The Pity Stone (Book 3)

by Tim Stead

  “Well, then, you have done your work,” she said. “I will tell Havil that you have done well, and your disposition will be up to him.” She stood. Marik stood as well. He seemed anxious.

  “I had hoped to be free,” he said.

  “A gift that is not mine to give,” she replied.

  “But a word from you…” he didn’t finish the sentence. Her stare had silenced him again. “Forgive me, goddess,” he said.

  That word again. “The correct form of address is Deus,” she said. “Nobody told you?”

  “No, …Deus.”

  “Narak didn’t say?”

  “No, Deus, I swear he did not.”

  “Just like him,” Sithmaree sighed. “No respect for the forms.” She went to the door. “I’ll speak to Havil on your behalf,” she said. She closed the door behind her, ignoring the guard who bowed and scraped as she breezed past him. She had no idea why she had said that. What could have possessed her? But comparing him with the submissive guard she found Marik infinitely more interesting. Perhaps he was just a man with a mystery. It had been so long since she had mixed with mortals that she could no longer understand them.

  Now she had a final duty to perform. She must tell Narak what she had learned, and to do that she would have to enter the Sirash. Havil had loaned her a suite of rooms in the castle while she stayed here, and a couple of servants to see to her needs. They were not particularly good servants – certainly not as good as Narak’s – but she did not think it was a deliberate slight. She put it down to their being Berashi. She reflected that it might be time to settle down again, to have a house and servants of her own. She had been a nomad too many years.

  She had a home once. It had been a very long time ago. She could barely remember the details. It had been somewhere north of Afael, close to the border, a house nestled among ash trees in a valley with a river running nearby. It had been a modest place. Sithmaree had been a poor girl when Pelion had taken her to be a god, and anything truly large, something like Wolfguard, would have be too much for her. But even the small house had proved too much in the end. She hadn’t liked people relying on her, asking her for decisions all the time. She had abandoned the place after no more than fifty years. She wondered if it still stood.

  There were parts of it that she recalled with fondness. She’d liked the river, bright and lively and full of fish that moved effortlessly in the current. She’d forbidden her people to catch them. She used to sit on the bank and watch as they twisted their sinuous bodies in the cold stream, never making a wasted movement, always at their ease. There had been snakes everywhere. Some of her servants were uncomfortable with that, even though the serpents that entered the house were under strict compulsion not to bite.

  Apparently there was something in the makeup of men and women that made them dislike snakes, and for a while she considered Pelion’s gift a curse, but in the end she came to appreciate that snakes had a degree of power over people. She was a snake, and she used that power. The house, however, was never a happy place and she hadn’t been sorry to leave.

  Times had changed, and so had she. She was older now. Sometimes she looked into the mirror and could not believe how old she was. She same young girl looked back at her, year after year, gazing across centuries, and only the eyes seemed to change. She no longer feared responsibility. She did what she pleased most of the time, but when she agreed to something she kept her word. It was the simple code that she lived by. She knew that the others thought her selfish, and she did not deny it. She was a snake. Her nature was what it was, and although it had taken some time to come to terms with that, she was comfortable in her own skin now, especially when that skin had scales.

  Now she had to find a secure place to sit and enter the Sirash, a place where she would not be disturbed, and there was a guard always on the door of her suite. There was no balcony there, and she had made sure that all the windows were sealed. It was as safe as she could be here.

  She heard a noise behind her and turned. There was nothing there, but it had sounded like a cry, a man’s voice. It had sounded like her name.

  Sithmaree was on the stair that led upwards, and she hesitated for a moment. She was aware of danger. She had spoken to Jidian about the attack at Bas Erinor, and the Eagle had confessed that he was fortunate to be alive. His life had been saved by a mortal. But the fact that this attack had occurred within Bas Erinor castle had shocked them both, and Tor Silas was hardly more secure.

  She went back down the stairs, taking them quickly, two or three to a stride. She had been dawdling, and it was only moments before she was in the corridor again, and within sight of Marik’s cell door.

  The door stood open. She could not see the guard, but the lamp within the room threw shadows that moved. There was someone in there. Sithmaree drew her blade. In her own mind she called it the Cobra’s Fang. It was short and sharp and curved, and one scratch from its poisoned tip would dispatch a man, though the venom might take a little while to finish him.

  She stepped through the door.

  Marik was dead. She could see that at once. He was slumped back in his seat, eyes open, surprise on his face and blood all down the front of his tunic, pooling beneath his chair. The guard was crouched by the fire, feeding papers into it. Her papers. Narak’s papers.

  “Stop that,” she said. The man spun around, drawing his blade as he turned. She sensed the blade at once. It was blood silver, a weapon that could kill her. But it would take more than a weapon to kill the snake. She stepped quickly towards him, avoiding his thrust as easily as she stepped around the chair, she caught his wrist and twisted, hearing it snap, feeling it shatter in her grip like a candle snapping, both soft and brittle. She slammed him into the wall, driving the breath out of him, and then stooped to rescue what she could from the fire.

