The Lady (7 page)

“Some of that crowd would have torn her to pieces, dead as she was,” sniffed the niece. “So we turned off. These just followed.”

“The senate,” remarked Tulip, to the sky, “is more or less appointed by the Beholder of the Face of the Lady.”

“Oh,” said Jugurthos. “I meant the other senate.”

“There isn't another senate.”

“No. But I think—since the Red Masks appear to have enemies who can destroy them at last—there will be.”

A curt order and his patrols headed back to the gate, shepherding the sandal-maker and his niece with them. About two-thirds of the suburb-folk followed, more than Jugurthos expected.

“The law against bearing weapons in the city streets is not in abeyance,” he said, as the gate shut behind them. “But—” as there was a growl from some of the caravaneers, “—under these circumstances, for this one time only, you can consider yourselves requested to assist the street guard in protecting Master Ergos.” Aside to Tulip he added, “Get the damned armoury unlocked and arm the patrols. Tell them right off, there's a devil ruling the temple in the Lady's name. Tell them, they're sworn to protect the city and see the law's kept. The city's law, not the temple's. But any you decide you can't trust, don't arm.” He named a few names. Tulip added several more. “And then, take a messenger's baton in case you're stopped and get to the apothecary's. Tell Hadidu I need him here. I need him to speak to the people.”

“Are you serious?”

All or nothing. The last rush, the last leap to the far lip of the chasm, the sword-bridge falling away beneath him.

“Yes.”

“Captain,” said the old man. “Captain—what's your name?”

“Jugurthos,” he said. “Barraya. Son of Senator Petrimos Barraya and Senator Elias.”

Ergos was more than old enough to remember those names. He breathed out a long “Ahhh,” and nodded, something understood. Stood a little straighter, took his great-niece's arm, rather than leaning on her. “Look, girl,” he said. “Here's the true head of Family Barraya. He's no temple puppet. We're all right.”

Or all dead together.

“We're going to carry your wife to the market,” said Jugurthos. “The priest of Ilbialla—”

“
Priest?
A priest of Ilbialla? Are the gods returned?”

“No,” said Jugurthos. “But that doesn't mean Marakand can't keep faith with them. The priest will come to give your wife a blessing for the road at Ilbialla's tomb.” Not that the poor empty corpse was likely to have any ghost yet clinging to it. “Itulyan,” he called back over his shoulder. “Get those copies made,
now
. And add at the end,
Come now to the Sunset Gate Market. Witness for yourselves. Hear what must be said, in the name of the true gods of Marakand
. I'll see to their sealing myself.” With his mother's seal, which he'd managed to hold onto through everything.

Testimony, for some few of the gate and ward captains he was almost certain of, for particular senators and magistrates he thought, maybe, he could move. For certain elderly men and women, powerful in the Families, who were not high in the temple's favour, who had lived quiet and retired long years now . . .

And then?

And then, what followed, followed.

Ilbialla and Gurhan and the true Lady, if there had ever been a true Lady, be with them all.

CHAPTER IV

Her thoughts were filled with voices, and all of them were hers. Zora, who was a temple dancer. Tu'usha, who was one of the seven devils of the stories of the north, who had once walked among the stars. The Lady, who was the goddess of the deep well of Marakand, betrayed by Tu'usha. Sien-Mor.

No, not Sien-Mor. Tu'usha had been bound as one with Sien-Mor, conjoined souls, but the wizard of the southern ocean was dead. She must be dead. She had burned. She-Sien-Mor was she-Zora, now.

But the thoughts yammered and piled upon her, a great tsunami to drown and crush and batter, and that was Sien-Mor's thought, she-Zora knew nothing of oceans, had never seen a lake, never even seen water flow in the dry river, the ravine that crooked like a bent arm to embrace Marakand. The most water she had ever known was in the temple baths. But in her mind, she saw a great wave, and she stood on a high hill and heard the gulls and the cries and—these thoughts that were hers and yet not hers—who was she who thought them, heard them? They drowned her.

Fool and coward girl!

She had fled the battle.

