Lynn Abbey - Cinnabar Shadows

"How long?" Brother Kakzim asked calmly. Cerk didn't understand the question and couldn't provide an answer. Brother Kakzim elaborated, "How long before our nemesis and his companions find their way here?" His voice remained mild.

"I don't know, Brother. They were still fighting when I ran from the cavern. I ran when I could, but I had to stop to rest. I heard nothing behind me. Perhaps they won't come. Perhaps they won't find the passage and will return to Urik."

"Wishes and hopes, little brother." Brother Kakzim picked up the clay slabs he'd been inscribing and squeezed them into useless lumps that he hurled into the farthest corner, but those acts were the only outward signs of his distress. "Our nemesis will follow us. You may be sure of it. He is my bane, my curse. While he lives, I will pluck only failure from my branches. The omens were there, there, but I did not read them. Did you see his scar? How it tracks from his right eye to his mouth? His right eye, not his left. An omen, Cerk, an omen, plain as day, plain as the night I first saw him—"

He seems sane, but he is mad, Cerk thought carefully, in the private part of his mind, which only the most powerful mind-bender could breach. Brother Kakzim has found a new realm of madness beyond ordinary madness.

"Have I told you about that night, little brother? I should have known him for my nemesis from that first moment. Elabon tried to kill him with a half-giant. A half-giant!" Brother Kakzim laughed, not hysterically as a madman might, but gently, as if at a private joke. "So much wasted time; so much time wasted. While he lives, nothing will go right for me. I must destroy him, if the BlackTree is to thrive. I must kill him. Not here. Not where he has roots. Cut off his roots! That's what we must do, little brother, cut off our nemesis at his roots!" Cerk stood still while Brother Kakzim embraced him enthusiastically. This was better than mindless rage, better than being beaten, but it was still madness.

It is madness, Cerk thought in his private place. Pure madness, and I'm part of it. I can do nothing but follow him until we reach the forest—if we reach the forest. Then I will appeal to the Elder Brethren of the Tree. I'll spill my blood on the roots, and the BlackTree will release me from my oath.

He held his hand against his chest and squeezed the tiny scars above his heart, the closest thing to prayer that a BlackTree brother had.

"Don't be sad, little brother." Brother Kakzim suddenly seized Cerk's arms. "The only failure is the last failure. No other failure lasts! Gather our belongings while I talk to the others. We must be gone before the killing starts."

Grimly Cerk nodded his obedience. Brother Kakzim released him and walked out onto the open gallery where he picked up a leather mallet and struck the alarm gong.

"Hear me! Hear me, one and all. Codesh is betrayed!"

Cerk listened as the killing ground fell silent. Even the animals had succumbed to Brother Kakzim's mind-bending might. Then elder brother began his harangue against Urik and its templars generally, and the yellow-robed villains about to emerge onto the killing ground. It was truth and falsehood so tightly interwoven that Cerk, who'd been in the cavern when the attack began and knew all the truth there was to know was drawn toward the gallery with his fists clenched and his teeth bared. He stopped himself at the door and closed it.

The closed lacquered door and his own training gave Cerk the strength to resist Brother Kakzim's voice. No one else in the abattoir would be so lucky.

He was filling a second shoulder-sack when the room began to shake. It was as if the ground itself were shuddering, and even though he knew the Dragon had been slain, Cerk's first thoughts were that it had come to Codesh to consume them all.

The scrap of white-bark—the scratched lines and landmarks that had guided him to Urik a year ago and that he'd been about to stuff into the sack—floated from Cerk's fingers. He tried to walk, but a gut-level terror kept his feet glued where they stood, and he sank to his knees instead.

"Listen to them!" Brother Kakzim exclaimed as he shoved through the door. "Failed brilliance; brilliant failure. My voice freed their rage. Yellow will turn red!" He did a joyous dance on the quaking floor, never once losing his balance. "They're tearing down the gates, setting fire to the tower. They'll all die. I give every yellow-scum death to my nemesis! Let his spirit be weighed beneath the roots!"

Stunned, Cerk realized that the shuddering of the walls and floor was the result of mauls and poleaxes biting against the abattoir walls and the base of the watchtower where the templar detachment stood guard day and night. When he took a deep breath, he could smell smoke. His feet came unglued, and he bolted for the doorway where the scent was stronger. Dark tendrils filled the stairwell. He didn't want to be in Codesh when the templars emerged from the little building.

"We're trapped!"

"Not yet. Have you gathered everything?"

The maddest eyes in creation belonged to Brother Kakzim who'd loosed a riot beneath his own feet and didn't care. Cerk grabbed the sacks as they were on the table. He threw one over each shoulder.

"I gathered everything," he said from the doorway. "It's time to leave, elder brother. Truly, it's time to leave."

When Elabon Escrissar led his hired cohort against Quraite, there had been blood, death, and injury all around. There'd been honest heroism, too. Pavek had been an honest hero when he'd fought and when he'd invoked the Lion-King's aid, but he wasn't Quraite's only hero. Ruari knew he'd done less that day and risked less, too—but he'd been at Pavek's side at the right time to give Pavek the medallion and defend him while he used it. Ruari had been proud himself that day. He was proud of himself still.

But not for today's work.

Maybe there could be no heroics when your side was the stronger side from the start, when only your own mistakes could defeat you. The war bureau templars hadn't made any mistakes, and aside from one fleeting touch of Unseen doubt, there'd been no Codeshite heroics. Two templars had gone down. Another two were walking wounded. The red-haired sergeant collected medallions from the dead and put the wounded to work guarding their prisoners.

Maybe they were the lucky ones.

Ruari wasn't sure. He'd brought the sack of balsam oil from the Urik passage and helped pour its fragrant contents into the five glamourous bowls. His mind said they were doing the right thing, the heroic thing, when they lit the purging fires. Kakzim and Elabon Escrissar had been cut from one cloth, and the Codeshites had earned their deaths as surely as the Nibenay mercenaries had earned theirs on the Quraite ramparts. Ruari's gut recalled the wounded prisoners, and as a whole, Ruari wasn't sure of anything except that he'd lost interest in heroes.

He'd have been happy to call it quits and return to Urik or, preferably, Quraite, but that wasn't going to happen. He and the priest had watched a lantern weave through the darkness at the start of the skirmish. They'd seen it disappear, and when the fighting was over they'd found a passage among the deep shadows. The wounded templars were heading home. The prisoners, their hands bound behind their backs with rope salvaged from the scaffolds, were headed for the obsidian pits. And Ruari was headed for Codesh, walking between Zvain and Mahtra, ahead of the templars and behind Pavek, the sergeant, and the priest.

They were on their way to meet another war bureau maniple. They were on their way to kill or capture Kakzim. Ruari should have been excited; instead he was nauseous— and grateful when Mahtra's cool hand wrapped around his.

The Codesh passage was much longer than the Urik passage. Caught in a grim, hopeless mood, the half-elf began to believe they were headed nowhere, that they were doomed to trudge through tight-fitting darkness forever. At last the moment came when he knew they were nearing Codesh, but it came with the faint scent of charred wood, charred meat, and brought no relief. Evidently, Ruari's companions caught the same aroma. Mahtra's grip on his hand became painful, forcing him to pull away, and Zvain whispered: