If you want to make your enemy into something you can hate, you first remove his humanity.... Had Ulrich said that at one point, or had that been something he'd heard during one of Solaris' speeches? It was true, whoever had said it, and the Chronicles had certainly tried to remove all vestige of humanity from these Heralds. Make them only icons. When they are seen as a type, and not as individuals, they are easy for a fanatical mind to grasp—and hate.
Karal didn't think he was fanatically-minded, but then again, what fanatic ever did? It was going to take a while to get used to this.
"I think I'm going to go—ah—meditate for a while," he said to Ulrich, who was staring into the fire with every evidence of utter contentment. The Priest waved a lazy hand at him.
"Go right ahead," his master said. "I believe you ought to. You've just had a shock, and you need to think about it. I'm sure your nose will tell you when dinner arrives, if your stomach doesn't demand it first."
Karal put down his mug and retired to his room, flushing in confusion, and wondered how things in his life had managed to become more complicated than he had ever dreamed possible.
And how was he ever going to make all the scattered pieces of it fit again?
He still hadn't quite wrapped his mind around the concept of "Rubrik-as-Hellspawn, Hellspawn-as-Herald" by the time dinner arrived. He ate quickly and quietly, listening, but not participating in the conversation at all. Ulrich and their escort continued their chat as blithely as if nothing whatsoever had changed, although Rubrik did ask, with some concern, if Karal was feeling all right.
"You look pale," he observed, as Karal bolted the last of his dinner. "If you're getting sick, please tell me—this is a good-sized town, and there are real Healers here. Healer-Priests, too, and there may even be one of the splinter Sunlord Temples here—"
"Ah, I meant to ask you about that," Ulrich interjected. "Later, that is."
"It's nothing, sir, my master already knows about it," Karal said hoarsely, taking the proffered excuse for what might be considered rude behavior. "It's just a headache. I—I think I'll go to my room, and sleep it off."
Karal fled before Rubrik could ask anything else. His dinner lay in his stomach like a ball of cold, damp clay. It had probably been excellent; he'd bolted it so fast he hadn't really noticed.
He spent part of the night staring sleeplessly at the ceiling, the murmurs of conversation in the next room scarcely audible over the pounding rain. He wasn't able to make out what the other two were saying, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He just couldn't handle this. How could he act normally around Rubrik ever again?
But the soft, comfortable bed and the rhythmic pounding of the rain overhead seduced him into a dreamless sleep, and in the morning his anxiety seemed pretty stupid. He lay there in his bed, sheepishly wondering why the "revelation" had seemed so terrible last night. Ulrich was right; Rubrik was still the same man—and Heralds, as Karsite myth painted them, couldn't possibly have been anything like the reality. After all, there were plenty of things that had "always been True" or had been "the Will of Vkandis" that Solaris had proven were lies. So why should anything the False Ones taught about the Heralds be true?
He rose and went into the parlor, to find Ulrich already there and in high good humor, which meant his joints no longer pained him. The doors and windows were standing open wide to a wonderful warm breeze, there was a meal waiting on the table for him, and Rubrik was nowhere in sight. This storm had swept through cleanly last night, leaving behind a morning like a new-minted coin, the air washed so clean and pure that it was a pleasure to breathe. Rubrik had not sent servants to wake them up, and had let them sleep until after the sun rose. After a truly excellent breakfast, they joined their escort in the courtyard of the inn beneath an absolutely cloudless blue sky.
"Headache better?" Rubrik asked, as the horse-boy led Trenor up to Karal and held him so that Karal could mount easily.
"Yes, sir, thank you," Karal was able to reply, with a smile.
"Good. I get a touch of one myself in these wizard-storms. They say most people with any hint of mind-magic do." He gazed searchingly at Karal, who had no idea of what he was talking about. Karal shrugged his incomprehension.
"Yes, but how does that explain my poor, aching joints?" Ulrich put in, with a faint smile. "I certainly do not hear thoughts with my knees!"
Rubrik laughed heartily. "A good question, and one that probably proves that, as always, the nebulous 'they' are probably as foolish as the things 'they' are reputed to say!"
