The great statue of Harus loomed like an avenging god, silent and yet alert. It seemed to shrug off Bonifacio’s droning voice and look beyond the dim, wing-stirred sanctuary to the lightening eastern horizon.
But I am going west, Andrion thought. Toward the sunset, toward the ending. The last ten days had been tedious, forged into a heavy coat of mail by details of food, arms, men. The nights had been anxious. Andrion had kept looking over his shoulder, waiting for some new illusion to strike him. But Sardis remained rooted in reality. Do you weary of testing me? Andrion mutely asked the image of the god. Or are you saving the greatest tests for the end?
He shifted. The greaves on his shins creaked. His cuirass chafed his neck, and the skin beneath the vambraces on his forearms prickled with sweat. His new armor was only the outer layer of the shell he now wore. But Solifrax hung at his waist, as alert as the god, humming. Am I a vessel for your strength? Andrion asked it. Or are you for mine?
Patros stood beside him, holding the small bronze falcon again affixed to a tall pole. The governor wore a similar shell, decision and courtesy tempered by an undercurrent of difficult thought. Shurzad and Valeria stood cloaked and veiled just beyond him, cold wax candles waiting only for a spark to melt into nothingness.
And Dana? Andrion glanced at her. She shrugged her bow higher on her shoulder, uneasy. It was no longer shameful for a Sabazian to bow to Harus, just as a Sardian bowing to Ashtar might suffer ridicule but no longer death. But she had refused Patros’s offer of armor, taking only a few arrows to replenish her stock. If Andrion were anxious to be gone, then she was no doubt doubly so; Sabazel beckoned with its own tangled skein of illusion and reality.
He caught her eye. She let a corner of her mouth shiver at him. At least the barrier between them was no higher. Bonifacio waited politely for recognition. Andrion cleared his throat.
“My lord,” said the priest with a flourish, “I offer you this, to bring success in the coming campaign.” He held up the helmet with the red plume that Bellasteros had worn to win the Empire. The bronze was carefully polished but the horsehair plume hung lank and dispirited.
Shall I wear his skull for all to see, using his image to usurp his army? Andrion stifled a shudder. But I must be polite. “Thank you,” he said with a bow. “I . . . cannot take this relic from you.”
Bonifacio’s face fell. Gods, did he think such cannibalism would please me? Andrion wondered. Hurriedly, he said, “But you may bring it to Bellasteros himself. He will be pleased to see it.” I hope. I plead. I pray.
Bonifacio, mollified, smiled. Patros’s lips thinned, perhaps with amusement, perhaps with pain. A sudden shaft of sunlight struck deep into the sanctuary. The statue of Harus seemed to stretch, wings flexing and feathers rippling in the warmth, beak and talons lifting and eyes glinting. The small bronze falcon gleamed, cleansed of its misadventures.
Andrion led the group onto the long flight of steps that scaled the side of the temple mound. The sun lay like a crouching lion on the horizon, red and hungry; a cool wind purred down the flanks of the ziggurat and into the city, searching for prey. In the temple square, in the streets, beyond the city gates, gathered an army twenty thousand strong. The soldiers saw their prince emerge into the sunlight, and as one they cheered.
Ah, thought Andrion under the onslaught of so many eyes, we who are to die for you salute you. He drew Solifrax—a remarkably natural gesture already—and thrust it upward to catch the light of the sun. It cracked like lightning, flashing gold and crimson. You will follow my father’s sword, will you not, even if you might not yet follow me? Again the soldiers cheered.
“Here are the cloak and helmet you requested,” Patros said. “You are certain you do not want crimson like your father?”
A retainer stepped forward, holding a black cloak over his arm, holding a shining helmet with a floating black plume. “No,” said Andrion, sheathing the sword, “I do not want crimson like my father.” He draped the cloak about his shoulders and pinned it with his brooch; he set the helmet on his auburn hair and looked out across the world from its shadow, dark brown eyes reflecting the glow of bronze. The black plume lifted in the wind and fluttered like a banner.
