Beryx’s eyes shot a salvo of white flashes so fast they seemed continuous. The missiles sprayed away from him, not back to the thrower now, they were too thick for that. The crowd laughed, the Lady’s smile stopped my breath. The bombardment dwindled. In the lull Beryx gazed blandly back at her, and cocked a brow.
“Did you ever,” she cooed, “try juggling for your bread?”
He gave her a dazzling smile. Then he said in absolute earnest, “Moriana, give it up.”
“You’ve forgotten your audience.”
“It’s the last thing I’d forget. Look at them. You—Thephor—heir to Climbros’ first house. If you were one of my nobles you’d be governor of the province now. Instead you’re a bed-boy headed for the chopping block. You—Klyra—Mistress of the Wardrobe, aren’t you? Wife to the biggest cattle-lord in Darrior, and you wouldn’t know a stud bull if it kicked you in the face. You—Femos—your flocks graze half Kemrestan. What’s your wool worth? All you can tally is the Cups. You—Kreo—your land marches with Phaxia. Have you seen one border fort? When the raiders cross you’re squabbling with the Jewel-keeper over privy precedence and paid soldiers die to save your loot. You—Ashon—the biggest merchant bank in Assharral. You’d be my Treasurer, not keeping my soaps. You—Hazis—own half the merchant fleet. Ever inspected your books? You—any of you—do you manage your estates? Lead your army? Govern your provinces? Guide Assharral? No. Do you know why?”
His eyes whipped round them. For one moment I saw awareness of his point, vision of what they should have been. Then, from the right horn of the circle, commanded or voluntarily, someone hurled a chunk of coal.
Whoever it was had a good eye and hate to power his arm. It took Beryx under the ear with a sickening thud. He staggered, his head jerked, and instantly the whole court was screaming like a pack of foxhounds on the scent of blood.
I sprang into the rear. A surge of sickly-sweet satin bowled me away as they rushed the coal. I charged again. The press was solid. I dropped a shoulder and smashed into backs, and something brushed my mind, feather light. Next moment I was over by the arch, watching as if the whole abomination had nothing to do with me.
Even in my trance I wondered why Beryx did not resist. He could have repelled the projectiles. He could have struck down the throwers. Instead he staggered to and fro under that brutal, battering rain and made no attempt to fight. He only tried to shield his head. Then his body. Then he dropped in the straw and made to curl up, while the coal kept thudding into his ribs, shoulders, neck, head, with that vile sound of a catapult load striking flesh, and the screams grew less human with every hit.
By the end they were all quite rabid. The women danced up and down while the men ran round and round seeking more ammunition, and I stood, and Beryx lay horribly unmoving in the straw. And the Lady watched, immobile, with a small, gloating smile.
“Dears, dears,” she chimed at last. “We don’t want to demean ourselves, do we?” They ran down, and stood gawping, their finery thick with coal dust, stupid, sated bloodlust in their eyes. The pages wheeled her train. The court fell in. Passing me, she murmured with a daggerish smile, “It seems, Captain, you’ll have to pick up the pieces all over again.”
* * * * *
They must have left the building before she turned me loose. This time I did not rage or puzzle, simply tore across to grab his wrist, and when the pulse throbbed, I gasped in relief.
The worst blow was the original, under the left ear. The rest were bruises, except one splendid purple graze on his right cheek, but the first was already egg-sized, oozing blood into the straight black hair, and when I tried to swab it he flinched so badly I stopped. But then he groaned, wriggled, and tried to sit up.
Propped against my shoulder, he said thickly, “Ow.”
I was still too furious to speak. He felt the nape of his neck. More strongly, he said, “Blighted idiot.” I gasped. “Not you. Me.”
He fingered his cheek. I kept silent, since I agreed. He said with asperity, “You ought to know better. I’d have ended by killing them. Or worse.”
“Eh?”
“Gave her the battle. She diverted me to them. And I went. Through instead of Round.” He grimaced. “And she nearly trapped me into fighting for command of them. Then she’d have used the Well and . . . it would have got right out of hand. Fengthira’ll rake me like a garden bed. Ouch—and she’ll be right.”
A movement caught my eye’s edge. I jerked my head up and the boy Thephor was standing over us.
Beryx’s grip pinned me. He did not speak. Just looked up at the fair, shallow, handsome face, the incongruous finery, the fidgety be-ringed hands, until the boy spoke with a jerk, mixing defiance and defensiveness.
