Mother of Lies

by Dave Duncan

  Orlad wondered if he was being mocked. “You will be coming with us?”

  “I’d like to, but it’s getting very late to start over the Edge. Every snow flurry will delay you. If you can’t make it in a thirty you won’t make it at all.”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing won.”

  “Spoken like a true Hero. Trouble is, I may not even have a thirty.”

  “Because you lied to Saltaja? You’re serious about the curse thing?”

  The seer stared at him with eyes as dark as his own. “It will take a thirty or longer for the news to reach Bergashamm, but as soon as Eldest LeAmber hears that I broke the compact, she will pronounce anathema on me. Then I die.”

  “Right away?”

  “Within a few days.”

  “You drop dead, just like that?” Orlad asked skeptically. Holy Weru was known to strike men with thunderbolts, but not on request.

  Dantio laughed oddly. “Dropping dead would be easy. You really don’t want to know the details.”

  “Heroes don’t shock easy.”

  “No? Well, then, it is known that when the Eldest pronounces anathema on a False Witness, the Goddess withdraws all the transgressor’s senses. I will be struck blind and deaf, unable to taste, smell, or feel anything. I will soon go mad, of course, locked up alone inside my skull. I will scream a lot, but I won’t hear my screams. I will thrash around and not know when I hurt myself. Eventually I will die of thirst, unable to know when to swallow.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “This penalty keeps us from abusing the Lady’s gifts to us. Absolute wisdom is absolute temptation.”

  “And you deliberately risked this punishment?”

  “I invited it. It is not a risk. It is certain execution.”

  Orlad decided he had to believe this. Holy Weru took his Heroes’ lives if they stayed in battleform too long at a time.

  “You will die for revenge?”

  “For justice, Orlando!” The eunuch’s face no longer seemed weak or effeminate, in fact his smile was as terrible as Weru’s. “For justice on all of them, the whole vile Hrag crew. For what they did to me and you and all of us and a million others. Given the same chance I had, would you find the price too high?”

  “No, but I would rather die in battle.”

  “Who wouldn’t? But families must hang together. If you will swear to kill me as soon as it happens, I will gladly come over Varakats Pass with you.” After a moment he said, “Well? Will you?”

  “Break your neck, you mean?” Orlad would certainly want someone to do that for him under those circumstances.

  “That will do nicely. Or just choke me. I won’t know the difference. Will you?”

  “Yes. I promise.”

  “Spoken like a true brother. Thank you.”

  Weird.

  The old man in the brass collar, the one they addressed as a packleader although he wore civilian clothes—he was obviously an oath-breaker. So was Orlad, of course, although his liege had broken faith with him first. They were all oath-breakers, even the mysterious Arbanerik. But old Guthlag did know some good stories. He joined the other Heroes amidships for a while and told them about the fall of Kosord and the coming of Stralg; and how Ingeld had been forced to marry Horold Hragson.

  Yes, talking with other Werists was easier, and his flank-mates were best of all. Waels was Tryfors born, so the next time they were close, Orlad asked if he’d ever heard of High Timber. He knew Waels well enough by now to guess from his smile that something interesting was coming. Cute, Benard had called that smile; Waels would kill him if he knew.

  “No, my lord. It doesn’t sound like a real name. But the seer said it was near the Wrogg. Not on it, he said. Riverfolk can go there. And it’s near Varakats Pass.”

  “So?”

  “Then it can’t be far away.” Waels pointed Iceward, to the conical peak peering between the trees, Mount Varakats. “We’ll come to Milk pretty soon, the first village down from Tryfors, where the river splits between lots of islands. The mouth of the Milky River is there. The Milky is a major tributary of the Wrogg—good hiding for boats! I’d guess that High Timber is a short way up the Milky.”

  “Well done!”

  Waels looked pleased at the praise. “Your brother the seer has been holding out on you, my lord.” His smile was even cuter when he explained what he meant by that.

  Sure enough, although the sun was still well above the hills, when Free Spirit entered the maze of brush-covered islands, the riverfolk steered into a minor channel and, after some argument, tied up to the island of their choice.

