Path of Honor

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  “She believed that telling you or anyone else would endanger Yohuac. She wanted your reactions to be authentic. And she did not want to become dependent on Baku. He can pick thoughts from most minds.”

  “He reads minds? Oh, this is getting better and better.”

  “It caused Reisil grave concern. She asked Baku to watch for trouble, but not to violate the minds of her friends and allies. She thought it best that each be trusted to confide in her when—and if—they so chose. Her only request was that he listen for trouble, so that if someone was in peril, help could be sent.”

  Juhrnus wiped his hand over his mouth and jaw. “Is that it?”

  Kebonsat shook his head. “She was attacked by an assassin at her quarters some weeks ago, the night of the reception for the Scallacians.” He quickly sketched the story. “Since Baku’s arrival, none have tried to attack her, undoubtedly because he kept watch.”

  “They have her now,” grated Yohuac from the floor. He sat up, arms clasped around his ribs, the whites of his eyes blotched with spots of red where veins had burst. “They’ve got her.”

  “Tell us,” Kebonsat ordered, dropping down beside Yohuac.

  “Wizards after all. Never wanted to kill her. They’ve cut her ties to Saljane. Magic. They are taking her to the stronghold. Baku—” He broke off, coughing. Metyein handed him a glass of wine, helping him to sit up.

  “She has put up walls. Baku is afraid. Reisil is very, very angry. They say they will free Saljane, but Reisil is—” He paused, searching for words. “She is dochezatl.” He circled his fingers near his head. Out of her mind. “And nahualli. A dangerous combination. She forgets herself. She thinks only of death. Baku found a place where she made a great magic. He fears for her, for what she will do. It is difficult to track her. He says the land has come alive with magic, and where she travels it grows thick and dense like an ocean fog. He cannot reach her. She will not answer.”

  He struggled to his feet with Metyein’s help, knees buckling. “I must go find her. Baku will seek for her and show me the way.”

  “I think we need to think and make a plan first,” Kebonsat said.

  “I must go now!” Yohuac thrashed himself free only to fall against the desk. Soka and Metyein caught him before he hit the floor and helped him to a chair.

  Kebonsat looked at Juhrnus. “We are in trouble.”

  “True. But at least she’s going where she wants. With guides.” He sounded sullen and could have bit his tongue. “She’ll get there faster now. Worse things could happen.”

  “And she’s gone out of her mind.”

  “Losing your ahalad-kaaslane is . . . unbearable.” Juhrnus reached out to Esper, shying away from the memory of his sisalik’s broken, dying body. “Still we must trust she will remember what she’s gone to do, whether she gets Saljane back or not. We don’t have any choice. It is our only hope. And she needs time. Getting what she wants from the wizards won’t happen overnight. She’ll not abandon us,” he said stubbornly. “Even without Saljane. She won’t forget us.”

  “Demonballs, what in the three hells is that?”

  Juhrnus turned at Soka’s strained whisper, slapping a hand to his sword. The others followed suit, following Soka’s pointing finger to the floor. As they watched, a small green snake wound across the floor toward the desk. It was tiny, no bigger around than a woman’s smallest finger and perhaps six inches long. Its eyes glittered like golden topaz as it came to the foot of the desk. Unperturbed, it slid upward along the silver-edged wood.

  “How is that possible?” muttered Kebonsat.

  “Don’t touch it!” Yohuac said urgently, struggling out of his chair.

  “You know what it is?”

  Yohuac gave a jerky nod of his head, watching the emerald green body undulate up onto the top of the desk. The snake coiled itself into a neat knot, raising its head in the air and gazing about. It had a triangular head with needle fangs protruding down over its jaws. Its belly was the color of fresh blood.

  “It’s a copicatl. But I never thought to see one here.”

  “Where does it come from?”

  “My land. It can only mean—”

  “It can only mean that there are nahuallis about,” came a gruff, feminine voice from the entrance to the hidden passage. “Run and hide if you can.”

  The men spun around, staring as a gray-haired woman stepped into the room.

  “Nurema?” Juhrnus asked incredulously. “How—? What are you doing here?”

