Mother of Lies

by Dave Duncan

  “About a thirty. At least it’s out of the dust.”

  They were in the Cave, a labyrinth under a mountain of rock slabs. Orlad had lived in there while helping to build the bridge at Fist’s Leap, a short distance along the trail.

  Fabia yawned. They all yawned a lot now. “How far to the Edge from here? In real distance.”

  “Less than a menzil.”

  “And that will take us five days?”

  Orlad rolled up his blankets. “Heth always allows five days. It takes as long as you need. No more shelters. The Cave will seem like a palace.”

  “Wait until you get to the Edge!” Waels said. “There’s a great marble gate with stone lions. And hot baths. The wine shop—”

  “You talk too much. Heroes should be strong and silent.”

  “My lord is kind.” Waels did not sound very repentant. “And this is the day we have been waiting for. Click! The trap is sprung.”

  “No!” Pathfinder Hermesk tried to yell and managed only a feeble wheeze. “You mustn’t! Mass murder. Travelers do not do such things to one another.”

  At first the Celebre team had traveled by forced marches, bypassing some shelters to gain ground on Saltaja. The Pathfinder had started strong, but slowed as they grew closer to the Edge, his aging lungs laboring and wheezing. The dust of the last two days had been especially hard on him. Fabia could not have kept up any better with the two Heroes if she had worn a brass collar herself. Dantio, the weakest of the five, had done well until he sprained an ankle just before Mountain of Skulls. The team had waited there, giving him as long as possible to heal and keeping watch for pursuit, but since then they had barely managed to stay ahead of the Vigaelians. Most mornings they saw flames from the burning shelter they had left the previous day.

  “We warned you what we were going to do when we began,” Orlad said impatiently. “And now we have no choice. The wolves will catch us if we don’t stop them.”

  “I agree that Saltaja must die,” the Pathfinder whispered. “But how can you be certain she is there?”

  “She is there!” Fabia took over the argument. “Who else would be burning the shelters? Werists wouldn’t. They hope to go home one day.”

  “But all those innocent men with her?”

  “We decided this back at First Ice, when we could still think straight.”

  Orlad could barely make out his sister’s face in the gloom of the Cave, but her voice carried absolute conviction. It was she who had persuaded them that to try blocking the trail back then would be futile. The construction at First Ice would be too easily repaired and to interfere with it would just bring a troop of warbeasts after them. Fist’s Leap, as Orlad had admitted when she cross-examined him, could be made completely impassable, and by then Saltaja would have closed off her own retreat. Fabia’s arguments had carried the day then and she repeated them now.

  “Saltaja and her foul brood have been a blight on the world for almost thirty years. This is the first real chance anyone has ever had to remove her. How many sixty-sixty more people will she slay in future? Will you have their deaths on your conscience?”

  Orlad had hung back at Mountain of Skulls to watch the pursuit arriving, and his opinion was that it included the whole of Caravan Six. That meant four sixty men would die with the Queen of Shadows. More fool them for supporting the bloodlord. He finished lacing his pack and shivered. “Time to go,” he said. “Don’t be late.”

  He squeezed through the gap into the vestibule, past the high pile of bales of pemmican, and so out of the Cave. Into the wind. The sun was behind him, shining on the cone of Mount Varakats straight ahead, above a featureless gray landscape. Five days to the Edge, and then he would no longer have to stare at that mountain. That was the first sign that you had reached the other face, they said—Varakats disappeared. And the Veils of Anziel danced above you almost close enough to touch.

  The Cave itself offered nothing flammable, not a joist or beam, but the cache there was the last food on the Face. Here travelers must load up with all they could carry and make a dash for the Edge. This supply was critical. As soon as all his companions were out of the Cave, Orlad spilled oil on the pemmican mountain and added a glowing ember. The wind caught the flames; he backed away quickly. Pemmican was dried meat and lard. Even here it burned. Oh, yes, it burned!

  “Warmth at last!” Fabia said. “Where is the bathtub?”

  Orlad hoisted his pack. He was bent almost double by it, for today it included a jar of oil as well as his bedroll and two sixdays’ food. “Don’t linger. When they see the smoke, they’ll be after us like hungry catbears.”

