Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

"Enter, Master Artist Celebre," said the seer.

♦

She led him through silent corridors and several doors, down into a cellar and back up again, until he was certain they had moved into another building. Eventually they came to a small room lit only by a crackling fire and furnished with two stools, a couple of wicker hampers, and a sleeping platform much too narrow to suit the uses of Sixty Ways. The shutters were closed; several garments hung on nails. The place smelled of herbs and old lady, and now, no doubt, of wet Benard. Producing a towel from a hamper, his hostess bade him remove his cape and be seated. By the time she returned, he was steaming happily. She closed the door and handed him a beaker of a hot, spicy beverage.

"We have important business to discuss, master."

"I was told to ask for Poppy Delight."

"I am Poppy. The other is a code." She was small, slightly stooped, but alert in her movements, businesslike. She sat on the edge of a stool and folded spidery hands in her lap.

"Mist sent me," he told her featureless white veil.

"I guessed as much—sometimes even we have to rely on inference. But it is known that you are worried, probably hunted, that you are very deeply in love, that you are basically an honest man, and although you have no such ambition, you may make your mark on the tablets of history. I confess I knew your name only because you were pointed out to me once in Kosord. Why don't you trust Mist?"

He took a sip of wine while he considered this remarkable speech. "I'm not sure." Something about a woman without a face? He did not feel the same unease with Poppy. "Because I thought that she was not being honest with me."

"Tell me, please."

He told of the seer's warning in the Bull Concourse, back in Kosord.

"Mist must be careful!" Poppy said sharply. "The division in our cult is deep and bitter. I tell you, Hand, that there are five Witnesses in Tryfors just now and all of us are Mist supporters. That did not happen by chance. We and certain others seek the overthrow of the bloodlord and all his house—are you not on our side?"

Could seers be too honest?

"Sides do not attract me. The war does not interest me. I will do anything in the world to defend the woman I love and our unborn child." He smiled apologetically. "That done, I would also help my sister escape forced marriage to the worm Cutrath."

"Horoldson left town two days ago for the mustering at Nardalborg. The weather upcountry is very bad, and he is now beyond my sight anyway. Who is the woman you adore so greatly? She is beyond my range."

Herded by sharp questions, Benard told how he had fled with Ingeld, how Saltaja and Fabia would soon arrive at Tryfors, and how Ingeld believed her husband to be on his way, also. Something about Witness Poppy reminded him of his deportment teacher back in the palace of Kosord—polite, gracious, and inflexible as marble. She had never failed to cuff any juvenile ear in need of cuffing.

"Things may be coming to a head at last," this other old lady mused, "if both Saltaja Hragsdor and Horold Hragson are coming here, to Therek. Or may not be. Opportunities for good or evil are equally manifest. I fear Saltaja more than either of her brothers, and a gathering of all three of them is a baleful development. I shall be happy when Mist arrives and takes charge."

None of which meant anything, but Benard's suspicions had been softened by wine and warmth. A seer would be an invaluable ally. "I, too, have a brother in these parts, I am told."

"Who calls himself Orlad Orladson. It is known that he lives in Nardalborg, three menzils from here, and has just completed his Werist training."

In Benard's sketchy memories, Orlando was permanently a stocky, curly-haired little tyke who laughed a lot. "The curse of the Dark One on whoever did that to him. Would he betray me if I approached him?"

The seer sat very still in the firelight as if watching things far off. Eventually she sighed. "We do not prophesy. The satrap has summoned him here to kill him."

"What! Why?" Was wife-stealing a family trait? "Can you warn him?"

"No. We never advise. Therek is insane. His dementia oppresses me even at this distance. Go and fetch your pyromancer and her warrior, Hand. I will give them sanctuary until Mist arrives."

"You are kind, Witness, although hiding from Werists in a brothel does seem a little foolhardy."

If seers smiled, they did so unseen. "You are not in the brothel now. Since ancient days the Witnesses have maintained secret lodges all over Vigaelia. Extrinsics are very rarely admitted, for any reason whatsoever."

Cuff! That would teach Benard not to waste his humor on a Maynist.

thirty-six

FABIA CELEBRE

fell in love with Tryfors at first sight. It was not inspiringly beautiful, but anywhere must be better than the endless trek up the Wrogg that had taken such a huge bite out of her life. Morning frost still sparkled on the shingle and her breath steamed as she walked down Mora 's gangplank, for yesterday's rain had yielded to a sky of dazzling blue. Here the river had become many little rivers, each with its own collection of boats. The cataracts upstream were the same brilliant white as the hills beyond—that was snow up there and possibly she would be walking on that soon. Tryfors was a gray sprawl on a mesa above the floodplain, and her future husband might be waiting for her up there; he was certainly not in the reception party on the pebbles.

There was no reception party. No trumpets, no honor guard. Saltaja had truculently insisted on camping one last unnecessary night just a couple of hours downstream from the city so she could send word ahead to proclaim her coming, as if she doubted her brother's ability to cope with unexpected visitors. Not trusting one runner, she had sent two, some time apart. Had neither arrived? Or had the message been ignored?

Scar-faced Huntleader Darag trod close on Fabia's heels. Saltaja and Horth were disembarking from Blue Ibis . Other vessels were loading or unloading or being careened, wagons and slave gangs were at work, but the latest arrivals were being ignored.

"Gods save us, my lady," Fabia said brightly. "We appear to be a little early."

Saltaja's answer was a glare. The protracted voyage had aged her. Her pallid face seemed more elongated than ever, although it was still not that of a woman in her sixties. Her black robes had faded to gray, and in some elusive way so had she. That did not mean she was any less dangerous, though; perhaps even more so.

She snarled at Darag. "More desertions, Huntleader?"

"I warned you Heroes would not be used as flunkies." The wolfish Darag was not the obsequious and unlamented Perag, but even Darag would not have spoken to Saltaja like that when they set out from Kosord. Then he had been in command of five boats and forty-eight men. But one day Beloved of Hrada had lost contact with the other craft, taking a dozen Werists with her, and three days later Nurtgata and Redwing had vanished with another sixteen.

As Horth had waspishly pointed out to Fabia, if Stralg's sister could lose half her escort, then the overall desertion rate in the Heroes must be enormous. Where were the deserters going and what might they do in the future? Had they found some way of evading the Witnesses' notice, or were the Witnesses no longer answering the satraps' questions?

"That must be snow up there," Horth said, beaming guilelessly. "Does that make the passes more difficult, do you suppose?"