The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) (34 page)

Ahmed rose with a sigh and
stared at the flames. “Do you truly want to know my vision? It
has not changed since you first knew I bore this gift, since I
pointed to that place on the map. We are not here to destroy Nihlos,
or rescue slaves, or even gather information for the prince. We are
here to put an end to Torium, and Yazid would not listen.” He
kicked at a stone, sending it off into the snow. “If I had
been stronger, if I had fought him, he would still be alive today.
But I was weak, and acted like a boy, and he went to his doom. I am
a coward.”

“Ah, no, I will not hear
of that. You may be young and foolish, but you are no coward.”

“Then why did I not fight
Yazid, when I knew he was wrong?”

“It was not Yazid that
made you flinch. It was the will of Ilaweh himself you chose not to
defy.”

Ahmed looked at him in
confusion. “Eh?”

Sandilianus cocked his head and
looked at Ahmed with bewildered eyes. When he spoke, it was as if he
were trying to communicate with a child. “Ilaweh called Yazid
to him as a reward, and to leave you with no crutch to lean on. It
is the same as with Brutus and me. Yazid died well, so that you
would have no choice but become the man Ilaweh wanted you to be: the
man in this place, now, with me.”

Ahmed gave a sad laugh. “You
still call me boy, though.”

“Aye, it is my way.”
Sandilianus laid a hand on Ahmed’s shoulder and looked him in
the eye. “But would a boy have given the order to attack those
dogs back there, knowing the risks? No, only a man of exceptional
courage would have done that.”

“Or a madman.”

Sandilianus shook his head in
denial. “Truly, Ahmed, I think I would have let the foreigners
die. It was not practical. But saving them was
righteous
,
and Ilaweh walked with us because of that. You saw that. I did not.
I
could
not. Not until you
explained it to me.”

Ahmed stared intently at
Sandilianus for long moments, considering. “Then are you with
me, brother? Will you follow me into that pit and put whatever lies
there to the sword?”

Sandilanus smiled and nodded
without hesitation. “Aye, or at least die well by your side,
and so will our men. But how could we destroy such a place?”

“I spoke to the
sorcerers' leader. We are to palaver tonight, after we make camp
outside Nihlos. He claims to know much.”

“Does he know of this
Torium?”

“He says so, and I
believe him. It's the best we have.”

Sandilianus banged his fist
against his chest. “Ilaweh is great. It will be enough.”

“Ilaweh is great,”
Ahmed answered with a confident grin. But privately, he was anything
but certain about how things would play out. Perhaps there was no
hope to avoid doom, and never had been.

I think we have a chance.
It was the best they could hope for. It would have to be enough.

I do not belong here.
That single thought resonated in Rithard's mind like a scalpel
scraping along bone, as he looked in awe at the great desk, the
fireplace, the shelves of books of the Library of Amrath.

The
funeral had been a spectacular affair, which was another way of
saying everyone had wasted a tremendous amount of time, money, and
energy disposing of the corpse of someone that they didn't even
know. Of those that did, many had loathed her.
It would have been
far more dignified had we sent her on privately, just a few of us
from Amrath.

Prandil
said she had leapt from the top of a wall, convinced she had
recovered her Meite powers. It was a pathetic lie, made all the more
pathetic by the fact that her heir was also her coroner. There
hadn't even been a need to open her up. One look at the blood
spatter showed she had been flung at the wall with killing force,
the sort only a Meite might muster with his bare hands. Only a fool
could examine the scene and not know Prandil had killed her.

The
problem being that everyone
was
a fool, most Meites included.
Rithard was alone with the knowledge. It would do no good to expose
the lie. It was what everyone wanted to believe, and self deception
was a high art in Nihlos. No one, least of all the ignorant, would
appreciate his contradicting the official story. Meites killing each
other was of less concern than commoners slitting one another's
throats, as long as they kept it to themselves. Even Caelwen would
simply say there was no proof, whatever his own thoughts.

I might sleep better if I
could bring myself to think the same thing
.
But he had, unlike Meites, never been good at lying to himself.
I
am as guilty as Prandil.

Teretha,
as if reading his thoughts, caressed his cheek and whispered in his
ear, “You will bring this house back to glory, Rithard.”

“I
will bury it's dead, Mother. But breathe life back into it? I'm not
the man for that task, however fortunate you've been in your
machinations.” He glared pointedly at her. “

Teretha's eyes narrowed in
anger. “I was protecting
you.
I
never
intended this! I sought her as an ally, not en enemy.”