  Only a few of the documents were burned beyond salvage. She pulled some out of the fire and put them on the table, putting the flames out with her hands. The guard had only just begun his job of destruction, and most of the translation was still scattered where she had left it.

  The guard was struggling to get up. Sithmaree crossed the room again, knocking the knife from his hand and pinning him against the wall. She showed him the point of Cobra’s Fang an inch from his eye.

  “Why?” she asked. She didn’t think she needed to explain the knife, what it was for, and the consequences if he refused to speak.

  It didn’t take him long to get the idea. “My brother,” the man said. “My brother was killed on the border.” Sithmaree pressed him against the wall a little harder. She heard him gasp for breath.

  “And the papers? Why burn them?”

  “Seth Yarra lies,” he spat, or tried to. It came out more like a wheeze.

  “And who told you that?” she demanded. “Who told you to do this?” The guard looked away, and she knew at once that she was right. He was acting under orders. But now he was reluctant to speak. She threw him into a corner of the room, and he cried out when his broken wrist landed beneath him.

  “You’re stupid,” she said. “Easily led. This man,” she pointed at Marik, “was under the protection of the Wolf. He was on our side, turned against his own kind. You have done Seth Yarra a service. Do you understand?”

  “Lies,” the man muttered, but she could see from his face that there was doubt. “He was deceiving you.”

  Sithmaree laughed. “I’m deceived? You idiot, no man has had the wit to deceive me for centuries. Whoever told you to do this, whoever pushed you is a Seth Yarra spy, an agent. Who was it?”

  The guard looked surly.

  “Look,” she said. “You’re dead. If I don’t kill you Havil will. You betrayed him. If Havil spares you for some reason, and I can’t see why he would, it’ll only be to save you for the Wolf’s justice. You think I would lie to you?”

  The guard closed his eyes, and she guessed he was experiencing two kinds of pain. “Lord Belfort,” he said.

  “Never heard of him,�
� she said, “But tell me this, does he wear a silver circlet about his head?”

  The guard frowned. “Aye, he does.”

  “Hesham, that thrice damned bastard, how many names does he have?”

  A slight widening of the guard’s eyes was all the warning she got, but it was enough. She flung herself aside with all the speed she could muster, and snakes can be quick when they need to be. The arrow missed her by inches and took the guard in the throat. When she looked to the door he was already reaching over his shoulder for another arrow, but this time Sithmaree was ready. She’d practiced, measured, watched. She knew she had about five seconds before the arrow was on the string and the string drawn.

  She lunged for the table and with one sweep of her arm gathered all the documents there and held them to her chest.

  “Well, old metal-head,” she said. “You’re going to have to do better than that.” On the last word she was gone, just as the bowstring flexed again, and she guess ed the arrow smacked into the wall behind where she had been standing, because now she was in Wolfguard, standing in the chamber that Narak had given her as her own, and she released the papers to fall as an outsized snow all around her.

  That had been close. Very close. The metal headed man, Lord Hesham, Lord Belfort, whoever he really was, had been getting closer. It was clearly not safe to leave Wolfguard any more. He had been waiting for her in her chambers. She was sure of that, waiting for her to come back, open the door and get a blood silver arrow for her trouble. Marik’s cry had saved her. She had turned around, gone back, and lived. He had guessed what had happened and come looking for her, but she had learned another of his names, saved Marik’s work, and escaped. Somehow it still felt like she had lost.

  Her hand was shaking. She put it on the table to steady it. Damn it all, she had liked Marik. He was different. He was interesting. She sat down on the bed, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Time for the Sirash. Time to tell Narak, to keep her word.

  Twenty Three - Narak

  The cold had become a form of torture. Narak was not a stranger to pain. Although he was immune to the blows of any weapon not tipped with blood silver there were a number of things that caused pain. Fire was one. He could be burned, though he healed quickly. Brute force was another. Jumping off a cliff was not to be recommended. His body was subject to the tyranny of violent impact as much as any other man, apart from what his strength could manage – so small cliffs were not a problem. Large ones were a different matter.

  Now he had to add cold to the list. It wasn’t a sharp pain like fire, but neither was it shallow. The pain of cold was bone deep. It had started at his fingers. They ached with a vicious ache that he could not ease. When he moved his fingers it was worse. At first he had been able to banish the pain for a while by tucking his hands beneath his arms or against his chest inside his coat, but that had stopped working when his arms had grown cold, and his legs, and his chest.

  Now he was a single throbbing ache.

