by Janet Morris
Roxane almost spoke his true name when she caught Datan with the Mygdonian bitch headed up toward the ramparts for breakfast while she was coming down. She checked herself in time, though, and struck the woman blind instead: the rage in her was too great to be bottled long, and mortal eyes had no right to see her wounded, half a woman, half eagle yet, too weak from her wounds to change in full, her black-feathered bleeding wing dragging with a sussurrus upon the high peaks stones.
And her lover-lord, unmoved, looked upon her plight with lightless eyes and murmured that she must get some rest, must Roxane. He could have helped her, lent her strength to hasten her return to human form. But he forbore it, more concerned with the hysterical human mare swooning on his arm. If the sight of Roxane so distressed her, then it was best for her to see no more.
And he, with a mere "Control yourself, enchantress," would have gone upon his way, the blind woman mincing and moaning, her face gone white as the skull beneath her flesh.
But Roxane interposed herself in his path: "Ask, dear lord, of your second in command, sweet warlock gone to pay eternal price."
"I see you. I have no need to ask. Next time, witch, proceed with caution. And be successful, or your discomfort now will be a state you remember fondly, even crave. You boasted you could lure him, you could take him, stop him and rout him. Now do what you have said. Be gone. On your way."
"Her dark you shall not lift!" Roxane pointed to the woman, frail and groping, and then at last discerned the new life stirring under a well-tended belly flat and firm. "Not in this life."
"Then in the next," he answered calmly, a tiny frown auguring the end of his patience.
Hers was gone but for a shred. She brushed on past, the clack of one clawed foot and the brush of one wounded wing all that could be heard in the daystruck hall but for the blinded human's sobs. A warlock was dead, and Jagat and many minions who'd cost much to raise and more to field. There were two others, yet, to summon; help to find, strength to gain, a war to win. Then Datan, false beloved lord, would feel her wrath. Men, beguiling with their childish pride and lust for war, good for little more than raising castles and making laws and changing currency, cannot stand before feminine ire; straightforward thinking always fails before the convoluted passion of womankind. As in humans, threefold in mages. And Roxane was the strongest witch born in Nisibis in a thousand years.
She'd only just begun to fight. She'd win, and he'd know weakness against which Roxane's transitory debility would seem like virile strength. Once she'd been content to love him. Now, fury within, she sought to break him. No omen contravened her. She'd triumph. There was but time to pass till then.
Meanwhile, she'd play the servant. She lurched along the halls and came upon the general's boy, a child of sorcery, woman-spawned, and took him under her bleeding wing. He showed no fear, as a wiser one might have, but came along of his own accord. She'd find some use for this one, before the search for him was on. Or she'd place his lifeless body where the Mygdonian "father" might find it—prince and noble general, he'd expected to have his war and win with magic but never pay as others must.
For Roxane needed strength, and the child's soul was delectable and rare: half mage, thus worth a dozen mortals, he'd give her all she craved, slain or bound in service. And some soul must buy a murdered warlock peace. Datan cared not a whit about her colleague, lost this night, but Roxane did, and her rage was so fierce it clouded over the morning sky.
In her chamber she threw the bolt and seated the boy, all bright-eyed with excitement that finally a power of Wizardwall had acknowledged him, upon her feathered bed. She'd more in store for this one than he reckoned, but, calmer now, she meant to let him love her, initiate him, and make him the Mygdonian Alliance's foulest bane.
While he stripped, she judged him old enough for ritual copulation, and while he watched she summoned both the warlocks who remained alive who'd had a hand in the plot to lure the Riddler up to Wizardwall. And while they conferred, the boy stayed, privy, his hungry eyes upon her helping to turn her wing to arm and clawed foot human. And when they'd gone, to make themselves ready, she bade him bring her bowl all filled with water and showed him Nikodemos, enthralled and convalescing, and what a witch could do to change the fate of men.
