Touched by the Gods

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “And did he know?”

  “I don't know,” Apiris admitted, shame-faced. “I wouldn't see him, told him to go tell Lord Graush, not me.”

  “What did Lord Graush say?”

  “I don't know.” Apiris hesitated. It seemed to him that he had heard that priest from Biekedau had stayed in Seidabar, right there in the Great Temple. He had never petitioned for an audience, though, and surely if he knew anything important he would have...

  But why would he stay in Seidabar if he did not?

  Just then Bishau returned, and the two Councillors forgot about the mysterious smith and the priest from Biekedau as they settled down to work out what the temple magicians might do to aid in the Empire's defense.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Malledd!”

  The Master's bellow was audible even over the clanging of a dozen hammers on metal, and Malledd looked up from the sword he was shaping. He knew he finally had this one right, that it was going to be one of his best blades, and he hated to be interrupted. If he permitted the steel to cool before it was finished it might lose its temper.

  The Master was the Master, though. “Yes, sir?” he called.

  “Come here!”

  Malledd looked helplessly down at the rough-shaped blade. He held it up with the tongs for the Master to see.

  The Master immediately recognized the situation.

  “Let someone else finish it,” he ordered. “I know it hurts your pride, but do it.”

  Reluctantly, Malledd looked around, and saw that Darsmit had just tossed away a ruined blade, to be melted down and forged anew. The smaller apprentice was glowering at his anvil in disgust.

  “Here,” Malledd called, “take mine.”

  Darsmit needed a few precious seconds to take in what was happening, but once he understood he hurried to obey, and Malledd was free to leave the forge room at the Master's behest.

  “What is it, sir?” he asked as he stepped up to the antechamber. His heart was pounding; it had to be bad news, surely. A message from home, perhaps? Anva was ill, or little Arshui, or Neyil had injured himself?

  The Master was not alone in the antechamber; four soldiers in scarlet and gold stood behind him. That puzzled and relieved Malledd; had a message come from Anva or anyone else in Grozerodz, he would have expected Bezida or one of the other priestesses to be there, rather than Imperial soldiers.

  “Are these yours?” one of the soldiers demanded, holding up the battered, filthy remains of a pair of boots.

  Malledd stared for a moment. Was that what this was about? Was someone angry at him for littering the palace ruins?

  “They look like mine,” he admitted. “I lost mine when I was fighting the fire in the Imperial Palace.”

  “In that case,” the soldier said, “Prince Granzer would like to speak with you.”

  Malledd blinked. He felt his jaw sag, and in response snapped his mouth shut.

  “Prince Granzer?” he said.

  “That's right,” the soldier said. “He's investigating the fire, and he wants to talk to you.”

  That made sense enough, Malledd supposed, but it was still terrifying – he was being asked to speak to a prince, the Empress' own son-in-law and President of the Imperial Council. He would have thought that the matter would be handled on a much lower level than that, but it was not his place to question; if Prince Granzer chose to handle the matter personally, Malledd could hardly object. He gathered his nerve to speak, but glanced back into the forge room at first to see whether Darsmit was ruining that blade.

  So far, he seemed to be handling it well. Malledd turned back to the soldiers and asked, “When?”

  “Now,” the soldier replied.

  “Now?” Malledd asked. “You mean, this very minute?”

  The soldier nodded.

  Malledd glanced at the Master Swordsmith, who shrugged.

  “All right,” Malledd said. “Should I bring anything? Will it take long?”

  “That wasn't in our instructions,” the soldier said. “We were just told to fetch you. I'd suggest you come along immediately; if you need anything else, someone can be sent for it.”

  Malledd nodded, and followed, a bit dazed.

  Half an hour later he was seated in a waiting room in the central tower of the Imperial Palace, looking out a window to the east and realizing that the word “immediately” had applied only to himself, not to the Prince. Granzer's aide had told Malledd to make himself comfortable, and the Prince would see him “presently.”

