The Dead of Winter Part 9

He was recognized by the smith's apprentice and admitted into Illyra's scrying room.

"What brings you to my home?" she asked, shuffling her cards and, unbeknown to the priest, loosening the catch on the dagger fastened beneath her table. "Arton is well, isn't he?"

"Yes, very well-growing fast. Has your husband forgiven you?"

"Yes-he blames it all on you. You were wise to see that he was not here. You will be wiser to be gone when he gets back."

"Walegrin said you could help me."

"I should have guessed when that soldier came to fetch Dubro. I have had no visions of gyskourem since Arton went to the Palace. I won't look into your future, Priest."

"There is work for him to do at the Palace and a fair price for his labor. Your brother says you can find that which has been lost."

She set the cards aside and brought the candlestick to the center of the table.

"If you can describe what it was that you lost. Sit down."

"It's not a 'something,'" Molin explained as he sat on a stool opposite her.

"I've had ... visions ... myself: warnings that there is something within my past which is-or could cause-great trouble. Illyra, you said once that the S'danzo saw the past as well as the future. Can you find my-" He hesitated at the ridiculousness of the request. "Can you show me my mother?"

"She is dead, then?"

"In my birth."

"Children bring about such longings," she said sympathetically, then stared into the void, waiting for inspiration. "Give me your hand."

Illyra sprinkled powders and oils of various colors on his palm, tracing simple symbols through each layer. His palms began to sweat; she had to hold his fingers tightly to stop him from pulling his hand back in embarra.s.sment.

"This will not hurt," she a.s.sured him as, with a movement so unexpected he could not resist it, she twisted his wrist and held his palm in the candle flame.

It didn't. The powders released a narcotic incense that not only prevented injury but banished all worry from the priest's mind. When she released his hand and extinguished the candle, most of the morning had pa.s.sed. Illyra's expression was unreadable.

"Did you see anything?"

"I do not understand what I saw. What we do not understand we do not reveal, but I have revealed so many things to you. Still, I do not think I want to understand this, so I will answer no other questions about it.

"Your mother was a slave of your temple. I did not 'see' her before she had been enslaved. I could see her only because she was kept drugged and they had cut out her tongue; your hierarchy feared her. She was raped by your father and did not bear you with joy. She willed her own death."

Torchholder ran his fingers through his beard. The S'danzo was disturbed by what she had seen: slavery, mutilation, rape and birth-death. He was concerned by what it had to mean.

"Did you see her? See her as mortal eyes would have seen her?" he asked, holding his breath.

Illyra let hers out slowly. "She was not like other women, Lord Hierarch. She had no hair-but a crown of black feathers covering her head and arms, like wings, instead."

The vision came clear to him: a Nisi witch. His elders had dared much more than he had imagined possible; Stormbringer's warning and Ischade's whispers made chilling sense to him now. Vashanka's priests had dared to bring witch-blood to the G.o.d. His mouth hung open.

"I will hear no other questions, priest," Illyra warned.

He fished out a fresh-minted gold coin from his purse and laid it on her table.

"I do not want any more answers, My Lady," he told her as he entered the sunlight again.

The difference between priests and pract.i.tioners of all other forms of magecraft was more than philosophical. Yet both sides agreed the mortal sh.e.l.l of mankind could not safely contain an apt.i.tude for communicative-that is, priestly-power, along with an apt.i.tude for more traditional, manipulative magic. If the combination did not, of itself, destroy the unfortunate's soul, then mage-kind and priest-kind would unite until that destruction was accomplished.

Yet Molin knew that Illyra had seen the truth. Pieces of memory fell into place: childhood-times when he had been subtly set apart from his peers; youth-times when he had relied on his own instincts and not Vashanka's guidance to complete his audacious strategies; adult-times when his superiors had conspired to send him to this truly G.o.dforsaken place; and now-times when he consorted with mages and G.o.ds and felt the fate of Sanctuary on his shoulders.

