The False Martyr (106 page)

For his part, Ipid had
never spared much thought to Tares Bairn, had only met him a few
times. The ancestral lord of the Kingdom of Dor, his family had
been the last to concede to unification and the least pleased with
its continuation. He had never served in the Parliament or Bureau,
choosing instead to remain in Dorington as governor. Kavich had
despised him, yet even he would admit that the man was singularly
effective at keeping the Sylians in check, which had made him
valuable in his own way. The fact that he was a horrible politician
and that he disliked the Stullys almost as much as the Kavichs
further meant that he was never much of a threat. That was until he
saw his chance to reclaim the sovereignty he thought had been
stolen from his grandfather eighty years before.

Ipid spared him nothing
now. He approached the governor and slapped him as hard as he could
with the back of his hand. He had no doubt that it hurt him more
than the governor. His arm felt like it would rip off, his knuckles
felt like they were broken, and Bairn looked like he barely noticed
despite the thin line of blood running from his nose and
lip.

His son lunging was the
only thing that seemed to awaken the old man. He caught the boy and
held him, eyes pleading with the surrounding guards as the lad
growled and fought his way toward the Chancellor. The knights
brought up their swords, the Darthur flanking Ipid bristled, Eia
gasped, but Ipid did not flinch. In honesty, it was all he could
manage to keep from crying for the throbbing in his arm. He walked
away. “Hang them in the courtyard,” he ordered as he
turned.

“
No,” Tares Bairn found
his voice though it was much higher than Ipid remembered. “We . . .
we must be judged by the Order. The . . . the valati must . . .
.”

“
I am the Order!” Ipid
proclaimed, turning back. “You will get the same mercy you gave to
those you killed. The same mercy you gave those who sought to keep
this country together. There is no Dor. There is no South. There
are the Unified Kingdoms. Your line ends today.” He turned and
found Commander Landon. The big man was grim but resolute. Blood
was splattered across his face and armor, staining the sparkling
steel, but it was not his own. “Find his wife, his daughters, his
grandchildren. They hang before him. Make sure he watches them
swing before you tie his noose.”

Marshal Landon looked at
Ipid in shock. Ipid thought he might lose his stomach there and
then. “Sir?” he finally asked, nearly breathless.

“
You heard me! His line
ends!”

“
Sir, the . . . the
children, sir?”

Ipid took a breath. The
images of children swinging from a gallows played before his eyes.
Small feet dangling. Innocent faces staring to the heavens. Little
hands clasping. Bodies writhing.
The Order
take me, I can’t.
“To the temple,” he
gasped, barely able to say the words. “Give them to the Church, but
their names will never be spoken. They will never hear the word
Bairn.” The order was meaningless. It would last only as long as he
was in power – possibly a few more weeks – but it was a way to save
the children and still torture their grandfather.

Still horrified, Marshal
Landon seemed to ease at that small concession. At the same moment,
Lord Bairn seemed to grasp what had been ordered. “No!” he wailed.
“Please, the Order save you, have mercy. I beg you.” He fell to his
knees, hands raised to Ipid like a god. “Anything. You can have . .
. .”

“
I already have
everything!” Ipid shouted. “Look around. It is mine. You defied me,
and now you will pay the price.” Ipid turned, ignoring the
blubbering and wailing of the man behind him.

“
Wait,” another voice
called. It was Eia. Ipid turned to see her blocking the knights
from their prisoners. She turned to Lord Bairn, lifted him somehow
from the ground by his lapels and looked into his eyes. “Where is
he?” At the same moment, Naidi came to her side, placing himself
between her and the other prisoners. They shrank back from the
black robed man with the black veil as if he were eternal
damnation, more terrifying even than the death they already
faced.

“
I . . . I don’t . . .
“

“
Tell me,” Eia demanded.
“Give him to us and you will be spared. You, your wife, your
daughters, your son, your grandchildren. They will all be spared.
Just tell us where he is.”