* * *
It was the nights, not the days, spent in his billet recuperating, that Niko remembered most clearly. During the daytime, Sacred Banders sat with him in shifts, so that if he woke from delirium he would not be alone. By the third day, his nights of sweat-drenched dreams troubled all nine Sacred Band pairs, for the youngest of their number was obviously possessed. The second night, when none were with him, he'd been seen shuffling through the camp, bent rightward to ease his tight-bound ribs, collecting his effects and his equipment. In the morning, when the first team came bearing breakfast and determined smiles to hide their worry, he lay red-eyed and wrapped in sopping bedclothes, an enameled cuirass amid the sheets. And there was no doubt that it was the same arcane, enchanted armor the dream lord had given him (with its curling colored snakes and raised demons from Enlil's myths), which he had sacrificed upon his left-man's bier months before.
That day was Janni's pyre day; they couldn't wait another: they'd put it off twice. And, as if the reappearance of the charmed cuirass from out of nowhere was not enough, Abarsis's shade coalesced out of the smoke and flame and, before it took Janni's spirit up to heaven, walked across the space cleared of awed and retreating Stepsons to peer into Niko's battered face, where he stood supported by the senior Sacred Band team, and frown, and weep, and touch his cheek.
Critias came to see him, pacing back and forth the third night in his billet, for he'd heard that Niko was determined to leave in the morning:
"You can barely hobble about, Stealth. What's the hurry? Death's easy to find. If she wants you, you'll meet her here as well as anywhere."
Niko, standing to prove he could, one arm braced against the whitewashed wall, had spoken as strongly as he had the strength to: "I can't stay. All my ghosts are here. My rest-place is filled with strangers; my nights are battles. I don't expect you to understand. I don't… I've got to go."
"Where?" Crit stalked up to him, fists balled as if he would strike him, but hit the wall beside his head instead. Niko didn't flinch. Crit sighed, then said: "You're my responsibility. Tell me where you're going, why you won't let a pair go with you—we've got four teams queued up to volunteer—or you'll go as a civilian."
"That's your choice. I don't have one. I've got to go, Tyse. Every night I feel it more strongly: I'll find the Riddler, my dreams tell me."
"Bugger your dreams, Stealth. Your thinking's addled; you've taken a blow to the head. This happens… men go down hard, they come back hard. Stay until you're well, at least."
"Nothing's going to happen to me," Niko said wearily. "I almost wish it would. Now, if you care about your responsibilities, you've discharged them. If you care about the Stepsons, let me go. You saw the omen at Janni's funeral. And they want me to pair again. I'm not strong enough to keep refusing if I stay… you don't know what it's like to lose two partners…"
"Would that I didn't." Crit put thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, massaging. "Go on then, stubborn bastard. Go. But leave an itinerary—you're still putatively under my command."
He did, but the dreams got no better. He'd stumbled around putting his packs together, saddling his pregnant sorrel mare while two Sacred Band pairs stood by, silent and unhappy, their offers of assistance refused, with crossed arms and helpless scowls. Despite his protestations, they'd ridden with him the first day—all Critias, concerned that his authority was being eroded, would allow.
He'd meant to go by the coast route—it would be easier on the mare, three months along, and on himself. He did, that first day, trying not to think about the half-Trôs foal she carried, though it wouldn't show until fall, and what the invasion of his rest-place by spirits known and unknown could mean. He couldn't talk to the Sacred Banders about it, so they
talked about the unseasonably hot weather, about the substitutes to be hired so the Stepsons could go north, about where he'd meet them when they did. The coastal route was cool and the sea breeze welcome; he'd packed all his winter gear on the bay gelding he ponied-—a gift from Janni, willed to him.
They'd camped by the shore and had a farewell dinner, the two pairs pledging to handle all Niko's affairs—the replacement who must be found, the obligation he felt to do something for Tamzen's father—and though the ocean breeze dried their summer sweat and eased their worry, he could see it in their eyes and in their auras.
After the meal, they rode due west back to town, and Niko was alone.
The relief he felt was monumental. If he'd known himself a plague carrier, he'd have been no more anxious to go a solitary route. He could let out his fear, his pain, wrestle with the horror he kept meeting in his rest-place.
