Female.
Female.
Male…
Ertai was clutching her hand. She ceased her macabre catalog and said, "Do you still want the job?"
"How can I defeat a man who does things like this?" he said. "How can you allow a monster like him to rule this entire world?"
"I must choose the best candidate for evincar," Belbe said faintly. "I exist to make this choice."
Belbe heard voices ahead. Ertai dropped her hand and went on. Belbe followed, methodically counting the dead.
At the epicenter of the death field was a clear space twenty yards wide. In the midst of the clearing sat Crovax at a long rectangular table covered in a spotless white tablecloth. His back was to them. Assorted moggs armed with axes and clubs stood idle around the edge of the clearing. Others in weirdly comic livery-fancy velvet uniforms and wigs-bore silver trenchers laden with food to the table.
"Welcome, Excellency," Crovax said, keeping his back turned. "Is my rival, young Ertai, with you?"
"Bastard," Ertai spat, starting forward. Belbe restrained him.
"Are we having lunch?" she said. Some coolness had returned to her voice. The sight of Crovax gave needed focus to her outraged senses.
"A light repast. It's been a busy morning. Please join me."
Ertai's face purpled, but Belbe cautioned him with a glance. "I do not eat, but thank you," she said. She motioned Ertai to follow her.
They circled the end of the table Crovax had raised from the ground. Two high-backed chairs bubbled up and solidified across from Crovax. Belbe slid gracefully into one chair. Ertai fell heavily into the other.
It was an extraordinary scene. Crovax had discarded his customary black garb and was clad instead all in whitebloodless, sterile white, without a speck of gore or dirt on him. A white mantle, edged in gold, draped across his shoulders, and on his head he wore a plain circlet wrought in gold and white enamel. He'd cut off his long pigtail at neck length and let his hair hang loosely. Had he not been backed by a panorama of violent death, Crovax would have been the epitome of a peaceful, civilized monarch.
"Wine?" he said. A mogg, in an ill-fitting white cravat, hopped to Belbe's elbow and held out a silver urn. "It's one of Volrath's vintages. He drank it for pleasure, I'm told." Belbe said nothing, so the mogg filled the heavy crystal goblet by her plate. The wine was brilliantly scarlet and smelled faintly of flowers.
"Give some to the boy, too. I assume he can drink," Crovax said. The mogg waddled to Ertai.
"Why have you done this?" Belbe said. "Why slaughter these innocent people?"
"You surprise me, Excellency. Didn't the overlords teach you that the most valuable tool of rulership is fear? This small exercise will insure the loyalty-or at least, the compliance-of the civil population during the coming campaign against Eladamri."
"Small exercise?" Ertai shouted. His goblet overturned, spilling bright red wine over the snowy tablecloth. Before it lapped the undersides of the heavy silver dishes, the scarlet liquid vanished, as did Ertai's cup.
"No more wine for you," Crovax said.
"Five thousand, eight hundred sixty-eight killed hardly qualifies as a 'small exercise,'" Belbe said.
"It's more than a thousand," he said, tweaking her for her lie. "But they were expendable. Dorian chose only the old and the weak."
"You're a monster," Ertai said flatly.
Crovax sawed off a bit of rare cutlet and forked it into his mouth. "This from the boy who would be evincar! I'm told the hostage idea was yours."
"No one was supposed to get hurt."
"You're sentimental, Ertai," Crovax said. "There's no room for sentiment on Rath."
"What you call sentiment, I call prudence," Belbe said. She could see her reflection in the empty silver plate before her. The wild, blood-smeared face could hardly be hers. "Your actions are precipitate, Crovax. There's no evidence the people of the Stronghold intended to rise in rebellion against us. It is you who've given them common cause with Eladamri by murdering their families."
"With all respect, Excellency, you don't know what you're talking about. I was with the army when we were ambushed by the rebels. There were Dal and Vec warriors with the Skyshroud elves."
"So you avenge your defeat on helpless old people and children?" said Ertai.
"Yes." He sipped wine. "As evincar, I will brook no resistance to my rule. The only law of the realm shall beobey, or die."
