Mother of Lies

WAELS BORKSON

sat on a stump outside the sanctuary of Sinura in High Timber, gnawing his way through a rack of pig ribs. He had eaten about half a hog already and would finish the rest if given the chance. Dogs lying in the shadows watched enviously as grease ran into his stubble, and waited to see where he would throw the next bone. Some faint sounds of chanting drifted through the rough plank door behind him, but the sanctuary contained only one supplicant at present, because Werists had to heal themselves. He was almost disappointed that he had not earned the chance to try. He had broken two necks in the Battle of the Milky-perhaps one and a half necks, since Hrothgat had helped him with the second one. A battle scar or two would have been a nice souvenir. Orlad had added some to his collection.

On the far side of the muddy, rutted trail that served as a street stood another solid log building, the temple of Veslih. It was making noises also, because Ingeld Narsdor was in there with some local women, rededicating the sacred fire. High Timber did not possess a resident Daughter, although it was a sizable town. Three years ago it had been primeval forest. Three days ago it had held more than forty sixty Werists, plus uncounted civilians, a lot of whom were Nymphs. Today it was notably empty, with most of the residents away attending to their bloody business at Tryfors and Nardalborg. It would probably be burned before winter, whichever side won.

Around the corner to his right came Namberson and Snerfrik and two other people, whom Waels needed a moment to recognize. Horth Wigson and Orlad’s sister had acquired new clothes, surprisingly fine-looking garments to find in a temporary hill settlement. Fabia had her hair dressed in long black ringlets, trailing down to her sable wrap, which hung loose on her shoulders-broad shoulders ran in the family. The top of her gown was cut low to reveal the top third of a pair of nicely plump breasts. She was easy to look at, if not as winsome as her brother. It was a pity she had not found lighter colors to show off her brown skin, but there could not be much choice in High Timber.

The merchant was grandly attired in a many-colored robe and a fur-trimmed mantle, with gold bands glittering around his neck and wrists, all of which somehow made him seem even less imposing than he had done in his previous rags. Having two great muscular Heroes skulking along right behind him did not help, of course. He looked old and unhealthy by comparison, not to mention worried, shrunken, stooped, and mousy. How could a man so wealthy seem so insignificant? Was there a lesson there?

Snerfrik and Namberson were not happy at being assigned to keep their leader’s sister from being hassled by drunks. They wanted to go and join in the victory party, which was already audible, even at this distance, and would be a real roof-raiser by sunset.

Fabia accosted Waels as if the state of the world was all his fault. “He’s still in there?”

He waved the pig ribs expressively. “The last they told me was that they needed another pot-boiling or so.” He did not mention that the sanctuary had sent out for another three healers. In all, they had said, about eight Sinurists would be needed to assume all of Benard’s injuries, and he had been extremely lucky to have reached High Timber alive-which he had done only because relays of Werists had carried him in on a litter at warbeast speed. That was not an honor Werists ever accorded to extrinsics, other than a few mythical characters in ancient legends.

“You tell him I need to see him right away!” the girl said. “We’ll be in Panther Hunt’s gold barracks.”

Orlad, Dantio, Ingeld, and Huntleader Nils Frathson also wanted to see Benard as soon as possible. Revengers and Thunderbolt Hunts both wanted to carry him around the town shoulder high.

“I promise.” Waels gave her a big smile, hoping to win one in return.

He didn’t, so he waited until she and her companions had moved along the road, then set the dogs on them by hurling a pig rib over their heads. The curs exploded after it, racing by them and between them, yelping and barking, almost knocking Horth over. Even the two Werists jumped. Snerfrik looked back and made an obscene gesture. Waels waved cheerily.

He had time to gnaw one more rib before the door behind him creaked open.

An elderly Healer peered out. “Are you waiting to guide Master Artist Benard?” His seriously bruised and swollen mouth gave him trouble speaking.

“I am. Can he walk?” Waels thought he could carry the beefy lad to the Orlad flank billet, but would prefer not to have to try.

“Of course.” The old man smirked toothlessly and pushed the door wider.

Out came Benard, blinking in the sunlight, then smiling at Waels. His face was still puffy and multicolored… no, all of him was puffy and discolored by either bloodstains or fading bruises, but he did not seem to be in much pain.

“Good of you to wait for me, my lord.” He slurred the words. He had lost half his teeth and Healers could not replace those.

“A pleasure.”

Waels tossed the rest of the pig ribs to a fast-looking dog and watched the entire pack streak off after it. He licked his fingers. “I wish you would just call me Waels, Master Artist.”

“Every Hero I ever met insisted on being called ‘lord.’”

“But you’re special. You’re a hero to us Heroes. You trapped the Kosord boar! There’s nothing we admire more than really suicidal courage.”

As much as a badly bruised Florengian could, Benard blushed. “Thanks. Where’s Ingeld?”

