Moving Water (19 page)

When Beryx came round he lay a good while before, eyes still closed, he whispered, “Sorry . . . Alkir.”

“Sorry?” I tried not to explode. “You?”

“My fault.” The lashes lay on his ashy cheek, long and black, as if too heavy to lift. “Had to go and fight her. Act.
Blighted
fool. And you had . . . worst of it.”

“Not by much.” I had carefully ignored the full import of that defeat. “If I could have fought for myself. . . .”

“Don't be—idiot. The Well. Nothing you could do.”

Callissa brought the water-bottle in and began, somewhat brusquely, to lave his galled right wrist. Then a thillian made her notice the debris. Her eyes widened. As if we were the twins' age she demanded, “What on earth have you two been doing?”

“The Lady,” I retorted. “Not us.”

She dropped the bottle. I pointed to his hand. “That should have been mine.”

“But,” she stammered. “Why? Why you . . . ?”

“Hostage,” Beryx whispered. “Should see point . . . Fylghjos. Stayed in the Guard. Why?”

I saw. “You'd do better,” I said grimly, “if I'd stayed on her side.”

The rudiments of a grin emerged. “Get stupider . . . with age, Fylghjos.” At which Callissa, rallying, exploded, “Well, I don't see! What is this? What do you mean?”

He opened his eyes. “Would you rather,” he said weakly, “burn your own hand, ma'am—or let it happen to the boys?”

She shrank. Then she whispered, “But you. . . .”

His face grew mulish. “Nobody shall suffer . . . in my place.”

“Did it occur to you,” I asked in some indignation, “that I might feel the same?”

His eyes flew wide. “Oh, Four!” And at that Callissa boiled right over.

“Stop being so stupid and heroic and honorable and talk sense, the pair of you! If somebody had to, it's better that—I mean—at least—” As she foundered, his eyes opened on a quite impish glint.

“Quite right, ma'am. Better me than him. No family . . . for a start.”

She turned so red it could have burnt. Her eyes flinched away. After a moment she began, “I didn't mean to—I shouldn't have—” And decidedly but gently he cut her short.

“Then call it a debt from the fever. And leave it at that.”

* * * * *

He refused the soporific of yeldtar juice, declaring, “This stuff's the best pain-killer of the lot.” Recalling he had been burnt before, I added that to the Lady's conduct sheet. But even with Axynbrarve he could not fend entirely for himself. The nursing watch re-enlisted, Sivar endured tirades on his barbering, Zyr became an expert bandage-man. I tried to act a Captain of the Guard, and felt the sword poised over us all. But nothing happened, at least in Zyphryr Coryan. About Ker Morrya, it was no longer possible to tell.

Not until I found myself ascending its marble steps.

Panic burst clear through the trance. Never considering it was mere thought, I yelled as ignominiously as any school-brat.
Beryx, help me! Stop her! Get me out of this!

And was answered, to my total disbelief.

I knew my feet's direction, and I was right. Los Morryan bubbled mirthfully, uncaring. Never had I loathed beauty before. The Lady Moriana stood beyond its spray. In black again, printed with huge ember-red lythian leaves whose long broad dagger blades clashed across my sight.

No doubt I cowered like the veriest worm. The memory of their handling in the vault was still painfully clear.

She laughed. My spine froze. She came forward, rustling over the flags.

“A big brave sword-swinging soldier.” She flicked a fingernail across my cheek. “Don't swallow your tongue, Captain. I've brought you here to talk.”

My will was released. I leapt back. She laughed again, a cascade of ice. “Do the Phaxians know you're as brave as this?”

That stiffened my spine on its own account. Almost gobbling with fury I said, with the rudest inflection I could manage, “So talk.”

She strolled beyond the fountain. Round again. Her eyes touched mine and slid away. Gaining bravado, I rasped, “What do you want?”

She dabbled her fingers in the cascade. “How is your bear?”

“Better,” I said through my teeth.

“And does he hate me now?”

“You should know better.” With bitter irony, I used his own words.

“More fool he, you think.”

I did not have to speak. Her lids lifted, swarms of golden motes adrift in night. “Because of himself, or because of his Math?”

“Eh?” I was past manners, and glad of it.

“Because,” she said impatiently, “he's not allowed to hate me, or because he can't?”

