Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04

by Chaz Brenchley

  No need to find out today, no opportunity. She was encumbered, Coren was not; he stepped forward and she saw him make the smallest of gestures, heard him murmur the quietest of words.

  Sharper than any dagger, his slender and courtly fingers; more deadly than any imam's blessing, his gentle voice. She saw that corporeal shadow dissipate into shreds and nothing, she heard her own slow sigh of tension released, she felt that she could have copied her grandfather in his boneless collapse if Julianne hadn't been so wrapped around her, still taut as a strung wire. It took all her will to force her head to turn, and her voice was little more than a whisper as she said, ‘I didn't know you could do that.'

  Coren smiled faintly. 'Against such as that, yes. It was only a fragment; malign, but struggling simply to hold itself together in a world not its own. It had no true life, no spirit. It might have sought to infect another body; Marron is always vulnerable, with that open wound on his arm. Even the Daughter could have lost its fight then, and who can say how much we might have regretted that?'

  Marron, yes. There was still Marron, and the Princip was exhausted. She stole a glance towards Jemel and saw him sitting beside the young Patric, his eyes fixed on her grandfather, his gaze burning. Give him time, let him recover, he's an old man - but she couldn't say it aloud, to make a hypocrite of herself. The same urgency was scorching her. Marron might have no time, the Daughter could fail at any moment or his body be laid waste by the battle raging within it. She wanted to run to the Princip herself, as Jemel apparently would not; she wanted to disregard age and weariness and all, haul him over to the other pallet, demand another miracle.

  Jemel would not do it because he was proud, because he was Sharai in a Patric house, because he had the hard patience of the desert and his own strong sense of honour. She could not do it, because she still had Julianne.

  Finally, though, she could at least pass that burden on. She looked into her friend's eyes and smiled.

  'Is it, is it over now, is it done?' 'It's done, sweet. Come . . .'

  She led her friend forward on stumbling feet, to the pallet where Hasan lay. Julianne gave another of those wordless little cries and dropped to her knees beside him. Elisande saw that the dreadful grey cast was gone from his skin, and the blood ran bright and fresh now from the gaping cut on his wrist. That at least she could attend to; she crouched beside him, reached to touch and felt the warm tingle in her fingertips as her own healing ability was awoken.

  She knitted flesh to flesh and skin to skin. It was easy, it had always been easy here at the heart of her life. She could see the trembling in Julianne's fingers as they touched Hasan's face, as they confirmed the new-risen warmth in him; she wished it was as easy to mend what was damaged in her friend. There was a hesitation in Julianne's breathing too, which turned to a gasp of disgust and wonder as she touched the three ripped wounds on his cheek and the scabs there crumbled and fell away to show healthy tissue beneath, if dark seamed scars were ever healthy.

  'Those he'll keep,' Coren said behind her, 'as a memento. I'm afraid he's spoiled for looks, though he won't think so and neither will his women. His other women. If you'd wanted pretty, you should have stayed with Imber.'

  She all but ignored that, as was only right that she should; she had one fear left, and addressed it to Elisande. 'Why doesn't he wake?'

  'He will, sweetheart. That was a deep working; they ought both sleep a while now, your Hasan and my grandfer. He is only sleeping, though. We could wake him if you want.'

  'No. No, leave him be. But - Elisande, could you send your djinni to fetch someone for me?'

  'Yes, of course. Anyone, from anywhere. Who do you want?' Actually she knew already, she'd only been waiting for Julianne to realise who she wanted. Let the girl think it was her own idea, she'd benefit the more.

  'Bring Sherett here from wherever she has gone, if it can find her. He, he would like to see her, when he wakes.'

  He would like to see her, truly; but Julianne had said 'fetch someone for me', and that was true too, Elisande thought.

  'Esren will find her, and she will come. She won't even argue.' Much. Probably...

  In the brief time that it took her to summon the djinni, send it on its errand and elect to ignore Coren's quiet amusement, the Princip had roused himself, at least a little. He called a page into the room, and sent the boy running for a towel and a ewer of water - 'Just too late,' Elisande murmured to a suddenly gigglish Julianne, 'I could've sent Esren, I'd have enjoyed that' - then pushed himself slowly to his feet, ran both hands through his mane of hair and stood looking sombrely down at Marron.

