The Mother shook her head slowly. "Again, daughter, you have asked not one thing, but many. It has been our will that those who have died have come to us in due time. We will not reverse ourselves and give up all our souls."
Eowlie gripped Karah's arm. "Does that mean they would give vack one?" she whispered.
Karah looked down at the blasted, torn, fly-covered body they dragged, and said, "Is Bren safe?"
"Bren is safe, and by our word will be king."
I would be most grateful to thee, daughter, if thou wouldst have those gods give back my only other worshiper. I need him much more than do they.
Heinous sounded pitiful and terribly hopeful, and he did not demand the man s life as her gift for freeing the Three—though Karah thought he had earned the right And Eowlie had life in her eyes for the first time since Karah found her next to the fallen law-speaker.
"Could you give this man back his life?" she asked, and pointed at the body.
"You do not have to take your boon now, child. You can save it for a moment of great need. I would not spend a gift on such a one as that—an ofttimes unbeliever, a man who would defend either side of a point for pay…"
Karah took a deep breath and said, "Can I ask for the return of this man's life?"
The Mother frowned "You can. It would be a foolish request. There will be many things you desire in the days and years to come, and you will look many times on this moment with regret."
"Perhaps. Nevertheless, Mother, Father, and Child, that is what I ask. Please give this man back his life."
Amourgin screamed—his scream went on and on, while his flesh grew back, and his bones knitted together, while his body reversed rot and decay—his scream went straight into Karah's soul, and burned its place there.
Then he rolled over and crouched on hands and knees, weeping, while Eowlie knelt beside him, whispering to him, stroking his hair with one hand, pressing her face to his side.
Karah felt a lump rise in her throat. It was the right thing to do, she thought.
She looked up at her gods. "Thank you," she said quietly, and smiled.
The Mother did not return her smile. "You earned our blessing. Simply remember—kindness is never a sin, but it is often a flaw." The gods vanished together, leaving Amourgin wrapped in Eowlie's arms, and Karah, outside the desperate intimacy of their greetings, to search for Bren.
"She's dead," Bren said. "At the end, Solmin said Willek's magic must have been keeping her alive as much as it kept her in thrall. Willek needed Shemro to live so she could proclaim Willek's right to rule."
"You don't" Karah looked at the wasted body of the woman who had been her emperor, then up at him.
"No. She was family, thought—and I never knew her. All my life, I've hungered for family."
Karah held his hand "Now you'll have it."
Bren turned and pulled Karah into his arms. He kissed her fiercely. "Yes," he whispered, feeling real happiness and a sense of wholeness he'd never known before. "Now I will."
CHAPTER XVII
"You're pardoned," Bren said curtly to Willek's troops—Willek's ex-troops;—as they kneeled before him. "It's a soldier's first law, to be faithful to their salt. I won't punish you for following one you thought was your lawful commander."
He turned to the chieftain. "Your people fought bravely," he said. "I don't forget my debts. The Rose Sea will be part of the Empire now, but this land will remain yours, yours and your children's children. Your only tribute will be the duty of guarding it."
Tagog nodded. "Sir—Majesty—if a captain can give advice to an emperor—"
"That's brigadier," Bren said.
"—we'd better start back. Three Alone know what's happening back in the northlands, with the Emperor and the Grand Constable both vanished."
Bren grunted agreement. "I'm not looking forward to that trip—" he began.
Karah groaned and rolled her eyes; Amourgin coughed discreetly into his hand Bren grinned, and touched the torque about his neck.
Take me—He stopped. Wishing was dangerous, very much so when you got what you wanted. Take us to the Imperial camp.
Vast wings seemed to brush across his vision. The cool freshness of the Rose Seas shore vanished; the dry heat of An Tiram supplanted it Cries of terror rose as officers exploded away from the map table in the Grand Constable's tent, overturning the sand table that held scale models of the city and the besiegers' lines. He watched their faces as they recognized him; his name ran through the camp in an echoing murmur. And from the looks, they were seeing something else, not just the band of ragged fugitives behind him. For a moment he felt a tremor of the same luminous awe, reflected back from their eyes. Then the sensation died, and reality returned: with the sewage-horse-and-garlic smell of a war camp, and the distant thud of artillery dueling with the city's defenses.
The Imperial staff officers drew their swords and knelt with the blades across their wrists. "Command us, lord," they said in ragged unison.