“Anyone,” I ripped back, “who didn't hate you now could only be someone crazy enough to follow Math.”

Her fingers stilled in the silver froth. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh.” I merely saw a weakness, and was vengeful enough to charge at it.

After a moment, sounding oddly reduced, she said, “You don't believe in Math?”

I opened my mouth. Thought of his burnt hand, the coal throwers, the fever, Klyra, Thephor.

“I believe in justice,” I said.

“And your bear only hopes for it.”

Beryx might have matched her. I could not. I said sullenly, “If you know, why ask?”

Her eyes came up, steady, straight. “You'd like to see me dead.”

No doubt mine replied. She smiled, a small, bitter smile. “Were you ever as loyal to me?”

I could not, dared not reply. Restlessly, she moved away.

“What did he say—afterwards?”

“Don't you know?”

She whirled, her eyes shot an ebony flash, fear melted my bones. “Don't,” she breathed, “tempt me, Alkir.”

“He said,” I mastered my voice, “that he was a blighted fool.”

“Nothing else?”

“That it served him right.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing important.”

“Nothing about me?”

I answered with satisfaction, “No.”

Again I had an elusive sense of dashed hopes. She was toying with a perridel spray. Gold dust puffed, powdering her hair. She said abruptly, “Why did he tell me about the Well?”

“Because,” I answered wearily, “to lie is Ammath.”

The blossom stilled. She was looking down, a hint of dreariness in the turn of her lips. Truculently, I said, “And why did Klyra have to lose her head for opening her mouth?”

Her eyes came up. Endless, depthless stellar black. “You,” she whispered, “have said more than enough. Walk.”

I fought. That is, my mind kicked and squirmed like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck. My feet continued to advance inexorably toward the parapet and the empty air beneath. Mentally I also screamed with rage and terror more ignobly than before, but I suppose it was an improvement that I could scream at all.

The compulsion broke. A clockwork toy reversed, I ran back almost to the wall, choked a yell, spun for pointless flight—but the Lady Moriana had forgotten me. She was up on the seat, on the back of the seat, skirts clutched high, naked terror in a white naked face. A darre, a full-grown coffin-snake, six satiny pinkish-brown feet of reflexes faster than light and venom that kills within five minutes of the bite, was reared up, its coffin-shaped head weaving as they do when roused, in striking distance of her feet.

Even then I might have helped her. Protective urges in a man, a soldier, any human faced by a serpent, are ingrained deep. But as I wavered Beryx's voice said in a rush,

I ran clean down to the vault, stampeded for the only sure sanctuary. As I burst in, he let out a huge breath and sank back, sweat dripping everywhere, against the wall.

When he could speak, I ventured, “The Lady . . . the snake. . . .”

“Illusion.” He was still breathing hard. “You'd—say. Pellathir. A high art. Had to get you out—somehow.”

But he did not seem relieved. His face was taut, almost bleak. An awful intimation burst on me.

“Don't,” he said after a minute, more easily. “I couldn't have put words in your mouth. If she called you there instead of coming here, it was her choice. She had to take the consequence.”

“Consequence! Oh, if I'd thought—remembered—only shut my cursed, useless mouth!”

He said with affection, “Clot.” I groaned. “So you offended her. So she might have come round if you'd said something else. So I jumped right in on your tracks. Come on, Alkir.” I could hear the general, met with disaster, tying a knot, carrying on. “I've blundered worse myself.”

But when I looked back from the arch he was staring into the fire with that same braced, bleak expression. A general facing a blunder that will cost more than a battle, more than a campaign, more than an entire war.

* * * * *

As I lay beside Callissa's softly breathing back, that face looked at me from the dark. Don't worry, he had said. Shielding me from catastrophe, refusing to allot the blame I deserved, when Assharral, his life, the very world lay in the scales where I had cast the fatal speck. I writhed. Tomorrow, I vowed, I leave. Quit the captaincy, pack the family, tell him he'll do better without me, it's justified desertion. Leave Zyphryr Coryan, pull out.

As always, the crystallized decision brought relief. Turning over, I went slowly if not easily to sleep.

And woke with a plunge that made Callissa squeak, his voice in my ear as it had been in Lisdrinos, but this time with a grim, controlled urgency that bit like a lash.