by David Duncan
"Flattery?" she murmured.
"Admiration, lady. Yesterday I was present at the birth of something that will live as long as the River flows. You made my name immortal."
She strolled toward the window, showing experienced mastery of the heels. Oh, those legs! Her lute floated on the shining brown cataract of her hair.
"The minstrels refer to it as The Epic of Rotanxi." She seemed not to regard herself as one of the minstrels. She was of another species and she knew it.
"It does not matter. My name will live in it, and yours will be celebrated forever."
Amusement flickered on her rough-hewn features. "The warblers are leaving town in droves. I shudder to think what they will do to it, but it must be well spread already."
"What reward may I give you?" he demanded. He was flushing like an adolescent and his voice was thick. Fool!
She turned from the window and regarded him provocatively. "Whatever is fitting." Her voice had gone husky to match his, or mock it.
He had one sapphire left from the expense money that the god had given him. Even while cursing himself for a lust-maddened idiot, he took it from his pouch and went over to her. She recoiled a step from his advance, then drew in her breath sharply as he placed the blue fire against the chain she wore, holding it with finger and thumb in the hollow between her breasts.
"It is not enough, but it is all I have."
She took the gem hurriedly and backed away a step.
"It will suffice. It is a kingly recompense, my lord." She sighed the words. There was an undertone there that he did not understand, that was intended for Shonsu, and the glance she gave him under lowered lashes would have been in any other woman an invitation to continue his approach. In her, he suspected, it was not; but his hands trembled.
"And you will accompany me to the merchants' ball this evening?"
She nodded as if that were preordained. Who else could the liege lord escort in public but Lady Doa? The greatest swordsman and the greatest minstrel-they were made for each other.
"And let me kiss you?"
She recoiled, claws unsheathed. "Don't touch me!"
He shrugged. And sighed, also. "I do not understand you, Lady Doa. You are a most-"
"You understand very well, Shonsu." Her tone was contemptuous, her stance again seductive.
"I have told you I remember nothing."
"Save those stories for your henchmen!" She headed for the door, and he dug nails into his palms as he watched the satin moving on her hips. "Tonight, then."
And she was gone.
He did not know where she lived or what the proper procedure was for escorting a lady. Sedan chair? Carriage? He would have to discover all those things, and yet he was supposed to be fighting a war. She roused him like a stallion and simultaneously unmanned him. Where this woman was concerned, Shonsu's glands took total control of Wallie Smith's mind. What would Shonsu have done-thrown her on the bed and raped her?
He sank into his chair with a groan and wondered if rape was what she had expected and wanted. Did she even know that she was constantly inviting him? He was worse than Nnanji had been over Thana-woman refuses, man goes mad with lust. At least Nnanji had the excuse of youth; he was himself, merely a sex-crazed maniac.
But he would have a fitting companion for the evening's festivities, and that was important in case-
The door opened and Nnanji walked in. He was grinning.
"You did it, brother!" he said.
"Did what?"
"You overloaded my memory! I was getting a headache, so I said I needed a break." The headache did not seem to be bothering him. "Two hundred an hour! But we have some curious talents out there: goldsmiths and brickmakers and glassblowers-"
"All very useful, I'm sure," Wallie said, trying hard to match his oath brother's irrepressible cheerfulness. "Any falconers?"
"Not so far, but half the men are away from the lodge. This is fun, isn't it?"
He stalked to the window and peered out, while Wallie sat back in his feather-shedding chair and idly pondered a suitable definition for "fun" in that context.
After a few minutes' silence Nnanji said, "Brother, you will tell me the last thirty sutras, when you get a chance, won't you?"
"Of course. But not while you have a headache-and I have a worse one!"
"Good!" Nnanji said. Another pause. "Shonsu?" He had never used that name before. His voice had lost its sparkle. "I'm a fraud!"
"Don't worry about it! You'll pick up the sutras fast enough, and no one can challenge you until the tryst is disbanded. By then you'll be fencing like a Seventh."