No amount of retrospective relief, however, could compensate for the anxiety Illyra had planted within him. He had relied on his intuition, had come to trust it completely, but what he called his intuition was his mother's witch-blood legacy. He did not merely sense the distinctions between probable and improbable-he shaped them. Worse, now that he was conscious of his heritage, it could erupt, destroying him and everything that depended on him, at any moment.

He walked through the cold sunlight looking for salvation-knowing that his impulsive searches were an exercise of the power he feared. Still, his mind did not betray him; his priest-self could accept the path intuition revealed: Randal, the Hazard-mage become Stepson. The magician's freedom would be the byproduct of Molin's other strategies, and for that freedom a priest might reasonably expect the instructions a disowned mage could provide.

It took Walegrin less than three days to corner Niko-demos. Regular sources denied the Stepson was in town. An alert ear in the proper taverns and alleys always heard rumors: Niko had exchanged his soul for Randal's-the mage did not reappear; he had joined Ischade's decaying household-but Strat denied this with a vigor that had the ring of honesty; he was drinking himself to oblivion at the Alekeep-and this proved true.

"He's shaking drunk. He looks like a man who's dealing with witches," Walegrin informed Molin when they met to plot their strategies.

The priest wondered what he, himself, must look like; the knowledge that witch blood dwelt in his heart had done nothing for his peace of mind. "Perhaps we can offer him service for service. When can you bring him to me?"

"Niko's strange-even for a Wh.o.r.eson. I don't think he'd agree to a meeting and he's Bandaran-trained. Dead drunk he could lay a hand on you and you'd be in your grave two nights later."

"Then we'll have to surprise him. I'll prepare a carriage with the children in it. We'll bring it outside the Alekeep. I trust Stormbringer. Once Stealth sees those children he'll solve that problem for us."

Walegrin shook his head. "You and the children, perhaps. Bribes aside, the Alekeep is not a place for my regulars. You'd best go with your priests."

"My priests?" Molin erupted into laughter. "My priests, Walegrin? I have the service of a handful of acolytes and ancients-the only ones who didn't go out to Land's End with Rashan. I have greater standing with the Beysib Empire than with my own."

"Then take Beysib soldiers-it's time they started earning their keep in this town. We sweat bricks to protect them."

"I'll arrange something. You let me know when he's there."

So Molin moved among the men of Clan Burek, selecting six whose taste for adventure was, perhaps, greater than their sense. He was still outlining his plans when Hoxa announced that the borrowed carriage was ready. They roused both children, and the dancer, Seylalha, from their beds. The Beysib bravos had not exchanged their gaudy silks for the austere robes of Vashanka's priests before it was time to leave the Palace.

As predicted, Niko was drunk. Too drunk, Molin feared, to be of any use to anyone, much less Gyskouras and Arton. The priest tested him with the sort of pious cant guaranteed to get a rise out of any conscious Stepson. Wine had thickened Niko's tongue; he babbled about magic and death in a language far less intelligible than Arton's. There were rumors that Roxane had stolen Niko's manhood and bound the Stepson to her with webs of morbid sensuality. Molin, watching and listening, knew the Nisi witch had stolen something far more vital: maturity. With a nod of his head the Beysibs dragged the unprotesting Nikodemos to the carriage.

He left them alone, trusting Stormbringer's riddles and turning his attention to the frightened little man the Beysibs were interrogating with a shade too much vigor.

"What has he done?" the priest interceded.

"He's painted a picture."

"It's not a crime, Jennek, even if it doesn't reach your aesthetic standards."

He took a step closer and recognized the painter who had unmasked an a.s.sa.s.sination conspiracy a few years back. "You're Lalo, aren't you?"

"It's not a crime-like you said, My Lord Hierarch-it's not a crime. I'm an artist, a painter of portraits. I paint the faces of the people I see to keep in practice-like a soldier in the arena."

Yet the Ilsigi painter was plainly afraid that he had committed a crime.

"Let me see your picture," Molin ordered.

Lalo broke free of the Beysibs, but not quickly enough. Molin's fingers latched onto the painter's neck. The three of them: Molin, Lalo and the portrait moved back into the carriage lantern-light just as a shaken, sober Niko emerged.

