by Janet Morris
Tempus soon convinced him, over Cime's objections, that he was in friendly hands that would soon return him to his rightful home in far Mygdonia.
Crit appeared, soon after women had begun to weep in Ac seraglio beyond, to ask if there was anything that Tempos needed, any instructions as to the disposition of the women, or anything else that Crit should know. He gave the boy into Critias's custody, saying: "Guard him well; he's special. As for those women, let Cime make sure that they're all harmless—no witches hiding in among them—then let the men consider them as spoils. Speaking of which, find Bashir, and start dividing what we've got here. Have you seen Grillo? Niko? "
Crit said laconically, "Both. They'll live. And Randal, too, I'd bet, though now it's over, he's got an uneasy stomach that he says some krrf might cure." Crit was looking straight at Cime, an odd expression on his face: "My lady? Shall we obey our orders?" He bowed a mock and sweeping bow and Cime brushed haughtily past him, so that Tempus knew they were no longer quite such close friends as they'd been before.
She called back instructions, telling Tempus what words would wake the Froth Daughter, and: "Since she's about to join you, I'll be bidding you goodbye. Don't bother to kiss me a fond farewell, my brother. I've no doubt we'll meet again. Regards from Aškelon to you and Jihan. And do be careful, if you can."
"Not so fast, sister. You've taken coin from me and not yet given satisfaction. You're not going anywhere without my leave, and I won't give it."
She glared at him, stuck out her tongue, made a handsign that was fit more for a Stepson than a woman, and stalked away with Critias, his smirk ill-hidden in her wake.
Then he went to the Froth Daughter, sleeping on her bed, and leaned down close and, before he spoke the words to wake her, kissed her flushed and lovely lips. Sitting back, her cool hand in his, he said them. Her eyelids fluttered. He was relieved: It was not beyond his sister to tell him wrong, to give him words to say which would hurt, not wake, her rival.
But Jihan's eyes came open, blinked. She stretched, pulling her hand from his. She rubbed her eyes; she sat up, frowning, demanding: "What's this with you and the widow Maldives? I'm only gone a few days and you have some petty twit to hump instead? How can you debase our union so? And what, pray, are you doing here? Where's Datan? You haven't done that poor man harm, I hope. He's told me all about the grudge you bear…"
During the ensuing argument, he shouted: "And what about my horses? You stole them! Trôs horses! You foolish amateur at womanhood, you've not a brain in that beautiful head," and many more things he shouldn't have, until he realized that only one resolution to their argument was possible; and whirled her round and stripped her down, and, tired as he was, took time to have her on that bed she wouldn't believe she'd slept upon for weeks, not days.
* * *
Despite the biers being set and the funerary games to come, Niko had been glad to leave the captured citadel early. He wanted only to reclaim his sable horse from the Successor-guarded cave where he had left it and to be rid of Randal, whom Tempus had decreed he must escort safely back to Tyse, though Niko suspected that the Tysian Hazard didn't need any Stepson's help. During the battle, when he and Ari had used up the last of their blossoms and stars and were pinned down in a stairwell by three gigantic, drooling fiends with whirlpool eyes, Randal had changed from man to towering, fiend-eating beast and devoured an enemy to whom poisoned blossoms were mere irritations. Niko, sword drawn, crossbow bolts expended, had been ready to move in and take what wounds he must to engage them with his dream-forged sword. But Randal had beaten him to it. Randal had, like as not, saved them. And Randal, throughout the entire battle, had been steady on Niko's right, so that never during the protracted fighting had Niko needed to worry about his back or even think about what might be coming up behind him.
The slight, long-necked, large-eared mageling had proved his worth in Niko's eyes, even put Stealth in his debt. But explaining that to other Stepsons would be perceived as boasting or some excuse for having accepted a sorcerer on his right; he didn't try it. The Stepsons in his unit had seen what kind of fighter Randal was; the rest would hear it from men whom, unlike Niko, they could believe.
