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earthdawn Anarya's Secret

Page 17

by Tim Jones


  Vulumensthetika was talking again, asking about Niatos' final words.

  "He left with Sezhina, you say? And they appeared to know each other?"

  "Yes."

  "But they were not friends?"

  "Indeed not." How bitterly she had accused him ...

  "And Niatos, or Dinazhe as he is also called, said that he was leaving Borzim?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you believe him?"

  "I saw him go." Dinazhe had gestured, and a portal had opened. With another gesture, he had released Sezhina from the ropes that bound her, and she had marched, no more free than a puppet, across the room towards the portal. Something had reached out for her—something tentacled. For a moment, Kendik had felt its malice, its hunger. The thing had seized her, Dinazhe had followed, and the portal had closed. No sooner had the Nethermancer departed than the Falcons came to escort Kendik back to the North Gate, the letter to Vulumensthetika in his hand. It seemed to him that he spent his life doing the bidding of those more subtle, more powerful, and more well informed than himself.

  "You do not know where he went?"

  "No." He had a theory, but not one he preferred to share with Vulumensthetika. "May I see the letter he sent you?" asked Kendik suddenly.

  "Sometimes you presume too much!" said Vulumensthetika sternly. "I will tell you what you need to know."

  "He told me that he would make a new proposal to you."

  "And he has. Lord Tesek would be angry, if he knew."

  "Does this new proposal contain a way to avert war?"

  "It does."

  "Then I hope it succeeds. The people of Borzim should not be made to suffer for the foolishness of their leader."

  "Yes," said Vulumensthetika. "Neither do t'skrang enjoy being pent up on land when a river is flowing nearby; and an inactive ork is an expensive ork. It is well to avoid wars, especially long ones."

  After a little more fish had slipped down his protesting gullet, Kendik was allowed to leave to find his comrades and get some rest. Kendik squared his shoulders. The conversation with Anarya was not going to be easy.

  His companions had been given separate tents, which made it a little easier. He saw Qualia emerging from the mess tent, bearing two plates of food. She was delighted to see him.

  "You made it back! I thought it might be weeks before we saw you. Does this mean we can leave?"

  "I guess so. Vulumensthetika doesn't seem inclined to stop us, anyway."

  "But where's Sezhina?"

  It was the question he was forced to answer by each of them— by each, that is, except Atlan, who, though he seemed a little more alert than previously, was not yet up to asking complex questions.

  It was not so hard to tell Qualia, and Viknis when he woke up (he was still keeping musicians' hours), that Sezhina had been taken away by the Wizard Niatos. He left Anarya till last, partly because he was not sure what to tell her, partly because he no longer knew how to feel about her. Who was she, really?"

  He found her in her tent, brushing her hair. She turned and smiled at him.

  "I knew you would come back! Where is my aunt?"

  So she was sticking to the story Sezhina had concocted. Perhaps she genuinely believed it.

  "She was taken by the Wizard who is the power behind the throne. He said that he was taking her where they could both turn back the clock."

  "What is the Name of this Wizard?"

  Kendik paused, considering. In the end, he decided on the truth. "He calls himself Niatos, but we discovered that his real Name is Dinazhe."

  "Dinazhe! My protector! But how did he appear?"

  "As Niatos, he was a vigorous man of middle years. As Dinazhe, he appeared very old. Old almost unto death."

  "But he was young when I last saw him! No older than my father, in any case. What could have happened to him, to make him grow so old—and to turn him into a supporter of that hideous man, Lord Tesek?" She got up and began to pace the confines of her tent. "I must go to him! You must accompany me!"

  "What would that achieve?"

  "I would plead for the life of my aunt!"

  But she's not your aunt, Kendik wanted to say. She's you.

  He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn't come out. His task had seemed clear to him as he walked back to the t'skrang encampment. He must challenge her with the truth, even if she refused to accept it, even if it broke whatever bond there was between them. But now, looking at her, tall and slim, tears starting at the corner of her eyes, he could not bring himself to do it. Cursing himself for a fool, he forced a wan smile and said "Whatever Di-nazhe was to you, he is not that man any longer. He will not listen to your pleas."

