"Playing . . . ?"
Stryke shook him, not far short of violently. "Come on! Snap out of it!"
Haskeer succeeded in focusing. "Captain . . . what. . . what"s hap-pening?" He seemed totally bewildered.
"What"s happening is that you"re a fairy"s breath away from a charge of desertion. Not to mention trying to kill other band members."
"Kill . . . ? Stryke, I swear-"
"Forget swearing, just explain yourself."
"Who am I supposed to have tried killing?"
"Coilla and Reafdaw."
Angrily, Haskeer snapped, "What do you think I am, a ... a ...human?"
"You did it, Haskeer. I want to know why."
"I... I can"t... I don"tremember." He looked around, still dazed. Jup and the grunts were staring at him. "Where are we?"
"Nevermind. Are you saying you don"t know what"s been going on? That you"re not responsible?"
Haskeer slowly shook his head.
"All right. Whatdo you remember?" Stryke persisted. "What was the last thing?"
Haskeer set to thinking. It was obviously an effort. Eventually he said, The battlefield. We went through it. Then . . .
dragons. Dragons chasing us. Fire."
"That"s all?"
"The singing..."
"Singing? What do you mean?"
"There was . . . not singing exactly. A sort of music and words, but not singing."
Stryke and Jup exchanged glances. Jup raised his eyebrows mean-ingfully.
"This sound, whatever it was . . ." He gave up. "I don"t know. Only other thing I remember was being sick. I felt bad."
"That"s something you never let on about," Jup said, his tone ac-cusing.
At one time Haskeer would have lashed out at the dwarf for a comment like that, for less, but now he just stared at him.
"Alfray thought you"d picked up a human disease from that orc encampment we torched," Stryke told him. "But I don"t think that was enough in itself to explain your behaviour.""Whatbehaviour, Stryke? You still haven"t told me what I"m sup-posed to have done."
"We were at Scratch. You attacked Reafdaw and Coilla, and made off with these." He reached into the sack taken from Hobrow and showed him the pair of stars.
Haskeer glazed over at the sight of them. He whispered, "Take them away, Stryke." Then yelled, "Take "em away!"
Puzzled, Stryke put them in his belt pouch, where he already had the star from Scratch.
"Take it easy," Jup told Haskeer, near gently.
There was a sheen of sweat on Haskeer"s forehead. He was breathing heavily.
"Coilla took off after you," Stryke continued. "We don"t know where she is. Do you know what happened to her?"
"I told you, I don"t know anything." He put his face in his hands.
Just before he did, Stryke thought he looked frightened.
He and Jup moved away from him. Stryke nodded to a couple of the grunts. They went to keep an eye on Haskeer.
"What do you think, chief?"
"I don"t know. He seems to be saying he had some kind of blackout. Maybe he"s telling the truth, maybe not."
"I reckon he is."
"Why?"
"n.o.body knows better than me what a b.a.s.t.a.r.d Haskeer is. But he isn"t a deserter and, I don"t know, call it my sixth sense, but something tells me that what happened was . . . beyond his control."
"Given the history you two have, I"m surprised to hear you say that."
"It"s what I think. Not giving him the benefit of the doubt"s an-swering injustice with injustice far as I can see."
"Even if what you say is true, and he was under the influence of the fever or whatever, how do we know it won"t happen again? How can we trust him?"
"Think on this, Stryke. If you decide he can"t be trusted, where does that leave us? What do we do? Abandon him? Cut his throat? Is that the way you want to run this band?"
"I need to think on it. And I have to decide what to do about Coilla."
"Don"t delay, Captain. You know how short time is." He pulled his jerkin closer against a wind that had grown piercing.
The weather doesn"t seem of a mind to be helpful either."
As he spoke, a scattering of snowflakes mixed with the wind.
"Snow," Stryke said. "In this season. The world"s broken, Jup."
"Ah, and it might be beyond fixing, Captain."
12.
Jennesta spelt it out. "I"m offering you an alliance, Adpar. Help me find the artifacts and I"ll share their power with you."
The face on the surface of the congealed blood was impa.s.sive.
"It"s only a matter of time before Sanara b.u.t.ts in on this," Jennesta added impatiently. "So will yousay something?"
"She doesn"t always. Or doesn"t choose to take part. Anyway, to h.e.l.l with Sanara; I don"t mind saying this in front of herNo."
"Why?"
"Ihave more than enough to deal with here. And unlike you, my dear, I have no ambitions to build a bigger empire."