  From the window he had a view of the city wall, with its black stone parapet and elaborate iron bracing. Beyond that, he knew, lay the plains, stretching from Seidabar to the Grebiguata, where the Imperial Army – including Onnell and Bousian and the other volunteers from Grozerodz – faced an army of nightwalkers.

  He should be back at the Armory, forging swords for those men – either that, or he should be out there with them...

  But he wasn't a soldier, and he didn't want to play the champion. Leading men into battle did not appeal to him at all. Let Lord Duzon do it. Besides, weren't there threats right here in Seidabar, as well?

  He stood up and looked down from the window at the burned-out ruins of the east wing.

  He'd done the right thing there, unquestionably. Those fools in the crowd would have let the whole palace burn down if someone with some sense hadn't gotten them moving! If anything he might tell Prince Granzer would be helpful in finding the traitors responsible, or in preventing a recurrence, then it was well worth his while to sit here and wait on the Prince's pleasure.

  That, at least, was what he told himself then. When his wait had stretched to almost two hours he was no longer quite so certain. He had discovered that he couldn't simply walk out, as there were guards at the outer door, but he was seriously considering trying to talk his way out; perhaps if he claimed to be ill, they'd let him go back to the Armory, where he was at least accomplishing something.

  That was when Delbur, the Prince's aide, reappeared and said, “This way.”

  Malledd followed him down a short passage and into the Prince's study. There, amid a clutter of scrolls, parchments, tokens, and weapons, Prince Granzer stood reading a letter.

  He put it down when Delbur bowed and announced, “The smith Malledd, of Grozerodz, your Highness.”

  “Ah,” Granzer said. He turned and looked Malledd over – starting with Malledd's neck, apparently having expected his face to be at that level. He worked first up, then back down to Malledd's slippers.

  “So you're the fellow who lost those boots?” he asked.

  “I didn't so much lose them as dispose of them, your Highness,” Malledd explained. “They were so badly damaged I was afraid I might trip over them.”

  “But they are, in fact, your boots?”

  “Yes, your Highness.”

  “You're the one who organized the bucket brigade and started cutting the firebreak?”

  “Yes, your Highness.”

  Granzer leaned back against a table and folded his arms across his chest.

  “Might I ask how you came to do that?” he said.

  Malledd hesitated, unsure what the prince was actually asking. “Someone had to,” he said.

  “Tell me about it,” Granzer said.

  Malledd hesitated further. He was no storyteller. “I don't know what to say, your Highness.”

  “Start at the beginning,” Granzer suggested. “How did you happen to be near the Palace when the fire broke out?”

  “Oh, I wasn't! I was working in the Armory when I heard shouting outside, so I went to the door and looked out and saw smoke...”

  Once he had started, Malledd found that it wasn't really difficult to keep going. He described the entire sequence of events from his first glimpse of the smoke to finally falling into his own bunk back at the Armory.

  “No one had instructed you to take action?” the Prince asked, when Malledd had finished his tale. “You didn't feel, perhaps, the hand of
the gods in your fortunate presence at the right time and place?”

  “No, your Highness,” Malledd said, uneasy at the direction the question seemed to be pointing. “I felt nothing but the ordinary urge to put things right when one sees them going wrong.”

  “It's been suggested by some of the soldiers who saw you,” Granzer said, “that you might be the divine champion of the Domdur, come at last to aid in the current crisis.”

  That was a statement, not a question, so Malledd made no reply; he looked politely blank.

  He didn't doubt a question was coming, though, and he tried to prepare equivocal answers. He couldn't lie to this man – this was Prince Granzer, the son-in-law of the Empress, President of the Imperial Council! But he didn't want to admit too much of the truth, either. If Granzer believed he was the champion he would surely be sent to the Grebiguata and put in command of the army there, and he knew nothing about commanding armies. He was a smith, not a warrior!

  “Are you the divine champion?” Granzer asked.

