by Dave Duncan
As Chies was helping her out of the pool, he said, “If you want to meet up with Stralg, Aunt, I don’t think we should go to Celebre. He won’t be there.”
She turned and smiled at him. Her mouth was a foul-smelling pit of bloody gums and a few blackened teeth. “Good, good! Starting to be helpful. Your father can wait, boy. What matters first is your sister.”
“Um, Fabia?” He kept forgetting he had a sister.
“Yes, that one. Frena, she used to call herself. But I don’t care what she calls herself. I do care, very much, how she dies. Understand?”
“Er, yes, Aunt.”
“Very horribly, very slowly. Because of what she’s done to me.”
“Of course, Aunt.” Chies finished drying her scrawny carcass with one chlamys and reached for another to drape her. “And her brothers, too?” He didn’t want a contested election.
Not far off dawn, they stole a boat. Two dogs started to bark, then had second thoughts and ran away into the darkness, whining in terror. Their owners were either asleep or had enough sense not to interfere. The hag made Sesto release the exhausted llamoids and push the two chariots off the scruffy little jetty into the river. They floated away upside down, wheels plaintively turning. How soon until the Veritano warbeasts arrived?
Chies gave Sesto his orders, then collapsed in the bottom of the boat and went to sleep.
Before noon they left the river and commandeered a wagon.
That night, Chies found himself eating a hearty meal in a farmer’s hut. Several hearty meals, in fact, one after the other. The farmer was a heavyset man, almost big enough to be a Werist, but he was Controlled as tightly as Sesto, wearing the same mindless expression, answering questions in the same singsong. He had a fat wife, a hulking adolescent son, and a remarkably pretty daughter. They were all Controlled, too. Sesto was a walking corpse, barely able to speak, but he had probably not slept since leaving Veritano. Chies repeatedly had to order him to keep eating.
Aunt Saltaja was starting to look better already. Her mouth bled less and she was steadier on her feet. Yet her mind seemed even more twisted than before. She rarely spoke of anything except the atrocities she was going to inflict on Fabia Celebre. Also the brothers, but mostly the woman. Fabia was another Chosen, apparently. Chies was sorry to hear that, because he had quite liked her. She had kissed him and gotten his accursed chains taken off.
He finished eating at last, picking a few last treats out of his teeth. He yawned. A comfortable rug and a blanket were in order now. The lamp was flickering, its oil almost gone, and the fire had shrunk to embers. The hut was built of bamboo, wicker and palm-leaf thatch, so all the rooms were tiny, but there were several of them. He assumed Aunt Saltaja would take the best sleeping platform, and hoped he could steal a place by the fire. Or just steal away? He had very good night-sight. If the stars were out, he might manage to escape.
“You want her?” his Aunt said suddenly, leering her black stumps at him.
“What?”
“You’ve done well. You deserve a reward. You want her for the night?”
He gulped. He realized he had been staring at the girl. She was certainly pretty. He was very tired, but a man had to look out for his reputation.
“I would enjoy that, Aunt.”
She beckoned the girl over to her, pulled her head down close, and stared very hard into her eyes. She mumbled something.
“I don’t think she understands Vigaelian,” Chies said uneasily.
Saltaja released the girl. “Doesn’t matter. I spoke to the Mother, not her. Take her. She’ll do whatever you want.”
The girl was staring at Chies. He nodded. She blushed furiously and beckoned for him to follow.
The room was tiny and the sleeping platform was a narrow frame full of sand. He closed the door, wishing it had a bolt, which it did not. Ignoring the girl, he examined the window, but it was fitted with stout bars of bamboo, which he could not budge. The night was cloudy, anyway, and the farmer had dogs out there. So no escape tonight.
The girl slid her arms around him. She was not merely willing, she was eager. She had no clothes on. But …
But Saltaja was going to get caught sooner or later, probably sooner.
