Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (44 page)

           
The wazir was dressed for the road,
his expression difficult to interpret in the crepuscular light, but Calandryll
thought he smiled. Knew it as the ancient mage came close, his features
creasing in striated wrinkles as he raised a hand in greeting, or perhaps in blessing.

           
"I trust," he murmured, a
hint of mischief in his voice, "that you passed an agreeable night."

           
"Aye." Calandryll nodded,
not knowing what else to say, confused and a little fearful that Ochen might
disapprove, did he learn the truth.

           
"And Cennaire is well?"

           
"Aye."

           
Ochen's smile announced a knowledge
of what had transpired, confirmed by his next words: "What passes between
you is your concern and hers, none others. You've my blessing, do you ask it;
and my advice, too."

           
"I'd have them both," Calandryll
returned.

           
"The one is yours," Ochen
said, "sincere and whole of heart. The other—perhaps it were better to
keep this from your comrades."

           
"We'd agreed on that,"
Calandryll explained. "To Pamur-teng, at least. After shall depend on the
gijan and Bracht, Katya."

           
"A wise decision," the
sorcerer remarked.

           
Calandryll nodded his thanks, paused
an instant, and said, "We spoke of regaining Cennaire's heart. Of taking
it back from Nhur-jabal, that it be her own again. Shall that be
possible?"

           
"She'd have it so?" asked
Ochen.

           
"She would," said
Calandryll. "Do you but ask her, and she'll say the same."

           
"Excellent." The wazir's
smile grew a moment wider, then faded as gravity overcame his face and he said,
"It may be done, though only with powerful magic. And no little danger. I
cannot, alone, but the wazir-narimasu . . . Aye, they could, perhaps."

           
"Then do we reach Anwar-teng,
and ask they do it," Calandryll declared.

           
Ochen paused a moment before
replying, and when he did his voice was solemn, a note of caution there.
"Ask, certainly," he said.

           
Calandryll frowned at the delay, at
the tone. "You doubt they'll agree? Why should they refuse?"

           
"I do not say they shall,"
the mage answered. "I say only that I cannot speak for them, and that what
you ask is a difficult thing, and perilous."

           
Fear drove a sudden dagger into
Calandryll's soul: Ochen's responses seemed to him equivocal. "I like this
not," he said. "Do you speak plain?"

           
The sorcerer's answer gave him no
more comfort. "I cannot scry the future as does a gijan," Ochen told
him, somewhat evasively, he thought. "Nor do I say it shall not be—only
that I do not know."

           
"But do you doubt it?"

           
The ancient spread his hands wide,
succeeding in expressing both regret and a lack of knowledge, of certainty.
"I would suggest," he said, "that you put that matter aside
until we reach Anwar-teng."

           
Calandryll would have questioned the
old man further, for the absence of immediate confirmation, the hint of doubt
he discerned in Ochen's voice, worried him, but the inn began to stir now, and
Ochen denied him the opportunity with the observation that he had best enter
his room, lest he be found already dressed in the corridor and his secret be
guessed. He could only agree, albeit with reluctance, halting by the open door
to ask that they speak again along the road.

           
"Do you wish it," Ochen
agreed, and Calandryll must be content with that.

           
He went into the chamber, closing
the door behind him, and readied what little gear he carried for departure. It
was an afterthought to disarrange his bed, rumpling the sheets and indenting
the pillows, as if he had passed the night here, not with Cennaire. The memory
stretched a reminiscent smile across his mouth, and then he sighed at thought
of his imposed celibacy.
Dera,
he
murmured,
do you grant that Bracht and
Katya
,
both
,
shall understand and I am forever in your debt.

           
Then a fist pounded and he heard the
Kern's voice: "Do you sleep still?"

           
"No," he answered,
composing himself, "enter."

           
Bracht came through the door,
saddlebags across his shoulder. He studied Calandryll's face and grinned.
"Ahrd, but did you sleep at all? You've a night bird's look about
you."

           
"Not much," Calandryll
returned truthfully.

           
The Kern's grin faded, replaced with
a speculative expression, and he said, "I left you with Cennaire ..."

           
A question hung between them, and
almost, Calandryll blushed, turning away as if busying himself with saddlebags.
Casually as he was able, he said, "We talked—she was afraid." It was
not entirely a lie.

           
"Afraid?" Bracht's
response confirmed the wisdom of secrecy. "What's a revenant to be afraid
of?"

           
"Anomius," Calandryll
returned, defensive now. "Dera! Bracht, think you she knows no fear?
Anomius yet holds her heart ensorcelled, and might well destroy her, did he but
learn she takes our side."

           
"Aye," the Kern allowed
without overmuch enthusiasm, "that's true, I suppose."

           
"Suppose?" Calandryll felt
anger rise. "He's but to return to Nhur-jabal, to that pyxis. Think you she's
without feelings? I tell you, no! She was terrified he should discern she
betrays him—she sought my company awhile."

           
"Hold, hold." Bracht
raised both hands in mock defenses. "I asked only a simple question."

           
"With subtler meaning,"
Calandryll snapped.

           
Bracht frowned then, studying him
with quizzical eyes, and he feared he had let too much slip, cursing himself,
reminding himself that he must set tight rein on his temper.

           
"I know you love her," the
Kern said, softer, "and I thought perhaps . . . But no, surely you'd not
bed her, knowing what she is."

