Troy Denning - Faces of Deception

Later, Atreus's slumber was invaded by a male voice much too dulcet to belong to his companions. For a time, he dreamed that he was back in the Church of Beauty, listening to a perfectly pitched tenor sing the goddess's praises. Never had he heard such a pure sound, untainted by the slightest tinge of coarseness or the faintest hint of hollowness. It was as lyrical as silk and smooth as a poem, and Atreus felt blessed just to hear it in a dream.

As Atreus grew aware of the bitter reek of a butter lamp, he began to realize he was not dreaming. The voice was real, coming from someplace down beyond his feet. Seema was answering, apprehensive and apologetic, her own sweet voice sounding twittery and flutey by comparison. As Atreus struggled to wakefulness, his pain began to return, though not as terrible as before. He could feel a piece of chiffon covering the burns on his upper body, and Seema's warm hand was smearing a watery ointment over his raw and naked legs.

An embarrassing thought flashed through Atreus's mind, snapping him instantly to full consciousness. His eyes popped open, and he found himself staring at the ceiling planks of a small stone hut. He was lying on a straw-covered pallet, with a flickering butter lamp resting on a rough-hewn table beside him. The room was remarkably warm, at least compared to the snow caves in which they had been sleeping the last few nights, and he could hear a fire crackling in a hearth somewhere nearby.

Atreus raised his head and glanced down the length of his body, discovering that his worst fears were true. He lay hideously naked from the waist down, with his scorched flesh and broken leg, crooked hips and ugly ogre-like loins fully exposed. Nor did he have any illusions about who had removed the remnants of his trousers, as Seema was rubbing her ointment onto a burn higher on his thigh than any female hand had ever touched before. He found himself suddenly thankful for his pain. It was probably the only thing that saved him from an even greater embarrassment.

Seema turned to look at him and said softly, "You are awake." If his grotesque nakedness caused her any discomfort, she did not show it. "I hope it is not because I am hurting you."

Atreus shook his head and started to say, "I heard a…" He did not want to call what he had heard a mere voice. He shook his head, then finally said, "I guess it was a song. I must have been dreaming."

"It was not a song, or a dream," said a male voice, the same dulcet voice that Atreus had heard earlier. "Though I thank you for thinking so."

A milky-skinned man with a slender build and the appearance of youthful vigor stepped into view. Wearing nothing but a white cotton sarong draped around his hips, he was dressed almost as immodestly as Atreus, though he was immeasurably more handsome, with cascading silver hair and piercing silver eyes that riveted the observer in place. Nor were his stunning good looks the most striking thing about him, for a huge pair of feathery white wings arched up behind his shoulders, creating a sort of pearly halo that followed him wherever he went

Atreus let his head drop back to the pallet, convinced that he was looking at one of Sune's divine seraphs.

"I must be dead."

"Do not say such things!" said Seema. She stood and stared at Atreus as though he had uttered a blasphemy. "Not in front of the sannyasi!"

"Atreus is not to blame. He is only speaking what he believes to be so," said the sannyasi, who motioned Seema not to be angry, then came to the sleeping pallet and lowered his hand as though to touch Atreus's sloping forehead. "May I?"

Atreus nodded, and the sannyasi placed a milky palm on his brow. At first, it felt cool and soothing. Then Atreus's scorched flesh began to sting again. His broken leg started to throb, and the throbbing worked its way up his leg into his hip. The tingling in his burns seeped deep down through his muscles into his blood and turned his veins into channels of boiling fire, and the searing heat began to rush up through his body toward the sannyasi's hand.

All of Atreus's pain reached his neck at once, filling him with such a fiery agony that he thought his throat would open like a boiled sausage. He screamed and thrashed at the sides of his pallet and reached up to tear the hand from his brow.

The sannyasi's palm remained in place, holding Atreus down as firmly as it did gently, and even all of Atreus's anguish-borne strength could not tear the milky hand from his brow. For a moment, his head hurt as it had never hurt before. His ears ached with the roar of a thousand thunderclaps, his nostrils burned with lava, and his eyes felt like they were melting. His brains boiled inside his skull, and his ears roared with the hiss of escaping steam, then the pain vanished, evaporating through the thick bone of his brow.

Without being aware that he had closed them, Atreus opened his eyes and found himself looking up at the sannyasi. Now, the milky face looked as old as the mountains themselves. His lips were drawn tight and his brow was furrowed, and Atreus saw in his expression all the pain that had been drawn from his own body.

Before Atreus could thank the sannyasi, Yago and Rishi rushed through the door, the ogre's broad shoulders tearing out the door jambs and a fair section of stone wall. As soon as they saw the white-winged figure standing over Atreus, their mouths fell open in astonishment Rishi stopped to stare in gape-mouthed wonder. Yago crossed the floor in a single thundering step and grabbed a feathery wing.

"What you doing?" he said. The ogre drew himself up to his full height, knocking two ceiling planks out of the roof, and tried to pull the sannyasi off the floor.

He might as well have tried to lift a mountain. The sannyasi remained firmly planted on the rough-hewn planks, and nothing, not so much as a wing feather, yielded to the ogre's strength.

Yago scowled, then responded as ogres do to unexplained things, by trying to smash it with his fist.

The blow would have caved in the head of any man, but the sannyasi did not even flinch. Yago howled in pain and clutched the offending hand. Rishi's eyes grew wide and round, and he rushed from the room making occult signs and jabbering in Maran.

Atreus scowled at his friend. "Yago!" he shouted. "what are you doing?"

"Me?" the ogre boomed. The way you screamed, I thought he was tearing your guts out."

The Sannyasi turned to Yago. "Do not be angry with your son," he said. "He was in terrible pain."

Yago looked horrified. "Son?"

The Sannyasi motioned at Atreus and said, "Your son Atreus. He will recover soon." Oblivious to the insult he had just inflicted on the ogre, the Sannyasi turned to Seema. "Now you see what comes with strangers. You have brought violence and anger into our midst"

"It's not Seema's fault," Atreus said, propping himself up "She was only trying to save-"

"Of course," interrupted the Sannyasi, "but it is not permitted to bring strangers into Langdarma."

Atreus's jaw fell, and he wondered if he remained in the grip of his fever delirium. Certainly, the Sannyasi looked more like a hallucination than a real being, and refused to believe that Seema had lied to him about Langdarma being a myth.

After a moment, Seema said in a quiet voice. I had no choice but to bring them. They were in terrible danger, and to leave them behind would have been murder."

The Sannyasi considered this, then reluctantly nodded "If that is true, letting them die would have been a terrible stain on your soul, but you are still to blame." His white wings began to flutter ever so slightly. He gestured at Atreus and Yago and said, "This is what comes of visiting the outside world. You cannot escape its taint"

Seema lifted her chin. "Would my soul have been any less tainted had 1 not tried to save Jalil?" she asked.