Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (34 page)

           
"He made me what I am,"
she said, her smile become cynical, her eyes fixed on the falchion's point,
uncaring. "He took me from the dungeons of Nhur-jabal and cut out my
heart."

           
"We thought him dead,"
Calandryll murmured softly, looking from Cennaire to Bracht, to Katya and
Ochen. Pain lay in his eyes, a rejection of her statement.

           
"He lives," said Cennaire.
"Oh, aye! He lives, and would have the Arcanum for his own. He'd slay
Rhythamun for that prize. And all of you, save he believes you shall lead him
to the book."

           
"With you as guide!"
Bracht's blade pressed against her jerkin. "I wondered how you came to
join us."

           
"She saved my life,"
Calandryll repeated helplessly.

           
The note of sadness in his voice
grieved Cennaire. She lowered her eyes to the blade: no threat to her, to what
she was, but she could no longer face Calandryll.

           
"He took my heart and placed it
in a box he bound with his gramaryes," she said, gaze locked on the
falchion. "I knew not he should do that; nor what he should ask of me.
Only that he gave me powers undreamt."

           
"And made you his
creature!"

           
The falchion cut leather as Bracht
drove the sword forward. And gasped as Ochen reached out, taking the blade
casually as if it were a twig, the age-mottled hand closing around the razor
edges, turning the sword. The scent of almonds joined the fire's smoke,-
tendons corded along the Kern's arm as he fought the magic that held back his
blow. Ochen said, "You cannot defeat such magic, Bracht. Neither mine nor
what Anomius has put in her. Sheathe your sword and let us talk like civilized
folk, eh?"

           
"Civilized?" For a while
Bracht strained against the wazir's grip, then gave up the unequal struggle and
sheathed his blade, anger stark in his blue eyes. "Civilized, you say?
That we should listen to this . . .
thing
. . . this revenant? I say use your magic to destroy her now. Ere she follow
her creator's commands and take the Arcanum for him."

           
"I say you should listen,"
Ochen returned. "All of you."

           
Bracht raised his arms, spread wide
in frustration. "Ahrd, wizard! Whose side do you take?" he cried.
"Hers? Anomius's? She condemns herself— use your magicks to end her
threat!"

           
"Did I believe her a threat, do
you not think I'd have done that?" Ochen demanded. "I knew her from
the first."

           
"And kept her secret?" Bracht
spun round, eyes finding Katya's face, Calandryll's. "I say we fall among
traitors—that this sorcerer works his own design, and forfeits our trust."

           
Calandryll, torn by doubts,
bewildered, said, "Do we hear him out, Bracht? I cannot believe him a traitor."
And softer, with a hopeless glance at Cennaire, "Or her. She held my blade
without harm ..."

           
The Kern looked to Katya for
support, and she shrugged, her grey eyes clouded, stormy with doubt.

           
Ochen said, somewhat irritably now,
as if the Kern's hostility drove his patience to its limits, "As
Calandryll has told you—she saved his life at risk of her own."

           
"That he should live to bring
her to the Arcanum!" Bracht retorted. "That we three should live to
find the book—that she might deliver it to Anomius. For what other
reason?"

           
"Sit down," Ochen said,
"and perhaps you shall hear some other reasons. Listen"—as the Kern
shook his head, glaring furiously from wazir to Cennaire, to Calandryll and
Katya, encompassing them in his outrage, as if their lack of immediate support
branded them, too, with the marks of treachery—"do you hear me out, or
must I force you?"

           
Bracht glowered at the ancient.
Katya said, "Sit down, Bracht. Ochen is our friend, I believe, and you
should hear him out."

           
The Kern grunted and sat down,
tension in the set of shoulders, disbelief writ clear on his face.

           
"So, first"—Ochen
retrieved dropped cups, fastidiously wiping them, setting them orderly
aside—"do you truly believe I am your enemy?"

           
"You hid her secret,"
Bracht snarled, his angry eyes accusing. "Perhaps you'd have the Arcanum
for your own."

           
Ochen sighed. Katya said slowly,
choosing her words with care, "He's offered us only aid, Bracht. Had he
not intervened, Rhythamun should surely have entrapped Calandryll within the
aethyr. That first time and again now. No less, he could have ordered us
slain."

           
"Save we are destined to find
the Arcanum," the Kern snapped back, refusing to be mollified, "and
so he needs us. As does Anomius.
^,/
He turned his face, hard and
cold, toward Cennaire. "What orders did he give you, your maker?"

           
Cennaire flinched beneath that cold
contempt. She gave her preternatural senses full rein now— what reason to hide
them any longer?—and it seemed the cold morning air crackled with myriad
emotions. From Bracht came hostility, an anger bordering on blood lust. In
Katya she sensed suspicion mingled with doubt, a wariness, a desire for reason,
a willingness to listen. Calandryll was shocked, dismayed, torn between outrage
and dejection, bewildered. Ochen was closed to her, save in his calm
determination that the discourse continue.

           
Staring at the fire's flames, she
said, "He commanded me to find you. His first intention was that I should
slay you, but then he learned of the Arcanum—what it is, the power it holds—and
then he told me to bring it to him. To leave you live until the book was
found."

           
"Anomius believed we sought a
grimoire." Calandryll spoke, his voice hoarse, the eyes he fixed on
Cennaire's face hollow. "How did he learn otherwise?"

           
Cennaire paused, then shrugged—the
path she trod now was irrevocable, there was no turning back—and said, "At
first, he did not know. From Menelian, in Vishat'yi, I found you had sailed for
Aldarin."