"Thebiggest, Adpar! Big enough for both of us! Power enough for both!"
"Ihave a feeling that sharing, even with your beloved sister, would prove something you couldn"t manage for long."
"Then what about the G.o.ds?"
"What about them?"
"Plumbing the mysteries of the instrumentalities could restore our G.o.ds, the true G.o.ds, and see off this absurd lone deity the humans have brought."
"The G.o.ds are real enough here; they need no restoring."
"Fool! The taint will reach even you sooner or later, if it hasn"t already."
"Frankly, Jennesta, the notion just doesn"t appeal. I don"t trust you. Anyway, are youcapableof. . . "plumbing the mysteries"?" It was meant insultingly.
"So you"re going for them yourself, is that it?"
"Don"t judge everybody by your own standards."
"You don"t know what you"re turning your snooty nose up at!"
"At least it"smynose, and not indentured to anybody else."
Jennesta fought to keep her temper in check. "All right. If you"re not interested in joining me and you say you make no claim on the instrumentalities for yourself, why not trade me the one you have? I"d pay substantially for it."
"Idon"thaveone! How many more times? It"s gone!"
"You let somebody take something from you? I find that hard to believe."
"The thief was punished. He was lucky to escape with his life."
"You didn"t even kill this convenient robber?" Jennesta mocked. "You"re going soft, sister."
"Your stupidity I"m used to, Jennesta. What I can"t stand is how boring you can be."
"If you ignore my offer you"ll regret it."
"Will I? And who"s going to make me? You? You could never best me when we were youngsters, Jennesta, and you can"t do it now."
Jennesta seethed. "This is your last chance, Adpar. I won"t ask again."
"If you want me so much you must need me. I take pleasure from that. But I don"t take kindly to ultimatums, whoeverissues them. I"ll do nothing to hinder you, and nothing to help either. Now leave me alone."
This time it was Adpar who terminated the conversation.
Jennesta sat in deep thought for several minutes. She came out of it with resolve.
Dragging aside a heavy, ornate chair and pulling back several rugs, she revealed the flagstone floor. From a cabinet in a darkened corner she selected a particular grimoire, and on her way back to the cleared s.p.a.ce plucked a curved dagger from the altar. These she deposited on the chair.
Having lit more candles, Jennesta skimmed handfuls of clotted gore from the tub. On hands and knees, she used it to mark out a large mullet on the floor, carefully ensuring that there were no breaks in the circle or its five pointed stars.
That done, she took up the book and knife, and moved to the circle"s centre.
She peeled back the sleeve of her gown and with a swift, deep slash of the blade cut into her arm. Her lighter blood dripped and mingled with the darker red of the pentagram. It intensified the link with her sibling.
Then she turned to the book and began something she should have done long ago.
Adpar enjoyed thwarting her sister. It was one of life"s more sublime pleasures. But now she had a routine ch.o.r.e to attend to, though in its way it was no less gratifying.
She left the slime-encrusted viewing pool and waded from her pri-vate retreat to the larger chamber beyond. A lieutenant awaited her, along with a guard detail and two disgraced members of her swarm.
"The prisoners, Majesty," the lieutenant hissed in peculiarly nyadd fashion.
She looked over the accused. They hung their scaly heads.
Without preamble, Adpar outlined the charge. "You two have brought shame on the imperial swarm. That means shame onme. You were lax in carrying out your orders in the recent raid, and were seen by a superior officer to let several merz escape with their lives. Do you have anything to say in your defence?"
They didn"t.
"Very well," she went on, "I take your silence as admission of der-eliction. It should be well known that I"ll not have weaklings in the ranks. We are fighting to keep our place in this world, and that leaves no room for idlers or cowards.
Therefore the only possible verdict is guilty." A believer in the power of theatrics, she paused for effect. "And the penalty is death."
She beckoned the lieutenant. He came forward holding a basin-sized brown and white sh.e.l.l containing two coral daggers. A pair of guards followed him carrying deep, wide-mouthed earthenware pots.
"In accordance with tradition, and as a courtesy to your martial status, you are allowed a choice," Adpar told the condemned. She pointed to the knives. "Carry out the sentence with your own hand and you will die with a measure of honour." Her gaze flicked to the con-tainers. "Or you have the right to place your fate in the hands of the G.o.ds. If they will it, you could keep your life."
Turning to the first prisoner, she commanded, "Choose."
The nyadd tensely weighed his options. Finally he uttered, "The G.o.ds, Majesty."