Patros watched him. Dana watched him. Their eyes were mirrors, impenetrable, showing only his own face. He set his jaw, squared his shoulders. “Come,” he said, and they stepped down the stairway, bowed to the shrine of Ashtar, and led the legions of Sardis to the relief of Iksandarun.
* * * * *
The moon waned, vanished, reappeared beside the sun. Soon it will be the equinox, Dana thought, and we shall pause in Sabazel. Andrion, can I touch you then? Or does it matter, in the goddess’s scheme of things, whether I ever touch you again?
She rode beside him. His face was soberly introspective between the cheek pieces of his helmet, his black cloak flowed over him like a shadow of death. They talked quietly, even laughed together, but they remained an arm’s length apart.
Shurzad and Valeria rode in an ox cart, with the supply train behind the marching infantry. The cat was a taut lamp of fur and muscle in a gilded cage, preening itself, scanning the passing world with glazed amber eyes. The women sat aloof, their eyes, too, glazed with the vastness of the world unfolding before them.
On Dana’s eighteenth birthday Patros tore himself away from attending his women and his army; he presented her with a fine wool cloak and his best wishes. His face even in this light moment was grave and dark, and Dana ached for him. But she could not touch him, either. She accepted the cloak, thanked him, and turned away, choking on the best wishes and on remorse.
Her discomfort grew. The army came to Farsahn, where Proconsul Nikander joined them with ten thousand men, including several newly formed squads of cavalry. Miklos brought messages of welcome and promises of assistance from Sabazel; Andrion, glowing in a rare grin, made him a centurion and let him bear the falcon standard beside him.
Dana’s skin prickled with the Sight. She found herself drifting to the south time and time again; she began to ride on Andrion’s right hand as the column snaked along the Road in the cool, clear days of early fall. Peasants left their grain and their grapes to gawk, holding their children high to see the chariots, the bright falcon borne by Miklos’s steady hand, the scarlet pennons, the prancing black horse and the black prince who bore Bellasteros’s sword. Then the legions entered the wilderness.
As the leagues rolled away behind them, Dana grew frantic. She strained her senses, listening to the blackbirds, smelling the fine wine-bright air, but she could not grasp the image that tantalized her. Until they came to the bridge over the Jorniyeh, where the Road turned south.
She saw then, in a waking vision, the pass at Azervinah. She saw the curved blade of Solifrax gathering the sunlight, refracting it into myriad colors. She saw a face that seared her memory. But the vision could not be denied. Wearily she told Andrion, “When the scouting party rides to Azervinah, we must ride with them.”
He knew better than to ask why.
* * * * *
A cool breeze stirred the leaves into cascades of gold and green. Like Dana’s eyes, Andrion thought, shifting depths of color and shadow. She rode beside him, pale but steady, staring into the deep blue of the sky as if seeking some sign of the goddess. Andrion, wanting nothing more than to finish this uncertainty, had to hold himself as tightly in check as he held a frisky Ventalidar. “No Khazyari?” he called to the leading centurion.
The man shook his head. “No, my lord. None, even past the fort itself and into the opening of the plains.”
Strange, Andrion thought. Had they abandoned an attempt on the pass? Farsahn and Sardis itself were protected from the south by the mountain range, towering ever higher toward the east; they could not break through there except with small bands. Only one other place might allow the passage of an army from south to north: the high plains of Sabazel.
Dana, sensing his thought, winced. He tightened his legs on Ventalidar’s flanks and the horse leaped across a thistle-choked gully. Something crashed through the underbrush, and his heart jerked.
“My lord,” cried another scout. “Something odd ahead.”
Dana’s head went up, and the glimmer of sunlight in her eyes was extinguished like a candle snuffed. “Yes,” she whispered. “On a great flat rock above a bend in the river.”
