Mother of Lies

CHIES STRALGSON

could not only see in the dark better than a cat, he could even drive a team in the dark. It had been a very instructive day! He could Control even a Werist. Saltaja said he might risk as many as three people at a time once he’d had some practice, but he should never try more than that; mobs were deadly. If Sesto’s men had had their wits about them, they would have struck her down. From now on he could enjoy any woman he wanted with as much or little cooperation as he fancied, and then make her forget all about it. He could steal anything he coveted. And his aunt had not finished her instruction yet! None of Master Preceptor Dicerno’s lectures on etiquette and court protocol could compare with this.

He drove into the city through Cypress Gate without challenge, mingling with country folk rushing to join in the mourning. Blazing buildings threw flames high in the night, filling the rainy streets with golden reflections. The trumpets had stopped, but the city was still a madhouse, with riots and looting mixed in with wild celebration, and even some local panics as bands of ice devils were hunted down and destroyed. He had never seen Florengian Werists in Celebre before, and they were everywhere, even some in battleform. The guanacos hummed with fear, but he kept them under control-using mostly real skill and only a dash of chthonic power.

“Aunt,” he said. “There’s something wrong here! They should be mourning Pap-I mean the doge. They’re not! They’re celebrating!”

She did not answer. All the way from Montegola she had been mumbling and maundering about revenge and curses and finding Stralg. She seemed crazier some times than others, and this was one of those times.

He tried to turn into Wheelwrights’ Alley, but it was plugged full of people singing at the top of their lungs, and the Werist barracks was ablaze. He went on to Fishhook Lane, still skirting the palace walls. Getting inside those was going to be tricky. By this time of night the palace was usually sealed as tight as a virgin priestess. He turned to consult his passenger.

“Aunt? Aunt! ” Gone! He was alone.

“I’m here.”

He felt her claws grip his arm. “Invisible?”

“Veiled. I’ll show you how to do that. How do we get in?”

He had lost his key to the private door. “Can you open a lock?”

“What’s a lock?”

He explained. No such things as locks in Vigaelia, she said. He could not advise, not knowing how their insides worked. As he pondered, the problem solved itself. The Fishhook gate had been torn down and people were scurrying in and out of the grounds, mostly in. He halted and put down the brake with a sigh of relief. No need to worry about the rig. It wouldn’t stay there long.

He found his invisible aunt by squinting against the light of the fires. He could detect her as a faint shadow, but only because he knew she was there. He lifted her down.

“Now I show you how to veil yourself,” she said, and took his head between her claw hands. “Think!”

Images swirled. Ropes of darkness? “Oh! I understand.”

“Ask Her for that. Just a little! All you need do is blur yourself a bit so people won’t recognize you. If you disappear like me, they’ll walk into you. That’s plenty!”

He had barely started, but he would have to trust her judgment. He strolled toward the gate, knowing she was there by the feel of her talons on his arm. As they turned into the palace grounds, the chariot and team went rattling by them, being driven by a stout, white-haired woman. Lucky lady.

“Too slow!” she muttered. “Men your age walk faster. Here!”

He stumbled as pain shot through his right knee. “Ow!”

“Now you limp. That looks better.”

Depending on one’s point of view! He failed to see the merit in a red hot knife under his kneecap. What he would really like, now that he was safely home, was just to go upstairs to his chamber and lie down and sleep. It had been a very hard day.

Saltaja muttered angrily under her breath all the way through the sculpture garden, across the court of palms, along the river terrace. Once or twice a passerby would look twice to see who was talking, but nobody roused any hue or cry. A major crowd was gathered in front of the Hall of Pillars. That would be where Papa was lying in state, but the crowd was buzzing with good cheer, even breaking out into snatches of drunken song. This was not funeral behavior! Some of the snatches he was hearing suggested that ice dev… that Vigaelians had attacked the city and been beaten off.

The crowd had concentrated at the far end of the hall. He could see candlelight within, and guards between the pillars, men with swords. He headed that way and soon recognized fat Luenzi, deputy head of the palace guard, known to his men as the Stomach of Splendor. He was standing between two pillars with his arms crossed, but Luenzi was no threat to anyone unless he fell on them. Chies noted the man’s affable drunken smile and the untidiness of his white hair. Luenzi had served in the doge’s guard for a lifetime; he ought to be prostrate with grief, not celebrating. Chies shed his veiling.

