by Janet Morris
"What's wrong?" Randal caught up with him.
"All I have is your word that Crit sent you. Did he give you a token to prove it? A letter?" Again he moved toward his rake, then stooped to pick it up.
"Nothing like that. Niko—" Randal, frustrated, wiped his brow in a habitual swipe. "You really are angry, aren't you?"
Niko was fondling the smooth, worn wood of the rake's long handle. He dug its teeth into Ennina's rich earth, watching the furrows it made, considering matters. "Not angry. I left Tyse… abruptly. Do you know if the Riddler is aware of this?"
"Of what? You, me, Crit? I'm not supposed to ask questions, remember? If you're not coming back, just say so. And why wouldn't Tempus know?"
"I'll come. I wonder if he does, though. I wanted to bring Shamshi, the Mygdonian boy, here. The commander and I disagreed about it. That's all." It had been worse than that; he'd desensitized his memories, but he still didn't like to think about the circumstances that forced him back to Bandara. He'd left his fine sable stallion and his pregnant mare with Tempus, a renunciation of all they'd done and all they'd shared. Most of it he couldn't bring himself to explain to Randal, who was a newcomer to matters of honor such as concerned a member of a Sacred Band.
But the six pairs who'd been his closest allies— before Tempus, when they'd fought for Abarsis the Slaughter Priest—had known that Niko was possessed by a witch and not told him. Tempus had known. Critias had known. They'd conspired "for security reasons" to keep from him their doubts and the nature of a problem Niko had had to surmount without any understanding of his own. He'd only pieced it together after the fact, when men who'd been his most trusted friends were obviously uneasy with him once it became clear to all that the witch Roxane, who'd possessed him, had lived to escape to Mygdonia.
Niko could forgive many things, overlook failings and lapses in courage and even changing allegiances. But he could not forgive the look in those Stepsons' eyes or Tempus for having lied to him. So he said, sighing, when Randal only stared at him, "Never mind. Let's go. We've a long boat ride over to the main island, a longer negotiation ahead if we're to secure a traveling companion. Don't explain anything. Don't say anything unless you have to… I've got to make this as painless as possible for everyone involved." Letting his rake fall, he had a feeling it would be a long time before he'd see it, and Ennina, again.
Walking into his pond carefully, Niko brushed the gravel from the cuirass, dirk, and sword that the dream lord had given him and, still on his knees, put them on. Then he tried to reinstate his pattern. But it remained unfinished, disturbed, randomized by human events when he left it.
It didn't matter—the next occupant of his cabin would make a different sign, need a different sort of healing.
By the time they'd docked their little tender at Levitas's private pier, Niko had made Randal realize that they could be incarcerated for this—at least Niko could be—and that the mage himself might be in some considerable danger. Niko was not the only fighter in the isles. Many, he assured the mageling, were twice as skilled as he.
Levitas's lacquered door opened promptly and the mute girl Niko had brought over from the mainland smiled with her eyes and touched first her lips, then his own, with a finger, ushering them into the cool, slate-flagged home with its tree-trunk pillars and expansive shadows. Niko gave his apologies for disturbing the household but asserted that he must see Levitas as soon as possible.
During what seemed to Niko an interminable interval of waiting, Randal began to sneeze uncontrollably, exclaiming in a choked, congested wail, "Cads! By da Wrid, "e's god cads! Aah! Achoo!" his't's becoming d's as his allergies flared.
"Cads?" Niko had been paying little attention; he was worried that Levitas might decline to see him. His integrity was on the line because of Randal; he was likely to be expelled forever from the single refuge the world could offer him… "Oh, you mean cats. Yes, he breeds them. If the dander bothers you, why not ensorcel it away?"
"Nod funny." Sneeze. " 'Ave you any krrf?" Sniffle. "Or an 'andkerchief? Or I will conjure one."
Niko had extracted from Randal on the boat ride hither a promise to refrain from magic while in Levitas's presence. Now, he ripped off a piece of his chiton's hem, wadded it up, and threw it to the mage whose Hazard status had been delayed by these allergic reactions no spell could quell.
Randal, catching the wad, bowed his head and blew his reddening nose, his shoulders hunched in misery and shame.