No. She had retreated. That was common sense. She was no blood-mad Northron berserker to stand to death, believing glory and songs better than the achievement of one's long aim. She had withdrawn from the suburb. She would return. And it would burn.

Not yet. No, not yet. The better part of her strength, the Lady's strength, her Red Masks, lay far away. She still drew on them, as all were one, one web of power, and she at its heart, sustained and sustaining, but they were not here. She must await their coming.

On her orders, the bells had rung from gate-tower to ward blockhouse, all over the city, the jangling peals of the all-in curfew, not briefly, as at sunset when the city gates were closed, but a long, unceasing peal, warning the folk to get themselves withindoors, to clear the streets or face arrest. Warning the captains of the city gates to close them, to seal the city against enemies within or without.

Both, maybe.

No warlord great enough to get his army past the Western Wall at the distant end of the pass had arisen in the Four Deserts in living memory; it was nearly twenty years since so much as a raider band had swept up to threaten the suburb, though the wall had now fallen mostly into ruin.

The Lady taxed the caravan road to repair it. The work had been ongoing for years.

The enemy at the city's gates now had not passed in by the Western or the Eastern Walls, except in the ordinary way of trade. They were caravaneers of the road, merchants' folk, even traitor folk of Marakand who had their homes and shops in the suburb. They were her enemies, Marakand's enemies. She was the Lady of Marakand. Her name was Zora.

Be calm. Breathe slowly. Let peace and stillness rise.

The white silk of scarves and surcoat flattened to her and streamed aside, stained dark. She stank. But she made a beautiful image, she knew, her slender figure straight and strong, her cascading dark hair come loose and blowing like a banner, the white silk rippling in the rising wind, and the blood against the white, the red-lacquered armour beneath, reminded those who might look up—huddled whispering clusters of priests, small mounds of yellow robe, from here—that she had fought for them, fought for their city. The long shadows of the westering sun framed her; she gleamed in the golden light of the dying day. Their goddess no longer hid, timid and shy, withdrawn in her well, speaking through a mad priestess.
I am my own mad priestess now
. They had seen how she rode ahead of them. She fought for Marakand. Marakand was hers to fight for.

Beneath her Zora could see the temple enclave, a depression below the level of the city like the footprint of a giant's horse, circled with cliff and wall, the gatehouse where the only entrance from the city plunged down a tunnel cut through the rock. To the north was the ravine, the dry riverbed; the temple wall there, ancient wall and buildings, was city wall. That was how the assassin who had slain the Voice of the Lady and doomed her, damned her, doomed and damned Zora, had found his way into the temple, through a forgotten and abandoned door high on the wall, where once had been a landing for boats. When there had been boats. When there had been a river. Some of her Red Masks had returned to her by that door, and they guarded it now, but that was not enough. The wizard and the bear-demon and the dog who was not a demon—but she did not want to think what he might be, what he must not be, could not be, not
him
not here not—of course he was not. Her brother would never so demean himself as to take the body of a dog—

Zora had no brother.

Hush, hush, hush. Be still
.

—they might come that way. They would kill more Red Masks, if they did. So few were left to her. She would be starved of human wizardry if they attacked again. She had sent too many of her servants east with the captain of her Red Masks, her beautiful golden captain, whom she would make high king of Praitan in the Lady's name, once Praitan was restored to Marakand.

She could not risk the few who remained to her against the Grasslander wizard and her demon and the dog, not now. Not until her captain returned. She could not risk the loss of any more nodes in the web of her wizardry, which was not hers. Neither Zora, nor bodiless Tu'usha nor the Lady of Marakand were wizards as Sien-Mor had been. The wellsprings of human wizardry no longer lay within her, for all the wizard's knowledge she possessed. She had made the Red Masks to be not her wizards but her wizardry, to restore what was lost with Sien-Mor's death.

So. She must wait. She must hold here, until her captain returned. He was Red Mask, but he was a great wizard and swordsman. She would set him against the Grasslander, she would set him against the demon of the earth, the bear, she would set him even against the dog, whatever it truly was, and then she would have many Red Masks, the wizards of Praitan Over-Malagru, and the wealth of Praitan would be the seed of an empire, and Marakand would be strong, Marakand would be great, and it would be her fortress against what she knew gathered in the west.