  “Ah, well, that is a story for a long winter’s night by the fire, boy, and I don’t imagine I want to cuddle up with a bare-faced child like you.”

  The men chuckled, all but Yohuac, whose face had turned to flint, his dark gaze watchful. Nurema looked the same and yet different, not that Juhrnus had ever paid that much attention to her. She was sharp tongued and difficult, and everyone in Kallas breathed a sigh of relief whenever she passed them by unmolested. She’d been a fixture of the town since he could remember, and to see her here, in Kebonsat’s quarters, having used the secret passage—it made no sense.

  “I don’t understand how you can be here, Nurema. In the palace. In Koduteel. In here.”

  Nurema smiled, her teeth brilliant against her tanned skin. “Ah, now that is a story you do need to know.” She turned to Yohuac. “This one knows already. Or thinks he does. He and I come from another land, another world, you might say. On the other end of that hole the wizards poked at Mysane Kosk. It’s a hot, wet, green place, where there are many gods and many magics. The nahualli are witches, and I am one.

  “I came here, many years ago, searching for someone. But not without cost. I lost all my powers but one. And that one proved to be slight indeed. But I was young and foolish, and I got what was coming to me. I have served the Blessed Amiya ever since, knowing that to do so was to serve my gods as well.

  “Since the Lady has retreated from Kodu Riik and the taint of Mysane Kosk has spread, my powers have begun to flourish again, and indeed the murkiness of my foresight—my only ability for years—has decreased. And so I knew to come here, now, and give you warning. The copicatl showed me the way.”

  “Warning? What warning?” Juhrnus asked, feeling as if the floor was tilting. Nurema a witch. How could there be so much magic when months ago there had been almost none at all? And what could any of them do against such forces?

  “Mysane Kosk must not be destroyed. You must protect it.”

  “But it’s the source of our problems. It’s a stain on the land. The nokulas, the plague—they wouldn’t exist without Mysane Kosk.”

  “Yes. All of that is true. But it changes nothing. You must not permit it to be destroyed. Worse will come if you do.”

  Juhrnus ran his fingers through his hair, hardly knowing what to think. “Worse? What could be worse? Kodu Riik is falling apart. People are dying. If not from the plague, then they are starving. With the blockade, we have very little time. Our only hope is Reisil and the destruction of Mysane Kosk.”

  “Don’t be a fool, boy!” Nurema snapped. “You don’t have any idea what you’re saying.”

  Anger flared, and Juhrnus flushed. “Don’t I? I’ve watched people die, old woman. Horrible, painful deaths. I’ve seen a nokula, and I fear him. I fear all of them. I’ve seen the hunger, the desperation, the riots. Our Regent wants war and he means to have it. He doesn’t care how many have to die or who he has to get in bed with to get his way. He means to destroy the ahalad-kaaslane. Then who will protect Kodu Riik?”

  Nurema bent close, waving her finger at him. “Mysane Kosk is a source of great power. The sorcerers and the wizards will fight for it. And not just those wizards who were banished from Patverseme. Wizard magic has changed. The Demonlord has seen to that. Now they will have difficulty defending Patverseme if the Scallacians attack. Should the Scallacians take Mysane Kosk, then Patverseme will fall, and the wizards still in good order can’t allow it. Among the three of them—Scallacians, good wizards and bad—the b
attle for control will raze Kodu Riik.

  “But that is nothing compared with what will happen if Reisil or anyone else tries to destroy it.” She paused, tapping her fingers against her jaw. “You want plain words, but explanations of magic don’t bend well to plain speaking. So listen carefully. What the wizards did at Mysane Kosk opened a well between two worlds. The spell went wrong, and now both suffer. The purpose of the spell was to lend the wizards more power so that they could make a decisive attack on Kodu Riik and overcome the Lady’s prohibition of magic. But it was flawed somehow. I don’t know how. I don’t know if the wizards know. But they are like cats with a bowl of cream. They have what they wanted.

  “The obvious solution is to destroy Mysane Kosk. But what I’ve seen, what is true of all the possibilities in my visions, is that to do so would remake both this world and my homeworld on the other side of the well.”

