Varis’s strategy was not elegant, and did not need to be. Such manipulators relied heavily upon the predictable fickleness of the human soul when overburdened with disaster, loss, and uncertainty. Such opportunistic men cunningly positioned themselves at the fore of rudderless groups by providing simple, direct answers and solutions to troubling questions. It did not matter how irrational those answers might be, or how vile the solutions were, for the heavy-laden heart desired most of all to lash out against the incoming tide of pain. Once drawn into the maelstrom of his cause, such a manipulator directed his followers to focus upon a carefully provided enemy, inflaming them further still. As long as those fires raged, reason languished. Ellonlef’s study of past uprisings had taught her that after the passions of the bestirred masses waned, they often realized it was too late retreat back along the monstrous road they had tread. And, more often still, the enemy they had savaged and warred against proved less of a threat than the very leader who had guided them from the start.
Ellonlef’s mind worked frantically, putting the pieces of the puzzle together, as they related to Varis.
First he had come to Krevar, his flesh devastated, looking nothing like an Aradaner highborn, which gave weight to his commiseration with the plight of the townsfolk. Then he stirred in a crucial ingredient by suggesting a common enemy existed who was responsible for Krevar’s woes-Kian Valara. Going further, he had presented the mercenary as an undefeatable enemy with the power of gods at his disposal. Finally, after building a subtle sense of hopelessness, Varis shared that he had the means to reverse the enemy’s grim deeds. Of course, like all usurpers, he also needed willing followers.
“Why have you waited until this moment to reveal that you, as well as Kian, can wield these powers of creation?” Ellonlef asked, unable to contain herself any longer. She had to stop this madness before it went too far. But at the same time, she needed to proceed with caution, for it was no small matter to accuse a sovereign son of Aradan. “Why not act first, and explain later?”
Varis turned on her. No hint of life shone in his eyes, but she felt cold hatred issuing from them. Before he could begin to speak, Uzzret was on his feet.
“You thankless, wretched woman,” he snarled. “You dare question the virtue of this man?”
“Enough!” Otaker shouted. Then, in a quieter voice, he asked Varis, “Can you bring back Danara, my wife?”
Taking advantage of the distraction, Varis avoided answering Ellonlef. He nodded to Otaker and, belying his earlier statement that he could offer no promises, spoke now with absolute surety. “I can and will bring back your lady wife, as well as all the dead of Krevar-save those who have been devoured by flame. Those are lost, even to me.”
At this, Uzzret dropped his worshipful gaze and began babbling of his sorrow for ordering so many burned to ash. Varis ignored him.
“Tell me what I must do,” Otaker said fiercely.
Ellonlef felt her heart fall at his fervor. Whatever he had glimpsed behind the veil of Varis’s strange tale was now hidden by the false hope that he would again see his wife. For herself, Ellonlef had no doubt that the dead were dead and could not be raised. The only question was why Varis would make such a claim, when the evidence of his failure would destroy his standing. What is he up to?
“Assemble the townsfolk as quickly as possible,” Varis ordered, “but let the dead remain where they fell.”
Otaker had begun nodding even as Varis spoke. When the prince finished, Otaker called in a handful of guards. “Assemble the townsfolk in the market square. If they cannot walk, carry them!”
After the guards ran out, Otaker led Varis, Uzzret, and a watchful Ellonlef to the market. Ellonlef wanted to draw Otaker away, tell him her concerns, but there was no chance. Everything was moving too fast.
Whatever means the guards used to get the people to come, it did not take long for them to gather. Varis ordered an empty, high-wheeled wagon brought into the open, then invited Otaker and the others to join him in its bed. Ellonlef stoically suffered Uzzret’s glares and harsh muttering, and Varis’s vacant if disdainful looks. Otaker said nothing, but paced back and forth in the wagonbed, fidgeting with expectation.
When the arriving stream of people trickled off, Otaker said to Varis, “My lord, there is no way to be certain if this is all who are left, but you spoke of haste.”
“So I did,” Varis said, scanning the mournful faces.
“You have only to ask,” Uzzret said, placing a hand on Varis’s forearm, “and I will provide any assistance you need.”
Varis shrugged the man off without a word, then faced the gathering. He raised his arms to gain their attention, and quickly repeated a similar story to that which he had related in Otaker’s quarters. It was not lost on Ellonlef that the prince’s tale was more refined now, adding to her belief that he was untrustworthy.
As Varis spoke, she saw confusion and fear written on the faces of the people ringed about the wagon, but mostly she saw deep sorrow. If not for the lassitude that grief produced, she was sure many would have slipped away. When Varis began telling them that he could bring their loved ones back to them, however, every face slowly, hesitantly, became rapt.
Ellonlef looked around for a way in which she might escape, for if Varis’s promises proved to be lies, as surely they must, the crowd was apt to go mad with fury, and tear apart anyone who stood at the prince’s side.
When Varis stopped talking, the market square was dead silent. Nodding as if that was what he had expected, Varis raised his arms and closed his eyes. Ellonlef, who had not heard his last words, gazed around, but saw nothing unusual. Not at first.
Chapter 13
Varis raised his arms and closed his eyes. The gestures were unnecessary, but he wanted to focus everyone’s gaze on himself. After a moment, he opened his eyes. As he had expected, the attention he sought was fixed on him. To his sight alone, threads of life burned as bright, sinuous strands woven throughout those gathered. This life before him, he did not need. Instead, he sought the stolen life he had earlier placed within the Qaharadin Marshes. In his mind, he imagined the hundreds of miles worth of new growth suddenly wilting and dying. Carefully, he gave back the stolen life to the dead, just as Peropis had instructed.
Moments passed, and during that time the life he harvested became a torrent visible only to him. Everything around him was bathed in silvery white radiance. Long moments slid past without anything happening, and he began to worry that he had overstepped the limits of his ability … or was it that Peropis had lied to him yet again? Still, he continued, for while he did not trust Peropis, he could not afford to doubt her in this matter. He was almost certain she wanted something from his ascension, so his failure could not be part of her plan.
Suddenly a shout went up, far away. More followed the first, rapidly becoming joyous cries. Varis knew then that the dead were rising. A tide of murmurs swept through the crowd before him. Blinded as he was by the fierce radiance he was pulling into himself and then releasing, he could neither see the corpses revived, nor see them rise to look around with blank gazes, indifferent to the manic attention they received. He could not see it, but he could feel it happening.
He did not know how long he labored to reverse what he had done, but after what felt an age, the powers of creation slowly began to recreate life inside him, as they had at the temple. At that moment, he ceased pulling life from the swamp and, as planned, used his own life energies instead upon the dead of Krevar. His skin rapidly grew taught over fleshless bones, and he bowed under the weight of his own skeleton. His intention was to show that he was literally sacrificing his own flesh for his people, thus gaining even more devoted followers. In the end, he went on far longer than he should have, even until he wavered on the threshold between life and death.