Mother of Lies

DANTIO CELEBRE

was overloaded, losing detail. Whole areas were disappearing from his vision. Fighting had broken out in Pantheon Way. He knew that men other than Orlad and Waels were invading the palace grounds, but he could not identify them. If any were Werists, he hoped they were Marno’s. They might just be town youths scrambling over the palace walls to view the action, stimulated by the near-riot spreading through the city. Roused by the doge’s death, Celebre was bursting out of its long sleep.

Like all Witnesses trained in the Ivory Cloisters, Mist had been repeatedly warned of the fate that befell the seers of Jat-Nogul. Trapped in the city during the sack, they had been driven raving mad by the horrors, and so had any other Witness who went near them thereafter. Even some tough survivors of Stralg’s massacre at Bergashamm had succumbed to the emotional storm of Jat-Nogul.

Celebre was not at storm level yet, but winds were rising to dangerous levels. The trumpets had proclaimed the news of Piero’s death, and Celebrians were notoriously demonstrative mourners. Defying curfew, citizens poured into the streets, wailing at the tops of their voices and hammering cook pots, drowning out even the trumpets’ ear-torturing wail. One of the city gates had been opened to admit a cavalcade of chariots bearing at least a full hunt of Vigaelian Werists. All those llamoids and ice devils were trying to force their way through a grief-maddened mob, and there just was not room. Soon they would start hurting people, and then violence would erupt like a volcano.

One host-four sixty-was a strong force, but a very small part of the Fist’s horde. That it might be Stralg’s personal bodyguard made sense. But Marno Cavotti had both excellent sources of intelligence and extraordinary cunning. He had been smuggling men into the city all day, pod after pod of black seals swimming in through the secret gap in the siphon. He had set up Celebre as a trap. Stralg would never walk into a trap as long as he had his Witnesses to warn him, so Cavotti must have managed to pass along the news that Dantio and the others had brought from Vigaelia, that the notorious compact was broken and they were free to deceive the monster they had served so long. Dantio himself had set this pot a-boiling.

Whether Stralg himself had arrived or not, Liberators scattered in safe houses all over the city were gradually learning of the Vigaelian incursion and emerging to slake their bloodlust.

All of this was bad enough and promised to get infinitely worse when the fighting and arson began, but Dantio was also personally involved in the drama around his father’s bier. Orlad and Waels had found their way to the palace grounds and were lurking, naked and wet, in the bushes outside the pillars. They could see the ceremony under way, could see Oliva and her two newfound lambs struggling to restrain their reactions, could even see the bag of clothes lying just out of their reach within the hall. They could do nothing about that glowering, suspicious Huntleader Purque, Stralg’s commandant in Celebre, short of charging in and killing him. Purque had guessed that something significant was happening right under his nose and was trying to learn what it was.

Oliva was gamely fighting against hysteria, stressed almost beyond endurance by the events of the evening and the continuing threat of the peg-leg Werist. Their plans for a secret, confidential reunion had collapsed into this turmoil. Dantio was being pummeled by joy and grief, fear and frustration, from all directions.

Just as he braced himself to go and tell Purque that Stralg was looking for him-which must be true to some extent-he sensed agitation outside the north door, where the huntleader had left his escort. With an effort, Dantio unearthed the psychic clues of a Hero having just brought a message from the barracks in Wheelwrights’ Alley. After a moment’s hesitation, the ranking flankleader opened the door and peered in. The commandant frowned and stumped off toward him, thumping along on his spear. Saved! Sure enough, in a moment the Werist was gone, leading his troops back to the barracks.

Everyone else present smelled trustworthy.

“All clear for now, Mama.” Dantio trotted over to the bundle of clothes and hurled it out into the darkness. Waels saw it eclipse the candlelight, leaped up, and grabbed it.

Wiping sweat from his forehead, Dantio turned back toward the catafalque in its lake of candlelight. Completed or not, the ceremonial recording of the doge’s passing had obviously come to an end. The scribes were carrying away their tablets to be baked. Fabia and Mama were locked in a tearful embrace-which was wildly out of character, because neither was naturally demonstrative-and everyone else was staring in bewilderment either at them or at him, the eccentric bag-throwing seer. Neither Quarina nor Berlice had been told that Orlad might attend this meeting also.

But Dantio Celebre, heir presumptive, was home in the hall of his ancestors. This was the day he had dreamed of. He raised his voice and let it ring back from the vaulted ceiling.

