The Lady

by K V Johansen

  A bridge like a sword’s edge, and if crossed, if he dared—run, and don’t look down.

  “The Lady rode to the suburb with a company of Red Masks and temple guard,” Jugurthos prompted. “What then?”

  “They came for wizards,” Ergos said. “There’s always a few wizards among the caravaneers, there’s diviners and such in the suburb, a few, in secret. But they killed—the temple guard started it, they killed honest tradesfolk for no reason, and the Lady looking on, and—and they accused wizards and the Red Masks took them and if their friends and kin tried to save them they died and then—and then the wizard came.”

  “What wizard?” Jugurthos asked. Itulyan’s bronze stylus jabbed and flicked over the wax.

  “I don’t know. Outlander. Caravaneer. Someone said she was Grasslander, but she looked Nabbani to me.”

  A Grasslander who looked Nabbani, a Nabbani who looked Grasslander—one face came to mind at once. Old Great Gods, if the black-haired Grasslander Ivah, Hadidu’s lodger, were not dead, then Nour, maybe Nour . . .

  No one had ever escaped, once taken by Red Masks, and Ivah and Nour, both wizards, had been taken, staying behind to let Hadidu get his child and the young servants away, when temple guard and Red Masks burnt the Doves to the ground.

  “What’s this wizard’s name?”

  “I don’t know. A great wizard. Sent to us by the Old Great Gods, maybe. She came out of nowhere, riding a bear.”

  “What?”

  “A bear, a great demon bear, golden, a servant of the gods. And a giant dog like, like a nightmare of a dog, black as night, with them, and when they struck Red Masks, they fell. She broke the terror of the Red Masks,” Ergos said, and gripped his wrist. “Captain, the wizard, she did that. Suddenly—we were afraid, all of us afraid, but it was our own honest fear and we could stand. We could think. We could fight the temple guard, we could dare. We could stand against the temple, then, and the Lady saw it and fled back into the city. And we—and people thought—they stripped the Red Masks and they weren’t—they weren’t—we thought they were priests and soldiers and they were—they were dead.”

  “Old dead,” said the sharp-faced girl, with a look at Itulyan. “Not dead of the bear and the dog and the wizard. Set that down. My mother’s aunt, since you’re setting it all down for our deaths. I never knew her, she was arrested and executed before I was born. But he knows her, my uncle, my master. Don’t you dare look him in the face and deny it.”

  “I’m not,” said Jugurthos.

  “The wizard said the Lady was dead, the true Lady, and a devil had taken her place,” said Ergos, but someone at the back contradicted, “No, she said the Lady was a devil and a necromancer,” and someone else said, “There was a devil in Lissavakail, and the goddess of the lake drove him out and he’s come here.”

  Argument followed among caravan-folk as to whether that devil had been slain or driven away. The clerk Itulyan gave Jugurthos a harried look. He made a dismissive gesture. Enough, it was enough.

  “The Red Masks are no priests!” the old sandal-maker shrieked, jerking to his feet, hands fisted. “They’re dead! The enslaved dead! The violated dead! And the Lady of Marakand’s the necromancer. I accuse her, I’ll swear it to any magistrate, I’ll cry it in the streets, I’ll cry it from the Voice’s own pulpit, from Ilbialla’s tomb, the Lady is a devil and this is the proof if I die for it. This was my wife!”

  His supporters surged up around him, shoving, and the patrol reached for their clubs. Tulip’s knuckles whitened on her spear, but she only held it sideways, putting herself between Jugurthos and the throng.

  “Will you come into the city?” Jugurthos said.

  “Captain . . .” said Tulip in apprehension.

  “Uncle!” the niece-apprentice cried.

  “Bring her into the city. To the market square.”

  “Ju!” Tulip hissed.

  He was running the sword’s edge, and dizzy with it, and it might not even reach to the far bank of the chasm beneath.

  “To the tomb of Ilbialla,” he said. Where better?

  The old man took a deep and shaking breath. “And what will that do?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s find out. Belmyn, bring the—the sandal-maker’s wife, the diviner, with due respect. Itulyan, I want—” Jugurthos made hasty calculations, “—ten fair copies of that testimony made at once. Draft every literate guardsman you need and dictate it, but ten at the very least.”

