Masters of Fantasy

by Bill Fawcett

  "No doubt it was more confrontational than one as courteous as you've already proven yourself to be would have phrased it to her host, Milady. For that, I apologize. But that was essentially what she said, was it not?"

  "Essentially," she acknowledged.

  "I thought it would be," he said and gazed at her speculatively for a few more seconds. "Given your willingness to consider and examine the evidence Salthan and I offered you, I would assume you've raised this point in order to hear my side of it directly."

  His tone made the statement a question, and she nodded.

  "Dame Kaeritha," he began after a moment, "I won't attempt to pretend that I'm not more uncomfortable dealing with Lillinara and Her followers than I am with other gods and their worshipers. I don't understand Lillinara. And I don't much care for many of the things Her followers justify on the basis of things She's supposed to have told them. To be perfectly honest, there are times I wonder just how much of what She's supposed to have said was actually invented by people who would have found it convenient for Her to tell them what they wanted to hear in the first place."

  Kaeritha arched her eyebrows.

  "That's a . . . surprisingly frank admission, Milord," she observed.

  "No sane man doubts the existence of the gods, Milady," he replied. "But no intelligent man doubts that charlatans and tricksters are fully capable of using the gods and the religious faith of others for their own manipulative ends. Surely you wouldn't expect someone charged with the governance of any domain to close his eyes to that possibility?"

  "No, Milord, I wouldn't," she said, and felt a brief flicker of something very like affection for this hard-edged, opinionated youngster. "In fact, that sort of manipulation is one of the things champions spend a lot of their time undoing and repairing."

  "I thought it probably would be." Trisu sipped brandy, then set down his glass, and his nostrils flared.

  "I brought up my . . . discomfort with Lillinara intentionally, Milady. I wanted you to be aware that I was aware of it. And because I am aware of it, I reminded myself when I met Lillinara's newest Voice that the fact that I don't like what someone tells me She wants me to do doesn't necessarily make that someone a liar. But in this instance, I've come to the conclusion that the so-called 'Voice' at Quaysar is one of those manipulators."

  "That's an extremely serious charge, Lord Trisu." Kaeritha's voice was low, her expression grim, yet she wasn't remotely as surprised to hear it as she should have been.

  "I'm aware of that," he replied with unwonted somberness. "It's also one which I haven't previously made to anyone in so many words. I would suspect, however, that Mayor Yalith, who—despite our many and lively differences—is an intelligent woman, knows that it's what I think."

  "And why do you think it, Milord?"

  "First and foremost, I'm sure, is the fact that I don't much care for this particular Voice. In fact, the day I first met her, when she arrived to take up her post at Quaysar, she and I took one another in immediate and intense dislike."

  "Took one another in immediate dislike?" Kaeritha repeated, and Trisu chuckled sourly.

  "Milady, I couldn't possibly dislike her as much as I do without her disliking me right back! I don't care how saintly a Voice of Lillinara is supposed to be."

  Despite herself, Kaeritha laughed, and he shrugged and continued.

  "It's not unusual, I imagine, for the lord of any domain to have differences of opinion with the priests and priestesses whose spheres of authority and responsibility overlap with his. Each of us would like to be master in his own house, and when we have conflicting views or objectives, that natural resentment can only grow stronger.

  "But in this case, it went further than that."

  He paused, and Kaeritha watched his face. It was as hard, as uncompromising, as ever, yet there was something else behind his expression now. She didn't know quite what the emotion was, but she knew it was there.

  "How so, Milord?" she asked after the silence had stretched out for several breaths.

  "I don't—" he began, then stopped. "No, Dame Kaeritha," he said, "that's not true. I started to say that I don't really know how to answer your question, but I do. I suppose I hesitated because I was afraid honesty might alienate you."

  "Honesty may anger me, Milord," she said with the seriousness his tone and manner deserved. "It shouldn't, but I'm only the champion of a god, not a god myself. But this much I will promise you, on my sword and His. So long as you give me honesty, I will give you an open ear and an open mind." She smiled without humor. "As you've been honest with me, I'll be honest with you. You hold certain beliefs and opinions with which I am as uncomfortable as I'm sure you are with the war maids. No doubt you'd already realized that. But whether or not I agree with you in those matters has nothing to do with whether or not I trust your honesty."

