Kael frowned for a moment, then grimaced and nodded in acquiescence. “You are right. Forgive me, Mother.”
That was the first time Aliisza could recall her son addressing her as such. She blinked in surprise but still said nothing. Was that deferential or demeaning? she wondered. Then she dismissed it. A question for another time, she decided.
“Tyr is not my whole reason for existing,” Tauran said, drawing Aliisza back into the conversation. “The ideals he represents are what I have devoted my life to. I have believed with all my heart what he believes in. I still do, which is why I am so disappointed. He did not live up to those ideals, at least not in my mind. Micus and the others must see things differently, but I cannot abide leaving this tragedy uninvestigated. We must find out what caused this, if Cyric is indeed at the root of it.”
“Through Zasian,” Aliisza added. “If Zasian acts on Cyric’s behalf, as you claim—”
“He does,” Kael interjected.
“—then we must find him to find out his—and thus, Cyric’s—plans.”
Tauran looked pointedly at Aliisza. “Yes. And that’s why I still need your help. You and Vhok know more about him than we do. Help me figure out where he’s gone, what he’s up to.”
Aliisza glanced over at Kaanyr. The cambion had risen to his feet and was standing near the edge of the temple, gazing out at the storm-tossed clouds beyond. He had his hands clasped behind his back, looking calm and confident for the first time in a long while.
At least he’s not sulking, Aliisza thought. “Kaanyr knows Zasian far better than I,” she said. “He conspired with the man to get here. He traveled with him. I only interacted with Zasian peripherally. And mostly I tried to avoid him.” She had to fight to keep the bitterness at her lover’s trickery from infecting her tone. Then she leaned close and lowered her voice. “Kaanyr will do the minimum necessary to adhere to the rules of your bonds,” she warned. “I will try to convince him that it will be more useful, even to him, if he does more—if he really helps. But you should know that he will find a way to repay you for your trickery.” She gave Tauran a steady stare. “He does not take well to being manipulated.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” the angel replied, his tone bristling. “He freely relinquished control without fully investigating the situation.”
Aliisza clicked her tongue in disapproval. “You were almost gleeful when you revealed his mistake to him,” she said. “Don’t deny that you were looking forward to seeing his reaction.”
Tauran grimaced and nodded. “Indeed,” he said. “There is a certain righteous satisfaction in out-clevering such a cunning adversary. I did let my pride cloud my emotions.” He sighed. “But you cannot deny that if I had revealed the lost time to either of you before securing your agreement to aid me, you would have departed at once.”
Aliisza smiled. “You don’t understand,” she said. “It’s not that Kaanyr feels the maneuver was unjust. He is just resentful that he fell for it. In his mind, your desperate clinging to such lofty ideals as ‘honor,’ ‘nobility,’ and ‘law’ make you vulnerable to crafty deceptions. He let his guard down because he assumed that you would consider yourself above that sort of underhanded duplicity. If he took a moment to allow himself, he might actually, begrudgingly, admire you for it. But he is too proud to admit it, even to himself most of the time. And”—she glanced the cambion’s way once more—“his pride will drive him to pay you back. I should know. I’ve been watching him do it with other adversaries for many, many years. That’s what brought him here in the first place, you know.”
Tauran shrugged. “So be it,” he said. “So long as it doesn’t prevent me from exposing Cyric and Zasian’s actions to the rest of the Court.” The angel rose to his feet. “Now,” he said, stretching to his full height, “what can you two tell me about Zasian to get us started?” He spoke those last words loudly enough for Kaanyr to hear.
“It’s about time you stopped sulking,” the cambion said, striding over to join the other three. “Your friend Micus is sure to think to search for us here. We should depart, at once.”
“I agree,” Tauran said. “But to where? Without some sort of clue, some evidence leading us, there is no point. What can you tell me of the priest?”
Kaanyr gave a long sigh and stared off at nothing, thinking. “I don’t know nearly as much about him as I should,” he said.
