Blood Ties tw-9

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  Lalo turned, spattering blue paint from the plastered wall past the pillar as the High Priest stormed through the Presence Hall with the Prince and the Beysa hurrying along behind.

  "They are saying that Dyareela is punishing Sanctuary because of our betrothal." Shupansea tightened her grip on Ka-dakithis's hand. "They say that your Demon Goddess is angry because the town has accepted Mother Bey!"

  "My goddess!" Both Prince and Beysa fell back as Molin turned on them, looking rather like a Storm God himself with his mantle flaring around him and dust flying from his uncombed hair and beard. Lalo found it hard to believe that this was the same sleek priest who had given him his first great commission so long ago. But then his own changes in the past few years had been even more remarkable, if less obvious. And Sanctuary itself had changed.

  "Dyareela's no deity of Ranke, or of the Ilsig either!" Molin's gaze fixed on Lalo and a quick grab hauled the limner out from behind the pillar. "You tell them-you're a Wrig-glie! Is Dyareela any goddess of yours?"

  Lalo stared at him, more startled than offended by the priest's use of the Rankan epithet. Torchholder's unguarded tongue was the best evidence of the priest's own frustration and fear.

  "The Good Goddess was here before the Ilsigi came." He pulled off his mask and answered softly. "She rules the wastelands, and the lost spirits who dwell there. But mostly, men do not pray to Her..."

  "Mostly?" asked Kadakithis. "When do they pray to Her, limner?" .

  Lalo kept his gaze on the patterned tiles, his skin prickling as if even talking about it could bring the fever on. "I was a boy when the last great plague came here," he said in a low voice. "We worshiped Her then. She brings the fever. She is the fever, and She is its cure...."

  "Wrigglie superstition," began the Prince, but his voice lacked conviction.

  Molin Torchholder sighed. "I don't like to give recognition to these native cults, but it may be necessary. I don't suppose you remember any details of the ceremonies?" His grip tightened on Lalo's shoulder again.

  "Ask the priests of Us!" Lalo shrugged free. "1 was a child, and my mother kept me inside for fear of the crowds. They said there was a great sacrifice. They dragged the carcass outside the city to attract the demons away and burned the bodies of the dead and their possessions in a great pyre. What I remember was men and women lying with each other in the streets, with drops of blood from the sacrifice still red on their brows."

  Kadakithis shuddered, but Shupansea said that she had heard of similar customs in the villages of her own land.

  "That may be so," said the High Priest repressively, "but the theological implications are unfortunate, particularly now. My Prince, I am afraid that your formal betrothal will have to be delayed until this dies down."

  "It is the dying I am afraid of," said the Beysa. "They will be sacrificing my people, not stallions or bulls, if you do not do something soon!"

  Molin Torchholder's face worked as if he saw the careful edifice of cooperation he had constructed collapsing before him. Without answering, he strode off, and Shupansea and Kadakithis followed him, leaving Lalo staring after them.

  Presently he turned back to the mural he had been working on. On the wall of the Presence Chamber, Mother Bey stretched out Her hand to the Storm God against a background of the blue sea. It was no accident that the god looked something like Kadakithis, and the goddess had the bearing and wore the robes of Shupansea, but Lalo had worked from imagination and memory this time, knowing better than to paint the souls of these particular models for all to see.

  Technically the work was competent, but the figures seemed lifeless. For a moment Lalo wondered what a little of his breath would do. Then he remembered the wars of Va-shanka and Us, shuddered, and pulled the mask over his nose and mouth again. With Dyareela stalking the streets of Sanctuary, the last thing they needed was two new deities with all the prejudices and failings of the originals fluttering about the town.

  He was still struggling with the painting when his daughter Vanda came to him with the news that her sister Latilla had taken the fever, and the Rankans wanted her out of the palace before darkness fell.

  There were crowds in the streets outside the Aphrodisia House, but little business inside, men fearing lest the fires of love would ignite a different kind of flame. Their drunken voices sounded like the growling of some great animal. Broken phrases trembled in the still air. "Death to the fish-folk, death and the fire!" At least, thought Gilla, Lalo and the children were safe at the palace, while Dubro was adding his strength to Myrtis's guards downstairs.