“My lords and ladies! I am Dantio Celebre, eldest son of the late Doge Piero. This is my sister, Fabia. We have just returned from our exile in Vigaelia.”

The resultant rush of joy almost knocked him over. The elders curtsied, bowed, and cheered, all at the same time. He detected no hidden reservations at all, not one. Oliva came sweeping to meet him and they embraced. She was sobbing. Holy Mayn, so was he!

“Dantio! Dantio!..” she exclaimed. Then came the shock of finding unbearded lips on a man nearing thirty.

Before either of them spoke, someone cried out in fear. Two Werists came striding in through the pillars-Florengian Werists, unarmed and barefoot. Dantio led his mother forward to meet them.

“Mama, this is Orlad. And this is his liegeman, Waels Borkson.”

The dogaressa ignored the liegeman. She just stared in disbelief at her Hero son, as if petrified by that sinister collar. Orlad stared back with his emotional defenses higher than mountains. Since leaving Nardalborg, he had begun to shed his crust of enforced brutality. Hints of a decent human being were starting to emerge, but he did not know how to respond to a mother. Or any woman, for that matter.

“So big!” she whispered.

“You think that’s big, you ought to see Benard!” Fabia said. “Orlad, you chump, hug her until her ribs creak.”

Orlad forced a smile and did more or less that. The tension broke, if not the ribs. Oliva said “Oh, Orlando, Orlando!” about fifty times, kissing him as she did-his face did not lack stubble. Dantio and Fabia exchanged relieved smiles. Had there ever been so much joy at a lying-in-state? Were Benard there, he would be blubbering like the triple fountain. Somehow Dantio did not think his father would have regarded this celebration around his bier as disrespect.

“Oh, Orlando, my baby!”

Dantio caught Fabia’s eye and they exchanged grins.

The dignitaries were pushing forward to greet the revenants, giving Dantio precedence as the eldest, of course. He would certainly not be the heir, but he could not explain that now. It was all he could do to withstand the waves of riot and emotion washing in from the city. The first fires had started. Mobs of enraged extrinsics were savaging golden warbeasts but paying a terrible toll for their presumption. Black warbeasts were swarming out of hiding to aid them.

More palace officials streamed into the hall. So the news had escaped: The children are back! Elders of the council, summoned to the palace by the trumpets, were shoving to the head of the line to pay their respects. Heads of families famous in the city’s history: Giordano Giali, Ritormo Nucci… The temple of Ucr was burning. A seer was running along the corridor outside, and Werists were coming too. Vigaelian Werists.

Screaming gods!

Only one man could emit that fearful stench of death and evil. Dantio dithered in panic. Had he miscalculated? What if the Fist’s seers had not heard about the broken compact after all? Perhaps it was not a hunt for his Chies bastard that brought Stralg to Celebre this night, but a craving for revenge on the legitimate children! Therek, Horold, Saltaja all dead, and their killers gathered here?

“Out!” Dantio yelled at Orlad. “Stralg’s coming. He’s almost here! Hide!” The rest of what he tried to say was lost in screams of alarm. Half the assembly thought he was addressing them. They bolted for the pillars and disappeared into the night and the rain. Then the rest had second thoughts and followed.

Oliva remained, with Dantio and Fabia beside her. Speaker Quarina, the high priest, Berlice, ancient Nucci… yes, the elders and only the elders, eight of them so far. They were more than a little flustered, but they were standing their ground, gathered around the catafalque.

“Fabia, you should leave, too!” Dantio said, but he was too late and knew she would not have gone anyway.

The north door flew open, shedding light that was immediately blocked by the bloodlord himself. He strode in without bothering to have his bodyguard inspect the hall. He had no need to, because a white-shrouded seer scuttled along at his side like a dog on a leash. For thirty years Witnesses of Mayn had kept him safe from harm. Incongruously, and unknown to anyone but Dantio, the stooped little woman with him was blazing joy like the sun. She did know that the compact was ended. She could smell the trap awaiting him. She luxuriated in it, savoring her hate.

Stralg slammed the door behind them, thundering rage like a sea storm. Out beyond the pillars, a steady thumping drumbeat of fear from the onlookers in the rain failed to hide one great bugle call of hatred. Dantio knew that emotional note as well as he knew his brother’s voice. Orlad saw the cause of all his troubles at last, and he had left his bodyguard outside. With his faithful Waels to help him, Orlad would never resist this temptation.

