Path of Fate (45 page)

He told the story of Ceriba’s kidnapping, of the chase across Patverseme for her, her rescue, and subsequent journey to Vorshtar plain. He described the wizard night in the forest, and then again in the encampment. He told of Koijots’s death and Upsakes’s and Glevs’s betrayal. He described the wizard’s death in Praterside and Kvepi Buris’s torture of Kebonsat. He described every moment in the lurid detail of a master storyteller, leaving out only Ceriba’s violation at the hands of her kidnappers. He finished with Reisil’s shattering of the wizard barrier, of which he sketched only the barest bones. The gathered crowd had seen it for themselves and there was no need to supplement their stark and brilliant memories.

When he completed his recital, he surveyed the assembled crowd. Reisil felt the force of his look like a blade across her throat and shivered. This man was dangerous. She wondered how many made a habit of underestimating him. Not many who lived, she thought.

“Such is the testimony recorded in the presence of Karalis Vasalis and Karaliene Pavadone, children of the gods, arbiters of all truth.” His mouth snapped shut and he stepped down, rolling up the scroll as he went.

Again silence descended—a waiting silence full of ugly anger and resentment. Not a few people cast threatening looks at the small group of
ahalad-kaaslane,
Reisil in particular, and she was reminded that the truce balanced on a needle and the war could resume at a moment. But still she knew she’d done what had to be done. She didn’t know politics or intrigue, but she knew healing, and she knew putrefaction. There was much of this situation to be salvaged, but much that must be cut away to make the body whole and healthy. The wizards in the ring had been the first cut.

“Kvepi Mastone, I should be interested in the Guild’s explanation. I should also like to know where I could find Kvepi Buris and our good friend, Maksal Vadonis.” The Karalis’s voice was all the more frightening because it lacked inflection, sounding almost casual.

Reisil was not fooled, and found herself holding her breath. Chamberlain Dekot had called him and his queen children of the gods. What gods? she wondered. Those of the old times, when warlords ruled? Before the Lady had made Kodu Riik? She struggled to remember names. She often heard Edelsat and Kebonsat swear by Ellini, the Goddess of luck and war and pain. Reisil could almost believe the Karalis and Karaliene were the children of gods, seeing them now. Light and shadow seemed to radiate from them in thick, pulsing waves, first choking, then crystal sweet like spring morning mist.

Kvepi Mastone stepped forward, dipping his head in a shallow bow, then straightened, looking haughty and dismissive. If she’d been a dog, the hair on her back would have stood on end. As it was, Saljane mantled, as did Reikon’s hawk. Bethorn’s wolf dropped his head, lips pulling back in a snarl. Fehra’s corvet hissed and scratched needle claws in the air. The crowd, so hostile to the
ahalad-kaaslane
moments before, hushed and cowered away from the wizard, averting their eyes and making signs to ward off evil.

Kvepi Mastone ignored them utterly and spoke to Karalis Vasalis, taking little notice of Karaliene Pavadone.

“I am sure, Your Grace, that you cannot possibly believe this fantastic drivel. It’s clearly a ploy to prevent you from doing as you must righteously do. Kvepi Buris’s absence is particularly worrisome to us. It is very convenient that both he and the Dure Vadonis should not be present. Neither man is here to refute these extravagant tales.”

“Murdering maggot-eater! Do you call us liars?” Kebonsat leaped forward, grappling at the wizard’s neck.

An inferno exploded between them, bright orange and scarlet flames spinning outward like a whirlwind. Kebonsat flew into the air, arms flung wide. A whoosh of heat and an echoing boom shuddered through the floor of the pavilion.

Kebonsat landed in the midst of the gathered nobles, knocking them about like ninepins. Kvepi Mastone sniffed and smoothed his robe, adjusting the twisted threepointed pin on the folds of his collar.

“One should remember that using magic in Our Royal Presences is strictly forbidden.” Karalis Vasalis spoke dispassionately still, but something in his voice struck Reisil like a wall collapsing. With chill certainty, she understood that he meant to challenge the Guild here and now, and there was no cost too high to curtailing the wizards’ unchecked power. No cost too high.

Reisil’s gaze swept the pavilion and beyond, to the close-gathered troops. It could be a bloodbath, a second Mysane Kosk. Should she stop it? Could she?

