by Dave Duncan
About a dozen Nagian shields had been laid out around the fire like hour markers on a giant clock face, with a disciple sitting by each—a new Round Table to replace the slain War-band. The two surviving Nagians were there, with their spears beside them. Another was the blond boy with the bandaged feet, Dosh Somebody, who looked as if he had been weeping. The rest seemed to be equally divided between men and women. They had been listening to their peerless leader talk, but he broke off when he saw the newcomers, and all eyes turned to study them.
There was a gap opposite Exeter, and Ursula's hat lay there—but no shield, Julian was relieved to see. The women on either side moved to make the space wider. Ursula sat down, adjusting her white dress, leaving room for him, but he remained on his feet and folded his arms, scowling over the campfire at the man he had hitherto called friend.
Exeter did not even appear weary. The exhaustion he had displayed so many hours ago had been washed away by his gluttonous feast of mana. Charisma and authority had replaced it.
For a long moment the two stared at each other. It was Julian who looked away first, of course.
"Tell me what troubles you,” Exeter said, in English.
"Murder. Betrayal."
"Be more specific."
Julian glared at him. “You knew from the Filoby Testament that there would be bloodshed in Niolvale. You deliberately let it happen—hell, you invited it! You offered up your own team as human sacrifice, you sucked mana from the deaths of women and children and innocent men. You are no better than Zath himself!"
Exeter pulled a face, as if he felt the acid burn. “I knew there would be bloodshed, yes. ‘Young men's bones,’ was what the prophecy said. I told them that back in Sonalby. Some of them must die, I said. They knew."
Julian shuddered and swallowed against a surge of nausea. “A few days after you went away, Prof Rawlinson gave me the standard welcome-aboard pep talk in Olympus. I'm sure you had it, too, once. The source of mana is obedience, he said—the greater the pain, the greater the sacrifice, the greater the mana. And I said, ‘And human sacrifice is the greatest of all?’ He told me there was one much greater."
The blue eyes were steady and unreadable. “Martyrdom."
"Yes, martyrdom! The greatest source of all. ‘Greater love hath no man.’ ... You let them die for you, so you could have their mana!"
The onlookers were frowning at this unfamiliar tongue and at the heretic who used so disrespectful a tone to their leader. Ursula was studying the fire. Standing over her, Julian could not see her face.
Exeter sighed. “I knew some of the Warband must die. I honestly did not expect so many. I honestly did not expect the others—the prophecy did not mention them. But"—he spoke quickly, before Julian could interrupt—"but I have been hearing tales recently of the Church of the Undivided coming under attack. Will you swear to me that the Service makes no use of martyrs?"
Unfair! “We try to defend our own. I never took mana from a killing. I never—"
"No.” Exeter smiled grimly. “You aren't one of the inner circle, are you? But you aren't guiltless. You live your parasitic life in Olympus on the fruits the others gather. You eat with your silver spoons in your fine houses, tended by your servants. Very fine houses! What exactly has the Service achieved in fifty years, apart from that cushy little settlement at Olympus? I'd ask you to explain to me just how the strangers of the Service differ from the strangers of the Chamber, but I know the answer already. It's a matter of degree—that's all, isn't it? None of you are virgins, some are just more pregnant than others. And the martyrs are all on your side, aren't they? The Pentatheon doesn't dabble in that. Never mind. Swear something else to me, Captain Smedley. Swear that your guns in Flanders never killed a civilian."
A jolt of fury made Julian break out in cold sweat. “If they did, I never benefitted from the death!” he yelled. “I took no blood money!"
"You took your pay! You took your medals. Your side benefitted, your team—your cause, dammit!"
Julian opened his mouth and was shouted down. The blue eyes blazed brighter than the fire.
"I know you weren't in the trenches with the infantry. You never ordered the lads to go over the top, did you, but—"
"British officers don't order their men to go over the top, you bastard! They lead them over the top!"
