Part 22 (1/2)
The rain had left a lingering humidity in the air, but though the cisterns and wells were full again, the granaries and storehouses were not. And the only inhabitants of Kingsbury who could call themselves satisfied with the arrangement were the starvation and disease that, stalking invisibly from house to house, left behind a death as incontrovertible as that brought by Gray face bullets or hounds' teeth.
Seena, sheltered-imprisoned-in the chambers of Hall Kingsbury, saw little of it, for her contacts with the world outside the palisade had shrunken almost to nothing. She saw no townsfolk, no midwife, no physician. Soldiers brought her food, and now and then Helwych would come to her rooms to comfort her.
She was not comforted. In truth, she was numb. Even had she known that Helwych had bespelled her, it was quite possible that she would not have cared, for her children were held in the grip of an unending stasis, and she was concerned only with them.
Throughout the days, Seena tended Ayya and Vill, catering to their needs, to the wishes and desires that she imagined-that she wanted to imagine-they had. Since that night of evil dreams when she had awakened to find them unmoving, unbreathing, and yet undead, she had entered into an existence that was lapped round by an unending present, in which questions of tomorrow or yesterday had no meaning. Her children were ill, her children were in danger . . . now. That was all she knew.
She might have been a little girl playing with her dolls, picking up the limp bodies, bathing them, changing their clothes, putting them down for pretend sleep. Had they been simply dead, she could have mourned and eventually recovered. But with them caught forever in a state that was neither of life nor of death, neither gone nor really present, Seena could do no more than bend all of her attention and strength towards caring for them.
By day she was a devoted nurse. By night she tossed in uneasy dreams and outright nightmares, searching for her children, s.n.a.t.c.hing them from peril only to find that she was too late. Fear and panic then drove her out of sleep and to their sides, but they saw nothing, heard nothing.
That evening, Helwych swept into her room in a whirl of black robes and lank hair. He bent over the children and examined them, but he straightened up with a dubious expression.
Seena hoped. A frayed, frantic hope. Maybe this time . . . ”Can you-”
”I cannot.” His eyes held her. ”They are ensnared by powerful magic, Seena. Do you understand?”
”Have you spoken to Kallye?”
The sorcerer permitted himself a cynical smile. ”A midwife, Seena? What can a midwife do?”
”I . . .” Kallye had always helped, if only by her presence. ”I would like to see her.”
Helwych shook his head. ”Too dangerous, Seena. You have heard the guns? More of our own people have turned traitor. A grievous thing, that. Even Kallye might turn out to be a different sort of guest than we expected.”
”She is my midwife!” Seena rushed to the beside, but the only movement of her children's features was that caused by the flickering play of firelight.
Helwych touched Seena, and she looked up. Held by his eyes, she felt her objections dissolving. Magic had bespelled her children. Magic would cure them. What could Kallye do? ”Play with your dolls, Seena,” said Helwych. ”Go. Play.”
Obediently, Seena turned to Ayya and Vill; but after the sorcerer had left, a lingering doubt remained in her mind. Magic. Helwych was a sorcerer. Helwych, as he so constantly reminded her, was saving the land from a peril so great that even the ma.s.sed might of Gryylth and Corrin could not stand against it.
But if Helwych were so powerful, why then could he not undo the spell that had ensnared Ayya and Vill? If he could save a country, why could he not save two small children?
Seena straightened suddenly. Why? And if magic had struck the heart of Kingsbury as it had, why had it not struck again?
Once more she bent over her children, but only long enough to tuck the sheets about them and kiss their cold faces. Then, turning, she left the room. The guard at the door made as if to stop her, but her questions had driven her to a regal glare, and at the sight of her face he only bowed.
Helwych was sitting in the king's chair, speaking with Lytham, the captain of the Guard. Seena entered un.o.btrusively from the rear door of the main room. No one noticed her, not even the Grayfaces who flanked the sorcerer.
”Did the men see anything?” Helwych was asking.
”They did not,” Lytham answered. ”Someone struck them from behind, and when they awoke, the Grayfaces were dead and the horses were gone.”
The Grayfaces murmured, their voices oddly distant, unfeeling.
”Is anyone missing from the town?” Helwych pressed.
Lytham was incredulous. ”My lord, Kingsbury is stuffed as full as a peddler's bag with refugees. We hardly know who is here, much less who might have left.”
Helwych slumped in Cvinthil's chair. Seena found that she was annoyed: by what right did Helwych presume to take her husband's seat? But the sorcerer did not look up at Lytham, nor did he see Seena. ”Were there any . . . strangers seen?”
Lytham frowned, hesitated.
