Lord of the Shadows (48 page)

Dirk smiled. “No. I can pretty much guarantee you don't have to worry about that.”

Misha glanced around his father's study for a moment and then frowned. “You know, I used to lie awake at night in Oscon's house, imagining what it would be like to come home. I've been here less than an hour, and already nothing is as I envisaged it.”

“Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but
I'm
glad you're back, Misha. And relieved beyond words you're well. And I know Kirsh has been counting the minutes until you returned.” Dirk sounded sincere, but this was the man who had convinced
the world there was an eclipse coming. It was impossible to tell if he was genuine or if he was lying through his teeth.

“Then that makes three of us who are pleased to see the Crippled Prince,” he said, deciding to accept for the moment Dirk meant what he said. “When the count gets into double figures, let me know. Then I might start to feel like I'm welcome.”

arqel took it upon herself to care for the Lion of Senet with a level of dedication that astonished everyone. She would let nobody near him. She would let nobody speak to him. By the time they reached Omaxin, she had everyone in his entourage so accustomed to going through her to communicate with him that she could have ordered them to all stand on their heads and they would have believed the order came from Antonov.

In private, Antonov drove her to distraction. He was obsessed with the notion that the nonexistent eclipse and the refusal of her sacrifice were all staged by the Goddess to test his faith. He refused to allow the idea he might have been mistaken to take root in his mind. He questioned her about it constantly, seeking the Goddess's reassurance, more determined than ever to believe Marqel was her spokeswoman. He wanted to be certain he'd read the Goddess's intentions correctly.

For Marqel, Antonov's insanity was fertile ground, into which she was able to plant the seeds of her own ambitions. She was the Voice of the Goddess, and Antonov's only alternative to believing every word she uttered was to contemplate the possibility he had lived his entire life believing in a lie. He had sacrificed his son to the Goddess and believed he had done the right thing. To even suspect his sacrifice had been needless was something he would not allow.

The ruined city came into view some three weeks after
they left Bollow. The trip had been torturously slow, mostly because Antonov insisted they stop each sunrise to offer thanks to the Goddess. Marqel didn't mind. The longer they took to get there, the longer she had to poison his mind, to feed his fears and doubts. Marqel had learned a great deal from watching Dirk Provin at work. If he could bring the Shadowdancers to their knees, then she could go one better.

If she was clever about it, she could remove the irritation of Dirk Provin. Permanently.

When they arrived at the ruins, she was surprised by the number of people already there. Marqel had forgotten about the troops Antonov had sent to Omaxin to deal with the Sidorian raiders. Between them and the large escort Kirsh had sent with them, she had the beginnings of a small army, which gave Marqel an even grander idea than simply convincing Antonov she was invincible.

Antonov couldn't wait to get into the cavern. It was almost as if he expected to hear the voice of the Goddess for himself. The massive chamber was lit with countless torches when they arrived, glittering off the creamy ignimbrite walls. The Shadowdancers who were studiously copying down the inscriptions and diagrams on the walls all jumped to their feet when the Lion of Senet entered the chamber.

Antonov stopped just inside the entrance, awestruck by the size and magnificence of the hall. She had forgotten Antonov had never seen it before. The look on his face was almost comical, he was so enthralled. Marqel couldn't see the point in getting worked up over a big empty hall. It was just another building, really, even if it was rather impressive.

“Your highness!” Rudi Kalenkov gasped when he realized who his visitor was. Then he glanced at Marqel and frowned. “My lady.”

“His highness would like to be alone with the Goddess,” Marqel announced. She didn't want Rudi explaining anything to Antonov. Didn't want anyone speaking to him if she could avoid it. Particularly not another Shadowdancer and
certainly not one who could claim to be an expert on the Omaxin ruins.

“Of course,” Rudi said, snapping his fingers at his people to hasten their departure. “I'd be more than happy to stay and show—”

“That won't be necessary,” Marqel cut in.

Rudi scowled at her and then bowed in acquiescence. He knew she was now the High Priestess, but Marqel didn't know how much he had learned about what had happened in Bollow. She wouldn't have trusted him in any case. Rudi was one of Belagren's old cronies, a scholar, not a priest. He probably knew as well as Dirk Provin that what he and his workers were so assiduously copying down was not the words of the Goddess but the writings of some ancient civilization long ago destroyed by Mount Probeus.

“As you wish, my lady.”

Once they were alone, Marqel took Antonov by the hand and led him to the center of the hall. The thick golden Eye glittered malignantly in the torchlight, as if the Goddess herself was staring at them.

“I can feel her,” Antonov whispered in awe.

Marqel couldn't feel the Goddess. Mostly, Marqel felt cold, and even a little oppressed by the idea there was half a mountain hanging over their heads.

“So can I,” she agreed piously.

Antonov walked closer to one of the walls to study the strange inscriptions. He stared at them in silence.

