by Janet Morris
"You'd better be more than sorry," Critias warned, stopped still where he'd been pacing; "you'd better have a good idea about what we can do to help him. We didn't bring him here to—"
"That's enough, Critias." Tempus left Bashir's side, where he had been trying to ease a warrior-priest forced by circumstances and love to enter into the citadel of his soul's enemy: Bashir subvocalized a curse upon sorcerers and their kind, which made the aged little archmage cast a blazing look his way. "Venerable magician," Tempus began, trying his best not to let his own despite leak through, "there must be something we can do. We have no intention of giving up on Nikodemos."
"You'd best do it quickly, then, my children."
Bashir growled a wordless threat, and Tempus heard the rustle of his armor as he quit the wall and he and Crit conferred. Moving close to the archmage, Tempus lowered his voice: "There's no hope?"
"Burn the witch, and you've her infernal lord to deal with. Let her go on feeding on that boy, and your problem will solve itself in a month or so. He'll expire. Rid of him, you'll be better off. He's a spy in Wizardwall's interest. Willing or not is hardly germane. Or slay him yourself; it's kinder and your sort is inured to murder, we've all seen."
"To what end? Will he die a peaceful death? Find the afterlife he's earned?"
"You know that answer, soldier." The burning coals which served this wraithlike mage for eyes met Tempus' and held them. "You're older than I, Riddler. Why aren't you wiser? Haven't you learned yet that mortal-lovers consign themselves to recurrent, hopeless pain? Let him meet his fate and wreak your vengeance on the Osprey. Revenge, I know, you understand. Now, what about this waif, the girl we've been keeping for him?"
"We'll take her and her child to Outbridge," Tempus heard himself growl, trying to keep his temper. His fingers itched and twitched to get themselves around that scrawny neck.
The mage felt it. "Well, you asked for my opinion. You've had it. Let that one—" A wavering, gnarled finger pointed to Straton. "—go in and bring the accursed forth. We'd prefer not to be implicated; if he regains his senses, the witch will know he's been here. We've all our aggressors engaged—"
"You keep him there. Keep him safe. You can do that, magician?" Tempus smiled as he spoke but eyed the archmage bleakly. "We'll oust the witch and then come back."
Straton's sigh of relief sounded in the antechamber fallen silent.
"We've put one mage at risk for you, sleepless one—"
"Do this, or Bashir and I will take it ill."
Crit muttered: "It's about time."
Straton said: "Then I don't have to go back in there?"
Bashir said: "Hark to him, old man. The Riddler speaks for me and the god speaks through me. You don't yet know the meaning of 'damned." Keep him, and keep him well, or all the devils you feed from that foul hand of yours won't save you."
"Enough!" Tempus silenced them. "Archmage, yea or nay?"
The ancient waved a hand and Straton flinched. "It falls within the bounds of our agreement, I suppose. But don't blame me if boy or girl or babe dies of this mortal foolishness. Now go! Get out! Your priest," he glared at Bashir, "disturbs our wards and right now you need them to protect this sold soul you think still yours. Go make fools of yourselves and fail as you must. Then we'll hear a different tone. But don't think to sacrifice my Hazard, young Randal whom I loaned you, for this soldier—"
Tempus got them out of there. The details of his bargain with the Tysian mageguild were nothing he wanted spelled out for Straton or Bashir.
Crit took his arm when they'd made it down the steps and whispered: "Where were you, before? What did you mean about making a fool of your—"
"Niko's message, when I got it, suggested that I might call upon the dream lord for a certain kind of aid. I tried it. It didn't work. So perhaps it was a diversion prepared by Roxane. So I thought, at any rate, and half expected to find you all in pieces or ensorceled when I returned."
"Ha! That day's still a long way off. What say we go rout this witch now?"
"Nothing else for it," Tempus agreed and added, slowly: "We may be doing Niko more harm than good."
"We must do something to let them know we won't give him up without a fight."
"I know, Critias." Tempus smiled again, just slightly, knowing that Critias was ready then to stand and war with demons from a brace of hells if it would bring Niko's spirit back. "Try to get that panoply. She's succeeded if she's wrested it from him."
