Bone Tapper had no reply. He rode her shoulder into the audience chamber, as vast and grand as Marta remembered it. Only now it was Lornis sitting in the High Priestess' chair on the dais. Marta stopped suddenly as the shock of recognition hit her.
It was Lornis in the mirror. Much younger, but it was her. Of course, I should have known.
"Have you found what you sought?" Lornis asked. Her voice seemed to fill the chamber.
Marta just looked at her for several long moments. "You came to the Shrine once, long ago, just as I have now," she said. "You took the place of the former Priestess."
"Yes," Lornis said, frowning. "Everyone who stays here, came here at one point or another. What of it? You haven't answered my question."
"You're not an adept," Marta said, as if she hadn't heard. "You recognized Bone Tapper by simple observation; the signs are there for anyone with wit to read them; I'm so used to Bone Tapper as what he is that I no longer see them."
Lornis's smile was all teeth. "I never said I was an adept, child. You did."
Marta nodded. "You’re right. I went beyond the respect that is your due. I gave you power that you did not have."
"The Second Law, child: 'What cannot be taken, can be given.'"
Marta shook her head slowly. "A misinterpretation of the Second Law, which really has more to do with the limits of pure force. Force had nothing to do with this."
Lornis's face looked like a dark cloud considering a storm. "Enough delay! Did you find what you sought?"
"Yes," Marta said. "I did."
Lornis laughed at her. "Marta, that is not possible."
"Why?" Marta asked.
"Because—" Lornis stopped, and Marta smiled.
"Go on. You were going to tell me how you know that I did not find the Third Law. Yes, that is the one I was searching for, I admit it."
"You did not receive the Third Law from the Oracle!"
"You're right," Marta said. "I did not. Because, as you said yourself, it's not possible! The Laws cannot be taught, they cannot be earned, they cannot even be revealed, not by my mother, not by the Basilisk Oracle, not by Astonei, not by Amaet, not by anyone! That's true, isn't it?"
Lornis glared at her. "Yes, it's true, and what of it? You did not receive the Third Law and so you are sworn to Astonei, now and forever."
"No. I am not."
Lornis was stunned to silence, but she soon found her voice again. "Marta, have a care! Astonei will protect you for forswearing the Arrow Path, but break faith with her and no Power on earth or above it will protect you."
"I am having great care, Lornis, and I have not forsworn the Arrow Path. I told you—I found my answer. It wasn't the Third Law. I did not ask the Basilisk Oracle for the Third Law! I never said I had. What I sought from the Oracle was truth, just one bit of truth about something that I thought I understood. I received it, though it took me a little while to understand what it meant. It was only then that I acquired the Third Law. For both, I thank you."
"Prove it, then. What is the Third Law of Power?"
"I can't tell you," Marta said.
"You mean you don't know!"
"I mean," replied Marta firmly, "that you don't. I can't tell you because it would mean nothing to you. Words. I can't tell you because many years ago you came here searching for the Third Law and you didn't find it."
Lornis was silent for several long moments, then said, "You're wrong."
There was a seed of doubt in Marta's mind, as perhaps there always would be, but it did not grow. "I don't think so," she said. "Show me the sign."
Lornis just stared at her. She shook her head, slowly, but Marta was as merciless and inevitable as the tides, and she held her gaze. "Show me. You wanted proof, and proof is here, only it is you who will provide it. Show me."
Lornis reached inside her robe and slowly, reluctantly, pulled out the pendant she wore around her neck. The Arrow Path. Marta wasn't even a little surprised.
Lornis looked weary beyond her years, but she managed a smile. "You're still wrong...about part of it, anyway. I already had the Third Law when I came here. I wasn't searching for the Fourth Law or any other. I asked for no Law of Power when I slept in the Basilisk's skull. I didn't ask for anything."
Marta blinked. She struck down the denial forming on her lips; she only had to look at the old woman to know she spoke the truth. "But...why?"