“I hope Dirk gets here soon,” he said after a time.

Marqel scowled at his back. “Why?”

“Because only he can read the Goddess's writings.”

The hell he can!
she sneered silently.
He was just pretending he could to shut Kirsh up when he …

She didn't even finish the thought before stepping forward and tracing her finger over a line of incomprehensible squiggles. “Listen to me. Gather all those who believe in me and celebrate my… gifts.”

Antonov looked at her in amazement. “You can
understand
this … Why didn't you tell me this sooner?”

“I was never allowed in here before long enough to see the writing,” she lied.

“Not even Belagren was able to tell what was written here.”

“Perhaps the Goddess had other plans for the Lady Belagren, your highness. She gives us only those tools we need to serve her.”

“Of course …” Antonov agreed absently, still staring at the walls in wonder.

“So I can tell you whatever you want to know,” she pointed out, a little impatiently. “You don't need Dirk.”

“Is there anything here about what happened in Bollow?” he asked anxiously. “About her test?”

Goddess! Doesn't he think of anything else?
“I won't know what the inscriptions say until I've had time to study them further, your highness.” She smiled at him with touching concern. “Why don't you go back to your tent for tonight and then tomorrow we can have a good look around?”

“No. I want to stay awhile. I want to pray.”

Oh, for pity's sake! Don't you ever get sick of praying?

“Of course. Did you want me to stay with you?”

“Don't
you
need to pray?” he asked, a little concerned.

Idiot
, Marqel scolded herself.
You're supposed to believe this shit even more than he does.
“The Goddess is with me wherever I go, your highness,” she replied, hoping that was enough to cover her error.

“Of course,” he agreed, as if he should have known such a thing without asking her. “Will you see I'm not disturbed?”

“Take as long as you like,” she said understandingly, while silently cursing him under her breath.

Antonov walked back to the middle of the hall, falling to his knees in the very center of the golden eye etched into the floor. He bowed his head and began to mutter under his breath, begging the Goddess to forgive his doubts.

Marqel watched him for a while and then quietly left the cavern, issuing orders to the guards outside on the way out that the Lion of Senet was not to be disturbed. She walked back out through the torchlit tunnel into the red sunlight, looked around
the busy camp as she emerged and smiled with a deep sense of satisfaction.

It wouldn't take much, she knew, to convince Antonov the Goddess expected him to right the wrongs of this world. And now he believed she could read the writing in the cavern; how hard could it be to think up some dire prophecy foretelling the failure of the eclipse and those damned fires going out? If she thought about this, she could even work in the death of Belagren and Paige Halyn. Something along the lines of the “Mother and Father of the Suns being taken and replaced by the true daughter and the false son …”

That would be the best part. The part where her false prophecy declared Dirk Provin an evil tyrant, bent on distorting Antonov's faith and destroying all his beloved Belagren's hard work. If she put her mind to it, there was no end to the prophecies she could supposedly translate. Since meeting Eryk in Nova more than a year ago, she'd known about a young girl in Mil named Mellie Thorn, too; a small, hugely valuable fact she'd kept to herself against the day the information might be useful. She could reveal it now and nobody could prove she'd gotten the information from any other source than the Goddess. Dirk's demise was all but guaranteed. She would make up something that foretold the Shadow Slayer rising up to rid the world of him…

And then, when Antonov had served his purpose, she could dispose of him. Kirsh would become the Lion of Senet and now that he was divorcing Alenor, he would be free to marry Marqel.

The future looked brighter than the second sun.

She sighed with satisfaction and decided to get something to eat before she went back to her tent. It was going to be a long night and she had a lot of work to do before the second sunrise.

irsh arrived back in Avacas, stiff, weary, dirty and fed up with civil disturbances. There was no honor to be found facing a mob. No glory in beating back a rampaging crowd bent on destroying something that had, until very recently, been sacred to them. Kirsh didn't waste much time wondering why they were rioting. If he thought about it at all, he reasoned it was because since the end of the Age of Shadows, the people of Senet had lived according to the edicts of the Shadowdancers. That included the Landfall Festival and everything that went along with it. But when the foundation for their beliefs had been proved doubtful, the pious self-righteousness with which they had participated turned to shame, and that shame very quickly turned to anger. Kirsh despised what Dirk had done, while at the same time he begrudgingly admired the skill with which he'd done it.

Had Kirsh been in Dirk's place, with his ambitions, he would have raised an army and tackled the problem head on. Just as Johan Thorn had done. And probably have been just as unsuccessful, he realized. That didn't justify what Dirk had set in motion, but he thought he understood why.

What he couldn't understand is how anybody could conceive of such a plan and then have the balls to carry it through.

He was met at the palace entrance by the usual bevy of servants come to attend his every need. He shook them off impatiently, tired from the long ride from Talenburg and in no mood for any of them. “Where is Lord Provin?”