  “We don’t—”

  “Find them! Send someone to roust out a few scribes, then, folk who live near. Merchants’ clerks from the warehouses. Go! Don’t waste time.”

  Time would run through his hands. A lifetime waiting for what he had thought would never come, a vague someday. The Lady fled to the temple. The Red Masks—maybe not impotent. But proven vulnerable, proven—an abomination and a testimony against the temple, against the Lady.

  Patrol-first Belmyn and three others used the Red Mask’s own cloak to wrap and lift her, and the old sandal-maker let them, watching, with his niece—great-niece—standing arm about his waist, chewing her lip.

  “Don’t trust them,” a tattooed Black Desert caravaneer urged. “They’ll hand you over to the temple. They’ll bury the truth.”

  “The Riverbend Gate’s being attacked by the suburb,” Jugurthos said. “They know all this?” A hand spread towards the body.

  “We all know the truth, now.”

  “The city doesn’t. The city’s not your enemy. It’s as much a victim of the Voice, the Lady, whoever and whatever this necromancer is, as you. It’s been as afraid as you. Moreso. You can leave, caravan-man. We live here, with the Red Masks walking our streets.” Not that they did so all that often. But there was always the one day they would come, and their terror would leave you helpless, broken and shaking as a beaten child. “We all need to know this truth.”

  “And then?” Tulip muttered. “Old Great Gods, Ju, what follows then? Riverbend’s under attack, and it’ll be a massacre if a horde of caravaneers out for revenge gets through.”

  “Law,” said Jugurthos. “Law, the street guard, and the senate. We’re Marakand. Not the temple. The suburb needs to remember that. Come inside, all you here. In. To witness, as you said. And then leave, leave freely, and rein in whatever madness for revenge is still brewing out there.” He jerked a hand at the smoke-shrouded buildings beyond the Gore. “You all came here, with Ergos Arrac. You didn’t go to Riverbend raging for blood.”

  “Some of that crowd would have torn her to pieces, dead as she was,” sniffed the niece. “So we turned off. These just followed.”

  “The senate,” remarked Tulip, to the sky, “is more or less appointed by the Beholder of the Face of the Lady.”

  “Oh,” said Jugurthos. “I meant the other senate.”

  “There isn’t another senate.”

  “No. But I think—since the Red Masks appear to have enemies who can destroy them at last—there will be.”

  A curt order and his patrols headed back to the gate, shepherding the sandal-maker and his niece with them. About two-thirds of the suburb-folk followed, more than Jugurthos expected.

  “The law against bearing weapons in the city streets is not in abeyance,” he said, as the gate shut behind them. “But—” as there was a growl from some of the caravaneers, “—under these circumstances, for this one time only, you can consider yourselves requested to assist the street guard in protecting Master Ergos.” Aside to Tulip he added, “Get the damned armoury unlocked and arm the patrols. Tell them right off, there’s a devil ruling the temple in the Lady’s name. Tell them, they’re sworn to protect the city and see the law’s kept. The city’s law, not the temple’s. But any you decide you can’t trust, don’t arm.” He named a few names. Tulip added several more. “And then, take a messenger’s baton in case you’re stopped and get to the apothecary’s. Tell Hadidu I need him here. I need him to speak to the people.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Al
l or nothing. The last rush, the last leap to the far lip of the chasm, the sword-bridge falling away beneath him.

  “Yes.”

  “Captain,” said the old man. “Captain—what’s your name?”

  “Jugurthos,” he said. “Barraya. Son of Senator Petrimos Barraya and Senator Elias.”

  Ergos was more than old enough to remember those names. He breathed out a long “Ahhh,” and nodded, something understood. Stood a little straighter, took his great-niece’s arm, rather than leaning on her. “Look, girl,” he said. “Here’s the true head of Family Barraya. He’s no temple puppet. We’re all right.”

  Or all dead together.

  “We’re going to carry your wife to the market,” said Jugurthos. “The priest of Ilbialla—”

  “Priest? A priest of Ilbialla? Are the gods returned?”

