Part 2 (1/2)

The huge Skritek gave a groan of furious despair. Kadiya of the Eyes, leave off chiding us like stupid children! Let your talisman judge us and slay us. At least that will put an end to our shame.

But Kadiya lowered the peculiar sword instead and slipped it again into its sheath. ”Perhaps that will not be necessary. Thus far, Roragath, you and your band have only been guilty of scattered acts of terror and the destruction of Asamun's village. Nys-somu Folk have been injured, but none have died-no thanks to you. Rest.i.tution can be made. If you atone for your hostile actions and pledge to return to your own territory and keep the truce, then I will spare your lives.”

The great muzzled head of the Skritek leader remained defiantly level for many heartbeats, but at last it sagged in submission and the creature fell to his knees. I promise on behalf of myself and my fellows to obey your commands, Lady of the Eyes, and this I avow by the Three Moons.

Kadiya nodded. ”Cut them free,” she said to the Nyssomu band. ”Then let Asamun and his counselors negotiate the reparations.” She addressed the Skritek leader once again, laying one hand upon the eyed emblem on her breast. ”Do not let your heart contemplate further treachery, Roragath of the Drowners.

Remember that my sister Haramis, the White Lady, Archimage of the Land, can see you wherever you go. She will tell me if you dare to break the Truce of the Mazy Mire again. If you do I will come for you, and this time requite you without mercy.”

We understand, said Roragath. Is it allowed for us to take vengeance upon the wicked one who misled us? He came to us only once and then went away westward into the mountains, out of Ruwenda and toward Zinora. But we could track him down- ”No,” said Kadiya. ”It is my command that you do not pursue the troublemaker. The White Lady and I will deal with him in good time. Only warn other Skritek to give no credence to his lies.”

Picking up her discarded cape and donning it once more against the unrelenting rain, she beckoned for Jagun to bring a torch and come with her. Side by side, the Lady of the Eyes and her chief deputy set off along the broad trail leading to the Vispar River.

After Haramis, the White Lady, had learned of the rampaging monsters in the remote South and bespoke her triplet sister Kadiya, it had taken ten days to mobilize the small army of Nys-somu and set up the ambush of the Skritek war party. Now that the expedition had ended successfully, Kadiya was exceedingly tired. The Skritek leader's words had been puzzling and disquieting, but she was in no humor to discuss them now with the Archimage.

Nor was she minded to hear a lecture from her sister, when the White Lady learned of how she had used the talisman.

Plodding through deep mud, sopping wet from head to heel and every muscle aching, the Lady of the Eyes took hold of a thin lanyard about her neck and drew forth an amulet that had been concealed in her clothing. It glowed faintly golden and was warm and comforting to the touch, a droplet of honey-amber with a fossil Black Trillium blossom in its heart.

Thank you, she prayed. Thank you, Triune G.o.d of the Flower, for letting the bluff work one more time, for giving me strength. And forgive me the implied deceit... If I knew another way, I would follow it.

With the stormwinds inaugurating the premature Wet Time roaring through the tree branches overhead, Kadiya and Jagun spoke hardly a word until they reached the backwater of the swollen river where their boats had been left. The Nyssomu Folk customarily traveled in hollowed-log punts and c.u.mbersome flatboats that were laboriously poled or sculled along. But Kadiya's craft was fas.h.i.+oned in the Wyvilo style, of thin-sc.r.a.ped hide stretched over a lightweight wooden frame. It was drawn up between the b.u.t.tress-roots of a mighty kala tree, and as she and Jagun climbed into it and loosed it from its mooring two big sleek heads rose from the rain-pocked waters nearby and stared in expectation.

They were rimoriks, formidable water animals who shared a special relations.h.i.+p -one could hardly call it domestication- with the Uisgu Folk, those shy cousins of the Nyssomu who dwelt in the Goldenmire north of the River Vispar. Since Kadiya was the Advocate of all Folk, including the Uisgu, she also enjoyed the rimoriks' favor. Numbers of the animals, eager to serve her, had left their accustomed territory to live near Kadiya's Manor of the Eyes on the River Golobar, which lay nearly seventy leagues to the east.

The eyes of the aquatic beasts shone like jet in the light of Jagun's guttering torch. The rimoriks had dapple-green fur, bristling whiskers, and enormous teeth that they bared in what was, for them, an amiable expression.