Straton came up: "You'd better explain things to Bashir. Me, I don't care whose aid you've got or what you've paid, but if I listen to the warrior-priest much longer, telling me where and how long I'm going to burn for this, I'll trade my war-horses in for oxen and my weapons in for sheep."
"Done. But one thing, Straton," Tempus told him; "you've got to go in first, walk up to Roxane's door, knock, and ask for Niko."
"By Vashanka's third and ghostly ball, why?"
"Strat!" Crit snapped. "We take orders, we don't—"
"He has a right to ask. Because that's Randal's signal to get out of there. Try to keep her talking long enough for him to slip by, out the door."
"Randal?"
"The dog, fool! He's the dog, remember? Black and large and—"
"Oh. That's different, then. Consider it done, Riddler."
Straton had never, in Tempus' memory, called him that before. He fell into a discussion of strategy and tactics then with both Stepsons, forgetting Bashir until the warrior-priest joined them, saying that Niko was his bond brother and whatever could be done to save him, Bashir must help to do, mages or no mages: "Enlil will sanctify us, and his fire will purify those grounds as war without a god's clean flame could never do. Anyway," the priest grinned, "I do love roasting the occasional witch. And this time, it's in a cause that's more than just." The grin faded as he glanced back over his shoulder at the mageguild, and when he turned, his countenance was filled with unmitigated hate. "If I left Nikodemos in there, trusting you, the least I can do is hasten the moment we can get him out again."
"He's never to know of this," Tempus warned. "Not that we know the witch is in him, even when it's over. I won't leave him there later than morning, Bashir. You and I have an aversion to these necromancers in common. Now, when we get him back, we'll admit to taking him there to claim the girl and her child, that's all. For the rest, he's had too much to smoke and too much to drink. And never, if we all get old together, are any of us to tell another person what we've learned. He has troubles enough without being outcast, shunned and suspect."
"You said, "never."" Bashir remarked. "What if none of this avails us?"
"Then we take him back among us, keep his secret, let him spend what time he has with those who love him best."
"How?" Crit objected. "When everything he knows, she knows? And probably the Osprey, too?"
"An information conduit flows both ways. We'll use him to affect old Datan's judgment; bad information, given as truth from an impeccable source, can hurt the wizard's planning."
"In a fight?" Strat wondered.
"Randal. He'll be a temporary Stepson; I'll assign him to Niko's right. It's up to you both," he looked at Critias and Straton, "to see that the squadron accepts him, and that no one knows what kind of fighter Randal really is."
"No problem," Critias nodded, his intelligent stare letting Tempus know he'd made the leap to comprehension. With a source just like him Tempus could have scoured the known world clean of evil.
And as Tempus walked toward the horses with Crit beside him, he heard Bashir explaining quietly to Straton just what kind of weapons a mage such as Randal could bring to bear, and why they both must put aside rightful prejudice, even lie and misrepresent themselves and others, promising Straton that this once the gods would make allowances.
Tempus hoped he was right.
* * *
Critias sent Strat on ahead, almost too busy for misgivings. But he'd had to say, "Take care, Ace; don't tarry with her; remember how she near
ly charmed me last time," and clap his friend upon the back, and even hand over his eagle-claw fish hook- for Strat to carry. "It will bring you luck."
"Luck? Let's hope I don't need it." Strat was glum, but resigned. He stuffed the fish hook in his pouch and strode up the winding drive which led to Roxane's with only one puzzled, backward look.
After he'd gone, Crit cursed himself for letting Strat know how worried he was. He should have kept silent. He remembered that night six weeks ago when he'd cast his personal prognosticators in Sanctuary's hostel, sitting in the common room after Tempus had saddled him with the welfare of all the Stepsons.
He'd done well enough by the single fighters and the paired; all a man could do, he'd done in accordance with custom and regulation as well as in the spirit of the honor-bond that elevated Sacred Bands. Watching Straton walk, lightly armed and with that swinging gait of his, up to the vine-enshrouded house in the early hours of the morning, he knew he'd been fooling himself in thinking pairbond was a problem he no longer had. Undeclared or not, his nature had found its mate in Straton's; his heart went with his friend up to the witch's door.
