The Right Hand of God (24 page)

Her father laughed derisively. 'I know you had a sheltered upbringing, my daughter,' he said gently, 'but our experiences of the last three months should have taught you that nothing is that simple. Those two down there want power, not peace. Both will believe they can more effectively serve Instruere than we might. Both will believe the heirloom of Bewray is rightly theirs, and their hand alone should raise it.'

'Maendraga is right, I believe,' Kurr said. 'I wish the Haufuth was here. He spent more time with the Hermit than anyone else, and would know more of his motivation. Hal warned us of him back when we first met him, remember?'

Leith remembered. Hal had embarrassed the man by deriding him publicly, and later that same night inflicted a near-fatal injury on him. He remembered the black wings, the insect-shape hovering over the Hermit's cot, the words they exchanged . . . Perhaps Hal's actions made the Hermit into what he is now, Leith speculated. Maybe if Hal had left well enough alone, the Hermit might have been an important part of the Company. The Hermit had the gift, the second sight. He proved it in Leith's cold puddle on the Southern Run, the knowledge of Wira's secret, a hidden passage in the fortress of Adunlok.

And predicted that Leith would be a leader of men, far-fetched as it sounded at the time.

The hermit had taken him aside and predicted 'a high and lofty destiny' for him. For him alone, not for any of his fellow travellers. Others had echoed those words, the latest being his own legendary grandfather, openly calling him the Right Hand. Bearer of the jugom Ark, the one hand that could

hold it without being consumed. Touched by the Fire, hearer of voices. Son of a Trader, grandson of the greatest of them all. Healer and worker of miracles. At the centre of everything. He saw himself seated on a high throne set on a pedestal in the Outer Chamber, the Flaming Arrow in his hand, a thousand people assembled, minstrels playing, food on tables, the Company seated below him, emissaries from foreign lands bowing their obeisances to him. With wisdom he dispensed justice tempered by mercy, and every eye rested on him, filled with love.

'You make a pretty sight, ' said a familiar voice in his mind. 'Look at those clothes you're wearing! Did you see raiment like that at the Court of Deruys?' Irritatingly, there was a hint of laughter in the voice.

Where have you been? Leith was not amused: it felt like being spied on.

'Waiting for you to reach this point, ' came the laconic reply. 'I am impressed, actually: the young lad I called out a thousand years ago believed himself king of the world, and nothing I said or did changed him. That's how he died, believing himself invulnerable, climbing the waterfall alone, leaving the others behind him; choosing the wrong side to climb and trapping himself on an unreachable ledge. Too proud to cry out for help. His bones lie there still. Just a stable-boy, but in a few short months he became overconfident. Not like you, Leith. Mature as you have become, you still lack confidence. '

You're not going to give me a telling off, are you?

'No; just offer some advice. Look for the balance. Don't get carried away by grandeur or the praise of others, but don't pretend you remain a simple northern shepherd boy. Keep a level head. Learn to laugh, that's the key!'

Leith snorted. A homily from the voice of the Arrow;? The greatest power in the world offers sensible advice?

Now anger infused the voice. 'Do you think there is anything more powerful than good sense? With your vantage point of millennia of wielding power, you have a different view?' No, Leith snapped back. But common sense is just that: common. It doesn't lift you from the fringes of civilisation and put you in place to resist the Destroyer. If I had used common sense, I would still be playing by the pool in Loulea.

With this reply the anger dissolved, and Leith imagined he could hear a smile in the voice.

'You are right! You took many risks, each one justified according to what you knew at the time. But my advice remains. Keep a level head. Try not to make decisions based on the emotion of the moment. ' There was a finality to the voice that Leith remembered. It had said all it was going to say.

Come back! I wanted to ask you a question about Stella! Is she all right?

Silence was his only reply.

Unsettled and angry, Leith turned to the others. It seemed no time at all had passed. Kurr was telling them what Mahnum and Indrett had told him: that the Hermit had imposed his will on the Ecclesia, believing himself the Anointed One, the chosen vessel of the Most High. Carried away by his own vision, the result had been the shaping of followers who thought little for themselves, relying instead on the pronouncements from their blue-robed leader. This development led the Company to abandon the Ecclesia, and eventually to the deaths of many of the Hermit's followers at the hands of Tanghin/Deorc and the Instruian Guard.

