by Tom Deitz
Zeff wanted to ask what he meant by that, but this was no time for conversation. Instead he pushed himself away exactly long enough and far enough to slap Avall's face—hard.
Blood showed on Avall's lip, while more trickled from his mouth where teeth had cut the lining or his tongue.
“Blood,” Zeff raged. “You said it took blood!”
“It does take blood. My blood.”
“But there's more to it than that, isn't there?”
“Not for me! You put it on, you trigger the barbs so the gems can feast. And you wait until they feed you power. But the gems may not like you. And if they don't like you, they won't do anything.”
“They worked for Rrath, and he hated you!”
“Did he?”
Zeff hit him again, this time on the other side. “I may be angry, but I'm no fool.”
“What do you want of me? I've told you everything you've asked.”
“Those aren't the right gems, are they?”
“They are for me!”
“Liar!”
“Put me in that regalia and I'll show you a liar.”
Zeff slapped Avall a third time, then, for good measure, flung him to the floor. He lay there panting. Half his face was red with blood. Both cheeks were purpling. His breath was coming in gasps. Zeff was blooded, too, from where his hand had caught a freshly broken tooth.
“Blood,” Zeff growled. “Blood.”
And with that, he withdrew the gem from the pouch where he'd concealed it and thrust it into Avall's face. “Whether those others are real or not, I don't know. But I know this one is!”
Avall's eyes grew huge as he flinched away. Which was all the sign Zeff needed. He dropped down astride Avall's torso, pinning him to the floor while one hand fought off both Avall's arms, and the other drove the gem inexorably toward Avall's bleeding cheek.
Maybe Zeff screamed as it seemed his flesh caught fire. Maybe he screamed when his mind did, or when he felt the ravening of the madness that overlay Barrax's death. Perhaps it was the fascination—what he had wondered about so long made manifest. Or maybe Avall was actually holding him there, forcing him to confront what every instinct known to man shouted at him to flee.
And then he was falling into death. And not only Barrax's death, it seemed, but also Avall's. His mind was tangled with Avall's mind, the two locked in combat as surely as their bodies had been. And Avall was dragging him farther and farther down a well down which he was already falling. If I die here, you die, too, Avall seemed to say. But all Zeff truly heard was die, die, die, die, die.
He had to escape, had to get away. But Avall wouldn't let him. Avall was there laughing at him, telling him that however much joy he'd have had cutting off Avall's fingers, Avall would get ten times as much watching Zeff's memories slowly wink out. Death lives in here, Avall whispered, in a voice loud as thunder. Death would like company, and I think he likes you better.
Yet Avall was frightened, too; Zeff could tell. Frightened out of his mind, to be so utterly out of control within that which he most feared. And Zeff turned that fear on Avall and showed him everything he'd considered doing to him the past few days. Everything that could be done to a body and have that body live.
No! Avall screamed. No! No! No!
He wanted out. No, Zeff wanted out. No, they both did.
And suddenly, somehow, they were elsewhere. And while there was no death there, neither was there anything else. Avall knew that place, and that recognition flashed across Zeff's mind as well.
The Overworld.
Avall grabbed at it—at something. At not-sand, or notearth, or not-stones.
And somehow gained enough control to yank Zeff and himself back to their own place and time.
And to what was for all intents an explosion.
Power slammed through the room as though a lightning bolt had struck between their locked hands. Zeff felt himself picked up and flying. Avall simply lay where he'd been, but his robe was smoldering.
The gem lay between.
Somehow Zeff had sense enough to scoop it up in a wad of surcoat and stagger out the door. To the gaping guards he could only mumble, “If you ever speak of this, you are dead men. Now tend to what's in that room. And if he dies or is dead already, I will send you to the Nine myself!”
He didn't sleep that night, nor the next one. And when fatigue finally claimed him on the third day, all he dreamed about was falling, falling, falling …
And Death waiting at the bottom.
