The Gods Return (54 page)

"Your highness!" Waldron said. "I don't want you to think that I'm afraid—"

Though the army commander had personality defects,
nobody
who knew him would suspect him of cowardice.

"—but the safety of the kingdom depends on this battle. There'll be time for the people in your home village to evacuate. And even if there wasn't, there'll be no hope for them anyway if the rats surround and destroy the royal army."

The ghost in Garric's mind had a dangerous expression, but Garric gave Waldron a lopsided smile. "Milord," he said mildly, "if I ordered you to expend all your efforts in protecting Barca's Hamlet, what would you do?"

Waldron frowned like a thundercloud; then his face slowly cleared. "You wouldn't do that, your highness," he said slowly. "I . . . I hadn't thought or I wouldn't have suggested that your plans were based on where you grew up. Your pardon."

After a further moment he added, "Though of course if you did, I'd obey my orders. I hope I know my duty as a soldier, your highness."

"Much as I thought, Waldron," Garric said with a warmer grin. "My actual train of thought is this: the rats are more agile than we are. In broken terrain they'll always have the advantage. In the hills in particular, they'll be able to get around and above us, even our light troops."

"But our troops are stronger man for man," Waldron agreed with increasing animation, "and we've got discipline that I certainly didn't see in the rats when we engaged them earlier."

He frowned. "But they
will
surround us, your highness."

Garric nodded. "Yes," he said. "We'll win the battle or die, no question about that. But milord, that wasn't really in question to begin with, was it?"

Lord Waldron's expression remained fixed for a moment. Then he barked a laugh and said, "No, I don't suppose there was, your highness. This isn't like fighting the Earl of Sandrakkan, is it? Yes, we'll give the rats a battle—but as you say, it'll be
our
battle, not the one they want."

"Put the men in heavy marching order then, milord," Garric said, echoing the words of the ghost in his mind. "I want a week's rations and water, though I don't think we'll have that much time. We'll have to pack it or push it in handcarts, because we won't be taking any horses and mules."

Waldron sighed, then brightened as they rode together through the east gate of the camp. "Well," he said, "I don't mind marching for a day if there's a chance to kill rats at the other end."

King Carus laughed. "
I'd have gotten along with Waldron, lad
," he said. "
At least until I lost my temper and took his head off. He's got the right idea
this time, by the Shepherd
."

Garric didn't have his ancestor's enthusiasm for battle, but sometimes there was no other choice. He grinned wryly at Tenoctris, then said to Waldron, "I don't know that I'd make that a general rule, but in the present circumstances, milord, I completely agree."

* * *

Ilna smiled coldly as she wove and knotted the long strands. The sisal from a captive's basket was stiff and had a harsh texture, but that made it even better for what she had to do. Not that she really needed more than her own skill.

"You've come to worship me, Ilna os-Kenset," said the King, "though perhaps you didn't know it at the time. You have no choice, you see. Your former gods are gone since the Change, but I've been preparing for this moment for longer than you can count. The gods are dead, and the King of Man is God!"

Usun spun his armed staff like a baton and laughed. "If living in a cave for thousands of years makes you a god, then Mistress Ilna and I just spilled another god into a canyon. Do you have any canyons here, ape boy, or do we need to find another way to dispose of you?"

Ingens was talking to Hervir; they seemed to be paying no attention to the giant ape or their present circumstances. The secretary's posture suggested a degree of deference, but they were still old acquaintances meeting in unexpected circumstances.

"Nothing can harm me here!" said the ape with booming certainty. "You call this a cave, little doll? My congregation has been polishing away the living rock for millennia, creating this sanctuary in which to worship me. I rule men now, but from their prayers in this sacred vault I will rule the cosmos!"

The apes who'd brought Ingens to the cavern were waiting to either side of the doorway, as dull-eyed and motionless as a pair of marble statues. Ilna was glad not to have to deal with them. They were each about the size of a man, but they'd be far stronger. She wasn't sure what effect the pattern she was weaving would have on them.

"Please don't judge us harshly, mistress," said Perrine with a look of misery. "We had no choice."

"The King of Man rules this valley," her brother said. He wouldn't meet Ilna's eyes. "There no will but the King's."

Together the twins whined, "We had no choice!"

There's always a choice
, Ilna thought, but folk like these wouldn't understand that sometimes it's better to die. Her fingers wove and knotted. She'd done worse things than Perrin and Perrine had, but she'd never pretended that she'd been forced to them. Out of hurt and anger she'd surrendered herself to Evil, and for a time thereafter she'd been one of Evil's most subtle and effective tools.

She gave the twins a look of hard appraisal. They weren't even
good
tools . . . though they'd apparently been good enough to trap Ingens and Hervir and—

Ilna let her eyes drift across the huge cavern. Polished out of nothing! Unless the King was lying, and she didn't see any reason he should be.

—tens of tens of tens of men and women. Human beings were no better than sheep! But neither sheep nor humans would be left as prey for wolves while Ilna and her brother were in the world.

"You can put that rag away, mistress," the King said contemptuously. "Nothing harmful to me can exist in this vault. Pray to me and it will go easier for you."

"I don't pray," Ilna said as she wove. "And 'easy' isn't something I've had much experience with, so you needn't expect that that offer would get me to change my mind even if I believed you. Which of course I don't."

"Mistress," said the prince. "The King really can't be attacked here."

"Anywhere in the valley," his sister agreed sadly, "but especially here in his chamber of worship."

Sheep!
thought Ilna. To the great ape she said, "You're afraid that I'm going to make you tear your eyes out, is that it, monkey? No, that isn't what I have in mind."

"Are you too stupid to understand?" said the King said. "You can do nothing to me! No fabric of yours can touch me. I cannot be attacked!"

