His brown eyes found Fost's gray ones. Fairspeaker smiled and Fost felt himself stirring to the gaze.
'Well, Longstrider? May I have your hand upon it… comrade?'
As if of its own accord, Fost's scarred right hand rose to touch Fairspeaker's slimmer, softer one.
Idiot! A voice cracked from the back of his skull. He's playing you like a lute! He struck the preferred hand away.
'Go drown yourself in a bucket of shit!' he snarled, deliberately using the crudity to dispel the last of Fairspeaker's verbal spell.
Fairspeaker only laughed, and waved the fingers of his raised right hand languidly in the air as if to cool them.
'Well, that's your decision. All I can say is that I am deeply regretful.' He turned to Moriana. 'Perhaps you have a clearer perception of your own interest, Princess. I can tell you that a high official of the People arrives on the morrow from Thendrun to interrogate you. You can save yourself much anguish – by which I mean earn yourself a quick and painless death – if you simply tell me now of your plans.'
'Plans?' Moriana's laugh turned bitter. 'I have none. Except to escape this stinking pen.'
'Don't lie, Princess.' The liquid eyes showed hurt. Fairspeaker patted Erimenes's new pouch. 'Your former accomplice has revealed to me many of the salient features of your scheme to turn the skystone mines to your own purposes. But the servants of the Dark need details. For example, which traitor revealed to you the workings of the skyraft controls? We know you flew here on a craft stolen from the Sky City. I tell you this so you'll understand that we know enough to tell if you try lying to us.'
Only instinct prevented Fost from dropping his jaw in amazement. It took iron self-control to keep from turning to see if Moriana was as dumbstruck. Where in the wide Realm had Fairspeaker gotten such an extravagant notion?
'Confess all, Fost.' Erimenes's voice lacked nothing of the unctuous tones Fairspeaker carried off so well. 'You've not been a bad companion, though you are uncouth and rather less valorous than I might have wished. I'd hate to see you suffer needlessly on account of your murdering wolf bitch.' Fost turned an ugly grin on Fairspeaker.
'I might even reconsider your offer to join you, my friend,' he said in a deadly quiet voice, 'if you could promise me one reward. Return Erimenes to a living, feeling body so that I could give him the fill of sensation he so craves. My vaporous friend, I think I've picked up some useful pointers from your old friend, the late, lamented Prince Rann.' Fairspeaker guffawed. 'You'd jest on the gibbet, friend Fost.' 'Who's jesting?' 'Mark my words, Fost! You'll regret this.'
Fairspeaker looked at the sky. A few fat, fleecy clouds gamboled in the southern sky. He let his gaze drift meaningfully at the traffic of skycraft streaming in from the northeast.
'You'll have until tomorrow morning to think over your refusal.' Fairspeaker's eyes filled with concern. 'You must understand, my friends, that once Lord Nchssk arrives, affairs will pass from my hands and I will be unable to win you any mercy.'
They ignored him. He shrugged elaborately and walked out. The Zr'gsz guards waited until he had left the compound before backing out. The gates boomed shut and the lock fell with a sound like a headsman's axe.
Fost and Moriana exchanged looks. The tale Erimenes had fed the Nevrymin was a combination of truth and utter fabrication. Had the genie thought to insinuate himself into the good graces of the Dark Ones by inventing an imaginary menace, banking on the near certainty that the more fervently Moriana and Fost denied the existence of such a danger the more fervently the questioners would disbelieve them? Or had the ages-old spirit simply gone insane?
Fost slept through the heat of the afternoon. With a sentence of death looming over him as tangibly as the bulk of Omizantrim, it might have seemed strange he could sleep at all. But sleep shielded him from having to think of his fate.
He woke to find Moriana bending over a younger Watcher woman seated on a flat rock. Moriana worked on the woman's arm, which was twisted unnaturally. The woman's face was drained of color and feeling; it showed no pain.
Moriana finally stood up, wiped sweat from her forehead and regarded the job of splinting and bandaging.
'It'd be best if you wore that sling for several weeks, Beiil. Right now the thing to do is sleep.' The woman nodded dully and rose, walking to the nearest group of Watchers who were busily not watching what the princess had done. One spoke to the woman in hushed tones and looked disbelievingly at her quiet answer.