“I didn’t throw it. It wasn’t me.”
Beryx wore an attentive, neutral look. He said, “I know.”
The boy eyed the coal-strewn straw, the overset braziers. Again it came with a jerk.
“What did you mean—your nobles would be provincial governors?”
Gravely, positively, Beryx said, “That’s what you’re for.”
The boy fidgeted anew. Argument, uncertainty, distrust, yearning fleeted across his face.
Beryx shifted. Met a coal lump, grunted, “Four!” With complete naturalness he used Axynbrarve to toss all the coal back into its heaps, plucked up the stool, set it by Thephor’s leg, and said, “What are you shying for? You had the prodding stick. Sit down.”
Thephor sat, thump. Beryx watched him as if he were a raw battle-line.
Then he said, “The lords of the land are not bred to fritter themselves away at court. They are the ruler’s shield. Sword. Eyes. Hands. They have obligations. Did you ever hear the word?”
After a moment, Thephor shook his head.
“Fealty to the ruler,” Beryx said quietly. “Duty to your folk. They make you a lord. They keep you a lord. You owe them. Just like a king. If you were one of my lords, you’d be taking that responsibility.”
For a moment naked yearning was in the boy’s eyes. Then he averted them. With hostility he demanded, “What was all that about a chopping block?”
“Don’t they have morsyrs in Climbros? How long have you been favorite? How long did the one before you last?”
This time it was plain fear, growing to despair. He said, “This is Assharral.”
Beryx’s eyes flickered like schooling fish. I could not guess what calculations passed in that flash. But when he spoke, I guessed how much hung on the words.
“Do you want to get out?”
Thephor turned up his hands.
“You can.”
I looked at Beryx then and could not look away. His eyes were in flux, swirling, gyring, a vortex of green upon green upon green that sucked like earth itself. Yet his mind was not even bent upon me.
“Think carefully.” His voice was low. “No money, no rank, no comforts, no servants, friends, kin. Mortal danger on the way, and a rough welcome at the end. Not Thephor, the Lady’s favorite. Nobody. In somebody else’s world.”
Thephor had straightened. Now his shoulders slumped again. “So what? It can’t happen . . . anyway.”
Beryx squared his own shoulders. His face daunted me. He said softly, “If you want it, it can. Do you want it?”
The vault seemed to have grown still. Thephor twisted his hands. At last, just audibly, he answered, “Yes.”
Beryx said, “Look here.”
Thephor’s eyes rose. Flickered. Widened. Emptied like those of the dead. Beryx exhaled, driving the breath till his stomach went concave and his back arched like a bow. His lips drew back. The inhalation lasted forever. Sweat did not spring, it ran in rivulets down his face. His eyes were blind, incandescent. I thought to see sparks shower from them as when the smith strikes red-hot iron. They were furnaces, sun-cores, searing, blinding, burning my own eyes away.
Vision revived. Amid dancing red spots I found Beryx, a hand pressed to his side, breath whooping as he tried to regain his lungs’ cont
rol. The calico gown was plastered to him, making barrel staves of his ribs. And Thephor, staring in bewilderment, sat limply on the stool, intact.
“ ’S . . . it.” A grass-scrape whisper. “You . . . can go.”
He recovered before either of us had managed to move. “Don’t just sit there.” He sounded irritable. “Get some proper clothes. Make up a message, anything that’ll get you post-horses. Then ride for the Hethrian border like Lossian’s on your trail. Find the Sathellin. Say Thorgan Fenglos sent you. Go on, boy!” Thephor shot to his feet like a twitched puppet. “I’ve broken the Command. She can’t hold you now.”
It seemed a long time before the patter of the boy’s feet died away. It was far longer before Beryx’s eyes awoke and he lay back, with a soundless sigh, into the straw.
“He’s out of the city.” He sounded quite weak. “On his way.”
I set up a brazier, kindled it. Fetched the water-bottle. I would not have asked, but he answered anyway.
“Not worth it? Nor is anybody, if you judge like that. Why? A Must. At least, to me.” He pushed limply at his hair. “Math knows, I’m no Velandyr, but sometimes it’s like war. You have to go on your own judgment and hope for the best. What did I do?” A wry smile. “Broke that permanent half-Command of yours. Yes. Took on the Well. Don’t start a victory dance, it was only one weak mind. Then I gave him a Command of my own to shield him. But it’s a long road to Hethria. And they’ll be waiting all the way.”
