Children of Chaos

thirty-seven

SALTAJA HRAGSDOR

waited until the youngsters had left, and then said, "You are crazy, truly crazy. That boy worships you."

Therek swung around, flushing. "You can't trust Florengians! He'll break his oaths as soon as he gets the chance!"

"You were not exactly encouraging him to stay loyal."

"Stay loyal? They slew all three of my sons!" He stalked across to the far side of the room, as far from her as he could get.

She sighed and wandered closer to the bell rope. Of the four sons of Hrag, Therek had been the hardest to mold. Left to his own devices, Therek would probably have grown up to be a reasonable farmer, but she and Hrag had shaped him into the son his father wanted, and in some ways Therek had become the deadliest fighter of them all. He was no strategist, but even Stralg, for all his brilliance and ruthlessness, had never matched Therek at suicidal close combat. He had always been unstable, of course—how else could he have been?—and now age and deformity were bringing insanity oozing closer to the surface.

"They slew three of mine, too, but Orlad wasn't there." The Celebre boy had been impressive. She would send him home instead of his sister if he knew any Florengian, but a doge who couldn't speak the language would be useless. Besides, the drastic Shaping needed to make him biddable would turn his wits to mush. "I haven't seen Cutrath for a couple of years. Has he improved any?"

"Erch! Poisonous little mama's brat! He's the sort who turns up dead of a broken neck after a party—if the Florengians don't get him in his first battle, his buddies will."

In Saltaja's opinion, Cutrath's problem had been his father, not his mother. "What d'you think of the Celebre girl?"

"Like to suck on her melons. What am I supposed to think of her?"

"She's a Chosen."

The satrap brayed like an onager. "What!? You're joking!"

"I'm not quite certain. If she is, she's good." Extraordinarily good for her age. Perag's death, those blatant desertions—bad things happening, but not so many that they might not be mere chance. The hussy had been too clever to try anything against Saltaja directly.

"Can't you tell?" Therek's tone implied, If you can't who can?

"Not for certain. We can test her tomorrow."

"How?" He eyed her suspiciously.

"Have you any real brute Werists, the type who have no scruples at all and look it?"

He chuckled. "Several dozen."

"We'll send the ugliest into her cell with orders to rape her. If he can, then she's clear." If he couldn't, then Saltaja would sit down with Fabia and explain the facts of life—and death—including how to Shape Cutrath into something useful. Having another Chosen in the Family again would be a big help.

"That's your nephew's betrothed you're discussing."

"He needn't know." Saltaja's wandering had brought her to the window beside the bell rope.

"Anyway, it's four!" Therek said. "Not three, four." He stalked farther away from her.

"Four what?"

"Sons. You've been missing your mail. Deeply sorry to tell you that Huntleader Kwirarl has died." His toothless sneer could not have looked less sympathetic.

Kwirarl Eideson, her youngest! For a moment she was speechless, dazzled by memories of his smile, his laugh, and racked by a sense of betrayal. Mother of Death, You test Your servant hard! After all the oceans of blood she had spilled to honor the Old One, it seemed unfair that she should lose so many of her own children so young. It was not for me, Mother, it was for the Family! A dynasty needs heirs, and You have taken too many!

She drummed her fists on the window ledge. Oh, Kwirarl, Kwirarl! None of the sons she had given Eide had made warriors to compare with the sons of Hrag, partly because Eide was not Hrag and partly because she'd had to Shape them without Hrag's help. Kwirarl had turned out the best of her second brood, probably because Eide was not his father. Gone?

"Died how?"

"It was back in the spring sometime. Stralg just said he was ambushed while on patrol. If the rebels took him alive, it would have been long and nasty."

She shuddered. Bad, bad news, ever since she left Skjar! First Horold, then Therek. Now Kwirarl. On the way home she would have to waste time in Kosord repairing Horold, and Therek had deteriorated enormously since she had last seen him. She wondered how much useful life he had left in him, really. Perhaps she could use him as an exhibit while teaching Fabia the finer points of Shaping. In a moment she would look and see how bad the problem was.

"I need a couple of bodyguards."

"Pretty ones, of course." He sneered. "You still hanker after the pretty ones?"

"I want two who came here with me, Ern Jungrson and Brarag Braragson. Send for them." It was true that they were strikingly good-looking kids, but these days she chose pretty ones only out of habit and because it amused her to let people think she had a weakness. She had not bothered with sex for years, although she was probably capable of bearing children, even yet. "And a seer. I want to ask about these desertions."

Therek wasn't mad enough to shut himself off completely in this aerie; he kept heralds on duty in the room below: "Pull on that rope," he growled.

"You pull it." She turned to stare out the window.

Eyeing her warily, he came just close enough to reach it, but that was close enough to put him within range of her Dominance. As he was about to back away again, she took control, keeping it gentle so he did not feel her touch. He stayed where he was.