He didn't understand why his place of peace had been invaded. Before his elder partner's death, it had been his sure refuge, his safe place where no evil penetrated, his shelter from all worldly storms.
He'd dealt with the visitations of his left-side leader as Tempus had suggested, banishing his own fear and making room for a soul who'd chosen to stay with the boy he'd spent near a decade protecting. He'd had discussions in his mind with his old friend, and, along with his moot, his poise and perspective, the soul of his left-side partner had seemed to fade away.
He was beyond worrying that he'd lost his nerve; if it had been that simple, if he could have owned to cowardice and returned to normal, he'd have written the damning sign upon his brow. But it was worse—it was real. He knew it, and he knew he didn't know enough, that he didn't understand what was happening to him. When the fire burned out he was too sore and weak and dizzy to see to it; he rolled slowly, cautiously over onto his back and, alone, he cried.
He should never have taken another partner after his leftside leader perished, not when Aškelon, the very lord of dreams, had seen into Niko's future and known that charmed weapons would be needed. He'd brought the dirk and the sword, he wore them now, when before he'd arrogantly assumed he could decline the offer to enter a higher plane of battle. And the cuirass had come back like a flying wing, as real and substantial as it had been the day the threw it on his leader's bier.
He'd thought, before, that it was time for him to strike out on his own. Janni had come between him and the solitude that was his lot, and died of it. He knew he was marked; he didn't know how, or why, but the sword he fondled even as he lay with tears blurring the stars of the summer night above had been given him for just this purpose—whatever it was, whatever lay at this journey's end.
But alone, with no moat to guide or caution him and no comrade to share his doubts, he was particularly vulnerable. And he couldn't die with his mental mansion in such disarray. That was a death he couldn't face, one without the surety and comfort that Niko, born in war and -orphaned by Ranke, had traveled far west and studied long in the Bandara Islands sanctuaries to claim. His studies told him eternal damnation awaited, and his chances of avoiding it lessened daily.
They'd made only a few miles that first day, Niko setting a slow pace because of the mare. He slept not at all that first night, afraid to sleep, and in the morning he saddled the mare and harnessed the bay and set off, so tired that he kept falling asleep in his saddle, one arm pressed firmly against his bound side for the comfort that brought, his puffy eyes closed against the hot summer sun.
He must have slept a long time, for when he awoke the sea was nowhere in sight and out of earshot, and sands were all around him, the sands of the young desert, not the shore. The mare must have veered off to join the caravan route; she'd been that way before. The sun was white-hot here and Niko couldn't even summon sufficient worry, just kept drifting in and out of consciousness, recollecting where he was, feeling a start of fear sharpen him transitorily, then sinking back into lethargy. And yet, when he woke in sunset, they'd made better time than ever he thought they could: before him, birds of prey, eagles or hawks, wheeled high in the pink and purple dusk; where they congregated, water was. He headed the mare toward it and found they'd made the first caravan oasis; perhaps he'd slept around the dial.
He didn't care. He slid from his mare and she nuzzled him. He reached up and slipped off her headstall, telling her to go eat and drink, and stretched out upon the oasis's cool lush grass beneath a pair of tree-high ferns, thinking he should unsaddle her and unburden the pack horse. But when next he woke, it was dark and all that was done: the horses tended, a fire burning, stew cooking in his single pot.
He hadn't dreamed at all, that he remembered. He felt stronger, and his vision was clear.
He ate his food and fondled his horses and went back to sleep, a blanket pulled over him against the desert night's chill. This time in his dreams he met Tamzen and the other girls, undead with pure white eyes, and they were throwing dice in his meadow. They waved gaily and called to him to join the game.
He was walking that way, reminding himself that he was dreaming, that his body was sick and hurriedly healing, that all this would pass, when the dream lord himself reared up before him, Tempus' sister on his arm.
They were so real he tried to run, then, but Aškelon stayed him with a gentle hand. He'd seen that hand drip the blood of eons in the real world; he'd seen that face, so calm, so compassionate, much paler and insubstantial in reality than in his dream it had become. The voice he heard was the same, though, and the woman, Cime, grasped him by the swordbelt as she had done in life.
