by Ed Greenwood
“Y-yes,” she said, staring at him.
Orivon blinked at her.
His astonishment made her half-smile, and repeat a little tremulously, “I said yes, Orivon Firefist. Lady Taerune Evendoom accepts your generous offer.”
Orivon snorted his own mirth. “There’s hope for you yet. You’re not as cold mad as all the rest of the nightskins in Talonnorn.”
Those words swept away Taerune’s smile; he saw fresh fire rising in her eyes. “There is no madness in what I say,” she snarled. “The madness is yours!”
“Oh?” Orivon asked, tossing his head. “Ask one of the Ravagers who’s mad and who’s not of one who’ll slay themselves because their uncaring kin ordered them to—and one who’ll spurn them as they spurned you, and get up and go on!”
Taerune stared at him, fresh tears racing down her cheeks, and whispered, “You don’t need a whip to lash me, I see.”
She shook her head, turned away, and then sobbed, “But this is my home! This—this is the chamber I hoped to rule, uncounted Turnings from now!”
“So depart now,” Orivon said, striding to where he could growl in her ear from behind, “and dream of returning someday to seize the rule here, when this Maharla is dust and you have spells or whatever you need enough to take what you want!”
Taerune whirled around to stare at him, their faces so close together that he could feel her breath, hot and spicy, on his face. Then she seemed to smell him, and her nostrils pinched with distaste, her lips drawing back from her teeth.
Orivon stepped back, face hardening in rising anger, and she flung out her hand to him and cried, “I was not trying to—to hand you anger! To scorn you! Please, believe me!”
“I—I do,” he said deliberately, forcing himself to say that and only that, mastering his rage before asking, “So, will you go with me now?”
“Yes,” she whispered, putting her head back against the wall and shuddering as if in release. And then she looked at him, as tense and anxious as ever, and hissed, “I am … at war with myself, but … winning. Yet there is one thing: my Orb. I cannot leave without my Orb!”
“Some bauble? A gem?”
“Bauble? Man, it is my life! All my spells, my prayers to Olone and the visions She sent me in answer; my soulguide!”
Orivon stared at the anguish in her eyes, his mouth tightening, and then asked shortly, “Where is it?”
“In my chambers, in the spell-locked coffer in my closet. A round stone, white, that fills my palm, in a wire cage—to make it a pendant; the chain’s quite heavy. They can trace the coffer with spells, so leave it.”
“And what will the locking spell do to me when I shatter it?”
“No need; just open it. It opens to—” She turned her head away, and whispered to the wall, “Your name.”
Orivon stared at her—Thorar, that curving back, those hips!—in blinking astonishment, and then asked, “Just ‘Orivon’?”
“Just Orivon,” she echoed softly, and then added lightly, “My! The beast remembers its name!”
Orivon reached out a hand to Taerune’s shoulder, spun her around, and said heavily, “As the maker of your Door of Fangs, I can get through it—and as a longtime slave, I know the way to that door, and can probably get there unseen, I hope. But what will I do with you while I’m fetching this Orb of yours?” He stared at her as if she was an unfamiliar plant or odd-looking stone. “Can I trust you?”
“I tell you yes, man,” his longtime tormentor said quietly, “and mean it. Yet you don’t have to trust me. Take the knife away, fetch whips from yon closet to bind me with, and leave me here bound and gagged. Or better: Take me a little back in these attic ways, and bind me there, in case Maharla sends crones back to clean up after the Nameless outcast’s suicide.”
Orivon nodded and went to the closet. When he turned from it, she was on her knees, holding out the knife to him hilt-first.
He shook his head a little, almost smiling, as he took it from her. “Thorar, you’ve fire in you, Taerune!”
“Oh? I was going to kill myself,” she whispered. “Bind me.”
“Later,” he growled. “I’m not going to carry a bound Nifl around all those narrow corners. Walk with me—no, this way. Don’t trip on the dead rats.”
Luelldar chuckled down at the glowing whorl. “When the Talonar blow their precious horns to call their hunters back—and notice, Aloun: for all their snarlings about other houses being craven and foolish enough to loose the raudren, the Evendooms haven’t blown theirs, have they?—they’ll be very surprised at just how few return to Talonnorn.”
