The Reaver Road

by Dave Duncan

  "I'll fetch your robe, milady," I said.

  "That will not be necessary." The sheer finality in Jaxian's deep voice would have stopped a charging bull, and I froze in my tracks. "Take off your own swath if you want," he added. "There is no shame here."

  My loincloth was sodden and unpleasant on me, of course, but I hesitated. Jaxian reached to his pin, and his own wet garment fell about his ankles. I did as he had suggested.

  That left Thorian as the only one clothed. "What is going on here?" he shouted. It was a very good question. The world was becoming more unreal by the minute.

  Again Jaxian gave him that dangerously unfriendly stare. "What is it to you?" he said coldly. "You have our leave to withdraw." He turned back to his sister and smiled. "Oh, Beloved!"

  "Jaxian! What are you saying?"

  "You are Maiana!" He bent to press his lips to hers again, and his hand moved to her breast.

  Thorian uttered his most feline roar and strode over to them in two fast paces. He brought his sword up to Jaxian's throat. "That is your sister! Unhand her and cover yourself! This is abomination in the sight of men and—"

  Jaxian released Shalial and turned on his accuser with a blazing anger that chilled my spine. He snatched the threatening sword and threw it away. It clattered loudly against the far wall of the chamber, behind him.

  Yes, I saw that quite clearly.

  He took a sword by the blade with his bare hand. However, this proves very little, because the weapon had probably been lying in the junk room for centuries, and if it had been any decent sort of sword at all, it probably would not have been there. It was probably as blunt as a spade. No, the sword incident proves nothing.

  Of course he did twist the hilt out of Thorian's iron grip. As a feat of strength, that was almost as impressive as the destruction of Fotius. Obviously Jaxian Tharpit was a phenomenally powerful man.

  But then he grabbed Thorian's beard and jerked him to his knees in one fast motion. Thorian cried out and stayed there, his blood-streaked face twisted up to stare at the man above him, apparently helpless in his grip.

  "Nine years ago this month you swore certain oaths to us, Lionman Thorian of Quilthan!" Echoes rumbled.

  Thorian whimpered.

  "Well?" Jaxian roared. Shalial had backed away, eyes wide with amazement, or fear.

  "Sztatch?"

  "Yes, Sztatch! And have you been true to those oaths?"

  "I have!" Thorian screamed.

  Jaxian gave his beard a jerk that seemed like to dislocate his neck. "No you have not! Oh, you did well at Gizath! We grant you Gizath. There was great rejoicing in our halls on the day of Gizath. Mighty the deeds and great the slaughter! Exemplars and name friends roared their approval and wept their pride, and none were bragging harder than Valorous Thrumin and Telobl Summinam and Rosebud Shandile. 'Look!' they cried. 'See the blood he sheds and the souls he sends to Morphith! See how Lionman honors our memories!' Do you remember them?"

  Thorian moaned. "My exemplars! They saw?"

  "Of course they saw! And when your father and your brothers entered our halls that day and were welcomed fittingly as heroes, they also praised the vulture feast mounting around their kinsman, the mighty Lionman! Their joy was unbounded."

  Thorian was sobbing helplessly, the tears running from the corners of his eyes back to his ears.

  "But then!" Jaxian thundered. "Ah, but then! When Morphith spared you, ah! what then? You sought revenge, yes. 'He remembers me!' Telobl cried. 'And mighty will be our vengeance!' You survived the journey—and great were the wagers being placed that you would not. But then you let the slavers catch you!"

  "I had no choice!" Thorian screamed. "I was unarmed."

  "You had a choice! You chose to live—live as a slave! What warrior would live one hour as a slave? One minute? And you told them your name was Thorian!"

  The disgust in his voice made my skin crawl like maggots.

  "Such is their custom! They are not of our people! They would have …" Thorian's voice died away in a mumble.

  Jaxian's fury seemed to flame hotter. "They would have laughed at a slave called Lionman? Of course they would! That is why such names were invented! And then you could have retaliated and died, as you should. Whether they slew you with a sword or beat you to death, you could have died for your true name. It was a good name, and the three chose well at the time, but in the end you were unworthy of it. How do you suppose your name friends feel now, Slave? They do not come to the feasts. They do not speak of their noble deaths and the Vorkans they slew. They wail as shadows in the rafters. They flit like owls in mist. And your exemplars hang their heads and talk of other devotees."

