by Janet Morris
His kris lay on the tiles nearby and suddenly it began to rattle. He reached out and picked it up, stroking it and crooning to it as a man would soothe a child or a jumpy pet.
But his kris wouldn't be calmed; it rattled more. At last, he put it on.
Maybe Niko was right; maybe the sojourn to Meridian was the worst, and not the best thing that had ever happened to them both. But he didn't believe it, couldn't believe it. Anything worth having exacts a price. Stealth knew that. Randal had learned it long ago.
He wished his partner hadn't gone off with Tern-pus, then chided himself: he was beginning to think like a Sacred Bander, and that was something he dared not let himself become. It was bad enough that everyone thought he and the fighter known as Stealth had a much more intimate relationship than in fact they did.
Randal was a mage sworn to his calling, the more so now that true Hazard status was his. He'd never guessed that his relationship with Nikodemos would bring such a conflict of interest, or such a peril, or, if the truth be known, such great opportunities. But Tempus had. Tempus had arranged the pairing—ordered it.
Tempus, though inscrutable at times, was seldom wrong.
A soft knock upon his door interrupted the mage's reverie, and when he opened it, the First Hazard of Tyse stood there, his wizened form drawn up tall and straight as a flagpole.
The nameless adept fixed Randal with a dark and piercing stare. "We trust that all's well with thee, young Randal?"
It was a question, no doubt of that. "Oh, fine. Very well, thank you, master Hazard. And yourself?"
The old adept's sharp nose had sniffed something—probably Randal's fearful, acrid sweat. "Curious, Randal," said the First Hazard, "curious as to how you've been faring and all the unexplained comings and goings of late." The First Hazard craned his scrawny neck and peered over Randal's shoulder, within, where the globe of high peaks clay winked softly in a single candle's light. "Have you unlocked its secrets yet? Or is it unlocking yours?"
"Half and half, my lord. Would you like to come in?" There was nothing for it but to invite the mageguild's highest official inside; it was obviously what the First Hazard wanted. But it was the last thing Randal wanted.
The old man sighed deeply. "Another time, I'm afraid. You have a guest. Downstairs. A guest of the sort we'd prefer not to have within these walls, but one, you'll agree, we'd best accommodate this time. Randal, if you intend to keep company with the secular and the damned, do it elsewhere from now on. You're disturbing wizards' work and most likely jeopardizing your own advancement here." "May I ask, my lord, this guest's name?" "Shamshi, the Mygdonian. And he's blue as a sorcerer, if one uses one's eyes. I'd like to suggest that you not bring him up here—rather, take him somewhere more… neutral… for this meeting. Furthermore," though I hate to do this, it's come down to it: us or them. Either you terminate your association with these soldiers to whom you've sworn spurious oaths of brotherhood, or take your word seriously and move out of this mageguild." "My lord!"
"You do understand, then. Your career, promising as it may be, is on the line. We can't have these sorts of disruptions. Them or us, make your choice. Today. I'll be waiting in my office. Other wizards could use this room to good advantage, and without putting the rest of us in danger."
"So you know what's been happening. I was afraid of that."
"Not afraid enough to come to me and honestly explain yourself. Conflict of interest in an adept doesn't last long—he dies of it. For your own good, Randal, quit the Stepsons. Cleanse yourself for a month or so; I'll help you. You've nothing more owed to those god-loving murderers; they will destroy you, if you let them." The bald head on its scrawny neck seemed to retreat into the shoulders below like a snapping turtle's into its shell. "Oh, and by the way: we don't do abortions here. Permission denied. If your friends can't own up to the results of their lust, then send them to Peace Falls; there are abortionists on Commerce Avenue, I've been told."
Speechless, Randal watched as his First Hazard glided away, fading as he retreated so that he never turned the far corner, but dematerialized before he reached the head of the tower stairs.
Shamshi? Here? It must be, Randal thought, that Jihan was in trouble.
And when he found the boy, sitting on the mageguild's outer steps with a wan face and dirty nails, this was exactly what Shamshi told him: that Jihan had gone into Frog's Marsh and not come out, so Randal would have to help Shamshi find her.