The lungs in that huge chest gave the words the volume of an ox bawling, but the hollow chamber drank it nonetheless. The captive humans fell to their knees in terror, the prince and princess along with the others. Perhaps that was an effect of the drugged wine too.

Ilna met the beast's gaze squarely. The beetling brows and massive jaws would've given it an angry expression anyway, but she didn't doubt that it was really angry. Stiff silvery bristles stood up along its spine. She hadn't actually
done
anything, but the mere fact that she wasn't bowing and scraping was enough to infuriate it.

There were human beings like that, of course. She had a short way with them too.

"I'll giving you a final chance," Ilna said. She wondered if she'd make the offer if she thought there was the least chance the beast would take it. Perhaps, perhaps she would . . . but the creature
wasn't
going to accept. "Release all these humans. Take no more. And I'll let you live here and rule the little monkeys for as long as you please."

"I will pluck your limbs off," said the King. There was a touch of rumbling wonder in his voice; he was no longer shouting. "I will pluck them off, and as your torso writhes on the floor you will pray to me for the mercy of death—which I will not grant!"

"When people learn my skill with patterns . . . ," Ilna said in a conversational voice. She had a sufficient fabric already, but since the time was available she continued to embellish the present design. "They often ask me if I could foretell the future."

She gave the King a hard smile. Her mind was considering what would happen next, and after that, and the next thing following . . . but that was out of her control. What she
could
control was what would happen to the beast before her, the one who'd enslaved humans for . . . well, the ape was probably correct in saying it was more years than she could count. That would end.

"And I can, of course, or at any rate I could," Ilna said. "I don't do that because I've genuinely been trying not to injure people ever since Garric freed me from Hell, not to mince words. I'm going to make an exception for you though, ape king."

"You cannot harm me here!" the King said, stepping forward. His legs were dwarfishly short, but the arm that reached toward her was twice the length of a man's. The fingers ended in claws like plowshares.

"Is it an attack to show you the truth?" Ilna said, spreading the pattern she'd knotted.

The King stumped another step forward. Ilna realized with a sudden shock that his eyes were closed.

Usun jabbed the pointed staff into the ape's instep. He bellowed and opened his shrouded eyes in surprise, then went stiff. It was like he'd been struck by lightning.

Ilna backed. She folded the pattern between her hands so that none of the human slaves would see it. It would have a different effect on them than it did on the King, but she presumed it would be a different
bad
effect. The details of the future depended on the person, but the basic facts would be the same: everyone died. Everything died. All existence ended in death.

"It cannot be," the King said in a wondering voice. "This is a dream, a sending from an enemy."

Ilna sniffed. "It's quite true, whatever you've seen," she said. "That's the future,
your
future."

She hadn't been sure how the ape would respond, but she hadn't expected denial. Partly because avoiding the truth wasn't something she would do herself, but largely out of pride: Ilna assumed that a pattern she wove would penetrate to the soul of whoever saw it, beyond the ability of his conscious mind to deny.

Her mouth quirked into a wry smile. Perhaps she'd been wrong and would very shortly pay for that pride with her life. Mistakes should be punished, so she wouldn't complain.

"It's a dream," the King said. "A
dream
!"

He lowered his arms to his sides, but his muscles were knotting and his fists clenched into hairy mallets. Spittle bubbled at the corners of his jaw. It appeared that the pattern had worked after all.

The prisoners kneeling in adoration began slowly to get to their feet and move back. They'd drifted forward since Ilna entered, but the behavior of their king and god was visibly repelling them.

The King screamed like a rabbit in a leg snare, but louder. Even in this vast chamber, the impact of the sound made Ilna want to clasp her hands to her ears. She continued to hold the folded sisal pattern.

The great ape shook his head as though he'd been hit on the forehead with a mallet. His ruby crown winked in the foul green light; he raised his hands to it.

"Your majesty?" said Prince Perrin. "Your majesty, what should we do?"

The King flexed his arms, pulling the gold wires of the crown apart. He flung the pieces blindly to either side, the silken strap fluttering behind one half. When they hit the wall, rubies popped from their settings and clicked across the stone floor.

Princess Perrine fell to her knees and began to cry. Ilna sneered at her in disgust.

The ape grasped his robes and ripped them off with a jerk. Ilna raised an eyebrow. She knew it took strength to tear metal, even a soft metal like gold, but she
understood
how tough silk brocade was. This beast could have pulled her apart by main strength if he'd grasped her by thigh and shoulder.

The King's scream turned to a series of explosive grunts. He fell onto all fours, then lunged forward as suddenly as a racehorse when the bar lifts.

Ingens shouted and jumped aside. The ape's shoulder caught him a glancing blow nonetheless. He sprawled into Hervir, who'd been running for the wall even though he hadn't been in the way of the beast's charge to begin with. The men spun spread-eagled in opposite directions on the polished floor.

Perrin and Perrine screamed. The King's thunderous grunts smothered that human sound. The prisoners flattened against the wall; some of them faced the stone, others covered their eyes with their hands.

The King's lowered head smashed into the pillar left when the chamber was pounded out of the living rock. Bone cracked like a maul pounding a cliff face, only louder.

The ape bounced back and onto the floor in a sitting position. Blood smeared the black stone, and the beast's face was a mass of blood. Prisoners bawled in horror and amazement.

The King rose slowly onto his hind legs. Ilna fingered her lasso. It wouldn't be of the least use against the huge ape, but if he came at her she'd try to drop it over his tree-trunk neck regardless.

The other choice was her utility knife. She wasn't sure its blade was long enough to reach the beast's vitals. If she had to choose between two useless weapons, she'd pick the cord.