Mother of Lies

FABIA CELEBRE

was conducted to a bathing pool that would have held sixty women without a jostle. She had it to herself, in a courtyard so steamy and overgrown by feral garden that it would have been private even without the high wall surrounding it. Although paving, statuary, and stone benches were all cushioned in green moss, the water itself was clear, gushing up from a corroded bronze grating and trickling away through another. She sank into bliss, submerging totally until she had to come up for air. The gods knew that she had earned this! Nothing in her life quite compared.

Soon Giunietta came bustling in with a pile of clothes. “Try rubbing yourself with this paste, my lady. It cleanses and freshens the skin. These are the only women’s garments I could find. I’ll hold them up, and you can tell me what color you like and what you think will fit you…”

After that Giunietta dusted off a bench and sat down to chat while Fabia washed, soaked, swam a little, and generally luxuriated. Whenever her head was above water, she freely recounted the family adventures: how she had learned Florengian from Paola, why Orlad spoke it so badly, how Benard had risen so high so fast, how Waels had changed color, and so on. Some of it only a seer would believe, and Giunietta must know that she had an ulterior motive in telling it. After Fabia had dried herself off with the softest towels she had ever encountered-alpaca wool, whatever that was-Giunietta offered to rub her with lavender oil. That was an offer not be refused, and she stretched out on the bench, facedown. It was nice to feel kneaded.

“But now it’s my turn. Tell me about the Mutineer. How did you meet him?”

Gentle fingers spread cool oil on her shoulders. “The rule our Goddess decreed for Her mystery here is not quite the same as She set out for Vigaelia. We do not go veiled, for example, unless we are testifying. Both cults are forbidden to meddle in events, but when Stralg perverted Her mystery in Vigaelia and then brought this evil over the Edge with him, our Eldest decreed that any Florengian Witnesses who wished to assist the opposition would be allowed to do so, within certain limits. I am forbidden to send men to their deaths, for example, but I may warn of ambushes. Very few of us can bear to do even that much. I fear I have more tolerance for brutality than most.”

Unsure how to respond to that, Fabia said, “How long have you known Marno Cavotti?”

“About two thirties.”

Oh. No children, no marriage.

“He broke into Celebre itself to appeal to the doge.” Giunietta’s voice was soothing, but she lacked skill at oiling and pummeling. Fabia longed for Lilin, back in Skjar. “Your father was incapable and your mother was ruling in his name. Marno spoke with her and then escaped by the skin of his heels. He takes absurd risks sometimes! I had agreed to help his men locate him, and that was when we met. One thing led to another, and… Later I discovered that his real purpose had been to lure the Vigaelians into a trap, and he won a great victory by it. When he says victory he means massacre, so my involvement was not as harmless as I had hoped, but that is typical of Marno.”

She worked on Fabia’s thighs. “We very nearly lost him a few sixdays ago. He got trapped between two Vigaelian squads and was horribly wounded and tortured, very nearly died.”

“How awful!”

“Until then he could pass for an extrinsic-big, yes, but handsome as a god. Some of his men rescued him in time to save his life, but he could not heal all his injuries. He does not complain, but it must be hard for him.”

Hard on anyone who had to look at him. That bestial face would give Fabia shudders even without the horn. “You are lovers?”

“Seers do not fall in love, my lady. Love is a form of blindness.”

“I am sorry. It is none of-”

Giunietta chuckled quite crudely. “But we take pleasure together. You cannot imagine me coupling with that great unicorn bison? Well, I do, and eagerly, every time I can get him to take a moment away from the war. I confess I am sadly promiscuous where Werists are concerned. Sometimes we Witnesses can be snared by our own powers, and I know that some of my sisters have become as addicted as I have. We have more talents than just sight, you know. One of our abilities is to detect the inner nature of things or people. We call it ‘smell,’ but it has nothing to do with noses or scent. We have to call it something, and it has about the same range as an odor. We can sniff out lies and liars, poison in a goblet, bad news in a letter, disease or rotting beams. I can tell boy babies from girls before their mothers are even aware of their existence. Will you turn over now?