"Nikodemos," Molin said as he studied the unfinished, frayed canvas tacked onto a battered plank, "look at this."

The limner had painted Niko, but not as a drunken mercenary in a whitewashed tavern. No, the central figure of the painting wore an archaic style of armor and looked out with more life and will than Niko, himself, possessed. And yet that was not the strangest aspect of the painting.

Lalo had included two other figures, neither of which had set foot in the Alekeep. The first, staring down over Niko's shoulder, was a man with glowing blue eyes and dark-gold hair: a figure Molin remembered as Vashanka moments before the G.o.d vanished into the void between the planes. The second was a woman whose half-drawn presence, emerging from the dark background, overshadowed both man and G.o.d. Lalo had been interrupted but Molin recognized a Nisibisi witch like his mother had been, or as Roxane still was.

He was still staring when Niko dismissed the Ilsigi limner. The Stepson began to speak of Arton and Gysk-ouras as if he alone understood their nature. The children, Niko announced, needed to be educated in Bandara-an island a month's sailing from Sanctuary. When Molin inquired how, exactly, they were supposed to transport two Storm Children, whose moods were already moving stones, across an expanse of changeable ocean, the Stepson became irrational.

"All right, they're not going any further unless and until my partner Randal who's being held by Roxane, I hear tell-is returned to me unharmed. Then I'll ride up and ask Tempus what he wants to do-if anything-about the matter of the G.o.dchild you so cavalierly visited upon a town that had enough troubles without one. But one way or the other, the resolution isn't going to help you one whit.

Get my meaning?"

Molin did. He also felt a tingling at the base of his spine. Witch-blood rushed to his eyes and fingertips. He saw Nikodemos as Roxane saw him: his maat, his strength and his emotions displayed like the Emperor's banquet table- and the priest knew witch-kind's hunger.

Niko, oblivious to Molin's turmoil, continued with his demands. He expected Molin to get Askelon's armor out of the Mageguild and to storm Roxane's abode with a company of warrior-priests.

"Are you sure that will be enough?" Molin inquired, his voice turned sweetly sarcastic by the witch-blood appet.i.tes.

"No. I will free Randal, but your priests will free me. I will be Roxane's champion-facing your priests-one man against many. You will arrange to capture me unharmed, but you'll make it look good. She must never suspect my allegiance.

She must think it's all your doing: priest-power against witchery."

"We are ever eager to serve," the priest agreed.

"And the timing. It must be Mid-Winter's Eve at midnight-exactly. Timing is everything, Hierarch. You know that. When you're dealing with Death's Queen, timing is everything."

Molin nodded, his face a rigid mask of obedience lest his laughter emerge.

"And I'll need a place to stay afterwards. Wherever you've been keeping those children and their mother will do. It's time they had the proper influences around them."

It was all Molin could do to keep silent. Whatever maat gave a man, it wasn't a sense of irony. Stormbringer and the rest of his Storm-kind were leaning hard on this drunk mercenary. His picayune demands became prophecy the moment they slurred out of his mouth. His babble trapped Stormbringer in Sanctuary like a fly in a spider's web. Already Molin could feel the necessary strategies and tactics crowding into his thoughts. Success was inevitable -with one, unfortunate, shortcoming: Molin would become Roxane's personal enemy, and what she would do when she found out who had been his mother was beyond even a Storm G.o.d's guess.

Niko was still drunk. He b.u.mped into the carriage as he headed back inside the Alekeep, still muttering orders. The Beysibs moved to haul him back.

"No, Jennek, let him go. He'll be ready when we need him again; his kind always is."

"But, Torchholder," Jennek objected. "He asks for the sun, the moon, and the stars and offers you nothing in return. That's not the bargain you described back at the Palace."

"And it's not the bargain he thinks it is, either."

The witch-hungers vanished as quickly as the Stepson. Molin grabbed the carriage door to keep himself from collapsing. The door swung open, Jennek lurched forward and Molin barely had the presence of mind to haul himself onto the bench opposite the children.

