Dreams of Steel (32 page)

I went from the caverns of death to a plain of death. I had gone there only rarely. I associated that plain with the battle during which Kina had devoured hordes of demons. A great black figure strode across the plain, her movements stylized, like Gunni dances. Each step shook the plain. I felt the shaking. It was as real as an earthquake.

She wore nothing. Her shape was not quite human. She had four arms and eight breasts. Each hand clutched something suggestive of death or warfare. She wore a necklace of baby skulls. From her girdle, like bunches of withered bananas, hung strings of what I first took to be severed thumbs but which, as she stamped closer, proved to be more singular and potent male appendages.

Her hairless head was shaped more like an egg than a human head. At first it impressed me as insectoid but she had a mouth like that of a carnivore. Blood dribbled down her chin. Her eyes were large and filled with fire.

The stench of old death preceded her.

That unexpected apparition shook me to the core.

And from some corner of memory Croaker stepped with his irreverent and sarcastic outlook. Old Busybody smells ripe for her centennial bath. Might even be time for her to brush her teeth.

The thought was so startling I looked around. Had someone spoken?

I was alone. It was just a thought in his style, loosened by the strain. When I looked forward again the apparition had faded. I shuddered.

The smell lingered. It was not imaginary. A man passing stopped, startled. He sniffed, looked odd, hurried off. I shuddered again.

Was that how it would be? Dreams awake and asleep, both?

I shuddered a third time, frightened. My will was not strong enough to resist that.

Several times during the day the stench came back. Mercifully, the apparition did not accompany it. I did not make myself vulnerable by opening channels of power again.

Narayan came when it was time. I had not seen him since morning. He had not seen me. He looked at me oddly. I asked, "What's the matter?"

"There's something... An aura? Yes. You feel like the Daughter of Night should feel." He became embarrassed. "The initiations start in an hour. I talked to the priests. No woman has ever joined us before. There are no precedents. They decided you'll have to face it the way everyone does."

"I take it that's not..."

"The candidates stand naked before Kina while she judges their worthiness."

"I see." To say I was not thrilled would be an understatement, though, initially, my objection was a matter of vanity. I looked like hell. Like a famine victim, withering limbs and bloating belly. We'd seldom eaten well since we had fled from Dejagore.

I gave it some thought. It presented me with little choice, really. If I refused to disrobe, I suspected, I would not leave the grove alive. And I needed the Stranglers. I had plans for them. "I'll do what has to be done."

Narayan was relieved. "You won't have to expose yourself to everyone."

"No? Just to the priests and jamadars and other candidates and whoever is helping put on the show?"

"It's been arranged. There will be six candidates, the minimum permitted. There will be one high priest, his assistant, one jamadar as chief Strangler, with orders to strike down any chanter who raises his eyes from the floor. You may pick those three men yourself if you like."

Odd. "Why so thoughtful?"

Narayan whispered, "I shouldn't tell you. Opinion is divided about whether you're the true Daughter of Night. Those who do believe expect you to have the priest, his assistant, and the chief Strangler put to death after Kina bestows her favor. They want to risk the minimum number of men."

"What about the other candidates?"

"They won't remember."

"I see."

"I'll be among the chanters as your sponsor."

"I see." I wondered what would happen to him if I failed. "I don't care who the priests and Strangler are.

He grinned. "Excellent, Mistress. You must prepare. Ram. Help me put the screen up again. Mistress, this is the robe you'll wear till you stand before the goddess." He handed me a white bundle. The robe looked like it had been used for generations without having been mended or cleaned.

I got ready.

Chapter Sixty-Five

The temple had changed inside. Fires burned, dull and red, around the perimeter. Their light sent shadows skulking over ugly carvings. A huge idol had materialized. It was a close representation of the thing from my vision, although equipped with an ornate headdress loaded with gold and silver and gemstones. The idol's eyes were cabochon rubies, each a nation's ransom. Its fangs were crystal.