Ipid gaped. He had
authorized no such amnesty, and who was she talking
about?

The truth came so hard
that he could not even feel the throb in his arm.
They want . . . .

“
Dasen Ronigan,” Eia said
low and deadly. “Tell us where he is.” She held the big man,
brought his face to hers, then placed a hand on his head. She
whispered words. His face went blank. His entire body went rigid.
Ipid was frozen able only to watch as he felt his pain, his guilt,
his fear, his anguish pulled away.

Lord Bairn screamed. The
deepest, most agonizing, all-encompassing scream that Ipid had ever
heard. Yet it was not the scream of pain. It was the scream of the
most complete and terrible loss a person could ever know. It was
the sound that this man would make in a few hours as he watched his
family swing from the gallows, when he knew that it was real, that
he had caused their deaths, and that there was no longer any chance
to spare them or bring them back. He screamed again then fell out
of Eia’s hands to the floor in a ball, weeping and
broken.

“
Tell me,” Eia whispered
in his ear as he fell. “Give him to me and spare yourself
that.”

“
I . . . I don’t know . .
. .” the governor cried. “I don’t. . . .”

“
You may have him,” Eia
told the knights as she walked away. They stared at her in horror
and disbelief. Ipid was sure that he had the same
expression.

“
Wait.” Ipid literally
caught her as she walked past him. “You . . . you thought Dasen was
here?”

Eia staggered, leaned on
him then sighed long and deep. “We did, but he is not.” She sighed
again and seemed to soften. She put a hand on Ipid’s good arm for
support. “I’m sorry. What I just did was very difficult, but . . .
the Belab . . . thought Dasen might be hiding here under the
protection of the governor. We had to know.”

“
But Dasen would never be
part of this,” Ipid managed through his shock. “Not part of what
that bastard did. He would never . . . would never allow
it.”

Eia looked at him with
patronizing sympathy. “Of course not. It is only that Hilaal’s gift
can change people, especially those who are untrained. As we’ve
been trying to tell you, it is very difficult to take in the
emotions of others. Without tremendous control, it can affect a
person even after they’ve used the power, and if you have used that
power to do . . . things . . . . Well, that is sometimes even
worse.”

“
Why didn’t you say
anything?” Ipid was still in shock, still not fully understanding
what had just happened.

“
Because you might not
have done this at all.” Eia cocked her head and smiled. She rubbed
his arm with her hand. “We know how you feel about your son. If you
thought this might place him in danger, you wouldn’t have done what
was needed. This was the only way.”

Ipid knew that he should
have been upset by that confession, but he was too numb. “He’s not
here? You’re sure.”

“
I am now,” Eia sighed.
“At least not that Lord Bairn knows. No one could keep a lie from
me after what I did to him. Not Valatarian himself.”

“
What . . . what did you
do?”

Eia looked at him for a
long time. “I took all the fear and pain and sorrow in the room and
gave it to him in a single moment. That much emotion would overrun
anyone. His mind could not possibly handle it. To lie after feeling
that is . . . impossible.”

Ipid gulped. “And if Dasen
had been here?”

“
That is the reason we
wanted Rynn with us,” Eia admitted. She ran her fingers up into her
hood and through her hair then drove her palms into her eyes. “We
thought that he might convince his friend to come with us
peacefully. Certainly, we hoped that between him and you we might
keep him . . . contained.” She sighed again. “I am sorry to say
that is the reason I was late to help you. I was trying to find
your son, was looking for where he might strike us, searching for a
change in the emotions in the room that would indicate he was using
his powers.”

“
I see,” Ipid said,
feeling more lost than he had throughout this whole horrible
day.

“
I need to lie down,” Eia
said. “I assume there are chambers around here
somewhere?”

“
There should be.” Ipid
tried to think through the buzz in his mind.

