Beyond Sanctuary

by Janet Morris

  He wanted to put his head between his hands, but they hurt too much. He bound his lacerated forearm and lay on his back, watching the smoke disperse and the red tinge of sunrise eat up the night, praying he wasn't going to cry for Straton, who deserved better than a death or undeath, alone, while trying to save a junior hazard who wasn't worth saving.

  Most of all, he didn't want to face the possibility that they might have a second Niko on their hands; there was not a single bone or corpse or even a piece of Straton's panoply visible in the kitchen; in fact, he hadn't seen a casualty anywhere within the chaotic ruin which once had been a house. The wreck-and-rescue crew would go over what remained, of course, as soon as they could be pulled away from their current labors at the palace, where they still searched desultorily for royal remains under collapsed tons of stone.

  But Straton… Crit held the fish hook up before his eyes and it was blurry in his sight.

  One of the men approached, stood over him; the silhouette looked down; Crit started to get up.

  "You found it!" Straton said. "Gods' balls, I'm glad of that.

  "Strat, you bastard! Where were you?" Crit was on his feet, clasping Straton close. Then, embarrassed, he pulled away. "Can't you ever follow orders? I want a full report, right now." Crit crossed his arms.

  "Report? I don't know… I knocked, she opened the door, I asked for Niko, she said he wasn't there, and that was that. No dog came out, though, so I asked her how it was doing, and she said it had gotten out earlier and was outside somewhere, maybe I'd look for it for her, so I had to look around… then," Strut shrugged, "I was around the back and the call came so I took cover. That's all."

  "That's all? I thought you were dead. You were supposed to report back to me."

  "Crit, what's the matter?"

  "How did this get in her kitchen, then?"

  "I don't know. I dropped it, I told you." Straton stepped back a pace, uncertain, scrutinizing Critias. "I do believe," he said slowly, "that you were worried."

  "Just a little. Between Bashir and Randal and not knowing whether we won this one or lost it…" He couldn't keep this up; there was no reason to suspect foul play or witchery just because Straton had dropped a fish hook, or to pretend he was angry when in fact he was tremendously relieved. He said as much, made amends in his own terse fashion, and went one step further, so that when they got down to overseeing the clean-up and regrouping, they did it as an acknowledged pair, full and sharing partners.

  * * *

  Tempus reclaimed Niko from the mageguild before the sun came up. He had never been far from him, choosing to stay close at hand in case the witch attacked Niko in the Tysian archmage's stronghold, as the old adept thought she might, rather than take part in the assault. If Critias and Bashir together couldn't raze the place, it couldn't be brought down.

  He'd left his ailing Stepson only long enough to meet with Grillo, who had to be summoned and informed: certain of his specials were involved.

  As Tempus had requested, Grillo had brought a wagon in which to carry Niko's girl and her newborn boy to the Outbridge estate; it was driven, as Tempus had specified, by the single survivor of the Outbridge's sack, the special into whose arms Tempus had collapsed that night, and his favorite among Grillo's men, one he'd had transferred to him.

  With the girl in safe hands and on her way, tended en route by the widow Maldives, to whose skill at healing Tempus could attest, he was free to turn his thoughts to other matters: the archmage of Tyse was unabashedly eager to be rid of Niko; Tempus almost pointed out that it could be said that his Stepson's troubles were of this mageguild's manufacture: if they were not so impertinent and vain, they might have contained this magewar long ago, before it overflowed into precincts where it didn't belong and embroiled human empires and secular allies—mages should war with mages, men with men.

  But he had said it all before in former times and other empires; he himself had become accursed because an archmage lusted after his sister, Cime. So it went: gods mixed in and sorcerers meddled, and puny mortals were the ones who suffered.

  Having taken his spellbound, semiconscious Stepson from the mageguild amid the solicitous stares and lugubrious looks of portentous, self-important wizards gathered to gawk and prognosticate and teach their apprentices and impress each other as he half-carried, half-dragged Niko through the halls, he boosted the boy up on his horse and headed them west, sunrise at their backs: Niko's head would clear now that the sleeping draught and hypnotic spells they'd slipped him were wearing off.

