There he is . . . in the corner beyond the dead fountains and the dwindling smoke and screams of shameful visions . . . where Denas lies, succumbed to the dead sleep of bloating. My lord would not partake if he were not so driven. Some would. Some have come to relish what is given us. But the ylad has crept over there beyond Denas. What is it he carries? Silver . . . Such horror the shape of it brings to me . . . what is it? If I could do anything but crawl over these others like a groveling beast, trapped in this foul body, tainted by its lingering pleasures, I could get there faster to see . . . Ah, no! Not good Zelaz! The last who knew the danger . . .
Murder. Merryt had crept into the aftermath of demon feasting, when the rai-kirah had fallen helpless to the floor in the exhaustion of satiety after starvation, and with him he had brought a silver Warden’s knife and a Luthen mirror. Vyx had watched Merryt murder Zelaz as he lay insensible. And just next to Zelaz, so close that the blood of the dying body soaked her white gown, lay Vallyne, stirring groggily . . . frowning . . . her heavy-lidded eyes widening in confusion and dismay as Merryt ripped her blood-soaked clothes away and sated his own depraved desires with the body she wore.
“We could prove nothing,” said Vyx, moving away from where I sat, the last of the alien memory draining from my head. He propped his backside against a table, gripping the edge with his hands. “It is impossible to stay sensible after, and by the time we rose, Zelaz was gone. As you well know, Yddrass, nothing remains of our true being when we’re dead.”
“And so you destroyed Merryt.” I spoke defensively, trying to bury my disgust. Ezzarians and demons had been at war for a thousand years. I was not guiltless, nor were the rai-kirah who feasted on the nightmares of human souls. And yet there was a difference in murdering and raping those who lay helpless.
“I claim no innocence. We have none. Don’t you see? Why do you think Merryt yet lives?” Vyx slumped into a chair and kicked at the well-turned legs of the table with short, fierce thrusts of his black boots. “We searched his rooms and took away his weapons—we didn’t know about this little hiding place—and we made known among the circles that he had murdered Zelaz.” He kicked the table again. “We accused him only of the murder. Not the other. Yes, we punished him, though we did not take his fingers or toes. He had already made his partnership with the mad Gastai. It was in trying to get another weapon from a captive yddrass that Merryt was damaged. We thought it fitting. As for his power . . . why do you think he had so much to begin with? You’ve only his word for it. No one of us has ever seen evidence of it.”
“It’s not true. You’re trying to blame him so I’ll trust you again. It won’t work.” I stood up and went to the door, my thick head still swearing to me that if I left that room, I could forget everything revealed there. “You have your justice. The Rudai Meet. You could have brought him before your judges if he had done such things.” But I remembered Merryt’s claims of “opportunities” and needs that only he could satisfy. And I remembered how Vilgor, the purple-clad Rudai who had taken me from the pits, had disappeared just after insulting the big Ezzarian. And I remembered our venture on the night of the demon feasting—when Merryt had found it necessary to kill the demons trying to capture me. Perhaps his vile deed was not purposed to save my life, but to prevent my discovering his complicity in their attempt. With a Warden’s weapons, Merryt could arrange matters as he pleased.
Vyx leaned forward on the table and continued as if my protests had been but another blast of wind. “We could do nothing openly. Without his weapons Merryt had no strength to harm us, but he had a very powerful friend who used him and protected him. The same one who charged him to kill Zelaz.”
“Who?” I demanded, still unwilling to admit that there was anything Vyx could say that would change my mind. I had sworn not to stand immobilized by my fear of what needed to be done, and so I had chosen to entrust my soul to someone else’s hand. Between Merryt—a flawed man of my own race, my own training, my own sympathies, one I believed had saved my life and my reason—and Vallyne—a demon who had left me in torment to destroy my mind and turned my head inside out with deception—I thought I had made the only reasonable choice. And now Vyx was trying to convince me that I had chosen wrongly. What man can accept such a thing easily?
“Haven’t you guessed it? His name was Tasgeddyr. You know him as the Naghidda—he who tried to gain control of your world to feed his purposes, to open Kir’Navarrin and release the danger that is bound in Tyrrad Nor.”
“What is this danger?” I yelled at him in frustration. “The Lord of Demons is dead. I killed him. Of all the bloody deeds I have done in my life, that’s one I don’t regret. What has you so frightened?” And our ancestors who had tried to destroy our memory of it.
