He turned, moving across the clearing, becoming again a horse, stars' light and moon's shine, trailing brilliance as he reared and galloped skyward, toward the heart of the oppressive absence that lay across the firmament. Calandryll stared, awed, as the god rose, a shooting star now, a comet, that raced headlong into the vacancy.
Then light exploded, blinding, and the pines were shaken, bent, by a silent wind. So fierce was the blast, Calandryll felt himself totter, Cennaire's grip firm about his waist, her eyes wide and frightened as she trembled, pressing against him as if, even in her terror, even as she held him upright, she looked to him for strength, for support.
The searing flash died, leaving only afterimage,
the trees sighed upright, and all was still a moment. Then shouts disturbed the night, and the whickering of unnerved horses, torches flared, and the shapes of kotu-zen, of Bracht and Katya, approached.
"Come," Calandryll urged gently. "We must tell them what Horul said."
"Shall they believe?" Cennaire asked.
"Perhaps. I do."
This time, as they walked back toward the road, he took her hand.
12
THE others met them on the road, swords drawn, alarmed, only Ochen seeming calm, as if he sensed what had transpired. Calandryll assured them all was well, returning to the fires to answer the questions that came in aural bombardment. He had hoped that Horul's divine intervention would convince his comrades of Cennaire's integrity, but he was disappointed. They had not witnessed the appearance of the god, and it seemed impossible to dissuade Bracht from hostility, his hawkish features planing into lines of hard skepticism as Calandryll recounted all the god had said, his audience silent, reserving judgment until he was done, the Jesserytes looking then to Ochen for confirmation, though it was Bracht who broke the silence.
"A trick," he declared with sour finality. "Some gramarye of Anomius's making, designed to beguile, that his creature become trusted. None others saw the god, only you. Can you surely say it was not some conjuration?"
"Had you been there," Calandryll told him, "you'd not doubt."
"But I was not," the Kern replied. "Only you and she. And you are clearly entranced."
Calandryll flushed at that, in part embarrassed, in part angry. He looked toward Cennaire, who smiled helplessly and shrugged; he turned to Ochen, asking, "Can you not convince him? Or do you, too, believe I am beguiled?"
"I believe you speak the truth. But ..." The wazir, like Cennaire, shrugged, as if he doubted his ability to persuade the obdurate Kern, looking then to Bracht, his voice solemn. "A magic greater than man's walked, this night. Power immeasurable strode the aethyr, and I felt it. That was no making of sorcery, neither Anomius's nor Rhythamun's, but of godly proportions. Did you not see the sky cloud, Bracht? Could you not feel it?"
"I saw cloud hide the stars," Bracht answered. "A storm built, and there was lightning. I saw that, and no more."
"Horul!" Ochen sighed. "You see with your eyes, not your soul. Had your god only gifted you with that other sense when he drove those nails from your hands ..."
He shook his head, resigned into silence. Bracht frowned and demanded gruffly, "Do you insult my god, wazir?"
"No," Ochen replied, "I say only that your vision is limited by prejudice."
Bracht barked a dismissive laugh. "Is it prejudice that I mistrust a thing created by a sorcerer sworn to slay me? I hear her condemned out of her own mouth. Ahrd! Do you wonder I find it hard to accept this tale?"
Cennaire listened to their debating less with her ears than with those other senses granted by her revenancy. Bracht was firm in his doubt, his refusal to trust her sharp and hard as tempered steel. In him, dubiety was like the falchion he carried: edged and rigid, unbending. Calandryll emanated a confusion of emotions. Love bled from him, but like fever sweat—tainted with the poisons of squeamishness at all she had done, all she had been, the fear that he might lose Bracht's friendship. She turned her preternatural attention to Katya, and found a confusion similar to Calandryll's: belief was there, that Calandryll spoke only truth, that had he been deceived, Ochen should know it, therefore that Horul had appeared and declared her true. Katya wanted to believe, to accept, but mingled inextricably with that acceptance was a doubt born of Bracht's disbelief, a desire to take the side of the man the warrior woman loved, the result confusion.