  The sky was dark overhead and red along the horizon; he was late; all this had taken much too long. He had hoped to have the Stepson safe and sound at Outbridge before the task force razed the witch's keep.

  As it was, he had to hurry; he didn't need Niko looking back toward Peace River and the witch's house and seeing smoke and flame; he hadn't yet decided what he was going to tell the youth who wavered in his saddle but followed him without complaint. The archmage had made sure Niko would remember only meeting with his girl there; the spell was truly cast, for Niko asked him thickly if Tempus were sure it was all right: "—billeting her out at the barracks, I mean?" Then: "Commander, did you see that?"

  He'd seen. To the west, above a brightening horizon, shooting stars came arcing down from heaven, a shower of green-tailed arrows from the bows of the gods.

  "Make a wish, Stepson," he advised the youth, and they rode awhile in silence as darkness waned, and sunrise sought to defeat a mass of roiling clouds.

  They'd stopped to relieve themselves before he broached it: "Niko, you'll be billeted at Outbridge yourself from this day on. We're moving north in a week or two."

  The youngster turned around to face him, arranging himself within his loinguard. unspoken questions in his shadowed, deep-sunk eyes. Tempus saw those questions fade and Niko's customary control take over, and recalled when the boy's facade had been uncracked, when equanimity had seemed as much a part of Nikodemos as breathing, and realized fully how much it bothered him that this particular fighter suffered in his stead.

  "Niko, I'm going to tell you something else. We sacked that Peace River house of yours this morning."

  "You… what? Cybele! I—" Niko squatted down in place and, eyes lowered, pulled up grass and earth. Then he twisted around and looked behind him, where an echo of sunrise might have glowed in the southeast, then back. He blew out a breath, then straightened up and threw down a chunk of sod. "Thank you for telling me." A Sacred Bander wouldn't question authority or demand an explanation; he was still completely that.

  But Tempus volunteered: "Death squad leaders and a number of insurgents have been seen meeting there. It was the only decision we could take."

  "You are sure, of course. I'm sorry you thought that I couldn't be trusted to know beforehand, but it's not surprising." Niko's glance was level, his hazel eyes blank and cold. "Everyone's been avoiding me as if I had the plague. If that stops, now, it's almost worth it." He looked away: "Cybele… it's hard to believe… she was just a child. I hope this doesn't mean you'll never trust me, henceforth, commander. I'm—" He fell silent, went to his horse and vaulted up on it, then sat stroking its neck, his shoulders slumped, his grief for a girl he yet thought might be an innocent barely checked.

  Tempus mounted up and kicked the roan; he drew alongside.

  "No chance that she'll survive and end up in Straton's hands?"

  "None whatsoever," Tempus assured him and heard Niko's sigh of relief. "I have another piece of news; in the assault of Wizardwall, if you'll take a man I choose as your right-side partner for the action, I'll let you have the point."

  "The point? I'd endure Haram's company for that chance, sir."

  So much, then, for the youth's fears of being considered untrustworthy. But he had to chuckle. "It's not that bad—it's not Haram. But it may seem odd—your rightman will be Randal, the junior Hazard. I believe you've met."

  Whatever Niko would have said beyond repeating "Randal?" was lost, because
the boy could see past him. "Commander, you're not expecting an escort, are you? One rider, one extra horse?"

  Tempus turned in his saddle. The rider came cross-country, from the direction in which lay Outbridge, and where the shooting stars had seemed to fall.

  Niko was levering his crossbow; Tempus saw, out of the corner of his eye, the boy's hand go to his hip where the sword he had been given by Aškelon should have been, heard him curse, remembering where he'd left it, then spoke up, telling Niko to wait right there, and spurred the roan out to meet the silhouetted rider who was plainly bent on interception.

  As he closed at a moderate lope, the dark rider got no lighter; it was helmed, and that helmet had a flowing pair of horse-tail crests like hair streaming down its back. Its mount and the riderless horse it led were sable, like its mail and arms. Soon he could see that its helmet had a full visor drawn down; below, a pale jaw showed between cheek pieces.