A boy came scampering up the stairs, doubling over in a bow almost before he stopped moving. "My lord?"

Therek warbled, "I want Warrior, er..."

"Flankleader Ern Jungrson," Saltaja said, "and Warrior Brarag Braragson."

"I want them now!" Therek shrilled. "And the seer. If there's any delay, I'll have you all whipped again."

The boy vanished, yelling for assistance.

Saltaja went to Therek and gripped his face between her hands, pulling his head down to her level. She froze him, and the terror in his eyes glazed over in a trance.

Once his mind had been as familiar to her as his face, but what she found in there now appalled her. Ruin!—like a house sliding into a swamp, an earthquake-shattered city ... walls cracked and tumbled, pillars leaning, fungoid weeds everywhere. Wrong, all of it; wrong! Indefinable things moved in the darker corners. The mangled state of Horold's wits had shocked her, but this was much worse. With shudders of distaste she began exploring and defining.

She prodded with a mental finger at a conspicuous suppurating abscess. "Speak."

"Oath-breakers!" he mumbled. Of course, the notorious Florengian mutineers ... The sinister dark murk must be Hrag. She touched that. "Father..." The purple color over here, she recalled, was herself, even more baleful than Hrag, shrouded in fear. The boys had all established much the same image of her, varying only in detail. The throbbing red sore she established as Orlad Celebre. She moved on to peer in the smaller interstices, the personal niches and crevices of what had once been a glittering set of wits. These three faint, flickering blotches? She triggered them one at a time and Therek spoke the names of his dead sons: "Nars ... Hrag... Stralg ..."

No one else; no women anywhere, so far as she could see. Like Stralg, Therek had never formed attachments; would even a Nymph accept such a gargoyle now?

All wrong, all warped. She would need at least a thirty to sort this mess into some semblance of order, and then how long would it last? She couldn't even think of starting now, not up here, so high above cold earth. She was about to withdraw when she sensed a squirm, a brief twitch of avoidance. Here? No, here? There was something big, well obscured. The fear increased, pulsing darkly. She had to pry past walls, veils, barricades ... gently, or she would break things ... "Who?"

Therek mumbled and slobbered.

Harder, then. "Who?"

Emotion burned in polychrome agony: "Heth."

That was a man's name. Karvak had been the chaser of boys, not Therek. She backed out until she was staring at the outside of his head once again, still clutching it. Drool hung from his lips. At some deep level he was struggling against the trance.

"Tell me who Heth is!" She used Dominance.

He moaned. "Heth ... Hethson ..."

A bastard. So! She was annoyed that Therek had managed to keep a nephew secret from her, but it might not be too late to use him, depending on the kid's age. Shaping worked best on blood relatives. Xaran knew she was running out of those! The Heth boy could be no less promising material than Cutrath Horoldson. Tomorrow, when she got Therek down on ground level and began to work on him, she would find out who and where this by-blow was, and how old.

"When I release you, you will forget everything that has happened since the boy left." She stepped back.

He jumped, pouted at her, and stalked off in a sulk, no doubt wondering what had caused that dizzy spell.

Saltaja found a stool and slumped down on it. Mother, she was tired! A day or two on the water did no harm, but that interminable voyage from Skjar had wearied her to the bone. Day in, day out, she missed the power of the cold earth. Sixty years ago she'd have thought nothing of it. She was growing old at last. Her control of events was slipping.

She saw now, in retrospect, that she had been too greedy. Twenty years ago, the Family had controlled the entire Vigaelian Face, with only sporadic rebellion left to quash—a hegemony unheard-of in all history. She should have been content with that, but she had let Stralg convince her that the horde would turn on itself if it had no external enemies to fight. She had let him invade Florengia. He had brought it to heel so easily that he had even started dreaming of expanding to the Ashurbian Face.

Ten years ago the Family had ruled two Faces, a sixth of the world, and Hrag's sons had bred another generation of warriors to hold the greatest inheritance Dodec had ever seen. Then Cavotti's mutiny had thrown cold reality in their faces.

And now? ... Now she might have to abandon Florengia and bring the survivors home to pacify Vigaelia. There were so few of Hrag's line left! Saltaja did not fear the dead, the least dangerous of people. She cared nothing for wraiths or ghosts or walking corpses, even if they existed, which she sometimes doubted. Yet she suspected that Hrag might be an exception, that even the Ancient One was not strong enough to hold him. Still, sometimes, she dreamed of the old monster—laughing at her, usually, and sending evil against his own seed so that they could not keep what he had dreamed of owning. But those were only dreams.

There was still hope. If the Celebre girl could Shape the pathetic Cutrath into a useful tool, that would help, and this Heth boy might help, too, if he was old enough.

"What other news from Stralg?" she asked.

