by Tom Deitz
“Not as much as you'd think,” Vorinn countered. “Don't forget, he'd have had to find out how the sword and the gem work, and his best source for that would've been Avall, who wouldn't tell him. They'd surely have used imphor, but it would take a while for that to do any good. So yes, you're right in that an interval existed in which, under optimum circumstances, Zeff could've figured everything out. But if he knew that much about it, why not just call the lightning down on us to start with?”
“It did rain for days,” Rann countered.
“It did—but I don't think that was him. Rrath once managed to call a storm, but Rrath was a weather-witch. Zeff, so far as we know, isn't.”
Rann cleared his throat. “So what I'm getting from this is that Zeff has a dangerous weapon that he may not know how to control as well as he would like us to think.”
Vorinn grinned. “That's exactly what I'm getting at. He's probably somewhere this very minute trying to figure out if he dares use the thing again—which would have the same heartening effect on his armies as it did on ours—or if he should try some other tactic, in case the thing turns on him like it did on Barrax; or if he simply loses control of it entirely, like almost happened to Merryn.”
“True,” Tryffon agreed. “Don't anyone forget that he's only got the one gem, so far as we know, and that the real ensemble needs three to maintain proper balance, never mind what this replica set might need. Also, I can't stress enough that the parts he's put together weren't made to work together, and that the last we knew anything about it, Avall's gem was mad. Say what you will about Avall, he's strong-willed; and if he couldn't regain control of the gem, I seriously doubt Zeff could. We could well have been looking at desperation in the guise of bravado.”
Rann shook his head again. “I hate not knowing,” he said simply. “And that's what this has boiled down to. We don't know what he can do; he doesn't really know what we can do, and the whole thing reduces to who steps into the air first.”
“And you say you're not a strategist!” Vorinn chuckled. “In any case, we still need to come up with a reply.”
“One possibility comes to mind at once,” Tryffon rumbled.
“What's that?”
“The fact that he gave us until dawn doesn't mean we have to wait that long. He's only seen half the trebuchets, and those were the ones we wanted him to see. An order from you, Rann, and the two dozen more we've got hidden in the trees could do a fair job on the roof of that hold. At minimum, it would scare some people—and rest assured, whatever face the Ninth Face puts forth, it's made of men like us, and not all of them signed up to put their lives at risk. There's also the fact that any impact damage would have to be addressed if not repaired. There could be fires. And there'd also be the people— the prisoners. An attack would make them fearful, but it might also stir their blood enough to goad them into action. At the very least, Zeff would suddenly have many more problems to address.”
“One of which,” Vorinn took up, “would be whether to use the sword again, since I'm sure beyond doubt that he's almost as scared of it as we are.”
Rann scowled. “So you're saying that we should force him to use it? That seems a dangerous game.”
Veen nodded. “It does. It's a fact that he can wield it, after a fashion. It's only a supposition that he can't control it and would therefore hesitate to use it again. Excuse me if I sound impertinent here, but everyone I know who's worked with weapons always got better the more they used them, not worse.”
Rann stood abruptly. “There's something you're all leaving out of this,” he said stiffly.
“What's that?” From Vorinn.
“Avall,” Lykkon replied, locking glances with Rann before exiting without apology, excuse, or explanation.
Rann didn't know if he was grateful that the boy had voiced what he dared not speak himself, or angry with him for bringing up the subject, then leaving him to confront it alone. But he was right.
“You're forgetting that Avall is hanging out there right now, stark naked and probably scared out of his mind,” Rann began. “And yes, I know that displaying him like that is a very calculated and deliberate ploy on Zeff's part both to taunt us and to dispirit us. And you know what? It's working. One attack, and Avall is dead. Simple as that. The wrong kind of attack, and Avall is dead by our hands. I can't even imagine that!”
He sat down again, staring at the table, breathing heavily.
“If they kill him,” Vorinn said calmly, “they provide a massive reason for full retaliation. At minimum, he'll keep us from turning arrows or trebuchet missiles toward the center of the hold. But there's only one of Avall, and the hold is almost a span long. That's a lot of target.”