  “Not like I’m trying to give anyone orders, flankleader,” Guthlag said, “but boats have been known to untie knots in the night.” He leered long yellow teeth.

  “Appreciate the warning, packleader,” Orlad said. “Hear that, Jungr? The boat stays here. You and Narg take first watch.”

  The rest of the passengers were jumping ashore, glad to stretch their legs. Orlad put Namberson in charge, telling him to see the palls spread on bushes to dry. Then he went exploring, as a leader should. The islands were less secure than they looked, for an agile man could wade, swim, or sometimes jump from one to another, and all of them were wooded more or less heavily with spindly trees and high shrubbery. Those would make good cover, but the ground was thick with twigs and dead leaves, so nobody should manage to sneak up on anyone in the night.

  He found himself a small, sunny glade, where he could stretch out and do some serious thinking. Or perhaps he just needed to be alone, after his tumultuous day. He clasped his hands under his head and stared up at a cloudless sky through a weave of canes and bare branches. The girl had tried to lecture him about duty. Duty to whom? To what? He certainly owed no allegiance to a bloodlord whose deputy had tried to murder him. Nor any to Arbanerik. Did he owe anything to a father who had given him away? His oath was to Weru, of course, but he owed his life to his followers, his flank, and he certainly couldn’t lead them over the Edge to be mistaken for Stralg men and slain in the upcoming massacre. If Cavotti eventually chased Stralg back into Vigaelia, then Orlad would be the odd one out on this side, liable to be killed on sight. Under Cavotti or Arbanerik, he would be just one more front-fang Werist. As the doge’s son, he would be unique. He certainly couldn’t let the eunuch outdo him in raw courage or the girl in duty. It was confusing.

  A shift in the wind brought him a whiff of bungweed, and that provoked a rush of unhappy memory. As the only Florengian child around Nardalborg, he had always been appointed the Mutineer, so all the rest of the boys could be Stralg’s Heroes, who would then hunt him down and beat him up. Bungweed grew in the moorland bogs where the best hiding places were, so its scent whispered of long hours of shivering in concealment, waiting for the inevitable ordeal to follow. He had taught them to do their hunting in groups, though. He had become very good at ambushing the strays.

  Lost in reminiscence, he started when he heard footsteps rustling, then realized they must belong to a Werist. An extrinsic would make ten times as much noise. In a moment the celebrated Waels smile appeared above him, more diffident than usual.

  “Am I intruding, lord?”

  Orlad said, “No.” He wasn’t, surprisingly. “Sit down and talk, Hero.”

  Waels dropped, folding his legs on the way down. Orlad smiled—smiling was something he had to remember to do, not something that just happened. After that he was content just to contemplate the sky again.

  Eventually Waels grew fidgety. “Talk about what, lord?”

  “Anything. The battle? You were great! Or explain people to me. Yesterday I discovered I had family. Today I found friends, too. I’ve never had either before. Don’t know how to handle them.”

  “You’ve been doing amazingly well … if you don’t mind my saying so?”

  “Have I? Life is complicated, suddenly.” Why, for instance, was he pleased to have Waels as company?

  “Um …” In another rustle of leaves, Waels stretche
d out beside him and leaned on an elbow. “It could be even more complicated.” His eyes were bluer than the sky behind him.

  “How?”

  “Suppose you had a lover, too?”

  That should have been a surprise, but it wasn’t. Waels wasn’t blushing or smirking, and Orlad was certain he wasn’t, either. He remembered their intimate, face-to-face confrontation on King’s Grass. His own reaction had puzzled him. He considered his memories of Musky, last night, which felt like a lifetime ago now. This was not that. Similar—some of the reactions were the same—but more complicated.

  “I know even less about love. Nothing at all.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Waels touched a finger to Orlad’s collar and studied it as if he had never seen one before. “Remember the morning you chose me as your buddy? That was the happiest moment I’d known since my brother died.”

  “You had a brother? What happened to him?”

  “Died in cadet training. He was a spare. I’d been watching you all through the testing, admiring you, and when you appointed me your buddy, I knew that you wouldn’t let them do that to me. I almost wept, my lord.”

