Part 13 (1/2)

”How the f.u.c.k am I supposed to live this way?” she said, hoping that a certain Holy Cup would hear. ”I can't keep this up forever.''

The temperature rose in the stationary VW, and to keep from stifling, she pulled back out onto Beverly and turned south on Fairfax, windows down and vents open. There were other health food stores in Los Angeles, places where Suzanne had not been known, where this counterfeit who had taken her place could buy brown rice, granola, and quarts of yogurt without notice or comment.

It was not until late in the day, when she was trying to find some clothes that would fit her, that she heard about the killings.

The May Company at the comer of Wils.h.i.+re and La Cienega was a faded relic of art deco elegance, the gilt on its tall sign corroded with the constant attacks of smog and heat, the tiles of its facade cracked and unwashed. But inside it was cool, and the sales clerks were attentive and polite, and though Alouzon was struck again with the strangeness of this place, it was almost a relief to go through half-remembered commonplaces of her old, outworn life.

The stiffness of new Levi's. The clean drape of t-s.h.i.+rts fresh out of the plastic wrap. The whiteness of unworn sneakers. Outside, waiting for her in the VW, were a sword and armor and boots, but for now she was just another tall woman trying to find the right inseam length.

”Will that be all, then?” said the clerk, smiling, when Alouzon approached the counter.

Alouzon set down two pairs of jeans and four t-s.h.i.+rts. If she stayed in Los Angeles long enough to wear these out, she was sure that she would go mad. ”Yeah. This is it.”

” Cash or charge?''

What did one do in Gryylth? Cattle, she supposed. Or sometimes gold. Vorya and Cvinthil had always seen to her needs. But this was Los Angeles, and she was on her own. She pulled out her checks. ”This OK?”

”With a major credit card.”

”Uh . . .” She had forgotten about that. ”Well . . . I guess I'm kind of stuck then.”

The clerk paused, her hand hovering above the register keys.

' 'I suppose I could go get cash ...” For a moment, Alouzon wanted to throw down the checks and walk away, raging at Silbakor for bringing her here, at the Grail for confronting her with incomprehensible situations, at herself for having gotten involved with Gryylth at all. But she had nowhere to go. ”You see,” she said apologetically, ”my wallet got burned up. I just got a replacement license today.''

The clerk looked genuinely concerned. ”Was it a bad fire?”

”The whole house,” Alouzon said truthfully.

”Oh, you poor thing.” The clerk took Alouzon's license. ”Let me see ... is this all correct?”

”Yeah.”

”All right then.” She turned to ring up the items.

”You have an honest face, and I'm in charge of this department today. I'll just go ahead and approve it.”

Alouzon swallowed. An honest face. What else would a G.o.ddess have? ”Hey, thanks a lot.”

”Well ...” The clerk's hand flew over the keys, punching in employee number, inventory codes, prices. ”This has gotten to be such a terrible world these days. I think we all have to look out for one another. People are hurting themselves, girls are getting raped . . .” She was an older woman, perhaps fifty. Her face, pale and lined beneath its coat of makeup, was fragile-someone's grandmother, a widow perhaps, a woman who had grown up in a more secure world, who had found that society had changed out from under her, who now found herself burdened by concerns and problems of which the young girl she had been once (sweet and naive and looking forward to a man, marriage, and a blissful life) had never dreamed.

Alouzon nodded understandingly as she wrote out a check for the total. Her own life had once been peaceful, and after the horror had set in, she had made a final, desperate bid for security. But that was all gone now.

The clerk went on. ”Like those murders out by MacArthur Park the other night. Awful. Just awful. To leave those poor men dissolved like that. I mean, they were hobos, of course, but what kind of monster would do that?”

Alouzon stared at her, heart suddenly pounding. It took her a moment to find her voice. ”D-dissolved?”

”Oh, yes. Didn't you see it in the paper?”

The Los Angeles Times lay rolled up and unread on Suzanne's coffee table. Alouzon Dragonmaster had not thought to concern herself with current events. Gryylth was quite enough for her.

