The Legend of Broken (80 page)

“That is not all I was to tell you, Father,” Anje says, now appearing more plainly worried. “Although Mother did not wish the younger ones to hear it.”

“I suspected as much, Anje,” Sixt Arnem says, holding his oldest daughter tightly, as if it will give him some reminder that his wife still lives. “Tell me, then.”

Anje—ever her mother’s most sensible child—speaks in a remarkably controlled voice. “Lord Radelfer can tell you of it far better than can I. If he will be so kind.”

As Arnem continues to keep one arm around Anje, Radelfer says, “I am only too happy to oblige, Maid Anje—if you will promise in return that you will eat, for you are exhausted and have been without proper food for too long.”

To this, Anje only nods. “All right, Lord—”

“I am no ‘lord,’ Maid Anje,” Radelfer says. “Although I appreciate the honor you do me by calling me such. Now—get yourself some food.”

Anje nods again, and then follows her siblings. Radelfer turns to Arnem, his face displaying both unease and admiration. “Your daughter is brave and wise, Sentek,” he says, “just as her mother was at her age.”

“You knew my lady even then, Seneschal?” Arnem asks, amazed.

“I did—and I shall tell you more of that in a moment,” Radelfer replies. “As well as of the miraculous changes she has brought about in the Fifth District, assisted by your son and by an old comrade of mine that you may remember—Linnet Kriksex.”

“Kriksex?” Arnem replies. “Yes, I recall both the name and the man—he was with us at the Atta Pass, among many other engagements, before he was grievously wounded.”

“Not so grievously that he has not protected your wife, in the company of other veterans, from the terrible change that has taken place—”

Radelfer stops speaking when he grows aware of a presence; and, turning, both men see a young face poking through the rear entrance of the tent: Ernakh’s.

“Excuse me, Sentek,” the youth says quietly, “but I was wondering if I might ask the seneschal a question?”

“One question only, Ernakh,” Arnem says, increasingly anxious to know what is happening to his wife and eldest son. “Then go and join the other children, and get something to eat.”

At this, Ernakh enters the tent fully, making sure to close its flaps tight behind him, and turns to look up at Radelfer. “It is only—” he says haltingly and fearfully; “My mother, sir—why did
she
not come out with the sentek’s children?”

Radelfer smiles, and puts a hand to the boy’s shoulder. “Lady Arnem urged your mother to leave, Ernakh,” he says. “But she would not abandon her mistress. Yet there was probably greater danger in the journey than in staying behind, so you may put your young mind at ease.”

Ernakh smiles with relief, then nods once as he says, “Thank you, sir.” Turning to Arnem, he repeats, “And thank
you
, Sentek—I only wanted to be certain.” The
skutaar
then runs out into the council room, where he renews his friendships with the Arnem children.

The sentek turns to Radelfer. “What is the truth of the matter, Seneschal? Would my children have been safer in the city, and was my lady merely being exceedingly cautious by sending them out?”

Radelfer sighs, then takes the cup of wine and the seat that Arnem—who also sits and drinks a little, out of uneasiness, if nothing else—offers him. “I wish I could say that I had been entirely truthful, Sentek,” Radelfer begins. “In fact, the situation in the city has grown vastly more dangerous—especially for Lady Arnem because of my master’s past feelings for her, which seem to have returned, if indeed they ever truly departed.” The seneschal pauses, staring into his wine. “Although I suppose I must refer to the Merchant Lord as my
former
master, now—and I am not at all certain that such is a bad thing … But the peril to your lady, as well as your district? That, I fear, is truly heightened, which is why I have come. Never, in what has been his troubled life, have I seen Rendulic Baster-kin so full of anger, so possessed by schemes that have driven him wild with passionate desire and a murderous determination.”

Arnem feels the steady pain of dread growing in his heart. “You say the situation in Broken has changed, Radelfer,” he replies. “Is that why I have received no written word from my wife, of late, when previously she had been writing so regularly?”

“Aye, Sentek,” Radelfer says. “Lord Baster-kin has closed all avenues of communication between the Fifth District and the rest of the city, as well as the rest of the kingdom. No food enters, and few citizens escape. I only passed into the area and then back out, because of the Guard’s knowledge that I am the seneschal of the Merchant Lord’s household: I could therefore hide your children in the wagon I took from our stables.”

“The Guard?” Arnem echoes. “But my wife’s last dispatch, as well as my own children, reported that Sentek Gerfrehd and the regular army were atop the walls.”