"I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't. She'll be all right. She can't die, you know. Don't worry. And don't go there yourself. Whatever you think your budding powers have shown you might just be a witch's trick." Randal patted the boy on the head and for a moment, as he caught those pale and guileless eyes, hatred and bloody hunger seemed to lurk in them.
Randal's kris, under his hand, quivered like a living thing and tried to jump out of its scabbard. He held it firmly.
"Come now," the boy said, imperious, insistent.
"No, I've told you, I can't." Randal wasn't going to try to explain to Shamshi that the child had put him in a very difficult position by coming here. He sent Shamshi off with a swat upon his buttocks and climbed the stairs, not for a moment realizing that by doing so he'd saved his own life and foiled Roxane once again.
* * *
Riding up to Bashir's high peaks keep with Tern-pus, Niko felt like a boy again, following his leftside leader without question, free from doubt and confident of the man in front of him as he hadn't been since his original leftman had died and he'd found himself leading pair after doomed pair into magical battles he wasn't qualified to win.
How easily he'd slipped back into his accustomed rightman's slot; maybe he never should have rejected Tempus's offer, back in Sanctuary after his first partner had died, to ride on the Riddler's right. But then he thought of Janni, who'd trusted him and died of it. To denigrate his own performance as Janni's left-side leader was to belittle Janni's valor. This, Niko was not capable of doing; he still honored the memories of both his perished partners.
Following the Stepsons' commander up Wizard-wall along trails Niko had known since his youth evoked conflicting emotions.
He'd been bound here in servitude to the Nisibisi archmage Datan, a year of horror so unrelenting he recalled little of it in detail. He'd become one of Bashir's father's Successors after that, and with Bashir had found true honor for the first time.
The guerrilla fighters of Free Nisibis had been high peaks bandits then. Bashir still thought of him as a brother, though time and Bashir's tutelary god, Enlil, had come between them. After the summer's war for Wizardwall, they had parted filled with melancholy, both men wishing the other was still the boy he used to love.
This time, it must be different. Tempus wanted Niko to talk some sense into Bashir. This wasn't always easy. The mountain bandit Niko'd known had grown into a warrior-priest who had the world's oldest and most bloodthirsty deity whispering in his ear.
Lord Storm—Father Enlil—was Niko's patron god once, too: but now there was Aškelon to be considered, and the panoply that Niko wore, the horse he rode, the dreams he had all signified that Niko served a different master these days.
Gods were jealous as a class, Enlil the worst of all. If the god gainsaid the bargain Tempus wanted Niko to make with Bashir, the warrior-priest would never go against Him.
But Niko couldn't fail the Riddler. Even if he must swear allegiance to a war god he'd outgrown and break his pact with Aškelon to assure Enlil's sanction, he'd do it. And if he did that, Niko knew, he might lose his rest-place and perhaps his soul forever. Easy come, easy go, he told himself. What lay ahead was fixed by the demands of honor, of solemn oaths given to the sleepless one who rode before him, calm, untiring.
What would he lose? A panoply which vexed him, which caused more trouble than it cured? Would it dissolve, or turn to normal stuff? Let it, then. And these two horses, who never stopped to rest, who never faltered, but loped peakward ceaselessly as if their hooves needn't touch
the ground— would they turn into humble beasts who couldn't climb scree like mountain goats or soar across chasms like condors? If so, Niko was prepared to lose his sable mount. He'd already lost so much to Aškelon—his freedom, access to his rest-place where the shadow lord lurked in his every dream so that Niko wished he didn't have to sleep—he was prepared to lose the rest.
For Tempus—who knew Niko'd gotten entangled with Aškelon, yet during the long journey up to Wizardwall hadn't once rebuked or questioned him—Niko would do the impossible, or die trying, gladly.
When Bashir's forward sentries sighted them, Niko mentioned it: the wolf-calls announcing their arrival came from human throats. "Shall I give the countersign, say we're friends?" he asked, reining his mount abreast of Tempus's where the ledge widened and two horses could safely stand.
At Tempus's command he uttered a long and lonely wolf's howl which made the Aškelonian under him look around at him askance.