“Many Werists are brutal all the way through. That type usually enlists voluntarily, seeking out the god. They can be handsome as maidens’ dreams outside and solid monster inside. Marno wanted to be an artist and a patron of the arts, but he was snatched off the streets of Celebre and coerced into the service of Weru. Had the gods never inflicted the Fist on Florengia, he would have been a different person. Your brother Orlad is much the same. But all that is might-have-been, and gossamer for Voices of Anziel to spin.

“Deep inside Marno Cavotti I still sense the gentle boy artist, much like your brother Benard as you described him. Outside that sweetness is a crust of murder and ferocity that outdoes even Stralg. Between them rages a zone of fire I cannot describe. For a Witness to give herself to such a man is an experience at once terrifying and exalting. He could crush me, destroy me in an instant, as he has destroyed uncounted men, and yet he is so vulnerable, so in need of care and love… Only a Witness could understand the turmoil of fury and despair, of hatred and need. Marno is like no other man. I fear what will become of him after this war is ended. He will win it, if he lives, but then his life will be empty. He cannot go back. He can never have a normal marriage and children. What does he do? Invade Vigaelia?”

Fabia could not resist asking, “Does that horn get in the way much?”

Giunietta laughed. “No more than noses!”

“And he has seasoning, as I do?”

The hands kneading her thigh stilled. “Your brother told you about that?”

“Orlad has it also. Benard and Dantio did have it, but they have lost it.”

“Four of you? That is incredible.”

“So I am told. The Mutineer must have it, so how does a Witness react to whole-body contact with Marno Cavotti?”

“There are no words for it,” Giunietta said. “I believe the food will be ready soon, my lady. If you care to sit up, I will comb out your hair for you.”

Once splendid, the dining hall showed the ravages of many years’ neglect under the Stralg regime. Plaster had fallen from walls and lay in heaps in corners. The tables and benches were battered as if they had survived fights or very rough sport, and the windows looked out on a jungle where there should be a fine park. In among the tangle of lank vegetation shone flowers like red and white stars.

“Exiles!” Dantio said, leaning out to pick some. “Also called Outcasts. And they are blooming to welcome us!” He handed a sprig to Fabia.

“Can I eat it?” she asked. “Don’t you feel drafty in that towel?”

The men were transformed, clean and curried, but all three wore brown Hero chlamyses, doubtless the only male garments to be found in this outpost.

“The man who wore this yesterday never came back for it,” Dantio said bleakly.

“Oh.” Who would be a seer and know such things?

Then Cavotti entered with Giunietta, plus a short, heavyset Werist who was presented as Huntleader Melchitte. Fabia lost interest in him almost immediately because servants followed him, bringing food. For about a thirty she had eaten nothing but pemmican and beans. Now she saw real food again at last, and more than enough of it for two women and five men, although she recognized almost nothing. There was no cutlery, only fingers to take what they fancied from steaming bowls being passed around. If these were proper Florengian table manners, not just crude Werist habits, she would have to learn a whole new code of behavior. She chose something like a roll of pastry; when she bit into it hot gravy spurted down her chin. Waels sniggered like an idiot. It was meaty and tasty, though. She passed on a bowl of mysterious paste and took a small fish on a twig from the next. At least the flagon of wine that was placed in front of her seemed to be for her own use, not for sharing.

“We do not normally eat this well,” Cavotti said. “The Veritano garrison commander was a gourmet. Now his cooks work for us. They had brought in many delicacies for a year-end feast, which he unfortunately is not present to enjoy. He is treating the vultures. Try these curried lizard heads.”

The Mutineer was a restless man, and not as famished as his guests. He soon began talking business. He wanted to hear-and wanted Melchitte to hear-all about Saltaja and the closing of the pass. Dantio obliged between mouthfuls.

“How many men did she have with her?”

“We do not know, although Orlad saw at least a sixty. Four sixty if she brought all of Caravan Six. We know there were about eight sixty in Nardalborg, but the pass was not provisioned for that many.”

When a hefty elbow jabbed her ribs, Fabia realized that she had Waels on one side of her, Orlad on the other, and had been elected interpreter. She explained in a whisper as Dantio described the events at Fist’s Leap.

“Surely,” Melchitte said, “if they knew you had torched the last food cache, they would be more inclined to turn back than press on? Coming this way they faced a harder journey and a war when they arrived.”