For his part, he wanted to be quit of Randal, and wished he didn't feel that way. So when they'd brought their unit through without a casualty or incapacitating wound and stood in Datan's sanctum after Crit had counted heads and the Riddler himself given out commendations, Niko had made sure that Randal knew he was entitled to a Stepson's share of spoils.
"I want nothing, Stealth; I'm pleased to have been of service." Randal had just come back from conferring, head to head, with Tempus, and Niko saw a smile in the mageling's eyes. "Feeling better, fighter? You ought to be. Though Roxane's not been found, Cime, Bashir, myself and your commander all agree: the witch's hold.. .power, that is… is broken. You're—we're free of her and Datan and all the rest."
"So? Why tell me? Look here, Randal, you saved my life. Take something. It's not fitting if you don't." And Stealth had looked around him, spied the magician's globe which lay tumbled off its golden stand and picked it up. A moment's examination confirmed Niko's first impression: the globe was studded with precious stones and marked with arcane glyphs, its diameter such that it fit nicely under his arm.
He'd brought it back and held it out: "Here. This globe's for you. My share and yours will more than cover what it's worth, and I want to call us even. You'll make good use of mis, I own."
"Oh, my Niko. I couldn't…" The mage murmured, his astounded countenance confirming that this was just the sort of spoils to put a gleam in an enchanter's eye.
"You'd better. Or I'll tear you limb from limb." He'd tossed the globe and Randal was at pains to catch it before it hit the floor and smashed.
So he'd come out even—not beholden to some Hazard of the mageguild or stuck with a right-side partner he didn't want or need. His men had fared well, luckier than some. There were six biers to be lit and seven seriously wounded who'd need litters to be carried down or have to stay awhile in the citadel, which was undergoing intense and fervid purification to purge it of all traces of evil. Niko could see the smoke and hear the chanting of Bashir's Successors and even see Enlil's sanctifying glow upon the remaining towers as he and Randal took their leave.
Tempus had given him a fond and personal farewell, singled him out for commendation, a thing which made him proud. But when they'd walked atop the ramparts talking, man to man like equals, about what the victory could come to mean with Bashir in control of Wizardwall so that the war was now a war of men—Mygdonia against Imperial Ranke, soldier to soldier, priest to priest, lowly mage to lowly mage—his sister had come out to join them. Niko had fallen silent, remembering the time she'd grabbed him by the belt at the Vulgar Unicorn and offered him her favors. She made him even more uncomfortable this day, telling him while Tempus listened that the dream lord loved him and coveted his allegiance, and that any time he wished he could call on Aškelon for help or counsel through his dreams.
And the Riddler had said nothing, staring off over a mountainside of frostbitten grass and dead, brown clover, his tiny kill-smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Niko had objected heatedly that special favors from ente-lechies in higher spheres were something he didn't crave and offered back the cuirass, sword and dirk.
"You'd best keep them, fighter. You still need all the help you can get," she'd replied.
He'd been impolite: "I'm not used to taking orders from a woman. And if I need a patron, I have Enlil to call on, as befits a Stepson. So you just tell your unholy boyfriend 'no," next time you see him: I want no part of him… or you."
Then Tempus had turned about, and taken Stealth aside, telling him to go on ahead and to forget about what she'd said, but: "Keep the panoply. We all need what help we can get."
So, under orders, he'd done as he'd been bid and brought Randal, one Trôs horse, and those men he'd led upcountry back to Tyse—all but the Successors, who staye
d there in the high peaks with Bashir.
And Bashir had wished him life and offered him a home with them, which Niko appreciated but declined. He'd loved Bashir, loved him still, but his friend was too much the instrument of his god. In their younger days it hadn't been like that, but then Bashir's father had still lived. Bashir had ridden down as far as the cave with him, though, and they'd embraced and talked about the future:
"You are still going west to Bandara?" Bashir had asked, his wide brow knit with worry lines and flat face full of care.
"I'm not sure. The fighting made me think I might be better off solving my problems on my own—no gods, no adepts, no special help…just me. That's it in the end, I've come to think: just you. That's all any of us have got."
Bashir had tsk'd mournfully: "Shrivel me, Niko, if you weren't so stubbornly agnostic, you'd make a formidable warrior-priest."
