by Janet Morris
Tempus hadn't bothered to recruit a single man from that meeting of the best of Theron's faction: the god's sanction fell upon him like a mantle; the god's lightning speed was his; the Aŝkelonian horse under him had raced Rankan streets as if it owned them, faster than light, it seemed, as true as fate. And when blowing horse and god-sent rider galloped up the stairs of an offering shed defiled by what corrupted priests who'd stolen a sacrifice from their own god did there, the sight of Tempus, Enlil's holy light flashing around him and his horse so that it seemed the pair breathed fire and sparks flew from iron-shod hooves and cutting sword, those who saw the fearsome apparition fled for their lives, certain that the Lord of Blood and Death had come.
Those who didn't see, within the offering shed, first heard a thunderous pounding on its quaking doors.
The vaulted roof above them seemed to shake; the door burst inward and, horse and all, an avenger bore down upon them, leopard-mantled, fast as light, looking for all the world like a temple frieze come to life. One priest brandished a poker he'd been heating in a brazier; another lifted his robes to run; a third got out his sacrificial dagger and leaped to slay the boy, now hanging, turning slowly like a pig upon a spit above banked coals.
Jumping from his horse, who took out after the fleeing priest and cornered him against the walls, Tempus, battle-lust full upon him, slew the priest brandishing the poker in a single, vicious blow that severed head and neck and arm from shoulder. His speed was such that the poker seemed to hit the flags and bounce in slow motion. He had ample time to catch the red-glowing poker by its tip, oblivious to the pain, flip it round and grip it by its handle, and still make it to the second priest, who thought to slay the tortured boy before Tempus could intervene.
And for an instant, seeing Niko's plight—his wounds, his blistered skin, his ruined state, Tempus almost delayed his kill until the boy was dead: even with the god in him and all the fury of the heavens animating limbs built for exactly that, he had time to think, a will of his own, and that will said that Niko ought to die—that those hurts were too severe for healing, that a hero's place in heaven was the only hope the boy had left.
But then the god spoke, saying, "Save My faithful servant, thou who has escaped a thousand deaths and braved more awful wounds than these." And with Enlil's words ringing in his head, Tempus leaped to intercede.
The priest was screaming curses in Vashanka's name. And that travesty, of all he saw there, steeled Tempus for what was to come.
He severed the hand that held the dagger from the arm with which a priest who didn't deserve the name sought to give unholy death.
Niko had been a better representative of Vashanka, the embattled missing god, than any of these. And since Enlil fought Vashanka's battles, and Tempus was right then the instrument of the Lords of Storm and supernal justice, he raised the poker high.
The priest, clutching his stump and screaming, stumbled backward, terror in his bulging eyes.
But there was no mercy in Tempus then; rather, the god's fury was his. He took the priest and threw him to the ground and with his sword at that blaspheming mouth and his foot upon the priest's skinny neck, he rammed the poker home, beginning a torture that lasted as long as the priest still screamed.
When that was done, he looked around, sickened by the smell of roasted entrails, and saw what his horse had done to the one remaining priest. The pile of meat under the horse's hooves was unrecognizable: this crew had met their destined fate.
Then came the hard part: he had to get Niko off the spit, and the boy by then was semi-conscious. Niko's eyelids fluttered; eyes roved under them, seeking refuge from the pain of feeling the Rid-dler's arms around him as Tempus cut him down and held him in his arms.
There seemed no place to put him; the entire god's house was thoroughly defiled.
Outside in the twilight, Tempus lay Niko's trembling form upon clean ground. He took his leopardskin off and covered Stealth with it, while his horse snuffled about the dying youth.
Blackened skin and blisters, serum running from open wounds and ruined loins and buttocks: there seemed no hope. It was a wonder, Tempus thought, that the boy still lived at all.
He'd recited death rites a hundred times, consigned souls to heaven that he'd loved so often that he'd thought no mortal death could hurt him.
And yet before this ravaged boy, who needed the god's blessing to send him safe to heaven, Tempus could not get the words out. He simply knelt there. Right then he'd have gladly died, if only he could have, traded soul for soul to the hungry gods, accepted heaven or even hell in Niko's stead.
