In my absence, any number of intruders might have ascended to the level of Argoyne’s chamber. That I could not alter, however. If Isla did not choose to defend him, then the Archemage must defend himself. I could do nothing more than guard the stair.
Among the outer chambers, I found one with its door unlocked. From within the room, with the door nearly closed, I could watch the stair unseen. Failing to imagine an alternative, I accepted the disadvantages of surprise—which had slain my first opponent—and secreted myself to wait.
While I crouched at the slim crack of the door, numbness slowly sank its teeth into the side of my chest. A renewed wave of dizziness bore with it the bitter sensation of despair.
The young shin-te still lived, of that I was certain. If he—and Argoyne—had fallen, some sign of it would be felt in the mage’s keep. Such powers did not pass lightly from the world. But how long could the shin-te endure? How long could I?
Focused and feverish in my confusion, I did not notice the ro-uke as he gained the stair. I had seen him approach—and yet he appeared to arrive like an act of magery, without transition.
With my strength ebbing, I waited in silence while the assassin crept upward. I could not challenge him openly, and did not trust my stealth to equal his. Despite the danger that he might ascend beyond my reach—or that another ro-uke might come behind him—I did not move until his head had risen into the stairwell, out of sight. Then I eased open the door of my covert and hastened toward him.
By good fortune, he paused where he was, no doubt studying the hazards of the floor above. Whirling the grapnel by its line, I flung it at his legs.
Again by good fortune—for I could not claim skill in my condition—I had cast true. The grapnel caught him securely. At once, I hauled on the rope, heaving him off the stair in a rush.
The snapping sound as he struck the floor told me that he had broken bones. He flopped nervelessly at the impact, then lay still. When I ventured near him, I saw that he was dead. The fall had crushed his skull, or his neck.
Giddy with relief and poison, I stumbled to the foot of the stair, seated myself, and rested my head on my stronger hand.
_______
Three ro-uke remained. In a moment, I promised my weakness, I would rise to my feet and consider how I might oppose them. But first I must breathe. So that I could estimate the progress of the toxin, and concentrate my qa against it.
“Asper,” Isla called softly from the head of the stair. “How many?”
I lifted my head to peer upward. A haze clouded my sight—apparently Argoyne’s lamps had begun to smoke—and I could not see her clearly.
“Three,” I told the stairwell.
“Then come up.” She sounded impatient. “There are three here. One used the stair—I thought you were dead—but the other two must have climbed up the outer wall. They came at me from rooms across the passage.
“Asper, what’s wrong?”
I had been foolish. A ro-uke must have gained the stair while I fought around the corner.
Vaguely I indicated my shoulder. “Poison.”
Like the ro-uke, and Argoyne himself, she had lost her need for transitions. I alone still required movement from moment to moment. She appeared at my side, tugged me to my feet. “We don’t have much time,” she said as she urged me upward. “The shin-te is losing. Maybe Argoyne can help you.” Rents marked her robe. Blood dripped from a cut in her scalp. Her cheek showed a bruise so deep that it must have covered cracked bones. “I kept one of them alive for you. I stunned her, but she’ll recover soon.”
Alive— She had succeeded where I had failed.
I could hope again. Gratitude swelled my qa, and a measure of stability returned to my limbs. “I am in your debt,” I murmured as I amended my pace. “You are a tribute to the mashu-te.”
“I hope they’ll think so,” she replied. Apparently her scruples disturbed her yet.
However, they no longer troubled me.
_______
In the chamber of the Archemage, I saw at once that Isla had spoken truly. Argoyne’s young champion stood near defeat. The resilience was gone from his movements, his eyes were empty of purpose, and his qa seemed to flutter within him like a torn rag. He still kept his feet, still blocked and countered. And he had exacted a price from his opponent. The nerishi-qa fought with one eye swollen shut, two broken fingers, and a falter in all his steps. The arrogance was gone from his gaze. Yet it was plain that the shin-te would be the first to fall. If I had not felt the proximity of his death like an emanation from Argoyne’s image, or read it in the vehemence of his opponent’s qa, I would have seen it on the faces of the White Lords, and of Goris Miniter. Anticipations of triumph defined the sunlight in their eyes. The young master had received blows which his flesh could not withstand.
