The Redemption of Althalus (28 page)

“That was just a coincidence.” Ambho scoffed.

“There’s no such thing as coincidence, my Brother. Everything that happens, happens by design. Choose, Ambho, choose, and know that the life or death of every living soul in Peteleya hangs on your choice.”

Althalus nudged the earth again, a bit more firmly this time.

The cracking that came from beneath their feet was much like the sound that frozen trees in the far north make when the sundering frost explodes them, and the very earth shuddered.

Some fairly large rocks came bouncing down the steep mountainside.

“The next one should probably do it,” Althalus said calmly, squinting up at the mountain. “Farewell, Master Bheid. It’s been a pleasure serving you. If we’re lucky, the rock slide will kill us all instantly. I
hate
the notion of being buried alive, don’t you?”

“Take her!” Ambho almost screamed. “Take the witch to Awes, but make it stop!”

“Somehow I almost
knew
he was going to say that,” Althalus said to nobody in particular.

C H A P T E R     F I F T E E N

L
eitha the witch had flaxen hair that seemed filled with an inner light, and her skin was very pale, almost like the fine marble so prized by sculptors. She was tall and slender, and her eyes were of the deepest blue, large and luminous and very wise. She was chained to a stone pillar in the center of Peteleya, a pillar much blackened by previous fires.

Her expression as they came to release her seemed unconcerned, but her eyes held a great injury.

“This is but a reprieve, witch,” Ambho said in his harsh voice as he roughly unchained her. “The priests of the holy city of Awes will question you most severely, and they will force you to answer their questions about your foul master. Then you will burn.”

“I have no master, Ambho,” she replied in an untroubled voice. “I am not as you are. I have seen your soul, priest, and it is vile. What burns there is your doing, and not mine—nor the doing of all the others you have consigned to the flames. Your lust is the only evil here, and you cannot drive it away by burning the objects of your lust as you have sought to do. Your vow is violated by your every thought, and the flames in which you shall burn are far hotter than the flames you have built for us. Go from this place and cleanse your soul.”

Ambho stared at her, his haggard face filled with sudden guilt and self-loathing. And then he turned and fled.

Althalus paid an outrageous price for a horse for Leitha, and then he and Bheid bade the priest Terkor farewell and rode back up into the wooded hills. When they were out of sight of the village, Althalus reined in. “Let’s get rid of those chains right now,” he said, dismounting and helping Leitha down from her horse. He examined the crude lock on the chain that bound her hands together. Then he unsnapped it, removed the girl’s chains, and in a fit of sudden rage hurled them back into the bushes as hard as he could.

“Thank you, Althalus,” she said quietly.

“You know my name?” He was a bit surprised.

“I do now.”

Oh, dear,
Emmy murmured.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

“Dweia knows that I can hear your thoughts, Althalus,” Leitha said with a faint smile. “I think it bothers her.”

“You can do
that
?” Bheid exclaimed.

“Yes. It’s always puzzled me that others can’t.”

“So
that
was why Ambho wanted to burn you at the stake.”

“Not really. Ambho had taken a vow of chastity, and he kept having thoughts that violated that vow. He chooses to blame those who unwittingly stir those thoughts rather than accept the blame for them himself. Many people do that, I’ve noticed.”

“You have a great gift, Leitha.”

“I suppose so, if you want to look at it that way. I’d be very happy to give it to you, if I could. The silence must be lovely.” She looked directly at Emmy then. “There’s no real point in trying to hide it, Dweia,” she said. “They’ll all know sooner or later. That was the mistake I made in Peteleya. I tried to hide this so-called gift, and look what it almost got me.”

Get out of the way, Althalus,
Emmy ordered.

“I can hear you without his voice, Dweia,” Leitha said. “I don’t think I really want to join you.”

I don’t think you have much choice, Leitha,
Althalus heard Emmy reply.

Leitha sighed then. “Perhaps not,” she said in a melancholy tone.

“What’s happening?” Bheid asked Althalus in a baffled voice.

“The ladies are talking,” Althalus explained. He tapped his forehead with one finger. “In here,” he added. “It’s a little crowded in there right now.” He looked around. “Let’s move along,” he said. “I’d like to get back to the others before dark.”