  Jaxian released his grip on Thorian's beard, and the warrior crumpled to the floor at his toes.

  After a moment Jaxian added, "You apologize to merchants?" Again the maggots squirmed under my skin; I felt nauseated by such unthinkable perfidy, although at the time I had completely approved of that apology.

  Thorian raised his face a fraction and whispered, "Let me go now, Lord, and I will die."

  "It is too late for that. There are not enough Vorkans out there to expunge your shame. This be our judgment and our decree—that henceforth you are only Thorian and Lionman no more."

  Thorian howled and slammed his face against the floor.

  "My Lord?"

  Jaxian turned at the whisper and his face brightened, but his brightness was deadly as the noon sun. "Beloved? Speak!"

  Shalial was regarding Thorian with sorrow—he had asked to be her hero. "Is there no redemption, Lord? No way he can recover his honor?"

  Jaxian frowned, and I thought of midnight terrors and the dangers of deep waters. I wanted to flee from the frown, although it was not directed at me but at the whimpering penitent.

  "There is one. There are some roads so hard that they change all who travel on them. None who begins achieves the end and none who ends began. Could this craven but discover such a road and follow it far enough, he might find his true name once more. The man who will bear it then will not be this one."

  "Will you tell him of such a road, Lord?" Shalial asked cautiously.

  "He knows what will be needed. He is more like to find death upon the way than honor, and shame more likely yet, because he does not always recognize honor. Go now, Escaped Slave. Take our sword and helmet and attend them. Wait below until we summon you."

  Thorian backed away across the floor. He was still on his knees when he vanished through the trapdoor, dragging the smoke-stained helmet and Balor's great sword.

  I said that the way Jaxian had taken Thorian's own sword away from him proved nothing, but the way he took away Thorian's name left me shaking. How could Jaxian Tharpit the merchant have known about Lionman or his exemplars? There was no fakery or threat or reward in the world that would have led Thorian to humble himself like that before mortal man.

  Jaxian was looking at me now with a return of that terrifying amusement, as if he knew how confused I was. "You saw, Trader of Tales?"

  I had seen, and heard, and I hoped that the warrior had not been tormented just to instruct me. Shalial had addressed her brother as Lord …

  Nodding, I sank to my knees. I am not often at a loss for words. The singing in my head was soaring. In the dimness, the naked pair before me seemed to shift at times, taking on the texture of a faded old painting, or at times a mosaic picture like those in the ruins of Pollidi. I was no longer at all sure that this was Jaxian.

  And neither was Shalial. She recoiled slightly as he put his arms around her, and she stared up in fear at his face.

  "Who are you?"

  "We are Balor. And we have come in person to answer your pleas as Maiana."

  "You are my brother!"

  And suddenly he chuckled and smiled a very mortal smile. The mosaic smoothed into reality. His voice was Jaxian's voice again. "Yes, I am. Half brother. But Balor and Maiana are twins, are they not?" He grinned with mischievous glee. "And were not they the fir
st of the Earth-born to discover the joys of love, in among the tamarisks? A priestess may not refuse a god, my love. Can't you see—this is the answer we sought?"

  Shalial was very pale. "What was permitted to the gods in the Golden Days is not permitted to mortals now."

  "But it is permitted to us." The minatory overtones were flooding back.

  "You will don the armor and go before the people? You will play the part of Balor?"

  "We are Balor!" The full power was back in his face again.

  Shalial closed her eyes for a moment. Then she turned and moved away across the floor until she stood before the towering mystery of Maiana. And where the goddess was wrought of metal, glittering torchlight from her silver skin, her priestess was still jeweled wet from the rain, and she shone also in the dimness, so that they seemed a large and smaller version of the same.

