Not certain if he referred to the raising of the nonexistent eight thousand or to Hihuan’s army, Blaise shrugged. “The glory they come to worship is empty,” he said and laughed inwardly at the angry gleam in Picyt’s eyes. But for the sake of those listening he merely added, with no further attempts at double meanings, “Hihuan’s army is not yet here.”
“No,” said Picyt with satisfaction, placing his hand atop Aural’s capsule. “Teecht has been faithful in seeing that a black devi blocks the way Hihuan must come.”
So they could control the weather! Or part of it. Trying to conceal his surprise, Blaise came closer, brushing by Tuult without a glance as the officer saluted and stepped aside. “And don’t you likewise prevent the coming of the Bban tribes with your devi?” he asked.
“The Bban’n know the wastes best,” said Picyt without concern. “Their ways of travel are efficient. Ah!” He looked across the vast cavern to where a group of priests had appeared. A figure, masked and robed in white, walked in their midst. Two youths in the banded robes of neophytes walked ahead, carrying long smoldering clubs that they swung in careful rhythm so that waves of purple and amber smoke curled forth in interwoven patterns.
“Impressive,” murmured Blaise as they drew nearer. “Who is she?”
“Identity of the catalyst is unimportant,” said Picyt. “It is Aural who concerns us. Look upon her, my Leiil, and recall her fairness.” He moved aside as he spoke, giving Blaise clear view of the sleeping woman.
She was beautiful, coldly so, but as he gazed at her flawless figure and wealth of burnished hair, he felt no stir of interest and no memory of past associations. He kept seeing Giaa’s dirty, tear-streaked face instead of Aural’s, and the vision of those pleading silver eyes tore at him like the rake of fingernails over sore flesh. If only she were fully Tlar. But then, if it were so, she would not be his Giaa but instead a goddess with a purpose and a duty to something that had died long ago.
“What color are Aural’s eyes?” he asked finally without great interest.
The priest glanced at him, not troubling to conceal the amusement in his eyes or the scorn in his face. “Oh, as I recall, my Leiil, a vastly interesting color. Have you forgotten?”
Fool, thought Blaise, impatient with his mockery. He returned his attention to the approaching catalyst. Now that the procession had nearly reached them, he could see the fine gold embroidery work on the white cloak and the delicate gold tracery on the white mask. But whoever she was, she walked strangely, almost like an automaton. Now and then she stumbled, but no hand reached out to steady her. Blaise frowned, noticing that the hem of her fine cloak dragged the ground by several inches and was soiled by the dust. An awful suspicion shot through him, and he extended his rings of perception slightly.
Picyt glared at him. “Disturb her not!”
But it had been enough. Furious, Blaise turned on him. “What in the name of Anthi are you up to?” he demanded so sternly that Picyt flinched. “Saunders is no catalyst for—”
“The n’dl made her choice freely,” said Picyt. Though his hands were folded complacently inside his wide sleeves, his eyes were not serene. They glittered with the sheen of venom. “She came to me directly from your last talk with her.”
The shock was like a blow. Blaise felt numb as he realized she had not sabotaged Picyt’s beacon to the Bban tribes. Probably she had never intended to do so at all. Damn her for being such an idiot! Could she really think her alliance with Picyt served her in any way? Why, for once, just once, couldn’t she have trusted him?
“Saunders!” he said sharply. “Are you insane? You can’t do this!”
The procession had stopped and regrouped so that now the brown-robed priest stood behind her. The colored smoke of the incense curled over them all, stinging Blaise’s nostrils as he glared at her.
“I desire it,” she said tonelessly through the mask.
“Something is wrong,” said Blaise. “Her morals would never allow…What have you done to her?” He stepped forward, intending to rip off her mask, but just as swiftly Picyt lifted his finger, and Tuult sprang to stand between Blaise and Saunders, his hand on his knife hilt.
