Cinnabar Shadows (20 page)

"Too late now," Zvain said grimly. "They're coming again."

But the Codesh butchers weren't coming. The noise and movement came from the yellow-robed
templars charging through the crowd with pikes lowered and shields up. Without Kakzim to command them,
the butchers weren't interested in a brawl. They fell back, retreating into the circle of Mahtra's power, but
dispersing before they got close. Elsewhere, the brawlers quickly faded into the throng of bystanders.

A few voices still cursed Mahtra from the safety of the crowd. They called her freak and evil.
Someone called her a dragon. They all wanted her dead, and when the templars broke through the crowd
and got their first look at the circle she'd made with her protection, Mahtra feared they might heed her
accusers. They stared at her, weapons ready, faces hidden by their shields. Mahtra stared back, fear and
anger brewing beneath her skin. She didn't know what to do next and neither did they.

The templar phalanx heaved a visible sigh. Spears went up, shields came down, and the elf named
Giola strode out of the formation.

"What happened?" she demanded with a quavering voice. "We took up arms as soon as the mob
moved. We were at the gate when we heard the noise—it was like Tyr-storm thunder."

"Mahtra didn't think you'd get here in time. She took matters into her own hands."

"A spell? You're no defiler. Do you wear the veil?"

Defiler? Veil? These words meant nothing to Mahtra, only that she was under close scrutiny and there
was no one to speak for her, except a human boy who spoke fast enough for both of them.

"No way! Mahtra's no wizard, no priest, neither. Where she comes from, they do this all the time. No
swords or spears or spellcraft, just boom, boom, boom. Thunder and lightning all the time!"

Zvain sounded so sincere that Mahtra almost believed him herself. The elf seemed equally uncertain
for a moment then, shaking her head, Giola picked her way through the bodies.

"Never mind. It doesn't matter, does it? What about the rest of them. Lord Pavek, Towd—?"

"D-Dead," Zvain muttered, losing all his brash confidence in a single word.

His tears started to flow, and Mahtra reached out to him, but he scampered away. Mahtra's arm fell to
her side, heavier than it had ever been, even in the grip of the makers' protection. She would have sobbed
herself, if her eyes had been made that way. Instead, she stood silent and outcast as Giola knelt and
pressed her fingers against the necks of Pavek and the dwarf.

"Their hearts are still beating," the elf proclaimed.

Zvain sniffed up his tears. "They're alive?" he asked incredulously. "She didn't kill them?" He skidded to
his knees beside Pavek. "Wake up!" He started shaking Pavek's arm.

Giola got to her feet without making the same determination for Ruari. She rejoined the templars, and
they split into two groups. One group stood with their backs to the little stone building, keeping watch over
the Codeshites, who seemed to have gone back to their work as if the brawl had never erupted. The other
group stripped off their yellow robes. They tied their robes together and shoved spears the length of the
sleeves to make two stretchers, one for Pavek, a second for the dwarf.

When they were traveling from Quraite, Ruari had told her that his mother's folk wouldn't lift a finger
to save his life. Mahtra hadn't believed him—her own makers weren't that cruel. Now she saw the truth
and was ashamed of her doubts. She was emboldened by them, too, seizing Giola's arm and meeting the
elf's disdainful stare when it focused on her mask.

Mahtra told Giola, "You must carry Ruari to safety," then gave silent thanks to Lord Hamanu, whose
magic had given her a voice anyone could understand.

"She means it," Zvain added. He was kneeling beside Ruari now that the templars had lifted Pavek.
"Remember: boom, boom, boom!"

A shiver ran down Mahtra's spine, down her arm as well, which made Giola's eyes widen. The elf tried
to free herself. Mahtra let her get away. While listening to Zvain's boasting, Mahtra realized she did have
the wherewithal to use her protection when she wasn't afraid. She didn't want to; she didn't know how to
limit its effects to one specific person, but the power itself belonged to her, not the makers, and when she
fastened her gaze on Giola, the elf knew where the lay, too.

Pavek and the others revived somewhat in the abattoir watchroom. They could sit up and sip water
when Nunk arrived from the outer gate, but none of them could stand or speak. The Codesh instigator
looked at the high templar's glazed, unfocused eyes and his seedy face and decided the situation had
deteriorated too far for him to handle.

