by Angus Wells
“And if she,” he could not help a covert glance toward the waiting woman, “is proven enemy?”
Bracht’s face was solemn as he touched the falchion’s hilt. “In Aldarin I asked Varent why he did not cut his enemy’s throat—should she be proven of Azumandias’s following, then she answers to me.”
“Your word on it?”
Now Bracht nodded: “My word on it.”
“Let us find a spaewife,” he said.
The Kern grinned, tightly, and walked to where Katya sat with patient, solemn mien.
“We would seek proof you cannot give,” he said. “Will you agree to scrying?”
The flaxen head tilted back, grey eyes on his face, moving to Calandryll’s, where he stood at Bracht’s side. “And if she scries me true?”
“We sail for Gessyth,” Bracht said, “to seek the Arcanum together.”
“And if not?”
Calandryll could not tell whether Bracht’s grin was ironic or regretful, but he saw the freesword’s hand touch the falchion’s hilt again in unspoken answer. Katya nodded once and rose to her feet.
“So be it. Put me to your test—the sooner we’re gone from this place the better.”
THEY went in silence to the Waterboy, each wrapped in their own thoughts, Calandryll’s of what must follow when the spaewife proved him right, revealing Katya for a liar, agent of Azumandias. Lord Varent a patricide, centuries old? It was a monstrous deceit, a lie of dazzling proportion, plausible in its very enormity, an accusation so incredible it begged belief for wont of reasonable explanation. And yet it seemed Bracht chose to trust her, though he had dislike of Lord Varent for cause; that and his unhidden admiration of the woman. Calandryll’s face set in a scowl as he pondered all she had said, finding for each argument of hers a counter, each firming his conviction that she lied.
The Chaipaku—she could not know for sure that the Brotherhood would sell her Orwen’s chart; that she had not sunk the Sea Dancer—perhaps she might had magic not saved them; the byah’s words—spoken of her, not Lord Varent; holy men of Vanu, their augury—he knew nothing of Vanu, it was a land lost behind the Borrhunmaj, and that she came from there rested solely on her word. His scowl darkened: soon enough she would stand revealed and then Bracht must regain his senses and … slay her? He was not sure he wanted that: there was blood enough already pooling in their footsteps across Kandahar and she had come to their aid, albeit for her own reasons. He thought then of the dead Chaipaku, and for all they were assassins, and would have slain him without mercy, he shuddered as he remembered the savage satisfaction of his steel slicing flesh. “The next will be easier,” Bracht had said, and the freesword had been right. He had changed—was changing—and he was not certain he enjoyed what he became.
Such grim contemplation he thrust from his mind as they entered the inn and sought advice of the landlord as to the location of Kharasul’s diviners, and one they might trust, eliciting directions and a name that brought them, in the early part of the afternoon, to an inner quarter of the city.
The streets here were a little less noisome than those others they had walked, as if a greater respectability attached to this Seers Gate; and quieter, those folk they passed sober, their faces solemn. The landlord had directed them to a spaewife he named as Ellhyn, whose sign was the moon and sun conjoined. They found it suspended from a blue-painted pole that jutted from the upper story of a tall building, its stone clean and pale, day star and lunar disk melded on a background of azure. Two children, brother and sister by their looks, sat casting knucklebones on the step before the open door, staring up as the trio approached. Calandryll moved to pass them and the boy rose, a diminutive guardian.
“What would you here?” he asked, holding station in the doorway.
“We seek the spaewife, Ellhyn,” Calandryll replied. “This is her sign?”
The boy nodded and motioned his sister inward, bidding them wait. Within moments she reappeared, whispering to her brother, who beckoned them into the house.
“Mother will see you in a while. Wait here.” He brought them to a simply furnished chamber, a single window looking onto the street, plain chairs of carved wood set along the blue-washed walls.
