She hesitated. “That may be. 1 refused you, Trinesh hiKetkolel, but not entirely of my own desire.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you before. Certain responses are—are barred from me, walled away from my Spirit-Soul.”
He knit his brows into a single black bar of puzzlement.
“I am not my own person. You did not guess?”
He did not understand. Her physical charms had dazzled him, as had those of various other ladies elsewhere on other occasions. And that, his clan-masters said, was what came of a surfeit of romantic poetry! He squinted to see her expression in the play of light from the watchfires across the camp plaza.
She tugged at the hem of her little blouse. “The Jai Chasa Vedlan you seek is an ordinary clan-girl, taught to play the Sra’ur, sing a ballad, sew, embroider, and host her husband’s friends. She has a steady hand with the servants and might be a fair mother to her children.”
He essayed a grin. “That is wrong?”
“No, but that girl is only a part of me, Hereksa."
“And the rest of you? 1 do not see—”
She glanced up, so that her eyes flashed red with firelight. “The Lady Deq Dimani serves our god, ‘the Lord of Sacrifice,’ which is but another name for your Vimuhla.”
“What has her religion to do with you—us?”
“Hear me through. The first part of me might have welcomed you—in peaceful times even been glad of you, Trinesh hiKetkolel.”
He opened his mouth, but she made a brushing gesture in the air.
“It is the second part that holds me in thrall, an accursed, horrid slavery more oppressive than any you can imagine. You have heard of the Priest Pavar, he whose codifications underlie all of our modem theologies?”
“Of course. Every schoolchild knows.”
She seemed determined to tell him anyway. “Once, long ago at the very end of the First Imperium, the Priest Pavar lived upon the Isle of Ganga in the southern sea. It was he—and his disciples, and the many who followed them— who brought about the end of that age and began the Priestkings’ Empire of Engsvan hla Ganga. Pavar was cast in the rigid mold of the scholiasts, the temple sophists: neat, precise, balanced, and impassioned with symmetry. He proposed—discovered—invented, some say—the ten gods we still worship: five of Stability, and five of Change. He also defined the ten Cohorts who serve those gods: lesser deities who share something of the essences of their Master or Mistress.”
“I know all that!” He mocked her. “Even we benighted Tsolyani recite our catechisms!” Her preaching, lecturing tone nettled him. Did she intend to convert him to some obscure Yan Koryani creed—on this, his last night of life?
“What you may not realize is that Pavar’s obsession with harmony left no room for deities beyond his ten. There were—are—more: the Pariah Gods. Village crones still frighten children with tales of such as She Who Cannot Be Named—” “Cha! Then I’ll name her: the Goddess of the Pale Bone! And the One Other. And a half dozen other devils, demons, and bogeys besides!”
She shrugged away his ridicule. “The fisherfolk of my Lady’s Isle of Vridu told tales of the Pariah Gods long before the Vriddi of the Legion of the Searing Flame sought refuge there.”
“The terrors of superstitious old women—!”
“Not so. One of the most crucial questions of theology.” “Oh—/a!”
Cosmic doctrines bored him utterly. His teachers in the temple school had despaired, and his rump still smarted in memory of their persistent switches. He wished she would get on with it. Tomorrow—no, later this same day, for it was after half-night—he, Trinesh hiKetkolel, would suffer great pain. Then he would cease to exist: a thought no human mind can contemplate in its entirety. Nor was he completely convinced of the promises of the paradises the priests held out before the faithful.
He gave her a tired, angry look. “Say how this connects with the Lady Jai Chasa Vedlan.”
“You have heard the story of the Battle of Dormoron Plain, in which nine of the gods fought against the tenth, Lord Ksarul? Nine gods brought their minions to battle; yet when he was defeated and condemned-to sleep forever, ten walls were built around the Blue Room in which He was imprisoned. The tenth wall is that of the One Other, the least inimical of the Pariah Gods.”
“I know all that. The epics—”
“They speak truth.”
“The gods exist, then? As they are depicted in the legends?” Trinesh had never before realized that his religion consisted largely of conformity. He mouthed the words, practiced the rites, and followed along in the footsteps of his forefathers. But now, here, when it came to real belief, he was amazed to discover himself a skeptic!
