Shadowheart (73 page)

“I . . . I’m not certain I agree, High Priest Panhyssir. It could just as equally be ...” Vash was still staring at the unhappy girl. “Why does she make such a fuss?”

“What? Oh, because the Sun’s Blood potion tastes foul, I suspect. We do not have the leisure of giving it to her in smaller amounts because time is short.”

Vash shook his head. “I do not understand. Sun’s Blood . . . ?”

“In case she must be used in the ritual in place of the northern king. He is of the direct bloodline of the gods, only a few generations displaced.” Panhyssir nodded his head gravely. “She is of mongrel stock and the blood of Habbili in her is much thinned, so we must bring it back to a point of concentration, and quickly.” The girl groaned, a noise of true distress. Panhyssir smiled a little. “Good. She has drunk the potion. You do not want to be here when the visions take her. It can be a little upsetting for a layman. Screaming, thrashing, you can imagine.”

Vash, who had presided over dozens of tortures and executions (not particularly by choice but by the requirements of his position) raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yes, it sounds dreadful. Thank you for sparing me. But I still would like to finish speaking of that other matter ...”

“Other . . . ? Oh, yes. And this problem with communication between the camp aboveground and our forces here worries you? Perhaps you should talk to the antipolemarch. Surely he would be aware of any difficulty.”

Vash nodded. “Yes, that is a good idea. Because I can think of more sinister reasons the messengers might not be getting through ...”

Now it was the high priest who raised an eyebrow. “Sinister? Truly? Such as what?”

“There might be hard fighting on the surface. Or a force might have come down from the castle through the Yisti city, and has now cut our supply lines.”

Panhyssir stared at him for a moment. When he laughed, it was as sudden and loud as a cannon shot, and everyone in the room except the gagging, weeping girl turned to look at him. “Cut our supply lines! What, that force of tiny soldiers? With what, toy swords and broomstick horses to ride?” He grabbed at his stomach as if it hurt. “Oh, Vash, my distinguished friend, I hope you will forgive me when I say that it is clear you have very little knowledge of war. We have crushed the resistance here so thoroughly that they will be trying to surrender to every stranger who passes for years after we are gone!”

Angry and ashamed, but as usual showing nothing, Pinimmon Vash bowed and thanked Panhyssir for sharing his wisdom. As he went out, he could still hear the girl coughing and sobbing in her cage.

Vansen scrubbed himself as well as he could with sand before he put his armor back on. It was a soldier’s habit he had learned from Donal Murroy, his old captain—take any opportunity to get clean that you can find. Most of the others hadn’t bothered, and Ferras Vansen didn’t like that. It wasn’t the smell of sweat and blood and less pleasant things that bothered him—a soldier quickly became used to the stink of many men together, especially in confined places like the Maze—but he feared that it meant his untrained Funderling soldiers, who had fought so long and so bravely against hopeless odds, had nearly given up.

Ferras Vansen didn’t blame any of them. Sledge Jasper had lost nearly half his original troop of warders, men he had trained himself. Malachite Copper’s household guard had been halved as well, and among those dead were Copper’s own brother-in-law, hacked to death on his back as he screamed for help; if Copper survived, he would still have to give his wife that dreadful news. Many of the other Funderlings were monks who had never expected to leave the temple again in their lives, let alone be forced into a war against Big Folk, and the rest were volunteers, young Funderling men who had not even joined the Stonecutter’s Guild yet.

Vansen watched a pair of monks as they carefully strapped Cinnabar to his litter under the watchful eye of the magister’s son Calomel. The past days had taught the Funderlings that retreats were often sudden, uncalculated affairs, even with Vansen’s experienced leadership, and since retreat was the only thing guaranteed in this campaign, they did their best to prepare for it ahead of time. The monk Flowstone was crouched near them, leading a few of the other Metamorphic Brothers in prayer; when he had finished, Ferras Vansen called him over.

“I am sorry if I have treated you more harshly than you deserve,” he told the young monk. “In truth, you have done well. I’m sorry you and your brothers have to go through this.”

Flowstone tried to smile bravely, but it didn’t entirely work. “Our faith teaches us that the past and present are nearest each other at moments like this, and so of course it is painful to be one of those caught in the folds of history. That is when we are closest to the scorching flames of the Eternal.”

Vansen wasn’t at all sure what that meant. His ideas about the gods had never led him much beyond what the priests had told him, coupled with a certain doubt about the good sense of any complicated hierarchy, even a heavenly one. He nodded, which was the best thing he could think of to do, and changed the subject. “We can only defend the last chamber—the Revelation Hall as you call it—then we will be forced out of the Maze entirely.”

“Captain!” One of Dolomite’s men trotted up, sweating. “They are breaking through the last of the rubble! The sentries say they will be on us soon.”

Vansen felt it like the last note of a triad—something he had been expecting, almost needing. Soon he would not have to fear his own mistakes any longer. Soon he would not have to watch good men die. He had given everything he had. There could be no shame in that . . . could there?

“Everybody to the back of the hall!” he said, pitching his voice to be heard by as many as possible. As the farthest who could hear him called to those who could not, Vansen added, “Douse any torches and get everyone behind the first barricade. We’ll make our stand there.”