The bloodlord had been a handsome man in his youth. As he advanced into the candlelight, Dantio recalled faint memories of him on the day of the fall, mostly of how big he had seemed. He still did. While he was not battle hardened into bestiality as his brothers had been, he was not a normal human, either, standing over eight feet tall and massive in proportion. Wearing only his brass collar and a black loincloth, totally hairless, with skin as white as granular ice and a head like a boulder with ears, he resembled some oversized statue come to life.

He had not visited Celebre in ten years. The elders shrank away from his glare. He peered down at the doge’s corpse and spat on it. Then he located Oliva.

“So, now you’re a widow. Want to come back to me?”

“Never,” she said, with admirable calm, but her internal hate was almost unbearable.

“Wouldn’t want you anyway. But you, now…” He had just noticed Fabia. “Who’re you?” He licked ice-white lips with a long red tongue.

“Fabia Celebre.”

Amazingly, she was almost as calm as she looked. Oh, sister! Was she counting on Orlad to protect her from the monster, or relying on her own chthonic powers?

The Fist glanced at his attendant seer, who stayed silent behind her veils. There were, Dantio noted, definitely some Florengian Werists coming over the palace walls now, Cavotti’s men. How could he let Orlad know that help was on the way? Would that information make him wait for reinforcements? No, it would just drive him on. He would not want to share the Fist’s death with anyone.

The bloodlord had realized that all was not right. “When did you get here? Who brought you?”

“I arrived this evening.” Fabia’s voice rose. “My brothers brought me. Your sister tried to, but she was on the wrong side of the Fist’s Leap when we burned the bridge, so I wouldn’t wait up for her if I were you.”

“She is lying, isn’t she?” Stralg asked his Witness.

The answer was a shriek of triumph. “No, she’s not!”

He roared and swung a fist to smash her, but the old woman anticipated the move and dodged back.

“Stralg Hragson!” Compared to the great pillars, Orlad was only a tiny shape against the fires in the city behind him, but he had amplified his throat and lungs so his bellow carried even over the roar of riot and trumpets. “I am Orlad Celebre, Doge Piero’s son and heir. I killed your brother Therek on the hills above Tryfors. I helped kill your brother Horold on the Milky River. And your sister, also, trapped in the Edgelands without food or shelter or any way to escape. They are dead, Stralg, all dead! You stand alone, last of that vile litter, and you are about to pay for your crimes.”

The elders would not have understood the Vigaelian words, but the smell of challenge was obvious. They quickly shuffled around behind the catafalque, clearing the battlefield.

“True!” screeched the seer, scampering to safety also. “He speaks the truth, monster!”

Stralg turned his great head to look at the north door. His bodyguard was out there. He started to move that way and Orlad ran forward, with Waels at his heels. Stralg stopped and spun around to face them again. They stopped also. It was a standoff. But they were closer to Stralg than he was to the door.

“Coward!” Orlad yelled. “When I was three years old I had more courage than you have now. You held out your hands to me and I went to you! You lifted me up and threatened to smash my brains out, I’m told. Try that now; I’m bigger.” He stretched out his arms. “Come to me, coward.”

Stralg must weigh more than the two younger men put together, but he had not lived so long by accepting personal combat against odds. They would certainly be on him before he could reach the north door and open it.

Orlad moved one pace closer. “Therek is dead!” he mocked. Pace… Waels followed, still his shadow. “Saltaja is dead! Horold-”

Stralg blazed rage and hatred. He lowered his head like a bull as he watched the two of them come. It seemed to Dantio that the man’s legs were growing and his arms shrinking.

Pace…

“Hostleader Arbanerik!” Orlad chanted. Pace… “Remember Arbanerik? And Nils Frathson?” Pace… “They’ve been stealing your recruits, Stralg!” Pace… “They have forty sixty now, the largest horde in Vigaelia. They killed Horold, Stralg, with a little help from us Celebres. They took Tryfors, Stralg. The garrison switched sides rather than fight.”

Orlad stopped his slow approach. “You’ve lost Vigaelia, Stralg! And Cavotti has taken Veritano, Stralg. The game is ended, Stralg!” He beckoned mockingly. “Your turn now. Come to me, coward.”

Stralg charged. As he moved, he battleformed, ripping off his covering. His face bulged into a huge fanged muzzle, his legs stretched. He leaned forward to balance the thick tail he was growing, and his arms shrank to white claws.

