by Janet Morris
The little silver Storm God, his feet upon his twin bulls of potency, held lightning bolts in each upraised hand. If only the pillager would return to Tempus, whisper in his ear once more, he'd be able to finish what he'd started: the war against Mygdonia, the war for Niko's soul, and even the war within himself.
But until the god was found, chaos would reign and every prayer go awry as every plan miscarried.
It wasn't Tempus's fault that this was so, but it was his misfortune to know the truth of it.
So as he walked his mount through Tyse's curfewed streets, late for a meeting with the military governor to discuss the coming New Year's fete week and his band's departure as Tyse's entrants for the Festival of Man, he wasn't optimistic.
Book Two:
FETE WEEK
The First Hazard of the Tysian mageguild went nameless—a protection common to his kind. His predecessor had died mysteriously in the summoning cell of Randal, a seventh-level Hazard whose career had stalled for numerous reasons, not the least of those being his congress with god-loving mercenaries.
Since that night, Randal had been absent from the mageguild, from all of Tyse, so far as the First Hazard could tell. And he could tell many things. He'd been waiting for the old master to die; he'd even helped that time along—there were many ways to skin a cat and send a soul to its deserved unrest.
This affair, the first of Fete Week, was the one at which he'd make his mark; he'd invited all the proper people. The noble caste of once-mighty Tyse would be here in abundance; the militia leaders would attend; even the priesthood had accepted his invitation—no less than the Rankan high priest of Vashanka, Brachis, would be among the celebrants.
Some mages are benign, some not. Some magics are pure, some sullied. The nameless lord of Tyse's coven hadn't gotten where he was by being fastidious, but he'd done his best to keep his compromises unknown, his failures hidden, his pacts with mighty demons off the mageguild record.
The mageguild he now headed worked within the laws of Ranke; if he did not, it just proved how little the laws of men could really mean, where the laws of plane and sphere and hell obtained.
He had three goals this evening: to wrest from Randal, a minion of his by the Writ, the Nisibisi globe of power the poor fool didn't know how to use; to lay a curse on Brachis to take with him back to the capital, the final blow which would shatter the empire totally, leaving Tyse an independent state; and to make a pact with whatever power had destroyed his predecessor, be it the outlawed adepts of Black Nisibis, or the Lords of Hell themselves.
He'd been saving the greater portion of his soul for just such an opportunity, waiting for the chance to trade it for immortality and unbridled power. His sybils told him the time was nigh.
In his bronze mirror, man-high on an electrum stand, he examined himself: his robe, oversewn with diamonds; his staff, capped with a sapphire frog found in the free zone; his amulet of fiends' tooth—all of these were but a setting for his fine-boned aristocratic face, his limpid eyes, his auburn hair. It wasn't the face he'd been born with, but one he'd chosen—one to earn respect from the Tysian nobility who respected only their own bloodline, one to make the pious quake and bring the superstitious to their knees.
On his bedspread of quilted Maggotskin was his jewel of office: a pinwheel-bright blue diamond as sparkling as his eyes. He picked it up and slipped its chain around his neck, then donned his slippers and, prepared to go downstairs, turned once more to survey the effect.
And there, in the mirror, was not one form reflected, but two: a woman stood off to one side, a bit behind him, where no woman had ever stood or could possibly be standing.
"How—? Who—?" he blurted, astounded. The wards he'd spun here should have been impregnable: a weakness he'd helped instill in his predecessor's had ended a century of life.
"So?" said a husky voice from a ripe, wide mouth. "You do not know me?" She chuckled richly and his mind raced: her hair was piled high, thick and black, shot with silver; her eyes were gray and wide as the Nisibisi wizard-caste's were. She wore claret velvet—not a dress, but a curve-hugging shirt and leggings; beneath the laces of her shirt, her breasts were white as driven snow.
"Know you?" he repeated. "I'd like to know, my lady, how you got in here…"
As he spoke, she came up behind him and brazenly put her arms around his waist.
"In the usual manner," she said lightly, her fingers stroking along his girdle, her loins against his hips.
