by David Hair
Their wind-dhou and skiffs were out of sight of the monastery, just half a mile down the valley. The dhou-pilot had been put to work replenishing the keels, and they’d left Tegeda to guard the gypsy girl. My current amusement, and my future one . . . He couldn’t keep the smile from his face.
After leaving their windcraft, his Hadishah had found an ill-defined path which climbed through the ice and snow to the monks’ refuge. The air was bitter, and in seconds they were all calling upon the gnosis to supplement their body-heat as they soldiered on through knee-deep snow. The monastery itself looked hewn from the bones of the mountains, a forbidding place – had it been fortified and guarded. But the main gate was neither locked nor attended and they flitted without pause into the yard beyond. At his gesture his men fanned out, while Alyssa waved Megradh closer. Her peremptory airs were getting more and more irritating, but he listened dutifully as she pointed to a high bank of closed shutters accessed by partly covered stairs: the guest rooms, maybe. They were warded, in a place where no magi should have been.
‘I’ll take half a dozen and go up there,’ she’d said. ‘You find the monks, and ten minutes from now, you can start killing them.’
He approved of the plan: Zains were weaklings, and anyway, these two mystery fugitives weren’t expected to present any risk. He was more concerned about the aftermath. Alyssa had been reluctant to divulge – even to the Sultan – that the Scytale of Corineus was at stake; he intended to gain the artefact first.
Counting out the seconds, he sent his jackals prowling into the Zains’ inner sanctum. They didn’t meet a single monk, but the shouting and laughter coming from deeper in might explain that. Whatever was going on sounded distinctly un-monastic to his ears. Puzzling, he thought, but convenient. He raised a hand and moved his fingers, sending his warriors to right and left, down the wooden galleries that overlooked a courtyard. Peering through an iced-over shutter, he saw a throng of monks arguing vociferously just twenty feet below him.
And standing in the middle, towering over them all: one Rondian, wearing the same monastic garb.
Ahhh . . . Alyssa thought the Rondians would be in the wing she went to, but here’s one of them. Even as he sent silent instructions to his jackals, he was wondering how he could turn that to his advantage.
Then he crept into position, muttered his prayer and took aim at the Rondian’s back, aiming low to disable rather than kill outright. Alyssa had been very plain: she wanted the fugitives alive.
Ahm Most Holy, may my aim be true.
*
Cym lay with her cheek pressed against the cold wood of the hull. Her hands had been bound behind her back then knotted about a stanchion. Everything had gone quiet, she dimly realised, but was too tired to think beyond that. The boot-steps on the deck above had just stopped and now the only sound was the wind’s distant moan. Even the hull was no longer vibrating, as it did when they flew.
We’ve landed . . . Is this the place Alaron ran to? Her brain told her body to get up and do something, but even if she had the strength, she was too well bound. The air was so cold that her breath came in foggy clouds, but the keel was radiating heat from the gnosis it channelled, so she wasn’t in any immediate danger of freezing. Not that she would have minded; she’d heard it was a gentle death.
Death wasn’t what she’d get, though. Alyssa might have made all kinds of offers to her, but she was in Hadishah hands and for a mage-woman, that meant the breeding-houses.
I don’t care, she told herself.
When Zaqri died, all else had died as well . . . except she hadn’t. Not yet.
Mostly she was just tired of the struggle to go on. Lying here alone and helpless, locked away from the gnosis . . . that was perfect. That was deserved. Alyssa was right: she’d selfishly run her own course, and it had led her nowhere.
If I’d not stolen the Scytale, Alaron, Jeris Muhren and I would have set out together. My father’s caravan would never have been destroyed and Muhren would still be alive. We’d have saved my mother, and we’d have . . . Her imagination stalled after that; everything that had actually happened crushed her fantasies, crushed them into meaninglessness. Alyssa was right: individuals didn’t matter. The Great Causes – like the Crusade and the shihad – rolled by like avalanches, while little lives like hers were swept along or buried beneath.
Boots suddenly thudded above her head, making her flinch violently. The hatch rattled, ice cracking as it was wrenched open, and someone wrapped in layers of black dropped down and walked towards her: a homely Keshi girl with thick eyebrows and big, sad eyes, offering a small bowl of something steaming.
