by Tanya Huff
“Then why a whore?”
“They also serve who service.”
“What?”
“Just something we say in the army …”
Riding a little behind and continuing to Sing, for they had the bulk of the company still to pass, Karlene considered what she’d heard. Had the Imperial officers the benefit of bardic training and the ability to separate the sound of truth from falsehood, they would have realized that they’d been lied to twice; the first time when Albannon Magaly—or more precisely the man in his body—had called Vireyda Magaly his sister, the second when Vree had said that her brother had not served in the army.
When she’d called him a whore, she’d meant it.
Karlene watched the muscles roll across Vree’s shoulders and wondered if the younger woman even knew how much barely repressed hostility she felt toward the brother who shared her body.
* * * *
Half dozing in the lingering heat of the afternoon, Otavas was shaken awake by a sudden jerk of the cart. He grabbed for the side, missed, and found himself sprawled half over the old man’s lap, one hand tangled in the necklace of bone he wore. With a grunt of revulsion, the prince pushed himself erect and yanked his foot out from under Kait, who’d also fallen forward and was awkwardly trying to rise. His skin crawled where she’d touched his leg.
He steeled himself for the old man’s solicitous inquiries and the feel of the soft, dry hands patting at his arms, but the old man seemed hardly aware of him at all. Instead of performing the expected pawing, he twisted around, pulled himself up to see over the high front edge, and cried out.
“Are you all right?” The prince’s question was a conditioned response to the suffering in the old man’s voice. Although he reached out, Otavas stopped himself before he touched the ancient shoulder.
“My fault. All my fault. I was too anxious to get you home.”
“What’s your fault?” The prince stood and, keeping a careful distance, peered out at the dead men running between the shafts—the dead man running between the shafts, for the left side of Aver’s body twisted under him with every step, causing the cart to lurch as his cousin dragged both him and it forward.
“Stop running!”
With more strength than he’d previously shown, the old man threw himself up at the back and had the tailgate out before it was completely still. When Otavas tried to follow, Wheyra reached for him. “Okay, I’ll watch from here,” he said quickly. “I’m staying right here.”
Wheyra stared at him for a terrifying moment—in many ways the prince found her the most frightening of them all—then resumed crooning to the corpse of her baby.
He could actually see everything from where he was but, looking down between the shafts where the old man knelt by Aver’s fallen body, all at once he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“My fault, my fault.” Tears etching tracks through the dust on his face, the old man reached out and patted Aver’s cheek. He had forgotten how much movement could be asked of the dead. “Forgive me.” His voice quavered with guilt. “I was too anxious to get my heart home.” He’d forgotten his responsibility to the rest of his family.
The dead man tracked his movements with wildly rolling eyes.
“So soon, so soon,” he murmured as he traced the shattered joints at knee and hip and lightly stroked the black patches of decay that showed through the skin. Nose, fingers, lips—all had been burned a purple-black by the sun and in other places yellow pus oozed out through baked cracks. He could hold his hand above Aver’s torso and feel the heat generated by the rot within. The left foot must have been dragging on the road for most of the day as it was nearly gone.
“You can ride the rest of the way home,” he promised. “You’ll last so much longer that way, you’ll see.” Leaning heavily on his staff, he got to his feet and turned to the still standing cousin. “Put him into the cart, Otanon. He’ll be fine once he’s in the cart.”
Although he’d suffered nearly identical sun damage, Otanon’s joints appeared to have survived the pounding they’d taken over the last few days. Eyes never leaving his cousin’s face, he dropped the supports down from the shafts that kept the cart from tipping forward on its nose, then he bent and heaved Aver up off the ground.
The skin across Aver’s stomach split and a rancid mass of organs and tissue spilled out of the body cavity. Up in the cart Otavas gagged, but the old man didn’t appear to notice the stench.
Aver twitched in his cousin’s grasp. His mouth opened and closed, but he made no sound.
