The Gods Return

by David Drake

  Ilna dropped the pattern into her sleeve and reached for more yarn. The action was reflex: there wasn’t a real threat, and hostility toward her was no new thing.

  “Lord Halle!” Zettin said. “If you persist in discussing matters which touch my honor, I’ll send you home to your father with your ears cropped!”

  “Quite right, Halle!” Lord Waldron said. “Gentlemen don’t need a pup like you to tell them their business.”

  Waldron turned. “I wonder, though, Your Highness,” he continued with his eyes on Lord Zettin rather than Garric. “If Mistress Ilna should be bothering about private matters while the kingdom’s got the enemies it does?”

  Ilna wondered if the army commander really had any notion of what she’d done or could do. Perhaps he did, since she knew Waldron wasn’t a stupid man.

  She was quite sure that his comment had nothing to do with her and little at best with the kingdom, however. Zettin was Attaper’s disciple and Attaper was Waldron’s rival, so Waldron jabbed at Zettin. Children did the same thing—but animals didn’t, not any animals that Ilna had seen during life in a peasant hamlet.

  She’d done worse things herself, of course. That didn’t make her like human beings better.

  Aloud she said, “I’ve never met a kingdom, Master Waldron, but I’ve got a good notion of what I myself ought to be doing. If you don’t agree, you’re welcome to your opinion.”

  Waldron glared fiercely, but not so much at her as in her direction. Until Ilna’d spoken, he hadn’t really been thinking about her as a person; she’d been a stick to beat Zettin with.

  Ilna smiled as broadly as she ever did. Sometimes what you thought was a stick turned out to be a snake.

  “All right, I take your point,” Waldron said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. No offense meant.”

  “Ilna?” said Tenoctris unexpectedly twisting around in her chair to meet Ilna’s eyes. “It might be useful for you to describe to the council how you came to your decision. There’s obviously—”

  Her glance spiked Waldron; he scowled even tighter.

  “—a great deal of ignorance about the business.”

  Ilna shrugged. Discussing this sort of thing made her uncomfortable, but discomfort was so ordinary a part of her life that she felt foolish complaining about it—even to herself.

  “I wove a pattern,” she said, gesturing with the yarn in her hand, as yet unknotted. “Patterns, I suppose, more than one. They—”

  How to describe it? It wasn’t seeing or even feeling, it was knowing a thing, a direction.

  “—indicated to me that I should—”

  No, that’s not the word!

  “—that it would be right for me to go look into Hervir disappearing up in Blaise. And don’t ask me what I mean by right—”

  She was angry and it came out in her voice, but she was angry at herself. She didn’t have the words to explain to educated people what she meant!

  “—because I don’t know. Looking for Hervir will take me in a direction that someone, something, thinks it’s right for me to go, and that’s all I know.”

  Perhaps she’d find death on Blaise. But she’d learned not to expect anything that she might want.

  “I work in certain ways,” Tenoctris said, addressing the whole council. “With an incantation I could display a future. Some of you have seen me do that, have you not?”

  There were nods and murmurs around the room. One of the soldiers, an older man who’d gone bald to the middle of his scalp, forced his clenched fists together and muttered a prayer.

  “But I couldn’t show you the future, or the best future,” Tenoctris said, “because I don’t know what those things mean. They’re results. They depend on the choices I make when I choose the words of power that I chant. Someone like—”

  Pausing suddenly, Tenoctris got up from her chair and walked around it to where Ilna stood. She put her arm on Ilna’s shoulder; her touch was as light as a hopping wren’s.

  “There isn’t a ‘like Ilna,’ ” she said. “Mistress Ilna, alone of all those I’ve met or heard of. Ilna can determine the best course for herself, which means the best course for mankind and for the good. I would no more argue Ilna’s decision than I would tell King Carus how to fight a battle.”

  Garric chuckled, though Ilna wasn’t sure that it was really her childhood friend laughing. “All right,” he said. “The matter was decided when Ilna stated her preference, but now you all know why that’s the case. The council is dismissed.”