“He posed as a servant of Bane—part of a well-organized cabal hidden among the citizens of Sundabar. They had strategic plans for taking over the city when the time was right, but most of them seemed to be all talk and little action. Among them all, Zasian was the only one who seemed to have any brains. I should have known better than to trust a Banite with common sense.”
Tauran folded his arms across his chest. “Anything else?” he asked.
The cambion shook his head. “Not really. He was clever. He was logical. He had a way of arguing things that always made sense. If he was truly a servant of the Prince of Lies, as you say, he hid it well.”
“What about you?” the angel asked, turning toward Aliisza. “What can you remember?”
“Very little,” the alu replied. “As I said, I tried to avoid him in Sundabar, not knowing his true role in Kaanyr’s plot”—and she gave the cambion a brief glare before continuing—“but all he said upon arriving within this temple was that our ways must part. He claimed to have things to do, but there was nothing else.”
Tauran nodded, frowning. “That doesn’t reveal much about his intentions, I’m afraid. Can either of you perform divinations of any significance?”
Both the half-fiends shook their heads.
“Nor can I,” the deva muttered, looking wistful. “It was never my strongest talent, even under normal circumstances, but certainly not now.”
“Why not now?” Aliisza asked.
Tauran sighed. “My rebellious attitude has clearly put me out of favor with Tyr,” he said, and though he seemed to be trying to make light of it, Aliisza could see a shudder pass through the angel. “Much of my spiritual power has vanished. My divine link to the Just One has been severed.” He smiled, but there was a profound sadness in his eyes.
“Your god has abandoned you, your kind has named you outlaw, and yet you still wish to pursue this?” Kaanyr asked. His expression was one of incredulity. “What worth is there in pursuing a path blockaded by the very ones you try to save?”
“I want to save them from themselves,” Tauran replied. “I want to remind myself that the cause we all served was a worthwhile one.” He looked at the cambion. “I don’t think it would be so hard for you to understand. There are things for which you are willing to sacrifice yourself.”
“Not the way you would do it.”
“Truly?” the angel asked. “Did you not urge Aliisza to flee, to escape into the beyond when we were within your quarters, confronting Micus?”
“I said no such thing,” Kaanyr snapped, his gaze flickering back and forth between the deva and Aliisza. “You speak lies.”
“You did not say it with your words, Vhok, but I heard it in your heart,” Tauran said. “I sensed the struggle within you, the conflict between a need for her to stay and fight on your behalf and a desire to make amends to her, to give her the freedom you had a hand in stealing from her.”
Kaanyr’s face darkened, and he took several rapid, deep breaths as though he meant to tell the angel off, but the words never came. Finally, with a long exhalation, he muttered, “She’s endured enough of my desperate schemes,” he said. “I thought maybe it was time to cut her loose.”
Aliisza flushed. She stared at Kaanyr, watched him struggle to admit that he had considered such a selfless act, and grinned. She couldn’t help it, and she knew if he saw her he would likely misinterpret it and grow incensed, but it spread across her face despite her efforts. He’s showing all sorts of new facets, she thought, and grinned even more.
“What?” Kaanyr said when he spotted her. “What’s so damned f
unny, you winged tramp?”
“You,” she said, beginning to chuckle. “You, who are always scolding me for letting my human side appear, and you’re just as bad. Worse!”
“Well, don’t let it go to your head,” he grumbled. “And you,” he said, turning to Tauran, “stay the Hells out of my thoughts!”
The angel smiled, though it was a bit thin and didn’t last long. “We understand one another better than you would like to admit,” he said.
Kaanyr walked a few paces away and fumed by himself.
Aliisza glanced at Kael. He tried to adopt a look of stoic disinterest when he caught her glance, but she noted that he had been watching the entire proceeding with great curiosity.
“We still aren’t any closer to tracking down the priest,” the half-drow said. “We have nothing, other than the fact that he stole away in the storm dragon’s form.”
Tauran snapped his fingers. “Of course!” he said, half to himself. “Not just in the form of the body, but in the body itself. And I know someone who can find him that way.”
