Lyrec (33 page)

Pale and drawn, he shuffled past the gnarled brazier on legs almost completely numb. He knew he was slowly bleeding to death, but he’d come too far to die before completing this final task that might tip the balance a little against his misguided crimes; he had certainly come too far to be slain by the insane women inhabiting the shrine.
 
He slouched to the door and with great effort hoisted the bar meant to protect the innermost room from invasion and set it across the door. His whole body shivered as he leaned against the bar and waited for his legs to recover. Upon shuffling in a circle back toward the candles, he discovered that he was not alone in the room.

At first glance the woman looked very beautiful. She had long hair framing her face, and the skylight caused purple highlights to shine through it. Her profile was sharp but not severe. He could not believe she hadn’t heard him enter before now. He’d all but walked past her, and his gasps of breath sounded like drumbeats to him. Was she enraptured by the goddess?

He went toward her fearfully, expecting her to look at him and cry out in alarm at any moment. He would kill her if she did … somehow. He would not be stopped.

By the time he reached her, the woman still revealed no awareness of his presence. Slyur closed his hand over her mouth and jerked back her head, expecting a struggle. She offered no resistance and continued to look straight ahead as if drugged or under a spell. He released her and stepped back, but his legs gave out and he dropped to one knee. It cracked loudly against the boards. Kneeling painfully on his hands and knees as if in obeisance to the woman, he regarded her again. She was not in communion with the goddess. She was some deficient, mindless creature. She could cause him no trouble. Slyur got to his feet again and shuffled to the black brazier.

He delicately touched the coldness in his back, found the wound open and sticky with oozing blood. More disturbing than that, while he could feel his back with his hand, he could not feel his hand against his back. Soon the numbness presaging death would crawl up into his brain.

Slyur knelt before the candles, his face pressed against the boards. He began to pray for protection and forgiveness. Could she not see how he had been deceived? Could she not forgive him—Anralys, mother of them all? Within her heart was supposed to be a bottomless well of forgiveness. He begged her to pay heed and warn the other gods of this terrible impostor threatening all their children, and maybe the gods themselves.

A stab of pain warped him. His legs stretched out stiffly behind him. When the pain abated, Slyur lay wheezing, his cheek in a smear of drool. He looked across the room at the woman, who continued to ignore him. Who had brought her here? he wondered. It was inconceivable that she was a recruit for this miserable, mad order. Or was it impossible? Could she have been someone normal but now trapped within a spell by the Sisters? No, he thought not. Such magic violated their beliefs. More likely she was one of the strays the Sisters were widely known to take in—women who’d been mistreated or abandoned, or both. One could see rightly enough
why
she’d been abandoned. She had less value than a stone for topping a wall—at least the stone would stay where you put it, whereas this creature would have tumbled off in short order. Yet he envied her woebegone plight—at least she was looked after and had no fears, no anxieties. No white-robed spectres haunting her dreams. Wherever she lived in the recesses of her mind, it was surely peaceful and carefree. Slyur glanced down at his scarred, empty wrist and cursed his life for where it had led him.

The dark-haired woman did something then that amazed him: she turned her head and actually faced him. Almost as if she had heard him thinking of her. He realized that she had not faced
him
, and he turned with mounting trepidation to see what
had
drawn her attention.

The goddess in her aspect had arrived in absolute silence—as silently as…Chagri. Her face was sculpted of rainbows, inexpressibly beautiful to behold. She stood half-again as tall as the Hespet, her naked body molded, smooth and shiny like hammered copper; the nipples of her breasts as sharp as black thorns. Despite the beauty of her colorful face, her aspect was fearsome—not the aspect of Beauty, but, rather, a side of Anralys of which he had no recognition, and he thought suddenly that she must be dressed for war against her wicked brother. She had come to help him.

Her gentle voice, as mellifluous as a
cymrallin
, said, “You have asked for my assistance, priest of the wargod.”

“Your protection, Anralys. From someone who masquerades as Chagri.”