Reisil felt a trembling begin deep in her stomach. The scene unfolding was larger than she had expected, larger than she had dreamed. This was no simple matter of declaring a traitor—as if that would have been simple—but something much more cataclysmic. A crossroads of shadow and light, of disease and health, of futility and hope. What happened now would change everything that came after. Reisil felt the moment yawning before her like a stone teetering on the edge of a pit. A prickling began deep inside her healer’s soul. Would the change be for the better? Or for much, much worse?

K
vepi Mastone met Karalis Vasalis’s condemnation with something akin to unconcern. Reisil could feel the wizard weighing his answer. She saw arrogance and irritation vie with discretion and expedience.

After several long, weighted moments, a basilisk smile curved his lips and Reisil’s blood chilled. The Karalis had thrown the gauntlet, and Kvepi Mastone was picking it up. There was a delighted malignancy in the wizard’s narrow, piggish eyes, a greedy anticipation, and she was reminded of a wolf licking its lips.

“Surely I must protect myself from outrageous attacks, Your Grace?” he asked, his nasal voice high with counterfeit astonishment.

“Surely you must do as required,” came the implacable reply.

“Ah, yes, what
is
required,” the wizard said, tapping his fingers against the pale, loose flesh of his cheek. And then he made the first feint, crossing the line beyond which there was no going back.

“And just what
is
required in a situation such as this? When to all appearances you consort—nay, shall I not say it—
conspire
with the Kodu Riikian vermin, our nation’s greatest enemy? When so many loyal members of the Guild, loyal subjects of Patverseme, lie dead, burned to ashes, and the culprit stands unchained? When Kvepi Buris is missing, probably murdered? Your Grace, what would you have me do? I must serve, yes, that is true. But do I serve a tainted crown? Or do I serve the people?” He shook his head sagely.

“I believe, though I doubt many here would agree, that your own Dure Vadonis would never
willingly
treason his venerable house by allying secretly with our enemies. No more than you would
willingly
do so. But I say now that these Kodu Riikian charlatans have cast a spell over you! They have convinced this panting pup that they have saved him and his sister from death and torture. All to discredit the Guild, Patverseme’s greatest defense. I ask you—what evidence do they offer of the Guild’s guilt?”

He swung his arms wide and twisted so that he was talking more to the avid audience than Karalis Vasalis.

“None. They wish to make you doubt your right hand, blaming the Guild, which has always been loyal and steadfast. But I say that the fault lies with these Kodu Riikian charlatans! I say they have cast spells to confuse and deceive us all.”

The watchers gasped and looked at one another with hard suspicion.

“I say that they use dark magic to hide their lies so they can lure us into a terrible trap! They want nothing more than to see Patverseme fall, to put their boot to our throat and crush us. Revenge, Your Grace, on the Guild for Mysane Kosk, for keeping the wolves at bay. Indeed, your own altered behavior, so mysterious and distrustful in these last months, offers greater proof that they have cast a spell over you than any tales of wizardry and kidnapping.”

His voice rang out as he waved his arm dramatically at the royal pair, and Reisil saw sharp, angry looks darting from the crowd. Much as they feared the power of the Guild, when that weapon was turned on someone else, it gave them pride, gave them a sense of strength and fed their hatred for Kodu Riik.

Kvepi Mastone continued without a pause, his voice falling sorrowfully, manipulating the crowd’s long-established resentment, fear and hatred of the
ahaladkaaslane
and Kodu Riik.

“I beg your humblest of pardons, but I cannot but doubt that you are of sound mind. There are no trustworthy witnesses to the socalled miracles these
ahaladkaaslane
supposedly wreaked, but everyone saw the destruction that whore of dogs visited on the brave, poor souls who were meant to guard
you
from harm.”

He pointed an accusing finger at Reisil, his voice resonating with bitter condemnation. Behind him and all around, the already heated Patversemese people shouted encouragement. Suddenly a goblet crashed to the ground at Reisil’s feet. Another struck her chest a glancing blow, the metal cup clattering to the wooden floor.

Saljane mantled and screamed.
Kek-kek-kek-kek!

~
Easy,
ahalad-kaaslane.

