Working God's Mischief (65 page)

Lord Arnmigal gulped some air and chewed.

“The spell reaches beyond the reliable killing range of most falcons. Falconeers who can fire don't have much hope of actually hitting anything.”

“And the Shining Ones know.”

“They do. And want to keep it quiet.”

“So they think they see a way to be safe from the mortal instruments of a would-be Godslayer.”

“If they can get hold of er-Rashal's secret.”

“They don't have it?”

“They do not. Only the Dreangerean has the spell, and that only inside his head. Spying on him won't do any good.”

“Unless they catch him in the process.”

“Maybe. But they have to be careful not to show their interest. Also, the sorcerer has put up some formidable supernatural barriers. I doubt they can get close enough to watch him work.” Consent went on with other news from the frontier, adding some speculation. “Madouc hasn't seen all the possibilities but he's definitely worried about Asher. The Special Office types at Gherig are pressuring him. Too, Joe says some Pramans have joined Madouc. Indala's men, supposedly there to help handle er-Rashal.”

Hecht grunted. That was puzzling. Indala helping Madouc with the Rascal? With the Special Office, Black Rogert, the Shining Ones, and who knew what all else there to see?

Er-Rashal had somebody really worried. Something major must be about to break.

The old Norns came to mind, silently spinning, lamplight painting their silhouettes on the paper screen that was the wall between them and the universe, a boundary neither man nor god dared violate.

He spurned the image. Illusion! Wicked imagination! Only the God Who Is God could write one's destiny …

He suppressed a burst of hysterical laughter.

“Boss?”

“We have a world of people playing their own games, me included. Suppose I just jumped in like a bear into a gaggle of puppies?”

Titus considered. “That might be too risky.”

“Good. Then that's what we'll do. Nobody will expect it.”

“Boss…”

What else to do now? Vantrad was in hand. Iresh abd al-Kadiri had been chased off. The Enterprise had achieved most of its goals against almost feeble resistance. All of the Holy Lands cities had submitted to the Grail Empress. The natives were not happy. If they behaved, however, changes at the royal level would mean little to farmers, herders, shopkeepers, and artisans. They would face the same old challenges and complain the same old complaints. They would lie to the tax collectors with fabulous imagination. They would bully neighbors who failed to demonstrate an adequately enlightened attitude toward the divine. Life would go on much as it always had.

The Commander of the Righteous, however, would have to make new choices soon. Once Shamramdi fell the Enterprise would have to find an expanded mission or begin to come apart. King Stain might get no chance to assemble his reinforcing wave.

Dreanger would be recovered for the Chaldarean faith. Lucidia, too, with the capture of Shamramdi. But that would set the Enterprise face-to-face with the sons of Tsistimed the Golden and the Hu'n-tai At.

There was the du Tancret option, of course. The dearly held dream of the most fanatic Chaldareans would be to capture and destroy Jezdad and the holiest holies of al-Prama.

“Boss? You still in there?”

“Eh? What?”

“Are you serious? What you suggested? Us heading out to Gherig?”

“Sure. To deal with er-Rashal. It doesn't take a lot of thought to see that he's the biggest threat at the moment. Once he goes down we can impose whatever realignment we want in this region.”

He had no desire to obliterate al-Prama. The Faith had been a part of him. Never had he entertained the notion of that religion's annihilation. He would have been outraged had the suggestion been offered.

“Boss?”

“Yes?” Irritated now. Titus ought to be off to get things started.

“What does it mean when the Shining Ones say, ‘He lost his shadow somewhere'?”

That startled Lord Arnmigal. He knew that must have meaning but could recall none. “I'm not sure. It sounds portentous, though. Why?”

“Wife and Hourli say it about you. It bothers me.”

Hecht had overheard the phrase himself recently without paying heed or realizing that he was its object. “‘Lost his way,' wouldn't quite fit, would it? I'll ask Hourli. She'll turn up fast once she hears that we're headed east.”

