Harshini (31 page)

For a long time, R’shiel walked blindly through the deserted streets of the Citadel, paying no attention to where she was going. She was calm—even serene—uncaring of the light rain that fell softly on the glistening cobblestones. Her mind didn’t seethe with grief for her loss, or rail at the tragedy of unrequited love. She was numb; totally devoid of any human emotion that could rise up and cause her anguish.

R’shiel wondered if this was what it felt like to be fully Harshini.

After a while, she discovered that her wandering had led her to the Lesser Hall of the Citadel. Without any conscious decision, she climbed the steps and pulled open the massive bronze door, letting it swing shut behind her with a hollow boom that echoed through the empty darkness. Night was trapped within its walls, the whitewashed ceiling lost in the shadows. She tried to recall the picture Brak had painted in her mind of the Great Hall, the Temple of the Gods, when it had dazzled the world with its glory and wondered if this smaller temple once dedicated to the Goddess of Love had been just as
impressive. She could not do it. The Lesser Hall was nothing more than a big, cavernous room with no life or beauty to recommend it.

“Why, Kalianah?” she asked the darkness.

A pillar of light pierced the shadows as she named the goddess. Assuming the form of a child, the Goddess of Love crossed her arms and glared at her. R’shiel stared at the goddess, oblivious to the aura of adoration that surrounded the pale little girl whose feet hovered just above the ground.

“Why?”

“Don’t you know that it’s extremely ill mannered to summon the gods as if they were—”

“Why did you make Tarja fall in love with me?”

“Oh!” the Goddess said with the guilty air of a child caught playing with something she was forbidden to touch. “That.”

“Yes,
that
! Why did you do it? What gives you the right to interfere in my life?”

“I was only trying to help.”

“You’re supposed to be the Goddess of Love. How can you cause such pain?”

“Well, whose fault is
that
?” the Goddess asked petulantly. “
You
destroyed the geas, not me.”

“How?”

“You asked the demons to substitute for Tarja’s blood. How was I supposed to know what you were planning?”

“You sent Dace with a message, reminding me I could use the demons to heal him.”

“Yes, but I didn’t expect you to use them like that! Any Harshini could have told you something like that would break my geas.”

“Perhaps they would have, if they’d known about it.”

“Well, Brak certainly knew. He was there when I did it. Why don’t you ask him why he didn’t say anything?”

The news surprised her. He had never warned her, never even hinted that something was amiss.

“I want your promise, Kalianah, that you will never,
ever,
do anything like this to me again. Or to Tarja.”

“You can have that!” she sniffed indignantly. “If this is what you call gratitude, I’ll never even think of trying to help you again. Then you’ll see how hard it is to love anybody without my blessing!”

“I don’t want to love anybody, Kalianah, so I don’t mind at all.”

Kalianah’s eyes narrowed and she began to change form. A tall, fair-haired young woman suddenly took the place of the little girl.

“You can live without love?” the goddess asked. “Is that what you think? You might be able to tame the God of War with your meddling, R’shiel, but my power is beyond your reach.”

“What makes you think I’m trying to tame the God of War?”

“I am not blind, demon child. Hythria and Fardohnya are united for the first time in centuries. Zegarnald already grows weaker. But don’t think that by hardening your heart you can do the same to the Goddess of Love. Humans prosper without war. They will shrivel and die without me.”

“Do you personally take a hand in every romance? Do you make every mother love her child, every man love his brother?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why do they need you?”

“They need the hope I represent.”

“What hope?” she demanded. “You’re a spoiled, petulant child who helps or hinders the course of love on nothing more than impulse. You interfere because you can, Kalianah, not because some human petitioned you for aid and you found his cause worthy.”

Kalianah was incapable of real anger, but she was as close to it as her essence allowed. “Your task is to destroy Xaphista, demon child, not impose your own atheist bigotry on the rest of us. Do what you are destined for and leave the Primal Gods to do what we are meant for.”

“And once I’ve destroyed Xaphista, what then?”

The goddess looked away, unable to meet her eye. “That is not for me to decide.”

