She laughed again. "You"re... !"
Her mouth gaped, and her eyes shot wide with pain before she could finish. One of the dancers screamed and leaped up to catch her elbow as she faltered and sank to one knee. Rime looked at the dancer. Then she looked at the bound form by the fire. A red spittle bubbled on her lip as she hissed, "Burn him!"
But the dancer was staring beyond Rime, and he wore a look of horror as he pulled the dagger from her back.
Indeed, Ronal always knew when Spyder needed him. The former gladiator ran into the clearing, his gaze focused on Rime. The witch was down, but not yet dead. The drummers leaped up. One of them threw a drum at Ronal"s legs before he could reach his target. He dodged it, but they were on him. He cut and slashed with an expert fury.
Spyder twisted and drove his knee into one of his captors. He"d distracted Rime while Ronal worked his way behind her. Now, nothing but sheer ferocity would win the game. Freeing his sword arm, he drew the Enlibar blade and slashed through his second captor. Two more Nis rushed at him. He cut them down ruthlessly.
But a ring of witches had encircled Rime, and within that ring still another ring of witches. He rushed at them, then staggered under a chaotic a.s.sault of hastily cast spells. Some commanded him merely to stop; some ripped the breath from his body. Pain spells, blindness spells, even love spells. For a moment, hefelt himself drowning on dry land, the next moment he saw his sword turn into a serpent in his grasp, then back to steel. There was no order to the a.s.sault, and one spell interfered with another, so that all of them lacked sufficient power. Still, he reeled.
Then he screamed as a pair of witches in the inner ring lifted Lisoh"s squirming, mummy-wrapped body.
A terrible cat-cry ripped the air, a scream louder than his own. High in a tree at the edge of the clearing, a pair of eyes gleamed with green anger. A panther, sleek and black, poised on a branch with its gaze fixed on Rime.
Spyder cried out, "Shahana!"
The panther sprang, landing on the back of an inner-circle witch. But that one was not its prey. In an instant, the creature was on Rime. Its jaws closed savagely on her neck. One powerful rear leg raked open the witch"s belly. Necklaces broke, and jewels scattered like colored rain.
Still, the Nis sought to close ranks around their mistress. Two hurled themselves at the panther, oblivious to the death-dealing claws, and the two bearing Lisoh lifted him and threw him into the flames.
If the boy screamed, he could not be heard over the screams of the witches, the panther, and Spyder, himself. He waded into the witches, blind with hate and rage and shame. Even when the witches finally broke ranks and tried to flee, he chased them, cut them down mercilessly.
And the panther, with teeth and claws, claimed as many lives.
When no foes remained standing, his rage still not spent, Spyder seized a brand from one of the fires and flung it at the Vasalan ship. The flames caught in a coil of rope, spread along the deck, touched the furled sail and climbed the mast.
Only then, with the heat of the burning vessel scorching his face did Spyder drop his sword and sink to his knees. "I"m sorry, Sha-hana," he cried. "I promised you, but I failed!"
The panther padded slowly to his side.
"Regan! The beast... !" Ronal called from the far side of the clearing where he sat leaning against a tree unable to stand.
Spyder looked into the panther"s eyes and touched its blood-matted shoulder. The beast hung its head and gave a low growl. Then, its form shifted, stretched, and transformed.
"I"ll be d.a.m.ned," Ronal said quietly. "I knew there was something strange about her."
Aaliyah and Spyder fell into each other"s arms and wept together, and Spyder wondered how they could ever share love again through so much pain. He hadn"t known the boy, Lisoh, but he knew what Lisoh meant to Aaliyah. And he had promised-he had promised. Through his tears, he looked up. The fog had melted away. In the sky, the moon was past full eclipse.
With an effort, Spyder got to his feet and, picking up his sword, went to Rime"s body. Her mouth, though caked with mud, seemed turned up at the corners as if the b.i.t.c.h were still laughing at him. For a long moment he stood there letting the rage wash over him again, then the grief, then a terrible emptiness.
He raised the sword once and cut off her right hand. The untem-pered ring went into his pocket. It was evidence for Jamasharem. Unless he decided to keep it.A second time he raised the sword and cut off her head. That was for spite. Then he cast hand, head, and her entire body into the flames to burn with Aaliyah"s brother.