Share miton with us, Lady. We have waited overlong for your return.

”Certainly, dear friends.” From her belt pouch Kadiya took a small scarlet bottle-gourd. Unstoppering it, she took a sip, let Jagun have his share, and then poured a quant.i.ty of the sacred liquid into the palm of her left hand. The animals swam close and drank, lapping gently with their horrifying tongues, whiplike appendages with sharp points that they used to spear their prey.

As the miton worked its benign magic, the four unlikely friends felt a great contentment that sharpened their senses and banished fatigue. When the communion was over, Kadiya uttered a sigh. Jagun slipped pulling harnesses onto the rimoriks. Soundlessly, the great animals submerged and the boat sped away down the wide, dark river, heading for the secret shortcut that would take them all home in less than six hours.

When they were well on their way, with Kadiya and Jagun huddled beneath the shelter of a waxwort tarpaulin and munching an austere supper of dried adop roots and journey bread, she said, ”It went well, I think. Your idea of making a drop-net from tanglefoot was brilliant, Jagun, sparing us a pitched battle with the swamp-fiends.”

The old aborigine's wide, sallow face was masklike and his glowing yellow eyes darted askance at her. It was clear that he was deeply troubled. Kadiya groaned inwardly, knowing full well why. She was able to postpone her sister Hara's reproaches, but not those of her old friend.

For a long time Jagun did not speak. Kadiya waited, eating although she had lost her taste for food, while the rain beat about their ears and the boat hissed and vibrated with the great speed of their pa.s.sage.

Finally Jagun said, ”Fa.r.s.eer, for four years now you have carried on your chosen work successfully, even though your talisman is no longer bonded to you and no longer capable of magic. No one save I and your two sisters knows that the Three-Lobed Burning Eye has lost its power.”

”Thus far the secret has remained safe,” she said evenly.

”But I fear what might happen if you continue to wield the talisman in your office of Advocate, as you did tonight. If the truth is discovered, the Folk will be deeply scandalized. Your honor will be stained and your authority compromised. Would it not be the greater part of wisdom to do as the White Lady has so often requested, and consign the Burning Eye to her care until it can be made potent once again?”

”The talisman is mine,” Kadiya declared. ”I shall never relinquish it-not even to Haramis.”

”If you simply cease wearing it, no one would dare to question you.”

She sighed. ”Perhaps you are right. I have thought and prayed hard over the matter, but the decision is not easy to make. You saw how the Skritek were terror-smitten by the Eye tonight.”

Her hand slipped to the pommel of the dark sword and she grasped the three conjoined b.a.l.l.s at the end. Those orbs were cold now, that once had been warm. The Three-Lobed Burning Eye, created ages ago by the Vanished Ones for their own mysterious purposes, had been capable of dread magic, for it was one of three parts making up the great Sceptre of Power.

Once that talisman had been bonded to Kadiya's very soul, and the three lobes had opened at her command to reveal living counterparts of the eyes emblazoned upon her armor. She had commanded its power, and anyone who dared touch the sword without her permission died on the spot.

But four years ago the sorcerer Orogastus, last heir to the Star Men, stole Kadiya's talisman and acquired through extortion a second one belonging to Queen Anigel. He bonded both devices to himself and dared hope that the Archimage Haramis would give up the third talisman for love of him. Instead, Orogastus lost Anigel's talisman by misadventure; and later, in a climactic battle, he was destroyed by the magic of the three sisters.

The ownerless sword was then restored to Kadiya. But the talisman would no longer unite with her magical amulet of trillium-amber as it had done before, binding itself to her will. The Three-Lobed Burning Eye was apparently as dead as Orogastus.

Nevertheless, Kadiya had continued to wear it.

”I have never deliberately lied to the Folk about my talisman's function,” she said now to Jagun. ”Its symbolic value remains, even if it is now magically useless. You saw the good it did tonight. Without its threat, the Skritek would surely have fought us to the death. With it, I was able to spare them and prevent a great loss of Nyssomu life.”

”That is true,” Jagun admitted.

”The Drowners will return to the Southern Mora.s.s and tell others of their tribe how they were conquered and granted mercy by the Lady of the Eyes and her talisman.” She gave a little shrug. ”Thus the Truce of the Mire will hold until the next crisis comes along... And there is always a chance that Haramis will eventually discover how to rebond the talisman to me, restoring its potency.”

