Children of Chaos

three

SALTAJA HRAGSDOR

was known as the Queen of Shadows, among other less flattering things. Her origins were a mystery, her age unknown. She was greatly feared, for it was universally believed that she was a Chosen of Xaran and the Ancient One gave her many terrible powers. There was no doubt that anyone who opposed her usually died, one way or another. Queen of Shadows ... and shadow queen. For fifteen years she had ruled the entire Vigaelian Face as regent for her brother, Bloodlord Stralg, waiting for him to return from Florengia. For the fifteenth time spring had opened the pass and Stralg's dispatches had been rushed by relays of chariots from Tryfors to Bergashamm and then by fast ship to Skjar. Now Saltaja was forwarding his orders, maintaining the usual pretense that they came from her husband, Satrap Eide.

She felt most at home in darkness, but many people shunned daylight in Skjar. Already the days were becoming unbearable, the air in the canyon like a huge argali-wool blanket, unbreathable and motionless, even on her favorite terrace high above the river. Her wrap of black linen clung clammily to her skin; she had thrown off her head cloth. In the room behind her, two scribes sat cross-legged on the floor under a single lamp apiece, busily poking their styli into slabs of wet clay and dribbling sweat onto the tiled floor. Heavy drapes in the doorway kept the light from reaching her.

"Write," she said. "From Satrap Eide to Hostleader Landar, governor of Salnorn. Usual titles, usual greetings." She waited, staring out at the darkness. "Write: 'You have custody of the hostage Mardo Stighetto, from the city of Ravima.' " She sounded the outlandish names carefully. " 'Inform the—' " She prided herself on her memory, but it had been many years and there had been very many hostages. Also, she needed to calculate. About a dozen years ago; a pudgy, rather stupid child, he had been four or five...

" 'Inform the youth that his city has played false and surrendered to the rebels. His father the king and the rest of the royal family were then torn to pieces by the mob. Make it known that this is why he has lost his rights as a hostage and is of no further value.' " She paused to let the scribes catch up. " 'Put him to death by whatever means please you. Report your compliance.' Usual closing.

"Larth, read back," she said, and listened as an unpleasantly nasal voice repeated what she had said, decorated with flowery scribal frills. "Nerkurtu?"

"I have the same," said the younger scribe.

"Bring them." Light flared briefly as the boy apprentice backed out through the drapes. When they fell back behind him, he turned in her direction and stood blind, holding out the tablets on a tray. She could read very little ofthe complex cuneiform script, but she saw well enough in the dark to stamp the clay with her husband's seal. When they had been baked, she would have other scribes read both letters to her again—separately—before one was dispatched and the other placed in the palace archives. To trust anyone was folly. The apprentice went back inside to carry the letters to the ovens and roll out more clay.

Overhead the spangled heavens were framed between the twin blacks of the canyon walls. Skjar was a city of islands, among which the river murmured unceasingly. Here and there she could see scattered pinpricks of light from lamps or candles. Below her lay ghostly white rapids and reflections of stars fallen in still pools.

"Next," she said. After having had the tablets read to her several times, she almost knew them by heart.

Larth's thin voice began to squeak to the bats flittering by overhead: "The noble bloodlord writes, 'The cities of Nianoma and Piaregga waver in their loyalty. Return their hostages to me that I may stiffen the rulers' resolve.' May these words please my lady."

They didn't, much. Stralg meant something like "So I can call their fathers in to watch their children being battered." At times her brother was a fool. Because frightfulness inspired terror at first, he thought it always would, but it didn't. Repeated brutality provoked numbness, then fury, and finally retaliation. Besides, he needed fresh troops far more than he needed prisoners to torture; the number of live bodies Therek could run over the Edge in a season was limited.

"Never mind that one," she said. "What's next?"