Above and straight ahead, the high peaks keep gleamed pinkish in the dusk, as much from Father Enlil's blessing as from the sun that set to their left. It wouldn't be long now; the way was clear and easier than it had been when they fought to take these marble towers. Bashir had built three bridges over rifts adepts had flown or spelled their way across. Checkpoints loomed above the spans, one of which was supported in the middle by a stone spire rising a hundred feet or more from a narrow canyon's floor.
A yipping, feral pup's response meant "Come ahead." He told his commander that and on they rode, across the Successor-crafted spans and up to the gates of the citadel.
The place still gave Niko gooseflesh: he had too many bad memories to believe that every demon here had been banished, all the evil exorcised.
As the thick pine gate winched down and the Aškelonians flattened their ears at the screeching sound, Tempus asked, "Is there anything you want to tell me? Now's the time, if you've questions or confidences. There'll be none later."
"Commander? We've got to convince Bashir to join forces with us and the Rankan garrisons in Tyse, I know. Is there something else?"
Tempus sighed. "Not until you say so, Niko. Not, that is, beyond whatever it was that made Bashir so nervous that he'd send for me." Then the drawbridge spanning the last crevasse thumped into place and Tempus spurred his horse onto it.
The Aškelonians minced across the piney bridge with snorts of disapproval. Once on the other side of it, Successors crowded around to greet them both with hugs and whoops. Many remembered Tempus with fondness—he'd commanded the joint forces of Successors, Stepsons, and specials which had secured this place last summer. Others knew Niko from before; still others wished they'd been part of the elite squadrons Bashir had sent into that battle and looked with hungry eyes upon the Aškelonians and the heroes riding them.
It wasn't long until, their horses led away, they were ushered upstairs through halls whose elaborate ornamentation had been defaced: wherever demon lords or evil adepts had strode in bas relief, those heads and names had been chiseled away in hopes that the evil they represented would likewise be erased.
Niko smelled incense and bay leaves and myrrh and knew that the cleansing of this black marble palace was still going on. But Tempus, up ahead with one of Bashir's lieutenants, speaking low and climbing steadily, either didn't notice or didn't care.
Most Successors still slept outside in low black tents, Niko saw when they passed a tower window; many of the open chambers to his right and left still showed signs of the fire of this summer's sack. It seemed to Niko that blue phantom-flames still licked at the corners of these slick, cool walls that wouldn't burn. He could feel and almost see with his maat's eye the ghosts that lingered here, unresting, hostile—ghosts that never were quite human and now, in death, resented the mortals who had banished them. To his inner ear came sounds of anguish, wails of hopelessness, and sobs of spirits in the throes of well-earned retribution.
He'd pulled back into himself, shutting down his senses to an unaugmented mortal five, by the time they were ushered into the presence of Bashir.
So Niko was unprepared for the worry scoring Bashir's flat, dark, Nisibisi face when his friend, in humble hillman's trousers and a wrinkled tunic, straightened up from the altar he'd been tending in a room where once Datan summoned devils.
"Riddler! Stealth!" Bashir strode to them, embracing first one and then the other. When it was Niko's turn, Bashir's arms lingered, tight about him, and the ritual touch of cheek to cheek was full of something more than greeting—relief, perhaps, or compassion.
Disengaging, the Successors' leader said politely that it was good of Tempus to come so quickly, then: "Shrivel me, Stealth, you look tired. Even if our stalwart friend here isn't, you're obviously in need of food and drink—and rest."
So Bashir sent a hillman for refreshments and they went out onto a rampart to enjoy the sunset.
While they were waiting, the guerrilla-priest said, "I have a problem that concerns you. We'll ask Father Enlil's help, then get down to business." Without waiting for Tempus to agree and looking straight at Niko, Bashir blessed them both with a smoking censer, sprinkled them with "holy dust," and proffered goblets of the god filled with pure spring water.
Ritual was ritual. Priests will be priests, Tern-pus's glance said when Niko chanced to meet it. Gingerly, Stealth took the goblet and sipped from it, half expecting Aškelon to appear in a burst of light or the goblet to shatter in his hand. But nothing untoward occurred, unless it was that Bashir, with one more low-voiced adjuration, sat down on the rampart's flags and crossed his arms, saying, "Now, I know you're wondering, Tempus, why I asked you here. Your sister came to visit me. When she appeared, I sent word right away. I—"
"What?" Tempus thundered. "That's all I need. She's not still here, I hope?"