The rest of them could rot in the mud.
"She"s a shapechanger," Spyder explained quietly. He didn"t feel obligated to tell Ronal that he was the witch, or rather, the warlock, and that the weird weather tricks had been his. Perhaps in time. It wasn"t that he didn"t trust his friend, but some secrets were best kept. Especially in Sanctuary.
Ronal sat on the couch with his swollen left leg in a swath of herbal poultices and bandages. "I"m getting too old for this," he said after a pause. "That knife-toss should have found the witch"s heart."
"You did well, Ronal." He turned and stared from the rooftop parapet out toward the bay. Half to himself, he added, "My knives are always where I need them."
His knives. His agents.
After another long pause, Ronal asked, "Are you going to keep the ring?"
Spyder pursed his lips. Though the ring was untempered and would never be as potent as it was intended to be, it was not entirely without power. He wasn"t sure yet if he wanted to hand that unexplored power to Jamasharem. "For now, it"s safe in my vault. I may destroy it." He had no idea how to accomplish that, but he was certain it would take more than his meager talent.
Aaliyah appeared at the top of the stair with a tray of food and a fresh jug of wine. She set them on the table by the couch within Ronal"s reach and went to Spyder"s side. He slipped his arm around her and drew her close. "Qua.n.a.li muriel maha elberab canta," he whispered.
A sudden chill touched the air, but this time he wasn"t the cause.
"It"s beginning," he told her as he glanced toward the sky. Slowly the sun began to weaken and fade. He swept his gaze over the harbor below, then westward toward the Maze and the Bazaar, then toward the palace.
"Why do I have a feeling you don"t mean the eclipse?" Ronal said as he bit into a roll.
"Witches, wizards, demons-even shapechangers." He forced a smile as he tilted Aaliyah"s face toward his and kissed her forehead. "The Nisi covens are finished for good, but the things I"ve seen in two weeks" time. The things I"ve heard. We"re all being drawn to Sanctuary again. It"s as if we"re being a.s.sembled for something. For what, I don"t know."
The sky grew sullen and cool. Birds took to the air and flew in confused circles. Dogs barked.
Everywhere Spyder looked people stood in the streets, on the docks, or on their own rooftops. They watched, too, with an uncharacteristic hush.
Slowly, the sky darkened, and the shadows of Sanctuary twisted into strange shapes as a black disk crawled across the sun. When it was finally in place all that remained where the sun had been was a flickering blood-red ring.
Spyder was not looking up, however. The placid, almost mirror-smooth surface of the bay held his attention. It reflected the spectacle in the sky with an uncanny precision. He wondered if anyone else saw it. He wondered if Aaliyah noticed.
On the bay was another ring of sea and fire.
Doing the G.o.ds" Work
Jody Lynn Nye
"Thank you, healer," the gray-haired woman whispered as the potion took effect. Pel Garwood straightened his long back and stood up, taking the empty cup away from her lips.
"That should ease your back for a good week, until the full moon. You can chew this then," he held up a twist of green and gold herb strands, "to take away the pain for a day or two. I need the moon to make a potion that will last you a whole month. I can"t cure what ails you, you know. I can only ease it."
"It"s the penalty for living so long," Sharheya said. "I"m too old to expect miracles. I"m grateful for the relief."
"How much?" asked Carzen the sawyer, Sharheya"s son-in-law, eyeing the apothecary warily. Pel"s ma.s.s of black-and-silver hair and smooth face confused people as to his age, but his calm bedside manner gave him the air of a sage, too dignified to argue with.
Pel held up long fingers to count. "Nine padpols for today, another for the twist. A bright silver soldat for the month-long cure."
"A soldat! Too much!"
"Pay the man," Sharheya said, her eyes narrowing as if the pain had returned suddenly. Pel knew there was little love lost between his two visitors, but the widow Sharheya owned the wood and the lumberyard attached to it that was the family"s fortune. If Carzen wished his wife to be disinherited and all pa.s.sing to Sharheya"s scholar brother, all Carzen had to do was infuriate Sharheya at the right moment.
