The Grand Design (79 page)

The Mind Bender hadn’t even broken a sweat. Like it had to Biagio, the drug had given him preternatural strength. He forced her out into the hallway, pushing open the door with his shoulders as he kept a hand over her mouth and a steel arm around her neck. Dyana was about to suffocate when another figure cast a shadow across the corridor. Savros stopped, and his solid arms weakened to water. Down the hallway stood Biagio, pausing in mid-step when he saw them.

“Savros,” he exclaimed. “What is this?”

The Mind Bender’s hands fell away. Dyana tore free of him, darting toward Biagio. But Biagio was already racing forward, his two hands reaching out for Savros. He blazed past Dyana and fixed his hands around the torturer’s throat.

“How dare you defy me!” he cried as his fingers tightened. Savros was gasping, taking great gulps of air and begging for mercy.

“Master, please …!”

Biagio heard none of it. He was in a rage, lifting Savros off the floor and pinning him against the wall. “You little beast! I’ll kill you!”

“No, Master!” pleaded Savros, his voice barely a rasp. He fought like a wildcat, trying to pry loose Biagio’s determined fingers. His feet kicked at the air. Dyana fell back against the wall, horrified. Her own breath was returning and she tried to steady herself, shocked at what she was seeing. Savros’ face turned a ruddy purple. His blue eyes bulged, threatening to burst. And still Biagio kept up his throttling, banging the Naren’s head against the wall and cracking the plaster.

“Die, you wretched pig! Die!”

There was the rattling of breath and the popping of bone. Savros’ gangly body trembled in the air, hanging there in a moment of rigidity. Biagio’s hands tightened still more, until the neck between them cracked. The Mind Bender’s body suddenly went limp. Biagio held it for a second, then flung it to the floor in disgust.

“I warned you,” he spat at the corpse. “Don’t tell me I didn’t!”

Then he turned on Dyana, stalking toward her. She could see the struggle on his face for control.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

Dyana shook her head, unable to speak. The count went to her and gave her a swift inspection. He took her hand with a reassuring squeeze.

“This is an outrage,” he said. “I am sorry.”

Finally, Dyana found her voice. “I am all right,” she said. “I think …”

“You look uninjured,” observed Biagio. “I was coming to speak to you. To …” He shrugged, looking away. Amazingly, he seemed to have forgotten the corpse on the floor.

“What?” Dyana probed. She kept hold of his frozen hand, hoping vainly to thaw it.

“I should not have struck you as I did,” the count managed. “I apologize. I do not want us to be enemies, Dyana Vantran. That’s not what you’re here for. And this …” He gestured to the dead Savros. “This brutalization wasn’t what I wanted for you.”

He was such a contradiction, Dyana couldn’t fathom him. In mere seconds he had gone from a madman to something almost human. She closed her eyes, suddenly overcome. The night had overwhelmed her and her knees began to buckle. Only Biagio’s hand kept her upright.

“You are
not
all right,” he insisted. “Come, you need rest.”

“I need air,” said Dyana. She still felt Savros’ arm
around her throat, choking her. And the blow across the face Biagio had given her wasn’t helping. “Please, just let me sit.”

Without a word he swept her up in his arms and took her back into her chambers, ignoring the dead Savros. He went straight to her bedchamber, then laid her down on the mattress. Dyana’s head was swimming. The bruise he had given her was starting to swell, and the struggle with Savros had taken all her strength. Biagio hovered over her bed, watching her. He looked strange in the moonlight, glowing with an amber aura.

“I’ll fetch Kyla for you,” he said. “And get rid of that disgusting thing outside your door.”

Dyana nodded. “Thank you.”

“Do not thank me, woman. It was my stupidity that caused all this. Savros would not have attacked you if I had been more vigilant. It won’t happen again.”

“No,” Dyana agreed. “I suppose not.”

They stared at each other in awkward silence. Biagio’s expression was pained.

