The False Martyr (125 page)

As one, their faces
blanched white. Though most were drunk with alcohol, power,
destruction, or all three together, they trembled. Some of them
lost their stomachs on the side of the road. Some whispered
prayers. All of them moved from her path. Teth ran between them,
barely seeing their faces fall, their determination wane, their
fury diminish. And when she was gone, they dropped their weapons,
lowered their heads, and wandered silently away, purpose lost,
hunger quelled.

Ahead of her was the
fighting. Mobs fought through barricades manned by soldiers toward
the hill above, but the end was inevitable. The soldiers were
beaten down by dock tools, kitchen utensils, carpentry wares, and
farm implements. From above, arrows rained down finding victims in
the crowd, but they were only a smattering, not nearly enough to be
noticed by the singular entity that the mob had become. Like the
creature that they had fought on the field outside Thoren, the
arrows only served to enrage it, did nothing to slow it or deter
its terrible purpose.

Behind that main assault,
others came running to add their numbers, their weapons, their
passion to the creature. They brought whatever they had been able
to find, raided houses and shops for knifes, tools, and pans, took
food and bandages and drink to fuel the attack. But when they saw
Teth, they stopped. They stepped aside. They gasped, held
themselves, diverted their eyes or covered those of their children.
More than the goddess of war, she was the very soul of carnage, and
in her, they saw something more horrible than a blood-soaked girl.
They saw what they had become, saw their madness, their fury, their
malevolence reflected before them.

Another mob blocked Teth
from the River Maiden. Men pounded on the door with their
shoulders, shouted for it to open, demanded that the owners pay
tribute. Undeterred, Teth walked slowly, silently through the
crowd, watched them part around her, listened to their mumbled
prayers, heard them fall back, lose interest, and retreat. She
raised her hand to knock – knuckles puffy and purple even through
the flaking sheets of red – prepared her voice to call. Neither was
needed. The door opened. She walked in, and it closed
behind.

“
Where is he?” she barked
to the broad shadow who had opened the door. Eyes used to the
bright sun, she could see nothing. The room was beyond dim. Every
window was shuttered, the door was closed, a fire barely burned in
the hearth. Light filtered through only from the cracks, slicing
white lines across tables and chairs.

“
He’s gone,” Valati Lareno
answered from the center of the room. Teth turned and blinked as
his shadow materialized out of the darkness.
He was sitting at a table, hands folded before him, passive
as a man at prayer.

She was on him in a flash.
Her hand held the braided cord of his pendant. Her knife bit his
chin. A drop of blood ran down its expanse, marking a single red
line along the sparkling steel before falling to join its countless
brothers on her sleeve. “Liar,” she snarled and dug her knife in
deeper. “He is safe. The Tappers saw to it. Garth took him to the
boat. He got away. Admit it. You’ve tried to control us, but you’ve
failed. Admit it then you are going to the Maelstrom, and I am
going to join you.” Teth’s hand began to move, despite the shaking
that made it waver. Her teeth ground as she fought to control that
shaking, fought to slash the valati’s throat. A tear coursed down
her cheek.

“
Stop. He’s telling the
truth. Teth, please, there was never a boat. There was never going
to be an escape.” The voice was familiar but not right. Teth looked
to the side for its source. It had been the voice of a man, she
realized, but she expected it to fit with a woman. A shape emerged
from the shadow by the door and closed on the bar. Another joined
it. Teth recognized one as Mr. Tappers. The others should have been
his wife, but it was not. “Put the knife down, child,” the voice
said. Teth squinted. It had the shape of Mrs. Tappers, wore a
dress, had the great mountain of hair, but somehow, it wasn’t her.
“This is not who you are.”

“
This is exactly who I
am!” she screamed back. “It is who they made me. I just killed
twenty men. I . . . I slaughtered them. I am a killer. That is all
I am. That is all they made me to be, so why shouldn’t I just do
what they made me to do?” She leaned toward the valati, begged her
hand to move.
What are you waiting for? He
did this to you. You butchered twenty men at his bidding. One more,
then yourself, and it will finally be over.

“
No,” the voice said.
“That may be what they want you to be, but you are still a person.
You can still decide. No matter what you have done in the past, you
can decide where you go in the future. The only way they win is if
you let them, if you stop fighting to be the person
you
want
to be. You have to make the choice, have to fight
for it, have to live by it every day. There is no easy way out, no
easy solution. Do you understand? You can still have the life you
want. We would not have been part of this if we did not believe
that, but if you kill him, then you really will be the monster you
think they’ve made. They will have won, and all of this will have
been for nothing.”

“
Who are you?” Teth
shrieked at the shadow.

“
My name is Martin,” the
voice said, “though I have been Margot for so long I barely
remember that name. I am joined to Mark Tappers and have been for
more than twenty years.”

Teth looked again and saw
Mrs. Tappers step into a patch of light. It looked just like her,
but there was no lilt in the voice, no softness to the posture. And
even in the dress, even with the hair, Teth knew the truth. She
convulsed as yet another rug was pulled from beneath her, yet
another truth became a lie. “You’ve been lying this entire time,”
she moaned. “You tricked us. You betrayed us.”

“
Tricked and betrayed, but
never lied. Mrs. Tappers, Margot, is who I am. It is who the Order
made me. I tried for a long time to live as someone else, to live
as the counselors told me I should live, but that was not who I
was, that was not the person the Order made me to be. And in trying
to do that, I became so lost, I fell so far that you would see
yourself as a saint in comparison. Then I met Mark, and he
convinced me that I could still be saved, that I could still chose,
that I didn’t have to be that terrible person that I hated. Do you
see? Despite everything the counselors said,
we
made the choice. I chose to
become Margot. We chose to be joined. We made this inn is our home,
the residents our children. And we fight every day to keep the life
we have built, to be the people the Order made us even if that
means defying what the counselors say we should be.”

