Book of Silence tlod-4

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Still, he had no legitimate heir-and she had no child to ease her loneliness.

  She remembered her recurring illness and wondered if she might be wrong about that, but she suppressed the thought as mere wishful thinking. She did not want to fill herself with false hopes, and her bouts of nausea were far more likely to be caused by grief, or the rigors of travel, than by pregnancy.

  Perhaps she should have stayed in Skelleth and tried to learn whether Saram had children whom she might claim and raise as her own. She would never have asked so improper a question while Saram lived, of course, but it occurred to her that Garth, who had known Saram before she met him, might know something. She inquired timidly, "Garth?"

  The overman did not answer, but glanced back.

  "Did Saram have a lover before I met him?"

  Garth shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I never saw any evidence of one." He turned his attention forward again, to the trail ahead, wondering what quirk had brought Frima to be questioning her dead husband's past at this late date. It was an almost-welcome distraction from his own gloomy, repetitious thoughts, which ran over and over again along the same deadend paths, considering ways out of his predicament that he already knew would not work.

  Frima reminded herself that she was not totally alone; she had friends, or at least acquaintances, back in Skelleth, and she was sure that they would not desert her if she returned there. She had Garth, who had agreed to help her in her revenge and who still seemed to feel some obligation toward her from earlier events. She had her father and siblings, perhaps, though she could not be sure that any of them had survived. She had not thought much about them in almost three years, not even long enough to send them a message reporting her own survival and her improved estate as the Baroness of Skelleth, but surely, if they lived, they would welcome her back.

  She felt suddenly guilty that she had never told them that she was still alive. They must, she realized, believe that she had died on Sai's altar long ago-unless her father or brother had been in the mob in the marketplace when Garth slew the high priest of Aghad. They would have seen her there and known she still lived, but would have no idea what had become of her after she fled the city.

  Of course, if they had been present, they might well have been among the first to contract the White Death, which was invariably fatal. And if the plague had not killed them, the fires she herself had set, and the chaos that ensued, might well have caught them.

  Her younger sisters would have been safe at home, she was sure-but the fires and plague and rioting might have found them even there. And if their father and brother had died, how would they have survived? Most probably they, like herself, would have wound up on a sacrificial altar somewhere-but without a strange overman to rescue them.

  She was suddenly impatient to see Dыsarra again, to discover how much the stories of its destruction had exaggerated. She wanted to know whether her father, her brother, and her two sisters still lived. What remained of her father's shop? Were any of her old friends still there? Was the cult of Tema still active? She remembered the priestess Shirrayth, who had tried to teach Frima some of the mysteries of the goddess in hopes of recruiting her as an acolyte, and wondered what had become of her. She remembered the magnificent stone idol in the temple's domed chamber, which had awed and comforted her as a child, and longed to see it again. She was certain that it must still be intact; the goddess would protect her own image, Frima was sure of that.

  She remembered how she had been consoled by a priest-she had never known his name-after her mother's death and how she had prayed to Tema and sensed her presence in the night sky in response. The knowledge that the goddess watched over her followers had eased Frima's mind many times when she was young, yet during her stay in Skelleth she had neglected her religion completely.

  She tried to excuse herself on the grounds that Tema was a Dыsarran deity, not to be found in strange eastern lands, but she knew that for the lie it was. Tema was the goddess of night, and the night came everywhere, not just to Dыsarra.

  She had not kept up her childhood faith; she had lived mostly by day, for convenience, since the people of Skelleth, unlike her own, were wholly diurnal. She had relinquished her ties to the night.

  That was not right.

  Had she remained steadfast, Frima thought, perhaps Tema might have warned her, or protected Saram somehow, or turned away Aghad's followers-or at the very least, eased the pain and grief.

  Perhaps the goddess had watched over her family and she would find her father and siblings waiting for her in the tinker's shop, untouched by the catastrophes that had struck the city. They, surely, had remained faithful.

  No, she told herself, that was going too far, believing that anyone who worshipped Tema would be preserved against the wrath of the other gods-for it was P'hul and Bheleu who had caused Dыsarrans suffering, at Garth's behest. Tema was the least of the seven Lords of Dыs, unable to stand against any of her six siblings. If P'hul's plague, or Bheleu's flames, or the machinations of Aghad had been directed against Frima's family, then they surely would have died. She could only hope that they had been fortunate.

  It would do no good to pray to Tema that they had been spared, for not even the gods could alter the past, except perhaps for the being called Dagha, who had created the gods themselves. If her family still lived, she would find them when she reached Dыsarra; until then, it would do no good to worry about them.

  Nonetheless, she worried.

  She wanted them to be alive, for there to be someone she could go to, now that Saram was dead. She wanted to return to the comforts of her childhood, to the relative security she had known before her kidnapping.

  With that in mind, as the party was coming within sight of Nekutta's central mountain range, she leaned forward and asked Garth, "Don't you think we should travel by night?"

  The overman glanced back at her and asked, "Why?"

  "Wouldn't it be safer?"