Jasper grinned tightly and looked at the monk Flowstone, who appeared more than a little queasy at the prospect. “We will indeed,” the wardthane said. “We’ll give ’em something they’ll be talking about in Funderling Town and Xis itself for many a year!”

Fear ran through the hall like a ripple on a pool, but no one hesitated; within only moments they were moving in a ragged but orderly way toward the foremost barricade.

Flowstone looked up at Vansen, and his mouth trembled. “We’re all going to die in this hall, aren’t we?” he said quietly. “The same place where I was initiated—the place where I became a man.”

“Nobody knows when their time has come or what the gods plan.” Vansen shrugged. “Least of all now, when even the gods seem baffled. A year ago I thought I’d certainly die behind the Shadowline. That didn’t happen. Who knows what comes next, Brother Flowstone? Only the Sisters of Fate. Tighten your helmet strap and have a sip of water. You probably won’t have a chance at another for a while.”

Pinimmon Vash had no idea what to expect of the event. It seemed like one of his master’s typical whims—some sort of ceremony, apparently religious, but with a full slate of the autarch’s Leopard guards in attendance. Vash made certain that Panhyssir was informed so that the sanctuary would be ready.

To Vash’s inestimable relief, the northern king for once was nowhere to be seen. The girl with the red streak had been removed from the chamber as well, so that only the shrine of Nushash remained of things that might steal attention from the autarch—not that anything could truly compete with Sulepis. In his ceremonial golden armor and high-crested falcon helmet the tall ruler indeed seemed something far beyond a mere man. The autarch’s eyes even seemed to catch and reflect back something of the smoldering torches, shining almost orange beneath his crown’s golden beak. Two dozen of the autarch’s Leopards stood before, beside, and behind him, making a sort of human cage that briefly gave Vash a bizarre glimpse of the autarch imprisoned. Yet Sulepis stood nearly a head taller than even the biggest of them: the cage of men seemed scarcely enough to contain him.

Vash didn’t know himself what the autarch was planning. He had fulfilled all that was expected of him, and now waited with ragged nerves to discover it. He sometimes thought it must be the same to be a bird as to serve a capricious, deadly master like Sulepis. The winds shifted, a warm updraft became a downdraft that hurled you toward the earth, and all you could do was fight to keep your wings out and pray you would level out once more.

The autarch called out to the Leopard guard officer. “Did you bring them, as I bade you? Are they here?”

He bowed, shaved head gleaming with oil. “Waiting outside, Golden One.”

“Good. Send them in to me now.”

Two Leopards went out. The rest of the guards did their best to remain at strict attention, but they were clearly curious as to who might be such a risk that so many guards were present at once. Soon, three large women were led into the sanctuary. They were all Xixian, by appearance, and each woman was as tall and heavyset as almost any of the Leopards; also, all three were hard-eyed and sullen. The guards’ eyes grew wide to see them. Some of them must have wondered whether the autarch planned one of his strange jokes.

Sulepis waved his long, gold-tipped fingers and the desert priest A’lat appeared bearing a box of carved ivory. At a nod from Sulepis and despite his blind appearance, the priest walked directly to each of the women in turn and gave her something from the box. As the priest returned to the autarch’s side, Vash saw that each of the muscular women now held something that looked like a piece of dull crystal about the same size as a honey-sweet.

“You are Khobana the Wolf, are you not?” the autarch asked the tallest woman, whose hair was chopped shorter than that of most men. “The one who was sentenced to execution for killing her husband and family?”

A sort of sneer curled her lip. “Yes, Golden One.”

“I remember you. With your bare hands, yes?” He nodded, pleased. “Now, you three each hold a great gift—one that will make you as fearsome a fighter as one of the gods themselves, as powerful as Xosh the moon god who slew Okhuz, the god of war. And if you survive to return it . . . it will also buy your freedom.”

The women stared at him, mistrustful as wild animals. Vash was unsure of what was happening, but he could not help remembering that as powerful as Xosh Silvergleam had been, he had been slain in turn by another, stronger god. It was something Pinimmon Vash thought about more and more, these days: the servants of the powerful often came to a bad end—and nobody mourned them. . . .

The autarch had continued. “. . . And although in ordinary times such weak resistance would mean nothing—less than nothing—because I now have need of haste I cannot allow these mongrel Yisti and their March-man general to balk me any longer. That is why you hold those kulikos stones in your hands.”

Kulikos?
Vash shivered. He had heard enough of the old stories to know such powerful magicks would bring death to many—and eventually, to their bearers as well.

As he warmed to his subject, the autarch’s voice rose and echoed. “With the stones and the spells A’lat has taught you, you will be
true
she-demons! You will tear my enemies apart as if they were mice and rabbits, and they will run weeping before you. You will leave nothing in your wake but blood, and when the sun has passed through the sky one more time in the world above, I will stand before the god himself and make his power mine. And you three will be among my most honored servants!”

Khobana the Wolf was the first of the women to drop to her knees. “Hail, Sulepis!” she said. “Hail, Golden One!” The other two echoed her cry.

“Hail, indeed!” the autarch said, laughing.

—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”