Fires of Azeroth

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Yet you must keep Roh's favor, must you not, Shiua lords?"

  Anger flared in the others; and guards fingered the hafts of their weapons.

  Hetharu only smiled.

  "Now," said Hetharu, "there are things we could do, regarding Chya Roh.

  But since he has been the only storehouse of the information we want, why, we have handled him with utmost respect. He is dangerous. Of course we know that. But now you have given us some latitude, have you 111

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  not? You know what Roh knows, and you are not, now, dangerous. If we should happen to lose your life in the process, why— we still have Roh.

  So we can dice with it, can we not?— You are dismissed, Shien, with our— thanks."

  There was no stir of movement. Hetharu lifted his hand and the pikes inclined.

  And Shien and his men strode out. One of the lordlings gave a low laugh.

  The others relaxed, easing back into comfort, and Hetharu smiled tautly.

  "Did he try to persuade you to his cause?" Hetharu asked.

  Vanye said nothing, his heart sinking with the knowledge that he had turned from one who might have done what he promised. Hetharu read his silence, and nodded slowly.

  "You know the choice we give you," Hetharu said. "You may volunteer that information… and you may live… while Roh will someday be surprised to discover that we do not need him. Now if you will do that, you will be wise. Or we can seek it against your will, and you will be sorry for that. So make your choice, Man."

  Vanye shook his head. "There is nothing I could tell you, only show you.

  And I need to be present at the Gate to do that."

  Hetharu laughed, and so did his men, for that was transparent. "Ah, you would like to find yourself there, would you not? No, what you can demonstrate, you can tell. And tell us you shall."

  Again he shook his head.

  Hetharu's hand crept to the shoulder of the khal who dreamed, eyes open, at the side of his seat. He urged at that one gently until the dazed face lifted to his. "Hirrun, give me a double portion of what you have… aye, I know you have more with you. And give it to me— if you are wise."

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  A mean and ugly look came on Hirrun's handsome face, but he flinched under the grip of Hetharu's fingers, and dug in his belt-pouch, brought forth something which he offered with shaking hands into Hetharu's palm.

  Hetharu smiled and gave it to the guard next to him.

  Then he looked up. "Hold him," he said.

  Vanye understood then, and moved, flung himself backward, but others were behind him and he had no chance. The splinted leg lost its footing, and he sprawled along with his guards. They weighed him down and forced his jaws apart, rammed the pellets down his throat. Someone poured liquor after, to the laughter of the others, a sound that pealed like bells. He tried to spit them out, but they held him until it was swallow or choke. Then they let him go, amid much laughter, and he rolled onto his side and tried to vomit the drug up, but it was too late for that. In a moment he began to feel the haze of it— akil, that vice too common among the khal and the marshlanders who provided it to them, that stole his sense and sent a horrid languor over him. It was strange; it did not diminish the fear, but it sent it to some far place where it did not influence what he did. A warmth stole over him, and a curious lack of pain, in which the touch of anything was pleasurable.

  "No!" he screamed in outrage, and they laughed, a gentle and distant rippling of sound. He screamed again, and tried to turn his face from them, but the guards gathered him up and held him on his feet.

  "There is more," said Hetharu, "when that fades. Let him stand, let him stand."

  They let him go. He could not move in any direction. He feared for his balance. His heart was beating painfully and there was a roaring in his ears. His vision was hazy save in the center of focus, and there was a blackness between himself and that center. But worst was the warmth which crawled over his skin, destroying all sense of alarm; he fought that with all the mind that was left to him.

  "Who is the khal who rode with you?"

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  He shook his head, and one of the guards seized his arm, distracting him so that he could not recall anything. The guard hit him, but the blow was nothing but bewildering. The blackness that centered upon Hetharu abruptly slipped wider. It seemed ready to tear asunder and drop him into it.

  "Who?" Hetharu repeated, and shouted at him. "Who?"

  "Lellin," he answered in his startlement, and knew what he was doing and that he must not. He shook his head and recalled Mirrind, and Merir, and all that he could betray to them. Tears ran down his face, and he pulled away from the guard and stumbled, caught his balance.

  "Who is Lellin?" Hetharu asked someone else, and the voice echoed in the emptiness. Others answered that they did not know. "Who is Lenin?"know, "Who is Lellin?" Hetharu asked of him, and he shook his head and shook it again, desperately, trying to hold to the fear that was his life, his sanity.

  "Where were you going when the Hiua ambushed you?"

  Again he shook his head. They had not asked him that before, and the answer of it was deadly; he knew it, and knew that they could shake that out of him as well.

  "What is the knowledge you have of the old powers?" the woman Halah asked, a female voice which confused him in this gathering.

  "Where were you going?" Hetharu asked, shouting at him, and he flinched from that horrid sound and stumbled against the guards.

  "No," he said.

  And suddenly the wall of the tent went back. Men stood there… Fwar, and others, with drawn bows. The pikes swung about to face that intrusion; but the bowmen parted slightly, and Roh walked out of the dark into the light of the tent.