“Playing with fire over there.” Waels pointed across at the temple with its Veslihan symbols. “I have orders to lead you to our quarters and feed you. The rest of us have all eaten.”

“Sounds promising, but I need a wash first.”

“This way, then. The bathhouse is this way.”

As they started along the street, Benard said, “Tell me what happened. I don’t remember much.”

“That’s a shame! It all went just as you’d planned. Dantio and Ingeld wanted to go back and catch you, but Orlad wouldn’t hear of it. He said you were probably going to be killed whatever we did and the least we could do was make your sacrifice worthwhile. He told Namberson and the rest to make sure the boat carried on up the Wrogg, out of harm’s way, and then he and I set off to fetch New Dawn.” Waels did not mention that keeping up with Orlad on the run had just about killed him. That went without saying. “We met Huntleader Nils coming down the Milky with Revengers Hunt and most of Thunderbolt Hunt. Nils set up the ambush.”

Waels remembered Nils from years ago, for they were both Tryfors born. Nils had even remembered him, because of his birthmark. It could not hurt an able youngster to be known to a man three ranks above him.

Benard pulled a face. “I vaguely remember seeing Horold battleforming.”

“I missed that. We were two boats upstream from you. He died well; took three Heroes with him. But it was a beautiful massacre! The Milky ran strawberry.”

The Hand did not comment. They turned at the temple of Weru and scrambled down the bank, all mud and exposed roots. The streambed at the bottom was a morass, trampled by innumerable feet, which hardly mattered on the way to the bathhouse. Regrettably this was also the way back, which made the journey seem self-defeating.

Waels paused outside the bathhouse door, in case there was someone inside. “Orlad said you want to ask a favor of me.”

“He did?”

“He did. Said he wasn’t sure what it was, but he asked Ingeld and she laughed, so he’s decided it’s not what he thought it was at first. Whatever it is, go ahead and ask.”

The Hand said, “You won’t get mad?”

“Mad?” Waels laughed aloud. “I won’t get mad at you if you tell me to eat mud. You’re so brave you’re insane, even by Werist standards. You’re also the brother of my, er, flankleader, and, I mean, why would I get mad?”

Benard smiled shyly, showing gaps and half-healed gums. “If I tell you I love your smile?”

Waels felt his fists and jaw clench. Blood pounded in his throat. He was a Werist now and didn’t have to take that from anyone, not ever again.

“If anyone but you said that, I’d eat him.”

Benard seemed truly puzzled. “Said what? You worried about that mark on your face? I don’t even see it when I look at you. All I see is shape. I have a commission to carve some gods. The marble is Vigaelian color. You think I’d paint that mark in? All I want is shape, and you have one of the finest male bodies I’ve ever seen. Gods must be as beautiful as possible, obviously, and your proportions are perfect. Your muscle definition is superb. And your smile is incredibly cryptic.”

Oh? Waels said, “Thank you,” awkwardly.

“My brother must think so too, judging by the way he looks at you.”

Annoyed again, Waels said, “Are we so very obvious?”

“No, I’m very observant. Your flank-mates know, you know?”

“They don’t matter.” Whatever Orlad wanted was fine by them. Fortunately he wanted Waels.

“Now, are you going to strip in here?”

“I s’pose another dip won’t hurt me.”

“That’s all I need-to get a proper look at you.”

Starting to feel flattered, Waels said, “You’re welcome. Admire anything you want.” He tried to look cryptic.

The bathhouse was large and dim, just a log shed built over a creek, full of dank odors of mud and wet timber. Water entered by a trough about thigh height, splashed onto some flat stones, then fed into a pool that took up most of the interior. Some attempt had been made to provide benches and flooring, but mud had spread over everything. There was no one else there-to Waels’s intense relief-but the Revengers had churned the pool to a black wallow.

“The idea is to get yourself dirty in that,” he said, “and then crawl under the dribble to get clean again.”

Benard waded into the wallow, loincloth and all, and sat down with only his head showing. He sighed with delight. And looked expectantly at Waels.

Who said, “It’s very dark in here. Wouldn’t you rather wait until

… I mean…”

The artist chuckled. “I can see very well. Get it over with. I won’t laugh.”

“There’s nothing to laugh at!” Waels said angrily, and stripped to prove it. Funny-he’d been naked around men every day for years and never felt embarrassed like this before.

“Feet a little closer together,” Benard said. “Bend your left knee just a… not so much. Now imagine you’re holding a heavy wine jug against your thigh. A little higher. Oh, yes! Push that hand down with the other one so I see how your muscles would take the weight. Wonderful! Turn around. Thank you. You’re going to be holy Cienu, except you’ll be wearing that gorgeous smile of yours instead of looking like a virgin on her wedding night.”

