by Janet Morris
Then, if Roxane had not demonstrated competence, leadership, and dedication enough, or called upon dark lords powerful enough, they'd deal with her: no one held the highest post among the Nisibisi black artists without passing certain tests of fire.
* * *
"It's all my fault." Randal wrung his hands and paced to and fro before the Riddler, who was bent over Niko's semiconscious, sweating form.
Tempus had pulled the youth from his snorting Aškelonian. He'd had to pry Niko's fingers from mane and pommel. The Stepson was holding onto his mount for dear life and to consciousness by a thread. With Randal's help, he'd gotten off the breastplate and laid the youth down on a bed of pine needles in the clearing which was their base camp. Conjured bandages appeared when Tempus asked for them, but binding those ribs in place by feel alone when Niko's whole chest and side were bruised and swollen wasn't easy.
There was no way to tell if the job Tempus had done would be good enough, or if the ribs would heal improperly and Niko be left with a crippled right side. And Stealth was right-handed.
"Stop whining, magling. You can't heal this; I've done my best." Tempus sat back on his heels and shook his head. "I hate to say this, but we need my sister. Cime would put this right in no time, or at least make sure I've done it properly. What say you? Can you call my sister, let her know we need her now, not later? Bring her up here?"
"Me? Her? Here?" Randal stopped in his tracks and stared at Tempus with real horror.
Cime was, after all, a mage-killer, a sorcerer-slayer who'd put better adepts than Randal in their uneasy graves.
"You. Her. Here," Tempus confirmed. "Now."
"Sir… my lord… commander, you don't understand—"
"What's to understand? Your partner's hurt. We've got to help him." Tempus straightened up and walked around the youth he'd drugged with pulcis to keep the pain at bay. When he reached the firepit he'd built inside a low black tent, he called to Randal. "Come here, Stepson, and answer me."
When Randal stooped to come inside, Tempus patted the dirt beside him. "Sit down, Randal."
As the Hazard did, his kris jittered in its scabbard.
Tempus raised an eyebrow.
Randal pulled on one ear and explained earnestly: "It's worried for my safety. Because I am. What I meant… what you don't understand… what I'm trying to tell you is that in my room back at the mageguild, when I was last there, the witch Roxane had left a message: those who are my friends and loved ones will suffer until I offer myself up to her for punishment. That's not an exact quote, but that's the gist of it—that's why Niko's…" Randal bit his lip, palmed his eyes, then dragged his hands down across his face. "So you see, it is my fault. And not just that: there's the plague in Tyse. That's what she meant. If I give myself up to her, all this will stop."
"Don't believe it. You give yourself up to her and she'll have you for lunch and then burp you in our faces. As for the 'curse' she laid on you, I've lived longer than your mageguild's stood, with a curse worse than that one on my head."
Randal's bony shoulders slumped. He bowed his head. "Then… you don't think it's all my fault?"
"I'd like to, but I can't. Anything else I don't understand? Anything that's keeping you from summoning Cime?"
"She might not like it, being summoned, being brought here. Couldn't you ask Aškelon to send her?"
"I don't sleep, remember? How am I supposed to contact him? Besides, I'm not asking you for counterproposals, I'm asking if there's any real reason you can't carry out a simple order. You took an oath, Randal, to do just that—no questions."
"I took an oath to protect my partner's life with my own."
"We've been over that. Unless you're telling me you'd rather give yourself up to Roxane than trust me to protect you from my sister, do whatever you have to do to get her here, right now. Crit and the rest won't be at our rendezvous until midnight, and I can't move Niko in his condition, nor should her healing skills be denied him that long."
Having finished, Tempus held out his hands and rubbed them before the little fire; though the day was unseasonably warm and the base camp sheltered, Tempus was chilled from within. Earlier, looking back whence they'd come, he'd seen lowering storm clouds, a gray and leaden sky which might mean that the snows had begun among the high peaks. If so, there was no retreating to Tyse.
