Nightlord: Shadows (36 page)

“You are known for… well, many things, but one of the most common is that you a guardian and avenger of children.”

“I suppose. And?”

“How much more must those qualities manifest for your firstborn son?”

“I see. Yes, I can see why people would be more than a little hesitant about giving me bad news on that front. But I’m braced for something awful; consider me more than adequately warned.”

Tort took me at my word and gave it to me straight.

“The Mother of Flame demanded Tamara make a human sacrifice of her newborn son. Tamara obeyed her goddess, and the doing of it broke her spirit and her mind.”

“My angel?”

I shook myself and checked where I was. Tort was still holding me.

“Yes?”

“You have been silent for several minutes.”

“Have I?”

“Yes.”

I wasn’t sure how long we sat there while I tried to absorb that. I knew Sparky had a mean, jealous streak, but what possible gain could she get from a human sacrifice? A newborn baby, at that?

The sacrifice of the son of a fire-witch and the only nightlord in the world, twin brother to another fire-witch.

Okay, maybe there’s a lot of potential there. But… no, I couldn’t see it. There was no reason for it. Why kill a baby? For the evidence of devotion? For the power of the sacrifice, itself? Or because of what he might grow up to be? A king? A powerful wizard or magician? Or maybe just to spite me for being so highly regarded that maybe people were starting to lean toward reverence? Or because nightlords were once regarded as gods? Could that be it? Petty jealousy? Surely, that can’t be all of it!

Sparky does like to keep families small, so her deific presence is much more of an influential figure during a fire-witch’s life. But this is going to an extreme. Besides, she needs all the fire-witches she can get; before I took my long nap, she had
one
. Was she afraid she might have a male fire-witch? Wouldn’t that be a good thing for her, to be able to sire multiple children with him? Or did it not work that way?

And yet… this was
almost
a certainty. That shred of doubt still existed. Sparky didn’t want to talk about it, obviously, which made me suspect that it was, indeed, true. But that’s not evidence.

If I cling to the thought that I don’t actually have evidence, just a secondhand account, it’s easier to keep cool.

“Where is Tamara?” I asked.

“She resides in the House of the Grey Lady.”

“I didn’t want to have to disturb her, but now I don’t see an alternative. Take me there.”

“May I—”

“Now,” I insisted, gently. She lifted her head and I saw the tears streaking her face. She met my eyes, nodded once, squeezed me, and slid over to sit on the floating staff again. We went outside where Bronze waited, and I mounted up.

She took me there without another word.

The House of the Grey Lady was a medium-sized brick structure. Normal doctrine called for relatives to bring incense and other such offerings to the priestess, who, in turn, prayed for the souls of those who were about to depart or had recently departed. Traditionally, after dying, someone brought such offerings once a day for thirteen days, by which time the departed soul would have reached its final destination: either a transformation into a bit of eternal something—opinions varied—or, usually, started along a journey to end in reincarnation. Some beliefs said that every star was a soul; some were just too faint to see. Probably not too bad a deal, all things considered.

Tamara lived there. She was widely believed to be touched by the Grey Lady. Maybe she was.

I was scared.

When last I saw her, Tamara was a lovely lady and about to have my children. Since then, I’ve had a nap, she may have sacrificed my son, my daughter is high priestess, and I have a granddaughter.

Things have changed and I’m not thinking they’ve changed for the better.

Add to that my own insecurity. Tamara is someone I loved. I think she loved me, but I could be wrong. Now? It’s been decades for her, days for me. What else has changed?

Yeah. Scared. And all of this first thing in the morning. I’d like to think that’s better than in the middle of the night, but I’m not sure.

I walked in through the archway—there was no door—and into the Hall of Remembrance. Small, rather generic statues of various sorts lined the walls. Some were armored knights, some where soldiers with spears, some were children, some were ladies, some were doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. Temporary nameplates denoted who was currently being represented by any statue. Each had a tray-like area in front for offerings, most of which were lit candles or piles of flowers.

Half a dozen people were there, presumably praying for someone’s safe journey or ultimate disposition. Tamara was wielding a broom at the other end, under the gaze of the main statue: a ten-foot representation of an old woman. The statue’s held its hands out in invitation and smiled gently.

Again, the statue looked like Tamara, only after the passing of years. I daresay they may have marched right over her. Tamara’s hair was silver-grey and hung loose over her shoulders. Her hands were bony, with blue veins. Wrinkles drew lines all around her face, mostly sad ones.

At least her eyes were still clear and sharp. She looked up as I blocked the morning sunlight, squinted as I walked forward, and dropped her broom to jam both hands into her mouth when she recognized me.

She screamed.

Everyone looked up. There followed a mad scramble for the door. Either everyone knew the story about the sacrifice or I was wearing an unpleasant expression. Possibly both.

Tamara stood there, staring at me with eyes that looked ready to come right out of her head. I walked up to her, put my arms around her, and held her. She was as stiff as a post for a moment, possibly expecting to be crushed, then relaxed into my embrace and threw her arms around me.

She broke into sobs and wept into my shirt.

I loved her. I can admit that, despite the fact that I’m about as good with relationships as a broken flashlights are. I still love her. And, in the last few weeks—by my reckoning—she’s gone from bright, beautiful woman to withered and ancient crone. She changed so much; I did not. And none of that mattered in the slightest.

With her sobbing on me, I couldn’t even be angry with her. I’m a sucker for a woman’s tears.

