Mother of Lies (2 page)

Cienu
, god of mirth and chance

Demern
, god of law and justice

Eriander
, god-goddess of sex and madness

Hrada
, goddess of crafts and skill

Mayn
, goddess of wisdom

Nastrar
, god of animals and nature

Nula
, goddess of pity

Sinura
, goddess of health

Ucr
, god of prosperity and abundance

Veslih
, goddess of the hearth and home

Weru
, god of storm and battle

Xaran
, goddess of death and evil (known as the Mother, the    Old One, Mother of Lies, Womb of the World, &c.)

PRINCIPAL MORTALS

Most of the characters in the story are initiates of mystery cults, meaning each has sworn allegiance to a single god or goddess. They are listed here with their loyalties and their locations at the end of
Children of Chaos
:

On the Florengian Face

Doge Piero
, ruler of the city of Celebre, is reported to be near death.

Dogaressa Oliva Assichie
, his wife, is reported to be acting as his regent.

Marno Cavotti
, a Hero of Weru, is leading the Florengian Resistance, from an unknown location.

Stralg Hragson
, bloodlord of the Heroes of Weru (“the Fist of Weru”), location unknown, is still fighting a war he began fifteen years ago.

On the Vigaelian Face

The Children of Hrag:

Saltaja Hragsdor
, Stralg Hragson’s sister and greatly feared regent—and a Chosen of Xaran, known as the Queen of Shadows—is asleep in the palace at Tryfors.

Horold Hragson
, her youngest brother, a Hero of Weru and satrap of Kosord, is on his way to Tryfors to reclaim his fugitive wife, Ingeld Narsdor, because it is only his marriage to her that gives him legal claim to rule as consort of Kosord.

(
Ingeld Narsdor
, a Daughter of Veslih and hereditary dynast of Kosord, is in a boat heading downstream from Tryfors, but knows by pyromancy that Horold is heading in her direction.)

Cutrath Horoldson
, son of Horold and Ingeld, a Hero of Weru, is in the fortress at Nardalborg, waiting to cross over the Edge to fight in the Florengian war.

Heth “Hethson,”
a Hero of Weru and bastard son of Therek Hragson, is commandant of Nardalborg.

The children of Doge Piero:

Eldest son
Dantio
, who is also a Witness of Mayn known as Mist, is driving a chariot cross-country in the Tryfors area.

Son
Benard
, a Hand of Anziel, is fleeing Kosord in the same boat as his lover, Ingeld, knowing that he will die if Horold’s warbeasts catch him.

Son
Orlad
(formerly Orlando), a newly initiated Hero of Werist, is in the Tryfors area, having just killed Therek Hragson.

Daughter
Fabia
, a Chosen of Xaran, is traveling with Benard, fleeing a forced betrothal to Cutrath Horoldson.

Others:

Arbanerik Kranson
, a Hero of Weru and hordeleader of “New Dawn,” the Vigaelian rebels, is believed to have his headquarters not far from Tryfors.

Horth Wigson
, a Ucrist reputed to be the richest man in Vigaelia, and Fabia’s foster father, is with Fabia.

Deceased but relevant to the story:

Karvak Hragson
, a Hero of Weru and satrap of Jat-Nogul, was slain in self-defense by Paola Apicella.

Paola Apicella
, a Chosen of Xaran, originally Fabia’s wet nurse and later her foster mother and wife of Horth Wigson, was slain by Perag Hrothgatson on Saltaja’s orders in retribution for the death of her brother Karvak.

Perag Hrothgatson
, a Hero of Weru, was slain by Fabia for murdering Paola.

Therek Hragson
, a Hero of Weru and late satrap of Tryfors, lies dead on a hillside near the city, slain by Orlad Celebre.

Part I
A
N
U
NWELCOME
V
ISITOR

MARNO CAVOTTI

was better known as the Mutineer. Bloodlord Stralg, the Fist of Weru, had promised years ago that he would buy the Mutineer’s corpse for its weight in gold or pay six times that much for the man alive and fit enough to be tortured. The offer still stood. Any hamlet or city that gave him refuge would be razed and all its inhabitants slain—this offer was still good, too. The Mutineer was coming home, to the city of his birth, which he had not seen since his childhood. It was entirely fitting that he travel under the shadow and protection of a storm.