“You decide who will love me easily enough.”

“It is not for me to decide,” Kalianah insisted stubbornly. “And you should not waste time dwelling on such things. You must turn your attention to Xaphista. If you devoted as much time to defeating him as you do to making things difficult for the Primal Gods, he’d be as weak as a newborn pup by now.”

“Xaphista will weaken.”

“Not in your lifetime,” Kalianah scoffed. “You have to tackle the core of his power, not nibble at the edges like a terrier trying to chew up a mountain. If you don’t, then the moment Xaphista realises what you’re doing, he will fight back with every iota of power at his disposal.”

“Then what do you suggest I do,
Divine
One?”

“If I knew that, demon child, I would have done something about Xaphista myself!”

Kalianah vanished, plunging the hall back into darkness. R’shiel stood unmoving, staring at the space where she had been. Something Kalianah said bothered her, but the thought was too elusive to grasp. Something about tackling the core of Xaphista’s power…

With a flash of inspiration, R’shiel knew what she had to do. Kalan had given her the first inkling in Greenharbour. She had no idea exactly
how
she was going to do it, but the secret of bringing Xaphista to his knees was suddenly so obvious that she could not believe she had taken until now to realise it.

R’shiel pounded on Brak’s door until he opened it.

“What is it? Have you found Loclon?”

“There’s something I need to ask you.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is, R’shiel?”

“What do you care?” she asked, pushing past him into the apartment that Garet had allocated him. “You’re Harshini. You don’t need to sleep.”

He closed the door and turned to look at her with a frown. “We don’t need as much sleep as humans, R’shiel. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to sleep at all. A point you would do well to remember. When was the last time
you
slept?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Well, I can. It was four days ago. I’m seven hundred years old. I need my rest.”

She smiled at him. He was fully dressed and alert and every candle in the room was alight. The fire was crackling cheerfully and an open book lay on the
table beside the large chair near the hearth. He had not been sleeping.

“Well, demon child, what is so damned important that it can’t wait until morning?”

“I have to destroy Xaphista.”

“Really?” he asked with wide-eyed astonishment. “And it’s taken you exactly
how
long to come to this startling conclusion?”

“Don’t make fun of me, Brak. You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do, but I can’t understand why it’s so important at this hour of the night.”

“I think I’ve figured out a way to do it.”

“How?” he asked, with no trace of mockery.

“I was just talking to Kalianah. She said I had to tackle the core of his power, not nibble at the edges like a terrier trying to chew up a mountain.”

Brak smiled. “That sounds like Kali. What else were you two discussing?”

“We had words,” R’shiel admitted, “about what she did to Tarja.”

“That must have been interesting.”

“She said you knew about it,” she accused.

He nodded and moved away from the door. R’shiel followed him with her eyes, but he was impossible to read when he didn’t want her to know what he was feeling.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve seen it before. A geas is no small thing R’shiel. Tarja was smitten and there was nothing to be done about it.”

“What about me?”

“You were never under Kalianah’s geas. Not even the Goddess of Love would have risked such a thing for the demon child.”

“But I loved him,” she said, afraid her voice had allowed some hint of the pain she was trying so hard to deny.

“You didn’t need Kalianah for that R’shiel. You grew up worshipping the ground Tarja walked on.”

“If she hadn’t interfered, would he…?”

“Would he have truly loved you in return?” Brak finished for her with a shrug. “I don’t know.”

“He despises me now.”

“No, he doesn’t. He just doesn’t know how to cope with what’s happened. The fact that he doesn’t actually believe in the gods who did this to him won’t make it any easier on him, either.” He poured two cups of wine and crossed the room, holding one of them out to her. “He’ll get over it eventually. Drink up. Lost love always looks better through the bottom of a glass.”

“I don’t want a drink.”

“Well I do, and it’s bad form to drink alone. Humour me.”

She took the cup and sipped the wine sullenly, letting its warmth spread through her. Despite Brak’s assurances, it made absolutely no difference to how she felt. Brak resumed his seat by the fire and took a long swig from his glass.

