by Janet Morris
But Randal had been a Stepson long enough that he couldn't accept defeat, not even in his mind. The witch was Randal's rightful foe, not the opponent of fragile human fighters.
Drawing the Aŝkelonian sword of power, which glowed as it heated in his hand, sensing fielded sorcery, he ran up the way, yelling war cries but not knowing that he did, chanting counterspells as he went that woke the priests who'd been sleeping ensorceled in their billets and brought lights to every window that he passed.
As he neared the source of the sick green light, he saw Roxane, big as life, and a gray-skinned fiend crouched over three corpses in the street, with a fourth victim struggling in the fiend's grasp. And beyond he saw Nikodemos, with Sauni the priestess of Enlil, not running away as would have been prudent, but approaching the hell-wreakers. Yelling at the top of his lungs to divert the witch's attention, Randal leaped to intervene.
And Roxane rose up, hands spread like claws upon the air, calling him by name.
He had only enough time to wish he'd found another name, a pseudonym, a protective alias, before the spell struck him like an avalanche, a mudfall or a freezing rain, and everything slowed down.
It was hard to move: he struggled. Her words sounded too slow and deep for him to understand. Each step he took as he forced his legs to move took years to complete, each word he uttered sounded like the groaning of the earth beneath his feet.
She came toward him, did Roxane, pinwheel-eyes agleam, beckoning him with open arms.
And he couldn't check his progress: Randal felt himself being drawn into Roxane's arms as inexorably as a living man draws breath.
His armor was white-hot against his flesh: surely that would stop her. He brandished his sword but it only wavered in his hand.
Then the fiend, the warty-gray monster, approached with clacking jaws and wall-eyed stare, intent on stripping him naked where he stood.
Struggle't he told himself. But his limbs were too heavy and the witch was promising him an eternity of servitude in which all evil would be his. It sounded better and better as the fiend began to unbuckle Randal's cuirass.
And just as he was about to utter the words that Roxane demanded he speak, he remembered he ought not to do this, that he wasn't the same kind of mage as she, and that there was something very wrong about this.
Someone else thought so, too: from behind Roxane, a concerned face loomed, a mouth opened wide and shouted.
The witch turned her gaze away from Randal, and the mesmerizing spell which had made him tractable, slow, and weak was broken as Roxane faced Nikodemos, who stood in front of Enlil's priestess, Sauni, who was calling upon the god for help.
What had been slow turned lightning-fast, and confusing: Niko's face contorted; he shouted, "Randal, get away! Get out of here! Now!"
Stealth's words echoed in Randal's ears. And from down the row, the pounding of men's feet could be heard.
Randal risked a look behind him and saw priests and soldiers with lit torches rushing toward them.
He looked back in time to see Sauni, her hands out and crawling with a godlike nimbus, her face masked with sparks, casting thunderbolts like a veritable god.
She cast one at the fiend's feet and it howled: "Argh! Get back, wicked thing!" and jumped away from Randal to protect its bloody prey.
But it was Niko and the witch, both motionless, staring at each other, neither drawing weapons or saying a single word, which kept Randal there an instant longer than he should have stayed: he saw Niko reach back without taking his eyes from Roxane and imprison Sauni's hands in his.
He saw Roxane smile and blow Stealth a kiss, then gather fiend and milk-white tortured souls issuing from her victims before she waved her hands and disappeared.
By then the priests and soldiers were close upon them, brandishing torches and weapons, bawling confused orders and milling around the space where the witch had been and now only corpses remained—corpses and a single fighter who'd sunk down on the ground and sat, with the priestess bent over him, his head down, wordless.
Randal knew that Niko was barely well, still recuperating. And he knew that what he'd seen, no wizard should have witnessed.
He pushed his way through the priests and guards, and when he got to Niko, he said, "Stealth, what did she say to you? What did she make you promise? Why did you stop Sauni?"
Niko raised his head, an exhausted, disgusted look upon his face. "We just said farewell, if it's any business of yours. You're alive, aren't you? Safe to magic what you will? Go on, Hazard. Get away from me. And don't thank me, either—I didn't do it for you. I did it for myself: we're even now, life for life."