'Damn the Hissers,' Moriana swore fervently. 'And thrice damn the Nevrymin for aiding them now that they've shown their true shade! That girl's arm was broken in the capture of the village. They locked her in a storeroom with others wounded and dying. The others were too weak to help her; she bound her own arm, but set the bone wrong. By the time the Hissers let her out to join the others, it was too late to reset. I had to break it over again.' 'She was certainly quiet.'
Moriana mopped at her forehead with the hem of her tunic. Fost looked at the bare skin of her trim midriff with a pang of longing. It had been so long for them, and now they'd never have the chance to complete their reunion.
'Ziore helped. She suppressed sensation in the girl's mind while I worked. She even left a residual block that will keep the pain from becoming too severe.'
'I keep being surprised at the way your powers have grown,' Fost said. 'Tell me. You'd rather heal with magic, wouldn't you?' Her eyes answered for her.
When the sun dipped low enough in the sky to become entangled with the black tentacles of the Omizantrim flows, Fost broke out his bowl and flask. He and Moriana ate a little, then offered the vessels once more to the Watchers. Wan and shaky, Beiil rose from her pallet and came over. Fost helped her and Fost fed her with her own spoon. When she finished, most of the other Watchers lined up wordlessly to partake of the food and drink.
As the other prisoners ate, Fost lay back with his head in his hands watching the sky set in layers of color, slate-gray and blue and orange. His mind wandered. First, he thought about Moriana's account of her trip to Thendrun. There was something missing from her story. He didn't perceive the lack as he would, say, the hollow left by a missing tooth. Rather, it was like detecting wine watered by a dishonest innkeeper. Moriana had diluted the truth.
Why?'
He'd never find out. In a short time it would no longer matter. But it hurt him to think she'd keep anything from him.
His thoughts drifted to Erimenes. He had travelled so long in the company of the garrulous and horny spirit that he'd come to like him. Certainly there were scores – hundreds! – of times when he had felt like abandoning the sage. Yet he had come to regard Erimenes as something of a comrade in arms despite the genie's superciliousness and insatiable appetite for vicarious stimulation.
And Erimenes had repaid that loyalty with treachery. Fost had no one to blame but himself for his credulity. Erimenes had shown his true essence before, when as a messenger, Fost had been charged with delivering the genie in the jug to its original owner. It had seemed to Fost that the genie was gradually changing over the many months, though, was actively trying to aid Fost rather than goad him into impossible and potentially entertaining situations.
Aye, seemed.
The Watchers finished eating and drinking and, still wordless, returned the utensils to Fost. He sat unspeaking with his arms around Moriana while the light went out of the world. Then they lay down side by side and slept.
They awoke to light.
Instinctively, Fost groped for his sword. He found a handful of soft flesh. Moriana automatically brushed his hand from her breast and sat up beside him.
They blinked into the yellow eye of a hooded lantern. Fost's blood chilled. Had the Zr'gsz inquisitor arrived ahead of schedule? The light winked out. Fost's eyes adjusted to the darkness again, and he made out a stocky form in a narrow gap between the gates. 'Sir Longstrider? Princess Moriana?' 'What do you want?' Moriana asked cautiously.
'Save the hackneyed dialog for later,' a fam
iliar, testy voice snapped. 'Right now, time is of the essence.'
'Go play your vicious tricks elsewhere, you treacherous bottled fart,' said Fost hotly. 'Yes! You're a disgrace to noble Athalau!' exclaimed Ziore.
'Gentles…' the husky young man said, raising his hands in a placating gesture.
'The just must suffer,' Erimenes said. 'May the Three and Twenty Wise Ones of Agift witness what dullards I am saddled with as friends!' 'You've small right to call upon the Wise,' hissed Moriana. 'Gentles, now…'
'Must I bear such abuse heaped upon my noble head? After all I've done? Oh, it is a bitter lot dealing with such as you.'
'Silence!' The command snapped like a whip. Fost peered most closely at the youth. Whoever he was, he had the habit of command. 'Gentles, you may not know me, for you only saw me briefly. I am Snowbuck, Sternbow's son. I've come to rescue you.'