An air-clearing session with Hourli might be especially useful before the cloudy side developed deeper shadows. Once the Adversary began threading lies into things …

 

42. Gherig: Congruence, Conjunction, and Union

Nassim Alizarin stood alongside the crusader Madouc of Hoeles. He could not have imagined that possibility two months earlier. They shared the parapet of a Gherig watchtower. Several others, equally ill at ease, were observing traffic below Gherig with them. Nassim felt ensnared in a surreal fantasy. The Master of the Commandery had accepted his story and offer of alliance. Madouc of Hoeles was seriously practical and pragmatic in spite of his religious convictions. Madouc grasped the magnitude of the threat developing in the Idiam. He had seen other resurrections. He had been warned by his own Special Office: this could be the ugliest resurrection yet. He would employ
any
tool or weapon to abort the menace. Nassim's renegades might be a godsend.

No one knew the devil er-Rashal better. No one hated him more.

Rogert du Tancret, on crutches, radiated ill-concealed spite. Nassim Alizarin had been a curse on his existence. Nassim Alizarin had come within a toad's whisker of annihilating Gherig, and Rogert du Tancret with it. Nassim Alizarin had made it necessary for him to go round on these sticks. Black Rogert was biding his time. He would have his revenge.

Black Rogert might be black but he never considered achieving his revenge by allying with the Dreangerean evil.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed, wide little bully laid looks on Madouc that were no more friendly. Madouc could expect his own day of reckoning.

Rogert du Tancret had chosen to play against character, biding his time though he was not known for his patience or subtlety. Cunning had him smile exactly when the converted and motivated ought to show enthusiasm.

Nassim and Madouc were observing a wild swirl and swarm of newcomers sent out by the Commander of the Righteous as they put up a canvas and trash-wood city surrounded by a ditch and a freestone wall. Villagers disgruntled by the loss of pasture had been complaining since the first new crusader appeared. Nassim wished he could help. Those people had supported him well.

They would not resist. The newcomers had slaughtered scores of Believers who had tried to raid their camp near Triamolin. Their woman commander was an abomination made flesh. She devoured Praman souls.

Since that massacre the Widow's story had become widespread, growing madly in the retelling. Publicly, Madouc of Hoeles credited every wicked accusation. He hinted that more and darker remained to be seen.

Madouc had the Special Office mumbling in his ear.

He observed, “Those people seem professional but you can tell the Brothens from the Connectens by each group's casual style.”

Nassim did not see that. He saw Arnhander mobs caught up in efficient chaos. Setting a semipermanent camp was not something new to them. He saw very little real wasted motion. “Ah. And now they've started building a conduit to bring water from the spring.”

Young Az eased up beside Nassim, on the side away from Madouc. Nassim had been careful to conceal the youth's identity. Possession of Indala's favorite grandnephew might be a temptation too potent for bleak, brooding Black Rogert.

The Master of the Commandery knew Azim was no Sha-lug. Age alone did not give that away. What made one Sha-lug was difficult to verbalize but plain to the veteran eye.

Nassim turned toward Azim slightly. The boy had gone out among the Believers with Old Az, tasting their unhappiness, trying to show the elders why the Mountain would ally himself with the oppressor.

Only Ansa, foreigners, and strangers had suffered because of the Dreangerean. That did not make him an instrument of the Adversary. Such people were barely human.

“It didn't go well,” Nassim guessed. “Too tough a sell.”

“True, but there will be no bad behavior. They will remain toads in their holes. They are terrified of the Widow, who is more real and far nearer than any fabulous Dreangerean.”

“Indeed. They might be less rattled if the Adversary himself turned up dancing.” The Adversary seldom took the form of a fighting woman.

One of Black Rogert's few remaining loyalists eased up to his lord and whispered. Du Tancret blanched. He gasped. He slammed both hands to his chest. His eyes rolled up. He shook like he was going into a seizure.

Everyone gaped.

Du Tancret suppressed the shakes, visibly reclaiming control. He engaged in obvious internal debate momentarily. Then, “My lords. My lord of Hoeles. A courier from Vantrad brings word that the Grail Empress and Commander of the Righteous have compelled Beresmond and Clothilde to abdicate in favor of Helspeth Ege.”

His audience boggled, to a man. Impossible! The Master of the Commandery declared, “The Commander of the Righteous would not arrogate a crown!”

