Damned - White Wolf Part 6

'He bought me a necklace in the market. Green stones. Let me show you.' She struggled to sit up.

'I have seen it. It is very pretty. Rest, Dayan.'

'Oh, I am not tired, Olek. Can we go for a walk in the garden?'

'In a little while.'

She chattered on, and then, in mid-sentence, stopped. At first he thought she was sleeping, but her face was utterly still. Reaching out, he gently pressed her throat. There was no pulse. A searing pain lanced his belly and he doubled over. After a while it pa.s.sed. He gazed down at Dayan, then lay down beside her, drawing her into an embrace. 'I did not choose to fall in love with Jianna,' he said. 'If I could have chosen it would have been you.

You are everything a man could desire, Dayan. You deserved better than me.'

He lay there for some hours, as the fever grew. Finally delirium took him. He tried to fight it, forcing himself from the bed and falling to the floor. Then he had staggered to the gardens, and out into the meadows beyond.

Skilgannon remembered little of what followed, save that he had tumbled down a steep incline, then crawled towards a distant building. He seemed to recall voices, and then gentle hands lifting him.

He had awoken to a silent room in a church hospital. His bed was beside a window, and through that window he saw a cloudless sky, rich and blue. A white bird had glided across his field of vision. In that moment everything froze and Skilgannon experienced . . . what?

He still did not know. For a single heartbeat he had felt something akin to perfection, as if he and the bird, and the sky, and the room were somehow one and bathed in the love of the universe. Then it pa.s.sed and the pain returned. Not just the physical pain from the huge, lanced cysts and the terrible toll they had taken on his body, but the agony of loss as he remembered that Dayan was gone from the world, no longer to hold his hand, or to kiss his lips. No more to lie beside him on still summer evenings, her hand stroking his face.

Despair clung to his heart like a raven.

A young priest visited him on that first day and sat at his bedside. 'You are a lucky man, general. Aye, and a tough one. By all rights you should be dead. I have never seen any man fight off the plague as you did. At one point your heart was pounding so fast it was beyond my ability to keep count.'

'Was the plague contained to our area?'

'No, sir. It is sweeping through the kingdom and beyond. The death toll will be awesome.'

'The revenge of the Source for our sins,' said Skilgannon.

The priest shook his head. 'We do not believe in a G.o.d of revenge, sir. The plague was spread by man's error and greed.'

'What do you mean?'

'In the northeast there is a tribe, the Kolear. You have heard of them?'

'Kin to the Nadir and the Chiatze. They are nomads.'

'Indeed, sir. One of their customs is that if they see a dead marmot - small furry creatures that live in the lowlands - they move on. According to their beliefs the marmots contain the souls of Kolear wise men. That is why the Kolear do not hunt the creatures. A dead marmot is seen as a sign that the wise spirits have moved away and that the tribe should seek fresh pastures. During the war many of the Kolear sided with the Queen's enemies, and were driven from their lands, or slain. Other non-Kolear residents moved in. They saw the marmots and decided to trap them for their fur. It is good fur. What they did not realize was that the marmots carried the seeds of a plague. At first the hunters and trappers fell sick. Then their families. Then travellers and merchants who bought the fur.

Then it struck the eastern cities, and people fled, carrying the plague with them. Strange, is it not, that the backward Kolear had, within their simplistic theological beliefs, a way to avoid the plague, yet we - more civilized and knowledgeable - gathered it and spread it?'

Skilgannon was too weary to debate the point and drifted off to sleep. Often now, though, he thought back to the priest's words. It was not strange at all. One of the first of the Prophets wrote: The Tree of Knowledge bears fruit of arrogance.

Skilgannon sighed, and once more became Brother Lantern. He stripped off his clothing and began to exercise. Slowly he freed his mind of all tension, then smoothly ran through the repertoire of stretching and balance. Finally he began a series of swift, sudden moves, his hands lancing out, slashing the air, his body twirling and leaping, feet kicking high.

Sweat-drenched, he pulled on his robes, and knelt on the stone floor.

For the first time in many days he thought of his swords, and wondered what the abbot had done with them. Had he sold them, or merely cast them in a pit? Giving up the Swords of Night and Day had been harder than he could ever have imagined. Even the act of pa.s.sing them to Cethelin had caused his hands to tremble and his heart to flutter in panic.