“Of course. They are gods to humankind; yet They are only beings upon a much higher rung of the cosmic ladder. As you are to the little Dri-ant who touches its antennae to the toe of your boot, so are the gods to us. That is from the Scrolls of Pavar.”
“For a simple clan-maiden, you have all the worst traits of a philosopher!” he said, jeering. Before Fortress Ninu’ur he would have extricated himself from this god-struck girl as graciously as possible. Such women were common as candle-ends in the temples. Did not the priesthoods rule the hearts of the credulous with this sort of mythical claptrap?
Now, however, he was not so certain.
“At Dormoron Plain each of the gods did battle against Lord Ksarul with a weapon of his or her choice. Lord Hnalla struck with His Supernal Light of Myarid Brilliances; Lord Thumis with His Wand of Gray—and so for the rest. Lord Vimuhla, alone, possessed no arms beyond the Raging Flame of His own Being, and that was not enough. It was the One Other who placed a weapon in His hand.”
“I never heard that.” He was mildly interested in spite of himself. “A column of ravening fire—that is what our scriptures say Lord Vimuhla used.”
“That was its shape then. Once Lord Ksarul was defeated, this weapon was not returned. Lord Vimuhla loved it so greatly that He concealed it upon one of the Many Planes.” “And I suppose you found it?” He could not resist a small, cynical jab.
“No. The ancient mages of Vridu did. They enshrined it, venerated it, guarded it, and built a mighty sanctuary to contain it. —Until the One Other found the strength upon this Plane to come and steal it back.”
A flippant comment came to mind, but the girl was so deadly serious!
“His—its—servitors seized it from its guardians’ keeping. Later, when my Lady’s Vriddi ancestors settled upon Vridu, the first dwellers told their priests the tale. They made inquiries, but by this time the Ensgvanyali and afterwards the first Emperors of the Second Imperium had razed the temples of the Pariah Gods and slaughtered their adherents and driven their priesthoods from the land.”
“The Emperor Trakonel I, ‘the Blazing Light.’ Was it not he who finally destroyed the sect of the One Other?”
“Yes, he.” She twisted at a lock of her hair. “All traces of the Flame Lord’s weapon were lost, but in the time of my Lady’s maternal grandmother the scholars of Vridu discovered where the sacerdotes of the One Other had hidden it. Only now, when the positions of the moons and the planets are correct and the time has come, did my Lady Deq Dimani endeavor to regain it.”
Her reference to astrology reminded Trinesh of the unhappy events awaiting in the morning. He shivered and asked, “And has she?”
“It is so. She has found it—and learned to wield it. The hilt of this weapon, Flamesong, lies ready to her hand.”
He could not help laughing. “Oh, Chlen-shit! We searched your elegant Lady from crown to heels in the tubeway car! —And I’ve seen her as naked as a whore’s bare arse there in the pool in the deserted palace in Ninue! If she carried any hilt, it must have been—”
“Trinesh. I am that hilt. I am the pommel, and I am the blade. I myself am Flamesong.”
He could only goggle at her. He must have snorted since Dineva made a questioning sound, and Chosun stirred behind him.
“S
he chose me, took me to the ruined temple of the One Other in the hills behind Fortress Ninu’ur, and there she changed me from the clan-girl I was to the divine weapon I now am. The Lady Deq Dimani selects her targets, aims me, and strikes. I can no more resist her than a sword can disobey the hand that wields it!”
“Lady Jai,” he said, as gently as he could. “Whatever you think, whatever spells she used to twist your mind, you are no sword. You are quite human—and very much a woman.” He reached through the bars and took her hands. She did not draw away, but her fingers were again as cold as her northern seas. “A charming, lovely clan-girl, a maiden who can play the Sra’ur and sing. . . .”
“You are skilled with maidens, Trinesh hiKetkolel. Were I what I was, you might have cozened me into your embrace. I could have responded to you—or to any decent warrior-husband—had it not been for this—this burning brand within me.”
“Cha! You a sword? Flamesong? Lord Vimuhla’s own fiery, seething, raging Fire? The Lady seeks to conquer all the world with you! La, you are a blade to daunt armies indeed!”
“Recall Balar. And Prince Tenggutla Dayyar. It was I, as Flamesong, who slew them. By my conflagration.”