Nnanji did not turn from the window. "I hope so."
Nnanji, doubting himself? "I'm sure you'll find time to do some practicing! And practice with many opponents is just what you need now. You've really only ever had me, and one instructor isn't enough. You know all my..." Wallie's voice died away.
Ikondorina said, I can teach you no more.
Silence. Of course Nnanji did not know the prophecy about the red-haired brother.
"Easy mark!" Nnanji's voice was full of contempt for himself. In his eyes swordsmanship was paramount. He despised a man who could not fight to his rank. "As soon as the Sixths are free of their oaths, I'm going to be facing thirty-nine tries at promotion! You'll drag the war out for a few weeks, won't you-for me?"
The request was so ludicrous that Wallie laughed aloud and Nnanji turned momentarily to grin at him. Then he went back to staring out the window.
Something else must be bothering him?
"Shonsu?"
"Yes, Nnanji?"
Silence.
Then: "I don't feel... I mean I'm not..."
"Out with it!"
Nnanji took a deep breath and jabbered: "I know that a tryst can only have one leader, brother, so I just wanted to promise you that I won't... I mean I'll try to-Devilspit! I mean you know so much more than I do..."
This was not like Nnanji.
"What are you trying to say?" Wallie demanded, puzzled and suddenly uneasy.
Nnanji swung around, red-faced. "I'll be loyal! You're the real leader! I mean, now we're technically equals..."
Goddess! Wallie had not thought of that. Nnanji was a Seventh. He was no longer Wallie's protégé. He was liege lord also. Technically equals! What happened if the two of them disagreed?
"I've never doubted your loyalty, Nnanji."
Nnanji nodded.
Another silence.
"Something else bothering you?" Wallie demanded.
"I was just wondering why the gods arranged this, brother? Why two liege lords? You don't think..." He bit his lip and looked even more unhappy.
Now Wallie saw it, and it was a chilling thought. "That you may have to succeed me?"
Nnanji nodded again. "You'll take care, won't you?"
"Damned right!"
"Good!" The old grin came back. Reassured, Nnanji chuckled and headed for the door. He was stopped in his tracks by the spotty mirror. It was a small mirror and he had to crane his neck to see his kilt in it. "How do I look in blue, Shonsu?"
"Absolutely ridiculous! But performance is more important than looks, and you seem to be doing a great job of Seventhing so far."
Nnanji smirked and turned his head one way and his eyes the other.
"Notice the hairclip?" He was wearing a great chunk of blue glass, almost as large as the sapphire that Wallie wore, the one the god had made for him. "You don't happen to have any spare gems left, do you?" he asked hopefully.
"No."
"Pity. It would be safe on me until you needed it, I thought... But this will do. It looks quite real, doesn't it?"
To a blind oyster, perhaps. "Yes, it does-and it suits your red hair."
Hairclip?
"Why don't you wear the silver one?" Wallie asked cautiously.
Nnanji flashed him a cryptic, curiously defensive glance. "A blue kilt is bad enough, brother! A griffon?"
True-he was not usually so discr
eet.
"Besides, I promised Arganari I would wear it when I got to Vul. I'll save it for that."
He smiled less certainly than before and vanished, without closing the door.
Ikondorina said, I can teach you no more, now go and find your kingdom.
Wallie climbed slowly to his feet. A Third appeared in the doorway carrying a small table in one hand, balancing a tray on the other, filling the room with a stench of charred meat.
Vul?
Technically equals?
... and his realm was more vast and much greater.
Greater than a tryst?
Impossible!
It had always been impossible-it was gibberish.
He had been betrayed! Deceived!
For the second time that day Wallie lost Shonsu's temper. With a roar that rattled the windows, he threw the swordsman and his food out of the way and went hurtling along the antechamber, bellowing for his bodyguard.
††† † †††
A temple should be a hushed and pious place. This one was not. A small army of slaves was cleaning up glass and stone, the remains of the fallen window. Their chattering and the screech of their shovels echoed along the nave toward the idol.
