As Kuzarl smote the cell door and was let out, this lamp was again brightly burning.
“He was questioned at great length, and answered openly. The scribes have written down these accounts. But he’s Vis. How can he be thought an accomplice of Amanackire?”
Sorbel stood blocking out the dawn in the Warden’s high window.
“Not questioned, my lord, under any pressure.”
“I’ve never before known you longing to torture a man.”
“We’re at war, my lord. You know it. At war with magicians. In the beginning we thought ourselves part of the select, friends to the white race, white as they were. But the Amanackire are albinos, and adopt the sigil of the white serpent. Even their own parent people, the Lowlanders, have been made alien by the Shadowless. So, we discover ourselves at risk along with the dark men of Dorthar and Alisaar, and as little able to protect ourselves.”
“I’m lessoned in these things, Sorbel.”
“They can attack us when and how they choose. They will attack us, because theirs is an inimical and haughty people, possessed of Power. On our side, can the smallest grain of sand be left unsifted?”
“As this Rehger pointed out, you also, Sorbel, would be deemed a sorcerer, south and east and in the Middle Lands.”
“And Kuzarl is a Shansar, and mad as they always are.”
The Warden laughed a little. He was very tired and wanted the simple comforts of breakfast and sleep.
“Yes, Kuzarl is a Shansar.”
“All we know of him otherwise, my lord, is that he’s a wealthy adventurer. This berserk pouncing of his on the idea of a city in the west—”
“It may exist. He may find it. That may in some sort be advantageous.”
“Find with the assistance of Rehger the Lydian.”
The Warden said, “Consider, Sorbel. If the man Rehger was her lover, beloved enough that she saved his life—it seems she did—perhaps her kind wish him returned to them, and perhaps our permitting him, unhindered, to reach them, will steady the supernatural balance. You, Sorbel, are aware of the worth of such bargains.”
“I dream constantly,” said Sorbel. “My wife tells me I call out, till she wakes me. I lie in her arms like an infant, shaken with terrors. I can’t ever remember why, where I have been or what I have looked at.”
“Kuzarl will go on his journey whatever the Zaddath council decrees. We shall send the Lydian with him. They will never come out of the forests. Nothing may come out of them. In ten years we may still be debating the matter. Perhaps our fears of the Amanackire are only an evil dream. The goddess will wake us, we’ll lie in her arms.”
Sorbel turned from the window. The gathering sunrise streamed around him. His back to the light, he said, “When they speak to me in the council of these rumors, that there are sorcerers now who can rise from the dead, I dismiss the silly talk. But here, in private, I tell you I believe it. It’s as if someone whispered in my ear, at night in the darkness. Against a superior enemy who hates us, and can never die—all struggle supposedly is futile. Isn’t it?”
“Struggle,” said the Warden, “is frequently useless. And hope, they say, a viper, which entices in order to bite the more viciously. Even so, there is some other state, not despair, not hope, and not struggle. Some belief or knowledge, nameless yet definite. Cling to that, Sorbel. Or, let it fasten on you and bear you up.”
The Dortharian agent Galutiyh rejoined his men at the hostelry with a malign flourish, flinging some gold on the table and, as they cursed and scuffled for it, announcing: “Underpaid. The bastards docked our wages.”
Galutiyh virtuously resented the mantle of secrecy in which the conclave of allies at Zaddath had gone to earth. Though he had found out, via byways, that Rehger was imprisoned. This did not distress Galutiyh. Now, philosophically, the Dortharian Thaddrian with the phantasmal Lowland granddaddy, switched his vision elsewhere.
He told his company they might make merry in Zaddath tonight. Tomorrow they would be returning along the road to Ilva. There he expected to be meeting someone. This was Yennef. Galutiyh had realized, by the time they made the sea crossing from Xarabiss, that it was Yennef who came after. Yennef had probably reckoned they would go directly to Dorthar, since Dorthar had hired them both. Galutiyh faked his clues accordingly. He had also, wanting something in reserve, left a message for Yennef farther north, in case Yennef did not eventually tumble to the realities. Galutiyh had made sure that in the end Yennef would grope his way into the Vardian west, where the laws of Dorthar would be less helpful and less protective. Galutiyh had not forgotten the Lan’s grip and the razor-edged metal at his throat.
While his men whored and got drunk, he made an offering to Anackire-Ashkar in a temple. It was a blood offering, which was permissible here. He asked the goddess to give him his rights and his revenge. This did not seem incongruous to him. Of her eight uplifted arms—each of ivory in Zaddath, with amber bangles, fingers of gold, a topaz in each palm—he gazed on the arm which signified retribution.
She seemed, through the smoke, to smile down at him.
He adored and honored her; she was his god and he gave her what she liked. She would not leave him wanting.
19
Fire, Water and Steel
Forty miles west of Zaddath, all the roads ended. Thereafter, there was only forest, and those things which the forest contained, or let be. Above, sky, sometimes barely seen for days where the canopy had meshed to closure. Southward, from high terraces of ground, once the canopy broke again, mountains were visible, their shoulders half-transparent, their crowns melting into air. In the glades, pools of inky water lay motionless in a mist of gnats and dragonflies. Occasionally a village had hewn a niche for itself. Some had not lasted; their bones showed dimly among the creepers and roots which had eaten them. There were tracks and trails through the trees, the footpaths of men and animals. Along these avenues, where light came in, the summer fires of flowers burned on the earth and dozens of feet up in the boughs. By night the forest was strummed like a harp. Sudden storms hammered the foliage and lizards came down with the rain. This country of the jungle was eternally Vis. It had obtained long before the Vardians, long before men. Treasures might be dug out of it, shafts of ivory, crude masks of deformed gold from Zarduk rites centuries out of date, or the gemmed teeth of travelers. Kuzarl’s men, mostly Vardianized Zakors, had not brought maps, or charms for dowsing, and did not grub after such articles.
Along with the ten Var-Zakors were two Shansarians, servants of Kuzarl’s household, and a cook from Karmiss. Every man had sworn an oath Shansarian fashion, of loyalty and secrecy, over a sword standing in heated coals. In the old days, they would have had to grasp the metal in the left fist, the subsequent blisters a mark of their intention, a reminder of their faith. Kuzarl had twittingly mentioned this, before requesting the modified version. Rehger he did not ask for the oath. “You’re already bound,” Kuzarl had said.
There was no time in the forests, except for each day and each night, and, when the going was exceedingly rough, each hour. It was not possible to take pack-beasts through the inner jungles. Each man carried a quantity of what was needful. Sometimes they must also hack their way, every one of the fifteen men, pausing only when exhausted.
Conversation, so often the solace of inactivity, was lacking among them. About the cook-fire by night, the Karmian, who had a fine voice, would sometimes lament his birthland, the Var-Zakors would bet with painted Vardian dice. Kuzarl was given to isolated and thoughtful monologues, concerning Shansar-over-the-ocean, the mythic Lowland war, the gods, Anackire. Into these philosophic examinations he beckoned Rehger, but Rehger never spoke at any length. “Tell me more of Saardsinmey,” said Kuzarl one evening. “It was destroyed,” said Rehger.