“We don’t know, Exile. The knowledge was taken from us when we were sent here. You saw my own recollection. That’s all I have. Only a few of us remembered more, and for a very long time they refused to talk about it, for fear that some might use the knowledge wrongly. Zelaz was one. Tasgeddyr also knew something of what lies in the fortress. Tasgeddyr claimed that there was no danger waiting for us. Only power, he said, power that wore no name because it was waiting for its rightful claimant. Tasgeddyr said that the
pandye gash
had thrown us out of Kir’Navarrin because they saw that we were becoming more powerful than humans and would someday control the human world as well as our own. Merryt and Tasgeddyr were great friends. The ylad told Tasgeddyr of the prizes to be won in your world, and how the power he could gain would enable him to destroy the
pandye gash
and open the gateway to reclaim our rightful place. And so Tasgeddyr began to call himself the Naghidda, promising the Nevai unlimited power, the Rudai unlimited materials for their shaping, the Gastai unlimited hunting, and all of us unlimited vengeance on the
pandye gash
.”
Vyx picked up one of the pitiful rags and ran his luminous fingers along the bloody rent in it. The fabric wove itself together again, but the rusty stain remained. “When they saw what was happening with the Gastai—this madness growing worse by the hour—Zelaz and the others were in a terrible dilemma. They agreed that we had to return to Kir’Navarrin or go to ruin, but Tasgeddyr was exactly what they had always feared. Secretly they began to speak to a few of the Nevai, warning them that, whatever the price, they must not allow Tasgeddyr or his followers to enter Kir’Navarrin first. A certain fortress must be secured immediately, or we risked war and destruction that would leave us all—both human and rai-kirah—in dark times worse than we had known. Before Zelaz could tell us more, he and all those who knew the truth vanished . . . dead, most certainly. All but Tasgeddyr. Do you see it now, my friend? You know very well of Tasgeddyr’s quest for power—spurred on by Merryt’s teaching. After you destroyed Tasgeddyr, Merryt was half mad with it.”
I flattened my back against the wall. Truth weighs heavy, like a fruit full of juice, and pulp outweighs those dried up past use. And if these things were true, then what in Verdonne’s name had I done setting Merryt free . . . sending him to Ezzaria?
Idiot
. What man had ever let himself be made such a fool by everyone he encountered? No wonder the Aifes and the Weavers and the Queens of Ezzaria were women and not warriors. I rubbed my face with my hands, wishing I would wake, wishing I could trust someone, afraid to believe Vyx, and afraid—terrified—not to believe him.
“Is Merryt joined? Can he open the way himself?”
“No. His sorcery is too little. Not even the Naghidda could have made him strong enough to do it, though Merryt boasts to the Gastai that such was Tasgeddyr’s plan. We didn’t take his power from him. His own weakness got him captured, and he yielded his name the first day. Magyalla, his Rudai captor, would not keep him after she tasted what he had to give her. And after Merryt took up with Tasgeddyr, Magyalla was never seen again in all of Kir’Vagonoth.” Vyx gave a rueful smile. “We never even had a chance to learn what secrets Merryt told her.”
And so I had sent a murdering liar, a craven robber of the dead and dying, a servant of the Naghidda, to warn the Ezzarians of the demon legion. I had sent him in company with Blaise and Kyor and Balthar and Fiona—my only hope ever to see the world of light.
Damned, cursed fool
. Again I was forced to put faith in my adversary Fiona and pray that she could keep herself and the others safe. Now I could afford no delays. If it had not all been so dreadfully serious, I would have had a good laugh at my pitiful plotting.
“I’m supposed to meet Gennod in the courtyard within the hour,” I said. “And you’re going to tell me that he, too, was a servant of the Naghidda—a partner with Merryt. And clearly the servants of the Naghidda are the ones who want to open Tyrrad Nor, whereas you and Vallyne are the ones I need to trust.”
“Yes to most of that. Since you first came, Gennod has been working to get control of you, though Merryt is not his partner. They share similar goals, but Merryt partners only with himself. Gennod can’t abide the man any more than the rest of us.” Vyx jumped up and smiled, the blue fire in his eyes flaring brightly. Kind, one might describe it. Sympathetic. Victorious. “Now, if you would tell me of your plan . . .”
