by Dave Duncan
At the same time, Orlad felt the blessing of the god flowing through the man's collar. It was like no sensation he had ever encountered before, but it was there and somehow he grabbed it. And held on. Somehow. Power like a rope of lightning danced inside him.
"Concentrate on one finger," the instructors had told them. "All you have to do is make one fingernail grow and you have made a start. Many thirties of learning lie ahead of you yet. Just one nail will do to begin."
Whatever Ranthr had achieved had satisfied Frath but had not been visible to the watchers. Orlad was a better man than Ranthr and would die to prove it if he must. One miserable nail would not satisfy him.
But it would be a start. Orlad willed one nail to grow and all that grew was pain. Angry, he tried harder and soon felt as if he had plunged his finger into molten bronze. The nail stayed just as it was. Fury came to his aid: Rage is my friend. He pushed through the pain. Pain is an honor. Better-man-better-man ... Hungrily he sucked power from Heth's collar and thrust it at his finger. Change!
Grind. Burn. Orlad staggered as the ordeal surged stronger. More rage: he concentrated on the enemy, the Florengian traitors, false Heroes who had taken the god's blessing and then betrayed their lord. They were the foe, the subhumans, the snakes who had given all Florengians a reputation for treachery. Fury filled him. A red tide swam before his eyes.
It happened! His finger sprouted a walnut dagger. Exultant, he forced the other four into that imaginary furnace, and four more daggers rose from their tips. Yes! Done it. Now he could wield the power. Faster it came, smoother, easier. He was beyond pain. He commanded his whole hand and every bone screamed.
Heth was muttering "Easy, easy!" but Orlad ignored that. This was the challenge he had wanted. The Florengian hostage would show them! Little Mudface would show them. Pain was an honor. There had been so much pain for so long that grinding a hand to paste was nothing.
"Easy, easy! That's enough for First Call."
The hand grew larger. Blood thundered in his ears; his other arm trembled as blessing spurted through it from the collar.
"That's enough!" Heth barked. "Stop! Turn back."
I will die first... More power, more pain. And there it was! A bear's paw as huge and deadly as Heth's—talons as long or longer, furred in sable black instead of white.
He yelled in triumph and brandished it overhead as if threatening the god. A huge cheer filled the chapel.
Now for the arm ...
"Stop!" Heth roared, striking Orlad's other hand aside to break the path to his collar. Both bear paws vanished, although not without a jolt of agony that made Orlad reel. His lungs froze. There was no air. The whole world swam. As his knees buckled, many hands caught him; two men held him upright so that Heth could swing and land a killer punch on his chest. They all staggered. Then another. Firelight was sinking away into darkness. On the third punch something snapped—probably a rib—but Orlad sucked in a huge breath of air. His heart shivered and resumed its usual beat.
Then everyone was thumping his back and pumping his hand. Someone wrapped his pall loosely around him and someone else held out a slab of bloody meat. Yes! He grabbed it like a beast and began tearing lumps out of it while the laughter and congratulations clamored. Never had anything tasted sweeter.
"All right?" growled the huntleader.
Rubbing the throbbing bruises on his chest, Orlad grinned sheepishly. "My lord is kind."
"Next time do as you're told." Heth turned away.
Orlad should feel triumphant, but fatigue was rolling over him in black waves. And he couldn't stop, couldn't just curl up and snore like Ranthr. Snerfrik was next, so Orlad must go and take his place coaching Vargin; and he must make sure that Vargin tried again tonight. Watching eleven successes should give him the faith he lacked. Maybe then Orlad would be able to sleep. For a sixday.
Long and hard was the road to finding and perfecting his true battleform. But Orlad Orladson had begun.
Part II
♦
Summer
♦
twenty-three
BENARD CELEBRE
was at home, working on the statue of holy Anziel. It was noon in summer and there were almost no spectators around to bother him. Clang! Clang!
Rumble...
Angrily Benard changed hands, placed the chisel where he wanted it, and swung again, spattering chips like hail. Clang! Clang!