The brilliant mosaic floor before the dais was almost empty. Worshipers were being tactfully discouraged this day and there were few, anyway, for the city was busy. The wide, tiled space held only one figure, a very small priest of the seventh rank. He had come for meditation and prayer and had stayed longer than he had expected. There had been no specific appeals in his head, only a deep longing for peace, a yearning that seemed to be filling him more and more now. The pains were stilled. Perhaps he would get his answer soon, his release. Kneeling before his Goddess, he had found the wordless comfort he had been seeking. He had remained there, savoring it, waiting without having anything to wait for; in no rush to go anywhere else, for he had nothing left to do, that he knew of. Shonsu was leader of the tryst and whatever else was going to happen would not need Honakura.
Eventually he discovered, to his amusement, that he was hungry. That raised a problem. His old carcass was a problem, and raising it another. He doubted that he could rise to his feet now without help, and there was no one nearby. He pushed himself up to sit on his heels and survey the surrounding emptiness with wry enjoyment of his helplessness. A little fasting would do him no harm, of course.
Two figures came out of one of the rear doors. The first was a priest; he stopped and pointed, then turned on his heel and fled. The other came striding over toward Honakura, a giant swordsman clothed in a black cloud of rage.
Interesting! Having no choice, Honakura stayed where he was. In a moment his view of the Goddess was blotted out by a blue kilt. On its hem was a white griffon, lovingly embroidered by Jja.
There were no preliminaries. The cavernous voice said, "You lied to me!"
It hurt to tilt his head back, so he left it where it was, studying Jja's needlework. He said nothing.
Louder: "You lied to me!"
It was not a question. Why answer? "Tell me what has happened, my lord."
After a moment the kilt moved. The young swordsman sank to his knees and folded huge arms across massive chest. Honakura did not look up at his eyes, he just waited and stared at the tooled leather harness.
"Nnanji has his seventh sword." The voice was a very deep growl, even deeper than usual.
Now the priest looked up at the furious black eyes, seeing the fear and pain under the rage. "Did you ever doubt that he would?"
"It should have been impossible! Under the sutras there was seemingly no way that he could do that, not until the tryst was disbanded."
Nothing was impossible to the Most High, but it would be better not to say so. Better just to wait. Shonsu was so agitated that he could not remain silent, and in a moment Honakura received the story of the spy, and the attempt on Shonsu's life, and the very obscure sutra.
His confusion was pitiable, this enormous, gentle, well-meaning young man... Honakura felt a lump in his throat such as had not known in years. Surely the gods would not test like this unless the cause were vital?
"It is a miracle that Nnanji is a Seventh?" he asked quietly.
"Yes!"
"And a miracle that you are still alive?"
"I suppose so," Shonsu hung his head.
"Then you have no cause for complaint, my lord. You each got one this time."
The deadly dark eyes came up to skewer him. Had death been a dread to Honakura, that gaze would have softened every bone hi his body. "You lied to me."
He signed. "Yes."
"Tell me now, holy one! For the sake of your Goddess, tell me now!"
"If you wish, my friend. But it will not make you happier."
"Tell!"
Softly Honakura told him the real prophecy:
Ikondorina's red-haired brother came to him and said, Brother you have wondrous skill with a sword; teach me, that like you I may wrest a kingdom. And he said, I will. So Ikondorina taught and his brother learned and then Ikondorina said, I can teach you no more, now go and find your kingdom. And he said, But brother, it is your kingdom that I covet, give me that. Ikondorina said, I will not, and his brother said, I am more worthy, and slew him and took his realm.
For a long time there was no sound except the scrape of the slaves' shovels at the far end of the nave, the clash of glass as they filled their wheelbarrows. Doubtless the swordsman was pondering the story of Ikondorina's red-haired brother, but Honakura was thinking of pride.