“You accuse someone of impersonating a god?” she asked.

“I do. He has deceived me. We have to destroy him. You, and Voed ”

Anralys’s rainbows flared brighter.
“I
have to do nothing. I am not to be ordered, especially by one such as yourself. First we must uncover the truth of your claim.”

“Truth?” He couldn’t understand her absurd skepticism. She was a god—she must know everything that went on.
 
And then it came to him that here he was once more, doing the very thing that had brought him to this precipice: he stood before a god, debating as casually as anything. But
was
he? How could he ever know? “The truth?” he repeated sharply.

“You must face your accused,” she proclaimed, “and deny him.”

Before he could respond, the goddess had turned away—he assumed that she meant to leave. But Anralys wasn’t leaving in the sense he meant. She turned to face him, and the copper of her skin grew brighter and seemed to ripple out in waves. The candles began to flutter. She grew too bright to watch and Slyur shielded his eyes. When he was able to take his hand away, the figure before him was Anralys no more.

Chagri stood before there. The war-god’s serpent-like laugh deafened the priest. Chagri swaggered about and even gave a mildly amused glance at Yadani, who gaped still, marginally aware of something where he stood.

“In the time since I last spoke to you,” Chagri began as he strode about, “I’ve stood on the other side of your world and led two nations, each greater and grander than this Secamelan, to their deaths. They had once been the greatest of allies, but they went to their graves the bitterest of enemies. I am stronger today by a million deaths. Yet, in all that time, Slyur, you could not kill one helpless wretched little girl. Not even under my guidance!”

Too amazed and horrified to speak, Slyur could only avert his eyes. He concentrated upon the whorls and lines in the shiny floor and edged closer to madness with each thud of his heartbeat.

“You don’t comprehend any of this, do you? Hespet!”
 

Slyur’s head jerked up. He tried then to answer, but his voice had been swallowed. Chagri grinned. “Allow me to inform you of some minor facts, most of which you have wanted to know all of your life.

“For instance, there are
no gods
. You weak people create them to fill your needs, to promise yourselves a future where you see none, to comfort you in defeat and death. None of that exists really—no Voed, no Chagri, no Anralys or Kelmod. No land of Mordun where the dead are rooted like withered trees in the clotted soil. Nothing—there is only
nothing
in the end for the likes of you.” The smoldering shape with scarlet eyes shrank and reformed as it spoke. It became the faceless white-cowled figure of Miradomon. “You’ve served me all you’re able, whimpering priest. I fed very well last night—I can afford to give up one so hypocritical as you.”

Slyur bellowed and flung himself at the robed form. Miradomon stood his ground, making no move to defend himself. Slyur’s forearms punched into the robe as if it were soft dough. Too late he realized his mistake—his arms could not pull free. His head was hammered back so fast that his neck nearly snapped. He howled with pain; more pain than he had ever endured, pain that made the loss of his hand and every phantom pain ever since seem trivial. Pain rooted in every cell of his body. In that instant he went mad and began to struggle wildly, no longer thinking to escape, but to reach his one good hand into the darkness within the cowl and claw to shreds whatever dwelled there. His body turned red. The skin began to blister. His consciousness started to fade, but before he fainted, Slyur lurched forward and sank his teeth into the throat of the cowl. Blackness devoured him.

In shock Miradomon released him and reached up with fingers no longer black, but green and decaying, to touch the spot where golden fluid leaked from a circular tear. At his touch the wound vanished.

Someone pounded at the barred door and shouted to be let in. Miradomon studied the burnt corpse of the Hespet, watching its life fade away but unable to absorb what he had directly destroyed. Then he spotted Yadani across the room. For a moment he thought she must have stolen in while he dealt with Slyur and impossibly had gone unnoticed. But no one had crept in and the creature, when he probed her, had no more personality than a plant. Miradomon, destroyer of worlds, remembered his desire for a queen and decided this mindless husk might serve his needs. What an amusing joke on these creatures, he thought, to have them outlived by one who was useless to them all. He went to her and lifted her by cupping his hands around her chin. “You will see the universe in all its possibilities,” he whispered to her expressionless eyes. Together, he and his empty vessel vanished.