Cym stared at the bowl, her stomach growling and her mouth salivating. She hated herself suddenly, for wanting to go on, for her need to live.
The past two weeks, since that awful moment when Megradh had slaughtered Zaqri like an animal, had been one long waking nightmare. She couldn’t remember having slept, though she must have. The image never left her, the sight of that horrible thing – the headless trunk – that her lover had been reduced to. Now he felt infinitely precious to her, and the resistance she’d put up against his love stupid beyond recall.
‘Here, eat!’ the girl said brusquely, in Rondian.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Yes. You hungry.’ The Keshi yanked her upright, putting her back against a post. ‘Eat.’ She shoved a spoon of lumpy mush to Cym’s lips, prodding them with the spoon to get her to open her mouth.
She couldn’t refuse. The mush was bitter, over-spiced and already only warm, but it consumed her, not the other way round: the tastes burst through her mouth as the warmth burned through her body, and before she’d realised what she was doing, she was eating greedily, desperately. The Hadishah girl’s lugubrious eyes regarded her with apparent compassion. When she had finished, the girl gave her water from her own flask.
‘Where are we?’ Cym asked.
The girl’s response was hesitant. ‘Monastery,’ she offered. ‘I . . . me . . . Tegeda.’
‘Cym.’ She looked about her, feeling the brief energy of the meal coursing into her blood, pulling her momentarily out of the void, though the slide back into entropy beckoned even now. To fight it off, she asked, ‘Men gone?’
‘Yes, to monastery,’ Tegeda replied. ‘Find enemy.’ Her eyes narrowed a little. ‘Your friend.’
Alaron . . . This is where he’s been hiding, and now Alyssa has found him.
And Megradh will cut off his head.
A sob burst from her lips unbidden.
Tegeda flinched. ‘Megradh is bad man,’ she said, as if she knew exactly what Cym had been thinking. She lifted a finger skywards. ‘Ahm is Good. Ahm is Light. But not Megradh.’
Cym shuddered. Two nights ago, Megradh had come with the meal, and he had told her in broken Rondian that she was his, as soon as Alaron was found. ‘You’ve no value after that, except in breeding.’ Then he’d rammed his finger into her, in token of everything else he intended, sniffing it like a dog, and she’d vomited up everything she’d just eaten. Just the memory had her throat tightening painfully.
‘He’s an animal,’ she rasped. Pater Sol, Mater Lune, help me!
‘He does . . . things . . . also to me,’ Tegeda said, those few words conveying her bitter sense of betrayal with overpowering intensity. ‘My brothers . . . They know . . . no protect me. They are like Megradh. Laugh.’
‘Evil,’ Cym growled.
Tegeda nodded fiercely. Then she looked her full in the face and pulled out her curved dagger. Cym looked at it longingly. The girl shuffled forward and lifted Cym’s chin with her left hand. For a moment Cym thought Tegeda was going to cut her throat, but instead she kissed her cheeks, as if acknowledging a kindred soul, and severed Cym’s bonds.
Cym’s hands came free and they stared at each other. Her whole body was at first too numb to move.
‘Somehow, Cym now free,’ Tegeda whispered.
‘Outside, snow . . . big fall, right side.’ She cupped Cym’s face. ‘Go . . . find good death, not bad death. Seek Light.’ She backed away, her gentle face shining, then flowed up the hatch, closing but not locking it.
Cym stared after her, scarcely believing, but when she tried the hatch, it opened freely. She raised it cautiously and looked about. For a moment she froze: Lesharri was standing on the deck, looking up the slope. But Alyssa’s sister didn’t react, apparently unable to function without Alyssa’s guidance. When she was sure Lesharri really wouldn’t move, Cym jumped over the side of the dhou, her fall cushioned by the deep snow below. The mountains reared all about her, the peaks lost in the fluttering snowflakes that danced like thistle-fairies in the failing light. They had landed on a narrow flat plain barely a hundred yards across. Tegeda was huddled beside a fire with another person, who had their back to her. They were sipping from mugs, and Tegeda was pointedly looking away.
