Part 24 (1/2)

' 'Well...” Alouzon released her, shoved her hands into her pockets, shrugged. ”I'm here. I guess that counts for something.”

”Indeed.”

”You . . . uh . . . happy with Santhe?”

Kyria smiled broadly. ”Very,” she said. ”As happy as Wykla is with Manda, or Marrha with Karthin, though I confess I did not think that possible.”

”I was up at your house. Did you know we're both dead?”

Kyria's dark eyes flickered. ”I suspected that. I cannot say that I mind. Gryylth, Vaylle . . . this entire world is my home now. And it is a goodly place.”

”What about Los Angeles? Can you handle going back?”

”I can,” said the sorceress. ”And the magic will be no great matter, though it would be best if I had help.” She took Dindrane's hand. ”What say you, sister?”

”I . . .” Dindrane regarded Alouzon with a sense of wors.h.i.+p. ” 'Tis a healer I am,” she said. ”Or rather, that I was. I know not what I am now. But I can help. And I will.”

”I am very grateful,” said Kyria.

”Surely. But . . .” Dindrane's eyes turned sad. ”There is another matter.” Gently, she went down on one knee before Alouzon. ”Great Lady,” she said formally, ”would it please you to forgive me the harsh judgments and unkind words that I made and uttered in the past?”

Alouzon stared, and her stomach wrenched.

Someone was kneeling to her. No . . . not that . . . ”Please, Dindrane ...”

”G.o.ddess?” Dindrane's tone was not that of fanaticism or idealistic devotion. She knew Alouzon. She knew her faults and her virtues both, and yet she wors.h.i.+pped.

Mortified, Alouzon pulled the priestess to her feet. ”I ... I don't know how things are supposed to be done,” she said. ”But I know how I want them done. Yeah, the Grail's real close, but I want you and everyone else to know that when I find it I'm not going to be this big time Jehovah figure off in the distance. I've always just wanted to be friends with everyone. That's all. And that's not gonna change. Just call me Alouzon. Your friend.”

Dindrane's eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g. ”I could not ask for a better G.o.ddess, Alouzon. My people and I are indeed privileged.”

”It's just something I've got to get through,” said Alouzon. ”I . . .” Dismayed, she felt the distance between herself and those she loved widening. Even Kyria seemed farther away. It was only a matter of time.

She hugged Dindrane, relis.h.i.+ng the feel of mortality. But it could not last. ”I guess it had better happen soon,” she said. ”It's not really good to have G.o.ds wandering around in the flesh. It just gets too messy that way.”

Gelyya found Kallye late that night. In the light of her lamp, the heap of bones and glistening flesh was no more than an abstraction of ochers, yellows, and dull reds, and she was mildly surprised that she felt so little in response. But there was only so much grief that could be spent in a lifetime, and Gelyya had overdrawn the account.

The night was dark, and a distant baying blended with the dull roar of far-off battles. Death in the towns; death in the country. It no longer mattered. Midwifery no longer mattered. Healing no longer mattered.

And, like Alouzon, she wanted to do something. Anything.

Silently, she doffed the ap.r.o.n she wore and covered up the stripped skull that was all that was left of Kallye's face. And then she turned around and left.

The hovels that cluttered the streets were silent, some with sleep, others with death. Gelyya made her way among them. Once, she had played in the streets of Bandon, dreaming of freedom and independence. But she and her companions had grown older, marriages had been arranged, and life had closed in on them. And though Alouzon's coming had briefly rekindled her hopes, the fantasies had finally guttered into darkness amid the bombs and napalm of an aerial attack.

But it was not dreams that lured Gelyya through the streets and toward the wall that surrounded the town. Her dreams were gone, burned clean in the white-hot fire of experience, and what was left was necessity. Gelyya could do no more for the women and children of Kingsbury. Perhaps she could do something for Gryylth. Or, that failing, perhaps for Gelyya of Bandon.

As a girl she had practiced moving silently-like a warrior stalking an enemy-and now, tying up her skirts and belting her scrip close to her waist, she recalled those childish exercises and made them her own once again. Her soft woman's shoes noiseless among the clutter of the street, she slipped from shadow to shadow, drawing ever closer to the wall.

Others had died attempting escape. But theirs had been a desperate and frantic climb over the walls and a heedless run down the road. Not so Gelyya of Bandon. Where others had broken through the gate, she picked her place and climbed carefully, inching through the shadows, waiting-heart pounding, holding her breath, her cheek pressed against the rough wood-for a guard or a Grayface to pa.s.s by. Where others had sprinted along open ground, she slid to the ground outside the walls, crept along the ditches, and took cover beneath bushes and hedges, using the darkness of night and moon-shadow for concealment.

By midnight, she had pa.s.sed the earthworks and was halfway down Kingsbury hill. Far off, lights flickered, and dull thunders testified to the continuing bombardment of the land. There was little hope for her out there, but there was none at all within the walls of the town, and so she continued-silently, steadily-down the slope.

But where the hill gave way to the flat fields, the way seemed blocked. Floodlights lit the ground brilliantly. Barbed wire lay in spiral tangles. Trenches and walls of sandbags lay in zigzagged rows.

She crept to the edge of the concealing darkness. There was a way out. There had to be a way out.

She had to do something.

In another hour she had worked her way around the base of the hill and had found the place where the wire and the trenches were thinnest. Here to the south, neither Helwych nor the Grayfaces expected much of a land attack, but a profusion of rocket launchers and machine guns indicated that they were taking no chances.

Gelyya eyed the guns. Gleaming metallically in the moonlight and the spill of the floods, they stood on their posts within sandbagged emplacements, the bullets in their cartridge belts gleaming like so many copper-jacketed teeth. She had seen them in operation many times, and maybe she could . . .

Movement. Behind her. She started to turn, but her arms were suddenly pinned, and a hand covered her mouth. Struggling, striking futility, she was dragged back into the bushes.

”Be quiet, girl.”

The words were spoken in a whisper, as though her a.s.sailant had no more wish to be discovered than she. But Gelyya struggled.

The whisper turned fierce. ”d.a.m.n you, Gelyya, shut up!”

The voice was familiar, and when she paused, puzzling over it, her mouth was uncovered and she was abruptly spun around to be confronted by a face hardly older than her own.

Lytham.

”What are you doing here?” he said. The ensign of the King's Guard sparkled in the moonlight. ”Nay, I can guess.”

She glared at him, wanting nothing so much as to spit in his face. ”I found Kallye. I found the sc.r.a.ps the hounds left.”

He looked away. ”I had nothing to do with that.”

”Helwych did.”

”How do you know?”

She wanted to scream at him: Alouzon told me, you fool! Your master is a lie, and the Dragonmaster will return and put him to death like the vile worm he is! But she bit back the words, looked for others. ”I know.”

”Kallye, too, refused to answer my questions.”

”And she is dead now. So kill me, Captain of the Guard. Kill me and have done with it, or I shall surely try to kill you.''

”I do not want to kill you.”

”Then let me go.”

”I said that I do not want to kill you. If I let you go, you will die. Whether the Grayfaces kill you here or the hounds kill you within a league, it will be all the same.”

”I am leaving, Lytham. I might survive. I am willing to accept the chance that I might die.”

He hung his head. ”I did not want Kallye to be killed.”