This boded well for Tyse but ill for the men he'd led here. If Roxane and her warlocks should spirit the Mygdonians south by magic, he'd need Randal and the globe the mage now fondled wordlessly, which had appeared as if from thin air while Tempus watched out of the corner of his eye. It looked as if Randal had opened a box top where nothing but empty space existed; then he'd lifted out the globe nestled in its stand and placed it gently on the ground.
"My lord, if your sister kills me, you ought to know that this globe will hire you any mage of any power you desire. Oaths of fealty taken on it can't be broken; it's the highest power piece an adept can own. So guard it well, if I cannot."
Tempus made a noncommittal noise. He knew what he was looking at. He'd rather smash it on the rocks; in younger days, he would have. But lately right and wrong were not so clear as once they'd been.
From outside, he heard the Aškelonians snorting, then a whinny and a menacing squeal cut the air. "That sounds like Niko's horse."
"Could be," Randal said distractedly, still playing with his ball of high peaks clay and precious stones.
Tempus had left the stallion loose to guard its master.
When he scrambled out of the low black tent to see what was afoot, he saw that the horse was doing just that: protecting Niko's recumbent form from Cime, who had her shield out before her and was backing, step by step, toward the trees, with the horse, on its hind legs, tail flagged, ears back, coming after.
Tempus whistled. The horse came down on all fours and looked around, ears still flattened, teeth bared.
"Some greeting, this, brother," Cime said, both her diamond rods in her right hand, glowing slightly. "What right have you to use your foul witchcraft-monger to pluck me off my horse without so much as a by-your-leave?"
"Niko's hurt." He indicated the youth under a blanket behind him.
"So? Why tell me? He'd not want me to tend him. He doesn't like me." Her smirk was hard, contentious, a showing of teeth which, if he'd been familiar with his own defensive little kill-smile, he might have recognized.
"Tend him."
She let her shield clatter to the ground. "Yes, my lord, right away, my lord," she said scathingly. "You're turning into an old woman, do you know that? Any little scratch your favorite, here, takes, is a major crisis." As she spoke, she stalked over to the fallen Stepson and pulled off the blanket. "Oh. I see. Yes."
That was as close to an apology as Tempus was going to get from her.
He turned away; he didn't want to interfere or even watch her at work. The last thing he saw was the pair of diamond rods, points together and glowing in her fingers, poised over Niko's chest, before he ducked back into his tent to steel himself for the forthcoming encounter with his personal nemesis, to think of some way to enjoin her from harming Randal, and in general to gather his composure: she still made him feel like a wayward boy.
* * *
When Cime and the Riddler came swaggering into the rendezvous base camp, Grillo felt the world's weight being lifted from his shoulders.
Although Grille's specials formed one quarter of the joint force fielded against the Mygdonians, Critias was in charge of their deployment. Of the more than one hundred and twenty fighters, only a select dozen were present to meet with Tempus: Grillo himself, Crit and Straton, Sync, Kama, a pair of Sacred Banders, one Nisibisi free man (a scout Bashir had loaned them), and four 3rd Commando rangers, alike as peas in a pod with their deep suntans, short hair, and alert quietude.
Grillo knew that two of these last had been assigned to watch him. It wasn't that he was under arrest—nothing that obvious. But none of his specials, not even ex-specials like
Gayle or Ari from whom Grillo might still have expected loyalty, were among the rendezvous party. The two rangers dogged him like bodyguards; even when he sought a tree upon which to relieve himself, one of them would offer to come along or happen to be mictu-rating nearby.
This was making Grillo very cautious. In his pocket was the golden figurine which was no more damning than the bits of abalone shell and eagle's claw and lead statuettes that Crit carried in a pouch with one die and an old field decoration to bring him luck. On its own, it meant nothing. But it spoke to Grillo at night and now it wanted him to deliver a message scrawled on parchment that he'd found wrapped around it when he woke this morning. He didn't want one of the 3rd to discover what the little golden man could do or what the message meant for Tempus was.
With the Riddler here, things would change. Tempus and he were old friends, veterans of other wars who shared a bond of trust.
