On the terrace wall a bronze sundial stood shadowless, mute. Below it, under its ornamental stone shelter, the waterclock's gilded triton figure pointed to the second hour of the morning. Sun Wolf shivered. Moggin could have summoned rain. The fact that he hadn't meant only one thing-that he wasn't gambling that the storms would break the siege. He was, instead, doing exactly what the Wolf would have done in his place. He was setting up a trap. The fact that he was holding the rains at bay himself could only mean that the trap was a large one, and must involve fire.
Sun Wolf shut his eyes, sick with self-hating despair. For a few minutes he considered getting a horse, riding out, hoping he'd reach Vorsal in time ...
In time to do what? He knew already that the greater efficiency of Drosis' healing magic had drained his powers as well as his physical strength. Even at the best of times he hadn't the skill to withstand the might of that shadow hand. While Moggin lived, the curse was still at its full strength, and he had no way to tell whether it would affect Starhawk now or not. It was two hours' hard riding to Vorsal in any case-far too late to save them.
Nauseated, exhausted, he got to his feet and nearly fell, catching at the arms of the blackwood chair beside the bed. He sank into it, lowering his throbbing head to his hands, his whole body hurting.
Fine, he thought ironically. I've discovered a more efficient way to drain my strength. Just the thing I was always looking for ...
But Starhawk was alive.
With the battle din came all the smells of the murky day and the city around him-privies, dye vats, fuller's earth, spices, horses, the thick stench of waiting rain and the psychic miasma of petty politics, religious backbiting, and cutthroat squabbling for money.
He reached out toward the south with the hyperacute senses of wizardry, and even that effort abraded him like haircloth galling an open wound. From the memories of a score of years, he could almost see the swaying engines through thick clouds of yellow dust, the flash of weapons, fire arrows cutting pale streaks in the lightless forenoon. The stinks of blood, sweat, excrement, old leather, dirt, and smoke-the hot stench of boiling oil, molten lead, and heated sand poured down from the walls, the sizzle of charring flesh. He felt weak, ill, as if he saw all this from afar, unable to help them. And above it all the dark hand of the Vorsal mage would be reaching out ... What else could I have done? he demanded desperately. There was no time! If I'd gone back to kill him, he or the Duke's guards would have killed me! They 'd still die, I'd die, she'd die ...
Or had he just been afraid?
But his ancestors, if they had any answers, kept their silence.
Boozy drunken bastards, he thought.
Then far off, he heard the noise of the fighting change. A triumphant roar, drifting in the still air. Opening his eyes he staggered to the archway, pushed aside the curtains to lean on the cold marble pillar and look southward over the garden trees to where white smoke rose against the dun underbelly of the clouds.
Fire, he thought, wrung with horror and grief and frustrated rage. Moggin's trap. And another part of him cursed the man, knowing what the trap had to be, knowing there could be no escape.
The acanthus leaves carved in the marble cut into the flesh of his forehead as he leaned it against the pillar's capital, suifocated with helpless despair. What else could I have done ?
As if in answer, another sound came to him, shriller, higher, a distant keening.
He knew instantly what it was.
It was women and children screaming.
The besieging forces had been victorious, not the defenders. The wizard had not, after all, been triumphant. The fires whose smoke he saw were inside Vorsal's walls. The city was being sacked.
"You couldn't hardly blame them, Chief." Dogbreath set down the two battered saddlebags near the foot of the curtained bed, and shook back his long braids. "It had been one festering bastard of a siege." He shrugged, dismissing it with that, as if his boots and the baggy breeches he'd confiscated from the hapless shepherd some days ago weren't stained to the thighs with blood.
Because they were in a city that legitimately owed them money, Dogbreath still wore his armor. He'd cleaned it with a fast plunge into a horse trough and a wipe with straw, which was still snagged in the bits of chain mail and plate working their way at the edges through the blackened leather. Over it he'd draped a dagged surcoat of a terrifying shade of yellow-yellow that only could have come from the dye vats of Kwest Mralwe itself-and through its ripped sleeve and the parti-colored confusion of Dogbreath's ragged shirt, a bandage could be seen on his arm. The ribbons in his hair were fresh. One of them, pink silk striped with white, Sun Wolf recognized, and it turned him sick.