The man glanced at her, brows raised, and nodded. Andrion sent scouts right and left and told the other soldiers to hang back. In a few moments he could see the stone, glinting with tiny points of crystal between leaves that danced in a fitful breeze. The water of the Jorniyeh swept by, rushing toward the sea with the murmur of a thousand voices.
Andrion dismounted, patted Ventalidar’s nose, pushed through the brambles without noticing their tiny barbs in his flesh. Dana moved just behind him, so close he could feel her breath on his neck. He glanced around; it was really Dana, not a demon. He wondered if he would ever again trust his own senses.
She looked past him. He stepped through the last whipping branches. There, before him, a man clad only in ragged breeches lay spread-eagled, tied to stakes driven into fissures in the rock. A hooded figure huddled nearby. The sun glinted so brightly off the stone that the two shapes shimmered in fluid waves of heat. Were they dead? Then the bound man stirred, a faint shivering twitch, and the hooded figure roused itself and reached for an empty water skin.
Toth. Andrion stepped forward, caught himself. Was this a Khazyari trick, or some new divine test? He set his hand on the hilt of Solifrax and stepped again, nerves quivering like the bowstring to which Dana nocked an arrow. The rushing of the river was suddenly loud. The wind gusted.
Andrion’s cloak unfurled, casting a shadow across the two figures. Toth looked up and his eyes bulged with the image of the black warrior. His features had melted into flaccid, hanging folds of skin, the plumpness eaten away; his cheeks were bruised, his lips scabbed. Andrion inhaled to say something reassuring and stopped, the breath held burning in his chest. The man on the rock was painfully thin, his ribs standing out in sharp-etched lines, his cheekbones axe edges cleaving the sunlight. Tangled strands of black hair blew over his face, over caked, dry lips, over swollen tip-tilted eyes that opened onto ebony pools of despair.
This beaten animal was the elegant Khazyari prince, Tembujin. Andrion spun toward Dana; she remained at the edge of the rock, unmoving, unblinking, eyes still and cold.
Andrion whipped back around, grimacing in a fierce joy. At last, at last! He drew Solifrax with a hiss and a flare of light. Tembujin stirred. His eyes focused on the shining blade, on the face beyond it. His mouth twitched in what was almost a laugh. He lifted his chin, closed his eyes, and bared his throat to the sword.
“Andrion,” Toth croaked, realizing who this warrior was. He raised a palsied hand. “My lord, mercy for this man, please.”
Mercy? The sword keened in Andrion’s uplifted hand. Mercy, for this vile creature?
Dana lowered her bow, looked away, looked back again, compelled to interfere. She took a step onto the edge of the rock and called something that clotted in her throat. And you, too, would beg mercy for this creature? Andrion asked silently. But yes, she had realized who it was who awaited them, and why; her Sight had brought her here.
Andrion swallowed his anger, and his stomach curdled. But he could no longer afford the luxury of anger.
“Tembujin was condemned to death by his own people,” Toth said urgently, clutching at Andrion’s greaves. “The warriors who brought him here to starve beat me when they found me following, but thinking me worthless, they left me alive. They never discovered that I carried food. Tembujin must live, lord, he must live.”
I know that. Gods, I know it. Andrion lowered Solifrax; killing this sick, helpless animal would stain it forever. His head spun, and he stilled it. So, Tembujin had done something to earn the hatred of his own people. Interesting, most interesting. Perhaps, then, he would not be reluctant to serve the Empire.
Solifrax flicked four times, and the ropes that tied Tembujin fell into ash. His wrists and ankles were chafed raw. “Why did you not untie him?” Andrion asked Toth, sheathing his sword, sheathing his animosity.
“You needed the proof of his predicament,” the old servant replied. His eyes reflected the pale gleam of the sword.
“You knew I would come?” But Toth did not need to answer. The hair on the back of Andrion’s neck prickled. He glanced again at Dana. She was gone. With a sigh of resignation, he knelt and levered Tembujin to a sitting position.
The odlok looked through bleared and resentful eyes at his rescuer, swallowed, croaked, “Damn you.”