Men were sneaking round the sides and bush by bush up close with incendiaries hastily concocted from kitchen staples; when Bashir gave his jackal howl, they'd place them strategically around the old manse's foundations; by the time dawn dared to break the whole place would be in flames. He took an instant to thank the gods that Roxane had no high wall to be scaled. An arrogant witch, she shunned mundane defenses. He hoped she didn't know better than he, that what seemed an advantage to his side would turn out to really be one.
Above the masking sound Peace River made rushing behind her house, he could hear Bashir's low baritone, intoning prayers and blessing commandos while overhead a godly cloud began to mass.
Wishing he could see the door from where he crouched among the bushes, he crawled back to join the other Stepsons gathered to receive Enlil's blessing. It couldn't hurt. He bowed his head.
Then a dog's bark, ending in a whine (low, then louder) broke his concentration and he almost sprinted up the drive.
Bashir caught him by the arm, intervening: "It's in the god's hands."
"Hug my crack. Every man's in his own hands, with a little help from his brothers. Let me go."
"Wait and see." Bashir held on tight.
"Too much rides on this."
He couldn't argue with Bashir in front of Sacred Banders. He was glad the majority of them were deployed around the house. He'd have to talk to Tempus about which of them should command this task force when both had fighters in it: half the men behind the house were side-locked Nisibisi. For the moment, he merely wrenched his arm free and walked away without another word.
Back at his bush, he could see a little light spill forth among the trees as if the door had opened, and then something black and panting came careening into him, all teeth and tongue and wet-nosed, its tail between its legs and trembling.
"Randal? Get changed, I've got to know what happened. Where's Strat?"
Then he heard Bashir give the jackal call, and Randal howled along with it in some eerie duet, and Critias had to get his bow and quarrels and form his men and call firstline codes for "ready."
A fire Bashir had made with pungent charcoals that burned green was now uncovered; those with bows of Nisibisi style had wrapped their points in cloth soaked with Enlil's holy oil; those with crossbows didn't wait in line, but began scuttling through the undergrowth.
When Crit looked away from the blacker shadow of the house against the purpling night, Randal was darkly clad and crouched beside him.
"Strat?" Crit whispered.
"I'm not sure. I'm sorry." Randal spread pale hands, then obeyed Grit's order and put on his gloves.
"Come on, then, Stepson, let's go roast this witch-bitch." Strat, Crit thought, this one's for you, and disobeyed his own instructions to wait until the house erupted into flames to sneak up closer.
But as he came within the house's shadow, charges flared and pieces of stone and wood and gouts of flame erupted; he covered his face with his arm as concussions reverberated around him, counting off the seconds between blasts, feeling the heat sear the hair on his arms and warm his helmet and sweat begin to run down his neck, along his backbone, as his battle-sharpened sense dilated moments. The charges should have gone off simultaneously; some men were better at this than others; he'd have to weed them out so that this sort of thing didn't happen again. A stone dwelling is hard to raze.
He looked up before he should have, afraid the house would have its walls intact and they'd have to go in there fighting, room to room, with demons or undeads or whatever minions Roxane had. A soldier such as Critias avoided, when he could, such sorties round blind corners, in unfamiliar passageways where others of your team could accidently kill you; he hated close-in fighting, being penned by walls and prey to unexpected trap doors or floors and roofs which might give away…
And what he saw when he looked up was a roof and climbing vines and windows all ablaze and figures limned in firelight through burned-out doors and crashing timbers and then, from above, a lightning bolt zagged down from clouds and wrapped itself around the house entire, a blue and awful net of power. Stone by stone, the old manse came apart and showered men and trees and road with pebbles; chunks and even blocks like hell-sent hail came flying forth from the inferno, so bright his eyes teared and stung.