The remaining ro-uke had recovered consciousness. Isla and I kept the woman between us, pretending to hold her captive. Perhaps Isla did so. For my part, however, I clung to her for support. Unsteadiness surged and receded in my head, and I could not trust my legs to sustain me. Like Argoyne’s champion, I would soon fall.
Without delay, Isla informed the mage, “Asper needs help.”
Reluctantly Argoyne turned from the meadow to consider my plight. His obscured vision regarded me as though I had lost my place in his attention.
“No,” I said at once. “His need is greater.” I indicated the shin-te. “Send us there. While you still can. We must go now.”
The Archemage appeared to understand me. “They won’t listen to you,” he warned.
I sighed. “Then we will not speak to them.”
Isla glared a question at me, but I had neither the heart nor the will to answer her. The outcome of the Mage War lay between warriors now, shin-te and nerishi-qa. Goris Miniter and the White Lords no longer had any part to play.
Argoyne nodded, reaching among his scrolls. “After all,” he muttered as he found the one he sought and opened it, “I have nothing more to lose. If you wanted me dead, all you had to do is wait for it. And it’s always easy to trust warriors. That’s why,” he finished cryptically, “they’re called ‘the Fatal Arts.’”
I could not have asked him what he meant if I had wished to. He and his chamber and the stone keep were gone.
_______
Washed by morning sunlight, we stood in the meadow, surrounded by Miniter’s horsemen. Isla still held the ro-uke by one arm, and I clung to the other, concealing my weakness as well as I was able. Five paces from us, both the young shin-te and his opponent had paused to stare in confusion and mistrust at our sudden interruption.
Around us, horses flinched and reared, snorting their alarm. Several of the riders prepared to charge against us until the King called them back to their places. The White Lords made warding gestures in our direction, but sent no magery to harm us.
Again haze dimmed my sight, as though the smoke of some vast and fatal bonfire had clouded the meadow. Yet I could see well enough to determine where we were. The meadow lay in a broad valley among the abrupt foothills of the Scarmin. Beyond them, crags and mountains shrouded by distance towered into the sky. And there, distinct against the high cliffs, stood Argoyne’s keep.
This struggle for the fate of Vesselege took place at the boundary between the domains of magery, separated by height and stone—the borderland between the White Lords and the Dark.
Before Goris Miniter could raise his voice to demand an explanation, Isla and I bowed to him formally. Coerced to do so, the ro-uke followed our example.
“King of Vesselege,” Isla said at once, “this test of champions has been dishonored. We’ve brought proof of treachery.”
At her words, quick consternation echoed around the ring. Horsemen muttered and cursed. If she had announced to him that all his pain and effort had been wasted, the young shin-te could not have looked more bereft. Bowing his head, he slumped in sorrow or despair. However, the nerishi-qa reacted otherwise. He advanced a step or two angrily, as thou
gh he meant to challenge us. His qa was a furnace, feeding him where a lesser man such as I would have been consumed.
Once more Miniter stilled his riders. At his sides, the White Lords considered the peaks of Scarmin like men striving to bridge the distance in order to see Argoyne’s thoughts.
Despite the haze which troubled my eyes, I could not mistake the King’s calculation as he asked in tones of iron, “What has the Archemage done?”
“King of Vesselege,” I answered, “the treachery is not his.” Although I spoke weakly, my voice carried across the meadow. “The dishonor belongs elsewhere.”
The White Lords’ champion approached another step, outrage burning in his open eye.
“Inside the keep of the Archemage,” Isla explained for me, “this nahia and I met and defeated six of the ro-uke. They are assassins, King of Vesselege. I think it’s safe to assume”—she gave the word a sneering force—“Argoyne didn’t send them against himself.”
“Then who?” the King countered harshly. “And for what purpose? If you ‘assume’ so much, do you also ‘assume’ you know why they were there? The ro-uke have as much honor as the mashu-te. Their presence is not ‘proof of treachery.’”