Three heads lay under the idol's raised left foot. Priests were dragging a corpse away when my group of candidates entered. The dead man had been tortured before he had been beheaded.

Ten men lay on their faces to the right, ten more to the left. A four-foot aisle passed between groups. I recognized Narayan's back. The twenty chanted continuously, "Come O Kina unto the world and make Thy Children whole we beseech Thee Great Mother," so swiftly the words ran together. I was last in line. The chief Strangler stepped into the aisle behind me, black rumel in hand. I suspect his main function was to stop a candidate who developed cold feet, not to eliminate chanters who peeped.

Twenty feet of clear space lay between the chanters and the dais where the goddess stood. The three heads lay at eye level. Two appeared to watch our approach. The third stared at the sole of Kina's foot, clawed toes inches from its nose.

Two priests stood to my right, beside a tall stand supporting several golden vessels.

The ceremony started out basic. Each candidate reached a mark and dropped his robe, moved to another mark on a line, abased himself and murmured a ritual prayer. The prayer just petitioned Kina to accept the appellant: in the last case, me, as her daughter. But when I spoke the words a gust of wind blew through. A new presence filled the place. It was cold and hungry and carried the smell of carrion. The assistant priest jumped. This was not customary.

We candidates rose, knelt with our palms resting atop our thighs. The head priest ran through some extended rigamarole in a language neither Taglian nor Deceivers' cant. He presented us to the idol as though it were Kina herself. While he yammered, his assistant poured dark fluid from a tall spouted container into one like a gravy boat. Once he stopped chattering the head priest made holy passes over that smaller vessel, lifted it, presented it to the goddess, went to the far end of the line, placed the pouring end of the vessel to the candidate's lips and filled his mouth. The man had his eyes closed. He swallowed.

The next man took his with his eyes open. He choked. The priest showed no reaction, nor did he when two more men did the same.

My turn.

Narayan was a liar. He had prepared me but he had told me it was all illusion. This was no illusion. It was blood-with some drug added that gave it a slightly herby, bitter taste. Human blood? I do not know. Our seeing that body dragged away was no accident. We were supposed to think about it.

I got through it. I'd never endured anything like it but I'd been through terrible things before. I neither hesitated nor twitched. I told myself I was just minutes from taking control of the most terrible power in this end of the world.

That presence moved again.

It might take control of me.

The chief priest handed the vessel to his assistant, who returned it to the stand, began to chant.

The lights went out.

Absolute darkness engulfed the temple. I was startled, thinking something unusual had happened. When no one got excited I changed my mind. Must be part of the initiation.

That darkness lasted half a minute. Midway through, a scream rent the air, filled with despair and outrage.

Light returned as suddenly as it had gone.

I was stunned.

It was hard to take everything in.

There were only five candidates now. The idol had moved. Its raised foot had fallen, crushing one of the heads. Its other foot had risen. The body of the man who had been two to my left lay beneath it. His head, held by the hair, dangled from one of the idol's hands. Before the lights had gone out that hand had clutched a bunch of bones. Another hand that had clutched a sword still did so but now that blade glistened. There was blood on the idol's lips and chin and fangs. Its eyes gleamed.

How had they managed it? Was there some mechanical engine inside the idol? Had the priest and his assistant done the murder? They would have had to move fast. And I had not heard a sound but the scream.

The priests seemed startled, too.

The chief priest darted to the pile of robes, flung one my way, resumed his place, ran through one abbreviated chant, cried out, "She has come! She is among us! Praised be Kina, who has sent her Daughter to stand beside us."

I covered my nakedness.

The normal flow had been disrupted somehow. The results had the priests ecstatic and, at the same time, at a loss what to do next.

What do you do when old prophecies come true? I've never met a priest who honestly expected miracles in his own lifetime. For them miracles are like good wine, best when aged.