'Then why are you signing your death warrant by carrying that jar around with you?' Fost got to his feet. Erimenes called upon the gods to witness his sorry fate.
'But gentles,' Snowbuck said, 'It was the good Erimenes who talked these men into helping free you. I couldn't convince them by myself.' A tall shadow appeared at his side.
'It may do us little credit but it's no light thing to cross that devil Fairspeaker.' Fost recognized the voice of the bowman who had told his naming story to Moriana the night before. 'But when Erimenes told us what had happened in the Sky City, we could no longer doubt that the People are enemies of all our kind.'
'As if it wasn't before all our faces long ago!' Snovvbuck said passionately.
'Ah, Snowbuck, you've won now. Don't chop a tree that's fallen.' The rebuff was offered in a friendly tone and Snowbuck took it gracefully.
'You have the right, Firesbane.' He gestured and men spilled into the compound. 'Help these others out.' He didn't have to tell them to be quick and quiet; they were Nevrym foresters.
As the Nevrymin began to usher out the Watchers into the night for the second time in two days, Snowbuck pulled Erimenes's fat clay jar from its pouch and handed it almost reverently to Fost. Fost accepted it with both hands. For a second, he considered drop-kicking it over the wall, then thought better of it. That would have been too noisy. He stuffed it back into the satchel.
'At least, you're not totally lost to feelings of gratitude,' Erimenes said waspishly.
'Erimenes, what are you up to?' Fost demanded. He stood in front of the gate so that the escaping Watchers had to part and pass to both sides of him like a stream around a jutting rock.
'A scheme worthy of my high intelligence' the spirit replied smugly. 'It was almost a pity to waste such ingenuity on so paltry a project as saving you from certain death. But it offends my sense of esthetics to contemplate a beauty such as Moriana's passing from this world.'
'I'm flattered,' the princess said, 'but what was all that bizarre claptrap about our plotting to field our own fleet of skyrafts?'
'I had to tell that rogue Fairspeaker something that would convince him I was truly on their side – and, incidentally, would keep him from bowing to the insistence of the Zr'gsz commandant and allowing you to be killed.' '"Allowing" us – what power has he?' Fost demanded.
'The Hissers realize it is Fairspeaker who keeps their Nevrymin allies allied. And he does have the favor of the Dark Ones. He wasn't lying about that.'
In the starlight it seemed that patches of color had come to Snowbuck's broad cheeks.
'You owe Erimenes a debt, Sir Longstrider, and you, too, Princess,' he said. 'And… and I, as well. For he's made it possible for me to save my father's honor!'
His voice almost cracked the armor of his whispering. He collected himself and clapped the two on the arms. 'We must hurry.' 'Lead the way,' said Fost.
CHAPTER NINE
Sure-footed in the dark, Snowbuck led Fost and Moriana up the arroyo that ran along the western wall of the prison compound. He then threaded his way eastward over the brushy slope of Omizantrim between the fumarole where the Ullapag had kept its vigil and the village itself. The mountain was moody tonight. Its mutterings crescendoed from time to time to a roaring like blood in the ears. Purple lightning played around the summit. Explosions crashed in the crater playing lurid light on the underside of the wide cloud that issued from the mountain's guts.
Fost sensed movement on both sides. He didn't waste energy casting about to see who or what was nearby. He trusted Snowbuck's sense better than his own. It would have been foolish to fall down a hole simply to keep track of unseen friends.
Like Moriana, he ran with sword in hand. Nevrymin had returned their weapons as they emerged from the compound. As dark as the night was, the princess had decided not to string her bow and wore it slung over her back next to a fresh quiver of arrows.
They passed through narrow draws, struggled up slopes where the lava threatened to crumble underfoot at any instant and fling them facedown on the sharp rock, and once hopped across a recent flow that burned the soles of their feet. Luckily, the crust didn't give way beneath them the way the half-hardened lava had when they first made their way to the Watchers' village.
At one point, Fost almost went headlong into the yawning pit of a skystone quarry. He drew a sharp rebuke from Erimenes for his clumsiness. The major drifts and mines lay downslope, which meant the Zr'gsz garrisons and patrols of Nevrymin still loyal to the lizard folk would be concentrated in that direction.