On that cheerful note, he led them out to the road, heading north again, under a brilliant sun.
That seemed a good enough omen to start, and as the morning wore on, Karal managed to dismiss the rest of his lingering fears as absolutely groundless. The Herald and Ulrich must have shared a great deal of personal information after Karal went to bed, for now they acted like a pair of real friends.
Huh, he thought, with astonishment, for Ulrich had never been friends with anyone that Karal had ever noticed. But there it was, as they rode side by side, there was an easiness between them that could not be anything but friendship. Ulrich respected him as soon as we met—and after that, there was a kind of—fellowship, maybe? Something like that, anyway; like he'd have with, oh, one of the Army Captains. Someone who deserved respect and was an interesting and intelligent person, a man he had things in common with. But this is different. I'm not sure how, but it's different. Ulrich seems happier, more open, and the tone of his voice is warmer than it usually is around other people.
He found that Rubrik was taking pains to see that Karal was included in conversation as the day wore on. And somewhat to his astonishment, he realized that he had begun to actually relax around the Herald. If anything, Rubrik reminded him of his favorite uncle, the one who'd been a guard with a merchant caravan and had a wealth of tales about strange places and the wonderful things he had seen.
Rubrik was evidently in the mood to tell some of his own tales this morning, for he began to describe some of the other "foreigners" that they would meet once they reached the capital of Haven and the Court of Queen Selenay. Some of them, Karal would not have believed under any other circumstances, but Rubrik had absolutely no reason to lie and every reason to tell them the whole and complete truth.
But if he was telling the whole and complete truth—some of the other envoys weren't human at all....
Ulrich didn't act at all surprised, though, as the Herald described some of the strangest creatures Karal had ever heard of. The Hawkbrothers were bad enough, with their white hair, intelligent birds, and outlandish clothing. But then he described the gryphons—Treyvan, Hydona, and their two youngsters. It was the little ones that made Karal decide that the Herald was not trying to play some kind of elaborate trick on them. Why make up that kind of detail if it was only a jest? The adult gryphons would have been more than enough.
"I'd been warned," Ulrich said laconically, when Rubrik ended his description. "After all, several of our Priests actually worked with these gryphons. Including one young lady who learned a valuable lesson in—hmm—"
"Cooperation?" Rubrik suggested with a wry smile.
"I was thinking, humility, but that will do." Ulrich's eyes actually twinkled. "Karal, you'll remember her, you were schooled with her. Gisell."
Karal's mouth dropped open with astonishment. "Gisell? Humility?" The two simply did not go together! Gisell had been one of the most stiffnecked little highborn bitches he'd ever had the misfortune to meet. Nothing could induce her to forget her lofty pedigree or her many important relatives.
Rubrik laughed heartily, and his smile reached and warmed his eyes. "Oh, a gryphon can bite you in two and have your legs shredded while your top half watches. When he tells you that you will work with the son of a pigkeeper and like it, you learn to be humble very quickly."
"If Gisell can learn to be humble, then I can believe in gryphons," Karal said firmly, provoking another burst of laughter, both from th
e Herald and from his master.
"Gryphons are just as real as my Companion Laylan, I promise you," Rubrik assured him. "And no more a monster than he is."
Now that triggered another thought, one that had sat in the back of his mind, pushed aside by the pressing dilemma of Rubrik-as-Herald. His horse—or rather, his Companion. Karsite legend had plenty to say about the creatures that Heralds rode, too! And now his behavior, which had seemed to be "only" remarkable training, had an explanation.
Laylan wasn't a horse. Obviously. "No more a monster than he is" he said—but he isn't, can't be, even a magical horse like the Hawkbrothers' birds. Even if back home they'd call him a Hellhorse. So what is he if he isn't a horse?
He held the question back, but it irritated him like an insect bite he couldn't scratch. Laylan himself seemed to know that it was tormenting him, too, because he kept looking back at him, and now he saw what his assumption that he was an animal had not let him see before. He watched him, watched Ulrich, and he had the sense that he was somehow participating in the conversation, even if he couldn't say anything in words.