They decided to suspend normal business and go straight to the celebration. That meant candidates got initiated without standing before Kina's judgment. It meant human sacrifices forgotten. Quite unwittingly I saved the lives of twenty enemies of the Stranglers scheduled to be tortured and murdered during that night. The priests freed them to tell the world that the Deceivers were real and had found their messiah, that those who did not come to Kina soon would be devoured in the Year of the Skulls.

A fun bunch of guys, Croaker would say.

Narayan took me back to our fire, where he told Ram to drive off anyone with the temerity to bother me. He settled me with profuse apologies for not having prepared me better. He sat beside me and stared into the flames.

"It's come, eh?" I asked after a while.

He understood. "It's come. It's finally real. Now there's no doubt left."

"Uhm." I left him to his thoughts for a while before I asked, "How did they do that with the idol, Narayan?"

"What?"

"How did they make it move while it was dark?"

He shrugged, looked at me, grinned feebly, said, "I don't know. That's never happened before. I've seen at least twenty initiations. Always one of the candidates is chosen to die. But the idol never moves."

"Oh." I could think of nothing else till I asked, "Did you feel anything in there? Like something was with us?"

"Yes." He was shivering. The night was not cold. He said, "Try to sleep, Mistress. We have to get started early. I want to get you to that physician."

I lay me down, grimly reluctant to drift off into the land of nightmare, but I did not stay awake long. I was too exhausted, physically and emotionally. The last thing I saw was Narayan squatting there, staring into the flames.

Much to think on, Narayan. Much to think on, now.

There was no dreams that night. But there was sickness aplenty in the morning. I threw up till there was nothing left but bile.

Chapter Sixty-Six

The imp drifted away from the grove. The woman had not been hard to find, though that had taken longer than he had hoped. Now for the man.

Nothing. For a long, long time, not a trace.

He was not in Taglios. A frantic search produced nothing. Logic suggested he would search for his woman. He would not know her present whereabouts so he would head toward her last known location.

He was not at the ford. There was no sign he had visited Ghoja. Therefore, he had not. They would be talking about it still, as they were talking about him still in Taglios.

No Croaker. But a whole horde was headed for the ford, descending from the city. The woman had just missed meeting them headed north. A stroke of luck, that, but there was no way to keep her from learning he was alive. Not in the long run.

The prime mission was to keep them apart, anyway.

Was he amongst that mob? Couldn't be. Their talk would have pointed him out.

The imp resumed his quest. If the man had not crossed at Ghoja and was not amongst the horde, then he would cross the river elsewhere. Sneaking.

He visited Vehdna-Bota last because it seemed the least likely crossing. He expected to find nothing there. Nothing was what he found. But this was a significant nothing. A company of archers was supposed to be stationed there.

He tracked those archers and found his man.

He had to make a decision. Run to his mistress- which would take time because he would have to find her-or take steps on his own?

He chose the latter course. The rainy season was fast approaching. It might do his job for him. They could not get together if they could not cross the river.

Amidst a moonless night the growing Ghoja bridge collapsed. Most of its timberwork washed away. The engineers could not figure out what went wrong. They understood only that it was too late to rebuild this year.

Any Taglian forces not back across before the waters rose would spend half a year on the Shadowlander side.

Satisfied, the imp went looking for his mistress.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

The archers halted in sight of the Taglian main camp. "We're safe now," Croaker told the prince. "Let's make a proper entrance."

Cavalry had found them two days earlier, forty miles north. Horsemen had visited regularly since yesterday. The archers had kept their mouths shut admirably. Willow Swan had led one patrol. He had not recognized anyone.

Croaker had had the captain borrow horses. The archers' transport consisted only of mules enough to carry what the soldiers themselves could not. Two mounts had arrived an hour ago, saddled.

The prince dressed up as a prince. Croaker donned what he called his work clothes, a warlord's outfit given him back when he had been every Taglian's hero. He had not taken it along when he had gone south the first time.

He dug out the Company standard and reassembled it. "I'm ready. Prince?"