  Gilla pulled the curtain back across the window despite the airless heat of the evening and sat down again. Illyra lay on her couch, clutching'the coverlet to her breast at every cry, as if she were cold, despite the sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Gilla looked down at her own clasped hands, red and workwom, the flesh puffing around the circle of her wedding band, and tried to tell herself that the plague came nearly every year. But she knew it did not come this way. She and Illyra had done this, somehow, with their spell.

  A new outbreak of shouting below startled her to awareness again. The building shook as the great door of the Aphrodisia House slammed, and she heard a mutter of voices and footsteps on the stairs. It was their door they were coming to! Gilla got heavily to her feet as it was flung open, and she saw Lalo framed in the doorway with Myrtis behind him and Latilla in his arms.

  Illyra cried out, but Gilla was already in motion, reaching out to touch the hot forehead. Latilla opened her eyes then, focusing with difficulty, and tried to smile.

  "Mama, I missed you. Mama, I'm so hot, can't you make me cool again?"

  Throat tight, Gilla took the burning body into her own arms, whispering words that made no sense even to her. Latilla was so light, her flesh half consumed already by that inner fire!

  "Lay her down on the couch," said Illyra in a strained voice. "We'll need cold water and cloths."

  "I've already ordered them," said Myrtis calmly, "and perhaps these will help as well." She gestured, and one of her girls brought in two of the plumed fans which they used to fan away the sweat of amorous exercise from the bodies of their more important customers, then scurried out of the room.

  Illyra had already smoothed the coverlet. Gilla laid Latilla down and reached out for the first compress without looking away. But she was aware of Lalo close beside her, and she drew on his energy as Illyra had drawn upon hers when they made their spell. After a little, the fanning and the cold cloths seemed to have some effect, and Latilla fell into an uneasy doze.

  The first crisis over, Lalo had gone to his worktable and was fussing with his paints, laying them out instinctively as if work could help him control the chaos of his world.

  "Oh Gilla," said Illyra pitifully, "she looks so like my little girl!" Gilla met her eyes, and the S'danzo flushed painfully. At her words, Lalo looked up at her.

  "Where are the finished cards?" he asked then. "There were only a few to be done-if I complete the deck, perhaps you can read some hope for us now!"

  Illyra stared at him, and her face went stark white against the dark masses of her hair. Then her gaze slid unwillingly to the table in the comer, where the cards were still as she had laid them a week ago. Still unsuspecting, Lalo went to it and stood, looking down.

  Gilla's flesh had turned to stone. Lalo was no S'danzo, but he was a master of symbol, and he had painted those cards. She tried to read his reaction in the slump of his shoulders, the bent head with its thinning, ginger hair. Surely he must know!

  "I don't understand," Lalo said in a still voice. "Did you try to read from an incomplete deck? Is this your Seeing for what is happening now?" Suddenly his hand shot out and he swept the fatal pattern of cards to the floor. He turned and read in their faces the answer to a question he had not even thought to ask.

  "You did this?"

  "I don't know," said Illyra in a dead voice. "We wanted revenge for our children ..."

  "Blessed Goddess!"
breathed Lalo in disbelief.

  "No-there are no gods, only Power-" Illyra's laugh scraped the edge of hysteria.

  "And you let her-you helped her?" His shocked gaze turned to Gilla. "You still have other children! Didn't you think-"

  "Did you think when you gave life to the Black Unicorn?" she spat back, but her voice broke. She gestured toward Latilla. "Oh, Lalo-Lalo-here is my punishment!"

  "No!" he said furiously. "Wasn't losing one child enough for you? She hasn't sinned! Why should she suffer for our sake?"

  "Strike me then!" Gilla said with a half-sob. Perhaps if he did it would take some of this dreadful pain away.

  Lalo stared, and something in his face seemed to crumple. "Woman, if I could hit you I would have done it years ago." As Gilla buried her face in her hands he turned back to Illyra.

  "You did this-you make it right again. I have the paints here, and the blanks for the rest of the cards. None of us will sleep tonight in any case. You will describe for me the missing cards, S'danzo, and I will paint them, and then you will read them anew!"