Rumble...
The thunder came not from the cloudless heavens but from his belly. He had rushed out before sunrise to start work and hadn't stopped to eat.
Out of range of the flying rubble, Thod was making grrk... grrk... sounds as he smoothed holy Sinura's left ankle with a sandstone rasp. He was also chattering like a starling, reporting everything his mother had overheard in the bazaar the previous day.
"You shouldn't repeat that," Benard muttered absently for the sixtieth time, estimating if he dared hold the chisel there and strike like this. He visualized the heart of the stone and where it would cleave. Clang!... Good. He had cut very close to Hiddi's shin, but not too close. He stepped back to admire the play of symmetry and asymmetry, the long curve from slightly tipped shoulder to the weight-bearing foot, the symbolic hawk perched on Her wrist, bird looking up, She smiling down. He did not consciously insert such trivia; the goddess did, and he carved as She directed. Her likeness stood knee-deep in uncut marble. He was not quite certain about her feet.
"I'm done, master," Thod said. "You mark some more for me?" Then he looked beyond Benard and said, "Eek! Master! Run!"
Cutrath Horoldson was stalking across the yard toward them. Benard dropped maul and chisel, wiped his hands on his smock and waited to see if this was the end. Murder would not worry a Werist much—in Cutrath's case it would help to restore his reputation—but public disobedience of an express command would be punished severely.
He came to a halt a few feet back and glared. Thod was trying to hide behind Sinura.
"I have to pose for you, slug."
Benard shook his head. "It isn't needed, lord. I know what you look like. The statue will be you exactly, twice life-size, as your honored father decreed. You will dominate the Pantheon. The extra marble is being cut, but it can't arrive before spring." He saw some of the stress melt from Cutrath's tendons and sinews.
"I'll be gone from here two days from now."
"I know what you look like. I'll remember."
"You don't know what all of me looks like," the Werist said with menace.
Benard resisted the temptation to say he would call in Hiddi as a consultant. "My lord is a true servant of his god. I am faithful to holy Anziel. I will carve your image as perfectly as I know how. Like this." He gestured at Her statue.
Cutrath looked surprised. "That's Hiddi!"
"I saw her that night we ... we ... that night."
"That's very good," Cutrath admitted.
Benard was glad he had dropped his maul earlier, for that remark might have caused him to drop it on his toes now. "Thank you!"
"But you haven't seen all of me."
"I'll be generous."
Cutrath thought that over, too. "Very well," he said, and turned and walked away.
Benard stooped to retrieve his tools.
Thod's worshipful grin had appeared from around Sinura's half-shaped hips. "Really generous?"
"In perfect proportion," Benard said sternly. "Anything else would not be art."
Rumble... said his belly.
He cursed and wiped an arm over his streaming face. The sun was murderous. "Fetch me some ... No, wait. I'll get it myself. Come and round off this corner for me." He scratched an outline. "That much. And that." He handed over chisel and maul, feeling his hands quivering from the work—time for a rest. As he headed across to the well, a beaming Thod prepared to build muscles.
Four priests in variegated robes emerged from the Pantheon, causing Benard to mutter under his breath again, but they turned and went off toward the river instead of
coming to badger him as he had feared. Priests were pests, always wanting to inspect and criticize and bring guests to admire. So was hunger. And sleep. Anything that came between a man and his art was a pest.
He pulled up the rope, drank about half the bucket's contents, and tipped the rest over his head. As he started back to the future Anziel, a carrying chair emerged from the nearest alley. This time he swore aloud, something anatomical about pigs.
The chair was enclosed by a canopy and gauzy curtains so he could not see the occupant, but only a woman's conveyance would be so brightly gilded and enameled. The armed guard trotting ahead of it was a Florengian, as were its bearers, two brawny, deep-chested men. The guard was younger than they, slender and nimble-looking, wearing a sword on his back. All three were well turned out, with kilts of good quality, hair and beards neatly trimmed, although at the moment they were as breathless as if they had run all the way from the Edge, dusty and streaked with sweat from their exertions. The bearers set down the chair close to the statue of Mayn.