"Like Field Marshall Haig, I suppose? Like Asquith or Lloyd George?” Either mana or the walls behind him made Exeter's voice thunder. Even the fire seemed to bend away from the blast. The disciples gaped, aghast at this quarrel. “The real leaders stand well back and order, Captain."
"If you're content to be compared with them, then may you rot in hell with them! I'll ask some questions now! I saw you in that circular window. I know a symbol when I see one.... Chose that in advance, didn't you? Scouted out this node and decided this was a good place to hold your bloodbath, didn't you?"
Exeter's lips vanished into his beard. He nodded to concede the point. Bastard!
"And your god is undivided?” Julian roared. “But you're not claiming to be a saint, Mr. Exeter. You're not quoting ancient prophets. You're issuing wisdom on your own authority! ‘Verily I say unto you,’ and all that. Where does your authority come from? If you're not a saint and your god is undivided, then what does that make you—Christ?"
"I am the Liberator."
"But are you human or divine? Are you god or prophet? Buddha or Mohammed or Jesus or Zarathustra or Moses?"
He had scored again. Exeter said, “I am human, Julian, you know that.” But he had hesitated.
"Have you told them that? Go ahead and tell them now. I want to hear it. Speak nice and slow, in Joalian."
Exeter stared at him for a moment and then said, “No."
"Ha! Then I rest my case.” Suddenly all Julian's anger drained away in a rush, leaving bone-aching weariness and a sick regret like the pain of bereavement. That it had come to this! “Remember that morning at the Dower House at Grey-friars? Two years ago. At breakfast. You explained all this to me. You swore you'd never become the Liberator. You asked what it would do to you. ‘What would I have to become?’ you said. Well, you did it and it happened, damn you!"
The onlookers could not be following the words, but they must be reading the tones and the expressions. They all turned to hear what their tin-pot deity would say next. He spoke very quietly, as if his anger, also, had turned to sorrow.
"The game isn't over yet, Julian. It's hardly begun. All I've done so far is jostle the board."
"And Zath will burn you in the end."
Exeter shrugged. “I have to trust the Testament, Remember it said that the dead would rouse me?"
"Ysian?” Julian laughed his scorn. He wanted to hurt, to wound. “Have you avenged her yet?"
"No, not Ysian. Not even the Carrots you helped me bury. Well, maybe a little. But mostly it was Flanders, that hell at Ypres. I saw a few hours of it. I saw fields turned to mud by human gore. I saw boys blown to bits or blinded by gas or driven insane by terror. I passed out cold from the shock of it. You must have seen a million times more than I did. You were there for two years. What can excuse that, Captain Smedley?"
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!"
Softly, gently, Exeter drove in the dagger. “So the war was wrong?"
"You bugger! Wrong for the side that started it, yes. Not wrong for those who resisted the evil!"
"Then I, too, rest my case."
Julian turned and walked off into the night.
Ursula did not come after him.
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VI
And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him.
The New Testament: Mark, 3:13
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34
Eleal awoke with a start. For a moment she just lay and stared at the roof overhead, heart pounding, soaked with perspiration. She had been dreaming about D'ward again. Rather, she had been dreaming about
that mouthwateringly romantic admirer whom she knew to be D'ward although he did not look in the slightest bit like him. He might have grown broader in the last five years, might have grown a mustache and hairs on his chest, but he could hardly have grown shorter. Nor could he have changed the color of his eyes. And why, when they were locked in a passionate embrace, had she been singing? Oh, dreams were stupid!
It was very nice to wake up in a bed again, and even nicer to know that the stench of sewerberries had gone ... almost gone. Never mind. She was awake now. Close above her hung a gable ceiling, with sunbeams angling through the dirty little skylight. From the street below came a faint racket of voices, wheels, and hooves as the world roused itself for business. This was not a luxurious inn, but it was not a slum, either. And she was in Niol! Today she would be able to explore a city as big and grand as Joal, one she had never visited before. She raised her head to peer over the edge of the blanket and make sure Piol Poet was still asleep, so that it would be safe for her to get up and dress.