“And you, I am sure,” Andrion replied equably through his teeth. His cloak billowed in another gust of wind, encompassing them both.
Soldiers ran from the woods, lifted the two wasted forms, bore them away. Dana crept across the surface of the rock, waiting for reproof. He could only wonder if his face were quite as grim and tight as hers, the face of an older, wiser person who grasps at fate and finds it to be a carnivorous animal, stalking him, mangling him, spitting him out and abandoning him to stagger on.
The river rushed heedlessly by. The wind murmured of comfort, healing, and rest. Sabazel lay before them. Andrion and Dana walked silently away from this place of suffering.
* * * * *
Andrion squinted into the sunset, trying to see Cylandra’s peak silhouetted against the scarlet glow. But no, Sabazel was still too far away. The army was encamped just south of where Bellasteros’s great army had camped a generation before. That army had fought for two years to get to this spot, Andrion thought. This one came from Sardis in seventeen days, and still had time to thank a stunned magistrate in Bellastria for his charity to a young merchant.
Bellasteros fought for six months to take the southern provinces and Iksandarun, with fifty thousand at his back, without a major defeat at the hands of his enemy. As for us—well, we still have Bellasteros, Andrion mused, and turned his eyes upward. A waxing moon hung like a silver egg among clouds like pink and lavender feathers. He felt the stiff muscles of his face draw into a smile. He had, it seemed, forgotten how to smile.
The wind whipped the scarlet and purple pennons above the pavilion where he stood, playing with the hair on his helmetless head. A work detail stepped briskly down the avenue, led by the scent of roasting meat. Dana sat outside her tent, also contemplating the moon. He started toward her.
Patros beckoned from a nearby tent. Gods, Andrion moaned silently, can I never rid myself of that Khazyari? Squaring his shoulders, stilling his smile, he responded to the summons. Dana, frowning slightly, did not follow.
Andrion nodded companionably to Miklos, who stood guard outside the tent. Inside it was already night. A flaming brazier drove away the chill; red light flickered unevenly on the two thin faces laid on camp beds.
Nikander and Patros watched a surgeon fold away his packets of herbs. He turned to Andrion with a bow. “My lord.” His hand indicated Toth. “This one is old and frail. I have given him what strengthening brews I can, but still . . .” His voice died away. Toth seemed to sleep, unhearing, eyes closed and ravaged face still.
“But this one,” the surgeon continued, turning with a firm nod toward Tembujin, “with some heartening food, should be up and around tomorrow.”
Tembujin, awake but distinctly subdued, inquired, “Up and around? That is for the son of the falcon to say.”
Andrion thanked the surgeon and bowed him out, using the opportunity to collect his thoughts. Patros and Nikander waited. Odd, he thought, how accustomed he’d become to even the generals of Sardis deferring to him.
The dark, numbed hollows of Tembujin’s eyes were fixed upon him. Well, he said to himself, we seem to be set in this game together; I shall play it to the end, if you will. “Would the son of the lion like vengeance on those who betrayed him?” he asked.
“Indeed,” replied Tembujin. “But you yourself are at fault.”
“My prayers were answered?” Andrion replied caustically.
“Your necklace,” said Tembujin, raising himself with effort onto one elbow, seizing some of his old spirit. “Your god-cursed necklace.”
“The one you stole from me at Bellastria?” Unwittingly Andrion’s hand touched his throat.
“The same. I wore it back to my camp, and was haunted by it . . .” He shivered. “There were those who recognized it.”
“Who?” interjected Patros. Nikander’s expression did not change. Toth stirred, and his eyes glinted pale between his lids.
Tembujin licked his lips and said, with a weary if bitter relish, “Hilkar the chamberlain. He who opened the gates of Iksandarun.”
Whorls of light spun before Andrion’s eyes. “By the blood of the falcon,” he spat, “so that is who it was. That sneaking worm, what did we ever do to him?”