For weeks afterwards he had struggled against a desire to retrieve them, to hold them again. He had felt physically sick for days, unable to hold down solid food. It was the opposite of the exhilaration he had experienced when the Queen gave them to him. When his hands first touched the ivory handles a sense of strength and purpose had flowed through his limbs. It seemed incomprehensible then that they had been created by the loathsome hag in the faded red gown who had stood alongside the young Queen. Mostly bald, wisps of straggly white hair clung to her skull like mist on rock. Once she would have been heavily built, but now the wrinkled skin of her face hung loose over the folds of her neck. Her eyes were rheumy, and one was marred by a grey cataract.

'Are they pleasing to you, Olek?' she had asked. Her dry voice raised gooseflesh on the back of his neck, and he looked away as she smiled, showing rotted teeth.

'They are very fine,' he said.

'My swords are blessed,' she told him. 'I made one for Gorben many years ago. With it he almost conquered the world. Now I have made more. Mighty weapons. They enhance the strength and speed of the wielder. The blades you carry now are fit for a king.'

'I have no wish to be a king.'

The Old Woman laughed. 'Which is why the Queen grants them to you, Olek Skilgannon.

You are loyal - and that is a quality so rare as to be priceless. You will win many battles with these swords. You will win back the lands of Naashan for your Queen.'

Later, as he sat alone with the young Queen, Skilgannon voiced his disquiet. 'The Old Woman is evil,' he said. 'I do not wish to use her swords.'

The Queen had laughed. 'Oh, Olek! You are too rigid in your thinking.' She had sat beside him, and he had smelt the perfume of her raven hair. 'She is everything you say - and probably more. But we must win Naashan back and I will use every weapon I can gather.'

She drew a knife from her belt and held it up to the light. It was long and curved, the blade exquisitely engraved with ancient runes. 'She gave me this. Is it not beautiful?'

'Aye, it is.'

'It is the Discerning Blade. It enhances wisdom. When I hold it I can see so many things.

And so clearly. The Old Woman is evil, but she has proved herself loyal. Without her you and I would have been killed on that awful night. You know that. I need her strength, Olek.

I need to rebuild the kingdom. As a va.s.sal state to Gorben we could not grow. Now he is dead we can fulfil our own destiny. Take the swords. Use them. Use them for me.'

He had bowed his head, then lifted her hand to his lips. 'For you I would do anything, majesty.'

'Not anything, Olek,' she said softly.

'No,' he agreed.

'Do you love her more than you love me?'

'No. I will never love anyone that much. I did not know I was capable of loving with such intensity.'

'You could still come to my bed, Olek,' she whispered, sliding in close to him and kissing his cheek. 'I could be Sashan again. Just for you.'

He rose from the couch with a groan. 'No,' he said. 'If I did that it would rip away all my reasoning. We would destroy everything we have fought for. Everything your father died for. You have my heart, Jianna. You have my soul. I loved you as Sashan, and I love you now. But it cannot be! There is nothing more I can give. Dayan is my wife. She is sweet, and she is kind. And soon she will be the mother of my child. I will be loyal to her. I owe her that.'

Then he had taken the Swords of Night and Day, and ridden back to the war.

Now alone in his small room Skilgannon placed his hand over the locket round his neck. 'If the temple exists, Dayan,' he whispered, 'I will find it. You will live again.'

He stayed for a while kneeling upon the floor, lost in thoughts of the past. Had he been a coward to refuse the demands of his heart? Was his love for Jianna so great, or not great enough? Could he have defeated the princes as well as the Ventrian overlords and their supporters? His mind told him no. He and Jianna would have been dragged down and betrayed. His arrogance whispered the opposite. 'You could have beaten them all, and been as one with the woman of your soul's desire.'

Such thoughts were reinforced by what had happened following the gift of the swords.

During the next two years all enemies had fallen before him. One by one the cities held by Ventrian supporters had been taken, or had surrendered to his conquering armies without a fight. Yet, as Jianna's power grew, she had begun to change. Their relationship cooled.