Dantio hesitated, eyed Fabia as if wondering what she knew that she had not told him, and then said, “I agree, my lord, and with anyone else I would not worry. But Saltaja does have chthonic powers and she would certainly want to press on to Florengia to join up with her brother. Only death waited for her at home in Vigaelia.”

Cavotti was skeptical. “She was old. She had no food. Even if she had four sixty men with her, they would be more inclined to kill her in anger than help her escape. How long will you need to destroy the shelters, Melchitte?”

The huntleader smiled. “Two days should be more than ample, my lord. If we encounter any ice devils, they will be exhausted and starving.”

Fabia could not let such folly go unchecked. Nor could she discuss her chthonic efforts to view the Queen of Shadows. She suspected that her attempts had been somehow blocked, for her dreams had revealed nothing except brief glimpses of Saltaja gnawing on bloody meat and crossing the Dust River on a bridge of corpses. She had no idea whether those were genuine sendings or the Mother of Lies plying her with nightmares.

“Lord Marno, I beg you not to underestimate Saltaja Hragsdor! She ruled all Vigaelia for fifteen years. No one has ever done that before. I will never be convinced that she is dead until I see her carcass. She did have food. She had four sixty head, on the hoof.”

Into the angry silence, Giunietta spoke softly. “The lady may be mistaken, but she means what she says.”

The Mutineer drummed fingers on the table. “I want to raze this place. If I leave a garrison here, I risk drawing an attack by Stralg’s forces to retake it. If he gains any inkling that his sister may be approaching, he will certainly try to reoccupy the site. But I see your point. Huntleader, we will take this warning seriously. I will leave you here with blue pack for a thirty to kill any stragglers coming over the pass. They should be in no condition to fight back. When you are ready to withdraw, take enough from the food cache for your own use, and then burn the rest, and the buildings. Start your patrols right away.”

Melchitte rose. “My lord is kind.” He stepped over the bench and headed for the door.

“And when you come back, bring our prisoner.” Something about Marno’s smirk raised Fabia’s hackles. She noted both Dantio and Giunietta looking at him strangely. She recalled Felice’s warning that he might have surprises of his own.

He popped one of the round, green peppery fruits into his armory of teeth and spoke around it. “What are your plans?”

“We have no plans, only wishes,” Dantio said. “First I must rescue the seers Stralg kidnapped. When he set out to invade Florengia, he ignored the Eldest’s protests and took a dozen seers with him. We know that most have since died, but the survivors must be informed that the compact is now broken and their ordeal is ended. If we can rescue them, the Fist will lose his eyes.”

Cavotti seemed curiously unenthusiastic at the prospect. “That will help in the long run, certainly. I agree that mercy requires us to release the poor women, but I must consider how best to use this turn of events. Giunietta, how can I inform them of the news?”

The three of them discussed seers. Fabia explained to Orlad and Waels, then began considering her own priorities. When Cavotti reached a long arm for a sweet roll, she was ready.

“My lord? Before we discuss what we want you to do for us, why don’t you explain what you intend to do with us?”

The ogreish, misshapen eyes turned to study her. Seeing that she bore his gaze without flinching, he said, “Aren’t we allies against the Fist? Don’t you trust me, lady Fabia?”

“I hope we can be allies. No, I don’t trust you.”

He raised his eyebrows, snuggling them up around his horn stub. He was amused. “Wise of you, perhaps. I’m not sure just how I want to use you. Your arrival has changed things considerably.” He pulled something out of the nearest bowl and crunched it with his millstone teeth.

“Ten years ago, Stralg controlled the Face, and we were a raggle-taggle pack of oath-breakers hiding out in the jungles around Ocean. Every year after that we grew stronger. Every year we grew stronger faster. Now Stralg is down to about three sixty-sixty and I have more men than he does. I need more, because I have been herding him this way, to the northwest. I knew he would want to keep his lines to Vigaelia open. He knew I knew that, and knew I would always leave this direction less defended than any other. We both have seers and know more or less where the enemy is. We are playing a gigantic game of tegale. ”

He paused to nibble while Fabia made a quick translation.

