Mother of Lies

CHIES STRALGSON

had never been so frightened in his entire life. Not even on the night he was kidnapped, because then he had been falling-down drunk. But now…

Now the sun was setting and Chies was driving down the gully road at breakneck speed because he couldn’t control the team. The car leaped and bounced and rocked, heading steadily closer to Veritano with Sesto following, yelling at him to slow down. The best thing that could happen now would be for him to tip the car and fall out and break his neck. Or throw Saltaja out, but he was certain that would never happen.

He had always known he had half-brothers and a half-sister somewhere beyond the Edge. No one had ever mentioned an aunt. Certainly not a foul, mad, murderous, gangrenous aunt. An aunt who invoked Xaran! An aunt who had cast the evil eye on him and murdered ten Werists.

Sesto had promised, speaking in his curious new singsong, that they could pass Veritano on a trail so far from the buildings that Witness Giunietta would not notice. But Chies couldn’t control his rig. And Melchitte had at least two other patrols out, somewhere. And the dead Werists up on the Altiplano would be missed soon, so searchers would go looking. And war-beasts could outrun llamoids with one paw behind their backs and follow a scent for days. When they caught the killers they would tear them to pieces.

Saltaja was haggard and stank of rotting meat. She had lost fingers and toes and most of her nose. And teeth. She was so weak that Chies had to keep one arm around her to hold her in the chariot. He had tied the reins around his waist so he wouldn’t fall out, but that was hunting technique and he had never practiced driving that way. He ought to head straight to Veritano and scream for men to bring ropes and spades to tether and bury a Chosen. He wouldn’t, because she wouldn’t let him. He would do exactly as he was told.

He would also tell Sesto to do whatever she said, and Sesto would obey, too. She spoke no Florengian, yet that had not stopped her using her evil eye. She’d first enslaved Chies and Sesto, then given her orders through them to the other men. She had made them line up so she could hobble along the line, muttering at them, one by one. Then they had been told to strip and kneel down. And then they had just stayed there on their knees while their flankleader split their heads open with a wood ax and she chanted a hymn to the Evil One!

If a Werist flankleader had killed his own men on her orders, what chance did a boy like Chies have of resisting her? But he was not proud of himself, even so. He had thrown up when the killing started, and lost control of his bowels when she kissed him. He must smell as bad as she did. Now he was terrified by the chariot’s breakneck plunge down the hill and she did not seem worried at all.

“How old are you, Nephew?”

“Sixteen. Just turned.”

“And so tall! Have you made your vows to the gods yet?”

He shivered, wondering why she wanted to know that. “No. The rebels kidnapped me before the turn of the year.”

“That will help. What’s that smoke?”

“Steam. Hot springs.”

“Ah, I could use a good soak. So could you. Stop at a warm pond.”

“I’ll try,” he mumbled. He could not turn the team of four with only one hand, but if he let go of his aunt she might be hurt, and he knew he mustn’t let that happen, whatever he did.

“Tell me about the war,” she mumbled.

“Dunno nothing. The Mutineer seems to be winning. All the battles are his victories.”

“Then tell me about your father.”

“Which father?”

“Don’t play games with me, boy, or I’ll curse the balls off you.”

“I don’t know!” Chies howled. “Stralg? I’ve never met him, not that I remember. He doesn’t…” He was going to say “doesn’t love me” but that would sound ridiculous. How could anyone love him now? He was in league with Xaran, helping one of Her Chosen. Murdering people.

Sesto caught up with them and shouted instructions on how to turn the team. When the llamoids had been slowed to a walk, Chies told him they must find a hot pool. With Sesto leading this time, they reached a place where he said they could bathe. She told Chies to tell him to lift her down from the car.

“Undress me!” she ordered Chies, waving her mutilated hands, and of course he did. She was a horrible sight, the color of old bone, tufts of white hair, every rib showing, dried out dugs like empty meal sacks. “Help me into the water. You get in, too. And tell him to follow.” Sesto had blood all over his hands and arms.