  Feet shuffled and chairs scraped the floor of chipped stone in concrete; attendants threw open the double door. Cashel stood, waiting for the bustle to clear so that he could go to Sharina without knocking people out of the way.

  Ilna stood; her fingers were knotting a pattern. She thought of the path she’d taken, the one whose varied turnings that led to the deaths of Chalcus and Merota. If that was the right choice, then where would the other choices have led?

  Ilna’s fingers moved, and her mind bubbled with anger at the person she was.

  Interlude

  BARAY, EMPEROR OF Palomir and the World, stood at the entrance to the Temple of Franca. Beside him was Nivers, the high priest, with three of the girls from the harem Nivers had accumulated since the return of the Gods. The youngest of them couldn’t have been more than ten, which disturbed Baray; but not as much as the scene in the courtyard twenty-seven crystal steps below, where Salmson chanted at the altar and rat men sacrificed the latest captives.

  Baray took another drink from his flask. When he was young, he’d dreamed of someday drinking the finest vintages. Now he had his choice of hundreds of wines, but he found the greatest solace in that grown on the jungle terraces of Palomir itself. Baray drank it unmixed; he hadn’t found a stronger wine anywhere in the world.

  “Alba thanalba thalana!” Salmson chanted. He was getting hoarse; Nivers would have to take his assistant’s place soon. But not yet, not quite yet.

  The woman below screamed as two rat men forced her to bend over the altar backward. A third rat struck with a broad-bladed dagger and ripped upward; the screams gurgled to silence. More rat men led up the next victim, a man too stunned to struggle.

  Baray drank again. The flask was empty. He flung it away and shouted, “Come!”

  The servant waiting beside the storage jar at the base of the stairs came shambling up with a full flask, this one silver instead of bronze. He’d find the one Baray had flung down in disgust, wipe it if necessary, and have it refilled for the next usage.

  The steps were shallow and steeply pitched, but the servant didn’t lose his balance. He was a recent prisoner, and he knew better than most the fate that lay in store for him if Nivers lost patience with him.

  The man on the altar had been silent until the knife went in. Now he cried, “Ak! Ak!” and then gave a bubbling groan. The rat men holding him dragged the body away, dumping it with the rest in a pile before the Temple of Fallin on the right side of the courtyard which had Franca’s temple at its head.

  Rats, the ordinary vermin which had infested the ruins of Palomir for generations, swarmed over the corpses, chittering and squeaking as they gorged on warm flesh. The stench of rotting blood permeated the moist midday heat. Baray had gotten used to it, or almost used to it.

  “Must we kill so . . . ?” he started to say. He turned to look at Nivers and found the high priest fondling the youngest girl. Her face mimed delight, but there was terror behind her half-closed eyes.

  The emperor jerked his head straight. “Nivers!” he said. “This isn’t right. We want more citizens for Palomir. The city’s almost empty, and instead of repopulating it we turn it into a slaughterhouse!”

  “We have no choice, Baray,” Nivers said in a thick voice. “You know we have—”

  The girl screamed.

  “Hili take you!” Nivers said, slashing at her with his open hand. The girl ducked back and collapsed against the doorpost, blubbering. The priest’s blow missed; he overbalan
ced and would’ve fallen down the cracked crystal steps if Baray hadn’t put a hand out to steady him.

  “We don’t have any choice, Baray,” the priest mumbled on his knees.

  “Alba thanalba thalana!” Salmson chanted. The Temple of Hili faced that of Fallin across the courtyard. From its open door blew a wind with a red tinge. At each syllable that wind wrapped a rat on the pile of bodies—swelled it, molded it, and lifted it at the size of a human onto its hind legs.

  For a moment, each new-made rat man squeaked in confusion. Some snapped their long incisors at whatever was closest, often their own forelimbs—now arms. After a few moments their new souls merged with their new bodies and they settled.