"You're not evincar yet," Belbe said.
Crovax slammed down his goblet, snapping the stem. "Then declare me so! Now!"
"There are other factors to consider."
"What? Him?" Crovax whipped a knife off the table and thrust it at Ertai. "I can kill him without leaving my chair!"
"We've seen what you've learned to do," Belbe replied. "Your mastery of the flowstone increases daily, but you lost a battle and a sizable part of your army with it. You show little understanding of how people should be governed, relying on naked force instead of statesmanship. In short, Crovax, your methods are inefficient, and as far as I'm concerned, the issue of who will succeed Volrath is still unresolved!"
He sat back. "You constantly amaze me, Excellency. Of course, you're right. We'll see in the coming days who the best man is, won't we?"
CHAPTER 12
GHOST
Beneath the main causeway leading into the Stronghold, the remnants of the Skyshroud Expeditionary Force marshaled, awaiting the orders of Greven il-Vec. Predator droned overhead, searching the wide plains for the enemy. The airship had attacked several bands of rebels the previous day, landing troops beside (and sometimes among) the startled foe. These small actions had done much to restore the army's morale, and Crovax or no Crovax, they were marching into the Stronghold as an army, not a defeated rabble.
A percher landed on Greven's shoulder. "Urgent from Predator! Urgent from Predator!" it squawked.
He hated the raucous, leathery creatures. "What now?"
"Unknown intruder! Unknown intruder-" Greven grasped the irritating creature by the neck. The percher's heart fluttered wildly.
"Land in the hollow below Three-Toe Hill," he said to the messenger. "I will meet you there."
He flung the percher into the air. It circled once, then flapped away to find the airship.
Greven hollered orders at Nasser. "Take the men to their barracks. Send the wounded to the healers, then confine everyone to quarters until I return."
"Trouble?" asked Nasser.
He had no idea but answered, "No."
Three-Toe Hill was a forty-foot high promontory half a mile east of the causeway. There was a wide but shallow hollow below the hill where the airship could land and not be seen while on the ground. By the time Greven walked there as no kerl existed big enough to carry him, Predator was waiting.
The airship's boatswain, Narmer by name, was on the ground waiting for Greven. He ran up the slope when the commander's huge silhouette appeared on the hilltop.
"Dread Lord!"
"What's this about an intruder? Can't you handle a lone man on foot?" said Greven.
"There's more to it than that, Dread Lord." Narmer looked quite disturbed. He wrung his hands and scuffed his feet continuously in the dry turf. "I thought this should be brought to your attention immediately."
"All right." Greven unlocked his jaw. "Let's find this intruder of yours."
Narmer put a hand to the warrior's massive chest. Greven was frankly surprised the boatswain dared touch him.
"There's no need, Dread Lord."
"What? Why not?"
"We picked him up," Narmer said. He pointed to Predator, hovering a few feet off the ground. A figure appeared at the rail, deeply clothed in the shadow of the hill behind them. "He wishes to speak to you."
Greven went slowly to the dangling rope ladder. For one of the few times in his life, he actually experienced a feeling of dread. The shadowed figure leaned on the rail. As Greven's eyes accustomed to the shade, he saw the intruder's face.
*****
"Eladamri, you're insane."
Darsett en-Dal and the inner circle of the rebellion were seated in the great room of Eladamri's home. Their host sat on the floor by the door, casually whittling a block of wood. The garnet on the pommel of his carving knife gleamed in the cool light of four foxfire lamps.
"I mean that with all due respect," Darsett added when no one seconded his opinion. "What I mean is, this scheme of yours seems far more desperate than circumstances require."
"I've been hunted by the airship for years," Eladamri replied. He scored a hole in the end of the stick and blew away loose wood chips. "My wife died in an airship attack. There's no way the rebellion can proceed with that machine flying over us, spying on everything we do and raining death on us from above."
"Granted, O Eladamri, but why must you go on this raid? How do you know Greven il-Vec won't have you killed on the spot?" said Tant Jova.