But he knew his men, and knew what it was like, to breach a city's walls after a festering bastard of a siege that nobody had hoped to live through. He said, "I know," the words bile in his mouth.
"And we didn't kill everybody," Dogbreath temporized. "Most of the women and kids weren't worth keeping-you'd spend more feeding them up to strength than you'd get for them as slaves. That went for the men, too. We didn't have any orders one way or the other."
"I know," the Wolf said again, remembering the skinny little girls outside the taverns, the old women digging garbage with arthritic fingers. He and Dogbreath had both mounted sieges where they had had orders to kill everyone, and had done so without a second thought. Remembering that didn't help. Then he asked, steeling himself to hear the worst: "What about the wizard?"
"Zero about the wizard." Dogbreath shrugged, spreading his enormous hands. "No hide, no hair, not the tassel of his little pink tail. I figure he must have been on the walls waiting for us and got plugged by an arrow in the first volley. Hell," he added, seeing the sudden narrowing of disbelief in Sun Wolf's eye, "it happens, you know."
"Yeah," the Wolf said. "But it doesn't happen to wizards very goddam often." God's grandmother, he thought dizzily, the Duke didn't lock Moggin up because of what I said, did he? It seemed inconceivable, even for what he knew of Trinitarians; inconceivable that Moggin hadn't either escaped or talked his way out of it in time. For all his scholarly quiet, the man obviously kept his head in emergencies ...
"All I know is, the attack went slick as slime, like corn through a goose. So I figure whoever it was, he must have bought the farm on the first shot. It wasn't that Moggin grut, anyway, that's for sure."
"Why 'for sure'?" He threw a quick glance into the shadows of the bed, where Starhawk still slept, her face white as the fresh linen the servants had brought. Taking his friend's unwounded arm, he led him out the door and onto the terrace. The sun had set, but the garden below them was a fairyland of torches and lanterns, shadows dancing in the naked trees. From the windows of the dining hall at the far end of the terrace, thousands of lamps threw moving shadows on the gravel and the muted riot of hautboys and viols could be detected from that direction, vying with the jangle of hurdy-gurdies in the streets, drunken celebration, and a whore's shrill laughter. There was free wine in every fountain in the city tonight.
Dogbreath shrugged again. "That was pretty nasty," he said. "I guess the King remembered the talk about it in the Council, and was still after getting a tame wizard all for his own. There hadn't been much fighting up in that end of the city, but the pickings were rich. A bunch of us were going through old Moggin's house when his Royal Etcetera showed up, with a gang of his own boys. Some of the guys had done the woman and the older girl before we showed up, but this Moggin pook and the little girl had barricaded themselves in the cellar. We figured, hell, they could stay there-neither would be any use as a slave and we were going to torch the house when we were done-but the King and his bravos hauled 'em out into the yard."
Dogbreath was quiet for a moment, his wide mouth flexing with distaste. "Hell, I don't know why it was worse. We'd have croaked 'em both anyway. Maybe because it was done in cold blood. You're sacking a town, you kill somebody who gets in your way, it's like battle, you know? But the King gets this Moggin-
he looked like a pretty harmless old pook to me, and God knows, if he'd had any magic, he'd have used it to keep the goons from snuffing his wife when they were done with her-down in the yard, and he says to him, 'I want you to do magic for me.' Oh, first he said, 'Are you Moggin Aerbaldus,' and that's when we found out that was the grut you'd thought was the hookum.
"So Moggin says, 'There must be some mistake, I'm not a wizard.' He was pretty steady about it, though he was shook up bad. He had the little girl hangin' onto his coat like it was her last hope of dinner. So him and the King do this yes-you-are, no-I'm-not routine for a little bit, and finally the King says, 'I'll protect you from the Church if you'll work for me, and we'll rule the Middle Kingdoms together and so on and so forth.' And Moggin says, 'I swear I'm not a wizard.' And the King says, 'We'll see about that.'
