earthdawn Anarya's Secret

by Tim Jones

"Trusts you with me, does she?"

  There was no obvious way of answering that question, so Ken-dik fell back on politeness.

  "May I ask where you're from?"

  "Little village between here and the Serpent. Name of Pust. Ever been there?"

  Never ask questions when you don't want to know the answers, thought Kendik. Should he lie?

  "I passed through it once," he said.

  The woman laughed. "Most people who pass through Pust don't care to repeat the experience. I certainly got out as soon as I could. The Name's Ormanaria, by the way."

  "Kendik," replied Kendik, unable to think of an alias at short notice.

  The woman looked him over again, until Kendik felt a blush spreading over his cheeks.

  "My, you're a fresh one, aren't you! You'd better watch your step, young man—I'm not the only woman in this town on the prowl for a man who still has all his working parts. Our lord and master has managed to get a good proportion of the eligible men killed or maimed in his wars and skirmishes. But the thing is, you look like you're used to better times and better fare than this. Hiding from something, are you, down among the workers?"

  I'm going to have to either kill or kidnap her if this goes on, thought Kendik, and neither would be easy. He looked over at Se-zhina, but she was deep in conversation with her neighbor. Playing for time, Kendik said "How do you think this thing with the t'skrang will play out, then?"

  Ormanaria screwed up her face. "Depends which side is more stubborn, or more stupid. One's thing for sure, us laborers will go onto short commons a long time before the likes of Tesek and his cronies have to ration what they put on their golden platters."

  Having recently seen the size of Tesek's stomach, Kendik was inclined to agree. "What happens now?" he asked.

  Ormanaria smiled wolfishly. "That depends on you!" she said.

  Maybe it was the food, maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was the unmistakable invitation that Ormanaria was giving him. But it had been a long time since Kendik had enjoyed the dubious favors of Marla the tavern girl in Bilim, and Anarya was neither present nor, as far as he knew, available. He leaned forward towards Or-manaria's expectant face and parted lips—took a moment to savor the tantalizing view down her partly-unlaced tunic—opened his mouth, moistening his lips a little as he did so—

  And a hand descended on his shoulder. "I think this has gone far enough," Sezhina said.

  "If you want him not to stray," said Ormanaria, "you should take better care of him."

  The pressure on Kendik's shoulder increased. "Oh, I'll take care of him all right. He'll be begging for mercy by the time I've finished with him."

  Ormanaria slumped in her seat, defeated for the present. "You just watch yourself," she told Kendik. "She'll use you up and spit you out, that one."

  As Sezhina drew him to his feet and led him outside the mess hall, Kendik was more confused than ever. Was Sezhina—did she—? He had no idea she thought of him in that way.

  He twisted and turned in her grip, but though Sezhina had now taken one hand off his shoulder, she was pushing him along with the other hand in the small of his back. "This way," she said when they got outside the mess hall. She led him around the corner of the wooden building, where there was a narrow alleyway between it and the inner wall of the palace. Then they crossed the gap between the mess hall and the wood that occupied the western end of the interior garden. It was very dark in there, and from somewhere not too far away, Kendik could hear a rhythmic moaning.

  In the faint light that filtered in from outside the wood, he saw her turn to face him. "Now," she said.

  Kendik's heart was pounding harder than ever. Did Sezhina mean what he thought she meant? He was scared even to touch her—though she no longer had her sword, he was sure that she could lop off protruding parts of his body with her bare hands if she chose to. This was definitely a case in which it was better to be safe than sorry.

  "Now what?" he said cautiously.

  "Now we break in to that palace and find out everything we can about the Wizard who calls himself Niatos."

  Relief and disappointment jostled for control of Kendik's limbic system, then panic rushed in to sweep them both aside.

  "What?" he said, in as loud a whisper as he could manage. "Are you mad? We delivered our message. We just need to find a way past those guards and get out of here."

  "This is the thanks I get for risking my own life to get you out of that dungeon?"

  "You didn't do it for me! You did it for Anarya. I don't even believe you're her sister. I think you fancy her."