The storm’s approach had been visible for days, for it was one of the great sea storms, born above the steamy waters of the Florengian Ocean. From there it had spun out edgeward, over coastal jungles and swamps, to wreak havoc in the Fertile Circle that made up most of the Face. Like most of its kind, it came at Celebre from the east. Day by day it rose higher over the hazy wall of the world, white at noon and black at dawn; bloodred at sunset, ruling the sky and looming above the landscape. By the time it reached the city walls its greatest violence was spent, but it could still lash with gales and drench with killer rains. It could lift roofs and fell trees, flood low areas, wash out bridges. Amid so much evil a little more would not be noticed, so the storm closed its black wings around the traveler and hid him from those who looked for him to slay him.

He splashed along the muddy track beside a small wagon laden with amphorae of wine, drawn by an ancient guanaco named Misery, whose persistent humming showed that it was, indeed, unhappy—justifiably so, although Cavotti was careful to stay on the upwind side, where he could protect the animal from flying branches and other debris. Delayed by fallen trees and swollen streams, he worried that he would not arrive before the gates closed at sunset. The day had already faded to a twilight gloom when the walls and towers of Celebre emerged from the mist, but the rules said that the gates must stay open until the curfew bell sounded, and rules were rules.

Head down, Cavotti plodded under the great archway into the narrow barbican, where the strident creak and rattle of his wheels reverberated from the walls and wind howled along the canyon, driving rain before it. This was the moment of greatest peril, when he must satisfy the guards, when the inner and outer gates could be swung shut to trap him. Sure enough, a man shouted and ran out from the guard room.

He was a skinny black-haired Florengian, a boy sporting a bronze helmet and sword, both too large for him, but he wore a baldric in the doge’s colors slung across his chain-mailed chest, and the bull’s horn hanging on it gave him authority. Armed or not, a mere extrinsic was no threat—Cavotti could break his neck before he even drew. Even if he blew his horn and summoned another dozen like him, the intruder would be in little danger.

“Snotty scum, the Foul One take you, dragging honest men out in this fuck’n weather!” The boy squinted into the rain. Only the most junior member of the guard would be sent out on such a day.

Cavotti hauled on Misery’s cheek strap; the wagon rattled to a halt. He bowed respectfully. “May it please your honor, I am Siero of Syiso, bondman of noble Master Scarpol of Treianne, bringing produce from his estate to his palace here in Celebre, on the Piazza Colonna. And more fuck’n rain has gone down my fuck’n neck than yours, may it please your honor.” All the names he mentioned were genuine, except that they did not apply to him. He kept his eyes humbly lowered.

“Pig filth!” said the boy with the sword. “What sort of produce?”

Then two more men emerged from the guard room, and the odds shifted drastically, because they were pale-skinned Vigaelians, with flaxen hair and beards cropped to stubble. They wore only leather sandals and striped cotton loincloths tied with a colored sash, but their brass collars marked them as Heroes of Weru. They moved around the wagon and out of Cavotti’s view.

Awareness of the peril lurking behind him was almost enough to make Cavotti’s hair stand on end. If it literally did so, it would reveal his own brass collar, and then he would die. It was to hide that collar on occasions such as this that he had let his hair and beard grow in. The collar was the reason he had timed his visit for this howling storm, as it was the only time he could reasonably wear a cloth tied over his head and a leather cloak with a high neck, instead of just the loose-draped chlamys that was young men’s normal garb on the Florengian Face. The garments that disguised him made him vulnerable, for a Werist who tried to battleform with clothes on ran the risk of being entangled in them, and would certainly be distracted and hampered by them. The two near-naked ice devils could rip off their rags in an instant.

“Wine, may it please your honor,” he told the boy. “The chalk marks on the bottles say that they are bound for my master’s palace, not for sale.” Writing might impress the guard, although he would not be able to read it any more than Cavotti could.

“Open the stinking cover, you diseased, ditch-borne progeny of a toad.”

Cavotti obeyed, rain-chilled fingers fumbling with waterlogged ropes, but as he pulled back a corner, he could turn enough to take surreptitious note of the ice devils. They were just standing there, staring at him, arms folded, backs to the wind. Wearing only those wet wisps of cotton, they ought to be freezing in this deluge, but Vigaelians felt the cold less. The warriors Stralg had brought over the Edge fifteen years ago had worn massive garments called palls. Florengia’s climate had taught them to wear as little as possible.

Stralg maintained a small garrison in Celebre, but his men normally left routine guard duty to the doge’s Florengians. Why were these two on the gate today, and why would they bother coming out in the year’s worst weather to stare at a solitary peasant?

“All of it!” shouted the boy, adding some salacious imperatives.