It took a moment. Then-“Lord Chies! You’re back! You’re safe!”

“I escaped. Killed a couple of my kidnappers and climbed out a window.” Four stories up? Sprained my knee? No, better leave it at that.

“But this is wonderful news! What a marvelous night!” Luenzi looked around to see who might want to share.

“Is it? Tell me what else is going on.” Chies applied just a trace of power.

Possibly too much. Luenzi started to gabble. “Well your dear father, of course… the Evil One got… I mean he passed through the veil at last, poor man. But the other news… The children are back! Lord Dantio, lord Orlando, lady Fabia! All safe and grown-up. Then the Fist himself invaded with a horde. Stralg in the flesh! And he’s dead! Lord Orlando killed him right here in the hall! Ripped his collar off.”

Saltaja uttered a shriek that should have turned every head in the palace grounds. Luenzi paused, looked around him with a puzzled expression, then continued.

“But the Mutineer, I mean lord Marno, was here with his men, and they tore up all those ice devils in short order. So the elders assembled right here in the hall and elected him doge!”

“Marno Cavotti?”

Luenzi bared all fifteen teeth in a wide grimace of delight. “Yes, and he married the lady Fabia, so she’s the new dogaressa! Oh, what a wonderful night!”

The night was not over yet. Saltaja would not stand for that.

“Fascinating!” Chies said. “Forget that you have seen me or spoken with me. You will not notice me leave.”

The animation in the fat man’s face faded to boredom. He scratched his belly and turned his head to watch what was going on farther along the hall.

Rounding the great pillar, Chies noted two things of interest. A bier stood in the center under a dozen candelabra. That was Papa, no doubt, but he was almost being ignored. Everyone else was at the far end, where a score of men were gathered around a two-wheeled cart, arguing noisily. Even from here he could see reflections off collars, so at least some of them were Werists. He could not imagine what a cart was doing in the Hall of Pillars, but he intended to find out. Someone started hammering.

He replaced his veiling as he walked. Squinting down at his gimpy knee, he made out a shadowy thing like a purple crab on it. He flicked it away with a mental twitch and the pain stopped. Pleased, he speeded up to his normal long-legged stride. He paused at the bier and pushed through the mourners to gaze at the corpse. Life had been hard on the old man. He had been sick so long that Chies had grown accustomed to not having him around, but he had mostly happy memories of his foster father. None of the usual prayers seemed appropriate for a Chosen to utter. Holy mistress, treat him well! Please.

He moved on to investigate the shouting mob around the cart. Half a dozen men were standing on it and the rest were steadying it as those above raised something onto a jury-rigged chair. Chies had to wait until they had it roped in place and started jumping down before he got a proper look at it. It was large, a sickly white color, and barely human; even bigger than Marno Cavotti. Ice devils were always pale and he had heard of the pallor that corpses acquired, but that thing was a horrible, fish-belly shade. The only color on it was the pale pink tongue that hung from its mouth and a purple necklace, a dark gash where the flesh had been crushed and cut by a garrote. The men were going to parade this corpse through the streets of Celebre for everyone to jeer and pelt it with garbage. Oh, Father!

His father. The Fist. Now he would never meet his father, never speak with him, offer to help him, hear stories of his conquests. All his glory had come to this? He felt his shock turning to anger. This was Orlad Celebre’s doing. Back in Veritano Orlad had wanted to tear his head off.

Claws grabbed his arm again, his other arm this time.

“We must avenge your father, boy!”

“Yes, Aunt. Yes!”

“Where will she be?”

“She? Luenzi said Orlad did it.”

“Oh, yes, we’ll get the Werist too, never fear! And that eunuch. And the Mutineer! All of them. Chosen look after their own, boy, I’ve told you that, haven’t I? And when we can’t defend them, we avenge them. But we must start with the girl. She’s the dangerous one. Where is the girl? Make her wish she had never been born.”

“Let’s go and find her.” He would not argue with the old bat when she was in this sort of a mood.

It was easy. Four Werists sat outside the doors to the family wing, which meant that Cavotti must be in there. Fabia would be with her husband, learning the joys of married life. Chies strengthened his veiling until the candles were barely visible. Curiously, his aunt became more visible to him, not less. The Heroes were busily fighting the evening’s battles all over again and paid no heed as he opened the door and ushered her inside.

There was even a Werist on a chair outside the state sleeping chamber. Chies shed his veil. The man leaped to his feet with an oath.

