“I’ll be careful.”
“Yes.” The priest looked him over, noting the ragged uniform spattered with mud. “Yes, I’m sure you will be,” he muttered as Lyrec led the horses out the gate. The priest looked back at the figures huddled in the yard. “Depraved filth,” he murmured. He closed the gate.
*****
The face that beetled through the doorway was stranger than he could have imagined. It shone with shiny metallic paint under which the skin seemed rough and pimpled. The face scowled at him, its red hair drawn severely back into a tight cylinder that stuck up like a horn from behind the head.
“No men.” The voice was surprisingly gentle. Perhaps, he thought, the deep scowl was an effect of the paint.
“It’s not I requesting entry.” He gestured into the darkness behind him.
The woman retreated, but returned in a moment with a torch and stepped outside. She was naked to the waist. The top of her torso, like her face, was painted in swirls of color. A terribly sweet perfume followed in her wake. Her dark skirt rustled around her feet. She studied Yadani. “What is the matter with her? Have you gotten her drunk or with child?”
Lyrec shook his head, but realized the woman was not looking at him. “No, she has no mind at all. I’d brought her here on a promise because—”
“Chagri,” the priestess said bitterly.
“Everyone seems to know. Yes, the miracle.”
“No miracle. Anralys denies his miracle. She has shown us what a trick has been played.”
“How’s that?”
The painted priestess laughed. “Through our Caste-priestess. You have come far with her.”
“Yes.”
“Too bad. You’ll see.”
“I’ve already seen. I don’t believe, either. But a promise was made”—a fact that he regretted more with every passing, wasted minute.
“Your vow is no concern of mine. We will take her in. If any divine power can cure her it will be Anralys, and not that false hope raised over there. You should forget the beneficent Chagri, and forget this one, too.”
“I can’t. I also promised to return her when I leave.”
The priestess came to a halt in front of him and stared candidly into his eyes. Finally, she took the reins to Yadani’s horse and led it away, around the side of the building.
After a few moments, a second woman appeared at the door to the temple. She was squat and fat. Her head had been shaved and painted with elaborate swirls. “No men,” she stated, then slammed shut the door.
“And if I could, I wouldn’t,” he said to the door, then climbed up on the horse and rode swiftly out of the yard and down the narrow streets again. He saw hardly anyone until he reached the river. The hillside above glimmered like a dome of jewels and the castle was a purple silhouette above it.
As he dismounted and started to lead the horse through the crowd again, a wave of cheering began at the top of the hill and swept down upon him. He asked one of the people what it meant. “The king has been crowned,” they told him. “Long live Tynec!” Another wave of cheering descended the hill. “He’s up on the balcony,” someone yelled. “Where?” cried another, who eagerly strained to see above the others ahead. “Oh, you can be sure he’s there from the cheering, but I doubt you could pick him out from here.”
Lyrec pushed on up the hill, no longer looking for the road, but taking any possible opening through the crowd. He was tense now, certain that some crime was near at hand. Apparently it had not yet taken place. An assassination—where else could it transpire but in the castle?
He was halfway up the hill when the throng turned and began their descent. Again he marched against the flow. They drove him back, and he fought and shoved people out of his way. They threatened him, shoved him in turn. He gained little ground. Off the road and straight ahead, the crowd parted around a leafless tree. He wrestled his way to it, grabbed hold and brought his horse up close, then waited for the majority of people to go past him. In that period of waiting, he tried to contact Borregad. The crowd destroyed this hope as well—their gathered, swarming thoughts threw a net around him on every side. He had never been in the heart of a throng such as this, and he hugged to the tree, discovering only now the claustrophobia—the terror—of being pressed helplessly into so small a space. He wiped sweat out of his eyes.
Fools,
he called to them,
your world is on the brink if disaster and you don’t even notice!
*****
Tynec moved in from the balcony as the cheering began again. The gold crown glistened on his head. He descended the steps slowly, majestically, down into the hall. There, the guests continued to applaud as they had since the moment when the crown was placed upon his head. On the landing halfway down the steps, Cheybal and the Hespet stood across from one another, each with a cluster of their most trusted men around them. Cheybal was asking himself why Tynec had kept the priest near him so much lately, when the young king reached the landing. He stepped out to congratulate Tynec, and the boy swept past him with no acknowledgment whatsoever. Imperiously, Tynec continued down a few more steps before pausing to regard the crowd.