“Our thanks.” Calandryll bowed, the courtly gesture answered with a grin from the boy, who returned to his sister and their game. In a little while footsteps sounded and they saw a man walk past, leaving. The boy returned and led the way into a corridor cool and shadowy, perfumed with some indefinable herbal scent. At the farther end a door stood open on a chamber tiled in blue and gold and silver echo of the sign outside. Cushions were scattered across the mosaic and a low table of dark blue wood stood at the center, behind it a woman who smiled and waved them in. She wore a robe patterned with suns and moons, small metal disks in the same design wound through her greying hair, catching light from the single window. Her face was homely, Kana-dark, and cheerful until they entered.
Then it clouded and she said, “I cannot scry past the magic you wear. Do you seek an honest telling, you must remove it.”
Calandryll nodded and took the red stone from his heck, looking to Katya. She did the same and the spaewife clapped her hands, bringing her attendant son.
“The stones will be safe with Jirrhun,” she said, and both were handed to the boy, who held them, smiling, for a moment, then scurried out.
“Sorcerers’ stones,” Ellhyn murmured, “and power in both. The one to seek, the other to release. Sit down.”
They sat and she studied them each in turn, her eyes calm and black as midnight, settling on Calandryll at the last.
“There is power in you,” she said, “that you could use without the stone, did you know the way of it. But now you heed the stone. And doubt—much doubt, I feel. Fear of betrayal.”
To Katya she said, “You travel far for what you seek, and fear who else may find it,” and to Bracht, “Your only magic is your honesty. Your trust is precious.” She paused then, silent for a while, her eyes faraway, then smiled again and said, “My service costs ten of the golden varre you carry.”
Calandryll fetched coins from the satchel and set them on the table. Ellhyn opened a lacquered box that stood there and dropped the coins inside, taking from the box a tasseled cord of woven silk that she spread ceremoniously across the table. She took a knotted end in either hand and bade them each set hand in place about the rope.
“Now ask me what you will,” she said, closing her eyes.
Katya glanced at Calandryll her eyes challenging. He looked to Bracht, who shrugged, indicating that he should speak.
“I would know,” he said slowly, choosing his words with care, “if this woman speaks the truth. She says she comes from Vanu and means us no harm.”
Sunlight bathed the spaewife’s face in golden light, deepening the creases on brow and cheeks. She nodded once, the trinkets in her hair jangling softly.
“Her name is Katya and she has come from beyond the Borrhun-maj. From Vanu, on a quest after that which you seek, which is …” Abruptly, sweat glistened on her brow and she shuddered, lips tight against clenched teeth. “Burash, but there is fell power here! What you seek is better left unfound, lest it bring down all the world. There are others seek that thing, and should they find it …”
Her voice trembled into silence. Calandryll said, “Does she mean us harm?”
“No!” Ellhyn’s voice came harsh from straining throat. “No harm from her—aid, rather. Has one of my calling not already told you that two comrades walk your path?”
“Their names?” he asked, in a manner fearing the answer.
“The warrior at your side, Bracht,” the spaewife groaned, “and the woman you doubt. Katya. Such doubt is madness! She is true, and your ways are one. Trust her!”
A vein throbbed at her temple, starting a tic that trembled one closed eye. Calandryll stared at her, his thoughts in turmoil. Trust her? To trust Katya was to believe all she had said; and that was to disbelieve another.
“Lord Varent den Tarl,” he demanded urgently. “Is there truth in him?”
“The name is unknown.” It seemed the words clogged Ellhyn’s throat, each one spat out, laborious, like bitter seeds. “But there is a shadow at your back that binds you with deceit … Lies have been told you by that one … Not her … A prince of lies, who would … No! I cannot!”
The last word was a shriek. Her head flung back, hands snatching from the cord to clasp at her heck, as if the words of the scrying burned, she rocking back and forth as though nursing mortal hurt. Jirrhun and the girl appeared in the doorway, the boy darting past them to throw protective arms about his mother, anger on his young face, the girl standing wide-eyed, her gaze accusing.
“Wine, and quickly!” Katya turned, gesturing at the girl.
The child looked to her brother, who nodded, sending her running, returning with a brimming cup that she set upon the table. Jirrhun raised it to his mother’s lips and said coldly, “Leave now.”
