Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (35 page)

           
"The uwagi might well have
destroyed her," Ochen continued. "She's great strength, but even so
those creatures could have rent her limb from limb—Horul, you've witnessed
their power!—but still she chose to face them. For Calandryll's sake."

           
"Or Anomius's," said
Bracht, obstinate.

           
"Think you she's no
feelings?" Ochen asked. "Think you she does not fear death?"

           
"How can she?" the Kern
demanded. "When she's no life to lose."

           
"And is that better?" the
wazir countered. "Aye, she might not have died, but still been sundered.
Think on it—to be rent apart and live still? Anomius holds her beating heart
within the aegis of his cantrips, and so she would not have died. Only been torn
apart, to live on, suffering."

           
"What do you say?" asked
Katya.

           
"That she was prepared to face
a fate perhaps worse than honest death," said Ochen. "For
Calandryll's sake."

           
Katya nodded thoughtfully,- Bracht
frowned. Calandryll sat bemused, their words, their arguments, beating against
ears numbed by revelation, an assault on the bewildered thoughts that filled
his mind, racing, confused as the tumult of dreams.

           
Cennaire was revenant? Anomius's
creation, sent to snatch the Arcanum? But he had held her, tasted her lips on
his, and those lips had felt entirely human. Yet those same lips had voiced the
truth of her making—and he could no more doubt that than he could doubt the now
frightening realization that he loved her. It washed over him with a terrifying
force, awful for all he heard, could not deny or doubt: he loved her. Not
knowing he did it, he moaned, head lowered, lost in absolute confusion.

           
Ochen's voice came unwelcomed
through the miasma of his thoughts: "Calandryll, did she not save
you?"

           
"Aye," he said numbly.
"She held me off from striking Rhythamun, when he stood in the uwagi's
place. She carried me to safety, and she fought the beasts to save me."

           
Because
she is a revenant; because she has that strength. The strength of the undead.

           
"And did she not bring you back
to safety?"

           
"Aye, she did."

           
Because
she survived where living beings could not. Because magic affects the living,
not the dead.

           
"And yet, she could have fled,
no? She might have gone into the forest. Followed us to Pamur- teng, to Anwar-teng,
hidden from us, concealing what she is. But she did not—she chose to return, to
bring you back."

           
"Aye."

           
Because
she obeys her creator's commands? Because she is Anomius's creature? How can I
love her, then!

           
"And do you love her?"

           
In his turn he hesitated. He wanted
to deny it, wished that he might, and could not. Low-voiced, tonelessly, he
said, "Aye."

           
He raised his eyes then,, helpless,
hopeless, wondering what it made him, that he confessed his love of a woman
dead, undead, creation of magic, and that the magic of a sorcerer sworn his
enemy. He saw Bracht's face, unbelieving; Katya's, enigmatic, troubled; Ochen's
calm, approving, he thought. Most of all he saw Cennaire's eyes shine hopeful.
He nodded and said again, "Aye."

           
"This is madness," Bracht
snarled. "You're entranced." .

           
"Perhaps he sees to the heart
of it," said Ochen.

           
"The heart?" Bracht's
clenched fist carved air, angry. "Her heart lies with Anomius."

           
"No!" Cennaire was
encouraged by the helpless light she saw in Calandryll's eyes. The unmasked
hostility she saw in Bracht firmed her somewhat: if they were to have the
truth, then it should be all the truth. "My heart lies in that box he
made, in Nhur-jabal. He travels with the Tyrant's sorcerers, warring against
Sathoman ek'Hennem. He is confined by their cantrips, to the Tyrant's cause,
and may not quit the host."

           
"Then why do you serve
him?"

           
Katya's voice was deliberately calm,
though she radiated a controlled tension, and -Cennaire could sense the
loathing the warrior woman sought to conceal, the suspicion. She sighed and
said, "Perhaps I no longer do. Revealed, I can be of little use to him. I
think that does he learn you know me for what I am, then he will destroy
me."

           
Calandryll moaned, "No,"
head lowered, rocking where he sat.

           
Katya nodded and demanded, "But
until now— before we knew—you obeyed his commands. Yet you say your heart lies
safe in Nhur-jabal, and I ask again: why?"

           
Cennaire raised her eyes to meet the
impassive grey stare. Judgment lay there, and threat, but reason, too, a
willingness to hear out the tale in full measure before verdict was reached.
"I live by courtesy of his magic," she answered. "He's only to
lay hands on the box to destroy me. And he boasts that soon he shall be freed of
the gramaryes that bind him. That so, he might return to Nhur-jabal; or when
the war ends."

           
"He boasts?" Bracht
interrupted, harsh. "You commune with him?"

           
"He gave me a mirror,"
Cennaire advised him, "ensorcelled. Through it I am able to speak with
him."

           
"Ahrd!" The Kern was on
his feet in the instant, striding to where the horses stood, rummaging through
her saddlebags until he found the cloth- wrapped glass. He returned to the fire
clutching the package as though he held a serpent. "This?"

           
"Aye." Cennaire ducked her
head as she sensed the disgust emanating from the man, mixed with a measure of
fear. "But worry not—save I voice the cantrips he taught me it remains but
a mirror. It can do you no harm, neither can he see us, or hear what we
say."

           
"It is as she says," Ochen
murmured. "No more than a glass until magic wakes it."

