by Lynn Abbey
While the Lion-King could raise the dead and make them talk, not even he could interrogate sausage.
Civil bureau templars received the same five-weapons instruction that war bureau templars did. The dwarf drilled three-times a week. Pavek had kept himself in shape and in practice while he was in Quraite. If the brawl were fought one-against-one, or even two-against-one, he and the dwarf could have cleared a path to the gate where—one hoped, one prayed—they'd be met by yellow-robed reinforcements from the watchtower.
If they could have picked a single target and attacked rather than being confined to a desperate, futile defense. They had no time for tactics, no time for thought, just parry high, parry low, parry, parry, parry.
And a flicker of consciousness at the very end telling Pavek that the final blow had come from behind.
* * *
Mahtra felt the makers' protection radiate from her body: a hollow sphere of sound and light that felled everyone around her. She saw them fall—Pavek, Ruari, and the dwarf among them. Her vision hadn't blurred, her limbs were heavy, but not paralyzed. Maybe that was because, even though the danger was real enough, she'd made the decision to protect herself. Or, maybe her tight grip on Zvain's trembling hand had made the difference. Either way, she and Zvain were the only folk standing in a good sized circle that centered itself around them.
She and Zvain weren't the only folk standing on the killing ground. The makers' protection—her protection— didn't extend to the walls. Men and women cursed her from beyond the circle. Those who'd fallen near the circle's edge were beginning to rise unsteadily to their feet. The balcony where she'd seen Kakzim was empty. Mahtra wanted to believe the halfling had fallen, but she knew he'd simply escaped.
"You better be able to do that again," Zvain whispered, squeezing her hand as tightly as he could, but not tight enough to hurt.
She'd never protected herself twice in quick succession, but as Mahtra's mind formed the question, her body gave the answer. "I can," she assured Zvain. "When they come closer."
"We can't wait that long. We got to start moving toward the door. We got to get out of here." Zvain pulled toward the door.
She pulled him back. "We can't leave our friends behind,"
The young human didn't say anything, but there was a change in the way he held her hand. A change Mahtra didn't like.
"What?" she demanded, trying to look at him and keep an eye on the simmering crowd also.
"There's no use worrying about them. They're dead, Mahtra. You killed them."
"No." Her whole body swayed side to side, denying what Zvain said had happened. Yet the folk nearest to them, friend and enemy alike, lay as they'd fallen, their arms and legs tangled in uncomfortable positions that they made no effort to change. "No," she repeated softly. "No."
Kakzim hadn't died in House Escrissar all that time ago, and he'd held a knife against her skin. Ruari had been an arm's length away when she loosed her protection's power. He couldn't have died.
Couldn't have.
Yet he didn't move.
"Too late now," Zvain said grimly. "They're coming again."
But the Codesh butchers weren't coming. The noise and movement came from the yellow-robed templars charging through the crowd with pikes lowered and shields up. Without Kakzim to command them, the butchers weren't interested in a brawl. They fell back, retreating into the circle of Mahtra's power, but dispersing before they got close. Elsewhere, the brawlers quickly faded into the throng of bystanders.
A few voices still cursed Mahtra from the safety of the crowd. They called her freak and evil. Someone called her a dragon. They all wanted her dead, and when the templars broke through the crowd and got their first look at the circle she'd made with her protection, Mahtra feared they might heed her accusers. They stared at her, weapons ready, faces hidden by their shields. Mahtra stared back, fear and anger brewing beneath her skin. She didn't know what to do next and neither did they.
The templar phalanx heaved a visible sigh. Spears went up, shields came down, and the elf named Giola strode out of the formation.
"What happened?" she demanded with a quavering voice. "We took up arms as soon as the mob moved. We were at the gate when we heard the noise—it was like Tyr-storm thunder."
"Mahtra didn't think you'd get here in time. She took matters into her own hands."
"A spell? You're no defiler. Do you wear the veil?"
Defiler? Veil? These words meant nothing to Mahtra, only that she was under close scrutiny and there was no one to speak for her, except a human boy who spoke fast enough for both of them.