Blaise stopped, quivering with anger. He was close enough to her now to hear her slow, regular breathing and to smell an acrid chemical odor. “Yde,” he said, spitting out the word with contempt. “You’ve filled her with it!” He turned on Picyt with his fists clenched. “This time you’ve gone too far, Picyt. I won’t permit—”
“No,” said Picyt softly in his broken husk of a voice. “I have not gone far enough. There is much yet to be done. By the will of Anthi, my Leiil, I swear the girl Giaa shall pay dearly for your refusal here.” At Blaise’s furious intake of breath, Picyt drew his shattered body erect until they were once again of equal height. “Indeed, Noble Leiil,” he continued, squinting under Blaise’s burning gaze, “you can slay me now with the power that flames within your heart. But do you truly value the n’dl over your Henan slave? Or are you false to both?”
Blaise hesitated. A few days ago he would not have been torn by compassion for either woman; now he knew only that he had made Giaa a part of himself and must forever bear that responsibility. But while he had always despised Saunders for her blind stubbornness and misguided loyalty, he could not willingly sacrifice her to this. What if she could not come through the process as he had? And worse, what if her psyche did survive, to be forever trapped raging and helpless in a soft pampered body that could never return her to her beloved Institute and the hard duty she thrived upon?
“It is against the will of Anthi that your blood be spread upon the sand,” said Picyt in a snarl for Blaise’s ears alone. “But, Lea’dl, I swear you can be made to wish to die while Giaa suffers the intricacies of slow Bban torture—”
“Enough.” Blaise turned away from the priest to stare at Saunders’s motionless figure once more. He gestured violently, hating her in that moment as he hated himself for not knowing how to save her or himself and Giaa. “Put her on the bier,” he said roughly, and moved to Aural’s capsule. Impatiently he waited while the priests led Saunders to the central bier and removed the fine cloak and mask before stretching out her unresisting form. Her gray eyes stared blankly, filmed with a dull blue haze that sickened Blaise. He did not dare look at Picyt, lest the fire building within him escape all control. He drew a ragged breath, closing his eyes against the sight of Saunders’s broad, ugly face, slack and vacant and white. What he would not give at this moment to see her furious and red and bellowing. But even that thought twisted upon him viciously, for he would not give what was necessary. He could not.
“Now, my Leiil,” said Picyt.
Without opening his eyes Blaise stretched forth his hands and flattened both palms against the container. Never in his life had he felt more wretched with guilt or more vulnerable as the priests stood ringed about him with bated breath and ready weapons. He drew in a deep lungful of air and called with his mind to Anthi, which answered at once in a loud thrumming vibration that shook through him.
“Anthi,” he said, focusing inward. “The catalyst is prepared. Release Aural, by the will of Asan.”
“By the will of Asan, guardianship of Aural is surrendered,” replied Anthi.
The humming sound increased, deafening him. He felt a drain of power and knew with a flash of fear that any of the priests standing in the cave could at that moment spread their rings and crush him. But they were transfixed by the glory of Anthi, which they worshiped but no longer understood. Impatience replaced his fear. Why had they forgotten? What had made them want to forget? Was it fear, or laziness, or the insanity that drove Picyt?
Then Saunders’s scream pierced his mind, banishing all questions. Helplessly he watched her soul drain away and vanish as the glass beneath his hands grew warm enough to blister his flesh. But he did not draw back, despite the pain, until a touch on his shoulder startled him.
Only then did he realize it was over. The spreading rings h
ad closed; order had been reestablished. He dropped his hands away, stepping back with a slight stagger of fatigue while others hastened to open the case. Picyt himself placed the cloak about Aural, whose eyes slowly fluttered open. They were blue, intensely so, with flecks of silver and jade around the slitted pupils. Her delicate nostrils flared as though she smelled something unpleasant. Gently the priests raised her to a sitting position, and her burnished hair tumbled about her, spilling over her shoulders into her lap. She blinked several times before finally focusing on Blaise, who stood waiting, praying it was Saunders and desperately hoping it was not. Suddenly the dullness left her eyes, and they became as brilliant as sapphires in torchlight.
Recognition gleamed within their depths, and she drew a swift breath. “Asan,” she whispered, and her voice was like the touch of smoldering embers.
“Aural,” he replied, and stood there numbly while Picyt fitted the white mask over her face. The glory of her beauty was too precious to be seen by any save the most honored few. But it did not matter. Blaise bowed his head. Saunders was gone.