Aloun nodded. “Yet Klarandarr’s spells are all gone, yes?”
The senior Watcher nodded. “For now. Yet the raudren still left are more likely to pounce on marauding beasts of the Dark than find the last of our stragglers. What a blow we have struck!”
“Yes? Their crones still lord it over their city, sneering at Ouvahlor—and everyone else,” Aloun said sourly.
“Ah, but who is left for the crones to rule? A few servants, not many, a handful of slaves; by the Ice, they lost nearly all! Of warblades and spellrobes, we took a goodly toll. All who are left, stand amid ruins; a constant reminder that the empty sneerings of the crones are just that: empty. That is our victory.”
“You think they’ll rise up and slaughter their crones? After generations upon generations of bowing down? Why, the crones will use this to make themselves tyrants, and strike down any who challenge them in the slightest!”
“You see keenly, Aloun; some crones already have. Yet our work is done, for the Talonar cannot fail to see how foolish and fallible their crones are. They will not forget.”
“So, what will happen next?”
Luelldar turned from the whorl wearing a broad, smug smile. “Ouvahlor is going to sell off many slaves—and when the buyers are bound for Talonnorn, our price is going to soar.”
Orivon approached the narrow passage warily. The cloaks were still hung up across it, just as he’d left them. Beyond, he’d laid Taerune on her front, her wrist lashed to the back of her neck, with two lashes crammed into her mouth and then bound around it in a wildly untidy gag he’d made sure her hair was caught up in. Then he’d bound her legs together at so many points that they seemed one great club, and pulled her ankles up to shelving well above her so only her chest and head were on the floor.
Helpless enough, to a first glance, but he had only her word that she needed this Orb to have any spells. Moreover, the only place on her he’d checked for weapons was her boots, and they’d been so full of empty dagger sheaths that it was a wonder she’d been able to walk at all!
And just where were those daggers? Could she bring them flying back to her with a whispered word?
He crept closer, hefting his hammer in his hand. It had felt good to use it, but it could do nothing against spells, and he’d been lucky—oh, thank Thorar, so lucky!—so far …
There was a faint, low sound from ahead, beyond the cloaks. Orivon froze.
Then it came again. He cocked his head to listen, stole forward a few more swift steps, paused with his nose almost touching the hanging cloaks, and—yes. Again.
He ducked past the cloaks and around the last corner in a rush, keeping low.
She was just as he’d left her, and she was snoring.
Orivon snorted. Well, she had endured a hard day thus far. Hmph. String a hundred more after it, without a break, and she might begin to have some idea of what she’d put her slaves through.
Without greeting or gentleness he thrust his hammer back through his belt, and started untying Taerune’s legs. The snoring stopped in a sharp instant, but he didn’t turn her over when her legs were freed. Kneeling on her back, he tugged out the gag—and more than a little of her hair with it—before untying her wrist. She made no protest, but flailed about so feebly trying to turn over that Orivon finally reached down and hauled her around and up to sit facing him.
Then he thrust what he’d retrieved
into her face: her Orb, and the lash she’d used on him so often. Taerune blinked at the latter in astonishment.
Then she noticed that the Orb was slick with fresh blood, wherever a hasty swipe of a man’s hands couldn’t wipe it clean, and gasped, “What happened?”
“I had to kill to get this,” Orivon told her curtly. “The shes of your House had already forced the Door, ransacked your rooms, and were down to arguing over the worst of your gowns. I left three of your loving sisters dead in your closets—so Maharla’ll soon turn the towers upside down looking for us. We must move. Now.”
“Right into the jaws of the raudren? Without trying to get some sort of map of the Wild Dark? Orivon, I’ve only been on three patrols out there in my entire life, and—”
The lash was still in Orivon’s hand. He stepped grimly back from her and swung it across her face. Hard.
It snapped her head around and dashed her to the attic floor.
“Argue with me,” he told the moaning Nifl at his feet, his voice flat and hard, “and die. I’m going now, and have no time left for dispute. Are you with me?”