  Hermesk was still grumbling that breaking bridges was an offense against holy Hrada, but the real trap was this bonfire. Without that food the caravan would have no hope of reaching the shelters on the Florengian side. If all went well, the Celebres would find those that had been provisioned from Veritano. First they must close the Leap and escape before the doomed men behind them arrived and took their revenge. No one had mentioned cannibalism yet, but that was part of the Stralg legend.

  “Fabia, bring up the rear,” Orlad said. That meant, Look after Dantio. “Waels and I will go and get started.”

  As the two Werists plodded off along the trail, Waels said, “Where does all this dust come from?”

  “No idea.”

  Dust lay everywhere near the Edge, a curse and a torment. It burned the eyes and throat, it seeped into everything, stuck to everything. Whatever ice or snow there was lay hidden under dust. The landscape was a monotone gray, like a vast ash bed. Heaps and hollows hinted at boulders beneath, but the bedrock had been rounded and smoothed by the creep of infinite time. The sun was barely above the horizon, deadly bright in a sky whose blue was almost black, speckled with stars. Always the wind blew over this desert. It swirled dust along the ground, it lifted dust in choking clouds, and it even seemed to power the Dust River. In time it would bury the road too, but at the moment there was no need for signposts—the passage of many hordes had trampled a wide track through the maze.

  “Tell me again,” Waels told his feet, because he was doubled over as much as Orlad was, “why closing the trail here is better than at Mountain of Skulls.”

  Orlad paused to catch his breath. He could have carried a load like this all day at Nardalborg. Here he could manage only a few steps at a time. It was like walking in snow with only half a lung.

  No need to waste breath repeating the story of the Leap for Waels. It was part of the legend of the first crossing. Stralg’s horde had arrived at the Dust River and tried to wade it, only to discover that the Dust River was quicksand. The dust was as slippery as oil. Men fell, and then it filled their clothes and nostrils and pulled them down.

  So the horde had searched out the narrowest place and tried to jump it—in battleform, of course. Three men in succession had fallen short, plunging to their deaths. Then Stralg himself had tried and done it. His men had thrown him a rock on a string. He had pulled a bundle of clothes over before he froze to death, then a rope. They had built a rope bridge. It had lasted many years, until constant gnawing by wind and dust rendered it unsafe. Last summer Heth had sent a construction gang up to replace it. When Satrap Therek refused to let Probationer Orlad try for promotion to novice, Heth had assigned him to the team. He had carried more than his share of the new bridge all the way from First Ice, and had stayed to help build it. Now he was going to destroy it.

  “Stralg had ropes,” he said. “They won’t. No rope, no bridge.”

  “But if he could leap it, why can’t other men? They’ll come after us!”

  “I’ll show you.” Orlad began to move again. “When we get there.”

  If they got there … He knew every up and down on that short trek, but he had never tried it with a mammoth on his back. Last year he had grown better acclimatized as time went on. Now he was still fresh up from Nardalborg. Black spots danced in front of his eyes and he paused until they went aw ay.

  “Wa
nt you … carry me,” Waels gasped.

  “I’ll run … ahead … dump my pack and … come back.”

  “Take mine with you.”

  With a supreme effort, Orlad found enough breath to chuckle. Life was brighter when Waels was around. He liked the Orlad he became then.

  The Leap had not changed. The jagged gap of Dust River zigzagged across the rounded landscape, seeming completely at odds with it. The wind, the deadly cold wind, wailed constantly along the gorge. Its sides were vertical and polished to glassy smoothness. At the moment the low sun filled it with ebony shadow, but on the rare occasions when the bottom was visible you could see the surface of the river seething, faint clouds of dust rising and settling. Fall that far into water and you would probably be stunned or smashed, but if it were deep enough and you were an exceptional diver, you would have a chance of surviving. Not here. Dust was strange stuff—soft underfoot and rigid as solid rock when struck hard. No one falling into the Dust River had a hope.