She took many lovers, men of power and ambition, then leached away their strength before tossing them aside. Poor, demented Damalon had been the last. He had followed at her heels like a puppy, begging for sc.r.a.ps.

Jianna had sent Damalon away on that last night, after the ma.s.sacre of Perapolis, and had entertained Skilgannon in her battle tent. He had arrived with the blood of the slaughtered on his clothes. Jianna, dressed in a gown of shimmering white, her black hair braided with silver wire, looked at him disdainfully. 'Could you not have bathed before coming into my presence, general?'

'A tidal wave could not wash this blood from me,' he said. 'It will be upon me all my days.'

'Is the mighty Skilgannon growing soft?'

'It was wrong, Jianna. It was evil on the grandest scale. Babies with their skulls smashed against walls, children with their guts torn out. What kind of a victory was this?'

'My victory,' she snapped. 'My enemies are dead. Their children are dead. Now we can rebuild and grow without fear of revenge.'

'Aye, well, you'll have no need of a soldier now. So, with your leave, I'll return to my home and do my best to forget this awful day.'

'Yes, go home,' she said, her voice cold. 'Go to your Dayan. Rest for a few weeks. Then return. There will always be a need for good soldiers. We have retaken the cities of Naashan, but I wish to reestablish the old borders that were in place when my father was king.'

'You will invade Matapesh and Cadia now?'

'Not immediately - but soon. Then Datia and Dospilis.'

'What has happened to you, Jianna? Once we talked of justice and of peace and prosperity and freedom. These are the virtues we fought for. We had only contempt for the vanity of Gorben and the desire of conquerors to build empires.'

'I was little more than a child then,' she snapped. 'Now I have grown. Children talk of silly dreams. I now deal in realities. Those who support me I reward. Those who stand against me die. Do you no longer love me, Olek?'

'I will always love you, Sashan,' he said simply.

Her features softened then, and for a moment she was the girl he had saved in the forest of Delian. Then the moment pa.s.sed. Her dark eyes narrowed and held his gaze.

'Do not seek to leave me, Olek. I could not allow it.'

Pushing aside all dreams of the past Skilgannon climbed upon his narrow bed. He fell asleep.

And dreamed of the White Wolf.

It was a beautiful dawn, the sky bathed in gold, the few clouds drenched in colour: rich red at the base and glowing charcoal at the crown. Cethelin stood on the high tower, absorbing the beauty with all his being. The air tasted sweet and he closed his eyes and sought to still the trembling of his hands.

He did not lack faith, but he did not want to die. The distant town was quiet, though once more smoke hung in the air over ruined buildings. Soon the mob would begin to gather, and then, like the angry sea of his dream, it would surge towards the church buildings.

Cethelin was old, and had seen such events too often in his long life. Always they followed a pattern. The majority in the mob would, at first, merely stand around, awaiting events.

Like a pack of hunting hounds, held on invisible leashes. Then the evil among them - always so few - would initiate the horror. The leashes would snap, the pack surge forward.

Cethelin felt another stab of fear at the thought.

Raseev Kalikan would be the ringleader. Cethelin tried to love all those he met, no matter how petty or cruel they might appear. It was hard to love Raseev - not because he was evil but because he was empty. Cethelin pitied him. He had no moral values, no sense of spirituality. Raseev was a man consumed by thoughts of self. He was too canny, however, to be at the forefront of the mob. Even with plans of murder already in place he would be looking to the future - to show that his hands were clean. No, it would be the vile Antol and his ghastly wife, Marja. Cethelin shivered and berated himself for such judgemental thoughts. For years Marja had attended church, making herself responsible for organizing functions and gathering donations. She saw herself as holy and wise. Yet her conversations inevitably led to the judgement of others. 'That woman from Mellicane, Father. You know she is having an affair with the merchant, Callian. She should not be welcome at our services.' 'You must have heard the dreadful noise that the washerwoman, Athyla, makes during evensong. She cannot hit a note. Could you not ask her to refrain from singing, Father?'

'The Source hears the song from the heart, not from the throat,' Cethelin had told her.

