Path of Honor

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  “Not a bad game if she can win it. Can she?”

  “She didn’t say it in so many words, and I can tell she’s afraid she’ll break and show her hand. And there was something strange about her too. Like she’s in a hurry to pass her tests, but at the same time she isn’t eager for it to happen tomorrow. Like she has a schedule.”

  “Won’t be very long. Under three months, she said? Wonder how long the tests go on?”

  “All she said was that her masters had to start before then. But by the sound of it, nothing they’ll do to her will be short or sweet.” His imagination was entirely too fertile when it came to envisioning what they would do to Kedisan-Mutira. “But neither can they afford to spend too much time away from Aare. He’s not so trusting.”

  “I don’t trust ’em out of sight for a minute, and I’m not nearly so paranoid as Aare.” Metyein swigged down the rest of his brandy and poured himself another. “What do you suppose the sorcerers are up to? Why bring her along knowing they’d have to test her?”

  Juhrnus stroked his fingers over Esper’s back, feeling the sisalik’s croon rumble against his thigh. It was echoed in his mind. He smiled. “I don’t think they had a choice. This ritual has rules, and she’s due for testing. They couldn’t leave her behind.”

  “I hope to the Lady they don’t find out the truth about the Iisand. Aare might not have brought them here, but he clearly thinks he can make lapdogs out of them: his own pet sorcerers. But he’s a fool if he believes they’ll heel for him.” Metyein yawned and rubbed the stubble on his jaws. “Reisiltark is the only one who can hope to stop them if they decide to attack.”

  “He’s willing to have the sorcerers as pets, but if he could, he’d drop her in a deep well and pretend she never existed.”

  “Don’t think that he won’t,” Metyein said, sitting up. “I’ve known him a long time, and I’ve been hearing things in the city. Someone’s stirring the pot against Reisiltark. It’s like a campaign. Every tavern, every market stall, every hovel where you can buy a meal or a drink. There’s always somebody whining about how she’s refusing to heal the plague. How she wants to take power herself. How she heals the poor in the Fringes and ignores everybody else. She’s building herself an army, they say. She’s going to march through Koduteel and turn everyone out and give their houses to the Fringefolk.

  “I’m seeing less and less green, my friend. Red is the color now. And it means hate for Reisil. I don’t like it. The complaints are too systematic to be coincidence. And if Aare is behind it—and it’s got his stench all over it—then this is just the first step in getting rid of her. Through slander or a dark alley, he’s got no intention of letting her interfere with his rule. The fewer supporters she’s got and the more noise there is about her being a traitor, the easier it will be.”

  “Chodha,” Juhrnus said.

  “He’s getting ready. When the plague really breaks here, it’s really going to turn people against her. And Aare won’t waste time. He’ll take his first opportunity. And Reisiltark has got to be made to leave before it happens. I don’t want to see her hurt.”

  “There’s only one other way, and it’s no safer.”

  “The wizards.”

  Juhrnus nodded.

  “I hate to say it, but she might be right. They do have answers. If she can solve the plague and the nokulas, then we don’t have any problems. We get the Iisand back, he sends the Scallacians away. The Iisand supports the ahalad-kaaslane, and the people will follow his lead.”

  “Point’s moot anyhow,” Juhrnus said, sounding unconvinced. “We don’t know where to find them.”

  “Does it matter? If we can find out, then we give her a map. And if we can’t, she’s still out of Kodu Riik searching the hills and safer than she would be here.”

  “You think you can find out? No one else seems to have a clue.”

  “No one else wants to know, do they?” Metyein returned sardonically. “Besides, Sodur may know. He’s not been particularly forthcoming with his information.”

  Juhrnus made a rude sound, and Metyein smiled sympathetically. “But if anyone knows where the wizards are, it’s the people of the Fringes. They’ve been moving cross-country to get here. Someone saw something strange, heard something, found a footprint or saw smoke. I’ll be able to find them. Count on it.”

  “All right. Do it. What about your father?”