"Am I dead?" he heard himself ask.
"Not yet, young fighter," she laughed. "When you see my brother, tell him we will help him—give him courage to act, make him strong when he is weak—but he must call on us. We cannot interfere directly." She was weeping, but talking as if she didn't know it, just the glistening tears rolling unheeded down her fine cheeks.
"Why do you cry?" Niko asked, and Aškelon, not Cime, answered: "You've a trial to endure, boy. What I've given you should help you, but lose or cast aside any piece of it again, and I will not be able to rearm you."
"Why does she cry?" he asked again, for Cime was dissolving; he could see through her; then she was gone.
The dream lord shrugged, eyes gray like pack ice and full of shadows. "She has much to cry for: what has happened, and will happen. Don't add yourself to her wealth of tears. Be strong. Control your mind. Heed your dreams. Guard your soul."
"My dreams are frightful. I'm weak. I'm afraid. My moat has deserted me. Help me—" Even in dreams that was hard for Niko to ask. "—you're master of dreams. I can't sleep at night, and in the day, I can't stay awake..."
But the dream lord was going, shaking his head sadly, his translucent, then transparent lips forming words a wind whipped away.
When Niko woke he was soaked and shivering and his mare was snuffling round him, her wet muzzle and moist breath in his hair. He stroked her, then put his arms around her neck and she helped him gain his feet by raising her head. He stood a long time that way, an arm over her withers, his face pressed to her neck. Already the dream's message, if there had been one, was fading.
* * *
From the moment the cloud-conveyance deposited them on the outskirts of Tyse, whirling in on itself to disappear with an audible "pop," Tempus had been conscious of the change in his internal rhythms—the adjustment his body made to the smells and sights of war.
His pulse beat more determinedly; his energy, never low, was continually at peak; his recent wounds tingled as they rushed to heal, and all the nagging debilities he'd lived with for interminable peaceful years made themselves known by their absence: his back didn't ache; his muscles refused to knot with fatigue; his senses were sharpened, and his stomach and gut tingled with a low-key excitement he'd not realized was part of what he missed when he cursed the sluggish peace long abroad upon the land.
Jihan, craning her neck at Wizardwall, hulking over the town of Tyse dark and shimmering with sorcery
which made a difficult climb nearly impossible, remarked upon its foreboding reaches.
The Trôs horses, nostrils distended to catch the messages the cool wind brought them high in the foothills, arched their necks and danced along.
They'd ridden only as far as the mercenaries' hostel that first day, where they checked in and secured clean box stalls for their mounts and requested the sort of accommodations reserved for Sacred Banders—a pair of rooms with a door between. The duty officer looked at Jihan quizzically, but made no objection to Tempus lodging her as his guest.
In the evening, they went sightseeing, Jihan's hand clamped upon his upper arm and her scale armor polished so that it glittered in the torchlit streets. To do so, they'd had to obtain passes they wore on armbands: Tyse was under martial law.
Jihan was distressed by what she saw: wars of attrition have a particular coloration and stench of slow death about them, and Tyse's plight (enmeshed in civil war fomented by Nisibisi agitators, her once-great central "countoured city" reduced to a mile-long, walled and crumbling refugee camp holding southward-fleeing deportees chased down from Mygdonia with an eye toward straining Ranke's ability to cope, both economically and militarily) was obvious to even her untrained, newly human eye.
He tried to explain to her that if not for the cause of Ilsig nationalism, then for the emancipation of the left-handed or equality of the obese or the hook-nosed would Mygdonia have come to the "aid" of the "oppressed" south, and mat whether life for Tysians would be any better under elitist Mygdonian rule than totalitarian Rankan, no one here had leisure to consider: one cannot abstain from war on one's own flanks.
But as they walked the better neighborhoods, where the outreach satrapies maintained their missions and Rankan treaty cosignatories had their embassies and consulates, he realized that Upper Ranke could not long survive or absorb the influx of indigents, criminals, orphans and husbandless girls with fat child-bellies begging soldiers to let them sleep in doorways.