A Flame in Hali (9 page)

“How could she not?” Saravio said as they made their way back through the mazework of narrow streets. “Yet, I do not see what purpose a secret meeting will serve. These are poor, ignorant folk. Useless.”

“Useless to the great lords in their palaces, certainly. Perhaps even to you or me,” Eduin paused for dramatic effect. “But not to Naotalba.”

As he’d expected, Saravio jerked alert at the name.

Eduin rushed on. “She brought me to you, didn’t she? Just as she has now brought these men—this army.”

“Naotalba’s army? But, Eduin—these are not soldiers. They dress in rags. They have no weapons, no training. What could they possibly do?”

“That is the wrong question, my friend. It is rather what
Naotalba
can do with them. Do you doubt her power?”

They turned down the street, slightly broader than the rest, which would bring them to The White Feather. Saravio tripped on a cobblestone that had been turned on its end in the muck, jutting upward. Eduin caught his elbow, steadying him.

“I am her servant, always,” Saravio declared. “It is not for me to question her ways.”

“It is glorious to walk in the path of Naotalba,” Eduin intoned. He despised himself for pretending a devotion he did not feel, to feed Saravio’s delusions.

Once, Eduin had prayed to Zandru, Lord of the Seven Frozen Hells. Most
Comyn
honored Aldones, Lord of Light, fair Evanda, or the Dark Lady, Avarra. What did it matter which one he invoked if the cause was right? He remembered the woman of Saravio’s vision and shivered inwardly. She could be dark or light, hope or despair, depending upon which aspect of the myth he drew upon. She was imaginary, a dream image, nothing more. Surely he need not fear such a thing. . . .

At the mention of Naotalba, Eduin felt an answering ripple of psychic energy from Saravio. For a moment, he allowed himself to enjoy it. It would be a simple enough thing to block the sendings, to keep himself unaffected while those around them felt whatever Saravio sent them. Pleasure . . . pain . . . elation . . . fury . . .

“Naotalba’s army,” Saravio murmured. He halted at the threshold of the inn and bent his head reverently. “Here it begins.”

Naotalba’s army,
Eduin repeated to himself. A few desperate refugees tonight, perhaps, but tomorrow, their numbers would swell. An army, indeed. One to topple even the Keeper of Neskaya Tower.

T
he flush of pleasure on the face of the innkeeper’s wife at seeing Saravio faded when Eduin explained what they wanted.

“The back room? For a private meeting?” She looked from one to the other. Fear lurked behind the bruise-colored hollows around her eyes. The skin of her neck hung in loose folds and her apron, although clean, had been worn almost to tatters and looked several sizes too large for her.

Eduin caught a fragment of her thoughts, the worry about how much ale might be drunk and how much bread eaten, how much she might be able to charge without overstepping the bounds of gratitude.

“We cannot pay you for the room,” Eduin said in his most soothing tones, “only for food and drink, but if that is not enough—”

Saravio nudged the woman’s mind. “No, no!” she cried, clearly distressed. “What must you think of me? How could I take payment from the man who did so much for my Nance?”

Before Saravio could mention the glories of Naotalba’s service, Eduin pulled him away. Saravio was all too eager to stop whatever he was doing to praise his goddess, without any regard to urgency.

“We must make plans for tonight,” he told Saravio as they made their way back to their tiny rented room. “These people are frustrated and angry. They lack direction or leadership. Left on their own, they will spend their strength uselessly and then scatter like chaff upon the wind.”

Saravio went to the small brazier and poked through the bed of cold embers for any unburned bits of charcoal. “Naotalba’s foes are many and we are but few. Yet her might will prevail. This much she has promised me.”

Eduin chose his next words carefully. “Listen to me, my friend. There is more at stake than extolling Naotalba’s name. She has sent us to transform the world.”

“She has?”

