The Gods Return (55 page)

The King had stopped grunting, though his breath blasted like that of an angry ox. Instead of turning to Ilna, he lurched forward and gripped the pillar between his spread arms. With his hands to anchor him, he slammed his head against the stone, slumped, then whipped his head into the pillar again. This time there was a splintering overtone to the hollow
Whock!

The beast collapsed slowly, its long arms still about the pillar. Its legs, no longer gripping the floor, splayed to left and right until the massive chest lay flat on the stone. Blood and brains leaked from the broken skull.

There was a moment of silence. Then the prisoners began to keen in amazement.

Interlude

Nivers, high priest of Franca, chanted, "
Erebani akuia pseus!
" and stabbed with the dagger of gray-green volcanic glass. The man face up on the altar shrieked in the grip of four ratmen.

Nivers dragged the blade from neck to belly along the victim's breastbone, where the ribs were still cartilage; the victim's screams gurgled to silence. The ratmen carried his body, still sloshing blood, to the edge of the terrace and flung it as far out as they could into the fire filling the plaza below.

The priest slumped, waiting for the next sacrifice. He'd had to use the strength of both tired arms to finish the cut. He'd need a fresh knife soon, another fresh knife. The ratmen kept bringing them, but only Nivers could carry out the rites since Salmson had accompanied Emperor Baray and the army.

Gangs of ratmen carried timbers—whole trees, often enough—to the tops of the buildings on the other three sides, then hurled them down into the great fire in the plaza. Though the wood was green, the fire's immense heat exploded it into instant ravening life.

The corpses of the victims flung from the fourth side burst, then shriveled in black, oily smoke. Even the bones burned.

Ratmen were bringing another victim up the steps on the back side of the pyramid. The blaze sent its red glow through the crystal of all the surrounding structures. When Nivers looked down, it was as if he were standing above a lake of fire instead of being on the topmost terrace of the Temple of Franca.

It didn't matter to Nivers where he looked or what he saw; the waking world existed for him only as a problem to be solved. The ash and stench of the holocaust swirled, and the heat of the fire hammered him even though he was shaded from its direct radiance.

This was a crisis which threatened the return of the Gods. Nothing mattered save that.

Four ratmen carried the next sacrifice, one on each limb; they'd given up trying to get the victims to climb the steps by themselves. The smell of burning flesh made their coming fate obvious; indeed, many of them fainted before they reached the top.

"Your holiness, it's me, Marisca!" this one screamed. She still wore the short jacket and diaphanous pantaloons she'd been given when she became a member of the high priest's harem. "You remember me! You can't do this!"

Nivers did remember her when he cast his mind back, though he couldn't have put a name to her. Names didn't matter, and she didn't matter.

"I
love
you!" the girl said. Her eyes were open but empty, cold blue chips of terror.

The ratmen threw her onto the altar which the fires below jeweled garnet and topaz. "
Erebani akuia pseus!
" Nivers chanted. He chopped down, then ripped the knife toward himself.

A spurt of blood blinded him. He tore off a leg of Marisca's pantaloons to wipe his face, then blinked until tears had cleared his eyes enough that he could see again.

The rest of his harem had gone before. There were almost no humans in Palomir save Nivers himself. On those few potential sacrifices depended the return of the Gods.

One more sacrifice being carried to the top of the temple. The steps were steep, but the ratmen seemed indefatigable. Their individual strength wouldn't be enough, though, not now that the Gate of Ivory had been closed. Only the Gods Themselves could tip the balance.

The ratmen reached the terrace; Nivers straightened and took a firm grip on the glass knife. It would do for one more sacrifice, and that a slip of a girl.

"You senile old pervert!" the victim said.

He blinked. The girl was Anone; he remembered her from the days he'd been only Nivers the high priest, not the avatar of Franca. Anone had been his favorite, the youngest and freshest of his harem. But now . . . .