Twilight was settling down over the foothills of western Kweron when they rejoined Eliar, Andine, and Gher at the camp back in the trees.

“Is she the one?” Gher asked Althalus.

“Emmy seems to think so,” Althalus replied.

“She’s awfully pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is. That almost got her burned alive. The priest in her village had a habit of burning pretty girls at the stake. Pretty girls gave him naughty thoughts, and he seemed to believe that using them for firewood was the best way to get rid of those thoughts.”

“Did you kill him?” Gher demanded fiercely.

“I gave it some thought, but Emmy talked me out of it. I love Emmy dearly, but she can get so unreasonable sometimes. She doesn’t approve of killing anything you don’t plan to eat.”

“If you want me to, I’ll talk with Eliar. Then you could sort of distract Emmy, and Eliar and I could sneak back to that village and kill the priest.”

“She’d find out,” Althalus said rather sadly. “Then she’d yell at us for at least a week.”

I heard that, Althalus.
Emmy’s voice was accusatory.

I’m not at all surprised, Em. If you’d keep your nose out of things that
don’t concern you, you wouldn’t hear so much that offends you.

Do you think you could shorten Gher’s leash just a bit? He’s an absolute
savage.

I rather like him. Do we want to have Leitha read the Knife this evening?

Let’s wait until morning. I think I’d better work on her just a bit. She really
doesn’t want any part of what we’re doing.

Did any of us?

Behave yourself, pet.

Yes, dear.

The forest was dark and tangled, and the sky was steely grey. Althalus had lost his way, though he could not remember exactly where he’d been going before he’d entered this gloomy wood. His mind seemed to wander, and each time he tried to bring it back into focus, the hollow sound of wailing blotted out his thoughts, leaving him to grope mindlessly through the tangled vines and brush. It seemed that there was no end to this forbidding forest, but with a kind of helpless resignation he grimly pushed on.

———

His mind became suddenly alert, and he struggled up through thought and memory as tangled as the dark wood itself even as the hollow wail pulled him back into the depths of the world Ghend had woven about him like the web of some dark spider.

“She comes,” the trees sang. “She comes,” the vines replied. “She comes!” the hollow sky shrieked. “Fall down before her in abject surrender!”

And Ghend walked once more through the wood and across the plain as the day wore on back to sunrise. “And how shall
you
greet her, my thief?” Ghend demanded of Althalus as his eyes took fire.

“I shall defy her,” the thief replied, “even as I defy you, and even as I defy your master.”

“Your puny defiance is of no moment, Althalus,” Ghend of the burning eyes declared in tones of deepest contempt. “For Gelta, Queen of the Night, shall overcome you, and I, servant of Darkness, shall bear you down into the pit, and Daeva, master of all, shall claim your soul.”

And Althalus laughed. “Your illusion has no truth, Ghend, but cling to it if you must. Hold your illusion tightly to your breast, and be as wary as a man can be. But in spite of all your care, I shall filch your illusion from out of your arms and turn the sun once more into its proper course. Time will not return to the place it has left behind. Your illusions are folly, and your curses hollow. I cast my defiance into the teeth of the Queen of the Night, and I cast my defiance into your teeth, servant of Darkness, and even more I cast my defiance into the teeth of him who is
your
master, but never mine.”

And Ghend screamed.

And Althalus woke up.

Are you
mad? Emmy almost shrieked at him, her voice reverberating inside his head.

That’s a little hard for me to know, Em,
he replied calmly.
Crazy people
don’t know that they’re crazy, do they? I think we talked about that back in the
House a few times. I just thought it might be sort of interesting to turn the ta
bles on Ghend. He’s trying to play with reality, but I’m a master at that. I
know all sorts of ways to change the rules of any game he can devise.

You shouldn’t be so surprised, Dweia,
Leitha’s soft voice murmured.
Isn’t this why you hired him in the first place?

You’re not supposed to be in here, Leitha!
Emmy said sharply.

Just curious, Dweia,
Leitha replied.
You can’t really keep me out, you know.

“Do you ladies suppose you could go someplace else to discuss this?” Althalus asked. “I’d like to get some sleep, and you’re making a great deal of noise in there.”