He’s still in there, Otavas realized. Gods protect us, he’s still in there. Fingers locked white-knuckled over the top board of the cart, he began to pray; for himself or for the dead, he had no idea.
“Put him in the cart,” the old man said, his face folded into itself with worry. “He’ll be fine once you put him in the cart.”
Aver, dangling from Otanon’s hands, somehow found the strength to jerk his head from side to side in a silent plea. Otanon didn’t move.
“You’ll be fine once you’re in the cart,” the old man repeated soothingly. “You’ll see.”
“Let him go.” Otavas almost didn’t recognize the voice as his. “Please, let him go.”
The old man stared up at him, confusion mixing with the concern on his face. “But I never let them go,” he said, reaching out to stroke Aver’s shoulder. “They leave me.”
It seemed as though the words or touch were a signal, for the dead man stiffened and his eyes opened as wide as destroyed tissue would allow.
“No …”
The old man sounded so distraught that Otavas rubbed his vision clear and leaned forward. During the heartbeat the prince looked down into the dead man’s eyes, he found himself trapped in a horror too dark to understand with no hope of either escape or rescue. A shriek that could not have been made by a human throat rang in his mind as Otavas threw himself back, escaping into oblivion.
“No!” the old man cried again as Aver’s kigh fled the ghastly wreck of his body.
Otanon made a noise very like a sigh, then, keening no less terribly, his kigh followed his cousin’s. Both bodies collapsed to the road, wet meat smacking against dressed slabs of stone.
“Oh, my children …” The old man rocked back and forth, clutching his staff to his chest. They’d been called with one Song, and so they had to leave him together as they came—but it hurt. For all the times it had happened over the years, it never ceased to hurt.
* * * *
“Unless you can explain your companion’s involvement in the disappearance of my son, I will send a company of the First Army out along the East Road to join the company already searching and together they will beat the information out of her.”
Fighting for calm, Gabris bowed deeply as the Emperor paused. “Imperial Majesty, I cannot explain, but I beg you to give Karlene just a little more time.”
“She was alone with my son when he was taken.” The Emperor gestured toward Marshal Usef standing just to the right of the throne, plumed helmet cradled in the crook of his left arm, his face politically expressionless. “Now I find that two strangers, targeted by an Imperial assassin, removed her from the Healers’ Hall. You tell me that she is searching for my son, but if these two had answers, why did she not bring them to me? She has had all the time I am willing to give. I want answers, Gabris. I want my son.”
“Imperial Majesty, I …”
“No. To whatever you were going to say, no. You will be moved to a secure suite in the center of the palace where you will not be able to warn her. At this moment, I do not hold you responsible …” His tone clearly indicated that could change. “… but I will not have you interfering.”
Gabris closed his eyes for a heartbeat. What he had to say had to be said in such a way that it would not, could not, be interpreted as a threat. “Imperial Majesty, Karlene is a bard, powerful enough to finish the training of the young bards of the Empire soon to be returning from Shkoder.”
<
br /> Marshal Usef snorted. “I think this bard, however powerful, will be willing to be reasonable with a hundred swords at her throat.”
* * * *
Karlene Sang a gratitude and hurried back to the road, kicking up little clouds of dust from the dry earth with every step. “They’re no longer heading east,” she called. “According to the kigh, they’re following a river. It would have to be the Shae, unless they’ve pulled incredibly far ahead, which would mean they’ve turned off the road at Shaebridge.”
“You know this part of the country well,” Gyhard remarked as she took her reins from Vree and mounted.
“I’d better.” She settled into the saddle and flipped her braid back over her shoulder. “In a very short time I’m supposed to be walking the new Imperial bards over it.”
Vree fell in beside Karlene and noted how Gyhard moved to ride on her other flank, as far from the bard as possible. Their meeting in the innyard had obviously not gone well. Karlene had spent the day acting as though Gyhard were something she’d found on the bottom of her sandal.