  Men did not suffer so. Men became numb, their fingers and toes blackened and lost all feeling, and then they died. Narak could explain what was happening to him, but it didn’t help. He was healing as fast as he was being killed, hovering in that space between living and dying, and it was filed with pain.

  He still walked, dragging the sled, with Avatar by his side. He had stopped talking to the dragon days ago, perhaps longer. He no longer remembered or cared to remember. The pain was sapping his strength, too. After darkness fell they walked for hours until Narak dropped, worn down by the pain. He still made an effort to wrap himself in a blanket, but he hardly bothered to eat, and he was growing weaker. Each morning the pain was worse, and it was harder to rise once again.

  For the first time he was beginning to believe that he would not complete this journey. He had lost track of distance as well as time. It was so hard to think of anything but the pain. It dominated his world, and the only thing that kept him walking, day after day, was his determination that he should fail this test or pass it, and not turn aside.

  The days were very short now, no more than four hours of light, and it was just as the sun was dipping once again below the line of the hills that he felt the touch. He was so close to unconsciousness that he did not know it at first, but the knowledge of what it was came into his mind like a stone sinking down through treacle.

  He turned inwards. It did not diminish the pain, but in the Sirash it seemed less immediate.

  Sithmaree? He recognised her presence.

  Narak. I have completed the task that you asked of me. The words are translated into Afaeli.

  He struggled for a moment, and then remembered the papers he had found at Lorrimal.

  They have been translated.

  Yes. That is what I am telling you. Are you asleep?

  No. What did they say?

  Narak, there were nearly five hundred pages.

  The heart of it. Tell me the heart.

  She did. She told him what she had found, what she and Marik had discussed, and finally she told him about the guard and the metal headed man. Narak was silent for a while. He was drifting in the Sirash, finding some small relief from the pain. Eventually he focussed again.

  Marik is dead?

  Yes.

  Damn. I thought we could save him.

  Narak, are you well?

  The question caught him off guard. Not really.

  Open yourself to me. Let me see.

  He did. Any other time he would not have done. He did not trust Sithmaree, but his mind was not what it had been. Some higher part of it had been retreated from the pain and not returned. He knew that if he opened himself she could see what he saw, feel what he felt, hear what he heard. He felt her for a moment, and then gone again, as she snapped back from the pain.

  Gods and Demons Damned, Narak!

  It’s the cold.

  I know it’s the god damned cold. You could have warned me.

  Sorry. Not thinking straight.

  I’m not surprised. Can’t you draw heat from your wolves?

  What?

  Maybe you can’t. You’re a warm blood. But you can try.

  What do you mean?

  Simple enough. If you were cold blooded like a snake you’d understand. Snakes get their heat from outside, they don’t make it themselves. That’s why they lie in the sun. I can draw heat from snakes in the same way, from all the snakes. They hardly feel it. Can you do the same with your wolves?

  I don’t know.

  Well, try.

  How?

  Open yourself again and I’ll try to show you.

  It’ll hurt.

  Do it.

  He did it, and he felt her presence again, sweeping over him quickly. He was quite in her power for a few moments, and he allowed it. The pain had made him weaker than he had imagined. She was only there briefly, and then gone again. He felt just the same.

  You can.

  No difference.

  Yes there is. Look here. He felt like a finger poked him somewhere in his mind, and he looked. There was a small, bright place, like a pinprick in a thick blanket with the sun shining from the other side. He touched it with his will, and it felt warm, wonderfully warm. Heat flowed into his body, filling his chest and driving the pain back. Piece by piece his flesh was reclaimed from the cold. He still hurt all over, but it was a different pain, a healing pain. Within moments the tips of his fingers prickled with heat and were part of him again.

  It was over. The terrible ache was gone. His mind came back together, and it was as though he was waking from sleep. For the first time in weeks he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, flexed his arms and legs, and he wept.

  It felt like he had been born again, given another chance at life.

  I owe you a debt, Sithmaree.

  I did not think we were keeping score.

  Never the less…

  Narak, I do not understand what you are doing, or why, but I trust that it is in all our interest that you succeed
. I did this for me.

  Gratitude is not entirely dependent on intent, so you will forgive me if I do not take you entirely at your word, Sithmaree.

  Well, you will see what you see. I cannot help it if it is an imagined thing.

  Now, tell me again what you found in the papers and how Marik died. I confess a lot of the detail passed me by.

  She told him, this time in more detail, aware that his mind was sharp again and hearing every word. She finished with her two trump cards. In Berash he has adopted the name Lord Belfort, and moves among them much as he did as Lord Hesham in Avilian. It suggests he has an Afaeli identity also, and even a Telan and Durander alias. More than that, his helmet, the metal head, is made of blood silver. It serves to hide him from us in the Sirash. The Silver band that he wears when he shows his face serves the same purpose, but is not as effective. It means that he is one of us, Narak. He is Benetheon.