“Speed,” Orlad said.

He and Waels threw off their chlamyses and shapeshifted. As Stralg’s monstrous jaws slammed shut where Orlad’s head had just been, Orlad was landing a dozen paces away. Waels slashed at Stralg’s ribs and vanished before Stralg could turn to deal with him.

Then Orlad leapt to the attack.

The contest pitted one giant white biped against two smaller black things shaped like frogs. The bloodlord spun and dodged on great taloned feet, swinging his tail like a club and snapping giant jaws. Two identical warbeasts leaped around him, all legs and black fur, bouncing up and down, making yattering noises and waving their front limbs at the giant. Soon even Dantio lost track of which was which. Their hands and feet were clawed and they moved in blurs, but their blows failed to penetrate the Fist’s scaly hide. It was as tough as chain mail and he was too enormous to wrestle.

The battle was a stalemate-he could not catch them and they could not hurt him.

Being the only other man of fighting age present, Dantio grabbed the sword of state from his father’s bier and ran forward to see what he could do to help. The first problem was going to be getting close enough. He was restricted to human speed, while the three contestants were a single black-and-white whirlwind. Waels and Orlad kept trying to come at Stralg from opposite sides, but he was armed at both ends, and his talons tore the floor tiles as he pivoted and dodged. To a seer’s senses the two smaller men were consumed with bloodlust, solely intent on the immediate fight, great waves of hatred and little else, but the wily veteran Fist retained enough tactical sense to keep edging closer to the north door.

Dantio hovered on the outskirts, seeking an opening. Again and again Stralg snapped and grabbed and failed to connect. The youngsters were everywhere except where he was, bouncing, mocking, dodging, occasionally slashing. At last Dantio thought he saw his chance and dove in, driving his sword hard into the Fist’s ribs. It slid off without making any impression at all. Stralg’s tail caught him with a glancing blow and hurled him halfway across the hall. His sword clattered away across the tiles.

He could not have been stunned for more than a few heartbeats. When he came to, Oliva was kneeling beside him, wiping blood from his face and making anxious noises in Florengian. He seemed to be thinking only in Vigaelian. He struggled to sit up and screamed at the agony in his left shoulder. It was shattered. Some ribs were cracked, too.

Witnesses should not meddle in events.

“Lie down!” his mother said. “We’ll send for Healers.”

No! Every Sinurist in town would be overloaded already, and he was going to see the end of this battle if it killed him. His mother stopped resisting his struggles and helped him sit up.

The fight was slowing. The younger men might wear Stralg out eventually, but he was perilously close to the north door now. Did they even remember that danger? Dantio tried to locate the Florengian warbeasts he had detected in the grounds earlier, but his head was spinning too fast to register anything beyond the pillars. There was a fight of some sort going on out in the corridor, too.

Disaster! One of the Florengians either dropped low to come in under the monster’s guard, or just slipped… and in that instant Stralg closed his great reptilian jaws on the man’s skull. Growling triumph, the bloodlord jerked him clear of the floor and shook him as a dog would, snapping his spine like a biscuit. His buddy, whichever he was, leaped up on the Vigaelian’s back-and promptly started to slide off again, unable to find purchase on the scaly surface.

The Fist reared, spitting the corpse away like a grape seed and simultaneously trying to dislodge his burden. In the nick of time his assailant managed to stretch one front paw high enough to hook claws into Stralg’s collar. Unable to reach back with arms that had shrunk almost to nothing, the blood-lord twisted violently, swinging his passenger out like a flag and very nearly catching him with a snap of his great jaws. But then the Florengian had both front paws on the collar and could pull himself up and brace his back feet on Stralg’s shoulders. Holding the collar like reins, the rider heaved. The metal stretched and stretched again. He worked his feet inside it, and still he pulled until he was standing almost upright, cutting ever deeper into the bloodlord’s throat.

Strangled, Stralg dropped to the floor with an impact that made the candles flicker. If he hoped to crush the Florengian by rolling on him, he was too late. Stretched out to wire, the brass collar snapped with a twang. The younger Werist fell clear, still holding it. Deprived of his god’s blessing, Stralg gagged and thrashed and went into convulsions. And died. And retro-formed.

The black frog was suddenly Orlad, dancing around him like a mad thing, whirling the brass string overhead in bloody hands and yelling his triumph. “I won! I won! I am the winner!”