Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (2 page)

           
Bracht's curse rang loud in the warm
air. "Three days? Oh, Ahrd, could you not have sped us quicker here?"

           
More reasonably, Katya gestured at
the depths of the Kess Imbrun and asked, "Must he not go down the Daggan
Vhe? And then climb the farther wall? Do we ride hard, might we not take him in
the chasm? He travels alone, after all."

           
"Hardly." Bracht shook his
head, indicating the massive rift with jutted chin. "The Blood Road's no
easy descent; no place to hurry. And below? Down there the rocks are tumbled
like a maze, like a forest of stone. No—with such a lead he's the advantage of
us. Again."

           
Katya nodded, accepting his superior
knowledge of the terrain, nibbling an instant on her lower lip as she thought.

           
"And he's taken another's
form," Bracht grunted sourly. "Filthy gharan-evur! Ahrd, but every
cursed Jesseryte looks alike, and none with any love for strangers. He needs
only continue onto the Plain to find refuge."

           
"I should know him again,"
Cennaire ventured, "did I but see his face."

           
Bracht's eyes narrowed at that, and
she felt Calandryll tense once more. Katya studied her curiously and she feared
she overplayed her hand, affecting a trembling of her lips, a tearful blinking.

           
"We've no spare horse,"
Bracht said.

           
"Shall we leave her here
then?" asked Calandryll.

           
"She knows his face," said
Katya.

           
"She'll slow us." Bracht
drove an angry fist against his thigh, teeth gritted in frustration. "Do
we bring her with us, one horse must always carry double."

           
"She's light enough,"
Calandryll offered. "And once before, we found a stranger on the road. The
aid we gave
her
was repaid surely
enough." He touched the hilt of his straightsword, reminding Bracht of
that encounter with the disguised goddess, Dera.

           
"She knows his face,"
Katya repeated. "And as Calandryll says—shall we leave her here?"

           
"Please, no," cried
Cennaire, her fear of abandonment quite genuine.

           
She would not die. Indeed, she could
not since Anomius had removed her heart and locked that still-beating organ in
his enchanted pyxis, and while it remained bound by his cantrips she was
immortal. Neither hunger nor thirst held meaning for her, the sating of appetite
a pleasure only, not a necessity. But did they leave her, then she must surely
earn the displeasure of the mage, perhaps suffer his wrath. Did they leave her,
surely she could never find opportunity to free herself of his mastery, but
remain forever his puppet, to be discarded when her usefulness was done, or be
destroyed by those sorcerers who would destroy Anomius. Whether she obeyed her
master and brought the Arcanum to him, or found some way, through the quest, to
possess her heart once more, she was loath to find herself again alone.

           
It came to her that she had not
known fear since Anomius had excised her heart and made her his revenant, and
that these past days, solitary on the grass, the memory of Rhythamun's fell
magic hot in her mind, had changed her in ways she did not properly comprehend.
She clung tight to Calandryll, willing him to take up her cause.

           
She heard him say, "We cannot.
Dera, Bracht, after all she's seen? How long would she survive alone, on
foot?"

           
"And to bring her to some camp
would take days," Katya added. "Rhythamun gaining on us all the
while."

           
"Aye, there's that," the
Kern allowed with obvious reluctance.

           
Cennaire sensed a mellowing, heard
Calandryll say, "She can ride with me. Perhaps we can find her a horse on
the Jesseryn Plain."

           
"The Jesserytes are not a
hospitable folk," Bracht returned. "They're more likely to slay us
than sell us a horse,"

           
"Then we'll steal one,"
Calandryll declared. "But I'll not leave her here. Remember Dera,
Bracht!"

           
The Kern grunted and fixed Cennaire
with cold blue eyes. "Are you a goddess?" he demanded roughly.
"Be that so, I'd welcome revelation."

           
"I am no goddess," she
returned meekly.

           
Bracht grunted, turning his gaze to
Calandryll. "If not a goddess, then perhaps some creation of Rhythamun's,
left here in ambush."

           
Calandryll removed his arms,
gesturing at Cennaire, never guessing how close was his question to the truth.
"Does she seem the creation of magic? Besides, we've a way to know."
He smiled as he drew his sword, assuring her he meant no harm, saying,
"Only touch the blade and show my doubting friend you're what you
claim."

           
Cennaire paused, cautious now. She
knew not what power the straightsword held, wondering if it would unmask her.
It seemed she had little other choice than to obey: refusal equated with
revelation. Were she revealed, she decided, she must throw herself on their
mercy, tell them of Anomius, and hope to persuade them to alliance. Should that
fail, then she would attempt to flee.

           
Mistaking her reluctance, Calandryll
said gently, "No harm shall come to you, of that I'm sure. Only place your
hands on the blade."

           
Had she possessed a beating heart,
it would have raced as she fastened her grip carefully about the steel.

           
Nothing happened and Calandryll
said, "You see? Dera's magic vouchsafes her honesty. She's no more than
she claims—a luckless refugee."

           
"No longer luckless, I
think," Cennaire murmured as he sheathed the sword.

           
Bracht grunted his acceptance of her
honesty and said, "You're set on bringing her?"

           
"What else can we do?"
came the answer. "Save go back and find the closest camp? That way we
grant Rhythamun even more time. And she knows his face—does that not lend her
value?"

           
Bracht nodded reluctantly and looked
to Katya.

           
"How say you?"

           
"That we've little choice but
to take her. And she may well prove valuable."