Accidents happened, especially in such a dangerous place as a sawmill. The woman was always changing her will. Pel had been in and out of it for a year. He had never cared whether a bequest was forthcoming; he would have provided care for those who genuinely needed his gift. If he liked them it would cost them less than it cost Carzen. He didn"t like Carzen. The man had all the conscience of a scorpion.
"What"s in it?" Carzen asked, peering at the taller man from under his s.h.a.ggy brown eyebrows.
"Willowbark, dark-well water, cider, poppy, feverfew picked at the new moon, sgandi leaf..."
"Sgandi? You mean stinkweed? I could make your potion, for nothing!" Carzen snapped his fingers under the healer"s nose. "I could throw those weeds in a jug and save myself the price, as well as the trouble of coming to you."
Pel just raised his salt-and-pepper eyebrow. "In what proportions would you mix them? Too much of one thing, not enough of another would be fatal. And do you know the propitious times to gather each plant? Where to get the most potent weeds?" It had been so long since he"d been here in his home city that the local Ilsigi-the Wrigglie-dialect felt strange and slippery in his mouth. What was the commonplace insulting term they used to one another? Yes, that was it. "Pay up, pud, or take your problems home with you. Fair for fair. If you won"t pay, then I have no obligation to you. I don"t care."
But he did. He could feel the suffering of the people who came to him, and he wanted them whole. His hand sought out Sharheya"s, and held it tightly. All their pain resonated in him. It was part of his punishment, and his salvation. The old woman gave her son-in-law a disgusted look.
"Pay him and let"s go home! I don"t trust the apprentices to make that rosewood table for Lord Kuklos without supervision."
Grumbling, Carzen dug in his scrip. Looking up at Pel after each coin hit the table, he tossed out padpolsone at a time. When he got to nine he started to put his purse away. Sharheya cleared her throat with meaning, the meaning being that if he didn"t move faster she would call for pen and parchment right there.
He put the tenth down for the herb twist, then very slowly produced a soldat. It wasn"t very shiny.
"If," Pel let his voice interrupt the woodman"s movements, "if you"d rather pay me in kind instead of in cash, I need a roof joist for the rear of my shop."
"How long?" Carzen asked. Pel pointed up. The wood-smith ran a practiced eye across the ceiling.
"Uhm. Nine yards. You need more than one, pud. All that"s holding up your roof is prayer. You need at least sixteen."
"I can"t afford them all at once," Pel said. "I"m in no hurry."
"A good joist"ll cost you more than one soldat. Four."
"Two. Add in next month"s treatment as well," Pel offered, as the woodman started to protest.
"You"ve got a deal, foreigner," Carzen said. He spat in his palm and held out his hand. Pel gripped it. "I"ll have my boys haul it up." He leered at the apothecary. "Labor"s extra."
"Carzen!"
"It"s all I expect," Pel gathered up the money in his free hand and tucked it away in his ap.r.o.n. "Thank you." He bowed over Sharheya"s hand, a Rankan custom that he"d picked up from the courtiers of his more exalted clients. "I wish you healthy. If you have need of me, come back at once, or send a messenger."
Sharheya rose, chuckling. She stretched her back, arching it plea-surably. "I"d best come myself, healer.
There are not too many boys in our yard who would willingly go running alone up the Avenue of Temples, no matter what kind of a beating I"d threaten them with for disobeying. Good day to you.
Come, Carzen." She stalked out of the stone building and waited at the side of their donkey cart, waiting.
The sawyer followed, still grumbling.
Pel watched them go, jingling his earnings in his pocket. The Avenue of Temples might not be everyone"s idea of a choice address, but the m.u.f.fling qualities of the empty buildings in between his shop and the next inhabited structure saved him many an explanation, especially at night, when guilt stalked him like a wolf.
The day he had fled Sanctuary he had never intended to return. The horrors he had left behind were more than any man"s mind could have taken without breaking. The worst was that he was responsible for some of it.
He had been called Wrath of the G.o.ddess, because his long reach and swift stride meant that none could escape him. His emotions ran to extremes, but especially his anger. He had believed with all his heart in the cause of the Mother. Humanity was corrupt, as anyone could see by the plagues that it had called down upon itself from the G.o.ds. To save it, therefore, required purification, freeing the mortal sphere from that which angered the divine mother G.o.ddess. He"d entered Sanctuary with the others of the Hand, determined to wipe out the stain.