"No way! Mahtra's no wizard, no priest, neither. Where she comes from, they do this all the time. No swords or spears or spellcraft, just boom, boom, boom. Thunder and lightning all the time!"
Zvain sounded so sincere that Mahtra almost believed him herself. The elf seemed equally uncertain for a moment then, shaking her head, Giola picked her way through the bodies.
"Never mind. It doesn't matter, does it? What about the rest of them. Lord Pavek, Towd—?"
"D-Dead," Zvain muttered, losing all his brash confidence in a single word.
His tears started to flow, and Mahtra reached out to him, but he scampered away. Mahtra's arm fell to her side, heavier than it had ever been, even in the grip of the makers' protection. She would have sobbed herself, if her eyes had been made that way. Instead, she stood silent and outcast as Giola knelt and pressed her fingers against the necks of Pavek and the dwarf.
"Their hearts are still beating," the elf proclaimed.
Zvain sniffed up his tears. "They're alive?" he asked incredulously. "She didn't kill them?" He skidded to his knees beside Pavek. "Wake up!" He started shaking Pavek's arm.
Giola got to her feet without making the same determination for Ruari. She rejoined the templars, and they split into two groups. One group stood with their backs to the little stone building, keeping watch over the Codeshites, who seemed to have gone back to their work as if the brawl had never erupted. The other group stripped off their yellow robes. They tied their robes together and shoved spears the length of the sleeves to make two stretchers, one for Pavek, a second for the dwarf.
When they were traveling from Quraite, Ruari had told her that his mother's folk wouldn't lift a finger to save his life. Mahtra hadn't believed him—her own makers weren't that cruel. Now she saw the truth and was ashamed of her doubts. She was emboldened by them, too, seizing Giola's arm and meeting the elf's disdainful stare when it focused on her mask.
Mahtra told Giola, "You must carry Ruari to safety," then gave silent thanks to Lord Hamanu, whose magic had given her a voice anyone could understand.
"She means it," Zvain added. He was kneeling beside Ruari now that the templars had lifted Pavek. "Remember: boom, boom, boom!"
A shiver ran down Mahtra's spine, down her arm as well, which made Giola's eyes widen. The elf tried to free herself. Mahtra let her get away. While listening to Zvain's boasting, Mahtra realized she did have the wherewithal to use her protection when she wasn't afraid. She didn't want to; she didn't know how to limit its effects to one specific person, but the power itself belonged to her, not the makers, and when she fastened her gaze on Giola, the elf knew where the lay, too.
Pavek and the others revived somewhat in the abattoir watchroom. They could sit up and sip water when Nunk arrived from the outer gate, but none of them could stand or speak. The Codesh instigator looked at the high templar's glazed, unfocused eyes and his seedy face and decided the situation had deteriorated too far for him to handle.
"They're going to the city, to the palace!" He gave a spate of orders for handcarts and runners. "Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy, we'll all be gutted if Pavek—Lord Pavek dies here."
Zvain started to object, but the instigator's plan seemed excellent to Mahtra. She gave Zvain the same look she'd given Giola, and, like the elf, the boy did what she wanted him to.
* * *
Pavek began stringing coherent thoughts
together as the handcart bounced along the Urik road. He pieced together what had happened to him from the disconnected, dreamlike images cluttering his mind: Mahtra had saved him from certain death in the abattoir. She was with him still; he could see her head and shoulders as she ran beside the cart, easily keeping pace with the elves who were pulling it. Fate knew what had happened to Ruari and Zvain, but Pavek could hear another cart rumbling nearby and hoped his companions were in it. He hoped they were alive, and hoped most of all that he'd think of something to say to Lord Hamanu that would keep them alive.
Lord Bhoma let Pavek keep his sword, which might be a sign that the sorcerer-king wasn't going to execute them— or it might mean that Hamanu would order him to perform the executions himself, including his own. Ruari still had his staff, but both the staff and Ruari were sporting bandages. Lord Bhoma might have dismissed them as a threat to anyone but themselves. Zvain was plainly terrified; they all were terrified—except Mahtra who'd been here before.