“As they were,” Radelfer answers with a nod. “But, just before our departure, his lordship was able to convince the God-King, through the Grand Layzin, to order the regular army to confine itself to its own Fourth District, because they would not participate in the planned destruction of the Fifth. The second and last
khotor
of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard now man the walls above that unfortunate district on all sides, and are preparing, after they have starved its inhabitants, to burn it to the ground. Therefore, if you now plan to march back to Broken, as I suspect you do, you cannot expect to be welcomed. For his lordship has also convinced the God-King—again through the Grand Layzin—to declare both the Talons and the residents of the Fifth to be in league with the Bane.”

Arnem’s face fills with an expression of both crushing betrayal confirmed and even more terrible fears realized: for what Radelfer has told him is no more than the logical continuation of the conclusions he has already been forced to reach, at Visimar’s insistence, concerning Lord Baster-kin’s intentions regarding the kingdom’s most elite troops; yet he had not thought that such a charge, in all its deadly absurdity, would ever be extended to his wife and eldest son, to say nothing of the people of his native district.

“In league with the Bane …,” the sentek repeats, in no more than a dreadful whisper. He stands and begins to pace, running a hand through his hair roughly, as if he will drag comprehension from within his skull. But after several moments of silent bewilderment, as well as being alerted to the full extent of the danger by the laughter of his children and Ernakh from behind the thick, rich hides that compose the partition inside his tent, he can conclude no more than, “Madness … He cannot be in his right mind, Radelfer!”

The seneschal shrugs, having already had at least some time to adapt to the terrible turn that Rendulic Baster-kin’s mind has taken. “On the contrary, Sentek—I have known his lordship since he was but a boy, and I have rarely seen him speaking and behaving so seemingly lucidly.” Pausing, Radelfer drinks deep from his goblet, and looks up at Arnem. “I doubt very much that you have heard he not only witnessed but presided over the death of his own son.”

Arnem spins on the seneschal in horror. “
Adelwülf?
He allowed him to die?”

“He arranged it,” Radelfer replies; and there is a sadness beneath the even tone of his words that he is very obviously working hard to suppress. “In the Stadium. As good as served the lad up to one of the wild beasts, there—he explained that he wished to frighten the wealthy young men who frequent that place into serving with the
khotor
of the Guard that has just marched on the Wood.”

“And been destroyed to the last man by their arrogance and utter lack of professional understanding,” Arnem says, in an angry reply.

Radelfer takes in this information with the same labored steadiness that has marked the whole of his conversation with Sixt Arnem. “Have they?” he murmurs. “Well … then his lordship might have spared the boy so horrifying a fate, and let him die fighting our enemies.”

“If indeed they are our enemies,” Arnem says quickly. Radelfer’s features become confused, but before he can ask the sentek’s meaning, Arnem has set his fists heavily on the table before Radelfer and—in a voice measured enough that his children will not hear, but no less passionate—demands, “But why let his own son, his
heir
, die in the first place, much less arrange for it to happen?”

Very carefully, Radelfer stares into his goblet, and states with thinly veiled meaning, “He intends to have a second family. With a woman who, unlike his wretched, dying wife, is someone of strength, someone he has long admired—a woman who will, he believes, give him sons that will be true, loyal, and healthy servants of the kingdom.” Pausing to take a quaff of wine, Radelfer finally says, “Just as she has given you such children, Sentek …”

Once again, Sixt Arnem is momentarily stunned by how much more elaborate Lord Baster-kin’s plotting has run than he or even Visimar suspected. “My wife?” he eventually whispers. “He intends to steal my wife?”

“It is not theft,” Radelfer replies, still with remarkable control of his emotions, “if the former husband is dead. And your lordship has been daily expecting confirmation that both you and your men have died from the pestilence that is ravaging the provinces.” Staring into the distance, the seneschal reflects: “But instead, you are all still here, and the First
Khotor
of the Guard, along with the sons of most of the prominent houses in Broken, lie dead in the Wood …”

“And what of my children, Radelfer?” Arnem demands. “What was to become of them?”

Turning his head to the rough wool beneath his feet, Radelfer muses, with his first real display of remorse, “Your children would simply have been declared unfortunate casualties of the destruction of the Fifth District. Your insistence on remaining in that part of the city, even when you have attained command of the army, has always caused widespread consternation among the royal family, the priesthood, and the merchant classes in the city. The deaths of your children would have been laid to your own inscrutable stubbornness, rather than at the door of his lordship …”

Arnem is silent for a few moments, scarcely able to believe what he has heard. “But—
why?
Why, Radelfer, does the Merchant Lord turn on his own people in this manner? Or on my family? I have never voiced anything but support for him.”

