Blood ties-- Thieves World 09 (5 page)

"Lalo, what are you looking at?" Gilla asked.

"I'm not sure," he said slowly. "But I think I know where I might find out...."

"You can't go outside," said Illyra in alarm. "Listen!" Even from the Street of the Red Lanterns they could hear the tumult in the city, and Lalo shuddered.

"I don't mean to," he said simply. "I'm going to go inward, through there-" He pointed at the archway in the card. Illyra stared at him, bewildered, but in Gilla's face understanding began to dawn, and with it fear.

"If you mean to go into trance then I'm going with you to make sure you remember to come back again!" she said tartly. "I don't have the means to compel you the way I did before."

Lalo had no idea what she meant by that, but there was no time to question her now. "If you can, surely you have the right to," he told her, "if either of us can get there that way," he went on, doubting his own intuition suddenly. He propped the card up against the flagon so that they could, both see it, and pointed at the other chair.

It creaked as Gilla eased into it. She settled herself, her hands clasped firmly in her lap, then looked at Illyra. "If this works, don't let anyone disturb us, and in the name of your own Lillis, watch over my child!" The S'danzo's throat worked, then she nodded, her fingers tightening on the damp cloth she held in her hand. "May your goddess bless you," she whispered brokenly, then turned quickly to Latilla again.

"Well?" Gilla's gaze held his. Lalo took a deep breath.

"Randal taught me a little about this," he said slowly. "Make your breathing regular, and try to relax. Look at the card until you have it memorized, then change the focus of your eyes and try to look through the gateway into the place beyond. When you can see it, push your awareness toward it and through..." He looked at her dubiously. The procedure had seemed reasonable enough when the wizard described it, but he had the awful feeling that he was about to look like a fool.

Then Latilla whimpered again, and Gilla reached out to grip his hand. Lalo took another breath and fixed his gaze on the archway.

Once more the riot of greenery swirled through Lalo's vision. He fought the compulsion to blink, to refocus, and tried to imagine he held a paintbrush in his hand. See, he told himself, controlling his breathing. Now all he could feel was the warm pressure of Gilla's hand. Would she keep him earth-bound? But even as he thought it, the confusion before him began to resolve into something-green leaves fluttering in the sunlight.... He launched himself toward them, and then the garden was all around him, and he was through.

For a moment all Lalo knew was the feel of that springy turf beneath his feet, and the scent of air that was like no breeze that had ever blown through Sanctuary. Then he became aware that someone was beside him. He turned and jerked away, seeing the goddess he had painted on Molin Torchholder's wall. She smiled, and the face of the goddess was suddenly that of the golden-haired girl he had courted in the spring of the world, and then both of them were the face of Gilla, always and only Gilla, who was looking at him as she had after the first time they had ever made love.

But the garden, when he looked again, was by no means so perfect as he had remembered it. Parts of the lawn were withered, while other sections showed the sickly yellow of flooding. The same was true of the oak trees, and some of the leaves were blotched with a blight like leprosy.

"It's here, too," said Gilla, "the same thing that's been happening to Sanctuary!"

Lalo nodded, wondering which level had started the trouble. But that didn't matter-what he needed was to leam the cure. He took her hand and they began to pick their way across the mottled grass beneath the trees. After a time Lalo found the pool and the waterfall. But the clearing where he had feasted with the Ilsig gods was empty now. Lalo's heart sank within him. If even the Otherworld was empty, then the magic of Sanctuary had been destroyed indeed! Perhaps the S'danzo were right, and the gods were only delusions of men. But even as that thought passed through his mind, his lips were moving in prayer.

"Father Us, hear me, Shipri All-Mother have mercy! Not for my sake, but for your people-"

"And for the sake of my child!" came Gilla's voice in his ear. A little wind gusted around them and plucked a leaf from one of the oak trees. Lalo watched, fascinated, as it spiraled downward and settled at last in the breast of Gilla's gown. Then a new voice spoke from behind them.

"Why do you call on Us and Shipri? This is the Face the people of Sanctuary pray to now!"