  "But he let you go."

  "Only to bear a message. That is all I am to the powers of this world, a messenger boy."

  Anarya turned away from him, bent down, and stood up brandishing her sword. She held it, tip upwards, between them. Kendik drew his sword and placed its tip against hers.

  "We are no messengers," said Anarya. "we are Swordmasters. We carve our way through the world, and we do not allow others to stand in our path." Then she lowered her sword and smiled at him. "And besides ..."—she moved closer and put her arms around him—"... you told me something, while we were scrambling through the tunnels beneath Borzim, that I never had the chance to answer. I am going to give you my answer now."

  She drew her arms away from him and began to unfasten her tunic.

  Kendik's stomach lurched. All the arguments he could muster against this moment—the time, the place, the fact that the woman before him was, it appeared, the result of some bizarre magic, and that her other half, her older self, was now being held captive by the originator of that magic—flashed through his mind, mouthed their objections, and were thrust aside. All Kendik was conscious of now was Anarya's breasts as her nipples rose to meet his hands, her mouth as he kissed it, his clothes as she removed them, the softness of the furs to which she drew him, and the pounding of his blood as it sang through his veins. She drew him down to her, and then the only conversation took place between their bodies.

  He slept a little, and when he woke, Anarya was asleep beside him. He looked at her, and saw, not the creamy beauty of her flesh, but Sezhina. She was cursing Dinazhe as he drove long, sharp iron pins into her body. The pins were slender, and Dinazhe did not push them in very far, but the Nethermancer knew where to place them to cause Sezhina excruciating pain. She went from cursing to crying out, and from crying out to sobbing, and then, at last, she pulled herself upright, face drawn, and told Dinazhe what he wanted to hear: that she was not Sezhina, a loyal member of Tesek's guards; that instead she was Anarya Chezarin, his ward, browned by many years lived under the sun. "The real Anarya Chezarin," she added, "with real memories."

  Dinazhe had removed the needles then—a process that caused Sezhina almost as much pain as their insertion—and turned towards Kendik. He had hefted the needles in his hand, looked at Kendik thoughtfully, then smiled and slipped the needles into the pocket of his robe. "Later, perhaps," he had said, and turned to resume his conversation with Sezhina. I will kill you, Nethermancer, Kendik had thought as he stood there, securely bound, powerless to intervene. I will kill you ...

  It was T'shifa who woke him. She stood in the flap of the tent and coughed her dry cough until he emerged from his post-coital slumber. He scrambled to his feet in confusion, then dropped to his knees again, horribly aware that he was defenseless both from her gaze and from any weapon she might bring to bear against him.

  "Do not concern yourself with modesty," she said. "The sexual organs of humans are of no interest to me."

  "That's good," said Kendik weakly.

  "Vulumensthetika would like to talk with you and your fellow hostages," said T'shifa.

  "Hostages?"

  "Guests, then. It amounts to the same thing. Your partner is washing herself. Do likewise, and meet me in Vulumensthetika's tent."

  Clearly news—or noise—traveled fast in the cam
p. As he entered Vulumensthetika's tent, Viknis elbowed him in the ribs, and Qualia raised a playful eyebrow. Anarya, already seated near Vulumen-sthetika, made a space for him and patted the ground. Feeling mingled embarrassment and pride, he joined her.

  The tent was crowded with the usual mob of advisers and hangers on, but Vulumensthetika addressed her words specifically to the humans. "Though one of your number has been unable to return, Kendik has fulfilled the mission we required of him," she said. "I am one who keeps her word, and therefore, you are free to leave our encampment and go where you will. Before you do, I will give you tokens of my protection, which will hold within all lands controlled by the Ishkarat, so long as you do not enter those places which are forbidden to any save the aropagoi. If you wish to enter my service, then you are welcome to do so."

  Qualia stood up. "We'll take a little time to think about it, if it's all the same to you."

  "Very well," said Vulumensthetika, and Qualia, Viknis, and Atlan left the tent.

  "What I have to say next is for the ears of Kendik only," Vulumensthetika told Anarya. Reluctantly, she left to join the others.