He turned his head and found himself fascinated by her long dark lashes. She raised her face to his and, as her hands went lower, finding the vent in his robe, they kissed.
It must be a Nisibisi witch, he told himself; only Death's Queen, or another of such power, would break in here and not want to give her name.
Then her tongue parted his lips and her fingers parted his undergarments and her breasts seemed to burn into his back and he found himself in lust's own grasp: his mouth was too busy to ask questions; his hands went around to cup her buttocks, to pull her in front of him where he could undo the laces of her shirt.
He felt her chuckle more than heard it; his face was between her breasts.
All magical considerations abandoned, he let her strip him below the waist. His hands forced her legs apart and he realized she had nothing on between her tunic and her leggings.
As he lifted her by the buttocks and sat her upon his manhood, she took down her long black and silver hair and arched back in his embrace, her legs wrapped about his waist.
Then, as she twirled wands of sparkling diamond in her fingers and he found he could neither move nor look away, she whispered, "It's for old times' sake, you see; come now, you'll still enjoy it." And as the diamond wands came closer and closer to his open eyes, she closed herself upon him and the fear and anguish and pleasure together took his breath away.
He'd never draw another, he knew. He tried to fight, in that last moment, as the wands took his soul through his eyes and Cime, the sorcerer-slayer, sang a song which damned him to a hell from which no adept could ever escape. Not a single demon could aid him; no awful power could save him. He was dying without even enough left of his brain to safeguard his immortal soul.
When his body stopped jerking under her, when he was spent from his loins and spent from his eyes, Cime released the spell that had held his body upright and let him fall.
Standing with legs spread over him, she crooned a while. Then she went to his bedspread made from the skin of refugees and wiped first her body clean, then her wands.
Then she stripped the dead Hazard naked and, putting on his robe, his slippers, and his jewel of office, stood before the mirror. "Let my form be his," she told the bronze reflection. "Let his manhood and his adepthood be mine in every way, so that I am he to any eye, no matter what spell or magic is invoked."
And, secreting her wands in a scabbard on her thigh, she ran her hands over her own form from head to toe, then laughed delightedly, like a happy child.
In the mirror, the First Hazard of the Tysian mageguild stood, manly and auburn-haired. Her laugh became a deep and wizardly chuckle, and from her lips came certain forgotten words. Then she said in Nisi: "Hazard I am, Hazard I seem. This one more time, Lords of the Twelfth Plane, bless my scheme."
Then the First Hazard, sapphire-headed staff in hand, went downstairs to greet his guests, none of whom would ever guess that in his stead Tempus's sister, Cime, had arrived.
None, that is, but Tempus, who was tempting the gods in the person of Brachis, the politicking Rankan priest.
As she descended the bone-and-lava staircase, prestidigitators salaamed and probationers bowed low and her brother's long, slitted eyes met hers— and held; his mouth twitched in a defensive little smile which promised havoc.
He knew her, she had no doubt. He knew her despite spells and incantations, as brothers always know their sisters. Among these lycanthropes and misanthropes, palm-readers and politicians, warlocks and war-mongers, only his eyes saw
her clearly. And since this was as it had always been, she wasn't overly surprised.
When she reached him, he was dangling something before Brachis's face: an amulet, a charm, some little silver object that seemed to have the Rankan priest enthralled.
Brachis was hissing like a sulphurous spring: "Give it here, blasphemer. Fete Week brings the gods to earth: thwart me and you'll feel Their wrath." The fat-fingered priest snatched for the amulet dangling on its thong.
"Now, now," her brother said, with a twist of wrist catching the amulet in his fist before the priest could grab it, "not yet. You should have come to me about this matter. As it is, you're lucky I don't accuse you publicly of treachery."
"You? We can't afford you—we can't afford to pay your price." The priest flushed red. "Now give me that!"
"This?" Tempus unfolded his fist and in his palm a shapeless lump of silver, bent beyond recognition, sat. "Here." He tossed it and, as the priest lurched to catch it, Cime heard her brother warn Brachis: "Niko's mine, not yours. And no Stepson— current or former—will play assassin for an impotent god or an arrogant fool."