  Orlad mumbled, “Understandable.” Never forgivable, though.

  The smile that Benard admired flashed again, spoiled by the scarlet birthmark. “I’ve known ever since then … Orlad?”

  Smile. “Waels.”

  After a while Orlad smiled again, this time without meaning to. “This morning, up on King’s Grass—I have never been so glad to see anyone as I was when I found myself looking down at you.” Lying on top of him, in fact. “I’d so nearly torn your gullet out! Glad I didn’t.”

  “Me too.” Another pause. “Just wanted you to know.” The blue eyes held challenge. “How I feel about you, I mean. Sorry if I offend … Orlad.”

  “No,” Orlad said. “You don’t offend me, Waels. Not at all.” He caught hold of Waels’s collar and yanked him close. “How does one begin?”

  Big smile. “Like this, I think …”

  FABIA CELEBRE

  and her companions had camped on one of the Milk Islands on their way upriver. This one was more wooded, but the trees concealed a level, secluded campsite with a well of sweet water and a fire pit surrounded by tree-trunk benches. Luxury! She and Horth found a sunlit bench where they could sit while the riverfolk pitched tents, and were soon joined by Ingeld, Benard, and Guthlag. Later she saw Dantio playing slave, barefoot and stripped down to breeches, spreading the Werists’ palls over bushes to dry. She persuaded him to come and sit beside her to tell the others what he had told her about the day Celebre fell, fifteen years ago.

  “You are the only one of us who remembers it,” she said.

  “And I would happily forget.”

  Four Heroes gathered around and sprawled on the grass to listen, still wearing riverfolk castoffs, so that only their stubbled heads and the glint of sunlight on their collars showed their allegiance.

  It was not a happy story. “Mama carried you into the farmhouse,” Dantio finished. “That’s the last I saw of you for years.”

  “What happened to her after that?”

  “I don’t know. We cannot see what happens beyond the Edge. I heard extrinsic reports that she was still alive earlier this year, caring for Father.”

  Fabia knew more than he did, then, but she was not going to admit that she had been shown a vision of her infant self being given to the wet nurse and her mother being abused by the bloodlord.

  “I remember the parting,” Benard said. “I remember screaming my head off, but almost nothing after that until I was living in Kosord.”

  Dantio described the harrowing journey over the Edge, and how the brothers had been forcibly separated. The Witness would have been a very handsome man, Fabia decided. Cropped ears and ragged haircut ruined his overall looks, of course, and she could see white whip scars on his back. But his face was lean and intense, shrewd-looking and refined by suffering.

  Every now and again his attention would wander for a few moments. “Just riverfolk,” he explained the second time it happened. “They like to overnight in these islands.”

  The biggest Werist growled, “You’ll tell us if any Heroes arrive?”

  “None so far, but I saw two boats of them going by a while ago, heading upstream. Their palls were purple and red, with either green or red flank stripes.”

  “Purple means Horold!” Ingeld said.

  “’Fraid so. And red means Wrogg Hunt, which has all his best men. I doubt they’re on their way to Florengia.”

  “Then he’s close behind them!”

  “Not necessarily so, my lady,” old Guthlag said. “He never goes any nearer Saltaja than he must. He’s sent his best man after you, Huntleader Loki Nargson. The satrap himself will have stayed home in Kosord to go duck hunting.”

  Ingeld looked unconvinced. Ducks would be safe from Horold until he had hunted down his wife.

  A couple of the Werists sprang to their feet. “Must tell Orlad!”

  Dantio squeaked “No!” in his treble, but so vehemently that they obeyed him. “They’re gone upstream. They’re no threat to us. Orlad’s resting right now. We can call him if he’s needed. His whole world has turned upside down, my lords. You went hunting at King’s Grass. He was the prey! He needs some time to, um, make plans.”

  The two sat down again. “Can’t hear anyone getting murdered, anyway,” muttered the one they called Namberson. Fabia noticed fleeting grins and wondered what was funny.

  “There was no huntleader in the boats I saw,” Dantio said, “nor even a packleader, so that likely means there are more of them on the way. They may be days away, though. Some boats are faster than others; convoys get separated. And there are lots of islands here.”