The ratmen spread-eagled her on the altar. It was crystal like the rest of the temple, but days of blood baked by sunlight and fire had coated most of it with a crusty black. Her body gleamed in nude white contrast.

"I'd rather die than have you touch me again!" the girl cried. "I'd rather die! I'd rather—"

Nivers stabbed. Anone belched blood, blinding him again. The hot, black smoke of the pyre wrapped and raised Nivers, filling him with the immanence of godhead.

Smoke and the thunderheads lowering above Palomir merged into a mighty figure in the sky. His beard streamed with storm clouds, His fingers crackled with the lightning. He turned and strode purposefully to the west.

No eyes but those of ratmen were present to watch Him go.

Cashel took two steps out from the castle door, far enough that the women could follow him, and then stopped to take stock. Three or maybe four double-paces away, a man sat on the stoop of a log cabin; he had one foot up on the railing. There wasn't anything unusual about the cabin or him either one, save that they were a bit outsized: the man was easily two hand's-breadths taller than Cashel, and the cabin was built to its owner.

There was a door in the middle of the front wall and a window to either side of it. The roof was board underneath from the ends sticking out at the eaves, but it'd been sodded over; buttercups now grew in the grass.

Pines with chestnuts and a smattering of other hardwoods spread toward the distant mountains behind the cabin, and the usual little trees—sweet gums, dogwoods, and the like—filled in the spaces. Behind Cashel and the women was a lake; he could see across, but it stretched out of sight to right and left.

A dugout canoe was drawn up on the mud shoreline; the pair of milk cows standing knee-deep in the shallow water looked back at him. The castle and the door Cashel had come out of were nowhere to be seen.

A loon called from the invisible distance. You might think it was a lost soul if you'd never heard the real thing.

Cashel laid the quarterstaff into the crook of his left arm instead of holding it ready for use. He smiled and called, "Hello the house!"

"Hello yourself," the big man said, lifting himself from the puncheon bench he'd been sitting on. He was taller than he was broad, but his shoulders were pretty impressive. "I don't get many visitors here."

He paused for a moment, clearly considering his next words. "Come and set," he said at last. "You and your friends."

Cashel walked up slow and easy, keeping the smile. The man wore a leather tunic with no weapons in sight. As big as he was, the bench itself would make a club if he thought he needed anything. Cashel hadn't any wish to make the fellow think that.

"My name's Cashel or-Kenset," he said, stopping at the edge of the stoop. He nodded to the women. "This is Lady Liane, and that's Rasile. She's a Corl."

The cows had gone back to drinking. They were in milk so there must be a bull around somewhere; maybe it was corralled in a clearing deeper into the forest.

"Rasile," the big man said, letting the syllables roll on his tongue. He wasn't a giant, but even Garric would have to look up to meet his eyes. "I haven't met a Corl before."

Returning to Cashel—a man talking to a man, not presuming to talk directly to the other fellow's women—he said, "Can I offer you anything? I've got milk cooling in the springhouse, and water of course."

"Sir," said Cashel, fishing in his sash. "We were told to give you this. We've been sent here to release a man named Gorand. He's a hero and he's needed back in Dariada."

He held the coin out in the palm of his right hand. The silver had joined perfectly, like it had never been broken.

The big man took the coin between thumb and forefinger; he held it up to view one side, then the other. He spun it in the air, caught it, and said, "I don't have much to do with money now."

He quirked a smile at all his visitors, not just Cashel. "Well, I never did," he said. "I was a warrior, not a merchant."

He spun the coin again, then squeezed it in his left hand. His face hardened in appraisal. "I'm Gorand," he said, "and now you've released me. Why?"

"Master Cashel?" Liane said quietly. "Would you like me to join the discussion?"

"Yes, ma'am," Cashel said, feeling enormous relief. "Master Gorand, I'm a shepherd. Liane, ah, Lady Liane's able to tell you about all this better than I ever could."

He stepped aside gratefully. Gorand looked him up and down, then grinned. "It seems to me that you might be just be able to tell me something, boy.
Might
."