His face grew bleak. “Maybe I’ve killed him. But . . . I had to give him a chance.”
I heard myself say, or rather croak, “All anyone could ask.”
His eyes turned to me, tired, trusting, indeed reliant, and I thought: You can take on the Well, breach your strategy, expose your flank to a deadly enemy, all but kill yourself, for a fribble. And then have courage great enough to admit you might be wrong. Sometimes the fixing of a loyalty can feel palpable as if it were done with nails. I knew then, with perfect certainty, that my choice of masters had been made.
* * * * *
After that internal defection it surprised me to find myself still Captain of the Guard next day. Returning from parade I was more surprised by a figure in the crowd, a tall man with a magnificent snowy curling beard, a blue velvet robe worked with golden symbols, and a rod topped by the sign of Axvyr, infinity, a horizontal 8.
Phathryn come from Tasmar and seldom visit Zyphryr Coryan. Thinking of Beryx, like the escort with their bulls and butterflies, I made haste after Dismissal to catch the seer before he set up his pavement booth.
It took a high price to halt and double price to lure him, but at last he made his stately way downstairs. I said, “Beryx,” for the first time using the name easily, “this is how we foresee in Assharral.”
Beryx glanced up sharply. Then his face became a mask. Politely, he rose, while the Phathos eyed his surroundings askance. I said, “It’s not what you’re used to, but I can settle that. Will you make a forecast now?”
At length he deigned to seat himself on the stool, with my cloak spread for table on the straw. Feeling in his robe he drew out the cards, and Beryx’s eye showed something close to distaste.
“Ystir,” the Phathos intoned. Beryx twitched. “Imsar Losvure. Pharyn, latharyn, ystryn.” He abandoned priestliness. “Is this reading for you, Captain, or”—his nostrils curled—“for him?”
“Him,” I answered before Beryx could object, and took the tendered pack.
“Cut and shuffle three times,” the Phathos ordered, eyes closed, hands on knees. “Hand me the top card. That will be the Seeker’s sign.”
I shuffled the heavy cards with their cryptic, haunting images. The four corps, Cups, Stars, Vines, Staves. The ruand cards, Priestess, Empress, Wise-man, Hung-man, Devil, Sun, Star, Wheel, Chariot, World. Without looking I handed over the pack. He took it, started, gave me a bristly stare. “I am not,” he said, “amused. Again.”
The Emperor, Fortitude, Judgment, Moon, Destruction, the High Priest. I handed it back. He glared and rose. “But wait,” I stuttered. “What have I done?”
“That”—he held it distastefully by a corner—“is the Sage. Not a Seeker’s card. You have given it to me twice. I can only suppose you have your own reasons for this knavery.”
“But it just came up! On my word! Wait—let me try once more. Watch, this time.”
After another price rise I shut my eyes and shuffled again. He watched like a basilisk. I held out the pack. There on top, standing at his altar, clad in his red-and-blue cloak and white gown, holding his staff crowned with infinity, was the Sage.
He looked at me. Then at Beryx. His eyes narrowed. Rather dryly, Beryx said, “Ystir. Truth indeed.”
The Phathos drew a breath. Beryx said, “Your cards don’t cover that?”
As if flurried, the Phathos flicked them out. Above, Beneath, Behind, Before, Cross, Crown, Hope, Fear, House, Gate. They stared up from the black velvet, an omen that lifted the hair on my neck.
There was not a corps card in the cast. It was pure ruands. Above: the Moon, triple-faced, shining blandly between her towers. Beneath: the Hung-man, pendant upside down. Before: the Devil, cloven-hooved, horned and hideous. Cross: the Priestess, veiled, enchanting, inaccessible. Crown: the Lovers, hand in hand beneath the Tree. Hope: Justice, blindfolded, holding her naked sword. Fear: Destruction, the lightning-riven tower. House: Death, cackling from his ass beside the noble knight. Gate: the Fool, dancing blithe and blindly to the precipice, eyes full of empty air.
Beryx was shaking with silent mirth. “Your face!” he spluttered at me, and the Phathos rose in affront. “The Ystryn,” he thundered, “show the truth! They are not a matter for jest!”