“You yourself said it when we first met. It is the Towers who maintain the power of the
Comyn
lords, the Towers who supply them with terrible weapons like the
clingfire
that destroyed that farmer’s arm. If we kill one king, even Hastur himself, what then? They will only choose another. But if even a single Tower were to fall—”

“What?” Saravio cried with a surge of his old Tower-born arrogance. “Commoners rise against trained
leronyn?
”

If Eduin were to succeed with his plan to enlist Saravio against Varzil Ridenow, then he must find a better way to convince him.

“Are you defending them?” Eduin snarled, deliberately provoking a confrontation. “Have you been lying to me about how the Keepers treated you, thrust you out, turned their backs on Naotalba’s summons?”

Saravio whirled, eyes blazing. The air hummed, taut and dry. Eduin felt the tiny hairs along the back of his spine stiffen. His
laran
senses quivered with the shift in the atmosphere. With that inner sight, he saw the sky lowering, felt the massing of electrical power. This was no natural storm, of that he was sure. He lifted his head, nostrils flaring as if to catch a distant scent. At any moment, the tension would break.

Before Saravio could speak, Eduin raised his arms, spread them wide to the unseen heavens. “Naotalba!” he cried, his voice filling the little room. “Hear our prayers! Come to us—lead us—command us! We are yours!”

Saravio drew back, his eyes wide. Eduin drew breath to repeat his incantation, but just then, the very air split asunder in a deafening thunderous peal. His ears rang with it, even after it had died into rumbles. Through the papered windows, cold white brilliance burst across the room.

“Naotalba! Naotalba!” Saravio fell to his knees, hands outstretched, palms up, head flung back. He shook so violently that Eduin feared he might be on the brink of another seizure. His eyes showed as crescents of white. Again and again, he called out. Each time, the syllables became less understandable, until they merged into a single howl of raw emotion.

Eduin clamped down his
laran
barriers, lest any tinge of Saravio’s frenzy seep through. Deliberately, he strode to the door and opened it. Only a portion of the sky showed between the dark outlines of the buildings, yet that strip flickered with lightning. Thunder roared again, light and sound so intermixed that the storm must be directly overhead. The air shimmered with power.

He tasted ozone . . . and raw
laran
power. In his Tower work, he’d manipulated clouds and air currents to either bring rain to a parched region or lessen a torrent. He felt certain that some artifice fueled the storm, but the traces were too deep and subtle to identify. Only a few generations ago, Aldaran sorcerers commanded weather patterns beyond the power of ordinary Towers; some said they were even able to tap into the magnetic fields of the planet. He had never believed it possible, and he did not believe it now, yet some quality of the turbulence overhead, the tension between sky and ground, made him think of armies massing for attack, of weapons being readied.

At Hestral Tower, Eduin had designed and constructed an artificial matrix to focus and direct the natural weather-sensing talent of a young
laranzu
. Whatever happened to the boy, Eduin never learned, for shortly thereafter, Rakhal’s army had attacked and all had fallen into chaos. Now he stretched out his mind to the storm, searching, and came away more puzzled than before. It had none of the personal stamp of the young Tower worker, or of any other individual, for that matter.

Eduin drew away from the door, suddenly weary. In the last few tendays, he had used his
laran
more than he had in the last ten years. His muscles quivered, and he knew he should eat, despite his absence of appetite. So should Saravio, who rarely gave thought to such matters.
Laran
work consumed huge amounts of energy, which must be replaced. Eduin’s thoughts wandered to his early days at Arilinn, where Lunilla, who acted as foster mother to all the novices, would pester him until he’d eaten enough to satisfy her. She always had a kind word for him, and never guessed the secrets behind his smiles. What would she think if she could see him now?

Useless musings,
he told himself. Wherever she was, if indeed she still lived, they would never meet again.

On the floor, Saravio had fallen forward, his face hidden under the fall of his hair. He rocked forward and back, crooning to himself. Fine tremors ran through the muscles of his shoulders and legs. Even through his shirt, Eduin saw the outlines of Saravio’s ribs.

You need food and rest, my friend,
he thought with an unexpected tinge of compassion. He placed one hand on the other man’s back—

Once again, the image of the woman with the face of ice, dressed in a gown of moonless black, rose up behind his eyes, a sending from Saravio’s mind.

