Lawrence Watt-Evans: Relics of War

Tesk said, “My appearance is different?”

“Oh, yes,” Garander said. “All you have to do is lie still, and no one will doubt you’re dead.”

“You don’t have a heartbeat or a pulse,” Ellador added helpfully. “And no one can hear you breathe or see your chest move.”

“I do not feel different,” Tesk said again.

“We have to go,” Garander said. “You go fetch those supplies we talked about, and find someplace convenient where I can show you to people. Maybe cough some blood on the stuff. I’ll see you in the morning, and we can arrange the viewings.”

“Viewings?” Tesk snorted, spraying clotted blood from his nose. “You make it sound like an exhibition.”

“That’s what it is,” Garander said. “Now, go get your things!”

Looking slightly annoyed, Tesk turned and leapt up into a nearby tree, then vanished in the spring foliage.

Garander did not watch him go; he did not want to look at the ghastly illusion the spell created. Instead he took the Ethsharite wizard by the arm and said, “This way.”

“Velnira! Come with me, please!” Garander tried to sound genuinely desperate.

The baron’s chamberlain looked up from her breakfast, blinking in the bright morning sun. “Why?” she asked. “What is it?”

“It’s the shatra !”

Her eyes narrowed. “What about it?”

“He…it…it’s terrible!”

Velnira set her plate aside, and asked Burz, “What’s he talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Burz said. “He just said it was urgent, and I knew he was in on all the talking, so I let him past.”

She looked questioningly at Garander.

“Something terrible has happened!” he said. “I think he may be dead.”

Her eyes narrowed. “The shatra ? Dead?”

“I…I think so.”

“What about his magic?” she asked warily.

“You mean why didn’t it protect him? I don’t know! His talismans are still there, so-come and see!”

Velnira frowned and got to her feet. She told Burz, “You’re coming with us.” She pointed to another soldier, a man Garander did not know, and said, “You, too.” She ordered a third, “Inform the baron, and see which magicians are available. Have the magicians ready, in case I send for them.” Then she turned to Garander. “Show us,” she said.

Garander turned and trotted eastward, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure the others were following. Burz took the lead, then Velnira, and the other soldier brought up the rear as the farm boy led them across the field and into the woods beyond.

“I was coming to see whether he wanted to talk to anyone this morning, and I found him,” Garander said as he pushed through the underbrush. “I came straight to you-I thought the baron ought to know.”

“You haven’t told anyone else?” Velnira asked, as she stumbled over a fallen log.

“No,” Garander said. “I’m a loyal subject of Lord Dakkar, so I came to you first.”

“Hmph.”

Then Garander brought them around the trunk of a big oak, and there was Tesk, lying on his back in a pool of blood, his head flung back across a fallen branch, his helmet half off, and his throat exposed-both the outside of his throat, and the inside. Raw red flesh and a glimpse of white bone lay open in a shaft of sunlight, and the bits of skin around the wound that weren’t covered in blackening blood were grayish-white.

Even though Garander knew it was an illusion, he shuddered at the sight. He heard Burz choke, and Velnira gasped and stepped back at her first glimpse of the downed shatra .

“I think one of the mizagars may have turned on him,” Garander said. “Or maybe his own demon, because he was talking to Ethsharites.”

“He looks like he’s been dead for days ,” Burz said.

“We spoke to it last night,” Velnira said. “Maybe it’s decaying quickly because some preserving magic is gone, and it’s making up for all those years time was kept at bay.”

Garander was pleased that he did not need to make that suggestion himself; he did not want to appear to have all the answers, as that might arouse suspicion. He was just a farmer, after all, not a magician or scholar.

“Go fetch the magicians,” Velnira ordered the soldier behind her. “Tell Lord Dakkar that the shatra is dead, and we await his instructions.”

“Should he tell Lady Shasha?” Garander asked. “She ought to know, too, shouldn’t she?”

Velnira threw him a sharp glance, and then looked at Tesk’s body-and at his equipment, scattered on the ground around him. “Make sure none of the Ethsharites see you,” she told the soldier. “We want to keep this quiet for now. Don’t let anyone see you or the magicians when you bring them back-maybe one of them can work a spell to ensure that.”

“I’ll do my best,” the soldier said, with a bob of his head. Then he was gone, crashing through the underbrush.

“All his weapons are still here,” Burz remarked. “Whatever killed him didn’t rob him.”

“Maybe there’s a protective spell on them,” Garander suggested. “Or maybe it really was a mizagar-they wouldn’t have any use for all those tools and talismans.”

“Maybe,” Velnira said.

“What should we do?” Garander asked.

“We wait,” Velnira told him. She gestured at a mound of dead leaves. “Have a seat, if you want.”

“I know you don’t want to tell Lady Shasha,” Garander said, “but shouldn’t I tell my family?”

“No,” Velnira snapped. “Sit down.” She suited her own actions to her words, slumping back against the base of a tree.

Garander hesitated, then found a spot of his own, not on the dead leaves, but nearby. He glanced up at Burz, but the soldier seemed content to stand.

“Poor Tesk,” he said, looking at his friend’s body again.

It was hard to believe that the shatra was not really dead; he looked ghastly. In addition to the slashed throat, blood ran from his mouth and nose and stained his clothing from neck to navel. Blackish rivulets had run down his side and pooled on the ground beneath him.

“Hard to believe he’s dead,” Burz said.

Velnira turned her head to stare at him. “Are you mad? Look at him!”

“Oh, I know he is dead,” Burz acknowledged. “I just don’t understand how he could be. I saw him fight; by the gods, I fought him myself. He was faster and stronger than anything I had ever seen before. If he had wanted to kill me, he could have done it at any time. But here he is, dead as a stone. If this was a mizagar’s work, then those things are even more dangerous than I thought.”

“It might have caught him off guard,” Garander suggested. “After all, he thought they were on the same side.”

“That’s true,” Velnira said, “but it might have been one of those wizards from Ethshar.”

“Why would they kill him?” Garander asked. “They were trying to hire him!”

“Maybe he told them no,” Velnira said.

“Oh,” Garander said. “You think that’s it?” He tried to decide whether he wanted the Ethsharites blamed for this. He probably did not; it might serve as a pretext for conflict.

There was something ludicrous in the idea that the barons might start a war with Ethshar to avenge the killing of a left-over Northern monster, especially when Lord Dakkar had announced last night that he would have the shatra killed if Tesk did not cooperate, but that did not mean it was impossible.

Velnira did not answer, and after a moment of awkward silence Garander asked, “Would a wizard leave his throat like that? I thought wizardry…well, that it either wouldn’t leave any marks at all, or that he’d be completely ripped to pieces.”