Turning to the captive woman, I shifted my grasp on her arm so that my mouth reached her ear.
“Speak,” I told her softly. “The truth. On the honor of your Art.” Within her robes, my fang drew blood from the skin along her spine. “I do not hold you accountable for the service you were asked to perform. But your life and all Vesselege are forfeit if you lie.”
Bitter as a blade, Miniter continued, “And you ask us to believe that you and one nahia alone defeated six of the ro-uke? That is hard to credit. If there is treachery here, perhaps it is yours.”
The assassin cleared her throat, lifting her head to the young shin-te and his opponent rather than to Goris Miniter and the White Lords. “No,” she pronounced. She, too, recognized the nature of this battle. And, as Goris Miniter had said, the ro-uke understood honor. “The King of Vesselege sent us to rid his land of Black Argoyne, the last of the Dark Lords. He wished the Archemage slain during your contest.”
A hush fell over the meadow—the silence of shock and dismay. The sky itself seemed to carry an echo of chagrin like a suggestion of distant thunder. Although his glare spoke of murder, Goris Miniter held his tongue. It may have been that his soldiers and adherents were more disturbed to hear the words spoken than they were by what the words meant. The White Lords revealed no surprise. But there were warriors among the horsemen, students and masters of the Fatal Arts, and their distress was plain.
To the nerishi-qa, I said, “There is no honor for you here. No victory. The contest is meaningless. Let it go.”
“No!” one of the White Lords returned sharply. “The challenge was made and accepted in good faith. The contest is between mages, and we are bound by it. We stand or fall by the deeds of our champions, not by the honor or falsehood of kings and assassins. Goris Miniter’s actions are his own, irrelevant. The contest must be resolved.”
Although the mage’s lips moved, his voice did not appear to issue from his mouth, but rather from some source as distant as Argoyne’s keep.
The nerishi-qa withheld reply. He studied me narrowly for a moment, considering my wound and my weakness—gazed briefly at the young shin-te—then strode from the center of the ring toward Goris Miniter. Raising his head and his qa, he confronted the mounted King as though he were accustomed to passing judgment on the actions of sovereigns.
“Is this true?” he inquired softly.
Goris Miniter’s calculation was written on his face, plain to all who chose to see it. His eyes sifted lies and half-truths, deflections, while under his beard his jaws chewed the consequences of whatever he might say. In the end, however, the man before him was a nerishi-qa master, able to distinguish truth from falsehood, and he did not hazard prevarication.
“In case you failed,” he answered. “The Dark Lords are an abomination. Vesselege will never be whole while one of them endures.”
“Vesselege,” the champion of the White Lords retorted, still softly, “will never be whole while the King is treacherous.”
So suddenly that his action startled the wildflowers, the nerishi-qa braced a hand on the neck of the King’s horse and vaulted upward, sweeping a kick which struck Goris Miniter upon the helm and dropped him like a stone to the meadow.
Among the grasses the King of Vesselege lay still, with blood drooling from his mouth, and his skull crushed.
The young shin-te watched in bafflement and rue, as though he grasped nothing.
On all sides, soldiers and adherents shouted their fury and fear. They might have goaded their mounts to charge at the nerishi-qa, but the warriors around the ring were quicker. Ro-uke and mashu-te, they hastened their horses forward to block the soldiers. Doubtless they felt as the King’s adherents did. For one reason or another, they had pledged their service to Goris Miniter. Yet they understood that a contest of champions had been dishonored.
And without honor the Fatal Arts would fall to dust.
In relief, I sagged against the support of the captured assassin. The toxin in my shoulder had become stronger than my resistance, and I believed that I had accomplished my end. The nerishi-qa had acknowledged the contest dishonored. Now he and his opponent could withdraw without loss on either side. Without more death. Argoyne would live to defend his knowledge a while longer. And my life, and Isla’s, and the young shin-te’s, would not be forfeit for our service to the Black Archemage.