Naotalba . . . Naotalba . . .
Saravio’s thoughts battered him like the relentless rhythm of a drum.

This time, however, the vision did not catch Eduin by surprise. His confidence in his own mental abilities had returned along with the rush of memories—of who he had been at Arilinn, at Hali, and especially at Hestral, when he had thrown back Rakhal’s army.

Why not use Saravio’s own visions to ensure his cooperation? Saravio so clearly needed a cause to which to devote himself. Why not let Naotalba herself supply one?

He would have to proceed with caution, weaving his own intentions into the other man’s hallucinations. Closing his eyes, he dropped to the floor and drew out his starstone.

As carefully as he could, Eduin began shaping the visual images. Saravio was so caught up in the frenzy of his belief that he accepted the changes without question. Eduin imagined the woman—Naotalba—lifting her arms in summons. He showed her at the head of an army of men and women, all gazing at her with rapt, worshipful eyes, all ready to die—or to kill—at her command. She pointed to Saravio and from her mouth came the words Eduin placed there.

“Naotalba! Naotalba!”
Saravio’s physical body crouched even lower. In the vision, he prostrated himself before her.
“I am yours to command!”

Slowly, the pale-skinned woman smiled. Eduin drew the moment out to heighten Saravio’s desperate loyalty.

Eduin painted a landscape of mental energy. Naotalba and her ragtag army stood upon a ruined plain. Steam rose from rents in the parched earth. The sky lowered, red and congested, above them. A wind, tinged with ice from Zandru’s coldest hell, pulled at their hair and clothing. The vision-Saravio moaned and pressed his face against her foot.

She turned, pointing. Eduin shaped a rocky tor, and upon its peak, a Tower. He imagined it as white and smooth, like Hali. He showed the people crying out in despair. Then lightnings flew from the hand of Naotalba, lacing the air. When they touched the sides of the Tower, the resulting explosions left jagged fissures. Fragments of wall tumbled down and the Tower rocked upon its foundations. The people cheered wildly. They waved their fists and stamped their feet. Frenzy lit their faces.

Eduin held the scene as the people rushed forward, but was careful not to direct any action upon the figure of Saravio. This was not from any squeamishness about imposing his own will on the other man. He’d captured Saravio’s visions easily enough and shaped them to his own purpose. No, in order for Eduin’s plan to succeed, Saravio’s commitment must arise from own deepest wishes. It was he who would be the visible spearhead. Eduin could not risk public exposure. Saravio would take the brunt of any reprisals should their plans go awry. In that event, he, Eduin, must be free to try again, and that meant not presenting himself as the leader.

In the shared vision, the figure of Saravio lifted his head. Eduin saw the glisten of imaginary tears upon his cheeks. Saravio looked not like a man demented, but a man transfixed. Awe had given way to acceptance and then to utter joy. A light shone in his eyes, a light not of the flesh but of something beyond. Envy stirred in Eduin, though he scarcely recognized it.

Eduin willed the figure of Naotalba closer. She reached out her ghostly arms and raised Saravio to his feet. Then, bending close, she whispered in his ear.

Saravio’s eyes never left her face, but his assent was swift and unequivocal, his obedience complete.

“Then go—go and save my people! Lead them in the ways of righteousness and truth! Throw down the Towers and all the evil-doers who dwell therein!
”

When Eduin returned to himself, he was sitting on the floor, his back muscles on the edge of spasm, his hands balled into fists, his jaw clenched. Saravio lay on the cot, gulping air and moaning softly.

Eduin clambered to his feet. His body cried out for food. He went to the shelf where the remains of yesterday’s supper lay wrapped—stale bread and cheese, a couple of shriveled apples, along with a half-full skin bottle of sour watered ale. He ate the apples and half the cheese, then forced himself to leave the rest for Saravio. He would have to resume his Tower exercises if he were to do any more
laran
work.

Eduin lowered himself to the cot, curling his body into the empty corner. Saravio had started snoring gently, but Eduin fell into an exhausted slumber. His last waking thought was that the storm had abated.