“
I will find them. Join me
when you are finished here.” Eia squeezed his hand and walked away.
Naidi joined her a few strides later, hobbling at her side. Ipid
assumed that they spoke, though he could not be sure through the
backs of their hoods. He watched them go then turned to Marshal
Landon, who was standing dumbfounded nearby.

“
You have your orders,
marshal,” Ipid snapped as he recovered his senses.

“
As you command, Lord
Chancellor.” The marshal shot to attention. “Second cadre, secure
the governor and his advisors. No one leaves this building until we
have confirmation from Commander Olinse that the city is secure.”
He turned to find more men to command.

Ipid paid him no more
mind. He strode to the other side of the table and fell into the
large chair at its center. Staring out at the great room, at the
bloodstains on the floor, the bodies piled to the side, the
weeping, moaning prisoners being herded out the door, he felt for
the first time like the tyrant he had been named.

#

Ipid could not take any
more. He stumbled in the direction the knight had pointed, had
insisted that the man not accompany him, hoping that he make it
behind a door before the thread of control he maintained over his
emotions snapped. The images of the Bairn family swinging form the
gallows would not leave him no matter how he tried to push it away
– women weeping and crying, Lord Bairn mumbling and whimpering like
an idiot, his son screaming accusations and curses so that he had
to be gagged, one of the old men singing an old patriotic song, all
of them staring at him, all of them pleading, accusing,
hating.

He stumbled through a door
not even caring if it was the correct one. His legs were numb. His
entire body seemed to be rebelling against the evil its owner had
perpetrated. He fell, caught himself with his injured arm. Pain
lanced up through his shoulder to the base of his skull, replacing
the throb that he had almost learned to ignore. Gasping, holding
the injury, rolling to his back, he gave in.

A ball, arms and legs
tucked, head buried in hands and chest, he wept, blubbering like a
child, like he had not done since he lost his wife. The faces of
the dead played before his eyes, ghosts all of them, taunting him,
teasing him, torturing him with their dead eyes, bloody faces,
bloated bodies. He gasped for air, moaned, wailed as each of his
victims had their turn.

A hand was on him, a soft
touch, a gentle caress. He barely noticed it for the ache that
burned all else to ash. Lips were kissing him. He wept and pounded
the ground. Tears poured from his eyes. His nose burned, chest
hurt. The hands uncurled him from the ball. A body came on top of
him. Barely able to open his eyes, he found a bleary white ghost.
Eia, he knew, but he could barely register her naked body. He
reached his hands up to grab her, to hold her, to be comforted by
her. She pushed them away, held them down and stared at him. He
tried to turn his face away, tried to keep her from seeing the
pain, the weakness that encompassed him.

“
I want your pain,” she
whispered in his ear as she pinned him. “Give it to me. Let me feel
it. Fill me with it.” She moved her hand to his arm, and squeezed
the newly stitched cut. Anguish flooded him. Eia’s cries matched
his.

Chapter 59

The
46
^th
Day of Summer

“
Aren’t we breaking
curfew?” Dasen asked as he climbed into the back of the wagon. The
half-moon had set hours ago, leaving only the blanket of stars
above to illuminate the night. There was no glow on the eastern
horizon, no movement along the streets, no lights in the windows,
no sounds. Even the rats must be sleeping.

And Dasen had been awake
for an hour, nearly nodding off time and again as Mrs. Tappers
applied her pastes and powders, as she forced him into his most
extravagant dress, as she pinned the wig in place. He had been
allowed no breakfast and hushed to silence whenever he opened his
mouth. Ostensibly, that was to allow Teth to keep sleeping, but he
suspected that it was even more to keep the secret of his purpose.
When the costume was ready, Mr. Tappers led him around the bodies
scattered around the common room – not drunks, to his great
surprise, but rather whole families, lying on blankets beneath the
tables, under the bar, in the corners. Finally, they found the
door. It was no surprise to see Valati Lareno and his wagons
waiting, but it was still hours before anyone would be rousing to
give them food.