The Gods Return (22 page)

* * *

"Bravo!" cried Sharina as the trained rat spun end over end between the jugglers' wooden batons as they crossed. "Oh, marvelous!"

Lord Tadai, clapping with his usual polite languor, leaned closer and said, "Yes, they are good, aren't they? Though I suppose it's impolite of me to say so about the entertainers I hired."

The pair juggling were a youth of seventeen and a girl—his sister judging from her features—a year or two younger. At the open end of the U of tables, their parents played lutes while a ten-year-old boy piped on a treble recorder.

The family wore matching blue pantaloons and tight-fitting white jerkins—as did the rat. That a rat would wear a costume instead of ripping it off instantly was even more amazing than the way it danced and tumbled with the human performers.

"Everyone else agrees with you," Sharina said, looking around the cheering enthusiasm of the other guests. "And I
certainly
agree!"

Attending a banquet given by the city prefect was one of the duties expected of the regent, but Sharina was having a good time as well. She was probably as relaxed as she could be at any affair that required her to wear formal robes. Not only was Tadai a cultured, intelligent man, he had what he claimed was the finest kitchen staff in the kingdom.

The dishes seemed overly exotic to Sharina, but they tasted marvelous. She particularly liked the pike that'd been skinned, boned, and then molded back into its skin with a filling of rabbit sausage.

The jugglers bowed and somersaulted to where the musicians played. The rat pranced off with them, turning high cartwheels while holding its tail out straight behind it. How in goodness could you train a rat to do that?

This hall was perhaps the largest single room in Pandah, and its coffered ceiling was thirty feet high. One might've expected it to be part of the royal residence, though it wasn't unreasonable that it should be given to the city prefect who needed a courtroom at least as much as the prince needed a hall of audience.

Besides, Tadai cared—which neither Garric nor Sharina did. And Tadai gave
much
better banquets than anybody raised in Barca's Hamlet could've imagined.

The older woman began dancing, balancing a bottle on her head with a lighted candle stuck in the neck of it. Her feet darted a quick rhythm as she rotated, facing each of the three long tables in turn, while the flame remained remarkably steady.

Her husband accompanied her on his lute. Beside him, the rat played a miniature xylophone with six bars, syncopating the plucked strings in a plangent descant.

"There's a new religion appearing in the city, your highness," Tadai said, his voice covered by the music and his attention ostensibly on the dancer. "I didn't think it was worth mentioning to you at first, but it seems to be growing."

"People are worshiping the Gods of Palomir?" Sharina said, jerking her eyes onto the prefect. She wasn't nearly as good at dissembling as Tadai. He was not only older, he'd been a financier before becoming a member of Garric's council. Bankers had more occasion to lie than peasants did, except perhaps peasants who made much of their income in buying and selling cattle.

"No, your highness, or I would've said something immediately," Tadai said in a tone of mild reproof. "That would be high treason. This was something so absurd that I thought it must be a joke. It appears to be real, though."

"Go on," Sharina said, turning her eyes toward the dancer again. She already felt uneasy, but perhaps her fear wouldn't come true if she didn't say it out loud.

Thinking logically about her superstition made her grin at how silly she was being. That didn't make the fear itself false, of course.

"There are gatherings at night all over the city," Tadai said. "We've had reports of nearly a score of different locations. Well, seventeen. Some of them may be the same congregation moving to avoid patrols, but regardless it's a widespread business."

The dancer trotted out of the performance area, still balancing the bottle. The guests, council members with their spouses and so many more of the Great and Good as there were places available, stamped their feet and cheered in applause.

"Is it confined to Pandah?" Sharina asked. "Master Dysart hasn't said anything about it to me."

"I haven't discussed the matter yet with him," Tadai said, "because I couldn't bring myself to believe that it was real. I will of course, now that I've spoken to you."

He coughed slightly and added, "I regret that Lady Liane is absent, though I'm sure she's left her duties in capable hands."

"Yes," said Sharina.
And I regret that Cashel is absent, for better reasons yet
.

The mother and daughter entertainers picked up lutes; the older boy sat cross-legged holding a drum between his insteps. He beat a quick rhythm with his fingertips as his father did a series of back-flips that brought him into the center of the hall. The tumbler flipped again, stood on his right hand alone, then his left, and finally bounced to his feet as his ten-year-old son back-flipped out to join him.

"At least one of the leaders of the new cult is a priest of the Shepherd," Tadai said. "Very likely several are. I'm making inquiries, but discreetly of course. It's no proper business of the kingdom to tell people how to worship."

He coughed again. "Within reason."

The young entertainer gripped his father's outstretched hands. Acting in concert, they front-flipped him onto the older man's shoulders, facing the opposite direction. The audience shouted and stamped its delight.

Sharina touched her dry lips with her tongue. "You haven't said what they were worshipping," she said.

"That's the absurd thing," said Tadai. His mouth scrunched as though the words he was preparing were sour. "It's a scorpion. They claim their god is a scorpion!"

Sharina's mind was cold, as cold as the Ice Capes. She'd known what he was going to say. She'd known as soon as he mentioned a new religion.

The rat bounded out to join the human tumblers. It jumped to the father's right shoulder, then to the son's left. With a final delicate hop it reached the boy's head and perched there, standing on its hind legs.

"To be honest," Tadai said, "I was
hoping
that all this was a joke. It seems utterly insane."

"
Men of Pandah, honor calls us!
" the rat piped, throwing its little right foreleg out as though it were an orator declaiming. "
No proud foe can e'er appall us!
"

"By the Lady!" Tadai blurted. "Why, the rat's singing. They didn't tell me he could do that. Why, this
is
marvelous!"