Ellhyn shook her head, spilling purple droplets over her robe. “No, wait.” She sipped a little more and the trembling that shook her abated. She took the cup from Jirrhun’s hands and drank deeper, then smiled wanly at her son. “Thank you, you did well. Both of you. But now, please leave us.”
Jirrhun paused a moment, doubt writ clear on his youthful face, then walked slowly from the chamber, taking his sister’s hand. Ellhyn drained the cup and set it down, sighing.
“Burash, but there’s a darkness waiting.” The spaewife shook her head again, slowly, as though to clear it. “A darkness such as can swallow all the world.”
“Of whose making?” Calandryll asked, the question met with a weary sign.
“Of those long dead.” Ellhyn’s hands, shaking, found the lacquered box unbidden, her eyes intent on his face. “And better left dead.”
He watched as she removed a silver pipe, filled the bowl and struck a spark. The sweet fumes of narcotic tobacco wafted on the hot air: the spaewife’s shuddering ceased as she breathed the drug.
“These are riddles,” he said, aware that he had said the same words in another place, far away; longer, it seemed, ago.
“I can offer you no more.” Ellhyn inhaled deeply, grunting her satisfaction. “I can scry you only what is revealed me.”
“Do you name Lord Varent betrayer?” he demanded.
“I know not that name.” Ellhyn gestured with the pipe, stem indicating Katya. “But I tell you this one is true—the second companion foretold.”
This one is true.
Logic collapsed. All his careful arguments shattered against the rock of the spaewife’s words. An awful cold settled over him and he clutched his arms across his chest, rocking forward as does a man deep-chilled and seeking warmth, seeking to reject the cold that was acceptance of her scrying. Dimly he heard Bracht say, “In Lysse a byah spoke of treachery. Was that warning of Varent?”
Ellhyn shook her head once more, in negation now. “I do not know that name,” she repeated. “Katya, Bracht, Calandryll den Karynth—these came to me, but not that one. The tree spirits utter only truth, this much I know-did this byah say the name?”
“No,” Bracht said, “only warned against treachery.”
Ellhyn shrugged, sucking deep on the pipe.
“And you perceived no treachery in Katya?”
“Only truth. You three are bound in a design beyond my ability to comprehend.”
This one is true.
And therefore, another is not. Another lies: the cold bit deeper and he began to shiver, unaware of the hand Bracht set upon his shoulder. Men lay dead by his hand because he had believed the lie; his own life was forfeit because he had believed the lie. The shivering became a bitter chuckle. How he had prided himself on the deception of Anomius—the cunning web of duplicity he had spun, tangling the sorcerer, a greedy fly ensnared in the spider’s mesh of words, of promises, of ambitions. And all the time he was the fly in Varent’s web. Savior of the world? A messenger boy, no more. He groaned, reft by the pain of betrayal, the foundations of his belief, his confidence, shaken.
This one is true.
Katya true; Varent not.
Deception cloaks your path and you must choose your friends with care. Beware the face of lies … Remember that when the deceiver spins his web. …
The byah had spoken, just as Bracht believed, of Varent.
This one is true.
Then likely all she said was true: Varent was no aristocrat of Aldarin, but what Katya told them—a warlock, untold ages old and steeped in evil, the ambitions ascribed Azumandias his. He sought the Arcanum not to destroy it, but to raise the Mad God himself. He would visit chaos on the world; and close—how close!—he came to succeeding, thanks to his unwitting, witless, dupe.
Katya true; Varent not.
The awful knowledge dinned against the walls of his mind. The cold bit harder, fierce as a knife. Insane he had called Bracht for the Kern’s faith in the woman, a bitter irony, for Bracht had seen what he could not, seduced by Varent’s—Rhythamun’s!—soft words, his lying promises. He would have seen Katya slain; would have delivered the Arcanum into Varent’s hands. No, not Varent’s—Varent den Tarl was not his name and likely not his face, but Rhythamun; and what face owned that name he could not say. He grew aware of a pressure against his lips and opened his mouth, feeling liquid enter, wine that he swallowed unthinking and began to choke. A hand pounded at his back, another wiped his mouth. The cup came again and he drank. A third time. His vision cleared and he saw Ellhyn studying him across the table, her homely face troubled. Bracht knelt beside him, his arm as much comfort as support. He turned to Katya, apology in his eyes, and she met him with a smile, her grey gaze clear, no triumph in it, but concern.