So the three of them sat in the steaming water as the stars came out. Chies had little chance to brood on all the dead men, because she kept mumbling questions and he had to answer, or find out from Sesto for her-the war, the assault on Veritano, yesterday’s unexpected visitors. She listened eagerly to that part. She made Chies tell her all the things the Celebres had talked about with the Mutineer, so far as he had heard. It was a long agony. She was in no hurry, yet the warbeasts might be on their trail already.

“Now, how will you get your dear old aunt to Celebre?”

Chies translated. “We have to take her to Celebre. How can we do that?”

Sesto’s face kept twitching strangely and he spoke funny. “We’ll have to take to the river, or the others will track us.”

“There are boats?”

“Small boats. It’s a small river until we get near the city.”

Chies hugged himself in misery. “Won’t they just run along both banks until they find us?”

“Warbeasts can’t run forever, boy. Boats can.”

Chies told the hag about the river, and boats.

She cackled with satisfaction. “You will arrange whatever we need. He will obey your orders if you say they come from me. If you need anything from someone else, tell me and I will Control them just like I’m Controlling him.”

“And me,” he muttered.

She patted his shoulder with a ruined claw of a hand. “No, Nephew. I’m not Controlling you. I’m forcing him, I admit. He knows I’m doing it and he can’t help responding. But you’re helping your poor old auntie because you want to, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Aunt.” He thought he was just too frightened to argue.

“You want to punish the people who did these terrible things to me, don’t you? You want to help your father defeat the Mutineer, don’t you? You want to be doge, don’t you?”

Had he heard right? “Is that possible, Aunt?”

“Bah! If I can send a flank of Heroes to Xaran, you think a ragtag herd of elders will stop me making you doge?”

Chies said, “No, Aunt!” Holy Twelve! That made a difference.

“You get me near this Marno Cavotti and there won’t be any rebellion.”

“Yes, Aunt. I mean ‘No,’ Aunt.” Hello, Papa. Aunt Saltaja and I have tamed the Mutineer for you. I have his head in this bag. And the elders elected me doge…

“We children of Hrag stick together and help one another!”

“Of course I will do whatever you say, Aunt!”

“How will you get us into the city itself?”

Chies turned back to Sesto, whose twitch seemed to be growing even worse. Giving orders to a rebel flankleader was a heady sensation. “How do we get into Celebre?”

“I can’t go in. The ice devils watch all the gates. They’ll kill me.”

“I can. How about her?”

Sesto blinked, chewed his lip, flicked eyebrows as if his face had gone crazy. “They’ll question a Vigaelian woman. Don’t see them around often.”

Chies turned it into Vigaelian for her.

She was undoubtedly madder than a burning cat, but she was not stupid. “The Celebre boy is a Werist too. And had another Werist with him, you said. How will they get in?”

Translation…

Sesto whimpered, as if in pain. “The Mutineer was going to take the Celebres to Flankleader Eligio. He runs a ranch north of Cypress Gate. He has friends. He gets people in and out.”

“You know this place?” Chies asked.

“Never been there, but it will be easy to find. Just south of Montegola.”

The news made the Chosen cackle again. “Then we will go there and speak with Flankleader Eligio. We’d best be on our way. Chies, you will dress me. Now you see why I told you to collect the men’s robes before Sesto got blood all over them?”

As Chies was helping her out of the pool, he said, “If you want to meet up with Stralg, Aunt, I don’t think we should go to Celebre. He won’t be there.”

She turned and smiled at him. Her mouth was a foul-smelling pit of bloody gums and a few blackened teeth. “Good, good! Starting to be helpful. Your father can wait, boy. What matters first is your sister.”

“Um, Fabia?” He kept forgetting he had a sister.

“Yes, that one. Frena, she used to call herself. But I don’t care what she calls herself. I do care, very much, how she dies. Understand?”

“Er, yes, Aunt.”

“Very horribly, very slowly. Because of what she’s done to me.”