“I am not mad,” he said softly. “You are wrong about me.”

Dyana tried to smile. “Perhaps,” she said gently. “And perhaps you are wrong about Richius.”

Biagio grimaced. “Unlikely.” He left her bedside and went to the door. But he paused there for a moment before crossing the threshold. “Though I suppose anything is possible.”

And with that remarkable admission, he left her alone in the dark. Dyana stared at the place where he had been, hardly believing her ears.

T
wo days before the great holy day of Eestrii, Nar City waited beneath a blanket of penance. The streets far below the Cathedral of the Martyrs had been swept clean of acrobats and menageries, and pilgrims had begun pouring into the city, ready to bend their knees to God and beg His forgiveness. In all the city, hardly a hint of the festival of Sethkin remained. On Eestrii, the vast square outside the cathedral would swell with people, a great mass of the faithful, ready to receive the word of God through His servant, Herrith. It was a time of reflection, the day when the lords of the Empire looked inward and decided if their souls were clean or unclean. They would listen to Herrith, and he would tell them what the year would bring, and if the angels in Heaven were pleased with what they saw below. And after his speech, Herrith would go down among the people and perform the sacrament of Absolution. He would spend the rest of the day touching foreheads and doling out forgiveness, and all for the good of Nar’s rotten soul.

In the days of Arkus, Eestrii was always a time for pride. But now the archbishop ruled Nar, and no one knew for certain how this had changed Heaven’s view of things.

For years, Herrith had made the same annual trip to his balcony, raising his hands to the masses and
imparting his wisdom. It was a perilously brief moment, and Herrith always tried his hardest to come up with something special for the day. Usually, he locked himself in his chambers for days before the event, carefully writing a speech and praying for divine inspiration.

Usually.

But not this year.

This year, Archbishop Herrith had other matters occupying him, and though he still locked himself in his chambers, so alone that not even Lorla came to see him, he was not busy with a speech or prayer. He was in the early throes of a violent withdrawal, and not even God could save him this time.

The shades of his window were pulled wide open, letting in a stream of sunlight. Herrith sat at his ornate desk, his hands trembling as he stared at the tiny vial. A blue residue barely coated the interior of the vial. It was the last of the drug Biagio had given him, hardly enough to blend into a potion. Every few days, he had been mixing a few drops of the potent stuff with water, making the elixir that kept him ageless. Just as Nicabar had claimed, Bovadin had made this batch powerfully strong—strong enough to have lasted Herrith for weeks. But now it was gone. Only the faint blue residue remained.

Herrith let out a whimper. His bones ached and his eyes burned. The withdrawal had seized him two days ago, squeezing the life out of him like a constrictor, and since then he had puzzled over his nearly empty bottle, mourning its loss and trying to devise the best way to ingest what little of the life-giving drug remained. He knew the dangers of mixing so little with water. To do so might kill him. And he worried that he might mix the solution so weakly as to have no effect on him at all. That was unthinkable, because that meant enduring more withdrawal and, quite possibly, madness. He set the vial down and ran his hands over his
head. He had already gone through the hellish withdrawal once. He couldn’t face it again.

“Merciful Heaven,” he whispered. “What shall I do?”

He needed more of the drug, enough to sustain him just a little while longer, just long enough to think of a way out. Bovadin couldn’t wait forever on Biagio’s island. Herrith was certain the midget would someday return to Nar, but Herrith had been unable to think of a way to coax him back. He had even hoped himself free of the drug, a theory Biagio’s gift had plainly proven wrong. Worse, Vorto had tried to warn him. The bishop grit his teeth against the pain, the thought of the general assailing him.

Vorto. He had always been the strongest. Herrith knew the general had more faith than anyone, even himself. He hadn’t even flinched when he’d seen Biagio’s gift.

I should have listened to him. I should have resisted the urge. Now look at me.