“The art in this sort of war lies in concentration and dispersion. Last rainy season Stralg occupied the town of Miona. He squeezed twenty sixty of his men in there, so we surrounded it and burned it. Few Heroes escaped, and almost no extrinsics. He hasn’t made that mistake again. That is why he has not occupied Celebre yet. At the moment he holds roughly the area from Umsina to Veritano, including Celebre, but he has only a token force in the city itself. Even our advantage in numbers would not hold him if he wanted to break out, but he doesn’t, because Veritano is his escape route, understand? He was stocking it, making ready for a pullout over the pass in the spring.” The Mutineer grinned, which was a nightmare sight. “A Stralg pullout! He goes first and the Old One takes the hindmost.”

Again Fabia translated for her neighbors. Waels was smiling, Orlad scowling.

“Armies never willingly give battle,” Cavotti said, “unless they are sure of at least a local advantage in numbers. Eventually I will force Stralg into a corner, bring up all my reserves, and crush him. I came here because we learned that he had left Veritano vulnerable. He miscalculated, or else he hoped to trap me into a bad move. Either way, I took the bait. I planned to burn it, expecting him to rush in and take it back so he could restart his escape plan. Reinforcement here would shrink his perimeter elsewhere, understand, and make life easier for us. But I do not want to lose men.

“Now you bring news that there is no back door for my lord Stralg. Not only have you burned his bridges, but Vigaelia has turned on the spawn of Hrag. His brothers and sister are dead. He is alone. This makes a real change, and will require new strategy. Any beast is most dangerous when cornered. I can try to keep him ignorant of this development. Or I may let him find out. If I do that, what will he do? Break out to the south, and abandon hope of going home?”

Dantio muttered, “Open negotiations?” but Cavotti was obviously addressing Orlad. There was a crackling tension between the two Werists.

Orlad asked Fabia a few questions to make sure he understood. Then he said, in his accented Florengian, “He takes Celebre?”

Cavotti nodded his oversized head, leering terrible teeth. “I think he may do that! He could seize the city and hold it hostage as his price for peace.”

Would the Mutineer then treat Celebre as he had Miona?

“So it seems that by returning we have doomed Celebre,” Fabia said. “My lord, we wish most of all to visit our father, if he still lives, and to comfort our mother. We ask your help in this. Will you refuse it?”

The great wall of teeth showed again. “I wish to destroy Stralg. That is the only thing that matters to me. Your request must be judged against the demands of war. I will give you my decision as soon as I have made it. In this nightmare game of tegale, I have one more tile to show you, although one of very minor importance.”

Cavotti was facing the door, she was not. She turned to see who was making that peculiar clattering sound.

Huntleader Melchitte had returned, chivvying along a prisoner who was at once taller than he was and about one-third the width. He was a Florengian, his ankles and wrists chained together so that he was forced to walk in a stoop, shuffling his bare feet. The only other thing he wore was a dirty loincloth, so narrow it would have barely made a sleeve for Cavotti. He was obviously only a boy, and Fabia felt a flash of anger that a child should be so maltreated.

She turned to say so, and was shocked by Dantio’s horror-struck expression. She took another look at the prisoner. He, in turn, was staring at Cavotti with a truculent expression that failed to conceal an understandable fear. That face? She had seen a face like that in a vision. And in Benard’s art. And she had spent half a year with Saltaja Hragsdor.

“My lord Cavotti,” she said, since no one else was speaking and she disliked his sneer. “Obviously you have captured a Stralg by-blow, or a nephew, perhaps. But he is only a child. Must he be chained like that?”

The Mutineer turned his scowl on her. “He needed a lesson in manners.”

“They’re scared of me!” the boy jeered.

Fabia said, “If he talks back to you in his position, then I admire his courage, if not his wits. Are you frightened that he will escape? Cannot your warbeasts track down a fugitive?”

Cavotti smirked. She turned back to the boy and now he was the one showing shock. He was staring at her in disbelief. She had guessed who he was-and he knew her also? Just as Benard had known her the first time they met. That explained Cavotti’s little game. Suddenly furious, she jumped up and went over to the boy.

“I am Fabia Celebre. What’s your name?”

Even stooped, he was taller than she was. He hesitated. “Chies Celebre.”