  The overman looked out across the peaceful landscape of green pastures, grazing cattle, and occasional houses or plowed fields scattered along the roadside. Nothing within sight seemed in the least threatening.

  Still, he remembered that reports had reached Skelleth describing wars and other disturbances in Nekutta. He had seen no evidence to support the stories-but caution would do no harm.

  So far, the party had been spending long days on the road, traveling on well into the evening every day, and rising again before dawn to get an early start. Garth had no intention of slowing the pace, but he saw no reason not to move the sleeping period from nighttime to day. It might, he thought, provide a small decrease in the chance of danger.

  "Old man? Do you have any preference?"

  The Forgotten King shook his head and walked on, tirelessly, without looking at the overman. He had no trouble in keeping up with the warbeast. An ordinary man would have been left far behind in a single day, or else would have collapsed from exhaustion, but the King marched stolidly and silently onward, his pace always steady and matching the warbeast's own. It was one more little demonstration of his strangeness, but one that pleased Garth because it meant faster travel.

  "Very well, then," Garth said. "Tonight we ride until dawn."

  Frima smiled; she was returning to the night, where she belonged.

  The habits of years were not so easily broken, however, and she dozed off shortly after midnight, only to be awakened half an hour later by the cessation of movement.

  Startled, she opened her eyes and saw that Koros had stopped and was standing motionless in the middle of the road. No inn was in sight, and the eastern sky was still black and strewn with stars.

  "What's happening?" she asked.

  "Silence!" Garth warned in a low voice.

  "Why?" she whispered. "What's happening?"

  "I see campfires ahead, where none should be," Garth replied.

  Frima lifted herself up on her hands and stared over the overman's shoulder. As he had said, several lights w
ere visible on the hillside ahead of them.

  "Couldn't it just be a caravan?" she whispered.

  "It could be," Garth admitted, "but I think it is not. Look how many fires there are."

  Frima peered into the darkness and tried to count the flickering lights; her hand slipped before she had finished, and she bumped down onto the saddle, losing her place.

  She didn't need to finish her count, however; Garth's point was obvious.

  "I estimate thirty fires," the overman whispered. "At the least. And assuming ten humans to each, that means three hundred people are camped there. I have never heard of so large a caravan. Raiding parties, however, are often such a size."

  "Maybe the caravan set extra fires to scare away bandits," Frima suggested.

  Garth did not bother to reply to that.

  "What are you going to do about it?" Frima asked.

  "I have not decided," he replied.

  His first impulse had been to make a detour around the encampment, but the thought of going out of his way, even so briefly, annoyed him. He was tempted to ride straight through, as if nothing were out of the ordinary-and if anyone in the camp tried to stop him, well, the Sword of Bheleu could deal with such interference.

  In fact, he thought it might be fun to destroy the camp, whether he was bothered directly or not; after all, the fools had settled themselves on the highway, obstructing traffic, and deserved whatever response travelers might be able to make.

  He found himself considering with anticipation just how he would go about it. He might burn down the tents first-assuming there were tents-and then hunt down anyone who got out in time. He would pursue them individually, he decided, and skewer each one on the sword, so that he could watch the blood run up the blade and spatter across the ground.

  "Garth?" Frima's voice was worried.

  He ignored the girl; nothing she could say would be of interest.

  "Garth, the jewel is glowing," she said.

  He glanced up and realized that she was correct. The red light that had tinged the edge of his vision had been neither his imagination nor the approach of dawn, but the glow of the gem.

  An instant's worry vanished. What did it matter, he asked himself, if the stone were to glow? He had made his bargain with Bheleu, and the god would not dare to interfere with his thoughts. The urge to destroy the camp was entirely his own, he told himself.

  All the glow did was remind him of the sword's readiness and waiting power. It occurred to him that he might be able to use it to keep his prey from fleeing. A good thunderstorm would douse the fires and drive the people under shelter, making it more difficult for them to escape his anger. He reached up for the hilt projecting above his shoulder.

  "Garth!" Frima said, her voice loud and unsteady.

  "Silence, woman!" Garth growled in reply. His hand closed on the sword's grip, and he felt a surge of strength.

  "Old man!" Frima called. "Stop him!"

  Garth bellowed and tried to draw the sword; Frima pressed up against his back, holding the scabbard down so that he could not pull the blade free.

  Enraged, Garth tried to twist away while simultaneously reaching up with both hands to lift the blade out of its sheath hand over hand.

  "King! Help!" Frima called.

  The glow of the gem suddenly died, and the stone turned black, darker than the night sky above.

  Garth stopped instantly; his hands fell, and the sword slid back into place. His irrational anger had vanished, and with it all thought of assaulting whoever blocked their way. He felt as if a haze had cleared from his thoughts, a haze that had been present in varying measure ever since he had picked the Sword of Bheleu up off the table in the back of the King's Inn. Even when the sword had been black with soot and unable to hold him directly, he realized, his thoughts had been tainted and muddied by it. Perhaps the most frightening of the sword's effects was that he was not even aware of its influence until it was broken; it made him believe Bheleu's reactions and emotions to be his own.