“Nonsense! Accident—coincidence! Your Lady has worked some illusion to make you think that they died by this—this cosmic magic!” He had not yet fathomed the precise cause of the crossbowman’s demise, but she had explained that of the Prince herself. He saw nothing very fantastic about either. “Believe me.”
“Come!” he taunted. “Bum away the lock of our cage! Melt General Qutmu’s dandified copper armor down to slag! Rage among the undead and the soldiers; turn the night of Pu’er into day for your Yan Koryani army!”
“I cannot. I am not so commanded.”
“Ohe, a good excuse!”
She bit her lip and glared at him. “I—I cannot. You are to die on the morrow, and I cannot use my power to free you—even if I would.” He thought to detect a note of real sorrow in her tone.
“Then why tell me this tale now, of all times?”
“So that you will understand. So that you may die knowing that the little clan-gir! truly did not turn away your advances—not of herself, not of her own will.” She sounded brittle, almost tearful, and he softened toward her. “But you do not believe me, Trinesh hiKetkolel of the Red Mountain clan. You are blinded by your limited, petty, mundane experience. You can no more understand than—than—”
“Than a fish can sneeze, as we say in Tumissa.”
She did not smile. “What I have said cannot harm my Lady’s purposes. You must die, and she goes on to wield me, her Flamesong, against higher targets. The Kasi's coarse priestess gives me to the Lady Anka’a hiQolyelmu. But that one will not waste ijie in some carnal ritual! No, she in turn curries favor with those mightier than herself. Have you heard that Prince Mirusiya and his generals lie at Kankara? I have learned that the Yan Koryani retook the wretched town of Mar, and that your Tsolyani only lately got it back again.
This is therefore the best occasion for gift-giving. The Lady Anka’a will offer me to Prince Mirusiya. He it is who will receive me, and he it is who will perish! Your Prince and all about him!”
Whatever he thought of her delusions, an assassination attempt was very possible. “And how do you propose to do this thing?” he inquired sarcastically. If she would tell him, they might trade that knowledge for their lives—a very slim hope, impossible with General Qutmu but more likely with the Kasi. “The Prince has guards, attendants, sorcerers with powers that make your Flamesong seem no more than the clay amulets the hawkers peddle in the temples!”
“Flamesong is not detectable, save by sorcery of the highest order—and only then if it be suspected.”
“Oh, the Prince’s folk will suspect. You won’t get near him, not alone. Princes must take their pleasures in front of their guards and mages—the price they pay for royalty! Even if he beds you there’ll be a score of chamberlains and servitors standing about to watch, to fawn, to applaud—” He could not repress a chuckle.
This time she smiled with him. “Chekkuru hiVriddi accused Tse’e—Prince Nalukkan—of a massacre in Fasiltum many years ago. Prince Mirusiya hiTlakotani was raised in that city by the Vriddi clan, and he will remember the young woman who led the rebellion. He will recall Elara hiVriddi.”
The Lady Deq Dimani had mentioned that name once, and the elders of his Red Mountain clan had spoken of her as well. When the revolt of 2,340 ended with Prince Nalukkan’s ghastly slaughter, she and several others of her Vriddi hotheads had been frozen in the stasis of the “Excellent Ruby Eye,” sealed into blocks of adamantine cement harder than any stone, and then immured in the Lower Catacomb of Silent Waiting beneath the Emperor’s impregnable citadel of Avanthar. Her awful fate was meant as a lesson to any other aspiring rebel—but twenty-two long years! Impalement would have been far kinder! He felt icy fingers upon his heart.
“Prince Mirusiya adored Elara hiVriddi, though she was older than he.” The Lady Jai retreated a step, thrust her fingers into her tresses, and pulled them back from her face.
His eyes mirrored his puzzlement.
“The Lady Deq Dimani chose me, Jai Chasa Vedlan, for just one reason, Hereksa. I come as near to an exact resemblance of Elara hiVriddi as any woman can. Prince Mirusiya will know this face, and he will remember this body. He will take me. He will welcome me. He will dismiss his servitors when I plead that I am ashamed before many and would be alone with him in his bed! After all, what harm can a little Yan Koryani clan-girl do? Flamesong requires only a moment to strike, and then your Tsolyani will learn what it is to moum a master!”