Piol's bed was empty. That was exceedingly annoying. He must have risen and departed without waking her, and who knows what he might have learned by now? She threw off the blanket and sat up. Why, he might even have solved the Liberator puzzle already! She reached for her dress.
There had been no shortage of news of the Liberator in Niol last night. The rumors were thicker than flies in a butcher's, but no two of the stories agreed. She had dragged herself off to bed without reaching any conclusion.
With the inevitability of a glacier going downhill, the sloth's snail-slow progress had brought them to Niol itself, the only place in the world where sewerberries were used or bought, so that a cartful of them going in any other direction would have provoked questions. Here, they had sold the stinking mess, cart and sloth and all, making quite a good profit. They had spent about a third of it replacing their ruined clothes and getting cleaned up, as no bathhouse had wanted to admit them, and the rest she had shared with Piol, since it had been all his idea.
Clip! Clop! She lurched down the steep little staircase to the barroom, which was gloomy and deserted. It stank strongly of wine, with lesser odors of urine and vomit. Deciding that she was not quite ready for breakfast yet, she clumped over to the big door and heaved it open, blinking as the sunlight caught her in the face. Niol was famous for the width of its streets. Porters trudged past in twos and threes, carrying bales on their heads and moaning away in their lazy Niolian singsong. A few smelly, humpy bullocks crawled by, hauling wagons. She could hear peddlers hawking their wares in the distance, and the shutters were coming off the little shops opposite. Half a dozen juvenile beggars flocked around her at once, shouting for alms. She cursed at them and slapped them away before their prying little fingers could discover her money belt.
"The gods be with you, my lady,” said a Joalian voice.
She spun around. Piol Poet sat on a bench outside the inn door, legs outstretched, back against the wall. He was munching on a roll.
"And with you, my lord.” She smiled at him and joined him. The journey had done wonders for Piol, but whether it was rest, food, or just a sense of purpose that deserved the credit, she did not know. His eyes were brighter, his skin less jaundiced. A clean new robe certainly helped, and his turban was neatly bound.
He tore the doughy bread in two and gave her half. “Lots more where this came from. Be off with you!” he snapped at the beggars.
She bit, eying him thoughtfully. “You've got news."
He pouted. “Am I so horribly transparent?"
"No, I am excessively perceptive. Tell me."
He finished a mouthful with the patience of the toothless. “I have ascertained that the Tion Champions are in town, and there is to be a festival next fortnight in commemoration of—"
"Never mind all that! What have you learned about the Liberator?"
He raised a silvery eyebrow. “I thought you wanted me to be your manager in the furtherance of your artistic career?"
"Later. First, what news of D'ward?"
He sighed. “Eleal, why are you so concerned about him?"
"He's an old friend! I mean, those days in Suss were the most exciting time of my life. There's nothing wrong in wanting to meet up with an old friend, is there? Now, what's the news?"
He frowned at her doubtfully. “It makes sense now. The winds of truth have winnowed the chaff of rumor."
"Spare me the poetry.” She caught his hand as he moved to take another bite. “Talk first."
He chuckled at her impatience. “He's been here, in Niol! He was seen in the temple. He's also been reported in the queen's palace, but that story seems altogether too farfetched. It does sound as if he came into the city three nights ago, went to the temple, and pulled the priests’ noses. Then he ran away before they could catch him. The next night he was at Shuujooby."
"Doing what?"
"Preaching heresy."
"Oh!"
Piol shook his head sadly. “Can't say I'm surprised, not really. He was never a strong supporter of the gods, you know. Remember, he wouldn't go to the temple with you when you went to give thanks to Tion for your safe deliverance?"
That's right, she thought, he didn't. And when the high priest summoned him to the temple, he ran away altogether, so her leg didn't get cured. But to support those awful heretics! T'lin Dragontrader had joined them, too, she remembered. The last time she had met him, they had quarreled over that.