The Arkhos of Plonya threw the shutters open and called out: 'What is it you want with the Council of Faltha?'

'Kill them! Burn them! Destroy them!' came the raucous cries from below. A more cultured voice added: 'Submit them to our judgment, thus bringing the City under the authority of the Chosen of the Most High!' This was followed by another, older, voice which cried: 'Turn the City over to the Watchers. It is time for Escaigne to rule!'

'The leaders are irrelevant,' Kurr said quietly. 'There's something dangerous down there. I've seen it before, in the Sivithar riots when I was young. The people down there are angry because many of their friends were hurt or killed in the last few days. They will not walk away quietly, mark my words! All it will take is for someone to do something foolish—'

'Like that?' Leith pointed down.

'O Most High, what is he doing? He is a dead man.' Kurr's voice went flat.

The Arkhos of Deruys had vanished from among them, having obviously taken it into his head to speak to the crowd. Now he strode out from the entrance to the Hall of Meeting, towards the crowd that wanted his blood, and as they noticed him a feral howl rose from their throats. He held up his hand to treat with them, but what he had to say was lost as he was overrun. For a moment he disappeared under a few dozen figures - men and women both -

and then Leith saw him again, lifted off his feet, his arms pinned behind his back. His mouth opened to cry out, and someone thrust something into it.

From left and from right others came running. With a dim part of his awareness Leith realised they could, in all probability, escape out of some back door, if there was one. There must be a servants' door of some kind. But even though he could guess at what was about to unfold, he could not move his feet.

'They've got a pole - someone's bringing wood,' Kurr said. 'They're going to - they're going to burn him!' He leaned out of the window. 'You down there! Listen to me!' he cried urgently, at the top of his lungs. 'We need to talk!'

'You need to burn!' came the reply from a hundred throats.

'Can't you do something with that Arrow of yours?' The Arkhos of Plonya faced Leith, hands on hips. 'They're going to kill him!'

'1 - it doesn't work like that, seemingly,' Leith mumbled. 'I'd be as likely to kill the crowd as save the Arkhos.'

Maendraga leaned over, saving Leith further embarrassment. 'You'd be a fool to go out there.

The Arkhos is beyond saving. I could hazard an illusion, but such things work at this distance only if I show people something they'd expect.'

'They're hammering the stake into the ground ... they've bound poor Deruys to the stake ...

now they pile wood around it. He struggles, he can't escape what they are going to do.' Kurr kept up his running commentary on what was happening below. 'They are waiting for something. No one can find any fire! Perhaps there is hope! But no, no, here's a woman with a burning torch. .. the Hermit stands by and watches with his arms folded, and Feerik eggs them on, shrieking at the top of his voice ... how 1 hate that man! They've set the flame to the wood. .. it's caught fire. Aahh, no! They've turned away from the Arkhos and are facing us . .

.'

'Come and warm yourself by the fire!' It was the voice of the Presiding Elder, serrated like a knife, crazed beyond belief by what had just been done. 'Come and burn! Come and burn! Or we will come up and get you!'

Kurr swung the shutters closed, but Leith could see a flickering light dancing insanely on the wooden slats. 'He's burning, he's burning, aahh, he's burning,' groaned the old farmer, peering through the slats. 'Some of the mob are coming this way.'

His words were punctuated by heavy thumps on the door below. Now Leith could hear the clamour of the mob, a wild, abandoned sound, swirling, intoxicating, burning. No words were distinguishable in their howling, but their message was clear. The fire had fallen on them, but not the fire of the Most High. A fire of madness.

'We need to get out of here,' said the Arkhos of Plonya, a quaver in his normally calm voice.

'They'll break down the door soon. It wasn't designed to stand up to a prolonged assault.'

As if to confirm the Arkhos's words, a servant came scurrying up the stairs, red-faced and out of breath. 'We've been looking for you everywhere! There's a mob—'

'We know!' Plonya snapped. 'How do we get out of here?'

'My lord, I don't know! Galen tried to get out the back way, but they saw him and - and - my lord, they tore him apart. We're all terrified.'