  Illyra pushed back her heavy hair with a thin hand. "Limner, I know what I have done," she said dully. "Take up your paints and I will give you the designs, for all the help that will be. I think the gift I abused has gone from me now."

  Lalo shuddered, but his face remained implacable as he went to his worktable and began to unstopper the little jars of pigment. Gilla stared at him, for it was a face she had never seen her husband wear before.

  "The Seven of Ores is called Red Clay, the card of the potter, the craftsman," Illyra began as Lalo picked up his brush. Then Latilla began to whimper, and Gilla forgot to listen to the S'danzo as she bent to comfort her child.

  In the night the mobs began to drag the dead and their possessions into the streets to burn them, but the sight of scorching brocades or melting gilt was too much for many of the more lawless, so the devout took to firing houses without checking too closely to see whether anyone were left alive inside. Both the Stepsons and the Third Commando had their hands full trying to keep the flames from spreading into the mercantile section of town, while Walegrin and the garrison guarded the palace from shouting mobs who bayed for the deaths of Prince Kadakithis and the Beysib whore. By the time the sun rose like a red eye upon the horizon, the sky bore a pall reminiscent of wizard weather, but this evil came wholly from mortals, or perhaps from mortality.

  When Lalo finally woke, it took a few disoriented moments for him to realize that his head was throbbing and his neck stiff not from fever, but from having slept slumped over his worktable, and that the gray light that filtered through the curtain was not the cool dimness of dawn, but a dreadful noon. With a groan he straightened, blinked, and looked around him.

  On the worktable before him were the last of the S'danzo cards. Illyra lay still in her chair. For one shocked moment Lalo thought she was dead, and realized that the horror and hatred he had felt the night before had drained away, leaving only a hollow despair. Gilla sat by the couch like a monument, but at his movement her eyes opened, red-rimmed in her ravaged face.

  "How-" The word came out as a croak, and Lalo swallowed, trying to make his voice obey him.

  "She's still alive," said Gilla, "but she still bums." She looked at him apprehensively.

  Lalo made it to his feet, remembering how he had felt when the Black Unicorn leaped off the wall, and went to her. The Unicorn had been the child of his pride, and it was only one, though the worst, of his sins over the years. But Gilla's only sin had been born of her despair. Perhaps it made them fit mates for each other, but he could hardly say that to her now.

  Instead he rested his arm across Gilla's massive shoulders and began to softly stroke her hair. Latilla moved restlessly in her feverish sleep, then stilled again. She was flushed, and it seemed to him that her cheekbones had grown more prominent, so that he saw the skull beneath the skin. His arm tightened convulsively, and Gilla turned her face against his chest.

  "You were right about the Unicorn," he said softly then. "But we got rid of it. We'll find some way to deal with this, too."

  Gilla straightened and looked up at him, her eyes luminous with unshed tears. "Oh, you ridiculous man! You make me ashamed for all those years when I thought I was the only one with anything to forgive...." She took a deep breath and heaved herself to her feet.

  "Yes, we'll do-something! But first we need to wash up and get some food!" The floor shook slightly as she strode to the door and called for the girl who had been waiting on them.

  By the time they had finished eating, Lalo felt marginally more effective. In the distance the deep beat of temple drumming mingled with the confused roaring of the mob. Myrtis's servants said that the high priest of Us had agreed to perform a sacrifice for Dyareela when sunset came. It was hoped that the scent of bull's blood would appease the goddess and the mob. If it did not, the combined might of the garrison, the Stepsons, and the 3rd Commando might be insufficient to prevent royal blood from running where the bull's blood had flowed, and with such provocation, the Emperor was unlikely to wait until the New Year to "pacify" what was left of the town.

  Lalo sat before his worktable, eyeing the bright array of cards. It was remarkable, considering his physical and mental state the night before, that they looked like anything at all. But the vision of the seeress had flowed through his hands, and he knew that these cards were artistically far superior to the ones the S'danzo had possessed before. He suppressed the flicker of pride that the thought gave him. He had no memory of painting them-any praise belonged to the power that had impelled his hand. And prettiness would not matter if they could not use the cards to undo the damage they had done.

