King's man and thief

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

The night wore on, and, for the first time since Vervain's touch had enabled him to be a vessel for Health, Deveren began to despair.

Gods, there were so many of them. So very many. He could not possibly reach all of them tonight. Though he felt no physical exhaustion, his initial joy was tempered by simple fact. Many had tried to take Flamedancer from him; he had always been able to make physical contact with the would-be horse thief before it was too, late, but each time it startled him.

He had worked his way through the merchant's area and was braving the throngs clustered around the square when the attack came. Deveren knew, even as the figure came crashing down on him, dragging him off a terrified Flamedancer, that he ought to have been expecting this. He hit the street hard, and heard Flamedancer neighing frantically. He opened his mouth to scream at the horse, send it away from these insane people who would do him harm, but a fist landed in his mouth.

Automatically, Deveren clamped both hands around his attacker's wrist-and stared right into the furious face of Freylis.

His healing touch had no effect, and Deveren realized with horror that it was because Freylis was not contaminated with the curse. He was at this moment, and always had been, a simple, angry, dangerous brute, and no Healer, not even the divine one, could remedy that.

So it was Freylis, then, who had tried to kill him. He must have enlisted the aid of someone far more resourceful, for the whalebone-needle trap had been clever indeed. Deveren did not even try to fight. His hands, tonight, were meant to help, not kill. He would not so blaspheme them.

Snarling, Freylis spat in Deveren's face. Spittle mingled with the blood from Deveren's mouth and trickled down his face. Freylis called Deveren something dreadfully emasculating and laughed. "Won't even fight me, will you? I'd rip you apart, you bastard, if she didn't want you alive."

That jolted Deveren. She?

More familiar faces swam out of the crowd, each one stabbing Deveren's heart with a fresh pain of betrayal. Khem, still clad in the overly warm garb of the Master of Mischief. Clia, her flamboyant dress stained with blood and filth. More and more of his thieves materialized, all grinning hatefully as they roughly bound him hand and foot. He offered no resistance, for there was no purpose. Deveren, at least, would go to meet his fate knowing that he had saved a few souls from a dreadful destiny.

Freylis slung him over his shoulder and began to trot, jolting Deveren with each step. Others followed behind, jeering and laughing at their "leader" in such a state. Deveren craned his neck, morbidly curious, in an attempt to see where they were headed. They raced past the Godstower, which had not rung all evening (gods, were even the Blessers ill with this dreadful curse?) and it was only after the door slammed in his face that Deveren realized where they were.

In the temple of Vengeance.

He was thrown to the floor and the bonds on his feet cut. A voice reached his ears; a voice he knew well.

"I want you to walk to your death, Leader Fox!"

It was Marrika. Khem jerked Deveren to his feet, turned him around to face the Raven.

He barely recognized her. Gone was the sullen woman wearing form-fitting men's clothing and a constant expression of repressed anger. She stood in what was clearly a place of honor beside a slight man whose long, thin hands fiddled nervously with the tassels on his belt. Both wore floor-length robes of black cloth, but whereas the man's face was hooded, Marrika's was proudly bare for all to see. Her face was tranquil in its certain victory, and her hair tumbled about her shoulders in blueblack glory. Deveren had never before thought her quite so beautiful-or dangerous.

"Raven," he whispered.

"Not Raven, not anymore," she replied. "I am the Chosen of Vengeance!"

He continued to stare at her. She was almost otherworldly here in the enclosed, small building. The light from dozens of candles danced across her features, lending them an unreal appearance. Beyond what the candles illuminated, the darkness waited, hungry.

"You have come to me tonight, as part of the pact with Vengeance," Marrika continued. "All things come to me, in time. I have power, and followers, and now you, Deveren Larath, and soon the city, perhaps the whole country, shall be mine!"

"You're mad," Deveren breathed, but Marrika shook her head. And he realized with an even deeper loathing and horror that she was right. She was utterly, completely sane.

"Oh, how I have waited for this," she purred, walking around him and sizing him up from head to toe. There was a movement, and she extended a hand to him, palm up. "Recognize this?"

Deveren did. It was a white sliver of bone — twin to the one that had almost cost him his life just a few weeks ago. He didn't reply; he didn't need to. The shock on his face was answer enough for Marrika, who chuckled throatily.

"I thought you would. Whittling is a skill I picked up from my Mharian sailor lover. And the trap-which really ought to have claimed even you, clever Fox-was something I learned from the thieves in Mhar." She continued walking around him, her fingers trailing lightly, teasingly, over his back and buttocks. Deveren glanced around, meeting the gazes of men, women, and even children who, until now, he had thought were "his" thieves.

