The news surprised her. He had never warned her, never even hinted that something was amiss.
“I want your promise, Kalianah, that you will never, ever, do anything like this to me again. Or to Tarja.”
“You can have that!” she sniffed indignantly. “If this is what you call gratitude, I'll never even think of trying to help you again. Then you'll see how hard it is to love anybody without my blessing!”
“I don't want to love anybody, Kalianah, so I don't mind at all.”
Kalianah's eyes narrowed and she began to change form. A tall, fair-haired young woman suddenly took the place of the little girl.
“You can live without love?” the goddess asked. “Is that what you think? You might be able to tame the God of War with your meddling, R'shiel, but my power is beyond your reach.”
“What makes you think I'm trying to tame the God of War?”
“I am not blind, demon child. Hythria and Fardohnya are united for the first time in centuries. Zegarnald already grows weaker. But don't think that by hardening your heart you can do the same to the Goddess of Love. Humans prosper without war. They will shrivel and die without me.”
“Do you personally take a hand in every romance? Do you make every mother love her child, every man love his brother?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why do they need you?”
“They need the hope I represent.”
“What hope?” she demanded. “You're a spoiled, petulant child who helps or hinders the course of love on nothing more than impulse. You interfere because you can, Kalianah, not because some human petitioned you for aid and you found his cause worthy.”
Kalianah was incapable of real anger, but she was as close to it as her essence allowed. “Your task is to destroy Xaphista, demon child, not impose your own atheist bigotry on the rest of us. Do what you are destined for and leave the Primal Gods to do what we are meant for.”
“And once I've destroyed Xaphista, what then?”
The goddess looked away, unable to meet her eye. “That is not for me to decide.”
“You decide who will love me easily enough.”
“It is not for me to decide,” Kalianah insisted stubbornly. “And you should not waste time dwelling on such things. You must turn your attention to Xaphista. If you devoted as much time to defeating him as you do to making things difficult for the Primal Gods, he'd be as weak as a newborn pup by now.”
“Xaphista will weaken.”
“Not in your lifetime,” Kalianah scoffed. “You have to tackle the core of his power, not nibble at the edges like a terrier trying to chew up a mountain. If you don't, then the moment Xaphista realises what you're doing, he will fight back with every iota of power at his disposal.”
“Then what do you suggest I do, Divine One?”
“If I knew that, demon child, I would have done something about Xaphista myself!”
Kalianah vanished, plunging the hall back into darkness. R'shiel stood unmoving, staring at the space where she had been. Something Kalianah said bothered her, but the thought was too elusive to grasp. Something about tackling the core of Xaphista's power...
With a flash of inspiration, R'shiel knew what she had to do. Kalan had given her the first inkling in Greenharbour. She had no idea exactly how she was going to do it, but the secret of bringing Xaphista to his knees was suddenly so obvious that she could not believe she had taken until now to realise it.
* * *
R'shiel pounded on Brak's door until he opened it.
“What is it? Have you found Loclon?”
“There's something I need to ask you.”
“Do you have any idea what time it is, R'shiel?”
“What do you care?” she asked, pushing past him into the apartment that Garet had allocated him. “You're Harshini. You don't need to sleep.”
He closed the door and turned to look at her with a frown. “We don't need as much sleep as humans, R'shiel. That doesn't mean we don't need to sleep at all. A point you would do well to remember. When was the last time you slept?”
“I can't remember.”
“Well, I can. It was four days ago. I'm seven hundred years old. I need my rest.”
She smiled at him. He was fully dressed and alert and every candle in the room was alight. The fire was crackling cheerfully and an open book lay on the table beside the large chair near the hearth. He had not been sleeping.
“Well, demon child, what is so damned important that it can't wait until morning?”
“I have to destroy Xaphista.”
“Really?” he asked with wide-eyed astonishment. “And it's taken you exactly how long to come to this startling conclusion?”
“Don't make fun of me, Brak. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do, but I can't understand why it's so important at this hour of the night.”
“I think I've figured out a way to do it.”
“How?” he asked, with no trace of mockery.
“I was just talking to Kalianah. She said I had to tackle the core of his power, not nibble at the edges like a terrier trying to chew up a mountain.”
Brak smiled. “That sounds like Kali. What else were you two discussing?”
“We had words,” R'shiel admitted, “about what she did to Tarja.”
“That must have been interesting.”
“She said you knew about it,” she accused.
He nodded and moved away from the door. R'shiel followed him with her eyes, but he was impossible to read when he didn't want her to know what he was feeling.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“It wouldn't have made a difference.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I've seen it before. A geas is no small thing R'shiel. Tarja was smitten and there was nothing to be done about it.”
“What about me?”
“You were never under Kalianah's geas. Not even the Goddess of Love would have risked such a thing for the demon child.”
“But I loved him,” she said, afraid her voice had allowed some hint of the pain she was trying so hard to deny.
“You didn't need Kalianah for that R'shiel. You grew up worshipping the ground Tarja walked on.”
