by Dave Duncan
The Wrogg was not as huge here as it had been at Yormoth, and boats swarmed on it like midges, tacking back and forth in complex dance. The vessels were long, lean, and open, offering no shade from a sun much fiercer than Skjar ever knew.
Fabia's childhood ambition to explore all Vigaelia now lay in ruins. So far she had found travel hideously boring. Although many towns and villages lay along the great river, all she ever saw from the boats were the levees, for they were high enough to cut off her view of anything else. The coastal ranges had dwindled until they were lost behind the wall of the world. Some days she managed to organize sing-alongs or, rarely, conversations that did not consist entirely of Werists bragging about their toughness, but neither was ever possible when sourpuss Perag was present.
So she watched the flights of birds, waved to passing boats, and puzzled over her visitor in the night The seer had not told her what would happen in Kosord. Nothing, probably. She would just be dragged on upriver until she overtook the unwanted Cutrath Horoldson. If the Witnesses had any plan at all, it probably required the flavorful Fabia to return to Celebre, with marriage an unfortunate but necessary formality to get her there.
"Did you pay your respects to the god in the night?" she asked Cnurg. That gangling, freckled redhead was a year or two older than most of the others and showed signs of growing out of the brutalization so obvious in the other Werists. Some of them were easy to look at, if not to listen to, and she could feel sorry for all of them at times. They had been ensnared as children by promises of glory and manhood, and now found themselves being rushed into an insatiable war that took no prisoners. Their youth was an advantage, they assured her—young Werists were the most deadly. She did not ask how many of them were likely to survive their first year in Florengia.
Cnurg smiled toothily. "Not god, my lady! Goddess! Yes, I gave Her an outstanding offering."
"Outstanding?" exclaimed Brarag, who had his back to Perag. "Did you not hear the Nymphs laughing when they saw it?"
"On your feet, warriors!" Perag barked. "Both of you!"
Cnurg and Brarag snapped upright and chorused, "My lord is kind!"
He left them standing there. He was crazy.
Fabia fumed for a moment and then let rip. "Pray inform me, Packleader, just how your men offended?"
"Mind your own business, slut."
"Are you afraid a foolish joke will rot their fighting mettle, or do you think my smile will seduce them from their duty? Is your pettiness so deep that you cannot bear to think of men not being in mortal terror of you every second? Or are you just peevish because you did not sleep well last night?"
Perag glared at her, flushing. She could sense all the other Werists holding their breath. The huntleader clenched his fist and began to rise. Saltaja laid a black-draped hand on his arm.
"Leave her to her future husband to discipline!" she commanded resonantly. "And you, Fabia? You slept well last night?" Assuming she did not know about the seer, the woman's instincts were incredible.
"Indeed I did, my lady." Fabia spoke with a sweetness she was far from feeling. "And yourself?"
"I sleep very little."
That closed the conversation. Perag stayed on his keg, scowling at the prisoner. If he were forbidden to beat her, he would just take out his spite on his men.
Almost nothing was known about the children of Hrag prior to Stralg's baleful rise, but Saltaja was reputed to be the eldest. It needed no master tallyman to calculate that she must be almost sixty, yet there was barely a line to be seen on that elongated, bloodless face; perhaps her agelessness had started the rumors that she was a Chosen. Her only concession to travel was a broad-brimmed black hat and apparently infinite patience. She seemed to have bewitched Perag. His men were convinced that he yearned to be invited into her tent, and they attributed his persistent bad temper to a lack of success. No one wept for him.
♦
Thinking again about her visitor in the night, Fabia realized that the seer had spoken as if she had personal experience of the voyage so far. Indeed, she was almost certainly one of the riverfolk in the convoy, because she had been present in Skjar not long before Fabia left, and no one could have journeyed any faster upriver than Saltaja had. The Witness must be disguised as a sailor!