When Niko looked up, Levitas was standing before a translucent silk screen beyond which the softly rolling harbor could be seen, the master almost as insubstantial as the diaphanous cloth which kept out insects but let in the salt-fragrant breeze. Levitas's bald head nodded on his fragile neck; his parchment skin glowed like a candled egg. He frowned at Randal, then seemed to float across the flags toward Niko, one frail hand outstretched.
Niko met him and took it, brushing it to his lips. "Teacher," he said tautly in a very low voice, "I have brought the world to Bandara. It's time for me to leave."
"So it seems," Levitas said gently, no trace of emotion on his palimpsest face. "How could you allow this… creature to gain such a hold on you?
Then Niko had to say it, for on his right and left, silk-stretched partitions slid back and into the room filed six initiates, robed and girded for war, ceremonial masks upon their heads making them so fearsome in their approach that Randal scrambled over to Niko and tugged at his arm. "Levitas, this is Randal, Tysian mage of the Hazard class— Randal, what's your current level?"
"S-s-s-seventh," said Randal, at Niko's right, his gaze fixed on the six night-robed initiates who closed in with slow and measured steps.
"Seventh level," Niko continued conversationally. "Randal is my right-side partner, master; my Sacred Band teammate, here with orders from my task force leader. Randal, this is the master Levitas, my teacher."
The two exponents of opposing philosophies gazed at one another frostily. Neither spoke. The six initiates converged in perfect synchronization on soundless feet; soon they would be so close that Niko would have to step back or be physically accosted. He continued calmly. "The omens the sybils spoke—the red tide, the oracles' dreams— all were forewarnings that my partner had been dispatched to find me, nothing more."
Levitas spoke now. "Nothing more? Niko," he shook his head sadly, "not even for you can I excuse this… obscenity."
"I'm not asking that. I'm merely saying farewell. In a civilized fashion." Niko looked pointedly about at the students gathering to protect their instructor. Then he said even more quietly, "Stop them where they are, or I will. You owe me a hearing, with so much at stake."
Levitas reached out a hand and tapped the cuirass Niko wore. A single blue spark snapped. "You mean you owe me a better explanation for bringing this demon's pawn into my house."
"Now waid a minude!" Randal demanded plaintively. "I'm here wid—excuse me…" He turned his head aside and blew his nose again. "That's better. I'm here with a gift from the Stepsons, regards from Tempus the Sleepless One. You do know who he is? And none of this is Stealth's fault… The least you can do is be polite. You see that armor there? Niko's? It's from the benighted entelechy of dreams, by the Writ. Where do you get off-?"
"Randal!"
"Well, Stealth, he's not very understanding for a high-minded spiritual type, is he? As I was saying, Lord Levitas, we've brought a trireme for you from the Stepsons. We need a man to sail in it with us as far as Caronne—"
Levitas's hand came up and the six initiates stopped, legs spread, folding their arms. "A gift?" From Tempus the Obscure? For the school?"
"Not exact—" Niko began to explain.
"Stealth, you keep shut. This is my muddle, and I'll make it right," Randal interrupted. Then, to Levitas: "If you're going to hold this fighter of yours responsible for events beyond his control, go ahead. We can't stop you. But be assured that he's in great demand elsewhere—on this plane and beyond—" Randal sneezed again. "Damn cads. S
orry. So anyway, either give us a man to sail with us to Bandara, or reject the gift. We don't care."
Niko saw the skin quiver around Levitas's eyes. Piously, the old teacher bent his head. Then he raised it. "I regret to say that none of that justifies what I see here. But we will send a man to return with the sleepless one's gift. You!" Levitas's pointing finger shot out with a speed which belied his age. "Come here." One of the masked initiates stepped forward. "The rest of you, back to your labors. I appreciate your concern, but it is misplaced. And no word of this beyond these walls! Go!"
The five melted back into the shadows. Niko blew out a long breath as the partitions whispered shut. Under his cuirass, perspiration trickled down his backbone. He'd forgotten he'd had it on until Levitas touched it. Now he wished he'd thrown it into the sea as once he'd intended.