"I know him," said the elf. "If he thinks he can lay hands on me, killing me is the last thing he'll want to do. Greven will want to know all the details of the rebellion, including the names of my allies." He smiled at his Dal and Vec friends. "In either case he'll want me alive, for a time. That's all I need."
In the past few weeks, Eladamri had aged noticeably. The hard, determined elf he'd always been had given way to a contemplative, almost wistful one. He'd not worn a helmet since meeting the Oracle en-Vec, going bare headed with his long hair tied back in a rough ponytail. Deep lines etched his face, and his eyes betrayed a weariness never present before.
"I wish you'd let some of us go with you," Gallan said.
"That would only increase the danger," Eladamri replied. "There are no elves in the evincar's army, and my escort must pass close inspection as Rathi soldiers."
"There are no women in Volrath's army, either," Gallan protested. "Yet Liin Sivi is going with you!"
"Sivi is the best fighter in my clan," Tant Jova protested. "She's an adept of the toten-vec." This was the unique whip-knife combination weapon used only by female warrior societies of the Vec. "I'm not happy Eladamri has chosen this course, but I feel better in my heart if Sivi is with him in the Stronghold."
"It's settled," Eladamri said. He slipped together the two halves of the fetish he'd carved. A little glue and the joint would be invisible. "We'll leave tomorrow at sunset. Do we have enough captured uniforms and equipment?"
"Enough for a regiment," Darsett said, grinning. "There's a surfeit of officer's outfits. We can all be Rathi officers if we want. They died especially often."
"If I show up at the Stronghold the prisoner of ten officers, I think they'll be a little suspicious," Eladamri said. "It would be best if you went as the lowliest of privates."
Eladamri's plan called for a hand-picked force of ten warriors drawn from his Dal and Vec allies to don Rathi uniforms. They would walk to the Stronghold with Eladamri as their "prisoner" and present him to the authorities there. Once inside the Stronghold, they would find where Predator was moored and destroy the airship. Gallan and Tant Jova would assemble the rebel army, now almost eleven thousand strong, and when Eladamri and his team returned, a full scale war on the Stronghold would commence.
"What if you don't find the Predator conveniently docked, waiting for destruction?" asked Gallan.
"Then we'll wait until it returns," replied the elf leader. "And if Greven murders you before the airship comes back?" Eladamri was momentarily silent while he bored a hole in the top half of the image he was making. He licked the end of a length of string and threaded it through the hole.
"This war is not about me, Gallan. Understand that now. Whether I live or die, this is not Eladamri's rebellion. It belongs to every free person on Rath, not to me. If I die on this operation or any other, you must fight on, do you hear? Otherwise everything we've fought for becomes just vanity, an empty struggle for glory. Will you swear to carry on the fight no matter what happens to me?"
"It is sworn, O Eladamri," said Tant Jova. "I swear," Liin Sivi added.
"You're a fool," Darsett said, scratching his bearded cheek. "A gallant, dedicated fool I'm proud to know. I swear, too."
Gallan was alone. Everyone in the room watched him struggle for the words.
"I will fight on," he said at last. "But if you die, I further swear to show no mercy to Crovax, Greven il-Vec, or any other Stronghold leader. They will all die-by my hand, if necessary."
Eladamri continued to carve. The pile of white shavings at his feet grew larger.
"Thank you, Gallan," he said.
*****
"Crovax's army has returned," Ertai said.
He was standing by one of the odd, protruding egg-shaped windows in the evincar's quarters. Far below, he could see the soldiers fanning out from the causeway to the Dal city located on the lip of the crater wall. Overnight word had spread about the massacre, and there'd been trouble in all the settlements. Nothing major-no attacks were made on the Citadel-but small bands of outraged city dwellers had roamed the streets all night. Some moggs had been killed and small groups of soldiers set upon, but when the Citadel garrison turned out, the troublemakers went home. The knowledge that both Crovax and Greven were present in the crater deterred the common folk from taking matters too far.