Still, to be fair, it wasn’t really her fault. She was raised as a priestess of a fire-goddess, and her goddess gave her an order. I could find it in myself to fault her for obeying, if I really tried, but I didn’t care to go looking for an excuse to be angry with her, especially since I could see the effect it had on her. For one thing, a fire-witch does not age—well, isn’t supposed to age—anywhere nearly as quickly as other mortals. For another, her life in general struck me as an exercise in misery and despair; she spent all this time in this temple, instead of in Sparky’s. For a priestess to abandon her goddess when her daughter did not…

“I knew you would come,” she sobbed, breaking my train of thought. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”

I patted her back and held her while she cried. Someone stuck his head in the archway and I glanced at him. He faded back out into the street. We were undisturbed thereafter.

Eventually, I sat her down on a low bench and let her continue. I did my best to be comforting, but she seemed inclined to go on indefinitely.

“Tamara.”

“Yes?” she gulped.

“I have to know.”

This brought on a fresh storm of sobbing. I suspected it might. I waited for the worst of it to pass.

Eventually, haltingly, sentence by sentence, sometimes word by word, she managed to blurt out what happened. Not much in the way of details, of course, but I didn’t need the fine points.

Tamara did not follow orders; she
refused
her goddess. Of course, to Sparky, that wasn’t just a refusal; that was defiance.

Yeah, that explained a lot.

Sparky then manifested through Tamara, assumed control of her priestess, and carried out the execution—excuse me, “sacrifice,”—using Tamara as a highly unwilling conduit. Tamara, of course, had no say in this, and no choice but to watch, to be used, without being able to resist. That’s how the fire consumed my newborn son.

Sparky then dismissed Tamara from service, taking from her all the gifts of a fire-witch. Longevity, healing, control of fire, immunity to fire and heat, permanent good health, the works. Tamara aged pretty much as others do from that point on.

When Amber entered adolescence and gained the full powers of a priestess, she used them to help preserve Tamara’s health and life. If she hadn’t, Tamara would certainly be dead of old age by this time.

Tamara, for her part, was torn. In some ways, she wanted to die; to her, she killed her own baby. On the other hand, she had a daughter to raise. Then again, that daughter was doomed to be a priestess of the same goddess that forced Tamara to kill the other baby…

I suppose it’s not a surprise that she was considered a bit mad.

Seeing me again was, in many ways, just as bad. She expected me to kill her instantly for that sacrifice. She half-hoped I would. On the other hand, if she lived long enough to explain, then, maybe, just maybe, she could get that weight of guilt off her soul. Of course, that would mean actually
telling
me what she did, but would that be worse than guilt dragging her soul down to the netherworld, to wander in darkness and cold, lost and alone, forever? Sparky certainly wouldn’t intervene on her behalf.

Tamara chose to serve as the priestess of the Grey Lady, although, admittedly, one that was more than a little disturbed. It gave her something to do, a place in the community, and allowed her to live alone, as she felt she deserved. She did admit to me that there was some doubt in her own mind about whether or not she communed with her new deity, or if she was simply hearing voices from inside her head.

She tried to ask me to forgive her. She tried several times. She couldn’t get the words out, so I rescued her. It seemed fair. She rescued me more than once.

“Sweetheart?” I asked. I don’t think she expected to hear that again. Her head came up and she blinked at me in surprise, loose strands of silver clinging to the wetness on her face.

“Yes?” she whispered.

“You didn’t do it. The Mother of Flame did it. She just used you. I don’t blame you any more than I would blame a knife for cutting me. It’s the thing that wields the knife.”

“You can’t mean that!”

“The hell I can’t,” I snapped at her. It seemed time to take a harder line; soft and mushy wasn’t helping. “You’re more important to me than your goddess, remember. I can’t forgive you because you were never to blame; you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“But—”

“For once, will you let me win the damned argument?” Her eyes widened and she leaned back from me, startled. Then she smiled, just a little bit. It didn’t look as though it belonged on her ancient, wrinkled face. The lines were all wrong. I was still glad it decided to visit.

“Just this once,” she said, and wept into my shirt again. I regarded it as progress; she was crying tears of relief instead of sobbing in despair and guilt. Definitely a step in the right direction, even if it was still a long and soggy road ahead. I let her cry for a while longer.

“Now, tell me. Do you want me to punish the Mother of Flame for this?”

Tamara sniffled and lifted her head again to look at me. It took her a minute to realize I was asking a serious question.

“You… you can do that?” she asked, incredulous.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I can try. Aren’t there legends of great heroes of old who challenged the gods?”

“Yes, but they all suffered for it.”

“Did the gods they challenged also suffer?”

“Well… not much, but yes.”

“Say the word, and I’ll do my best,” I offered. “She’s already on my bad side; I’ve learned a lot more about her than I used to know.” Tamara looked at me with great seriousness.

“You would,” she stated. It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t bother to answer. “You really would! You would find a way, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. And I will, unless you tell me not to.”

“You wouldn’t? Even after what She did? If I said?”

“I got to win the argument, didn’t I? So I owe you something. I give you her fate: you choose what will become of her.”

Bluffing. Definitely bluffing. I had no concept of how to challenge a being of that magnitude. I would certainly look into it, but, aside from taking smaller bites, I had no ideas. It might not be dangerous to Sparky, but it could be annoying, at least. Getting her to stick an arm into the rabid badger’s den again, though, could be difficult. Aside from that, I’m not even sure how an energy-state being like that could die. Ground it out? Into what? A planet? Better make it one you don’t mind losing.

Yeah, okay; bluffing. But it made Tamara feel better.