“It is,” Tryffon conceded.
“How long can he live that way?” Rann asked, swallowing hard, still not looking up.
“He's on display, not being tortured,” Vorinn replied. “They may feed him; they may not. It would be a way to get at us more than at him. He could live a long time there, as long as he got water. That would play on our nerves, too, because no one likes to see another person hurt. No right-thinking person, anyway, and certainly not if they think there's something they could do about it.”
“Not an answer,” Rann spat.
“Days,” Vorinn replied, glaring at him. “How many depends on Avall. I doubt they'll take him down at night, frankly, because that gives us that much more advantage, and we're playing with fragments of advantage here. Nor do we know what effect the gems have had on him. You've said yourself that they work to sustain you. They heal you faster than you'd heal naturally, and—”
“Avall has no gem,” Rann snapped.
“He has the residue in him, I'd assume. That has to count for something. That's all I'm saying.”
“You're not saying enough,” Rann growled, all his anger come to a boil at once. He rose again, glaring at Vorinn. “What I've heard here is facts and cold logic, and that's not enough. I've heard a tally of weaknesses, but I've not heard anything that tells me how to win this—and not one word that tells me how to do this without killing Avall. I've heard no speculation about even making an attempt at rescuing him, which tells me that you've written him off.”
“Sometimes you have to,” Vorinn said coldly.
“You can say that!” Rann raged. “You've never been close to anybody! I've known Avall as long as I've been alive. There have been times he's almost been my other self, we were so close. And after what we went through with the gems, there's no way I can explain that unless you've been inside it.”
“No,” Vorinn agreed softly, “there isn't. But nobody's written him off yet, Rann. This situation isn't even a hand old; we're still throwing out ideas, and I've no doubt that with the intellect we can bring to bear on this we can come up with some solution—martial, diplomatic—magical—I have no idea. The fact is, we have to wait. That's not hard.”
“It's the hardest thing in the world!” Rann shouted. “Maybe you can wait—you who spent the entire war sitting up there in North Gorge. I've been in this thing four times longer than you have. I waited to find out what was making my bondbrother act so oddly when he first found the gem, and then I waited to see what he was going to do about the Eight-cursed thing, and then I waited to see if we were going to get to Tir-Eron alive, and then I waited to hear if Avall was alive—I've already lost him once, Vorinn, I will never do that again—and then I waited through the war. You can ask me to do a lot, Vorinn, but you'd better be very careful of asking me to wait more than a very little while longer!”
“You may have to, Rann. It's part of soldiering.”
“I'm a stonemason,” Rann shot back.
“And we're talking of throwing stones at stones. It was you who identified where the weak places in the hold's stonework might be.”
Rann glared at him. “And right now I'm identifying where the weak places in me are. I've had enough of this! I have no idea why I'm even doing this. Nothing I say will make a dust mote's dif
ference in what happens. I'm holding you all back. You know what has to happen, and the only thing that's stopping you is me. So …” he paused, breathless. “So I'm giving you that. Once and for all.” He flung his Regent's circlet on the table. “It's yours, Vorinn. Maybe you want it, maybe you don't, but you're now the most powerful man in the Kingdom— under Law. I won't hold you back anymore, and if you need anything from me about something I actually know about, ask me, and I'll do my best to tell you. But do not ever, ever, ever ask me to pronounce death sentence on my best friend. Zeff's already asked me to do that, and Zeff's the enemy!”
He stopped speaking then, and stared around the chamber. He was shaking, he realized, and his pulse was racing like someone who'd just fought a daylong battle. He'd said it now, and done it. He hadn't said it like a man, either, but like a boy. But he was a boy—almost. He wasn't cut out for this, and he'd just done the best thing he could. He'd given the choices to those best equipped to make them.
“If you need me,” he told Vorinn, “I'll be in Lykkon's quarters.” And with that, he stomped out of the tent into sunshine so bright and guileless that it shocked him.