  “Me?” Malledd said, trying hard to sound surprised by the question. “Well, I suppose I don't really know. After all, how can I be entirely sure?” He smiled nervously.

  “Did you tell anyone at the scene of the fire that you were the champion?” Granzer asked.

  “No, of course not!” Malledd said, quite sincerely. “Why would I tell anyone that? I didn't want anyone thinking anything of the sort!”

  He hated this. He hoped his voice wasn't betraying him. How could he try so hard to deliberately mislead the Prince this way?

  Shouldn't he admit his identity? Shouldn't he show the Prince Dolkout's letter?

  But he didn't have Dolkout's letter, of course; it was back at the Armory with the rest of his belongings. And he didn't want to show it to anyone. He was doing his part for the Empire. He'd left his wife and children to come here to make swords; wasn't that enough?

  Still, it seemed almost treasonous to be standing here dissembling to the Prince, and he wished it were over, that he were safely back at the Armory and away from the Palace and everything connected with it.

  “So you just did what you thought had to be done? You had no ulterior motive?” the Prince asked.

  “That's right, your Highness,” Malledd said.

  “You're a brave man, then, Malledd of Grozerodz. I congratulate you on it.” The Prince smiled warmly.

  That made Malledd feel even worse about his deception. “Thank you, your Highness,” he murmured.

  “Well, now – you were the first person in there. Did you see anything that might indicate how the fire started?”

  Malledd shook his head.

  “No, sir... I mean, no, your Highness, I didn't. I don't even know where it started, let alone how – half a dozen rooms were already ablaze by the time I set foot in the Palace.”

  Prince Granzer nodded. “I see,” he said. “Tell me, Malledd, have you ever spoken to any of the other members of the Imperial Council?”

  The question caught Malledd off-guard. “I don't think so,” he said.

  “You haven't spoken to, perhaps, Lord Niniam? Or Lord Sulibai?”

  “Not that I know of,” Malledd replied, baffled. “What do they look like?”

  Prince Granzer waved the question away. “The Archpriest Apiris, perhaps?”

  “He wouldn't see us,” Malledd said, without thinking.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, well, when we first arrived in Seidabar, Vadeviya wanted to talk to the Archpriest,” Malledd explained, wishing he had just said no – but the Prince's question had surprised him, and he hadn't thought quickly enough to limit his reply. “But he wouldn't see us. So I've never spoken to him.”

  “Who's Vadeviya?”

  “A priest from Biekedau,” Malledd answered. “We traveled together, from Biekedau to Seidabar.”

  “Ah. He wanted to speak to Apiris, but was refused?”

  “Yes, your Highness.”

  “Interesting. Where's this Vadeviya now?”

  “I don't know, your Highness. At the Great Temple, perhaps – don't they have accommodations there for visiting priests from elsewhere?”

  “Indeed. So he might have spoken to Apiris by now, after all, eh?”

  “Uh... I suppose so, your Highness.”

  “Have you ever met the Lady Vamia, Malledd?”

  “No, your Highness,” Malledd answered. The simple answer seemed to be best when he was confused, and he was certainly confused now.

  “Lord Kadan?”

  “No, your Highness.” At least he knew who Lord Kadan was; he'd never heard of Lady Vamia or the others.

  “Lady Luzla?”

  “No, your Highness.”

  “Can you read and write, Malledd?”

  “A little, your Highness.”

  Granzer nodded. “Good,” he said. “Then I want you to do something for me.”

  “If I can, your Highness.”

  “If you're approached by any of those people – by Vamia or Kadan or Luzla, but most particularly by Apiris or Niniam... no, if you're approached by anyone who wants to talk to you about the fire, or about the idea that you might be the divine champion, I want you to write me a letter at once, and send it along. And I want you to refuse to answer any questions if you can do so without endangering yourself.”

  “Ah... but why, your Highness?”

  “There are strange things going on in Seidabar, Malledd,” Granzer said gravely. “Things you need not concern yourself with, but which I must pay careful attention to. I'm asking you to help me do that.”