  Even in the darkness, Kendik could see the faint flash of Se-zhina's smile. "And you don't?"

  "I never said that. But tell me, why do you want to get yourself killed?"

  "Because, when that t'skrang letter worked its magic on him, Niatos was revealed as Dinazhe, the chief priest of the cult that took my mother Isuassa from me. He passes himself off as a Wizard, but he is a Nethermancer as well, a dark and dangerous one. Anarya and myself are not the only survivors of Kaer Volost."

  "But he was the priest of a Horror cult! What is he doing as the chief adviser to the Lord of Borzim?"

  "What indeed? It may be that there is a greater danger to the inhabitants of Borzim than the t'skrang camped outside their gates. I cannot leave here without finding out more about him. I have long sworn to eliminate Horrors and their acolytes wherever I find them."

  "How can you be—" Kendik stopped, silenced by the finger that Sezhina put to his lips. Deeper into the wood, the rhythmic moaning climaxed in a crescendo of shrieks, then fell silent.

  "Perhaps that is how you would have preferred to spend the night?" Sezhina asked, whispering so quietly that Kendik could barely hear her. "I would not have objected to you going with that woman, except that we have work to do, and besides, you might have been caught by the guards. I am not so old that I have forgotten the fires of youth."

  Kendik thought to himself that Ormanaria's fires clearly hadn't gone out, and she was older than Sezhina if he was any judge. Despite, or because of, the turn the conversation had taken, Kendik's body was responding to Sezhina's closeness, though he hoped she was not able to tell that, here in the dark.

  "So how do you plan to go about breaking into the palace?"

  "By taking a fragment from your parchment, as they say. If we could escape from the palace by passing ourselves off as builders, we can return to it by passing ourselves off as cleaners."

  "Cleaners?"

  "While you were imagining yourself between that woman's thighs, I was finding out how things are done around here. Lord Tesek likes his palace to be tidy. Each night, cleaners come in from the town, pick up their mops and buckets, and set to work, so that when Tesek rises, his palace is spotless. They will arrive soon, and make their way to the storeroom where their equipment is held. All we have to do is join on to the tail of their little procession, act as they act, and find our way to the room we entered before. I cannot force you to join me, but I appeal to you, as one who seems to me honorable, to do your duty to the citizens of Borzim, and to all those you love, and play your part in defeating this evil."

  "So I can go once I've helped you?"

  "We will both leave then, if we can."

  Though he was scared, though he was desperate to return to Anarya, Kendik decided that he would not be able to live with himself if he did nothing to help Sezhina. So he waited with her while the minutes ticked by; while a couple, talking quietly to each other, made their way out of the woods and back towards one of the smaller huts; while nocturnal birds made their doleful calls among the trees, and the moon, hidden behind cloud, emerged briefly to dry-brush the scene with silver.

  After a few minutes, Sezhina led him along the eastern edge of the wood, keeping just inside the fringe of trees, until they stood in a little tongue of ornamental woodland which extended near to the path as it neared the entrance to the southern side of the palace. It was from this vantage that they saw the motley c
rew of cleaners walking towards them. The moon shone out again, and they saw that the cleaners were dressed in tunics and trousers no more distinctive than their own. Obligingly, the moon disappeared as the cleaners neared the tongue of woodland.

  "Now," said Sezhina for the second time that night, and they stepped out as the last of the group passed, and joined it without incident.

  It all went remarkably smoothly at first. No one questioned their presence. The only problem was that, when it came to handing out areas to clean, the ground floor was already taken.

  "No," said their forewoman to Sezhina and Kendik, "you don't get to do the easy parts. You can go and do the stairwells. And mind you don't leave a single spider web up in the corners. They're terrible things for leaving flies buzzing half the day. Lord Tesek doesn't like the noise, you see. Doesn't like the noise."

  "There must be plenty of spider webs in that Wizard's room, the one on the ground floor," said Kendik.