"Well, I certainly will have nothing to do with heresy!” she said firmly. “I believe in the gods!” After all, her father was one.
"So we can forget about D'ward?” Piol beamed with relief.
"No!” Again she waylaid the bread on its way to the old pest's mouth. “If he's a heretic, why isn't he being thrown in jail?"
"Well, that is an interesting question! The queen sent her household cavalry to arrest him at Shuujooby. Apparently there was some fighting, just as the Testament predicts, but the accounts vary from hangnail to hangman, as they say here. In the end the guard failed to obey orders and most of them threw in their lot with the man they were supposed to apprehend."
"That doesn't sound likely."
Piol shrugged his thin shoulders. “It sounds like a miracle. There are rumors of other miracles, too.” He hesitated, then added softly, “They say he is healing sick people, Eleal—and cripples."
With professional skill, she suppressed an impending shiver and laughed scornfully. “But you don't believe such tales, do you?"
"I don't know.” Piol frowned and bit on his roll. Mouth full, he mumbled, “We have seen miracles of healing in Tion's temple.... All these stories are incredible, yet they seem to hang together too well to be completely wrong."
She nibbled at her own hunk of bread. “So where is he now?"
"Yesterday he left Shuujooby on the road to Mamaby.... If he keeps up his progress, then today he'll be going on to Joobiskby, and tomorrow he'll head over Lospass to Jurgvale."
If Piol Poet wasn't adding that he'd advised her just to wait in Jurgvale until the Liberator arrived, that didn't mean he wasn't thinking it. Bother! It had taken them days to come from Joobiskby. If D'ward ever got ahead of her, she would have to chase after him, and he was obviously covering the ground much faster than a sloth did. Almost anything would, of course, and she did not own a sloth anymore anyway.
Eleal sighed. “Speak up, old man. You're my strategist. Advise me."
Piol chewed for a long time. She curbed her impatience until he was ready.
"My advice to you, Eleal Singer, would be to go on to Joal, as you said you would, or else let me arrange some auditions here. In some of the temples, perhaps. Niol also has many fine pleasure gardens where an artist may earn a good living with her art, not with—"
"Forget that. How do I catch the Liberator now?"
He sighed deeply. “You always were a wayward child, you know. Follow the crowds, I suppose. And they are heading for Lospass."
"Crowds?"
"Hundreds of people are going to hear the Liberator. They're leaving their jobs, their friends, their families...."
"You have been busy, old man! How long have you been up and about? Never mind that. We can't go on foot, either of us. How?"
With his mouth full, Piol mumbled, “There are people organizing wagon trains. One silver star there. Two for a return ticket."
"That's daylight robbery!"
He chuckled wheezily. “I'd pay the two, I think. The return price may be a lot more when they've got you there."
"We'll pay for one-way trips,” Eleal said firmly, “and worry about the future when it comes."
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35
A tusk ox walked faster than a sloth, but not as fast as a man. All day Eleal watched in frustration as people on foot caught up with the wagon, passed it, and eventually disappeared into the distance ahead. Were it not for her deformed leg, she would be out there too, striding along with the best of them. It was all D'ward's fault.
Piol had been well-informed when he reported that hundreds were going to see the Liberator, for the southbound traffic was much greater than the northbound—and not merely foot traffic, either. The wealthy swept by on moas or rabbits or in coaches pulled by them, spraying dust or mud. For the first time Eleal wondered if this legendary crowd-drawer might not be the same boy she had known. D'ward had always tried to avoid attention, not attract it. He had been retiring, almost shy—although a wonderful actor, of course. Among all these people, how was she ever going to get close to him for a private little chat about old times?
Having been queried to death by the mob ahead, the meager wayfarers heading back toward the city were mostly uninformative, responding to shouted questions with oaths or angry silence. A few reported that the Liberator had reached Mamaby yesterday and might either be still there or have gone on to Joobiskby and Lospass. One or two spoke briefly of miracles, but none claimed to have actually witnessed one.