No-Chies Stralgson! She had seen a vision of Stralg dragging her mother away. “Then you are my half-brother.”

He nodded as if he expected to be struck. “You are so like Mama!”

“I am flattered to hear it! You look much like your father. I am happy to meet you, brother Chies!” She kissed his cheek. “Here is your oldest brother, Dantio.”

Dantio had recovered his poise and was apparently willing to follow her lead. He walked forward and gave the youth a hug. “Well met, brother Chies. We did not know you existed, but we shall not hold it against you that you do. How is Mama?”

Young Chies looked as if the sky had just fallen on him. “All right,” he mumbled. “Or she was before I was… kidnapped. Kidnapped by these-”

“Don’t poke sticks at the bears, Chies,” Fabia said quickly. “Not when you’re the one in the cage. And there-” She hoped this was going to work. “-is your youngest brother, Orlad. He used to be Orlando, but it’s safer to call him Orlad.”

For a moment Orlad glowered at the beanpole and the beanpole stared at the Werist in horror. Then Orlad said, “Why don’t I just tear his head off?”

“Don’t be snarly,” Fabia said. Curiously, Chies seemed to have understood that remark. Had his father taught him Vigaelian, just as Paola had taught her Florengian?

Orlad switched to Florengian. “Welcome. The more family is the best. Better, I mean.” But he stayed at the table.

Chies said, “Thank you.” Surrounded by unexpected relatives willing to be allies, he lifted his chin and shot a look of triumph at Cavotti. He did not lack courage.

“Tell us, my lord,” Fabia said, “how our brother came to be here to meet us?”

“First you tell me how you recognized him.” Cavotti would not have survived so long had he been a trusting man.

Fabia was not about to confess to receiving visions from Xaran. “I know Stralg abducted my mother. Now I know why. Also, I knew his uncles, and his aunt, and my brother Benard used Stralg’s likeness in a mosaic. Please can he be unchained? You know he can’t escape.”

The Mutineer said, “Loose the pup, Huntleader. Your father is dying, my lady. The council will have to choose a new doge, and this trash started mincing around like a prince of the blood. I didn’t think the elders would be insane enough to elect him by themselves, but the Fist might force them. We removed the temptation.”

“He wants to use me to trap my father!” Chies snapped. The boy’s loyalties were a bit confused, perhaps. Understandably.

Cavotti said, “He has grandiose ideas of his own worth. He imagines his sire would bother to cross a street to rescue him.”

“If you saw him as a political token, then the Fist may as well,” Fabia said, aware that she was now the one poking sticks at bears.

Dantio intervened with the question that had to be asked. “Has our father named a successor, my lord?”

Cavotti chuckled. “Apparently he did. He was asked, not long ago. To everyone’s surprise he rallied enough to cast the dead man’s vote.”

“And?”

“He said, ‘The Winner!’” Thanks to his beetling brows, the big man’s smile was more fearsome than most glowers Fabia had ever met. “Perhaps he meant Stralg. I doubt that he meant lord Chies.”

“Then the elders will decide,” she said. “Since we offer them a wider choice now, may our half-brother accompany us to Celebre?”

“Si’ down, all of you,” Cavotti growled. And, as Chies’s chains clattered to the floor, “You, too, boy. Eat if you’re hungry. My lady, Celebre is in the middle of Stralg country. You are escaped hostages. You realize the danger you will be in if you surface here?” He looked to Orlad. “You, especially. No Florengian enters Celebre now with a brass collar on. Understand?”

Orlad nodded. “I will risk this.”

“We all will,” Dantio said.

“Your necks are your business,” Cavotti said, shrugging. “Your loyalty I cannot doubt, but the bastard I will not trust. He stays here. You can leave with me. I will turn you over to people who will try to get you into Celebre. No guarantees. If you do get in there, though, for gods’ sake keep your heads down.”

Chies, who was eating with both hands, found room in his mouth to say, “He wants to use you to lure my… to lure the Fist into Celebre so he can burn it down, like he did with Miona.”

Fabia had wondered that earlier, but remarked, “I think your father is too clever to fall into the same trap twice, Chies.” However, she suspected the Mutineer might be cleverer still.