  Also, inevitably, at Jemel: who stared back, silent and demanding.

  'Patience, lad. I will attend to your friend; but that will be a delicate matter, and I need to think a little first. There are other matters than his health to be considered.'

  Not for Jemel, plainly; and not for Elisande either, though she did understand her grandfather's hesitation. He was like Rudel in that, seeing the boy only as a vessel for what he carried, and a weak vessel too. A dozen times or more, she'd heard her father as good as say that Surayon and the whole Kingdom would be better off with Marron dead. What they should do with the Daughter once that happy end had been accomplished, she'd never troubled herself to enquire. In her time of hating him - and it was hard, so hard, too hard sometimes to remember that that time was cruelly over, it had occupied her so intensely for so long -she had always assumed and sometimes said that he no doubt wanted it for himself, that he could imagine no man better suited to carry such a burden.

  Now that she couldn't hate any longer, now that she had been surprised by mourning, she thought that perhaps he had been right. Thinking of all the men she knew, if anyone had to carry the thing, none would have made a safer guardian than Rudel. Force seldom wielded, strength under strong control, the skills of war overmastered by a furious demand for peace: these would all have been virtues in the man who held the Daughter. Marron was learning, but painfully and at cost to others. Rudel had been better equipped at birth, and had added a lifetime's experience since.

  If Rudel had been carrying the Daughter, likely he would not be dead now. But Marron likely would be, his gift for finding trouble was in no way dependent on his stumbling attempts to be the Ghost Walker ...

  She wasn't going to play that game, setting one death against another and trying to weigh which mattered more. She was not. What mattered was that the Daughter had been brought to Surayon, which was what she'd set out to do in the first place. Her prime reason for that was gone, now that the land was unFolded; but there were perhaps better reasons now to guard it as though it were a treasure of the state. If Morakh had been Ghost Walker as he'd wished, she thought that nothing would have stopped the march of the Sharai.

  Or if Hasan were? He had shown no desire for that, he'd offered Marron his blades protection rather than its edge; but that was in Rhabat and this was Outremer, where all his dreams were physical desires, within reach of his hand.

  She thought that she knew what her grandfather would do, now that she'd brought Marron to him; she thought it might be the most dangerous choice, but she thought he would do it anyway. Grandfathers were like that, like their sons, so little inclined to listen that there was seldom any point in talking at all. Which was no doubt why she was so natively quiet, so restrained, why she kept always such a curb on her tongue ...

  The Princip splashed cold water liberally over his head, till his hair and beard were dripping with it. He gave them a brisk rub, then tossed the towel over his page's shoulder and dismissed him with a stern warning not to linger in the corridor outside. To judge by the boy's face, Elisande thought that a waste of breath; curiosity would outweigh obedience, as it always had.

  She fetched her grandfather his preferred drink of fruit juice laced with wine, doing a page's service herself and hoping at the same time to hurry him just a little, to give him a gentle nudge towards the inevitable. As ever she wanted to be doing, or at l
east to see things done; delay was an animal that gnawed at her bones. She could pretend to the Sharai s desert patience, but only in the desert, where it was more necessity than virtue. Here, even Jemel's distancing shell showed signs of cracking; her own was in shards already.

  The Princip took the beaker she brought him, with a glance that spoke. He would do what he must to Marron when he was refreshed and ready, and not a moment sooner; would she have him botch the work, because he was still weak and ill-prepared?

  She scowled up at him and his lips twitched in a transient, knowing smile. He did drain the beaker in a single draught, though, before handing it back with a word of thanks; and then he did make a gesture with his arms that was sure to draw everyone's attention, as if he didn't have it all already.