"So he gets his men to haul the little girl over to the other side of the courtyard-it took two of 'em to get her away from Moggin. Then he takes one of the books from the study, and rips out a couple of pages for tinder and puts them in a heap on the pavement, and says, 'If you don't light that, they'll slit her throat.' Figuring I suppose that if he could get Moggin to admit he's a wizard, it's the first step. It was pretty raw. The little girl was sobbing, 'Daddy, Daddy,' and Moggin fought the guards holding him for a minute, then begs the King to let her go, goes on his knees, cries, pleads, the whole parade, says he can't do it, swears he isn't a wizard ... "
Dogbreath shrugged. "So they slit her throat. That's when I left. And while all that was going on, damned if Zane hadn't been going through the house while everyone else was out in the courtyard, watching to see if he'd really be able to make a fire to save the kid's life, and bagged all the loot worth having. So I guess we were wrong. But it was damn ugly all the same."
From the darkness of a near-by colonnade, a voice called out Dogbreath's name. He glanced down the terrace in that direction, where a confusion of musicians and acrobats were preparing to go into the dining room among a mill of servants. Then he turned back and regarded the Wolf with beady black eyes. "Ari asked me to ask you, Chief ... Can you work the weather for about six days more? Long enough for us to get through the badlands around the Khivas and the Gore? We'll be moving fast now."
Baffled and sickened at the scene of the child's murder, Sun Wolf pulled his mind back from the desperate puzzle of why Moggin would allow it, what it was that he feared. He'd been drawing the spell-wheels on the study floor, dammit ... "Yeah," he sighed, though the marrow of his bones ached already at the thought of turning aside the storms that he could feel, even now, drifting in from the Inner Sea. "He couldn't ask me himself?"
The squad-leader's brown, simian face grew taut, and the dark eyes shifted. "He doesn't want to see you, Chief."
Rage stirred in him, like a surge of heat, only to trickle away almost at once, leaving a bleached weariness behind. He glanced up at Dogbreath, to meet the deep concern in his eyes when there was no explosion, no tirade of curses, no bellowed threats. But Sun Wolf had made his choice. Starhawk was alive, and there was very little to say.
"Pox rot it" was all he whispered.
"Hey ... " The quiet seemed to bother Dogbreath, who patted his arm with curious gentleness, as if realizing that his Chief was very far gone indeed. "He's not gonna die of it," he said cheerfully. "I'd probably feel different if the wizard-whoever it was-had been up on that wall throwin' fire-breathing elephants at us, but as it is, I'm glad you stayed here and took care of the Hawk." His eyes, bright and a bit inhuman, warmed somewhat. "She's a damn good lady, Chief. I'm glad she'll be around awhile longer."
"Thanks." He leaned against the archway behind him, his head bowed and his long, thinning hair hanging down around his scarred face, feeling drained and bitter and very alone. Part of him hated Dogbreath, with his bloody boots and the dead child's pink ribbon tied in his straight black braid-hated him the way he hated himself for what he had been. He knew that Dogbreath could be no different from what he was-what he, Sun Wolf, had made him. They had seen combat together, had put their lives on the iron altar for the gods of war to take if they wanted, and he knew that what was done in war was done as in a different life, tainted with terror and the battle rush that was the only way to survive.
Starhawk was right, he thought wearily. He should have let nothing drag him back to the way life was lived in war. He had gone for his friends, his troop, and for the captain who was like a son to him. And they'd turned their backs on him, when he'd chosen ... what? A single woman's life over theirs? Or life over death?
"Yeah," he said slowly. "Tell him I'll work the weather for him. I'll give him a week, if I can."
"Thanks. You watch your blind side, Chief." Dog-breath clasped his hand briefly, then strode jauntily away down the evening-dark corridor, the pink bow on the end of his braid a jogging blur in the gloom.
Sun Wolf turned back, weary beyond speaking, to the darkness of Starhawk's room. The place smelled of old blood, dressings, herbs, and smoke, a sickroom smell he hated. He wanted to leave the place, to find a tavern, get roaring drunk and resoundingly laid, and forget that he was a wizard now, forget that he had responsibilities, forget everything he was and knew. The troop would be celebrating tonight, as he had celebrated with them a score of times, in the torchlight and smoke beneath a city's broken walls. The memory came back vivid and bloody-golden; rowdy obscenities and violent horseplay blurred behind a rosy-gold screen of drunken well-being, the crazy elation of being alive when others were dead, the heat of alcohol in his veins and the joy of being with friends who understood him, who looked up to him, who had survived hell and fire with him-his fellow killers, Ari, Zane, Dogbreath, Penpusher, and Hawk ...