Taerune’s limbs were trembling, as she struggled back to a sitting position, shaking her head dazedly. Her stump, where the edge of the lash had caught it, had started to bleed.
Looking up at him through streaming tears, she hissed, “Yes! Olone take you, Firefist, yes!”
Orivon stepped back. “Well?”
“Well, help me up,” she snarled, “or I’ll not be going anywhere. You tied me too tightly.”
Orivon hauled Taerune to her feet, and held out the Orb again. “Can I trust you with this?”
“Not to use it on you, you mean?” she asked wearily, closing her hand around it. “Yes. Can you try not to use the lash on me, in turn?”
She clung to a shelf of dusty coffers to keep upright, cursing softly under her breath. When Orivon reached down and caught up all the lashes he’d used to bind her, she murmured, “You won’t be needing those.”
“Oh? I have to sleep sometime. Trust must be earned, Taerune.”
She stiffened, eyes blazing for a moment—and then nodded without saying anything and set off down the passage, stumbling a little.
“This way,” Orivon commanded, turning into the labyrinth of dusty passages. So even the pureblood Evendooms, it seemed, had forgotten some of the back stairs of their castle.
He went on thinking that until they came out into a deep dungeon guardchamber, a swift eternity of descending dank stairs later, and found a line of well-armored warblades waiting for them, drawn swords in their hands.
“Halt,” commanded the tall and strikingly handsome Niflghar rampant at their head, sounding a little sad.
“Halt and die?” Orivon growled, his hammer in his hand. “You nightskins offer your slaves such enticing choices!”
“Taera,” said the tall Nifl, ignoring him, “it grieves me to see Eldest Maharla’s accusations proven, and behold you working with a slave of Ouvahlor.”
“Uncle Faunhorn,” Taerune replied calmly, “it grieves me to see you obeying that oriad tyrant, and believing—nay, even listening to—her lies.”
“Your life is forfeit,” he said quietly. “You know what we must do.” The warblades raised their swords and took a step forward, in perfect unison—and Faunhorn stepped with them.
“I always loved you,” Taerune whispered to him, and put her fingers to the Orb at her throat. “Eyes, Orivon!”
The stone winked once, there was a blinding flash in the darkness that Orivon didn’t entirely escape, and the floor of the guardchamber was suddenly adorned with a line of twisted, motionless Niflghar.
“Dare we touch them?” Orivon asked, blinking hard in a struggle to see again. “Some of their swords may be of better size and weight for you than what I have. And they’ve scabbards, and belts and baldrics, too …”
“We can touch them,” Taerune said shortly. “Leave … leave my uncle be.”
They took what they wanted, working quickly as the faint, musky smell of burnt Nifl flesh grew stronger.
“How often can you make your Orb do that?” Orivon asked.
“Thrice more. Or to say it more meaningfully: not nearly often enough. Let’s get out of here!”
“Lady Evendoom, I find I begin to agree with you!”
“What foolishness is this?” The Revered Mother’s voice was sharper than usual.
Exalted Daughter of the Ice Semmeira whirled around. “Revered Mother! You’re well!”
“Of course I’m well, child. I wish I could say the same of all of you. I await your answer, Semmeira.”
The rebuke was mildly said, but the old eyes flashed a warning that even the haughty Exalted feared.
“R-revered Mother, your trance alarmed us. We were afraid that—that monster in your whorl—had done you some great harm, and that Lolonmae was involved.”
“And so you trapped her in your ring and overwhelmed her, forcing your ways into her mind. That is not what I taught you that spell for—any of you. It is rape, Semmeira, nothing less, and can do far more lasting harm than a few minutes of humiliating discomfort under a rutting rampant. Believe me: I’ve endured both.”
The Revered Mother looked at the frozen, fixedly staring novice in the center of the ring and said grimly, “All of you out of her mind, right now. Maurem and Tethyl, each of you put one of your arms gently under her armpits, and be ready to take her weight if she slumps. Don’t let her fall! Right, now, all of you: Walk her gently to the altar, and let her down upon it. Cradle her head as gently as you know how. I’m watching.”