Finally he couldn't stand it anymore. "Sir? Your—Laylan—what is he?"
Rubrik blinked, taken quite by surprise by the breathless question. "I suppose you wouldn't know, would you," he said, finally, turning in his saddle and squinting against the bright sunlight. "Ah—the best explanation we have is that Companions are a benign spirit in a mortal body. In some ways, rather like gryphons, except that they deliberately ally themselves with Heralds in order to help us help our land. They choose to look like horses, we believe, because horses pass without notice practically everywhere."
"Ah!" Ulrich's exclamation of delighted understanding made both of them turn toward the Priest. "That is the best explanation I have heard yet; I never had heard any reason why your Companions should have that particular form. It seems an inconvenient one."
Rubrik snorted, and so did Laylan. "Say that some time when you see him in full charge! This is several stone of muscle and very sharp hooves, my friend, and he knows how to use both to advantage! I'd rather have him in a fight than twenty armsmen, and that's a fact." He tilted his head to one side and added, as if it had never occurred to him before, "Odd though, that you Karsites don't seem to have anything like Companions, with your Vkandis being so—"
He flushed, and cut the sentence off, but Ulrich chuckled. "So much of a divine busybody in our lives, is that what you were going to say?" Rubrik winced, but the Priest only grinned. "Oh, don't apologize, even Her Holiness has been known to comment on that from time to time. Actually, though, Vkandis does have two supernatural manifestations that ordinary Priests—which are the closest thing we have to your Heralds—can experience. The sad part is that one of those was and is tragically easy to feign."
Ulrich gave Karal a prompting look.
"The Voice of Flame?" Karal asked with interest, taking the look to mean that Ulrich meant him to supply the correct answer.
Ulrich nodded. "Good, you recall what I told you." He turned back to the Herald. "The Voice of Flame is a sourceless nimbus of fire; it appears above the head of a Priest and speaks through him. It is, by far, the most common manifestation of Vkandis' Will. Since we Priests are often mages as well as clergy, I'm sure you can see how easy this particular manifestation of the Will was to counterfeit."
Rubrik made a sour face. "Not a chance you could counterfeit a Companion—" he began.
"Ah, but this is what is interesting," Ulrich interrupted eagerly. "There was, traditionally, another manifestation that was impossible to counterfeit—and it was one that had not been seen in so long that it had fallen almost into myth. Until recently, that is. And it seems to me that the Firecats are very like your Companions."
"Firecats?" Rubrik shook his head. "I've never heard of them."
"Not likely anyone has, outside of Karse," Karal put in. "In fact, until one showed up with Solaris, I'd say most of the Priests didn't believe in them anymore, either!"
"A cat?" Rubrik's skepticism was quite clear. "How could an ordinary cat—"
"No more an ordinary cat than your Laylan is an ordinary horse, my friend," Ulrich told him gleefully. "First of all, there is the color—Firecats are unique. They are a pale cream in color, with red ears, facial mask, paws, and tail. And like your Companions, they have blue eyes. Then there is the size—they are as tall as mastiffs. And they talk."
"Talk?" Rubrik was incredulous for just a split second. "Wait—you mean, in Mindspeech?"
"Mind-to-mind, yes," Ulrich agreed. "They can, and do, speak to whomever they choose, however, and I believe your Companions speak only to their selected Heralds?"
Rubrik nodded, and Ulrich went on.
"Firecats historically appeared at significant times to offer advice, not only to the Son of the Sun, but often to anyone else who was of crucial importance. In ancient times, the Son of the Sun was always accompanied by at least one, and often two Cats." Ulrich shrugged. "Now, the Cats stopped appearing, I believe, about the time that the Fires of Cleansing were begun; I also believe that there has not been a genuine manifestation of the Voice since that same period, at least not among the Priests in the capital and the larger cities. Until recently."