But the purge had not gone as he had expected. The Mother had not caused the city and all of humankind to ascend into a new, pure age. Instead, over the next nine years came more of the corruption he had always seen before, some of it coming from the very priests he respected, coupled with a savagery that horrified him. When earlier only the unrighteous were being sought out and destroyed, he"d been able to accept that. But as the occupation continued, with anyone who held back a padpol or hadan impure thought being considered irretrievably evil, Pel began to doubt. Then he grew frightened. If he was suspected of losing faith in the Mother he would be next on the flensing block. He was not afraid to die for his beliefs, but they were slipping away from him. He waited for a cleansing fire to come down and consume all the priests who were killing indiscriminately, who took offerings from the impure then killed them anyhow. None came. Sacrifices were held for no reason. Men and women were bled out for no other reason than they had angered one of the Hand. Then came the siege by the Irrune. The Servants of the Mother offered up desperate sacrifices to regain control. His own wife, sister-priest who had stood beside him when they swore themselves to Dyareela, caught the blood fever, and pulled their own child from the pits to cast onto the Mother"s altar. The horror of watching their daughter die broke Pel"s mind free. No longer could he wield his knife without thinking that beneath it was some father"s son or daughter.
Then came the schism. Some of the priesthood rose up as the Bleeding Hand, challenging the traditional children of the Mother with their hideous vision of worship. Naniya went to the Hand and denounced him. Abandoned, betrayed and in mourning, Pel renounced his G.o.ddess.
Though he had p.r.o.nounced them in silence, once the words had been said he could no longer remain with the other worshipers of Dyareela. Their stronghold was falling to the Irrune and Lord Molin Torchholder. Many priests had disappeared underground, ahead of the schism, and more ahead of the Irrune invasion. He told his masters that he was going into hiding, too. They gave him their blessing, thinking that he would continue secretly to do their b.l.o.o.d.y work for them. He let them believe it. As soon as he could, he fled Sanctuary.
He went as far as money would take him, then walked straight off the cart out of the last town into the countryside. He had no thought as to shelter or food or comfort. If his G.o.ddess had abandoned him, he had no choice left but to welcome death. But it didn"t want him yet.
The door of his shop creaked open. Pel spun, hand automatically going for the knife he had worn at his side for so many years. It was not there.
"Garwood, how goes the day?"
The pounding of Pel"s heart slowed when he recognized Siggurn, a regular at the Vulgar Unicorn. The burly man had one hand on the battered, dusty stone lintel as if he needed help standing upright. His skew-nosed face wore a sheepish look.
"Well, man, are you going to berate me that my jewelweed potion wasn"t strong enough?" Pel asked, feeling a touch mischievous.
"Strong enough!" Siggurn sputtered. "Why, it wouldn"t go down for three days! I... the girls thought it was a might funny, though they said I wouldn"t pay until it did. After the first night they said it was sorcery and only that Twandan wench, Mimise, would stay with me. I made it worth her while, though. I"m no cheat."
Pel did some mental calculations and let out a hearty laugh, the first he"d had in days. "You don"t mean to tell me you took the whole bottle at once? I told you, it"s for a week"s worth of nights. One mouthful at a time."
"You did! I... well, I got nervous when nothing happened right away." Siggurn rubbed his nose with a knuckle. "I drank some more of it. Then, bang! And a mouthful"s not much, is it?"
"It"s meant to be a small draught," Pel said, still chuckling. "Many who"ve had... trouble with potency...
aren"t of a mind to drink down a great mugful when they want to perform."The big man looked horrified. "You"ve asked them about it? You didn"t mention me by name, did you?"
"No, no, of course not. When you pay my price you buy my silence as well. No, these are other men I"ve sold the same potion to-and I won"t give you their names, either."
"I wouldn"t ask," Siggurn said, relieved. "Only... now I"m going to see Dolange next week, and I"ve none left of the first bottle, so... would you?"
"With pleasure," Pel said. "Will you wait, or come back?"
Siggurn glanced out of the door. "I"ll wait."
