Working God's Mischief (60 page)

“No. Either they're preoccupied or we're too far away. I worry about Anna, too.”

Despite all, that was true. Anna Mozilla did own a firm place in his heart.

Hecht said, “If any of them turn up I'll ask for a report.”

 

39. Shamramdi: The Godstalkers

Young Az came to the house where the Mountain and his men were enjoying the siege of Shamramdi. He was pale and grim. He had lost weight. He had been wounded twice during sorties against an enemy who was always ready.

Nassim Alizarin said, “I hope you feel better than you look, Nephew.”

“I doubt that, Uncle.”

“Then why are you out of bed?”

“Indala couldn't come. His own health remains poor.”

Rumor suggested that the Great Shake was dying, or was suffering from slow poisoning. Or Unbeliever sorcery was sucking his life and soul.

Nassim had not seen Indala for weeks. He suspected that age alone would explain the Great Shake's indisposition.

“Not heartening news, Nephew. But you have darker matters on your mind.”

“Complications, certainly. My great-uncle wishes to offer his apologies for not having been more supportive of your effort to crush the Dreangerean sorcerer.”

This was odd. “Has a serpent turned in his hand?”

“A courier bringing dispatches from the coast, across the mountains, was held up by the Ansa while they found a tribesman able to read and write Lucidian. They wanted to send you a message.”

“And then someone here had to make sure I wasn't getting secret instructions from the crusaders.”

“Not entirely. Some people just can't not stick their noses in.”

Nassim snorted. The longer he lived the less well he thought of his own kind. “So tell me what it says.”

“How? The letter was meant for you.”

“You aren't familiar with its contents? Do come on, Nephew.”

“As you will.” Young Az read, but slowly. Nassim had thought him more literate.

He took the letter. The text was not in the florid style he usually saw. It made no effort to proclaim the author's command of language. The sentences were simple declarative grunts, the words mud bricks only, not an artist's paint. Nor was the calligraphy artful. That alone might explain young Az's trouble reading. Too, the writer did not know his Lucidian as well as he might pretend.

“Damn! This is rough. But I think I get it.” Nassim Alizarin certainly had his own difficulties with Lucidian.

“Then explain. If you will be so generous. Because no one who has seen that message understands what it actually means. Most think it's code. If he says camel, you know he means something particular happened…”

“He is hard to decipher and harder to follow but he is as literal as a poisoned dagger. When he says camel he means camel. This is a desperate warning. The Dreangerean will resurrect Asher soon. The process may be under way already, after the natural delays suffered in getting this out of the Idiam.”

“So. Only my great-uncle truly thought…”

“How long, Azim?” The scribe had not dated his missive—which would not have helped had he done so. The Ansa did not date according to Praman custom.

“It's been knocking around court for a week. I only heard about it yesterday, when they wanted to know what I thought it meant. If it is a literal warning … Indala will be livid. Several men who think they're smarter than him are about to find themselves reassigned to obscure towns on a border where they can expect to have to face Tsistimed the Golden.”

“Indala had sense enough to take it for what it is?”

“The smart men shouted him down.”

The Mountain chuckled. “No. The Great Shake might refuse a contest with fools but he wouldn't abandon a conviction. He might have a favorite nephew stand in for him.”

“Assisted by the man who knows the evil best.”

Nassim smiled. A gap showed in his smile. Another sign of time catching up. Two more teeth had begun to trouble him.

“And what did the Great Shake suggest? Our freedom of action is restricted. Or does he want anything done? If the great evil returns it might fall more heavily on the crusaders than on us.”

“Not so, Uncle. Definitely not so.” Young Az then revealed the fact that Indala had excellent information sources inside the Episcopal Chaldarean world. “Lord Arnmigal, the Commander of the Righteous, was the Brothen Church's Captain-General before he moved on to the Grail Empire.”

“I know that. I saw him close up on Artecipea, when we were employed by Peter of Navaya. He seemed driven, too. But he understood my need to destroy Rudenes Schneidel personally.”

Though this had not come up before, young Az betrayed no surprise. He did know the story. “You recall his stated purpose for being there?”