“I can tell you what lies behind his actions, Sentek,” Radelfer says. “But in order to explain the situation fully, I must first tell you things that no one in Broken knows, save myself. The one other who even guessed at the truth paid the most awful price imaginable, simply for his attempt to be truthful and of assistance to the clan Baster-kin.”

Arnem ponders this statement for a moment. “Radelfer—would that ‘other’ have been, by any chance, Caliphestros?”

Radelfer looks up, wholly surprised. “Aye, Sentek,” he answers. “But how can you have guessed that?”

Sitting back and taking a deep sip of wine, Arnem says, “It may interest you to know, Seneschal, that Caliphestros not only survived the
Halap-stahla,
but is at this moment less than a quarter-league outside the southern perimeter of this camp, in the company of various Bane leaders, all of whom await my arrival under a flag of truce.”

Radelfer, stunned for a moment, eventually murmurs, “I see
 …
The tales that the Bane merchants spread are true, then … It does seem almost too fantastic.”

“Not so fantastic,” Arnem replies, “as the mount it is said he rides: none other than the legendary white panther of Davon Wood. Apparently, she is there now, as well—amazing nearly all of my Talons.”

Radelfer considers the matter for a long moment, then grows far more restless. “Sentek,” he finally says, “if the Bane and Caliphestros are in earnest about their desire to parley—and I pray that they are—then we have greater cause for hope than I had dared believe …”

The seneschal’s tale, and the continuation of the truce …

The seneschal goes about finishing the full tale of young Rendulic Baster-kin and the healer’s apprentice once known only as Isadora, as the sentek’s children and Ernakh eagerly laugh and fill their bellies beyond the tent’s partition. By the time that Arnem and Radelfer take horse to join the meeting south of the Talons’ camp, the sentek, having made certain that the children will be properly guarded in his tent during his absence, has also made certain that he has allowed the surprise and shock that he first felt upon Radelfer’s revelations to wane, so that they will not dominate his behavior during the parley to come. Yet now the sentek has been made aware, not only of how far back the history between Isadora and the Merchant Lord reaches, but of the very intimate and dangerous nature of it, as well as of a good many more previously unknown facts concerning Rendulic Baster-kin’s life that finally worried Radelfer enough to risk his own life in an effort to save, if not Isadora herself, then at least most of her children, as she asked. By the time they ride toward the southern gate of the Talons’ camp, Arnem has become as convinced as is the fugitive seneschal that no good can come of events as they are presently configured in the city. Broken’s greatest soldier will need to convince his own officers to march, not into Davon Wood, but back up Broken’s mountain—and he will need, as well, to plead that the military arm of the Bane, along with the legless sorcerer Caliphestros and his onetime acolyte, Visimar, support them in their effort, and embrace entirely the changes in outlook and, perhaps, loyalties required for any such scheme to succeed.

It is therefore no omen of success (or is it?) that, as the Ox and the mount with which Arnem has provided Radelfer storm out of the Talons’ camp and thunder toward the meeting place of the truce between the two opposing lines of leaders, the principle sound that they both hear and see from afar is that of a certain notorious, file-toothed Bane laughing as he presides over an apparent game of some sort, one being played among Arnem’s own officers and many of the Bane leaders. Unnerved by the strangely inappropriate activity, Arnem rides on, unnoticed by the bone-casters ahead.

“I ask you, Linnet,” Arnem can hear the infamously ugly Bane he knows must be Heldo-Bah shouting in derision, as the Ox draws closer beside Radelfer’s mount. Heldo-Bah has recognized Niksar’s rank by the silver claws, the color of his cloak, and the air of authority he projects over his men. “Is this any way for the senior representative from your accursèd city—well, the most senior
yet
present—to face the most important encounter between your own and our peoples since the days that your Mad King began throwing the less than perfect in body and mind down off your mountain full of
marehs
and
skehsels
two hundred years ago? By not honoring his gambling debts?”