  At the clicked and chattered orders of a subchief—the rats knew their leaders; Baray could tell no difference from one gray-and-dun body to the next—they moved off through the crumbling archway at the foot of the courtyard. In the colonnaded ruin that had been the city’s vegetable market, the new rat warriors would be equipped with weapons looted from overrun human settlements or forged by human captives who, like the palace servants, made themselves as useful as they could to their masters.

  The rats moved with springy steps, but when they halted they threw their hindquarters and stiff tails back; their heads and chests slanted forward. At rest they wobbled like birds balancing on a slender branch.

  “We can’t,” Nivers repeated in a whisper. “You’ll be leading the army when it marches on Haft, Emperor. You want it to be huge, do you not? Overwhelming. I’ve told you how strong the Kingdom of the Isles is. Franca showed me their forces sweeping through every enemy the kingdom faced . . . and now they will face you.”

  “Yes,” said Baray. “Yes.”

  He closed his eyes. His hands were trembling, so he gripped the flask with both to lift it to his lips. The harsh red wine burned his mouth, but his throat continued working until he’d emptied the flask again.

  “Alba thanalba thalana!” said Salmson, but he chanted in a rasping singsong. Nivers would have to replace the man soon.

  The man on the altar this time was young and strong; he lunged as the blade plunged downward. He couldn’t free himself from the grip of the two rat men, but he twisted enough that the point gouged the side of his rib cage instead of splitting his breastbone as intended.

  The rat conducting the sacrifices gave an angry squeal and stabbed repeatedly. The victim shouted for almost the entire time, though his voice lost strength by the end. The hot, red wind sparkled over the corpses and lifted vermin from them to chitter and mow.

  “A huge army . . . ,” Baray said. “Overwhelming. An overwhelming army.”

  Tears were running down his cheeks. He threw the empty flask at the attendant who waited below, his back to the slaughter and his head bowed down.

  “Come!” said Baray. “More wine!”

  The high priest was fumbling his women again, though the youngest still crouched sobbing in the doorway. Baray rubbed his temples, waiting for the servant to climb the stairs. The wine had spilled a bright haze over his senses, but he could still hear and smell; and he could see enough.

  “I must have a huge army,” the emperor whispered. But despite the smothering pillow of wine, he wondered what would happen when the rat armies had conquered the whole Land. Would there be any humans left by then?

  And would there be any need for humans?

  Chapter

  4

  HERE’S THE RELIEF petition from southern Atara,” Liane said, sliding a document across the table to Garric beside her. It was on vellum, and each of the twelve petitioners had pressed their signet into a blob of wax beside their name. From the look of the signatures, though, half of them had no more experience of writing than Cashel did. “The priest regnant—the island’s ruler is the high priest of the main temple of the Shepherd—is ordering that taxes continue to be paid in kind at the temple, which is on what was the north coast.”

  Garric frowned. He looked at the petition by reflex, but he’d learned by now that reading official documents was a waste of time. Liane or her clerks would’ve précised the attempts of a rural scribe to sound high-toned because he was writing to the prince.

  “This is what they did in the past?” he asked, looking at Liane.

  “Yes,” said Liane, “but before the Change they could ship the grain—they grow wheat on Atara—by sea. Now they’d have to transport it by wagon and treble the cost to themselves.”

  She smiled faintly. “The petition says twelve times the cost, but an assayer of Lord Tadai’s who knows the region says three. They want to have the tax paid locally—”

  “That sounds reasonable,” said Garric. This sort of business wearied him more than a day in the sun wearing armor.

  “—but I suggest that commuting the in-kind payment to money at the local values will give the treasury a considerable benefit,” Liane continued calmly. “With the landowners behind us we can push the measure through, despite the temple’s objection to losing the amount they were skimming during collection. Mind, the landowners would’ve fought us even harder than the priests if we’d tried to do it last year.”

  There was a quick clink/clink! on the door’s latch plate. Liane met Garric’s eyes; the office was the innermost of the three in her suite. When he nodded, she called, “Enter!”

  Instead of Liane’s doorman in civilian dress, the captain of the Blood Eagles guarding Garric opened the door; he’d knocked with one of the bronze finials of his double-tongued sword belt. “Lord Zettin’s here to see you, Your Highness,” he said to Garric. “He says it’s important.”