“The siege of Arn Bedu. The destruction of Rudenes Schneidel. Of course. We all had personal motives. The strategic reason, though, was to keep Schneidel from resurrecting Seska, the Endless.”

“You destroyed the sorcerer. The Captain-General destroyed the Endless. He exterminated a gaggle of Schneidel's revenants in the End of Connec, too. Some think that he killed another revenant earlier, at al-Khazen, during the Calziran Crusade. You were there, too.”

“I was there. I didn't see that. I do recall an explosion and an earthquake said to have been the result.”

“There are many frightening questions around Lord Arnmigal—including a suggestion that he is a revenant himself. He has lived a mysteriously charmed life. There is little evidence that he even existed before the Church's first incursion into the End of Connec.”

Nassim did not mention the Sha-lug captain, Else Tage. He tried to look alert and interested, a man learning new and interesting things.

“There is a woman named Heris. Rumor suggests that she was once a household slave in Shartelle. She could be Lord Arnmigal's natural sister. How that could be possible is beyond me, given their respective backstories. She has, they say, destroyed five revenant prehistoric gods of incredible power and evil. Gods who were originally put to sleep by later devils like Asher and Ashtoreth, who had to have human worship in order to survive.”

This was mostly news to Nassim.

Young Az continued, “Lord Arnmigal and this Heris are known to the Night as the Godslayers. So my great-uncle has been informed by some who supposedly know.” Sort of a wink, then, because good Pramans were forbidden congress with the Night. They should not know the thinking of the demonic Instrumentalities. “Both are closely associated with members of the Episcopal Collegium, one being the natural grandson of another. Those two have acknowledged the Heris woman as their true descendant through a man whose name you will recall: Grade Drocker.”

Startled, Nassim said, “My old enemy!” Then, “I'm confused.” And the more so because he had known Lord Arnmigal as a promising student in the Vibrant Spring School.

“The whole thing is confusing and goes on getting more so. The most powerful man in the west is supposedly a refugee from one of those countries that is now covered by ice. But.”

“Does it matter? We have to deal with the man who is here, whatever his background was.”

“True enough. But. We should keep in mind the fact that not only has he killed gods, he has begun to show godlike characteristics himself.”

“What?” Alizarin fought for breath. His heart pounded.

“He isn't rattling mountains. It isn't an omnipotence thing, it's an all-knowing thing. We can't trick him. We can't mislead him. We can't outwit him. Whatever we try, he's there first, waiting, with dozens of those cursed falcons. He doesn't even have to be in the theater himself … Sorry. Self-pity leaking through, there. Because of my wounds. I shouldn't get upset. He isn't why I'm here. My great-uncle believes this message is more important than it looks. He is more worried about er-Rashal.”

Azim pointed out that the Faith had been under crushing pressure in Direcia since the disaster at Los Naves de los Fantas. Praman principalities in the Antal and Holy Lands were falling like dominos. The Faithful in the east were being exterminated by Tsistimed the Golden, who was determined to expunge al-Prama from history. The Hu'n-tai At showed Believers no mercy whatsoever, anywhere, at any time. Hu'n-tai At warriors amused themselves in camp by roasting imams alive, then feeding them to their dogs. Their souls would never enter Paradise.

It could have been worse only if the martyrs' corpses were fed to hogs.

“You knew the sorcerer, Uncle. What does he want?”

The Mountain had considered that for years. “He wants to ascend. He wants to become an Instrumentality himself. He wants to turn back time to the age of Dreanger's greatness, before al-Prama, before the golden age of the Chaldareans, before the Old Empire and the Agean Empire. He wants to waken Dreanger from a two-thousand-year slumber. Then he will become Dreanger's god-emperor, the Son of the Sun.”

“Ambitious.”

“He used to brag about his direct descent from the last native dynasty. He made jokes about being the rightful emperor—and about how harsh he would be once he came into his kingdom. We all played along. But, obviously, he wasn't just having us on.”

“If the message is correct, then, he may be about to achieve his dream.”