He put his hand on Niko's sweating forehead and the boy's head tossed. His mouth worked; he seemed to smile.
Niko whispered something: "Riddler? Is that you?" in a voice so faint that Tempus had to bend his head to hear it. "Rest, Niko. I'm here."
Then: "Don't… worry. I didn't tell them. This time… I didn't tell them."
And then Tempus's eyes filled with tears and he roared to heaven: "No! I won't accept this, greedy god! If You have any power, any right to be, if you give your faithful anything worth having, then take away these wounds, ease this pain, give me this one soul back! I've never asked for such a thing before, and by my own word, if You deny me, I won't ever lift my arm again in Your service—"
Then he broke off, bit his lips, and tears blurred his sight—a blessing, considering what lay before him in the ravaged person of a boy he'd thought to love, and train, and save.
When, years ago, Abarsis had come to Tempus and sought death in his service, the Riddler had had to send him off to heaven, build the pyre and say the rites. And in that smoky farewell on a Sanctuary hillside, his eyes had smarted from the smoke and pain. But Abarsis had needed only death; Stealth, called Nikodemos, still loved life.
And that cut deep into the Riddler's heart so that he rejected what he saw, even when he looked up and saw the shade of dead Abarsis, wizard-haired and wise and full of grief, as elegant as a ghost can be, reaching out his arms.
"You'll not take him… not from me. This is my boy—the closest I've ever come to one, and I swear by all the muck in heaven, I'll do hell's service if he dies unknowing, half-awake."
Then Abarsis coalesced, his satin skin and smooth cheeks as real as life. In gleaming armor, with a silken smile, he knelt down on Niko's far side.
And the ghost said gently: "Riddler, don't give up. You who were my inspiration in life, don't threaten or defame the gods. We love you. Your place awaits in heaven and someday you will claim it." The ghost of the Slaughter Priest smiled tenderly and put a gentle, almost opaque hand on Niko's brow. "Sleep," it whispered. "Sleep, sweet fighter, your time's not come if your will is strong. Live, Stealth called Nikodemos. Live to fight again."
And then the shade of Abarsis, who'd formed the Stepsons and brought them glory and a special place in heaven, looked again at Tempus soulfully: "Riddler, give Niko water. Give him solace. Give him time."
In Abarsis's ethereal hand, a flask of crystal flickered into being and Tempus, reaching for it, touched the ghost's hand with both his own. And they clasped hands there, a ghost who had loved a man who saved him when he was but a boy and a man who could not die.
"Give me your death, Slaughter Priest," Tempus whispered. "Take me up to heaven in his stead. Death is sweet to me, and theft to him, who's just begun to live. I can't bear this soul's weight upon my heart if he's maimed, or if he dies with witches hunting him and dream lords thirsting for his spirit."
"Listen, Riddler… I'll say it once again and I must go: have faith and we can heal him, you and I, who fell out of love with life. If he loves it still, he'll mend."
Tempus felt the vial in his hand grow heavy, and as it did, the ghost who was once called Stepson began to fade. Tempus tried to clutch that hand again, stay the ghost, but it was too late.
When Abarsis was gone, the sun was wholly set, and Tempus sat upon the ground before a youth struggling for each breath he took as the night's chill
came and the darkness made it seem that perhaps the ghost was right.
So Tempus opened the vial and with his hand under Niko's head, helped him to drink.
He didn't know what else to do: Abarsis had come and not taken Niko's soul, said some words, and gone, leaving Tempus shaken, not sure of anything, distressed.
Somehow, he had to get Niko out of here, somewhere better for healing or dying, and moving that tortured body would bring great pain.
The Aŝkelonian butted him, as if to say, "I'll gladly bear him anywhere," but Niko's wounds were worst just where a man sat a horse.
In the end, he carried Niko in his arms, the horse following behind him, through Ranke's streets, and everywhere he went, he laid curses upon Abakithis and the Rankan empire, wishing death and destruction upon it all.