Nikander’s long throat bobbed in slow swallow. Patros paled and cursed under his breath. Of course, Andrion realized, the whorls chilling into cinders, Hilkar was a kinsman of Shurzad.
“A worm,” continued Tembujin. “I quite agree. It seems that he did not care for your father’s taking his intended bride, Roushangka, and has nursed his anger all these years.”
“Roushangka,” repeated Andrion. “She was—”
“Sarasvati’s mother.” Oddly Tembujin smiled, his lips lingering over the name. “You do not know, do you, that your sister is still alive?”
Nikander’s eyes widened by a fraction. Patros paled even further, to a sickly green. He turned to Toth. “Surely he lies, seeking to taunt us.”
Andrion turned, too, part of him praying that Tembujin was lying, part of him praying that he was not. He would almost prefer Sarasvati dead to being enslaved, to being used, by the Khazyari demon. A void opened beneath his heart. The tent flap stirred and Miklos stood in the opening, for once forgetting his position, his eyes aflame with Sarasvati’s name.
“No, he is not lying,” said Toth feebly. “My apologies, my lord; when I left you I did think she was dead. But I found her later, and we agreed it was best she give herself to a chieftain.”
Andrion’s heart plummeted. Miklos’s mouth fell open in horror.
“I was foolish enough,” Tembujin sighed, “to give her your necklace, telling her I had killed you. In her hatred she cut my hair and gave it to my enemy, Raksula, my stepmother. With it the witch enspelled me to silence, and told my father the khan that I had your necklace because I was your friend. He believed her.” He fell back against the pillow and closed his eyes. His body seemed to wither, drained.
“Sarasvati,” Andrion said. He swallowed something large and jagged into the place his heart had been.
“Ah,” said Tembujin, “I did not know she was your sister. I knew her as Sita. But she is so lovely I would have taken her in any event.”
Miklos lunged for Tembujin. Andrion seized him. Damn it, Miklos, he shouted silently, I need him! He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry. Patros grimaced in anguish and turned away.
Tembujin looked up at Miklos, one brow rising in a thin shadow of arrogance. “So,” he said, “I had something you wanted.”
Miklos lunged again, spitting obscenities, suggesting mutilations. Andrion tightened his grasp on the young soldier’s arms. “This barbarian stud,” he snarled, “has already been gelded. Only in spirit, unfortunately, but that should serve.”
And Nikander, taking Miklos’s shoulders firmly in his huge hands, thrust him out of the tent. “It is much too late to mend the situation,” the general told him. “Get outside until you calm yourself.”
Calm yourself, Andrion repeated silently. He wondered why he, too, was not writhing with fury. Gods, Tembujin’s hands violating Dana, his body violating Sarasvati . . . But was death indeed better than what Sardis would call dishonor? The Khazyari, cast out and left with nothing but the memory of his betrayal, had felt his own pain. Justice, perhaps. Or perhaps some divine jest at the expense of Sarasvati, of Tembujin, of himself.
I become too calm, Andrion told himself. I lose myself, accepting too much. He met Nikander’s wise, hooded eyes, and the old sea turtle shrugged slightly. Such was a hazard of maturity, it seemed.
“My lord.” said Toth. “The lady Sarasvati carries Tembujin’s child.”
Tembujin gasped.
Andrion noted somehow that the tent flap trembled; Miklos, still listening. He noted his own blood pulsing in his mind. He noted Tembujin’s face, struggling to choose between resentment and affection, failing. He noted Patros, stricken, cloaking himself with desperate dignity.
“So,” Andrion heard himself say to Tembujin in an oddly firm voice, “she had good reason to betray you. But where is she now?”
“Perhaps Obedei, who was once my friend, will care for her.”
“It seems she can care for herself.” Andrion found that thought reassuring; racked with sympathy as he was, he knew he could spare none, not now. “Are you worth this pain you bring us?” he demanded.
Tembujin’s face, too, was grim and tight, scoured by fate. “Probably not,” he replied. “But we have no choice.”