Chapter 12
Blaise stood apart from his escort cadre, his booted feet braced upon the rocky lip of a broad ledge overlooking the vast plains of Ddreui beyond. A light wind, sharp with cold, tossed his black cloak out from his shoulders, causing the bronze lining to flash and shimmer with light. Overhead the clouds raced in long tattered streamers, gilded along their undersides with gold and scarlet from the sun, while to the south a vast black-purple bank of clouds stood like a wall upon the horizon. Even at this distance flashes of lightning could be seen spearing vicious forks through it. Blaise shivered as the sun moved behind the immense mountain peak towering at his back, throwing him into shadow. A startled flock of furred nhulks flew up from a crevice in the rocks, bursting through the stunted growth of silver-needled bushes. He turned to face the masked, cloaked party climbing up the rock-strewn trail behind him. Mist, white and damp, swirled around their legs but did not stretch itself out onto the ledge where Blaise stood. The nhulks wheeled overhead, still crying out in their harsh twitter over the crunch of booted feet on patches of frozen snow.
Blaise’s eyes narrowed behind his mask at the sight of the foremost figure, swathed in a cloak of thick frost-silvered borlorl fur. Her blue mask with its silver tracings of caste and rank stood out vividly against the spiked fur edging her hood. As she and her jen cadre appeared, the shadows deepened, and the torn clouds overhead merged, obscuring the sky.
She halted, and for a moment she and Blaise stared at each other silently in the buffeting whip of the wind. Then she turned to stare out at the plains below.
They have not yet come? she asked, her mind speaking to his as she spread out a ring to cloud the mental reception of the Bban’n surrounding them.
He frowned, well aware that she considered none of their conversations fit hearing for any of the Bban’n, especially their guard escort. You should not be here, Aural.
Nor is your presence intelligent, she retorted. We are neither of us yet fully acceptanced by the Bban’n, although it could have been different for you, had they not been permitted to trick you with that Henan girl. The contempt in her thoughts was open. But what is your intention out here? she continued. She stepped past him to stand on the edge. The wind stirred her furs into rippling life. Is it your thought to make the Bban tribes come just by standing here and wishing?
Blaise snorted in impatience. You know I do not want them here.
She laughed, and the sound swept mockery through his mind. He blocked it sharply, but she stepped closer, lifting her slender hands in their embroidered blue gloves gracefully.
I know you are not eager to see the Tlar’jen come. She cocked her head to one side, and he could imagine the scornful glint in her blue eyes. Once Asan would not have feared his servant—
“Hihuan is not my servant!” shouted Blaise, his voice ringing out through the crisp air, startling the crouched guards, who had gathered in a circle to roll carved pebbles in their beloved game of kri-gri. They swung masked faces toward Blaise and Aural for a moment. Then with rapid clicks and gestures they resumed play.
“You are reckless, Asan. Bban’n are too unstable to be trusted—”
“I trust no one,” he retorted. “But neither am I afraid of revealing that the lives of the Bban’n mean no more to the Tlartantla than the sands of the wastes.”
She breathed a curse at him, and even as his blood stirred in hot anger at that challenge, part of him cursed Saunders and the Institute that had molded her into an imbecile willing to die to bring this witch to life. Why had she done it? he wondered again. Why had she put herself back into Picyt’s clutches?
“The Bban’n are willing!” said Aural. “They come willingly. We do not use force in this.”
“Just deception and brainwashing.” His blood ran cold again at the thought of those endless rows of empty capsules. “Aural, by the light of Lea, what purpose does this serve? The space transports never came. The capsules are empty—”
She sucked in her breath. “How do you know this? How did you come by such knowledge?”
He tensed. That had been a mistake! Damn his tongue! He shrugged, concealing his chagrin from his rings of communication.
“What has Picyt told you?” he asked, trying to evade her questions.
“All is in readiness. All is prepared, save for the willingness of your heart to serve Anthi. What has happened to you, Asan, to bring forth this cowardice? When last we walked together, your heart feared nothing.”
Again Blaise curbed the fierce anger in his blood, fearing his powers might escape control. “The man who is never afraid is a fool,” he said tightly. Then something made him add, “When last we walked, Aural, it was together, and you did not doubt me or give me opposition.”