Alouzon forced herself to concentrate on the signature on the check. Painstakingly, she spelled out the name of the dead woman. ”Uh . . . no.”

”The police found them in the morning.” The clerk shook her head. ”They'd been . . . well, you know . . . eaten ...”

Alouzon tried not to shake as she creased the check at the perforations, tore it from the book, and handed it over. ”Eaten? I ... thought you said they'd been dissolved.”

”That too.”

”Yeah . . . that's just . . . terrible . . .”

The clerk bagged the clothes and put them into Alouzon's hands. ”Well, you be careful out there, young lady. And you have a nice day.''

Alouzon blinked at the glare that shone in through the distant gla.s.s doors. MacArthur Park. Eaten. Dissolved.

Hounds.

”Yeah,” she said. ”You too.”

Escorted by the harpers and healers of Lachrae, the forces of Gryylth and Corrin took the coastal road north to the capital. Though most of them had been prepared to slaughter the Vayllens without quarter a few days before, they accepted the alteration in objectives philosophically. They were warriors and soldiers, not butchers, and the sense of honor upon which their culture was based was such that they were revolted by the thought of killing innocents.

Hounds, though, were another matter.

Kyria, refreshed by a day and a half of sleep at the side of her beloved Santhe, had enchanted the blades and pikes of the army in a few hours. And when an ill-fated pack of hounds showed up near midday, it was immediately dismembered by an army eager to vent its frustrated anger on a definite enemy. No magic was used, none was necessary: within minutes, nothing but twitching limbs and rent carca.s.ses remained of the beasts.

The Vayllens-ever polite and courteous-tried not to show fear or horror at the methodical violence, but Dindrane noticed many of her people watching the battle with drawn faces. More than one turned to her looking for comfort and advice, but she had none to give them. This was war. This was fighting. And she had seen enough and felt enough that she could no longer disapprove of either.

And that, too, was a horror for the Vayllens. Pellam nodded sagely at the alteration in her manner, and the members of Alouzon's party embraced her as a sister, but Dindrane's own people were profoundly shaken.

Dindrane herself was shaken, but there was no going back. As irrevocably as the forces of Broceliande had killed Baares, as completely as they had destroyed Daelin and the manor houses, so had they changed the priestess of the land. Clad as a boy, her face scarred with phosphor, she rode towards Lachrae, at one with her comrades, separate from her people.

But though she entered the city with her friends, there was still a road that she had to take alone: the road home. Pellam and his attendants escorted the warriors to the King's House, but Dindrane dismounted without explanation and made her way along the street she had walked on a morning long ago, when Gryylth was but a name and a faint haze on the horizon.

She entered her house and shut the door. Untenanted for over three months, it was nonetheless clean and ready for her, for Pellam had so ordered. But her footsteps sounded terribly, terribly hollow and alone as she crossed the hall and climbed the stairs; and when she reached the second floor, Baares's big harp stood proudly in the corner like a loyal dog waiting to greet a master who would never return.

She sank down on her knees beside the instrument, put her arms about the wood and wire, rested her head against the forepillar. Baares had died in her arms, but * only now had she come to the leisure and the solitude necessary to fully comprehend and mourn that death.

She cried for a long time, remembering all the nights he had harped her to sleep, all the mornings he had joined her on the terrace, conjoining cup and knife and breakfasting on bread and wine as the sun rose in yellow splendor, the sea sparkled, and the city awoke. Physical and spiritual both, their love had in its own way sustained the land as much as the standing stones of the temples, for as the G.o.ddess and the G.o.d loved, so had Dindrane and Baares, and the sight of the priestess and the harper standing together hand in hand had, she knew, heartened many who otherwise would long before have fallen to the horror of Broceliande.

Gone. Baares was gone. And Dindrane had changed. And what would sustain the land now? The G.o.ddess?

Alouzon?

Daylight was fading into dusk when she lifted her head, her eyes swollen almost shut. She realized that a knock had come to the door a while before, and that someone was now ascending the stairs.

Soft steps: the tread of a woman.

”Who comes?” she called, her voice faint in the empty house.

Kyria answered her. ”A friend.”