But when Grillo approached the sleepless one, Crit had gotten there before him and was whispering in Tempus's ear, Straton just behind, and the task force leader's partner was watching Grillo and his two "bodyguards" with obvious disdain.
So Grillo said only: "Well met, Riddler. When you can free yourself from underlings, I need to talk to you alone." In his pocket, Grillo could feel the golden statuette stirring; he put his hand in there to still its movement. All he needed was for Tempus to notice, or for the damned thing to crawl out. He felt a prick, a sharp pain in his index finger. Then he felt better than he had in days.
Tempus, his face gray with remnants of camouflaging soot, toyed with the boar's-tooth helmet he held and nodded, "Right away."
Grillo knew that when the Riddler put away his favorite shabby duty gear in favor of leopardskin and ivories that what amounted to ritual slaughter was at hand.
But the part of his mind which compiled detail and reached conclusions wasn't working as it should. Grillo had a message to deliver; it was the most important thing he'd ever do.
As Tempus bent his head to Crit to hear some last remark, behind him Grillo saw Sync and Kama, so close together that their girded hips were brushing as they walked, coming toward the little group.
Crit turned to stare in Kama's direction as Tempus disengaged.
Grillo, free at last from the pair of rangers who shadowed him, found time to be grateful for the tension in this camp: between Sync and Critias, no love was lost. And the Riddler's sister, looking to see what Crit was staring at, put her hands on her hips when she caught sight of Kama.
Then Tempus led the way into a stand of pine, and Grillo and the Riddler were finally alone.
"What's the trouble, Grillo?" Tempus asked in his rumbly voice. "Why is it that you and Critias cannot get along?"
"He's telling tales of me, I expect. That's just poisonous politics, not what I want to talk to you about."
"I'm glad of that. Crit's my first officer; this mission is his responsibility and, after a fashion, so are you. And he's worried. You're telling me he has no cause to be?"
"People talk." Almost, Grillo was tempted to tell Tempus about the witch, about his blackouts, about the little figurine now growing hot in his pocket. Instead he reached under his sword's scabbard where the statuette and message were to pull out the parchment. "Crit's a simple man, fine for simple problems. I can't explain to him—or to you— the reasons for my actions, nor should you ask me to. We've worked together too many—"
The little homunculus wouldn't let go of Grille's finger. He didn't understand why or how it happened, but as he brought out his hand vith the message in it, the tiny golden man leaped from there onto the Riddler's face.
Then Tempus was staggering backward, clawing at his cheek. There issued from Tempus's throat a howl of pain and fury the like of which Grillo had never heard a mortal utter.
Crash! Armored man went down, falling over backward.
Stunned, Grillo watched the Riddler thrashing on the ground, rolling to and fro, clutching his face.
In the distance Grillo heard shouts and then running feet, crackling leaves, and cracking branches.
Somehow, Grillo couldn't move; he was logy, lethargic. And he had to see: something was compelling him to watch and hoping very hard he'd see Tempus kick and convulse and stiffen in the throes of death. Though the Riddler's life was unnaturally prolonged, an unnatural assault like this could end it.
Grillo hovered, fascinated. Tempus's harsh breathing and grunts and the sounds he made, struggling with the homunculus burrowing into his face, blotted out all other noises, so that when the rangers tackled Grillo from behind and wrestled him to his knees it came as a surprise to him.
He didn't resist. He watched, ignoring the shouting and Crit's attempt to launch himself into the weird battle, so that now two men and a figurine thrashed on the ground while around them a ring of onlookers grew: Straton was there, bellowing orders; then Sync appeared with Kama and forcibly turned her head away, dragging her backward to make room for Cime, who strode into the chaos cursing like a mercenary.
Her hair cascading around her heart-shaped face, gray eyes flashing, her diamond rods bright blue in both her hands, she yelled, "Crit, get away from him. Get back! Let me handle this."
When that didn't work, she motioned to the Sacred Band pair, who dashed in and dragged Critias ignominiously from the fray.