“In your father's private sitting room, I believe, your highness. He's with Prince Misha.”

“
Misha's
here?”

He didn't even wait for the man to answer. Kirsh ran down the hall, skidding to a halt on the polished tiles, before bursting
into the room. He stopped dead when he saw his brother. Dirk was seated in a chair by the unlit fireplace. Misha stood beside it, leaning on the mantel, nursing a half-empty wineglass.

He was
standing
.

“Ah! Our hero returns from the battlefield!” Misha exclaimed.

Kirsh crossed the room in three paces and crushed his brother in a bruising hug before holding him at arm's length and studying him closely.

“You're alive!”

Misha smiled. “So everybody keeps reminding me.”

“Goddess! I can't believe it! You look so …so
well
! And you're walking again! When you were kidnapped, we feared the worst.”

“I wasn't kidnapped, Kirsh.”

He let his brother go, and stared at him in confusion. All his earlier doubts about Misha and the news that he was a poppy-dust addict, all those unpleasant details he'd learned in Tolace—that he'd killed people to conceal—suddenly rushed back to haunt him.

“What do you mean, you
weren't
kidnapped?”

“You'd better sit down, Kirsh,” Dirk suggested. “Misha's got quite a tale to tell and I don't think you're going to like it very much.”

“You knew where he was all along, didn't you,” he ac cused.

“Tia knew. I sent her to fetch him the day of the eclipse.”

“When I get my hands on that bitch—” Kirsh sputtered angrily.

“You will thank her profusely, Kirsh,” Misha cut in sternly. “I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for Tia Veran. She deserves your gratitude, not your anger.”

“Sit down, Kirsh,” Dirk repeated. “You need to hear the whole sorry saga before you start lopping heads off.”

“I need a drink,” he growled.

“I'll get it,” Dirk offered. “You sit down and listen to Misha.”

Kirsh took the seat opposite Dirk and looked up at his
brother. He was still stunned by the change in him. It was almost as if he were a different person; as if Tia Veran had stolen away his brother and replaced him with a newer, better version of the same man.

“I met up with Tia in the Hospice in Tolace,” Misha explained.

“I know. She was hiding there after she escaped from us on the way back from Omaxin.”

“Escaped?” Misha asked curiously. “Dirk says he asked you to let her go.”

Kirsh glared at Dirk. “How many other people have you told?”

“Only Misha. I told Tia, but she didn't believe me.” He handed Kirsh a glass of wine, along with the decanter, to save him asking for a refill.

“Dirk and I have talked a great deal in the last day. We have few secrets left, Kirsh. We can't afford them anymore.”

Kirsh downed the wine in a swallow and looked back at Misha. “I heard some disturbing things about you in Tolace.”

“That I was a poppy-dust addict?” Misha asked, unsurprised. “Well, if you were shocked, brother, imagine how I felt when I learned the truth.”

“They said you asked for it. Why would you do that if you didn't know you were an addict?”

“You need to listen to the whole story, Kirsh.”

By the time Misha had finished relating his tale of his meeting with Tia, of learning he was an addict and asking her for help, of his trip to Mil and his subsequent flight to Damita, where he was finally able to get free of the drug, Kirsh had finished the decanter.

The implications of Misha's tale were horrific. If he believed his brother—and he could think of no reason why Misha would lie—then the Shadowdancers had systematically poisoned him, hoping to kill Misha and clear the way for Kirsh to inherit his father's seat.

Whether Antonov had known what was going on was something not even Misha was willing to speculate on. What
was
certain was Misha's support of the terrible thing Dirk had done to bring the Shadowdancers down. Kirsh had reluctantly released Dirk because he needed his help. Misha obviously thought him a hero.

“With all this talk of plots and intrigue, you sound like a heretic, Misha,” Kirsh accused when his brother was done. “All those months among the Baenlanders have turned you from the Goddess.”

“Several months of agonizing withdrawal from poppy-dust turned me from the Goddess, Kirsh. And I didn't suffer through that just to come back here and thank the Shadowdancers for all they've done for me. I came back to expose them. Dirk beat me to it.”

“And what about Antonov?” he asked. “Dirk's little game has all but destroyed him.”

“Do you think if I'd walked into Avacas like this and told him about the plot to poison me that he wouldn't have had his faith shaken just as savagely?”

Kirsh wasn't able to answer that. He turned on Dirk, who said nothing the whole time Misha was speaking. “Did you know about this?”

“None of it,” Dirk replied. “Although I wasn't as shocked as you are. I knew what the Shadowdancers were capable of.”

“And now I suppose you're determined to put an end to them, too?”

“More determined than Dirk, probably.”

“We have to tell Antonov. Insane or not, none of us is the Lion of Senet. If he wants to destroy the Shadowdancers for what they did to you, Misha, then it has to be his decision.”