  Metyein gave a short, humorless laugh. “He’s been busy. Up to his neck in this business with the sorcerers. I’d bet my life on it. He’s hardly found time to climb his mistress, much less talk to me. He’d just as soon I stayed out of his way these days. He won’t notice where I’ve gone.”

  He stood up, straightening his clothing, fingering the tears in his pants from Esper’s claws and wincing as he grazed the scrapes in his skin. “I’m on my way, then. Good luck with your lady sorceress.”

  “Right,” Juhrnus replied, thinking of her explosive touch on his skin. “She and I have an appointment to see the city at dawn.”

  Metyein opened the door.

  “Better get some sleep. Sounds like you’ll need it.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and shut the door as the mug Juhrnus had thrown thudded against it. But when Juhrnus finally slept, his body moved restlessly as he dreamed of Kedisan-Mutira and her lightning touch.

  Chapter 26

  Reisil stared up at the carved canopy arching over her head. In the fireplace crackled the remains of the vanity table. Saljane dozed on her perch, head tucked under her wing, and outside the wind rattled the balcony doors.

  Reisil sighed and shifted, pulling the heavy bedclothes over herself to ward off the chill creeping between the cracks of the doors and shutters. She hadn’t bothered undressing except to shed her boots and her gauntlet. Her head throbbed, and the whirl in her mind refused to let her sleep. She had endured the intolerably long supper sitting between a self-righteous know-it-all preaching the evils of the Fringes and how to eradicate the “vermin” there, and an equally annoying second or third son of a minor house who felt compelled to grope her under the table at every opportunity. All the while she’d been unable to look away from the Scallacians. Everything in her screamed danger, and yet she could do nothing about it.

  After the supper, she’d stalked the Great Hall. Juhrnus and the sorceress disappeared for a time, and on their return, the Scallacians retired to a private salon with Verit Aare and his retinue. Soon after, Reisil returned to her rooms to find the debris from the vanity table and the crossbolt on the mantel where Kebonsat had set it. She stirred up the fire, adding logs until it was a roaring inferno, then tossed both the remains of the table and the poison-tipped crossbolt into the flames and flung herself onto the bed to await sleep. And was still waiting.

  She went over her conversation with the Vertina, wondering if she’d sabotaged Kebonsat’s chances. Kebonsat and the Vertina had hardly spent a few moments together. Mostly she’d danced attendance on the two sorcerers. How she might have felt about that, Reisil couldn’t tell. The Vertina’s expression remained unvarying in its congeniality. And Juhrnus? Had he learned anything? She thought about knocking on his door to find out, but dismissed the idea. She didn’t want anyone seeing her going there in the middle of the night.

  She burrowed deeper into the bedclothes, wishing for sleep. Kebonsat was expecting her at dawn, and she was beginning to want weapons training as much as he wanted her to have it. She was tired of being defenseless.

  At first she thought it was a nightmare. A force of anger, hatred, desire and desperate need swallowed her. It filled her nose, her mouth, her ears, dragging her down into a depthless mire. Reisil struggled against it, gasping, but the more she fought, the tighter it held her.

  Her mind was spinning into fragments, and she hardly knew her own name or where she was. Suddenly Saljane was there in her mind, a streak of cleansing white fury. Against Saljane’s brilliant presence, the other could not retain its grip on Reisil. It let her go, but Reisil could feel it
lying in wait, its hunger for her palpable.

  The presence from the bluffs, from the Scallacians’ attack at the reception.

  Reisil kicked her way out of the bedclothes and sat up. Tears rolled down her cheeks, both from fear and in strange sympathy for her agonized attacker. Saljane leaped to the bed beside Reisil, the ivy pattern on her beak glowing fiercely. Reisil hugged the goshawk against her chest. She couldn’t formulate any words, couldn’t gather her shattered thoughts.

  At last she let go of Saljane, realizing she was drenched in sweat. Her sodden clothing clung coldly to her skin, and she shuddered at the sensation. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, stripping off her tunic and trousers and donning fresh ones in the darkness. She poked a candle into the fire’s coals to light the wick and stubbed the end into a holder on the mantel. She splashed her face before sliding into her boots and buckling on her gauntlet. Dressed and ready with no place to go, she began to pace around the room.