If he turned back and listened, stretching out his wizard's senses in the louring night, he could probably hear the noise of the camp over the cheap carnival clamor of the town.
He slumped back into the carved chair in the shadows of the bed curtains. He saw the drinking contests, the food fights, the wrestling matches, the nights when they'd bring in and rape all the prettier girls among those taken in the sack, the games of making the captive city fathers run humiliating gauntlets of thrown garbage or grovel for coppers in the muddy dirt of the tent floors, and saw them for what they were-the cruel and abusive sports of victors, hysterical with delight and relief that they were not dead, were not maimed, and were able to do these things to those who had opposed them.
But still he missed the gay violence of celebration and missed the closeness, like a pack-dog missing the smell and warmth and fleas of his pack.
They had left him, and he was alone. He had never before been so aware of what seizing his magic, following the path of his destiny, had done to him. He was no longer what he had been. He could not go back.
Cold fingers touched his hand, then closed around it, firm for all their lightness. Lonely, hurting, he squeezed them in return and, looking down in the dimness, met Starhawk's sleepy gray eyes.
CHAPTER 9
They spent almost three weeks in Kwest Mralwe, in a grace-and-favor house near the city wall on the edge of the University Quarter. It belonged to the Stratii and, Sun Wolf guessed, was close enough to the great House of Stratus for guards to be sent if there was trouble ... if, for instance, the King or any other member of the King-Council decided to make a bid at acquiring a tame wizard. The house itself had been built by one of the old noble families, who had ruled the land from the time of the Empire. In Kwest Mralwe these ancient clans had mostly married into the great houses of the merchant bankers, though there were some that held aloof, selling the wool from such ancestral lands as remained to them, going formally masked to one another's parties, and brooding on the injustices of the modern world. Modest by merchant standards and ruinously old, the house was nevertheless perfectly proportioned, quiet, and filled with an antique peace. Its garden was badly overgrown, and Sun Wolf spent a number of afternoons clearing it of weeds, coaxing its tiny artificial springs to run again, and rearranging the rocks
that were its bones.
It was a quiet time.
Starhawk recovered quickly, sleeping much, eating well if little-the despair of Renaeka Strata's second-best cook, who had been lent to them, with two or three other servants, by the Lady Prince. For the first week or so, she had violent headaches, but, once Sun Wolf got her to admit the fact, they yielded to what little healing magic he was by that time again able to work. For the rest, the weather consumed his strength.
Daily at first, then twice, and latterly, three and four times a day and far into the nights he performed the spells and rites. With an obscure caution, he still dared not sink into the deep trance, dared not seek the winds in their own wild quarters, but instead concentrated on holding the dead heaviness of the warm air where it was, over Kwest Mralwe and the long coastline of the north. This took far more of his own energy than guiding the winds did, and, as the pressure of the seasons and of the turning earth built up, left him with a constant, gnawing headache that wore still further at his strength.
Moreover, for each spell, each rite, he had to make anew the full panoply of protective circles, leaving no crack through which evil might come. As the days went by, he grew weary of the tedious ritual of cleansing the long, tile-floored summer dining room and writing the runes of aversion and guard, of light and darkness, in each corner, across each crevice and doorsill and window, knowing that they must all be scrubbed out afterward and all to do again. It was servants' work, patient and pointless and dull, and the warrior in him raged bitterly against it, as his body had raged at his choice not to take the woman Opium when she stood in his arms.
The gray cloud cover, the dense and louring pressure, held, but he could feel it draining his strength day by day of that first week. There were nights when, working alone in the leaden stillness, the strength of the storms seemed to crush him; dawns when he would emerge, sweat-soaked and shaky, knowing he would have to return to his task within hours and wanting nothing so much as to beat to death the first servant who crossed his path.
Hambly, Barbara - Sun Wolf 3 - Dark hand of magic.txt Page 16