Cheybal gaped. He stared across at the Hespet.
Slyur fidgeted under the intensity of his stunned look, and finally pushed through his own attendants and down the steps into the crowd. Cheybal numbly watched him flee. In the crowd he caught the eye of Bozadon Reket. Reket shook his head in incomprehension: He too had witnessed the slighting of Cheybal.
The commander tried to convince himself that it had been an oversight—that he had been preoccupied with his thoughts and had stepped out too late for Tynec,
who was too caught up in the pageantry to see him. Naturally the boy would get lost in all the drama. It would rattle anyone.
Rather than dwell on his injured pride, Cheybal thought of Pavra, and asked himself how she was enjoying the coronation. It must be just as overwhelming to her as it was to Tynec. What a sight for a child from a small village!
He scanned the teeming sea of faces below for her. He searched again. His brow furrowed. Pavra was not there.
Something is wrong.
Not a mere suspicion this time, but a fear, almost palpable. He felt perspiration trickle along his hairline.
Cheybal pushed through his men to get down the steps, waving to Reket. Tynec was enjoying the crowd, touching eager hands. When Cheybal passed him, he paused and watched, as if he could sense the fear there. A slight smile caught his lips as he extended his hand once more for someone else to kiss.
*****
Of the two guards present at the front entrance to the castle, only one paid Lyrec any regard at all. The other went on standing as stiffly as before, only his eyes shifting to take in this ragged annoyance.
“Who is it you want to see?”
“Commander of the guards,” Lyrec told him.
“Well, does he know you? Are you expected? You look like your horse drug you all the way here. You’ve missed the coronation, anyhow.” He was careful to be only mildly truculent until he knew for certain who this man in the filthy uniform was.
“Yes, I know,” Lyrec replied. “I—” he paused, then said, “My horse went lame. Slowed me. It’s imperative I see the commander.” The guard looked him up and down. Obviously he
had
ridden long and hard to get there. Was he, perhaps, a spy? “Did you hear me?” Lyrec bellowed. “I said it’s urgent. It’s about an assassination—here. Tonight.”
“What?” The guard turned to his mate. In all his years at this door no one had ever come to him with such a story. So far as Lyrec could tell, nothing was said between them, but the second guard made a hasty retreat up the steps and through the large wooden door. Just inside, another guard checked him before opening it. The sounds of many voices poured out when the door opened. The remaining guard told Lyrec to sit and wait. “It will be awhile to be sure, what with that hall filled to capacity—it’s as bad inside as it was out here. Who is it that’s to be assassinated?”
You great idiot, thought Lyrec. “I don’t know,” he said, and moved off to one side, sat against the castle wall with a torch hissing and fluttering overhead. Until he sat, he had no idea how tired he was. He closed his eyes. Something tiny crawled across his chest. He reached under his shirt and removed a black insect, which he then ground into the dirt. He needed a bath, and food and sleep.
Leaning back, he tried to contact Borregad again.
Chapter 19.
Lyrec awoke in a small curtained room within the castle. He knew that his body still sat outside. For a moment, as he observed the dim room, he assumed Borregad must have drawn him there. Then he discovered that something else entirely had snagged him.
He drew back, shielding his presence as a figure stepped out of the shadows—a translucent figure in the helmet and bright orange uniform of Ladoman. The soldier did not walk, he saw, but floated to the curtain. Pausing, the soldier’s head tilted; then the visored helm turned his way. “Are you here again?” came the whispered accusation. “Foolish child, I should have thought one taste enough for you.” The implied threat made no sense to Lyrec, but the
quality
of the voice roused worms of dread in him. Too much to withstand, too horrible a being for reality to withstand, the soldier should have been destroyed by its own odious disruption of the natural order of life.
He had found his enemy at last.
The soldier drew off one glove. Beneath it was a hand like solid shadow wrapped in cobweb strands of gold. Sparkles of light crackled along the filaments.