But which? Fabia ran through the boat crews in her mind without success. There were more than a dozen adult women in the flotilla, but the singsong dialect disguised voices, and they spent most of their days just sitting and talking, sheltered from the sun and wind inside voluminous burnooses. Although they might strip down to very little when there was work to be done, they owned a half-dozen slaves—all Florengian prisoners of war, who scowled at Fabia from shame or resentment and avoided her—who attended to most of the hard labor. Yet even the slaves seemed healthy and well nourished. Better by far the placid river life than the grinding drudgery of a peasant.
♦
The day dragged on. One could count boats, or clouds. At the stern one could trail lines to catch supper. One could wait for the hex to start producing results.
♦
Around noon, the riverfolk would rummage through the cargo and hand out snacks of fruit, cheese, pickled fish, or whatever they had traded recently. In his usual boorish fashion, Perag went first, pushing aside hungry children. Moments later he screamed.
Wild shouts of "Jumper!" roused everyone and for a few minutes Blue Ibis was a scene of chaos. Fabia had never heard of jumpers, which were apparently tiny but greatly feared spiders native to the flat lands. One must have come aboard with one of the tents, or perhaps the basket of roots... When the jumper had been hunted down and hammered into a small black stain, everyone could relax again. Except Perag.
He was thrashing on the deck boards, moaning in agony. Already his left arm was twice the size of the other and turning purple. His face was distorted—eyes bulging, lips everted, grossly swollen tongue protruding. Several of the Werists were shouting "Change!" at him, but he either could not hear or just could not change. He clawed a few times at his brass collar as if it were choking him. He did seem to be conscious, though.
"This is horrible!" Fabia said. She had gone to sit by Saltaja. "I can't pretend to like the man, but no one deserves to suffer so. Surely there must be a sanctuary we could take him to?"
The Queen of Shadows was watching her henchman's convulsions with the disapproval due a display of bad manners. "Sinurists will never treat Werists," she intoned. "If he could change form, he might be able to shake off the poison, but it would seem that he is unable to call on his god to help him."
"Perhaps we should pray for him."
"Perhaps we should," Saltaja agreed.
Fabia prayed: Mother of Death, do not release him yet. Make him suffer enough!
Eventually Cnurg took charge and ordered Perag trussed to restrain his convulsions; it took six men just to do that. The riverfolk shrugged and recommended keeping him doused to cool the fever. When his screams became too oppressive, Cnurg gagged him.
Flankleader Era in Redwing, on being informed of the calamity, assumed command and suspended all punishments.
No one spared Fabia a single suspicious glance.
♦
Late that day, for the third time on the journey, the convoy saw a sun wife, a bloated patch of brilliance some distance below the sun and equally impossible to look upon. Horth had explained to Fabia that sun wives were merely sunlight reflecting on the dome of Ocean, which was so far away now that it was lost in the blue of the sky. A sun wife needed only the right angle and unusually clear weather to form, he said.
But the riverfolk regarded sun wives as blessings from their gods, so they chanted a hymn of thanksgiving; the Werists countered with a paean to Weru, and one song led to another. Blue Ibis finished the day's journey with a rousing general singsong.
twenty-five
INGELD NARSDOR
stepped into the adytum, the holy of holies in the temple of Veslih, leaving Sansya to close the heavy d
oor behind them. It was a cramped five-sided chamber with room for only a dozen or so worshipers around the bronze brazier in the center. The fire that lit it and kept it oppressively hot was even more sacred than the one in the tholos on the summit, for it was never extinguished and had been lit eons ago by holy Veslih Herself in the legendary city of Gal. Many layers of rich rugs padded the floor. The walls were very high and glazed in random patterns of cool green and blue tiles, with small openings under the roof for ventilation.
Only Tene, the most junior Daughter, was present, kneeling in vigil before the flames and bare to the waist. Ingeld moved across to join her, although not so near that they would have exactly the same viewing. She knelt, dropped the top of her gown, loosed her hair to fall in red-gold veils over her breasts, and bent her head in silent dedication and appeal for guidance. She sensed Sansya joining them on her other side. The only sound was a faint crackling of the logs.