And Sauni met Randal's gaze over Niko's head as the guards began demanding proof that witches work had killed the priests, not men's, and shook her head sadly: what was done, was done.
Randal spent what seemed like months letting guardsmen touch his cuirass, still hot from proximity to hostile magic, and assuring the priests that he'd seen the whole thing and that the fighter, Stealth, was innocent of blame—in fact, had routed Roxane.
Then he hitched up his swordbelt and headed through the night to penetrate the Rankan mage-guild and make sure no adept raised a hand to help Abakithis avoid the coup or Theron straddle the Lion Throne of Ranke.
* 4 *
Kama had contrived to spend the night before Winner's Day with Sync. She'd promised Brachis that if Tempus had treachery up his sleeve, she'd make good the coup, and she was trying to get Sync to tell her what he knew—who, and where, and when.
But she'd no more than gotten the Rankan colonel's clothes off when no less than Bashir came pounding at the door.
"Crap," Sync breathed, struggling into his breech, looking from Kama to the door and back. "Go hide somewhere, woman. I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
He'd wanted her a long time; it hadn't been that difficult to get him drunk and compromise him. She even liked him, after a fashion, though no one would ever replace Critias in her heart.
Part of her was glad they'd been interrupted— that someone would find out she was with Sync and Crit would hear of it: she still hoped against hope that the Stepsons' task force leader had feelings for her. Hers for him would take a long time, and many men, to put to rest.
So she didn't hide, just covered her breasts and lay there, watching, her limbs arranged in a fetching but passionate pose.
Bashir, in the doorway, studiously avoided her. "Niko's at the guard station: something about dead Rankan priests, and him on the scene. Sauni was with him, and she says he had nothing to do with it, that it was witchcraft, and that Randal was there and told the guards that. But they say Niko's motive is so clear they're going to hold him overnight unless one of the commanders comes and takes him into his personal custody."
Sync scratched his spine. "He's a Stepson. It's not my problem. Get Crit or Tempus." He started to close the door.
By then Kama was up, nakedness forgotten, finding her clothes and donning them hurriedly.
Bashir, in his most ringing, priestly voice, said, "Niko can't withstand a Rankan interrogation, even a mild one, not in his condition. And you, Rankan, ought to know that."
Kama, tightening her belt, looked up. Bashir, at times, seemed like just another guerrilla leader, a hillman with pretensions. But at other times, like this moment, she had no doubt that the god whispered in his ear.
"Look here, Bashir," Sync said, unmoved, "Niko killed 3rd Commando fighters back in Tyse. Maybe this is the retribution of the gods. It's not my business, I told you. Get Tempus… Niko's his favorite Stepdaughter—"
"Sync," Kama came up beside him, "please."
"Sync," Bashir said at the same time, "neither Critias nor Tempus can be found. Overcome this old hatred—for all our sakes. It belittles you and all of us. Do it not to please the god, but because it's right.
"Yeah, well," Sync put a proprietary hand on Kama, "maybe you're right—Niko wasn't a Stepson that time in Tyse. And it's time the rivalry between us ended. Gi
ve me a moment to change, Bashir, and I'll go with you. Come in."
So instead of spending the night before the coup gathering intelligence and making love to the 3rd's colonel, Kama was going to spend it witnessing affidavits releasing Niko into Sync's custody.
By the time they saw him, Niko was wearing a Rankan signature or two: bruises on his temples, rope burns on his wrists.
Sync had some harsh words with the guards' duty officer over jumping to insupportable conclusions, and the man replied, "They ought to count their blessings they could turn up a decent Rankan officer to take this Bandaran slime off our hands— there's plenty others, priestly types, who'd have slipped me a month's wage under the table to have a go at him."
Then Sync replied in soldierly fashion that Niko would be available at Sync's billet for any further questions: "Of the polite sort, that is. The Stepsons are a unit beyond reproach. Take my word for it. They're godfearing and the best fighters, outside of the 3rd, I've ever served with. If this soldier slew a priest, he'd have good reason, admit it on the spot, and fight you to the death before he'd let himself be taken. So he didn't do it. You have my word and that of the 3rd Commando. Take it to the priesthood and let them know that the army doesn't take kindly to any erosion of the separation between church and state."