  The bridge came into view, looking just as Orlad and his fellow workers had left it a year ago, a simple deck of wooden slats carried by a dozen sturdy hemp cables anchored to bronze stakes hammered into the rock at either end. Hand ropes on either side gave an illusion of safety and were set just far enough apart for a heavy-laden man to hold comfortably as he crossed.

  Two heavy-laden men staggered across and dropped their loads on the far side with gasps of relief. This was not yet the Edge, but somehow this crossing seemed more significant. Orlad looked back and cursed. A spectacular black cloud was unfolding above the vicinity of the Cave, dwarfing Varakats. He had cursed the wind up here a million times, but never for not being strong enough. The pursuit would see that cloud and know that it spelled their death.

  “Better not dilly-dally,” Waels said. “We cut it at the Vigaelian end, yes?”

  “Of course.” They must not leave anything on that side that might be useful or salvageable. “Move the packs a safe distance along the road.”

  Two puzzled eyes peered out of Waels’s hood. “Safe from what?”

  “They may throw things at us.”

  “Ah. I left my wits at First Ice. I’ll run back and fetch them.” He took up his pack again.

  Orlad retrieved his jar of oil and returned to the Vigaelian side. Tools and coils of spare rope abandoned there a year ago still lay in the dust. He carried the tools one at a time onto the bridge and dropped them off. At Nardalborg he could have thrown them the whole distance. The rope he dragged all the way over to the Florengian side, just to make certain.

  Despite that ghastly black plume in the sky, fire was hard to start on the High Ice and burned reluctantly. Ingeld Narsdor had blessed some tinder for Fabia to bring on the crossing, but it would have seemed wrong to use that for so deadly a purpose. Fortunately Orlad had brought the portfire from Hermesk’s canoe. He confirmed that the coals were still glowing and laid it a safe distance away. Then he began soaking the ropes and slats with oil. It was awkward work with his hands in thick mitts and eyes peering out a slit in his hood, but he had built the bridge that way. He should be able to destroy it likewise.

  He began to worry about pursuit. He had little knowledge of Zarpan Zarpanson, the leader of Caravan Six, but if Heth were in charge, he would react to that smoke in one heartbeat. Heth would have a flank of warbeasts streaking up the trail to see what was going on and stop it.

  He felt the bridge sway as Waels returned to stand at his back.

  “You haven’t told me, beloved, why you think Saltaja’s men won’t be able to leap this.”

  “Could you jump this far?”

  Waels said, “Um. Usually, easily. I’d carry you on my back. Up here, I’d rather not try. But Stralg did it, didn’t he? Can I help you with that job?”

  “Almost done. No, Stralg did not jump here. Stralg jumped at that wide spot over there.” Orlad rose and tossed the empty oil jar into the abyss. It vanished into shadow without a sound. He could see almost nothing of Waels’s face, but could guess at his incredulous expression. “Gzurg told me.”

  As one of Stralg’s closest buddies, Hostleader Gzurg Hrothgatson had been here then. He had seen the leap. Last spring the old veteran had come home from the war, and his arrival at Nardalborg had coincided with one of Therek’s visits. The two old-timers had plunged into an orgy of nostalgia and suicidal drinking, but Therek had taken the chance to appoint his crony examiner for the current crop of probationers. When Gzurg had chosen Orlad for the chain collar, he had also entertained him to a solid night’s carouse and maundering reminiscence, just the two of them. The hangover had been memorable, the stories even more so.

  “The River of Dust erodes,” Orlad said. “It abrades. The reason the horde tried to cross there was that the river divided there. They could make two short jumps. There was a pillar. It was sharp at the top, Gzurg said, and its top was lower than the banks. The trick was to leap down to the pillar, land your front paws on a tiny area, pull in your back paws, and launch yourself up at the far side, all without slowing down. That was what the first three men failed to do. Stralg did it. But once they had a cord strung across, they moved downstream and built the bridge at the narrowest point. When Gzurg came back this way in the spring, he noticed that the pillar had disappeared. We were talking about the new bridge, and he told me. He laughed and said that the bloodlord wouldn’t want to try his leap now.”

  “Fry me!” Waels said.

  “Not here and now.” That was a joke. Sometimes Orlad could even make Waels laugh, and that always felt good.