  He reined in his own horse, told it "Stand," and waited. Other than the pale triangle of mouth, no light patch showed on rider or either horse, and both of these were Trôs-large, with arching crests and barrel chests and hooves that thundered when they touched the ground.

  Horses worth a fight, worth slaying for, was his first thought as the rider slowed them to a walk and raised one gloved hand in casual greeting.

  A few lengths away, he still had not placed the armor style or the point of origin of tack or horses. They were of no breed he had ever seen before, with dished faces, tiny wide-set ears, and as great a breadth between their eyes proportionately as had their mighty chests. The armor seemed to be a sort of tiny-scaled corselet; no smith Tempus had knowledge of could work in such diminutive fashion. In truth, when the horses danced up close as if they were on springs, he saw that the rider was quite small as well.

  Then a ray of sunlight struck its helm; it raised its hands and pushed the visor up, its mount suddenly stock still.

  "Cime!"

  "Greetings, brother. You called?"

  "I… received a message that if I wished…"

  "That's your Nikodemos, there, who has his crossbow trained on me? I'd tell him to put it by, were I you." She took her helmet off and hung it on her saddle.

  Still stunned by the proximity of his sister, he turned and waved a signal; Niko was to put his weapon down and ride up. Then he faced her: "What took so long, sister?"

  "I might ask that of you." She smiled, gray eyes like smoke lying lightly on him, yet he saw that they were puffy and red-rimmed, as if she'd been weeping long and hard. "We tried to reach you," she said; "used that boy. How is he?"

  "You tell me."

  She looked past him and on impulse he fumbled in his pouch and came up with a Rankan gold Imperial. When she turned back to him, he held it out as so long ago he had seen the dream lord do.

  Her eyebrow raised. Her hand stretched out. She had to take it. She'd have to stay, now, until she'd given service. He could hold her thus as long as he could fend her off and not succumb to the urge, rising in him even now, which had started all their troubles centuries ago.

  Then she answered the question he'd forgotten that he'd asked: "You've hurt Nikodemos more than helped him, brother. As usual, you rush in where you don't belong. The witch yet lives; his soul's all tangled up. You should have waited for me. I could have freed him with a wave of hand." She smiled at him pityingly. "But we'll save him, if it can still be done. Aškelon craves him as a mortal instrument, if you have not already guessed."

  He'd thought as much, but discounted it as wishful thinking. "Then why let him suffer so?"

  "We don't own him; he's human. He has free choice. He has his fate. And he's not ready to make a pact with even the most benign of powers. Now hush, he comes."

  "Not quite yet. Why are you here?"

  "To fight beside you, weakling brother. I've a dispensation from Aškelon himself. It's clear you'll never triumph on your own. But there are forms to be observed. We could not interpose ourselves without your invitation. Quite frankly, I was bored to tears with him; there's naught to do there."

  "We have a clutch of mages sore in need of killing."

  And Cime took her wands out and shook her hair down so that it floated, black and silver, in an errant breeze. The wands refracted sunlight like a pair of prisms, and all around them rainbows shivered into being. She sighed; she pocketed the coin he'd give her, which would bind her to him. She said, "I was beginning to fear you'd never ask. There's no shame in humbling oneself before such a lord as Aškelon— Ah, Niko-demos, I believe we've met before."

  She held out a delicate hand and Niko leaned forward on his horse to take it, then brushed it with his lips, one eye on Tempus, his expression guarded. "That's right," he said. "At the Vulgar Unicorn, it was."

  "You've been a careless boy, leaving the dream lord's gift unguarded. But we forgive you."

  "We?" It was to Tempus Niko looked, his lips drawn tight. Tempus snatched his neck and said uncomfortably, "My sister hobnobs with the plane lord."

  "That's right," she said. "And he's sent you a token of remembrance and esteem, Nikodemos. Use it well and remember where you got it." From her saddle she unwound the second sable horse's tether and held it out.

