Godslayer (53 page)

"Perhaps." Ushahin swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "For it seems to me you did love her, cousin."

"Does it?" In the gloaming light, Tanaros laughed softly. "In some other life, it seems to me I might have. In this one, it was not to be. And yet. I could not kill her." He shook his head. "Was it strength or weakness that stayed my hand? I do not know, any more than I know why his Lordship allowed her to take his life. In the end, I fear it will fall to you to answer."

A silence followed his words. Ushahin felt them sink into his awareness and realized for the first time the enormity of the burden that had settled on his crooked shoulders. He thought of the weavers in the gulch, spinning their endless patterns; of Calanthrag in her swamp with the vastness of time behind her slitted eyes. He laid his hand upon Godslayer's rough hilt, feeling the pulse of its power; the power of the Souma itself, capable of Shaping the world. The immensity of it humbled him, and his bitterness gave way to grief and a strange tenderness. "Ah, cousin! I will try to be worthy of it."

"So you shall." Tanaros regarded him affection and regret. "His Lordship bid me teach you to hold a blade. Even then, he must have suspected. I do not envy you the task, Dreamspinner. And yet, it is fitting. In some ways, you were always the strongest of the Three. You are the thing Haomane's Allies feared the most, the shadow of things to come." Switching his sword to his left hand, he extended his right. "We waste time we cannot afford. Will you not bid me farewell?"

Here at the end, they understood one another at last.

"I will miss you," Ushahin said quietly, clasping Tanaros' hand. "For all the days of my life, howsoever long it may be."

Tanaros nodded. "May it be long, cousin."

There was nothing more to be said. Ushahin turned away, his head averted. At the top of the winding stair, he paused and raised his hand in farewell; his right hand, strong and shapely.

And then he passed through the left-hand door.

Tanaros stood alone in the darkening Chamber, breathing slow and deep. He returned the black sword to his right hand, his fingers curving around its familiar hilt. It throbbed in his grip. His blood, his Lordship's blood. The madlings had always revered it. Tempered in the marrow-fire, quenched in ichor. It was not finished, not yet.

Death is a coin to be spent wisely.

Vorax had been fond of saying that. How like the Staccian to measure death in terms of wealth! And yet there was truth in the words.

Tanaros meant to spend his wisely.

It would buy time for Ushahin to make his escape: precious time in which the attention of Haomane's Allies was focused on battle. And it would buy vengeance for those who had fallen. He had spared Cerelinde's life. He did not intend to do the same for those who took arms against him.

There were no innocents on the battlefield. They would pay for the deaths of those he had loved. Tanaros would exact full measure for his coin.

He touched the pouch that hung from his swordbelt, feeling the reassuring shape of Hyrgolf's
rhios
within it.

The middle door was waiting.

It gave easily to his push. He strode through it and into the darkness beyond. These were
his
passageways, straight and true, leading to the forefront of Darkhaven. Tanaros did not need to see to know the way. "Vorax. Speros. Hyrgolf," he murmured as he went, speaking their names like a litany.

The passageway was long and winding, and the marrow-fire that lit it grew dim, so dim that she had to feel her way by touch. But Tanaros had not lied; the passage was empty. Neither madlings nor Fjel traversed it. At the end, there was a single door.

Cerelinde fumbled for the handle and found it. She began to whisper a prayer to Haomane and found that the words would not come. The image of Satoris Banewreaker hung before her, stopping her tongue.

Still, the handle turned.

Golden lamplight spilled into the passage. The door opened onto palatial quarters filled with glittering treasure. Clearly, these were Vorax's quarters, unlike any other portion of Darkhaven. Within, three mortal women leapt to their feet, staring. They were fair-haired northerners, young and comely after the fashion of Arahila's Children.

"
Vas leggis
?" one asked, bewildered. And then, slowly, in the common tongue: "Who are you? What happens? Where is Lord Vorax?"

Tanaros had not lied.

It made her want to weep, but the Ellylon could not weep for their own sorrows. "Lord Vorax is no more," Cerelinde said gently, entering the room. "And the reign of the Sunderer has ended in Urulat. I am Cerelinde of the House of Elterrion."

"
Ellyl
!" The youngest turned pale. She spoke to the others in Staccian, then turned to Cerelinde. "He is dead? It is ended?"

"Yes," she said. "I am sorry."

And strangely, the words were true. Even more strangely, the three women were weeping. She did not know for whom they wept, Satoris
Banewreaker or Vorax the Glutton. She had not imagined anyone could weep for either.

The oldest of the three dried her eyes on the hem of her mantle. "What is to become of us?"

There was a throne in the center of the room, a massive ironwood seat carved in the shape of a roaring bear. Cerelinde sank wearily into it. "Haomane's Allies will find us," she said. "Be not afraid. They will show mercy. Whatever you have done here. Arahila the Fair will forgive it."

Her words seemed to hearten them. It should have gladdened her, for it meant that there was hope, that not all who dwelled within the Sunderer's shadow were beyond redemption. And yet it did not.