  Fabia knew that most riverfolk would have made camp by now, so the chances of Horold arriving were fading. The sky was a blaze of red as the sun sank behind the wall of the world. Whatever its faults, Tryfors did have spectacular sunsets.

  “Do you really know everything?” she asked.

  “Within my range. The Wisdom knows everything, but it’s back in the Ivory Cloisters.”

  “Tell us why Saltaja was so certain you were dead.”

  Dantio looked away. “It hurts to talk about it.”

  The riverfolk were laying out the evening meal on the ground near the fire. The four Werists had begun showing interest. They would certainly insist on being served first.

  Then Dantio said “O-oh! We have company!” and instantly had everyone’s attention. “Three boats … more … They’re going to make camp.”

  “Orlad!” The Werists all jumped up.

  “Orlad’s on his way back here,” Dantio said. “There’s no danger at the moment. They’re three bowshots downstream. I can’t make out much detail.”

  “How many of them?” Snerfrik asked.

  “A full hunt, maybe. Packleaders …” Dantio looked at Ingeld.

  She sighed. “And Horold.”

  He nodded.

  “How many in a full hunt?” Fabia asked, certain she would not like the answer.

  Many voices told her, “Four sixty.”

  The odds were impossible. The sailors had noticed the alarm and were watching. Two more Werists emerged from the shrubbery—one fair, one dark. They, too, saw that there was something amiss. They came at a run. Everyone started telling Orlad about the danger.

  “We should leave?” he asked his brother.

  Surprisingly, Dantio laughed. “Leave? Leave? What sort of wimpy talk is that? I thought you brave fellows enjoyed a good fight?”

  Fabia winced, half-expecting to see her eldest brother massacred by the youngest, and some of the Werists growled angrily at the slave’s mockery. Orlad did not, although he did not join in Dantio’s laughter. “So it’s true. You’ve been holding out on us! You sent word to Arbanerik already?”

  “Oh, well done, Little Brother! Did you work that out or did Hero Waels?” Dantio’s grin flickered back and forth between th
e two Werists. “Mmm, thought so. Good man to have around, yes?”

  Orlad scowled menacingly. “Get on with the story!”

  Fabia wondered what was being hinted here. Seers could not read thoughts, only emotions, but if Orlad and Waels had been plotting something together, Dantio probably knew what.

  “Yes, lord. High Timber is a couple of menzils up the Milky. When we camped in these islands three nights ago, Saltaja sent runners to Tryfors, but I swam across to Milk and spoke with New Dawn’s agent there. So, yes, a tablet was baked that night to be sent upriver in the morning.”

  “Telling Arbanerik he could catch Saltaja if he attacked Tryfors?”

  “Well done!” Dantio repeated. “He would have known she was coming, of course, because some of the men she lost on her journey passed through Milk a few days earlier. He should be ready by now. You’ve got the same idea I have. I don’t know his plans, but my hope is that he moved his army into position yesterday. The battle may have started already.”

  “Not likely,” Orlad said.

  “Why not?” For once the Witness was surprised.

  It was Orlad’s turn to smirk. “Because nothing’s happening here yet. Even a Werist host cannot just leap into battle on a moment’s notice. It needs time to gather rations, make plans, issue orders. And think tactics! Arbanerik will certainly send a force down the Milky, to seize these islands and block off any escape by either Saltaja or Therek. There can’t be many places where Werists can close off the Wrogg. Also, if he has enough men, he’ll try to seize Nardalborg at the same time, and close that way out. So right now he’s either still on the move or he’s resting his men before hitting Tryfors, and perhaps Nardalborg, tonight.” He turned his hard, dark stare on Waels. “But how many will he send here, you suppose? A full hunt? More?”

  Waels murmured, “Depends how many men he thinks he can spare, lord.”

  “Can you see them, Witness?”

  Dantio said, “No. But some of Horold’s men went upriver earlier. If they discover trouble in Tryfors, they’ll turn tail and come back to warn him. We certainly don’t want him to escape back to Kosord, and we don’t want him hitting Arbanerik from the rear.”