"No thanks. Gods have bloody hands. I'm reverent from a distance. I don't want to be any closer to the gods than death will bring me, and for that companionship, I'm content to wait."
So they'd parted on a note of honesty, each wishing the other was different than he'd become.
But the sable horse was just exactly right—perfect, Niko thought. With all the responsibility of leading men in battle, he'd not had time to revel in just how good was this horse he had. Even the shadow cast over the gift by its source had been banished by the sunny days through which he rode it down to Tyse, a dozen fighters at his back. Tempus had spoken of breeding the reclaimed Trôs horses and both the sables during the coming winter quartering: a stud farm could be purchased by Stealth and his commander; they'd buy a dozen mares and charge no stud fee to Stepsons. Both the Riddler and Niko were eager to see if the sables would breed true; the sable mare they'd certainly breed back to Niko's stallion, and thus fix the pure Aškelonian line. And Niko's mare, once she threw her Trôs foal, would be immediately bred to his new mount; he could hardly wait for them to meet.
After parting company with Randal at the mageguild, he'd thought to go straight to the Outbridge barracks and be reunited with his sorrel mare, but An and the others wanted to stop by Peace Falls and be the first to recount their exploits to admiring girls at Brother Bomba's, so they rode down to Commerce Avenue instead.
Passing by the mercenaries' hostel, its back doors open wide, made Niko think of Cybele and the Peace River house in which she'd died. He'd learned long since to accept lost loved ones. Death came where and when it willed. But a part of him felt that somehow the sweet young girl he'd tried to help had died because of him.
In Brother Bomba's, its proprietress was effusive in her welcome, near beside her stately self with joy to hear that the Riddler's force had triumphed, and all but two Stepsons would be coming home—the others dead were Grille's specials and Successors, men she didn't know or care about.
It wasn't until Niko's belly was full of food and wine and his head was pleasantly spinning from the pulcis mixture laced with krrf Madame Bomba pressed on him "to remind you of our business deal, and, of course, because you're my favorite Stepson," that he remembered what Randal had said: Feeling better, fighter?
The words danced in his memory while a girl Madame Bomba sicced on him tried to lure him upstairs to give him a "hero's" welcome, so that as he thought back over all the fighting he tried to determine just when he'd regained that particular balance between apprehension and acuity that Niko called his moat. Perhaps about the time they'd fought the giant fiends, he guessed, but like all things which really matter to a man, the moment he'd reclaimed his equilibrium had passed away unnoticed: It was so natural to Niko to proceed with perspicuity and balance, once it returned it was as if he'd never been without it.
Leaving Bomba's without the cadre, ponying Tempus' extra Trôs behind his sable horse, he rode due west toward Outbridge, part drunk, part drugged, but with most of him turned inward, reclaiming his rest-place. Where his mind went then, no agonized spirits met him, no ghosts loitered nor specters resided: just peace and a safe, green field for contemplation met him.
Riding thus, he heard his name called: once, then again.
He pulled his sable to a halt and looked around, then listened. He knew that voice. He called out: "Cybele? Cybele?" and waited for an answer. But none came.
Shaking his head, he cursed what must have been too many drugs he'd ingested during the revelry back at Bomba's, then urged the sable into a lope. He was on the outskirts of the Outbridge quarter, where Grillo kept a house and others of high station had sculpted hedges and well-guarded, walled estates. It must have been an illusion, he decided, part guilt and part wishful thinking.
Yet when he rode through sentried gates at the Outbridge barracks, Cybele's fate still rankled. Refusing to think about her didn't help his mood. Both krrf and pulcis have a downside, and Niko never had been much of a drinker.
In the inner court, he had to fend off a crowd of anxious, then ebullient, stay-at-homes who wanted word of the Stepsons' faring in the battle, and find stable room for Tempus' precious Trôs and his new sable; then take time for a reunion with his mare.
He was stroking her, inside her stall, letting her rub her head against his hip and whicker while he scratched the spot where neck met chest so that she closed her eyes and sighed, when he heard it again: "Niko? Niko?"