Sansya had fetched her, claiming that she had seen the babe, a portent that up until now had been revealed only to Ingeld herself. She had first seen it back in the spring, and that was a long time for a vision to be so restricted. Even Tene had not discerned it, and her sight was brilliant—clearer and wider-ranging than Ingeld's had ever been.
When the ripples on her soul had calmed, she raised her eyes to contemplate the coals. A boat, of course, going away. That was Cutrath. She kept trying for a closer vision of him, but all she ever saw was the boat, and often only its sail. Almost instantly an ember shifted and the boat was gone, although he could not be aware of her sight or even of his own desire to block it. She did not try to overrule him. Cutrath had never been willing to share anything, even himself; the more he needed love, the more he rejected it. She was happy just to know that he was alive—and also surprised that he was still relevant to Kosord, for his brothers had disappeared from view long before they died.
Boats approaching, five of them. They could not be far away now. And for days now this little fleet had been linked to an ax; yes, there it was, a double-bladed ceremonial ax of silver with a long handle and shiny crescent edges. Ingeld knew who that was. She pointed.
"What do you see there?"
Tene had been close to trance—it was so easy for her—and she jumped. "My lady!... Where? Oh! A bird, my lady."
"What sort of bird?"
She gave a nervous little laugh. Tene was very beautiful, slender and fair and glowing with youth. Even in daylight she was gorgeous, and one glimpse of those high, rose-tipped breasts caressed by firelight would drive a man clean out of his mind. There was better to come, for in the three sixdays since she had made her final vows to Veslih, her flaxen hair had begun turning bronze and her eyes to gold. "A nighthawk, my lady. It is a white bird we have in the hills. It hunts by night, like an owl."
Ingeld smiled, mostly to herself. "Good omen or bad omen?"
Tene was obviously shocked to hear the light of Veslih speak of omens. "The peasants fear it, my lady."
"I don't blame them. I cannot see your bird, but what I do see is my own warning. How many days until she arrives?"
"Who? Er..." Tene looked back into the coals for a moment. "Four days, my lady. The feast of Ucr."
Ingeld exchanged glances with Sansya. "Incredible, isn't she?"
"I am wrong?" Tene asked, worried.
"No, dear. I mean that we two can't guess within a six-day. But I think you will find that the nighthawk is your own portent of my dear sister-in-law, Saltaja Hragsdor." Ingeld contemplated the boats. Not all evil, though. Whatever news or orders or companions Saltaja was bringing had mixed implications for Kosord. Horold had reacted with predictable horror when warned that his sister was coming.
And there was Benard, striding along an alley with a sour expression on his face. He was in even worse trouble than usual. Ever since spring, when he began showing up in the embers, Ingeld had regarded Benard as a civic matter and had kept him under surveillance, so she knew exactly where he was heading. One of Eriander's hags had her claws in him.
"There?" she asked, pointing.
"The artist," Tene said, just as Sansya said, "Celebre."
Ingeld had never met a Florengian Daughter until she inducted Sansya, and she was fascinated by the way the Veslihan change expressed itself on Florengian coloring. The heavy tresses hung like ropes of reddish metal, but it was the fiery shine of Sansya's skin that most impressed; her aureoles and nipples might have been carved from enormous red garnets, glowing like lanterns in the firelight.
Now for the babe... "Where do you—" No need to ask. Ingeld could see baby, baby, more baby... It had been born, and that was why it had gone from private portent to civic. "Big healthy lad," she muttered. She could not see the mother, or even any hint as to where this brat had been dropped, but a sturdy boy it was, and the flames rejoiced around it. "There?"
"I see it," Sansya muttered. "It is a blessing for the city, my lady."
"But so much blood!" Tene cried. "Surely the mother died!"
Yes! Even in the overpowering heat of the adytum, cold shivers raced over Ingeld's skin and her throat tightened. She rose and backed away, pulling her gown closed. "So it seems. How sad! Watch over it, please. Some of the acolytes ought to be able to see it now. Let me know if Our Lady reveals more."