  T said that last exercise was risky, and it was, despite Coren's talent at waving away trouble. This is worse, this could be lethal. I have to free the Daughter, before I can treat Marron's sickness; we dare not hope that he can control it, which means that I must. I should ask you all to leave, except that I know you would not go; if my own page won't obey me,' said loudly, with a theatrical glower towards the door, T have little hope of it from those of you who love the lad. Nor would I venture to give commands to the King's Shadow, when we stand once again unequivocally in the King's realm. However, I will do nothing until I am satisfied that you are at least as safe as you can be. Hasan is no longer bleeding; if any others among you have a cut, a scratch on your skin, say so now. Be sure.'

  None of them spoke. The Princip nodded heavily.

  'Very well, then. Even so, I want you all at a distance. You must forsake your place at his side, Jemel; not for long, if all goes as it should, but I cannot have you close. Help to carry Hasan out onto the terrace, then watch from there. Coren, be ready to come in if I call you, but not otherwise. Even you are not immune to this thing, and I don't wish to find myself explaining to the King how it came about that his Shadow is now the Ghost Walker, or else spread messily all across the walls of my solarium.'

  The words might be lightly said, but their meaning was entirely serious. Coren nodded his acceptance while Elisande and her friends dragged Hasan's pallet out into the sunshine. Then they grouped themselves together in the doorway, Julianne dividing her attention awkwardly between the unconscious figures of Marron within the chamber and Hasan without. Jemel stood stiff and detached, until Elisande tucked her arm firmly through his; then all his muscles seemed to lose their rigidity at once, so that he slumped against her side.

  The Princip started with Marron much as he had started with Hasan: the little touch to the face, a first tentative contact, less assessment than acknowledgement.

  And then the knife, though less than the cut that he'd made on Hasan's wrist, because so much less was needed. Just a nick to the enduring wound on Marrons arm, much as she'd done herself in the cell at Revanchard.

  Now as then, the Daughter came seething out with the first drop of blood. This time, though, Marron was that much further sunk into his fatal lethargy. Her grandfather could have had small hope of rousing him to control the thing; indeed, he didn't even try.

  Instead he stood up to face the shifting cloud of red as it shaped itself into the blurred echo of a creature, hinting at a body as monstrous as any 'ifrit ever chose. Elisande held her breath. This was the moment of greatest danger, when it was free and subject to no man's will. She'd taken a terrible risk herself when she'd loosed it in the cell, gambling on her ability to draw Marron back to consciousness. Her grandfather was gambling only on himself and his knowledge of its ancient and mysterious nature, and she wasn't sure how deep that knowledge ran.

  Deep enough, it seemed, at least for now. He raised both his hands palm-out, as if they defined a wall; he spoke a few soft words and pushed his hands slowly forward. The smoke-drawn creature seemed to eddy for a moment, then drifted away from him as though it were caught in a draught. Watching it go, Elisande thought it had lost a little of its definition; she found herself straining to make out the sketchy lines of its implicit body. She glanced at Jemel beside her, and saw a wet sheen on his face who almost never sweated; when she looked back towards the Daughter, it took her a moment to find it at all. She wondered if it had slid entirely out of the room; her momentary panic - Marron hurt, she knew, when he sent it too far from his body - was only slightly assuaged by her finally catching sight of a faint red haziness in the air.

  'Grandfer.. . ?' The appeal slipped out before she was aware of its forming on her lips, long before she could bite it back. This was no 'ifrit-shadow, the half-aware remnant of a dead spirit, to be dispersed into nothingness by a touch of Coren's power. It was something far stronger, and far stranger; and it was intimately linked to Marron. She couldn't imagine what would happen to him if it were scattered or destroyed.

  'Don't be alarmed. I have simply confused it — much as you would confuse the mind of a man you wanted to slip by unseen. This was more chancy, as it has no true mind to be played with; but I have left it only the slightest awareness of itself, and none at all of us. That frees me to work unfettered with your friend. There is still danger here, though. I must do something that I think has never been done before, and the less you hinder me with questions, Elisande, the better my hopes of success.'

  She nodded silently, uselessly; he wasn't looking at her. He had crouched down beside Marron once more, and laid his hands on the boy's pale ribs.