"My destiny does seem to be tied up with you, Deveren," Marrika continued, completing her circle and stopping to face him from inches away. "In Mhar, I learned things that have brought me to this place, this rank. And it was because of you that I fled to Mhar, some seven years ago."

Deveren waited, tense. The way her eyes glowed, she had some dreadful news to impart.

"I was so young then, a mere sixteen. Agile and quick, yes. But wise? Well, not really. You see, someone older than I would have realized that the house of the nobleman I planned to rob wasn't empty. Someone more experienced would have been able to complete the robbery without waking the pregnant woman asleep in the bed upstairs."

Deveren couldn't breathe. He felt suddenly icy cold, and not even the heat of his Healer's hands could warm him. Blood drained from his face and for a moment his vision swam. His knees trembled, then gave way, and he found himself kneeling on the hard-packed earthen floor, staring mutely up at the beautiful young woman who had so ruthlessly butchered his beloved wife.

She laughed, drinking in his pain, then squatted down to his level and yanked his chin up. "She begged, you know."

Tears filled Deveren's eyes, but her fingers dug into his jaw. The pain from his injured mouth shot through him. He couldn't turn away.

"Begged more for the life of her child than for herself. Very noble. But she'd seen me — could identify me-and, well, I admit I panicked. I was on my way to Mhar by ship in the first mate's bed before you even got home, Deveren Larath. And I slept very well."

Marrika straightened, nodded to someone. At once, Khem and Freylis seized Deveren's arms and hauled him to his feet. Their ungentle hands shoved him forward. Deveren, still reeling from the dreadful knowledge with which Marrika had stabbed him, only dimly noticed the incomplete circle of white on the earth, took note of the wooden platform encrusted with something dark and thick. It was only as they tossed him down in front of it that the smell reached Deveren's nostrils and the rest of the pieces of the dark puzzle came together.

The altar was crusted with old, dried blood. And a chunk of long, dark hair-human hair, not the fur of a mute beast-had gotten snagged in a crack.

"Lorinda!" Deveren cried brokenly, jerking backward. The image of the murdered girl vied with the recollection of his wife in his mind. Damir's words floated back to him: Kastara's murder was an accident… It was clearly a theft gone wrong — horribly wrong… Lorinda's murder has an element of anger about it, of-of ritual, if you will.

It had been a ritual. An abominable, vile ritual of darkness that made gorge rise in Deveren's throat. "Lorinda… you murdered her too! To become the Chosen!"

"Ah, now that it is too late, you see," laughed Marrika. Again she gestured. Khem grabbed Deveren's arms, jerked them forward-and gasped at the gentle glow radiating from his hands. "What the…" Now all the thieves could see plainly, and a cry of fear rose from them. They shrank back, their lust for blood suddenly expunged by fear for their own safety.

"No," whispered the man Deveren took to be the Blesser of Vengeance. His face was pale as parchment and he trembled. "No, we must not harm him!"

"Watch what you say to me, Kannil," warned Marrika, her throaty voice carrying a warning. He turned to her, his eyes wide with terror.

"He bears the mark of Health! Look at his hands!" A sob broke from him and he seemed to shrink about a foot. "She knows," he whispered. "Dear gods, she knows, and she is angry with what we have done… with what I have done, and felt, and thought…"

He stared wildly around at the thieves, his face gleaming with the sweat of sheer terror. "Don't you see? Health knows that we have blasphemed! She knows that Vengeance had nothing to do with this, nothing, and she has given this man the power to tame the evils we have loosed"

Without another word the Blesser rushed forward, his shaking fingers working to undo the knots that cut deeply into Deveren's wrists. "Lady Health, forgive me, forgi-"

His eyes widened. Deveren stared back. Then the Blesser gasped, and a thin stream of crimson trickled from suddenly bloodless lips. He slumped forward on his own altar of darkness, and Deveren, shrinking backward, saw that a slim dagger protruded from his back. Deveren turned his shocked gaze upon Marrika, who only now was withdrawing her hand from the extended position of hurling the knife.

"It's a trick, isn't it, Fox," she snarled. In some dim part of his mind, Deveren wondered how he could have thought her beautiful a few moments ago. "You, you painted your hands with something, or you got someone to cast an illusion on you, didn't you? Well, it may have fooled Kannil, but it doesn't fool me!"

She sprang forward and wrenched the knife from the dead man's back. Her eyes flashed in the candlelight as she growled and moved toward Deveren.