“Wait,” Aliisza said, concerned. “Everyone in the Court believes you are a rogue and outlaw. How can you approach someone you know? How can you even trust him?”
Tauran shook his head. “Not him, her. Her name is Eirwyn. And I don’t know the answer to your question,” he said, getting a far-away look in his eyes. “I don’t know at all.”
“It will be easier than you might think,” said a woman’s voice.
Micus looked over the collection of soldiers that had gathered in the courtyard. In addition to a half-dozen other astral devas, nearly twenty hound archons milled around, awaiting orders. They were competent warriors, elite troops capable of standing up to the half-fiends running with Tauran.
Micus knew he would need every last one of them.
The angel sighed softly, wishing it were otherwise. He didn’t want to be chasing down his friend, certainly not under such circumstances. Not only did it pain him greatly to be forced to apprehend Tauran, but there was so much else that needed to be done in the aftermath of Helm’s death.
The demise of the god still stunned Micus whenever he gave himself a moment to think on it. Though he had no doubts that Tyr was justified in his action, he had no understanding of what that justification might be. It was not his place to question. He understood that, unlike Tauran.
And that’s why I have to go get him, Micus reminded himself. Whatever else he may be, he abandoned his calling and his responsibility when he helped them escape.
Micus dismissed the gloomy thoughts from his mind and refocused on the job at hand. His immediate problem was figuring out where Tauran and the others might have fled. Micus knew that Tauran had not made up his claims of believing Cyric had a hand in the chaos erupting within the House. The angel still believed in duty and responsibility, even if their execution had become twisted.
So where did Tauran think Cyric’s minion might have gone? Micus asked himself. What path will he take to pursue this fabled trickster?
“Micus,” a voice, soft and musical, spoke behind him. The angel turned to behold a dancing ball of glowing light. It winked softer and brighter, changing hues like the colors of a soap bubble in the bright sunlight. “I have news,” the lantern archon announced. “Very grave news, indeed.”
“What is it?” Micus asked, disheartened that more sorrow was being heaped upon him.
“You should come to the High Council’s chambers to hear this,” the lantern archon replied, its voice a tinkling melody that belied the seriousness of its words. “It may have some bearing on your mission.”
“Very well,” Micus said, rising into the air upon his white wings. “I will make my way there as quickly as possible.”
“I will be waiting,” the archon replied, then vanished.
Micus winged his way toward the temporary home of the High Council, a small open tower that rose from the midst of the Court. As the angel climbed higher into the gray, humid sky, he studied the vast marble city below him.
The damage from the reverberations of Tyr and Helm’s battle was extensive. Some sections of the city had fared better than others, but there were places that had been knocked flat. Of the High Council’s hemispherical gathering place, there was no remnant. The entire floating island upon which it had originally been built had vanished along with the shattered dome.
Micus did not fret over the physical destruction. Eventually, Tyr would conceive of a new dome, and the High Council would return to its majestic meeting place. But the Maimed God was not yet of a mind to address any of the repercussions of his actions, and so the host that dwelt within, the angels and their petitioners, made the best of things until such time as he recovered.
No, Micus thought, it’s not the walls and buildings that cannot be healed. How many followers of Helm suffer today? he wondered. How many loyal servants, stunned at their patron’s destruction, sit now in stricken solitude or run screaming in the wild, all hope lost? How many despair at the shame they must feel, their own piety called into question merely by the fact that they focused it on a doomed deity? How many have just lain down and died?
There but for the grace and majesty of Tyr go I, the angel thought.
But whatever sympathy he felt for those abandoned, crushed souls, it was not his duty to see to their comforts and grief. They had chosen a path, and in the grandest scheme of things, they had chosen poorly. The righteous ruled in all things; all others must be cast low. And Tyr, above all else, was righteousness incarnate.
Micus arrived at the tower to find the High Council and the lantern archon waiting for him. He stepped into the center of the gathering and executed a graceful bow. “I am yours to command in all things, high beings. May I serve you to the best of my abilities.”