“I have told you,” Niksar says, “I will honor them, it is simply that my own store of silver is back within my tent—”

“Ah, Linnet,” Heldo-Bah replies airily, “if I had a piece of gold for every time I have heard an excuse like that …”

Now it is Caliphestros’s turn to erupt uncontrollably, declaring for but an instant, “Heldo-Bah! Will nothing stop this idiotic exchange of—”

Then comes the sound of hard-pounding horses’ hooves; and the old man looks up to see Sentek Arnem and Radelfer bearing down on their position with ever-greater haste. “Ah!” Caliphestros judges, allowing himself a smile that might be taken for a smirk, in a lesser being. “Well—apparently there may be. Let us see how greatly you feel like disrupting this all-important occasion when faced with both the commander of the Talons and the seneschal of the clan Baster-kin, Heldo-Bah, you impossible student of perversion …”

Himself turning to see the same impressive sight, Heldo-Bah’s face goes a little pale: he straightens himself into something resembling a martial posture, and immediately grows silent. Throughout both sides of the parley lines, men return to their place of rank and draw themselves upright, silently leaving the knucklebones and the monies involved in the game untouched.

Even through his attempt at dignity, Heldo barks out, “No one touches the goods!”

Further comment from the most irrepressible of foragers is silenced, however, when Sentek Arnem bursts through to the spot where the game had been taking place. Sixt Arnem rides first to face Visimar, then crosses half the gap between the lines to study Caliphestros and the white panther in amazement. “So it is true, Caliphestros,” the sentek says. “Your former acolyte’s claim that you survived your punishment was more than fable. I confess that I did not fully credit it until this moment.”

“Understandably, Sixt Arnem,” Caliphestros says, his face a mask of inscrutably complex emotions: for the last time the legless old scholar had set eyes on this soldier, he had been a full man being cut to pieces. “Although I am not certain which of us is, right now, in the more unenviable position …”

Arnem can only nod grimly.

“Radelfer,” Caliphestros says, with a nod. “I confess to some satisfaction that you are here. It at least proves my suspicion that you were ever a man of honor, who has come to realize his moral predicament.”

Radelfer nods back at the compliment. “Lord Caliphestros. I, too, am pleased that you somehow survived your ordeal, for the charges against you were baseless.”

“Indeed,” Caliphestros says. “But that is the heart of this entire matter, is it not?” Radelfer nods again, although Arnem’s features become puzzled. “What I refer to, Sentek,” Caliphestros explains, “is the nature of the most dangerous men in Broken—perhaps the world. Do you know to whom I refer?”

Arnem shrugs. “I should think to evil men.”

But Caliphestros shakes his head. “No. Evil, when it truly exists, is far too easily detected to be of the
greatest
danger. The most dangerous men in the world are those who—for reasons of their own—put their names and services at the disposal of what they see, at the time, as good causes. The greatest, the truest
evil,
then, is that undertaken by
good
men who cannot see or, worse, will not see the wickedness they serve. And there is one such man in Broken, perhaps the last of his breed, whose power and motivations have long made him a source of profound concern.”

Arnem nods grimly. “You refer to me.”

But Caliphestros seems surprised. “To you, Sentek? I do not. But more of such philosophical matters at a later time. We have pressing business to discuss, without delay.”

“Indeed—I see that you have called for truce, Caliphestros,” the sentek replies. “May I safely assume, then, that you, like your former acolyte, have somehow found it in your soul to forgive my participation in your torture and intended abandonment to death?”

“You may
assume
nothing, Sentek,” Caliphestros replies. “For it is not I who have called for truce.”

“No?” Arnem asks. “Well, it cannot have been the member of your party who was presiding over the game of knucklebones as I approached, surely.”

“No,” Caliphestros says, leaning over, stroking the white panther’s neck, in a motion both vague and clearly threatening toward his opponents, and glancing at the now-fearful Heldo-Bah with a deep anger. “It would be neither my place nor his to assert such authority within the Bane tribe, nearly all of whom were as ignorant or uncertain of my continued existence as were you and your people, until a matter of days ago. You must address yourself to the Groba Father and his Elders, who alone speak for the Bane. Were it up to me …” And at this instant both the old man and the panther look up as one, Caliphestros’s slate grey eyes and Stasi’s brilliant green orbs seeming to contain an inscrutable sentiment: “Were it up to me, I might well have allowed every soldier in the Broken army to enter Davon Wood, to share in the fate already met, and so richly deserved, by the
khotor
of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard.” But then Caliphestros’s manner softens. “Although that is likely my half-legs, and not my mind, speaking.”

Arnem nods knowingly. “I believe so,” he says, his tone contrite. “For of all people, I suspect that you know that to speak of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard and the true soldiers of Broken, especially the Talons that face you now, as if they were in any way similar, does neither my men nor your wisdom justice.”