Du Tancret bobbed his head. “I did not mean to suggest that. You're right. He didn't seize the throne himself. He made the Grail Empress Vantrad's Queen.” Muttering, he added, “Surely he'll be rewarded royally.”

Madouc faced Nassim, one eyebrow raised. What would the Praman side think?

Nassim could do nothing but shrug.

He was not supposed to know the Commander of the Righteous. Nor did he, anymore. His recollections of Else Tage amounted to little more than nostalgia. He knew nothing about the man behind the layers of identity and character he had acquired since being sent out to die in exile.

A Madouc henchman made the obvious concrete. “This could mark a sea change for the Crusader States.”

Yes. It could.

This could be the first temblor of a vast cultural shift. The Grail Empire was not Arnhand. Arnhand was not going under the ice. Parts of the Grail Empire were. The displaced had to go somewhere.

All the Crusader States, large or small, were ruled by families rooted in the nobilities of Arnhand or the Connec. Knights and pilgrims hailed from every Brothen Episcopal principality but mostly Arnhanders and Connectens stayed to colonize the land of their God's birth. Several generations later, now, the eastern branches of the families were almost as foreign as the peoples they ruled.

Vantrad the kingdom was now a fragment of the Grail Empire, where traditions were alien and the ruling class was actively hostile toward the Brothen Episcopal Patriarchy despite a deep connection to the Brothen Episcopal faith. Paradoxically, the Patriarchy might gain influence, now. Its lip-service-only Crusader States supporters, heavily dependent on moral, financial, and manpower support from Arnhand and the Connec, might be overthrown for a more honest regime.

The founders of the Crusader States had been as much land-going pirates as warriors of a holy cause. Today's Black Rogert was, simply, an extreme exemplar.

The exemplar added, “The Queen evaded capture. She is headed here with such people as she was able to save.”

Nassim took that to mean that Clothilde's companions were people who had been able to keep up.

His estimate of Clothilde had formed based on her popular reputation.

Garnering little response from the Brotherhood, Black Rogert reminded everyone, “Whatever the military situation imposes on me, Gherig still belongs to the du Tancrets.”

Not strictly true and easily rendered moot but neither the Master of the Commandery nor his companions cared to debate. Madouc simply nodded. “Of course.”

Could he be thinking that Clothilde might be better wrangled here than elsewhere? Wherever she was she would spin wild, irrational plots and contrive insane conspiracies.

Black Rogert was at a loss. He had been stripped of place and power. Now his last anchor was dragging.

Nassim entertained himself with an idea so wicked it was fit to have sprung from the mind of a villain like Clothilde or Black Rogert.

He could suggest that they flee to Shamramdi.

Indala would welcome them. Of course he would. It would be no sin, promising protection to draw them into his power. The God Who Is God had no problem with the Faithful deceiving Unbelievers. And Indala owed Black Rogert so much.

Du Tancret would never amble into that. His nose for danger should be itching already, simply because the Mountain had had the thought.

Du Tancret, frowning, did turn Nassim's way, as though he
had
caught a whiff of malice.

Madouc of Hoeles stared into infinity briefly, then told du Tancret, “Begin preparations to receive the Queen. Right now Gherig boasts no suitable quarters.”

Black Rogert started, at first amazed that Madouc would receive Clothilde, then realizing that Madouc had stated a bald truth. Reconstruction was focused on Gherig's defenses. Even Madouc and du Tancret lived as rough as their soldiers and workmen.

News of Nassim's latest defection should have reached Indala by now. Hopefully, the Great Shake was clever enough to reason his way to the truth.

Nassim thought that Indala did have the intelligence, in both senses, to understand. Young Az swore that Indala knew his grandnephew would never defect in fact, but only in appearance, for tactical reasons.

Madouc of Hoeles said, “That man is out of the way. We can speak freely, now.” Du Tancret was gone.

“Yes?”

White flashed, Madouc smiling behind his artfully sculpted beard. “You are a cautious man, General.”

“More a man so nervous that, you should note, he has successfully shied off deadly shadows for ages, in a chancy trade.”