Is this what love is then? she wondered. Certainty and doubt all tumbled together? The opinions of friends balanced against heart-felt emotions? Trust where common sense declares none can exist! To believe when belief is impossible?
She turned her attention to Ochen, and found him protected by his magic, unreadable. A natural, instinctive defense? Or something else?
Chazali was far easier: his emotions gusted out, fierce, hidden only from natural senses by the discipline of his caste, which hid his feelings from men, but not—never—from her. He believed Calandryll, believed that Horul had appeared, and consequently believed all he had heard. That she had been a courtesan meant nothing to him, only that his god had declared her true. That she was created by Anomius troubled him—distaste there—but not distrust. He was angered by Bracht's rejection—of his god, as he saw it—and tempted to take the Kern's argument from Ochen's hands and answer it with his sword.
Burash! she thought suddenly, does this go on, we play into Rhythamun's hands. We fall on ourselves in doubt.
Then, beyond hesitation, firmed now by forces beyond her understanding she knew with utter surety that she was committed to the quest. She chose not from sudden emotion, but from an inner deliberation, a certainty past questioning, as if Horul had somehow washed away her doubts, the uncertainties and self-interests disjected by the god. And yet it seemed her presence drove a wedge between the questers, that mistrust set them at loggerheads.
"Listen!" Her voice forced silence on their arguing and their faces turned, startled, toward her. She looked to Bracht, allowing her gaze to encompass Katya. "You do not trust me. I cannot blame you for that, and no matter what I tell you, you'll likely not believe. But, do you hear yourselves? You argue round and around in pointless circles—Calandryll tells you Horul vouched me true,- Bracht claims it was a conjuration. Trust flees, and its going aids only Rhythamun. Your disbelief breeds doubt like a festering sore."
Her voice was fierce and for long moments the Kern faced her with narrowed eyes, a hand upon his swordhilt, as if he anticipated she might attack him. She faced his stare unflinching, willing him to believe even as she sensed his refusal, thick on the night air. Then he shrugged without giving answer.
"Do we face facts?" Ochen asked into the silence that fell then. "Trust or no, we go on together, and in Pamur-teng consult a gijan. Perhaps the spaewife shall persuade our obdurate friend. If not"—he shrugged, sighing—"mayhap Horul will appear again. Whatever, we've little enough choice save to continue. So—do we set this arguing aside for now and find our beds? Or do you prefer we debate the night away?"
"And be I right?" asked Bracht, not at all mollified.
"I tell you that you are wrong," said Ochen wearily, "but even be you right, Cennaire offers you no harm. Even does she serve Anomius, she needs you alive, no? Save all the prophecies be wrong, it is you three, and none others, can wrest the Arcanum from Rhythamun, and save you succeed in that, the book is useless to her creator. That, my doubting friend, is simple logic."
"Aye," the Kern allowed with a reluctant grimace.
"Then do we sleep?" the wazir suggested, answered by Bracht with a sullen nod.
They settled in their blankets then, Bracht and Katya across the fire from Cennaire, Calandryll and Ochen like guardians to either side, the night heavy with distrust.
THE days that followed were little better. Bracht spoke to her only at need, and then but curtly, in monosyllables. Katya was more generous, but cautiously, aware of the Kern's hostility and unwilling to fuel his animosity. Calandryll, for entirely different reasons, grew distant, troubled by the divisions and
his own confused emotions. Chazali and his warriors were meticulously polite, their attitudes shaped by the knowledge that their god accepted her, but only Ochen seemed untroubled by her condition, as if he saw her now as a victim, certainly as a potential ally, and consequently she found herself much in the wazir's company.
He was still greatly occupied with Calandryll's instruction in the occult, and while no further sorcerous attacks manifested, he devoted time each night to warding their camp with protective magicks, but when not so busied, he sought out Cennaire and spoke with her as a friend. He was, she recognized, looking to set an example, to break down the barriers risen among the party, and at the same time intent on learning all he could of Anomius. It mattered little enough to her, far more that the wrinkled mage offered her a friendship otherwise denied, and she told him all she could remember of her creator and his plans.
"I believe," he remarked one night as they sat about the fire, "that the time fast approaches you should use that mirror."