  "Ooh, you're brave. That place gives me the shivers," said one of the other cleaners. "I'd willingly do the stairwells if you do that room and the ones around it. But whatever you do, don't touch anything magic in there. He'll turn you into a toad if you do."

  The forewoman looked irritated, but she did not forbid the exchange of duties. "Well done," said Sezhina to him once the pair of them were alone. "But somebody's sure to remember you volunteering to clean that room."

  "It won't matter as long as we get out of here tonight," said Kendik.

  He had feared some magical protection on Dinazhe's door, but if such existed, an exemption had evidently been made for cleaners. The guards on duty stood outside to let them in without even looking at them, and despite the fear that was rising to engulf his heart, Kendik marveled a little at the way in which one could get away with almost any imposture so long as one had the right equipment and behaved in the appropriate manner.

  The guards closed the doors behind them, and they were alone in the haunt of the magician. Sezhina unshielded the light quartzes placed in brackets around the walls, and they began to search the room.

  But what were they searching for? "Anything unusual," Sezhina told him, but what wasn't unusual in the den of a Nethermancer? Kendik had heard that some Horrors could mark ordinary ob-jects—a coin, a shield, a mirror—so that one who gazed upon the marked object could be ensnared and corrupted. If he lifted that retort, would an eye open on its base? If he moved this parchment, would some ancient Horror form itself out of dust and quartz-light to claim his soul?

  Sezhina gasped. Kendik jerked round, dreading what he was about to see, and dislodged a pile of parchments, which slid to the floor.

  "Clumsy oaf!" said Sezhina.

  Clearly, her personality remained intact. "What have you found?" he asked.

  In answer, she held up a small sculpture carved out of green stone that glowed faintly in the quartz light. "This came from Kaer Volost," she said. "I have not, as I half feared, been dreaming or been poisoned. This is the lair of Dinazhe."

  She put the sculpture down and resumed her search. Kendik bent to retrieve the parchments, praying that none of them had been visibly damaged. Though many of them were clearly ancient, all had survived the fall. He was straightening to replace them on the table when the doors opened. Dinazhe stood there, bearing no mark of the terrible damage so recently inflicted on him. He looked at Sezhina and said "Again you return to me, Anarya."

  Chapter 17

  It was barely dawn. The river mist held Borzim and the plains beyond in its sway. Those few citizens who were abroad at this hour felt themselves to be alone in a universe of fog, in which all sounds were muffled, all vision limited to a few paces. Each time someone else loomed out of the mists, it took a few heart-in-mouth moments to determine whether this was another citizen going about his or her legitimate business, a footpad, or even worse, the vanguard of the invading t'skrang army, launching their assault on the town at last.

  Beyond the walls of Borzim, near the Opthia, the nerves of the t'skrang sentries were also on edge. Since the brief sortie by the Falcons had been repulsed, there had been no sign of movement from the town's defenders, but what if, even now, an assault force was sneaking silently through the mist, moving into prearranged positions around the encampment, preparing to strike? Each birdcall sounded like a signal to attack. Each guard, ork or t'skrang, stood wrapped in mist, looking forward to the time, not far off, when the rising sun would burn away the fog and reveal things as they truly were.

  Down the front steps of Lord Tesek's palace came a small group, well cloaked against the cold. After a brief exchange with the guard, they passed the front checkpoint and embarked on the long trek to the North Gate. Kendik Dezelek walked in their midst, his sword at his side.

  Though the group made no effort at concealment, Kendik and his black-clad escorts attracted little attention from the citizens, who knew well enough the consequences of impeding the business of Lord Tesek's finest in these troubled times. They strode through the town at a fast clip, and came to the gate. It was shut, but a sally port in its center could still be opened. The guards escorted Kendik to the sally port, opened it, and pushed him through. It slammed shut behind him, and he was on his own.

  He was very tired. He had neither slept nor eaten since the plate of stew he had shoveled down in the workers' mess. He was walking from one danger into another, and there was no telling which was the greater. But that was nothing new. He hoisted his white flag high above his head—the same white flag he and Sezhina had borne towards the town—hoping that it might be more visible than he was, and walked away from Borzim.

