Angus Wells - The God Wars 01 (64 page)

 
          
"The
Kands employed their arbalest," she returned, "and my bowmen
answered. I had sooner none were harmed—I had no quarrel with the Kands. Nor
you, did you but give me what I asked."

 
          
Calandryll
snorted disbelieving laughter. Katya said, "Did I wish your deaths, would
I have aided you against the Chaipaku? I could have let them slay you and
bargained, alter, for what you carry. Their only interest is to see you dead."

 
          
"There's
truth in that," Bracht murmured.

           
"There's deceit in it!"
Calandryll snapped. "Dera, Bracht! You speak of the
byah’
s warning
and choose to name Lord Varent the deceitful one. I say it is she—she weaves
words in a spider's web, to ensnare us. She feared the Chaipaku would take the
map, no more. She seeks the Arcanum for her own ends."

           
"To destroy it," Katya
said.

           
"Lord Varent has the same
desire," he retorted. "Why should we trust you, not him?"

           
"Wait." Bracht raised a
placatory hand. "Think on this, Calandryll. That I distrust Varent you
know; that matter of the demons—did I not say they seemed very easy to
overcome? And she might have sunk the
Sea Dancer
— fetched us
half-drowned from the waves and taken what she wanted then. And the Chaipaku—aye,
why should they not sell her the map? Xanthese himself said they sought only to
slay us."

 
          
"You
trust her?" He shook his head helplessly.

           
"I say we hear her out,"
Bracht said.

           
"I can tell you little
else," Katya admitted. "I have traveled from Vanu in search of the
Arcanum, that it be destroyed and its threat forever ended. I do not know what
else I can say to convince you."

 
          
"Leave
us to find it," Calandryll muttered. "Let us return it to Lord
Varent, that
he
may destroy it."

           
"Your comrade doubts him."
She looked to Bracht, who shrugged, expressionless. "And if he
is
Rhythamun, then he intends not to destroy it, but to use it. To raise the Mad
God himself."

           
"We had agreed on this,"
Bracht said softly. "To hold the book against Varent's proving."

           
"And now you say we should hand
it to her?" Calandryll stepped to the wharf's edge, hands raised in
frustration, letting them fall to his sides.

 
          
"I
say there is sufficient in what she tells us to suggest truth." Bracht
moved to join Calandryll, staring at him, his voice low; earnest. "And
Kharasul has become doubly dangerous now. She, at least, offers us passage to
Gessyth."

 
          
"And
slit throats," he returned.

           
"Perhaps," the Kern
allowed.

           
Calandryll swung from his
observation of the harbor to stare at Bracht, eyes narrowing as he examined his
comrade's face. “You trust her," he gasped.

 
          
Bracht
met his gaze and shmgged. "She's shed blood in our aid—by the ways of Cuan
na'For that earns her at least a measure."

 
          
"Your
wits are addled! You see a pretty face and throw away your caution. Does lust
blind you?"

 
          
"No,"
Bracht said, calmly. "Though her face is undoubtedly lovely, I see the
means to reach Gessyth."

 
          
"Or
die," said Calandryll. "Or hand the Arcanum to Azumandias."

 
          
"If
she speaks the truth, Azumandias is dead," Bracht said. "And that
must make Varent the liar."

 
          
Calandryll's
hands clenched into fists, raised helplessly against such convoluted logic. All
hinged on Katya's word, on trust in a woman who had once already sought to halt
them, and now—for all he knew—sought only to gain the chart by more subtle
means. "I cannot trust her," he muttered. "She weaves words—as
we seduced Anomius, so she seduces us ... you."

 
          
"I
incline to trust," Bracht nodded, accepting the accusation. Then frowned:
"And perhaps there is a way to prove her; or reveal her."

 
          
"How?"
asked Calandryll.

 
          
"In
Secca you consulted a spaewife," Bracht said, slowly, choosing his words
carefully, "and she told you of this quest, did she not? She told you of
two comrades, no?"

 
          
And
one will come after, also to be trusted.

           
He nodded. "You and Lord
Varent."

 
          
"Perhaps,"
Bracht said. "Or—perhaps—Katya."

 
          
"Insanity."
He shook his head, rejecting the notion.

 
          
"Surely
there are spaewives in Kharasul," Bracht said. "Let us find one and
seek guidance there."

 
          
He
faced the Kern, doubt creasing his brow.

 
          
"We
face the finding of another boat, else," Bracht urged. "With the
Brotherhood seeking payment of blood debt, and few boats to be found, I think.
Is it not answer? If a spaewife denies the woman, we avoid her and make our way
to Gessyth as best we can."

 
          
"Do
we secure another boat she'll likely follow us," he said.

           
"Likely," Bracht agreed,
"but with a spaewife's aid we shall know her for friend or enemy."

 
          
It
made sense: and surely now expediency must govern their actions. He looked to
the estuary, seeing another merchantman haul anchor and turn for the north,
war-boats riding low to either side. Six dead Chaipaku lay in the square and
soon must be discovered: to remain in Kharasul was to die. A scrying would, at
least, reveal Katya for Azumandias's agent and end Bracht's insane trust: he
nodded acceptance.