  It was Jemel who spoke, if thinly; Jemel who turned his head, so close that she felt his curls brush her cheek, and whispered, 'What does he mean to do to Marron?'

  'Heal him,' she murmured. 'Heal him completely, I mean. He's trying to break the link between Marron and the Daughter. Hush now, and watch. Pray if you can. I can't, I've been trying but I've forgotten how...'

  That wasn't true, she hadn't been trying; but Jemel had been observant all his life until recently, and it could do no harm if he rediscovered the old habit now.

  Whether Jemel did pray, she couldn't tell. But he did fall quiet again, and he did remember or rediscover his pride with his resilience, withdrawing a little way from her and standing alone, standing straight as he watched and waited.

  Elisande was sorry for him, glad for herself, tired of being leaned on.

  *

  The Princip didn't labour so hard over Marron's body as he had over Hasan's. A worm of doubt turned in her gut, for all that she tried to dismiss it as unworthy. She loved him, she understood him, she distrusted him mightily; she thought that he wasn't seriously trying to drive the darkness from Marron's blood and bone. Even when she saw the faintest possible mist of grey rise like a vapour from the pinprick cut in his arm, even then she thought it was only a gesture, she didn't believe it would be enough. Hasan had carried a half-living thing inside himself, that had taken strong magic to disperse; this was less than a warm breath on a cold morning, the waft of a moth's wings would scatter it.. .

  Certainly Coren made no move to trouble it; neither did it appear to trouble him. It wavered in the room's tugs and shifts of air, that she thought would be too light to disturb a falling feather. When her grandfather shifted his position, she took her eyes from it for a moment; when she looked again, she couldn't find it. Like the Daughter, she thought, and scanned more closely. But this had been only a haze to begin with, and so far as she could see it was nothing now. It had in truth been nothing all along, she thought grimly, trying to be angry: a charade, a lie, a distraction .. .

  'Grandfer, that can't be all.' At least tell me straight if you're going to let him die, I don't want your kindness. And Jemel was Sharai, desert-made, as soft as camel-hide and just as tough. He'd seen one lover go down into death, and had sworn an oath of vengeance that she thought still lingered behind his silences; she feared that he might swear another, if he ever felt he'd been deceived.

  'Truly, child, there's nothing in him now that is not his. He was infected by a breath, not a blow as Hasan was. The Daughter had kept it weak and denied it an
y nesting in his body; now it is driven out and gone. The question is whether I can deny the Daughter its desire to return - and how it will react, if I do so. Keep you back, girl, the danger is not over yet.'

  No, that she knew. She tried to look in two directions at once, at her grandfather where he held Marron's arm across his lap and at the Daughter where it was nothing but a hot and heavy cast to the air, as though a forge were venting into that corner of the chamber. The Princip's thumbs were working all along the brutal ridges of Marron's scar, and she desperately wanted to see what he did there; but there was suddenly a turbulence to that dim and smoky redness in the corner opposite, and she thought that someone ought surely to watch that and be ready to cry a warning.

  There would be little even her grandfather could do about that scarring on Marron's forearm. He'd left Hasan's claw-scars quite untouched. Torn flesh and broken bones could be encouraged to mend themselves, sickness attacked, even a tumour could be shrivelled in time; but what was already healed solid and knitted-in could no more be shifted than a face could be reshaped. More likely he was trying to feel out what bonds there were connecting Marron and the Daughter, seeing if he could sense some intangible affinity between the wound and the — creature? No, it wasn't quite a creature, though the more she thought about it, the more resemblance she could see between it and what had come out of Hasans blood, that fragment that had seemed to cling to the memory of being an 'ifrit...

  Elisande thought that the affinity was with Marron's blood; she was sure that her grandfather would feel nothing, because there was nothing there that human fingers were capable of feeling. Certainly the Daughter was sensing something, though. More than a stir, there was a violent agitation now throughout the thin cloud of its apparent body. Not enough to draw it back into a full understanding of itself, nor to make it a threat even in its ignorance; it seemed more deranged than dangerous, like an injured insect battering senselessly at door and shutter, so pulled by instinct that it was barely aware that it was hurt or trapped.