“I tried, Hereksa. When Horusel would have slain you after the drug took effect—”
“We must have help!” the Lady Deq Dimani snapped at the translator. “The Gaichun’s physicians? Come, woman!” Dayetha Fashkolun shook her head. The bird’s-head mask was in her way, and she wrenched it off. “They could be summoned, Lady. But I think it is too far—too late.”
“Aid me, Hereksa. Give me words for my death song.” Saina’s eyes wandered about the dusty little room. “I had hoped—I would have been a good wife, Hereksa, not a first wife but a good second, or third. ...”
He understood. “Oh, better than second. First.”
He hated himself for the lie. It was ignoble to lie to a fellow-worshipper of the Flame, and thrice as base to lie to one who was dying.
His little inner voice would have much to say to him later. Even Aluja knew: no low-clan girl could ever be accepted
as the first or second wife of a Red Mountain clansman. Whatever the boy or the girl might wish, such a thing did not happen, not in Tsolyanu, not in Yan Kor, not in any one of the Five Empires. A low-clan bride was acceptable as a concubine, or as a minor wife after the husband had achieved his status. The same was true in reverse for a high-clan Aridani woman who married a low-clan husband: he could never be first, and any children by him would be taken into the wife’s lineage and clan rather than his.
Trinesh fumbled for the few catechisms he had learned ia the temple school. “Otulengba, Vimuhla, Hlatsalkoi, Noktel-modalisakoi hiwisu . . . ‘All hail, Vimuhla, the Flame, Great and Powerful Conflagrator of the Universe!” He could remember no more. The drug seemed to have dried his throat, and the words refused to come.
Saina took his hand, and he exclaimed at the chill upon her fingers. She sighed. “In this land I would have been an Engsvanyali noble lady. Not as pretty as these Yan Koryani doxies, but more than the skinny bone-bags who dwell here.” She straggled to sit erect and began to croon in a toneless whisper. She broke off. “Oh, if only I could make a beautiful death-song! What will the Flame Lord say when I reach the gates of His paradise bellowing like a Tsi’il-beast in rut?” Trinesh turned blindly to the others. His limbs were as weak as reeds. “Get out, all of you—please!”
They did so.
“How is the woman?” Ridek asked. No one replied, and they took the boy back up the corridor, out of hearing. After a time the young Tsolyani officer emerged alone.
“I am ready.” He had donned his breastplate once more, and he held his archaic visored helmet in the crook of one arm. “Your prisoner, Lady.”
They walked in silence. Now and then Shakkan muttered in Tka Mihalli, and Dayetha passed his instructions on to the Lady Deq Dimani. The Ochuna was utterly still, sable-draped, a mournful place to die. They all shared the same thoughts.
Trinesh said, “The Flame—any flame—would have been so much more noble for her.” The Lady Deq Dimani nodded.
At length they came to a vast, high-vaulted hall, roughly circular in plan, festooned with soot-hued Shon Tinur, and floored with head-high mounds of earth, stones, and broken tiles fallen from later edifices that had been built above. Here and there a floor of red and white mosaic showed through from beneath the clutter.
The translator said, “This chamber is named ‘The Elliptical Veil,’ the Gods alone know why. Here the Ochuna ends. That stair leads up to Prince Tenggutla Dayyar’s apartments.” She glanced around, then donned her mask. “There will be guards—soldiers—servants—’ ’
“Prince Tenggutla Dayyar must summon his best,” Trinesh declared gravely. “He will need them.” As though from nowhere, Saina’s short Chlen-hide sword appeared from beneath the helmet he carried.
No one fad thought to disarm him. Yet no one objected. They avoided the heaps of plaster and broken bricks fallen from the ceiling and picked their way across to the other side. There, massive pilasters opened into niches as black as the Shon Tinur itself. The translator indicated that the stairway lay in one of these.
Aluja stopped and scuffed at the cracked flooring with a sandaled foot. “What name did you give this place?”
“in the Gaichun's archives its full title is ‘The Elliptical Veil of the Myriad Worlds,’ ” Dayetha replied.
The Mihalli growled something and scraped harder. Whorls, circles, odd geometrical shapes, and interlocking curlicues appeared, faded white upon red, beneath his feet. The symbols were linked into bands which must once have run all around the floor in a spiral or in concentric circles. Many areas, including the center of the chamber, lay buried beneath rubble a man-height deep.
