Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

"While talking with you, I am also watching Leorth and his flank. When they have finished their business they will come looking for you. I told you time is short."

"What did happen to Dantio?" Benard asked. "I never heard."

The seer sighed. "He was old enough to try fighting back, but too young to understand the extent of his danger. He kept running away. Saltaja warned him that he'd pay for it. She prides herself on never making a vain threat. Eventually she raised the punishment so high that it killed him. Was he brave or just stupid, my lord Werist?"

Before Orlad could rise to the bait, the chunky artist said, "So here we are! Fifteen years later, the survivors reunited. The gods are not without mercy."

Orlad looked at the two firelit faces and the shrouded Witness. "And this doge-king is dead?" The eldest son was dead. An artist would never make a ruler. But a Werist could. If , temptation whispered, your liege lord has betrayed your trust, then your oath to him is void and you owe loyalty to no man, only Weru. Better a Hero to rule than a woman . He rejected the thought. That was part of the test, to see if he could be bribed.

"It has been reported that the doge is close to death," said the seer. "It was also reported that the Vigaelian horde is falling back on Celebre. All such news is out of date, but I have more recent information than Saltaja or Therek do."

"How can that be?" Orlad asked, with a sudden return of anger. Mention of the war had jabbed like a fingernail in the tattered wounds of his loyalty. He could not cheer for the Florengian oath-breakers! Therek was just pretending, testing. "And who are you, that you betray the bloodlord you are sworn to aid?"

"My name is Mist. Do you know how Stralg won the aid of the Maynists?"

"I don't care," Orlad shouted. "The treaty was sworn in the names of gods!"

"He tortured one hundred and fifty helpless women and five equally helpless men to death. He was quite prepared to do the same to all the rest of the cult. How does even a Werist justify that?"

"Please let's not bicker," the girl said. "Orlad, what do you want to do? If you try to go home tomorrow as you have been ordered, then Leorth will kill you. Will you set out for Nardalborg tonight and hope to be safe there, or will you seek out another life?"

"There is no other life. You are not going to marry Horoldson?"

She screwed up her face in exaggerated disgust. "I hope not."

"I almost broke his neck this morning until I found out who he was." Orlad wished he had; then the satrap would have had good reason to kill him and he wouldn't feel this terrible sense of betrayal. "How did you escape from the dungeons?" Looking down at the unlined face, the shiny hair, he realized how little he knew about women. Musky had been a lot older than this alleged sister of his.

"I had help." She smiled at the artist beside her.

More treason! Yet Orlad could not imagine that bovine lump letting a songbird out of its cage, let alone rescuing a prisoner from the satrap's palace.

He said, "So what will you do now? You and your brother? You are going to sneak over the Edge to Florengia and steal back our city? Two against the Fist?"

She flushed at his mockery. The artist was ignoring both of them, scowling at the seer as if he disliked her as much as Orlad did.

"I don't know," the girl admitted. "The most urgent problem is yours, Orlad. What can you do? If Mist can find you safe refuge, is that what you want?"

What sort of a name was Mist ? Who were all these people that he must trust them before his liege lord? "Witness, what is your interest in me? Why warn me of this supposed plot?"

She set her spindle going yet again. "Our blessing includes more than just seeing, Flankleader. We are interested in you because you have potential to transform the world. I do not prophesy that you will do so, I merely affirm that you may have the opportunity, just as a sharp sword has power to kill but may never see battle. We call it 'seasoning' or 'flavor.' All of you are seasoners and so was Dantio, although four in one family is unprecedented. So if fame is your ambition, you may well succeed. At the moment, Orlando, you are also important , which is not the same thing. Importance is not uncommon and usually short-lived. A paid assassin may seem important, but the person who paid him is more likely to have flavor. Because you are currently important, you were visible to my sight this morning before you even reached King's Grass, far outside my normal range. Your coming mattered!"

Orlad did not feel important. "Why are you betraying the satrap's plans to me? Tell me why he should want to kill me?"

"Because he is insane. Because he and all the children of Hrag are evil. Tell me why you support them, why you want to fight for Stralg against your own people."

"I want to fight against false Werists," he shouted. "Traitors who broke their oaths! Extrinsics have nothing to fear if they stay out of our road and do as they are told."

"How will you distinguish the oath-breakers?" the seer asked. "A few dozen Florengian youths swore loyalty and then reneged, led by Marno Cavotti, but they are almost all dead now. They trained many sixty-sixty others to succeed them and those men are as true to the vows they made as you want to be to yours. How will you—"

Red anger propelled Orlad one step forward. The girl jumped up and squealed, "No!" Even the artist lurched to his feet, as if mere bulk could stop a Hero.

"Killing me will solve nothing," the seer said, but her voice was squeaky. She had stopped spinning at last

"I will fight the Florengians because I am true to the Fist!" If they would just let him, just trust him!

"Why?" the seer asked. "Stralg has murdered and pillaged and shattered your homeland. Do you know why? You know what started the war?"

"What does it matter? If they had submitted to the rule of the Heroes as they should, they would not have been hurt."

"Tell him, Bena."

"Tell him what?" the artist growled, still frowning.

"Tell him why Stralg invaded the Florengian Face."

Muscleman shrugged. "Because he had too many men. In his struggle to conquer Vigaelia he'd built the cult up too big. With no one left to fight, they'd just start fighting one another. So he took half of them over the Edge to get them killed off."

Orlad laughed. "He told you this, I suppose?"

"He told his sister-in-law," Benard said absently. "She told me." He turned to stare again at the seer.

"Don't believe you."

No one answered. Somehow the mood of the room had changed.

"Stop that!" the Witness shouted, raising her distaff threateningly.

"Stop what?" Benard took a step toward her, looking puzzled.

" Stop it !" she shrieked.

"I know you!"

"No you don't! How could you?" She tried to strike at him with her distaff.

Parrying the blow easily, he reached out and ripped away her veil.

forty

BENARD CELEBRE

had sensed something wrong about Witness Mist when they first met in the Bull Concourse in Kosord. The feeling had returned this morning, even stronger, when they met again here in Tryfors. It had been growing on him all day. At last he sent a prayer to Anziel that She let him see through the veil, and he had discovered a maddeningly familiar face. So he unmasked her...

Him.

He thought for a heart-stopping moment that he was face-to-face with holy Eriander—Eriander as he had shown Her in Ingeld's mural and Hiddi's idol. The coloring was wrong, of course, and the ghastly cropped ears; he had caught the straight nose, the wavy hair, and the pointed chin very well. But the real horror was the hideous de-sexing mutilation.