  Now, though, he was free again, at least for the moment.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Bheleu is not to be trusted," the old man's hideous voice rasped from the darkness. "He would have delayed us here for no good reason, and I do not wish to be thus delayed. Further, I prefer your company, poor as it is, to his."

  "I won't give you the sword," Garth insisted. He was wary, and his thoughts had not had time to reorder themselves fully, so he stated his position directly to avoid confusion, on either the King's part or his own. The old man had made a longer speech than usual, which was, in Garth's experience, often a sign of trouble. The extra words might be part of a subtle scheme, or a result of the old man's excitement-and anything that excited the Forgotten King was likely to be unpleasant for mere mortals.

  "As you please," the King replied.

  Garth relaxed very slightly. It could be, he told himself, that the old man had spoken the exact truth and that his motives were just as he said-but why had he bothered to explain them?

  Frima did not worry herself about that. "Are you all right?" she asked.

  "Yes," Garth answered, though he was not yet completely certain himself.

  The party had continued onward as these events had taken place; when Garth had reached for the sword, he had urged Koros forward, and the warbeast had obeyed, undisturbed by the actions of its riders. The Forgotten King had marched alongside. Now, Garth realized, they were drawing near to the most easterly of the campfires; furthermore, they had been shouting at one another.

  "Wait," he called softly as he signaled the warbeast to stop.

  Koros stopped. Garth looked off to the side and saw no sign of the King's yellow mantle. He looked back, in surprise, wondering where the old man had gone.

  Something rustled; he whirled to face forward once again, and found himself looking down the shaft of a spear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  "An overman!" exclaimed an unfamiliar voice very near at hand-the voice, Garth was sure, of an overman, deeper and more resonant than any human's.

  "Who are you?" Garth demanded. He looked up from the spear poised at his throat and saw that it was clutched in double-thumbed hands below a noseless, red-eyed face. Two other figures stood nearby, one of overman size, the other smaller; both held their weapons ready.

  "Who do you think we are, idiot?" the smaller figure asked in unmistakably human tones.

  "More importantly, stranger, who are you?" the overman with the spear inquired.

  Garth considered his situation and decided that he did not care to admit his identity yet. "I'm just a traveler heading west. Why does it concern you?"

  "You travel at night?"

  Garth shrugged. "Why not? It's cooler. I mean you no harm, whoever you are. If you prefer, I will go around your camp, rather than through it. It matters little to me."

  "It may be that you won't be going anywhere for some time," the overman who had not previously spoken remarked.

  "Why not? Who are you?"

  "Who do you think we are?"

  "I don't know," Garth said. "I didn't think there were any overmen in Nekutta. Either I was wrong or you have come here from somewhere else-but I have no idea where or why." This was not exactly true, of course; it did not take much intelligence to guess that the camp was a raiding party from Yprian Coast and that these three had been sent out to investigate the noise on the road.

  "We didn't think there were overmen native to Nekutta, either, which is why you still live," the second overman said. "You may be a spy, perhaps a loner hired by some village to direct us away from it-but we have not previously encountered such a thing. Why would humans hire an overman, when surely they know we have both species among us? And I might suspect you to be a scout for one of our rivals, save that we had thought ourselves the most easterly party; why, then, would you be approaching from the east? Did you circle around unseen, and then become careless on the way back? It seems unlikely. Therefore, stranger, we are puzzl
ed, and want to hear your explanation of yourself before we do you any permanent harm."

  "And I want to know," the human interjected, "what that thing is you're riding, and who that is behind you."

  "The animal is a warbeast," Garth replied, unsure how much of the truth it would be wise to admit. "The girl is Dыsarran and has hired me to escort her home." That story seemed as good as any and certainly more acceptable than the truth. He could not know what attitude this group had toward the cult of Aghad.

  "Ah," the second overman said. "And who is this Dыsarran? Who are you, that she should trust you enough to hire you?"

  "Her name is Frima, Baroness of Skelleth," Garth answered. He hoped that the title would impress his questioners. He did not care to reveal his own name yet; they might have heard it one way or another. "As for why she should trust me, that is her own concern-but I have been known to her for some time, and my word is good." He felt an uncomfortable twinge at that last statement, knowing it to be less than the truth.

  "Skelleth?" the spearbearer and the human exclaimed in unison.

  "I think we've got a real prize here," the overman added.

  "Think what a hostage she'll be, if she's really the Baroness!" the human said.

  Garth had not considered that. He had assumed that these Yprians would not want to interfere with the friendly relationship between Skelleth and their own land.

  "That would not be good for trade," he said.

  "That, fool, is the whole point!" the human declared.

  The second overman held out a hand, gesturing the human to silence. "I think I understand," he said. "You aren't Yprian, are you?"

  "You mean he really is Nekuttan?" the human asked, surprised.

  "No! Silence!" The overman's hand struck the human's helmet with a dull clunk. Turning back to Garth, he asked, "You're from Eramma?"

  "No," Garth replied. "I come from Ordunin, in the Northern Waste."

  "Ah, yes. That explains everything."