Aluja toed one visible section and recited, ‘ 'Alum Meya tri Zhawai Nakoluvre. . . .”
“What are you about?” Thu’n worried.
“These marks. This mosaic is a writing in my language. The Gaichun's palace must be built upon the ruins of one of our council halls, a place of the Mihalli of old. ...”
“We have no time now!” The Lady Deq Dimani clawed her heavy tresses back with impatient fingers.
“Khu Nokekhrii. . . And from hence the fourth Plane, and so to the Pylons of the Barrier . . ” he continued to
read, ignoring her.
Ridek went to help, prying up flat chunks of tile and plaster with the butt of his staff. More of the red and white mosaic showed beneath.
“As the Lord of Sacrifice bums!” the Lady Deq Dimani fumed. Their escort must have surmised by now that Aluja was no ordinary human sorcerer, and only the paralysis of terror kept them there. The interpreter chittered at them in Tka Mihalli; warning or reassurance, the others could not tell. Thu’n left Aluja to dig and paced from niche to niche, peering into each in turn. Only Trinesh stood still.
“This,” Aluja announced, “is indeed a Hall of Myriad Worlds.”
“The Flame sear you!” the Lady Deq Dimani cried. “What do you mean? —And what is that to us now?”
“A focal point—a place from which one who knows the way can travel directly to any place on any Plane, wherever an open Nexus Point exists. An intersection of many lines—of weak spots in the skins of reality that surround the island-universes. . . . Like bubbles in a bath of oil, with filaments linking them here and there. ...” Aluja stumbled over the concepts. No human tongue could express exactly what lay here, and he abandoned the effort. “Find the Lady Jai,” he said. “Then I can take you directly to any receptive Nexus Point within the spheres: to Milumanaya, to Yan Kor— anywhere that is not sealed and warded! Without hindrance, without traversing Planes where dangers await.” His human form shimmered, wavered, and then solidified again, but he paid no heed. “Four such halls we had upon this Plane—only four. One was destroyed, melted into vapor by the catastrophe that created the Plains of Glass during the Latter Times. Three still exist, but they are far from here—in your spatial terms. Ohe, our histories speak of four, but this chamber is a fifth!” He seemed almost beside himself. “A fifth, lost even to the legend-singers
Trinesh had not moved from the center of the cavernous hall. He stood now with his back to Aluja and the Lady Deq Dimani.
“Greetings, Horusel,” he said.
17
The veteran Tirrikamu emerged from one of the side niches, Dineva and the two crossbowmen just behind him. Chosun, Chekkuru, and a group of five or six of the Prince’s guardsmen were visible farther back in the darkness, and Trinesh thought to see the sheen of Okkuru’s chain harness there as well.
“Chekkuru!” Horusel roared. “That one first—the old man! He’s their mage!”
The priest lifted his arm, but the Mihalli was faster. His globe swung up, already glowing with a malignant azure light. There was no visible manifestation, but Chekkuru made a whinnying sound and toppled over backwards. Trinesh did not see what happened to him thereafter. Horusel was already closing for combat, and Trinesh himself was the nearest.
The guardsmen of both sides advanced as well; magic and alien beings might terrify them, but this was their own kind of battle, and they were by no m
eans cowards. The Ochuna had doubtless witnessed scores of just such deadly little skirmishes over the centuries. Ornate falchions at the ready, they yelped shrill battle cries and trotted forward.
Shakkan’s black-swathed shoulder blades spurted red. He threw up his hands and crumpled. In front of him, Mejjai bent methodically to rewind his crossbow. Arjasu was there too, pausing to look for a better target. The snap of his weapon was lost in their shouting, but Dayetha Fashkolun doubled over, mouth open wide, fingers clawing at the red-feathered quarrel in her belly. If Arjasu had been seeking the Lady Deq Dimani, he had chosen the wrong woman.
Horusel’s rush carried him on right into Trinesh. The younger man was ready; they clashed together and swayed, nose to nose, for the space of two long breaths. The poison had left Trinesh weak, and his stockier, heavier opponent strove to trip him. He slid backwards, braced again, and shoved. Horusel shifted to the right and let Trinesh stumble past, only the backplate of his armor saving him from an awkward backhand blow as he went by. He slithered to his knees in a heap of earth and sharp-edged tiles, fell, rolled, and kicked out. His boots encountered empty air.