  ~What is this thing? Why is it coming after me?

  Saljane did not answer, only wrapping her mind more closely around Reisil’s.

  Suddenly the air went out of the room. The door flew from its hinges, hitting the opposite wall with a deafening bang. The high-pitched sound of tearing metal screamed up and down the corridor. Echoing booms ricocheted down the maze of palace passages as door after door was wrenched off its hinges. Then Reisil heard a violent crash rolling up out of the entrance hall and resonating through the rest of the palace. With it came a wash of something else, something she felt like maggots in her flesh, like sun-beams on her skin. Magic.

  It was here. It had come at last.

  It howled with a voice that sounded like all the demons in the Demonlord’s nether realm. It called to her, demanded her. Its rage was tangible. No more hiding. It wanted judgment. Revenge. For what, Reisil couldn’t guess. But beneath all its roiling emotions, she felt the choking hurt it—he—could not hide, could not eradicate, could not escape. It drew the healer in her. She couldn’t resist such agony.

  “Come on,” she said aloud to Saljane, lifting the goshawk up to her shoulder. “He’s waiting for us.” For me.

  Reisil picked her way to the Grand Foyer, stepping over the remains of doors and ignoring the white-faced denizens that peered out into the black corridor at her passing. She followed the sound of that howling, a long breathless note that burrowed through her head. Reisil strengthened the walls of her mind, giving herself a short-lived relief as she started down the great staircase. At her sudden distancing, the presence leaped against her defenses, battering at her with a blind rage unpolluted by reason. Reisil’s legs buckled, and she caught herself on the railing, her vision going cloudy.

  A gust of frigid air rose up the rotunda. Reisil shivered. She found her way by touch, creeping close to the wall. Ten steps, twenty, forty. The floor flattened out under her boots. She stood still, head tilted, trying to make sense of the blur in front of her, head pounding with the pressure of trying to withstand the continuing assault. If not for Saljane, Reisil would have long since collapsed and passed out.

  She blinked, eyes watering. Shapes materialized. A man, taller than she, not so tall as Kebonsat. And beside him, something else.

  Reisil took another step forward, her brow furrowing. Then suddenly her vision cleared as if swept away by magic, as if the being attacking her wanted her to see. Her mouth dropped open, and she stared.

  Beside the man hunched a beast. Larger than a draft horse, it was matte black with fine, overlapping scales and a long sinuous neck. Barbed ridges ran down the length of its neck and faded along its tail. Its head was as long as Reisil’s leg, with curved teeth meshing together along its powerful jaws. Its nostrils were ringed red, its eyes buttercup-yellow slashed with crimson. Its wings, delicate and gauzy, were slightly raised over its back. It faced her, crouching down, razor talons cutting grooves in the marble. As it stared at her, as he stared at her, she knew his name. Baku. And more. He and the man were ahalad-kaaslane.

  Only they weren’t. Pity filled Reisil in a flood. The anger, the resentment, the devastating bitterness—all of these made sense now. The man had refused Baku, had refused to be his ahalad-kaaslane.

  ~Saljane, they are us. He is you. We must help him.

  She felt Saljane’s answering emotions, too deep, too raw yet, despite all their time together. They needed no words. They knew what needed to be done.

  Her mind locked with Saljane’s, Reisil stared into the beast’s fulminating eyes and dropped the walls protecting her mind.

  The world rolled over. Like a headland in a storm, wave after wave of relentless emotion washed over her. She felt Baku’s endless frustration and pain at the indifference of his ahalad-kaaslane. And because he was no ordinary animal made sentient by the Lady, but instead was a sentient being with deeply felt and complex emotions, he felt his ahalad-kaaslane’s rejection even more violently.

  Reisil made no effort to conceal anything from him. She allowed him to ransack her mind, delve into her secrets, rifle through her fears, plunder her hopes. She let him tread those raw places that she could hardly bear to think of herself: her own sense of betrayal with Sodur, her continuing failure with the plague, her sense of unworthiness to be ahalad-kaaslane.