He watched her, transfixed. Pain and grief and horror racked him, but not anger, not hate. He was incapable of those emotions tonight, as incapable of feeling them as he was of lifting his blessed hands to strike back. He could only stare, observing with an odd detachment the folds of her garb as they slipped back from the lifting arm, the slim strength of that arm, the grimace of mingled hatred and joy on the finely chiseled, tanned face…

A howl shattered the moment. It was not the cry of an angry dog, or the anguished wail of a person in pain. Those, Deveren had already heard tonight; heard, identified, and dismissed.

This sound shivered along the air, cutting it like a knife. It was long and keen and piercing, with something eerie behind it. It was the howl of a wolf-but what in the name of all the gods was a wolf doing here? The hairs along every inch of Deveren's body lifted in a primal response to the sound.

Marrika's blow froze as she, too, responded to the eerie noise. She whirled, angry at the interruption, but there was fear on her face now, too-fear that Deveren had never seen there before. The temperature of the room dropped like a stone.

Laughter, as eerie and unnatural as the wolf's howl, filled the room. Standing in the doorway, at least a dozen wolves at her feet, was the Blesser of Death who had so mysteriously come to Deveren on the night of his Grand Thefts. Her long white hair whipped wildly about her almost alabaster features, though there was no wind. She lifted her pale arms, one of which bore the jeweled rosewood staff, and cried, "Taste you the kiss of Death!"

And then Deveren knew that it had not been merely the Blesser of Death who had save his life that night.

Many things happened at once.

The wolves began to shimmer. Their forms shifted, became translucent, reshaped. Abruptly, where the wolves had stood were the shapes of women; women who had no color to their faces or hair; women that one could see through if one tried. They were as different as any woman in shape and form, but they all had weapons of silver and steel that glinted in the flickering orange-yellow light, and that steel was echoed in their hard faces.

Thinking he must have gone mad, Deveren recognized among their number the slender form of Lorinda Vandaris-and the petite, but no less beautiful, image of his long-dead Kastara.

He cried out, an aching sound of mingled despair and hope, before the women descended on the terrified thieves. It was a pitiful battle. The ghosts of the dead could not be injured, but their shining blades could and did decimate their foes. Most of the thieves were too frightened to even fight back. The spectral blades wielded by Death's army left no wounds on the flesh, but those who felt the blows shuddered and died as if stricken by a mortal blow from a corporeal sword.

As they slew those they had come for, one by one, the women returned to their wolf shapes and crouched by the still-twitching bodies. Deveren watched, riveted, as something bright yellow separated itself from the dying men and women. The wolves yipped happily, their tails wagging, and leaped, open-mouthed, to devour the fleeing spirits.

They feed on souls, Deveren realized. Lady Death's spirit-wolves feed on human souls! He felt something cool and damp brush his hands, and whipped his head around. A huge lump rose in his throat. There was no fear, only joy.

"Kastara," he managed.

The specter's incorporeal hands released the heavily knotted ropes from Deveren's hands. He stared up into the face of his beloved. The pert, pointed chin, the full lips, the look of love in the ghostly eyes. She was exactly as he remembered-no, not exactly. Her rounded belly was flat now, flat and taut as it was on their wedding night…

"You've come for me," he whispered.

She shook her head, her transparent hair floating with the gesture. "No, my love." Her voice was soft, still Kastara's voice, but not human, not anymore. "You can see me because of the gift Death's sister has given you. I have come to say farewell."

She smiled at him, then began to drift away, her attention already returning to her duty-that of collecting souls for her mistress.

Deveren couldn't bear it. His hand, glowing with Health's own power, shot out to seize the ghost. He expected it to be a futile gesture, and assumed his hands would close on nothingness. Instead, to his shocked joy, he clasped a human wrist.

Kastara gasped and stared at him. Where his hand gripped her, the milky translucence had solidified. Her hand was completely human-and alive.

"No!" she cried, struggling.

Deveren stared at her hand. The human tint started to spread, tracing a languorous way up. Now Kastara's flesh was solid almost to her elbow. He realized dizzily what had happened. For all intents and purposes, he had the hands of Health tonight. And Health alone, of all the seven gods, had the power to bring back the dead.

Elation flooded him, and he grasped her other wrist. This, too, flushed a warm, living hue. "Deveren, no, my love, you don't understand!" Kastara fought him like a wild thing. "It was my time! Let me go, if you love me-let me go to the Light!"