Levitas's eyes were on him, unyielding as stone. His bony finger, pointing Niko's way, drew a sign in the air. It burned Niko's soul as if its passage through the air between them had turned his cuirass molten.
Thus, without a word, was it done: Niko was banned from Bandara henceforth; not Randal's lies or even Tempus's name could mitigate the ritual's finality.
Having lost everything already, Niko felt lightheaded. A rebellious part of him, angry with the Stepsons for sending Randal where no sorcerer should ever have trod, had been toying with the idea of resigning when he reached Tyse, turning about and coming straight back here on the excuse of seeing to Ennina's purification personally. Now he had nothing to come back to…
"… send my own son," Levitas was saying. "No other could I expose to such peril in good conscience. Sturm, my child, you are ready for the world, you say. You will go with these… people… into it and return with the Riddler's gift." Levitas's eyes carefully avoided Niko. From now on, for the instructor, the failed student must cease to exist.
* * *
By the dawning of their second day at sea, Randal was utterly exhausted from the demands of sailing the ship by spell while casting illusions to make his magic more palatable to the two Bandar-ans on board.
If he'd had only Nikodemos to deal with, the sorcery required would have been considerably less strenuous, but Sturm, son of Levitas, was a stranger and one of unknown proclivities. Sturm was beefy and sullen and younger than Niko. From the moment it was clear that Levitas was sending his son along, Niko had been at pains to make sure Randal took every precaution.
Waiting in the little tender for Sturm to gather his effects and join them, Randal had ventured: "I'm sorry about… all this." He'd waved his hand, encompassing the shoreline of wind-sculpted pines and wave-smoothed rocks and the pastel sea which rocked them. "It's my fault that you lost it."
But Niko's quick, canny smile came and went. "I haven't lost anything I need. I love Bandara, but I love to leave it. I shouldn't have come here. There was no need. I was sulking." He shrugged. Then: "Here comes Sturm. We've got to minimize apparent magic. He's a big boy. We don't want to frighten him. I don't know what he can do, and a boat's no place to find out."
"Boat?" Randal hadn't thought about how he was going to transport his two companions to the trireme. Now he did. "You mean we're going to row out there? Yes, I see you do. All right, you row—don't let him—and I'll give us a bit of help by way of friendly currents. Agreed?"
Niko had time only to clap him on the shoulder in assent before he went over the side into knee-deep water to help the burly, horse-faced Bandaran with bound-back hair and a scraggly moustache distribute his three heavy sacks and considerable bulk so that the little dinghy didn't list hopelessly. Low in the water and heavy with the uncomfortable silence of the ill-met, they headed out to sea where, in the low-rolling mist, the trireme's mast was visible on the horizon.
In the prow, facing back the way they'd come, Randal was struck by the contrast between the two initiates—Niko's easy, flowing motion as he rowed; Sturm's quick, wary movements which caused the keel to dip and sway. Having received from Niko assurances that Stealth didn't blame him, it was natural for Randal to compare the two Bandaran adepts and find Sturm wanting in experience, wisdom, physical culture, and style. Three is never a happy number, and Niko was Randal's left-side leader. As always when in Stealth's company, Randal felt taller, more formidable—fierce and brave and worthy. Although at times being both an upwardly mobile wizard and a Stepson was a dangerous combination, and the mystique of his pairbond a daunting responsibility to live up to, it was indubitably worth it.
Randal had come by fortune and study to an estate which as a youth he'd despaired of ever being able to attain. He just wasn't cut from hero's cloth—this had been clear early on. Only as a black artist or a court-bound intellectual, his father had explained gently one gray day, would Randal ever make a name for himself. If only the kind old warrior—who had gone to great lengths not to show his disappointment in a frail and overly bookish child, who had bought Randal into an apprenticeship at great personal cost and died still worried that not even magic would avail his son— could see him now! Not only was he comporting himself with integrity and risking life and limb at the behest of his guild, he was doing it in the company of a lion among Stepsons! Niko was, with the exception of the Riddler and his old-guard officers, the best of the Stepsons. Even Critias called Niko "one hell of a boy-soldier" and judged no expense too great to recall him to duty.