“Of course, Aunt.” Chies finished drying her scrawny carcass with one chlamys and reached for another to drape her. “And her brothers, too?” He didn’t want a contested election.

Not far off dawn, they stole a boat. Two dogs started to bark, then had second thoughts and ran away into the darkness, whining in terror. Their owners were either asleep or had enough sense not to interfere. The hag made Sesto release the exhausted llamoids and push the two chariots off the scruffy little jetty into the river. They floated away upside down, wheels plaintively turning. How soon until the Veritano warbeasts arrived?

Chies gave Sesto his orders, then collapsed in the bottom of the boat and went to sleep.

Before noon they left the river and commandeered a wagon.

That night, Chies found himself eating a hearty meal in a farmer’s hut. Several hearty meals, in fact, one after the other. The farmer was a heavyset man, almost big enough to be a Werist, but he was Controlled as tightly as Sesto, wearing the same mindless expression, answering questions in the same singsong. He had a fat wife, a hulking adolescent son, and a remarkably pretty daughter. They were all Controlled, too. Sesto was a walking corpse, barely able to speak, but he had probably not slept since leaving Veritano. Chies repeatedly had to order him to keep eating.

Aunt Saltaja was starting to look better already. Her mouth bled less and she was steadier on her feet. Yet her mind seemed even more twisted than before. She rarely spoke of anything except the atrocities she was going to inflict on Fabia Celebre. Also the brothers, but mostly the woman. Fabia was another Chosen, apparently. Chies was sorry to hear that, because he had quite liked her. She had kissed him and gotten his accursed chains taken off.

He finished eating at last, picking a few last treats out of his teeth. He yawned. A comfortable rug and a blanket were in order now. The lamp was flickering, its oil almost gone, and the fire had shrunk to embers. The hut was built of bamboo, wicker and palm-leaf thatch, so all the rooms were tiny, but there were several of them. He assumed Aunt Saltaja would take the best sleeping platform, and hoped he could steal a place by the fire. Or just steal away? He had very good night-sight. If the stars were out, he might manage to escape.

“You want her?” his Aunt said suddenly, leering her black stumps at him.

“What?”

“You’ve done well. You deserve a reward. You want her for the night?”

He gulped. He realized he had been staring at the girl. She was certainly pretty. He was very tired, but a man had to look out for his reputation.

“I would enjoy that, Aunt.”

She beckoned the girl over to her, pulled her head down close, and stared very hard into her eyes. She mumbled something.

“I don’t think she understands Vigaelian,” Chies said uneasily.

Saltaja released the girl. “Doesn’t matter. I spoke to the Mother, not her. Take her. She’ll do whatever you want.”

The girl was staring at Chies. He nodded. She blushed furiously and beckoned for him to follow.

The room was tiny and the sleeping platform was a narrow frame full of sand. He closed the door, wishing it had a bolt, which it did not. Ignoring the girl, he examined the window, but it was fitted with stout bars of bamboo, which he could not budge. The night was cloudy, anyway, and the farmer had dogs out there. So no escape tonight.

The girl slid her arms around him. She was not merely willing, she was eager. She had no clothes on. But…

But Saltaja was going to get caught sooner or later, probably sooner.

He could not help doing what she told him when she was there, fixing him with the evil eye. She had made a flankleader murder his own men, so a boy like Chies could not be expected to refuse her orders when she was there. But if he refused this girl, that would show he wasn’t really cooperating with the Chosen the rest of the time, wouldn’t it? If it came to a trial, that would save him, wouldn’t it?

The girl had a hand at his crotch already, so he had better decide this quickly.

She whispered “Love me!” in his ear and tried to kiss him.

Fortunately, she had very bad breath, which made the decision easier.

He said, “No!” He squirmed loose. “Don’t touch me. You sleep on the floor. Lie down!”

She obeyed. He couldn’t see her face in the dark. He heard her snivel. “But I want…”

“Be quiet! Don’t speak. And don’t come near me.”