However annoying the interruption, Benard must be gracious. Women whose husbands could afford such a retinue were sources of future commissions. He wished he had not left the front of his shed undraped, showing all its intestinal clutter.
"Your mistress works you hard," he said in his rusty Florengian.
"I do not speak that language."
Only now Benard noticed the seal thong around the swordsman's wrist. His ears were not cropped, as the bearers' were. By the Twelve, artists were supposed to see!
"I beg your pardon, master swordsman. I assumed you were a prisoner of war."
The man smiled graciously. "A natural mistake, master. I am a freeborn citizen of Podarvik, two menzils from here. My parents still live there."
"There is cool water in the well. I am Master Artist Celebre, if you would be so kind as to present me."
"That's not needed," said a woman's voice. A hand glittering with seven or eight jeweled rings emerged from the drape.
Benard bent to kiss it. Then he recognized the perfection of its line and texture, the scent of her skin. He jumped back, startled. "Hiddi!"
"Who else?" She threw back the drape. "Go water the team, Nerio. I'm quite safe with this fellow."
The swordsman bowed and trotted off, gesturing for the slaves to accompany him. Hiddi favored Benard with a smile to slay armies.
"Master Benard! We meet again." She was enthroned in her chair, draped in a sort of pink spiderweb that did not reach her knees. Ropes of garnets, coral, and amber encircled her slender neck, her wrists bore a dozen bangles of gold, silver, and jade; jewels sparkled in her hair, in her ears; a tiara of pearls adorned the flaxen pillow of her hair. She was enjoying Benard's amazement.
Part of that was despair, though. How could he ever hope to match such perfection? What marble could equal the translucency of her skin?
She favored holy Anziel with a glance of twin sapphires. "You made that? How clever! Is that an owl?"
"It does not do justice to the original," Benard said warily. Having recalled that he had a gold arm ring buried under his sleeping mat, he had worked out why the Nymph had come calling. It was surprising that she had not caught wind of his windfall long ago, since Horold's donation had been so public. Benard was no longer a penniless artist, but that situation could be rectified.
"I am 'stremely impressed." Hiddi managed to look bashful. "It was terrible of me not to at once recognize your name that night you ... Thod! Go and play by yourself for a while. We grown-ups are talking!"
Thod had been listening with ears like winnowing fans and eyes not much smaller. He knew her! Whatever would little Thilia say if she heard that? At Hiddi's snarl, he turned an impossible shade of scarlet and shot a horrified glance at his master.
"Off with you!" Benard said, and Thod vanished in a spray of marble chips. "You know my apprentice?"
"I know them all. But as I was saying," Hiddi continued, obviously trying to make her voice sound less like a refugee's from a pig farm and more like a high priestess's, "I shouldn't have overlooked the name of the greatest artist in Kosord. As a collector of beautiful things myself, I am very honored to know you, Master Artist Benard." She flaunted her kohl-darkened lashes.
She was a child dressed up, robbing her mother's jewel box to play at being a queen or great lady. She was also unnecessary. Whether Nymphs were purely benevolent as they claimed or vicious gold diggers as their reputation labeled them, Benard needed no such distraction interrupting his work just now ... except maybe a quick glance at her feet. On the night they met, he had not taken adequate notice of her feet. Understandably. He could invent feet, but they would look wrong, at least to his over-critical eye.
"The lady is gracious to praise my art."
"That, too." She smiled coquettishly. Her face, her body, were delectable, incredible, but her flirting was clumsy and lame.
Puzzled, Benard said, "What can I do for you, mistress?"
The Nymph's sigh strained the muslin over those flawless breasts. "I still have to show you how thankful I am to you for rescuing me from those Werists." Earnest.
He bowed. "Say no more. It was my pleasure."
"I would be willing to show my gratefulness." Sickly coyness.
"I really am very busy today, Hiddi. I would appreciate a quick glance at your ankles, though."