  The mist was still clinging to the plains, and Kendik had no wish to be spitted by an overzealous ork as he neared the encampment. He walked on slowly. The ground rose slightly, then fell away towards the river. There was no noise. No one saw him, and he saw no one.

  He came within a step of falling in the Opthia. He stared at the rushing water foolishly, wondering whether the t'skrang encampment had gone. Had they simply packed up and departed overnight?

  They had not. From his left, upstream, came a shrill piping, and the unmistakable sound of a large number of Name-givers groaning and complaining their way into a new day. He had overshot the mark, then. He began to walk upstream, and had not taken fifty steps before he was challenged by a pair of orks. Kendik was careful not to show any sign of aggression, and they let him through without molesting him once they were satisfied with who he was.

  He went straight to Vulumensthetika's tent. She was having breakfast with her advisers, including T'shifa. Vulumensthetika turned and rose when she saw him.

  "I said that you would return!" she told him. "But where is Sezhina?"

  Where indeed, thought Kendik. "She was detained," he said.

  "Detained?"

  "By the Wizard Niatos."

  "And you were not detained?"

  "I was, but I was let go, to bring a letter to you."

  "From Niatos, or from Tesek?"

  Remembering Vulumensthetika's conditions for the release of his companions, Kendik was tempted to say "Tesek"; but he was sure any deception would be found out. "It was from Niatos. I watched him write it."

  He had been standing not two feet from the magician at the time, paralyzed, unable to do anything but watch and listen. Somewhere behind him, Sezhina had strained against her bonds.

  "Do not trouble yourself unduly," said Vulumensthetika. "You have brought me a reply, and thus done as I asked. I will keep my word. But some caution is required when dealing with letters from Wizards. Hathilt!"

  The pale-skinned t'skrang Illusionist came forth from wherever he had been lurking, his large eyes blinking. Hathilt did not like the limelight, or any light for that matter.

  "Examine this carefully, and tell me whether it is safe for me to read. If it is in some obscure language known only to you magicians, then tell me what it says. Oh, and Hathilt!"

  "Yes?" The t'skrang paused in the act of opening a set of tongs v
ery similar to that used by Dinazhe.

  "Cast your magical eye over this one and tell me if there is a Wizard riding him."

  Hathilt stared at Kendik and made a complicated motion with his hands. Kendik felt himself sink into a stasis in which he neither had volition nor regretted its absence. Abruptly, he was released.

  "There is some shadow on him—his destiny, perhaps—but no Wizard is controlling his actions or listening to his thoughts. The letter itself is in the common tongue, and harmless."

  "Good. In that case, Kendik, come and eat some fish with me."

  "I would rather find my companions."

  "You will see them soon enough. Eat with me first."

  While Kendik chewed his way slowly through yet another fish, Vulumensthetika read the letter, raised and lowered her snout in a gesture that conveyed nothing to Kendik, then began to grill him about his mission. He was glad that Hathilt was not—at least visibly—testing the truth of his replies, for he left quite a lot out. Nevertheless, even to his own ears, his story was not one of resounding triumph.

  Not that Vulumensthetika seemed to mind. She chuckled appreciatively at the disguises they had adopted—builders, cleaners—and said that there was a place in her intelligence service if he wanted it. He politely declined. She listened closely to his description of the change that had come over Dinazhe when he touched the first letter.

  "Were you trying to kill him?" asked Kendik.

  "That was our first plan, yes. Eliminate Niatos, we thought, and Tesek's power would be greatly diminished."

  "And you chose me as the assassin?"

  "Akil chose you, actually. Do not look so shocked, young Ken-dik. If you choose to meddle in affairs of state, you cannot expect to emerge unscathed."

  Kendik opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again. He did not think it would do any good. And besides, was it not to find adventure that he had trained as a Swordmaster, and left his mother and his home village behind? Had he not resolved, with the ardor of youth, to make a Name for himself from the Serpent to the Sea? He had certainly found adventure, and, in this little region at least, his Name was becoming all too well known.