           
It was hard to hold back the truth,
hard to hold back his anger.
Dera,
he
thought, shocked,
do we already fall to
arguing
?
I must be careful. As
mildly
as he was able, he asked, "And if I had?"

           
"I'd count you"—Bracht
shrugged—"strange. Ahrd, what mortal man would bed a dead woman?"

           
"Cennaire is hardly dead,"
Calandryll replied curtly.

           
"Nor yet alive." Bracht
fidgeted with the bags slung on his shoulder, clearly ill at ease with the path
their conversation took. "Hear me, my friend, for I know you love her, and
that cannot be easy for you. I've yet to come to terms with what she is—
perhaps I shall not—but I'd not see that come between us."

           
"Nor I," Calandryll
declared.

           
"Then do we make compact?"
asked the Kern. "Agree we'll not discuss her condition further, or what
you feel for her?"

           
"Aye," said Calandryll
eagerly. "Save one last question—were she to regain her heart, how should
you think then?"

           
"You think it possible?"
asked Bracht, curious now.

           
"Ochen believes the
wazir-narimasu might accomplish it," Calandryll explained, setting aside
his doubts.

           
"And you'd see it done."

           
It was not a question and Calandryll
nodded: "As would she."

           
"She'd lose much," Bracht
murmured.

           
"But regain her
mortality," Calandryll said. "Be once more only a woman."

           
"For your sake? Does she love
you so much? Truly?"

           
"I believe it so,"
Calandryll replied, "in equal measure with my belief that she becomes one
with our quest."

           
Bracht shrugged, eyes narrowed as he
pondered this. Then: "For me, the gijan's yet to confirm her part in our
quest, but be that done, and the Jesseryte wizards make her again mortal,
you've my word I'll name her friend. And for the nonce our compact shall
stand."

           
"So be it," Calandryll
agreed, anger dissipated. "Now, do we find our breakfast and depart?"

           
The tension that had arisen was gone
as they quit the chamber, meeting Katya and Cennaire emerging from the latter's
room. Calandryll greeted them formally, and Cennaire replied in kind, though
their eyes locked, bright with their hidden knowledge. Katya responded more
casually, her grey gaze lingering awhile on Calandryll's face, as if she saw
some change in him. She said nothing, however, and they found their way down
through the levels of the hostelry to the main room, where Chazali and his kotu-zen,
and Ochen, were already seated, eating.

           
It was difficult for Calandryll to
maintain the camouflage of formality. Cennaire, by chance or design, was seated
to his left, and he found it hard to resist the urge to turn toward her, to
speak fondly, to touch her. Proximity brought a flood of remembrance, filled
with images of that night, and he found himself regretting the necessity of
pretense. More than once he caught Katya's eyes upon him, speculative, and
while she gave no overt sign of awareness, he began to wonder if she guessed
that he and Cennaire had become lovers in more than name. Perhaps, he thought,
she saw such signs as Bracht and the other men along the table missed; perhaps
some female intuition allowed her to read the truth upon his face and
Cennaire's. He was relieved when the meal ended, and they departed.

           
Ochen spoke briefly with the priest
as Chazali saw his men formed in a column, a squad of pikebearing kotu-anj
waiting to escort them to the gates. The foot soldiers trotted ahead, clearing
a way, their warning shouts loud in the early stillness. The sun was only a
little way above the horizon as yet, invisible between the towering buildings
and the high walls, and Ahgra-te seemed scarcely better lit than at twilight, a
close-packed, claustrophobic place that Calandryll was not sorry to leave.

           
Beyond the walls the open space and
morning offered welcome freedom, the great bulk of the Ahgra Danji looming vast
over the town, its dark stone brightening as the rising sun sent lances of brilliance
flashing over the rockface. Their path swung north at the crossroads outside
the walls, running alongside the fast-flowing river, past mills and scattered
smallholdings, where gettu paused from their labors to bow in obeisance to the
higher caste kotu- zen. Within half a league they had reached the foot of the
cliff, where two black stelae, twice the height of a mounted man, marked the
commencement of the road.

           
Beyond the great pillars the way
rose gently at first, wide enough several riders might go abreast without
danger of falling, then, still wide, angled steeper up the cliff. It proceeded
in a series of traverses, winding east and then west, and back again. In places
it was built out from the rock, that wagons and the like might pass more easily,
or halt awhile, those terraces walled, and supported by huge buttresses. It
seemed to Calandryll they climbed with the sun, pacing the orb as it rose
steadily higher into the blue sky, lighting their way as if in welcome,
striking colors from the rock as choughs and ravens wheeled level with the
column, screeching, turning curious yellow eyes on the riders. The scarp
deflected the breeze that had previously blown from the north and the morning
grew warm, the azure above streamered with pennants of cirrus like the
windblown tails of great white horses. At the head of the column, Chazali set a
swift pace, climbing remorselessly upward, as though, the hindrances of the
forested country left behind, he would reach Pamur-teng as soon he might.

           
That suited Calandryll well enough,
for besides the urgency of the quest, he now had a more personal reason to wish
an early arrival in the hold of the Makusen clan. He turned in his saddle,
looking toward Cennaire, smiling, and she looked back, her teeth white between the
luscious red of her lips. She had left her hair unfastened this day, and it
fluttered about her face in the thermals rising up the cliff, sleek and black
as the wings of the avian escort. He thought she had never looked lovelier, and
then melancholy that they must keep up their pretense: it would be hard this
night to sleep alone.