“Is
that so?” Rithard asked, his tone saying he didn't believe it
for even a moment.

Teretha
drew back her hand as if to slap him, then seemed to reconsider.
“Even you couldn't have predicted that chain of events.”

Rithard
gazed warily at her a moment before submitting and turning back to
look at the shelves of books again. “No. It's unfair of me to
accuse you. But my own guilt is not so easily set aside.”

The
old slave, Slat, cleared his throat. “If I may say so, sir,
her choosing you was no accident. But I can only speak of that to
you.”

Teretha
gave Slat a sour look, but nodded and departed the room.

Rithard
nodded respectfully to Slat. “You've taught me any number of
lessons with a switch. What would you teach me with words, now?”

“First,
she had already renounced her vengeance on you. I heard her say it
in this very room, that she held no grudge for you trying to keep
yourself alive. She just wished you had sought her protection.”

“And
second?”

Slat reached beneath his robe
and produced a sealed letter, and a small leather packet. “I
believe you will find some of the answers you seek within, young
Master.”

Rithard took the letter and
packet from him. “What's this, then?”

“Instructions, from
Mistress Narelki,” he said, indicating the letter. “Not
for my eyes.”

Rithard held out the leather
packet. “And this?”

The old slave seemed pained, as
if even looking at the packet caused him some harm. “My first
thought is to say it is cursed. As for what lies within, I can't say
for certain, but I know there are secrets there, passed down from
Amrath himself. Things no one in Nihlos knows, things that could
start wars, ruin lives.”

“Such things generally
are,” Rithard observed as he toyed with the catch on the
package. “Cursed, I mean.”

“Heirlooms?”

Rithard grunted at this.
“Secrets. Fortunately, I have some experience working with
them. Perhaps I can avoid the grim fate others have found.”

Slat nodded, the ghost of a
smile on his lips “Perhaps. I will leave you to peruse it,
young master.” He bowed somewhat stiffly, his joints no doubt
pained, and stepped out of the library.

Rithard waited until the huge
doors were closed again, then took his two new bits of evidence to
the great desk and pondered them a moment. He looked about and
found, to his pleasure, several small glass tumblers. He drew a
small bottle from his coat and poured three fingers into it.
Medicinal? No, not this time. Just for pleasure.
He
adjusted the lantern on the desk, broke the seal on the letter, and
began to read.

Rithard,

Forgive me.

Forgive me for not
recognizing you as family when I should have. Forgive me for being
so blinded by my own needs that I did not see yours. Most of all,
forgive me for placing a burden on your shoulders that you are ill
equipped and untrained to bear. You have shown me you have genius
and resilience, courage and cunning. You have shown me you can and
will serve this house in capacities beyond your comfort zone. You
will need those qualities now. The Great Father calls you to step in
and fill the breach.

I will not explain myself to
you beyond noting that I acted as I chose. Take no vengeance. This
was my will, and it is my right to command you on this.

As for the rest, I will not
deign to advise you overmuch. Trust Slat for guidance, and remember
that he is wise and old. He has served us beyond what we ought to
have asked of him, and when you can make your way without him, I
urge you to retire him with dignity. Let him live out his last years
in comfort. He will never tell you how tired he is, or how much he
aches, both in his body and his soul. He has suffered much in our
service. As a physician, I trust you will see this more clearly than
even I did, and serve him as he has served us.

It is a heavy burden I place
upon you. I know this all too well. Nihlos has ever looked upon
House Amrath as arbiters, speakers of truth or at least not of lies.
Do not embarrass us. As to how to accomplish that, I can offer no
counsel, or even a good example. I can only hope I have chosen well.

Slat will have given you The
Papers. That is the only name I know for it. It contains the private
thoughts and knowledge of every House leader since Amrath. We have,
all of us, recorded truths we chose not to reveal to others, but
that we wanted our heirs to possess. Amrath's are, of course, the
greatest, and when you learn them, you will know much about Nihlos
that you did not before. You will understand more clearly why I harp
upon the notion that your position is a great responsibility.

I urge you to take note of
one truth in particular, that I myself recorded. It has to do with
the true nature of Theron Tasinal's death, and the subsequent cover
up. Many of the secrets in this packet should never see the light of
day, but this truth, I think, may be an exception.