The carter sought out a comfortable place to sit. The shop looked like an abandoned mansion more than a going business concern, yet Pel had occupied it for several months. It took time to rebuild a structure so far dilapidated, and Pel was in no hurry. n.o.body else wanted it. Except for bored street urchins shying stones through the cloth he"d stretched over the empty window holes on the street side n.o.body ever troubled him. Even in the crowded city of Sanctuary few liked to brave the empty places of worship on the Avenue of Temples. This was one of the smallest and least ruined, but that was not to say it might not have been improved by simply tearing it down and building it up again from its foundations. More than two decades of neglect and some active destruction wrought upon it by the adherents of Dyareela and, more lately, those of Irrunega, had all but broken the back of a structure meant to last thousands of years. No one alive remembered that this temple was once dedicated to a minor but necessary Ilsigi G.o.ddess named Meshpri, lady of health and healing, sister of great Shipri; and her son Meshnom, patron of apothecaries. If they had, they might have considered it coincidental that a newcomer to Sanctuary would have come to set up an herbalist"s shop in its ruin, but there was no coincidence involved.
The structure was so derelict that not even lovers desperate for privacy would shelter there. The huge stone blocks comprising the walls had been cracked or shifted by G.o.ds-fire, earthquake, explosions and berserk men with hammers. As its supports had been attacked the roof decided to add to the debris below by shedding plaster, tiles and finally shards of wood. But Pel had found the place relatively sanitary. Deprived of donations and sacrifices for years, there was no food to attract insects or vermin, other than those attracted to the droppings of the birds that nested in the rotting rafters exposed between broken sections of roof. The weather had peeled the gaudy paint from the walls and made mush out of precious cedarwood and sandalwood incense boxes next to the rectangular stone altar. That was still in one piece, though incised all over its surface with graffiti by youths who dared one another to violate the haunted precinct. The air was cold, but after a lifetime of fire he was grateful for the chill of nature.
Because the chamber was open to the elements most of Pel"s books, tools and equipment had to be stored in heavy chests underneath braced tiers of stone, to protect them from falling tiles and rain. The first thing Pel had done, after cleaning the building as best he could, was to bargain with Grabar, the local stonemason, to smooth out the surface of the altar, eight feet long and four feet wide. Ostensibly he needed it as a mixing palette and operating table. Privately Pel intended it to be used for its original purpose as well, though he could not tell the stonecutter that. By order of Irrune law no worship might take place within the walls of the city. Pel was willing to risk refreshing the temple, as part of his personal penance, but in secret. He wasn"t stupid, or ready to face the Irrune system of justice. He washed out Siggurn"s bottle with cleansing liquid and sand, then chose a medium-sized mortar and pestle. He knew instantly which among the myriad of bottles, boxes, twists of paper and cloth, bundles of twigs, herbs and flowers to choose. A little here, a little there ... he didn"t need to look up the formula. It had been only a few days since he"d made it. Imagine drinking a week"s worth of stimulants in one night! He couldn"t stop himself from grinning.
Siggurn propped himself up on half a lintel stone to watch Pel grind herbs to powder. "Did you hear?" heasked. "The Bleeding Hand has returned. They were under the Promise of Heaven." Pel"s heart froze within him. He knew that warren well. If they had returned, that would be where they would congregate.
Oh, Meshpri, keep me from their path! Siggurn noticed that his hands had stopped. "Oh, there"s nothing to worry about now," he a.s.sured Pel. "It"s old news. I dunno what you hear, up here all by yourself. The Dragon"s men swept them all away a couple of weeks back. They say they got them all. Sewed them into bundles then stamped them all to death under horses" hooves." Siggurn stopped to swallow. "I didn"t see it myself, but Dolange"s brother serves in the city guard. He said there wasn"t one man there who didn"t puke his guts out at the sight. You"d have done the same."
"Likely I would," Pel said, at the same time wondering if he would. He"d seen and done worse as a priest of Dyareela. He was grimly thankful. In his newfound faith he couldn"t rejoice in the pain and death of others, but it relieved him to know he wouldn"t have to face any of his former cohorts.
"You never saw what the Hand wreaked upon this city," Siggurd said frankly. "I lost friends, families, loved ones. I was even sorry to see my enemies go to them. It was a terror you couldn"t believe. Your thoughts weren"t your own."