He could not help doing what she told him when she was there, fixing him with the evil eye. She had made a flankleader murder his own men, so a boy like Chies could not be expected to refuse her orders when she was there. But if he refused this girl, that would show he wasn’t really cooperating with the Chosen the rest of the time, wouldn’t it? If it came to a trial, that would save him, wouldn’t it?
The girl had a hand at his crotch already, so he had better decide this quickly.
She whispered “Love me!” in his ear and tried to kiss him.
Fortunately, she had very bad breath, which made the decision easier.
He said, “No!” He squirmed loose. “Don’t touch me. You sleep on the floor. Lie down!”
She obeyed. He couldn’t see her face in the dark. He heard her snivel. “But I want …”
“Be quiet! Don’t speak. And don’t come near me.”
He stretched out on the sand, wriggled a hollow for his hip, and turned his back on her. It wasn’t as hard as he expected. In fact, the thought of what they did to rapists was quite enough to dissuade him. Big softie! he thought. Little softie, in fact. He went to sleep.
He had worried that his aunt might not leave any witnesses behind when they departed in the morning. She didn’t, but not the way he had feared. She hexed the farmer and his family to forget that they had entertained visitors—also to forget that they had owned a chariot and two guanacos. The car was very cramped with three on board, but they soon met a man driving another one. They left him sitting by the wayside in a daze. Sesto handled the second team.
Three days, two nights, and two more women later, they saw the spire of a temple that Sesto claimed marked Montegola. Sesto was almost imbecilic—drooling constantly and barely able to drive a team. When Saltaja said to stop, Chies had to yell at the top of his lungs to make him understand. He would chew food only when ordered to and forget to swallow.
“Why are we stopping here, Aunt?” Chies could see nothing of interest in the farmland, just the distant temple, stubbled fields, a few hedges, and a forlorn clump of trees. They looked somehow ominous, drooping and stark against the sunset. It was to those that she pointed.
“Why don’t they plow there?”
“I … have no idea, Aunt.”
“It’s probably accursed ground. If it isn’t, it will have to do. You ready?”
Finding his throat suddenly dry, Chies just nodded. He had trouble finding enough spit to order Sesto to follow, suspecting that the dolt would just stand there in his chariot on the track until he died of thirst. They drove slowly across the stubbled field to the copse. Chies lifted Saltaja down again, told Sesto to follow. The weeds were long and unkempt between the rain-wet trunks. He kept stumbling on the uneven ground, and Sesto fell several times.
“Old battlefield, I think,” Saltaja said. “Smells of evil.” But when they reached the center, she peered around and frowned at a group of four or five cottages in the distance. “It’s not as private as I had hoped. We had best be quick. You are ready?”
He was shaking like a palm frond in a sea storm. He said, “Of course,” but it came out as a croak. He didn’t have any choice, did he? She would never trust him otherwise, never release him. No, she’d mush his mind and turn him into a pudding like Sesto.
She leered, knowing what he was thinking. “It has to be of your own free will.”
“Oh yes. I really want to do this, Aunt.” Didn’t he? Power? Girls?
“Well, I told you what to do. You brought the knife?”
He nodded and started taking his clothes off. He told Sesto to do the same and kneel down. He thought for a horrible moment that something like fear showed in the man’s eyes, but he obeyed Chies without argument. Soon everybody would!
; Chies stepped behind him, and whispered the words of the oath she had taught him, all the terrible promises by blood and birth, death and the cold earth. He pricked his own arm, shed a few drops of his own blood on the cold earth and a few more on the sacrifice to mark it as coming from him. Then he took Sesto by the hair and put the knife to his throat.
Sesto moaned and reached up to stop him.
“Let go!” Chies said in sudden panic. The strong fingers opened for him. “Now keep still!”
The knife was not as sharp as he would have liked. He had to saw with it. When he reached the artery, he was amazed at how far the blood spurted. He closed his eyes and was taken by surprise when Sesto collapsed at his feet. So it was done, and Chies felt no different, just very shaky and a little ill.
He turned to look at his aunt.
She cackled. “Well done, my little man. You made a wise choice.”