Cashel spread his stance a little without thinking about it. He kept the staff as it was, though, looking about as innocent as a solid, iron-shod length of hickory could.

"Sir," he said and paused to clear his throat. His voice had gotten thick; the words sort of growled out. "Sir, I've got business to take care of right now. Afterwards if you want to look me up, sure. If that's what you want."

Gorand laughed. "No, that's not what I want, boy," he said. "At least not with a quarterstaff. Did you ever use a sword?"

"No sir," Cashel said. He hated swords, always had. Given the choice he'd pick a round iron bar before he would a sword. "But if that's what you want, we can try swords."

Rasile gave a ripping snarl. "Males posturing!" she said. "Are we not all the same clan today? Stop this!"

"Sorry ma'am," Gorand muttered at pretty much the same moment as Cashel was saying, "Sorry, Rasile," with his face turned toward the hard-tramped ground at his side.

"Yes," said Liane firmly. "Lord Gorand, the city of Dariada is being menaced by an army of pirates."

"And?" said Gorand. "For in my day, Dariada had walls that no mob of masterless men could threaten."

"There are still walls," Liane said, giving Gorand a little nod to show she appreciated his mind. "But the pirates have a Worm. They would say they control a Worm, I suspect, but you know better than anyone else that no one controls a Worm."

Gorand laughed long and savagely, waking a smile from Cashel's lips. Cashel had met big men and strong men in the past, but this fellow was a
man
, right enough.

"
I
controlled one!" he said. "The Shepherd knows I did, lady!"

"Yes," said Liane. "And the Tree Oracle of Dariada said that we must release you to save the city this time also."

"Ah, the Tree Oracle," Gorand said, chuckling without the fierce passion of a moment ago. He gestured to the bench and added, "Won't you sit, milady?"

"Thank you, no," Liane said primly. "Milord, will you return with us to Dariada now?"

"The citizens of Dariada sent me here after I settled the Worm the first time," Gorand said, letting his eyes rove over the forest on the other side of the lake. "They were supposed to leave me with this—"

He tossed the silver coin and caught it by the edges as it spun, a neat trick.

"—so that I could return when I pleased. But they didn't."

He met Cashel's eyes. "They gave it to you instead," he said.

Cashel didn't speak; he'd put this in Liane's hands. If there was something for him to deal with, well, he'd do that.

"The coin was in the hands of a pair of wizards," Liane said, just as coolly as before. "We don't know how they came by it. One of them took me prisoner. Master Cashel—"

She nodded at him.

"—freed me and took the coin from them."

"Did he, now?" Gorand said, flipping the coin and looking at Cashel. "So, Cashel . . . do you think the good people of Dariada didn't mean to strand me here? That it was all just an accident?"

Cashel shrugged. "Sir," he said, "I don't know. I didn't much take to the folk of Dariada when I was there, but it's not the same ones as in your time, not by a long ways. And anyhow, I'm not from a city myself. I don't like any any city I've been in, and I don't generally warm to the people who live in them."

Liane was looking at him with no expression at all. She wanted to break in, but she was afraid to. Gorand had asked Cashel, not her.

Cashel knew how she felt, but he was going to tell this his own way. He and Gorand were both men, and they didn't see things the way women—and city folk—did.

"But none of that matters, sir," Cashel said. "We're shepherds, you and me. Not because we like the ones we're looking after, maybe, but because we're the ones who
can
look after them. Right?"

Gorand chuckled. "That's so, isn't it?" he said. He tossed the coin from one hand to the other, then stepped forward and clasped Cashel, right arm to right arm. "All right, Cashel. I'll go back to Dariada."

They leaned back and parted hands. "Warrior Gorand," said Rasile. "Take us with you, if you will."

Cashel looked at her. He'd been expecting they'd be taking Gorand back, not the other way around. Though how, he now realized, was a good question what with the door and the castle not being there any more.