He stretched out on the sand, wriggled a hollow for his hip, and turned his back on her. It wasn’t as hard as he expected. In fact, the thought of what they did to rapists was quite enough to dissuade him. Big softie! he thought. Little softie, in fact. He went to sleep.

He had worried that his aunt might not leave any witnesses behind when they departed in the morning. She didn’t, but not the way he had feared. She hexed the farmer and his family to forget that they had entertained visitors-also to forget that they had owned a chariot and two guanacos. The car was very cramped with three on board, but they soon met a man driving another one. They left him sitting by the wayside in a daze. Sesto handled the second team.

Three days, two nights, and two more women later, they saw the spire of a temple that Sesto claimed marked Montegola. Sesto was almost imbecilic-drooling constantly and barely able to drive a team. When Saltaja said to stop, Chies had to yell at the top of his lungs to make him understand. He would chew food only when ordered to and forget to swallow.

“Why are we stopping here, Aunt?” Chies could see nothing of interest in the farmland, just the distant temple, stubbled fields, a few hedges, and a forlorn clump of trees. They looked somehow ominous, drooping and stark against the sunset. It was to those that she pointed.

“Why don’t they plow there?”

“I… have no idea, Aunt.”

“It’s probably accursed ground. If it isn’t, it will have to do. You ready?”

Finding his throat suddenly dry, Chies just nodded. He had trouble finding enough spit to order Sesto to follow, suspecting that the dolt would just stand there in his chariot on the track until he died of thirst. They drove slowly across the stubbled field to the copse. Chies lifted Saltaja down again, told Sesto to follow. The weeds were long and unkempt between the rain-wet trunks. He kept stumbling on the uneven ground, and Sesto fell several times.

“Old battlefield, I think,” Saltaja said. “Smells of evil.” But when they reached the center, she peered around and frowned at a group of four or five cottages in the distance. “It’s not as private as I had hoped. We had best be quick. You are ready?”

He was shaking like a palm frond in a sea storm. He said, “Of course,” but it came out as a croak. He didn’t have any choice, did he? She would never trust him otherwise, never release him. No, she’d mush his mind and turn him into a pudding like Sesto.

She leered, knowing what he was thinking. “It has to be of your own free will.”

“Oh yes. I really want to do this, Aunt.” Didn’t he? Power? Girls?

“Well, I told you what to do. You brought the knife?”

He nodded and started taking his clothes off. He told Sesto to do the same and kneel down. He thought for a horrible moment that something like fear showed in the man’s eyes, but he obeyed Chies without argument. Soon everybody would!

Chies stepped behind him, and whispered the words of the oath she had taught him, all the terrible promises by blood and birth, death and the cold earth. He pricked his own arm, shed a few drops of his own blood on the cold earth and a few more on the sacrifice to mark it as coming from him. Then he took Sesto by the hair and put the knife to his throat.

Sesto moaned and reached up to stop him.

“Let go!” Chies said in sudden panic. The strong fingers opened for him. “Now keep still!”

The knife was not as sharp as he would have liked. He had to saw with it. When he reached the artery, he was amazed at how far the blood spurted. He closed his eyes and was taken by surprise when Sesto collapsed at his feet. So it was done, and Chies felt no different, just very shaky and a little ill.

He turned to look at his aunt.

She cackled. “Well done, my little man. You made a wise choice.”

He did not ask what his alternatives had been. He forced himself to go to her and give her a kiss. “Thank you.” He wondered if he could kill her too, now. The Old One- Xaran! He could say the name now-Xaran might like two sacrifices. Chies could go home and claim that he had escaped from her, and who would be the wiser?

On the other hand, he had a lot to learn and Saltaja could teach him.

“Time to go, Aunt,” he said, throwing down the knife and wiping his bloody hands on the grass.

He unharnessed the two unneeded guanacos and released them to gladden the heart of some fortunate peasant. He lifted his fellow Chosen back into the chariot and drove off with her in search of Flankleader Eligio and his llamoid ranch.