  “As you wish, your Highness.”

  With that, Prince Granzer turned away, and Delbur beckoned for Malledd to depart.

  Malledd obliged.

  The entire interview puzzled him. He had expected closer questioning about the fire, and about why he did or didn't believe himself to be the chosen of the gods; the questions about various nobles he had never met didn't seem to make any sense. He mulled it over at length on the way back to the Armory.

  When he had gone, Granzer asked Delbur, “What did you think?”

  “About what, your Highness?”

  “About his veracity, first of all.”

  Delbur pursed his lips and considered that. He rocked back on his heels for a second.

  “I saw no sign he was lying,” he said at last. “He was nervous, yes, but the man's a common villager – of course he was nervous speaking to you!”

  “You think he was involved by chance, as he says? That he had no reason beyond patriotism for taking action?”

  Delbur shrugged. “Why not?”

  “You don't think he's the gods' chosen?”

  “As to that, I couldn't say. He said he doesn't know, and neither do I.”

  “Mmm.” Granzer gazed thoughtfully out a window at a dozen moons hanging in the afternoon sky, faint and pale against the blue.

  “Should I have him watched, your Highness?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Granzer said. “And this priest from Biekedau, Vadeviya – keep an eye on him, as well.”

  “Should I have him brought in for questioning?”

  “No,” the Prince said, picking up a letter. “No, not yet. Let us just see what he does. In particular, let us see if he succeeds in making contact with Apiris after all.”

  “Then you think that the Archpriest might truly be involved in a conspiracy of some sort?”

  “I have no idea, Delbur,” the Prince said, holding the letter but not reading it. He looked out the window for another second or two, then turned to his aide. “Perhaps Apiris refused to see his fellow conspirator Vadeviya for fear that this Malledd would become suspicious. Perhaps there is no such person as Vadeviya. Perhaps I've contrived this entire scene to delude you, as a step in a plot to take the throne from my mother-in-law – or to mislead you, because I suspect you of being a conspirator against the crown. Once you start theorizing without solid information you can make up anything you please, and incriminate anyone at al
l. I'm trying to collect enough facts to prevent that; I only want to incriminate the actual criminals. When this is all done I expect to see heads on the spikes atop the wall, Delbur, but I want them to be the right heads, and only the right heads.”

  “I see,” Delbur said, unconvincingly. He hesitated. “And the divine champion...?”

  “Delbur, I don't know who the champion is. I don't know whether there is a divine champion at this point. I'm inclined to think there isn't. If there is, I wouldn't mind if it's this Malledd, or if it were Duzon, or some other more or less sensible fellow – but I'm not going to worry about it. By Ba'el, we rule the world – do we really need some visible sign of divine favor to defeat a few thousand rebels?”

  “Um.” Delbur didn't reply beyond that, but as Granzer began reading the rest of the letter he had interrupted to speak to Malledd, he could guess what his aide was thinking.

  A few thousand rebels were nothing. The Empire could handle a few thousand rebels easily.

  A few thousand rebels with a horde of undead monsters out of ancient myth at their beck and call, a few thousand rebels under the command of a mysterious wizard of unknown abilities, a few thousand rebels who were the first the Empire had faced in two hundred years, a few thousand rebels who might inspire millions more throughout all the lands beneath the Hundred Moons, a few thousand rebels who apparently had the willing aid of traitors in Seidabar itself...

  A sign of divine favor would be very welcome.

  Granzer didn't think they were going to get one, however, and had to act on that assumption. Any admission of doubt would make it even worse.

  He looked up from the letter.

  “Well, Delbur?” he said. “Go on, fetch the next one!”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Onnell stared up at the yellow fabric of the tent, trying to remember where he was. It looked like the tent he shared with Orzin, Timuan, and Bousian, but he didn't remember returning here. He remembered the battle, and his slip in the mud. He had struggled to rise, had slit open a nightwalker's belly and been struck from behind...

  After that he couldn't recall.