The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [171]
Below him, the army—to his etheric sight—had dissolved into a pulsing river of auras, mostly red shot with gold, while the servants moved through wrapped in darker browns and grays. He could pick out the priestesses by their silver auras, steady points of pure light glowing in the mass yet somehow set apart. All around the sunlight energized the etheric substance in sparks and ripples of silver. The astral tide of Fire was rising and merging with the tide of Aethyr.
Salamander spotted a long wave of Fire energy flowing downhill and launched his image upon it. As she floated toward her worshipers below, she raised her arms and nodded her head. A priestess saw her and shrieked, pointing at the image. In a swirl of silver auras all the holy women turned toward her and began to chant, their signal to the army that their goddess had appeared.
Salamander heard the warriors’ sudden howl of greeting—“Hai! Hai! Hai!”—as a distorted wave of etheric sound, echoing and moaning through the blue light. Long streamers of red and gold swirled upward from the auras of the worshipers below. As their chant and the army’s howls rose toward the image, she battened on the etheric energy that rose with it.
Now came the crux. Could he control the thing? He sent his mind out toward the image and felt as if he’d slammed into a stone wall. The priestesses, with their instinctive dweomer fed by years of worship, had surrounded their goddess with such an outpouring of emotional force that he had no chance whatsoever of reaching the image, not in any subtle way.
In a fit of ill temper Salamander sailed downhill after the false Alshandra. He invoked the Light that shines behind all gods and begged it to destroy the false image he had created. In answer, the tide of Fire brightened around him. He used his flame-clad arm to draw a massive pentagram made of the sparkling light and hurled it at the image.
“Begone! In the name of the Great Ones!”
At the pentagram’s touch, the Alshandra form burst in a shower of sparks as transparent as shards of broken ice. The streamers of red and gold fell back, raining down upon the auras that had originally released them. The priestesses shrieked and wailed, a horrible cry of agony to his etheric ears, while the men of the army milled around like ants when a farmer’s plow opens their nest and kills their queen.
Salamander flew back to his body, still slumped against the rock face. He slid down the silver cord, hovered briefly, then let himself fall back into the flesh. He banished the body of light and woke, panting for breath, soaked in sweat and stiff in every muscle. He staggered to his feet and, leaning against the rock for support, peered downhill at the army.
The priestesses had huddled together, a flower of white robes amidst the dark clothing of their servants. All around them confusion swirled as the warriors rushed this way and that, falcatas in hand as they looked in vain for an enemy they could fight. Horses reared, and servants ran to pull them down again.
“That gladdens my heart to see,” Rori said from above him. “The yelling and screeching woke me, by the by. It looks like your attack struck home.”
“To some extent,” Salamander said. “Not as much as I’d hoped.”
“Well, I can’t let this opportunity go to waste.”
With a massive roar the dragon leaped from the rocks above and flew. After two booming strokes he swept his wings back and fell like a stone hurled from a sling, down and down until Salamander feared he’d dash himself to death on the ground below. At the last moment the dragon swept up again, as silver and bright as steel in the noontide sun.