The duty officer chuckled, "Wouldn't I love to tell them that! Take care of your prisoner, Colonel. I'm sure we'll get this settled in the morning."
Sync turned away and Kama saw a mischievous grin on his stubbled face. "Let's go, Terror," he said to Niko, a hand on the Stepson's arm, "before you scare anybody else. As it is," he confided as they left the guardpost, "you've got the entire priesthood piddling in their pants."
"What did happen?" Kama asked, when Bashir's whisper prompted her.
Until then, Niko had said not one word of thanks or anything at all.
He shrugged, looked at Sync's hand on his arm, and replied, "The witch had what she'd come for. She left."
Bashir mumbled a prayer and then said aloud, "The god calls me to my duty. Stealth, take care. Tomorrow night we ride for the high peaks. You've a mare with foal at Hidden Valley who needs her master."
Then Niko stopped, on the torchlit way, and embraced Bashir, saying, "I'm all right, Bashir, don't worry. A witch for a friend is better than one for an enemy. Tell Sauni that. And tell her I will ride north with you tomorrow, if the Riddler will…"
The two men stood that way, arms about each other, long enough that Sync turned to Kama with a disgusted shake of head: the 3rd didn't feel expressions of manly love were seemly, as the Stepsons and the northern fighters did.
When the long farewell was done, Niko went with Kama and Sync, and Bashir went his own way, off to do what priests did.
When it was clear that, with Niko at Sync's for the night's duration, no advantage could be gained or passion comsummated, Kama left them, saying lightly, "I'll see you in the winner's tent, Sync," as if she had no idea what was afoot.
* 5 *
Tempus was in town with Theron, trying to wrest a promise from the wily old fighter of safe passage for all his men once the deed was done.
"But how can I, Riddler?" Theron was pacing back and forth, his brow furrowed up into his balding pate. "I'm not in a position to write such a paper now. If I do, it'll be clear that I'm involved with the plan for Abakithis's assassination. And afterwards, you shouldn't need any promise of safe conduct, if all goes well."
"I've got close to two hundred men, counting Bashir's Successors, to look out for. Don't force me to resort to means I'd rather not employ, or violence after the fact. If we have to fight our way out, you may not have an army when we're done. And fight we will if even one man of mine is implicated."
Theron came back to the table on his portico, where the two men were watching the sunrise and eating cheese and winter grapes. "Don't you think I'd like to live in a world where a man's word, even if he's about to become emperor through nefarious means, could be his bond? Don't you understand that I don't have control of the priesthood— that they've got me? I'm just doing what the gods say, what the omens have requested. I hate to admit it, Riddler, but this thing's out of my control."
"Not out of mine. If my man doesn't perform this… sacrifice, as your priests euphemistically call it, then I have no problem."
"But I do? Not so. If they've got it in their minds to blame you, as you seem to think, then what's the truth got to do with that? They'll falsify the omens—it's not unheard of—and hang it around your necks anyway."
Theron's liver spots showed bright in the morning light; his crepy neck quivered as he spoke. "I'm sorry I got you into this, old friend. Because of your… durability, it didn't seem to be the trap you fear."
"Brachis is too anxious to know just who among my men is going to do the deed. There's only one reason that could be so important to him."
"Riddler, I—" Theron stopped, his eyes bugged out, he bent and hacked up phlegm into a handkerchief. "Excuse me, my health's not what it once was. You have my permission to do whatever you think will help—kill a priest or two, if it makes you feel better. You'll be doing me a favor if you do. I'll even let you off the hook afterward. And when I'm emperor, once the priests have performed the rites and my word is law, I'll take care of you and yours. It's just those first few hours…" Theron's watery eyes were pleading. He said very quietly, "You know that I don't want this for myself. I want it for the empire, whatever that is—for the vision of the empire that I grew up with, which sustained me all these years, made me proud to serve her. This Mygdonian war's taken all the stuffing out of us—we can't win it and we can't declare ourselves defeated. And after the hostage-taking incident at the games, this season's warring looks like it will be worse, not better: they lost men, we lost men… it's been all we could do to keep order at the games…"
Almost, Tempus told Theron that it didn't matter: that Ranke was doomed to fail until the missing god was found, that without Vashanka, no hand at the helm of empire could be steady enough to put her back on course. But he didn't: valor in a man's heart was something he'd long ago learned to respect, regardless of its futility. Events weren't honorable or dishonorable; men were.