'How many are you?' Kurr asked.

'Fifty-two staff on normal days, my lord,' came the quick reply. 'Though with some of the councillors absent, the exact number—'

'Yes, yes,' the old farmer responded distractedly. And the others?'

'My lord?'

'The appellants!' Kurr's impatience was obvious to all.

'Oh, yes, a hall full of them,' the servant said dismissively. 'But—'

'So how many in total?'

'Perhaps a hundred and fifty altogether, my lord. But the appellants will be no use—'

'When the mob break in, they will not distinguish between

councillors and servants and officials and appellants. They'll kill them all. Those appellants, who you seem to think don't count, are our responsibility. Now, do we have any weapons in this cursed place?'

The servant led them back to the Outer Chamber, where the staff had assembled. Before them was a pile of old swords. 'Ceremonial, my lords,' said the frightened man. 'Taken from the walls and storeroom upstairs. Enough for perhaps half of us.'

Banging came from behind the massive Iron Door.

'Have they broken in already?' Leith gasped.

'No, the appellants bang on the door in their fear,' the servant said,

'Then, by the Most High, let them in!' Kurr was clearly beyond reasoning with this obsequious man.

'But, lord, the rules say—'

'Damn your rules to the pit! Open the door or I'll throw you to the mob!'

'But the machinery—'

'OPEN THE DOOR!'

Without another word the servant grabbed two of his fellows and hauled at the chains. Slowly, in small jerks, the Iron Door rose; but as it did so, gears, springs and other small items showered down on them. As soon as it was a foot from the floor, people began scrambling under it. Leith was relieved to see frightened rather than crazed faces. Perhaps two feet from the ground the door ground to a halt, wedged open by broken lifting machinery. A few moments later all the appellants had gathered in a nervous group beside the staff.

'Close the door!' Plonya cried.

'It's jammed open! I tried to tell you it was broken, but you wouldn't listen!'

'We must close the door,' Plonya said to the others, calling them over to the chain, where the three servants struggled in vain. 'Come on, lend a hand. Our lives are at stake!'

Ten pairs of hands heaved on the chain. For a minute or so the only result was the sound of gears grinding together. Then another sound intruded on them. A door splintered, then crashed to the ground; and then a renewed howl came from the far end of the Hall of Appellants.

'They're coming!' The cry came from a dozen of those in the Outer Chamber.

'Quick! Take a weapon!' Phemanderac instructed the staff, needlessly.

With a shrieking of gears the Iron Door began to lower, but slowly, too slowly. More hands hauled on the chain. Sweaty palms slid from the smooth steel links, replaced by others.

Pounding footsteps echoed down the hall. An inch, and another, and another, but there was more than a foot to go when the first of the mob arrived. A body slithered under the door, then another; both were cut down by sword-wielding servants before they could rise. This occasioned a pause from behind the door, followed by some shouting; then twenty or more came through. The Iron Door let out an enormous groan, as though in the throes of death.

Kurr gave a cry of triumph as suddenly the great door dropped, slamming to the floor, pinning a dozen or more underneath its huge weight, killing the lucky immediately.

In the relative silence that followed, disturbed only by the dying moans of those trapped by the Iron Door, the few members of the mob who had succeeded in getting through looked around them, their courage fading fast. They were faced by sixty or more determined-looking people holding swords. A few of them spun around, but

their way out was blocked by the huge door and the bodies of their fellows.

The old farmer let out a fearsome shout, darted forward and grabbed one of the mob by his tunic. 'Feerik!' he snarled. 'I would have thought you would operate in the shadows! So you finally had to lead by example, did you!'

It was the Presiding Elder, hiding in the midst of the small group. He glanced hopelessly around, his bird-like face white and small as the old farmer took up a sword and unsheathed it.

'See what has crawled under our door! A snake! But a snake with no venom, and soon to have no head!'

'Kurd Don't do it!' Leith cried. 'Don't kill him! He might be able to negotiate a way out for us.

If you start killing, there's no telling where it will stop.'

'1 was not intending to kill him, though it is the fate he has earned,' rasped the farmer, obviously having difficulty keeping himself under control. 'I merely intend to separate him from his precious Escaigne.'