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  "Cousin," Roh said.

  The voice was gentle; that kinsman's face looked concerned for him, and kind. Roh held out his hand, and no khal dared forbid him. "Come," Roh said, and again: "Come."

  He recalled why he should fear this man: but Roh's human face promised something more honest than surrounded him. He came, trying not to see the dark at the edges. Roh's hand caught him by the arm, helped him walk as Fwar's bowmen closed to guard their retreat, a human curtain between them and the khal.

  Then the cold wind outside hit him, and he had not even the control of his limbs to shiver.

  "My tent is this way," Roh said, bearing him on his feet. "Walk, curse you."

  He tried, although the splinted leg was the only steady one. It was a long blank time until he found himself lying against a wall of bound reeds in Roh's shelter. A ring of Hiua at Roh's shoulder leaned on their bows and stared down at him, shadows in the dim light of a fire, the smoke of which curled up to an opening in the roof. Fwar was there, foremost of them.

  "Go, get out of here," Roh bade the Hiua. "All of you. Keep an eye on the khal. "

  They went, though Fwar lingered last… gave him a broad and disturbing grin before he went out the door.

  Then Roh dropped down on his heels. He put forth a hand to his face, turned it to him and stared him in the eyes. "Akil."

  "Yes." The haze of it was too thick to fight any longer. He turned his face away, shuddering, for the warmth made the touch like that on a burn… not painful, but too sensitive.

  "Where is Morgaine? Where would she have gone?"

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  That alarmed him. He shook his head vehemently.

  "Where?" Roh repeated.

  "The river… Fwar knows."

  "The control is there, is it not?"

  The question shot through all his refusals. He looked at Roh and blinked, and realized afterward that his reaction had betrayed the truth.

  "Well," Roh said, "we have suspected it. We have been searching all that area. She dares not come back here, Master Gate though this is… aye, I know that too; and therefore she
must have that which controls the Gate.

  She will seek that point, reliable as a lodestar… if she is not dead. Do you think that she is?"

  "I do not know," he admitted, and the tears surprised and overwhelmed him, flowing down his face. He could not stop them, nor tell how much or what he had said that he ought not; all his sense was undone, and, he feared, his memory with it.

  "She was badly hurt, Fwar said."

  "Yes."

  "What worries me now is the thought of that sword of hers. Think of that in Hetharu's gentle hands. That must not happen. That must not happen, Vanye. You must prevent that. Where would she go?"

  The words were reasoning, the touch gentle and pleasant. He drew back from it and shook his head, swore. Roh's hand fell and Roh rested on his heels staring at him as at a perplexing problem, his face, so like a brother's to him, furrowed between the brows with distress. He shut his eyes.

  "How much did they give you? How much of the akil? "

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  He shook his head, not knowing the answer. "Let me be. Let me be. It has been days since I rested; Roh, let me sleep."

  "Stay awake. I fear for you if you do not."

  That had not the incongruity it might have held; it was not the first time he had seen this face of his enemy, that which had been his cousin. He blinked with dull perception, trying to think through Roh's words, flinched as Roh put his hands on his splinted knee.

  "Fwar told me that a horse went down on you. And these other hurts?"

  "Fwar knows."

  "I thought so." Roh took the knife from his belt— hesitated as Vanye saw it and recognized it. "Ah, yes. You carried it… to return to me, I do not doubt. Well, it is back. Thank you." He cut the binding on the splint, and that pain stabbed even through the akil, touching all other nerves. But Roh felt of the joint with great gentleness. "Swollen… torn. Probably not broken. I will do what I can with it. I will free your hands— or not, as you will have it. You tell me."

  "I will make no trouble for the meanwhile."

  "Sensible man." Roh bent him forward and cut the cords, then sheathed the blade and massaged his torn hands until some life returned to his swollen and discolored fingers. "You are clear-minded enough to know where you are, are you not?"

  "The Gate," he recalled, and recalled what had befallen Roh at such a place. Panic took him. Roh's fingers bit into his wrist, stopping him from a wild move, and the leg shot fire through the arch of the knee, pain and the akil almost taking his senses.

  "You are going nowhere, crippled as you are," Roh hissed into his ear, and thrust his arm free. "What do you expect? That anyone could want the carrion they have left of you? I have no such designs. Use your wits. I would not have let you free if I had."

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  He blinked, trying to think clearly, trying to flex the life back into his fingers. He was shaking, sweat cold on him.

  "Be still," Roh said. "Believe me. Body-changing is nothing pleasant. The one I have suffices… although," he added in cold mockery, "one of the Hiua might find yours an improvement. Fwar, for instance. His face gives him no joy."

  He said nothing. The akil set even this at distance. The pain faded back into the warmth.

  "Peace," Roh said softly. "I assure you, you are safe from that."

  "Which are you? Liell now, is it not?"

  Roh's face smiled. "More than not."

  "Roh—" he pleaded, and the smile faded and the frown came back, an indefinable shift of the eyes.

  "I say I will not harm you."

  "Who is 'I,' Roh?"