Even where she stood-in the shadows behind the chair-Seena could feel the crackle of power as Helwych's gaze rooted itself into the captain. ”Lytham ...” The sorcerer's voice was soft, but it all but dragged Lytham up by the front of his tunic.
”I ... believe that there was something ...” Lytham glanced at the Grayface guards who stood to either side of the chair, weapons in hand. They did not move.
”What?”
”One of my men on night patrol thought he saw three women making their way through the streets,” said Lytham. The words came from him almost unwillingly. ”He could not be sure.”
”That does not matter, captain. I am sure. Continue.”
”He thought them dressed strangely, that is all.”
”Where did he see them?”
”To the north of the market square. Near the house of the midwife.”
Kallye. Seena caught her breath. Helwych turned around. ”My dear queen,” he said softly. ”Why have you forsaken your children?''
”I . . .” She swallowed. Those eyes. But she suddenly found that she had cleared a small s.p.a.ce within her mind, a s.p.a.ce in which she could be alone, in which she could think. ”I. . . wanted to ask you ...”
”I have told you, Seena,” said Helwych, ”there is nothing I can do.”
Why? The question hammered at her, grappled with her recalcitrant tongue, demanded to be uttered, but Seena, thoughtful of a sudden, suppressed it. Not yet. Not now.
She turned and made her way back to her rooms, back to her children. That night, her dreams were, once again, melanges of nightmare and worry. But there was something else in them, too. Now, when she tore her children away from the mouths of the hounds, or saved them from the pits of acid or flame-hardened stakes, she lifted her eyes from their still forms and asked a question that glowed golden at the edge of thought, a question that was at once a demand, a wail of outrage, and a cry of triumph: Why?
Alouzon, Manda, and Wykla crossed the pa.s.s in the Camrann Mountains late in the evening and made camp amid trees untouched by the defoliants that had wasted the lands to the east. As high up as they were, the night wind turned cold and cutting, and though the warriors thought it risky to kindle a fire, they did so anyway; for Alouzon, in shorts and a thin blouse, was close to hypothermia, and her companions were not much warmer.
But no hounds appeared. No helicopters. No Gray-faces. The sky on the other side of the pa.s.s flashed with distant bombs and artillery, but here, it seemed, Gryylth was as yet unscathed.
As they moved out in the morning, Alouzon was looking at the land. Her land. Separated from it, surrounded by the sterility and heat of Los Angeles, she had forgotten how lovely it was. But soft and fertile and green though it lay on this side of the mountains, it was blasted and bare on the other, a reification of all her memories of Vietnam and her bitterness over Kent.
A G.o.ddess, though, could neutralize the defoliants that had sterilized the soil, erase the plague that raged in Kingsbury and the other refugee towns, soothe and wipe away the psychological damage that had been inflicted upon the people through year after year of war that had grown increasingly h.e.l.lish from one incarnation to another. Not a G.o.ddess who stood aloof from mortality and hid behind a cloud of impersonal transcendence, but one who stayed close to Her people, who remembered and clung to homely things like hugs, and love, and friends.h.i.+p.
Despite the inevitable wors.h.i.+p, it was suddenly very tempting. To stay close. Vietnam was beyond her. Some other deity would have to attend to that one. But Gryylth, Corrin, Vaylle: these were hers. Maybe she could help. As a friend.
By afternoon the three women were well down the slopes that led to Quay. To their relief, the town showed no sign of recent attack, but the idle boats and docks and the s.h.i.+mmering curtain that hung a mile or two offsh.o.r.e were enough to make them hurry, and they ate the last of their sandwiches and fruit in the saddle and rested the horses as little as possible.
The sun was setting when they reached the main coastal road that led directly to the city gates. Alouzon rode openly, and when she signaled a halt before the raised drawbridge, she lifted her voice before she could be challenged. ”I'm Alouzon Dragonmaster. Wykla of Burnwood and Manda of Dubris are with me. Is Hahle there?”
”Alouzon!” Hahle stood up from behind the parapet. ”Beyond all hope!”
”Let us in, Hahle,” she said. ”I don't have much time. We're all going to have to move fast.'' The drawbridge ground down. ”Is everyone all right? Did Relys and Timbrin make it?”
”Aye,” said the councilman. ”We are well. And Relys and Timbrin are here.” His face turned sad for a moment. ''They are as well as they can be, I guess.''
Alouzon and her companions rode in and dismounted. Faces surrounded them, and hands reached out to clasp theirs, but for the most part the faces were all above middle age and the hands were gnarled with years. With few exceptions, all the young men were overseas with Cvinthil and Darham.