“If she hadn't interfered, would he... ?”
“Would he have truly loved you in return?” Brak finished for her with a shrug. “I don't know.”
“He despises me now.”
“No, he doesn't. He just doesn't know how to cope with what's happened. The fact that he doesn't actually believe in the gods who did this to him won't make it any easier on him, either.” He poured two cups of wine and crossed the room, holding one of them out to her. “He'll get over it eventually. Drink up. Lost love always looks better through the bottom of a glass.”
“I don't want a drink.”
“Well I do, and it's bad form to drink alone. Humour me.”
She took the cup and sipped the wine sullenly, letting its warmth spread through her. Despite Brak's assurances, it made absolutely no difference to how she felt. Brak resumed his seat by the fire and took a long swig from his glass.
“So, are you going to tell me what this brilliant idea is, or do we have to keep rehashing the story about poor old Tarja for a few more hours?”
“Why do you take such delight in ridiculing my pain?”
“Because you're a lot tougher than you realise, demon child. I know you're hurting, but deep down you knew this would happen. As soon as Xaphista told you about the geas, you knew that Tarja didn't love you willingly. For all your human failings, you have an innate sense of what is right. It's part of being Harshini. You might lament losing him, but you know, in your heart, that it's better this way. The sooner you admit it openly, then the sooner you'll get over it.”
“Better?” she asked bitterly. “How could it be better?”
“Tarja was the chink in your armour, R'shiel. Xaphista would have exploited that weakness to its fullest. Don't you remember wha
t you told me about Xaphista when he tried to seduce you into joining him? He used Tarja then, and you almost gave in.”
R'shiel had no wish to be reminded of that dreadful journey through Medalon, but she could not deny the truth of what Brak told her. She sank into the chair on the other side of the fire and stared at the flames, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing that she knew he was right. She need not have bothered. Brak knew her too well.
“A moment ago you were bursting to tell me how you could bring Xaphista down. Do we really have time for you to sulk?”
She hurled the goblet at him. He ducked it easily and the glass shattered harmlessly against the far wall.
He smiled. “Feel better now?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don't. You just hate the fact that I'm right.”
“It's the same thing.”
Brak sighed, as if his patience was wearing thin. “Ask me what you came to ask, R'shiel. I really do intend to get some sleep in what's left of this night.”
“I have to attack the core of Xaphista's power,” she told him with considerably less enthusiasm than she had had when she burst into his room earlier.
“So you said before.”
“We have to go after his priests.”
Brak frowned. “You won't turn a single Karien priest, R'shiel. Even if you managed to win their minds to your cause, Xaphista owns their souls. Each priest is linked to the Overlord through his staff.”
“Then that is their weakness. If I can use that link, I can reach every priest in Karien and cripple Xaphista overnight.”
“In theory, yes, but how are you going to do it?”
“Kalan had an idea that set me thinking. I have to get a close look at a staff, though. I want to see how it works.”
“I'll tell you how it works, R'shiel. Very, very well. Don't you recall what happened the last time you had a close encounter with a Staff of Xaphista?”
“I'm never likely to forget. But you told me the staff destroys magic. Well, if it can do that, then the staff has to use magic, too. And if it can use magic, maybe I can do something to change its purpose.”
Brak sighed and climbed to his feet. “Come on then.”
“Where are we going?”
“You want to take a look at a Staff of Xaphista? Garet Warner has more than a hundred of them piled up in a cavern under the amphitheatre.”
She jumped to her feet in astonishment. “You think it'll work?”
“No. I think it's the most misguided excuse for a plan that you've ever come up with, but I know you won't let it go until you've discovered that for yourself.”
She hugged him impulsively. “I knew you'd help me.”
He pushed her away gruffly. “Don't get too excited, R'shiel. I'm doing this to prove you wrong.”
“I'm not wrong. I know this will work.”
He picked up his cloak from the back of the chair where he had discarded it earlier and looked at her sceptically. “A few more burns from touching those staffs might convince you otherwise, demon child.”
* * *
Two determined-looking Defenders barred the entrance into the tunnel that led into the caverns under the amphitheatre. R'shiel demanded entry to no avail, but the ruckus brought out the officer in charge to see what all the fuss was about. He recognised R'shiel and frowned. Shorter than the average Defender and prematurely grey, he was renowned for his organisational abilities, rather than his fighting skills. He was also an old friend of Tarja's.
“You can't see the prisoners, R'shiel.”
“We don't want to see the Kariens, Captain Grannon. We just want to have a look at the staffs you took from the priests.”
He frowned, but could see no harm in her request. As far as Grannon was concerned, the staffs were just useless, if rather valuable, religious frippery.
“Very well. Go with them, Charal. And stay with them,” he added with a disturbing lack of trust.
The sergeant took a torch from the wall and led them through the tunnel into the caverns on the left. The staffs were piled in a careless heap in a room near the entrance. There were another two Defenders posted outside, who stood aside to let them enter. Charal went in first and held the torch high. The flames reflected off the staff heads like myriad tiny jewels. R'shiel and Brak stared at the pile, careful not to get too close.