The priestesses struggled under the limp, surprisingly heavy novice, but got her onto the altar gently—if ungracefully.
“Now stand back from her, all. Semmeira, tell us why you decided Lolonmae had in some way harmed me.”
“Well … Revered Mother, I am so sorry for my error! It was done for love of you, truly, and—”
“Beg apologies after you obey,” the eldest priestess said softly.
Exalted Daughter of the Ice Semmeira paled in embarrassment, went to her knees before the Revered Mother, and stammered, “F-forgive me, R-revered Mother, but I heard you speak to the raudren, naming it ‘Lolonmae.’ And then you fell into entrancement. I thought Lolonmae was the cause of that condition, and was somehow working with, or through, the monster.”
“Good thinking,” the Revered Mother said briskly. “Entirely wrong, but good thinking nonetheless. Know you this, Semmeira: Despite her youth, short time among us, and lack of rank, Lolonmae has been divinely chosen for some great task. I know not yet what it is—I may never be deemed worthy enough to know—but Lolonmae is intended to rise above all of us. Not displace you as Exalted, and not thrust aside any of us. Be aware that I will give my life, gladly, to protect her—the very same novice you fools have seen fit to try to punish and profane. From this moment forth, be aware that I shall slay anyone I so much as suspect of working harm, no matter how trifling, to Lolonmae—or letting her blunder into harm by herself while you smilingly stand by and do nothing. Do you understand?”
She had not raised her voice one whit, yet her last words rolled through their minds with deafening, roaring force that flung their heads back and left some of them bleeding from bitten lips and tongues, and all of them reeling with raging headaches.
“Semmeira, you shall soon undergo what I was intending to do with Lolonmae and this raudren, so I shall tell you what I was seeking to do. I intended Lolonmae to learn the arts of contacting truly different minds, minds of power—in this case, a raudren—and learning to understand and control them. I chose this raudren’s mind for Lolonmae to touch with her own, as I guarded her mind with my own, and I named Lolonmae to the raudren, to help it attune to her.”
The elder priestess turned away. “Now get up off your knees and get over here, right by the altar. If you’ve driven her mad, I’ll be needing your mind to put her into, while I go in and try to mend the damage.”
“M
y mind? What will that do to me?”
The Revered Mother’s gaze was dark and direct. “Well, now. That’s something you’ll just have to wait a few moments to learn, isn’t it?”
11
Lord Evendoom Loses His Temper
To Olone I pray on bended knee
That never again shall these eyes see
Wrath so deep, deadly and storm-mighty
As Lord Evendoom’s latest fell frenzy.
—from the old Talonar ballad,
“Lord Evendoom’s Revenge”
Orivon, if you don’t mind my asking,” Taerune murmured, after they’d walked briskly for what seemed a very long time in deep darkness, “when did you ever have the chance to learn our hidden ways?”
“At about the same time as you were … losing your arm,” the fire-fist replied shortly. “I—sorry. I know no gentle way to say that.”
They went on together in silence for a few strides before Taerune said, very quietly, “There is no gentle way to say that.”
Silence fell between them again, and they walked on in it for a much longer time before Taerune asked, “This is the Hidden Gate, isn’t it?”
“So a spellrobe told me—and a dying Maulstryke, too. They should both be just ahead of us, now, so: slow and quiet, Lady Evendoom.”
“Taera,” she murmured. “Call me Taera.”
“Quiet, Lady Taera,” he growled, giving her flank a gentle tap-tap with the coiled lash. She kept silent, and when he muttered, “Stay here,” double-tapped his thigh with her hand, by way of reply.
Orivon drew the largest of the Nifl blades they’d salvaged—Faunhorn had borne a larger, grander one, a spellblade, but he’d left it untouched, as Taerune had pleaded—and took his trusty hammer into his other hand. Then he skulked forward, in a slow and careful crouch.
The tunnel—huddled bodies and all—was just as it had been when he’d last seen it. He stood just inside the door, peering and listening, for a long time, but saw nothing—and heard nothing more than two long, distant horn blasts, calling the raudren home. At last he risked going a little farther, to where he could be seen, but also see all around the tunnel mouth.