“He'd be settling for third choice, actually. He lost out when Seska went down. He lost out when the Great Shake's campaign forced him to flee Dreanger. Now, again, he has to try to resurrect and manage a god from outside his own pantheon, and for his life, not as a diversion. Still, I'm pleased that Indala finally sees the threat.”

Azim simply nodded.

The Mountain's longtime comrades had gathered round, with respect, neither interrupting nor offering comment. Even Old Az, Master of Ghosts, kept his thoughts to himself.

Nassim asked, “So, given this, what does Indala want?”

“Ideas. We no longer have much influence in the rest of the world. Our crusaders are content to keep us closed up while their brethren have their way elsewhere, with Believers who no longer have Indala to inspire them.”

“So it would seem. I have an idea. No one will like it.”

*   *   *

The lines round Shamramdi were loose everywhere and especially sketchy where defenders ought not to be able to offer any serious challenge. The crusaders were content with that. They awaited relief columns that they could exterminate piecemeal. However, even armed with those devastating falcons and intelligence so precise that they had to be wedded to the Adversary, the crusaders could not prevent daring individuals from coming and going. Smugglers smuggled. Couriers mostly managed. City militia patrols stayed informed about enemy dispositions so exfiltration routes could be designed.

The crusaders seldom bothered with individual travelers.

Nassim Alizarin's strategy depended on that.

Unseasonable warmth in a region known for its heat had been melting snow off the peaks of the Anti-Neret. Though there was no flooding, the Bareh-da was running high. That river, flowing through Shamramdi, made it possible for the city to exist and prosper in arid country. Floating out on one-man rafts was how most emigrants departed. Dozens abandoned the city every night.

Getting in was a little more problematic, and much less attractive.

The Mountain, Azim al-Adil ed-Din, al-Azer er-Selim, and Alizarin's oldest companions took the river route, one man at a time over several hours in order to avoid special notice by the Eyes of the Night. Excepting Nassim himself and Indala's great-nephew, all had visited Andesqueluz in the once-upon-a-time. The Mountain had had to reveal that before he could sell the Great Shake on his plan. Too, he had confessed that he knew the Commander of the Righteous better than he had admitted before, though he reserved the heart of the truth. He related only interactions during the campaign on Artecipea.

Wonder of wonders, the Great Shake did grasp how vast a threat er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen would become, ascended, with an Old God in his arsenal. Indala had the vision to think beyond dogma hammered in since infancy.

Alizarin feared the peril might be beyond his imagining. Asher had not been benign. Should er-Rashal be unable to control it … Asher would engineer the resurrection of his spouse, Ashtoreth. The couple would chastise the world … which might be an ambition the Rascal shared, but according to his own lights.

*   *   *

Nassim quelled his dread. Pointless, dwelling. He had obsessed too long already, in an endless quarrel with his conscience. Now he was wet and cold and alone on a raft that had begun to come apart. There was no moon. The Bareh-da was not yet entirely free of crocodiles. Lions rumbled beyond both shores. Though nearly hunted out, the survivors were afoot tonight. Then he heard the cough of a leopard. What else might be about, less mundane than fang and claw, he did not care to speculate.

“Entirely imagination,” he told himself. “Just imagination. Fear pounded into my ancestors by the Night.”

The Night was the true danger. The Night was wickedly clever. The Night was boundlessly cruel—though Instrumentalities seldom showed up in person anymore. Mostly they lurked in scary stories from back before the Revelation.

Nassim Alizarin had seen crocodiles, leopards, and lions, in all their fearsome tooth and claw, and what they could do to people who annoyed Gordimer. He preferred a less grisly fate for himself.

He spotted the wan signal finally, used a rotted board to paddle to the western bank, eventually landing two hundred yards long. Mohkam joined him, armed with a small lantern shuttered so tight it released almost no light at all.

“The others?” the Mountain asked.

“All here. Waiting at the signal, except for the Master of Ghosts.”

Al-Azer had left first, on the best raft, his job to pick the landing site and set the signal. “Where did he go?” Then, “My raft came apart. I lost most of my gear.”