The little man shook his head, still uneasy. Like others of his race he was superficially human in appearance, having tiny slitted nostrils, a broad mouth with small sharp teeth at the fore, and narrow upstanding ears rising on either side of his hunter's cap. Many years ago he had been Royal Huntsman to King Krain of Ruwenda, Kadiya's late father. When she was but a tiny girl, Jagun had taken her into the Mazy Mire that comprised so much of the little plateau kingdom, teaching her many of its secrets and giving her the mire-name Fa.r.s.eer because of her keen vision. The nickname had proved prophetic when Kadiya became the custodian of the Three-Lobed Burning Eye and the protector of the aboriginal Folk who shared the World of the Three Moons with humankind.

Over the years, Jagun had remained Kadiya's closest friend and deputy. Sometimes, to her chagrin, he seemed to forget that she was no longer a child, upbraiding her for her hot temper and occasional woth-headed stubbornness. The most annoying thing about this habit of his was that he was often in the right.

”You must realize, Fa.r.s.eer,” Jagun now said gravely, ”that this particular conflict with the Skritek was far from ordinary. Rora-gath's tale of a lying Star Man must have been as great a shock to you as it was to me.”

”The notion of the Vanished Ones returning is nonsense,” she scoffed. ”And only the Lords of the Air know what manner of prodigy a 'Sky Trillium' might be. As for the so-called Star Man-”

”What if the worst has happened,” Jagun ventured, ”and the accursed sorcerer himself has come back once again from the dead?”

”Impossible! Haramis's own talisman told her that Orogastus had died.” Kadiya's lip curled in disgust. ”And my silly sister has wept secretly for his d.a.m.ned soul ever since.”

”Do not mock the White Lady's honest emotion,” Jagun said sternly, ”especially when you have never known love's pa.s.sion yourself. One does not pick and choose whom to love-as I myself know to my sorrow.”

Kadiya looked at him in surprise. For as long as she had known Jagun, he had had no mate. But this was not the time to question him on such a delicate subject. ”Do you think, then,” she asked him, ”that Orogastus might have left others to carry on his impious work? The six acolytes that we know of-the ones he deemed his Voices-most certainly perished. And no more apprentice wizards were found when my brother-in-law searched the haunts of Orogastus in the land of Tuzamen.”

”Such persons might have fled from King Antar's justice when news of their master's doom reached them,” Jagun said. ”And if they were clever and avoided the overt use of magic, then they might also have escaped the White Lady's scrutiny. Not even her Three-Winged Circle can oversee every part of the world, every moment of the day and night.”

Kadiya finished her bread and adop and began to pry open blok-nuts with her small dagger and p.r.i.c.k out the meats for the two of them. ”It is more likely that this so-called Star Man is nothing but an impostor, an agent of some enemy of Laboru-wenda intent on stirring up trouble for political reasons. It was very clever to arouse the Skritek now, at the beginning of the rains. The court of Anigel and Antar is about to withdraw to the Labornoki flatlands for the winter, leaving behind only a reduced garrison in Ruwenda. That young scoundrel, King Yondrimel of Zinora, would love to see the Two Thrones pulled into a series of ruinous conflicts with the swamp-fiends during the Wet Time. Then his nation might take over Laboruwenda's western trade routes.”

”That is plausible,” Jagun conceded. ”Roragath did say that the Star Man went off in that direction.”

”If Yondrimel is up to mischief, King Antar and Queen Anigel will put a stop to his games in short order. He cannot afford to be caught blatantly undermining the stability of the Two Thrones.

Other civilized nations will ostracize him, and he will have no one to peddle his pearls to except the Feathered Barbarians.”

Jagun had been rummaging in their bag of supplies, searching for a corkscrew. Finding one at last, he opened a flask of hal-aberry wine and filled two wooden cups.

”The Lords of the Air grant that this matter be swiftly resolved,” he said, in a pious toast. Kadiya lifted her own cup and they both drank. When Jagun spoke again, his tone held dire warning. ”But if the Star Guild has truly revived, then not only our own land of Laboruwenda but also the rest of the world may be at the brink of catastrophe. With your talisman useless and that of Queen Anigel lost, there is no possibility of putting together the Threefold Sceptre of Power. And that is the only certain weapon against the ancient magic of the Star Guild.”