Cym got to her feet and tottered onwards, quickly losing the windcraft in the flurrying snow behind her. A few steps later she found herself teetering on the edge of a crevase, only the fierce updraft saving her from plummeting into the void. She wavered, looking down into nothingness.
A good death.
Then a light, shining high above and to her left, pierced the darkness.
A monastery, Tegeda had said, and now she could see a trail of trampled snow, gradually being covered by new flurries, heading towards that light. Megradh and Alyssa and all their killers, they’d left – what . . . no more than five minutes ago? Gone to find Alaron.
She looked back at the void and then stumbled towards the path, staggering until her blood began to pump, and then she began to run.
She’d thought of a better way to die.
*
Alyssa Dulayne felt the pieces on the board settling into their places. Down below, Megradh’s Hadishah were surrounding the monks, preparing to slaughter them; the captain’s sporadic mental updates had revealed that they’d found most of the Zains gathered in one courtyard, which made life easier.
And here’s little Ramita.
It was a year or more since she’d last seen the Lakh bint and she had no idea what affinities she’d developed. She’d be the equivalent of a half-blood, Alyssa guessed, from what she knew of pregnancy manifestation. And she was sharing this room with the Rondian, Mercer, judging by the clothing and gear scattered about, and the one unmade bed. Meiros must have left her with a taste for white skin. You could judge a lot about a woman from the men she clung to. This Mercer dresses in poor cloth . . . So she’s still a peasant, when all’s said and done.
But there was an unexpected stillness to the girl before her, and Alyssa was a little puzzled by her composed reaction; surely this must have been a huge shock? She probed a little and found Ramita’s gnostic aura to be curiously strong. Alyssa had cloaked the room to prevent any mental communication except her own, but Ramita hadn’t tried anything yet.
‘Don’t do anything foolish, Ramita,’ she purred, gliding towards the girl. Satravim was behind the Lakh, poised to lunge at her signal, and she was quite certain Ramita hadn’t noticed him. The two Hadishah at her back shadowed her attentively, awaiting her signal. ‘Let’s keep this quiet, shall we?’
The little Lakh girl lifted her chin defiantly, but though she said nothing, her aura changed subtly, and strangely – it had too many colours, hinted at too many possibilities. A little uneasy, Alyssa paused and asked. ‘Where’s the Scytale of Corineus, Ramita?’
‘The what?’
‘Don’t play games! I know you and the Mercer boy have it. Tell me where it is, or I’ll make you.’ She prepared her attack. Illusion spells firstly, blended with Mesmerism, then I’ll go inside with mystic-gnosis and pick her soul apart.
‘We don’t have it any more,’ Ramita said calmly.
Alyssa flicked a glance at Satravim, about to command him to move in, when Ramita suddenly stepped to one side and raised a hand towards the young assassin. ‘You! Don’t come any closer!’ she ordered.
Everyone went still, then Alyssa kindled blue fire in her right hand. ‘Satravim, go to the nursery and bring back Ramita’s baby – I heard a child as we came in.’
Ramita flinched. ‘No—!’
‘It doesn’t work that way, dearie,’ Alyssa told her. ‘Attachments are weaknesses; surely you have learned that by now?’ She waited until Satravim had slipped out the door, then focused anew on the girl. ‘I take it you bore twins, as you expected?’
The Lakh girl’s face became stony and realcitrant.
‘Don’t try and lie to me, girl! Alyssa warned, not liking this flash of stubborness. ‘I’ll ask you once more, did you bear twins, as you believed you would?’
Ramita’s face closed up, completely unreadable. ‘There’s only one,’ she said. ‘I warn you, don’t you touch him.’
As the two Hadishah came up on either side of Alyssa, she pondered her strategy: If we attack her now, she might just manage to raise the alarm before Megradh is ready . . . We just need to keep her silent a few more moments. So she continued speaking. ‘I have thirty Hadishah here, Ramita, and though I’m prepared to do this without blood, violence is very much an option. So answer truthfully: where’s the Scytale?’