That decision, though, I
leave to you. As for me, I must fight my own battle, and die well.
Know that I was the aggressor, that I intended to kill, and if you
are reading this, I failed. I am wrong in what I intend. I know it
all too well. I plot cold-blooded ambush and murder of someone who
least suspects it, because I see no other way. I fight, for all the
wrong reasons, against someone trying to do the right thing, because
in the end I cannot accept the truth: my son has become a monster,
and much of the blame for it falls at my own feet. I must do
something
,even if it
is the wrong thing. It is preferable to simply accepting the
dictates of fate.

The decisions you make from
now on will carry the same sort of impact. Choose wisely, or if not,
at least choose willfully. The Great Father would have had it no
other way.

Rithard
folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope, his vision
blurring with tears he didn't fully understand.
Such pride
and quiet passion. I will do my best to be a worthy successor.

He
took another drink and considered The Papers.
Such
powerful information. And what connections will I be able to make
that she only dreamed of?

With
a shrug, he undid the clasp and dove in head first.

Aiul woke to bright sunlight
and even brighter pain. Every part of his body ached in some way or
another, but his side was the worst. He supposed, briefly, that this
had something to do with the impact of Logrus’s boot that even
now was swinging toward him for another blow. The impact was hardly
pleasant, but less than Aiul expected, considering the events of the
previous night.

“Get up!” Logrus
shouted. “We finish this!”

“Leave me alone,”
Aiul groaned.

“Bah! Get
up
! I am
ready to kill you now!”

“Too late,” Aiul
mumbled. “I died sometime in the night.”

Logrus chuckled, and moved back
to the fire. “Good. Now I will make you into a zombie and have
you carry my pack.”

Aiul sat up over the course of
several curses, and waited for his head to clear. “Any
coffee?”

Logrus shrugged, not bothering
to look up from his cooking. “No pot.”

Aiul blinked at this a moment,
trying to decide if Logrus had made a joke on purpose, or if it was
a completely straight line. “I suppose we should try to take
better care of the next one we find, eh?”

Logrus gestured to a pan of
boiling water and shook his head sadly. “There will be coffee
soon. You have no sense of humor.”

Aiul had every intention of
arguing this point, but the notion fled his mind as Logrus emptied
the contents of another pan onto a plate and handed it to him. Aiul
marveled at the fare: fluffy eggs, toast, and plump sausages like
the ones he had loved since childhood. He looked up at Logrus in
sheer wonder. “Mei! Where did you get these?”

A sly, mischievous grin crept
over Logrus’s face as he added more sausages to the pan for
himself. “Last night, in the fighting, I found a supply tent.
Your people travel well! I could not resist. I filled a sack and hid
it in the bushes. I retrieved it while you slept late.”

“Before you went back to
killing everyone in sight, you mean?”

Logrus gave him a scowl. “Only
what was necessary. You were the berserker. You tried to kill
me
more than once. I can’t count how many of the fools you slew.”

Aiul paused, a sausage raised
halfway to his mouth, vague memories bouncing in his head. “I
can barely remember it. It’s all mixed up in my head.”

Logrus laughed, a single, sharp
bark. “Lucky!”

Aiul eyed his half eaten
sausage a moment. “Why?”

Logrus cracked eggs into the
pan and shrugged. “It must be nice to forget.”

Aiul grunted in agreement. “It
must indeed.”

They ate in silence. When he
was finished, Aiul asked, “You spoke of zombies. A joke? That
would make, what, the third in a month? It would be a new record.”

Logrus, still chewing, eyed him
suspiciously for a moment, then shook his head and swallowed. “Dead
serious.”

“And now a fourth!”

Logrus’s face was somber,
the picture of honesty. “I speak truth. I can raise the dead
when necessary, but I would never do such to you.”

Aiul marveled at this.
“Impossible.”

Logrus scowled at him.
“Possible. For Elgar.”

Aiul stared at Logrus for long
moments, searching for signs of trickery, but saw none. As a
physician, he had no choice but to see this process for himself.
There could well be something to learn. “Show me.”

Logrus stuffed his last sausage
into his mouth and rose with a nod. He kicked dirt over the remains
of the fire and gestured for Aiul to follow.

It was not a long trek, though
the snow made it more difficult. Within a half hour, they reached
the site of the battle. It seemed different in the light, though the
corpses lying about left no doubt that they were in the correct
location.

Aiul sighed in frustration.
“Nothing left. We’re on foot in the snow.”

“I have a plan for this,”
Logrus told him. “Come. We must find one capable of speaking.”

Aiul nodded. “Then we’ll
need at least one lung, a throat, and an intact mouth I suppose.”

“Few enough of those. You
were busy.”

“Shut up!”