Haze gathered over the meadow. Helpless to do otherwise, I trusted that the ro-uke would uphold me.
I could only stare in dismay as the White Lords announced together, “The King’s treachery has been repaid.” Their voices tolled thunder. “The honor of this contest is restored. It will continue.”
Isla groaned. She may not have felt my qualms about sacrificing her own life, but she could see that our young comrade was already beaten. Only a few blows were needed to complete his death.
The nerishi-qa appeared to ignore the White Lords. Turning his back on them, as well as on Miniter’s corpse, he advanced again into the trampled circle of the contest. When he was within five paces of his opponent, he stopped.
He spoke quietly, but the thunder which the White Lords invoked was not more clear.
“I care nothing for mages,” he informed the shin-te. “If they are bound here—White Lords or Dark—the oath is theirs, not mine. This test lies between nerishi-qa and shin-te.
“For years we have refused your challenge, believing you fools. But you have become offensive to us. You have named nerishi-qa a false Art. I was sent by my masters to repay your folly, and to teach you that the falseness you repudiate is your own.”
Although he had been injured, his readiness for combat betrayed no flaw. The resilience compressed in the muscles of his legs matched the hard force of his qa. Relaxed and quick, his hands seemed to hold every blow which had ever been struck.
“Now,” he concluded, “our contest has meaning.”
From the edge of the ring, the White Lords nodded their approval.
A low moan escaped the young man’s lips. Yet he did not withdraw. Wavering on his feet, he answered, “Then I must accept. This test lies between us.” A maimed formality dignified his words, despite the frailty of his flesh. “Yours is the Art of the Killing Stroke. I will show you that it is false.”
His knee buckled as he assumed his stance, and he nearly fell. Staggering, he drew himself upright again. The loss in his eyes was terrible to behold.
He had met despair. Already it proved itself against him.
Had I been less weak, I might have wept for him. My own death crouched near me on the meadow, but it did not trouble me as much as his. Poison filled my thoughts, and I could not imagine any help which might save him. His spirit and his qa had not failed him. Still he was too young for the burden Argoyne had given him to bear.
&nbs
p; Unsteadily he braced himself to meet his opponent’s last attack.
Within me, the toxin seemed to clench its jaws. The nerishi-qa had not yet moved. However, I could see his assault in the haze before me, precise and fatal. When he struck—
“Shin-te,” Isla called out suddenly, “remember your Art!”
As if involuntarily, the young master turned his bereavement toward her.
“There is no killing stroke,” she reminded him. Her voice rang with certainty. “There is only choice. Or despair.”
I feared that she had lost her mind. Had she not contested his beliefs herself? Yet in the end it was plain that she understood him better than I did. Or that he understood her—
Empowered by the magery of her words, his limbs regained a measure of their strength, and the sorrow receded from his eyes. Years of pain shed themselves from his shoulders. As he rose out of his stance to face his opponent again, he conveyed the impression that he was being lifted beyond himself.
Surprised by the young man’s movement, the nerishi-qa paused, easing his own stance.
Deliberately the shin-te bowed to his opponent. When he straightened his back, his arms hung defenselessly at his sides. Yet he appeared taller in some way, as if his own words in Isla’s mouth had given him stature.
“Your skill surpasses me,” he told the nerishi-qa, echoing her certainty. “But your will does not. No man’s choice exceeds another’s. You cannot make me other than I am.”
Slowly he spread his arms wide, closing his eyes as he did so.
“Here I stand,” he said, “unguarded. Strike me, if that is your wish. Your blow is mine. The victory is mine. If I have chosen to die, you cannot kill me. Any blow of yours can only carry out my will.
“How, then,” he finished softly, “will you teach the shin-te that they are fools?”
The nerishi-qa frowned, studying his opponent’s displayed form as though to determine the best target for a killing stroke.
“Strike,” one of the White Lords commanded urgently. “His choices have no significance. The contest does not rest on them. Only the blow matters. Only his death matters. The Dark Lord will be destroyed when his champion falls.”
Reave the Just and Other Tales Page 14