Therek swung his vulture head around to peer across at her. "He never tells me much. Nothing good. Nothing good that I believe, anyway. He's talking of fortifying Celebre, using it as his base."

Fortifying? Mother preserve! "Since when does a Werist fortify?"

"When he's outnumbered two sixty to one!" the satrap screeched. "The brownie Werists multiply like roaches but the extrinsics are worse! Werists fortify against extrinsics. That's why I built Nardalborg, you mad old hag."

Was Stralg failing, too, like his brothers? She could demand to have his letters read to her, but the real news was waiting for her back in Skjar, all ancient now. Winter coming, the passes closing. Perhaps the news in the spring would be a Florengian horde arriving with Stralg's head on a pole.

Boots scuffed on the steps and Brarag burst in, sweaty and gasping from his run. He bowed low in the doorway. "My lord is kind!"

"At ease, lad." Therek whistled a laugh as if that were funny under the circumstances. "Inform your packleader that you have been appointed attaché to my sister."

Brarag straightened up and eyed her apprehensively. "My lady?"

Smiling, Saltaja walked over until she was within range. He was certainly the prettiest of the troop that had accompanied her from Skjar, all young and dewy. She applied Dominance, with all the power she could muster this far above the ground: "You will guard me with your life."

His blue-blue eyes glazed. "I will guard you with my life."

She released him. He blinked uncertainly.

"Er... great honor, my lady. To be your guard." He was lying as he had never lied in his life before. His lies stank up the room.

"My pleasure. Wait for me downstairs. I'll be down shortly ... Check on Fabia Celebre for me. She's locked up. Make sure she is well secured. Tell her guards: If she escapes I'll see they hang by their balls for a thirty."

Brarag grinned. "My lady is kind!"

She affected surprise. "You think that's a kindness? By the Twelve, you have strange ideas of fun, Flankleader. What else do you enjoy?"

His astonished flush glowed through his stubble as he spluttered an apology, trying to explain that he had never intended... She was amused. If she ever were tempted to try sex again, Brarag would do nicely to start with. "Be off with you!" she said, and he ran.

Therek was plastered back against the wall like a great snake, staring at her in deathly horror. He always reacted like that when she let him watch her using power, and she always wiped his memory later, as she would do today before she left.

"Is that what you did to us?" he croaked. "Me and the rest?"

"No. I never did that to you, or the others."

"You swear?" His voice quavered.

"I swear by holy Xaran," she said, just to watch him gibber more. "It doesn't last, honestly. I reinforce it every few days and release them after a thirty or so. They come to no harm."

This was true, so far as it went. Dominance was trivial compared with Shaping, but in large doses it destroyed much faster. Ern and Brarag would likely survive, whereas her maid, Guitha, was almost useless now, after less than a year. Although Perag had lasted much longer than most, he had been insane at the end. She would soon have ordered him to kill himself, had the Celebre girl not saved her the trouble.

Saltaja shuffled back to her stool to wait for Em and the seer. Kwirarl, Kwirarl! Her baby... Tonight she would offer blood to the Old One and pray for a change of fortune.

A Witness entered and closed the door behind her. Without proceeding any farther, or acknowledging either the satrap or his sister, she raised her distaff and began spinning. She was tall, thin, and probably young, for the long climb had not left her short of breath.

"Ask her," Saltaja said, "where my escort went. Half the Heroes who left Kosord with me never reached Tryfors. Where are they?"

Therek continued to cower against the wall, as if intent on staying as far from Saltaja as he physically could. "Answer, Witness."

"They were never within my range," the seer said.

"What is the Wisdom on them?"

"Answer."

"That I cannot know yet." Her spindle continued to twirl hypnotically.

"Many sixty others bound here last year did not arrive either. Do you know where any of them went?"

Prompted again by Therek, the seer said, "Yes. I can list them for you, but it will take a pot-boiling or so."

Aha! Information at last! "Where are most of them?" Saltaja demanded eagerly.

Therek bade her answer.

"Most of them have arrived at the rebel camp near Nuthervale."

Therek came off the wall. "Rebels!? What rebels?"

"It is known that the rebels assembled near Nuthervale refer to themselves as the New Dawn."

Therek strode closer to the seer—but still not near his sister. "How many? Who is their leader?"

"It is known that he is Hordeleader Arbanerik Kranson. The latest total known to me is sixteen sixty, four dozen, and three, but that was three thirties ago."

"Arbanerik! I know him. Lost an arm in Florengia. He came home through here a year or two ago." Therek was practically foaming. "Traitor! Oath-breaker!"

Saltaja was calculating how fast she could get a letter to Eide, back in Skjar, and whether he could be trusted to handle the matter. Perhaps she should send Horold to help him. She would never have thought to look for the rebel nest anywhere near Nuthervale. This Arbanerik must be stamped out before he grew any stronger.