"Just ankles?" Flirtatious.
"And feet."
"You should be more ambitious. Come back to my house with me and I'll show you all the pretty arty things I have, mm?" Imploring.
The prettiest of all were in plain view through her wrap. The lashes could not possibly be real—they were probably made of feathers and glue—but the rest of her was all genuine, every delicious morsel. Other appetites stirred. He could feel his resolution melting like snow in high summer. Rumble!
Hiddi smirked. "I'll feed you! I have a wonderful cook."
"No images of holy Eriander?"
"Not one, I promise!" Amazingly young, very desirable, she was somehow contriving to appear innocent while implying that her intentions were anything but. Her scent alone was intoxicating. Hard hammering had made Benard's hands tremble; her smile could make all of him flap like a flag, and his body was already saluting the view through that web. She sat at ease in the shade; he was being broiled.
"I have no gifts to offer you," he protested.
"Am I so stupid? If I wanted gifts, I wouldn't show you this." She rattled bracelets in a clash of metal. "And I wouldn't come begging from a man who lives in a kennel."
He did want to work on the statue while there was daylight. Nymphs did have a bad reputation for enslaving men and bleeding them of everything they possessed. On the other hand...
The other hand held several good arguments on its sweaty palm, not least of which was that he must eat sometime. He could not hope to hold on to his gold, because wealth was his corban. And he was curious to see her collection of loot.
"I'm not dressed to go visiting."
"I'll undress you when we get there." Teasing.
"No gifts, no god, no talk of love?" he said sadly. "Just rank animal copulation? Like a cat—one yowl and it's over?"
"As rank as you want, master."
"I do not enjoy being treated like an animal."
"You are an animal," she said sweetly, sure of her success now. "All men are."
"I suppose we seem so."
Slaves and swordsman came trotting back, dripping and apparently ready to begin another journey. Thod followed them cautiously.
If gauze could be slammed, Hiddi slammed the drape. "Then follow. Home, Nerio. Benard—heel!"
♦
He took a moment to outline some work for Thod, then sprinted after the chair as it vanished into the alley. He caught up with it just before the first fork. In these narrow ways, he made no effort to join the swordsman out in front. He had not expected to have trouble keeping up with older men so burdened, but Hiddi's slaves were trained to their work an
d kept up a fiendish pace, charging through crowds and narrow gaps like runaway onagers. The journey was much longer than he expected, uphill to the palace complex and then around to the fashionable side of the city. They stopped eventually at a gate set in an adobe wall. Nerio rang a bell. In a moment the gate was opened.
Winded, Benard staggered in after the slaves, down into a shaded courtyard. Someone handed him a soft towel and a golden goblet of cool water flavored with some astringent fruit.
He drank, wiped, and drank again before he felt able to judge his surroundings. The garden was spacious, running from a dwelling of three or even four rooms at one end to obvious servant quarters at the other, the sides being blank walls clad in vines. The overall effect was exquisite. He had been raised in two palaces and had visited rich folk's homes many times to discuss or carry out commissions, yet he had seen nowhere with more harmony and appeal than this miniature forest. He had stepped down into it from alley level, which meant that it was old, and obviously those massive trees were ancient. Their spacing around the obligatory fishpond blended with flower-spangled shrubs and glazed-tile paving in a perfect union of balance and peace. This haven had been designed and executed by someone with admirable taste.
First impressions curdled as he appraised the painted terra-cotta animals and plaster figurines. Whoever had added those did not know what taste was. Gaudy cushions and low gilt tables were being set out for dining. Half a dozen slaves—all male, all Florengian, a couple of them little more than boys—were laying out meats and fruits and well-shaped loaves. His mouth ached. Rumble...
Swordsman Nerio was likewise engaged in wiping off sweat and red dust, but he was also issuing orders to servants, who ran to carry them out. He noticed Benard's attention on him and wandered in his direction, still breathing hard but clearly amused.
"You are surprised?"
"Who owns this place?"