"To the Palace," he commanded.

Molin closed his eyes as the carriage rattled forward along the uneven streets.

He was weak-kneed and exhilarated enough that he held his breath to stifle a fit of hysterical laughter. He had felt the naked power of his witch-blood heritage and, much as it had horrified him, he had mastered it. He was revelling in the wonder and simplicity of the strategies unfolding in his mind when Lalo's picture s.h.i.+fted under his arm. With a s.h.i.+ver, the priest reopened his eyes and pulled it away from Gys-kouras's candy-coated grasp. The child's eyes glowed more brightly than the lanterns.

"Want it."

"No," Molin said faintly, realizing that not even Storm-bringer could antic.i.p.ate the influence and desires of a Storm Child.

"/ want it."

Seylalha, Gyskouras's mother, tried to distract him, but he pushed her back into the comer with a man's strength. Her eyes were as fearful as the child's were angry. Torchholder heard the rumble of thunder and did not think it was his imagination.

" 'Kouras-no," Arton interceded, taking his brother's hand. The children stared at each other and the light ebbed gradually from Gyskouras's eyes. Molin sighed and relaxed until he realized that the light had moved to Arton's eyes instead.

"He is ours already, Stepfather. We do not need to take him," the dark-eyed child said in a tone that was both consoling and threatening.

They made the rest of the journey in silence: Seylalha huddled in the corner; the children sharing their thoughts and Molin staring at the triple portrait.

There were two hectic days until Mid-Winter's Eve. Molin had the satisfaction of knowing his plans could not be thwarted and the irritation of knowing the events already in motion were of such magnitude that he had no more power than anyone else to alter them.

By the time the sun set, Torchholder had become hardened to the cascade of coincidence surrounding his every move. He went out of his way to stop the Mageguild from donating Askelon's, and Randal's, enchanted armor to Shupansea in grat.i.tude for her permission to meddle with the weather at their Fete. He even considered refusing it when she suddenly turned around and offered it to him "as we have no Storm G.o.ds nor warrior-priests worthy to wear it." But, in the end, he accepted all her gifts gratefully-including the authority to name Jennek and his rowdy friends as his personal honor guard.

He retired to his sanctum to await the unfolding of fate alone-except for Lalo's portrait. There would be no surprises until Randal walked through the door at midnight-then there would be surprises enough for G.o.ds, priests, witches, soldiers and mages alike.

KEEPING PROMISES.

Robin W. Bailey

A horse careered insanely along the Governor's Walk, heedless of the cold, drizzling mist that treacherously slicked the paving stones. Its breath came in great steaming clouds. It made the corner onto the Avenue of Temples at a speed that threatened to unseat the two cloaked riders on its back.

From the shadowed steps of the Temple of Ils a small, lithe figure leaped into the road. There was the glint of metal in its clenched fist. With a wild shout the figure flung out its arms. The horse whinnied in terror, reared, and crashed to a stop.

The rider in the saddle answered with a curse, swung downward with a sword, and made a swift end of the attacker on the ground.

"More behind and coming fast!" the second rider warned, wrapping arms even more tightly about the first rider. "Go, d.a.m.n it!"

Again, the horse raced onward, past the park called the Promise of Heaven where half-starved women sold their bodies for the price of a lean meal. The beast wheeled to the right and down a street between two dark and immense edifices. A set of ma.s.sive iron gates loomed.

The first rider jerked sharply on the reins, threw a leg over the mount's head, and jumped to the ground. The second rider slid backward over the damp, lathered rump, stumbled, then sagged to the pavement.

A hood was flung back; a pommel smashed against the unyielding barriers. A voice called out full of desperation and anger. "Father! Let us in! Dayrne-anyone awake!"

"Chenaya!" The second rider rose to a timid crouch and drew a small dagger.

"They're coming!"

Four men ran down the street, weapons drawn. Even as they came on, three more emerged from the shadows to join them. Chenaya whirled to face them, cursing.