“We have a choice,” Andrion told him, told everyone within earshot. “We choose to win back the Empire. Will you aid us?”
“Not one of my people would defend me against the witch, Raksula,” Tembujin said bitterly. “I would see her dead. I would see them all dead.”
“Even your father?” asked Andrion, and he marveled at the words his own voice said.
For just a moment Tembujin looked Andrion in the face, allowing him to see the bleak void of his soul. “Even him.”
“So be it.” Andrion spun about and plunged out of the tent, away from the firelight, into moonlight. He stood in the darkness as the cold wind, Ashtar’s breath, cleansed his mind. He pounded his closed fist into his palm. I cannot afford to hate him, he thought. I will not hate him.
Dana still sat before her tent, head bowed over clasped hands. Something in her attitude told Andrion that she had heard it all, in her mind; good, he could not bear to repeat it. Behind him the voices of his generals spoke. Nikander calmly drew word after word from Tembujin and Toth and set each into a pattern; Patros, suppressing his agony, darted like a dragonfly from point to point. Numbers, tactics, disposition. The Khazyari people lay gutted.
Andrion realized that Miklos stood beside him. “My lord, you must not let him live. You must avenge Sarasvati’s honor.”
“She has avenged herself and helped us,” he said placatingly. “We have no time now for personal vendettas.”
“Gods!” Miklos exclaimed, stung. “She is your sister!”
“Miklos, it galls me as much as you that we left her behind. We can only repay her by winning our battle. For that we need Tembujin.” Andrion set his jaw and laid his hand on Miklos’s shoulder, willing him to understand, to obey. “He is our ally now. That is an order.”
The soldier’s face fell, wounded, struggling not to resent. “Yes, my lord,” he muttered. He jerked away, leaving Andrion’s hand empty. Yes, Andrion thought ruefully after him, I have feet of clay. And a heart of clay, it seems. He recalled how just this evening they had sparred with practice swords, laughing as each of them in turn won a match.
“The gods work in subtle ways.” Dana called softly.
“Indeed they do.” He spread his cloak like the shadow of his thoughts around him, and joined her. They sat, each in their silent shells, watching the moon cross the sky.
* * * * *
In the depth of the night Andrion awoke with a jolt, realizing that his necklace was still in the Khazyari camp. He tested his thoughts and feelings; no, he did not seem to be enspelled. But then, apparently, one never did. When dawn came he had prayed a hundred times that Sarasvati still had the necklace with her. He could do nothing about it if she did not. For the son of a god he was remarkably powerless. He arose feeling as if he had been sifted through a beer strainer; he stepped out into a tentative dawn, the world not quite real . . . Stop it, he ordered himself.
A company of horsemen waited outside the pavilion to escort them to the rites. Those chosen seemed well pleased with their task, anticipating what to them was a few days’ recreation. The Sardians would never understand Sabazel. Andrion looked sourly for Patros.
The governor, appearing as much the worse for wear as Andrion, supervised the rigging of a litter for Toth. “Healing,” Patros said, in a litany as much for himself as for the old servant, who seemed somewhat stronger this morning and lay looking about him with the bright insouciance of a sparrow.
“My lord,” Patros said stiffly to Andrion, “how can I atone for the treachery of my kinsman Hilkar?”
“We do not choose our relations,” Andrion replied, “or direct their actions. You have no atonement to make.”
Patros sighed. “Thank you.” He turned to confer with Nikander. “I should stay here with the army, with you.”
“Go on to Sabazel.” Nikander nodded sagely.
You deserve the blessing of Ilanit’s touch, Patros, Andrion silently finished for him. And the dueling princes require supervision, he thought, noting Tembujin standing nearby, shoulders bowed as if expecting a blow. Several soldiers hovered with dubious expressions behind him, ready either to guard him or protect him; not even Andrion was sure whether Tembujin was a prisoner or a guest.