  “No,” said Jugurthos. “But that doesn’t mean Marakand can’t keep faith with them. The priest will come to give your wife a blessing for the road at Ilbialla’s tomb.” Not that the poor empty corpse was likely to have any ghost yet clinging to it. “Itulyan,” he called back over his shoulder. “Get those copies made, now. And add at the end, Come now to the Sunset Gate Market. Witness for yourselves. Hear what must be said, in the name of the true gods of Marakand. I’ll see to their sealing myself.” With his mother’s seal, which he’d managed to hold onto through everything.

  Testimony, for some few of the gate and ward captains he was almost certain of, for particular senators and magistrates he thought, maybe, he could move. For certain elderly men and women, powerful in the Families, who were not high in the temple’s favour, who had lived quiet and retired long years now . . .

  And then?

  And then, what followed, followed.

  Ilbialla and Gurhan and the true Lady, if there had ever been a true Lady, be with them all.

  CHAPTER IV

  Her thoughts were filled with voices, and all of them were hers. Zora, who was a temple dancer. Tu’usha, who was one of the seven devils of the stories of the north, who had once walked among the stars. The Lady, who was the goddess of the deep well of Marakand, betrayed by Tu’usha. Sien-Mor.

  No, not Sien-Mor. Tu’usha had been bound as one with Sien-Mor, conjoined souls, but the wizard of the southern ocean was dead. She must be dead. She had burned. She-Sien-Mor was she-Zora, now.

  But the thoughts yammered and piled upon her, a great tsunami to drown and crush and batter, and that was Sien-Mor’s thought, she-Zora knew nothing of oceans, had never seen a lake, never even seen water flow in the dry river, the ravine that crooked like a bent arm to embrace Marakand. The most water she had ever known was in the temple baths. But in her mind, she saw a great wave, and she stood on a high hill and heard the gulls and the cries and—these thoughts that were hers and yet not hers—who was she who thought them, heard them? They drowned her.

  Fool and coward girl!

  She had fled the battle.

  No. She had retreated. That was common sense. She was no blood-mad Northron berserker to stand to death, believing glory and songs better than the achievement of one’s long aim. She had withdrawn from the suburb. She would return. And it would burn.

  Not yet. No, not yet. The better part of her strength, the Lady’s strength, her Red Masks, lay far away. She still drew on them, as all were one, one web of power, and she at its heart, sustained and sustaining, but they were not here. She must await their coming.

  On her orders, the bells had rung from gate-tower to ward blockhouse, all over the city, the jangling peals of the all-in curfew, not briefly, as at sunset when the city gates were closed, but a long, unceasing peal, warning the folk to get themselves withindoors, to clear the streets or face arrest. Warning the captains of the city gates to close them, to seal the city against enemies within or without.

  Both, maybe.

  No warlord great enough to get his army past the Western Wall at the distant end of the pass had arisen in the Four Deserts in living memory; it was nearly twenty years since so much as a raider band had swept up to threaten the suburb, though the wall had now fallen mostly into ruin.

  The Lady taxed the caravan road to repair it. The work had been ongoing for years.

  The enemy at the city’s gates now had not passed in by the Western or the Eastern Walls, except in the ordinary way of trade. They were caravaneers of the road, merchants’ folk, even traitor folk of Marakand who had their homes and shops in the suburb. They were her enemies, Marakand’s enemies. She was the Lady of Marakand. Her name was Zora.

  Be calm. Breathe slowly. Let peace and stillness rise.

  The white silk of scarves and surcoat flattened to her and streamed aside, stained dark. She stank. But she made a beautiful image, she knew, her slender figure straight and strong, her cascading dark hair come loose and blowing like a banner, the white silk rippling in the rising wind, and the blood against the white, the red-lacquered armour beneath, reminded those who might look up—huddled whispering clusters of priests, small mounds of yellow robe, from here—that she had fought for them, fought for their city. The long shadows of the westering sun framed her; she gleamed in the golden light of the dying day. Their goddess no longer hid, timid and shy, withdrawn in her well, speaking through a mad priestess. I am my own mad priestess now. They had seen how she rode ahead of them. She fought for Marakand. Marakand was hers to fight for.