"They're going to the city, to the palace!" He gave a spate of orders for handcarts and runners.
"Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy, we'll all be gutted if Pavek—Lord Pavek dies here."

Zvain started to object, but the instigator's plan seemed excellent to Mahtra. She gave Zvain the same
look she'd given Giola, and, like the elf, the boy did what she wanted him to.

Pavek began stringing coherent thoughts together as the handcart bounced along the Urik road. He
pieced together what had happened to him from the disconnected, dreamlike images cluttering his mind:
Mahtra had saved him from certain death in the abattoir. She was with him still; he could see her head and
shoulders as she ran beside the cart, easily keeping pace with the elves who were pulling it. Fate knew
what had happened to Ruari and Zvain, but Pavek could hear another cart rumbling nearby and hoped his
companions were in it. He hoped they were alive, and hoped most of all that he'd think of something to say
to Lord Hamanu that would keep them alive.

Lord Bhoma let Pavek keep his sword, which might be a sign that the sorcerer-king wasn't going to
execute them— or it might mean that Hamanu would order him to perform the executions himself, including
his own. Ruari still had his staff, but both the staff and Ruari were sporting bandages. Lord Bhoma might
have dismissed them as a threat to anyone but themselves. Zvain was plainly terrified; they all were
terrified—except Mahtra who'd been here before.

Hamanu, King of Mountains and Plains, was already in his audience chamber when Lord Bhoma
commanded palace slaves to open the doors. He'd been sitting on a black marble bench, contemplating
water as it flowed over a black boulder, and rose to meet them. Urik's sorcerer-king was as Pavek
remembered him: a golden presence in armor of beaten gold, taller than the tallest elf, a glorious mane
surmounting a cruelly perfect human face.

"Just-Plain Pavek, so you've come home at last."

The king smiled and held out his hand. Somehow Pavek found the strength to stride forward and clasp
that hand without flinching—even when the Lion's claws rasped against his skin. The air was always hot
around Hamanu, and sulphurous, like his eyes. Pavek found it difficult to breathe, impossible to talk, and
was absurdly grateful when the king let him go.

"Mahtra, my child, your quest was successful."

Pavek's heart skipped a beat when she accepted Hamanu's embrace without fear or ill-effects. The
king patted the top of Mahtra's white head and somehow Pavek knew she was smiling within her mask.
Then Hamanu fixed those glowing yellow eyes on Ruari.

"You—I remember: You were curled up on the floor beside Telhami when I wanted to speak with her
that night in Quraite. You were afraid then, when the danger had passed. Are you still afraid?"

The Lion-King curled his lips in a smile that revealed fearsome ivory fangs. The poor half-elf trembled
so badly he needed his staff for balance. That left Zvain, who was paralyzed with wide-eyed tenor until
Hamanu touched his cheek. His eyes closed and remained that way after the king withdrew.

"Zvain, that's a Balkan name, but you've never been to Balic, have you?"

"No-o-o-o," the boy whispered, a sound that seemed drawn from the bottom of his soul.

"The truth is best, Zvain, always remember that. There are worse things than dying, aren't there, Lord
Pavek?" The king looked at Pavek, and Pavek knew his ordeal was about to begin. "Recount."

Words flowed out of Pavek's mouth as fast as he could shape them, but they were his own words. He
didn't feel his life slipping away; Hamanu wasn't unreeling his memory on a mind-bender's spindle, like silk
from a worm's cocoon. He told the truth, all of it, from Quraite to Modekan, Modekan to the elven market
and the warded passage underground. When he got to the cavern, the pressure on his thoughts relented. He
described how the bowls and their scaffolds had first appeared: magically shimmering and glorious from the
far side of the cavern. And how, when he pierced their glamour, he learned that they actually were made
from lashed-together bones and pitch-patched hide and filled with sludge he believed was poison.

"I thought of Codesh, O Mighty King. But I wanted proof, not my own guesses, before I came here."

"You wanted a measure of that sludge, because you'd forgotten to collect it the first time and you
believed your own words would not be enough."

Pavek gulped air. The king had used the Unseen Way. His memories had been unreeled, and he had
not died, he had not even known it was happening....

"Tell me the rest, Lord Pavek. Tell me your conclusions, which are not part of your memories. What do
you think?"