♦
Puzzled and deeply troubled, Ingeld went back to her room to think on these things. She sent word to Horold to expect Saltaja next fifth-day, and left orders that she was not to be disturbed by anyone except Tene or Sansya. It was almost dark already. Many of her evenings were spent counseling brides-to-be, but at this season the young were too busy bringing in the harvest to have time for romance.
Thoughts of reaping reminded her of a verse in the Arcana ... She put her head out again and told them to let Benard in if he appeared. She was not certain he was coming to visit her, but she needed a serious talk with that unserious young man, for he had been entangled with the rogue Nymph quite long enough and should be rescued before he suffered permanent damage.
Nymphs undoubtedly performed a valuable service—without them, single men would be a public nuisance, constantly bugling like wapiti. Most Nymphs were true to holy Eriander's ideal of love freely exchanged, but some became greedy or even sadistic as they aged, and this one had offended Ingeld before. A few days before he left town, Cutrath had been caught smuggling gold plate out of the palace. In that case Horold had sent a stern warning, and the snake had released her victim, but she did not deserve another chance. It was time to draw her fangs.
The big room was still hot, although mornings were cool now. Soon it would be time to have the winter doors brought back and hung. Ingeld wondered if she should order a fire laid. Short of another public pyromancy, the only way she might gain insight into the portents was by trance, and she had not risked that for several years. Patience! If the baby had been born in Kosord, then she would certainly recognize it when it was brought to the temple next sixth-day for Veslih's blessing.
And if Benard did show up tonight, then a serious talk with him might reveal more than the state of his loins. She wondered with a flash of amusement if it were possible to wander into auguries by accident. If anyone could, it would be Bena!
As she tipped water from the ewer to the basin, intending to sponge away the heat of the day, something fell on the grass outside with a muffled thump. Then another. Benard? He would not come that way without leave, and if he did, it would be through the gate, quiet as starlight She strode over to the arches in time to see a dark shape come down, but this one fell in silence and flopped shapelessly on the ground.
For a moment she was rooted to the spot by sheer disbelief, refusing to admit that the first two had been boots and the third a pall. Then their owner came over the wall also, landing on all fours, a huge white-furred beast in the twilight. She turned and fled. He was not in battleform, but he did not need to be. She was not even close to the door when arms like tree boughs closed around her.
"I don't want to h
urt you any more than I have to," he growled in her ear. "Don't bother struggling."
She gagged at the porcine stench of him, although it was mixed with scent, so he had at least tried. He had been drinking, too. She gasped several deep breaths in and out before she could speak.
"So it was yours!"
He grunted. "Been spying on me?"
"You spy on me with your seers!" She tried to pry herself loose and merely confirmed her helplessness. Her head barely reached the middle of his chest. She tried her nails on a hairy thigh, but his hide was tough as pigskin.
"They tell me you still bleed," he said. "You're still fertile. And, as of today, I know I am, too." Still clutching her tightly, he ripped the front of her gown open to the waist and began fondling her breasts. His paw was rough as earthenware. "It has teeth, but it's quite human."
She shuddered. "You are not serious!" Of course he was serious. "The mother died!"
"It was big for a newborn." He had been drinking a lot. "Women die in childbirth all the time."
"I am going to scream!"
"Go ahead. I won't mind an audience." He had both might and right on his side; she was as powerless in his grasp as that newborn baby. "Veslih will help, because this is Her business. You swore to the goddess. And you swore to me, too." He slid his hand lower.
It was true that a dynast owed her city a daughter to succeed her. On the night Stralg took over Kosord, Ingeld had negotiated the terms of her rape, standing between Ardial, her lawful husband, and the Guthlag beast, who had been quietly bleeding to death. She had agreed to bear two sons for that astonishingly handsome Werist at Stralg's side. But her promise to the goddess had come first, and he knew that as well as she did.