What will you do?

What do you think? I will die, Cerelinde.

A great victory would be won here today. She would take no joy in it.

Havenguard were awaiting when Tanaros emerged from the passageway, crowding Darkhaven's entry. The inner doors were shuddering, battered by a mighty ram. The enemy was past the Gate, had entered the courtyard. They were mounting an offense, coming to rescue the Lady of the Ellylon, coming to fulfill Haomane's Prophecy.

They would succeed.

And they would fail.

Tanaros grinned at his Fjel, watching them respond to it like a deep draft of
svartblod
, relishing their answering grins, broad and leathery?, showing their eyetusks.

"Well, lads?" he asked them. "Shall we give our visitors the welcome they deserve? I'll give the greeting myself!"

They roared in acclaim.

"Be certain of it, lads, for it means your deaths!" He touched his branded chest, clad only in his padded undertunic. His armor was lost, vanished in the darkness of the crumbling passageways where the chasm gaped. "In his Lordship's name. I go forth to claim mine. I ask no one to accompany me who does not seek the same!"

The Havenguard Fjel laughed. One of them shouldered past the others, hoisting a battle-axe in one hand and a shield in the other. "I stand at your side, General," he rumbled. "I keep my shield high."

"And I!"

"And I!"

"So be it." The words brought to mind an echo of Cerelinde's farewell. Standing before the great doors, Tanaros paused. He felt keenly the lack of his armor. He wondered about Cerelinde, bound for Vorax's chambers, and how she would live with her deeds afterward. He wondered about the Bearer, if he lived or died. He wondered about the Bearer's comrade, who hung in chains in Darkhaven's dungeons, unable to lift his head. Somewhere, Ushahin was making his way through the hidden passages, Godslayer in his possession.

An Age had ended: a new Age had begun. The Shapers' War would continue.

The thought made Tanaros smile.

In the end, it didn't matter.

Haomane's Allies would Shape this tale as they saw fit. What mattered, what mattered the most, was that the tale did not end here.

"Open the doors," Tanaros ordered.

The Fjel obeyed, as they had always obeyed, as they had obeyed since his Lordship had fled to take shelter among them, sharing with them his vision of how one day, Men and Ellylon alike would envy their gifts, fulfilling the promise of Neheris-of-the-Leaping-Waters, who had Shaped them.

Tanaros strode through the open doors, flanked by a stream of Fjel. The Men wielding the battering-ram dropped back, gaping at his sudden appearance, at the doors behind his back, unbarred and thrown wide open.

Brightness in the air made him squint. The sun, the symbol of Haomane's Wrath, had pierced the veil of clouds that hung over the Vale of Gorgantum. It was low and sinking in the west, but it had prevailed.

Tanaros opened his arms.

They were there; they were all there amid the ragged, dying remnants of his Fjel. All his enemies, gathered. Aracus Altorus, grey-faced and exhausted, barely able to hold his shattered hilt aloft, his Soumanië flickering and dim. Malthus the Counselor astride his pale mount, his white robes swirling. The Rivenlost, at once bereft and defiant. The Archer of Arduan, a bow wrought of black horn in her hands.

Behind them, a legion of Haomane's Allies.

They were silent, watching him.

Gazing at them. Tanaros smiled.

When the last of his strength failed, when arrows pierced his breast, when their sheer numbers bore down his sword-arm and the black sword fell at last from his nerveless fingers, one of them would kill him. It didn't matter which one. All that mattered, here at the end, was that he would die with his Lordship's name on his lips, his honor intact in his heart. He would fulfill his duty.

"I am Darkhaven," he said. "Come and take me."

Ushahin's madlings clung to him.

They surrounded him in a ragged tumult, weeping and apologizing for their failure to find the Lady of the Ellylon, begging him not to leave them. Some of them crawled, gasping at the sight of Godslayer: others sought to touch the case that held the severed Helm of Shadows, keening at Lord Satoris' death.

"Hush," Ushahin said, gentling them as he went. "Hush."

They wept all the harder, grasping his hands and kissing them, the healed and the broken alike.

"All things must be as they must," he said to them. "And I must leave you. Do not fear. Haomane's Allies will treat you gently."

He hoped it was true. They had not bothered to do so when they were ordinary people living ordinary lives. But perhaps the burden of
right
they had taken so violently on themselves would impel them to kindness.

It crossed his thoughts to send them to Vorax's quarters. There was time, yet, for the Ellyl bitch to pay for her sins. It would be a fitting ending for her. But the memory of the shadowed pain haunting Tanaros' eyes forestalled him.

Was it strength or weakness that stayed my hand?

Ushahin did not know. The question begged an answer, and he had an immortality in which to find it… if he lived through the next hour. If he did not, nothing would matter. And vengeance was unimportant in comparison with fulfilling his Lordship's will and taking his place in the pattern that bound him.

"Do you know which mount is mine?" he asked instead. "Bring it round to the postern gate near the kitchens."