It was a bit ghoulish, rolling
the corpses over and checking them, but it was hardly unfamiliar
work to Aiul. What was distressing to see was how many had severe
head trauma from a blunt instrument.

Logrus noticed this too. “See?
You have a style to your fighting. This is your work, certainly.”

“Do we really need to
talk about it? It disturbs me!”

Logrus shrugged and rolled
another corpse over, then beamed with satisfaction. “This one
will do.”

Aiul looked at the dead man. He
had been stabbed cleanly in the heart, and surely had at least one
lung intact. “Your work?” he asked.

Logrus shrugged again. “I
was not the only man with a blade. It could be me. Perhaps your
people, perhaps the foreigners.”

“The what?”

“Never mind.”

Was Logrus hiding something?
Aiul grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. “No, not ‘never
mind’. What foreigners?”

Logrus eyed him for a moment,
seeming to mull over his answer. “You are all foreigners to
me,” he said at last. “Do you wish to see me raise a
zombie or not?”

Aiul nodded, more than willing
to allow Logrus to change the subject. “If you can.”

“
Elgar
can,”
Logrus corrected, giving him an admonishing glare. “Pay
attention.” He crouched on one knee over the corpse, and
raised his hand, fingers splayed over its chest. “It is
difficult. You must reach out to Elgar.”

“How?”

“Remember when he came to
you. How it felt.”

“A strange way to work
magic,” Aiul said doubtfully.

Logrus turned back to Aiul,
annoyance on his face. “
I
do not work magic,” he
snapped. “
Elgar
works
miracles
through my
faith.”

Aiul raised an eyebrow,
nodding. “I know nothing of either. Only science. It's strange
even to think about. I still only half believe you can do this.”

Logrus turned back to the
corpse. “You will see. Look.”

Logrus took a deep breath and
held it. As Aiul watched, emotion flickered over his companion’s
normally placid face. Aiul remembered the tale Logrus had told him
of his mother, and knew these must be the images in Logrus’s
mind. It was, then, a costly and difficult thing for him to do,
indeed.

Logrus lowered his hand to
touch the corpse’s chest. “Rise, flesh, and remember,”
he murmured.

Aiul gasped in shock as the
corpse twitched, then rose with a mechanical jerkiness and stood
slack jawed, wobbling on unsteady feet. Cold, sunken eyes turned to
look at Logrus, a mixture of fear and awe glinting from beneath the
glaze of death. A low moan issued from its pale blue lips.

“Be silent, and speak
only when spoken to,” Logrus commanded the zombie.

Aiul shook his head in
amazement. “Mei!”

Logrus shot him another angry
look. “
Elgar!
”

“It’s an oath, not
a credit you know.”

Logrus shrugged. “If it
will quiet you, I will agree.”

Aiul rolled his eyes and heaved
a theatrical sigh, but said nothing. Logrus watched him a moment,
wary of a trick or joke, then turned back to the zombie.

“Flesh, heed me. Your
group had horses?”

The zombie looked at him,
seeming confused and uncertain of its capabilities. At last, its jaw
opened, and it hissed, “Yes. Some.”

Logrus nodded. “Show us.
We are in need of them.”

It was a fairly long and
unpleasant trek through the snow to their camp, made all the more so
by the zombie’s slow, staggering gait, but well worth the
effort.

“Mei,” Aiul gasped,
scarcely able to believe his eyes. The zombie had led them to a
small, sheltered copse. Four horses were tethered there, along with
several packs.

Logrus stepped forward to
examine the packs. “Food. Water. Everything we might need.”

Aiul nodded, surprised at how
he felt. “This was Elgar’s doing. He sent them with
this.”

Logrus nodded. “And to
help us escape. It is the only way the fools
can
serve. They do not understand, but they are, on occasion, useful. As
now.” He gestured to the zombie. “But now his use is at
an end. We must return him to his rest.”

“Eh? Kill him?”

“Destroy it, yes. It
cannot be killed. It is already dead.”

Aiul felt staggered to hear
Logrus speak so frankly, and in front of the creature to boot! “Why
would you give a man his life back, and then take it again?”

Logrus shook his head in
vehement denial. “No. You do not understand. It is cruel to
them. This is not
life
.
It is suffering. It will always be cold. It will never know warmth,
or comfort, or the satisfaction of a meal, the smell of the breeze.
It is
dead
. I have
seen this many times. They all seek destruction in the end.”

Aiul considered the zombie. It
stared at the ground, still swaying slightly. There was not a trace
of joy about it. Surely, it looked about as miserable as possible.