She turned on him, raising her fist. “Then you were worthy of service! You were—”
“What? What was I? One who regarded other lives with contempt…as you do now?” He swept out his hand. “The Bban’n deserve kinder masters than—”
“Maudlin fool.” She turned away to walk near the edge, then stopped, gazing out across the desolate plains, the cold wind plucking at her furs. She sighed. “How barren is this world. Barren, harsh, and cold.” She glanced over her shoulder at Blaise. “There is no appreciation of life here, no concept of the refinements of higher civilization.”
“It will come,” Blaise replied flatly.
She laughed. “Oh, yes, it will. And very soon now.”
“No.” He walked over to her as she stiffened. “You, and I, and the two others—”
“Your brothers!” she flashed. “By blood loyalty.”
He lifted his finger in indifference. “They are the only two left on this planet under Anthi’s guardianship. There are no others.”
“That is a lie!” She swung up her hand to strike him. He caught her by the wrist, stopping the blow, and held her hard when she would have twisted free. A tiny glass vial fell from a fold in her sleeve. As Blaise stared down at it glinting on the crusted snow, his eyes narrowed.
“Yde,” he said, not concealing his loathing. In disgust he dropped her wrist. “So that is his hold over you. I should have guessed—”
“No, Asan!” she cried defensively. “Yde is useful. It spreads the mind—”
“It is a temporary enhancement that destroys the mind.” He stared at her, wondering whether she was under coercion or really allied to Picyt of her own will. “You know that, Aural. Don’t be a fool. Whatever Picyt has told you—”
“I believe!” She lifted her head. “He is a faithful servant. He has not lost sight of the purpose—”
“Noble Leiil.”
The gruff, respectful voice of one of the Bban’jen interrupted. Turning, Asan saw him on his feet, pointing out at the plains.
“Look, Leiil!” His jaw clicked with excitement that communicated itself to the rest of the cadre. They all rose with sweeps of their black cloaks, and the sten
ch of musk tainted the air.
His stomach churning, Blaise turned to face the plains of Ddreui, where the purple-black bank of clouds stretched across the horizon. He squinted, looking out over the short, leathery grass bent flat by the wind in ripples of silver and dull green. At first it seemed as though that distant storm had come closer. Then he began to make out movement and individual specks of black. He drew in a sharp breath.
“Which?” muttered Aural, shifting impatiently beside him.
But almost as she spoke, the guards leaped into the air, slapping each other on the chest and raising exultant fists. “By’he! By’he!” they shouted in unison, their rough voices keening into notes painful to Blaise’s hearing.
As he winced, Aural’s fingers dug into his arm. “The Bban tribes!” she said excitedly. “They come, Asan! They come! Soon we shall have meaning again.”
He turned on her, opening his mouth, but her contempt flicked against his inner rings.
“Crush the creature defiling your soul, Asan! Free yourself to be as you were in the past. Those less than we are to be used, for our purpose is well worth the price. Survival, Asan. Survival!”
She stepped back from him with assurance and regarded him for a moment before laughing and bending down to pick up the vial of yde. But his boot heel crunched down hard on the vial, splintering the glass. For an instant he caught the sharp, acrid smell of the drug as he removed his foot. Then the wind blew the powder away.
She clenched her gloved hands into fists. But she did not communicate further with him. It was not necessary. The battle lines had been drawn.
“Bban’jen!” she snapped aloud, curbing the excitement of the soldiers. “Attend me. An!” And turning on her heel, she left the ledge at a furious pace.
Excitement spread through the caverns like wildfire upon news of the tribes’ approach. Unable to separate himself from his jen escort, which he had hoped would be swept away by the eager, babbling Bban women waiting within the entrance to the caverns, Blaise frowned and stripped off his mask as soon as the lead-shielded doors shut. At once the gloom and coldness of the cave rushed over him, making him shiver. Momentarily ignored by the exultant Bban’n as they leaped and shouted with hoarse cries, Blaise was overwhelmed by a sense of dwindling time. He had no allies here and could make none. Giaa was still held a prisoner to hinder him. And now the tribes were coming. Somehow they had penetrated the desert storms in a way the Tlar’jen of Leiil Hihuan could not. Blaise pondered as the crowd jostled him. He must act now, and in a way that would not endanger Giaa.
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