“Forgive me,” he mumbled. “Forgive my doubts.”
The flaxen head ducked in acceptance: she set a hand upon his arm, the pressure of her fingers her answer. He essayed a smile that seemed to stretch his cheeks in rictus grin, a death’s-head grimace, lorn of all the confidence he had known, that lost on the spaewife’s scrying. He wiped a hand over his face, feeling it wet, and rubbed, embarrassed, at his eyes, forcing his back straight as he faced Ellhyn.
“The stone,” he said, voice hoarse, “that Varent gave me. Does that grant him power over me? Might he control me through the talisman?”
“The stone is a tool,” she answered, her own voice husky now from the narcotic tobacco, gesturing at the tasseled cord, “as that is. It unleashes power already yours.”
“Power?” he asked numbly, not wanting such power; wanting nothing of magic and magicians. “Do you name me sorcerer?”
“No.” The spaewife laughed, briefly. “It is not so simple, magic. It is a talent—an ability—that some have and others not. To use it requires study, knowledge. Long years of tutelage. There is ability in you, and the stone may sometimes focus that ability, but I do not think you can control it.”
He nodded, thinking that he had believed himself wise, educated, yet Bracht had seen what he had not. Had seen the truth from the start.
“Azumandias,” he rasped. “Do you know that name?”
The spaewife shook her head.
“Rhythamun, then?”
Again, the negative.
“There was much hidden,” she said, the words slurring somewhat, “and I would not probe that darkness again. It hides things too terrible. Perhaps these names are hidden there—I do not know. I tell you, though, that what you seek is better left lost.”
“For others to find?” Now he shook his head, warmed by the wine, the cold giving way to heat, to anger. “For the liars and the deceivers to find and use? No. Not that.”
“Then destroy it if you can,” the spaewife told him; told them all. “That thing opens gateways to abomination.”
“That is our quest,” he heard Katya say. “To find it that it may be destroyed.”
“Then I wish you well,” Ellhyn said. “I will offer to Burash, that he aid you. I think you w
ill heed such aid, for you are not the only ones who seek this thing.”
“Who else?” asked Katya.
“I cannot tell,” the spaewife answered. “The darkness hid them.”
Varent for one, he thought, if he somehow knows we have found him out; perhaps Anomius, if he lives. Perhaps others, and that the case, we better sailing north to Tezindar. He moved to rise, surprised by the weakness of his legs, his swimming head, Bracht’s arm a welcome prop.
“My thanks for what you saw,” he murmured, bowing.
Ellhyn smiled, a wan expression. “I think you go to your deaths,” she said, her dark eyes enfolding them all three, “but you go with true companions and I wish you success.”
He nodded, turning, feeling Katya close on his right, and smiled at her, this time true warmth in the expression.
“You stand ready to sail?”
She ducked her head, smiling back.
“On the tide. Or sooner, if we must.”
“Sooner, I think,” he said, and gently removed Bracht’s arm, finding his own feet as they paced slowly down the corridor, into the heat and light of the jungle-scented afternoon. “As soon we may.”
Katya nodded, accepting the stones Jirrhun offered, passing the cord of his over his bowed head.
THEY walked toward the harbor, hands ever close to their swords, for now Kharasul seemed a place of danger, the threat of the Chaipaku joined by that darkness of which Ellhyn had spoken. The very air seemed thicker now, as if the wind that blew across the Ty River bore hint of menace. Calandryll examined the faces of the passersby, wondering if their expressions, some bland, others curious, hid darker feelings, wondering if those eyes that met his recognized him and marked him as victim. He quickened his step, the Vanu warboat a refuge now, an escape from assassin’s vengeance and sorcerous retribution alike. He glanced at the stone, relieved to see it dull, and braced his shoulders, finding renewed determination.