Inside the Citadel, however, a siege mentality took over. Patrols constantly circled inside the fortress, making sure all entrances were secure. Dorian il-Dal was prostrate after witnessing the aftermath of Crovax's revenge, and he had abandoned his regular duties. Fearing assassination, courtiers locked themselves in their rooms. Belbe withdrew to the evincar's suite. Before long, Ertai joined her, his clothes stuffed with scrolls borrowed from the Citadel's libraries. They spoke little. Ertai dragged a chaise to the window and read there, occasionally glancing outside to see what was happening. Belbe huddled in one of Volrath's oversized chairs, her knees drawn up to her chin. She stayed there for a complete night and half of the following day.
"I'm afraid," she finally said.
Ertai looked up from his scroll. "Why are you afraid? You're the emissary of Phyrexia. Of the people here, you're probably the safest one of all. No one dares harm you."
"Perhaps I misuse the word. I've never felt this way before. I think it's fear."
"What are you afraid of?"
"Hurting someone."
Ertai left the chaise and leaned on the arm of Belbe's chair. "You're afraid of hurting someone else, not being hurt yourself?"
"Yes."
"Who're you afraid of hurting?"
"Crovax."
The young sorcerer did a double take. "By all the colors," he said. "Why should you be afraid of that?"
"Because I want to hurt him. I think about it all the time. I want to break his limbs, put out his eyes, dismember him, castrate him-"
"I get the idea," Ertai said hastily. "No one would weep if you did kill Crovax."
She seized his hand in a powerful grip. "Listen to what I say! I want to hurt him, and when I'm done, I want to hurt him all over again. Killing him would be mercy. I don't want him to find any mercy!"
"Belbe, my hand-"
"At first the images were just fleeting. I could distract myself with other things. In the Dream Halls I broke Volrath's dream records because I really wanted to break Crovax's skull."
Her fingers were digging into his flesh. Ertai tried to pry her fingers loose, but even his newly grown muscles were no match for Belbe's enhanced strength.
"I'm not supposed to care what Crovax does so long as it serves the purposes of my masters. His methods are coarse, but he is the strongest candidate for evincar. Why don't I name him to the post and depart? I have the means. I'm not responsible for the people here. Is it because I know in time Crovax will kill every living thing on this world to feed his appetite for destruction?"
Ertai made a fist and hit Belbe as hard as he could on the jaw. Her head snapped back, and for a brief instant he saw the light of rage in her eyes. His heart shrank to a hard ball, and a hollow place opened in
the pit of his stomach. Belbe must have seen the expression of fear on Ertai's face, and she abruptly released him. He backed away quickly, rubbing his sorely bruised hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, Ertai."
"I hope I'm not around when you do mean to hurt someone," he said ruefully. His mood quickly changed. "Do you really have a way to leave Rath?"
"Of course. I cannot allow you to go," she said, lowering her feet to the floor.
"Even if it means Crovax kills me?"
"Yes."
Ertai paced up and down. "You know I can't compete with him for the evincar post. Although my knowledge and talent far exceed his, I can't match him in sheer power."
"No one can. Crovax feeds on death. Every time something near him dies, he absorbs the life-force from it, increasing his own power. Combined with his innate lust for destruction, no one will be able to stop him."
"How long have you known this?"
She lowered her head to her knees. "It became clear to me yesterday. I kept trying to determine why his power keeps increasing, despite the mistakes he makes. Then I realized his modifications on Phyrexia were largely neurological, not mechanical. Though he was obviously given muscular and size enhancements, the important changes must have been made on the inside. He still eats food like a normal being of flesh, but it's just a habit he hasn't given up yet. His command of the flow-stone is growing exponentially. It doesn't come from rare cutlets and sour wine. Obviously, he has another source of power.
"Then I realized what was happening-the deaths of so many soldiers in battle fed Crovax enough energy for him to teleport for the first time from the battlefield to the Citadel. Slaughter of the hostages has boosted his power a thousandfold more. Soon he'll be unstoppable. That's why I want to hurt him. I want him to know what it feels like to suffer at another's hands."
For a moment, Ertai forgot about escape. "Why don't you kill him? He'll kill us both if we get in his way."
"I must put the best possible candidate on the throne of Rath."
"Why?" he shouted. The flowstone around him rose in a hundred tiny peaks.
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