Most of them, he thought, probably even meant what they said. The rest he decided he would deal with generously for the time being. Those who did not come around he would have to take care of eventually, of course. But first there was An Tiram—and the Empire of Tarin Tseld, which suddenly owed fealty to him.
"First order of business," he said. "The Emperor—my aunt—is dead, may the Three receive her. We'll hold an assembly of the Army—" an old Tykissian tradition, that the new ruler had to be raised on the shields of the warriors "—and I'll take the title of Regent until we can hold a coronation in Olmya."
"Second—Count Mustermaster General Feughylfa—arrange for a truce and cease fire. The war is over."
They came, the Tseldenes—sullen and proud, but still they came, in silks and feathers, underneath the blazing midday sun. They attended themselves with musicians, with slaves, with carpets rolled along the ground that their feet might never touch dirt They stood in the commander's pavilion, eyes cold, heads high, and one of their number read their opening declaration—their requests and demands for terms of surrender.
Bren, newly made Emperor of Tykis, listened, arms crossed over his chest, until they ran out of things to say.
Then, he answered them; his response was shorter, and clearer. "No."
The commanders pavilion fell silent—the Imperial officers on one side, the delegation from An Tiram on the other. Mostly officers there, too, with a clutch of higher nobles. No priests, he noted grimly. Most of the priests on both sides of the war were dead. The air smelled of expensive perfume and fine leather, incense. Bren was dressed with somber elegance in dark blue silks; they felt unnatural on skin used to rags and rawhide.
"We are not here to discuss the surrender of An Tiram and the empire of Tarin Tseld," he went on.
"I am Regent," he went on. "I also have—this." He touched Karah's arm, and she turned the key in the Theophone, and whispered something.
The sky above the pavilion went black as moonless night, and all the ceremonial torches guttered out A falcon's shriek ripped through the darkness—and then glowing, marching over the harbor, the Three came. They walked in the light of their own radiance, glorious, their eyes fixed on Bren. The Father stopped at the great statue of Darkist that stood astride the harbor, and with another avian shriek, slammed it into the water with one paw. The Mother clapped her hands in a sound like thunder, and every ship that had ever died in the harbor came to the surface, and rebuilt itself.
Then the Child howled his long, shuddering, mournful howl, and all three gods leapt into the air and soared into the heavens, to become the familiar beacons of light that were the Father, the Mother, and the Child. They raced across the sky and not until they were gone did the sun dare to rise.
A rustle of awe went across the chamber. "I will be Yentror. Emperor of all the peoples."
He turned to the Tseldenes; they went down on their knees, then on their faces. "My first order—stand up!"
They obeyed, eyes still on the ca
rpets. "There will be no confiscations, no pariahs here in the southlands. You gentlemen will keep your estates, and most of your customs and religion. There will be changes—for starters, no more sacrifices. We'll move on from there."
There were murmurs of gratitude. "Hope you don't expect that to last," Karah said in his ear.
"Beat me to it," Amourgin murmured in the other.
Bren nodded. "And there are going to be some changes north of the Imperial Sea, too," he went on. Some of the Imperial courtiers paled "To begin with, this lady—Karah Grenlaarin—is now Regents Consort and future Imperial Consort. We'll have the ceremonies later."
A wave of low bows rippled over the assembly. Astonishment showed on some faces at the thought of a consort from the lower nobility. Get used to it, Bren thought.
"This gentleman is Amourgin Thurdhad. He is now First Councillor and Chancellor of the Realm."
This time he touched the Theophone lightly to still the murmurs; Amourgin wasn't even of the lower nobility.
A man could get too reliant on this, he thought, feeling the god-presence at the back of his mind He'd have to watch that. Gods, even benevolent ones, strained the human scale of things too much for routine intervention to be tolerable.
Amourgin started slightly at the magnitude of the promotion, and Bren gave him a bleak smile.
Why should I be the only one to suffer? Bren thought.
"There will be other appointments to follow. For the present, we'll see to the reprovisioning of the city and the reestablishment of order. I want the Tseldene commanders to report to me in private, and we'll begin the demobilization. Now—"
Karah could see in her fathers eyes that Iano Grenlaarin was stunned by the sight of the Imperial house banner as it came up his road and into his courtyard, and more so when he recognized her riding beneath it, with the ceremonial cloth-of-gold parasols held over her on long poles.