Randal was trying to explain some of this to Sturm, whose task it was to prepare the morning meal from ship's stores before Randal went below to sleep. Niko had the tiller and the watch. Had the strange Bandaran not been aboard, they could be eating whatever Randal chose to fetch from any nearby shore; as it was, they were eating raw fish, cold rice, and dried figs.
The oars were shipped and the galley made good time. Part of Randal's intention was to keep Sturm from dwelling on how good; he'd asked about the mainland shore due north of Bandara and drawn the islander into a discussion of the fertility cults and priestesses that dwelled there. A man climbed the steps hewn into those sheer basalt cliffs at his own peril; some boys of the western nomadic tribes had to make that journey to claim their manhood. All of this, Randal knew, but when Sturm had sneered that, as Sacred Banders, neither Niko nor Randal could be very interested in the flowers of womanhood growing high on those precipitous bluffs, Randal's patience with the sharp-tongued son of Levitas found its end.
"If they taught you everything but respect for others in Bandara, they've taught you only how to die in the world, Sturm," Randal said, his voice quaking with rage, and stormed out of the cabin, first throwing a strip of red tuna in the Bandaran's face.
Sturm followed, eager to continue the confrontation which had been brewing under beetled brows and polite snubs since they'd set sail. Ignoring him, Randal headed aft, between the slanted rowing benches and up again. "Niko, watch this! I've been practicing." Though using powers for display was frowned upon by wizards of scruple, and he'd promised Niko not to flaunt his magic here, something had to be done to take Sturm down a peg. From Randal's belt, seemingly of their own accord, three throwing stars floated upward. When they were at eye level, Randal sent them speeding, one after another, through the air. They thunked into the mast so close to one another that the grate of metal upon metal could be heard, on their journey whizzing past Sturm's startled face.
"Maggoty queen," Sturm cursed, big hands on hips.
Niko looped rope around the tiller to keep the trireme steady and came toward them without a word. When he reached Randal, he said only that he was hungry. When he'd passed him and come abreast of Sturm, words Randal couldn't hear were exchanged. The Bandaran glowered at the mage a moment longer, then followed Niko's retreating back.
So it was that Randal alone saw the emergence of a thick mist, the size of a large island or small land mass, from the sea, its expanse crowned with arching double rainbows, its position dead ahead. Staring at the spot, which only moments ago had been clear water, he blinked and rubbed his eyes. The mirage persisted. The mist was thick as marble
, impenetrable as a burial shroud. They would sail right into it on their present course. Randal's first instinct was to alert Niko. But to what? He sat on the afterdeck, chin propped on his fists, trying to determine what kind of manifestation awaited them. Things didn't normally pop up out of the sea. There was no fog anywhere else, no rain clouds even on the far horizon. The sky, elsewhere, was clear. When he thought he knew what he was looking at, his fingers and toes were numb and his throat dry with excitement; his little display of temper and the lesson he'd thought to teach Sturm were forgotten.
In the afterdeck cabin, they were talking as he entered:
"—take that scrawny little partner of yours and break his back across my knee. Then we'll see what kind of powers he's got."
"I won't protect you from his wrath, Sturm. You've a lot to learn. It's too bad you're going right back to the islands. You've been too long under Levitas's skirts. Things don't work the same way in the world…"
"Ram's balls! I'm not going right back. Mad as your necromancing paramour I'd be, should I do so. I'll sell this ship—it's too tainted, they'll just sink it when they realize how much sorcery has seeped into its every plank—and buy another, when I'm ready. No one's given me a time limit. As for my father, he's addled with age. Frightened of his own shadow—so frightened of your fabled Riddler he'll do anything to accommodate him. Gods' mung, I'd have thought you'd realized it, after what he did to you. I don't like magic, and I don't doubt you're not half what you're touted to be, but the old ones have forgotten what it's like to have blood in your veins—" Sturm paused for breath.
"Excuse me," Randal murmured, coming the rest of the way in, where Sturm, as well as Niko, could see him. "But there's something… in our way, you might say. We could try to change course, but—" Randal spread his hands "—you know these archmagical abodes… I don't think it will help. If you'd like to step on deck, Niko?"