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The emperor swept an arm out before the tens of thousands of men and horses tangled in death. “But, surely, something of this magnitude had to have been something more.”
“The army of phantom horsemen who carried out this attack might have been triggered by a wizard drawing spells in magic dust while speaking an incredibly complex invocation, or it could just as easily have been a book containing a cavalry counter that is simply opened to the proper page and held out before the attacking force—even from miles away. Even the simple fear of a person holding out such a construction could be the trigger.”
“You mean, anyone might accidentally trigger one, then?” Jennsen asked.
“Of course. That’s what makes them so dangerous. But from what I’ve read, that kind is exceedingly rare. Because they can be so dangerous, most are layered in complex precautions and fail-safe mechanisms involving the most profound knowledge of the application of magic.”
“But,” Jennsen asked, “once a person—a wizard—with that advanced knowledge removes those layers of precautions and fail-safe mechanisms, then they might be set off by one final, simple trigger?”
Sister Perdita gave Jennsen a meaningful look. “Exactly.”
“So,” Jagang said, gesturing around at the thousands of bodies, “this force of phantom cavalry might be sent out again at any moment to finish us off.”
The Sister shook her head. “As I understand it, a constructed spell is usually good only once. It’s used up by doing what it was constructed to do. That’s one reason they’re rare; once used, they’re gone forever, and there are no longer any wizards alive who can make more.”
“Why haven’t we encountered such constructed spells before?” Sebastian asked with growing impatience. “And why now, all of a sudden?”
Sister Perdita stared at him for a moment, a picture of bottled anger that Jennsen knew she would never have dared direct at the emperor, even though the attack on the Confessors’ Palace, which he ordered, against her warning, had resulted in the deaths of many of her Sisters of the Light.
With a show of deliberate care, Sister Perdita pointed up at the dark Keep hard against the mountain above them. “There are a thousand rooms in the Wizard’s Keep if there’s one,” she said in a low voice. “A good many of them will be stuffed full of nasty things. It’s likely that when we drove them here for the winter, that wizard of theirs—Wizard Zorander—finally had the good long time he needed to search through the Keep, looking for just the kinds of things he hitherto lacked, so as to be ready for us when spring arrived and we advanced toward Aydindril. I fear to think what catastrophic surprises he yet has in store for us. That Keep has stood invincible for thousands of years.”
Sebastian’s glare turned as dark as Jagang’s “Why haven’t you warned us about this? I never heard you say anything.”
“I did. You were gone.”
“You’ve also advised against many other things, as well, and we’ve overcome them,” Jagang growled at her. “When you fight a war, you must expect to take risks and to take casualties. Only those who dare, win.”
Sebastian gestured up at the Keep. “What other things might we expect?”
“Constructed spells are only one of the dangers in fighting these people. None of us Sisters really considered constructed spells a great threat because they’re so rare, but, as you can see, even one constructed spell is profoundly perilous. Who knows what even more deadly things might be waiting to be unleashed.
“What’s more, there’s a whole world of dangers we can’t even begin to conceive of. Their winter weather, alone, has killed hundreds of thousands of our men without the enemy having to lift a finger or risk a single man. That, alone, has done more damage to us than almost any battle or calamity of magic. Did we expect such losses from something so simple as snow and cold weather? Did our size and strength protect us from it? Are those hundreds of thousands any less of a loss because they died of fever rather than some fancy application of magic? What difference does it make to the dead—or those left to fight?
“I admit, to a soldier, winning because your enemy falls ill might not seem very glamorous or heroic, but dead is dead. Our army outnumbers these people many times over, yet we lost those hundreds of thousands to fever because of simple weather—not the magic you are so worried about us protecting you from.”
“But in a real fight,” Sebastian scoffed, “then our numbers really mean something and will win out.”
“Tell that to those who died of fever. Numbers don’t always determine the winner.”
“That’s outlandish,” Sebastian shot back.
Sister Perdita pointed at the line of dead. “Tell it to them.”
“We must take risks if we’re to win,” Jagang said, settling the matter. “What I want to know is if the enemy can be expected to throw more of these constructed spells at us?”
Sister Perdita shook her head, as if to say she had no idea. “I doubt that Wizard Zorander knows much about the constructed spells kept there. Such magic is no longer understood well.”
“He apparently understood one of them pretty well,” Sebastian said.
“And, that might have been the only one he understood well enough to use. As I said before, once used, constructed spells are used up.”
“But it’s also possible,” Jennsen interrupted, “that there are more constructed spells he does understand.”
“Yes. Or, for all anyone knows, this could have been the last constructed spell in existence. On the other hand, he might be sitting in there with a hundred of them in his lap, all much worse than this one. There is simply no way to know.”
Jagang’s black eyes gazed out at his fallen cavalry elite. “Well, he certainly used this one to cut—”
There was a sudden blinding flash off at the horizon.
The world around them lit with the intensity of a flash of lightning, but the flash didn’t die out as lightning did. Jennsen seized the reins just under Rusty and Pete’s bits to keep them from bolting. Other horses spooked, rearing up.
White-hot light flared up from the river valley down over the hills—in the direction of the army. The light was so white, so pure, so hot, that it lit the clouds from underneath all the way to the opposite horizon. It was a light of such power, such intensity, that many of the men dropped to a knee in alarm.
The incandescent glow expanded outward with incredible speed, dwarfing the hills, yet it was so distant that they heard nothing. The rocky slopes of the mountains ringing the city were all illuminated in the harsh glare.
And then Jennsen heard at last a deep rumbling boom that vibrated in her chest. It shook the ground beneath their feet. The powerful, resonant boom stretched out into a growing, clacking roar.
A dark dome expanded up through the light. Jennsen realized that, because of the distance, what looked to her like a spreading dome of dust had to be debris at least as big as trees. Or wagons.
As the dark cloud expanded upward through the light, it dissipated, as if evaporating in the might of that consuming heat and light. Jennsen could see a wave, like the rings made by tossing a rock in a pond, radiating outward, except this was a single wave racing across the ground.
As everyone stood transfixed, gripped in fright, a sudden wall of wind, driving dirt and sand before it, blasted up the hill toward them. It was the shock of the wave that had finally reached them. It was so abrupt and so powerful that if the branches were not already bare, they would have been stripped of leaves right then and there. Limbs snapped as trees shuddered under the concussion of wind.
More horses panicked, bucking and bolting. Men dropped to the ground to protect themselves from what might come next. Jennsen, staggered by the blast of wind, shielded her eyes with a hand while huge soldiers recited prayers learned in childhood, begging the Creator for salvation.
Jagang stood facing the sight with angry defiant challenge.
“Dear spirits,” Jennsen finally said, squinting, blinking the dust from her
eyes as the aftermath seemed to abate. “What could that have possibly been?”