"What say you?" Bracht glowered from across the flames. "That she should advise her master of our intentions?"
"To an extent, aye." Ochen's face was fissured, simian as he beamed at the suspicious Kern. "Think you Anomius does not wonder where we go, what we do? Likely he grows impatient for news."
Bracht readied an angry response that was curtailed by Katya's hand upon his arm, her voice soft in his ear, bidding him be patient and hear out the wazir. Calandryll, intrigued, motioned for Ochen to continue.
"From all Cennaire has told me of this sorcerer," Ochen declared, ignoring Bracht's low-voiced correction of that title to "her master," "there are limits to his patience. So—let us give him such news as will placate him awhile."
"Why?" came Bracht's blunt question.
"For several reasons/' Ochen returned patiently, "foremost that we learn where he is."
"What matters that?" the Kern grunted.
Ochen drew in a slow breath, as though forcing himself to patience. Softly, soothingly, Katya murmured, "Do we hear out the reasons, Bracht?"
The wazir smiled his gratitude for that intervention and answered, "Does he escape those gramaryes binding him to the Tyrant's cause, think you he'll not come seeking the Arcanum himself? I'd know him still fettered, lest we find a powerful enemy at our back."
"Could he find us, even freed?" Calandryll asked.
"It might be." Ochen's face composed in lines of gravity. "I've the feeling this Anomius commands great power, and so I'd know precisely where he is. Does he grow impatient, I say we should placate him with such news as we choose to impart— enough he's satisfied Cennaire goes loyal about his business."
"And you'd trust her in this?" Bracht's voice was weighted heavy with sarcasm.
"My god has vouchsafed her integrity," Ochen returned, ignoring the Kern's dismissive grunt, "so, aye. But for your sake, I say she shall use the mirror only while observed."
"And reveal ourselves to him?" Bracht barked. "Ahrd, man, you know he can see out through that cursed glass."
"He shall see only so much as we'd have him see." Ochen chuckled, grinning as if delighted at catching out the Kern. "We shall all of us be present, to hear what Cennaire tells him." He paused, his grin widening as Bracht frowned, clearly reveling in the Kern's incomprehension. "You seem to forget"—he chuckled—"that I, too, am a sorcerer, and not without some small talent."
"For riddling/7 Bracht muttered, his expression sullen, aware that Ochen toyed with him.
"We shall be invisible/7 said the wazir. "All of us, save Cennaire."
He paused again, smiling mischievous glee.
"And he7ll not know it?" Calandryll asked cautiously. "Not sense our presence?"
"No." Ochen shook his head, his smile still wide, as if he delighted in the notion of tricking another wizard. "The mirror is a device of communications only. It shows what any window would show, and no more. He shall see nothing save Cennaire and the room she uses."
Calandryll nodded, accepting. Bracht offered no comment, save the thinning of his lips, the dismissive flash of his eyes. Again diplomatic, Katya said, "This seems a sound enough plan."
Beside her, the Kern voiced an inarticulate sound, shrugging, and settled to the honing of his sword, deliberately distancing himself from further discussion.
“We are agreed, then," said Ochen. "In Ahgra-te, Cennaire shall become our spy."
"When shall that be?" she asked.
“Another day should see us there," Ochen told her cheerfully. "So, by dusk on the morrow.”
She nodded, saying nothing more, for all she felt horribly afraid. That Ochen might work a gramarye of unseeing, she had no doubt, nor that it should delude Anomius. But she? Should she be able to conceal that knowledge from the warlock? And did he sense betrayal, surely he would destroy her. She looked then to Calandryll and knew she had no wish to die, for different reasons now, and simultaneously that she was resolved to give whatever aid was in her power. She would, she recognized, follow Ochen's instructions, even at cost of her existence: it was a strange realization, unfamiliar for its altruism.
She felt a hand touch hers then, and turned to find Calandryll smiling grave encouragement, knowing from his expression that her emotions had shown upon her face. Burash! she thought wonderingly, do I change so much! Did Horul change me, or does love! She met his smile as he squeezed her hand, albeit briefly, and murmured, "No harm shall come to you.”
She nodded, aware of Bracht's disapproving glance across the fire, and replied, “I trust not.”