           
"From Menelian?" Bracht
fixed her with a hateful glare. "Menelian aided us. He'd not have betrayed
us, save . . . Does he live still?"

           
Cennaire shook her head. "He
looked to slay me with his magicks. I fought for my life ..."

           
She held her eyes firm on the fire,
not wanting to see their faces, loath to meet Calandryll's gaze, hearing his
gasp of horror.

           
"You killed him." Bracht's
voice was harsh, condemning. "On your master's orders, you slew him."

           
"I ..." She shook her head
again, filled with a terrible regret. "I had no choice. He allowed me none
... It was my life or his."

           
"Your
life
⁷
."
Bracht snorted bitter laughter.

           
"And then?" asked Katya.

           
"Anomius dispatched me to
Lysse, where I picked up your trail. I learned you sought the Arcanum from two
Kerns, Gart and Kythan ..."

           
"Whom you doubtless also
slew," Bracht grunted.

           
"No." Cennaire gestured a
negative. "They were honorable men. I tricked it from them and left them
living."

           
"Are we to believe that?"
the Kern demanded.

           
"Why should she deny it?"
asked Katya. "Already she admits to Menelian's murder—why should she halt
with Gart and Kythan?"

           
Bracht sighed and shook his head.
Katya said, "How did you find us?"

           
"Anomius guessed you must move
toward the Borrhun-maj," answered Cennaire, dull-voiced. "He sent me
to the Kess Imbrun, to the Daggan Vhe, to await you there. Along the way I saw
bones—human—and the marks of riders. I came to the chasm and saw Rhythamun
..." She shuddered at the memory. "The rest you know—it was as I told
you."

           
"Save there were no tensai
attacked your caravan," said Bracht, "for there was no caravan. Only
you, going about your creator's business. So shall we believe you truly saw
Rhythamun?"

           
"I did!" she declared.
"Aye, there was no caravan, but the rest... I saw him feast on human flesh
and possess the Jesseryte. All that is true, I swear."

           
"Doubtless by all the gods'
names," Bracht muttered, and turned to Katya. "Do you believe this
farrago?"

           
The Vanu woman looked long at
Cennaire, her eyes appraising, then she said, "I believe she saw Rhythamun
take Jesseryte form. I believe she slew Menelian, but left Gart and Kythan
alive. Beyond that..." She opened her hands in a gesture of wonderment.
"Whether she leagues with Anomius, to take the Arcanum, I cannot say. Save
she
did
aid Calandryll against the
uwagi."

           
"That he might continue the
quest!" Bracht shouted. "Obeying her master's commands. For what
other reason?"

           
"I am not sure," Katya
replied. "Perhaps Ochen might answer better than I. Or Cennaire
herself."

           
"If we may trust him
still," Bracht muttered. "She I trust not at all."

           
The wazir nodded solemnly, narrow
eyes moving from one face to the other. "You've cause enough for
doubt," he agreed, "and in face of all you've learned I can ask only
your indulgence. I do not seek the Arcanum—no sane man would, save to destroy it—and
all I wish is that you succeed. So, how shall I convince you?"

           
"You might start by telling us
why you hid your knowledge of this creature," Bracht said.

           
"Because I sensed in her a
changing," Ochen returned, "a shifting of the patterns that bind all
our destinies. Her allegiance shifted from contact with you, and I believed—I
believe still—she has a part to play in the design."

           
"Ahrd!" Bracht grumbled.
"We hear more sorcerer's riddles."

           
"Think you so?" asked
Ochen. "Listen, warrior— have you not told me of your first encounter with
Katya? How you believed her an enemy? Did your feelings not change,
later?"

           
"The spaewife in Kharasul found
her true," said Bracht, "and she proved herself, in Gessyth."

           
"But was there not also
something else?" Ochen asked, his tawny eyes probing the Kern's face.
"Something in you, beyond doubting?"

           
"What mean you?" Bracht
demanded.

           
"That you loved her," said
Ochen. "That in your heart, from the first, you saw her true."

           
Bracht's eyes hooded then, and he
shrugged, hesitating before he admitted, "Aye, I love her. But what's that
to do with this creature? Katya's a woman of flesh and blood, not ..." He
gestured dismissively.

           
"Think you that's not flesh
covers her bones?" The wazir indicated Cennaire. "Blood runs in her
veins, red as Katya's."

           
The Kern frowned. "She names
herself revenant, wizard. Do you tell me she lies?"

           
"No, only that she is made
something other than human, but can yet retain those emotions humanity
feels," Ochen replied, a hand raised to quell the outburst Bracht's face
threatened. "And that Calandryll, in his own way, is more than just a man.
You know there's a power in him, and you accept that. Might you perhaps accept
that that power imbues him with a vision beyond the normal? That he might,
through that power, perceive the truth in Cennaire?"

           
"He saw her not for what she
is," Bracht returned, "but for what she seems."

           
"Perhaps." Ochen turned
then to Cennaire and asked her bluntly: "Do you love Calandryll?"

           
Like the Kern before her, she
hesitated, caught off balance by the question, unsure. Love was not an emotion
with which she was familiar. What did it mean? That she was prepared to risk
her existence that he should live? That she would have his approval; could
scarcely bear the pain she felt radiating from him? That she would—had!—turned
from Anomius's service for fear he be slain, uncaring of her own fate? That she
could not properly understand what she felt for him, but knew his touch, his
smile, excited her in ways she had never before known? If that was love, then
aye: she ducked her head, silent, gaze still locked on the fire.