  There was silence. Juhrnus blinked, trying to get his mind around her explanation, trying to choose from the questions swirling in his skull.

  Kebonsat spoke first. “Remake? What does that mean?”

  Nurema’s eyes glittered. “I can’t say. There is a cloud that I cannot see beyond. Too much depends on what comes next to know.”

  “Why should we believe you? Have you proof?” Soka had circled around behind her and lounged on the window seat, picking at his nails with his dagger.

  “Ah, proof. I hope you accept that I am nahualli, though I can prove that as well, if you like,” she said caustically.

  Soka smiled, flipping a hand out. “By all means. You are a witch. I shall take that as given. But are you really on our side? Seems to me that in your battle between the wizards and the sorcerers, you forgot to mention whether the nahuallis would be eager to carve themselves a bit of the power.”

  “The nahuallis will seek to close the well, and because of this they are an equal danger, though they will not grasp at the power for themselves. As for me . . .”

  She reached her right hand out, palm down. The emerald snake on the table sprang up into the air and circled around her wrist. The men watched in fascinated horror as the tiny beast raised its body and then plunged down, burrowing into her flesh. Juhrnus felt his stomach turn as the creature’s tail disappeared, the shape of its body wriggling beneath the skin of Nurema’s forearm to disappear beneath her sleeve.

  “What does that prove?” Soka challenged, swinging his legs down.

  “That was for him,” she turned to face Yohuac. “That I come with the blessing of the Teotl. A copicatl may be offered as a blessing by any one of the Teotl, but the snake, this snake, belongs to one in particular.” She stared at Yohuac, brows raised, demanding, impatient.

  He jerked forward in a deferential bow. “Ilhuicatl, the father of all.”

  She nodded. “Exactly. And if I have his snake, what does that mean?”

  “That you have the approval of the entire Teotl.”

  “Right. Do not forget it. And now for the Blessed Amiya.” She turned her attention back to the other men. “I don’t expect a snake to mean much to you, but this ought to.” She turned her hand over and opened her palm. It was grimy, her fingernails dark with dirt. But as they watched, her hand flared, and on her skin appeared a golden image: a gryphon inside a ring of ivy.

  “Convinced?”

  Juhrnus looked up, his tongue sliding across his teeth. A niggling voice in his mind said she could fake such a sign. She was a witch. But he knew in the marrow of his bones that it was real. The others were watching him, waiting for his judgment. “It’s real.”

  “So what do we do now?” Metyein asked heavily.

  “We do what Kebonsat proposed. We pull together an army, such as we can get, and we go to Mysane Kosk and pray we can stop what’s coming.” His words rang hollow. How were they going to stop the sorcerers and wizards with an army of ragtag refugees, many of whom were already dying of the plague? And Kedisan-Mutira—would he have to stand on the opposite side of the wall from her and try to kill her? The thought tore at him, and he bent, feeling suddenly as if he’d been punched in the balls.

  Nurema nodded. “You won’t be alone. More help will come. And Mysane Kosk will defend itself.”

  Juhrnus sucked in his breath, and she gave him a somber look.

  “You’re seeing it now, aren’t you? About time. Mysane Kosk is not an empty shell. And those within will not wish to be killed or conquered. What they’ll do I can’t begin to guess. But I have nightmares about it. You will too.”

  Chapter 37

  Reisil yawned and stretched luxuriously. They’d given her an entire suite of rooms, decorated as lavishly as any quarters in the building. Her sheets were silk, her blankets the softest wool, the mattress plump with eiderdown. The rugs on her floor were thick and deep, the furnishings made of warm, honey-colored wood. A fire, lit by a discreet servant, crackled in the hearth, and the sun glowed through rose-colored curtains. The scent of dried flowers mixed with spices wafted through the room.

  Reisil sat up.

  ~Did you sleep well, dear heart?

  It was a question she already knew the answer to. Reisil had woken often in the night, reaching out to Saljane and finding the goshawk sleeping contentedly. It had not been so the first few days after her captivity, but more than a week had passed, and Saljane had put the dark memories behind her. Something Reisil had not yet been able to do. She didn’t know if she would ever be free of that unbearable loss. She stroked Saljane’s crisp gray feathers, laughing when Saljane nipped her fingers happily. Saljane raised herself from the nest of pillows Reisil had made on the bed and shook herself like a dog before leaping to her perch to preen.