Hamanu, King of Mountains and Plains, was already in his audience chamber when Lord Bhoma commanded palace slaves to open the doors. He'd been sitting on a black marble bench, contemplating water as it flowed over a black boulder, and rose to meet them. Urik's sorcerer-king was as Pavek remembered him: a golden presence in armor of beaten gold, taller than the tallest elf, a glorious mane surmounting a cruelly perfect human face.
"Just-Plain Pavek, so you've come home at last."
The king smiled and held out his hand. Somehow Pavek found the strength to stride forward and clasp that hand without flinching—even when the Lion's claws rasped against his skin. The air was always hot around Hamanu, and sulphurous, like his eyes. Pavek found it difficult to breathe, impossible to talk, and was absurdly grateful when the king let him go.
"Mahtra, my child, your quest was successful."
Pavek's heart skipped a beat when she accepted Hamanu's embrace without fear or ill-effects. The king patted the top of Mahtra's white head and somehow Pavek knew she was smiling within her mask. Then Hamanu fixed those glowing yellow eyes on Ruari.
"You—I remember: You were curled up on the floor beside Telhami when I wanted to speak with her that night in Quraite. You were afraid then, when the danger had passed. Are you still afraid?"
The Lion-King curled his lips in a smile that revealed fearsome ivory fangs. The poor half-elf trembled so badly he needed his staff for balance. That left Zvain, who was paralyzed with wide-eyed tenor until Hamanu touched his cheek. His eyes closed and remained that way after the king withdrew.
"Zvain, that's a Balkan name, but you've never been to Balic, have you?"
"No-o-o-o," the boy whispered, a sound that seemed drawn from the bottom of his soul.
"The truth is best, Zvain, always remember that. There are worse things than dying, aren't there, Lord Pavek?" The king looked at Pavek, and Pavek knew his ordeal was about to begin. "Recount."
Words flowed out of Pavek's mouth as fast as he could shape them, but they were his own words. He didn't feel his life slipping away; Hamanu wasn't unreeling his memory on a mind-bender's spindle, like silk from a worm's cocoon. He told the truth, all of it, from Quraite to Modekan, Modekan to the elven market and the warded passage underground. When he got to the cavern, the pressure on his thoughts relented. He described how the bowls and their scaffolds had first appeared: magically shimmering and glorious from the far side of the cavern. And how, when he pierced their glamour, he learned that they actually were made from lashed-together bones and pitch-patched hide and filled with sludge he believed was poison.
"I thought of Codesh, O Mighty King. But I wanted proof, not my own guesses, before I came here."
"You wanted a measure of that sludge, because you'd forgotten to collect it the first time and you believed your own words would not be enough."
Pavek gulped air. The king had used the Unseen Way. His memories had been unreeled, and he had not died, he had not even known it was happening....
"Tell me the rest, Lord Pavek. Tell me your conclusions, which are not part of your memories. What do you think?"
"I think Kakzim has found a way to poison Urik's water, but I have no proof—except for a few stains on Ruari's staff—"
Hamanu moved swiftly, more swiftly than Pavek could measure with his eyes, to Ruari's side, and when the half-elf did not immediately relinquish his staff, the Lion-King roared loud enough to deafen them all. His arm swept forward, claws bared, and took the wood out of Ruari's hands. Ruari collapsed on his hands and knees with a groan. Pavek didn't twitch to help his friend, couldn't: he was transfixed by Lord Hamanu's rage. The Lion-King's human features had all but vanished. His jaw thrust forward, supporting a score or more of identical, sharp teeth. His leonine mane vanished, too, replaced by a dark, scaly crest. He seemed not so much taller as longer, with an angled spine rather than an erect one, and a sinuously flexible neck. Dark, nonretractable talons slashed through the linen bound over the stains on Ruari's staff. A slender, forked tongue slashed once and touched the stains, then with another roar, Lord Hamanu hurled the staff over their heads. It exploded when it hit the wall and fell to the floor in pieces.
The words echoed inside Pavek's skull. He was not certain he'd heard them with his ears and didn't try to answer with his fear-thickened tongue. Instead, Pavek threw up images a mind-bender could absorb: He'd tried. He'd done his best to solve problems he didn't understand. He was merely a human man. If they had failed, it was because he had failed, and he alone should bear the blame. But his failure was not deliberate—merely mortal.