Rann stared out at the rain from the shelter of one of ten portable forges that had come up with the last of the baggage train. The first trebuchet was nearing completion out there, half a shot from the ridge that overlooked Megon Vale, though how they'd move it, he had no idea, so deeply were its wheels mired in mud. Could be worse, he supposed. Could be snow, and his hands turning blue, too numb to feel anything but cold pain.
He was due at a meeting in a moment. Another damned round of reports and discussions that all had the same resolution. As soon as they could, they would attack the hold. Maybe Zeff knew by now that the regalia he had was fake, and maybe he didn't, but the fact was, he was in defiance of Royal authority, and therefore a traitor, and the Law was clear on what must be done to such men.
That's what it had boiled down to. Not a matter of men, lives, clans, crafts, and alliances. But of Law.
Which, ironically enough, was the province of Priest-Clan.
Not that what passed for a government these days hadn't observed proper conventions.
They'd sent out heralds to parley, but after standing all day in the rain, unheeded, the heralds had been called back.
During one of the few lulls in the rain, they'd tested their archers to be certain the roofs and porches were actually within bowshot. They were. But the arrows had rattled harmlessly off stone.
Someone had suggested poisoning the river, but there was not a person in the army who did not have family or friends in the hold who would be at risk should they drink by accident. Besides which, there were cisterns.
And still Rann stared at the rain. He didn't see the two men who came up to join him on either side, but he knew them by their tread. Vorinn and Kylin. “This isn't good,” he said to both without turning.
“No delay is good,” Vorinn agreed calmly. “We maintain parity—barely—as far as those preparations we can actually see are concerned: our siege engines and their palisade in the Vale. And we're not that far off schedule. But they may be forging ahead in areas we can't see. I'd give a lot to know if they're still cut off from the mines.”
Rann stared at the ground. Vorinn was a good man, a solid man, a smart and thoughtful man. But he was also a man who'd never been in love. He had no bond-brother, nor had he a wife. He'd sired two children on Lore-Hold women, but those had both been one-year bondings. He had no idea what it was like to have the person he loved best in the world locked away in the enemy's citadel, while that enemy (he had no doubt) employed every kind of ruthlessness to drain one's beloved of everything he knew, after which he would be of no more use save as a symbol, at which point he would be cast aside to die.
“Are you dreading the battle?” Vorinn wondered quietly. “Or are you dreading what the battle implies?”
Rann glared at him. “And what would that be?”
“That there are things of more import than your bond-brother's life.”
“How about the life of a King?”
Vorinn caught Rann's gaze and held it. “Kings aren't that hard to come by. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh or cruel, but it's true. Kings need to know two things: how to decide and how to delegate.”
“Then Avall is a fairly good King.”
Vorinn nodded. “So far as I witnessed.”
“But he wouldn't want to live if he knew he'd cost the death of that hold,” Kylin said softly, causing them both to turn toward him.
“Which is why we're at least as concerned with taking the hold as simply keeping the Ninth Face impri
soned there,” Vorinn replied. “Granted, they won't destroy the hold as long as they're trapped inside it. But we still have to get them out of there before they can find more gems.”
“Assuming there are more,” Rann snorted.
Vorinn regarded him solemnly. “There are bound to be. Logic demands it.”
“Screw logic,” Rann spat.
Vorinn reached over and laid an arm across his shoulder— as close as he ever got to affection. “You … you're very alone now, aren't you? Not only alone as Regent, because all decisions devolve to you, but because you're cut off from all those you're closest to. Worse, they're in danger and you can do nothing to change that. You can't even assess the degree of that danger. That's hard. Or so I'd think.”
Rann shrugged numbly. “Avall … he and I have been separated before, but never like this. Even when I thought he was dead there was a certain peaceful finality to it. And when I found out he was alive, I never got a sense of him being actively threatened. Our only enemy then was the whole wide world, and that enemy was so huge it was the same as no enemy at all.”