As she waited, she paced the terrace, which was only a niche chiseled out of the living rock of the cliff. She liked the feel of cool bedrock under her bare feet and the curious contrast of temperature when she rested forearms on the sun-warmed stone of the balustrade. She was a large woman, and the heat was still murderous. Somewhere she heard a faint rumble of wagon wheels. Soon overeager roosters would start crowing.

Larth said, "The noble bloodlord writes, 'The doge of Celebre has always been true to his oaths, but his health ebbs. If I decide to withdraw from Miona, Celebre may become important again. Send one of the hostages to rule when the doge dies.' May these words please my lady."

Typically, Stralg could never be perfectly honest, even with her. "If I decide to withdraw from Miona" meant "If I get driven out of Miona." Or even "When I get driven out of Miona." By conceding the possibility, he was virtually predicting it. Wherever Miona was.

It was no secret now that the war went badly. At first his Werists had met no divinely inspired resistance, and slaughtering extrinsics was child's play to warbeasts. He had subdued all of Florengia faster and more easily than he had previously conquered Vigaelia. Then he had made an error—just one, but one scratch can kill a man, and that single miscalculation had festered like a belly wound. If he now foresaw Celebre becoming important, he must be contemplating defeat. At Celebre, he would be back where he started, with his heels on the Edge. Celebre controlled the way home to Vigaelia, so the dying doge must be replaced by an equally reliable puppet.

Saltaja had no trouble remembering the Celebre children, because they had been the first hostages to arrive, and they had caught her attention several times since, notably when Karvak Hragson died in strange circumstances. One boy was certainly dead, and the others would no longer be children. Young males being notoriously unreliable, the girl was the obvious choice. She was nubile and could be sent home with a suitable husband to do the actual ruling while keeping her busy with babies. The two surviving brothers would be potential rival claimants and must be eliminated, but it would be prudent to see her on her way over the Edge before disposing of them.

"Write. From me to Satrap Horold Hragson of Kosord. Usual titles. "To her valiant brother, twelve blessings and her deepest love. You have custody of the hostage...' "

Wait!

The Celebre girl was right here in Skjar. Her route to the Florengian Face would take her past both Horold in Kosord and Therek in Tryfors. Saltaja had been thinking for some time that she ought to investigate what was going on in the family. Therek, especially, was becoming worrisomely erratic. She need not go right to the Edge itself, but certainly as far as Tryfors, the jumping-off place for crossings. Yes, a personal inspection felt like a very good idea. She could deliver her instructions face-to-face and also escape the steam-bath horrors of another summer in Skjar.

"Cancel that letter. Send for my husband! Tell him to bring a Witness."

She wiped her streaming forehead. Why did she ever put up with this stew pot of a town anyway? Originally, she supposed, because it was where Therek, eldest of the brothers, had been initiated into the Heroes, the mystery cult of Weru. Xaran's tits! That had been thirty-five years ago! Therek had helped the others to become Werists also, still here in Skjar. And it had been in Skjar that Stralg had won the title of bloodlord, the Fist of Weru. Before his reign that had always been a meaningless title, but from the first Stralg had intended to claim his right to rule all the Werists of Vigaelia. His wounds had barely healed before he overthrew Skjar's city elders and began using the city's wealth to finance his campaign. In a mere ten years he ruled the entire Face, Werists and extrinsics both. He had kept Skjar as his capital mostly because it was central and had good communications. It was convenient. Insufferable, but convenient. Also, it was rich, able to support a standing army and the cumbersome machinery of government.

When Stralg went off to conquer Florengia, he had 6ffi-cially left his brothers and brother-in-law to rule Vigaelia for him, and in practice left Saltaja to rule them. Karvak had died when Jat-Nogul rose in rebellion. Therek, Horold, and Eide had promptly crushed the rebellion and sacked the city in reprisal. Otherwise nothing much had changed in fifteen years.

She began pacing again, homy feet scuffing on the tiles. "Next?"