Lykkon looked as tired as Rann had ever seen him, when Rann stormed into the younger man's shelter. But at least he looked glad to see him. Rann hadn't wanted to see how anyone else looked at him—after that last fiasco. If the army's gaze had been difficult to endure when fixed on his back, Vorinn's gaze—and Tryffon's, Veen's, and Preedor's—had been ten times worse. The army only suspected. The others knew. Lykkon would know soon enough, and Rann was only grateful that Lyk had slipped out after making that one-word pronouncement, for whatever reason.
Nor was Lykkon alone, Rann realized. Bingg was present as well, along with Riff, but not Myx. Which meant Myx was probably checking on Esshill, which duty he'd taken upon himself.
“It's over,” Rann announced.
“What's over?”
“Not the war,” Rann growled, helping himself to the only spare stool in the tent. “My involvement in it. I've quit. The only reason to stay in it is for Avall, and I can't help Avall. All I can do is buy him time, and that's time in which he'll only wish himself dead every instant. I know that much. Every route I take brings me back to that. Avall won't survive this. He can't survive this. The choice is who kills him and when. I can control one or the other, but I refuse to control either.”
“What are you going to do, then?” Lykkon asked softly. “If you stay here?”
Rann looked up at him shyly, vastly relieved at having to present no facade of competence before someone who certainly knew better. “That assumes I do stay here.”
“Merryn could still arrive,” Bingg ventured, from the corner. “We tend to forget that we've still got that whole other variable to consider. She could be priming those gems to jump even as we speak.”
Lykkon nodded. “And if she does, she's more likely to jump to where Avall is than anywhere. Don't forget, they have no way of knowing where we are. They'll assume that we've reached this place, but the only reliable target is Avall. It could be happening even now.”
“A nice story,” Rann told him, though he made an effort to smile, for Lykkon and Bingg were certainly not his enemies. “I wish I could believe it.”
“Don't underestimate belief,” Lykkon retorted. “Now, if it won't drive you mad to repeat it, do you think you could tell me what happened after I left? I had to piss,” he added sheepishly.
Rann shook his head. “I suppose you should know, given that you're still part of the army.”
“I'm legally too young to soldier,” Lykkon reminded him. “I'm here because Avall's my—I don't know what he is, but he's my friend and my hero and a lot of other things. And to tell you what I wouldn't tell many other people, I don't know if I could stand watching Avall suffer, knowing it was my fault and that I couldn't do anything to stop it that wouldn't kill him.”
“Which means,” Bingg added a little too smugly, “that if Lyk and I refuse to fight, we're not traitors.”
“Which only leaves one of us,” Rann growled.
“Two,” Riff put in. “I've thought this was stupid from the first. I thought we should've made Priest-Clan come to us. But Avall was in an impossible situation—and now we're in one. I'd support my country if I thought it was right—or if I thought it was wrong and doing that wrong thing for a right reason—but this is far too complex. Nobody's talking to each other. It's just feint and parry and acting like brainless bullies, except we've got really big swords and really loud voices.”
Rann gaped at him. It was as much as he'd ever heard Myx's bond-brother say.
“I'll fight if Vorinn or Tryffon or Preedor specifically ask me to,” Riff went on fiercely. “I've got that much honor. And I'll fight for Myx or my lady if the war comes here. I'll fight for you lads because you're my friends. And I'll fight for Avall if there's any chance of saving him. But I won't do it in Megon Vale. I don't believe in futility, and that's all I can see out there.”
Rann nodded sadly, then looked up at Lykkon again. “You're the smartest person I know,” he murmured. “Do you see any way out of this situation? Any way at all to save Avall? Any way we haven't thought of ? Even if it uses magic.”
“No,” Lykkon sighed. “But this might be a good time to start searching.”
CHAPTER XXXIII:
WATCHING THROUGH BARS
(SOUTHWESTERN ERON—HIGH SUMMER:
DAY LXXIV—MIDAFTERNOON)
Well, I wanted to go west, Merryn thought grimly, and this is west.