The sun was coming up when they awoke again, and Althalus took Eliar and Bheid out into the woods to make a quick search of the surrounding area. “This isn’t exactly friendly territory, gentlemen,” he cautioned them. “The Kwerons themselves don’t pose much of a threat, but we’re a little too close to Nekweros for my comfort.” He’d decided to keep Ghend’s visit during the night to himself.

When they returned to camp, they found Andine and Leitha deep in some kind of discussion and Gher sitting nearby with a bored look on his face. The boy’s face brightened when he saw them. “Did you find anything?” he asked hopefully.

“We saw a deer,” Eliar replied. “No people, though.”

“Let’s feed the horses, gentlemen,” Althalus suggested. “Then I’ll see about some breakfast.”

“I was starting to think you’d forgotten,” Eliar said. “I was just about to remind you.”

“What are the ladies talking about, Gher?” Bheid asked as they walked over to where the horses were picketed.

“Clothes, mostly,” Gher replied. “Before that, they were talking about hair. They seem to be getting along fairly well. Of course, Emmy’s lying in Andine’s lap, so she might be keeping them from getting into any arguments.”

“Emmy
is
a girl cat, Gher,” Eliar reminded him. “She might be interested in clothes and hair, too.”

After they’d tended to the horses, they rejoined the ladies, and Althalus made breakfast for them.

“Isn’t that the strangest thing you ever saw?” Eliar said to Leitha.

“Very peculiar,” she agreed, watching with a certain surprise as Eliar fell on his breakfast enthusiastically.

“He’s a growing boy,” Bheid explained to her.

After Eliar’s third helping of breakfast, Emmy spoke briefly to Althalus.
Let’s show Leitha the Knife, pet,
she suggested.
I’m almost certain I
know where we’re supposed to go next, but let’s play by the rules.

All right, dear,
he replied. He looked at Leitha. “We’ve got a little formality we should get out of the way, Leitha,” he told her. “You’re supposed to read the Knife along about now.”

“It won’t really hurt, Leitha,” Andine told her new friend. “It’s a little surprising, that’s all. It made me a little dizzy, but it didn’t seem to bother Gher at all. Do you know how to read?”

“Yes,” Leitha replied. “The script I read isn’t quite the same as yours, but I don’t think that’s going to make any difference.”

Eliar wiped his mouth on his sleeve and took out the Knife. “I’m not threatening you or anything, Leitha,” he assured her. “There’s something written on the blade that you’re supposed to read.”

“Yes,” she said. “Show it to me.”

Eliar held the Knife out to her in his left hand.

“You’ve got it upside down,” she told him.

“Oh,” he replied, switching hands. “Sorry. What does it say to you?”

“ ‘Listen,’ ” she replied quite simply.

The song of the Knife seemed somehow richer this time, and even more profound. Eliar looked just a bit startled.

Then Leitha reached out and laid her hand on his wrist. “Don’t take it away just yet,” she said, still looking intently at the shining blade.

Then she began to tremble, and she swayed as if about to fall.

Bheid quickly caught her.

“Don’t do that, Leitha,” Emmy scolded, usurping Althalus’ voice.

“I’m sorry, Dweia,” Leitha replied in a shaken voice. “I had to
know.
There’s so
much
there.”

“Too much to take in all at once, dear,” Emmy replied. “I was right, Althalus. It’s time for us to go back home.”

“That’s a long way, Em,” he said dubiously, “and winter’s not very far off.”

“I have it on the very best authority that we’ll make it, pet.”

“I made it almost too easy for Ambho back in Peteleya,” Leitha was telling Andine as they rode up into the mountains. “I amused the other village girls by telling their fortunes. I knew what they were thinking and what they really wanted, so I could go a little further than promising them all rich husbands, fine houses, and whole platoons of children. Ambho twisted that around to convince the village elders that I was a witch.”

“What’s it like?” Andine asked curiously. “Hearing the thoughts of others, I mean?”

“Disturbing,” Leitha replied. “What people say and what they’re thinking don’t always exactly match. We’re much closer to being animals than most of us would care to admit.” She looked around to make sure that Eliar was ahead and well out of earshot. “Your feelings about
him
are very confused, aren’t they, Andine? One side of your thought wants to slaughter him because he killed your father, but another side finds him physically very attractive.”