"I think Kakzim has found a way to poison Urik's water, but I have no proof—except for a few stains
on Ruari's staff—"

Hamanu moved swiftly, more swiftly than Pavek could measure with his eyes, to Ruari's side, and
when the half-elf did not immediately relinquish his staff, the Lion-King roared loud enough to deafen them
all. His arm swept forward, claws bared, and took the wood out of Ruari's hands. Ruari collapsed on his
hands and knees with a groan. Pavek didn't twitch to help his friend, couldn't: he was transfixed by Lord
Hamanu's rage.
The Lion-King's human features had all but vanished. His jaw thrust forward, supporting a score or
more of identical, sharp teeth. His leonine mane vanished, too, replaced by a dark, scaly crest. He seemed
not so much taller as longer, with an angled spine rather than an erect one, and a sinuously flexible neck.
Dark, nonretractable talons slashed through the linen bound over the stains on Ruari's staff. A slender,
forked tongue slashed once and touched the stains, then with another roar, Lord Hamanu hurled the staff
over their heads. It exploded when it hit the wall and fell to the floor in pieces.

The words echoed inside Pavek's skull. He was not certain he'd heard them with his ears and didn't try
to answer with his fear-thickened tongue. Instead, Pavek threw up images a mind-bender could absorb:
He'd tried. He'd done his best to solve problems he didn't understand. He was merely a human man. If they
had failed, it was because he had failed, and he alone should bear the blame. But his failure was not
deliberate—merely mortal.

Pavek stared into the eyes of a creature who was everything he was not. He willed himself not to blink
or flinch, and after an eternity it was the creature who turned away. With the tension broken and their lives
saved for another heartbeat, Pavek let his head hang as he tried, gasp by painful gasp, to draw air into his
burning lungs.

"It is enough. I am satisfied. I am satisfied with you, Lord High Templar, and with what you have done.
But you are not finished."

A shadow fell across Pavek's back. He could see the Lion

King's feet without raising his head. They were ordinary human feet shod in plain leather sandals. For
one fleeting moment he thought he'd rather die than raise his head— then shuddered, waiting for the fatal
blow, which did not fall, though Pavek was certain he had no secrets from his king. It seemed Lord
Hamanu wanted him to live a little longer.

Sighing, Pavek straightened his neck and looked upon a king once again transformed, this time into a
man no taller than he. A hard-faced man, no longer young, but human, very human with weary human eyes
and graying human hair.

"What else must I do, 0 Mighty King?"

"I will give you a cadre from the war bureau. Lead them into the cavern. Destroy the scaffolds.
Destroy the bowls and their contents. Then, find the passage to Codesh. Another cadre will await you.
With two cadres, find Kakzim, find those who assist him. Destroy them, if you feel merciful; bring them to
me, if you don't."

"Now?"

"Tomorrow... after dawn. This sludge, as you call it, is no simple poison; it must be destroyed with the
same precision that has been used in its creation. Kakzim has breached the mists of time and brewed a
contagion that could despoil every drop of our water, if it fully ripened. It's dangerous enough now: spill a
drop of it into our water by accident as you destroy the bowls, and someone surely will sicken and die. But
in a handful of days..." Hamanu paused and drew a hand through his gray-streaked hair, transforming it into
the Lion-King's mane, and himself as well. "Of course! Ral occludes Guthay in exactly thirteen days!
Release the contagion then and it would spread not only through water, but through air and the other
elements. All Athas would sicken and die. We must take no chances, Pavek, you and I. I will decoct
Kakzim's horror, reagent by reagent, until I know its secrets, and you will follow my orders precisely when
you destroy it—"

"My Lord—" Pavek squandered all his courage interrupting Urik's king. "My Great and Mighty
King—all Athas is too much for one man. I beg of you: destroy the bowls yourself. Do not entrust all Athas
to a blunderer like me."

"You will not blunder, Just-Plain Pavek; it's not in your nature. You will not question what I do or what
I entrust to others. You will respect my judgment and you will do what I tell you to do. Tomorrow you will
save Athas. Tonight you and your friends will be my guests. Your needs will be attended... and your
wishes."

Lord Hamanu held out his hand. The golden medallion Pavek had refused yesterday rested in the
scarred and callused palm of a born warrior.