Pavek stared into the eyes of a creature who was everything he was not. He willed himself not to blink or flinch, and after an eternity it was the creature who turned away. With the tension broken and their lives saved for another heartbeat, Pavek let his head hang as he tried, gasp by painful gasp, to draw air into his burning lungs.
"It is enough. I am satisfied. I am satisfied with you, Lord High Templar, and with what you have done. But you are not finished."
A shadow fell across Pavek's back. He could see the Lion
King's feet without raising his head. They were ordinary human feet shod in plain leather sandals. For one fleeting moment he thought he'd rather die than raise his head— then shuddered, waiting for the fatal blow, which did not fall, though Pavek was certain he had no secrets from his king. It seemed Lord Hamanu wanted him to live a little longer.
Sighing, Pavek straightened his neck and looked upon a king once again transformed, this time into a man no taller than he. A hard-faced man, no longer young, but human, very human with weary human eyes and graying human hair.
"What else must I do, 0 Mighty King?"
"I will give you a cadre from the war bureau. Lead them into the cavern. Destroy the scaffolds. Destroy the bowls and their contents. Then, find the passage to Codesh. Another cadre will await you. With two cadres, find Kakzim, find those who assist him. Destroy them, if you feel merciful; bring them to me, if you don't."
"Now?"
"Tomorrow... after dawn. This sludge, as you call it, is no simple poison; it must be destroyed with the same precision that has been used in its creation. Kakzim has breached the mists of time and brewed a contagion that could despoil every drop of our water, if it fully ripened. It's dangerous enough now: spill a drop of it into our water by accident as you destroy the bowls, and someone surely will sicken and die. But in a handful of days..." Hamanu paused and drew a hand through his gray-streaked hair, transforming it into the Lion-King's mane, and himself as well. "Of course! Ral occludes Guthay in exactly thirteen days! Release the contagion then and it would spread not only through water, but through air and the other elements. All Athas would sicken and die. We must take no chances, Pavek, you and I. I will decoct Kakzim's horror, reagent by reagent, until I know its secrets, and you will follow my orders precisely when you destroy it—"
"My Lord—" Pavek squandered all his courage interrupting Urik's king. "My Great and Mighty King—all Athas is too
much for one man. I beg of you: destroy the bowls yourself. Do not entrust all Athas to a blunderer like me."
"You will not blunder, Just-Plain Pavek; it's not in your nature. You will not question what I do or what I entrust to others. You will respect my judgment and you will do what I tell you to do. Tomorrow you will save Athas. Tonight you and your friends will be my guests. Your needs will be attended... and your wishes."
Lord Hamanu held out his hand. The golden medallion Pavek had refused yesterday rested in the scarred and callused palm of a born warrior.
Pavek wasn't tempted. "I'm not wise enough to wish, O Mighty King."
"You're wise enough. I would have lived a life much like yours, if I'd been as wise as you. But if you do not wish now, your wishes will never be heard."
He thought of Quraite and his wish that it be kept safe and secret, but he wouldn't take the gold medallion, not even for Quraite.
Hamanu smiled. "As you wish, Lord Pavek. As you wish." As he turned to Mahtra his aspect changed yet again, becoming that of a beautiful youth with one graceful arm extended toward her. She took it and they left the audience hall together.
For one night Pavek and his companions lived as if they were each the king of Urik. A score of slaves escorted them to a sumptuous room with a broad balcony that overlooked a garden as lush as any druid's grove. The walls were decorated with gold-leaf lattice. Music, played by musicians in galleries concealed by those lattices, floated on the breezes made by silk-fringed fans. The floors were cool marble polished until it shone like glass. Between the room and the balcony, there was a bathing pool, half in shadow, half in light. More slaves stood beside it. Armed with vials of amber oil, they promised to knead the aches out of the weariest man. Silk bedding in rainbow colors was piled in one of the corners while in the center of the room the slaves laid out a feast truly fit for a king.