He had lied, mortal sin for a priest. All his lifetime of service and devotion had been wiped out by that, crashing down as the temple window had crashed down. Pride! He had been too proud of that lifetime. He had been led by his arrogance into mentioning Ikondorina's brothers to Shonsu, and that error had trapped him into telling the lie. Before that, puffed up by awareness of his own sanctity, he had been sure that the Goddess would reward him, that his death would be a victory march, that She would weep tears of gratitude when he came before Her. Now he could only hope that She would be merciful and remember his life's work when She judged his awful sin, that She would in Her mercy allow him to remain on the ladder, according him some lowly place where he could start again, refraining from hurling him off, down into the Place of Demons.
He became aware that he was weeping, weeping for himself, when he should be weeping for this tortured swordsman.
That same swordsman was speaking again. "... why you did not tell me before. You were right not to trust me." He was bitter, understandably. "What happens now, holy one? I just wait for him to do it?"
Honakura forced his mind back to Shonsu. Sudden hope surged into his ragtag old frame. That wonderful sense of peace he had felt-would that have been sent to a damned soul? Was it possible that he had been directed to that mortally destructive lie?
"Could it be another of the gods' tests, my lord?" he whispered.
The swordsman recoiled, falling back on his heels. He blanched. "No!"
The two men stared at each other in silence.
At last Honakura said, "Is it possible?"
The big man shook his head as if to clear it of crawling horrors. "If the gods will not intervene-yes! He is not a Seventh in fencing-yet! But any match may be an upset, holy one. It is not uncommon-a better man being beaten by a poorer-not uncommon. They would not let me, would they? They would send a miracle?"
Honakura stared over the swordsman's shoulder at the face of the Goddess, but seeing it as it was revealed at Hann, not in this shoddy facsimile; seeing the majesty. The temple was very cold. He was freezing. Why had he not noticed that sooner?
"I am no prophet, my lord. I do not know the answer. But it may be that She wants a... that you..."
"That I am not enough of a killer for Her needs? Say it, man! Another test? I may be too soft-hearted and Nnanji is a born killer? But if I were to drain him now..." His voice tailed off, and agony drove the fear from his eyes.
After
a while he whispered, "Kill Nnanji?"
"Would the swordsmen accept you afterward?"
Shonsu jerked, as if he had been lost in hell and had forgotten that Honakura was there. "Yes!" he said. "I went mad this morning. I sold two men into slavery. They are all terrified of me now; they have realized what that oath of theirs means." He laughed without benefit of mirth. "I knew and they didn't! Yes, they will obey."
After another long silence he muttered, "But Jja..." and did not say more about that.
"I may be horribly wrong, my lord," Honakura said. "He is an honorable young man. He admires and adores you! He worships you next to the Goddess. It is hard to see him harming you."
"He trusts me!" me big man snarled.
"Then live up to his trust, my lord! Serve the Goddess and She will see that all is well between you."
Shonsu ground his teem. "I can't!"
"Can't what?"
"Can't beat the sorcerers."
"But you have been telling..."
Shonsu stared down at clenched fists and corded forearms. "Yes. What I have been saying is true. I can storm the cities and overthrow the towers and drive out the sorcerers and put the swordsmen back. I believe it and Nnanji believes it and the tryst probably believes it now, or will soon. The sorcerers believe it, or will soon."
"I don't understand."
The deep voice became a whisper, although there was no one near. "They will go away, holy one! If we take the first tower easily, they will depart, abandon the cities, and fade back into their hills."
"Then you will have won!" Honakura said, perplexed at the despair before him.
Shonsu shook his head. "No! I can't take Vul. Not in winter. We don't know where it is. The first Shonsu might have been able to do it-he made a surprise attack. But now they have had half a year to prepare. One tower at a time, yes. At odds of fifty to one, yes. A fortified city, no! Many days' march away from the River? Take catapults into the mountains? Impossible!"
Appalled, Honakura said, "In the spring, maybe?"
"No! We can't wait for spring; we have no money. The tryst must be disbanded! So the sorcerers will come back. In five years, or ten..." The whisper became so faint that Honakura could barely hear it. "I can't beat the sorcerers! No one else knows that, holy one!"