  She sank to the floor and made obeisance, but I heard her utter no prayer. I do not know if she gave thanks, or made vows, or if she asked in silence for forgiveness, or guidance. Her communion was brief, for I think I held my breath all through it. When she arose she was smiling. She came slowly back to the tamarisk couch. I watched the movement of her hips and long legs with worship. She was a miracle of slenderness and lush womanhood combined. Men will gladly die for much less than the miracle of such breasts or a smile from such lips.

  I thought that if I had been Jaxian Tharpit, then I also would have found a way.

  She sat, she swung her long legs up, she lay down. Her brother had watched all this with approval.

  I began to edge toward the trapdoor, and those terrible dark eyes flashed to me. "You will stay."

  The woman had already raised her arms in invitation. She lowered them. "My Lord!"

  He smiled across at her. "Do you not recognize him, Love? Remember the first day we went to the temple together? Two days after Jaxian arrived? I think it was the first day he realized that he was falling in love. It was the first day you realized you already had. We prayed to seven gods and goddesses that afternoon, giving thanks for Jaxian's safe return, and other blessings."

  Shalial studied me, a crease of a frown in her brow. I was too scared to be aware of my nudity. Nudity was a trivial mortal worry, and there was something loose in the House of the Goddess now that went far beyond the world I thought of as reality. I could not even feel the stone below my knees. The large man towering over me was flickering to and fro in my eye, Balor one instant, Jaxian the next. I was aware of the singing in my head surging to new heights, new harmonies. The hall danced around me.

  "Rosh?" she murmured.

  "The god of memory," Balor agreed. "Our brother of history. Stay, Little Brother. For this is the coming of Balor, and there must be no doubts. Let no one say that Jaxian Tharpit was a fake god, or that Balor was deterred from his duty and his rights. Let it be recorded."

  His terrible gaze had frozen me to the floor, and I could only nod.

  He went to her arms then, and I remained there, and was an observer, as the gods require of me.

  I witness that Balor came to the House of the Goddess and lay with the high priestess upon the bed of tamarisk. He went to her eagerly and she received him gladly. Great was their love, and they cried out together in the joy they had of each other.

  | Go to Table of Contents |

  29: The Coming of Balor

  Crouched in the mystery of a single candle, Thorian was still sharpening Balor's sword at the armor table. He must have been at it for hours, and he had done a fine job, as I was shortly to discover.

  I noticed he had also hacked his hair short, and squared off his beard just below his chin. His shoulders were bowed like a grandmother's. The only cure for shame is suffering, and I had no wish to be the one to suffer in this case, so I offered him no sympathy or cheer. I merely passed on the message that he was wanted upstairs. He hurried off without looking at me or saying a word. I gathered up the high priestess's finery and followed.

  Beyond the archway, stars were fading above the plain. Dawn was not far off.

  Shalial was radiant—still faintly flushed and tousled, but obviously as happy on her wedding day as any maiden in the history of the world. She thanked me charmingly as I delivered the costume. I wanted to offer to assist her, but Balor was approaching, bearing a torch, and I suspected that the war god might have very sharp hearing and an extremely high jealousy rating.

  Thorian had already returned from the far side of the hall, bent under the weight of Fotius's corpse. It was gruesomely shapeless and yet already starting to stiffen. He dropped it callously down the chute he had fallen into himself during the battle, and then limped around to the stairs side. Balor followed him. I followed Balor, leaving Shalial to attend to her own robing.

  When we reached the trapdoor to the lower level, Balor himself lifted the statue and the chests out of the way. He hardly seemed to exert himself doing so. I stooped to lift the flap, wondering what I would say if High Priest Nagiak was standing on the steps below. He wasn't.

  Thorian did not ask if his escape route was clear all the way to the crypt and beyond. Perhaps he had asked earlier and I had not heard. Perhaps he did not care. Perhaps he credited Jaxian Tharpit with supernatural knowledge. Perhaps he had been trained never to question an order. The night was filled with doubts and unrealities.

  Whatever the reason, Thorian and his odious burden vanished down the stairs in silence. I closed the trapdoor, and Balor replaced the blockade on it with continuing ease. How much strength need a man exhibit before you admit that he is more than human? The strongman in Pav Im' pha troupe could lift a horse with a special sling and a pulley, but I have seen a small arthritic grandmother rip a stable door off its hinges to rescue a baby from a fire. Strength by itself proves little.