His hackles rose; he turned and leaned out over the stall's half-door, looking left, then right. A girl stood there, comely, young, yet her face in the darkened stable corridor was shadowed.
For an instant he thought that it must be the waif he'd run to ground when he first crossed the Nisibisi border, but then she called out, soft and low, "Oh, Niko, I'm so glad I found you," and ran toward him.
"Cybele? Cybele? But how? What?… Tempus said—" He vaulted over the stall's door.
"Hush, hush, my lord, Don't ask me any questions." Her arms were about him, her soft blond hair in his nose, and she wanted—so she said—to lie with him just one more time in fond embrace before she took her leave forever.
She wouldn't answer any questions; she kissed them from his lips. She made him promise not to say a word to anyone, especially not to Tempus, about this final tryst: "You must not say you've seen me. Your commander and I are enemies, he thinks, though some day he may reconsider. Now, promise me."
"I… I promise." He had her in his arms and all he could think of was the bed of straw that awaited in the hayloft.
* * *
Roxane flew north on eagle's wings; Niko slept soundly, far below and far behind her. It had been a risky move she'd made, for reasons barely understood, to take again the Cybele form and bed him one more time. But when Datan had gone to his reward, the string she'd latched onto that the archmage tied so long before was snapped like twine; her hold on the fighter war-named Stealth was broken.
But his on her, it seemed, had not been. To break it clean and start anew, she'd had first to face the fact that it was there; then face, straight-on, all she'd done and lost because she'd fallen in love with a petty mortal and not been wise enough to know it. If anything had won the day on Wizardwall and lost the war for magic, it had been her feelings for a youth who didn't even know her.
So she'd flown south, not north, to lie with him in carnal love and try to overcome her feelings. Failing that, she'd hoped to convince herself in some way that saving him was worth it.
But Niko was what Niko was—no more, no latent mage or superman; she left no quieter of heart than when she'd arrived. She had to leave. He loved Cybele, not Roxane. Too many forces worked against her here: the Cybele form was known, notorious; he had friends among the mageguild; the Riddler considered himself young Stealth's protector; and even Aškelon coveted the child's allegiance. She'd hoped to find out why, what the fuss was over this resoundingly mortal boy. She hadn't. Nor had she banished love with another dose of it, as she'd hoped. In his mind, which she'd so long inhabited, she could find naught to hate.
Below, the pastoral fires of evening lit; the purple sky ahea
d was glorious. In Mygdonia she'd settle, build a following, a power base, and wait for Shamshi to come home. She'd insinuate herself into the Mygdonian court: they were sore in need of mages, and she knew just how to do it.
But she couldn't outfly her regret, one she'd never thought she'd have: for once in a long and powerful life, Roxane wished that she were mortal, inconsequential, featherheaded and girlish with modest wants… in fact, she wished she could be Cybele. But live a life with Niko as a wench? Age? Lose his favor to others? And for what?
An eagle's cry rang out across the steppes, and echoed.
She banished all thought of Niko then, sent it out with her hunting call.
She would remember him fondly; have him later. She was, after all, Death's Queen: she was eternal: she was Roxane.
* * *
A week after coming down off Wizardwall, Tempus was still plagued with repercussions from his "victory."
War with Lacan Ajami's Mygdonian Alliance was now winnable; on this everyone, from Grillo to Bashir, agreed. On nothing else could Tempus reach a consensus: not on where the Stepsons would best be fielded next, or whether Successors or specials should continue to be integrated into his shock troops, nor even if Tyse was a suitable permanent base for his Sacred Banders, though a manifestation of Abarsis on bier day in the high peaks had convinced the fighters themselves of that.
The problems were political, and as far as politics were concerned, Tempus tended to agree with Critias: they'd be better off without them and those who acted selfishly, cloaked in this or that "political necessity."
His cadre would do what he ordered, and, finally disgusted with territorial wrangling from Grillo's camp and purportedly god-prompted advice from Bashir's, he ordered it to settle in and begin training up for an undisclosed venture.