“True,” Caliphestros replies. “And that is the only reason why I am here …”

Still attempting practicality, Arnem nods and states, “Your attention to protocol is wisely worded, and I shall heed it.” He then looks at the man who, by his slightly superior appearance and bearing, he takes to be the Bane leader. “You are the Groba Father, then?”

The Father, who more than makes up in courage what he lacks in height, takes one or two steps forward. “I am, Sentek,” he says with great courage, earning him respect among members of both lines of the truce. “And perhaps it would, as my friend Lord Caliphestros intimates, be the most honest way to begin this discussion by telling you that the Merchant Lord might have sent emissaries, rather than his personal Guard, to us, and together we might have addressed the terrible ailments that we now know afflict your people as well as, at least in the case of what Lord Caliphestros calls the rose fever, our own. But instead, he chose our moment of weakness to attempt to achieve the long-cherished, inexplicable desire of your God-King and the Kafran priests to destroy our tribe.” Taking one deep, steadying breath, the Father finishes: “Which, I gather, was
your
original reason for leaving the walls of your foul city, as well.”

“Not our reason, Father,” Arnem says grimly. “Our orders. But know this—that same order cost me both my teacher and my oldest friend—”

The Groba Father nods. “Yantek Korsar.”

“As well as Gerolf Gledgesa,” Caliphestros adds solemnly.

Surprised, Arnem looks for a moment to Caliphestros, and then at Visimar. “Well—whatever ‘science’ you two practice, I continue to learn why it terrified the priests of Kafra so. For this is not knowledge I expected you to possess.”

Caliphestros shrugs. “In the first instance, simply an accident of discovery, Sentek,” he says. “In the second, a communication from Visimar. There was no great mystery in either case. But please—proceed …”

Arnem resumes, still a little unnerved by Visimar’s and now Caliphestros’s ability to state matters of fact before the sentek himself can reveal them, “That order not only cost myself and my kingdom such men, but was issued long before we knew of
any
diseases at large throughout either your or our own people, or of any attempt to remake the city of Broken itself by use of violent force. Had these facts been known to me in advance … I can say that I should not have been willing to play a part in them.”

“Some would say that you ought to have questioned such orders, nevertheless,” Caliphestros declares flatly. “Yantek Korsar certainly did—and I have seen his body hanging along the banks of the Cat’s Paw, as a result.”

Arnem blanches considerably, before murmuring, “Have you, indeed …?” Then he uses his commander’s discipline to try to recover his composure, and looks to the Groba Father. “And would
you,
sir, also have expected me to thus disregard orders? It is well and good for exiles and men of the shadows to talk thus—” He glances at Caliphestros. “But could
you
forgive such impertinence from the man I now suspect to be at once one of our most formidable and most honorable opponents, over the years—Yantek Ashkatar?” Arnem lifts a respectful finger to indicate the stout Bane commander with the coiled whip, who, in his turn, draws himself up more proudly.

Considering the question momentarily, the Groba Father replies, “No, Sentek Arnem. We likely could not. Very well, then. We shall accept your answer in the spirit of this truce and this … 
negotiation
. But the Groba will ask you an equally direct and crucial question, in return, one that I hope you can answer in the same manner—” Now stepping further to the nearly precise midway point between the two lines of negotiators and the spot where stands the Ox, with his rider sitting high above, and earning still more respect among the officers of the Talons for doing so, the Groba Father locks gazes with Arnem fully before asking:

“Will you, Sentek, agree to having your eyes and hands bound, and in that condition, to accompanying our party to Okot, there to observe the full effects that the fever with which your people have poisoned the Cat’s Paw have wrought, and to discuss what our forces may do
together
to bring a halt to the crisis, both for your people’s sake and for our own? Lord Caliphestros seems to think that you will—but I confess to my own doubts. You see, as a younger trader, I once spent a very long night beneath the Merchants’ Hall in Broken …”

Arnem sits back in his saddle: plainly, this not a question that he has anticipated.

“It is the simplest way in which to demonstrate to you how at least the one disease—the rose fever—is spread,” says Caliphestros. “As well as how and where both it and the
Ignis Sacer
—the Holy Fire—may be originating within the city and kingdom of Broken: which, I believe I have determined, is indeed their source—a determination that your own wife, I suspect, has made, which is part of the reason she is now so persecuted.”

“My
wife
?” Arnem echoes. “You have been in communication with my wife? And you know where the fever originates, Caliphestros?” Arnem says, shock following upon shock. “For we have already determined, with Visimar’s and, I suspect, your aid, that the rose fever taints the waters of the Cat’s Paw. How can you know its origin more exactly?”