  "You will help me with the armor, Little Brother?" His tone was jocular, but I did not think it was a question.

  "Of course, Lord."

  When we reached the workbench, though, I suddenly realized that my companion was the real Jaxian Tharpit again. He scratched his hair with eight fingers as he surveyed all the equipment, and he groaned. "Gods do sweat, you know!" Then he grinned at me.

  I smiled back uncertainly, and he laughed. "Don't look so frightened! Balor loves you, of course, and I am very, very grateful. I am sorry for your friend—but those who serve a hard master must expect hard discipline, mustn't they? Just look at all this antique paraphernalia! Where do you suppose we start?"

  Jaxian could be an astonishingly likable man, I discovered. Shalial's love was suddenly understandable. He cracked jokes as I tied him into his cotton padding, teasing me about a voyeur now, trading in naughty tales and so on, deliberately putting me at ease. Soon I was reassured enough to venture a question.

  "What about the ladder, Lord?"

  He glanced around, looking puzzled. "Ladder? What ladder? Oh, ladder! There is no ladder. We passed some ladders over there, though. Did you notice?" He waved in the general direction of the east gallery.

  "So sometimes ladders?"

  "Apparently. I can't think what else ladders would be doing up here. But I had no ladder. I was feeling terrible yesterday, of course. Let's do the greaves next. I kept thinking of Gramian Fotius. I tried to believe that Father would have insisted on guarantees, and the pretense would not be carried so far as you feared. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, I realized what your Thorian friend had in mind, and after that I felt even worse. Then I had to help escort Shalial to that chamber. As I was watching her being installed on the tamarisk, I thought how much she looked like bait in a trap, and I saw that bait was indeed exactly what she was—hero bait."

  His story was interrupted as we loaded the breastplate on him. I could barely lift it, but he shrugged it easily into place. He had no stutter now.

  "Worst of all, I'd believed that the only woman I have ever truly loved was hopelessly out of reach, and now I could see that there was yet a way to claim her, if I had the courage. And I did not! I went home an
d didn't even want to get drunk, I was so miserable. The vambraces next, please. Is that buckle all right? Then the storm came. I took my sword and went up to the temple, suffering agonies because I was imagining you and Thorian struggling with a ladder in that wind. Tighten this strap. When I reached the Courtyard, the rain was at its heaviest and the steps were totally invisible. On impulse, I ran to them. I didn't dare stop to think—I just went up, and no one could see me in the storm. I arrived in time to witness the end of Thorian's efforts …" He sighed. "If he'd won, I think I'd have gone away again."

  Finally I handed him the helmet and he set it on his head. He seemed more enormous than ever. He looked exactly like Balor—he was Balor! The terrifying, burning eyes were full of that knowing amusement, and the intermission was over. I had been given the missing piece in the story and was being warned not to pry further. I bowed in acknowledgment.

  "Come," he said, lifting the sword, and he headed for the steps.

  Up in the House of the Goddess, Shalial waited in silver splendor. The horned headdress hid her tangled hair; pearls sparkled on her fingers and neck. I marveled anew at beauty that could wear anything or nothing and seem more glorious every time. She sank to her knees as the god approached. He chuckled approvingly, and raised her. She smiled up at … no, she glowed up at him, her face dazzling with adoration. Beyond the archway, the sky was brightening, reddening before the swift-approaching dawn.

  "Close the trapdoor!" Balor commanded me.

  Wondering why he'd bothered to bring me upstairs again, I genuflected and began crawling back to the steps.

  "From this side!"

  "But …" I had assumed that I would seal the door behind them and then wait downstairs to be rescued later that day, or the next night. "But, Lord, there will be no way to set the bolts! And if I stay here …"

  One does not argue with gods. Scalded by his glare, I jumped hastily to my feet and leaned on the flap. It moved in its own stately time, thumping shut and remaining so, perfectly balanced. Until someone walked on it, of course.

  Balor was inspecting me thoughtfully. "Come here, Little Brother."