Andrion was obscurely pleased to see the Khazyari wearing a tunic and breeches cobbled together out of tent canvas, and some officer’s cast-off boots. Yes, the man had lost a measure of his manhood, which was all to the good; but he had also lost his fighting trim. The odlok’s proclivities being what they were, Andrion thought reluctantly, he could perhaps regain some confidence at the rites of Ashtar. Dana’s friend Kerith, now . . . He sighed, steeled himself, caught Tembujin’s eye and beckoned.
Tembujin looked around, realized Andrion was summoning him, slouched across the open area before the pavilion. He passed Bonifacio, stonily ignoring the priest’s shudder and gesture against the evil eye. But he was caught up short by Dana’s emergence from a nearby tent.
The two stared at each other a long moment. Then Dana grinned. “What happened to your hair, Khazyari?”
Tembujin essayed a grin of his own. “And yours?” He walked around her, staying well out of reach. Dana turned her back on him. Miklos came around a corner leading Ventalidar; he saw Tembujin and stopped dead. Then he, too, steeled himself. Andrion was relieved to see that the young man’s face was hard but not sullen. Dana began a quiet conversation with him, close under Ventalidar’s flaring nostrils.
“Are you well enough to ride?” Andrion asked Tembujin, assuming a veneer of courtesy.
“Ride where? To Sabazel, with you?”
“Yes.” Why, by Harus, was he pleased to see a spark in the beast’s eye? Keep goading him. “Yes. To test your abilities.”
“Ah,” snapped Tembujin, goaded.
Toth was watching them, not wistfully, but with an odd humor. Suddenly his face froze. Andrion followed the direction of his gaze. The morning vitrified into shards of glass, each stained with its own image, clear and yet distant. Not the faintest breeze stirred the encampment.
Shurzad, her eyes burning black brands, advanced from the opposite side of the open area. Even before the legionaries she went unveiled; her face was clammy white, her lips slitted over sharp teeth. Valeria walked behind her as if pulled on a leash, her eyes vacant above a lopsided veil. The gray cat was a slinking shadow beside them, its tail erect and crooked at the end, its topaz eyes intent on its prey.
Shurzad’s left hand clutched white-knuckled at her amulet. Her other hand was concealed in the drapery of her skirt. Toth struggled to rise, failed, exclaimed, “By Ashtar’s eyes, my ordeal has destroyed my wits!”
Tembujin saw the amulet. His head went up, alert.
Dana parted from Miklos. “Kerith would be pleased to befriend you.”
“Thank you, my lady, but I shall stay here.”
Patros, his back to Shurzad, was still speaking to Nikander. Bonifacio found a stain on the hem of his robe and called a servant to sponge it.
Toth grabbed for Andrion’s hand. “Raksula. The Khazyari witch. Hilkar gave her an amulet just like that one, one that Shurzad gave to him. My lord, forgive me, I did not realize until now; the amulet is the sign of Qem, and Qem is an aspect of the Khazyari—”
“Khalingu’s wings!” exclaimed Tembujin. “The woman is possessed!”
Andrion hurtled through spinning stained-glass splinters, splinters that pierced him, tore his mind, opened it, bleeding, to the truth. His hand fumbled for the hilt of Solifrax, moving as slowly as if through thick honey. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Shurzad was a few paces from Patros’s back. Her mouth curved in a malevolent smile. Her eyes did not blink. Valeria struggled. The cat dropped into a crouch, stalking. Gods! Andrion shouted mutely, gods, make someone move, make someone turn around! But each person-shape was a painted image, unmoving, unconscious.
His mind wrenched, seizing control. The sword leaped from the sheath spitting flames, brighter than the pale dawn sun. He lunged, cloak billowing, plume floating, slowly, slowly, and soldiers scattered before him.
Shurzad pulled a dagger from her dress. “Go to Sabazel,” she shrieked. “Go, and be damned!” Patros turned. Nikander raised his arms, Dana’s eyes started from her face, Miklos’s mouth fell open in alarm. Shurzad’s dagger darted toward Patros’s heart. Shocked, he did not dodge.