Rubrik sat as bolt upright in his saddle as his infirmity would allow. "Are you telling me that—"
"I, myself, have seen Her Holiness speak with what I believe to be the genuine Voice," Ulrich told him. "But far more important, Solaris has a Firecat. He calls himself 'Hansa'—and that is the name of one of the most ancient Sons of the Sun, a name not even a demon would claim with impunity—he is not only seen sitting beside her, but he actually appeared shortly after Vkandis struck down the False Son." He nodded as Rubrik's eyes narrowed in speculation. "His appearance served to further confirm her in the eyes and minds of the populace. But if you have any doubt, I have heard it from her own lips—and from Hansa's mind—that he is the one who advised her to make Herald Talia an honorary Sun-priest to cement our alliance."
Rubrik's mouth formed into a silent "o", but Ulrich wasn't quite finished yet.
"All the Firecats have traditionally referred to themselves by names of former Sons of the Sun. We have always believed that they are the spirits of former Sons who have taken on a material form in order to guide and advise us." He cast a significant glance down at Laylan, who looked up at him blandly and actually batted his eyelashes at him. "Obviously, they are exactly like your Companions, except that there are fewer of them. I assume that is because there are fewer deceased Sons than there are deceased Heralds."
Now it was Rubrik's turn to look as if someone had hit him in the back of the head with a board. And there was a whicker from Laylan that sounded suspiciously like a snicker.
"Of course—" Rubrik replied weakly. "Obviously." As if it wasn't obvious at all, and the thought had never once crossed his mind.
Rubrik's astonishment was so total, and so blatant, that Karal came very near to disgracing himself completely by blurting out the question, "Do you mean that hadn't ever occurred to you?" He stopped himself just in time.
In the first place, such a question would be twenty leagues beyond rude, and Ulrich would be completely within his rights—even his duty—to send him back in disgrace on the spot. One did not ask questions like that if one was a diplomat.
In the second place—
It's possible that the Companions actually have been keeping Heralds from even thinking just that. The Firecats were known to be what they were only to the Priests—the rest of the Karsite populace simply regarded them as signs of Vkandis' favor. Most ordinary folk were not even aware that the Cats spoke to the Priests—after all, the Priests had the Voice, what did they need with a talking feline?
I can think of several reasons why Companions would not want it known that they had once been Heralds, Karal decided, rather grimly, after a moment of silence that gave him plenty of time to really examine the idea. For instance, there had been one infamous attem
pt to destroy a Firecat by the traitor who had brought about the assassination of the Son of the Sun whose name the Firecat bore.
Not that that worked. Firecats can protect themselves very nicely. The assassin made a lovely bonfire, so the story goes. But surely, there were people who would be very unhappy if certain Heralds were to reappear after their demise—and Companions, unlike the Cats, could be killed.
And even a Karsite knows that if you kill the Hellhorse—the Companion—you'll probably kill the Herald.
There could be emotional conflicts among the Heralds as well. How would a loved one feel, knowing that the beloved ex-Herald could return if he chose, even if in a rather—inconvenient—form? It would be devastating if he did, and nearly as bad if he didn't.
As he was mulling all this over, he caught sight of Laylan staring back at him over his shoulder—and when he caught his eye, he nodded as if he had been following his very thoughts.
As if—like Hansa—she can see what is in my mind—
Once again, he sat frozen in place, stunned. Like Hansa. The Cats are like Companions—
Once again, he nodded; gravely, but unmistakably.
Only one thought floated up out of the shock.
If the Cats are like the Companions, then we are not so different from our ancient enemies after all.
And he could not for the life of him decide if that realization was a reassuring one.
Seven
An'desha stared unhappily out the window of his provisional home. Late afternoon sunset streamed through the branches of the trees around Firesong's ekele, and left patches of gilding on the grass beyond the windows. The silence that must surely be outside was not mirrored within. The indoor garden was full of laughter and talk, even to the point where the burbling of the waterfalls and fountains was overwhelmed by human chatter.
An'desha sat on a rock ledge in the farthest corner of the hot pool, dangling his feet in the water and trying not to sulk. He could not suppress his bitter unhappiness, though, and by the gods, he wasn't sure he wanted to! Firesong had not consulted him on this; he hadn't even been warned that there were visitors coming this afternoon. Firesong had simply showed up with all of them in tow, some of whom An'desha had never even met before. It was rude, it was unfair, and he was not in a mood to make the best of it.
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