“Can you pick one up for me?” she asked Charal.
“Captain Grannon didn't say you weren't allowed to touch them.”
“We can't touch them.” Brak explained. “They're specifically designed to harm anyone with Harshini blood.”
Charal looked sceptical, but he turned to the wall and dropped the torch into a metal bracket before bending down and picking up a staff at random. He thrust it at R'shiel, who took an involuntary step backwards.
“Careful!”
Swallowing a sudden lump of fear, R'shiel stepped closer and studied the hated symbol of Xaphista's power. The shaft had been treated with something that stained it black and made the metal suck in the light around it. The head of the staff was made of gold; shaped like a five-pointed star and intersected by a lightning bolt crafted of silver. Each point of the star was set with crystal and in the centre of the star was a larger gem of the same stone.
Charal looked at the staff curiously, his eyes alight with greed. “Are they real diamonds, do you think?”
“No,” Brak said. “They're crystals of some sort.”
“They look like the Seeing Stone.”
Brak stared at her. “What?”
“I said they look like the Seeing Stone. You know, the big crystal they have in the Temple at Greenharbour?”
“I know what the Seeing Stone is. Bring it closer to the light.”
Charal moved the staff until it caught the flames of the torch. R'shiel stepped closer, studied it for a moment, and then tentatively reached out towards the staff head.
“What are you doing?” Brak cried in horror.
“Putting a theory to the test.”
She lightly brushed her fingertip over the centre crystal. No bolt of agony shot through her, not even a whisper of pain.
“How... ?” he gasped in astonishment.
“I didn't touch the staff, just the crystal. Try it yourself.”
Reluctantly, Brak reached out to touch the sparkling jewel, jerking his hand back instinctively in anticipation of the torture he was certain awaited him. When nothing happened, he gingerly laid his finger on the stone and looked at R'shiel in wonder.
“I don't understand.”
“Watch,” she commanded. He stepped back as she reached for the staff once more, this time with her eyes blackened by the power she drew. She placed her finger on the centre crystal and the room flared with light as every stone in every staff on the floor began to glow in response to her touch. Charal dropped the staff with a cry of alarm. Brak jumped clear of it as the room was plunged back into relative darkness as soon as her contact with the crystal was severed.
“But how... ?” Brak asked, looking at the now quiescent pile of staffs that lay on the floor beside them.
“I think they're chips off one of the missing Seeing Stones.”
“I hate to admit it, R'shiel, but you may have been right, after all.”
“I can use the staffs to influence the priests, can't I?”
He glanced at the pile. “That's what you came to ask me? I suppose. Provided you can access a Seeing Stone to control them.”
“The Citadel's Seeing Stone is lost,” she reminded him, glancing at the pile of staffs. “But Kalan said it couldn't be destroyed. It has to be somewhere.”
He did not seem to share her optimism. “I suppose, although where you would hide something as large as a Seeing Stone is beyond me. And have you considered the possibility that these crystals might be all that's left of the Citadel's Stone?”
“I'm guessing if a Seeing Stone was broken down into smaller stones, it's the one from Talabar. The Sisterhood wou
ld only care about destroying it or hiding it. Only the Fardohnyans would think of selling it.”
Brak nodded thoughtfully. “Which would explain Hablet's determination to keep the Harshini out of Fardohnya. He wouldn't want us to realise what had happened to it.”
“And only a god would have the power to break the Stone up. It makes sense, I suppose, although it must have cost Karien a fortune. I always wondered how Fardohnya got so rich so quickly. But what about Loclon?”
“We'll look for him, but without help we're not going to find him.” Her expression hardened. “The new Lord Defender has other priorities.”
Brak studied her determined expression and shrugged. “All right then, that just leaves one rather pertinent question to be answered.”
“What's that?”
“Where does one hide several tons of magic crystal?”
CHAPTER 44
Loclon jerked back to consciousness with a start, and for a long time could not decide where he was. His mind was filled with so many images, so much pain, that he could not gather his thoughts into anything remotely resembling coherent thought. He stared at the strange room, at the heavy drapes over the bed and the softly glowing walls, trying to recall how he came to be there. His head was weighted down with pain and he could not move his limbs. He could not even remember who he was.
It came to him, after a time, although how long was impossible to judge. He gradually remembered being Joyhinia Tenragan. He remembered the power he had wielded in her name. He remembered R'shiel standing over him, demanding that he live.
And he remembered dying.
The feeling stayed with him like a shadow looming over his soul. The pain seemed almost irrelevant when compared with the overwhelming terror he experienced when he recalled throwing himself on some nameless Defender's sword in the First Sister's office to escape the fury in R'shiel's eyes.
In hindsight, it was the most courageous thing he'd ever done - perhaps the only courageous thing he'd ever done.
He did not lament the death of Joyhinia, and his grief was inspired more by annoyance than guilt. He had lost the only true taste of power he was ever likely to have. Now he was nothing more than a fugitive.
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