“But you didn't have Div, then,” Kylin murmured. “Not like you had her later. And now that second anchor is far away—and oblivious to the added importance that rides, all unknown, on her mission.”
Rann swallowed hard. “And Merryn's gone as well, and Strynn. I guess that leaves you, Kyl—of people with whom I have any real history. And Lykkon, of course, but he's so smart he scares me. Avall made me feel clumsy, but he never made me feel stupid.”
“Lykkon's a loner, too,” Vorinn advised. “Like me. The only difference is that he likes everyone too much and I … I guess I don't like anyone enough.”
“Not even your sister?” Rann challenged.
“Not even her,” Vorinn conceded sadly. “But I wish to Eight I was only having to rescue the King, not my sister's husband.”
“You'll do the right thing—as logic dictates,” Kylin said, turning his face to the rain he couldn't see.
“Yes,” Vorinn agreed, “I will.”
CHAPTER XXVII:
WISHING WELL
(ERON: TIR-ERON—HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXVIII—LATE AFTERNOON)
Olion shifted his grip on his spear and stared idly across the cobbled expanse of the River Walk. It was misting rain, which made him uncomfortable but not miserable; still, he'd just as soon it held off until his shift was over. Not that he expected to have trouble now that his clan—Priest-Clan—was in charge of Tir-Eron.
As much as anyone was in charge, anyway. In one sense, nothing had changed since the coup had effectively destroyed the Council of Chiefs, though he had no illusions that the few survivors weren't even now trying to contrive some way to revive it. Of course his clan was trying to revive it as well—on their terms—which mostly meant that the various Hold- and Hall-Priests were officiating, while the few surviving Chiefs of the Blood—who were also the ones most pliable—walked an uneasy line between the old order and the new.
As for himself—he was doing what he'd been told to do: guarding the Citadel where the new Priests of The Eight had moved, so they said, for their own safety.
But guarding was boring, and it was still two hands until shift change, at sunset—though it might as well be sunset now, the way the clouds were glowering.
He shifted his spear again and tried to stand straighter, still feeling impossibly conspicuous in his new Ninth Face livery.
And that was a laugh, too. The newly visible Ninth Face claimed merely to be Priest-Clan's martial, enforcement arm. In fact, they controlled Priest-Clan. And when they'd come hunting recruits, Olion had known a good thing when he saw it. When a toss of the dice had come up Fate, why, that had confirmed his decision.
But still he wondered. Gynn, the old King, had been the King of Balance. Balance had always been important in Eron. And now, it seemed, things were badly out of balance. And while Olion's faction was ascendant right now, he wasn't entirely certain The Eight would approve of that—not if they'd wanted Balance a few years earlier.
He didn't know. He just didn't know. Which was why he was a guard: so he could simply obey orders and not have to think.
It was raining harder now, and the Walk was emptying of what few people dared use it these days. Scowling, he backed up half a pace, so that the parapet above would provide nominal shelter. People were scurrying for cover out there, too, but not as many as there should be.
That in itself was odd. Once Priest had restored order, which had all been done to benefit Common Clan and lower, he'd assumed they'd be out here in thankful droves.
They were not. People looked scared and uncertain and … furtive.
And there were suddenly many more poor people than he'd ever seen before, come to beg alms in the city when they'd grown tired of waiting for the Crown to rebuild their lives. He hoped his clan was up to it. Feeding the hungry, the displaced, the ruined: that was their job—but until recently there'd been very few such folk about. Now they were everywhere, all demanding that Priest-Clan help them, when before they'd have called on the King.
Olion wondered where His Majesty was, and what would befall him when word came that he no longer had any real control of his kingdom. And then the rain fell harder, and Olion's thoughts shifted to simpler questions of the weather.