“Thank you for returning to us so quickly, Micus,” the High Councilor said. “We have learned dire things since last we spoke.”
“So I have heard,” the angel answered. “I have completed my preparations for finding and returning Tauran, Kael, and the two interlopers. I only need a direction to travel. Perhaps your grave news will offer some insight into where I should begin?”
“Perhaps,” the High Councilor said. “Though such insight will be subtle.”
There was a long pause, and Micus turned from one face to another to see the entire Council looking uneasy, on guard.
“You all seem troubled,” he said, wondering what could cast worry into the hearts of the nine most powerful solars within the Court of Tyr.
Other than the tragic death of Helm, he reminded himself.
“A prisoner has escaped,” the High Councilor explained. “One that was very dangerous, very connected, and heavily guarded.” Micus held his tongue and waited for the solar to continue. “Her name is Kashada,” the High Councilor said.
Micus stifled a small gasp. He and Tauran had assisted in that wretched witch’s capture a number of years previous. He knew both her prowess and her value to foes of the Court. “I know this prisoner,” he said. Then the unthinkable occurred to him, and that time, he could not suppress his gasp of dismay. “Tauran didn’t—”
“We do not believe so, no,” the High Councilor answered. “Evidence points to Tekthyrios having been there.”
Micus felt the floor grow a little less steady beneath him. Tauran had claimed that the priest of Cyric had taken the form of the storm dragon before fleeing. Micus voiced his thoughts to the Council.
“That had occurred to us as well,” one of the female Councilors replied. “If what Tauran claimed is accurate, and this third intruder is a priest of Cyric, there is a certain mad sense to it.”
“But for what?” Micus asked. “A bargain? A collaboration?” Could what Tauran have believed be true? “If this priest Tauran spoke of truly is a servant of Cyric, then freeing one of the most powerful and loyal maidens of Shar does not bode well for the entire cosmos. Whatever those two are planning, it means dire trouble.”
“Yes,” the
High Council agreed. “And we must know what that plan is.”
“Tauran is trying to accomplish that very thing,” Micus said, a surge of hope filling him. “Perhaps I should aid him instead of capture him?”
“No,” the High Councilor said. “Although we no longer question Tauran’s loyalties nor his intentions, his judgment may still be suspect. His new companions may have more to do with this plot than he realizes—or wishes to realize. They may be manipulating him in ways that none of us can yet see. They may, in fact, be in league with the Cyricist. We must assume the worst.”
“Then what would you have me do?” Micus asked.
“Take no chances,” the High Councilor ordered. “They must be stopped so that we can determine their role in this scheme. Capture them at all cost.”
Micus sighed. “Of course,” he said. And he meant it.
“Micus,” the High Councilor said.
“Yes?”
“Do not, under any circumstances, allow your personal friendship with Tauran to cloud your judgment. If he stands in your way, you must not hesitate.”
Micus felt his heart grow heavier. “I understand,” he said. In all his long years of service, he had never been so unhappy to be carrying out his duties as he was just then.
Aliisza had her blade free and a spell on her lips before the mysterious, disembodied voice finished speaking. To one side of her, Kael held his sword before him, and to the other, Kaanyr had both Burnblood and a wand raised. The three of them spread out, wary, and peered into the distance. Aliisza could see nothing but mist. The alu risked a glance back over her shoulder at Tauran.
The deva stood still, relaxed, and was actually smiling. “Eirwyn!” he said. “You found me again.”
“Indeed I did!” replied the voice. “You knew I would.” From perhaps twenty paces away, near the water’s edge, another angel stepped out from behind one of the eerie, fading columns that filled the chamber. Deep lines filled her mature, grandmotherly face, and her hair flowed like silver over one shoulder and down to her waist in a single, thick braid. Despite her apparent age, Eirwyn looked far from frail. She had a gleaming silver mace at her belt very similar to the one Tauran wore. She strode toward them all with a stately gait.
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