“So, are you going to tell me what this brilliant idea is, or do we have to keep rehashing the story about poor old Tarja for a few more hours?”

“Why do you take such delight in ridiculing my pain?”

“Because you’re a lot tougher than you realise, demon child. I know you’re hurting, but deep down you knew this would happen. As soon as Xaphista told you about the geas, you knew that Tarja didn’t love you willingly. For all your human failings, you have an innate sense of what is right. It’s part of being Harshini. You might lament losing him, but you know, in your heart, that it’s better this way. The sooner you admit it openly, then the sooner you’ll get over it.”

“Better?” she asked bitterly. “How could it be better?”

“Tarja was the chink in your armour, R’shiel. Xaphista would have exploited that weakness to its fullest. Don’t you remember what you told me about Xaphista when he tried to seduce you into joining him? He used Tarja then, and you almost gave in.”

R’shiel had no wish to be reminded of that dreadful journey through Medalon, but she could not deny the truth of what Brak told her. She sank into the chair on the other side of the fire and stared at the flames, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing that she knew he was right. She need not have bothered. Brak knew her too well.

“A moment ago you were bursting to tell me how you could bring Xaphista down. Do we really have time for you to sulk?”

She hurled the goblet at him. He ducked it easily and the glass shattered harmlessly against the far wall.

He smiled. “Feel better now?”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. You just hate the fact that I’m right.”

“It’s the same thing.”

Brak sighed, as if his patience was wearing thin. “Ask me what you came to ask, R’shiel. I really do intend to get some sleep in what’s left of this night.”

“I have to attack the core of Xaphista’s power,” she told him with considerably less enthusiasm than she had had when she burst into his room earlier.

“So you said before.”

“We have to go after his
priests
.”

Brak frowned. “You won’t turn a single Karien priest, R’shiel. Even if you managed to win their minds to your cause, Xaphista owns their souls. Each priest is linked to the Overlord through his staff.”

“Then that is their weakness. If I can use that link, I can reach every priest in Karien and cripple Xaphista overnight.”

“In theory, yes, but how are you going to do it?”

“Kalan had an idea that set me thinking. I have to get a close look at a staff, though. I want to see how it works.”

“I’ll tell you how it works, R’shiel. Very, very well. Don’t you recall what happened the last time you had a close encounter with a Staff of Xaphista?”

“I’m never likely to forget. But you told me the staff
destroys
magic. Well, if it can do that, then the staff has to
use
magic, too. And if it can use magic, maybe I can do something to change its purpose.”

Brak sighed and climbed to his feet. “Come on then.”

“Where are we going?”

“You want to take a look at a Staff of Xaphista? Garet Warner has more than a hundred of them piled up in a cavern under the amphitheatre.”

She jumped to her feet in astonishment. “You think it’ll work?”

“No. I think it’s the most misguided excuse for a plan that you’ve ever come up with, but I know you won’t let it go until you’ve discovered that for yourself.”

She hugged him impulsively. “I knew you’d help me.”

He pushed her away gruffly. “Don’t get too excited, R’shiel. I’m doing this to prove you wrong.”

“I’m not wrong. I know this will work.”

He picked up his cloak from the back of the chair where he had discarded it earlier and looked at her sceptically. “A few more burns from touching those staffs might convince you otherwise, demon child.”

Two determined-looking Defenders barred the entrance into the tunnel that led into the caverns under the amphitheatre. R’shiel demanded entry to no avail, but the ruckus brought out the officer in charge to see what all the fuss was about. He recognised R’shiel and frowned. Shorter than the average Defender and prematurely grey, he was renowned for his organisational abilities, rather than his fighting skills. He was also an old friend of Tarja’s.

“You can’t see the prisoners, R’shiel.”

“We don’t want to see the Kariens, Captain Grannon. We just want to have a look at the staffs you took from the priests.”

He frowned, but could see no harm in her request. As far as Grannon was concerned, the staffs were just useless, if rather valuable, religious frippery.