Then had come the awful day when - after a fundraising for the poor - Brother Labberan discovered that Marja had 'borrowed' from the fund. The sum had not been great, some forty silver pieces. Cethelin had asked her to return the money. At first she had been defiant, and denied the charge. Later, with proof offered, she maintained that she had merely borrowed the sum and had every intention of returning it. She promised it would be replaced the following week. She had never since attended any service. Nor had the money been repaid. Brother Labberan had requested the matter be brought before the Watch, but Cethelin had refused.

Since then both Marja and her husband had joined the ranks of the Arbiters, and had spoken against the church. The attack on Brother Labberan had been orchestrated by Antol, and Marja had stood by, screaming for them to kick him and make him bleed.

These two would be at the forefront of the mob. They would be the ones baying for blood.

The door to the tower was pushed open. Cethelin turned to see which of the priests had disturbed his meditations, but it was the dog, Jesper. It limped forward, then sat looking up at him. 'The world will go on, Jesper,' he said, patting the hound's large head.

'Dogs will be fed, and people will be born, and loved. I know this, and yet my heart is filled with terror.'

Raseev Kalikan was in the front rank of the crowd as it moved over the old bridge and onto the slope before the old castle buildings. Alongside him was the burly bearded figure of Paolin Meltor, the Arbiter from Mellicane. His injured leg was healing well, but walking any distance still caused him pain. Raseev had urged him to stay behind, but the Arbiter had refused. 'It will be worth a little discomfort to watch those traitors die.'

'Let us not talk of death, my friend. We are merely looking to see them hand over the boy who killed my son.' There were others present during the conversation and Raseev ignored the look of shock and surprise on the face of Paolin Meltor. 'If they refuse to do their honest duty then we must enter the monastery and arrest them all,' he continued. Taking Paolin by the arm he led him away from the listening crowd. 'All will be as you wish it,' he whispered. 'But we must think of the future. We must not be seen to go to the church as a murdering mob. We seek justice. A few angry men will lose their heads and a regrettable - deeply regrettable - ma.s.sacre will take place. You understand?'

'Whatever!' snapped Paolin. 'I care nothing for this . . . this subterfuge. They are traitors and they deserve to die. That is enough for me.'

'Then you must do as your conscience dictates,' said Raseev smoothly.

Paolin moved away to walk alongside Antol and Marja. Raseev hung back just a little.

He glanced around at the crowd. It was some three hundred strong. It seemed to Raseev likely that the priests would bar the gates, but they were of wood and would burn swiftly enough. Antol had made sure some of the men were carrying jugs of oil and there was dry wood aplenty on the slopes before the castle. Barring the gates would suit Raseev. It would give the crowd time to grow angry.

The captain of the Watch, Seregas, approached Raseev as they moved on. Seregas was a canny northerner who had been stationed in Skepthia for the last two years. He had reorganized the Watch, increasing foot patrols in the more wealthy areas and the merchant district. For this service Seregas levied extra monies from shopkeepers and businessmen. It was purely voluntary. No-one was forced to pay, or threatened if they did not. Curiously, those who did not pay were certain to see their businesses or homes robbed. Taverns and eating places whose owners chose to remain outside the levy saw fights and scuffles break out, and a significant decrease in their turnover as customers stayed away from their troubled premises.

Seregas was a tall, thin man, with deep-set dark eyes and a thin mouth, partly hidden by a thick beard. The previous day he had come to Raseev's home. Raseev had taken him to his study and poured him a goblet of wine. 'You know the boy's tracks led away from the church, Raseev,' he had said. It was not a question.

The slope is rocky. He probably doubled back.'

'Doubtful at best.'

'What are you saying?'

'It is quite simple, councillor. You will ask them to surrender a boy they do not have.

Therefore they must refuse. I am sure that this misunderstanding will lead to bloodshed.'

Raseev looked at him closely. 'What is it that you want, Seregas?'

'There is a wanted man at the church. There is a small reward for him. I'll take his body.'

'Wanted by whom?'

That is none of your affair, councillor.'

Raseev had smiled. 'You are becoming rich, Seregas. A small reward would interest you not at all. It occurs to me that - if matters get out of hand - all the bodies will be burned.

Mobs and fire, Seregas.'

Seregas sipped his wine. 'Very well, councillor, then I shall be more open with you. One of the priests is worth a great deal of money.'