Lalo jerked around, flinched as he saw what had answered them and then stumbled over his own feet, trying to get between it and Gilla. But she had always been broadly built and big-boned, and she gripped his arm and stayed beside him. The Thing that had spoken looked on his confusion and laughed. Lalo stared, realizing in horror that it was female, wrapped in scorched robes from which pale smoke rose in ghostly trails, with singed hair that lifted as the wind caught it and sent up little spurts of flame. It-Her-face glowed like a lantern, as if the fire that burned Her lay within, and the features of that face were contorted in a demon's mask. "Dyareela," he breathed in appalled recognition. The goddess responded with a terrible smile. "That is one of the names by which men pray to Me, it is true. But it was you who first called Me, daughter." She beckoned to Gilla. "How shall I reward you?"

"Demon, go away!" hissed Gilla in revulsion. Dyareela laughed. "Still you do not understand! I neither come nor go-I am! Only my Faces change ..."

"Then change your Face again," groaned Lalo. "Three weddings were promised, and one of them royal, to redeem the land! I would have come to them as Lady of love's fire! But Sanctuary has chosen to see Me otherwise!" Wind whirled around them, and when the falling leaves touched the hair of the goddess they burst into flame.

"Be beautiful, blessed Lady, please be beautiful for us now!" There were tears in Gilla's voice and in her eyes.

"Daughter, in this place I am only a reflection, as you are only a dream. Your words have no power over Me here! If I am to bless you I must be invoked in the world of men!"

The sky seemed to be darkening, and the only thing Lalo could see was the goddess, who glowed like a demon-lantem at the Feast of the Dead.

"We tried," wailed Gilla, "but the cards had no power!"

"The cards never had power; they only focused yours. Make the Great Marriage in Sanctuary as has been promised Me! Then I will show you my fair Face again!" Wind and darkness howled around them. Flaming leaves whirled away and seeded the barren night with stars. Suddenly the goddess was gone, and the oak grove, and even the solid ground on which they had been standing. Buffeted and blown, Lalo lost all sense of who he was and whence he had come, and as awareness left him, the last thing he knew was the firm grip of Gilla's hand

Gilla fell down a long tunnel of darkness into her body again. An eternity later, she tried to move. She was stiff, and so heavy, when she had been moving as lightly as... She groaned and opened her eyes.

"Thank the gods!" said Illyra. In the flickering light of the lamps she looked worn and hollow-eyed.

"I thought you didn't believe in them," muttered Gilla. She was still holding onto Lalo's hand. Carefully she opened her fingers, and set it on his lap with the other. He was still unconscious, but his breathing had quickened. In a moment, she thought, he will waken, and what then? |

The S'danzo rubbed at her forehead. "Right now I'll be-f lieve in anything that might help us. I've been listening to the procession-it's gone all around the city and must be nearly back to the ruins of the temple by now. We don't have much time." She lifted her head and stared at Gilla. "Will it help us? You both went out like doused candles, but were you asleep, or did you actually get somewhere?"

Lalo shuddered, and opened his eyes. "We got there. We saw the goddess-a goddess

..." He shuddered again. "She's angry. She doesn't want a sacrifice. She wants Shu-sea and Prince Kittycat to get married!" He began to laugh with a soft edge of hysteria that had Gilla instantly on her feet and holding him until the tremors that shook him faded again. At last he pressed his face into her broad breast and groaned. "We've failed," he whispered. "We've failed." Gilla held him against her and stared over his head, seeing in her mind's eye the glorious young man with whom she had walked in the Otherworld. He had been as handsome as a king. She remembered how lightly she had moved beside him t and wondered suddenly. How did he see me? (

After a moment she focused on the still figure on the ' couch, and then on Illyra again. "How has Latilla been?" she asked. The S'danzo's eyes were bright with tears. "She has passed the restless stage of the fever. The sleep she's in now is deeper than yours was. I've tried to cool her, but the cloths dry from the heat of her body as soon as I put them on her. I've tried, Gilla, I've tried!" She bowed her head and covered her face with her hands.

"I know you have, Illyra," said Gilla gently. "And now I must ask you to try just a little longer while I do something harder. I must try to make the goddess beautiful."

Lalo pulled away and sat looking at her in wonder as Gilla went over to the bed and kissed her daughter gently on the brow. Then she moved majestically to the door and called for Myrtis.