Grillo saw Cime kneel beside her brother, on his belly now and howling like a wolf, lift his head up by the hair, and force her diamond rods between his hands and his face.
Then the whole clearing seemed to explode in a burst of light, and when he could blink the afterimage away and see again, Grillo saw Tempus sitting crosslegged, one arm out to support himself, and Cime crouched beside him, her hands upon his face. From under her palms blood streamed, and she was crooning to him that he would "be all right, just let me help you, my brother. That's it, be still, let me draw out the poison."
And at her feet he saw a little blackened figurine, its tiny head severed, its miniature fingers spread like claws. Crit was stamping on it with one booted foot and Straton, by his side, had out his warding charms.
Soon enough, Grillo was dragged away among muttered epithets, the parchment message he'd thought to deliver still crumpled in his hand.
There was no way to make them understand, no use in telling underlings that he hadn't planned it, or known what would happen when the homunculus got within range of Tempus.
Now Grillo was under arrest, bound hand-to-foot and lying on his belly, his face to the earth. There was an interval during which men came to kick and spit upon him and promise him a slow and unpleasant death. This he shrugged off until Straton came and hunkered down beside his head and told him just how Strat had it in mind to punish him for what he'd done to Tempus.
Only then did Grillo think he'd better act in his own defense, though if Tempus wasn't conscious, or was dying, nothing in the world would save Grillo from Straton. He said, "Ace, in my hand. There's a message there, a parchment meant for Tempus. The Mygdonians sent it to me, somehow, wrapped around the damned idol. How was I to know the thing would come to life? Please, Strat, you must believe me."
A boot kicked him in the teeth. He spat blood and chips of incisor, but continued. "A parchment, crumpled up. It might be our only chance to negotiate a settlement with Mygdonia. No matter how you feel about me, you'd better have a look."
The ploy worked, at least temporarily: Straton's bulk disappeared behind him; strong fingers took the parchment, balled up in his fist. Then Straton's footsteps faded.
Alone, Grillo wept. Tempus was a man he'd cared for, long respected. How had he gotten into this? The witch! The damnable witch! He cursed her and swore that if mercy was bestowed upon him and he lived to make things right, he'd find a way to pay her back for what she'd done to him.
Some time later, Grillo became aware that he was once more not alone.
The other knelt and he prepared himself for death or torture. But neither came: a woman's voice, gentle yet firm, told him that if he
did just what she said, there was a possibility that together they could save his life.
And since it was the Riddler's sister, Cime, he had no choice but to agree.
* * *
The message Grillo had carried was from Lacan Ajami. It proposed a meeting and said that if Shamshi was alive and well and brought along to prove it, perhaps further bloodshed could be averted.
The last thing Tempus wanted just then was to avert further bloodshed; his face hurt and his pride hurt and he wanted to kick Rag-head butt from one end of Mygdonia to the other.
With his sorcerer-slaying sister's help, he'd be ready for whatever Lacan Ajami had in mind. He had to make it clear to her that Randal, who'd just brought Niko into camp, was off-limits, before he sent her to fetch Jihan and Shamshi. So he called Cime to the tent in which he was recuperating, where none could see the speed of his healing, and gave her a lecture.
When he was done, Cime remarked that there was "something odd about Kama. More than even her heritage warrants, I mean."
He'd been thinking, as he talked to her, that this plague of women upon his head was worse than the letter of his curse: it was one thing to wander eternally, being spurned by whomsoever he loved and bringing death to those who loved him; it was quite another to have this clutch of bitches and witches and antiwitches and superwomen to contend with. He wondered if Datan, the vanquished Nisibisi archmage, had laid a parting curse on him. That would account for it. But he said only, "She's after Crit. I've forbidden it." It hurt to talk. He shook his head. "Bring me Jihan. Forget Kama. Concentrate on the Nisibisi witch if you must war on other women."
Cime stuck out her tongue at him. "Foolish man. You never see what's right before your eyes. Keep Kama out of whatever's brewing, I'm warning you."