           
The Kern sighed and shrugged.
"So be it then— she comes with us." He returned his gaze to Cennaire.
"We ride hard, and into danger. You may well find a death less pleasant in
our company than if you remain here."

           
"I'd accompany you/' she said
with absolute conviction. "Wherever you go, I'd not pass another day alone
here."

           
"Then we're four." He
looked up at the sky, where cloud scudded, driven on the strengthening of the
ever-present wind, the sun moved closer to the western horizon. "We'll
start down come dawn."

           
"Not now?" asked
Calandryll! "Shall we grant Rhythamun another day?"

           
Bracht ducked his head. "Do we
start down now, night shall find us on the Daggan Vhc. That descent will take
two days—at least"—this with a glance in Cennaire's direction—"and
the Blood Road's ill-equipped with stopping places. Better we have a full day
and rested animals."

           
"As you say," Calandryll
allowed, "but I'd sec this fabulous road now."

           
Bracht grinned then and pointed
toward the Kess Imbrun: "There it lies."

           
Cennaire clung to Calandryll's arm
as he walked toward the chasm, risking a brief indulgence in her enhanced
senses. Through the mingled odors of musky sweat and horseflesh and leather
that emanated from him she caught a welter of scents. She aroused him, she
recognized, but also that such feelings confused him, as if they came
unexpected, distracting him from the greater purpose of his quest. She smelled
determination, as if he struggled to set aside his desire, and wondered if he
was a virgin, that thought intriguing. She needed no rev- enant's skills to
tell her he was strong and after that swift investigation, she forced her
senses dormant, still unsure what powers these three questers commanded.

           
The air shimmered on the updraft
from the Kess Imbrun, the latening of the day shrouding the farther rim in
misty blue haze. The grass of Cuan na'For ran to the very edge, ending abruptly
where the ground fell away as if cut by some unimaginably gigantic knife, sheer
cliffs falling down vast and smooth into depths masked now by shadow, night
already descended there. The immensity of the rift was seductive, beckoning
observers, tempting them to take one more step and give themselves over to the
emptiness, so much space below it seemed impossible a body should ever find the
ground, but float, riding the air currents like the black birds that spiraled
beneath them. Unthinking, Cennaire pressed closer against Calandryll's side,
and felt his arm encircle her shoulders. She leaned against him as Bracht
pointed a little way eastward, where the rimrock was split, a gully cut down
through the cliff. Lower, it widened and bled out onto a ledge, broad enough
for several horses to pass abreast, running across a buttress around the
farther edge of which the trail was lost.

           
"The Daggan Vhe," Bracht
said.

           
"Dera!" Calandryll's voice
was awed as he looked from the trail to the immensity of the Kess Imbrun.
"It's vast."

           
"Aye," returned Bracht,
"and not the easiest of rides."

           
"Which way shall Rhythamun
take?" asked Katya, less impressed by the chasm for her familiarity with
the mountains of her homeland. "Shall he go east, west, or north?"

           
"If he moves toward the
Borrhun-maj as we believe," Bracht answered, "he'll go a little westward
and take the closest trail up."

           
"With three—now four—days'
start," Katya murmured, "and into a land we know little of, save that
we shall likely be unwelcome there."

           
"But with one who knows his
Jesseryte face," said Calandryll, his arm still comfortingly about
Cennaire's shoulders, his next words alarming her: "And surely there are
sorcerers among them. Shall they not discern our purpose, as did the ghost-
talkers of Cuan na'For?"

           
"If the warriors don't kill us
first," said Bracht.

           
"That threat's been ever
present." Calandryll grinned. "Shall it halt us now?"

           
The question was rhetorical and
neither Bracht nor Katya deigned to answer, only grinned back and turned away
from the great dividing rift.

           
IT
was easy for Cennaire to maintain her role as they lounged about the fire.
Whatever magic Calandryll's sword possessed, it had not shown her reve- nant,
and they all three accepted her as a natural woman cast adrift by misfortune.
What questions were directed at her, she could readily answer, they being far
more concerned with Rhythamun than her past, and she with excuse enough to
question them.

           
Playing her part—though whether for
Anomius or herself now, she was not certain—she acted the innocent, gleaning
the bones of their story as she pretended hunger and wolfed down meat.

           
"In Varent den Tarl's form
Rhythamun duped us and snatched the book when we thought it safe,” Calandryll
explained, "using his magic to transport himself from Tezin-dar back to
Aldarin. There he took the body of Daven Tyras—the man you saw ensorcell the
Jesserytes—and we have chased him since. North across Lysse, and then the
length of Cuan naTor. We think he travels to the Borrhun- maj
_;
to
the lands beyond."

           
"Does aught lie beyond?"
Cennaire wondered.

           
Bracht answered that with a curt,
barking laugh: "That we shall likely discover, do we live long
enough."

           
"Perhaps Tharn's resting
place," Calandryll said, softer. "It's Rhythamun's intent to raise
the Mad God, to stand at Tharn's elbow and rule the world."

           
"I'd thought Tharn and Balatur
were both sent into limbo by the First Gods," Cennaire whispered,
"banished by their parents for the chaos their warring brought."

           
"Aye, they were,"
Calandryll agreed solemnly. "But Yl and Kyta did not slay them, only sent
them into the limbo of eternal sleep, their resting places hidden. The Arcanum
reveals those places, and Rhythamun already holds the gramaryes of raising.
Does he reach his goal, then he'll bring all the world down in chaos."