She blurred in his sight, and for a horrible instant Deveren thought she was escaping him. Then he realized it was only his own tears that clouded his vision. She was mortal now almost to the shoulders.

"Love, love!" he cried brokenly. "I am nothing without you! What is there, who is there left for me to love? Marrika took even our baby when she took you!"

Up to the chest now. Suddenly, Kastara ceased struggling. Comprehension and an aching compassion spread over her face. "Beloved, there are many who yet need you here-who need the love that fills your heart, as I once did. And as for your child-you have found her already. Go and be with them, Deveren, while life is yet yours to enjoy, to drink of, to savor. But I am not of this world anymore; I cannot dwell here, mortal though you would have me be. Let me go, if ever you loved me. Let me continue my journey to the Light!"

Tears coursed down Deveren's face. Kastara was almost completely mortal now. If the transformation was allowed to continue, she would be alive, warm, in his arms, as she ought to have been.

But even as he clung desperately to this thought, he realized how selfish it was. The Blessers had been right after all. The ghost-wolves of Death were not evil, any more than their mistress was. They were not slaves; they served Death willingly, doing what must be done and earning their passage on to the Light.

He was past words; past the ability to let her know how he had loved her, how bleak life had been without her. Tears spilling down his ashen cheeks, Deveren in silence did the single most difficult thing he had ever done, would ever do, in his life.

He let her go.

At that moment, he felt a hand — a real, solid, human hand-clamp down on his shoulder and spin him around. He stared up into Marrika's face as she lifted her hand, clenched tight around the dagger, to complete what she had begun. A roar came from behind him, and he saw Marrika's face change to absolute terror as a white, wolf-shaped wraith leaped upon her. Both Deveren and Marrika were knocked to the floor. Deveren scrambled up and back, just in time to see the wolf that had been Kastara a few seconds earlier clamp her powerful jaws down on Marrika's throat. The white muzzle disappeared for an instant, buried in Marrika's neck, though to Deveren's eye the Raven's throat appeared utterly whole. Then the spirit-wolf tugged, pulling loose the bright flash that was dying woman's soul, which she swallowed.

"Honored among men are you twice this night," came a soft voice. Startled, Deveren tore his gaze from the feasting wolf to see Lady Death herself standing beside him. "First by the touch of my sister, then to bear witness to my spirit-wolves."

She knelt and stroked his cheek. He was surprised to feel that her hand was warm, not cold, as he had expected. Leaning forward, she brushed his forehead with petal-soft lips.

"It was not your time that night, nor this one. I was the First to come, to stand against the blasphemy and the evil that were loosed; and I shall be the last to leave. Those that have died here were destined to die tonight. You are not among them. But the next time that Death kisses thee," she whispered, "thou shalt come with her."

She straightened, and turned to the phantom pack. "Come. There are other souls to feast upon ere dawn lightens the skies!"

Howling, the wolves fled, racing out into the madness of the Midsummer Night, their feet leaving no trace of their passage. And their mistress followed, a darker shape against the darkness of the night.

For a long time, Deveren simply sat, leaning against the bloodied altar and trying to comprehend the miracles to which he had been witness. At last, he stumbled to his feet. Absently, he rubbed his injured jaw. The pain disappeared, as he would have expected had he been thinking more clearly.

The candles were burning low now, but somehow it didn't seem quite as dark outside as it had been before. His eyes fixed on the still-open door, Deveren made his shambling way over the dead that littered the floor. He leaned against the door for a moment, letting his eyes adjust.

The fires of last night seemed to have either burned themselves out or had been extinguished. Yet there was definitely a lightness about the night that told him that dawn, while not yet here, was on its way.

The streets were curiously deserted of the living. The dead, though, lay where they had fallen. Indeed, Lady Death's wolves had had a feast tonight…

The clatter of horse's hooves on cobblestone roused him from his trancelike contemplation. He glanced up to see Pedric, perched on Flamedancer, barrelling down on him. The young man pulled on the gelding's reins and Flamedancer slowed to a stop.

"Deveren! Thank the gods you're all right. Come with me-there's something you must see!"

Obligingly, still moving as one in a dream, Deveren mounted behind Pedric. The young man turned the horse's head around and headed back down the street, down Ocean's View toward the port. It was definitely getting lighter. They rounded a bend in the street and suddenly Deveren found himself staring at the open ocean. Hundreds of others were there as well; those who had fought the curse and won to stand, now, shoulder to shoulder, enraptured by what they witnessed.