  The ghost of King Carus grunted sourly. He didn’t like Zettin, thinking him too clever by half. “But he’s not really a bad sort,” he muttered in half-apology. “And you need the clever ones too.”

  Zettin waited for the captain to nod him through before he strode into the office. Garric smiled. Brash with everyone else, Zettin was always very punctilious regarding the Blood Eagles. He’d been an officer of the regiment himself before Attaper’s support—and his own abilities—had gotten him promoted out of it.

  Now he closed the door behind him and said, “Palomir’s marching on Haft, Your Highness. And it’s not a raiding party, it’s an army of thousands of rats—all rats. Four of my troops are in contact with them, but they have to keep out farther than they would with humans because the rats move so quickly.”

  Nodding with excitement, Zettin resumed, “Headman Clarey’s one of my best officers. He says he very nearly lost his whole troop because the rats sent out a flanking company that got behind him. The main body rushed him, and they had to fight their way through the blocking company.”

  “We’ve gotten used to fighting wizards who don’t have any better notion of ordering an army than I have of flying,” Garric said, echoing his ancestor’s thought. “It looks like there may be a general on the other side this time. That could be worse than another thousand rats.”

  “I regret I can’t tell you how many we are facing, Your Highness,” Zettin said. “Headman Clarey’s troop got closest. He’s the only one who could more than say, ‘Many,’ and he says ten thousand men. Though they aren’t men, of course.”

  Garric shrugged. “Then we’re in for a fight,” he said, “but I’m not concerned about winning it.”

  “The day our troops can’t handle half their number of animals, even if they’re clever animals with swords,” Carus said, “then you’d best be off to a monastery. And I’ll be right there with you praying, because I won’t be good for anything else.”

  “The problem with that estimate is that Chief Edril, who commands the Coerli in Clarey’s troop . . . ,” Zettin said. He was standing at parade rest, entirely a soldier rather than an official reporting. “Insists that there’re many more rats than there are soldiers in the royal army. Clarey disagrees, but he says that Edril’s never been wrong to his knowledge.”

  Garric frowned. “With all respect to Chief Edril,” he said, “counting abo
ve twenty is higher mathematics to the Coerli. Their hunting parties weren’t any bigger than that, so they never needed to think in greater numbers until they ran into us after the Change.”

  “Your Highness, I agree completely,” Zettin said, his face working uncomfortably because he wasn’t agreeing with his prince. “I only point out that Edril was giving a relative measure rather than an absolute one; and, well, as you said, the Coerli think in terms of hunting parties. A hunting party doesn’t have supply wagons or servants or, ah, if I may say so, hired companions and other entertainment for the soldiers. A hunting party is made up solely of warriors . . . which appears to be the case with this army of rat men as well.”

  “He is a clever fellow,” Carus said. “Didn’t I say that you need that sort too?”

  “Liane,” Garric said, turning to the woman at his side. She was writing on the last of three tablets with quick, firm strokes of her stylus. “I need to inform Lord Waldron immediately. Now we’ve got a target to strike at.”

  “Yes,” said Liane, closing the tablet and holding it seam upward with the other two. “And I thought Lords Royhas out of courtesy and Hauk for immediate planning.”

  With her free hand she lifted the tray of wax from the frame that held it over an oil lamp, then splashed blobs across the tablets. The red wax was still tacky when she pressed the royal signet in the third time. She rose with the grace of a flower opening and walked past Zettin to the door.

  “Yes, I agree,” Garric said, smiling wryly. The ring she’d sealed the notices with was in theory Prince Garric’s; he didn’t recall ever having used it. That was what he had Liane for, he supposed. One of the things.

  “From a supply standpoint,” he said to Zettin in a conversational tone, “we’re much better off with Palomir attacking Haft. Supplying Pandah is a problem even without refugees flooding in ahead of an army of ratmen; the villages of Grass People in the district around here don’t have a great deal of surplus.”