The Izutarian, Varis considered darkly. Such had the ring of an honorific, and might well become a rallying cry for future martyrs. He saw straight away that he could not allow its usage, but now was not the moment to rename Kian. He would have to think on it, come up with a turn of phrase or title so vile that only a blind fool would think to use it to engender hope.
“Send him in,” Varis commanded.
The guardsman bowed low, then backed hastily through the doorway. A moment later, a filthy man covered with bruises and scrapes all but crawled into the Golden Hall. Even with his head bowed, Varis noticed a crust of partly congealed blood on one side of the gaoler’s bruised face. Something like a small terrified animal came alert inside him.
“What news do you bring?” Varis demanded.
Ixron began blubbering, perhaps thinking that if he blurted it out all at once, he would be spared. As he carried on, flakes of sticky blood fell from the wound on his face to the polished marble tiles at his booted feet. The smell of him, that of urine and stables and sour wine, curdled Varis’s stomach.
Ixron fell abruptly silent, breathing heavily.
Varis ground his teeth. “Begin again, and speak clearly this time. Fail in this, and I will have out your useless tongue.”
Ixron flung himself to the tiles, wailing in terror. “Kian! He is escaped!”
“You are mistaken,” Varis grated.
Ixron shook his head in answer, weeping uncontrollably.
Varis wanted to scream in rage, and the power of the gods surged in him. The light of his inner fires spread out over the map of the world, curling the edges. Yet Varis resisted, just managing to push it back down before he destroyed the throne room. He needed to know what was stirring, and turning Ixron to a heap of smoking ash would not serve … not yet.
“What do you mean, escaped?” Varis asked, subduing his wrath with a gulp of wine.
“Sire?” Ixron asked uncertainly, as if Varis had spoken in a foreign tongue.
“How could a man so near death escape the inescapable, you babbling idiot?” Varis snapped.
Ixron eyes fell. “As I said, he was aided by three-two Izutarians and a woman, a Sister of Najihar. More, my guards, they betrayed me to the last. I was set upon, battered insensible. When I came awake, they had thrown me into the Pit. I had a spare key, a secret key, but when I came out, all were gone.”
“He will be in the Chalice,” Varis knew instantly, recalling that one of the Sisters of Najihar resided there, in service to King Simiis longer than Varis had been alive. He silently cursed himself for that oversight. But that was no matter. They would not be able to move Kian far, his injuries serving to trap them.
Varis sent for the Captain of the House Guard. When he arrived, eyes bleary with sleep, Varis explained what had happened and where Kian and his companions would be found.
“Take as many men as you need and hunt them down,” he ordered, “Do not spare them. I want them dead.” He had toyed with them enough, and now was the time for blood to spill. “I want their heads.”
Chapter 43
Before coming to Hya’s shop, the wind became a bitter gale, driving litter down empty streets. For perhaps the first time in a lifetime, the reek of the Chalice was freshened. The biting cold was unlike anything Ellonlef had ever experienced, and she found herself constantly blinking on the chance that the surface of her eyes might freeze over.
Azuri was silent as he climbed down from the wagon’s seat. Hazad clenched his jaw, as if to keep his teeth from chattering. Ellonlef had no such strength in her. Icy fingers clawed at her flesh, leaving every inch of her shuddering. She knew she had experienced nearly unbearable heat before, and in her mind’s eye, she could see that remembered heat rising off the sandy wastes of the Kaliayth, but she could not recall how it had felt.
As she jumped from the wagonbed, her limbs stiff and uncooperative, the side door to Hya’s shop cracked open, and the old woman peeked out. Behind her, a lamp’s comforting glow beckoned. Ellonlef wanted to dash for the promise of any warmth, no matter how scant, but she turned instead to help with Kian.
Hya took in the scene at a glance, then shot a baleful eye toward the starless sky. “This cold will bring much death to an already troubled land,” she said in an ominous tone.
Ellonlef did what she could to aid Hazad and Azuri in pulling a seemingly lifeless Kian from the wagon, but in the end could do little more than fret and keep the door from slamming shut. Her real work, along with Hya’s, would begin once Kian was inside.
Hya led them along at a hurried shuffle to a prepared room. A brazier glowed with heaped coals in one corner, but the gale’s frosty breath easily penetrated every nook and cranny. Still, compared to outside, the room was only cool.
Hazad and Azuri gently deposited Kian onto a raised pallet loaded with ratty blankets. As they worked, exposing the extent of Kian’s innumerable wounds, concerned hisses passed Hya’s teeth.
“You are the better healer,” Ellonlef said gravely. “Tell me what you need.”
Hya looked from Kian to her fellow sister, her eyes misty. “I can do nothing for him,” she said flatly, “save comfort him. By all rights, he should have perished before he reached the Pit. How he lasted this long is beyond me.” She took Ellonlef’s hand in her own. “I am truly sorry.”
Ellonlef’s heart broke anew at Hya’s words, and her sorrow was made all the worse by the tears streaming down Hazad’s bearded cheeks. Azuri, his face hard as stone, sighed heavily and turned away.
Stifling a moan, Ellonlef fell to her knees at Kian’s side. She clasped one of his blood-crusted hands in both of hers, a hand cold as death, and bowed her head over his hitching chest. A single, gulping sob wracked her, then searing tears fell on the dusty, moth-eaten blankets mercifully hiding the worst of his wounds. All was silent, save for Ellonlef’s soft, wrenching sounds of grief. She did not know how long she knelt there, praying to whatever god might yet hear her pleas.
At some point her prayers ended, and her mind wandered aimlessly. She saw Kian in memory, coming to her aid during the Bashye attack, a hulking shadow on that frantic night, full of menace for his enemies and strength for her … her, just an unknown woman alone in a world gone mad. Unknown as she was, still he had come, risked his life without pause, willing to die for a stranger in need. Her cheeks flamed at the thought. She had not looked at it that way before, had not accurately seen the selflessness of his actions. He was a man of honor … and he was a man dying before her. She had pressed him to help Aradan, so she had thought. Now she was not sure. In truth, she felt he would have come to Ammathor to spare a throne and a people to which he held no allegiance, no matter who had asked him. In memory, she admitted his hesitation had crumbled far too quickly, too easily had he abandoned his plan of returning to his home of Izutar. Few were such men.
And he is dying, she thought again, a wasted sacrifice, a wasted life.
“Ellonlef?” a voice rasped.
Ellonlef’s dark eyes flew open to gaze into his blue. Despite the unbearable pain he must be suffering, he offered her a half-smile. “Are you real?”
“Yes,” she said, vigorously rubbing his hand. He winced, so she stopped.
“Good. I thought … I thought you a dream … something sweet to ease the nightmare of Varis.”
“He is no nightmare,” Azuri hissed, as he and the others closed in tight, as if forming a protective wall.