Dave Duncan - Mother of Lies

“That’s quick thinking, too,” Fabia said. “Chies, I am forever grateful for what you just did. Did she harm you?”

It was story time. He shook his head solemnly. “No, my lady. But I was forced to do whatever she told me. She did something to me so I had to obey her! It was horrible.” He stared down at her with eyes as big and innocent as dark forest pools. But forest pools were notorious for harboring water snakes.

Mother of Lies, have you enlisted a new pupil? Fabia remembered Witness Mist warning her that there was never any way to tell.

“You saved the day, lord Chies!” Marno proclaimed. He pumped the boy’s hand and thumped his bony shoulder so he staggered. “Let’s drink to a very narrow escape.” He handed Fabia the remaining lover cup and Chies the flagon. Then he opened another for himself. “Is that the end of the Hrag farrow?”

“Except me,” Chies said.

The Mutineer had the grace to look abashed. “I wasn’t counting you. You’re my brother-in-law now.”

“So I am!” Chies smiled shyly. “A great honor, my lord. Congratulations on your election. And on your marriage. You, too, my lady.”

“I want to hear what happened at Veritano,” Marno said, “but first, what do we do with the Chosen?”

Fabia wondered, Which Chosen? “The traditional treatment is horrible, but she has more than earned it.”

“We can arrange that very easily tonight. They won’t have finished filling in the palace rose garden yet. Can I just carry her out there?”

All Fabia knew for certain was that Saltaja Hragsdor knew a lot more tricks than she did. “It would be safer to carry her in a sack, I think. If we roll her in a sheet, then you could hold one end; Chies and I could take the other.” She would not dare let Chies out of her sight until she knew how safe he was. Marno must be feeling the same way about her. Whose funeral was this to be?

Saltaja moaned and twitched when they tried to move her. Her head wound was bleeding copiously. Marno gagged her. They rolled her in another of the incredible silk sheets.

“I think I can manage this end by myself, my lady,” Chies said earnestly. “She’s not too heavy. At times she made me carry her.”

“You must be very strong. How can we get out to the rose garden?”

“This door. If you would be so kind as to open it?” Chies knelt, pulled one end of the cocoon over his shoulder, then stood up. Marno raised the other and they went forward with Saltaja slung between them.

Fabia drew the bolts and almost fell over a Werist snoring on the floor outside.

“It’s not his fault, my lord,” Chies said. “She commanded him to go to sleep. This way…”

A heavily bolted door at the end of the corridor led outside, to a paved terrace overhung by a leafy trellis. Rain pelted down harder than ever, making the fires in the city glow golden through clouds of steam.

They rounded a corner and came to what must once have been the rose garden and was now a wasteland of muck, a macabre scene lit by a hissing bonfire, smelling of wood smoke and wet loam. Two men stood chest-deep in a pit, hurling out shovelfuls of mud, while a third leaned on a spade, watching them. Light shone on their brass collars and wet skin; also on a stack of Vigaelian corpses waiting on a cart nearby. From the number of spades and picks she could see, Fabia guessed that the total workforce must be at least a dozen, so finding only three men here was good luck. None at all would have been even luckier.

The watcher jumped in alarm, recognizing the Mutineer.

Marno said, “I just killed an ice devil hiding in the palace. We’ll bury him here.”

The Werist took one look at the draped bundle, which was definitely starting to writhe. Then another, at Cavotti.

“My lord is kind. You two-out!” He offered each workman a hand in turn to haul him out of the pit. Marno and Chies swung their load and let go. Saltaja dropped into the grave with a splash. There was enough water in there to drown her. Fabia braced herself, waiting to see if she was going to be thrown in there also, and perhaps Chies as well. She knew very little about her husband, except that he could be utterly ruthless. She doubted that she could Control four Heroes at the same time. Whose side would Chies take?

Cavotti single-handedly lifted a corpse from the cart and tossed it on top of Saltaja. “Now fill it in.”

“My lord is kind.”

Holy Xaran, accept back Your faithful servant Saltaja Hragsdor and deal with her as she deserves, according to Your wisdom.

All three workmen shoveled vigorously. Chies eagerly grabbed a spade and lent a hand. In moments the hole was half filled and a great evil had gone from the world.

“You will not mention this to anyone,” the Mutineer told them. “I do not wish people to be alarmed.”

Fabia could have ensured the men’s silence more certainly, but did not offer to do so. Marno put an arm around her and they headed back to the palace, feet squelching in the mud.

In the morning, servants would wonder about the muddy tracks they found in the hallway, not to mention bloodstains and burned rugs in the state bedroom, but doges need not worry about trivia like gossip. Fabia was starting to appreciate the power in the man she had married, the radiant authority of Marno Cavotti. She had put herself and the city in the big man’s hands and he had taken charge of them without a moment’s doubt or hesitation. He would not loosen his grip until he, too, was summoned by the Oldest God.

Ignoring the reek of burned wool in the sleeping chamber, he set three chairs in a triangle, handed out wine, and told Chies to sit down and speak up. He interrupted only once, when he heard how Flankleader Sesto Panotti’s men had let themselves be enslaved by Saltaja while on patrol. He said “Idiotic,” paired with a noun Paola Apicella had not taught her foster daughter.

Fabia could not detect a single wrong note in the boy’s story. Probably most of it was true, because a good fiction should be based on as much truth as possible. Mother of Lies, you found an apt pupil! What was she going to do about Chies? Was he or wasn’t he? Could one palace hold two Chosen?

At the end, she asked what had happened to Sesto.

“She killed him, my lady. It was horrible! In a small wood not far away from the city. I think I could lead your men there, my lord. I know the area. I would like the poor man to have a decent burial.”

“And how did she kill him?”

Chies hesitated for just an instant. “She cut his throat.”

Not she. He. Blood and birth; death and the cold earth. An initiation.

Cavotti glanced inquiringly at Fabia. He probably just wanted her comments on Chies’s story, but she deliberately misinterpreted, because she wanted to tell her brother the Chosen a few things.

“Now it’s my turn. Yes, I am a Chosen. When Stralg took Dogaressa Oliva hostage-ostensibly hostage, but really as slave plaything-he gave me to a wet nurse, Paola Apicella. She had lost her husband in battle and her baby had died. But she was a Chosen, and Mother Xaran provided for her.” Her husband winced when he heard the forbidden name, but so did Chies, equally. The boy was good! “She was my foster mother until four years ago, when Saltaja Hragsdor had her murdered. I heard that from a Witness, so it is true. Paola was a gentle, loving, caring person. She was nothing like the Queen of Shadows’ triple-distilled evil.”

Cavotti was a monolith. Chies was wide-eyed innocence.

“I could have refused to accept the Old One as my goddess. I did not. Had I wanted to be like Saltaja, I could have joined her gang, her family. She wanted to marry me to her nephew Cutrath. I refused. I have tried to use my powers to promote justice. I slew the man who killed Paola. I rescued an innocent woman being held captive by Horold Hragson, although I knew he would punish her guards. I did persuade Orlad and the others to trap Saltaja and her escort on the Edge. It was the only way I could see to end her career and stop her meeting up with Stralg. I honestly believed that fewer innocent people would die in the long run.” She shrugged, wishing she could read the thoughts moving behind her husband’s bestial face. “I do not intend to commit any more murders. Of course, if I or my loved ones are ever threatened by violence, I will respond.”