When he came to the mercenaries' hostel, where he and the boy were lodging, there was a chariot outside, a chariot worked with ancient skill, borne by horses whom Tempus's steed greeted like brothers.
And inside, sitting sorrowfully in the anteroom, grit and trail dust covering his clothes and face, was the mageling Randal, looking supremely out of place among a score of hard-bitten fighters who jumped up when they saw Tempus and his burden. As the mercenaries crowded around him, inflamed by the sight of Niko, the little mage demanded, "Let me through! Let me pass!"
And while men ran to prepare a sickroom and others formed up a hunting party who'd look for those who'd stolen Niko's gear, the flop-eared mage, face pale and freckles like spattered blood upon his cheeks, whispered: "You've got to let me help him, Riddler."
"You think you can?" Tempus lifted up the leopardskin and Randal gasped and squeezed his eyes shut. His Adam's apple worked; he gulped. He said, "That's what I'm here for."
Tempus nodded equably. "Then that's your chariot, outside."
Miserably, the mage admitted that it was. "Don't hold it against me—where it came from, why I've got it. We're all in this together. Even your mercenary brothers know that."
And so Tempus was able to lay Niko on a bed with soft clean linen, leave him in the hands of Randal, who might do no good but could surely do no harm, and go out avenging with twenty mercenaries who knew the Rankan streets and Rankan soldiery as well as the backs of their own hands.
* 7 *
Randal, alone with Niko in a room no bigger than a cell, with one arrowloop of a window high in the facing wall, tried everything he knew to make that seared flesh whole and bring Niko's canny smile back.
Everything, that is, but call upon the lord of dreams. He brought his globe out from its bag and spun it; he spoke spells and offered deals to demons; he even offered to take Niko's wounds unto his person.
But it wasn't enough. And Randal, who'd met Niko in his rest-place in the form of a hawk, didn't think that Niko would want the dream lord's help.
"By the Writ, Niko, tell me what to do," the Hazard begged the sleeping fighter, whom he adored. Would Niko be content if he recovered, a eunuch, ruined and half a man, to live on watching his body and his nature change? Fighters couldn't take their own lives. If Randal couldn't do the job properly, Niko would hate him with good reason—not just for being what he was, but for not being good enough.
It was a wonder that Stealth lived at all. Now and then his head tossed; his eyes roved beneath pain-tightened lids.
At one point, his hand groped, and Randal took it in his, holding tightly, remembering the soaring spirit, the pure and special soul he'd met in Niko's rest-place.
"Probably you're there," Randal said out loud. "Probably you're better off there." He blinked, and turned away.
There was one interim measure he could try before calling on Aŝkelon—Randal could summon Cime, Tempus's sister, down from Tyse.
If she didn't come, there remained only alternatives Niko wouldn't like: Aŝkelon, or even the Nisibisi witch, could be supplicated.
So there was only Cime, Randal decided, and that was that. Niko wouldn't want to live, beholden to the dream lord or as the creature of a witch.
Summoning Cime wasn't easy: she still scared Randal. She might take offense and slay him; she despised his kind.
But he worked the words of Writ and spoke the spells as clearly as he could, trying not to think how unhappy the Riddler would be to see his sister and what kind of bargain Randal would have to make to gain Cime's aid without putting Niko in her debt.
The air thickened, glazed with blue, and spun about, a little whirlwind in the middle of the room.
And soon enough, a woman's doeskin-clad form stood there, strode forth with angry eyes. "Yes, foul magician? This had better be important— you've risked your life and more, calling me to—" Then Cime saw Niko on the bed. Her winter eyes darkened; she raised her hands and pulled her diamond rods down from her hair.
Well, thought Randal, she'll either kill me with them or heal him with them; whichever, it's too late to back out now.
"My brother's seen this," she said, lifting the sheet over Niko and then shaking her head, "and didn't let him die? Or is this your idea, you sniveling little sorcerer? Come on, which is it?" She tapped her wands and they began to spark with bright blue light.
Randal held his ground. "It's my idea, but the Riddler brought him here—he didn't kill him out of kindness, or set a funeral date. It was either you—you'll excuse my being blunt—or Aŝkelon, or Roxane."
Cime stared at him gravely, then chuckled. "You speak the truth, that's something. Well, don't just stand there, Randal—get me lots of fresh cold water, butter, horse salve from the stables. Go! Run, if you want to save your friend."
And Randal ran, thinking that all any man can do is the best he can, even when he's a mage.
* 8 *
It took all night to find the soldiers who'd brought Niko to Abakithis's priests.
But the god was whispering in Tempus's ear the whole time, and though the culprits had hidden pieces of the enchanted panoply in bunks and barracks and stableyards, the Riddler knew just which soldiers he was seeking.
By dawn, the mercenaries had all six and their commanding officer tied in a coffle, the man who'd slain the god's lamb at its head.
They took them out beyond the city limits and on the shores of a river began the ritual of Never-ending Deaths, which Rankans mete out to their captives.
Though Tempus hadn't seen it done for more than twenty years, he ordered the rites and closed his ears to the doomed men's screams: the god wanted His sacrifice, seven-fold, as gods are wont when they've been slighted.
By sunup the river ran pink with blood and the mercenaries rode in age-old fashion between the pieces of their enemies.
And when they did, a hawk flew over, right to left, sanctifying all in the Storm God's name—or names, if Enlil was taking over Vashanka's duties, the way He'd said, until the missing god came back.
Then it was time for Tempus, after thanking the men, to visit Theron, the leader of the faction who wanted Abakithis dead.
He'd stayed out of Rankan politics as best he could till then, but this was a different matter: when priests betray their gods and emperors go too far, it's always up to the armies to set things right.
At Theron's home, the staff was serving breakfast.
The appearance of a huge man in blood-stained leopardskin with a boar's tooth helm and the god's own high-browed face sent menials scurrying.
But Theron, short and dark and windscored from years of honest battle, greeted Tempus with equanimity: general to general, as once they'd fought together in the field.
"Some food, Tempus? A bowl? A posset?"
Tempus took a bowl of winter wine thick with barley and goat's cheese and sat on Theron's terrace with a man, now aged and wizened, nearly sixty, who'd helped make Abakithis's empire the greatest in the world.
"What brings you here, old friend?" asked Theron, his thick lips working, his upslanted eyes sharp and wary. On his forehead was a dark gray callus from years of bowing his head to the god of war.
"You sent a p
riest," Tempus said without preamble, "up to Tyse to recruit a Stepson of mine for an assassination, bypassing me. Is that because you don't want my help?"
Theron snorted like an old warhorse. "By Vashanka's blazing eye, it's not that. We're short on funds and the priests yet fear you. They didn't tell me until afterward what they'd done. I won't apologize… this whole political business makes me queasy. If Abakithis were a man, I could call him out to single combat. But since he's not, I'm at the mercy of the manipulators and my backers… you know how coups are, and empires…"
"The boy can't fulfill his promise. He's badly hurt and may not live out the day."
Theron frowned. "From the way you say that, it happened here… not my men, I hope?"
"Your enemy's, I hope—Abakithis's priests in league with certain soldiers of the emperor's guard."
Theron's dark face grew darker. He put down his milk-and-goat's-blood drink and stood up. "Come on, then, let's go avenge it. It's about time things came out in the open. We're not quite ready, but then, if I leave it to the priests, we'll never be. For old times' sake, and with you at my side, let's split some faggot heads—"
"Sit down, Theron," Tempus grinned bleakly. "They're all deceased, gone down to some dark hell. I don't like to let vengeance wait—anticipation rots the soul."
"I should have known." Theron picked his teeth, then grimaced. "Do you need help? Support troops? What kind of trouble are you in?"
"None I can't handle. It was a mercenary matter, handled according to mercenary law."
"Then this is just a social visit?" the would-be emperor scoffed.
"You need a new assassin. I'll find you one… if the deal remains the same."
"The same?" said Theron, innocence like a jest upon his wise old face, where battlescars cross-hatched squint lines and dissolution showed like pain.
"A recognized state of Free Nisibis, with Bashir as its independent ruler—an ally, if he wishes it; if not, not."