From out of nowhere something struck Horusel a glancing clout upon the left shoulder. He cursed, turned, and then smashed down with his stubby, scallop-bladed short sword at a new attacker rushing in from his flank.
It was the Yan Koryani boy. And all the lad had for a weapon was a black wooden cudgel! Trinesh shouted, but he was too late.
The blade hit the upflung staff. It should have sheared it in two and gone on to cleave the boy’s skull. Instead, the Tirrikamu's weapon seemed to glide around the target, a complicated, curving path never mentioned in any manual of dueling. Astonished, Horusel struggled to control his swing, leaped away, and returned for a straight-armed stab. This time his blade flickered sideways like a fish swimming in a stream; it missed the boy completely.
Trinesh was on his feet. “Here, Horusel! I am here!” he cried. “Why slay a boy when I am the one you seek?”
The Tirrikamu swerved around and met Trinesh’ charge in a clatter of armor and weapons. The floor here was smoother— the red and white mosaic—and Trinesh’s training had the advantage. A thrust, a parry, a slash, and the older man retreated, panting.
“Out of the way, boy!” Trinesh had no idea whether the youth understood Tsolyani. He feigned a wide blow, reversed, caught Horusel’s blade and knocked it aside. He felt his own point bump along the fluting of the man’s cuirass. Horusel ducked his head and lurched forward to grapple, his favored style of brawling.
Trinesh’s backhanded chop caught him across the ornate cheekpiece of his Engsvanyali helmet. The armor of the Legion of the Storm of Fire would have held up, but the High General’s gift was intended for ceremony. The Chlen-hide plate crumpled, and Horusel uttered a single, short, cawing shout. He staggered, lost his balance, and sprawled across the Mihalli inscription on the floor. Muscles cracking, he clambered to his knees. His helmet’s chinstrap had been cut through, and the gilded burgonet slipped off entirely and went clacking and bouncing away across the mosaic.
He made the mistake of glancing after it.
Trinesh’s next blow landed at the juncture of neck and shoulder, just above the chaised rim of Horusel’s pauldron. The Tirrikamu coughed, slumped forward, and clawed at the awful red wound opening just beneath his ear.
He kicked and then lay still.
Trinesh gulped for air, but found that it stank of battle: metal, and leather, and blood, and sweat, and entrails, and dying. Farther off, shadows leaped and pranced in the fitful light of the escorts’ torches. He heard shouting, clangor, and the screeching birdlike warcries of the Gaichun's troops. Then giddiness overcame him, and he knelt to recover.
He sensed someone beside him and hurled himself aside.
The boy’s black staff whistled over his head. The lad had more courage than sense!
Before he could react, a shadow loomed up behind the boy: it was Chosun. Trinesh had no breath with which to cry a warning, but it would have been useless in any case. Yet the big soldier made no attempt to strike. Instead, he came forward, hands held wide to show that he meant no harm, and stooped to haul Trinesh erect. The Yan Koryani princeling backed away, wide-eyed, into the darkness.
“You wounded, Hereksa?”
“No—1 don’t think so. ...”
“Sorry. This shouldn’t have happened.” Chosun’s homely features were twisted with remorse.
“No help for it now. Who—who wins?”
“Think they do. The Lady. Magic.”
Trinesh understood: the mysterious Aluja.
“The boy,” he wheezed. “Get the boy, and she may yet give herself up. He’s important to her.”
Chosun peered about. “No boy now. He’s run off—over there, I think, toward her.” He pointed with his sword. “We can’t beat ’em, Hereksa—not with a sorcerer on their side. Best we run.”
“No. We must see.” That was the least they could do. They skirted head-high piles of rubble. It took less than five short sentences to tell Chosun of Saina’s fate and another three to describe the boy’s curious staff. Then they came out between two jagged tumuli of broken masonry and saw torches ahead, stuck into the damp, mold-fragrant earth. Trinesh pulled Chosun to a stop behind a hillock of rotted bricks.