"Why? How can you even ask that? I can't say what is right be for you, but for me The Arrow Path was a mistake. I was weary of the traveling, of the searching, long before I came to the Basilisk Shrine. And I found a very weary, very ancient Priestess with a settled life and a high office, and both looked very good to me. All I had to do to make it mine was one little lie. So that's my soul debt to Astonei. It'll be paid soon enough. I have a better offer for you, Marta—stay with me. You won't even need to lie. It could be your choice."
Marta shook her head. "You are a very fine servant of Astonei. I think your choice to stay served a greater truth than the fact you hid to preserve that choice. But if I tried to stay, that would be the lie, and would not serve Astonei at all. Or you. Or me. This is not my way, Lornis. For better or no, the Arrow Path is mine. I will follow where it leads."
"Suppose it leads you to nothing but death?"
Marta bowed. "All roads lead to death sooner or later. I believe how we make the journey is what matters. Shall I tell you the Third Law?"
Lornis shook her head. "No need. I believe you, Marta. Go in peace. I think you may yet regret your choice, but it is yours to make."
Marta nodded once to the priestess and then left the Basilisk Shrine without another word, and soon stood in the sunlight again in the grassy valley.
"That was quick thinking," Bone Tapper said, and it was the first thing he'd said since they took their leave of the Shrine. "Pity."
"What was? And why a pity?" Marta asked.
"That story about finding the Third Law, of course. You were convincing, I must say. So was she. I'd swear Lornis actually had found her Law and just chose to stay, as she said."
"She did, and she did."
Bone Tapper blinked owlishly. "She could have been pretending, just as you could have...and I thought you were. How could you know otherwise?"
"If I had actually failed, I would have stayed. I would have had to. Lornis knew that."
"I repeat: How?"
"If I still believed that Lornis was an adept at the end of the oracle, it would mean that I had not found the Third Law as I said I had. I made her produce the pendant to prove that I knew her secret."
Bone Tapper ruffled his feathers. "Fine, I give you that one. But what did finding or not finding the Third Law have to do with knowing that Lornis was an adept?"
"That was the bit of truth I asked of the Shrine. My oracle let me live a piece of Lornis's life, enough to suspect. I had assumed that Lornis was a powerful adept because I didn't consider the other option. Which is that she merely 'appeared' to be. That her experience and natural intuition together with what few of the Laws she did possess allowed her to seem more than she was. But if you always accept what you see at face value, how can you distinguish between it and the truth?"
Bone Tapper frowned. "I don't think you can."
Marta nodded. "Just so. At that point it no longer matters, at least in practice. 'The Appearance of Power, Once Accepted, is Power Itself.'"
"Is that the Third Law?"
"Assume what you will," Marta said. "I'll say no more on the matter."
Bone Tapper took his place on Marta's shoulder and she steered the wagon back the way they had come. "And how has this knowledge increased your abilities?"
"It allowed me to escape from the Shrine, didn't it?"
"There was nothing holding you there!"
"I believe that was the point," Marta replied dryly, then she smiled. "Now then: why is it a pity? Because you wanted to serve Lornis instead of me?"
"Because we were safe in the Shrine, Mistress! What
happens when Laras discovers, as he will sooner or later, that you did not die in Sendale?"
Marta smiled. "Oh, that. Amaet surely told him by now."
"And you come out here, knowing Laras is looking for you?"
"Yes, Bone Tapper, I do. Out into the world where I belong. I'll either share it with Laras, or one of us will die. Whatever happens, this matter will be settled."
"Then I think it will be settled now. Look there!"
Marta looked up toward the ridge on the northern edge of the valley, the way they had come. She saw a figure made of fire.
"Laras," she said softly. She wasn't surprised; in fact it was no more or less than she expected. It made perfect sense that he would be waiting for her, somewhere if not here. Amaet would not be so easily fooled as Laras himself had been. And this had been her idea all along hadn't it?
She's going to answer for that. I just have to live long enough to make that happen.
"Let's have it done then," Marta said simply.
"I've asked it before, I'll ask again: are you mad??"
"Shall we go find out?"
"Umm... I'd rather not."