He did not ask what his alternatives had been. He forced himself to go to her and give her a kiss. “Thank you.” He wondered if he could kill her too, now. The Old One—Xaran! He could say the name now—Xaran might like two sacrifices. Chies could go home and claim that he had escaped from her, and who would be the wiser?
On the other hand, he had a lot to learn and Saltaja could teach him.
“Time to go, Aunt,” he said, throwing down the knife and wiping his bloody hands on the grass.
He unharnessed the two unneeded guanacos and released them to gladden the heart of some fortunate peasant. He lifted his fellow Chosen back into the chariot and drove off with her in search of Flankleader Eligio and his llamoid ranch.
ORLAD CELEBRE
and Waels Borkson ate again as the sun was setting, although their host told them to eat sparingly. Then he led them out to the pasture.
“North.” He pointed, although few stars were visible yet and much of the sky was shrouded in clouds. “That’s Hrada’s spire in Montegola, very nearly due north, see? We’re going this way.”
“Got it,” Waels said. “A tenth west.”
They plodded off over the rain-slick fields and came to a wide river, flowing surprisingly fast for such flat country.
“This is the Puisa.” Eligio pointed upstream. “See that bridge? That’s your landmark. It’s the fourth bridge up from the city.”
Counting up to four in battleform would be tricky, Orlad thought.
“Then we come back to you?”
“Two-fifths east. Follow the guanaco smell.”
“We can backtrack,” Waels said. “Nothing in the world smells like Orlad’s feet.” He added a faint Oof! sound as a fist impacted his ribs.
Eligio had no sense of humor. “When you reach a pool,” he said, “you’re at the city, so keep your heads down. The river enters through five tunnels under the wall. They’re closed at the city end by gratings, and the current is strong enough to pin an extrinsic against them to drown. Understand now why I wouldn’t let your sister come with you, my lord Orlad?”
“You are starting to make sense.”
“Middle grating has been cut. Can you imagine what that cost? Dive, rasp until you’re close to drowning, then battleform to swim back out against the current, surface, recover, repeat. Again and again, all night long, every night for a thirty. Don’t betray this to the Vigaelian scum!”
“Brave men. Were you one of them?”
“No. Had friends who drowned doing it, though. Now, listen! The middle one of the five! At the bottom of the grating! Retroform, because the gap is narrow and there are sharp edges that can rip you. You’ll need your head more than flippers there. We don’t call this the Heroes’ Gate for nothing. After you’re through, float until you see the triple fountain on the right bank. It’s an easy landmark, in the grounds of the palace. Can you tell right from left in battleform?”
“Half the time,” Orlad said.
“Then you’d better be human. If your brother hasn’t left clothes at the fountain, you’d best come back here and try again tomorrow. Do not try to leave downstream. There’s knives on the weir there. Leave by the same way you got in. Broken pot at the fountain means danger. Any questions?”
Waels said, “How many men have entered Celebre this way?”
“How should I know? None from here ever came back to tell me.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Orlad removed his sandals and chlamys, handed them to Eligio. Not ready to enter the river, he sat down in his collar and studied the dark rushing water. Excitement and disbelief fizzed through his veins. He was certainly going into extreme danger, but he was also going to change his life. He was going to lay claim to the coronet wearing a rebel’s collar, while Stralg was still in nominal control of the city.
He realized that Eligio had gone when Waels sat down close and put an arm around him. The night was far from cold, but the contact was welcome.
Orlad said, “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“You, scared? Never!”
“Scared peeless. This is not like King’s Grass. Then I knew I was going to die because my lord had set the hunt on me. I was just so bloody-eyed mad that I had no time to be frightened. I wanted to kill as many as I could before they killed me. This is different. If we have to fight at all, we’ll have failed.”
“A man about to meet his mother for the first time is entitled to feel nervous,” Waels said tactfully.
“You not scared?” Orlad asked.
“I’m always scared. I just follow you and trust you. If you can do it, whatever it is, then I must do it to be worthy of you. Much easier.”
That made it worse. How could he drag Waels into mortal peril just to further his own ambitions?