  “But you’re closing the pass forever!”

  Not quite. Varakats Pass would survive. The bridge could be replaced, but only with a lot of planning, and with equipment Caravan Six did not have.

  At last the others were coming along the track. The Pathfinder was out in front, but moving very slowly, shuffling and unsteady on his feet. Dantio was farther back, leaning on his sister’s shoulder and obviously in pain.

  “Here they come! Listen, my good buddy. My hands are all oily. I’d love to be warm, but not that warm. There’s the portfire. As soon as we get everyone across, you light the oil and run, understand? And then—Oh, Weru slay me! Look at that!”

  Warbeasts! Four golden shapes had crested the skyline and were racing over the gray, featureless landscape, their paws throwing up puffs of dust. They disappeared into a hollow and more came after them, at least a full flank. They weren’t even following the trail, just heading straight for the bridge. Someone knew the area personally. Not Zarpan, certainly.

  Orlad screamed “Fire the bridge now!” and took off like a spear.

  He would not have believed that it was possible to run, and what he achieved was not much better than a fast stagger. How could those warbeasts keep it up? Either they were coming more slowly than they seemed, or they were going to kill themselves. He passed Hermesk, who had seen the danger and was making a gallant effort to go faster. Then he reached Dantio.

  He gasped out one word, “Run!,” to Fabia. Then he stooped, folded Dantio over his shoulder, and started carrying him back to the bridge.

  That wasn’t physically possible, but he did it anyway. He floundered like a drunk, feet sliding in the greasy dust, all off-balance, hearing his own breath howling in his throat; not listening to Dantio begging him to drop him and save himself. Up ahead, Waels had obeyed orders. Of course. Waels would cut his own throat if Orlad told him to. The near end of the bridge was streaming black smoke. But Orlad had not told Waels to go back to the far bank and save himself. No, no! Waels was coming to help. Idiot! Idiot!

  Fabia had more sense. She was still heading for the bridge.

  The warbeasts were faltering, all except one. One was well out in front of the others. That one would arrive before any of his followers, without support. There might be hope yet, if that one could be stopped. A fight? Could even Werists fight in this cold and without air? Black waves surged past Orlad’s eyes. A noise of mammoths roared in his ears.


  “My turn!” Waels said.

  He did not so much lift Dantio off Orlad as slide under him when Orlad fell to his hands and knees. Orlad did not quite pass out, but he kept his head down, hauling air in and out of his lungs. When he could look again, Fabia had safely passed through the flames and was reeling across the bridge, pack and all. Hermesk had fallen to his knees on the trail, but seemed conscious.

  Wrestling himself upright like a sack of rocks, Orlad went after Waels. Family begins at home, he thought fuzzily. No, that wasn’t right, it was charity began at home, but he left Hermesk for later anyway.

  Dantio was wasting air yelling, “I can walk! I can walk!”

  Orlad said, “Let him!’

  Waels let Dantio down. The Heroes laid his arms over their shoulders and the three of them staggered up the trail in a bizarre five-legged race. The leading warbeast was closer to the bridge than they were, but had collapsed in the dust. Perhaps it had killed itself. Yellow flames streaming from the near end of the bridge were starting to spread along the cables.

  Waels plunged into the flames, hauling Dantio behind him. Orlad pushed them both ahead of him. The bridge creaked and rocked, but they went through safely. Almost safely—one of Orlad’s mitts was on fire. He beat it frantically against his leg until the flames went out. Dantio and Waels were safe now, almost across. Fabia was watching from the far bank.

  That left Hermesk, who was still on his hands and knees on the trail. One of the cables snapped; the bridge shuddered and tilted sideways. Orlad eyed the fire and decided he should have just enough time to rescue the Pathfinder, but not in oily mitts. He hauled them off and dropped them on the deck.

  He took two steps and was sent hurtling backwards by the golden warbeast as it came bursting through the fire. Flat on his back, he looked up in horror at ivory fangs and drooling jaws. Claws pinned him to the deck, cutting into all his layers of fur. To battleform inside all these clothes would be suicide. He would never fight his way out of them. His face must be invisible inside his hood.