 
          
"And
if she," he could not help a covert glance toward the waiting woman,
"is proven enemy?"

 
          
Bracht's
face was solemn as he touched the falchion's i hilt. "In Aldarin I asked
Varent why he did not cut his enemy's throat—should she be proven of
Azumandias's following, then she answers to me."

           
"Your word on it?"

 
          
Now
Bracht nodded: "My word on it."

 
          
"Let
us find a spaewife," he said.

 
          
The
Kern grinned, tightly, and walked to where Katya sat with patient, solemn mien.

 
          
"We
would seek proof you cannot give," he said. "Will you agree to
scrying?"

 
          
The
flaxen head tilted back, grey eyes on his face, moving to Calandryll's, where
he stood at Bracht's side. "And if she scries me true?"

 
          
"We
sail for Gessyth," Bracht said, "to seek the Arcanum together."

 
          
"And
if not?"

 
          
Calandryll
could not tell whether Bracht's grin was ironic or regretful, but he saw the
freesword's hand touch the falchion's hilt again in unspoken answer. Katya
nodded once and rose to her feet.

 
          
"So
be it. Put me to your test—the sooner we're gone from this place the
better."

 
          
They
went in silence to the Waterboy, each wrapped in their own thoughts,
Calandryll's of what must follow when the spaewife proved him right, revealing
Katya for a liar, agent of Azumandias. Lord Varent a patricide, centuries old?
It was a monstrous deceit, a lie of dazzling proportion, plausible in its very
enormity, an accusation so incredible it begged belief for wont of reasonable
explanation. And yet it seemed Bracht chose to trust her, though he had aislike
of Lord Varent for cause; that and his unhidden admiration of the woman.
Calandryll's face set in a scowl as he pondered all she had said, finding for
each argument of hers a counter, each firming his conviction that she lied.

 
          
The
Chaipaku—she could not know for sure that the Brotherhood would sell her
Orwen's chart; that she had not sunk the
Sea Dancer
—perhaps she might
had magic not saved them; the
byah
’s words—spoken of her, not Lord
Varent; holy men of Vanu, their augury—he knew nothing of Vanu, it was a land
lost behind the Borrhun- maj, and that she came from there rested solely on her
word. His scowl darkened: soon enough she would stand revealed and then Bracht
must regain his senses and ... slay her? He was not sure he wanted that: there
was blood enough already pooling in their footsteps across Kandahar and sne
had
come to their aid, albeit for her own reasons. He thought then of the dead
Chaipaku, and for all they were assassins, and would have slain him without
mercy, he shuddered as he remembered the savage satisfaction of his steel
slicing flesh. "The next will be easier," Bracht had said, and the
freesword had been right. He had changed—was changing—and he was not certain he
enjoyed what he became.

 
          
Such
grim contemplation he thrust from his mind as they entered the inn and sought
advice of the landlord as to the location of Kharasul's diviners, and one they
might tmst, eliciting directions and a name that brought them, in the early
part of the afternoon, to an inner quarter of the city.

 
          
The
streets here were a little less noisome than those others they had walked, as
if a greater respectability attached to this Seers Gate,- and quieter, those
folk they passed sober, their faces solemn. The landlord had directed them to a
spaewife he named as Ellhyn, whose sign was the moon and sun conjoined. They
found it suspended from a blue-painted pole that jutted from the upper story of
a tall building, its stone clean and pale, day star and lunar disk melded on a
background of azure. Two children, brother and sister by their looks, sat
casting knucklebones on the step before the open door, staring up as the trio
approached. Calandryll moved to pass them and the boy rose, a diminutive
guardian.

 
          
"What
would you here?" he asked, holding station in the doorway.

 
          
"We
seek the spaewife, Ellhyn," Calandryll replied. "This is her
sign?"

 
          
The
boy nodded and motioned his sister inward, bidding them wait. Within moments
she reappeared, whispering to her brother, who beckoned them into the house.

 
          
"Mother
will see you in a while. Wait here." He brought them to a simply furnished
chamber, a single window looking onto the street, plain chairs of carved wood
set along the blue-washed walls.

 
          
"Our
thanks." Calandryll bowed, the courtly gesture answered with a grin from
the boy, who returned to his sister and their game. In a little while footsteps
sounded and they saw a man walk past, leaving. The boy returned and led the way
into a corridor cool and shadowy, perfumed with some indefinable herbal scent.
At the farther end a door stood open on a chamber tiled in blue and gold and
silver echo of the sign outside. Cushions were scattered across the mosaic and
a low table of dark blue wood stood at the center, behind it a woman who smiled
and waved them in. She wore a robe patterned with suns and moons, small metal
disks in the same design wound through her greying hair, catching light from the
single window. Her face was homely, Kand-dark, and cheerful until they entered.

 
          
Then
it clouded and she said, "I cannot scry past the magic you wear. Do you
seek an honest telling, you must remove it."

 
          
Calandryll
nodded and took the red stone from his neck, looking to Katya. She did the same
and the spaewife clapped her hands, bringing her attendant son.

 
          
"The
stones will be safe with Jirrhun," she said, and both were handed to the
boy, who held them, smiling, for a moment, then scurried out.