“It's a decision he's not capable of making, Kirsh,” Dirk warned.

“Nevertheless, he's the one who must make it.”

“I fear the decision is already made in our father's mind,” Misha said. “He's gathering an army in Omaxin. If the High Priestess has his ear, you can bet he's not doing it to disband the Shadowdancers.”

“What army?” Kirsh scoffed.

“He's called all the troops in Bollow north to Omaxin,” Dirk explained. “He's got nearly two thousand men up there.”

“And has anybody thought to ask him why? Or is it just easier to sit here and place your own interpretation on events? One that suits what you believe?”

“We've sent countless messages to Omaxin,” Dirk assured him. “He's replied to none of them.”

“And does he know yet that you're back, Misha?”

His brother shook his head. “I've only been back a day. We thought to wait until you came home before deciding how to break the news to him.”

“It's not the sort of thing you scribble down in a message,” Dirk added. “And we have no way of making certain the news actually reaches him. It could easily be intercepted by …someone else.”

Kirsh scowled at him. “Intercepted by Marqel is what you really mean.”

“That's your conclusion, Kirsh, not mine.”

“We're not going to start arguing about it, either,” Misha ordered impatiently. “I think the only way to handle this is for one of us to go to Omaxin and speak with Antonov in person. There is no possible way to make him believe this any other way.”

“I'll go,” Dirk volunteered. “Now that you're back, Misha, I'm probably better off out of Avacas anyway. Antonov will believe me.”

“Just as he'll believe you when you demand Marqel be held accountable for the actions of her predecessors?” Kirsh asked bitterly.

“I'd be happy if Marqel was called to account for what
she's
done recently,” Dirk retorted. “Never mind what her predecessors got up to.”

“Enough!” Misha snapped at them. “The three of us are all that stands between Senet and anarchy at the moment. I've neither the time nor the patience for your bickering.”

“I'll go to Omaxin,” Kirsh said, a little surprised at Misha's
commanding tone. “I'll tell Antonov what's happened. And I'll find out what he plans to do with his army.”

Misha glanced at Dirk, who shook his head. “I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Why not?” Kirsh asked. “Do you think I can't explain what's happened as well as you or Misha?”

“I'm more concerned about your … bias on the matter, Kirsh,” Dirk replied.

“You think
I'm
biased? As opposed to what, Dirk?
Your
patently objective stance? This from the man who thinks the Shadowdancers ruined his life? Yes, I can see how
your
bias would be so much less than mine.”

“At least I won't confuse the facts with what I feel for Marqel.”

“I beg to differ, Dirk. Your whole sick little scheme is influenced by what you feel for Marqel. The difference is that I don't hate her.”

“No, you think you're in love with her, which is likely to be far more damaging. It's blinded you to—”

“Enough!” Misha commanded again, halting the argument with a word. “If Kirsh wants to go, then he can. Anyway, Dirk, I need you here.”

“But Misha …”

“That is my decision, Dirk. Kirsh will go north to Omaxin.”

“And the minute Marqel opens her mouth—or her legs— Kirsh is going to start rationalizing away the whole thing and before you know it, he'll start believing the reason the Shadowdancers poisoned you was for the good of mankind, and how dare we do anything to question the will of the Goddess.”

“You smart-mouthed little bastard …” Kirsh began, lunging out of his chair at Dirk. Misha hurriedly stepped between them and shoved his brother backward into his seat. Kirsh fell back and stayed there. He looked stunned. Never, in all his life, had Misha attempted to best him physically. And won.

“For the Goddess's sake, stop acting like children!” Misha
ordered. “Both of you! I don't care if Dirk's insulted your precious Shadowdancers, Kirsh. He has a point. You're going to have to be on your guard.”

“Marqel was not responsible for poisoning you, Misha. That was Belagren and Ella.”

“Even so, she's not going to appreciate you telling Antonov the truth.”

“Then why let him go?” Dirk asked.

“Because you've done enough, Dirk!” Misha said, turning to look at him. “You've brought Senet to the brink of ruin and you're working to your own agenda. It's no longer up to you. This is a family matter now and it's up to Kirsh and me to see it through. Besides, you're the Lord of the Suns. There's way too much to be cleaned up here in Avacas for me to let you go north and get embroiled in that particular fiasco.” Without giving Dirk a chance to argue, he turned back to his brother. “You must leave first thing in the morning. We can't risk the news finding its way to Omaxin before you've had a chance to explain it to Antonov. Once you've found out what's happening up there, we can decide how to proceed next.”

“None of this is Marqel's fault, Misha.”

“I never said it was.”

“Just so long as you understand that,” he said. “I'm not defending what's been done to you, or suggesting it was motivated by anything other than greed. But you can't destroy innocents in your quest for vengeance.”

“Pity you didn't take such a noble stance in Tolace,” Dirk remarked sourly.