The madam's eyes widened as she listened to Gilla's requests, but after a moment she nodded, and her eyes began to glow. "Yes, it is true, though there's hardly a respectable woman in Sanctuary who would understand what you mean. Certainly I never expected that you..." Myrtis left that comment unfinished as Gilla glared at her, smiled, and turned away to give orders to her girls. I never expected to do anything like this either, thought Gilla, smoothing her hands over the massive swell of her bosom and along the mighty curve of her thigh. But by the breasts of the goddess I am going to try!

Sitting in the bath with giggling slave-girls fussing over her, Gilla knew the idea had been ridiculous. She had grown-up children, her blood had ceased to answer the call of the moon two years ago, and Lalo was rarely more than a companionable body in her bed anymore. When she had gotten into the marble bathing pool, her bulk had sent scented water slopping over the side in a tidal wave.

She tried to imagine Lalo's balding head and skinny legs being scrubbed by the girls in the other pool, and thought that he must look even stranger in the midst of all this splendor than she did. She wondered why in the name of the gods he had agreed to it. But of course that was why-because of the gods, or one of them, anyway, and because of a picture that he had once sworn she had been his model for.

And then she had a marvelous billowing garment of diaphanous sea-green silk on her back and a garland of sweet-smelling garden herbs on her damp hair, and singing girls were lighting her way to a chamber where the scent of burning sandalwood covered the reek of smoke from distant fires.

The room was paneled in cedar, and behind gauze curtains the windows were screened by marble filigree. What part of it was not taken up by the bed was covered by thick carpet and silken cushions, and there was a rosewood table with a flagon and two goblets of gold. But of course the bed was the point of it all, and Lalo was already waiting beside it, carrying off with more presence than she would have believed possible, a long caftan of jade green brocaded in gold. He seemed to be memorizing the pattern of the carpet. Gilla thought. If he laughs at me I will murder him!

And then he lifted his head, and in his worn face, his eyes were glowing as they had when he looked on her in the Other-world. Behind her, Gilla could hear the rustle of silk and a giggle cut short as the slave girls backed out of the room. The door clicked shut.

"Health to you, my lord and husband." Gilla's voice shook only a little as she said the words.

Lalo licked dry lips, then stepped carefully to the table and poured wine. He offered her one of the goblets. "Health to you," he said, lifting the other, "my wife and my queen."

The goblets rang as they touched. Gilla felt the sweet fire of the wine burning down her throat to her belly, and another kind of fire kindling in her flesh as she met his eyes.

"Health to all the land," she whispered, "and the healing fire of love...." Torches painted the rubble of Dyareela's temple with their lurid glare, dyeing with an even deeper crimson the blood-splattered robes of the priests and the severed head of the sacrifice. The sweet stink of blood hung heavy in the air, and the line of soldiers watched with wary eyes the chanting, murmuring masses of humanity who had crowded into the ruins to see it. The priests were praying now, straining grotesquely toward a darkness of cloud or smoke that blotted out the stars.

"Whatever they're expecting, they'd better get on with it," said a man of the Third Commando. "That kind of babbling won't hold this lot long. They've seen blood, and they'll want more of it soon!"

The man on his right nodded. "Stupid of Kittycat to allow it-anyone could see what would hap-" His words faded to a mumble as Sync's stony eye passed along the line, but his companion heard him add, with a faith that in the circumstances was touching, "This wouldn't of happened if Tempus was here."

"Dyareela, Dyareela, hear, oh, hear!" chanted the crowd. Hear, hear, or maybe it was fear, fear, echoed from shattered pillars and walls. "Have mercy-" came the drawn out cry. A shiver of eagerness ran through the crowd and the soldiers stiffened, knowing what was coming now.

Torches flickered wildly in a great gust of wind, a damp wind that came from the sea. The wind gusted again, and the scene grew perceptibly less lurid as several of the torches were blown out. A priest grabbed helplessly as his headdress went sailing away, and the crowd was abruptly distracted from its bloodlust by the struggle for gold thread and jewels. Then somewhere out to sea, thunder rumbled, and the remaining torches were doused by the first splatterings of rain. Rain hissed in the embers of burned buildings and rinsed the ashes from the roofs of those houses which had survived. It scoured the streets and ran clear in the gutters, filled the sewers and flushed their festering contents down the river out to sea. It washed the reek of blood from the air, and left behind it the clean scent of rain. Men who moments before had growled like beasts stood with faces upturned to the suddenly beneficent heavens, and found the water that ran down their faces mingled inexplicably with tears.