A yellow-robed priest appeared around a screen, and bowed low, as Ashara’s priest would not have done.
“I regret, the young woman’s dead, Lord Rarmon. It was a subtle venom. We were able to alleviate her pain and lend her courage, but we couldn’t save her life.”
Poor Yeiza. She had been caught in the plot, ventured too far from shore, drowned there. Seeking sanctuary in the temple when she saw how things were going was her only act of wisdom. He could assemble the rest of it: Some token stolen from Ulis Anet to persuade Iros to the meeting. No doubt they had paid Yeiza. An Alisaarian trick maybe, a coin with one razor edge, and poison on it. She had not investigated the little wound until too late.
“I’m sorry,” Rarmon said. But her death was a proof, too, as much as anything she could have told him. “You did right to send for me anyway. I’ll see Anackire’s well-gifted.”
“Thank you, Prince Rarmon.”
Abruptly Rarmon recognized the swarthy little man. He was the Thaddrian who had been among the Amanackire that night of the testing, the Thaddrian who, in his childhood, had supposedly witnessed Raldnor and Astaris riding into the jungle forests.
“I’ve already a gift with me for the goddess,” Rarmon said. “Or for you.”
He drew off the amber ring, cool now, and held it out.
“No, my lord,” said the Thaddrian. “I can’t take that.”
“Why not? Lowland amber is valuable and considered holy.”
“Nor can you give it, my lord.” Despite the squat body, the priest was dignified, almost gentle. “It’s geas, Prince Rarmon. You can’t lay it down. It can be removed by the one who set it on you, no other.”
“It’s only a ring.”
“That isn’t so. It has Power. A gift for you, not to be given elsewhere.”
“I thought you believed in the pragmatics of worship.”
“Yes, my lord. Magic itself can be very pragmatic.”
“I’ll merely leave it lying on Her altar, then.”
“No,” said the Thaddrian. “It isn’t the ring you’re trying to be rid of. It’s your destiny. Which is unavoidable.”
Rarmon found he had replaced the ring. He said, halting, gaps between the words, “Is that what I feel, hanging in the air about me like a storm? I don’t believe in Anackire. I don’t believe in gods.”
“My lord,” said the Thaddrian, “Anackire is the symbol. The externalization of the Power inside us all. The face we put on beauty and strength and love and harmony. As writing is the cipher for a sound we only hear.”
“You stand under the effigy and say that?”
“And see,” said the Thaddrian with a monkey’s grin, “She doesn’t strike me down. Truth is never blasphemy when the god is Truth Incarnate.”
Rarmon turned and walked between the pillars, and out into the pillars of the forest. The storm-warning of destiny pursued him.
It had rained, and the marks the carriage had made going in and out of rough ground were washed away. Rarmon sent his five men along the darkening south bank of the river. They found things, evidence of bandit lairs, a lover’s tryst—but not the one they searched for—and disturbed a nest of wildcats. Torches were lit and bobbed about amid the ruins.
The council had detained him through the afternoon. It had been necessary to parry Vencrek’s added allusions to Free Zakorian friends, in person. But to leave this trail till morning would have left it colder even than it was now. Finally, by an old standing house, one of Rarmon’s men came on a chariot with a team of fretting animals. The chariot-prow bore the sigil of Xarabiss.
In the house they discovered a lamp, upstairs; dregs of recent oil. There was a black stain on the floor, equally recent blood. They went out on to the terrace.
“He’s in the river, my lord.”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Luckless bastard.”
Rarmon sent the chariot cityward with two of them. One of the other three went down by the tree in the yard to urinate. He did not come back.
Rarmon checked the last two men, who were for rushing to see. From the side of the terrace they discerned, around the tree bole, a booted leg sprawled in the relaxation of death.
“Bloody robbers—”
“Robbers wouldn’t dare kill palace guard so close to the city.”
There was a gasp above, a man spontaneously taking air to jump, and Rarmon flung himself aside.
A figure crashed down, crying out as it hit the edge of the stone terrace, but taking one of the Dortharians with it.
The second Dortharian sprang round, thrusting his torch at another running figure while he jerked out his sword. His hair alight, the attacker plunged aside screaming, but two more had the Dortharian between them, blade immobilized.
Someone must have struck the screamer quiet. His noises ended in time for Rarmon to hear the snapping of the second guard’s neck.
Behind him, the first Dortharian had also stopped fighting.
“Throw down your sword, Prince,” someone said. “You can see it can’t help.”
The spilled torch had been rescued. It gave enough light to display the dozen or so men clustered about. They wore the black-washed mail of Karmiss, but unblazoned.
“We knew you’d come here,” said the voice. It was familiar. “Your erstwhile lord, Kesarh, can read your mind like a Lowlander.” A man sidled forward. He was not wearing mail but black owar-hide. It was the accosting Zakorian. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve decided after all to renege, to give my loyalty to my own old master, King Yl Am Zakoris. Your Kesarh helped me to decide. Not shocked are you, Lord Rarmon?” He gestured at the Karmians. “Take his sword, knife, any other weapons. Give any jewels he has to me. I’ll have that ring, to start.”
Aid would not come. Even the other two guard would have been caught and killed by now. Rarmon offered no battle. It would have meant death and he was not ready for death as yet. Even so, they pushed him to his knees before ripping the weaponbelt from him. Someone kicked him in the back, a blow like thunder. He fell into a pit of blackest nausea, and lying on the paving, was aware of the sword removed from one hand, the ring of the geas torn from the other. Then a yell. Of course, the ring had been burning. He heard it hit the stone somewhere and shatter like glass.
The Free Zakorian swore.
Vencrek was not, this time, the first with an accusation. Instead, a parchment had been fastened to the gate of the council halls. It read:
Nobles of Dorthar, you should never harry a wolf. He has run to his brothers in Free Zakoris with news of all your strategies of war. And he laughs at you as he runs.
After the river, there was a traveling-chariot. After the chariot, another oared boat out to a dark galley standing like night on morning sea. They had continued to drug her, she saw these things in snatches. On the ship they drugged her also and now she was glad, for the brief voyage was storm-flung.
When she woke from that she was on land again. She conjectured which land it must be.
But this last awakening was dreamlike. She was in a house, ornately built, overlooking savage gardens of wild and disconcerting loveliness. Beyond, a cultivated valley undulated to the horizon.
As the physical weakness of the drugs left her, she took note of her surroundings. Every appurtenance, everything her rank had made her used to, was supplied, even to the nourishing and decorative food, the costly unguents, and trays of jewelry.