Twenty paces away, the Lady Deq Dimani stood in the midst of an open space, the sorcerer and the boy beside her. Two of her Mihalli guardsmen were inspecting a body: Mejjai, Trinesh thought. Dineva squatted nearby under the eyes of a third soldier. She wore no helmet, and her lank, stringy hair tumbled down in a black cascade over the fingers she pressed to her face. She must have suffered a blow to the head. There was no sign of Arjasu or Chekkuru hiVriddi, nor could they see Thu’n.
Okkuru the translator ambled up out of the shadows and bowed. What he said was inaudible, but the Lady Deq Dimani made an imperious gesture. He shrugged and sat down beside Dineva. After all, the ex-slave had no stake in this fight; he did not care who won, and she would need his services as a translator, now that poor Dayetha Fashkolun lay either dead or badly wounded.
“Tse’e?” Chosun asked.
“Vanished.” Trinesh had not seen the old man since their first battle in Chunatl Dikkuna’s unpleasant little cell.
“1 think Chekkuru hiVriddi is dead. And good riddance.”
“I know. I saw him fall—sorcery. We should look for Chekkuru. I think he had the magical weapon the Prince was going to give me.” He was struck by another thought. “And Aijasu? What happened to him? He’s neither fool nor coward.”
Chosun made no answer. Trinesh led the way between gigantic blocks fallen through the ceiling long ago from some less-ancient structure above.
They found Chekkuru hiVriddi almost at once.
The priest lay amid the rubble, his shaven head cradled upon one outflung arm. Chosun put a hand to his breast and murmured, “He lives, Hereksa. It’s like he’s sleeping.” He grinned wolfishly. “Lazy like all priests! Ought to kill the bastard!”
“No. Leave him. Look for his weapon.”
They searched the moist, clayey earth in front of him, around him, and then in wider circles. It was Trinesh who came upon the Prince’s “Eye,” half buried in the mold-streaked soil. He waved it at Chosun, who went off to reconnoitre from behind a hummock of debris.
“Cha!” the Tirrikamu grunted. “They’re getting ready to move: the soldiers to the front and rear, Dineva and the translator man with the Lady and the others in the middle.”
“Going up into the palace, probably. After the Lady Jai.”
“How good is the ‘Eye’? We can ambush them if you' like.”
He had no clear idea what the Prince’s weapon did. More, he tended to put little trust in such esoteric devices. He thought furiously. If they attacked now and somehow managed to win against all odds, the Lady Jai would still be a prisoner above. He doubted whether he and Chosun could rescue her by themselves. On the other hand, if they Set the Lady D
eq Dimani leave to get the girl, she would have no reason to return here. They could follow at a distance, of course, but . . .
The decision was made for him. Shouting erupted ahead, and the escorts’ torches scattered red-orange light in wild gyrations. Concealment forgotten, Trinesh straightened up to look.
The Lady Jai Chasa Vedlan had just emerged from the niche in front of the party.
She appealed unharmed. Her long, wavy tresses hung loose over a dark mantle of some sort. From the copper-gold gleam of her limbs beneath it, Trinesh suspected that it was her only garment. The Lady Deq Dimani went forward as though to embrace her but stopped five paces away, held out her hands, and said something in her harsh language.
The girl shrugged and dropped her cloak. She was indeed quite naked. She kicked the garment disdainfully aside with one bare foot, then stood silently, as though waiting for something. The Lady Deq Dimani spoke again, and Trinesh looked about for Saina to interpret for him.
There was no more Saina. Grief struck him with full force, and he almost cried out. He grimaced and bit his lip. After ail, a warrior-child soon learns to postpone mourning; either that, or one can never be a soldier. Thus his preceptors had taught him in the clan-house training yard long ago.
The Lady Deq Dimani gestured. Okkuru sang a few words to the accompanying guardsmen, and one of them stripped away Dineva’s short mantle and tossed it to the Yan Koryani girl, who put it on. The purpose of ail this dressing and undressing was mystifying.
Chosun pulled Trinesh down beside him. “Look at their magicker, Hereksa
Aluja’s form seemed to shimmer in the torchlight, and Trinesh squinted. No, the graybeard was still the same. He had drawn a little apart from the others, though, the Yan Koryarii princeling beside him. “It looks as though he wants no part of the Lady and her maid.”
“There was something about him. . . . What’s he seeking on the floor?”
“Something dropped? A weapon?” Then Trinesh remembered the white symbols of the mosaic and the words Aluja had uttered in an unknown tongue. A spell?
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