  "That was well said, Milady," Trisu said with the first completely ungrudging warmth he'd displayed. Then he drew a deep breath.

  "As I'm sure Mayor Yalith told you, the original town of Quaysar has effectively been absorbed by the temple there. In the process, the office of the Voice of the temple has merged with the office of the mayor of Quaysar, as well. By tradition, the same person has held both of them for the past seventy-odd years. Which means that the Voice isn't simply the priestess of the temple, but also the secular head of the community. In that role, she is one of my vassals, which has occasionally created uncomfortable strains between the various Voices of the temple and my own father and grandfather. Inevitably, I suppose, given the unavoidable difficulties the Voices must have faced in juggling their secular obligations to the Lord of Lorham with their spiritual obligations to his subjects. And, of course, to the war maids over whom my house has no actual jurisdiction.

  "My father had seen to it that I would be aware that such difficulties were only to be expected from time to time. I think he was afraid that without such an awareness I would be unwilling to consider the sorts of compromises which situations like that might require. Even as a child, I'm afraid, I wasn't exactly noted for cheerful compromises." He snorted a sudden laugh of his own and shook his head when Kaeritha looked a question at him. "Your pardon, Milady. I was just thinking about how fervently my tutors and arms instructors would have endorsed that last statement of mine."

  Kaeritha nodded. At least he was able to laugh at himself sometimes, she thought.

  "At any rate," he continued, "I was prepared for the possibility that the new Voice and I might not exactly take to one another on sight. What I wasn't prepared for was the . . . well, the wave of wrongness that poured off of her."

  " 'Wrongness'?" Kaeritha repeated very carefully.

  "I don't know a better word for it," Trisu said. "It was as if every word she said rang false. Every word, Milady. I've met other people I simply didn't like, and I'm sure other people have had that reaction to me. But this was like a dog and a cat closed into the same cage—or perhaps a snake and a ferret. It was there between us from the instant she opened her mouth, and although it shames me to admit it, something about her frightened me."

  He looked squarely at Kaeritha, and his gray eyes were dark.

  "If you want the full truth of it, Milady," he said very quietly, "I wasn't at all sure which of us was the ferret . . . and which the serpent."

  * * *

  Kaeritha stared up at the glowing heavens, remembering Trisu's expression and the sound of his voice, and a chill ran down her spine like the tip of an icicle. Trisu of Lorham might be a pain in the arse. He might be opinionated, and he was certainly stubborn. But one thing she did not believe he was was a coward. For that matter, no true coward would have been prepared to admit to a champion of Tomanak that he'd been frightened by anyone. Especially not if he was also a thorough conservative of Trisu's stripe admitting he'd been frightened by a woman.

  But Yalith had shown no sign of any similar feelings towards the Voice of Quaysar. It was tempting, dreadfully so, for Kaeritha to put the difference d
own to all of the other differences between Kalatha and the Lord of Lorham. Yet tempting or not, she knew that simple answer was insufficient.

  Which was why she knew she had to travel to Quaysar herself. And why she felt an icy edge of fear of her own at the thought.

  * * *

  "Welcome back to Kalatha, Dame Kaeritha." Mayor Yalith's voice was much warmer than it had been the first time Kaeritha entered her office, and her smile was broad. "How may we serve you this time?"

  "Actually, I'm more or less just passing through on my way to Quaysar," Kaeritha replied, watching the mayor's expression with carefully hidden attentiveness. "I've spoken to you, and to Lord Trisu. Now I think it would be just as well for me to speak to the Voice and get her perspective on the disputes between your town and Trisu, not to mention her temple's own . . . difficulties with him." It seemed to her watchful eyes that Yalith's quick nod of approval was automatic, almost unconscious. "I hadn't realized from our previous discussion that she was also the secular head of the Quaysar community. The fact that she is means she's probably had much more direct contact with him than I'd previously assumed."