If that was a guard, Tyrill thought, from where she crouched beneath the ragged awning of what had once been an ale ven-dor's booth set up for the Night of Masks, then she was a champion wrestler. The boy looked no more than eighteen, for Eight's sake, which wasn't legal age to exert any kind of authority. And he looked about as comfortable in that white cloak and blue surcoat as she would, never mind that they were too big for him. It was show, is what it was: Priest-Clan flexing authority they didn't legally possess, and wouldn't keep—if Tyrill had anything to do with it.
Which is why she was lurking in shadows and ruins a quarter shot down the River Walk from the Citadel's main gate— closed now, and guarded, as it had never been closed and guarded before. Which said a lot right there.
She shivered where she stood, for all it was summer, wondering grimly how she'd fare when winter came, especially with her rotten joints, which made movement agony even now. It was frustrating to know that a warm bed, a hot bath, and all the food she wanted lay out of reach a shot farther east, in Argen-Hall. But she dared not go there. The place was watched and most of the chiefs, sept-chiefs, and subchiefs were fled or dead—including the Clan-Chief-Elect, who hadn't lasted long enough to be installed in office. Anyone who remained there now was a traitor, as far as she was concerned. She only hoped the loyal ones—the apprentices, in particular— had been smart enough to flee to the clan's other holds.
It was the same everywhere.
The awning flapped briefly above her, distracting her with the sound and scent of scorched leather. She stifled a sneeze, as the rain roused the scent of burned wood rather than quelled it. The River Walk looked terrible. After the Night of Masks had become the Night of Death, and the Royal Guard at the Citadel had, overnight, become the Ninth Face, no one had dared try to clean it. Or else they had other priorities. It was therefore still littered with masks, most soggy and trampled now, their beauty proved transitory indeed. There were straw daggers, too—many of them, and not a few stained with blood where they'd concealed daggers of another kind. Worst were the bodies. Most had been claimed, but more than once in the days since Tyrill had gone into hiding, she'd stumbled upon the bloated form of a man or woman who'd met death in an unlikely place. Or parts of bodies.
Fortunately, she had a strong stomach.
And a growling one, at the moment.
Not that she had time to pander to its demands, not when she had other business—business she could not dispatch as Tyrill san Argen-a.
The disguise had been Lynee's idea. The recent war in the south had inevitably displaced many people, the bulk of them, unfortunately, Common Clan or clanless, since most High Clanners had recourse to what was left of thei
r holds in the gorges, or to one of the myriad lesser holds that dotted the landscape.
The lower clans, unfortunately, could claim far fewer options. Indeed, some had lost everything. It was therefore reasonable that many of them would have come north, seeking solace from Tir-Eron itself, since Eron Gorge was, for many refugees, the closest one that had emerged unscathed. Half Gorge and South Gorge were still rebuilding, and would be for a century yet.
So Tyrill had adopted the guise of a displaced clanless woman come from Half Gorge with a two-son and daughter who'd died on the way, leaving her stranded. She had some knife-sharpening skills, and those would keep her fed—until she could somehow slip back into Argen-Hall in quest of resources more easily liquidated. High Clan dealt mostly in hard goods, applied arts, and exchange of services among themselves, and drew servants mostly from the younger members of their own class. They rarely used actual money. Now that she needed it, however, money was proving to be both a novelty and a nuisance. The latter because earning it kept her from her principal goal: the destruction, once and for all, of the power of Priest-Clan, and the restoration of the Eron she knew.
Then she could die happy. And if that death occurred in a hovel, with her dressed in a dirty plaincloth gown and cast-off woolen cloak and hood, so be it. The body, so Priest-Clan said and Avall had effectively proven, was only a shell. And while she certainly didn't approve of all the things Avall had done, and could blame her current situation on him if she bothered to try, he'd at least given her comfort in her old age. For it was from him that she'd gained reasonable proof that part of her was immortal.
Now, if she could just achieve her goal …
As for Priest-Clan—they were not as unassailable as they thought, for they could not completely wall themselves away from those who had depended on them for so long. And among the places they could neither deny nor fortify were the shrines of The Eightfold God that still rose, unmolested, on the Isle of The Eight.