Before the girl could reply, the door opened and Satravim poked his head through. ‘I can’t open the nursery door,’ he whispered.
‘Why not? Are the wards unusual in some way?’ Can’t these low-blood cretins do anything right?
‘No, Lady. It’s just too strong for me.’
Too strong? Alyssa looked at Ramita. ‘Who set those wards?’
Ramita lifted her chin, but she said nothing. Alyssa scowled: she knew the inside of Ramita’s mind well, having taught the girl Rondian mind-to-mind when she first came to Hebusalim. The market-girl had a certain street cunning. ‘Come Ramita, you can unlock it. Then we’ll see how brave you are with your son’s life at stake.’
She signalled to Satravim to fall in behind the girl again, but was shocked when the young man had the temerity to question her. ‘Lady Alyssa . . . a child?’
Good grief! Scruples from a Hadishah? ‘Satravim, the thing we seek could save the entire East from conquest,’ she said patiently, ‘and this little bint – this traitor to her own kind – is concealing it. Do you understand?’
His burn-marred face twisted uncomfortably, but she sensed the scales falling from his eyes. She smiled reassuringly. ‘She’s no innocent, Satravim.’ She gestured to the bed. ‘She sleeps with the enemy.’
Satravim stiffened, then nodded obediently and she gave him an approving look which appeared to settle him. He’s still mine . . .
Ramita’s defiance must have been ebbing already, because she allowed herself to be ushered out into the corridor, where two more Hadishah were waiting, one stationed beside each unopened door.
Another mage? Alyssa looked at Ramita.
The Lakh girl smiled as if she wasn’t surrounded by blades. ‘Knock and find out.’
I’ve just about had enough of your cheek, mudskin. She looked at Satravim, about to order him to batter the girl into unconsciousness, but she stopped. For some reason she felt exposed here. Megradh’s men were probably only seconds away from attacking and that would likely alert whoever was within that chamber to the danger. And she still didn’t know where Alaron Mercer was.
She stepped to the nursery door, set her hand to the lock and scanned it for a locking ward, then flinched. Holy Kore on High! That’s damnably strong – simple, but the raw power . . .
She turned back to Ramita. ‘Did you set this?’ The touch of the spell wasn’t familiar, but when she’d plundered Ramita’s mind two years ago, she hadn’t developed the gnosis.
Ramita just
smiled again.
Alyssa stared indignantly. Was it possible? Did Meiros do something to make his Lakh human wife as powerful as a pure-blood? If that’s the case, she’ll be priceless to Rashid’s breeding programme.
‘If it’s yours, unlock it, or Satravim will carve out your eyeballs. You won’t need them in the breeding-house.’
A mental call forced her to pause.
She glared at Ramita, considering her options. After a moment, she sent,
*
Megradh grunted agreement and broke the connection. He altered his aim to the Rondian youth’s chest, while sending a silent order around his men. There were twenty-one bolts aimed and ready. Below them, the monks, totally oblivious to the danger, were still arguing about their game. Those seated at the sides had staves at their feet, their own, and those belonging to the participants in the game. Otherwise, they were defenceless.
He engaged gnostic sight to ensure that Mercer wasn’t shielding, but that gave him sudden pause: there were clear signs of gnosis-use below – and not just from Mercer. Several of the monks had vestigial shields in place, and as he widened his gnostic field of vision, he saw one of the players on the fringe of the argument was juggling a ball using kinesis. And there was a faint buzz, as if a current of mental communication was running beneath the audible words.
These are magi . . . some of them anyway . . . maybe all of them. He felt a flicker of misgiving. The Zains in Teshwallabad had barely resisted, apart from the younger ones with their fancy staff-tricks, but this place felt different. He almost contacted Alyssa, then decided that would be perceived as a show of weakness. A captain had to be decisive at all times.
His jackals responded with little surprise; no doubt some had also begun to notice the shielding. But a crossbow bolt could penetrate steel plates. At this range, even a fully aware mage would struggle to repel a volley, and these targets were unaware. But a second volley might not be possible, not when crossbows took the best part of half a minute to reload – that would be too long if any of these Zains did turn out to be halfway competent magi.