"I know," Marta said. "Yet you will come with me anyway."
Bone Tapper didn't argue further. He rode Marta's shoulder as she walked up the hill to meet Laras. There was neither haste nor hurry in her stride.
"One thing, Bone Tapper," Marta said as they approached the living flame. "Doubtless he will burn me. Feel free to fly to a safe distance when that happens."
"And leave you to die? Is that what you really want? It certainly explains your attitude."
"If I die, your Debt belongs to Amaet. She will see how to collect it and even if she does not you're no longer my problem."
Laras waited for her in all his glory there on the hilltop, the flames that framed his body flickered from red to blue to gold and back again. He looked like a god. Marta thought this appropriate, considering he had the power of one. Almost literally. Marta shrugged. If she had misread the situation, if she was wrong about the nature of Laras's power and what it meant, she would die. If she was right she might die anyway; the risk wasn't exactly slight. Yet she had made her choice, and she would live or die by that choice because it belonged to her. That and the Laws of Power that were her heritage, and her destiny.
"I'm glad you choose not to run, Marta," Laras said as she approached. "I serve Amaet, and her ways are harsh and unfathomable, but I am no monster. I have no wish to make this any harder than it has to be."
Marta nodded. "I believe that's true."
"Well then—" Laras raised his hands, but Marta stopped him.
"If it's not too much trouble, Master Laras, before you kill me there is something I would really like to know."
"Ask, and please be quick. My patience is not without limits."
Marta bowed slightly. "Of course. So. You told me that Amaet gave you the Laws of Power. Is that really true?"
Laras glow changed from a flame to a roaring inferno and then back again. "Do you doubt it?"
"Yes," she said. "I do."
Laras smiled a grim smile. Sparks flew from his hair. "Then I guess I will have to prove it."
Laras burned her. Flames speared out from Laras's open hands and enveloped her. Bone Tapper had already flown clear, croaking in fear and horror. Laras glanced up. "Oh, off with you, carrion-eater. Amaet gave no instructions concerning you. Don't give me a reason to kill you, too."
"You need a reason? Perhaps you're not really a monster after all. Merely a deluded fool."
Bone Tapper and Laras both stared in disbelief. Marta stood calmly in front of them, still enveloped in fire. She regarded the flames with some curiosity; the grass at her feet began to smolder but Marta herself could have been standing in a pleasant glow of sunset for all that she took note of them.
Laras's mouth set in a grim line. "So...trickier than I suspected, aren't you? No matter."
This time he called lightning. It struck out of a clear sky with a flash of heat and roll of thunder. The ground at Marta's feet smoked and steamed. Marta smiled at him. "Nice trick. Could you teach me that one?" Laras just stared, and Marta finally sighed. "No, I guess not. You really don't know, do you?"
Fear and confusion warred across Laras's face. For a moment, confusion got the upper hand. "You can't be standing, you can't be alive! No one could withstand that!"
Marta shook her head. "There was nothing to withstand, Laras. These flashes of light and sparkle have nothing to do with magic. You burn the grass because you believe otherwise. They do not burn me because I know what you do not know."
"What? What do you know?"
"That they are false flames. Tricks. Just like your mastery."
"Amaet gave the Laws to me!"
Marta shook her head slowly. "No. The Laws of Power are not hers to give, or anyone's. That is not the way of the Laws. I told you that before. It was true then and it's true now."
Marta made the flames around her go away. Laras took a step back. "I've shattered stones!" he said, a note of hysteria creeping into his voice. "I broke those beneath your feet at the ruins!"
Marta shook her head. "The stone was indeed broken, but you didn't do it, not really. You don't know how."
His hands balled into fists, but his flames were beginning to look starved and ragged, like a dying campfire, unattended. "I do! 'What Power Holds, Weakness Frees'! It's the First Law!"
"No it isn't," Marta said. "That is merely the expression of the First Law. That is all that Amaet gave to you. They are not the Laws themselves, or anyone who heard their names would know them. No true Arrow Path initiate would make that mistake." She smiled then. "At least, not a second time. But then you are not Arrow Path, are you? Despite the pendant you wear. You are Amaet's dog."