  ~I am well. I would hunt.

  Reisil grinned at her. Saljane had dined well in the past days, but on meat brought by the wizards. She had not wanted to leave Reisil’s side, any more than Reisil wanted to be separated from her. It was a good sign that she was now at ease enough to hunt.

  Reisil slid off the bed and padded to the window, pushing the casement wide. The room flooded with brisk, mountain air. Reisil breathed deeply, shivering with the chill. “C’mon, you. Out you go. And remember the illusion. If you fly too high, you won’t find your way back in. If that happens, come to me in the valley outside.”

  Kvepi Kaisivas had explained about the stronghold’s covering illusion and warned that if Saljane left the valley, Reisil wouldn’t be able to hear her, nor would Saljane be able to find her way back on her own. Reisil shuddered at the chance that their bond might vanish again, but Saljane must have her freedom. Just in case Saljane might accidentally go too far, Kvepi Tapit had returned them both through the maze to the mountain valley beyond, allowing Saljane to orient herself.

  “The maze, of course, is not the only way out of the valley. However it is the quickest for someone on foot,” he explained. “Kvepi Kaisivas has asked that I serve as your guide until you are comfortable finding your way. I will show you the other entrances.”

  “So I am not a prisoner any more?”

  “You are one of us, and to be treated as such. You have long hated us, and we believe it is because you do not know us. It is our hope you will find friends here, a family, a home.”

  “Even after what I did on the Vorshtar Plain.”

  “Even so,” was his noncommital answer, and he would not be pressed into saying anything more.

  It was too absurd to think that the wizards did not resent her attack on them in Patverseme. She’d killed a hundred of them and been largely responsible for their banishment. But they didn’t mention it, and when she made an oblique reference, they seemed not even to remember. Instead they had given her extravagant quarters and welcomed her with congenial warmth. Tapit had been as good as his word, showing her all the entrances to the valley as well as the buildings, gardens, stables, and the workshop caves along the northern and western walls of the valley. There was a small village in the southeastern end in which lived a variety of servants and retainers. It was separated
from the main buildings by sweeping fields of newly turned earth, orchard groves and a swift-running creek.

  “Few are allowed to leave the valley, and those who do are most loyal. Still, we do not care to be discovered by outsiders, and we set a minor spell on them to prevent them from speaking of the valley,” Tapit explained when Reisil asked about them. “We treat them well, try to assist them in any way we can. Their duties are not arduous, and most have plenty of time to practice an art or craft of some kind. We are not severe in our demands, and they are content enough under such a light yoke. Many were treated ill in Patverseme after our banishment, and they had little choice but to join us. We try to make the burden of exile and our need for secrecy as comfortable as possible.”

  His explanation, like every other kindness and courtesy exhibited by the wizards, startled Reisil. The previous evening she’d been invited to attend the monthly gathering.

  “We get so caught up in our work that we tend to forget to eat. We reserve one evening a month for everyone to congregate and enjoy each other’s company,” Kvepi Kaisivas explained over kohv. “It is very informal, and I know that the others would like the opportunity to know you.”

  “Why?” Reisil asked, surprised.

  “I told you. You are one of us.”

  And indeed they had been very welcoming. They often had her laughing at jokes and pranks amongst themselves, stories of mistakes in their laboratories, social blunders, and general foolishness. They were so varied, so . . . ordinary. Like the people she had grown up with in Kallas.

  By the end of the evening Reisil’s ribs hurt from laughing, and her throat was raspy from all the talk. Afterwards she sank into bed exhausted, more content and at peace than she could remember since becoming ahalad-kaaslane. Her ease of mind communicated itself to Saljane, and the goshawk had begun to recapture the playfulness Reisil had missed so much since arriving in Koduteel.

  A knock sounded at the door, and Reisil started from her reverie. ~Come on. Out you go. She crooked a finger at Saljane.