry her father wasn’t, and I know, from the depths of my heart he would have been, in a better world.”

Adruvar bowed his head, his eyes filling with tears. He clasped Hanuvar’s shoulder. “I understand. So will she.”

They clung tight to one another.

“Live long, and well,” Hanuvar told him. “Tell our brothers the same. And give my best to Imilce.”

“I will. Good luck to you, my brother.”

Then, Hanuvar turned at last to Rokana, waiting at his shoulder. He thought that Adruvar must have caught sight of her, for his expression clouded.

She smiled sadly as her grip tightened around Hanuvar’s fingers. He turned to see his brother raise his hand. Then the world faded and they were once more amongst the mist and the drifting darkness.



VI


“You should not have done that,” Rokana said wearily and with a touch of asperity that was practically a shout in this liminal space. “I nearly lost you. I nearly lost my own way.”

“I apologize,” he said, head bowed “I hadn’t meant to go. I heard my name, and when I sought its source, my body travelled to that place.”

She frowned. They hung suspended in the shifting fog. Her free hand stirred the air as her other held to his, and then stilled, as though she had grasped hold of something. For a brief moment, Hanuvar perceived a shining thread between her fingers, and then her hand tightened around what looked empty air.

But she pulled once, twice, and the gray mists whirled and faded and spun, or perhaps the two of them did, so dizzy was he. Suddenly he lay looking up at the wooden rafters of a stone hut. It took a long moment for his head to feel like it had stopped its rocking.

“Hanuvar?” Antires asked. Then, exultant, he repeated his name. “Hanuvar!”

He sat up, hand to his head, still unsteadily.

“You just . . . vanished!” Antires said. “Your whole body! And I couldn’t raise Rokana all night!”

There was a growl in her voice as she pushed up on her hands. “You should not have interfered. When you shouted at me it just made things worse. But I found him. And somehow I found our way back.”

“And he’s healed?” Antires demanded.

“He is.”

“Why is he covered in blood? Where did you get the armor?”

Hanuvar looked down at his armor, and his arm, and the falcata he clutched. The sword that his daughter had given him. “It’s Dervan blood.”

He lay down the sword and undid the strap of his helm. Less than twenty-four hours before, Narisia herself had presented it to him, her eyes alive with pleasure.

Confusion was heavy in Antires’ voice. “I don’t understand. What happened?”

Hanuvar released his tight grip upon Rokana’s hand and turned to her. “I can never thank you fully for what you did. You not only gave me my life back, but you helped me save an entire people. You gave me moments with loved ones forever lost, and others I might never see again. Whatever is in my power to grant you, I shall.”

The consternation in her features dulled, eased by tenderness. She patted his arm. “First,” she said, “I mean to sleep for days. But I have all that I need in this humble place. If I think of anything else, I will let you know.”

He wanted to tell her of Adruvar and the love he had seen between them both. But what good would that story do her? “Is there anything I can do for you, now?”

“Would a general care to fix me some eggs? And ready some tea?”

“If the lady will permit me a moment to clean up, I will prepare whatever my feeble skills permit.”

Antires belatedly moved to help Rokana to her feet, then guided her to the chair.

Hanuvar started for the door, taking the falcata with him.

His friend was a moment behind. “You still look a little younger than you were last year. Like your early forties.”

Hanuvar looked down at his bloody hands while he called up the water from the old pump outside, then washed them clean.

Antires stepped to assist him with his armor. “Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked, working the buckle on the right shoulder. “You look a little like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Not ghosts,” he answered. “They weren’t ghosts there.”[17]

When Hanuvar told me of the many people he had met, I could not help lamenting that he had not encountered me, and wondered where I was in that tapestry, and what I might be doing.

“I saw you,” he said, and while he smiled, I could tell he was not joking.

“Where?” I asked.

“You were pulling on a shield and addressing a band of Herrenes, readying them for battle.”

“So I was an officer?” I asked.

“Indeed you were, weathered and scarred and battle hardened. Your arm looked half again as thick.”

I flexed my arm, which was by no means puny, and wondered what course my life had taken in that place that I had ended up a warrior. But then many of the greatest Herrene playwrights were soldiers. “Did you say anything to me?” I asked.

“I was tempted, but you were busy, and would not have known me. There were so many others I would have loved to have spoken with, but there wasn’t time before the battle. I didn’t know I wouldn’t have another chance.”

***

There are some who like to speak constantly about their hopes and fears and their inner thoughts and dwell constantly upon things they cannot change. Hanuvar was not one of these, and so I rarely heard him discuss his daughter. I am sure he thought often of her, especially in the months after he first learned about the Eltyr and the murders alleged to her.

With his condition normalized Hanuvar had a brief reunion with Izivar, south of Derva. None of Carthalo’s contacts had yet turned up any information about Narisia or her Eltyr companions, though we were still waiting upon word from informants beyond the peninsula.

In the meantime, Hanuvar and Carthalo prepared to address a spate of challenging situations in the south, where slaveholders of Volani were stubbornly intransigent. He was only hours away from leaving when we received word from Ciprion, who requested assistance. I’m sure Hanuvar would have lent it on the instant regardless, but he had additional impetus to do so, for the Eltyr had returned to Derva, and Ciprion himself had been tasked with stopping her.

—Sosilos, Book Fourteen


Footnotes


16) The shofets were the two elected magistrates who ruled Volanus. Originally one had focused upon internal matters and the other upon external concerns, but over long centuries it was not uncommon for one of the shofets to be subordinate to the other, acting as a trusted right-hand advisor and executor. Such had been the case during Hanuvar’s tenure, when he had been ably assisted by the wise former councilor Sophonisba.

Silenus, Commentaries


17) In amongst Antires’ papers I found the following fragment, which seemed directly related to the moment of Hanuvar’s return. Why he cut it from the published versions of The Hanuvid I cannot say, but I present it to you for your entertainment.

Andronikos Sosilos


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