“Ashtar!” Andrion cried, striking. Solifrax sang and Shurzad’s dagger flew from her suddenly bloody hand to land quivering in the dirt before Bonifacio. The priest recoiled and tripped over his servant. Ventalidar reared, jerking Miklos, who sprawled into the dirt. The cat whisked under Shurzad’s skirts. Toth collapsed on his litter, gasping for breath.
Tembujin appeared in the corner of Andrion’s eyes. He snatched the amulet from Shurzad’s throat. She screamed as if he had torn the living heart from her body, clasping her hands to her throat, buckling to her knees. Valeria moaned and swayed; Nikander caught her as she fell.
Curious soldiers rushed up. Nikander growled an order, and just as quickly they disappeared. Shurzad’s forefinger lay in the dirt. Blood flooded the front of her gown as she crouched, whimpering like some small animal pinioned by a trap. But it was her throat she held, not her hand. Droplets of her blood stood in hard scarlet dots across Patros’s cuirass. He did not move, did not speak, stricken.
Dana lurched forward, ripping the hem of her new cloak, and laid a scrap of cloth over the severed finger. Then she began binding Shurzad’s hand. Shurzad’s vacant eyes rolled toward her, passed by without recognition, stared into the distance. Dana’s face was as tightly closed as a flower nipped by frost. It was she, Andrion recalled, who had brought Shurzad here.
He gestured sharply to Tembujin; Tembujin threw him the amulet. It left a faint trail of smoke in the air. Andrion caught it on the tip of his sword and raised it high. “Harus, Ashtar, an offering.” His arm quaked, his hand burned, the charm sparked into flame. He let it fall onto the scrap of cloth and the finger. They sizzled, emitting a cloud of acrid smoke, and the scent of burning flesh fouled the morning air. Then only black ashes remained. A breeze pealed through the encampment, sweeping smoke and ashes into the vault of the sky where a falcon drifted, its eyes seeing all.
The stunned faces of the watchers moved, waking from vision. Tembujin looked at Andrion with a certain cautious awe. Impressed? Andrion asked him silently. And then he realized where he was, and who, and what he had just done. He had mutilated Patros’s wife. He had called down divine fire. His arm was numb. The bitter smoke still clotted his throat.
The silence was broken by a muffled howl from Shurzad’s skirts. The cat erupted from its shelter, dancing as if its paws were on fire. Tembujin plucked it up by the scruff of its neck. “So,” he said. “A small snow leopard. Shall I kill it?”
“No,” Andrion responded, swallowing. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. “Even it deserves healing. Return it to its cage, and bring it to Sabazel. Bring us all to Sabazel.”
Sabazel, said the wind in his ear. His fingers tingled on the sword. My strength or yours? he asked the polished blade, he asked the wind. But neither offered a reply. Power ebbed and flowed about him, through him, within him, but he could not be frightened by it. He would not.
“Oh,” said Bonifacio. “Sorcery.” Hurriedly he began a prayer. Nikander called for Valeria’s and Shurzad’s serving women. Patros turned to Dana, looking at her as a condemned man would look from his solitary cell. She bit her lip deeply and embraced him. Andrion sheathed his sword. He found himself wondering when Patros’s hair had gone so gray, his head sable and silver against Dana’s golden one.
Shurzad and Valeria and the cat were carried away. A wide-eyed Miklos presented Andrion with Ventalidar’s reins. “If we have the same enemy,” asked Tembujin with a puzzled frown, “are we friends?”
Andrion did not even try to answer. Aching in every limb, he mounted Ventalidar and turned him toward Sabazel.
* * * * *
Raksula shrieked in pain and outrage both. She threw the amulet away from her burned and blistered hands and watched, cursing, as it disintegrated into ash. Odo made some sympathetic noise; she turned on him, scratching at him until he ran in terror from the yurt. She collapsed in a pile of skirts and spite, sobbing in frustration, swearing vengeance upon Andrion’s auburn head.