  "I'm sure she has," Yalith said a bit sourly. "I doubt that she's enjoyed it any more than I have, though." The mayor shook her head. "I realize that the Voice is Lillinara's personal servant, but it would take a saint, not merely a priestess, to endure that man as her liege."

  "He can certainly be one of the most irritating people I've ever met," Kaeritha acknowledged even as she mentally filed away Yalith's tone and body language. Clearly, the mayor, at least, had no reservations about the Voice. Kaeritha wished the same were true for her.

  "If he's irritating to a visiting champion of Tomanak, you can probably begin to imagine how 'irritating' he can be as a permanent, inescapable neighbor!" The mayor shook her head again, with a grimace.

  "I doubt that proximity makes him any easier to deal with, anyway," Kaeritha agreed. The mayor snorted a laugh and waved for Kaeritha to take one of the chairs facing her desk.

  The knight seated herself in the indicated chair and leaned back, crossing her legs.

  "Before I move on to Quaysar," she said in a tone which was as everyday sounding as she could keep it, "I wonder if you could tell me a little more about the Voice." Yalith's eyebrows rose, and Kaeritha shrugged. "I understand that she's almost as new to her office as Trisu is to his lordship," she explained, "and I'd like to have a little bit better feel for her position and personality before I walk into her temple and start asking questions which some priestesses might consider impertinent or even insulting. Especially coming from a champion of someone else's god."

  "I see." Yalith rested her elbows on the arms of her chair, steepling her fingers under her chin. She pursed her lips for several seconds, clearly marshaling her thoughts, but Kaeritha saw no evidence of any uneasiness or misgivings.

  "The present Voice is younger than the last one," the mayor said finally. "To be honest, when I first met her, I thought she might be too young for the post, but I was wrong. Actually, I think she may seem to be younger than she truly is."

  "You do? Why?" Kaeritha asked.

  "She's an extraordinarily attractive woman, Dame Kaeritha, but she has one of those faces that will look young until she's at least eighty." The mayor smiled. "When I was younger myself, I would have cheerfully traded two or three fingers from my left hand for her bone structure and coloring. Now I just envy them."

  "Oh." Kaeritha smiled back. "One of those."

  "Definitely one of those," Yalith agreed. Then she shook her head. "But she doesn't really seem aware of it herself," the mayor continued more seriously. "I sometimes wonder if her appearance was an obstacle for her in her pursuit of her calling, but her vocation is obvious once you've spent even a very few minutes with her. There's a . . . a presence to her that I've never experienced with any other Voice. Once you've met her, I think you'll understand why the Church assigned her to Quaysar."

  "I'm sure I will," Kaeritha replied. "At the same time, Mayor, a spiritual vocation doesn't always translate into effectiveness when it comes to managing the more mundane affairs of a temple. I'd imagine that would be even more the case for a priestess who's also a mayor. How would you evaluate her in that regard?"

  "I've only been to Quaysar myself once since she became Voice there," Yalith said. "She's visited us here four times since then, but most of the contact between us has been through her handmaidens. So my impressions of her abilities as an administrator are all secondhand, as it were."

  She arched an eyebrow, and Kaeritha nodded her understanding of the qualifier.

  "Well, having said that," the mayor continued, "I would have to say she seems to be at least as efficient and effective as her predecessor was, which is pretty high praise all by itself. I certainly haven't heard about any internal problems, at any rate. And given my own experiences, I can't say that the difficulties she's apparently had with Trisu of Lorham give me any cause to question her ability to work comfortably with an unprejudiced secular superior."

  "I see." Kaeritha considered that for a moment, then cocked her head to one side. "Given what you've said about how relatively little direct contact you've had with her, I suppose that's probably as definitive an opinion as anyone could expect you to have formed. Did you know the previous Voice better than that?"

  "Oh, yes!" Yalith smiled. It was a broad smile, warm, yet touched with sadness. "The old Voice came from Kalatha herself, actually. I knew her long before she heard Lillinara's calling. In fact, we grew up together."