The pounding on the door continued, but there was no one left inside to remove the wooden bar.

*****

Night came slowly. The army of Secamelan pushed on until the final vestiges of twilight had been erased in darkness. Then Faubus gave the order and the weary soldiers dismounted. The veterans among them knew that tomorrow would bring with it the aches and pains of bodies unused to this much activity. These men ate a light supper and turned in. The younger soldiers whom they could not convince to emulate them remained awake, chatting and joking. They preferred to follow the example of their leader, not understanding that he would have retired with the veterans were it not for the necessity of making plans with his captains.

Faubus and his leaders sat around a fire. They agreed that surprise would not be on their side, that border patrols would have sounded the alarm long before they came in sight of the castle Ladoman. It was even conceivable that a spy rode that way right now with the news of their coming.

One of the men jokingly pointed out that there must have been dozens of spies in Secamelan, because anyone with half their senses would have murdered all the competition to dwell outside the swamp and stench of Ladoman.

What Faubus hoped was that Ladomirus would conform to ancient tactics of honor and send a champion out for single combat against a champion of theirs, the winner carrying the day for all. Too many years had passed since such a conflict had been enjoined, however, and the fat king was too great a schemer to be trusted. Therefore, although they could pick a champion, they must still arrive prepared for what might become a long siege. That meant their battle machines would have to be built while they still had decent trees to work with—which meant hauling the machines from Kerbecula Forest across the treacherous bogs. That would cost them a great deal in time and power, leaving fat Ladomirus to ponder and plot. So Faubus proposed they split into two divisions once Kerbecula had been reached. The first, his, would march straight on to the castle with the best infantrymen and the chosen champion. The other group would erect and transport the siege machines. If things went against the first group, then the appearance of the second squad would hopefully suck the fighting spirit out of the Ladomantine mercenaries.

In the end he had his way, overcoming the few dissenters—older men who more likely resented being commanded by one so young. They could not have known that Tynec had chosen Faubus
because
he was young and apparently inexperienced. Just as Miradomon did not know that, because of Cheybal’s tutelage, Faubus was the best man for the job.

The young commander noted the quiet dissension, but said nothing of it; they were bound to the army and, as they lost and won their esteem in battle, so would their respect or resentment of him be determined on the field. He would not disappoint them there.

Dismissing his captains, Faubus remained alone for a time to reflect upon his plan, reaffirming to his own satisfaction that it was the best plan. Just one path led straight into the murky country, and brazenness was the best choice of action. He hoped Ladomirus was as great a coward as the many stories told would have him be.

Unable to debate the matter further but unable to sleep as well, Faubus went off in search of Lyrec and the bizarre black cat. He hadn’t noticed where they’d settled once camp had been made, and now, in the dark, he did not know for certain if he could pick them out from the hundreds of sleeping, idling men. When he’d made two circuits of the entire encampment, however, and found no sign of them at all, he could not satisfy himself that the reason was the night and its shadows. He knew, of course, that nothing could be done. He could sound no alarm without condemning himself to death as a traitor. He had no choice but to turn in.

The next morning his suspicions were proved. The horse, cat, and rider had disappeared without a trace.

Although he dreaded that he had made a terrible mistake in trusting the stranger, Faubus had no choice but to continue on with his army toward treacherous Ladoman. He prayed to the gods that the treachery remained confined to the landscape alone.

Chapter 23.

The yard of Grohd’s tavern lay deserted. Not even an animal stirred. Lyrec’s first thought upon seeing it was that the place had been abandoned. He recalled the threat delivered by Fulpig, the Ladomantine bully, to return here and take vengeance on Grohd. Looking over the yard, he found that possibility all too formidable.

Borregad jumped down before the horse had stopped, and ran across the yard to the tree where he had abandoned the
crex
. “It’s gone!” he cried. “Someone’s stolen it.”