“I would hear it from the
creature itself,” Aiul said at last.

Logrus nodded. “Flesh,
you may speak, if you would.”

The zombie did not bother to
look at them. It croaked a single word. “Cold.”

Aiul asked, “Would you
rest, then? As Logrus says?”

To Aiul’s surprise, the
zombie turned to face him. It spoke slowly, every word slurred, more
hiss than speech. “Elgar is pleased?”

Aiul cast an uncertain look at
Logrus. Logrus shrugged, gestured at the horses, and nodded.

“Yes,” Aiul told
the zombie. “Elgar is pleased.”

“Rest, then,” the
zombie rasped. “Cold. Tired. Cold.”

Logrus nodded. “Go and
gather firewood.”

As the zombie shambled off in
pursuit of wood, Logrus began loading the packs onto the extra
horses. “You understand, now? It is cruel to ask them to
remember, but sometimes necessary. If you tell them to forget, then
they are mindless and do not suffer.”

Aiul shrugged. “Why tell
me?”

Logrus chuckled as he cinched a
belt around the horse. “You can do this thing, too.”

“Bah.”

“No, truly. It is a gift
Elgar gives to all of his knights.”

Raise the dead? What madness
was that? And yet, how could he not explore such a thing? It was a
wonderful power, an incredible testament that death itself might be
cured. If he could learn this first step, perhaps, with study, he
could go further, perfect the process to truly restore life. He
would be the physician who conquered death!

“I would try this!”
he exclaimed, excited now that he had embraced the idea.

Logrus hauled another pack onto
the waiting horse. “Let us finish with the one. Then we will
raise as many as we can. We will need them in this Torium, if it is
as you say. Come and help me with this while we wait.”

Before long, the zombie had
piled up a considerable stack of wood, enough for a great fire.
A
bonfire
.

Logrus gathered some kindling
and soon had a blaze. The warmth was pure pleasure on Aiul’s
skin. Logrus, too, smiled as he heaped wood atop the flames.

Only the zombie was unmoved.
“Cold,” it muttered.

Logrus nodded. “I know.
Just a bit more.” He added the rest of the wood and waited for
it to catch, then nodded to the zombie. “Go. Be warm.”

The zombie said not another
word, but strode immediately into the flames. Aiul winced to watch
such a thing, a man walking into a fire.
But
it is not a man. It is something altogether different.
It
stood in the flames, unmoving, but Aiul was almost certain that, as
the flesh melted from its bones, the creature was smiling. Then,
even the bones were aflame, and shortly after, it was nothing but
ashes.

Logrus nodded approval. “Now
for the others.”

Aiul gestured to the fire. “If
this gets out of control, we’ll bake ourselves as like as not
in a forest fire.”

Logrus shrugged and began
digging at the snow, heaving hands full into the fire. Aiul joined
him, and in short order, the fire was out.

Logrus gestured back to the
site of the battle. “Come.”

Aiul followed, huddling deeper
into his cloak. The wind seemed all the more chill now that the fire
was gone. “What will we do? How do we go about it?”

“We find some bodies that
are in good shape, and raise a few. We can command them to find
others.”

“What constitutes ‘good
shape’?”

“Few broken bones.”

Aiul nodded. It made sense.
“What about eyes?”

Logrus stopped in place and
turned to Aiul, a strange look upon his face. “I had never
considered that. But I have seen even headless zombies do work.”
He began walking again, shaking his head. “I do not know how
they do it.”

It was, Aiul thought, a rather
preposterous sort of conversation. “I don’t really know
how I feel about this. I’ve always heard necromancy is evil
work.”

“It
is
evil work if you tell them to remember, or if you murder men for
their bodies.”

“Even so, it’s
disrespect for the dead.”

Logrus shot him a bemused look
over his shoulder. “The dead are dead. Respect is only
meaningful to the living.”

“I should think you might
feel different if it was someone you knew. What if your mother were
used so?”

Logrus laughed out loud at
this. “My mother was used long before she died. She understood
necessity. At any rate, she is not the flesh. Her spirit is gone
wherever spirits go. Elgar does not say. But the flesh? It is
nothing. It is like a snake’s shed skin.”

“Then how can you command
them to remember?”

Logrus shrugged again, his face
showing annoyance, now. Obviously, the conversation was going on
overlong for his tastes. He answered in an exasperated tone, “I
do not know these things, Aiul. Perhaps it calls the spirit back. If
so, it is even
more
cruel. I only do it when necessary, and I
release them as soon as possible. You should do likewise.”