“
If you believe that, then
why did you help this monster? Why didn’t you let
us
chose?”

“
In the beginning, it was
because they would have exposed us, but the truth is that it was
never a choice. All this was done and decided before you ever
arrived. Lareno had every aspect planned, and every one of us
played a part. Even if we wanted to, we had no way to help you.
There was never a boat, there was never going to be an escape. But
even if all that were not true, we knew from the first day where
you were headed – we knew because I was in the same place when Mark
found me. And we resolved to never let you get there.”

“
Do you see, Teth?” Valati
Lareno brought a hand up and eased Teth back from him. She was too
stunned to resist. “It was never about the invaders, the city, the
revolt, or the people in that camp. It wasn’t even about Dasen. It
was always about you. And there is still much that you must hear
before your journey continues.”

Teth felt like she was in
a dream, thinking back over the past weeks, seeing all the pieces
slide together, reliving all the machinations. It had all been
magnificently, meticulously planned. Garth, the Tappers, Kian, the
conversation she’d overheard on the hill. Dasen, Lady Esther, the
miracles, the revolt, the attack on that caravan. Even her desire
to end it all. They had all been part of the plan. They had used
and manipulated her to perfection, and she had never even seen it
happening. She fell into a chair. The knife was still in her hand,
but it dropped to her lap, resting there lifeless.

Valati Lareno turned to
the Tappers. “Can you bring a rag for her face? I cannot bear to
look at it any longer. Then you may leave us. Your part is
done.”

Mrs. Tappers is the one
that brought the rag. It was warm and wet, smelled of flowers. When
Teth did not move to accept it, she –
he,
Teth reminded herself – rubbed
it gently but firmly across her face, scrubbing away the blood and
grime. The rag was red by the time he was done. Teth barely
noticed. She watched the knife in her lap and thought about the
terrible joke that had been played on her.

“
I’m sorry, my dear,” Mrs.
Tappers, Martin, said. “I meant what I said about letting Dasen
love you. I meant what I said about putting the past behind you,
about accepting what the Order has made you. I hope one day you
will see that.” With those few words, he left and his husband went
with him, leaving her alone with her tormentor.

“
That is better,” Valati
Lareno said. He tried to be calm, but Teth could tell that his
heart was pounding, his breaths were pants, his hands shook. This
was not the Weaver from the commune who welcomed his death with an
idiot’s glee. The valati may have manipulated them, but he was not
the Master. “Now, I have some things to tell you.”

Teth saw that he had
sheaves of papers before him. They were covered with spidery
writing. I
nstructions.
“Was everyone part of it?” she asked, voice lost and distant,
mind still trying to encompass the breadth of their
betrayal.

“
Everyone but Kian and the
twins,” the valati answered. “I hired Garth and the others before
the battle in Thoren. They were already in the boat when we rescued
Kian. They were only here for Dasen.”

“
But not me?”

“
No, you were not part of
the deal. As I said, this was always about you, about your
course.”

“
And Kian?”

Likely dead by now. His
revolt was never meant to succeed. It was all just a . . .
necessary distraction.”

“
And then you cast him
aside like a piece on a board?” Teth couldn’t help her dark chuckle
at that. “That is all any of us is to you, isn’t it? Pieces on a
board to be maneuvered whichever way you wish and sacrificed
without thought or conscious.”

“
Yes, but I am not the one
playing the game. You see, Teth, I am a Weaver but not a very
powerful one. I can see the Order to an extent, can manipulate
events close to me in small ways, but all of this is far beyond me
or any one man. I am but one small part of it. I had no more choice
than you.”

“
Bullshit! We all make
choices.”

“
Just as you did today?”
The valati stared at her until her defiance faded to doubt. “No, we
make false choices. They seem to present themselves, but they are
no choices at all. They are almost always certain. Sometimes, we
need a push, so the Weavers provide one. Sometimes that push is
obvious, but usually it is so subtle that we never see it, never
feel it guiding us. That is the power of the Five, that is the
power of the Order.”

“
And we are just supposed
to go along. I am supposed to just keep playing this stupid game.
I’m supposed to allow your fucking Master to turn me into a
monster, into a killer, yet never have that one thing I want, to
never have happiness? Why? Why don’t I just end it?” She brought
the knife back out, held it to her throat.

“
You won’t,” the valati
said with certainty. He sat forward but there was no urgency in his
posture.

“
Why not? I have nothing
to live for. Why not end it? Why not have peace?”

“
Because you love
him.”

“
Love?” Teth wailed, voice
breaking, nose crumpling, tears welling. “You won’t let me have
love. You promise it to me, but then jerk it away, tell me that I
can never have it. That is worse than never knowing it. I could
live knowing that I would never have love. But being in love and
knowing that it can never be fulfilled, that it must end, and that
he will never understand. That is . . . . I . . . I . . . .” She
tightened her grip on the knife, willed her hand to move, felt the
terrible ache, wanted nothing more than for it to end.

Valati Lareno laughed.
Teth gawked. She was going to kill herself, going to slash her
throat before him, going to spray him with her blood, and he
laughed. “We’re liars,” he said and threw his head back. “What did
the Master tell you? Did he tell you that Dasen would reject you,
that he would fall for another, that he would . . . ?”

“
No!” Teth moaned. Those
things were terrible, but they were nothing compared to the truth.
“He . . . he said . . . he told me that . . . .” she sputtered to a
stop, unable to find the words.

“
That you could not have
children?” the valati attempted, amusement obvious. “That he loved
men, like Mark and Margot? That he had bad breath, a tiny cock, a
venereal disease?”