As he scrambled from the pit something flew into his face. He struck at it, thinking it a bat or nocturnal insect. To his amazement it flashed by and continued soundlessly upward, losing itself in blackness. He heard Snowbuck chuckle softly.
'Skystone,' the youth explained, then pushed on, using the dark brush that grew upslope to pull himself along.
'How in hell's name does the stuff ever get deposited?' Fost grumbled.
'I believe,' answered Erimenes, 'that it is a component of the magma extruded through the crater to become lava. As it flows down the mountain it rises to the top of the flow. Yet it adheres to the heavier stuff of common lava, which holds it down until it cools.' 'Is that true?' 'How should I know?'
The moons poked up into the eastern sky. Both were past full. The light made it easier for any pursuers to see them but also made the going quicker. As they put what Fost's experience told him were miles between them and the Watchers' former village, the courier began to believe they might actually escape.
Then a figure detached itself from a tall, dead tree at the top of a razorback of lava and stood looking down into their surprised faces.
'So,' said Sternbow, 'my own son.' He shook his head. 'I hardly believe it.'
Snowbuck scrambled the rest of the way up the slope to stand beside his father. More figures rose out of the wasteland, drawn bows in hand. Fost groaned. He was already thoroughly sick of this routine. 'I must speak with you, Father,' Snowbuck said. 'As man to man.'
Sternbow looked around. Fost wondered where his faithful shadow was. Sternbow's words told him.
'Fairspeaker became separated from the party as we made our way to wait for you,' he mumbled. 'He should hear this.'
'No!' Snowbuck's voice rang loud and clear above the volcano's growl. 'He should not hear! Or are you no longer capable of listening for yourself, Father?'
Sternbow raised his hand to strike his son. Snowbuck held his ground. The tall forester chieftain let his hand fall to his side and seemed to shrink an inch.
'It may be that I cannot.' His words were barely audible. 'But it is high time I learned once more. Speak.'
'Father, the…' he began but was interrupted by a cry from behind. 'Snowbuck!'
At the sound of Fairspeaker's voice, Snowbuck spun, hand dropping to sword hilt. He was half around when an arrow struck him in the left temple. Snowbuck jerked, then dropped to one knee.
'F-father,' he said. His eyes rolled up into his head and he fell, lifeless.
Sternbow uttered a warning cry of rage and grief and desolation. For a moment, the mountain fel
l silent as if to mark the enormity of his loss. He raised his eyes to Fairspeaker on a hill fifty feet away, a bow held loosely in his hand.
'I came just in time, great Sternbow.' The young man sounded out of breath. 'Another instant and the faithless young pup would've.. .' Sternbow tore forth his broadsword and flung it at Fairspeaker.
Paralyzed with disbelief, Fairspeaker stood and watched as the blade spun toward him. The whine of split air was loud in the awful silence.
At the last possible instant, Fairspeaker flung himself to the side. He was too late to save himself completely. The sword tip raked his cheek, opening it to the bone. He screamed shrilly and fell from view. As he did, a line of flame crackled from Moriana's fingertips. A bush burst into orange flame where he had stood.
Across the black nightland Nevrymin faced one another across drawn swords and levelled spears. A few Watchers stood with hands high, dazed by the course of events. One by one each turned until all faced Sternbow.
The tall man knelt on the unyielding stone, cradling his son's head in his lap. A thin trickle of blood, black in the moonlight, ran from the wound and stained his breeches. Slowly, he raised his head. He had aged ten years in one tragic minute. 'After him!' he cried. 'Hunt down the traitor Fairspeaker!'
With a roar, the Nevrymin turned from confronting one another and raced off into the night. That was an order most of them had longed to hear for some time. Sternbow rose to face Fost and Moriana.
'Apologies will not suffice for what I've done, so I will not offer them,' he said. He composed himself visibly. 'You are free to go. I wish I could call you friends, but I will not presume. O Snowbuck, you saw far more clearly than I!' His head slumped to his chest and tears flowed down his bearded cheeks, bright silver rivulets in the moonlight.
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