So he gently told Theron that no man of his could take the risk, but that Theron would still be emperor.
"What?" Theron's weathered face folded as he considered that. "Not a riddle, though you're famous for them—not now when every step's so dear and everyone about me's having second thoughts but the damnable priests…"
"Nevertheless, make sure they get this message: no man of mine, but the deed will still be done."
Again Theron sighed, and it was a deeper, more rattling sigh than even Tempus had ever sighed. "Whatever you want, old friend. My fate, as it's turned out, is in your hands."
And as Tempus held out one empty hand to clasp Theron's in a gesture meant to be encouraging, a runner came gasping to the portico. "Sirs! A message, if it pleases you!"
"It doesn't look like it will, but go ahead, man, deliver it," Theron said, sitting back in his chair and squinting as if against a too-bright sun.
"Five priests were killed last night, some say by witchcraft, some say by the Stepson Nikodemos, who has reason to kill Abakithis's priests. This Nikodemos is under house arrest, released in the custody of the 3rd Commando's colonel, Sync. An inquiry is under way and—"
"Why wasn't I informed?" Tempus blustered, on his feet.
"You were in conference, and couldn't be disturbed," Theron soothed as best he could, also getting to his feet. "Come on, Riddler. Just like former times—let's go get one of our boys out of jail."
* 6 *
In the Rankan mageguild was such splendor and wealth as Randal had never seen.
These were mages who'd had a place in court for decades, whose astrologers and seers and sybils whispered in the ear of Abakithis, the Rankan emperor.
The spells they'd cast and the wars they'd helped fight with alchemical devices against the empire's enemies
had been exorbitantly priced, or else the empire had been excessively grateful when things were going well.
In its halls Randal gawked like an apprentice at man-high statues of elementals cast from gold, at tapestries depicting past mageguild masters and changelings of whom they were inordinately fond. Its halls were carpeted with silken rugs depicting gargoyles at the hunt and archmages in gilded canopies riding on elephants with Rankan kings.
But here and there, signs of a failing empire could be seen: peeling paint and warped woods on doorsills, chalked warding signs on brassbound doors.
The apprentice leading Randal ever deeper into the labyrinthine mageguild never spoke to him beyond an initial: "To see the First Hazard? Right this way, then, honorable mage."
It was flattering to be called "honorable mage" in Ranke, where the most honored mages dwelt. But it would have been more so if these sorcerers hadn't proved inadequate to deal with Nisibisi wizardry of the like Death's Queen could field.
They crossed an inner court and the morning sun shone down. Randal squinted up at it, trying to determine the lateness of the hour: it had taken time to ride into town, find the mageguild, be admitted, and soon the Winner's Day fete would begin out at the Festival site.
He wanted to be there in case something else went wrong. And he wanted to be with Niko, although he knew he wasn't welcome.
Across the court, as they entered the central citadel of magic, protected from the outside world by walls and shimmering wards Randal could glimpse even in bright daylight, which made his panoply begin to warm, he chastised himself: after Niko's behavior on the street last night, no renewal of their pairbond was possible, despite what the Riddler had said. He was going to have to get used to it.
So immersed in his own thoughts was Randal that he didn't notice until he'd trod several corridors that the inner citadel was filled with dogs: cinnabar dogs on lapis plinths, rosewood dogs carved on pillars, and real dogs. Thick-furred dogs which looked like giant cats; long-furred dogs with pointed hunting noses; giant dogs as big as ponies; hairless tiny dogs with mouselike ears; dogs with wrinkled skin that seemed a size too large.