Beryx controlled himself. “Of course,” he agreed solemnly. “If I d-don’t . . . laugh again . . . will you say what they mean?”
“The Moon,” the Phathos began dourly, “is your present influence. It means crisis, deception, enemies and risk.” He sounded pleased. “The World is behind you. You have lost supreme happiness, the achievement of a life. Before you is the Devil. Bondage, insensitivity, revolution, carnal desire. Also dishonest wealth. You have no cause to laugh. Beneath is the Hung-man. The meaningful past. Sacrifice, renunciation, abandonment.” I too saw no cause to laugh. “The Lovers, the Crown, are future events. They show trials ending in success. Marriage. A problem solved by wisdom’s light.” I started. “The Cross, opposition, is the . . . Priestess. . . .”
He looked at me, at the chains. His hand crept out to the pack. Beryx said wickedly, “Go on. If the Gate’s what I think, she’s more likely to make you rich.”
After a splutter the Phathos snapped, “The Priestess signifies enlightenment, wisdom’s quest. In opposition she is a blighted future, bewilderment.” He eyed Beryx with sour pleasure. “Your hope is Justice. It means just that. Your fear is Destruction. Patterns snapped, unexpected shock, catastrophe. Your House, your nature, effect and function, is Death.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I struck in hopefully, and the Phathos snorted.
“It symbolizes the soul’s death. And,” he added reluctantly, “its regeneration. It means,” he revived, “the death of kings. Also revolution.” He gazed balefully at me. “As you sow, you will reap.”
Beryx had grown thoughtful. Now, hunched forward over his knees, he glanced at the Fool and his eyes lit with vivid hilarity. “And,” he asked demurely, “the Gate?”
“The outcome,” the Phathos almost snarled. “The Fool symbolizes divine wisdom ignoring the lower world. It means a vital choice requiring”—his eye sneered—“great wisdom. But the Fool also contains elements of anarchy, recklessness—and improper levity.”
Beryx crowed with delight. The Phathos tore the cards to his bosom, kicked my cloak, hissed, “Your silver is accursed!” and took the steps like a cavalry charge with me plucking vainly at his elbow while Beryx rolled in the straw, quite gagged by mirth.
“Did you have to?” I asked ruefully, coming
back. “I thought you might be interested. And—and some of it seemed to fit.”
“Oh, dear, I’m sorry, Alkir.” He wiped his face. “But . . . ! The Moon, the Devil, Death, the Fool!” He calmed. “It’s like a bad mirror. Real things made unreal. I suppose they inherit it? Some must have known Velandryxe once. Ystir. Truth it is. That’s the Great Tales’ opening. And Imsar Losvure. In the Sky-faces’ name. But—Alkir, he’s a charlatan! He uses pictures! Four! Now I know why Th’Iahn would say ‘bastard sorcerers’ and kick them out of the house.”
I kept silent. I am an Assharran, raised with the cards. To me a pure ruand cast was portentous enough, without the recurrent Sage, that sinister Cross, and the still more ominous Fool jigging in the Gate.
“Never mind.” He twitched up my cloak. “Math does say, ‘The wisest mirror shows a fool.’ So you can console yourself by—” He broke off.
I spun round. The Lady Moriana, in a ruby-red gown marbled with white striations, a gold coronet on her ebony hair, a single torch-bearer at her elbow, had halted just within the arch.
Chapter VI
My back went stiff. I stood like a stock. But in one glance Beryx construed the hesitation, the lack of escort; dropped my cloak, lifted the stool by Axynbrarve beyond armslength, and with a royal gesture invited her to sit.
Slowly, never taking her eyes off him, she advanced. Her eyes were bigger than ever, and dead black. Depthless, motionless. With honest goodwill he smiled at her, and said, “This is my hearth.”
My ingrained fear became stupefaction, turned to rage. She had chained him, slain his mare, nearly killed him twice over, made a guy of him. Now he welcomed her when she had the gall, the effrontery, to risk herself alone within the compass of his powers.
Then, rather bitterly, I thought that she knew him better than I. My hearth. Whatever her perfidy, he would never stoop to foul play against a guest.
He was watching her, openly, as I had never dared, without so much as a shred of wariness. Startled, then resignedly admitting he would always startle me, I decoded his expression. Candid, unoffensive admiration: any decent man looking at a beautiful girl.
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