  "I tried to do a reading while you were both asleep," Illyra said when the girl had taken the dishes away. "It's no use, Gilla. The cards kept returning to the pattern we made with them before."

  "Then we'll have to try something else," Gilla nodded de-terminedly.

  "Lay them out in another pattern," said Lalo, "a pattern of healing this time."

  "I did that too," said the S'danzo helplessly. "But there was no power in it. I could tell."

  They did it again, and then another time, but Illyra had told them truly. The cards were no more than pretty pictures making a pattern on the tablecloth. The bright colors glowed mockingly in the lurid afternoon sun.

  Illyra was sponging Latilla's face and chest. Lalo sighed, and cut the pack again. The card on top of the deck now was the Archway, a massive gate whose keystone was carved with an arcane symbol whose meaning even Illyra did not know. Beyond it was a mass of greenery, perhaps a garden. Lalo let his gaze unfocus, trying desperately to think of something else to do. Green vibrated in his vision, and he was abruptly aware of a tantalizing sense of familiarity.

  He blinked, looked at the card again, and rubbed his eyes. With normal vision he could see nothing, but there had been something.... Gilla leaned forward to pour more water into his glass, and the movement of her arm triggered a sudden memory of a white arm pouring wine of Carronne from a crystal flagon into a goblet of gold-it had been the arm of Eshi, in the country of the gods.

  "Lalo, what are you looking at?" Gilla asked.

  "I'm not sure," he said slowly. "But I think I know where I might find out...."

  "You can't go outside," said Illyra in alarm. "Listen!" Even from the Street of the Red Lanterns they could hear the tumult in the city, and Lalo shuddered.

  "I don't mean to," he said simply. "I'm going to go inward, through there-" He pointed at the archway in the card. Illyra stared at him, bewildered, but in Gilla's face understanding began to dawn, and with it fear.

  "If you mean to go into trance then I'm going with you to make sure you remember to come back again!" she said tartly. "I don't have the means to compel you the way I did before."

  Lalo had no idea what she meant by that, but there was no time to question her now. "If you can, surely you have the right to," he told her, "if either of us can get there
that way," he went on, doubting his own intuition suddenly. He propped the card up against the flagon so that they could, both see it, and pointed at the other chair.

  It creaked as Gilla eased into it. She settled herself, her hands clasped firmly in her lap, then looked at Illyra. "If this works, don't let anyone disturb us, and in the name of your own Lillis, watch over my child!"

  The S'danzo's throat worked, then she nodded, her fingers tightening on the damp cloth she held in her hand. "May your goddess bless you," she whispered brokenly, then turned quickly to Latilla again.

  "Well?" Gilla's gaze held his. Lalo took a deep breath.

  "Randal taught me a little about this," he said slowly. "Make your breathing regular, and try to relax. Look at the card until you have it memorized, then change the focus of your eyes and try to look through the gateway into the place beyond. When you can see it, push your awareness toward it and through..." He looked at her dubiously. The procedure had seemed reasonable enough when the wizard described it, but he had the awful feeling that he was about to look like a fool.

  Then Latilla whimpered again, and Gilla reached out to grip his hand. Lalo took another breath and fixed his gaze on the archway.

  Once more the riot of greenery swirled through Lalo's vision. He fought the compulsion to blink, to refocus, and tried to imagine he held a paintbrush in his hand. See, he told himself, controlling his breathing. Now all he could feel was the warm pressure of Gilla's hand. Would she keep him earth-bound? But even as he thought it, the confusion before him began to resolve into something-green leaves fluttering in the sunlight.... He launched himself toward them, and then the garden was all around him, and he was through.

  For a moment all Lalo knew was the feel of that springy turf beneath his feet, and the scent of air that was like no breeze that had ever blown through Sanctuary. Then he became aware that someone was beside him. He turned and jerked away, seeing the goddess he had painted on Molin Torchholder's wall. She smiled, and the face of the goddess was suddenly that of the golden-haired girl he had courted in the spring of the world, and then both of them were the face of Gilla, always and only Gilla, who was looking at him as she had after the first time they had ever made love.