"I've shattered stones!" Laras stubbornly repeated. "I caused landslides with a thought!"
"It may have been your thought, Laras, but it was Amaet's will, and her power alone. She doesn’t want me dead. She wants something else.”
"You're lying! I will show you."
Laras looked at his hand, then slowly began to reach out. Marta understood the danger. That much of his belief was true—he did have access to the First Law, or at least the effects of it. Unlike the false fire and lightning, there was danger in his touch. She smiled at him and Laras froze, uncertain.
"I'm telling you the truth," Marta said to him. "It's past time someone did. If you really want to understand Power, then let me show you what it is."
Marta spoke no spells, since she knew none save the Ritual of the Debt. She neither called lightning nor conjured fire. All she did was reach out, suddenly, and with her own bare hand she snatched the symbol from Laras's neck. She held the gold pendant in her fingers and, with her own strength and the gold's malleable nature, she crushed it.
Laras's fire went out.
"I thought as much," Marta said. " Amaet channeled her power through this." Marta held up the crushed pendant. "You have no power and never did. She taught you nothing. She gave you nothing. No Debt incurred, or at least not a fair, proper one, because you never used Power on your own. There was no understanding on your part required, and she let you believe what you wanted to believe. It's over now."
Laras shouted improvised incantations that had no effect. Laras gestured to the heavens and received no answer. Marta simply waited until Laras finally fell to his knees, sobbing. "She promised...she lied! She lied to me!" Laras looked at Marta, his eyes overflowing with pain. "I loved her!"
Marta heard it all in those few words, choked out in rage and pain. What Laras had hoped, what he dreamed, what he sought to make real. All gone. Or rather, never existing at all except in Laras's own mind. Yet that clearly wasn't the worst that Amaet had done to him.
"Loved...Amaet? Oh, Laras..."
It was only then that Marta truly understood the completeness of Amaet's corruption of Laras. Then, too, she finally realized, as she had not before, that Treedle's earlier refusa
l to be her friend was something like a compliment. Treedle may have been my mother's slave, but he never loved her, nor me. At least, not for allowing him to become a slave. The same could be said of anyone who served Kath and now Marta. Perhaps it wasn't so great a difference, but it was a difference, between herself and the Power called Amaet. Marta felt surprisingly grateful for that difference now.
"Choose better next time, Laras," was all Marta said. "Goodbye."
She heard his scream of incoherent rage even before she sensed Laras springing forward. Later, Marta would think of all the things she could have done. Break his arm, or a leg. Crush his shoulder. Anything except what she did. Yet in the moment there was only that moment, and no time for second choices. As Laras's fingers closed about her throat, Marta touched his chest. There was purpose in that touch. Not anger, nor even fear. Just purpose, and then followed, as always, the consequences. Marta's touch wasn't a blow. It was barely a caress, yet there was death in it. Laras's cry of rage and madness choked off into silence and he crumpled like a rag doll onto the grass.
Marta just stood there for several long moments, staring first at her hand, then Laras's limp body, then her hand again.
"Wrong to the end...Damn you, Laras, and Amaet in the bargain," Marta said, and that was all. She left Laras' body where it fell and started walking north. In a short time she found where Laras had left his hobbled mount. Bone Tapper flew down to perch on her shoulder as she untied the lashings and freed the reins.
"You seem to be making a habit of taking horses from that poor sod." Bone Tapper saw the expression on Marta's face and changed the subject. "Laras beat you the first time because he believed he had power?"
"No. He won because I believed him. I doubted what my Mother taught me, and everything I knew to be true. I won't make that mistake again."
"Did you have to kill him?"
Marta nodded slowly. "Yes, because I only had time to think of one thing, and this was the result. I will learn better. Next time, perhaps, I will consider another option first. Not that this will help poor Laras. It might help some other fool in times to come."
Bone Tapper sighed. "Back to the Archive, I suppose?"
Black Kath's Daughter Page 27