Bethorn stepped closer and blocked her from further bombardment, his wolf snarling at the assembly. Edelsat flanked him and then the other four
ahalad-kaaslane
threaded a protective line in front of the Iisand and the Mesilasema. Kebonsat, coughing, his clothes burned, ugly blisters rising on his blackened cheeks and chin, stumbled back out of the crowd. Chamberlain Dekot caught him around the waist and passed him into the supportive arms of a blocky guard. A rain of objects pelted him—a candle, a goblet, a boot, a rock.

“Kodu lover! Pox on your cods! Deserves to be hung. Hang him! Hang him!” More objects flew through the air as the stirred mob took up the refrain. Kvepi Mastone smiled, turning a triumphant look on Karalis Vasalis. That the nobility were so easily turned to rabble, turned so easily against one of their own. The wizard clearly anticipated success in trimming the royal wick once and for all.

The rock on the chasm of chaos teetered and Reisil felt the situation slipping beyond control, into the abyss of hatred and evil.

“There she is! Let us go!”

A scuffle began on the edge of the pavilion, breaking the tension as the
ahalad-kaaslane
faced off against the ugly Patversemese crowd. Kvepi Mastone frowned and turned to discover the unwelcome source of the disturbance. Reisil saw the Karalis flick his fingers to beckon forward the old, white-robed cleric who bent to hear whispered words and then slipped away into the crowd, leaning heavily on the shoulder of his sharp-featured young
chela
. Then she turned her attention the knot of guards struggling with two intruders who shouted for the attention of the assembly.

“We must speak!” called a woman’s strident voice. Reisil cocked her head, frowning. She sounded familiar. “Please! Let us through! We must speak!” The man echoed his companion’s pleas in a rusty-sounding voice.

“Let them through,” commanded Karaliene Pavadone in a quiet, carrying voice. The guards responded with alacrity even as Kvepi Mastone whirled around, his mouth working.

“This is no time for—”

Karaliene Pavadone leaned forward, skewering the wizard with her black gaze.

“For what? What
is
it time for, do you think?” she asked.

He snapped his mouth shut, his cheeks turning white. He’d lost the momentum of the mob’s roiling resentment and would have to regroup. His eyes bulged with the force of his frustrated fury. Karaliene Pavadone sat back, smiling at his discomfort, arching her eyebrows as if daring him to act. His cheeks changed from white to red and he fingered the pin on his collar.

He hated her, Reisil realized suddenly. He resented the power of the Karalis, but he hated her with a perfect, relentless, ruthless loathing that made him lose all sense of himself. And so mistakes might be made, she thought, clutching at the hope of reprieve.

“That’s her! She did it. Look at his arm! She—she grew it back!” Turbid silence fell as the woman pointed at Reisil and the man held up his arm, pulling it free from his shirt to expose the pale, new skin, unblemished by callus or scar. The arm protruded from a shoulder that had been wasted by illness. His face was thin and haggard, his eyes sunken in pits of bruised shadow. But he stood straight, eyes glowing as if lit from within. He came forward, kneeling before Reisil, who colored and shifted back and forth uneasily.

“Dear lady, how can I ever repay such a gift? All I have is yours. You have only to ask.” Tears slid down his cheeks and his wife sank to the floor beside him, her own thin, sallow face radiant, reminding Reisil of the early sweep of green on a winter-barren field—of life returning. She recognized them now.

The couple from the decrepit hut on the edge of the plains. She hadn’t thought of it since—hadn’t wanted to. Reisil remembered the unbearable call that drew her into their ramshackle grass dwelling. There she had given him what was demanded, too consumed by the magic to know what she’d done. She looked at his arm in awe.

“Give gratitude to the Blessed Amiya, for it is her gift and I am merely her messenger,” Reisil said in a low voice, reaching down to urge the couple to their feet. “I deserve nothing.”

The woman clutched Reisil in an awkward hug, sobbing her broken gratitude. With her husband whole, her family would not starve. In the dark she’d expected death and worse from the riders, and instead there had been light and joy and hope.

Her husband pulled her away, holding her tightly as she continued to cry. He ducked his head in an awkward bow.

“I will offer the Blessed Lady my gratitude, but my word still stands. Anything of mine, anything at all—you have only to ask. I am called Reimon and my wife is Clayrie. Anything—anything at all,” he said again, nodding his head and gazing at Reisil until she nodded back reluctant acknowledgment, and then, with a self-conscious bob at the assembly, he retreated, drawing his wife with him.