Niko settled down into a squat beside Bashir. The Successor replied, in Nisi, "I'm afraid she is," and Niko thought uncomfortably that he should have had the wit to warn Tempus that the Rid-dler's sister was intent on joining in the fight against Mygdonia. He felt small, incompetent, and foolish for having let his personal chagrin at being recruited by Aškelon interfere with his attention to duty.
"What's the matter, Niko?" Tempus had seen something on the Stepson's face. "We won't let Cime get her hooks in you."
Bashir, too, was looking at Niko. Stealth said dully, "I should have told you, commander, that she'd try to do this. I knew. I saw her on Meridian. If it's not too late, I could tell you what happened…"
Out of the corner of his eye, Niko saw Bashir start at the mention of Meridian, and then he loosed his niaat and felt it fan out wide. Despite the ghostly horrors hereabouts, Niko needed every bit of warning his expanded perceptions might provide. "With Ash?" Tempus called the dream lord by a nickname only the Riddler and his sister dared employ. And Bashir looked from one guest to the other with a mixture of distress and distaste upon his face. "It's too late," Tempus declared. "I'll hear it all from her, no doubt."
"I'm sorry," Niko whispered.
"Don't blame yourself," Tempus said brusqely. "You didn't know. You've got troubles of your own. I had them, too, in younger days. It's not your fault, but mine, for involving you with a greedy entelechy and then assuming you could protect yourself. We'll solve—"
"Hold it, both of you. Have I got this right? Is Nikodemos yet and still possessed, in thrall to the regent of the seventh sphere? A slave of the hideous shadow lord?" Bashir's voice was lowering; it became a deep and almost godly growl. "If this is so, why did you wait so long to bring him to me? My friend," he turned to Niko, tears sparkling unshed in his eyes, "have faith. Enlil will fight a war for even your poor, tortured soul that will shake accursed Meridian to its very foundations, if you but reaffirm your oath to Him and—"
"Wait a moment," Niko said, an edge to his slow, deliberate words. "I made my choice. I'll live with it. Tempus has survived his godbond and his curse. You've flourished, Bashir, with a bloody Lord looking over your shoulder. I don't want to talk about it. An
d if the truth be known, commander," he turned to Tempus, "not only is it too late for you to step in and solve my problems, but I don't want you to mix in this. My rest-place hangs in the balance, and it's worth too much to me to lose just to make you or Bashir feel better. That's why I didn't say anything before."
Both the priest and Tempus were silent thereafter until the food came. By then Niko wasn't hungry. He'd had his fill of knowing looks and knitted brows and two men no better off than he—both contractees of supernal forces—trying to save him from a fate they'd both embraced.
He excused himself when the food was served, saying he was too tired to eat and sleep was what he needed, worried that this unfortunate rov at the beginning of so sensitive a visit was going to make it impossible for him to help Tempus with Bashir—or anything at all.
* * *
Once Bashir had told Tempus that Cime was on Wizardwall, all things became clear to the Rid-dler. There was slaughter in the offing, wizards to slay, hell to pay, and hazards undreamed of ahead. Whenever she appeared to plague him, Cime brought all of these along with her as if they were her personal retinue.
And once Niko had retired, Tempus could be candid with Bashir. "My sister notwithstanding, I'd have made this trip in any case. You and I must make common cause: survival. Not just for ourselves, but for Free Nisibis, Tyse and her people, as well as your fighters and mine. Our first priority must be this: Free Nisibis and Tyse must continue to exist, no matter what."
"This is news? You keep Tyse safe, I'll see to Free Nisibis. I've told you before, I'll have no Rankans under my roof or my protection."
"You don't mean that. It's a different war now than the one they won against your father."
"You mean you're not fighting against me, so I can't lose. I don't believe things are quite that simple. Did you bring Stealth here to convince me to send my people out to die in behalf of the Tysians who wouldn't lift a finger to help us when—"