  And all the while she took his pain.

  How long the onslaught went on, Reisil didn’t know. She clung to Saljane, needing her ahalad-kaalsane’s strength, yet knowing their closeness would lend fuel to Baku’s envy and rage.

  Then she felt an arm come around her shoulders, and she was being held against a hard, broad chest.

  “Baku, you must stop. We have found her. Will you kill her?”

  Baku gave a scream of defiance and clutched himself deeper into Reisil’s mind. For a moment she had the image of a starving wolf guarding its hard-won prey, and then her muscles went slack as her mind lost cohesion and her thoughts melted into insanity.

  “Baku!”

  This time it was an order, and instantly Baku obeyed. Moments ticked away. Reisil drew a breath between trembling lips. Tears ran down her cheeks. She blinked. Inches away from her face hovered Baku’s muzzle.

  ~Coal-drake. The voice was deep and grating, like rocks tumbling in a slide.

  She stiffened and stared. He regarded her steadily with unnerving red-and-yellow eyes. His breath puffed over her cheeks, smelling of old stone and metal.

  ~How is it I can hear you?

  ~I may speak to whomever I choose. He sounded haughty and disdainful.

  ~How?

  He did not answer, but Reisil could feel his fury rising again. She winced as her head throbbed harder and glanced up at his companion still bracing her against his chest.

  He was neither handsome nor ugly. He had a wide face, heavy brows, high cheekbones, and a broad, prominent nose. His lips were wide and sensual above a strong chin. His hair was long and black and loose, but for a handful of braids decorated with beads, feathers and bits of polished wood. Heavy gold earings dangled from the lobes of his ears, and beaten hoops of the metal circled up the back of them. He wore a wrap of brilliant colors—scarlets, greens, yellows, blues and oranges. His tunic was dark green and barely long enough to cover his stomach. Heavy gold bands circled both biceps, and two more circled his wrists. Short, tight-fitting trousers covered his legs to mid-calf, and on his feet he wore boots typical of those worn by farmers in Kodu Riik. A long tube rose up over his back, attached to a leather baldric. A pouch hung at his waist and beside it hung a long knife in a scabbard, longer than a dagger, shorter than a sword.

  “You’ve been looking for me?” she asked blearily.

  He inclined his head.

  “Why?”

  He touched the ivy on her face. “This.”

  “Did the Lady send you? When She sent you Baku, did She tell you to come to me?” She straightened, her face lighting with eagerness.

  He looked away, his face pained. “No. The nahuallis sent me.” His words had a curious sense of bein
g carefully chosen, carefully articulated. There was a softness to his consonants, as if he was used to speaking a much more fluid tongue. He added reluctantly, “They did not know about Baku.”

  “Nahuallis?” Reisil repeated, brows furrowing.

  He nodded. He stood abruptly, stretching out a hand to help her up. Baku continued to press close, only a hand-span from her ear.

  “I am called Yohuac Amini Achtopa Pilli,” Baku’s companion said, closing his right hand into a fist and laying it over his heart, thumb against his chest. He bent into a low bow, holding it for several seconds. “I have been sent to seek the foreign nahualli with gold leaves on her face. We suffer from the effects of an evil magic. It warps the weather and the beasts and the land. We have had floods and devastating storms, poor harvests, frightening beasts and great illness.”

  Reisil’s mouth fell open. Mysane Kosk and the wizards’ spell. But where had he come from that it could have such a devastating effect on his land?

  “The nahuallis have done what they can to heal our land, but can do no more,” he continued. “Their visions told them of you. That you could help.”

  Reisil swallowed, mouth dry, pressing the palm of her hand against her forehead, trying to quell the headache that throbbed there.

  “I don’t know who or what these nahuallis of yours are, but their visions lied. I can’t stop it,” she said baldly.

  He blanched. Reisil could almost have laughed at his shock. Another fool thinking she could save him.