“Buddy … I want to say … if this doesn’t work out for both of us … I’m very grateful. You’ve taught me so many things—love, loyalty, friendship.”
“We discovered them together.”
“You don’t have to come with me tonight.”
“Yes I do.”
“That’s what I mean. Thanks.” Pause … “Waels?”
“Orlad?”
“You do not have to come with me! I’m only doing this because I don’t want Fabia staking her claim while I’m not around.”
“Nonsense. You’re taking me home to meet your parents.”
Orlad exploded in laughter. Waels returned the punch he owed him. The laughter turned into a wrestling match and they rolled down the bank together into the river.
No Hero had ever managed to swim up the waterfall at Nardalborg, although many had tried. (In winter it froze and the garrison held climbing races on it instead.) The Puisa seemed pleasantly warm by comparison. A standard amphibious warbeast was shaped much like a seal, a black seal in the Florengian case, but it would be folly to waste so much energy when they had a long way to go. Orlad contented himself with webbing his hands and feet and closing off his nostrils. He adopted a leisurely stroke that he could keep up for a couple of pot-boilings if he had to. He could feel Waels moving in the water at his side. Once in a while their heads would break surface together and flash toothy smiles.
He was surprised when the current changed. He surfaced and looked up at the towering walls of Celebre. The pool, already? Then a hand caught his arm. Waels retroformed beside him, with a finger on his lips for silence. He put lips to Orlad’s ear.
“We have company!”
For a moment they drifted together and then Waels pointed downward and sank. They submerged together, holding hands, moving as little as necessary until they reached the bottom and could take hold of weeds as tethers, to stop them floating back up. Starlight failed to reach down there, so far as human eyes could see, but a Hero’s eyes were negotiable. In a moment Orlad made out the faint glow of the surface. He saw fish … driftwood … and then a line of dark shapes heading toward the city. He wondered how Waels had known.
Soon after that the two strangers surfaced in some reeds near the shore. “Florengians?” Waels whispered.
“Think so. Yes. Not
Stralg, then. Mutineer didn’t tell us he kept a force in the city.”
“Maybe it’s new.”
“Maybe it is.” Orlad wondered about treachery, but he could have been captured much more easily at Montegola. “Let’s go and see what’s happening. If we’re parted, we’ll meet at the triple fountain. If you find a broken pot there, head straight back to Eligio’s.”
OLIVA ASSICHIE-CELEBRE
hurried along Wheelwrights’ Alley with her cloak clutched tight so that the hood concealed her face. Every day she came to the Vigaelians’ barracks close to sunset, because Huntleader Purque was almost always there at that time. None of the other ice devils would speak civilly to her. He would, although he would not answer her summons. She had to come to him.
She uncovered her head as she stepped through the open door. The room was dingy, stinking of urine and dogs, just a vestibule with a few ramshackle benches and a barred window. Three ice devils were sitting there, growling in their guttural speech and gnawing on meaty ribs. The floor was half covered with mangy street curs waiting for their turn at the bones.
One Hero looked up at her and said something he thought was funny.
Another, wearing a flankleader’s sash, gestured at the inner door. “Go in. He wants you.”
Her heart jumped—she would have said it leaped and sank at the same time, were that possible. Purque had news for her? Good or bad? She stepped carefully between dogs. The hall beyond was where the Werists exercised, and she was relieved to see it deserted, because they usually did so naked and used that as an opportunity for more coarse humor at her expense. She crossed to the huntleader’s room and found him there, talking with a couple of his men. In contrast to the general squalor of the rest of the barracks, his quarters were clean and fully furnished with fine-quality chairs, no doubt looted from their legal owners. He gestured and the men jumped up and left. Oliva closed the door. He did not suggest she sit down.
“You have news of my son?” she demanded.
He shook his head. Sitting with his half leg propped up on a second chair as if it hurt, Purque looked wearier and older than usual, but certainly no wearier and older than she felt. It was almost two sixdays since Chies had disappeared. If he lived, she should have received a call for ransom by this time.