She bent closer, kissed him lightly upon the lips, and said, “Were it not for Flamesong, Trinesh hiKetkolel, I might have loved you. 1 am no Aridani warrior-woman, but we both are spawnecj of warrior clans.”
Then she went away.
No one slept. Dineva prayed incessantly, Chosun and Arjasu pondered their Skeins in glum silence, and Trinesh prowled back and forth at the front of the cage. He tried the bars, the lock, the beams of the ceiling, and even the planking of the floor a dozen times, but nothing availed. The KasVs invitation to escape was written upon sand! Given a six-day, they could saw away the lashings with a stone, dig a tunnel, or—he forced himself to smile—learn enough sorcery to magic themselves out of here. But the dawn was too close; just outside, those four stakes pointed up like skeletal fingers beckoning them away to the afterlife to come.
Gayel rose, swept across the sky swathed in veils of emerald radiance, and set. Shichel, the Goddess Avanthe’s azure-blue planet, and Riruchel, Lord Karakan’s blood-red orb, followed her. Maleficent Ziruna, Lord Hrii’u’s distant eye of faint-glowing purple, hovered just above the horizon to peep into the world. Uletl, the nearest planet to Tuleng, the sun, was late, as was Lord Vimuhla’s smaller orange-red moon, Kashi.
When those last two met in the heavens, the Mrikh of the Company of the Edification of the Soul would return, and they would die.
Their fourth visitor was, Tse’e.
The old man was not alone; another stood behind him in the shadow of the Kasi’s tent. Trinesh went to grasp Tse’e’s dry, wrinkled fingers in his own clammy ones. He wished that his hands would not tremble so.
“You have come to say farewell?” he began.
“Not quite.” Tse’e pulled away to fumble at something that jangled.
The door swung open.
Trinesh stared. Then Arjasu rose, lithe as an arrow, and slipped past them, out of the prison to freedom. Chosun lifted his shaggy brows unbelievingly, and Dineva’s litany choked off in mid-syllable.
“Who—? How—?”
The second man shambled forward: a muscled, shavenheaded soldier with a lantern jaw and small, pouched eyes like a C/i/en-beast’s. He was attired in a leather tunic and artilleryman’s boots. Not recognizing him, Trinesh looked a question at Tse’e, but the old man was already inside helping Dineva to her feet.
“Hoi, HereksaV' The n
ewcomer spoke in a gravelly whisper.
“Who—? I don’t know you.”
But he did. The voice was that of Okkuru, lately First Translator to the Gaichun of Mihallu! Trinesh had never seen him without his mask.
“Get your shit-smeared arses out of there!” Okkuru ordered cheerily. “Not much time. The guards are peaceful now, but they do have to make a round sometime. Then they give the alarm or mount the ‘high ride’ themselves!”
“But—?”
“La! No fear, Hereksa. Three gold bars and a necklace of
rubies as big as a Sro-dragon’s scaly balls! They’ll lake their time inspecting the scenery with the camp trollops this night!” “Three gold bars—?”
“Ai, and another Chlen-cart full where those came from. 1 told you I had put away a few trifles for myself. Now 1 need some stout lads to help me carry it all off to Sunraya—or somewhere I can spend it!”
Trinesh found that gathering his wits was no easy task. “You—you followed us, then, through the Nexus doorway?” The translator’s teeth gleamed in the shadows. “That I did. Soon as you left. Met this one—” he wagged a thumb at Tse’e “—in the merchants’ camp yonder. Figured you’d help a poor wanderer—you being good soldiers and all. You could wangle me a pass or two and keep me from being confiscated for the glory of the lmperium, as the army politely puts it. Never thought to see you squatting there waiting to be buggered by a stake, though!”
“The Kas{?"
“Four gold bars, a solid gold candlestick, and a big brassiere-thing all set with little sparklies for his lady’s drooping udders!” The man stifled a guffaw. “Your armor and things’re there, just inside his tent—and he’s sleeping the sleep of the blessed Doomed Prince Himself. He won’t wake up—he said so himself. You could dance on his head!”
Things were becoming clearer. Yet there was one question he felt he had to ask: “Did you speak to the Kasi before or after he talked to me tonight?”
“What? Why, after. Just now, in his tent.”
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