  Niko's bay backed three paces quickly; the fighter said, "I can't… take that… him"—he squinted at the magnificent horse trapped in exotic leathers—"from you. I hardly know you; I can't. My allegiance is already given. Commander, maybe you'll explain?…"

  Tempus was at a loss for words; jealousy was an emotion he seldom had to deal with; he didn't know what to say.

  But the sable horse raised up its head and curled its lips back and gave an ear-splitting call—half challenge, half welcome—so that Niko's bay gelding lowered its head and shivered.

  "You take it, sir," Niko whispered. "It's for you," Cime chuckled throatily. "Every time we meet, Nikodemos, I get the distinct impression you are afraid of me. Now take this horse; it's bad manners to refuse a gift from an entelechy; few men have the honor to receive one." She dropped its tether and the sable horse, his head high, minced over beside the cowering bay gelding and butted Niko with a fine, intelligent head. Niko looked at it askance, then with an uncertain, soft laugh and one last glance at Tempus, stroked its muzzle. The big stallion closed its eyes and stuck out its tongue.

  Cime laughed again: "Don't look so crestfallen, brother. This one's for you; I've no need of this much help. We wish to make amends for the discomfort that we've caused you both, and the loss of the Trôs horses—"

  "Loss?"

  "Temporary, brother, temporary. Now, swap mounts with me and we'll talk about setting things aright while we ride out to your barracks—you will make accommodations for me?"

  Dismounting with unconcealed eagerness, he knew he was accepting her too soon, without enough close questioning or making it clear to her that he wasn't about to get involved with her so deeply that he might not ever extricate himself or even have the sense to know he should… Then he thought about the heinous bargain he'd made with the Tysian mageguild, and Niko's ensorcelment, and all the trials before them on their way up Wizardwall, and he too laughed: "My pleasure, sister. But you'll keep your place: not whore among my men or slay wantonly while among them. Not men or mages," he added, recalling Randal while he ran his hand down the sable mare's flank and Cime slipped a leg over to dismount.

  As she slid down, he caught her in his arms.

  "A welcome kiss, brother? Or has the Froth Daughter completely turned your head?"

  He knew he shouldn't; he felt the Stepson watching; but his lips met hers and sibling considerations were no part of the welcome that she gave him.

  He had to remind himself that the chances were good that they had no blood relationship, then force himself to disengage.

  "So, my dear and most faithful lover, you do remember me."

  Riding into the Outbridge station on the big sable mare bred on the archipelago of dreams with Cime beside him and Niko bringing up the rear, he
wished he didn't remember quite so well all the harm and anguish she had caused him over so many years. But he was so deep into unsavory pacts with agents of sorcery and magic that a mage-killer like Cime might be exactly what he needed. He hoped so. She usually created repercussions worse than the problems she solved. He wondered if the dream lord had found this out, and was glad to foist her off on him. But she wouldn't answer questions of that nature.

  Crit, Bashir, Randal and Straton came riding in soon after, with Niko's panoply and a report of mixed success.

  Cime demanded to see Grit's forearm, and when he had unwound the bandage and she'd fingered the dry, seared cuts, she said: "No doubt of it. The witch escaped."

  "Who's this?" Critias had whispered to Niko when the four were first ushered into Tempus's quarters where they expected to report. "His sister," Niko had whispered back, and turned away to answer Straton's questions about the two new horses drawing an admiring crowd outside, then offered to take Strat out right then, and let him try Niko's.

  Since then, Critias had watched and waited without a word, his demeanor saying he wasn't about to speak freely with a woman—any woman—there.

  Yet when she touched first his palm and then his arm with the butts of the diamond rods taken down from her hair, he covered her fingers with his own: "That's much better; it feels fine now. Thank you." His voice was very soft.

  She said: "Cime. My name is Cime."

  "I'm Critias, Tempus's second in command. And this is Straton, my right-side partner."

  "Sacred Banders, are you?" Still her hand rested under his.

  Tempus hadn't heard the rest; Bashir had pulled him off to one side to confirm what the priest suspected: that this was the famed and deadly sorcerer-slayer of legend. "What about Randal? Even for you, Riddler, this is a dangerous, convoluted game."

  "The way up and down is one and the same."