The priest, the lump of silver in his hand, spied Cime but spoke to Tempus: "No wonder the god has spurned you. No wonder the very mention of the Stepsons inspires fits of laughter in the capital. You've lost your touch, sleepless one, as your men have lost their honor and besmirched their repute. The tales from Sanctuary of their ineptitude do not do the matter justice. As for your precious Stealth—if I'd known he was a drunkard and a dope fiend, I'd not have bothered: it's clear he'll be no better finishing what he starts than you."
Furious, Brachis turned to Cime, his eunuch-cheeks flaming red: "And you, nameless one: beware the wrath of Vashanka!" He reached out with the distorted amulet and tapped the sapphire frog atop the First Hazard's staff.
There was a spark of light, a puff of smoke, and the frog turned from sapphire to swamp-green, croaked twice, its pale throat palpitating, jumped off the staff, and hopped away toward the mage-guild garden.
Murmurs filled the air from those guests close at hand, who'd seen the god undo magic in its citadel. Folk drew back as the high priest flounced away. For a moment, all eyes were on Cime in her mageform.
Her brother said, so low only she could hear, "Well, go on; avenge the slight. Either you're a Hazard or you're not." And on his lips his kill-smile played.
Cime turned and with her staff pointed at the Rankan priest's retreating back, saying gruffly: "Get thee hence, foul god-licker, back to the Rankan capital with the other swine of empire!" And, surreptitiously fingering her diamond rods with one hand while with the other she shook the staff, she cast a spell she'd learned once, long ago: to fight magicians, to rid the world of heinous sorcery, she'd just about become one.
And her studies had borne fruit: the pink-cheeked eunuch of empire shuddered; his red robes seemed to grow too large. He snorted and squealed as, velvet fouling his pig's feet, he fell down on all fours.
Silence rippled through the room. The military governor's wife fainted in his arms; a Tysian noble covered his son's eyes and held him close; three Hazards whispered, heads together; merchants fingered favorite charms as in their midst, a pink-snouted, red-eyed pig struggled in velvet robes.
Certain folk moved aside as the pig began to squeal hysterically. Three in the black leathers of the 3rd Commando came forward, hands upon their hilts, their eyes on Tempus steady, awaiting orders. Across from them two warlocks rubbed amulets of power; Bashir of Free Nisibis and a plain-clothed Stepson in the crowd eased right and leftward toward Tysian militiamen as factions sorted themselves out. But before any man could draw a blade in error, Cime decreed: "Begone, Rankan pig. To the emperor's seraglio, go!" She tapped her wands and shook her staff and the pig, with another ear-rending squeal, was wholly gone, leaving only a pile of damp red velvet on the floor.
"Great," her brother whispered, his arms crossed. "Now what? Are you ready to be arrested, Cime? Content to die for a crime against the empire? We're under Rankan law here, sister… I can't save you this time."
He crooked a finger and his men moved in a pace; wizards followed, as if to protect their archmage.
Cime smiled what would have been a winning smile, had she still worn a woman's face. "No problem, brother mine. Only say loudly that you'll escort me personally to my jail cell and give me leave to gather my effects upstairs before you do."
Shrugging, his long eyes masked, her brother did that: "First Hazard, I arrest you in the name of Imperial Ranke. Go pack your things—and don't think you can escape. The rest of you, keep in mind that bloodshed's an evil omen in Fete Week and go about your business."
The unlucky wizards and Rankan soldiers who escorted the Tysian First Hazard upstairs found, when at last they broke down the door she'd barred, a dead adept upon the floor.
The woman in his bedroom went unnoticed as the suicide of the archmage was announced.
She slipped downstairs in the confusion, dressed as she'd been when she arrived, and out into the garden where her brother stared out upon the hedge-maze.
Coming up behind him, she said, "You haven't said you're glad to see me." Her hand slipped around his waist.
He turned to face her: "Because I'm not." He brushed her hand away. "Haven't I enough trouble without you here?"