"Trust Ochen,” he encouraged, "and the Younger Gods."
She answered him, "Aye,” but even as she said it she thought on Horul's words—that the Younger Gods were limited by strictures beyond man's comprehension, and that Tharn waxed stronger, and her trepidation grew. Doubt tumbled over doubt then, for did Anomius, in his own malign way, not serve Tharn? And was she become a true member of this quest, should her demise not serve the Mad God's purpose? Therefore might Tharn not in some fashion alert Anomius to her shifted allegiance, and her maker know her for turncoat?
She felt Calandryll's hand withdraw, wishing that he would hold her, comfort her. She yearned then for such reassurance, and had Bracht not squatted disapproving across the fire, Katya enigmatic at his side, she would have turned to Calandryll and put her own arms about him, to feel him close. And what then! she wondered. Would he hold me, or would he turn away! She stifled the sigh that threatened to escape her lips, fixing her eyes on the flames as she endeavored to quell her fears, and the disappointment that rose as Calandryll busied himself with the small repairs of tack and harness necessitated by their journeying.
Overhead the sky stood dark, cloud blown up on a freshening wind to obscure the stars, the moon flirting among the rack. The omnipresent sensation of dread hung like an aftertaste in the night, held off by the cantrips taught him, but growing stronger with each passing day, with every league that brought them closer to the battle waiting ahead. Beside that confrontation his tumbled feelings seemed small, but still he wished they might be resolved. And knew that likely such resolution should be denied, save that, somehow, in some manner he could not imagine, Cennaire regain her heart and become once more a natural woman. Could that be accomplished, he thought, then all should be well.
He tied a final stitch and set his work aside, yawning. The camp was silent, save for the night sounds of the animals and the crackling of the fire. Bracht and Katya were already wrapped in their blankets, and those of the kotu-zen not warding the perimeter were dark and silent shapes, slumbering. Ochen lay a little distance off, his feet toward the flames. Cennaire lay still but not, he thought, sleeping. He looked toward her and smiled wanly. If she saw, she gave no sign, and he stretched out himself, unpleasantly aware of the distances between them all.
AHGRA-TE lay on the northernmost limit of the forested country, a boundary marker between woodland and plain. The road rose up for half a day, climbing to a final wide terrace that ran timbered to a
line of solid darkness stretching as far as the eye could see to east and west. That, the questers were advised, was the edge of the true Jesseryn Plain, the Ahgra Danji, which in the Jesseryte tongue meant "Great Wall." It loomed above the town, towering vast over the wooded country, as if storm clouds solidified and lay upon the land. It was visible even as they traversed the final stretch of roadway, daunting as the trees gave up their hold to fields and farmland, a barrier near as impressive as the Kess Imbrun itself, lit by the rays of the descending sun.
The town was built at the foot, where falls cascaded down the rockface, mill wheels turning furiously in the torrent, the river that subsequently gouged a path across the flat terrain diverted by dams and barrages to form a semicircular moat that warded Ahgra-te to the west, south, and east. To the north, the Ahgra Danji was an ample buttress, and from its foot, within the confines of the moat, the town was further defended by high walls of wood set at intervals with watchtowers. It was a place, Calandryll thought, that should be mightily difficult to take, did the war raging on the Plain spread to the south of the Jesseryte lands.
As they drew closer he realized the place was more akin to the city-states of Lysse than those few other centers of habitation he had seen in this mysterious land, for proximity impressed its sheer magnitude on the approaching riders. The wall that faced them spread for close on half a league, and he calculated the eastern and western walls no less, turning in his saddle to see his comrades staring awed at the ramparts, albeit they were dwarfed by the rockface behind.
Two bowshots from the walls, Chazali barked a command that sent two men at a gallop toward the guardpost set on the southern edge of the moat. They paused a moment there, then thundered across a drawbridge to disappear behind the walls. The kiriwashen reined his mount to a slower pace, his men forming into a column behind. Ochen brought his animal alongside Chazali's, and the questers fell’ naturally into pairs. Calandryll flanked Cennaire, glancing down from his taller horse to see the Kand woman studying the place with wondering eyes.
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