A tremendous battle was taking place against a gray sky. Deveren couldn't even count the number of ships in the port, though he realized that most of them were Mharian vessels. He knew the lion of Mhar as well as anybody, and nearly every ship in the harbor flew it. The vessels that did not flew a flag that was solid black.

"Good gods," he whispered softly. "An invasion?"

"I'm not so sure," said Pedric. "They seem to be fighting among themselves. Look."

And sure enough, just as Deveren watched, the sails of one of the ships went up in a burst of orange flame, providing even more light to see by for the shocked onlookers clustered around the port. "But how could that happen? A fire just doesn't start that fast!" exclaimed Pedric.

Suddenly Deveren realized who it must be. "Damir," he said, his voice trembling with joy. "Dev… but wasn't Damir…?"

“I t's a long story. Oh, thank gods, he's alive! Don't you see?" Deveren leaned past Pedric and pointed. "That's His Majesty's own ship, right there. It's got his personal standard. King Castyll himself has come to help save Braedon!"

He would have said more, save that a spectacle that even Deveren was totally unprepared for silenced the cheering throngs. The ocean rippled, and without further warning a huge whale cleared the surface. It thrust itself high in the air, landing with a mighty splash near one of the ships not allied with the king's fleet. A tremendous wave rocked the ship, but it did not capsize. Then, incredibly, a second whale-a third — also leaped into the air. The ship could not stand against that and it overturned.

And was it… could that be sharks who found the flailing seamen and dragged them down? And gulls that dove, shrieking, at those who still lived?

The ocean churned. More whales? wondered Deveren wildly, but the sudden rapid pounding of his heart told him that something far more miraculous was about to occur.

From the depths emerged a creature that Deveren had never seen outside of fanciful paintings. It was enormous, far longer than any five ships put together. As its massive head broke the surface, the creature, long tongue flickering and sharp teeth bared, rose… and rose…

Then it leaped, diving across the ship as easily as a deer might clear a tangle of brush. A length of sinuous, shimmering scales followed it. It emerged to repeat the movement, encompassing the hapless vessel within its crushing coils. The ship didn't have a prayer. Even this far away, Deveren and Pedric could hear the sound it made as the creature cracked the mighty ship to useless spars.

"Dear gods," breathed Pedric. His eyes were wide with wonder. "Dear gods."

Riveted, Deveren leaped off Flamedancer. He scrambled to the top of a tavern for a better view. As he watched, hardly daring to breathe, the remaining enemy vessels ran down their flags. For a long, tense moment, they flew nothing at all. And then, just as the sun cleared the horizon, the enemy ran up another flag. The dawn's light turned the white flag of surrender to a bright, glowing pink. A huge cheer went up among the crowd.

The ocean's creatures, summoned at this hour of need, disappeared as if they had never been. And Deveren, standing alone atop a rundown shanty of a tavern, felt his hands flare with divine heat, one last time, and then, with the tranquillity and inevitability of a sunset at the end of a hot day, softly cool.

He stumbled. The exhaustion and the tension that Health's gift had kept at bay all through the nightmarish ordeal descended now, full force. He was utterly depleted. He was famished. And most of all, he felt achingly empty and alone. Deveren had not realized how Health's gift had bound him to others through the act of Healing. He had been not one man, but many. Every person he had touched had become a part of him for this one brief, miraculous time.

Now he was more alone than he had ever been in his life. Despite himself, a sob of mourning left his lips.

No.

Not alone. Kastara had reminded him. He had been part of a miracle tonight, the only man every permitted Health's glory. He had had a chance that all people long for-to see his departed love a final time, to know beyond a doubt, with a certainty not granted to even the most faithful, that she was at peace. Her words sounded again in his ear, as he suspected they would for the rest of his life: Beloved, there are many who yet need you here — who need the love that fills your heart, as I once did. And as for your child-you have found her already. Go and be with them, Deveren, while life is yet yours to enjoy, to drink of, to savor.

Her words about his "child" — what did she mean by that? With a suddenness that dizzied him, he realized that it didn't matter. He did know who his child was… if the girl would have him. Whether she was his lost child in another body or merely a little girl whole unto herself, it didn't matter. And he hoped, with an earnestness that hurt, that he was right about who one of the "others" might be.

He was still tired. He was still ravenous and aching with the trials of the long night that had been. But that night was over, and Deveren's heart was freer than it ever had been.

He leaped down from the roof and found his footing. And then Deveren Larath began to run, his burning muscles protesting but obeying as he raced toward the square, toward Health's temple and toward his future-bound up with that of a little girl, whose name he cried out as he approached:

"Allika!"