I told him of my agreement with Gennod, and how Merryt had a head start on us thanks to my pigheaded folly.
“No matter. Merryt would have found a way to follow you out and do as he wished anyway. But we can provide an alternative to Gennod. We have someone waiting. Someone worthy of you, Exile”—his grin fell away—“worthy of the yddrass you are.”
I didn’t want to hear the word yddrass—to be reminded of my oath. I shut off my thinking. “Let’s just get it done. The sooner the better. As I told you, my name is Seyonne. Do with it as you will.”
Vyx gave a quick laugh . . . embarrassed, I would have called it. “Oh, my friend. It is not I. I’m honored . . . but I have not the knowledge. Nor the grace to give up what I know of life.” Gently he pushed me through the door and into the corridor. “And we can’t do it here. It must be done in front of the legion. They have to see you agree; otherwise they’ll never follow. That’s why Gennod wants you in the courtyard. You can be sure he has summoned the host of Kir’Vagonoth to watch you yield.”
CHAPTER 32
I had never imagined there were so many rai-kirah. Lights of every color the mind could grasp flickered, writhed, and glimmered like ropes of lightning tangled together in a massive brilliance, illuminating the front of Denas’s castle. From my position in the shadowed arch of the jackal gate, I could see the vast courtyard jammed with demons, glimpses of faces and limbs turning in and out of my view as more arrived and they pushed together. And on the edges, in blots of seething darkness were the hunters. The Gastai. I smelled them. Tasted them. Felt the air turn colder whenever my eye crossed their presence.
Across the sprawl of the courtyard was the main entrance to the castle, towering pillars carved in the shape of stylized trees, thick-boled with a fringe of leafy growth where the pillar met the rectangular block of the massive lintel. In a place of honor at the front of the crowd stood Denas’s gyossi—his “castle guests,” the Nevai who lived in this sprawling ice palace by his invitation or his sufferance. A few of them were standing between the pillars on the sweeping curve of the castle’s twenty steps. The pulsing red form was Gennod, craning his neck, glancing over his shoulder, waiting. Waiting for me.
I pressed my back against the cold stone, my breathing ragged, my skin alternately burning and freezing.
“Rhadit was supposed to lead the great venture, but he’s gone missing,” said Vyx in my ear. “Denas had hoped to profit from Rhadit’s undoing, but it seems Gennod has out-maneuvered him. No doubt our wily friend Gennod plans to humbly accept Rhadit’s place at the head of the legion when he presents you as his prize.”
Four or five demons were clustered to one side of Gennod. A glowering Denas was one of them, gleaming gold, no imperfect physical body to mute his glory. Beside him stood Denkkar, the elderly dancer, and Tovall, the dark-skinned Nevai with the magnificent laugh. Kaarat, the Rudai judge, stood stiffly to the other side.
In the book-room assignation, Denas’s co-conspirator had mentioned three rai-kirah who were willing to join with a human to open the gateway. Gennod was one. Another of them was the demon who stood alone on the fifth step, just beyond the torchlight, his hands clasped easily behind his back—Kryddon, a quiet, well-spoken Rudai who had come to many of Vallyne’s reading sessions. He had once asked Vallyne if she would permit the “savage ylad” to read a book about sea creatures. He was fascinated with the idea of oceans and the world that existed beneath the surface of them. Nesfarro was the third. He was the stringy, wild-haired Rudai gesticulating vigorously as he spoke to a laughing Tovall. He fancied himself an artist, and had, indeed, created the color galleries. When he heard Vallyne had shown me his work, he had taken great offense. He vowed to slay any ylad who viewed his creation ever again.
Merryt had claimed that a demon joining accomplished in Kir’Vagonoth was indissoluble. If he was right, then one of the ten demons on the steps was to occupy my soul for the rest of my life. I wanted to bury my head in the gray stones behind me or grow my wings and let the storm carry me far from that place.
“Gennod will ask you some questions. Answer them truly, save for the most important one.” Vyx grinned up at me. “You know which one?”
“My name.”
“That’s it. When he demands your name, step back from him and make room, for several of us will surround you, and the legion must be able to see what transpires. One of us will ask you if you yield. Speak your answer clearly—whatever it may be—and, if you are still willing to walk this path, touch the hand that is offered and say your name in the same breath. It must be quick, my friend, or Gennod will have you. He’ll be prepared for just such a move.”