  "Walk with me," said Vulumensthetika. They left the tent, T'shifa a few steps behind. The mist had well and truly burned off in the sunlight, and the chill was now almost gone from the air. Birds and the river trilled and chuckled to each other. It was a beautiful day to be walking with a powerful t'skrang along the well-trodden lanes of the encampment.

  "In his letter," said Vulumensthetika, "Niatos makes a proposal. It is one I find congenial, on the whole, though I wonder at his motives in making it."

  "And what is this proposal?" asked Kendik, deciding to play his part in this little drama.

  "That Tesek be overthrown, and a new ruler installed in his place. That Niatos withdraw from the town for the present—as he has already done, by your account—but that he be allowed to return in due course, with the consent of the new ruler. That the new ruler be someone who is acceptable to all sides, and who will also prove acceptable to the people of the town. That he agree to accept wise counsel from all sides, and that, upon his ascension to office and the adoption of certain policies and treaties of mutual benefit, the t'skrang army withdraw from the field, and the town return to a peacetime footing."

  "It all sounds wonderful," said Kendik. "But who might this new leader be, and how is the overthrow of Tesek going to be accomplished?"

  "As for the second," said Vulumensthetika, "Niatos hints that this may already be in train. As for the first"—and here she turned to face him—"surely you have already worked out the answer to that?"

  Chapter 18

  At the front of Lord Tesek's palace, jutting out from the top floor, was a balcony which gave an unequaled view of the town and the lands to the north. Though Tesek preferred, for security reasons, to maintain his quarters at the back of the palace, he found himself drawn to this balcony, which was accessed through the office of an unassuming clerk.

  Here Tesek would stand, look out over leagues of air and land, and chew his fingernails. It was a maddening affliction that he had suffered from since childhood. His father, a petty tyrant and aspiring merchant, was determined that Tesek should grow up strong and tough, and worked towards this goal by imposing a punishing regime of physical and mental exercise on the boy, while denying him any affection whatsoever.

  The success of this strategy was shown by the dedicated manner in which Tesek, upon leaving the family home, accumulated enough funds and influence to have his father killed at the earliest opportunity. But the exercise regime did not really take. His nightly entanglements with a range of courtesans and young women of good family, selected by his indefatigable assistants, provided all the exercise Tesek considered necessary.

  As a young man of little imagination, Tesek had settled on crime as the best way to accumulate enough money to purchase the death of his father. (It also purchased, until her untimely death, the comfort and the silence of his mother.) Borzim, the riverside village in which he had been born, was a lively, brawling sort of place where road and river intersected, a place through which goods both licit and illicit needed to be moved. A childhood attempting to stay beyond the reach of his father's hand and the lash of his father's belt had made Tesek a shrewd but jaundiced judge of human nature. He found his level among petty thieves and ruffians, the purveyors of worthless cures to non-existent diseases, the vendors of magical items of no discernible power.

  Though he was not a fit man, he was a big man, and that helped. He put people who needed packages moved in touch with people who could move them, and took a good cut of the proceeds. He acquired helpers, a motley crew of Name-givers who provided protection and transport services in exchange for a somewhat smaller cut. Having succeeded in the assassination of his father, he learned that one or two murders a year, discreetly advertised, could by themselves make a man formidable.

  One day, he paused in the middle of his affairs, looked around, and realized that Borzim was growing. There was money to be made here, and true to form, Name-givers were coming to town to make it. They didn't just need quack cures, drugs, and hot pots that didn't heat; they needed housing, food, and water. Businesspeople of impeccable respectability—the widow Medzhina, for example— had come to Borzim to help provide them. A little investigation convinced Tesek that he could make just as much money in these fields of endeavor; and, in truth, he had grown weary of crime. He moved into legitimate business, but made sure that it was the most able of his lieutenants who filled the vacancy his change of career had created.

  Over the course of the next few years, he transformed himself from a man who lurked in the shadows to a man who went about in the light. He did not feel entirely comfortable with either the scrutiny or the exposure to danger that resulted, and thus gathered around him an elite team of bodyguards that would, after he came to power, be formalized into the Falcons. But he prospered nevertheless, and the town prospered with him.