Waels responded to that remark by jumping into the pool ass-first and throwing a monster wave into Benard’s face. He spluttered and laughed.

For a moment they just sat there in the muddy water and grinned. Benard himself had a mammoth-wrestler’s physique. Orlad did not, but he was much stronger than he looked, able to do wine-jug-at-arm’s-length tricks that even Snerfrik couldn’t.

Waels said, “You’re going back to Kosord now, to finish your statues?”

“Hope so. Ingeld has to bear Oliva there-our daughter. Horold is no threat now. What are you going to do?”

What Waels wanted to do and what he could do were very different. “Don’t know,” he said miserably. “Thanks to you Celebres, Stralg’s brothers are both dead. His sister should be by now. But who’s going to rule after them? Heroes won’t be short of work in my lifetime.”

“Seems wrong to kill for a living.”

How could such a hunk of a man be so unmanly? “You don’t want to be doge of your father’s city?”

Benard guffawed. “Me? You’re joking!”

How could a man with such incredible courage have so little ambition?

Pause.

“Waels…”

“Mm?”

“You love Orlad?”

Any other man who had the cheek to ask that would learn not to very swiftly. “What’s it to you?”

“Just that I’m very happy about it. Orlad’s been hurt more than any of us, even Dantio. He reminds me of castings I do sometimes-a coating of hard bronze outside and a clay center. Of course, in the casting the clay is baked hard, but I think there’s still some human softness left deep inside Orlad. I hope you can find it. He loves you?”

Waels debated breaking another neck, but three in one day seemed excessive. The alternative was to trust this bewildering, tangled sculptor person. “He says he thinks he does. He says he’d rather be with me than with anyone else, and he will never do anything to hurt me.”

“Then he’s being honest, and that’s rare in love affairs. You can’t expect more from him yet. Ask Ingeld. She knows more about love than Eriander, who just peddles lust. Her goddess does, I mean. She’ll advise you. No, I mean it. Talk to Ingeld.”

After a moment, the sculptor shrugged, raising ripples. “I don’t know if this would help… I can’t promise anything. If that birthmark bothers you, I can ask holy Anziel to remove it. She sometimes does favors like that for me. Often she won’t, of course, but you would be incredibly beautiful without it. It would be a sort of present to Orlad.”

Great murderous, frightful, wonderful Weru!

Waels had not really believed Orlad’s account of how his sister had escaped from the satrap’s palace. But… He looked down at his paler limbs, glimmering under the muddy water. Benard’s were almost invisible. He was a black-stubbled brown face floating above nothing.

Trying hard to keep his voice steady, Waels said, “If you can do that, can’t you change all of me?”

Benard looked startled. “What? Why?”

“Because Orlad’s going over the Edge to win back his city and he won’t let us go with him! Fair-haired Werists die on sight over there, he says. I’ve told him I don’t care, but he insists.”

“You love him that much, that you’d go and fight for him?”

“And die for him if I must.”

“You’re sure, absolutely sure…?”

“Oh, yes!”

“That’s beautiful too,” the artist said. “Be quiet a moment.”

He stared at Waels and for a while his lips moved. Then just a stare. At last he frowned in annoyance. “This is harder than I thought it would be. Look, grab a couple of handfuls of mud and rub it in your hair.”

“Why?”

“Shut up and do it.”

Waels hesitated. An extrinsic telling a Hero to shut up? If this was a juvenile joke… If anyone came in… He pulled up two handfuls of black muck and did as he was told, rubbing it into his stubble.

“Now your face,” Benard said.

The mudface said! Admiration of a man’s courage only went so far. Either this artist was gibbering crazy or he was trying to sucker a Hero and ought to be dismantled. But Waels thought about losing Orlad and nothing would be worse than that. He spread more of the revolting ooze over his face.

“And your ears. And neck. Down to your collar. Then either cover your shoulders too or put them under water where I can’t see them. And be quiet again.”

Any moment now half a dozen men would come storming in and start laughing their guts out.

Benard sighed. “All right, wash it off now. I’m sorry. I must be out of favor today. I’m not supposed to meddle in wars.”

Waels ducked under the surface and rubbed his hair and beard clean, or so he hoped. The water went up his nose. He emerged spluttering. His hands were still dirty. He rubbed them. They stayed dirty, didn’t feel dirty, arms the same color…

Benard nodded happily. “Seems I am in favor after all. Praise the lady!”

Waels erupted out of the pool and confirmed that he really was brown all over, the exact shade Orlad was. Miracle! Palms and nails pinker… Black hair! Even the hairs on his arms.

“Oh… Hero?” Wearing a stupid grin, Benard waded out and thumped him on the shoulder.

The new Florengian had to try twice before he managed to croak, “What?”

“I love that baby brother of mine too! Look after him for me, won’t you? Wherever you two go and whatever you do together, you keep him safe!”