*She’s perceptive, I’ll give her that.*
*I want to know what he told her.*
Bannon snorted. *Probably lies.*
“I wasn’t aware that the Empire had bards,” Gyhard said quietly.
“It doesn’t yet.” Karlene’s tone was anything but friendly. “Nine Imperial citizens with the ability to Sing the kigh are nearly finished with their training in Shkoder.”
Vree scowled, confused. “It makes no sense for Shkoder to train Imperial bards. You’ll lose your advantage in battle.”
“What battle?”
“Any battle between Shkoder and a country without bards.” Vree waved an emphatic hand about. “Sending messages quickly over long distances is an advantage you shouldn’t surrender. Not to mention having the air spirits scout for you.”
“But what about the people in the Empire who are able to Sing the kigh but are never trained?” Karlene asked.
“What about them?”
“Without training, they’ll be condemned to live only half alive.”
*So what.*
Vree repeated Bannon’s observation and added, “Untrained, they won’t guide an army across the border to slit a few Shkodan throats.”
“A bard would never do that. We take vows …”
Vree’s fingers closed tightly around the reins and her horse danced sideways in reaction to her stiffening. “Vows can be broken; on purpose or by circumstance.”
“It’s hard to explain, Vree.” Wiping sweat out of her eyes, Karlene watched a muscle jump in Vree’s jaw and wondered what vows the younger woman had broken. “Once you’re trained to Sing the kigh, you’re changed. You know that you’re a part of a greater whole and you can’t do anything to damage that. It would be like cutting off your own arm.”
“That she should understand,” Gyhard murmured. “Have her tell you about assassin training some time.”
Karlene didn’t want to know about assassin training; didn’t want to know how the Empire created an efficient, conscienceless killer out of a normal, intelligent, honorable, beautiful woman. She wondered what Vree would have been like without the training that had made her so easily accept the unacceptable. “She’ll kill you if you get in her way.”
“So there are no evil bards?” Vree asked, breaking into Karlene’s train of thought. “No crazy bards?”
“No. No one knows why, but it doesn’t happen that way. I’m not saying that we’re all perfect; some of us are lazy, some of us are irritating, some of us are vain and complacent …” We should’ve stayed at that tavern. I should’ve sent for his guard. I should never have assumed I could get the prince safely back to the palace alone. She had to swallow the guilt before she could continue. “… but our ability to Sing the kigh makes it impossible for us to not realize the validity of another’s viewpoint.”
“So the bards of Shkoder send Imperial citizens back into the Empire trained to have more in common with the bards of Shkoder than with their own people,” Vree said slowly, trying to make military sense out of it. “So that someday, when Shkoder has trained bards and sent them to every country, bards will run things.”
For a long moment the only sound was the hollow clop of hooves on stone and the high-pitched hum of an insect in a distant tree. Then Gyhard chuckled. “Get out of that one,” he challenged.
Karlene stiffened at the sound of his laughter. “Well, we’re pretty nonpolitical …”
That was no kind of answer and they all knew it.
“What about the bard we’re after?” Vree asked suddenly. “What about the old man? You said there were no crazy bards.”
All of a sudden, Gyhard found the conversation less amusing. “He was made crazy because he was a bard. He didn’t start out that way.”
“Cemandians,” Karlene sighed as though that should explain it.
Vree leaned forward, trying to get a look at Gyhard’s face around the bard riding between them. “What happened to him?”
Gyhard rode in silence for a while before finally answering. “The Cemandians think that the kigh are outside the Circle …”
*What’s he talking about?*
*I don’t know.*
“They think the kigh are demons,” he amended, obviously realizing he’d lost half his audience. “And anyone who shows an ability to Sing the kigh is—I suppose torture isn’t too extreme a word for it—is tortured to drive the demons out.”