She could see him studying the man beside her. She wished she could hear his thoughts.
The rancher went to one knee as Bren dismounted and bowed his head.
"Majesty," he said.
Strong hands raised him; they were of a height, her two men. "Father-in-law," the Emperor replied.
Karah was off her horse and with an arm under his elbow when she saw him stagger. "What?" he croaked. "We'd heard—new Emperor—but—"
"We came fester than the news," the ruler said "I'd have come incognito, but," he shrugged, "the Yentrors a slave to protocol, I'm finding."
"Pa, I'll tell you all about it later." Karah smiled at him, thinking he would be proud of her—of all she had done, and of all she had become. "But first, where's Ma?"
Her smile slowly faded at the look on his face, and as she noticed the sudden burden of years that stooped his shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bren sign the guards to stand back, as her father turned and wordlessly led them to the family plot in a corner of the ranchhouse yard, beneath a scattering of pepper trees.
Her stomach lurched, and her hands knotted into angry fists.
"Misa Grendaarin," she read "Fallen defending hearthstone and family, Five hundredth forty-first year of the New Empire, Month of Wolf Running. May the Father shelter her, the Mother comfort her, the Child be with her, until the world is made new."
She signed herself and turned to Bren. "Just after we sailed from Derkin. Oh, godsall." After a moment she raised her head "What happened?"
"Konzin betrayed her—you—all of us," her father whispered.
"Konzin? Where—?"
"You can see him," Iano said. "But the ants haven't left much." He took her in his arms. "Weep, girl. I've had my tears."
She held her father tight—and fast on the heels of the anger and the sickness came another thought, a terrible thought. I could have brought her back. They said I would regret—
Then she heard a whisper in her mind, the voice, not of her mother, but of the Mother. "You can change your mind. We will allow you that."
The scope of it was more than she could take in for an instant. She pulled away from her father and stood looking at the plot of ground. Her mother was under it. Almost, she asked the Mother for that one gift—but she looked back, to Eowlie standing next to Amourgin, back of the guards. She had given her word. She would have to take one life to get that other… and her mother was already with the Three—
She stepped back from the grave, feeling a terrible weight settle in her heart.
Bren stood helplessly, his hand resting on her shoulder. When she looked into his eyes, he whispered, "I know. My own mother…"
She had not told him the whole story. No one knew that but her, and Eowlie, and the god Heinous. Not even Amourgin knew he'd died—he hadn't remembered, and at her first opportunity, she'd sworn Eowlie to secrecy. It had been a gift, one she didn't ever want to have to justify to people who could have thought of better things to do with it.
She had never truly believed she would have been one of those people.
She felt tears streaming down her cheeks—her anger and her dismay and her regret—and the only words she could say to her new husband were, "I wanted her to meet you."
Bren held Karah, feeling a sudden distance between them that hadn't been there before. He saw her look at Amourgin, and saw faint anger in her eyes. He wished he knew what that look meant—but then she looked at him, and the anger was gone, and the distance with it. "All things come round in then-season," she said softly.
"All things." He pulled her close again, and held her, his eyes closed, as she started to sob.
"I did the right thing," she said, again and again, until at last she stood away from him and blew her nose.
Bren extended his hand to Iano, and they gripped forearms. "I'm truly sorry. I cannot make up for what has happened, but I hope to be a good son to you."
He drew Karah back to his side. "And the Three be my witness… I mean to see that there's peace within our borders from now on."
So much for omnipotence, he thought, feeling the weathered ranchers eyes on him… and feeling their approval. Death is master even over the gods.
He looked around: at the entourage standing at a respectful distance, at the gaping ranch hands, at the long honey-colored slopes beneath the evening sun. He was tired, and suspected he would be for a very long time. Olmya and the palace were coming, all too soon.
"Let's go in," he said, kneeling briefly and laying a jeweled feather from his hatbrim on the grave. "There's the business of life to attend to."
"I thought we'd come to the ending, where the heroes go home and all's well," Karah said with a quiet bitterness.
Bren took her hand. "There are no endings, only more beginnings," he said, willing strength from his palm to hers.
"No ending except this," she said, the tears falling from her cheeks to her mother's grave.
"Who knows?" he said, as they turned from the grave. "Perhaps that's a beginning, too."
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