  "You did? Somehow, I had the impression she was older than that."

  "Old? Shandra?" Yalith snorted, then grimaced. "I suppose I shouldn't call her that. I know any Voice gives up her old name and takes a new one in religion. But she was actually a year or two younger than I was, and I'll always think of her as the blond-haired kid who insisted on tagging along when I went fishing in the river."

  "So she was actually younger than you," Kaeritha mused. "And from your manner and tone, she sounds as if she were an extraordinary person."

  "Indeed she was," Yalith said softly.

  "How did she come to die?" Kaeritha asked. "Because I thought she was older than she was, I'd simply assumed it was old age, or perhaps some illness she was unable to fight off because of her age. But if she was as young as you are . . ."

  "No one is really sure," Yalith sighed. "Oh, it was an illness, but it came on extraordinarily suddenly, and I think it took her and her physicians by surprise because she'd always been so healthy. The constitution of a courser, she always used to joke with me when we were girls." She shook her head sadly. "But that wasn't enough this time. She became ill one day, and she was gone less than three days later. I didn't even realize she was seriously ill in time to get to Quaysar to tell her goodbye."

  "I'm sorry for your loss," Kaeritha said softly. Even sorrier than you can guess, given what I'm beginning to suspect, she added silently to herself. "But you'd say you're pleased with the job the new Voice is doing as her successor?"

  "As pleased as anyone could be after losing someone like Shandra," Yalith agreed firmly. "We were extremely lucky to have two such strong Voices in succession. In fact, I think possibly our present Voice may even be better suited to the . . . less pleasant aspects of our disputes with Trisu than Shandra would have been. Her faith is obviously just as deep, but Shandra always shied away from confrontation. She wasn't weak, or anything like that, but she preferred finding a consensus or arriving at compromises. Which is fine, as long as the person on the other side of the dispute is equally willing to be reasonable. Our present Voice is a bit more willing to remember that she speaks as the Mother's Voice when it comes to rebuking Her children's misbehavior."

  "So she's been supportive of Kalatha's position against Trisu, not simply concerned by his failure to adequately investigate the deaths of her handmaidens?"

  "Oh, yes." Yalith nodded emphatically. "She hasn't made any secret of her feelings in that regard
, and she's a strong supporter of our decision to stand fast, at least until we get some sort of reasonable offsetting concessions from Trisu in any compromise settlement. Although she did insist on reviewing the original documents herself before she took any official position."

  "She did examine them? Here?"

  "No, not here. She was unable to leave Quaysar at the moment, so she sent two of her handmaidens to fetch them back to the temple."

  "Just two handmaidens to transport them?" Kaeritha sounded surprised, and Yalith chuckled in harsh understanding.

  "We're just as aware as you are of how . . . convenient some people might find it for those documents to disappear, Dame Kaeritha. I sent along an escort of ten war maids, and Lanitha went along to care for the records themselves." She shrugged. "But there weren't any problems. That time, at least."

  "I see." Kaeritha frowned thoughtfully. "I'm glad you did send an escort, though," she said. "Just from a purely historical perspective, those documents are priceless. I imagine the war maids have always seen to it that they were properly looked after whenever they left Kalatha."

  "That was the only time they ever did leave Kalatha," Yalith replied. "But I'm sure any of my predecessors would have been just as careful about protecting them."

  "Oh, I'm sure they would," Kaeritha agreed. "I'm sure they would."

  * * *

  "Hello, Dame Kaeritha."

  Leeana Bowmaster had changed a great deal during Kaeritha's absence. Or, no, Kaeritha decided. That conclusion might still be a bit premature. Her appearance had certainly changed a great deal; it remained to be seen how much the young woman under that appearance had changed.

  "Hello, Leeana," the knight replied. "You're looking good."

  "Different, you mean," Leeana corrected with a smile, almost as if she'd read Kaeritha's mind.

  "Well, yes. But in your case, I think, 'different' and 'good' may mean the same thing. And, no, I'm not talking just about outward appearances, young lady. The last time I saw you, you weren't exactly the happiest young woman I'd ever seen."