"You've too much trouble to solve without me," she said softly, and pressed forward, until he stood with his back against the garden wall.
"Why don't you stay where you're supposed to be—with the entelechy of dreams… buy your way out of purgatory?"
And she replied, "Dear brother, don't you see? My year is up; my curse is lifted. For the first time in three hundred years, I'm free."
* 2*
To quell unrest among his factions and heal the rift resulting from Niko's kill, the Riddler had decreed war games spanning Fete Week—3rd Commando against Stepsons, no holds barred but murder.
Kama, the Riddler's daughter, was on Sync's team the morning the 3rd Commando colonel took the bladder-tipped dummy bolts from his crossbow and nocked armor-piercing ones instead.
Levering a bolt into place, Sync said: "Today you make your choice, Kama—it's them or us."
Kama knew Sync—the 3rd's first officer wasn't bluffing. Marking a man with red dye as a kill was one thing, serious mayhem among the militia's ranks was another.
She should have realized, when they'd ridden so far out of town, up past the cataract and across Peace River, that Sync had more than gaming on his mind. But Kama had given up too much to earn her 3rd Commando rating to lose it now. Sync might be simply testing her—Kama was Tern-pus's daughter and Critias's not-so-secret lover; it had taken all her skill to fend off questions of her loyalty so far.
So she had to say, "You know where I stand, Sync. It's the 3rd I'll represent at the Festival of Man, as it's been the 3rd I've represented all along. Didn't I even manage to reunite us with my—with our founder?"
Sync had wanted very much to join with Tern-pus; if he didn't like it now, that was only natural: the 3rd was a harder, bolder unit than the Stepsons, less constrained by gods and honor and not inclined to love one another in the way the Stepsons did.
Sync grunted an affirmative and pushed up the visor on his helmet; beyond him, eleven of the 3rd's first contingent lurked like shadows in the dawn. "We'll trust you then—if you trust us." His eyes flickered over her coldly. "Our objective is to get into that estate, steal what we can, and get out.
"There?" Kama looked where Sync was pointing: the red-roofed estate due west was squat, high-walled, unfamiliar. "Steal? Steal what? From whom? No Stepsons billet out this far—"
"Steal Niko's magic armor." Sync grinned wolf-ishly, "And maybe a horse or two."
"Sync, Niko's not a Stepson any longer. And those aren't gaming arrows." Kama's gut rolled; she couldn't be a party to this, yet she'd given her word.
"I didn't think you had it in you. Stay here, then—we need a rear guard. It's a good place for a woman."
Without waiting for her reply, the commando leader scuttled forward, waving his men on and down the hill.
She was still sitting there, mentally composing her resignation from the 3rd, watching the fighters approaching the estate, their helmets laced with brush, when she heard a noise behind her and something thudded against her leather jerkin with enough force to take her breath away.
Before she could turn around, someone grabbed her; a hand muffled her scream, and she was dragged bodily, kicking and writhing, into the piney woods.
"That's one," she heard. "Let's truss her and call it a kill."
A Stepson team had caught her; face in the dirt, she stopped struggling against the knee on her back and the hand on her head.
A second voice said: "We ought to interrogate her. This is getting porking nasty—the Riddler's declared that estate off-limits. Get Crit or Strat."
Someone moved away; the weight on top of her didn't ease; a man's hand moved impertinently on her backside. "If this weren't a game, Commando, you'd learn a thing or two today," her captor said.
She tried to kick him, but he grabbed her ankle; she tried to curse him, but her mouth was pressed against the mulching leaves.
Then she heard Grit's low, clipped voice: "Let her go."
She sat up, rubbing dirt from her lips.
Around her were six grinning Stepsons. She reached behind her back and touched the place where she'd been struck; her hand came away stained with red dye.
Crit squatted down before her: "What's going on out here, Commando?" Grit's keen eyes were grave. Straton came up beside him and hunkered down, a truncheon in his hand. War play among Tern-pus's factions was rough-and-tumble; neither her off-and-on relationship with Crit nor her propinquity to Tempus would save her from a very realistic interrogation, if Crit thought it would help his team.