“Here is Ezlann,” Vazkor said. “To the southwest of her, Ammath, to the west, Kmiss. To the southeast of Ezlann, So-Ess, and between and below So-Ess and Kmiss, Za. Beyond Za, the mountain City Eshkorek Arnor. You will see now that etiquette demands any meeting of the six Cities of the Alliance should be held at Za. Her position is symbolically central, between the other five.”
I recalled the messengers who had ridden back and forth in the long days since Asren’s death, and I understood a little.
“You are drawing the five High-Lords together to master them at Za, and take the reins of power.”
“I plan so,” he said.
“And I, why must I go with you?”
He removed the weights, and the map curled in on itself swiftly, like a disturbed fetus.
“It is necessary the goddess should be there.”
“And why, Vazkor, is it necessary?”
He said nothing. Still masked, he turned to replace the map in its jar.
“Because, Vazkor,” I said softly, “without the goddess you are nothing.” We both knew this well, but it gave me great pleasure to say it.
After a moment he said levelly, “You have made a complete recovery from your illness, I see. I am glad, I should not have liked to risk your health on the journey to Za.”
“When do we leave Ezlann?” I asked him.
“Two days,” he said. “You can bring five women, no more; they are bad travelers. Naturally I’ll send you a detachment of my men, as personal escort—the Cities will expect to see you honored.”
“No need,” I said. “I have my own guard. Eighty men and their captain, my commander. That should be enough for my honor, should it not?”
He turned to me swiftly, and I knew behind the mask he was staring.
“Who is this man?”
“You will no doubt discover by your own methods,” I said. “I should not like to discourage your labors.
Only remember, he is under my protection.”
His stiffness eased. Very politely he said, “You have been a little unwise, perhaps.”
“Indeed? Perhaps I am not alone in that.”
“You must not persist,” he said, “in your mistrust of me. We are one, you and I, however hard you try to put it from your mind. If you are goddess, then Vazkor is god. They have no legend here for me, that is why I must use you as my shield. For a time.”
“It is foolish of you,” I said, “to use as your shield the spear,” for abruptly I remembered Asutoo’s words in the cave, when I had made him tell me how he had betrayed Darak. “Too narrow for defense,” I said to Vazkor, “and much too sharp.”
He did not answer me, and I left the room and went to my apartments. At the doors I called in Slor.
“Get word to Mazlek that I have announced my Guard of Honor to Vazkor Javhovor.”
Unmasked, I saw his face tauten, then relax. He smiled grimly.
“Well and good,” he said.
“Will you wear my badge?” I asked him.
“Goddess,” he said. I did not understand the familiar emotion on his face; I had seen it so often in others, yet still it made no sense.
“The head of the cat,” I said. “Can you find smiths to cast it? We have only two days.”
He bowed.
“Easily, goddess.”
When he had gone, I sat a long while in the winter-lit room, and passed from my triumph to deep depression. I had the sensation—so often on me now—that having left any place, I should not return there. Even so, I did not understand why it should distress me to quit this city, until the thought came that it was Asren I must leave. I cannot explain this aching super-awareness of his presence, even after I knew him dead. He seemed all around me, particularly in the library, which was so entirely his. I longed to take and hold things that had been his, yet I had nothing of his, except that necklace he had sent me on our marriage night, which possessed nothing of him because he felt nothing for it, had given nothing to it, knowing it was for me. The day wore on, and with my knowledge of impending departure, the sense of no return, I began to pace the room, ridiculously desperate, and unable to be still.
Finally I went to the doors and opened them. Outside, four men, phoenix-masked. I knew they were all strangers to me, yet I could tell even from so small a thing as the line of their bodies as they looked at me that they were mine.
My mouth felt stiff and dry, but I said to them, “The dead lord, Asren Javhovor—where is he buried?”
“Goddess,” one of them said, “it was done swiftly, and with shame. Vazkor’s work. We do not know.”
“But give us time,” another one said. “We can discover.”
“There is no time,” I said.
“Perhaps,” a man said. He hesitated. “Possibly one of the women—Asren Javhovor’s women—might know. There must have been some rights allowed. He was not the steader Shlevakin, after all,” he added with intense bitterness.
“Find out for me,” I said. I touched his shoulder lightly, and felt that peculiar quickening under my fingers that was not sexual but spiritual desire. He bowed and was gone.
The windows blackened. Women entered and lit the lamps, their dresses coiling and rustling on the floors.
Then Dnarl came and two others, and they brought a girl with them, and left her in the room with me.
I had expected to feel jealousy—jealousy of any kind, sexual, mental, anything, I was not sure. Yet I felt nothing of this.
She was very young, fourteen or fifteen, very fragile and lovely; like him, she had reached perfection before her years, and by token of the very swiftness of this achievement, there seemed to be something ephemeral about her. Long icy-gold hair spilled on her shoulders under a dark veil. I would not have asked her to unmask, but I suppose Dnarl had told her she should. The gold thing, some flower shape, dangled from her hand. Her arms and naked breasts were pearly, and quite perfect. She wore no rings or jewelry, though she seemed made for adornment. And, though she was plainly terrified, it would have been useless to tell her not to be.
“I have asked for you to come to me,” I said, “because I want to know where my husband is buried.”
“Yes, goddess,” she said, not looking at me.
“Do you know this?”
“Yes, goddess.”
“How?”
She made a little nervous gesture with her hands.
“Vazkor Javhovor sent a man to tell me. It was a burial of shame, he said, because of what had been done, but only fitting some should remember and go to the place.”
“Why were you told?” I asked her.
“Because—” she stammered. “I was his—but I am of no importance. Don’t be angry with me!” And she began to cry out of pure fright. She, it seemed, had also expected my jealousy.
“There is no need for this,” I said gently. “There is no anger in me for you. Will you take me to the place?”
She nodded dumbly, and turned at once.
It was a long journey. Two guards came behind us, and they had a lamp, which at first seemed unnecessary. But soon the lighted corridors were behind us. We went through dark, earth-smelling ways deep under the palace, through old and neglected cellars crusted with dust and misty with hanging gray webs, down worn staircases that twisted round and round on themselves in the shadows. It looked a dangerous way for her to come. I remember it surprised me she did not seem afraid of it. At last there was a level corridor, and, at the end, a great iron door. She moved her fingers in the grooves and it lumbered unwillingly open.