  Beneath her Zora could see the temple enclave, a depression below the level of the city like the footprint of a giant’s horse, circled with cliff and wall, the gatehouse where the only entrance from the city plunged down a tunnel cut through the rock. To the north was the ravine, the dry riverbed; the temple wall there, ancient wall and buildings, was city wall. That was how the assassin who had slain the Voice of the Lady and doomed her, damned her, doomed and damned Zora, had found his way into the temple, through a forgotten and abandoned door high on the wall, where once had been a landing for boats. When there had been boats. When there had been a river. Some of her Red Masks had returned to her by that door, and they guarded it now, but that was not enough. The wizard and the bear-demon and the dog who was not a demon—but she did not want to think what he might be, what he must not be, could not be, not him not here not—of course he was not. Her brother would never so demean himself as to take the body of a dog—

  Zora had no brother.

  Hush, hush, hush. Be still.

  —they might come that way. They would kill more Red Masks, if they did. So few were left to her. She would be starved of human wizardry if they attacked again. She had sent too many of her servants east with the captain of her Red Masks, her beautiful golden captain, whom she would make high king of Praitan in the Lady’s name, once Praitan was restored to Marakand.

  She could not risk the few who remained to her against the Grasslander wizard and her demon and the dog, not now. Not until her captain returned. She could not risk the loss of any more nodes in the web of her wizardry, which was not hers. Neither Zora, nor bodiless Tu’usha nor the Lady of Marakand were wizards as Sien-Mor had been. The wellsprings of human wizardry no longer lay within her, for all the wizard’s knowledge she possessed. She had made the Red Masks to be not her wizards but her wizardry, to restore what was lost with Sien-Mor’s death.

  So. She must wait. She must hold here, until her captain returned. He was Red Mask, but he was a great wizard and swordsman. She would set him against the Grasslander, she would set him against the demon of the earth, the bear, she would set him even against the dog, whatever it truly was, and then she would have many Red Masks, the wizards of Praitan Over-Malagru, and the wealth of Praitan would be the seed of an empire, and Marakand would be strong, Marakand would be great, and it would be her fortress against what she knew gathered in the west.

  She had only to hold, to wait.

  Zora narrowed her eyes. Wait, until the wizard great enough to break even her spells—woven of human wizardry, strong with many silenced voices—rode the demon to her very gates? Wai
t till the—call him monster, spirit, creature of the mountains, call him anything but what he must not be, could not be, was not, surely was not—

  —he is a devil and you I do not know his name.

  —No. Never. No.

  —wait till the dog came to try his strength against hers?

  No. He was some creature of the mountain-goddess. No devil. Not possible.

  Wizardry was humanity. Wizardry was of this world. Wizardry was not hers, not Zora’s; the knowledge was dead Sien-Mor’s, but the magic flowed from others.

  But she did not need it. Not for what now lay in her mind. There was a cost, but it would not be paid by her, and she was beyond caring. If the earth itself lay dead and barren, soul seared—it was only a little scar.

  If, for those who could read it, it was a sign that she was here, that she was—what she was—so be it. He—and he was not the dog was not he—he her brother Sien-Shava I have no brother knew already.

  He would know, he must know, he would come, she had been fool to leave the well to take form to take flesh that might call him, flesh to flesh to blood to blood not his flesh not his blood not his never his Sien-Mor was dead—

  Hush, hush, hush.

  Yes.

  She had learnt of the demon who had guarded her in her tomb, her prison of undying flame. She had learnt fire. Sien-Mor, in her dying, had known fire.

  Fire would guard her, and fire, this fire, needed no wizardry.

  She called fire. Fire answered.

  In the streets bordering the temple wall in Greenmarket Ward, where the fodder-sellers came, and in Templefoot Ward, and the East Ward, and in the wilderness of the ravine along the temple’s stretch of the city wall, fire was born. It was small, at first, a shimmer, a shiver in the air, a heat as of noontide sun. There were houses and shops backing against the temple’s wall in all three wards, and in them, beams began to smoke, the first white smoke, reaching and coiling, of a log thrown on the fire. Householders who noticed ran for their water-jars, ran to private cisterns or public wells, but almost as one, roofbeams, floorbeams, cracked and spat, furnishings blackened and crisped, writhing. Dogs and cats fled into the streets. They were mostly small houses, narrow, yardless, stacked high, floor built on unsteady floor. Zora watched as if she walked among them. Porches, balconies, smoked and charred. Bedding smouldered, oil-jars burst into flame, meal and rice likewise, and householders fled, all-in curfew or no.