She had only to hold, to wait.

Zora narrowed her eyes. Wait, until the wizard great enough to break even her spells—woven of human wizardry, strong with many silenced voices—rode the demon to her very gates? Wait till the—call him monster, spirit, creature of the mountains, call him anything but what he must not be, could not be, was not, surely was not—

—he is a devil and you I do not know his name.

—No. Never.
No
.

—wait till the dog came to try his strength against hers?

No. He was some creature of the mountain-goddess. No devil. Not possible.

Wizardry was humanity. Wizardry was of this world. Wizardry was not hers, not Zora's; the knowledge was dead Sien-Mor's, but the magic flowed from others.

But she did not need it. Not for what now lay in her mind. There was a cost, but it would not be paid by her, and she was beyond caring. If the earth itself lay dead and barren, soul seared—it was only a little scar.

If, for those who could read it, it was a sign that she was here, that she was—what she was—so be it.
He
—and he was not the dog was not he—he her brother Sien-Shava
I have no brother
knew already.

He would know, he must know, he would come, she had been fool to leave the well to take form to take flesh that might call him, flesh to flesh to blood to blood not his flesh not his blood not his never his Sien-Mor was dead—

Hush, hush, hush
.

Yes
.

She had learnt of the demon who had guarded her in her tomb, her prison of undying flame. She had learnt fire. Sien-Mor, in her dying, had known fire.

Fire would guard her, and fire, this fire, needed no wizardry.

She called fire. Fire answered.

In the streets bordering the temple wall in Greenmarket Ward, where the fodder-sellers came, and in Templefoot Ward, and the East Ward, and in the wilderness of the ravine along the temple's stretch of the city wall, fire was born. It was small, at first, a shimmer, a shiver in the air, a heat as of noontide sun. There were houses and shops backing against the temple's wall in all three wards, and in them, beams began to smoke, the first white smoke, reaching and coiling, of a log thrown on the fire. Householders who noticed ran for their water-jars, ran to private cisterns or public wells, but almost as one, roofbeams, floorbeams, cracked and spat, furnishings blackened and crisped, writhing. Dogs and cats fled into the streets. They were mostly small houses, narrow, yardless, stacked high, floor built on unsteady floor. Zora watched as if she walked among them. Porches, balconies, smoked and charred. Bedding smouldered, oil-jars burst into flame, meal and rice likewise, and householders fled, all-in curfew or no.

Then the whole was burning, plaster crumbling to dust, roofs falling, almost as one, almost silent, only a dull and distant rumble. No great scarlet flames striking high, no roar of furious air. A shimmer, a heat haze, and the small yellow-white flames, dancing on the ruins. It was their own fault they lost all, those wailing folk; each and every house had been built contrary to the city law, hard against her walls. Most folk had made it out. Most. Not all. Even Zora could not care, mesmerized by the dancing of her flames. She must not care. If she screamed and shrieked and wept—

The Lady did not scream. She was their goddess and their lives were hers, to spend as she needed.

The Lady wept. Did she? Her face was wet. Pointless. Tu'usha—she was Tu'usha, she must remember she was Tu'usha, true name, true self—laughed and opened her arms to the city.

“Come to me now, if you dare!” But who it might be she taunted, she did not know.

She left the roof, down the narrow stairs, the dark ones, down within the walls, to the maze of mundane rooms that backed the great central hall under the dome where the dancers danced the worship of the Lady, where the Voice in days now ended had conveyed the Lady's will from the high pulpit, hidden behind her silver mask, muttering and shrieking, hands writhing, her mind long ago broken.

Murdered, the Voice, by the assassin who was now captain of her Red Masks.
His fault, he had done this to her, Zora would have been gone out of the temple in a month more, free. . .
. No.
She is I am the Lady
. The death of the Voice had set her free, given her the spur to action, the sign that her time of passive hiding was past. The Lady had no need of a Voice. The Lady was incarnate now and spoke in her own voice. Zora's voice.