Herrith slammed his fist down on the table. “Enough! No more whining.” He picked up the vial with his shaking hands. “I will take you,” he said softly. “And if you kill me, you will simply send me to God.”

There was a pitcher of water on the desk beside him. Herrith picked it up, spilling some, and poured the liquid into the drug vial, filling it halfway. Then he put down the pitcher and stopped-up the vial with his thumb, giving it a shake to wash all the precious blue liquid from its sides. He looked at his concoction in the sunlight. A hint of azure tinged the water. Herrith felt a dreadful quiver in his stomach. He thought of just swallowing it down, but that would be suicide. For reasons no one really knew, the drug needed to be introduced directly into the bloodstream, or it would not work at all. The bishop stared at the vial uncertainly. He was a faithless fool. He realized that now.
But he was tired, so very tired. And the drug meant strength and vigor. It owned him. Herrith surrendered to it.

“I fear you’re the one power greater than Heaven,” he said. “We should both be damned forever.”

So he went to the place where he kept his apparatus, and blithely administered the last of the drug.

He awoke with his head on the floor, realizing that hours had passed.

His tear-stained eyes opened warily to the stabbing sunlight. He had vague memories of sickness. In his guts moved a strange burning. Herrith took a breath to test the life in him. Except for a cramping in his bowels, he felt strangely satisfied, without the marrow-chewing pain of earlier.

“Dear God,” he whispered, lifting his head and examining himself. “It’s worked. I’m all right again.”

He clasped his hands before him and gave Heaven its proper thanks, unspeakably relieved. This had purchased him at least another day, a whole bagful of clear-headed hours to plan his bargain with Biagio. Somehow, he needed more of the drug. And quickly, too, before the pains seized him again.

Now that he was strong enough to walk, he stood and went to the window. Outside, all of repentant Nar was at his feet. Soon they would be looking upward toward him, waiting for his words. The realization startled him. Eestrii was only two days away, and he had no idea what he would say.

“God will inspire me,” he reasoned. “I will pray for it.”

And I will pray for forgiveness for my own sins
, he added silently,
and hope that Heaven still has a place for me.

He had been so sure of himself when he’d conquered the drug that first time. Now he was weak, and
his vague reflection in the window sickened him. Had he been so wrong about things? Did God really speak to him at all?

“I am still a man of God,” he told the reflection. “Do not doubt it.”

There were signs enough to convince him. He still had Nar. Even now he towered over it. And Vorto would be returning soon, with a subdued Dragon’s Beak to his credit. Surely God would not allow a heretic to rule an empire so vast. It was why He had killed the immortal Arkus. Herrith put a hand to his head. Sleepiness tugged at him, bidding him back to his chair. But the aches of his body had subsided a little. He smiled to himself.

“I’m still alive, Biagio,” he said softly. “You’ll have to do better.”

From across the vast chamber he heard a knock on his door. Before he could reply, Father Todos pushed the door open. He looked troubled.

“Holiness?”

“Yes?” replied Herrith tersely. “What is it?”

Todos stepped into the room and eyed his superior. Herrith had hardly seen the Father since taking to his chambers, and Todos had prowled outside the bishop’s domain like a worried mother. Now the priest’s face brightened at seeing his master robust again.

“It’s good to see you up and around,” Todos remarked. “I was concerned.”

“Thank you.”

Todos eyed the empty vial on the desk. Suddenly the cheer left his expression. “Is that all of it?”

“The last drop.”

“Holiness …”

“Don’t lecture me, please, Todos,” said Herrith gravely. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? I wonder sometimes.” Father Todos came closer, inspecting the bishop. “You look terrible; your color. And you haven’t been eating again.”

“I have,” said Herrith indignantly.

“No, you haven’t. I’ve been keeping a close eye on what’s been coming in and out of here, Herrith. Your trays are almost as full when they leave as when the women bring them. It’s that God-cursed drug. You’re withdrawing again.”