Instinct made Lyrec retreat. A wave of panic swallowed him and he spun swiftly out of the dark chamber, into the great hall of the castle, high above the crowd. With no thought but escape, he located his path in the same moment felt the glinting hand discharge its energy—a bright yellow corposant that sped past him and exploded, blossoming like a flower to surround him and blot out the scene below. He reeled in his mental extremities like a turtle pulling into its shell. Part of the energy came with him.
On the steps in front of the castle, his body lurched in galvanic spasms. He slapped the wall, pressed against it; his head twisted back, the cords in his neck standing out like tree roots. He breathed short, sharp sobs of anguish.
The guard came hesitantly over to him and prodded him with the end of a pike. “Here, what’s come over you?”
Lyrec tried to speak but could only wheeze and choke. By degrees, the pain left him. Still he couldn’t explain.
And that was meant for a child?
The guard said, “Attack of the palsy, is it? You know, my brother—Voed care for him—had that till he died. I know all about it. You just lean back and rest. The commander will be here soon enough.”
Lyrec ignored his advice and forced himself to his feet against the wall. The guard patted him on the shoulder in sympathy. Lyrec turned and struck him across the jaw, then bolted for the castle entrance. Some of the people milling about shouted at him and a few jeered. Lyrec ran up the steps and began banging on the door. People yelled out warnings to the guard inside. The braver ones threw rocks at Lyrec, most of which missed him and pounded more loudly on his behalf. The inside guard cautiously opened the door a crack. Lyrec slammed against it. The guard flew back into a small group of celebrants, knocking them all down with him. Lyrec leaped over the tumble and dove into the midst of the crowd. Cries of alarm pursued him, but were quickly lost in the general din. He shoved people out of the way. A few angrily picked themselves up and gave chase, which only added to the chaos as they, too, shoved and were shoved in turn.
Lyrec pried his way into the great hall. Heads near the doorway turned, conversations died in a wave away from him. On the landing across the room, Tynec stiffened abruptly and wheeled around to stare at him. The mind controlling Tynec did not know the mud-caked figure, but recognized a threat in the way. Lyrec charged through the crowd directly for the steps leading to the curtained balcony.
Tynec raised a hand to summon a guard; then a smirk crossed the boy’s face and he lowered his hand. But the guard had seen the signal and came rushing over. “Yes, Your Majesty?” he asked. Tynec shook his head. “I thought I wanted something, but I’ve changed my mind.” The guard nodded and stepped back. Tynec noted a body of pursuers making their way into the crowd from the hall. He returned to his conversation.
Lyrec took the steps two at a time. At the top he sprang into the darkness, sword drawn, to find Miradomon. The Ladomantine guise had been abandoned. Lyrec faced the milky white robe that Borregad had seen.
The robe chuckled softly at the sword. “You cannot be serious.”
Lyrec struck more swiftly than any mortal swordsman, but the sword melted away the instant it touched the robe, which absorbed the force of his effort as well, slowing his rush to a sluggishness that was like trying to cleave through water. The gilded hand emerged and clutched him by the throat. Lyrec could not move. His arms hung heavily.
“Who are you?” the robe asked. “How did you know about this? It was the child, wasn’t it? What are you, some Kobach champion? Too bad for you that you could hardly have arrived at a more propitious moment for me.”
A warmth flooded Lyrec and something bright passed in front of his eyes. Then he was thrown against a wall and held upright there by unseen force.
A shout and footsteps echoed from the bottom of the stairwell: The people in pursuit of him had broken at last through the crowd.
Miradomon turned away and parted the curtains slightly. “Ah, there he comes now.” His hand emerged from the sleeve of the robe again. This time it held a small object—a mechanical device shaped roughly like a cross with a spring and metal crossbar. Miradomon tossed it at Lyrec’s feet, then drew a steel bolt out of the air.
The people giving chase reached the top of the stairwell, then stopped suddenly, paralyzed. The nearest one barely had one foot through the doorway.
Unable to free himself from his invisible bonds, Lyrec watched in horror as the black hand lifted up the bolt, sighting along it at someone in the crowd below. He tried to shout a warning, but his mouth would not open. In agony he wrestled and fought. The bolt shot from Miradomon’s hand.