“You will obey me! Do not shout. Do not battleform!” This godlike power was very enjoyable. “Is the new doge in there?”

The Hero nodded, flapping his mouth like a fish. He was a veteran, older and well scarred, and his eyes were as blank as glass beads.

“Is his new wife with him?”

“I do not know.”

“Lie down and sleep. Sleep until dawn, no matter what happens.”

Chies turned to smile at his aunt and couldn’t find her. The door swung open by itself. He followed her in.

The hall was so huge that he was startled to find Cavotti and the woman right there, just inside the door. He was wearing a badly stained green chlamys and she a white silk web. Chies had barely had time to decide that he wanted to study her at leisure when his aunt blasted them both. The Mutineer hurtled back against a chair, which collapsed in a mess of kindling. The woman landed on her back several paces away.

Chies closed and bolted the door.

Cavotti was half sitting on a litter of firewood, half reclining against the wall. Only his eyes were moving. Fabia raised herself on her elbows and stared at Saltaja, who was now fully visible in all her mutilated horror.

“You’re too revolting to be a nightmare.”

“You don’t know what horror is, child. I am about to teach you.”

“I don’t think you are.” The dogaressa climbed to her feet with a fascinating revelation of legs. She dusted herself off and adjusted her wrap, frowned at Chies. “What have you done to the boy?” She seemed strangely unworried. Did she not understand that she was being threatened by a Chosen?

Cavotti made grunting noises and twitched. Deciding that the giant was out of commission and posed no danger, Chies turned his attention fully to the two women’s confrontation. His sister was a real stiffener in that filmy, flimsy thing. He did not think his help was going to be needed.

“Nothing,” Saltaja said, drooling and slobbering. “And if you think I’m ugly, wait until you see what I do to your pretty face. I will not kill you. That would be too easy. Belly worms. Tumors. Suppurating sores. Madness, so they lock you up. You will have years to sit in your cell, suffering and mourning your folly.”

“Your time is over,” the girl said calmly. “Your brothers are all dead, did you know? I assume Cutrath Horoldson was with you in the Edgelands. Did you manage to rescue him as well as yourself? If not, then you and this boy are the only two left out of the whole disgusting brood. The Mother has tired of you. She has withdrawn Her favor.” She had not so much glanced at her petrified husband yet, keeping her attention on the hag.

Who chuckled. “No, dearie! I am much more in her favor than you are. Remember those guards I set over you at Tryfors? The Heroes who let you escape? I sacrificed them to Her glory. Fifteen strong, healthy young men bleeding into the cold earth!”

“Yes, I know. I saw.”

“You lie!” Saltaja shrieked. “She would not let you spy on me. Then there were two score I marched into the Dust River so I could walk across on their bodies. There were others we ate. And the Werists on the Altiplano-another ten! What have you offered Her that would compare with that?”

Fabia grimaced. “I do not believe that the Old One values Her Chosen by tallying their murders, but if you want to keep score by body count, then I counter with the whole escort you took on the Nardalborg Pass trail. It was my idea to let you close it behind you all the way to Fist’s Leap and then slam the gate in your face. I had to talk even my Werist brother into that! All those deaths-a whole hunt, wasn’t it? They were already dead men when you started eating them. They count to my credit, not yours.”

Saltaja screamed and hurled a bolt of black fire at her. Fabia must have been expecting something like it, for she countered with one of her own, and they coalesced in a wall of black flame midway between them. It crackled and flared-and slowly advanced toward Fabia. The two Chosen were locked in a trial of strength. Chies could hear his aunt wheezing with the effort it cost. Then Fabia started to back away, and at once the flames leaped at her. She went down, screaming and writhing in an unholy blaze.

Saltaja laughed and released the evil. Fabia lay naked on charred and smoking rugs, struggling feebly to rise. She had apparently saved herself from harm so far, but she was clearly the loser of that round.

“Now that we’ve established who is the stronger, dearie, we can begin the entertainment. I think those pretty breasts first.”

Chies decided he did not approve of this. Even if Saltaja was winning this battle, she had lost all the others and he had his own future to consider. Fabia had befriended him at Veritano. How could he favor a horror like Saltaja over her? Watch her be tortured and mutilated? No! He lifted one of the rock-crystal lover cups from the table and swung it with all his strength. The impact threw wine over Cavotti and shattered the carving into a shower of hail. It didn’t do much for the old bat’s skull, either.