           
Bracht set the mirror down, his
expression become speculative. He glanced from it to Ochen, to Cennaire.
"And do I shatter it? What then?"

           
"Then likely Anomius will
realize he's found out," said Ochen.

           
"And have no further way to
know what we do, or where we go," said Bracht. A wolfish smile curved his
mouth as he drew his dirk, reversing the long knife, the pommel poised to
strike.

           
"Wait!" Ochen's hand rose,
stilling the blow. His painted nails glittered golden in the fire's light, his eyes
burned into the Kern's, and Bracht hesitated, frowning.

           
"Why? You name yourself our
ally, yet you'd leave her the means to commune with her master?"

           
"Think on it," urged
Ochen. "Does Anomius believe his emissary discovered, he's no further use
for her. What then?"

           
He turned to Cennaire, a question
framed in the wrinkles of his face. She shrugged and said, "I think he'd
likely destroy me for such failure. He's an unforgiving master."

           
Bracht chuckled wickedly and raised
the dirk anew.

           
Calandryll cried desperately,
"No!"

           
"No?" Bracht stared,
amazed. "You say 'no'? You'd give Anomius eyes?"

           
"Strike and he'll likely
destroy Cennaire."

           
Calandryll
closed his eyes, head flung back. Oh, Dera, what path do I tread? This is
surely madness.

           
"Aye," said Bracht.
"So?"

           
Calandryll opened his eyes to face
the Kern. It seemed a void opened inside him, a great, dark pit of pain and
confusion, from which only one awful certainty emerged clear, all else chaos.
He voiced it: "I love her."

           
Bracht's voice grew soft now, filled
with horror, with disbelief. "How can you say you love her?"

           
"She saved my life,"
Calandryll muttered.

           
"For her own reasons!"
Bracht bellowed, so loud the horses started behind them, whickering and
stamping.

           
"I ..." Calandryll shook
his head, rubbed sweat- damp palms over a chilled face. "I do not think it
so. I do not
believe
it so . . . She
might have died herself. She might have fled . . . left me . . . but she did
not. She risked herself for me!"

           
He fell silent, aware of Bracht's
disbelieving gaze, Katya's pitying stare. He could scarce bring himself to look
at Cennaire.

           
"There are other reasons,"
Ochen said into the silence, placatory. "Do we set aside Calandryll's
feelings, then still there seems to me sound cause to leave that glass intact.
First, do you shatter it, Anomius will likely send some other minion, and we
cannot know its face."

           
"It would need find us,"
Bracht said, the dirk still poised.

           
"Aye, and we've a head
start," Ochen agreed calmly, "but magic's a way of eating the
leagues, and we might well find ourselves pursued by some creature we cannot
recognize. We've a saying in this land—better the known demon than the
stranger. While if we leave the glass, and allow Cennaire communication with
Anomius ..."

           
"Madness!" Bracht snapped.

           
"... Then we may deceive
him," Ochen continued. "Mislead him and trick him."

           
"With his creature in
tow?" grunted the Kern. "Free to commune with him, and advise him of
all we do?"

           
"Hardly." The wazir shook
his head, his tone become exasperated, as if the Kern's belligerent obstinacy
tried his patience afresh. "Think you she can use the mirror without we
know it? I'd sense such use, even if you failed to see it. No, what messages
she might send Anomius shall be of our devising."

           
"Better we smash the mirror
now," said Bracht, "and end this thing's miserable existence."

           
Ochen shrugged, as if the Kern's
suggestion was taken under consideration. He turned to Katya: "Two
opinions are voiced clear. Bracht would see Cennaire slain; Calandryll would
have her live— how say you?"

           
For long moments the Vanu woman met
the wazir's stare with silence, as if she sought answers in his narrow eyes,
the lines that furrowed his face. Finally she said slowly, "I believe you
our friend, old man, and yet you tell us you've known Cennaire for a revenant
since the first. Therefore, I suspect you've some other reason. Do you tell it,
and then I'll answer."

           
"Women were ever more sensible
than men," Ochen murmured, smiling approval. "Aye, I'll tell it—I
recognized her when I looked into all your pneumas, back there atop the Daggan
Vhe. I saw the purpose in you three like honest fire burning in a dark night.
In Cennaire I saw a murkier flame, confused, torn between those strictures laid
on her by Anomius and that part of her, that anima, entirely her own. I saw a
creature lost, affected even then by your company. It was as though the fire
that burns in each of you scoured the darkness in her, cleansing. Also, I
sensed she had a place in the design that governs us all. What, I cannot say—
only that she becomes a member of your quest, and that I believe it must fail
without her."

           
Katya nodded. Bracht said,
"Three and three and three, wizard. Twice now spaewives have prophesied three.
How so, if we become four?"

           
"That power the spaewives, the
gijans, own is not mine," said Ochen. "Theirs is a different talent,
but do I hazard a guess, I'd tell you that those scryers you consulted in Lysse
and
Kandahar
spoke of what was then, when this woman had
no part because she did not then exist."

           
"You weave a web of words and
half-seen thoughts," the Kern retorted irritably.

           
"Surely the future
is
a riddle," Ochen replied.

           
"Did the spaewife in Secca warn
Calandryll of Anomius? Did the spaewife in Kharasul tell you of Jehenne ni
Larrhyn? Did you"—a hint of accusation, or mischief, entered his
voice—"deem fit to warn your comrades of that woman's interest in
you?" .