  There came a time when the people grew tired of making their own decisions, and set lords to rule over them. Nikranth was a weakling who lasted barely six months. His successor, Invar, though possessed of a strong arm and a loud voice, was also possessed of a fatal belief in his own invulnerability. It was the work of a night for Tesek to overthrow him and seize the throne.

  Decisions were needed. Public works—for example, a network of tunnels, and a wall that would encompass the town and plenty of land around it for future expansion—were required. Tesek made the decisions and came up with the cash to pay for them. As long as the cash was found, few scrupled to ask how he obtained it.

  He discovered that he had become something of a hero to his people, and that, if he went among them and spoke with them, they would cheer him and shout his Name. It was a sound inexpressibly sweet to his ears, a sound that, all too briefly, blotted out other, longer-remembered sounds: the anger in his father's voice, the slap of a descending hand, and his own desolate sobbing in a childhood bed.

  Tesek would have paid no attention to the widow Medzhina, save that Medzhina had a brother. This brother, who came to Borzim from time to time to visit his sister, petitioned for an appointment with Tesek. Tesek had reached the stage where he could approve or reject such requests as it pleased him, but a few enquiries by his spies revealed that the man was rumored to be a Wizard.

  Tesek did not believe in magic. Oh, he believed in its existence: the reality of magic was all around him, running through the earth, embodied in the water, coursing through the air. But he would have preferred a world where there was no such thing as magic, where things were only ever as they appeared. In such a world, power would be the only reality; and he had power.

  Yet Tesek was a realist. Magic existed, and therefore, those who controlled it and channeled it were a threat to his power. He granted Medzhina's brother an audience.

  The brother was a man of middle years, tall, gaunt, and balding. He came straight to the point.

  "I wish to offer myself as your
adviser," he said.

  "Adviser? What makes you think I need an adviser? I have too many already, always getting in my ears with their petty schemes."

  The Wizard—Dinazhe, he called himself—smiled indulgently. "I am sure you do. My advice would be of a different sort."

  "Advice about magic?"

  "Yes, and its practice too."

  "I need no magician."

  "You have needed no magician yet, because you have been weak, and your town has been weak, and those who have true power have not troubled themselves about your ambitions. But, from my tower, I see you grow stronger. Others are attracted by strength. Name-givers, and other things."

  Tesek's hands went to his throat, where a gold medallion of office he himself had designed hung comfortingly. "You mean ... Horrors?"

  Dinazhe nodded. "They seek out power, power of all sorts."

  "What would you have me do?"

  "Take me on as your magical adviser."

  "I do not know you well enough for that."

  The Wizard shrugged. "Very well, then. Wait until you know me better. In the meantime, take these." He withdrew two blue stones from a fold in his tunic and placed them on the edge of Tesek's desk. "When you are hard pressed, squeeze these together. They will aid you."

  "How?"

  "As circumstances dictate. Good day to you, my Lord Tesek."

  'Lord' sounded so well in front of his name that Tesek found himself willing to forgive the man's rudeness in walking out on him. He ordered a guard to pick up the stones. Nothing fatal happened, so Tesek took the stones himself and rubbed them together. Again, nothing happened.

  He put them in his pocket, and over time, they became part of his routine for facing the day. Medallion of office around neck-check. Stones in pocket—check. He still bit his nails, but less often, because he had the stones and the medallion to finger. He slept with them under his pillow.

  He never learned who had sent the assassin. She burst into his chamber at night, having killed half a dozen guards to get there, and tripped over the guard she had not accounted for: the mastiff who slept inside his door. The noise, and the single knife thrust that dispatched the dog, gave Tesek just enough time to find the blue stones and squeeze them together in his hand. The assassin approached him, bloody knife upraised. Tesek squeezed harder. The air in the chamber split in two behind the assassin, and—some-thing—reached out, seized her, and vanished through whatever gate it had opened. With her last motion, the assassin threw her knife. It brushed Tesek's ear and quivered to rest in his pillow.

 

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