Karlene shook her head, the protest as much at the Cemandians as at what Gyhard had said. “They’re not quite so extreme anymore. Over the last few years …”
“The last few years have nothing to do with Kars,” he interrupted bitterly. “Torture was their preferred response when Kars was young. He escaped. Hid in the mountains.”
So the old man had a name. “You found him hiding in the mountains?”
“Yes.” Badly hurt but not insane. Not yet. It took love to push him over the edge that torture had taken him to.
There was such a complete lack of emotion in that single syllable that the pain it masked stood out in sharp relief.
Vree stared down at their shadows, stretching out on the road before them. It seemed her heart had begun to beat just a little faster. *The old man is the other one; the one before us that Gyhard told his past to.*
*And it sounds like he drove him crazy, too.*
*We’re not crazy, Bannon.*
*Not yet, sister-mine.* He sounded almost smug.
Karlene chewed her lower lip while she thought, trying to piece together all she’d learned over the last few days. Considering that neither of them wants to tell me anything, I don’t think I’ve ever been with two people so desperate to talk about what’s happening to them. She’d wanted to help Vree from the beginning, but now she began to wonder if she could possibly feel pity for Gyhard as well. As things were far too complicated for a horseback analysis, she finally sighed. “I wish I knew what was going on.”
Gyhard shrugged. “I doubt you’d understand it.”
The urge to smack that superior tone right out of his voice was intense, but uncertain of what might cause Vree to protect her brother’s body, she managed to resist. Instead, she recalled the map of the Third Province she carried in memory. ‘They’re—Kars is heading for the mountains.”
“I suppose he feels safe there.”
“You’re sure of where he’s going now, aren’t you?”
“I know where he used to feel safe, years ago.”
“It’s a place to start.”
“It’s a place to finish,” Gyhard corrected. He kicked his horse forward into a trot and then a canter, his final word hanging in the air behind him.
* * * *
The cart had stopped. Otavas pushed himself up on one elbow and peered sleepily around. He was alone. He remembered thinking that with both the remaining dead pulling the cart he could easily overpower the old man and escape. Then the old man had begun to sing, a quaver
ing lament for the loss of the cousins. They’d turned off the East Road at Shaebridge—he’d seen the city pass in the dusk like a torchlit memory from another life—and eventually, emotionally exhausted, he’d drifted into a fitful slumber.
But now the cart was stopped and he was alone.
He scrambled to his feet, eyes fighting to become accustomed to the night, and threw himself up and over the side. Landing awkwardly, palms flat against the dusty ground, he took a second to catch his breath and then leaped forward.
The pale oval of Wheyra’s face materialized suddenly out of the darkness, too close for him to avoid crashing into her. His outthrust hands sank into the bundle she carried. He screamed and flung himself back.
When his spine slammed against the cart, it seemed more a refuge than a prison.
“Kait and I are going into the village for supplies, my heart,” the old man crooned, stepping forward into the limited vision the night allowed. “Wheyra will stay here to keep you company.”
“To keep me from running away!” the prince panted.
“No.” The old man sadly shook his head, wisps of long gray hair floating in and out of sight. “You won’t run away. Not this time.”
* * * *
Thunder grumbled in the distance and heat lightning turned the sky an angry orange as they made their way into the small village tucked between the packed dirt of the road and a bend in the river. The old man hummed as they walked, hoping for an answer.
A dog howled as they passed the first of the buildings, but with that one exception it appeared the village slept.
It soon became apparent that there would be no answer.
The old man studied the collection of houses. Finally, he lifted the latch on a tiny dwelling so close to the river that spring floods had marked the walls. Taking a firm grip on his staff, he motioned Kait in before him.
On a pallet by the empty hearth, a man and a woman lay sleeping in each other’s arms. He searched the shadows for signs of children as the sleeping couple began to stir, their dreams prodded by the nightmare standing and staring down at them. When he was certain that there would be no orphans left behind, he took a crude blade from its place on the wall and told Kait what to do with it.