Southwest, actually; angling, as far as she could tell, toward a finger of the Flat that probed among Eron's southern mountains as though it would tickle them. She could see it distantly: a yellowish blur amid darker, bluish peaks. She'd also seen it on a map, which was comforting because she now knew where she was, which meant she knew where the nearest refuge lay, should she ever escape to seek it.
That wouldn't be soon, she reckoned. Not with her wrists cuffed and chained together, her arms lashed to her sides, and her legs tied to the saddle of the Ixtian man named Orkeen who presently rode behind her. At least it wasn't Shaul-the-wrangler, who'd been her saddle partner the day before. He had frisky hands, and in the course of the ride they'd frisked over every part of her they could reach, which was most of her. He was doubling with Krynneth now, and from what she could tell, subjecting her comrade to much the same inspection.
Which, lest it be with permission, was, by Eronese Law, assault without permanent injury. If they ever got him in Eronese custody, she'd see he met the full force of the Law, too! If she let him live that long.
In the meantime, she endured and tried to plot ways to escape these fellows, and—much more frequently—worried about the regalia.
Not only had she failed in her mission, she'd also failed in the worst way possible: by delivering the whole crux of the balance of power between Eron and Ixti into radical Ixtian hands. Inon, who'd evidently been fairly high-ranking in Barrax's army, had made no secret of the fact that he intended to rally every renegade band he could find and, when he had enough, contest Kraxxi's right to Ixti's throne.
Which, she supposed, made her thrice-cursed now, since she'd betrayed her hold, her brother, and—apparently—her former lover. If she kept on, she'd probably betray everyone she knew. Which would surely get her listed in the Histories, but not in a way she wanted to ponder.
To distract herself from such dark imaginings, she studied the landscape more closely; then, when that grew boring, gave herself over to practicing some of the meditation routines Warcraft taught as a means of distancing oneself from one's body while under torture. Often, too, they served as aids to sleep, or simply as ways to make time pass when time proved intolerable—as, for instance, when one was awaiting battle.
Still, she was surprised to be lost in tranquillity one moment, then jostled from it the next, to find herself staring down from a final low ridge to that very same finger of the Flat that had seemed so distant earli
er.
“Down,” Orkeen snapped in bad Eronese, then remembered she couldn't get down without assistance, whereupon he swore and roughly untied the ropes that bound her wrists to the saddle horn. Honor made her try to club him with her fists, but he laughed and dodged, whereupon that same honor made her kick at him as he unbound her feet from the stirrups. He gave her a casual shove on her second trial, knocking her to the ground. Breath huffed out of her where she lay sprawling, half-stunned.
Orkeen's shadow fell atop her, and he yanked her up, only to draw back his fist and knock her down again, this time with a blow to the jaw that made her see stars and taste blood. She was trying to struggle back to her feet, with instinct alone in control, when Inon grabbed her assailant from behind, spun him around, and gave him a taste of what he'd given her. “She's the King of Eron's sister,” Inon spat. “I've no illusions about either of them ever being allies, but I'd as soon give them no more cause to hate me than they already have. An injured hostage is worth less than a hale hostage, however slight the injury, and that's a fact.”
Orkeen had risen by then, with more than a glint of challenge in his eyes. He started to charge Inon again, but Inon moved aside with a speed and grace that would've done one of the Night Guard proud, adding a kick in the rump as he passed, which sent the other man headlong into the mixture of scrubby weeds and sand that marked the start of the Flat. As if an afterthought, Inon strolled casually over and kicked Orkeen smartly in the groin, which doubled him up immediately. “That's in case you might be tempted to try what Shaul thought I didn't see.” With that he turned back to Merryn. “Are you all right?” he asked in the best Eronese of the five.
“Considering,” she muttered.
“We'll camp near here tonight,” Inon told the group in general. Merryn tried not to betray the fact that she understood him.
A cloud of dust from the north proved to be young Ivk arriving, with more dust in his wake. “We missed it,” he announced, pointing back the way he'd come. “It's around that next ridge, maybe a shot.”