"
On we march, whate'er befall us
," the rat sang. "
Never shall we fly!
"

"Bravo! Bravo!" bellowed Lord Quernan, who commanded the city garrison. He lurched to his feet. Foot, rather, because he'd lost his right leg at mid-thigh during the capture of Donelle a year earlier. The whole audience began to stand in irregular waves.

Lord Tadai started to rise, but he subsided when he saw Sharina remained frozen in her seat. "I must admit that I find this new cult disturbing," he said. "How could anyone worship something as disgusting as a scorpion?"

"How indeed?" Sharina whispered. The dream of the night before filled her mind with blackness and horror.

Later—

Sharina drifted toward the dream temple like a leaf nearing a mill flume. She didn't move swiftly, but she was locked into a certain course no matter what she wanted.

She was locked into certain doom.

"Sharina!" called the figure waiting for her on the black granite plaza. "It is time for you to bow to Lord Scorpion. Come and worship the greatest of gods, the only God!"

She tried to shout, "I will not!" but only a whisper came out.

"Worship!" the figure demanded. "Bow to Lord Scorpion willingly; but willing or not, you
will
bow. Worship!"

The force that gripped Sharina spun her lower, closer to the waiting figure. The Scorpion didn't lower from the clouds this time, but Its presence permeated the world; it was immanent in all things.

"You have no power over me!" she said. Her voice was a whine of desperation.

The figure laughed triumphantly. "Lord Scorpion has power over all things, princess," it said. "Worship Lord Scorpion and rule this world at my side!"

"Who are you!" she shouted. She tried to reach the Pewle knife, but her arms didn't move. Perhaps she wasn't even wearing weapon; this was a
dream
.

But she knew it wasn't only a dream.

"You may call me Black," the laughing figure said. When she'd completed another full circle, he would be able to raise a hand and touch her. "You will be my consort. Together we will rule this world in the name of Lord Scorpion, Who rules all!"

Sharina remembered tearing the dream apart to escape the night before, but her fingers wouldn't close now. "Cashel," she said, but the name was so faint a whisper that even she couldn't be sure that she'd spoken.

"Cashel is dead!" said Black. "Cashel will never return, he
can
never return!"

"Lady, protect Thy servant!" Sharina prayed with frozen lips.

"The Lady is dead!" said Black. "Lord Scorpion rules all. Worship Lord Scorpion!"

He was reaching toward her. He would grasp her wrist and pull her to him. She felt the grip of long fingers, tugging her from this world into—

Sharina jerked bolt upright in her own bed. The moon shone through the slats of the jalousies. By its light she saw a rat wearing pantaloons and a white vest, sitting upright on her pillow.

"Ordinarily I would have waited for you to awaken normally," the rat said in a conversational voice. "From the way you were thrashing about, though, I didn't think you'd mind. My name is Burne, princess."

* * *

Gaur had cobblestone streets, which Ilna disliked intensely. The alleys to either side were so narrow that the three-story stone buildings overhung most of the pavement. Even here on the High Street, Ilna felt like she was walking up a canyon toward the gray limestone bluff lowering above the town.

She smiled slightly. She
had
walked up canyons, and into caves, when necessary. She didn't like stone, true, but there was very little she did like. She'd deal with Gaur the way she dealt with everything else.

"Lady Brincisa," said an ironmonger standing in his doorway. He extended his little bow to Ilna as well.

The shopkeepers they'd met were deferential, though they also seemed rather cautious. People going the other way in the street mostly bowed to Brincisa, but a few turned their heads toward the wall till she was past.

"How do the people here support themselves?" asked Ingens, walking a pace behind the two women. "Gaur seems prosperous."

Did it? The townsfolk were well enough dressed, so Ilna supposed that was true. She shouldn't let her dislike of a place color the facts.

"Rice farming and trade on the river," Brincisa said, apparently unconcerned by the question. "There was a special tax to pay for digging a canal after the river shifted its course during the Change."

She smiled with a kind of humor. "The town elders didn't assess us," she went on, "but my husband and I chose to make a payment without being asked. The money was of no significance, and we prefer to be on good terms with our neighbors—so long as they remain respectful."

"Is your husband expecting our arrival?" Ilna said. She was knotting patterns as she walked, but out of courtesy she didn't look at them. She too preferred to be on good—well, neutral, in her case—terms with those she had to deal with.

"My husband Hutton died three days ago, mistress," Brincisa said with a smile of cool amusement. "That's part of why I need your help. But our discussion can wait till we're at leisure in my workroom."

She paused and gestured to the house on her right. A servant in the familiar dark livery held open one panel of an ornate double door. It occurred to Ilna that she'd never heard Brincisa's servants speak, though they were perfectly ordinary to look at. Perhaps they were just well trained.

She entered and started up the stairs of dark wood. The staircase beside this one led down from the door's other panel toward a basement. Behind her Ingens said, "Mistress Brincisa? This house—how were you able to build it?"

Ilna looked over her shoulder. Brincisa, also looking back, was following Ilna up the stairs, but Ingens was still in the street staring at the building's front.

"All the other houses are stone," he said, shifting his eyes to Brincisa on the staircase. "But yours is brick."

"My husband and I preferred brick," Brincisa said. "And not that it's any of your business, we didn't have it built here: we moved it from another place."

She paused. If her voice had been cool before, it was as stark as a winter storm when she continued, "Now—you may either come in or stay where you are, Master Ingens. What you may
not
do is trouble me again with your questions. Do you understand?"

"Mistress," Ingens murmured, lowering his head and keeping it down as he entered the house.

Brincisa turned to meet Ilna's gaze. In the same cold tone she said, "Do you have anything to add, mistress?"