  "I—" Roh shook his head and rose. "You do not understand. There is no separation, no division. I—" He went across the shelter, there dipped up a pan of water… and on an apparent other thought, poured some into a handle-broken cup and brought it back to him. "Here."

  He drank, thirstily. Roh knelt and took the cup back when he was finished, tossed it aside into the straw, then dipped a cloth into the pan of cold water and began, very gently, to wash the dirt from his wounds, starting with his face. "I will tell you how it is," Roh said. "At the first is utter shock… and then a few days that are like a dream. You are both. And then part of the dream begins to fade, and you know that it was once there, but you cannot recall it in daylight. I was Liell once. Now I am Chya Roh. I think that I like this shape well. But then I probably liked the other. And the others before that. I am Roh now. Everything that he is, all that he remembers—

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  all that he loves or hates. All, in short— that he is or ever was— I contain."

  "Except his soul."

  A touch of irritation came over Roh's face. "I would not know about that."

  "Roh would have."

  Roh's hands resumed the gentle ministering they had for an instant ceased, and he shook his head. "Cousin— sometimes— there is a perverseness in me that I cannot help. I would not harm you, but do not prick at me. Do not. I do not like it when I have done such a thing."

  "O Heaven, I pity you."

  The cloth found a raw spot and he winced. "Do prick at me," Roh repeated between his teeth. The touch gentled again. "You do not know what trouble you have caused me… this whole camp. You know the marshlanders are across that barricade trying to figure how to get their hands on you."

  He gazed at Roh, distantly.

  "Wake up," Roh insisted. "They have put too much of that into you. What did you tell them?"

  He shook his head, confused. For a time he truly did not remember. Roh seized his shoulder and forced his attention.

  "What, confound you? Will you have them to know and not me? Think it through."

  "They asked— asked me to tell what I knew of the Gates. They are tired of relying on you. They said— that because the Men in this camp want to kill me, they would have more hold on me than on you… that was Shien's thought… or someone's… I cannot remember. But Hetharu… meant to have what I know— and not to tell you until a time suited him—"

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  "What you know. And what do you know of Gates? Has she given you knowledge enough to be dangerous?"

  He thought over the hazard of truth with Roh. Nothing would focus.

  "Have you such knowledge?" Roh asked.

  "Yes."

  "And what did you tell them?"

  "Nothing. I told them nothing. You came."

  "I heard that they had brought you in. I guessed as much as you have told me."

  "They will cut your throat when they can."

  Roh laughed. "Aye, that they will. And yours, sooner, without my protection. What do you know that you did not tell them?"

  Panic flashed through him, muddled with the akil. He shook his head desperately, not trusting to speak.

  "I will tell you what I suspect," Roh said. "That Morgaine has had help staying out of sight. She has been in a certain village; I have learned that much: Hetharu knows it too. Men live here, elusive as they are, and there are others too, are there not?"

  He said nothing.

  "There are. I know that. And I think that there are qhal— are there not, cousin? And you have friends. Perhaps that is who rode off with her, when she fled. Allies. Native allies. And she thought to go to the high place and seize control of the Gate and destroy me. Well, is that not her purpose? It is the only sane course for her. But I am less worried about what Morgaine will and will not, in the state she must be in now, than I am worried for who has his hands on that weapon of hers. A qhal and a Man are with her.

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  So Fwar reports. And who are they, and what would either of them do with such a weapon as that sword in his hands?"

  The thoughts tumbled chaotically about him: Merir, he thought. Merir would use it well. But then he doubted, and recalled that he and Morgaine held purposes at odds with the arrhendim.

  "Fwar brought me something," R
oh said. "Oh, he did not want to give it, but Fwar has a great respect for my anger, and he most readily gave it up for his health's sake." He drew from his belt a silver circlet on a chain…

  Merir's gift. "You wore this. I find it very strange workmanship, nothing like home, nor even like Shiuan. See, it is written over with qhalur runes.

  Friendship is the inscription. Whose friend are you, Nhi Vanye?"

  He shook his head and his eyes hazed. He was exhausted. Of a sudden the fear that had stayed remote began to trouble him, nearer and nearer, stalking him.

  "Hardly honorable… to worry at you when you are full of that foul stuff—is it? You are easy as a new-written page. Well, I shall not, any more. But I do tell you this that you may think on when you are sober again… that what I have asked of you I have not asked with purpose to harm you. And you must stay awake, Vanye. Come, keep your eyes clear. Look at me with sense."

  He tried. Roh hit him, enough to sting, but not with malice. "Stay awake. I will make you angry with me if that is what it takes. Your eyes are still hazed with that drug, and until that goes, you will stay awake, whatever I have to do to keep you that way. I have seen men die of it in this camp.

  They sleep to death. And I want you alive."

  "Why?"

  "Because I have put my neck on the block for you tonight and I want reward of it."

  "What do you want?"

  Roh laughed. "Your company, cousin."

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  "I warned you— warned you that you would not find your companions grateful when you joined them. You are a Man, and they hate you for it."