The next item was another of Stralg's rants about the need for more men, and she ignored it. Recruitment was becoming harder and harder as the war dragged on with no sign of any Heroes returning, other than the few who were too badly maimed to continue fighting yet could still manage the return crossing. Training a Werist took years, so there were still as many men being initiated as Therek could ram over Nardalborg Pass in a season. The manpower problem could wait. "Next?"

Next was a demand for gold. That was new. At first Stralg's campaign had sent a torrent of loot and slaves back to Vigaelia. The flow had dwindled as resistance sprouted, and this new demand meant he must be having trouble feeding and housing his horde. She dictated a letter to be sent out to all the cities in Eide's satrapy and made a mental note to call in the bursar from the temple of Weru, where most of Skjar's wealth was stored. She would have to fleece the local Ucrists, also.

Whatever was keeping her moronic husband? She pushed through the drape into the lamplit room. The air was stifling. The two scribes and the boy looked up in alarm.

"Guard!" she barked.

A Werist materialized in the far doorway, practically filling it. "My lady?"

She noted with satisfaction that he was as frightened of her as the two clerks were, although he was twice her size and a fraction of her age.

"Where is the satrap?"

The boy gulped, looked behind him, and stepped aside with a gasp of relief. "Here he is, my lady!"

Eide lumbered in, unarmed and barefoot, wearing his pall wrapped around him like a towel instead of properly draped. Eide had always been a bull of a man, and now he was twice as big, three times as hairy, and much more bovine, with two stub horns and an animal smell. Obviously—obvious to Saltaja, if not to others—he hadbeen fetched from some woman's bed, but that was normal for him. She had not let him touch her in years. He was out of breath, which was a satisfactory demonstration of obedience.

His entry made the room crowded. The scribes moved hastily into corners and tried not to stare at his feet, which he rarely left uncovered. The Witness of Mayn who followed him in was tiny, swathed completely in white, without even her hands showing. She looked like a discarded pillow alongside the giant.

Eide grunted a surly "?" and yawned.

"I want to know where the three Celebre hostages are. Ask her." Under the compact, the Witnesses would answer only Stralg himself and his three hostleaders, Eide, Therek, and Horold. Saltaja had to send all her queries through one of them.

Eide growled, "Answer the question."

Some Maynists would insist he repeat it. This one was either more obliging or anxious to go back to bed. "None of them is within my range."

"What is the Wisdom on them?" Saltaja asked. The Wisdom was the collective knowledge of the cult, but how it worked was part of the mystery, a secret known only within the Ivory Cloisters at Bergashamm.

"Answer," Eide said.

"The girl has gone inland, to her guardian's estate at Kyrn. We have no reason to believe that the hostage Benard Celebre is not still in Kosord or the hostage Orlando Celebre at Nardalborg."

"The Ucrist Wigson is here in Skjar?"

"He is. Working in his counting office." Witnesses rarely volunteered information. This one sounded young and might be showing off the range of her sight.

Satisfactory. Saltaja was about to dismiss the two of them, when her native caution stirred. "The first Celebre hostage, the eldest—tell me of him."

"He died," said the woman in the shroud.

"You confirm that he did physically die in the commonly understood sense of the word? You are not using the expression in some special cultish way?" She had caught them out in half-truths before now.

"The boy Dantio Celebre died fourteen years ago from shock and loss of blood, and his heart stopped beating. It is so recorded in the Wisdom. You have been informed of this three times."

"You may go." Saltaja nodded to the satrap. "And you also, my sweet. But send me Huntleader Perag Hrothgatson. I have a job for him."

"Send for him yourself." Eide turned to follow the seer out.

Saltaja said, "No. You will go and bring him to me."

He froze, and for a moment she thought she would have to discipline him. Then he snorted a surrender noise and left, his feet clopping like hooves on the tiles.

So it was decided. She would deliver the girl to Tryfors in person. Not by chariot, of course. Not for the Queen of Shadows that endless bouncing, the dust and heat and rain. They would travel by riverboat.