Something hit his helm and he saw a tiny constellation of new stars all his own; then the ground came up to meet him, and he had all he could do to get up on his hands and knees, to shake away the dizziness, to rise and run... Into smoke thick and cloying and sweet with the tang of roasting meat he fought his way, hearing whoops and cries and warriors' curses, but seeing no one else, so much sulphurous smoke did the old manse belch—or what was left of it.
He'd reached what should have been its doorway, and there was nothing there but a fall of stones, some smoking timbers, an afterglow of whitehot nails and, he thought, something quivering among the billows of greasy vapors. He heard a voice beside him: "Don't go in there yet!"
Randal's voice, it was. Well, at least the mageling was no coward, to have come this far. Crit stepped across the threshold and suddenly was halted by an awful keening, a sound which grated teeth and inner ear like all the devils up from every hell might make, if they all sang out in chorus. Then something dark and crackling with stinking arms or wings and crimson eyes brushed past him, opening his flesh where its blighting extremities touched his unprotected arm.
He wheeled and took a shot, crossbow on his hip, firing blind, by instinct, and heard a far worse cry than what he'd just heard. Then Randal shouted "Aaiieee!" and something beat the air about his head with hellish wings so that Critias dove to ground, hot stones and nails and smoking earth beneath him; rolling over onto his back, he levered and nocked and fired arrows as fast and best he might.
First crawling, then lunging through the ruins, he came upon what must once have been the house's kitchen, just as one Successor and a pair of Sacred Banders were scrambling in the other way.
And there, coughing and choking in that steaming wreckage, he paused and waved the three back. On a drying rack, gleaming through the smoke, bright despite the greasy pall on everything about it, was Niko's panoply—cuirass with raised enameled snakes and glyphs, the sword with demons from elder myths, the dirk with stormbolts and fabled beasts on its scabbard, hanging there from leather straps.
He walked cautiously forward, feeling his way among the turning stones and charred boards beneath him, mindful that there might be a cellar under, and the whole floor give way to bury him below. "If I go down, don't try to get me out yourselves. Get Bashir and plenty of others."
"Whatever you say," said the leftman and crossed his arms to wait and see. "We did it, looks like."
"You saw a witch's corpse?" he asked absently, hooking his crossbow on his belt so that he'd have both hands free to grab for safety or keep his balance.
"No, but I saw a form or two aflame in here, and nothing could have survived—"
"Strat? Did you see Strat?" He was almost there.
"Straton? No. We thought he was with you."
The Successor, crouching down, said a prayer of thanks in Nisi, picked up some pulverized debris and let it trickle slowly through his fingers, an oblation to the gods.
Two good strides remained between Crit and the panoply. If this was some witch's trap, then he was about to fall into it. He gave up caution and strode the distance, his hands outstretched to grab the gear and flee.
When he touched the breastplate, a cry escaped him. He felt his skin sear and pulled his hands away. He should have taken his own advice and put on gloves. He fumbled for them and, wincing, eased them over palms burned white, and was just reaching out again when Randal's call came:
"Stop! I'll do that."
The pain he was ignoring made Crit snap sharply: "You? Why not? It's something you can manage." Then he looked around.
The little mage's face was scored with long, parallel cuts, as if his cheek were flayed or plowed. One eye was swollen shut and, as he walked, he staggered, mumbling charms or spells or simply cursing off his pain—Crit could make no sense of the dialect.
But the mage came across the rubble and said, "Hold onto me." So Crit grasped Randal's belt and the junior Hazard lifted the cuirass gingerly from the rack, his good eye narrowed, talking to the piece of armor as he did: "There's a good thing. Niko wants you back. You've got to let me have you," and so forth as he did the same with sword and dirk, then held them out to Crit.
Crit let him go and held up hands to forfend that burden: "Not me. That stuff likes you better. I've got the blisters to prove it. You carry it back to Niko, he's your left-side leader, I've been told. It's your privilege and duty." His voice was thick, and he wanted to be alone: Down beside the drying rack he had seen a piece of abalone glitter. "Would you get that little fish hook there for me? Right there. My thanks, Randal." And, the fish hook in his fingers, he turned and walked as fast as prudent out of the house and off among the bushes, to sit and let his grief run its course where no one would have to see.